Sitting of 4 February 1856

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBER SWORN.—For Meath, Edward MacEvoy, esq.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1° Formation, &c, of Parishes; Judgments Execution, &c.: Episcopal and Capitular Estates; Local Dues on Shipping, &c.; Metropolitan Police; Burial of the Dead (Ireland); Court of Chancery (Ireland) Jurisdiction; Prisons (Ireland); Youthful Offenders (Ireland); Court of Chancery (Ireland) Procedure; Court of Chancery (Ireland) Receivers; Court of Chancery (Ireland) Appeals; Court of Chancery (Ireland) (Sales of Estates); Court of Chancery (Ireland).

THE ROAD THROUGH ST. JAMES'S PARK—QUESTION.
MR. HUTCHINSinquired of the Government whether it was its intention to nominate a Select Committee to consider the best mode of establishing a road between Pimlico and Pall Mall; also, whether any correspondence had taken place on the subject between the Chief Commissioner of Works and the Home Office?
SIR GEORGE GREYreplied, that there had been no official correspondence, with the exception of a Report which had been received from his right hon. Friend (Sir B. Hall), containing two plans for the construction of a road which would be suitable for the public convenience. Plans and estimates had been prepared with that view, but it was not intended that they should be adopted without first being submitted to a Select Committee of that House; for which Committee it was the intention of his right hon. Friend to move at an early period.

TICKET-OF-LEAVE MEN—QUESTION.
MR. WISEsaid, that as a great number of offences had been committed by ticket-of-leave men, he wished to ask the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Home Department whether the ticket-of-leave system was to be continued? Secondly, whether any record was kept of these ticket-of-leave men who were again brought to trial? Thirdly, whether, in case of convicts elapsing into crime, the powers of the Act had been exercised and their licences revoked? and, fourthly, whether returns could be given of any reconvictions or revoked licences, as well as of the number of licences granted to convicts?
SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, that the question which was on the paper was the simple question whether the system would be continued. That system had been established by Act of Parliament, and had been carried out according to the provisions of the law, and it was not the intention of the Government to propose any alteration in the law at present. A record was kept of all ticket-of-leave convicts who were reconvicted, as far as the returns could be obtained from the different gaols in the country, and there was not the least objection to lay the fullest information upon that subject upon the table of the House. It was the practice to revoke the licence granted to a ticket-of-leave convict if he were subsequently convicted.

BURLINGTON HOUSE—QUESTION.
MR. LOCKE KINGinquired whether they had determined upon any definite use to which Burlington House, which was purchased by the nation in 1854, should be put?
MR. WILSONsaid, that the Government had not come to any precise determination upon the subject yet; but, in the meantime, the Senate and Council of the University of London were located there instead of in rooms in Somerset House, which were required for the public service. A scheme for removing all the learned societies that had rooms in Somerset House to Burlington House was under the consideration of the Government, but he was not able to say whether there was sufficient room in Burlington House for that purpose.

THE POOR LAW—SETTLEMENT AND RATING—QUESTION.
MR. A. PELLATTsaid, he wished to inquire whether it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to reintroduce the Bill brought in last Session by the right hon. Chief Commissioner of Poor Laws; or to bring in any bill during the present Session, having for its object the enlargement of the area of settlement and rating?
MR. BOUVERIEreplied, that it was not the intention of the Government to re-introduce the Bill brought in the Session before last by his right hon. Friend the present Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; but it was their intention to ask for leave to bring in a Bill founded on the Report of a Committee which sat two years ago on the subject of Irish and Scotch removals. Her Majesty's Government had no intention to introduce a Bill
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having for its object the enlargement of the area settlement and rating.

ASSAULTS ON WOMEN AND CHILDREN —QUESTION.
MR. DILLWYNsaid, he begged to inquire of the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the attention of Government had been directed to the insufficiency of the law as it now stood to repress violent assaults upon women and children; and whether it was their intention to propose any measure to Parliament to amend the law relating to such offences?
SIR GEORGE GREY, in reply said, that the attention of the Government had not been specially directed to the insufficiency of the existing law; but he had, of course, in common with every one else, observed the frequency of the assaults in question. Two years ago an Act had been passed for the purpose of punishing more severely, and with more certainty, persons who committed such assaults. The Act of Parliament had been very beneficial in its operation; but it had not succeeded, as he believed the Act would, in extinguishing crimes of that character. He believed that in consequence of that Act many persons had suffered punishment for these cowardly assaults who would otherwise have escaped. It was not the intention of the Government to propose any alteration in the law at present.

COUNTY COURTS—QUESTION.
MR. H. S. KEATINGsaid, he begged to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce in the present Session any measure founded upon the Report of the Commission on County Courts?
SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, that a measure had been prepared on that subject, which was now in the hands of the Lord Chancellor, who would introduce it in the other House.

THE QUEEN'S SPEECH—SUPPLY.
Queen's Speech considered.
Motion, "That a Supply be granted to Her Majesty."
Committee thereupon To-morrow.

LOCAL DUES ON SHIPPING, &c.
Passage of Her Majesty's Speech read—
"The System under which Merchant Shipping is liable to pay Local Dues and Passing Tolls has been the Subject of much Complaint. Measures

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will be proposed to you for affording Relief in regard to those Matters."
On the Motion of Mr. LOWE, House in Committee, to consider Local Dues on Shipping, &c.
MR. LOWE: Mr. FitzRoy, I have to ask the indulgence of the Committee while I endeavour to bring before it a complicated and important question with which I cannot boast much familiarity or long experience, but to which I have given such time and attention as I could command. When the navigation laws were repealed, it became the duty of the Government to look into the condition of our shipowners, who were then exposed to unrestricted competition with foreign shipowners, and to see that they were not prejudiced by the laws or impositions which placed them at an undue disadvantage with their rivals, and I think it is only due to the Gentlemen who have successively filled the office of President of the Board of Trade to say that in no department of the State have greater and more important reforms been effected than have been effected of late years, in the laws affecting shipping, the condition of our sailors, and the affairs connected with that subject. Since the Navigation Laws were repealed the whole law relative to shipping has been consolidated into one Act, so that every person may understand the law at once. The claim of Her Majesty's ships to salvage, which had frequently produced difficulty and ill-feeling, has been reduced and modified. The masters and mates of merchant vessels are compelled to undergo an examination before the lives of passengers and crews are entrusted to them. A system has been established at the outports by which sailors are enabled, upon coming on shore, to exchange their pay for money-orders, payable at any port in the kingdom, whereby thousands of pounds are annually saved to the families of sailors which would have been spent in the first orgies of recovered liberty. Another change which has been effected, is that by which, without expense to their survivors, the wages and effects of deceased seamen may be collected and realised; whereby many thousands of pounds annually are recovered—last year the sum was upwards of £30,000, besides effects in kind—for the widows and families of sailors that would formerly have never been received or would have been absorbed in legal expenses. A system of inquiry has also been instituted into the causes of wrecks
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and the misconduct of masters of ships, which has been a great check upon many reckless and dangerous practices, and an inducement to the cultivation of habits of sobriety and increased care. Then, the law in regard to the receivers of Admiralty droits and the salvage claimed by persons in possession of wrecked vessels has been placed on a more satisfactory footing, and while the rights of salvors have been attended to, they have been prevented from seizing wrecked vessels, and holding them as against the owners, rather with a view of gain to themselves— as hitherto has been too much the case— than for the purpose of rendering assistance in recovering wrecked property for the benefit of the owners. The lighthouse dues have been reduced by £105,000 a year; but, owing to an improved administration of the fund, it is now in so prosperous a state that several lighthouses are being built in Scotland and other parts. I mention these as samples of the activity of the Board of Trade since the Navigation Laws were repealed, and to show that in the present measure we are only carrying out a series of important improvements, which have been already begun, and are, indeed, far advanced.
In the year 1852, the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli), who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, made a speech, in which he used these expressions—
"It seems to us indefensible that, when the principle of unrestricted competition is established, the shipping interest of this country should be paying a tax, not for the lights supplied for their benefit (because for them they pay sufficiently), but in order that improvident grants of former Sovereigns and Parliaments should be counteracted by a peculiar tax raised from them, and in respect to which they get no return whatever. We think, also, that all that which is levied from the shipping interest under the name of 'passing tolls' is a vexation, a grievance, and a burden, to which the shipping of this country, under present circumstances, ought not to be subjected."—[3 Hansard, cxxiii. 841.]
These words of the right hon. Gentleman may be supposed to have had their due weight with the Aberdeen Government: the result of their consideration of the subject was, that a Royal Commission was issued to inquire into the local burdens upon shipping. The Commissioners, of whom there were three, after investigating the subject with commendable ability, zeal, and industry, made a Report in 1854, which is the foundation for the Bill that I shall ask the leave of the House to introduce.

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I may as well state, at first, that from this Bill the port of London is excluded, because the affairs of the Corporation of London have come under another Commission, which has since made a Report, and the recommendations in which, arrived at after independent inquiry and consideration, are in accordance with those of the Commission on local dues and shipping.
I find, Sir, that the amount of dues levied on shipping in 1855, for all purposes of harbours, and every other purpose was, excluding London, £1,095,396, and of that amount there were applied to maritime purposes only £820,099. There thus remained a heavy balance of £275,297 raised by taxation upon shipping, which is not applied to shipping purposes. It is with the appropriation of that balance that we are concerned to-night. We will see what becomes of it, why it is annually drawn, whether it is just that it should continue to be so drawn, and how it may be more justly administered. The items which make up this amount are—firstly, passing tolls levied by certain harbours upon ships which pass such harbours, but do not enter them; secondly, town dues levied on ships by municipal corporations, which are devoted to municipal and not to shipping purposes; thirdly, charitable funds levied upon shipping; and, fourthly, special taxes raised in the harbours of Dublin and Cork by Her Majesty's Government, and devoted principally to the payment of debts due to the Consolidated Fund. These items nearly make up the sum that I have mentioned, The accounts I am about to state are those of 1852, but they have been augmented since that time; and as the increase has been computed at ten per cent, the amount at the present time is not less than £300,000, and every statement I have to make of the particular items is to be taken with a similar addition.
The first charge we have to consider is the passing tolls. The passing tolls are four in number, and are levied by the ports of Dover, Ramsgate, Bridlington, and Whitby. They amount to £32,496. The first is Dover. The passing tolls of Dover are computed to amount to £12,000. This tax is levied on parties which derive no benefit from it. The port of Dover is not available as a harbour of refuge, because it is dry at low water, and at high water it is only seven feet in depth, while for sixteen out of the twenty-four hours it
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is inaccessible to vessels of only 150 tons burthen. Upon this toll, together with other dues, property is charged a debt of £85,544. The Admiralty is making a large pier—in fact, a new harbour—at Dover. Now, these tolls are levied in respect of the old or inner harbour, which, by the erection of the new harbour, will be rendered of very trivial importance. The Commissioners have, therefore, recommended that the Admiralty should take Dover harbour altogether out of the hands of the local authorities, especially as it is used principally for military, or, I may say, for political purposes, and that the passing tolls should be abolished.
The next toll to which I will call the attention of the Committee is the passing toll of Ramsgate, the amount of which at the present time is about £14,000. It is levied upon all vessels laden with coal, culm, or stone, and upon other vessels above 20 tons burthen, including foreign vessels. Ramsgate affords the greatest accommodation for shipping of all these harbours, there being as much as eight feet in it at low water, although that depth is, of course, quite inadequate to constitute a really good harbour of refuge. Its entrance is narrow, it is difficult of access, it is looked upon as dangerous by mariners, and the ships which pass by derive no benefit from it. It is of use to shipping lying in the Downs, as they are able to take refuge in it in case of accident; but it has no claim whatever as a harbour of refuge upon the shipping which passes by, and nothing can be more unjust than to make that shipping pay for its maintenance. Repairs are going on there which have turned out to be more costly and troublesome than it was at first supposed they would be, and every estimate and every report which is made shows that more and more is likely to be demanded. With a view to mitigate the evil, various suggestions have been made. The general effect of this Bill is to transfer the harbour to trustees, together with certain dues upon coal now levied at Ramsgate, in order to keep up a sufficient revenue after the abolition of the passing tolls, for the maintenance of the harbour.
The next harbour to which I shall refer is that of Bridlington. A passing toll is levied upon all coal coming southward of ¼d. per 2½ tons of coals. The harbour has a narrow entrance, is inaccessible at low water, and is totally unfit for the purpose of a harbour of refuge. The amount levied by it at the present time is £2,835,

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and its debt is £28,858. The passing toll at Bridlington differs in one respect from the other passing tolls, for it will cease to exist in 1868.
The last passing toll to which I have to call the attention of the Committee is that of Whitby, to which the same remarks apply as I have made with regard to the others. The harbour is dry at low water, it is unfitted for the purposes of a harbour of refuge, and it levies a tax upon coal coming from the port of Newcastle—not, I mean, from the modern port upon which the town is situate, but from the ancient port, including the town of Sunderland. The amount of the toll is £4,111, the debt upon which is £,32,720. The total debts upon the two latter tolls, including what I may call the charges in embryo, such as these for repairs of the harbours, amount to upwards of £60,000.
The next head of taxation upon shipping that I have to deal with is what are called town dues. They are dues levied upon shipping by municipal corporations and town authorities, by which I mean authorities having control over lighting, paving, health, and such matters, and applied by them, not to shipping purposes, but to their own purposes, in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Their amount in the year 1852 was £182,058, and is now probably little short of £200,000. The whole of this, except about £14,000, was applied by these bodies not to shipping purposes, but to their own purposes. It is difficult to trace the origin of these dues. The Crown had an undisputed prerogative in earlier times to create petty customs wherever it pleased, and these customs were often granted to corporations, and often to favourites of the Crown. They were the objects of bargain and sale, like any other kind of property, and many of them by this means came into the hands of municipal corporations. They were most probably originally saddled with a sort of trust for the maintenance of the harbours in respect of which they were levied; and it is still the law of Scotland—much to the credit of the jurisprudence of that country—that if a man be the proprietor of a harbour, he has an implied trust to keep such harbour in repair. But in England the rights of property have always been more durable and permanent than the duties imposed upon the holder of that property. The tendency among us, in cases in which trusts have been created upon property, is
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for the property to remain, but for the trusts or obligations upon it gradually to drop off. Such was the case with regard to all these harbours. They gradually came into the possession of the old self-elected corporations which were destroyed by the Municipal Reform Bill, and these corporations disposed of the revenues much as they pleased. Then came the Municipal Reform Bill, abolishing the old corporations and substituting for them bodies elected by the people; it also required all the corporate property, to be appropriated to corporation purposes; the whole of the revenue to which the corporation was entitled, whether derived from the rent of estates or from the dues levied upon shipping, or from any other sources, went into one borough fund; and the 92nd section of the Act (5 & 6 Will. IV., c. 76) declared that this fund should first be applied to the payment of debts, to the administration of local justice, and to the maintenance of local police, and the surplus, if any surplus remained, was to be expended for the benefit of the inhabitants of the town. Thus, by the operation of the Municipal Corporations Act, in consequence, as I apprehend, of an oversight on the part of those who prepared it, the tolls levied upon shipping became part of the borough fund, and were saddled with a trust for the benefit, not of the shipping, but of the inhabitants of the town. Before that Act was passed, the corporations wore at liberty to do justice to the shipping, if they pleased, by applying the money obtained from it to its benefit; but they have since had no choice, and therefore, if I denounce as unjust the enormous gains derived by them from this source, I shall do so without the slightest intention of imputing injustice to them in applying the money to borough purposes, as in doing so they only carried out the express provisions of the Act. An example will be better than any amount of disquisition to enable the Committee to understand the working of the present system, and I will therefore take the most prominent instance with which I am acquainted—that of the great and opulent town of Liverpool. I am not so sanguine as to imagine that the hon. Gentlemen who represent that important constituency will be persuaded by anything I can say to yield their assent to the provisions of this Bill, and I will, therefore, state my case against them at once, in order that the Committee may understand the great mistake under which they are labouring. Liverpool is said to

