Sitting of 18 March 1862

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1o Inns of Court Government; Thames Embankment (North Side); Smoke Nuisance (Metropolis) Acts Amendment; Courts of Justice (Money); Fisheries (Ireland); College of Physicians (Ireland); Bastardy (Ireland).

WEST HARTLEPOOL HARBOUR AND RAILWAY COMPANY.—PETITION.
MR. ROEBUCKsaid, he had a petition to present and a question to ask of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade. It appeared that in 1852 a railway company, called the West Hartlepool Harbour and Railway Company, was formed, and obtained an Act of Parliament, under which they had the power of borrowing £600,000, when they had raised half their share capital. It appeared that a return of their capital was made to the Board of Trade, from which it was clear that a fraud had been practised on the House. In 1854 a return was made to the Board of Trade of the shares issued and paid for amounting to £552,000. The directors in their report stated the amount at £480,110, while the sum really subscribed by the public was £287,878. In 1859 another incorrect return was made. There were a great number of other frauds charged in the petition. By the Act of Parliament the company was compelled not to have upon their direction less than five persons, but no more than four were at any time directors of that company, and for a great part of the time there were only three—Mr. Jackson, and his son, and Mr. Robert Watson, who acted as secretary as well as director. The company had since become
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bankrupt. They had borrowed a very large sum of money, and they had made fictitious and fraudulent returns to that House and the Board of Trade, and thereby taken in and swindled the public to the amount of £2,000,000 of money. He now presented the petition, and wished to ask the President of the Board of Trade, Whether he was prepared to direct the Attorney General to prosecute these persons for the fraud they had committed?
MR MILNER GIBSONsaid, that the attention of the Board of Trade had been called to the subject of the petition which had just been presented by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite. The returns, the accuracy of which were impugned, were made by the company to an order of that House. The order was sent to the Board of Trade, and they communicated with the company, but whether the return was accurate or not the Board of Trade had no means of ascertaining. The petitioner alleged that the returns were false, and the solicitor to the petitioner addressed a letter some time ago to the Board of Trade, in which he made similar allegations to those contained in the petition. He (Mr. Gibson), in reply, explained that the returns made by the West Hartlepool Harbour and Railway Company were returns to an order of the house of commons, and not to requirements of the Board of Trade, which obviously had not the means and had never assumed to verify the statements made by companies of the amount of their paid-up share capital and of their outstanding loans; and therefore if any legal criminality attached to the making of false returns to the order in question of the house of commons, the parties making it were responsible not to the Board of Trade but to that House. Such was the purport of the answer he addressed to the solicitor of the petitioner when he made his statement to the Board of Trade.
MR. ROEBUCKthen said, that he would ask the permission of the House to have the petition printed, and sent round in the Votes of the House preliminary to a Motion which he should make on the subject.
Petition ordered to lie on the table.

SLAVE TRADE PAPERS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for

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  Foreign Affairs, When he will lay upon the table of the House the Slave Trade Papers for this year?
  MR. LAYARDsaid, that the papers were in the hands of the printers, and that he hoped they would be laid before the House by the end of next week or the beginning of the following week.

THE SIKHIM EXPEDITION.

  QUESTION.
  CAPTAIN STACPOOLEsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, Whether the Despatches relative to the Sikhim Expedition, in India, in February, 1861, have been received by Her Majesty's Government; and, if so, is there any objection to their being laid upon the table of the House?
  SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, he was not quite clear as to what the papers were to which his hon. Friend referred, but he was not aware of there being any objection to their production.

EXAMINATIONS ON ENTRANCE TO WOOLWICH.—QUESTION.
MR. CONINGHAMsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary of State for War, Why admissions to Sandhurst are not placed on the same footing as those to Woolwich—namely, competitive examination?
SIR GEORGE LEWISsaid, the answer to his hon. Friend's question was this—that Woolwich was an academy for the education of officers of the Engineers and Artillery, and it was thought desirable to obtain greater securities with respect to the scientific attainments and intellectual ability of the candidates for those two services, than of candidates for regiments of the Line.

FOREIGN IMPORT DUTY ON SALT.

  QUESTION.
  MR. J. TOLLEMACHEsaid, he rose to ask the President of the Board of Trade, What steps have been taken by the Government to put an end to the virtual prohibition against the importation of English Salt into France; and whether there is a prospect of the trade in that article being placed, at an early period, on a more favourable footing, in conformity with the spirit of the French Treaty; whether instructions have been given to Her Majesty's Minister at Brussels to exercise due vigilance in obtaining from the Bel-
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  gian Government the measure of justice of admitting British trade to a full participation in any advantages granted to the trade of any other country; whether it is not the fact that English vessels are still excluded from the conveyance of Salt to Belgian ports, whilst France has acquired, under her late Treaty with Belgium, the right to carry Salt to Belgian Ports, in French vessels, and that they also enjoy a discount of seven per cent on the duty of 275 francs per ton levied on French Marine Salt so imported into Belgium; and whether the Government has instructed Mr. Mallet, of the Board of Trade, who is now at Berlin, to obtain permission, for the transit of Salt through the territory of the Zollverein, with bonding facilities in the Zollverein Ports for Salt, so as to enable this country to send that article up the large rivers into Poland and Russia, which countries are now, to a great extent, supplied with Austrian Salt?
  MR. MILNER GIBSONsaid, that with regard to the first question of the hon. Gentleman, which related to the reduction of duty on Salt imported into France in conformity with the spirit of the French Treaty, he could only say that the Government had been led to hope for some time past that the Import Duties upon Salt going into France would be considerably diminished; but that the delay, they were told, had taken place in consequence of an inquiry that was being conducted in Finance in reference to the Excise Duty on Salt made in France, it being rendered necessary to regulate the Import Duty on Salt imported into France in reference to the Excise Duty at present levied upon Salt made in France. He should, however, make inquiries with a view of ascertaining what prospect there was of a speedy settlement of the question. With respect to the question relative to Belgium, he could only say that up to the present time the Belgian Government had not agreed to give the same treatment to England that they had extended to many other countries. There was no doubt that at the present moment our trade with Belgium was not in so advantageous a position as the trade between Belgium and France and other countries. The Government had not failed to urge that this country was entitled to be treated equally with other countries by the Belgian Government, and they hoped they should ultimately succeed in obtaining that "favoured nation" clause, which was the question

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  under consideration. With regard to the British flag being assimilated to the Belgian flag, in the carriage of Salt, that, he presumed, would take place as well as the assimilation to the French flag and all other flags when the "favoured nation" clause was agreed to by the Belgian Government. He was not aware that Mr. Mallet had been instructed to make any representations about Salt at Berlin. There was no opportunity to make any representations to the Prussian Government in reference to any revision of the Zollverein tariff. He therefore could not say that any definite instructions would be given to Mr. Mallet in reference to it.

EDUCATION—REVISED CODE.

  QUESTION.
  MR. STANHOPEsaid, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council of Education, If he has endeavoured to ascertain from those Inspectors of Schools who reported of the Schools inspected in 1860 that the following subjects were taught excellently, well, or fairly:—Reading in 89 per cent. writing in 90 per cent. arithmetic in 83 per cent; whether they applied that test to the merits of the Teachers or of the Scholars; and whether, if they applied it to the Scholars, they applied it to the whole of the School or only to the upper classes?
  MR. LOWE: Sir, the number of Inspectors that report to the Privy Council is about thirty-five, and it is perfectly well understood that it is not expected from them to examine every child individually. It is hardly possible—indeed, it is impossible—that they can remember the number of children that they have examined in each class in all the schools, and we have never thought it advisable to propose the questions suggested by the hon. Member.

GRAND JURIES (IRELAND).

  QUESTION.
  MR. BLAKEsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether it is his intention to introduce a Bill during the present Session for the Reform of the Grand Jury Laws in Ireland?
  SIR ROBERT PEELin reply said, that probably it was the intention of Government to introduce such a Bill. There was a good deal of business on hand at present, but after Easter he thought there was a prospect of the subject being considered.

EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND ART (ESTIMATES).—RESOLUTION.
LORD HENRY LENNOX: * No one is more aware than I am that an apology is due from me, for venturing at so early a period of the Session to take up the time of the House. But, Sir, experience has taught me, that later in the year, when there is but the skeleton of a House, and that composed chiefly of the Members of the Government, I have no chance of obtaining a fair hearing. The near approach of the sporting season, and the past labours of the Session, make the Government, naturally enough, anxious to wind up the affairs of the State, and render it impossible for any independent Member successfully to press his views on the House. I trust, therefore, that my apology will be accepted; indeed, I can assure the House, that nothing but strong conviction has induced me to draw their attention to this subject. It is a dry subject, and one which does not interest any very large section in the House, while it certainly has none of the excitement of a party struggle in it; for in trying to substantiate the indictment I am about to prefer, one, if not two of my most important, I might almost add, "impassioned" witnesses, are by no means the least distinguished of those who now occupy, the Treasury Bench My object, then, is to expose a system of expensive mismanagement, and if not to bring about any great economy, yet at all events to insure increased efficiency in the mode of administering one considerable branch of the public expenditure. There are two other reasons which I will plead as an apology for the step which I have taken; first, that there is a lull in the din of party conflict which leaves a great deal of spare time to the House; and, secondly, I am anxious to lay my views before the House previously to the introduction of that measure which the Government, I have reason to believe, meditate proposing to the House, for the separation of some of the collections in the British Museum.
Now, Sir, if the House had examined into this question, they would, I am sure, have felt with me, that the rapid and stealthy increase in the estimates for Education, Science, and Art constitutes an additional justification for bringing the matter before the House. Prom a valuable return which was moved for by the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) it appears that the total sum expended in the last

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fourteen years on Science and Art well merits the term "appalling," for it amounts to no less than £2,266,667; and that, of this, in the Estimates for 1861–2 no less a sum than £221,851 was taken, nearly half of which—namely, £106,000—was swallowed up by the three items to which I propose especially to call the attention of the House, and for the proper expenditure of which the House has not the proper guarantee of personal or individual responsibility The three principal items to which I am about to refer appear in Vote 4 of Civil Service Estimates, and they consist of the British Historical Portrait Gallery, the National Gallery, and the British Museum. Now, in one respect, the position of all these Institutions is the same, the executive being placed in the hands of irresponsible Boards. For the Estimates of the British Museum no Minister of the Crown even professes to be responsible to this House; and in the case of the other two, the small modicum of responsibility that does exist is highly unsatisfactory, because it is both anomalous and shifting. And to this fact do I confidently attribute the mismanagement which exists.
With regard to the two Picture Galleries, the Treasury is the only recognised authority in this House. Well, I suppose I shall be asked, and what more do you want? Is not the Treasury a department of the Government, and have you not in that way got for these institutions a responsible Minister of the Crown? Well, Sir, I am afraid I am unable to accept the Treasury in such a capacity as that; for I do believe, that if there be any one doctrine more sound than another, if there be any one dogma that has on its side a greater weight of testimony, modern and less recent, than another, it is this, that the Treasury should be a controlling and not an administering body, and that any attempt to combine the two duties of checking and spending must necessarily weaken its powers of efficiency in both functions. This view of the proper duties of the Treasury is strongly laid down by Earl Russell, who, in 1854, in speaking of the position of the Commissariat of that time, administered by the Treasury, spoke in the following words:—
"Now, although the Treasury should have the general superintendence of the financial concerns of the public, there does not seem any convenience, but the contrary, in an officer of the Treasury having the regulation of the arrangement and distribution of the rations to troops. That is business which does not properly belong to a de-
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partment which has the general supervision and control of the finances of the country; it is an executive function, and should rather belong to an executive Minister, such as the Secretary of State, than to the department of the Treasury."—[3 Hansard, cxxxv., 320.]
And, again, in the same debate, another noble Lord (Lord Herbert), whose untimely death has been lately deplored by the nation, and who at that time filled the post of Secretary of War, expressed himself as follows:—
"I think the department of the Treasury, which is a department of check, but which is not an administrative department, should not be intrusted with a duty of that kind."
And, again, when speaking of the Secretary of War being intrusted with the duties of War Office and Treasury, he says—
"If, therefore, you have him doing the duties of both departments, he ceases to have any check or control."
And further on he adds—
"If, therefore, you combine the two things, you do away with the whole System of economical control."—[3 Mansard, cxxxv., 335.]
But, besides these great statesmen of the present day, I have other authorities equally unexceptionable to quote. Sir Henry Parnell, in his able work on Financial Reform, published in 1880, constantly refers to and bases his arguments on the fact, that all departments are subordinate to the Treasury, and that to it rightly belongs the control over the expenditure. Then there is another work, of our own times, to which I wish to call attention. It is a work on Representative Government, and is from the pen of one whose authority will not be disputed by many of the most eminent Members of this House. This work, by Mr. John Stuart Mill, after alluding to the control which the Treasury should exercise over the other departments, goes on to say—
"There is a radical distinction between controlling the business of Government and actually doing it. The same person or body may be able to control everything, but cannot possibly do everything; and, in many cases, its control over everything will be more perfect the less it personally attempts to do."
Thus much, then, for individual authorities; but there remains one, the result of the collective wisdom of a Royal Commission. That Commission was appointed in 1837, and led to most valuable results. The Report is one for which I naturally have the most profound respect, and it thus speaks of the Treasury as an executive—
"But above all, by this change [that is, removal

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of Commissariat from the Treasury] the Treasury would be relieved from business which we consider it wrong, in principle, that it should undertake, and this large branch of public service would be placed under the superintendence of the department which ought to be responsible to Parliament on all subjects connected with the army. The Treasury, being charged with the general superintendence of the finances of the country, and with the duty of controlling the expenditure of each separate department, it seems to us that when that Board also takes upon itself the management of a service involving large expenditure, it leaves its proper sphere. Whatever be the department which immediately applies the public money, in carrying on any branch of the service, the proceedings of that department ought to be subjected to the superintendence of some distinct and superior authority. But this can no longer be the case when the Treasury, to which this authority properly belongs, and over which there is in the Executive Government no higher power, assumes also those administrative functions winch ought to be subordinate. This is an objection of principle to the existing arrangement which, in our opinion, should be decisive,"
But, Sir, I doubt not, I shall be reminded that a sum is annually voted for the "Civil Contingencies" of the country, and that that sum is administered by the Treasury, independent of alt other departments. This is quite true, but does not the very name "contingency" show that this is an exceptional case, and that it is a fund to meet "unforeseen" expenses and sudden emergencies, and certainly cannot be placed in the same categories as the large sums voted for science and art, and which have now become part of the regular and annual service of the country? The case of the Civil Contingencies, I venture to think, strengthens rather than weakens my position. It is "the exception which proves the rule," and a golden rule it is; that the Treasury should control and check, but not administer, the expenditure of the country. I will proceed to state the second cause to which I mainly attribute the mismanagement of these institutions, and that is, that they are administered by large bodies of irresponsible men. Now, Sir, as in the very nature of the subject with which I am dealing, there must be much of a personal matter, I am anxious, before I go any further, to declaim any intention of saying one word which can be considered disrespectful to any one of the distinguished men who compose these bodies. And, Sir, perhaps I cannot give to the House a better assurance of this, than by calling attention to the fact, Mr. Speaker, that your honoured name stands foremost among the trustees of the British Museum. No one, indeed,
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can deny that these boards contain all that is most remarkable for intellectual attainments, and high social position; but that very fact would lead to the belief that they must have their time fully occupied with their own affairs, and have proportionably less time to give to the duties in question. I am about to speak of them as being members of an irresponsible corporation, and to denounce the system of which they are, I doubt not, the able exponents. Well then, Sir, my position is this, that boards as executive bodies, are wrong in principle; and have been condemned, as such, in all times, and by great authorities. Sir Henry Parnell, in his work on Excise Inquiry, declared that they deprive the public of the security of personal responsibility, and that the responsibility of a board, quasi board, is worthless; and, again, says Jeremy Bentham, "Why, a board, my Lord, is a screen, a screen to hide abuse in every shape; what is everybody's business is nobody's business." And Stuart Mill, likewise, in glowing terms corroborates the opinions of Parnell and Bentham. But, Sir, I have another, and, if possible, a more valuable witness, whom I should like to call into court, especially when I come to deal with the question of the British Museum. Deeply do I regret that my hon. Friend the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Layard) valuable as his services will undoubtedly prove to the country, had not delayed taking office for a few months, as in that case the Motion which I am about to make would have had the advantage of being backed by his own eloquence, and supported by the high authority of his long experience in subjects of this nature.
Well, Sir, in addition to all the eminent writers and statesmen whose opinions I have given, I find further confirmation of the views which I urge in the acts of the Legislature itself; and I think I shall be able conclusively to show, that the tendency of legislation for the last forty years has been to increase personal and individual responsibility, and to repudiate the authority of boards as an executive. The first case to which I will refer is the navy: in 1832, Sir James Graham—whose lamented death, for his wise counsels and administrative ability, has left a gap in this House not easy to fill—came down and proposed to simplify the cumbrous machinery by which the navy was then governed. Up to that time it consisted of three numerous boards, and Sir James,

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in his able speech, which proposed to sweep away two of these, and to re-model the third, produced considerable effect in the House, by proving that the principle which he advocated was not a new one—
"Turn," said the right hon. Baronet, "to Mr. Pepys' memoirs, in which book it was stated, that James II., then Duke of York, on his appointment to the office of Lord High Admiral, found himself compelled to dismiss these subordinate boards, and with the assistance of four commissioners, united the whole control of the civil administration of the Wavy in his own hands. The effects of this alteration were almost immediately visible; it was the first dawning of that brighter era which was followed by the splendour which had since encompassed the navy of Great Britain, and had at length raised it to that pinnacle of glory, where it had since remained the envy and wonder of surrounding nations."—[3 Hansard, x. 350.]
Then, Sir, came the case of the Record Commission, and to this I wish more particularly to call the attention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Walpole), and the other Trustees of the British Museum who may have seats in this House. Well, that Commission was constituted very much like the British Museum; the Trustees consisted of the great officers of State, and of the most eminent men in the country. For some time, public attention had been drawn to the administration of this body, and the feeling that it had been mismanaged was general; but, at the same time, there was but little hope of being able to effect a reform, on account of the power and influence of the governing body. Thus matters stood in 1836, when Mr. Charles Buller moved for and obtained a Committee to inquire into the whole matter; clear evidence of this mismanagement was adduced, and so strong was the report of the Committee, that justice triumphed over wealth and influence, the Trustees were abolished, and the whole thing was placed, as Mr. Buller recommended, under an effective and responsible management. I will next allude to the case of the Schools of Design. These were originally called into existence by the recommendation of a Select Committee, which sat in 1837, under the presidence of Mr. Ewart. At the outset, Government officers were allowed to attend the meetings of the Boards, but had no distinct authority. This system, as might naturally have been expected, failed, and in 1850 another Select Committee was appointed, over which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Milner Gibson) presided; the report of this Committee
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led to further modifications, but they did not meet the wants of the case; subsequently Mr. Labouchere (now Lord Taunton) began a, reform, and in 1852 my right hon. Friend, Mr. Henley, Member for Oxfordshire, at that time President of the Board of Trade, swept away the previous management and placed it under a responsible Minister of the Crown, the President of the Board: of Trade, from whose department it has since been removed to the Committee of Council on Education, and Has formed the nucleus of that collection which is now familiarly known under the euphonious title of the "Brompton Boilers."
Then, again, Sir, there is the case of the Poor Law Commission. Up to the year 1846, the Poor Laws had been administered by a body of irresponsible Commissioners, not having seats in Parliament. During the distress, which was at that time rife in the country, the great inconvenience of this system was felt, and the Government of Lord John Russell successfully grappled with the difficulty. A Bill was passed which, by placing two officers of the Poor Law Board in Parliament, virtually brought the whole distribution and management of the Poor Law funds under the direct control of the House of Commons. Since that time we have heard nothing of those unseemly charges which were formerly made against the manner of administering the Poor Law funds. This change was advocated in the House of Commons by the late Mr. Hume, by Lord Harry Vane, by the late Sir James Graham, expressly on the ground of the necessity of securing personal responsibility; and Sir George Grey further adduced as a reason for the alteration proposed, the great inconvenience that arose from the impossibility of obtaining any information, excepting at second hand, and from the very person whose judgment and discretion might be called in question. Well, Sir, that same inconvenience exists, in an exaggerated degree, in the case of the Art Institutions of this country at the present day. Take for example the National Gallery, and let us suppose that an hon. Member objects to some administrative act of Sir Charles Eastlake, either in regard to the sum given, or to the merits of any particular picture: what happens? Why, Sir, up jumps the Secretary of the Treasury, or the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and professes, naturally enough, profound ignorance of the matter, but promises to write for further information. When next

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the subject comes on, the hon. Member receives the comforting assurance that a reply has been received from the Director of the National Gallery, and that all that had been done by him, had been done and was for the best.
But, Sir, one of the most important of the changes that has been made in this direction, was that which was made in the army departments in 1854. Up to that period, although a Committee had strongly reported twenty years before, the army administration remained in the hands of four or live different Members of the Government; there was the Secretary at War, the Secretary of the Colonies, the Master General of the Ordnance, the Paymaster of the Forces, the Commander-in-Chief, and our old friend the Treasury, and they had each and all a finger in the military pie. The unhappy war with Russia, which at that period broke out, drew closer attention to the matter, and at length, after twenty years, the recommendations of the commission were carried out, the administration of the Commissariat was removed from the Treasury, and a Secretary of State for War was created, who, with the assistance of an Under Secretary, now administers the affairs of the army, proposes the Estimates, and lays before Parliament any information that may be required. Well, Sir, then I come next to the Indian Empire. Up to the year 1858 there existed for that magnificent dependency a double Government, which shifted the blame from one to another. The President of the Board of Control, who should have been responsible to Parliament, was constantly thwarted, and his authority for a time set at nought by a body of irresponsible merchants sitting in Leadenhall Street. The absurdity of this was patent. The new India Bill was introduced, and, as the House is well aware, the whole responsibility and power was vested in the Secretary of State. It is true he is assisted in deliberation by a Board of eighteen councillors, but they are merely for deliberative purposes, and the voices of the whole eighteen can be overruled by the ipse dixit of the Secretary of State; indeed, I am told, that at the present time they are not even asked for their advice, but are merely puppets, in the despotic clutch of the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for India (Sir Charles Wood), who, it appears, thinks the best way to govern India is to listen to his own advice and not to that of
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his council. That right hon. Baronet, by all accounts, appears to treat them as if they owed their existence rather to the power of vested interests in impeding the passing of a useful measure, than to any specific merits of their own. But, Sir, besides the instances to which I have referred, the recent case of the Education Commission furnishes me with another illustration of the advantages of the course which I am about to ask the House to sanction in the case of the Art Institutions. And, Sir, I must once more direct the especial attention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Walpole), to the facts which I am about to lay before the House. Originally, every Member of the Cabinet had, ex officio, a seat at the Education Board, but yet there was no individual official responsibility. What was every one's business was no one's business; and we owe it to the sagacity and intelligence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich, that that system was put an end to. A Vice President of the Committee of Council is now present in this House, whose duties, I have no doubt, the right hon. Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe) could tell us, are, as far as supplying varied information, no sinecure at the present day. There have been many smaller changes, and redistributions, made in the various offices of the State in the last few years, but all tending in the same direction.
Well, Sir, I hope I have now proved to the House this fact, that the whole tendency of modern legislation has been to sweep away Boards, as executive, and to increase personal and individual responsibility. It is scarcely necessary to guard myself against misapprehension, by stating, that it is only as an executive, that I wish to repudiate Boards. "In the multitude of counsellors is wisdom," and as deliberative or consultative bodies they have most useful and valuable duties to perform. Nor do I think the three institutions to which I am about to call attention ought alone to be excepted from the category of changes effected. The first of those institutions to which I will particularly advert, is one which may be considered as a mere "fleabite," so far as the actual money, as yet expended upon it, is concerned; but the amount of the Vote does not in any way weaken the case, inasmuch as the principle remains intact. The British Historical Portrait Gallery is as yet in its infancy, and, with the marvellous facilities for increasing

