Sitting of 19 February 1861

Minutes.
NEW MEMBER SWORN.—For Bolton, Thomas Barnes, esquire.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1° County Franchise; Superannuation (Officers of Prisons); Public Charities; Burial of Dissenters; Borough Franchise; Conveyance of Voters.

COLONY OF QUEENSLAND.

  QUESTION.
  MR. MARSHsaid, he would beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether it is the intention of the Government to lay upon the Table of the House the Despatches of Sir George Bowen, Governor of Queensland, Australia?
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid that his hon. Friend must be aware that it was not usual to communicate the ordinary despatches of Colonial Governors to Parliament; but the progress of the Colony of Queensland had been so interesting, and so creditable to the colonists, that his noble Friend at the head of the Colonial Office had no objection to produce these papers.

SUPERANNUATION ALLOWANCES TO POOR LAW OFFICERS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. PERRY WATLINGTONsaid, he wished to ask the President of the Poor
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  Law Board, Whether it is his intention to introduce any Bill this Session to provide for Superannuation Allowances to Poor Law Officers of Unions and Parishes?
  MR. C. P. VILLIERSsaid, that a Committee had been appointed to consider the various questions involved in the administration of the Poor Laws, and he had thought it better to refer the matter to which the hon. Gentleman's question related to that Committee, before he proceeded in any way to deal with it.

THE IRISH MAILS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. BRADYsaid, he would beg to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If his attention has been directed to the fact that Irish letters arriving at the General Post-Office, London, at seven o'clock in the morning, are there detained and not delivered before the second delivery (even so late as twelve o'clock A.M)
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, he had made inquiry into this matter, and he found that the mail from Ireland ought to arrive in London in time far the letters to be sent out by the earliest delivery. Several times since the 1st of January, however, owing to the tempestuous state of the weather, it did not reach London until a quarter before eight o'clock. Notwithstanding that, the letters had in all but two instances been delivered by the second delivery, which terminated at a quarter past eleven o'clock; and in these two instances by the third delivery.

  EXTENSION OF THE COUNTY FRANCHISE—LEAVE.
  MR. LOCKE KING,in moving for leave to introduce a Bill to extend the franchise in counties in England and Wales, said he hoped the House would not think that he was either too presumptuous or too persevering for again calling its attention to this question. From what had occurred during the last few, and more especially during the last two years, he had anticipated that it would never have been necessary—for him, at all events—to bring it again under their consideration: but, as we had now no Reform Bill in prospect, and no promise of a Reform Bill, and as no allusion had been made to such a measure in Her Majesty's Speech, he felt that this was a very seasonable opportunity at which to bring the subject of the

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  county franchise again before the House. Further, there had always been a great number of persons who felt very strongly that the surest and perhaps the safest method of obtaining any Reform was by instalments—by what was popularly called "bit-by-bit Reform;" and, under these circumstances, he ventured to propose to the House, as by no means an insignificant instalment, the extension of the county franchise to occupiers of premises of the annual value of £10. It was now a great number of years since he first brought this question before the house, and those who supported his original Bill had to contend with a great many obstacles which did not now exist. The Liberal party was then by no means united upon this question. It had been gravely argued by great authorities in that House that the Bill was unsound in principle; that the ancient distinction between counties and boroughs ought to be maintained in all its integrity; that in counties representation ought to be in respect of tenure, while in boroughs it ought to be in respect of occupation. These arguments he was not now called upon to answer, because the great authorities had themselves answered them in the most effectual manner by speaking and voting in favour of Bills similar to that which he was now asking leave to bring in. The noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs—the bold and enterprising Reformer of 1832—the promoter of that measure which was in itself a revolution, and, in all probability, prevented the occurrence of revolutions in this country, was, every one would admit, a great authority upon all matters relating to the constitution; and, although he was bound to admit that, for the first year or two after its introduction, the noble Lord opposed this measure, yet as early as the year 1852 he admitted that the principle upon which it was founded was a sound one, because in the Reform Bill which he introduced that year he proposed to reduce the county qualification to £20. In the year 1854 he went further, and fixed it at £10, the very sum which he (Mr. L. King) had originally proposed. In the year 1857 the noble Lord supported this Bill as an isolated measure, apart from any Reform Bill, and argued most forcibly in its favour. His words then were so forcible, and so applicable to the present time, that he (Mr. L. King) should like to quote them. The noble Lord said:—
  "Whatever might have been the impropriety
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  of introducing driblets when large measures were required, I think that if we sincerely desire reform the only course now to be pursued is to adopt any measure which is in itself a safe improvement whenever it may be proposed; and I cannot but admit this measure is in itself such an improvement."
  If that argument was applicable in 1857, it applied, he contended, with still greater force in the present year. The noble Lord then argued in favour of the class whom this Bill proposes to enfranchise. He said:—
  "I think that no one who is disposed to entrust the elective franchise to the occupiers of £10 houses in towns can object to its enjoyment by those who occupy such houses in the country; because the occupant of a £10 house in the country is generally a person of greater intelligence and more property than is the tenant of a similar house in a borough. … I therefore think this change is a safe one; and, seeing that no one is likely to propose a large measure of reform, I am, moreover, of opinion that it will tend to satisfy a large body of persons who have some reason to complain of the existing state of things." [3 Hansard, cxliv. 849.]
  In the year 1858 again the noble Lord sanctioned this Bill as an isolated measure, when he made use of the very descriptive words, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." In 1860 this very proposal was included in the Reform Bill which he then brought forward. There were in that House only two persons besides the noble Lord who were Members of that distinguished Cabinet which effected the great revolution of 1832. The noble Lord at the head of the Government must forgive him when he said that he could not look upon him as quite so great an authority upon matters relating to Reform as the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Perhaps in his early years he was not quite so much mixed up with Reformers as was the other noble Lord; and he was bound to say that in the year 1857 he opposed this Bill. He warned the noble Lord at that time that if he divided he would lead the opposite side of the House into the lobby against it, and would be deserted by his own party. The noble Lord persevered in his opposition, but though, by the means of what he might be excused for calling that "Unholy Alliance," the Bill was rejected—it was rejected only by the small majority of 13. In the following year the noble Lord profited by his experience, admitted the principle to be just, and voted in favour of the second reading of the measure. The only other authority to whom he should refer,

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  was the right hon. Gentleman who sat below him (Sir James Graham). That right hon. Gentleman was a Member of the distinguished Cabinet of 1832; and he (Mr. Locke King) was happy to say, that so satisfied had the right hon. Baronet—by no means a reckless or radical Reformer—all along been of the justice of this cause, that even in the worst of times, when the Bill was in bad repute among the great authorities in that House, he supported the measure. As early as 1854 he found the name of that right hon. Gentleman on the back of a Reform Bill which contained this very proposition; in 1857 he supported it energetically as an isolated measure; and in 1858 he did the same thing. It was very satisfactory to observe the great progress which the measure had made on the Liberal side of the House. He believed there was scarcely a Member sitting on those benches who would now oppose this Bill in any one of its stages. But that was not all, for he was proud to say that support had come from a quarter whence he least expected it. In 1852 the great chief of the party opposite (the Earl of Derby) denounced his Bill as a very dangerous measure. Little, therefore, did he think that, when the noble Earl came to deal practically with the question of Reform, he would find it necessary to adopt, as the leading feature of his Bill, the very principle which he (Mr. Locke King) had been seeking for years to advance. The Reform Bill of 1859 contained a little disfranchisement of small boroughs, enfranchisement to a limited extent of some towns, and of a county or two; but its most important feature was that of his (Mr. Locke King's) old Bill—marred and mutilated he did not deny—but still the original Bill which he had introduced. To counterbalance this concession it proposed the disfranchisement of the freeholders whose qualifications lay in represented towns; but these were a most independent and ancient class of voters, and on account of that clause he had been unable to give his support to the Bill, much as he approved of other portions of it. He believed it was his over-manœuvring, if he might so call it, which had lost the noble Earl the confidence of the country—if he ever possessed it—and which had hurled him from power. During the last eight years there had been no less than four Reform Bills, and all the four admitted the principle of extending the franchise to
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  occupiers in counties to be sound and just; while three of those measures, including that of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli), lowered the franchise to the very amount for which he had always contended. It was needless, therefore, to argue as to the soundness or justice of the principle of the Bill, or as to the respectability of the class which would be enfranchised; these were admitted facts, and he might almost as well try to prove the correctness of the multiplication table. But he would ask what reason could there be for refusing any longer to pass this measure? What excuse could be invented? They had got rid of the old pretext that they ought to wait for a comprehensive Reform Bill. The House was tired of that excuse. Moreover, there was not even a prospect of such a proposal looming in the distance. If any opposition should be found in the fact, that the Bill proceeded from an independent and humble Member of the House, let that difficulty be removed—by all means let it be taken up by some influential Member—independent of party, if that were considered preferable—and he should be very happy to get rid of the charge of the measure, and to see it passed into law. He hoped that any hon. Gentleman, if there were any, who might be inclined to oppose the Bill, would profit by the experience of the past, for it was a noticeable fact, that nearly all the great authorities who had opposed the Bill, no matter on which side of the House they sat, sooner or later had been obliged to eat their own words, and to make some excuse for the past, and support the measure. For years it had been a stumbling-block to almost every Government. Every kind of promise had been made for the purpose of getting rid of it. It had become a habit to introduce into Her Majesty's Speech a paragraph promising that the question of Reform should be dealt with—how many paragraphs had thus been inserted he was unable to say, but it was certain that till now they had been attended with no effect whatever. Such conduct, he thought, was neither respectful to Her Majesty nor satisfactory to the country. He was one of those who had not voted for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. White); and, considering what had happened for so many years, he had almost felt rejoiced that there was no allusion to Reform in the Speech from the Throne this year. He hailed it as a happy omen, and he thought

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  it possible that there might be a better chance of obtaining Reform, now that the matter was no longer in the hands of the Government; who would be unable to carry any measure on the subject unless they were prepared to stand or fall by it. Their chance now lay in gaining instalments; and independent Members would, indeed, be in a forlorn position, unless they were able to carry measures bit by bit, which, in course of time, might form in the aggregate a great and satisfactory Reform Bill. He ought to mention that one part of the Bill which he proposed sought to adopt the suggestion which was made to him some years ago by the right hon. Gentleman below him (Sir James Graham), with regard to occupiers, to the effect that a portion of their holding, say to the extent of £5 or £6, should consist of a House. The absence of this provision was one of the objections made by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India, when explaining to his constituents in 1857 how he had managed to vote against the Bill; and he was now happy to obviate it by consenting to this alteration. It might, perhaps, have been better if the right hon. Gentleman on that occasion had consented to the introduction of the Bill, and had, afterwards introduced the improvements, which he felt desirous to introduce, in Committee; but he was willing to let bygones be bygones, and to introduce a clause with the object he had stated. He hoped the House would support the Bill in the shape in which he now proposed it. Many of them were very apt—he was afraid himself as much as any one—to condemn the acts of despotic rulers on the Continent because they refused to give political rights to their people. But he really thought those rulers acted a comparatively bold and noble part. They told their people boldly and frankly, that they were not fit to enjoy those rights. He thought, however, that the House, with regard to the political rights of the people of England, were acting a somewhat mean and timid part. They nattered the people who sought to be enfranchised, and told them that they were perfectly fit for it—that it was part of their constitutional right—nothing was more settled than that political fitness ought to be followed by political rights—that where electoral capacity existed their electoral rights ought to follow. They told the people this—told them they were fit, and then invented every kind of excuse
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  and delay before complying with their just demands. Thus, in a free country, a greater act of despotism was absolutely committed than in countries which were professedly despotic. He hoped the House would consent to the introduction of the Bill; and he was persuaded the words would be verified which were used by the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, when he fought so ably for this very measure in 1857—that it would tend not only to improve, but also to consolidate our institutions, and to give stability to our electoral system. The hon. Member concluded by moving for leave to bring in a Bill to extend the Franchise in Counties in England and Wales.
  Motion made, and Question proposed.
  MR. WARNERasked the indulgence of the House while he endeavoured in as few words as possible to state the reasons which had led him, and he believed might lead others, to prefer the Amendment standing in his name, [That a Select Committee be appointed to consider what changes it may be desirable to introduce with a view to amend the Representation of the People] to the Motion at present before the House. Towards the end of last Session, when it became evident that Ministers were not prepared to make a declaration of their policy in reference to Reform, he had thought it his duty to give notice that, early in the present Session, he would move the appointment of a Select Committee to enquire into the whole question. As this notice must necessarily compete in some respects with those given by other Members, he had thought it would be more convenient to place it in the form of an Amendment to the first of those which stood upon the paper; and this happened to be the Motion of the hon. Member for East Surrey. As there had been a great deal of misrepresentation out of doors, he wished to state, in the most explicit manner possible, that he entertained no objection to the Motion of the hon. Member He had not one word to say either against his arguments or his facts; he had voted for his Motion on a former occasion, and saw no reason why he should not vote for it again. With a great deal of what had fallen from the hon. Member be perfectly agreed, though, perhaps, in some respects, he had come to different conclusions. There was no reason why a £10 householder in the country should not be equally capable of giving an intelligent and satisfactory vote with a £10 householder in the

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  town; and he should be glad to extend to them the privilege of the franchise. But he could not think it desirable that the energies of Reformers should be wasted, now that they were thrown on their individual responsibility, by bringing forward Motions which did not contain the germ of a possibility of success. Let them decide some one point of paramount importance to the country and they would then have a better chance of carrying it. For his own part he infinitely preferred the Motion of which notice had been given by his hon. Friend the Member for Leeds (Mr. Baines), and he should very cordially give his vote in its favour. The proposition of his hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey had one great fault, perhaps the greatest of all faults, the fault of misfortune. The hon. Member himself had taken some pains to explain to the House the disappointments he had suffered in connection with it. It had already acquired a conspicuous place in Parliamentary history; it had done everything a Bill could do, except pass. It had disturbed the country; it had impeded legislation; it had led to one or two dissolutions and some half-a-dozen changes of Ministry; and, further than that, it had been the parent of a large family of Reform Bills, which had all died young. It was ten years since his hon. Friend achieved a great and unexpected success,—but, as far as the people of England were concerned, nothing came of it. Then in due succession there followed no less than four Reform Bills—grand, comprehensive, Government Bills, but nothing came of them. And what was remarkable was this, that most of those Bills, if not all, embodied the principle of his hon. Friend's measure. The noble Lord the Foreign Secretary introduced it into two or three of his Bills; and then the great Reformers, Messrs. Baxter, Rose, and Company, very respectable solicitors, appropriated it in theirs. And, he said it in all seriousness, the reason why those measures failed was, he believed, chiefly because they adopted the principle of his hon. Friend. For, if there was one truth more than another which the discussions of past years had brought prominently to light, it was this, that the chief obstacle to an extension of the franchise was the dead uniform level of our qualification. The work of Reformers should be to break up that level, rather than to extend and unite those hard lines which at present existed, one for the towns and the other for the counties. He considered
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  it an honour to be classed as one of the remnant of that great party who still maintained its unshaken faith in the possibility and the need of Reform; but he could not disguise from himself that they were placed in great difficulty, and that they ought to act discreetly as well as energetically. He agreed with much that had been said by his hon. Friend (Mr. Locke King) in favour of his Motion, and in much of the blame which he rather implied than charged against the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He did not think that the course which the noble Lord indicated on the first night of the Session, or, still more, the language in which he expressed his intentions, would be satisfactory to the country or advantageous to the Government. In one thing, however, he believed the noble Lord was unjustly blamed; for he was of opinion that he had exercised a wise discretion in not attempting to introduce in the present Session anything resembling the unfortunate measure which came last year to an untimely and unhonoured end. When that Bill was dropped its fall did not seem to affect the country; but the noble Lord himself clung to it long after it had been abandoned by the people and their representatives. Hon. Members would recollect what he might call, for convenience of reference, "Northampton Manifesto." The hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Gilpin) having occasion to visit his constituents, was permitted to state to them that the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) was conditionally prepared to bring in a Bill which, in the main, would be similar to the Bill of last Session; but, added the hon. Member for Northampton, "You must agitate the question; the country must support the Government by public meetings and numerous petitions," What had been the result? There had not been one public meeting held in favour of a Bill which should be similar in the main to the last. They all knew how easy it was to get up petitions; yet not one petition had been presented—not one man of the six unenfranchised millions had thought the noble Lord's Bill worth asking for. He must do the noble Lord justice, and could not. blame him for not renewing the experiment of last Session; but there were other courses open to him. He might have proceeded by Resolution; he might have moved for a Select Committee, or he might have framed a measure more in accordance with the wants of the year 1861 than in strict

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  conformity with the principles of the Bill of 1832. The noble Lord might have taken one of those courses; but, instead, he threw up the whole subject into the hands of independent Members. But the question for independent Members now was, not what the noble Lord ought to have done, but what they ought to do themselves. He thought there might be a little more consultation and arrangement among the Liberal Members before they introduced isolated measures to the House. They ought to measure their own strength before they brought in Bills. They must remember that they were but the remnant of a great party. Two years ago there was a great Liberal party in that House—a great exulting party—which spurned Lord Derby's Reform Bill, and which followed the noble Lord the Member for the City of London into the lobby on that memorable night when, it would now appear, he saved his country in vain. When they measured their own strength, knew what they were able to accomplish, and saw what particular sort of Reform the country demanded, and what were the objections that would be taken to it, then they would be able to effect something. He could not agree with his hon. Friend that what he proposed was the measure most desired by the country. Within the last week he himself had presented thirteen petitions, all from Norwich, and all from working men, claiming the franchise for their class; but be had yet to learn that the Bill of his hon. Friend (Mr. L. King) would introduce any large number of working men into the constituencies. He should prefer the Bill of his hon. Friend the Member for Leeds (Mr. Baines), which would do something in that direction. Whatever difference of opinion might prevail on the subject of Reform, the country seemed to be agreed in this—that an electoral body comprising only about one in seven of the adult male population was a wholly inadequate foundation for popular institutions; and that the class which most wanted to be included was the working class; because it was in no sense properly represented in that House at present, while every other class was. At the same time the country was equally determined not to submit to any revolutionary scheme. He was not opposed to a wide extension of the suffrage, but was against any system of franchise which would rest on a uniform rating level, and he believed that it would be impossible to carry any Reform Bill so long as such a
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  level remained. Another difficulty way of extending the franchise arose from the great, wise, and beneficent changes which of late years we had made in our financial policy. It was perfectly clear that with free trade we must have a system of direct taxation. Our direct taxation, which was now only in its infancy, rested on a broad basis of exemptions, embracing a large part of the population; and it had been argued with some appearance of fairness that if the franchise, on its present system, was extended in any considerable degree, the exemptions from taxation remaining as now, we should soon arrive at the point where the right of making the laws would be practically severed from the obligation of paying the taxes. But supposing that Parliament should dispense with the rate book as a test altogether, and go back to the more ancient and complete principle of household suffrage, accompanied with that most reasonable and constitutional condition that exemption from taxation should disqualify to vote, could any one imagine that the character of the constituencies would be injured. He believed their quality would be greatly improved. Those who were most afraid of the extension of popular rights might be reassured from the knowledge that all who voted shared a proportionate responsibility. They would establish a better qualification on a self acting basis, and its future extension might be left to the ingenuity and the necessities of Chancellors of the Exchequer. From various reasons he had been induced to think that some of the difficulties of this question were not to be dealt with summarily in that House, but that inquiry before a Select Committee was necessary, in order to see how these difficulties could be best smoothed over, and a Reform Bill introduced that would be satisfactory to the country. The hon. and learned Member for Marylebone (Mr. Edwin James), he understood, took occasion the other night, after comparing independent Members in that House to the successors of Alexander, to raise a laugh at the idea of referring the Constitution of England, as he said, to a Select Committee. He would like to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman, who was so well acquainted with ancient history, whether he had never heard of Constitutions of free States that were submitted with eminent success to the consideration, not of Select Committees, but of individual Legislators? The hon. and learned Gen-

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  tleman, he understood, ridiculed all Motions by independent Members on the subject of Reform, and contended that the introduction of such measures should be left to the Government; hut he (Mr. Warner) hoped the hon. and learned Member would enlighten the House as to how he proposed to awaken the dormant sense of responsibility in the Ministers of the Crown. Before concluding, he wished to give expression to one word of earnest but respectful remonstrance to the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs. The noble Lord had said that one of his reasons for doing nothing this Session was, that there was no popular cry in the country for Reform—no strong gale of popular favour to carry a Bill over the bar of the House of Lords. In his opinion, that was the strongest possible reason why he should set earnestly to work immediately to arrange for the earliest possible passing of a satisfactory Reform Bill. If the subject was to have a calm, temperate, and dispassionate consideration, it would receive it in present circumstances, and not when the strong wind of which the noble Lord spoke would be blowing over the land. He gave the noble Lord all honour for the skill and the boldness with which he steered through the surf in the great storm of thirty years ago; but let him recollect how narrow was the escape then made from a disastrous shipwreck, not of his party only, but of constitutional Government and of the Monarchy itself. He still believed that the question of reform would be best dealt with by a Select Committee, but he had consulted with those whose opinion he valued, and he understood there was a general feeling in the House that the Bill of his hon. Friend (Mr. L. King) should be judged upon its own merits. He would postpone his Amendment for the present, and bring it forward as a substantive Motion on a future day. He would vote for the Motion of his hon. Friend, not believing that it would have any practical result, but because he thought that discussion on Reform was of all things needed, and that, whatever tended to discussion might indirectly load to good.
  MR. DARBY GRIFFITH,in rising to move an Amendment to the effect that it is inexpedient to equalize the country or borough franchise, or to reduce the county franchise below £20, said, that unlike the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, it was his fixed intention to proceed to a division. He did not think it at all necessary
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  that questions of Reform should be left exclusively in the hands of the Government, and he thought it safer, if they were so particularly anxious for Reform, to adopt "bit by bit Reform," rather than wait for a great measure like that of 1832, which was no longer practical. The hon. Gentleman who brought forward this Motion was in precisely the same position as he was ten years ago. Practically, his Bill was the same as the one he then introduced. He admitted that he had long been of opinion that the £50 franchise in counties was susceptible of modification, but not to the extent proposed by the hon. Member. To the statement that the House had ever sanctioned the £10 franchise for counties he felt it his duty to give a fiat denial, for at the time the hon. Member succeeded in getting his Bill read a second time—-it was by a mere juggle—there were only about 150 Members present, and those who sat on the Conservative side were nearly all absent; whereas on the next stage the House rejected the Bill by a majority of 200. The sudden passing of the second reading, therefore, could not be called an expression of the opinion of the House. In 1852 a Reform Bill was brought in by the Government; but that Bill did not in any way sanction uniformity of franchise, and, indeed, no Bill introduced by the noble Lord had ever recognized the principle of uniformity of the county and borough franchise. In 1857 the hon. Gentleman brought forward a Motion for the equalization of the franchise in counties and boroughs; but that Bill was negatived by a large majority, and on that occasion the noble Lord at the head of the Government spoke very strongly against it—it was impossible that any man could speak in a spirit of more determined opposition than did the noble Lord. After the Derby Government came into power the Member for East Surrey introduced a Bill for a large extension of the franchise, having very much the same effect as the present. In the year 1859, while sitting on the opposite benches, and presumably a supporter of Lord Derby's Government, he (Mr. Griffith) dissented from an equalization of the franchise, and he thought it his duty to put a trying question to the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire. On the 28th March he asked the then Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the principle of uniformity of franchise in boroughs and counties was one on which the fate of their Bill hung? What

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  was the answer of the right hon. Gentleman? After some humorous allusions as to the wholesale and retail manner in which the question had been debated, the right hon. Gentleman said, in most reasonable language, that if the Bill went into Committee he should, on the part of the Government, listen to any proposition that might be made with respect to any of the clauses, from whatever quarter it might come, in that spirit of candour that became a Government. It could not, therefore, be alleged that that Government was obstinately wedded to any particular view. He (Mr. Griffith) had given notice of a Motion in Committee to fix the county franchise at £20; but owing to the Bill not reaching the Committee he had not been able to state his reasons in favour of that proposition. The truth was, that the country did not support the Liberal party in their endeavours after Reform; and hon. Gentlemen opposite were perfectly aware of that, and the fact was hinted at in the letter which the right hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir Francis Baring) had addressed to his constituents, in which he recommended them to take what they could get, and fall back upon "bit by bit" Reform. It was for the interest of the Conservative Members to close this matter, and not to give the noble Lord the Member for London the opportunity of jerking the matter forward at any time he might think expedient. The House knew that many Members of the Liberal party were disappointed at not obtaining office, as they expected, when the present Government came into power. He said to one of them, "Why, you do not expect Lord John Russell to be Prime Minister, do you?" "Yes, to be sure," was the reply, "and if we had known what the result would be we would never have put you out." The noble Lord had maintained such close relations with so many of the advanced Members of the Liberal party when he sat below the gangway, that there was no Liberal who sat behind the noble Lord who would deny that his party expected to come into office on the shoulders of Reform. Why, look at the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Horsman. [Laughter.] He (Mr. Griffith) was sure the right hon. Gentleman would agree with him in that view. Every one must admire the pluck and gallantry with which—whether right or wrong—the right hon. Gentleman had faced his constituents the other day. The right hon. Gentleman deserved great credit
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  for it; and it was a noble characteristic of independent Members of that House, that, whether right or wrong, they were ready to do that. The right hon. Gentleman told his constituents they would have got a better Bill from the Derby Government than from the present Ministry. From the Derby Government they got a Bill which might have been amended in Committee; but from the present Government they got no Bill at all. He would tell the Conservative party that this was the time to finish a matter of this kind. Do not let them wait for another revolution like that of 1832; but let them make reasonable concessions while they could, before the waves rose and the wind howled. The hon. Member concluded by moving his Amendment.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words, 'considering that the object of the proposed Bill involves the practical adoption of a principle which has generally been considered as opposed to the spirit of our Parliamentary constitution—namely, the uniformity of the county and borough franchise—it is not expedient to reduce the county franchise below £20."
  CAPTAIN JERVISseconded the Amendment.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. NEWDEGATE: I must say that I have heard with regret that the hon. Member for Norwich (Mr. Warner) intends to withdraw his Amendment, for it happens that the propriety of the proposal made by the hon. Member for East Surrey, namely the reduction of the franchise in counties to £10, is one of those propositions which have, for a length of time, been taken for granted with no sufficient ground for that assumption—it has been assumed that this House has consented to it, and very diverse conclusions have been drawn from that supposed fact. I have been looking this day at the evidence taken before the House of Lords' Committee on this subject. Their inquiry went fully into the effect of the reduction proposed by the noble Lord the Member for London in his Bill of last year upon the borough franchise, but scarcely any inquiry was instituted into the effect of the proposed reduction of the county franchise to £10. There was some evidence, however, to which I may refer, and most important evidence it was; it was the evi-