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have acquired its dues by purchase from the family of Lord Sefton, about 200 years ago. The whole amount of town dues appropriated to municipal purposes in England, Scotland, and Ireland, in 1852, was 163,000 l., and of that amount the municipal corporation of Liverpool levied by dues upon shipping no less than £105,250. Out of this they are obliged by law to apply to maritime purposes the magnificent sum of £400 a year. They are, however, better than the law obliges them to be, for in that year they applied to these purposes no less than £3,044, the remainder being expended for the benefit of the ratepayers of the borough. The debt upon this sum amounts to £1,017,696. The municipal revenue derived from rates levied in the borough, and from property belonging to the corporation, is £103,325, and no doubt since 1852 the revenue derived from taxes upon shipping has increased 22 per cent, and now amounts to about £125,000. The value of rateable property in Liverpool is £1,400,000. Besides the enormous tax I have mentioned, the docks of Liverpool levy on the shipping £273,284, the whole of which is by no means paid for services conferred. A ship is liable to pay if it discharges or takes in any cargo in the stream. The steamer Sarah Sands, from America, was too heavily laden to go into Birkenhead docks, and discharged part of her cargo in two lighters. Still she was made liable to Liverpool docks for this, and paid £64. The steamer Brazilian took in a few packages in the stream, and paid £44 to Liverpool docks. The severity of this tax is not to be exceeded; and what makes it worse is that the Liverpool port extends from the river Dee to the river Ribble, and from the entrance of the Mersey to Runcorn. It extends also to Birkenhead; and Birkenhead and Runcorn have to contribute to the Liverpool docks and town dues. It is a complaint on the part of some that persons in South Wales, if they send coals thence to Runcorn, pay a duty of 2d. per ton, which is equal to the whole of the royalty demanded of the owner of the coal; and, on the part of others, that iron from Scotland is sent by Fleetwood instead of Runcorn, to avoid the duty of 3d. per ton. The immunity of the freemen of Liverpool from these duties is also complained of; and it is stated that a freeman was enabled to obtain a certain contract in preference to another person, because he got the goods necessary for carrying out the contract
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toll free. This, then, is the case of a man for whose benefit the tolls are imposed not contributing towards them, and being enabled thereby successfully to compete with his neighbour. In consequence of these duties a great deal of trade is driven out of its natural course, and finds its way to Chester, where the dues are light. Such a result is, of course, a great injury to the public. Newcastle also profits largely by these town dues, their amount there being £8,600 a year. At Hull they amount to £5,000 a year; and for the three towns of Liverpool, Newcastle, and Hull, the total of the town dues is £118,600. It is curiously remarked, too, that these three towns, which have the advantage of receiving this enormous tribute levied from other men's property, are as little favourably spoken of for the efficiency of their municipal regulations or sanitary improvements as any in the kingdom. Not only are these dues unjust in principle, and not only do they disturb commerce, but I believe that they react with considerable disadvantage on the places themselves. We must not, therefore, conclude that in this matter all is gold that glitters, nor, because Liverpool pockets some £100,000 at the expense of the shipping interest, that that town is really a gainer to that extent; for these dues deter people from coming to it, and cause a circuitous mode of transit to be had recourse to.
The next subject I have to deal with is the large amount taken from the shipping interest by the Trinity Houses and other charitable bodies, and expended in pensions and in other ways from which shipping derives no benefit. These charities are thirteen in number, and I find that they receive from shipping a sum of about £36,789. Many of these charities are mixed up to some extent with shipping purposes; and in all of them a great amount is applied to very excellent purposes, such as the maintenance of decayed seamen, almshouses, and the like. Taking the case of the Hull Trinity House as an example, the right hon. Gentleman read, the following statement:—Receipts—Tolls on ships and goods, £15,001 7s. 4d.; differential dues, consolidated fund, £8,245 13 s. 11 d.; remaining revenues from property, &c., 5,313 l. 6s.—total, £28,560 7s. 3d. Expenditure (accounted for)—Buoys, beacons, and other shipping purposes, £5,113 1s. 7d.; elder brethren and as-

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sistants, £144; almshouses, pensions, and charities, £15,983 17 s. 7d.—total, £21,240 19 s. 2d. Unaccounted for, £7,319 8s. 1d. Thus, as regards this charity alone, the effect of the measure will be to free the trade of Hull from a tax of £10,000 a year, and the consolidated fund from a charge of above £8,000 a year.
Another subject worthy of attention is the case of the Russian Corporation. This company was originally established by charter in the reign of Philip and Mary on the old principle of monopoly of trade. It seems to have been similar to the Levant and other trading companies, having a monopoly of trade with Russia, and power of governing the persons engaged in it. Under these powers certain tolls were established, which are still levied. This company levies in Russia, at St. Peters-burgh, about £12,000 annually on British shipping. If the war with Russia has had no other good effect, it has, at all events, saved the shipping interest from the payment of that sum. Of this £12,000 the sum of £1,400 is for a Russian Customs' tax, £2,500 is for British episcopal churches in Russia, and the remaining £8,000 or upwards is applied in paying agents at St. Petersburgh and Cronstadt for communicating with the Russian Government—as if British merchants were not able to communicate with the Government themselves, or, at least, through Her Majesty's representatives—and for other agency business, which, if wanted at all, ought to be done and paid for by voluntary arrangement between the merchant and agent. Besides the foregoing, the company levy in English ports, on goods imported from Northern Russia, £2,178. By the accounts of the company it appears that a portion of their money, every farthing of which is derived from British shipping, except the interest on their savings—though, I suppose, these savings were originally derived from the same source—was expended in 1852 in the following manner:—Salaries, &c., chaplains, £1,059 9s. 9d.; ditto, agents, 500 l.; pensions to a widow and a clergyman, £150; rent of office, £50; plate to Governor, which is an annual charge, £85; courts and committees, £226; salary, &c., secretary, £300; ditto, sergeant, £30; Custom-house expenses, £12 11 s. 6d.; Sound lists, £48 6s. 6d.; printing, &c., £14 7s.; postage, &c., £14 5s.; ditto, Russia, £12 9s. 8d.; stamp duty on free-
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doms, £74; law expenses, £3 18 s. 6d.; grant for schools at St.Petersburgh, £100; grant for organ at Moscow, £25; miscellaneous, £176 12 s. 7d.; housekeeper, £12 0s. 10 d.; total, £2,894 1s. 4d. There is a charge of £25 for an organ at Moscow—a praiseworthy object, no doubt, but one which does not seem to have very much to do with shipping. Then there are the annual charges—such as £1,000 a year for chaplains, and £300 for secretary. Some of the extraordinary expenses are rather peculiar. In 1838 there is a charge of £193 for an entertainment to the Russian Embassy on the occasion of the Queen's coronation; and, in 1839, there was an entertainment to the Grand Duke Alexander, the present Emperor of Russia, which cost £595. There is £14 for expenses connected with the receipt of his portrait; £210 for engraving, and £200 for framing and embellishing the portrait of the late Emperor Nicholas; last of all, there is £100 for the churchwardens at Moscow. Wherever the seaman went he seems to have been considered fair game—something was to be got out of him; and, accordingly, innumerable corporations appear to have fastened on him, and the funds which they have drawn from him they have considered themselves at liberty to apply just as they chose, without the slightest sense of responsibility to anybody.
I will take another charity—one which is connected with the City of London, but which, as it is not included in the report of the City Commissioners, will have to be dealt with in this Bill. It is the Marine Society, which in 1790 had transferred to it from the Westminster Fish-market trustees the right of levying 2s. on every boat-load of fish which passes the Nore. This tax was established in 1755; the collector of the tax was to have one quarter of the receipts for the trouble of collection; and about the same time an inspector was appointed to prevent forestalling and regrating. It is a society, I believe, of the most deserving character, and has for its object the apprenticing of the children of destitute seamen, and I have not the slightest wish to say anything in disparagement of it; but from 1845 to 1854 it received out of the pockets of these poor fishermen no less than £5,989. One quarter of this sum went to the secretary, and £976 to the inspector, who was appointed to prevent fore-stalling and regrating, but

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whose duties appear latterly to have been confined to helping the collector, and the charity only received £3,515; so that the expenses of collection amounted to 42 per cent.
I pass now to special taxes on shipping, which are collected by Her Majesty's Customs, amounting to £6,865. Of this sum the greater part is collected at the harbour of Kingstown, and about £400 is collected in the shape of entry dues at Cork. I am not quite certain now as to the circumstances under which this last sum is collected—whether they are such as to call for compensation; but I will take care to inform myself on the point. I come now to the case of the differential dues. The Committee is no doubt aware that many of these corporations and charities have been in the habit of imposing differential dues on shipping; that is, higher dues on foreign vessels than on those which are the property of British owners. In 1810 this country concluded a reciprocity treaty with Portugal, and in 1815 with the United States; but when these treaties came to be put into operation it was found that these local dues stood in the way of the execution of these treaties. An Act was accordingly passed which, treating these dues in accordance with the political economy of the time, as the property of the corporations by which they were enjoyed, took away all power of levying them in every case where these reciprocity treaties came into operation, but at the same time enabled the Treasury to give compensation. The same principle of compensation was afterwards extended likewise to all reciprocity treaties then existing, or which might afterwards be made. Under these Acts no less than £52,791 has been paid from the Consolidated Fund for compensation for differential dues during the year 1854. This compensation has increased very rapidly: in 1845 it was but £22,000; in 1846, £27,000; in 1847, £34,000; in 1848, £34,200; in 1852, £42,000; in 1853, £44,000; and, no doubt, if allowed to go on increasing, it would soon amount to £100,000. A large part of this compensation is paid to pilots. Foreign vessels have been obliged to pay higher for pilotage than British vessels, and, as the reciprocity treaties require the abolition of that privilege, a large sum has been paid as compensation for that abolition. The town of Liverpool received ii 1852 £6,500 from the Consolidated Fund as compensation for the loss of these pilot-
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age dues, over and above the compensation or the differential dues; Newcastle received £3,500 for the pilotage, and £6,000 for the differential dues, and Hull £10,500 for the dues, and £50 for pilotage, besides £8,250 paid to the Hull Trinity House.
The question now comes, how are we to deal with all these charges? And, first, as to the passing tolls. The Government has no hesitation in saying that these oils ought in every instance to be abolished: they rest on no ground of justice or policy; on the contrary, they rest upon claims which, now that the principles of taxation are better understood, would be repudiated by every honest man. The true principle of taxation I take to be this, and it is the guide we have followed, in framing this Bill—that it is only allowable for a portion of a class or a division of the country to tax itself for its own benefit, but that it has no right to tax its neighbours or the community at large. There is always a question about the incidence of these dues. Part of them undoubtedly fall on the shipping interest which immediately pays them, and part upon the consumer, but in the various fluctuations of the market it cannot be denied that a great portion of them must be paid by the shipping interest. I look upon it that the parties concerned are the public at large and the shipping interest.
As to passing tolls, the Bills provide in the first instance that they shall be totally and entirely abolished; but they leave behind them a difficulty as to dealing with the debts connected with them. At Dover, where the toll is £12,000 a year, the debt amounts to no less a sum than £85,000, which is charged upon this toll and other property. We propose that the Admiralty shall take the management of that harbour, shall receive its revenue, with the exception of these tolls, and shall be liable for its debt; so that those who advanced the money will obtain, in exchange for the security of these tolls which are to be abolished, that of the Government. At Ramsgate there is no debt, but, what is almost equivalent to it, large works, which are, I believe, necessary for the improvement of the harbour, are going on there. We propose that the cost of these works and the current expenditure of the harbour should be defrayed partly out of the income arising from which is already vested in the harbour authorities of Ramsgate, and partly out of a sum of £2,000 a year, the product of a tax upon coals, to be transferred to

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them from the town authorities by the operation of a subsequent portion of this Bill, and partly out of certain new dues, which it is suggested should be imposed. If these sums are not sufficient, we must have recourse to some other fund to make up the difference. At Bridlington there is a debt of £28,000, and at Whitby a debt of £32,000, which will both be paid out of the Consolidated Fund, and on the payment of which the passing tolls of these harbours will be abolished. If any one thinks that this is an extravagant sum to be paid out of the Consolidated Fund, I will refer to the fact that, in the speech I have already quoted, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) recommended that £100,000 of the public revenue should be devoted to the purpose of extinguishing these maritime dues; and I will also remind the House that the Government will be greatly a gainer by the abolition of its payments on account of differential dues to which I have referred. That disposes of the passing tolls.
The town dues, or dues levied upon shipping, and applied to the purposes of municipal corporations, also appear to me to be susceptible of very simple treatment. I grant that there is a legal right to these dues, because it has been given by Act of Parliament; but I cannot conceive upon what principle, ex œquo et bono, a corporation can be justified in raising, by taxing the shipping which comes into its harbour, sums applied for the benefit, not of shipping, but of the ratepayers of the town. I have shown how injurious such a practice is to the places where it obtains; and I need only add that the shipowner is clearly as much entitled to justice as the ratepayer; and that, as in the case of the ratepayer, all sums raised by rates levied upon him are applied to purposes in which he has an interest, so the shipowner has a right to claim that all sums raised by taxes on shipping shall be devoted to purposes in which shipping is interested. I will put the case no higher, and it seems to me that, put so, it is impossible to answer it. Of course we shall hear of vested interests; but over and over again this House has decided—and I think it will not go back from that decision—that in this matter there is the widest possible distinction between corporations or public bodies and private individuals. Mr. Hallam, a high authority on such points, says, in the first volume of his Constitutional History of
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England, that Parliament, although bound to respect the legal interest of private persons, is not withheld by any such rule with regard to corporations when it can be shown that the abolition of such interests is for the public benefit, or that their retention would be unjust or impolitic. I therefore conclude that we shall do no wrong whatever by relieving the shipping interest from the payment of the enormous sum of £182,000—probably now more than £200,000—a year, wrung from them by various corporations of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and applied to matters in which it has no interest, and from which it derives no benefit whatever. The matter is not, however, so simple as it might appear. The funds raised by these clues are charged with debts, and the question arises, what is to be done with the debts? Her Majesty's Commissioners unhesitatingly recommend that where these debts had been contracted for town purposes in which the shipping had no interest, they should be transferred to the borough fund. To the justice of that recommendation I cannot wholly subscribe. It seems to me that the corporations, having contracted debts on the faith of the responsibility of these two funds—the borough fund, and that raised by the dues on shipping, which, under the Municipal Corporation Act, in fact, formed part of the borough fund—did no more than they legally might and were bound to do for the interest of the boroughs; and it would be a great hardship to rip up transactions which were perfectly legal, and to make corporations liable for the whole of debts which they would probably never have contracted had they known that the revenue which they derived from taxing ships was to cease. The principle we propose to adopt is this: As to the creditor there will be no change. He will still have his remedy against both the borough fund and that derived from the dues on ships; but, as between these funds, we propose to divide the debt in proportion to their respective amounts. We propose to take this sum: as the borough fund, or the fund arising from the taxes on town property, is to the fund arising from the taxation on shipping, so shall be the portion of the debt borne by the borough fund to that borne by the shipping dues fund. The figures are these. The debts chargeable on town dues in common with other town revenues in England, Scotland, and Ireland, are £2,576,378; the town dues on shipping, £182,058; the

