Sitting of 23 June 1857

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS,—1° Consolidated Fund (£8,000,000); Railway Traffic Act Amendment; Cruelty to Animals Act Amendment; Evidence upon Oath (House of Commons); Summary Proceedings before Justices of the Peace; Municipal Corporations; Hanley Borough Incorporation; Christchurch (West Hartlepool).
2° Wills, &c. of British Subjects Abroad.
3° Alehouse Licensing.

FINSBURY PARK (No. 2) BILL.

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, he was very sorry to feel it his duty, in deference to the wishes of a large body of his constituents, to move that this Bill be read a second time that day six months. The inhabitants of Cornwall would derive as much benefit from this park as his constituents residing in Lambeth, and he thought therefore they ought not to be taxed to provide it. A further objection was that the body under whose auspices this measure had been brought forward—the Metropolitan Board of Works—had laid down no scheme for the formation of parks in other parts of the metropolis. The people of Newington and Camberwell, and other populous districts in the borough of Lambeth, desired to have parks in their neighbourhood, but there was no intimation given of any probability of their having them, and they thought it therefore objectionable that they should be called upon to pay for a park for Finsbury. He wished to know whether the Government were going to grant £50,000 out of the public funds towards the formation of this park? The former Bill contained such a provision, and as he found no mention of a similar one in the present Bill, he would like to know whether the Government had withdrawn their promise or not. In Lambeth a park had been made by the contributions of the inhabitants of that locality. He regretted that the Board of Works should have taken up an undertaking of this kind before completing the main drainage of the metropolis.
  SIR JOHN SHELLEYseconded the Amendment.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the

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  word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  MR. COXsaid, that the borough of Finsbury, of which he had the honour to be a Representative, had increased its population 200 per cent in twenty years, and now contained 350,000 persons. Unless the present Bill passed there would never be an open space in the borough for the health and recreation of the inhabitants. In 1851, when it was found the borough was so crowded, application was made to Lord John Russell, then at the head of Her Majesty's Government, who directed plans to be prepared, and notices given for the formation of a park for Finsbury. Before, however, a Bill could be brought in, a change of Ministry occurred. Subsequent attempts were made under the Government of Lord Derby to obtain a park for Finsbury, but again a change of Ministry frustrated the design. When the Metropolitan Board of Works was established it was felt that they were the proper body to deal with the question of new parks for the metropolis, and Parliament gave them, by a special Act, the power to form public parks. The present Bill was the first step towards carrying this Act into effect, but it was not true that there was any intention of confining the measure to one district of the metropolis, for the Metropolitan Board of Works designed to form three parks—one for Finsbury, a second for Bermondsey, and a third at Hampstead Heath. They had not been able to give the requisite notices for taking land in time for the two last mentioned parks, but it was their intention to proceed next Session with a Bill for a park for Bermondsey, and for securing Hampstead Heath for public use. The rate necessary for the present park, if spread over twenty years, would not amount to more than a farthing in the pound per annum. To this the Government had promised to recommend Parliament to add a Vote of £50,000. He believed that the ratepayers of the metropolis would be glad to pay so small a sum, since they would save more than double the amount in doctors' bills. He did not believe the House would have heard any objections to this Bill if the people of Lambeth had not already obtained their Kennington Common enclosure and their park at Battersea.
  MR. CLAYsaid, he would support the
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  Bill. The hon. Member for Lambeth had been urging upon the House the rejection of this measure upon the supposition that, now his district was provided for, all other metropolitan improvements were to be given up. The whole metropolis gained by the construction of parks in any part of it. He should, for his own part, like to see it surrounded by a belt of parks, for when he saw how fast it was walking away to Dovor on one side, and Oxford on the other, he thought that for the sake of the health and comfort of those who were then living, they were bound to look forward to what might be the possible size of the metropolis twenty years hence, and the consequent difficulty to its inhabitants in escaping into the country. The sooner such improvements as this were made the cheaper would be the cost, for the value of land was increasing every year.
  SIR JOHN SHELLEYsaid, he did not oppose this Bill because he objected to a general rate for this park, and he must disclaim any selfish wish to prevent the district of Finsbury possessing "lungs," or to deprive its inhabitants of opportunities of health and recreation. But when the Metropolitan Board was established Parliament said that, if they wished to spend more than a given sum, they should come to Parliament for its sanction, which, he took it, meant that Parliament was to express its opinion upon the measures which involved such an expenditure. Now he did not deny that a park was required for Finsbury; but he contended that the site suggested for this park was not the best that might be chosen. Of the 250 acres of which it was to be composed 230 were beyond the boundaries of the district embraced in the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Board. This, he thought, was in itself an objection, but it was not the moat serious one that might be taken against the proposed situation of the park. He found that, taking Finsbury Square as the centre of one of the most crowded parts of Finsbury, the site of the new park was three miles distant, while Regent's Park was only two miles and a half off; St. James's Park, two miles and a quarter; and the Victoria Park, one mile and three quarters. It was clearly a mistake to fix the new park in a situation actually more remote than those already existing for the crowded parts of the borough. It was proposed, moreover, to include in this park the filtering reservoirs of the New River Company, which contained 1,750,000 gallons,

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  and supplied 94,000 houses on the north side of the town. Now this Bill contained powers to build in the park, which must also be drained. And he thought when they considered how liable filtering reservoirs were to receive injury, it would be better for the ratepayers of the metropolis not to run the risk of having to pay a large compensation to the New River Company for drainage to their reservoirs. He also felt considerable objections to the proposal for bridging over the New River. Knowing the difficulties with which the Metropolitan Board of Works had to contend, he thought it was much to be regretted that their first proposition should be one of so objectionable a nature. Powers such as those now asked for should, under any circumstances, be regarded with jealousy, and he felt bound to resist the present application for them.
  LORD ROBERT GROSVENORwould support the Bill. He was very sorry that the metropolis should exhibit the unseemly spectacle of a house divided against itself on the first occasion when the Metropolitan Board of Works came down to propose a scheme for providing parks for the metropolis out of a general rate. Constant complaints were made against the carrying out of metropolitan improvements at the expense of the country, and now when a proposition was made to improve the metropolis by a rate on its inhabitants, the plan was objected to by two of the metropolitan Members. He could not help characterising the opposition to the Bill as an impudent attempt on the part of Lambeth and Westminster, which had already parks created at the public expense, to escape from contributing their fair share towards providing a park for the unfortunate denizens of the district of Finsbury. The test of distance from Finsbury Square proposed with respect to the site of the park by the hon. Baronet was most fallacious, for Finsbury Square was not the centre of the borough or of its most thickly populated districts. The hon. Baronet was only caught by the name. It was true that the site of the park was out of the district embraced in the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Board. But it was impossible to get a site nearer London, and if they waited a single year longer they would have to go still further off. If Hampstead Heath was enclosed and new parks made for Finsbury and Bermondsey, the total cost would not amount to a rate of more than three farthings in the pound over
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  the whole metropolis. He was surprised, therefore, that any one should propose the rejection of this Bill. But he was sure there would not be half-a-dozen hon. Members found to vote against it.
  MR. SPOONERobserved that, without entering into the quarrel of metropolitan Members, he wished to know whether the statement of the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Cox) were correct—namely, that the Government had promised, if this Bill passed, to recommend to Parliament a vote of £50,000 from the national exchequer towards the completion of this park. If the public taxes were devoted to such a purpose, every other large town in the kingdom proposing to provide itself with a park would have an equal claim to a similar contribution.
  MR. T. DUNCOMBEsaid, that he believed that no positive engagement had been entered into by the Government to give £50,000 towards the construction of this park; but that certainly there was an understanding, that if £250,000 out of the whole estimated cost, which amounts to £300,000, were raised by a general rate, they were prepared to ask the sanction of Parliament for the remaining sum. This plan had been approved by all previous Governments. He believed, that if the Government of Lord John Russell had not gone out of office, they would have formed the park without putting the metropolis to any expense. The Government of Lord Derby were also willing to aid in the construction of a park. And that of the Earl of Aberdeen, in like manner, offered to recommend a vote of public money for this purpose, provided a sum of £250,000 were raised by the metropolis. The question had since been referred to the Metropolitan Board of Works, and the Board had come to a resolution, proposing to make a rate for £250,000 over the whole metropolis. The park had been called a Finsbury Park, but in reality it was a park for the whole of the northern part of the metropolis which was increasing every day. Let them look at the increase in the population in the parish of Islington alone. When he represented the borough of Finsbury in the first reformed Parliament, that parish had 2,000 or 3,000 registered electors, and 30,000 or 40,000 population. It had now 10,000 electors and a population of 130,000 or 140,000. The park which it was proposed to construct under the authority of this Bill would accommodate a population of

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  from 500,000 to 600,000 people; and he thought that nothing could be more unreasonable or ungenerous than the opposition to it raised by the representative of Lambeth, which had had Battersea Park constructed for it at the public expense out of the Consolidated Fund, at a cost of between £200,000 and £300,000. And even this very year a sum of £8,000 had been voted by the House for the completion of the Battersea Park, which the hon. Member had got for himself and the Battersea boys to disport themselves in free of cost. It had been asked, what use would Finsbury Park be to the inhabitants of Lambeth? He might retort by asking what use Battersea Park was to the inhabitants of Finsbury? It was, indeed, sought to form a park at Finsbury, for the very reason, that from the distance it would be of no use to the inhabitants of Lambeth. He believed that the ratepayers of the metropolis generally were in favour of this measure; nor did he think that even the unreformed corporation of the City of London would come forward to oppose a park for the recreation of the people. He did trust that the House would not decline to send to a Select Committee a Bill, whose object was to provide a place of recreation for the inhabitants of the crowded districts of St. Luke's, Clerkenwell, and of the northern parts of the metropolis. If that Committee did not approve of it, on full consideration of its provisions, they could, of course, reject it.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he would very much rejoice to see a park formed, not only at Finsbury, but in every place where there was a crowded population. But the difficulty they were placed in, arose from the statements of the hon. Members for Finsbury, that the funds of the country were to be called upon to contribute to its cost. They were told this park would only cost the metropolis a rate of a farthing in the pound. And yet, the hon. Members for Finsbury told the House that some inappreciable part of this farthing was to be made up by the taxes of England. Now, upon this point, he thought they ought to have some explanation. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Marylebone had conferred great benefit upon the metropolis by the creation of the Metropolitan Board of Works, for the management of the affairs of this vast metropolis. The right hon. Gentleman took especial care to vest them with ample taxing powers, which he (Mr. Henley) was quite certain would secure
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  their popularity. Well, let them tax themselves. He was sure they would exercise a sound discretion in the matter. He was sure that no one would grudge paying his share of rates for providing so great a source of enjoyment as this park for the inhabitants of the metropolis generally. He could not think there would be any substantial opposition, if they had a satisfactory assurance from the Government on the point to which he had referred. As to the opposition of Lambeth and Westminster, he quite agreed in what had been said, that what was a benefit to one part of the metropolis was a benefit to all. It was all the better for Lambeth and Westminster if they had got parks at the public expense, but then let them not refuse to contribute their fair share to provide parks for others.
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, that a deputation from the ratepayers of Finsbury had recently waited upon his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the proposed park; but that in the absence of his right hon. Friend, he (Sir G. Grey) was unable to say, whether any promise had been given by the Government to submit to the House a vote in aid; but if there had been any such arrangement, of which he had heard nothing till this day, of course it was open to any hon. Gentleman, who was so disposed, to vote for the second reading, upon the understanding that no such promise had been given by the Government, and oppose the Bill at the next stage, if he should find that the Government had at all bound themselves in the matter.
  SIR DE LACY EVANSsaid, that as the people of Westminster had heen placed in the position of opponents of this Bill, he felt called upon to exonerate himself from that charge. He entirely concurred in the observation of his hon. Friend the Member for Finsbury, that it would be ungenerous in any particular portion of the metropolis to oppose Bills for the improvement of other portions of the metropolis, on the ground that that particular portion might not profit by them. The people of Westminster ought to be the last to oppose such a Bill as this, because Westminster, without one farthing of expense to the ratepayers, and entirely by means of the Imperial exchequer, had obtained the best lungs in the metropolis. No representation had been made to him by any of the ratepayers of Westminster to induce him to oppose the Bill, and, even were the case

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  otherwise, he should feel it his duty to support it. But the hon. Member for Warwickshire had raised a very different question. That hon. Member had talked of the injustice of taxing the country generally for the formation of parks in the metropolis, and had contended that any large country town was quite as much entitled as London to grants of the public money for the formation of a park. But it was ridiculous to put a country town on a par with London, for London was the metropolis of the whole empire, and every part of the empire was interested in the well-being of its capital. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire, and the hon. Member for Warwickshire had said, that they represented parts of the country which received no benefit from the London parks, and which ought, therefore, not to be taxed on account of those parks. He hoped, then, that those Gentlemen would never present themselves in the metropolitan parks, for, according to their arguments, they really had no right to enjoy fresh air in them. Millions had been already voted this year for different parts of the country; but did any metropolitan Member rise in his place when the votes, for instance, for Dublin hospitals and ports in various parts of the kingdom were proposed, and exclaim against them on the ground that the metropolis would derive no immediate benefit from the expenditure of the money? On the contrary, he, for one, thought the House took the wiser course in not refusing all votes for local purposes, but in granting them to different parts of the country, and relieving London particularly, not from all local charges and expenses, but only to some extent. Nothing could be more just than to extend such relief to her, whether by rates such as were now referred to, or by bearing a portion of the expense of the police, when they considered how very different was the position of the metropolis from other towns, and that there was hardly any person in the kingdom who was not obliged occasionally to repair here, and thus enjoyed the benefit of any improvements which were made, or of any expenditure of the public money which took place.
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, he thought there ought to be a clear understanding, whether in assenting to the second reading of this Bill, the House would be committed to the arrangement, that a part of the money required for this park should be advanced by the country.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, he regretted that he was not in the House when this discussion began, for he might then have prevented some misconception as to the scope of the Bill. There had been for a considerable time communications between the Government and the parties interested in the creation of this park. They represented (and his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and himself felt the full force of their representation) the great advantages which would accrue to the inhabitants of a very thickly populated part of the metropolis, not situated close to any outlet, if this park were formed; that it would afford them the same facilities for recreation, and the same benefits as regarded health which were enjoyed by the inhabitants of other portions of London situated near to parks already existing; that it would be almost impossible to raise by local rates the whole amount of money required for the purchase of land and its formation into a park; and they urged, that if the Government could induce Parliament to contribute £50,000 towards the expenses this would render easy, if not certain, the operation to which they attached so much importance. They represented, moreover, that if the arrangement were not at once made, every successive year, by extended buildings upon ground now open, would tend to render the undertaking they had in view more difficult, or even to defeat it altogether. His right hon. Friend and himself ultimately agreed to the proposal, and said, "If you bring in your Bill and it is likely to be carried, we will propose to Parliament—subject, of course, to their decision—to give you this £50,000 in aid." He was not quite sure, whether the arrangement was to form part of the Bill, or whether the proposal was to be made contingent on the passing of the measure. He rather thought it was to form part and parcel of the Bill, but be this as it may, of course the Government could not engage to issue any sum out of the Consolidated Fund without the sanction of Parliament. All they could do was, to recommend to Parliament to agree to a grant upon the grounds he had stated. He thought it exceedingly desirable that this park should be made. He quite agreed with his hon. and gallant Friend (Sir De Lacy Evans) that it was preposterous for hon. Gentlemen to object to grants of this kind, simply on the ground that the advantage derived was but local. If that principle were

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  to be adopted as a guide for the conduct of Parliament, no general or public improvements would be made, and they would be reduced, as he stated on a former occasion, to a parochial subdivision; nothing would be done in any part of the United Kingdom, unless it could be accomplished by a rate upon the inhabitants of the parish in which the improvement happened to be proposed. He quite agreed with his hon. and gallant Friend that Parliament ought to take a larger and more liberal view of these things, and that the whole country was interested in these metropolitan improvements. London belonged to the empire at large, and it was quite a perversion of terms to suppose that great improvements in the metropolis only concerned the persons who happened to live upon the spot.
  MR. NEWDEGATEobserved that he could not bring himself to believe that this great metropolis was so poor as not to be able to find means for effecting its own improvements. All that had been said of the grants already given in aid of metropolitan improvements was an argument to show that the people of the country should not give any more money for such objects, as in them might be detected the growth of a system which was gradually tending to the exemption of the metropolis from all liability in this respect. The hon. and gallant Member for Westminster had referred to the fact, that the county Members and Members for provincial boroughs spent several months of each year in the metropolis, and that as they therefore had a share in the enjoyments with its inhabitants, they should not object to an imperial contribution towards those improvements. Now, had it not struck the hon. and gallant Member that the county and borough Members who resided in the metropolis for the purpose of attending those Parliamentary duties paid for any enjoyments which the metropolis afforded them by the contribution which they, by their residence, made to the general wealth of the capital? In his (Mr. Newdegate's) opinion, that was quite a sufficient contribution for the enjoyments they received. He objected to this apparent tendency towards the adoption of the imperial system in France, involving, as it did, the neglect of the principle of old—always recognized in this country—that local wants should be supplied by rates levied upon the people more immediately benefited. Such a system was not English. The parochial system was
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  the one under which England had thriven, and if a division were taken on the second reading of the Bill now before the House, he should feel it to be his duty to vote against it.
  MR. BARROWremarked, he really thought that the present was an attempt to obtain money under false pretences. If it was proposed that money should be paid out of the public funds, such proposition should come before Parliament in a public and not in a private Bill. He should oppose the second reading of the Bill, for, if they passed, it would be used as a precedent next Session. They would be told that, with full notice of the object of the Bill, they had voted for it, and thereby established the principle to which the House seemed so much opposed.
  THE MARQUESS OF BLANDFORDsaid, he thought the House ought to be informed whether, in the event of any other application being made for the establishment of parks, the Government would propose a similar arrangement? It appeared to him that, if they voted this £50,000 for the Finsbury Park, they could not refuse to do the same to either of the two other metropolitan parks which it was proposed to form; and as those proposed parks were intended to be of more extensive character than that, the subject of the present Bill, the grants towards them should be proportionately larger. Another objection which he had to the proposal now before the House was, that it was an appeal ad misericordiam. The principles on which that House should proceed in a matter of rating were those of justice and equity; and he could not think this Bill founded on either justice or equity. It certainly was not just nor fair to make the people of the United Kingdom pay for improvements in Finsbury. A good deal had been said about the difficulty of raising, by rates, the entire sum necessary for the park; and the House was reminded that £50,000 was a small sum when coming from the Imperial Exchequer, but not one word had been said about the increased value which this park would give property in its vicinity. In plain terms, the proposal was one to tax the inhabitants of distant localities for that which would increase the value of private property in Finsbury. He could not congratulate the Metropolitan Board of Works on this achievement; and, anxious as he was to see the people of towns provided with

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  parks, he should vote against the second reading of this Bill.
  MR. DILLWYNobserved, he should like to know on what system they were to vote this £50,000. Were they in future to vote grants to every town or district in the country that wished to establish a park; or was it only to those localities which could bring pressure on the Government that they were to give these favours? If so, he very much feared that the people of poor towns would stand a bad chance in their candidature for a share of grants for parks. He thought that Finsbury did not come within the metropolis proper; it was not a district of the metropolis that people coining from the country enjoyed much advantage from.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, he thought the question whether Finsbury should or should not have a park had been remitted by common consent to the Metropolitan Board, but, that being the case, he certainly thought the Metropolitan Board ought to pay for it. He wished the House to understand the question now under its consideration. If it had been simply a question of whether Finsbury should have a park or not, he should not refuse to support the Bill. The point on which they were going to divide was the great question of, whether the Government, holding the public funds at their disposal, were to be at liberty to say to every deputation that waited upon them, "We'll give you £15,000, or £20,000," and so on. Against all such proceedings he should always be prepared to give his vote, and he thought that it was the duty of the metropolis to set an example against going to the central Government for aid for local purposes.
  SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, he thought that the issue proposed by the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken was not that which fairly arose upon the question that this Bill be read a second time. Any opposition with respect to a grant of money in aid of this park would properly arise upon a clause in the Bill, and not on the second reading; and, as an apprehension appeared to exist that the Government were under some engagement to advance money to other parks, he begged to state that no such engagement or understanding had been come to with respect to any other park whatever. It should not be forgotten that the constituents of the hon. and learned Member for the
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  Tower Hamlets had had a park provided for them at the public expense.
  MR. J. L. RICARDOobserved, that he looked upon this proposition as the first step towards a grant of £50,000 for the construction of a park in Finsbury; and; as his constituents were anxious to make a park for themselves, and were subscribing money for the purpose, he feared that he should not be able to persuade them that there was any justice in calling upon them to give money for a park in Finsbury, when the Finsbury people subscribed nothing for making a park in the Staffordshire potteries. Seeing the immense sums of money that were being expended in museums and galleries in the metropolis, he should on every occassion set his face against grants of public money for the local purposes of the metropolis.
  SIR BENJAMIN HALLsaid, he believed that there would be no opposition to the passing of this Bill, but for an implied understanding that an advance of £50,000 was to be proposed by the Government. As he felt that it would be extremely unadvisable to stop a Bill of this kind, which was the first production—if he might use the expression—of the Metropolitan Board of Works, he should like to test the opinion of the House on the question of whether a Vote of £50,000 ought to be submitted to the House or not. He would suggest, therefore, that some hon. Gentleman, who was opposed to the grant of £50,000 should move that the debate should be adjourned till that day fortnight, and that the decision come to should be taken as a test of the opinion of the House with respect to the grant. He proposed this course, because it would be very hard to throw out the Bill on the ground of an objection to the grant, and nothing else. If the House then should decide against the grant, it would be for the Metropolitan Board of Works to decide whether, under those circumstances, they would proceed with the Bill.
  MR. SLANEYsaid, he would support the Bill, on the ground that the proposed park was one which had been recommended by a Board of Commissioners, to be formed in the metropolis for the recreation of the working classes of the metropolis.
  MR. MILESsaid, that there could be no objection to the formation of this park by means of local taxation, but he had very great doubts as to the propriety of

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  that House voting £50,000 out of the public funds for a park at Finsbury. However, he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman (Sir B. Hall) that it would not be well for the House to altogether set themselves against this first and ricketty production of the Metropolitan Board of Works, and he should therefore move, as an Amendment, that the debate be now adjourned.
  MR. JOSEPH LOCKEobserved, that he had a strong objection to voting public money for local purposes; but he should not like, on that account, to stop the progress of this private Bill. He had no objection, therefore, to the postponement of the Bill for a fortnight, in order that the House might save itself from the bad principle of voting public money for local objects.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, it would be understood, then, that the principle on which the debate was adjourned was, that those who voted for the adjournment were against paying £50,000 of public money in aid of this park, but that they did not want to throw over the Bill if the persons interested in it would construct the park for themselves, without Government assistance.
  MR. T. DUNCOMBE,who was nearly inaudible, said, they ought to read the Bill a second time, and discuss the clauses in Committee, otherwise there was no hope of getting the Bill up to the House of Lords in time to be within the Standing Orders.
  MR. SPOONERsaid, that he hoped that, in the Vote about to be given, the hon. Members who, like himself, were opposed to this grant, would be distinctly understood to express their opinion that the public money ought not to be voted for such purposes, as that contemplated by the Bill. They were about to give the Government an opportunity of bringing the measure again before the House, and, at the same time, to give them an opportunity of knowing that they would emphatically resist any such proposition as that now under discussion.
  SIR BENJAMIN HALLsaid, that that was distinctly the understanding.
  SIR JOHN SHELLEYwished to say that he had been misunderstood. He had not spoken against metropolitan parks in general, but merely against the site selected for the Finsbury Park.
  MR. COXsaid he wished to point out that the present proposition was simply to make a park at the cost of the metropolis. It would be for the House to deal as it
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  chose with the proposition to vote public money in aid whenever that proposition should be submitted to the House.
  MR. GRIFFITH,taking out his watch, said, that if the House would indulge him for five minutes he should not detain them beyond that time. He merely wished to say that in voting for the second reading he did not consider he was pledging himself to the grant of £50,000. He certainly thought the House should read the Bill a second time, and he would vote accordingly.
  Motion made and Question put, "That the Debate be now adjourned."
  The House divided:—Ayes 214; Noes 123: Majority 91.
  Debate adjourned till Thursday.