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  dence giyen by Mr. Baxter, a gentleman very well known, of high reputation in these matters, whose experience of the constituency of the West Riding, the largest county constituency in England and Wales, is of such a nature as to enable him to test satisfactorily the effect of the lowering of the county franchise to £10 in other counties. Now the right hon. Gentleman, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, had stated to the House that his estimate of the effect of the reduction of the county franchise to £10 would he an addition of 157,000 working electors to the county constituencies in England and Wales—but Mr-Baxter, after having gone through a number of documents, arrived at the conclusion, which he stated before the House of Lords, that that estimate was short of the actual number of electors likely to be admitted by 200,000. I have the greatest respect fur the powers of investigation and research possessed by the Home Secretary, and generally for the right hon. Baronet's knowledge of these subjects; but what conclusion are we to draw when we find such an enormous discrepancy—a discrepancy between 157,000 and 357,000—in the calculations of those two persons, each of whom is competent to judge of the character of such a measure? Last year I was led into calculations on this subject, and I felt bound to state that some of these were erroneous, because I was misled by the imperfect information before the House. The general result of my enquiries led me to believe that the probable increase would be more than double of the estimate of the Home Secretary; this was also the opinion of the right hon. Member for the University of Cambridge, and I find this opinion entirely supported by the evidence of Mr. Baxter, in whose judgment I have the greatest possible confidence. It would be little satisfactory to the country if an isolated measure like the present were adopted; and of all electoral changes which this House could make this is the change upon which the House is least informed; if, therefore, any isolated measure is to be adopted by the House this is the last which should receive its assent. I am not one of those opposed to all Reform. On the contrary, I think that at a proper time, when the Legislature has duly informed itself, and when public opinion shall have ripened on the subject, it may be advisable to adopt a measure of Reform. I am by no means the advocate of absolute
  602
  finality; but I hope the House will not lend itself to the encouragement of agitation, and will not reduce its own dignity and waste its own time, by adopting, or seeming to adopt proposals of this kind, when the public are perfectly aware that we are not furnished with sufficient information as to the probable effects of the measure we are called upon to approve. But if the information upon which I rely is correct, by adopting this proposal you will aggravate the acknowledged anomalies of our present electoral system. What is the complaint that we constantly hear? That the working classes are not sufficiently represented in this House. In the constituency which I have the honour to represent the number of freeholders is greater in proportion than in almost any constituency that can be named; and when their interests have been threatened by such measures as were adopted last Session, I did not remain silent, and I hope the House will do me the justice to believe that when, in the course of those discussions, I set forth the probability of great distress ensuing among my constituents, I did not mislead them; for it is now a notorious fact that 20,000 persons in that district having been living upon alms contributed in mitigation of their suffering. While representing these men I object distinctly to a reduction of the county franchise to £10, because this will be the effect of it—In the boroughs generally the working classes are not represented, nor is property fairly represented. In the larger boroughs the operative classes have votes, but in small boroughs the working classes do not possess the franchise unless they happen to be freemen. Where, then, are they represented? They are represented in the counties. I am one of their representatives, and I endeavour to defend their interests when assailed. But what is it proposed that the House should now do? Why, I believe that if the proposition of the hon. Member for East Surrey be adopted you will completely neutralize the votes of the 40 s. freeholders in counties, great part of whom are of the operative classes. The whole present county constituency includes 512,988 registered electors, of whom about 100,000, or one-fifth, are qualified by occupation of £50 or upwards, leaving about 412,900 qualified by property of 40 s. per annum and upwards under the various tenures of property. The whole county constituency of England and Wales amounts to 512,000 active electors. If the calculation on which I rely more

  603
  than upon any other be correct, 350,000 electors, qualified by occupation, will be added to those 512,000 by the present proposition; so that the county constituency would be, in round numbers, 860,000 electors. At present the occupation franchise of £50 gives about 100,000 electors, or one-fifth of the whole county constituency; but if 350,000 electors be added to the 100,000, there will then be in the county constituency 450,000 electors qualified by occupation; a number equal to more than one-half, instead of one-fifth, of what will then be the county constituency. The effect will be, that whereas property and labour are directly represented by the electors of counties to the extent of four-fifths of that electoral body as it exists at present, the change now proposed will make half the county constituencies consist of electors qualified by occupation; and in that proportion will diminish the influence of the operative classes and of property in the return of county Members to this House. The effect in another direction should also be considered. The boroughs of England and Wales have 337 representatives in this House, and the counties only 159; and yet the population of the latter is in round numbers, according to the last census, 10,500,000, while the population of the boroughs is only 7,400,000. The effect of the change now proposed will thus be that labour in the counties, now represented only by one Member or two, will be represented by no more than one Member to three in this House. In large boroughs the operative classes are represented, but not in the middle-sized or small boroughs; but the greater portion of the 337 borough Members are returned by the middle-sized and small boroughs. I have shown, therefore, that by adopting the proposal of the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Locke King), instead of removing anomalies which hon. Members opposite complain of, and instead of increasing the representation of the operative classes, you will relatively diminish their representation by increasing the preponderance of those who already send the largest number of Members to this House. This proposition will be clear to any one who will study the subject—that real property and labour are not adequately represented already, and that this change would still further diminish relatively their present influence. What is the great social difficulty with which we have at present to deal? The growing alienation between the middle and the operative classes. We hear constantly
  604
  of strikes and trades unions, upon which every man who values the welfare of his countryman must look with regret. Is it then either just or prudent to go on increasing the influence of the mercantile and manufacturing classes in this House, while you are relatively decreasing the representation of property and labour? I have had the honour of being a Member of this House for eighteen years and I am prepared to say, that if ten years ago the House of Lords had taken the step which they did last Session, in refusing their assent to a Bill touching taxation, there would have been an outcry from end to end of the country. But it is beginning to be felt that the influence of the manufacturing and commercial classes in this House has gained too great a predominance, and, consequently, the people of this country supported a step taken by the House of Lords which would have been dangerous under other circumstances. I applaud the courage of that Assembly, though I lament the necessity for their intervention. No man values the privileges of this House more than I do; but I cannot help feeling that if it is to command confidence in its absolute control of taxation, the anomalous proportions in which the interests of different classes are represented should not be increased by such a measure as this. If the hon. Member who proposed the last Amendment divides the House, I shall divide with him, and shall take every opportunity of protesting against this piecemeal legislation on so important a subject. [Cries of "Divide! Divide!"]
  MR. BENTINCKsaid, he was extremely sorry to continue a discussion in which hon. Members on the other side of the House appeared disinclined to take part. It struck him as a remarkable circumstance, when they had heard so much said within the last few days on the subject of Reform, and of the necessity of bringing forward promptly some measure on the subject, that when a Motion connected with Reform was actually made, no hon. Member on the Ministerial side of the House appeared to think it necessary to rise in his place for the purpose of saying one word on the question. He would not go at any length into the subject at this stage of the business; but he could not refrain from taking this opportunity of asking the attention of the House to one view of the subject which had not been adverted to in the excellent speech of his hon. Friend the Member for North War-

  605
  wickshire (Mr. Newdegate)—but it was a view which appeared to him to he one which ought to claim a principal share of their attention. He must say he fully concurred in what seemed to be the general feeling of the House, that the hon. Gentleman who introduced this measure had to deal with a difficult subject, and had treated it, as he had always done every such subject which he handled, in a spirit of courtesy and fair play, demanding the fullest attention and forbearance from his opponents. He (Mr. Bentinck) could not, however, concur in the somewhat remarkable arguments which the hon. Gentleman had brought forward in support of his views; and it appeared to him (Mr. Bentinck) that the hon. Gentleman had attempted to do justice to his views on this question in the same way as the hon. Member for Norwich had done justice to the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs—by attacking everything that he did. The hon. Gentleman told the House that the principal reason of his bringing forward this question was because the Government had declined to introduce any measure this Session on the subject of Reform. Now it appeared to him (Mr. Bentinck) that that reason was the strongest argument that could be urged even from the other side of the House against such a proposal as that under consideration. He should have thought, after the opinions so strongly expressed on the part of the Government as to the inexpediency this year of dealing with the question of Reform, that it was most unwise to inundate the House with little Reform Bills dealing only with details of the question, which could only be properly treated in one great comprehensive measure which proposed to balance fairly all existing interests. He was of opinion that any attempt of the kind was only calculated to lead to the perpetuation of injustice. The measure proposed by the hon. Gentleman appeared to him to be one—he meant no discourtesy to the hon. Member—which, under the pretence of extending the county franchise, would have a somewhat contrary effect—that, however ostensibly such might be its object, it would not be the practical effect of it. The practical effect of the Bill would be this—and it was to this particular point he wished to call the attention of hon. Members—the practical effect of it, to express it in two words, would be this—not to extend the rural constituencies, but to nundate the rural districts with urban
  606
  voters, and to render the whole country one great borough from beginning to end. Now, in order to prove his statement, he would ask the hon. Gentleman who moved for leave to bring in this Bill, whether he fairly sat in that House as the representative of a rural district. He had no doubt that the well-earned popularity of the hon. Gentleman was deserving of the great constituency which he represented; but, having looked carefully over the list of voters, he should maintain that the hon. Gentleman was virtually a metropolitan, and not a rural Member. ["Hear!"] Some hon. Members appeared disposed to treat that observation with laughter; but he had the facts before him upon which he founded his assertion, and, if necessary, he was prepared to produce them. There was only one other point to which he wished to advert, which was, perhaps, of still more consequence than that which he had just submitted to the House. As he had said, the effect of this measure would be to inundate the rural districts with an urban constituency. The consequence of that inundation would be to engraft upon the rural districts those habits of bribery and corruption which for some years past, happily for the character of the counties, has been confined to the towns. Hon. Members might not be aware of those remarkable facts respecting bribery and corruption which had been disclosed before the Committees of that House. It appeared that the last fifty-seven cases of bribery established before Committees were all confined to boroughs. Not one of them had occurred in a county. Well, now, what would be the effect of this Bill? The effect would be to flood the rural districts with an enormous mass of the borough voters, many of whom were in the habit of indulging in those corrupt practices, and to change the character of the rural districts, by making them as susceptible to the temptation of money in the cases of elections as many of the borough voters had been proved to be. He would not detain the House further, but would only say that if this measure ever reached the stage of Committee, it was his intention to move an instruction to the Committee to deal with the question of bribery so as, as far as possible by legislation, to prevent the introduction of that system into the counties from the practice of which they had hitherto been exempt.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Sir, there are two things which I do not mean to do

  607
  —The first is, to oppose this Motion of my hon. Friend for leave to bring in his Bill; and the next is, to argue the subject of which the Bill treats. I say I do not mean to oppose the introduction of the Bill, because, in the first place, such a step would be discourteous; and in the next place, because it might expose me to the imputation of a change of opinion on the general subject, which I cannot admit. I will not enter into a discussion of the subject to which the Bill relates, for the same reason as that which led her Majesty's Government to decline in the present Session to propose any measure of Reform to the House. That is to say, if I were to discuss the question, I should only be renewing those debates which occupied so much the time of the House last year, and which we did not think it expedient to re-enter upon in the present Session. Now for these reasons I shall not be able to vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Devizes, because the immediate effect of the success of that Amendment would be to negative the Motion of my hon. Friend; and further, because the adoption of the Amendment would be only to anticipate a discussion which properly belongs to a Committee on this Bill, and which ought to be reserved for the expression of the opinion of the House, when the Bill reaches that stage. The hon. Member for Norwich (Mr. Warner) lamented that he belonged to a small remnant of the Liberal party, and much grief, it appeared to me, that feeling had inspired in the mind of my hon. Friend. Now I shall endeavour to console my hon. Friend upon that point by telling him what I think further reflection will lead him to see—that so far from his being a deserted friend of the Liberal party, he and those who agree with him in his views upon this question ought rather to congratulate themselves upon being the centre of a large Liberal party. On all sides of the House we see hon. Members coming round, more or less, to the support of Liberal opinions. Now no one could expect to see such a general unanimity of opinion at former periods. When we see both of the great parties in the country alternately bringing in a Bill, the main principle of which is to enlarge the constituencies of the kingdom, and compare such a state of things with that period when, as all must recollect, the leaders of the Government declared that there should be no Reform—surely, when my hon. Friend reflects upon that fact, and that liberal measures meet with the com-
  608
  mon concurrence of all parties, the hon. Gentleman and his Friends must feel that, instead of being deserted, they have every reason to congratulate themselves upon the progress they have made in bringing round to their opinions all those persons and parties who have hitherto been opposed to them. I must, however, regret that my hon. Friend who has made this Motion, and the hon. Member for Leeds (Mr. Baines), who has given notice of another Motion of the same kind, should have thought it their duty to propose such measures in the present Session of Parliament. I regret it for the same reasons as those expressed by Her Majesty's Government. If my hon. Friends thought it necessary to make those Motions for the purpose of showing the House that they have not altered their opinions upon this subject, that they still preserve those opinions and sentiments which they formerly expressed, that might be a natural motive for their action on the present occasion. But surely such evidence as to their opinions and sincerity was wholly unnecessary, because nobody could suspect them, or any other of those hon. Members who are likely to vote with them, of having altered or changed their opinions. But if they expected that those questions should be fully discussed in this House, and that they should come to a final and successful issue upon them now, I think that the experience of the last Session has in some degree been thrown away upon them. They are proposing to introduce by piecemeal the very measure which was discussed in its entirety last Session, minus, indeed, the proposal for the transfer of seats—but I have no doubt that a Motion will be made to supply that little omission, at no distant period, thus completing the third portion of the Government Bill of last year. Now, the Government Bill of last year failed, as it appears to me, from two causes—first, from a cause connected with time; secondly, from a cause connected with substance. The Government felt it their duty, in accordance with former opinions and pledges given, to propose at the earliest moment possible a considerable enlargement of the suffrage. They redeemed the pledge they had given, and it remained with the House to determine whether their measure should or should not be accepted. But hon. Members must remember that the House at that period had been recently elected, and it was imposible but that their recollection must have been fresh as to the

  609
  inconveniences attending a general election. It was not likely that their respective constituencies should not have had also in their recollection all the disturbance of mercantile and other transactions which necessarily accompanies a general election. Therefore, it was not to be supposed that either the House or the constituencies should for their own sakes wish for a recurrence of a general election. And yet it was obvious that a measure of such a comprehensive character as was then proposed must at a short period from its passing have rendered necessary an appeal to the country. Now, I do not mean to say that that reason would be paramount, and would have prevented the House accepting a measure which was in itself agreeable to their political opinions. It was, however, manifest, from the lengthened discussions which took place on the subject, that that particular measure was not altogether to the taste of the majority of the House. Some hon. Members thought that it went too far. Others contended that it did not go far enough. But, whether the measure was too great or too little, still it is quite clear that it was not destined to receive the acceptance of the House in the course of that Session. Well, has time much altered those opinions? But a few months have passed by since that Bill was withdrawn; and I do not think it is reasonable to believe that the objections in point of time could have altered very much in the interval. Well, then, does the objection in point of substance vary very much? My hon. Friends take care that it shall not, because they bring in identically in detail the measure which was last year proposed, and which the House was not prepared to accept. We see in a public document, which we have doubtless all read this morning, remarks not wholly inapplicable to those views. Sir, there is a time for action and a time for waiting. Now, with all deference to my hon. Friend, I would venture to say that in regard to a question involving an organic change in the representation, I think that the present Session is a time rather for waiting than for action. That is the opinion which the Government entertain on the subject, and it is one which I think is also entertained by my hon. Friends themselves, notwithstanding that they think it right to move for the introduction of the measures. As I have already said, I am not going to oppose the introduction of either of them. At the
  610
  same time, as Her Majesty's Government have not thought it their duty to ask the House to entertain the question of Reform in the present Session—differing most strongly from the views of the hon. Member for Norwich, inasmuch as I do not think this plan for altering the practical working of the constitution of this House is one which ought to be referred to a Select Committee, believing that those measures which are, no doubt, of great importance—an importance admitted as much by those who generally oppose the Government as by those who support them, believing that measures of such importance as a change in the representation of this House ought to originate with a responsible Government, and not to be left in the hands of a private Member to take their chance—I must say I regret to find that my hon. Friends have taken on themselves in the present Session the duty which properly belongs to the responsible Ministers of the Crown. But that being the case, although I will not certainly be guilty of the discourtesy of asking the House, even if I believed I should succeed in doing so, to refuse permission to my hon. Friend to introduce his Bill, I am, nevertheless, bound to say that my hon. Friends must not expect from Her Majesty's Government those facilities which Government is often asked to afford to Members who have charge of Bills. "Give us," they often say, "a day; time is passing by, and difficulties arise to prevent us proceeding with our Bills. You have only a Bankruptcy Bill, and some few other measures of public importance. Give us a day for the discussion of our measures." I am constrained to say I shall object to make such concessions to these Bills; and, therefore, when my hon. Friends have brought in their Bills—which I trust they will be allowed to do—I must candidly intimate to them that they must take all the responsibility of the future progress of their measures, and they must allow Her Majesty's Government full leave to deal with these Bills as they may think it their duty to do—to deal with them as we may from time to time think fitting. The only thing as to which I can pronounce a decided intention is, that we cannot afford any assistance to my hon. Friends in furthering the progress of their measures by giving up Government days.
  MR. DISRAELI: Sir, under the circumstances under which this Bill is introduced to our notice, and after the temperate and sensible remarks a the noble

  611
  Lord, especially with respect to the future conduct of the Government, considering that the leader of the House does not feel himself justified in opposing the Motion for leave to bring it in, I am not prepared to oppose its introduction, more especially as leave is asked by one who is so well entitled to our courtesy a3 the hon. Member for East Surrey. Nor should I have risen had not that hon. Gentleman fallen into a great error as to the nature of the measure which I introduced into this House, when he claimed me as a supporter of the principle of his Bill. The hon. Gentleman is under a mistake. He himself was one of the Liberal party who would not allow the Reform Bill of Lord Derby's Government to be read a second time, and I have no doubt that it is in consequence of his precipitate action upon that occasion that he is so ill-acquainted with the details of that measure. The Bill which I introduced did not adopt the principle for which he contends in the present measure. It certainly proposed a £10 occupation as a qualification for the suffrage in counties; but the primary qualification was an occupation of land of that annual value—a suffrage very different from that proposed by the hon. Gentleman, and one which, had I been permitted to go into Committee upon that Bill, I should have been able to show would have produced consequences quite different from those which my hon. Friend the Member for West Norfolk (Mr. Bentinck) anticipates will flow from the Bill of the hon. Gentleman. That Bill also embraced, as a secondary suffrage, a £10 occupation of houses, but the primary suffrage was derived from a £10 occupation of land. But was that all? Besides these occupation franchises there were, I think, ten other very important county franchises created by that Bill, of all of which the tendency would have been—I do not use the epithet in a party, but in a political and social sense—of a highly Conservative nature. There was introduced into the counties that lodger franchise to which I attributed very great importance; there was also a franchise arising from the possession of funded and personal property; and a variety of county franchises founded upon intelligence and education; there were also other important regulations with respect to artificial votes, and the boundaries of boroughs. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman is not at all justified in his statement that Gentlemen on this side of the House have adopted the principle which he has
  612
  so long and consistently advocated, the discussion of which has, however, occupied much valuable public time, and the adoption of which would be prejudicial to the public weal. After all the criticism which we have at various times heard in this House, I am myself every day more strongly of opinion that measures for the reconstruction of Parliament ought to be large and comprehensive measures. If you cannot pass large and comprehensive measures, the only conclusion which I can draw is that there is no necessity for them; but, when you are dealing with a subject so vast as the reconstruction of Parliament, you require all the responsibility of a Ministry, and all the information and all the regard to various interests which can be secured by it, but which cannot be expected from Gentlemen who arrogate to themselves the title of "independent Members"—a title to which I trust that we all, even when in office, have a fair claim. A Gentleman takes up a fragment of a great subject; he becomes enamoured with the results of his own meditations; he thinks that the conclusions at which he has arrived from the force of his own thought are the only ones which can save the State; and he is too eager to force those conclusions upon the acceptance of Parliament, without reference to the interests which their adoption may injure, but which ought to be duly considered in any scheme which attempts to do justice to the whole country. I have a strong objection to the measure which is introduced to-night by the hon. Gentleman. I think that it would have a very injurious effect upon the country. I think that it would in many counties give power to those who are not fairly connected with the predominant property and the predominant industry of the county; and I also entertain the objections which have been urged with remarkable ability by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate), which are well deserving the attention of the House, and which I am sure will command the attention of the public. But this is not the occasion on which to debate the merits of the measure, because, even with the rigid programme for the conduct of the Government business which has been announced by the noble leader of the House, we shall probably have another opportunity of discussing them; nor should I have touched upon any portion of the scheme had it not been for the misapprehension of the hon. Gentleman with reference to the conduct

  613
  of the late Government upon this subject. Totally irrespective of my objection to an isolated measure—totally irrespective of my conviction that you ought not to deal with the subject unless you are prepared to deal with it in a comprehensive manner—totally independent of the objection that it is impossible, in the present temper of the country, to deal with the subject in a comprehensive manner, and giving credit to the Government for being actuated in the course they are taking—not by the mean motives which have been imputed to them by their particular friends, but by that sense of duty which I trust will always influence Gentlemen in their position—I should oppose the measure of the hon. Gentleman. I deeply regret that there appears to be a prospect of the waste of valuable time—of that limited portion of the Session which is accorded to private Members not connected with the Government for their attempts at legislation. I cannot myself conceive at this moment—I am unable to form any clear idea—as to what can be the object of hon. Gentlemen opposite and their supporters in attempting this Reform of the House of Commons by measures of retail. The great wholesale firm have announced that it is a transaction beyond their powers of capital and enterprise. What probability of success, then, can attend these hucksterers, who come forward to satisfy the wants of the nation when the great association has announced that it is impossible for them to accomplish the feat? Their object cannot be to obtain popularity in the country. I believe, myself, that, on the whole, there is no subject so unpopular in England at present as Parliamentary Reform. Is it to obtain popularity in this House? I will say nothing of my Friends around me, who, I think, during the campaign of Reform last year, behaved with great temper and forbearance, and gave every fair opportunity to the Government to carry their Bill if they could. But I can say something of the feelings of hon. Gentlemen opposite, because, month after month, I watched their countenances, and saw men representing capital cities and large constituencies whose teeth were chattering in their heads when the Order of the Day was read. Their pallid visages could not be, concealed from the commonest observers; you found them in the lobbies shaking in their shoes at the threatening invasion of a £6 constituency. Why, Sir, these are traits which convince me that the hon.
  614
  Gentleman and his friends will obtain no popularity among their co-mates and colleagues in this House by the course they propose to pursue. Well, then, what can be their motive? Is it the honourable ob-object of proving that, though they are taking an unpopular course as far as the country is concerned—though they are taking an odious course as far as their intimate friends are concerned—that they are still consistent, they have not changed their minds, and that, though changes may have occurred in other quarters, they are the same as when they presented themselves upon the hustings? If that be the result which they desire, then I say it is one which they can obtain without wasting the time of Parliament, and without still further injuring that cause of Parliamentary Reform to which they are devoted. They can have a public meeting; Willis's rooms maybe once more engaged; and, though no compact may be entered into, still they may make a demonstration which will prove to the country that their opinions are perfectly unchanged, and that whenever an opportunity offers itself they will carry them into effect. I really wish they would consider the feasibility of such a scheme, because it is only on Wednesdays the noble Lord intends that they shall have an opportunity of bringing forward these measures, and on Wednesdays we have a prospect of some important and interesting legislation. I confess I look forward with dread to a repetition of the scenes of last year. In the House of Commons, especially when you have sat here a good many years, there is a genial feeling, on both sides, of reciprocal respect and regard. Gentlemen on this side are, therefore, averse from a repetition of the sufferings of hon. Gentlemen opposite. Why this unnecessary torture? Why is this alarming prospect—such, for example, as that which agitated the Member for the capital of Scotland—again to be held out, to the annoyance of hon. Members and to the waste of public time? I wish, after having performed an act of courtesy to both these Gentlemen, in allowing them to bring in their Bills, some private arrangement could be entered into by which we should hear nothing more of the subject. We ought always, they say, to act in the spirit of the age, and, as the spirit of the age is to offer testimonials to Gentlemen who perform public services, I shall be most ready, if they will adopt this course—and in this I am sure I speak the feeling of my friends

  615
  —to join with the majority opposite in offering to those Gentlemen some mark of our respect and gratitude.
  MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, he would withdraw his Amendment with the intention of proposing it in Committee.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. LOCKE KING and Mr. HASTINGS RUSSELL.
  Bill presented and read 1°.

PROBATE DUTY ON REAL AND PERSONAL PROPERTY.