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remaining town revenues are £416,010; the sum, therefore, is—as £416,010 is to £182,058, so will be the portion of £2,576,378 which shall be borne by the borough fund to that which shall be borne by the shipping dues fund. The result of this will be that the portion to be borne by the shipping fund will be £784,272, and that by other town revenues £1,792,102. Thus it will appear that, if all corporations were equally indebted, and all the debts and all the dues could be accumulated into two funds, the debts might be paid off in three years and a-half. Of course, as the debts are unequal, this cannot be done. Of the amount of town dues on shipping, £182,058, we calculate that £14,000 must be applied to shipping purposes, and the remainder, £168,058, will be at the disposal of the Bill. Now for the manner in which we propose to carry out our objects. We propose that these town dues, hitherto collected by the municipal authorities, shall henceforth be collected by the Commissioners of Customs, and carried to an account with the Paymaster General; and that in the case of leases of these tolls the rent shall be paid over to the same account, saving any encumbrances which there may be upon the leases. To facilitate the discharge of the debts, it is proposed that every town authority shall be called upon to furnish to the Board of Trade an account of its revenue for three years up to the passing of this Act, showing how much came from shipping dues, and how much from other sources; upon the receipt of which account the Board of Trade is to ascertain the amount of debt to be borne by each species of revenue in the manner already mentioned. Creditors may use their right to go against either fund; but if one fund pays more than its fair proportion of the debt, it shall be reimbursed by the other. We also provide for the formation of a sinking fund to pay off the debts. It is evident that the sooner a partnership of liability of this sort is dissolved the better, and, to accomplish this dissolution, we provide a sinking fund to pay off the debts, and we also propose to facilitate arrangements for borrowing money and other purposes. As regards such of these dues as may not be required for the purposes of the sinking fund, or for the payment of interest, it is proposed that there shall be reserved to the Queen a power of abolishing or retaining them, as she may think fit, by an Order in Council, the object being that the harbours may be in no danger of "starving,"
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so to speak, through the sudden withdrawal of the funds on which they have been accustomed to depend for support; or by other deficiencies of revenue. In the interest of the creditor also, who might otherwise be left without his remedy, it is desirable that a power should be reserved of raising the dues anew in case it should be found necessary to do so.
The next subject to be dealt with is that of charities. With respect to charities, it is intended to apply to them the same rule of treatment to which municipal corporations are to be subjected, with this difference, however, that in dealing with charities we shall be relieved from the disturbing element of debt. We propose to take the collection of the charitable revenues out of the hands to which it is at present confided, and to intrust it to these of the Customs' authorities. We propose to take power to appropriate as much of these funds as may be required for strictly maritime purposes, to pay all pensions already vested for life, and to abolish the remainder, or to apply them as maybe found necessary to shipping purposes. Some of these charitable corporations have under their control certain lighthouses not properly within the jurisdiction of harbour authorities, and it is proposed to transfer the management of all such lighthouses to the Trinity House of Deptford Strond, and the other general lighthouse hoards, so as to make the system of administration of the coast lights of the United Kingdom as complete and uniform as possible.
As it is very possible that the course proposed to be taken under this Bill may be assailed and resisted by arguments founded on the old plea of vested rights, there is a precedent which, as I think, satisfactorily disposes of all such pretences, and to that precedent I would especially direct the attention of the House. In 1853 my right hon. Friend, then the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Cardwell), made an application to the Trinity House to discontinue the practice of levying dues for charitable purposes. The Trinity House very naturally took up the cause of the charities, and offered every possible opposition to the proposal of the Government. A memorial was presented by them to the Queen in Council, which was referred by Her Majesty to the Board of Trade for their consideration. The Board accordingly made a Report to the Crown, from which I will take the liberty of reading a few passages, which place the question in a very

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clear light, and vindicate a principle which was not only sound in theory, but beneficial in practice, for it was subsequently acted upon, and caused a saving to the shipping interest of this country of no less a sum than £105,000 a year, and was also of great service in promoting the erection of lighthouses:—
"The Trinity House Corporation, in their representation, call attention to the case of Royal grants of lighthouses and light dues to individuals, and to the recognition, by Acts of Parliament, of these lighthouses and light dues as the private property of the individuals to whom they were so granted; and they contend that the claims of the Corporation are at least as deserving of favourable consideration as these of individuals. They further allege that the light dues belonging to the Corporation have been from time to time invested in the erection or the purchase of lighthouses; and they submit that the lighthouses and light dues belong to them for the purposes of the Corporation, and are in the strictest sense their property for those purposes; and they allege that to allow to the shipowners the use of this property without any charge beyond the expense of maintaining the lights would be, as affecting the Corporation's charities, an alienation of property devoted to the benefit of decayed masters and seamen of the merchant service and their families, and a gift of that property to the shipowners; and they insist that such a measure would be neither just nor expedient."
To this summary of arguments, urged by the Trinity House, the Board of Trade replied thus:—
"The Lords of the Committee do not call in question the title of the Corporation of the Trinity House to the property so alleged to be vested in them; but there is, as their Lordships submit, this distinction between the case of the Corporation and that of the individuals referred to—that the property so vested in the Corporation has been held and is held by them, so far at least as relates to the light dues in question, in trust for public purposes, and liable, therefore, to be dealt with upon considerations of public policy. Their Lordships cannot admit that there is any violation of the principle of property in the reduction of a tax levied for public purposes where no vested interests have been acquired in the proceeds of the tax; and where the tax in question is one levied upon a particular class of your Majesty's subjects, without that class deriving any adequate advantage in return (and any excess of light dues beyond the amount necessary to maintain the lights is a tax of this character), the reduction of such a tax not only involves no violation of the principle of property, but is in the highest degree just and expedient. Their Lordships cannot recognise any vested rights in the expectants of the bounty dealt out to poor mariners and their families, at the pleasure of the Corporation, from the surplus revenues of the lights; since it is of the essence of a vested interest that the individuals to whom the privilege is secured are ascertained and known to the law; and while their Lordships would religiously abstain from interfering in the slightest degree with the pensions or
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other benefits already conferred upon any person whatsoever, they can acknowledge no injustice in resolving, upon grounds of public policy, to confer upon no new persons a right to which at present no individual can advance any claim or title."
That, I take it, is the common sense of the matter. The principle is a sound, just, and sensible one, and it has this further recommendation, that it is not simply theoretical, for it has been already acted upon, and by means of it most important benefits have been secured to the shipping interests. As for the Russia Company, the tax which that Corporation has been in the habit of levying on English shipping will be completely done away with by this Bill. The war has already suspended the operations of the Russia Company, and I hope that with that peace, the early approach of which we are now awaiting, will not revive the right of the Company to tax Her Majesty's subjects trading with Russia for the maintenance either of a chaplain at Moscow, plate to the governor, or for any such like pious and righteous purposes. No doubt these objects, viewed in the abstract, are highly laudable, and nothing can exceed the credit that is due to these who apply to such purposes money of their own, or money which they are authorised so to dispose; but it is very little to the honour of any man that he should misappropriate funds not belonging to him, and be generous at the expense of other people. So much for charities.
Special customs we propose to put an end to.
The last question that arises is that of differential dues. These may be divided into two classes—these held by corporations and local bodies, who render no services to shipping in return for them, and these held either by bodies or persons who do render such services, or by private persons into whose possession they have passed either by purchase or inheritance. The former class amount to about £23,545, and this we mean to abolish altogether. If these bodies have, as we think, no right to tax shipping, they have no right to compensation for the tax. A river may not mount higher than its source. But, putting aside this argument, it may have been just and expedient to respect the right of public bodies to tax foreign at a higher rate than British ships as long as the principle of protection was allowed to govern our legislation; but when that principle was discarded in favour

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of the free-trade system, and when the country gave its sanction to the doctrine that our legislation should be framed without reference to other nations, hut simply with a view to what might be most conducive to our own interests, this claim of public bodies to tax foreign ships at a higher rate than British ceased to have the slightest foundation in justice; and these who may be interested in its maintenance, so far from having any reasonable ground of complaint because of the course now about to be taken should think themselves very lucky for having been so long permitted to enjoy a privilege that rested on so fragile a foundation. When Parliament proposed to repeal the Navigation Laws it did not wait to see whether or not other countries would pursue a similar policy, and so in like manner we should not hesitate, upon public grounds, and without pausing till other nations followed our example, to abolish these differential duties on shipping. Such is the avowed and declared policy of this country; and these subordinate corporations are bound to follow in its policy the supreme corporation of the State; at least, if they have refrained from adopting such a course, they have no rightful claim to compensation for what is diametrically opposed to the settled principles and maxims of imperial legislation. I apprehend that if this question were to be argued now, we should undoubtedly refuse compensation for the removal of the existing unequal taxes upon foreigners; and we are thus entitled to apply this rule to the payment due for the next year, and so to remit these imposts for the future. We, therefore, propose that the £23,000 which is paid from the Consolidated Fund to municipal corporations and other public bodies should be at once abolished. The remaining 29,245 l. is due either to individuals in reward of services rendered (as in cases of pilots, who are entitled to higher compensation for the higher fees they would have charged on the principle of differential duties against foreigners), or to persons whose property has come down to them by regular and notorious descent. These persons are entitled to compensation, but not out of the Consolidated Fund—the charge upon which in both these instances we think ought altogether to cease. In the latter case, however, we are of opinion that powers should be granted enabling the parties to raise their rates so as to indemnify themselves for the loss they will sustain; our assumption being
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that the individual is entitled to compensation, while the corporation is not. By this transaction we shall relieve the Consolidated Fund from the payment of £52,000 a year—a contribution which, if our shipping went on increasing at its present ratio, would, no doubt, soon have to be doubled. The result of this will be, taking the account between the Consolidated Fund and this Bill, that that fund will gain by getting rid of this annual burden of £52,000, which would increase with the increase of our trade; and it will lose £60,000 in all by paying off the debts upon the Whitby and Bridlington tolls. It will also lose that portion of the Special Customs' Taxes which is paid into the Exchequer.
I omitted to mention another abuse which we propose wholly to extinguish—namely, the exemption of freemen from charges that are imposed upon other persons—such an immunity being indefensible, on the double ground that it is invidious in its nature, and that it gives to these who enjoy it an unfair advantage in the keen competition of trade over their less favoured fellow-citizens.
In order to facilitate the readjustment of the taxation in harbours which will have been disturbed by this very sweeping-change, it will be necessary to introduce another measure, the object of which will be similar to that of the Borough Harbours (Scotland) Bill, which gives to local bodies the power of raising their charges to enable them to meet their exigencies, subject, however, to a control which guards the shipping interest from excessive exactions. If the present Bill should meet with the approbation of the House, the other measure will also be shortly submitted for its consideration.
The result, then, of the whole change which we now propose to effect will be this—that we shall immediately benefit the shipping interest to the amount of £40,000 or upwards. This will be the effect of the remission of the small taxes at Dublin and Cork, and the abolition of passing tolls; and ultimately there would be a further reduction of duties to the amount (as nearly as we can calculate) of £200,000. The whole of this relief of course will not be immediate; but a considerable portion of it may be remitted at once; and the rest must be withheld in order to discharge the debt for which shipping will be liable. That, Sir, is the plan of the Government; and I apologise to the Committee for detaining

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it so long with a very dry statement, involving much minute detail; but I am convinced that the more they consider the subject the more strongly they will feel its importance. It is a question of the shipping interest and the public against a few local bodies, who (I will not say have clung to, but) have had forced upon them by the interference of the Legislature powers and rights which cannot be defended on the grounds of equity and justice. I trust that this House will do that justice to the shipping interest of this country which I am sure it desires to do, and will give another proof of its determination to enforce the doctrines of free trade to their legitimate consequences, as well as to affirm once more that great principle without which no man's property can be safe—namely, that it is not in the power of any one class to impose taxes except for the benefit of the class that is taxed. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving to resolve—
"That the Chairman be directed to move the House, that leave be given to bring in a Bill for the Abolition of Passing Tolls and the Regulation of Local Dues on Shipping."
MR. HEADLAM: Sir, I, for one, am not going to enter into the lengthened details which have been brought before us by the right hon. Gentleman; except to say that I hope there may be ample time given, between the first and second readings of the Bill, to enable the numerous corporate bodies, whose interests it so largely affects, to give it their full consideration. There are, however, some principles enunciated this night by the right hon. Gentleman against which I must at once most explicitly enter my protest. So far as he has recognised the justice of relieving the shipping interest from the payment of vexatious charges, I most entirely concur. There is no man in this House—whether with reference to private or to public considerations—who is more desirous than I am to give the shipping interest every benefit it is in the power of the House to confer, and to take off from it every burden under which it labours. I was one of the Members for shipping ports who consented to the repeal of the Navigation Laws, but I then thought, and think still, that, as during the existence of these laws certain charges upon the shipping interest had grown up, it was but just and equitable that, on the abolition of the Navigation Laws, these charges should be abolished. I shall, then, support the mea-
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sure of the right hon. Gentleman, so far as I can consistently do so, with due regard to the claims of others and the higher consideration of justice and the rights of property. I say, therefore, distinctly, that so far as this measure seeks to deal differently with the property of corporations from the property of individuals, I shall give it all the opposition in my power. The proposal to take away the property of municipal corporations is utterly without precedent, and opposed to every principle of justice. There is no doubt that the municipal corporations of this country hold their property upon a clear and unmistakable trust, for the benefit of the people of the towns over whom they rule. It is so expressed in the Municipal Reform Act, and the result is, that the property of a corporation is really the property of the poor people who reside in that town. It may be desirable to take away private property, but when you do so, you have always proceeded on the principle of compensation; but the moment you do so, without giving compensation, you proceed on the principle of confiscation; and the same rule applies in the case of corporate property. Now, Sir, I have that faith in the justice of the House that I feel confident it never will sanction any such principle. I do not wish to extend the debate further, but I must repeat that it is my intention to give the measure my most determined opposition, so far as it proposes to deal differently with the property of the poor from the property of the rich—to confiscate the property of municipal corporations, and to respect that of private individuals.
MR. HORSFALLsaid, he would reserve any observations that he might wish to make on the general question raised by the measure of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Board of Trade, until the Bill was in the hands of the House, and had been considered by these interested in it; but felt that one remark which the right hon. Gentleman had made, when alluding to the amount of the dues levied at Liverpool, Hull, Newcastle, and other places, required some notice. The right hon. Gentleman stated that the sanitary condition and the municipal regulations of these towns were notoriously bad. Now, he (Mr. Horsfall) must entirely contradict that statement; for there was no town in the kingdom, the sanitary condition and municipal government of which were superior to these of Liverpool. What,

