Sitting of 14 February 1860

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBERS SWORN.—For Gateshead, William Hutt, esquire; for Hertford Borough, Right hon. William Francis Cowper. PUBLIC BILL.—1° Mines Regulation and Inspection.

THE SPANISH DEBT.—QUESTION.
LORD BURGHLEYsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what is the exact amount that Spain has agreed to repay to this country; and whether she has consented to do so spontaneously, or at the request of the present or the late Government?
LORD JOHN RUSSELLsaid, that the exact amount of the debt was £496,385. The application for payment of the debt was made in a despatch addressed by the Earl of Malmesbury, dated November 17, 1858. The negotiations had been continued from that time, and the present Government found them still going on when they came into office. He must say the Government of Spain had throughout behaved with the greatest fairness and candour with regard to that debt, when it
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was properly ascertained, according to their view, of what the sum really was. Mr. Buchanan had also pursued the negotiation with the greatest prudence and judgment, and at the end of the last year the Government came to an agreement on the subject, the result of which was the payment of the sum in question.

THE REFORM BILL.—QUESTION.
MR. EDWIN JAMESsaid, he rose to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to what period he intends to postpone the introduction of the Bill for Reform of the Representation of the People in Parliament.
LORD JOHN RUSSELL: In answer to that question I beg to state that I propose to take the ballot on Thursday, and if I am successful in getting a pretty high place in the Paper I propose to bring in the Bill on Thursday, the 1st of March, which is a day not inauspicious for the introduction of a Bill on this subject. If I am not successful I shall ask leave to introduce it on Friday, the 2nd, or Monday, the 5th of March.

WINE AND MEDICINES FOR THE NAVY.

  QUESTION.
  LORD CLAUD HAMILTONsaid, he desired to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty Whether the attention of the Board has been directed to the quality of the wine supplied to the Navy for medical purposes, it having been described as unfit for the use of invalids, although exempt from duty. And, also, whether he can give an assurance to the House that the drugs supplied to the Navy are not of an equally adulterated and deleterious description?
  LORD CLARENCE PAGETsaid, that drugs for the use of the navy were supplied from Apothecaries' Hall, and therefore were of the best of their kind. With regard to the wine no complaint had been made from any of the ships. But the statement of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other night caused some little sensation at the Admiralty, and therefore they were making inquiries into the subject.

  THE FRENCH ARMY IN NORTHERN ITALY.—QUESTION.
  MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, he would beg leave to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Whether preparations have

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  not been made for placing the French army in Northern Italy in a state ready for immediate active service, and a Military Intendant and Staff sent to Tuscany to prepare for the arrival of French troops there; and whether such preparations are made with the intention of occupying any part of Central Italy by French troops, in order to "protect the voting" should fresh elections be resorted to, or for any other ostensible object?
  LORD JOHN RUSSELLsaid, the Government had heard of no preparations for putting the French army in Northern Italy in a state of active preparation, except that the number of men in the cavalry having been described as not being sufficient to take care of the horses, an additional number were sent for the purpose. With regard to a military staff and intendant being sent into Tuscany as reliefs, all he could say was, that he heard constantly from Her Majesty's Minister at Florence, and no rumour of any such arrival had reached him or was mentioned in his despatches, nor were any preparations being made to protect the voting. His answer generally was that no such preparations were in progress as those referred to by the hon. Gentleman.

TREATY OF COMMERCE WITH FRANCE.

  QUESTION.
  MR. EWARTsaid, he rose to ask the President of the Board of Trade, Whether, in the Treaty of Commerce with France, the English or the French is understood to be the correct version of Article 10,"the privileges, favours, or advantages granted to national vessels" being stated in the English version to be granted "generally," while in the French they are stated to be granted"sans exception."
  MR. MILNER GIBSONsaid, he believed it was understood that the French and English versions of Article 10 of the Commercial Treaty with France had exactly the same meaning. The precise words perhaps might not appear to correspond, but the general meaning of the two versions was exactly the same. He begged to assure the hon. Member that neither by the English nor by the French version would the privileges of the freemen of Liverpool, as regarded their exemption from certain local dues, be affected.

  LUNATIC POOR IN IRELAND.—QUESTION.
  COLONEL GREVILLEsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland if it is
  1038
  the intention of the Government to introduce a measure to consolidate and amend the law relating to the Lunatic Poor in Ireland?
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, that a Bill which he had in contemplation on this subject would not be proceeded with, and there was no intention on the part of the Government to bring in any further measure.

  THE MADRAS IRRIGATION AND CANAL COMPANY.—QUESTION.
  MR. SMOLLETTsaid, he would beg leave to ask the Secretary of State for India, Whether application has been made on behalf of a London Joint Stock Company, called "The Madras Irrigation and Canal Company," for the guarantee of a minimum interest of 5 per cent per annum, payable from the Indian revenues, upon a capital of two millions sterling, for the purpose of enabling the said company to prosecute certain irrigation schemes in Cuttack and in other districts of Orissa; and whether it is intended to accede to this proposal?
  MR. T. G. BARINGsaid, that an application had been addressed to the Secretary of State for India in Council for the guarantee in question, but the application was refused; and, he might add, that it was not the intention of the Secretary of State for India to accede to any such proposal.

THE MAYNOOTH GRANT.

  MOTION FOR COMMITTEE.
  MR. SPOONERsaid, he would have most willingly withdrawn from the discussion of a subject which he had so often brought under the notice of the House, but that he had been induced from the first to bring it forward by the thorough conviction that the continuance of the Grant to Maynooth was a national sin, and would at some time or another produce terrible consequences to this country. He retained the opinion that it was a great national sin, and he believed that it was already bringing forth its fruits. No one who read the papers could fail to see that the priests educated at that College had been most mischievous in exciting feelings of disloyalty towards Her Gracious Majesty and hatred to the Protestant Reformed Church. He hoped that he should not have to detain the House long. In fact, he found from the state of his eyes,

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  that it would be impossible for him to do so. He had often experienced the indulgence of the House, but he had never more need of it than on the present occasion.
  The education at Maynooth was now producing its fruits, and he would first of all show this by comparing the language held by the Roman Catholic Bishops in 1792, when they were humble suppliants for relief, with that held at a mooting which lately took place in Dublin by Dr. Paul Cullen, who had been unconstitutionally recognized in that fantastical and farcical inquiry called Lord Harrowhy's Commission, by the illegal title of the "Delegate Apostolic" in Ireland. In a petition presented to the Irish Parliament in 1792 the Irish Bishops held this language:—
  "We solemnly and conscientiously declare that we are satisfied with the present state of ecclesiastical polity; we acquiesce in the establishment of the National Church; we neither repine at its possessions nor its dignities, and we are ready on this point to give every satisfaction in our power."
  In another petition, 1808, they said—
  "Your petitioners most solemnly declare that they do not seek in any way to encroach upon the rights, privileges, possessions, or revenue appertaining to the Bishops and Clergy of the Protestant Church."
  Contrast this with the language held by Dr. Cullen at a meeting in Dublin not long ago, which was received with "loud cheers."
  "No country," said he, "presents such a nuisance as the Church establishment in Ireland, with its mitred dignitaries, its universities, schools, and its enormous wealth derived from the confiscation of the property of our ancestors—a nuisance which, if it existed in any other country, would be daily denounced by all shades of the British press."
  These were the abominable opinions which the British people were compelled to pay for teaching. The next point which be wished to submit to the House was a declaration of Dr. Moriarty, President of Allhallows, Drumcondra, who was one of the witnesses before the late Commission, on the subject of the oath of allegiance. He had often made a charge against Maynooth that the doctrine was taught there that oaths must be dealt with in an equivocal way; that there was no sin in swearing one thing and meaning another. The quotations which he had given to prove that had never been refuted or denied; and he now made this charge, that doctrines
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  were taught there completely subversive of the oath of allegiance. In his examination Dr. Moriarty was asked, "Are there no circumstances under which the Pope could release subjects from their oath of allegiance?" His answer was boldly, "Most emphatically I say none;" and then came his Jesuitical "but," which was this,—"but there are certain cases where the allegiance of subjects ceases, and where the Government of the country may be justly overthrown, and I consider the Pope is the best and fittest authority to decide in many cases whether such circumstances have arisen." The power of the Pope was represented as merely declaratory, and not involving the allegiance of the subject. In answer, however, to the next question, whether the Pope would not thus have removed the obligation from the conscience, the answer given was, "he could declare it removed." He confessed that, not being himself a Jesuit, and not having received his education in a Jesuit's College, he was unable to realize the distinction. The examination proceeded:—"But the declaration of the Pope would have the effect, would it not, of removing the obligation from the conscience?" "No," was the reply; "he merely decides and declares that it is removed." He was then asked, "With whom does the responsibility rest? Is it [the responsibility of disobeying] removed from the party by virtue of the opinion expressed by the superior authority?" Answer—"Were we to consult the Holy See upon our allegiance or obedience to our temporal Sovereign, and that an answer were given us, it ought to satisfy the consciences of Catholics, considering that we know it to be an authority divinely appointed and divinely assisted for our guidance in the way of salvation, and consequently in the path of duty." Was the State to continue a system of instruction which not only declared persons to be absolved by the Pope from their oath of allegiance, but entered into the reasons for that release? Such a course he held to be a violation of the coronation oath taken by the Sovereign, and opposed to the Articles of the Church, to which many who heard him had expressly declared their assent. If the case rested there, it ought to be strong enough to prevent any Government or house of representatives from daring to tax the people for the maintenance of such an Institution. But he went further, and charged those con-

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  nected with the College of Maynooth with teaching doctrines completely subversive of the allegiance due to the Throne, and dangerous to the Constitution by the Divine blessing established in these realms. At a public assembly held in Dublin on the 9th of November last (the same above referred to), the Pope's delegate, Dr. Cullen, had thus expressed himself:—
  "Again, when, to gratify the ambitious views of a Dutch Prince, the daughter of a weak and unfortunate Monarch, forgetful of the ties of gratitude and kindred, banished her father (James II.) from his hereditary dominions, did not the Catholics of Ireland resist the torrent of Dutch Calvinists, and French Huguenots, and Scotch Covenanters, and English Evangelicals let loose upon them; and, though they were weak and unfriended, did they not defend with valour and energy the cause of Royalty and their King?"
  Was not this a gross insult levelled at the present dynasty? At the same meeting a gentleman named Reynolds, formerly a member of that House, incidentally mentioned the name of the Queen, which was hissed from one end of the room to the other, while a reference to the Pope was hailed with three cheers. These were not trivial ebullitions of the moment, but were evidences of a deep-seated feeling, which only required opportunity to become dangerous. There was one particular doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, for the inculcation of which, among others, this £30,000 was paid—namely, that all who were baptized, whether by Protestant Ministers or by Protestant laymen, became, by the fact itself, members of the Roman Catholic Church, and subjects of the Pope, to whom they owed allegiance. It was true that Protestants might renounce the benefits to which they thus became entitled, but by so doing they rendered themselves heretics, and liable in the eye of the Church to punishment, even to the extent of death. As long as Roman Catholics were weak it was vain for them to hope for the infliction of these penalties; but if ever power once more fell into their hands, those who had heretically refused communion with their Church would become the legitimate objects of their attack. That these doctrines did exist and were entertained he had proved by quotations in former addresses to the House, He implored hon. Members not to treat the matter lightly, for it was not to be supposed that sins such as he had described could be suffered to go on with impunity. Where were the Ministers of the Crown—where was the
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  Attorney General for Ireland—that they had taken no move in the matter? In former days similar attacks against the honour and dignity of the Crown would not have been suffered, but would have led to legal prosecutions, and, if, necessary, the Representatives of the people would have addressed the Queen to instruct her Ministers to cause the Law Officers to defend the religion which they had sworn to uphold. The Throne and the religion of the State in these days, however, were no longer assailed by attacks slily insinuated, but by aggressions boldly and impudently avowed. A remarkable article had recently appeared in the great leading organ of the press, which had never yet been found supporting what could in any way be termed bigoted opinions, (and had constantly charged him (Mr. Spooner) with bigotry, while it gave him credit for honesty); and he trusted that the document to which he referred would have its full weight with the House and with the public. What said this great organ of opinion now? It said—
  "It is only due to the memory of men who underwent much obloquy for the time, and were even treated with a peculiar and galling kind of contempt not usual in English political warfare, to ask ourselves, after an experience of just thirty years, which side was in the right? Have the results been in accordance with the sanguine anticipations of Canning, of Mackintosh, of Grey, and of Brougham, or has the measure turned out as was predicted by Lord Eldon, 'that hater of all that was liberal and pleasant,' and by Lord Winchilsea, at whose tirades we have all laughed so heartily? There is, unhappily, no doubt about it; the genius, the liberality, and the eloquence were wrong; the narrowness, the bigotry, and the prejudice wore right. Ever since the day of deliverance the conduct of the Roman Catholics has more and more confirmed the predictions of their enemies, more and more disappointed the anticipations of their friends… It would be childish to deny that we have raised up among ourselves a party which is neither Liberal nor Conservative, neither English nor Irish, which holds its allegiance to a foreign Power paramount to its allegiance to its domestic Sovereign… Where but in a Roman Catholic meeting, presided over by a Bishop, and harangued by Deans and Canons, could the name of the Queen be received with a burst of disapprobation which rendered the speaker inaudible from the very voices which yelled out a determination to fight for the Pope? From whom but a Roman Catholic Bishop could one hear it laid down that it was the duty of a constituency in these islands to exercise their influence on their representatives to induce the Government to put down a rebellion in a foreign State; and only because that tyrannical Sovereign was the head of their Church, and they had therefore a vested interest in perpetuating his tyranny and corruption? There is no divided allegiance, as was apprehended. The allegiance is wholly