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that these Votes have lately displayed, we need not despair of seeing even this small objection disappear. It is managed by a body of Trustees, whose names would, in themselves, appear to bespeak confidence; for among them, besides the usual display of high officials, are to be found the names of the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli), the noble Lord the Member for Stamford (Lord Robert Cecil), Earl Stanhope, the noble Lord the Member for Lynn Regis (Lord Stanley), and some of the most distinguished men in the country. I cannot, however, see that the result of its management is in any way satisfactory. I have tried on two or three occasions to visit it, and on the last I was fortunate enough to find it open to the public. The brass plate on the door of the building, announcing the existence of the pictures within, is so infinitesimally small as not to be very likely to attract much notice, except from eager lovers of art, whose eyes are as keen as their taste for pictures. Having, however, by perseverance, at length gained my point, I found that the collection consisted in all of about 120 "works of art"—drawings, busts, and paintings!—for "works of art," I suppose, in courtesy I must call them. They are exhibited, in dimly-lighted, ill-arranged rooms. Of the 120 "works of art," about 42 are gifts; therefore there remain 80 that have been purchased, since its establishment in 1856. But these paintings, are mostly by unknown artists, and are of more than doubtful authenticity, even as to the subject represented; detailed information concerning which is conveyed by means of catalogues, modestly charged at 1s. 6d. each. I may add, that the collection is open, only twice a week, after mid-day. On my return to the house of commons, I was anxious to see whether all these details were laid before it; and in the library I looked for what information was contained with respect to them in the Estimates. From those valuable documents I learned that for the first three years the public had been altogether excluded; that during the next two years admission was by tickets, obtainable from certain booksellers in London; and that during the last year the public had been admitted—as they ought to be—free! I next found, that the first Vote for them was taken in 1856–7, and that the House was then promised a collection of historic portraits, in aid of which a Vote should annually be proposed to Par-
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liament. After a year or two, the Trustees, in a fit of extreme generosity, promised to lay an annual report before Parliament. To those reports I eagerly addressed myself, and I found that they, after allowing that the public had been admitted during one year only, and that the rooms were too small to exhibit the largest of the pictures, generally wound up by begging that Parliament would not ask the price given for the pictures that had been bought, and by at the same time expressing a hope that, seeing the great results that had ensued from the experiment, the House would not refuse to continue the same generous assistance that it had hitherto done. These then, Sir, are the benefits which the public enjoy from the sums that have been voted in aid of the British Historical Portrait Gallery. But no, Sir, it is not quite all. I had well-nigh forgotten that, in addition, there is the gratifying fact that we have a Secretary, a gentleman no doubt of great eminence, who occupies the upper stories of this genteel residence in Great George Street, and whose "dignified repose" is only intruded upon by the inquisitorial public to the extent of eight hours a week.
Well, Sir, and now I come to the National Gallery, and certainly the management of that Institution was not in a satisfactory state; at the same time, I am willing to admit the salutary nature of the change which was made a few years ago by reducing the number of the executive Board. There is, however, still a shifting and uncertain responsibility: at one time it is the Director and the Trustees, and at another it is the Treasury. The Estimates are moved by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, while the Chief Commissioner of Works is responsible for the brick and mortar work; and certainly, considering the shifting evasions and vague replies given last year by the Commissioner of Works to hon. Gentlemen, and myself especially, respecting recent alterations and so-called improvements in the National Gallery, the House will well understand why I shall not at the close of my speech recommend placing these valuable institutions under the control of the Board of Works. I will not, on the present occasion, trouble the House with any remarks on the continued occupation by the Royal Academy of the building in Trafalgar Square. So many Committees and Commissions, and Ministers past and present, have declared against it, that it would be

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a mere waste of time to make any lengthened observations upon it. What I want is to show to the House the unsatisfactory, because shifting, nature of the responsibility which exists with respect to the National Gallery. I will take, first of all, the purchase of pictures; and here the House will permit me to repeat what I have already said in a more general form, that it is far from my intention to say anything which can be considered disrespectful to Sir Charles Eastlake. I am not sufficiently experienced and acquainted with art to put myself in opposition to that gentleman. Good judges have assured me that Sir Charles has been indefatigable in the work of collecting for the National Gallery, and by his zeal, taste, and judgment, he has done good service to the cause of art in this country. It is not Sir Charles Eastlake, but the system of shifting responsibility, to which I wish my censures to apply.
In 1855–6 a collection of paintings of the German school, known as the Krüger Collection, was for sale, and the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford, sent two gentlemen over to Hanover to look at the pictures. The gentlemen thus commissioned not only looked at, but bought the pictures, and they were brought to England, but the purchase was in the mass repudiated by the Director and the Trustees of the National Gallery, because the greater part of the paintings were mere rubbish. In order, I suppose, to let down the taxpayers easy, a few of the best of them were hung up in the National Gallery; some were sent to Ireland—as a measure, I presume of justice to Ireland; and the rest were sold for an old song. Certainly, this time, the Director and Trustees could not be held responsible for the purchase of this collection. Now, in 1857–8 there was another purchase, and this time the picture was reputed to be a Paul Veronese. Into the merits or demerits of that picture it is not my intention to enter; but in passing I may remark that, while the picture was declared by the official journal of Venice to be worth £300, they gave £2,000 for it. Be that as it may, the hon. Member for Brighton, an authority in these matters, doubted the wisdom and policy of that purchase, and asked the Treasury who was responsible for it. Mr. Wilson, at that time holding the post of Secretary of the Treasury,
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replied with some warmth that Sir Charles Eastlake and the Trustees of the National Gallery were alone responsible, and certainly not any department of the Government. Here is a striking illustration of the shifting nature of the responsibility. It was known to the Government at the time when Sir Charles Eastlake took the post of the Director of the National Gallery, that he boldly avowed he would not be responsible for any pictures except those of the Italian school. On whose taste we were to rely for the purchase of pictures of other schools did not appear to be so clear. The next case was also one in which the hon. Member for Brighton figured. In 1859 the hon. Member called attention to impolitic purchases of pictures, and, above all, to the general mismanagement of the National Gallery under Sir Charles Eastlake and the Trustees. He was informed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he had chosen a wrong time for his strictures; that the management of the National Gallery was regulated by a Treasury Minute passed in 1855; that the five years during which the Minute was to remain in force were almost run out; and that the date of their expiration would be the proper time for considering the whole matter. In the following session, after the Treasury Minute had ceased to exist, the hon. Member for Brighton again attempted to raise a discussion on the appointment of Sir Charles Eastlake. What was then the answer of the Chancellor of the Exchequer? "Oh!" said the right hon. Gentleman, "it is quite true that the Treasury Minute has run out, but it is quite useless to discuss the matter, for the Government have renewed it in its old shape;" and in this summary manner the hon. Member for Brighton was put down. Could a stronger proof be adduced of the utter want of anything like settled or individual responsibility? On that occasion the hon. Member for Brighton was not altogether satisfied with the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but the noble Lord at the bead of the Government got up, and, in his usual felicitous way, told the House that the Trustees had re-elected Sir Charles Eastlake, and that the Treasury had only confirmed the appointment. This is an illustration of the double government of the National Gallery. I admit, however, that the case of the National Gallery is better than that of the British Museum, because, in the first place, the Board of

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Trustees are less numerous, and because, in. the second place, the Director and Trustees are nominated by the Treasury. Only the other day a friend said to me, "Why, what more perfect control do you want? Don't you know the control which the Treasury has over the National Gallery? Why, the accounts of the National Gallery are all audited at the Audit Office." What an awkward fact was this! Here, thought I to myself, is an end of my case against the management of the National Gallery. If I wish to make any impression on the House, I must put it all by, and must set to work and try to take up some other subject. But when I heard the speech of the noble Lord the Member for Huntingdonshire the other night, my attention was called to the duties of the Audit Office, and I remembered that that office was always subordinate to the Treasury, and that accounts which it disallowed were frequently passed by the superior authority. I came, then, to the conclusion, that the check afforded by the audit of the National Gallery accounts was not so satisfactory after all. Common sense, indeed, will tell one, that if the Treasury frame the Estimates, and have power to authorize them, it will not be likely to alter them at the instance of an authority subordinate to its own; therefore I felt I could not do better than proceed with my Motion. This, Sir, is not the proper moment to dwell upon the part played by the Board of Works. So wanton a system of mismanagement and extravagance deserves to have a whole evening to itself, and I hope the Session will not be allowed to pass without a thorough and searching discussion. Meanwhile, I entreat the House to assist those who wish to make the Government bring forward the votes for public Works at a period of the Session when they can be fairly and freely discussed, and not at the advent of the grouse season, when the illustrious Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench are left much to themselves. Those who remember the manner in which questions on these subjects have been treated by the Chief Commissioner, and the shifty evasions with which one is systematically put off, will not wonder when I aver that I shall not conclude my speech by a proposal to place these valuable institutions under the management of the Board of Works.
The case of the British Museum, which I now approach, is rather an alarming one. If I may judge from the the terror which my proposal has excited in the lobbies, I
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could almost be tempted to suppose that it was of that radical and revolutionary nature which the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in 1860 could alone meet the difficulties and necessities of the case. I hope to prove, however, that I am not so revolutionary in my designs as either the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. There is an old saying that the State of Denmark is rotten, and I believe, Sir, that the management of the British Museum is much in the same condition. It has hitherto been viewed with superstitious awe, but I firmly believe that under the influence of a little daylight that pompous fragment will crumble away as easily as did the Record Commission of former times. Now, Sir, I hope hon. Gentlemen with whom I have conversed in the lobbies will not take it personal to themselves, if I say, that it is quite surprising the amount of ignorance which exists with respect to the British Museum, even among those Members who profess to take an interest in these subjects. Considering that it has cost the country since its formation £3,000,000 or £4,000,000, it is astonishing that the Gentlemen whom I see around me, and who represent the taxpayers of this country, should not have made themselves a little better acquainted with the origin and position of that great institution. First of all, then, the British Museum did not originate in a gift or legacy, but was founded at the beginning of the last century by means of a lottery. The Government of that day issued lottery tickets to the amount of £300,000. Prizes of moderate value were offered, and a large sum was obtained; with the £20,000 thus realized a purchase was made of Sir Hugh Sloane's collection of books and curiosities then located at Chelsea; and it was this, not any gift or legacy, which formed the nucleus of the Museum; and, Sir, this is an important fact for the House to bear in mind. The first Act of Parliament handed this collection over "for conservation" to a numerous body of trustees; but even at that early period this was thought a cumbrous machinery for a governing body, and a standing committee was appointed. To show how little attention at that period was paid to this matter, I will read to the House the title of the second attempt that was made at legislating for the British Museum. The title of the Act of George II. ran thus—

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"An Act to prevent the destruction of turnpikes and other works erected by order of Parliament; to frame the table of fees to be taken by the clerks of justices of the peace; for empowering a certain number of Trustees of the British Museum to do certain acts; and to prevent certain persons driving certain carriages, from riding upon said carriages."
The statutes under which the Museum was managed had been renewed eight or ten times in 1785, 1804–8–13–33–39, and various committees and commissions had sat on the subject. It would appear that dissatisfaction as to the state of matters had existed for some time, when in 1835 a Select Committee was appointed by the House of Commons. That Committee consisted of many of the leading Members of the House at that period, including Lord John Russell, Lord Morpeth (now Earl of Carlisle), the late Sir Robert Inglis, and others. At the end of the Session of 1835 they presented a voluminous blue-book, and asked for leave to sit again in the next Session. The result was, that in 1836 they presented a second even more ponderous blue-book, with a Report, not so decided as the later ones, but expressing an opinion in favour of a less numerous governing body and strongly urging that the post of Secretary Librarian should be abolished. This was followed by another Select Committee in 1838; and in June, 1847, a Royal Commission was appointed; and in 1848, "considering the various and grave subjects to be inquired into," a supplementary and more numerous Commission was appointed, containing the names of some of the most illustrious in learning and literature. The late Earl of Ellesmere, Viscount Canning, Roderick Murchison, Joseph Hume, Samuel Rogers, Lord Langdale, Monckton Milnes, and John Shaw Lefevre served on that Commission. Evidence was taken with praiseworthy patience, and in 1850 the result was communicated to both Houses in the shape of a very able and strongly-worded Report, and the 900 pages of evidence on the strength of which that Report was founded. It was signed by all the Commissioners excepting one, the late Lord Langdale, who entered a protest against this strong Report for not being strong enough. But even these inquiries did not satisfy the country, and in 1860 another Select Committee was appointed at the instance of Mr. Gregory, and before which some most valuable information was adduced.
Now, if I wished to take my stand on any ordinary ground, I might say here was
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a primâ facie case of mismanagement, evidenced by the number of inquiries which had been instituted and the strongly-worded reports which had resulted from them. I hope the House will not be alarmed at the mention of all these blue-books; for knowing well how much the sight of one of them prejudices the House against any case, I have so arranged that nothing of the kind shall appear, and will ask in return the indulgence of the House, while I give them a few short extracts from them, and which I have transcribed into the unpretending volume which I hold in my hand. Now, want of time will not allow me to enter into any minute details to show the unsatisfactory state of the management of the British Museum; but I think the House will agree with me that I shall have sufficiently established my case, if I can show that I am corroborated by the report of the Royal Commission of 1850, and at a later period by the evidence of several eminent men, Members of this House, and others; and, finally, by the evidence of all the principal officers in the British Museum, adduced before the Committee of 1860. Let us, then, examine the Report of the Commission of 1850; and first we shall see the conclusions they arrived at, and secondly the remedies which they propose for such a state of things. The very first words contain a graceful tribute to the individual merits of those who compose the Board of Trustees; a sentiment with which I entirely coincide, and which, in feeble language, I have conveyed to the House regarding those who compose the executive in the three great Art Institutions of the country—
"Such a Board of Trustees, to any one who considers the individuals who compose it, with reference to their rank, intelligence, and ability, would give assurance rather than promise of the most unexceptionable, and, indeed, wisest administration in every department. High attainments in literature and in science, great knowledge and experience of the world and its affairs, and practised habits of business, distinguish many of them in an eminent degree; and it would be unjust either to deny the interest which all of them feel in the prosperity of the Institution, or refrain from acknowledging the devoted services which some of them have rendered in its administration. But, on the other band, absorbing public cares, professional avocations, and the pursuits of private life, must in many instances, prevent those individuals whose assistance might have been best relied on, from giving anything like continued attention to the affairs of the Institution; and, what is perhaps of more importance, the large number of the Board, by dividing, or rather extinguishing, individual duty or responsibility, has

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in a great measure, interfered with the superintendence and control which might have been usefully exercised by any smaller selected number specially charged with the duty. The inconvenience likely to result from the affairs of the Museum being devolved upon so large a Board, appears to have been felt at a very early period."
Again—
"It is not surprising that, in such circumstances, the Standing Committee should have been confounded with the general Board, without any practical distinction between their functions, and that the actual management of the Museum should have devolved upon a fluctuating Board, having no special charge, nor direct personal responsibility; and all this in constant disregard of that precaution which the Trustees very wisely established against themselves, by throwing the ordinary business of the Museum upon a portion of their number, specially appointed and accepting."
And again—
"To return to the Standing Committee, or to the Board of Trustees—for these may be spoken of together—the course of conducting business is, unfortunately, calculated not to correct, but to aggravate, the inconvenience,"
And further on occurs he following remarkable passage, to which I beg the especial attention of the House:—
"On the whole, the conclusion has been forced upon us, that the mode in which the Trustees have exercised their functions of government in the Museum has not been satisfactory; and that the inconveniences arising from so great a number of Trustees, and from the fluctuating nature of the Board, have been increased by the neglect of such precautions as, with reference to the accustomed modes of transacting business, we should expect to find strictly in observance. However admirably qualified the Trustees may be individually for the transaction of business, it is impossible to expect satisfaction in the conduct of their affairs, where they act not by a selected number, but at meetings—which they are left to attend as they please, and as leisure and inclination serve—to which they are called by summons announcing the time of meeting merely, but giving no notice of the business—at which business of great importance to departments is conducted without direct and personal intercourse with the officers at the heads of the departments, and in a manner so cumbrous and fatiguing as to be hostile alike to good decision and despatch."
And the remedy which the Commissioners proposed to apply, was given in the following words:—
"With respect to the executive management, your Commissioners are unanimously of opinion that a change should be adopted, involving the abolition of the offices of principal librarian and of Secretary as they now exist, and the establishment of a responsible Executive Council."
Two plans were suggested for carrying out this reform. The one proposes that the Executive Council should consist of seven—the chairman and two members being named, and the two latter paid, by the Crown; the remaining four to be
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named by the Trustees. The second plan was, that the council should consist of five—the chairman nominated and paid by the Crown, and four unpaid assistants. Both these projects were recommended with the distinct purpose of "increasing direct and personal responsibility." But as I have said, this Report was not unanimous, and Lord Langdale entered a protest in forcible language, against what he considered was too feeble an expression of opinion. Well, this Report, like preceding ones and the protest, remained almost a dead letter. It was not to be expected that the Trustees would set to work to reform themselves; and the several Governments were either too supine or too timorous to attack so much wealth, power, and influence. The result would seem to have been, that mismanagement had gone on from had to worse. In 1859, a gentleman, who was a great authority on this subject, Mr. Gregoy, described the British Museum as being in a state of "hopeless confusion, and that valuable collections were wholly hidden from the public, and great portions of others in danger of being destroyed by damp and neglect;" while Lord Elcho spoke of its being "highly discreditable." And besides these authorities, we had the invaluable testimony of a distinguished foreigner, who has paid great attention to the condition and management of our Art Institutions. The Baron Triquéti, an eminent French sculptor, in a letter written in 1860 to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gladstone), thus describes the state in which he found the British Museum—
"You might offer for study an admirable and complete collection; but all these elements are scattered or confused …. arranged without chronological order …. without any logical arrangement; and all this because the locale is filled up with a curious and reprehensible mixture between art and natural science; and although no reason can be given for the continuance of the system, this confusion still subsists, notwithstanding that every person of taste is struck with its inconvenience."
Again—
"Whence comes it that with a nation the most gifted with common sense and love of order, so much reckless confusion should prevail, and, as it appears, prevail in this department of art and science alone?"
Finally, there is the Committee appointed at the instance of the hon. Member for Galway, to inquire whether any separation should be made in the collections at the Museum, and, as I have said, I find in that evidence the most ample corroboration of my views. The report, it is true, was

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silent as to management or mismanagement, but that was because it was considered not to come within the limits of the object for which the inquiry had been instituted. I find that almost every one of the servants of the British Museum gave, in strong terms, an opinion that some reform was necessary in the constitution and management of the Museum. Professor Maskelyne said, "The Trustees should become a Board of Visitors." Again, "The Trustees should be more as a consultative than an administrative body." Professor Huxley, in 1860, said—
"The Trustees should merely have the power of approving or disapproving in particular cases; that they should exercise a certain general control as a Board of Visitors."
Professor Hawkins, after complaining that the Trustees frequently act on the advice and use the services of a gentleman not on the staff of the Museum, to the exclusion of the head of that department, goes on to say, "that he sees no improvement in the policy of the Trustees since the report of the Commission of 1850." He adds, as a result of the system, "that the arrangement of the Elgin Marbles has remained incomplete for four years, owing to a squabble between the Trustees." He next expresses his conviction that one responsible head would be a better and more efficient government for the Museum. He further states, in exemplification, that he wishes the British Museum were like that at South Kensington, where a moot question is referred to a Minister of State, an answer is returned and acted upon without delay; and winds up by saying: "I do not wish to supersede Trustees as visitors, but wish them to act as a consulting body." Baron Triquéti says—
"From this spring those eccentric decisions, these daily contradictions, these questions settled, and unsettled, and this absence of progress inevitable, which all the world (except a few of the Trustees) knows to be the true history of your Board of Trustees. If I were able to say all that has been confided to me, and which, indeed, public rumour has already revealed, it would be easy to prove that this system of administration is a complete obstacle to all improvements."
But all these authorities become insignificant when contrasted with that to which I am about to call the attention of the House. It is the testimony of one who has not only given great attention to the affairs of, but has himself contributed largely to the treasures of the British Museum. My hon. Friend (Mr. Layard) thus speaks: after objecting to the system of
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management, he goes on to say: "The building selected [by that management] is the worst that could have been devised." And again—
"I think, in principle, such a Board as the Trustees is wrong, although much may be said in its favour; and I think that the principle is so essentially wrong, that public opinion must ultimately come to the conclusion that it is wrong and not right.
And again—
"In the British Museum the vices of the system are fully exemplified, more especially at the present time, when certain Trustees are supposed to represent the various antagonistic interests of the Antiquities, the Library, and the Natural History. I always thought highly of Panizzi, but with curtailed power and responsibility it would be impossible for him properly to manage such a vast institution. The result of this division of authority and want of method is a constant disagreement and rivalry between the different departments, arising from some real or presumed sacrifice of one to the other."
And again—
"I do not object to a Board of Trustees, if you like to call them so, to see that certain bequeathed collections are properly taken care of. I see no objection to a Board of Control, but having no authority in the actual administration."
And when further pressed by an hon. Friend of mine (Mr. Monckton Milnes), who asked him, "Do you think any practical evil has resulted from the present condition of the administration of the British Museum?" the answer was a brief but decided one—"Yes." Such is the testimony of the ablest authority that exists upon this subject.
Now, Sir, much stress has been laid on the fact that the National Gallery Estimates are audited by the Board of Audit, and I have ventured to assert, that considering by whom those Estimates are authorized, it is not a fact of any importance. But, Sir, in the case of the British Museum not even this small modicum of check exists. The Estimates are drawn up by the Trustees of the British Museum, they are not audited by the Audit Office, nor is there any further check upon the appropriation of the money voted than may be involved in the presentation of a yearly account to Parliament. The next point to which I wish, Sir, to advert, is to the vehicle by which, and the manner in which the Estimates for the British Museum are laid before this House. They are presented by a private Member of the House and not by a responsible Minister of the Crown. Now, Sir, I confess I feel, and always have felt, that this practice of a private Member (however dis-

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tingnished he may be) moving the Estimates, is in the highest degree anomalous, inconvenient, and unconstitutional. I doubt not, that in the instance of the British Museum, it is brought within the form, but I confidently assert that it must remain antagonistic to the spirit, of the Constitution. That it is inconvenient all must admit, when we remember that we may express our gratitude to, but we cannot censure, this distinguished volunteer. Well, Sir, then as to the shape in which the Estimates are presented to this House. It would seem that up to last year, they have appeared under three different heads. The first was for "British Museum Establishment, &c. &c.;" it was moved by a Trustee, being a private and irresponsible Member of this House: the gross sum was given, but no details were vouchsafed: the second was for "British Museum Buildings," which was moved for by the Chief Commissioner of Works: and the third for "British Museum Purchases," was moved for by our old friend the Treasury. Well, then, Sir, the House will see that over the two latter items they had some control, however inconvenient a one it might be in form. That inconvenience was felt, and last year the whole sum and the details of it were embodied in one Estimate, which was and is moved by "the irresponsible Trustee." So that, although in form it is more convenient, the present system is in fact a retrograde move, for it removes from the House even that control which it had over two items of expenditure in the British Museum.
But it is not only in a constitutional point of view that I object to the moving of the Estimates by a private Member of the House; for in practice it is most inconvenient, as furnishing an additional fold in "the screen of irresponsibility," behind which the Trustees find shelter when they wish to disregard the expressed wishes of the House of Commons. In order to illustrate this more clearly, I will take two instances of the way in which those wishes have been treated by the Trustees of the British Museum. It was in 1858 that a general wish was expressed in the house of commons, that increased facilities should be given to the working classes for visiting the Museum; two extra days were named, and a suggestion was made that it should be opened occasionally in the evening. The answer to these expressed wishes, Earl Russell, then Lord John Russell, communicated to the House when moving
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the Estimates the following year. The answer was not an elaborate one, and consisted of an expression of regret that the Trustees could not comply with the wishes of the House of Commons. In 1860, when money was asked for the British Museum, the same expression of opinion took place, and a chorus of hon. Members requested that increased facilities for visiting the Museum should be afforded to the working classes. Well, Sir, at that time it fell to my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Walpole) to reply, and, as the House will readily believe, there was no one who could convey a refusal in more pleasant terms than he could; and accordingly he assured the House that—
"It was his duty to collect the suggestions that were made in that House when the Estimate was brought forward, and to lay that suggestion before the Trustees."
Now, Sir, I confess I was very much struck with the nature of that reply, and I remember saying to myself:—It is all very well, laying suggestions before the Trustees; but is it they, or is it the house of commons, that is to provide the required £80,000? because, if it be the latter, I cannot but think that it is rather for the House of Commons to mention their wishes, and for the Trustees of the British Museum at once to carry them out. And now, Sir, let us see how differently matters turn out where you have a responsible Minister of the Crown to deal with. It was during last summer, that the Vice President of the Council asked for the annual pecuniary grant to the Royal Dublin Society. On all sides, it was admitted that it was a valuable and useful society; but my hon. Friend the Member for Galway (Mr. Gregory) complained that the Council had repeatedly refused to open their gardens at Glasnevin on Sunday afternoons to the public. A discussion took place, and it was eventually decided that the Vice President should officially inform the Council of the Society, that if they did not defer to the expressed wishes of the house of commons, the subsidy would be withdrawn. That course was adopted, and the result was that the religious scruples of the Council vanished, and the gates of Glasnevin gardens were thrown open to the public. If, Sir, I would ask the House, instead of having a responsible Minister to look to in that case, we had had one of my hon. Friends the Members of the City of Dublin moving that Vote, and in charge of

