Sitting of 7 December 1857

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBER SWORN.—For Tavistock, Arthur John Edward Russell, Esq.
NEW WRIT.—For Scarborough, v. the Earl of Mulgrave, Manor of Hempholme.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1° Medical Charities (Ireland). 2° Bank Issues Indemnity.

THE QUEEN'S SPEECH—ANSWER TO THE ADDRESS.
THE COMPTROLLER OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Viscount CASTLEROSSE)reported Her Majesty's Answer to the Address, as follows:—
"I have received with much satisfaction your loyal and dutiful Address.
"It is My earnest desire at all times to co-operate with you in measures which tend to improve and strengthen the Institutions of the Country, and to promote the security, welfare, and prosperity of My People in every part of My Dominions."

HER MAJESTY'S SHIP "JUNO."

  QUESTION.
  MR. WARRENsaid, he wished to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to a recent naval court-martial held on an officer of Her Majesty's ship Juno, and whether any steps are contemplated by the Government in respect thereto?
  SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, he need hardly assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that the attention of the Admiralty had been called to the court-martial in question, and that they had observed with the greatest pain that an officer of the character and services of Captain Fremantle, himself the son of one of our most distinguished officers, should have placed himself in a position in which he had exposed himself to the severe and merited censure of the Board of Admiralty. At the same time it was only fair that certain circumstances should be known which had weighed with the Board of Admiralty, and which would no doubt weigh with the House of Commons in forming its opinion. When Captain Fremantle, being appointed to take charge of the Australian station, had arrived at his post, he received a letter from the Admiral in command of the Indian station complaining of the relaxation of discipline which had taken place on that station. It was certainly true that Her Majesty's ships were in some parts of the world so scattered about that it was sometimes impossible to hold court-martials, and naval discipline was therefore with some difficulty upheld under these circumstances. Where it was possible the Admiralty sent out officers of different ranks, so that court-martials might be held, but this was not always practicable. Captain Fremantle had reason to take a stricter view of discipline in consequence of the Admiral's letter. He was not himself acquainted with Captain Fremantle, but he was assured by hon. Members who were friends of his that it was impossible he could have been actuated by any other motive than the desire to act in the strict performance of his duty. He believed that the lieutenant brought to court-martial admitted that Captain Fremantle had been a greater sufferer than himself from what had happened. He had had to carry on almost all the executive duties of the ship, and under these exertions, combined with the effects of the climate, his health had completely
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  broken down. The accounts of the court-martial in the newspapers were substantially correct, and hon. Members must have observed that when he appeared before the Court Captain Fremantle was quite unable to perform the duty of a public prosecutor, which it was incumbent upon him to discharge. He was not in a state either of bodily or mental health to enable him to state the case in such a way as to give an account either of his own conduct or that of the officer on his trial. He (Sir C. Wood) did not impugn the verdict of the court-martial, which he thought perfectly-just and right according to the evidence, and he was quite of opinion that the lieutenant was entitled to his acquittal. But it made some difference in their view of Captain Fremantle's conduct and the course which the Admiralty had pursued when they remembered that he was an officer of very high and unblemished character, and of thirty-three years' service. It would be unjust if these circumstances did not carry some weight. At the same time, if the Juno had been remaining in commission, the Board of Admiralty would have felt it to be their duty to supersede Captain Fremantle. As she was, however, under orders to be immediately paid off, and as she had come home with no officer but the captain to conduct the duty, it would have been inconvenient to have removed him from the ship. It was, therefore, not from any regard or feeling towards Captain Fremantle, but simply for the convenience of the public service, that he was not at. once superseded. What the Board felt it to be their duty to do was to write to the Commander in Chief at Portsmouth, desiring him to communicate to Captain Fremantle their opinion that, considering all the circumstances, he had been unjust in the course which he had pursued towards those officers; that if there had been grounds for any charge they ought to have been examined into on the spot, and that he ought not to have subjected them to such a lengthened period of arrest. Captain Fremantle would have been superseded if the Juno had remained longer in commission, but it was thought more convenient to pay her off. A severe censure had been passed. The letter remained on record at the Admiralty and at the Commander in Chief's office at Portsmouth—a warning to all officers who might be placed in a similar position. He thought that, taking into consideration all the circum-

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  stances, and with a proper regard to justice, the House would be satisfied if the Admiralty took no further steps in the matter.

GUANO—QUESTION.
MR. CAIRDsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any obstruction on the part of the British Commandant at Aden has been offered to the employment by the Guano Expedition to the Kooria Mooria Islands of Arabs, and other labourers not natives of India, and whether Government has taken steps to remove that obstruction?
MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, that when the subject was last before the House he stated that Her Majesty's Government had determined to afford a fair trial to the attempt to obtain a supply of guano from the Kooria Mooria Islands. A ship of war had been sent to protect the trade, and from the accounts in the papers there seemed reasonable grounds for believing that a considerable supply of guano had, in consequence, been obtained. With regard to the question of the hon. Gentleman, he learned from the same source that labourers had been conveyed from various ports on the coast of Arabia to the islands; but that as regarded Aden, from which the principal supply was expected, it did appear that the Government of Bombay thought there were objections, partly of a legal nature, to allowing any labourers to be taken from that place, and the Commandant at Aden had forbidden their employment. Her Majesty's Government had called the attention of the Indian Government to the obstruction, and expressed a hope that if there were no valid reason for it it would be removed. The matter was under the consideration of the Board of Directors, and he was not able to state at the present moment the decision at which they had arrived.

REFORMATORY SCHOOLS IN IRELAND.

  QUESTION.
  MR. BAGWELLsaid, he would beg to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland if it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce a Bill for Reformatory Schools in Ireland this Session?
  MR. HENRY HERBERTsaid that the subject was beset with difficulties, and the right hon. Gentleman whom he succeeded in office had already introduced a measure which did not sufficiently avoid these diffi-
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  culties. He did, however, intend to offer a Bill to the House, which he trusted might be more successful.

BRITISH SUBJECTS IMPRISONED AT NAPLES—QUESTION.
MR. MONCKTON MILNES: The noble Lord gave us to understand that he was in expectation of receiving additional information respecting the condition and treatment of the two British engineers who are detained in prison by the Neapolitan Government; I beg to ask him whether he has received that information, and if he has, whether he will communicate it to the House?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Sir, the question of my hon. Friend has only anticipated an intention which I had to ask permission of the House to make a statement somewhat modifying that which I made on Friday. On Saturday morning we received additional despatches, and another despatch was received this morning. I am sorry to say, Sir, the account which those despatches give does not tally completely with the account received before from the Rev. Mr. Pugh. The Rev. Mr. Pugh stated that the men made no complaint of their treatment, that they were in good health, and in a tolerably spacious apartment. On Saturday morning we received despatches from the Acting Consul, giving an account of an interview which he and the father of one of them had had with the engineers. They seem to have entered into much more detail with them as to their treatment since the commencement of their confinement, then they had done with the rev. gentleman. They did not know the chaplain. They did not know who he was, or from whom or why he came. Hon. Members will easily understand why they did not like to expatiate very much on their condition to a stranger; but to the Acting Consul whom they knew and the father of one of them they were more communicative. That which they complained of is, I am afraid, not at all exceptional. Of course, it is well known that Neapolitan prisons are really a disgrace to a civilized country, and that the treatment to which prisoners are subjected is more fitting a barbarous age than the present time. However, the engineers have not been subjected to anything like torture except so far as the suffering from being handcuffed and strapped, when no such security was necessary, may be somewhat of that description. They had seen confined at first and for three months

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in a dark, damp, gloomy cell, with attendant circumstances which made it particularly offensive and injurious to health. Their health had suffered, and it is quite true, though it was not stated to the chaplain, that one of them, in a fit of despondency, occasioned by the treatment they were undergoing and the prospects before them, did attempt his life. There was also reason to think that an attempt was made by the Procuratore del Re to falsify the evidence of a witness who had been examined on interrogatories. It was corrected, and the statement was afterwards made such as the witness deposed. With regard to their present situation, the account of the Acting Consul and the father tallies very much with the report which Mr. Pugh had made—namely, that they were in an apartment sufficiently airy, and that there was nothing in their present treatment which could be materially complained of. I should state, also, that with regard to their former treatment they complained excessively of very bad food—bread so black and unwholesome that they could not eat it, and soup nauseous and unfit to take. We are still expecting an answer from Signor Caraffa to the representations which have been made to him, and until that is received there is nothing further to state.
LORD JOHN RUSSELL: Will my noble Friend have any objection to lay on the table the despatch or letter of the Acting Consul?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Perhaps my noble Friend will allow me to look over it again. I do not know whether any part is of a personal character. I presume there will be no objection to produce it.
MR. CONINGHAM: I wish to ask whether any steps are likely to be taken with respect to these men, in order to set matters right. The lives and liberties of Englishmen are not to be trifled with in this manner.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: The present state of the matter is this:—They are in prison on a charge of having violated Neapolitan law, and all that we have a right to demand is a speedy, fair, open, public trial, with the best legal assistance that can be given them for their defence.

MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN.

  SIR HENRY HAVELOCK.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTONacquainted the House that he had a message from Her Majesty to this House, signed by Her Majesty.
  Message from Her Majesty brought up.
  "VICTORIA R.
  "Her Majesty being desirous of conferring a signal mark of Her favour and approbation on Major General Sir Henry Havelock, Baronet, K.C.B., for the eminent and distinguished services rendered by him in command of a body of British and Native Troops in India, and particularly in the gallant and successful operations undertaken for the relief of the Garrison of Luck now, recommends it to the House of Commons to enable Her Majesty to make provision for securing to Sir Henry Havelock a pension of One Thousand Pounds per annum, for the term of his natural life.
  "V. R."
  Committee thereupon To-morrow.

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

BANK ISSUES INDEMNITY BILL.

  SECOND READING.
  On Motion that the Bill be now read 2°
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, there were two points to which, as they had escaped notice in the previous debates, he wished to call the attention of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer; a course which, the House would see, was perfectly consistent with the beneficial understanding arrived at on Friday night as to the general discussion of the measure. One of them was a question which might be said to relate to the wording of the Bill; but it was one which it would be most convenient his right hon. Friend (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) should have the opportunity of considering between this time and going into Committee, rather than postpone its consideration until the House was actually in Committee. It respected the manner in which the first clause of the Bill had been drawn. That first clause was intended to confirm all the issues of Bank of England notes made by the Governor and Company of the Bank, and it went on to provide that all acts done in relation to such issues, and to the acquiring and taking securities in the issue department, should be confirmed and made valid. He spoke subject to correction, of course, if it could be shown that there was a stream of authority

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  the other way; but there appeared something anomalous, and which under given circumstances might prove inconvenient, in a direct indemnity from this House to the Governor and Company of the Bank, so framed as to include acts in regard to which the House knew nothing, the Governor and Company of the Bank not being a public body in the sense of being responsible to this House. The objection, which he took, seemed to be founded on principle, and if it were founded on principle, the mode of carrying it out was one that might be adopted without the slightest inconvenience. He would suggest that they should interpose a public body, responsible to the House between Parliament and those neccessarily undefined Acts—undefined, so far as the Bill was concerned; and the object sought would be gained, if, instead of indemnifying the Bank in regard to all those acts of which the House had no evidence before it, Parliament were to provide that the Bank should be indemnified in regard to all acts done by them in this matter which should have received the certified approval of the Commissioners of the Treasury. The Commissioners of the Treasury were a public body, were responsible to Parliament, and to give an indemnity for that which they should approve would, he thought, he both regular and convenient. The other point he wished to mention was one to which he was afraid it was unfashionable to refer, for in these days the representatives of a great commercial people seemed to stoop, when they asked a question relating to money. This, however, was one of that kind, and he certainly did not wonder that it had escaped the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the discussion on Friday night, considering the many other grave and important questions then before the House. But the question he wished to put, and which his right hon. Friend would probably be kind enough to answer, either now, or to-morrow, or on a future stage of the Bill, as might be most convenient to himself, related to the profits of the issues which had been made. The question divided itself into three parts. The first was, whether, in principle, it was understood that the profits of those issues would go, not to the Bank of England, but to the Government. In his opinion, those issues were, strictly speaking, public money, resting upon the security of the public faith. And he confessed he was even sorry that the form had been observed of
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  transferring securities against these monies in the issue department of the Bank, because it rather tended to oh scure the truth of the case, which was, that these were monies issued just as much as Exchequer bills themselves, upon the faith of Parliament. The first question then was, were the profits of those issues the profits of the public? The next question was, how these profits were to be computed, because there had been a great deal of discussion upon that subject, and he was anxious to know, on principle, though the amount was not large, whether the public were to receive the profits of issue or of discount. The profits of issue were generally computed by the Bank of England at about 1 per cent., whilst the profits of discount stood at 10 per cent. It was a matter of some interest, therefore, to know which of those rates it was whereof the public were to have the benefit. The only remaining portion of his inquiries was this. In his speech the other night he understood his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that strictly speaking the amount of the issue made was the amount of issue which had gone forth to the public. He (Mr. Gladstone) confessed that he was rather disposed, taking that as a verbal proposition, to question its terms. It appeared to him, on the contrary, that 3trictly speaking the amount of the issues was the amount which proceeded from the issue department; and when the question of profits came to be settled, he should wish to know whether those profits would be calculated on the amount of the issues made from the issue department, or only on that part of the issues which had gone forth into circulation amongst the public over and above the whole of the legal issue. He was afraid that a measure of this kind was, as had been said of strife, "like the letting out of water," and that none of them could tell to what extent the practice might go; at any rate, it was their duty, as representatives of the people, to have a clear understanding with regard to these profits.
  SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, he was aware that some understanding had been come to at the conclusion of the debate on Friday night, and although he had no share in it, yet knowing the very little good to be derived from a lengthened currency debate, he, for his part, had no wish to depart from the arrangement then made. Leaving the general question of the currency law, he was anxious to make an observation or two, which were sug-

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  gested by the Bill which the House was now called upon to read a second time. They were about to pass a Bill of Indemnity upon what he thought was very slender evidence. That evidence was, in fact, what was, certainly, a very clear and lucid statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and certain correspondence between the Government and the Bank of England. What were they called upon to do by the Bill? He did not understand that either the noble Lord at the head of the Government or the Chancellor of the Exchequer had committed any offence. All he gathered was, that they had written a letter requesting the Governor and Company of the Bank of England to violate an Act of Parliament and commit a misdemeanor, and for which they were entitled to indemnity. Now, he did not question for one moment that they were entitled to an indemnity; but what he wished to ask the Government was, whether they were in possession of information to show that there had been any unfair action upon the currency of this country? He did not ask this question without very good reason. There was evidence upon the table of the House, given by a gentleman than whom no one was more competent to give it—he meant Mr. Chapman—to the effect that it was very possible that an improper action might be produced upon the currency by a speculator, and at page 471 of that gentleman's evidence he mentioned an instance where a capitalist was described as selling Consols to the extent of one or two millions sterling for bank-notes, and that at a moment when the circulation was low—a circumstance which it was clear might well aggravate the pressure on the Bank of England. What he wanted to know, then, was whether anything of this kind had come to the knowledge of the Government as having recently occurred, and whether there had been fair play on the Bank throughout the whole of the recent panic? He put this question with the more determination, because it did happen that in one of the ablest journals of the day there appeared, on the 17th of November, a letter, written by one of those anonymous correspondents who had so much influenced the Government, and the real value of whose opinions he should be better able to measure if they attached their names to them, in which it was distinctly averred that certain provincial joint-stock banks, acting in concert with some great bill discounters in London, had produced such an action on the currency.
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  It was most desirable that the House should be informed what that action had really been during the months of October and November, and he believed the evidence was to be easily procured. He held that before sanctioning a Bill of Indemnity, it was the duty of this House through a Committee to ascertain the facts of the case, in order that Parliament might thereby be enabled to exercise a full and fair judgment upon the subject. It was impossible to exaggerate the importance of the matter, if there were any foundation for the statements that had been made. He had no wish to press for a Committee upon the currency question generally; but he did think that if through the medium of a half-dozen Members of the House they could obtain a record of the facts, such a measure would be exceedingly advisable. Already they had upon the table the evidence of able men to show the possibility of such occurrences as he had referred to taking place. He asked the House, therefore, to pause before they passed a Bill of Indemnity without inquiring how this pressure had been induced on the Bank of England. Had that institution received fair play? Had there been any attempt made to place it in such a position that the Government, seeing what had happened, had no other alternative than to pursue the course they had adopted, and recommend a violation of the law? Sufficient was known to justify him in saying that very great pressure had been brought to bear upon the Bank of England by individual houses. True, that might have been in the course of business; but it was, no doubt, in the power of two or three great capitalists to avail themselves of their finances, at the critical moment when the circulation was low, to act upon the Bank, and do great injury to the interests of the public. He repeated that he would not enter upon the general question of the currency; he contended, however, that they were about to pass a Bill without an accurate knowledge of the precise circumstances which had rendered a suspension of the law necessary. A mere statement on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, let that statement be as lucid as it might, was certainly not sufficient ground, because the right hon. Gentleman was one of the parties who required indemnity. In like manner the statement of the Governor of the Bank, clear as it was, did not go into the circum stances which had induced the pressure. He therefore called upon hon. Members to

