Sitting of 26 June 1860

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1° Heritable Securities, &c., (Scotland); Refreshment Houses and Wine Licences (Scotland); Local Government
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Act Amendment; Corrupt Practices at Elections; Militia.
2° Sale of Gas Act Amendment (No. 2.)

TENURE AND IMPROVEMENT OF LAND (IRELAND) BILL.—COMMITTEE.
Order for Committee read.
House in Committee.
Clause 21 agreed to.
Clause 22 (Maintenance of Improvements.)
MR. BUTTsaid he wished to inquire of the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Deasy) whether it was intended that the annuity charge, created for improvements under the Bill, should take precedence of all previous incumbrances, for such he apprehended was at present the effect of the clause. He would move that the word "first" be omitted.
MR. DEASYsaid, that such was not the intention with which the clause was drawn. The object of the Government was to enable landowners to raise money for the improvement of their estates, and it would not be doing them a kindness to alarm the existing incumbrancers. By the omission of a single word, any apparent ambiguity might be removed.
MR. LONGFIELDsaid, he thought it would be necessary to give the annuity precedence, otherwise persons would not be willing to advance their money for making the improvements which might be desirable.
MR. GEORGEcontended that the annuity ought to be a first charge on the land, and said he hoped the alteration proposed would not be made.
MR. DEASYsaid, it was originally intended to make this charge take precedence of all incumbrances, but after careful consideration it was apprehended that by so doing they might create alarm in the minds of those who had incumbrances already existing, and under these circumstances it was thought better not to give the annuity precedence.
LORD NAASsaid, no person would lend his money in this way unless repayment were made a first charge on the estate.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, that after the expression of opinion which had been given, he thought it would be advisable to leave the clause as it stood, and accordingly the alteration proposed would not be insisted upon.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause agreed to; as were also Clauses 23 and 24.
Clause 25 (Mode of obtaining the sanction of Court).
MR. GEORGEsaid, this was a very important part of the Bill, as it related to the leasing powers to be granted for improvements. He objected to the chairman of quarter sessions being appointed to make preliminary inquiries into the nature of such leases, as he thought it would be wise to let no machinery interpose between the limited owner and the tenant in the granting of leases except such as the Court of Chancery provided in the case of fraud and injury. He would, therefore, propose as an Amendment that in lieu of the leasing clauses in the Bill, there be inserted the clauses 1 to 31 inclusive, of the Leasing and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Bill, brought in by the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Whiteside) which stood next on the order of the day. Greater facilities for the granting of leases were bestowed by that Bill than by that which had been introduced by the Chief Secretary for Ireland.
Amendment proposed in page 8, line 14, to leave out from the word "restrictions," to the word "chairman," inclusive.
MR. DEASYdefended the provisions of the Government Bill, as much simpler and more convenient than those of the Bill introduced by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. With regard especially to the leasing of ecclesiastical property, the effect of the latter Bill would be to encumber the operation with so many checks and restrictions as to prevent its being of any advantage. There was also, in his Bill, a very objectionable laxity with regard to leases of mines. The difference between this kind of property and cultivable lands was that, by granting the lease of a mine for thirty or forty years, a person having only a life interest might really be making away with the whole valuable part of the inheritance, since the mine would be worked out by the tenant within that period. The interest of the remainder man should be considered, as well as those of the tenant and of the limited owner. It was, therefore, most essential in such cases to make the preliminary sanction of a competent tribunal necessary before granting the lease.
MR. LONGFIELDsaid, he thought it could hardly be expected that the Committee should be ready to compare in globo thirty-one sections of a rival Bill with those of the present Bill, so as to give a
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preference to one over the other. The Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman therefore appeared to him to be an unsatisfactory mode of proceeding. He thought that by a few careful Amendments the Bill might be made a most satisfactory measure. To whatever tribunal they gave the power of interfering with the making of leases, whether it was to the Quarter Sessions or the supreme courts, the effect would be to cause expense, while no additional security would be given against fraud. Under the Act of 1856, application was to be made to the Bolls Court for power to grant a lease of settled estates; but so vexatious were the delays and expenses thereby incurred, that only one lease had yet been granted, he (Mr. Longfield) being himself concerned in that case, which occupied many months, to the disgust of everybody. Therefore it would be far better to interpose no obstacles to the making of leases beyond requiring the best rent to be reserved, but leaving the demises when effectuated to any subsequent impeachment in a court of equity in case of fraud.
MR. GEORGEsaid, that in deference to the opinion of his learned Friends he would not insist on the first part of his Amendment, of which he had given notice—namely, to substitute for the leasing clauses the clauses in the Leasing and Improving of Lands Bill, and, therefore, with the permission of the Committee, he would withdraw that Amendment; but he proposed that they should leave out in clause 25, line 15, the words "and no improvement leases," the effect of which would be to prevent the preliminary inquiry on granting improvement leases proposed by the clause.
The first portion of the Amendment was accordingly withdrawn.
LORD FERMOYsaid, he was favourable to the preliminary investigation. He wished to see the leasing powers clogged with as few obstacles as possible, but he really thought that it would be a protection to the tenant that a cheap and easy investigation of the title should be first made. He would ask the Government whether they were now, at the eleventh hour, determined to adhere to their preliminary investigation before the chairman of the quarter sessions. With regard to leasing powers, he maintained that if every landlord in Ireland who had now the power to grant a lease would, instead of looking for English or Scotch, or Pro-

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testant tenants, grant leases to the poor, industrious, hard-working persons, who had been born and bred on the land, Ireland would be in a very different position from that which she occupied at present. The great fault of the landlords of Ireland was that they were too tenacious in keeping possession of the land. They seemed to think that the granting of a lease to a tenant would surrender their power over the land, and they therefore kept hold of half-cultivated, badly-tilled land, and by their ignorance—and he vowed to Heaven he thought they were the most ignorant class in Ireland—they kept their estates unimproved, the people discontented, and the country itself an opprobrium among nations. No matter what powers the Legislature might give, unless the landlords changed their policy, and had the sense to see their own interests, no leasing powers granted by Parliament would do any good.
LORD NAASsaid, no man travelling through Ireland could tell from the appearance of the land what was held under lease and what was not. Leases had no effect one way or other in regard to general improvements. These depended on mutual confidence between landlord and tenant. He objected to any preliminary inquiry in cases of improvement leases taking place before the chairman of the quarter sessions; it would lead to expense and delay, and would give no security against litigation afterwards, and, besides, questions might arise that a chairman of quarter sessions was not competent to decide.
COLONEL FRENCHsaid, he must express his belief, in opposition to the noble Lord, that there would be nothing very difficult in the matters to be submitted to the chairman of sessions or assistant magistrates in giving their sanction to the lease.
MR. MAGUIREsaid, he was in favour of retaining this portion of the clause, in order to give the tenant, as the strongest guarantee of the validity of his lease, the sanction of legal tribunal on which he might rely with as much certainty as on a Parliamentary title from the Incumbered Estates Court. On the other hand, the inquiry before the quarter sessions would be a security against trick and fraud in the preparation of leases. It would also be a cheap and effective tribunal, while an inquiry carried on in Dublin would be necessarily a prolonged and expensive one.
MR. LONGFIELDsaid, the hon. Gen-
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tleman who had just sat down seemed to mistake the nature of the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for the county of Wexford (Mr. George). The Amendment was not the difference between a cheap and costly tribunal, but the doing away with all tribunals.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, he admitted that the Amendment was brought forward in a fair spirit. While it proposed to do away with the tribunal provided for in the Bill, it did not propose the establishment of any other description of tribunal. Now, something had been said of the delays and expenses attendant upon obtaining the sanction of the Master of the Rolls to a lease of settled estates under the Act of 1856, but that inconvenience arose from the number of assents to be procured from the various parties concerned, and there would be no such tedious formality in the leases now contemplated. General rules were to be framed for the guidance of the chairman of counties, and instead of any precise statutory provisions with regard to the terms on which these leases should be sanctioned, the system would be an elastic one, capable of being adapted to the circumstances of different parts of the country, or of the whole country at different times. It was the opinion of the Government that the intervention of the chairman of counties would provide a cheap, an accessible, and an expeditious local tribunal for this purpose, and he therefore trusted that the clause, as it stood, would receive the favourable consideration of the House.
MR. M'MAHONsaid, that the tenant would not feel secure under the Bill, but that his lease might be void because the prescribed stipulations were not complied with, or because the rent fixed by the lease was not the highest that could reasonably be got from the land. The value of land and of improvements was a matter which the chairman or assistant magistrate, as a barrister, could not well inquire into.
MR. BUTTsaid, he thought they ought not to give a limited owner of an estate power to execute an improvement lease without the sanction of the chairman of the county, but in the case of an ordinary agricultural lease for twenty-one years he thought such a sanction might fairly be dispensed with. In granting an improvement lease, the landowner accepted not the highest rent that could be got from the land, but a smaller rent in consideration of the improvements to be made by the tenant.

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If the validity of the lease should be disputed on that ground, perhaps many years afterwards, when the reversion of the property fell in, it would be some protection to the tenant to have the sanction of the legal tribunal on record to justify the terms on which the lease was granted.
MR. VINCENT SCULLYsaid, he was of opinion that there ought to be the protection afforded by the sanction of the chairman of the sessions, not for the sake of the tenant, but for the sake of the persons who would be bound by the leases, and for the sake of the successor. Looking at the clause in connection with the 28th section, by which those leases were made binding on the successor, he was inclined to give his support to it as it now stood, though he confessed that he had had considerable difficulty in arriving at a conclusion on the subject. But if the 28th section were omitted, he would not make it necessary for the tenant to go through this expensive process.
COLONEL DUNNEsaid, if hon. Gentlemen went on making speeches they would never get through the Bill. He thought the effect of the clause, as it stood, would be to prevent leases altogether. He should prefer to have the matter left to a competent tribunal, but as he did not think the Quarter Sessions Court would be a tribunal of that kind he would vote for the Amendment.
Question put, "That the words 'no improvement lease,' stand part of the Clause."
The Committee divided:—The Tellers being come to the Table, it was stated by Mr. Brand, one of the Tellers, that the Tellers were not agreed as to the number who voted with the Ayes:—Whereupon the Chairman directed the Committee to proceed to a second division:—The Committee accordingly again divided: Ayes 82; Noes 79: Majority 3.
MR. M'MAHONsaid, he would then move as an Amendment that the word "twenty" as applied to leases should be omitted, and the word "forty" inserted.
Amendment proposed, in line 23, to leave out the word "twenty," in order to insert the word "thirty."
—instead thereof.
LORD FERMOYsaid, he would suggest to the hon. Member to substitute thirty for forty years in his Motion. That was a term of lease which would give great satisfaction in Ireland.
MR. LEFROYsaid, he thought the term of twenty-one years should be adhered to.
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That was the term usual in England and Scotland, and he thought the law should be as uniform as possible in all the three kingdoms.
LORD NAASremarked that in the clause there was no precise definition with regard to the term for which building leases should be granted, and he thought it desirable that some accurate definition should be laid down in regard to that matter.
LORD JOHN BROWNEsaid, he concurred with the noble Lord opposite that it was very desirable that the term of building leases should be definite.
MR. DEASYsaid, he would take into consideration the suggestion of the noble Lord (Lord Naas) on the bringing up of the Report.
MR. VINCENT SCULLYsaid, he hoped the hon. Member (Mr. M'Mahon) would adopt the suggestion of the noble Lord the Member for Marylebone, and make the term thirty years.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, the present measure gave power to grant a forty-one years' lease in certain applications coming before the Court; but it merely retained the powers at present allowed the corporate, ecclesiastical, and other bodies, to grant, without the preliminary sanction of the Court, leases for twenty-one years.
Question put, "That the word 'twenty' stand part of the clause."
The Committee divided: Ayes 117; Noes 45: Majority 72.
Clause agreed to, as was also Clause 26.
House resumed.
Committee report Progress; to sit again on Friday, at Twelve of the clock.

COMMISSIONS OF PATENTS OFFICES.

  QUESTION.
  MR. TITEsaid, he wished to ask the First Commissioner of Works, Whether any, and, if so, what progress has been made in erecting offices for the accommodation of the Commissioners of Patents, and of the collection of Books and Models relating to Inventions in their custody?
  MR. COWPERsaid the Office of the Commissioners of Patents was at present very inconveniently placed—for it was situated in Southampton Buildings, while the Museum was at South Kensington. Inquiries had been instituted with a view of finding a new site, but no place had yet been found sufficiently adapted for the purpose. He hoped, however, that before long an arrangement would be effected which would be convenient to all parties.

SOLDIERS' KNAPSACKS.

  QUESTION.
  COLONEL LINDSAYsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he has received any Report respecting the efficiency of the knapsack invented by Mr. Berington and Colonel Spiller; and also if the report is true that it is intended to provide the Volunteer Force with knapsacks, or to grant them a certain sum in lieu?
  MR. SIDNEY HERBERTsaid, the question of the superiority of the knapsacks had been referred, not to a Committee of Officers, but to a number of the men themselves, whose opinions, on the whole, were unfavourable to that invented by Mr. Berrington, and favourable to that introduced by Colonel Spiller. The latter, therefore, was in use, and would continue to be so for three months—the usual time of trial. As regarded the Volunteers, power was given by the Act of Parliament, in case of invasion, to supply a knapsack and kit or two guineas to each; but he did not apprehend that it would be necessary to take any measure in that direction.

  IRISH APPOINTMENTS.—RESOLUTION.
  MR. CONOLLYsaid, that regarding as he did the opportunity of bringing forward accusations, whenever it became necessary, against any officer of the Crown, no matter how exalted his rank or dignity, as one of the most valuable privileges of a Member of that House, he would be careful that in calling attention, as a matter of serious duty, to the appointments made by the present Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he would not allow a word derogatory to the private character of that illustrious individual to pass his lips. He should not follow the example set in the other House of reflecting on the personal qualities of a man whom Her Majesty had honoured by choosing him as the representative of the Crown in that portion of the country. But he would say this, that if his Motion were well grounded—if the accusations which he had to bring against that distinguished individual were founded in fact, and the policy of the Government in Ireland were such as to make him indignantly reclaim against it, then it was high time that that nobleman should be recalled from the office of Lord Lieutenant which he was not fit to hold. Hon. Gentlemen might say these were bold words, but he had great provo-
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  cation. He was not now speaking of the appointment of Mr. Acheson Lyle to be Lord Lieutenant of the county of Derry, but he must say that a grosser and more desperate insult had never been offered to the inhabitants of a free country. No man who held the commission of the peace in England could suffer such an insult without reclaiming against it. Why should they be less esteemed in Ireland than in England, and have burdens placed on their shoulders too heavy for them to bear? There were burdens placed on the minds of men that were much heavier than any that were placed on their bodies. When a great and leading county, which had played no undistinguished part in the history of Ireland, was subjected to this gross and studied insult by the representative of the Sovereign, every one who had the good of the country at heart felt the insult and indignantly resented it. He had a right to feel warmly on this subject, because his ancestors had once held that valued post which was now dragged in the mire. He said it was studiously dragged in the mire. Whether intentionally or not, it seemed to be the sad office of a Whig Government to lower these appointments from time to time. The office was formerly given to a man below the rank of all who had held it before him, he meant the late Sir Robert Ferguson. ["Oh!"] He was, no doubt, an excellent man, in all the relations of life unimpeachable. Yet he took it upon himself to say that he was not of the rank of those who ought to hold that office. It seemed, by a strange fatality, that everything a Whig Government and a Whig Lord Lieutenant could do was done to irritate and dishonour that free and faithful county. He saw an hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench (Mr. Bagwell) laughing. How did he know that the turn of his own county might not come next? He seemed to rejoice at this slight being cast on the county of Derry; let him see to it that the same odious game was not attempted to be played on the banks of the Suir. Sure he was that there were noble spirits in Tipperary who would not sit down patiently under such an insult. Well, he would now open his case; and first, with regard to this notorious case of Mr. Acheson Lyle. He could state of his own knowledge that whether the absolute estate of Mr. Acheson Lyle in the county of Derry was £1,600 or £1,800 a year, he was not of that order of men from whom Lords Lieutenant were