  MOTION FOR RESOLUTION.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSrose to move a Resolution that real property should be made to pay the same probate duty as that now payable on personal property. The hon. Member said, that for sixty-five years since 1796, personal property, which consisted of all descriptions of property except land, had been subject to the payment of probate duty; and during the whole of that period landed property had been exempt from it. Now there was a manifest anomaly that property which had been accumulated by savings should be made to pay a duty, while landed property, which descended from generation to generation, should escape the infliction altogether. Again, probate duty commenced on sums as low in amount as £20, and was levied on sums up to £1,000,000. And one most extraordinary thing was that, while £20 saved by the industry and the economy of the hardworking man paid a probate duty of 2½ per cent, and a duty at that rate was levied on all sums up to £8,000; from £8,000 up to £1,000,000 the rate was only 1½ per cent. Now, would any man contend for the justice of this? He thought not. The proposal to levy probate duty was brought forward in 1796 by Mr. Pitt. But it was allowed to make very little progress in the House before Mr. Pitt was obliged to divide the measure into two parts: one of which proposed to levy the tax upon personal property, and the other to levy it upon real property. Well, in obedience to the dictates of the great landed aristocracy of that day, the measure affecting personal property was first brought forward and pushed on, and upon a division only sixteen Members opposed the imposition of the tax. It was sent to the other House, passed without objection, and received the Royal Assent. After it had been secured the Bill as to real property
  616
  was brought in. It was allowed to go on to the third reading, when, on a division, there was a majority of two against it. Mr. Pitt then proposed that the Bill be read a third time the next day, when the House divided equally, and the Speaker gave the casting vote in favour of the Bill passing. Upon that, the all-powerful landed aristocracy of the day went, it was stated, to Mr. Pitt, and told him that if he proceeded with the Bill, he should exist as Prime Minister but for a very short time. The consequence was, he withdrew the Bill altogether, and so left the tax in the position in which it has remained ever since. Now the provisions of the latter Bill were entirely embraced in the Motion now before the House. One half of the Members present in 1796 thought the tax should be imposed on landed property as well as on personal property. They formed part of the unreformed Parliament, of whom it was said most of them were sent into the House by Peers and great borough proprietors. He thought, therefore, it was but a very moderate expectation to anticipate that the reformed Parliament of to-day would not hesitate in correcting an injustice which had been condemned by one-half of an unreformed Parliament present at division. The legacy duty had been collected under precisely the same conditions as the probate duty. But in 1853 the right hon. Gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had the manliness—and no small degree of manliness it was—and the honesty to bring forward a Bill to apply the legacy duty to real as well as to personal property. But notwithstanding all the ability and energy displayed by the right hon. Gentleman, he only succeeded in imposing the legacy duty on landed property to the amount of about one-half of that which was imposed on personal property. The measure failed to produce the amount of £2,000,000, which it was estimated to produce; but that arose from the fact that the tax was in amount only one-half of that levied on personal property. He was aware that the right hon. Gentleman would meet with considerable opposition if he were to attempt to do away with the inequality; but he would be able to overcome it, and by so doing he would confer a great benefit on the community at large. In the Bill of 1853, there were certain very objectionable exemptions—such, for instance, as those in favour of corporations and of trading companies, which were in reality corpora-

  617
  tions. In 1854 he (Mr. Williams) called attention to the fact; and Mr. Wilson, who then held the office of Secretary to the Treasury, stated to the House that a Bill was in preparation by the Government to impose probate duty on the property of corporations. That Bill, although it would have produced a large amount, had never yet been brought forward, and he (Mr. Williams) hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would give it his consideration. It was calculated that if the probate tax should be extended to landed property at the same rate as was now levied on real property, if it were equalized at 2½ per cent on all sums up to £1,000,000, if all the loopholes by which the tax was at present evaded were closed (and no man was better able to effect that than the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer), and if all the exemptions now existing in reference to large properties were abolished, the tax would produce £2,500,000 annually. He (Mr. Williams) had not the least doubt it would produce that. Some of the exemptions and loopholes by which payment of the tax could be evaded wore of the most extraordinary kind. He would not detain the House with a long list, but he would give a few instances. The late Lord Stowell, a lawyer of great eminence, Judge of the Admiralty Court, and who, during his life, filled many offices, had a large property in the funds. Well, he got the whole of that property transferred to his son, taking very good care to get his son to grant him a power of attorney to receive the dividends. It happened very remarkable, however, that the son died before the father, and it became a question between the representatives of the son and the father as to whom the property belonged. The matter was brought into the Court of Chancery to be settled, and that Court decided that the property belonged to the son. By that means the probate duty and the legacy duty were altogether avoided. Again, another mode of evasion was by having the property held in joint names,—for instance, the names of a father and his son. Then, when the father died, the son came into possession of the property without paying any probate duty. Again, with reference to legacies; it was a common thing for the richer classes to evade the tax by leaving legacies chargeable on land; and although now the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made legacies of this kind pay
  618
  up to a certain point, he had not been able to raise the tax to the same rate as that levied on personal property; but no probate duty is paid on such leagacies. Then, with reference to leases on land. Persons building houses commonly took leases of sixty or ninety-nine years. Now, when a person died in possession of houses so built his representatives were obliged to pay probate duty on the full value of the houses, while the freehold landlord did not pay a single farthing. And what was more remarkable, when the lease expired and the houses fell into the hands of the freehold landlord, he ceased to be liable to pay the probate duty altogether, because they then became as much part of the freehold as the land upon which they were built. In Scotland, houses built upon building leases land paid no probate duty. In the large towns in this country, houses were, to a great extent, built upon freehold land, escaped the duty. There was, also, among the richer classes a vast amount of property left by settlement, deeds of trust, and deeds of gift after death, and all of these descriptions of property were exempt from paying probate duty. The late Mr. Porter, in his work called, The Progress of the Nation, stated that three-tenths of the property left by heads of families was thus entirely exempt from the payment of this tax. This was an anomaly which ought not to exist, and one which had been, at various times, condemned by some of the most eminent men the country had produced. Mr. Pitt had spoken energetically in favour of the application of probate duty to landed property, and Mr. Fox and other eminent men of his day had urged the application of the same tax. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer, indeed, upon a former occasion, when he (Mr. Williams) brought the subject under the notice of the House, admitted that the present law was objectionable and absurd—an opinion in which he was borne out, to some extent, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bucks, when he, in turn, was Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had stated that the existence of a species of property exempt from taxation had been found to lead to the disturbance of nations and the overthrow of thrones. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer had, however, veered round from the principles he had once expressed, and upon the last occasion when this question was before the House used arguments against it, and stated that the expenses

  619
  of the conveyance of land were enormous when compared with other property; but at present the cost of conveyance of land is precisely the same as the cost of conveyance of railway shares or any other kind of property of joint stock companies. He asked the House whether it was just that the present distinction between real and personal property in relation to this tax ought to continue, and he appealed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's sense of justice whether he would not engage his great powers in doing away with an anomaly so gross. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would take the question into his serious consideration, as he believed he was almost the only man who, at the present moment, could carry through successfully so important a reform. The hon. Gentleman concluded, by moving, "That, in the opinion of this House, Real Property should be made to pay the same Probate Duty as that now payable on Personal Property."
  MR. HADFIELDseconded the Motion, and observed that this was one of the few remaining distinctions between what might be called aristocratic property and the property of the community at large that still remained. He hoped both classes of property would be placed upon exactly the same footing with regard to the probate and every other description of tax. He believed that by giving way in cases of this kind the landed interest gained, not only in character, but also in a money sense. To his knowledge there were cases in which personal property had paid probate duty four or five times over in the course of five or six years. Sooner or later the alteration now sought would be made; and then, he believed, all parties would agree in admitting its justice.
  Motion made, and Question proposed.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I regret that I occupy the position in which my hon. Friend the Member for Lambeth has placed me to-night; for on former occasions, and occasions of great importance, when it has been my duty to make large and important proposals to this House I have had to make them with the acknowledgment that he was the Member of this House who had taken the most prominent part in bringing those proposals under our notice. With regard to the succession duties, for example, and the importance of bringing the whole revenue of the country under the control of Parliament, I have paid public tribute to his
  620
  exertions, because my hon. Friend made proposals with regard to both of these matters that, being in themselves just, have proved both practicable and beneficial. But on this occasion, I am sorry to say, whether from the infirmity of my own mind, or from some other cause, my views are entirely opposed to his. I cannot admit the proposals he makes to be just, nor, if just, that they can be described as practicable. My hon. Friend proposes that the House should resolve "that real property should be made to pay the same probate duty as is now payable on personal property." Any one reading that Motion would suppose that a distinction now exists in law by which property is divided into two categories, the one real, and the other personal; and that of these two categories, one, namely, personal property, is subject to probate duty; while the other, real property, is not. But my hon. Friend omits the most important fact, that the adoption of his Motion would lead to a greater anomaly than he proposes to rectify. A very large proportion of personal property that passes by death from one man to another pays no probate duty at all, but, passing under settlement, is exempted from payment of the probate duty. [Mr. WILLIAMS: It should not be exempted.] My hon. Friend says it ought not to be exempted. Then let him join with me in the objection I am making to this Motion; for in asking us to rectify an anomaly he omits the most glaring part of that anomaly. Whatever might be said in regard to landed property, and with respect to moveable property in regard to the fact that it was burdened in a peculiar form with heavy taxation, that did not apply to money in the funds or other money passing by settlement; and, therefore, the Motion of his hon. Friend, if it were adopted as it stood, would, in consequence of the exemption of settled personalty from probate, create a much greater anomaly than the one he professed to remove. The subject was one which involved a great deal of complicated matter. I think my hon. Friend did not distinguish between the separate parts of this subject. My hon. Friend spoke of the succession duty of Mr. Pitt and the exemption of landed property from the succession duty; but neither of these subjects has any bearing on the present discussion. He says that when the Succession Duty Act was passed it was intended to bring within the scope of that Act the property of corporations, and that this has never been

  621
  done. That is perfectly true, and I admit that I should like to give to that subject more consideration than I have been able to bestow upon it since I have been in office. Still, after all, that is a very small question. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, made a statement to the effect that the proceeds of such a duty would not exceed £5,000 a year. That may or may not be an understatement, I hope it is. But it is but a small matter, and it has also nothing to do with the present discussion. If the law in regard to the succession duty is imperfect let us amend that Act, and let us make the succession duty perfectly efficient for its purpose. But that Succession Duty Act is analogous to the Legacy Duty Act. The probate duty is entirely different in its character. It is a stamp duty charged on proving the will, and, without proving the will, no executor can proceed to give effect to the disposition of the will. You, therefore, have an absolute certainty that the parties interested must proceed to do the Act that insures our getting the tax. In the case of unsettled personalty passing by will this is the easiest possible operation, and the duty is efficient for its purpose. But if you adopt the Resolution of my hon. Friend, how will you make it effectual for the purpose he has in view? Land does not require to be made the subject of a will at all. There is no necessary intervention between the predecessor and the successor for the purpose of passing it over from the one to the other. There is no executor who is to enable you to lay hold upon that land and secure the means of getting at the payment of the tax. Suppose it were otherwise. In dealing with taxes you must look not only at the mere theoretical equality, but also to the mode in which different taxes operate on different subject matters. It would be, in the first instance, necessary to ascertain the value of the laud. On coming into the possession of his land it would be necessary for the owner in order to pay you the 1 per cent on its value that you might probably impose, to go to the cost of 1, 2, or 3 per cent in order to have the valuation of it made. Would not that be a most inconvenient and unjust mode of proceeding? Your great object in levying taxes is to take care that nothing more shall be taken from the tax-payer than comes into the coffers of the State; but here you take
  622
  two or three times as much from the taxpayer as you secure from the coffers of the State. If you take the personalty that passes by probate you may say that, almost without exception, the will contains money, or something that may easily be converted into money, or be brought to sale promptly, wherewith to pay the probate duty. But the proposal of my hon. Friend would not only compel a valuation, hut would likewise entail the necessity of selling a portion of the land to pay the duty. Suppose land going to three or four co-heiresses, and that they had no other property, there must be a valuation of the land; they must divide the shares, and each separate portion must he brought into the market by a forced sale in order to pay the cost of the valuation and the duty. In short, the difficulty of the machinery would be such, and the aggravation of a tax of this kind in operation would be such, that even if justice brought you to the conclusion that the scale was at present unequal between land and unsettled personal property, still, you would not, as prudent men, take the mode which my hon. Friend proposes of rectifying and adjusting the balance; but you would seek some other mode of taxing land in order to bring about a substantial equality. Then, with regard to a probate duty on land. Suppose my hon. Friend got a law such as he asks for. The probate duty that he proposes to apply to land takes no cognizance of settled property under any conditions—neither settled personalty nor land. But, according to the best estimates that have been made, four-fifths of the land of this country is under settlement and entail. That being so, the proposal of my hon. Friend would allow to escape from his grasp by far the greater portion of this property. To give effect to the principle of my hon. Friend would, therefore, be attended with every kind of inconvenience and disadvantage, even if it were practicable. But, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, I am not able to say that my hon. Friend's proposal is practicable. To carry it into effect, I must call in the aid of the law reformers. My hon. and learned Friend, the Attorney General, must first reconstruct the whole law of the land relating to real property, and get it into a shape that would enable me to lay my fingers on it in passing from one owner to another. That is a task which I should shrink from undertaking except on the clearest demonstration of

  623
  justice, and an imperative necessity. But, supposing it practicable, is it true that justice requires us to make this change, or that justice either warrants or would permit us to make this change? With regard to the Bill of 1853, so far as I was able to form a judgment, it was the intention of the Government and Parliament of that day that the Succession Duty Act of that year should be regarded as a settlement of the question. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield), no doubt, says that the principle was then introduced, and that it was intended to be carried further; yet, neither he nor the hon. Member for Lambeth has cited any declarations or warrant for the doctrine that this was but a commencement of Legislation which it was the intention of Parliament further to develope and extend. I think that to adopt continual changes in a matter involving the interests of classes would be most unwise, and would tend to keep up a jealousy and distrust most injurious to the interests of all classes, and to the character of this House. The course that common sense required, and which Parliament adopted, was by one and the same law to supply whatever was wanting to establish a just equilibrium in taxation, as between personal and landed property settled and unsettled. My hon. Friend, arguing this question, with his usual honesty, referred to the great fact characteristic of our local taxation, that it is levied almost exclusively on unmoveable property. He says that does not affect the case. But, if not, I do not know what does or can affect this question. He says the towns pay their share of local taxation. No doubt they do. But will he contend that a banker who makes £50,000 pays as much taxation in the transaction of his business by one-half, by one-fifth, or even by one-tenth as much as is paid by the landed proprietor? The truth is that the bulk of our local taxation is borne by the proprietors of land and houses, and not as between land and that which is not land, because freehold house property is under the same circumstances as freehold landed property in this matter. I think that, on the whole, our system of taxation is in this respect a very wise one. It taxes personalty heavily in the act of passing from one proprietor to another on death. It taxes land with comparative lightness at that juncture. But, on the other hand, the incidence of annual direct taxation—I take
  624
  imperial and local taxation together—is light on personal property employed in trade, and heavy on land and real property. It is obvious common sense to make such an adjustment of the law, because you have no difficulty in getting at the annual income of real property, but great difficulty in taxing it on the capital; real property being extremely difficult to convert at a moment's notice. If you lay any tax upon it to be fixed upon the capital at the juncture of death you put the taxpayer to suffering and almost to torture in order to bring his property into a state to make it the subject of taxation, and you would not only run the perpetual risk of forcing sales, but you would inflict upon the landowner a loss infinitely greater than any benefit the State would derive. Upon these grounds, neither at this nor at any other time can I hold out the prospect of acceding to the wish of my hon. Friend. Though he would be the last to make the proposal unless he believed it to be just, yet I think it not warranted or sustained by justice; and even if it were, I conceive that the objections and difficulties necessary to be encountered to give it a practical form, and the incidental hardships which would be inflicted in order to obtain a fiscal advantage comparatively small, are such that even then it would not be advisable to proceed in the path marked out by my hon. Friend; but it would be better to adopt some other course, if necessary, whereby a just balance of taxation should be established.
  MR. W. WILLIAMSreplied. He readily admitted that the right hon. Gentleman had made the most ingenious and able defence that could be made of this gross injustice. But the right hon. Gentleman had never touched the point—that if they imposed a tax at all upon landed property they could surely have made that tax a fairer one.
  Question put,—
  The House divided;—Ayes 51; Noes 167: Majority 116.

INCOME AND PROPERTY TAX.

  SELECT COMMITTEE MOVED FOR.
  MR. HUBBARD,in rising pursuant to notice to move for a Select Committee to inquire into the present mode of assessing and collecting the income tax, said he did not feel called upon to offer any apology to the House for attempting to remedy, as far as lay in his power, the injustice and inequality by which the incidence of

  625
  the tax was accompanied. That injustice which had been denounced by Minister after Minister, and by statesman after statesman, but the excuse which had been advanced to justify the continued use of this unequal imposts being the stereotyped phrase that it was meant to be merely of a temporary nature, that it was required for some great fiscal reform, or that it was necessary for the purpose of making provision for a most unhappy war. It was to last but six years, but three years, but one; and effectively the present income tax will expire with the fiscal year on the 5th of next April. At the present moment, however, there appeared to be every prospect that it would be continued for some time; and, if it were to be renewed, the question of the shape which it ought to assume was one which commended itself to the serious attention of Parliament. The House must consider what proportion the income tax bore to the aggregate revenue of the country. In the first years of its existence, the amount of the tax had borne to the aggregate revenue the proportion of £5,500,000 to £58,000,000; the proportion was at the present day £12,500,000 to a total revenue of £70,000,000, and he must be a very sanguine man indeed who anticipated that the revenue for the next financial year could be brought up to the necessary amount without the renewal of the burden which, under the head of which he was speaking, was levied on the people. It seemed absolutely indispensable to secure the revenue which the exigencies of the country demanded. But it was not simply because the income tax seemed to be inevitable that he desired to see the mode in which it was raised undergo revision. He did not mean to question the justice of the statement that it was an admirable weapon to which to have recourse in time of war, or that it produced great results; but he must contend that if it were to be laid up in the fiscal armoury, care should be taken that it should be laid up in such a state as to produce all the advantages that were required; that its edge be keen and bright; so that its use would not inflict wide and blistering wounds, and leave behind lasting and rankling resentment. Now what, he would ask, were the features of the tax which caused to be attached to it the odium in which it was generally held? It was, in the first place, said to be inquisitorial; but the complaints made against it upon that score were, he mu3t admit, in his opi-
  626
  nion, somewhat exaggerated, because, after all, the statement of a man's income, which was rendered necessary in the process of its collection, need be made only to a very few persons, who were bound to be secret and discreet in the performance of their official functions. Apart, however, from that admission, he could not help regarding the tax as extremely unjust and unequal in its incidence, and as tending consequently to foster and sustain an immense amount of immorality. Into the history of its operation it was unnecessary that he should enter at any length. He might, nevertheless, state that Mr. Hume had, in 1851, obtained a Committee to inquire into the subject, and had submitted to their consideration a scheme, supported by the recommendations of eminent actuaries, for removing the inequalities by which the imposition of the tax was surrounded. That scheme the Committee had regarded as impractical; but he should beg hon. Members not to run away with the idea that, because an impracticable scheme had been rejected, no means of providing for the more equitable incidence of the tax could therefore be devised. For his own part, he had endeavoured to discover some such scheme, and he thought that if a Select Committee were appointed he could submit a scheme, not only feasible in its mode of action, but which would be entitled on its merits to a full consideration. That scheme he had submitted to the same eminent actuaries, and it had been approved of by them, as a simple and feasible scheme, which would render the tax equitable so far as it could possibly be rendered equitable. In explaining his views upon the subject, he should take the word "equitable" to imply the levying of the tax upon everybody according to his means. Taken in that light, no species of taxation, he might add, could be more equitable than indirect; to which, however, there was the strong objection that its adoption to an unlimited extent was calculated to press heavily upon the labouring classes—an objection of which Sir Robert Peel, with far-sighted sagacity and laudable courage, showed he understood the force, when he undertook the Herculean task of making England the emporium of free trade and abolishing those burdens which bore upon the subsistence of the people. Following the history of the income tax from the period of its imposition by that great statesman up to the present day, he found that it had been placed before the House of Commons in

  627
  the light of a compensation tax, which, if levied justly, ought to be levied upon the same principle as the indirect taxation which it superseded. In dealing with that view of the case, he might be allowed to quote the opinion of the late Mr. Wilson on the subject, who, in the summary of his scheme for the equalization of the income tax, which he had been fortunate enough, a few days ago, to find in the pages of the Economist, said:—
  "The broad principles upon which I have proceeded may be thus plainly stated:—I have attempted to regard income, not at its nomimal amount, but in proportion as it is, from its character, actually available for immediate expenditure; because it is exactly in that relation that it would have contributed to revenue under the system of Customs and Excise duties, which the income tax has replaced to a certain extent."
  Such was the language of Mr. Wilson, and he felt assured the House would receive with deference the expression of the views on the subject of taxation of a gentleman whose great financial research and energy of mind had enabled him to acquire a position in this country which caused him to be selected for the discharge of those high and important duties in the performance of which his life had been sacrificed. He would now proceed to the consideration of the matter to which they had to apply these rules. All incomes must come under one of three heads. They were either the interest, rent, or usufruct of capital; or they were the product of capital utilized by the application of skill and labour; or, lastly, they were the product of unskilled labour itself. With the last category they had now no concern. They could not beneficially levy a tax from the earnings of pure labour. In the first place, the cost of collection would be enormous compared with the amount received; secondly, the impost would largely fall, as a matter of course, on the capital which employed that labour; and thirdly, it would wholly neutralize the happy results of the great change made by Sir Robert Peel. Their attention must, therefore, be confined to the two first categories he had named. With respect to the first category—namely, incomes arising from investments either in visible property or money lent on any public or private security—these comprise all that class which some persons had described as "the lazy incomes," but which he preferred to term "spontaneous incomes," because they were produced independently of any personal labour or exertion of the individual owners. All those incomes, when
  628
  they had been brought to their relative equality of hearing, and had had allowances made for burdens of various kinds which ought to be, but which were not, deducted from the present tax, should, in his opinion, be treated as incomes of the highest character, and subjected to the largest amount of taxation which Parliament in its wisdom should think it necessary to impose. In the next category he placed all trading and professional incomes, all salaries, offices, and employments to which personal labour attached. Into this class he should be obliged to bring not only some of the income included in Schedule D, but also some in Schedule E—namely, income derived from employment in the public service. The great distinctive mark belonging to these was that they were all industrial incomes, of which labour was an indispensable element—if the labour ceased the income ceased also. Being naturally precarious in their nature, they required large abatements to be made from them on account of the future provision which the individual was obliged to make, either for himself or for others dependent on him; otherwise, if no abatement were made before it was submitted to taxation, it was impossible that the tax could press fairly upon all classes of the tax-paying population. And here, he must say, he hoped the House would be content to deal with classes of income, and not with the cases of individual owners. He, therefore, deprecated all those invidious arguments which had the effect of confusing things totally distinct in their nature. He deprecated all ad captandum arguments and appeals ad misericordiam in favour of interesting and defenceless women, orphaned daughters, and widowed mothers, struggling on a pittance derived from the public funds; as also all contrast between such deserving persons and the selfish bachelor who, revelling in the enjoyment of a large income derived from personal exertion, would, therefore, receive the benefit of any allowances granted to industrial incomes. They must act upon large principles in this matter, and deal with the question in a large and statesmanlike spirit, and without any revival of by gone party struggles which had nothing to do with the merits of the case. Turning, then, to the first class of incomes to which he had alluded, he would quote the following opinion given by Mr. Wilson, to whom he had before referred. Mr. Wilson said:
  "With respect to all incomes, I consider that

  629
  the tax should be regarded in relation to the essence of the property from which the income is derived, and not to the accident of the tenure under which it is held at any particular moment, so that all incomes are treated in relation to their source only, without regard to the tenure of their owner—excepting terminable annuities, which stand on special and distinctive ground."
  He asked the House to accompany him through the schedules as they stood in the present Income Tax Act. In Schedule A the first item mentioned was "land." It was acknowledged that land was taxed at a rack-rent, and yet everybody knew that rack-rent was subject to payments for insurance, repairs, and agency before the landowner could be said to have the net income available for his expenditure. He proposed, therefore, that a deduction should be made equivalent to these necessary outgoings—in point of fact to tax the net and not the gross income. On houses, to which the same argument applied, he thought there ought to be a still larger abatement, because the expense of repairs was greater than on mere farm buildings. He next came to mines and quarries, which were now rated to the income tax on the gross income without regard to the fact that such property might be in a state of rapid exhaustion. A rational man having an income of that description would ascertain the probable duration of such property, and lay by a compensation fund to keep its amount intact. The House ought, on the same principle, to allow a deduction from the income tax in order to compensate the outgoings on mines and quarries. There was nothing more in Schedule A to which it was now necessary to allude more particularly; nor was there anything to complain of in Schedule B. In Schedule B stood farms, but he did not propose to touch them, because he did not know that their occupiers at least, had anything to complain of. In respect to Schedule C, the public creditor was subject to this serious grievance, that when he happened to hold his claim on the Government in the shape of a terminable annuity, the Government took the liberty of taxing, not only the interest which he received, but the capital that was repaid to him. He wished to see that injustice terminated. Schedule D dealt with industrial or precarious incomes. In regard to these, such great grievances existed that he thought he was not asking too much if he said that an abatement of one-third of their gross amount should be allowed before they fell under the incidence
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  of this tax. He suggested that the same indulgence should be extended to all offices and employments included under Schedule E. In these schedules were included professional receipts, profits on trade, salaries, employments, offices, and all employments generally to which labour attached, and all of which were industrial incomes which ceased when labour ceased. He was not without authority in making these recommendations, because in the Succession Duty Act, introduced in 1853 by his right hon. Friend, it was provided that, in estimating the annual value of lands used for agricultural purposes, houses, buildings, tithes, rent-charges, and other descriptions of properly, yielding a fluctuating income, allowance should be made for all necessary outgoings. That was what he asked—all necessary outgoings. He asked that those who had to pay a tax year by year should have the same measure of justice awarded to them in the tax on incomes as the law awarded to them as owners of property when they came to be taxed on succession. As a corroborative circumstance, it might be mentioned that in the Income Tax Act recently promulgated in India an allowance was made on houses, but it was limited to one sixth part of the rental if the owner could show he had spent that in outgoings during the term for which he had been assessed; and when so many concessions had been made in drawing up the Act for India, it was surely not unreasonable to ask modification of a tax which pressed so heavily and so unequally at home. Again, with reference to mines and manors, the 26th section of the Succession Duty Act, provided with some degree of justice, that the yearly value of the mine or manor should be estimated on the average profits derived therefrom, after deducting all necessary outgoings during such a number of years as should be agreed on, let the same consideration qualify the tax on income derived from the same property. These were his precedents for the allowance of all necessary outgoings. He now came to terminable annuities; and here the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had himself supplied a remedy for the evil in the 31st clause of the Act, which recited that the value of any annuity should be estimated according to the tables in the schedules annexed. He simply proposed to introduce the modicum of justice provided by those tables. He now came to the question of industrial or precarious in