ARMY OFFICERS ON HALF-PAY.

  QUESTION.
  GENERAL WINDHAM, said he would beg to ask the under Secretary for War if it be the intention of the Government upon reinstating officers in their former regiments, who have been compelled to go on half-pay, to put them back into that position they would have held in the regiment had they never been placed on half-pay? Should the officers who have been compelled to go on half-pay, for the convenience of the country, be put into regiments in which they had not previously served, does the Government intend letting them take regimental rank according to the date of their commissions previous to being placed on half-pay?
  SIR JOHN RAMSDEN: Sir, with regard to the officers to whom the hon. and gallant general has referred the Government do not purpose to allow them, when restored to full-pay, to take regimental rank according to the date of the commissions which they held previous to their being placed on half-pay. I may, however, state that the Government are making every exertion to remedy the hardship which must necessarily result from any large reduction of the army, such as that which has recently taken place, by bringing these officers back into active service whenever opportunity offers.

DISBANDING OF NATIVE INDIAN TROOPS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. BRYDGES WILLYAMSsaid, he wished to ask the President of the Board of Control whether it is the intention of

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  the Government to disband any of the Native troops in India, and if so, what number?
  MR. VERNON SMITHsaid, the 19th Regiment of Native Infantry had been disbanded in India in consequence of mutiny, but there was no intention of disbanding any others, unless—which he trusted and believed would not be the case—a similar insubordination should be manifested.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE VICTORIA CROSS.

  QUESTION.
  GENERAL CODRINGTONwould ask the Under Secretary for War whether the Regiments and Battalions ordered for the parade in Hyde Park on the 26th instant will be those which served in the Crimea; and, if not, what objection there is to battalions in the neighbourhood of London, or detachments from them, being brought up for that purpose?
  SIR JOHN RAMSDEN: Sir, in answer to the hon. and gallant General's question, I beg to state that the great majority of the battalions and regiments which are to be on the parade in Hyde Park on Friday next are those which have served in the Crimea. There will be present a park of the Royal Artillery, a troop of Horse Artillery, two field batteries, two regiments of cavalry—namely, the 6th Dragoons and the 11th Hussars—three battalions of the Guards who were in the Crimea, and two regiments of the line—namely, the 79th, and the Rifle Brigade who had also been in the Crimea.

FISCAL AFFAIRS (IRELAND BILL).

  LEAVE.
  SIR DENHAM NORREYSsaid, that he was about to ask leave to bring in a Bill for the better management of the fiscal affairs of counties in Ireland, though he must at the same time admit that he had little hope of being able to remove the prejudices of the Secretary of Ireland in favour of the present fiscal system. The object he had in view was to carry out in Ireland the recommendation which had been so strongly urged by a Royal Commission appointed a few years ago to inquire into the management of county rates in England; namely, the formation of Central County Financial Boards. Now, if for some years back there had been considerable agitation in this part of the kingdom in favour of the establishment
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  of such Boards, and if, with the present system of managing the county rates in England, there had arisen a demand for reform, how much greater was the necessity for such reform in Ireland, where the system was so inferior to that in England. Instead of the management of the county rates being vested in the magistrates, men of position and character, and whose office was continuous, under the system which prevailed in Ireland, taxes amounting to nearly a £1,000,000 a year, were imposed by a few gentlemen selected as a grand jury at the caprice of the high sheriff? Now it might be supposed that the gentlemen who served on a grand jury were popular in the county; but that was far from the fact, that the most popular men were those who were least likely to be placed upon it. The body, too, was an ephemeral body. Its existence numbered only a few days. No responsibility whàtever attached to its proceedings, for its members might never be required to serve in that capacity again. One of the most extraordinary of their functions was, that they appointed another Board, called the Board of Associated Ratepayers, which had to act to a certain degree in controlling the grand juries themselves. The grand jury were selected by the high sheriff, and the associated ratepayers were selected by the grand jury. In this way the grand jury selected from 100 of the highest ratepayers in every barony a certain number of persons to be the representatives of that barony. Of the number so nominated, one half are selected by ballot, who, together with the magistrates, are called the associated ratepayers. There was, therefore, no responsibility on the part of the grand jury, except to the high sheriff; and no responsibility on the part of the associated ratepayers except to the grand jury. In fact, to use the words of the Commissioners, these associated ratepayers were the nominees of the body which they were called upon to control; for there is nothing to prevent the grand jury from nominating those only who were of the same opinion with themselves on any one question whatever. With such a body in control, and such a body to make presentments, it was in the power and management of the high sheriff to accomplish any job which he wished to accomplish. Indeed, in his younger days it used to be a matter of courtesy on the I part of the grand jury to pass any job that the high sheriff wanted. The whole

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  system was one of clanship and partiality. He held in his hand a book written by a county surveyor containing many condemnations of the system, and such descriptions of its operation, that, as an Irishman, he was ashamed to read them. He did not hesitate to say that the grand jury system had done more to demoralize Ireland than any other institution could have effected. It was to put an end to such a system, under which £1,000,000 of money was expended, that he asked for leave to bring in a Bill on the subject. The House of Commons, the Municipal Corporation, and the Colonial Legislatures, had been reformed, and they had even made a feint at reforming the Corporation of London. What then, was there so sacred about the grand jury system in Ireland that they dared not attempt to improve it? Now, there was an organization in existence in Ireland which managed an expenditure similar in amount to that at present regulated by the grand juries, and which was found to work harmoniously. He alluded to the poor law system and to the boards of guardians; and he saw no reason why an analogous system to that should not be adopted on this subject. This would be a, very simple arrangement, and one with which the people were well acquainted; and under it every man would vote for his road warden in the same way as he now did for his guardian. In the boards thus formed every part of the county would be represented by its warden; and instead of being ephemeral bodies like the grand juries they ought to be continued in office for a period of three or four years, in order to give them a feeling of responsibility. When men were elected by their fellow citizens to manage their roads and bridges, and would feel that a serious public responsibility rested upon them, and there would be some security that they would act fairly. An additional guarantee for their impartiality and efficiency would be afforded by the association of the gentry and the educated classes of their district, the magistrates being ex officio members of the board. If ex officio guardians frequently neglected their duties, at least this class of guardians were as inefficient in England as in Ireland, as was proved by the Return of the Preston union; but he believed that if a system of the kind he proposed was established there would always be a sufficient attendance on the part of magistrates and gentlemen interested in keeping down the
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  expense of the roads of the country. A system, exactly similar, was now in existence in Belgium, and worked admirably; and since the year 1848 a like system had been in operation in Canada—in the last named country every township containing 100 or more freeholders was constituted a body corporate, and endowed with very Full powers. His proposal, therefore, was nothing new. He believed that as the proposed councils would represent the property, the intelligence, and the honesty of the country, much larger functions than those connected merely with roads and public buildings might safely be entrusted to them. He was in favour of confiding to them, under certain restrictions, some of the powers now exercised by Committees of that House, which were often necessarily ignorant of the wants and feelings of the particular localities on the interests of which they had to adjudicate. This, however, formed no essential part of his Bill, into which it would be open to hon. Members to introduce such Amendments as they deemed expedient. All he asked the House to do that night was to pass a vote of censure upon the present grand jury system, and to affirm the principle that representation should be combined with taxation.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the Management of the Fiscal Affairs of Counties in Ireland by Electoral Boards."
  COLONEL FRENCHsaid, he was prepared, notwithstanding the hard words which the hon. Member for Mallow had spoken against the grand jury system, to meet him face to face in its defence. The Irish Members had frequently permitted the hon. Member's Bill to be printed, but never till now was there an opportunity for debating it. There was no chance of the hon. Member obtaining a second reading for his Bill, and he (Colonel French) would therefore meet the present Motion with a direct negative. It was very generally admitted that, in some minor respects, Ireland possessed advantages over this country. One of the greatest of these advantages was its excellent fiscal system for county purposes. That system, which began about a century ago, and was improved some years since, was simple and economical. It had given satisfaction to the country gentry, the large landowners, and the small occupiers; but the hon. Member proposed to destroy it, and substitute a cumbrous and expensive system,

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  of which it was evident that he himself (Sir D. Norreys) had not a clear idea, and of whose expensiveness he defied him to make even an approximate calculation. The hon. Baronet had referred to the management of the highways, but he (Colonel French) thought that no better evidence could be afforded of the efficiency of the system than existed in connection with this point. The present system had enabled Ireland to construct and keep in repair her roads better and more cheaply than any other country in Europe—whether France, in which country the roads were first made by the State, or Belgium where they were made by communes, or this country, in which they were made by private subscriptions. Under it Ireland kept in excellent repair 43,000 miles of road, in respect of which not one shilling was due, while in this country, under a different system, 26,000 miles of road were in a bankrupt condition for the sum of £9,000,000. The amount annually raised in Ireland for the construction and maintenance of highways was only £367,000; and, while the preliminary expenses attendant upon the making of a road in this country were £600 or £700, in Ireland they were only about 50s. The hon. Member for Mallow had said that the Irish grand jury system was nothing but a vast "job," but he (Colonel French) denied that any jobbing did exist, or could exist under that system. Of the whole sum annually levied with the consent of the grand jury—namely, about £900,000, only a small portion of it (between £300,000 and £400,000) was under their control. All the private, as well as the main roads, were kept in good repair under the existing system, and instead of there being that extravagant expenditure of which the hon. Member spoke, it was really surprizing that so much work was done with so small a sum. The grand jury could not originate anything. They had no independent power of levying any money. They could merely exercise the power of vetoing the propositions of the associated ratepayers. Ample opportunity was given of appealing against those propositions. If the appealing party were not satisfied with the decision of the judge appealed to, the matter might, by means of a traverse, be submitted to the opinion of a jury of the district proposed to be benefited. The levying of the road rates was, in fact, in the hands of those who were most interested in the roads being kept in an excellent
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  state of repair, and in an economical expenditure of the rates; he alluded to the chief farmers of the country, whose object was to have their produce despatched to market quickly and economically. The construction of works was submitted by advertisement to competition, and the lowest tender had to be accepted. Presentments were made in open court, in the presence of the residents of the barony, of the county surveyor, and of an officer appointed by the Executive Government. Under such circumstances jobbing was impossible; in fact there was no room for it. No system was so perfect but he admitted that it was open to improvement; and he (Colonel French) had no objection to reform, but this Bill did not reform; it only substituted a cumbrous and expensive, for an easy and inexpensive system: and while, in appearance, it admitted the representative principle, by its provisions for divisional councils and other arrangements of the same character, in reality it was one of the most autocratic measures ever propounded in that House, for it would hand over altogether the power of the grand juries to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The cost of working the measure of his (Colonel French's) hon. Friend would be £140,000 a year, in addition to heavy law charges and expenses for 288 travelling Members of these councils, together with compensation for reduced offices as a matter of course. His hon. Friend was entitled to great credit for industry and ingenuity, but he had collected together a set of most unmanageable details, and had succeeded in producing the most objectionable measure he (Colonel French) had seen during an experience of twenty years. He trusted, therefore, that the Government would not sanction the measure, and for his own part he felt bound to meet it with a direct negative.
  MR. BAGWELLsaid, he thought this question relating to grand juries was one which must be very soon entertained by Parliament, and which could not remain much longer in abeyance. In reality the system was perhaps the greatest anomaly which existed at the present day. Grand juries could at any time overrule the cesspayers, and the result was that in this case there existed a system of taxation without representation. Under these circumstances, though it was too late to attempt to legislate on this subject in the present Session, he did hope that now they had as Chief Secretary for Ireland an Irish

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  gentleman who had been for many years conversant with this subject, the right hon. Gentleman would either himself bring forward or would support such a measure as would meet the wishes of the people of Ireland on this subject. He was sorry that he felt obliged to vote against the Motion of the hon. Baronet the Member for Mallow (Sir D. Norreys), but that hon. Gentleman would make a bad system ten thousand times worse by his proposal.
  MR. M'MAHONsaid, that the hon. and gallant Member for Roscommon had not applied himself to the question before the House, which was, not "Aye or No, is the proposition of the hon. Member a good one," but "Aye or No, is the grand-jury system worthy of support?" Now, from Thom's Statistics, it appeared that this species of taxation had been constantly increasing. From 1836 to 1849, when the charge for the constabulary force was removed, the county cess was never less than £1,000,000, and sometimes much more. Now, although a charge of £500,000 for the constabulary force had been removed, the amount of cess in 1855 was as much as £978,000. In 1854 the entire revenue of Ireland was about £5,000,000, so that the tax in question was a fifth part of the whole revenue of the county. It was more than the whole revenue of Switzerland and twice that of Greece. He was firmly persuaded that there was not a man out of Roscommon who was satisfied with the present grand-jury system, and he could quote to almost any extent from the evidence of witnesses from Armagh, Tyrone, and other parts of Ireland, given before the Devon Commission, to show that the county cess was a most intolerable grievance, which required to be remedied. But the greatest number of complaints against the present system came from the county of Kerry, which was represented by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. Even in the province of Ulster the county cess was considered the greatest grievance of the country. Mr. O'Hara and Lieutenant Colonel Blacker gave evidence against it. Mr. Sproule said it was the most grievous tax the country laboured under, and an intolerable burden which required redress. The House must recollect that the cess was imposed by gentlemen who happened to be chosen by the High Sheriff; and even the High Sheriff could not always exercise his own discretion in the appointment of those gentlemen, for it was not
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  many years ago that a High Sheriff had been horsewhipped for not putting a person on the grand jury. The fact was that this was an old standing grievance, to remedy which little or nothing had been done for upwards of a quarter of a century. So long ago as 1830 the Select Committee on the state of the poor in Ireland expressed their decided opinion that, in order to impose some check upon the expenditure, the occupying tenant should be released from the burden of paying the whole of the county assessment, and that such assessment should, in whole or in part, be paid by the landlord. That was the view which was all but universally entertained in Ireland, the people being quite agreed either that the landowners should pay half the cess, or that the class who imposed the rate should be elected by the ratepayers. In England there was a representation as a check on the expenditure, but that was not the case in Ireland. It had been said that a great improvement had taken place in the system since the appointment of associated cesspayers, under the 6 & 7 Will. IV., in 1836; but the fact was, that those persons were named by the grand jurors, who usually nominated, not the best financiers in their neighbourhood, but the men who were the most facile and most likely to concur in any job that might be proposed. Previously to 1835 the county cess in Ireland had never, but upon one occasion, amounted to as much as £1,000,000; but since that year it had always exceeded that sum, and in 1849 it reached £1,300,000. The cesspayers, therefore, so far from contributing to reduce the rate, were only made the cloak for more jobbery and increased expenditure. He was satisfied that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland could not confer a greater benefit on the country than by acceding to the Motion of the hon. Member for Mallow; and, if he did so, it would be then open to the Government to appoint a Committee, or a Commission, in the vacation, to consider the whole subject. Whatever the House might do, however, he trusted that they would not, by agreeing to the arguments of the hon. and gallant Member for Roscommon, proclaim that the present grand-jury system of Ireland met with their approbation.
  MR. COGANobserved, that he should vote for the Motion of the hon. Member for Mallow without committing himself to all the details of the proposition. The affirmation of that Motion would be merely

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  an expression of disapproval of the present system of grand juries in Ireland, and that a representative system should be substituted. In the presentment sessions it was notorious that the voice of the elected ratepayers was always overborne when any question came forward in which the gentry of the county were interested. On a recent occasion a presentment for a large sum, of money, £3,000, was applied for in the county he represented. The elected ratepayers for fourteen baronies appeared, and out of the fourteen baronies nine voted against the presentment and five for it; but thirty-five magistrates came down, many of whom had seldom or never attended petty sessions, and the presentment was passed, against the wish of the ratepayers. Therefore some remedy ought to be applied to this state of things, and he suggested that some system might judiciously be adopted similar to that of a board of guardians, composed partly of elected and partly of ex officio members. The expenditure would then be more economically administered, and great advantage would result from the association together of different classes of the community. He thought the county cess should be distributed between the occupier and the owner. He trusted the Government would give an assurance that the grand-jury system would receive their consideration, and that they would at some future period introduce a measure to remedy the evils which on all hands were acknowledged to exist.
  MR. H. A. HERBERTsaid, that the hon. Member who introduced the present Motion described him as entirely prejudiced in favour of the grand jury system, and said that he was so accustomed to rule everything according to his own way in his own county, that he would hardly fail to cling to a system, the incidents of which were demoralizing and under which jobs of every description were sanctioned. He must deny altogether the possession of any such influence. There existed in his county a body of gentlemen quite as independent as himself, and therefore incapable of being influenced in the way described. He was not prepared to state that the grand jury system was all perfection. It had certain defects, and he should be glad to do all in his power to remedy them, but he could not agree that they were of such a nature as to justify the very strong description given by the hon. Gentleman He bad been for twenty years a member
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  of a grand jury, and he had seen, year by year, great improvement in the condition of the roads in his own county, combined with more economical management of expenditure. The system, with all its imperfections, worked on the whole exceedingly well. He was quite willing to admit that, with respect to the formation of baronial-road sessions, he should like to see a more popular system of election introduced, and therefore the hon. Member would see that he was not so bigoted as the hon. Member had supposed in favour of everything connected with the grand jury system. He would be satisfied if they got for those sessions as popular a system of election as was established for boards of guardians; but if the hon. Member meant to say that no such thing as a job was perpetrated by the Poor-law Boards, he must express his dissent, while I admitting that the poor-law system had generally worked well in Ireland. At the same time it must be recollected that, according to the existing practice, all works originated with the road sessions, and not with the grand juries. While stating that he was ready to accede to a liberal modification of the grand jury system in the point he had adverted to, he would guard himself against being supposed to adopt the views expressed by the hon. Mover of the present Motion on that part of the subject. With regard to the incidence of the tax—theoretically it might not be quite just; but if a new arrangement of it were made it would have to be on a principle different from that under the Poor Law. He did not think it would be fair to take away all power from the grand jury, and at the same time to fix them with half the taxation. It was true that that principle was adopted with regard to the poor-law taxation, but in that case there was this distinction, that the poor-law rate was an entirely new tax, whereas the grand jury cess was an old one, and lands were let and taken subject to it. The hon. Member was also unfortunate in his allusions to England, because not only were the highway rates in that country paid by the occupier, but also the whole of the poor rate. The hon. Member had alluded to the Report of the Commission; but if he had read more of it he would have found that the Commissioners were far from recommending the extensive change which he proposed, and that what they recommended was something totally different from the sweeping away of the whole system and

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  the substitution of another in its place, a change the benefit of which was extremely doubtful. The want of continuous action between one grand jury and another had been also referred to. It was perfectly true that when grand juries were broken up they could not supervise the expenditure of the counties, but the remedy recommended in the Report was not the abolition of the grand jury system, but the creation of financial committees, to be entrusted with certain powers. He must remind hon. Gentlemen that the grand juries had no power whatever of originating taxation, and that when they appealed to English notions with regard to the abuses of the grand jury system, they spoke of a system which no longer existed, for the Act of 1836 provided that all taxation should originate with the body of cess-payers, and much embarrassment was frequently occasioned by the stringent wording of the law, which rendered it impossible for grand juries to take the initiative with regard to measures of taxation. The Bill of his hon. Friend was so voluminous that he would not attempt to enter into its details. He (Mr. Herbert) did not mean to say the grand jury system was perfect and incapable of improvement, but it was impossible that so voluminous a measure, containing 190 clauses, introduced on the 23rd of June, could have any chance of passing into law during the present Session; and, if his hon. Friend was simply anxious that his propositions should be known and considered, he had already had the opportunity of printing and circulating his Bill. If, therefore, his hon. Friend pressed the Motion, he (Mr. Herbert) would deem it his duty, without any discourteous feeling, to vote against the introduction of the measure.
  MR. MAGUIREsaid, he had expected more from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland. The admissions of the right hon. Gentleman, however, proved that the hon. Member for Mallow has rendered a public service in bringing this subject, Session after Session, under the attention of the House. He (Mr. Maguire) believed, however, from the experience he bad had on such matters, that, if any amendment was to be effected in the grand jury law of Ireland, it must originate with the Government, and he thought it was the duty of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Herbert)—whom as an Irishman he (Mr. Maguire) was glad to see in his present office—in conjunction with
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  his hon. and learned Colleague who was well acquainted with the subject, to devote his attention to it during the recess, with the view of preparing a measure which might be submitted to Parliament next Session. His hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Roscommon had intimated that the grand jury system was popular in Ireland, but he (Mr. Maguire) ventured to say, that there was scarcely any institution in that country which was at the present moment more unpopular. In proof of this fact, he might mention that at the last election nearly forty Liberal Members were returned, who were pledged to their constituents to endeavour to effect some improvement in the grand jury law. He (Mr. Maguire) could state, that the associated ratepayers regarded their functions as a mere farce, and were disposed to shrink from their discharge. The fact was, that they had no real power, for six, or eight, or ten, associated ratepayers, might be overridden by a "whip" of some thirty or forty magistrates. The great principle of the British constitution was, that taxation and representation should be co-existent, and he believed that if the principle were fully carried out, the ratepayers would discharge their duties as anxiously and as assiduously as the humblest members of the boards of guardians. It would be well for the public interest, if there was a popular form of election; and he called on the Secretary for Ireland to put a Bill on the table next Session in which that principle was recognized, believing, if the right hon. Gentleman did so, that every Irish Member on both sides of the House would give in his adhesion to such a measure. He (Mr. Maguire) could conscientiously say, on his own knowledge, that the existing system was unpopular, and that the right hon. Gentleman would do a most meritorious act, if he gave this subject his serious consideration in the recess, and came prepared in the next Session of Parliament with a matured measure for dealing with it. He (Mr. Maguire) should feel it his duty to vote with the hon. Baronet (Sir D. Norreys) if he pressed his Motion on this occasion to a division, but he thought at the same time that the hon. Baronet, having done a great deal to advance the question, might fairly yield to the suggestion of the Secretary for Ireland, and withdraw his Bill, without seeking the additional triumph of a small minority.
  MR. GREERsaid, he could assure the