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the question, was it likely that the same result would have ensued? I trow not! No! the House would have been assured, in general terms, that its wishes should be laid before the Council of the Society, and nothing more would have come of it.
And now, Sir, I confess to feeling something akin to terror in approaching my next point; for by this time I have traversed the gloomy passages, and I find myself at the door of the Board Room! face to face with that "very incarnation of irresponsibility," the Board of Trustees itself! It certainly is an alarming prospect to attack that most powerful body, intrenched as it is in a citadel fortified by long occupation, and by supposed prescriptive right! Well might many a one say to me, "What is the use of so humble an individual as yourself attempting to dislodge so much power, wealth, and influence?" But, Sir, I turned my thoughts to ancient history, and I said, if David was able with sling and stone to destroy the giant Goliath, why should not I, with my sling full of truth and facts, attempt to make some impression even on the armour of this hitherto impenetrable body? The Trustees of the British Museum are composed of three classes. The first of them are styled ex-officio Trustees, and include the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Speaker of the house of commons, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and two or three leading-Members of the Government. It may indeed be questioned, whether efficiency is secured by placing on the Board of Trustees the very men who are already fully occupied with the most arduous duties, both political, civil, and religious. The Committee which sat on the Record Commission thought not, and I agree entirely with the words of that Report. It may be said that as Members of the Government are to be found among the ex-officio Trustees, that therefore we have got Paliamentary responsibility. That, however, I maintain is an entire fallacy. Look at the Board of Education. Why, every member of the Cabinet was until lately a member of that Board, and yet it had been felt by the House that a responsibility divided amongst so many, was in fact tantamount to none at all. So, practically speaking, and excepting on extreme and grave occasions, the action of these ex-officio Trustees of the Museum was weak and unavailing. The second class of Trustees is one so anomalous, that I hardly know how to describe them. They
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are, I believe, called "Family Trustees." Of these Gentlemen, two have the custody of collections presented by their ancestors to the nation; but the other four collections, which have two Trustees each, represent property that has not been presented to, but has been actually bought by the nation, and at, in every single instance, a fair market price; so that it would seem that the Government has been in the habit of purchasing collections, and allowing at the same time a Trustee to be appointed to take care of the property which his ancestor has disposed of, and the interest of which purchase-money is probably adding to his own material comforts. Why, Sir, I cannot do better, to elucidate this point, than again to draw the attention of the House to the evidence given by my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs in the Committee which sat, 1860. The hon. Gentleman was asked,
"Do you think that Trustees who represent families should interfere in the general arrangement of the Museum?"
To which he replied—
"I have a very strong opinion on the subject. It appears to me, that when a testator appoints a Trustee to look after his collection, it is his intention that that collection should be devoted to the purposes for which he bequeathed it, and that it should be properly taken care of. To carrying out these intentions alone, I should confine the duties of a family Trustee. He should visit, at certain periods, the particular collection given by his ancestor or person he represents, to see that the wishes are carried out, and nothing else."
What would the hon. Gentleman the Secretary do with those who sold, not left, their collections? The House will observe, that my hon. Friend here defines the duties of those family Trustees, whose trusts "were bequeathed" to the nation, and he suggests, that they should be confined to visiting, at certain periods, the particular collection given by his ancestor or the person he represents, to see that his wishes are carried out, and nothing else. Well, Sir, then, if these are the only duties, which the greatest authority on such matters in this House would assign to Trustees of collections bequeathed, I should he glad indeed to hear from him, what, in the name of common sense, ought to be the functions of the representatives of those gentlemen who have not bequeathed but sold their property for its market value to the nation. Some years since my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer purchased, at the large sum of £160,000, Burlington House and grounds,

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and considerable dissatisfaction has been felt that time has passed away, and it has not been as yet applied to any permanent or sufficiently useful purpose. Can it be possible, that when that purchase was effected, my Lord Chesham was appointed a family Trustee, and that it is his veto which has restrained the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and prevented his ci-devant house being altered or desecrated by the hand of innovation?
And now, Sir, it is time I should ease the minds of the Trustees, and assure them that I do not intend to propose to the House the revolutionary measure of abolishing them at once. No, Sir, I will leave them where they are, confident as I am that common sense and the growing intelligence of the public will prove far more fatal to them than anything I can say or do. At present let them remain, and perform those consultative duties for which they are fitted, but nothing more. By all means let them meet to talk and discuss matters in the same style and at as great a length, but with no more executive powers than belong to the Houses of Convocation at the present day. I have not the boldness to lay down exactly in detail what should be the laws which ought to guide the Trustees. That has been done by their own servants, the heads of departments in the Museum. Most of those gentlemen have recommended that the Trustees should act as a "body of visitors;" and others, that they should be a consultative Board. Another experienced witness said he should have no objection to them, provided they had "no sort of authority or control in the administration of the institution." Upon those terms, I can have no objection to them myself. And here, I suppose, I shall hear a cry about interfering with vested rights and interests; which, Sir, I deny to exist. But even were it so, I have yet to learn that Parliament is very squeamish in such matters where the public good is concerned. A glance at what was done by the Oxford University Bill will show how much the House respects the wills of founders. But, Sir, I deny that vested rights exist. When the Sloane collection was bought, and the Trustees appointed, there was no annual grant given by Parliament. Since then, things have greatly changed, and the public funds on which the Museum now subsist are as 30 to I in proportion to its private funds; and yet these family Trustees claim not only to manage collections sold by their ancestors,
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but to administer large funds now annually voted, but which were never thought of at the date of their appointment. That is surely a good reason why the House should take the management of these funds out of private and irresponsible hands, and exercise an efficient control over the expenditure. Thus much for the ex-officio and family Trustees. There remain the elected Trustees, against whom I have less to urge. They consist of men prominent for their ability, their learning, and their high social position, and well adapted for performing the only functions which properly belong to numerous Boards.
The remedy I would suggest for the evils I have pointed out is the same as that which has been found to answer well for the army, navy, and other public departments, namely, to place the administration under one responsible Minister of the Crown. Where that department shall be it is not for me, of course, to say; that must rest with the Government; but one's mind naturally turns to the Privy Council, which already has some Art collections under its supervision. I should be sorry to do anything that might mar the progress of Art in this country, and I should regret it above all, at a time when the nation has not yet recovered from the loss of that illustrious Prince, who had devoted his great mind to the cultivation of public taste. His was the head that planned, his the hand that had guided us in these matters for years; and no one would shrink more than I should from taking any step which could in any degree thwart or interfere with that great Prince's wise and beneficent schemes. Nothing can be more gratifying than that large numbers of persons should flock to see the collections to which I have been referring, but, at the same time, there is another side to the picture. How much does the country pay for these collections? At South Kensington every visitor costs the country 1s. 3¾d.; namely, salaries, 4d.; purchases, 5¾d.; building and miscellaneous, 6d. At the British Museum, with its model management, each visitor costs the country 3s. 2d., of which 1s. 1½d. was spent in salaries, 1s. 1d. in purchases, and 11½d. in buildings. As to the British Historical Portrait Gallery, no returns of the number of visitors had yet been made, but from tolerably accurate information I believe, if the total cost were divided over the average number of visitors, it will be found that each visitor who goes to gaze

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upon the "works of art" in Great George Street, costs the country from 16 s. to 18 s. Now, I can have no wish to mar the progress of art in this country, but I do not think that efficiency and economy are injurious to the progress of art, or that extravagant waste promotes it. I have shown that these Votes are increasing every year, the gross amount spent during the last fourteen years being £2,500,000; and that being so, I hope the House will not think I am exceeding my duty as a Member of Parliament when I call upon the House and the Government to adopt such measures as will promote the efficiency of these institutions by securing increased responsibility.
And now, Sir, I suppose I shall be met by the Chief Commissioner of Works, or by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he honours me by replying to my statement, and I shall be told that my facts are true, but that this is not a convenient moment for passing such a Resolution; that later would be a more convenient season. Delay will be the watchword, and, perchance, further inquiry may be hinted at as possible. But the House has been bamboozled over and over again in this way. Committees have sat, Commissions have reported, inquiry is exhausted, and any at tempt to obtain further information would only lead to increased confusion. In the words of my right hon. Friend two years ago, the question is now in the hands of the House, and the House should now resolve to act upon the information before it. The course which the Government should take is to my mind clear. They should show, by supporting my Motion, that they do not approve unpaid and dilettante administration, in which responsibility scarcely exists, or, if it exists at all, is so divided that it rests on no man's shoulders, and that such an administration is, in their opinion, opposed to all sound, solid, and reasonable policy.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That this House is of opinion that, for the preparation of any Estimates, and for the Expenditure of any Monies voted in aid of the British Museum, the National Gallery, and all other institutions having for their object the promotion of Education, Science, and Art, one Minister of the Crown should be responsible to this House."
MR. GREGORYsaid, he had very great pleasure in seconding the Motion of his noble Friend, and he thought he was justified in saying that not only the house of commons, but all those who felt interested
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in the promotion of education, science, and art, out of the House, must thank the noble Lord, not merely for the intrinsically good object which he had in bringing forward this question, but also for the care, industry, and admirable manner in which he had put it before the House. And if there were one man more than another who ought to feel pleased at that, it must be the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That right hon. Gentleman, some time ago, in a most remarkable speech, had showed that the iron had entered his soul on account of the confusion, the irregularity, and irresponsibility which characterized our whole system of Public Works; and if he would now apply the vigour of his powerful mind to the question, then it would have been well for the country that he had been sore afflicted. The usual objection of the Treasury bench to inconvenient Motions was either that the Motion was wrongly worded, or that the time was an improper one. But the Motion of his noble Friend was singularly clear and moderate, and he should support it, because, if carried out, it would serve as the foundation of future improvements and reforms. Then there could be no more fitting time than that for the consideration of such a question, because it was felt that something must be done to the National Gallery, and something was intended as to the British Museum. The House would also have plenty of leisure during the Session, since there would be no Reform Bill with its dissolving views, no sensation Budget, he hoped, and no war, or rumours of war. His noble Friend had shown that the system of management in the British Museum was one by which it was totally impossible that a great institution could be efficiently managed. In 1850, Mr. Panizzi, while rendering ample justice to the individual qualities of the Trustees, complained of the want of direct communication with the heads of departments; and said that if the Reports of the Trustees were long they were not read, and if short they were not understood. Mr. Panizzi went on to complain of the varying and uncertain attendance of the Trustees. The Royal Commission of 1850, composed of the most eminent men, said in their Report, that however admirably qualified the Trustees individually might be, it was impossible that their administration should he satisfactory. It might be said that the evils complained of had

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been removed by the appointment of subcommittees; but he had himself, in 1860, asked a witness of singular good faith and good sense, Sir Benjamin Brodie, whether these sub-committees were regular in their attendance. Sir Benjamin replied, "No; they are not so much employed as they might be. They are very inefficient at present." Let the House look at the constitution of the Board of Trustees, and the false and ambiguous position in which the working Trustees from time to time found themselves. The moment a question of real importance occurred, a whip took place. Down came the Government ex-officio Trustees, and swamped the decision of those Trustees who had been in communication with all the heads of the departments and who had carefully considered the subject. Let the House reflect how dispiriting to these Trustees must be the invasion of a horde of Government Trustees who trooped down to vote, and then went home again, knowing little and probably caring less of the matters they had thus summarily decided. One glaring instance of that occurred in 1859. It was notorious that the Trustees were against the removal of the Natural History department of the British Museum. Down came the Government Trustees; however, a cut and dried Resolution was put into the hands of the noble Viscount (Viscount Palmerston) affirming the desirability of transferring the Natural History collection to Kensington and it was carried by a majority of one; and that went forth as the decision of the Trustees. It was true that the hon. Member who moved the Estimates of the British Museum was usually a man of great eminence; but he was, after all, only a private gentleman, who acted irresponsibly and was only undertaking a voluntary duty. For himself, he always felt a disinclination to urge any complaints he might have against the Trustees in the same strong and forcible manner which he should like to use if the duty of moving these Estimates was discharged by a responsible Minister of the Crown. He thought the noble Lord was right in saying that the House of Commons ought to be jealous, and ought to interfere where such a large sum of money as £100,000 was annually brought forward by an irresponsible Minister, who referred Members in case of complaint to the Board of Trustees, and with whom it rested whether the complaint should be considered or not, and who
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generally chose to throw it aside altogether. The noble Lord was ready to leave the Board of Trustees alone, and thought that after a few more speeches in that House the Board would die a natural death. But abuses of every description had great vitality, and he thought the Trustees ought to put themselves right with the public, and see whether they could not manage the British Museum upon a better system. He would suggest a remedy how the administration of the British Museum might be amended. He would retain the Board of Trustees, which was so powerful, in having so many Members in that House, and so splendidly constituted, from the talents which the Members possessed. Their duties should be in the first instance to act as visitors, to inspect the Museum periodically, and report to the Minister on the state of the Museum, with any suggestions that they might wish to make. They should also act as referees in revising the statutes, in the extension of the Museum buildings, in all questions of special grants, salaries, &c. He would no longer retain the services of the three principal Trustees. He knew how much the time of the right hon. Gentleman in the chair was occupied, nor did the duties of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chancellor leave them any leisure for the performance of the duties of Trustees for the British Museum. He would divide the Board into three sections—the library, natural history, and antiquities. He was presuming, of course, on the retention of the Natural History Department in its present position. Each department should be independent of the other in its internal arrangements, its discipline, salaries, and hours of exhibition, and each should have a separate constitution—namely, the director over each of the departments, with the keepers of each department as an executive board. The directors would be directly responsible to the Minister, and he would be responsible to the House of Commons. That board would be free from all the defects of the Trustee system; they would not be a fluctuating body, they would be acquainted with all the details of the Museum, and, above all, they would be responsible. They would have the settlement of all the internal regulations and of all the alterations that might have to be made. For each of the departments there would be an executive board, consisting of the director and the various keepers under him. If that

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system were adopted, it would be found that the principle of responsibility would pervade the whole.
His noble Friend referred to the National Gallery rather in a tone of censure, but he might have done so in proof of his case, for the state of the National Gallery when it was under trustees was perfectly intolerable. But since 1855 there had been a change; the trustees were made to approach more nearly to the position of visitors, and the National Gallery had materially improved. Then the Kensington Museum was really a case in point, where there was thorough vigour, efficiency, and responsibility. [A laugh] Hon. Gentlemen who laughed might think it did not carry out its objects, but he considered that it did, and he approved the principle upon which it was founded. At all events, no man could say that the Kensington Museum was not carried on with a vigour and efficiency which put to shame the older institutions. His noble friend spoke of the expense per head of the persons visiting that Museum; but it was hardly fair to make that calculation, because the expense should be reckoned according to the immense amount of good the Museum had done to every branch and department of art in the United Kingdom, by the circulating connection which it sent abroad, and by the various examples which it had given. But the management and arrangement of all the public buildings and public works of art in the metropolis were perfectly melancholy. He was not going too far when he said that nothing struck a man more than the weakness, incongruity, and mismanagement that met him at every turn of the street. He was very much amused on reading in The Times of that morning a letter from a very sensitive foreign gentleman, who wrote from the Sablonniere Hotel in Leicester Square, and who said that he trusted most sincerely if the Emperor of the French should be induced to visit the Exhibition, as he had been invited to do, that he would be brought into it blindfolded, in order that he might escape the shock which the hideous appearance of the building would most certainly cause. Now, if they were to meet that Foreign gentleman in Pall Mall and proposed to reconduct him to his dwelling in Leicester Square, and give him at the same time a view of the handsomest part of the metropolis, they should avoid the bad company and the shellfish-houses of Piccadilly, and bring
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him down through Pall Mall into Trafalgar Square. The first thing that would meet his eyes would be the hideous statue to the Guards, representing a mythological figure (but whether of Virtue, or Valour, or Sorrow, nobody could say), apparently in the attitude of pitching quoits into the space beneath the Athenæeum and the United Service Club. Taking him on a little further, they would show him the pepper-castors of the National Gallery, and the ginger-beer bottles of the fountains beneath. Then be would see the unfinished statue of Nelson and the statue of George IV. standing solitary in one corner, and also the statues of two great warriors, about which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cowper) informed the House last year that they were allowed to be erected by predecessors of his; and although they were reported to spoil the effect of the elevation of the National Gallery, still, as the site had been given, there they should remain. And then, having shown him all these things, and having brought him up the narrow steps of the National Gallery and down to the sculpture den, he thought after all that, in spite of the proverbial politeness of foreigners, before he reached his domicile he would give vent in no measured terms to the bitterness of his feelings. Now, something ought to be done to remedy that state of things. There ought to be some person in authority permanently established, some one in the shape of a Directeur des Arts, as they had in France, who would give most material assistance to the First Commissioner of Works—some one not in the Ministry, but chosen for the excellence of his taste, or the correctness of his eye. He (Mr. Gregory) hoped he should not be rebuked, as be was the other night for meddling with matters that were beyond the province of an Irish member. He hoped he should not be told that he ought to employ himself in wrangling over some grand jury bill, or in some pleasant religious squabble, and leave the improvement of the metropolis and the constitution of the British Museum to the metropolitan Members. If he were, he should endeavour to receive the rebuke in a proper spirit, but he should none the less give his cordial and unhesitating vote to his noble Friend, if the noble Lord pressed his Motion to a division.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, my noble Friend who made this Motion addressed the House, as be

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always does, on the very rare occasions—I may presume to say on the unhappily rare occasions—when he does address it, with great ability and in a manner showing that he had applied his mind thoroughly to the subject. My noble friend at the close of his speech was so far emboldened by the favourable reception it had received on the part of the House that he predicted the terms of the answer. He said, "The Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he speaks in reply, will dispute none of my facts, but will ask the House not to adopt my Motion." My noble Friend is in; greater luck than most prophets, for one half of his prediction is true, though the other half is untrue. I shall, then, dispute what I believe not to be facts, and I shall also ask the House not to adopt his Motion. At the same time, it is my duty to admit that, there is much matter in the speech which my noble Friend addressed to the House with which I myself and my colleagues are disposed to agree, and, in many respects, I think it is useful that that speech has been made; for, though I believe that he magnified some of the evils, and also overstated the efficacy of the prospective remedies, I think the speech is one tending in the right direction, towards unity, responsibility, and efficiency in the management of institutions of great public importance. Therefore agreeing in many of my noble Friend's opinions, and believing that, as an abstract proposition, the Motion contains little that is open to dispute, I shall not ask the House to give a negative to the Motion, for that would not represent faithfully the view which I take of the question, but I shall ask it to meet the Motion by the previous question. I confess I was somewhat struck by the difference of views of the mover and seconder of this Motion. It is a favourable circumstance sometimes for those who oppose or deprecate a Motion to find discrepancies among its advocates; but I have the rare felicity of finding a discrepancy between the mover and seconder. The object of the Motion of my noble Friend is evidently to bring those institutions under the control of Government, but what does the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Gregory) say to that? Why, the most effective passage in his speech was that in which he denounced the Government for exercising the control which they appeared to exercise for the purpose of influencing the Gentlemen who have the
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management of the Museum. So much is this the case that the fact not only occupied an important place in the mind of the hon. Gentleman, but formed almost the animating principle and stimulus of his speech. What I venture to represent to the House is this, that it will be well to contract the field and touch lightly on many of the points of detail which have been dealt with. The noble Lord assailed the constitution of the National Gallery. It was defended by the seconder of the Motion, and therefore as far as the National Gallery is concerned, I shall pass by that comparatively limited portion of the subject, only paying that it is perfectly true and correct that in 1859 the Government did say that a new arrangement was about to be made for the National Gallery; and in 1860 the new arrangement or arrangements were made; and. it was then quite open for the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Coningham) to question those arrangements. So, with respect to the National. Portrait Gallery, I think we may pass by a portion of the criticism applied to it, because that gallery is still an infant institution. Growth in the earlier stages of the animal and vegetable world is slow, and we may well expect to find that the same is the case not only in political institutions, but also in those devoted to art. But as the present discussion has turned in so great a degree on the British Museum, and as its condition so fully involves the question at issue, it will be as well if I confine my observations in the main to that institution. Another reason for taking this course is that my noble Friend has given to his speech too much of the character of an indictment against the British Museum and those who manage it, which I am bound to say is fundamentally unjust, and incapable of being sustained. With respect to the British Museum, my noble Friend made a charge of general mismanagement. He has not sustained that charge, and, instead of saying I dispute his facts, I should rather say that I dispute his assertions. What evidence has he adduced to the House? He says that more than one Committee or Commission has sat on the British Museum. Certainly, but does that show mismanagement in the British Museum? It only shows that the mind of the country and of Parliament was beginning for the first time in our history to be turned to the subjects of art and science and education as matters of political concern. We were

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dissatisfied with the kind of imperfect, undeveloped state of our institutions, and consequently we wanted to apply ourselves with force and energy to produce a great development and improvement in that direction. That is the reason why those Commissions were appointed and made Reports, but it" has not been in the power of my noble Friend to quote any language illustrative of his assertion of great mismanagement, or of any mismanagement, on the part of the Trustees of the British Museum. My noble Friend did, indeed, quote the testimony of a gentleman, whom he described as a foreigner, and who stated that the government of the Trustees of the British Museum was a complete obstacle and barrier to improvement. The facts were, however, against my noble Friend, and it is totally impossible for any man who unites common sense with common justice, and who at the same time has no Parliamentary Motion to support, to compare the British Museum as it now is with its condition thirty years ago, and to adopt the opinion that the Government under which the British Museum is managed is a complete obstacle and barrier to improvement. Take one instance of the management of the British Museum. A speech of mine has been referred to as expressing a desire in a particular branch of our affairs for something in the nature of revolution. That speech had no connection with the subject of the present Motion, but related to the manner, as proved by history, in which we—not any particular Government or department, but the collective body of Parliament and the Government—have for the last generation managed what I call the great public works of the nation. If that be so—if we, the Parliament and the executive Government, have produced results so unsatisfactory—it is but fair to those much maligned trustees and to this governing body of the British Museum to state how they have managed their public works. One great public work which will bring this point to issue has been erected within the last six or seven years—the reading-room of the British Museum, and that is an exception—a brilliant exception; it is, perhaps, very nearly the sole exception to our blunders. That reading-room was recommended to the Government, and planned to its completion under the superintendence of the Trustees. [Mr. GREGORY: It was done by Mr. Panizzi.] Mr. Panizzi is a servant of the
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Trustees, and a more meritorious public servant is not to be found, but I cannot distinguish between the servant and the Trustees for the purpose of the present argument. Now, there seems to be an idea on the part of my noble Friend that no one is responsible for the Estimates for the National Gallery, Portrait Gallery, and British Museum. This is an error. It is perfectly true that the Museum Estimates were moved by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Walpole), and it is also perfectly true that that is an anomaly in our Parliamentary system. That is the single case in which such a function is performed by an independent Member of this House, but I take leave to deny that on that account there is an absence of public control. All my experience at the Treasury shows me that it is most unjust to the Trustees to state that they have ever showed a disposition to escape from the control of the Treasury, and I venture confidently to declare that the control of the Treasury, over the Estimates prepared by the Trustees is, in the interest of the public, as strong and effective as it is generally over the Estimates prepared by the public departments, and stronger than over those prepared by many public departments. These Estimates, therefore, are not irresponsible Estimates. I am not stating that the machinery of this government of the Museum is the machinery that might have been chosen if we had had to construct from the ground, but I dispute the statement of my noble Friend—if I understood him rightly—that these Estimates are prepared without the responsibility of the Government; nor does it appear to me that the House of Commons has any very great right to complain of these Estimates. At least, I have been present for many years at these discussions, and I do not recollect that on any one single occasion the House has shown any general or extended desire to reduce them; but I do recollect that from year to year many hon. Members have made complaints that these Estimates were too moderate, and that the salaries of this gentleman, and of that gentleman, and of the other gentleman ought to be largely increased. So much for irresponsible Estimates.
The hon. Member for Galway in his concluding remarks stated that the Government went down to the Museum in a horde for the purpose of swamping the Trustees. Now, we went down for the

