Sitting of 29 June 1858

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1o Civil Bills, &c. (Ireland) Act Amendment; Corrupt Practices Prevention Act Continuance.
3o Funded Debt.

GALWAY FREEMEN DISFRANCHISEMENT BILL.—COMMITTEE.
Order for Committee read.
House in Committee.
MR. BUTTsaid, he felt compelled to move that the Chairman do leave the Chair. He considered that if the Bill passed, the House would either commit a manifest injustice or involve itself in hopeless confusion. All the freemen of Galway who had been proved before the Commission guilty of bribery, had received the promise of indemnity under the Act, with the exception of seven. It was true that the House had not on former occasions shrunk from disfranchising voters who had obtained the same promise of indemnity when they formed some small minority among a whole class who were to be struck off the lists of electors. But he believed if the present measure should receive the sanction of Parliament, that would be the first instance in which the parties to whom the indemnity had been given formed nearly the whole of the body who were to be punished by the loss of the franchise. It should be remembered that the franchise of the Galway freemen was one of an essentially popular character; it was given without any reference to sectarian considerations, and it had existed from the earliest times. They were asked to do away with this franchise, while they passed by persons in a higher rank of life who were really responsible for what had taken place, and allowed the noble Lord who was elected by means of these corrupt votes to retain his seat in the House. Were they to disfranchise poor freemen, and allow to escape those rich persons who were not convicted by the Commission, but who openly avowed

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that they had been a party to these corrupt practices? If the Bill went on, they must be prepared not only to punish the poor, who perhaps accepted bribes under the influence of want, but to deal with the other parties who, without any such excuse, offered and gave the bribes. It appeared from the Report of the Commission that the real mischief lay in the mode in which persons were admitted to the body of freemen, there being no substantial check to the admission of any parties who desired to possess the franchise. Believing that it was utterly impossible, by any amendment, to make the Bill consistent with justice, it was his intention to take the opinion of the Committee upon his Motion.
MR. G. CLIVE, in opposing the Motion, said that although a late period of the Session had arrived, he felt he had still a duty to perform in regard to the Bill. He thought it was due to the House and the country that they should take some notice of the Report of the Committee, which disclosed such a state of manifest bribery and hopeless corruption, and he believed that by refusing their assent to the Bill they would be acting in a manner injurious to their own character and inconsistent with their own former decisions. Under the circumstances, he felt bound, as Chairman of the Committee, to press the Bill forward.
MR. WALPOLEsaid, he was prepared to support the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Youghal (Mr. Butt), because he believed that the House could not satisfactorily discuss in the course of the present Session the various questions involved in the measure. The Bill proposed to disfranchise only the freemen of the borough; but it was clearly unjust to deal with those who had received bribes without touching those who had offered the bribes, and that was a kind of measure to which he (Mr. Walpole) would never be a party. His hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland had very properly introduced an Amendment to include those in the penalty of disfranchisement who had offered as well as those who had received the bribes. That Amendment would lead to a long discussion, and after that was settled they would have to debate the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Cork (Mr. Serjeant Deasy), which would also lead to a long discussion. That Amendment raised the question, whether freemen who had criminated themselves on the faith of a certifi-
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cate that they should not be subjected to legal disabilities should be disfranchised. His own view of legal disabilities was, that they were disabilities imposed by a court of justice in course of law; still, if these voters had given their evidence on the understanding that they were not to be disturbed in any way in the possession of their privileges, it would be proper to consider how far they should be keeping faith with those persons if they passed this Bill. He believed that they could hardly get through the discussions upon these various subjects in the course of that day. If they did, there would be another long debate upon the third reading, and he doubted whether it would be possible to carry the Bill through the House of Lords in the course of the present Session. Under these circumstances, he should support the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Youghal, on the ground that at this period of the Session they could not proceed advantageously with the measure; and if the Committee should determine to go on with the Bill, he should support the Amendment of his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland.
MR. J. D. FITZGERALDsaid, he regretted to hear that it was the intention of the Secretary of State for the Home Department to support the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Youghal. Here was bribery of the grossest character proved to have taken place, and the House was to do nothing. He cared not whether the Bill should be carried in its entirety, or whether the Amendment of the Attorney General should be sanctioned; but, unless one or other were agreed to, he contended that they would be treating the subject with levity, and upon the Government he should charge the responsibility. Out of 540 freemen, 250 by name were proved to have received bribes, and fifty others, whose names could not be given, were also proved to have been guilty of the same offence. In addition to this there were thirty-eight more such freemen proved to have received bribes in 1852; and it had been established incontrovertibly before the Committee that, with few exceptions, corruption reigned universally throughout the whole body of the freemen. Those were the men whom the Bill very properly proposed to disfranchise. The case, as proved in Galway, was infinitely worse than those of Great Yarmouth, of Sudbury, or of St. Albans, and yet the House had disfranchised the freemen of those

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boroughs without remorse. The Bill had been introduced in February. On every occasion the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Clive), had done his best to keep it upon the paper, and it was not his fault that it was only in Committee at the end of June. If, under the circumstances, the Bill were now to be abandoned, the public would look upon the proceedings of Election Committees and Royal Commissions as sheer humbug.
MR. BERESFORD HOPEsaid, that if the Bill had only struck at the guilty, there might have been something to say for it, but being a measure for disfranchising the entire freemen of a borough, innocent as well as guilty, for the offences of some members of their body, it was of serious import during the present Session, when every private member was giving his own horse a canter previous to the great Reform sweepstake of next year. It might he construed into a precedent for the treatment of freemen in general under the Reform Bill. No doubt, in former times, freemen had often been venal; but in the general improvement of electioneering morality which has, without doubt, characterized these late years, that class of voters had shared in that general improvement, and it would be the height of injustice to pass a retrospective measure to disfranchise the freemen of our boroughs merely because their ancestors had been susceptible of the gentle violence of the purse. The measure was at the present time particularly unjust, when it was clear that the suffrage would have to be enlarged, and yet it was proposed to abolish a form of suffrage which was peculiarly liberal, if not democratic, being one which was acquired irrespective of property, and by apprenticeship and honest industry. It might be that at Galway the freedom was too easily acquired; but when obtained under these conditions it ought to be maintained, and he should therefore support the Motion.
MR. AYRTONsaid, he could not admit that there had been any wonderful anxiety evinced by the hon. Member for Hereford to get this Bill passed; because, although he had kept it on the paper on occasions when it was impossible to proceed with it, he had allowed many Wednesdays to pass when progress might have been made. But, irrespectively of that, the Bill was a most unfortunate attempt to do justice. It appeared that a noble Lord in "another place" had, contrary to the Standing Orders
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of that House, interfered in the election for Galway, and had placed his purse at the disposal of certain persons in order to secure the election of his son. Bribery was rampant throughout the whole affair. Of course it was gratifying to the House to know that the noble Lord who had been returned for the borough was innocent of the transaction. He was not present even at the election; but the matter was simply a money arrangement between his Lordship's noble father and the electors of Galway. One would have thought, if it were desired to do justice, that the agents who had acted in this transaction would have been sought out, and that the first blow would have been aimed at those parties, and not at those who were the least guilty. Such, then, being the state of the case, he did not think the House would be justified in delaying other useful and more pressing legislation in order to grapple with the difficulties and inconsistencies of this Bill. Besides, there was an all-important reason why they should drop this exceptional Bill. Next Session the whole question of Parliamentary Reform would have to be debated and disposed of, and this case of the Galway freemen might be well left to be dealt with in that general measure. For these reasons he should support the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Youghal.
MR. BENTINCKsaid, he thought that the House was precluded by its own enactments from proceeding with this measure. He need scarcely say that he had no sympathy with what had taken place in Galway, and if a measure could be introduced to deal properly with all the parties concerned he would support it; but it appeared to him that Parliament could not, without a violation of faith, punish by disfranchisement the voters who had been induced to reveal the corrupt practices in which they had been engaged by a promise that they should incur no penalty in consequence of those revelations. He could not, therefore, adopt, as he should otherwise be disposed to do, that proposal for marking with the reprobation of that House the corruption which had taken place at the late Galway elections. He would only further add that he believed the discussion, however, had not been without its advantage, as the whole course of the proceedings in that case formed a very pretty commentary on the proposal to adopt the ballot at Parliamentary elections, because, if that form of voting had been in force, no one would ever have

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heard anything of the corrupt practices of the freemen of Galway.
MR. KER SEYMERsaid, he hoped that in future these Bills, arising out of the inquiries of Royal Commissioners, would be taken up by the Government, as there was little chance of their ever getting through in the hands of a private Member. He was prepared to support the Bill in its integrity, and should certainly vote against reporting progress.
MR. CONINGHAMsaid, he thought that the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Clive) was entitled to the thanks of the Committee and the country in pressing forward the Bill. If they went to a division he should vote against the Motion.
MR. WHITESIDEobserved, that since the Report of the Commission upwards of 100 men had been added to the list of freemen of the borough of Galway, who were as untainted with bribery as any hon. Member of that House, and what justice would there be, he asked, in punishing the innocent for the sins of the guilty? If these freemen were to be punished, surely the rich who had tempted their poverty, corrupted their virtue, used them for their political purposes, and now wished to despoil them, should not go unpunished.
MR. COLLINSsaid, that if the argument of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General were worth anything, St. Albans ought never to have been disfranchised; for the same observations applied to both. He hoped the Bill would not be thrown over in the manner proposed.
MR. WARRENsaid, that he rose for only a moment to ask the House, which ought to regard the question before it from a strictly judicial point of view, whether they were really aware of the grave imputation to which they seemed inclined to subject themselves—that of a gross and deliberate breach of legislative faith. The House was asked to disfranchise at a stroke, with no reservation or limitation whatever, every existing freeman of the county of the Town of Galway, on the ground that gross systematic and extensive bribery prevailed among them at the last two elections. How was that fact ascertained, but by means of a number of those very freemen themselves? And how did they happen to come forward and give evidence so damnatory of themselves? Because they relied implicitly on a Parliamentary guarantee of as solemn and explicit a character as could be conveyed by words. The ninth section
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of the Act, on the provisions of which they relied, enacted that every person engaged in the corrupt practices specified, giving evidence touching such corrupt practice, and making a true discovery to the best of his knowledge, and receiving a certificate, under the tenth section, of his having done so, should be freed (he quoted the very words of the Act) "from all penal actions, forfeitures, punishments, disabilities, and incapacities, and all criminal prosecutions in respect of anything done by him in respect of such corrupt practice." It seemed almost insulting the common sense of the House to ask what it understood by the words "disabilities" and "incapacities" there used. What was a disability, if being disabled from voting were not one? What was an incapacity, if being incapacitated from securing that greatest of rights and privileges, the elective franchise, was not one? The two words must be blotted out of the Act, or Parliament, by disregarding them, would commit an act of most outrageous injustice and violation of public faith; yet this was what the House was asked to do.
MR. H. A. HERBERTsaid, he should support the Bill on account of the great extent of the corruption which was proved to have taken place at the recent Galway election.
GENERAL THOMPSONcould not bring himself to think it was a proper course to induce men to surrender by a promise of individual indemnity, and then massacre them en masse. With respect to the onslaught on the ballot which had been made by the hon. Member for West Norfolk, he would observe that had the ballot existed in Galway, not only would these corrupt practices never have been found out, but they would never have been at all, for men were not given to pay money unless they had the means of knowing they got their money's worth.
MR. GRIFFITHsaid, he thought it very unfortunate that it should go forth to the public that the Conservative Government were willing to throw the shield of their protection over these corrupt practices, and that, he believed, would be the impression conveyed by their opposition to this Bill. The object of the Motion was to defeat the Bill altogether, and he, for one, could not support it.
MR. SERJEANT DEASYsaid he should support the Motion, as affording the only means of escape from the inextricable difficulties in which they would be involved if

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they attempted to proceed further with the Bill.
MR. G. CLIVEsaid, he believed that the addition of the new freemen to the list in Galway was an ingenious attempt to induce the House to throw the Bill over, on the ground that there was a great infusion of fresh blood into the body.
MR. BUTTreplied, and asked whether the House would be prepared, after cutting off half the constituency of Galway, to determine that henceforward the borough should only return one member instead of two.
Motion made, and Question put,—"That the Chairman do now leave the chair."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 90; Noes 107: Majority 17.
Clause 1,
"That from and after the passing of this Act no freeman of the said county of the town of Galway shall be entitled to vote as such in any election of a Member or Members to serve in Parliament for the said county of the town of Galway."
MR. WHITESIDEsaid, he should propose, as an Amendment, to leave out the words "no freeman of the," and to insert "the voters who have been proved before the said Commissioners to have given or taken bribes in the last and previous election for the." The object of the Amendment was to take care that they should not involve the innocent and guilty in one common sacrifice, and that they should punish the bribers as well as the bribed.
Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 6, to leave out "no freeman of the," and to insert "the voters who have been proved before the said Commissioners to have given or taken bribes in the last and previous Election for the."
MR. J. D. FITZGERALDsaid, that in 1854 both the right hon. Members the Attorney General for Ireland and the Home Secretary had expressed an opinion in reference to the freemen of Canterbury directly the reverse of the course which they now proposed. On that occasion they said, if the names of voters were mentioned in the Bill it would amount to a Bill of Pains and Penalties, and yet that was the course they now said should be adopted. He (Mr. FitzGerald) contended that the only safe principle on which they could act was to disfranchise the class in which the corruption had always existed. So long as they had any records, these freemen had always supplied the corruption which pre-
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vailed in Galway. It was the misfortune of all measures like this to punish some innocent parties; but very few innocent people would suffer from the present Bill, because all the respectable inhabitants would qualify themselves as voters for the borough. The object of the Bill was not to punish, but to root out the source of all the corruption in Galway.
SIR CHARLES BURRELLsaid, he saw no objection to introducing the names of the bribed and disfranchised voters in the Bill. Having sat in Parliament before the Reform Act, he remembered that the names of disfranchised voters used to be included in Bills of this nature, and that they were read over previous to the commencement of each election. Such was the practice in the old time, and he thought the same course ought to be followed now.
MR. WALPOLEsaid, he would ask the Committee if they were prepared to pass a sweeping clause which condemned the innocent as well as the guilty. He had only taken one course throughout with regard to this Bill. He had always said that if they dealt with the matter, they must punish the guilty, not the innocent, and secondly, that they must punish the briber as well as the bribed. The present Bill violated both these principles, as it included both the innocent and the guilty, and disfranchised the former while they well knew that they were entirely innocent. He, therefore, could never consent to such a Bill, which he believed to be totally wrong on every ground of morals, policy, and right legislation. As however the Amendment would go far to remedy those defects he should support it.
MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, it did not follow that because a portion of the freemen were corrupt that the whole should be disfranchised. No doubt, many of the freemen had resisted the temptation of the briber, and it was only fair that they should not be included in the disfranchisement. He should, therefore, support the Amendment.
MR. STEUARTsaid, the Bill had been discussed too much as one of Pains and Penalties instead of as a measure tending to greater good in the State, and also to the benefit of the freemen themselves. Corruption was so inherent in the body of Galway freemen that it was not desirable for the public good that they should any longer send Members to Parliament, and he should therefore give his support to the Bill.
MR. MAGUIREsaid, that as the summer advanced, and the heat of the weather increased, the virtuous ardour of his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ennis (Mr. FitzGerald) became more intense; but his ardour was all one-sided, for he wished to commit the injustice of punishing the poor freemen while he allowed the great criminals to go scatheless. Where, he asked, were the magistrates who had given these bribes? Did they not still adorn the bench of Galway? Was not Dr. Brown still in his professorship? It was said that it would be a great advantage to cut off the corrupt class, but the Bill did not do that. The freemen were not the corrupt class; it was the gentry of the district who practised corruption, for their own sinister ends, and therefore if they wanted to strike a blow at corruption in Galway they should attack, not the humble, ragged voters, but those great bribers who committed a crime of far viler turpitude than their wretched tools and victims.
MR. WHITESIDEsaid, he wished to remind the Committee that if the Bill passed without his Amendment its effect would be to deliver over the two seats for Galway to the very men who had been guilty of these acts of corruption, one of whom was a peer of the realm.
VISCOUNT DUNKELLINsaid, he must deny that the effect of the Bill would be to make Galway a pocket borough in the hands of the house of Clanricarde, as had been insinuated. The Marquess of Clanricarde had only twenty-three votes in the borough, and if this Bill were passed there would be upwards of 500 electors left. It would be absurd to say that twenty-three votes could exercise any material influence upon such a constituency. With respect to the Bill itself, although he had hitherto refrained from taking any part in the discussion, he must express his opinion that it sanctioned a violation of public faith and a breach of Parliamentary honour.
MR. MELLORsaid, the fact that they could not do full and complete justice by this Bill by punishing the briber was no reason why a class notoriously corrupt should not be disfranchised. At St. Albans there were 200 immaculate voters, and yet the borough was disfranchised. The Corrupt Practices Act did not preclude the House from disfranchising freemen as a class, though it certainly protected individual voters who had given evidence under a certificate of indemnity;
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but as in this case no names were mentioned there could be no breach of contract in the matter.
MR. AYRTONsaid, when leave was asked to bring in this Bill, he was astonished to find that the Motion was seconded by the hon. Member for the county of Galway (Sir Thomas Burke). He naturally inquired what could be the reason of that? And the conclusion at which he arrived was, that the corruption sprang, not from the electors, but from persons of property desirous of returning themselves or their relations to Parliament. Well, then, to be just and equitable, the Bill should have included these wealthy parties who had brought about the demoralization of the borough. The Bill, however, was confined to Galway, and it could not, therefore, be amended so as to include all the bribers. That was why he had advocated its withdrawal at an early period of the discussion, but not being able to secure that, he had no alternative but to support the Amendment now before the Committee, as rendering the Bill less unjust than it otherwise would be.
MR. H. BERKELEYsaid, he wished to say one word why he should vote for the Amendment. He could not allow the wealthy to go free while the poor were punished. Nor could he consent to disfranchise the freemen as a class. He would only punish those who were proved to be guilty.
MR. BUTTremarked, that he should support the Amendment; but, at the same time, he thought the proper remedy would be found in the establishment of more stringent regulations for the admission of freemen.
MR. SERJEANT DEASYurged the Attorney General for Ireland and the Committee to allow his Amendment to be engrafted upon the one under consideration. The object of his Amendment was to prevent the Bill applying to any freeman who had obtained a certificate of indemnity from the Commissioners before whom they gave evidence.
MR. G. CLIVEsaid, he must oppose the Amendment, as he concurred in the principle which had been often expressed by the late Mr. Hume that it was the system that was at fault, for it was the system that corrupted the candidate. He was anxious, therefore, to disfranchise the freemen of Galway as a class, because, as the hon. Member for Dungarvan had truly remarked, they were "a ragged lot,"