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  usually taken. He believed that the system of such appointments was calculated to bring upon Ireland grievous evils; it was a system which had formerly been the curse of Ireland, and which he hoped had been abandoned for ever—the system of setting the north against the south—of hounding on the Protestants against the Roman Catholics, and dividing them, so that English ascendancy might trample on both. It was not to be tolerated that abuses of the description to which he was then directing the attention of the House should be revived in Ireland merely for the purpose of bolstering up a decaying faction. The real object of these practices was to ensure the return of Whig candidates at Parliamentary elections in Ireland. He was not specially alluding to the amount of property held by Mr. Lyle. That was not the point he wished to make. But he contended that Mr. Lyle was not of that class from which the Lord Lieutenant of a high spirited county like Londonderry ought to be chosen. He was the chief taxing officer in the Court of Chancery. He had obtained that office through the favour of the present Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who had ever since taken care that his nest should be well feathered. He had got for himself an appointment worth £2,500 a year, another for his son worth £800 a year, and another for his son-in-law which brought in £1,000 a year. And was it fitting that that well-salaried gentleman should be placed at the head of the unpaid magistracy of a loyal and distinguished county? The very moment he had been raised to that high position, he had gone down to Londonderry and recorded his vote—which he had not dared to do before—for Mr. Greer, who had been reprobated by every independent and respectable person in the county. He and his son and his son-in-law, the three stipendiaries of the Government, had voted for Mr. Greer, for whom his fellow-citizens had shown such an estimation that he was not likely to stand again on the hustings. For Mr. Lyle, personally, he entertained a feeling of the most incomplete respect—[Laughter.]—he begged pardon—it was a mere slip of the tongue—he had meant to say that he held that gentleman in considerable estimation as one who was most competent to fill the office of Master in Chancery, and who was most zealous in his attention to business. There was, however, in his opinion, a wide chasm between sitting be-
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  hind a high stool in Dublin for the purpose of taxing bills in Chancery and occupying the position of Lord Lieutenant of a county such as Londonderry, with the power of selecting militia officers, and other important functions. That the position was one which could hardly be very agreeable to Mr. Lyle himself was proved by the fact that when he had gone down to Londonderry, burst forth with his new plumes fresh upon him, and had announced himself in the room in which the grand jury of the county was assembled as the recently appointed Lord Lieutenant, the intelligence was received in perfect silence, no member of the grand jury having risen from his seat. Now, a more unfortunate position for a gentleman to be placed in he could scarcely conceive, although he must say that that of Lord Carlisle was pitiable in the extreme. It was, he thought, quite evident, from what he had already stated, that it was exceedingly impolitic, as well as unjust, for a Whig Government to adopt the pettifogging system of appointing to high office men professing their own political creed simply because they happened to have the power. The feeling of the people of Londonderry was, at all events, opposed to such a system, and Mr. Lyle was looked upon there as the single black sheep in the whole flock. He and Mr. Greer had coupled themselves together, and the result was that when they took one side of the street every honest man bent his steps along the other. The man by whom such an appointment had been made was, then, he should contend, not deserving of the name of a statesman, and Lord Carlisle, whatever he might say about his probity and integrity, had, in making that appointment, done more harm than by all the folly he had ever talked in the course of his life. Having said thus much of the case of Mr. Lyle, he should pass to that of another Lord Lieutenant of a county, who with consequences more calamitous still, had been chosen as the object of Lord Carlisle's favour; he alluded to Mr. Tenison, a gentleman well known in that House, who had lately been transferred from the Lord Lieutenancy of the county of Leitrim to that of Roscommon. Now in the latter instance, as in the former fitness had not been regarded as the prime qualification for office—a line of policy which, if it continued to be acted upon, must prove to be eminently prejudicial to the public service. The first extraordinary piece of intelligence with respect to

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  Mr. Tenison on record was that he and his agents had made backstairs complaints against as honourable a man as any who had ever occupied the position of sheriff in Ireland—Mr. Balfe. The accusation thus made against Mr. Balfe was, that he had been guilty of subornation of perjury, and his name had in consequence been erased from the list of Sheriffs for the year on which it occupied the fond place without the possibility of his knowing anything of the infamous slander which had been propagated to his prejudice. Mr. Balfe was a Roman Catholic gentleman of the county of Roscommon, and one of the largest dealers in cattle in the west of Ireland. Among the frequenters of Balinasloe fair there was not one whose name would be a better passport for a Bill for £5,000. He was a high-minded, straightforward man, and nobody could say a word against him. Yet his reputation was to be whispered away, and his name erased from the Judges' list as unworthy of holding the office of sheriff of his native county; a nominee of Mr. Tenison being substituted—why? Because Mr. Balfe had taken a prominent part in the election for the county against Mr. Tenison; but a petition being presented against the return it was expected the election would be declared void, and it might be convenient to have a partisan in the office of sheriff, as Mr. Tenison was again to contest the county. But he believed the Whig prestige was over in Roscommon as well as in Londonderry, and he begged to tell the hon. Gentleman opposite that it would not last much longer in Tipperary. Mr. Balfe wrote to Colonel Larcom, who, according to the custom of his office, put him off, and referred him to the Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor, foolishly enough, gave a reason—that he had heard rumours that Mr. Balfe had been guilty of the crime of subornation of perjury, and he wished to know whether it was true or not. Mr. Balfe wrote back an indignant denial, fixing on those three magnates, Mr. Tenison, the Lord Lieutenant, and the Lord Chancellor, the iniquity of this disgraceful transaction. ["Oh, oh!"] A more disgraceful transaction never took place in a free country Had it taken place here, the whole Ministry would have been swept away by one of those torrents of public opinion which during the Crimean war had been directed by the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield. When a flagrant outrage was committed on the good sense
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  and feeling of the House of Commons, that House knew well how to resent it. No one who was implicated in this disgraceful transaction should be employed as a servant of the Crown. What did Mr. Balfe write to the Lord Chancellor, having brought home to him and his two accomplices the guilt of the transaction? [The hon. Member here read a long communication from Mr. Balfe to the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, detailing his grievances.] ["Hear, hear."] He was sorry to be obliged to trouble the House at such length, but when a man in the position of Mr. Balfe had suffered from so extraordinary an abuse of power, that House, and that House alone, was the place in which to denounce the proceeding, and he must therefore raise his voice against such a scandal. Mr. Balfe was declared ineligible to serve in the shrievalty; he was tried by an unjust tribunal; he was put to an expense of £1,000 in proving his own innocence, which he did most successfully; and then, when redress was indignantly demanded of the English House of Commons for so flagrant a misuse of the prerogatives of the Crown, hon. Gentlemen listened to the appeal with impatience. He had not done yet. He had other cases to show that corruption ramified the whole body politic of Ireland, and was instigated and directed by the Lord-Lieutenant himself. It was necessary that these plague-spots should be laid bare to the House. Mr. Ormsby Gore, now a Member of that House, being anxious to stand as a candidate for an Irish county, applied in the usual way to the Lord-Lieutenant to be released from his office as sheriff. He received a curt refusal, dictated obviously by partisan motives. Just for the same reasons that the upright Mr. Balfe was removed from his post of sheriff Mr. Ormsby Gore was retained at his. At the previous election the Hon. Mr. Cole wished to stand for the county of Fermanagh, where no Whig was known to exist. The permission was accorded to him which was denied to Mr. Gore, and the Whig interest did not suffer in consequence. Again, when a vacancy occurred in the county of Longford, Mr. Hughes, the Judge of Assize, applied to the Lord-Lieutenant to free him from his office, in order that he might stand for the county. As Mr. Hughes was a Whig, he was relieved of his office of Judge of Assize, and being returned for Longford the Government

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  added to their ranks one more supporter. Such was the consistent and straightforward dealing of Lord Carlisle! But that was not all. The Reform Bill was introduced into that House. It was to increase the number of Whig voters in Ireland, and it was of course desirable also to have Whig sheriffs to conduct the elections for the Whig interest. If that was not a fair deduction from the facts, he knew not what other conclusion any jury of sane men could gather from them. In the county which he had the honour to represent (Donegal) the sheriff was a particular friend of his. Judge Perrin was the Judge at the last summer assizes, and the names of three men, all well known as men of substance in the county, who had served as grand jurors, were sent up as eligible for the shrievalty. Somehow, however, neither of these three names was placed first on the list by the Judge, but the name of an individual of whom he (Mr. Conolly) had never heard, though he knew almost everybody in the county, was selected from the county of Derry—that person being a leather-cutter, who had a small estate in Donegal. Yet that was the man who was foisted into the office of sheriff, to the exclusion of men of ten times his substance and of quite equal qualifications. And why was he so foisted into the office? Because he had seconded the nomination of the notorious Mr. Greer. Lord-Lieutenants of counties were thus created in Mr. Greer's interest; sheriffs' lists were doctored in Mr. Greer's interest; in short, nothing was bad enough for the Government to-day in that favoured gentleman's interest. Judge Perrin went to Derry, and doctored the list there also, a man highly eligible for the office of sheriff there being removed. And who did the House think was placed in his room? Why, the person who had proposed Mr. Greer. These were the gentlemen who were chosen to manage everything under the new Reform Bill, and of course to return Whigs like Mr. Greer. But the Bill of the noble Lord the Member for London broke down, and this grand scheme for corrupting the Irish elections broke down with it. The same course was adopted in Fermanagh and Tyrone. These were the facts. Let the Chief Secretary for Ireland disprove them if he could; he should be very glad to see the obloquy removed from the name of a man whom till within the last six months he believed to be incapable of being concerned in such transactions.
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  It was fearful that such things should be imputed to him—
  "Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli."
  If these matters could not be clearly explained, Lord Carlisle was not entitled to the confidence of the people of Ireland, and still less was he entitled to that of his august Mistress. Of all men who held office under the Crown the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland ought to act with the greatest prudence, because he represented Royalty, and any fault of his tended to cast a slur upon the Crown, which it was said could do no wrong. He put it to the House whether the existence of such disgraceful scandals as he had referred to was creditable to the public service, or likely to contribute to good government, good order, or peace in Ireland. Of Lord Carlisle he had nothing to say; it was not his business to praise him. Let the noble Lord clear his public conduct of the stigma which it was his duty to cast upon him, or let the House agree to his Motion. The hon. Member concluded by moving—
  "That this House, having regard to certain appointments made by the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, is of opinion that fitness has not been primarily considered in these appointments; that this House is further of opinion that the incautious and inconsiderate use of the prerogative of the Crown is prejudicial to the Public Service."
  MR. GREGORYsaid, that when the appointment of Mr. Lyle was discussed upon a former occasion, he should have taken an opportunity, if the debate had not been abruptly closed, of expressing his disapprobation of that appointment. But since that time he had done what his hon. Friend (Mr. Conolly) ought to have done. He had endeavoured to ascertain the real facts of the case; and he was bound to say he was honestly convinced that the Government was not open to censure upon the ground of that appointment. The explanations given by the Earl of Carlisle, in "another place," had been satisfactory to him on the point. At the same time he was ready to acknowledge that, abstractedly, a gentleman of the avocations of Mr. Lyle was not the person who ought to be selected for the Lord Lieutenancy of a county. A Lord Lieutenant ought to have considerable local knowledge of the county, inasmuch as the appointment of magistrates, the selection of militia officers, and the nomination of deputy-lieutenants, vested in his hands. Certainly it was an appointment without endowment, but its possession was a distinction which gentle-

  1007
  men were anxious to obtain. And, considering that all the prizes in Ireland, from the bench down to the small fishes went to "barristers of seven years' standing," and thus fell to the lot of the learned profession, he thought that, as a general rule, the office of Lords-Lieutenant ought to be filled by country gentlemen, and not from the bar. The county of Londonderry, however, stood in an exceptional position to that of almost every other county in Ireland. The landed property of the county was almost entirely occupied by the large City companies. The landed proprietors of Liberal opinions were very few; those of Conservative opinions were, comparatively speaking, few; and he must add that the Conservatism of Londonderry was not of that moderate description which was generally found in the south, the west, and the east of Ireland. He (Mr. Gregory) recognized the propriety of what was called "sticking to one's own party," because so long as this country was governed by party it was necessary to do so. Still, there were exigencies in which, for the sake of the country, it was essential that this rule should be departed from. He believed there was no great hostility among the great bulk of the Conservative gentry of Ireland to Her Majesty's Government. In proof of this, he might refer to the Attorney General for Ireland, who, at his late election, expressed his thanks to the Conservatives of the great county of Cork for not having shown any disposition to embarrass the Government by keeping their law officer out of Parliament. Under these circumstances, it might, perhaps, have been advisable if, in this case, the Government had selected the Lord Lieutenant from their political opponents. A Liberal Government had done so upon more than one occasion, and he believed it would have been politic on the present. But, so far as he understood, the adoption of such course in Londonderry was impossible. The two great landed proprietors in Londonderry were Lord Garvagh and Sir Harvey Bruce. Lord Garvagh, however, was not a resident proprietor, and he had moreover taken an opportunity of informing the Earl of Carlisle that if he appointed him as Lord Lieutenant, he might expect nothing from him but hostility as a political opponent; and as to Sir Harvey Bruce, he had held a high position connected with the Orange Society. Under these circumstances it was impossible to have appointed either of
  1008
  these two gentlemen. His hon. Friend (Mr. Conolly) had said he intended to treat the Earl of Carlise with respect. But he showed that respect in a very extraordinary manner; nor could he see any signs of it in the terms of the Motion itself. The imputation which his hon. Friend had sought to convey against the Earl of Carlisle was contradicted by the whole tenor of the noble Earl's life. The Earl of Carlisle was incapable, in his opinion, of doing anything wittingly which was not honest and straightfoward. His aim was to do everything which lay in his power to improve the material prosperity of Ireland, to assist it by his counsel and his liberality, and therefore when it was objected to him that he had visited baths and washhouses and taken an interest in matters of the kind, he (Mr. Gregory) read the accusation in another way, for he remembered what had been said by M. Guizot, that the material improvement must precede the moral amelioration of a country. He rejoiced, too, that the time had arrived when the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland could afford to be more of the Ædile, and less of the Proconsul, and that he had leisure to lay plans for the benefit of the people, instead of being engaged in drawing up indictments and bills of pains and penalties against them. But there was one subject to which he wished to advert before sitting down. Some short time ago the hon. Member for Birmingham pleasantly and pertinently described the position of a certain class of statesmen in that House who were labouring under the ban of proscription, and whom the hon. Gentleman likened to the "Hivites, Hittites, and Perizites." Those Gentlemen had escaped from the ban and now sat in high places. They occupied the foremost place in Her Majesty's Councils, but Mr. Brewster still remained under the ban of proscription. Considering the position which he had occupied at the bar for the last twenty years he ought not to have been forgotten when the Government came into office. He had had no communication with Mr. Brewster on this subject, and probably Mr. Brewster would be displeased with him for thus publicly alluding to the circumstance; but he must say with regard to Mr. Brewster, that if every person in Ireland qualified to judge could be consulted, he believed there would be not the slightest difference of opinion as to which was fitted to be Lord Chancellor, Mr. Brewster, or Mr. Brady. In con-

