Sitting of 23 July 1857

MINUTES.
NEW WRIT for London v. Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, Chiltern Hundreds.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1° New Zealand Loan Guarantee; Offences against the person; Malicious Injuries to Property; Forgery; Coinage Offences; Accessories and Abettors; Larceny, &c.; Libel.
2° Insurance Companies; Mutual Companies; Representative Peers (Ireland).
3a Turnpike Acts Continuance.

SUPERANNUATION ACT AMENDMENT BILL.

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read; Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. WILSONsaid, he could assure the House that he never rose with greater reluctance to perform a public duty than on the present occasion. Circumstanced as he had been for nearly five years, in close connection with a body of men whose merits
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  were acknowledged by all, and whose performance of the various duties appropriated to them in the public service had been such as to secure to them not only the respect but the admiration of every one associated with them, he felt that the task imposed on him of opposing the noble Lord's (Lord Naas') Bill, which at first sight had the appearance of making an arrangement highly beneficial to those employed in the Civil Service, was a painful one. Nevertheless, he should be shrinking from the duty he owed that House if, considering the official position he held, he were not to take every pains to state the whole facts, which were necessary for the perfect understanding of the question, in order that whatever might be done should be performed with a full knowledge of the whole case, and of the arguments on which it rested. The impressions under which this question had arisen to one of great public importance, and had come to be considered what might be termed a great public grievance, were, in the first place, to be traced to a belief that the fund which the Civil Service had contributed—or rather the contributions which the civil servants of the Crown had made towards the pensions to which they were entitled by Act of Parliament—were considerably larger than necessary to provide for those pensions, and that indirectly the State had already made, and would in future make, a considerable profit from those contributions. Now, whatever might be the nature of the compact between the civil servants of the Crown and the Crown itself, he was prepared to admit, that if that case could be established, whatever the terms of the compact, it would be politic to abandon the charge; and if it could be shown that the charge was too high, whatever the terms of the Act of 1834 might be, and whatever the implied contract under which the civil servants of the Crown had accepted their offices, he was prepared to say that, if not in strict justice, yet from motives of policy, they would be entitled to the reduction—at least so as to reduce the charge to what was merely sufficient to provide the pensions. The next ground, on which the impressions he alluded to had obtained currency, was the notion that there had been a breach of engagement on the part of the Crown with the civil servants, inasmuch as their contributions were to be created into a fund, which increasing at compound interest, would be entirely at their disposal for one purpose or another.

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  This question stood at the very threshold off the matter, and he thought that no charge could be made more grave than that of a breach of engagement, actual or implied, entered into between 16,000 men engaged in the public service and the Executive Government. However, he thought that that question had been disposed of, because the Commissioners whose Report was on the table of the House, agreeing with the Committee of the House of Commons last year, clearly and definitely decided that there was no such breach of engagement. This was, in his opinion, a point which ought to be cleared up, as it was not so much a question of policy as of the good faith of Parliament. He would, therefore, quote one single passage from the Report of the Commissioners, on the faith of whose Report the present Bill was stated to be brought forward. The Commissioners declared that, whether the deductions charged were more or less than equivalent for the superannuations awarded, no civil servant could justly complain of a breach of engagement on that account, the terms of the engagement with respect to the superannuations and deductions being-well known at the time of the engagement; consequently, whatever impressions might once have existed on the point, there could be no doubt now, after the matter had been considered by the Committee of the House of Commons and by the Commissioners, that no such breach of engagement as had once been alleged did in reality exist. Then, assuming that point to be disposed of, the whole question resolved itself into one of policy; and it was justly stated in the Report of the Commissioners that, after all, this was a question of the remuneration of public servants, lie thought the Commissioners took a wise and just view of the case, when they stated that the claim of pension could not be separated from the amount of salary. With regard to the question of sufficiency of salary, it would be his duty to show that, during the last four or five years, since he had occupied his present official position, there had been revisions of the salaries in almost every Department of the State, not only entered upon, but made; while the charge made for the salaries of the public servants involved an increased grant from the public funds. It was true that it had been stated by the Committee of the House of Commons that in this revision regard had not been paid to those officers who had paid superannuation charges; but he would re-
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  mind the House that if they came to revise salaries not included under the Act of 1834, they were including those who had neither paid abatements, nor had a right to superannuation allowances, whereas if they revised another office at the same time which came under the Act of 1834, the House would be dealing with one which has claims on the superannuation allowance. If, then, they had two men, one not paying abatements, and therefore not entitled to a pension, and the other paying abatements and having title to a pension, they would have a right to consider those salaries as upon the same footing; and it must be observed, that with respect to those who entered the public service before 1829, and whose salaries had undergone revisal, full regard had been paid to their interests, taking into consideration the regulations existing at that time. He would state the amount of the increase of salaries in the three great departments of the Inland Revenue Board, the Board of Customs, and the Post Office. In 1852, the total amount of the salaries connected with those Departments was £2,167,000, and the amount had now risen to £2,450,000, showing an increase of nearly a quarter of a million. He did not say that this increase was an increase entirely of salaries, but he was quite certain that a considerable proportion of it was occasioned by an increase of salaries to individual officers. The appendix to the Report of the Commissioners contained a comparison of the remuneration received by public servants of the Crown and by persons employed in large public establishments unconnected with the Crown. It appeared that in the Bank of England clerks of eighteen years of age received £60 a year, of nineteen years £70 a year, of twenty years £80 a year, and of twenty-one years £100. After the age of twenty-one the salaries went on increasing £5 a year until the age of twenty-nine, when the clerks received £140 a year, and the salaries then increased progressively up to the age of forty-three years, when the maximum salary of £250 was reached. Now, clerks in the public service, in departments where the duties were at all analogous to those performed by clerks of the Bank of England, received a much higher scale of salaries. The lowest salaries given in the public offices in Westminster were £90 a year, and some commenced at £100, and it would be found upon the whole that the public servants were infinitely better

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  paid than the clerks in the Bank of England. If, however, any portion of the public servants considered that they were insufficiently remunerated they had only to submit their case to the heads of their departments, who—as had been repeatedly done during the last four or five years—would bring the subject under the notice of the Treasury, and so far from there being any disinclination on the part of the Treasury to consider such claims, they had always met them most liberally. But, although the insufficient remuneration of public servants might be a just ground for revising the scale of salaries, it could be no reason for an indiscriminate increase of salaries, without regard to merit or efficiency. The proposition of the noble Lord would amount to an indiscriminate increase of salaries, throughout the public service to the extent of 5 per cent. upon salaries exceeding £100, and £2 10 s. per cent on salaries below that amount. Now, supposing some portions of the public service were at present underpaid, an increase of 2½ or 5 per cent, upon the existing salaries might be quite insufficient to raise those salaries to a proper amount; and would it be any satisfaction to persons in such a position to receive this increase when the same increase was given to a large body of public servants who could not complain of being underpaid? Some years ago, a proposal was made to reduce the salaries in all public departments by a uniform rate of 10 per cent., and that proposal was opposed on the ground that if any portion of the public servants were overpaid it would be proper to reduce their salaries, but that the indiscriminate reduction proposed was neither just nor reasonable. The noble Lord had complained that a great number of those public servants whose salaries were subjected to abatements never derived any advantage from the fund, but payments of this kind must be regarded in the aggregate, and not as affecting individual cases. They were in the nature of an insurance, which must be judged of by the charge upon the whole, and not upon the individual. It had been argued, and no doubt justly, that great hardship arose when a public servant died before he was superannuated, because his family lost the benefit of the abatements from his salary. The Treasury had proposed that in such cases widows should be entitled to certain gratuities, and he believed such an arrangement would be attended with great ad-
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  vantages, and would afford considerable relief to the officers in the various public department, who were now called upon for private contributions to relieve cases of this nature. It had been complained that the abatements from salaries had not been constituted into a fund. He did not know what difference that could have made to public officers, because by the Act of Parliament no individual officer could receive more than he now received. The Act prescribed both the rate of deduction from salaries and the rate of the superannuation allowances, and he could not understand how these officers could have been in a better position if their abatements had constituted a separate fund than they now occupied with the security of the Government for the payment of their allowances. It was said that if the abatements had constituted a fund which had borne compound interest, the fund would now have been much larger than was necessary for the purposes for which it was formed, and that the civil servants would have possessed a claim to some division or appropriation of that amount in their favour. If it could be proved that the public servants did not enjoy the full proceeds of their contributions such a measure might be justifiable, but there were few things more deceptive than funds of this kind, which from present payments had to meet future contingent charges. As an instance, he might mention the case of the London Police Fund, which was commenced in 1839, under the authority of an Act of Parliament, by contributions from the police to provide superannuation allowances for members of that force. In 1841 the fund had risen to £50,000, while the charges upon it were only £600 a year. In 1852 the fund had risen to £104,000, and a reduction of the contributions made by the men was strongly urged, but upon investigation such a course was not deemed advisable. What had been the result? The fund which in 1852 amounted to £104,000 was at this moment reduced to £4,000, and was so far from being sufficient to meet the demands upon it that aid had been solicited from the Government, in addition to the assistance which was obtained from the metropolitan rates. He thought this case would satisfy the House that very mistaken ideas might exist with regard to the accumulation of abatements under circumstances of this description. He held in his hand a return, showing the amount charged from year to year on the public

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  funds for compensations and superannuation allowances. It appeared that in 1834 when the Act was passed, the whole amount of pensions payable in respect of the public service was £358,000 and the whole amount of allowances, including compensations for abolished offices, was £693,000. Year by year, since that time, the amount under the head of compensations had rapidly diminished, until in 1856 it was reduced to £210,000; but year by year the amount of superannuation allowances had increased more rapidly. The sum chargeable in 1834 for pensions alone was £358,000, but it had now increased to £606,000. The total of compensations and allowances, taken together, had increased from £693,000 in 1834 to £830,000 in the present year. Moreover, this was an annually increasing sum, for last year the whole charge was £799,000, while the sum required for the present year was £830,000. And there was this remarkable fact—that whereas the whole amount of abatements taken at present from the whole public service was £74,000, the increase within the last four years in pensions alone was equal to the whole of that amount. In 1851 the amount of pensions payable to the civil servants, as distinguished from compensations, was £509,000, while last year it had increased to £589,000, being an increase of £80,000. It had been stated as a grievance that those public servants who entered the service before 1829 did not contribute to this fund, although they received pensions to a larger amount than those who did. Let the House see how the case would stand between the civil servants and the Crown on the showing of the civil servants themselves. The amount of pensions and compensations voted for the present year was £827,000, and the civil servants themselves, on their own showing, said that when the whole public service should consist of officers who had entered the service since 1829, the amount of abatements would be £94,000 a year, and that, taking the principle of the fund, and charging compound interest upon the abatements from year to year, they would have an accumulated fund in 1891 of £5,000,000. They reckoned, therefore, that the amount of abatements at that time would be £94,000 a year, and adding to that sum £150,000 as interest at 3 per cent., on the accumulated fund of £5,000,000, they would have a fund of £244,000 a year. That
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  was taking what he did not admit to be a fair calculation, but he took it on the showing of the civil servants themselves. Now, what would be the charge on that fund at that time? The charge voted for the present year was £827,000, and if they took the present charge as being the then probable charge, and deducted £94,000 as the maximum payment in respect of abatements, and £152,000 as interest on the fund from £827,000, there would be a deficiency of £581,000 to be made good by the public. But it was said that the charge of £827,000 would be greatly reduced in consequence of the diminished amount of pensions that would have to be paid. His right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth (Sir F. Baring) gave it as his opinion before the Committee last year, that when the amount of charge should be reduced to the lowest rate it would be one-third lower than the sum charged at the highest rate. Admitting the calculation of his right hon. Friend to be true, they would have the £827,000 reduced by £275,000—a third of it—which would leave £552,000 as the probable amount of charge; but from that they would have still to deduct £246,000 a year—namely, £94,000 the maximum payment in respect of abatements, and £152,000 as the interest on the fund, so that there would be still a deficiency of £306,000 to be made good by the public. The civil service officers themselves said that it was impossible to arrive at an accurate calculation, but that it was probable the future charge would be half the amount of the present charge, that was to say, about £413,000, against the contributions from interest and abatements of £244,000. Thus it appeared from the showing of the civil servants themselves, that the deficiency which would have to be made up by the votes of the House of Commons would amount to £169,000. It might be said, however, that it was not fair to include the compensations. Well, he had not omitted that fact. It was not his object—far from it—to make out a case against the civil servants; but he wished to state the facts precisely as they appeared to him to stand. Now, although it might not be fair to include the compensations in every view of this case, he must observe that if the amounts given did not appear in the form of compensation, they would appear in the form of pension. But how stood the case in regard to pensions alone? The pensions in the present year,

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  independent of compensations, amounted to £606,000, which, on the calculation of one-third, as assumed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Portsmouth, would still leave a deficiency of £158,000 to be met. Or, taking it as the civil servants themselves took it, at one-half or £303,000, and deducting £246,000 from that amount, there would be a deficiency of £57,000 a year, to be made good by the House." He was of opinion that if the whole of the contributions of the civil servants were made into a fund, compound interest added, deductions only made of payments for pensions to those who had retired since 1829, and 50 per cent given by Government, it would be no more than sufficient to defray future charges. He hoped he had satisfied the House that whatever course the Government had taken it was, in their opinion, not attended with any degree of injustice to the civil servants. One very important consideration seemed to have been altogether lost sight of in this discussion, although it would affect the calculations very much. Hon. Members must bear in mind that the deductions were made from the salaries actually received by the servants. A man entered the service at 19 years of age, at a salary of £100 a year, and the deduction was 5 per cent. He went on until he had been 40 or 45 years in the public service, and by gradual increase his salary was £1,000, £1,200 or £1,5000. ["Oh! oh!"] He could quote a great number of such cases. ["Oh!"] He did not mean a great number in proportion to the whole 16,000 civil servants, but there were many such cases, During the whole period of service the deduction was the same per cent, although the salary was increasing, and upon retirement the pension was calculated upon the full amount of salary. There was one point to which he begged to call the serious attention of the House. Until the noble Lord introduced this Bill no proposition had ever been made to give up the abatement unaccompanied by a revision of salary. In the Committee of the House of Commons last year the hon. Bart, the Member for Evesham (Sir H. Willoughby) proposed a series of Resolutions, one of which was:—
  "That, adopting the principle of remuneration stated in the second Resolution, the salary of all appointments hereafter to be made in the Civil Service shall be revised according as the amount of such salary shall be judged to be too high or too low, duly considering the service to be performed and the amount of deductions (if any) which have been paid."
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  Sir Stafford Northcote produced a set of Resolutions, and one of his Resolutions was as follows:—
  "That, in accordance with these principles, the system of making deductions from salaries for superannuation should be abandoned; the salaries of civil servants should, where necessary, be revised so as to make them justly equivalent to the work demanded, and the new Act should distinctly recognize the right of the Government to call upon those who have attained a certain age, or whose state of health prevents their regular attendance to their duties, to retire from the service with or without a retired allowance, as the circumstances of the case may require."
  There was a distinct connection kept between the superannuation allowance and the salary to be paid. The hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. S. FitzGerald) proposed:—
  "That in carrying out these Resolutions, the Committee contemplate the propriety of re-considering the scales both of pensions and salaries, as at present arranged."
  He was sorry to say that the noble Lord's Bill did neither the one nor the other. When the Committee came to consider their Report the following Resolution was proposed by the noble Lord the Member for Lynn (Lord Stanley):—
  "That, in the event of such deductions being done away, the rates of payment in the various branches of the Civil Service should be revised, there being no ground for an indiscriminate augmentation of salaries, which would otherwise result from the change proposed."
  The Resolution was not thought sufficiently distinct as to the object intended—that the reduction of the salaries should be governed by the reduction of abatements—and an Amendment was proposed to insert the words "with a due regard to the amount of reductions remitted." The noble Lord the Member for Cockermouth (Lord Naas) professed to have founded his Bill upon the recommendations of the Commissioners appointed last year, and simply proposed to give up the abatement. No doubt the Commissioners reported that the abatement should be given up, and that there should be no reduction in the salaries of the present public servants; but they obviously felt there were very great objections to the proposal to make a present of £100,000 a year as a future charge to the public servants indiscriminately, without any special reason whatever. The Commissioners said:—
  "We have spoken of the supposed loss of revenue us temporary. It must be evident, in the case of any civil servant now liable to deductions, that under any circumstances this loss could not continue for a longer period than the remaining time during which he continues in the service.

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  On his retirement an opportunity will at all events occur of revising the salary. But it is probable that in the majority of cases an opportunity of revising the salary will occur at a much earlier period. It appears that in each public department the clerks are divided into classes with reference to the importance of the duties which they have to perform. In the same class each clerk proceeds from the minimum to the maximum salary by length of service; but in all promotions from an inferior to a higher class it is required that the selection shall be made ' only from superior fitness for such higher class.' The principle of promoting from class to class in consequence of merit alone, without regard to seniority, has been enforced on the Heads of Departments by the highest authorities, and may be considered the established rule of the Civil Service. The practice has been to revise from time to time the salaries in each class, such revision to take effect only with regard to such persons as might thereafter be introduced into the class, and not to affect the salaries of those who were already within it."
  What would be the effect of that proposition? The public servants now complained of the injustice of having two classes—those who paid, and those who did not pay abatement; but if the recommendations of the Commissioners were adopted there would be two or three servants in one class receiving a higher, and two or three in the same class performing the same duties and receiving a lower rate of salary, so that in attempting to cure a present inequality they would be creating a new inequality of a far more grievous nature. Let it be remembered that for some years after the passing of the Act of 1834 and so long as but a few civil servants had been appointed under it they heard nothing of these complaints, but as soon as they were sufficiently numerous to produce an effect, this agitation—he hardly liked to make use of such a word, but it was the one which would best express his meaning—was set on foot. It would be the same a few years hence with regard to this Bill. As soon as ever the number of civil servants, appointed after the Bill passed, was sufficiently large to make an impression upon Parliament, they would seek to get rid of the clear understanding upon which they were engaged, because of the inequality which would certainly be introduced. He would now proceed to consider the Bill itself. The Commissioners pointed out not only the inequality, but the anomalies of the existing system, which required to be remedied. For what did the Commissioners say? They showed that this was only one and almost an inferior cause of complaint on the part of the public servants.
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  They pointed out existing anomalies without end, with not one of which did the noble Lord propose to deal. The Bill of the noble Lord, indeed, would create an anomaly greater than any which now existed. It proposed to repeal a single clause in the Act of 1834—the clause, namely, which imposed abatements. The noble Lord left the Act in every other respect as it was. Now, the effect of that Act was that certain persons only were entitled to pensions. The Bill of the noble Lord sought to relieve these persons from the payment of abatements, but it did not propose to give pensions to any other class of public servants. The officers of the Poor-Law Board were not entitled to pensions, and they felt that they had no reason to complain, because they were not required to pay abatements. The officers of the Treasury, on the other hand, were entitled to pensions, and therefore they had no right to consider themselves aggrieved in being called upon to pay abatements. Under the Bill of the noble Lord the officers of the Treasury would continue to be entitled to pensions, although relieved from the payment of abatements; while the officers of the Poor-Law Board would not be more entitled to pensions than they were at the present moment. Nothing could be more unjust than such a distinction. If all public servants were to be put upon the same footing with regard to abatements, so ought they also with respect to pensions; and if the Bill of the noble Lord passed, it would be impossible to resist their demand. None of the officers of the Post Office, with the exception of those in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, were entitled to pensions; and, in order to show how much the advantages of the Act of 1834 were appreciated, he might state that only last year the postmasters throughout the country requested to be permitted to purchase pensions by paying abatements; and they had only ceased to urge that demand since the present efforts had commenced to obtain pensions for the civil servants without the payment of any abatement. How were they to be dealt with after the extinction of abatements? The Bill of the noble Lord would not entitle them to pensions. Again, the supplemental clerks, who now formed a large body of public servants, paid no abatements, and bad hitherto been superannuated on a different scale from those who did. The Bill of the noble Lord, by abolishing abatements, would do away