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  ask themselves the question, whether, if there were the slightest suspicion of anything like unfair action upon the currency by means of combination or conspiracy of any kind, it was not their duty to inquire and ascertain the facts. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not object to some evidence being taken upon the subject before the Bill passed through Committee, for a more important question could scarcely require his attention.
  MR. CAYLEYsaid, that, although he had been no party to the arrangement which had been come to a few nights ago,—namely, to postpone all further discussion upon the subject of the currency to Friday next, he by no means wished to disturb that arrangement, which he had no doubt was a very proper one; but he wished to direct attention to some of the grounds which had been put forward by the Bank of England as rendering necessary the suspension of the Act of 1844. He entertained no objection to the letter which had been issued to the Bank by the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer sanctioning that suspension. On the contrary, he thought with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) that Government would have deserved impeachment if, under the terrible circumstances which had come to their knowledge, they had not come forward and used all their power for the protection of public credit. He must complain, however, that both in Her Majesty's Speech and in the correspondence with the Bank unjust imputations had been thrown upon the banking and commercial classes of this country with reference to the causes which had produced the monetary crisis. It had always been the custom of leading public men, who had had a share in the establishment of the present law, to attempt, under circumstances like the present, to throw the onus of responsibility upon the commercial classes; but it was really the system that was to blame, and he protested against the commercial classes, who had difficulties enough in the ordinary course of business to contend against, being made responsible for the vices of the system to which these periodical convulsions were to be attributed. The Directors of the Bank of England stated in their second letter that they thought it worth while to enter into a history of the events which had transpired in the fortnight previous to the issue of the Government letter, and
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  accordingly they began with the 24th of October, and observed that the failure of the Liverpool Borough Bank had produced a state of great commercial discredit. Now, he (Mr. Cayley) did think that it was hardly fair, in furnishing a history of these transactions, to give the go-by to the events which had immediately preceded this fortnight. Thus, there had been a long-continued drain of bullion to the East and to the Continent, the effects of which were aggravated by the general suspension of cash payments in, and prospective drain of bullion to, the United States of America. Liverpool was connected closely with the trade of the United States; and therefore, without knowing anything whatever about the management of the Liverpool Borough Bank, he must say that, instead of the conduct of the commercial classes constituting a cause of these commercial convulsions, he was only surprised, considering the close connection of Liverpool with the United States, that the catastrophe was not greater than it had been. Coming to the 5th of November, the Directors stated that the condition of things was such that they felt themselves obliged to raise the rate of discount to 9 per cent, and on the 10th of that month to 10 per cent. Surely such a condition of things as this was calculated to give rise to alarm in the commercial world. Had there been, for a considerable time previous, undue speculation, the Gazette would have demonstrated it by individual over-speculators and those who traded upon insufficient capital going to the wall. Every week, in ordinary times, we were in the habit of seeing in the Gazette a certain number of failures of the sort. But the state of things which prevailed under a drain of bullion, and consequent diminution in the Bank reserves, showed that some general, not individual, cause was in operation, and was such that if the drain went on long, as it did in November, it was impossible for any commercial man to be free from apprehension and danger: for when that state of things once began, under our present system, no one could say where it would stop. Such was the apprehension felt under these circumstances, that on the 10th of November, and a day or two before, a rush and demand for money | were made by all the first banking and commercial establishments, which rendered it impossible for any source of currency to supply it to the ordinary class of traders. Was the House aware of the extent of the call for the legal tenders by the depositors of the various banks and other holders of

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  money? A calculation had been made which showed that the money virtually at call in this country amounted to something like £200,000,000 sterling. If, then, the Government had not written their letter of the l2th of November, he should like to know what commercial house or bank, not excepting the Bank of England itself, could have stood against the pressure; for who could pretend, when the pinch came, that £200,000,000 could be paid by the £8,000,000 or £10,000,000 in the Bank vaults. The whole system was based on sufferance and confidence, and yet the law was such, that confidence was perpetually shaken or undermined and destroyed by it. After detailing all these circumstances, which were sufficient of themselves to create a panic in the public mind, the Bank Directors went on to state that the continental drain for gold had ceased, the American demand had become unimportant, and there was at that time little apprehension that the Bank issues would be inadequate to meet the necessities of commerce within the legalised sphere of their circulation; but that upon this state of things the failure of the Western Bank of Scotland and the City of Glasgow Bank, and a renewed discredit in Ireland, supervened, causing an increased action upon the English circulation by the abstraction in four weeks of upwards of two millions of gold. This was on the 10th of November, two days before the issue of the Government letter, when, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them, there was no one discounting but the Bank of England; and was not that a state of things sufficiently pressing to cause a suspension of really solvent firms? For his part he did think that the House ought to sympathize a little more than they did with the commercial classes of the country, who had always plenty of difficulty to contend against in the regular course of business without their calamities being made responsible for a system under which, at times, trade could not be carried on, as had been proved on two or three occasions by the suspension of the law. The Bank Directors also spoke of the failure of the Scotch banks as if it were not to have been expected, and was a matter of surprise But he would ask whether the Bank of England had no notice at all that the Western Bank was in a critical position. He apprehended rumours must have reached the Bank Directors full ten days before to that effect. They then
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  went on, in a remarkable passage, to observe that the drain to meet the demand from Scotland and Ireland was in its nature sudden and irresistible, and acted necessarily in diminution of the reserve. Sudden and irresistible! What would a Court of Bankruptcy say to such an excuse from a merchant? What would this House say? What would the Chancellor of the Exchequer say? He (Mr. Cayley) would like to know how the merchants trading with the United States of America could have expected the entire suspension of cash payments in a great country? No doubt the suspension of cash payments throughout the United States had acted upon them in a manner sudden and irresistible; and he contended that that suspension would have formed a better, a more business, a truer plea than the language used by the Bank Directors and by Ministers in the Speech from the Throne, for the disasters which had occurred lately in this country. Under existing circumstances, however, the noble Lord was perfectly justified in issuing the letter to the Bank; indeed, it would have been infatuation in a Minister to have adopted any other course. The impossibility of working the present system, when confidence was once disturbed, as he had said, arose from the fact that there were loans at call upon the banks and others, through their deposits and notes, to the amount of probably two hundred millions which all stood engaged to be converted into legal tender, but which could not be done, because there might be no gold in the country, or because the gold might be diminishing so fast that panic supervened, and a state of collapse threatened, while the system was ruthlessly running its course. And while attempting to arrest this state of things, which the Bank did with as much skill and courage as mortal could do, what happened? During the few days before the Government interfered, many commercial firms of high standing were brought to ruin. In the present instance it was said that eighty-five commercial houses, representing a capital to the extent of £45,000,000, had been brought to a suspension of their business. Now, as his right hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) asked the other night, why should there be a distinction drawn between those houses that had failed before the issue of the Government letter, and those that would have failed probably in the course of the

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  following week had the Government letter been delayed so long? For it was quite clear by the progress of events, that these victims had been held to an impossibility. But the victims had always been made the scapegoats by the ruling powers on these occasions. The crisis of 1817 was said to have been occasioned by the transition from war to peace in 1815, as if peace brought want instead of plenty in its train. Mr. Tierney, in 1817, said that the national miseries had arisen to a point wholly without precedent since the Norman Conquest; but he (Mr. Cayley) could not understand why that should have been the state of the country when we had ended a great war, or why as great calamities had periodically occurred since, unless there was something erroneous in our system. A crisis at another period was attributed to over population by one party, and to over production by another, as if these two causes were not calculated to neutralize each other. The crisis of] 825 was attributed by the noble Lord the Member for London to the failure of some 700 or 800 private banks. He believed that not more than about 125 private banks failed in that year, and it should be remembered that they paid 17 s. 6d. in the pound. In order to get rid of these banks we had joint-stock banks established. Then, the crisis of 1836 was attributed to joint-stock banks; but a remarkable man who arose at that time, Mr. Cobden, stated in his evidence before the Bank Committee of 1839 that the Bank of England was answerable for it, and he was loud in his denunciations of a state of things which made the Bank of England the arbiter of every man's fortunes. The Bank of England, however, was a mere instrument of the law. He did not think that the Bank of England was to be blamed for the course which it had pursued during the last few months. They were told by Sir Robert Peel that the Bank of England was a private bank. He (Mr. Cayley) knew not whether it was a private or a public bank, but if it was a private bank, and its circumstances were such as they were represented to be by its own Directors, in a late return, namely, a reserve reduced to something like £900,000, on the 11th November, and about £500,000 on the 12th, for all its branches, with deposits exceeding £19,000,000, it was not for the Bank of England to throw stones at joint-stock banks. The crisis in 1847 was attributed to railroads and over specu-
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  lation, while for that of the present year the joint-stock banks and over speculation were said to be responsible. Over speculation was always thrown in as a plausible makeweight. The commercial classes were told that they ought not to enter into the adventures in which they were engaged; but what was trade itself but an adventure? If profits were certain, all then would trade. The position in which the commercial classes were placed by our present monetary system might well be compared to that of a party engaged in a round game of cards, a given number of counters being provided to each player, who, at the end of the game, was forced to make up his full number of counters. But suppose the master of the house suddenly snatched away half the counters, and still compelled the players to make up the full number—which was physically, impossible—was not that the state of things under a drain of bullion? They were continually hearing praises in that House of the present system, and declamation against paper; but he defied them to act upon it strictly at all times. He was ready to admit that the Bank had acted on the present occasion both generously and vigorously, and that they fully deserved the thanks of the country. But he would ask, was a system which insisted upon all the gigantic liabilities of the country being convertible into bullion, when no bullion might be there, a correct one? He (Mr. Cayley) wanted no expansion of the legal tender; he should be satisfied with less than on the average existed, provided it was uniform in its amount. All the various crises which had ever happened in this country arose from oscillations in the base of our currency and contractions in its quantity, which necessarily made the superstructure totter. At any rate, if the system were correct, it ought to be carried out to its fullest extent; if not, it ought to be altered. He must complain of words introduced by Ministers into the Speech from the Throne, in which it was stated that the Government letter was issued on account of the distress occasioned by the recent failure of joint-stock banks in Scotland and elsewhere, instead of stating, as it ought to have done, that it was in consequence of the drain of bullion to the Continent and to America, which had raised the rate of discount at home, and thus produced general alarm, and which, if it had been allowed to go on, would have ended in the total suspen-

  285
  sion of cash payments. He saw several Directors of hanks present, and he asked them if they admitted the truth of those serious aspersions which had been thrown upon joint-stock banks, not that he wished to stand up altogether for the mode in which those banks transacted their business. It had been said in another place that those joint-stock banks now held deposits on call, or at such short notice as to be virtually on call, to the extent of £35,000,000 sterling, the greater part of which was out in the discount of bills of exchange. Now, this statement, if true, and he believed it was true, was calculated to produce serious alarm; but he did not think the Directors of the Bank of England were exactly the parties to complain, unless it was that, as they paid no interest upon their deposits, they might perhaps have conceived some animosity against the joint-stock banks who did, and so attracted some of their depositors from them. But he would like to know, if the directors of the joint-stock banks had not offered a high rate of interest on deposits during the last three months, how many more bank-notes and sovereigns in this country would have gone to hoard? Nothing could be more disastrous in a monetary pressure than a system of hoarding; and if there was one thing more than another which had prevented a part of the circulation of this country from going to hoard, it was the high rate of interest which all through this panic had been offered by the joint-stock banks. He did not know that he need go into the general subject here; he understood they were to have another discussion upon it, and he would reserve his views on the general question for that opportunity; but he had risen to testify his disapprobation of the course which had been pursued of throwing the blame of the recent criais, and other monetary crises, upon the mode of conducting the commercial affairs of the country; as if the merchants and manufacturers of this country had lost that astuteness for which they were so famed; and seeing so many commercial men present he wondered that none of them had risen before this time to disclaim the insinuations that had been thrown upon their class. For himself he wished to state that he did not want an extension of the currency. He did not care whether the limit of the legal tender was £14,000,000, or £16,000,000, or £20,000,000. What he wanted was, that something should be
  286
  made a legal tender that would be available at all times to the commercial classes of the country as a medium of domestic interchange. But they told him that that would be inconsistent with the convertibility of the bank-note. No doubt it was, according to the present system. They adopted a system which obliged the Bank to buy gold, however plentiful it might be, at a given price. The Bank took a large quantity, and then the consequence was, that it had an immense amount of notes in reserve—sometimes as high as £14,000,000 or £15,000,000. What was the Bank to do, if they were to consider themselves only in the light of private bankers? They went into the market and competed with the other banks in thrusting accommodation upon trade, and a very few months had elapsed after the passing of the Act of 1844 when the rate of discount was actually lowered to 3 per cent by the competition of the Bank of England with the other banks. Now, what was the natural course of things under those circumstances? The low rate of discount made money easy, and the manufacturers and others finding money easy entered into great speculations and gave great employment to labour, and raised the rate of "wages. High wages increased consumption—that raised the price of food; that again gave a stimulus to imports; the increase of prices raised an obstacle to the increase of exports, and then, when the country had got into the unsatisfactory state of a diminution of exports and an increase of imports, a drain of gold was the natural consequence, and how was that to be stopped? Under the present system there was no means of stopping it but by ruining our manufacturers and commercial men. Foreign merchants found our goods too dear, but gold was always at the same price; and, therefore, they took away the gold, and when it was away it could only be brought back again by forcing our manufacturers to part with their goods at prices which were absolute ruin to them, as the only means of obtaining the means of meeting their engagements. The country ran through this vicious circle every eight or ten years, but still men cried up the system, though he believed it was the system, and the system only, that was to blame. It was not to be supposed in these boasted days of intellectual advancement that our commercial classes, or bankers, were not as intelligent and sagacious in the pursuit

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  of their calling as they ever were. They would not trust now more than they ever did any man without some security. He believed Lord Overstone stated to the Committee of last Session that he had, as a banker, been in the habit of trusting men without security, and that he had made his fortune in that mariner; but he would like to know what the Chancellor of the Exchequer would say to any firm that came to him for assistance in a monetary crisis, who it appeared had been lending its money without security? He must say that, having paid long and anxious attention to this subject, he felt heartbroken to see these periodical convulsions taking place, not from any inherent failing in the high qualities of that Anglo-Saxon race of which our commercial classes were composed, but which arose—it might be seen as plain as the sun at noonday—from that vicious circle in which the low rate of discount which shortly supervened after a monetary crisis stimulated speculation, and the employment and temporary prosperity of the working and commercial classes, the increased consumption arising out of which drove the gold abroad, and then, with malicious forethought, was brought about commercial ruin in order to get it back. He had seen that circle run over and over again of late years; and he had repeatedly in Committees put the question to the Governors and Deputy Governors of the Bank. Did not the system mean this, that if the gold had gone abroad, the only means of getting it back again was, by putting on (he screw, to compel the English manufacturer to sell his goods at a ruinous price in order to induce the foreigner to buy them with the gold which was thus brought back again? He thought it was really high time now that they should substantially inquire into the system rather than into the mere mode of working it. Were these catastrophes necessary? His firm belief was that they were not, but perfectly gratuitous. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite always appealed to gold as a natural standard of value. But was gold at £3 17 s. 10½d. per ounce such a natural standard? A standard of value was in nature; but gold had nothing in it by nature to constitute a standard. The only natural standard was explained centuries ago, by no less a man than Aristotle, who laid it down that the real standard of value was want, necessity, or the demand for things arising out of human craving or taste. Thus the general
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  demand for food, clothes, or shelter, constituted value, and the degree of value consisted in the rates of the demand or necessity for them; at least of all such things as Providence did not gratuitously supply. Demand was thus the origin of trade and standard of value. Such being the standard, labour was the measure; for it depended upon the amount of labour employed in producing objects of demand what should be given for them, that is, how many days' labour. Of this measure—labour—gold was the conventional representative merely. But in this country it had only been so since 1816, when Parliament prescribed that the pound sterling should always consist of so many grains of gold. Anterior to this, that is, before the Bank Restriction Act of 1797, the pound sterling was constituted of the coin of the realm—gold or silver—and if worn, it was seldom, if ever, exported; and thus a legal tender was preserved. But now this coin was nothing; and, the sovereign being of full weight, the slightest change in the foreign demand for it caused it to flow out, and leave us without a base for our currency. Trade, we were told, was a state of barter. It was all very well to say so, and it was true as regarded our foreign transactions; foreigners cared nothing for our coin or currency. But at home we had an artificial and complicated credit system, which required always the presence of a legal tender to liquidate them. Let it not be supposed he wanted to expand the amount of the legal tender. He wanted nothing more than this, that we should have a legal tender that did not vary in quantity, one on which our commercial classes could always depend on finding when it was required. Now, when most wanted, it had gone to some other country. What we really wanted was a steady unfluctuating base for our credit system, which our present law did not afford; at times we had virtually no base of value. In easy times our system worked well enough; paper floated freely, our manufactures went out, and gold came back; but directly an adverse exchange arrived it became difficult, and next to impossible, to realize the liquidation of transactions for want of a medium to do it. He was far from wishing to dogmatize or to dictate on those points, but really those convulsions now happened so periodically and so frequently that he thought they ought to arrest the attention of every man in the country. It was so far satisfactory, that neither the noble

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  Lord the Member for London, nor the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, was prepared to push this system to its extremest limits. But there were men in the country who held very different language. There were writers in powerful public prints, supporters of the general policy of the noble Lord, who held different language, and who were discontented with the noble Lord because he had not carried out their principle to the full; they wanted a rate of 20, 30, or even 50 per cent to be exacted before the noble Lord interfered. Indeed, they would not have the noble Lord to give way at all—perish commerce rather than yield up a crude pragmatical dogma. Now, suppose such a man had been at the head of affairs in the recent crisis—Mercator, for instance—was it right the country should be left to such a chance? There would have been one universal collapse over the whole country, and not the Bank of England only, but every commercial establishment, would have been compelled to suspend amidst immense real wealth, in the vain effort to make the minor comprehend the major. That was the reason why he was opposed to the present system—it was impracticable; it could not be carried out, but in the attempt to carry it out, hecatombs were fruitlessly sacrificed. His own opinion was, that it was not the banking system which produced these periodical convulsions, but the system by which the banks were governed. They asked the commercial classes to do that which, when the commercial atmosphere was clear, they could do; but the moment there was "a cloud no bigger than a man's hand," then came the difficulty—then came the pressure and the panic, and the commercial classes could not do that in the hurricane which was possible in the calm. What he wanted was, that all liabilities in the country should be convertible into some legal tender. He did not care whether it was gold or not—they might make it dearer if they liked; but he insisted that the counters should not be allowed to disappear at the very moment when they were wanted to fulfil the conditions of the game. Therefore it was that he was opposed altogether to the present system. With regard to the present Indemnity Bill, while he approved of its object, he should have been better pleased if the interference could have been earlier, and if more sympathy had been shown towards the commercial classes, and if the
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  convulsions had not been entirely charged upon them and the joint-stock banks, seeing that this terrible visitation had been more probably proximately brought about by the frightful state of mercantile suspension in that country which was our largest customer; coming, as that suspension did, at the heels of a long-continued drain of bullion, which had previously created alarm from the dread of the base of our circulation being entirely withdrawn, and of there being left no legal tender wherewith to liquidate our hundreds of millions of commercial and other liabilities. We had got our notions so embedded in the groove of the virtues of a metallic currency, that we had come to take for granted that it was a virtue in a metallic currency to fluctuate in quantity, instead of a vice, which it was; just as it would not be a virtue, but a vice, in a standard measure of capacity or length, to expand or contract with every variety of temperature. And we must needs persuade ourselves that it was necessary to imitate that vice in our mixed paper and metal system. Whereas it was nothing but a vice so far as trade was concerned, and so great a one as to make it doubtful how far the metallic system, as at present constituted, was worth the price this vice made us pay for it. It was this vice that lay at the bottom of all our present trouble, and it was worth the best attention of the House to correct it.
  MR. CONINGHAMsaid, he did not rise to oppose the Bill of Indemnity—far from it; he thought the country was highly indebted to the noble Lord at the head of the Government for the manner in which he interposed at a critical conjuncture, and relieved the country from a crisis which threatened it with a frightful convulsion. He regretted only one thing, and that was, that the Government had not gone beyond a mere Bill of Indemnity, and proposed to abrogate the law of 1844, which, though not the cause of the recent commercial distress, had yet most seriously increased its severity. He listened attentively, the other evening, to the clear and lucid statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—the diagnosis of the disease; and he thought the right hon. Gentleman gave up the whole case for the Act when he admitted that the panic was produced by the attempt to limit the issues of the Bank. The argument of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, who had the other night declared himself to be the warm advocate of the Bill