  1009
  clusion, he would offer a few words of advice to the Secretary for Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman had gone to Ireland with the reputation of being a man of such high principle that he would not lend himself to any transaction which bore a questionable aspect; but he would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the paths about Dublin Castle were devious, slippery, and dirty, and he would beg of him to distrust those guides who, for reasons best known to themselves, would lead him into those paths. In making this pointed allusion, he begged to say he in no way referred to his right hon. Friend the Attorney General. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman would be guided entirely by his own judgment, and that when his information failed him he would take the advice of disinterested persons. If he pursued this course, he would have no reason to look back with any shame on his connection with Ireland.
  MR. CARDWELL: While the hon. Member for Donegal (Mr. Conolly) was speaking I felt perplexed to know whether he really intended to conclude with a serious attack. He has brought forward as the main object of his Motion a charge which has been twice considered and discussed—once in the House of Commons and once in "another place," where my noble Friend the Lord-Lieutenant, in his own forcible and graceful language, explained the motives of his conduct. The major part of the argument which the hon. Gentleman had addressed to the House had really no relevancy to the Motion which he has placed on the paper. He referred to the case of Mr. Lyle, and also to the appointment of Mr. Tenison to the county of Roscommon, which took place before the present Government came into office. [Colonel FRENCH: It was the Act of the Earl of Carlisle.] It would be a sufficient answer, therefore, to this case to say that when my noble Friend resigned his former Government he received through the Earl of Derby the gracious communication of his Sovereign's entire satisfaction with his conduct. [Mr. CONOLLY: I spoke with reference to what took place in December last.] If, however, any charge, referring to an earlier period, is to be brought against my noble Friend, it ought to have been brought forward when the facts were fresh in everybody's recollection; and it ought to have been brought forward with a notice pointed to the circumstances of the case. The ap-
  1010
  pointment of Mr. Tenison took place before I had any connection with the Office. I know nothing of the circumstances of the case. I know not what are the qualifications of Mr. Tenison for the office. With regard to Mr. Lyle's case, four-fifths of the county of Londonderry belong to the London companies. Of those on the list of Deputy-Lieutenants there were two peers—the late Lord Strafford and Lord Garvagh—but the former was non-resident, and the property on which the latter resided was not yet his own. Among those who possessed a fortune qualifying them for the office was Mr. Lyle. He had a fortune larger than that of his predecessor in the county. He had long resided there, and was about to take up his permanent residence in the county, and he possessed legal knowledge. With regard to his character, I cannot do better than repeat what my noble Friend said of him in "another place." These are my noble Friend's words:—
  "As to his personal qualities, I know him to be judicious, discreet, sensible, unblemished in character and in the whole course of his life; in short, he is made of just the stuff to fit him to be a lieutenant and to enable him adequately to perform the duties of that office. Really, if I had not been specifically called upon to do so, I should feel ashamed of detaining your Lordships so long by making excuses—that is not the word I ought to use, but by giving reasons—for the appointment of such a man, because he does not possess all the mere external attributes of fortune and position of which many far less qualified than he is can boast."
  I do not know to what length the hon. Gentleman would carry his fastidiousness; but I am not aware that ancient family, competent fortune, unblemished character, and a legal education have ever been considered disqualifications for any office. It was from a sense of his merits alone that my noble Friend appointed Mr. Lyle. The hon. Gentleman said, when Mr. Lyle went into the grand jury room, the twenty-four grand jurors refused to salute him, and that he was the one black sheep among them, as being the only supporter of Mr. Greer; but surely that fact is not conclusive against the fitness of Mr. Lyle. It may account for the objection which the hon. Member has thought proper to raise against it. I shall pass by the other circumstances of the case very shortly, for I feel that it is not right to occupy the time of the House. The hon. Member made a charge against my noble Friend of having displaced a man from the office of high sheriff on a

  1011
  vague rumour, and insinuated that there had been assassination in the dark. The course pursued by my noble Friend was precisely the reverse. The name of this gentleman appeared at the head of the list of sheriffs, and my noble Friend received a letter containing a specific charge purporting to be attested by two witnesses, and referring to the last election for the county. My noble Friend did not think it right to appoint that gentleman to be sheriff for the present year until that charge had been disproved. But my noble Friend did not do it in the dark; he communicated both the statement and the evidence, and enabled the gentleman to forward his reply. [Mr. CONOLLY: When?] Why, at the time when it occurred, in December last. The hon. Member has also stated that a gentleman who was desirous of offering himself as a representative of the county was not permitted to resign the post of high sheriff which he held; and the hon. Member not merely insinuated, but has openly stated, that this was done with a view of preventing that gentleman from having the opportunity of coming forward as a candidate at an election. That occurred long before I had the opportunity of knowing anything about it, and I should have been unable to give any answer if it were not that an hon. Friend now sitting beside me has mentioned what I was not before aware of, that the circumstances were referred to the law officers of the Crown, who advised my noble Friend that he had not the power of accepting the resignation. The charge therefore against my noble Friend is, that he did not violate the law and act in opposition to the opinion given by the legal advisers of the Crown. The hon. Member drew an invidious contrast, and said that the present Baron Hughes was permitted to do what was refused in the other instance, being released from attendance at the Assizes, in order that he might offer himself as a candidate. Does not the hon. Gentleman perceive that one act may be legal and the other altogether illegal? The next charge is still more extraordinary. A charge has been made against the late Judge Perrin, that in five of the northern counties he selected sheriffs to suit the purposes of the Government. I do not think it is fair to bring charges against absent men without notice. It is obviously the duty of a Judge not to take the directions of a sheriff or under-sheriff as to the names which he
  1012
  shall submit; in fact, a complaint was made on the opposite side of the House no later than last Friday evening that the Judges are too much in the habit of being influenced in this manner by sheriffs and deputy-sheriffs, and that, consequently, an equality of choice does not exist. I have no knowledge of the details of the case, but I am as certain as if I were acquainted with them all that Judge Perrin was influenced by no other motive than a desire of discharging his duty as Judge of assize, and, whether he did it or not, it is obvious that to concoct a charge against the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland out of hearsay rumours as to what other persons have done is a course that scarcely deserves a serious answer. My noble Friend has had more opportunities than most men of acquiring a knowledge of Ireland, and of gaining not only the esteem but the affectionate regard and attachment of all who know him. In defending himself he said that if his character now required vindication it was not worth the trouble of defending. I regret extremely that the hon. Gentleman should have put together a series of charges like these, and have brought them against one nearly the whole of whose public life has been identified with the sister kingdom—the qualities of whose heart and mind peculiarly fit him for winning the sympathies of that warmhearted and generous people—who has at heart every interest of Ireland, from the greatest to the smallest, and has attracted to himself the universal affection and esteem of those over whom he has been placed as the representative of the Sovereign.
  COLONEL FRENCH[who was received with cries of "Divide!"] said, it was unfair for hon. Members to prevent Gentlemen from delivering their opinions on a subject which had not yet been two hours under discussion. The topic was one that only concerned Irish Members, and if Gentlemen did not wish to hear statements save on one side, it was easy for them to withdraw. His right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland had no right to make the attack on the hon. Member for Donegal to which the House had just listened. Motions like that before the House were very difficult to introduce, and, in supporting complaints as to the discharge of public duties it was hard to avoid the appearance of intending a personal attack. He was one of those who could not agree in the eulogium which had been passed on the Earl of Carlisle. With the exception of

  1013
  the hon. Member for Gal way (Mr. Gregory) every person outside that House believed that the selection of Mr. Lyle had been an improper and an unfortunate appointment. The hon. Member for Galway said there was no one else to appoint but Lord Garvagh and Sir H. Bruce. The latter the Government would probably not have selected, but Lord Garvagh, though he might have written a strong letter, by no means sent the threatening communication which had been represented. Lord Garvagh's father had been appointed Lord Lieutenant by Earl Grey, and he had 10,000 acres and a residence in the county, which his mother occupied. If the Government chose to take a Whig there was a resident gentleman with 5,000 or 6,000 acres (Mr. Oglivy) whom they might have appointed. The antecedents of Mr. Lyle he would briefly state to the House. He was formerly an assistant barrister (Mr. Anthony Blake), and the Whig Government of the day created the office of Chief Remembrancer, with a salary of over £3,000, to which he was appointed. That office he held for about a year and a half, when he complained that the duties were too onerous, and Mr. Lyle was appointed to act as his deputy at a salary of £2,000 a year. Mr. Blake devolved the principal portion of his duties upon that gentleman, and shortly afterwards he explained to the Government that no necessity existed for two officers, that the deputy could discharge the duty pretty well, and he accordingly retired on full salary. Mr. Lyle stepped into his place, and soon afterwards made it known to the Government that there was not much to do; for he proposed that he should have a pension of £2,000 a year, that he should be appointed to a Mastership in Chancery then vacant, and that he should be allowed to count the time towards a retiring allowance from his first appointment to the office of Deputy Remembrancer. All that had been agreed to, and the position of Lord Lieutenant of Londonderry was now added. The right hon. Gentleman stated that the office of Lord Lieutenant ought to be unaffected by political considerations; but what were the steps taken by Mr. Lyle? The first thing he did was to go down and vote for a political candidate, and the next was to announce that on the first vacancy he should offer himself for the representation. It was certainly strange that a gentleman should be chosen for this post of distinction whose principal means were furnished
  1014
  from the Exchequer. He had an accurate statement of all the lands in his possession. These did not produce £1,000 a year, and were not held in fee, as had been stated, but to a great extent under corporations, and some on episcopal tenures. The hon. Member for Donegal was not the only person from whom complaints as to the appointment had emanated. The English press, from the highest Conservative journals to those of extreme Radical politics, had condemned, and even denounced in strong terms not only this appointment, but that of every Lieutenant of a county made by the Earl of Carlisle. As to the case of Mr. Balfe, he was bound, as the transaction had occurred in his own county, to declare that his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary was not correct in stating that a communication was made from the Government to Mr. Balfe that such a charge was hanging over him. On the contrary, the whole thing was done in secrecy, and he was passed over without any communication being made to him. No information whatever was given by the Government until he indignantly called for the reasons of his having been subjected to such treatment. How his right hon. Friend could have made such a mistake he was unable to imagine, more especially as the correspondence had been printed and laid on the table of the House. Notwithstanding all the Lord Lieutenant's amiable qualities, he did not think there was the slightest public confidence either in his acts or in his intentions. There had never been a Lord Lieutenant, who, to his knowledge—and he (the hon. Member) communicated very freely with great numbers of people of all ranks in Ireland—was so little respected, and amongst thinking people so little popular, as the Earl of Carlisle. Would any hon. Gentleman assert that the noble Lord had upheld the dignity of the Crown which he was said to represent? The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Gregory) had, indeed, spoken of him as running here and there and opening wash-houses; but in these journies, undertaken with the view of inaugurating Turkish baths, he saw an instance of a morbid desire to seek after popularity without ever obtaining it. ["No, no!"] Hon. Gentletlemen might cry "No, no!" but he spoke what he deemed to be the opinion of the majority of the Irish people. Was it, he would ask, to uphold the dignity of the Crown to entertain at dinner a troupe of theatrical performers and a horse-tamer at

  1015
  breakfast, or to attend at the opening of a shop in Grafton Street in Dublin, when, according to the statements made in the newspapers, he drank a glass of champagne and made a speech to the assembled shopkeepers and astonished cabmen? [Cries of "Question!"] He was speaking to the question, and in conclusion had only to say that whenever there was a termination to the present Viceroyalty in Ireland it would only be remembered for bad appointments and unfulfilled promises.
  MR. M'MAHONsaid, it was expedient that the relative proportions between the number of Catholics, Presbyterians, and members of other persuasions holding office in Ulster should be borne in mind when the appointments of Lords-Lieutenant for that province were being canvassed. He had in his hand a return which showed that, out of the magistrates of Ulster, 817 were Episcopalians, 31 Presbyterians, and only 19 Roman Catholics. In the county of Londonderry there were only 6 Presbyterian magistrates and not a single Roman Catholic; in Monaghan no Roman Catholic magistrate; and in Tyrone no Roman Catholic, and only 2 Presbyterians holding that office. It was under these circumstances, he contended, quite clear that in that province neither the Roman Catholics nor the Presbyterians had their due share of these appointments, although many gentlemen of the latter persuasions were well qualified to fill them. It was said that when Mr. Acheson Lyle entered the grand jury-room in Londonderry not one of the grand jurors would speak to him. Well, he found that of the 207 grand jurors in the county there were only 3 Presbyterians and 3 Roman Catholics. In all the official situations in Ulster, consisting of 323 persons, there were only 19 Presbyterians, and 6 Roman Catholics. From these facts he thought it was clear that the Government ought to make some innovation on the practice of Ulster. It was well known that as a general rule the Lords-Lieutenant appointed the magistrates of their respective counties, and if these officers were strong partisans, as they often were, there was no chance of a gentleman of opposite politics being appointed a magistrate. The Government ought to abolish the office of Lord Lieutenant altogether, and place the appointment of magistrates in the hands of the Lord Chancellor; or, if they could not do that, they ought to make many such innovations as the appointment of Mr. Acheson
  1016
  Lyle, which he was rejoiced to see as that of a gentleman who would discharge with impartiality the duties of an office for which his legal attainments eminently qualified him.
  MR. W. R. O. GOREsaid, as his case had been alluded to in the course of the debate, he rose to say that he did consider himself to have been rather harshly treated, when the Government refused to relieve him from his office of High Sheriff of the County of Sligo, when he wished to become a candidate at the general election. But he did not accuse the Lord Lieutenant, who acted under legal advice. So far, therefore, the Chief Secretary for Ireland was correct, but he was in error in stating what the opinion of these legal advisers was. Their advice was to the effect, that if he was released from his office inconvenience might arise; but they did not state what that inconvenience was. He would only say one word more in reference to the case of Mr. Brewster. The hon. Member for Galway had referred to that case with the deep sympathy of a personal friend, as well as a political partisan. He could not boast of personal friendship, but he knew well that Mr. Brewster was facile princeps of the bar of Ireland, and he thought it was a perfect scandal to any Government that such a man should be passed over.
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, he wished to say a word on the case of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Ormsby Gore). On the occasion when the circumstance alluded to by the hon. Gentleman occurred, he (Sir George Grey) had the honour to hold the office of Secretary of State for the Home Department, and the Earl of Carlisle applied to him to know what was the practice, and what would be the course adopted in England in reference to a person holding the office of high sheriff of a county being permitted to resign office, in order that he might himself become a candidate at a general election for that county, when the writs were actually in his hands. He told the noble Lord that he believed it to be an undoubted fact that such an application would be unconditionally refused. Nothing was more common than an application to be excused from serving the office of high sheriff when an election was expected, and the applicant desired to become a candidate; but there was no precedent, and no case could be adduced of a gentleman being released from the office of high sheriff

  1017
  under the circumstances in which the hon. I Gentleman opposite made his application, and he (Sir George Grey) certainly told the Lord Lieutenant that he could not consistently with his duty comply with the request which was made to him.
  MR. M'CANNsaid, he had just heard the name of a learned and constitutional Judge—Judge Perrin—mentioned for the purpose of casting obloquy on him. He had known that eminent Judge for a period of forty years, and he begged to say that he was not only a distinguished, but an honest man, and it was the first time during his long life he had ever heard a slur cast on his honoured name.
  CAPTAIN ARCHDALLsaid, the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. M'Mahon) had evidently spoken from a deficient knowledge of Ulster, or he would have known that the number of Presbyterian and Roman Catholic magistrates were quite in proportion to the qualified gentlemen of those persuasions. In his own county there was only one Roman Catholic gentleman, and he was now fulfilling, with general satisfaction, the office of high sheriff. With regard to the administration of justice, he believed the people had the utmost confidence both in the magistrates and grand juries. With regard to the Motion, he believed the hon. Member for Donegal would receive the thanks of the people of Ireland for the course he had taken; but, looking to the feeling of the House, he hoped he would not force it to a division.
  MR. HORSMAN: As one who has been concerned in some of the transactions referred to, perhaps the House will allow me to say a few words. I should not like this discussion to close without stating what I felt in regard to it. I listened to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Donegal (Mr. Conolly) with a great deal of interest and with still more of curiosity, because I could not help thinking if the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland did not make fitness the primary consideration, if he so abused his prerogative as to make partizanship the main test of qualification for office, he must be now a very different man from what he was when I had the honour of serving under him three years ago. I do not think my hon. Friend could have duly considered the character and effect of this Motion. I have, during times of great party feeling and animosity, known strong Motions directed against Governments; but I do not remember one of
  1018
  so large, grave, and sweeping a character as this. And, if it is remarkable for the comprehensive gravity of the charge, it is not less so for the comparative insignificance of the evidence to support it. I will not go into the facts. The House has heard the statement of my hon. Friend the Member for Donegal on the one side, and the counter-statement of my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland on the other. I would only say, let it be admitted for the sake of argument that the hon. Member for Donegal had proved his facts, that would be a very long way off showing the justice of such a sweeping condemnation as he has asked the House to adopt; because I consider his Motion to mean, not that the Lord Lieutenant has fallen into error, not that he has shown a want of judgment, but that habitually, systematically, he has degraded his high office by making fitness the secondary consideration in his appointments, and jobbery and favouritism the first, to such an extent as to call down upon him the judgment and condemnation of Parliament. Now, making due allowance for the case of Londonderry, I must, in all frankness, say, that I lament an Irish representative of his position and character should have made a charge so wild and extravagant that it hardly does deserve a very serious refutation. I may say not only that I believe it to be entirely unfounded, but I ought to say that I know it must be so; for no man had better opportunities than I had during the two years I occupied the position of Chief Secretary of knowing, not what were the motives or feelings, but I will say what were the high principles, by which the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was actuated in making his appointments. I know that fitness for the public service was always his first consideration; I know that the benefit of the public service was his first principle of duty; and I am quite certain that no man ever excelled him, and very few ever equalled him, in the extent to which he was willing to make personal feeling subordinate to public duty, and identifying his own character with the moral elevation of the people he was sent to govern. But I will state to the House, and I am sure my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary will excuse me for stating, what I think the House ought to know, as it will place beyond a doubt the groundlessness of this charge. The hon. Member for Donegal speaks as if the Lord Lieutenant used