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however, had the sanitary condition of Liverpool to do with a question of passing tolls on shipping? The expenses connected with the sanitary regulations of Liverpool were defrayed by a separate rate levied upon the inhabitants. The Government had sent out one of the officers of the Liverpool Sanitary Board to correct the deficiencies of their hospitals in the Crimea; and if the sanitary condition of that town was so unsatisfactory, as had been represented, he could not but express his surprise that the Government should have selected an agent from a place where the sanitary arrangements were represented to be so defective. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that the dues to which his Bill referred were most oppressive, and had concluded his speech by pretending to show that these dues had operated most injuriously upon the prosperity of Liverpool. But the fact was, that notwithstanding the alleged oppressiveness of these dues, no town in the kingdom had, of late years, been more prosperous than that very town which he had the honour to represent, and which the right hon. Gentleman had cited as an example of their injurious effects. If that were so, what became of the allegation that the dues were oppressive? He would not now endeavour to answer the question asked by the right hon. Gentleman—upon what authority these dues were levied? The various corporations who claimed such dues levied them under a title which, in his opinion, could not be disputed; and he thought that, before proceeding to legislate on this subject, the preliminary question, whether these corporations had or had not a legal right to such dues, ought to be decided by a court of law. If it should be proved that they had a legal title to these dues, it would be inconsistent with the national character for justice to deprive them of such a right without affording them ample compensation; but if, on the other hand, the courts of law decided that no legal title existed, it would he very easy for the House to deal with the subject. He hoped that, previously to the second reading of the Bill, full time would be afforded for the consideration of its provisions by these whose interests it would so materially affect.
MR. RICEsaid, he simply rose to protest against the assumption of the right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill, that all the dues in question levied by corporations were originally granted for ship-
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ping purposes. The fact was quite the contrary; and that they had been levied for a variety of purposes. He had been glad to hear what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman with reference to the port of Dovor, which he hoped would soon be entitled to the appellation of a harbour. He expressed his hope that ample time would be afforded to parties interested in this subject for carefully considering the effect of the measure.
MR. GIBSONsaid, he was not inclined to dispute the statements of his hon. Friend opposite with regard to the sanitary condition of Liverpool, and he was glad to hear that the expenditure for sanitary purposes in that town was met by a special rate. He considered that all the municipal expenses ought to be supported by rates imposed on the inhabitants, and not by dues levied upon shipping and upon commerce. He felt assured from communications he had received from his constituents, that they would learn with great satisfaction that the Government had resolved to deal with this important question, and that they would no longer allow Manchester and the surrounding districts to be taxed in order to contribute to the municipal expenses of the borough of Liverpool. Without giving any opinion as to the particular details of the measure, he would be most ready to support the principles laid down by the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Board of Trade.
MR. LIDDELLsaid, he must take the earliest opportunity of endorsing in the fullest manner an opinion of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newcastle (Mr. Headlam). He wished to know why a different course of legislation was to be adopted in the case of private and corporate property? There was one opinion in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lowe), which met with his most cordial assent—namely, that there was but little liberality in dealing with the property of others; and upon that very ground he (Mr. Liddell) saw reason to differ from many portions of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. As regarded the measure, he would reserve to himself the right of opposing it, either in its principle or its details, at a future stage.
MR. LINDSAY: I, Sir, give the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Board of Trade my warmest and best thanks for the measure which he proposes to introduce; and I think that he is going

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on exceedingly just grounds and dealing with exceeding generosity—with too much generosity—with the corporations, who have for too long a time been allowed to levy taxes upon shipping and commerce for purposes quite alien to these interests. I shall at another time be able to answer any arguments which may be adduced with a view of showing that these corporations had any right to tax the shipping interests for municipal purposes.
MR. WATSON: To that part of the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman which does away with passing tolls, I shall give my support; but there is another portion of it which will require very grave consideration—I mean that which deals with the property of corporations. There are various places where these shipping dues belong to the corporations of Newcastle, Liverpool, and other towns; and it becomes a serious question on what ground is the right to these dues founded. I believe it will be found that they have existed from time immemorial—as long, in some instances, as the corporations themselves, and for reasons which are perfectly obvious. The right to them is founded on immemorial custom; and therefore I trust that sufficient time will he given to enable parties to fully and carefully consider this measure. A great question will arise, whether or not there are any legal grounds on the part of the corporations for claiming these dues. It may he very well for the hon. Member who has just spoken to say that the right hon. Gentleman who wishes to introduce the Bill has dealt very lightly with the rights belonging to corporations; but I trust the House will never be found to take away either their property or the property of individuals, because they both stand on the same footing. Having said these few words, and reserving to myself the fullest liberty of dealing with that second question when it comes before the House, I will add nothing further, except to express a hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give ample time to the various corporations in the country who are interested to offer their opinions on the subject
MR. LOWE: I do not think I cast, and I certainly never meant to cast, any imputation upon the sanitary condition of Liverpool. The observation I intended to make was, that Liverpool was not placed exactly in that ornate state in which one might have expected it to be, looking to the circumstance that rates to the amount of 105,000 l. were levied upon shipping and
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the commercial interests, and applied to the benefit of the inhabitants; but, perhaps, it would have been quite as well if I had said nothing about that matter. The hon. Member for Dovor (Mr. Rich) has assumed that I represented that these dues were originally for shipping purposes. What I said was exactly the reverse. I will now state, in order to clear the way for future discussion, that the Crown granted these dues as a matter of prerogative, without necessarily fixing any duty upon these who received them. In Scotland a duty was attached to them, but not in England; and I believe that, before the Municipal Act, the old corporations received these tolls, and applied them as they pleased, without any regard whatever to shipping purposes. Then, as to the vested interests of corporations, hon. Gentlemen have said, with much solemnity, that that is a great question, and that it must be seriously discussed hereafter. Why, it is not a new question. It has been discussed a hundred times in this House. How do the corporations get these rights? Why, they get them under the Municipal Reform Act, which took from self-elected bodies, which had no community of feeling with the towns in which they lived, their property, and gave it to bodies elected by the ratepayers. Therefore that Act, which is said to be the very strongest ground on which they claim these dues, affords the very strongest instance that it is the practice of the Legislature to deal in the freest possible manner with the property of corporations.
Resolution agreed to; House resumed.
Resolution reported.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. FITZROY, Mr. LOWE, and Viscount PALMERSTON.

METROPOLITAN POLICE BILL.
SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, he rose to move for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the law relating to the metropolitan police. The object of the Bill was to place the undivided control and responsibility of managing the police in the metropolis in the hands of one Commissioner, instead of its being exercised by two with co-ordinate authority, as has hitherto been the case. The original Act establishing the metropolitan police was the 10 Geo. IV., c. 44, under which power was given to appoint two persons, who were justices of the peace in any of the counties comprised in the metropolitan police district, to act as Commissioners of Police, subject

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to the authority of the Secretary of State in certain particulars. When the Bill was originally proposed by the late Sir Robert Peel, he stated that it had been his intention to propose the appointment of three Commissioners, who should form a Board, and, of course, there would be a majority of two in case of any division or disagreement, but two only were appointed. He (Sir G. Grey) felt bound to say that, owing to the judicious selection of the first Commissioners, and the harmony which prevailed between them during seventeen years, no inconvenience had arisen from any difference of opinion between the two first Commissioners; but subsequent experience had shown that the divided responsibility was not conducive to the efficiency of the force. One step in the direction of the Bill he now proposed to introduce was taken by the Act of the 2 & 3 Vict., c. 47, amending the Metropolitan Police Act, a clause of which authorised one Commissioner to do all the things which were authorised by that Act to be done by the two Commissioners of Police, and as it incorporated the former Act it was considered that this provision extended to the duties imposed by that Act. The construction he should put upon it was that which he believed to be clearly the intention of Parliament — namely, that one Commissioner could do anything which the two were authorised to do, either by the original or the amended Act; but a question had been raised whether the terms of the last Act really gave power to one Commissioner to act independently and without the co-operation of the other in certain acts required to be done under the original Act. But in any case it was evidently the intention of Parliament that two Commissioners should be appointed, and he had therefore not felt it right to sanction any permanent arrangement by which the duties assigned to two Commissioners should be discharged by one without the sanction of Parliament; but as a vacancy had occurred by the death of Captain Hay, which had not been filled up, he took the earliest opportunity of bringing the subject under the consideration of the House with the proposal which was embodied in the present Bill. That proposal was to place the metropolitan police of London on the same footing as the Irish constabulary with respect to management and government. Under the Irish Constabulary Act, an officer, called the Inspector General, was appointed, toge-with two assistant inspectors-general; each of them was in the commission of the
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peace, and capable, on the occurrence of a vacancy, when called upon to do so by the warrant of the Lord Lieutenant, of exercising alone the powers of the Inspector General, but ordinarily acting, only in subordination to the chief Commissioner or Inspector General, who had the undivided responsibility of the arrangements. What he (Sir G. Grey) proposed to do, was to repeal that part of the Act which required the appointment of two Commissioners, and to provide that one only should he appointed; and he intended to couple with this the power to appoint two Assistant Commissioners, who should also be justices of the peace, in the counties comprised in the metropolitan police district, each of whom, according to the precedent of the Irish Constabulary Act, might, in the absence of the other Commissioner, or during a vacancy, be empowered by the warrant of the Secretary of State to perform the duties of the chief Commissioner. At present there was no provision for a temporary arrangement in the event of a vacancy occurring, from which serious inconvenience might result; but by the proposed measure this advantage would follow—while the undivided responsibility and management of the Board would rest upon one person acting under the authority of Parliament and the Executive Government, he would be assisted by gentlemen not of the class and rank of ordinary superintendents and inspectors of police, but intervening between the chief Commissioner and the superintendent and inspectors, and exercising a superintendence over the latter in the districts which were assigned to them. He thought that by these means greater assistance would be given to the chief Commissioner than by a colleague of co-equal authority, while, at the same time, all chance of the evils arising from a difference of opinion would be prevented. The arrangement he proposed would, therefore, be conducive to the efficiency of the police, and, would also provide for the appointment by the Secretary of State, with the authority of Parliament, of officers competent to take the charge and direction of any large body of police called together upon any emergency, in accordance with the recommendation made by the Commissioners who were appointed to inquire into the disturbances in Hyde Park. He quite concurred with their suggestion, that on all such occasions there should be present some officer who was superior in rank to an inspector or superintendent. Under the Lodging

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Houses Inspection Act, the Hackney Carriage Act, and several other Acts, special duties were created, the execution of which the Secretary of State had power to confide to one of the two Commissioners. If Parliament sanctioned his proposal he would extend to the Secretary of State the power of selecting either the chief Commissioner, or one of the assistant Commissioners, for these additional duties. With regard to the salaries of these new officers, he proposed to give the chief Commissioner £1,500 a year—which was the salary received by the Inspector General of the Irish Constabulary—and to the assistant Commissioners £800 each; and, by this arrangement, there would be a diminution of £100 upon the existing charge, which was about £3,200. He trusted the House would have no objection to the introduction of the Bill, or to its being proceeded with on an early day.
Leave given.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir GEORGE GREY and Mr. MASSEY.
Bill read 1°.

ANSWER TO THE ADDRESS.
VISCOUNT DRUMLANRIGappeared at the bar, and read the following gracious acknowledgment on the part of Her Majesty to the Address of Thursday night—
"Your loyal and dutiful Address has afforded Me much satisfaction.
"I am confident that I shall receive your cordial support in all measures which may appear to Me to be necessary to maintain the honour and dignity of the Empire, and to promote the permanent interests and welfare of My People."

EPISCOPAL AND CAPITULAR ESTATES BILL.
THE MARQUESS OF BLANDFORDsaid, he would, with the permission of the House, place upon the table a Bill for the better management of Episcopal and Capitular Property. The Bill was very nearly the same as that of last Session, but he would reserve all explanations in reference to it until the second reading, if now permitted to introduce the measure.
MR. HADFIELDsaid, he thought the subject was altogether too vast a one to be dealt with by a private Member. Besides, the Bill of the noble Marquess contained no provisions which might enable the Government to relieve the country from church
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rates. It was a mere attempt to nibble at the end of a great question. He considered that the subject was one with which no independent Member ought to meddle without the sanction of the Government.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, that in consequence of the promise which he gave to the noble Marquess last Session, he could not fairly object to the reintroduction of the Bill. It was right, moreover, that the noble Marquess should have an opportunity of explaining his views more fully than he had hitherto done. But on the part of the Government, he could not give any pledge that they would deem it their duty to support the Bill in its future stages.
MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, he very much objected to the introduction of Bills which had no chance of being passed. It consumed the time of the House unnecessarily, and increased the largo sum which the country had to pay for printing.
THE MARQUESS OF BLANDFORDsaid, he was not prepared to admit that the Bill would be rejected. It related to a subject of which the public would not fail to recognise the importance, and he was convinced the House would give it their most careful and favourable consideration.
Leave given.
Bill ordered to be brought in by the Marquess of BLANDFORD and Mr. GEORGE BUTT.
Bill read 1°.

JUDGMENTS EXECUTION, &c., BILL.
MR. CRAUFURDsaid, he begged to ask for leave to introduce a Bill enabling execution to issue in any part of the United Kingdom under judgments or decrees obtained in certain Courts of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The House had already affirmed the principle of the measure; but the law officers of the Crown had expressed disapproval of the form in which it stood last year, he had, therefore, struck out all reference to Courts of Chancery and the Incumbered Estates Courts. He had also provided that the certificate required by the Act should issue only on a rule of Court or Judge's order.
MR. NAPIERsaid, the Bill of last year was thought very objectionable in Ireland. It was considered by a Select Committee of that House, who tried in vain to amend it, and on their recommendation it was rejected in the House by a large majority. He would not oppose its reintroduction, but would vote against the second reading.
SIR FITZROY KELLYsaid, he desired to know whether the hon. and learned Solicitor General had turned his attention to the Bill, and also whether the power of enforcing judgments was to be made reciprocal in the three kingdoms?
THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid, the details of the Bill of last Session appeared to him objectionable; but the object was a good one, and he thought could be accomplished without infringing the distinctive principles of the jurisprudence of England and Scotland. He was not prepared to express any opinion upon the details of the measure now sought to be introduced, but he thought the end so desirable that he would be loth to put any obstacle in the way of attaining the great object; of amalgamating the jurisdiction, and facilitating the execution of a judgment passed in one country and desired to be enforced in another.
MR. CRAUFURD, in reply to Sir F. KELLY, said, that he intended the power of enforcing judgments to be reciprocal.
Leave given.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. CRAUFURD and Mr. DUNLOP.
Bill read 1°.

CHANCERY COURTS (IRELAND) BILLS.
MR. WHITESIDEsaid, he rose to move for leave to introduce a series of Bills for the improvement or alteration of the Court of Chancery in Ireland. The hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland had given notice of his intention to introduce a measure with apparently a similar object to that which he (Mr. Whiteside) himself had in view. He should be only too happy to leave the matter in the hands of the hon. and learned Gentleman if he thought that the Bill of the Solicitor General would effect all these alterations and amendments in the practice of that Court which he thought should be effected; but inasmuch as he believed that the hon. and learned Gentleman had only accepted some of his (Mr. Whiteside's) views, he trusted he would be pardoned in endeavouring to press his own measure forward. He submitted that there ought to be established a Court of Appeal from the Court of Chancery, the want of which had long been felt in Ireland. The difficulty which stood in the way of this object was the construction of the new Court, and the expense attending its maintenance. The plan he suggested was the appointment of ex-Chancellor Blackburne, and that of the
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Judge of the Ecclesiastical or Prerogative Court of Ireland, as the two Judges out of the three necessary to constitute such Court. More able men, or men more competent to discharge the duties of the proposed Court could not be selected in Ireland. A most excellent Court of Appeal, and one entailing but a small expense upon the country, could thus be established. He believed, however, that he might state that his plan, if carried into operation, would cost the country £40,000 a year less than that which was about to be enunciated by the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland. The hon. and learned Gentleman then asked leave to introduce the following Bills, namely— Bill to make provision for the more speedy and effectual despatch of business in the High Court of Chancery in Ireland. Bill to amend the practice and course of proceeding in the High Court of Chancery in Ireland. Bill to alter the law and practice of the High Court of Chancery in Ireland in relation to the appointment of Receivers, and the management of Estates under the control of the said Court. Bill for securing the titles of Purchasers of Estates sold under the Court of Chancery in Ireland. Bill to facilitate and diminish the expense of Appeals from the Court of Chancery in Ireland.
MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, he objected to the introduction of Bills which, if carried out, must necessarily entail a great increase of expense upon the country. He thought it was useless for the hon. and learned Gentleman to persevere with such measures at a period when it was utterly hopeless to carry them through Parliament.
Leave given to introduce the said Bills, which were then severally read a first time.