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  House that the grand jury system was quite as unpopular in that part of Ireland with which he was connected, as it had been described to be in other districts of the country. He had hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland would have been prepared to announce that the Government was about to take up this subject and deal with it in some way calculated to allay the existing discontent. Not a single hon. Member who had spoken during the debate, not even the hon. Member for Roscommon, had ventured to deny that it was capable of reform. He (Mr. Greer), while approving the principle of the Bill of the hon. Baronet (Sir D. Norreys), thought, at the same time, the hon. Baronet would do wisely not to press his Motion to a division after the speech of the Secretary for Ireland. But, inasmuch as the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Herbert) had said, the grand jury system required reform, he (Mr. Greer) thought the right hon. Gentleman was bound to urge the matter on the attention of the Government, so that a, remedy might be applied to what he admitted to be a manifest grievance. With respect to the associated ratepayers, he did not think so ill of them as some hon. Members who had taken part in the debate. He believed that in some districts they were useful in many respects, and especially in preventing jobs, but they were not a sufficient check on the profuse and unnecessary expenditure of money by the grand jury. For his part, he should like to see the grand jury itself an elective body, chosen directly by the ratepayers, after the example of the poor-law system, which had worked so well in practice. There was also another matter to which he wished to direct attention. Many items of expenditure the associated ratepayers had no control over. For example, there was in each county a treasurer, at a considerable salary, although the money was received and all payments made by the Bank, and the treasurer never received a farthing of the funds. This abuse and many others connected with the grand jury system called loudly for some remedy.
  MR. BOWYERsaid, that after reminding the House that he himself brought it a Bill on this subject during the last Parliament, he wished to observe that the Secretary for Ireland had admitted that would be desirable to introduce the principle of representations into the road sessions.
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  In doing that, the right hon. Gentleman had conceded the principle of representation; but if that principle were right and proper with regard to the road sessions, why should it not be so with respect to the grand jury itself? He was told that the expenditure originated with he road sessions, and that the grand jury had no power to originate anything; but it ought to be remembered that, under the existing system, the Lord Lieutenant, as he representative of the Government, appointed the sheriffs, the sheriffs appointed the grand jurors, the grand jurors appointed the associated cesspayers, and the associated cesspayers had to determine what were the proposals which should be submitted to the consideration of the grand juries. Now, that system appeared to him to resemble a vicious circle; and he certainly thought that it ought to be amended at the earliest possible moment. It would, no doubt, be an improvement if the associated cesspayers were elective, but he wanted to know why the grand jury should not be elective also? It had been said during the debate that the grand jury system was one of great purity, but in answer to that be could state that in the county of Louth, with which he was connected, it had not that reputation, but, on the contrary, gave great dissatisfaction. He contended that if even it did not give opportunities for jobbery, the system was wrong in principle. He was told—though he was not in the House at the time—that the hon. Member for Roscommon, while opposing the Motion before the House, still conceded the principle of representation. Why, that was the very principle on which the Bill of the hon. Member for Mallow (Sir D. Norreys) proceeded, for it provided that those who managed the cess should be elected by those who paid the cess, and he (Mr. Bowyer) confessed he wag disappointed at not having heard a fuller recognition of that principle by the Secretary for Ireland. If the hon. Member for Mallow pressed his Motion to a division, he (Mr. Bowyer) should go into the lobby with him, because he had no doubt the principle of his Bill was a sound one. He had, however, a notion that it was too complicated a measure, and was in that respect not so good as the Bill which he (Mr. Bowyer) himself introduced last Session, in which he endeavoured to avoid the evil of complexity by dealing only with the want of representation in the grand jury system.
  LORD CLAUD HAMILTONcould not agree in the justice of the statement of the hon. Member (Mr. Greer) as to the great unpopularity of the grand jury system in the north of Ireland. He (Lord C. Hamilton) had enjoyed extensive opportunities of becoming acquainted with the opinions of the grand juries and the farmers in that part of the country, and he could state that, as far as his knowledge went, the Members of both those classes considered the Bill before the House to be as absurd a measure as it would be possible to devise. The hon. Member (Sir D. Norreys) had omitted the effects of publicity in moderating any mischievous tendencies in the grand jury system, and without publicity his new boards would be nests of jobbing. The Act of 1836 was, no doubt, an improvement, but it had been followed by an increase of expenditure, and would not the same result follow the adoption of the hon. Gentleman's Bill? He would admit that of late years the practice had been for the grand jury to select the associated ratepayers, but he denied that the practice was according to law. The reason was that farmers now attended more to their own affairs, and it was difficult to get respectable farmers to come to a baronial sessions, and still more to lose two or three days in a county town at assizes. Therefore, practically, the grand jury were obliged to nominate the associated ratepayers, but they would be delighted to see the farmers take a more active part in the management of county affairs. It was said that the associated ratepayers were sometimes overwhelmed by the magistrates, but in the case alluded to by an hon. Member (Mr. Cogan) the presentment was one made by the county at large. It would, however, be so contrary to everything right and proper for the magistrates to come to the baronial sessions and overwhelm the associated ratepayers that such an interference could not fail to be visited by the severest condemnation of the public press. He should be glad to see some changes in the grand jury system, but he protested against the wholesale condemnation of that system which the House had heard from the hon. Member for Mallow.
  MR. M'CANNremarked that he would advise his hon. Friend the Member for Mallow to leave the matter in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland, who, he trusted, would be
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  prepared before next Session with a measure on the subject.
  SIR DENHAM NORREYSsaid, that he had forborne to make any statement condemnatory of the grand jury system upon his own authority. The Commissioners stated, so long ago as 1840, that the associated ratepayers were selected by the grand jury, and that they did not attend except to agree to some job or other. There could, therefore, be no connection between the practice of selection by the grand jury and the present prosperity of the agricultural interest, as had been suggested by the noble Lord (Lord C. Hamilton). He had no great hopes of any efficient measure from the Secretary for Ireland. He was a Liberal, and had shown a disposition to act liberally, but he doubted whether he would touch the grand jury class, to which he himself belonged. The discussion that had taken place that night would, however, go before the country, which would judge between him and the right hon. Gentleman. He had only to add that he would accede to what appeared to be the wish of the House, and did not intend to press his Motion.
  Motion by leave withdrawn.

GROWTH OF COTTON IN INDIA.

  MOTION. PREVIOUS QUESTION MOVED.
  MR. J. B. SMITHsaid, that the importance of the subject to which he was about to call the attention of the House could scarcely be overrated, and when he remembered the eloquence and ability with which it had been advocated in that House by gentlemen who were no longer Members of it, he confessed that he felt somewhat dismayed at the task he had undertaken. He begged, therefore, at the outset to bespeak the kind indulgence of the House. There exists so great an indisposition to change in this country, that it is not until evils have accumulated to an unendurable extent that the Legislature can be induced to grapple with them. It was not until Ireland was overtaken by a fearful famine that we could be persuaded to abandon the folly of depending on one source of supply for our necessary food, and so in the case of India, hundreds of thousands of the population were periodically swept away by famines occasioned by droughts, and yet the attention of the Government was not directed to these enormous evils until the serious financial

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  embarrassment they occasioned forced them to adopt some means of preventing the recurrence of these deplorable visitations. Hence the commencement of the great Ganges Canal and some other works of irrigation. We are now suffering from a, short supply of the important article of cotton, and it was not improbable that that circumstance may be the means of forcing our attention to India, and may lead to important changes in our Indian policy and Government. The wise commercial policy established in England in 1846 had produced results beyond the most sanguine expectations. Our foreign trade had doubled within the last ten years, and an enormously increased demand had been created for the raw materials of all our manufactures, the consumption of which had overtaken the production. A deficiency in the supply of cotton was consequently experienced, and many of our manufacturers were at present working short time. This state of things had led them to reflect on their present position and future prospects. The latter were by no means flattering. This great manufacture depends chiefly on one source of supply for its raw material. Of the 900,000,000 1bs. of cotton-wool which we consumed last year 700,000,000 1bs. was the produce of America. The result of this state of things was that great fluctuations in price were experienced, arising from variations in the seasons, while there was also the additional disadvantage and danger that the greater portion of the supply was the product of slave labour. In these circumstances it was some consolation to our manufacturers to know from inquiries, which they had instituted, that we had in our own territories a larger portion of land suitable for the growth of cotton than was possessed by any other country in the world. We had an abundance of land in the West Indies, but there existed a deficiency of cheap labour. In the East Indies, also, we had an unlimited area of suitable land, while labour was abundant and cheap. It was chiefly to India, therefore, that our manufacturers directed their attention. The Committee moved for by Mr. Bright in 1848, on the growth of cotton in India, reported that that country was capable of furnishing an unlimited supply of cotton. Why, then, it would be asked, did not our manufacturers send their agents to India to procure this important article; and how
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  was it that Englishmen who are to be found in every other part of the world will not go to India? This is a question which the Indian Government are called upon to answer. Now, within the last fifteen years upwards of 3,000,000 of our people have emigrated to different parts of the world, but very few of them have gone to India. According to an official return the number of British subjects engaged in trade and commerce in India, and unconnected with the Company's service, was, in 1852, in Bengal 273, in Madras 37, and in Bombay only 7. In the towns, however, including Calcutta and other popular places, there were 10,000 such persons, while in the country there were but 317. Was it on account of the climate that Englishmen will not go to India? Why, there was no country, however inhospitable its climate, in which they were not found in pursuit of gain, or the improvement of their own condition. It could not be the climate which kept our countrymen from settling in India. There was no lack of Englishmen anxious to enter the East India Company's service. If India, then, was the only country to which our people did not transfer their energy, capital, and skill, by which it would be so much benefited, that fact alone was a sufficient ground for inquiry. The reason why Englishmen did not go to India was, he believed, because the Indian Government was synonymous with bad government. In that country there was an absence of what the noble Lord the Member for London lately described as the very object for which all Governments were established—namely, the protection of person and property. In India there are no roads, no enterprise, and the people are naked and poverty-stricken, and, except in the province of Bengal, no man can own a single acre of land in fee simple. These, surely, were not very encouraging conditions to tempt an Englishman either to embark his capital or to settle there. In England we have 120,000 miles of road, but India, a country nearly as large as all Europe, had only three or four thousand miles of metalled road. The Bombay merchants emplained that they could not get into the country because there were no roads or bridges; and, for the same reason, the people in the country could not come to them. In a Memorial presented to Lord Dalhousie by the leading merchants and bankers of Bombay in 1850 it was stated—

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  "'Bombay possesses scarcely any roads. So miserably inadequate are the means of communication with the interior, that many valuable articles of produce are, for want of carriage and a market, often left to perish in the fields, while the cost of those which do find their way to this port is enormously enhanced, to the extent sometimes of 200 per cent; considerable quantities never reach their destination at all, and the quality of the remainder is almost universally deteriorated.' Colonel Grant said that, 'Of the vast number of sheep fed in Candeish and the Deccan which are sent down to the Bombay market, not one-third reach Bombay alive, and those greatly reduced in flesh.' Mr. Mackie, who was sent out by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce for the purpose of inquiring into the facilities which that country afforded for the growth of cotton, confirmed these statements, and said, 'It is a misnomer to call the rude tracks in Guzerat roads.' He added that, 'In the civilized and ordinary sense of the term, there are none in the province.' He relates that it took him seven hours to travel twelve miles in a bullock-cart on the road between Jambooseer and the port of Tankaria, and long before he arrived at the end of his journey there was scarcely a bone of his body which was not the seat of pain. 'On the way the mamlutdar amused us with several stories of accidents which had occurred on the road, one of which related to the sad fate of a trader, who received such a jolt as made him inadvertently bite the end of his own tongue off. Nor is this road a mere byway leading to a village or two, but a great thoroughfare, forming the main outlet to a large and rich tract of country.'"
  General Briggs, when examined by the Committee on Cotton of 1848, of which he (Mr. Smith) had the honour to be a member, related a story which was almost incredible. He said—
  ''During the campaign of 1846, 100 officers were required to be sent 1,500 to 1,600 miles, from Calcutta to the banks of the Sutlej, and were obliged, from the state of the roads, to be carried in palanquins, so that 7,200 men must have been put into requisition to carry them, and yet only 30 of the 100 arrived before the campaign was over."
  Travellers related such a state of things in Turkey as the evidence of a barbarous Government, but one can scarcely realize it in a country which has been governed 100 years by Englishmen. The hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Mangles), when examined before the Cotton Committee, admitted that it was the duty of the Government to make roads, works of irrigation, and other public works in India. He was asked the question, "What revenue have you received during the last fourteen years from India?" His answer was, "We have received about £300,000,000." He was then asked, "What have you spent in roads, works of irrigation, and public works?" and his reply was, "£1,400,000," being about
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  1d. for every £1 they had received. But even if roads were made into the country, the extreme sterility of the soil of India afforded but little attraction to European settlers. An acre of land only produced from 50 1bs. to 70 1bs. of clean cotton; but in America the same quantity of land produced 400 1bs. The land in America was watered during the whole cotton-growing season, while in India it was parched sometimes for about eight or nine months; by a burning sun. Nevertheless, more; rain falls in India than in America, and if it were collected, instead of being allowed to run away uselessly to the sea, the land in India might be made as productive as the land in America, and its growth increased to four or five times its present extent. Colonel Cotton thus strikingly illustrated the folly and ignorance of the Indian Government:—
  "The savages of Australia trod upon gold for hundreds of years, while they were often in want of food, and always without a rag of clothing; and very similar has been the state of things in India. With an unlimited supply of water within reach, which if applied to purposes of irrigation would more than provide for every possible want, the people of India have been generally barely supplied with the necessaries of life, and often, so entirely without them as to perish by hundreds of thousands; and their European rulers, with this treasure within their reach, of far greater value in proportion to the cost of obtaining it than the richest gold mines in the world, have been unable to make their income equal their expenditure."
  The native Governments appreciated this invaluable method of increasing the fertility of the soil, as is evidenced by the ruins of great works of irrigation in all parts of the country; and we have instructive proofs of the consequences of the destruction of works of this kind in the present condition of Egypt, ancient Nineveh, and Babylon, once the seats of wealth and civilization; but now, on account of the non-irrigation of the land, the soil which maintained their vast populations, is become a sandy desert, and from the same causes millions of acres of land in India were now lying waste. By means of irrigation the growth of cotton in India might be increased four or five-fold, and greatly improved in quality. He did not mean to say that the Government had not constructed any works of irrigation. He had already mentioned that they had constructed the Ganges Canal, which, although forced upon it to prevent famines, was unquestionably a great work. Including its branches it extended 800 miles. [Mr. MANGLES: Hear, hear!] He understood that

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  cheer of the hon. Member, he knew that the East India Company was very fond of boasting of it, but this country might with equal wisdom have folded its arms, and satisfied itself with the boast of having completed a great work when it had made its first railway from Manchester to Liverpool, for that railway only bears about the same proportion to the railway wants of England that the Ganges Canal bears to the irrigation wants of India. One of the great obstacles to Europeans settling in India was the system of land tenure. The Government of India claimed to be the owners of all the land in that country; and except in the province of Bengal nobody could own an acre of land in fee simple. The question of land tenure in India was most important. In the United States and in the British colonies, as well as in India, the Government claim to be the owners of all the land; but in these countries it is sold to the people in fee simple for ever. In India the Government retain it as landlords. Every field in this vast empire is measured and assessed, and by whatever nominal tenure the land is held, the real tenure is an annual settlement, because the assessment nearly always being higher than the ryot was able to pay, a yearly inquiry was necessary to determine how much the cultivator could pay. That system of annual settlement of the land necessarily gave immense power to a swarm of corrupt Government officials; but he had no doubt that his hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Mangles) would call this system the perfection of human wisdom. He would not enter into a discussion of that part of the subject, but he would read to them the opinion expressed by the Directors of the East India Company in 1809, which appeared to him (Mr. J. B. Smith) to be so consistent with common sense that it was surprising the system had continued so long. In their despatch in that year they dwelt upon—
  "The obvious defect of the system of land tenure, the minuteness of investigation which it involves, the necessary employment of countless native agents, the impossibility of preventing their malpractices, and the difficulty of adjusting the rents to all the varieties of the seasons and public events; and conclude, that although the plan, intelligently followed up, might be well calculated to discover the resources of a country, yet it was not to be preferred for constant practice."
  A high authority, Lord Wellesley, had also expressed his opinion that the Indian Government ought not to be owners of the
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  soil or collectors of the rent. It was a mistake to suppose that there was any analogy between rent in England and rent in India. Rent in England is paid by a capitalist, who farms for profit. In India the ryots or cultivators are without capital; the only motive they have for devoting themselves to the cultivation of the soil is the pressing wants of nature, the necessity of getting food. They must, therefore, pay any rent imposed on them, or starve. After all, the best test of any system was the condition of the people. What was the condition of the people in America and in our colonies? Why, they were among the most flourishing communities that perhaps ever existed on the face of the earth. But what was the condition of the naked tenants of the East India Company? Extreme poverty and abject wretchedness. In our Eastern colonies, Ceylon, Penang, Singapore, and Hong Kong, the Indian system had been abandoned, and the land was either sold in perpetuity or let on leases of 999 years. That system was an encouragement to European settlement, and had effected such an improvement in the condition of the people that they were to be reckoned among the most flourishing of our Eastern fellow subjects. He remembered that some curious evidence was given before the Cotton Committee as to the taxes imposed in Madras upon the tools of the artisan—his hammers and chisels, for instance. Even the barber's razor was taxed. The instrument with which the Indians cleaned cotton, and which cost 1s., had to pay an annual tax of 2s. He was glad, however, to say that he had lately received a Return dated Nov. 5, 1856, in which it was stated that these scandalous taxes were abolished. About ten days ago he also received another document of a most extraordinary character relating to Madras. He believed that the land tax in that province produced less now than it did fifty years ago. After having impoverished the people to such an extent that (as was proved before the Torture Commission), the rents could not be collected except by torture, the Indian Government had at last commanded a new assessment and survey to be made of the province of Madras. That province was about three times as large as England and Wales, but the portion which was to be surveyed was about as large as Great Britain. From the evidence given before the Committee, the House

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  might form some idea of these Indian surveys. Every field was measured; four or five holes were dug in it in different parts to ascertain the quality of the soil, from which the surveyors estimated the amount of the produce it would yield, and then the rent was fixed at two-thirds of the net produce. After all, however, the assessment was left to the judgment and sound discretion of the assessor. He saw it estimated that this survey would take not less than twenty-two years to accomplish, and that it would cost £764,000—and reckoning the value of money to be six times more in India than in England, it would amount to a sum equivalent to about £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 of our money. If a document of this kind had issued from Constantinople it would have created no surprise; but that it should have issued from a country governed by Englishmen, with the lights and experience of the nineteenth century, and with a distinguished political economist high in the service of the Company whom they might have consulted, was indeed extraordinary, and only showed how slowly light travelled to the regions of Leaden-hall Street and Cannon Row. The work would occupy twenty-two years! Why, how many of the wretched cultivators would have passed away to be taxed no more ere this doubtful relief reached them! It would cost £764,000, which in Madras would make 2,000 miles of road. If the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Mangles) did not know the effect of roads upon the value of land he would probably he glad to have his attention called to a very interesting document—a report to the Board of Trade on American railways by Captain Galton. This Gentleman says, that in the State of Illinois, bordered by the Mississippi, the American Government had on sale land supposed to be some of the richest in the world, but which remained on sale thirty years at a dollar an acre, and, strange to say, no customers could be found for it. In this state of things an American company offered, in consideration of receiving 2,500,000 acres of land, to make a railway throughout the country. The Government consented, and Captain Galton reported upon the 700 miles of railway which this company had made. No sooner was the line completed than people flocked from all parts to take possession of this rich soil, and the result was that land which for thirty years had been unsaleable
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  at a dollar an acre was now sold by the company at 13 dollars 9 cents an acre, their sales in April last amounting to 566,000 dollars. Now, before the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues had issued the Minute to which he had referred, involving an outlay of nearly £800,000 upon a work which would not be completed for twenty-two years, would it not have been well to inquire what would be the effect of making nearly 2,000 miles of road in the province? He need not take the hon. Gentleman across the Atlantic to discover the effect of roads upon the value of land. In Ceylon, which rejoiced in not being under the East India Company's government, 3,000 miles of road had been made which was nearly as much as there was in all India; and capital roads they were, for a gentleman had informed him that he had travelled over them, not on palanquins borne on men's shoulders, but in a stage coach. In the little island of Ceylon, with a revenue not one-fiftieth part of that of India, 1,247 miles of road were rendered serviceable in four years and a half. Mark the results. Sir Emerson Tennent said—
  "Before the Kandy road was made the paddy fields at Kaduganame were but worth one-half what they sell for now. Before the road was made to Marajapoora the people there could not sell their rice for more than 6d. or 7d. a parrah, and they could scarcely get fish or salt to buy at any price, because the dealers could neither come to sell their fish nor buy their rice. Now they get from 2s. 6d. to 3s. a parrah for all the rice they can grow, and they get their salt, fish, and every other article abundant and cheap; so that the effect of new roads is to double the value of land, to double the value of everything you have to sell, and to lower the cost of everything you hare to buy."
  But he would take the hon. Member to India itself. In Rajahmundry, a district of Madras, roads and works of irrigation had been carried on, and he had been favoured with a letter from that district dated April, 1856, which showed this gratifying result—
  "Everybody and everything is prospering; there is no poverty, and I never hear any complaints of excessive taxes, of having to sell cattle to pay, of having lost all their crops, or that they had been ill-treated by the authorities, or been obliged to cultivate against their will; on the contrary, the difficulty in Naggarum is to decide who is to be allowed to have land, and not who must. And in Mogultoor the amibdar says,—He need not send people bunting the ryots to get the rent; they bring it to him themselves. I never by any chance see any of those half-starved wretches with scarcely any clothes. Everybody can get plenty of work everywhere."
  In the same district Mr. Taylor, the reve-venue officer, officially reported—

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  "That twenty-four villages in one talook, stimulated by the improvement in their outward circumstances, had voluntarily proposed that a permanent addition should be made to their land tax, to be applied to the establishment of schools for the education of their children."
  There was abundant evidence to show that India possessed capabilities for producing not only cotton in almost unlimited quantities, but sugar, corn, tobacco, flax, hemp, and a variety of other articles, if the obstacles were removed which now weighed on the energies of the people, and prevented them from developing the resources of the country. There could be no question that if these obstacles were removed, and the people were placed in as comfortable a position as those he had just described in Rajahmundry, the consumption of English manufactures would be enormous. His belief was that India was capable of consuming as much of our manufactures as we now exported to all the world; and it was certainly a marvellous thing that a few thousand people in Australia should consume more of our manufactures than 180,000,000 of people in India. We had the evidence of Sir Thomas Munro that the Natives would take our manufactures if they were able. He said—
  "The small demand for our manufactures arises solely from the inability to consume them. If the existing mode of taxation should be abandoned, the country, instead of rice and dry grain, would be covered with plantations of betel, cocoanut, sugar, indigo, and cotton, and the people would take a great deal of British manufactures, for they are remarkably fond of them. They are hindered from taking our goods, not by want of inclination, but either by poverty or the fear of being reputed rich, and having their rents raised. When we relinquish the barbarous system of annual settlements, when we make over the land either on very long leases or in perpetuity to the present occupants, arid when we have convinced them by making no assessments above the fixed rates for a series of years that they are actually proprietors of the soil, we shall see a demand for European articles of which we have at present no conception."
  There had lately been a great increase in our imports from India, and some people seemed to be afraid that we were getting a great deal more from that country than we should be able to pay for—that it was draining us of our specie, and that it was becoming a question whether it would not be better for us to give up our trade with India altogether. Now, what was the reason of these increased imports from India? It was all a question of prices. The increase in our imports from India was attributable to the higher price now
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  offered for produce, which operated as a stimulus to the Indian merchant, and, counterbalanced the want of good roads and cheap conveyance; because the rise in the price of cotton, flax, hemp, and articles which we had been accustomed to obtain from Russia had enabled the Indian merchants to pay a higher price for conveying their produce to market than they could otherwise have afforded. If the price of these articles should fall again, however, our imports from India would also decline because the same obstacles existed now as had existed before, and roads and cheap conveyances were still required for bringing produce to market to compete with other countries under ordinary circumstances. The drain of specie at this time might be explained on the same principle that it had been accounted for during the existence of the corn laws. In those days we always had a drain of specie when we had a bad harvest, because we had to obtain our corn from countries where there was only an occasional demand, and we had to pay for it in money. He had endeavoured to show the obstacles which impede the productive powers of India. These obstacles the Government alone have the power to remove. In asking the Government to expend money on roads, canals, irrigation, and other public works, he was only asking them to fill their own treasury. They acknowledged that it was their duty to construct those public works, and the profits upon them were so enormous that the only wonder was that they had not completed works of that description all over India. The Indian Government some time ago appointed a commission to report upon the public works of India, and among other examples the Commissioners gave the following as the result of executing thirty-nine works of irrigation in the district under the Madras Presidency between the years 1836 and 1849. Of the thirty-nine works in question, the total cost of which was £54,111, on three there was a loss; four realized profits under 10 per cent per annum, sixteen realized profits of from 10 to 50 per cent per annum, nine realized profits of from 50 to 100 per cent per annum, six realized profits of from 100 to 200 per cent per annum, and one absolutely produced a profit of 259 per cent per annum. The net average profit upon the thirty-nine works, after deducting the loss on the three, was 69½ per cent per annum from the year of the execution