  1019
  in these appointments an absolute power, consulting no one, advising with no one, but making every appointment according to his own personal feelings and predilections. Now, Sir, my right hon. Friend will forgive me for stating that if the Lord Lieutenant makes any improper appointments, it is far more the fault of the Chief Secretary than his own. I know when I was in the office now filled by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Cardwell), the Earl of Carlisle made a rule which no Lord Lieutenant ever made before, most characteristic of his own generous disposition—that, as his Chief Secretary in the House of Commons had to defend the appointments of the Lord Lieutenant, it was but fair he should be consulted on them; and, having laid down this rule, having done it voluntarily and conscientiously, I must say he did most faithfully and loyally adhere to it. There was not one vacancy that occurred during the two years I was Chief Secretary on which the Earl of Carlisle did not communicate with me, asking me to get all the information to enable him to make a safe and good selection, and to avoid falling into a mistake; not only that, but I will say that if on any occasion from personal feeling of his own he might have been about to make an injudicious or improper appointment, it was only necessary to point out the fact to induce him to cancel it. The only rule he laid down was personal fitness, overriding every other consideration, political partisanship not being a sufficient qualification. I need not say that I am cognizant of, and to a great extent responsible for, the appointment to which my hon. Friend alluded, on the vacancy in the Lieutenancy of the county of Roscommon. It occurred while I was in Ireland, about Christmas. The Earl of Carlisle was in Ireland when the vacancy occurred, but he immediately afterwards went to England. I know all the information was communicated to him in writing. I was in correspondence with him for some weeks on the subject. I am cognizant of all that occurred. I laid before him all the grounds of his decision, and I can certainly undertake to say that nothing whatever occurred in regard to that appointment but after full deliberation, and taking the advice of other parties of higher position and more entitled to give advice than I was myself. I am also cognizant of what took place with regard to the Sligo case, and the right hon. Gentleman who last addressed us has
  1020
  correctly stated the facts. Is it not, then, I say, rather strange that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who was the first to put restrictions on his own patronage, and who acknowledged his responsibility to Parliament, should be to-day dragged before the House of Commons as one wanting in fairness and conscience, and whose administration is so corrupt that it ought to be visited with the censure of Parliament? I would only make one remark with reference to the observation of the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel French) that the whole administration of Ireland, from top to bottom, is dirty and corrupt; my opinion is, after a good deal of thought, that, taking not Dublin alone, but Ireland as a whole, there is no part of Her Majesty's dominions, at home or abroad, in which there is so little abuse and so little corruption in its administration as in Ireland. The time was when abuses did exist to such excess, all parties got such a bad character, that I believe of late years there is no appointment which the heads of the Administration are so careful in making as that of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and I believe that both parties in making their selection have been fortunate in their choice. I believe that the noble Viscount (Viscount Palmerston) could not have fixed on a noble Lord who has so many high qualifications for the office as the Earl of Carlisle, and I believe the party opposite could not have chosen any one who could have performed the duties with greater satisfaction than the Earl of Eglintoun. I believe it is not the least recommendation of these two noblemen that while they are strong partisans they are free from anything like political animosity or sectarian and religious prejudices, and that while they have the confidence of their own friends they have that which is a great gift in Ireland—that conciliatory disposition which is likely to secure the good-will and respect of their opponents, and to bury in oblivion those rancours and party heats which my right hon. Friend so justly described as being at one time the curse of that country.
  MR. DEASYsaid, he should not have risen to address the House but for the reference made by the hon. Member for Donegal to his respected friend Judge Perrin. He had heard that reference with considerable pain; for he had imagined that nobody could mention the name of that eminent person in the House in any other terms but those of respect and commenda-

  1021
  tion. The hon. Gentleman not having thought proper to give the slightest intimation that he intended to impugn the recommendations made by Judge Perrin for the office of sheriff in Donegal, Londonderry, and the north-western circuit of Ireland generally, it was impossible for him to enter then into the details connected with those recommendations. He could only meet the charge of the hon. Gentleman, as far as Judge Perrin was concerned, with the most emphatic denial. He believed there was no man in Ireland more incapable than that distinguished person of acting from any other than the purest and most honourable motives; and he thought he was only expressing the common opinion of the bench, the bar, and the people of that country in giving utterance to that conviction. Judge Perrin, now retired at the close of a long, arduous, and successful career, was among the many able, upright, and constitutional Judges who had adorned the Bench of Ireland, and there were few abler, and none more upright or more constitutional, than that eminent person.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Sir, I cannot allow what has been stated by my hon. Friend the Member for Roscommon (Colonel French) to pass uncontradicted. That hon. Member said he wished that when I was called upon to form a Government I had adhered to my original intention not to recommend the Earl of Carlisle for the office he now holds. I assure my hon. Friend he has been totally misinformed as to what were my intentions; for, from the first moment it became my duty to consider by whom Her Majesty should be represented in Ireland, my thoughts and intentions immediately turned to the Earl of Carlisle, and they never for an instant varied. My decision was founded on the experience we had of his former administration, upon my knowledge of his character, and my conviction that the welfare and prosperity of the Irish was the most earnest desire of the Earl of Carlisle's heart. And, differing entirely in opinion from my hon. Friend on this point, I am quite sure that that appointment was not only most gratifying to the Earl of Carlisle himself, but was most popular in Ireland. I shall not now enter into the main question. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Horsman) have, I think, convincingly shown that there is no foundation whatever for
  1022
  the charges brought forward by the hon. Member for Donegal.
  MR. CONOLLYreplied. He had seen the noble Viscount drag so many of his friends out of scrapes that he was not surprised at the course he had pursued on that occasion. The noble Viscount had met his statements with a blunt denial, which would go for what it was worth. None of the charges that he had brought forward had been refuted. His object had been entirely answered. He had called the attention of the House to these scandals, and it would go forth to the British public that such things existed. The right hon. Member for Stroud had met his allegations Pharisaically. Whatever eulogies might be pronounced upon the Earl of Carlisle, the north of Ireland rang with accusations against him. Having done his own duty in this matter, he left the House to pursue the course it thought best.
  Motion made, and Question,
  "That this House, having regard to certain appointments made by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, is of opinion that fitness has not been primarily considered in these appointments:
  "That this House is further of opinion that the incautious and inconsiderate use of the prerogative of the Crown is prejudicial to the Public Service."
  Put, and negatived.

  DISTRESS IN IRELAND.—ADDRESS MOVED.
  MR. HENNESSYsaid, he rose to submit a Motion to the House relative to the distress now prevailing in Erris and other parts of Ireland. When that subject was brought before the House in the middle of April, the right hon. Chief Secretary fully recognized its importance, and on a subsequent occasion the right hon. Gentleman described the distress of this district as extreme. Since then, however, the evil had increased, and yet, as far as he knew, nothing had been done by the Government to remedy it. He was informed that on the 3rd of May there were in the district of Erris 300 families totally destitute, and receiving aid from a private relief committee. On the 9th of June the number had risen to 400; on the 17th of the same month it was 640; and a letter he had received that day from the Archdeacon of Killala stated that the number of destitute families had now reached 900. The right hon. Gentleman a few weeks ago dwelt upon the Poor Law system as the only and proper remedy for this state of things. But the Poor Law in Ireland differed from

  1023
  that of England in one important particular—that whereas in England out-door relief was given in cases of sudden and urgent necessity, or where one or more members of a family were sick, in Ireland, on the other hand, such relief was not given to any able-bodied person as long as the workhouses were not full. If the Irish Poor Law system were identical with that of England, these 900 destitute families would be entitled to out-door relief, not only in virtue of the sudden and extreme urgency of their distress, but because illness had unfortunately broken out extensively among them as the consequence of famine. The small quantities of meal which had been supplied to them by the private relief committee had only sufficed to keep them alive. Dysentery and fever now raged among them to a fearful extent, and he was informed that distress also prevailed among the small farmers and occupiers of land who possessed a few cattle, but who, owing to the destruction of the hay crop and the total want of fodder, had lost their means of subsistence. The parish priest as well as the Protestant rector confirmed these statements. He had suggested some time ago that the destitute poor should be employed upon public works, but the suggestion had been met by the Secretary for Ireland with sneers. Now, however, it was too late. The people had lost their strength and could not labour. He therefore asked that the English system, so far as cases of urgent necessity were concerned, might be adopted in that district, and that thus something might be done to preserve the people, and to prevent the emigration which would otherwise follow their recovery from the fever and dysentery from which they were now suffering. The hon. Member moved that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty might be graciously pleased to direct that steps might be taken to relieve the great distress now prevailing in Erris and other parts of Ireland.
  The O'DONOGHUE, in seconding the Motion, said, that the question really was whether the Government should maintain the letter of the Irish system or depart from it, and save the people from starvation. The emptiness of the workhouses was no proof of the absence of distress, because the people in all parts of Ireland had the greatest objection to go into the poorhouse. There was no question that great destitution existed in Erris, while instant relief was required, and he knew
  1024
  of no way by which the distress could be dealt with except by the giving out-door relief.
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, that he had always admitted the prevalence of distress in Erris, and had expressed in proper terms, he hoped, his sincere feelings of regret that it existed, and his sympathy with the sufferers, at the same time he had endeavoured to put the House in possession of the real facts of the case. He now had all the papers connected with this matter with him, and if the hon. Gentleman thought that either the Government, the Poor Law Commissioners, or the guardians had been remiss in the discharge of their duties, and that it was desirable that these papers should be laid upon the table, he should be quite ready to produce them, and to give every possible information. What had occurred in Erris was, that a liberal subscription had been raised and administered by a relief committee, the consequence of which was, that the Poor Law had been to a considerable degree in abeyance or reserve. In a workhouse in the district which was capable of containing 600 persons there had never during the prevalence of this distress been more than 125 inmates. The hon. Member said he (Mr. Cardwell) had sneered at the idea of out-door relief on public works; but he (Mr. Cardwell) was sure he never did sneer at anything connected with this distress, though he expressed his disapproval of adopting certain means to meet that distress which might be attended with more mischief than benefit. He had a letter from the Commissioners, dated the 8th of May, and he firmly believed that a liberal use by the guardians of the power of admission to the poor-house, and of affording out-door relief, and a proper use of the provisional powers vested in them, were sufficient to meet the present emergency. That showed that the Commissioners were not discouraging the use by the guardians of the powers which they possessed under the law to mitigate the distress; and he had that day received a letter from the Poor Law Inspector stating that there were only 120 persons in the workhouse, that the proportion of sick persons was not great, and that there was no fever or infectious disease in the house; and adding, that he had visited the most distressed part of the district, and had found that relief was accessible to all who needed it. The hon. Gentleman was wrong in supposing that the Government had at all changed their

  1025
  policy, or that they were giving funds to public works which were before withheld. The real state of the case was this:—There was a sum standing to the credit of the county of Mayo in the Irish Reproductive Fund, and, early in the spring, the hon. Member for the county applied to have it y employed in the improvement of two important bays within the district of Erris. The sum, which amounted to £1,150, was applied by the Treasury to that purpose in the regular course. The only step which he had taken upon the part of the Government which could be considered to be at all of an unusual character was to induce the Treasury to remit a sum of £6,000 due from certain distressed districts, especially Gweedore, on account of the constabulary, as it did appear to him an extreme hardship to levy that sum under the cricumstances. He should be extremely happy to lay on the table the whole of the correspondence if any hon. Gentleman connected with Ireland wished to see it, and he was sure they would be convinced that there had been no lukewarmness or indifference on the part of those who administered the Poor Law. But, if the hon. Gentleman meant to prejudge the question whether the provisions of the Irish Poor Law were or were not what they ought to be, he must object to the Motion. There was a Bill upon the subject now waiting for discussion. He had no objection to any Gentleman stating any arguments upon that measure, although they might not be those of the Government, but he certainly thought it inexpedient to bring them in incidentally, and to prejudge the general law upon the peculiar circumstances of this case. His answer to the hon. Gentleman was, that he would find when he looked to the evidence that every step which ought to have been taken had been taken by the Poor Law Commissioners and by the Government. With regard to how the law ought to stand as to indoor and outdoor relief, the time to raise that discussion would be when they were considering the general subject of the relief of the poor. But there was nothing in the circumstances of the district of Erris, as known to him, which led him to believe that a firm, humane, and fair administration of the Poor Law as it existed would not enable any person in distress to receive relief both with regard to sustenance and medical attendance.
  MR. M'EVOYsaid, the people who were in distress in Erris were small farmers, who, in consequence of the very severe
  1026
  season, had not their cattle in a condition to turn them into money. Although they had property it did not follow that they were not in a most distressed state, and that they would not bear any amount of privation rather than go into the workhouse. He hoped the Government would take some further steps to endeavour to mitigate the sufferings of those unfortunate persons.
  Notice taken that Forty Members were not present; House counted, and Forty Members being present.
  LORD FERMOYsaid, that while they were reforming the Poor Law, one portion of the people of Erris were dying of starvation and the other portion were living on the capital which they ought to use to make the land productive. The Treasury had forgiven the police-rate, but that was making a present of £6,000 to the landowners instead of assisting the people. The Poor Law was futile. The people of Ireland would rather die than go into a workhouse, and those who went in, as a general rule, were never useful subjects afterwards. There could be no doubt that great destitution prevailed in this part of Ireland, and the Government were bound to act as a paternal as well as a ruling power. The Poor Law as administered in Ireland was not of the slightest use, and the money which was to be given to the landlords ought rather to be spent in feeding and employing the starving people.
  MR. BRADYsaid, he shared the opinion that the Poor Law of Ireland, by withholding all out-door relief, was necessarily inadequate to the requirements of an emergency like that which had been brought under their notice. The poor Irishman, struggling to gain a livelihood from the merest patch of land, would on no account enter the workhouse in the hour of distress. Some other mode of relief must be provided, and he hoped the Government would not remain inactive. It was an Imperial and not merely an Irish question if the apathy of the Government drove these people to emigrate, while a little assistance properly applied would necessarily make them comfortable, and enable them to carry out their obligations to society in their own country.
  MR. MAGUIREsaid, he believed that this was a case of real and grave distress, which was hourly growing worse. The Government were bound to relieve these wretched people by all the feelings of humanity, if not by the principles of poli-