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  with the distinction which now existed between the supplemental clerks and the permanent members of the public service. The Education Board, the Poor-Law Board, and a great number of other public offices not included in the Act of 1834, presented anomalies which must be redressed, but which the Bill of the noble Lord left wholly untouched. That Bill, if passed, would destroy the line of demarcation between those who were and those who were not entitled to pensions. It was proposed that they should then give up a sum of £100,000, without any discrimination, to public servants; but he would answer for it that if that proposal were adopted they would have to add another sum of at least £250,000 for pensions to persons who were not at present entitled to receive them. He would go farther, and express his belief that, under that proposed arrangement they should look forward to an addition to the public expenditure of not less than from £300,000 to £400,000 in the course of the next eight or nine years. Again, had they considered what the effect of the Bill would be with respect to the army? The payments now made to the public service in the shape of superannuation allowances of every kind amounted to the sum of £606,000 a year, whereas the pensions and half-pay for the whole of the officers and privates of the army did not exceed £568,000; so that 16,000 civil servants received a larger amount in pensions than the whole army. At present the difference in the payments to the two services could be defended, because the Civil Service contributed to a superannuation fund, which the army did not; but the moment the abatements were abolished no such defence could be made; and it would then be very difficult to show that those gentlemen whose duties were of a comparatively light character ought to receive a larger amount than the whole of our soldiers. Some hon. Gentlemen were disposed to think that the abatements were no security to the public servants for their pensions. Those who took that view were not acquainted with the fluctuating temper of the House of Commons. Not long ago a proposal was made to the House by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley), and supported by a large minority, to reduce the salaries of the whole public servants by 10 per cent. The Government of the day had great difficulty in resisting that proposition. What, however, was the
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  answer which had enabled them to do so? It was that the Government had made a contract with the civil servants, and that it would be a breach of faith to reduce their salaries. Supposing that the same cold fit were to come over the House with respect to the pension fund, would it not be an advantage to the public servants if they could say that Parliament had entered into a contract with them, that in consequence of that contract they had paid abatements, and that they therefore claimed their pensions as a right, and not as a favour? Under any circumstances, indeed, he did not think the House ought to separate the pensions from the salaries, or to abandon the system of granting superannuation allowances. He believed not only that the existence of such a system created a bond between the Crown and its servants, but that the discontinuance of it would be highly injurious to the public service. It was all very well to talk of discharging public servants when they were unfit for duty, but the thing was simply impossible. In this country, where the Heads of Departments were continually changing, no chief of a department would ever expose himself to the odium of discharging a public servant without some provision. Moreover, a superannuation viewed as a means of promoting the efficiency of the service was, upon the whole, an economical and beneficial arrangement. He could not help thinking, indeed, that the demand for a reduction or a cessation of the abatements would never have been made had it not been for the pressure of the income-tax upon the public servants, to whom that tax assumed a character very different from that which it presented to the rest of the community. Other people paid the income-tax to the collector in the way they paid any other tax; but the public servants paid it in the shape of, and looked upon it as a deduction from their salaries. The pressure was felt by them in an aggravated form. But a great relief had been recently afforded in that respect, and the tax had been reduced by more than one-half in the present year. Another great point should not be overlooked by the House, when they were invited to compare the position of civil servants with that of persons employed in mercantile and banking houses. The rate of salary might be higher in the latter instances, but the civil servant had the great advantage of certainty in his employment, and if he

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  should be discharged from it when unable longer to perform the duties, or if his office ahould be abolished, he would be entitled to a retiring allowance or to compensation. He would also remind the House of the large amount that would become chargeable on the House, and which they must make up their minds to pay, if the Bill of the noble Lord were to be passed. The taxpayers were beginning already to complain that they were called upon to pay large sums for which no corresponding benefit was received. The House must also bear in mind that in deciding upon this question they were not deciding between the civil servants and the Government, for as far as the Government were concerned nothing would be more agreeable to them than to yield to the request of the civil servants. There had been a very large increase in the expenditure lately, and during the last four years the three great revenue departments had imposed an increased expenditure of £260,000 per annum. In fact, he believed that no departments of the public service could complain that their claims had not been fully and generously considered, and that in performing the disagreeable duty of resisting this Bill it was only as a matter of imperative duty towards the public. He had, during many years of his life, been in constant and immediate connection with the civil servants of the Crown, and he was bound to say he did not believe there was a more respectable body of men, or any who performed their duties in a more satisfactory manner. At the same time, he repeated the question was not between them and the Government, but between them and the taxpayers of Great Britain; and it was the duty of the Government to watch the finances of the country and to see that no charge was placed upon the public revenue which was not in their opinion justified by circumstances. He therefore hoped if the House of Commons, judging between their constituents, the taxpayers, and the civil servants, should decide that the latter were inadequately paid, and that therefore they were justified in throwing away £100,000 a year directly, besides some £300,000 or £400,000 a year indirectly, they would be equally willing, when they had forced the Government into a corner, and it became necessary to propose new taxes for meeting that increased expenditure, to support the Government, in adding to the income-tax, or imposing any
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  new tax that might be required to equalise the expenditure and the means of the country. He trusted he had relieved himself from all suspicion of personal feeling in the matter, but he must say that if the Bill were passed the responsibility must rest upon the House of Commons. For himself, he did not believe that any ground of justice, or reason, or public policy, had been shown for the adoption of the Bill of the noble Lord. He believed that Bill would leave untouched the greatest anomalies of the present system, and would introduce fresh anomalies as great as any which it professed to remove. Although, therefore, he felt that the question could not be allowed to remain in its present position, he would ask the House of Commons whether it was—he might almost say—decent that pending an inquiry which bore considerably on that subject they should force upon the Government a large expenditure of public money, without at the same time seeing that they secured the removal of all those evils incident to that question, and settled all the anomalies which the Commissioners had pointed out in their Report. The House was then asked to adopt one single recommendation made by the Commissioners, but they were not asked to make any of the adjustments consequent and contingent on the adoption of that recommendation. He could only repeat, that if the House in its wisdom should think fit to adopt that measure they would carry it, not against the Government, but against those who contributed to the taxation of the country. The Government were bound to defend the rights and interests of the public; but at the same time they admitted that that question could not rest where it was; and upon their part he promised that every attention in their power would be paid by them to the Report of the Commissioners, with a view to a satisfactory settlement on that subject. Under these circumstances, and without any feeling of unfriendliness to the parties whose interests were immediately interested in the matter, he begged leave to move that the Bill be read a second time that day three months.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the question to add the words "upon this day three months."
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  MR. G. CLIVEsaid, he was ready to give the hon. Gentleman the Secretary for

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  the Treasury full credit for goodwill towards the civil servants, and at the same time must compliment him upon the ingenuity he had displayed in combating this measure, for while listening to him he had almost forgotten there was any other side to the case, except that which the hon. Gentleman was advocating. There was, however, only one point involved in the discussion, and that was a point of plain justice, for he should leave out of consideration all that the hon. Gentleman had said about the understanding between hon. Members and their constituents, and also the reference he had made to the army, which was entirely unconnected with this subject. The main point was this,—the hon. Gentleman said the revenue would suffer because £306,000 would have to be paid for pensions some years hence; and that even according to the civil servants' own statement, the amount would be only £240,000. There was a fallacy in that statement. The civil servants complained of the injustice that a certain number only of their body, appointed since 1834, paid the deduction, and that they did not receive a quid pro quo for those payments. The hon. Gentleman had stated that all those deductions were swallowed up in the payment of pensions and superannuation allowances, but on one side of the estimate were included the whole of the pensions and superannuation allowances, while on the other side was taken only the amount paid by a portion of the civil servants. If the whole of that body paid alike, the calculation would be correct, but at present the deductions were paid by a small class, while the pensions were open to all.
  MR. WILSONexplained that in his statement he had altogether thrown out of consideration all civil servants appointed prior to 1829, and, according to the civil servants' own statement, the charge only referred to those appointed since 1834.
  MR. G. CLIVEsaid, he would also ask whether the hon. Gentleman meant to say that in the year 1890, which had been referred to, the payments for pensions would amount to a balance of £306,000 against the country?
  MR. WILSONsaid, according to the statement made by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Portsmouth (Sir F. Baring), the charge for pensions would be reduced, when all deductions came into operation, by one-third, or, according to the statement of the civil servants themselves, by one-half. In the former case
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  there would be still a charge of £306,000 against the public, and even upon the other statement there would remain a great excess to be paid by the country.
  MR. G. CLIVEsaid, according to the calculation of Dr. Farre that estimate was unfounded. At present the civil servants appointed since 1829 were paying £70,000 a-year, while they were receiving only £12,000 a year in pensions. They also complained that a large class of public servants escaped entirely and paid nothing in the shape of deductions, but were still entitled to pensions. A man appointed to an office before 1829 might have had his salary going on increasing till it reached £1,500 per annum, and yet receive the full amount of superannuation, though exempted from the payments. The hon. Gentleman said that no other persons were entitled to pensions, but he would ask whether it was not practically true that all persons appointed to permanent offices did receive pensions? And if that was the case, how was it possible to make a distinction between those who paid the deductions and those who did not? The whole question before the House was, as it seemed to him, whether the arrangement originally made with the civil servants was to be considered in the nature of an assurance, or as a matter of salary. If there ever had been a contract in the case, it was such a contract as a superior had no right to make with a servant; and it certainly was pregnant with ambiguity, which ambiguity had never yet been explained. The civil servants had a good right to suppose that if they paid £5 towards an allowance they were entitled to full value for that amount, but it was proved that this they did not receive. He thought the supporters of the Government had a right to complain of the obstructive course taken by Her Majesty's Ministers on this question. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury told them the question could not rest where it was, and on a former occasion the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke of the matter as one requiring remedy, and yet no prospect was held out that either in this Session or the next an attempt would be made to introduce a measure on the part of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham) at the time the present system was introduced, said expressly that the civil servants were to contribute to insurances, and would receive the whole

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  benefit. He could not say whether he used the word "fund," but he admitted having used the expression as to insurance. Now, if the arrangement was in the nature of an insurance, surely the civil servants had a right to the whole benefit, and the question was whether they had the whole benefit or not. He wished now to ascertain whether the Government would undertake to give them the full benefit, for if so he, for one, would be satisfied. The hon. Gentleman need not trouble himself about the state of public feeling on this question. He believed that the public feeling in this country was in favour of honour and justice, and that it leant very much towards generosity. He did not think they were amenable to the charge of inconsiderate extravagance brought against them by the hon. Gentleman, or to the charge of indecency either. [Mr. WILSON: "not decent."] Well, not decent meant indecency. The Government took credit for its guardianship of the public purse, but it might safely enough leave the House to settle the matter with their constituents. They were inclined to honour and justice and even to generosity in dealing with their servants, but they were not at all inclined to sharp practice.
  MR. WEGUELINsaid, that as he had been one of the Commissioners who had inquired into this subject, he hoped the House would allow him to state his views upon some of the points which had been raised in the course of that discussion. Reference had been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer on a preceding occasion, and by the hon. Gentleman the Secretary of the Treasury that day, to the recommendations of the Commissioners. The House had been told there were so many special recommendations in the Report of the Commissioners that it was desirable to delay till all those recommendations could be included in any measure that was passed. The first of those special recommendations was a new scale of pensions. Now, this new scale of pensions was recommended by the Committee of last year, and the Government were prepared to include it in a Bill of their own. The next special recommendation was an alteration with regard to the age of retirement, and a provision for compulsory retirement. This measure also was in the Bill No. 2 brought forward by the Government last year. The third special recommendation of the Commissioners regarded gratuities to be allowed to public servants. This provision was also
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  in the Bills Nos. 1 and 2 of last year, as was likewise the next, having reference to compensations, which had the recommendation of the Committee. The recommendation of a superior and special scale of pensions for professional and legal officers was also in the Bills Nos. 1 and 2 of last year, as recorded by the Committee. So far, therefore, as the Committee's recommendations were concerned there was no cause for delay, for the Government had already shown that they were prepared to adopt them. The points in the Report of the Commissioners that the Government had not yet agreed to were:—First, that the ordinary scale of pensions should be extended to dockyard officers instead of the scale of fortieths they now enjoyed, and he contended that, notwithstanding what had fallen from the Secretary of the Treasury, the amount affected by this recommendation would be exceedingly trifling. Then there were recommendations respecting the Post Office, and these were of a very modest character indeed. The servants of the Post Office in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, were placed on a footing different from others, and the recommendation of the Commissioners was, that the system of pensions should be revised with the view of placing it on a more uniform principle—the remuneration for services, to consist partly of salaries and partly of superannuation allowances. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury had endeavoured to alarm the House by stating, that if the present Bill were passed a large demand for pensions would be made by the country postmasters. But the fact was, that the practice at present was to give pensions to the greater portion of those persons. The case of the postmasters was one in which a special arrangement should be come to by the Treasury, and which should not be included in any general measure. Then there was the case of the extra clerks, the salaries of whom it was proposed to increase by one-tenth, and consider them fixed clerks in the service. On the whole, he would appeal to the House whether the special recommendations afforded a sufficient cause for deferring an act of justice on this most important subject. With regard to the next point which was made both by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer and by the Secretary of the Treasury—namely, the magnitude of the sum wanted—no doubt the House would require very clear explanations upon that.

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  The total sum of the pensions now payable had been stated as amounting to £1,208,264; but on referring to a Return presented to the House of Commons on the 11th of May last, he found that the pensions of the Civil Service amounted to £589,139, and the deductions to £74,212. Now, if that scale of pensions, which included the great majority of pensions in the scale of 1829—which was a very superior scale to that passed by the Act of 1834—if the latter scale had uniformly existed, the amount, instead of being £589,000, would have been £450,000 only. The compensations were not included in that, as they stood on a very different footing. There would be no compensation unless they abolished the salary, and therefore what was lost on one hand was gained on the other by reduction of salary. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary of the Treasury stated the salaries of the civil servants to be £2,426,699, subject, to the deductions under the Act of 1834, and those not subject to deduction, £4,910,612; and it was stated that the officers of the latter class were not entitled to superannuation. But what was the case? In the Report to which ho referred there was an appendix, and page after page was filled by Acts of Parliament giving a title to superannuation pensions to persons who had not paid any deduction. In the first place there were the legal pensions, amounting to £250,000 a year, upon salaries of £914,052; there were no less than forty-two Acts of Parliament to make provision for the declining years of gentlemen in that branch of the Civil Service. In the next place, that £4,910,612 included the wages of all the artificers who received pensions; and since 1834, nearly 4000 such pensions, amounting to £74,000 per annum, had been granted to persons who did not pay deductions. Then there was the case of the police, which the right hon. Gentleman made a very strong point of, and with respect to which, he said the deductions were sufficient to cover the pensions. The fact was, they paid a very small deduction—about 2¼ per cent.—and had very high pensions secured them by Act of Parliament, and therefore they must also be excluded from the category. The diplomatic pensions, again, were large as compared with the salary, their pensions being £25,718 and their salaries £144,360, and with respect to the convict service pensions, notwithstanding the hon. Member for Richmond, when Secretary of the
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  Treasury, had abolished the deductions, there had been no revision of salary. In short, it might be confidently stated that by law and usage there was not a single civil servant who was not entitled to superannuation at present. Where, then, was the ground for saying that only those who paid deduction were entitled to pensions, and that if they broke through the line of demarcation between those who paid deductions and those who did not, they would introduce a vast number of new pensioners in the form of an annual charge upon the country? It was said that the increase of charge would be £250,000 a year; but for his part, he could not conceive that there would be any material increase in the charge. The only officers who did not pay deductions, and who might be said not to be entitled to superannuation, but who, in fact, did receive it, were those appointed to the temporary offices created since 1834, and which were charged with no deduction. But the Treasury, when the Commission was sitting, on the 13th of January last, by a Treasury Minute had given those very officers a title to superannuation—it was true superannuation on a reduced scale—but still a title to superannuation. The hon. Gentleman stated that there was a corresponding deduction, but he had, in fact, by calculating upon a system of life annuities, given them the deduction as well; and they were now laying by whatever deduction they might choose, and yet at the same time became entitled to superannuation, although on a reduced scale. The Commissioners recommended that the superannuation on a scale proportionate to the salary should be paid to the civil servant, and that the salary should not be reduced in proportion to the superannuation. The great difficulty by which this question was surrounded was caused by the inequalities of the Civil Service itself. If they were to reduce the salaries in proportion to the superannuation, the effect of that would be to give a different scale of pensions. They would have one scale for those reduced, and another for those not reduced; and, in short, it would have no other result than to perpetuate and stereotype the anomalies and inequalities which at present existed. The Commissioners also recommended that there should be a revision of the salaries. That of course was an inherent power possessed by the Treasury, who were no doubt always engaged to some extent in the revision of salaries, and that was a power which he

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  apprehended neither the Commissioners nor the House of Commons were desirous to deprive them of. The hon. Gentleman said they would introduce inequalities; not necessarily so, because in some cases they might find the salary too low. It must be always understood that the reduction only took place on a rise of salary, and the recipient of an additional salary could not fairly object to that reduction. As to the sum of money involved, it was stated that the present sum was £75,000 a year, and that there was no doubt that the deductions would amount to £100,000. But in that there was a fallacy, because if they continued to increase the pensions with a reduction of salary, what they would lose on the one hand they would gain on the other. The abolition of abatements simplified the matter, for how was it possible that those engaged in revising the salaries could accurately compare the value of the labour with the salary, unless the conditions on which the salary was fixed were of the simplest form? But if they were on different scales of pension he defied any one to place the fixed salary in a fair proportion. Then he came to the question of contract. He admitted fully that there was a contract existing between the civil servant and the Government. No doubt it was not the intention of the Act of 1834 to create a fund, for he thought it must be admitted that if there was any such intention it would have been specially mentioned in the Act itself. Therefore there was no injustice to the civil servants in insisting on the fulfilment of the contract into which they entered when they came into the service. It might not, indeed, be very generous to do so when they had entered it at a very early period, because the families of those who were anxious to obtain employment for them always assumed that the civil servants of the Crown would be adequately remunerated for their labour. It was true the civil servants had no real cause of complaint as far as strict justice was concerned, but he thought Parliament were bound not only to deal out strict justice but equal justice to all classes of civil servants. As far as the Executive were concerned strict justice had been done, but the civil servants complained, not that injustice had been done under the Act of Parliament, but of the Act of Parliament itself, and wished it altered. He thought that was a fair claim to make, because the Act pressed unfairly on individuals. The noble Lord the Member for the City of
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  London said the other day that he saw no objection in the world, if the civil servants were subjected to a great grievance, why they should not endeavour to get rid of it, nor did he. The right hon. Gentleman stated that it might be viewed as if a tax on the Civil Service was intended to be levied by the Act of 1834. That, however, was worse than a reduction; for taxation should be general, and ought not to be placed upon particular classes, and this was eminently a class taxation. There might, it was true, be certain class taxations, and they were justified in taxing by way of granting licences to particular classes; but that was only in the case of where a person wished to carry on a particular trade under that licence, and the tax in the end fell upon the public. But this was an instance of taxing not a class, but a section of a class; and not only that, but individuals of that particular section. Of 49,000 civil servants only 16,000 were taxed. The gravamen of the complaint was, that by the present system of deductions an enormous inequality was created between one class and the other. Both the highest and the lowest classes were exempt, and the weight of the burden fell upon the middle; the poor clerk subject to the deduction having to bear the weight of the whole of the pensions. Another reason urged for delay was the non-presentation of the Report of the actuaries. He could not understand why that should be urged as a reason. If the abatements had accumulated, and the Government admitted that a fund had been created, the case would be different. But if they said the clerks among themselves had no right to the principle of mutual assurance, he could not tell why they should wait for the Report of the actuaries. The appointment of actuaries necessarily assumed that there was a fund—that the deductions paid by other classes had formed a fund out of which to pay the superannuations. They were then in this dilemma: either there was a fund, which was contrary to the statement of the hon. Gentleman, or if not, then there was no occasion to wait for the Report of the actuaries. He thought the real question for the House of Commons was, as to the policy of continuing these abatements. Everybody, when they came to examine the matter, abandoned them. The Committee appointed to investigate the matter had thrown them over; the Commissioners had given them up; every debate in the