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  of the works. At the present time, however, those works yielded a profit of at least 100 per cent per annum: but, in addition, the Government revenue had increased and the value of private property had increased, and those two items together were equivalent to another 100 per cent; so that there was an absolute profit upon those works of 200 per cent per annum. With reference to this subject the Commissioners said—
  "We have repeatedly stated that a vast amount of capital might now be invested in every district in the construction of works of irrigation which would yield a return of 25 or 30 to 50 or 60 per cent on the outlay."
  And they added:—
  "Looking at the very small amount of expenditure (£54,111) shown in that table, and comparing it with the vast number of works scattered all over the country, the creation of former dynasties, we could not avoid the reflection that if the present powers (East India Company) had always ruled in the country it would now have been destitute of those valuable sources of wealth."
  But the Government had acted upon false principles in carrying out these works, and had thereby embarrassed their finances; for instead of constructing public works out of revenue, as they had done, they should have borrowed the money for those purposes. These works would be more useful to the succeeding than to the present generation, and if they had been constructed by means of loans, India might have been covered with public works without financial inconvenience, and practically for nothing. That, perhaps, was a somewhat startling assertion, but he would endeavour to explain it. In Manchester a great public work had been executed for the purpose of supplying the city with gas without costing it one farthing of taxation. The corporation borrowed the money on the credit of the city, the gas was sold at as low a rate as in any other town; and after paying the interest on the money borrowed, and setting aside an annual sum for a sinking fund to pay off the debt, there remained a profit of £30,000 a year, which was applied to the improvement of the city. What was there to prevent the Indian Government from borrowing money for public works when they could borrow money for war purposes? Now, with regard to the growth of cotton in India. Indian cotton was of an inferior quality to that of America. It was worth less by 2d. per lb., and was only consumed by our manufacturers when American cotton was dear. The demand being
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  therefore only occasional, there was no inducement to grow it for the English market. America had been hitherto our great source of supply, from the fact of their growing it cheaper than any other country, but the question arose whether India might not be placed in a position to compete with America in the supply of cotton. Mr. Nesbit Shaw, formerly a collector of revenue in the Dharwar district, was decidedly of opinion that India could even at present compete with America, not however by growing indigenous cotton, but by fairly turning attention to the introduction of superior varieties, by introducing all practicable improvements, and by a rigid determination to put down adulteration and other frauds in the trade. Mr. Shaw tried the experiment of growing on unirrigated land several thousand bales of cotton from New Orleans seed. This cotton sold at Manchester at 6¼d. per lb., while the native cotton sold at 3½d. per lb. The produce from New Orleans seed was about 100 1b s. per acre, from native seed it was 601b s. to 701b s. This cotton (which sold in Manchester at 6¼d. per lb.) only yielded about 1¼d. per lb. to the cultivator. If this left as large a profit as other kinds of produce it would continue to be grown for a constant demand; and if, therefore, by means of irrigation the produce could be increased four or fivefold, and by improved roads the cost of production could also be reduced, there was no reason to doubt that India could compote with the lowest known prices of American cotton. But the abject poverty of the ryots was such that they could not undertake the growth of cotton, sugar, indigo, or other produce unless advances of money were made to them; and those advances were only made, according to the evidence which was given before the Cotton Committee, at rates of interest varying from 30 to 70 per cent. The Indian cultivator laboured, in fact, under extreme poverty, enormous rents, exorbitant rates of interest for advances, bad roads, and want of irrigation—the two latter evils could alone be remedied by the intervention of the Government. In Ceylon, though the same mistake was fallen into as in India of making roads out of revenue, these roads had so increased the wealth of the country that the revenue was not embarrassed like the revenue of India, and in ten years the exports of Ceylon had increased 230 per cent. He wished to call attention to the excellent opportunity which presented itself of encouraging

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  the growth of cotton in India without a farthing of expense or risk to the Government. The province of Candeish was one of the richest in India, and peculiarly suited for the growth of cotton. It was a country covered with ruined towns and villages, which attested its former prosperity, but at present, according to the report of Captain Wingate, Revenue Survey Commissioner, only 14 per cent of the lands of that province were cultivated, the remainder lying waste, but nearly the whole was fertile and suitable for the growth of cotton, and exportable products, such as oilseeds, and indigo. The ryots were ready to extend the cultivation, but they could not do so with their present rents, a reduction would be sure to cause an extension of cultivation where there was waste to break up. Here was an excellent opportunity for the Government of India to try the experiment of giving a secure tenure of land in perpetuity, such as exists in all the British Colonies and in the United States—a system which has resulted in an amount of prosperity and happiness which might be equally enjoyed by India. According to the testimony of the gentleman he had just referred to, the people wanted the land, and would be glad to cultivate all that was now lying waste. Every farthing the Government received from unoccupied land would be clear profit; industry would be promoted, capital accumulated, the attachment of the people secured, and it would be seen whether a greater revenue could not be raised from prosperous farmers than from poverty-stricken ryots. There was land enough in that province capable of producing more cotton than was now grown in the United States. Shall this land continue to lie waste? He did not know how his Motion was to be met, but he should not be surprised if it was met, as Motions relating to India had in former times been met, by a denial of the facts; but it did not follow because the statements were denied that therefore they were untrue. The statements made on a former occasion by the late hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Bright) and the present hon. Member for Poole (Mr. D. Seymour) were denied, though they were nevertheless perfectly true. This showed how little dependence was to be placed on the assertions of those who are supposed to be best acquainted with India. The ignorance of the Governors of India upon the condition of India was appalling. He remembered
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  the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Mangles) stating before the Cotton Committee as evidence of the oppressions of the people,
  "That the revenue system under the native Governments of India had always been with rare exceptions, of the most oppressive kind; that the manner in which the revenue authorities under the Nizams used to realize their revenue was by torture, flogging and imprisonment; that a revenue officer at Moorshedabad made one of his modes of extortion a pool of ordure and of all sorts of the most abominable filth, which he called 'behisht' or paradise. It was up to a man's chin, and into this he used to plunge the unfortunate defaulters till they brought forward their balances. Another of his tortures was this: he had a large pair of leather breeches made, fastened at the bottom, and full of nasty insects and rats, and these he used to fasten about the naked body of the defaulter and tie them under his arms."
  The hon. Member for Guildford contrasted this state of things with the happy condition of the natives under British rule, though at the very moment he was speaking the most infamous and degrading insults and tortures, of which no doubt the hon. Member was perfectly unconscious, were being practised even upon women in India—insults and tortures which he could not mention, lest perchance the description should reach female ears. But hon. Members need only read the Madras torture Report to see how the honour and character of England had been degraded by the East India Company. The House would perhaps remember that the Hon. Member for Poole brought the question of India before the House some years ago. He stated that he had recently visited India. That he had travelled for miles through a desert country. He said that the population was in a most miserable condition; and that the great object of the Government of Madras was to get 10 s. out of a man who had only eight. He said that torture was practised for the purpose of extorting rent. How were these statements met? The hon. Member for Honiton (Sir J. W. Hogg), then Chairman of the East India Company, made, as usual, a very clever speech, in which he said that there was not a word of truth in what had been stated; and that the hon. Member had been imposed upon by the statements of designing and interested persons, whose petitions to that House were a tissue of the grossest perversions and exaggerations. The right hon. Secretary of the Admiralty, who was then the President of the Board of Control, also got up and said that he did not believe that torture was practised

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  in India. The hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Mangles) rose and said that he had been twenty years in India, and he declared most solemnly that he had never heard of anything of the kind. Another hon. Member, the Member for Roxburghshire, declared that though he had been thirty years in India, and also Secretary to the Board of Control, he had never heard of the existence of torture in India. What confidence can we attach to the information of such gentlemen in future? The fact was, that nothing was known of India except through the East India Company and their servants. We had never come into contact with the natives, except, indeed, upon one occasion, and that was a very instructive one. Lord Harris, as soon as he heard of the charge made by the hon. Member for Poole, of the practice of torture in the Presidency of Madras, issued a Commission that declared itself ready to receive evidence from all quarters; and what was the result? Why, though this inquiry was made at a most inconvenient season of the year—at a time when the people were gathering in the harvest, yet these poor creatures came 400 miles, in a country where there were no roads, to tell their grievances, and to complain of the tortures that had been inflicted in a most cruel and unmanly manner upon themselves, their wives or their daughters. The British Government had thought proper to suspend their relations with some foreign States on account of the ill-treatment and torture to which the subjects of those States were exposed by their Governments; but he would ask, if they looked a little nearer home than Naples, whether it might not be necessary to break off their relations with the East India Company? He wished to ask whether the time had not arrived when 180,000,000 of people in India should no longer be regarded as the subjects of a Government chosen by the proprietors of East India stock, but become the subjects of Queen Victoria? He called upon the House to do speedy justice to India. They had heard from that country a voice which resembled the rumbling of a volcano, and he called upon Parliament to do its duty, and see that justice was not delayed until it was too late. He begged to move,
  "That in the opinion of this House it is expedient that Parliament shall direct its immediate attention to the best mode of removing the obstacles which impede the application of British
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  capital and skill to the improvement of the productive powers of India."
  MR. TURNERsaid, that in seconding the Motion, it was not his intention to follow his hon. Friend through the details into which he had entered with regard to the misgovernment of India and the faults of the East India Company, but he would confine himself to a few practical observations, as he thought from a connection of upwards of forty years with the manufacturing industry of South Lancashire he might be able to throw some little light upon the subject. His connection with the Commercial Association of Manchester had placed him in frequent communication with the East India Company, and he consequently possessed some acquaintance with the measures which had been taken for developing the resources of India. He must, in the first place, be allowed to impress upon the House the immense importance of the cotton trade of South Lancashire. The hon. Member for Stockport had stated that such was the immense demand for cotton in the manufacturing districts of South Lancashire, that 900,000,000lb. were consumed annually, 700,000,000lb. of that quantity being imported from the United States of America. He (Mr. Turner) believed that about 380,000 persons were employed directly, and about 1,000,000 incidentally, in the manufacture of this cotton. The amount of capital invested in the manufacture was, at a low estimate, £40,000,000, and a working capital of about £15,000,000 was employed in the prosecution of the trade. In 1856 the exports of cotton goods amounted to the value of £38,000,000 after supplying the whole demands of this country. The cotton consumed in the same year was 2,250,000 bales, weighing 900,000,000. The cotton trade had been advancing with such rapid strides that, although the production of cotton in the United States of America had also made great progress, the demand had far surpassed the supply. One or two facts would exemplify this. During the year 1848 this country imported 1,738,000 bales of cotton, and in 1856, 2,467,000 bales; but while at the end of 1848 there were on hand 496,000 bales, or seventeen weeks' consumption, at the end of 1856 there were only on hand 332,000 bales, or eight weeks' consumption for the United Kingdom. He thought these facts exhibited a very serious state of things for a large manufacturing country like this, and that it

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  was high time public attention should be directed to the subject, which was one not of local but of national importance. If this great branch of industry should be suspended, and it was so already for a considerable number of hours per week, to any greater extent, as it had been in years gone by, what effect would it have upon a large body of the population? In such a case he thought the Home Secretary would have to look with anxious eyes towards South Lancashire, and would find that the question was a serious one for the Government as well as for the cotton manufacturers. It was necessary to inquire how the existing state of things could be remedied, and whether the present supply of cotton could be relied upon without any danger of diminution. As the supply was obtained mainly from the United States, it was necessary to ascertain what was the condition of that country. Slavery had been abolished in our West Indian possessions, and he rejoiced that it was so. But might it not be asked whether there was not some inconsistency in deriving so large a proportion of the raw material required for the manufactures of this country from a State where slave labour was employed? He thought there was a possibility that, sooner or later, there would be some serious disturbance of labour in America; and what would be the state of affairs in this country if, owing to a rising of the slaves, the cotton plantations of the United States should be uncultivated, and a supply of the raw material could no longer be obtained from that quarter? But even if the Americans were to go growing cotton not by means of imported slaves but by a more degrading method,—by means of the poor creatures they raised and reared amongst themselves like so many cattle—supposing that in this way the production of cotton in America increased, and yet that our consumption increased in a greater ratio, could we rely upon the same proportion of imports to the demand which we had hitherto derived from the United States? He thought not; for in America, and in other parts of the world, manufactures were extending as rapidly as in this country, if not more so. The manufacturers there, under a protective system, would be able to offer higher prices for the quantity of raw material they required, and he believed that whatever deficiency there might be in the supply of cotton grown in America would ultimately be felt by Great Britain. The price of cotton
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  was now about double what it was in 1848. In that year American cotton averaged about 4d. per pound, while it was now 8d. per pound, and the difference of value on the consumption of cotton in Great Britain between 4d. and 8d. per pound amounted to £16,000,000 per annum, a sum nearly equal to the whole revenues of the East India Company. Where, then, were they to look for the means of meeting any deficiency in the supply of cotton? It was very possible that they might obtain some increased supplies from the West Indies, but since the abolition of slavery the negro population would not perform voluntarily such excessive labour as they were obliged to undergo in the United States. It had been argued that if slavery were abolished in America the negroes would still continue to work, but he did not believe they would get through one-third of the labour they were now compelled to perform. Cotton had been grown, and was still grown, in Brazil, but for many years there had been no increase in the production. In Australia, which had been suggested as a place from which the necessary supply might be obtained, the want of cheap labour must prevent any extensive production for many years, and the same objection applied to Natal. West Africa had been mentioned, but he had himself been concerned in an attempt to establish a plantation in that quarter of the world by way of experiment, which had proved a complete failure, in consequence of the impossibility of compelling the negroes to anything like steady continuous labour. He believed, with the hon. Member for Stockport, that they must look to India to supply the deficiency. He would give the East India Company credit for having, many years ago, introduced a number of American planters into their territories, at very considerable expense, with the view of cultivating cotton on the system pursued in the United States: but he believed the East India Company themselves would acknowledge that that had been a failure. He believed the Americans never intended to accomplish anything worth while in India. Their national feelings led them to fear lest India should become a rival to the United States, and their heart never was in the work. They always said that the cotton of India was as good as it could be made, and that no improvement could be effected in it. Now, he (Mr. Turner) was the largest consumer of East India

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  cotton in Great Britain. His firm used at one time 80,000lbs. weight of East India cotton per week, but it came in so dirty and neglected a state that no price could be given for it at all equal to the price of American cotton. A low price was paid for it, but there was so much adulteration that the firm at one time threw away an amount of sand and dirt that cost them no less than £7,000 per annum. That dirt and sand, however, might have been left behind in India. He must say that, in making representations on the subject of cotton to the East India Company, when he had accompanied deputations, he had always been received with great courtesy and civility; but, though many promises were made, nothing seemed to have been done. Cotton still came from India in the same filthy and neglected state, and that was accounted for by the way in which it was cultivated and brought to the coast. It was cultivated by the poor miserable ryots, who had to borrow money at a most exorbitant and ruinous rate of interest before they could put seed into the ground. From them it was transferred to the dealers, and then commenced the process of adulteration. When the dealers got the cotton, it was placed on bullocks' backs, and in that way conveyed to the coast, being often drenched with wet, and otherwise soiled and disordered. How could it be expected, under the system of culture and conveyance that was in use, and considering the miserable condition of the ryots, that a good article could find its way to this country? Now, to show that the cotton was good originally, he would state another fact. Mr. Landon, a gentleman in India, who had a station at Bruchma, who took an interest in this question, resolved that he would not only clean cotton, but spin it, and for this purpose he erected a mill. He had sent him (Mr. Turner) a specimen of his cotton yarn, which convinced him, that if the cotton could only be got in this country as clean as he had made it in India, the same results could be arrived at, and as good yarn produced. With the cotton which his firm at Manchester obtained from India (speaking technically) they could only produce what was called No. 16 yarn, whereas Mr. Landon was producing, in India, yarn equal to No. 40 from the same cotton. He believed that if the East India Company would only pursue the experiments carried on by Mr. Shaw, they would produce a revolution in the cotton trade of
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  that country. By encouraging the natives to cultivate the American seed, instead of the seed of the country, nearly double the quantity of cotton per acre would be raised, and it would be worth 50 per cent. more than the indigenous article. The East India Company must also encourage efforts on the part of their servants, and make every officer feel that it is his duty to promote, to the utmost of his power, this great national work. They had no right to hold that great country merely for the sake of dividends and revenues. They held it as a sacred trust for the people of this country, as well as the people of India, and it was their duty to see that the interests of both were promoted in their intercourse with each other. The hon. Member for Stockport had alluded to his (Mr. Turner's) using some of the improved cotton of India. It was true, he had done so, and he could assure the House that the cotton grown in Dharwar from American seed was equal in every respect to cotton grown on the banks of the Mississippi. Indeed, the advantage was rather in favour of the East Indian cotton. Mr. Shaw, writing to him, said that the cotton sold in Manchester, and used by him (Mr. Turner) which was valued at 6¼d, to 6½d. per lb., was grown by ryots by contract; that the rent of the land which produced it was 1½ rupee per acre, and the contract cost for cultivating it another 1½ rupee, altogether 6s. Let the House just reflect upon such a fact as this; that, if properly managed, the produce of an acre of cotton, which would amount, even under ordinary circumstances, to 100 lbs., would cost only 6s. Why, Amecan slave labour had not a chance of standing against a cultivation like this. He would venture to hope, then, that the East India Board and the Court of Directors would take this matter into their serious consideration, and continue and extend guarantees to capitalists who provided money for well-considered railways, canals, and works of irrigation. He was satisfied that such undertakings would pay a good return for the outlay. He hoped, also, that they would continue and extend the system of securing to the cultivators a sure tenure of their land. That was absolutely necessary; for no man would ever think of attempting to improve land if he had to give the benefits of the improvements to his landlord. Lastly, they should establish a Board of Works in India, to which should be entrusted the special care of all improvements, as by so doing they

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  would secure a more judicious expenditure of capital. By pursuing such measures as these, he believed they would derive a much, larger revenue from their Indian empire than they had hitherto done; and, in place of a miserable population like that which the hon. Mover had described, and which was very little better than the slaves of America, or the serfs of Russia, they would have a happy and contented people, who, instead of requiring silver for everything they sent here, would be able to take our Manufactures, and become, what their poverty now prevented them being, valuable customers of this country.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That, in the opinion of this House, it is expedient that Parliament shall direct its immediate attention to the best mode of removing the obstacles which impede the application of British capital and skill to the improvement of the productive powers of India."
  MR. MANGLESsaid, the subject which the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. J. B. Smith) had brought under the consideration of the House was one of great importance, and, he believed, one very little understood. He should, indeed, have to crave the indulgence of the House, if he could feel it right to bandy the very hard language in which the hon. Member had thought it fitting on this occasion to express himself. The hon. Member had denounced the misgovernment of India by the present generation, on grounds which related to transactions which occurred when he (Mr. Mangles) was in his cradle, and for which the present Court of Directors of the East India Company could not be in the slightest degree responsible. Again, the hon. Member talked of India as if it was a unit, and spoke of Madras as if it represented the normal condition of the whole country, and without reflecting by how many hundred miles the two Presidencies were divided, seemed struck with wonder, that a person who had been a Bengal civilian should not know of abuses which existed in Madras. Well, if he (Mr. Mangles) was thus ignorant, he was so in good company. Lord Ellenborough, a man of the greatest ability, who had been for years at the head of the Board of Control, and who had been Governor General, had likewise declared that he knew nothing of the matter. The hon. Member, like other gentlemen from the northern part of the island, seemed to think that they were the men, and that wisdom would die with them. They seemed
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  to believe that none but a Lancashire man could manage any concern, public or private; and they sought to put the Government of India into this dilemma,—either it was guilty of the most atrocious wickedness, or of the most culpable ignorance. The hon. Gentleman talked about improving the productive powers of India. Well, Dr. Johnson had said, that some persons would call out fire during the deluge, and was not the hon. Gentleman aware that India was at that moment sending more to this country than this country could pay for? The sum remitted to England, in the shape of dividends, fortunes acquired, and the like, was at least £5,000,000 a year, for which we send nothing back except a few military stores. So again, the enormous quantity of silver bullion sent out showed the great amount of produce which was sent home. The House would be surprised to hear that in 1855–6 no less than £11,300,000 in silver bullion was sent to India from this country, and that in 1856–7, up to the 3rd of April last, silver bullion to the amount of £10,000,000 was sent out by the Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamers, while within a fraction of £1,000,000 more had been sent from Marseilles, Malta, and Gibraltar. The House was aware that when the war with Russia broke out, our supplies of oilseeds and hemp from that country were stopped, but the deficiency was completely made up from India. The same thing would happen in regard to cotton, if the proper steps were followed. India could supply all the cotton that this country would require, if manufacturers and those who wanted it would cease calling upon Hercules, and set about putting their own shoulders to the wheel, in the same way as those who wanted other commodities from India had done. The hon. Gentleman who seconded the Motion appeared to demand that the Indian Government should undertake to clean his cotton for him, which, he said, came to him mixed up with dirt and gravel, while in the same breath he informed the House that Mr. Landon's cotton was always perfectly clean.
  MR. TURNERexplained, that he believed both his cotton and Mr. Landon's were originally perfectly clean; but while the latter had only to travel a short distance, his own cotton had to pass over the miserable roads of India, and to undergo the treatment to which Indian dealers always subjected such things.
  MR. MANGLESsaid, that those who were anxious to have cotton from India should adopt the reasonable course which Mr. Landon had followed. If they would take the trouble to send out their agents to India, there was hardly any amount of cotton which the manufacturers of this country could not procure from that source. He would just call the attention of the House to the extraordinary increase which had taken place in the production of some articles for which there was a demand. From the provinces of Arracan and Pegu, the elder of which had only been in our possession about thirty years, and the younger had only been occupied the other day, he found that in 1855–6 there were exported no less than 250,000 tons of rice. Why could not the export of cotton be increased in the same ratio? There was no difficulty in procuring sugar, oilseeds, or jute. Then there was the cuckoo cry, that the people of India were so wretchedly poor, that they could not buy our manufactures; but how could that statement be reconciled with the fact, that the balance of trade was, of late years, always against us, and that we were always under the necessity of exporting silver to pay it? The reason for the latter circumstance was, that the manufacturers did not sufficiently study the tastes of the natives. If they were to send out their agents to India to study the taste of the people and cater accordingly, they would find a more extensive market. The question of the evening, however, was, how it happened that cotton was the only article which could not be got in sufficient quantities from India. The hon. Member for Stockport had stated the land tenure as a great impediment to the extension of cotton cultivation; but why did that apply to cotton only, and not prevent the production of indigo? [Mr. J. B. SMITH: Because indigo is grown where the land is held on the more permanent tenure.] The hon. Gentleman had fallen into the trap, and said, that the growth of indigo in Bengal was so large, because of the more permanent tenure of land in that presidency; but the fact was, that a larger increase in the growth of indigo had taken place in Madras, where the ryotwaree system of land revenue prevails, than in Bengal. He (Mr. Mangles) had a letter from an extensive grower in Madras, in which he stated, that since his first establishment in India, the production of indigo in that Presidency had
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  increased from 5,000 to 20,000 chests, weighing 250lb. each. That gentleman exported about 350 chests of indigo and 5,000 tons of sugar yearly, but he did not cultivate the land himself, finding it more profitable to buy of the distressed and degraded ryots, as they were called. The tenure of land which had been so much talked of, was by no means so simple a question as some hon. Gentlemen imagined it to be. High authorities had held, and among them the late Mr. James Mill, and his still more eminent son, Mr. J. S. Mill, that the land assessment was not a tax at all. The hon. Gentleman who moved the Resolution said, that the Indian Government claimed to be the owners of all the land in that country; but such was not the case. The truth was that a great proportion of the rent of land in India had ever been set apart for Government uses, and to give up the assessment in favour of the occupiers of land would render it necessary to inflict taxation upon the shopkeepers and artisans. The hon. Gentleman had attacked the land survey which it was intended to introduce into Madras; but Mr. Mackay, the commissioner of the Manchester manufacturers, spoke highly of the effects of the same survey in the districts of Bombay, saying that it had conferred great benefits upon the ryots. It was the same kind of survey which it was proposed to introduce into Madras, and he had no doubt that it would prove equally advantageous to the people there. And here he would say, that while he was regardless of the hon. Gentleman's strictures on himself, his blood boiled at hearing the attacks made on public servants in India, whose devotion to the discharge of their onerous duties was not exceeded by that of any servant of the Crown at home or in the Colonies. These men were earnestly labouring for the benefit alike of the Government and people of India, while their conduct was made the subject of unjust criticism by English gentlemen sitting at case at home. Before the Cotton Committee he (Mr. Mangles) made a clean breast of it. Even Mr. John Bright praised his conduct. He admitted in his evidence before that Committee that in times gone by the Government had not done its duty, but a new era had arrived. The neglect of former years was not now chargeable against the Government of India. The House was aware of the fact that the Government had pledged itself to pay interest