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  of 1844, and indulged in some declamation upon the great principles of the currency, was surprising. He referred to the three great panics of 1825, 1847, and 1857. In 1825 he admitted that the Bank was run out to within £100,000 of its last sovereign. But what was the remedy applied then? Why, the noble Lord admitted that it was the issue of paper. That restored confidence, and gradually brought back the gold to the coffers of the Bank. In 1844, the Bill of Sir Robert Peel passed. That illustrious statesman took up the theory upon which it was based too hastily; but that theory was based on a fallacy, which sooner or later must be exploded. Well, three years after, in 1847, another panic occurred, and what again was the remedy for it? Not the restriction of the paper circulation, but its extension. Again, on that occasion the remedy did not fail. In 1857 another panic occurs, and again there was no restriction, but an extension of issues, and he for one only regretted that there should have been any check placed on the larger and further extension of the paper issues of the Bank by depriving the Bank of the profits arising from it. To show to what extravagance theories might be carried the Chancellor of the Exchequer had quoted the opinion of a Governor of the Bank, who stated in his evidence before one of the Committees, that the remedy for panic was—what? why, not relaxation, but the contraction of the issues, though he doubted whether it was worth while to apply the remedy. He (Mr. Coningham) thought it behoved the country to take this matter into its most serious consideration. It was not merely the truth or falsehood of a theory that was at stake, but it was the very existence of a large number of fellow-subjects which was compromised by the attempt to carry out a theory, which, he repeated, was based on a fallacy. It was perfectly certain that the only check, the only necessary check, to limit the issues of the Bank was, that the notes should be for not less than a certain sum and payable on demand. It had been clearly shown that while such a security was enforced, bank-notes did not necessarily influence exchanges or prices, and that being so it was of the utmost importance to the trade and commerce of the country that, in times of panic, there should be a large extension of its issues from the Bank of England.
  MR. MALINSsaid, the Bill met with
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  his cordial approbation, and he thought Government deserved great, praise for having issued their letter of the 12th of November. He only regretted they had not done it sooner; and he could not omit taking this opportunity of expressing his regret that the Government had failed in the great duty they owed to the country, by allowing Parliament to separate last Session without arming themselves with the power of meeting this emergency, which to his mind was, even at that time, clearly impending. His professional engagements did not permit of his giving the same attention to those questions which might well be exercised by commercial men. Yet he did warn the Government of what was coming so early as February last, and again in May, at a time when the reserve of notes was reduced to about £3,500,000, and the rate of discount was at 6½ per cent. He then pointed out to the right hon. Gentleman opposite, that if the gold went on diminishing a stoppage was inevitable. How was he met? He was told, as we were always told, that the worst was past—that the danger was over—and that no cause existed for alarm. He was, however, so far from being satisfied that he pledged himself to submit a Resolution on the subject to the House before the prorogation, if, in the meantime, there was no amendment. In June the rate of discount was reduced to 6 per cent; in July to 5½ and the reserve had risen from £3,500,000 to £5,000,000. The consequence was, that, as he knew the apathy with which these subjects were always received in the House, when there was no immediate pressure, be felt that it, would be useless to make his Motion. But now that the disaster had occurred, and general attention was riveted to the question, he hoped the result would be to put a final end to the present system. The right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) had already pointed out how heavily the blow fell upon those who had not been relieved in time, compared with those who would have fallen too but for the relief afforded by the Government letter. He, for one, confessed that he was surprised the Government had not thought it proper to interfere earlier. Long before the 12th November there existed sufficient cause for the interference of the Government, and his belief was, if they had not issued that letter, beyond all possibility of doubt the Bank of England would have been obliged

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  to stop payment. It was said they might have saved themselves by stopping discounts; but to stop discounts would be equivalent in the commercial world to the stoppage of the rising of the sun in the natural world. His immediate object, however, in rising was to express his regret at one portion of the contents of this Bill. It was provided that the Bank Charter Act should be suspended for twenty-eight days after the next meeting of Parliament; but then it was accompanied with this reservation, that the rate of discount should be continued at 10 per cent. If the rate fell below 10 per cent then the limit fixed by the Act of 1844 was to be resumed. Now, did the right hon. Gentleman consider what an amount of misery this threw, not upon the large commercial houses, but upon the moderate tradesmen and small farmers who in the course of their business required accommodation? The rate of 10 per cent had reference only to first-class paper; but men with moderate capital and straitened in their means would be required to pay from 15 to 20 percent, and yet their paper, although not first rate, might be perfectly safe. With such a rate of discount, as Mr. Chapman had informed them, no new commercial speculation would be undertaken in any quarter; and what were the small farmers and tradesmen with moderate capital to do? If it was right to have any limit at all, why not preserve the Act of 1844 intact? But now that the attention of every man in the country had been directed to that measure it was seen that the present state of things could not be maintained, and he trusted, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman would reconsider this part of his proposition and not clog his useful measure with a proviso which would make the Bill no boon whatever to the middle traders in the community.
  MR. CROSSLEYsaid, the hon. Member for the North Riding (Mr. Cayley) had asked why the commercial men had not risen to express their opinions on this subject. Though he had been engaged in commercial affairs all his life, yet he approached this question with great diffidence, because he felt all its difficulties. It was easy enough to find Gentlemen who professed to understand all the ins and outs of the question, but he had not yet reached that climax. He was not, however, ashamed to confess that he was only a learner, and it was very possible that he might hear arguments in the course of
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  this discussion which would induce him to change his mind. From the tone of the speech of one right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Buckinghamshire, it would appear that he supposed that he had got the Government into a regular fix, from which there was no escape, and that because they had violated the laws of the realm without the consent of the Governors and Directors of the Bank of England. What was the Bank of England? It was a joint-stock bank, with certain privileges, and it was very unlikely that that bank would come to Government and ask them to issue more notes when their gold was low. He thought that great credit was due to the Government in having determined to suspend the operation of the Bank Act without compulsion from without. The Government were indeed more awake than the commercial men, for in the north it was never expected that the crisis would have proved so severe as it had done; and all the merchants and manufacturers he knew felt very much indebted to the Government for stepping in at such a critical time and saving the country from the disasters with which it was threatened. It was important to observe that the right hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley), who was a colleague of the right hon. Member for Bucks, was so far from thinking the Government deserved to be impeached for what they had done, that he said they would have deserved to be impeached if they had not broken the law. Hon. Members of all sides of the House were agreed that whatever paper currency we had must be convertible into gold. He did not approve of all the details of the Bank Act of 1844, but he would admit that in the main it had accomplished its objects. It had prevented the excessive issue of paper, and had insured its convertibility into gold—two most important objects. It was said that it lit the candle at both ends, because it restricted the issue of paper when gold went out of the country. This was an evil, but the least of two evils. Suppose that when the gold went out the Bank went on issuing notes. It was quite clear that no alteration in the rate of discount would take place in this country while it was advancing elsewhere, and the drain would go on until we had not a sovereign left. A good deal had been said as to the quarter in which a discretionary power of suspending the Act of 1844 should be vested. Some persons

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  proposed to leave the power of authorising an issue of notes above £14,500,000 with the Government. The hon. Member for Kendal (Mr. Glyn)—no mean authority'—would give it to the Directors of the Bank of England. He had a strong dislike to leaving so much power in the hands of any men, and it would be for the House to consider whether some elasticity might not be given to the Act so as to make it self-acting. It was a great evil that money should be too cheap, as well as too dear. A few years ago discounts were at 2 per cent. Now 5 per cent was about a medium rate, and it might be worthy of consideration whether, instead of leaving the relaxation with the Government or the Bank of England, the issues of £14,500,000 should not be reduced when discounts came below 5 per cent, and increased when the rate of discount rose above that amount. If, as was but too probable, a time should come which no Act of Parliament could provide against, the Government would still be able to resort to the extreme remedy of relaxing the law. He thought that Parliament ought not to allow this opportunity to pass without making Bank of England notes a legal tender in Scotland and Ireland. It was a great evil to see gold leaving London for want of such a provision, on the foolish errand of preventing a run upon the Scotch and Irish banks. There ought to be only one bank of issue, and the Bank of England might as well have that privilege as any other bank, under proper regulations. The Directors of the Bank of England ought to be paid for the trouble they incurred in transacting the Government business; but the entire profit arising out of the note circulation ought to go to reduce the taxation of the country, and should not be enjoyed as a monopoly by any body of men. He was in the United States two years ago, and when a thousand miles west of New York, at Chicago, he found that a short time before there were only eighty-five miles of railway west of that city, but it was expected that within two or three years it would be increased to 5000 miles. He was convinced from what he saw there that too much capital had become fixed in railroads, a great deal of which had gone from this country. The same construction of railroads had gone on in Europe, and it was this absorption of capital faster than it was made which had to a great extent caused the recent crisis. In the long run
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  things would come round, but it was the duty of Parliament as far as possible to remedy the evil and provide against its recurrence.
  MR. PHILIPSsaid, that he differed from many persons, inasmuch as he regretted that the letter of the Government to the Bank had been issued, although he believed that in doing so they did what they thought best to alleviate the commercial distress which prevailed, in discussing this question they ought to look to the causes of what occurred. To him it appeared that the causes of the commercial distress were three in number. First, the action of the wars in Russia and in India on commerce; secondly, the conduct of certain banks at Liverpool and Glasgow; and lastly, the conduct pursued by the great bill-broking houses of the City of London. He, as a commercial man, was grateful to the Bank of England for what they had done in raising the rate of discount a year and a half ago, and he believed that if they had been allowed to pursue that stringent line of policy it would have diminished a great deal of the suffering which now existed. Contrast the conduct of the Directors of the Bank now and in 1847. They never raised the rate of discount in 1847 till the last moment, and even then they did it in a very sudden manner; and what was the result? No less than six of the Directors of the Bank succumbed in 1847 to the difficulties of the times. The Bank, however, stood in happy contrast in 1857 to its condition in 1847. If the conduct pursued by the banks of Liverpool and Glasgow was considered, he believed that the commercial world had good grounds of complaint against them for lending out their means to men of capital, and thus enabling them to enter into all kinds of speculations to the infinite detriment of those who were seeking an honest livelihood and carrying on a sound trade in the same lines of business. He regretted to see the banks in Glasgow calling public meetings in that city, and saying that their misdeeds were only accidents. He only trusted that by no accident would those banks be restored to a position to pursue the same course of conduct. Then look at the system of bill-broking in the City of London. Who and what were the bill-brokers? They were a class of men who received and used the surplus capital of bankers. He (Mr. Philips) did think bankers ought to take care where they placed the money of persons who com-

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  mitted it to their care, or at any rate to keep such a reserve by them as would suffice to meet all demands that might be made upon them. The money pressure in London became so great in the last two months that the bankers felt it would be dangerous to go on any further in this system; but the moment the news was known that the Government had taken a step to relieve the commercial interests, all the speculations in produce received a fresh impetus, and he, as a manufacturer, felt whatever took place that affected the working-classes and those who supported them. He admitted that there had been a fall in silk, wool, and cotton; but had a different course been pursued the effect would have been that instead of mills in Lancashire working short time, prudent manufacturers would have got their produce cheap, and so have been enabled to work their mills full time. But the act of the Government had prevented this, and manufacturers were in a state of uncertainty whether prices would be higher or lower. He was aware, however, that there was only a choice between two evils, and he made these remarks in no spirit of hostility to the Government, who did what they thought best for the commercial interests. With regard to the currency, he held to the opinions of Lord Overstone. He wished to see the working-classes paid in sovereigns, and that there should be no issue of notes except by the Bank of Eng-land, with a reserve of sovereigns for every note. He remembered an incident which took place in Manchester in 1819. Some of the most respectable bankers determined to issue their own notes. On this a meeting of merchants took place, presided over by the late George William Wood, Esq., and a resolution was passed by the merchants of Manchester, that they would return the notes of those banks daily. The consequence was, that the banks did not issue their notes, and although at the time the bankers were annoyed by the conduct of the merchants, in 1825 thanks were given to Mr. George William Wood by the bankers, for the efforts he made to prevent the issue of notes, the effects of which would have been severely felt. He hoped that the banks of Glasgow would see the effect of the course which Manchester had pursued and follow their example respecting the local issue of notes, as, in a country like this, everything depended on the strictest mercantile honour.
  MR. NEWDEGATEremarked, that
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  the hon. Member for Bury, who had just sat down, had expressed the opinions of a high authority in favour of the Act of 1844, as tending to depress the price of manufacturing produce. He should have thought that the Manchester men must have found from experience that a forced reduction of price tended to limit production. Great anxiety had been expressed as to the production of cotton. For himself, he could not condemn the act of the Government, if it prevented an unnatural depreciation of the price of cotton, and if it did not tend to check the production of that staple article. He wished, however, to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the question of the hon. Member for Evesham (Sir Henry Willoughby). The hon. Member had asked whether there had been any direct interference on the part of large capitalists, who, by demanding notes for the purpose of speculation, and then shutting them up, had affected the markets by their operations. The Bank of England deserved great credit for the manner in which it had conducted its business during the pressure, and it was important to know whether it had had difficulties to contend with which it had not formerly had. In the present state of circumstances, when there were enormous masses of capital accumulated in few hands—when it had been proved, by probates of wills and otherwise, that instances were not uncommon of individuals being able to command £2,000,000 or £3,000,000—when there were joint stock banks able to command vast amounts—when there was the one house of Rothschild, with five houses on the Continent, said to be capable of jointly commanding £30,000,000 for acting on the Exchange, it was essential to the public safety that there should be some establishment like the Bank, which, actuated by motives of public spirit and supported by the Government, should be able to meet cases like the present, and thus prevent the monetary and financial position of the country being tampered with by extraneous action. The House ought to know whether any difficulty with reference to these large capitalists had arisen, for if it had, that would be a double justification of the Government for issuing the letter in question, He approved of the issuing of that letter, and thought that the circumstances in

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  which the country was now placed fully justified the course which had been pursued. He thought this question was now ripe for legislation, and he concurred with Mr. Chapman that something of the nature suggested in the evidence he had given before the Committee ought to be done. He thought also some understanding must be come to with the Bank, which should prevent the reduction of the rate of interest at that establishment below 8 per cent. Whatever amount of bullion and of reserved notes they might at any time hold, he was convinced that when the rate of interest was reduced below 3 per cent, that very speculation was stimulated which every commercial man now condemned, and which the monetary laws so severely avenged in periods like that of the present crisis. The reserve of notes ought not to be used by the Bank, if it could be avoided, to reduce the rate of interest to so low an amount as to stimulate undue speculation. Now that capital was accumulating in such large masses, if, according to the proposal of Lord Overstone, the Bank were further limited and the banking and issue departments totally separated—which indeed he (Mr. Newdegate) held to be impossible under our present system of mixed circulation—but if such a separation were effected, and the Bank Directors regulated their discount transactions purely with a view to the interests of their own proprietary, the result would be, one or two of the great capitalists could absolutely command, at all periods of pressure, the rate of discount, and the supply of currency for the country. There could not be a more important question than the state of the currency, because the value of all kinds of property was affected by it The Bank ought to be supported in the course it had pursued, but the Government ought to devise means to guard against the recurrence of circumstances which would give large capitalists an undue command over the currency. He believed that they might safely introduce into the Act of 1844 a principle of elasticity which would probably obviate the necessity of interfering with it in future. It was most unbecoming and most unconstitutional to have a law on the Statute-book which frequently required the unauthorised and extraneous interference of the Government, more especially when it was a law which so deeply affected the
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  value of every man's property as the Act in question.
  MR. BUCHANANsaid, he would not have interfered in a currency debate if reference had not been made to what had taken place at Glasgow. He hoped the House would grant him its indulgence for a few moments while he endeavoured to put himself and his constituents right with regard to some imputations made against them. He should not have thought it necessary to notice what had appeared in the public prints, but when the noble Lord the Member for London, in the debate on Friday last, said that the people of Glasgow held wild and revolutionary opinions on the subject of the currency, it was high time for him shortly to state what those opinions were. He believed that the opinions of the Chamber of Commerce of Glasgow had been more particularly alluded to. He might inform the House that that chamber was the oldest establishment of the kind in the kingdom; it was founded by gentlemen who were the friends of Adam Smith; it had become a Chamber of Commerce at his suggestion, and it had always been distinguished for the soundness of its opinions on trade and commerce. He felt hound, therefore, to defend it when it was attacked in that House for opinions it was supposed to hold. The noble Lord was too just and too generous to have made such an attack if he had not thought he had grounds for it; but he had taken his facts from the public prints, which was not always the best way of getting at the truth. The first principle which the chamber held on the subject of the currency was, that the paper issue ought to be convertible into gold. They also held that there could be nothing more injurious than an over-issue of paper; and went even further, and held that paper, being convertible into gold, could not be issued in excess. They also drew a distinction, very often lost sight of, between currency and capital. No doubt the derangement of the currency had affected the circulation during the suspension of cash payments, but during the suspension of the Act in 1847, and also in 1857, the circulation remained uninjured, and had not been affected by a rate of discount of 10 per cent. They must, therefore, regard the commercial crisis as one that had arisen from causes affecting credit, and not at all connected with currency. He believed the Act of 1844 had been most bene-