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  House had been conducted on the principle of the abandonment of the system of abatements, and the real question now before the House appeared to him to be, whether or not there ought to be an increase of salary on account of these deductions. That question of salary he admitted the House were incompetent to enter into; it must be left to a Committee of the Treasury. Judging from what he saw around him, he believed that salaries generally were on the increase. He knew they were in commercial concerns; but with respect to that the right hon. Gentleman made a statement which was not exactly in accordance with the fact. He stated that the average salaries at the Bank of England were lower than the average salaries paid to the civil servants. [Mr. WILSON: Not higher officers.] The general average, however, in the Bank was £195 per annum, whereas in the Civil Service it only amounted to £147 [Lord NAAS: £141.] It was very unfair for the hon. Gentlemen to take the salaries of the higher officers only; he (Mr. Weguelin) had included the average of the whole, which was the simplest plan, and he had taken into his account the salaries of the junior clerks and even the porters at the Bank. He would now take the opportunity to make a remark with reference to the statement of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Richmond (Mr. Rich) who addressed the House upon this subject upon a former occasion, and who put into the mouths of the Commissioners several recommendations which had no sort of existence. The hon. Gentleman stated that they had made substantially four recommendations—first, that abatements should cease; secondly, that the abatements should be returned to those who made them—there was no such recommendation made by the Commissioners at all. Thirdly, that the retiring pension should cease, as far as respected certain classes; and fourthly, that a sort of fund should be created, with a view of paying the pensions. There was not the slightest recommendation of the kind. Other propositions were made, which were contrary to the simplest rules of arithmetic. What was the present position of this question? It had been frequently debated in that House, it had been referred to a Select Committee, the Government had brought in two Bills on the subject, and a Commission had been a appointed to inquire into the case. There had been a remarkable
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  coincidence of opinion, and yet the Government were not prepared to act. He must say he did not think the Government occupied a very worthy position. Their position would not even be worthy of a weak Government, and it was certainly unworthy of the enlightened dictatorship under which they lived. The expectations of the civil servants had been raised by the repeated action of Parliament, but only to be disappointed, and he hoped the House would now be prepared to give effect without loss of time to the recommendations of the Commissioners, the main points of which were embodied in the noble Lord's Bill. It was most desirable that their civil servants should be satisfied and contented, for nothing could be more detrimental to the public service than the existence of general discontent, engendered by hopeless poverty or a sense of injustice. He knew from experience in Russia and in other foreign countries, that no greater curse could exist than an underpaid, corrupt, and discontented body of civil servants who preyed on the very vitals of the country. In this country there was no reason to fear corruption among such a class, but if they were not treated with fairness and justice it would not be surprising if a want of Zeal and energy should be apparent in the public service. It was the true economy of this country not to act in a parsimonious spirit towards persons employed in the lower departments of the public service. The question affected the interest of some 16,000 persons, who were waiting with great anxiety for the decision of Parliament, and he appealed to the House, on grounds not only of justice but of policy, to abolish this odious tax, and to settle this question at once and for ever.
  SIR FRANCIS BARINGsaid, he could hardly allow the second reading of this Bill to pass without troubling the House with a few observations. He concurred entirely in the concluding opinions of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, that it was of the greatest possible importance that this question should be settled, and settled in a fair, candid, and liberal spirit. But, on the other hand, he objected to the Bill of the noble Lord precisely because it was no settlement whatever of the question. It was his decided opinion, after all the discussion he had heard, that in consequence of the noble Lord's adopting but a small part of the recommendation of the Commissioners, if the Bill passed it would, so far

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  as his experience of a large body of the public servants was concerned—and he meant the lower class—it would give the greatest dissatisfaction. He concurred with the hon. Gentleman, that the question of deductions appeared to be settled; the Government had given up that principle, and the very attentive Committee which had been appointed agreed with the Government on that point. They came to the conclusion, also, that there was no reason for a general increase of salaries by paying back the deductions, but they agreed that a system of deductions was an improper mode of raising a fund, and the Commission endorsed that opinion. An hon. Member who addressed the House upon the last occasion when this subject came before it, talked about the decency of the House of Commons. He (Sir F. Baring) knew that, whether decent or indecent, things that were considered wise two years ago were not considered wise now, and that the recommendations of one of the ablest Committees that ever sat—he alluded to the Finance Committee—were held to be utterly valueless by the Commissioners, and they seemed also to be disregarded by the House. Well, then, he was not sure that what would be considered very liberal and generous this year would be considered proper two or three years hence, if right Hon. Gentlemen found themselves unable to take off the income tax; nor was he sure that if the House, now acting upon strong pressure from without, came to the conclusion of increasing the salaries of the civil servants £5 per cent., they might not come to a vote in exactly the opposite direction at that time when they found the public feeling the other way. He had seen so many changes of opinion in that House that he, for one, should scrupulously guard himself from guaranteeing for ever any decision they might now come to. He agreed with respect to deductions with the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Clive), that although the public servants would have no right to complain of a contract between themselves and the Government, yet it would have been better in the first instance, as a matter of fairness and policy, to have ascertained whether the deductions were too large in proportion to the retiring allowances, and if that were the case, then those deductions should be diminished. He was a member of the Committee referred to, and was very anxious to ascertain whether, in the change made, the public servants paid too much or
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  not, and he was bound to say that he considered that the Committee were quite justified in coming to the conclusion which they arrived at. Dr. Farre himself was asked whether he could form an opinion on that point, and he replied that he had no evidence upon it which he could rely upon, and although he afterwards found some papers on which he thought reliance could be placed, yet he thought it was not extraordinary, that considering the time he had for the preparation of evidence, the Committee should not place implicit reliance upon that which was afterwards obtained in the course of two or three days. The Committee also took the opinion of the two actuaries, and they stated that, with regard to that subject, they had no sufficient data upon which to form any conclusion whatever. His firm impression was, that the public servants were rather inclined to believe, if they were taken at their word and asked if the deduction should be given them and the money taken from the salary, that on the whole the bargain was not such a very bad one. The public had been so deluded, and there had been so little truth stated upon the subject, that, at the risk of being tiresome, he felt called upon to make some observations upon it. He would state one fact to show what sort of stories had been circulated. It had been put forward as a most cruel case that not one out of seventeen who had subscribed to these deductions had received any benefit from them, and a return had been referred to, which, by the way, afforded a good specimen of how these returns were made up. It was supposed to be a return of the number of persons who had died, or otherwise left the service, without having received a pension. It was made out for five years. He had been much struck with the number of officers represented to have left the Civil Service of the Admiralty without pensions. On making some inquiries on the subject he found that most of them were officers in the navy, who had been appointed to places in the dockyards, and then at the end of five years had been superseded or removed and others appointed in their stead. Those officers never paid any superannuation deductions, but notwithstanding that, they appeared in the Return in question as individuals who had been hardly dealt with. For example—an officer at Portsmouth was promoted to Plymouth, and then again, it might be, to Chatham. At each remove he got promotion; but still he appeared in the Return,

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  at each change, as an officer who had retired from his situation without receiving any retiring allowance. Was that a case of hardship to be complained of? In the Return he found 4,687 officers who, under the letter R, had been set down as having retired from the Post Office without any superannuation. No doubt the public supposed that those officers had paid deductions, but that was not so. They did not pay sixpence, and yet they appeared there as persons who had been most cruelly dealt with because they did not receive a retiring allowance. Everybody knew that there were two classes of retiring pensions—one strictly under the Superannuation Act, and the other a retiring allowance on the discontinuance or remodelling of the office. Now, to show how absurd the Return was, he would instance a case. Supposing an office with ten clerks done away with, each of the clerks would receive as compensation a pension fully as much as the Superannuation Act would allow, but not one of them would come strictly within the Superannuation Act; but they would actually appear upon the Return as officers who had paid deductions, but who had received no benefit whatever from them. Such was the foundation of many of the statements which had been laid before the public—statements founded upon the purest fallacy in the world. But the real question was not about deductions, but the second reading of this Bill, and to that he would state his objections. Not only did he object to it because it would be no settlement of the question, but because it would make a large increase in the salaries of the public servants in a manner not required, and at the same time most injudicious. They were going to increase the higher services by £5 per cent., and to increase the salaries of the lower class of civil servants by only 2½ per cent. That arrangement had been entirely kept in the background, because it did not tally with the declamation we heard about the poor public servant. The Bill, therefore, gave advantages to the highest and best-paid class of public servants, which it withheld from the poorer and hardest-working servants. It might be said that the recommendation of the Commissioners went to the extent of increasing the salaries; but, he asked, was it borne out by any really inadequate payment to the public officers? Was it true that the public servants were ill paid? The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Wilson) had told them that, within the last four years, there had been a great increase
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  in the public service; but was that a reason why they should increase the public salaries? Hon. Gentlemen sometimes said that they should be glad to get rid of the number of letters they received from their constituents daily. But, he asked, did they believe that if the public service was so badly remunerated, they would receive such numerous applications to get people into it? In the Admiralty, of late, there had been occasion to employ many extra clerks. They knew very well what the work was, and what the deductions were, and yet there was not one of them but would gladly accept a permanent appointment, and be grateful for it. Sir Charles Trevelyan's Commission said, if the House would throw open the public service to competition, they would have a much better class of persons in it. But, if they did that, would they have any one competing for employment in a service alleged to be so ill-paid? To be told by the Commissioners that the public servants as a body were underpaid, and had been underpaid for a long time, seemed to him perfectly absurd. He agreed with the Commissioners, that there was one class of public servants who were underpaid, but that was a class whom the Commissioners regarded as well off, because they were not caught in the net—viz., the labourers in the dockyards. It had been said, in the course of the discussion, that the labourers in the dockyards received retiring allowances, but paid no deductions. It was quite true they paid no deductions in that way, but they paid them in the shape of lower wages than other men received in the same trade. When they came to the Admiralty and said, "You don't give us what shipwrights and sawyers get in other yards," the answer was, "You cannot have the same wages and retiring allowances besides." He believed that the dockyard labourers understood the working of the system much better than the Commissioners, and that they would be grateful for the boon of being placed upon the same footing as those parties who complained that they were unjustly treated.
  MR. SEYMOUR FITZGERALDsaid, he should not have attempted to address the House if he had thought there was any probability of their coming to a division, but as that was not likely, he wished, as a member of the Committee which sat upon the question two years ago, to offer a few remarks in reference to it. No one could doubt that it would be most agree-

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  able to the Secretary of the Treasury, who had been so long in the service of the Crown, who knew so well the value of the services of the civil servants, and who must feel how much his own reputation was owing, not only to his own industry, but to the industry of the servants in the department over which he presided, to concede the claim of those with whom he was brought into contact. He willingly accepted the issue which the hon. Gentleman himself had raised—whether that claim was founded in justice and equity, or not? It was not put before the House as a breach of contract on the part of the Government, but the civil servants said, "Granted that there has been a contract between ourselves and the Government, and pro tanto that it has been fairly fulfilled; at the same time that contract ab initio was so unjust, so unfair, and so inequitable that we have a claim upon the justice of Parliament to relieve us from a contract into which we ought never to have been invited to enter. Assuming that to be so, there was nothing in the objection of the hon. Gentleman on the score of expense, for in considering whether they could justify to their constituents a vote in favour of the Bill, he was perfectly ready to face the extra expense for the sake of the extra advantage from the increased efficiency of the public service. It was fair that the House should know what it was the noble Lord called upon them to do. It was nothing which the noble Lord had himself originated. It was not the mere claim of the civil servants, urged by a large section of the House, which those hon. Members were prepared to support. They were called upon to give effect to the recommendations of a Commission appointed by the Crown, and appointed under particular circumstances, because it was certainly a peculiar circumstance that the Crown should interpose a Commission to attempt to reverse the Resolutions and recommendations of a Committee; and he was bound to say that he did not think it was treating a Committee of the House with that respect, or attributing to their Report that weight which they ought to possess. Having been a member of the Committee, he wished to correct the Secretary of the Treasury's statement of their proceedings. The amendment of the hon. Member for Richmond (Mr. Rich), which was carried by a majority of one, was an Amendment upon his Resolution, and not upon a Resolution of the noble Lord the Member for
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  Lynn (Lord Stanley). The Resolution was, that the salaries of the civil servants should be revised, but having regard to the scale of superannuation pensions which they were likely to receive, because at that time the Committee had four different scales of compensation before them—the scale received by those who had entered the service before 1829; the scale received by those who had entered since; the scale first proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and the scale which the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed in his amended Bill. The hon. Member for Richmond (Mr. Rich) succeeded in carrying an Amendment upon that Resolution, and his Amendment was, that due regard should be had to the amount of the deduction remitted. How did the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the right hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir F. Baring) interpret those words? Why, that there should be an indiscriminate reduction to the full amount of the deduction remitted. Such, however, was not the meaning which the Committee attached to the term "revision," for they were told by Mr. Bromley, Mr. Stevenson, Sir Charles Trevelyan, and others who had been engaged in a revision of salaries in almost every department of the State, that though the salaries were sometimes reduced they were also sometimes increased. The true principle, in fact, was to deal with each particular case upon its own merits, regard being had to the amount and value of the work done. The Secretary of the Treasury had stated that the contributions now made by the public servants, in the shape of deductions from their salaries, were insufficient. That had really nothing to do with the question before the House; but he could not help saying that the hon. Gentleman had represented the matter most unfairly. His first statement was that the superannuations had greatly increased. Of course they had, and it was possible that for some little time they might continue to increase, because the present was just the period when those who entered the service before 1829, who had paid no deductions, but were entitled to the highest rate of salary, were coming upon the pension list. But the hon. Gentleman had committed what seemed to him another act of injustice, because, when he represented what was the amount now paid in the shape of superannuations, he did not state what proportion was paid to those who contributed to the fund. [Mr. WILSON: I included none but those who contributed

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  to it.] The hon. Gentleman stated that, excluding the compensation for abolished offices, £552,000 was paid in superannuations and pensions, but he did not tell the House that only between £11,000 and £12,000 was given to those who were liable to deductions, although the amount contributed by them was between £60,000 and £70,000 per annum. The hon. Gentleman stated on one side the amount paid for deductions, and then on the other side the whole amount paid for superannuations. But he included in the latter the superannuations paid to those who were never liable to deductions. The claim of the civil servants was simple and powerful, and constituted a claim to justice. They based it chiefly on these two grounds—first, they said that a great many of them were called on to contribute to this fund who never by any ordinary chance could have the slightest benefit from it. The hon. Baronet (Sir F. Baring) referred to returns but did not venture to deny that there were many cases in which those who contributed to the fund could receive no benefit from it. It was only the other day that a member of the Civil Service gave him (Mr. S. FitzGerald) a case which happened in his own family. A civil servant had contributed to the fund for sixteen years, and on his death, which took place last week he left a widow and seven children totally unprovided for, and without the slightest claim either upon the fund or upon the Government. The civil servants felt such a case as that to be very hard. Nothing was more honourable to the middle classes than their desire to assist persons in difficulty, and he was sure that they would condemn a system by which the members of the Civil Service were compelled to contribute to a fund from which, in the long run nine out of every ten would receive no benefit whatever. The next allegation of the civil servants was, that the deduction made their salaries insufficient. The income-tax, coupled with these deductions, pressed most hardly upon them, and their salaries were regulated without any regard to the question of superannuation. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No, no.] The right hon. Gentleman would find, at page 18 in the evidence of Sir C. Trevelyan, this passage:—
  "I have been engaged in more departments of the Civil Service than almost any other person in it; in some they pay the deductions, in other they do not; in regulating the rates of salary we consider what the rates of salary are out of doors, but never whether the deductions are paid or not."
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  What was the consequence of that? Why this: that if one man who did not pay deductions, received £100 a year, another who paid the deductions did not receive £100 a year, but £100 a year minus the deductions. The right hon. Gentleman would say, doubtless, that the difference was made up thus, that one received the pension and the other did not. [The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Hear, hear!] But that is not so. For, in the first place, nine out of ten of those who pay the deductions do not receive, and have no chance of receiving, the retiring pension; and, in the next place, it is admitted, in the late Minute on the subject, that many of those who do not pay the deductions receive retiring allowances. The Minute of January last showed that the anomaly and injustice increased, for the result was that the pensions of those who did not pay the deductions would be larger than the pensions of those who for a long period of years had paid the deductions. Upon these grounds the civil servants had a distinct claim upon the justice of the House. There had been, he would not say a breach of contract, but a mutual misapprehension, by reason of which an unfair and inequitable contract had been entered into. That being so, they had a right to come to Parliament and demand that their case should be dealt with liberally and generously. It was absurd to attempt to influence the House by telling them, as the hon. Gentleman the Secretary of the Treasury told them, that the concession of their claim would necessitate the continuance of the income-tax. Ridiculous, to suppose that an increase of expenditure to the amount of £100,000 (which was the limit of their claim) could involve any necessity for a tax amounting to millions. Conceiving, then, that the civil servants had a clear claim to the justice of the House, he should not be deterred by that statement from giving his cordial assent to the second reading of this Bill.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, as no Member of that House had a larger number of constituents engaged in the Civil Service than he had, he felt an interest in this measure. It was admitted that the present system of deductions from the salaries of the civil servants was most unjust. Even the Secretary of the Treasury did not deny it. And if the hon. Gentleman or the Chancellor of the Exchequer had come down with a new scheme upon the subject he might have spared the House

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  this long debate. What he (Mr. Williams) desired was, that justice should be done to the civil servants with reference to the amount taken from their salary; but he was not prepared at once to add 5 per cent. to their salaries. He had not understood that this was their claim; but a just appropriation of the portion of income deducted. That was a claim to which he gave his cordial assent, and he was surprised that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not assented to it.
  MR. RICHsaid, he had been represented by the hon. Member for Southampton (Mr. Weguelin) as having stated that the Commissioners recommended that the civil servants should be repaid their deductions. What he stated was, that the recommendation was that they should be remitted. Again, he had put the case thus:—The Secretary of the Treasury received a salary of £2500, from which was taken £125 for this pension-fund; therefore his salary consisted of £2375, plus the amount of his contingent pension; and if the £125 was remitted, then his salary would be equivalent to £2625, being the amount of £2500 plus the £125 as the equivalent for the retiring pension. (Hear!) The House seemed, he said, to fancy that he rose to speak against time, but the more he was interrupted the longer he should be. The hon. Member (Mr. S. FitzGerald), and the noble Lord (Lord Naas) had stated that 11,000 civil servants paid the pensions, and that 30,000 who did not pay them were guaranteed pensions. If that were so there would be certainly a strong ground for the measure; but was it so? Why, of the 30,000 referred to most of them were mere artisans and coast-guard men.
  The time being ten minutes to four,
  MR. SPEAKERdeclared the debate adjourned.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he was desirous that the House should have an opportunity of expressing its deliberate opinion on this measure. On Wednesday next there was one Bill which would not occupy much time, and another, on agricultural statistics, which he understood it was not intended to proceed with this Session. In these circumstances he proposed that the noble Lord (Lord Naas) should fix Wednesday for resuming the debate. If, however, there was any difficulty with regard to Wednesday, he would try to find another morning sitting.
  LORD NAASsaid, he had no alternative but to accept this suggestion; he could not, however, help observing that the debate might well have closed that day, if the Government had really desired to come to a decision. The subject had been fully discussed, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had spoken at length upon it. He trusted that on Wednesday there would be a clear understanding that the decision of the question should be arrived at; but if the course taken that day were repeated it would be impossible.
  The Debate was then fixed for Wednesday next.

EDINBURGH, CANONGATE, AND MONTROSE ANNUITY TAX ABOLITION BILL.

  BILL WITHDRAWN.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. E. ELLICEsaid, he would beg to ask if it was the intention of the Government to proceed any further with this Bill?
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, that, looking to the period of the Session and to the difference of opinion which had arisen upon the subject of this measure, he believed that it would be impossible to carry it through in the present Session. He considered, however, that the matter to which the Bill related was of importance, and he should endeavour to deal with it again next Session. In the meantime he begged to move that the order for the second reading be read for the purpose of being discharged.
  Order discharged; Bill withdrawn.

NEW SOUTH WALES.

  QUESTION.
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTONhaving presented a petition upon the subject from the Legislative Council of New South Wales, signed by the President, said, he wished to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any decision has been come to by Her Majesty's Government on the subject of detaching from the colony of New South Wales any portion of the Northern Territories thereof, and forming the same into a separate colony; and if any such decision has been made, where the southern boundary of such new colony is to be drawn; and whether, in respect of any portions of such new colony as are situated between the 26th and 30th degrees of south latitude, Petitions from the Inhabitant Householders

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  of the Territories so situated have been presented to Her Majesty as required by the statute 13 & 14 Vic., c. 59, s. 34, in order to enable Her Majesty to include such Territories in the new colony; whether any conditions have been imposed in order to prevent convicts being sent to such new colony; what provision has been made as to the form of the Government of such new colony; And whether any, and if any, what arrangement has been made as to the proportions of the public debt of the existing colony, to be borne by such new colony and New South Wales respectively after the proposed separation?
  Mr. LABOUCHEREsaid, that the facts of the case were these. In passing the Constitutional Act on which the institutions of New South Wales were now founded the Legislature of that colony had provided for the possible separation of the northern portion of it from the southern, by giving to the Queen in Council the power to separate the district of Moreton Bay from the rest of the colony, and to draw such a boundary line as might be considered most desirable. He (Mr. Labouchere) having received strong and reiterated petitions from the inhabitants of the district of Moreton Bay to the effect that they desired that separation, had advised the Crown to make it. Considerable difficulty, however, arose in determining where the boundary line should be drawn, but his opinion was that that which ought to guide the decision was the desire of the colonists themselves, coupled with considerations of the accessibility to Moreton Bay and to Sydney respectively. He at first thought that it would be right to carry the boundary line very low down, southerly, so as to include the Clarence River district in Moreton Bay; but it appeared to him that the petitions from the inhabitants of the Clarence River district in favour of being regarded as part of the colony of new South Wales, so much outsweighed in force and numbers those which were in favour of being annexed to the Moreton Bay district, that he had written to the Governor of New South Wales, informing him that he should advise the Crown to draw the boundary line nearer to Moreton Bay than he had originally intended, so as to be between the 25th and 26th degree of south latitude—within about seventy miles of Moreton Bay—and to give the Clarence River district to New South Wales. With regard to the second
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  question, respecting convicts, he could not state too explicitly that it was the fixed determination of the Government not to send a single convict to Moreton Bay, as they had no reason to suppose that the colonists would desire to receive them. Whatever wish there might have been for convict labour some time ago, it was his belief there was none now; and he should consider it to be a gross breach of faith towards the colonists of Sydney to allow convicts to be introduced into a contignous colony, from whence they might readily pass to Sydney. In answer to the next question as to what provision had been made with respect to the form of Government of the new colony, he had to state that he found in the Act which the authorities at Sydney had passed, that the Government should, as nearly as might be, resemble the constitution of Sydney, and by the advice of the Crown officers (there being no opposition to the scheme in the colony), it was intended to give to the new colony the ordinary constitution of a British Colony—of Governor, Council, and Assembly. With respect to the third question, relating to the public debt, he had to observe that the Governor of New South Wales had called his attention to that point, and he had requested the Governor to bring the subject before the Legislature of New South Wales, by whom the proper partition of the debt could be made; and the Order in Council separating the two Colonies would not be issued until satisfactory assurances should be received that that question was settled.