  1027
  tical economy. On a former occasion the Government consented to interfere only after repeated demands, and the result was that their remedy came too late. When employment was provided for the people they were in too reduced a state to avail themselves of it, The Government were now called upon to act promptly and vigorously. There must be some alteration in the Poor Law of Ireland to meet such cases as this, which were constantly arising. We could not command propitious weather, or ward off the murrain from the cattle and the blight from the crops; and when these calamities occurred the most deadly privations fell on certain classes. As one of these who administered the law in the city in which he lived, he could testify to the aversion which the poor entertained to entering the workhouse. It must be remembered, too, that the distress in this instance had fallen on the farming classes, who could not go into the workhouse, as those who held a certain quantity of land were not entitled to admission. The law must be amended, but in the meanwhile what were the people to do? There were hundreds of families perishing from starvation; how many more must be sacrificed before the sympathies of the Government were aroused? The law was inoperative as long as its administration was confided to cold-blooded guardians, and nothing but a suspension of the law would meet the requirements of this case. He called on the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland to break through the trammels of official routine, and to give a ready and generous response to the appeal of these 900 starving families for relief.
  LORD CLAUD HAMILTONsaid, that ever since the Poor Law had been introduced into Ireland he had endeavoured to promote it, but he did not think it was either just or fair to expect that the existing system of Poor Law could meet the extraordinary exigencies of a case of distress so awful as that which had been described. It was alleged that the poor-houses were not full; but if they were filled, what a miserable state of things would ensue. An extraordinary combination of incidents beyond the power of man had supervened—distress in the fisheries, drought, and disease of cattle, and consequent high prices of provisions, together with general sickness. No ordinary Poor Law could meet such a state of things. Who, he would ask, were the class that suffered? Were they not the farmers and
  1028
  ratepayers themselves? The small farmers could not go into the poorhouse until they had got rid of all their property. If they sold all their stock and entered the poorhouse with their families, the farm paid no rates, and thus the circle of misery was widened, because the difficulty of raising the rates was increased. It was said there was a reluctance to go into the poorhouse; but those who did not, probably held aloof in expectation of being able to do better, and once there it was scarcely possibly for them to get out again, excepting as paupers. If they once went in how were they to establish themselves again as ratepayers, and how were the rates to be paid? Would it not be wise on the part of the House to meet this local evil and emergency as in 1846 they met a general one, by resorting to extraordinary means? If not, they destroyed the productive resources of the country as well as its future prosperity. The proposers of the Motion did not ask for a grant of money, but for an address to the Crown that steps might be taken to relieve the existing distress. In a former instance the House had taken extreme steps, and a rate in aid was made. It was impossible to read the accounts from those districts, and not see that however great the amount of charity and exertion, it was not adequate to meet the emergency; and if steps were not taken there might be a loss of life that might be bitterly deplored. He hoped the Motion would be conceded.
  MR. CLIVEsaid, he must admit that the Poor Law authorities were not responsible in the matter, the question of outdoor relief being disposed of by the fact that the tenantry themselves in the district were paupers. The distress had arisen in consequence of the indisposition of the small farmers to sell their stocks owing to the low prices, and then came the bad weather and the drought, and the cattle perished. The persons who should apply themselves to relieve the existing distress were the landlords, who received the profits and rents of the land upon which it prevailed. He was himself a proprietor in the district, and he had sent over meal and money to relieve the distressed people, and a tenant of his, an English gentleman, who employed a considerable amount of labour, had also sent over meal; but he wrote that morning to say that he must give the meal to the cattle, as the poor people could not use it. The particular district in which his pro-

  1029
  perty was situate was perhaps better off than the northern portion, but still he entertained the belief that the landlords were the proper persons to provide a remedy for any distress that prevailed, though of course he should not object if, under the circumstances, a grant of public money were made in aid, because he believed that a portion of it would return to himself as a landlord.
  MR. LONGFIELDsaid, it had been shown that distress prevailed to an alarming extent, and that the present law was insufficient to meet that distress. It was said the poor did not go into the unions, but in Erris the poorhouse was twenty miles distant from some portions of the district. They were told that seventy families in one small district were suffering from fever and dysentery, and yet, because they did not go into the poorhouse, it was suggested that they must be in a good position. He thought it most reasonable that the House should agree to the Address.
  COLONEL DUNNEsaid, he disapproved of making paupers by wholesale by taking the small farmers into the poor houses. The effect of so doing would be most disastrous for the country. With regard to throwing the burden upon the landlords, the idea was quite erroneous. It might be all very well for an hon. Gentleman like the Under-Secretary for the Home Department (Mr. Clive), who had bought his property at an advantageous rate, to say the landlords should provide relief, but the case was different with landlords who had not so obtained their property. If all the people went into the poorhouse the land would be unfilled, the rents could not be paid, and the rates could not be levied. The debate recalled painful recollections, but there could be no doubt that the Poor Law was insufficient to meet a famine in Ireland. There were Resolutions on the books of the House to that effect. From what sources the relief was to come was the difficulty. Formerly there had been rates in aid and other plans had been resorted to. But as he had said the Poor Law was not a means of meeting a famine—a fact which he hoped would gain weight before a Bill at present before the House, the object of which was to throw the sick poor of Ireland on the rates for relief, came on for discussion.
  MR. SOTHERON ESTCOURTpointed out that in similar cases affecting England the mode of proceeding had always been first to establish the facts clearly and ac-
  1030
  curately by means of an inquiry before a Select Committee; and he could not with a safe conscience give his assent to the Resolution unless he had more accurate information with regard to the alleged facts upon which it was founded. He would abstain from expressing any opinion as to whether the ordinary administration of the Poor Law in Ireland was sufficient to meet the distress which existed in Erris, but speaking in the abstract, his own feeling in the matter coincided with that of the hon. Under Secretary (Mr. Clive) who thought the remedy for such calamities rested mainly with the landlord. In England the landlord was the first person looked to for a remedy in all cases of distress arising from what might be called the action of Providence. It was only after ordinary means had failed, when the landlords were exhausted, and when the ratepayers could no longer furnish means that application was made to the superior authorities to furnish support from the resources which were not ordinarily applicable to such purposes. If this were a case of emergency, if the facts were as stated, his vote would certainly be for the Motion, but as he had said he could not give it with a safe conscience until they had been distinctly established before a Select Committee in the usual way.
  Motion made, and Question put,
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to direct that steps may be taken to relieve the great distress now prevailing in Erris and other parts of Ireland."
  The House divided:—Ayes 49; Noes 84: Majority 35.

MILITIA BILL.—LEAVE.

  FIRST READING.
  MR. SIDNEY HERBERT: I rise to move for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the laws relating to the Militia, which, though not of great scope or force in itself, yet relates to a subject of great interest to the country. The House is aware that for some years past, owing to the continual changes made in the Militia law, the Militia itself is in a very unsatisfactory state. "When I say that, I do not mean that for its numbers it has been inefficient; on the contrary, probably no force, not being a regular force, has ever attained as great efficiency as the Militia under the command of the officers who have the honour to be its leaders. But the strength

  1031
  of the disembodied Militia has fallen signally short of the quota authorized by the law; and, what makes the matter more difficult, is that on paper the force has maintained considerable numbers, who, however, cannot be accounted for, and never appear on parade. In all probability a great number of these men have enlisted in the Line; for it is cheaper for a man to desert and to enlist in the regular army than to pay back by stoppages the bounty which he has received, and frequently men re-enlist in this way two or three times, and so appropriate to themselves several bounties. If the Militia does not produce the number of men that it ought to do, I cannot say that it is from any want of the material from which that force ought to be created. I have here a statement of the number of male adults between the ages of 18 and 45—from 18 to 40 are the usual limits between which men are admitted into the Militia, but men who have served in the army are taken up to 45 years of age. I find that of adult males in England between the ages of 18 and 45 in the year 1800, there were 1,900,000; in 1815, there were 2,329,000; in 1851, 4,167,000; and it has been computed by the Registrar General that, according to the rate at which population has increased, the Census for next year will give us 4,622,000. The small number of 120,000, therefore, is as nothing when compared with the great body of adults of the soldier age which exists in this country. I think we have not to seek far for the cause of the non-attendance of the Militia. I do not wish now to go much into this question, of which the importance is admitted by its frequent discussion in this House; but I have always stated my opinion that the constant embodiments and disembodiments of the Militia have had a very injurious operation on its permanent and substantial character. I will read to the House the successive steps which have been taken in this respect since 1854. In that year there were embodied in the months of May, June, and July, 18 regiments. In December of the same year, and in the months of January, February, and March, 1855, the embodiment of so large a number as 119 regiments took place. From April to July, 1855, 8 additional regiments were embodied. In October, 1855, 1 regiment was disembodied; another in January, 1856; and 113 in the May, June, and July following. In August and September, 1856,
  1032
  30 other regiments were embodied. In September, 1857, 25 regiments were embodied; in October, 2; and in November, 20. In May and June, 1858, 16 regiments were disembodied, and 2 were embodied. In March, 1859, 4 were disembodied, and in April, 1859, 8 were embodied. The Return does not give any embodiments or disembodiments in the present year.
  The opinion which I have always held with regard to a reserve is, that the object should be to secure for its ranks not the same men who would otherwise go into the Line, but a class less likely to leave home, who would be content to serve for short periods during a portion of every year, but who, in case of extremity, would willingly give their whole time to the service of the State. These embodiments have been attended with a very beneficial effect to the State. I cast no blame on any one who embodied those regiments, and I frankly admit that if any one is to blame more than another, it is the man who set the example of those embodiments, by which I mean myself. In 1854, the Militia was called out to a very great extent for the purpose of providing reinforcements for the army in the Crimea, and no doubt it did operate in this way, and many men imbibed a taste for military life, and were induced to join the Line, who otherwise would never have thought of doing so. Calling out the Militia, then, as afterwards during the Indian mutiny, was a matter of policy, the object of which was to tempt men to enter the regular army. Great assistance was rendered to the Line, but it was at the expense of the permanent success of the Militia. I do not know whether it would be wise now to say that we have seen the last of those distant wars that render it alike necessary and safe to injure the Militia for the sake of gaining a more rapid augmentation of our army; but it appears to me that, while every effort should be made to strengthen the Line, care should be taken not to do so at the expense of the Militia, whose success and permanent prosperity have become a very great element in the defence of the country.
  There is no doubt that the embodiment of the Militia has driven from its ranks a great number of country gentlemen, and that the connection of a regiment with the county in which it is raised is very much weakened by its being removed for six mouths, or possibly two or three years, to

  1033
  do garrison duty. A friend of mine, who has had great experience in connection with the Militia, writes thus:—
  "If you do not retain the services of the country gentlemen you will have instead of them only a mixture of half-pay officers, used-up Indians, and adventurers, whose sympathies are not with their regiments, and who fail to attract the working classes of the county to the ranks."
  That is a very strong statement, and strongly worded, but there is truth in it. It is this, that men who are in a position to choose their own profession, and who, if they wanted to enter the army, could have done so, do not like, without any prospect of the honours of the service or the legitimate rank which it confers, to be knocked about in garrison towns for three or four years—a feeling which must tend to sever the connection of the country gentlemen with the different regiments. I give all the more honour and credit to those who, despite these inconveniences, have stood by their corps and served in garrison, and who in time of difficulty have done very great service, not only in this country, but, like some of those whom I see before me, on colonial stations as well. In time of war the argument does not apply; but I think if the country gentlemen had some assurance that they should not be called on to leave home with their regiments to spend some months at Aldershot, at Portsmouth, or elsewhere, they would look on the Militia with different eyes.
  Formerly the Militia was considered to be a safe method of soldiering by all those who exercised influence over young men. In peasant families it was thought that if a son or brother went into the army he was gone for ever, whereas they were not sorry to see him engaged in the Militia, by which he was secured from being taken away from home, and was not abstracted altogether from family ties. As long as the Militia remains disembodied that feeling continues; but if it be capriciously embodied I believe these people will be as averse to allow their relatives to become connected with it as with the regular army. Then, again, the system by which these regiments were deprived of their best men by volunteering into the Line of course greatly impaired their efficiency. The men were cajoled by the recruiting sergeants of regular regiments, who attacked and harassed them, and militia officers have described their regiments as being for a certain time turned into a kind of pandemonium; for not only were the men carried off, but discipline was considerably
  1034
  shaken, and the regiments demoralized. Among other evils, the system created alt most a scientific practice of desertion. 14 extended far beyond the Militia, spreading into the Line, where the desertions about two years ago increased to such an alarming extent that the firmest enforcement of military discipline was necessary in order to prevent it. One objection which we should keep in view is to make it well understood by the labouring classes, from whom you draw the Militia, and who look upon embodiment as almost amounting to a breach of faith, that the Militia in future is to be a reserve force, a disembodied force, and that except in case of war or of great emergency they will not be taken out of their respective counties.
  A good deal has been said in favour of a local Militia. Now, I have examined the matter, but I confess I do not understand what is the difference between a local and a general Militia. The popular notion is that the local Militia is a force confined to its own county, and that a general Militia force is one each regiment of which may be removed from its county. But, strictly speaking, you can no more by the ordinary law take the general Militia out of their respective counties than a local Militia. At this moment we have an exceptional Act of Parliament enabling the Government to embody the Militia, although the condition which the law held necessary to embodiment does not exist. But, if you maintain a general Militia upon the local principle, you have all the advantages of the local force, with this further advantage—that you have a well-organized force, with a capital corps of officers and a permanent staff. Nothing, therefore, in my opinion can be more unwise than to introduce a local Militia in the place of a general force, which in its natural constitution is local, but which by legislative interference you have chosen to divert from its natural constitution. I come, therefore, to the conclusion that it will not be wise to attempt any change in this respect until you have tried the Militia law as it stands. The one thing the Militia wants is to be let alone. It has a capital constitution; the law on which it is founded is sound and wise; but Parliament under the pressure of a great emergency set it aside. I hope, however, that the House will not be induced to depart from the law, but will give it now, almost for the first time since it was enacted some few years ago, a fair trial.

  1035
  Let me state now what are the changes in detail and in administration, all of which I think tend to improve the condition and the efficiency of the Militia, and which have been made within the last few months. Last year, shortly after the Report of the Militia Commission was issued, it was my duty to introduce a Bill into Parliament for the purpose of carrying into effect such of their recommendations as I was unable to carry out by means of regulations. Since that time the following changes have been made in consequence of the Commissioners' Report:—In the first place, there were considerable restrictions with regard to the Militia, even under the old law, when embodied from fear of invasion. Thus they could not be moved from England to Ireland except in a certain proportion; they could not be required to remain there beyond a certain time; and great expense was consequently incurred in moving regiments in order to evade these restrictions. They were enacted in times when service in Ireland was not so agreeable as it is now, and they were very wisely removed by Parliament last year, and the Militia was rendered liable, when embodied, to serve in any part of the United Kingdom. Her Majesty was also empowered to accept the voluntary offers of the Militia to serve in the Channel Islands. Power was taken to unite in one battalion the Militia of two or more counties when their respective quotas are too small to be formed into separate regiments. I believe that will greatly tend to the efficiency of the Militia. In Scotland, several counties have been amalgamated, and have then produced powerful battalions; but some have remained unamalgamated, and the result is that you have very small battalions with a staff which would be available for a much larger one, while, militarily speaking, whenever it was necessary to call them out, these battalions would be comparatively useless. Ultimately, when you have consolidated the small battalions, you will gain greater strength at a much less cost, because one colonel and one adjutant will then be sufficient where two are now necessary. Since that power has been given the battalions which have been united in Scotland are, of the Galloway Militia, the Wigtown quota with Ayrshire, and the Kirkcudbright with Dumfries. It has been united under a gallant officer, a Member of this House (Sir James Ferguson), who I regret s not now present, from whom I have
  1036
  always received the greatest support and assistance in matters connected with the Militia, and on whose judgment I am inclined to place great reliance. The amalgamation of the following regiments will also take place:—The Flint and Denbigh will form one infantry corps; the Carmarthen and Pembroke one artillery corps; the Merioneth and Montgomery one infantry corps; and it has also been decided to form the Anglesea and Carnarvon into a rifle corps. The great difficulty in effecting these junctions arises from the existence of local feelings and jealousies, which render it difficult for the force of two counties to fall into one. There is another difficulty with respect to stores, for one county does not like to give up the stores it has got. That, however, may be got over by allowing the regiment to train in two wings, allowing each wing to have its own stores. In Scotland, as far as it has been tried, this amalgamation has answered perfectly.
  Then the Secretary for War was authorized to fix the times and places of training and exercise, he of course consulting with the Lords-Lieutenants, and appointing the time which is likely to be least objectionable to the employers of labour. A double object was in view in giving this authority—namely, that there should be first a fixed period to which officers and men should annually look forward; and, secondly, that there should be a simultaneous training, so as to prevent fraudulent enlistment from one regiment to another by men who pocketed the bounty in each case, and made a good thing of it at the public expense. Then, increased rates of pay and lodging allowances were granted to adjutants, and all uncertain and fluctuating allowances have been discontinued. That has had a most excellent effect, because formerly the adjutant was paid in proportion to the number of men he had enrolled, and human ingenuity could not have invented a more certain premium upon indiscriminate enlistment. It was natural, under such circumstances, that any recruit should be acceptable without very much inquiry into his character and antecedents. Put since that change has been made, and since the urgent wishes of the Government have been expressed both to Lords-Lieutenants and the commanding officers of regiments that none but men of known residence and fixed habits should be taken, there has been a marked improvement in the character of the regi-