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easily open to bribery and undue influence. If the Committee adopted the Amendment, he should wash his hands of the Bill, and leave it at the disposal of the right hon. and learned Gentleman who had moved it.
MR. MAGUIREsaid, the hon. Gentleman appeared to forget that when a ragged army was disbanded, the officers who had corrupted them were also punished for their misconduct. Now, why not follow that rule here, and visit the briber with the same punishment as the poor and less offending freemen? At all events, he would urge the propriety of postponing the whole matter till next Session. If it should then appear to be necessary to disfranchise all the freemen of Ireland, let them do so, but he protested against their inflicting a palpable injustice in order to serve a party manœuvre.
Question put, "That the words 'no freeman of the,' stand part of the clause."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 101; Noes 158: Majority 57.
House resumed
Committee report progress; to sit again To-morrow.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, in moving that on Tuesday next, and every succeeding Tuesday during the present Session, Government Orders of the Day should have precedence over Notices of Motion, said, that he should not have placed this Motion on the paper had it not appeared to be the general wish of the House that the public business should not be retarded, and he hardly knew any means by which the efforts of hon. Members to accelerate the progress of business could be made so effective as the proposition he had now to submit to the House. He did not wish to insist on such a Motion, if any considerable body of Members were opposed to it; but if he had not misunderstood the feeling of the House, they desired to expedite the business, and this was the best way of doing so. He had examined the notice paper, and upon the whole it appeared to him that no subject would materially suffer by the adoption of this Motion.
COLONEL WILSON PATTENsaid, he wished to inquire of the right hon. Gentleman whether it was the intention of the Government to continue the morning sittings so incessantly as they had done during the last fortnight?
MR. SERJEANT DEASYsaid, he would
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beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it would be convenient for him to state what Government measures he proposed to proceed with, and what were to be dropped?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that the Government certainly intended, with the permission of the House, to avail themselves of morning sittings as much as possible. There were several measures of great importance to which morning sittings were already allotted. With regard to the Government business, it appeared to them that the India Bill, the Transfer of Land (Ireland) Bill, and the Scotch Universities Bill, were measures of such importance that they must be pressed forward to legislation, and there were many other Bills before them of great importance. Indeed, he was not prepared to say at present that there were any measures which the Government intended to give up. Their proceedings in that respect must depend very much on the progress they made in the three essential Bills to which he had alluded, and which it was of great public importance should be passed. The House would also recollect that the Government must yet appeal to Committees of Supply for considerable items of the public revenue. That, it appeared to him, was all the information which he could at present give with respect to the public business.
COLONEL WILSON PATTENsaid, that if it was not intended to have morning sittings every day, it would be very convenient if the House could be informed what days of the week would be so appropriated.
VISCOUNT GODERICHsaid, he would beg to ask what the Government intended to do with respect to the Local Government Bill which was down for the morning sitting to-day, but did not come on?
MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he wished to inquire whether the Government had made up their minds what course they would take with regard to the Bill for the reform of the Corporation of London; whether it would come on for discussion; and if so, what day was fixed for it?
MR. WALPOLEreplied, that the Bill for the reform of the Corporation of London was not, strictly speaking, a Government measure. It was introduced by the late Government, and since the present had been in office they had given it all the assistance they could in order to get it put into shape. An experiment was made the other day to proceed with it, but such was

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the opposition that it entirely failed. He really did not see, in the present state of public business, and at this period of the Session, that there was any prospect of going on successfully with the measure—a circumstance which he very much regretted.
MR. STUART WORTLEYsaid, he rose to ask whether it was not the fact that, since the discussion to which the right hon. Gentleman had alluded, the Government had received a memorial passed unanimously by the Common Council of London, praying that the Bill should be proceeded with, and offering to give it every assistance, and urgently requesting the right hon. Gentleman to use all the means in his power to secure its passing into a law this Session?
MR. WALPOLEsaid, that it was true that he had received a communication from the Common Council to the effect stated by the hon. and learned Member—whether they were unanimous or not he could not say. [Mr. WORTLEY: Yes, unanimous.] But he might add that, within two hours after receiving that communication, he received another from the Liverymen of London requesting that the Bill should not be proceeded with.
Motion agreed to.
Resolved—
"That upon Tuesday next, and on every succeeding Tuesday during the present Session, Government Orders of the Day shall have precedence of Notices of Motions."

THE ENFIELD RIFLE, ETC.

  QUESTION.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary of State for War whether any experiments, for the purpose of testing the relative superiority of the Enfield, Whitworth, Jacob's and other Rifles, has been made since last Session; whether there is any Report made to the Government: and if so, whether it will be laid on the table before the close of the present Session. He also wished to know whether the iron cup at the bottom of the rifle ball has been abandoned and a wooden cup substituted, and if that is the case if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman can inform the House whether it is not probable that the wooden cup may soon be dispensed with.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, that there had been two Committees appointed on the subject—one, called the Small Arms Committee, whose duty it was to test the merits
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  of all descriptions of arms; and a second, to test the merits of the Enfield, Whitworth, and Jacob's Rifles. That Committee was about to assemble almost immediately, and the only delay which had arisen was in consequence of some of Mr. Whitworth's Rifles called for last year not having been yet furnished. There was no question more important than that of the ammunition to the efficiency of the Enfield Rifle. The iron cup alluded to by the hon. and gallant Member had been done away with, but up to the present moment it had been found impossible so to shape the bullet as to do away with the wooden cup substituted. Experiments were now going on with respect to the ammunition which he could assure the House were highly satisfactory. No Report of course had yet been made, nor was there the slightest chance of a Report being made in time to be laid on the table of the House during the present Session with respect to the comparative merits of the different Rifles under trial; but he believed that there was no doubt that in some respects Mr. Whitworth's Rifles had been found superior to the Enfield: whether they were more fitted as weapons of war would most probably be decided by the result of the forthcoming experiments.

RETIREMENT OF BISHOPS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. STUART WORTLEYsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is in the contemplation of Her Majesty's Government to introduce, during the present or the next Session of Parliament, any general measure to facilitate the retirement of Bishops disabled by infirmity or old age?
  MR. WALPOLEreplied, that it was certainly not the intention of the Government to introduce any Bill during the present Session, with regard to the subject, which was one of the most difficult they had to deal with. He could assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the matter would have the fullest consideration during the recess.

THE CORPORATION OF LONDON.

  QUESTION.
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid he would be glad if the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary would tell them what

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  course the Government intended to pursue with regard to the Bill relating to the Corporation of the City of London.
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, the right hon. Gentleman would remember that that was not strictly a Government Bill. It was a Bill introduced by the late Government. He had given his best assistance with the view of putting it into shape, and the other day, he tried to get it into Committee, but unfortunately the attempt failed. He must now frankly say that in the present state of the Session he saw hardly any prospect of the Bill passing, though he very much regretted the opposition which was made to the Motion for going into Committee.
  MR. STUART WORTLEYsaid, he would beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has not since the discussion to which he has referred received from the Common Council a communication, agreed to unanimously, praying that the measure might be proceeded with.
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, he had received such a communication—whether it were unanimous or not he could not tell—but within two hours after receiving that communication he received another from the Livery of London, praying that the Bill might not be proceeded with.
  MR. ALDERMAN CUBITThoped Government would persevere with the Bill.

AUSTRIA AND THE PORTE.

  QUESTION.
  MR. GRANT DUFFsaid, he would beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government has been informed of, or believes in, the existence of any agreement, written or verbal, between Austria and the Porte, whereby the former power engages to give assistance to the latter in case of an outbreak in European Turkey.
  MR. SEYMOUR FITZGERALDsaid, the hon. Gentleman had put a very comprehensive, and, as he thought, a very unprecedented question to him, and he hoped he might, without giving offence, express a doubt whether any advantage could be derived, either by that House or by the country, from putting questions of such a vague and roving character. He could only say, in reply, that no communication of the character described had been received by Her Majesty's Government, and the hon. Gentleman would pardon him if, in the absence of any facts, he refrained from expressing any belief on the subject.

HAINAULT ALLOTMENT.—RESOLUTION.
MR. CAIRD* said, that he had to bring under the notice of the House the system of management adopted by the Office of Woods and Forests on the Hainault Estate, in Essex. Last year, when he (Mr. Caird) took occasion to comment on the general management of this department, the then Secretary for the Treasury instanced Hainault as an example of the inauguration of a better system. A return has since been presented to Parliament which shows, within a narrow compass, the kind of management which the Office itself puts forward for criticism, and affords to this House an example of the general system on which the whole estates of the Crown are conducted. Within the last three years the gross revenue of these estates has considerably increased—from £383,757 to £445,688. But the surplus income is chiefly swallowed up by increased expenditure. Thus, with a gross income in 1856 of £410,330, the surplus balance handed over to the Exchequer was £281,515; while, with a gross income in 1857 of £445,688, the surplus handed over to the Exchequer was not more than £284,857. With an increase of £35,300 in the revenue, there was an increase of only £3,342 to the Exchequer. While the revenue increased between 9 and 10 per cent, not a tenth part of that increase reached the Exchequer. The expenditure was thus increasing more rapidly than the income, and it might be useful to the Commissioners themselves that their proceedings should be reviewed by Parliament. On a private estate of any magnitude constant vigilance was needed to keep the staff of management within bounds. Much more was it needed when that staff was not under the vigilance of personal interest.
That branch of the Crown Estate which he now proposed to examine was the Royal Forest of Hainault, in Essex, ten miles from London. It was originally 3,000 acres in extent, and the average net income derived from it for the five years preceding the disafforestment was about £500 a year. It was much frequented by the people of London for recreation, during certain seasons of the year, and was full of beautiful forest scenery. The propriety of enclosing it at all, and thus excluding the public was very open to question. It might well have been doubted, even in an economical view, whether the gain of a few thousands a year is worth a moment's compa-

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rison with the advantage to the pent-up thousands of London of an open breathing space to which they can easily resort. A tract of 3,000 acres of wild forest scenery, within half an hour of the most crowded part of the City, has been changed into a vast garden farm of 1,900 acres, the remainder being likewise about to be subdivided and enclosed. Nothing could justify this, short of the prospect of a vastly increased revenue. What are the money results of the change? The future gross rental at which the Crown Allotment has been let for the next thirty years is £4,248 a year, from which must be deducted 10 per cent. for costs of management, leaving a net annual income of £3,824. But the capital expended in the change, £67,600, if invested at 5 per cent. would have yielded £3,380—and when to this is added the average net return formerly realized from the Forest, £500, the advantage as a mere money speculation is less than nothing. Under a more business-like management the result would, no doubt, have been different. But the Commissioners of Woods would have exercised a wiser discretion by commencing their improvements on some of those numerous unproductive tracts of country in more distant localities, where their operations could not have interfered with the convenience of the public, but would have been undoubtedly beneficial to all. However, after due consideration, the policy of breaking up the ancient Forest of Hainault was decided on. An Act was obtained in 1851, and in 1852 an allotment of 1873 acres was awarded to the Crown, besides the timber, worth £21,500, on the remainder of the Forest, allotted to the commoners. In May, 1853, the Office of Woods began their operations, and within three years and a half the Crown Allotment was cleared of timber, grubbed, drained, enclosed, and provided with roads and farm buildings. In that time they managed to spend, one way and another, £67,606! and the gross produce realized from the timber, bark, and underwood, on the whole 3,000 acres, was £79,322. Here it is worth while to pause a moment, and consider the actual receipt for the entire timber on this Forest, which had been growing to maturity for many hundred years, under a system of which the defence was, the vast value that would at some future day be realised from it. It is totally cut down and disposed of, and it realizes exactly £26 13 s. an acre! After the dis-
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turbance which occurred in the Office of Woods a few years ago, the Treasury sent three gentlemen to advise on the future management of the Royal Forests. They were not persons known to the public, but believed, nevertheless, to be highly respectable men. These advisers recommended a continuance of the system of management hitherto adopted in the Royal Forests. They deprecated the impatience of the public, "who, ignorant of the main object for which the Royal Plantations were made," expected some annual income from the 150,000 acres of forest property, and consoled us by telling us to wait for seventy-eight years longer, and then the crop would be worth £600 an acre! The same excuse was made to Nelson more than fifty years ago, when he complained of the inadequate supply of navy timber from the Royal Forests. We have been waiting since the time of the Conqueror—some eight centuries—and are told to wait only seventy-eight years longer for their full maturity! Instead of £600 an acre, Hainault has yielded only £26 13 s. But if the yield of timber has come short of what we have been always led to expect, the money laid out on improvements far exceeds ordinary experience. The total expenditure was £67,606 6s. 8d., of which £4,674 13 s. 10 d. was paid for the expense of the Commission, for compensation, police, and law, and for hewing timber: so that the net expenditure on the 1,900 acres allotted to the Crown was £62,931 12 s. 10 d., or £33 2s. 6d. an acre! Let us briefly analyze this. The drainage of 1873 acres, including outfall, cost £18,581: very nearly £10 an acre. The average distances apart were eight and a half yards, and they were four feet deep. Drain-pipes were made on the spot, at a very central and convenient point for carriage, and about a tenth part of the extent was executed by Fowler's steam drain-plough at a low rate of cost. A full estimate for drainage, under all circumstances of time and place, and computing all to have been done by hand, would be £6 10 s. an acre; so that on this item alone there appears an access of £6,407. Two circumstances are mentioned by the Commissioners as excusing this vast excess, namely—the unusually short period of time in which the work was executed, and the cost of cutting drains in a soil intersected with roots. The first, instead of being an objection, is an advantage, for all works of this kind can be done more

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economically on a large than a small scale: and as for the second, the Commissioners seem to forget that an expenditure of £15,586 had been previously made in grubbing up the roots and preparing the land for subsequent operations. There were thus no circumstances in the case which should have led to an excessive outlay on drainage. Nor is this extravagance exceptional on the Crown Estates, for on a purely agricultural farm in Sussex the Commissioners are now laying out upwards of £9 an acre in drainage. Farm buildings next demand our attention. The cost of these may be put down at £14,000. For this sum there is a plain farmhouse, three stables for twenty-eight horses each, three barns and cart sheds, and thirteen labourers' cottages. The greater portion of these buildings, notwithstanding this enormous outlay, are unfinished, the stables unpaved, the roads around them unformed, no means of enclosing them, no piggeries, no accommodation for cattle. There is not even adequate accommodation for the horses of the farm, a great number of which are lodged in the cart sheds, and the carts and waggons are houseless; at the best the buildings cannot house all the horses and implements of a market-garden farm, and should that system be found unprofitable on so large a scale, a new outlay must be made to provide accommodation for farm stock. He did not hesitate to say that one half the cost of these buildings had been thrown away. £7,000 prudently and wisely expended, would have produced accommodation greatly superior to what has here been obtained for £14,000. The clearing of the land and the preparation of the roots for sale cost £15,586. It is difficult to test this outlay, and he was unable to offer any opinion upon it: and the same may be said with regard to the subdivision and boundary fences. The roads have been very costly, upwards of £5,200 for five and a half miles of road. The public roads, however, are wide, with footpaths and fences. But there was subsequently constructed one mile and a half of farm road, which furnishes a test of this branch of the expenditure. This road cost £1,000; it is about ten feet wide, with no inclosure, no drainage specially constructed for it, not more than fifty yards of cutting, and that only three feet in depth, and the gravel was got on the adjoining hill. Part of this road, between the farm buildings and the public road, had been so badly constructed
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that the surface had become a mixture of clay, gravel, and root-wood, the latter placed on it by the tenant to keep his carts from sticking fast in the ruts. The cost of this road is about one fifth the cost of a cheap line of railway! It is literally a gross imposition. A good, thoroughly-drained road might have been made for £400. So that on this small item there has been £600 thrown away. And, if we add the sums charged for repairs on roads, fences, and ditches (all of which should have been completed for the money expended on them), there will be a sum here altogether of £1,400 which has been needlessly expended. But the most startling charge in this account, and the one most deserving of the attention of the House, is that which is scattered through the account, in many separate items, for Surveyor's Commission and Superintendent's Wages. These items amount, in the aggregate, for the three and a half years' management, to the modest sum of £7,870! This is equal to £1 3s. 6d. per acre per annum, which is a little more than the Estate has been let for, exclusive of interest to be paid on improvements—so that the clear annual value of the land has been exhausted in paying for professional superintendence. But even this is not enough, for the principal surveyor is likewise the receiver on the estate, and is allowed a separate commission on the rental. Let us analyze this account. For mapping, and valuing, and perambulating the land before the improvements began, three sums, amounting to £1,294 3s. 7d. are charged. This is equal to 8s. 7d. an acre over the 3,000 acres. The odd 7d. should have nearly paid for this duty. The Irish surveyors are at this moment complaining that the Attorney General for Ireland, in his new Irish Land Bill, intends to cut them down unfairly from their present rates of 3d. per acre for survey, and 4d. for valuation. In their wildest imagination their claims have never approached within 1,000 per cent of that which is given as a matter of course to the Surveyor of the Royal Estates. We find next £164 16 s. 1d. charged for commission on the sale of £1,990 worth of timber, rather more than 8 per cent. There is next a charge of £925 17 s. 3d. for selling the timber on the Commoners' Allotment—£18,015 worth—a little over 5 per cent. Then we have £918 charged for valuing the timber on the Crown Allotment. Now