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  given to one person, and nothing is left for the Queen but yells of disapprobation and the accusation of having starved two millions of her subjects."—The Times, December 13, 1859.
  Was all this to go on, or would they do something to stop it? He had always said that the fruits of Maynooth teaching would one day be seen; were they not now visible? Yet did not the members of the Government consult the Popish party in all they did? And those he generally acted with did so a great deal too much. Both parties tried too much to reconcile those who would never be reconciled, but who would go with both parties just as far as would serve their purpose, and enable them to carry out their disloyal and rebellious opinions. (Hear, and No). Let those who cried "No" contradict the facts he had stated. Let them prove that these meetings had never been held, that such speeches had never been made. He challenged denial of what he had stated. He had differed from Lord Eldon on the question of emancipation, for, judging from what he saw of the conduct of Roman Catholic gentlemen at that time, he did not fear admitting them into Parliament, and what assistance he could render them out of the House he gave them. But it was done in ignorance of that priestly domination in which another generation had been nursed up, and the doctrines subversive of everything loyal that had been taught from Maynooth to the deluded Papists of Ireland; those doctrines would on any opportunity lead them to unite themselves to any enemy who might attempt to change the succession, and go hack to the line of that poor Prince who was so shamefully used, as the Pope's delegate had said, by his own child. It was an extraordinary fact that there had been a change in the books used at Maynooth. Bailey's "Moral Theology" was formerly used, which taught, on the validity of marriage, that the rite was good and binding though not celebrated by a Roman Catholic priest. Bailey's work was now superseded by Scavigni's, with the approval of the Pope. Scavigni's work taught that no marriage was valid unless celebrated by priests of the Roman Church. By this teaching the Queen of these realms was only nominally married, and consequently the issue of that marriage were illegitimate. Were they prepared to give such doctrines all the authority of the House by voting a grant to teach them? There was a de-
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  scendant of the Stuarts still existing, who, but for the Act of Settlement and the Protestant oath now required, would undoubtedly be the heir to the throne of England. If they permitted it to be taught that the children of the English Sovereign were illegitimate, and any persons should attempt to act on that belief, could they be prosecuted as traitors and rebels, would not such persons turn round and say, "You taught it, you paid for the books from which we learned it." They were standing in a most dangerous position. Their duty was to defend their Queen's rights, privileges, honour, character, and dignity, and yet they were paying money to those priests who taught their flocks that Her Majesty was not their rightful Sovereign, and that her children were illegitimate. He felt that he had already trespassed too much on the attention of the House, but he had one or two more observations to make. He wished for many reasons that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was in his place. What were the opinions of his right hon. Friend on this subject? He knew the opinions of his right hon. Friend had been changed, but they had made too deep an impression on his (Mr. Spooner's) mind for him to change them; they remained there unshaken and immovable. The worst thing he would wish for his right hon. Friend was, that he should come back to his old opinions, and stand forth as the powerful defender of the rights of the Protestant Church." What did his right hon. Friend say on the subject in his well-known book—The State in its Relations with the Church. There was this remarkable paragraph in that book—
  "The support of the College of Maynooth was originally undertaken by the Protestant Parliament of Ireland in the anticipation—which has since proved miserably fallacious—that a more loyal class of priests would be produced by a homo education than by a foreign one, and that a gradual mitigation in the features of Irish Romanism would be produced when her Ministers where no longer familiarized with its condition in Continental countries where Romanism is the religion of the State…Instead of which it has been found that the facility for education at home has opened the priesthood to a lower and less cultivated class, and one more liable to the influence of secondary motives. It can hardly be denied that this is a well-merited disappointment."
  As to the grant—
  "In principle it is wholly vicious, and it will be a thorn in the side of the State of these countries so long as it is continued. When foreigners express their astonishment at finding that we support

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  in Ireland the Church of a minority, we may tell them that we support it on the high ground of conscientious necessity for its truth, but how should we blush, at the same time, to support an institution—Maynooth—whose avowed and legitimate purpose it is constantly to denounce that truth as falsehood.…If, indeed, our faith be pledged to the College, by all means let us acquit ourselves of the obligation; but it is monstrous that we should be the voluntary feeders of an establishment which exhibits at once our parsimony, lax principles, and erroneous calculations."
  These were the sentiments of his right hon. and much respected Friend—not declared in the heat of debate in a hasty speech, without due consideration and reflection—but deliberately published to the world with the sanction of his high name. As to the alleged compact, how did it stand? When was it made? Certainly not at the Union—it never formed any part of that treaty; but even were it so (which is clear it was not), it has long since ceased; for all the grants to the charitable and public institutions, made by the treaty, were only to last for twenty years. Certainly it was not made by that House. The vote for the support of the College was granted annually in the estimates, and might be withheld at any time. It was actually withheld in one year when Mr. Perceval was Minister. It frequently varied in amount. The present arrangemen had been made by Sir Robert Peel without any consideration; who held that we were perfectly free to repeal it at any time, if we found it did not answer the intended purpose, and if the message of peace was not received in a spirt of peace—those were his (Sir R. Peel's) words. Exactly the same view was held by the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs when the question of compact was discussed. Compact there was none. Parliament freely gave, and Parliament could take away. The plea on which it was given by Sir Robert Peel was that it would prove a message of peace to Ireland, and promote the feeling of loyalty among the Roman Catholic priests in that country. Had this expectation been realized? Did they not know that juries were frequently so much under the influence of the priests as to give verdicts contrary to the direction of the Judges on points of law, and contrary to the clearest demonstration of fact, their conduct amounting, in truth, to an utter perversion of justice? There was another question he had already hinted at, and to which he wished more fully to refer—
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  he meant the conduct of Parliament in regard to the Coronation Oath. What did they require when the Sovereign of this country was crowned? He called the attention of hon. Members to the words of that solemn oath which Her Majesty took in ratification of the sacred compact between Her and Her people in presence of Almighty God. [The hon. Gentleman here read the words of the oath from the printed form.] After administering that oath how could they require Her consent to a grant to Roman Catholic priests who taught that the very truths She swore to maintain were but falsehoods? It was not likely that he should have an opportunity of again addressing the House on this subject, but he could not leave them without once more expressing his earnest opinion that by supporting Maynooth they were committing a great national sin; and they might rest assured that although individuals were punished for their sins in another life, nations were always punished in the present world, and punished by the subversion of their rights and privileges. God forbid that it should be so with this country! but they had been too long going on in their present sinful course, and he called on them as they professed to be Christians—both those belonging to the Established Church and Nonconformists—to use their endeavours to put down this monstrous system. Those who claim to be the friends of civil and religious liberty should remember that wherever Roman Catholicism was predominant its clergy were hostile to that principle, and strove to gain the ascendancy over the civil power. Oh, that he could convince the House of the sin and danger of continuing this system! He took, perhaps, a stronger view of this subject now that he approached so near to the natural term of human life. All he could say was, that if the House persisted in its present course, the guilt would not be his. He would be wholly unworthy of the honourable position in which a large constituency had placed him if he did not manfully declare that we were now committing a great national sin, and if he did not implore the House to cast aside party feeling, and give to this question its calmest and most solemn consideration. He was reminded by the results of this ungodly and impolitic measure of a place in Holy Writ where it is said, "They hatch cockatrice eggs and weave the spider's web." That House by its grants supplied the eggs, the Maynooth professors

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  hatched them, and Ireland was overrun with spiritual serpents. Meanwhile the wily Jesuits had been secretly weaving the spider's web in which many hon. Members had been caught already; and he would warn them that they would find that web too strong to allow of their escape. Before concluding, he wished to call the attention of the noble Lord at the head of the Government to an Irish weekly newspaper called The Irishman, the chief writer in which was said to be a Mr. Mitchell, a pardoned rebel, who spurned his pardon, and who was now living in Paris. The law officers of the Crown ought to be instructed to watch the articles appearing from time to time in that paper, the tendency of which was of a most subversive and insidious character. Under the pretence of the defence of Ireland there was a series of strategic articles, evidently the work of a military hand and meant for a revolutionary purpose. One clause in his present Resolution was intended to preserve vested rights.—[Divide.] He hoped he had not trespassed long on the time of the House, and he had guarded himself against saying anything that could give personal offence to any hon. Member. There was no compact which bound Parliament in this matter; but, young men having been induced to enter this College in the expectation that certain privileges would be continued to them, it would not be fair to turn them adrift until their education was finished. These, then, were his views, feebly and most imperfectly expressed. He only wished that some of the eloquent Gentlemen beside him had consented to take up this question. But he felt himself actuated by honest motives, and by a conscientious desire, if possible, to be of some use in his generation in supporting that blessed Constitution under which we still had the happiness to live, but the security of which was endangered by the principles which the Jesuits of the Roman Catholic Church upheld and taught. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving that the House should resolve itself into a Committee to consider the Acts for the Endowment of the College of Maynooth, with a view to the withdrawal of any endowment out of the Consolidated Fund, due regard being had to vested rights and interests.
  MR. RICHARD LONGsaid, that in rising to second the Motion, he followed one who, through a long political life, had distinguished himself by his perfect con-
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  sistency, and who, whatever the depth of his political or religious convictions, had always endeavoured to express himself with temper and moderation. The grounds upon which he based his own opposition to the grant were very simple. In stating those grounds, he hoped he should avoid saying anything that could be personally offensive to any hon. Member. He held, that according to the theory of our Constitution, there was but one Church established within the realms of England and Ireland, and that was the United Church of England and Ireland. He, therefore, did not consider it was the duty of the State to hold out pecuniary assistance to any body of Nonconformists; and he could not distinguish the Roman Catholics from any other body of Nonconformists. Although he was opposed to the continuance of the Maynooth Grant, he by no means wished that it should be put an end to without giving an adequate compensation to vested interests. His hon. Friend, by the terms of his Motion, had shown a much more forbearing spirit than the Protestant Dissenters, who, on a recent occasion, displayed a desire to deprive the Established Church of her rights without any compensation. He should probably be told that in taking his present course he was alienating from him and his friends the support of the Roman Catholic Members, who wore the natural allies of the Conservative party. Now he (Mr. Long) could not think so meanly of the motives of the Roman Catholic Members of that House, as to suppose that on a question of this kind, involving a point of conscience, those hon. Members would take offence at a firm but temperate refusal to support their Church from funds contributed by Protestant ratepayers, or that they would on that account refrain on other occasions from acting in harmony with the party with whose views their own really coincided. He would remind those hon. Gentlemen that it was not to the Liberals, as the party opposite were commonly called, they were indebted for the endowments granted to the Roman Catholic chaplains of the army and the navy. He was not saying whether that measure was right or wrong; but if it was right, it was strange that a Liberal Government, which had had a prolonged tenure of power, had not found time to adopt it. When in 1850 the Pope thought fit to revive his ancient jurisdiction in this realm, and sent over a Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, what was the conduct of the Liberal

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  Government, and the then chief of the Liberal party? He remembered seeing about that time a caricature in a well-known humorous periodical, in which there appeared the figure of a certain noble Lord opposite, in the shape of a little boy, who, after chalking upon the walls of Durham the words "No Popery," was seen running away in terror of what he had done. He could not help reminding Roman Catholic Members of the conduct of noble Lords and right hon. Gentlemen on the Liberal side of the House. One of the former, some years ago, published a memorable letter on the subject of the assumption of ecclesiastical titles. To that letter he need not more particularly refer; for every hon. Gentleman in the House no doubt knew of its contents. The conduct of the leaders of the Liberal party in respect of Roman Catholic affairs, was such that in the remarks which he was making in support of a Motion for the repeal of the Maynooth Grant, he did not think he ran any risk of alienating the support of Roman Catholic Members from the Conservative party. It could not be possible that Roman Catholic Members found in the present occupants of the Treasury bench exponents of their opinions, or that they could expect to find in them sincere upholders of the Maynooth Grant. He would wish to allude briefly to the state of the Roman Catholic Church in this country; and in so doing, he should refer to an extract from a work of the Count de Montalembert. In the passage to which he would refer, the Count observed, that when the last of the Stuarts attempted to recover the throne of his fathers, the Roman Catholics in this country were a miserable few, but that at the present time, wherever the flag of England floated, it sheltered Roman Catholic colleges, schools, churches, and other institutions. In another passage the same writer, referring to the British empire, said that churches, houses of education, and monasteries, for the Roman Catholics, were being founded with a facility and a liberty which not only had never been surpassed, but had never been equalled in any other country, Roman Catholic or Protestant; and he further remarked, that in Ireland, under the operation of the Incumbered Estates Act, large properties had passed out of the hands of Protestant proprietors into those of Roman Catholics. If, then, the Roman Catholic Church in these realms was so rich, prosperous, and powerful, its followers must be perfectly well able to
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  give up the miserable grant of £36,000 per year, which was doled out to them by an unwilling Parliament, and was paid by Protestant ratepayers. He would ask the Roman Catholic Members would it not be better, for peace' sake, to accept such terms as were offered—a fair compensation for vested rights and interests. It was the conduct of Sir R. Peel in 1845, in preparing the ignis fatuus of expediency to principle, in reference to this grant, that had alienated from him a party perhaps the strongest and most compact that had ever existed in that House. He would on the present occasion appeal to the Conservative party to hold by their principles. They could not consistently endow error. They must choose between England and the Church of Rome. If England was right, Rome must be wrong. This was the ground on which he appealed for Conservative support for the Motion of his hon. Friend; and hoping that a large majority would confirm the views of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner), he had much pleasure in seconding the proposition then before the House.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,—
  "That this House do resolve itself into a Committee, to consider the Acts for the Endowment of the College of Maynooth, with a view to the withdrawal of any Endowment out of the Consolidated Fund, due regard being had to vested rights and interests."
  MR. P. O'BRIENsaid, he did not intend to occupy the House at any length on a subject which must be almost, if not entirely, exhausted. He did not think the House of Commons ought to be converted into a religious conventicle, and therefore he would regard the matter, not from a religious, but from a political point of view. If the Regium Donum were to be withdrawn, and the Church establishment in Ireland abolished, then he would not advocate the Maynooth Grant; but when other bodies received State allowances, the Roman Catholics, bearing their share in the burdens of taxation, had a right to demand a share of the Government grants. No case had been made out for depriving the Roman Catholic Church of a grant which it had hitherto received; and he confessed he never heard this Motion brought on without recalling O'Connell's saying that the most dangerous enemy to religion that ever existed was a pious fool.
  MR. HENNESSYsaid, he must take leave to deny that there was any founda-

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  tion for the charge of disloyalty brought against the Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland by the hon. Member for Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner). At a great meeting in the County of Tipperary, the Archbishop of Cashel said:—"We know how to preserve inviolate allegiance to the Queen, our only legitimate Sovereign." At a meeting in the North of Ireland, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of all Ireland, said:—"Our Gracious Majesty, whom may God long preserve, has no more loyal subjects than we are." The Irish bishops uniformly spoke in the same tone, and their expressions of loyal devotion were received with loud applause. The hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Long) had not used a single argument which might not have come from the other side of the House with more propriety. The hon. Member had appealed to the Dissenters and Nonconformists to support the Motion. He wished to bear witness to the consistency of the Nonconformists and Dissenters on this question, but he could repose no confidence in the highly inconsistent course of the hon. Member for Chippenham. If, indeed, church rates, tithes, and the Regium Donum were given up, then the Catholics would give up Maynooth; but, so long as they were burdened with the expense of those establishments, they thought it would be an act of injustice—of one-sided and partial injustice—to refuse this paltry, miserable grant to Maynooth.
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, it was the obvious wish of the House to go to a division. He would only say a few words, out of respect to the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, and in consequence of the interest which the question excited in Ireland. He wished to call attention to the importance of closing the subject by a decisive vote to-night. The hon. Gentleman opened the case upon the principle that a continuance of the grant would be doing injury to the Established Church, and sapping the foundations of allegiance to the Sovereign, and he pushed his argument so far as to indicate that this was only the beginning of a series of measures which would end in the repeal of Catholic emancipation. The seconder of the Motion founded his opposition to the grant on arguments—which as the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Walpole) then Home Secretary, had judiciously pointed out on the last occasion this subject was brought forward, would lead to the withdrawal of the educational grant
  1052
  from the Roman Catholic body. In a former Parliament it was determined by general consent not to enter upon arguments when almost every quotation upon the subject had been exhausted, but at once to express their opinion by the legitimate process of a decided vote. He thought the new Parliament would show their prudence if they closed a discussion which produced such irrelevant topics and excited such angry feelings. By expressing a decided opinion, he trusted the House would declare that the arrangement so long made with regard to Maynooth was not to be determined, and that they were not disposed, by countenancing Motions calculated to excite religious animosities, to take the first step in unsettling the religious institutions of the country.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he rose to warn the House against being induced, by the dictum of a Minister, to close, without due consideration, the discussion of so important a matter as that which they had now before them. If they did they would soon lapse into the condition of the French Chambers. The hon. Member for the King's County (Mr. P. O'Brien) was so courteous as to apply the term pious fool to his hon. Colleague in the representation of North Warwickshire. If the hon. Member's observation had any force in it, there must be a goodly company of fools in that assembly, for repeated votes of that House had declared their wish that this grant should terminate, not by an arbitrary and unjust Act of Parliament, but by an arrangement granting to those who enjoyed salaries under the Act of 1845, adequate compensation for their offices, and by those decisions the House had only expressed the opinions of the country. It was not, indeed, difficult to understand that there should be in this country a strong desire for the termination of this grant; for if they looked over the world they found at this moment, in almost every part of it, a universal repudiation of those Ultramontane doctrines which were inculcated at Maynooth by professors paid by this Protestant State. France, Italy, Sardinia, Spain, and Russia all united in condemning them. According to the hon. Member for King's County (Mr. Hennessy), nothing could be more loyal than the conduct of the Roman Catholic archbishops and bishops in Ireland. But there was a policy in that loyalty. He had not forgotten that in August last the leading journal, which reflected the opinions of that school of