  1037
  ments generally. I have received communications from magistrates stating that the men formerly brought before them by the militia serjeants were of a very indifferent class, and in some cases spoke a dialect which was not that of the county in which they were enlisting, while the same gentlemen now say that there is a great difference in the men brought before them, and that they evidently belong to the county, and that in many instances their residences are known and their characters ascertained. The change which has taken place is shown also by the training, as far as it has gone. By a Return moved for last year the number present at the training in 1859 was 44,340, and there were 30,557 absentees. That is not the number of the Militia generally, but only of the disembodied as distinguished from the embodied Militia. The number of men returned as having failed to attend was an accumulation of absentees who were retained on the books of the Militia because it was thought that as fast as they were struck off they would be followed by other men, who would perhaps in like manner take the bounty and never appear. These absentees were struck off shortly before the present training, and as far as the training has gone it has been satisfactory. We have received returns from fifty-four regiments, which have trained during the present year, and their respective quotas amount to 48,569 men. I have endeavoured to impress on all those concerned in raising the Militia that the object of the Government is not to have a large force to pay, but that the question is how many they can produce at training, and therefore that it is much better to refuse men than to take doubtful characters. The result has been that, so far as they can be compared with the Returns of last year, the absentees, who then upon the number of regiments trained amounted to 4,707, only number 2,660 for the present year, being a diminution of nearly one-half. The effectives in 1859, taking into account only the regiments I have mentioned, were 19,546, while in 1860, in the same regiments, they were 22,223, so that here also there is a marked improvement, and according to a Return recently presented the total quota of all ranks of the disembodied Militia on the 1st of June was 113,801, and the number of effectives was calculated at 52,899. There is an improvement in the training of this year over that of last by the presence of 6,000 or 7,000 men additional. This certainly
  1038
  is not a very large increase, but we must not expect a great change to be made in a day, for there is no class so slow to receive an impression as the labouring classes from which the recruits are drawn. It will take some time before the labouring classes are brought to believe that the Government do not intend suddenly to embody regiments, and take the men from their homes for months or for years, instead of one month.
  Certain additions also have been made, in order to produce greater efficiency in the Staff of the Militia service, in consequence of the Report of the Militia Commission. There have been added to each regiment a quartermaster, additional sergeant, hospital sergeant, drum or bugle major, and two sergeants as instructors of musketry. During the last year the whole of the disembodied as well as the embodied Militia have been armed with the rifle—the Enfield; and on purpose to teach them the proper use of it a number of adjutants have been to Hythe, for the purpose of going through a course of instruction there. They acquired considerable proficiency, but it appears to me that the duties of adjutants of Militia regiments are far too onerous to enable them also to devote time to musketry instruction, and therefore we have sent two sergeants in every regiment to Hythe to obtain the necessary instruction. We have had 94 adjutants and 260 sergeants who have passed through Hythe, and the remaining number to be instructed is only 40 sergeants. Therefore, very nearly the whole number have received instruction. I am glad to be able to state, on the authority of General Hay, that these persons have very well profited by the instruction given; and General Hay bears testimony to the soldier-like appearance and excellent conduct of the sergeants of Militia. I have no doubt that after one or two trainings they will make a remarkable improvement in the musketry practice of the Militia, which, I am sorry to say, is at present as nil, for the men have had no musketry instruction.
  It was recommended by the Militia Commission that the promotion of officers, as a general rule, should take place by seniority, and that when a Lord Lieutenant departed from that rule he should assign reasons for so doing. That is a rule which we have adopted with a good deal of hesitation, and it has, no doubt, in many instances, given a good deal of dissatisfaction. It is diffi-

  1039
  cult for the Lord Lieutenant in all cases to say who ought to be promoted. There are, of course, a variety of motives and considerations which ought to influence persona making the selection. You want in the Militia good county connection and military knowledge and efficiency. It is very well when you can combine both, but very often you have to balance the advantage on one side and on the other. You might have to choose between a man of influence who recruits the ranks, and a man of efficiency and skill who gives no help to increase the numbers of the Militia. Therefore, I have thought that every consideration should be given to the difficulties in which Lords-Lieutenant might feel themselves on this subject, and when good reasons have been assigned for departing from the general rule I have thought it right to support them. Then it was recommended that subaltern officers should be, previously to promotion, required to pass a practical examination in their duties. That is a good principle, no doubt, and if always insisted upon would induce officers to learn their drill, and fit themselves for their duties; but the application of it is not easy. Officers on the permanent Staff, adjutants, and so on, have been allowed to send their sons to Sandhurst to obtain the advantages which are attached to officers of their rank. I pass over some minor details, and, with respect to the treatment of deserters, I believe that the application of the law, with severity in some instances, has already been attended with advantage. It must be borne in mind that if men desert for the purpose of entering into the Line, they assume that that is rather a praiseworthy act than otherwise, for they argue that although they take the two bounties, yet they enter in the one case for five years, and in the other for ten. This it is intended to check, as it is important that when men make engagements they should be kept to them. Another change made is not entirely in accordance with the recommendations of the Militia Commission. They recommended that good-conduct pay should be given to men after five years' service; but some difficulty was felt on this point, that the good-conduct pay being only one penny a day while the men were under training, a penny a day for twenty-eight days in the year was scarcely worth their having; and the Government could not go so far as to give the penny a day during the whole year, the greater portion of which the men would be at their own
  1040
  homes. Therefore, we thought it better to give every man re-enrolled 10 s. a year in addition to his bounty, and this system, as I understand, is working very well. Free kits are also given to all men who shall hereafter enroll, or who have been enrolled since the last training or since disembodiment, and a portion in money is given to re-enrolled men having a good kit. All school fees are abolished, and an officer is appointed schoolmaster with Is. a day additional. All these things, of course, tend to the advantage of the men and the improvement of their position.
  Certain things are to be done by regulation, and by the Bill I have the honour now to submit to the House we want to have the power of uniting maritime counties for the purpose of forming Artillery corps, as has been done in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Thus, when in one county there is not enough men for two battalions, and yet too much for one, the men might be joined with the Artillery corps of a neighbouring county, and become an efficint force. Of course, we should require no different machinery for this than that which we have for the amalgamation of force in other counties. With regard to the union of counties for the purpose of stores, I have attempted to get over the difficulty by applying the same principle as is acted on in reference to county lunatic asylums. Thus, a joint committee of the magistrates of the united counties will be allowed to erect whatever may be necessary to carry the amalgamation into effect, and of deciding where the stores should be built. Then there is a further power with respect to counties recommended by the Militia Commission, which I am sorry does not receive the sanction of my right hon. Friend opposite, but which I think upon the whole will be advantageous to the Militia, the counties, and the Government. It is proposed by the Militia Commission that the Government and the counties should have power to make arrangements for building accommodation for the permanent Staff, the Government paying the counties an annual interest on the outlay. This is, of course, not to be compulsory, but I do not see why any objection need be taken to it. I think the counties, in many instances, will make a good bargain by building themselves the necessary accommodation for the Militia, and the Government will probably not pay more than at present. Power will also be taken to

  1041
  call out the troops for training either on enrolment or some time previously to the general training of the regiments. This provision will, I think, be found to operate beneficially, for there can be no doubt that if you would bring up men for previous training the time of the permanent Staff would be economized, and would be much better employed in being devoted to the regiment in general than to the instruction of particular men. It has been proposed that the men should be brought up for training immediately after enrolment. But I very much doubt the policy of that, because, although the system is proposed as a check against fraudulent enrolment and desertion, I think it will operate rather in a contrary direction. The man who intends to desert will be quite willing to undergo a few days' training for the sake of the expenses which he will get. I also propose to take power in this Bill to increase the Militia of Scotland and Ireland in the same proportion as that in which we have now authority to increase the English Militia in case of invasion. There are in England 80,000 Militia, and we are empowered to raise that number by 40,000; and I would ask the House to enable us, should invasion take place, or imminent danger of it arise, to raise the Scotch and Irish Militias from 5,000 to 10,000, and from 15,000 to 30,000 men respectively, thus making the total force 120,000 in time of peace, and 180,000 in time of war. It was recommended by the Commission that the permanent Staff should be put permanently on embodied pay, but since that recommendation was made the Volunteer movement has undergone rapid progress, and the demand for non-commissioned officers has become so great that it is no easy matter to attract them to the Militia. The Volunteer corps are very naturally eager to receive as much assistance as possible in their drill, and I am sure that nobody who witnessed the spectacle in Hyde Park on Saturday—which seemed to me one of the greatest and most imposing which has taken place in the Metropolis for years—would grudge those corps the aid of those non-commissioned officers by whom they appear to have so well profited. It is, however, important that the Militia force, which is of a permanent nature, should be made as efficient as possible, and I therefore propose to afford the permanent Staff—not by the present Bill, but by the Militia Pay Bill, which will be hereafter
  1042
  introduced—increased pay. There is only one other change which I propose to make, and which will not be effected under the operation of the present Bill, inasmuch as it can be done by regulation. In officering the Militia it is comparatively easy to secure the services of field-officers, captains, and lieutenants, while there is the utmost difficulty in procuring ensigns. When regiments are embodied great efforts to obtain ensigns are made, and the result is that it is found necessary to go below the class from which it is desirable that they should be selected. The consequence is that considerable disappointment is experienced when these ensigns are not promoted to the upper grades in their regiments. You could, of course, get ensigns fast enough in time of war, or in the case of regiments permanently embodied; and what I propose to meet the difficulty with respect to regiments which are disembodied is that, while every existing ensign should retain his position, the vacancies which may in future occur should not be filled up. There are at present sixty-five of these vacancies in the embodied Militia and 601 in the disembodied. The better course to adopt under these circumstances seems to me to be not to fill up those vacancies, but to appoint two extra lieutenants in each regiment to carry the colours. Of course the ensigns at present with their regiments would remain. That subject, however, cannot be dealt with in the present Bill, which is confined to the objects I have stated. Its purpose is very humble; it attempts but little. It does not essay re-organization. It establishes no Prussian or Foreign system in the raising and maintenance of the Militia force. Our duty is, it appears to me, to keep up the traditions of the Militia, and to endeavour, by strict adherence to them, to bring it into a more efficient state. I believe the Militia has been disturbed and upset by constant interference with its arrangement, but if circumstances now allow us to keep it as a reserve and a reserve alone, we shall find the result to be a great increase in efficiency. My object is to keep the Militia in a disembodied state, and to give them the confidence and assurance that they shall remain so except in cases of great emergency. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving for leave to bring in the Bill.
  COLONEL WILSON PATTENsaid, he had listened to the speech of his right hon. Friend with much pleasure. There could

  1043
  be no doubt that the reluctance to enter the disembodied Militia to which his right hon. Friend had adverted was in. a great measure owing to the state of uncertainty which for years past had prevailed with respect to the embodiment and disembodiment of the force. In Lancashire, where wages were high, that was particularly the case. In 1852, and during the Russian war, no difficulty in tilling up the ranks of the force had been experienced; but immediately after the conclusion of that war, when the system of disembodiment and re-embodiment came into active operation, the Militia became reduced to nearly one-half its regulated amount. The first step towards re-establishing the Militia ought to be to make it attractive to men of character, and not render the sacrifice involved in quitting their usual occupations too great; and he entirely concurred with his right hon. Friend in the opinion that one of the best modes which could be adopted in order to promote the efficiency of the disembodied Militia was to make the staff as perfect as possible. Indeed, he thought it should be made a sine quâ non that no sergeants should be on the staff who were not competent to instruct the men in the rifle drill as at pre-Bent carried out in the army. He was glad to find that there was to be additional compensation for the staff of the Militia; and while upon that point he might observe that the Committee, in dealing with the question of affording greater accommodation for the staff in the shape of buildings, had deemed it desirable to abstain as far as possible from increasing the county-rate in order to effect that object. His hon. and gallant Friend behind him (Colonel Gilpin) had strongly opposed any such increase, but he was happy to find that the Secretary for War had pointed out that the recommendation of the Commission might be acted upon in such a manner that the repayment of the necessary expenditure would be guaranteed by the Government to the several counties. He would not venture, until he saw it in print, to express an opinion upon the Bill itself; but if, as he supposed, it carried out the recommendations of the Militia Commission, he should give it every support in his power. The Commissioners proposed, with the view of securing greater uniformity of practice in the promotion of officers, that if any Lord Lieutenant of a county did not recommend an officer in the regular routine of the regiment, he should assign
  1044
  his reasons for it. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that that rule should be adopted with considerable modification. Every regiment should be kept as much a county regiment as possible. In 1852 he made an arrangement with his officers to the effect that upon the occurrence of every third vacancy he should be at liberty to advise the Lord Lieutenant to depart from the rule of regular promotion in the regiment for the purpose of introducing some gentleman connected with the county. That arrangement had been carried out without the least dissatisfaction on the part of the officers, and he was persuaded it might be adopted with great advantage elsewhere.
  VISCOUNT ENFIELDsaid, he rejoiced that an attempt was about to be made to improve the Militia. The fact that in future the time at which regiments were to be called out for drill was to be determined beforehand would give great satisfaction to both officers and men, and would produce a much better attendance. One of the recommendations of the Militia Commission was to the effect that when a recruit was attested he should be taken at once to head-quarters and trained for twenty-eight days. The Secretary of State said that would increase the expense; but, if so, he thought the system adopted iu many counties should be put in force throughout the country generally—the system, namely, of allowing recruits to assemble for preliminary drill twenty or thirty days before the calling out of the regiment. He was glad that some definite rule was to be adopted with respect to the embodiment and disembodiment of the Militia, and that they were not for the future to be embodied except in the case of an emergency. He hoped that emergency would not arise, but if it did, he hoped that every regiment would have a fair chance of being embodied in its turn, and that no favour or partiality would be shown. The right hon. Gentleman said he could not see the advantage of a local Militia. Well, some seven or eight years ago the existence of the Government was made to depend upon the question as to whether the Militia should be local or general. Most of the regiments of the Line were distinguished by some designation connected with the county in which they were originally raised, and he thought it desirable that militia regiments should give recruits to those regiments that bore the names of their counties, so that a local connection, might be kept up between the

  1045
  Militia and the Line. The proposal to increase the pay of the staff would, be thankfully received by an able and devoted body of men.
  COLONEL GILPINsaid, that he wished to thank the right hon. Gentleman for bringing forward this measure, though he felt that was not a time to enter into a discussion of the details. As, however, he had been pointedly referred to, he might state that he was still of opinion that magistrates were not entitled to use the county money in providing buildings for the Militia upon the plea that they might get some of it back from the Government. The suggestion that recruits should be assembled for preliminary drill before the regular training was an admirable one. He thought there was a great deal of good in the Bill.
  COLONEL DICKSONsaid, he hoped the Government would consider the propriety of increasing the pay of the surgeons in Militia regiments.
  GENERAL UPTONsaid, he concurred in the opinion that every regiment should be embodied in its turn, so that nil might have an opportunity of being drilled, and of acquiring a military spirit.
  Leave given.
  "Bill to amend the Laws relating to the Militia, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Secretary HERBERT and the JUDGE ADVOCATE."
  Bill presented, and read 1° to be read 2° on Monday next, and to be printed (Bill 211.)