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this requires peculiar notice. For this modest sum the surveyor told the Commissioners that their timber was worth £36,749. It actually fetched £48,319, or £12,000 beyond the valuation. This may have arisen, and probably partly did arise from an increase in the value of timber at the time, but the Commissioners might have been misled to sell the timber at one-third below its real value,—and at all events, it is quite clear that this valuation, which cost £918, was utterly thrown away. However, the surveyor was not done with this yet. He had taken only the first bite. He took a better hold the second time, as he now charged his commission on the total sum realized, including the £12,000 beyond his own valuation. This time he charges £1,182 10 s. 4d., and, when this is added to the £918 already charged for the same timber, we find that he nets £2,100 on this branch of the business! Whether this exhausts the professional charges on the timber was more than he could say. As the surveyor is also the receiver on the estate, he may, perhaps, with perfect fairness deduct likewise his commission as receiver of the price before passing the balance to the hands of his superiors. Then follow a series of separate charges for commission and superintendence on pipe drainage, arterial drainage, grubbing roots, farm buildings, roads, &c., amounting in the whole to £3,486 14 s. 8d. The grand total for three and a half years' management of this estate of 1,900 acres being thus close upon £8,000. Now, let any gentleman apply this to his own property. Would any sane man suffer this waste, even if he could afford it? What would have been the course followed on a private estate? A properly qualified resident agent would have been appointed, who would have devoted his sole attention to it, under whose eye and authority every operation would have been skilfully and economically carried out. He (Mr. Caird) could get a dozen perfectly qualified men of character and reputation within a fortnight who would gladly undertake the duty for £500 a year. If that course had been adopted, the direct saving in the cost of management alone would have been £6,240; and, adding this to the sums he had already shown to have been wastefully expended on drainage, buildings, and roads—all of which would
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have been avoided by a competent resident agent—there might have been a total saving of upwards of £21,000. Having thus shown the excessive character of the costs of management, he would proceed to the second branch of the subject—namely, the unsatisfactory nature of the subsequent arrangements, and the policy adopted in letting the land. There was evidently no plan or forethought, for at page 3 it is stated that an ineffectual attempt having been made to let the land for grazing without clearing it of the underwood and rubbish, and without under-drainage, it was then determined to drain and otherwise improve the estate. Shortly after this commenced, about two-thirds of it was let for a term of thirty-one years, at 5s. an acre for the first year, 10 s. for the second, and 23 s. an acre for each of the remaining twenty-nine years. In the following year the remainder of the land was let to the same tenant, at 9s. an acre for the first year, 14 s. an acre for the second, and 40 s. an acre for the remaining twenty-eight years—the tenant engaging in the first case to pay interest on drainage and farm buildings, and in the last on drainage only. Now, there are two points which would have struck a competent land agent as to the disposal of the estate in connection with its proximity to London and the nature of the soil. First, the prospect of progressive increase of value, and therefore the impolicy of letting on a thirty-one years' lease; and, second, the advantage of subdividing the estate into moderate-sized farms, suitable to market-gardening operations. When a landlord parts with the control of his estate for so long a term as thirty-one years, it is done in consideration of the tenant undertaking permanent improvements at his own cost. In this case, however, the most lavish outlay was made at the sole cost of the landlord, and the inconvenience that the tenant might be put to at the commencement of his lease in bringing this new land into cultivation was fully compensated by the reduced rent charged for the first two years. For the prospect of an increase of value he could appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, a few nights ago, in speaking of the increased value of the Exhibition Estate at Brompton, said, that it would be a sign not merely of the decay of London, but of that of the Empire, if such property had not materially risen in value within only

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five years. It was clearly impolitic, then, to part with the control of this large tract for thirty-one years without an adequate return. Here is fresh land of good staple and quality, tithe free, within ten miles of London, let for thirty-one years at 23 s. an acre, exclusive of interest on permanent improvements. Two-thirds of the estate were so disposed of, and the following year the remaining third—contiguous land, but more remote from London, and of inferior quality—was let to the same tenant at 40 s. an acre on a thirty years' lease, the only difference in the latter case being that no interest was to be charged for farm buildings and road. Here was at once a practical illustration of the impolicy of letting on so long a lease, for within one year the same tenant takes inferior land at nearly twice the rent. Up to this point the Office of Woods and their Surveyor clearly misapprehend the value of the land, for, after the bargain for thirty-one years was concluded, the tenant kept in his plan, and determined to turn the whole tract into a vast market-garden for the supply of vegetables to London. To this they at once assent; and no one can inspect the ground without seeing at a glance how correctly the tenant estimated its capabilities for market-garden cultivation. But the change from common farming to market-garden cultivation may involve a future responsibility on the part of the Crown of which they may be unaware. A market-gardener's claims for manure, and compensation on giving up possession, are sometimes equal to the value of the fee simple. And landowners do not commonly let lands suitable for market gardening at the same rent as for ordinary farming. In short, if the land is suited to market gardening, it is worth more than twice the rent; if it is not, it was imprudent to allow the system to be so altered. His own impression was, that the greater portion of the estate is suited to market gardening, and he believed that a competent land agent would have perceived this at once, would have arranged the estate accordingly, and would have let it in several moderate-sized farms, not too large for the personal superintendence of the occupier, without which it is extremely questionable whether market gardening can be made remunerative.
If the wasteful expenditure which he had shown, and the impolicy of the disposal of the property were confined to
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Hainault, the matter would be a comparatively small one in the grand scale of our public expenditure. But it is not so, for he found on going through the General Report of the Commissioners of Woods for last year that the same policy governs other branches of the Crown property. Other estates are being let on thirty-one years' leases, the landlord making the whole permanent outlay. A series of forests are going through a like process with that of Hainault. Requisitions for the drainage of ordinary farm land, at an estimated cost of more than £9 an acre, are being complied with, and the ubiquitous surveyor not only conducts all these operations, but buys and sells estates for the Crown, and receives the Crown rents in Kent, Surrey, Lincoln, Essex, &c. His total remuneration for these duties last year from the Office of Woods was probably not much, if anything, under £10,000. He could trace upwards of £5,000 of it; and on the same scale the surveyor's fees for other services done will amount to nearly as much more. Now, who is this gentleman who receives from one department of the Government for his services as much as we pay to both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer? His name is Mr. John Clutton, a highly respectable land and timber surveyor, but a name quite unknown to the public as having taken any part in the advancement of agriculture. If Government desire to improve their property, why should the best men not be called in? Men like Josiah Parkes, Hewitt Davis, or Mr. Bailey Denton, who are not only celebrated drainage and agricultural engineers, but are men who by their writings have rendered the State some service? The truth is, the error is more deep-seated. You have appointed gentlemen as Commissioners who have less confidence in themselves than you have who appointed them. Distrustful of their own practical knowledge, they lean with absolute confidence on that of another. Anxious to remove the blot that has so long lain on the Crown Estates, they let themselves be led into a lavish expenditure. It is another case of double Government. We pay the Office of Woods to manage the Crown Estates, and give them an ample staff for every necessary duty. But their functions resolve themselves into little more than a record of what is going on. The real manage-

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ment of the property is devolved on a surveyor. He does the work£is well paid for it, and has none of the responsibility. He advises what should be done, orders its execution, buys and sells property, receives the rent, and charges his commission. We have two Offices of Woods and Forests in Whitehall Place£the one, the ostensible one, which we pay by an annual vote of Parliament of more than £20,000; the other, Mr. Clutton's office, where the real business is done, and the cost of which, not much short of the chief office, is dispersed in separate scattered items through the annual account, or never appears at all, as it is deducted from receipts, and the balances only brought to the public credit. Now, either Mr. Clutton should at once be put at the head of the office with a suitable salary, or the Commissioners themselves should do their own work. He had not the least doubt that either of the gentlemen who at present hold the office, could, if they would only rely on themselves, and throw themselves heartily into the business, transact it with greater economy and efficiency than at present. A man of honour and sense, who is not afraid of work, will soon become more capable than any irresponsible agent, whose other multifarious duties necessarily compel him to rely on clerks and subordinates.
There is an important question involved in the right management of the hereditary Estates of the Crown. The Civil List of the Queen, £385,000 a year, would be repaid to the country if the surplus income of the hereditary estates could be made to exceed that amount. An addition of 10 per cent to the income, and a reduction of 10 per cent from the present average expenditure, both perfectly practicable, would leave the country a debtor to the Sovereign. It is now twenty years since Her Majesty came to the throne. During that period similar estates have vastly increased in value. Building land in the better parts of London and in the manufacturing districts, mineral property, and all those sources of wealth, which almost without an effort on their part have so vastly increased the wealth and incomes of several of the great landholders of this country, ought equally to have raised the income of the Crown Estates. If that has not been so, it is the fault of the management. He had shown in the case of Hainault that the
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management had been wasteful, and the expenditure excessive; it was the duty of Parliament to mark this with its disapproval; and he therefore called on the House, in no party spirit, for party had nothing to do with it, to affirm the Motion.
MR. LINDSAYseconded the Motion.
Motion made£
"That it is the opinion of this House, that the costs of management on the Crown Allotment of Hainault, since the date of the Act under which it was disafforested, have been excessive, and that the management generally has not been satisfactory."
MR. G. A. HAMILTONsaid, that the Resolution proposed by the hon. Gentleman was in effect a condemnation of the management of the Woods and Forests in reference to this particular estate known under the name of the Crown allotment in the Forest of Hainault. The Resolution was virtually a censure upon a gentleman (Mr. Gore) who he (Mr. Hamilton) had no hesitation in saying was one of the most efficient and useful officers in the service. He would shortly state to the House the real circumstances of the case. The hon. Member began by stating, that his Motion had reference to the Forest of Hainault, comprising 3,000 acres, but the expenditure upon which he proceeded to comment was the expenditure upon the Crown allotment of 1,900 acres. The truth was, however, that Hainault Forest comprised an area of 17,500 acres. In 1851 Commissioners were appointed to ascertain the boundaries of the forest, and to allot to the Crown such parts as might be deemed compensation for the forestry and other rights which the Crown had agreed to abandon. For the discharge of those functions the Commissioners themselves, and not the Woods and Forests, were answerable. Under the authority conferred upon them by the Act of 1851 the Commissioners, after making the necessary surveys and inquiries, allotted to the Crown, 1,900 acres in full satisfaction of all the rights possessed by the Crown in the forest, with a few trifling exceptions, including, likewise, compensation for timber cut on parts not allotted. The Act of Parliament directed that the expenses connected with the various functions of the Commissioners should be defrayed by the Woods and Forests, and afterwards, in the 15th section, that those expenses should be re-

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paid out of the timber that might be cut on the common. The hon. Gentleman spoke of an expenditure of £67,000 on 1,900 acres, but he (Mr. G. A. Hamilton) would state the real facts in respect to that point. The total expenditure connected with the whole process of disafforesting and reclamation in reference to this forest amounted to £67,660, but of that sum only £42,000 were properly expended in reference to this Crown estate of 1,900 acres, the remainder being expenses not of the Woods and Forests but of the Commissioners under the Act, for the various duties they had to discharge; and, therefore, when the extravagant management of the Woods and Forests Department is spoken of, he must confine the hon. Member to that sum of £42,000 expended on the 1,900 acres, constituting the Crown estate, which, including the expense of reclamation, amounted to £21 15 s. per acre. From a passage in a Report laid on the table, the House might judge of the nature of the works which the Woods and Forests had to engage in with respect to the reclamation of this part of the forest. First, there was the grubbing and the clearing of the land, which formed a laborious undertaking in consequence of the close growth of the timber trees and under-wood; and the total expense in the first instance of grubbing, making roads, and of arterial drainage amounted to £11,415, or about £6 4s. an acre. The hon. Gentleman admitted, that previous to the reclamation of this forest the whole of it produced about £500 a year, but by the process of reclamation, grubbing, making roads, and effecting arterial drainage, the 1,900 acres produced a rent of about £1 5s. per acre. The next point on which the hon. Member touched was the expenditure upon drainage, which amounted to £8 19 s. per acre. He was ready to admit, that £8 19 s. per acre formed a large sum for drainage. He had not himself inspected the estate, but he had been informed that the ground was a complete mass of entangled roots, and the cost of drainage was therefore necessarily large; but if the cost was large, the expenditure had been made with the consent of the tenant, who paid 5 per cent upon it, and if the tenant was satisfied with the expenditure, it was a primâ facie and rather strong proof that the expenditure had not been so extravagant as the hon. Gentleman seemed to consider. The third item of expenditure referred to was that which arose out of
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buildings, and which made up the total sum of £42,000. As he had observed, he had not had an opportunity of inspecting these buildings, but an expenditure of £14,000 had been incurred for these buildings with the consent of the tenant, who paid 6 per cent on the outlay. Therefore these expenses, with the exception of the expenditure for disafforesting, grubbing, making roads, and arterial drainage, had been expenses incurred with the consent of the tenant. The general result was, that previous to the disafforesting the forest produced £500; and four years after the reclamation, the 1,900 acres, the portion of the forest allotted to the Crown, being cleared and fenced, and furnished with buildings, produced a rental to the Crown, including the payment of interest, of £4,250. A tenant of one of the farms had written to say that the drainage on all the lands, with slight exceptions, was very effective, the work having been faithfully done, and, though the expense had been great, that gentleman did not think that it could have been done at a cheaper rate; and though the buildings were insufficient, he considered the scheme successful in converting in so short a time what was a useless piece of land into a productive and valuable farm. That was the testimony of a tenant mainly interested in this matter. The hon. Member had spoken of the payment to surveyors, and he must complain that the hon. Gentleman, having access to the information contained in the paper on the table of the House, had not done justice to the surveyors, whose emoluments he stated to be so very great. He spoke as if the payment made to the surveyors was simply for their business in connection with these 1,900 acres. The total of £5,888 paid to them in respect to the process of disafforesting was not paid by the Woods and Forests, but by the Commissioners under the Act, who paid £3003; so that the sum paid by the Woods and Forests to the surveyors was only £2,885 with respect to the reclamation of the 1,900 acres. The whole payment made to the surveyors in respect to this portion of Her Majesty's estate was somewhat less than 5 per cent on the buildings, and 5s. an acre for drainage, the latter being the sum allowed by the Inclosure Commissioners, and both being upon the ordinary scale of allowances. He thought, therefore, that the House would be indisposed to pass a