  1053
  Roman Catholics, and circulated them more widely than he could wish—that at that time, when it was supposed that the Emperor of the French was the servant of Rome, The Tablet declared that no act could make His Majesty so popular and secure him such universal support in Europe as the invasion of England, and added that during such an operation he would be secured against any attacks by secret societies in France. What, he (Mr. Newdegate) should like to be told, did the conductors of The Tablet know of the operations of these secret societies that they thus confidently predicted their forbearance. At that time, he (Mr. Newdegate) did not observe any such loyal expression on the part of Dr. Cullen and the other Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland, as those for which the hon. Member for the King's County wished them to have credit; but he had noticed that whenever they were at public dinners they gave the toast of "The Pope" precedence of that of "The Queen," and thus offered a deliberate insult to the Majesty of this country. Now that they had discovered that the Emperor of the French would not act as the mere servant of the See of Rome, and had expressed his determination not to restore the temporal power of the Pope—which had been so badly used—there were abundant expressions of loyalty on the part of these archbishops and bishops towards Her Majesty. His comment on this fact was, where was this loyalty when it might have been expressed in disavowal of the disloyal expressions of the Ultramontane paper at a time when there was a prospect of an immediate rupture between France and England. At that time there was apparently a silent acquiescence in the disloyalty of their organ on the part of these Roman Prelates. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. P. O'Brien) had quoted an observation made by Mr. O'Connell. He (Mr. Newdegate) would take the liberty of quoting some remarks from the same authority in reference to this very grant to Maynooth. He (Mr. O'Connell) was in Ireland when the grant was sanctioned by that House in pursuance of the proposal of Sir R. Peel; and he expressed his gratitude to England in these words:—
  "I would not, I confess, go this length, when I came into this room to-day, for I had a little inkling that there was some trick under all this liberality; but my friend Dr. Gray brought mo the Act of Parliament, and I read it in my seat here, and I proclaim it excellent in all its parts.
  1054
  [Cheers.] …. But is this to make us give up agitation? [Cries of ' No, we will die first,' and cheers.] I do not mean to quarrel with any one who differs in opinion from me on any subject; still less am I inclined to quarrel with any one who thinks with me, that it was the repeal agitation that produced this change in Sir Robert Peel with reference to Maynooth. [Cheers.] Agitation, I thank you. [Cheers.] Conciliation Hall, I am obliged to you. [Cheers.] Repeal Association, Maynooth ought to pray for you. [Loud cheering.] There is a story told of the officers of the Irish Brigade: as long as a young man who came into the French army as a cadet conducted himself well, he was left a cadet, so they always found it necessary to become a little riotous to get promoted to the rank of officer. [Laughter.] We, in Conciliation Hall, represent the officer. The Irish cadets understand the policy of misconducting themselves. This is a boon to us to misbehave in future, and we are too honest not to give them the price for their money. [Cheers and laughter.] … When they tell us that we should thank Sir Robert Peel and the two hundred myrmidons that go with him from one side of the House to the other, I say, thank Conciliation Hall! thank agitation! [Cheers.]
  Take the history of the grant from the first. The first grant was made by the Parliament of Ireland in 1795, and in 1798 there was a rebellion in Ireland. The existing Act of Parliament was passed in 1845, and in 1846 a Coercion Act was necessary to save life and property in Ireland. Had Ireland been peaceful since? Had not the fruits of that grant been the dissemination of principles among the Irish people which were not necessary to the Roman Catholic religion, but were intended and were used for the purpose of establishing and extending the temporal power of the See and Court of Rome? It was not for the interest of the Roman Catholic laity that the Government should authorize the dissemination among the priesthood of Ireland of Ultramontane opinions, for those opinions would neutralize the efforts of the laity, who might be disposed to lead the people of Ireland to peaceful pursuits and habits. An inquiry had been instituted in 1826, and it was then proved that Dr. Kenney, then Vice President of Maynooth, was a Jesuit, and had, four years before, founded a Jesuit college in the immediate neighbourhood of Maynooth. The character of the teaching at Maynooth had verged towards the Ultramontane doctrines, until at last all other teaching had been superseded by the doctrines of Liguori, as had been proved before the Commission of 1851. It should not be forgotten that when the grant of £30,000 had been made to Maynooth to improve the accommoda-

  1055
  tion and increase the comforts of the students it was spent in increasing the number of the rooms by one-half, so that half as many more boys could be admitted, notwithstanding the express provision of the Act of 1845, that no more than 520 students should be admitted, while the building itself was left in that state of discomfort which it had been the object of the grant to remove. In fact, no instance existed in which the authorities at Maynooth had not acted in a spirit of defiance; they were continually disseminating Ultramontane doctrines, which were admitted even by the Catholics themselves to be subversive of all order and peaceful principles. He trusted that the House would act in conformity with the prevalent opinions of Catholic as well as Protestant Europe, and put an end to the scandal of a Protestant State finding means for the dissemination of Ultramontane opinions.
  MR. HADFIELDwas understood to say that the reason why he and others on his side of the House voted in favour of the Motion was because they objected to all grants for religious purposes. He could not, however, help expressing his amazement at the inconsistency of hon. Gentlemen opposite, who were so anxious to get rid of this grant, though at the same time they were straining every nerve to retain church rates.
  MR. SPOONERsaid, he would just make one or two observations in reply, and seeing the anxiety hon. Members exhibited for a division, he would not detain them many minutes. He begged the hon. Member for King's County (Mr. O'Brien) to understand that if upon reaching his home, and, as a gentleman, reflecting upon the observations he had made that evening, he found he could forgive himself for having uttered them, then might he feel assured of his (Mr. Spooner's) forgiveness. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Cardwell) had made a very characteristic, and, considering the circumstances, appropriate speech upon the subject of his (Mr. Spooner's) Motion. It was short, because he (Mr. Cardwell) felt that the more the subject was considered the more it would damage his favourite grant. It was wise, therefore, for him to retire, leaving his own opinions regarding the matter in mystery, and his (Mr. Spooner's) views unanswered. He (Mr. Spooner) could not concur in what had been stated, that the Roman Catholics were the natural allies of the Conservatives.
  1056
  For his part, whichever party strove most to conciliate them by unconstitutional and anti-Protestant concessions, would receive from him the least confiding support.
  MR. P. O'BRIENsaid, he could assure the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner) that when he had used the playful expression complained of, it was very far from his intention to be personalty offensive to the hon. Member for North Warwickshire. He used it only generically, as applied to a class; and if he had offended the hon. Member for North Warwickshire in any possible way, he begged to express his regret. Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 128; Noes 186: Majority 58.

TRINITY AND ST. JOHN'S COLLEGES (CAMBRIDGE).

  ADDRESS MOVED FOR.
  Mr. POLLARD-URQUHARTsaid, he rose, pursuant to notice, to move that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, requesting that consent might be withheld from certain portions of the statutes of the Colleges of Trinity and St. John's, in the University of Cambridge, now before Parliament. By an Act passed in 1856, entitled an "Act for the better government of the University of Cambridge," certain Commissioners were appointed, with power to frame statutes which were to become law within forty days after their presentation to Parliament, unless in the meantime an Address against their adoption should be presented to Her Majesty. The statutes were laid before Parliament on the 11th of July last, at which period everybody who had not been driven out of London by the heat and the river was occupied in attending to the election petitions against himself or other hon. Members, and it was impossible to secure the attention of Parliament to a subject like the present. Through the courtesy of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department, the statutes had been allowed to remain over for consideration to the present Session; and a promise was given that Her Majesty would not be advised to grant her sanction to them till they had been brought under the notice of the House. Therefore, as a member of Trinity College, and interested in its welfare, he had brought the subject before them. He believed that there were faults in these statutes which were calculated to be prejudicial to the welfare and

  1057
  usefulness of the colleges as centres of literary and scientific activity, and were at variance with the best interests of the Church of England, and consequently of religion itself. By statute 3, it was enacted that the master should be a member of the Church of England. Statute 6, provided that the College should be governed by a board, consisting of the master and eight of the senior Fellows, each vacancy being filled from among the other senior Fellows by election of the other members of the board. Statutes 16 and 21, taken together, provided that the master should be a member of the Church of England, and should relinquish his position in the event of his secession. Practically, the effect of these statutes was to limit the highest honours to members of the Church of England. In St. John's College the case was still worse; a student could not read for honours unless he was a member of the Church of England. The statutes were unjust in themselves, and adverse to the best interests of the University. They were drawn up in times when conformity with the Church of England was believed to be more of a test of loyalty to the Crown than it was at present. The statutes were then enforced for a political purpose; but the same principles enforced now could not but weaken the University. Mr. Mill, in speaking of our educational system, described it as one for making the students think right what we thought right, and as an abuse of the human faculties. No great minds could be formed under such a system, as its effect must necessarily be to cramp the energies of the students in their search after truth. It had also inflicted great injury on individuals. During the time he was an undergraduate of Cambridge, a Quaker gentleman was fourth wrangler; but he was not allowed to be a fellow of his college. In 1837 a Jew was second wrangler, but he was not allowed to take a degree; that had since been remedied, but he would not now be allowed to contend for a fellowship. Three years ago a Baptist gained high honours; if these statutes passed all his hopes would be destroyed. The senior wrangler of the year was a member of the Free Church of Scotland, and it was doubtful whether he would be able to subscribe the Articles of the Church of England. The Bishop of St. David's, one of the brightest ornaments of Trinity College, Cambridge, was in favour of the repeal of these exclusive statutes. The system
  1058
  of holding out rewards and punishments was, as Archbishop Whately remarked, calculated to bring over to the Church only those who were influenced by interest or vanity, while it would repel those who had a sincere sense of religion. The operation of the statutes to which he had called the attention of the House would exclude many of the best men from the highest emoluments of the University for daring to think for themselves. That part of the statutes which referred to the election of seniors would have a most prejudicial effect. It was true they were to be elected in rotation unless good reason were shown to the contrary; but what would be good reason where all must be members of the Church of England, and from long habit and association were taught to regard whatever belonged to the Church of England as right, and whatever was antagonistic to her then opinions must be wrong? The Bishop of St. David's had been compelled to resign his tutorship at Cambridge on account of his having written a pamphlet in favour of the admission of Dissenters to the University. For the same cause it was possible that the most distinguished ornaments of learning would not be chosen a senior or a member of that body to whom the government of the college was committed. It was extremely possible that the author of such a book as the Vestiges of the Natural History of the Creation would not be elected a senior. It was extremely possible that such a distinguished scholar as Dr. Donaldson, the learned author of the New Cratylus, would be excluded in consequence of his original researches in early Jewish history; the effect, in short, would be to shut out those great original minds from the highest rewards of the University, whom its best friends should wish to become identified with it. He appealed to the noble Lord (Lord Stanley), Member for King's Lynn, as a member of the University and of the same college to which he himself belonged, and attached to it by the same affectionate recollections, would he wish men of the most original research and European reputation to be altogether excluded from having a principal place in these colleges, and could he deny that this was likely to be the result if these statutes should become law? He was quite certain the noble Lord would do this question justice; at all events, he hoped all those hon. Members who wished to see in the Universities a fair field open to all, and no

  1059
  favour, would support him, in case of a division to prevent these statutes becoming law.
  MR. BAINESseconded the Motion. He regretted that, from a miscalculation as to the time the division on the preceding Motion was likely to last, he had lost the opportunity of presenting three petitions in favour of the Motion from the town of Cambridge—two from members of Dissenting congregations—complaining of the statutes of the University requiring the attendance of students twice at chapel on a Sunday, thereby preventing them from attending their own places of worship; also of the statutes of St. John's College excluding Dissenters from fellowships, while they were threatened to be excluded from fellowships in Trinity College. The statutes alluded to in the Motion of the hon. Member for Westmeath seemed to him to be a retrograde step in the march of enlightened and liberal legislation. Parliament had admitted Dissenters of every name to seats in that House, to the bench of justice, to municipal corporations, and the Act of 1856 was expressly intended to admit Dissenters to the University of Cambridge. They were admitted to take degrees, but excluded from those fair rewards of learning and merit to which others, being Churchmen, were admitted. If the position of a fellow was one which gave ecclesiastical power, or function, or office in the University in which education for ecclesiastical purposes was distinctly intended, he should not seek that it should be enjoyed by Dissenters; but he did ask that Dissenters might be permitted to enjoy those fellowships which were left in ancient times as a reward of learning and merit, and which were not connected with any ecclesiastical function or office. He need scarcely remind the House that the Dissenters who were excluded by these statutes, taking the population of the United Kingdom, constituted the larger part of the nation. It was not for the benefit of Cambridge or of the country that so large a part of the population should be excluded from the attainment of the honours and emoluments of learning and merit; it was only for the benefit of the religious sect exercising it that this monopoly was established and sought to be maintained. The restrictions and disqualifications to which he had referred were in the nature of pains and penalties for holding a certain religious belief. He thought the day had gone by when pains
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  and penalties for religious belief could be enacted or continued in this country; yet it was proposed that a new test should be established by two of our principal colleges, which would inflict pains and penalties on the larger part of the people of England. It ought to be known that the declaration originally required from the fellows of St. John's was not that they were members of the Church of England; it was this,—that they would embrace from their heart the true religion of Christ, follow the authority of Christ before that of man, and seek from it their rule of life. Here there was nothing whatever in favour either of one or another body of Christians; but from the time of James I. it had been impossible for Dissenters to take degrees at the University until 1856; and it was by being excluded from degrees that they were shut out from the honours and emoluments which were the rewards of distinction; but, surely, when an Act of Parliament passed to remove the former of these disqualifications, it ought to remove the latter too. If Dissenters were allowed to compete for wranglers, and obtained high positions, as some of them had done, in the Tripos, surely they ought afterwards to be allowed to compete for those emoluments which were one of the inducements to enter the University. He trusted the spirit of that House would be altogether adverse to that retrograde step it was now sought to take, and that, acting on the principles of liberal legislation, which especially on the subject of education had recently prevailed, they would accede to the Motion. By so doing the}' would remove one more cause of irritation between Dissenters and Churchmen, and break down one more barrier in the way of that unity and cordiality of feeling which ought to exist between all classes of Her Majesty's subjects. In that hope he seconded the Motion.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,—
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to withhold Her consent from certain portions of the Statutes of Trinity and St. John's Colleges, Cambridge, now before Parliament, relating to the compulsory ordination of the College Master, the compulsory celibacy of the Senior Fellows, the removal of Fellows who may have openly seceded from the Church of England, the filling up of the vacant places in the Seniority by the Master and the remaining Seniors, and the delegating to the Master and Seniors exclusively all rules respecting the attendance of the Undergraduates who are not members of the Church of England at the College Chapel; and that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to give such