NETLEY MILITARY HOSPITAL.

  QUESTION.
  MR. WILLCOXsaid, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if any circumstances have arisen to induce Her Majesty's Government to suspend their intention to build the new Military Hospital at Netley, and if so, whether he has any objections to state them?
  MR. STAFFORDsaid, that before the question was answered, he wished also to ask whether there was any objection to publish the complete correspondence upon the subject, for some important correspondence, he apprehended, had been withheld.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, in reply to the last question, he did not know what the correspondence, referred to by the hon. Gentleman was, and therefore he was

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  unable to answer it on that occasion. With respect to the spot selected for the hospital the Government were quite satisfied, and he himself was entirely convinced, from local knowledge, that it was very healthy, and totally free from any objection on sanitary grounds. He had also received a letter from a medical gentleman in the neighbourhood, who stated that during twenty years' employment in the locality he had not known any cases of ague or diseases of that kind.

FIRE INSURANCE AND MUTUAL COMPANIES BILLS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. COWANsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether it is intended to propose considerable alterations in two Bills recently introduced—namely, the Insurance Companies and Mutual Companies Bills; and if it be also intended to confer limited liability upon such Companies; also if new prints of such Bills, with the alterations proposed, will be delivered to Members, and notice given of the intention of the Government to proceed with these amended measures? He would also take that opportunity of asking another question. His hon. Friend had been Chairman of the Committee on Insurance Companies which sat four years ago, and on which he (Mr. Cowan) had also served. Among other things recommended was one that no Insurance Company should be allowed to be constituted without lodging £10,000 in order to demonstrate the bonâ fides of the promoters of such companies. He wished to know whether the Government intended to introduce that provision among the other alterations proposed?
  MR. WILSONstated that it was thought very desirable that the Insurance Companies and Mutual Companies Bills should pass in the course of the present year, especially as an Act passed last year had unintentionally repealed the only Act which governed Insurance Offices. No doubt the hon. Gentleman was aware that a question of this kind raised an immense difference of opinion according to the various interests concerned, and he had very great difficulty in meeting the objections raised in reference to the two Bills; but he yesterday received a deputation, representing all the London Offices and most of the Scotch Offices, and he came to an understanding
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  that he would read the two Bills a second time that night, and to-morrow in Committee pro formâ introduce such Amendments as he thought it in the power of the Government to assent to, and so enlarge the Bills as to make them as perfect as possible in themselves, without referring to Acts in existence. He had also undertaken that the Bills should not be committed for the purpose of passing until those out of doors interested in the matter should, at least, have four days to consider them in the amended form.

  VENTILATOR FOR SHIPS.—QUESTION.
  MR. ADDERLEYsaid, he wished to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the Admiralty have approved of a fan and ventilating machine for ships, invented by C. H. Bracebridge, Esq., called a "Blower;" whether any ships have been fitted with them; and whether its success has led to any general order for their use?
  SIR CHARLES WOODwas understood to say that three or four "Blowers" very much of the description alluded to by the hon. Member, had been bought by the Admiralty to be used, and as far as they had been tried, had proved satisfactory.

  THE BENGAL ARMY—QUESTION.
  GENERAL WINDHAMsaid, he wished to inquire whether the Government were in receipt of a Report from General Sir Charles Napier respecting the organization of the Bengal Army, as, if so, it would be desirable that that Report should be laid before the House.
  SIR JOHN RAMSDENreplied, that it was true that there was a Report on the subject drawn up by Sir Charles Napier, and sent home privately, he believed, to the late Duke of Wellington. He was informed that it did not enter into details as to the organization of the Bengal Army, but related merely to the military occupation of the country, and embraced details important to the administration of the Military Governments there. It was not, however, a despatch that could be laid on the table of the House.

  NEW WRIT FOR GALWAY.—QUESTION.
  COLONEL FRENCHsaid, there was an Order of the day in his name, which proposed the issuing of a new Writ for Gal-

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  way; but he was told that there was a Resolution of that House requiring 'two days' notice before moving for any Writ, and that his Motion could not come on until after the other orders of the day had been disposed of. He wished to ask Mr. Speaker if that was so?
  MR. SPEAKERstated that the practice of the House on this point had been established of late years by so many precedents, that he had no hesitation in answering the question of the hon. Member. A question had been addressed by the hon. Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Stafford), to the late Speaker, in reference to the issuing of a new Writ for the borough of Sligo. The question was, whether a Motion for the issuing of a new Writ was a matter of privilege, and so took precedence of all other business? The late Speaker entered into a full explanation, and showed that a Motion for issuing a Writ fell under the same rule as an ordinary notice of Motion. But beyond this, he had referred to the journals, and from them he found no less than eleven precedents existed as to the practice of the House, and he had therefore a very simple duty to perform, which was to state that the hon. Member was not entitled to take precedence of other business.

WASHING AND DRYING FOR SOLDIERS.

  CORRESPONDENCE MOVED FOR.
  Order for Committee of (Supply) read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  COLONEL NORTHsaid, he rose to move for a Copy of any Correspondence which had taken place between the War Department and Mr. Huthnance, relative to his apparatus for a Drying Room to be attached to a Laundry; and Copies of any Reports which had been made on this subject by any officers to whom the question had been referred. The subject was one which deeply concerned the comfort of our troops; for notwithstanding the enormous sums of money which had been voted of late for the army, that on which the soldier's comfort and even his health so greatly depended, namely, the making proper arrangements for the washing and drying of his linen, had been entirely neglected. In the camp at Aldershot there was but one hut with five or six boilers appropriated to each regiment for
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  the purposes of washing. There was no allowance for fuel to the soldiers' wives, and they were obliged either to collect heather or to buy coals at 16 d. per cwt., which had to be carried a considerable distance. It should be recollected that a soldier's wife was the wife of a person who received the enormous sum of a shilling a day for his services. As regarded drying here was a portion of the barrack ground set apart for drying out of doors; but he was told that in winter or when there had been four or five wet days consecutively, the linen had to be kept in a wet state during the whole period. Ironing could only be performed on the top of a small stove, with an area of about two feet square. He had for a long time felt anxious to improve these things, and consequently he two or three years since, brought under the attention of Parliament, the invention of Mr. Huthnance, the master of Chipping Norton Union, for washing and drying purposes, one merit of which was, that it could be erected at a small expense, and produced great economy in the use of fuel. In May, 1855, he (Colonel North) went to the War Department, and afterwards the Inspecting Engineer at Birmingham was ordered to go to Chipping Norton to inspect the apparatus at work. That gentleman made a favourable report, and since that period Mr. Huthnance proceeded to Aldershot to enter into an explanation of his invention; but though last winter and the previous one was very severe, nothing had as yet been done, and in reply to a letter which he sent to the War Office last month, he received a letter from Lord Panmure, dated the 6th of July, declining to give the invention a trial. Two years ago it was introduced into the Workhouse of Banbury, where he (Colonel North) was Chairman of the Board of Guardians, where it had worked satisfactorily, and he believed the Poor Law Board had recommended its general adoption in poorhouses. Under these circumstances, he thought Her Majesty's soldiers were entitled to the benefit of a fair trial for the invention, especially as Mr. Huthnance had offered to supply the apparatus for that purpose at his own expense if the Government would simply provide a suitable building. He did not wish to impute the least blame to his hon. Friend (Sir J. Ramsden), who had undertaken his onerous duties at a moment's notice, and had performed them in a manner most satis-

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  factory to all who had had the pleasure of conducting business with him.
  Amendment proposed:
  " To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'there be laid before this House Copies of any Correspondence which has taken place between the War Department and Mr. Huthnance, relative to his apparatus for a Drying Room to be attached to a Laundry, and of any Reports which have been made on this subject by any officers to whom the question has been referred," instead thereof.
  SIR JOHN RAMSDENsaid, the apparatus to which his hon. and gallant Friend referred was one of a great number of inventions that had recently been submitted to the War Department, and which had been referred to competent officers to report upon. He would candidly admit that the invention deserved all the praises which his hon. Friend had bestowed upon it, but there were other considerations to be kept in view beyond the mere ingenuity of the apparatus. The gallant Officer had referred especially to what he considered to be the unsatisfactory state of the washing department at the camp of Aldershot, and urged the adaptability of this invention to the requirements of the camp. It was not usual in the army to allow fuel for washing purposes—those who were paid for doing the soldiers' washing were expected to find their own fuel. But the chief reason why it was not desirable to adopt the apparatus at Aldershot was, that the camp there was formed as a camp of instruction, the object being to teach the soldier how to dispense with the ordinary appliances of civilization. He thought, therefore, his hon. and gallant Friend would acknowledge the wisdom of dispensing with an apparatus which, though a great convenience to the soldiers' wives at Aldershot, would, in proportion to its use there, cause the greater inconvenience to the army when in the field from the want of it. He could assure his hon. Friend the subject had been most carefully considered, and though the authorities had culogised the ingenuity displayed in the invention, they had advised against its adoption upon other grounds.
  MR. STAFFORDsaid, the hon. Baronet would have given a complete answer to his hon. and gallant Friend if he had only been able to go a little further, and could assure the House that the Government had ascertained the means of insuring the soldiers against catching cold in any climate from the use of damp clothes. But, then, why were these machines to be allowed for
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  the use of the paupers in workhouses, for the use of soldiers in some barracks not far from that House, and to be denied to those living in the camp at Aldershot? If it was to be understood that in this model Aldershot, the bill for which appeared to be interminable, none of the appliances of modern ingenuity were to be adopted, because, when the troops took the field, it would be impossible to continue their use, he must say, much of their money had been spent in vain. Would any one, however, pretend that the six enormous boilers which had been erected for washing purposes at Aldershot could be taken into the field with the troops? This was not the first time he had had to appeal against the "hyper-toryism" of the War Department, which seemed to be proof against all reform, to a higher authority, who had never been found hostile to anything which might promote the soldiers' comfort. At no time was the health of the common soldier more precious to the country than at the present moment; and therefore he might fairly appeal to the noble Lord at the head of the Government, in the midst of his multifarious operations to bestow a few minutes of his time upon the examination of this drying-machine. [A laugh.] Yes, they might laugh; let them, however, do so good-humouredly, for it could not be beneath the attention of the Prime Minister of England to consider a matter which affected the health and comfort of thousands of our soldiers. He hoped, at all events, to hear some better reasons alleged for the rejection of the apparatus at Aldershot than had been offered in the miserable explanation to which the House had just listened.
  Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.
  Main Question again proposed.

THE ORDER OF THE BATH.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD HOTHAMsaid, that the question in reference to which he must trespass upon the indulgence of the House was one which he had intended to raise when the House was in Committee on "Civil Contingencies;" but the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury having raised that discussion without the customary notice, he had been deprived of his opportunity for doing so. He desired

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  then to call the attention of the First Lord of the Treasury to the existing practice of exacting from officers appointed to be members of the Military Division of the most honourable Order of the Bath an engagement that the Insignia of the Order, which they have received from the Sovereign in person, or which have been transmitted to them by Her Majesty's commands, shall after their death be returned. Now, if the noble Lord should reply, as he probably would, that the practice here complained of was one which prevailed equally with respect to the other great Orders of the country, he (Lord Hotham) was prepared humbly to submit that inasmuch as officers received military clasps of the Bath for personal services against the enemies of then country, while with respect to the other orders, in nineteen cases out of twenty appointments to them were made merely in favour of adherents of the Government of the day, no fair comparison could be instituted between the two cases. On the other hand, if the noble Lord should say that the present practice in this matter did not differ from what had heretofore been the rule, he must remind the House that since the conclusion of the war with France the Order of the Bath had been completely remodelled. Formerly it consisted only of one class, numbering from twenty-five to thirty-five officers; but at the conclusion of the war it was divided into three classes. The Grand Crosses, who were known also as the Knights of the Bath still numbered from twenty-five to thirty-five, whereas the Commanders and Companions reckoned upwards of six hundred, irrespective of a large number of foreign officers who were admitted as honorary members. Now, considering the extent to which we had adopted the practice of foreign countries with regard to the decorations, and considering that in the case of the Crimean medal the decoration was given, not only to the living, but to the families of those who did not live to receive it, he thought it was but right that such of Her Majesty's officers as were entitled by their conduct to so distinguished a mark of Royal favour as was involved in the reception of the Order of the Bath should be allowed to retain the decoration, and transmit it to their posterity, as a proof of the Sovereign's appreciation of the services they had performed. With respect to the decorations themselves, there was one which was conferred upon the "Grand Crosses" only, and went
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  by the title of "the collar," it being an article of great value, costing between £200 and £300. That was a decoration only worn upon great occasions, and according to the orders of the Sovereign, and perhaps it might appear to a slight degree unreasonable if it were asked to leave such a decoration in the possession of the wearer's family after his death. But inasmuch as other portions of the decoration might be said to constitute a part of the officer's uniform, and might be worn at all times, he was unable to see why his family should not retain them. Investitures of the "Order of the Bath" took place from time to time, and on such occasions the recipients were ordered to the palace, and receive from their Sovereign's own hands the decoration of the class to which they had been nominated. The moment, however, they left Her Majesty's presence, and got into the adjoining room, an official presented them for signature with a printed document in which they engaged to restore the decoration at their death. Such was the manner of procedure on those occasions. But there was another consideration to be noticed, and that was that the materials of which the decoration was composed ought to be such as that an officer might with propriety wear it. The House, however, would be rather astonished when it came to know the actual fact. When an officer received the order of knighthood from Her Majesty, he was presented with two decorations, namely, a "star" and a "jewel." Now, although the "jewel" was of handsome materials, and was much larger and more expensive than necessary, the "star," which was the principal portion of the decoration, was composed of most miserable materials. Pasteboard, tinsel and spangles constituted the "star" which Her Majesty placed in the hands of those whom it was intended to honour; so that the moment the officer left the palace he was obliged to hurry to his private jeweller, and at a cost of some £14 or so, provide himself with a star suitable to him. Now, he would ask the House, was that an arrangement befitting a great nation? Indeed, there had been within the last two years a practical recognition of the impropriety of such an arrangement. On the conclusion of the war with Russia, a large interchange of Orders had taken place between Her Majesty and her Allies, the Emperor of the French having conferred orders upon

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  our officers with great profusion, while Her Majesty distributed them both among the French and Sardinian officers. And in order to give the greater eclat to the distribution, an investiture of the Order of the Bath was held in front of Sebastopol, and Lord Gough was sent out to represent the Sovereign. Now, it was reported that when it became known such an investiture was contemplated, a representation was made to Her Majesty's Government that it was impossible, with any degree of propriety, to present to these foreign officers "stars" of the miserable description doled out to our own officers. Well, what he was about to say he mentioned merely as rumour; and as he spoke in the presence of an honourable and gallant Friend of his (General Sir W. Codrington), he was open to contradiction. However, he had been informed that such a representation had been made to the Government, and that in consequence silver "stars" were sent out, to be appropriated to the French and Sardinian officers, whereas the English officers that were invested upon the same occasion had to submit to the humiliation of receiving, in sight of all the French and Sardinian officers, nothing better than the old miserable tinsel "star," which they could only put in their pockets, and defer wearing their decoration until they had been able to communicate with England and purchase suitable "stars." Now there was no one, however desirous of economy, that would not allow it was but right and proper that if English officers were to wear decorations they should be of a decent and comely description; at all events, that they ought not to be placed in a worse position by their own Government than were officers of foreign states. And let him not here awaken the sensibilities of the Chancellor of the Exchequer with fancies of having financial demands upon him, for all that was required to be done might be arranged at a very trifling cost. The decoration at present given, which was known as "the jewel," was unnecessarily heavy, most inconvenient for officers to wear on horseback, and was very costly to supply in the event of its being lost or stolen, which not unfrequently happened. Now, in reducing that decoration within reasonable proportions they would consult the convenience and appearance of the wearers; and in the case of the investiture of a Knight Commander of the Bath it would enable them to give the two full decorations to two individuals at a
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  smaller cost than they could now give the two decorations to one individual. Hon. Gentlemen were aware that the value of a decoration did not depend upon its intrinsic worth; and in proof of that let him refer to the two great military Orders of Europe, "the Order of Maria Theresa," in Austria, and of "St. George," in Russia. As for the Order of "Maria Theresa," whose festival was celebrated upon the 18th of June with such pomp at Vienna—its rules were so rigid that no one could be admitted into the Order who was not, according to the strictest interpretation of its rules, entitled to the rank; while according to "the Order of St. George" of Russia its rules were so precise that no one could receive the decoration of the first class who had not commanded in a general action. Nay, the first class was not otherwise wearable by the Emperor himself. Still, in both those cases the decorations were simple and small, though, at the same time, they were neat and convenient, and such as, if by any chance they were lost, could be replaced at a trifling expense. Now, he was quite aware that the distribution of military honours rested with the Crown, but he hoped the noble Lord at the head of the Government would acknowledge that not a single word had escaped from him that evening which in the smallest degree reflected upon the Royal prerogative, while he trusted that his observations were sufficient to induce him to take this matter into his consideration, and to determine how to render such advice to his Royal Mistress as would tend to bring about an arrangement at once more satisfactory and more just to all parties.
  SIR WILLIAM CODRINGTONsaid, he would willingly acknowledge that the arrangements of the present day, connected with the distribution of military honours, were superior to what they formerly were. In former times, on obtaining the Grand Cross of the Bath the fee was £254; and for the Commandership of the Bath £100. Now, however, those fees were very properly done away with, and he hoped that the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) would take into consideration the abolition of the remnant of the spirit of wretched parsimony visible in the supply of this miserable bit of tinsel as a "star," which an officer could not wear, and which it was unworthy of the country to present to him. The decoration which he received was not made of permanent materials, and the consequence was, an officer had to get

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  a silver "star" to represent the honour conferred upon him. The change suggested by the noble Lord (Lord Hotham) would lead to a very trifling expense if the stars were made smaller, so as to cost between £7 and £8—and as not more than ten would be granted in the year it was impossible that the House of Commons could grudge the expense. The noble Lord was also perfectly correct in pointing out the difference which was observable in the treatment of the French and English officers upon the occasion to which he referred. The ceremony, however, was intended solely for the French, as there were no Sardinians present, the Sardinian army having gone away. Well, Marshal Pelissier was there, at the head of a great number of Generals of division and Generals of brigade; in all about twenty French officers were to receive the decoration, and the remains of the army, some 16,000 or 18,000 men, were drawn up to witness the spectacle. Well, Lord Gough handed the silver "stars," which had been very properly sent out from England to the French officers, and they were placed upon their breasts, when they stood by waiting for the presentation to the English officers. Well, there were very few English officers present to receive the decoration of K.C.B., not more than two or three, and they, instead of receiving the silver "star," had the tinsel "star," slipped into their hands in the presence of the French officers, a proceeding which the House would allow was not very dignified. He must own he very much regretted the circumstance at the time, but at the moment it was impossible to avoid such an effect.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: I cannot quite agree with the noble Lord who spoke on the other side, that there is anything unseemly or improper in requiring that the badges and orders which are given to an individual who has distinguished himself shall be returned at his death. They stand on a different footing from the Order of Valour, or a medal, or those other things which are given to those who have distinguished themselves. At the same time those portions of the badge, such as the ribbon and the "star," which have been purchased by the individual himself, of course are not returned. However, with regard to the other point, which is more deserving of attention, I must say that there is a great deal in what has been said by the noble Lord and my hon. and gallant Friend behind me. It might perhaps be
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  expedient to reconsider the practice which has hitherto prevailed—namely, that of giving, when the Order is conferred, a mere worsted ornament, which is certainly only a semblance and token of the Order, and which is not a material that could be worn or be expected to be worn. The expense is not very much, and I have no doubt that when the Sovereign is advised to confer upon officers who have distinguished themselves in the public service marks of hon our, those marks of honour should not be attended with a forced expense, but be given freely. Upon that principle of late years the fees have been, not abolished, as my hon. and gallant Friend supposes, but repaid by the public in the case of Orders conferred upon a military or naval officer for services performed for the country. I really do not see why the country should not pay for the "star" to be worn by that officer. At all events the subject shall be taken into consideration.