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  varying from 4½ to 5 per cent upon a capital of £30,000,000 for the construction of railroads in India, and had ordered the making of roads from all sides of the country to the several stations, for the purpose of bringing the produce of the country to the railways. To the hon. Member for Stockport, who spoke of the Ganges canal, nearly 900 miles in length, as a local work, 3,400 miles of railroad would appear but a trifling affair; but such, he thought, would not be the opinion of the House. It was said, however, that the railways were being made for political or military, not for commercial, purposes. Now, he held in his hand a map of India showing the districts in which cotton was grown, and any hon. Gentleman who chose might see that the railways now in course of construction under the guarantee of the Government passed through every one of those districts with a single exception. And that exception was a peninsula—almost an island,—well supplied with seaports. At the rates which now existed upon the Madras Railway one pound of cotton might be conveyed from Nagpore to Madras, a distance of 450 miles, for about three-fifths of a farthing—a fact which, he thought, would satisfy the economical mind of the hon. Member for Stockport. He now came to works of irrigation. The statement of the hon. Member upon that head was, first, that the native works had been abandoned; and, secondly, that the Government had contented itself with making the Ganges canal. But the fact was not so, for besides the Ganges canal, 810 miles in length, and which of itself alone was a more important and larger undertaking than any other similar work to be found in the world, the Government had constructed the Jumna canal, which watered a very extensive tract of country, and many other canals in the Northwestern Provinces and the Punjab. Lieutenant Colonel Baird Smith, who was sent down from Madras to report on the works of irrigation in that Presidency, said the projects either actually effected, or in progress of execution, affected territories containing in the aggregate 20,000 square miles and 4,000,000 inhabitants. Could it in fairness be said that the native works at all approached these undertakings? And he must say, that after such results it was too bad for the East India Company to be told that they were so stupid as not to know how to manage their own business, until taught by hon. Gentlemen from
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  Stockport and Manchester. The first cause why they did not get cotton from India was the lowness of price. As long as there were good harvests in America there was no demand upon India, and the manufacturers of this country were satisfied with the few thousand bales which were imported annually from the latter country. But when there occurred a bad harvest in America, and the price of cotton was high, the manufacturers most unreasonably turned round and asked where was the cotton of India? How should the people of India have grown cotton in anticipation of a demand which might take place once in five or ten years? At the same time there were an enormous production and an enormous consumption of cotton in India. But the cotton was grown mainly for home manufacture. It was true that to a certain extent the spinning jennies of Lancashire had put down the manufacture of cotton fabrics in India. But no machinery could ever put down the domestic manufacture, which cost nothing, because the manufacture was carried on at leisure times by the ryot himself and by his wife and children. The contrast between what was done in America and what was done in India was fallacious, if no allowance were made for the energy of the Anglo-Saxon and the apathy of the Indian character. If the natives of India had been a vigorous and energetic race we should never have been masters of the country; and as long as they were what they were they would not study the price currents of Liverpool nor the exports of America. He admitted that the roads had something to do with the price, but when railways were carried down to the wharves, there would be no case at all against the Indian Government. There was also the question of energy and the question of honesty. The Indian people had not energy and they had not honesty, and the men of Manchester should supply those qualities. Indigo was an indigenous production, and from the increase in the production of that article might be seen the effect of a continuous demand without any artificial stimulus. In 1785, England only imported 2,000,000 lbs., and India supplied only 500,000 lbs. European energy and industry were applied to the manufacture of the article, and India had now almost a monopoly of the trade, applying no less than 20,000,000 lbs. annually. The hon. Gentleman had referred to the success of Mr. Landon, but the hon. Gentleman was

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  so simple as not to see that what Mr. Landon had done any Englishman of equal energy and perseverance might have effected also. By Mr. Mackay's evidence it appeared that the frauds in picking and packing cotton in India were of themselves sufficient to account for our not receiving a larger quantity. Let the gentlemen of Manchester send trustworthy agents to settle in the heart of the cotton districts, with money to advance to the ryots, and machinery for preparing cotton for the market so that it might not have to be unpacked; they would then have no difficulty in getting any amount of cotton from India which they might require. But so long as they remained at Manchester praying to Hercules to help them out of the ruts, alternately abusing and advising the East India Company, and asking them to clean their cotton for them, they would be spending their energy in the wrong direction. The East India Company were doing all that men could do to develope the resources of India. They were pressing on the railways with vigour, and the main impediment to their being finished was the impossibility of finding the means of conveying rails and locomotives fast enough, for each ship would of course only take a limited quantity of such metal dead-weight. The cultivation of cotton in India was, no doubt, a national object, but do not let the gentlemen of Manchester ask the East India Company to do for them what they ought to do for themselves, or to interfere, as no Government ought to do, between the growers and exporters of cotton. That day was the hundredth anniversary of the battle of Plassey, by which Clive laid the foundation of our ascendancy in India. In estimating the results of the East India Company's government during the last hundred years he trusted the House would take into account the great impediments which the Government of such a country had had to encounter, peopled as it was by nations who had been slaves for centuries, debased by dark superstitions, and the slaves of caste, that worst description of slavery. The East India Company were obliged to keep up an enormous military establishment, and a large portion of their revenue necessarily went in giving high salaries for efficient European agents. He entreated hon. Members opposite (Mr. Mangles spoke from the front Opposition bench) not to believe that those who voted with them on all other Liberal questions were, as soon as they had anything to do with the Government
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  of India, transformed not only into tyrants, but into the most foolish and stupid of tyrants, as some hon. Friends of his would try to lead the House to believe.
  LORD STANLEYsaid, that the hon. Member who had just sat down, had concluded his address by saying that this was the hundreth anniversary of the battle of Plassey, but he (Lord Stanley) confessed he did not exactly see how it followed as a logical consequence that because one hundred years ago a great victory was won in India by one member of the Indian Civil Service it was the duty of another member of that service to set himself to oppose the development of the internal resources of India. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mangles) had taunted the gentlemen of Manchester with asking the Government of India to help them out of a difficulty which they ought to remove themselves. But the Government of India being the landlords and receiving the rent of the soil under the name of land-tax, were bound to take upon themselves those works of improvement which in other countries were executed by individual landlords. What was asked of the Company was not to give an artificial stimulus to the culture of cotton by any means whatever, but to remove impediments which now stood in the way of that culture in the shape of bad roads or want of roads. Did the hon. Gentleman mean that it was the duty of Manchester to make roads in India? The hon. Gentleman had employed an, argument, which he (Lord Stanley) had heard frequently elsewhere, and had told the House that the real drawback to an increased cultivation of cotton in India was the absence of a sufficiently continuous demand. But why did not the hon. Member state the reason for the absence of this demand? It was this. India was available as a cotton-market in time of extreme scarcity, because in those times, and then alone, the high price enabled the Indian cultivator to overcome the artificial obstacles in his way. But the Indian Government had no right to take advantage of its own wrong. There would be a continuous demand for Indian cotton if it were grown in districts so open to the seaboard that there was a possibility of carrying the cotton at a sufficiently low rate to enable it to compete with American cotton in the ordinary state of the market. The hon. Member had said that there was a great deal more cotton grown in India than was seat to

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  this country, and that the natives preferred to manufacture it for their own use. A great deal of cotton might be worked up for consumption on the spot, but it did not follow that it was more economical to do so. No doubt, the cost of freight was an important element, but the cost of sending the raw material half over the globe might be more than balanced by the greater economy of English manufacture. A hundred instances could be found in the history of commerce where this course of dealing was pursued to the advantage of both parties engaged in it. It used to be matter of ridicule against California, as it was now against the South American States, that they sent their raw hides to the United States, there to be manufactured and re-imported into those countries as shoes. That may have shown a want of enterprise on the part of South America; but it did not follow that that double voyage was not more economical for all parties. The hon. Member (Mr. Mangles) used another argument which also seemed to make against his case—he asked the House to look at the development of the culture of indigo in Bengal as a proof that the East India Company's government had not hindered commercial enterprize in India. But what if it were shown that the success of one kind of culture and the failure of another, were due to their being differently circumstanced in the very respect complained of? The difference between the two was this—that the cotton-growing districts, though perhaps not situated further in the interior than the indigo plantations, were yet far less accessible from the want of internal communication: while, from the infinitely greater value of indigo in proportion to its bulk, the cost of conveyance even by the slowest means over the worst roads, formed a far less deduction from the profits of the grower. With regard to works of irrigation, the hon. Gentleman appeared to think great injustice had been done to the Indian Government by the assertion that it had not equalled the enterprise of various Native rulers. Without depreciating the value of the Ganges canal, and other works of a similar character though of less extent, which had been undertaken by the Government of India, looking at the condition of the native States when they passed into our hands, examining the works that existed there, estimating, also, the proportion those works bore to the resources and population of those States, and contrasting all this with
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  the power which our Government now had, with the present population, and with the superior industrial appliances at their command, he was much mistaken if, on such a comparison, made in a dispassionate spirit, it were not found that many dynasties, which are justly termed barbarous, had, in ages long gone by, provided far better than we now did for the material wants of their subjects. He would mention a single example of this which came under his own observation. Mysore passed under British dominion within the memory of the present generation. It comprised an area of 36,000 square miles, and he could state from official information obtained by him on the spot, that it contained no fewer than 27,000 tanks, many of which were of large extent; the general result being that not less than one twentieth of the entire surface of the province was under water for the purposes of irrigation. In no part of India had a provision to anything like that extent been made by our Government. The instance he had quoted came actually under his own eyes: but he might mention another, drawn not from an historical but a pre-historical period. The greater part of the northern districts of Ceylon were at present inhabited by a scanty population, and many tracts of country lay entirely waste. Sir E. Tennent, who formerly held an official position in that island, and had travelled through it, stated, in a book which he had published, that he saw the remains of various tanks or artificial lakes, about thirty of which were of large size; and that one which he examined, and which was not the largest, must have measured, when in a perfect state, something like ten miles in one direction, and twelve in another. Of course individual instances proved nothing; and without a detailed comparison, which it was certainly difficult now to institute with accuracy, it was impossible to say how the case stood between native Governments and our own; he thought, however, he had stated enough to throw doubt on the justice of our claims to superiority in this respect. With respect to railroads, the hon. Gentleman admitted the truth of a great deal that had been charged against the Government of India. He did not pretend that this species of communication had been opened to anything like the extent that was desired, but he assured them that it would be so some day or other. He told them to look at the map and they would see the railways that

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  had been—made? No, but planned and laid down on paper. Why it was an easy thing to draw a red line on a, map and take credit for that as for a work of improvement in progress. But the question was, would these lines be executed, and, if so, when? Time was an element in matters of this kind which they were too apt to neglect. In making railroads in India they followed too much the English practice. Not that the works were not admirable in construction and perfect in execution, if high speed were the chief object, but their scale and expense were such that the resources of the Indian Government would not suffice to complete them within any moderate period. It was the opinion of many eminent practical men that the precedent of the English railways did not apply to a country situated like India. In England, before a single mile of railway was laid down, we had a most complete system of canal communication, which practically sufficed for the carriage of heavy goods. The railroads came in to supplement the canals, not to supersede them. In India, on the other hand, the state of things was rather that which existed a few years ago in the United States, where the railway did not supersede the canal, but was the first and only communication introduced. It was, therefore, clearly the policy of those who planned the lines in the United States to execute them at the lowest possible cost, to treat with comparative indifference the question of speed, and to press forward the completion of the works with the utmost despatch, even though they should be finished in a comparatively rough and clumsy manner. Thus they would be opened for slow and heavy traffic at the earliest practicable period. The principle which was found adapted to the case of the United States was far more suitable to India, because the interest of money was greater in the latter instance than in the former, and the outlay upon unfinished works therefore constituted a heavier burden upon the projectors. The hon. Gentleman had placed the House in a dilemma by requiring them to affirm that the Government of India was either very dishonest or very foolish. Now, he (Lord Stanley) was not prepared to endorse either of these charges. He did not accuse the Indian Government of being interested in opposing the opening of railway communication in that country; but, owing to their peculiar position, they required a good deal of propulsion from without to make them
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  carry on their works with due zeal and energy. The question was not so much what order should be sent out by the President of the Board of Control, or by that body which the hon. Gentleman represented, as what was the feeling of the local authorities on this subject. The Indian official in charge of a district—than whom there could scarcely be a more hard-working person—was entrusted with a sufficient amount of duty to fill up any one man's whole time. A vast area was confided to his sole care, and the climate after long residence was unfavourable to continued energy on the part of Europeans. He was expected to report frequently, and sometimes in unnecessary detail, to the authorities at Calcutta, which occupied much of his time, and, above all, his connection with the country which he governed was official and official only. An officer so situated might not fail in discharging his functions, but it was clear he had no strong motive urging him to go beyond the strict line of his duty. He had spoken of official persons and it must be remembered that the Indian public was almost exclusively official; it consisted of military men, whose feelings, perhaps, lay in a different direction from the promotion of industrial improvements, and of civilians who had no strong personal incentive to take up subjects of this nature. He omitted the native population when speaking of the Indian public, because their voice scarcely ever reached this country or influenced the policy of the Government. The result of that absence of an influential public opinion, independent of the governing class, was seen in the constant and notorious tendency in the Indian Government to quarrel with its neighbours, which quarrels invariably exhausted funds that might otherwise have been devoted to the improvement of the country. Nothing could keep an Indian Governor General quiet except a deficit, and even that would not always do it. The public in India consisted of civilians and the military. The civilians foresaw an extension of patronage in every new annexation, and both they and the military were flattered by prospects of the extension of the power of this country. Even the missionary interest, he believed, was not hostile to what might enable it to propagate, under British protection, its opinions in a new district. And so it happened that whenever there was any prospect of a dispute it was almost certain that all parties would be in favour of a warlike policy.

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  He did not say that from theory only. He was in India at the time that the second Burmese war broke out. He was not about to criticise the policy of that war, but this he would say, that before it was competent for any man to have formed an unbiassed opinion upon the dispute between the Indian and the Burmese Governments, before any certain or authentic information had been or could be received, there was throughout the country a cry taken up by every class of Europeans, without arguing, without hesitation, and without reflection, in favour of going to war. He mentioned that fact because the same causes still existed, and were likely to exist for a long period, why we need not hope that the surplus revenue of India would be applied to the development of its resources. If we were to wait until India applied her revenue to works of internal improvement we might have to wait for a long time. These works should be undertaken without regard to the question of surplus or deficit, for looking at the question in a merely financial point of view the cost to India of delay will be much greater than if they were carried out at once. He would go into no further details. He had risen simply to meet the defence of the hon. Member for Guildford by a reference to the real facts of the case. At this moment we had a demand for cotton which exceeded the supply. During the last ten or twelve years our productive powers with respect to the cotton manufacture had increased 40 per cent, and there was no reason to suppose that either those powers or the demands of foreign countries for our produce would diminish; on the contrary, they were likely to increase. Although the cost of cotton was now double what it was a few years ago, the cotton manufacture in this country had increased to an unprecedented extent, and the difference in price had caused a loss to the community of £16,000,000 or £17,000,000 a year. No fact could be stated more significant than that, and it could therefore hardly be disputed that the Indian Government, which was, in fact, the landlord of the soil of India, ought to exert itself to the utmost to promote the growth of cotton in India, in order that the constantly augmenting demands for our cotton manufactures might be amply supplied.
  MR. DANBY SEYMOURsaid, that it was impossible to exaggerate the importance of the question, and that if the Indian Government had been guilty of any
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  defects in developing the resources of India the House would have been entitled to interfere; but the speeches that he had heard that evening scarcely touched that point. It was some years since he had the honour of co-operating with his hon. Friend the Member for Stockport on Indian topics, but he begged to remind his hon. Friend that his remarks that evening applied rather to a state of things which existed several years ago than to the present state of India. His hon. Friend had quoted from documents which related to the period anterior to the commencement of what he might call that great era in Indian history which dated from the grant of the charter of 1853. His right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Control had endeavoured this Session, by laying on the table various despatches which had been sent to India during the last few years, to show the House what had been recently done in that country with respect to public works. He (Mr. D. Seymour) did not mean to say that the British Government had till lately executed public works in India at all equal to those which former Governments had executed with much smaller means; but when the British Government became aware of the facts they resolved to make amends. His right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty introduced, while President of the Board of Control, a new system with regard to public works in India, by which many of the suggestions of Mr. Bright were carried into effect. In each of the Presidencies a Commissioner of Public Works had been appointed, and each year those Commissioners sent to the Government of India a list of such works of irrigation, &c., as they thought necessary. The amount expended during the last two years on public works was nearly £3,000,000, being about one-eighth of the whole revenue of the country, and he ventured to say that that was as much as any Government in any country had ever done. The noble Lord who had just sat down had discussed the question whether railroads in India should be of a solid, permanent character, like those constructed in England, or temporary, like those in America, which were constantly requiring large outlays for repairs, and which, without such outlays, soon became only fit for tram-roads. But putting that aside, the Indian Government had resolved that the wisest plan was to make solid, although expensive railroads, such as those in England,

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  which would last one hundred years, as they believed that in the end that would prove to be the truest economy. That was the plan that had been adopted in Austria, Russia, and, in short, every European country that had sufficient capital. He also had to remind hon. Members that railways in India were made by means of foreign, not Indian capital. As to the question before the House, he had to remind them that the cotton trade had sprung up within the last seventy years, and great pains were at first required in order to grow cotton in America. It was not an indigenous plant there, and some time elapsed before those varieties could be discovered which were best adapted to the American climate. There was a Report of M. de Maurepas in the French archives as to the advantages of growing cotton in Louisiana, and when at that period, not more than seventy years ago, eight bales were entered at the custom as the produce of that country, it was rejected as being more than America could produce. The present immense growth of cotton in America was the result of that same diligence and labour which had raised up the cotton manufacture in this country, and the same means adopted in India would produce the same result. There was no difficulty in growing cotton in India. The soil was suitable and the people were industrious; the chief obstacle lay in their poverty. When capital was forthcoming, and as the intelligence and education of the people increased, they would be able to manure their land more, to raise better sorts of cotton, and would come forward to improve the communications, which at present impeded the carriage of cotton to the coast. Upon what ground was the House called upon to exercise Parliamentary interference? Not one word had been uttered during the discussion which showed the necessity of such interference. On the contrary, every thing that had been said referred to a previous period, while what was doing now appeared to be ignored. The only suggestions offered referred to the sale of the land in fee simple and to the making of roads. Upon roads, however, the Indian Government were laying out £3,000,000, besides the expenditure upon railways; and he did not see how they would be justified in laying out a larger sum. With regard to the tenure of the land, that was a most difficult question. There were
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  persons who considered with Mr. Mill that the state was entitled to the increased produce of the land, and Mr. Mill would consistently apply the same principle to England. On the other hand, the principle of selling the fee simple outright existed in some of the most advanced and prosperous countries of the world. He was not, however, at that hour of the night going to enter into the question of the land tenure of India. He had heard of the formation of cotton companies, but no gentleman had come forward and said, "We will endeavour to grow cotton in India if you will let us try the experiment upon a tract of country." The Government, he was persuaded, would not be indisposed to aid the experiment by allowing British planters to be located in India, and they would be only too happy if such an experiment succeeded. Good roads, capital, with European superintendence, were the requisites needed, and if these were forthcoming there need be no fear respecting the growth of cotton in India. Meanwhile, if the only suggestions which could be offered were those he had noticed, he thought, as the Government had done all they could do, it was very hard that this House should condemn them without making out any good case for so doing. He should, therefore, conclude by moving the previous question.
  Whereupon Previous Question proposed,
  "That that Question be now put."
  SIR ERSKINE PERRY SIR ERSKINE PERRY moved the adjournment of the debate.
  MR. VERNON SMITHsaid, that, considering the importance of the subject, the Government would not oppose the Motion for adjournment.
  Debate adjourned till Tuesday next.

INSPECTORS OF TAXES (SCOTLAND).

  MOTION.
  MR. BLACKsaid, that, in accordance with the notice which stood upon the paper in his name, he rose to move the following Resolution:—
  "That it is the opinion of this House that the Salaries of the Scotch Inspectors and Surveyors of Taxes are inadequate for the duties they have to discharge, and as these duties are not less onerous than those performed by the same officers in England, that the remuneration for their services should be placed on the same scale as those of England and Ireland."
  He wished to point out to the House the difference which existed in individual

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  cases between the salaries paid to surveyors in Scotland, as compared with those which persons occupying similar situations received in England, as he could see no good reason why officers acting under the same Board, administering the same law, and with precisely the same responsibility, should, in the case of Scotland, be remunerated for their services upon a scale so much lower than that which prevailed in this country.
  MR. WILSONsaid, it was not a convenient course to discuss in that House the question of the salaries of these officers. He felt assured that if the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, who had carefully considered the relative duties to be performed by the various revenue officers throughout the United Kingdom, had been of opinion that the salaries which the Scotch surveyors received were disproportionate to the duties which they had to perform, they would have long since brought the subject under the notice of the Treasury. Be that as it might, however, he ventured to express a hope that that House would not be induced, without some strong cause shown, to undertake those functions which obviously belonged to the heads of the various departments employed in the collection of the public revenue; for if it were once to interfere in the regulation of the salaries and promotion of the revenue officers, there would be no end to the pressure which would be brought to bear upon hon. Members from all quarters. The proper course for the Scotch surveyors to pursue, if they felt they were labouring under a grievance, would be to address the Treasury through the heads of their respective departments, or to lay their case before the Commissioners themselves, who, if they thought proper, might make a recommendation upon the subject to the Treasury.
  MR. KINNAIRDsaid, that the answer of the hon. Gentleman was not satisfactory. The duties discharged by the Scotch surveyors of taxes were most admirably performed, and it became, therefore, a question well worthy of consideration, whether, by reducing the salaries of the English surveyors to the same scale, a large saving in the public expenditure might not, without any decrease of efficiency, be effected.
  MR. CRAUFURDsaid, he should support the Motion, in the hope that the subject to which it referred would receive the attention of the Commissioners.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, that the principle laid down by the Secretary of the Treasury, if carried to its full extent, would deter public servants from addressing the House upon any grievances of which they had to complain; but the hon. Gentleman was quite right in stating that they should appeal to the Commissioners in the first instance. Under the circumstances, he advised his hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh to withdraw his Motion.
  MR. BLACKsaid, that perhaps hon. Gentlemen did not sufficiently understand the position of these Gentlemen. They were unwilling to complain to the Commissioners, as the consequence would be that they would be dismissed the service and reduced to destitution.
  Motion negatived.

EVIDENCE UPON OATH (HOUSE OF COMMONS)—BILL.

  LEAVE. FIRST READING.
  MR. WARRENsaid, he rose to move for leave to bring in a Bill to empower the House of Commons and its Committees to take evidence upon oath. He did not anticipate that the Motion would meet with any opposition. The power with which the Bill would invest the House was already enjoyed by the Lords, and it was naturally a subject of surprise that it had not yet been extended to the Commons. Moreover, the necessity for the Bill was abundantly evident from the difference in the manner of giving evidence before Committees of the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, that it was not the intention of the Government to offer any opposition to the Motion, but he remarked that it was a subject of some importance, and not rashly to be decided on.
  MR. PEASEsaid, he must object to, the introduction of the Bill, the policy of which he considered more than doubtful.
  MR. HADFIELDsaid, that the cause of truth would be best advanced by abstaining from requiring evidence to be taken on oath.
  Leave given.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. WARREN, the Marquess of BLANDFORD, and Mr. EDWARD EGERTON.
  Bill read 1°.

HIGHWAYS BILL.

  BILL WITHDRAWN.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. MASSEYsaid, be rose to move that this Bill be discharged. It was, however, his intention to bring it into Parliament early next Session.
  SIR WILLIAM JOLLIFFEobserved, that he regretted very much that the Bill had not first been allowed to go to a second reading and be reprinted, because legislation on the subject was most urgent. At the same time he considered it would be almost impossible that a Bill of this kind could pass unless the law on the question was consolidated. He hoped that next Session the hon. Gentleman would bring in a Bill to repeal the whole of the existing laws.
  Order discharged; Bill withdrawn.
  House adjourned at half-after One o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—2a Joint-Stock Companies Act Amendment; Roman Catholic Charities.
3a Divorce and Matrimonial Causes; Smoke Nuisance (Scotland) Abatement.

EXPEDITION TO CENTRAL AUSTRALIA.