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exercise of our functions, not to evade responsibility, but to concentrate it on ourselves; and after a few weeks, during which the preliminary arrangements may, be Completed, we will give hon. Members an opportunity of saying "Ay" or "No" in reference to the important conclusion which we were instrumental in promoting at the deliberation of the Trustees of the Museum. But my hon. Friend has produced a plan of his own. I wish to point out that, no executive Government can have a primâ facie objection to a Motion like this, for it means for the Government increased power and extention of patronage. He proposes to retain Trustees, whom he invests with certain functions, as a consulting Board, but he also proposes to give the sugar plum of the appointment of three directors for the Museum to my noble Friend at the head of the Treasury. Certainly this was a remarkable recommendation to come from a popular Member, standing forth as the advocate of a popular cause, and as a friend of economy. But my hon. Friend goes a step beyond that, and here again I find him at mortal antagonism with his Friend the mover of this Resolution. There is one portion of the proposition of the noble Lord in which I heartily agree, and that was that the Treasury ought not to be a spending department, but one which should control others which do spend; while I also concur with him in thinking that boards of executive are, as a general rule, inexpedient, "Boards of executive are wrong" says the mover of the Resolution; but what says the seconder? "Appoint me three directors of the British Museum with three executive boards." Indeed, so decided is the antagonism between the two, that a Motion the aim of which I thought was unity and the concentration of responsibility has its tendency altogether reversed by the observations of one of its supporters. There is another charge of rather a specific kind made by the hon. Member for Galway against the Trustees of the British Museum, and that is, that under the present system there is a want of communication between them and the heads of departments. Now, the ordinary rule is that communication must always be with the executive head of an establishment, and it is always a question of discretion and degree how far the superintending authority will enter into direct communication with the secondary executive officers. I can, however, assure my
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hon. Friend that he is not accurate in his statement, and that, although there may be gentlemen who do not think they are placed in a relationship sufficiently direct with the Trustees, he will find, when we shortly lay on the table the proposition which we have to make in connection with the British Museum, ample evidence that the heads of departments are directly consulted, and that it does not rest with Mr. Panizzi—even if he had the inclination to do so, which I am sure he has not—to deprive them of their fair share of influence in supplying information to the governing body of the institution.
I have now dealt with the question of the general management of these irresponsible Estimates, and I may now say that it is my intention to move, on the part of the Government, the previous question, admitting, in so doing, that there is much to be said in favour of the general principle that the expenditure of money with a view to the promotion of education, science, and art, should be placed under the control of a single responsible Minister. I may, however, add that I think, when a Minister on the part of a Government gives even a qualified assent to a general proposition of that nature, and at the same time intimates a strong opinion that it would net be wise for the House of Commons to assert the general principle in abstract terms by means of a Vote, the House has a right to expect from him some declaration that these are not mere words used for the purpose of disposing of the pressure of an inconvenient Motion. I am ready to admit that you are entitled to expect that we should show you that we have advanced, and are advancing, in the direction which you suggest; and when we look back on what has been done during the last twenty-five or thirty years, I believe you will agree with me in thinking that immense strides have been made in that ditection. Now, the Motion before us refers to all Votes of monies for the promotion of education, science, and art, and I may say that almost three parts of the objects which it seeks to accomplish have been already realized. Education is under a responsible Minister; so is science as an active principle, and art so far as it is connected with industry. Still more I grant you remains to be done, but I think you will see that it would not be expedient to endeavour to achieve the end which you desire by a single stride. Moreover, in that single stride you aim at too much,

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and recommend to our adoption a Resolution which, like other abstract propositions, may hereafter prove inconvenient, and tend to fetter us in our future proceedings. My noble Friend will, I think, admit that progress has been already made in this direction, but be must not suppose that I am contending that it may not be desirable that some more direct relationship between the executive Government and the government of the British Museum might not be established. We have done our best under the circumstances. We went as far as the constitution of the Museum permitted. I can, however, well conceive the existence of an opinion that the mode in which the intervention of the executive Government in the affairs of the Museum is exercised might be improved and placed upon such a footing as to render it less irksome to the Trustees, and more efficacious for the purposes of responsibility to this House. While, however, making that admission, I would ask hon. Members to consider the present state of the question relating to the British Museum. For many years there has been there a great want of space, and the most active controversy has been carried on in divers modes and fashions, both inside and outside the walls of Parliament, as to the mode in which that want is to be supplied. The great question discussed under these circumstances has been, "Shall there be a separation of the collections contained in the Museum?" The executive Government, when the matter appeared to be ripe for consideration, deemed it to be its duty to assume the initiative in a case of this description. They have done so. They have made a proposal to the Trustees, which has taken effect in the shape of a plan which is now ready to be submitted to this House, and which we hope to lay on the table before Easter. That plan involves a must important physical separation; it involves, in fact, the transfer of one of the great departments of the Museum to another site. The Government in making that proposition had to consider whether the time was a fitting one to submit any proposal to the Trustees on the subject of the mode of governing the Museum itself, and we came to the conclusion that the time was obviously most unfitting. No doubt the local separation of which I speak suggested the idea of a possible modification of the government of the Museum, and what may hereafter take place in that respect I will not at this early stage of the
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proceedings undertake to say. We do not know what the precise effect of the separation may be, and we have therefore deemed it better to proceed with our plan and obtain the judgment of Parliament with respect to carrying it into execution with all possible vigour and promptitude should that judgment be favourable. We shall then be able to arrive at a safer conclusion, from the working of the Museum under the altered circumstances of which I speak, as to whether any change in the government is necessary, than we could at present hope to form. This, I trust, will appear to the House to have been a rational course to adopt. Indeed, if we had acted otherwise, we should be open to the charge of having proceeded in this matter without sufficient knowledge or information, merely upon our own judgment and speculations, while we might also be said to have given undue offence to the Trustees, and to have exposed our own plan, which is a bonâ fids proposal in the public interest, to the imputation of being a scheme to give more power and influence to the Executive. Now, I may observe that you are in all discussions of this kind open to two opposite fires. The batteries to-day are charged with arguments intended to point out irresponsibility and consequent inefficiency in the management of a particular institution. To-morrow they may be charged with arguments against centralization, and with appeals to the national characteristics of the nation with respect to the mode in which it desires to see the public business managed. I do not think it would be wise on our part to involve ourselves in that forest of controversy. The hon. Member for Galway is opposed to our plan of separating certain collections from the Museum. [Mr. CONINGHAM: What collections are to be removed.] The collections of Natural History, including Zoology and other "ologies" more numerous than I can submit at once to your notice. Now, it may be good generalship on the part of the hon. Member to mix up this question of the separation of these collections with other matters, but we deem it to be absolutely incumbent upon us to consider this important question on its merits, and to refuse to accede by a positive vote to the Motion now under discussion. I will give you an illustration of the inconvenience which would be likely to result from the adoption of this Resolution. I accede to the general proposition that

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executive boards are bad; but I think there may be found in practice certain exceptions and qualifications, which qualifications ought, in my opinion, to be considered one by one, and not to be overruled by an abstract proposal of this character. There is, for instance, the case of the Fine Arts Commission, which it at the present moment connected with associations too sacred and too tender to be dwelt upon in this discussion. But, speaking of it in general terms, I may say that the Commission has been of great public advantage, notwithstanding the objection of the noble Lord opposite to executive boards, and that it has exercised an important influence on the direction of the public mind into a channel favourable to the promotion of art. It would therefore, I think, be a most ungracious proceeding to comdemn, by the passing of a Resolution such as this, that Commission. A trust has been committed to it. That trust might, perhaps, in other Countries have been undertaken at once by the executive Government, but at the time the Commission Was constituted I am not sure it would have been easy to take any such coarse. I believe we are deeply indebted to the Fine Arts Commission, and I am certain it is not the intention of my noble Friend to aim a side-blow at a body which has been of such marked utility. Such are the grounds upon which I trust my noble Friend will not press his Motion to a division, and upon which, if he does press it, it will be my duty to meet it with the Previous Question. I wish it to be clearly understood that in so moving the Previous Question, and in giving at the same time a qualified assent to many of the general principles which have been declared by my noble Friend, I am markedly at issue with him upon the practical question of the effects which have been produced by the actual Government of the British Museum, even although it may be theoretically and speculatively imperfect. I believe that to the managers of the Museum we owe a debt of gratitude for a great deal of good and efficient administration; but as I said before, I am one of those who think that the constitution of the administrative body may fairly at some future period be submitted to reconsideration and revision. No doubt, if it could have been foreseen in the early days of the Museum that it would become an institution wholly supported by enormous annual grants, its administration by such
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a government as it has at present would never have been dreamed of. There is one other remark I wish to make before I conclude. My noble Friend has criticised the purchase of a collection of pictures in 1855, but when he says that a few only were hung up in the National Gallery, that some dregs were sent to Ireland, and that the rest was sold for nothing, I do not think he gives a correct representation of the case. Whether, however, the representation is correct or not, let it not be forgotten that the collection in question was bought Upon the strict responsibility of the Government; and, therefore, it is not fair to say that by getting rid of the Trustees you will secure that kind of happy efficiency and vigour and that amount of public satisfaction which my noble Friend seems to anticipate.
Whereupon Previous Question proposed, "That that Question be now put."
MR. CONINGHAMsaid, that while he agreed with the noble Lord that some one Minister of the Crown should be made responsible for the administration of the departments of science and art, he could not help thinking that Parliament itself was not altogether blameless in the matter. The House of Commons had completely ratified and rendered itself responsible for the acts of the heads of these departments, and he could not admit that the maladministration of which the noble Lord had complained was wholly attributable to the existence of boards of trustees. Surely the noble Lord forgot that nearly all the great mercantile concerns of the country were carried on by boards of directors. The whole question was surrounded with difficulties. With regard to the administration, allusion had been made to the ex-officio Trustees of the British Museum having gone down and swamped the other Trustees. He must say that, in his opinion, if the Ministers went down in that way in their Ministerial capacity to record their votes, they ought to be brought to account for it. In such cases, the ex-officio Trustees ought to have something like individual responsibility. It was quite possible, he thought, that the transfer of the Natural History collection from the British Museum to some other quarter might be expedient; but he ventured to say, that if the purchases were continued on the same gigantic scale, and in the same omnivorous manner as at present, no building, however large, would long

1793
remain capable of holding them. He could not concur in the eulogium which the hon. Member for Gal way had passed upon the department at Kensington. It was an archaeological collection, containing many interesting and amusing objects, but it would not bear comparison with the British Museum. That monstrous architectural abortion, the Great Exhibition at Brompton, was the result of the Art School at Kensington—a fact which did not say much for the taste or knowledge of the department so highly lauded by the hon. Member for Galway. He did not think the investigation before the Committee was satisfactory; and his belief was, if the evidence had been laid before the House, the Vote demanded for building purposes would never have been passed. He concurred in the view that some one of the Ministers should be rendered responsible for the expenditure of the Vote. With respect to the National Gallery, there had been very little improvement, and the purchases which had been recently made were not satisfactory. No doubt the building had been enlarged and more care was taken of the treasures of art placed there, but that had arisen from the discussions which had taken place in the press and that House, and it was only by directing public attention more to the general subject that any material improvement could be expected.
MR. BLAKEcomplained, that the department of Art was sought to be made too much self-supporting. He spoke chiefly of Ireland, but his remarks would in great measure be equally applicable to this country. He himself was, with others, the means of establishing one of the first schools of art in Ireland, that at Waterford. By dint of great exertion, some of the mechanics were induced to go to the school, which prospered so long as it received the Government subsidy; but when that was withdrawn the attendance began to lessen, and at present the school was nothing more than a school of art for the higher and middle classes. He believed the same state of things existed at Limerick and other towns. At Belfast the school was closed; and it was a fact that several years had elapsed since a school of art had been established in Ireland. He hoped that the noble Lord's Motion would have the effect of bringing public attention to the matter. It appeared very strange that while Government thought it necessary to subsidize largely
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the most essential branches of education, such as reading, writing, and arithmetic, they should act on the principle of making art education self-supporting. Nothing possibly could be more erroneous or more calculated to prevent a spread of the knowledge of it amongst those whom it was most desirable it should reach. With a large proportion of the middle and humbler classes, a knowledge of the fine arts, when acquired, was nothing more than an accomplishment—an excellent one no doubt, but often useless as a means of advancing them in life; and therefore it was that if Government really meant to carry out the objects for which the department was founded, they should offer a premium to the class of pupils to whom he alluded, to frequent the schools of design, instead of deterring them by imposing high fees. The large sum voted annually in support of art education was, to a great extent, obtained under false pretences. The House were under the impression that it went to support the schools all over the kingdom, but such was not the fact; as in reality the lion's share was spent in London, where the people were best able to support schools themselves. He had no objection to the Museum and Gallery of Pictures at Kensington. It was a splendid, creditable, and most useful institution; but it was not fair to vote a large sum for supposed general purposes and have nearly the entire devoted to an almost exclusive one. True, Kensington was the parent establishment, and should be properly maintained; but that should not be carried too far. Nearly four years ago he (Mr. Blake) had called attention to this very subject, and could induce but very few to support him. He was glad to find the opinions he had expressed then were gaining ground, as proved by the favourable reception of the Motion of the noble Lord, which he trusted he would press to a division in which he would certainly have his vote.
SIR JOHN SHELLEYsaid, he wished to thank the noble Lord for having brought forward the subject; but, after the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the discussion which had taken place, he hoped the noble Lord would be content to withdraw his Motion. With regard to the observations of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Brighton, he believed the more the subject was inquired into, and the more the evidence taken before the Com-

1795
mittee was considered, the more the public would agree with the Committee in the decision to which they had come, that the South Kensington Museum had done, was doing, and was likely to continue to do, the great good it was intended to effect.
MR. DISRAELI: Sir, I agree with the hon. Baronet in thinking that my noble Friend will do wisely not to press the House to come to a decision on the Resolution which he has proposed, because, when you ask the House to come to a Resolution, you should always consider the circumstances under which that request is made; and considering the particular hour at which we should be called on to decide (half-past seven o'clock), I think he might obtain a result that would lead to an impression that there was not that sympathy with the general views expressed by my noble Friend in support of his Motion which I believe to exist in the House, and which I believe is largely shared by the country. My noble Friend has brought forward the subject in a speech of remarkable ability. He spoke for a considerable time, and always interested us, while he really grappled with all the points of the considerable question with which he had to deal. And, Sir, I find no fault with the Resolution which he proposed, because it is a Resolution which affirms, generally speaking, a principle which I think the House must ultimately adopt, and which, at the same time, pledges the Government in no manner as regards the details in an inconvenient form. But after the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and after the Amendment proposed by the Minister, it really would be at the present moment highly imprudent on my noble Friend to run the risk of a division in which it is possible, perhaps probable, be might have a majority; but if he were thrown into a minority, it would undoubtedly create in the country a false impression. When an independent Member brings forward a Motion, and the Minister meets it with the Previous Question, he ought to be satisfied. It is a concession of the justice and general truth of his views and the accuracy of his statements; and I do not think that as to the general result there can be two opinions. If public money is granted by the votes of this House, there ought to be a direct responsibility as to the manner in which that money is expended. That is, in fact, the
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scope of my noble Friend's Motion. It is founded, no doubt, on a general conviction on his part and on that of those who act with him in this matter, that this money is not expended in as efficient a manner as the country has a right to expect. Well, that is my opinion also. I have given considerable attention to this subject, and sometimes in a position more responsible than that which I now occupy. My belief is that the general management of these institutions is not satisfactory. But I cannot agree entirely, nor even in part, with some of the reasons assigned by my noble Friend for coming to that conclusion.
I shall very briefly touch upon the several divisions into which my noble Friend has separated this question, and I will begin with the least important of them—namely, that infant institution the National Portrait Gallery. I speak now not merely as a Member of this House, for I happen to be one of those Trustees who have been animadverted upon to-night. My noble Friend says of this institution, which has existed only five years or so, that he has himself visited it, that it was with difficulty he made an entry, that he found a number of pictures hanging in obscure and dingy apartments, and that he learnt that people had been admitted to inspect them only within the last year. That is all very true, but these are circumstances necessarily incident to the origin of any institution. No doubt the apartments in which the collection of historical portraits are placed are very inconvenient and perhaps sufficiently dingy, but they are temporary apartments, and not those which would have been selected by the Trustees of the Historical Portrait Gallery. We are perfectly prepared, if the country will provide us with a spacious Louvre, admirably adorned and richly gilt, to place our collections in such a building. But in the absence of such a gallery we must, I fear, be content to stow them in those rooms of an obscure house belonging to the Government, in one of the streets of London, which are allotted to us. But I must say I entertain a very different opinion of the value of that collection from that expressed by my noble Friend. He has, I think, fallen into a false estimate of its worth; and naturally so, because he seems to have been disgusted by the visit he made. He expected to see a magnificent saloon instead of dingy apart-

1797
merits, and it is not in a dingy apartment that a refined dilettante like my noble Friend can at once form an accurate estimate of pictures which were purchased after considerable inquiry and careful observation, conducted with the assistance of colleagues, among whom are men of the most accomplished minds. I therefore take a different view from that of my noble Friend of the worth of the National Portrait Gallery. On the contrary, I think it was a very judicious institution to establish. It was established in consequence of an Address to the Crown from the other House of Parliament, and this House proved its entire sympathy with the sentiments under which that Address was adopted by voting the sufficient though not very considerable annual sup plies requisite for carrying it into effect. But although I believe there is no doubt that the existing collection is worth ten times the amount of public money that has been spent in contributions for its purchase—which is, I think, a tolerably good test of its value—still I do not for a moment contest the position of my noble Friend that it would be extremely desirable that this institution, like ail kindred institutions, should be under the responsible superintendence of a Minister of the Crown. Therefore, as far as the general principle of my noble Friend's Resolution is concerned, even as regards the National Portrait Gallery—of which he spoke in such cheapening terms, but which I hold to be very valuable, and think will, if cherished, be much prized and appreciated by the people of this country—I do not dissent from his proposition.
I come to the next point—the National Gallery. I say nothing about the building of that institution, on which no one has touched at any length to-night, nor about the long-controverted question as to the manner in which the edifice in Trafalgar Square should be apportioned. On these questions I have before expressed an opinion. To that opinion I adhere, and think it would have been most advantageous that the whole of that building should have been given to the National Gallery. But with regard to the management of that gallery and the mode in which we have obtained this collection of pictures—not certainly very numerous compared with the galleries of other countries, yet most precious from their individual value, most interesting, and in a certain sense un-
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rivalled in their character—I must say I differ from the views expressed by some hon. Members, and particularly by the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Coningham). No one more perfectly recognises the right of that hon. Gentleman to speak upon these subjects than I do. I admit his real knowledge and acquirements with respect to them. But I think he takes a prejudiced view of the conduct and management of that gallery, as well as of the character of the individual connected with it. Sir, I defy any man to occupy that position which Sir Charles Eastlake has occupied in this country with regard to our collections and works of art, and not to encounter immense criticism and opposition. I look upon Sir Charles Eastlake as a man of accomplished mind, of very considerable knowledge upon some branches of art, and on the whole more qualified—certainly as fully qualified as any individual whom I could fix upon for the post he holds. But he holds a post which necessarily provokes endless criticism; and every man who has special knowledge on a particular branch of art may, perhaps even justly, challenge his opinions on that particular branch, though he may not for a moment be qualified to compete with him in respect to that general and aggregate acquaintance with matters of taste which justifies Sir Charles in occupying the position he fills. Now, if the hon. Member for Brighton, who has considerable knowledge of questions of taste, and with whose part in these discussions I am always satisfied—although if he would only confine himself to matters of taste I should be still more satisfied—if he occupied with all his knowledge the post which Sir Charles Eastlake occupies, does he think that his judgments would not be freely canvassed, or that the pictures which he recommended to be purchased for the country would not be impugned in point of beauty and authenticity of origin? Well, the conduct of Sir Charles Eastlake has, on the whole, been such as is entitled to the confidence of Parliament and the nation. More than that no man can look for in this country. We always have these strictures passed upon Sir Charles East-lake by some few hon. Gentlemen, because we have not those magnificent galleries, those treasures of art, or that feeling for art, which they think would be worthy of a nation occupying the position of England. But the truth is, it is not Sir Charles

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Eastlake who is deficient in this knowledge or this zeal for art; it is the people of this country, and it is in vain to conceal from ourselves that fact. The fine arts have never been appreciated and have never flourished except in small communities. We are much too busy, too engrossed with the great affairs of the world. We live in a country where the great men, as we were told last night, are the engineers; and that is the reason why we cannot concentrate our thought and feeling upon those beautiful works which have rendered Athens and Florence immortal, and which societies that only devote their passion and study to such subjects are qualified to produce. Sir, I despair of art ever attaining that position in this country which a few refined minds may recognise, but which the multifarious pursuits of our active and creative people—creative in other respects—will, I think, ever prevent it from achieving. Therefore I do not believe that, however we may change the mode by which our National Gallery may be governed, we shall produce, so far as art is concerned, more satisfactory results than we have accomplished. A rich people, we may apportion a part of our treasure to purchase, at convenient opportunities, beautiful productions of art. Beyond that I do not think we ever shall reach. But though these are my convictions, there is no reason why I should oppose the general principle enunciated in my noble Friend's Resolution. Whatever public money is to be expended, and whatever arrangements are made in consequence of that expenditure, ought, I think, to be placed under the direction of a responsible Minister of the Crown; and I have no doubt that, on the whole, that is a rule which will act beneficially for the purposes we have in view.
I come now to what is by far the most important part of this subject—I mean the management of the British Museum. My opinions on the management of that institution are not in accordance with those which my noble Friend and others have expressed. Nothing can be more anomalous than the constitution under which the British Museum is regulated; but in that circumstance alone I see no necessary objection to that constitution itself. Anomaly in the origin, or rather in the existence, of governing powers, is not the exception in England; it is the rule. Our governing powers are the creatures of accident, and have become hallowed by prescription. The same laws which have
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governed our great political arrangements have prevailed in the institution which contains our great public treasures. Accident, no doubt, produced originally the constitution of the British Museum; but as time has flown on, that constitution has become respected and respectable in the country. Sir, I cannot at all trace to the anomalous character of the constitution the highly unsatisfactory condition, as I admit it to be, of the British Museum. This unsatisfactory condition is to be accounted for by the origin of the national collection. Time has shown that a museum founded on the collection of a virtuoso, who aimed at having the most curious objects in every department, must be imperfect and unsatisfactory. Art, Science, Literature, and Nature are jealous mistresses, who refuse to live under the same roof; and when you attempt thus to place their various treasures and achievements, you are attempting to accomplish that which, admirable as your object may in some respects be, must in its results prove imperfect. Now we have heard from the Government to-night that they have, as I understand, adopted a principle for which I have always contended in this House, the division of those great departments. The very moment that you separate the departments of natural science from the collections of art and learning which now meet under the same roof, you will do justice to the increasing and irresistible demands of natural science, and at the same time you will enrich these collections of art and those great libraries which now you are almost prevented from enriching and enlarging. Then I say that the Government are upon the right path, and it is in the separation of our collections, not in the alteration of the governing body, that you may introduce those improvements which the country demands. When the country has really got its museums of nature separated from its vast libraries and galleries of art, and the whole properly arranged and disposed, the want which has been so long experienced will be satisfied. But while you do this, there is no reason why you should not also adopt the principle expressed in the Resolution. There is no reason why the control and the management of those collections should not be vested in one responsible adviser of the Crown; and his authority in this House and in the country would be perfectly compatible with the authority now exer-

1801
cised by those who, I think with judgment and with success, have hitherto managed the national collections. But, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of all Ministers, to whom is intrusted the management of the finances and the control of the national expenditure, by the amendment which he moved recognises so amply the justice of the principle expressed in the Resolution, and when he, at the same time, announces on the part of the Government that in their future arrangements they are prepared to adopt the only principle which can safely guide them to a satisfactory solution of the difficulties which have so long occupied our debates, I think it would be unwise, and, to a certain degree, arrogant, on the part of my noble Friend to ask the House to come to any absolute Resolution. I think that with the opportunity it has given my noble Friend of laying before the House a masterly statement, and with the satisfactory reply which it has elicited from the Government, he may rest content, and feel that this evening in the House of Commons has certainly not been wasted.
LORD HENRY LENNOXin reply said, he wished to express his gratitude for the kind appreciation which had been shown of his motives in bringing the subject forward. He should of course accede to the request made to him not to divide the House, as the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer opened up a vista of promise, and he should be content to leave the question there. There was, however, one misapprehension of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's, which he wished to correct. The right hon. Gentleman understood him to say that the Estimates for the British Museum had gone on increasing every year, and had thought that he referred to the last two years. He had not intended to say that during those years the Vote had increased, but he had desired to convey that the votes had gone on increasing for a long series of years until they had reached £90,000. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said he had not made out any case of mismanagement. He had certainly refrained from wearying the House with details; but he had given the right hon. Gentleman the report of one Committee, the evidence of the servants of the Museum, and that of a distinguished French sculptor who had written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, twelve or fourteen months ago, a
1802
letter which the right hon. Gentleman seemed to have forgotten. He denied that he had displayed any hostile feeling towards the Trustees of the Museum personally; and as to the perfection of the library, it assisted his argument, because the library had been collected under the eye of the only person who could be said to exercise almost a despotic power in the Museum. He wanted to know whether great proprietors like Lord Overstone and the Marquess of Westminster would consent to have their property administered by a cumbrous body of men who were irresponsible to them, and were not paid by them. If not, why should the art treasures of the nation be exposed to that risk? The Chancellor of the Exchequer, alluding to his hon. Friend who had seconded the Motion, said he seemed only a mutinous follower. But were there no mutinous followers elsewhere? He thought that there was upon the Treasury bench an hon. Gentleman who, if he had been allowed to open his mouth upon this question, and to have indulged in a "wild shriek of liberty," would have made a speech but little in unison with that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Previous Question and Motion, by leave, withdrawn,

CHINA—BRITISH MERCHANTS.