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  directions as to Her may seem fit, to refer the above-mentioned Statutes to the Cambridge University Commissioners.
  LORD STANLEYsaid, that as lie was the only one of the Commissioners appointed under the Act of 1856 for the University of Cambridge who had the honour of a seat in that House, it might be desirable that he should give a brief explanation on the points referred to in the present Motion. Neither the Colleges nor the members of the Commission had any reason to complain of the manner in which the subject had been brought before the House. If discontent existed in the minds of any class of the community in consequence of what had been done, or if a misunderstanding prevailed, as appeared from the speeches of the hon. Mover and Seconder to be the case, it was expedient that it should, if possible, be removed, and that the House should judge whether any cause of complaint existed or no. With regard to the most important point touched upon by those hon. Gentlemen, namely, the exclusion from fellowships in Trinity and St. John's Colleges of persons who were not members of the Church of England, it was not necessary to vindicate the Conduct of the Commissioners, for the plain reason that the matter was one in which they whose duties were defined by the Act of 1856 had no legal power or jurisdiction whatever. That Act removed all disabilities upon persons obtaining degrees; it opened scholarships and exhibitions, and enabled undergraduates to enjoy emoluments without any profession of religious opinion; but it did not repeal that part of the Act of Uniformity, by which all persons taking fellowships wore required to belong to the Church of England. If the hon. Member wished to raise the question of opening the fellowships to Dissenters—which be (Lord Stanley) would hardly advise him to do—he should therefore introduce a Bill into that House for the purpose. Parliament had imposed the restriction, and Parliament alone could remove it. With regard to the removal of Fellows who might have seceded from the Established Church, the House would probably think that Parliament having expressly confined the fellowships, wisely or unwisely, to members of the Church of England, it was necessary that the College Statutes should provide some means of declaring that, when a Fellow had ceased to fulfil the condition on which his appointment rested, the appointment itself should determine.
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  The mode of procedure pointed out by the new statutes was less likely to lead to arbitrary removal than that which previously existed, because he imagined that formerly any Fellow taking a step implying secession from the Church of England might have been proceeded against for heresy, and on that ground deprived. If the present tenure of the office, as dependent on church-membership, was to continue—and the Commissioners certainly had no power to alter it—it seemed desirable that the law should be enforced in the mildest manner possible, and not be liable to be abused for purposes of intolerance. Accordingly, under the new statutes the loss of his fellowship was made to depend entirely on the voluntary and deliberate act of the person seceding from the Established Church. It was, as far as it went, a relaxation of the existing rule. With respect to the other points touched upon by the hon. Member, it should be remembered that the Cambridge Commissioners were not invested with absolute or unlimited authority to make statutes either for the University or for the colleges. He, for one, did not complain of that, he did not wish that larger powers should have been granted, but it should be borne in mind when considering the statutes as finally passed, that they did not embody the unmodified views and wishes of the Commissioners, but were the result of negotiations with the governing bodies of the various colleges, ending, as such negotiation almost invariably did, in a compromise by which many reforms were carried and some abandoned. The Act constituting the Cambridge Commission provided that no statute should have the force of law unless it had the assent- of two-thirds of the governing body of the college which it affected. In those governing bodies the ecclesiastical element was predominant; and considerable disinclination was evinced by them to accept changes that appeared to them to wear the form of innovations, especially when pressed upon them by external authority. His own individual opinion was, that the college master should not necessarily be in holy orders, but that it should be left optional with those who elected him to choose a layman or a clergyman. Indeed, that was the view put forward by the Commissioners in the Minute of July 1857, with which they opened their negotiations with the various Colleges; and the same principle was repeated in the draught of the statutes

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  afterwards sent down to the governing bodies, both of Trinity and St. John's. The feeling of those bodies was, however, almost universally opposed to it; and, finding there was not the slightest chance of the adoption of the measure in its original form, the Commissioners reluctantly withdrew it in order to carry other reforms which they deemed of more importance. Even had they succeeded, the assertion of such a principle in the case of colleges like St. John's would have been more of an abstract than a practical success, because, the governing body being opposed to having even the option of electing a layman, they would not have been likely to exercise that option in favour of a layman had they possessed it. This was an instance in which the Commissioners had thought it safer and more prudent to give way. Two other points touched upon by the present Motion—namely, first, the filling up of vacant places in the seniority by the master and the remaining seniors; and secondly, the compulsory celibacy of the senior fellows, wore matters of detail connected with the internal administration of the colleges, and did not seem to him to involve any important question, calling for the interference of that House. The hon. Member complained of the filling up of the vacant places in the seniority by the master and the remaining seniors; but he did not indicate in what other way he would have the vacancies filled up. The Commissioners found that the practice was an ancient one, and were not aware that there were any objections to its continuance. It was a system of succession by seniority, as a general rule, with exceptions in the case of any grave defect; and a power of exception so invidious and so repugnant to the feelings of men living together and forming a society of their own, they might be sure would never be exercised without the strongest and most urgent reasons. The Commissioners had proposed considerable relaxations in regard to the compulsory celibacy of the senior fellows, but succeeded in carrying only a portion of them. The governing bodies, it was found, were most anxious to retain the rule as it stood; and the reason, good or bad, which was put forward why members of their body should not be married men was, that men who had families to provide for would be apt, as had been shown in other cases where corporate property was concerned, to look to their
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  life interest in the college property rather than to its permanent improvement. As to compulsory attendance in chapel, the proposition originally made by the Commissioners was to give a right of non-attendance at chapel in cases where conscientious objections were entertained. But he was sorry to say that of all the propositions which were submitted by the Commission none had raised so strong a spirit of opposition as that. He was bound, however, to say on behalf of the Colleges that he did not think their objection, as a general rule, was based upon any wish to compel the attendance of those who bad scruples of conscience about doing so; and he did not believe it would be the intention of any College to exclude Dissenters by any provision of that kind. They objected to be compelled to exempt them from attendance, but they did not object so to exempt them, if the power were left with themselves. It was clearly stated in the Act of 1856 that no person should be required on taking a degree, or obtaining a scholarship, exhibition, or any other college emolument, to make or subscribe any declaration of religious opinion and belief. There was a distinction, of course, between attendance in chapel and signing a declaration; but he had no hesitation in saying that if any such attendance were enforced in the case of scholars where conscientious objections were felt, it would be contrary to the spirit and intention, if not to the letter, of the Act passed by that House. In the case of pensioners there was no effectual power of interfering with the conduct of Colleges, for the plain reason that it was optional with Colleges to take or refuse any person who presented himself as a pensioner; and therefore, if they wished to exclude any one not of the Church of England, they might refuse him admission in the first instance, not assigning any reason. There appeared to the Commissioners not the remotest prospect of carrying their proposal as to attendance in chapel as originally framed, and they were therefore very reluctantly, as far as he and, he believed, others of their number were concerned, led to modify it so far as to delegate to the masters and seniors the power of granting dispensation, but to leave the matter in their discretion. He would repeat that, as to the question of fellowships the Commissioners had no power of acting at all; that subject could only be dealt with by the Legislature it-

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  self. The two statutes respecting the compulsory celibacy of senior fellows and the filling up of vacancies in the seniority by the master and remaining seniors, were scarcely questions of sufficient moment to call for legislative interference. The other two matters referred to by the hon. Member who made the Motion, lay within a narrower compass, and might no doubt, be considered as involving a question of principle. He had stated his opinion upon those points, and he must leave it in the hands of the House to take what course they thought fit. For his own part, looking at the statutes as a whole, and considering the compromise come to between the Commissioners and the Colleges, he felt bound by the arrangements then entered into, and must vote against the Motion if it were persisted in. He did not think any good would be attained by merely referring the statutes in question back again to the University Commissioners. All the Commissioners could do, would be to send down their original proposals upon those points to the Colleges, and knowing what the feeling of the Colleges was, he had no doubt their answer would be that their opinion remained unchanged, and that they would not be responsible for the changes proposed. He would advise the hon. Member (Mr. Pollard-Urquhart), as the functions of the Commission expired at the close of the year, and as the legislation both for the colleges and university would by that time be completed, to wait till the whole of the new legislation on the subject was before the House; and then, if it appeared insufficient or to require amendment in regard to any of the points he had referred to, let the changes be effected by the direct authority of the Legislature. The Commissioners had not accomplished all that they wished, but they had brought about considerable changes; they had been met on the whole in a fair spirit, they had come to an arrangement on the chief subjects in dispute, and therefore, as to the present Motion, he felt that, as one of the Commissioners, he should be breaking faith with the Colleges if he were to acquiesce in it.
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, he hoped the House would pause before it interfered with the proceedings of the Commission ers. Parliament had delegated to the Commissioners certain powers. Those powers were to be exercised by the Colleges in the first instance with reference to the statutes which they might have
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  to propose, or any alteration of the statutes which they might have to recommend. If those powers were not exercised by the Colleges, then it was for the Commissioners to suggest such statutes as they thought the Colleges might with propriety adopt. If the statutes were settled between the Colleges and the Commissioners, or the Commissioners accepted the statutes of the Colleges, it was thought by Parliament that, instead of bringing all those matters under discussion again, they would be more likely to be well settled by leaving the Colleges and Commissioners to mutual action. Parliament also required that the statutes should be laid on the table of both Houses, in order that either House, within forty days afterwards, might address the Crown, if they thought any provisions of the Act of Parliament had been evaded. Those forty days had, in fact, expired, still he did not take exception to that expiration but for these two purposes—first, to point out the inconvenience of leaving the Colleges with uncertain statutes, when nothing was more desirable than that the Colleges and Universities should know the statutes on which they were to act at the earliest possible moment; and, second, to point out that the latter part of the Motion could not be complied with, because there was no power to send back statutes to the Commissioners with any specific direction. As soon as the forty days had expired the power of dealing with these Statutes remained in the Crown, and in the Crown alone. The Crown no doubt had power to approve, and, by implication, power to disapprove. It was thus intended that it should be left to the Crown to determine whether action should be taken in reference to complaints either against the statutes framed by the Colleges, or by the Commissioners. The hon. Gentleman would recollect that there was some discussion on the Oxford Statutes when they were framed by the Commissioners, and then it was thought, by both sides of the House that it would be most inconvenient for Parliament to interfere; most inconvenient, because nothing could lead to greater embarrassment after delegating all these powers to the Colleges and Commissioners, to reopen questions which had been settled after great deliberation, much discussion, and mutual concessions. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. P. Urquhart) seemed to think that the provisions which had been made with refer-

  1067
  ence to the two great colleges, Trinity and St. John, were not, as regards religious matter in strict accordance with the intentions of the Legislature; but, if he would look at the Act of Parliament, he would see that the limits were carefully determined, beyond which the Commissioners could not go. The Legislature had said that university education should be open to all classes of Her Majesty's subjects, whatever might be their religious opinions, and, in order to insure it, there was inserted in both of the Acts of Parliament, the power of founding what were called private halls in Oxford and hostels in Cambridge. This was done that all persons who did not agree with the Church of England might have the fullest benefit of university education. But this provision did not extend to Colleges. For to go beyond that, and to say that the Colleges should admit within their walls, not merely for purposes of education, but to enable them to receive the emoluments of colleges endowed for a different purpose, or to take a part in the government of the Colleges which necessarily followed a fellowship being conferred. Those persons whose religious opinions did not concur with the intention of the founder, was not consistent with the Act of Parliament. Those matters were expressly brought before Parliament, expressly discussed, and expressly negatived. Therefore it would be inconvenient by an Address to the Crown to interfere with that which the Legislature itself had already deliberately determined. He trusted, however, he should be pardoned for making one or two observations on the points suggested by the Motion. As to the requirement that the masters should be in holy orders, it was much discussed between the Commissioners and the Colleges, and he believed he might say that the general opinion of both those great institutions, Trinity and St. John's, was that to dispense with such requirement would be detrimental and contrary to the original intentions of the founders. With regard to the celibacy of the fellows, the hon. Gentleman would remember that that point was much discussed and debated between the Commissioners and the Colleges. The different Colleges took different views on it, but the grounds upon which Trinity and St. John decided against admitting married Fellows were so strong in themselves as to demonstrate the propriety of celibacy being enforced as a qualification,
  1068
  if they wished to have a constant succession of energetic and able men, instead of allowing married gentlemen to hold fellowships, to the detriment of those whose anxious ambition was to get those emoluments and distinctions. Moreover, he did not know how the government of the colleges was to go on if they did away with celibacy to any great extent, for their good government depended as much on having the tutors and authorities resident in the college as on any other circumstance. There might be some Colleges which would desire to take a different view, but, if so, that is a matter which had better be left for themselves to determine. With regard to the last point to which the hon. Gentleman adverted, the attendance of students, who were not members of the Church of England, at chapel, he would remind the House that there was really no compulsory attendance upon chapel. It was left to the governing body of the college to decide whether that attendance should be required or not; and he put it to any Gentleman whether any institution could go on if it were in the power of any person to say—"I will belong to your institution; but I will not comply with your regulations." The hon. Gentleman must know from his own experience of Trinity College, to which they both had the honour to belong, that compulsory attendance was not necessarily required when reasonable grounds for dispensing with that attendance might be alleged; and it was only within the last six months that the son of a member of the Jewish persuasion, well known in that House, had gone to Trinity for the sake of the benefits therein to be derived, and attendance at chapel was dispensed with in his case without a murmur and without debate. In conclusion, he would only say that though there had been differences between the University and the Commissioners, and between the Colleges and the Commissioners, yet by the good feeling which all parties had manifested, those differences had been allayed; and he therefore entreated the House to leave to the Commissioners, together with the Colleges, the discharge of the duties with which Parliament had intrusted them; and he felt no doubt that they would make such regulations and statutes as would best extend the benefits of the education given by the University, and best promote the interests of all classes of Her Majesty's subjects.
  MR. BRISCOEremarked, that he should best support the principles involved in the Motion, by advising his hon. Friend not to press it to a division.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he wished to refer to the position of this Motion upon their Order-book. The House had just decided that the grant to Maynooth should be continued. Now, that was a grant for the benefit of the Roman Catholic clergy exclusively. Immediately after that decision of the House, a Roman Catholic Gentleman rises, and not content with the ranking of liberal professions [Mr. P. URQUHART: I am not a Catholic]—well, then, he would merely say this—he trusted that the House would not be induced by any Member, whatever may be his faith, to invade the rights of these colleges, which were seminaries for the education of the clergy of the Church of England, immediately after it had consented to continue an exclusive grant to the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth. At that moment there was going on in Ireland an agitation to break up the Queen's Colleges in that country, in which there was no religious test. Patience has its limits; and the members of the Church of England, both in and out of the House, might depend on this—if the friends of the Church of England were not more watchful, the interests of that Church would be sacrificed.
  MR. POLLARD-URQUHARTsaid, that in rising to ask leave to withdraw his Motion, he wished to thank the noble Lord, the Member for King's Lynn, (Lord Stanley) for the liberal support which he had given it.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  House resumed.
  House adjourned at half after Eight o'clock.