THE RECALL OF OFFICERS TO INDIA.

  QUESTION.
  MR. NOELsaid, he would beg to ask whether the Government will give to those of Her Majesty's Officers who are ordered to rejoin their Regiments in India before the expiration of their leave, on account of the Mutiny in that Country, a free passage; or whether they will have to return there at their own expense? As was well known to the Government, many of these officers have no private means, and it was, therefore, through the exercise of a rigid economy that they had been enabled to save sufficient money to pay their passage home. Some of them had not been two months at home—others not one—yet they were threatened with having to pay another sum of £150 passage money, without having derived any advantage from all the expense they had undergone. He was well aware that in an emergency like the present officers might expect to have to rejoin their regiments; at the same time, under such peculiar circumstances, he thought the country ought to take upon itself the expense of transporting them to India.
  SIR JOHN RAMSDENsaid, upon a former occasion, when my hon. and gallant Friend (Mr. Noel) put this question to me, I said the matter was under the consideration of the Government. I now am happy to be able to say that the Court of Directors, as soon as ever the question was brought

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  under their notice, announced their intention of defraying the expense of the passage out to India of officers on leave, in consideration of the emergency of the crisis.

SUPPLY OF REPORTS AND EVIDENCE TO MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE.

  QUESTION.
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid he would beg to repeat his question of the other evening and ask to be informed by the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury whether any change had been made in the rule with respect to the supply of Reports and evidence taken before Committees to hon. Members, and winch operated as a most inconvenient restriction? The rule was to the following effect, that reports and evidence should only be furnished to such hon. Members as applied for them, and the result very frequently was that many hon. Members, who were not aware of the importance of the contents of these Reports, or of the printed evidence, were not furnished therewith, and were therefore not prepared to discuss questions-relating thereto in that House.
  MR. WILSONsaid, that the Printing Committee had not yet considered the subject; but he had communicated with thorn on the subject, and he had no doubt that at the earliest possible day their decision would be made known.
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, he was Chairman of the Printing Committee in 1855, and the reason why the present rule was framed was that many Reports were laid upon the table of which a great portion was never read, such as appendices to Reports which sometimes consisted of several volumes. The Printing Committee, after considering the Report of the Select Committee which had sat on this subject, recommended that in every instance the Report and evidence should be circulated among all the Members.
  MR. HENLEYremarked, that he apprehended it would be found that the expense was not so much in the number printed as in the setting up the type, and that the cost of any excess in the number of copies printed would be little more than the value of the paper. He doubted very much whether there would not be a saving effected in the end by ordering in the first instance such a number to be published as would meet the wants of every hon. Member; for cases might occur of a hon. Member not finding in the Vote-office the paper he wanted, coming down to the House and moving for the re-printing; of more copies.
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  He thought that very often the appendices to a Report were of more value than the Report itself. The House were frequently enabled from those documents to form a judgment as to the conclusions which the Committee had drawn from the evidence. The tables and other matters in the appendix were also extremely valuable to those who paid attention to the subject before a Committee. He feared that on the whole the House would, under the new rule, get its information in a less complete manner. It ought not to be left to the chance information that a hon. Member might get, but any matter deserving of being printed ought to be circulated among all the Members.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that the rule under discussion only applied to papers presented by command of Her Majesty, and did not extend to papers ordered by the House. It had been found by experience that many of the papers printed at the instance of public Departments, although valuable, were not of such a nature as to interest the House generally, and it was suggested that a considerable expense would be saved if, instead of circulating them among the whole of the Members, those hon. Members who might desire them were left to procure a copy from the Vote-office. For example, he might mention that every year a Meteorological Report from the Board of Trade was laid before Parliament. Now, this was, no doubt, a useful matter and one interesting to a particular class of persons, but he very much doubted whether every individual Member would desire to be furnished with a copy of it. The matter, however, was to be referred to the Printing Committee for consideration.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he might probably be allowed to make a suggestion to the Committee. If they were to follow the system pursued by the Senate of the United States, and the French Legislative Chamber they would find at the commencement of every Session a well-selected number of statistical papers submitted in the most complete form, and brought down to the most recent dates, for the use of the Members. Such a system would preclude the necessity of seeking afterwards in a broken shape the information which hon. Members required. It was well worthy of the consideration of the Government whether the great improvement which had taken place in statistical returns might not be carried still further; and whether all

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  reasonable information upon commercial and statistical subjects might not be furnished in the early part of every Session in convenient form, which would preclude the necessity of any of the Members requiring sectional returns, which necessarily entailed much trouble upon different Departments. He hoped that the Government would forgive him for thus recommending for their adoption the practice of the United States and the French Chamber, which contrasted most favourably with the system adopted in the British Parliament. He hoped at all events that the Printing Committee would consider the suggestion.

  THE AUSTRALIAN MAIL.—QUESTION.
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, h wished to refer to the arrival of the Australian mail, by the Simla, which had reached Suez on the 12th inst., having passed Point de Galle on the 2nd inst. It was possible that she might bring intelligence of the state of affairs in India since the last mail from that country. As there was naturally a great deal of agitation abroad in respect to the state of India, it would be most satisfactory if the right hon. Gentleman opposite were able to say whether any late information had reached the Government in reference to matters in India?
  MR. VERNON SMITHsaid, that neither the Government nor the India House had received any news from India by the Australian mail, nor did he expect to receive any by that means. He had even inquired at the Colonial Office on the subject, and had ascertained that no information had reached them bearing at all upon the state of our Indian affairs.
  Main Question put and agreed to.

  SUPPLY.—THE PERSIAN WAR.
  House in Committee.
  (1.) £400,000, Extraordinary Expenses of the Expedition to Persia.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: In rising to move the Supplementary Estimate for the Persian War, I will not refer to the discussion which took place in this House upon the grounds of that war, but will only briefly refer to the explanation I then gave as to the reason for asking the House to agree to a provisional Vote on this subject. I said that if it had not been for the disastrous intelligence which had been recently received from India, neither the East India Company would have asked the Government to
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  present this Vote, nor would the Government have considered themselves called upon to make this additional application to Parliament. But under the circumstances of the Indian Revenue at this time—the loss which the East India Company have suffered of different district treasuries, and the probability, I may say the certainty, that the collection of the revenue, both direct and indirect, will suffer interruption and diminution for a time—the House will, I think, scarcely refuse to accede to this additional Vote. I will only briefly refer to the remark of my hon. Friend, the Chairman of the East India Company (Mr. Ross Mangles) upon the previous occasion of this Vote. My hon. Friend seemed to think that there was some reluctance on the part of this House to discharge what he considered to be a debt due to the East India Company. Now, in the first place, I must state that, properly speaking, the Government have it not in their power to pledge the credit of this House. All we did was to undertake to ask the House to reimburse the Indian Treasury for a portion of the extraordinary expenses of the war. That, however, did not create a debt. It was only a conditional promise dependent for its completion on the assent of the House. It was analogous to that species of engagement which the Government offer in tendering for a loan, those persons being aware that the ultimate acceptance of the loan will depend upon this House. I think therefore that my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Court of Directors used a term which is hardly justifiable when he talked of a debt due to the East India Company from this House. For my own part, I think that the House acted with great liberality and justice as soon as the subject was brought under its notice. I confess that although I have heard many arguments to show that the war was improperly undertaken by the Government, and that the government was not, under the circumstances of the case, justified in entering upon the war with Persia. I have not observed any reluctance on the part of this House to discharge what my hon. Friend, as I think, improperly calls a debt due to the East India Company; but, on the contrary, I think that the House has given the subject the fairest consideration, was desirous of making these remarks because I thought that the conduct of the House in dealing with this question has not been such as to justify any complaint

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  upon the part of the East India Company as to the manner in which their proposal has been entertained. I shall now move that a sum of £400,000 he granted to her Majesty towards the reimbursement of the East India Company for the extraordinary expenditure connected with, the expedition to the Persian Gulf.
  MR. WILLIAMSsaid, he must complain that when £265,000 was proposed to the House for the expenses of the war, it was intimated that a very little more would be required. That sum had been very much exceeded, and now an additional £400,000 was proposed. It would be a great satisfaction to the House and the country to know whether any further amount would be required, and he ventured to hope that the right hon. Gentleman would give a distinct answer upon this point.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid he feared that he had not upon a previous occasion made the hon. Gentleman clearly understand the nature of this Vote. He had laid upon the table an estimate of the total charge of the expedition to Persia, as at present calculated by the East India Company, and if the hon. Gentleman would refer to that document, he would find that the total amount so calculated by them was £1,865,000; and in saying so much, he stated to the House all the information he possessed at the present moment, that being in fact all that the East India Company could themselves say. The House must of course be aware that no settlement could be made with the Company until the whole of the accounts were made up, ant for that reason it might be more convenient not to vote so large a sum during the present Session. Looking, however, to the state of the Indian Treasury, he should not have felt justified in declining to accede to what he thought was a reason able application on the part of the East India Company, that Government should pay the sum which appeared to be due to them at the earliest possible opportunity. The arrangement entered into with the East India Company was that the ordinary expenses of troops, for instance, and ships employed, should be defrayed bp the Company, but that her Majesty's Government should defray a moiety of the extraordinary expenses; and the present Vote was submitted with the view of reimbursing them for that moiety.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, that a division of the army still remained in Persia, and cir-
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  cumstances might arise to detain them, and therefore it would be impossible at resent to state the exact amount of the expense of the expedition.
  MR. COXobserved, that he thought it would be satisfactory to the House and to be country to know when it was probable hat the whole of the troops would return from Persia.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that information had been received that all the European troops had returned to India, and that a portion of them were upon the march for the disaffected provinces. With regard to the native troops, he did not think that they had, at the date of the last advices, left the Persian Gulf.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, that a Commission had been appointed to see that the stipulations of the treaty, with regard to the evacuation of Herat, were duly carried out, and he thought that it would be satisfactory to the House if the noble Lord at the head of the Government would inform the House if he had received any information from the Commission upon the subject.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, that Commissioners certainly had been appointed to oversee the evacuation of the place. They were, however, to proceed to Herat by way of Teheran, and consequently it was impossible, during the short time that had elapsed since their appointment, that the Government could be informed of the result.
  SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, it was only the other day the House was informed of an outstanding account due to the East India Company for the last China war. The Committee were now asked to assent to a vote of £400,000 due to the East India Company for the Persian war, although the right hon. Gentleman, when proposing the first vote of £260,000, said that that sum would be the only call. He thought it would be desirable to know the full extent of the amount that would be required for this purpose. He was afraid that we were paying very dear for the advantage it was supposed we had gained. Another point to which he wished to call their attention was one which he considered involved a very serious matter. Whenever any hostilities were entered into with any power which were calculated to cast a burden upon British resources, he thought it was the duty of the Government immediately to communicate the fact by a mes-

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  sage to the House. It was like shaking the very foundation of the financial power of the House for the Government to come at that time of day for payment of those expenses. He had an intention of introducing a specific Resolution on the subject, but he was prevented carrying out that intention from the fear of embarrassing the Government. He hoped, however, that the Government would give them some assurance on the subject that the present case would not be drawn into a precedent.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, from the observations of the hon. Gentleman, he was almost disposed to think that the hon. Gentleman was entering upon a repetition of the observations made the other night by the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck). He (Viscount Palmerston) endeavoured on the former occasion to explain the reasons for the delay which had occurred in communicating those facts to Parliament. He had then stated that at the earliest possible moment the Government communicated the fact to Parliament in the most formal manner. Indeed, the war with Persia was stated in the Speech from the Throne, which was a much more formal way of communicating the intelligence to the House than a message in the course of the Session. He could only give the assurance now, as he had given it before, that the Government were willing to admit the principle which the hon. Member contended for—namely, that when a war was undertaken which was likely to lead to expense, they ought to take the earliest possible opportunity of laying the facts before Parliament, even independently and before any vote of money for the conduct of the war was proposed. The House would thus have the earliest opportunity of considering the whole matter, and of expressing an opinion upon the question.
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, that he thought that the noble Lord was not quite accurate in his observations respecting the official communications made to the House. Although, no doubt, there was an announcement in the Speech from the Throne that British forces, both naval and military, had gone upon the Persian expedition, no intimation was given either in that Speech, or otherwise by the Government, that the expenses were to be borne jointly by the Home Government and the East India Company. That was a matter upon which he thought the Government ought to have given the House some information, and
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  that was the point which he pressed the other night in the debate which arose on the Resolution of the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck). The House then received from the noble Viscount at the head of the Government, an assurance that this should not be drawn into a precedent, and being satisfied with that assurance he was one of those who voted with the noble Viscount, and against the Resolution, expressing reprobation of the conduct of the Government. As he was upon the subject, the noble Viscount would probably forgive him for correcting what was certainly a very clever turn of the debate when he twitted hon. Members, and himself (Mr. Walpole), among others, with not having brought this subject forward at an earlier period of the late Session, The noble Lord should, however, recollect that we were then engaged in negotiations for peace, and that hon. Members carefully abstained from raising any question, the discussion of which might impede the progress of those negotiations. He could appeal to some of those who sat on the Treasury bench to confirm his statement that it was not an after-thought, but his deliberate opinion from the first, that something ought to have been said by the Government with reference to the portion of the expenses which this country was to bear, and that the Government should have done well to pass a Resolution that this should not be drawn into a precedent. He therefore thought that no hon. Member of that House could justly be blamed for not raising an objection to the proceedings of the Government at a time when negotiations for peace were going on, and when the adoption of such a course might have produced great inconvenience.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERremarked, that he distinctly recollected that very early in the last Session of Parliament, probably on the second or third day, he clearly stated what was the financial arrangement with respect to the Persian war. More than that, when he made his financial statement, which must have been on the eighth or tenth day of the Session, he gave the estimate of £260,000, which had been so much criticised; and the correspondence between the East India Company and the Treasury was shortly afterwards laid upon the table; therefore it was clear that the House was at the earliest period informed of the arrangements for the expenses of this war.

  SUPPLY.—WAR WITH CHINA.
  (2.) £590,693, late War in China.
  MR. WILSONsaid, this Vote required a few words in explanation. It was a Vote for the purpose of adjusting the settlement of the account with the East India Company, on account of the old China war. Sir J. Hogg, in the last Parliament, charged the Government with delaying the settlement of this Vote. The delay, however, was occasioned by, disputes which had arisen as to the balancing of those accounts. The present Vote, however, was the result which was reluctantly assented to on the part of the East India Company as a settlement of the charges of the old war. The Vote, however, in point of fact, was more a matter of form than one of substance; and, so far as it regarded the finances of the year, it would affect them in a very trifling degree. The Government had a claim of £560,000 against the East India Company, so that the real balance due to them was only £30,000. It was, however, necessary, according to the forms of business, to take the whole Vote.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, that notwithstanding the great resources and the high credit of this country, it seemed to him that the demands made upon the House would bring us to a standstill. One half million after another was asked for, and there seemed to be no termination to such demands. He wished to know whether any more of these Votes had to come, and also whether the amount of this Vote was included in the sum paid by the Chinese?
  MR. WILSONsaid, that this was a final settlement of the claims for the last Chinese war. The East India Company and the Government had been reimbursed for the whole expenditure of that war by the Chinese, and this was merely a settlement of accounts between them.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, that the East India Company had made a very bad bargain. They had for a long time been kept out of money which they had expended entirely for the benefit of Her Majesty's Government.
  MR. COXremarked, that he should like to know what security the Government had for the £560,000 due from the East India Company. Would it not be sufficient to vote the difference between the two sums?
  MR. WILSONsaid, it was impossible to take that course, as the forms of Par-
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  liament would not allow it. No issue could be made out of the Exchequer, unless it was voted by the House, and although the Treasury may have received the £560,000, the Government must still have the nominal power to issue the whole £590,000.
  Vote agreed to.

  SUPPLY.—MISCELLANEOUS ESTIMATES.
  (3.) £7,125, General Board of Health.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, he had to complain of the shortness of the time during which these Estimates—class No. 7— had been in the hands of Members. They included forty-eight votes, amounting to £684,000, and showing an increase of £303,000 over the Votes for the same items last year. [Cries of "No! no!"] He said yes. That was after deducting a class of Votes which had disappeared from the Estimates. These Votes he only received at past Ten o'clock that morning, and, as he had to leave home to perform his duties in the House at ten minutes after Eleven, therefore he had only an hour and ten minutes to investigate the nature of those forty-eight Votes. Were it not that he saw among the votes some old friends of his on which he wished to say a few words, he should, to save the time of the House, propose to vote a round sum of £648,000. As to the particular Vote, he had been given to understand that the Board of Health was to be abolished, and there was a Bill now before the House, he believed, for that purpose. It had proved to be utterly useless, and served no other end than to provide large salaries for certain individuals. For instance, there was a medical officer at a salary of £1,500; but the office was totally useless at the present time, because, since the appointment of the holder of the office, all the great parishes of the Metropolis had appointed medical officers of their own.
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, he must demur altogether to the statement that this Department had been found to be utterly useless. On the contrary, it had done good service, and when the cholera visited this country its labour had been most valuable. It would not be wise nor expedient to dispense altogether with some machinery of the sort, but the Government, upon consideration, had come to the conclusion that it was unnecessary to keep up a separate Department; and a Bill was introduced for the purpose of conferring its powers on the President of the Council,