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  comes. Perhaps there was no one question which now more engaged the attention of the community, and upon which opinions were more in agreement, although the modes of expressing those opinions were infinitely diversified. The universal feeling was that a considerabe abatement should be made from industrial incomes before they are taxed. Mr. John Stuart Mill upon this point said, "I would tax temporary or precarious incomes at a lower scale than permanent or certain incomes (not because of their lower selling value), but because their possessors are liable to be called upon to save something to provide for their own future years or for those dependent on them." Thus, while rejecting the scheme proposed by Mr. Joseph Hume, Mr. Mill gave a definition of his own which led to the same result. Still, though people differed in their mode of arguing upon these questions, they all had that common-sense view of justice which should be applied in practice. Then, again, as to the measure of justice to be applied, one man proposed to tax one-half of such incomes, while another suggested the taxing of only three-fourths. Seeing how very great was the accumulation of property through saving, and that economy was exercised in a much larger proportion by the industrial part of the community than by those who occupied positions of affluence, and had nothing to do but to spend their money, he came to the conclusion that if of spontaneous incomes one-tenth was saved, of industrial incomes four-tenths were saved. He proposed, therefore, a concession of one-third upon the incomes of the industrious classes before they were rated in harmony with the more certain incomes. He had been led by a series of calculations founded on what was stated by Mr. Porter, in his Progress of the Nation, to adopt this proportion. In 1852 the question of a revision of the income tax was mooted in that House, and in the following year a new Income Tax Act was passed under the auspices of his right hon. Friend. In the 54th clause a concession was introduced for the first time—that a saving of one-sixth out of any income, if invested in the purchase of a life or deferred annuity, should be deducted from the income before it was brought under the incidence of the income tax. This was his precedent—this was his justification. Parliament had no right to treat the whole industrious classes as children, saying to them that if they were
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  economical and saved their money, and invested it in a policy of life insurance, or a deferred annuity, a special indulgence would be given to them. The industrial community had a right to exercise their economy in any particular channel they selected—whether they invested in life assurance, or in any annuity, or in the funds, it amounted to the same thing; though, perhaps, the man who invested in the funds might by the operation of compound interest make a rather larger sum than he who invested in a Life Assurance. Having once admitted the principle of a deduction, Parliament had no right to tie them down as to the way in which they should exercise their economy for the purpose of receiving the amount of deduction conceded. There was but one thing he found fault with in this clause. Instead of one-sixth he would make it two-sixths, and nothing could be better than its effectual application. The same indulgence he found was given in the Indian Income Tax; so that the principle had been adopted by the Members of Her Majesty's Government in several successive stages; and it would be very agreeable to the House to apply it in a still more expansive manner at home. Now, as to the mode of assessing industrial income, when the House considered that subject some years since, Mr. Hume proposed to charge interest—say, at 3 per cent—upon the capital, or assumed capital, engaged in industrial professions, to capitalize according to the age, or (in ignorance of the age at sixteen two-thirds years' purchase) the residue of profits, after deduction of interest, and then to charge the income tax. A trader having £10,000 capital, and making £900 a year, would be treated thus by Mr. Hume's process, the income tax being 3 per cent:—Profits, £900; charge interest, £300 on capital of £10,000; capitalize £600, at sixteen two-thirds years' purchase, £10,000; total, £20,000; interest at 3 per cent, £600; income tax at 3 per cent on interest, £18. Mr. Hume's plan was founded on correct principles, but it was too intricate for working well in practice, but the same result might be better attained by more simple machinery. The plan for a limited assessment on industrial incomes which he had ventured to advance was founded on the assumption that comparatively with incomes of a higher class two-thirds only were expended, and the assessment he recommended was therefore limited to two-thirds; thus, in the above

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  case, of the £900 returned as profits £600 would he assessed at 3 per cent, or £18 without requiring either the capital or the age of the trader to be communicated. Another grievous feature of the operation of the tax in its existing shape was the immense amount of fraud which attended its collection. He was sure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had so lively a sense of what was just and honourable, could not fail to regard with intense pain what he believed to be the necessary continuance of a tax which involved the perpetuation of such a mass of immorality among the trading classes. The amount of delinquency which came to light was immense, and it might well be supposed that the amount which did not come to light was still more extensive. It was obvious that Schedule D did not return anything like what it ought to do. The fact was that people felt they were being robbed, and when a man was smarting under injustice, whether that injustice came from a private individual or from a Government, he would endeavour to do justice to himself in his own way. The only remedy was so to alter the tax as to make it, as far as possible, fall with equal weight upon all classes of the community. It was a consummation devoutly to be wished that a consciousness of being wronged should be removed from men's minds; and he believed that if Parliament dealt fairly they would find integrity in return. He wished to call the attention of Parliament to another clause, and to its curious and paradoxical effect. It was a curious fact that, as the Act now stood, two men earning the same amount of income might pay the tax in very different proportions, without a violation of the law on one side or the other. For example:—Two men might, in ten years, each make £100,000, hut one might pay twice as much to the Exchequer as the other, one might make an income of £10,000 in each of three successive years, and, of course, he would pay income tax upon that amount. The other might make £5,000 the first year, nothing the second, and £25,000 the third. His aggregate income would be £30,000, and the average, as in the other case, £10,000; but in the first year he would pay upon £5,000, in the second he would pay nothing at all, while in the third the Act would not require him to pay upon more than £10,000, or his average income for three years. A more absurd piece of legis-
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  lation in the way of taxation was surely never enacted; and this portion of the Act, the 133 s. of 5 & 6 Vict. c. 35, at all events, ought not to be left in its present shape. But that did not touch the immense amount of guilt to be found in the income tax returns. One of the witnesses examined before Mr. Hume's Committee, who had been himself a merchant, made the following statement:—
  "The merchant makes his own return. The greatest indulgence is in that respect shown him by the State. Merchants and professional men make their own returns at their discretion, and whatever the return is it is hardly possible to find out whether it be true or not."
  The witness, therefore, expressed the opinion that, in consideration of the opportunity thus afforded to merchants and professional men to cheat the Exchequer, they ought to be satisfied with the income tax in its present shape. The mercantile community looked upon such evidence with extreme disgust, and the last thing which a man possessed of any notion of morality or integrity would do would be to avail himself of the subterfuge suggested to him by the witness in question. There was an objection raised to the adjustment he proposed in an assumed "special contract with the fundholder," he had looked carefully into that question, and was satisfied of its irrelevancy. The clause alluded to (41 Geo. III. c. 3. s. 15) enacts, "That the said Annuities shall be free from all taxes, charges, and impositions whatever." In its letter this enactment has been repeatedly violated, but its spirit was expressed by Mr. Pitt thus,—
  "We do not tax the funds, we lay no charge upon that property, which alters or varies its relation to any other description of property in this country."
  The proposition he now made had for its object to bring all properties to their just value with reference to taxation, and that was just the principle which Mr. Pitt laid down in 1798. The House would see that the main conclusions at which he wished to arrive were—First, that spontaneous incomes should be assessed upon the net instead of the gross rental; and, secondly, that upon industrial incomes an abatement should be made of one-third. He believed that the amount of abatement which he proposed might be stated as follows:—upon land, one-twelfth; upon houses, one-sixth; and upon industrial incomes, one-third. An important question was the amount of loss which the revenue might

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  sustain from the adoption of such a measure of reform. There would undoubtedly be a diminished revenue arising from land and houses—although the new modes of assessment which had been recently mooted might go a considerable way in supplying the deficiency so created; but, with respect to schedule D, upon which he proposed to make the largest abatement, he was persuaded that the amount of loss would be little or nothing at all. He had that confidence in the innate integrity and justice of Englishmen that he believed they would, when fairly treated, act fairly in return, and that the Government would get as much out of two-thirds of the assessment, under such a system as he had suggested, as from the whole assessment at present. The Income Tax Act, it might be said, was a very large measure, and its reconstruction would be a work of great magnitude. He admitted that; but, still, he thought that the measure of reform he had invited them to consider might be given effect to by very brief and simple provisions. It would only require the following enactments:—1. That an allowance from the rack or valuation rent of lands be made of one-twelfth for necessary outgoings. 2. That an allowance from the rack or valuation rent of houses be made of one-sixth for necessary outgoings. 3. That an allowance be made upon the rents or royalties of mines, quarries, and ironworks, for diminished value, and for the replacement of capital. 4. That upon tithe rent charge, besides the parochial rates, an allowance shall be made of 5 per cent for repairs, insurance, and agency, and when care of souls is annexed a sum of £100, as curate's stipend. 5. That upon profits of trades, professions, and salaries, and offices and employments having duties discharged by the holder in person, an allowance be made of one-third prior to assessment. 6. That section 133, 5 & 6 Vict., cap. 35, be repealed. 7. That all trade returns shall state the amount of interest paid on borrowed capital, the same to be assessed on the full amount thereof. 8. That for the purpose of assessment to the income tax the interest of the capitalized value of all annuities terminable with years or life shall calculated according to the Tables 1 and 3, appended to the Succession Duty Act. It was with some anxiety, but not without confidence, that he submitted the Resolution to the decision of the House. He said "with some anxiety," because he was
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  deeply impressed with the magnitude of the interests at stake, and well aware how vitally important it was to the finances of the country that the mode of taxation by which they were supplied should be regulated by equity and common sense; and should carry with it the sympathies of the people. And he could not but feel a deep solicitude for that which he valued above the wealth and material prosperity of the country—he meant the honour and the integrity of the mercantile class to which he himself belonged.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,—
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the present mode of assessing and collecting the Income and Property Tax, and whether any mode of levying the same, so as to render the tax more equitable, can be adopted."
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, the task which I have to perform has at any rate an agreeable commencement, because it is my duty to acknowledge in the face of the House, that there is no one better entitled than my hon. Friend to submit this most important and most intricate question to the notice of the House, inasmuch as he is a man qualified for the work equally by his position, by his character, and by the high reputation which he has acquired in the discussion of questions of political economy. Having said so much of the person who makes the proposition I wish that I could continue in a similar strain; but I must confess that both the proposal of my hon. Friend for a Committee of Inquiry, and more especially that which it is not possible to separate from his proposal of a Committee—namely, the particular nature of the plan which he has submitted to the House, and which is to be the text and guide of the inquiry sought for—compel me to pursue a different course. I shall not enter into any general statement of opinions about the income tax, My own opinions upon it—as far as they are general opinions—have been declared long ago, when I formerly held the office which I have now the honour to fill; and I am not aware that I have in any respect departed from them. I should also say of my hon. Friends Motion that I shall not look so much at its terms and its technical character tits to what is its avowed object. No doubt many questions arise in connection with the assessment and levying of the income tax, which may be inquired into by Committee with more or less of utility, but at any rate without any peculiar diffi-

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  culty or danger. If, for example, we were to take the question of the arbitrary standard, so to call it, which has been fixed for levying the income tax under Schedule D—a system which the Legislature has established according to the best of its information and belief, but which of course involves many points open to discussion; if we were to refer to the question whether the income tax should be collected half-yearly or quarterly; these and many other matters might be the subjects of inquiry by a Committee without raising any difficult or dangerous questions. But these are not the subjects to which my hon. Friend wishes to direct our attention; and I must say that I think he has done wisely in confining himself in his speech to the exposition of his main purpose, because either he or his Committee would be distracted from that purpose by mixing with a question so grave and so deep as that upon which he has just now dilated those other matters which refer, in comparison, to the merely technical details of administration. My hon. Friend's proposal is that different rates of tax should be laid upon the different schedules. He has stated that in a manner which gives a colour to his proposal for a Committee: nor can the House vote in favour of his Motion without attaching at least a provisional sanction to the plan he has sketched for reconstructing the income tax. My hon. Friend has himself stated this point in a most candid and ingenous manner; for he said that he could not ask for a Committee from this House if he was not prepared to preface that demand with the submission of a plan which should be apparently unexceptionable in its main outlines and general principles. The demand for a Committee of Inquiry is a very grave demand—at least it is a very grave one for those who take the view that is taken by Her Majesty's Government with respect to any plan which shall alter the main structure of the income tax by imposing different rates of tax upon the different schedules. To a Committee of General Inquiry, particularly if generally desired by the House, they might not have seen—I ventured upon a former occasion to intimate that I did not think they would see—any vital objection; but, at present, the issue which we are to join must in the main be not whether we are prepared to adopt the precise details of my hon. Friend's plan, but whether we are prepared to give encouragement to the principles which are at the bottom of those details and which
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  formed the substance and data of his speech. I do not think that Her Majesty's Government would be justified in assenting to the proposal of an inquiry so prefaced, avowedly and without disguise holding up the banner which my hon. Friend has lifted upon this occasion, unless they were prepared at least to say that they saw no difficulty of a character approaching to danger in any countenance of a plan founded upon such a basis. I do not wish to ruffle the sensibility of an author, but I think that my hon. Friend is entitled to less credit for originality than he seems to think. It is my fate almost daily to receive financial suggestions identical in their purport from scores of gentlemen, each of whom believes himself to be the original and sole parent of the idea he puts forward. That is not quite my hon. Friend's case; but I see opposite me two right hon. Gentlemen who may substantially claim some of the credit which is to be given to his plan. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wilts (Mr. Sotheron Estcourt) proposed in the Committee of 1852 that the tax under Schedule D should be three-fourths of the tax under Schedule A. My hon. Friend proposes that it shall be two-thirds. The difference between them is not great; but such as it is it was very nearly split by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bucks, who, on the part of the Government, proposed in 1852 that the tax under Schedule D should be 5d., and that on Schedule A 7d. in the pound. The authority of the right hon. Gentleman, lent at that period for a moment to a plan substantially like that of my hon. Friend was, I think, subsequently—I must say to my great satisfaction—withdrawn. But my hon. Friend substantially reproduces this proposal, that we should proceed to adjust by deduction—for he does include another feature in his plan—that we should proceed to adjust by deduction the several payments of income tax in most, at least, of the different schedules, and to establish a great difference by a very great deduction in the case of Schedule D. That, I think, is a very fair description of the general character of the plan of my hon. Friend. I will not enter at large upon the financial portion of the speech of my hon. Friend; but I must say that I was struck with the sanguine temperament which appeared to have dictated it. For how did he treat the case of Schedule D? He says that there are enormous evasions in Schedule D, because persons engaged in

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  trades and professions feel that by this law they are robbed. My hon. Friend feels deeply the immorality attending the collection of the income tax; he knows that that immorality is concentrated in Schedule D, and he proposes to reward Schedule D by a reduction of one-third of the tax. But what a sanguine view my hon. Friend takes of the morality of the English people! He says,—
  "They commit this peccadillo because they feel that they are robbed by the law; but if you will only deduct one-third from the tax, which they are liable to pay, it will set it all right again,"
  You will recover and recoup, he says, the one-third of the tax leviable under Schedule D, surrendered by law, in consequence of the honesty of the taxpayer, moved by this appeal to his feelings. The offer must be of precisely 33 per cent—that is the standard, that is the temperature, which is necessary to bring him up to par in morality. I must confess that I entirely differ from my hon. Friend with regard to his opinion as to results. As I have spoken of the immorality under Schedule D, I must not omit to state my conviction that a large portion of those who pay under it pay every farthing that they ought, and in many cases of doubt rule the doubt against themselves; but there is no doubt that all the roguery in the country lurks in the folds of that schedule. In the year 1853 I produced before the House the undoubted case of the residents of a particular street in London, who had returned their profits for the income tax, and had also returned them for compensation; and who had, in the latter case, returned them at ten times the amount which they had returned for their former purpose. I ask my hon. Friend, does he think that these worthies who were unfortunately not individuals, for they were inhabitants of a street taken together—does he think that the magical and soothing effect of his 33 per cent would have been such that they would have raised their statement of profits ten times, or does he think that perhaps the truth was between the one-tenth which they sent in for income tax and the ten-fold sum which they demanded for compensation? If so, it is clear that these gentlemen would have been sad losers by my hon. Friend's proposal, because to come up to the true standard of their profits they would have had to add infinitely more than one-third to their assessments. I must say I think parts of the speech of
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  my hon. Friend were calculated to exercise influence over the minds of the tax-payers under Schedule D. It is certainly a strong expression to say that they cheat the Exchequer because they feel that the Legislature is robbing them; and I felt sorry to hear that expression used, for it is not impossible that one of these wavering consciences, when in doubt as to the return which he should make on the next issue of assessments, may recollect that a gentleman of my hon. Friend's high character declared in his place in Parliament that he was robbed by the Legislature, and may find some comfort and encouragement in the operation of reducing his profits from the sanction which he may think he derives from that statement. But when my hon. Friend went on to comment upon the inefficiency of Schedule D in making every man tax himself—omitting to state that no man is taxed higher than his income in any one year, and that the benefit of averaging is given to him whenever the average is in his favour—instead of telling us that the Legislature robbed the taxpayer under Schedule D, he ought, I think, to have drawn a more just and generous inference, and to have stated the length to which the Legislature has gone to diminish, in some degree, the severity and inquisitorial nature of the tax, exposing itself to criticism, violating uniformity, and introducing a positive anomaly into the enactment in order to mitigate the incidence of the tax on the traders of this country. That, however, was not the use he made of his argument.
  Let us now look at the proposals of my hon. Friend. He proposed to proceed in the most agreeable manner by a method of deduction. He goes first to one man and says, "I deduct so much from you;" he next goes to another and says the same, and from the last, under Schedule D, he makes an enormous abatement. It would be a most pleasant process to go about deducting all day—to give to every man his relief. The landlord under Schedule A might think that you were not sufficiently liberal to him in deducting only one-twelfth; but it is impossible to criticise too closely the plan of my hon. Friend—it was conceived in a spirit of such unbounded generosity. Lands were to have one-twelfth, houses a sixth, mines something which none of us sitting here exactly understood, and Schedule D was to have a third. But who is to pay for these deductions? I want my hon. Friend, when he makes

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  these captivating speeches, to write on the frontlet of the financial edifice which he constructs this grand and true doctrine—"The abatement of one man is the taxation of another." If you take away 1d. to relieve somebody under Schedule D, you must put 1d. on somebody else. It is not enough to say, in general terms, "Such is my confidence in the morality of the English people that they will pay up, and set the account nearly right;" that I can assure you is not the way in which we must deal with the hard and rigid figures of finance, that are necessary to square the income of the country with its expenditure. But my hon. Friend says he will deal with classes. I suppose he will not deny that by his scheme Schedule A is to be more highly taxed in proportion than any other. If you make deductions of one-twelfth and one-sixth on the two great elements, lands and houses in Schedule A, and if from Schedule D you deduct one-third, or twice the amount, it follows that you raise the taxation on Schedule A relatively to Schedule D. I should be very sorry to commend my hon. Friend to the purgatory of reading Parliamentary speeches, especially such as have been delivered by myself; but in a responsible position, and endeavouring to convey the results of the best inquiry which the Government of the day could make, I did state to the House that, at that moment, with a 7d. income tax, while Schedule D paid 7d. on the net income, Schedule A paid not less than 9d. Has my hon. Friend examined into the question, or why does he think it would be just to impose further burdens on Schedule A? He says you ought to take one-twelfth, or about 8 per cent, off lands. A deduction to that extent would in some cases be insufficient, while, in others, it would be exorbitant and wholly unnecessary. In Scotland, for instance, where most of the charges are borne by the tenants, why should the landlord have one-twelfth deducted? As to the article of agency I cannot at all admit that it forms a legitimate deduction. If a man does not choose to take the trouble of collecting the proceeds of his own property he is not to expect that the charge which he thus incurs will be allowed him. In cases, more over, where the landlord does not pay for repairs, 8 per cent would be an extravagant and needless boon; while, in many cases, if he be liable to them, the allowance would be inadequate. My hon. Friend's calculations with regard to houses break
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  down utterly. It is totally impossible to make anything like an average of repairs. They may depend on twenty things—on the building materials, on the nature of the particular climate, whether wet or dry; on the rentals of the houses, and the classes of occupiers. In many instances 5 per cent would be an ample allowance for repairs; in others 25 per cent would not be sufficient to cover the reduction in value. What then becomes of my hon. Friend's promise to remove injustice and inequalities? Nobody denies the inequalities of the present tax; I cannot pretend to deny them—I do not seek to disguise them; but my hon. Friend, by coming in and giving a positive boon to some taxpayers, where it is not required, would aggravate the sense of injustice which would be felt in cases where the incidence of the tax is at present regarded as unfair. It has always been a popular notion that different classes of income should be subjected to different rates of tax; and it is possible that this House may some day be drawn into a Resolution in favour of such a plan—and, indeed, it would have been more convenient if my hon. Friend had adopted that course instead of moving for a Committee of Inquiry—a Bill based on such a Resolution may even be brought in; but I tell my hon. Friend that never will such a plan as he has proposed stand the scrutiny to which it would be exposed before it could possibly receive the sanction of the House. My hon. Friend proposed, with regard to mines—the property, of all others, which is most intricate and difficult to comprehend, except under the most favourable circumstances—that every mine in the United Kingdom should be valued with a view to the imposition of income tax, and that the valuation should be renewed from, year to year. Why, to attempt to obtain anything like trustworthy accounts of the value of the different interests in particular mines would, in the first place, lead to such an amount of fraud as would flood Schedule A as well as Schedule D with immorality; and, assuming the valuation to be made in the best and most satisfactory manner, it would double, treble, or quadruple the incidence of the tax by the expenses necessary for arriving even at a proximate conclusion. My hon. Friend finds an argumentum ad hominem in the Succession Duty Act, which provides, with inspect to certain branches of real property, that valuations should be made with allowances for outgoings. But under

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  the Succession Duty Act we were dealing with property which was not to pay small amounts every year, but which was to pay a large amount on the average once in thirty-five or forty years; and it is perfectly intelligible how, in the one case, it might be well worth while for the tax-payer to incur the heavy expenditure inseparable from a valuation, while in the other such an outlay would be unwarranted and unnecessary. There is a provision for valuation in certain cases. There is a provision for entering into an examination of outgoings in order to fix the amount. And, by-the-by, I must remind my hon. Friend that when Parliament passed that Act we did not say that outgoings should be estimated at one-sixth or one-twelfth, but we said that there should be an examination of what the outgoings were. What was a perfectly good plan in the case of the succession duty would, from the nature of the case, be a totally impracticable one in the case of the income tax. In Schedule D my hon. Friend says there must be a deduction of 33 per cent—a deduction on everything in that schedule; but there is to he no deduction in Schedule A. I say no deduction, because the compensations which my hon. Friend proposes would be much more than balanced by the additional burden which Schedule A should bear in consequence of the relief to Schedule D. But in Schedule D there is to be a uniform deduction of 33 per cent; and in this way my hon. Friend proposes to cure an injustice and get rid of an anomaly. Now, let me see how my hon. Friend cures the injustice and gets rid of the anomaly. There are many businesses under Schedule D worth twenty-five years' purchase. ["No, no!"] I do not pretend to say that they are all of so fixed a character that each is worth twenty-five years' purchase. ["No, no!"] I do not mean to say that this is the average value of trades and businesses. I speak now of businesses of the highest class, and I say you may find some under Schedule D which are worth twenty-five years' purchase. The profits of a banking business are in many cases worth twenty-five years' purchase. From that downwards you come to what are worth fifteen, what are worth ten, what are worth five, and what are worth less than five. My hon. Friend proposes to apply a uniform deduction of one-third to the whole. If hon. Gentlemen who hear me think twenty five years' purchase too high for any business, let them
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  take any figure they like. It is not necessary for me to state what figure I consider to be the correct one. It is enough for me to say that there is an enormous difference in the values; and that, if I take the best business under Schedule D, it is worth five or six times as much as the worst business; but my hon. Friend proposes to make a reduction of 33 per cent on the best and to put the worst on only the same footing. If you can make a deduction which is compensated for without any unjust burden being placed in another direction, that is very fair; but if everything which my hon. Friend takes off of anybody must be put on somebody else, then I say his plan only aggravates the evil which it professes to cure. And what persons are to bear the brunt of my hon. Friend's plan? They are the funholders. He has invented a deduction for the landlord, he has invented a deduction for the owners of mines, he has invented a deduction for the holders of houses, and he has invented a deduction for persons in business; but he admits that he has no deduction for the fundholder. And who is the fundholder? The fund-holders are a body of £300,000, and the great mass of these are persons holding £20, £30, £40, or £50 a year. The great bulk of them are people holding life interests—poor annuitants. My hon. Friend declines to deal with individuals; he says he deals with classes. Take as a class the persons with small incomes—persons whose incomes may be £100 a year, and whose interests are but for a short term, whose lives may not be worth five years' purchase; and my hon. Friend proposes to aggravate on these people the burden and percentage of the tax in order that he may deduct 33 per cent from the income tax payable by the wealthiest London banker. If the object of the House be to cure an injustice and get rid of an anomaly, I do not know what arguments may hereafter be in vogue, but the arguments used by my hon. Friend are not those by which the financial proceedings of this House have hitherto been directed. I wish to treat with the utmost respect the feelings of those who I know entertain—and honestly entertain—the idea that an equal rate of income tax is unjust. I have always felt that that sentiment is not supported by reason, and such has been the opinion of much greater men who have had to deal with this tax. But the opinion, though it is not supported by reason, is deeply rooted in the popular mind; and it has always