MINUTES.
Sat First in Parliament.—The Lord Londesborough—after the Death of his Father.
Took the Oath—The Lord Skene.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Probate and Administration (India).

CENTRAL ITALY. SAVOY.

  MOTION FOR PAPERS.
  THE MARQUESS OF NORMANBY—who had given notice of Motion for the Instructions given by the Secretary of State to Her Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Florence, directing him to attend the official reception of Signor Buoncompagni, and subsequently of a Motion for a return of the dates of all communications between the Secretary of State and Her Majesty's Ambassador at Paris, from the accession to office of the present Ministry—said, that
  1002
  in introducing the subject of his Motion, he thought it his duty to show the close connection between the Notice that he first gave, and that which he added last night. His first Motion referred to the line taken by the English Government in reference to the provisional ruler of Florence, and it was his intention to have called their Lordships' attention to that very extraordinary act in exemplification of the system pursued during the last few months by Her Majesty's Government as partizans of one particular settlement of the difficulty in regard to the affairs of Central Italy. Their advocacy of that particular settlement was in direct opposition to the course of conduct pursued by the Emperor of the French. But on that subject he would not dwell. He wished to call their Lordships' attention to another circumstance, which had become known since he last called their Lordships' attention to the Italian question—namely, a statement given, as he believed, on the authority of Count Walewski, that certain proceedings had taken place relative to the annexation of Savoy, subsequent to those mentioned by his noble Friend, the Foreign Secretary, in the explanation which he had given in the other House of Parliament, and declaring that the explanation of his noble Friend, though correct as far as it went, was incomplete. Noble Lords opposite need be under no alarm that anything he would say could prejudice the course they were now pursuing. He appealed to their Lordships whether, notwithstanding what had passed in the other House, any complaint could be made against him for bringing this subject forward now. The subject was one to which he had already adverted, and he took some credit to himself when he said it was a question on which he felt most deeply. On Friday last, under somewhat inauspicious circumstances, he put a question to his noble Friend opposite (Earl Granville) as to an impression universally prevalent in Paris, that the whole of the case, as regarded Savoy, had not been stated to the British Parliament. He then observed that the general impression prevalent on the Continent, and in diplomatic circles on this matter, was confirmed by a letter to which publicity had been given in a French newspaper. His noble Friend might sneer at anonymous communications in newspapers; but when he did so, he was indulging in a dream of the past, and adverting to a state of things which no longer existed. In every great European State,

  1003
  it was now the practice to make important communications to the newspapers, particularly was it so on the part of our nearest neighbour here in question, and only within the last six weeks a great European Congress was officially declared to have been postponed on account of an anonymous pamphlet. But, in respect to the letter to which allusion was now made, his noble Friend must be was well aware as he was, that it was reputed to rest on the authority of Count Walewski himself. When he referred to the subject on Friday, he had not the newspaper beside him in which the letter appeared, and could only state substantially, and in a few words, the general effect of what appeared in that very remarkable document. He would now read to their Lordships at length the very words of the letter:—
  "Lord John Russell stated last week in the House of Commons that the English Cabinet, desiring to know the intentions of the French Government with regard to Savoy, Count Walewski had declared to them, in the month of July last, that the Emperor and his Government did not think of the annexation of that country to France. This communication of Lord John Russell was quite exact. But to make known all the truth, that the attitude of France with regard to Savoy should be properly appreciated, the noble Lord might have said, and perhaps ought to have said, more… The declarations of Count Walewski were, then, perfectly true; but it is equally certain that later on, when events had considerably changed the situation of Italy, the Government of the Emperor saw in these eventualities new necessities, new duties for France. Count Walewski then held quite another language, and declared that if the Central States of Italy were annexed to Piedmont, France would be obliged to claim Savoy and the county of Nice. Count Walewski told Lord Cowley, that if the English Government did not desire to see the annexation of Savoy to France, they had only to cease urging the annexation of Central Italy to Piedmont, but the one rendered the other inevitable. Lord John Russell was not ignorant of these resolutions, so frankly declared by the French Government; and it is a subject of surprise that he stopped at the Month of July in the explanations that he communicated to Parliament on a subject that has preoccupied public attention so much. However, the despatches of Lord Cowley cannot fail to be in one of the first volumes of the blue-book, which will be furnished to the English Parliament."
  Now he was very much afraid that Count Walewski would be disappointed in the expectation that any such explanations as he spoke of would be found in the blue-book. It had been assumed by the noble Lord that conversations might have taken place between Count Walewski and the English Ambassador on these matters, but that they had never assumed an official
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  character. Now he maintained—and he would appeal for confirmation to those noble Lords who had the same acquaintance with diplomatic proceedings as he had himself—that in all European countries when a communication was made by a Foreign Minister to the Ambassador of another country on any public question, whether verbally or otherwise, it by its very nature became official, and that any departure from that rule was a departure from the established usages followed in diplomatic intercourse. Did their Lordships not see what monstrous abuses might spring from these private and confidential communications being considered unofficial? And was such a course not at variance with all our recognized constitutional doctrines, and dangerous to all our international relations? Such a departure from the established usage was unjust to the Foreign Minister who made communications verbally to the Ambassador in the expectation that what he stated would be put into an official shape. It would, moreover, place the Foreign Secretary beyond the pale of official responsibility; and not only this, he would say that, in order to have perfect identity of opinion on questions of foreign policy, the Members of the Cabinet should be aware of all that had passed, and it was therefore unfair to his colleagues if anything was kept back by the Foreign Secretary. The usual practice was that everything in the shape of a public despatch was circulated for the information of the Cabinet; but private letters were generally communicated only to the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister, and the Leader of the House in which the latter did not happen to be. That, at all events, was the practice which had been adopted by the Government of Lord Melbourne, of which he (the Marquess of Normanby) had the honour to be a Member. If that course were not observed, many things which arose during the recess would have occurred without the knowledge of the noble Lord's colleagues. It was a good old rule to have an official record of every diplomatic transaction, and one which he thought ought to be usefully observed. The letter which he had just read to their Lordships was strangely at variance with any appearance of sincerity and completeness in the statement which had been made by the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He must say that he did not understand the change of policy which seemed

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  to have taken place with respect to the Italian question as indicated by the speech of the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary at Aberdeen, which was the first communication to the public after the despatches received at the end of the month of June. In these they were distinctly told that everything in Central Italy was purely provisional. But in the speech which he had made at Aberdeen, the noble Lord stated that the people of Central Italy had conducted themselves with perfect order, as if they were citizens of a country which had long been free. He should like to know where his noble Friend got that information. They might have conducted themselves as citizens of a country which had long been free, but they could not have conducted themselves as citizens of a country which was any longer free, inasmuch as not one of the Governors of the different parts of Central Italy had been chosen by popular election. They were all nominated by a new method of shuffling the cards, putting the same persons into different positions in the Piedmontese Government, and the people had no choice in the matter. Had they liberty of speech there? It was well known that Signor Farini, the Governor of the Romagna, has issued a proclamation announcing that any person who adhered to the old regime would be visited with the pains of high treason. Had they freedom of the press there? On the contrary, the censorship was substantially in force throughout all the new Governments. Had they liberty of person? He could prove to their Lordships that not hundreds, but thousands, of the citizens were now imprisoned on account of their loyalty. One word with respect to the way in which the new Governments were appointed. They would recollect that the King of Sardinia, acting in conformity with that treaty by which he was so great a gainer, recalled his Royal Commissioners from the Governments of Central Italy. Thus Signor Buoncompagni was recalled from Tuscany as the King's Commissioner; but he had not long returned to his own country till he was sent back again by the Prince Carignan, though he was very far, indeed, from being the object of the popular choice. In the same way Signor Farini was recalled; but though they recalled Farini the Commissioner, they reappointed Farini the Dictator. Then let their Lordships turn to Parma, where Count Palieri had been appointed Commissioner. It
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  might have been supposed that when the old Government retired, he would have have called the citizens together, and asked what was next to be done. Not a bit of it; but of his own accord he appointed Signor Manfredi, his Private Secretary, the Commissioner of the neighbouring state of Modena, and when the Commissioners were recalled, Manfredi came to Parma as Governor, but after a few days Farini appeared as Governor of both Provinces, appointed by Manfredi to Modena. And all these things were done by proclamations—the people were never consulted on any one of them. Their Lordships would perhaps allow him to go into some detail as to the acts of these new Governments. Everybody knew the character of the Duchess of Parma—how much she had done for her people, and how beloved she was among them, insomuch that on a former occasion, when her Government was overthrown by a popular tumult, she was restored to her throne by the spontaneous action of the people themselves. In the late transactions she might have held her place, for there were many brave hearts devoted to her, but she would not allow her troops to fire upon the people. One regiment of 900 resolute men, under the command of Major Bouzi, was prepared to act, and the tumultuous mob snowed no disposition to face them; when upon their approaching the town after the departure of the Duchess, General Scotti conveyed to Major Bouzi a message from the Duchess, ordering them not to fire, as the Duchess would prefer to suffer anything rather than her troops to fire upon the people for whom she had done so much. On receiving the message, Major Bouzi came to an agreement with the commander of the popular party, and agreed that his regiment should lay down their arms and enter the city, on condition that their safety should be guaranteed. This was agreed to by the leaders of the mob; but no sooner were they within the gates than Major Bousi was fired at, and as the pistol-shot grazed his head he was stabbed, and for two hours he was dragged through the streets of the town with every mark of indignity, and thrown into a dungeon more dead than alive. All the officers received similar treatment, and none of them were allowed to go out of prison, except on condition that they would join the popular army. Was all this concealed from his noble Friend the Foreign Secre-

  1007
  tary? If it was, where was his information? If it was not, how could he tell the people of Aberdeen that the Italians had conducted themselves as citizens of a country that had long been free? He wished now to refer to the fate of Colonel Anviti for the sake of correcting one or two errors that had gone abroad on that subject. Count Anviti did not go of his own accord to Parma, nor was it true that he was generally unpopular there. In the year 1855 his life had been attempted by a secret society there, and the person guilty of that attempt was tried and executed. He was travelling from Bologna, and at a particular place, where the railroad was broken, he was recognized by the brother of the man who had been executed for attempting his life. He was obliged, in consequence of that unfortunate occurrence, to go into the town, and there the unhappy man was seized and dragged through the streets for five hours, murdered with horrible cruelty, and his body mangled after death, without the slightest attempt having been made to rescue him by any person in authority; and from that time to this, in spite of the high-sounding-proclamations which had been put forth, not a single person had been put on his trial for that horrible outrage. All that happened during the regime of one of the new Governments of Central Italy, the people of which, according to his noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, had conducted themselves with perfect order, as if they were the citizens of a country which had long been free. But suppose there had been order, he contended that that proved nothing. In the French Revolution of 1848, they all knew that perfect order was maintained up to June; and at Rome, the same thing happened till Count Rossi was assassinated. In fact, nothing was easier than to control the mob in the first days of a revolution; but that proved nothing as to its future character. He (the Marquess of Normanby) read to their Lordships on the first day of the Session a letter from a Tuscan gentleman of the highest respectability. He had since heard from that gentleman, who said: "You will not be surprised that that letter has been made the ground of violent abuse. Why I cannot tell you, because it contained an exact description of the truth." He would read a letter which he had received a few days ago from an English merchant of the first considertion at Leghorn. That gentleman said:—
  1008
  "Intervention is prohibited in Tuscany, but, my Lord, intervention exists everywhere, and armed foreign intervention. The Governor-General is Piedmontese, the Minister of War is Piedmontese, the Commander of the Gendarmerie is Piedmontese, the Military Governor of Leghorn is Piedmontese, the Captain of the Port is Piedmontese; besides a great many others of the same nation occupying other responsible positions. This I consider armed foreign intervention. Let this be removed, and let the despotic pressure of the present Government be taken away, and I believe that the country would vote in a large majority for the restoration of the dynasty of Lorraine. I believe nearly the whole army to be in favour of the Grand Duke which is now kept out of Tuscany; and certainly two-thirds of the National Guard are for the Grand Duke. All the Powers have been neutral here, in as far as not taking part in ceremonies or in acknowledging the present Government. Since the peace of Villafranca the British agents have assisted at all ceremonies and balls."
  Surely the recognition of that Government was not in accordance with the assurance that was given last Session by the noble Lord at the head of the Foreign Department. His informant went on to say that,—
  "The troops are dispersed out of Tuscany—the people are afraid to make a great demonstration—they know that for one word the prisons are ready to receive them. Private meetings have been held at Leghorn by influential persons, and some members of the National Assembly. A public meeting is impossible. The convocation of the Assembly was requested by twenty-three members, and refused. At these private meetings it was decided that Ferdinand IV. should be received with a constitution and an amnesty. The people have been grossly deceived from the beginning, all promises have been broken, the price of food has been raised, and the national debt enormously augmented."
  Although some of those facts might have been withheld from the noble Lord, still he must have known some of them when he directed the English representative to attend Signor Buoncompagni's reception. He (the Marquess of Normanby) had referred, on a former evening, to a remarkable work written by Signor Ampèri, a most distinguished man, originally a refugee from the Romagna on account of certain disturbances that had occurred in that district, who addressed the new Government of Central Italy in the following terms:—
  "You must have been induced by the false position you have created for yourselves to consent in these times (which you call those of liberty, but which are not so) that perversions of the truth should be made a means of government. You transformed the answer of Victor Emanuel that he would advocate before the great Powers the vote of the Tuscan Assembly, which had adopted him as their King, into a positive acceptance; and, in order to persuade the ignorant multitude,