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  assisted by some members of the Privy Council. Of course it would be necessary to keep up the staff to a certain extent, The Bill, owing to various circumstances, had been postponed, and this Estimate was calculated for the Department as it now stood, but if the Bill passed into law no more of the sum voted by Parliament would be spent than was absolutely required under the new arrangement.
  MR. BLACKBURNobserved, that he understood that the Board of Health would expire this year, whether there was any legislation or not, consequently it was unnecessary to take a vote for it.
  SIR GEORGE GREYexplained that the Board under the present arrangement, would not expire until the end of the Session of 1858.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, he also must complain that by the late delivery of the Estimates hon. Members were deprived of all opportunity of considering Votes which they were required to grant or reject on the spot. By this conduct of the Government they were placed in a false position with their constituents.
  SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, he wished to know whether any part of the £18,000 voted last year for this Department had been left unexpended, or whether it had all been spent in the year? None of the accounts connected with these Estimates were audited, and Parliament had no assurance that these moneys were all spent on the objects for which they were voted. Indeed facts had come out lately which showed that any of these Votes could be applied to purposes other than those for which they were voted. For instance, of the sum voted for the funeral of the Duke of Wellington, £24,000 it turned out had not been spent at all. Under these circumstances, and considering the very large increase which had taken place of late years in this particular class of Estimates, it was very desirable to know whether the whole of each particular Vote had been spent on the precise object for which it was voted, or whether there was any outstanding balance applicable to other purposes.
  MR. WILSONsaid, that with regard to this particular Vote the money-votes for one year were not applicable to the next year. It was a Vote for the expenses of the Department for the year ending the 31st of March, 1858, the expenses of the next year would be voted in that year, and therefore, as regarded the establishment
  306
  the money-vote for the year must be spent in that year. With regard to another class of Votes in this paper—Votes for public buildings, for instance, the whole of the money need not be spent in the year, and the balance would be still applicable to the expenses of the buildings for the following year, but for no other purpose. The hon. Baronet was quite in error in supposing that the money voted for one purpose could be applied to any other. It was impossible to say at this moment what portion of the particular sum granted last year was still unexpended, but the hon. Baronet was aware that every year accounts were laid on the table which showed precisely how much of these Civil Service Votes were issued, how much expended, and how much remained unexpended. With respect to the question of audit, though these accounts were not audited as the Army and Navy accounts were, yet the issues were audited by the Audit Department, and, if they were exceeded, of course attention would be called to the fact by that Department in its annual Report.
  SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, that the annual finance accounts, with singular adroitness, were not laid on the table until the end of June or the beginning of July. They had then to be printed, and they were not delivered to hon. Members until some time in the recess, so that for the purposes of the financial year they were not worth one farthing.
  MR. WILSONsaid, he was aware there was some cause for complaint in the matter to which his hon. Friend had referred; but the delay had arisen from the difficulty which the War Department had experienced in closing its accounts, in consequence of the heavy service in which it had recently been engaged. That, however, was a difficulty which he hoped would not exist in future years, and he trusted the War Department would be able in future to furnish its accounts within the time prescribed by the Act of Parliament.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, he should like to know if the Bill for transferring the duties of the Board of Health to the Privy Council passed what they would want with a President at a salary of £2,000 a year? He should move that the Vote be postponed until they knew the fate of that Bill.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, it was not competent for the hon. Member to make such a Motion.
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, as a matter of course, from the time that the Bill passed, if it passed, the Government would not feel themselves justified in spending any portion of the money which might then remain unexpended. There was, however, a President for the present year still in existence, and the Bill referred to, moreover, might not receive the sanction of Parliament.
  MR. MOWBRAYsaid, it was gratifying to know that there was still a President of the Board of Health, for until then he had thought from the silence of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Monsell) who held that office, that it was defunct. If they were to have a Board of Health, with a President who received that large salary, the grant should have been defended by the right hon. Gentleman who performed the functions of that office. He trusted that the hon. Member for Lambeth would take the souse of the Committee on this Vote.
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, his right hon. Friend had discharged the duties of his office in the most creditable manner, but it was no part of his functions to defend the Vote before the House. That was a duty properly devolving on him (Sir G. Grey).
  MR. COXsaid, he thought it was hardly fair to ask the Committee to discuss the question that night on an estimate which hon. Members had really no sufficient opportunity of looking into. He was strenuously opposed both to the Board of Health and to the proposed Bill for transferring its duties to the Privy Council. Besides, he had understood that the powers of the Board of Health were to cease this year. He was ready to divide against the Vote, believing the Board of Health to be a greater nuisance than any of those it professed to remove.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, it had been stated that the powers of the Board of Health were not only useless but mischievous. He would not advert to their usefulness in this metropolis in a sanitary point of view; those who recollected what passed on the last visit of the cholera were well aware of the eminent services they performed, and of the noble devotion which his right hon. Friend (Sir B. Hall) exhibited in the discharge of his official functions. But this Board was exceedingly useful in the relation in which it stood to towns that were anxious to obtain for their corporate constitution certain powers for cleansing, lighting, and sanitary purposes. If any
  308
  town in the kingdom obtained those powers through the medium of a private Bill, the inhabitants had to pay something like £600 if the Bill was unopposed, and perhaps double that amount if it was opposed; but they could obtain the same privileges through the intervention of the Board of Health at an expense not much exceeding £50, and that was the Board which the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. Williams) believed to be mischievous and useless.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, he was perfectly ready to acknowledge that the services of the right hon. Baronet (Sir B. Hall) during the last visit of the cholera were most meritorious; but he must contend that the circumstances were entirely different now, when on the new Metropolitan Board of Works devolved most of the functions which had been previously discharged by the Board of Health. With regard to the services which the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) said had been performed by the Board of Health to corporate towns, he (Mr. Williams) only knew two towns which had availed themselves of those services, and the result had been extremely unsatisfactory—he might say, hateful to the inhabitants. He thought, at all events, that the salary of the medical officer of the Board ought to be reduced from £1,500 to £500. As he could not move the postponement of this Vote he had no other course to take than to meet it with a direct negative. He should, therefore, take the sense of the Committee upon it.
  MR. AYRTONobserved that he understood that the Board of Health was condemned by the late Parliament, yet they were asked to provide the whole establishment the same as last year. The Government had introduced a Bill to continue the Board of Health in a worse form than previously, because the powers of the President were transferred to an irresponsible body—the Committee of the Privy Council. The Bill had been read a second time accidentally without serious opposition. The Government, however, knew it would be opposed, and the next stage was postponed from day to day and from week to week. Until the House had had an opportunity of pronouncing its opinion on the Board of Health he thought the Vote ought to be postponed.
  MR. COWPERsaid, he could not agree with the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Aryton), that the Committee of the Privy Council was an ire-

  309
  sponsible body. The President of the Board was a Privy Councillor, but a transfer of its powers to a Committee of the Privy Council would not be the cause of more secrecy than now existed. The Government, for the sake of economy, had made a concession to the feeling that there was too large an expenditure under different Deparments, but, as very often happened, the concession had not been met in the spirit in which it had been made. The Government had thought it would be more economical if the Board was combined with another Department. The Board did not exist under a temporary but under two permanent Acts, and before it could be abolished, the Acts under which it existed must be repealed. Those Acts were the Board of Health Act of 1848, and the Diseases' Prevention Act of 1855, and it would place matters in an anomalous position if they were suddenly to destroy the Department to which the carrying out those Acts was entrusted. It was very natural that hon. Gentlemen representing the Metropolis should not be aware of the usefulness of the Board of Health, because the Metropolis was excluded from the scope of the Public Health Act. But the Metropolis Local Management Act was based upon the same principles as the Public Health Act, and therefore, if the Metropolis Act were useful, so must be the Public Health Act. The Public Health Act had been applied to 239 towns, and the majority of those towns were most thankful for the benefits conferred by the Act, and the aid received from the General Board of Health in the form of legal, engineering, and medical advice. So far from being useless, the Board of Health was, perhaps, the most useful department of the Government [Laughter], It was the only Department which saved lives; but, perhaps, hon. Members who laughed did not think the saving of lives of any importance. On comparing the mortality in nineteen towns before the works of drainage were commenced and after they were completed, he found that the number of deaths had decreased from twenty-eight in 1,000 to twenty in 1,000. But the decrease of mortality was not the best test. The decrease of disease was still more marked, showing that by carrying away the pestilential miasmata of sewers and cess-pits, they could almost annihilate typhus fever, and greatly diminish epidemics, which tended to prostrate the powers of active men, and to entail the expenses of sickness
  310
  upon the labouring classes. The benefits to the working classes especially in that respect had been great. There were many subjects besides the administration of the Act of 1848, on which the Board of Health exercised their powers. They had produced, for instance, the most valuable bluebooks during the last nine years. The importance of those books was proved by the fact that almost all the legislation that had taken place of late years had been founded on the information and the recommendations which they contained. That was the case in the improvement of the water supply of the Metropolis, and in the case of the numerous Bills passed for the prevention of the disagreeable and dangerous practice of intramural interment. The adoption of better measures with respect to quarantine and all the arrangements for checking the spread of cholera and other contagious diseases, had also been adopted under their superintendence; and he was indeed surprised to find any hon. Member of that House denying their general usefulness. Objection had been taken to the amount of the salary paid to the medical officer of the Board; but it was only by the payment of a liberal allowance that it would be possible to secure the services of a gentleman of high attainments, and who possessed the confidence of the members of his profession; and such a person the Board had found in the person of Mr. Simon. It should be remembered also, that in case of another visitation of cholera, it was only through the Board of Health that the indispensable regulations as to cleansing, whitewashing, &c., could be carried out, as there was no power of issuing such regulations except under the Diseases' Prevention Act, which was under the administration of the Board of Health. He had further to observe, that the estimate in that case was in all probability greater than the amount which it would be necessary to expend. The towns on whose behalf a portion of the money was laid out, returned the charge incurred on their account; and last year the sum so given back amounted to not less than £3,831. It was very likely that no less a sum would be returned out of the expenditure of the present year, and that the actual cost would be ultimately reduced by that amount. Those were the only observations with which he then deemed it necessary to trouble the Committee.
  MR. MOWBRAYsaid, he thought that the address they had just heard from

  311
  the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Committee of Education, might have been more appropriately delivered on the occasion of the second reading of the Board of Health Bill. The question which the Committee had then to consider was whether they should continue for another year a system which had been condemned by Parliament and the country. It was a significant circumstance that, considering the manner in which the Board of Health had been attacked, its President (Mr. Monsell) had not ventured to say a word in its defence. He did not think that it was to the Vice President of the Education Committee they should look for a vindication of the Board of Health. That right hon. Gentleman, however, had stated that he had in his pocket a list of towns which had expressed their approbation of the Board of Health. Perhaps he would inform the Committee whether Croydon and Sandgate were among those places. There could be no doubt that the proceedings of the Board of Health, and especially its engineering operations, had proved distasteful to many towns, and, in order to give the President of the Board an opportunity of addressing the Committee, he begged to ask him whether those superintendent inspectors, whose salaries were included in the Vote, were not in the habit of acting as engineers in the boroughs to which they were sent.
  MR. MONSELLreplied, that since 1854 the superintendent inspectors had not acted as engineers. That system had been entirely abandoned. He believed that the practice which existed before 1854 of compelling towns to employ the engineers sent down by the Board, was the main reason of the unpopularity to which the Board had been exposed. During the short period he had filled the office of President, he had found on the part of the local authorities nothing but gratitude for the services rendered to them by the Board of Health, together with great willingness to adopt any suggestions which might be made to them. He might state, indeed, that the relations between the local bodies and the central Board were at the present moment entirely satisfactory. With respect to the personal observations of the hon. Gentleman who had last addressed the Committee, all he could say was that his position was a very peculiar one. It was necessary that somebody should fill the office of President of the Board of Health pending the passing of a Bill for the abo-
  312
  lition of the office, and the consideration of which had been fixed for an early day; and, although it was certainly not pleasant to occupy the post under such circumstances, he had considered it his duty to continue to discharge the duties of the office to the best of his ability until it was abolished. He might add, in conclusion, that he would be glad to give the Committee every information in his power.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, that he was glad to find that such amicable relations existed between the Board of Health and the provincial towns as the right hon. Gentleman had described. He must confess, however, that an impression had gone abroad very extensively, that there had been a good deal of "jobbing" connected with its operations, and although the practice which had given rise to that impression might have been discontinued, yet the feeling was not entirely abated. With respect to the Vote itself, the Vice President of the Education Committee had told them that it was desirable to have sanitary improvements—a position which no one could feel disposed to dispute, but the question was, whether sanitary improvements could not be carried out without the expensive machinery of the Board of Health. The right hon. Gentleman had also alluded to various sanitary measures which had been carried out under the superintendence of the Board of Health. Now he (Mr. Henley) would not undertake to say whether those measures had always been improvements; but this he could state that the works to which the right hon. Gentleman had specially referred, were the productions, unless he was much mistaken, of an individual who had at one time possessed great influence with the Board, but who had been so far from having inspired the House and the country with the same confidence, that it had been thought desirable to grant him a retiring pension in order that the system might be carried out in a manner more acceptable to the public at large. It was adduced in support of the Board, that it appeared from certain blue-books that in nineteen towns the mortality had diminished under the operations of the Board from twenty-eight in the 1,000 to twenty—a very satisfactory statement, no doubt, but one which would have carried more weight upon the present occasion had the House been told at the same time what had happened in other towns where the Board of Health had

  313
  not interfered, and whether the decrease in the amount of mortality had not been caused by a cessation of various maladies which had for some time injuriously affected the public health. The continuance of the Board had been objected to for some time by the public, unless some improvements were made in the Act under which it derived its powers. Those improvements the Government had not thought fit to introduce, but instead proposed to transfer the whole powers to another body. For some reason, whether rightly or wrongly, the public had adopted an opinion that the Board of Health was a nuisance, and that idea, coupled with the fact that the inspectors were mixed up in engineering matters, had entailed much of its unpopularity. While the matter was hanging over from year to year the House might hope that at some time improvements might be made in the Act, but now it was proposed to hand over all the powers of the Board of Health permanently to another office. The right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Education Committee, would no doubt administer the Act with judgment and for the benefit of the public; but the general desire was that that Act should be amended so that its objectionable provisions might be removed before the House committed itself to the formation of a permanent Department. With regard to the Estimate, he thought it was not entirely satisfactory, the amount being precisely the same as that at which it had stood for some years, and the right hon. Gentleman who was in future to have the control of the Department, had spoken in a manner to lead the House to believe that his duties could not be of too burdensome a character. It was to be regretted that the Government had not brought on the Bill, which it was understood was to be introduced for the improvement of the Public Health Act at an earlier period. If the modifications required by the public had been introduced into the powers conferred upon the Board of Health, the objections to the Board itself would have been diminished. It was very disagreeable to oppose a Vote of this kind, and he could not bring himself to do so on the present occasion, but hoped that the Bill he had referred to would be introduced at an early period of next Session.
  MR. BASSsaid, that until there was a central authority the local Boards of Health were very slow to make sanitary
  314
  arrangements for the benefit of the public. With regard to the diminished mortality alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman, it would not be difficult to prove that the relative amount of mortality was greatly in favour of those towns which had adopted the sanitary arrangements of the Board of Health. His object, however, in rising was to give the testimony of the borough which he represented in favour of the Board of Health. During the last two Sessions he had received positive instructions from the Mayor and Corporation of the town of Derby to support any Bill introduced by the Board of Health, and only yesterday he received instructions to support the Bill which was about to be introduced on this subject, which met with the general approval of the authorities.
  SIR GEORGE PECHELLobserved, that he was sorry he could not come before the Committee with the same force as the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down; for he had not received such valuable instructions with regard to the Board of Health. But, on former occasions, he had received representations from the borough he represented, expressing abhorrence of the mode in which the Board of Health carried out the provisions of the Act of 1854. He fully concurred in almost all the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley). He objected to the proposed transfer of powers of the Board of Health to the Committee of Council, and he hoped if there were to be any improvement in the Public Health Act, the people of this country would have full power given them of expressing their opinion on the matter, and as to its adoption in their towns. He would gladly support a measure for putting an end to the Board of Health, the Poor Law Board, and he would add, the Board of Trade.
  MR. MONSELLsaid, the remark of the hon. and gallant Member showed that the misdeeds of the Board of Health of 1854 were attributed to the present Board, which was totally differently constituted. At present no district was obliged to adopt the recommendations of the Board in opposition to the wishes of the majority of the rate-payers in it.
  SIR GEORGE PECHELLsaid, he was glad to be able to bear his testimony to the mode in which both the right hon. Gentleman and the late President of the Board of Health conducted its business; it was only the system to which he objected.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that it would be difficult to satisfy such a general enemy of Boards as the hon. and gallant Member for Brighton (Sir G. Pechell); but, before the question was put, he wished to say a word on what had been stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Hr. Henley). He thought that although the circumstances under which the Vote was proposed were not devoid of embarrassment, yet that the right hon. Gentleman had greatly exaggerated the difficulties which beset it, and had not alluded to the circumstances which tended to the removal of those difficulties. His right hon. Friend the Secretary for the Home Department had laid on the table a Bill to transfer the powers of the Board of Health to the Privy Council, but at the same time said that the House would not have time to consider it this Session. That Bill was introduced last Session, and had now lain on the table for many weeks, and it was postponed not at the instance of the Government, but on account of the objections which had been taken to it from different parts of the House. Should that Bill receive the sanction of the House, the effect of it would be to make a large portion of the establishment of the existing Board unnecessary, and the House, when the Bill was in committee, could impose any conditions it liked on the functions of the new Board. If the House thought that those functions, even in the hands of the Privy Council, should be exercised for one year only, then it could fix that as the limit. But it was necessary, till the views of the House with regard to the Bill were known, to propose a Vote for the establishment in its existing form. The estimate was taken from the 1st of April last. The establishment had been in existence since the 1st of April, and surely the House would not refuse to vote the salaries payable for that time. The first quarter being over, the question arose as to the remaining three quarters. If the plan embodied in the Bill of his right hon. Friend should be adopted, then the Government would reduce the establishment according to that plan, and, inasmuch as this was the spontaneous proposal of the Government, and not a measure pressed on them by the House, it could hardly be doubted that they would strictly carry out its provisions. If, therefore, the whole amount now voted was not required, the whole amount would not be expended; and he could safely assure the House that if that Bill was
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  passed, and should the establishment undergo the reduction that it must then necessarily undergo, the sum asked for in the Vote would not be required. After this explanation he hoped the Committee would not refuse their sanction to the Vote submitted to them.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, it was somewhat unsatisfactory to discuss this Vote on the supposition that a Bill which had been so long held back by the Government would finally pass. He did hot expect that it would pass. He admitted that it would be unreasonable to object entirely to the Vote; but he did not think that the very considerable amount which was asked was justified by the circumstances of the case. A few years ago the Chief Commissioner of Works was also President of the Board of Health, and at that time in neither character was he considered entitled to a private secretary; but now that the office was divided, each Head of the department had a private secretary. He should be surprised if it could be shown that the duties of the Board of Health required a secretary, an assistant secretary, and a private secretary to the President.
  Motion made and Question put,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £7,125, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum required to defray the Expense of the General Board of Health, to the 31st day of March, 1858:"
  The Committee divided: Ayes 141, Noes 30; Majority 111.
  Vote agreed to.
  (4.) £2,548, Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England.
  SIR JOHN TRELAWNYmoved, that the Vote be reduced by the whole amount now proposed to be granted. The Vote was usually opposed by a section of the House opposed to all grants for religious purposes, and he had constantly divided against it, as well as against ministers' money. He wished to obtain from the Government some explanation with regard to the course they intended to pursue, as he did not consider that, consistently with their principles, they could support this grant; and he wished to relieve them from the difficulty which, otherwise, they would have to encounter when they brought in the church-rate measure, which they had promised to introduce this Session.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, the Committee were placed in some difficulty with regard to this Vote, because £1,000 had already been voted on account this year to defray the expenses of the Ecclesiastical

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  Commission. The resources of the Church of England were immensely great, and she ought to be required to bear all the expenses of managing her property. He thought that the people of this country had been extremely tolerant with regard to the Established Church, and that it was most unwise in her to add to her revenues by taxes imposed upon the people at large.
  MR. WILSONsaid, this Vote had been agreed to for a great number of years. The greater part of the expenses of this Commission were paid for by the Commission itself, out of the funds of the Church. Independently of the special duties which it had to perform, it had a great amount of public duty to discharge with regard to copyholds and leaseholds.
  MR. WHITESIDEsaid, he would express his hope that now ministers' money had been abolished in Ireland, the expense of managing the Irish Church Estates would also be paid for out of the public funds.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he thought that the suggestion of the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken was a very reasonable one, but that the proposition of the hon. Baronet opposite was most unreasonable, and for this reason,—it was not the Established Church but the Liberal Majority of a Liberal House of Commons that wished the properly of the Church to be managed, because that majority insisted that she was incapable of managing her own property, and that the Commission which they de sired to constitute would manage it more economically and beneficially. Surely, then, it was not unreasonable that the House of Commons should vote the expenses of that Commission, which violated all the ordinary rules of law. If the hon. Baronet would propose the repeal of the Act of Parliament which set up that abnormal Commission he (Lord J. Manners) was not sure whether he should not have great pleasure in seconding that proposition. In many respects the Commission was nothing but an incubus upon the Church of England, and so Song as the Liberal majority of the House of Commons insisted upon the whole of the property of the Church being managed by it, that House was bound to provide funds for the maintenance of the Commission.
  SIR GEORGE GREY: The noble Lord has ventured, on the part of the Church, to repudiate the interference of
  318
  the Ecclesiastical Commission, but I, being a member of that Church, most certainly disclaim to be represented by the noble Lord. I am sorry that he has not expressed any sympathy on the part of the Church with those immense advantages which have been derived from this Commission, both as regards the extension of the spiritual instruction of the people and the administration of ecclesiastical property.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, there were innumerable eases in which the spiritual wants of the people might have been far better provided if the Church of England bad been permitted to act for herself.
  SIR JOHN TRELAWNY: The noble Lord says that this Commission is entirely unnecessary; and I therefore claim his support in my attempt to procure its disallowance.
  MR. A. W. KINGLAKEsaid, the Commission had not satisfactorily performed the duties which it undertook to discharge.
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, that he hoped that looking at the Reports published from year to year, of what had been done by the Commissioners, their great usefulness would be acknowledged on all hands. The Church itself had been benefited to the extent of £90,000 or £100,000 a year, while an enormous amount of spiritual destitution had been relieved. Considering that Parliament had interfered, and appointed paid officers to see that the property of the Church was properly managed, and the spiritual wants of the country were properly provided for, the least they could do was to continue this very moderate grant, bearing in mind that the greatest part of the expense came out of the funds of the Church.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, he quite admitted that the Commission had been of service to the Church, and that was the reason why he opposed the Vote and insisted that the Church and not the country should pay the expenses of the Commission. He did not at all object to the Commission; in fact, he wished that its powers were enlarged, so that it might have the entire management of all the property of the bishops and deans and chapters, in addition to that part of the property of the Church over which it had already control, because he felt that then that property would be more valuable than at present.
  Motion made and Question put,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £2,548, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum required to