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  appeared to me that the only legitimate conclusion to be drawn from the fact is, that it amounts to a very strong objection to the use of the income tax as a permanent impost. Necessity drove us to the income tax in 1842, and necessity has attached us to the use of it. ["No, no!"] When I used the word "attached" I meant not as a bridegroom is attached to his bride, but as a captive is attached to the car of his conqueror. Many other Gentlemen, however, hold a very different opinion; they think that on the whole the income tax is a convenient instrument for raising a revenue. Upon that question I will not at present enter; but I assure my hon. Friend and those who think with him that I think great respect is due to the feelings of those who are undoubtedly impressed with the belief that the general arrangement of the tax is unjust, while I am of opinion that it is incapable of improvement. My hon. Friend has stated that this question is one between Schedule A and Schedule D. I do not regard this as a mere Motion for inquiry, because after his speech it is impossible to separate the inquiry he asks for from this proposal itself. The case, I say, lies between Schedules A and D, because Schedule C can scarcely be taken into account when we consider its numbers. I think my hon. Friend was not successful in dealing with the case of the fundholders when he reminded us of the Act which provides that no tax should be levied on dividends paid on money lent for the public convenience. It may be that in form you have not kept faith with the public creditor, but in everything else you have; because laying the tax on the individual is mere machinery. You have merely required him to pay the same proportion of his income as any other person pays, and no more; but when my hon. Friend proposes that the fundholder with £500 a year shall pay the income tax on the full amount, while he makes a deduction from the landowner of one-twelfth, of one-sixth from the owner of houses, and one-third to the rich banker, he will find some difficulty in reconciling such a state of things with either the letter or the spirit of the law. He is sailing very near the wind. The main question, however, is between schedules A and D. Before the House comes to the conclusion that the arrangement of the income tax ought to be altered in the manner proposed by my hon. Friend, I would entreat them to consider what we did in 1853. The Government of Lord
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  Aberdeen was then in office. It was then shown, by an argument which was never disputed, that Schedule A already paid 2d. in the pound more than Schedule D. The Government then said that if they removed from those incomes which were the product of exertion a portion of their burden, it must be placed on those which were not the product of exertion. Of course if it were not for that, there would be no disposition to criticise the matter very strictly. An exemption was, however, in favour of a certain portion of incomes (within a limit of a sixth), applied to life assurance. His hon. Friend said there were fifty objections on the ground of free trade to that exemption; and he hoped that his hon. Friend (Mr. Hubbard) would profit by his own objections, and not attempt to meddle with the income tax. His hon. Friend would recollect, and he hoped the House would recollect, that it was in reference to this precise subject—not the question between land and personalty, but the question between fixed property and those incomes which did not proceed from fixed property—it was for the purpose of redressing that balance that the Succession Duty Act was introduced. There was an opinion, which had received countenance from the proceedings of former Governments, and which prevailed widely both in the House and in the country, that the bearing of our taxation, taken as a whole, not only admitted but called for some increase of the relative burden to be laid on fixed property, and it was for the purpose of meeting that feeling that the Success on Duty Act was introduced. We said, "We know not how to reconstruct the income tax, but we can apply means for increasing the relative burden on fixed property." I think the passing of the Succession Duty Act may be taken as fairly setting at rest any question of this nature. I hope my hon. Friend will also hear in mind that we were in hopes we had got rid of what are called questions of class legislation. He knows very well that no plan of this kind has ever obtained authoritative support. It was pressed upon Mr. Pitt, and rejected by him as entirely impossible; it was also pressed upon Sir Robert Peel, and rejected by him. This House appointed a Committee to examine into the subject. The Committee sat for two years and made no report, and the only plan submitted to the Committee has been condemned to-night by my hon. Friend himself. Gentlemen of the highest intelligence, who were

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  thoroughly conversant with the subject, went into that Committee predisposed to some alteration, but they came out of it thoroughly convinced that the thing was impracticable in itself; and, if practicable, would be mischievous. My hon. Friend ought to bear in mind that this is, after all, a question which sets class immediately in conflict with class. If is a question, "You shall pay more—I shall pay less;" and the mode in which he would give effect to the principle is most objectionable, and the principle itself is fraught with danger to the country. The House of Commons has been at all times ready to adopt every practicable method of lightening the operation of the income tax in those cases where it bears most hardly. To such cases as I have mentioned—those of the poorest payers of the tax—the attention of the House may be directed with advantage, without the slightest apprehension of introducing a dangerous principle in operation, or giving rise to unreasonable expectations in the country. But I do hope that while the House retains the anxiety to apply practical remedies in cases of hardship, they will remember the great social dangers which arise from agitation and the excitement of expectations which cannot he fulfilled, and likewise the enormous importance of the fiscal instrument with which they are undertaking to meddle. These objections appear to me to apply in the fullest force to the plan of my hon. Friend. That plan, as I say, is stamped on the Motion which he has made for a Committee of Inquiry, and the Government, believing that no good could arise from a Committee of Inquiry so undertaken, but that it must result either in evil or in disappointment, cannot do otherwise than recommend the House to put a negative on the Motion of my hon. Friend.
  MR. WHALLEYregretted that he had not risen after the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire, that he might have had an opportunity of submitting his views, humble as they were—but still the result of conscientious feeling and earnest inquiry and consideration of the subject—to the House, before the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had spoken, that he might have had an opportunity of replying to his (Mr. Whalley's) views and plans. Those views and plans entirely superseded all the objections which had been stated by the right hon. Gentleman. The plan he would submit in a very few words to the House was
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  simply that such portions of the revenue as required to be raised by the property and income tax, over and above what can be raised by the indirect system of taxation, should be raised in the same mode and upon the same principle as the poor rate; thus entirely relieving schedules A and B. The vestries, which for this purpose were somewhat analogous to Committees of the House of Commons, had power, by the statute of Elizabeth, for raising the money required for local burdens from the income of land or the profits of tradesmen; but they always levied it on the land, knowing that where-ever they placed it, it must ultimately fall on the land itself. This plan might be extended; and when he proposed that it should be adopted in place of the present mode of levying the income tax, he would point to the evident justice, expediency, and prudence on the part of landowners for such a course. In answer to what the right hon. Gentleman had said as to the succession duty being a settlement of this question, he would observe that from the earliest period the land was the sole source from which the burdens of the State were to be defrayed. In Charles the Second's reign, however, the land was relieved from a portion of its burdens, and in William the Third's it was relieved of a still further; and then, by an Act of Parliament, the I valuation was fixed so that the land tax yielded an invariable sum of only about a million a year, instead of a much larger sum which it would have yielded if the assessment varied with the increased value.
  MR. HUBBARDsaid, the Chancellor of the Exchequer charged him with want of originality in the scheme he had proposed: but neither was the right hon. Gentleman himself original; he had heard him deliver the same speech before, and, although it was so long as 1853, it had never since been absent from his thoughts. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had not treated the question before them on its merits, hut had endeavoured to meet the force of the arguments which he had used by a mere reference to the effect which might be produced on particular classes. He (Mr. Hubbard) had deprecated invidious references to extreme cases, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was sorry to say, had not thought proper to take the same course. The right hon. Gentleman endeavoured to get up a feeling of sympathy for the fundholders, as persons in the position of women and children and

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  small annuitants; but it was not statesmanlike to single out individuals and claim on their behalf the rejection of a measure like the present, as if it were calculated to benefit the rich alone. He had himself stated what he thought was the true fiscal policy, and whether it were adopted now or not, he was satisfied the country would sooner or later make its voice heard, and would not consent to an income tax framed as the present income tax was. He wished the House to understand that he did not desire to confine the Committee to his own plan. He thought he had sufficiently guarded himself from any such imputation; but the truth was that his right hon. Friend would not have been satisfied whatever course he might have taken. If he had simply asked for a Committee his right hon. Friend would have referred to Mr. Hume's Committee, and pointed out how little it was able to do after sitting for two years, and would have charged him with having no plan. He had brought forward a scheme that was plain and feasible, and he was told that to grant a Committee would be to identify it with his scheme, and that the House ought not to commit itself in that way. The House knew the terms of the Motion which he had submitted, and it was on the terms of that Motion alone that he asked them to decide.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he wished to explain to his hon. Friend who had just spoken the course which he should feel it his duty to pursue if he pressed his Motion to a division, and to express the hope that after the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the expression of feeling on the part of the House, he would not ask them to divide. The nature of the proposal his hon. Friend had made was one that it would be quite impossible to carry out to a satisfactory result. They could not separate the appointment of the Committee from a favourable reception of his plan, and he could not shut his eyes to the fact that there were many objections to the adoption of that plan. The inequalities to which it would give rise were sufficiently obvious. Take the case of Schedule D, in which his hon. Friend proposed a reduction of 33 per cent. Schedule D included incomes not only from trades hut professions; but a great income derived from a trade in which a large capital was employed would be put on the same footing with that received by a lawyer, who, by a day's ill-health might
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  be deprived of his income altogether. His hon. Friend had discharged his conscience by bringing forward this subject, and had given the House an opportunity of considering his scheme. He hoped he would be satisfied with having done so, and not put his friends to the pain of voting against him.
  Question put,
  The House divided:—Ayes 131; Noes 127: Majority 4.

BURIAL OF DISSENTERS.

  LEAVE. FIRST READING.
  SIR MORTON PETO:* Sir, the object of the Bill of which I have given notice, and which I now ask the House to permit me to introduce, and to be read the first time, is to remove a grievance under which all classes of Nonconformists at the present moment suffer, and which they deem to be a serious disability; and I assure the House that in its introduction I am actuated by no feeling of hostility to the Church of England: on the contrary, I believe that were the measure I ask to introduce to become the law of the land, one of the causes of offence now existing would be removed. And if the Church of England is to prosper, I am sure it can only be by the exercise of a large-minded, large-hearted charity; by the adaptation of itself to the spirit of the times; and by its seeking the good of the community at large—not by an exclusive action, but by an earnest co-operation in works of faith and labours of love, with all those denominations of Christians who, while differing in forms of worship and views of ecclesiastical polity, are yet united in the belief that the Bible is the only rule of faith, and the revealed will of God the only guide to fallible man. In the reign of Charles II., in the year 1661, the rubric of the Church of England, founded on an Act of Parliament, became law; and in that rubric there are three classes excluded from Christian burial—the suicide, the excommunicated, and the unbaptized. Now there is a large class of Her Majesty's subjects holding the New Testament as their sole guide in matters of Church discipline, and as their only rule of faith, who baptize only those persons who, by credible evidence, show sincere repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; and thus their children who are unbaptized suffer the disability of the loss of Christian burial, and they themselves the indignity of being classed with the excommunicate and the suicide. There is another class

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  of Her Majesty's subjects, of whom we have some four or five hon. Members of this House, (I refer to the Society of Friends,) who hold that the ordinance of baptism is not binding on their conscience, and therefore do not practise it in their communion. Now I would at once ask the House to refer but to one instance in that communion, the late Mrs. Pry, whether there is one hon. Member of this House who would for a moment—having reference to her holy life, her unceasing benevolence, her thorough devotion to all that is good—feel that that could be just which would refuse to her Christian burial, and class her with the self-murderer and the excommunicate? I must now ask the kindness of the House in permitting me to show them that this is no mere sentimental grievance. I must first refer to an event which occurred in the county of Norfolk during the past year. The child of some Primitive Methodists died, nine months old. On applying to the clergyman of the parish, he permitted the child to be buried but no service to be held. Outside the churchyard an address was given, and prayer offered to Almighty God. After the child had been interred, two verses of a beautiful hymn were sung on retiring from the grave, by the mourning family and friends. A prosecution was instituted by the clergyman for this offence; and under what Act does the House suppose the prosecution was granted? The one passed last year to remedy the disturbances which have so disgracefully characterized the services at St. George's-in-the-East, and which provides for the punishment of persons, "guilty of rioting, violent, indecent conduct and behaviour in any cathedral, church, parochial church, district church, or burial-ground; or molest, vex, disquiet, or misuse any preacher." The magistrates trying the case were two clergymen of the Church of England, the patron of the living, and the lay impropriator of the tithes of the parish, who fined these poor peasants the sum of fourteen shillings. Now does the House, for a moment, conceive that such an act as this could be beneficial to the Church itself, could be conducive to Christian union, or he likely either to increase the power or extend the communion of the Church?
  I must now ask the kind attention of the House to another case. The Rev. Mr. Long, of Newton Flotman, in Norfolk, has for several years been in the habit of carting soil from the north side of his churchyard for the manuring of his glebe.
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  This last autumn he took away about fifty cart-loads. This caused much discomfort in his parish, and excited much observation in the entire district. On the matter being taken serious notice of, what does the House suppose Mr. Long's excuse to be? Why, that the portion of the churchyard from which he had carted the soil was the part which had been used for the burial of Methodists, Nonconformists, and the un-baptized. A gentleman in Norwich went to Newton Flotman to inquire into the truth of this case, and on going on to the rectory glebe found the evidence over the entire soil; and in the offices of the Mayor of Norwich may be seen by any hon. Member who may visit that city a skull taken from the glebe itself. Now, does the House imagine that that class of Her Majesty's subjects which, according to the last census, comprises a majority, can view the fact of the very bones of the deceased being used by a clergyman of the Church of England for the purposes of manure, and yet retain any feeling of union or desire for any cooperation with an Establishment which contains within its pale men who can so demean and disgrace themselves? Happily, I believe their number is but few; and my twelve years' experience of this House leads me to know how strong a feeling of reprobation such conduct would meet with here. I could adduce almost numberless cases of absolute refusal to bury, and their attendant evil consequences. Amongst many I select the case of Hopton, in Norfolk, where the peasantry have to take their children which are un-baptized a distance of six miles to a churchyard where the clergyman is more liberal. My position, as Treasurer of the Baptist Missionary Society, occasions my often being appealed to in cases of this kind; and sometimes these refusals are attended with that which can only be deemed insulting, such as permission to bury in the middle of the night, the sexton himself not being permitted to dig the grave. I believe, Sir, this Act, if passed by the House, would be held generally by the clergy of the Church of England as a measure of relief to themselves. At least, the opinion of the Archbishop of Canterbury given for their conduct would lead me to that conclusion. Some time since, on his being applied to for his view as to what should he done in such cases, the answer of his Grace was, "that he would suggest that no curious inquiries should be made in instances where burial was required for children."

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  Now, Sir, I can easily conceive that where the conduct of the clergyman is determined by religious principle, and not by maxims of mere policy—where he has given his "assent and consent" to all that the rubric contains—that such advice would not remove the difficulty felt; and I, therefore, trust I shall have the support of his Grace and the whole body of the clergy in this matter. With regard to the case of the suicide or self-murderer, my Bill in no way interferes: it has been the custom, I believe, of all civilized nations, to refuse Christian burial in such cases; and Sir John Nicholl says, "Self-murderers or suicides are supposed to die in the commission of mortal sin, and in the contempt of the Saviour and his precepts, and to have renounced Christianity."
  Now, Sir, with regard to the excommunicate, the canons of the Church place all Nonconformists in the realm in this position of disability, whether they be ministers or laymen. Nay more, Sir, I believe a very large body of hon. Members in this House are at the present moment ipso facto excommunicate; for if these canons are enforced, the representatives of no person could claim Christian burial, unless they could shew "that they had received the holy sacrament, at least, at the previous Easter." Now, my Bill will have the merit of removing hon. Members of this House from this disability; and I trust they will see with me that if canon law is good for one it is good for all; for that law cannot be entitled to the respect of the community which is only partially administered. Now, Sir, with the permission of the House, I will proceed shortly to describe the clauses in the Bill and their effect. Clause 2 provides for the burial of all unbaptised persons and all Nonconformists without the use of the burial service in the Prayer Book. Clause 3 legalizes the appointment of "any person not being a clergyman" to conduct a burial service; this phrase being used because it permits Quakers to hold a service in consonance with their views, though none of their recognized ministers be present, and because it includes all Nonconformist ministers. Clause 4 is based upon the terms of the rubric, which requires "convenient" notice to be given to the minister of the parish, and provides against any clashing with the services of the Church by requiring him to appoint a reasonable time for the burial. The difficulty lies in giving him the notice: some clergymen do not re-
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  side in their parishes, several live at distances of from four to ten miles. Others are occasionally absent during the week, and although their functions may be discharged by neighbouring clergymen during such absence, it is evident that those gentlemen could not make the necessary appointment. To provide for all such cases, therefore, it is proposed to use the Post-office; and in case no appointment is made within twenty-four hours, the burial may be arranged for by the parties conducting the funeral. The proviso reads, "After the expiration of twenty-four hours, either from the delivery of such notice, or from the leaving of the same at the Post office, to be forwarded as aforesaid." The time being limited to twenty-four hours, to provide for contagious epidemics. Clause 5 secures payment of all fees legally due and payable. The necessity of dealing with the variable customs of the different parishes is thereby obviated.
  Now, Sir, having described the clauses of the Bill, and having shown the House its necessity, it is my duty to adduce a still stronger argument in its favour than any which I have yet used; and the class of argument which has more weight with, the House than any which can be used, namely, that of precedent. By 5 Geo. 4, cap. 25, applicable to Ireland, the law is as follows:—That it is not necessary that any officiating minister of the Church of Ireland shall celebrate the service, unless by particular desire; and, further, that ministers of other congregations or churches may do so. Now, the object of my Bill is, simply to assimilate the law of England to that of Ireland. I have made inquiries of those best informed, and I learn the consequences of this act to be everything that can be desired. Where heartburning and discontent previously existed, arising from the disability to which I have referred, a feeling of satisfaction and content has taken place. The Church of Ireland itself has not been injured, its privileges have not been curtailed, and yet these good results have been realized; and why, Sir, should we object to copy from the sister-country, when only good can be anticipated as the result? I can assure the House that all that Nonconformists desire is to be left to carry out their convictions of truth and duty. They claim only that which they are justly entitled to have, and short of which, nothing will content them: namely equal rights and privileges

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  with their brethren of the Church of England. I gratefully acknowledge in this House that its course of legislation within the last few years has tended to this good end; and the perfecting of this work will do more for strengthening the Church of England than any other course which could be pursued. The abolition of the Test Act, and other measures, have done much to create a better feeling; and I beseech the House not to hesitate in its onward course. What is the first book which you place in the hands of your children—which most interests them? Is it not the Pilgrim's Progress of John Bunyan? And yet the spirit which dictated this rubric imprisoned John Bunyan himself for twelve years in Bedford Gaol. And Nonconformists have their martyrology as extensive in its character as any Fox ever wrote. But I rejoice that in the present day a better feeling exists. You do not value Milton's immortal works the less because they were written by a Baptist; and I beseech you to join with me in an effort to prevent our differences being exhibited at the grave, where, at least, we might hope the differences of life would be forgotten, and the mourners be permitted to resign to their last resting-place the precious remains of their friends in that way which would be most in consonance with their own feelings and those of the deceased. I beg, Sir, to move the introduction of the Bill.
  MR. SOTHERON ESTCOURTasked if the Bill imposed upon the minister the obligation of performing the burial service according to the forms of the Church.
  SIR MORTON PETOreplied in the negative. The Bill simply gave the clergyman the power to grant permission for the funeral service being performed by a minister of another denomination, at the time when the clergyman himself shall have named.
  Motion agreed to.
  "Bill to make further provision with respect to the Burial of persons not being Members of the Church of England as by Law established, ordered to be brought in by Sir MORTON PETO, Mr. FRANK CROSSLEY, and Mr. KINNAIRD."

BOROUGH FRANCHISE.

  LEAVE. FIRST READING.
  MR. BAINES,in rising to move for leave to bring in a Bill to extend the Parliamentary franchise in the boroughs of England and Wales said, that the object
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  of the Bill was single and simple—namely, to extend the franchise which was fixed by the Reform Act of 1832 at £10 to £6, according to the Bill proposed by the Government last year. His belief was that such a measure might be discussed by this House with greater advantage than in the form of those great and comprehensive measures hitherto introduced. He had not intended saying anything on the merits of his Bill, for he had reason to hope its introduction would not be resisted. But, after the observations of the noble Lord at the head of the Government at an early period of the evening, the tendency of which was to discredit and impede Motions such as the present, and after the observations of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli), the House would, he trusted, in fairness allow him to offer a few observations on the remarks of those distinguished persons. He must express his great regret at the tone which the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) had adopted on the question of Reform, upon which the noble Lord had come into office.
  MR. HARDYrose to order. He wished to know whether the hon. Gentleman was in order in referring to a speech made in a debate on another subject?
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member will bear in mind that the noble Lord in his speech referred to two measures, only one of which was then before the House.
  MR. BAINESsaid, the hon. Gentleman could not have been in the House at the time when the noble Lord spoke, or he must have known that observations by anticipation were made by the noble Lord with regard to the Motion which stood in his (Mr. Baines's) name. Though the noble Lord did not deem it wise or expedient to bring forward a measure of Reform himself, yet they had a right to expect that he would not try to throw any obstacle in the way of those private Members who, in conformity with those principles which they had held all their lives, had thought proper to bring forward a question of this nature for the consideration of the House. The noble Lord's first objection was, that the measure would interfere with the other business of Parliament. He stood in the midst of Members who had much more experience than himself, but he thought he might venture to challenge the noble Lord, out of the half century during which he had been a Member of that House, to point out one Session in which a measure of this nature might have been more conveniently

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  introduced and discussed than in the present Session. What were the great and absorbing questions of public interest that were likely to demand the attention of the House of Commons this Session? What measure had the noble Lord or his Government brought forward? A Bankruptcy Bill had been introduced, but fifty clauses of that Bill had been agreed to the previous night, and the Attorney General expected to carry it through before Easter. What other important measure was there? He wished to know what great question of foreign danger, what domestic crisis, or what great and complicated measure of legislation was there, that pressed upon the attention of that House which would I prevent the discussion of a measure of that simple form which he now asked for leave to introduce? The noble Lord also objected that it was not expedient for private Members to introduce questions of Reform. But he thought he might fairly ask the noble Lord whether almost every Gentleman by whom he was then surrounded on the Treasury bench had not, when a private Member of that House, introduced measures of Reform which he afterwards, j as a Minister, carried to a successful issue? Did not the noble Lord the Member for the City of London begin in the year 1819, eleven years before he took office, by a Motion on this very subject of Reform, a Motion which had reference to the borough with which he (Mr. Baines) was connected? Did not the same noble Lord bring forward the question of the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts when he was still out of office; and were not many of the questions which involved the greatest triumphs of Constitutional principles, of justice, liberality, and freedom introduced and advocated in that House by independent Members? He was aware they had been introduced by men of very distinguished station and talents, and that his hon. Friend (Mr. Locke King) and himself must be very bumble in the positions which they took, but that did not affect the principle. Did not Lord Grey himself bring forward a measure of Reform forty years before he carried it as a Minister? Did not Mr. Wilberforce, also out of office, for twenty years struggle for the abolition of the slave trade? Did not Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Richmond bring forward measures on this very question? Did not Mr. Plunkett, when he was out of office, bring forward his Bill for Catholic Emancipation? And did not his hon. Friends the Members for
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  Rochdale and Birmingham contend for the Abolition of the Corn Laws before any official man took up that question? And he asserted that the greatest measures which had ever been introduced into that House had been introduced by men not in office, and forced upon those who were in office. Another objection of the noble Lord was, that changes in the Constitution of Parliament should be carried out by great and comprehensive measures. He (Mr. Baines) appealed to the House whether, after the experience of the last few years, the question could be successfully treated by a great and comprehensive measure? The measure had been so treated, and perhaps for that very reason it bad failed. Such a measure attacked many interests, many prejudices, and combined many in hostility to it, and he very much doubted whether the time had not come when they must see an end of great and comprehensive measures of Reform. The noble Lord had said that neither his hon. Friend (Mr. Locke King) nor himself had taken up the questions of the disfranchisement of boroughs and the redistribution of seats. But did not every one see that these very points bad been impediments to the carrying of the large and comprehensive measures which had been introduced? What Constitutional means had they in that House to overcome the opposition raised by the patrons of those boroughs, or the hon. Gentlemen who represented them? Again he appealed to the judgment of the House whether Reform had not many distinct parts, whether those parts might not be treated distinctly—whether, indeed, the House was not more likely to arrive at a cool, dispassionate, and safe conclusion by taking them separately rather than all together. There was the borough franchise separate from the county franchise, and both were separate from the mode of voting, either secretly or openly. Then there was the disfranchisement of those boroughs which were thought unworthy to retain two representatives, and many other questions bearing on Reform might be treated with advantage by separating them from each other, and by giving each a distinct consideration. It appeared to him, looking to the state of parties, that they had gone beyond the time when great and comprehensive measures were likely to be carried, and if there was to be a practical Reform in this country, it must be presented, examined, discussed, and decided point by point. The noble Lord the