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  ficial so far as it had ensured the convertibility of the note, and had prevented an excess of paper money. To that extent every one must approve of it. He must, however, admit that he agreed with the hon. Member for Kendal (Mr. Glyn), that it had aggravated the present panic, if it had not caused it, and that credit and confidence had been very much affected by the action of the Bank. Men looked at the hand of the dial, they saw the catastrophe coming, and every one prepared himself to meet it, as best he could, by drawing his resources together. Such were the opinions of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce on the subject of currency and the present crisis. He wished to take that opportunity of noticing the position which had been assumed by Glasgow in reference to the banks which had suspended payment. He did not mean to attempt to vindicate the conduct of the managers of those banks. He admitted that their management had been exceedingly defective, and that they had been imprudent in the highest degree; and if he should have the honour of having a seat in the House when the question of Scotch banking and provincial banking generally was to come under discussion, he would have much pleasure in giving his assistance in amending the system. He felt that there were abuses to be remedied in the Scotch banking system, as, for example, the practice of rediscounting in the London market, the lending on the security of their own stock, the giving excessive accommodation to persons who were not deserving of it, and, above all, the system of keeping very small reserves, or no reserves at all, with their London bankers. He did not feel ashamed of having taken part in a meeting which had been convened in Glasgow, not for the purpose of supporting the Western Bank, but for the purpose of restoring public confidence, and putting an end to a panic in the West of Scotland, which the stoppage of that bank had produced. That was, he felt assured, the object contemplated by the noblemen and gentlemen who had assisted at that meeting. He for one should be glad to see that bank reestablished, because he knew that such a step would be productive of a vast amount of benefit to a large class of individuals. The Members of that House were not, perhaps, generally aware of the many branches of that bank scattered over Scotland, but be felt interested in its fortunes mainly on account of its being the depository of a
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  great amount of family money and family settlements belonging to the widows and orphans who would be affected by its overthrow. He believed that, inasmuch as the partners in that bank were men of undoubted wealth, and considering the severe lesson which its directors had recently received, it would, in all probability, be henceforward conducted on prudent principles, and a vast amount of good might be accomplished by its restoration. It had been made a subject of accusation against him that he had said the ruin of that bank had been brought about by an accident. But it was to the stoppage of the City of Glasgow Bank, and not to that of the Western Bank, that he had applied that language. He should add that he still believed that the former had been overthrown by an accidental combination of circumstances which might have overtaken any banking establishment, and by which almost any such establishment must have been compelled to stop payment. He believed, too, that that bank was perfectly solvent. He would next address a few words to the House on the subject which they had then under their immediate consideration. He thought that the regulation of our currency under the Bank Act of 1844 was attended with great advantage to the country. In his opinion a great public benefit was gained by the convertibility of the bank-note, and the certainty that that convertibility would be maintained. But the process by which that object was obtained was occasionally worked out at the cost of severe suffering to the mercantile community. That would be evident to any one who considered the rate of discount at such a period as the present, and what were the average profits of trade? He believed that those profits were not as high as the present rate of discount, which stood at the minimum of 10 per cent. All permanent investments in this country were made at a rate of about 4 or 5 per cent interest. Now, if they were to have those frequent returns of high rates of discount, it appeared to him that it would be necessary to reconsider the fundamental conditions of all the monetary arrangements of the country. It was impossible that trade could be profitably conducted on its present terms and with the rates of interest which had prevailed during the last few years. It would be worthy of a statesman to invent some

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  means by which the constant recurrence of—he might almost say—ruin might be warded off. Many palliations might be found, and one of these, he believed, was about to be proposed by the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire—that was, to allow the Bank Directors to step in and relax the stringent provisions of the Act of 1844 whenever they might think it desirable. If that power were committed to the Government it was most probable that it would not be employed until after some of the most eminent firms in the country had succumbed, when the Government might be led to believe that they would be justified in interfering. But if such a discretion were confided to the Directors of the Bank of England, there would exist this great chance for its proper exercise, that the Directors would be in constant communication with the mercantile community, and would be thoroughly acquainted with their position and their requirements.
  MR. KIRKsaid, he was glad to perceive that every one who had spoken upon this subject had agreed on two points—that the bank-note should always be pay able in gold, and that the Act of 1844—having been twice broken—could no longer be maintained. The convertibility of the note, it must be remembered, was not dependent upon the Act of 1844, but upon the Act of 1819. The introduction of the Act of 1844 had not in any way added to the convertibility of the note; and when it was proposed to confer upon the Bank Directors the power of relaxing the operation of that Act whenever they thought necessary, it appeared to him that it would be very much better to abandon the Act at once. He (Mr. Kirk) contended that the Act of 1844 was founded on two fallacies. In the first place it was intended to stop over speculation and over trading—an object which it had signally failed to accomplish; because it was under the operation of that very Act that all the undue speculation and over-trading to which the present panic was to be attributed had occurred. The other fallacy was the supposition that but for some such Act as that of 1844 there would be an over-issue of bank-notes. That that was a fallacy was proved by reference to Ireland. In that country there was a perfect freedom of trade with respect to the issue of banknotes, the only limit being that no note should be issued for sums under £1, or for any fractions of a pound. Was there
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  therefore, however, any over-issue of notes in Ireland? Quite the contrary. It would be as impossible for any bank in that country to issue and to maintain in circulation an undue quantity of notes as it would be to force a quart of water into a pint bottle. The moment an over-issue was made by any one bank the notes passed into the hands of other banks, who immediately called for gold, and insisted upon the convertibility of the notes. Any overissue, therefore, was out of the question. There was one remarkable failure of an Irish bank—namely, the Tipperary Bank; but hon. Members should bear in mind that that was the only bank in Ireland that issued notes not its own. It issued notes of the Bank of Ireland only. That, therefore, was no argument against the position which he had laid down. Although, no doubt, there had been some over-trading in Ireland, there had been no such thing as a crash, and the only reason that gold was required in that country was from the fact of the Scotch banks failing, and that some of their notes had found their way into the North of Ireland, thus creating distrust and a slight run on some of the Irish banks. When capital was abundant encouragement was, as everybody knew, given to speculation; but it did not necessarily follow that the currency increased. The returns of the Bank of England and of the joint-stock banks of England and Ireland showed that when the greatest amount of trade was being carried on (and during the last year trade was carried on to an unprecedented extent), there was little or no increase in the currency, for currency was one thing and capital another. The grand error of the Bank Act of 1844 was to apply an unyielding and invariable rule to that which was of a most fluctuating nature—namely, the currency of the country. Every person engaged in trade, as was well observed by the preceding speaker, took care to limit his transactions whenever he observed a decline in the Bank reserves, upon which he kept a watchful eye. It was supposed that the tendency of the Bank Act of 1844 was to retain the gold in the Bank of England. He spoke in the presence of some of the Directors of the Bank, and they, he believed, would admit that it was by the raising of the price of discount, and not by means of the Act, that that object was effected, because by that process money in England was made as dear as in any other country, or

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  dearer. If the Bank of England had continued to charge a low rate of discount, such as 5 or 6 per cent, when the rate at Hamburg was 9 or 10 per cent, the consequence would have been that the gold in this country would have gone over to Hamburg. The raising of the rate of discount to 10 per cent was the only mode by which it was possible to retain the gold in this country, and the Bank of England acted very properly in raising it to that amount. He thought the Government acted wisely in issuing their letter to the Bank, for if they had delayed that measure for twenty-four or forty-eight hours longer, the Bank of England could not have paid its deposits any more than any other bank in the country. He hoped, therefore, that this Indemnity Bill would receive the cordial and unanimous approval of the House. In reference to what had been said as to the depreciation of Bank of England notes, he would remark that at no time within his memory had there been any such depreciation. He had paid close attention to these matters for several years, and had found that the Act was harmless as long as it was inoperative, and mischievous whenever it was acted upon. He knew that in 1847 it stopped the whole trade of the country, and, in fact, aggravated all the evils under which the country was then suffering. The question seemed to be this,—would the Bank Directors use the necessary caution without the compulsory enactments of the Act of If 44? He, for one, believed they would, and that any Act similar to that of 1844 must necessarily do harm rather than good. He was aware that it was thought to be dangerous to permit joint-stock banks to receive deposits and re-lend them. He was of exactly the opposite opinion. He thought that under good regulations and good management the greatest been to a country was a well-regulated and sound joint-stock bank; because it received the savings of the people which they could not use in trade, and re-lent them at a profit to those who could. That process made the whole capital of the country available for manufactures, agriculture, and commerce. He believed that to undue speculation and over-trading alone was the present crisis to be attributed. That speculation and over-trading began in America, and was fostered in this country. After having given much consideration to the question how it could be best allayed, an idea, which he certainly sug-
  306
  gested with some degree of doubt, had occurred to him. He thought that, as they put the words "value received "on every bill of exchange, wherever a bill of exchange was drawn, and no value received or accepted, the party so drawing or so accepting should be liable to a charge of fraud. Accommodation bills were a fraud upon the community, and gave the man without any capital at all an unfair advantage over the man who had capital, and who traded honestly. He would require, in addition to the words "value received" at present placed on bills of exchange, that there should he inserted the words "by the drawer," or "by the acceptor," and that all drawers and acceptors to whom no value had really been given should be liable to be prosecuted for the fraud they had committed. He believed that by that measure a check would be put to the issue of a large quantity of those bills known as "kites;" and that the honest trader and sound capitalist would meet with a greater amount of fair play than he had hitherto received.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I will first answer the question which was put to me by the hon. Baronet the Member for Evesham (Sir Henry Willoughby), inasmuch as it involves the important question raised by him whether a preliminary inquiry, to be conducted, I presume, by a Select Committee, or by the examination of witnesses at our bar, ought not to be instituted before the second reading of this Bill shall be agreed to. The hon. Baronet asked me whether it was within the knowledge of the Government that there had been a conspiracy or confederacy of certain bill-brokers, bill-discounters, and other persons in the metropolis for the purpose of intimidating and influencing the Bank of England with the view of embarrassing their operations to such an extent as to render necessary the interference of the Government. The answer which I have to make is, that I have no knowledge of the existence of any such combination or confederacy, and, moreover, that having had occasion during this crisis to watch with great closeness all the successive events as they occurred—having had access to authentic information, and having availed myself of it to the best of my ability—I have no belief in the existence of any such conspiracy:—and therefore, unless the House shall have placed before it some more specific and detailed information than the

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  hon. Baronet was able to bring forward, it does not seem to me that it would be called upon, or, indeed, justified, upon a mere suggestion or surmise of that sort, without any authentic testimony to rest upon, in instituting a solemn inquiry at the bar of this House. Unless, then, the House shall receive some information of an authentic character in that respect, I hope that it will accede at once to the second reading of this Bill. I will now proceed to advert to the questions put to me by my right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone). He objected in the first place to the manner in which the first clause of this Bill is drawn. He said that the Bank of England not being an official department of the Government, it would not be regular to confirm its acts, and that the only acts which the Legislature could confirm must be those of some Member of the Executive Government. Now, in answer to that remark, I would state that the Bank of England, though certainly not a part of the Executive Government, is entrusted with important functions which are partly of a public nature. It possesses a Charter granted by the Crown, and certain duties are imposed upon it by Parliament and the Government with respect to the currency. One obligation of the Bank of England—an obligation by force of a statutory enactment—has been violated at the suggestion of the Executive Government, and it is on account of that infraction of the law that we have brought forward the Indemnity Bill which is now under the consideration of the House; and I apprehend that there is nothing in the smallest degree irregular or improper in this House confirming the acts of the Bank of England, which involve a departure from the Act of 1844. These are acts of the Company and Governor of the Bank of England which are not in conformity with the statutory obligations imposed upon that corporation; and in framing this Bill the Government were advised that it would be proper to take as a precedent the Act by which the Bank of England was legislated for in the year 1797, when a departure was made from its then statutory obligations. At that time when Mr. Pitt was Prime Minister, cash payments having been suspended by the Bank under a Minute of Council, this departure from their obligations was confirmed by an Act of Parliament, in which there was a clause
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  which referred to the Minute of Council, and which provided "that all acts done by the said Governor and Company of the Bank of England by the direction of, or in pursuance of the said Minute in Council, shall be and are hereby ratified and confirmed." Well, Sir, that, I think, is a sufficient precedent for the phraseology which we have adopted in the present Bill. There is another point which has been raised by my right hon. Friend. My right hon. Friend referred to the issue of the Bank of £2,000,000 from the issue department to the banking department, and he likened that issue to a Government loan, and said that it was of the nature of an issue of Exchequer bills. Now, I confess, with great deference to the accuracy and knowledge of my right hon. Friend, that I cannot quite accede to that doctrine. It seems to me that it is of the nature of an issue wholly different to an issue of Exchequer bills, which are instruments issued by the Government under the authority of Acts of Parliament, and which have attaching to them particular legal incidents; whereas, in this case, all that the Bank has done has been to make an issue of £2,000,000 upon securities, as it is already authorised to do by Act of Parliament. I am aware that these £2,000,000 are in excess of the limit imposed by law, but they are in their nature precisely analogous to the £14,500,000 which the Bank is authorised to issue by Act of Parliament, and therefore I do not see the justice of my right hon. Friend's comparison. My right hon. Friend again wishes to know whether the Government intend to make any and what arrangement with the Bank with regard to the interest upon the over-issues, and whether that interest will be brought to the public account. Now, Sir, as the matter is still in progress, and as the Bank has not yet announced that the excess has been withdrawn, I have not thought it my duty to form any definite conclusion upon the subject, and I think that the House will agree with me that it would not be desirable to come to a final decision until the day shall arrive when the Bank can announce that the issue has returned to the limit which has been fixed by law. These, Sir, are my answers to the questions of my right hon. Friend. But there are one or two other points upon which I wish to make a few brief observations. The hon. and learned Member for Wallingford (Mr. Malins) has expressed an opinion that the

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  rate of discount ought not to have been fixed at so high a rate as 10 per cent, and he appeared to suggest that it would be desirable to allow the Rank to diminish the rate of discount without putting an end to the present relaxation. Now, in answer to that suggestion, I wish to remark that when the first letter was issued the rate of discount was 6 per cent, and the Government of the day made a condition, in granting a relaxation, that the rate of discount should not be less than 8 per cent. [Mr. MALINS: It was a very bad precedent.] Very well, but I was going to remark that we have not quite followed that precedent, and that the element which the hon. and learned Gentleman condemns is excluded from the present Bill, because the Government have not themselves fixed any rate of discount, but have simply adopted that which they found in existence—a rate which was caused by the spontaneous act of the Bank, without any suggestion whatever upon the part of the Government, and which was in existence before the issuing of the letter. All, therefore, that the Government did was to adopt the rate of discount which they found in existence. I certainly will admit that 10 per cent is a very high rate of discount; but when we bear in mind the great importance of arresting the foreign drain of gold, and preventing its renewal, I think that this House and the Government would not be exercising a sound judgment if they did not insist upon a condition that the existing rate of discount should be maintained until a more favourable state of things shall have arrived. There is now only one other point to which I wish to call the attention of the House, and that is to a repetition of a statement which I have heard in other quarters, but which I should never have expected to hear from the mouth of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate). The hon. Gentleman says that the effect of this issue of £2,000,000 is to alter the value of every man's property in the country.
  MR. NEWDEGATEwas understood to explain that he considered the issue a relief, inasmuch as it prevented a rise in the rate of interest, which obviously affected the value of capital.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: As I understood the argument of the hon. Gentleman, it was, that this issue would depreciate the currency, and would thus affect the value of every man's
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  property, and I was astonished to hear that statement from the hon. Gentleman, because I always considered that both himself and colleague were eminently favourable to a large issue of paper not always guided by the convertibility of the note. [Mr. NEWDEGATE: No.] Well, at all events I believed that both the hon. Members for North Warwickshire desired large issues of paper money, which they appear to think will, in some mysterious manner I cannot at all understand, greatly increase the wealth of the country; and I confess that having made some progress in satisfying those views by authorising the Bank of England to issue in excess for a temporary object, I am disappointed at meeting with so little gratitude from those hon. Gentlemen. When we are told that we are altering the value of every man's property in the country, I presume that it is meant that we are altering it for the worse; because if for the better, then it is not a charge against the Government; and therefore, if I understand the hon. Gentleman correctly, he charges us with depreciating the value of every man's property. [Mr. NEWDEGATE: No.] Well, if that be not the meaning, what is?
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he had thanked the Government for having acted as they had done, and stated that a rise in the rate of interest must affect the value of capital; but he had not stated that a rise in the rate of interest would enhance the value of other property.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he still thought he had not misunderstood or misinterpreted the hon. Gentleman. That was no question as to the rate of interest, but a question as to the effect of an issue of an extra amount of bank-notes. The hon. Gentleman had distinctly asserted that that issue had altered the value of the property of every man in the country. [Mr. NEWDEGATE and Mr. SPOONER: Had improved it.] But if it had improved it, then I presume that the gratitude of each of the hon. Members to the Government will be unbounded; and that so far from being open to any charge, their conduct will be held to be entitled to the highest commendation Perhaps the House will allow me to explain a matter in relation to an argument which has been used by an hon. Member this evening with regard to which there has been as it seems to me some misunderstanding. It was suggested the other evening that the effect of the issue of these

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  £2,000,000 would be a depreciation of the currency. I said I could not understand how it could be alleged that the currency was depreciated when the notes so issued were receivable at their full value—when every £5 note so issued was received in exchange for five sovereigns at the Bank of England, or when any person in the country is willing to take it at the value it purports to represent. What I understand by the depreciation or debasement of a paper currency is, when the value at which such paper circulates is less than the value which it purports to bear. That seems to me to be the commonly understood meaning of a depreciated currency. I remember once having a conversation with a gentleman who was at Paris during the French Revolution, and who told me that the value of assignats was so much depreciated that on going into the theatre you took an assignat of 300 or 400 francs out of your pocket and gave it to the check-taker, and you did not think it worth your while asking for the change. These were depreciated assignats. If an assignat of 300 or 400 francs passed for only 3 or 4 francs, one understands the meaning of depreciation. That is the sense in which I deny that the issue of this extra £2,000,000 of notes has depreciated or debased the currency. But then, it is said, there is another meaning of the word depreciation, and that when the exchanges are adverse—when the value of gold falls in this country, and there is consequently a motive for its exportation to foreign countries, the value of the entire currency falls, and in that sense the currency is depreciated. I do not mean to dispute that the word may be used in that sense. But, then in that sense, be it remarked, the gold of the currency is depreciated just as much as the paper. There is no inequality in the values of the gold and the paper; and that is an alteration to which all currencies are liable in the fluctuation of the values of the precious metals in different countries. It may be an inconvenience, but it is not an evil against which the law can provide. But the depreciation of the currency, in the common acceptation of the term, by which the paper does not pass at its true, legal, and proper value—at the value which it nominally bears—is an evil against which legislation can provide. It seems to me that to confound these two ideas is to confound things essentially different in their nature, and when I denied
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  that these£2,000,000 of notes caused a depreciation of the currency, I used the expression in the commonly received, and not in the other sense.
  MR. SPOONERrepudiated on his own part and on that of his hon. Colleague (Mr. Newdegate), the advocacy of an unlimited issue of inconvertible paper. He maintained, however, that every note which promised to pay in gold ought to be made to pay in gold. We had a currency purporting on the face of it to pay in gold; and yet everybody knew that that profession was a perfect fraud. [" No, no!'] No, no, was a negative argument, and had no effect on his (Mr. Spooner's) mind. He repeated that the issue of notes professing to pay in gold and trusting that they never could be asked so to pay them was a fraud upon the face of it, and ought never to be continued. He had always argued and still maintained that we could not have a sufficient currency for carrying on the trade of this country by means of paper convertible into gold; and, instead of such a currency, he said, let us openly issue for home purposes a national paper money convertible into everything necessary for home purposes, and a legal tender, enabling every man to pay his debts and his taxes—a paper issued from the public Exchequer, and received again in payment of taxes. Our currency should not be one which foreign events could completely overturn, breaking the terms of every man's bargain without our having any power to control it. Formerly, when our currency was payable in gold, it was payable in gold coin not liable to be exported. It was not a marketable commodity free to be exported, but it was coin stamped and set apart, the exportation of which was prohibited by heavy penalties. That restriction had, however, been since taken away; and hence the essential difference between our gold currency now and the system adopted when that great statesman Mr. Pitt declared that gold should not be our master but our servant, and came forward to adapt the currency to the wants of the country. England was now in the midst of a great Indian crisis, and was she to allow her efforts to be crippled by a question of gold? Let the national security be turned into a currency sufficient to maintain our own local arrangements. Let the Bank issue notes according to their own discretion, and let those notes be payable in gold, and then we should be sure to find a way of preventing a drain of

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  gold from this country. That would be a much more legitimate mode than the high rate of discount now adopted to check the drain, and which not only prevented the gold from going abroad, but broke every current engagement between man and man at home. He could not conceive how it had entered anybody's head that the issue of the extra,£2,000,000 of notes had depreciated the currency. He cordially thanked the Chancellor of the Exchequer for what he had done, although his course had been attended by two drawbacks, namely, that it was not taken half soon enough, and that it was accompanied by the limitation regarding the 10 per cent. The latter point ought to have been left to the discretion of the Bank.
  MR. INGRAMthought, that if the Treasury had fixed the minimum of interest at 8 instead of 10 per cent it would have been quite high enough. If they wished to draw more gold into the Bank of England they ought to legalize the issue of £4,000,000, or £5,000,000 of £1 notes. He hoped that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would give these two suggestions his best consideration, and take the necessary steps for their adoption.
  Bill read 2°, and committed for tomorrow.