  1009
  you ordered public rejoicings in honour of that which you know was not a fact. You declared yourselves Ministers of a King who had never appointed you. You administer the Government in his name. You pass sentence in his name. You pledge the public faith to one who has not given you any authority for such a purpose; and though it is through you that you force the Tuscans to recognize him as King, you are the first to show a mark of disrespect which destroys his prestige, by imposing upon him the choice of a regent, which you have no right to do if he is the King, and whom you had no right to nominate on his behalf if he is not."
  Having pointed out the actual condition of the Tuscan Government, it was hardly necessary to allude to the particular person who had been selected for the favour of the noble Lord at the head of the Foreign Department of this country. They had all heard of Signor Buoncompagni—his name was a kind of by-word and reproach in Italy on account of his treachery in a profession which, above and beyond all others, required the strictest honour and good faith. The kind of estimation in which he was held had been well described by a noble Lord in the course of last Session. Signor Buoncompagni was nominated Commissioner-General for the King of Sardinia. He was recalled, and an offer of the Regency was then made to Prince Carignan, and then, strange to say, Prince Carignan, who had nothing to do with Tuscany, while refusing the regency, appointed or nominated Signor Buoncompagni as Governor-General. As had been shown, that appointment caused great indignation in Florence, and even Liberal members of the Assembly protested against it; but still the English Secretary of State desired Her Majesty's representative to attend an official reception of Signor Buoncompagni, to whom he was not accredited. He (the Marquess of Normanby) believed that it was an established point of diplomatic etiquette that that should not be done. He had not forgotten the lesson he received the other night from the noble Earl opposite upon the inexpediency of giving autobiographical details in the House; but where events were analagous a comparison was sometimes useful. He was Ambassador in Paris in 1848, when the revolution broke out: but, after the revolution, he remained there unofficially, having no regular communication with any member of the Provisional Government, and was personally acquainted only with M. Lamartine. When the National Assembly was convoked, M. Lamartine sent to him and to other members of the corps
  1010
  diplomatique a sort of invitation to attend the ceremony. He consulted with his colleagues and with the Government at home; it was universally agreed by them that not being accredited to the Government, and, with their assent, he declined to attend the opening of the Assembly in his official capacity. The Foreign Secretary of that day was Lord Palmerston, and the Prime Minister was Lord J. Russell. The actors had now changed their parts, but they were the same men who approved his conduct in 1848; and, therefore, he wished to know what there was peculiar in the position of Signor Buoncompagni to make him a special exception to what had hitherto been a universal practice. He regretted very much the present position of our Foreign Office. When the present Government entered upon office England was maintaining a dignified attitude of perfect neutrality, and professions were made of a determination to continue in the same course. But soon came the chimerical idea of a great kingdom in Central Italy, and the Government pursued it in their own utter ignorance—he meant ignorance of the wants, the wishes, and the prejudices of the people in the different States of Italy. The Emperor of the French, having entered into certain engagements with Austria, was very creditably desirous of fulfilling them; but it seemed that the noble Lords whom he had mentioned thought by showing favour to those factious Governments to overreach the Emperor. They had given to the Emperor of the French a reason, or, at all events, an excuse, for a course of proceeding which had excited universal reprobation in this country. Such he took to be the position of the Italian question. He was anxious that the papers for which he had moved should be produced, because he could not comprehend, in spite of the explanations which had been offered elsewhere, when the communications on the subject to which he had drawn attention were received by Her Majesty's Government. It was a painful duty to dispel the illusions which still existed in the public mind of England respecting Italy. He had, however, endeavoured to discharge that duty by bringing before Parliament information which he had received from trustworthy sources, and he was glad to believe that at last some glimmer of light was breaking from the cloud of prejudice and ignorance, and that there was now a greater prospect of the establish-

  1011
  ment of Italian independence on legitimate foundations, freed from all foreign interposition, and so as to promote the cause of loyalty, truth, good faith, and good order. The noble Marquess concluded by moving: First—
  "That an bumble Address be presented to Her Majesty for, Copy of any Instructions from the Secretary of State to Her Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Florence, who is not accredited to the Provisional Government there, directing him to attend the official Reception on the 1st of January of Signor Buoncompagni, now acting as Governor-General of Tuscany, having been nominated as such by Prince Carignan of Savoy without any subsequent popular Sanction on the Part of the Tuscan People."
  And second—
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty for, Return of the Dates of all Communications between the Secretary of State and Her Majesty's Ambassador at Paris, on the Subject of the Annexation of Savoy and Nice to France, from the Accession to Office of the present Ministry up to this Time."
  EARL GRANVILLEwas happy to say that he did not think it had ever before been his lot to be accused of want of courtesy in that House. That, however, did not diminish his regret to find the noble Marquess now complaining of his want of courtesy on a former occasion. As far as he could remember, not a single word fell from him which could bear out such a charge; but if he had unintentionally erred in this way, either as to manner or tone, he was very sorry, for he should lament much if anything he spoke or wrote should evince a want of consideration towards one with whom he had had both diplomatic and personal relations. With regard to the Motion of the noble Marquess, it was almost without precedent, if not irregular, to call for the production of Correspondence which the Government had stated it would not be for the public service at present to produce. At the same time he (Earl Granville) had not the slightest objection to the particular return for which the noble Marquess had moved as an addendum, for the dates of the communications respecting the annexation of Savoy, from the accession to office of the present Government. But the noble Marquess had laid great stress upon a letter in the Indépendence Beige, coming, he said, from Count Walewski, the statements of which, he thought, were inconsistent with the statements made in this and the other House of Parliament. Now, the statement he (Earl Granville) had made was, that there was no official communication between the two Governments
  1012
  during a certain time, but he had not denied that there might have passed communications, in private conversation, between the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and the English Minister at the French Court. The noble Marquess had made an assertion that no communications could pass between a Minister of Foreign Affairs and an Ambassador without being official. That he (Earl Granville) entirely denied. Between men who had long known each other and who stood in these relations there were frequent conversations and arguments which bore no official character. He had been informed by his noble Friend the Foreign Secretary that in looking back to his private correspondence he found a private letter from Earl Cowley detailing a private conversation with Count Walewski upon different phases of the Italian question, and containing, as an obiter dictum, an allusion to a contingency which was declared in the despatches to be quite impossible. He (Earl Granville) thought, that after official communications had taken place on this subject in more than one despatch, after an announcement had been made respecting it in Parliament, and after a satisfactory assurance had been received that the question had dropped, his noble Friend was quite justified in taking no notice of a private conversation, which Earl Cowley believed it unnecessary to embody in a despatch. It was useless, then, for his noble Friend to give an official form to a matter which seemed at that time at rest. That was all he (Earl Granville) had to say on this part of the subject. But the noble Marquess went on to move for
  "A copy of any instructions from the Secretary of State to Her Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Florence, who is not accredited to the Provisional Government there, directing him to attend the official reception on the 1st of January of Signor Buoncompagni, now acting as Governor-General of Tuscany, having been nominated as such by Prince Carignan of Savoy, without any subsequent sanction on the part of the Tuscan people."
  Then, profiting by this Motion, the noble Marquess had gone into the same sort of general charge against the whole Italian people, which he indulged the House with on almost every occasion he could. Now, he wished to ask the noble Marquess on what authority did he claim to advance these vague accusations? The noble Marquess had had sufficient Parliamentary experience to be aware that—although private letters to himself, filled with every

  1013
  sort of assertion in detail, might help to confirm some particular opinions of his own, and might perhaps afford to himself matters of some interest and amusement, yet in a public assembly like that, discussing grave public questions, on which they had a certain bias of opinion, very little importance could be attached to weak translations and quotations from private letters—the House not knowing the names of the writers, or what personal motives they might have for thus sending them to be communicated there by the organ of the noble Marquess. It was really childish to think that the British Parliament would be influenced by such unauthorized communications as those. When, therefore, the noble Marquess asked whether the Government knew all that, he having read all those statements from his private letters, he scarcely knew what to say to him; but this he would say, that a collection of tales of that description had been given to Her Majesty's Government, and that Her Majesty's Government did thereupon inquire into the truth of them, and found there was no foundation for them whatever. It was of course impossible—it would be contrary to human nature—to suppose that, in such very peculiar times as these, a golden age could be existing in Italy—that there should be absolutely no offences committed amongst the populace, and that the Government on no occasion should have committed any fault; but from all that he had heard, and from the authentic information sent to Her Majesty's Government by our officials abroad, on their public responsibility, he must say that he believed on the whole the condition of Central Italy was remarkable, especially if it were contrasted with the state of things in 1848—that it was most remarkable at present for the general order and peace, and for the general satisfaction which reigned there. The noble Marquess would have done better to have postponed the discussions on these points till the papers which were last night laid before the House of Commons should have been presented also to their Lordships' House. He would there have seen that although Mr. Corbett pointed out certain things in which he thought the Government of Florence had been wrong, and other things on which the feelings of the people had flowed in this direction or in that, yet the general inference from those despatches was that there never were elections carried on with more order and regularity than those for
  1014
  the return of the Tuscan Assembly; and the result, be it remembered, was that that Assembly was composed of the men most remarkable in the country, by their birth, their property, their scientific, literary, or industrial qualifications. He (Earl Granville) really thought it was hardly necessary, as the papers had not yet been put into their Lordships' hands, to go further into this question. The noble Marquess had spoken of the "ignorance" prevailing among public men on the Italian question; but when he was complaining of want of courtesy towards himself, he thought he might have refrained himself from applying such a term to the most experienced statesmen of the present day. But to give the House some little idea of the value of the information which the noble Marquess himself possessed, he would ask upon what grounds did the noble Marquess suppose that such a despatch as that for which he had moved really existed? He (Earl Granville) believed that no such despatch existed. The only thing at all bearing upon the matter was a despatch, which would be found among the papers now printed, directing Mr. Corbett to treat Signor Buoncompagni exactly in the same unofficial way in which he had previously treated Baron Ricasoli. Now, from the abuse lavished by the noble Marquess on Signor Buoncompagni—abuse which, in speaking of the actual head of a Government to which we wished well, in every sense of the word, might better have been avoided—he (Earl Granville) did not understand whether or not the noble Marquess thought that Her Majesty's Government and Mr. Corbett ought to have made a difference between Signor Buoncompagni and Baron Ricasoli. But he thought nothing could have been more foolish or wrong than to do so. The principle on which Her Majesty's Government had proceeded was that of sending a person to act as chargé d'affaires at Florence, giving him orders to hold only unofficial communications with the de facto Government of the day; and nothing would have been so foolish as for him or for the British Government to enter into the claims of any one particular person, and to discuss whether that person really was the head of the Government or not. The simple rule was to take the state of affairs as they found it. Whether or not Mr. Corbett had throughout acted wisely and judiciously, and in strict compliance with diplomatic usages, he (Earl Granville) would not discuss,

  1015
  but certainly Mr. Corbett had done well in showing friendly attention to those who were actually carrying on the Government at Florence. The noble Marquess, however, had quoted from his anonymous correspondence a complaint that the English chargé d'affaires was the only one who had exhibited any civility of that sort. But he (Earl Granville) found in these papers a case somewhat similar, namely, that when the Assembly met, there, in the tribune allotted to the corps diplomatique, appeared not only the English and Sardinian, but also the French representative. Some of the other matters alluded to by the noble Marquess, which he found in his correspondence, were of such a kind that, at all events, no information of them whatever had reached any single individual except himself in this country. Now, he (Earl Granville) did implore their Lordships not to be led away by such representations. It would indeed be madness to suppose that there would not be some offences given and some faults committed by any Governments placed in such a peculiar position as those of Central Italy were; but he repeated that the general state of the country was most satisfactory, whether with regard to the good order that was preserved, or the wishes exhibited by the people. As for the general charge made by the noble Marquess against Her Majesty's Government, that, whereas the late Government left this country in a very high position at the beginning of the war, Her Majesty's present Government had now entirely lost that position through their partizan feeling in favour of the annexation to Sardinia—if the noble Marquess would look at the papers now produced, he might there see that from the beginning the attitude of Her Majesty's Government had been anything but that of the partizan of any particular scheme. He would see, for instance, that when that very distinguished man, whose death was so much deplored, the Marquis Lajatico, came to London, Her Majesty's Government refused to receive him in a diplomatic capacity, but that in conversations with him Lord John Russell endeavoured to impress upon him the reasons why it seemed to Her Majesty's Government desirable that the Tuscans should recall the hereditary Grand Duke. After that, when the future Government to be adopted was under discussion, Her Majesty's Government still refused to give any opinion, but merely stated that they would respect the
  1016
  wishes of the Italians. And if there were latterly one or two despatches in which the advantages of the annexation were urged, they were urged chiefly because it was known to be the expressed wish of Central Italy to be so annexed; and the despatches then merely added some other arguments which would naturally suggest themselves with regard to the forming of a larger kingdom, for the sake of the Italians protecting their own independence. But even on that occasion it would be seen that his noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs intimated that the approval of Her Majesty's Government was always open to any other arrangement satisfactory to the people. Instead, then, of the course pursued by Her Majesty's Government having brought us on the Continent into that deplorable position which the noble Marquess supposed, he (Earl Granville) believed that the influence of England on this Italian question had increased, and was still greatly increasing; and he admitted that this was owing to no merit of the present Government, except that of having followed a disinterested course, and one in unison with the wishes of the Italian people, and one in which he felt they were supported by the great majority of the people of this country. With regard to Austria, indeed, it could not be expected that the policy Her Majesty's Government thought right should be entirely pleasing to Austria, since Austria and England started from such different points of view as to everything that could regulate Italian policy. But, at the same time, these despatches showed—and, indeed, Her Majesty's Ministers had directly expressed the same to the Austrian Government—that although in Italy these subjects of disagreement still remained, it was the strong wish of Her Majesty's Government to see the power of Austria consolidated, so as to make her continue what she had been—an important element in the European equilibrium. And as for the people of Italy themselves, he was quite sure that, notwithstanding that we were no party to the war last year, which they hailed with so much enthusiasm, they still appreciated the attitude which we had since adopted with regard to them; and it was impossible not to see that they looked up to us as a model of free Government. The people of England, he was equally certain, felt grateful to Her Majesty's Ministers for having shown, in their name, a judicious sympathy with the people of

  1017
  Italy, so far as to protest against any forcible intervention from without, and to claim that the Italians themselves should be left to settle their own affairs, whilst we abstained from any engagement that could fetter our action hereafter. He was borne out, therefore, by public opinion in thus repudiating the charges which the noble Marquess had brought, with so much strong language, against Her Majesty's Government.
  THE MARQUESS OF NORMANBYsaid, that the grounds on which he supposed a despatch relating to the attendance of the British chargé d' affaires really existed was that Mr. Corbett had distinctly stated that he had done so, in consequence of the instructions he had received.
  THE EARL OF MALMESBURY: My Lords, the noble Earl has complained that on the Motion of the noble Marquess, your Lordships' House has been more than once, and more than twice, occupied with this question during the present Session of Parliament. If however the noble President of the Council has become wearied and impatient at the frequent observations and criticisms of the noble Marquess, I think that is very much to be laid at the door of the Government themselves. It is very much their fault that these repeated conversations take place, and that these repeated appeals are made from this side of the House; because they have imparted to us no information, at least only by bits and scraps; sometimes there is a speech in the other House, sometimes a few words in this; sometimes an official document in the Moniteur; sometimes an announcement in Reuter's telegraph; sometimes we have asked questions and sometimes we have moved for Returns: and out of this confused mass we have had to try to extract something like the truth of what has taken place during the last six months in Italy. Without wishing to glorify the Government to which I had the honour to belong, I may say that was not the case when we were in power. I beg your Lordships to recollect that just on the eve of my leaving office I presented to your Lordships a collected and full statement of the correspondence that had taken place on the affairs of Italy, between the 1st of January and the end of May. But from that moment up to this we have only had, as far as I have seen, one or two despatches published by the noble Lord now at the head of Foreign Affairs soon after he came into office, which were confined
  1018
  to a correspondence with the Prussian Government; and since that time we have received nothing official from Her Majesty's Government on the subject. It is, therefore, realty the fault of the Government that these frequent conversations have taken place. My Lords, a great deal of misrepresentation has taken place with respect to persons and with respect to things in this great controversy on this question. And no one person has been more misrepresented than myself. I have been—I suppose for some party purpose—held up in this House as a partizan of Austria and a constant supporter of Austrian tyranny in Italy, and yet on your Lordships' table I laid, a paper, the very first of the Government to which I belonged, written as early as the beginning of January, 1859, on the 12th of that month, in which I stated positively and categorically to Austria that in no case would England assist her in her military occupation of Italy. In the face of that I have been accused of being partial to that Government, and wishing her success as against Italian liberty and independence, whilst we threw every posssible difficulty in the path of Prance. Our object was to establish and maintain a bonâ fide neutrality in regard to Italy. I knew, and my Colleagues knew, that such was the wish of the English people; and I felt myself that, up to the moment we left office, we had maintained that wish. If I had done what was asserted I should judge, from the displeasure shown both by France and Austria, that the anger of both had evinced that we had not favoured either the one or the other. I believe, although many events have since occurred, that no circumstances have transpired which would have justified Her Majesty's Government in departing from the principle of noninterference; but I am apprehensive—although I have not seen the papers presented, at last, to the other House, and I feel, of course, great diffidence on the subject—but, from all that we have heard, and that has been said by the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the other House, I am apprehensive that that strict impartiality and neutrality, and that system of non-interference, that was commenced by the late Government has not been persisted in by the present. I fear that that noble Lord has not carried out the principles he enunciated and maintained in his speech at Aberdeen. If it be true that, expressing