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  Member for London had made use of a very expressive figure, which had been much repeated since. The noble Lord had said that a great wave of public favour was required to carry a measure of Reform over the bar of the House of Lords. Well, that might be the case if it was to be one of those great comprehensive measures—a first-rate ship of the line, or Queen's ship—but a small bark might find water enough to float it over the bar, and might afterwards obtain a safe anchorage in the haven of the Constitution. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli) had been pleased to make himself merry with those private and independent Members who were so arrogant as to presume to offer to the House a measure of this kind, and the term he applied to them was that of "hucksters." He really wondered that the right hon. Gentleman, who had himself for all but two years of his public life been a "huckster," should have cast that imputation on private and independent Members; and when the right hon. Gentleman entered on a vast Governmental branch of trade, he did not carry it on with so much advantage as to be entitled to assume so high a tone with private Members, for in a very short period his Governmental business terminated in the Court of Bankruptcy. The right hon. Gentleman seemed quite at a loss to understand the motives which influenced him and the Member for East Surrey to persevere with measures of this nature; but the answer was so simple that he was almost ashamed to trouble the House with it. He earnestly believed in the truth of the principles of Reform. It was because he was a Reformer—because there were rights that ought to be granted, and wrongs which ought to be redressed, that he, having special information bearing on the subject, and seeing that it was the determination of the Government not to bring forward any measure of Reform, felt it a duty to introduce the Bill which he now offered to the House. His opinions were the same this year as they were last year. The question of Reform and of the rights of the people, and the wrongs of those excluded from the franchise by a degrading proscription were the same this year as last year. Therefore, if others failed in their duty, or, being differently circumstanced, thought it no longer their duty to bring forward measures of this kind, he did not see why private and independent
  660
  Members should be prevented from doing so. That they were founded on good principles would not be denied in that House, inasmuch as the two points embraced in his Bill and the Bill of the hon. Member for East Surrey were taken from the measure introduced by the Government last year. To the objection urged by the noble Lord at the head of the Government, and also by the noble Lord the Member for London, that the country did not want Reform, he answered that nothing was more certain than that the deliberate opinion of the people of England was in favour of Reform, and nothing was more certain than that that opinion would sooner or later find expression, and carry a measure of Reform to a triumphant issue. Could this be doubted, when, during the last nine years, Reform had been brought forward by four successive Governments, and when the extension of the rights of the people had been recommended five or six different times by the Queen from the throne? Could it be doubted, above all, after the last general election, which took place on the issue of Reform or no Reform, or, at any rate, on the issue of Lord Derby's Reform or Lord John Russell's Reform? It was well known that Lord John Russell sketched out his plan of Reform before the election, and the very point on which it differed most from the plan of the right hon. Gentleman opposite was in regard to the borough franchise, which the present Bill sought to extend. Gentlemen opposite lost office in consequence of the disapprobation of the country with the measure they proposed on this particular point, and the present Government obtained office on the promise that they would introduce a more extended borough franchise. He might, then, say that the Government of the day stood on the basis of an extended borough franchise. It was not consistent, and he did not know that it was right, in the Government to give up this question; but it was their duty, after what had taken place in respect to the manner in which they were put into office, to give every facility to independent Members in bringing forward, point by point, those great principles which they had themselves been compelled to abandon. He believed that there was an amount of dissatisfaction arising in the country in consequence of the declaration made by the noble Lord the Member for London at the opening of the Session. He neither blamed nor praised the course taken

  661
  by the noble Lord on that occasion, but he had heard from several quarters that great dissatisfaction had been caused by it. He knew that a great many of his constituents were greatly grieved by the tone then adopted, and he believed that still more dissatisfaction would be created by the tone adopted that night by the noble Lord at the head of the Government. The assurances which he received, both in and out of the House, convinced him that it was the sincere and earnest desire of a vast number of honest men to have questions of Parliamentary Reform brought forward in the shape in which he and the hon. Member for East Surrey now ventured to place them before the House. It was undoubtedly his intention to persevere in asking the assent of the House to the measure which he moved for leave to introduce, because for several years he, not taking an extreme position in politics, or in this question of Reform, bad been convinced that the extension of the borough franchise was a measure of justice, safety, and true statesmanlike wisdom. He believed that he should be able to prove such an advancement on the part of the people of this country, especially among those dwelling in boroughs, in education, intelligence, and political knowledge—such an improvement in religion, in temperance, in providence, and, in fact, in everything which constituted men fit to exercise the elective franchise—that it was no longer wise, and he did not know that it would be any longer safe, to delay the admission of the great class which his Bill embraced to the full privileges of the Constitution. That class comprised much of the pith and marrow of the nation; he had laboured long to promote their intellectual, moral, and social improvement, and he had seen that improvement realised; and he had the most perfect and intimate conviction that they were entitled to the franchise. He would appeal, then, to the calm and deliberate opinion of the House, and, if it were Parliamentary to do so, to the country also, to decide between the noble Lord and the humble individual who addressed them, and to say whether he was not justified in pressing this upon the House. The hon. Member concluded by moving for leave to bring in a Bill to extend the Parliamentary Franchise in Cities and Boroughs in England and Wales.
  MR. HADFIELDseconded the Motion. Half the revenue of the country was paid in taxation by the classes who were not
  662
  represented. That was a state of things that could not be allowed to continue much longer. With what hilarity, wit, and playfulness the noble Lord had treated the subject the House would, no doubt, remember; and the country would remember it also. The industrious classes of society could no longer be treated with indifference, and they would persevere in demanding their rights till they were conceded.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Sir, any one who had just come into the House, and who had only heard the observations of my hon. Friend who has proposed this Motion, would really imagine that I had opposed the Motion of the hon. Member for East Surrey, and that I had announced an intention of opposing that before the House. But, so far from it, I distinctly stated I should not oppose either the one or the other. As to the remarks of my hon. Friend on the tone of the observations I made at an earlier period of the evening, his criticism—if I may use the term—is totally misapplied. I am not conscious of anything in my tone open to the objections he has made. I am not conscious of the hilarity and levity he describes. I certainly did state plainly that the House last Session indicated in the most conclusive manner its indisposition to pass the measure of Reform we proposed, which measure combined in itself both the proposals of my hon. Friends plus another measure that I thought very likely to be proposed by some other independent Member; and I stated that the decision of the House given by that indisposition—for I may call it a decision, since it led to the withdrawal of the Bill—at any rate that indisposition of the House was not followed by any strong indication in the nation at large of displeasure with the course the House pursued. I stated that my objections to reintroduce the measure of last year were two—one as to the point of time, the other in point of substance. In point of time I think that a sufficient interval of time has not elapsed to lead us to suppose that the opinion of the House is much altered; and, in substance, that the two proposals now made approached so nearly the provisions of the measure the House did not approve, that I do not think either measure is likely to be more successful than the Bill we introduced. I stated that the Government had not thought it their duty to bring in this Session the measure of last year. My hon. Friend, in the first place, condemned the Government for not having

  663
  brought in a comprehensive measure; but, in the further progress of his reasoning, his mind appeared to come to a clearer conception of the nature of things, for he then told us it was more particularly the function of private Members to introduce reforms of this sort. But I do not think he held out a very brilliant prospect of success in the instances he quoted of private Members who laboured for a great number of years before they accomplished the ends they had in view. I can only say I do not think his observations apply to the course the Government has adopted. I offered no objection to bringing in this Bill; but I simply said we shall not think it our duty to make way for Bills like this and that of the hon. Member for East Surrey by giving up for them days that may be appropriated to the public business.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill to extend the Parliamentary Franchise in Cities and Boroughs in England and Wales ordered to be brought in by Mr. BAINES, Mr. BAZLEY, Mr. SCHOLEFIELD, and Mr. DIGBY SEYMOUR.
  House adjourned at a Quarter before Twelve o'clock.

INDIA—LOCAL STAFF APPOINTMENTS.

  QUESTION.
  LORD WYNFORDrose to put a Question, of which he had given notice, respecting appointments to the Local Indian Staff Corps. He wished to know, Whether, the Royal Warrant having issued for the formation of a Staff Corps at each Presidency of India, will there be, upon transfer of any officer of the local armies from regiments retained as effective, promotion to the officers remaining in that regiment, by the step being filled up as on a vacancy by death or other casualty? There was a good deal of anxiety on this subject, as it was generally believed that much of the want of discipline among the regiments in India was to be attributed to the want of officers in those regiments.
  EARL DE GREY and RIPONsaid, he must decline to answer fully the Question of the noble Lord, as it would require him to give an explanation of the arrangements that were about to be made in the Indian army, and which were not yet completely determined upon in detail. He would, therefore, content himself with saying that, as the system in India previous to the amalgamation of the Queen's and the local army was that when an officer in the local army received staff or political employment, he was not thereby removed from the strength of his regiment, and no promo-

  545
  tion of junior officers took place in consequence, the same rule would be followed now, and when an officer was appointed to the staff corps from any regiment in the local army promotion would not necessarily take place in that regiment.

THAMES EMBANKMENT, &c.

  PETITION—QUESTION.
  LORD LLANOVER presented a Petition of Vestry of Parish of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, in favour of the Construction of Thames Embankment, &c; and said he would take that opportunity of asking the Government a question on the subject. It would be remembered that in 1855 the Metropolitan Board of Works was created, and was entrusted with the main drainage of the Metropolis. The plan they adopted to carry out that drainage was by means of a high level, a middle level, and a low level sewer; the low level to proceed by way of the Strand and St. Paul's, and other of the great thoroughfares, which would be at such a depth, and the excavations would be so extensive, that it was plain the traffic would be stopped for many months, to say the least. This scheme was, however, adhered to until last year, when a Select Committee of the House of Commons, that had been appointed to consider the whole subject of the embankment of the Thames, unanimously recommended that the Thames should be embanked, and that the low level sewer should run under the embankment. They further recommended that the dues of 8d. and of 1d. on coal, the Acts for which were about to expire, should be continued for some time longer, in order to defray the expense. What he wished to ask the Government was, Whether any steps were about to be taken to carry out this plan, and whether they intended to bring in a Bill to continue the coal dues for the purpose? He had heard that it was the intention of the Government to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire further into this subject; if so, he hoped the Commission would be speedily issued, that they might be in a position to report early this Session; so that some decisive steps might be at once taken in a matter which, if carried out, would be one of the greatest improvements of the Metropolis.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, it was the intention of the Government to issue a Royal Commission; but the question of
  546
  the continuance of the coal dues was still under the consideration of the Government.

  CHINA.—ADDRESS FOR PAPERS.
  EARL GREY: I have to move your Lordships that an Address be presented to the Crown for Copies or Extracts of any Despatches Her Majesty's Government may have received respecting an Expedition which it is reported is to be sent up the Yang-tze-Kiang. If this expedi-is to be undertaken with the view of entering into communication with the rebels who are now in possession of some of the chief towns on that great river, the step is one of great importance, and it is desirable that the House should be put in possession of any information bearing upon it. If, however, there should be the slightest objection, on the part of Her Majesty's Government to produce any despatches they may have received, I shall not press my Motion; indeed, my principal object in making it is that it will give me an opportunity of calling your attention to the general subject of our relations with China. I should not, my Lords, have taken upon myself to do this were it not that I consider the subject to stand in urgent need of discussion, while I have learnt that Her Majesty's Government do not propose to bring it in any manner before us (as I think they ought), and that it is unlikely that any other noble Lord will do so. I do not propose calling your attention to the important papers relating to China that have been laid before us, with the intention of again discussing the question as to the origin of the war, which was so fully discussed four years ago— though I believe the war just concluded to afford a solitary example in our constitutional history of an important war having been begun and finished without the servants of the Crown thinking fit to ask for a direct approval of their policy by Parliament. It is remarkable that Parliament has never been asked to express an opinion on the subject except by those who think the war to have been wrong. While neither House has even been invited to approve it, your Lordships, by a small majority, rejected Resolutions directly condemning it; and the other House, by a still smaller majority, adopted a Resolution to the same effect, which still remains unrescinded on its Journals. In these circumstances T have no wish to re-

  547
  open the question, being content to leave it as it stands, resting on the arguments unanswered and unanswerable, as I consider them, which were at the time urged by some of the most distinguished members of the present Government, to show that the war was unjustifiable. I rest the case on the speeches of the Secretaries of State for War, and for Foreign Affairs, and of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is true, that the circumstances which led to the renewal, or, according to the noble Duke the Secretary for the Colonies, the continuance of the war, have never been discussed in this House; but though I believe it would be perfectly possible to show that for the unhappy catastrophe at the mouth of the Peiho the blame rests far more with us than with the Chinese, I do not propose to enter into that matter. It is not my object to refer to past mistakes except so far as they bear upon our future policy, and my intention is to call your attention to our relations with China in times past, and to the existing state of those relations, only as they affect our future conduct. The question what course we ought hereafter to pursue towards China is one of the deepest importance, and I am persuaded we cannot form a sound judgment upon it without looking back to past transactions. I will, therefore, endeavour, as shortly as I can, to recall some of those transactions to your recollection.
  My Lords, when the trade between China and this country was thrown open by the abolition, in the year 1833, of the monopoly formerly enjoyed by the East India Company, our commerce with that great empire was considerably increased. Its extension, however, fell far short of the high-raised expectations and eager wishes of the nation, and especially of the mercantile community. The failure of our commerce to increase as rapidly as had been anticipated was attributed to the adherence of the Chinese to the system we had abandoned, and to their still allowing European trade to be carried on only with one of their ports, and through the close monopoly of a society of merchants called the Hong merchants. No doubt, this mode of accounting for the disappointment of our expectations of increased trade was in part true; but though much discontent was, in consequence, felt in this country, nothing was for some time done to compel the Chinese to admit our commerce more freely. I presume it was felt that we had no
  548
  more right to insist upon this with the Government of China, than we should to insist on a similar concession from the Governments of France or of Spain; that the Chinese were entitled by all the laws of nations to lay down the rules upon which they would consent to any on intercourse with us, and to tell us that we might accept or refuse intercourse on these terms as we might think fit. But after a time an opportunity arose which was thought to justify us in pursuing a different course towards China. Partly by force, and partly by corrupting the Chinese authorities, British subjects had established a very large smuggling trade in opium. This was done against the loudly expressed wishes of the Chinese Government, and in spite of all their efforts to put it down. They believed—whether rightly or not—that the traffic was one which was extremely detrimental to the true interests of their Empire, and, therefore, they were most anxious to suppress it. But it was not discountenanced by us; on the contrary, it was encouraged and supported, and the British Government in India derived a very material part of its revenue from this trade. Annually large quantities of opium were grown in India, and sold by the Government, avowedly for the purpose of being smuggled to China. This state of things in the opinion of the Chinese Government was so intolerable, that at length they determined to take measures to put a stop to it; and they adopted a course quite consistent with their own traditional notions as to the rules which ought to govern the intercourse between themselves and foreign nations, but which, in our opinion, was inadmissible. They seized on the representative of the English Government, and some of the principal British merchants at Canton, and they made them redeem their lives by giving up a large quantity of opium for the purpose of being destroyed. There can be no doubt that the Chinese were quite unjustifiable in the measures to which they resorted; but it can hardly be denied, that they had a real grievance, though the means they took to obtain redress were indefensible, and we ought to remember that they knew nothing of those conventional codes of international law which prevail in Europe. They are not able, like the Foreign Secretary, to quote Vattel (perhaps their ignorance saves them from making some blunders), and some indulgence, therefore, must be shown for

  549
  the error into which they fell. These circumstances led to what has been called the Opium War. In that war the Chinese, of course, were entirely defeated. They were even more incapable then than now of making any stand against European forces. They were utterly subdued, and compelled to accept what terms of peace we chose to impose on them, and we were not very forbearing. We required, in the first place, a large pecuniary indemnity, as compensation for the injuries said to have been sustained by British subjects and to defray the expenses of the war. We next required that five Chinese ports should be opened to our trade, and that very low rates of duties should be levied both upon imports and exports. We also required that the monopoly of the Hong merchants should be abolished; that English subjects should be permitted to trade with any Chinese they pleased; we required the cession of the island of Hong Kong; and, above all, we insisted that English subjects in China should be exempt from the jurisdiction of Chinese authorities and from the operation of the Chinese law. Such were the principal conditions of the treaty which we imposed upon China.
  There might, I think, be some question as to what right we had to impose these terms upon China. Even if the fault had been more clearly, and more exclusively with the Chinese in the original quarrel respecting the importation of opium, I own that I am not aware by what principle of the law of nations, or of natural justice, we were in titled to insist that beyond making the most complete compensation for the wrong we complained of, the Chinese should further make concessions which were in the highest degree distasteful to them, and which involved a large sacrifice of that authority in their own territory, which properly belonged to them as an independent State. I have never understood what right, but that of superior force, we had to insist upon this; but, waiving that question, I wish to call your Lordships' attention to the manner in which the treaty has been observed by both parties, and to its results. So far as regards the Chinese, I have never heard it suggested that that treaty has not been fully and fairly carried into effect, except in two particulars. Complaint has been made of their having departed from the rules agreed upon on certain points of etiquette in the communications between the two coun-
  550
  tries; and complaint is also made of their having refused to admit British subjects into the city of Canton. The Chinese authorities always alleged their inability to; perform the latter provision of the treaty, i without risk to the peace of the country, and their excuse was for several years expressly admitted by Her Majesty's Government. I wish I could say that I thought that the treaty had been observed with I equal fidelity by Englishmen. When we obtained from China the large concessions which I have described, we, on our side, took upon ourselves the obligation that we would enforce payment of all duties justly due to the Chinese Government, and obedience to the laws of China on the part of British merchants and subjects. It was expressly stipulated that
  "The security merchants being now done away with, it is understood that the British Consul will henceforth be security for all British merchant ships entering any of the aforesaid ports."
  And also that our consuls
  "Were strictly to watch over and carefully scrutinize the conduct of all persons being British subjects trading under their superintendence."
  Among the laws of China, which were to be thus enforced by us, because the Chinese authorities had been deprived of all power over British subjects, was the prohibition of the sale of opium. Sir Henry Pottinger distinctly declared this to be the case in a proclamation he published immediately after the signing of the treaty. But, instead of assisting the Chinese in suppressing the smuggling of opium, from the first hour of the treaty's coming into force, up to this time, the traffic has received our open countenance and support. The British Government in India has continued to regard the sale of opium for the purpose of being smuggled into China as one of the main sources of its revenue. Further, it is stated that the foreign merchants in China launched into a wholesale system of smuggling and fraudulent devices for the evasion of duties. Chinese laws and treaty stipulations were alike disregarded, sometimes by one party with forcible infractions of port regulations, oftener by bribery and collusion between the native authorities and the foreigners. The Imperial revenue was defrauded by both, and foreign trade was demoralized and converted into a game of hazard and over-reaching. In spite of the provisions of the treaty no effort was made on our part to arrest these evils, except in

  551
  the single instance of the establishment of what is called the foreign inspectorate of customs at Shanghai, a remedy as bad as the disease. The consuls of some of the Powers, instead of checking, are stated to hare been active parties in promoting these abuses, in which they were directly interested not receiving any salaries but being paid by fees and allowed to trade. And here, my Lords, I must remind you that the power thus abused by the consuls of some other Powers was derived from our interference; we professed that we wanted no exclusive advantages for ourselves, and, therefore, caused the privileges we obtained under the Treaty of Nankin to be extended to other European nations and to the United States. The consequence was, that the consuls of different powers, in their eagerness to secure as largo as possible a share of the trade for their own countrymen, vied with each other in supporting the frauds perpetrated upon the Chinese Government. These frauds extended to the smuggling carried on not only by Europeans but by Chinese. It is said that when a Chinese merchant had had his property seized, perhaps hundreds of miles from one of our ports of trade, he would go to some European to whom he would make a nominal sale of his property, who thereupon would claim, through his consul, the restitution of the property. Thus the consuls of the various Powers actively interfered to prevent the enforcement of the revenue laws by the Chinese authorities, not only against Europeans, but even in these instances against their own subjects. In the papers there is one remarkable instance of the manner in which the power of the consuls in these ports has been abused. Lord Elgin states that he finds in one of the ports, I think at Foo-chow, the foreign consuls had four times stopped the payment of all duties to the Chinese Government as the means of extorting redress for some alleged grievance. This was done three times by the American, and once by the English Consul. Lord Elgin does not mention the case in which the English Consul resorted to this highhanded proceeding, nor have I been able to trace it; but he says that on the last occasion, when such a power was exercised by the American Consul, it was for the purpose of compelling the Chinese authorities to take Mexican dollars at a higher rate than the current market value. The Chinese were willing to take them at
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  their real value; but these coins were not so popular in the country as some others, and therefore these other coins, according to the current rate, had an advantage of 10 per cent. The American Consul required that Mexican dollars should be taken at the same rate as the other coins, and this demand, preposterous and unreasonable as it must be considered, was actually enforced. The English merchants, who had contentedly paid in the Mexican dollars at their current value, received back this 10 per cent on their payments for some time previous, in order to put them on a footing of equality with the Americans. Of course this was necessary. You could not, without disorganizing trade, allow one nation to obtain greater commercial facilities than another. But it shows how grossly this system operates when one nation being guilty of such an abuse other nations are compelled to follow in a similar course. These abuses prevailed not alone for the purpose of defrauding the Chinese revenue. I find it stated that they were also practised (and I am afraid that a British firm of considerable standing was concerned in them) for the purpose of supplying heavy cannon to the insurgents in arms against the Chinese Government, in defiance of all international law. A still worse traffic was supported in the same manner. I mean the trade in coolies; in other words, a traffic which vies in its horrors with the African slave trade in its worst days. We are informed in these Papers that, at the instigation of foreigners who were ready to purchase so-called emigrants, abandoned Chinese practised a system of kidnapping and decoying their fellow-countrymen, in order to ship them to European colonies, under circumstances of the greatest atrocity. Sometimes these poor people were taken by force, sometimes they were tempted to drink, and then to gamble away their liberty; and, once in the hands of the kidnappers, they were confined in places provided for the purpose, and there treated with the greatest cruelty, so that when ill, and when it was thought they would prove unfit for work, they were turned out to die by inches in the public roads. Lord Elgin tells an affecting story of an unfortunate widow who had two children. Her son was induced to gamble away his freedom in the way I have described, and fell into the hands of the kidnappers. His mother, in order to release him, sold her daughter, and then, when she went to redeem her

  553
  son, found she was too late, and that he had already been shipped to an European colony. Lord Elgin says that, though the subordinate agents employed are generally natives of the country, the horrors of this traffic are put down by the Chinese to the account of the foreigners. They are justly so put down, because if it were not for the privileges which we secured to foreigners, and their consequent immunity from Chinese law, these horrors would very soon be suppressed by the local authorities. But the foreigner is safe under the protection derived from our treaties. He is able to bribe the bad men who are to be found in the great cities of China to carry on this inhuman trade; and I say that the Europeans who do so are as much responsible for the cruelties and iniquities which are consequently perpetrated, as a receiver of stolen goods in this town is answerable for the guilt of some unfortunate apprentice whom he may tempt to steal his master's property. I grieve to add that I think no small part of the responsibility for these abuses falls on the Government of France, because I believe that Government has made contracts for the conveyance of emigrants to its colonies without taking any security whatever against the abuses I have described. Nor is this all; we are told that "vile and reckless men," deserters from ships and adventurers of all descriptions, the scum of Europe and America, have infested the coasts of China, and availing themselves of their immunity from Chinese authority, of the laxity of the consular system, and of the fear inspired by our arms, have committed every kind of outrage. As an instance of the open lawlessness of their conduct, Lord Elgin mentions a fact which came under his own observation; he states that when he was proceeding up the estuary of the river leading to Foo-chow, two men calling themselves Americans came on board the frigate to offer their services as pilots; they proved incompetent, and upon inquiring why some perfectly competent Chinese pilots had been unwilling to come forward, one of them replied, drawing his hand in a significant manner across his throat, "These Americans make too much bobbery." But the mere driving the natives of the country out of their legitimate employment, is nothing compared to the outrages these foreigners commit. Smuggling, piracy, and violence of every kind are habitually practised — these men, it is said, for
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  the most part, confine themselves to the coasts, where they commit depredations of all varieties; but sometimes they do business on land, either on their own account or that of Chinamen who employ them. They occasionally disappear altogether, having fallen victims, it may be supposed, to the vengeance their conduct has provoked. And these disorders have been facilitated by the gross abuse of European flags, and especially of the British and Portuguese flags. When we concluded the Treaty of Nankin, and acquired by it special privileges for our flag, the law did not admit of its being assumed by any vessels not bonâ fide British, and of which the owners, and at least three-fourths of the crew, wore British subjects. It was to vessels of this description that the Chinese meant to grant the privilege; but, without consulting them, or asking their consent, we altered our law, first, by an Act of Parliament, and then still more largely by a colonial ordinance, which allowed vessels having no pretensions to the character of British ships to hoist our flag and claim the privileges which belong to it. I find it stated that "Canton built vessels owned and manned by Canton men, some having a white man, some a black, some no foreigner at all, on board," have hoisted the British flag, and under its pro-lection, have carried on piracy and smuggling in the most daring manner. I need hardly remind your Lordships that it was our claim to give protection to a vessel of this description which caused the quarrel that led to the unhappy war just concluded; and with reference to that quarrel, Mr. Alcock, who was then Consul at Canton states, that in all probability it would never have taken place, if the gross abuse of foreign flags and the immunities they enjoy by treaty had not been habitual and matters of notoriety, especially in the class of lorcha vessels, which he describes as "smugglers and pirates all."
  You may, perhaps, be inclined to believe that such an accoun tas that which I have just given of the state of things in China cannot possibly be accurate, and must be exaggerated. Allow me to assure you that it is far otherwise; I have drawn it from no Chinese or doubtful authorities, but entirely from the papers laid upon the table by command of Her Majesty, and from the statements contained in these papers of men entitled to our implicit confidence. Many of the facts I have mentioned are taken from a very able