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  defray a portion of the expenses of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England to the 31st day of March, 1858."
  The Committee divided: Ayes 147, Noes 54: Majority 93.
  Vote agreed to.
  (5.) £11,080, Charity Commission.
  MR. W. EWARTsaid, that the Charity Commissioners had done a great deal of good. They had recovered £800,000 to the country through these charities, and had framed many excellent schemes which would be of great advantage in promoting the education of the people. But the Commissioners were thwarted and cramped in their operations for want of further powers. There were no less than 18,000 small charities, producing only, on an average, £10 a year each, but the aggregate amount arising from which was not less than £58,000 a year. The Commissioners had not the power to set proceedings in the case of these charities in motion. They could move the County Courts; but they could not act themselves. He trusted to be able before the recess to bring this subject under the notice of the House, so that further powers might be given to the Commissioners. Another great evil was that under the Act, known as the Grammar School Act, schoolmasters had too great a power given them in retaining their situations, so that they could set the Commissioners at defiance.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, the powers of the Commissioners were large already, and he entered his protest against giving the Commissioners any of the powers of the Court of Chancery, so as to enable them to alter the appropriation of charities. The Commissioners were doing a very good work at present.
  MR. BAILLIEremarked, he should be glad to know what the Commissioners were doing. He was inclined to believe that with their present power they had very little opportunity of doing good. The Commission was a very expensive one, and the House ought to know what results it had accomplished.
  MR. BAINES: If the hon. Member had read the last Report of the Commissioners he would have seen that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley) was fully warranted in saying that within the scope of their powers they were doing a great deal of good. That Report set forth the orders made by the Commissioners and the advice they tendered to persons interested in these charities. By the Chari-
  320
  table Trusts Act power was given to trustees, when any legal difficulty as to the administration of the funds in their hands arose, to apply to the Commissioners for advice, and he found it stated in the last Report of the Commission that 1,007 different cases had been brought before them in the course of the year 1856, with that object. It was quite clear, therefore, that a vast amount of good was effected by the Commissioners in that respect.
  MR. W. EWARTsaid, he was of opinion that the only mode of emancipating charities from the present state of thraldom, was by extending in a moderate degree the power of the Commissioners. By that means those charities would be emancipated, a cheaper mode of administering them would be secured, while the intentions of the founders would be in no respect contravened. Surely the Commissioners might safely be entrusted with the same powers as those already given to the County Court Judges and other Judges of the Court of Bankruptcy.
  MR. HENLEYmaintained that in those cases, in which the exercise of a judicial power was called for, it ought to be exercised by a court of justice in the face of day.
  MR. A. W. KINGLAKEsaid, that in order to prove the importance of the functions which the Commissioners discharged, he would instance a case in which a suit had that very day been heard in the House of Lords for the purpose of recovering property amounting to £60,000, which sum a private individual, believing it in reality belonged to a particular charity, had prevailed on the Commissioners to certify, as constituting a proper subject for the institution of legal proceedings.
  MR. MONCKTON MILNESsaid, he was of opinion that the limits of the Commissioners' duties might with great advantage to the public be extended to the control of larger sums of money than they were at present enabled to administer.
  Vote agreed to.
  (6.) £1,911, Statute Law Commission.
  MR. WHITESIDEsaid, he wished to call the attention of the Committee to the circumstance that while the Commission figured in the Estimates as one of only a temporary character, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department had upon a former occasion stated, in answer to a question which had been put to him as to the probable duration of the labours of the Commission, that

  321
  it would have work for many years to come of a nature similar to that which it had already undertaken. Now, he (Mr. Whiteside), for one, had no faith in the labours of the Commission, and he should very much like to know what advantage the country was to derive from the money which they were asked to expend in connection with it. He found from a letter which had been written by its Secretary, and which was dated the 6th of January, 1857, that a classification of the whole contents of the statute book, with a, view chiefly of faciliating the work of consolidation, had been commenced and was expected to be completed in about six mouths; but the six months had expired without any such result, as far as he could see, having been brought about. He had only to add, that if the labours of the Commission resulted in producing a set of measures for Ireland distinct from those which they sought to apply to England, he should offer to any such scheme a determined opposition. There was very little difference between the laws in both countries, and he thought an opportunity was at present afforded to imperialize the statute law which ought not to be passed over.
  Vote agreed to; as was also (7,) £4,924, Civil Service Commission.
  (8). £3,524, Temporary Commissions.
  MR. WISEsaid, that a rumour prevailed in certain circles, and had obtained a wide circulation, to the effect that the Government were prepared to disregard the Report of the Commission which had been appointed to inquire into the subject of a site for the National Gallery, and to remove that Gallery to Kensington; and he wished, therefore, to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Government were prepared to adopt the Report of that Commission?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: If the hon. Gentleman had not given importance to a rumour which is wholly unauthenticated by alluding to it in his place in this House, I should have considered that that rumour was deserving of little notice. I can, however, assure him that the Report of that Commission has not yet been presented. (Murmurs of dissent.) Well, I have not seen a copy of it, and am ignorant of its contents, and I can only say that the Government have come to no decision upon the subject.
  MR. WISEsaid, he was astonished at the reply of the right hon. Gentleman,
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  which was by no means satisfactory. The question which he wished to put was, whether Her Majesty's Government intended to act upon the Report of the Commission, and to adopt it as presented?
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, that he believed he was the only Member of the Government who had seen the Report, and he had not had time to read it. He had, however, received a copy of it, and also letter from Lord Brougham, the Chairman of the Commission, stating that they had as yet been unable to append to the Report the documentary evidence connected with it. When the Report in a complete state was in the hands of the Government, it would be laid before Parliament; but at present it was impossible for him to say what conclusions would be drawn from it, but he had no doubt that it would receive the fullest consideration.
  MR. WISE: I wish to know whether the Government, after receiving that Report, intend to adopt it?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: When I see the Report I shall be able to state the intentions of the Government with regard to it; but at present we have not come to any conclusion upon the subject.
  MR. NORTHsaid, he begged to ask when the Report would be laid on the table of the House?
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, he had received a letter from Lord Broughton transmitting the Report of the Commissioners, but a sufficient number had not yet been printed for circulation. Two other copies had since been sent to the Home Office, in order that the usual steps might be taken for presenting the Report to Parliament; but Lord Broughton stated that it was so far incomplete that they were not able to print the evidence on which the Report was founded. Until the Report, with the evidence, was in the hands of the Government, it was impossible that the Government could state what steps would be taken. No delay would be incurred in laying the Report before Parliament.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that what the Committee desired was a pledge from the Government not to do anything to remove the National Gallery without the sanction of Parliament. On former occasions it had been found that the Committee could not reject Estimates presented by the Government without causing a breach of faith with individuals to whom the Government had placed themselves under contract.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, that surely no pledge was necessary. No steps could be taken to build a new National Gallery without the vote of the House. The question almost answered itself.
  MR. CONINGHAMsaid, he would avail himself of the opportunity of stating that unless, between this and next Session of Parliament, some arrangement was entered into by which the Royal Academy were compelled to vacate the space occupied by it in the National Gallery, and which he conceived belonged to the nation, he should feel it his duty to take the sense of the House upon it.
  In reply to Mr. GRIFFITH,
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the Decimal Coinage Commissioners had made their Report, and it had been laid on the table. It was of considerable size, and hon. Gentlemen who took an interest in the subject would, no doubt, derive great instruction from reading it.
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, that as a member of the Registration of Titles Commission, he wished to press upon the Government the propriety of considering during the recess whether they would not bring in some measure early in the next Session upon the subject. The Report being very voluminous, as well as involving very difficult questions, it required mature consideration, and it would be unreasonable to expect Her Majesty's Government to give any opinion upon it during the present Session; but feeling a deep interest in the subject, and believing it was highly important to the social interests of the country, he would feel it his duty, if the Government did not undertake it, to bring the whole subject under the consideration of Parliament at the commencement of the next Session.
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, that he could conscientiously compliment the Commissioners on this result of their labours, and promised that their Report should receive very careful consideration.
  Vote agreed to.
  (9.) Motion made and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £20,988, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum required to defray the Fees, Salaries, Expenses, and Compensations, payable under the provisions of the Patent Law Amendment Act, to the 31st day of March, 1858."
  MR. MOWBRAYsaid, he would beg to ask for some explanation of this Vote.
  MR. WILSONsaid, the income derived from stamps on patents was £91,000,
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  whereas the entire Vote was £27,988 so that there was a considerable balance paid into the Exchequer. An additional building was required and this Vote was necessary to provide it.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSexpressed his astonishment that £9,900 should be divided as fees on patents between the Attorney and Solicitor General, making the salaries of those officers from this source alone nearly equal to the salaries of the Judges. It was said that a former Attorney General had made as much out of the profits in fees on patents as the three Lord Chief Justices received in salaries. There was besides in this Vote an item of £920 salaries to the clerks of the law officers of the Crown, making a total of £10,820. He was quite sure the Committee would not sanction such a waste of the public money, and he therefore moved the reduction of the Vote by one-half that amount—viz, £5,410.
  Motion made and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £15,578, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum required to defray the Fees, Salaries, Expenses, and Compensations, payable under the provisions of the Patent Law Amendment Act, to the 31st day of March, 1858."
  SIR JOHN TROLLOPEsaid, it appeared by a foot-note that the sums expected to be received would exceed the sum voted by £10,000, but that £10,000 was a direct tax on the inventive ingenuity of the country—upon men often in humble, or at all events in middle life, who could ill afford to pay such large duties.
  MR. WILSONremarked, that he thought it was rather hard upon the law officers of the Crown, who had voluntarily given up the most lucrative emoluments of their office for the purpose of carrying out an important amendment of the law, to be charged with extracting excessive fees from the ingenuity of the country. Formerly the law officers were entitled to a fee of £10 on each patent; but when the present Act was passed power was given to the Lord Chancellor to reduce the fees from time to time as he thought fit, and the fees had been reduced in four years from £10 to £3. Moreover, they formerly did nothing for the £10, but now for the £3 they had to examine every specification—a most onerous duty. These fees formed, in fact, the only salary which they received for their political offices. No doubt it was the intention of the Legislature that the fees should be fixed at such a point as would just cover the necessary expenditure,

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  in granting patents, but it was very difficult exactly to hit that amount, and, owing to the low charges, the number of patents had greatly increased, and the fees also had increased very much beyond the expenses of the establishment.
  MR. PEASEsaid, that he hoped the House would take an early opportunity of reviewing the patent laws. He knew from his own experience that they operated most injuriously on the inventive talent of the country. Clever men were compelled to sell their patent rights to rich speculators; and he knew of one instance where a hon. Member of that House had paid £35,000 for patents necessary in the prosecution of his business. He was convinced that an alteration of the law would give a great impetus to inventive genius in this country.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, he would still maintain, notwithstanding the ingenious answer of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Wilson), that these fees were a heavy tax on the inventive industry of the country, and that the law officers of the Crown were benefited without rendering adequate services.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he would be glad, when the Report was brought up, to hear an explanation of the item for printing these specifications. If they were sold, the sum received for them ought to recompense the Government for the expense of printing. He also wished to ask for an explanation of the item of £8,100 for "incidental expenses."
  MR. WILSONobserved, that he believed that a considerable portion of it had been spent in drawing and arranging plans and in printing specifications, which were now printed in full and sold to the public at very low prices. He would, however, make inquiry, and give a further explanation at a future time.
  SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYthought it would scarcely be fair to the law officers to reduce the Vote as proposed by the hon. Member for Lambeth. The Government ought to carry out the promise which they had made on a former occasion, to give the law officers a fixed salary in lieu of these emoluments, and then the question of fees could be properly considered.
  MR. SPOONERasked how the £2,000 for the Kensington Museum, which appeared in the Vote, had been laid out, and what was the reason that Kensington had been chosen for the reception of the plan?
  MR. WATKINsaid, that great benefit was conferred on working-men, through-
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  out the country by the information published by the Patent-office. Inventors might now easily ascertain what had been done before them. While desirous of giving every scope to the inventive talent of the country, he did not think that patents ought to be made too cheap, or the greatest confusion would ensue. The proper course was to fix a moderate charge, not too great for the poor labouring man to meet.
  MR. WILSONsaid, the £2,000 referred to had been expended in fitting up buildings.
  SIR DENHAM NORREYSsaid, that these compensations were still a tax upon the inventive genius of the people, and he thought that the salaries of officials should not be paid in that manner.
  MR. SPOONERobserved, that the item of £2,000 was stated neither as an estimate nor an expenditure. Which was it? Again, he wished to know why so inconvenient a locality as Kensington had been selected for the exhibition?
  MR. WILSONsaid, that the £2,000 had been expended, but £7,000 had been voted on account, and the expenditure was, therefore, authorized. The expenditure of £2,000 was in fitting up rooms.
  MR. LYGONasked by whose advice Kensington had been selected?
  Motion by leave withdrawn.
  Original question again proposed.
  MR. MOWBRAYsaid, he thought this expenditure of £2,000 was one not sanctioned by Parliament. It was like several others that had already come before the House during the present Session. He moved that the Vote be reduced by this sum of £2,000.
  MR. WILSONsaid, that £7,000 were taken on account of this Vote as a whole, and it was impossible to say what particular part of the whole sum the £2,000 was.
  MR. SPOONERsaid, he had distinctly asked, when the money was asked on account, whether any part of the sum was to be laid out at Kensington, and he was distinctly assured that no further sum was to be laid out there. Under these circumstances he thought the explanation of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Treasury so unsatisfactory, that he should support the Amendment of his hon. Friend.
  Motion made, and Question put,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £18,988, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum required to defray the Fees, Salaries, Expenses, and Compensations, payable under the provisions of the Patent Law Amendment Act, to the 31st day of March, 1858."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 73; Noes 156: Majority 83.
  Original Question put and agreed to.
  (10.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £8,843, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum required to pay the Salaries and expenses of the Board of Fisheries in Scotland, to the 31st day of March, 1858."
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, that last year the Secretary for the Treasury stated that a, Commission should issue upon this subject, but he (Mr. Williams) did not know whether that Commission had issued. This was the most extraordinary continuation of a waste of the public money, next to the Vote under the Patent Law Amendment Act, that he had ever heard of. He had received a letter from a gentleman in Scotland, in which it was stated that the Scotch fisheries were of great national importance, and distanced all foreign competition, and were the last resource of hundreds of poor Celts, who would otherwise be unable to command the means of paying their rent. So that this Vote was clearly for the benefit of the landlords of Scotland, as it enabled the men engaged in the herring fishery to pay their rents. Some of the poor districts paid these expenses themselves, whilst the large places did not. A general inspector at Leith received £310 a year, and a little further on he found that there was an officer at Leith receiving a salary. At Greenock there was an assistant inspector who was paid £160 10 s. a year, and an officer £120 10 s. a year. Glasgow had also got an officer. To vote the money of England and Ireland for a purpose of this kind was discreditable. As he had stated, these fisheries of Scotland were in the highest condition, and distanced all foreign fisheries, and it was therefore too bad to call on them to vote money for the support of a Board. He should feel it his duty to divide the Committee against the whole of this sum, except £2,160, which was necessary to pay pensions. He should move to reduce the Vote to that amount.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £2,160, be grantee to Her Majesty, to complete the sum required to pay the Salaries and Expenses of the Board o Fisheries in Scotland, to the 31st day of March 1858."
  MR. WILSONsaid, the effect of the hon. Gentleman's Amendment would be to continue the pensions of persons who did no work, while he would leave without
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  salaries persons who were performing important duties. He (Mr. Wilson) had stated last year that the Government would appoint a Commission to inquire into this expenditure. That promise had been fulfilled; a Commission had been appointed, and their Report was upon the table of the House. The Vote was placed in the Estimates this year, in consequence of representations made to the Government that there was an extensive trade in herrings with foreign States, that contracts had been entered into for the supply of herrings with the Government brand, and that if the power of the Board were not continued, such contracts would be voided. He (Mr. Wilson) hoped therefore that the Committee would pass the Vote this year on this assurance that it was the last time it would appear upon the Estimates in the present form.
  SIR J. TRELAWNYsaid, that in Cornwall they had no brand. This support was nothing less than protection in disguise.
  MR. WISEinquired why, by this Vote, the commander of the Princess Royal cutter was allowed £200, and the commander of Her Majesty's steam vessel Jackal, £100, in addition to their ordinary pay?
  SIR GEORGE PECHELLremarked, that he had suggested some time ago that the allowance to which the hon. Gentleman referred was made to the gallant officers as a compensation for their not having been sent to the Black Sea, where they might have earned some distinction. He thought it a reflection upon the service to which he belonged, that its officers should be mixed up with a charge for branding herrings.
  MR. BLACKBURNsaid, there had been plenty of time this year to have adopted one of the plans proposed by the Government. He suspected that they had been subjected to some pressure from the hon. Members for the northern boroughs. However, he would recommend the Committee to take the hon. Gentleman at his word.
  MR. BLACKsaid, that he did not understand the hon. Gentleman to say that the Vote would be withdrawn next year, but that it would appear under another form.
  SIR CHARLES WOODstated, in reply to the question of Mr. Wise, that he was not aware of the circumstances under which the commanders of the Princess Royal and Jackal received the amounts included in the Vote. The

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  Princess Royal, he might observe, was not a vessel belonging to the Royal Navy; but he would make inquiry as to these items, and would answer the question of the hon. Gentleman on a future occasion.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, that he would withdraw his Amendment in consideration of the distinct pledge he had received from the Government.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Original Question put and agreed to.
  House resumed; Resolutions to be reported To-morrow; Committee to sit again To-morrow.

ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION, &c., BILL.

  COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, that he thought that the Secretary of State for the Home Department should have explained the provisions of this Bill which had come out of the Select Committee to which it had been referred quite a new Bill. It contained some very novel proposals. As he understood, it was intended to transfer to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners all the property of the archhishops and bishops, and then to hand back to them sufficient land to produce a certain income. This must be attended with the greatest difficulty, and would lead to endless jobbery.
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, the Bill was founded almost exclusively upon the recommendation of a Select Committee which sat upon this subject in 1856. It was referred with a similar Bill, prepared by the late noble Member for Woodstock (Marquess of Blandford), to another Committee. The difference between the two Bills was, that whereas the Bill now before the House was founded exclusively on the Report of that Committee, and related only to episcopal incomes, the Bill of the noble Marquess extended the same provisions to the incomes of deans and chapters. The object of the present Bill was to provide a better means than now existed for carrying out the intentions of Parliament in giving a fixed income to bishops and archbishops. It would vest a sufficient estate in them to secure them that income as nearly as possible. He thought that this was the best arrangement that could be made, particularly looking to the security of the episcopal incomes. It also contained provisions with respect to the accounts to be rendered by deans and chapters to the Ecclesiastical Commission-
  330
  ers, and laid down certain terms on which lands held on Church leases might be enfranchised. He believed it would be a great disappointment to the lessees if the measure did not pass this Session.
  House in Committee.
  Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
  Clause 3.
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, he should propose to insert words for the purpose of giving the bishops and archbishops a voice in the re-transfer of the estates which it was proposed to vest in them.
  MR. HENLEYwished to know on what principle the estates to be vested in the right rev. Prelates were to be assigned to them?
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, that the Committee desired to secure the bishops' estates equal in value to the income intended to be secured by Act of Parliament. The best answer he could give to his right hon. Friend was by referring to a case which had just occurred. An estate belonging to the Chapter of York was about to be re-transferred to them. The Commissioners and their agents had considered the valuation of the estates, had made the proper deductions on account of collection and payment with the concurrence of the Chapter of York, and had ascertained the kind of estate that should be transferred, yielding the statutory income intended by Parliament. A similar principle would be pursued in future with respect to episcopal incomes.
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. HENLEYremarked, that he did not think his right hon. Friend had given any answer to his question. He had received no explanation how a fixed net income was to be secured to the bishops. It was quite possible that while a longheaded bishop might in the course of these arrangements get land worth £7,000 a year, another of a different kind would only get such as would yield £3000. Then would come fresh applications to Parliament, and the question would once more be unsettled.
  MR. AYRTONobjected to the whole plan embodied in the Bill, because it would permanently fix the revenues of the bishops—or rather it would fix a minimum; for while it was certain that the value of the land to be assigned to them would not diminish, there was every prospect that it would greatly increase in the course of twenty or thirty years.
  The clause amounted to nothing more or less than a reversion

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  to the old system, to upset which the Ecclesiastical Commission had been established. Bishops would continue to hold their estates in perpetuity, and to receive incomes out of all proportion to their position; though he would admit that the arrangement would have been less objectionable if the estates were granted to the bishops for life only, so that on the death of each incumbent the whole question of the income attached to the see would have been thrown open for revision. He had, however, so strong an objection to the clause, that he intended to take the sense of the House against it.
  SIR GEORGE GREYobserved, that it was impossible to say what the estates would produce twenty or thirty years hence. At the same time, he had no doubt the Commissioners would avail themselves of all the sources of information within their reach, and would take care that the estates would exactly produce the statutory incomes, He did not think that those incomes would be liable to much variation, because express provision was made by a subsequent clause for building, mining, and improving leases. Another appeal to Parliament might be necessary in the event of any considerable change in the value of the property; but in the meantime he thought that the arrangement now proposed was upon the whole satisfactory and as well guarded as it could well be.
  SIR EDWARD BUXTONsaid, it was desirable that the incomes of the bishops should be in estates rather than in money; but in the event of an increase in the value of the land some provision ought to be made for a periodical revision.
  MR. GREERobserved, that he thought that the arrangement should not go beyond the life of the incumbent of the bishopric for the time being. It was now too late to propose an Amendment to that effect, therefore he should be compelled to divide against the clause, unless ho received the assurance that it might be amended upon the bringing up of the Report.
  SIR GEORGE GREYstated, that by agreeing to the clause now the hon. Gentleman would not be precluded from moving an Amendment at a subsequent stage.
  MR. PEASEsaid, he did not question the propriety of putting the incomes of the bishops on a right and solid basis, but as an humble individual, he must express his deep regret that a large quantity of the land of the country would still continue to be held in a manner eminently opposed to
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  its proper cultivation and improvement. Such at all events would be the result in the county of Durham, which he had the honour to represent—for their experience there was quite opposed to such an arrangement.
  MR. LYGONsaid, he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole) the exact meaning of the third clause. He also thought some arrangement ought to be made for providing retiring allowances to bishops.
  MR. MOWBRAYsaid, he would merely observe that at present the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were in possession of very large landed estates within the see of Durham. Now he quite agreed with the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Pease) that a very strong feeling existed in that county against such a tenure. The very object of the present Bill was to render the possession of the Commissioners only transitory, their object being, in the first instance, to ascertain what proportion of the property should be assigned for the income of the bishops, and then, as he hoped, they would have the good sense to sell the remainder of the land and resign their functions.
  MR. KINNAIRDsaid, he would also urge the necessity of a periodical revision.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSremarked, that he could not understand that an estate of £5000 a year could be better managed by a Commission than by a bishop with an agent.
  MR. RIDLEYsaid, he was also in favour of a revision, so that a bishop might not have more than his statutable income.
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, the question of a revision could be considered upon a subsequent clause to be brought up.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he wished to know if land belonging to a particular bishop did not produce £5000 a year, were the Commissioners to appropriate land to make up the amount?
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, the Commissioners would have power to sell lands, and with the produce to purchase other lands. It would be impossible to fix any definite time for the sales.
  Motion made and Question put, "That the Clause as amended stand part of the Bill."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 103; Noes, 36: Majority, 67.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 4.
  MR. COXmoved that the Chairman do report progress. It was now twenty minutes past one o'clock, and yet they were only on the second order of the day. There were twenty-four other orders to get through at this time of night; and it was only fair that the progress of this Bill should give place to other measures, about which there might be less difference of opinion.
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, the next two or three clauses were more or less connected with the machinery or working of the clauses already passed. Clauses 7 and 8 might provoke discussion, but he appealed to the hon. Member for Finsbury to allow the Committee to get so far before they reported progress.
  Motion negatived.
  Clause agreed to, as were also Clauses 5 and 6.
  House resumed; Committee report progress; to sit again To-morrow.
  The House adjourned at a quarter before Two o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—Bankruptcy Law Amendment; Loan Societies; Commons In-closure; Boundaries of Land (Ireland); Public Works (Ireland); Land and Assessed Taxes, &c. (Scotland) Acts Amendment; Public Health Act (Aldershot); Industrial Schools.