  QUESTION.
  THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLEbegged to put a question to his noble Friend the President of the Council. When he (the Duke of Newcastle) had the honour of holding the office of Secretary for the Colonies, in 1853, an expedition was organized for exploring Central Australia, through the interior and up the Victoria River to the Gulf of Carpentaria; and he selected for the head of the expedition Mr. Gregory, a gentleman then living in Australia, who had taken part in previous exploring expeditions, and whose experience eminently qualified him for the position. He had heard that Mr. Gregory and his party had returned, and, with the exception of what related to a portion of the interior of Central Australia, the result of the expedition had been highly successful. The subject was one of great public interest, and the question he wished to ask of his noble Friend was, whether the Government had received any Report from Mr. Gregory, and if so, whether they would lay it on the table of the House? or, if there was an objection to that, whether measures would be taken to lay the result of the expedition before the public?
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that it would be satisfactory to his noble Friend to know that he had made a most judicious choice when he selected Mr. Gregory for the head of the expedition. A Report had been received from the Colonial Government, in which it was stated that all the persons who went in that expedition attributed it to Mr. Gregory's skill and prudence that they had been brought back safely. It was stated that a great part of the interior was unfortunately found to be very sterile, but a great deal of fertile land had beer found in the neighbourhood of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the result of the expedition, in that respect, was successful, He agreed with his noble Friend that the subject was one upon which the public was entitled to every information which could
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  be afforded, and there was no objection on the part of the Government to furnish all the information they possessed.

DIVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL.

  THIRD READING. BILL PASSED.
  Bill read 3a, according to Order.
  LORD REDESDALE LORD REDESDALE rose to move the Amendment of which he had given notice—namely, to omit the words, "and Divorce" from the third Clause. His Lordship had further given notice, that in the event of the House agreeing to omit these words, he would move such further Amendments as might be required to deprive the Court of the power of pronouncing decrees for the dissolution of marriage. His Lordship said, that his object was to raise the question of the extent to which their Lordships were prepared to go in legislating upon this subject. There were no doubt great objections to the present constitution of the Ecclesiastical Courts, and it was desirable that they should be reformed and improved, and to the extent to which the Bill went with regard to constituting a new Court, and transferring to it jurisdiction in matrimonial causes, he proposed to offer no opposition. But he thought that their Lordships ought to have an opportunity of recording their opinions as to whether the new court which was created by the Bill should possess all the powers which it was proposed to give to it. It might be said that he moved this Amendment, and expected support, on the ground that it was not permissible to dissolve marriages; but the omission of the words which he proposed to strike out did not touch that question, and many noble Lords who did not think as he did, that marriage was indissoluble, were of opinion that in many respects this measure was premature, and that it was not desirable to invest a new and untried court with such large powers as were proposed to be conferred by this Bill, and to convert what had hitherto been a legislative into a merely judicial proceeding. There was not much discussion on the Bill till the question of divorce à vinculo was raised, and then Amendments were moved and differences of opinion arose, and a difficulty was felt by every one to pass a remedial measure on the subject. It was felt to be a dangerous step to throw open the power of divorce to the whole country; that it was one thing

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  to grant relief in exceptional cases where there was the opportunity of instituting the fullest inquiry, and to grant relief in all cases, when the proceedings must necessarily assume a much looser character. Some noble Lords had changed their opinions during the course of the discussions; and looking at the number of Amendments and alterations that had been made during the progress of the Bill, it was impossible that the true views and opinions of their Lordships could be known. All this showed how desirable it was that the working of the new court in ecclesiastical matters should be known before they extended its powers to the extreme limit of empowering it to grant divorces à vinculo. There had been a great many petitions against the Bill, and he thought that at least a single year ought to be given in order to test public opinion and the feeling of the people with regard to such a change in the law as was contemplated by the Bill. There were no petitions in its favour; and there never had been any discontent with regard to exceptional legislation on the subject of divorce. He desired, therefore, to give the House another opportunity of expressing its opinion on the subject, and with that view proposed to omit the words "and divorce," which would raise the question in the fairest possible manner.
  LORD CAMPBELLsaid, he was surprised to hear the noble Lord say that the country had been taken by surprise by this measure. Five long years ago a Commission was appointed to inquire into this subject; three Bills had been laid upon their Lordships' table, and one had received their assent and been sent down to the other House of Parliament. He denied that the feeling of the country was against the Bill; he said, on the contrary, that the country was resolved against the scandal of actions of crim. con., and the proceedings before their Lordships on Bills of divorce. The noble Lord said that there were few petitions for the Bill, but who was to petition in its favour? Was it to be the injured husband in contemplation? The petitions which had been presented against the Bill had proceeded upon misapprehension, not to say misrepresentation. They alleged that this Bill would introduce laxity of proceeding, and would enable every one to obtain a divorce. Practically speaking, this measure would make no alteration in the law; it would only confide its administration to a different tribunal. Hitherto the two Houses of Parliament
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  had decided cases of divorce nominally legislatively, but really judicially; this Bill would erect a judicial tribunal before which such cases could be judicially considered and satisfactorily decided. It was a poor compliment to those who would constitute that court to say that the cases would be dealt with in a slovenly manner and without sufficient pains being bestowed upon them. The men who were to fill the office of Judges in it were well versed in judicial proceedings; he knew not that any complaint of neglect of their duties had ever been made against them, and it was not likely that they would now forfeit their high reputations.
  THE EARL OF MALMESBURYconfessed he was one who had come to the same conclusion on the matter as that expressed by a noble Earl (Earl Grey) in his speech the other evening upon this subject; and every word he had heard in relation to it only tended still further to prove to him that the difficulty of legislating upon it was much greater than he had at first believed. Although he voted last year for the second reading of the Bill, he had since given the subject much greater consideration than he had ever done before; and he must say, from all he had heard and seen, he was convinced that they were very far from finding a solution of the difficulty in the measure before the House. It was said that this Bill would remove the hardship to which, under the existing law, the woman was subjected; but how; was that to be done? By the existing law the woman received her punishment for the crime of adultery, though her of fence was not considered in the light of a public sin, but that of a private wrong, and the public showed their feelings by turning their back upon the guilty woman. But what were they doing now? They would bring her before a judicial tribunal, and make her liable to a disgraceful punishment. By the provisions of the present Bill she might be condemned to prison like a drunken prostitute or shoplifter. Then it had been urged that the present law on the subject was a scandal, inasmuch as, under it, public decency was violated, and even morality endangered, by the perusal of such trials in the press. But, had they remedied that evil by the present Bill? He submitted it was impossible in this country, if they wished full justice to be done to avoid exposure. The Court could no sit with closed doors, and therefore all its proceedings would be published in the newspapers.

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  They could not prevent those publications in a country like this, which possessed a free press: therefore the scandal of a trial in those divorce cases would not be got rid of; the clause in relation to it would rather have the effect of increasing the scandal. A third objection raised against the existing law was, that the lower classes of this country were shut out from the privileges which the law exclusively gave to the rich in obtaining a divorce. He confessed he did not think that the measure before the House brought those privileges nearer to the working classes. A single court in London might, no doubt, be rendered useful to all classes residing within the metropolis; but the people in the provinces would not receive, as far as he could understand, any greater benefit from the measure than they possessed under the existing law. But what he principally objected to in this Bill was, its making the crime of adultery a public crime instead of a private wrong. He felt all the infamy of the action of crim. con., but there was a principle involved in that proceeding—it showed that this was a private wrong, and not a public crime. He knew that some of the right rev. Prelates had argued that, inasmuch as adultery was a great sin, it ought to be considered as a public wrong, and that it should be publicly punished. He admitted the enormity of the crime, but he contended that they could not legislate civilly upon the Decalogue. We boasted of our religions liberty, and therefore could not legislate upon the first or second commandments. On the third we had tried to legislate, but had failed. With regard to the fourth, we had met with such difficulties that our legislation was a mass of contradictions, and absurd in the eyes of the public. The public could not interfere with adultery as with theft or murder. They could take no steps for its prevention. How would a man be treated who went to a husband, and told him that he ought to look sharper after his wife? He protested, not only as a legislator, but with all the natural feelings of a gentleman, against the adultery of the woman being considered a public crime, and against her being dragged before the public and punished by imprisonment. He thought that the fact of a woman being treated in that manner would operate to prevent men from petitioning the Court. Few would like to see their wives dragged to prison, and treated as criminals. He did not go so far as to say
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  that there ought to be no divorce; for it would be very hard that a man should be tied for life to a profligate woman; but a great mistake had been made by this Bill, in the manner in which it treated the question. It was purely amoral question, a question of private wrong, and not a matter of police. The protection of the property of married women was an entirely different matter, but this Bill had confounded the two. No doubt the majority of their Lordships would be desirous of seeing divorce obtainable, tinder certain circumstances, but in a manner which should avoid all public scandal, and which would not bear the appearance of revenge on the woman. Nothing had surprised him more throughout these discussions than the extraordinary ignorance of human nature and human feelings which some of the most eloquent of their Lordships had displayed in handling this question. For himself, he would only say that, after having supported the Bill of last Session for facilitating divorce, and having supported the second reading of the present Bill, he felt constrained to mark his disapproval of the measure in its altered shape, by voting for the Amendment of his noble Friend.
  THE EARL OF WICKLOWsaid, that when first this question had come before their Lordships he had been induced to support a proposition for facilitating divorces, from a feeling that the rich man ought not to be placed at such an advantage over the poor man in this respect. That he still thought an evil which ought to be remedied; but, on mature consideration, he felt bound to say that the arguments urged against this Bill were infinitely stronger than that single one in its favour. He should rejoice greatly if his noble Friend on the woolsack would consent to the Amendment of the noble Baron opposite. It would be infinitely better that the Amendment of the existing law set forth in the preamble, of which he heartily approved, should be first carried out before attempting to make any new law with regard to so important a subject as divorce. The moment the Bill stepped out of the preamble it was opposed to the existing law of the land and to the law of God. By both of these marriage was indissoluble, and this Bill, if passed into law, would be the first great inroad on that principle. Indissolubility of marriage was the law of the Catholic Church of England and of the Catholic Church of Rome, and the very necessity of requiring that in all

  205
  cases of divorce à vinculo the parties should apply to Parliament for a private Bill proved that such divorces were contrary to the spirit of the law of England. As the noble Lord who moved the Amendment had said, the public at large were taken by surprise by this Bill. No doubt the question had been under discussion now for some time before Committees and Commissions, but it had never been discussed publicly. It had been said that the argument that by the existing law of the land marriage was indissoluble was advanced a century and a-half too late, because during that time divorces had been granted every year; but every case of a private Bill introduced to grant a divorce only showed that by the common law divorce was impossible. On the religious part of the case he would content himself with saying that he was thoroughly convinced the law of Scripture was opposed to this Bill. There was an opinion abroad—he did not know whether it had found an echo in that House during these debates—that there was a tendency in some portions of the community towards Rome, and that those who had opposed this Bill were of that party. Circumstances had occurred of late years to give a colouring to that opinion, but it was entirely destitute of any real foundation. The general tendency was quite the reverse—it was towards the loose theories of German Protestantism; and he believed that this Bill was entirely in that direction. In Germany, they were told, it was as easy to get rid of a wife as it was to get rid of a servant with us. If this Bill were passed, and the principle of the indissolubility of marriage were once broken through, Parliament would be asked before long to go further in the same direction, and he hoped therefore that their Lordships would resist the first step by affirming the Amendment.
  LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he rose to administer some relief to the two noble Lords who had preceded him, having great respect for their opinions and their scruples, from the burden which this Bill appeared to have imposed upon their minds. The sum and substance of their objection to the Bill seemed to be that a change was about to be made in the existing law, which had always declared divorce to be impossible in proportion as marriage was by that law indissoluble. But, in point of fact, the law was violated and set at nought just as often as their Lordships were called on to do so, and all the conditions
  206
  required were complied with. He did not say that every marriage was dissolved on such application being made; but the rule had constantly been that as often as certain conditions were fulfilled and certain requisites complied with the party petitioning for a divorce had his marriage dissolved, and that as a matter of course. It was, indeed, just as much a matter of course as that in an action at law the jury should return a verdict according to the evidence and the oath they had taken, and that judgment should be entered on the verdict. Did it not, therefore, amount to a jest to talk of indissolubility in such a case as this? To illustrate the extraordinary character of their present mode of proceeding, he might state that it was a Standing Order of their Lordships' House, not only that no divorce Bill should pass, but that no such Bill should be even presented to the House, unless it contained, among other things, a clause forbidding the subsequent marriage of the adulterer and the adultress. But what followed? Why, this clause, which the Standing Order rendered imperative, was uniformly struck from the Bill in Committee. Was this a consistent or intelligible course to pursue? Was it consistent with the dignity of their Lordships' House that such a mockery should be practised with regard to a matter so important by one of their Standing Orders? Surely it was far better that the substance should be substituted for the form, and that divorce should be in reality what it now was in practice, simply a judicial act. His noble Friend the Lord Chief Justice had very properly reminded their Lordships that no one could have been taken by surprise by this Bill, for it was the third time that such a measure had been before their Lordships; and, indeed, he could recollect many years ago being upon a Committee with his noble Friend behind him (Lord Lyndhurst), in which they discussed the policy of transferring the determination of all questions of divorce from before their Lordships to a fixed tribunal, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. And the proposal was only rejected on the ground that that tribunal was already overladen with business. It had been said that if they made divorce in reality a judicial proceeding, to be dealt with judicially like other matters, it would become a matter of course to comply with every petition for divorce; but such an idea would never be entertained by any person who had the least professional experience. He would

  207
  venture to express the opinion that, if there was any one particular class of cases likely to command greater attention than another, it would be the divorce cases brought before these tribunals. That, he was satisfied, would be in accordance with the experience of all professional men, for the Judges, pure and exalted as they might be, were not exalted above all human thoughts and human feelings, curiosity included; and even the purest and sternest of mortals, in dealing with such questions as these, would not fail to give to them the most careful and deliberate attention. But, independently of the interest that would naturally be excited in such cases, their very importance would secure for them the fullest and most searching inquiry. No court that could be established, no professional man raised to the situation of a Judge, would ever be found deviating from the strict rule of anxiously sifting and searching into the nature of the whole of these cases. Suspicion seized the minds of Judges as well as other men; and the suspicion that all was not so right in the case of the petitioners, and that all was not so wrong in that of the defendant as might be represented, was sure to enter deeply into their minds, and lead them to a thorough and sifting investigation. All circumstances must be proved before the Judges, as at present in that House. Let it not be supposed that there would be any very great increase in the number of divorces, although undoubtedly there might be some slight increase when the hindrances which were presented at present to persons of small means who wished to obtain divorces were removed. If justice were denied by reason of the expense, the delay, and vexation attending the present court, probably more parties would resort to the new tribunal, in order to obtain that redress which had hitherto been virtually denied. But was that an evil? On the contrary, it was a step in the right direction. Look to the example of Scotland upon that point. In no part of Christendom was there a more sacred regard for, or more reverential awe of, the Holy Scriptures than in Scotland; nowhere were there greater safeguards for the people and for the ministers than on this point; yet there, from time out of mind, had divorces been granted upon proper application to the courts. He did not quote the case of Scotland in order to prove that noble Lords who objected to follow her example were wrong in their views, but simply to show
  208
  the opinion of that most religious people as to the dissolubility of marriage. Quitting, however, the theological question, he thought the example of Scotland was most important in another way. Noble Lords had said, if the law were relaxed, and divorces were made more easily procurable by the poorer classes, the number of applications would be alarmingly increased. But how was it in Scotland, where a law had existed so long, and which enabled an aggrieved person at a moderate cost to obtain the relief he desired? Instead of divorces being frequent, there were only seventeen in one year, and in two other years the number of divorces granted was respectively ten and twenty. He had, therefore, no apprehension that any measure rendering the law somewhat, although not altogether, equal as between rich and poor, would have the effect of inducing a frequency of divorces. But an objection had been urged against the Bill upon the ground that, if it were passed, Parliament would immediately be asked to go further, and there was no knowing where such legislation would stop. That objection might be raised against every change in the law, and the proper answer to it was, "Wait until any unreasonable proposition is brought forward, and then oppose it." There was, however, one point in the Bill which he thought required consideration, and that was the nature of the penalty to be inflicted upon the guilty parties. He was in favour of treating adultery as a misdemeanour, but not as one punishable by fine or imprisonment at the option of the Court. He thought the penalty should be absolutely a pecuniary one, as, among other objections to the infliction of imprisonment for adultery, he could never consent to permit persons to be tried, convicted, and punished, without the intervention of a jury. Besides, after obtaining a divorce, no husband would like to proceed to a prosecution of the woman whom he had put away. The abolition of the action for criminal conversation well deserved the serious consideration of their Lordships. He had received communications from many parties, including persons of high judicial authority, offering objections to this part of the measure, or, at least, insisting upon the necessity of providing some efficient substitute. He was the more disposed to listen to the complaints of his correspondents, because some of the parties suing for divorce belonged to the humbler classes

  209
  of society, to whom the loss of a wife was a serious pecuniary evil. In the upper ranks it was a question of feeling rather than of personal interest, and it might very well be said, that an injury to the, feelings of a party was not a matter for pecuniary compensation. But to a poor man the loss of the services of his wife—the loss of the benefit which he derived from her superintendence of his family, and the arrangement and management of his household, was a serious pecuniary loss, and he could not help thinking that some remedy should be provided for such a case. A proposition had been submitted to their Lordships for defraying the expenses of the husband in suing for a divorce; but; he went further and said, that out of the fine the Court should award to the husband some compensation for the loss he had sustained, and he thought that if some such provision, were adopted, the objections to this part of the measure would be obviated. He knew that a learned Judge denied that suing for damages was inconsistent with the nature of the injury inflicted upon the feelings of the husband, and he instanced the case of libel where a man's character and honour had been assailed, and where pecuniary compensation was made. He thought, if some such alterations were made, the Bill would go down to the other House with the best possible prospect of success. Far be it from him to hold out anything like a menace as to the course which the other House might think fit to pursue, or the fear of a collision with the other House—that was often talked of, but it was absurd, contradictory to the fact, and there had been no great risk whatever upon any of those occasions; but, at the same time, he would deprecate anything which might, for no good or useful purpose, tend to break the harmony which existed between the two branches of the Legislature. He therefore hoped and trusted that their Lordships would pass the Bill as it now stood, with the exception of the imprisonment of the adulterers. But if the Bill were altered in the direction indicated by the proposed Amendments, he feared the measure would have little chance of passing the other House.
  LORD WENSLEYDALEsaid, there could be no question as to what the law of England was. By the law of England it was, and had been, impossible to pronounce a divorce à vinculo matrimonii. Cranmer, at the time of the Reformation, attempted to alter it; but he failed. It could not be
  210
  done without the special interference of the Legislature on each and every occasion. But as the Legislature had sanctioned divorce for two centuries, the proposal before their Lordships was to substitute for the present Legislative action a regularly constituted judicial body. The question was, should that proposal become the law of the land. He confessed that although entertaining considerable doubts upon the subject at first, yet, after their Lordships had sanctioned the Bill upon two occasions, after it had been sanctioned by a Commission consisting of many learned men, he had come to the conclusion that he should not be justified in supporting the Amendment of the noble Lord.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVONsaid, that the Bill might be objected to, if on no other ground than the variety of metamorphoses which it had undergone. The Bill established a new court, provided protection for women who had been deserted by their husbands, and abolished the action for criminal conversation. These were all very important matters; but to them it was proposed to add the power of granting divorces. Now the proposal of his noble Friend (Lord Redesdale) was not to reject the Bill, but to secure that that matter should undergo further and more satisfactory discussion. It had been said that the subject had been exhausted, but he thought the variety of Amendments showed that the matter was far from a satisfactory settlement.
  THE BISHOP OF OXFORDsaid, there were many of their Lordships who believed that, whatever doubts there might be as to the general power of remarriage after divorce, there was no doubt that the words of our Lord forbade the adulterous woman remarrying in the lifetime of her husband. If they passed the Amendment of the noble Lord opposite they sanctioned all the Amendments of the law contemplated by the Bill short of that which made such marriages possible; but if the Amendment were rejected and the Bill passed in its present shape, they intentionally and knowingly declared that the law of England should contradict the law of Christ. He believed that this question of divorce had not yet made entrance into the public mind. He had that day received a letter saying that the clergy themselves were only beginning to awake to what were the proposed alterations. He therefore thought it highly expedient, while they organized the new court, to allow the question to

  211
  rest;—not that he would have the law continue always as at present, a system of privilegia, but that he would avoid a settlement of what the law should be with respect to divorce à vinculo until it had been more thoroughly ventilated in the public mind. Earnestly desiring, as he did, to effect the improvements which the rest of the Bill contemplated, he hoped the Government would not make it necessary for him to move the rejection of the measure on the question that the Bill do pass, by refusing to adopt the Amendment now proposed.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORthought it necessary, before putting the question from the woolsack, to remove the erroneous impresssion which would probably be produced by what had just fallen from the right rev. Prelate. The right rev. Prelate said that many Members of their Lordships' House disapproved of that portion of the Bill which enabled the adulterous woman to remarry in the lifetime of her husband, and left it to be inferred that this Amendment would remedy that objection; but the Amendment, in fact, would offer no such remedy, except so far as it would tend to reject the Bill altogether. He must complain of the course which his noble Friend had taken in moving that Amendment. Their Lordships might rely upon it that the forms of their proceedings were founded substantially upon good sense. When it was proposed to read a Bill a third time, any noble Lord would do right to vote for its being read a third time that day six months if he thought that it could never be made, with any Amendments, a proper measure; but if he thought that with Amendments it could be made a proper measure, he ought to allow the Bill to be read a third time, and propose Amendments on the question that the Bill do pass. The course taken by the noble Lord was to propose on the third reading different Amendments which, in substance, were absolutely idle—namely, that the new Court, instead of being called a Court of Marriage and Divorce, should be called a Court of Marriage. If the Amendments stopped there the alteration would be very incongruous, because the object of the Bill was to enable the Court to grant divorces, and therefore it was a Court of Marriage and Divorce. The proposition went further, "and to make such Amendments as shall be consequent thereon." What was meant by consequent thereon? Did it mean as far only as was consequent upon
  212
  altering the name of the Court, or did it mean to make the Bill totally different from that which their Lordships had considered in Committee? He thought the course taken by the noble Lord very inconvenient. The question really raised by the Amendment was, were they or were they not prepared to sanction a measure to make divorce à vinculo a judicial instead of a legislative proceeding? He could hardly conceive that any one would gravely state that the measure took the public by surprise. Seven or eight years ago a Royal Commission issued to inquire into the subject. Four or five years ago the Commission made their report. Four or five Bills had been introduced at various times, and a Select Committee of their Lordships looked into the question last year, with a degree of care and accuracy which had been rarely equalled and never surpassed. To be gravely told that the discussion of the Bill at the last stage took the country by surprise was an attempt to draw very largely upon the credulity of their Lordships. If the question, were not now ripe for decision, he wanted to know at what period of the world's history would it ever be ripe? He would only add in answer to his noble Friend (the Earl of Wicklow) that if he believed the Bill calculated to lead to those evils which were figured as making the marriage bond too lax in some of the Northern States of Germany, he would throw it in the fire rather than ask their Lordships to sanction it. He thought it would have no such consequences. For 200 years the principle of the Bill had been in operation, and scarcely a single attempt had been made to gain divorce for any cause but adultery. If the feeling of the country had not been altered for 200 years, he did not believe the change from a legislative to a judicial proceeding would have any effect whatever, and the simple question now was whether the character of the tribunal should be changed. A suggestion had been thrown out that the anticipation of justice being made accessible to the poor would not be realized. Now, that he altogether denied. It was perfectly true that the rich enjoyed advantages which the poor did not possess; but that was a state of things which was incidental to the very existence of men in society, and which no legislation could obviate. The rich, for instance, could always command the services of the ablest lawyers, while the poor man was not in a position to avail himself of their aid.