COURT OF CHANCERY (IRELAND) (IN CUMBERED ESTATES COURT ABOLITION) BILL.
MR. J. D. FITZGERALDsaid, he would now move for leave to introduce a Bill to abolish the Incumbered Estates Court (Ireland); enlarge the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery (Ireland), increase its power, and reform its procedure. One of the objections made to the Bill by the hon. Member fur Enniskillen was, that it would cost the country about £40,000 per annum more than the measure which that hon. Member had just introduced. He would now proceed to state to the House

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a result which would relieve them of anxiety upon that point. Having recently had an opportunity of settling all the details of the measure he had in hand, he was prepared to state the substantial result of it in point of expense. He proposed to abolish the Incumbered Estates Court, which at present cost the country £15,529 16 s. 10 d. per annum, and he proposed also to dispense with four of the Masters in Chancery and other officers of that Court in Ireland, which would result in an abolition of salary to the extent of £14,900 a year. He did not say that this latter sum would be immediately saved to the country, because there would be compensations, the amount of which he was not able to calculate exactly, not knowing how many of the old officers might be appointed to situations under the new Act. On the other side of the account, the officers to be appointed under the Bill would receive in salaries £16,760 a year, and, as nearly as he could estimate, the life compensations would amount to £13,383 a year. The annual expense which would be put an end to, therefore, was £30,429 16 s. 10 d., while the new situations, together with the life compensations, would only be £30,143 a year. So far, then, from his measure costing the country £40,000 a year more than that proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Enniskillen (Mr. Whiteside), he might confidently state that it would cost the country nothing, and that so soon as the life compensations ceased there would be a permanent saving of nearly £14,000 a year. The Bill now to be introduced was founded on the Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Incumbered Estates Court, which was laid on the table of the House in June last. He had printed this Bill last Session and circulated it widely, with a view to elicit suggestions for its improvement—and there had been no objections made which he had not attended to. The House must be aware that, in the year 1849, Sir John Romilly introduced the Incumbered Estates Court Bill. It was the law under which the Incumbered Estates Court was founded in Ireland, and he must say of that measure that, it had proved entirely successful, and well calculated to meet the pressing emergencies of the period. It was regarded at the time of its introduction with considerable alarm; and the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Napier), in a speech which he made upon the oc-
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casion, objected to its provisions, and shadowed out another course, which he would presently advert to. Now, the very first part of the Bill which he was now asking permission to introduce has for its object the abolition of the Incumbered Estates Court. But, whilst he proposed to abolish a Court which had done more good than any of modern times, he did not intend to destroy its jurisdiction, but transfer it to one of the regular Courts of the country. The Incumbered Estates Court has been in operation six years up to the last day of December, 1855, and the estates sold under its authority amounted in value to £17,331,668 4s. 9d., and of this, the Court had already distributed £14,080,034 4s. 9d., leaving a balance of about £3,000,000 to be distributed. At the present time, the Court has made orders for selling estates, the rentals of which amounted to £400,000 per annum. These figures would show the enormous amount of work which had been done by the Incumbered Estates Court, to the great benefit of the country, although no doubt it bad, in some cases, caused injury to individuals; the injury to individuals, however, had not been to anything like the extent which had been predicted, while its benefits had exceeded the expectations of all. The necessity for the original measure was truly stated by Sir Robert Peel, in 1849, when he said—
"Although the ordinary courts of law are admirably suited for the conduct of ordinary proceedings and for the administration of justice between man and man without extraordinary courts, yet I must say, when great social difficulties have to be contended with, my belief is that you should step beyond the limits of these ordinary courts of justice, and establish some special tribunal unfettered by reference to technical rules for the purpose of solving these difficulties."
The tendency of the operations of the Court had been to introduce capital into Ireland. ["No, no !"] He was aware that hut one-sixth of the purchasers had been English or Scotch, but it had developed a great amount of Irish capital —capital which we did not know existed. Purchases in the Court of more than £14,000,000 had been made with Irish capital, which this measure had developed. The Act, which was passed in July, 1849, was to continue in force for five years, and to the end of the next ensuing Session of Parliament, but with powers to receive petitions for sales only for three years. These powers had, however, been renewed by successive Acts, and at present the

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Court could continue its operations until August, 1857, but its powers of receiving petitions, or of commencing new proceedings, would expire in July next. In 1852, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Napier), then Attorney General for Ireland, who had originally opposed the Bill, was of opinion that the best course was to renew the Act until the Court of Chancery had been reformed and rendered available for the transfer of the business of the Incumbered Estates Court to its jurisdiction. The Court of Chancery in Ireland had not yet been fully reformed. In 1854 a Commission was issued under Lord Aberdeen's Government, to inquire into and report upon the Incumbered Estates Court. The Commissioners were the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Sir John Romilly, the Solicitor General for England; the then Attorney General for Ireland, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland, the hon. and learned Member for Belfast (Mr.Cairns), Mr. Commissioner Longfield, and himself (Mr. Fitzgerald). The Commissioners prosecuted their inquiries with great diligence, and in six months presented their report, having cost the country only some £400. They sought for evidence in all quarters, and obtained the views of persons acquainted with the subject, the result of which showed a singular concurrence of opinion as to the course which should be adopted. The Master of the Rolls in Ireland, whose opinion was entitled to great consideration, had certainly raised an objection that, by giving a Parliamentary title to all estates sold by the Court—a title to be good against any former owner of the estate, there was a possibility that the Court might sell in one man's name property which belonged to another. But the answer to that objection was to be found in the operation of the Act itself. During the six years of the existence of the Court, and in sales of estates to the amount of £17,000,000, only one instance of error had been alleged, and in that case the dispute was not one of title but of boundary, and was so insignificant in value, that neither of the parties took the trouble to investigate their rights. The Commissioners fully approved the principle, that the existing power of selling incumbered estates should be continued. Such was considered to be the value of a Parliamentary title, written on a piece of parchment not larger than an ordinary sheet of letter paper, that gentlemen, having
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estates perfectly unincumbered and wishing to sell them, created incumbrances for the purpose, and then came into Court, and had their estates sold for them. The Commissioners stated that they saw no reason why proprietors of unincumbered estates should be placed in a worse position than these whose estates were incumbered, and they proposed to extend the powers now exercised by the Incumbered Estates Court, so as to allow any one, having an estate to sell, to sell it with a Parliamentary title, and in a summary and inexpensive manner. After examining with great care into the question, to what Court should such extended powers be entrusted, the Commissioners expressed their opinion that the Incumbered Estates Court ought not to be continued, and that its powers should cease upon a certain day, and that its jurisdiction should be transferred to the Court of Chancery in Ireland, together with the causes then undisposed of. It would be advisable to consider for a moment the state of the Court of Chancery in Ireland. Let not the House be carried away with alarm at the name "Chancery," or suppose that the Court of Chancery in Ireland presented the same aspect as the English Court did before its recent reform. In this instance, as in almost every other, they had gone before this country. They had had their County Courts for eighty years. Since the reign of Anne, their conveyances had been registered. They had begun their reforms in their Court of Chancery early, and while Lord St. Leonards was Chancellor of Ireland very great reforms were carried out. In 1850 they took away from their Court of Chancery much of its great expense and so simplified its procedure, that at the present time in the Court of Chancery in Ireland cases are decided as speedily and with less expense than by a court of law. The operation of the Incumbered Estates Court has relieved the Court of Chancery from the pressure which was upon it. From returns which were made in 1853, one result of the operation of the Incumbered Estates Court appeared to be, that about 800 old suits concerning real estates were brought into the Incumbered Estates Court, and ended by a sale. One of these cases had commenced in 1771; in another, which was a somewhat noted one, the final decree was made in 1802 by Lord Redesdale. The suit had been commenced in 1781, and it had gone on to the year 1852, when it was determined by the Incumbered Es-

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tates Court taking the estates and selling them. But this would not be sufficient to enable them to come to the conclusion, that the jurisdiction might be well exercised by the Court of Chancery as it at present stood; they must inquire whether it would not be advisable to abolish the system of Masters in Chancery. Lord St. Leonards' Act passed in 1852, abolishing Masters in Chancery in England, had worked well, and if such an Act was necessary in England, how much more so in Ireland, if you give the Court of Chancery here the power of selling estates? According to the present system of references from the Chancellor to the Masters, great delay, expense, prolixity and confusion, were the result. The Commissioners examined carefully into this, and came to the determination that it was necessary that the Masters should be abolished, and there being five Masters, it was resolved that four should be relieved from their duties, and that two Vice Chancellors should he appointed, who, with the two other Chancery Judges, the Chancellor and Master of the Rolls, would be sufficient to work out the new system. Now, it would be necessary for each of the new Judges to have some assistance. The Commissioners recommended that each Judge should have two chief clerks and two junior clerks, but that they should not perform the office of Masters of the Court, and that it should be understood that the Judges of the Court should do by themselves all the work that properly appertained to them, or that it should be done immediately under their own eyes. By such means all references, reports, exceptions and other tedious, complicated, and extensive proceedings would be at once swept away. He trusted that in the provisions of the Bill which he should now place before the House, that more stringent means would be adopted for the prevention of abuses, than had previously found their way into any other measure on the subject that was ever laid before the House. The procedure in the Incumbered Estates Court was as simple as could well be conceived, and divested of every technicality. The suitor was called upon to use the plainest and most untechnical language— terms as would be intelligible to the Judge and to his opponent. But above and beyond all, the Incumbered Estates Court was distinguished by economy in its fees and office charges, although it must be admitted that there were sometimes large expenses in valuations, surveying, and si-
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milar departments. When he spoke of economy, therefore, he wished to be understood to be speaking of the procedure of the Court. The Commissioners recommended that this simplicity of procedure should be continued. The Commissioners then proceeded to deal with the question of an Appellate Court, and recommended that such a Court should be formed. At present, the only appeal against the decisions of the Incumbered Estates Court was to the Judicial Committee of Privy Council. Their decisions were satisfactory, and if the attendance of the members of the Judicial Committee could be more certainly relied on, it could be perhaps a satisfactory tribunal; but it was irresponsible, uncertain in its formation, the members constantly changing, and therefore uneven in its decisions. It was necessary to consider whether some new Appellate Court could not be created. At present there was no appeal from the Court of Chancery in Ireland except to the House of Lords, and in many instances where the property was small, the expenses were so great as to deter parties from an appeal to the House of Lords. The Commissioners had given this subject great consideration, and came to the conclusion that an appellate tribunal ought to be constituted, and that, from every decision of the Master of the Rolls and the Vice Chancellors, the suitor should have the right of appealing to a Court of Appeal, consisting of the Lord Chancellor and one additional Judge. The Commissioners thought that two Judges were a better number for an appellate tribunal than three. They stated—
"A Court of Appeal, consisting of two Judges, has this advantage—that in every case there will be at least two opinions in support of the decision; if the Court of Appeal be divided in opinion, the order of the Judge below will stand unreversed. We recommend that the second Judge of the Court of Appeal should be nominated by Her Majesty, and should be selected, in the first instance, from the ex-Chancellors of Ireland; or, if there be no ex-Chancellor eligible or willing to accept the office, that such additional Judge should be selected from among the common law Judges for the time being; or, in case it should be considered necessary to have a permanent Judge for this purpose alone, that a Lord Justice be specially appointed by Her Majesty."
At present there were three ex-Chancellors of Ireland—Mr. Blackburne, Lord St. Leonards, and Lord Campbell—so that Mr. Blackburne was the only ex-Chancellor available for the Appeal Court which he

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proposed to establish. It was impossible to make a better selection than Mr. Black-burne, and the Commissioners recommended that, in the first instance, the Judge to sit with the Lord Chancellor in appeal cases should be an ex-Chancellor, if it were possible to secure the services of such a Judge. If not, they recommended that the appellate Judge should be a common law Judge. To gentlemen who were acquainted only with the legal matters of this country that proposition might appear somewhat, startling; but according to the system which prevailed in Ireland the case was entirely different. According to the Irish system, gentlemen at the bar did not confine themselves to one branch; they practised equally at the Equity Courts, and in the Courts of Common Law, and at the present moment some of the men who had most eminently distinguished themselves at the Chancery bar were now common law Judges. He might mention the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland, the Chief Baron, Mr. Justice Moore, Mr. Justice Ball, and Baron Greene and others, if it were necessary to do so. It was thought that if a common law Judge could spare time to devote himself to such duties the system would work well, and would be in every respect an economical proceeding. He admitted that in adopting such a course it would be merely as an experiment, for it would be impossible to tell, as yet, what would be the amount of appeal business, and whether a common law Judge would have sufficient time at his command to attend to it in addition to his other duties. If it should prove that the work of the common law courts was too heavy to enable a judge to take upon himself other duties, then the Commissioners recommended that, instead of a common law Judge, a Lord Justice should be appointed to sit with the Chancellor. In England, two Lords Justices sat as a Court of Appeal, and he believed that system had worked well. The Commissioners then recommended that the jurisdiction of the In-cumbered Estates Court should be vested in the Court of Chancery, and that the Court should consist of the Lord Chancellor, the Master of the Rolls, and two Vice Chancellors. They recommended, also, a system of cheapness and simplicity in its procedure, and, in order to work out this, they proposed certain measures, to which he would presently advert. This Report of the Commissioners having been laid upon the table last June, he (Mr. J, D. Fitz-
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gerald) had taken considerable pains in embodying all its provisions in one Bill, and with a view to simplicity and facility of reference—to enable hon. Members and others interested to put their finger at once upon any point upon which they required specific information—he had adopted an excellent precedent, which he found in the Merchant Shipping Act passed some Sessions ago. Accordingly he had divided his Bill into nine parts, and to secure uniformity of procedure he had, in framing the Bill, adopted, as far as possible, not only the provisions of English Acts of Parliament, but sometimes the very language itself. The Bill proposed to deal, first, with the appointment of Vice Chancellors; secondly, with the abolition of Masters; and, thirdly, with the constitution of the Court of Appeal. It specified that there should be appointed two Vice Chancellors, with a stipend of £3,500 a year each. He might state, in reference to this subject, that the salaries of the puisne Judges in Ireland was £3,600 a year, with some additional allowance for the circuits. He thought the Vice Chancellors should be put upon an equality with the puisne Judges, but not in a superior position. The Vice Chancellors and the Master of the Rolls were to be assisted by officers called chief clerks. There would be six chief clerks, two for each Judge, and each clerk would receive £1,000 a year. There would be an increase under certain circumstances, but it would be provided that the amount would never exceed £1,250 a year. The salary of the chief clerk of a Vice Chancellor in England was £1,200 a year; but the qualifications which suited the office of a Vice Chancellor's clerk in this country would not suit the office of a clerk of a Vice Chancellor in Ireland. Great difficulties would be thrown not only on the Vice Chancellor, but also on the clerk, in carrying on the sales of land, which was a duty not imposed upon the Vice Chancellors, or upon their clerks in England. The salaries of the junior clerks were fixed at £350 a year each, a sum, he conceived, established on a sufficiently low scale. Then, as to the Court of Appeal. It was proposed that the Judge of the Appellate Court should either be an ex-Chancellor or a puisne Judge of the common law courts, and that his salary should not exceed £1,500 a year. But in the ultimate contingency of the Government having to appoint Lords Justices, supposing an ex-Chancellor should refuse to take the office,