INTELLIGENCE FROM INDIA.

  QUESTION.
  COLONEL FRENCHsaid, there was a report in circulation that telegraphic news had just been received by the Government from India, containing information of the relief of Lucknow. If such were the case, perhaps the noble Viscount would take that opportunity of announcing the fact before the House broke up.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: In reply to the question of my hon. and gallant Friend, I have to inform the House that a telegram has been received; but it did not come by the ordinary fortnightly mail, but by a vessel which left Calcutta a week later than the date of the last accounts. The telegram states that two convoys of provisions had reached Lucknow; that there had been a good deal of fighting; and that Sir James Outram had been wounded. I cannot help suspecting that this is but an echo of the news we received before, and that it relates to the convoy of provisions that reached Alumbagh, which is three miles from Lucknow. We had heard also that, during the engagements which took place when Lucknow
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  was relieved, Sir James Outram has been wounded; I am afraid, therefore, that this is a mere echo of the news recently received.
  House adjourned at half after Eight o'clock.

MINUTES.
Took the Oaths.—The Lord Audley.
SALE OF OBSCENE BOOKS, &c. PREVENTION BILL.

  RETURN MOVED FOR.
  LORD CAMPBELLreminded the House that a Bill, introduced by himself, for the purpose of checking the circulation of obscene publications and prints, passed the Legislature during the last Session and became the law of the land. It was thought that that Act would lead to dangerous consequences, and he was therefore about to move for a Return to show what had been done under its operation up to the present time. He was assured that it had operated most beneficially. He

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  was told that informations had been laid against dealers of the publications in question in Holywell Street; that warrants had been granted and searches made; and that large quantities of these abominable commodities had been found, and the parties owning them summoned before the magistrates. This siege of Holywell Street might he compared to the siege of Delhi. The place was not taken in a day, hut repeated assaults were necessary, and at last he was told, it was now in the quiet possession of the law, for the shops where these abominations were found had been shut up, and the rest of the houses were now conducted in a manner free from exception. He believed that the apprehensions expressed in certain quarters as to the probable effect of the Act in one respect had not been realised, for as yet no repertory of the fine arts had been disturbed. With the view of testing the accuracy of his information he moved for a—
  Return of the Informations laid under the Act 20th and 21st Vict. Cap. 83, "for more effectually preventing the Sale of Obscene Books, Pictures, Prints, and other Articles," the Wan-ants issued thereupon, and the Result of the Proceedings in each Case.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHhoped his noble and learned Friend did not move for this Return with the view of bringing any of the publications in question before their Lordships.
  LORD CAMPBELLsaid, his noble Friend's modesty need not be at all alarmed, for his Return would be only of the general character he had indicated.
  Motion agreed to.

THE QUEEN'S ANSWER TO THE ADDRESS.
THE LORD STEWARD OF THE HOUSEHOLD (The Earl of ST. GER-MANS)brought up the following gracious Message from Her Majesty in answer to the Address:—
"MY LORDS,
"I thank you for your loyal and dutiful Address.
"You may be assured of My cordial Cooperation in Measures calculated to increase the Security of all Parts of this Empire, to improve the Institutions of the Country, and to promote the Welfare and Prosperity of all Classes of My Subjects."

THE DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS.

  MAJOR-GENERAL HEARSEY—EXPLANATION.
  EARL GRANVILLE: I am desirous, my Lords, of making some explanation with regard to the contradictions which I felt it to be my duty to offer to certain statements of the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby) during the debate on Thursday night. The noble Earl stated that Major-General Hearsey had been reprimanded by the Governor-General for having promoted a Sepoy to the rank of havildar on account of his gallant conduct at the outbreak of the mutiny. I had read all the papers relating to the subject, and my impression—an impression confirmed by several noble Friends near me—was that no such reprimand had been given, and I accordingly stated that impression. Since then I find, on referring to the blue-book, that there are certain orders and regulations in existence which, whether right or wrong, limit the powers of officers commanding troops in the field, which orders did not originate with Lord Canning, and consequently with the right or wrong of which he had nothing to do. I find that Lord Canning, in answer to the despatch of General Hearsey referring to the promotion of this Sepoy, said, that he considered General Hearsey had no authority to make any promotions under the existing regulations; but his Lordship added that, as the promotion in this case had been announced, and was in his opinion richly deserved, he begged to submit to the Council that it should be confirmed. It appears to me that if the noble Earl had read the blue-books, instead of a certain red pamphlet, he would have seen that the intimation to General Hearsey could not be considered a reprimand, but that, on the contrary, the act of General Hearsey had been confirmed. The other statement of the noble Earl to which I wish to direct the attention of your Lordships is one with reference to the conduct of the President of the Board of Control. The noble Earl on Thursday night said—and I am now quoting from the report contained in The Times—
  "Really, my Lords, what I am going to say sounds so incredible that it is difficult to believe it, and I ask to be contradicted by the Government if they are able to contradict me, but should they do so I promise to bring forward incontrovertible evidence to prove it. Some considerable time after the arrangements to which I have referred the right hon. Gentleman

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  the President of the Board of Control somewhat surprised the agent of the Peninsular and Oriental Company by a letter, in which he asked him if some plan could not be arranged by which troops which could be sent to India by means of the steamers of the company. Well, my Lords, the gentleman to whom the letter was addressed read it over, and then examined the seal and scrutinized the signature to see if it could possibly be a hoax, but finding that it was a genuine production he wrote back to say, 'You ask if it can be done; why, it is being done and has been done for a considerable time, under the authority of the Government.' I ask your Lordships if it is not inconceivable that the President of the Board of Control, himself a Member of the Cabinet, should write and ask if it was possible to organize a scheme when that scheme had been in full operation for a considerable period under the sanction of the Government?"
  I said at the time that I believed the assertion to be without foundation. I have since made inquiries in reference to that subject, and all I have to say now, is that Mr. Vernon Smith never wrote such a letter, that the Peninsular and Oriental Company never received such a letter, that therefore they did not make the reply which had been suggested by the noble Earl, and such reply was of course not received by the right hon. Gentleman.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: My noble Friend was good enough to give me notice, about an hour ago, of his intention to make some explanations as to certain contradictions with which he met some statements of mine on Thursday last. Since that notice I have endeavoured to recollect what these contradictious had reference to; and I found that the three points on which the noble Earl contradicted him—one of which he had not alluded to to-night—are the reprimand to General Hearsey, the want of an announcement to disabuse the Sepoys of the impression that it was intended to interfere with their religion, and the course attributed to the President of the Board of Control. With respect to the first point, it is very evident, from the statement just made by the noble Earl, that he does not understand the real statement made by me with regard to the reprimand addressed by the Governor-General to General Hearsey, All that I stated was simply that General Hearsey having taken upon himself to promote a Sepoy for gallant conduct, the Governor-General had disapproved of the act. My noble Friend the other night charged me with having taken my statements not from the blue-book, but from a certain red pamphlet. I admit that I have read that pamphlet, and if any of your Lordships should not yet have done the
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  same thing, I would advise them at once to peruse it, for a more able resumé of the proceedings in India I never met with. However I did not make a single statement founded upon that pamphlet without verifying it by comparison with official documents, and my noble Friend mast admit that, even had I borrowed my facts from the red pamphlet he alludes to, I did not borrow its language. I stated that a reprimand was inflicted upon Major General Hearsey, for promoting the Sepoy in question, and I say so still. But I find that I have judged the Minute of Council too favourably, for I assumed that it contained a high approval of General Hearsey's conduct; which was not the case. Not only is the act itself disapproved of, but there is not the slightest notice of the gallant and distinguished conduct of the General on the outbreak of the mutiny, and under the most critical circumstances. In the Minute of the Governor-General, confirmed by the Council, it is stated
  "That it is not in the power of the Major-General commanding to make this promotion, which can proceed only from the Government of India, and therefore should not have appeared in a divisional order without the sanction of the Governor-General."
  I say that appears to me to be a reprimand. It may not appear so to the Government of India, but I believe every gallant and high-spirited officer would feel it to be so. It is quite true the Minute goes on to add:—
  "But the promotion has been announced by Major-General Hearsey, and is richly deserved by Sheik Phultor, and may, I submit, be properly confirmed."
  The order of the Major-General was undoubtedly confirmed, but the confirmation was accompanied by a reprimand. The next statement I made was respecting a refusal to insert the names of two officers in general orders, in which the Governor-General says,—
  "I am sorry I cannot agree to Major-General Hearsey's proposal, that Lieutenant Baugh and Sergeant-Major Hewson, who suffered so severely in the conflict with the mutineers, should be the subject of a general order."
  The Minute goes on to say,—
  "I think it should be observed to Major-General Hearsey that it would have been better if the divisional order had not characterized Murgal Pandy's condition as one of religious frenzy."
  That is the notice which is taken of General Hearsey's conduct, and I am astonished that my noble Friend should persist in

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  saying it was not intended to be a reprimand. I am sure it would be considered so by any high-minded man. The next matter upon which my noble Friend met me with a contradiction was my statement that, for a considerable period of time, no steps were taken to disabuse the minds of the Sepoys with regard to the intentions of the Government not to interfere with their religion. My noble Friend said, "What can you mean by that, seeing that within a month there was a discontinuance of the issue of greased cartridges which had been complained of?" But there was no declaration by authority to the Sepoys, stating that it was the determination of the Government, as it had ever been, to abstain from all steps tending to an interference with their religion. Now, upon the 9th of June my noble Friend near me (the Earl of Ellenborough) asked whether it was the intention of the Government of India to issue any proclamation to quiet the public mind in that country? "No," said my noble Friend opposite (Earl Granville), "the Government had no such intention; it was needless to issue any such declaration, which might be mischievous. The Government entirely approved the conduct of Lord Canning in abstaining from disturbing the public mind of India by any such proclamation." But what really did happen? At the very time the noble Earl was making this vindication of the Governor-General, the Governor-General had acted in accordance with the suggestions of my noble Friend (the Earl of Ellenborough), and had actually issued a proclamation such as the Government at home were lauding him for not issuing. The only thing is, that it was done three months later than should have been the case. Now, as to the third contradiction; I certainly should be very sorry to misrepresent, or even to exaggerate, the mistakes of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control, and I was not at all surprised that the statement I made the other night should have been received with an expression of incredulity, for when the statement was first made to me I said at once, "That is impossible." I was certainly very greatly surprised when I heard the contradiction I have just received, because with the exception of using the words "a considerable time," whereas it now appears that it was only three or four days, the statement I made was precisely the same given to me by a gentleman, who I am sure would not mislead me, and who obtained it from the
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  Manager of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, a Member of Parliament, not at this moment in England, to whom the letter in question was addressed, and by whom it was answered. Upon the day before Parliament met I again saw my informant, and said, "This is a most serious charge; are you sure you are quite correct in your facts? "He said, "The managing director to whom he had referred was not in England, but that he would have an opportunity of seeing the other managing director, and would ascertain positively." He did see him, and upon the next day he informed me that there was no mistake, and upon his authority I made the statement to your Lordships. I should regret very much if I have done injustice to the President of the Board of Control, but if I was in. error I am astonished that the noble Earl, who could have had immediate access to the best quarter for information upon the point, if he had ascertained that I was misinformed, should not have given an immediate and authoritative denial. I cannot explain the contradiction between the two statements, but I have stated by what means I acquired the information; my noble Friend has given a contradiction, and there I suppose the matter must rest.
  EARL GRANVILLE: As to the explanation respecting the alleged reprimand to Major-General Hearsey, I have nothing to add. With respect to the other point, the omission of the Government to issue a proclamation in India, I will only remind your Lordships of what was the charge made by the noble Earl,—
  "Throughout the whole of this period, from the beginning of February to the 20th of March, no single step, as far as I can find, was taken on the part of the Government either to disabuse the minds of the Sepoys on the subject of these greased cartridges, or to ascertain their probable intentions and the extent of the disaffection prevailing among them."
  My answer to the charge was—
  "Neither do I know what authority he has for saying that Lord Canning did nothing to stop the issue of the greased cartridges. To my knowledge he sent a telegraphic despatch discouraging the issue, and ordering that the native troops should use their own ammunition."
  I recapitulated what appeared to me to have been the statement of the noble Earl, and contradicted it. If I was incorrect, I do not know why the noble Lord did not set me right at the time as to my misapprehension of what he had said. As regards the explanation which the noble Earl has just given respecting the charge

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  which he made against Mr. Vernon Smith, I can only say that I hold in my hand a correspondence which will place the whole question in the clearest point of view before your Lordships. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Control, the moment he became aware of the nature of the imputation which the noble Earl made against him, instituted the strictest inquiry among the clerks at his office as to their knowledge of the existence of the ground upon which the charge was based. They were, however, utterly at a loss how to account for the noble Earl's statement, and accordingly the Chief Clerk at the India Board addressed the following letter to the managing director of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam-packet Company:—
  "You will see that Lord Derby makes a very round assertion respecting a correspondence between our President and your board upon the subject of facilitating the transit of troops across Egypt. The assertion is so strongly insisted upon that I begin to doubt my own recollection; but will you bear me out in the impression that no direct correspondence between our office and yours has taken place at all on this subject, and that the first notice of it (and that indirectly through the East India House), was in September last?"
  To that communication the following reply was received at the India Board:—
  "In reply to yours of this morning respecting the assertions made by Lord Derby on the subject of facilitating the transit of troops across Egypt, I beg to say that this company received no direct correspondence from the Board of Control, and that the first communication made by this company for the conveyance of troops via the Overland was dated the 9th September, and addressed to the Hon. the East India Company."
  This correspondence cannot, I think, fail to dispel all doubt in reference to the subject. But before I sit down I cannot refrain from expressing it as my opinion that some precaution ought to be taken in sifting information before a charge of this nature is brought against a public servant who happens to be engaged in the discharge of an arduous duty. The noble Earl denies that he has borrowed his language from that of the pamphlet to which he has referred; but he will not deny that there was on the first night of the Session a similarity—and I admit a judicious and prudent similarity—between the expressions, and arguments, and even jokes, which he used, and those which fell from the right hon. Gentleman who represents him in another place. The only exception to this rule was that the noble
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  Earl made a charge in this House against the President of the Board of Control, and that an attack was made upon the President of the Board of Trade by the leader of the Opposition in the other House of Parliament. Now, I cannot help thinking that the better distribution of parts would have been, for the noble Earl to make the attack upon my noble Friend the President of the Board of Trade in your Lordships' House, and for the representative of the noble Earl in the other House to make the attack upon the President of the Board of Control, when both my noble Friend and the right hon. Gentleman would have been enabled to defend themselves.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: I quite concur with the noble Earl in the opinion that it is desirable the utmost caution should be exercised in sifting information before a charge is brought against a public man; and I must add that I thought I could have no better authority than that to which I alluded for the statement which I made, while it appeared to me that I had so far sifted the question that I could not possibly have been led into a mistake. With respect to the similarity which the noble Earl speaks of as existing between my arguments and those which are used by a right hon. Friend of mine in another place, I can only say that it is not extraordinary that some such coincidence as he mentions should prevail, inasmuch as it is my custom, whether in or out of office, to communicate freely with my colleagues in both Houses of Parliament. That is not probably the practice of those with whom the noble Earl is associated in the Government. I can assure the noble Earl that I was not even aware that the attack to which he alludes had been made upon my noble Friend the President of the Board of Trade in another place. If he is particularly anxious that I should do so, however, I have no objection to make an attack upon him in this House.
  EARL GRANVILLE: My noble Friend has no particular wish to be attacked; but when an attack is made upon him he is desirous that it should not be done behind his back.
  THE EARL OF HARDWICKE: My Lords, I think I am bound to state that either in the month of August or September last—I forget which—I heard from the gentleman to whom my noble Friend near me has referred the statement in respect to the President of the Board of Control

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  which has been the subject of discussion this evening. I afterwards visited my noble Friend at Knowsley and mentioned the circumstance to him. He at once said, "Oh, it is impossible; it cannot be true." That is precisely the state of the case, and I shall only add that I made the statement on authority which I could not for a moment doubt.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: The noble Earl opposite says that the statement of the noble Earl near me is completely contradicted by a letter from the Manager of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam-packet Company in reply to one addressed to him from the Board of Control. Now, from my recollection of the Board of Control, no such letter could have been sent through that office. As a public office, it corresponds only with the Court of Directors, so that any letter which was addressed from it to the Director of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam-packet Company must have been of a private, and not of an official character.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: It is quite true that no official communications can take place between the Board of Control and any other body except the Court of Directors. But I hold in my hand a letter which I think will set at rest the whole question at issue. Nobody imagines that the noble Earl opposite made the statement which he has made without believing it to be correct, and I am perfectly ready to admit that it has been the result of a misconception. The letter which I am about to read to your Lordships was written to my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty by Mr. Willcox, who was—I am not sure whether or not he is now—a director of the company. It is as follows:—
  "Dec. 6, 1857.
  "Dear Sir Charles,—My attention has just been called to a report of the Earl of Derby's speech in the House of Lords on Thursday evening, and I read with great surprise the following:—
  (He quotes The Times' report.)
  "'1. The Peninsular and Oriental Company offered in the month of July last to make such arrangements that the troops might have been taken across the Isthmus in twenty-four hours, and they likewise offered the use of their mail steamers, which would carry 500 men each trip.
  "'2. In the month of August an application was made to the Court of Directors to make the same arrangement with the Peninsular and Oriental Company which had been offered and refused.
  "'3. Some considerable time after these arrangements had been made, the President of the Board of Control somewhat surprised the Peninsular and Oriental Company by a letter which
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  he wrote to them to ask if a scheme might not be organized for sending troops to India by the company's steamers. Now, this had been done for a considerable time, both under the authority of Her Majesty's Government and that of the East India Company, and yet the President of the Board of Control wrote to ask if it was possible to organize a scheme for doing it.'
  "I have to observe, in reply to the 1st and 2nd, that their statements are utterly untrue, and not only so, but that nothing whatever occurred in connection with the Peninsular and Oriental Company which by possibility could give rise to a misconception upon the subject. The fact is, that upon this question, from the first down to the present, no tender or offer for the conveyance of troops viâ Egypt per the company's mail packets has ever been made by them. They knew too well the absurdity of attempting to convey during the monsoon months a body of deck passengers (for they have no room below) to India. (In this last monsoon, in a gale of wind accompanied by heavy rain, the company lost their steamer Erin on the coast of Ceylon.)
  "It was not until the first week in September last, in consequence of a verbal communication from the East India Company to that effect, that on the 8th of that month the Peninsular and Oriental Company submitted a scheme for conveying fortnightly by their mail steamers detachments of men from 220 to 250 per steamer, engaging to maintain them in case of need on board their coal hulk Ariadne at Alexandria, or their hulk Zenobia at Suez.
  "In answer to the 3rd, neither the President of the Board of Control, nor any one in connection with that department, ever addressed a letter to the company, cither officially or privately, either on this or any other occasion.
  "The idea that a Board of Control should so flagrantly assume the executive is so absurd that on this point I must assume that the noble Earl has been incorrectly reported.
  "I have only to add, if it were true that the Peninsular and Oriental Company made an offer in July and August last (monsoon months often prevailing into September), the Government would have been perfectly justified in rejecting the scheme for the conveyance of troops by the mail steamers during that period.
  "I am, dear Sir, yours truly,
  "B. M. WILLCOX.
  "Right Hon. Sir C. Wood."
  This is, I think, as complete and emphatic a contradiction as can be given to the charge which has been brought against my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Control.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: All I can say is, that some of the statements contained in that letter are in direct contradiction to the published report of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam-packet Company.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: If the noble Earl will look to the city article of The Times of to-day he will there find reference made to a communication which has taken place between the Government and the company with respect to the conveyance of

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  troops viâ Egypt. He will also find that the date at which the telegraphic despatch was received, naming the day on which the vessel which is to take those troops is expected to arrive at Suez, is later—being, I think, the 17th of November—than any day named in this letter.
  THE EARL OF MALMESBURYsaid, that the explanation gave rise to another discrepancy, for it was on the 1st October that the first batch of troops were sent by the overland route.

  MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN— PROVISION FOR GENERAL HAVELOCK.
  Message from THE QUEEN.
  Delivered by the LORD PRESIDENT, and read by the LORD CHANCELLOR, as follows:—
  "VICTORIA R.
  "Her Majesty, being desirous of conferring a signal Mark of Her Favour and Approbation on Major-General Sir Henry Havelock, Baronet, K.C.B., for the eminent and distinguished Services rendered by him in command of a Body of British and Native Troops in India, and particularly in the gallant and successful Operations undertaken for the Relief of the Garrison of Lucknow, recommends it to the House of Lords to concur in enabling Her Majesty to make Provision for securing to Sir Henry Havelock a Pension of One Thousand Pounds per Annum for the Term of his natural Life.
  "V. R."
  Ordered, That the said Message be taken into Consideration To-morrow.

RELIGIOUS WORSHIP ACT AMENDMENT BILL.

  SECOND READING PUT OFF.
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, that, noticing their Lordships' preoccupation with the affairs of India, he thought he should exercise a proper discretion in postponing his promised statement on this subject until this day (Tuesday).
  Second reading (which stood appointed for this day) put off till to-morrow.

INDIA—THE ARMS AND PRESS ACTS.

  MOTION FOR PAPERS.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: My Lords, the first Motion I have to sub-
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  mit to your Lordships is, that there be laid upon the table of this House the Arms Act which has been recently passed by the Legislative Council of India. I believe the circumstances under which that Act was passed are these:—There had been a most unusual importation of arms into Calcutta, and it appeared that the purchases of those arms had been to a great extent made by Natives. This naturally very much alarmed the Europeans, inasmuch as they had before them the ill use which had been made of their arms by Natives in all parts of the country, as there was reason to suppose that there existed a combination to massacre all the Europeans in Calcutta, and as moreover there were present in that place 1,000 or 1,500 persons, natives of Oude, who were servants of the King of Oude. Under these circumstances it was very naturally suggested to the Government that it would be desirable to disarm the Natives in Calcutta for the security of the Europeans, who are few in number, and had but a small military force for their protection. The Government declined, but said they would introduce an Arms Act, and that is the Act which I wish to see and to have placed before you. That Act, as I understand, adhering to a principle very recently attempted to be introduced into the legislation of India, places the Europeans and the Natives—the persons who abuse arms for the purpose of destroying us, and the Europeans who wish to have arms for their protection—on exactly the same footing; and it went to this extent, that Europeans were not to be possessed of arms unless by the consent of a magistrate. Now, in the Mofussil, that is, in the provinces, the magistrates being to a great extent Natives, the Europeans are compelled by the Act to go to persons of this description, many of whom are suspected of being traitors, and many of whom have really proved themselves to be traitors, for permission to retain the arms necessary for their protection. Now, my Lords, my apprehension is (my noble and learned Friend at the table will correct me if I am wrong) that, according to the Bill of Rights, every Englishman is permitted to have arms for his own defence. [A noble LORD: Being Protestants.] Being Protestants—and why? Because at that time the Roman Catholics were suspected of traitorous designs, and there was reason why they should not have arms and why Protestants should for their own safety possess

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  them. Now, is there not the same reason for confiding to Europeans in India a similar privilege, and for excluding, under present circumstances, the Native population? Yet at this moment the Government of India consider it expedient, in accordance with what they call a principle, to place both these classes of persons on exactly the same footing, and to subject Europeans to the disadvantage of not being allowed to possess arms unless by the consent of a Native magistrate, if they should happen to live in the interior of the country. My Lords, that resolution of the Legislative Council appears to me to rest upon a total misapprehension not only of our position at the present moment, but of the position which for years the Europeans necessarily must hold with respect to the Natives of India. Our position in India is like that of the Normans in Saxon England. We must be armed, or it is impossible for us to protect ourselves. Instead of having a measure subjecting both English and Natives to a law of this description, the permanent law of India ought to be, that every Englishman should be possessed of arms under a penalty for neglect of the ordinance; and, if a resident in India, he should even be compelled to enrol himself in some corps for occasional discipline and drill. It is impossible for us to preserve in security the lives and property of Europeans in India unless we, for a time at least, assume the appearance of an armed militia. My Lords, it is not surprising that this fatuity on the part of the Government, acting upon a principle which never can be adopted in India (least of all at the present time), and subjecting our countrymen who are now fighting for their lives to this indignity, should have produced throughout the whole European population a very strong feeling of dissatisfaction and disgust. Of course there can be no objection to the production of this Act. But then there is another Act, of which we have a copy, because it was laid upon the table of the House at a very late period of the last Session—I believe after I had discontinued my attendance here—I mean the Act relating to the Indian press. We had laid before us at the same time the speech of the Governor-General in proposing that Act, and also some Minutes of the Legislative Council in order to explain the circumstances under which it was passed. Before I say a word regarding this Act for the suppression (for practically it is a suppression) of the English press in India, I wish
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  your Lordships distinctly to understand the difference which exists between the press in India and the press at home. In. this country the press is emphatically the press of the people of England. It advocates their interests: it is supported by them. Different opinions may be expressed by the editors of different newspapers; but they all endeavour to impress upon their readers that their object is the general interest of the people, and if they did not it would be impossible for them to exist. A newspaper must pay, and it cannot pay unless it relies for support upon the masses by whom it is to be purchased and read. But the press of India is in a totally different position. In the first place there are two kinds of journals—Native and English. The English press is not the press of the people of India. It is the press of the stranger, the press of the Government, the press of the governing class. It advocates their interests. I do not say that it may not occasionally also advocate the general interest of the country; but that is not the particular object of the English press; it is to represent the interests of those by whom it is especially supported—the governing class—and these interests the English journals may have to support in direct contradiction to the general interests of the people of India. The Native press, on the other hand—erroneously as we think, traitorously as it has lately seemed—takes up what it conceives to be the cause of the population generally, and is opposed to the personal interest of the governing classes. Being published in the English language, the English press is perfectly innocuous as regards the people of India until the articles it contains are translated; meanwhile it has no more influence on the people of India than the English journals would have upon the people of this country if they were published in Greek or Latin. On the other hand, the Native press has no influence whatever upon us, for by us it is not read. However, there can be no doubt that, although upon the people of India the English press can have no effect whatever until its articles are translated and have received a general circulation through the Native press, the Native princes (and I think probably all the more considerable persons in India) obtain for themselves, as I have been informed, not through the European press of India, but directly, translations of all the articles relating to the interests of

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  India which appear in the English newspapers. That source of information may and must remain open under all circumstances, whether it produces benefit or mischief. Now, there can be no doubt that the state of things in India was so serious—there had been mutinies—more mutinies were expected—these mutinies had assumed the character of revolution—there was so much appearance of danger—that I do think the Government was perfectly justified in considering whether it would not be necessary to restrain the indiscretion of the press in publishing that which might be injurious to the public service. My Lords, I know there are several points on which that indiscretion—I will use no harsher term—has assumed much prominence; I think, therefore, nothing could be more proper than that the Government, entering into confidential communications with the editors of all those newspapers published at Calcutta, should have distinctly stated their views as to the danger of discussion upon particular topics, and should have ascertained whether the editors were willing to come into some arrangement respecting the publication of newspapers leading to the prevention of that danger, distinctly intimating that if those gentlemen were not disposed to acquiesce in the suggestion made to them, the Government would take its own course by way of legislation on the subject. No such communication took place. The Governor-General went down on the 13th of June to the Legislative Council; he made a speech; he proposed a Bill, and in the course of the same day that Bill became law—but by the strangest inconsistency its operation did not commence till after the lapse of fourteen days; so that all the dangers which were depicted as arising from the disaffection of the Native press and the indiscretion of the European press were allowed to increase and to produce the mischief which might be effected during fourteen days of exasperation, those days covering the 23rd of June, the anniversary of Plassy, which was considered the most dangerous day for that country on account of the excitement of the Native mind. Now, let me inform your Lordships what the provisions of that Act are. First of all, no printing press was to be kept without a licence from the Government, under a penalty of £500, or two years' imprisonment, or both; two years' imprisonment being death to an European in India—death! worse than death, because including every suffering
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  that can be inflicted upon the body. Secondly, the Act conferred the power of searching for and seizing unlicensed presses. Then applications for licences were to be granted under such conditions, if any, as the Governor-General in Council, or the Governor-General, might think fit to prescribe, and such licences might be revoked at pleasure. The conditions might be exactly whatever the Governor-General chose. The Governor-General might, if he thought fit, under this Act, require that there should be a previous censorship; and very much better would it have been if he had determined upon taking that course, because a previous censorship, conducted with intelligence, would have altogether prevented the mischief apprehended from the indiscretion of the newspapers. The course which has been adopted allows the mischief, and only attempts to prevent it by punishment subsequently to the issue of publications which may have been injurious; but I think, in the state of real danger which existed, that the censorship would have been infinitely preferable to the course which has been followed. The Act provides that, if the editor of a newspaper agrees to certain conditions, the penalty for violating such conditions shall be a fine of £500 and two years' imprisonment. It further provides that books, &c, printed at a licensed press shall have the printer's and publisher's names, and that copies shall be sent to the magistrates. Besides this, the Governor-General may prohibit the circulation of any book, newspaper, or printed paper, wherever printed; and whoever knowingly imports, publishes, or circulates, or causes to be published or circulated, any such newspaper or printed paper, is liable to the penalty of £500 and two years' imprisonment. Now, these being the provisions of the Act, it is necessary to see what were the conditions required from the editors. Those conditions were:—" 'That no book, pamphlet, newspaper, or other work' shall contain any observations' impugning the motives or designs of the British Government, either in England or India, or in any way tending to bring' it 'into contempt,' 'weaken its authority,' or that of 'its servants, civil or military.' Nor anything 'having a tendency to create suspicion' in the Native mind of interference with their religion. Nor to weaken the friendship of Native Princes towards us. 'The above conditions apply equally to original matter and to matter copied

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  from other publications.'" Now, of these conditions, I think that which requires that nothing shall be published which has a tendency to create suspicion in the Native mind of interference with their religion, and also that which requires that nothing shall be published which may tend to weaken the friendship of Native Princes towards us, are perfectly legitimate; nor do I understand that these conditions have in any case been violated. I know myself the extreme danger which is created by the circulation of opinions as if they were the views entertained by the Government with regard to Native Princes. No one in my time ever threw the slightest suspicion upon the views of the Government with regard to the religion of the people; but I know well the danger of saying anything which may weaken the friendship of the Native Princes. If that provision had not been introduced, or if the editors of newspapers, acting in conformity with the opinion of the Government, had not abstained from publishing statements which might have weakened the friendship of the Native Princes, I really know not what might have been the condition of our Indian empire at the present time. We owe the safety of our communications in an extensive district altogether to the fidelity of the Rajahs of Rawah and Gwalior; but if, instead of abstaining from making observations upon the conduct of those Princes, the Indian newspapers had expressed doubts of their fidelity, and, in the spirit which too much animates persons in that country, had expressed a hope that when our rule was re-established there would be further and further annexations, I assure you that every part of Central India, chiefs as well as subjects, would have been in arms against us. I therefore entirely agree with the Government in the necessity of making that condition, and also in the necessity of making the condition with respect to the religion of the Natives; but observe how these conditions fail in meeting requirements which are equally, or nearly equally pressing, and how, on the other hand, the Act itself and the conditions imposed under it go altogether, in some respects, beyond the necessity of the case. No doubt inconvenience may result—under some circumstances there may be more than inconvenience—from the dissemination through the press in India of observations tending to bring the Government of that country into contempt. But the provisions of this Act are not con-
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  fined to the general conduct of the Government in India, but they apply to the conduct of the Government of this country in so far as it affects the Indian empire. All that the Government of India have to do is to preserve their own safety, and to leave us to ourselves; but, instead of confining themselves to this object, they make the penalties attach to any newspapers or books whatever, wherever printed, and also to newspapers which republish papers printed elsewhere. Indeed, in a recent case a newspaper was either warned or suppressed—I do not remember which—for republishing in India an article from a newspaper called The Press, published in this country. Now, observe what the effect of this provision really is. This law prohibits the press of India from speaking freely on the subject of the position of Englishmen in that country, and also with reference to the conduct of the Government there; and, as far as it can, it extends its coercion to the press of this country, for it provides for prohibiting the publication of anything which has been published in England that may not suit the views of the Government of India, and from the day of such prohibition any English gentleman in India who receives a book or a newspaper so prohibited and circulates it will be liable to a penalty of £500, and to two years' imprisonment. Why, my Lords, the things most injurious to the Government of India are the debates which sometimes take place in this House—such debates as took place on the first day of this Session, and such as many more that may be expected during its progress. Is nothing to be said during those debates which is not laudatory of the Government here and in India? Is nothing whatever to be said impugning the conduct of the Government here, or the policy of the Government of India? If, however, in any one of those debates anything is said of such a nature, the Governor-General may require that the English newspapers containing them shall be taken to him, and, on finding anything objectionable in the report of any speech in either House of Parliament, he may prohibit the circulation of such newspaper, and any gentleman who knowingly receives The Times or Daily News of a certain date, after that prohibition, is subject to a penalty of £500 and two years' imprisonment. My Lords, I do not know whether it is the object of this provision, but certainly its effect, if fully carried out—and from the

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  warning given to a newspaper for republishing a paragraph from an English newspaper I have no doubt it is intended fully to carry it out—its effect will be to deprive us in this country of knowing through the press what are the opinions of our countrymen in India, and to deprive them of what is still more important, the opportunity of knowing what we think of them. It will establish a system of mutual ignorance. The Governor-General said, when he imposed the law, that it was directed against the Native press; that the Native press had published that which was injurious to the State; that he could not say the same of the English press; but that he could not see any solid standing-ground on which a line might be drawn marking out the difference between one and the other. That, again, is following out the insane principle of treating in India—and especially at the present time—Natives and Europeans upon the same footing. But, although the Governor-General may not have been able to find this solid standing-ground, it seems be has found in the Native press a stepping-stone from which to direct his weapons against the press both in India and in this country. Suppose that two persons, one a Native and the other an Englishman, were taken before a magistrate in India charged with offences. Suppose the proof against the Native was decisive, while that against the Englishman was extremely slight, and that the judge should say to the Native, "Pandy"—that is what we call the Natives now—"you are convicted upon the clearest evidence; your offence is of the deepest dye; I cannot say the same of the Englishman, whose offence is very light, but I have no solid standing-ground on which a line may be drawn; I cannot make any distinction between you, and therefore you must both be subject to the same punishment." Can you call that justice? Do you think that the Europeans with their pride in the liberty of the press they enjoy in their own country would suffer that? But observe that while this Act does that which is unnecessary, while it aims at the freedom of the English press as well as that of the press of India, it fails altogether in doing that which is necessary. Neither in the Act nor in the conditions is there one word with respect to the dissemination of information with respect to the movements of troops. At a moment like this that of all things is the most important to prevent. If you look back to
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  the despatches of the Duke of Wellington you will see how grievously he felt the injury on this point done by the freedom and indiscretion of the press. I know its indiscretion in India. I know I was obliged almost to violate the law in order to preserve that absolute secresy which I know to be necessary to the success of military movements. Yet, in respect to this Act there is no condition to prevent the publicity of every military movement in India. We still give through our press full information to the enemy. There is not a single newspaper which does not contain the most minute details of every movement of the smallest detachment, which does not disclose all our difficulties by stating where we have guns, and where we have not; where we have ammunition and where not; and where troops are withdrawn to, some being described as sent to one place and some to another. There is not one piece of information which the enemy would give a mint to possess that our press is not now allowed to give to that enemy in India. Therefore, I say, that it is not for a public object that publicity is not desired by the authorities in India, but it is for the purpose of protecting the Government from the free observations of those who censure its conduct. I have already stated that the most serious injury which the press can commit is still allowed to exist. Though there were eleven cases of warning given for the suspension of European newspapers, the Government have not given warning in one instance to any Native newspaper, though it is perfectly well known that the Native newspapers are full of the most virulent invectives against Europeans. Still, that is permitted. There is another thing permitted, which I deeply regret and view with great alarm. It is very natural, no doubt, that officers and gentlemen in India, having heard and seen what they have of the horrors committed, in many cases against their friends and dearest relatives, should write with very great excitement, and should indicate a disposition which, if carried out, would be totally inconsistent with all possibility of a settled and peaceful Government of India. But not one of their letters is ever excluded from the European press, and no attempt is made to check what has so great a tendency to excite public feeling against the Natives. It is great indiscretion on the part of the editors, as well as of the Government, not to prevent the publica-