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vote of censure as regards the management of this estate, for so he considered the Motion in reference to this matter. The hon. Member had from the outset confounded the expense connected with the disafforesting the whole forest with the expense connected with the Crown allotment of 1,900 acres. With respect to the general management of the woods and forests, the hon. Gentleman repeated a statement he made last year, that by increasing the amount to be received by the Woods and Forests by 10 per cent, and diminishing the cost by 15 per cent, a sum might be obtained equivalent to the amount of the Civil List. But the House should bear in mind that the property of Her Majesty, managed by the Woods and Forests, was of a peculiar nature. The total annual rental of lands and houses was £300,000, but no less than £80,000 were in fee farm rents admitting of no increase, and £90,000 were ground rents for such places as the Athenæum, the Carlton, and Reform Clubs, built on Crown property, let for long leases at a small rent. With respect to the payments to surveyors, he was informed that the hon. Member was inaccurate in his statements; but as the hon. Member gave no notice of his intention to bring that point under the notice of the House, he was not prepared with details in respect to it. The hon. Gentleman spoke of a surveyor receiving £10,000, but he had no doubt that the hon. Gentleman would find himself mistaken in that statement. On the whole, he trusted that after the facts he had mentioned, the House would agree with him that it would be most unjust to visit the Woods and Forests with the censure conveyed in the Resolution of the hon. Gentleman, for their management of this particular portion of the Crown estates.
SIR JOHN SHELLEYsaid, it appeared the tenant had agreed to pay 5 per cent for drainage by wood, and he could only express his surprise that any man should have made such an arrangement.
Mr. G. A. HAMILTONsaid, he had not referred to drainage by wood, but drainage through a wood.
SIR JOHN SHELLEY: He understood, however, that Mr. Alison had only held the farm two years, that he had only recently come to this country, and that he was imperfectly acquainted with the profits likely to be derived from the farm. He could not, therefore, consider of great importance the fact that he had agreed to pay
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the interest which had been mentioned upon the outlay. He thought the sooner they got rid of these small forests the better, if the cost of improving them was to be anything like the sum that had been expended on Hainault Forest.
SIR JOHN TROLLOPEsaid, that if the Forests of Hainault were adapted for building purposes, it would have been far better for the Crown to have sold the land in small lots, than to have spent a large sum in reclaiming it. The work must necessarily be done by deputy, and that deputy must have a deputy, each of them getting his commission. If private individuals managed their land in the same way that the Crown managed its land, they would soon be compelled to go into the market to sell it. He objected to the Crown selling land, and their going into the market to buy other land, for the public had then to pay two commissions. He should prefer that the money be paid into the Exchequer. It appeared to him that ¢8 19 s. per acre for draining was excessive; £5 per acre was the maximum, and, allowing £1 extra for the nature of the ground to be drained, £6 was the utmost that ought to have been paid. He thought this large expenditure was owing to want of supervision. He did not wish to join in a vote of censure upon any public officers, but he thought that it would be well if at the head of the Boards charged with duties of this kind they had a man of practical knowledge.
MR. WILSONobserved that no man who had the common feelings of honour towards public servants who were not present to defend themselves, could be deserving of the respect of the House if he were not prepared to defend the character of those public servants when unable to speak for themselves. As far as Mr. Gore was concerned, he had the honour of knowing that gentleman, and he assured the House that no public servant had ever discharged his duties with a more conscientious sense of what he owed to his employers. The right hon. Baronet opposite had asked why the Government had not sold this property, but he must remind the House that the Government only held the property in trust for the Crown. It was true that some small outlying plots of land in the neighbourhood of Stamford and other towns had been sold on very favourable terms under the authority of an Act of Parliament, but the proceeds of these sales had been in-

623
vested in the purchase of property contiguous to other Crown estates. The value of the Crown property had thus been increased, while its management had been economized. It had been suggested, that the land in Hainault Forest might have been sold for building sites; but that experiment had been tried and had failed, because the Government could only grant leases, and could not give a freehold title. He denied, however, that the operations carried on in that forest had been unprofitable; £42,000 bad been expended in the improvement of the forest. Before these improvements, the annual income derived from it was £500. Since then an income of £4,280, or a profit of £3,700, had been obtained in the short period of three years, thus giving interest at the rate of about 9 per cent upon the outlay, Was it, he would ask, unprofitable, to let land on a thirty-one years' lease at such an improved rental to a tenant with a capital of £35,000? Instead of proving that the Crown had been embarking in unwise and speculative operations, he thought the facts showed that, although they were constrained by Act of Parliament to do what they had done, it was about the most profitable operation which they could have undertaken. He hoped the House would not assent to the Motion of the hon. Member.
SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, he could not understand how the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Wilson) made out his calculations of profit.
MR. WILSONsaid, that the property consisted of 1,900 acres. Before the improvements this forest land brought in a net income of £500. The sum of £42,000 was laid out in drainage, farm buildings, and other improvements, and an improved rental of £4,280 was then obtained.
SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, that was what he understood. The £42,000 must have been provided by some one, and must bear interest; and therefore the only gain was the difference between 5 per cent upon £42,000, and the £3,700 improved rental that had been obtained. The Committee upon Crown Property, of which Lord Seymour was the Chairman, declared that there was no conceivable abuse to which property was subject that could not be found in the Crown property. The Committee suggested that it was not only desirable the account should be presented
624
to Parliament, but that an estimate of expenditure ought to be laid upon the table before it was actually incurred. Parliament might have concurred in this outlay of £42,000, but he thought that its assent ought to have been given to this expenditure before it was incurred.
MR. CAIRD, in reply, reasserted that the whole expense he had mentioned applied to the 3,000 acres, but whether £67,000 or £42,000 the House must agree that it was a wasteful expenditure. That the drainage was more difficult than usual was contradicted by the fact that it had all been done by the steam plough, and the same charge was made to Government for ordinary agricultural land in Sussex. As he was satisfied with the discussion he had obtained, he would not press his Motion to a division. He hoped, however, that the Government would in future remember that the public had an eye on their movements, and that they would see the necessity of doing their own work.

ENDOWED SCHOOLS (IRELAND).

  RESOLUTION.
  MR. KIRKsaid, he rose to call the attention of the House to the Report of the Commissioners of Endowed Schools in Ireland, and to urge the necessity of prompt remedies being applied to the evils and abuses which that Report disclosed. He had been led to make this Motion through a circumstance which would be in the recollection of the House. The Report, in four volumes, was so large, that it was said it would be impossible for any hon. Member to read it; but the fact was that the whole pith was contained in a book of 280 pages, than which the library of the House did not contain a more important volume. On that book his Motion was founded. In that Report the Commissioners pointed out that there were many evils and abuses existing in regard to the endowed schools of Ireland, but this was not new. Complaints of the same kind had been made from the earliest periods. The public endowed schools of Ireland consisted of five classes. The first were the Diocesan Free Schools, described in the Commissioners' Report as having been established in the reign of Elizabeth, and at the present moment were amongst the best conducted schools in the country. There were also the Royal Free Schools of Ulster, endowed

  625
  by James I. in 1608. Another class of schools were those founded by Erasmus Smith, which were endowed by that gentleman, who was an alderman of London in the time of the Protectorate. These schools were some years afterwards handed over to the Government by charter, but the provisions of that charter had been evaded by expending the funds which were to have been employed in extending the means of educating the poor in the erection of new buildings, and presenting a library to the richly endowed Trinity College. A fourth class were what were called the Schools of the Incorporated Society, or Protestant Charter Schools; and a fifth class those which were established in 1792 by the Society for Discountenancing Vice. But all these bore a sectarian character; besides all these five large classes of schools, there were numerous private endowments. Complaints had been frequently made even from an early period after their establishment, that abuses had crept into the two first classes of these schools. And in 1723 the trustees of Erasmus Smith's schools, finding that they were not acting strictly in obedience to their charter, had obtained an Act of Parliament to sanction their departure from it. Since then they had founded 179 free English schools, which they had no right to do under that charter; and under these circumstances they were quite open to legislation. By the 7th of William III. (in 1695) it was enacted that no person of the Popish religion should publicly teach in schools, or instruct youths in learning in private houses or elsewhere within the realm. That remained the law of the land till the time of Howard the philanthropist, at whose instance it was repealed. Commissioners of inquiry in 1791 made a Report to the Irish House of Commons, in which they recommended that no distinction should be made between the scholars of different persuasions; but it was not until 1813 that that Report was acted upon. In that year that great and good man Sir Robert Peel, while Irish Secretary, established what was known as the Clare Street Board. A great many of the evils pointed out by the Report were then remedied, but as a body they were not in public estimation fit to manage the schools intrusted to them. By that time the House of Commons had become aware of the importance of the question; and in 1818 Lord Glenelg, being then Secretary for Ireland, a Parliamentary Grant was made. In 1824, there was a
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  Commission of Inquiry, which reported in 1828, and that report was referred to a Select Committee of the House. That Report laid the foundation of the establishment of the present system of national education in 1831 by Lord Stanley, now the Earl of Derby, which had rendered education in Ireland almost universal, though not of very prime order. In 1834, there was a Commission appointed to consider the working of the national system. In 1835, a Committee was appointed, of which Mr. Wyse was Chairman, which took evidence in 1835 and 1836, was reappointed in 1837, and reported in 1838; and it was mainly in consequence of that Report that the Queen's Colleges were afterwards established in Cork, Belfast, and Galway. He would give a brief summary of the endowments, which he would divide into four classes, all of which, however, had been grossly mismanaged. There were at the present moment 976 endowments in operation, the total value of the lands with which they were endowed being £68,570. a year. There were 296 endowments not in operation—the value of lands being £7,170 a year, and there were 29 contingent endowments—the contingencies which were to bring them into operation not having yet arisen; the value of these was £883 a year. Lastly, and worse than all, there were 170 lost endowments, the present value of the property with which these were endowed being £2,574 a year. The object of all the endowments, to afford free education to the poor, had been defeated for want of proper management. In the royal schools, with £9,000 a year, there were but 36 free scholars, and these had only been admitted since the agitation on the subject had arisen. In the Erasmus Smith schools, only £700 a year was expended in the fulfilment of the charter, although the total income was £8,000 a year; and in all the others the same disregard of the objects of the founder was observable. He believed the great evil was in the constitution of the boards of management, which generally consisted of church dignitaries, judges, and state officials, who had other and weighty duties to attend to. Numerous though the members of those boards were, it was with difficulty that a quorum could be got together at the periodical meetings for the transaction of the necessary business. Then, again, their accounts did not deserve that name, and in one case there was a ledger that had not been balanced for eleven years.

  627
  The great and important educational feature in Ireland at the present time was the national system, which carried the benefits and blessings of education into the most distant corners of the land, and was especially valuable to the working classes. He believed it was efficiently worked and admirably administered. He knew that the opinion prevailed in England and Scotland that the schools were of the character which was called "Godless," but that was not the fact. The truth was, that at particular hours of the day secular instruction went forward; but after that had been given a board was put up with the words "Religious Instruction," and then any child that objected had leave to walk away. None were compelled to receive religious instruction, but it was offered to all. That was the kind of school suited to such a country as Ireland, where the majority of the people were Roman Catholics, who looked with extreme jealousy upon any attempt at religious conversion. With regard to the Church Education Schools, he did not believe that, they were exercising any influence in the way of conversion, though their friends were very sanguine of that result. It was said that there were 13,500 Roman Catholic children attending these schools, and he had no doubt of the fact. Indeed, his only wonder was that the number was not considerably larger. But the Church Education Society, in their returns, gave no account of what these 13,500 children were learning. The extent of the teaching they received was the alphabet and the first rudiments of reading. The moment the child was capable of anything beyond, the priest exercised his influence, and the child was taken from the school and taught the Roman Catholic catechism. He mentioned this to show how inefficient, as a means for general education, the much-praised Church Education Society's schools were. He would just say, before he left this part of the subject, that if it was the intention of the Government to give separate grants to the Church Education Society, how could they resist giving separate grants to the Roman Catholics? If you gave clergymen of the Established Church grants to enable them to teach their doctrines, how could you refuse the Roman Catholic clergy similar grants for teaching theirs? If that, however, was done, instead of the children in the schools continuing to go on together, they would split up into parties, and the utmost discord would prevail. He
  628
  trusted that on this subject the Government would be firm and maintain the national system of education in all its integrity. But there was a circumstance which arose out of the establishment of the national school system on which he wished to observe, more especially as it was not looked for by the founders of that system. Prior to 1832, when the national school system was established, there was in every town in Ireland a schoolmaster, who taught not only the ordinary rudiments of education, but something of science and a good deal of classics. When the national schools came into operation, they put an end to this scientific and classic teaching. In fact, the national schools had run the old schoolmaster off the road just as the railway had run off the old stage coach. In order to remedy this defect, he thought that the endowed schools, if their funds were properly managed, should be made to form the foundation of a system of education for the middle classes, a system of schools which should stand between the National Schools and the Queen's Colleges. It was most important to the progress of society that there should be afforded to the sons of farmers, and tradesmen, and the middle classes, that education which the state of society required. Science and chemistry were useful in the pursuits of agriculture and manufactures. Those acquirements were to be obtained at the Queen's Colleges, but a lad of the middle class educated in these colleges was seldom well fitted to enter on the duties of agriculture and manufactures peculiar to his class in life. He then read letters from persons in the north of Ireland urging the establishment of a system of intermediate education such as he had alluded to. The necessity for remodelling the endowed schools was felt through the whole of the north of Ireland, and he believed that the time for movement on the part of the Government had arrived. He would probably be asked if he was prepared to point out a remedy. He thought the remedy was easy. He would appoint a Board in Dublin which should fairly represent all classes in Ireland. He would give that Board, by Act of Parliament, the sole management of the endowments. He would vest the appointment of its members in the Crown, and, with great diffidence, he would suggest there should be no ex officio members upon it. He would give them power to do away with the boarders on the one hand,

  629
  and the free scholars on the other, in the endowed schools. With some such arrangement, and with attention to details, he had little or no doubt that the schools could be made self-supporting. When a locality wanted a school it should be required to subscribe a third of the expense before any grant was made. He would have the schools, land, and premises, conveyed to the Board, so that they could become the property of the State, and it would be impossible for them to lapse into the hands of individuals. Let the endowments which were given not be permanent, but varying during pleasure, and let the amount be regulated by the requirements of the town or locality, and let the Board fix the school fees to be paid, so as to make the school self-supporting. The middle classes had a strong claim on the Government for prompt action in the matter of endowed schools, and he hoped this matter would receive their attention.
  Motion made, and Question proposed—
  "That in the opinion of this House prompt measures ought to be applied to the evils and abuses which are disclosed in the Report of the Commissioners of Endowed Schools in Ireland."
  LORD NAASsaid, he did not think that the hon. Gentleman needed to have made any apology for having called attention to this important question. There was no question more worthy of the consideration of the House, and the result which might follow would be of great general benefit to Ireland, The position of intermediate education in Ireland, he agreed, was very unsatisfactory, and it was on that account that a Commission was appointed, so far back as 1854, by the late Government, to inquire into the subject. The Commission entered on their labours very soon after their appointment, and they had exhibited an energy and industry seldom exceeded. Their Report had been the subject of some animadversion and of some facetious remarks in the House and in the newspapers; but he believed that when it came to be examined it would be found to contain information most valuable and interesting. The Commission divided their Report into several heads, comprising the history of their own labours, the state of the Endowed Schools, and the manner in which they recommended that the State should deal with this important question. He admitted that the Report did disclose an extraordinary state of things in the schools. There was a great want of inspection, and of
  630
  trained masters; the endowments were often small, and insufficient for the purposes of the schools; and the rule under which the pupils were admitted to education. For this vague and ill-defined state of things there ought to be a speedy remedy. But while the Commissioners had succeeded in showing the evils which existed in the present system, and the great want of intermediate education in Ireland, he could not say that when they set about to suggest the remedy they were as successful in doing so. The Commission was, on the whole, fairly constituted. Three of the Commissioners represented opinions in favour of the mixed system of education in Ireland—namely, the Marquess of Kildare, Dr. Graves and Dr. Andrews. The fourth Commissioner, Mr. Stevens, represented the opinions entertained by a large majority of the Members of the Established Church in Ireland; and the fifth, Mr. Hughes, formerly Solicitor General for Ireland may be supposed to represent the opinions of the Roman Catholics. The result was that those three classes of opinion found in the Report three separate exponents, and the only agreement that existed was among the three members representing the National system of education. He wished to put before the House the great difficulty which, on account of this difference of opinion, beset this question. Any Government which approached the solution of the question must do so with apprehension, since, after these able men had given immense time and great labour and attention to the subject they had not found it possible to agree on the principle on which the remedy was to be founded. He would point out the leading features on which the Commissioners disagreed. The suggestion of the three members representing the National system—the majority—was, that it was possible to separate secular and religious education in intermediate schools so far as to enable scholars of different religious denominations to receive a common education without danger to their religion. On that principle the recommendation of the majority of the Commissioners was founded. They recommended that non-exclusive schools should be placed under a board nominated by the Government, on which the different religious persuasions should be represented; one of the Commissioners to have a salary, and to devote his whole time to the ditties of the Board. A definition was given of