  RESOLUTION.
  MR. GREGSONsaid, he rose to call the attention of the House to the position of British merchants in China, and to move that due protection be afforded to them and their property in the treaty ports of that Empire. He proposed his Motion not in the interests of the merchants alone, but also to give an example to the Chinese of perfect honesty in our transactions. He did not propose to embark in another China war, either against the old Government or the Taepings. He merely desired to act on principles of self-defence, and that when the life and property of British subjects were threatened they should he protected. By the Treaty of Pekin we were entitled to enter the Celestial Empire, and thus to enter into communication with 400,000,000 souls. He believed that we had no reason to complain of the Imperial Government at present, and that Prince Kung was well disposed to foreigners. He had been in communication with several gentlemen who had recently returned from China, and

  1803
  with many others resident in that country. Some hon. Members were very favourable to the Taepings, and they had been called the national party of China. All the evidence he had accumulated, however, went to prove that, so far from being a national party, they were a gang of robbers and murderers. One gentleman, who left China in 1861, assured him that the Taepings were an unmitigated curse to China. Another said they were no better than brigands. Mr. Hamilton said, although the Imperial Government was weak and corrupt, the people could live under it; but that the approach of the Taepings was the signal for panic, flight, and desolation. He had in his hand extracts from letters asserting that the Taepings were land-pirates; that their only object was plunder, and that Her Majesty's Government ought to put them down. He had been told by no less an authority than Mr. Ward, the late American Minister, that the Taepings ought rather to be called robbers than rebels, and that the Western Powers could have no treaty with them. They had had possession of many Imperial cities, but only long enough to destroy their peace and prosperity. The missionaries were at first disposed to think them the reformers of China, but they had now changed their opinion. Mr. Bruce, in 1860, issued a proclamation, with a view of preventing Shanghai from being exposed to massacre and pillage; and so late as January 18 of the present year it had been necessary to muster all the volunteers who could be found among the British residents to protect their life and property. It was also stated that the villagers were flocking into our settlements for protection, that at least 100,000 men were preparing to attack them, and were hemming them in on all sides, and burning their houses. Moreover, the rebels made no secret of their intentions to starve the British out of the five ports. In the 18th article of the treaty concluded with Her Majesty's Government it was laid down that the Chinese authorities were at all times to afford the fullest protection to the persons and properties of British subjects; therefore the Imperial Government ought to be required to make some further effort to defend those who were now in danger from the rebels. But for the rebels, everything was tranquil in China. With regard to the fall of Ning-po, The Times, in a leader on the 26th of February, said—
  "Thus, without a blow, fell one of the strongest
  1804
  and most defensible cities in China. A handful of determined men might have saved the place. But it is because there are no determined defenders that those things are done, for there is no more real courage on the part of the rebels than there is on the part of the Imperialists."
  Now, what he had to ask the Government was, what measures were they prepared to take to secure life and property in Shanghai? If the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer were in his place there, he would tell him that the revenues from the duty on tea were about £4,500,000 a year; but if the rebels went on as they had done, they would cut us off from tea altogether. On the other hand, our manufacturers received from China silk to the astonishing amount of £7,000,000 a year. In conclusion, he would express a hope that the Government would declare that British subjects in China should be protected from lawless violence, and that all interference with trade at the ports mentioned in the treaty should he prevented. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving, "That," &c.
  MR. J. A. TURNERsaid, he rose to second the Motion. He could confirm the statement that the trade of China, and particularly of Shanghai, was of the greatest importance to the people residing in that part of the country which he represented, and he felt satisfied that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would feel the loss in the revenue of this country if that trade was interrupted by the Taepings. But he also hoped that the Motion would prove to be unnecessary, as he felt satisfied that Her Majesty's Government had already turned their attention to this subject. They must have seen that the proceedings of the Taepings required watching. He believed that the volunteers of Shanghai, gallant as they were—and they were men possessing a gallant spirit of resistance—would be overpowered by numbers. The merchants at Shanghai had immense property there, and that must be protected. But not the property alone, but the valuable lives of the merchants and their families who were settled at that port for the purpose of carrying on a peaceful commerce required protection. This country had nothing to do with the civil war between the Chinese and the Taepings or rebels, but he repeated he felt confident that the Government would consider it their duty to interfere in the defence of their own interests and the lives of their fellow subjects.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That due protection be afforded to British Merchants in China and their property in the Treaty Ports of that Empire."
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, he fully concurred in the general terms of the Motion. There was not a nation on earth that did not insist upon its subjects and their property being under the protection of their respective Governments, in whatever part of the world they might be; but his hon. Friend had not given to the House one instance in which British subjects or their property had been endangered or destroyed through the Taepings in China. There had been a panic no doubt at Shanghai, but his hon. Friend appeared to be very oblivious as to what had formerly taken place there. The Taepings came to Shanghai in 1860, after having taken Soochow and defeated the imperialist army which had been besieging them at Nankin. When that army was defeated and dispersed over the country, the worthy soldiers of the Imperial Government plundered wherever they went; and their seeking refuge in Soochow having been resisted by the Tartar Governor, in revenge they burnt the suburbs—an act of atrocity which was falsely charged against the Taepings. The Taepings then captured Soochow, which has remained in their possession ever since, and a constant intercourse has been kept up with the Taepings by the European merchants at Shanghai. From Soochow, in August, 1860, the Taepings advanced upon Shanghai, at the invitation of the French (they said), to take peaceable possession of the city; but when within 200 yards of the walls they were received with shot and shell from French and English guns, losing 200 men. They did not return a shot, but made their way to the suburbs, where the French set upon them, and to dislodge them, set fire to the houses and destroyed hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of property. When they retired from Shanghai, these devastating rebels, as they are called, so far from desolating the country, left the crops standing. Overtures had now again been made to the European population of Shanghai to permit them to take peaceable possession of the Tartar city of Shanghai, but it was said they could not be trusted. What ground was there for refusing to trust them? Had they ever broken faith with Europeans? When they went to Ningpo, they sent word beforehand that in case no resistance were made, no European pro-
  1806
  perty would be destroyed; but the Governor of the city was compelled to remain, and an assault took place; they gained possession, but the Europeans have remained unmolested ever since. Indeed, convivial intercourse had taken place between the European residents and the Taepings; for a dinner was given to their generals, and it is stated in one of the Shanghai newspapers that champagne flowed so freely, that under its influence a roast goose was sent as a missile from the hands of one of the European hosts at the head of another of the European hosts; and the Taeping generals, in consequence, made a precipitate retreat, wondering at the manners and customs of the outer barbarians. Why not put faith in them, therefore? If the Taepings were the desolating locusts that they were represented to be, it was a singular fact that during the time they have held Nankin the silk and tea produce has shown a considerable annual increase. The Taepings, unfortunately for themselves, were Reformers and Puritans—they professed to be eradicators of idolatry, and also of their Tartar conquerors. They also had a religious ordinance which denounced the use of opium and of liquor, and in Nankin and the other cities they captured, neither opium nor spirit shops were permitted; and the traffickers in opium and liquor found that those customs were an obstacle to what they considered to be progress, and he was much afraid that much of the hostile feeling to the Taepings was caused by selfish views. He was not their advocate, but he was the advocate of an honest adherence to our professions of neutrality; for in case we interfered between the belligerents, we must have another China war.
  MR. LAYARDsaid, the question was one of so much importance that he regretted to hear it discussed in so thin a House. Few hon. Members were probably aware of the very large amount of money belonging to Englishmen sunk in China. The greatest interest would be felt in China in the result of this debate, and the news of the course which the Government might take would be anxiously expected at the treaty ports in that country. England had spent a great amount of life and treasure in the establishment of an enormous trade in China. It was not for him to discuss now the policy which led them there. They were there; and, being there, the Government were bound to protect the lives and property of Bri-

  1807
  tish subjects. The country had gone to great expense in establishing consulates in the various ports and cities of China, and these must be maintained, and the results brought about by them supported. The Government had endeavoured to pursue in the internal affairs of China a policy of strict neutrality and non-intervention; but it was exceedingly difficult to pursue this policy when dealing with such a country as China, and with two parties like the Imperialists and the Taepings. If those two parties contending for empire were parties either of whom could establish and maintain a settled and responsible Government, there would be no great difficulty—indeed, none at all—in carrying out such a policy. They would be bound to allow the strongest party to establish a Government, and, when they had established it, to recognise and open relations with them. They would then have a right to expect that the party in power would observe treaty obligations. But that was not the case in China. In dealing with the Taepings had they a party either capable or desirous of forming a strong Government? He believed—notwithstanding the statements of his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Aberdeen—that they had not. All the information received from the agents of Her Majesty's Government in China went to show that the Taepings had no defined policy, and that they were utterly unable to organize any adequate system of administration. Their followers were a rabble rout of marauders and plunderers. There had been at one time an idea that the Taepings would establish the Christian religion in China, and that, actuated by motives of patriotism, they were desirous of setting up a native dynasty, and expelling the Tartar race that had conquered the Chinese people, and established its rule in China. That delusion had, he believed, entirely disappeared, except from the mind of his hon. and gallant Friend. He thought the Taepings were fortunate in having so persevering an advocate, but he could not congratulate his hon. and gallant Friend on his clients. As regarded their pretension to Christianity, what was it? True, as was stated by his hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster, one or two of the chiefs had been brought up by Protestant missionaries; but that had not prevented a denunciation of missionaries. A most interesting letter had been pub-
  1808
  lished in the Wesleyan Messenger by Mr. Cox, in which that gentleman described his journey to Nankin, and the interview he had had with one of those chiefs. There he found a missionary, Mr. Roberts, who appears to have been no better treated than other missionaries. A threat had been pronounced against him that he should lose his head if he taught any doctrine but that of the divine origin of the Taeping king, the "Heavenly Father or King," as he was called. His hon. and gallant Friend looked through papers coming from China for extracts favourable to the Taepings, and generally favoured him with these quotations. In one of these it was perhaps stated that the Heavenly Father of the Taepings ordered that no one should kick his wife while she was pregnant, and this fact was immediately cited as a proof of Christianity; but that was followed by an order that all the chiefs should marry eleven wives before the royal birthday came round again. The second manifesto was, of course, calculated to dispel the hopes raised in the Christian mind by the appearance of the first. At one time it was announced that the Bible had been carried on a pole before the Taepings, but that news was speedily followed by an announcement that they had concocted a Bible of their own. It appeared that the King was only a dreamy enthusiast, who lived surrounded by women in Nankin, holding no intercourse with the outer world, but ruling his subjects with great cruelty and oppression. His army was merely a mob composed of that brigand population which from time immemorial had existed in the Chinese Empire. It was stated that a great part of that army consisted of mere boys, and that atrocious cruelties were committed by them. Were the Chinese themselves with the Taepings? Was it a patriotic movement against the Tartar dynasty? It was not so. According to the best information, not a single Chinese of respectability—not a man of landed property, of literature, or of trade—had joined the rebels. On the contrary, wherever the Taepings appeared, every person of respectability or property moved away before them. They had no regular system of taxation, but merely levied what they could, and, after devastating and impoverishing the country, passed on. The leaders of the rebellion were wofully ignorant. Few of them could read or write, and still fewer were acquainted

  1809
  with the Court or official language of China. All their communications were conducted in a barbarous jargon of their own. He understood that the "Heavenly Father" had framed an alphabet of his own, and Mr. Cox stated that a writer employed by Mr. Roberts to trans late the New Testament having formed a letter in a way not pleasing to the Heavenly Father, that individual ordered the writer's head to be cut off and those of two or three others of his brother scribes. The hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeen had said that they did not plunder. Why, if they did not plunder, the whole movement would come to an end at once. They lived by plunder, and it was only by allowing their followers to do what they liked with the property of the people that the leaders were able to keep them together. Having seized upon a district, they did not attempt to establish themselves permanently or to organize any form of Government; but after a while moved on to some other place, leaving that which they had occupied utterly desolate. The younger part of the population they carried off, compelling them to be soldiers, and the older part they destroyed, men and women alike. Some hon. Gentlemen might have seen a flight of locusts. Early in the morning there arose a sound as of a distant wind. Soon the air became darkened, and the whole earth seemed to move. Then was heard a strange noise, resembling that which would be produced by the grinding of innumerable teeth. On the following morning the cloud rose and passed onwards, but every green thing on the face of the earth was gone. So it was with the Taepings, They passed over a country, and nothing whatever remained, neither city, nor village, nor cultivation. They were told in ancient histories of the havoc committed by the devastating bands of Tartars which passed over Asia and parts of Europe some 800 or 900 years ago; how Tamerlane and other Tartar conquerors had exterminated whole populations; but he confessed that until he read the accounts of what was happening in China in their own day, and under their own eyes, he could not understand the atrocities perpetrated centuries ago. Everybody had heard of the Great Canal of China. Perhaps no part of the world was more beautifully cultivated than the country traversed by that canal. The canal itself was covered with shipping; its banks were studded with numerous
  1810
  towns and great cities, some containing above a million of inhabitants, and the whole country around bloomed like a garden. What was the state of that district at the present moment? Here was the account given by Mr. Forrest, our able Vice Consul, of his approach to Nankin—
  "Words cannot convey any idea of the utter ruin and desolation which mark the line of Taeping march from Nankin to Soochow. The country around the last unfortunate city will soon be covered with jungle, while the vast suburbs, once the wonder of even foreigners, are utterly destroyed; a few miserable beings are met with outside the gates selling bean curd and herbs, but with these exceptions none of the original inhabitants are to be found, and we actually flushed teal in the city moat, where only a year ago it was barely possible to find a passage, from the immense number of boats actively engaged in commerce and traffic. The interior of the city is equally desolate; the whole of the house-fronts have been torn down, and the numerous watercourses are filled with broken furniture, rotten boats, and ruin. The same may he said of all cities on the canal; and as for the villages and places unprotected by walls, they have been burnt so effectually and carefully that nothing but the blackened walls remain."
  That letter was written on the 28th of March, 1861. Mr. Parkes, writing on the same day, said—
  "The city of Taeping is obliterated. For some time I walked by a high bank without knowing that it was the remains of the city wail. The stone facing of the wall, and the bricks of most of the houses within the city, have been used for the construction of walled camps outside."
  Taeping, in 1853, contained some 40,000 or 50,000 inhabitants. The people of these district, according to Mr. Bruce, showed an unparalleled and almost incredible industry. The great city of Soochow within a few weeks was reduced from 1,000,000 to 130,000 inhabitants. Another was reduced from nearly 1,000,000 to 40,000 inhabitants, while the population of a third was entirely extirpated. Mr. Alabaster, an interpreter attached to our mission in China, describing an interview with the rebel chiefs at Chafu, wrote as follows:—
  "A new crucifix was leaning against the wall; there was an evident attempt to inspire awe and respect on all beholders, but the universal coolie look, the want of intelligence even in the higher ranks, and the utter inability of the highest to write more than (that with great difficulty) their names, must have utterly failed to excite any feeling, unless fear, and, as it did with us, disgust. We were impressed with the energy with which a portion of the wall was being repaired, and the manner in which they had staked the ground surrounding the wall; but, the long walk through the burnt and plundered suburbs; the fearful dogs and gaunt cats, stalking about, frightened from the bodies,

  1811
  still lying here and there, by our approach; the titter desertion of the country, as far as we could see; the contrast between what the place had been and what it was then, made every one echo heartily the answer of our greatest rebel admirer when asked, on returning, whether he was disenchanted—'Quite.' He could no longer admire the horde of savages who seemed ruining the country that they might prey on its destruction."
  He had already informed the House of the condition of Nankin. Only that morning he was talking to Mr. Consul Parkes, a gentleman whose name was not unknown to the House, and whose energy, whose ability, and whose bravery had been an, honour to the English name in China. Mr. Parkes informed him that in an expedition up the Yang-tze-kiang he arrived at a city, called Hang-kow, so admirably situated and so crowded with people that he at once concluded that it was the best position which could be selected for consular and trading establishments. He remained there four or five days, when suddenly one morning news came that the Taepings were advancing. Within a few hours the population of the city, computed by M. Huc a few years ago at 8,000,000, by our missionaries at 3,000,000, and by Mr. Parkes himself at 1,000,000, had migrated, and the city was left a perfect desert. The people rushed in multitudes to the boats; some were trampled to death; some fell into the river, and were drowned; others committed suicide; but all had disappeared before nightfall, so great was the terror inspired by the Taepings. Fortunately, through the intervention of one of our agents, the Taepings did not advance to the city, but returned whence they came. The inhabitants once more occupied their homes, and they had since been our best customers on the Yang-tze-kiang. That great river had been ascended 700 miles by English steamers. It opened into a vast lake district, and the whole country abounded in every kind of produce. All that tract had now been opened to us, and, according to the last accounts, was affording an amount of trade which the most sanguine could not have anticipated only a short time ago. If the Taepings were to take possession of it, the whole of that district would be reduced to a desert. The hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeen (Colonel Sykes) had condemned the Tartar dynasty. He was not there to defend the Tartar dynasty, which had doubtless been guilty of many crimes; but even that dynasty furnished a remarkable contrast to the
  1812
  Taepings. Wherever the Imperialists had occupied a territory previously held by the Taepings, a great change for the better had immediately taken place. Even the missionaries, who might be called the last adherents of the Taepings, had given them up. He had seen letters to the same effect from missionaries of the Church of England and of Baptist and other denominations. His hon. and gallant Friend had said that at Ningpo the state of things was different, and that, whatever atrocities might have been committed elsewhere, none had there taken place. In the first place, Ningpo had been almost deserted, but of the few inhabitants who did remain, many, according to later accounts, had been massacred. An English clergyman (Mr. Russell), who had previously imagined the Taepings to be a well-behaved and respectable people, and whose evidence would accordingly be accepted as impartial, went up to Ningpo for the purpose of communicating with them. On the 11th of December last he wrote as follows;—
  "Since the capture of Ningpo by these: extraordinary men, the first time I had been brought into personal contact with them, I have to confess that my views, hitherto ever oscillating for and against them, according to the varying rumours which have reached me from time to time, are now assuming a most unfavourable character. If the men now at Ningpo are a fair specimen of what they are elsewhere, the whole movement I must regard as one of the most hopeless imaginable for all purposes but the work of desolation and destruction. I have already had interviews with representatives of all classes among them; and, had I not heard them and seen them myself, I could hardly have been persuaded by others that such bad, unprincipled, and uncivilized beings could be found among the generally quiet and naturally respectable Chinese.'
  That he took to be as strong and impartial testimony as could well be produced to the House. Now, what hopes were they justified in entertaining with regard to the Imperialists? Within a very short time a great change had taken place; a coup d'é tat had been effected which led to a change of Ministers, and produced what might fairly be called a Ministerial crisis, because the Ministry that went out of office went, as was usual, out of the world at the same time; they were either strangled or despatched themselves as soon as they received the order. Prince Kung and the two Empresses had called together a new Ministry and had inaugurated a new policy; for the first time a Chinese Government had admitted the rights of foreigners, and consented to treat with

  1813
  them as equals. Of course, he could not say how far the promises held out by the new Ministry would be performed, but the British Minister on the spot wrote as if he believed that a great change had taken place. There was no greater mistake than to suppose that the people of China, on the whole, were unfavourable to foreigners. The evidence of those who had travelled in China confuted the supposition. Any one who read Mr. Fortune's interesting works would find that in many parts of China to which Europeans had not previously penetrated he was received with great kindness. It was perfectly true that at many of the ports the Chinese did regard foreigners with disfavour, but the reason, wherever the true reason could be traced out, was that the Europeans with whom they had to deal belonged to so bad and disreputable a class, that there was no difficulty in accounting for the antipathy with which they were viewed. The House saw, then, on the one hand, how easily the Chinese people were to be governed, how well inclined they were towards commerce, and how industriously they themselves were disposed; they saw, on the other hand, a rebellion set on foot by bands of marauders and plunderers, bent only on destruction and desolation. The great emporium of British commerce was threatened; were we to stand with folded arms and look on while it was destroyed? The question was not one of neutrality and non-intervention. There could be no neutrality or non-intervention where the parties consisted simply of the murderer and his victim. Putting aside the consideration of our rights, the question resolved itself into one almost of humanity.
  Were hon. Members aware of the enormous increase which had taken place in our trade with Shanghai? It had risen from £24,000,000in 1858 to £29,105,000 in 1860; and by the last returns the exports and imports of that single port, had risen above £30,000,000. His hon. Friend was entirely in error in stating that the tea and silk embarked at Shanghai came from districts overrun by the Taepings. Shanghai, had become a great port for the reception of the trade down the Yang-tze-kiang, and most fortunately the upper parts of that district had hitherto escaped the ravages of the Taepings. It was said that in order to maintain neutrality a distinction should be drawn between the city and the settlement of Shanghai. But these had so penetrated each other
  1814
  that it would be difficult to make a division; and if the city were destroyed, what would be the use of the settlement? They had gone to China for purposes of trade, not of colonization, and if they allowed the great cities to be destroyed, what would become of their trade? It was proposed some time ago that the Imperialists should pledge themselves not to make the treaty ports a basis of operations, and that the Taepings should be called on to respect the treaty ports. But to that the Taepings would not agree, and by the latest accounts they were determined to destroy Shanghai. According to that morning's advices, a large body had advanced to a point within five miles of Shanghai, but a single discharge of French cannon sent the whole party flying. Were these people to be allowed to destroy that great city, and to annihilate a vast English trade, when almost by holding up their little fingers they could preserve it? The Taepings advanced on Shanghai in 1860, but the appearance of a few marines on the walls frightened them away. Would it not he criminal in the House, under these circumstances, to neglect the sacred interests of British property and British life? He was happy to say that the Government had not been neglectful. Instructions had gone out to defend Shanghai against all risk, and he was still more happy to say that he believed the Admiral, with the aid of a few British troops, would be amply prepared to defend the city from the horrors of a Taeping occupation. More than that, Her Majesty's Government had determined on defending the other treaty ports to the best of their ability, and orders to that effect had been given. His hon. Friend would, perhaps, say that we were about to engage in another Chinese war, and that for the purpose a great army would be required. No such thing. The operations of the Taepings showed that they had no organized system of warfare; they were not about to institute a well-matured campaign, or to deliver a simultaneous attack on all the treaty ports. Having destroyed one spot, they moved like the locusts to which he had already alluded to another, and, he repeated, it would be criminal on the part of the British Government to permit such destruction of life and property to take place. He trusted his hon. Friend would be satisfied with the assurance he had given him. Her Majesty's Government, he might feel confident, were keenly alive