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  tion of such letters. Therefore, I say, that the Government does more injury by allowing, through the medium of the press, our enemies to know every movement of our troops, and by allowing every excited man to publish his feelings to the Natives, than by permitting the press to remain as it was even under the former system.
  I must be permitted to allude to the feeling which exists in India on the subject of the conduct of the Natives. There is no one who can feel more deeply than I have the atrocity of the crimes committed in India. No one feels more than I do that it is absolutely necessary to give future security to Englishmen in that country by punishing in the most exemplary manner all who should be convicted of having perpetrated those crimes. The crime of the soldier who attacks his officer is to my view the crime of parricide. The crime of a man who violates a woman is so horrible that for my part I should wish that in the legislation of all the world the punishment—the inexorable punishment—for it, were death. But could any one have contemplated the possibility of a crime so extensively committed in India—the crime of torturing and murdering children? There is something so revolting to human nature in such a crime that I cannot understand how any mercy could possibly be shown for so horrible an offence. I would persecute with unremitting and untiring zeal the perpetrators of those horrible crimes. God would not forgive us if we pardoned them. But I do entreat your Lordships, and the people of this country, and our countrymen in India, to recollect that for punishment to produce real effect there must be discrimination. To produce the effect punishment, even of the greatest offences, must appear to be inflicted after ample investigation from the judicial administrators of the law. It must not appear to be the result of the wild vengeance of a private individual. They must recollect that what we have to do in that country is not to appear as the avengers of a great wrong, and when we have accomplished it to depart; we have to inflict retributive justice with all the solemnity which accords with an empire which is to remain. If it be desired that our empire in India should be, as I trust it will, eternal, it can rest only upon mutual confidence between the governors and governed. I trust that in the hour of victory, if we should triumph, we shall be found as jealous of our honour as we have been in the hour of difficulty and dis-
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  aster. By consenting to act upon this principle we shall, I trust, retain throughout the whole of this great contest that which we have found so valuable, which it is most important to us to possess, the sympathy and good-will of all the nations of Europe. The noble Earl concluded by moving—
  That there be laid before this House,
  Copy of the Arms Act lately passed by the Legislative Council of India: Also,
  Return of all Native and European Newspapers licensed under the Act of the Legislative Council of India passed on the 13th of June last: And also,
  Copies of all Letters of Warning addressed to the Editors of any such Native and European Newspapers respectively, and of all Revocations of the Licenses, if any, of such Newspapers, and of all Correspondence relating to the Restitution thereof.
  EARL GRANVILLE: The noble Earl, in pursuance of his notice, has directed his attention chiefly to the subjects of the Arms Act and of the Act which places restrictions on the press in India; but he began by stating that alarm had been felt in Calcutta for the safety of that place, in consequence of alleged large importations of arms. This circumstance, however, was fully investigated, and it was ascertained that such was not the case, and that there was nothing to warrant any real alarm as to the safety of Calcutta. The Arms Act to which the noble Earl referred contains provisions with respect to the importation of saltpetre and gunpowder, and with respect to dealing in arms, but as the noble Earl has not alluded to that part of the measure, it is not necessary for me to go into it. The other part of the measure I do not think in any way meets the description which the noble Earl gave of it. The Act does not immediately compel the Europeans and Natives to give up their arms, or to obtain licences to carry them; but it enables the Governor-General in Council to proclaim any district, reserving to himself the power of exempting from the operation of the Act any persons or classes of persons whom he may think fit to exempt. I know that at Calcutta, there was a very general wish that martial law should be at once established, and general disappointment took place that that was not done. It has been said that Sir Colin Campbell desired the establishment of martial law, but was thwarted by the Governor-General. There is not the slightest foundation for that statement. Sir Colin Campbell never had any idea of the kind; and the best proof

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  that such a step was unnecessary is that the two great Mahomedan festivals, from which so much danger was apprehended, passed over without disturbance. With respect to the defence of the lives and property of the inhabitants, their Lordships would recollect the ridicule with which on a former occasion the noble Earl treated the idea of persons going about with revolvers in their hands and under their umbrellas to defend Calcutta. But the noble Earl's objection to the Act is, that Europeans are comprehended within its provisions as well as Natives, and he says that this is not the policy we ought to pursue—but our policy should be to make the English be like the Normans and the Natives like the Saxons. I cannot agree in that opinion, which I think is perfectly inconsistent with that portion of the noble Earl's speech in which he observed that without mutual feelings of kindness the Government of India could not be carried on. Nothing could be more inconsistent with such an opinion than the announcement in this House by one of its most eloquent Members, and one, too, who is supposed to know more about India than most men, that the few resident English there should act as Normans, and that the millions of Natives should be treated like conquered Saxons. A suggestion was made to Lord Canning that Christians should be exempted from the Act, but, most properly I think, he felt that, since many of the Native rajahs, zemindars, and their retainers, had exposed their lives and property in order to stand by the cause of the Government, any Act subjecting them to a disarmament from which all Europeans and Christians were expressly exempted would have been a most unwise and impolitic measure. Supposing the Act proclaimed in any district, can your Lordships imagine that it would be difficult for a loyal Englishman who wishes to be exempted to give at once the only notice required with regard to the number of arms which he possesses and which he desires to retain? It must be obvious that every Englishman worthy of the name will be very glad to comply with the Act in that respect, and nothing more will be required of him, for the Act provides that in a proclaimed district, wherever any person makes a return of the arms in his possession and requests to be allowed to retain them, he will receive a licence enabling him to do so. There can be no objection, surely, to such an Act. The
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  noble Earl, leaving the subject of the Arms Act, proceeded to comment upon the restrictions placed on the press, and that question he seemed rather to darken by the statement that Lord Canning had made an attack upon the British press at home. I deny that statement. I believe Lord Canning would be infinitely less likely than the noble Earl himself to object to the freest discussion of public questions in the press, or to the widest circulation of anything tending to the enlightenment of every class of British subjects. Nobody but a madman would think of fettering the press at home; and the day on which such a question shall arise, if we can venture to contemplate such a thing, will be a day dark and gloomy in the annals of England. But the English press in India, as partly stated by the noble Earl, stands on a perfectly different footing from the press at home. Nothing, indeed, can be more dissimilar. The noble Earl stated that the press here represented the people. That is so true that I believe there is no class who, if they have any numbers or sympathies with them, and have intelligence enough to express their opinions, will not find themselves represented in some way or other by a portion of the aggregate press of this country. It is to be remembered, moreover, that our press is assisted and controlled by the Houses of Parliament and by the public meetings which are constantly held all over the country. The press certainly influences and assists in the formation of public opinion, but public opinion daily reacts upon the press, checking and controlling it in a variety of ways. A wholly different state of things exists in India. The noble Earl must have read the Minute of Sir Thomas Munro, and, although he may not entirely agree with it, yet the authority of Sir Thomas Munro is not to be put aside, especially when he points out what dangers may accrue in India from the errors of the English press, referring particularly to the mischiefs which might be produced among the Sepoys in our pay. It is worthy of remark that the noble Earl has treated the Act relative to the press as if it were a permanent provision adopted for ever in India, whereas, in the letter already presented to Parliament and by the Act itself, it is clearly confined to one year, and is intended merely to apply to the extraordinary and exceptional circumstances in which India is now placed. Lord Canning himself alludes to the reluctance which

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  any English statesman must feel in placing restrictions on the press; but I may state that the Indian press, by an Order issued by the noble Earl himself, when Governor-General, is now prevented from obtaining that official information which it formerly used to possess. Since the promulgation of that Order everybody connected with the Government of India has refrained from writing in the press or giving it intelligence, and hence the absence of any security except the loyalty and judgment of its managers for the wise and sober exercise of its power.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: The noble Earl has misapprehended the object and effect of my Order. What I did may be explained in few words. I found gentlemen in India—official gentlemen—who thought that public documents which came into their hands as servants of the Government were theirs to dispose of or make public for their own purposes whenever they pleased. I saw such infinite dangers to the Government in the prevalence of that custom—a custom which it would be impossible to tolerate in any country, and which, if it existed here, the noble Earl himself would say ought to be put down—that in clear and distinct terms I told the public functionaries what their duty was, and desired them to do it.
  EARL GRANVILLE: If the Order was confined to the prevention of the publication of official information by subordinate servants of the Government, I do not think there could be any objection to it.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: The Order was rendered necessary by the conduct of one of the most responsible persons in the country.
  EARL GRANVILLE: The effect has been this, to prevent any public official from forming any connection with the press.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: No official has a right to publish public documents,
  EARL GRANVILLE: Exactly. But there is a difference between that, and an official making use of the press as a channel through which to communicate to the public such news, arguments, or explanations as it ought to know. There would be nothing wrong, for example, in a police magistrate, in the event of an accusation being brought against him, publishing a defence of his conduct in the newspapers. As the head of the Depart-
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  ment of Education, I would regard the publication by myself of anything calculated to promote the cause for which the department was instituted as perfectly legitimate, while I would condemn as criminal and dishonourable on my part the disclosure of matters decided in the Cabinet. But, however that may be, I wish to direct the attention of your Lordships to the fact that of late years the English press in India, with few exceptions, has been most violent in its attacks upon the Government, holding it up to contempt in every possible way. The noble Earl says it writes for Englishmen alone. I am told that is not the fact; it is read extensively by Natives acquainted with English; its articles are translated in the Native journals, and the evils it has produced in this way have been of a very grave character. For example, the Bombay papers stated that the Government had determined to annex the territory of Baroda.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: When was that statement made?
  EARL GRANVILLE: I do not know the precise date.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: Was it before or after the passing of the Act relative to the press?
  EARL GRANVILLE: Before it. But the date of some of the articles is precisely that which made it necessary to give them this warning. For instance, the Calcutta papers announced that part of the deficiency in the public revenue was to be met by a reduction of the allowances granted to Native princes. Such statements were of course productive of much mischief. Besides their effect upon the Natives, I think Lord Canning had reason to complain of them upon another ground. He was in the habit of sending to the Calcutta papers all the information which he received of an authentic character, and yet it was no unusual thing to find in the same journals, by the side of the official intelligence obtained from the Government, news of an entirely opposite character, for which there was no foundation whatever, and calculated to cause great detriment to the English cause. That was conduct which could not be overlooked. I have heard it said that the Indian Government have acted with greater rigour towards the English than towards the Native press. The fact is, I believe, that except in one or two instances, where it has been found necessary to take an editor into custody, the Native

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  press has submitted itself peaceably to the instructions issued by Government, whereas the English press, with that firmness which characterises us all, only became more violent than ever. It became absolutely necessary that the Government should proceed against the English press, for it would have made itself a laughing-stock to the whole of India if, after having passed such an Act, it had refrained from putting it into execution. I am the more anxious to state the grounds upon which I think the conduct of the Government quite defensible, and, indeed, imperatively called for by a sense of public duty, because I believe there is no doubt that it is this Act which has caused all the virulent attacks which have been made upon Lord Canning since the promulgation of the restrictions. The noble Earl said that the Government passed the Act to defend itself. Now, there were no personal attacks upon Lord Canning in the press previous to the passing of the Act, and therefore there could be no vindictive feeling on the part of the Governor-General. I find in a July number of one of the leading Calcutta papers, smarting under the infliction of a "warning," a statement to the effect that up to the time of the restrictions every European in India gave not only his support, but his sympathy to Lord Canning. That, it seems to me, stands rather in contradiction to the bitter accusations which now are made as to acts of the Governor-General previous to that date; it shows, at all events, the estimation in which Lord Canning was held previous to the passing of the Act relative to the press. I believe that Lord Canning, receiving representations—not from those surrounding him in Calcutta, but from the highest military and civil authorities in each of the Presidencies—as to the dangerous tendency of much of the writing both in the English and the Native press, was more than justified in passing a temporary restrictive Act at a time when all the energy of the Government was required to defend the English cause. I have now said what I had to say relative to these two subjects; but I cannot sit down without referring to the closing remarks of the noble Earl. Nothing, I am sure, could be more admirable, or more useful, especially coming from one so well acquainted with India. I believe that there is no question of showing mercy to any one man guilty of mutiny, murder, violation of women, or infanticide;
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  but it is most important that punishment should be administered as a public act, and preserved from all character of private vengeance. I was glad to hear the noble Earl affirm so firmly and positively principles which so entirely justify Lord Canning's policy with regard to the punishment of the guilty, and the showing, I will not say mercy, but justice to the innocent. I entirely agree with the noble Earl that the only means of insuring good government in India is to produce and encourage confidence between the people and their rulers. If our government is to continue, our only object must be the happiness of those whom we govern. That object is perfectly compatible with the best interests of the English nation, and I believe that when these events are calmly considered, and, at all events, when history shall pronounce its verdict, nothing will so entirely justify Lord Canning as the calmness and the firmness with which he resisted the pressure to which he was subjected to induce him to place Europeans and Natives on a different footing. His conduct in this respect will, when this disastrous mutiny has been suppressed, enable the Government to resume its former course, and to be administered without its being regarded by the Natives as a tyrannical and hostile power. This calmness and courage Lord Canning has displayed in the highest degree. I have seen letters in which he has been accused of every compatible and incompatible deficiency which a man could exhibit under such circumstances; but I am bound to say that in some of these very letters, written before Delhi was taken or Lucknow reached, I have seen imputations of actual cowardice cast upon both General Wilson and General Havelock, the results of whose operations have shown that not only was every bit of caution which they displayed absolutely necessary, but that their objects could have been attained only by the most heroic dash on their parts. On the other hand, my Lords, I have seen letters—from young men, it is true, whose opinions are not worth much, but still showing that the conversation which they hear is not all on one side—defending Lord Canning's character and conduct, and complaining of the unfairness of the attacks to which he has been subjected. I have also seen letters from some of the ablest Indian officers, praising in the highest terms the courage and the coolness of Lord Canning. I have seen letters

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  from civilians who have passed their whole lives in India, holding exactly the same language, and stating that the real cause of Lord Canning's unpopularity among a certain portion of the Calcutta people is the singular calmness and absence of fidget with which he has applied all his energies to the work in hand. Do you wish to know what General Mansfield thinks? General Mansfield said, by the first mail, that he could only judge Lord Canning to be one of the best men of business that he had ever met; by the second mail he wrote that, having had some opportunity of ascertaining facts, his belief was that the one calm head in Calcutta was that upon Lord Canning's shoulders. What does Sir Colin Campbell say of him? Sir Colin Campbell thinks that the English in India are fortunate in having at their head at this moment so able a chief, so perfect a gentleman, and such an admirable man of business as Lord Canning. I think that to some imputations Lord Canning is justly liable. I think that, at a moment when great panic existed in Calcutta, he was rash in intrusting himself to troops whose fidelity might be suspected; but it was at a time when he felt that, as as our dominion in India depended upon the belief in our self-confidence and courage, it was of the greatest importance that the head of the Europeans in that country should not be thought to be deficient in those qualities. And I am quite sure that among Englishmen even too great an indifference to personal danger is not likely very long to tell against Lord Canning. I have thought it right to say thus much in justice to Lord Canning. With regard to these two Acts, I admit that possibly there may be defects in their details, but I cannot see the justice of the accusations which the noble Earl has brought against them, and I certainly believe that by the means of these measures the principle of conciliating the Native has been carried out, without in the slightest degree endangering the lives, or the property, or the proper pride of the European residents.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: If I understood the noble Earl correctly, he expressed the opinion that Lord Canning is more favourable to the liberty of the press than I am.
  EARL GRANVILLE: More favourable to free discussion.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: Free discussion! I thought it was about
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  the press that we were talking. As to that, Lord Canning, a Liberal, was the author of this Act. After I had been in India three days I was subjected to much more abuse than Lord Canning. I saw the danger arising from the indiscretion of the press, and it was not for want of suggestions from home that I did not adopt some measure against it. One of the Directors, I recollect, suggested to me that it would be advisable to impose some restrictions upon the press, and that a measure for that object would receive cordial support in the Court. To tell the real truth, however, I rather suspected the quarter from which the communication came, and I thought that I had difficulties enough without engaging in a conflict with the press. Therefore I bore the abuse as I could, and my only revenge was, that after my first three months' residence in India I never read a word that appeared in the newspapers. I was determined not to allow them to disturb that tranquillity of mind which I knew to be essential to carrying on the public business. The noble Earl opposite has spoken of some prosecutions under the Act. There have been three prosecutions, I understand, of the newspapers whose excesses led to the passing of the Act. In the first two cases the gentlemen who conducted the prosecution on the part of the Crown came to terms with the persons who were placed in the dock, and agreed to take a verdict of one rupee damages. In the third case there was a verdict for the defendant. Of Lord Canning I have said nothing. I have made no attack upon him. I have only dealt with the Legislative Acts of the Council of India. Before the breaking out of the insurrection Lord Canning was personally extremely popular. He laid himself out to obtain popularity, and he succeeded. Every one did him the justice to say that he was a conscientious, hardworking man, and, I believe, no jobber—a wonderful merit in that country—and really did all he could to perform the duties of Governor-General. That was the general impression. My own belief is that no man ever went out to India with a more sincere desire to do his duty to the country which he had to govern; but there can be no doubt that at the present moment he has not the confidence either of the people of Calcutta or of the Europeans generally throughout India. I attribute that to this, that he has attempted to do that which has failed everywhere, and which