  1019
  strongly their opinion that a kingdom should be formed in Northern Italy composed of those united Provinces that have now rejected their former Sovereigns, and if, believing this to be the best policy, the Government have forced it or urged it upon France, and if in consequence France has used it as a reason and a pretext for carrying out an object which she appears for a time to have abandoned—if that is the "logic of the facts," and believing the Emperor of the French's argument to be true, then such a consummation—the loss of Savoy to Piedmont and its annexation to France—rests on the head of Her Majesty's Government. Indeed, it is the first fruits they have gathered of the consequence of abandoning the principle of non-interference which they first espoused and first professed to follow, and the fruits to be reaped from which may be far more bitter if they persistently continue in that course. Every man has a right to his opinions on these subjects, and the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, it appears, is, that a strong Government should be formed in Northern Italy. I have the greatest respect for the experience, the abilities, and the judgment of many noble Lords opposite and of their colleagues in the House of Commons, but that is not, in my opinion, the real way to give strength and peace to the Italian people. I conclude that they wish—what I wish and what I believe every man in this country wishes—that Italy should be a free and independent nation, that she should be strong enough to resist aggression, and to take her proper place among the other nations of Europe. But I do not think that the scheme proposed is the best scheme for arriving at such a consummation; and my Lords, I will tell you why. If the strong kingdom to be found in Northern Italy is to comprise the union of the Duchies of Tuscany and Parma, and the Romagna, to Piedmont, and if that has for its consequences the annexation of Savoy to France, how can the northern kingdom, or Northern Italy, be a strong kingdom in a military or strategic point of view? It would, in reality, be open at both ends—it would be exposed at both extremities. France would hold the key of the Alps in Savoy, and Austria would hold the key of Northern Italy on the Mincio. Italy in herself would have no protection at all from the north and from the east, and we all know that the geographical formation of Italy makes it difficult to
  1020
  defend it in a military point of view, unless she is in possession of enormous forces. The very shape of Italy, taking the entire country from the top of the boot to the foot, would necessitate its having a navy almost as large as England has to protect her against foreign aggression. Its natural configuration exposes its armies, however strong, to be turned in the flank or rear by sea, and if in addition to that it has the doors of the Alps open at both ends, it is palpable that it cannot be a strong country or one capable of being strongly protected. I do not believe that it is in that kind of strength it must look for its protection. Looking at the character of the Italians, at the divided sovereignties it has possessed for ages, at the different feelings that prevail, and the different dialects that are spoken, I believe Italy would be strong as a nation of confederated States—neutralized, and therefore free, of course, from the interference of the foreigner—and that if thus confederated together they would form what might be called a strong nation. I say so because I believe that constituted into such a kingdom as Her Majesty's Government propose it would only be strong enough to give offence, but too weak to protect itself. Although these are my private opinions as differing from those of Her Majesty's Government, let it not be supposed for a moment that I wish to urge them upon Italy. I would not do so even were I a Minister of the Crown at this moment—unless, indeed, I had official authority to do so, and the people demanded it on the part of those States in my Ministerial capacity. My Lords, let us, in God's name, leave Italy to make its own arrangements and work out its own independence. Let us not interfere or commit ourselves. If Her Majesty's Government have any power and influence over the Emperor of the French, let them induce him to withdraw his army from Italy. In what has been foreshadowed I only see France substituted for Austria—a consummation that I foresaw and denounced more than a year ago. With respect to the smaller matter brought before us by the noble Marquess, the compliment paid to Signor Buoncampagni—I agree with the noble Marquess in regretting that any mark of respect, which was not a very evidently necessary one, should have been paid to that individual. I am no prude in politics. I am not at all disposed to be severe on the ambitious or on any display of party feeling; and if any

  1021
  man ever carried illusions of a Quixotic or chivalrous nature with reference to the generosity of nations and of governments into the midday of life, and it happened that that gentleman happened to reside at the Foreign Office for six months, I will answer for it that they would he expelled. I have no such illusions whatever, but yet I must say there is a line beyond which the greatest indulgence cannot be extended. In the earliest ages it was ascertained that even the divine maxims of the Christian religion were not sufficient to keep society together, and there was a code of honour established by man himself to assist the code of morality; and if nations deal with nations, and erect a code of honour, it is impossible, without its rules being properly observed, that official relations should be properly maintained, and if not, the whole state of society must become one of disruption. I will remind you—and I have excellent authority for what I say—what Signor Buoncompagni did. He stood in the high, and I may almost say sacred character of Minister from the King of Sardinia to a friendly Sovereign, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and it appears by the evidence of Mr. Scarlett, our own Minister at Florence, that this person was one if not the most active of the conspirators in bringing about the revolution in Tuscany, and in hurling from his throne the Sovereign of that State. To English minds this seems incredible and almost inconceivable. Suppose for a moment that the Sardinian or any other foreign Minister at the British Court should be discovered conspiring with Irish agitators, or any foreign band of conspirators, not only to break the law, but actually to drive the Sovereign from the throne—would it not be looked upon as perfectly incredible? But this was really the case in Tuscany, and before the ink was dry that signed away the Grand Duke's power over his subjects, that gentleman, Signor Buoncompagni, who had been accredited by the King of Sardinia as Minister to the Grand Duke, sat almost in his place, inasmuch as he was one of the commission who managed the Duchy. Now revolution is revolution. We do not expect it to be created without great and extraordinary causes; but that is no reason why you should connect yourself with those who took part in them even in the most indirect way, or pay them useless or unnecessary compliments. I cannot therefore, any more than the noble Marquess, understand why our
  1022
  chargé d'affaires went, though apparently without orders, in his official character and in his official dress, to the levée of M. Buoncompagni. If he went without orders, of course these remarks on the Government go for nothing; but there is not one of your Lordships who will be of opinion that with respect to public morality, and in other views of the question, it was right. I have only one word to say with regard to Savoy, and that is to express my surprise at the fact of a more complete statement not having been made to the House on that scheme. Considering the footing which I am glad to see the noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government has established with the Emperor of the French, it appears to me that they ought to he perfectly clear and well informed on the subject. Does the Emperor of the French mean, or does he not mean the annexation of Savoy to France? The question is a short and easy one to ask, and for His Majesty it ought to be an easy one to answer. I do not understand by what process the difficulties have taken place. Her Majesty's late Government, when they had an inkling of this scheme, lost no time in putting the categorical question. The answer Lord Cowley, he believed, gave when the inquiry was put was, that he had no idea of it at all; and, if I recollect the language of Lord Cowley, he said that not only was there no treaty, but that there was no intention to conclude such a treaty. It was quite evident that Lord Cowley did not believe that any such intention was seriously entertained, and then the matter dropped. But it appears that Her Majesty's Government have since had communications with the French Government, and that some proposals have been made respecting the annexation of Savoy. It appears that we have not the papers yet; but what we want to know is, what is the impression of Her Majesty's Government in regard to this matter; if they have had no answer from His Majesty's Government, we can pretty well judge for ourselves whether such a consummation is likely to take place. The matter is of the greatest European importance, because it gives to France the gates of Italy as well as Savoy. It is a question of such importance that Her Majesty's Government must have formed some opinion upon the subject, and unless the noble Lord says at once that it is not for the public benefit, I think we ought to press on him, and

  1023
  expect an answer on this most important point.
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEsaid, he would beg leave to remind the noble Earl (the Earl of Malmesbury) of the forbearance which was exhibited to himself and the Government of which he was a member last year, when, at a most critical moment they had no particular reason for trusting the noble Earl's management of these matters, the Opposition forbore not only from moving for any papers, but also from originating any discussions, for which many persons were most anxious. The noble Earl, like the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Normanby) had mixed up two questions which he did not believe had any necessary connection with each other—for he had assumed the annexation of Savoy to France, to be part and parcel of the annexation of the liberated States of Central Italy to Piedmont. No such connection existed; and although unfortunately the possible contingency of the annexation of Savoy to France had been admitted into discussion by the Sardinian and French Government, he did not believe any such scheme would be carried out; but he believed, and strongly hoped and trusted, that the consolidation of a strong Italian Government, by the liberated Duchies would be accomplished. The feeling of the country was very strong against the one proposal, and very much in favour of the other. The noble Marquess had blamed the Ministry for having given too great a moral support to Signor Buoncompagni at Florence. But as his noble Friend, the Lord President, had well said, it was not the person that was in question, but the Government. As the noble Marquess was fond of referring to his own autobiography, he would upon this point remind him of the support which in 1848 he, as British Ambassador at Paris, gave to M. de Lamartine, at a time when other members of the Provisional Government of France were doing things and holding language of which no loyal Englishman could approve. It was right to afford support to M. de Lamartine at that moment, because he was rendering services to the cause of humanity and to Europe, which would better secure his immortality, even than would his writings; and for the same reason, so far from blaming Her Majesty's Government for what they had done towards recognizing and strengthening the Provisional Governments of Italy, he (the Marquess of Clanricarde) was only disposed to censure them for not having gone
  1024
  so far as they might in support of Governments, which, in his opinion, were entitled to the admiration of Europe. He confessed that he had listened with extreme pain to the speeches delivered both in the last and the present year by the noble Marquess. There were few Englishmen who would have spoken as the noble Marquess had done with reference to the struggles of the Italians against the most despotic and oppressive Governments which ever afflicted a civilized people; and his belief was that the noble Marquess's information was as incorrect as his political reasoning was erroneous. This he asserted confidently, not only upon authority of the highest kind, but also from what the noble Marquess himself relied upon, personal observation and personal knowledge. The noble Marquess said, that he had long resided in Florence, and was well acquainted with Tuscany; but their Lordships knew that a resident in a country who was attached to a particular clique or party, who adopted their views and lived with them, was often infinitely less informed about what was really going on in the country than might be a stranger, who, if actuated by a thirst for information, could often, in the course of a short casual visit, find out a great deal of which the other had no knowledge. Such we had found to be the case with regard to India; and it was made especially manifest in the instance in which Directors of the East India Company, who had resided in India for twenty years, denied the existence of the torture which was discovered and proved by Mr. Danby Seymour during a visit to that country of only six months. The ignorance of the noble Marquess—to use his own terms—was, he believed, as great as that of the East India Directors. The statements as to Milan were, he asserted, totally erroneous. For many years that city had not been in so happy and contented a state as it was at present; and if there was a little less gaiety than usual, it ought not to be forgotten that for two years there had been a failure in the crops of wine and silk. It might be true, as the noble Marquess said, that the taxation had been increased 15 per cent; but why did he not inform their Lordships what was its amount in Venetia, under the government of that country, from whose rule—for it was really the rule not of the Grand-Dukes, but of Austria—the people of Central Italy had emancipated themselves? The taxation in that country—it was so called by Austria, but it would be termed

  1025
  confiscation by every other civilized people—amounted to 130, and in some instances, for it was levied capriciously, to 200 per cent; that was, people were charged with, taxes infinitely greater in amount than their yearly income, and their property was sold to raise these enormous imposts. What did their Lordships think of taxing a man more than his yearly income? There was but one word for it, and that was "confiscation." One might suppose, from what had fallen from the noble Marquess, that the people of Northern Italy only wished that their former benign Governments should be restored to them; but to that statement he gave the most direct and flat contradiction. [The Marquess of NORMANBY: I said no such thing.] At all events, the noble Marquess said there was great discontent under the present system, particularly at Milan. He (the Marquess of Clanricarde) had witnessed the Reform agitation, and some contested elections, and he had lately been present at a demonstration in Italy; and never had he witnessed before, among all classes of the people, such enthusiasm, unanimity, order, and happiness as at Milan during a demonstration there of popular feeling. It was all very well to say that a stranger might have been deceived; but a person coming from a free country might generally be supposed to know something of popular demonstrations, and could easily collect from his intercourse with different parties whether their sentiments were real or not. He had also visited Parma, and here he must say he was sorry the noble Marquess should have thought it necessary to bring into discussion the conduct of the late ruler of those countries. For his own part, he had reason to know that, with the exception of a few persons attached to the Royal household, by whom the departure of the Ducal family was regretted, there was but one feeling of anxiety among persons of wealth and respectability, to get rid of the system of government under which they had hitherto lived. He warned the noble Marquess that there were documents in existence the signatures to which could not be denied, and which, if laid before their Lordships, would not redound to the honour of the Princes who had been removed from the thrones of Italy. What was the so-called Papal Government in Bologna and Romagna, and how had it been carried on? It was notoriously a Government under which life and property were not secure
  1026
  from the rapacity of Austrian commanders and the pillage of Austrian soldiers; while, on the other hand, it offered no protection from the banditti and malefactors of the country. It was a Government under which several young men, under twenty-one years of age, were shot one morning for ordinary delinquencies. What would be thought of a Government under which a man was shot by Austrian soldiers for having stolen four baiocchi (about 2d.,) and whose sentence recited that he had committed a simple act of robbery unarmed? The fact was that Austria, and not the Pope, had governed Bologna. He was as anxious as any one for the maintenance of the Pope as a temporal Sovereign. He was aware that a great number of good Catholics thought it would be better if the Pope were not a temporal Sovereign at all. Looking, however, to the state of the Christian world, and of Europe, it was his deliberate and well-considered opinion that it is most desirable for Europe, and for those rulers who had Protestant subjects, that the Pope should occupy an independent position as a temporal Sovereign. Austria, however, had been more anxious than ever had been Sardinia to obtain possession of Papal territory, and had filched from the Pope a portion of his States: He was deeply concerned that there should be so much delay in settling the Italian question. He asked their Lordships to consider the position in which the Provisional Governments in Italy were now placed, and to see the importance of a strong Government being established as speedily as possible in that country. The movement that had been going on in Central Italy was under the control of the most influential and wealthy men, and was sympathized in by all who had an interest in the establishment of peace. He defied the noble Marquess to produce at that table a list of men in Tuscany and Bologna who would form a better selection of representatives than that which the Assembly contained. He held in his hand a list of 169 representatives, among whom were to be found not only many of the old historical names, but the most distinguished of modern times. The list comprised two Princes, twenty-nine Marquises and Counts, twelve Knights, six men of high military rank, twelve professors and men of learning, four ecclesiastical dignitaries, four judges, and so on. The Provisional Government had a very difficult part to perform. They had not only to encounter those who