  1815
  to the important responsibilities devolving on them. A great duty in respect to nonintervention was imposed on a Government, but a still higher duty rested upon it, that of protecting from danger and destruction the property and lives of its subjects.
  MR. WHITEsaid, much misconception and delusion existed respecting the origin and objects of the insurrectionary movement; and if time were afforded, it would be a matter of interest to go into that part of the subject. No one could doubt that the collision of the Imperial authority with the British Government had been a primary cause of the disorganization which was producing such fatal effects. Till then the Chinese Government had rested on public opinion; but when the population of the south saw that their mighty empire was crumpling up on coming into collision with Occidental civilization, the prestige of the Government departed. He remembered that in 1849 the whole coast of China was ravaged by pirates, and their enormities arrived at such a pitch that the British Government was obliged to interfere. We pursued them and destroyed their junks. Many of the crews, who were good gunners, then went into the interior, and formed the nucleus of the rebellion which had assumed such proportions. It was not a little singular that nothing did more to damage the Chinese Government than the Canton raid of 1847, when our ships rushed up the Canton river and spiked 127 guns, and the capital was placed at our mercy. Shortly after that event the originator of the rebellion first became a Christian inquirer. Struck with the feats of the English sailors, he went to Mr. Roberts and inquired about the foreign Scriptures of a people that could do such deeds. He afterwards became a seer of visions and a dreamer of dreams, till he ultimately became the founder of this mighty insurrectionary movement. He (Mr. White) had some acquaintance with gentlemen who had inquired into the character of the Taepings, and a relative of his had visited their camp. He gathered that the Christian principles they professed amounted to nothing more than a high appreciation of Colt's revolvers in comparison with the native match-locks, and that they much preferred cherry brandy to the native sam-chow. The rebellion, taking its rise in the provinces, proceeded northward, and, striking upon the great river Yang-tze-kiang, approached,
  1816
  and in 1853 took possession of Nankin, which was the finest military position of China, and from which the Government had been unable to expel them. Latterly there had been a fresh outbreak. They had captured Ningpo, which was one of the treaty ports; and he (Mr. White) could not help thinking, that if the Government had any intention of expelling them from that city, they would do well to make that intention known; a mere announcement to that effect would be of the greatest importance. With regard to Shanghai, having been one of the first to settle there, he was confident, from his knowledge of the appliances and means placed at the disposal of the British Community by Government, that not the slightest apprehension need be entertained for its defence. He did not approve of our past Chinese policy, but he would not adopt a tone of captious criticism or censorious remark. To do so would be odious and ungracious to officials placed in a country so remote and in circumstances of a most difficult nature; but he must regret that the principle of non-intervention, of which they had heard so much, had not been more rigidly observed in this internecine war. Our plenipotentiary used as an argument in his communication with Prince Kung that we had driven the rebels from Shanghai. A Chinese collectorate had been established there, and an arrangement had been made by which it had been placed under the direction of Europeans, many of whom had left the employment of the British Government. When the Taepings saw those indications of our connection with the Chinese Government, they had some right to complain of interference. As had been pointed out, the Imperial Government had not complied with the 18th Article of the Treaty of Pekin, which stipulated that the Chinese Government should defend the lives and property of our merchants in that empire. But the whole funds of the collectorate, except what was required for the establishment and the indemnity, were sent up to Pekin, and absolutely nothing was done for the defence of British lives and property. None complained more of this than the subordinate class of Chinese officials. The claims of the provincial establishments were overlooked, and the Chinese agents there were obliged to impose on British commerce double duties, and there was consequently a great augmentation of the duties now levied. In the regulations re-

  1817
  cently issued for carrying on the trade in the Yang-tze-kiang Europeans were forbidden to have any intercourse with the Taepings, and a vessel from England to Nankin would he compelled to call at Shanghai or some other port to pay duty to the Imperial Government; and on its arrival at Nankin the cargo would have to pay duty again. But the Government had not gone far enough. He could understand the policy of rigid non-intervention; he could also understand the policy of active intervention; but the Government had pursued neither the one nor the other Under these circumstances it became a question of great importance to inquire what was to be done. No one would advocate a policy that would lead to war; and he would urge most strongly that instructions should be given to the agents of the Government that the policy of non-intervention should be most rigidly observed China was so vast, and afforded such facilities for exportation that the receipts of" tea and silk would not in any way be interfered with by the continuance of this struggle. He was anxious that the Government should impose upon its agents a policy of non-intervention, but he thought that the hour had arrived when a friendly intervention might produce a settlement of that dreadful intestine struggle. Whilst concurring in the opinions that had been expressed of the Taepings, he would say that we could not shut our eyes to the fact that for nine years they had been the possessors of Nankin. A Government did not exist so long in Europe before it was acknowledged. In the interest of humanity it might not be unwise if we were to come to some arrangement with the Taepings, who had such a wholesome fear of us, Their chiefs had been the body servants, grooms, and attendants of Europeans, and they had the sagacity to see that if they came into conflict with us, their power would be shattered. He had received a letter from a gentleman who formerly sat on the Opposition side of the House, and now held a judicial position in China. He visited Nankin four months ago, and saw one of the principal chiefs there. He had had an interview with the real ruler of the rebels, and had strongly urged him to adopt the European mode of warfare. On his part the rebel chief stated that he had twenty millions of people under him; complained that while professing neutrality, England constantly took part with the Imperialists, and suggested that the British
  1818
  Government should support a scheme by which the country should be divided between the Taepings and the Imperialists. For himself he thought there was wisdom in the suggestion, having a better opinion of the rebels than some hon. Gentlemen; and he did not believe that if they did take Shanghai, any ill consequences would result to the British residents. He could fully confirm what had been said respecting the beauty of the interior of the country and. the marvellous industry of the people, having passed through it along the Grand Canal. To those who desired to be vividly and truthfully informed of those particular districts where the disturbances are now going on, he would recommend the perusal of Mr. Wingrove Cooke's very interesting book, China in 1857 and 1858. In conclusion he would once more strongly advise the Government to endeavour to promote peace between the contending parties.
  MR. BUCHANANsaid, it was very gratifying to him to hear the statement of the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, that measures were to be taken for the protection of British subjects in China. He wished, however, to remind the Government that Shanghai was not the only spot at which that protection ought to be afforded. The fact was that foreigners were better able to protect themselves at Shanghai than at any of the other centres of commerce in China; and it was at the remote points that the life and property of Europeans were most endangered.
  MR. MARSHsaid, that as the House had heard so much of the atrocities of the Taepings, it would not be out of place for him to relate what had happened to the Chinese in Australia. A few years ago the ruling power in that country, the working classes, became alarmed lest their exorbitant wages should be reduced by the immigration of the Chinese. Many vile accusations were got up against them, but as far as he could ascertain they were without foundation. The absence of women among the Chinese emigrants was an incident which belonged to all gold-diggers, whether Germans, French, or even Britons. A Bill was introduced into the Cololian Parliament to expel the Chinese from the country; but after careful inquiry a Committee of the Upper Chamber reported in favour of the Chinese, and the measure was dropped. He had had a great many of those people in his employ-

  1819
  merit, and could bear testimony from experience to their frugality, industry, and freedom from all vices, save gambling and opium-smoking. At one of the diggings, a dastardly and brutal attack was lately made oft the Chinese. ["Question!"] He was speaking to the question. If they wished the Chinese to do justice to them, they must first see that they did justice to the Chinese. Some of the Australian clergy had issued an address, commending the Chinese to the goodwill of the English, and he hoped that the ill-treatment to which they had been subjected would not be repeated.
  MR. GREGSONsaid, in reply, that he had experienced much gratification at hearing the statement of the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and he would not press his Motion to a division.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

THAMES EMBANKMENT (NORTH SIDE) BILL.—LEAVE.—FIRST READING.
MR. COWPERsaid, he rose to move for leave to bring in a Bill to provide for the Embankment of the Thames. One of the most urgent wants of the metropolis was the want of a free passage along the great thoroughfare which united the east and west of London. Along that important line of communication there was such a constant flux and reflux of traffic between the City and the West End that at certain hours it was almost impassable. Ludgate Hill, Fleet Street, and the Strand did not serve the purpose for which they were intended, whilst the great value of the property in those streets rendered it impracticable to widen them. With the construction of another thoroughfare from east to west it was proposed to combine the laying down of the low-level sewer, so as to obviate the necessity of raising the pavement of Fleet Street and the Strand and endangering the houses by loosening their foundations. A third object might be attained at the same time with the two he had mentioned—the improvement of the navigation of the River Thames; and a fourth advantage would be the embellishment of the shores of the river and the formation of a handsome and healthful promenade for the public. One might have expected that London would have taken a pride in the river which formed one of its noblest features, and to which it owed in a great measure its prosperity
1820
and supremacy over other cities. But, on the contrary, it had been neglected and abused. Paris made the most of the Seine; St. Petersburg did not neglect the Neva; Stockholm, Florence, and other foreign cities had greatly improved their rivers. Even the Liffey, which was not to be compared in grandeur with the Thames, had been adorned with a beautiful line of quays. But the people of London used their magnificent river as a common sewer, and had got no further than to talk about its improvement. The discussion about the matter had lasted for about 200 years. The first step towards embanking the Thames was taken by one of his most illustrious predecessors. After the Great Fire, Sir Christopher Wren, in drawing up those plans for the rebuilding of London, which would have rendered it a really handsome and symmetrical city, proposed a quay from London Bridge to the Temple. An Act was passed sanctioning the work, but only a portion of it was completed. In 1767 the Corporation of London obtained powers to make the Embankment, about half a mile of which was constructed, and it was then stopped. There had been partial embankments, such as that of the Adelphi; but those had only done more harm than good by aggravating the irregularities of the river. What was wanted was an uniform and complete plan. In 1824 Sir Frederick Trench agitated the question. He assembled a number of the most eminent authorities in art and science on a barge moored off Scotland Yard, with the Duke of York in the chair, who adopted a scheme for an embankment between London and Westminster Bridges. In 1825 Sir Frederick Trench brought a Bill for that purpose into Parliament. That Bill was opposed by those who, taking a short-sighted view of their own interests, believed they would be injured by it. Sir Frederick Trench injudiciously thought it would be well to attempt to conciliate the opposition of the occupants and owners of property on the banks of the river, and for that purpose he consented to curtail his plan. At first, instead of carrying it to Westminster Bridge, he made it stop short at Whitehall Stairs. Being then met by new objections, he agreed to stop short at Scotland Yard. That concession had the effect of calling forth fresh objections, in deference to which he consented to stop at Craven Street. These conces-

1821
sions only induced the inhabitants along the remainder of the line to combine their resistance, and they said, "If this work is not to be carried out in front of the property of persons of great wealth and station, why should it be carried out in front of ours?" and in consequence of these and other reasons Sir Frederick Trench had to abandon his Bill. Nothing more was done till the year 1844, when a Royal Commission took up the subject. That Commission was presided over by the Duke of Newcastle, and after hearing a great deal of valuable engineering evidence, they reported that it was desirable the river should be embanked between London Bridge and Vauxhall Bridge, and recommended, as the most pressing part of the work, that the section between Blackfriars and Westminster should be first proceeded with, and a Bill was introduced in 1845, but did not become law. In 1860 the subject was again renewed in that House, and a Committee appointed to inquire into it. They recommended, as the previous Commission had done, the Embankment of the River between Blackfriars Bridge and Westminster Bridge, and suggested that the Coal Duties would form a proper source from which to defray the expense. That Committee did not consider themselves competent to choose among various plans. Last year a Royal Commission went very fully into a large number of plans submitted to them by the most eminent engineers. They recommended not only an embankment generally, but the specific plan to which the Bill now about to be introduced was intended to give effect. That plan, he thought there could be no doubt, was the best yet devised. The subject had been so thoroughly investigated that almost every engineer of distinction had had an opportunity of giving his opinion and making suggestions upon it, and the plan now proposed had the sanction of a Commission, comprising not only very able scientific men and eminent engineers, but also thorough men of business. The main advantage it possessed over most of those previously suggested was, that it did not attempt to maintain the wharves. Almost all the former plans were only ingenious modes of combining access to a wharf with a roadway—a difficulty which no engineering skill could satisfactorily overcome. The last commission, therefore, thought it better to buy up the wharves and abolish them altogether, and
1822
then make a solid embankment with an ordinary roadway. No public inconvenience would arise from that arrangement, because the former necessity for those wharves in the neighbourhood of Scotland Yard, which were principally coal wharves, had been superseded by the facilities afforded at railway stations; and in the docks there were means for transferring cargoes from colliers into railway trucks, and conveying seaborne coals to the north and west of London. In fact, any establishment of wharves in the immediate vicinity of Charing Cross, the Strand, and Whitehall, was obviously a great inconvenience; and the general utility of those thoroughfares would be increased by their removal. In point of economy, too, it would be better to give the owners of the wharves the whole value of their property; rather than compensate them first for the injury done them during the progress of the works, and secondly for the ultimate detriment to their wharves after the works were completed. Another feature of the plan was the formation of a thoroughfare from Blackfriars Bridge to the Mansion House; because a mere roadway along an embankment, as far as Blackfriars Bridge, would not supply that great desideratum, a complete thoroughfare from the West End and Charing Cross to the Mansion House, the centre of traffic. It was originally proposed that the embankment should proceed further east than Blackfriars Bridge; but the river was very narrow between London Bridge and Southwark, and any encroachment upon it in that part might be injurious to the navigation. And as to the space between Southwark Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge, the narrowness of the river and the great value of the wharf property would render the advantages of embankment quite incommensurate with the expense. Therefore the plan he proposed consisted of a roadway, commencing from Westminster Bridge, passing along the banks of the river until it reached Blackfriars Bridge, then proceeding with a street of seventy feet in width across Thames Street and Cannon Street, and reaching that great centre of the City which was surrounded by the Mansion House, the Bank, and the Royal Exchange. The funds from which the work was to be executed were those which were appropriated to the special purpose by an Act of last Session. The London Coal and Wine Duties Continuance Act provided that the

1823
coal duties should be applied in the first place to the Thames embankment, and afterwards to any other public improvements that might appear desirable. The whole of the coal duties during the period for which they were continued by the Act of last year—namely, ten years, would be required for the former object. It was the opinion of the House last year that those duties could hardly be better employed than in providing for that great thoroughfare and the embankment of the Thames; and, among the many great metropolitan improvements effected by means of the coal duties, none, he thought, would be more appreciated than the subject of the Bill he wished to introduce. He proposed that the execution of the Act should be confided to the Metropolitan Board of Works—a body created by the Legislature for the discharge of duties of a similar nature. The main drainage of the metropolis was very analogous to the formation of the proposed embankment, and the opening of the proposed street. It was said the Metropolitan Board of Works was too much occupied by the business it already had to do, and that it was too large a body to perform executive work of this importance. But, to guard against that objection, the Bill would provide that the executive works thrown upon them by the measure should not be carried out by the whole Board, consisting of forty Members, but by a Committee to be elected by the Board itself for that special purpose. The Committee would be composed of nine Members, two of whom would be selected from the gentlemen who represented the City of London in the Board; because, as a large portion of the work would pass through the City, it would be right that the interests of the City should be represented in the Committee, as they were now in the Board itself. It had always been thought desirable that the embankment should extend, not merely between Blackfriars Bridge and Westminster Bridge, as proposed by the present Bill, but should extend as far as Vauxhall Bridge or even Battersea Bridge. Now, if his Bill were carried out, there would remain unembanked only that small space. between Westminster Bridge and the end of Millbank Street, near the Penitentiary. They might hope, in a few years, to see that part of the work also completed, in which case there would be seen from Blackfriars Bridge to Chelsea Bridge—a distance of about four miles—
1824
as splendid a quay as could be found in any city in the world. The Thames would become visible in its majestic course from terrace to terrace, fringed by such buildings as the Houses of Parliament, Somerset House, and the fine churches and steeples of Sir Christopher Wren. That four miles' promenade and drive would furnish recreation and admiration. At present it was not proposed to deal with the southern side of the river. A Commission was sitting which had heard a great deal of evidence, and until it had reported any decision would be premature. Among the advantages which would be derived from the embankment now proposed, considerable spaces of grass and trees would be thrown open to the dense population of the neighbourhood, and here they might breathe fresh air, for he hoped that the river would then be free from sewage, and that the people would obtain enjoyment and healthy recreation from disporting themselves on the bank of a clear river. At some points it was intended to let the land on building leases, and he hoped that at those spots handsome terraces and streets would arise which would be an ornament to the banks of the river. The powers contemplated by the Bill would be committed to the Metropolitan Board, without any control or interference. The coal dues were at present in the hands of the Treasury, and the Bill would empower the Treasury to pay the money to the Board, who, however, would be left free and unfettered in executing the purposes of the Act. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving—
"For leave to bring in a Bill for embanking the north side of the river Thames from Westminster Bridge, and for making new streets in and near thereto, and from Blackfriars Bridge to the Mansion House."
MR. AYRTONsaid, he rose on a point of order. The Bill which it was proposed to introduce was for the regulation or appropriation of a public tax levied under the Act of the last Session, and it was unusual to introduce such a Bill except in a Committee of the whole House. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to have forgotten the precedent to which he lately submitted when he proposed to appropriate a tax for the purpose of making a road in Kensington Gardens. That road was to have been made with funds taken from the Coal and Wine Duties, and he (Mr. Ayrton) had pointed out to the right hon. Gentleman that it ought to be introduced

1825
in Committee. The right hon. Gentleman accordingly made the usual Motion that the House should resolve itself into a Committee for the purpose of considering the Act, and it would be a dangerous precedent if that course were departed from in the present instance. The Coal Tax was in point of fact a public tax, and ought not to be treated in a local Bill. Again, it was extraordinary that the right hon. Gentleman should have given no estimate, and not said a word about the sum he wanted to complete these works.
MR. COWPERsaid, that the view he took of the proposition in the Bill was that it did not impose any charge upon the public in regard to rates or duties, and consequently he thought he should be departing from all precedent if he had asked to introduce the Bill in Committee. No doubt it did appropriate rates and duties already granted, but he had never heard that the mere appropriation of a charge already created ought to be introduced in a Committee of the whole House. As to the Bill for making a road through Kensington Gardens, if it had been carried into effect it would have indirectly imposed a charge upon the public. As to that part of the Bill which sought to amend the Coal and Wine Duties Act, his proposal was that, whereas at present the Bank of England was only required to keep one account, it should in future be required to keep two accounts of the fund—one a cash account, and the other a stock account.
SIR JOHN SHELLEYexpressed an opinion that the usage of Parliament required that the Bill should be introduced in Committee.
LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, it was impossible to estimate the effect of words which were introduced for the first time into the Motion as it was put into the Speaker's hands. As he caught them, they referred to the appropriation of public money, and it might be that the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets was right. He should have the greatest possible pleasure in supporting the Bill, because, as he understood, the creation and management of that great metropolitan improvement were to be handed over to the Metropolitan Board of Works. At present he reserved his opinion on the details; but, as he had caught an allusion to some suitable public buildings which were to recreate the eyes of the Londoners, he
1826
might express a hope that neither the noble Lord at the head of the Government nor the right hon. Gentleman would have anything to do with them.
MR. SPEAKER: The question is, whether or not any new burden is to be laid upon the people by the proposed Bill of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman states that no new burden is laid on by the Bill. It is merely for the appropriation of a sum already voted. The Amendment added with respect to the London Wine and Coal Duties Act has nothing whatever to do, as I understand, with the question of taxation, but merely has reference to some alteration respecting the mode of keeping the accounts. Under these circumstances, it does not appear to me that there is anything informal in the Motion which the right hon. Gentleman has made.
MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, he could not but express his regret that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cowper) had not included the south side of the Thames in his Bill. He should be glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman whether there was any prospect of the southern embankment being carried out, at an early period. It was a matter of great importance to the comfort of the inhabitants in that district, as they were constantly inundated, and would suffer greater inconvenience if the north side only was embanked.
MR. LOCKEsaid, he thought some consideration ought to be extended to the inhabitants of the south bank, and he should like to have some assurance as to whether the embankment on the north side was to be made with reference to the prospective embankment on the south side. As to the embankment from Millbank Street to Westminster Bridge, he wished to know whether it would be in front of the Houses of Parliament, and how access was proposed, seeing that there was no space for a street between the end of the clock-tower and the bridge. He approved a solid embankment, because the openings for barges would lead to a great accumulation of filth and mud, and he therefore condemned the proposal to have openings in that part east of the Temple Gardens, merely for the convenience of the City Gas Company. Those works might have been removed but for an Act which passed two years ago, and even now it would be worth considering whether some of the money from the coal duties should not be applied to get rid of them. He hoped that plans of the works would be

1827
exhibited for the inspection of hon. Members.
MR. BRADYsaid, he could not but express his surprise at the tone in which the metropolitan Members had treated the question, for without a grand opening of that sort along the river-side London never would be what it ought to be. The mere removal of stoppages would in a few years give an advantage to the mercantile community of London that would quite compensate any new taxation that might be involved; but, in point of fact, no new taxation would be involved. So far from any improvement of the north side impeding that of the south, he believed that if the improvement of the north was carried out, the improvement of the south must follow. He cordially approved of the proposal of Government.
MR. COXsaid, he agreed that it would be desirable that the House should have the plans of the embankment before it previous to the second reading. He wished to call attention to the injury which would be inflicted upon persons occupying premises and engaged in trade along the river side by the proposed embankment. Those persons must remove to a distance, and have carts and waggons running from their yards to the side of the river. He should also like to have some further explanation of the use of the new road from the embankment by Earl Street to the Mansion House. He was of opinion that it would be utterly useless in removing the real press of traffic. If the improvement were carried out as proposed, it would be necessary to renew the coal tax for another ten years beyond those proposed by the Bill; and, as regarded the southern side, he was afraid that it would be little better than a nuisance, and would produce a constant overflow on that side of the water. He should be glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman what effect it was expected the embankment would have on the foundations of London Bridge.
MR. CONINGHAMobserved, that he conceived the proposed embankment would prove to be one of the most important metropolitan improvements which had ever been proposed, and he was surprised that the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets should persevere in making war on all the schemes suggested for the improvement of London. The matter was one which regarded the whole country, in a certain sense; for it was not only the inhabitants of London who paid the coal tax, but every-
1828
body who came into London and helped to burn coals there had a share in it. As the representative of London-super-Mare, he should give his best assistance to pass the Bill.
MR. KINNAIRDthanked the President of the Board of Works for the very excellent metropolitan improvement which he had proposed.
Leave given.
Bill for Embanking the North Side of the River Thames from Westminster Bridge, and for making new Streets in and near thereto, and from Blackfriars Bridge to the Mansion House, and for amending the London Coal and Wine Duties Continuance Act, 1861, ordered to be brought in by Mr. COWPER and Mr. PEEL.
Bill presented and read 1o.

INNS OF COURT GOVERNMENT BILL.