  213
  There was, however, no good reason why, in the tribunal which the Bill proposed to establish, the expense of a suit should involve the outlay of one farthing more than if it had been instituted before a Judge whose jurisdiction did not extend beyond actions for the recovery of the small sum of £5. He might add that the poor man, in cases relating to property, might now sue in formâ pauperis in the courts of Westminster, and the Judges of the new tribunal would in framing the rules for the conduct of its business, be enabled to extend the system of suing in formâ pauperis as far as might seem to be expedient. There could be no doubt, at all events, that the effect of the Bill would be to enlarge the area of those persons who were entitled to claim the relief which it provided, and he therefore trusted that their Lordships would reject all Amendments which had for their object, either directly or indirectly, to render valueless that which was the substantial feature of the measure.
  THE BISHOP OF BANGORmade a few observations, which were inaudible.
  On Question, That ("and Divorce") stand part—
  Their Lordships divided:—Contents 91; Not-Contents 34: Majority 57.

  CONTENTS.

  Cranworth, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Clancarty, V. (E. Clancarty.)

  Doneraile, V.

  Cleveland, D.

  Falmouth, V.

  Wellington, D.

  Gordon, V. (E. Aberdeen.)

  Ailesbury, M.

  Hardinge, V.

  Lansdowne, M.

  Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)

  Townshend, M.

  Westmeath, M.

  Melville, V.

  Sydney, V.

  Airlie, E.

  Torrington, V.

  Beauchamp, E.

  Belmore, E.

  Bangor, Bp.

  Burlington, E.

  Exeter, Bp.

  Chesterfield, E.

  Kilmore, &c., Bp.

  Chichester, E.

  Llandaff, Bp.

  Clarendon, E.

  London, Bp.

  Ducie, E.

  Ripon, Bp.

  Effingham, E.

  Worcester, Bp.

  Essex, E.

  Fortescue, E.

  Aveland, L.

  Granville, E.

  Belper, L.

  Harrington, E.

  Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery.)

  Harrowby, E.

  Innes, E. (D. Roxburghe.)

  Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

  Morley, E.

  Brougham and Vaux, L.

  Morton, E.

  Byron, L.

  Munster, E.

  Calthorpe, L.

  Scarborough, E.

  Camoys, L.

  Shaftesbury, E.

  Campbell, L.

  Spencer, E.

  Carew, L.

  214

  Clandeboye, L. (E. Dufferin and Claneboye.)

  Minster, L. (M. Conyngham.)

  Congleton, L.

  Monteagle of Brandon, L.

  Crewe, L.

  Dartrey, L. (L. Cremorne.)

  Panmure, L.

  Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.) [Teller.]

  De Mauley, L.

  Denman, L.

  Rivers, L.

  De Ros, L.

  Saye and Sele, L.

  De Tabley, L.

  Sheffield, L. (E. Sheffield.)

  Foley, L. [Teller.]

  Forester, L.

  Somerhill, L. (M. Clanricarde.)

  Granard, L. (E. Granard.)

  Stanley of Alderley, L.

  Hamilton, L. (L. Belhaven and Stenton.)

  Strafford, L. (V. Enfield.)

  Stuart de Decies, L.

  Holland, L.

  Sundridge, L. (D. Argyll.)

  Hunsdon, L. (V. Falkland.)

  Talbot de Malahide, L.

  Ker, L. (M. Lothian.)

  Truro, L.

  Kingston, L. (E. Kingston.)

  Vivian, L.

  Wensleydale, L.

  Lyndhurst, L.

  Wrottesley, L.

  Manners, L.

  Wycombe, L. (E. Shelburne.)

  Melros, L. (E. Haddington.)

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Leeds, D.

  Dungannon, V.

  Bath, M. [Teller.]

  Chichester, Bp.

  Salisbury, M.

  Durham, Bp.

  Oxford, Bp.

  Amherst, E.

  Salisbury, Bp.

  Bantry, E.

  St. Asaph, Bp.

  Cardigan, E.

  Carnarvon, E.

  Berners, L.

  Desart, E.

  Clifton, L. (E. Darnley.)

  Ferrers, E.

  Kilmaine, L.

  Malmesbury, E.

  Lovat, L.

  Mayo, E.

  Oriel, L. (V. Massereene.)

  Nelson, E.

  Romney, E.

  Petre, L.

  Strathmore, E.

  Rayleigh, L.

  Talbot, E.

  Redesdale, L. [Teller.]

  Wicklow, E.

  Stafford, L.

  Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

  Vaux of Harrowden, L.

  Wynford, L.

  THE EARL OF DONOUGHMOREpointed out the difference which existed in the law of Scotland from that of England, and mentioned that in a case where a divorce had been granted in Scotland on the ground of adultery by the husband, and the woman thinking herself released from the first marriage had married again in England, that second marriage had been declared illegal, and she had been convicted of bigamy. It ought, therefore, even as a matter of expediency, to be settled clearly what would be the effect of such a divorce and remarriage under this Act. He also argued that upon the principles of justice there ought to be no difference in the operation of the law in the case of the husband and of the wife. He therefore proposed in the clause giving divorce to the wife for adultery accompanied

  215
  by incest, or other aggravating circumstances, to omit the word "incestuous."
  LORD CAMPBELLsaid, the principle advocated by the noble Lord was very popular, but he must oppose it. The Commissioners had come to the conclusion that it would not be desirable to allow the same privilege to the wife as to the husband, which would be altering the state of the law, which had been unchanged for centuries, and they had decided that divorce should not be granted to the wife on the ground of adultery, unless with such aggravation as would render it impossible for the parties to live together. It never had been granted, and he, for one, was not bold enough to alter the universal custom, notwithstanding the example of the law of Scotland.
  Amendment negatived.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR rose to move an Amendment in the 31st clause, of which notice had been given by his noble and learned Friend Lord St. Leonards. His noble and learned Friend being unable to be present he had undertaken to move this Amendment for him, concurring as he did entirely in the justness and expediency of it. The proposed Amendment was to be made in the clause providing that the adulterer should be liable to a fine or imprisonment, and the wife to imprisonment. As the clause originally stood, the "fine" applied as well to the wife as to the adulterer. That had, however, been altered, as it was absurd to fine a married woman, who would probably have no property apart from the husband, at whose instance the fine was to be imposed. The clause had therefore been altered so as to leave the wife liable to imprisonment only. It had then occurred to his noble and learned Friend that it would be throwing a great obstacle in the way of the object of the Bill if the wife were to be subjected to imprisoment; for a husband, however ill a wife might have behaved, would hesitate to proceed for a divorce the necessary consequence of which would be the wife's imprisonment. In this view of his noble and learned Friend he concurred, and he therefore moved an Amendment, the object of which, was to free the wife from this liability to imprisonment.
  Amendment moved—
  "To omit (pass upon the guilty Parties, or either of them, Sentence of Fine and Imprisonment, or Fine or Imprisonment, as though such Party had been convicted of a Misdemeanour at Common Law, and the Court may further order the guilty Parties or either of them;") and insert
  216
  ("Impose upon the Adulterer a Fine, and order him").
  THE BISHOP OF OXFORDsaid, that if these words were struck out, the last guard of purity of married life would be removed, as far as the poorer classes were concerned. There would be nothing to prevent a woman who desired a new husband, and whose husband desired a new wife, from going to live with the man whom she preferred. Her husband would then proceed against the paramour, obtain a divorce, and marry again. The woman would marry her paramour, and assume precisely the same position as before her divorce, moving, as before, in the society of her equals, who would consider her as being, to use their own expression, made an honest woman again, and she would suffer no loss of caste whatever. The law would leave no check whatever upon the woman, and the most unbridled licentiousness would prevail among the lower classes.
  On Question, that the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill?
  Their Lordships divided:—Contents 29; Not-Contents 49: Majority 20.

  CONTENTS.

  Canterbury, Archbp.

  Bangor, Bp.

  Leeds, D.

  Chichester, Bp.

  Durham, Bp.

  Westmeath, M.

  Exeter, Bp.

  Amherst, E.

  Llandaff, Bp.

  Carnarvon, E.

  London, Bp.

  Munster, E.

  Oxford, Bp.

  Nelson, E. [Teller.]

  Ripon, Bp.

  Romney, E.

  Salisbury, Bp.

  Shaftesbury, E.

  St. Asaph, Bp.

  Wicklow, E.

  Winchester, Bp.

  Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

  Congleton, L.

  Denman, L.

  Dungannon, V.

  Petre, L.

  Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.) [Teller.]

  Redesdale, L.

  Vaux of Harrowden, L.

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Cranworth, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Harrowby, E.

  Scarborough, E.

  Spencer, E.

  Wellington, D.

  Falmouth, V.

  Ailesbury, M.

  Melville, V.

  Bath, M.

  Sydney, V.

  Lansdowne, M.

  Townshend, M.

  Belper, L.

  Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

  Chesterfield, E.

  Chichester, E.

  Byron, L.

  Clarendon, E.

  Camoys, L.

  Desart, E.

  Campbell, L.

  Fortescue, E.

  Churchill, L.

  Granville, E.

  Clandeboye, L. (L. Dufferin and Claneboye.)

  Harrington, E.

  217

  Dartrey, L. (L. Cremorne.)

  Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.) [Teller.]

  De Mauley, L.

  Rayleigh, L.

  De Ros, L.

  Rivers, L.

  De Tabley, L.

  Saye and Sele, L.

  Foley, L. [Teller.]

  Stanley of Alderley, L.

  Kilmaine, L.

  Stuart de Decies, L.

  Lyndhurst, L.

  Sundridge, L. (D. Argyll.)

  Manners, L.

  Minster, L. (M. Conyngham.)

  Talbot de Malahide, L.

  Truro, L.

  Monteagle of Brandon, L.

  Wensleydale, L.

  Wrottesley, L.

  Panmure, L.

  Wycombe, L. (E. Shelburne.)

  EARL NELSON EARL NELSON moved an Amendment upon the 54th clause, which permits the remarriage of divorced persons, providing that in case of the remarriage of divorced persons such marriage should take place in the office of the registrar, or in some building registered under the Marriage and Registration Act, and according to the form, and provisions of that Act. The object of this Amendment was to save the consciences of the clergy, of whom many were averse to these marriages, and to provide that, as this matter had been argued on purely civil grounds, so the remarriage, if it took place, should be only a civil marriage. Unless this Amendment were agreed to, a very large portion of the clergy of the Established Church (with the Archbishop at the head) who believed that marriage was indissoluble, and that the marriage of the adulterer and adultress was sinful, would be obliged to perform that marriage and to read the solemn service established for that ceremony by the Church of England. There had been some question, as to whether the law of the Church was opposed to this legislation; but, be that as it might, there occurred in one of the prayers for the marriage service these words, "that it should never be lawful to put asunder those whom Thou by matrimony hast made one," and the marriage service itself referred to the married parties as so knit together, that it should never be lawful to put them asunder. Could any conscientious clergyman who believed that this legislation was contrary to the law of God, celebrate such a marriage; or could be pronounce God's blessing over the parties, and thus confirm them in their adultery? The clergy had entered into a contract with the State, they had signed the Thirty-nine Articles, and yet the State, without consulting the clergy, broke that, imposed a Fortieth Article without obtaining their assent to it, and demanded from them the discharge of
  218
  a duty which they had not contracted to perform, and which they considered directly repugnant to Scripture. It might be said that, under the present system, clergymen had already married divorced persons; but these would naturally go to be married at places where they were not known, so that the clergyman would have no opportunity of finding out what they were. It was said, too, that in relieving the consciences of the clergy, the consciences of the laity might be endangered; but surely, as this privilege of divorce had been obtained on civil grounds, the parties who had obtained it might remain content with a civil marriage. But, even then, the Marriage and Registration Acts allowed parties who had been married by the registrar to be remarried by a clergyman, and this course was open to persons remarried after divorce if they could find a clergyman ready to perform the religious ceremony over them. Those who put the conscience of the registrar in comparison with the consciences of the clergy clearly did not understand the position in which the clergy were placed by this Bill. The registrar had merely to perform an official duty of registering certain names in a book. He had not to pronounce the Church's blessing over the parties, nor to do any thing which gave a religious character to the ceremony. Besides, if he objected to performing these marriages, he was not obliged to be a registrar, all the other professions were open to him; but a clergyman, if he had such objections and acted on them, must starve. It was said that this Amendment would endanger the union between Church and State; but the only union which it would endanger, would be that which would give us a clergy without a conscience. The union between Church and State might be kept up by doing justice to the Church, and by the Church obeying where she was pledged to obey; but by this Bill the State was proposing to do that towards the Church, which would be looked upon as dishonest in transactions between man and man. It was true that not many petitions had been presented on the subject; but he had received many letters from clergymen expressing very strongly their feelings with reference to it. He considered that his Amendment was based upon Christian principles, and it had always appeared to him that in arguing this question the supporters of the Bill had placed themselves between the horns of a dilemma, because they undertook to make a change

  219
  in the ecclesiastical law, while all the arguments brought forward to support that alteration were of a civil nature. When making an alteration in the ecclesiastical law, they ought, at all events, to see whether it was borne out by Scripture. He contended that if they did away with an ecclesiastical statute on purely civil grounds, by which marriages not hitherto legal were made so, they were bound to relieve clergymen from the performance of such marriages.
  Amendment moved,
  "To insert after the words ('to marry again,') the following words ('in the office of the registrar, or in any building registered under the Marriage and Registration Acts, according to the manner and form, and subject to the provisions contained in the said Acts.')"
  THE EARL OF WINCHILSEAsaid, that there could be no doubt whatever that the great majority of the clergy entertained the most conscientious scruples to the marriage of an adulterer or adultress, during the lifetime of her husband, as being in direct opposition to the expressed Word of God; and it was on that ground that he rested his opposition to this measure. They were attempting to introduce an alteration which was in direct opposition to the religious feeling, not only of the clergy, but of the mass of their fellow-countrymen. He objected also to the proposed tribunal, which would be accessible only to the rich; for it was not to be expected that the poor people would be able to afford the expense of bringing up their witnesses to the metropolis from Cumberland or Cornwall. If there were no other objections to the Bill, instead of being so many, he thought the objections to the machinery ought in themselves to ensure its rejection. He denied entirely that it would give the redress which was the only excuse of its enactment. To be applicable to all, rich as well as poor, it should, at least, be equal in its operation, which would not be the case for the reason he had pointed out. But, above all, he objected to this Bill, because he thought the Legislature was not justified in wounding the consciences of the clergy by compelling them to celebrate such marriages, and to administer to them the most sacred rites of the Church; and he, for one, would never give his assent to it.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORcomplained that this question should be again argued at this stage of the measure, when the House had already twice declared an
  220
  opinion adverse to the Amendment, once in the Committee by a very full House, and again on the recommittal of the Bill, in the self-same words, on the Motion of the noble Earl. It was now mooted for the third time. Undoubtedly his noble Friend had a right to call upon their Lordships to reconsider the matter; but he (the Lord Chancellor) thought that unless they were satisfied that some strange oversight had been committed, or that they had not properly understood the question before them, they ought not on slight grounds to disturb the decision to which their Lordships had arrived, after mature consideration. It appeared to him that the plea that the consciences of the clergy would be interfered with could not stand for a moment, for the simple reason that if a tender conscience was to justify a man in his disobedience of the law, there was no knowing where it was to stop. It was only two or three years ago since the case of the tender conscience of a clergyman who refused to bury certain persons was brought before the House, and it was then after debate by their Lordships expressly decided that no man could set his opinion up above the law, and therefore act in disobedience to the law—that clergymen were bound by the law of the land, and must obey it. For his part, he saw no difference in principle between the two cases. If the law of the land declared it to be lawful that certain parties might marry, it was a law that must be obeyed. If persons were separated by a divorce, and the law gave them the power to marry again, what reason was there why they should not be allowed to marry in the same manner as the rest of Her Majesty's subjects. An attempt had been made to meet the difficulty by proposing that the marriage should take place only at the registrar's office in such cases; but many persons might feel a repugnance to that. An objection also was that the Registration of Marriages Act gave the power to persons who had been married at the registrar's office to demand to be subsequently married in a church if they were so disposed; and therefore the conscientious objection of the clergy would not be set at rest. He did not, however, altogether coincide in such a view of the case, because it was extremely doubtful whether, if a marriage took place under the present Act, the fact of its being in a registrar's office would entitle the parties to take advantage of the Registration Act, and demand to be married again in a

  221
  church; indeed, if it were declared that divorced parties should be allowed to marry at the registrar's office, the implication would be that they should be married there only. But on the short grounds that the law of the land must be paramount over religious scruples, and taking into consideration that by the law persons divorced under this Act would be in the position of unmarried persons, and were therefore entitled to be married in the same manner as Her Majesty's other subjects, he called upon their Lordships to reject the Amendment.
  THE BISHOP OF OXFORDsaid, the Amendment had been drawn with a view to meet the objection of the noble and learned Lord. The words were "in the office of any registrar, or in any building registered under the Marriage and Registration Acts, according to the manner and form, and subject to the provisions contained in the said Acts." No new power of marrying by a registrar was created, but the power was to be subject to the provisions contained in that Act, one of which was that the religious ceremony might be afterwards performed if the parties chose, and could find a clergyman to officiate. The noble and learned Lord had compared the scruples of the clergy to marry divorced persons with those which were entertained by some respecting the reading of the burial service in particular cases, but in truth there was a vast difference. Every clergyman who held an office in the Church accepted such office with the knowledge that he was to act in accordance with the law of the realm; but the hardship which he complained of in the present instance was that, after clergymen had taken upon themselves an office which they could not vacate, the Legislature was about to alter the law of the land, and to compel them to act in a manner which they considered to be contrary to the laws of God. He did not wish to prolong a needless discussion, for he gathered from what had passed, that a majority against the Amendment had been secured; but he desired to impress upon their Lordships the deep interest with which the question was viewed by many of the most estimable clergymen of the Church of England. He had on a previous evening read a letter from an archdeacon in the diocese of Gloucester, a most respected and aged clergyman, and holding what were known as Evangelical opinions, in which he declared that the Bill, if passed, imposing the necessity
  222
  of administering the sacred rite of marriage to a person who had been divorced for adultery, would be a cruel and oppressive act towards the Church of England. It had been urged against the Amendment that there was no precedent for it. But that was a mistake, for in the Marriage Act of last year a similar clause had been introduced; and in 1850, when a highly respected Friend of his (Mr. S. Wortley) introduced a Bill to legalize the marriage of a widower with a deceased wife's sister, he expressly declared that he did not seek to force the clergy to perform, those marriages, but to leave it to the clergy to celebrate those marriages or not, according to their own consciences, without any respect to civil consequences, the law of the Church being left as before. He contended, therefore, there were precedents for such a clause as was now proposed, and he besought their Lordships to follow those precedents, and for the sake of the Church of England not to tamper with the conscience of those men who were placed in the position of its teachers. It was true that the Government had a majority, but even were the clause rejected, the question would still remain unsettled. Dissatisfaction would be spread throughout the Church at an alteration in the conditions upon which conscientious clergymen held their offices, and which put them to the alternative of yielding their benefices, or of acting, as they believed, contrary to the word of God. Surely the conscientious scruples of clergymen of the Church of England were not to be less regarded than the conscientious scruples of any other class of Her Majesty's subjects. They had undertaken to obey the law of the land, which was in accordance with the word of God. It was now proposed to change that law in a manner they conceived to be contrary to God's word, and yet they were called upon to sacrifice their consciences or give up their offices. He hoped their Lordships would pause before they inflicted so great a wrong upon the clergy of England.
  LORD CAMPBELLwished to point out that the right reverend Prelate was mistaken in supposing that this Amendment had reference solely to the adultress. It was levelled against the innocent husband, who might have been a pattern of fidelity. If the husband had had the misfortune to be united to an unfaithful wife, having cherished her, and done all that was required

  223
  of him by the vow which he took at the altar of God, and if his marriage with her had been dissolved, by this Amendment he would be stigmatized, inasmuch as, in the event of his remarrying, he could only be married before the registrar, a form of marriage which might be utterly opposed to his conscience. Noble Lords who said so much about the consciences of the clergy should show some respect for the conscience of the innocent and exemplary husband, who might consider marriage before the registrar profane and degrading.
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, he thought that the hardship was more imaginary than real, although he should certainly not consider himself married unless the ceremony was a religious one, and if he were married before a registrar would have the ceremony afterwards performed by a clergyman. But what position were the clergy to be placed in? They were to be called on to declare that God had joined together persons whom they believed to be not so joined, and while all the time they were convinced that the marriage was nothing but a hollow mockery. He complained that the Government had made the Bill a party measure, and therefore had ready all that machinery which was brought into requisition when it was necessary, in their opinion, to pass a measure the responsibility of which they had undertaken. But on the other side it was not treated as a party question, and he earnestly trusted that in the divisions which took place their Lordships would be guided only by their conscientious convictions on the subject.
  THE BISHOP OF EXETERobserved, that, on the whole, considering the special difficulties in which this subject was involved, he thought the plan proposed by the Government was the best. He agreed with the noble and learned Lord Chief Justice that it would be a cruel indignity to the injured husband to compel him to be married before a registrar; he could not consent to confound the innocent with the guilty, and must, therefore, oppose the Amendment. He reminded the noble and learned Lord on the woolsack that the case which he had referred to, and which occurred in the diocese of Chichester, was a case in which a petition was presented against a clergyman, and not a case in which a clergyman petitioned to save his conscience. He had refused to bury two persons, one of whom he considered to be
  224
  excommunicated, and another who had committed suicide, and against whom the coroner's jury had returned a verdict of felo de se. It was a petition presented against the clergyman which raised the debate in their Lordships' House, and which terminated as had been stated.
  VISCOUNT DUNGANNONsaid, he could not consent to confound the innocent with the guilty, and was, therefore, constrained to vote against the Amendment.
  On Question, Whether the said words shall be there inserted? their Lordships divided:—Contents 19; Not-Contents 47: Majority 28.

  CONTENTS.

  Canterbury, Archbp.

  Chichester, Bp.

  Leeds, D

  Durham, Bp.

  Llandaff, Bp.

  Bath, M. [Teller.]

  Oxford, Bp.

  Rochester, Bp.

  Amherst, E.

  Salisbury, Bp.

  Desart, E.

  St. Asaph, Bp.

  Nelson, E. [Teller.]

  Winchester, Bp.

  Romney, E.

  Wicklow, E.

  Rayleigh, L.

  Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

  Redesdale, L.

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Cranworth, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Campbell, L.

  Churchill, L.

  Wellington, D.

  Clandeboye, L. (L. Dufferin and Claneboye.)

  Congleton, L.

  Lansdowne, M.

  Dartrey, L. (L. Cremorne.)

  Townshend, M.

  De Mauley, L.

  Chesterfield, E.

  Denman, L.

  Chichester, E.

  De Ros, L.

  Clarendon, E.

  Foley, L. [Teller.]

  Fortescue, E.

  Kilmaine, L.

  Granville, E.

  Lyndhurst, L,

  Harrington, E.

  Monteagle of Brandon, L.

  Harrowby, E.

  Scarborough, E.

  Panmure, L.

  Shaftesbury, E.

  Rivers, L.

  Spencer, E.

  Rossie, L. (L. Kinnaird.)

  Saye and Sele, L.

  Dungannon, V.

  Sheffield, L. (E. Sheffield.)

  Falmouth, V.

  Melville, V.

  Stanley of Alderley, L.

  Stuart de Decies, L.

  Bangor, Bp.

  Sundridge, L. (D. Arghll.)

  Exeter, Bp.

  Talbot de Malahide, L.

  Belper, L.

  Wensleydale, L.

  Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

  Wrottesley, L.

  Wycombe, L. (E. Shelburne.)

  Byron, L.

  Camoys, L. [Teller.]