  631
  the institutions they considered ought to be regarded as non-exclusive schools; and they further recommended that the exclusive schools should be transferred to the incorporated society, and be placed under its superintendence. In the outset Mr. Stevens, on the part of the Established Church, differed from the three Commissioners as to the definition of non-exclusive schools, and on the propriety of Royal and Diocesan schools within that category. He complained that the plan of the majority would have the effect of severing these schools from the churches to which they belonged, and of defeating the object of the founders. Now the Royal Diocesan schools formed the most important and largest portion of the schools affected by the Report. Mr. Stevens also proposed that a Minister for Education for Ireland should be created, and a Board formed, consisting of a Minister for Education and three other Commissioners—one of the Established Church, one a Roman Catholic, and one a Presbyterian; and he proposed to give the power of visitation of Church schools only to members of the Church. These two recommendations, it would be seen, differed from each other in the most essential manner. When, however, we come to Mr. Hughes, who represents the opinions of the Roman Catholic clergy and people of Ireland, the difference is still wider. He denounces the principle of mixed education altogether, and declares himself in favour of a separate and denominational system—under which alone he believes these schools would be successful. Now, having stated fairly to the House the points upon which the Commissioners differed, he thought it must be obvious that at the present period of the Session, and so soon after the Report of the Commission had been laid upon the table, it would be impossible for the Government to indicate the course in reference to the subject which they would be prepared to take. The difficulties by which the question was beset were very great, and it was only after mature consideration that a satisfactory solution of those difficulties could be arrived at. He could, however, assure the House that the subject would, during the recess, occupy the serious attention of the Government. He might state that the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland had already given great attention to this subject; he was diligently applying his mind to the matter, and he (Lord Naas) was not without hope that in the
  632
  ensuing Session the Government would be able to submit a scheme on the subject to the House. It was to be regretted that the magnificent endowments which were in existence should have been left so long in their present position; and if any scheme could be devised to extend to the middle classes of Ireland cheap and useful education, it would be conferring one of the greatest possible boons on the country.
  MR. GREERsaid, that while he did not think it would be fair to call upon the Government to legislate upon the subject under the notice of the House during the present Session, he was at the same time of opinion that they might have heard more of the outline of the plan of the Government than had been stated by the noble Lord, and whether it was founded on the principle laid down in the Report of the Commissioners. The Government must have made up their minds with regard to the principle which should pervade the measure they were about to introduce next year. They were indebted to the hon. Member for Newry (Mr. Kirk) for bringing forward this subject, as well as for having, four years ago, been the means of getting a Commission appointed, which had sifted the state of things connected with endowed schools in Ireland. He hoped that the Government would be able to establish a system of intermediate education, which would be as satisfactory to the middle classes as the national schools were to the lower, and the colleges to the upper classes. There might have been a difference of opinion among the Commissioners as to the system to be adopted, but they all agreed that there were great abuses in the present system, and that any system was better than that. If the Government meant to support a mixed system of education for the lower classes, he did not see how they could adopt any other in the intermediate schools. He hoped that in any scheme they adopted they would carry out the principle on which the system of national education was founded.
  MR. GROGANsaid, he would willingly admit that the hon. Member for Newry had done good service in bringing the question forward, but in making that admission he must not be supposed as agreeing in all the suggestions and recommendations which the hon. Member had made. One good effect of bringing the question forward was the promise given by the noble Lord, that the Government would grapple with the question during the recess. There could not

  633
  be a more important question as regarded the social improvement of Ireland than the question of establishing a good system of intermediate education, and he believed that evening's discussion would have the happiest effect in leading thoughtful minds to reflect upon the best mode of supplying that want. These old endowments for instruction in the principles of the Established Church were apurtenances of that Church, and could not be justly applied to the support of any "mixed" system of education from which the Bible was expressly excluded. Every effort ought to be made to secure funds to those for whom they were intended, and he should protest at all times against grants by Government to schools from which the Bible was excluded. It had been shown that the Commissioners were not at all agreed on the subject, and yet the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Greer) seemed to expect that the noble Lord should be ready, in the middle of a busy Session, with a cut and dry plan on the subject of these schools. He should have regretted had the noble Lord taken such a course, for it would have shown that he hardly appreciated the difficulties of the question. With due management he believed that the funds of the endowments in question might easily be increased, and he thought that the question as to whether there ought to be a Minister of Education for Ireland was one well deserving of consideration.
  MR. LEFROYsaid, that if the hon. Member for Newry had confined his remarks to the subject of the notice which he had placed on the paper, he should not have troubled the House with any observations on the subject. He had thought that the hon. Gentleman did not intend to do more than to call attention to the Endowed Schools mentioned in the Report. The Report would require the most careful consideration, and he was happy to learn from the noble Lord that it would receive the attention of the Government during the recess. The hon. Member had gone beyond that Report, and had attacked schools which did not come under the Report in any way. He could not understand why the hon. Gentleman had attacked the schools of the Church Education Society. These schools belonged to a purely voluntary Association which received no grant of public money. On the proper occasion he should be prepared to show that the management and teaching of these schools were calculated to do honour to all those who
  634
  supported them. He might, had he been prepared to meet the attack of the hon. Member, have read letters to the House to show that, if time had been allowed, thousands of signatures would have been affixed to petitions in support of the principle of the schools of the Church Education Society. He did not wish to see the National system in Ireland interfered with. On the contrary, he was for giving it full play; and with that view he desired to see it liberalized. What he and the other supporters of the Church Education Society wished for was, that funds should be granted to those schools in which the Bible was read, and not merely to those schools in which the Bible was not read. He did not wish to detain the House by reference to documents, but he hoped they would permit him to read two extracts, to corroborate what he had stated. One was from a Scotch gentleman, in no way connected with Ireland, who had been appointed by a missionary society in Glasgow to visit England and Ireland, in order to ascertain what was the best system of education. That gentleman reported that the model schools in Ireland were a complete failure, and that there was no religious instruction given in them at all. Then there was the Report upon the agricultural schools lately published, from which it appeared that the offices of the great majority of these schools consisted only of a school-house and piggery. These Reports showed how gross were the defects in the management of the National system in Ireland. He also would refer to an article in the Irish Quarterly Review on the subject of national education, in which the reviewer denied that there was such a thing as national education in Ireland—ridiculed the appearance of the National schoolmasters, and stated that almost all the schools were under the management of clergymen chiefly of the Roman Catholic Church, who had the religious teaching for the most part in their own hands. He had been obliged to state these facts; the terms of this Motion forced him to do so. He would only add that when he had heard the noble Lord the Member for London express himself in such decided terms in favour of religious education in England, he regretted that the noble Lord did not apply the same principles to Ireland. He regretted that the noble Lord set up a distinction between the two countries in the matter of religious teaching. The day, he trusted, would come when the noble Lord would change

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  his opinions. He (Mr. Lefroy) believed that both the present Government and that of the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton were in advance of the House on this subject, but felt reluctant to appeal to Parliament. He hoped, however, that the Government would adhere to their principles, and he trusted it would not be long before this House would cheer on a Minister who manfully avowed his conviction that the Bible was the best and soundest food for education both in England and Ireland.
  MR. DOBBSsaid, he thought all Ireland was indebted to the hon. Member for Newry, but that part of Ireland which was most indebted to the hon. Member was the North; because hitherto education in the North of Ireland had been at a great disadvantage, and he was glad to find from the speech of the noble Lord the Chief Secretary, that he was fully aware of that fact, and that he intended to place the North of Ireland on a level, with respect to education, with the rest of the kingdom. The upper classes in Ireland had the universities, and the lower classes—the lowest of all—had, from the operation of the Church Society's schools, and the National Society's schools, ample means of education; but for the intermediate class, between these two, there was little or no provision. Now, it happened that in Ulster there was a larger manufacturing population than in any other province, the district was more flourishing, and from that cause there was a larger intermediate class of the population than in any other part of Ireland, and the want of the means of education was there felt the most. Former systems of education had proved insufficient to educate that class, but the Government had now promised to devote their attention to the subject, and the consequence, he hoped, would be that those persons would have the same benefits of education as were enjoyed by other classes.
  MR. HASSARDsaid, he took exception to a statement of the hon. Member (Mr. Kirk) that the middle schools of Ireland were all destroyed, with the exception of Belfast, as he could instance the case of the school in Waterford, which town he represented and where he himself was educated, as a proof to the contrary. That school was not only most efficient, but boys of different denominations were educated there in perfect harmony.
  MR. KIRK,in reply, said he did not mean to disparage the school of Waterford.
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  After the promise, slight as he felt it to be, made by the noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland, he thought he should best consult the convenience of the House by withdrawing his Motion.
  Motion by leave withdrawn.

ORANGE LODGES (IRELAND)—APPOINTMENT OF MR. CECIL MOORE.

  RESOLUTION.
  MR. J. D. FITZGERALDsaid, that in rising to call the attention of the House to the appointment of Mr. Cecil Moore, the Grand Secretary of the Tyrone Orange Lodge, to the office of Crown prosecutor of Tyrone, and to move an Address thereon, he regretted that the late hour of the night (ten o'clock) would oblige him to shorten his observations and to omit many facts which he had intended to bring under the notice of the House. His Motion, which in his opinion was one of great practical importance, both as regarded this and the sister country, related to the Orange Confederacy, a subject which it would be remembered occupied public attention very much in the years 1835 and 1836. A Select Committee was appointed in 1836 at the instance of Mr. Finn, the Member for Kilkenny, and it ended in disclosing to the House and the public that a state of things existed highly dangerous to the welfare of the community, and of such a character as to create most just and well-founded alarm. The labours of the Committee disclosed that there existed an armed confederation bound, not by oaths, but by secret tests, having in Ireland, at a low computation, 225,000, in England 145,000, and in Scotland an unascertained number of Members—in fact, embracing the colonies and every part of the earth where an English regiment set foot, all acting under the absolute will and direction of one man—the Grand Master of the Orange Association. The object was one of a strong political character, undertaking to control the Legislature and the Executive, and cloaked under the hypocritical pretence of religion. It was further disclosed that from the birth of the Association, in 1796, to what he must now call its pretended death, in 1836, its course was marked by anarchy, systematic disregard of law, and too often by bloodshed—that it polluted the source of justice, intruded itself upon the bench, and, worst of all, ranged the inhabitants of the country, and especially of Ireland, in two hostile bands detesting each other, and rendering union

  637
  and amalgamation impossible. One of its most dangerous characteristics was that it embraced men of high and honourable feeling, while among the body there existed sinister and revolutionary designs, which might be carried out, and at the contemplation of which one almost shuddered. Such being the general character of the confederation, as disclosed by Mr. Finn's Committee in 1836, the subject was brought pointedly under the notice of the House by the late Mr. Hume; but Mr. Hume's Resolution was not put to the vote, because the noble Lord the Member for the City of London moved a more moderate Amendment. It had been said more than once that the position of the Orange faction at the present day was different to what it was at that time. The alleged distinction between the state of affairs then and now was that under the new constitution the members were not bound by secret oaths, and the Association was not illegal. The speech of the noble Lord, however, in 1836, which for moderation was quite worthy of his character, threw over altogether the disputed legality or illegality of the Association. The noble Lord said:—
  "I wish to consider the Society simply as one affecting the peace and well-being of the country, the due authority of Government, and the proper administration of the law. The moment you create such societies and organize them into districts and lodges, and so forth, you make a distinction between them and the other parts of the King's subjects, who immediately form into similar societies under some other denomination, and thus you institute a perpetual and ever-recurring source of quarrelling, discontent, and insubordination."
  The noble Lord, having pointed out the great evils of divided allegiance, proceeded:—
  "It is another evil of these societies—and I am speaking now of their natural constitution—it is another evil that, being thus supported by their leaders, and imbued with party feeling, they hold to that party feeling in spite of the supremacy of the law. Thus a State comes to be divided into parties suspiciously fearful of each other; and when a case is brought into a court of law, instead of its being decided on the principles of justice, those united in these societies think the prosecution is directed against them, and in this way hostile party feelings are generated, which are most injurious to the pure and quiet course of justice."
  The noble Lord called attention to a letter of Lord Dunsany as to the appointment of a magistrate, and (the reply of Lord Morpeth, in which Lord Morpeth said:—
  "His Excellency must, therefore, repeat that, unless Mr. Smith either denies his connection with
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  it, or signifies his intention of withdrawing from it, he must decline to nominate him a deputy lieutenant for the county of Meath."
  He proposed to show that if the organized Orange confederation of 1836 was open to objection, so was that of 1858. Sir Robert Peel took part in the debate, and his language was worthy of attention. Sir Robert Peel did not oppose the Resolution of the noble Lord, but merely suggested that the words "Orange lodge" should be left out of it. Sir Robert Peel said:—
  "The question, alter all, was not as to the precise legality of that association. It was possible that such associations might be in strict conformity to the law, and yet that all the evils to which the hon. Member had adverted might be lasting. These evils would not be cured by making them conformable to law, because the real danger was not a breach of the law, but the encouragement and dissemination of angry feelings and the remembrance of feuds which ought to be buried in oblivion. To those who wished well to the tranquillity of Ireland he would say, they ought not to set the example of maintaining these dangerous associations."
  The object of the present Motion was not the suppression of the association by force. but that Her Majesty's Government should not give encouragement to what Sir R. Peel designated as "dangerous associations." The noble Lord's Amendment was carried without a division, and was in these terms:—
  "That an humble Address be presented to his Majesty, praying that his Majesty will be graciously pleased to take such measures as His Majesty may deem advisable for the effectual discouragement of Orange lodges, and generally of all political societies, excluding persons of different religions, and using secret signs and symbols, and acting by means of associated branches."
  The Address was answered graciously from the Throne in accordance with those terms, and he proposed to show that the present Orange Society possessed all the characteristics mentioned, which called down the condemnation of the House in 1836, and that the House now ought to be prepared to pass a Resolution in similar terms. The effect of the Resolution was that the Duke of Cumberland, the Grand Master, authorized Mr. Maxwell to make this statement to the House in February 1836:—
  "I am directed by his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland to state that, in consequence of his Majesty's wish expressed in answer to the address of the House of Commons, his Royal Highness has taken steps, in concert with all the leading Members of the Orange Society now in London, to recommend to them the dissolution of that society. And I am further directed by his Royal Highness to state that it is his intention immediately to take steps for the dissolution of

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  the Orange Society of Great Britain and the Colonies."
  The public believed that it was intended to carry out that pledge, but whatever might have been the intention of noblemen and gentlemen of high honour, the pledge was not, in substance, carried out by the members of the association. The dissolution was merely formal, and he held in his hand an Orange warrant, not a copy but the original warrant, of as late a date as May 19,1837, from Boyne Lodge, 485, in the district of Down, signed by the master, the deputy-master, and the secretary, and issued under the seal of the lodge. It appeared to have been issued just fifteen months after the pledge given by the Duke of Cumberland, and after the time when the public supposed that steps had been taken to dissolve once and for ever the confederation condemned by that House as dangerous to the welfare of the kingdom. Before he concluded he would snake it appear that, on this as on other occasions, the dissolution of this confederation was nominal and not real, for it was afterwards re-organized, was composed of the same members, and partook of the same character. He had before him a remarkable document; it was the original book of the Grand Orange Lodge of the county of Donegal, with the list of members and entries, commencing in 1813 and coming down to 1823. It contained a communication from the Grand Lodge of Ireland, dated 28th July, 1823, stating that at a meeting in Dublin it was resolved that, in consequence of the then Act of Parliament preventing the administration of unlawful oaths having virtually suppressed the Orange Institution, that institution was dissolved, and that all warrants issued by the Grand Lodge were cancelled and annulled. Nevertheless, on the 4th of August 1823, only a week afterwards, it was resolved at a numerous and respectable meeting of Protestant gentlemen—Colonel Blacker in the chair—that it was advisable to establish in a manner strictly conformable with the law a Loyal Orange Institution. The re-organization consisted in striking out the rules which required the taking of oaths; and that was the same society which was condemned in 1836. In 1835 there were two Committees to investigate Orangeism both in this country and in Ireland. The Committee for Ireland did not report, but laid the evidence they had received before the House. The Committee for England made a most valuable
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  Report. Of that Report he would refer to only one passage, to which he invited the attention of hon. Members, as it was not lengthy, and its details were of a most alarming character, and if they found the same confederation disturbing the Colonies at the present moment, particularly that of Canada, they would feel the importance of the inquiry. The Committee of 1835 reported that the obvious tendency and effect of the Orange Institution was to keep up an exclusive association in civil and military society, exciting one portion of the people against the other; to increase the rancour and animosity unhappily too often existing between persons of different religious persuasions; to make Protestants enemies of the Catholics, and Catholics enemies of the Protestants; to excite, by processions on particular days, to breaches of the peace; to interrupt the course of justice, and to interfere with the discipline of the army. It was on the basis of that Report that the House proceeded and concurred in the Resolution of the noble Lord. One valuable result arising from that Report they could not be deprived of, and that was the passing, in 1836, of the Constabulary Act, in which provision was made that the members of that force should take an oath to the effect that they did not and would not belong, while holding their office, to any political or secret society. That provision applied as well to the stipendiary magistrate as to the constable. He could scarcely bring forward more important evidence as to the opinion of the House that the profession of Orangeism was incompatible with the proper administration of criminal justice, and therefore he sought to apply it even to more important cases. Matters then went on, the organization of the society continuing, processions taking place, and confusion, crime, and bloodshed following on them. However, they would not have had legal evidence of the existence of the society, for its proceedings were essentially secret in character, had not Lord Enniskillen supplied it. Last year very serious riots took place at Belfast, which were a disgrace to the town and the country, and the Government sent down a Commission of Inquiry into the cause of the evil. Lord Enniskillen volunteered to appear before the Commissioners, and in spite of their protest, forced them to inquire into the Orange lodges, and insisted on laying before them the books containing the rules of the society, and a