  LEAVE. FIRST READING.
  SIR GEORGE BOWYER, in rising to ask for leave to bring in a Bill for the better Government of the Inns of Court, said that at that late period of the night he would not occupy the time of the House by explaining at length the object of the measure, but would reserve his detailed statement until the second reading, which would be put off until the members of the Bar had returned from their circuits. He would, however, briefly state the evils of the present system under which the Inns of Court were governed. There were four Inns of Court—Lincoln's Inn, the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, and Gray's Inn—and these were governed by committees composed of benchers, who were entirely self-elected. It was a custom to elect Queen's Counsel benchers; but it was not an invariable custom, the benchers having the most perfect freedom to elect whom they pleased. These benchers also conducted their proceedings in entire privacy, and gave no account of their administration to any members of the Inn. The property of the four Inns amounted to something like £50,000 a year, which arose principally from rents and the payments of Members. These Inns consisted of an intelligent and highly-educated body of men, and what he proposed was that they should have some share in the management of their property and affairs. That was in accordance with the principles of the constitution of the country, as well as with common sense and fairness. He proposed to respect

  1829
  existing interests, and not to displace the present benchers, but he would gradually introduce the elective principle into the constitution of the Bench. He proposed that the majority of the benchers should be elected by the Bar of each Inn, and that the remaining portion should be elected by the benchers themselves. The benchers had now the power of disbarring barristers, and of dealing with cases of misconduct on their part. In each Inn the benchers exercised that power independently and separately, but there was an appeal to the judges as visitors. There was, however, one great defect in regard to the powers of the present tribunal—that the benchers had no power to summon witnesses or to compel the production of documents, or to administer an oath; and on the second reading be should be prepared to show cases in which justice had probably not been done in consequence of that state of things. One cardinal point in the administration of justice in this country was publicity; but the benchers formed secret tribunals, although their decisions, both as regarded barristers and students for the Bar, were often attended by serious and grave results. One of his propositions was that the bench of each Inn of Court should elect three members, and that the twelve so elected should constitute a court of discipline to take cognizance of the cases to which he referred. That court would hold its sittings in public, and have all the powers which a court of record had of administering an oath, of compelling the attendance of witnesses and the production of documents, and of punishing for contempt. There would still be an appeal to the judges as visitors, and the judges, instead of sitting as they now did in private, would sit in public.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That leave be given to bring in a Bill for the better Government of the Inns of Court, and for the Discipline of the Bar."
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he was not disposed to quarrel with the statement of the hon. and learned Member as to the present constitution of the Bench. The hon. and learned Member, of course, did not mean to insinuate that the benchers did not in the administration of the funds act for the real benefit of the Inns. [Sir GEORGE BOWYER: Hear.] In that respect the conduct of the authorities in question had been beyond reproach. Un-
  1830
  der the circumstances which the hon. and learned Baronet had stated, he thought it would be better that any discussion on the measure should be postponed. He should not object to the introduction of the Bill, but he must not be taken to admit the existence of any evils in the existing constitution of the Inns of Court, or any need of Parliamentary interference.
  MR. BOVILLsaid, he would offer no opposition to the introduction of the Bill; but, at the same time, he must beg leave to be understood as not assenting to the necessity for it. The subject had been frequently inquired into, and upon the last inquiry in 1855 the Royal Commissioners had been satisfied upon every point. The Commissioners, including such men as Sir W. P. Wood, Sir J. T. Coleridge, Sir A. Cockburn, and others, reported that they found no trace of any misapplication of funds, but they did find many instances of disinterestedness and public spirit on the part of the benchers in not enforcing the payment of fees. For the administration of the funds it would be impossible to select a more efficient body than the present benchers, who comprised some of the most eminent names in our legal annals. With respect to the investigations of those bodies into the conduct of members of the Bar, it was true that they were conducted in private; but in what other way could an inquiry be conducted in which the moral conduct of members of the Bar was in question, without inflicting serious injury upon the persons accused?
  Leave given.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir GEORGE BOWYER, Mr. WILLIAM EWART, and Mr. HENNESSY.
  Bill presented and read 1o,

COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS (IRELAND) BILL.—LEAVE.—FIRST READING.
SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, he wished to move for leave to introduce a Bill to define the powers of the President and Fellows of the King and Queen's College of Physicians in Ireland with respect to the election of Fellows. He need only state at that late hour that it was desirable to place the Irish College upon the same footing as the English and Scotch Colleges, which could receive Fellows from any University, whether home or foreign; whereas at present the King and Queen's College of Ireland was restricted to per-

1831
sons who had graduated at Oxford, Cambridge, or Dublin.
MR. WHITESIDEasked, if the Bill was brought in after communicating with the heads of colleges in Ireland.
SIR ROBERT PEELwas understood to reply in the affirmative.
Leave given.
Bill to define the Powers of the President and Fellows of the King and Queen's College of Physicians, in Ireland, with respect to the Election of its Fellows, ordered to be brought in by Sir ROBERT PEEL and Sir GEORGE GRET.
Bill presented and read 1o.

BASTARDY (IRELAND) BILL.

  LEAVE. FIRST READING.
  SIB ROBERT PEELsaid, that he then rose to move for leave to bring in a Bill to render putative fathers of bastard children in Ireland liable for their maintenance. Last year the Committee on the Poor Law recommended that some measure of the kind should be passed for Ireland, as these children were now maintained at the expense of the poor rates. The Committee recommended that the board of guardians should sue putative fathers for the recovery of the money expended in the maintenance of the children. It was, however, the opinion of the Poor Law Commissioners that it would be better to assimilate the law of the two countries, instead of reverting to a law which had been abandoned in England after ten years' experience.
  Leave given.
  Bill to render Putative Fathers of Bastard Children, in Ireland, liable for their maintenance, ordered to be brought in by Sir ROBERT PEEL and Mr. CLIVE.
  Bill presented and read 1o.

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND).—LEAVE.
THE LORD ADVOCATE, in rising to move for leave to bring in a Bill to make further provision for the education of people in Scotland said, that at that late hour (twenty minutes past twelve o'clock) he would confine himself to a brief statement of the general principles of the measure. There had long been a feeling in the North that the Privy Council system, however necessary for England, was in many respects unsuitable for Scotland. The measure
1832
passed last year for the latter country was as successful as its warmest friends could desire, and what he had now to propose, was an extension of the old national education of Scotland, on a system commensurate with the wants of the country. The first object of his measure was to ascertain what schools were required on the basis of the national system, and the next was to provide for the maintenance of these schools, at the same time withdrawing Government aid from any schools except those so established. As matters were, it often happened that two schools, both receiving Government assistance, stood side by side, and each merely withdrew scholars from the other, while at the other end of an extensive parish there might be no school at all. The result was that they got no adequate return for the public money expended on education. He proposed to nominate a commission composed of the leading officials of the Universities, sixteen in number, with four names added by the Crown, making twenty in all. These commissioners would have the power to go over the whole of Scotland, and to decide what schools were necessary, where they ought to be placed, and of what character they should be. The schools established under the Bill would be rural schools and district schools. The rural schools would relate to country parishes, and would be a mere extension of the parochial system. In no part of the Bill did he propose that the burden on the heritors should be greater than the maximum salaries now paid to schoolmasters; in fact, the burden would be in many cases alleviated, for where two schools now existed one would often be sufficient. As he proposed that the Government should pay half the entire expenses of the schools established under the Bill, in cases where only one school was found necessary the heritors would be relieved where two schools now existed from the payment of half the present salaries. The district schools would be established in populous districts (not being Royal burghs) where schools were required. The commissioners would say where these schools should be placed. The sheriff would call a meeting of the rate-payers, and if two-thirds of the rate-payers present at the meeting, and half those who were upon the valuation, objected to the school, it would not be established. If otherwise, the school would he immediately founded. In regard to the Royal burghs, they would have

1833
power to assess themselves to the amount of a halfpenny in the pound, and the Government would contribute a sum proportioned to that raised by the district. The expenditure of that money would be placed under the control of the town-council, because the members, being elected by the inhabitants, were the best judges of what the localities required. The government of the schools, with the exception of parochial schools, would be placed under the University Courts, which should have complete power over the masters. With respect to the Episcopalian and Roman Catholic denominations, it was not proposed to include them necessarily under the Bill; but it was believed that, with certain provisions inserted in the measure, those denominations would not be unwilling to come within its scope. The proportion of Episcopalian and Roman Catholic schools, however, was not large, as would appear from the fact that £80,000 were paid to the Presbyterians, and only £6,000 to the Episcopalians and Roman Catholics taken together. Then it was proposed to take less money than what was now granted, because by good management it was believed that £75,000 would suffice, which was £5,000 less than was paid to the Presbyterians under the present system. With that explanation he would conclude by moving for leave to bring in the Bill.
MAJOR HAMILTONsaid, he wished to inquire if the Commissioners were to determine whether the schools In a particular district were too many or too few; and whether, where there were two schools, they would have power to say that one of them would be the parochial school?
THE LORD ADVOCATEreplied that there would be a provision in the Bill which would regulate that matter.
SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKEinquired what provision was made for inspection?
LORD JOHN MANNERSasked, whether the principles of the Revised English Code would be applied to the schools In Scotland; and whether Episcopalian and Roman Catholic schools would be allowed to draw the Government money under the existing system?
MR. G. W. HOPEsaid, he entertained great doubts whether the mode in which the learned Lord Advocate proposed to proceed would be sanctioned by that House. He understood the Commissioners were to inquire into all matters connected
1834
with education, and were not to submit the result to Parliament, but to have the entire jurisdiction. That £75,000 should be handed over to the Commissioners for distribution, and that they should have absolute control over the schools, was a proposition which Parliament ought not to sanction without great consideration.
THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, that it was a mistake to suppose that the money was to be entirely at the disposal of the Commission.
MR. DUNLOPsaid, he had no doubt that the Bill would afford the people of Scotland great satisfaction, because it would put an end to the denominational system, which they felt was inapplicable to their country. He did not think that any inquiry into the general education of Scotland was necessary—all that was wanted was an investigation into mere matters of local detail. He thought the proposed Commissioners were well selected and trusted they would form a body well qualified for the duties they would have to perform.
Leave given.
Bill to make further provision for the Education of the People in Scotland, ordered to be brought in by the Lord Advocate, Sir GEORGE GREY, and Sir WILLIAM DUNBAR.
House adjourned at One o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—2a Writs of Habeas Corpus into Her Majesty's Possessions Abroad; Officers' Commissions; Consolidated Fund (£18,000,000).

EDUCATION—THE REVISED CODE OF REGULATIONS.—OBSERVATIONS.
LORD OVERSTONE, in presenting petitions against the modified Revised Code of the Committee of Privy Council on Education, expressed his hope that the subject would continue to be dealt with in the same spirit of fairness which had hitherto characterized the discussions which had taken place on the subject. Opposition, when it was offered, should be directed not to sweeping away the whole system, but to improving it to the utmost possible extent. When first the Code was brought forward there had been a universal outcry against it, and it was believed to aim at the sweeping away of existing interests without any consideration. Subsequent inquiry showed that those ideas had been greatly exaggerated, and on the one side a disposition was shown to meet in an equitable spirit all objections wich might be raised; and on the other, to make due allowance for the real intentions of its promoters

1707
Objections of a religious character had then been taken to it; but these seemed to have been entirely abandoned, greatly to the credit of those who had been led to urge them in the first instance under misapprehension. It appeared, likewise, as if the objection to the classification by age had been surrendered, after the very candid and sensible speech delivered by a noble Lord now present (Lord Lyttelton.) The more the Code was considered the more he believed its merits could be recognised. The noble Lord (Lord Lyttelton) who, from his peculiar connection with schools, seemed in the first instance to have been strongly prejudiced against it, and had placed on the table Resolutions strongly condemnatory of it, afterwards, on fuller information, was induced very considerably to modify his propositions—in some degree, he had no doubt, owing to the reasonable and temperate manner in which the President of the Council encountered the difficulties felt and expressed by many noble Lords. If the discussion should be continued in the same tone, there could not but arise out of it beneficial and advantageous results.

WRITS OF HABEAS CORPUS INTO HER MAJESTY'S DOMINIONS ABROAD BILL.

  SECOND READING.
  THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLEin moving the second reading of the Bill said, he would briefly state the circumstances which had given rise to its introduction. Their Lordships would recollect the case of the fugitive slave John Anderson, which excited a great deal of interest both in this country and America some months since. Anderson was charged with the murder of a person in the State of Missouri, who was endeavouring to prevent his escape from slavery. He effected his escape into Canada; where, on the application of an officer from the State of Missouri, he was committed to prison in order that a requisition might be made from the Government of the United States for him to be delivered up under the articles of the Ashburton Treaty of 1842 relating to the extradition of offenders. Before any action could be taken, Anderson sued out a writ of Habeas corpus in the Court of Queen's Bench in Upper Canada, the result of which was that he was remanded to gaol by the decision of two Judges against one. He appealed against that decision to the Court of Common Fleas in Canada, and was released on some technicalities in the proceedings before the committing magistrate.
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  Meanwhile, at the instance of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in this country, application was made to the Court of Queen's Bench in England for a writ of Habeas corpus to bring Anderson from Toronto to England; and that writ was granted and sent out to Canada. Before its arrival, however, Anderson, as he had stated, had been liberated by the Court of Common Pleas in Canada on some technicality which occurred in the early portion of the proceedings against him. The fact of a writ having been issued by the Court of Queen's Bench in this country to a colony in which a Court of Queen's Bench already existed, naturally created a great sensation in the colonies; and the right to issue such writs having been disputed, his (the Duke of Newcastle's) attention was officially called to the question. The matter was referred to the law officers of the Crown, and with their assistance the present Bill had been draughted. It was then submitted for the consideration of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, and afterwards forwarded to Canada that it might be submitted to the local authorities. In their opinion the provisions of this Bill entirely met the difficulty, and he thought their Lordships would not object to sanction a measure which simply provided that no writ of Habeas corpus shall issue out of England by the authority of any Court therein into any colony or foreign dominion of the Crown where there existed any court of justice having authority to grant that writ and to ensure its due execution. On the mere ground that justice could not well be done in a case where the Judges were at one side of the Atlantic and the witnesses on the other, he thought their Lordships would be disposed to agree to the second reading. As there was no objection to the Bill, he did not propose to trouble their Lordships at any greater length.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read the second time."
  LORD CHELMSFORDsaid, he did not oppose the second reading of the Bill, but suggested that it would be prudent to omit from the preamble the words relating to the single case to which the noble Duke had referred, and to rest the legislation on general grounds.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORthought that it might be desirable to act upon this suggestion.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

OFFICERS' COMMISSIONS BILL.

  SECOND READING,
  EARL DE GREY AND RIPON EARL DE GREY AND RIPON moved the second reading of the Bill, the object of which was to relieve Her Majesty from the necessity of affixing her signature or sign manual oftener than once to any commission issued to any officer of the regular army, or marines, and some officers in the Militia and Volunteers. The Bill provided that when Her Majesty has once directed by her sign manual the appointment of an officer to any rank, it should not be necessary that the commission issued from the office of the Secretary of State should also be signed by Her Majesty, but that the signatures of the Secretary of State and of the Commander-in-Chief, or of the Lords of the Admiralty, as the case might require, should be sufficient.
  THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, it was undoubtedly an object of importance that any commission which was issued should be brought directly under the consideration of Her Majesty. He therefore thought that this Bill was one which required to be carefully looked into before it passed their Lordships' House. At the same time, he was bound to say he knew himself that much inconvenience and much unnecessary labour were cast upon the Crown by the multiplication of signatures required under the present system. As the noble Lord explained correctly, the object of the Bill was to relieve Her Majesty from the labour of signing her name so very frequently, as it often happened that Her Majesty had to sign her name three times to the same instrument. Under the proposed Bill Her Majesty would be asked to sign her name only to the authority under which the commission was issued. If that could be done effectually by this Bill it would be a most desirable object to accomplish. With a view to provide still further security, and as a means of identification of Her Majesty's signature, the Secretary of State, or whoever else had to sign the actual commission, should be required to state on the face of the document that it was issued in pursuance of Her Majesty's sign manual of a certain date.
  EARL DE GREY AND RIPONsaid, he would take the suggestion into his consideration.
  THE EARL OF DERBYwas quite satisfied to leave the matter in the hands of the noble Earl.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

THE LATE INSOLVENT DEBTORS' COURT— SALARIES OF THE OFFICERS.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD CHELMSFORDrose to callt attention of the House to the Case of the Clerks and Officers of the late Insolvent Court, who have been transferred to the Court of Bankruptcy under the Act passed in the last Session of Parliament for amending the Law relating to Bankruptcy and Insolvency in England. The noble and learned Lord said he felt most strongly that it was his duty to take this course, because he was convinced that either the rights of those officers had been improperly withheld, or that a breach of faith had been committed towards them which ought to be repaired without delay. If a wrong had been committed, the Government alone were responsible for it; he did not, however, think that, so far as the majority of its Members were concerned, the Government were aware of the real circumstances of the case. Although he was politically opposed to them, he had such an esteem for their high character that he was satisfied, if the circumstances of the case had been fully known to them, all complaint would have been long ago removed. The Bankruptcy Act of last Session, in assimilating bankruptcy and insolvency, involved the abolition of the Insolvent Debtors' Court; and the question arose, what was to be done with the staff of officers and clerks of that establishment? There were two ways of dealing with them. The one was to abolish their offices, and of course, if that were done, according to the custom of Parliament a just and liberal compensation would be provided for them; the other was to retain their services by transferring them to the new Court of Bankruptcy. The latter was the course adopted by the Government. The incomes of these officials were constituted partly of salaries and fees—the fees in most cases far exceeding the amount of their salaries. The salaries were paid by the Treasury, the fees were received out of a fund derived from the business of the Court, called the Insolvency Fund. It was a material part of the case that the nature of the official incomes of these officers, and the sources from which they were derived, were perfectly well-known to the framers of the Bill during its progress

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  through Parliament. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, being then Her Majesty's Attorney General, was intrusted with the duty of passing the Bill through Parliament, and he employed to assist him in drawing it up Mr. Roche, then a member of the Bar, but who had since been appointed one of the Registrars of the Court of Bankruptcy. Mr. Roche communicated with the officers and clerks of the Court which was to be abolished, and made himself thoroughly acquainted with all the circumstances connected with their position. He (Lord Chelmsford) must take it for granted that Mr. Roche communicated to his employer, the then Attorney General, all the knowledge he had derived upon the subject. He should not have had the slightest doubt that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack was perfectly aware of those facts, if it were not for a circumstance that had occurred in this House. He (Lord Chelmsford) on a former evening put a question to the noble and learned Lord on the subject of the claims of these officers, and in the course of the answer which he gave, the noble and learned Lord stated that he was not aware at the time of the progress of the Bill through Parliament that these officers were paid partly by salaries and partly by fees; and that if he had known it, he would, undoubtedly, have thought it right to provide for them some means of compensation. This was the more extraordinary because he (Lord Chelmsford) held in his hand a return which was made to the House of Commons on the 22nd of March, 1861, exhibiting in detail the amounts of salaries and fees received by the officers of the Insolvent Court on an average for the last seven years, and showing that the amounts which arose from fees were much larger than those received as salary—for instance, one gentleman received £300 salary and £715 fees; another £150 salary and £599 fees. It was impossible that the noble and learned Lord could have overlooked a return of this importance, which must have been moved for in order to assist the Government in deciding the proper provisions of the Bill in relation to this matter. He ventured to say, that if the noble and learned Lord did not know of this return, he ought to have known of it; and that he neglected his duty if he failed to make himself acquainted with the information which it contained. But he would not believe that the noble and learned Lord
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  had so disregarded his duty, and therefore he must assume the answer which the noble and learned Lord had given him arose from a momentary forgetfulness, and that there must have been a full knowledge of the fact of the incomes of the officers being composed both of salaries and fees. Mr. Roche was the organ of communication between the Attorney General and the officers and clerks of the Insolvent Court. The latter were naturally anxious to know what was to become of them if their Court were abolished. They were told over and over again by Mr. Roche that their interests were protected, that their salaries and official incomes would not be diminished, and that ample provision would be made for them by the Bill; and he called their attention to three of the clauses, which he assured them would sufficiently protect and secure their interests. Those clauses were the 22ud, 26th, and 30th. The 22nd provided for the transfer of the services of the officers and clerks of the Insolvent Court to the Court of Bankruptcy. The 26th provided for the transfer of the Insolvency Fund to the account of the Accountant in Bankrupcy, and that such fund should be applied, subject to certain payments, as the Lord Chancellor might direct towards defraying the salaries of the clerks and other officers of the Insolvent Court, whose services had been transferred to the Court of Bankruptcy. The 30th clause provided that the chief clerk, clerks, taxing officer, and other officers of the Court of Insolvent Debtors, should, "upon being in manner herein provided transferred to the Court of Bankruptcy, severally continue to receive the full amount of the salary, remuneration, allowances, and compensations which they now respectively receive, as nearly as may be out of the same funds and payable in the same manner in all respects as if this Act had not been passed." If any reliance could be placed on assurances—if there was any plain, honest meaning in words—could the officers of the Insolvent Court have doubted that the full amount of their salaries and emoluments were secured to them by the provisions of the Act? The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack had expressed his regret that the officers did not secure the services of some one to watch their interests whilst the Bill was passing through the House of Commons; but were they not to be excused for reposing confidence in the repeated assurances they had received? Their case, however,

  1713
  was not entirety overlooked at the time the Bill was passing through the other House. He held in his hand a copy of the Bill which was used by his hon. and learned Friend Mr. Rolt when the Bill was in Committee. It appeared that the words of the 30th clause had struck an hon. and learned Friend of his (Mr. Malins) as likely to leave the officers in a precarious position, and he proposed an Amendment to the effect that the words "out of the same funds and payable in the same manner in all respects as if this Act had not been passed," should be omitted, and the following words substituted:—"The same shall be paid out of the funds standing to the credit of the Chief Registrar's account." The noble and learned Lord, then in charge of the Bill, promised to consider the Amendment on the Report; and on the copy of the Bill used by Mr. Rolt in Committee were the words, written by himself in pencil, "to be considered." The Bill was reported after it had passed through Committee without any alteration in the 30th clause, and came to their Lordships' House in that state. What was he to infer from that circumstance? He could not believe that the noble and learned Lord had disregarded his promise; and as no alteration was made in the clause, he could only infer that he had considered the point and had come to the conclusion that the words were sufficient to carry out what he had professed to be his intention. In their Lordships' House, when the Bill was referred to a Select Committee, his noble Friend behind him (the Earl of Derby) expressed an apprehension, that as the Insolvency Fund would be merged in the Bankruptcy Fund, the officers might be deprived of the incomes which they had been receiving. The late Lord Chancellor, who was chairman of the Committee, almost ridiculed the idea that the officers were not fully secured by the provision made for them. Mr. Roche, who prepared the Bill, was permitted to be present in your Lordships' Committee; he heard the objection and the answer; and if he had felt the slightest doubt on the subject, he would, of course, have communicated with the noble and learned Lord, and the Government would have insisted on the Bill being amended. Before the Bill became law, the late Lord Chancellor had passed away, and the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack succeeded him. It was not supposed that the change would be
  1714
  prejudicial to the officers of the Insolvent Court; they had received assurances over and over again that their interests were carefully protected; and they therefore waited patiently and without apprehension till the first quarter's salary became due. The 1st of January arrived; days and weeks passed away, and no symptom appeared of any disposition to satisfy their claims. This delay was most disastrous to many who were entirely dependent on their official incomes. Some liable to pay debts by instalments had executions put into their houses; others had been distrained upon for rent; and, what was much worse, in one instance at least the premiums of insurance made for the benefit of the family could not be paid. This state of things at last aroused the attention of a most excellent and humane man, Mr. Commissioner Law, for many years the Chief Commissioner. He immediately pressed the claims of the officers on the Lord Chancellor with an energy and ability that did him infinite credit. A long correspondence ensued between the Lord Chancellor and Mr. Law, and he should not be obliged to trust to memory, but was able to give their Lordships the Lord Chancellor's views tinder the hand of his secretary. In the first place, the Lord Chancellor, in his letter, said he doubted very much whether the officers were transferred by the Act, and whether General Orders were not necessary to transfer them. He (Lord Chelmsford) could not understand how the noble and learned Lord could form such an opinion, for the Bill said the persons now discharging certain offices "shall be transferred, and shall act in such manner as the General Orders shall direct;" and a case having been laid before the law officers on this point, they expressed an opinion that without doubt the officers were transferred by the 22nd section of the Bankruptcy Act of 1861. If the noble and learned Lord had any doubt on this subject, it was his duty to have the General Orders ready by the 11th of October, when the Act came into operation, as he had acted with respect to other General Orders, and at once have transferred these officers to the Bankruptcy Court, leaving no gap in the payment of their salaries and emoluments. The next doubt started by the noble and learned Lord was one of a more formidable description, as it went to the very root of the claims of these officers. The noble and learned Lord addressed a