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  memorandum drawn up by Mr. Alcock, which derives weight both from the character of the writer, and from the manner in which it has been given to us. This memorandum was drawn up at the desire of Her Majesty's Government in the year 1858 by Mr. Alcock, who was on leave of absence in this country from the post he then held of Consul at Canton. It was deemed of so much importance by my noble Friend Lord Clarendon, then Secretary of State, that he sent it officially to Lord Elgin to assist his judgment in the negotiations he was entrusted to conduct with China. Of the reliance to be placed on Mr. Alcock's judgment we have the best proof in the fact that he was selected by another Secretary of State for the post of British Minister in Japan. This is a post which at the present moment is, perhaps, more important and one requiring higher qualifications, than any other in our diplomatic service, and I believe the selection for it of Mr. Alcock has commanded the entire approval of all to whom his character is known. A memorandum proceeding from him, and endorsed as it were by the Secretary of State, is a paper of no ordinary authority. I have also made use of the able reports of Mr. Meadows, Mr. Winchester, and Mr. Robertson, who are employed in our consular service, a very able letter from Mr. Davidson, the senior British merchant at Ningpo, and above all the despatches of Lord Elgin. The statement I have laid before your Lordships is a feeble and imperfect summary of what is to be found reported by these high authorities in the papers on your table. I could easily have supported what I have said by quotations from what they have written, and I have only abstained from doing so, because I feared unduly to trespass on your time, and because I know how unpalatable it is to you to be called upon to listen to long extracts from blue books. But, so far as my memory would serve me, I have used their very words. I hold in my hand references to the passages to which I have referred, and if even the minutest particular of my statement should be disputed, I am prepared to point out the page in the papers in which the authority for it will be found.
  Perhaps, my Lords, I may be told that, granting the evils I have described to exist, it is not to this country that they are to be imputed, but to the venality and corruption of the Chinese authorities.
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  I do not dispute the fact that the Chinese authorities are too generally corrupt, but I find it to be the opinion of Lord Elgin that "the terror inspired by the foreigner and the dread of getting into difficulty with him are accountable for the irregularity of the Chinese custom-house, in a hardly-less degree than the habitual venality of the Chinese officials." But, further, I must call your attention to the fact that the Chinese did not willingly adopt that system of intercourse with us which has proved so injurious to them. They were aware of the defects of their own Government, and of their inability to maintain their revenue and good order under the system we imposed upon thorn, and which they so little understood, though they were quite able to do both if we had permitted them to adhere to their old and traditional policy, which, barbarous as we consider it, and so in many respects it really is, has yet been proved by experience to be efficient and well suited to their state of society. But we would not listen to any remonstrances, they were unable to resist our superior strength, though they would far rather have foregone all trade with us, than allow it to be conducted on the terms we prescribed, we compelled them to do so. If, therefore, under the system we have established, Europeans avail themselves of the corruptibility of Chinese officers to commit abuses, this is only an additional ground for just complaint on the part of the Chinese Government.
  But, my Lords, the real question is not who is to blame for the evils that have arisen, but how does the system of intercourse between the two nations, which we have compelled the Chinese to submit to work for the benefit of either? I have already sufficiently shown you how it has worked for the Chinese;—has it been really more advantageous to the true interests of England? Lord Elgin, in one of his despatches, observes that in general the evils of the existing state of things which he describes, appear in the first instance to fall exclusively on the natives and on the Imperial revenue, except, he adds, "that foreigners have been placed in a position in which the common virtues of truthfulness and honesty can be practised only at a ruinous sacrifice." This is a significant observation, and there is abundant evidence in the papers that, under the existing system, there are such facilities for fraud on the part of European

  557
  merchants, and that those who adopt dishonest practices have so enormous an advantage over more conscientious traders, that it is impossible for the latter long to carry on their business, in competition with their dishonest rivals, and thus, even men who have gone out with the fullest intent of conducting their trade on the principles of honour and justice, are gradually drawn in to adopting more or less of the evil practices that prevail around them, and thus trade has been demoralized and corrupted. In a national point of view, this is no light evil. Complaints have been made of late years that the standard of commercial morality in this country has become perceptibly lower; that frauds and malpractices take place to an extent that was formerly unknown. I cannot say how far that is true; but, if it be so, I want to know whether it is not possible that our having allowed a great branch of our trade to become thus corrupted may have contributed to this most unfortunate result. I think the high name for honour which the British merchants formerly bore, and the character for uprightness which they enjoyed all over the world, were one of the most precious possessions of the country, and, I should, indeed, grieve if it were lost. But it is not in this way; only that we have been losers; —we suffer also in a more pecuniary and commercial sense from the evils we have inflicted upon China. It is obvious that the permanent prosperity, and the extension, of our trade with China, depend upon her internal peace and prosperity. If her provinces are laid waste by anarchy and civil war, her power of purchasing our manufactures, and furnishing the produce we import from her, must, of necessity, be diminished. It is impossible that such disorders as I have described can exist on the coast of China, without carrying great discouragement to trade and industry; the depredations of the ruffians who avail themselves of their immunity from Chinese law, cannot prevail unchecked, without destroying that security which is the very soul of industry, in all places within their reach. It is true, that these outrages chiefly affect the coast, and are little felt in the great producing districts, but there are still worse evils in the interior of the Empire. I would remind your Lordships that, since the Treaty of Nankin, and, as I am persuaded, mainly in consequence of it, extensive provinces of China have been laid waste by a fearful
  558
  rebellion. I am aware that rebellions have not been uncommon in China, but in general they have been of a very different character from that which is now raging. They have usually been mere local insurrections for the removal of some local grievance, and have been soon terminated, either by the redress of the grievance, or the defeat of the rebels. But this rebellion has now raged for ten or twelve years, over a wide extent of the richest districts of the Empire. There is a great difference of opinion among high authorities as to the true character of this rebellion. Some believe it to be an earnest religious movement, in which there is a serious desire to adopt Christianity, although, at present, in a sadly distorted form, combined with a national movement of the Chinese against the Tartar dynasty. Others hold on the contrary with Mr. Bruce; and from the facts stated in his recent despatches, I am inclined to believe this to be the more correct opinion—that it is a mere rising of the dangerous classes, having for its object to upset all Government and authority, and to enable the stronger to pillage the weaker; and that its result, wherever the rebels prevail, is to establish the rule of the sword in its worst form, to the destruction of confidence, capital, and commerce. But whichever of these views may be the more just, whether the rebels, or the imperialists, are the chief workers of destruction, there can be no doubt that, in the wide districts affected by the rebellion, there has been an amount of bloodshed and devastation which is almost beyond belief. When Lord Elgin went up the Tang-tze-Kiang he found the mouth of the great canal, which in 1842 was so crowded with grain junks that a passage could hardly be made through them, deserted, except by a few Imperial war junks; and cities which were then rich and prosperous, the seats of commerce and industry, almost reduced to heaps of ruins. To show the extent of the devastation he mentions that in walking through one of these towns (Woo-chang) he sprang pheasants in what had been the very centre of the walled town. All that he describes tends to confirm what is stated by Mr. Meadows, that it is the internal troubles of China which have caused the check to consumption in the interior, and have prevented the hoped for extension of our trade. This rebellion, which has thus devastated China, I believe to be the direct consequence of the

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  Opium War of 1842, and of the treaty by which it was concluded. These events shook the authority of the Emperor in the minds of his subjects, while the government in the Southern Provinces (on which the consequences of the war mainly fell) was utterly disorganized by its financial difficulties, arising, in the first instance, from the expense of the war, and the large pecuniary indemnity we exacted, and afterwards from the failure of the customs revenue from the system of smuggling that was introduced. The Mandarins not receiving what was due to them from the Government, owing to the financial distress thus created, were led to carry the abuses and venality from which the Chinese Government had never been free, to a height previously unheard of. Those whose duty it was to maintain public peace and order became themselves the accomplices of robbers and pirates, and the population were the victims of intolerable oppression. Dr. Gutzlaff, who knew China well, informed me that it was impossible to describe the extreme misery thus brought upon the inhabitants of these provinces, and the complete disorganization of the Government and of society. Discontent was still more widely spread by the means the Imperial Government was driven to adopt to raise money in order to meet the demands upon it. From evidence with which I will not now trouble your Lordships, I hold it to be clear that the primary causes of the great rebellion in China, and of the inability of the Imperial Government to suppress it, are to be found in the war of 1842, the treaty by which it was closed, and the manner in which that treaty has been acted upon.
  I have troubled your Lordships with this review of the Treaty of Nankin and its consequences, because I think this will help us to form a sound opinion as to what we have to expect from the treaty just concluded. Judging of the terms of peace which Lord Elgin, under the instructions of Her Majesty's Government, has exacted from the Chinese, by the light of past experience, I can only regard the arrangements now made as a further step on a wrong road, and in a vicious policy. You have opened additional ports to our trade, but have you in doing so taken any new securities against the frauds and the violence which have prevailed in those already open to us? Lord Elgin, in one of his despatches, says that
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  "Morality apart, it is not for our interest that concessions extorted from the Chinese Government by British arms should be employed by British subjects and others for the promotion of rebellion and disorder within the empire, or for the establishment of privileged smuggling and piracy along its coast or up its rivers."
  A most true observation, but I look in vain in the treaty for any effectual security against such evils, and without a complete change in our system I am at a loss to understand how such a security can be provided. Again, my Lords, I have endeavoured to show how grievously China has suffered from the exaction of a large money indemnity at the end of the opium war. You are going to exact a far larger amount now. At the conclusion of the opium war we required China to pay a pecuniary indemnity of 15,000,000 dollars or little more than £3,000,000 sterling. The united demand of England and France at the present moment is 18,000,000 taels, or rather more than £5,300,000. The burthen imposed is increased; but is China as able now to bear the weight as she was in 1842? In 1842 China had long been in the enjoyment of internal peace and prosperity. Her resources were then unimpaired, except by the foreign war just concluded. That foreign war had affected an almost insignificant portion of her territory, and inflicted comparatively little injury upon her. In the foreign war which has now terminated she has suffered far more severely. She has lost many thousands of her best troops, in the unequal contest of matchlocks, and bows and arrows, against Enfield rifles, and Armstrong guns; her capital has been taken by the invader, and she has suffered over a far wider extent of country than before. Yet her losses from foreign war are absolutely as nothing, compared with what she has suffered from the long continuance of rebellion. The country, as far as it has reached, is one wide scene of devastation and ruin. China, therefore, is little likely to be able now to support a demand much heavier than that which was found to be more than she could bear in 1842, especially when we consider what is the state of her finances? I find that in 1858 Lord Elgin reported to Her Majesty's Government that there was every symptom of extreme penury in the Chinese treasury, and that he had reason to believe that even the troops defending the capital remained unpaid. And in October last he informed Her Majesty's Government that as to obtaining from China the payment of any

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  large sum, it was simply impossible—that all that could be done was to impose on her the payment of 40 per cent of her gross Customs revenue (equal to more than half the net revenue) to discharge the debt incurred by the indemnities she has undertaken to pay. Lord Elgin adds that it will take about four years of this large proportion of her Customs revenue to discharge that obligation. Nor is this all that you have done by the treaty, to press down China under an intolerable load of financial difficulty. While you have increased the demands upon her treasury, you have compelled her to submit to what will cause a large falling off in its receipts. Notwithstanding the Report from your own officers, that the Chinese tariff is the most liberal, and most liberally enforced, of any that is known—that it contrasts very favourably with our own, and still more so with those of every other European nation —at this very time we compel them to submit to very large reductions in some of the most important items of their Customs revenue, for the purpose of encouraging our trade. One of our public servants (Mr. Wade) says he thinks it hardly fair to China —when we will not ourselves consent to reduce our tax of 1s. 3d. per pound on tea —that we should oblige her to lower her present tax of a fraction more than five farthings to about three farthings a pound. You have likewise insisted upon her very largely reducing her internal transit duties upon the commodities in which we deal with her, though from time immemorial, these transit duties have been one of the chief means for meeting her local expenses, and especially that of maintaining those canals and roads by which her produce reaches its markets. If, therefore, China is already staggering under her accumulated difficulties—if it is in the highest degree doubtful whether her Government can suppress the rebellion which has been so long consuming her strength and wasting her resources, is it not, my Lords, most improbable that she should be able to endure the exaction that you are now putting upon her? Is it not almost certain that her Government will sink altogether under the burden, and that the once rich and flourishing provinces of an empire that was prosperous for much more than 1,000 years, until we forced upon her that intercourse with Europe which has proved so fatal to her, will fall into confusion, and become—as some of them are already—the scenes of devastation and ruin?
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  If this result takes place, and takes place by our interference—I will say nothing of the deep guilt which, in the eyes of God and man, will rest on this country for producing such a catastrophe, strongly as I feel on the subject-—but I will ask you, even taking the lowest and most selfish view of the question, will this be for your own interest? Mr. Meadows, in one of his very able papers, after describing the peculiarities of Chinese institutions, observes that—
  "Under those national institutions, with no improvements or aid from western foreigners, an agricultural and commercial people has grown into existence, which can take off a large and, in time of peace, an increasing quantity of foreign produce, which can furnish a large and increasing quantity of silk, and can supply all the world with tea. It cannot be too often repeated that foreigners who come here to trade cannot use too much care in abstaining from everything that tends to impair institutions under which such results have been obtained."
  Lord Elgin expresses a similar opinion. He says that—
  "Privileges acquired by a process which enfeebles the Government and destroys its moral influence may sometimes be purchased at too great a cost."
  My Lords, our experience of India ought to warn us upon this subject. It ought to teach us that it is easy to destroy an Asiatic Government, but not so easy to replace it. It ought to teach us that, if we take the first step towards interference with such a Government, we may be irresistibly led on, until nothing remains for us, but to take its administration into our own hands. We have had a late example of this in Oude. We know how, by our interference, we gradually weakened the Native Government of that State, until at length it was alleged that common humanity made it absolutely necessary to incorporate it with our dominions. We know, too, that we have carried this policy so far in India, that it now throws a burden on our military resources, which is a subject of serious anxiety to every man capable of properly considering the question. But the difficulties of India are nothing compared with those to be expected in China, if you should there also pull down the national institutions and Government. And this, my Lords, is what I fear you are doing. I see symptoms that you are entering upon that fatal course of policy—that you are beginning a system which will take you on from one step to another until you have

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  utterly destroyed those institutions which have existed for ages in China, but for which you will be totally unable to find a substitute. You will then be left in this dilemma—that you must either abandon China to anarchy, or attempt that which is far beyond your strength—namely, to govern her by your own power. You have already, I think most unadvisedly, defended Shanghai against the rebels. Mr. Bruce very properly declined to carry that interference further until he had received instructions from home; but it is obvious that, having by our policy so enfeebled the Chinese Government that it cannot uphold its authority against the insurgents, a pressure will be put upon Her Majesty's Government to lend it their assistance for that purpose. This will come very soon, because the rebellion is now approaching the silk producing districts, and on the maintenance of tranquillity in these districts one of the most important branches of our trade depends. Mr. Bruce, too, has very truly pointed out to you that in these Asiatic Governments the only check on abuse and tyranny, on the part of the local officers, is the power of resistance on the part of the people. Insurrection is their recognized resource against oppression and misgovernment. In China insurrection is regarded as an appeal to the judgment of Heaven when the people are oppressed; they consider the success of insurrection a proof of its justice, and hold it to be even a duty in certain cases to take part in it. If, then, you suppress Chinese insurrection, you take away what has heretofore held very much the same place in their institutions as the power of refusing Supplies in our own Parliamentary history. It is the recognized method of obtaining the redress of grievances, from either the general, or local Government. If, after having so weakened the Chinese Government that it cannot protect itself against rebellion, you interfere and say we cannot allow these insurrections, you will remove the only efficient check on that venality and corruption of the mandarins which is so much complained of, and thus bring on the people the evils of misgovernment. If you attempt to avert this consequence, by controlling and directing in detail the acts of the local authorities, you will in effect supersede the Chinese Government, virtually usurping the Government of China; and, I caution you, this is a task you cannot perform, unless
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  you are prepared to support it by an enormous military force. Is Parliament prepared to vote such a force in addition to that you already find necessary in India? There are other parts of the treaty which have a similar tendency, especially those clauses which take away a large part of the Customs' duties in China, and stipulate for the abolition of transit duties. How are you to enforce either of these stipulations without constant interference with the internal administration of China? One of your own consuls has distinctly told you that it is impossible to enforce the reduction of transit duties, unless you interfere with the internal Government. It is the same with the Customs' duties; when you cut off a large portion of them the Chinese Government will very soon permit smuggling, and the recognized Chinese process called "squeezing," by which they will obtain the duties in another form and another place, will he resorted to. You will be unable to guard against this except by interfering more and more in the internal administration, and thus more and more completely destroying the moral authority of the Imperial Government. Lord Elgin has already warned you that "embarrassing questions respecting the occupation of Chinese territory are involved in this arrangement," for obtaining payment of the indemnity out of the Customs' revenue. All these questions will be the more embarrassing, because you are sure that the Chinese will use every means in their power to evade the performance of the hard conditions imposed upon them. This is the invariable conduct of Asiatic Powers, and it is the more certain to be that of China, because, Lord Elgin, informs you, that in the eyes of the Chinese Government the terms of the Treaty of Tien-tsin amount to a Revolution, that they involve the surrender of some of the most cherished principles of the traditional policy of the empire, and that they have been extorted from its fears. You cannot, therefore, expect that terms so regarded, and so obtained, will be observed, except when it is impossible to evade them, and so long as you can continue to enforce them by fear. For these reasons, my Lords, I must regard the treaty which Lord Elgin was instructed to obtain from China—and which I am satisfied would have been very different if he had been left to follow his own judgment—as one containing within itself abundant seeds of future difficulties, and,

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  I am afraid, of future wars. These are things which I think, my Lords, you ought to consider now while there is yet time. It is the more important that we should do so, because the lesson we ought to learn from the past is no less applicable in Japan than in China. In Japan, as in China, we have obtained, in reality by fear, rights of access and trading privileges, which its rulers would gladly have withheld if they had dared. Already there are symptoms that, unless Her Majesty's Government exercise a firm control, these privileges will be abused in Japan as they have been in China, and will, no doubt, lead in the end to the similar result of a Japanese war. I earnestly hope that Her Majesty's Government will not allow this to happen, and my object in bringing this subject this evening before you, has been, if possible, to convince Her Majesty's Government, your Lordships, and the country, that, in our recent dealings with these semi-barbarous nations, we have been pursuing a policy inconsistent alike with our duty and our interest, and that we can only hope permanently to maintain satisfactory relations with them, and to carry on a profitable commerce, if we are content to trust for it to the good will of the people to be earned by fair and considerate treatment, and to their sense of their own interest,— not to privileges extorted by the sword. If we had heretofore acted upon this principle, I am persuaded that we might have obtained the means of carrying on, without war and violence, a large and lucrative commerce with China and Japan; but by the policy we have actually followed, all we have gained is this:—We have inflicted upon China the horrors of war; while we have brought upon ourselves, an enormous expenditure, the amount of which, I am persuaded, when fairly known will both astonish and alarm the country; and the result of this immense outlay has been not to extend your trade, or to make it more secure, but, on the contrary, to leave it on a more precarious footing than before. Do not, my Lords, let it be supposed that when I say this, I mean to impute the whole blame for all these evils to the Europeans, and none to the Chinese. Far from it. The Chinese have made great advances in many of the useful arts of life, and they are in some respects a civilized people; but in others they are still essentially barbarians. They have shown this too much by the dread-
  566
  ful treatment of their prisoners, which has justly excited the horror and indignation of all Europe. But still I say the Chinese are singularly impressible by fair and generous treatment—witness the manner in which they behaved to Mr. Fortune, and even to Lord Elgin, as pointed out by himself on more than one occasion. They are amenable to the law of kindness; though, when their passions are raised, and they think themselves treated with injustice, they are also capable of the most frightful excesses. We must also remember that they have not, like us, been instructed in the great truths of Christianity; they have been brought up under a far lower standard of right and wrong. We must, therefore, expect often to meet from them with conduct of which we have good ground to complain. But it is not by meeting wrong with wrong, and violence with violence; but, on the contrary, by forbearance, and by the strictest adherence on our own part to those rules of right which we profess to reverence, that we can hope, by degrees, to bring about a better state of things.
  My Lords, I have to add before I conclude that I think all the objections to our policy are greatly aggravated by our having united with the French in this war. Their quarrel was totally distinct from ours, and it ought to have been separately pursued; we had nothing to do with it, and ought not to have made ourselves responsible for the measures the French might think fit to adopt. At all events, before we joined with them in military operations, and aided them in exacting redress for the grievance of which they complained, there ought to have been a careful inquiry as to how far that grievance was a just one, and a complete understanding with our allies as to the redress to be exacted by them from the Chinese. I find in these papers no trace of any such inquiry, or of any understanding entered into between our Government and that of France, as to the terms which France might properly demand. What I do find is that our highest and most trusted diplomatic agents in China have expressed themselves in a manner which implies, I think, pretty clearly an opinion adverse to the justice of the French quarrel. In the first place, I observe that Lord Elgin, in an answer to an address presented by certain missionaries, urging that Chinese converts to Christianity should be protected by the treaty, replied, it was quite

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  right that Chinese converts should not be persecuted by their own Government; but it was also quite right that the Chinese should not be tempted to profess being converted in order to obtain abnormal protection against their own Government. Now, it is the power to protect Chinese converts to Catholicism which it has been the main object of France to establish. Again, Mr. Alcock states that the Chinese Treaties with France and England give to missionaries the right of protection, and to native converts the right of exemption, from any persecution on account of their change of religion; but he adds that the same treaties contain an express stipulation that missionaries are on no account to go into the interior of the empire. He says that this stipulation has been systematically violated from the beginning, both by Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries, but chiefly by the latter; and that the Roman Catholic missionaries, not content with penetrating into the interior of China, in defiance of the treaty, at the same time used the stipulation in favour of toleration in a manner justly offensive to the Imperial Government:—
  "That this stipulation had for many years been made the ground of such frequent and irritating interference between Chinese subjects and their own authorities, even in the most distant provinces upon Reports of Roman Catholic missionaries domociled in the interior, as not only to force the fact of such domocile upon the Chinese in office in direct violation of the treaty, but to prove to them that it was systematic, and openly protected by one of the treaty powers."
  Mr. Alcock states that the alarm which this state of things has naturally created in China has been the greater from the fact that the rebels, or Taepings, as they are called, profess to entertain a form of Christianity, and is further aggravated by their recollecting that, two centuries ago, the interference of the missionaries was carried to such an extent, and became so unbearable, that the Chinese Government put an end to the whole system. All the missionaries then in the country were massacred, and a persecution was raised against Christians which has lasted till the present time. It thus appears that the traditional feeling of two hundred years has been enlisted to increase the jealousy of the Chinese, which led to a Roman Catholic Bishop in the interior being put to death by the local authorities, on the suspicion of his having been acting in concert with the rebels. It is for the
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  execution, or murder, of this missionary that France sought redress in the late war; but Mr. Alcock remarks that, with such legitimate causes for jealousy and alarm as he has described, it must be a matter of surprise that a single missionary out of the many hundreds in the interior has been left alive, not that one should have been sacrificed; and he winds up this part of his memorandum by observing "the French and the English both are in arms at this moment, each to assert rights that have been mainly brought into peril by unchecked abuses." Such is the nature of the quarrel between France and China. "We have enabled France virtually to establish political power, through the instrumentality of Roman Catholic priests throughout the whole country; and we have also enabled her to establish this extraordinary claim that she is at liberty to demand the restitution of any part of the property said to have been taken from the Roman Catholic Church some two centuries ago. In-the exercise of that power she has already, to the great astonishment and dissatisfaction of the British community, claimed as a site for a Roman Catholic cathedral one of the most valuable portions of the city of Canton. I doubt the wisdom of the policy we have thus pursued. When I look at the manner in which French Roman Catholics missionaries have used their power in other places, when I remember how they employed it in the South Sea Islands, when I call to mind how nearly France and England were embroiled in war, by the over-bearing conduct of the French missionaries in the celebrated case of Mr. Prichard, when I remember, further, that missionaries of all kinds—not Roman Catholics only, but Protestants as well—are too apt to interfere unnecessarily with the governments of barbarous countries, I must question the wisdom of our having given our support to the establishment of a system which will give so much power to French priests throughout the Chinese Empire. One word more and I have done. I have thought it my duty to bring this subject before your Lordships, because I believe that we are now pursuing a course which, if persevered in, must lead to the most calamitous results. Although I cannot flatter myself that my weak voice will be able to change the opinion of any of your Lordships, or of the country, yet I do hope that what has

  569
  passed this evening may induce some, both within and without this House, to look into this subject for themselves; and I am persuaded that, if the subject should attract the attention it deserves from its extreme importance—if the papers which have been laid before us are studied as they ought to be, public opinion will eventually be brought to the same conclusion at which I have myself arrived, and the necessity of reconsidering our whole system of Chinese policy will he generally recognized.
  LORD WODEHOUSE: My Lords, I am relieved from the necessity of entering into all the circumstances which led to our dispute with China, or of discussing the questions arising out of the conduct of Her Majesty's Envoy in that country, because the noble Earl throughout his interesting speech has almost entirely abstained from referring to those matters. It is true that he alluded once or twice to the almost forgotten affair of the lorcha Arrow; but he did so in an incidental manner, and it is quite unnecessary that I should make any observations upon that much-discussed subject. Before proceeding to notice the remarks of the noble Earl, I wish to state that there will be no objection to produce the papers for which he has moved. There are only two despatches, which, or parts of which, I will lay on the table. They explain shortly what was Lord Elgin's intention in proceeding up the Yang-tze-Kiang. That intention was, not to interfere in any manner in the civil war now being waged between the insurgents and the Chinese Government, or to use force, but to endeavour to make arrangements for the carrying on of trade. I may add, that Lord Elgin's intention has been communicated to the Imperial Government at Pekin, and that they have made no objection to its being carried into effect.
  My Lords, the noble Earl began at a very early period. He went back some thirty years, and told us of a time when commerce was carried on from only one port in China. He then came down to the events which led to the Treaty of 1842; and I think it will be sufficient if I begin with the events which led to the Treaty of Nankin. The noble Earl was extremely severe upon the Treaty of Nankin, and what he called its consequences. I think that, in many respects, the noble Earl has exaggerated those bad consequences. I am afraid, also, he has not considered what
  570
  alternative course could have been pursued by this country. He has not sufficiently taken into account the weakness of the Chinese Government, and the extreme difficulty of dealing with that Government on the one hand, and a large number of Europeans anxious to trade on the other. I think I can show that our officers in China have done their utmost to carry out the stipulations of the treaty, and have displayed the utmost good faith towards the Chinese Government, and have, in some respects, succeeded in effecting a considerable amelioration.
  The first point to which the noble Earl referred, in speaking of the Treaty of Nankin, was the question of opium. It is very easy to throw the whole blame of the opium trade, as is constantly done, upon this country; but let it not be forgotten that, although the Chinese Government prohibited by law the use of opium, they never were able practically to enforce that prohibition. If we had endeavoured to stop the trade in opium, we must have done that which the noble Earl also says is so undesirable—namely, enforce the laws of the Chinese Government. I believe that practically it is inevitable that opium should be carried into China, and that the arrangement under the new treaty by which the trade in opium is legalized and subjected to a moderate duty, is the most humane, the most reasonable, and the most sensible arrangement that could be made. I pass now to the question of the payment of duties. My noble Friend will find in the papers that have been laid on the table of the House a great deal of information on the subject. It has been, as all who have taken an interest in the affairs of China very well known, a very embarrassing question for the Government of this country to deal with. We were bound by the Treaty of Nankin to assist the Chinese authorities as far as we could in the duty of enforcing the duties payable by our merchants. Other Powers did not undertake that responsibility; and, in consequence of the weakness and corruption of the Chinese system, a great inequality was established, which became intolerable to our merchants. The merchants of other countries—and in all countries there are unscrupulous men— evaded the payment of the duties, or paid only a small portion. The conscientious British merchant, therefore, who paid full duties, found himself in a position in which he could not carry on trade with advantage. So far from Her Majesty's Govern-