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  record showing from year to year what were the objects of the institution. The noble Lord's allegation was, that they were acting under the opinion of an able lawyer, who stated that their proceedings were within the law, and that upon that opinion the society was reorganized. The noble Lord added that he did not seek to conceal the rules, and he accordingly produced them. He (Mr. FitzGerald) had in his hand the rules of 1845, when the society was professed to be reorganized; also the rules of 1824, after the Act against illegal oaths, and the rules of 1836. The authenticity of his copies would not be disputed, for on the title-page was the name of "James Verner, G. S.," and he was told it was in the handwriting of a respectable individual, who was Grand Secretary of the Orange Institution. He had compared the different rules together, and he defied any one to point out in what elements the rules of 1824, 1836, and 1845 differed. He would call attention to the rules laid before the Belfast Commission. A case was submitted to the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and, after giving his opinion on the law, the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland concluded with this caution:—The noble and learned Lord stated that he wished it to be understood that he did not mean to express or even insinuate an opinion as to the propriety or prudence of the course on the legality of which he was requested to advise; that popular confederacies were very perilous, because they generally became unmanageable, but that experience showed that under a free constitution circumstances might exist requiring such united vigour as they called into action. He (Mr. FitzGerald) would go further than that cautious expression of opinion, and would say that a society based on religious distinctions, acting by affiliated branches, and having secrecy as its foundation, was not only perilous, but, in bad hands, was apt to be diverted day by day to illegal and prejudicial courses. At page 271 of the rules of this Orange Society, he found them arrogating to themselves that they had been founded in support of the glorious and immortal memory of King William III., whilst in every one of their proceedings they violated the characteristics of William III. He believed that if that monarch had followed the dictates of his own mind he would have been in favour of universal toleration. He believed that this country owed to King William the free institutions which it now
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  enjoyed, and he hoped the time might come when they would all join in celebrating his memory. He (Mr. FitzGerald) had examined the records of the Orange Lodges, and he found that the members of those institutions had uniformly opposed the progress of rational liberty and reform. In fact, the political organization of the Orange confederation had been used to defeat every measure of progress. Yet the men who composed this confederation professed to maintain the principles for which King William III. contended. He found the same hypocritical pretence in the rules of 1824 and of 1836. He thought he was justified in saying that there was a hypocritical pretence when the professed object of the institution was the maintenance of the public peace, and the result of its proceedings was the disturbance of the public peace. He conceived that there was a hypocritical pretence when, in opposition to the statements made on behalf of the association, persons who entertained different political views were insulted on account of the opinions which they held. ["Oh, oh!"] Well, if hon. Gentlemen doubted his statement he would read them some passages from the last song book of the Orange Society. [Cries of "Sing!" and laughter.] The rules of the Orange Societies provided that no person who had been a Roman Catholic should be admitted into an Orange Lodge, except after producing testimonials to character by the unanimous vote of the Grand Lodge of Ireland. Certain forms of prayer were prescribed to be used at the opening of the lodges, expressing humble and hearty thanks to the Almighty for the manifestation of His favour to this Protestant nation at divers times of great peril, and for that Providence which had so often interfered to defeat Popish plots and machinations. Hon. Gentlemen opposite must not suppose that he objected to their entertaining these opinions. He did not war against individuals, but he did object to confederations which were formed to carry out such extreme views as those to which he was calling attention. He was reminded, by the conduct of the supporters of these institutions, of the Resolutions adopted by the early Puritan settlers in Massachusets. They adopted these Resolutions:—first, "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; "secondly, "The Lord has given the earth as an inheritance to his saints;" and, thirdly, "We are the saints." It would appear that the members of the

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  Orange Societies, also, had come to the conclusion that they were the saints, and that the earth had been delivered to them as their inheritance. One of the regulations of the Orange Societies prohibited a member from revealing any of the counsels of his brother Orangemen in lodge assembled, unless to a brother Orangeman, well knowing him to be such, or until he should be permitted to do so by proper authority. The body was, therefore, a Secret Society, and he could bring forward instances of members of this organized body having been ignominiously expelled for disclosing its secrets. There was, however, a higher order of members in the society, who were forbidden to disclose the secrets of the body even to Orangemen. What those secrets were he did not pretend to know, but it would be absurd to suppose that there were no secrets when such rigid provision was made for their keeping. He found, among other cases, that one member was expelled for theft, and several others for marrying Papists. Indeed, it appeared that Orangemen had a fancy for Papist wives, as he could mention from forty to fifty instances of expulsion on that ground. Several persons were also expelled for divulging the secrets of the institution. Since the Address of 1836 there had been a regulation that no man who was in the army or militia should be a member of a political organization, and he now sought to extend this rule to another class of Her Majesty's subjects. He had now described the character and rules of the society in 1836, and he defied hon. Members to show any substantial difference between the reorganized society and the institution as it existed in that year. He therefore called upon the House, by an expression of its opinion, to put a step to the course of this society, because much as Orangemen loved it they loved place more. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen might cry "oh, oh!" but the Grand Secretary himself said that his duties were so onerous that he could not attend to the numerous applications which were made to him to obtain places under the Government for Orangemen. What was the result of the reorganization of this society? Having had his attention called to this subject, at the close of last year, he moved for and obtained from the constabulary reports which showed that in a period of six years no less than 433 cases of offences had arisen from Orange processions. Of these 130 occurred in the county of Down, where the institution particularly flourished, and
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  whose boast it was that in 1835 it was enabled to assemble at Hillsborough up, wards of 75,000 Orangemen at one time; and whilst there were nine in the province of Leinster, none in the province of Connaught, and only one in Munster, all the rest occurred in the province of Ulster. During the last half year that he was in office he directed proceedings at the assizes for offences arising out of processions in Down, in one case in which death ensued, and in thirty-two cases of rioting. In Antrim there were several cases of riot and two of manslaughter. He had also obtained from Mr. Maxwell, the Crown Solicitor of the north-eastern circuit, a return, showing that, since 1850, fifty-five cases of a serious character had been tried at those assizes—the greater portion of these cases being tried at Quarter Sessions, ["No, no!"] From three years' experience he could assert that such was the fact. Such had been the character of this institution since 1845, and what was it before that date? He would take no doubtful evidence, nor would he cite the opinion of a single Roman Catholic, but he quoted the statements made by Lord Caledon and Lord Gosford, who said that the effect of the operations of this institution was the reverse of preserving the public peace, that magistrates and jurors sometimes neglected their duties in consequence of its influence, and, in the words of Judge Fletcher, adopted by the latter noble Lord, that the fountains of justice were polluted by it, and magistrates had in some instances violated their duty and their oaths. It further appeared that the funds of the society were systematically applied to the defence of Orangemen who had committed breaches of the law. That was a serious charge; but he was prepared to prove it. In the returns from the institution in 1836 ["Oh, oh!"]—Would hon. Members produce the accounts since that period? He could not get at them, and it was for those who supported this organization to show that it was not the same in 1858 as it was in 1836. In the accounts of the latter year he found an entry, "Defence of the brethren in Cavan, £100 2s. 9d." In another case the sum of £10 was paid for the defence of a person named Macbeth, who was charged with murdering a man with an oyster knife. A further sum was given from the funds of the county lodge for the defence of a man in Newry, and after he was convicted about £300 was collected in his behalf. The same thing

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  took place in England. On one occasion the Mayor of Liverpool had the boldness to interfere with an Orange procession. A law suit was instituted, and the Grand Lodge of England gave £200 towards defraying the expenses of the proceedings, in the course of which it was clearly proved that the parties had been guilty of an infraction of the law. The evil extended even to Scotland, where, upon an Orangeman being charged with the murder of a policeman, the Grand Lodge of England subscribed £63 for their brother in misfortune. A Dissenting minister, named Bridges, was asked to give a character to an Orangeman charged with murder. He refused to do so, and the consequence was that his chapel was attacked and he was ultimately obliged to leave the place. The Orangeman was hanged, but poor Mr. Bridges had to suffer likewise. [The CHANCELLOR of the Ex-CHEQUER: What is the date?] The case happened in 1827 [Laughter.] He saw nothing in the facts which he had stated to justify the loud laughter of the right hon. Gentleman who had assumed the leadership of that House. Did it alter the character of the Orange Society that the case of Mr. Bridges happened in 1827? Was it becoming the Chancellor of the Exchequer to laugh at the statement that a gross outrage was committed in 1827?—an outrage arising from the principles of the Orange confederation. Take another case. In 1835 a magistrate named Hancock ventured to commit twelve individuals for taking part in an illegal procession, and the result was that his house was attacked and he himself burnt in effigy by the Orangemen of the district. Such were the incidents which he found in the Report of 1836 with reference to the working of the Orange Association as far as it affected the administration of criminal justice, and they knew from the evidence of Lord Enniskillen that the organization and principles of the institution were the same now as they were in 1836. But the evil was not confined to England and Ireland. In 1836, the Duke of Cumberland gave what was called an itinerant warrant to a person of the name of Ogle Gowan, who proceeded with that authority to Canada in order to organize the Orange Society there. Gowan succeeded in effecting such organization in Canada—the Society had continued there from that time up to the present, and had got a hold upon the Legislature as well as the country of
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  Canada. In 1856, the organized body in Ireland presented an address to their brethren in Canada congratulating them upon the progress they had made. He had before him a Canadian paper giving a curious account of an occurrence that took place in Kingston, Upper Canada. It appeared that in the House of Representatives a gentleman applied for the passing of an Act prohibiting Orangemen from serving upon juries and from being appointed magistrates, observing that if the application was refused the party with which he was connected would be compelled to take certain steps for their defence. The Speaker of that House considered that the language of the gentleman was not proper; but the Attorney General declared that the language might be excused. A petition was also prepared containing the same sentiments, but it was not received from want of form. The bad character of Ogle Gowan was brought to the notice of the Duke of Cumberland; nevertheless that man was allowed to proceed on his mission, to array Catholic against Protestant, and to pollute the very sources of justice. Finding, then, that an important appointment had recently been made in Ireland of a distinguished member of the Orange Society, he felt it his duty to bring the matter under the notice of the House. He received a verbal communication yesterday that this Gentleman was not now a member of an Orange institution, but he found recorded in the return on Lord Enniskillen's Motion of 1854 the name of Mr. Cecil Moore with the initials A. D. G. S., which was to be read assistant deputy grand secretary. He found the name of Mr. J. H. Moore also in this return as deputy grand secretary. He understood that this gentleman was the brother of Mr. Cecil Moore. In 1855 Mr. Cecil Moore was advanced to the post of deputy grand secretary, while his brother in the same year was elected grand treasurer of the lodge. In 1857 Mr. Cecil Moore was elected grand secretary for the county of Tyrone. He did not intend to urge one word against Mr. Moore in his private capacity. ["Oh, oh!"] His observations were only intended to apply to him as a member of this confederation. Mr. Moore's office was that of Sessional Crown Prosecutor of the county of Tyrone. The salary was not more than £150 or £870 a year, but the duties were very important. Mr. Moore had charge of all prosecutions for the

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  Crown. Those sessions were not attended by counsel, and the criminal jurisdiction of the Courts of Quarter Sessions in Ireland was much larger than the sessions of this country. The business under his control embraced all criminal cases except such as were capital. He had control of the prosecution; he addressed the jury; and he had the power to set aside such jurors as the Attorney General could set aside were he present in person. He was in fact the representative of the Attorney General in the Court of Quarter Sessions. He would assume that Mr. Moore's pledge to this institution would not lead him to depart from his duty to the Crown; but if there were a prosecution against Orangemen, might it not excite a well-founded suspicion when the, administration of the law was in the hands of a brother Orangeman? He understood the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland to intimate on a former occasion, when this subject was mentioned, that he was not responsible for this appointment, that it had been made on the recommendation of the Members for the county, and that the Attorney General did not know that Mr. Moore was an Orangeman. He supposed that the appointment had been made on the nomination of the noble Lord (Lord Claud Hamilton), who was one of the Members of the county. Now, the noble Lord was in 1835, under circumstances of great peculiarity, decorated with emblems and publicly chaired through a town in the county of Tyrone. He received a remonstrance yesterday, stating it was true Mr. Moore had been a member of the Orange confederation, but that a document had been sent to the Attorney General which had been signed by a Catholic bishop and by several Catholic priests, in favour of Mr. Moore, because he was such a good man, and alleging that he had ceased to be a member of the Orange confederation. Now, if every Catholic bishop and priest in Ireland had signed this recommendation on the allegation that Mr. Moore had ceased to be a member of the confederation, it would not alter his position that, having regard to the character of this body, it was the bounden duty of the Government to discourage it, and not to appoint a person to a legal office who continued to be a member of such a body. He was told that it might be stated that while he filled the office of Attorney General for Ireland he appointed as sessional prosecutor a gentleman who was one of the
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  leading rebels of 1848. He supposed that something of that kind would be charged; but he should not advert to it at present further than to say that should such statement be made it would have his entire denial. The allegation was untrue, and he would, if occasion required, prove its utter untruth. He knew that his Motion would create many enemies for him in the sister country, but he cared not for that. He felt that he was discharging a duty, and from that duty he would not shrink. He found it stated in the organ of the Orange lodges, the Downshire Protestant, that five Members of the Earl of Derby's Government had been returned by the Orangemen of Ireland, and that if the Government did not oppose his (Mr. Fitz-Gerald's) Motion, no Member of that Government would be returned by the Orangemen in future. He, however, begged to call the attention of the Government to the report to which he had so frequently referred in the course of his address, which report showed that his Motion was well founded.
  Motion made, and Question proposed—
  "That in the opinion of this House the appointment to offices connected with the administration of the Criminal Law of members of the Orange Confederation, or of any other political confederation founded on principles of religious exclusion, inculcating secrecy on its members, and acting by means of delegates or representatives, and of affiliated branches, tends to create well-founded jealousy and suspicion highly detrimental to the ends of justice, and ought to be discouraged."
  MR. WHITESIDEsaid, he shared the regret expressed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman that he should have been forced, no doubt by an overwhelming sense of duty, to introduce the important question which he had submitted to the House at such a moment for its consideration. Great questions awaited their decision. Several useful measures were lying on the table. The right hon. and learned Gentleman possessed abilities and knowledge, and, as the House had seen, considerable industry; but he had exhausted their time and wasted his talents, not in endeavouring to compose differences; not in endeavouring to insure peace and tranquillity to his country, but in reviving forgotten calumnies and raking up disagreeable topics for their debates. And by what arguments and facts did he do this? By stringing together shreds and passages from old newspapers, by exploded reports, and by little bits culled out from

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  one document and another, connected by no chain of argument and sustained by no force of reasoning, though he was free to admit the right hon. and learned Gentleman's eloquence was spicy and sarcastic. What was the complaint of the right hon. and learned Gentleman? Did any man in that House clearly understand him? What had happened? What had the Government of the country done which required that the attention of the House of Commons should be called to it by a speech such as that which they had just heard? What were the right hon. gentleman's facts? Why, that an honest, respectable, competent man, had in his native country been appointed to a small place worth £140 a year, for the performance of the duties attached to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman was compelled to admit he was pre-eminently qualified. He did not deny that it was the right of any hon. Member of Parliament to lay his finger on an abuse of patronage and denounce it. He had seen men in office that deserved to be hanged. He had seen criminals promoted. He had seen men on the Treasury bench who were dishonouring their country, who would have corrupted the virtue of any assembly, would have destroyed public morality, and sold the liberties of their native land. He could understand a man complaining of such persons being elevated to place and power; but to search out, in the ordinary and daily distribution of the patronage of the Government, for the case of a gentleman who had got a small place in Ireland, and to object to him on public principles, to impeach his appointment, not because he was an immoral, profligate, or ignorant and incompetent man, but because he was a member of an Orange confederation, was to trifle with the judgment of the House. Well there was always something to be learnt from a debate of this kind. Therefore let them look closely at the speech they had heard from the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and see if it was possible to glean from it anything that was practical or useful. The right hon. and learned Gentleman began with events that happened before some of the Members of the House were born, and dwelt long on the history of the Orange Confederation. He began at the beginning. Macaulay had written the history of that association, and described the services it rendered in other days, and it was not necessary to be always bringing forward historic events in that House, or
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  to be reviving recollections that all good men should strive to forget. The right hon. and learned Gentleman made an attack on the Orange Association, and spoke as if the Government of the country had taken that Orange Association under its protection, and had, by some unequivocal act, declared to England, Ireland, and Scotland, that the Government was to be conducted on the principles he had described. What were his proofs? He said that in 1836 there was the report of a Committee of inquiry—and so there was—and he referred to the speech of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London—a moderate, sensible, and skilful speech, meant to induce those whom he addressed to use their influence in dissolving a society which was then considered by many good and wise men to have outlived the purposes for which it was originally intended. On that occasion many hon. Gentlemen spoke temperately and moderately, and among them Mr. O'Connell, who expressed a hope that from that day party quarrels would cease in Ireland. The Resolution which the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) moved on that occasion, though he refused to omit from it the words "Orange Confederation," was levelled at all secret associations bound together by tests, by oaths, and by secret compact, and the noble Lord truly said, what no man could deny, that the very existence of such associations proved that there was something wrong in the body politic. He subscribed to that doctrine. Those who framed the happy constitution under which we lived made no provision for Corn Law Leagues, Repeal Associations, or Orange Confederations. But he must be a narrow-minded and prejudiced observer of history, who, when he had to form an opinion upon the association to which he had adverted, did not inquire into the country and the history of the times in which such an association had existed, and endeavour to ascertain why it existed, and what called it into existence. He might then determine, perhaps, that the facts had warranted the union of men in such a combination, although changed circumstances might no longer require its existence. That was the course taken in 1836. When the King, whose word, by their fundamental rule, was law to them, required them to dissolve, these loyal men did dissolve. Of all the charges that were ever brought against them, hypocrisy was never brought against them before; and he believed that