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or it should be found incompatible with the duty of a common law Judge for him to do so, then it was proposed that the salary of a Lord Justice should be £4,000 a year. The stop from the office of Vice Chancellor to that of Lord Justice would not only be an advancement in rank, but also an advancement to a position carrying with it additional duties of a very responsible character. It was, therefore, thought right that, as a superior Judge, his salary ought to be on a higher scale. Having dealt with these matters, he would now direct attention to what was proposed to be the procedure and practice of the Court. In framing his Bill, he had been actuated solely with the view of achieving, as far as possible, simplicity and economy. He did not think it right to provide for procedure by minute legislation, but to make it imperative upon the Courts themselves to form a code of rules by which their proceedings should be regulated. From experience in such matters he knew that great inconvenience sometimes resulted from legislating upon minor details. But, above all, he had been anxious to provide that, from the commencement to the termination of a suit, the same Judge should have charge of it, and that everything should be done under his own eye, so that the public time might not be wasted by the transference of business from one officer of the Court to another. He now came to what he considered the most difficult part of his scheme—one that required a great deal of care and attention—namely, the sale, partition, and exchange of real estates; and with a view to render his Bill as complete as possible, he had provided that in any purchase in the Court of Chancery the conveyance should be perfect and indefeasible. He might say that, although he took the somewhat unusual course of printing his Bill last Session, when there was no design of carrying it out; and although he had had it most extensively circulated in quarters from which useful hints might be expected, he had not received a single suggestion for any alteration or amendment of this portion of the Bill. The next part of the measure which he wished to call attention to was one which had not been recommended by the Committee. It had reference to the sale of settled estates. The House would remember that last Session a Bill, entitled a Bill for the Leasing and Sale of Settled Estates, came down from the House of Lords in reference to the Court of Chancery in England, which
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was referred to a Select Committee, of which he (Mr. Fitzgerald) was one. The Committee had reported on it, but so late, that it had not passed into law. It was a valuable Bill, but he thought that in many respects it was not applicable to Ireland, and that it would be better to take several of the clauses and so modify them, as to make them accordant with the condition of affairs in that country. He had taken care, too, to give the Court power to make an indefeasible sale, but with such safeguards, as to inflict no injury upon any party, whereas it would prove a great security to purchasers, and a boon to the public generally. In some settled estates, it might be for the advantage of all parties that they should be sold; but at present the difficulties in the way of such a step were insuperable. But under the new law parties might go into the Court of Chancery, and it would behove that Court to see that the proceeds of that estate should be disposed of according to its original design. The Bill then provided for the abolition of the Incumbered Estates Court, and for the transference of the business to the Court of Chancery. The powers of the Court would be enlarged, and its practice simplified. The remaining portion of the Bill referred to the gradual reduction of stamps and fees in the Court of Chancery. Upon inquiry into the existing practice of that Court, it was found that one of the greatest evils that presented itself was, that at every stage of the business the suitor was impeded by fees he had to pay before he could take any fresh step. That was found to be not only grievous, and to be an impediment to the administration of justice, but it interfered with the safety of the public in another way—that of withholding due publicity. At present, a person could not find out whether a suit was pending in the Court of Chancery without paying in the first place a fee for search. If a copy of any document was wanted, considerable fees had to be paid—in fact, every stage of the proceedings was beset with difficulties of that kind. The Commissioners of the Incumbered Estates Court attached the highest possible importance to publicity, and it would be provided by the present Bill, that every man in the community, without paying a shilling to any one, should be enabled to proceed to the offices of the Court and inspect petitions, affidavits, and documents, as he pleased. One result of this would

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be, that when a man saw an estate for sale on which he supposed he had a claim, he might go and inspect all the documents bearing upon it, and if he found that he had made a mistake there would be an end of the matter. By such means an enormous amount of expenditure and inconvenience would be saved. In order to give the same facilities to the suitor under the new jurisdiction, it was proposed to reduce these fees which impeded the administration of justice, or which interfered with the rights and privileges of the suitor, and to abolish some altogether. To do that without injury to the public revenue appeared at first sight difficult, but it was calculated at present on a low aver-age the money distributed by the sale of estates under this new code would be about £2,000,000 a year—indeed, it appeared that the average sales of the In-cumbered Estates Court had exceeded £4,000,000 annually. The Bill proposed that a very moderate poundage should be deducted out of the purchases of estates sold, and it did not appear unreasonable that if parties came into these Courts, and accepted the benefits of a Parliamentary title, they should consent to be taxed to a small extent in return for so great a boon. It was proposed that the newly-constituted court should be autherised to make a deduction of not more than 2 per cent upon such sales. At the same time he thought that 2 per cent would yield a great deal more than would be sufficient for the purpose. It was contemplated by the Bill that the Court should form a scale of deductions which should apply to all cases that might come before it; for instance, upon an estate producing £50,000 2 per cent would be too much. Probably 2d. or 3d. in the pound would be sufficient. Again, on an estate of £1,000 2 per cent or £20 would not press with undue severity; upon the Court itself, therefore, would be imposed the duty of framing a scale of poundage, but in no case to exceed 2 per cent, and he hoped that in such a way the burden would not be severely felt. In the Court of Chancery in Ireland, suitors were called upon to pay 2½ per cent in the form of "ushers' poundage," for which they demand no benefit, and a great part of which, it was his belief, went into the pocket of a noble Earl. The produce of sales under this Bill would not be subject to ushers' poundage. He had made an inquiry as to how much was produced last year by
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stamps upon proceedings in the Court of Chancery in Ireland, and he thought the amount was under £18,000, so that if they could make up by the deductions upon purchases he had recommended £20,000 or £25,000 a year, they would soon be in a position to reduce stamps and fees considerably. In addition to these parts of the Bill there were some miscellaneous provisions which he need not trouble the House with at present. He might say with the utmost confidence, that there had not been laid upon the table of that House for many years—a Bill bolder in its character or nature, or one which promised to work reforms more beneficial to the public at large. He hoped that, under the operation of this Bill, the Court of Chancery in Ireland would be a pattern to all others for the facility of its practice and procedure, and it would be the means, through its enlarged powers, of enabling every owner, if he pleased, to sell his estate and give sin indefeasible title. He was perfectly aware that in the earlier stages of its existence the Incumbered Estates Court pressed hardly upon some persons, and especially on the owners of incumbrances; but they were times of peculiar difficulty. These times had passed, circumstances were altered, and he believed that the public would not be satisfied unless the continuance of the powers of that Court, in their main principles, was provided for. He stated further, most confidently, that neither the members of the legal profession nor the public at large would be satisfied unless a larger jurisdiction were granted, which would enable every owner to sell his estate with a Parliamentary title, it being at the same time compulsory upon none. There was a Commission now sitting upon the subject of registration of titles. The difficulties in the way of that Commission were very great, if not insuperable; but if the Commissioners could agree upon a measure accomplishing that object, this Bill would not impede and would greatly facilitate their operations, and a procedure would be in existence ready to carry out the recommendations of that Commission, whatever these recommendations might be. He begged leave to place this Bill upon the table, and he most sincerely hoped that his predictions as to its great benefits would prove to be well founded.
MR. WHITE SIDEsaid, he thought that the law of political retribution had been singularly exemplified that night.

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Three years ago he had asked for leave to introduce a Bill to engraft the principles of the Incumbered Estates Court into the system of the Court of Chancery. When Parliament had adopted that principle, it appeared to him that it could not be good for the Incumbered Estates Court, if it were not also good for the Court of Chancery. He unluckily had not on that occasion asked to create any new court, or for any new salaries; but, although he was right in his views, he was in the minority, and was defeated. All that he had attempted to do by his Bill was, to confer on the Court of Chancery the power to give, in the case of estates sold by it, a Parliamentary title to purchasers. He, at that time, said that the Incumbered Estates Court would be choked up, and he was contradicted. He then predicted that in a year or two they would hear the law officers stating so; and he suggested that it might be as well to sell as many estates as they could in the two Courts. It must appear to the House extraordinary how this Incumbered Estates Court should now be so choked up by business as was described by the Commissioners, after it had been characterised by the rapid sales which it had, in the first instance, made. The cause of the success of that Court at first, and of its subsequent failure, deserved the attention of every hon. Gentleman. The hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland had referred to a valuable Return, which stated that cause. At first the Court had to deal with 800 or 900 chancery suits, in which all necessary inquiries had been made, the rights and liabilities of the various parties had been ascertained, and nothing remained but to sell the property and distribute the money. Every one exclaimed, "See how they are knocking down estates;" and so they did knock, them down with the rapidity of lightning, but with very ruinous consequences to the owners and puisne creditors. A large quantity of land had been flung into the market, and estates had been sold for ten years' purchase, which, at the present time, were bringing twenty and twenty-five years' purchase. The general wonder had been how the Incumbered Estates Court proceeded so fast; but the Commissioners had been allowed to make use of decrees and reports of the Court of Chancery—the Court that had ascertained the rights of; the creditors. So long as they had these estates to deal with they got on with great rapidity; but the case was different when
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the Incumbered Estates Court became a court of law and a court of equity, as well as a court of sale and conveyance. And one of the clauses in the Act, to I which he was astonished that any English Gentleman should ever have consented, provided that there should be no appeal from the Commissioners sitting in a dark house in Henrietta Street, unless they could be convinced at the time they gave a decision that they were mistaken in doing so—unless they could be persuaded that they were wrong at the time they said they were right. The influence of public opinion was at last felt, an appeal was granted, and 40 per cent of the decisions of the Commissioners were then overruled by the Judicial Committee of Privy Council. And such it must ever be. In saying this, however, he did not mean; to imply a reproach on these Gentlemen, for he was only astonished that they had ! done so well. "But," said the Solicitor General for Ireland, "there was great publicity in their proceedings, and the tribunal was a cheap one." Let the House see what the attorneys got by this "cheap tribunal." The Court was supported by means of an annual Vote, consequently there were no fees and no stamps; yet up to the date of the blue-book before him the attorneys got amongst them £254,770 1s. 6d.; the surveyors, £27,534 0s. 3d.; the valuators, £14,026; and the newspapers for advertisements, the trifling sum of £77,598 6s. 10 d. And he now distinctly asserted that it was more expensive to sell a small property in that Court than by private contract elsewhere. They had heard much of the economy of the proposed measure; but he would advise that the contemplated reform should be looked sharp after in that respect. It was important for the House to see what they were about. The sixteenth recommendation of the Commissioners was, that the stamps and fees on all proceedings in Chancery should be abolished, and the Solicitor General for Ireland had truly observed that he found it difficult to ascertain what the exact revenues of the Court of Chancery now were; indeed it would be difficult for anybody to discover it, who did not look into the matter very minutely. Within the last few days his (Mr. Whiteside's) noble and learned Friend Lord St. Leonards had informed him that he encountered the same difficulty when he was Lord Chancellor of Ireland; but he went to work, and the paper he ad-

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dressed to Mr. Goulburn in 1844 set forth the entire income of the Court. Now the moment a reform was attempted, it was invariably the case that a long list of claims for compensation was presented to the reformer. Thus, with regard to the Six Clerks in England, it was a painful fact that the abolition of their office cost the country not less than £60,000 a year. Well, the Six Clerks were abolished in Ireland, but the funds went into the pockets of the solicitors, who got upwards of £14,000 a year out of one of these funds, and in the end, the fund to maintain the Court became, in a measure, bankrupt, and the Consolidated Fund had to make up the balance. The stamps and fees of the Court of Chancery in Ireland amounted to nearly £26,000, and by this measure of the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland they were asked to abolish them. It behoved the House, then, seriously to reflect upon this proposition before they approached the consideration of a measure which affected, as this did, property to the extent of millions in value. The Incumbered Estates' Commissioners recommended in their Report that stamps and fees upon all proceedings in Chancery should be abolished. Now, he subscribed to the fairness of that recommendation in the abstract, but, as a practical man, he wanted to know, if these stamps and fees were abolished in the Irish Court of Chancery, how they could be maintained in England? If they were abolished in the superior Courts, how could they retain them in the inferior Courts? Look at the return from the County Courts in England, and see what had been levied upon the poor persons who resorted to these tribunals, in the shape of fees, and so forth. He had had the curiosity to inquire into the matter, and found that from the year 1847 to 1854 there had been levied in Judges' fees £364,600, and in clerks' fees £357,700. Was the Treasury or the Chancellor of the Exchequer conscious of what would follow from the extension of the principle to these Courts? Follow it out to its legitimate conclusion— let all fees and stamps be abolished—and the Treasury must be prepared to make the trifling advance of something more than £1,000,000 yearly. His (Mr. White-side's) plan was to have a moderate stamp, for the purpose of covering the fair expense of the Court, and he disclaimed now and for ever any idea of asking for Ireland a boon which was not also granted to
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suitors in England. He believed it to be a thing no longer to be insisted upon, and he was quite ready to abandon it for ever. Therefore, he did not wish to see the principle carried out in reference to the Irish Court of Chancery, unless they were prepared to extend it honestly to all the tribunals of the empire. The right hon. Gentleman was not then present in the House who once pave a hint to his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Napier), that whenever a new Bill came from across the water, he always looked into it attentively with the expectation of finding a job. He (Mr. Whiteside) was not trying to discover a job, but wished to direct the attention of the House to a financial consideration of material importance. The Commissioners, at their meeting on the 31st March, passed the following Resolution: —
"That the transfer of the powers of the In-cumbered Estates Court to the Court of Chancery can only be recommended by the Commissioners on a reasonable expectation that the present officers and staff of the Incumbered Estates Court shall, so far as may be reasonable or necessary, be transferred to the Court of Chancery."
The upshot was this. When Parliament established the Incumbered Estates Court, a distinct warning was given to all persons who were employed in it that they would have no claim for compensation, but would be well paid in salaries for their services. From time to time, as the business of the Court grew in amount, the salaries were increased; and the effect of the Resolution passed by the Commissioners went to quarter the whole staff of thirty individuals upon the country for the rest of their natural lives. At the next meeting of the Commissioners, however, the question was raised whether the Resolution should be maintained or not? It was decided in the negative, and thereupon the Resolution was struck out. But, to his utter astonishment, the substance of the same Resolution, in words not quite so strong, was afterwards substituted for it. Now, what was the meaning of this measure? It said as plainly as possible, "Push out the Masters and their staff; and as the officers of the Incumbered Estates Court have no claim for compensation, compensate for life the patent officers of the Court of Chancery, and carry on the work with the Incumbered Estates Court staff"—by men who, in fact, were not acquainted with the practice of the Court of Chancery—" let them oust the old officers of the Court of Chancery, and become them-