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  never can succeed—he has attempted to carry on his Government in a spirit opposed to the feelings of all those on whom alone he could depend for support.
  EARL GREY: I heard the close of the speech delivered by the noble Earl (the Earl of Ellenborough) with the greatest pleasure. He laid down in most admirable language the rule which ought to be followed by the Government and people of this country in their conduct towards the Natives of India in the present unfortunate state of affairs. I cordially agree with him in what he said as to the necessity of severely punishing the guilty. I agree no less cordially with his opinion of the equal necessity of discrimination in the infliction of that punishment. I agree with him, if possible, still more in what he said as to its being absolutely necessary, if we wish our empire in India to continue, that nothing should be done to forfeit the confidence of the great mass of the Indian people. It is as clear as daylight that if it once becomes the opinion of the great body of that people that the government of their country is carried on by England for purposes inconsistent with their welfare—if you once create in their minds a feeling that we regard them with hostility, the days of our power are numbered. No efforts we can make, no exertions, no army which we can employ, can enable us to coerce the millions of India if hatred of our dominion, and a desire to shake off the yoke, should be really excited in their minds. Therefore I heard with great satisfaction what the noble Earl said upon this subject; because I know that any observations of his will have great force, not only in this country, but among the British inhabitants of India. But, my Lords, great as was the satisfaction with which I heard this part of the speech of the noble Earl, I confess that it did not remove the regret which I felt at his having brought on this discussion at all. It seems to me that in the present state of India, looking to the difficulties with which Lord Canning as Governor-General has to contend, this plain rule is binding upon every man who has the honour of a seat, either in this or in the other House of Parliament, namely, that we should not upon any account, by any incautious word which we may utter in places from which every word that we may say goes to the furthest extremity of the world, do anything which can diminish the moral power of the man who is in-
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  trusted with the great authority of the Governor-General of India—and therefore that even if Lord Canning has made mistakes, we in this House ought not, nor ought Gentlemen in the other House of Parliament, to dwell on those mistakes, or to hold them up in language which is likely to diminish the confidence which is placed in him by those whom he has to govern, unless it is clearly necessary to do so in order to avert some evil, or to attain some important public object. If there is such an object to be attained, if by exposing some great fault in conduct, we can hope to correct it for the future, and to bring about an amendment of the policy of the Government, it is our duty to speak, but otherwise, we ought for the present to abstain from commenting even upon real mistakes, because by doing so we might weaken the hands of the Governor-General at a time when it is most important that they should be strengthened. I contend, that this is the principle which ought to govern our conduct, and if so I cannot believe that the cases which the noble Earl (the Earl of Ellenborough) has brought forward furnish sufficient reasons for hostile comment in this House. Without attempting to enter fully into the argument in defence of those measures for checking the sale of arms which have been pretty well defended already by my noble Friend (Earl Granville), I cannot help saying that on the noble Earl's own showing it appears to me that the acts in question are not deserving the censure which he has passed upon them. Can anybody doubt that, under the circumstances in which India has been placed during the last few months, the Government ought to have some power of checking the sale of arms? It seems to me the very first thing that ought to have been done. Is it quite impossible that there may be Europeans so guilty and so deserving of the severest condemnation that may be heaped on them as to be parties to supplying the Natives in rebellion against them with arms? Have we never heard that some of the subjects of a State which was trembling for its existence have been base enough to sell arms and supplies to its enemies? Has that not happened in the United States and Holland? Has it not happened even in our own country? Was there no ground for suspecting British subjects to have been concerned in selling powder to the Kafirs to be used against the British troops? I maintain that some power of

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  checking the sale of arms is absolutely indispensable to a Government in time of war. The only question, therefore, is whether the power taken by Lord Canning by the law which he passed was too large. The noble Earl, if I rightly understood him, objects to that law, because it applied to the white residents in India as well as to the Natives. I cannot concur in that objection. I think in the present state of India it would be in the highest degree unwise to make a distinction by law, with respect to the right of possessing arms, between one colour and the other. No doubt in exercising the powers of the law, and in deciding who shall or shall not be allowed, a great distinction must practically be made between Natives and Europeans, but it would be a very different thing and most mischievous, to establish such a distinction by law. I think the distinction of colour and of origin is a distinction that must be practically acted upon in a great degree in a country in the position of India. He would take an illustration from the application of the Irish Arms Act. The Act as it was passed applied to every man in the country; but all those who were thought proper persons to possess arms were allowed to retain them by applying for a licence to the authorities. In like manner they must make a practical distinction in India; but not make a distinction by a general law, which would have the effect not only of insulting and of wronging many Natives who have been our faithful friends, but also of depriving the Government of power in some cases where it might be most wanted. Is it impossible that in India as in Africa imprudence or a guilty desire of gain might have led white men to sell arms which might have come into the hands of our enemies? Then, with regard to the act relating to the press, I think the noble Earl himself made out most conclusively the necessity for a suspension of the liberty of the press in India. There is no man who values more highly than I do the liberty of the press, but circumstances may occur in which we may pay too dearly for the boon. In India, in such a crisis as the present, I can conceive nothing more impolitic than to permit the unrestricted liberty of the press to exist. I can conceive a state of circumstances in which it might have had the effect of arraying against us those Native Princes and brave men in India on whose support we have mainly depended. But I go further,
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  I believe that in countries in the state which India now is the greatest difficulty and danger we have had to encounter is that which arises from the disposition of small minorities, who, finding themselves in a situation of great peril, press on the authorities the adoption of very unwise and impolitic measures. We have seen it formerly in the West Indies during slave insurrections, when the great difficulty was to keep the white people in order and prevent them from driving the whole coloured population into hostility. So it was at the Cape, and so it is in every country which is in this unfortunate situation. The natural fear which seizes small minorities who have been dominant when attacked by a portion of the majority, is apt to make them confound together the whole class of the population, of which a part only may be realty hostile. Suspicion and fear create a desire for measures of indiscriminate severity, and the greatest danger of a Government in such cases is, that those fears of the ruling minority may drive it to have recourse to measures which will combine the whole of the rest of the population against it. I believe I am not in error in saying that this state of feeling has of late been shown very conspicuously among the white inhabitants of Calcutta. While our countrymen in the East have deserved the highest credit for the manner in which they have generally conducted themselves during this trying season, I am afraid that some at least of the inhabitants of Calcutta are hardly entitled to the same praise, and that have yielded to panic, terror, and to the violence which terror suggests. I cannot help thinking that there has been a disposition among them to urge on the Government measures which would have been extremely unwise, and must have led to very bad effects. I say, therefore, it is absolutely necessary that the Government should be armed with very stringent powers in this emergency. The only real point which the noble Earl seems to me to have against the conduct of Lord Canning is, that he would have done better if he had established a censorship. In this I am disposed to agree with the noble Earl. In dealing with the press, I much doubt whether any restrictions short of a censorship are of real use, and I believe that when perfect freedom cannot be granted to the press, it is wiser to come at once to a censorship. But granting that Lord Canning may have erred in this, surely it is not, an error for which he deserves to

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  be blamed, he rather deserves credit for the desire he has shown to reduce to the minimum the restrictions, which for the public safety he thought it necessary to impose on the press. I have thought it my duty to make these few observations, because in this great crisis I think it is of national importance that the authority of the Indian Government should be maintained, and because the present Governor-General seems to me, so far as I have the means of forming a judgment of his conduct, to be fully entitled to the encomium which my noble Friend who spoke last has pronounced upon him.
  THE EARL OF MALMESBURYsaid, he rose to repeat what he had said at the close of last Session on a similar occasion—that he could not too strongly protest against the attack made by the noble Earl opposite upon his noble Friend (the Earl of Ellenborough), and against the principle which he had laid down that it was a vicious practice to discuss Indian subjects at this time in their Lordships' House. If the noble Earl really believed in the impropriety of that practice, he should have sat down immediately after giving that advice, and not have gone on violating his own suggestion. There was a contradiction between the noble Earl's advice and his conduct. But, be that as it might, he (the Earl of Malmesbury) thought they should really be abdicating their duties, and forgetting all the purposes for which their Lordships' House existed, if in such a momentous crisis as this they were to be content, at the bidding of the noble Earl, to sit there with their mouths closed until the Government gave them permission to speak. The noble Earl could not have chosen a more unhappy moment for making his suggestion; for he (the Earl of Malmesbury) was there to express his belief that if the advice tendered by his noble Friend (the Earl of Ellenborough) months ago had been followed many of the unfortunate circumstances they had now to deplore would not have occurred, and much of the fury of the rebellion would have been more successfully encountered. He felt therefore it was the duty of their Lordships, and that in discharging that duty they were doing a service to the country, to discuss these matters, temperately if they could, and without party feeling or prejudice of any kind. But they were certainly not called on by any of the circumstances of the case to abdicate their constitutional functions and keep
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  silence on such occasions. He thought the noble Earl misunderstood his noble Friend (the Earl of Ellenborough) in reference to the disarming Act. What his noble Friend said was that he objected to putting the rebellious Indians on the same footing as the loyal Europeans. They were antagonists, and fighting, not for theories or party questions, but for their very existence; and what astonished the people of this country was that the Governor-General, for some reason which he had not explained, put the belligerents on the same footing. He did not intend to discuss the abstract question whether Natives and Europeans were to be placed upon the same footing, although, if he correctly gathered the meaning of the noble Earl (Earl Grey), that was the tendency of his opinion. But we being in the minority in India, and the Natives being in an enormous majority, if to the advantage of superior numbers we conferred upon them all the advantages which the laws conferred upon Europeans the natural result would be a speedy termination to our rule. Whether that were the wise course or not he was not prepared to say, because that was not the time to discuss it; but he rose, as he had had occasion to rise before, to protest against the declaration of the noble Earl, which had not been quite borne out by his honourable career in public life, for he had always mixed in public questions, and he had always been ready to give his valuable advice; neither was it consistent with the conduct of his great ancestor, who, throughout the French war, gave his opinions to the Government on every event that took place.
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEsaid, he so entirely concurred in the views expressed by the President of the Council, and of the noble Earl below him (Earl Grey), that he should not have risen, but that he wished to correct a mistake into which the noble Earl who spoke last had fallen. He (the Marquess of Clanricarde) had never objected to the discussion of any event or political question at the proper time, neither had his noble Friend (Earl Grey). What he said, and what his noble Friend also said, was, that it was not the duty of any Member of Parliament or pub-lie man to weaken the authority of the Government in India when that authority was placed in circumstances of extreme difficulty and danger, while at the same time it was intended to continue the government of that country in the same

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  hands. To that opinion he still adhered He objected to sending out to the Indian world the idea that the public of this country were dissatisfied with the conduct of those who were entrusted with the management of public affairs in India, and yet intended to leave those affairs to be administered by the same hands. He thought the explanations that had been given were satisfactory. It was clear that the free sale of arms and a free press were totally incompatible with a state of civil war.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: Nothing can be generally more irregular than referring on one night of a debate to that which had taken place upon another, and I never for a moment think of referring to previous debates. But on the present occasion I assure the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) that it is only with the view of setting him right upon one or two points that I must refer to the mis-statements that have been made, and that have been principally derived, I think, from the pamphlet to which he has called our attention. I refer to the conduct of Lord Canning with regard to the disbandment of the two regiments in India, the circumstances of which, I think, are greatly misstated in the pamphlet to which the noble Earl has referred. With respect to the disbandment of the 19th and 34th Regiments, the first took place on the 30th of March, and the other on the 6th of May. Now, the accusations brought against Lord Canning are twofold—first, that he allowed an injudicious delay to take place between the mutiny and the punishment—and secondly, with regard to the nature of the punishment, as being too lenient. The narrative in that pamphlet, and the narrative in the noble Earl's speech, apply to the whole of the interval which elapsed between the mutiny and the sentence being carried into effect. In short, the charge was that there was nothing that could legitimately have accounted for that delay. Now, I believe that statement to be entirely at variance with the facts. With regard to the mutiny of the 19th (for that must be clearly distinguished from the mutiny of the 34th, which was accompanied by very different circumstances), that mutiny of the 19th Regiment took place on the 26th or 27th of February. It was but a momentary panic, and almost immediately passed away. There had been great misconduct on the part of the officers in commanding the regiment, and in the interval that elapsed
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  between the mutiny of the 19th Regiment and the final disbandment both the officers and the men manifested most unmistakable signs of regret for what had taken place. The delay in punishing that mutiny was not owing to any vacillation or hesitation on the part of Lord Canning, but to these causes—First, that there was but, one European regiment within 400 miles, and it was impossible that Lord Canning could have proceeded to extreme measures towards those regiments which had mutinied without the assistance of European troops. Within five days after he heard of these transactions a steam vessel was sent off to Rangoon for troops to reinforce him. In the meanwhile a court-martial sitting upon the conduct of the 19th Regiment, and as soon as its report was received and European troops had arrived, Lord Canning came to the conclusion that it was necessary to disband that regiment. A complaint has further been made against Lord Canning that the simple disbandment of the regiment was not a sufficiently severe punishment for the offence; but I hardly know in what other form the sentence could have been shaped. No man had been guilty of any individual violence. The whole regiment had refused in a body to give up their arms, and I am not aware what other punishment could possibly have been inflicted, unless, indeed, Lord Canning for the offence had resorted to those severe measures which were afterwards had recourse to at Meerut, and which originated the most painful part of the whole recent outbreak. In reverting to that subject I cannot but say that, in the whole experience of that mutiny, so far from condemning Lord Canning for disbanding that regiment, I think it goes to prove that his conduct was most judicious, and, as was afterwards proved, most safe. Just look at the circumstances in which those men were placed. By the policy of our military system in Bengal we have encouraged the Hindoos to set the highest value upon their distinctions of high caste. We then distributed cartridges amongst them, against the use of which they had a prejudice derived from their caste regulations; and when the mutiny broke out at Meerut to no less than ten years' imprisonment in irons were those troops of cavalry sentenced. There could have been no idea of justice in such a sentence. At all events the outbreak of the mutiny was owing to the severity of the sentence upon those men; and, considering that at

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  that time no successful mutiny had taken place, he was justified by his recent experience in deciding that the more lenient course was the best. But this, after all, is mere matter of opinion—with regard to the facts there has been no misstatement whatever. As respects the 34th Regiment there has been an important misconception. The mutiny in that regiment had been of a far more serious character. The men stood by and allowed their officers to be ill-treated; some of them even assisted in the attack, and committed the most grave offences. But the interval between the mutiny and the punishment was occupied in an inquiry into all the facts. A court-martial began to sit on the 1st of April. It sat regularly every week (there being necessarily intervals between the examination and cross-examination of the witnesses) until the 18th of April. And what was the finding of that court-martial? It was sent to Lord Canning by Brigadier-General Hearsey on the 18th of April, and I cannot conceive a report more embarrassing to the Governor-General than that. The finding of the court-martial was not a general finding, but that a part of the regiment had been mutinous—that is to say, the Hindoos—but that the Sikhs and Mahomedans were perfectly faithful. That report was received by Lord Canning on the 14th of May. His Minute is dated the 30th of April, and I am sure the House will be of opinion that he came to a wise decision. He decided that it would be highly injudicious to make any distinctions of creed on the part of the Government, and subsequent events have shown that no such distinction could have been safely made. But the most important inaccuracy into which the noble Earl opposite was led was this—that the resolution to disband the 34th Regiment arose from the example set by Sir Henry Lawrence at Lucknow. As the noble Earl has read from that pamphlet, I will just read a passage from a document in possession of the House that will disprove that statement. The narrative of the pamphlet is that Lord Canning was excited by the example of Sir Henry Lawrence, and never would have done anything without his example. Now it so happens that Lord Canning's order with respect to disbanding the regiment was dated on the 80th of April, and the mutiny at Lucknow did not take place till the 3rd of May. I think that is a satis-
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  factory answer to the charge that Lord Canning was stimulated by the example of Sir Henry Lawrence. But this is not all. The facts of the case throw an important light upon the opinion which has been expressed with regard to the nature and character of the punishment awarded to those regiments There is really no contrast between the opinion of Sir Henry Lawrence and the opinion of Lord Canning. That very regiment which mutinied at Lucknow, and against which Sir Henry Lawrence acted with so much energy, was disbanded by Lord Canning. So that Lord Canning actually did that which Sir Henry Lawrence had only threatened to do. The news first came to the Government respecting the mutiny at Lucknow, dated the 4th of May. The statement is that they were informed by Sir Henry Lawrence that the regiment was to be disbanded, but that those men who had not mutinied should be readmitted. This shows, at all events, that there was no great difference between the opinions of Lord Canning and Sir Henry Lawrence. When the news first came Lord Canning found fault with Sir Henry Lawrence for being too lenient, and said he thought it would be better to disband the regiments, but that the men who had not been implicated should be replaced in the ranks. There was a feeling about discharging soldiers one day and taking them back the next that it tended to weaken the hands of the commanders. Thus I think the statement of a contrast between the opinions of Sir Henry Lawrence and Lord Canning to be at variance with the facts. I disagree, of course, with those who maintain that the conduct of the Governor-General is not a fit subject for discussion in this House. On the contrary, I think that it is; but at the same time I think it right to state any fact within my knowledge that may set right any point of debate in this House. I think everybody who will go over the blue-book and the red pamphlet will see that in that pamphlet the facts are very greatly mis-stated.
  EARL GRANVILLEhere interposed and said, he was sure it would be satisfactory to their Lordships to know at the earliest possible moment that a telegraphic despatch had just been received from India. The substance of that despatch he was happy to have in his power at once to communicate to their Lordships. The noble Earl then proceeded to read to their

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  Lordships one or two paragraphs from the despatch, announcing the safe arrival of a convoy of provisions at Lucknow, and the fact that troops were being moved up quickly to its relief.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: I am happy to hear this intelligence, though I certainly was in hopes that we should have received news of the entire relief of the garrison of Lucknow. With regard to the subject of the present discussion, I was about to say that I am always very willing to receive correction when I am wrong. Respecting the pamphlet I am very glad to receive information. I do not intend by any means to defend every statement in that pamphlet, but my contention was that there had been a very considerable and unnecessary delay with regard to the disbanding of the 19th Regiment. At the same time I did not complain of the penalty inflicted on the 19th Regiment as being an inadequate penalty. The noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) says, that it is necessary to bear in mind the distinction between the circumstances of the two regiments. What I did complain of was that in the case of the 19th Regiment a long period elapsed before the sentence was executed. But with regard to the. 34th Regiment, I complained that not only had a long period elapsed, but that an inadequate punishment had been at last imposed, and I said that whereas the 19th had expressed a simple refusal and afterwards shown regret, the acts of the 34th were of a much more violent character. The men not only made attacks upon two of their officers, but a considerable portion of the troops joined in the mutiny and did actual violence upon their officers. Now, I complained that after the long delay that had taken place the punishment on those two regiments was precisely the same—that those very men who with the butt-ends of their muskets knocked down their officers not only received no signal punishment, but for the space of six weeks were allowed to do duty (with a sufficient force, no doubt, to control them), and at the end of that period they were simply disbanded; and thus those men who should have suffered death were allowed to depart, and swell the ranks of the enemy.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: I should be glad to know at what period it was determined to send the 84th Regiment back to Rangoon?
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: I am glad! by the question of the noble Earl to have
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  an opportunity of correcting another misstatement of that pamphlet, which I believe to be one of the most inaccurate publications ever submitted to the public notice. The only paper which I can find having any reference to the sending back of the 84th Regiment to Rangoon (which was not, in fact, to remain there, but to be exchanged for others) is dated the 8th of May—that is the earliest. The statement in the pamphlet is, that Lord Canning meant to send back the 84th altogether; but in the blue-book there is an order of the 8th of May asking when a steamer could be provided by the Peninsular and Oriental Company to carry back the 84th to Rangoon. Two days after the 84th were taken back in a great hurry, leaving all their baggage. The reason of their going away was to send back other troops in their stead.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: I said that there was some interval between the disbandment of the 19th and the 84th Regiments, and that there was an intention to send the 84th Regiment back to Rangoon. That is all.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: No, not between the disbandment of the regiments.
  Motion agreed to.
  House adjourned at a quarter to Eight o' clock till To-morrow, half-past Four o'clock.