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  the right hon. and learned Gentleman would find that he would not get a single convert to the opinion that he had uttered that night, that, whatever they were, they were hypocrites. Why, there were sitting upon the benches on that (the Ministerial) side of the House many Gentlemen, honourable men, whose relatives and friends met together to dissolve that association. And it was to all intents and purposes at an end. Their books were scattered. He knew not how that book to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred came into his possession. The right hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to have studied it very carefully, but the impression which his reference to it made upon his (Mr. Whiteside's) mind was, that while the right hon. and learned Gentleman was Her Majesty's Attorney General it never once flashed across his mind to call the attention of the House to it. If, as sensible men, they were asked to give an opinion upon this question which the right hon. and learned Gentleman had raised, and all the facts relating to which he had stated accurately and faithfully—he would not add in a party spirit, because that was obvious to all—must they not say that he had not given them the least hint as to the cause of the reorganization? the necessity of which no one regretted more sincerely than himself. He had this advantage over the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that in every single political trial that had occurred in Ireland for many years he had borne a part, sometimes in defending those who did not agree with him in sentiment or opinion; and he thought he understood the political history of his country. The Orange Society came to an end when Mr. O'Connell prophesied the halcyon times of peace and prosperity that were before them. All agitation was to subside. For ever thenceforward were the people of Ireland and England to be united by adamantine links of love and affection. The Protestants said, "Agreed; we believe you; act upon your convictions." What was the history of Ireland for the eight or nine years following? Let them search their Parliamentary history. Why, this association, described or misdescribed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman—he cared not which—did not exist, as any man who spoke the truth must admit. How many Motions were made by Sir Robert Peel and by eminent men in that House for Acts of Parliament levelled against secret societies, aimed against agi-
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  tation, directed against Ribandism? The statute-book and the Parliamentary debates would tell what was the state of Ireland during these eight or nine years. There had been handed to him within the last few days an account of the state of the country after the eight years' peace prophesied by O'Connell. In the autumn of the year preceding the organization of the Orange Society, ten counties of Ireland were in a state of anarchy. There were 136 homicides, 138 houses burnt, 483 houses attacked, 544 cases of aggravated assault, 551 robberies of arms, 89 cases of bands appearing in arms, more than 200 cases of administering unlawful oaths, 1,944 cases of sending threatening letters, while the general crime of Ireland had doubled in amount and enormity that of the preceding year. That was the state of the country during those eight years as to positive crime. Now came the political history. He himself could not say what it was influenced the conduct of O'Connell in this country, but he could give a candid opinion of what he believed might have been the motives that operated upon O'Connell's mind. He would not charge that extraordinary man, now in his grave, with hypocrisy. He would not charge him with dissimulation. He would not charge him with having, in the hope of gaining money from his countrymen, adopted a course of policy which he disbelieved, or with having proceeded in a career of agitation which he knew to be false, which he intended to be a mockery, and which would never, under his guidance, accomplish the wishes of those joined in it. He declined to believe that shocking calumny upon his memory. He believed that O'Connell meant to band together masses of his countrymen to wrest Ireland from British power. He believed that O'Connell thought the Government of Ireland was based upon a wrong principle. He believed that O'Connell honestly thought that, as by agitation he had been successful on many great occasions, he could collect together great masses of the general population of Ireland, and also succeed in obtaining the support of the Orangemen and Protestants generally, and that it was possible to separate Ireland from this country, to repeal the Union, and to make England a third-rate Power. That, if anything could, would have placed a republic at our door. That, he believed, was O'Connell's policy, and it was, at least, a manly policy. How did he carry

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  out that policy? He (Mr. Whiteside) was not a believer in all that was stated about the great assemblages brought together by O'Connell; but he believed that he brought together on several occasions as many as 150,000 men, He believed that his agitation was the greatest the world ever saw, and he should like to interrogate those who were the Ministers of the Crown in the year 1842 as to what they did to defeat the great monster meetings in Ireland. He should like to know what they felt to be the state of things in Ireland at that time. He admitted, and he admitted with regret, that at that time some of those men who had eight years before dissolved this confederacy, did come together again, and say, "What is the object of this great agitation? What is its purpose? We believe its object and its purpose to be to separate Ireland from England, not so much upon a religious as upon a political ground. We hold a contrary opinion. We therefore unite for the purpose of maintaining the Union, for the purpose (he admitted it) of upholding the Protestant religion, the monarchy, and British power." To show the effect of O'Connell's speeches even upon the humblest men in Ireland he might mention that he recollected walking with a clergyman, now a Bishop, from his parish church at the time of O'Connell's agitation, when he narrated to him the following fact. Mr. O'Connell made a celebrated speech about shouldering the Protestants of Ulster into the sea, or something of that kind, and to show what effect that speech had upon the minds of the humbler class of Orangemen or Protestants, that right rev. Prelate pointed to a house as they passed it and said, "I called in there a few weeks ago. I found the wife shedding tears. I asked what was the matter. She said her husband would be killed. I called him, and he came down stairs with a gun in his hand. He was polishing his gun. I said to him, 'What are you going to do with that weapon?'" And what was the answer? "Why, Sir, isn't O'Connell going to take our country? We have arranged our plans and will take our stand on a rising ground outside the village." That man spoke the sentiments of his race, and of all those who felt and thought with him. They did believe at the time that O'Connell meant and intended to do the thing he said. What happened when O'Connell visited the north of Ireland? He went to Belfast and found out
  654
  his error. It required an army to protect him, and he left that part of the country by sea. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that in 1843 the Orange Society was reorganized, and that at the time of O'Connell's trial they had meetings for the purpose of passing formal resolutions. But all the resolutions were passed before. And what were they, because it was right when those things were mentioned to examine fairly into the truth? Now, he had the resolutions that were carried, and what did the House think they were, for this body of men had been described by the right hon. and learned Gentleman in a manner which he did not think the facts warranted? This was the first resolution:—
  "Resolved, That the circumstances of the time render it necessary that a closer union should be formed among all classes of Her Majesty's loyal and attached subjects in this country in order to preserve inviolate the legislative union and the principles of civil and religious liberty, and especially are combination and union necessary among all those who are ready to make common cause to uphold the religion of the Reformation."
  What was the second?
  "Resolved, that in order that any union formed among us should be firmly established and productive of beneficial and lasting results, we are persuaded it must be formed on the precept of the Bible, 'Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for God's sake,' and therefore, taking this precept as our guide, our union must be formed in 'strict subservience to the existing law of the land.'"
  What was the third resolution?
  "Resolved, that inasmuch as the existing law renders the Orange institution as originally constituted illegal, we do hereby appoint a 'committee for the purpose of considering under what appellation the society shall be designated, upon what legal principles a union can be formed, and for the drawing up of rules and regulations for the conduct of such society the committee are required to take the opinion of learned men upon any matter of law that may come before the committee."
  Well, they submitted the rules to the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and to another most eminent man now deceased. The rules were settled by them, and he should like to know what learned counsel would undertake to frame an indictment upon such principles as were therein asserted. That was the short of the history of the reorganization of the Orange Society. What followed that? Why, it was true that events had taken place that he always contemplated with the deepest regret. Mr. S. O'Brien, a gentleman whom he defended against a State prosecution, was charged by the Government with attempting to revolutionize Ireland. It ap-

  655
  peared by the evidence at the trial that armed clubs were first to be formed consisting of 500 men, each man to be armed with a gun, and the attempt to overthrow the British power was not to be made until 300,000 men were enrolled. What were those gentlemen to do who had deep and enthusiastic feelings of loyalty, and what took place? It was true Lord Enniskillen was examined before the Belfast Commissioners, and the evidence given on that occasion was before the House, from which it would be seen that the witnesses declared in the most emphatic manner that from the time the Orange Confederation was re-organized its members had no test, no oath, and no secrecy. One of their rules was that their meetings should be always open to the officers of justice, especially to the police, and it was proved that the police sometimes dropped in upon them, but never found anything amiss. It was on those principles that the confederation was re-organized, and on no other. But what took place? He spoke of the time when a great outbreak was apprehended in Dublin. It was a fact that Lord Enniskillen went to the Castle and, stating his belief that there was likely to be a fighting business, proposed that the Government should give arms or money to a given number of Orangemen, who would be ready to fight, as he (Mr. Whiteside) believed they had always been. Lord Enniskillen did not see the Lord Lieutenant, but he saw his Master of the Horse, Major Turner, by whom £600 was placed at his disposal, and that was transferred to Birmingham for the purchase of arms. The Government itself, through Colonel Browne, put the arms into the hands of those men—the members of what was now called an illegal and unconstitutional society—not to use them against Her Majesty—God forbid!—but in defence of their fellow-countrymen and themselves. That was the end of the transaction; the whole thing was done before the public eye; and if the right hon. and learned Gentleman had sat down to confer with his friends as to what was the best mode of preventing the very object he said he had in view—of inflaming feelings that ought to be buried in oblivion—and of exciting stale animosities, he and they could not have more effectually attained their end than by a Motion like the present, and by imputations such as he had cast on, it might be, extreme politicians, but still honest and honourable men. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had given
  656
  a description or rather a mis-description of the province of Ulster. He (Mr. Whiteside) himself came from that province, and he begged to assure the House that it was a flourishing, peaceful, and happy community. He could also distinctly state that the crime of that province for the approaching Assizes, especially in the county of Tyrone, was such as would bear a favourable comparison with that of any community similar in point of numbers in any part of the civilized world. His belief was that there was not now in that county crime sufficient to occupy the Judges more than three-quarters of a day; and Orangemen, so far from being implicated in crime, were now everywhere to be found pursuing their lawful occupations. They were to be found in their fields and at their looms. What man had they ever assassinated from behind a bush, or shot down on his way to his wife and family? Now take the case of Belfast. There was some rioting there the other day; but how did the noble Lord at the head of the Government in Ireland deal with that? That was a question the House had a right to ask. He sent down by railway 200 of the constabulary, who dropped in the midst of the rioters and captured the ringleaders, who were taken before the magistrates and promptly dealt with. An application was made to admit them to bail, Nit it was refused. The gaol happened to be empty, so that there was every convenience for their reception in that quarter; they were committed for three months on the spot; the rest of the community had since been as mute as mice, and he would venture to say there would be no more riots in Belfast for some time to come, if ever. That was the history of the riot of this year, but what was that of the riot of last year? The right hon. and learned Gentleman, who was then in office, and the Irish Government did not then have recourse to the simple and effective means of putting the rioters in gaol. He (Mr. Whiteside) never heard of anything more ridiculous than the way in which that riot originated. It appeared that the 12th of July, 1856, passed over with profound tranquillity. On the 12th of July, 1857, what did the Orangemen in Belfast do? Why, they went to church. And it was said in the blue book that some of the old school after they had entered the church put an Orange riband into their button-holes, and at the conclusion of the service a young Roman Catholic, who was passing, asked another youth, who was leaving the church,

  657
  what he would take for his badge. The Orange youth replied half-a-crown; a bargain was struck; the Roman Catholic transferred the emblem to his button-hole, and making his way into the town along with the congregation, cried out at the top of his voice, "To hell with the Pope!" The Roman Catholics turned out in defence of his Holiness, and so the riot began and continued for several days until it merged in what was called open-air preaching. It was a practice in that part of the country to preach in the open air. He did not say that he would himself preach in the open air—certainly not in the neighbourhood of Rundsditch, where they expounded the doctrines of the Roman Catholics. But it seemed the Methodists and the Presbyterians had been in the habit of doing that, and the Roman Catholics did not like it. He agreed that though the Roman Catholics were a small portion of the inhabitants of Belfast, still the feeling of the minority should be respected. Nevertheless it was legal to preach out of doors, and those who did not like to hear the preaching might stay away. The Roman Catholics were determined that no one should preach in the open air unless they preached their doctrines, and the Methodists and Presbyterians would not yield the point because they were living in a Protestant country. The contest continued from time to time till the strong arm of the law put an end to the riots. Still the province of Ulster was prosperous, and he was happy to say that in Ulster, inhabited, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman would wish the House to believe, by such wicked people, landed property realized five years' purchase more than it did in any other part of the country, and he could not help adding that Motions like the present were calculated to excite feelings which it would be better to keep at rest. The right hon. and learned Gentleman, however, thinking no doubt that England was too narrow a field, that Ireland was too narrow a field, for the display of his senatorial eloquence, had gone to Canada. He had said that Canada was all Orange. Well, how could he help that? And even if he could, he did not think that when a colony had shown the energy, industry, and perseverance of that country, its being Orange was any very great objection. When the right hon. and learned Member had finished his discursive oration, what was the grievance he had? Why, the recent appointment of the grand secretary of the Tyrone lodge, Mr. Cecil Moore,
  658
  to the office of Sessional Crown Prosecutor for the county of Tyrone. He had ventured to say that though the gentlemen who recommended Mr. Cecil Moore at first might be competent to give an opinion as to a man's moral character, they were not competent to speak as to his professional character, and therefore that he must have competent opinions on that point. Accordingly he had asked the assistant barrister his opinion of Mr. Cecil Moore, and he replied that in the court of which he was Judge, Mr. Cecil Moore had practised as an attorney, and that he considered him very competent, and of a highly respectable character. He made other inquiries, and found that Mr. Cecil Moore had been sub-sheriff of three counties, and had practised in many elections and given satisfaction, even to his opponents. Moreover, when the last Sessional Prosecutor in that district, Mr. Holmes, was obliged from illness to appoint a deputy, whom did he appoint? Why, the most able, the most experienced, and the most competent man he could find—and who was that? Why, Mr. Cecil Moore. That was during the time of the late Government. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had rightly surmised that he had got some document with reference to this gentleman. He had it in his hand. It was signed by a great many gentlemen, and, strange to say, by several most respectable Roman Catholic priests, who disowned the present Motion. And here he had to remark, that there had been manifested lately in Ireland—more particularly since the present Government came into power—a remarkable anxiety on the part of the priesthood to terminate all disputes and agitation—a wise wish on their part, and one which he could undertake to say would be fully reciprocated by the Government. This document was signed by 13 deputy lieutenants, 40 magistrates, 7 Presbyterian clergymen, 2 Methodists, and 4 priests, and it expressed their opinion that it would be difficult to select a gentleman better fitted fur the position of Sessional Crown Prosecutor than was Mr. Cecil Moore, and that it would be impossible to make an appointment which would be less likely to create jealousy among any portion of Her Majesty's subjects. And yet the right hon. Gentleman had censured him for venturing to appoint a Protestant to a moderate office in his own county, to an office for which, by the testimony of all, he was most singularly qualified. Even the disappointed candidates for the situa-

  659
  tion had come forward to bear testimony that a more respectable, honest, competent man than Mr. Moore it would be impossible to find. The right hon. Gentleman said that Mr. Moore might be a respectable man, but that he had held office in the Loyal Orange Association. Now, he was not at all aware that Mr. Moore was an Orangeman at the time he appointed him. Neither was he aware that that gentleman filled a high office in that body. What was the fact? Not from place-seeking—for gentlemen belonging to that body had been for years excluded from all offices, a matter hardly to be regretted, as it tended to make them more independent—but from other reasons, Mr. Cecil Moore had ceased to hold any office in that body. Therefore the Resolution affirmed what was not true. For a year and a half he had ceased even to attend the social meetings of that body. For some months Mr. Cecil Moore had withdrawn from all political affairs, having lost a dear relative at the siege of Delhi. He (Mr. Whiteside) was now called upon to inquire at what time that gentleman had uttered sentiments or done acts which disentitled him to hold office in his native country. Had the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite ever heard of Oliver Cromwell, who, when a man, a lawyer, upon being invited to take office, told him he could not conscientiously take the oaths to his Highness, replied that it was not oaths but services that were required? So he (Mr. Whiteside) said that it would be illiberal, mistaken, and unjust in any Government to reject the services of any man, whether Radical, Repealer, or Conservative, provided be possessed abilities for the office to which he aspired. Upon the principle propounded by the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, the services of the Lawrences, of Nicholson, and other great men might be repudiated. He never himself asked what were the politics of any man he appointed to any office. He believed out of twenty attorneys in that particular part of Ireland to which their attention was now directed, nineteen were Protestants; and was it unnatural that one gentleman of the latter religion should be appointed? Of late years many gentlemen who were Repeaters and something more had been appointed to various offices, but he had never complained. In his own county, the Crown Solicitor was a Roman Catholic, and he had no fault to find with him. In the next county, Londonderry, a relative of the right
  660
  hon. and learned Gentleman had been appointed Crown Solicitor, and a more respectable, practical, faithful man could not have been selected for the office. He bad made but one Protestant appointment, and for that he was to be impeached. He found that out of thirty-four officers of the particular description to which reference was made, twenty-two or twenty-four were filled by gentlemen of the Roman Catholic religion. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had referred to an instance of another appointment which he (Mr. Whiteside) had been surprised to hear alluded to, as that very gentleman, now filling the office of Sessional Crown Prosecutor, was at the period of some lamentable agitation stopped by the police with a pike in his possession, and was compelled to surrender himself. It was the fact; but he should not mention names, as it would not be fair to do so, for if all young Irelanders returned to their native country and there pursued their legitimate avocations, and in so doing attained to positions of importance and profit, he should never think of reminding them of their connection with a ridiculous and abortive agitation. He regarded the Motion now made as a revival of the very worst kind of persecution. It was an impeachment founded upon nothing, which was condemned by the Protestant and repudiated by the Catholic. He wished to add one more fact, which was that the gentleman in question, after what had passed, had felt it to be his duty to forward to him the resignation of the office which he had held. He (Mr. Whiteside) however would not be guilty of the meanness of expelling a gentleman from an office for which he was perfectly competent, solely on the ground of his having once belonged to that association, and he put it to the generosity and the sense of justice of the House whether he merited impeachment for having abstained from doing so? He believed if this matter had been left untouched the operation of the great events that had occurred in Ireland of late years would have gone on, and it was not impossible that the Orange Association might, perhaps, have been dissolved. In many counties he was informed that there had been no meetings for three or four years. Was it politic—was it conciliatory or just upon such a pretence, to bring forward such a Motion. He believed now there; was a chance of seeing the people of Ireland living together in peace and harmony,