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selves permanent fixtures for their natural lives. "The Solicitor General for Ireland had asked them to create two Vice Chancellors, and four other good fat offices in the shape of clerkships; but he also called upon them to abolish four officers, from one of whom he had received a minute account of the labour these gentlemen had to perform. When the Chancery Regulation Act of Sir John Romilly was passed, these four officers became, under the title of Masters, Vice Chancellors in reality, and did all the work of the Court. Master Litton, one of the gentlemen to whom he referred, stated, in relation to the general scope of his (Mr. Whiteside's) Bills, that he was of opinion that, taking them together, they formed a code of equity jurisdiction and equity practice which, if carried out by competent men, would present a vast improvement on the existing plan; that the giving to one set of men jurisdiction to do all that was necessary to effectuate the rights of suitors from beginning to end, and power to adjudicate on these rights, was a vast improvement on the present divided jurisdiction, which rendered it necessary for different Judges to entertain the same case. That was the principle upon which the Bill he (Mr. White-side) asked permission to introduce was founded. Mr. Litton also stated, that with the staff the Bill provided—two of whom were already in existence, the one thirty-eight and the other forty years of age—all the business could be transacted that would be cast upon them by the Bills; and he added, emphatically, that since the passing of Sir John Romilly's Act, nine-tenths of the equity business of the country had been done by the Masters in Chancery, and that of the whole number of cases he had decided, there was but one upon which an appeal had been made, and that, with reference to that case, the question still remained open who was right. Well, Master Brooke and Master Murphy, being competent Vice Chancellors, without the rank and without the pay, whilst they did the work, his short proposition was, that if they were competent to do the work, and to do it so well, as the Solicitor General for Ireland had himself stated, they should continue to do it still. Moreover, was the House prepared to adopt the proposal of the hon. and learned Gentleman to throw the entire arrear of business existing in the Incumbered Estates Court upon the Court of Chancery? Now what did the House suppose was that arrear? It was posi-
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tively alarming, for there were not less than 1360 cases altogether untouched ! Now, the papers of the Court of Chancery were kept in as beautiful order as the books in the library of that House; the papers in the Incumbered Estates Court were, on the contrary, a heap of confusion. It was certainly a strange way of facilitating the disposal of these arrears to throw them into the Court of Chancery, which was hard pressed to keep clear with its own proper business. He was informed that it would be impossible for the Court of Chancery to dispose of such an enormous mass of additional business, unless something was done to arrange the records of the In cumbered Estates Court, which were now in such a terrible state of confusion that, as the Solicitor General for Ireland had wisely said, the best thing that could be done with them would be to burn them. The argument of the Commissioners was, that the Masters, whose offices were to be abolished, would be occupied in winding up the Chancery arrears; but they had no arrears. He had been told by one of them that a summons could be issued on Monday for a hearing on Wednesday, so that the effect would be that these Masters would get their retiring pensions after about one week's work. But the business in the In-cumbered Estates Court was so great that three Commissioners, with a staff of thirty clerks, had got matters into such a state that they were completely blocked up, and yet it was now coolly proposed to give this over to two Vice Chancellors, who were expected to dispose of it in addition to the regular business of their own Courts. He earnestly appealed to the House to save the gentlemen of whom they had heard so high a character from this infliction, and to let them do their own proper work. There was one point in relation to which it was necessary that he should correct the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland; it was this—the real author of the Incumbered Estates Court was Lord St. Leonards, who, having been consulted by the late Sir Robert Peel on the matter, suggested the establishment of a tribunal of this nature. He was afterwards asked to preside over it by that great statesman, but this the noble and learned Lord declined to do. What was the recommendation of the great authority to whom he alluded? It was this. There were a number of incumbered estates, and a large body of proprietors who could not pay off the incumbrances; the existing Courts

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had a right to work off the sale of estates, but they were slow in their operations; all that Parliament did, therefore, in forming the Incumbered Estates Court was to facilitate the sale of incumbered estates, and to give an indefeasible title when sold. But what was it the Solicitor General for Ireland now proposed to do? Why, to turn the Court of Chancery into a great conveyancing engine—in other words, to put all Ireland into Chancery. There was not an acre of ground in any county, nor a house in any city, in Ireland, that might not go into Chancery; and let the House of Commons consider what the consequences of this new provision would be. First of all, he (Mr. Whiteside) should move to extend it to England; for whenever any new principle respecting property in either country was broached hereafter, he should insist upon its being extended to both countries. Why should be do that? There was a rental of £5,000,000 in Ireland belonging to English proprietors, and held under the same title deeds, wills, and settlements, as their rentals in England; yet it was now gravely proposed to sell and dispose of the estates in one fashion in Ireland and in a totally different one in England. He (Mr. Whiteside) strongly objected to that, and in doing so felt that he was proving himself, not only a good Irishman, but a good Englishman also. The two new Vice Chancellors, therefore, were not only to do all the work which five Masters had with difficulty been able to ! get through—to dispose of business which had proved too much for three Commissioners and thirty clerks—but to transact all the private conveyancing of the country into the bargain. He had expected the hon. and learned Gentleman would have produced evidence with regard to what the private conveyancing of Ireland amounted to. Why not, for this purpose, have examined the clerks in the Registry Office and the leading members of the profession in Ireland? He himself, on inquiry at the Registry Office, had learned that the number of conveyances registered last year alone was either 9,000 or 9,200—he believed the latter. But, at the same time, he did not mean to say, that the whole of that number would be brought before the Vice Chancellors. Take half the number only, and then imagine two Vice Chancellors, with all the business of the Court of Chancery, and the arrears of the Incumbered Estates Court, undertaking in addition thereto the private conveyancing of
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Ireland ! He did not wonder at the hon. and learned Gentleman observing that it was a "bold proposal." For was it not contrary to the very nature and existence of a judicial tribunal, whose duty it was to decide on the rights of property? It must be remembered likewise, that this, too, was to be done at the expense of the State, for there were to be no stamps in the Court. What would the Secretary of the Treasury say to that? If this proposal became law, any man might come into the Court and say to the Vice Chancellor— "I 've got an estate to sell; sell it for me; here are my deeds, convey them for me without any expense to me." Such a state of things, if sanctioned, could not but result in ruin and misery to thousands, The Solicitor General for Ireland had referred to a Bill before the other House of Parliament respecting the leases and sales of settled estates, and also to a measure which it was proposed to introduce for the registration of title in England. That measure might be a very useful one, but he wished to be informed whether it was intended to permanently adopt a principle of law for Ireland directly opposed to that which obtained in England? If such a course were proposed, he could only protest against it as being unwise, inexpedient, and unstatesmanlike. The Master of the Rolls in Ireland had himself expressed the opinion, that to make the Court of Chancery the agent for conducting the conveyancing business of Ireland, would be to make the title of every landholder in that country depend upon the opinion of barristers of about fifteen years' standing. If this principle were recognised at all, why should it not be extended? Why should not a general dealer come to the Court and say, "My affairs are in great disorder and confusion; pray set them right for me"? With regard to the Incumbered Estates Court Commission—and he must say that he was beginning to lose all confidence in Commissions—he felt great doubt as to its authority in laying down a code for the Court of Chancery as regarded this subject, and not only that, but in fixing the salary of the officers, whom it would be necessary to appoint, for these matters formed no part of the inquiry which they were directed to make. It had been stated that persons incumbered their estates for the sole purpose of disposing of them in the Incumbered Estates Court, but he could not find that any case of that kind had been brought before the Commission.

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One witness, Mr. Smith, a barrister, had stated that such a thing might be done, but was it, he would ask, likely, that any Irish gentleman would mortgage his estate simply for the pleasure of selling it in the Incumbered Estates Court? He (Mr. Whiteside) objected also to the legislative power which the hon. and learned Gentleman proposed to give the Lord Chancellor in Ireland, as fraught with the most serious evils. Whatever the Lord Chancellor, the Solicitor General, and other authorities of the law in England thought proper to propound for this part of the United Kingdom, he would be willing to adopt for Ireland; but he protested against subjecting Ireland to an experiment of this nature, for, as the Master of the Rolls had justly said, there was no reason now for different laws for the two countries. He was glad the measure of the hon. and learned Gentleman recognised the principle of a Court of Appeal, but be thought the Chancellor's decision might be re-heard. He should like to see that Court of Appeal in the Court of Chancery itself, and for this purpose he should constitute ex-Chancellor Blackburne, whose present retiring pension of £4,000 a year should go in part payment of a salary of £5,000 a year, and the Judge of the Prerogative Court, with the same amount of salary as a Court of Appeal. Thus, the cost to the country would be very small, at the same time that the benefits would be great. He was pleased to find that the measure had been introduced so early in the Session. What was good in it ho hoped would be accepted; but he warned the House how they threw the whole of the conveyancing business of the kingdom into the Court of Chancery, and empowered it to regulate the private affairs of the subject.
MR. CAIRNSsaid, be thought that there had been few questions brought before the House more important than the present one. It was important, not only because it proposed amendments in the Court of Chancery in Ireland analogous to these which had taken place in England, but because it also proposed to deal with the transfer of real property. He did not know if any Member of the House, being largely interested in landed property, had taken the trouble to consider how much its value was deteriorated by the expenses incident to its transfer. Some had suggested that there was no reason why land should not be transferred as simply as stock, as a saving would thereby be made
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of about 10 per cent. However that might be, he (Mr. Cairns) thought the measure proposed a wise experiment, and would not only benefit Ireland, but tend to the improvement of the law as it regarded real property in this country. He had been asked by persons in Ireland why, if a man had incumbered his estate he could, by placing it in the Incumbered Estates Court, have the benefit of a sale by the Court with a Parliamentary title, while, if he bad not incumbered it, he must go to the expense of having it valued and paying the auctioneer, and putting it up to sale himself, and thus lose, it might be, from £100 to £1,000? He never had been able to answer that question. The Commissioners had considered it, and had seen no reason why the principle which had been adopted with regard to incumbered estates should not be extended to unincumbered ones. The hon. and learned Member for Enniskillen (Mr. Whiteside) had said that the Commission had gone beyond its authority in inquiring into the practice of the Court of Chancery, but the very words of the Commission itself contradicted that assertion. The Commission had said, that unless the Court of Chancery was reformed, it would not recommend the transfer of the jurisdiction of the Incumbered Estates Court to the Court of Chancery; but that, if it were reformed, they would recommend its transfer with extended jurisdiction; and it was therefore necessary to state the reformation which they considered necessary for that purpose. The hon. and learned Gentleman had also said that they were going to transfer the conveyancing of the whole of the landed property in Ireland to the Court of Chancery. But no uuincumbered estate could be brought into Court except by the will of the owner, who would not adopt that mode of selling his estates, unless he felt it to be to his interest to do so. The hon. and learned Member had further stated that inquiries ought also to have been made as to the number of deeds in the Registry Office; but such an inquiry would have been useless, for the number of deeds upon a sale that were registered did not exceed, he believed, a tithe of the whole number of registered deeds. But if the number were even one-half at the present time, that was one of the evils which was sought to be remedied; and he believed that where 4,000 were registered now, if the proposed alterations were carried out, for the future there would

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be only one-tenth of the number. It was no new principle for the State to take upon itself the management of the transfer of property. It already did it with regard to incumbered estates, and in every foreign country where the civil law prevailed, transfers of property were regulated by judicial proceedings. In the next place the hon. and learned Member said that the Master of the Rolls in Ireland had expressed his opinion that it was not wise nor judicious to introduce such an experiment into the law of Ireland. For the opinion of the Master of Rolls in Ireland no one had a more sincere respect than himself (Mr. Cairns). He had looked at his evidence, and found that he (the Master of the Rolls) said that, according to the 4th section of a particular Bill then before Parliament, the security of every landowner would depend upon the legal knowledge of the barrister, or the integrity of the solicitor who prepared the abstract of title. The Bill, a section of which was so referred to, was one entitled "A Bill for Securing the Titles of Purchasers of Estates sold under the Court of Chancery in Ireland," which was introduced into that House during the last Session of Parliament by his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Whiteside). The opinion of the Master of the Rolls was, therefore, as much opposed to the Bill of his hon. and learned Friend as to the Report of the Commissioners, and had therefore, he thought, better not be quoted. His hon. and learned Friend said we ought not to legislate for Ireland other than we should be prepared to legislate for England, and in that he entirely concurred with his hon. and learned Friend. But when his hon. and learned Friend said there ought to be no exceptional legislation for Ireland, and condemned this measure on that ground, he went a little too far, for his hon. and learned Friend had himself, during the present Session, short as it was, brought in a Bill for securing the titles to purchasers of estates sold under the Court of Chancery in Ireland, knowing well that no such Bill would be brought in for England, or was needed, and therefore it was so far exceptional, and must be so. He believed this experiment of the Solicitor General for Ireland would succeed, and he hoped to see it applied to England. Upon the question of fees he owned he differed from the Government in the plan which his hon. and learned Friend had sketched. It was proposed to levy a poundage, not exceed-
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ing 2 per cent, in order to pay the expenditure of the establishment. Great injustice would be done in many cases if this scheme were adhered to. As for instance, where a trustee had erroneously or wrongfully dealt with an estate, was the owner of the estate to be mulcted by a poundage of 2 per cent out of his own property? There were two principles as to fees upon which they might proceed—either to make the unsuccessful party pay, or to make the State pay. One-half of the cases which came before the Court of Chancery did not end in a sale. For instance, cases regarding the construction of wills, and many other cases to which it would be most unjust to apply the provisions of this measure. He hoped that the House would be slow to adopt any such system, and that when they went into Committee on the Bill his hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General for Ireland would submit some more satisfactory scheme for providing for the expenses. As to Masters in Chancery, he must say he thought it desirable entirely to abolish the office of Masters in Ireland, as they had been abolished in England; and, unless they had been abolished in the latter country, the present law would never have worked. The same rule, according to his hon. and learned Friend's own showing, ought to be applied to Ireland. But, said his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ennis-killen, the arrears in the Incumbered Estates Court under the present system are frightful, and the Court of Chancery, if they are sent there, will be unable to get through them. Now, this question had been fully considered by the Commission, and Dr. Longfield and Mr. Brewster had given their opinions that two Vice Chancellors and the Master of the Rolls, with their staff, would he quite competent to clear away all the arrears of the Incumbered Estates Court. Before sitting down, he would beg to point out a mistake which had been committed by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Ennis-killen as to the English Master of the Rolls not having given more than one day's attendance upon the Commission. On the contrary, he asserted that Sir John Romilly had given the whole subject his best attention, and carefully weighed every sentence in the Report, devoting many laborious hours of his vacation to the work of the Commission.
MR. MALINSsaid, he regretted that he could not share the agreeable antici-