  571
  ment being responsible for this state of things, the responsibility falls primarily and principally on the Government of China. The Chinese Government were bound to see that they had efficient officers and that the duties were fairly enforced. But when we found that the weakness of the Chinese Government was such that they could not enforce those duties, we took the only measures which could be devised for endeavouring to secure their fair collection. The noble Earl has mentioned the system established first at Shanghai, and since extended to other ports, by which what is called foreign inspectorships have been established, and under which, as now finally arranged, foreign gentlemen, officers of the Chinese Government, and independent of foreign Governments, are to superintend the collection of duties. Nothing, I believe, can be more fair or just than the system carried out by these gentlemen; and Mr. Bruce points out in one of his despatches that the Chinese Government have received no less than £1,000,000 under the new arrangement. I have no intention to weary your Lordships by reading despatches, but as the noble Earl has brought a wholesale accusation against the consular authorities for not having done their duty previous to the establishment of inspectorships, I shall trouble you with a short extract, and it is the only one to which I shall refer. Mr. Bruce says—
  "The records of the Foreign Office will prove that for several years after the opening of Shanghai to trade a system of smuggling and of compromising duties prevailed to an extent that destroyed practically the value of a fixed tariff, and defeated the calculations of the honest merchant who found himself, owing to the corruption of the Chinese Custom House officials, exposed to a ruinous and unfair competition with his less scrupulous rivals in commerce. Her Majesty's consuls, in fulfilment of the obligation imposed on them by the Treaty of Nankin (an obligation not assumed by the other Treaty Powers), omitted no effort to insure the payment of the just duties to the Chinese Government. They imposed fines for breaches of regulation on British merchants, they gave notice of lax proceedings to the Chinese, but they succeeded in effecting no improvement in the system, while they incurred much odium among their countrymen by inflicting penalties on them for acts which it was notorious the citizens of other countries were committing every day with complete impunity."
  That proves that no effort was spared on the part of the British authorities to procure a fair execution of the stipulations. More than that they could not do. It was
  572
  impossible to make the authorities incorrupt or to prevent abuses which are inherent in Chinese administration.
  My Lords, the next point to which the noble Earl referred is one of great and deep interest—I mean the emigration of coolies. I entirely concur in the general remarks of the noble Earl, though not in his conclusions. I entirely concur in all which he said as to the iniquity of the system—not only on the ground of humanity, which is the highest, and amply sufficient for the occasion, but on other grounds. It was our obvious policy and interest to try to put an end to that system, because a continuance of a system of kidnapping on the coast justly irritated the Chinese population, and if continued would have probably endangered peaceful intercourse with them, and might perhaps put an end to our whole trade with China. But when the noble Earl goes on to charge the British Government and this country with being responsible for that system, I can assure him that, so far from that being the case, no effort was spared to put an end to it; and, moreover, that our efforts were far, indeed, from being without success. Some years ago, when I held the position of Under Secretary of State, I moved in this House a Bill brought from the other House of Parliament, which was the first which passed on this subject, and by which regulations were imposed on Chinese passengers. This first step was followed by further regulations, and as regards British ships they were quite sufficient. But the kidnappers, finding that British ships were unavailable, had recourse to foreign ships. When the allies occupied Canton they determined to establish a better system, so far at least as that port was concerned. A gentleman recommended by the Colonial Office, Mr. Austin, who was well versed in the emigration system to the West Indies and other parts, succeeded in establishing a system of regulations at Canton under which coolies have been regularly and peacefully engaged for emigration to our West Indian colonics. So great has been the satisfaction of the Chinese with those regulations that whereas before it was impossible to obtain Chinese women and children to accompany Chinese men to the Colonies—whereby great evils resulted—whole families have since been embarked, and 300 or 400 respectable Chinese women have been sent to our Colonies. This was done with the full approbation and co-operation of

  573
  the Chinese authorities. The Chinese Governor General, being a sensible man, entered at once into the reasons which were laid before him for legalising this emigration. He concurred with our authorities in the regulations adopted, and they succeeded by forcible measures in putting an end to kidnapping in the river, and in establishing a system as humane as any system of emigration from the ports of this kingdom. Her Majesty's Government are anxious to see the system extended to other Chinese ports, and to all European ships. They have communicated with all the European Governments and with the Government of the United States. They have urged on those Governments, in the strongest terms, the policy and humanity of adopting the present system, and I hope the different Governments will concur in a single course of action upon a matter which, in our relations with the Chinese, is of the greatest importance. If any Government should not do so, then I agree with the noble Earl it will incur a grave responsibility for neglecting an obvious and pressing duty.
  My noble Friend mentioned, among other topics, the great increase of piracy on the Chinese seaboard. There is no doubt that the Chinese seaboard is in a condition far from satisfactory. But the efforts of Her Majesty's and other European Governments to suppress piracy have been untiring, and I am sure every one in this House must have remarked frequent accounts of gallant engagements between naval officers and Chinese pirates. Of course, all the Government can do is to keep men-of-war on the coast to suppress a crime which is disturbing to our trade and pernicious to our interests. These, I think, are the principal points to which the noble Earl has called attention.
  The Treaty of Nankin naturally led to the present treaty. The present treaty is an extension, undoubtedly, of the Treaty of Nankin. My noble Friend finds fault with the whole of our policy towards the Chinese. He says that our intercourse has been the source of all the evils which have been witnessed; that it has corrupted the honesty of our merchants—that it has entailed an immense pecuniary expenditure, and that it will probably end in a permanent occupation of the country. I admit that, in dealing with such an Empire as China, questions of grave character and great difficulty must arise. But they are difficulties which have arisen wherever
  574
  European civilization and strength have been brought in contact with Eastern barbarism and weakness. In India, Turkey, and Japan, the result has been the same. The noble Earl has stated, with great force, all the difficulties of the problem, but he has not contributed a single element for its solution. I cannot suppose that he thinks trade might be limited to one port, as formerly, because, in that case, Europeans would repair to others which were not under our control. We, therefore, extended the number of ports and regulated the intercourse by treaty. If the Chinese had simply and honestly endeavoured to observe the provisions of the treaty, I maintain that they would never have been subjected to another foreign war. The Chinese Government, by their treachery and insincerity, and their refusal to adhere to plain engagements, have brought the war on themselves. With a Government which conducts itself in this way, it is impossible to avoid quarrelling. If you submit to their evasions and their insults they are constantly on the increase; and, if you take measures to vindicate your rights and compel them to fulfil their engagements, then you put yourself in the position of killing the goose which lays the golden eggs—you go to war and you run the risk of shaking the whole fabric of the Government. I fully concede that to my noble Friend, but it is inevitable if you have dealings with a Government so constantly insincere and treacherous. In fact, there are but two alternatives in dealing with Asiatic Governments, either there must be no intercourse at all with them as in Japan, or that intercourse must be placed under treaty regulations. If an Asiatic country like Japan can entirely shut out foreigners, then none of these difficulties arise: but if they open a communication with you, and you conclude a treaty, you ought to adhere strictly and simply to the words of the treaty. If you think there is a provision in that treaty which need not be carried out, renounce it at once, plainly as useless; but if you once give them an idea that you will depart from the simple words of the treaty you will get into endless difficulties—Asiatic diplomacy is sure to beat you in the long run, and you end the controversy by cutting the Gordian knot with the sword. My noble Friend drew a very lamentable picture of the state of China, which is, I am afraid, to a considerable extent too true; but the blame of which rests neither with the people nor the Go-

  575
  vernment of this country. It is easy to say that the Taeping rebellion has been caused by the consequences of the war of 1842, but any one who has read all through the documents on this subject will find it extremely difficult to determine the causes or the object of that rebellion. I have always understood—though I am not sufficiently well read in Chinese history to be certain of the fact — that such rebellions had happened in China before several times, and that they have lasted twenty and thirty years; so that, in fact, there is nothing taking place in China different from what has taken place before. As to our conduct at Shanghai, I cannot conceive how any other course could have been adopted there. When the rebels attacked Shanghai it was not a question of interfering between the Chinese Government and its rebellious subjects—it was a question whether or not you would allow a community of British merchants to be murdered, and the trade broken up, and the settlement destroyed. I should have thought that there could not be two opinions on the point. I can assure the noble Earl that we have not the slightest intention of interfering in the civil commotions of China, but in cases where our merchants are menaced by such peril, it is the duty, and it is the policy, too, of the Government to ward off such a calamity. My noble Friend went from China to Japan, and he gave us to understand that we were very likely to have a repetition of the same difficulties there. My noble Friend had but one remedy, and that was that we should trust in all things to the goodwill of this Asiatic people. As far as we have yet gone we have pursued that plan. We have certainly shown no disposition to quarrel, or to cause unnecessary difficulties; and though thus far, owing to the prudence and judgment of Mr. Alcock, we have avoided any serious difference with the Japanese Government, we certainly have not met with that goodwill, but with what we always meet with —the ordinary treachery and chicanery of Asiatics. My noble Friend has praised the conduct of Lord Elgin, and seems to think that if Lord Elgin had been left to his own discretion he would probably have concluded a different treaty with China. I can only say that I have had many conversations with Lord Elgin on the subject of this treaty, and I never for a moment heard him propose any other policy than the policy of this treaty; and when he went back to China and had an oppor-
  576
  tunity of inserting modifications in it, he never, that I know of, made any such attempt. With regard to the indemnity, I am sure the demand we made upon the Chinese Government—two and a-half millions for the expenses of the war — was extremely moderate; the most moderate ever asked, I think, from any Government under such circumstances. Whoever we may have done in 1842, the moderation displayed all through our late negotiations must be apparent to any one who takes a candid view of these matter. The mode of attack chosen at the commencement of operations was such as would least interfere with the trade of the country. It was an attack on the central Government alone; the march was a short one, the conduct of our troops was excellent, and, with the exception of the burning of the Summer Palace—which it would not be difficult to justify —*- the Chinese suffered very little. Operations of such magnitude had never been carried on with so slight injury to an invaded people. On the other hand, the conduct of the Chinese Government, it must be admitted, was not such as demanded any great consideration. The Emperor of China issued an edict, setting forth the origin and circumstances of his difference with us, and offering so much per head for the heads either of black or white men. Looking at the language in which that edict was couched every one must admit that the barbarity of the Chinese Government was carried to the utmost pitch. Nor was it confined to edicts alone. The House knew too well the barbarous manner in which our countrymen—prisoners—were treated; and never was greater moderation shown than in our concluding peace without increasing any of the demands we had made before that abominable outrage was committed.
  My Lords, I do not think it necessary that I should trouble your Lordships with more observations, which can only be of a general character. My noble Friend has made no specific charge against the Government. He has merely objected, in general terms, to the whole course of our policy towards China. There are great difficulties connected with the matter, but I believe there is no other course than to get access to the central Government, and conclude a distinct engagement with it, and to endeavour to induce it to perform its engagements faithfully. As regards our intercourse with the central Government,

  577
  I believe our policy is eminently a right one. It has been said that it would have been better if we had confined ourselves to dealing with the local Governments alone. I believe a greater mistake could not be made. The system of China is a highly centralized system; that is to say, although you have local authorities who are in a position of great laxity towards the central Government in minor matters, yet you have no great satraps or governors who are independent of the central authority. More than one instance might be cited of the wisdom of going to the central authority. You will find in one of the dispatches that, when Mr. Bruce spoke to Prince Kung of the events which had occurred at Shanghai, the Prince owned that he was utterly ignorant of what had taken place, and expressed himself as grateful for the information given to him. As far as we can see, the communications made by Prince Kung to Lord Elgin and Mr. Bruce show that if the Chinese Government could be enlightened as to the condition of the seaport provinces it would be amenable to reason on all subjects of dispute between us. While, on the one hand, you thus have a proof of the advantage of such communications, a singular instance of the want of them is also furnished in the papers. A curious letter is there given, in which the Lieutenant Governor of Shanghai gives the Imperial Government an account of the attack of rebels and their repulse. In this account there is not one word about the assistance given by the European forces; the whole merit of the action is given to the local troops, who all ran away the moment the insurgents appeared. In return, the Chinese Government were so pleased that they gave this man a red button, and the other a white one, and promised a third the first appointment that fell vacant; adding, however,—"Let him hand over the usual fee forthwith." Such communications show how disadvantageous both to us and to the Chinese Government has been the system which allowed us to communicate only with the local authorities. A different system is now inaugurated by the treaty. I admit that, if the Central Government is so weak, and if China is so disorganized, that no authority can be exercised at Pekin, and no influence can be brought to bear by the Government there upon the local authorities, then, of course, our efforts to carry out the treaty will be unavailing, and our relations with
  578
  China will be thrown into confusion. But I maintain that in going to Pekin, and in concluding this moderate treaty—in endeavouring to show the Chinese that we act in good faith, and wish fairly to observe all our treaty stipulations—we have made a just and righteous effort to prevent the evils which the noble Earl apprehends, and the responsihility of those evils, if they occur, will fall not upon us, but upon the Chinese Government.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: My Lords, I am unwilling to allow this discussion to terminate without expressing how entirely I concur in all that has fallen from my noble Friend (Earl Grey), and to thank him for myself, and I think I may say for your Lordships also, for his extremely able and useful speech, recalling to your Lordships' attention the whole of our transactions with China during the last twenty years. My Lords, it is with pain and regret I say that the state of things pictured by the noble Earl has not been in the slightest degree, in my judgment, over coloured; and the state of things pictured by the noble Lord (Lord Wode-house) has not dispelled the pain which the noble Earl's picture has excited. I think we have acted towards China with injustice. The cruelties and treacheries of the Chinese officials, which recent transactions have particularly manifested, have deprived them of all sympathy. The result will be, on our part, more injustice; and, I fear, more calamities for China. We have now terminated the fourth campaign of Sir John Bowring's war. I might call it also Lord Palmerston's war, because Lord Palmerston adopted it. But are we at the end of the war itself? Of that I am not so confident. Until all the conditions of the treaty are fulfilled—until our troops are withdrawn from Tien-tsin, and from every other portion of the Chinese territory—I cannot think that the war is wholly concluded: because, at any moment that war may break out again. The position of our troops in Tien-tsin in particular is the cause of great anxiety. For four or five months in the year they can have no communication whatever with the south; they can receive no reinforcements. It is true there is a force there that is probably sufficient to repel all attacks; but it is not sufficient to deter attack, and an attack, however repelled, is the renewal of the war. My Lords, I have always looked with the greatest pain on the condition of China as produced by our transactions

  579
  there in 1842. I recollect perfectly well the events of that war; and I recollect also that the accounts transmitted to the Government at that time stated the impending dissolution which the success of our arms threatened to bring on the Chinese Government. From that war, from its success, and the consequent weakness of the Chinese Government, I date the commencement of those troubles which have since desolated the fairest portion of the Chinese empire. There is one article in the treaty just concluded which I confess I see with very great regret—the article which legalises the emigration of coolies. I doubt its propriety—I doubt its justice, and still more doubt its policy. Its effect will be to identify us, in the opinion of the Chinese, with those other European nations who do not exercise their right in respect to coolie emigration in the same manner in which it will be exercised by us. It will obtain for us—it has already obtained for us—in place of the former name which the Chinese thought fit to give us, of "foreign devils" and "barbarians"—it has obtained for us the name of "man-stealers," which is the most odious name that can be inflicted on any body of persons in the world. I know that the Government will discountenance —I hope that our merchants will not engage in—a discreditable trade of this description. At the same time it is impossible for us, with this article keeping its place in our treaty, to direst the Chinese of the idea that we shall act in the same manner as other European nations have unfortunately acted. There is another matter which has been rather slightly touched upon. I refer to the rumour that it is the intention of Government to send an expedition up the river Yang-tze-Kiang. I think this is one of the most important subjects which can occupy the attention of Government. As I understood the noble Lord (Lord Wodehouse) the object of that expedition is merely for the purpose of protecting or furthering trade. [Lord WODEHOUSE: Opening trade.] Now, my Lords: first of all, we are not justified without further communication, and without the authority of the Chinese Government, in going up the Yang-tze-Kiang for such a purpose; because by the treaty we are not entitled to open the trade of that river till peace was established on its banks, and we know that the right bank is held in force by great bodies of rebels.
  LORD WODEHOUSE: The noble Earl
  580
  is perfectly correct in saying that, according to the treaty, we are not entitled to proceed up the Yang-tze-Kiang until after tranquillity is restored. But in the communications which were subsequently made to the Chinese Government, Mr. Bruce stated that he thought permission might be given now, and the Chinese Government raised no objection to the expedition proceeding at once up that river.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: I rejoice greatly to hear that explanation from the noble Lord, because I think that, rightly managed, this expedition will afford the only hope of restoring good government in Central China. The noble Lord talks of opening trade, but the noble Lord must know that that means opening fire. Your Lordships are aware that when Lord Elgin made his former voyage up the river as high as Hang-Kow he was fired upon by the rebels at Nankin and at other places. The British returned the fire, and with effect. If it is intended now to go up the river for the purpose of opening trade, we should be perfectly justified, if these banditti—for banditti they are—if they place any obstructions in the way of the expedition, we shall be perfectly justified in removing those obstructions. We cannot remove them otherwise than by arms, and in doing so we shall incidentally be doing something in the heart of the Chinese Empire to restore the authority of the Chinese Government. That is the only way in which we can incidentally repress the advances of these rebels—in which we can put an end to the horrid combinations of those miscreants, who to their bloodshed and massacre add the crime of blasphemy; who violate women, who destroy men and all men's works. It is only in using our arms and our strength in repressing those banditti that we can in any manner atone for the great miseries we have brought on the Chinese Empire, and for the injuries we have done to humanity by our conduct in these wars.
  EARL GREY,in reply, denied that he had made any wholesale charges against the consular body. On the contrary, he was much impressed with the evidence the paper contained of the ability and honesty with which these gentlemen for the most part discharged their duties—nor had he made any charge against the English Government for having wilfully neglected to enforce the provisions of the Treaty of Nankin. He well knew the insurmountable difficulty of doing so; but,

  581
  what he complained of was that through ignorance the British Government had come under engagements to that of China, to do certain things which it was wholly incapable of doing; and that, upon the faith of these engagements, had compelled the Chinese to submit to alterations in their laws which had proved ruinous to the Empire. The Chinese formerly had a system they were used to, and which they perfectly understood. If we had allowed them to continue their Hong, and if the trade had been confined to it, the Chinese agents would have levied the duties. It might have been a barbarous system, but the Chinese understood it, and it answered the purpose. We forced them to change it, and the responsibility rested on us. In fact, all the evils and abuses of which he had complained came under one head. English subjects had been exempted from all Chinese authority. No doubt it would often have been exercised with great barbarity; but if Europeans went to the country they should do so at their own risk, knowing what was likely to happen. But if they were only to be judged by English laws, when there were no English police, no English courts, and no means of maintaining order and peace, it was utterly impossible that abuses should not prevail. What he complained of was that they had taken a wrong course of action. The noble Lord stated that we must either abstain from intercourse with China altogether, or that our intercourse between the two nations must be regulated by treaty. He entirely differed from him. He believed there was a third alternative. The intercourse might be carried on with all the risks attached to it—a pure voluntary intercourse carried on by merchants who might be disposed to trade, apart from all treaties. He objected to treaties with semi-barbarous nations, because the stipulations they contained were sure to be violated, and when violated we are compelled to interfere for the purpose of enforcing them. The Chinese could not be forced into European systems without pulling down the whole fabric of the barbarian Government. By the manner in which they were treating China they were, as the noble Lord had himself admitted, "killing the goose that laid the golden eggs." The noble Lord had called the present treaty an extension of the Treaty of Nankin. He entirely concurred in this description of it, and that was his reason for objecting to it. The treaty of
  582
  Nankin had been proved to be a mistake by its results. Its extension, therefore, was only an extension of the mistake; it was a further step on a wrong road and in a pernicious course of policy. The noble Lord had referred to the amount of the Chinese indemnity as exceedingly moderate. If they had any right to an indemnity at all, he admitted it was moderate; it amounted to but a fraction of the expenses of the war. But what he urged was this—that, moderate or immoderate, it was placing a load upon China which was more than she had strength to bear, and which must insure the ruin of that empire.
  Motion agreed to.

  THE PROTESTANT ALLIANCE AND MR. TURNBULL.—MOTION FOR A PAPER.
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY,who bad given notice to move for Copy of Memorial of the Protestant Alliance to the First Lord of the Treasury in the matter of Mr. Turnbull, rose to postpone his Motion, and said: My Lords, the Motion I have to make will not detain your Lordships five minutes. I have been compelled to put this Notice on the paper because the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Normanby) came down to this House a few days ago and stated that it was his intention to make a Motion impugning the conduct of the Protestant Alliance, of which I am the President, and their objections to the appointment of a certain gentleman in the Record Office. I attended in my place to give your Lordships all the information on this matter so far as I was concerned; but the noble Marquess put off his Motion indefinitely—he has named no day on which he will bring it forward. And in the meantime I am lying under certain personal charges—I am charged with having done two or three unkind and unfair things towards Mr. Turhbull. I am anxious to take the earliest opportunity to answer these charges on my own account and the society of which I am the representative. In the first place, we have been charged with circulating a memorial containing grave charges against Mr. Turnbull in secret. Now, I can prove that a copy of that memorial was sent to Sir John Romilly as soon as it was issued. In the second place, we have been accused of bringing a charge against a respectable gentleman, that he has suppressed and mutilated certain public documents. We

  583
  never made such a charge—we never thought of making it—and I defy any one to lay his finger on any part of our memorial that insinuates it. The third charge is, that we took the course we did because Mr. Turnbull is a Roman Catholic. I deny it. I say that with the means we have—with the professions we make—with the ideas we entertain of the qualifications required for this office—we would have acted in the same way against a Protestant that we have done against a Roman Catholic. The noble Marquess says that in taking the course I have done in bringing forward this Motion I have acted unfairly to him. I can only express my hope he will lose no time in fixing a day for his Motion, and that he will fix as early a day as possible, and that he will then state what he has to say to your Lordships against the Protestant Alliance, and against me as their representative; and I shall then be able to show that we have acted throughout with fairness and justice, and in as straightforward a manner as any person or body of persons could have done.
  THE MARQUESS OF NORMANBY: My Lords, the indignation of the noble Earl at my not having brought forward my Motion is quite unfounded. Little more than five minutes ago I told the noble Earl that I did intend to bring the subject before the House, and that the reason of the delay was because I thought that the course of justice requires that an appeal should be first made to the Prime Minister of the country to ascertain whether he, acting under the inspiration of the noble Earl and the Protestant Alliance, would disregard the remonstrance of the legal functionary at the head of the Record Office, who, on receiving the resignation of Mr. Turnbull, expressed his sense of the detriment that resignation would be to the public service, on account of Mr. Turnbull's eminent qualifications to discharge all the public duties of the office, which he is compelled to resign only on account of the ex parte statements of the Protestant Alliance. Now, one word as to the charges the noble Earl describes. I accuse the Protestant Alliance, upon the testimony of the noble Earl himself, of having published what they must have known to be a misstatement. They have published in their monthly report words to the effect that it was lucky Mr. Turnbull had retired "from the task of writing officially the History of Religion in England under Queen
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  Mary." Now, this is distinctly a false statement. But on this I have nothing more to say, as the noble Earl has himself admitted, in a letter to a public journal, that nobody ought to have made it. The noble Earl need not fear that I shall not bring the Motion forward. I think it is very important, since Lord Palmerston gave this morning judgment to that effect to an influential deputation of Protestants, that it should be declared by your Lordships, whether a person entertaining strong opinions with regard to religion should, on that account, be prevented from fulfilling a duty that, in every respect, he is peculiarly well qualified to discharge? The question will certainly be brought forward, but I will not fix a day till I have ascertained what the order of business is likely to be.
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY: It will not be disputed that this is something of a personal attack. I, therefore, requested the noble Marquess to give me an early opportunity of stating what are my views of the case, and to enable me to say that we have not been animated by the spirit he alleges, but have taken a course we think most conducive to the public service.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: If we are to have a discussion on this subject it will be a great convenience to me, and probably to many other noble Lords, if the noble Earl will have the goodness to explain the nature of the paper he asks to have laid on the table; and if he will explain also, what the Protestant Alliance is. I have never heard it explained; the noble Earl appears to represent, in person, the great Alliance that has kindly undertaken the protection of the Protestant religion. Undoubtedly it is a good intention; but what may be the practical advantage to the Protestant religion I know not. I should wish to know who are the Alliance, what they are, what are its objects, what is its constitution, and what are we to expect from it?
  THE EARL OF DONOUGHMOREhoped that the noble Earl (the Earl of Shaftesbury) would be prepared, when the Motion of the noble Marquess was brought forward, to state distinctly to the House the grounds of the Protestant Alliance for making the charge that had been referred to against this unfortunate man. If there was no imputation on his character, what was it all about? Was a man, who had been declared by high authority eminently suited

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  for his peculiar duties, to be driven from that employ because he was a consistent Roman Catholic? If that was the ground on which the noble Earl and the Alliance over which he presided made their charge against Mr. Turnbull, all he could say was, that, although a staunch Protestant, he disavowed any participation in the proceedings or mode of action of such a society.
  THE MARQUESS OF NORMANBYsaid, he would consult with the noble Earl (Earl Granville) as to a day on which the Government business would not be likely to occupy much time.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, he was not prepared to name any such day at that moment.
  Notice of Motion put off.
  House adjourned at Eight o'clock, to Thursday next, Half-past Ten o'clock.