  LOCOMOTIVE BILL—COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  House in Committee.
  Clauses 1 to 3 agreed to.
  Clause 4 (Home Office to appoint Officer to certify as to Construction of Wheels of Locomotives.)
  MR. E. P. BOUVERIEsaid, the clause required the Secretary of State to ascertain the weight and to register locomotives running on the highways, as well as to give a badge, charging a certain fee. He did not think this such a duty as could be properly cast on the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who had no staff to fulfil it. He should move the rejection of the clause unless the right hon. Gentleman agreed to accept the duty it threw on him.
  SIR GEORGE LEWISsaid, the duty of registering locomotives and charging fees for them was certainly a new one to east upon the Secretary of State, and such as
  1046
  he thought most objectionable. The duty was one that fell more properly within the jurisdiction of a Commissioner of police. The next clause authorized either the Secretary of State or some other Member of the executive Government to stop any dangerous locomotive which might be running under this Bill. He was told there was a certain class of locomotive engines which had been used to a considerable extent in the north for the transport of coals from railway stations to towns, and which were found running at a moderate pace very economical, while they did not frighten horses, or crush or destroy the surface of the roads. It might be advantageous to all parties that this particular form of locomotives should be used; but if some new form of locomotives should be introduced and run in the Metropolis or crowded places under the provisions of this Bill, they would, no doubt, be dangerous. It would be a just subject of reproach to Parliament if, in a matter of this kind, it did not give the Executive power to interpose a speedy check to a nuisance the suppression of which could hardly a wait the slow process of an indictment. Some such provision as that contained in the 5th section was therefore necessary to make the Bill a safe measure, but he was certainly disposed to vote for the omission of the 4th clause.
  COLONEL PENNANTsaid, that these locomotives were, after all, an experiment, as it was hardly known what would be their effect upon the roads. Some Government office ought, therefore, to have the power of putting a stop to their employment if they inflicted an amount of damage on the roads exceeding the wear and tear produced by ordinary vehicles.
  MR. AYRTONsubmitted that it was impossible for the Secretary of State to discharge all the functions which the Bill threw upon him. The attempt to invest him with such general authority was contrary to that principle which the House be jealously maintained of giving to local bodies control over matters which immediately affected their interests. The justices in counties and the municipal authorities in towns, possessing a knowledge of all the circumstances of their respective localities, would be far more competent to regulate these matters. Moreover, the Bill ought to provide that locomotives should not be employed where they would prove inconvenient or injurious to the public interests. He, for one, should object to see

  1047
  them used in the Metropolis, or in any large towns. Still as a mere tentative measure he thought that the Bill might be passed.
  MR. GARNETTsaid, the Bill was merely intended as a tentative measure. There was no wish to force the use of machines in any places where they would be likely to cause inconvenience or injury. He had no objection to relieve the Home Office from the duty of certifying the machine, at the same time he thought that some authority should be compelled to inspect the machines, and to affix some indication of their weight on the outside, because it was according to the weight that toll was levied.
  MR. STEUARTsuggested that the Bill should be postponed, and said that he could not for his part consent to the principle of the Bill, unless the interference of the Home Office were secured under it. They did not know what effect those locomotives would have on roads, or what damage was to be calculated on from them.
  Clause withdrawn.
  Clause 5 (Plate to be affixed on Engine.)
  MR. DILLWYNsaid, he should move the omission of the clause. He believed that strict limitations ought to be put on the employment of locomotives upon public roads.
  MR. JOSEPH LOCKEsaid, the great question involved was whether these engines could be admitted to the roads without danger to the public. If the experiment was to be tried, as he supposed it was intended it should by reading the Bill a second time, the clause was essential, and it would leave to the Secretary of State the responsibility of putting a stop to the use of the locomotives if they were dangerous to the public.
  MR. AYRTONinsisted that it was absolutely necessary for the public convenience and safety that the locomotives should be licensed for particular roads and particular purposes.
  LORD LOVAINEpointed out that the Bill gave the Secretary of State power to impose the restrictions the hon. Member desired.
  SIR GEORGE LEWISsaid, he saw no objection to the Secretary of State exercising the power that was proposed to be conferred on him. At present he did exercise a certain control over turnpike trusts, and the clause seemed to refer to occasions which, though not likely often to arise, might occasionally do so, and in
  1048
  which the immediate interference of the Secretary of State would be more advantageous and satisfactory than the decision of the Quarter Sessions, which would, perhaps, be necessarily delayed.
  MR. E. P. BOUVERIEsaid, it appeared to him that the clause introduced a rather anomalous power into the hands of the Home Secretary. The House ought to be very cautious in passing the Bill. They did not attempt to put down larceny by giving the Secretary of State power to prohibit it; but they punished those who were guilty of the offence. In like manner, what they wanted was to forbid, under a penalty, the employment of dangerous locomotives, or of locomotives causing excessive wear and tear to the roads. The penalty would then be recoverable by ordinary operation of law, and with this view he proposed to omit the words relating to the Secretary of State.
  Amendment proposed, in pag, line 4, to leave out the words "to one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State that."
  SIR GEORGE LEWISsaid, he would own that at first he had been disposed to think that a locomotive with its train of waggons could never be allowed on the public highways; but on finding that these engines were actually in use in many parts of the country, he had consented to legalize them, provided summary powers were provided for the protection of the public.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsuggested that the Quarter Sessions should certify to the Secretary of State the roads to be used.
  SIR CHARLES NAPIERsaid, it would be absurd and dangerous for a large machine, twice as large as the table of the House, to be turning the corners of the Metropolitan streets with perhaps a train of half-a-dozen waggons after it.
  SIR JOHN SHELLEYsaid, he agreed with his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Southwark that it would be most unsafe to run locomotives in the Metropolis; and he had to add that he thought the power of regulating that species of traffic, if it were to be tolerated at all, ought to be vested in the Metropolitan Board of Works, and not in the Secretary of State.
  MR. DILLWYNexpressed a hope that the clause would be reconstructed with the view of placing the regulations of the roads under the justices. He moved the omission of the clause.
  MR. JOSEPH LOCKEsaid, he thought that when the question was one of danger to the public from the use of locomotives, the regulation of them ought to be, not with the justices, but with the Secretary of State. Neither did he think that the Metropolitan Board of Works, which had never managed anything yet, was the proper body to which to intrust the management of these locomotives. The clause, therefore, ought to stand.
  MR. E. P. BOUVERIEsaid, he thought the interference of the Secretary of State ought to be only so far as to pronounce what locomotives would not cause danger to the public.
  MR. RIDLEYremarked that locomotives could use turnpike roads anywhere, and it was the purpose of the Bill that on roads where they paid no toll they should be charged with toll. The Bill, therefore, was necessary, and the clause was necessary to the Bill. He might add that the vehicles were under perfect control, and could be stopped in a moment.
  COLONEL WILSON PATTENcontended that the clause would prove useful to the public. The only means of regulating the use of locomotives on common roads was through the Secretary of State; if it were left to local authorities, the result would be considerable confusion.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, it should be remembered that these locomotives were to draw each three waggons, and thus a train would actually pass through the streets. He asked how that would work in Fleet Street? He thought the fitness or unfitness of those engines should be determined by local authority.
  Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause," put, and agreed to.
  MR. E. P. BOUVERIEsaid, he believed that there could be no use in their proceeding any further with the Bill, and he should therefore move that the Chairman do leave the Chair.
  Motion made and Question put, "That the Chairman do now leave the Chair."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 39; Noes 83: Majority 44.
  SIR CHARLES NAPIERsaid he would move that the Chairman report progress.
  MR. GARNETTsaid, he hoped the Motion would not be pressed, but that the clause would be passed, after which he should not ask the Committee to proceed further that night.
  SIR CHARLES NAPIERsaid, he would withdraw his Motion.
  Clause agreed to.
  The House resumed. Committee report Progress; to sit again on Monday 9th July.

  SALE OF GAS ACT AMENDMENT (No. 2.) BILL.—SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. SOTHERON ESTCOURTsaid, it was very important that some certainty should be arrived at with respect to the operation of the existing law. He thought, however, that it was a very useful Act, and would be much better amended than repealed. Still he was quite aware that his own measure having been prepared in haste was imperfect, and therefore, if the House would agree to the second reading, he would move that it be referred to a Select Committee.
  Bill read 2° and committed to a Select Committee.
  MR. SPOONERsaid, the House had been sitting thirteen hours, and it was quite time that it should adjourn. He moved that the House adjourn.
  SIR GEORGE LEWISsuggested that all unopposed orders be first disposed of.
  MR. SPOONERacceded to the suggestion, and withdrew the Motion for adjournment.
  House adjourned at a quarter after One o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Tithe Commutation; Inland Bonding.
2a Ecclesiastical Commission.
3a Church Temporalities (Ireland) Acts Amendment; Ecclesiastical Courts and Registries (Ireland).

ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION BILL.

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORKsaid, the object of the Bill of which he now moved the second reading was simply to give authority to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, in making additional provision for the cure of souls, to give due consideration to the wants and circumstances of the places from which they derived revenues from any lands or hereditaments. The Ecclesiastical Commission Act of 1840 contained a provision similar to this as far as it went, inasmuch as it directed that due provision should be made for local wants out of the tithes arising in the respective localities; and a Select Committee of their Lordships' House had reported in favour of the principle of expending the Revenues received by the Commissioners in the places wherein they had been received, and of attending, as a first duty, to the spiritual wants of the people of such districts. The diocese of Durham, over which he had formerly presided, was very deeply interested in the decision of this question, and, no doubt, other dioceses and parishes in va-
  978
  rious parts of the country were similarly affected. He would, however, illustrate the peculiarities of the case from the circumstances affecting the diocese of Durham, and with which, therefore, he was personally acquainted. The condition of the diocese of Durham was this:—The average population in each benefice or parish in other counties was 1,398, while in the county of Durham the average population was 2,708. The average number of acres in the parishes of other dioceses was 3,277; the average number in the parishes of the diocese of Durham was 7,566. The increase in population in the county of Durham between 1841 and 1851 was 27 per cent; and the increase in Lancashire during the corresponding period was 22 per cent, and in Middlesex 20 per cent. In the five most populous places in the diocese of Durham—namely, Newcastle, Gateshead, Tynemouth, Shields, and Darlington—the population in each parish or district exceeded 7,000; while in Salford, Manchester, and Liverpool, it was in each parish or district not more than 5,400. With these facts before them he thought it was absolutely necessary that something should be done to remedy the great evils which existed in the diocese of Durham. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners were abstracting a large sum annually from that diocese—which they applied to the general purposes of the Commission; last year they received no less than £55,000 from it. The consequence was that in those parts of the diocese in which there was Church property, the people were just to that extent deprived of that relief which they would have received if that property had been continued in ecclesiastical hands. The present state of the law was such that it acted very unfavourably indeed against those parts of the kingdom in which there were local claims. This state of things being well ascertained, a large meeting was some time ago held in Newcastle, and a deputation appointed to wait on the Prime Minister. The result was extremely satisfactory. The answer of the noble Lord at the head of the Government was, "It is quite obvious and equitable that a preferential consideration should be given to local claims." To the principle of the Bill now before them their Lordships had already assented. A general Bill had been before Parliament since the 2nd of February in the present year. Five months had elapsed since that date, and it had

  979
  only been read a second time in "another place" last night. The Bill which he now asked their Lordships to read a second time was, in fact, a supplemental measure, to provide a remedy for existing evils, in the event of the Bill now in the Lower House not being passed during the present Session. The promoters thought that those miners and other operatives who, by the sweat of their brow, increased the revenues of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, should have their spiritual wants provided for before the money passed into the Common Fund. It might be said that spiritual destitution prevailed in other parts of the country, and that the people in those places would suffer if this Bill passed; but as he still contended that those who provided the revenues had the first right to the benefit of them, and as the passing of the Bill in the other House was a matter of uncertainty, he asked their Lordships to accede to his Motion.
  Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.
  THE EARL OF CHICHESTERsaid, he felt himself compelled, though reluctantly, to oppose the Motion of the most rev. Prelate, who he knew had strong feelings as to the justice of this measure, but he should be wanting in his duty to the House if he did not frankly but shortly state the reasons which convinced him that the Bill now before the House ought not to be passed into law. The great difference between the Bill before the other House of Parliament and that now before their Lordships was, that the former was a general measure, by which powers were given to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to deal more largely and efficiently with Church property, in order to meet the spiritual wants of the whole country; whereas the object of the latter was only to give certain places a claim before all others for assistance from the common fund. He would not venture to say what would be the effect on this fund, but it was clear that to whatever extent certain districts had a preference given to them in the distribution of the funds, other districts which were excluded from that preference must suffer in proportion. Their claims, however urgent, would have to be postponed. The measure of the most rev. Prelate practically created a number of new charges upon the Common Fund without doing anything to increase the resources from which that fund was supplied. The larger measure, contained similar clauses with respect to local claims, but then its other pro-
  980
  visions would tend to increase the value of Church property, and so augment the means at the Commissioners' disposal. He could not approve of these special provisions in favour of local claims being separately enacted, as proposed by the Bill of the most rev. Prelate.
  EARL GRANVILLEsuggested that the Bill should be postponed until their Lordships saw reason to doubt whether the Bill would come up from the other House in time to pass during the present Session.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORKwould not object to the suggestion of the noble Earl, provided the present Bill had the precedence.
  EARL GREYsaid, the subject was one which had been discussed on former occasions. Two Select Committees had sat; clauses such as were in the present Bill had passed their Lordships' House, and had only failed to pass the other House through want of time. For some time the diocese of Durham had been suffering grievously from the want of some measure of this kind, because while it remained in abeyance it interfered with the current of private benevolence. In order to prevent the evil from enduring for another year, the right rev. Prelate proposed that this Bill should be read a second time, so that if the larger measure now in the other House failed to come up to their Lordships they might proceed with this Bill. The noble Earl the President of the Council asked his right rev. Friend to postpone the Bill, which the right rev. Prelate was willing to do, upon the understanding that this Bill should be passed if the larger measure should fail. If the noble Earl would give an assurance that the Government would support this Bill in case the other did not come up to that House within a reasonable time, he would heartily concur in requesting the right rev. Prelate to postpone the second reading of this Bill.
  LORD PORTMANobserved that this was a most important measure, and for the first time it was proposed to make it imperative upon the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to apply the funds exclusively within the districts in which they were raised. The measure before the other House was permissive in this respect. It was decided in 1840 that a Common Fund should be formed, and that the wants of the poorer dioceses should be supplied from the riches of the wealthier dioceses. He strongly objected to

  981
  the imperative principle contained in this measure.
  LORD RAVENSWORTHsaid, as the noble Earl the President of the Council had failed to give any assurance in respect to the future treatment of this measure in the event of its being postponed, he (Lord Ravensworth) felt himself called, upon to submit a few observations for their Lordships' consideration. The noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Chichester) represented the Ecclesiastical Commission there, and appeared to entertain objections to this important Bill, on the ground that it made it imperative upon the Ecclesiastical Commission to give a preference to local claims in certain parts of the kingdom. Now, all that the supporters of the present Bill desired was that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners should no longer have the opportunity of making an apology or excuse for not attending to the wants of the local population. The principle of this Bill had been affirmed over and over again by both Houses, not simultaneously but on separate and respective occasions. The terms of the Bill which passed the House of Commons on the 6th April, 1840, were precisely in accordance with the provisions of the present measure. A clause provided that in each case the Commissioners should consider whether the funds raised within a particular diocese ought not to be applied in making exclusive provision for the spiritual wants of that diocese. He saw no reason for refusing to give this Bill a second reading. He did not object to the measure in the House of Commons, but it was one which dealt with a vast amount of property and with complicated interests, and it was doubtful whether it would pass in the present Session. No harm could be done by acceding to the present Bill until the fate of the measure in the other House was ascertained, and he hoped that by assenting to the second reading their Lordships would acknowledge the great principle, that those portions of the kingdom which contributed the largest share to the funds in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners should have the first claim in the distribution of those funds.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYunderstood that the Bill deprived the Ecclesiastical Commissioners of any discretion in this matter, and made it imperative on them to apply the funds derived from the dioceses of London and Durham in first supplying the wants of those districts. The
  982
  effect of the measure thus would be that not a single sixpence derived from the sale of property in those two dioceses could be applied out of the Common Fund for the relief of destitute places in other parts of the country, at all events until every case of destitution in Durham and London had been first provided for.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORKsaid, his object was that in a given place, where there was a large population who were earning for the Ecclesiastical Commissioners revenues which now went into the Common Fund, the population there should have their spiritual wants first provided for before the money went into the Common Fund.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid, that was a principle to which Parliament had repeatedly refused its assent, declaring that the Common Fund should be applicable to the whole country at large. Seeing that a measure on this subject was now before the other House, he thought it would be a work of supererogation to proceed with the present Bill; which he hoped, therefore, would not be pressed.
  THE DUKE OF CLEVELANDsaid, that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners received £50,000 a year out of the diocese of Durham, while at the same time he believed that in no county were there more small livings than in Durham or a larger population. The population had enormously increased there, and it seemed but reasonable that the surplus funds derived from the diocese should be applied in providing for the local clergy. The present Bill made it imperative to provide for local wants; and in a diocese like that of Durham, where the local destitution was so great, the population so large, and the livings so small in point of income, it was not unfair that a part at least of the funds derived from the diocese should be applied in relief of its necessities. It was said that in point of practice the Ecclesiastical Commissioners did take the local claims into consideration. But, he was sorry to say, that was not so in his own district. He knew of a case in which application for aid for a population of 5,000 had been made and refused. He should give all the support in his power to the Bill.
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, that as connected by property with the diocese of Durham, he had been asked on a former occasion to give his support to this movement; but he felt incapable of doing so because the measure was a diocesan one,