  THE BISHOP OF EXETERsaid, he should acquiesce in the decision of their Lordships by which the Amendment of the most rev. the Archbishop of Canterbury, to prevent the guilty party marrying again, was rejected, although he regretted

  225
  it. But he did not think they were called upon to do more than not to exclude guilty parties from matrimony, and he could not consent to their being married with the most solemn ceremony of the Church, which from first to last presumed, not only the sacredness of marriage, but the fitness of the parties who offered themselves. Adultery rendered persons liable to the censure of the Church, and the title of these persons to marriage was simply their adultery. The celebration of such marriages, according to the rites of the Church, would be making the holy offices the merest instruments of State policy. He should, therefore, move, that the following proviso be added to Clause 54:—
  "Provided that, after Sentence of Divorce shall have been duly pronounced in any Suit by reason of Adultery committed by either Party, it shall be lawful for the Party by reason of whose Adultery the said sentence shall have been pronounced, in case of his or her intending to intermarry with the Party with whom such Adultery has been committed, to make and subscribe a Declaration in conjunction with such last-mentioned Party before any One of the Judges of the Court of Marriage and Divorce, or by any Person to be commissioned by the said Court under the Official Seal to receive such Declaration, in the terms of the Schedule hereunto annexed; and upon such Declaration being made as aforesaid, it shall be lawful for the Judge, or the Person so commissioned, to declare the said Parties to be lawfully married; and such Marriage shall be good and lawful to all intents and purposes whatsoever: Provided always that nothing herein contained shall make lawful any Marriage between any Parties who are now disabled by Law from contracting Marriage together by reason of Consanguinity or Affinity.
  SCHEDULE.
  I, A. B. do take C. D. to be my wedded wife.
  I, C. D. do take A. B. to be my wedded husband.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, as the Amendment was somewhat similar to that which they had already rejected, he thought that the result of the right rev. Prelate's Amendment, if adopted, would be to create a new marriage tribunal, utterly unknown to the law before—namely, marriage by the Court of Divorce. There were already very strong objections against the marriage before the registrar, but the present proposition was open to far stronger objections. He hoped that their Lordships would not sanction the Amendment of the right rev. Prelate.
  LORD CAMPBELLsaid, the Amendment imposed an obligation on any Judge of the Divorce Court to declare the parties married. He (Lord Campbell) was one of the Judges; now, suppose he was
  226
  a conscientious person, and had an objection to marriages of this kind—yet he or any one of the Judges might be compelled, under pain of losing his office, to declare such parties Lawfully married. This was quite as hard as that any incumbent of the Church of England who had conscientious objections to marrying such parties should be compelled to marry them.
  THE BISHOP OF EXETERobserved, that, notwithstanding the very extreme supposition of the noble and learned Lord that he had a conscience, he could not understand how the noble and learned Lord could object to carry into execution that which the law of the land had declared to be legal. To adopt the course of having the marriage ceremony under the circumstances of the case, performed in the Church, would be to inflict a grievous wound upon her, and would be contrary to the very essence of the sacred service.
  On Question, Whether the said clause shall be there inserted? their Lordships divided:—Contents 24; Not Contents 38: Majority 14.

  CONTENTS.

  Leeds, D.

  Melville, V.

  Bath, M. [Teller.]

  Chichester, Bp.

  Westmeath, M.

  Durham, Bp.

  Exeter, Bp.

  Amherst, E.

  Llandaff, Bp.

  Carnarvon, E.

  Oxford, Bp.

  Desart, E.

  Rochester, Bp.

  Nelson, E. [Teller.]

  Salisbury, Bp.

  Romney, E.

  St. Asaph, Bp.

  Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

  Congleton, L.

  Kilmaine, L.

  Dungannon, V.

  Rayleigh, L.

  Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)

  Redesdale, L.

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Cranworth, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

  Wellington, D,

  Byron, L.

  Camoys, L. [Teller.]

  Lansdowne, M.

  Campbell, L.

  Townshend, M.

  Churchill, L.

  Clandeboye, L. (L. Dufferin and Claneboye.)

  Chichester, E.

  Clarendon, E.

  Dartrey, L. (L. Cremorne.)

  Fortescue, E.

  Granville, E.

  De Ros, L.

  Harrington, E.

  Foley, L. [Teller.]

  Harrowby, E.

  Monteagle of Brandon, L.

  Shaftesbury, E.

  Spencer, E.

  Panmure, L.

  Rivers, L.

  Falmouth, V.

  Rossie, L. (L. Kinnaird.)

  Saye and Sele, L.

  Bangor, Bp.

  Sheffield, L. (E. Sheffield.)

  Belper, L.

  Stanley of Alderley, L.

  227

  Stuart de Decies, L.

  Wensleydale, L.

  Sundridge, L. (D. Argyll.)

  Wrottesley, L.

  Wycombe, L. (E. Shelburne.)

  Talbot de Malahide, L.

  Truro, L.

  LORD WENSLEYDALE LORD WENSLEYDALE moved the omission of Clause 55 relating to actions of crim. con.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that as the House had decided upon the enactment of this provision he trusted that the noble and learned Lord would be content with proposing his Amendment and entering his protest.
  Amendment withdrawn.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved that the last clause of the Bill be struck out in consequence of an intimation received from the Chief Rabbi of the Jews that it would interfere with their marriage settlements.
  Motion agreed to; Clause struck out.
  Moved, That the Bill do pass.
  THE BISHOP OF OXFORDsaid, he did not wish to re-open the whole question, but he rose to offer a last protest to the passing of the measure. He believed it was contrary to the Jaw of God, contrary to the law of the Church of England, and, as he believed, fruitful in future crime and misery to the people of England. He believed that in passing it they were dealing a more fatal blow to family purity than they could by any other act. Entertaining these views he could not suffer the Bill to pass without dividing the House, in order that the names of those who opposed it to its last stage might stand on record to posterity. He wished them to observe that they had been led on to this course of legislation at first by following the example of Scotland, but they had removed all the guards which had prevented the full working of the evil in Scotland. Yet they quoted Scotland, and the noble and learned Lord on the woolsack had quoted her again that night, as an instance that they had nothing to fear from the social effect of the Bill, although every one must see that those guards were necessary to protect the sacredness of married life among the lower classes from the pollution which this Bill would introduce into it. The Bill professed to extend the same relief to the poor as to the rich; but it did no such thing—it was impossible that that object could be attained by a single court sitting in London. The Bill was a law for the rich; it was an immunity for the adulterers and the adultresses in the high
  228
  places of England. Equality to the poor could only be given by granting the settlement of that nice question to the courts of inferior jurisdiction, but that equal justice to the poor would be purchased at the price of the introduction of unlimited pollution. On every ground of policy and morality he begged their Lordships to refuse their assent to the passing of the measure. The Bill, which provided none the securities by which it was originally accompanied, was to be launched out first to give an unjust advantage to the wealthy, and afterwards so miserably to increase collusion as to destroy the morals of the people. He knew that as far as that House was concerned, his words might as well be left unuttered. Yet he did once more, in the face of the Church and of the country, implore their Lordships not o pass the Bill into law.
  VISCOUNT DUNGANNONsaid, he would once more reiterate his opposition to the Bill, which he regarded as one of the most mischievous ever submitted to Parliament. His firm conviction was, that it was calculated to undermine all the moral principles of society.
  On Question that this Bill do pass? their Lordships divided:—Contents 46; Not-Contents 25: Majority 21.
  Resolved in the affirmative; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

  CONTENTS.

  Cranworth, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Belper, L.

  Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

  Wellington, D.

  Byron, L.

  Camoys, L. [Teller.]

  Lansdowne, M.

  Campbell, L.

  Townshend, M.

  Clandeboye, L. (L. Dufferin and Claneboye.)

  Westmeath, M.

  Congleton, L.

  Airlie, E.

  Dartrey, L. (L. Cremorne.)

  Burlington, E.

  Clarendon, E.

  Denman, L.

  Cowper, E.

  De Ros, L.

  Fortescue, E.

  Foley, L. [Teller.]

  Granville, E.

  Hunsdon, L. (V, Falkland.)

  Harrington, E.

  Harrowby, E.

  Panmure, L.

  Shaftesbury, E.

  Rivers, L.

  Spencer, E. (Lord Steward.)

  Rossie, L. (L. Kinnaird.)

  Saye and Sele, L.

  Stanley of Alderley, L.

  Falmouth, V.

  Stuart de Decies, L.

  Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)

  Sundridge, L. (D. Argyll.)

  Talbot de Malahide, L.

  Bangor, Bp.

  Truro, L.

  London, Bp.

  Wensleydale, L.

  Ripon, Bp.

  Wrottesley, L.

  St. Asaph, Bp.

  Wycombe, L. (E. Shelburne.)

  Worcester, Bp.

  229

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Leeds, D.

  Chichester, Bp.

  Durham, Bp.

  Bath, M. [Teller.]

  Exeter, Bp.

  Llandaff, Bp.

  Amherst, E.

  Oxford, Bp.

  Carnarvon, E.

  Rochester, Bp.

  Nelson, E. [Teller.]

  Salisbury, Bp.

  Romney, E.

  Strathmore, E.

  Kilmaine, L.

  Wicklow, E.

  Petre, L.

  Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

  Rayleigh, L.

  Redesdale, L.

  Stafford, L.

  Dungannon, V.

  Vaux of Harrowden, L.

  Melville, V.

  Wynford, L.

  DIVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL.
  Di Martis, 23° Junii, 1857.

  PROTESTS.
  Against the Rejection of the Amendment to the 25th Clause.
  DISSENTIENT—1. "Because the effect of rejecting this Amendment will be to confine the dissolution of marriage upon the adultery of the husband to the four cases stated in the Bill, which we consider to be not only inexpedient, but, as contrasted with the relief upon the adultery of the wife, partial and unjust.
  2. "Because, as the clause is framed, although the husband should be living in the most open and notorious adultery, and should even bring his mistress into the family residence, insulting the wife by her presence, and should endeavour by ill usage to compel her to submit to this disgrace, such a case would not come within its provisions.
  3. "Because the adultery of the husband, accompanied with the commission of the greatest crimes, and even the most infamous vices, would not entitle the wife to relief under this clause.
  4. "Because the adultery of the husband, although coupled with his condemnation to penal servitude, even for life, and the consequent degradation and misery of the wife, would not, under the provisions of this Bill, enable her to obtain a dissolution of the marriage.
  5. "Because many other cases of similar injustice and hardship are excluded from relief under this clause.
  6. "Because to allow a divorce for the adultery of the wife, and to refuse it in these and other cases of adultery by the husband, coupled with acts of deep injury inflicted upon the wife, is manifestly unjust.
  7. "Because, although the adultery of the wife may lead to the imposing a spurious offspring on the husband, and entitle him to a divorce for a reason which would not apply to the case of adultery by the husband, other circumstances may, and frequently do, occur in connection with the adultery of the husband, giving the wife an equal claim to this remedy.
  8. "Because no distinction is made in Scripture between the case of the man and of the woman in the commission of adultery. The sin is the same in both—both are included under the same prohibition.
  9. "Because the whole tendency and spirit of
  230
  the Christian religion is manifestly calculated to raise women to equal rights and equal responsibilities with men. 'It has,' in the words of an eminent writer on general law (Chief Justice Story) 'elevated woman to the rank and dignity of an equal, instead of being an humble companion, or a devoted slave of her husband;" and accordingly we find that as Christianity extended itself, and its influence was brought to bear upon social and civil affairs, so the condition of woman was improved, and her rights to protection and redress were acknowledged. With respect to marriage and divorce the rule of the Roman Catholic Church applies to both sexes equally, while all Protestant Legislatures (except our own), in declaring that marriage may be dissolved for the cause of adultery, have accorded to the wife the same rights and remedies as to the husband.
  10. "Because by our ecclesiastical law (the only law at present applicable to this subject), the same judgment is pronounced in the case of adultery, whether the crime be committed by the husband or wife. And there appears to us no reason why, in extending the remedy, the principle should be changed.
  11. "Because as to the objection that the extension of the law to cases of adultery by the husband will give occasion to a great number of suits for divorce, we think such apprehension is altogether groundless. The proceedings can originate only with the wife, and she has, both as to feeling and interest, so much at stake, so much to relinquish which must be most dear to her, that we think there is little fear of her resorting to this remedy, except in extreme cases, and after all hope of amendment has ceased.
  12. "Because by the law of Scotland the adultery of the husband with respect to divorce is placed on the same footing with the adultery of the wife. This law is found to be attended with no inconvenience. The evidence on the subject is above all exception, and we deem it most desirable that laws which so deeply affect the social and moral condition of the people should, in contiguous parts of the same empire, be in accordance with each other.

  "HUTCHINSON.

  "HARRINGTON.

  "LYNDHURST.

  "TALBOT DE MALAHIDE.

  "BELMORE."

  Against the rejection of the Amendment to omit the 55th clause.
  DISSENTIENT—1. "Because the abolition of the action for criminal conversation would cause a great anomaly in the law of England, which has hitherto been perfect in one respect at least, as it provides a remedy for an injury to every legal right. If a man has his estate taken from him wrongfully, he may be restored to the possession of it; if a specific chattel he may recover it in specie, by a recent improvement in law rendering that remedy more effective; he may in some cases compel a specific performance of a contract; but in all others the law gives a compensation in money only, for it is impossible in the nature of things to give any other.
  2. "Because to deny this the only possible remedy for the grievous injury to a husband by the loss of the right to the society and assistance of his wife in his domestic affairs and the education

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  of his children—on the ground that it is irreparable; would be most unjust—and the other reason assigned, that it would be disgraceful in the husband to receive the price for his own and his wife's dishonour, is a misapplication of terms, as it treats the sum recovered by law as if it had been the subject of a bargain with the adulterer.
  3. "Because the same inaccurate reasoning would apply to many other injuries of a similar nature incapable of pecuniary estimate, actions for atrocious libels, for infamous slanders, for assaults attended with contumely and insult, and for the seduction of a daughter, all of which are capable of the same opprobrious designation of disgraceful bargains with the wrong-doer.
  4. "Because the reason assigned that sometimes the wife maybe totally ignorant of the charge made by the husband against the adulterer, and it would be unjust that she should have no opportunity of vindicating herself, is insufficient, because such a case is scarcely possible, and laws are to be made for matters of frequent not rare occurrence, and the remedy, if one should be required, would be not to deprive the husband of all remedy for his violated right, but to provide that he should give notice to the wife, and that she should be at liberty to intervene for her own interest.
  5. "Because the husband has almost always interests of a material nature and capable of pecuniary estimate that are injured by the adultery. In the higher classes of life, a wife may have a sum settled to her separate use, the benefit of which the husband would in part enjoy—in the lower, the earnings of the wife in an art or trade may contribute to the maintenance of the husband and his family. In almost all the wife has duties to perform in superintending the household and educating the children, which have analogy to those of a servant, and in the lower classes closely resemble them. All these are properly the subject of pecuniary compensation, and yet the husband is to be deprived of it altogether, and that for the benefit of the adulterer.
  6. "Because the maintenance of this action tends to the repression of adultery, the repeal of it to its increase.
  "WENSLEYDALE."
  As to 55th Clause.
  DISSENTIENT.—1. "Because many noble Lords supported the fifty-fifth Clause of the Bill, solely on account of a power of imprisonment (not imperatively but discretionally to be acted on)—being contained in some part of the Bill.
  2. "Because a Jury is more likely to obtain the confidence of suitors (who may possibly not even wish for a divorce), than the Judges of the newly constituted court.
  3. "Because by an Amendment of the practice of the courts of common law counsel may be heard in support of the fair fame aad interest of wives accused of adultery.
  4. "Because the vexatious Suits Act (if passed into a law) will tend more than ever has hereto fore been practicable, to prevent frivolous charges from being brought forward.
  5. "Because the action for criminal conversation is strictly analogous to the action for loss of services in actions on the case for seduction.
  6. "Because in all actions for assault, Her Majesty's subjects can proceed both civilly and
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  criminally in all cases whether of a common or of an aggravated nature, and ought to have equal rights under this Bill.
  "DENMAN."
  Against the Third Reading.
  DISSENTIENT.—"Because the Bill authorizes the intermarriage of the adulterous parties, but does not relieve the clergy from the legal obligation of celebrating matrimony in such cases with the office of the church. Yet that office expressly declares that holy matrimony, instituted by God in the time of man's innocency, signifies the mystical union between Christ and His church, whereas adultery is constantly spoken of in holy Scripture, as symbolizing apostacy from that church and the violation of that blessed union. In contempt of this sacred truth the Bill not only sanctions the marriage of parties whose ability to marry is founded altogether on their being adulterers, but it also compels the clergy to marry them in profanation of the most sacred words of Scripture, and with perversion of the most solemn truths of the Gospel. For, even if the use of the office could be tolerated in the marriage of adulterous parties who are repentant of their adultery, yet no security is given or can be given by any statute that the parties concerned are really penitent; and yet those parties have by their adultery incurred the church sentence of excommunication, which, if duly pronounced, would render them incapable of being married with the rites of the church. If the circumstances of the times prevent the due exercise of the church's discipline, yet the least that might be expected from a Christian Legislature is, that it be careful to protect the State from the guilt of countenancing such fearful profaneness and to respect the conscientious feelings of all faithful churchmen, who cannot but be shocked by such wanton trifling with the gravest spiritual matters; and especially of the clergy, who, if the Bill shall finally pass, will not be able to perform what belongs to their office without violating their sense of duty to God, and cannot refuse to perform it without incurring the heavy penalties of human law. The enactment is the more grievous because there already exists a mode of contracting matrimony between such parties, which not only leaves the rights and sanctions of the church unviolated, but would also relieve the parties themselves, if truly penitent and sensible of their own degradation, from the anguish and misery which they must feel in repeating vows to God which they have already broken, and hearing pronounced over them the curse of God against all who have, as they already have, 'put asunder those whom God has joined together.'
  "H. EXETER."
  DISSENTIENT:—1. "Because the contract of marriage is the most solemn engagement into which a man can enter, and in which he promises to love, comfort, and honour the woman, and keep her under all circumstances of sickness or of health, and adhere to her as long as they shall both live.
  2. "Because the purposes of this engagement, as deduced from Scripture, are of the deepest interest and importance—namely, for the birth of children to be brought up in the love and fear of God, for a remedy against sin, and for mutual

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  society, help, and comfort, both in prosperity and adversity.
  3. "Because by wilful desertion not only is this sacred promise impiously violated, but all the purposes for which this ordinance of God was instituted are wholly frustrated. Even in the most ordinary contract, the breach of it on the one side puts an end to the obligation on the other, and we see no reason why a different rule should be applied to the contract of marriage, and more especially in a case destructive of the entire objects of the union. It appears to us to be contrary to all principle, and most unjust, that the husband should be permitted to set at nought an engagement followed, as it must be, by such, consequences, and that the woman should continue to be bound by it.
  4. "Because we feel strongly the extreme cruelty of such conduct towards the deserted wife, in the utter disappointment of all her confident expectations of happiness from the promised love, comfort, and society of her husband, and leaving her without hope to the contemplation of a long, dreary, and desolate future.
  5. "Because divorce from this cause is justified as Scriptural by the highest ecclesiastical authorities. It is well known that at the Reformation the subject was anxiously and carefully considered by prelates and divines eminent for learning and piety, and that they came to the conclusion that wilful desertion was a scriptural ground for divorce. We find the names of Archbishop Cranmer, of the Bishops of London, Winchester, Ely, Exeter, and others; of Latimer, Parker, &c.; of Peter Martyr, Martin Bucer, Beza, Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, &c., among those who maintained this opinion, and which was adopted by the whole body of Protestants on the continent of Europe. Accordingly, this has been the acknowledged doctrine of all their churches to the present day. We find the same doctrine expressly stated and adopted in the 8th Article on Divorce in the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, compiled under the authority of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., which body of laws, although it did not receive the confirmation of the Crown, in consequence of the early and unexpected death of King Edward, has always, as the Commissioners on the Law of Divorce, in their Report, justly observe, been considered of great authority. We also find that at a, more recent period a right rev. Prelate, eminent for learning and talents (Cozens, Bishop of Durham), in his celebrated argument delivered in this House, in the case of Lord Roos, maintained the same opinion. His words are these:— The promise of constancy in the marriage ceremony does not extend to tolerating adultery or malicious desertion, which dissolve the marriage.'
  6. "Because, by the law of Scotland, wilful desertion, as in all the Protestant churches on the Continent, is considered to be a scriptural ground for divorce, and the law in this respect is regarded by all the first authorities in that country, not only to be free from inconvenience, but as just and highly beneficial. We further deem it to be most desirable, that upon such a subject as marriage and divorce, affecting as it does the whole social system, the same law should, as far as practicable, prevail in both parts of the kingdom, and the more so as continued experience has shown the great inconvenience occasioned by the difference and anomalies of the two systems.
  7. "Because, as to the objections to the proposed extension of this measure on the ground of its tendency to demoralize society, this is not only disproved by the example of Scotland, but a careful examination of the state of society in Roman Catholic countries will, we think, lead to the conclusion that the principle of the indissolubility of marriage is far less favourable to morality than the opposite doctrine, accompanied with a cautious exercise of the power of divorce in suck extreme cases as those of adultery and malicious desertion.
  8. "Because, as to what is urged with reference to the law of our Ecclesiastical Courts, we answer that the object of the present Bill throughout is to amend that law, and to render it more consistent with reason and justice; and, with respect to the Church of England, we will merely repeat what we find stated in the argument of the learned Prelate to which we have already referred—namely, that 'We cannot see why they are to be styled the Church of England who join with the Council of Trent, rather than those who join with all the reformed churches, and plead against the canon of the Church of Rome, which hath laid an anathema upon us if we do not agree with them.
  "LYNDHURST.
  HUTCHINSON."
  DISSENTIENT—1. "Because the Bill contains provisions authorizing in certain cases divorce à vinculo matrimonii of Christian marriage, and is thus in direct opposition to what our Lord has declared both in His own words and in the unvarying teaching of His Church.'
  2. "Because the harmony and stability of the family relations, upon which the well-being of the State is ultimately based, will be unsettled and impaired by the facilities which are offered for divorce.

  "NORFOLK (E. M.)

  PETRE,

  STAFFORD,

  VAUX OF HARROWDEN,

  ARUNDELL OF WARDOUR,

  LOVAT."

  DISSENTIENT—1. "Because, in opposition to the Word of God, which is embodied in the law of our Church, the Bill sanctions the remarriage of a divorced husband or wife during the lifetime of the divorced wife or husband.
  2. "Because, in direct contradiction to the plain teaching of our Saviour Christ, the divorced adultress is permitted to remarry during the lifetime of her husband.
  3. "Because the Court of Divorce provided by the Bill will, as a general rule, be accessible only to the rich, and thus what is treated in the Bill as the right of every injured husband is by it withheld from the poor, and such legislation will almost inevitably lead to committing the decision of causes involving the sentence of divorce à vinculo matrimonii to many and inferior local courts, and so to the risk of the wide spread of collusive adultery.
  4. "Because the permission of intermarriage, as granted in the Bill to the parties through whose adultery the divorce has been caused, tends to promote a dissolution of manners throughout that large class of society in which no conventional law severely punishes the divorced woman.
  5. "Because the whole tendency of the Bill is to dissolve the sanctions and endanger the purity of God's great institution of family life throughout this land.
  6. "Because it will lead to the clergy of the Church of England being required to pronounce the blessing of Almighty God on unions condemned by their Church, and repugnant, as many of them believe, to the direct letter of Holy Writ, and to employ at unions founded on dissolved marriages, from the marriage service of the Church of England, language which is in its plain sense inconsistent with the dissolubilty of marriage.

  "For 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th Reasons,

  "S. OXON,

  LEEDS,

  W. K. SARUM,

  NELSON,

  REDESDALE,

  DESART,

  "For 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 6th Reasons,

  DUNGANNON."

ROMAN CATHOLIC CHARITIES BILL.

  SECOND READING.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORin moving the Second Reading said, the object of the measure was to remedy a doubt which had been raised with respect to an Act passed in the reign of William IV., rendering lawful educational charities for Roman Catholics, as to whether that Act was retrospective or not. Doubt still existing in spite of decisions, it had been thought desirable to introduce the present Bill, so as to put an end to all doubt on the subject. The Bill provided that it shall be lawful for the trustees of Catholic charities to enrol them within a year after the passing of the present Act, and should thereby have the same rights as if they had been registered from the beginning. It enacted also that in the case of what were called "Charities for Superstitious Uses," the Court of Chancery should decide how much was applicable to lawful and how much to unlawful purposes. There was also a clause which provided that where there was a doubt about the charity the usage of twenty-five years should be conclusive. Such being briefly the object of the Measure, he hoped their Lordships would offer no opposition to its being read a Second Time.
  LORD RBDBSDALEwould not oppose the Second Reading of the Bill, but he was understood to express a hope that the Bill would not pass without some discussion in Committee.
  Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.
  House adjourned at a quarter to Ten o'clock, to Thursday next, half past Ten o'clock.