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pations of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland with respect to the probable effects of his measure. He (Mr. Malins) had had a great deal to do with titles, and was certainly struck with the boldness of the proposition then before the House—that the Court of Chancery should become a vast conveyancing machine for all Ireland and for England also; for he agreed, that if adopted in one part of the kingdom, it must be extended to the other. He was anxious to simplify titles, but could not believe that that desirable object was to be attained by converting, as this Bill would not fail to do, the Court of Chancery, both in this country and in Ireland, into one vast conveyancing office. The Bill, so far as it related to this subject, he considered was unnecessary, and he had not the least doubt that it would prove impracticable and end in complete disappointment. It was a mistake to suppose that it was identical in principle with the Bills which the hon. and learned Member for Enniskillen (Mr. Whiteside) laid upon the table last Session; for these measures were designed to apply exclusively to in-cumbered estates, the management of which it was their object to transfer from the Incumbered Estates Court to the Court of Chancery. It was not to be denied that in the former Court there were abuses which urgently demanded reform. Its proceedings were circuitous and dilatory to a degree unknown to Chancery, and he was informed that it was no uncommon thing for several months to elapse before the simplest order relating to purchase money was carried into effect. Say what they might, this contrasted very unfavourably with modern Chancery practice in England, where it was well known that orders were now expeditiously enforced, and where an application to the chief clerks of the Judges for an appointment would be sure to be acted on in a few days. Now, selling estates was only a small part of the business of the Court of Chancery—though, of course, where there was an administration trust, and the Court had to distribute the produce of real; estate, it was of course necessary to sell it; and so also under the improved practice introduced by the Acts of 1852, it was now, ! with great advantage to the public, enabled to sell an estate at the suit of mortgage. In this respect much benefit had resulted from the alteration of the practice in 1852. The difficulties of titles, of which so much
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had been heard, was greatly exaggerated. Anybody would imagine, to hear all that was said upon the subject, that there never was a clear title to land in England, whereas in the great majority of cases, either under a decree of the Court, or a sale by private contract, the sale could be completed in a few months. It had been suggested that the title of land should be as simple as the title to stock, hut hon. Gentlemen did not reflect that the peculiarity in connection with stock was, that the Bank of England were not bound to take notice of trusts. Land, however, was very different, and unless wives, children, younger brothers, and so on, upon whom land might have been settled, were to be defrauded in all directions, the transfer could not be made so easy as the transfer of stock. But, suppose there were a sale, the proceeds had to be retained until all questions in dispute had been settled, and it was not that which was now proposed to be remedied. Of a list of 501 causes set down for hearing in the Court of Chancery in England for the sittings commencing next Thursday, there was hardly a cause in any of the four Chancery Courts, except, perhaps, that of Vice Chancellor Wood, where the pressure of business had been extreme, that had been in the list more than two or throe months. He had heard with surprise, that it was the intention of the Government to clog the two Vice Chancellors who are to be appointed under this Bill with the arrears of business of the Incumbered Estates Court. The hon. and learned Member for Belfast (Mr. Cairns) appeared to suppose that the hon. and learned Member for Enniskillen by his Bill proposed to retain the Masters in the Irish Court, but he (Mr. Malins) did not so understand it. With regard to the abolition of the Masters of the English Court of Chancery, without meaning anything disrespectful towards the individuals, he considered that by their abolition the Court of Chancery in England had been saved, the system having been worn out. This was certainly a very essential part of the hon. and learned Gentleman's Bill, but while he suggested the abolition of their offices, he at the same time proposed, although it appeared the present Masters were men of ability and in the prime of life, that instead of being promoted to be Vice Chancellors, for which it is stated they are fully competent, they should be pensioned off on full pay. He did not pretend to give an opinion as to their competency or incompetency to under-

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take and satisfactorily perform the duties of Vice Chancellors, but the general opinion was in their favour, and if they were competent to discharge the duties, he considered it was a sound principle to act on, that of promoting men in the prime of life to perform certain duties, rather than pension them off and engage and pay others to discharge these duties. Allusion had been made to the abolition of the Six Clerks of the English Court of Chancery, but he thought that what the Legislature did in respect to that was anything but a creditable proceeding. By that proceeding the Six Clerks retired with pensions of from £6,000 to £7,000 each per annum, with a reversionary pension to their widows, whilst the Vice Chancellors, who really did the business of the Court of Chancery, had only £5,000 a year each. By a recent alteration relative to the Masters, the country was called on to pay £30,000 per annum, whilst other persons had been appointed to discharge duties which they were fully competent to perform. It therefore made it imperative on hon. Members to watch well the proceedings of the Government, and prevent such things from being repeated. Whatever they did with reference to these Courts, he begged to remind the House that the officers of the Incumbered Estates Court accepted office with the distinct understanding that they would not be paid compensation. He was one of these who was at all times willing to pay every man liberally, who proved himself capable of satisfactorily discharging his duties, and was averse to casting him off unprovided for, therefore he would say, that in establishing new Courts in Ireland —and he concurred in the appointment of two Vice Chancellors for Ireland—retain all the officers of the Courts whom they found capable of performing their duties, and at the same time reasonably compensate these whom they thought it prudent to dispense with; above all things avoid pensioning off men in the prime of life upon their full salaries, for the time had arrived when it was the duty of that House to take care that better bargains than that should be made with parties whose offices were to be abolished. He would give this Bill his best attention, and when the proper time arrived would, in concurrence with his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Enniskillen, enter fully into its details. He urged the Government, in the event of their creating two Vice Chancellors, to avoid clogging them with arrears of busi-
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ness. If they established new Courts, let them begin clear; but if they clogged them with the arrears of the Incumbered Estates Court, they would have a repetition of these evils that had already arisen in the Irish Court of Chancery; and instead of being a blessing to Ireland, they would inflict the greatest amount of injustice and injury to that country in attempting that which was impracticable.
MR. GEORGEsaid, he felt bound to defend the Master of the Rolls in Ireland with reference to the evidence given by that learned Gentleman on the necessity of an Incumbered Estates Bill for that country, which he considered called for by the exceptionable state of the country, but which should, as soon as possible, within a limited period, be abolished. He objected to the extraordinary powers proposed to be given by this Bill to the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, to dispense with the Masters of these Courts, and allow them in the prime of life to retire on their full salaries, whilst the clerks and examiners were left at the mercy of the Treasury. He considered the system of allowing men, who were both young and capable of discharging the duties of their office, to be compensated for the remainder of their lives for doing nothing, had gone too far both in England and Ireland, and that it was high time a stop should be put to it. At the present time numbers of gentlemen, in the full vigour of life, and possessing abilities to discharge their duties, wore to be seen walking the streets of Dublin with nothing to do, and the country saddled with their retiring allowances, and also these of the new appointments. The In-cumbered Estates Court was one suitable to an extraordinary state of things and time, and it was announced at the period of its creation that the staff appointments would only be temporary, but it appeared they were looked upon, like these of the Court of Chancery, as freeholds for life, or during good behaviour. He thought it a monstrous system of legislation that allowed any Government or judicial authority to say to an official, without good cause being first shown to the contrary, "Go about your business—your services are not suited to our purposes, but the country shall still pay you your salary;" and to others, not competent, "We appoint you to a new office, and the country must pay you." He trusted that when the Bill came before the House these clauses would be carefully examined, and no such

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wrong as that complained of be permitted cither to the present holders of offices or the country. It was the duty of those who had to look after the finances of the country to see that the expenses of the establishments of the country be not doubled in this manner, but that men capable and willing to continue in the discharge of their duties should be allowed to do so.
MR. V. SCULLYsaid, that the opinions of the Master of the Rolls in Ireland upon the subject of the easy sale and transfer of land were, in point of liberality, in advance of the recommendation of the Royal Commissioners, and that that learned Judge thought that there ought to be no more difficulty about the sale of an estate, whether incumbered or unincumbered, than about the sale of Government stock. The Commissioners had, however, fallen in with the view of a distinguished member of the Commission, the Right Hon. Francis Blackburne; for it was well known that that right hon. and learned gentleman had, when Lord Chancellor of Ireland, prepared a Bill to transfer the business of the Incumbered Estates Court to the Court of Chancery, and he (Mr. Scully) was not sure that the Bill that night introduced by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Ennis (Mr. J. D. Fitz-Gerald) was not the identical one prepared by Lord Chancellor Blackburne. That hon. and learned Gentleman had insisted on the necessity of identity of legislation for the two countries; but no man in that House had ever gone so far as he (Mr. Scully) had gone in insisting on that point, for he recollected that he had, on one occasion, said that he preferred that Ireland should share in bad legislation with England rather than have the exclusiveness of good legislation—and for this reason: he knew that if Ireland was to-day in the enjoyment of good laws she had no security that they would not be repealed to-morrow. And that if, on the other hand, she suffered under bad legislation in common with England, there was every security that it would be very soon remedied. It was now well known that the Incumbered Estates Court had been established on the plan laid down by Lord St. Leonards, although such had not been the case when it was first introduced into the House, and when it was so fiercely assailed by Vice Chancellor Stuart and the other friends and adherents of his Lordship. The proposition before them was, he thought, a
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step in advance of the original measure, as it would give to the proprietor of an incumbered estate the same advantages which the proprietor of an incumbered property at present enjoyed. He did not concur in that part of the Bill which allowed the Jurisdiction with regard to land to be mixed up with the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery. He had always advocated a separate tribunal for dealing with land, and he did not see why such a tribunal could not be made a branch of the Court of Chancery under this Bill. The benefits, however, which would be conferred by the Bill were much superior to any injury that would be occasioned by the arrangement to which he objected, and he therefore would cordially give his assent to the introduction of the measure.
Leave given. Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. SOLICITOR GENERAL for Ireland, Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL for Ireland, and Mr. HORSMAN.
Bill read 1°.

DRAFTS ON BANKERS.
MR. PELLATT MR. PELLATT moved for leave to bring in a Bill relating to drafts on bankers. He stated that recent legal proceedings bad rendered the legality of crossing cheques extremely doubtful, and the object of the Bill he proposed to introduce was to render it imperative upon the banker not to pay a cheque when it was crossed, notwithstanding it was payable to bearer. Without some system of that sort a vast amount of inconvenience would result both to bankers and merchants, and a Bill of this kind settling the question would be felt as a great boon by all classes.
MR. WILSONsaid, he should not oppose the introduction of the Bill, but wished it to be quite understood that the Government were in no way committed to the principle which the hon. Member laid down. A banker's cheque was a document which, by a special Act of Parliament, was exempted from the stamp duty on special grounds—these grounds being, that it should be payable to order, and should he drawn within a certain distance of the place where it was payable. Now, any other document ordering the payment of money must necessarily be a stamped instrument. The object of the hon. Member appeared to be, to attempt, by some contrivance, to convert a cheque on a banker payable to bearer, and, therefore, exempt from a stamp, into a document payable to order, and thus to have the

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security of the endorsement. These things were inconsistent with each other, He should, however, be very glad to see the Bill of the hon. Gentleman. He quite admitted the importance of the subject, and if any plan could be suggested for giving security to bankers, without infringing upon the law, the Government would be very glad to adopt it.
Leave given.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. PELLATT, Mr. WILKINSON, and Mr. HADFIELD.
The House adjourned at a quarter before Eleven o'clock.

COUNTY COURTS.
LORD BROUGHAM presented a petition from the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the borough of Sheffield in council assembled, complaining of what were improperly called fees, but which he preferred designating taxes, imposed upon the suitors in the County Courts, and which the petitioners alleged greatly interfered with the administration of justice in these courts; and they prayed the aid of their Lordships for the revision and reduction of these taxes in order that justice might be fairly, equally, and cheaply administered. He should at an early day present to their Lordships a Bill for the purpose of effecting what he believed would be great improvements in the practice of these courts. There attached to the County Courts both a general and a special jurisdiction. In the case of the general jurisdiction there was a right of appeal and thus uniformity of practice was secured; but with regard to the special jurisdiction, which had reference to cases of insolvency, there was no right of appeal. It was necessary—absolutely necessary—to keep the law the same in all the sixty courts, that there should be a right of appeal; but in insolvency there was no appeal whatever; and the consequence was that in that difficult and important branch of their jurisdiction different principles wore pursued in all these different courts. It was absolutely necessary, in order to maintain a uniformity in the administration of the law in these courts, that a right of appeal should be given in the case of insolvency, as well as in matters coming under the general jurisdiction of the courts.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that the importance of the subject to which the noble and learned Lord had referred had already received, and would continue to receive, the attention of Her Majesty's Government. A Bill had already been prepared which would, to a considerable extent, effect the object aimed at by the noble and learned Lord in respect to a re-
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duction of fees now received by the County Courts; but he could not at this moment bring his memory to bear as to whether the Bill would give a right of appeal in these cases of insolvency which were disposed of by the County Courts; but he begged to assure his noble and learned Friend that he would bear the matter in mind.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, that without such right of appeal being given the Bill would be of very little use.

HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT—THE CLOCK AND BELLS.
THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDE THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDE moved for Papers and Correspondence relating to the huge piece of machinery shortly intended to be placed in the clock tower of the new Houses of Parliament. The affair was, he said, the most amusing clock case he had met with from the days of Tristram Shandy down to these of Sam Slick. It might appear to be a trivial matter, but it disclosed a system of blundering, conflicting authorities, and contradictory orders that might well astonish their Lordships, and that ought not to be passed over entirely without remark. In the year 1844 somebody appeared to have thought that the clock tower was in a sufficiently forward state to justify steps being taken for the construction of a clock for it. Accordingly, Sir Charles Barry was directed to put himself in communication with Mr. Vulliamy; and eventually Mr. Vulliamy was requested to make a set of drawings on the understanding that he was to receive 200 guineas for them; but that if he should be employed to execute the work, he was only to have half that sum. The drawings were completed in the course of a year and a half or two years; but no progress having been made in the tower by 1848, Mr. Vulliamy took steps to obtain his money. The Commissioners of Woods and Forests would only pay him 100 guineas; but in the following year Mr. Vulliamy represented to the Commissioners that as he was seventy years of age it would be unreasonable to make him wait any longer; he, therefore, requested that the other 100 guineas might be paid him, with the understanding that if after all he made the clock, 100 guineas should be deducted from the price of it. The Commissioners of Woods and Forests referred the matter to the Committee charged with the superintendence of the works, who reported that they could see no pros-

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pect of fixing a time by which the tower would be completed. Under these circumstances the money was paid to Mr. Vulliamy. In 1850 the clock was actually ordered. It would hardly be believed, but, although the Commissioners of Works had had the advice of the architect, the Astronomer Royal, and a gentleman of very great ability in such matters, Mr. E. B. Denison, the contract was so made that the clock, if it had been completed according to the specifications, could not have been put into the tower. At this juncture the contractor died; whereupon the Commissioners informed the gentleman who succeeded him in his business, that they had taken the opinion of the law officers of the Crown, and that as they found the contract was no longer binding, they intended to repudiate the existing arrangement. The gentleman who had taken the contractor's business, however, resisted, and the Commissioners were obliged to give way, at the expense of some humiliation to themselves. With respect to the bells, it seemed that the matter had been placed in the hands of Professor Airy, who had declined to act with the Chief Commissioner, because, in point of fact, the right hon. Gentleman knew nothing about bell founding. The right hon. Gentleman had attempted to relieve Professor Airy from any further trouble; but the Professor declined to give up the responsibility which had been entrusted to him. The bell-founder was, in fact, bound by his contract to furnish a bell to the satisfaction of the Astronomer Royal; and when he did that the Government were, in their turn, bound to pay him the sum agreed to.
EARL GRANVILLEsaid, he had no objection whatever to furnish the papers moved for by the noble Marquess; though he did not think they would be found of that amusing character described by the noble Lord. Not having himself perused them, he was not able to say anything with respect to the accuracy of the noble Lord's narrative. It certainly appeared from that statement to have been a transaction not very creditable to successive Governments; but it did so far redound to the credit of the right hon. Gentleman who at present held the office of Chief Commissioner of Works, that he had been able to bring the affair to a conclusion. The clock was finished, and would be erected as soon as the room was ready to receive it; and he hoped that they would be able to hear its chimes before the end
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of the year, if not before the end of the Session.
House adjourned till To-morrow.