THE QUEEN'S ANSWER TO THE ADDRESS
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN OF THE HOUSEHOLD (the Marquess of Breadalbane)read the following Gracious Reply by Her Majesty to the Address of the House on Thursday last on the subject of African Emigration:—
"I have received your Address on the subject of African Emigration, and you may be assured of my earnest desire to discourage all schemes for the Emigration of Negroes from the African Continent by any means likely to promote a traffic in Slaves."
The noble MARQUESS also read the following Gracious Reply to the Address of the House on Friday last, on the subject of the National Survey:—
"I have received your Address, praying that a Royal Commission may be appointed to inquire into the whole subject of the National Survey, and upon the scale or scales on which it should be made, and on which it should be published; and, having taken your Address into consideration, I have directed that a Commission shall issue for the purposes which you have requested."

BANKRUPT LAW AMENDMENT BILL.

  PRESENTATION AND FIRST READING.
  LORD BROUGHAMthen rose, pursuant to notice, to call attention to the subject of the bankruptcy laws. He said that it was not his intention to enter at large, or indeed at all, upon the general subject of the bankruptcy laws. The subject, however, to which he was about to call attention was one of the greatest possible importance, and he therefore hoped that during the approaching recess his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack would devote some attention to it, with the view of devising remedies for the abuses in the administration of the bankruptcy laws, and for the defects in these laws themselves. His reason for calling attention to this matter was the proceedings that took place at the beginning of the present year, just on the eve of the last Session, at the great Conference of delegates from all the manu-
  236
  facturing and commercial towns, but particularly from the great towns of Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Bristol and Hull; while Scotland sent delegates from Edinburgh and Glasgow, and Ireland from Dublin, and, he believed, Belfast. As this Conference was assembled under the auspices of the Law Amendment Society, over which he had the honour to preside, he was called upon to take the chair at its meeting, and he must do the gentlemen who attended it the justice to say that, during the four days and the four evenings which the Conference lasted, he could not discover the least ground of objection to any one part of their proceedings. The great number of delegates who were present, the great variety of opinions on the subjects which they had met to discuss, and the still greater variety of opinions that existed among their constituencies, had no effect whatever in producing any discord or anything like wrangling or contention, or any thing other than a calm, deliberate, and business-like consideration of the highly important subjects that had brought them together—which were neither more nor less than the grievances which they had to complain of with respect to the state of our mercantile law in general, and of no one branch of it more than that relating to bankruptcy and insolvency. Upon that branch of the law a highly important discussion took place, and most valuable information was communicated from various parts of the country;—opinions of great value were given; and the conflict of some of those opinions clearly showed how much these objects had been discussed in the local districts. A report had since been prepared, and presented to Government, of the various points of which they had cause to complain, with suggestions for their remedy. He (Lord Brougham) would take the liberty to observe that a body of men of this description was very differently situated from others in certain points of view. Upon the question of the existence of grievances they had every right to be heard with all possible attention, because it was for their benefit that all these provisions were made; everything was devised for their interest, and they, of all men in the world, were most concerned to know whether the law worked well or not. They might be greatly mistaken, the measures of relief they asked for might, or might not, be well advised; but as to the

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  existence of evils, they were judges almost without appeal. He believed that some of the measures proposed by them were not adapted to give that relief which they sought, but they were clearly entitled to have these suggestions considered. He would shortly state the grounds of their complaints, and how far he was disposed to concur in the measures which they suggested by way of remedy. There was nothing on which the Conference was more unanimous than that the expenses attendant upon bankruptcy proceedings were grievously heavy. Taking an average of the bankruptcy proceedings during the last three years of which returns had been made,—namely, 1853, 1854, and 1855, (and he would omit the names of the towns in which they had taken place, because the delegates averred that the expenses were not so much owing to the law as to the officers by whom it was administered), he found that under 121 bankruptcies a sum of £90,000 was collected, while the amount distributed among the creditors was only £44,000, the remaining sum of £46,000 having been consumed by the bankruptcy proceedings. This arose mainly from the fact, that the salaries and expenses of administration were paid by fees. It was suggested that a portion of those expenses ought to be borne by the Consolidated Fund. No person was more strongly opposed than himself to the payment of officers of a court of justice and judicial expenses by fees upon suitors. But he made a very great distinction between litigation and administration, and while he would not listen to any argument for making the suitors pay for the salaries of the Lord Chancellor, the Vice Chancellor, the Master of the Rolls, and the whole judicial staff so far as they were employed in deciding causes, it was a very different thing when persons were employed in the administration of causes. In the one case all fees would be contrary to principle; in the other they might be allowed to be paid to a certain extent by those who benefited by the labours of the Court. He thought that the Commissioners and the higher officers of the Court of Bankruptcy ought to be paid by salary as in courts of justice, but that the payment of the administrative officers ought to be thrown to a certain extent upon the creditors. Their Lordships would be surprised to hear that the sum of £25,000 a year continued still to be paid as compensation to those Commissioners of Bankruptcy who by his Bill
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  of 1831 were dispensed with, and who had not been otherwise provided for by legal promotion, and that the whole of this sum I came out of the pockets of the creditors in the Bankruptcy Court. It was utterly unendurable that after a lapse of a quarter of a century this compensation should continue to be defrayed by creditors in the present suits before the courts. The extent of the Bill which he had prepared did not go beyond transferring the charge to the Consolidated Fund of the compensation payable to the Commissioners whose services were dispensed with in 1831. The next ground of complaint was, that there were unnecessary officers in the courts of bankruptcy—the messenger, the accountant, and the broker. He doubted whether the services of the messenger could be dispensed with, or the office properly abolished; and although he had framed his Bill so as to dispense with the accountant and broker, he thought the messenger should still be kept, subject to the authority of the Commissioners in each case whether it were fit that the messenger should be employed or not. The next point was the office of official assignee, and on that the Conference insisted they had the greatest ground of complaint as to the manner in which they were paid, by a per centage on the assets of each estate. He found that there was no difference of opinion in the Conference as to the mode of paying that most useful and necessary officer. But there was the greatest variety in the emoluments of official assignees. In certain cases his profits, which were paid by commission, barely sufficed to pay the expenses of his office, and he was literally left without emolument, In other cases his profits amounted to several hundreds, and even to thousands of pounds. In two instances the official assignees were in receipt of £3,000 a year, and in other cases they obtained upwards of £2,000 a year, while in other instances they had nothing. He proposed that the official assignees should be paid to a certain amount by salaries and the rest in fees, which latter mode of payment would whet their zeal and maintain their activity in collecting the assets as effectually as possible. There ought, however, to be a maximum of income from both sources. Another complaint, which was not altogether without foundation, referred to the irregular attendance of the Commissioners. He strongly recommended the Lord Chancellor to look into this sub-

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  ject, and after having obtained a return of their attendance during the last twelve months he trusted that his hon. and learned Friend would insist on a more frequent and regular attendance upon the part of the Commissioners. Great inconvenience and dissatisfaction arose, he believed, from the fact that the Commissioners in many instances lived at great distances from their respective courts; that in their anxiety not to miss a particular train in order that they might reach their residences at a certain time, the business before them was often postponed until the next day, and that great inconvenience to the suitor, witnesses, and all other parties concerned, was the result. He might also state that he found from returns which had been laid upon the table of the House that in one town 130 sittings in bankruptcy had been held in the course of a single year; while in another there had been 185; in a third 151; and in a fourth 705; but inasmuch as there were only 365 days in a year, he had been at a loss to account for the last-mentioned number until he had found that what was termed a "sitting" embraced the consideration of every one of the different matters which might have been brought before the Commissioner for decision. The fact was, he learned that those 705 sittings had been held in fifty-four days, so that not less than thirteen cases had, upon an average, been determined each day. The consequence had been the accumulation of the business to be done in a given time to an extent of which the suitors complained. Well might the courts present the scene which had been described to him as a scramble. On another point the Conference had made a suggestion, as to the propriety of which there could be no doubt whatever, namely, that a remedy should be applied to a defect arising out of the arrangement clauses, under which, according to a recent case, confirmed, he was sorry to say, by a Court of Error, there could be no assignment unless every article down to the very apparel of the creditor had been given up. There certainly ought to be some alteration of the law in this respect. He should next advert to the suggestions which had been made by the Committee to whom the Bill which he was about to present to their Lordships would probably be referred. They had expressed themselves as being in favour of permitting the estate of a deceased person who, if he had been alive, would come under the operation of the bank-
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  ruptcy law, to be administered under that law; and they complained that under the present system a right of appeal was given from the Commissioner before whom a case had been heard, and who, having seen both the bankrupt and the witnesses, was likely to be the best judge as to whether a certificate ought or ought not to be granted, to the Lords Justices of Appeal, who would be in possession of no such advantages. The Committee had, therefore, suggested that an intermediate court of appeal should be constituted, which should consist of the Commissioner before whom the case had been tried and two of his fellow Commissioners. He might add, that another great objection which had been urged against the law as it stood was, that it made no distinction between traders and non-traders—an objection in the justice of which, however, he could not altogether concur. There was also a strong and general opinion expressed—an expression of opinion which did the greatest credit to their humanity—against all imprisonment for debt. Arrest on mesne process had long ceased to exist, and an approach had been made to the correct principle. That principle, he apprehended, was not to visit upon misfortune the punishment which was due only to misconduct. Where there had been fraud, or gross extravagance, or scandalous imprudence, or where the party had power but refused to perform his engagements, they might properly inflict a penalty; but if it could be so arranged that no person should be imprisoned for debt except, perhaps, for a short time previous to the necessary investigation taking place, a very great improvement would have been introduced into the law. Such were the principal recommendations of the Conference; and he had no doubt that the discussion which had already taken place, and the time which would be afforded for considering and further discussing those recommendations before the next Conference took place, would give rise to many other valuable suggestions; and so at last they might arrive, not indeed at a perfect measure, but at one that would be a great improvement upon the system which now existed. In the meantime he would ask permission to lay on the table a Bill embracing the recommendations he had just stated.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that the address of his noble and learned Friend suggested to his mind some very melancholy and painful reflections, as it must

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  have suggested to the minds of all men, who like his noble and learned Friend were really anxious for the improvement of the bankruptcy law. Those distressing reflections arose from the fact that there was no one subject connected with the administration of the law which had received so much attention, and on which so many amendments had been made from time to time as that to which his noble and learned Friend had just drawn their Lordships' attention; and the result appeared to be that all the projects of improvement which had been brought forward since his noble and learned Friend sat on the woolsack, had left the bankruptcy laws in 1857 very little better than they were in 1831, when he (Lord Brougham) commenced the work of reform. The picture drawn by his noble and learned Friend would show that the whole job was to be done over again. Up to 1831 the administration of bankruptcy was rather a private affair. There had been Commissions in London and the country in which affairs were administered before an almost domestic court, inasmuch as the parties concerned had the power of nominating their own Commissioners. That system had worked very unsatisfactorily. Funds to an enormous amount got into the Bankruptcy Court, and the Commissioners' hands, and in some cases were never distributed in discharge of the bankrupt's debts. A general outcry was raised, and his noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham) interposed and many great changes were effected by an Act then introduced, and which was in the main a very good one. However, experience soon showed that the machinery provided by his noble and learned Friend was much more extensive than it need have been. Commissioners were appointed under that Act, and a Court of Review was established, and that system proceeded for some time. Experience, however, at length showed that the Court of Review might be done away with, and as the members of that court fell off, one by one, their places were not filled up. Their duties were first discharged by the Vice Chancellor, and afterwards by the Lords Justices. The new system, which had been at first confined to London, was afterwards, in 1841 or 1842 extended to the provinces. Experience again showed that that was a system in which the machinery was far larger than it need be. Accordingly, some two or three years ago, he (the Lord Chancellor) obtained their Lordships' sanction to a
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  Bill providing that as Commissioners in the country retired or died off, it should not be incumbent on the Crown to fill their places up, until their numbers were reduced to the point which ought to be considered adequate to the proper discharge of the duties they had to perform. But the law of bankruptcy had been added to very much since 1842. There was, first, the Bill of the Marquess of Dalhousie—a Bill providing bankruptcy proceedings in the cases of joint-stock companies. Then came the series of Acts called the Winding-up Acts; and next the Consolidated Bankruptcy Act, in 1849, which was supposed to put everything on a perfect footing. Yet that was the system which, it appeared from the statement of his noble and learned Friend, was now so much complained of, and justly complained of. One of the greatest inconveniencies of the present system was its expense. The expense of administering the estate of an insolvent person was found to be so large that a plan had for some time been very generally resorted to, of withdrawing matters from the ordinary tribunal, and having a settlement by agreement amongst the parties. He was not prepared to contend that an investigation, would not suggest some mode by which the expense of bankruptcy proceedings might be diminished. He had moved for returns which were then on the table, but not printed; and, in some respects, he saw his way clearly to a diminution of the expense. There were connected with the Bankruptcy Courts officers who went by the name of messengers, but who were in reality the functionaries who took charge of the property of bankrupts, and in whom considerable trust was reposed. He agreed with his noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham) that it was necessary to retain those officers; but he did not think it right that they should hold offices that gave them emoluments amounting to nearly twice as much as those of County Court Judges; for he was told that the returns now on the table showed that some of the messengers were receiving £1,600 or £1,700 a year. That was an abuse which it came under his province to remedy; and he was in communication with the Lord Justices, with whom he should act on the subject. That must and should be altered; but he could not say that such alteration would effect any material diminution in the expense of administering estates in bankruptcy. It was wrong to say that

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  the official assignees were remunerated by fees. They were remunerated in proportion to the amount they realised; and he (the Lord Chancellor) thought it was of great importance that in every case as much of the funds should be got in as possible, and he was afraid that the adoption of any other mode of payment than a per centage would only tend to diminish the amount of the assets. He was told that for the last year or two the emoluments of the official assignees had been very large; but when he first held the Great Seal a complaint was made to him that they scarcely received anything, and that complaint was well founded. It often happened that in times of very great mercantile prosperity like the present, there were very heavy cases of bankruptcy, which might, perhaps, be accounted for by the increased desire for speculation, to which that prosperity gave rise. As regarded those two heads which he had just named, something might be done; but he could not hold out any hope that he should be able to materially lessen the difference between the sum realised and the sum expended. His noble and learned Friend had also called attention to the way in which the duties of the commissioners were performed both in town and country. He could only say that when his attention was called to any dereliction of duty, on the part of any of those learned functionaries—and such had only occurred in one single instance—he took immediate steps to ensure the proper discharge of the Commissioners' functions. He did not know from what authority his noble and learned Friend spoke of the proceedings of the Commissioners in the country; but he (the Lord Chancellor) believed that in London the duties of the learned gentleman were well discharged. The establishment, as regarded Commissioners, was on a larger footing than it should be; but there they were by Act of Parliament. Should any of them die, or otherwise cease to be Commissioner, he doubted very much that the vacancy should be filled up. There were at present five Commissioners in London. It was not necessary now to determine what course should be taken when the number was reduced to four; but he was inclined to think that even four would be more than sufficient. As regarded what had been said about the Commissioners in the country not residing near their courts, he thought that any Commissioner who did not live
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  within a convenient distance of his court, so as to be always at hand, had much to be responsible for; but it was not in his power, and if it were it would not be right, to compel Commissioners whose courts were in large towns, to live in those towns. It was, however, manifest that they ought not to live too far away from their courts. The whole subject had been under the consideration of Government, and he would give the Bill of his noble and learned Friend his most respectful attention; and although some ten or twenty amendments had taken place in the last quarter of a century, he hoped that some scheme might be devised to make the proceedings of the Bankruptcy Courts less expensive and dilatory than they now were. More than this he was sure his noble and learned Friend would not expect him to say at present. With respect to the objections taken by his noble and learned Friend to the present system of appeal on the ground that the Lords Justices had not an opportunity of making themselves acquainted with the demeanour of the bankrupt and witnesses, he (the Lord Chancellor) should say that having for a year had the honour of discharging the duties of Lord Justice, he should look with extreme suspicion on any proposition that would have the effect of giving to one Commissioner the ultimate power of refusing a man his certificate. It would be in the last degree dangerous to a trader not to have the opportunity of appealing from the refusal of the Commissioner to grant him that certificate, the consequence of such refusal being the sending of the bankrupt out of the country, for without a certificate he could not for one week carry on trade with any degree of security. While he acted as Lord Justice several cases came before the Court of Appeal in which the Lords Justices insisted on having the bankrupt and witnesses before them; and in some of these cases the Court reversed the order of the Commissioner, and granted certificates. He could assure his noble and learned Friend that his Bill should command his best attention, and that he should cull from it whatever seemed to him (the Lord Chancellor) likely to improve the present state of things.
  LORD BROUGHAMsaid, that he would beg to point out in a few words of explanation, the great advantages which had resulted from the Act of 1831. So unsatis-

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  factory was the state of the law at that time that the only wonder was that some change had not been made in it before that period, and Lord Eldon, than whom no man had been slower to encourage rash alterations in the law, had denounced it before he had been a week in the Court of Chancery, and had agreed that some alteration was not only necessary but in fact impossible to be avoided. What were the immediate effects of the change then made? Why property to the extent of nearly £3,000,000 which was in the hands of the twenty; Commissioners—the Septuagint, as they had been called—and which ought to have been distributed ten or fifteen years before, was distributed within a few months. It had been admitted by one bank that it realized £5,000 or £6,000 a year by the money left in it by assignees in bankruptcy, whereas, after the Act of 1831, such a thing became an impossibility. That Act, however, although a great improvement upon the old system, was itself capable of amendment, and it was with no feeling of discouragement—certainly with no feelings of shame that such should be the case after the lapse of twenty-five years—that he now asked their Lordships to give a first reading to the Bill which he had the honour of laying upon their Lordships' table.
  Bill read 1a.
  House adjourned at half-past Six o'clock.