  1027
  favoured the return of the Dukes, but also the Revolutionary party, with whom it would be extremely difficult to deal, unless there was the speedy prospect of a strong and free Government being established. They had been told by France and Sardinia that they must be exceedingly quiet and cautious in all their movements. If the people of Italy had been told to remain as they had done for six months, and that at the end of it they might be assured of their liberties being secured to them, he could have understood it; but everything was left vague and indefinite, and he feared that unless a speedy settlement was arrived at, there was great danger of a renewal of the war. He cautioned the Governments of France and England that if great care was not taken there would be a renewal of the war. Austria was now constantly sending recruits to the army in the Papal territory; and he had heard it said that not fewer than 800 men had been despatched at one time from Trieste to Ancona. That, if true, appeared to him to be an infraction of the neutrality which had been agreed upon. He had thought it right to make these remarks, because he considered the Provisional Government of Italy and the people of Italy had been most unfairly treated by the noble Marquess. His noble Friend might now go from one end of that country to the other, and walk about the towns at all hours in a great deal more safety than he could ever have done while it was under the Austrian rule. The noble Marquess in his zeal for the Grand Duke of Tuscany seemed to forget all that had passed in 1848. When the Grand Duke was expelled by the revolution in 1848, he was recalled by the party now in power; he gave in his adhesion to the state of things then adopted, and pledged himself solemnly to administer the Constitution which was then established, and the first thing he did was to strike a medal in honour of the persons who established it. But he afterwards forfeited every pledge he had given as soon as he found himself supported by the arms of Austria, and totally abolished the Constitution. He believed that the Grand Duke, had he proved faithful to the Constitution, would have been most acceptable to the Italians. The question now was, whether there was to be for ever bad or good Government in Central Italy, and he trusted the Italians—and that without loss of time—would be permitted freely to institute the form of
  1028
  government which would be most pleasing to themselves.
  EARL GRANVILLEwas understood to explain that the despatches which had been recently received from Earl Cowley made no allusion to any territorial acquisitions on the part of the French Government.
  THE EARL OF CARDIGANthought that nothing could be more desirable than that Her Majesty's Government should endeavour to prevail on the Emperor of the French to withdraw his army from Northern Italy. But the case of the occupation of Rome by French troops stood on different grounds; and he believed that before one hour elapsed after the withdrawal of those troops the lives of the Pope and the Cardinals would be in the greatest peril. The noble Earl, the President of the Council would bear him out when he said that the Government of the Pope and the Cardinals, as it was constituted in Rome, was of so hateful, arbitrary, and intolerable a nature, that there was none more unpopular, and that to leave it without the support of French troops would be to endanger the safety of all the authorities there—unless, indeed, the French were to be replaced by Austrian troops.
  THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, their Lordships need not be under the least apprehension that he was going to follow, much less reply to, the very discursive speech of the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Clanricarde). He concurred with the noble Earl, the President of the Council, that, the papers having been laid on the table of both Houses of Parliament only on the previous evening, any further discussion of the question raised by his noble Friend would be premature. But certainly it would not be desirable to enter into the various topics which the noble Marquess opposite had imported into his speech, including allusions to the biography of some of the Princes and statesmen of Italy, to his own early reminiscences of the time when he presided over an institution of the friends of civil and religious liberty, to the history of the old Catholic Association, and to the language held by the disciples of Dr. Cullen—topics by which he had to a considerable extent amused and enlightened their Lordships. He (the Earl of Derby), not having been in Italy for thirty-eight years, and not being possessed of that twenty years' experience which, according to the noble Marquess opposite,

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  was necessary to make a man ignorant; nor, on the other hand, having made that quick transit through a country by which one suddenly became acquainted with all the circumstances of which twenty years' residence made a person ignorant, he should certainly not attempt to express any opinion as to the personal character of the gentlemen whose names had been introduced into the debate, nor to discuss the merits of the different Assemblies.
  "Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites."
  This, however, he would say, that the Italian topic was becoming day by day more important, and it probably might be necessary in the course of the present Session to discuss in a more deliberate manner the state of Central Italy. He was afraid events there were acquiring alarming importance, and he thought their Lordships' attention should be steadily directed to the country. But, while deprecating at that moment any further discussion, he was anxious to ask the noble Earl opposite a few questions. In the first place, would the noble Earl inform the House whether the papers that had been laid on the table would contain the latest information which the Government were enabled to afford on one of the subjects—and that the most important one—to which the noble Marquess had directed attention? If those papers would contain the latest information on the subject of the supposed intention to annex Savoy to the French dominions, he (the Earl of Derby) had not another word to say, and he would wait their appearance. On the other hand, if they would not include that information, he must take the liberty to ask whether the noble Earl would afford any information to the House with regard to the present intentions of the Emperor of the French as to the annexation of Savoy, and the light in which Her Majesty's Ministers regarded that policy. If the noble Earl was unable to give that information, he (the Earl of Derby) was compelled to tell him that the irresistible conclusion would be either that the noble Earl and his colleagues had not dealt very ingenuously with that and the other House of Parliament, or that they had been kept in a state of ignorance and consequently deceived as to the intentions which our Imperial Ally entertained on the subject in question. The answer recently given in both Houses of Parliament was to the effect that in the month of July last Her Majesty's Go-
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  vernment had a communication with the Government of the Emperor of the French, and had been assured that there was no intention to propose or suggest the annexation of Savoy to France. Her Majesty's Government went on to inform their Lordships that they had intimated to the French Government that such a project would meet with their entire disapprobation. Was it or was it not true that since July, and previous to that question having been put and answered in both Houses of Parliament, a further communication had been received from the French Government that an alteration of opinion had taken place on the part of the Emperor of the French? If there had been such a subsequent correspondence, he (the Earl of Derby) was compelled, however painfully, to say that the Government, in giving the answer they did, merely referring to earlier communications, gave an answer which, though true to the letter, at the same time left both Houses of Parliament under an erroneous impression on a matter of the deepest importance. If, on the other hand, when the Government gave that answer, they were still under the impression that the Emperor of the French adhered to the views expressed in July last, but that since then they had ascertained from conversation, or otherwise, that a different opinion prevailed which had been concealed from them, then he thought it was a most unfortunate state of feeling, and the relations between the two countries were very different from the state of perfect confidence and harmony which it was the boast of the present Government to have established. He thought, therefore, Parliament was entitled to ask whether Her Majesty's Government had any reason to believe that there had been any change of views on the part of the French Government since July last with regard to the annexation of Savoy; whether any communications had been made to them upon the subject, and whether they had expressed their opinions upon the annexation. If the noble Earl should say that negotiations were still going on and that the correspondence had not been concluded, he (the Earl of Derby) had not a word further to say, but would wait the production of that correspondence for an explanation of the course that had been pursued. But he would entreat the House to mark the position in which they now stood. Her Majesty's Government had given them no information on the subject of a later date

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  than the month of July; and the correspondence, when it is prod need, would tell their Lordships whether, when they gave that answer they had in their possession communications of a later date, showing that that correspondence had been again renewed. The foreign journals, who were under strict control, and would not be allowed to discuss the question without the sanction of their Government, made no scruple in treating of the annexation as virtually decided upon. He did not ask the Government to say whether that was the case, but he hoped they would take the earliest opportunity of telling us the substance of any information they may have received, and we can then judge what might have been done if we had had the information sooner. The other and much less important question which he had to put was only to ascertain whether he had correctly understood the noble Earl. The Motion of the noble Marquess was for
  "Copies of any instructions from the Secretary of State to Her Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Florence, who is not accredited to the Provisional Government there, directing him to attend the official reception on the 1st of January of Signor Buoncompagni, now acting as Governor General of Tuscany."
  He understood the noble Earl (Earl Granville) to say that no despatch had been written instructing Mr. Corbett as to the course he should pursue; but what the House ought to know was, what were the real facts. Did Mr. Corbett officially attend at a public reception of M. Buoncompagni, to whom he was not accredited by the Government? Did he take a course different to that taken by other Ministers residing at that Court? Was he in possession of the views and wishes of Her Majesty's Government before doing so? And if he had received no instructions, but acted upon his own responsibility, did Her Majesty's Government subsequently signify their approval of his conduct? He (the Earl of Derby) did not intend to enter into the question of whether the course taken was a correct one or not, although he had a strong opinion upon that point; but he wished to know what were the real facts.
  EARL GRANVILLE,in reply to the first, question of the noble Earl, said he had last week stated the most recent answer of the French Government, and he had also stated that negotiations were still proceeding between the Governments upon the subject, and that therefore he could
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  not produce the papers. In answer to the second question, he had only to state that no other instructions were given to Mr. Corbett by the Government than a direction that if M. Buoncompagni should come to Florence as the head of the Government, he should be treated with every respect and in the same way as other Ministers did.
  THE EARL OF DERBYthought that when such general instructions were given to Mr. Corbett, the Government could not say they had given no instructions to that gentleman with respect to his official reception; and it was still more impossible that the Foreign Office could be ignorant of a fact so significant in diplomacy as whether the representative of England had attended, in an official capacity, the public reception of a gentleman at the head of a Government to which he was not accredited. If they had received information of the fact, he wished to know whether or not they bad approved of his conduct?
  LORD WODEHOUSEthought the noble Earl had assumed too much. Did Mr. Corbett attend in an official capacity? He could not have attended in such capacity, because he had no credentials. That gentleman's position was simply this:—When the Grand Duke retired, the noble Earl who was then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (the Earl of Malmesbury) instructed Mr. Scarlett to maintain, not "official," but "officious" relations with the Provisional Government. When the present Government came into office they were of opinion that it was unnecessary to retain Mr. Scarlett there, and accordingly they directed the Minister to leave, and that Mr. Corbett, the Secretary of Legation, should remain in the same "officious" capacity as Mr. Scarlett had been. There was no official character attaching to him at Florence, and no act which he could do would involve the recognition of any Government there by Her Majesty's Government. As his noble Friend (Earl Granville) had stated, it would have been undesirable for the Government to inquire into the source or nature of the authority of M. Buoncompagni, since their real position was one of officious relations with the authority for the time being, no matter how it had been established, if it was established for the preservation of peace and order. The noble Earl had expressed astonishment that the Foreign Office should not have been informed of the prodigious event of Mr. Corbett's at-

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  tending Signor Buoncompagni's reception. Speaking from memory, he might say that Mr. Corbett did not report that circumstance; but, if he had done so, no very grave importance could have been attached to it. Whether he was right in going at all was of no consequence, as he was acting under instructions placing him only in an officious position; and he (Lord Wodehouse) ventured to say that no authority could be produced to show that a person so placed could, by attending an official reception, compromise his Government to the recognition of any other Government.
  THE EARL OF MALMESBURYthought the noble Lord had not answered the question whether other Ministers attended officially. The noble Lord must know that an official reception compromised any gentleman in the position of Mr. Corbett if he attended it at all. If Mr. Corbett did attend that official reception without instructions, he (the Earl of Malmesbury) could only say that that gentleman committed an act which must be called extremely "officious" in another sense.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHsaid he could not understand how the correspondence respecting the suggested annexation of Savoy and Nice came to be confined to the Governments of England, France, and Sardinia. Our interest in the matter must be shared by every other European Power; in fact, our interest is not so immediate as that of some other Powers. He questioned the right of the King of Sardinia to give Savoy to France without the consent of all the Powers which gave Savoy to his House. Let their Lordships remember the position of the House of Savoy before the Treaties of 1815. The King only retained possession of Sardinia, and that under the protection of our fleets; but the treaties restored him to his ancient dominions, and added to them Genoa, for the especial purpose of making Sardinia stronger, and preventing that influence of France over Italy which had been so injuriously exercised in former times. Any attempt on the part of the King of Sardinia to yield Savoy to France without the consent of the Powers which gave it to him would be an act of treachery to them, and, further, would be an act of treachery to the people of the Central States of Italy, who had shown such confidence in him as to desire him to be their ruler. Savoy was the frontier of Italy. All those Italian States, which at
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  no distant period expected to be united to Piedmont, were as deeply interested in the continued possession of Savoy and Nice by Piedmont as was the King of Sardinia himself. It was, indeed, stated that Piacenza was to be given to the King of Sardinia, and they were told much of the strategical importance of that place; but Savoy and Nice are strategically much more important than Piacenza; and, indeed, if the King of Sardinia had the option of having all Tuscany and giving up Savoy and Nice, or of keeping Savoy and Nice without having Tuscany, he would, if he understood his own position, without hesitation keep Savoy and Nice. This was not the occasion on which to enter fully into the subject, but he felt most deeply with regard to it, and he did hope that at no distant period their Lordships would be afforded a regular opportunity of expressing their opinions.
  THE MARQUESS OF NORMANBYsaid, that, agreeing, as had been stated, on both sides, that this discussion should not now be prolonged, he would detain their Lordships by a few words only in reply. He accepted the assurance of his noble Friend (Earl Granville) that no discourtesy was intended on Friday last. The noble Earl was mistaken in thinking he asserted positively that the letter in question was written by Count Walewski. What he did say was, that the letter bore internal evidence that its contents must have been communicated from Count Walewski. He must next condole the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Clanricarde) on the failure of his well-prepared attack. It must have caused the noble Marquess some pains to examine so very carefully into his (the Marquess of Normanby's) despatches in 1848, and try to establish a discrepancy between his present objection and his declaration then, that he thought M. Lamartine deserved all the support which Her Majesty's Government could give. Put in saying this he intended to raise no question of the recognition of the Provisional Government; and, therefore, the noble Marquess had fallen into what, in his own country, would be called a blunder, and, in the country which he had been lately visiting, a fiasco. With regard to the reception which Mr. Corbett had attended, it should be remembered that a reception on New Year's-day bore on the Continent a peculiarly official character. The French chargé de affaires, it seemed, wrote to his own Government to ask

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  whether he should attend it; and it was understood at Florence that he had a reply in the negative. It was very unusual that, under such circumstances, the British representative should have been present, and it was still more extraordinary if the British Government had not been informed of it.
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEsaid, that the expression he had quoted was not contained in any despatches, but in the Diary written by the noble Marquess.
  THE MARQUESS OF NORMANBYsaid, that whether despatch, diary or biography, his noble Friend's object was to establish a case of inconsistency; and he thought that he had established to the satisfaction of all, even of the noble Marquess, that no such inconsistency had been found to exist.
  Motion for Address for Instructions, &c. (by leave of the House), withdrawn.
  Motion for Address for Return of Dates, &c, agreed to.
  House adjourned at a quarter past Eight o'clock, to Thursday next, half-past Ten o'clock.