  983
  and one which he considered too extensive. But in the Bill before the House the measure was a parochial one, and did not assume so extensive a position. It was important that the question should be distinctly understood, and whether the claim was a parochial or a district claim. He thought there was a strong case in favour of a parochial claim; but beyond that he considered that the property of the Church was universal as regarded the whole kingdom, and he did not think that to property arising from one parish a neighbouring parish had any greater claim than a parish in any other part of the kingdom. The parish itself, however, had, in his opinion, a strong and distinct claim. As the Bill was drawn, the word "place" was inserted, and if by that were meant "diocese," he should object to it. If, on the other hand, the Bill was distinctly of a parochial character, and the demand was on the Commissioners for property in the parish itself, then he was prepared to support the Bill.
  THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGHdrew attention to a discrepancy between Clauses 1 and 2. The first had reference to properties vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and forming part of their property, and was an extension of the principle that was sanctioned by Parliament with regard to tithes. It was also a reaffirmation of the principle laid down in their Lordships' Committee, and embodied in a Bill now in the other House. In Clause 2 there was a very important enlargement and extension, and the property was to be the surplus revenue belonging to ecclesiastical corporations. He thought that the House should be careful not to allow such a nice distinction to exist, for he conceived that by the present measure an endeavour might be made to treat the surplus revenues of ecclesiastical corporations as property not so much belonging to the Common Fund as to the Commissioners. He was afraid, too, that if the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were tied up in the manner proposed the purposes for which the Common Fund was established would be imperilled. Properties would be considered of a local and special character, and the great objects for which the Commission was instituted would be to some extent overlooked. But it was not his intention to oppose the second reading of the Bill, although he thought it would require mature consideration in Committee.
  THE EARL OF DERBYthought the noble
  984
  Duke had misapprehended the object and force of these two clauses. He should be as much indisposed as any of their Lordships to place any unnecessary restriction upon the Ecclesiastical Commissioners with the view of localizing the revenues arising from any particular diocese; but he did not think the Bill as it stood would have that effect. It only rendered it incumbent upon the Commissioners to give a fair and reasonable consideration to local claims. He hoped the Government would pledge themselves, in the event of the larger measure now before the other House being thrown out or unduly delayed, to take up the present Bill. If they agreed to do so, the second reading might be postponed. If not, he hoped the right rev. Prelate who had charge of the Bill would proceed to a division. If he did so, he should vote for it.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, there was one great difference between the present Bill and that before the other House—namely, that while the latter was permissive this was imperative as to local claims. The main object of the Bill before the House of Commons was to augment the funds applicable to the whole of England, and he need not state that those funds must suffer if, as proposed by the present measure, favour were shown to particular districts. He was not prepared to give the pledge asked by the noble Earl opposite. The Bill before the other House having been read a second time, he had every reason to believe that it would pass successfully through the remaining stages, and eventually become law; but he did not see how Her Majesty's Government could make themselves answerable for carrying the Bill through the other House, or anticipate what might be the decision of that branch of the Legislature upon this or any Bill. Under these circumstances he trusted that their Lordships would not be forced to a division upon the second reading of the present Bill.
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONsaid, that it was desirable that there should be nothing to prejudice the discussion on the other Bill when it came up to their Lordships; and equally so that there should be no misunderstanding on the subject. As the noble Earl had alluded to the difference between this and the other Bill in respect that the one was permissive and the other imperative, in the recognition of local claims, he had to say that the right rev. Bench had been induced to promise their support to the Bill now before the

  985
  House of Commons upon the distinct understanding that the permissive clause as to local claims should be made imperative. There was another point on which it was important there should be no misunderstanding. He agreed that, in the recognition of local claims, a diocesan division would be too extensive, but he did not think that a parochial division should be adopted. He was prepared to show that in many instances the Church possessed property in one parish, and there was great destitution in another parish in the same place, and he was of opinion that it was proper the destitute parish in the same place should receive due consideration before the funds were carried off to another part of the kingdom. There was some exaggeration as to local claims. It was not proposed to endow the parishes or places which had such claims largely. The utmost that would be done would be to give the clergyman the pittance of £300 a year. It would, therefore, be very unfortunate if it were supposed that the whole of the funds of the Ecclesiastical Commission would be dried up because those persons were given £300 a year out of the funds possessed by the Church in their own locality. It was very likely that the Bill in the other House would come to an untimely end, and he should deeply regret if the discontent already raised by the neglect of local claims should grow stronger and stronger. He felt assured that nothing alienated the people so much from the administration of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners as knowing that they were drawing large revenues from Church property in populous districts in which great spiritual destitution existed, but from which the poor population of the locality was not permitted to derive any benefit. He could not see the difference between tithes and other property in this matter. Where there was large property, and where there was great spiritual destitution, the majority of thoughtful men would concur in the opinion that the Commissioners ought to provide moderately, not exorbitantly, for those localities before the funds were carried off to distant parts of the kingdom.
  LORD BROUGHAMentirely agreed that nothing caused so much discontent as the withdrawing of funds which ought to provide for the spiritual instruction and necessities of the district for the use of other districts. He did not think that the
  986
  provisions of the Bill before their Lordships were compulsory. The parties charged with these duties were not compellable to act—they were only compellable well to consider the question, and to give aid in those cases where urgent necessity could be made out. It was not so much legislative compulsion as legislative sanction and suggestive of such a proceeding. With regard to the Bill now in the other House, he did not share the confident expectation that because it had been read a second time without a division it would therefore pass through all its stages and reach their Lordships' House. He had known in history—he would not say in very ancient history, but in times within the period of legal memory, times since the reign of Richard I., he would not say in whose reign—of a measure of no small importance and of great interest to the community which was read a second time without a division, and by some accident never proceeded a step further. He had looked in their Lordships' Votes and could find no trace of it, and he saw that it somehow or other dropped altogether out of the Votes elsewhere. He could not help thinking that the same fate might attend this measure, and therefore they would do well to be prepared for that event.
  LORD WENSLEYDALEobjected to "place," as an ambiguous term. It might mean a whole district, or the whole country of Durham. The rule ought to be to apply the revenue to the spiritual destitution of the particular parish whence it was derived, and any departure from that rule ought to be mentioned by clear and definite words, such as "or in special cases to an adjoining parish."
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORKsaid, it was very difficult to find a more definite word. If they used the word "parish" it might lead to great injustice, for a mine might be opened on the borders of one parish and the people working it might live in the neighbouring one. The word "place" had been adopted after much consideration.
  EARL GRANVILLEwas understood to ask the most rev. Prelate to postpone the Committee on the Bill for a short time to see what progress was made with the Bill in the other House.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORKhad no objection to the postponement of the Committee.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill read 2a accordingly.

CHURCH TEMPORALITIES (IRELAND) ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.

  THIRD READING. BILL PASSED.
  Bill read 3a (according to Order).
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEmoved the insertion of a clause to follow Clause 34, as giving to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in Ireland power to restore to the parochial clergy of the Diocese of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh a certain portion of the tithe rent charge called the quarta pars episcopalis, and which now formed a portion of the income of the Commissioners. The clergy of every other part of Ireland were in full possession of their tithe rent charges, and it was but just to reinstate the principle in this portion of Ireland. The Bishops of Clonfert had always admitted the right of the clergy to be relieved from this reduction of their incomes under certain circumstances. It might, perhaps, be said that the clergy of Clonfert were not in want of this income so much as those in some other parts of Ireland, but he maintained that that was no good ground for the course that had been taken; and beyond this he was not asking their Lordships to decide that this portion of tithes should be restored, but only that the Commissioners should have power to restore it if they should think fit. His Bill was permissive only, not mandatory. He had heard it said that there was only one clergyman in the diocese whose income was under £200 a year; but this was not the fact; he himself was acquainted with a rector whose income did not exceed £100 a year. He urged upon their Lordships that nothing could be more unwise than to destroy the connection between the parochial tithes and the parochial clergy, and he trusted that the House would adopt the clause.
  THE EARL OF ST. GERMANSreminded their Lordships that the object of this Bill was not to redistribute the revenues which the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in Ireland administered, or to enable them to deal with any portion of their funds in any new manner; its object being simply to improve the constitution of that Board and its form of procedure. He thought that even admitting for the sake of argument the facts stated by the noble Marquess, this circumstance furnished sufficient grounds for not adopting the clause, and he rested his opposition to it on that ground alone. The tithes of Ireland were originally divided into four parts, one part of which went to
  988
  the rector and one part went to the Bishop. That division had long ceased; but that did not apply to the present case, because this payment had always formed part of the revenues of the successive Bishops of Clonfert.
  THE BISHOP OF DERRYsaid, he felt bound to oppose the clause. These funds were given to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for the general benefit of the Church. He hoped the noble Marquess would not press the Amendment.
  Amendment negatived.
  Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS AND REGISTRIES (IRELAND) BILL.

  THIRD READING. BILL PASSED.
  Bill read 3a (according to Order).
  THE BISHOP OF OXFORDmoved the omission of the clauses of the Bill relating to Courts of appeal. He had supposed that this was purely an Irish Bill, and had no idea until now that these clauses formed part of it, nor did he think that their Lordships had any notion that such clauses were to be found in the measure. They would alter in a very important way the composition of the ultimate Court of appeal, respecting the doctrines of the Church of England. So important a change ought to have been distinctly notified when the Bill was brought in, and the attention of the House ought to have been called to it. The new proposal might be an improvement or an injury, but, at all events, it effected a considerable change in the present system. As these clauses were worded—and he did not object to propriety of the provision—the Archbishop from whose Court the appeal came could not sit in the Court of appeal. But the consequence would be that there would be a larger representation of the sister Establishment than of the Bishops of the English Establishment. He had another objection to the Bill. If matters of doctrine were now brought before this Court of appeal, the justification of such a proceeding was that the Court was not an ecclesiastical one, exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but simply heard these matters on appeal from the subject to the Sovereign in the last resort, and gave an interpretation of the existing law, which was the proper province of the highest Court of law in the kingdom. But it ought to be clearly understood that this was not an ecclesiastical court, because, if it were such

  989
  a tribunal, its present constitution would be opposed to all the rules of the Church. At present the Court told its own tale. The three English Prelates who now sat there were experts called in to assist the law Lords in these matters, the law Lords deciding the legal points at issue. If, however, the Judicial Committee were reinforced on such occasions by other Prelates of the United Church, as this Bill proposed, there was a danger lest its decisions should be misunderstood, and lest men should suppose that they were called on to accept those decisions as binding on their consciences, instead of being merely an exposition and an interpretation of the law. For these reasons he thought more time should be given for the consideration of these clauses, and therefore moved their omission, in order that they might be made the matter of direct and substantative legislation.
  THE EARL OF ST. GERMANSsaid, he must be allowed to express great surprise at the unusual course taken by the right rev. Prelate. Not only was this Bill brought in last year with the sanction of Lord Derby and his colleagues, but the right rev. Prelate on that occasion commented on the very clauses which he now wished should be expunged. The title of the Bill was then precisely the same as now; and these clauses, though not perhaps identical, had the same object in view. The Bill was read a second time on the 11th of June, it had been committed, and the Report had been received; and on each occasion some discussion had taken place upon it. The measure, therefore, had now been five weeks before their Lordships, and had been discussed on three or four occasions. It was a little too much, therefore, to say that due notice had not been given of its provisions; and the demand for further postponement on the 26th of June, when the Bill had to undergo the ordeal of passing through the House of Commons, was rather unreasonable. Then, the clauses which the right rev. Prelate wished to omit, formed the most important part of the Bill, without which it would be almost valueless. There were now four Courts of appeal in ecclesiastical matters—the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, sitting with the assistance of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishop of London, in cases which arose under the Church Discipline Act; the Judicial Committee sitting alone in other cases; their Lordships' House, which heard appeals from
  990
  the Queen's Bench, in cases of mandamus, and the like; and lastly, the Court which this Bill purposed to supersede, the Court of Delegates in Ireland, the decisions of which were as final and as binding on the Church, as those of any one of the other tribunals. Now, it had always been deemed advisable that there should be one Court of appeal in all ecclesiastical matters, both for the Churches of England and Ireland, not to mention India and the Colonies, and that was the object of the clauses to which, the right rev. Prelate objected. Why was there on his part this jealousy and distrust of his Irish brethren? No such feelings animated them. They enjoyed the same status as the English Bishops; and he could not at all understand why the right rev. Prelate felt such apprehension at the introduction of one or two Irish Bishops into the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Of course, the Bill did not interfere with the right of the Crown to make Privy Councillors. It only provided that every Archbishop and Bishop, being members of the Privy Council, should, ex-officio, be members of the Judicial Committee. He hoped their Lordships would not agree to this Amendment; because it would be to perpetuate a system, which the object of this Bill was to abolish. He had always believed that it was better to legislate so as to consolidate and cement together the two Churches of England and Ireland, instead of doing aught which might create a distinction between them.
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONsaid, it was far from the intention of his right rev. Brother to draw any marked distinction between the two Churches; but the objections which he had put forward against those clauses had pressed a good deal upon the right rev. Bench. He (the Bishop of London) however, doubted whether it would be worth while to press the Amendment to a division.
  LORD CRANWORTHsaid, this Bill in no way affected the doctrine or discipline of the Church of England. Appeals in all ecclesiastical matters under the Church Discipline Act were to the Privy Council, which was on those occasions increased by the presence of every Archbishop and Bishop, being members of the Church of England and Ireland, and also being Members of the Privy Council, and there would be no alteration made in that respect by this Bill. The only alteration proposed was this—that whereas appeals in matters ecclesiastical in Ireland were now made to

  991
  an inconvenient tribunal—namely, to the Court of Delegates in Ireland, under this Bill they would be made to the Privy Council. Therefore, all that was proposed was to abolish the very inconvenient Court of Delegates in Dublin, and enable appeals in ecclesiastical matters in Ireland to be submitted to the Judicial Committee in England, which was the same tribunal to which appeals arising in the Church of England were carried, and thus the united Church of England and Ireland would have, as it ought to have, only one court of ultimate appeal, whereby the decisions in matters of doctrine in the two countries would be uniform. That was a matter which could not create alarm in the mind of any person, and he could not see why there should be any objection raised to this Bill.
  THE EARL OF BANDONsaid, he trusted that the right rev. Prelate (the Bishop of Oxford) would not persevere with his Amendment. The course of legislation of late years had been of a character to consolidate together England and Ireland, and he would urge upon their Lordships now not to take a step which would make a distinction between the Churches; for why, he would ask, should the united Churches of England and Ireland be an exception to the general rule? He confessed he could not conceive why the right rev. Prelate should display a feeling of jealousy of the heads of the Church on the other side of the Channel. This Bill merely provided for the abolition of an inconvenient tribunal, and for the substitution of one of a more simple character. He could not resist making those observations in defence of a Church to which he was deeply attached, and expressing the opinion that this measure, if passed, would tend to the advantage of both branches of the united Church of England and Ireland.
  Amendment negatived.
  Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.
  House adjourned, at a Quarter past Eight o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.