  661
  and as a patriot and a Christian he desired to see that state of things, to see his countrymen united and happy, contented and free, casting from them the rags of their ancient vices, and pressing onward with the noble ambition of becoming a wise, peaceful, and wealthy nation.
  MR. J. D. FITZGERALDsaid, he rose to make a personal statement. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had said, that when Mr. Holmes, the Sessional Prosecutor, was ill, Mr. Cecil Moore acted as his deputy with his (Mr. Fitz Gerald's) sanction. That was his statement or nothing. That statement was utterly without foundation. He had never heard of the illness of Mr. Holmes or of Mr. Moore's name till his appointment by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He would ask, had Mr. Cecil Moore ceased to be a Member of the Orange Confederation? He might, perhaps, have resigned the secretaryship, not having time to devote to the duties of that office. But that was not the question. The question was, whether he belonged to the Orange Confederation? If the right hon. and learned Gentleman had informed him that Mr. Moore had ceased to belong to the confederation, even at the last moment before his appointment to the office he held under the Crown, he (Mr. FitzGerald) would never have brought forward the Resolution; and if lie would now give that assurance, he would ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
  MR. CHICESTER FORTESCUEsaid, that the person to whom the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had alluded as having been appointed by his right hon. Friend below him (Mr. J. D. FitzGerald) to the office of Sessional Crown Prosecutor, far from being connected with a secret society, was as loyal and moderate in his opinions as anybody who could have been selected for that office.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, it was impossible that the debate in which the House was engaged should be brought to a close without coming to the conclusion that it was most desirable that those feelings of animosity connected with a state of things which they must all hope had passed away for ever should not again be revived. The right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite had stated in the course of his observations that Mr. Cecil Moore had resigned the office which had made him a prominent member of the Orange Association; and if
  662
  he understood the remarks of the right hon. and learned Gentleman correctly, they tended to convey the impression that the influence of the Government would be exerted for the purpose of inducing those who were members of such associations as that to which he had referred, to refrain, as far as possible, from perpetuating their existence. If that were so, the discussion which had been raised might be regarded as being productive of considerable advantage, and he should therefore wish that no division should be taken on the present occasion, which might afford an additional record of those differences of opinion which they must all concur in hoping had passed by for ever. From the observations which had been made in the course of the discussion it would appear that there was a prospect that greater harmony would prevail in future in Ireland among the various classes of its inhabitants than had hitherto been the case; and, under these circumstances, he should deem it more consistent with the future interests of that country that the Motion should not be pressed to a division.
  LORD JOHN RUSSELLsaid, he could not refrain from observing that the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, altogether independent of the ability by which his speech had been characterized, derived a great advantage from the circumstance that he had been listened to with perfect silence by hon. Members on his (Lord J. Russell's) side of the House. With respect to the particular subject under discussion, he would only say that it appeared to him to involve a great deal more than the mere personal question of the appointment of Mr. C. Moore. So far as that gentleman was concerned, he thought it but right to state that having heard the explanation of the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite with regard to his appointment, he thought he was perfectly right in not accepting his resignation. But setting aside that individual case, he was of opinion that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department ought to feel considerable concern with respect to the general question involved in the discussion. In support of his views he might be permitted to remind the House of what had taken place in 1836. There had been in the previous year an inquiry which had justified the late Mr. Hume in instituting proceedings against the Orange Society. He (Lord J. Russell) had upon

  663
  that occasion endeavoured to interpose, and he had been fortunate enough to persuade the present Earl of Derby—then Lord Stanley—the late Sir R. Peel, and Mr. O'Connell to concur in one general Resolution against secret societies. Mr. O'Connell had been quite prepared to agree to that Resolution provided only the words "Orange Societies" were introduced; and there were few occasions to which he (Lord J. Russell) looked back with greater satisfaction than that to which he referred, because as a general rule he considered that Societies, whether composed of Protestants or Roman Catholics, having secret signs among themselves, bound to secrecy, and having affiliated branches in connection with them, were calculated to disturb the peace of the country and to give rise to rival societies, which were likely to produce a similar effect. He would ask the House, therefore, and he would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary especially, whether it was now desirable to overturn and repudiate the Resolution which had been agreed to in the manner he had described? Were they prepared to say, whether as regarded Protestants or Roman Catholics, that it was expedient to encourage and to appoint to office men who belonged to an exclusive religious society, with affiliated branches? Because if they passed a simple negative of this Resolution he conceived that such would be the effect of their decision. He would not say how they might escape that difficulty, but it appeared to him that it would be more advisable if they were to adopt some plan by which a decision might be avoided. It was the interest of every Government that such societies should not exist. Though they might have been justified in the first instance—though they might have been called into life by some emergency, in which, under the expectation of rebellion, loyal men united to defend the Crown at a period of danger, when that necessity had passed over it was most inadvisable that they should be any longer continued in a state of activity. To persecute them would of course be unwise, but every Member of the House and of the Government must wish to see the animosities which had prevailed in Ireland gradually decline, and men of different religious persuasions living in union and charity with each other. He had heard from the Attorney General for Ireland a desire that these societies should not exist; but he regretted that he had
  664
  not heard from him that it was the policy of the Government to discourage them.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he agreed with the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) that it was the duty of every Government to discourage political societies in Ireland, whether secret or open; and he thought the best way to attain that end was to discourage such Motions as the present. This Resolution recalled the early days during which he sat in Parliament, when unfortunately the chief staple of political controversy consisted of Motions of this description. He had believed that those times were happily forgotten, and had anticipated that such Motions would not again be revived. But he had been greatly disappointed. And when the noble Lord, after the answer made by his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General, rose in a spirit of admonition and warning, and called upon his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to declare whether it was the policy of Her Majesty's Government to act contrary to the Resolution of that House with respect to Orange and secret societies passed in 1836, he must be allowed to say that there was nothing in what had been stated by the right hon. Mover of this Resolution, or in the reply of the Attorney General for Ireland, which at all justified such language on the part of the noble Lord. The right hon. and learned Gentleman who made the Motion had entirely failed to establish his case. He ought not to have revived such unhappy causes of dissension without having duly inquired into all the circumstances. He trusted that the manner in which the right hon. Mover's remarks had been received, and the observations with which they had been met by his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland, in which he himself entirely sympathized and concurred, would offer no encouragement for the introduction of similar Motions in future. He hoped that the policy which Her Majesty's Government would pursue towards Ireland would be in perfect harmony with the changed circumstances of that country. And when Motions were brought forward or allusions made such as they had listened to that night, which were really adapted to a state of things very different from that which happily now prevailed in Ireland, and which referred to habits and circumstances now fortunately obsolete, he could only say on the part of

  665
  Her Majesty's Government, that their course would be in conformity with the newer and happier aspect of affairs now visible in the sister kingdom—that the policy they would adopt would be the policy which he trusted would always be pursued by those who sat on those benches, from whatever side of the House they might be recruited—namely, a policy just, generous, and conciliatory, which would not acknowledge any difference of creed or of party save that which was expressed in a fair and constitutional manner, and that the whole tenor of their conduct would be such as would not justify the repetition of Motions like the one now before them. He knew not what was the intention of the right hon. Mover in regard to his own Resolutions, but after what had occurred, though the House might not be called upon to divide, he certainly could not consent on the part of the Government to the withdrawal of this Motion.
  MR. ROEBUCKsaid, that he had thought the Question was intended to be confined to the Motion; and if so, he should have voted for it. But it seemed that it was meant as a distinct censure on a particular act. Therefore, because he was sure, from the form and wording of it, that it was meant to pass a direct censure on the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Whiteside), he could not vote for it, for the statement of the right hon. Gentleman was a complete vindication of himself; and, believing that, he could not vote for the Motion.
  MR. J. D. FITZGERALDsaid, that after what had fallen from the noble Lord, he felt that he ought not to press the Motion to a division.
  Question put and negatived.
  House adjourned at a quarter before Two o'clock.

Preamble
Took the Oaths.—The Earl Sommers,

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Confirmation of Executors, &c; Art Unions Act Amendment.
2a Leases and Sales of Settled Estates Act Amendment; County Management; Independence of Parliament.

RIGHTS OF THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC WORKS.

  THE VICTORIA STATION AND PIMLICO RAILWAY BILL.
  THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE moved That the First Commissioner of Public Works have leave to appear by Counsel against the same before the Select Committee on the said Bill; and that certain

  587
  Documents be referred to the said Committee. The noble Earl said the objection to the scheme was the mode in which the promoters proposed to cross the river near the new bridge at Chelsea; and as the First Commissioner of Public Works was deeply interested in that bridge it was only right that he should have leave to appear by counsel before the Committee; and the Committee would then report whether his objections were well founded or not. It was quite true that his noble Friend the First Commissioner had the power of refusing his assent to the Bill, but he did not wish to exercise his power arbitrarily.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid, that the First Commissioner on the present occasion stood in the position of a private proprietor or company, and the Motion now made being quite exceptional, be thought it ought not to be agreed to. The plans of the company had been approved of by the late First Commissioner. The effect of adopting the Motion of the noble Lord would be to postpone the Bill for the present Session. The object of the Bill was the construction of a terminus for all the railways on this side of the Thames. The assent of a great variety of persons bad to be obtained to the project, and if the Bill were postponed there might be some difficulty in getting the assent of the various parties interested again, and the public might thus be deprived of the advantage of an excellent scheme.
  THE EARL OF HARDWICKEthought it was a case in which the Government were clearly bound to interfere, and in which the First Commissioner ought to be heard before the Committee. If their Lordships refused to allow the First Commissioner an opportunity of being heard on the subject, the result would probably be that the First Commissioner would probably advise the Crown not to assent to the Bill.
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, it was desirable that the House should guard against acting under false pretences; it ought, he thought, to be distinctly understood whether the property alleged to be affected stood in the position of having the protection of the Crown thrown over it. On the whole, he thought it would be better that the Motion should be agreed to.
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEsaid, that the Bill had passed the other House without any interference from the Board of Works; now a different course was to be taken, for no other reason than that there had been a change of Govern-
  588
  ment. Three important railway companies were interested in the success of the Bill, and yet the Government threatened them with the veto of the Crown if they were not heard in Committee against the Bill. That was a most unconstitutional course. The late First Commissioner (Sir B. Hall) had given his consent to the measure in the early part of the year; now a new First Commissioner having been appointed, and being influenced by some one connected with Battersea Park, He had come down to ask their Lordships to deviate from their usual course.
  THE EARL OF MALMESBURYsaid, that if the First Commissioner was refused a hearing on the Bill, the Government would be disposed to recommend that the Royal Assent should be withheld. The word "veto" was not the proper term to apply to the case. The late First Commissioner had not seen the plans, the present First Commissioner had, and he was of opinion that the expenditure on Chelsea Bridge would be thrown away if that plan was not modified. His noble Friend did not refuse his assent, but he asked that be might be beard.
  THE EARL OF WICKLOWsaid, that no sufficient reasons had been shown to induce their Lordships to depart from their usual rule. All the circumstances were known to the late First Commissioner (Sir B. Hall), than whom no man in the office of First Commissioner had conferred greater benefit on the public. The companies promoting this Bill had incurred enormous expense; and if the Bill were now defeated, it was probable the public would be permanently deprived of the advantage which it would afford.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, if the Government was determined to refuse the consent of the Crown, which must be given to the Bill at some stage, there was an end of the question.
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, he was only anxious to ascertain What was the relation of the Crown to the property in question.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid, that the late Chief Commissioner had been informed that he might petition, if be thought proper; but he had not thought it necessary to do so. The case now made against the Bill was the most frivolous that could be imagined.
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, that the land of Battersea Park had been bought by a grant of public money, and was vested in some form or other in the Board of Works.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYwas understood to deny this, and to say that the assent of the Crown was not necessary to the progress of the Bill.
  After some further conversation on the question whether the property was Crown property or not,
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, his attention had not been called to this question, which he thought was a very important one, and one on which it was very necessary that their Lordships should have some opinion. He would suggest, therefore, the propriety of adjourning the further consideration of the subject to give time for ascertaining what were the rights of the Crown in the matter; as they could have no other wish but to proceed in the regular order.
  THE EARL OF DONOUGHMOREsaid, he had no objection to the adjournment of the debate, and he wished to take that opportunity of saying that the Board of Works had never given their assent to this scheme. The facts of the case were that the project was mentioned to the late First Commissioner of Works, who gave a general assent to the scheme, but desired to see the plans. He never did see them, however, for he went out of office before they were sent in; and they accordingly fell into the hands of his noble Friend the present Commissioner, who, as soon as he saw the plans, made that objection which was now under their Lordships' consideration.
  Further debate adjourned to Thursday next.

  INDEPENDENCE OF PARLIAMENT BILL.

    SECOND READING.
    THE EARL OF MALMESBURYappealed to Lord Brougham, in consideration of the continued indisposition of the noble Earl at the head of the Government, to further postpone the second reading of this Bill.
    LORD BROUGHAMsaid, that the Bill had been postponed so often that his apprehension was lest he should be too late to pass it this Session. He hoped, therefore, that their Lordships would allow it to be read a second time pro forma now, and reserve the discussion until the next stage.
    LORD CAMPBELLdid not object to the principle of the Bill, but protested against reading pro forma a measure which dealt somewhat mercilessly with the other House of Parliament.
    THE EARL OF MALMESBURYadmitted it was entirely the fault of the Government that this Bill was not proceeded with, but he hoped his noble and learned Friend would postpone the discussion on the principle of the Bill to the Committee.
    LORD BROUGHAMassented.
    Bill to be read 2a on Monday next.

  CHURCH DISCIPLINE—THE LAW OF SEQUESTRATION.
  LORD ST. LEONARDSrose to ask the most rev. Prelate (the Archbishop of Canterbury) whether he intended to introduce a Bill for improving Church Discipline and the law of Sequestration, with a view to deter incumbents from getting into debt, and persons from advancing money to them on loan on the credit of their livings, or giving them unreasonable credit, and to compel and enable them to reside and perform their duties although their livings were under sequestration.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYthanked the noble and learned Lord for having called the attention of the House to this subject, and for having given him an opportunity of making a statement relative to the subject to which the noble and learned Lord referred. The Bench of Bishops had long been aware of the imperfections of the present law regulating the discipline of the Church; and a few months ago they took great pains and devoted much time to the preparation of what they believed to be a considerable improvement of the law as it now exists, with the full hope that they would be able to lay it upon their Lordships' table, and send it, after it had received such consideration and amendment as their Lordships might deem proper to bestow upon it, to the other House of Parliament during the present Session. Having consulted, however, with those who were most competent to advise them, they were informed that, in the then state of the public business, there was very little chance of such a measure passing through both Houses in the course of this Session; consequently the Bishops were obliged to be content to postpone the Bill until next Session, when they hoped to be in a position to submit it to Her Majesty's Government for their approval, with the further hope that it might then receive the sanction of Parliament, and prove to be a considerable amendment of the law. Among the alterations contemplated by that Bill, there was one which he thought would

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  prove to be a valuable improvement on the existing law. It was a provision that in cases of sequestration, where the clergyman was necessarily absent from his cure, a much larger and more adequate stipend should be given to the curate than was now allowed, and that the curate should have possession of the parsonage house. Further than that he thought they could not venture, and it was hardly within their power to go. When, in the next Session of Parliament, however, the question came before their Lordships in the shape of a Bill, the Bench of Bishops would be greatly obliged to the noble and learned Lord for any assistance he might favour them with in making the measure as perfect as possible. He was in hopes himself that the particular case of sequestration to which the noble and learned Lord had recently called their Lordships' attention was an exceptional one. For his own part he believed there were very few such; but any alterations which the noble and learned Lord might propose would not, he was sure, be more stringent than his right rev. Brethren would themselves desire to see effected, provided they put an end to the evil of which there was such reason to complain.
  THE BISHOP OF LINCOLNdefended the right rev. Bench from any blame in reference to the cases of sequestration. If a clegyman would but reside in his parish, his living might be sequestrated, but in the case supposed the living was already under sequestration.
  LORD ST. LEONARDSsaid, his object was to compel residence by monition or by some other means.
  THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN: Suppose he will not answer to the monition?
  LORD ST. LEONARDS: Then power should be given to take the living away from him.
  LORD REDESDALEdid not mean to say that in every instance of a clergyman getting into difficulties the living should be taken away; but when those difficulties were of such a character that they could not be met by any reasonable arrangement, he thought the living ought to be declared vacant, and some other person instituted who could command the respect of the parishioners.
  THE BISHOP OF CHICHESTERsaid, he had proceeded against two clergymen for gross immorality, and had only been able to obtain sentences of two and three years' suspension. Such instances were
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  rare, but he desired that when they did occur the scandal should be removed by a power of deprivation, which the Bishop did not at present possess.
  House adjourned at a quarter past Seven o'clock, till To morrow, half past Ten o'clock.