  1715
  letter to Mr. Law, stating it was his intention to lay a case before the law officers for their opinion; then he went on to say, "But the Lord Chancellor begs that you will consider for the officers of the Court that which is the impression in his Lordship's mind, though he views the matter with every disposition to favour the claimants. First, he is of opinion that there are no words in the 30th clause which give the clerks, when transferred to the Bankruptcy Court by the Act, an income equal to the aggregate amount of their salaries and fees, and it is impossible to strain the words of the section to any such meaning. Now, the words of the section are that the officers shall continue to receive the full amount of their salaries, remunerations, allowances, and compensations which they now respectively receive. The noble and learned Lord then went on to offer the clerks two alternatives. "The Lord Chancellor," said the letter, "can see but two alternatives—either that an effort shall be made to obtain a new Act of Parliament, giving them a right to compensation; or, secondly, that they shall accept such reasonable salaries as the Lord Chancellor has the means of giving, and he will be glad to go as far as prudence will possibly allow him." Now, as to the first alternative, the Lord Chancellor expressed his opinion that it would be impossible to obtain compensation from Parliament? If that were so, the noble and learned Lord left the unfortunate officers to what is vulgarly called "Hobson's choice." The noble and learned Lord went on to say, that if they consented to the second alternative, he hoped to be able to allow them salaries which would be of a permanent character, and ample for the services required of them in future, although he feared that those salaries would not exceed the sum total of the existing salaries and about one-half of the fees. To this Mr. Commissioner Law replied, that he was not at liberty to accede to any such proposition as that contained in the noble and learned Lord's letter, and that whilst he would not attempt to strain the words of the Act in favour of the clerks on the one hand, he would not disregard their rights on the other. There was a point in the letter of the noble and learned Lord on the Wool-Back to which he (Lord Chelmsford) must refer, although it had nothing to do with the subject to which he wag calling attention, because it might possibly raise an
  1716
  unfair prejudice which might divert their Lordships' minds from the merits of the case. In the letter, inviting the officers to the two alternatives, there was a charge against the clerks of fabricating false returns, for it contained these words, "The cause of the clerks is morally not improved by the manner in which they have attempted to swell the emoluments above the amounts stated in the return of March, 1861. The Lord Chancellor cannot accept the last statement, and regrets that it was made." In answer to this, Mr. Law said he felt it his duty to notice the charge made against the clerks, which he had seen with regret. Knowing the men, he asserted his belief that their statements were true, and he invited, on their behalf, the closest scrutiny. He pointed out that as the amount of the fees depended to a great extent on the number of petitions presented, the increase in the fees was probably occasioned by the increased number of petitions filed during the last year over the number filed in the year preceding the return of March; and that the words of the 30th section, stating that the clerks should receive the same salaries, &c., as they "now receive" were the words of the Legislature, and not of the clerks. If it had been the pleasure of the Legislature that the average of seven or twenty years should be taken, that intention would have been expressed in the clause; but the intention actually expressed was that the present rate of emolument should be taken. He (Lord Chelmsford) had told their Lordships that a case was laid before the law officers as to the construction of the 30th section of the Bill; but where was the necessity for any case at all? Was it for the purpose of asking whether the noble and learned Lord was to keep faith with the officers, or did he wish to obtain the confirmation of the interpretation which he chose to place on the 30th section? If the latter were the case, he met with extraordinary success, for the law officers gave it as their opinion that the officers of the Insolvent Debtors' Court had no right under the Act of 1861 to claim remuneration equal to the salaries and fees received by them previous to the passing of the Act. With great respect to the law officers, he knew something of the English language, and had some pretensions to understand the honest meaning and intention of words, and he was perfectly surprised that they could come to that conclusion with the words of the 30th section

  1717
  before them. The law officers said, secondly, that the Lord Chancellor had no power to devote the sum transferred to the Bankruptcy Court in payment of the fees or any part thereof. Now, he (Lord Chelmsford) should like to see the case on which the opinion was given, in order to ascertain whether the 30th clause was transcribed in it without the words "as nearly as may be;" for it so happened that in quoting the clause in the letter of the noble and learned Lord to Mr. Commissioner Law those words were omitted. In the clause it was directed that the clerks should receive their income in future "out of the same funds as near as may be," and for that purpose the annual vote of Parliament was directed to be paid to the Chief Registrar in Bankruptcy. But in his letter to Mr. Law, and in his reply the other night in that House, the noble and learned Lord omitted the words "as near as may be," as if they had been words of no importance, while, in fact, they made all the difference, and constituted the entire case. Those words clearly contemplated the possibility of the case arising, when the funds would not be sufficient to pay the salaries and fees of the officers; and he was curious to know whether they appeared in the transcript of the clause which, of course, would be included in the case laid before the law officers. But, supposing the law officers were right in their opinion that the officers were not entitled to receive their salaries and fees out of the funds provided, what course might one have expected the Lord Chancellor to follow? He should have thought the noble and learned Lord would have said, "My intentions have been frustrated by the incautious wording of these clauses; there is nothing to do but tell the Government it has committed a wrong, which it must repair by immediately introducing a declaratory Act. The noble and learned Lord immediately communicated the opinion of the law officers to Mr. Law, and proceeded to say, "The Lord Chancellor (after stating the opinion of the law officers) assumes that you are satisfied that the officers have no legal title to any remuneration equal to that of which they have been in possession at or before the passing of the Act. If, however, this is not so, the officers must, of course, take legal measures for trying the question; and a mode of proceeding for that purpose must be agreed upon."
  1718
  The answer of Mr. Law was—
  "Your Lordship, in addressing me as their adviser, assumes that I am satisfied that the officers have no legal title to remuneration equal to that of which they were in possession at or before the passing of the Act. I am not so satisfied. It is true I am not prepared to frame a remedy which shall have the force of law against the Treasury, or against the Chief Registrar of the Court of Bankruptcy. If a legal title means a claim founded upon justice and legal enactments, then I am satisfied that these officers have a title as legal, moral, and equitable as any man can boast of for his possession, and that every member of the Legislature is called on—especially those who allowed the Bill to go out with this blemish, are called upon, in all righteousness to remedy the matter."
  The noble and learned Lord in reply to this said—
  "If the officers rest their claims upon moral and equitable grounds, relief must be sought in the House Of Commons, where alone it can be given; and the Lord Chancellor would suggest that any officers or persons making any claim under the 30th section should present a petition which shall set out the nature of the several claims. There will be no difficulty in finding a Member to present it, and of course the officers will select one in whose ability they have confidence; and the Government will then propose that the petition he referred to a Select Committee, and of course if the report is in favour of a further provision being made for the officers, the House of Commons will make that provision."
  Thus the noble and learned Lord had disregarded altogether the original assurances given to the officers that their rights should be secured, and the intention repeatedly expressed that the provisions of the Act were sufficient for the purpose, instead of the full incomes which it was intended to continue to them; he had tried to induce them to receive an amount only equal to half their fees; he had told them that the House of Commons would refuse them compensation if they attempted by petition to obtain it; and then he invited them afterwards to go by petition to the House Of Commons, and promised them that the Government would have a Select Committee appointed to see whether further provision should be made. Remember this, that the Government was to select their Committee, and they were all aware that when the Government selected a Committee they would have the majority in it; and of course, with the best intentions, the Members would feel bound by the decision of the law officers, as to whether they were entitled to receive the full amount of their fees. The consequence would be a Report of the Committee against the officers. Would they then obtain any further provision from the House of Commons? They

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  Would be laid prostrate at the feet of the noble and learned Lord; they would be entirely at his mercy, and, instead of half their fees, would probably be fortunate if they could obtain a quarter of the amount. But even this harbour of refuge, which the noble and learned Lord so kindly proposed to open to these officers, he immediately blocked up with stones. For the noble and learned Lord added this warning to his invitation to the officers to petition the House of Commons—
  "The Lord, Chancellor, however, begs you to consider a point which has occurred to him, but Which he has not mentioned until now—namely, Whether the fact of an officer joining in a petition to the house of commons, if the result be unfavourable, may not affect his right to claim the benefit of the 22nd section."
  He (Lord Chelmsford) could not find what were the benefits of the 22nd section, except that they should hold their offices during good' behaviour, subject to dismissal by the Lord Chancellor for some sufficient grounds. Surely the noble and learned Lord did not mean to say that petitioning the House of Commons would be a ground of dismissal. Mr. Law stated in reply, that certainly the officers should not by his advice go to Parliament with a petition under this mysterious intimidation. He said—
  "If I rightly understand this, I would offer no advice upon it."
  Thus the matter was brought nearly to a conclusion; but there was one little incident which formed the only bright spot in the scene, and which in fairness ought not to be omitted. The officers were apprehensive, that if they received that portion of their incomes which consisted of salary, it might prejudice their claim to the farther emoluments; but the noble and learned Lord assured them that the fact of receiving their salaries should not be allowed to prejudice their case. The noble and learned Lord also said—
  "The Lord Chancellor begs that he may receive early intimation whether the clerks do or do not intend to adopt the course which the Lord Chancellor proposes to facilitate—namely, that of presenting a Petition to the house of commons, in order that their case may be considered, and their remuneration settled before a Select Committee.
  To which Mr. Law said, that should the officers petition under the present circumstances, it would not be by his advice. And so the matter rested. He appealed to every honest and impartial mind whether he had not proved in the first instance that the officers had originally an assurance that they should be secured in the full amount of their salaries and compensations; whe-
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  ther the clauses to which he had directed their Lordships' attention were not framed with the view of giving them that benefit; and whether they were not assured, over and over again, that those clauses were amply sufficient for the purpose. And then, he asked, what was the conclusion from the whole—who had committed this error, whose fault was it that the intentions had not been carried out? Was it not the fault of the Government, and were they not bound without delay to introduce a declaratory Act to give these officers their rights, which had been so long withheld from them, and to which they were so justly entitled?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I do Hot desire, having regard to my own character and position, that the noble and learned Lord should have used any different tone or exhibited any different manner from those he has displayed in bringing forward this subject; for it must be evident to all who have heard him, that if he pities the clerks much, he hates the Lord Chancellor more. The noble and learned Lord, in bringing forward this attack, has not shrunk from charging the Lord Chancellor even with falsehood; and yet he has actually been during several weeks, and even during the present week, in daily and confidential intercourse with me; yet not one word, not one intimation of an attack of this malignant description have I received from him; not even to the extent of enabling me, by inquiry, to ascertain the facts of the case, that I might come prepared even with an explanation of them. Such is the nature of the attack which your Lordships have heard. Your Lordships will collect from what passed on a previous occasion, what is the feeling that has given rise to it. My Lords, in the first place, it would be most unbecoming that I should ask any one to believe that I have no desire to oppress or to be an obstacle to these poor gentlemen. I was anxious to give them all I could possibly give them. It would have been a pleasure to me—whatever the noble and learned Lord may say—to satisfy to the full their just expectations. I say with sincerity, and I care not whether or not the noble and learned Lord will give me credit for it, but I sincerely say I heard of this difficulty with the deepest regret. Let me now possess the House with what it was not made acquainted by the noble and learned Lord—the real facts of the case and the difficulties that surrounded it. The very words of (he clause referred to

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  are evidence in this matter. I had believed that the salaries of the clerks of the Insolvent Court were included in the Parliamentary Vote; and, accordingly, if your Lordships look to the clause, you will see that it proceeds upon the hypothesis that the Parliamentary Vote, as near as may be, will be sufficient to meet the amount of the salaries. The clause was framed entirely with that view. The noble and learned Lord says that I sent assurances to the clerks that their salaries would be fully paid. I desire to know by whom and when. Personal communication I had with none of them, except once, when a gentleman called upon me on behalf of the provisional assignee, who desired that his salary should be increased to the amount of his present emoluments—a request to which I acceded with great difficulty. It now appears, that although the clerks were paid by salaries, yet they were also in the habit of receiving fees which were carried to a fund and divided among them. I desire to know, if this fact was known to the noble and learned Lord when he was a member of the Committee, why he did not correct the expressions in this clause. I am told that the Committee were satisfied with the assurance of the late Lord Chancellor that the words were amply sufficient. It is impossible that any man, attending to his duty, and with a mind to understand, can read these words and come to the conclusion that the fees of the clerks were secured to them by it. Now let me give your Lordships the fact. The amount of the annual Vote by Parliament is usually £6,176, the sum of £1,200 interest on certain funds in possession of the Court being deducted from the total amount of the salaries, £7,376. I was desirous of securing the same Vote in future, and I was desirous of giving the officers of the late Insolvent Court a priority of claim upon that money, fearing that it might be held liable to the claims of the officers of the Bankruptcy Court. I thought it right those officers should be transferred, and that they should have that priority of claim, and therefore it was that this clause was framed in this manner. But when the claim came to me showing the amount required by these gentlemen, £19,476, it must have been palpable to any person of ordinary understanding—to every man whose mind is in a state to be free from anger and an inclination to malice—it must have been palpable to every one that the amount of £19,476 could never be paid out of the money voted by Parliament. It is idle to
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  talk of the words "as near as may be" as charging the bankruptcy funds; they only dedicate the Parliamentary Vote to that purpose. In the next place, the noble and learned Lord said that a return was moved for, and he has actually so represented the matter to the House that those who have listened to him must believe that it was moved for the purposes of my Bill. The fact is, that the Bill had been prepared and laid upon the table of Parliament before the return was made, and I never knew of the existence of the return. It was moved for by Mr. Hunt, with whom I have had no communication. Why or wherefore he moved for it I do not know, but certainly the Bill had been prepared before the return was in existence. The next perversion of real facts and truth—the next perversion of the facts of the case of which the noble and learned Lord has been guilty ["Order! Order!"]—was in misrepresenting what took place in the House of Commons. He actually represented to your Lordships that I had undertaken to alter the form of the clause upon the Report.
  LORD CHELMSFORD: I beg pardon, I said, "to consider it," and I read Mr. Rolt's note, "to be considered."
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I have fortunately here a record of what took place in Hansard, and any noble Lord who favours me with his attention will perceive in what really did take place the strongest confirmation that I was entirely ignorant of the fact that the Parliamentary fund would not be sufficient to meet the salaries, and I was astonished at the nature of the application then made. I find in Hansard —
  "Upon clause 36,
  "Mr. MALINS proposed to omit the words, 'as near as may be out of the same funds and payable in the same manner in all respects as if this Act had not been passed,' and to substitute these words, 'the same shall be paid out of the funds standing to the credit of the Chief Registrar's account.'
  The ATTORNEY GENERAL said, the hon. and learned Gentleman had not explained the reason why he proposed the alteration with regard to the mode of payment of the messengers and brokers of the Insolvent Debtors' Court. He hoped the Committee would allow the clause to pass in its present shape, upon the understanding that it should be open to alteration upon bringing up the Report." [3 Hansard, clxi., 519.]
  And that the noble and learned Lord has represented as an engagement by the Attorney General to consider the matter, and to bring it again before the House upon the Report. Why, the language speaks for itself. I could not understand why Mr. Malins should propose to substitute

  1723
  those words for the original words. I could not then state the particular reason I had for keeping the existing words; but I hare no difficulty in doing so now. I was apprehensive that the bankruptcy fund would be insufficient for the ordinary purposes of bankruptcy, especially when these additional offices were added, unless I secured the continuance of the Parliamentary Vote; and I thought that if at any future time the bankruptcy fund should not stand in need of the Vote, the House of Commons need not be asked to vote the money; but as I then believed that the bankruptcy fund would be insufficient, I wished to secure to the clerks a priority of claim upon that money. That was the feeling with which these words were originally inserted. Your Lordships have been told by the noble and learned Lord with so much violence that Mr. Malins was fully informed upon this subject, and brought it before the House of Commons. Now, Mr. Malins said not one word about it. He never said, as he would have said had he been fully informed, "You are proposing to pay £15,000 or £18,000 a year out of a Vote that does not exceed £6,000." All Mr. Malins does is to substitute the words without stating any reason; and I find in the same record this statement, which I have no doubt is correct—
  "The ATTORNEY GENERAL said, that the hon. and learned Gentleman had not explained the reasons why he proposed the alteration."
  From this your Lordships will see that the reasons were not stated, and the whole matter left my mind without any knowledge, or means of knowledge, that the particular fund which I endeavoured to secure for the clerks would not be sufficient for the purpose intended. The next insinuation of the noble and learned Lord is one which positively I feel ashamed of hearing made in your Lordships' House—namely, that the Lord Chancellor, in directing a case to be laid before the law officers, had actually taken pains to prevent the clause in the statute from being correctly stated. Does the noble and learned Lord imagine that the Lord Chancellor would have the preparation of the case? Dues he not know that it was the Solicitor to the Treasury who prepared the case? Does he believe for a moment that there is any man so base who could entertain the conception that was not in his own mind conscious of the possibility of the thing being done—who could entertain the conception that there is any man so base as to garble and mangle an
  1724
  Act of Parliament to secure a result in which he had no interest? It is simply disgraceful to be stated that the thing is possible to be done by a noble and learned Lord, but the disgrace, I think, hangs on the head of the man who believes the thing possible; and the contempt I feel for the insinuation it is scarcely possible to find words to express. What was the Lord Chancellor to have done but what he has done? Here was an Act of Parliament passed, and the Lord Chancellor was called on to find £19,000 and odd, instead of having to provide, as he had thought, between £6,000 and £7,000. He is called on to provide money under the powers of the Act. What would the Lord Chancellor do under the circumstances, except have a case submitted to the law officers of the Crown? The noble and learned Lord has made another attack, for he says that a doubt has been suggested about the officers being transferred. What the noble and learned Lord has said on this point I will attribute rather to his ignorance of the subject than to his want of candour. What he did say was, that by the Act of Parliament the officers were transferred, subject to another clause which he told you nothing about—namely, that the Insolvent Debtors' Court should continue to discharge its functions (but it cannot discharge functions without officers) till the Lord Chancellor should have transferred those functions. When the word "transferred" was used in that letter, which, to my surprise, has been referred to—I certainly did not take the precaution of marking my letter "Private" or "Confidential;" but, as will appear from the language which I used, I wrote unreservedly, and, as I thought, in confidence, to a gentleman who was anxious in the cause of the clerks, and without the least notion that my letter would be subjected to this description of criticism. The difficulty arises in this way—whether the clerks could be considered transferred till the Court is closed. While the Court continues open, there are certain fees being received by the clerks, and the doubt arises whether the clerks really are transferred till the Lord Chancellor closes the Court. On that ground alone arises the question as to the meaning of the word "transferred." I found myself in a situation of great embarrassment. The noble and learned Lord has directed attention to some funds transferred from the Insolvent Debtors' Court, and read you part of a sentence which

  1725
  gives to the Lord Chancellor a power of applying a portion of those funds towards defraying the salaries of clerks and others transferred; but he did not tell you that that was only one of the purposes to which those funds are to be applied. First, there is a fund liable to the creditors to whom they belong. It is a fund which consisted, in a great measure, of unclaimed dividends. Then a power of application is given to the Lord Chancellor in respect to the salaries of the clerks, and in respect of payments towards defraying the expenses incidental to pauper prisoners, and for indemnifying professional assignees. The last is a very important matter. The Lord Chancellor would only have the power of appropriating a part of that income towards the payment of salaries. There has been a complaint as to the difficulty experienced in getting money, to which reference has been made; but that delay is not attributable to me. The chief registrar wrote again and again to the Treasury before he succeeded in getting the remaining instalment of the fund. The case is still further complicated by the fact that many of these gentlemen have sent in two statements of their salaries, and that the sums set forth in the last of these statements are much higher than those set out in the first. From the return made on the 22nd of March, 1861, it appeared in the case of one of the clerks that the pro fits of his office for the last seven years were £715 15 s. 2d. The return made on the 11th of October, 1861, shows those profits to have risen to £899 16 s. 7d. In another case, the first return was £389; the second £566: in another the first return gave the profits at £599; the return of October makes them £782. If I had to deal with the original amount, probably I might have approximated to that amount; but I was not left to deal with the matter on the first return. What I did, therefore, was to inform Mr. Law, in a courteous but decided manner, that if the claim in question was put forward as a matter of right, and that the Government were advised that it was not a matter of right, all I could do was to expedite in the quickest manner the means of deciding the question. And, my Lords, as the law officers could not advise the Government to accept this as a clear legal demand, how could I answer it except in the manner I did? In the spirit of fairness, and even going beyond what I ought to have done, I told Mr. Law that the law officers of the Crown had expressed an opinion that the officers of the Insolvent Court had a strong moral claim to favour
  1726
  able consideration. I beg you to pause for a moment and ask, could I have done more? I then went on to say:—"The Lord Chancellor had no opportunity of calling the attention of the Government to the subject till the day before yesterday." I gave a promise that I would take the first opportunity of calling the attention of the Government to the subject. I did call the attention of the Government to the matter, and the Government agreed and decided upon the course to be adopted, subject always to this—that Mr. Law, on behalf of the clerks, should be content to rest the question on a claim founded upon moral and equitable, and not upon legal grounds. I had no wish to deprive them of the notion that they had a legal title, but I maintain that I had a right fairly to say—"If you assert that you have legal rights, agree as to a tribunal and have this question determined. But if you are content with the opinion which I myself entertain, and which the law officers have expressed, that you have not a legal title, then bring forward your claim on moral and equitable grounds; and, to encourage and assist you, I frankly tell you the law officers say that you have a strong moral claim to favourable consideration." I went on to tell Mr. Law what the Government meant to do—
  "Without presuming in any way to dictate, the Lord Chanceller would submit to you the following mode of proceeding:—The Lord Chancellor assumes that you are satisfied the officers have no legal title to remuneration equal to that of which they were in possession at and before the passing of the Act. If that is not so, the officers must, of course, take legal measures for trying the question, and a mode of proceeding for that purpose must be agreed on. But if the officers rest their claim on moral and equitable grounds, relief must be sought in the House of Commons." Now, I should like to know where else it could be sought. If it be sought from me personally, let me ask, have your Lordships power to give any portion of the public money? A previous letter of mine has been referred to, in which I stated that I was afraid the House would not give compensation. Let any one who knows the house of commons, and has heard the opinions there expressed, particularly since compensations were given under the Probate Act, tell your Lordships whether he thinks they would be likely to give compensations in the present instance. My letter proceeds to say—
  "The Lord Chancellor would suggest a petition by all the officers and persons making any claim under the 30th section, which petition shall state the nature of the several claims, and the grounds on which they are rested. There will be

  1727
  no difficulty in finding a Member to present it. Of course the officers will select one in whose ability and energy they have confidence; the Government will then propose that the petition be referred to a Select Committee. Of course, if that report be in favour of a public provision being made for the officers, the House of Commons will make that provision."
  I made this proposal with the object of giving them an opportunity of doing everything they could desire. I am sure that any one distinguished for candour and impartiality will believe that I should be as ready to do what lay in my power as any of your Lordships. Now, why did I propose the Committee? I did so because I thought there were a great number of circumstances which could be proved by evidence before a Committees and which might forward and promote the claims of the clerks. We have been told—I know not with what truth—that assurances were given to those gentlemen that the whole of their emoluments were absolutely secured to them. If they went before a Committee, they would have had an opportunity of proving that. The late Lord Chancellor told your Lordships that there can be no doubt of their being entitled to their emoluments. Would not that be a very cogent and important fact to be brought before a Committee of the House of Commons? Now, I desire any noble Lord to suggest a better or more Parliamentary course—one more in accordance with good faith—than that which I have suggested. Is it not surprising that after all that has been done, with the most perfect sincerity on my part, and with a view of redeeming the pledge which I gave to this House—after my stating that nothing which occurred since the passing of that Act has given me so much pain—or, indeed, any pain—as finding the position in which these gentlemen are placed—is it not surprising that I should in return be assailed, denounced, and held up to obloquy and ridicule on the part of your Lordships, no sort of scruples being used with regard to statements or to insinuations by the noble and learned Lord who has thought it fit and becoming to bring them forward? I leave the decision to the mind of every honourable man. If any noble Lord will point out what I could have done more I shall be obliged to him, and, in case your Lordships concur in opinion with him, I shall submit to the reproach that I might have done more than I did. Remember that it is a very difficult thing, under such circumstances, to get anything done. I
  1728
  can only assure you that I have spared no effort, and I adhere to the opinion that the course I suggested was the best and wisest. Notwithstanding the language used by their self-constituted adviser, and notwithstanding the course adopted by Mr. Commissioner Law—which is unworthy, as far as I am concerned, that I should stop to comment on it—I can only say in sincerity that my feeling with regard to these gentlemen, and my disposition to go to the House and do what I can in their favour, remain unaltered. The singularity of the advice given to them your Lordships will best appreciate when I tell you that, after I succeeded in getting from the Treasury a sum of money, and after the checks were prepared to be given to those gentlemen, not one of them would make application for their money. This gave me great and serious pain, and, after the checks had for some time been lying unclaimed, I, unsolicited, and purely from a feeling of anxiety, caused this letter to be written to Mr. Law—
  "The Lord Chancellor is much vexed at finding that the clerks of the Insolvent Debtors' Court refuse to receive the salaries lying for them, under the erroneous notion that it may prejudice their claims under the Act of 1861. The Lord Chancellor can only repeat that it shall not in any manner whatever prejudice their case, nor shall it be used in any way to their disadvantage. The Lord Chancellor regrets that he cannot carry back the provisional augmented salaries which he proposes to give to those clerks who now enter upon active duty in the Court of Bankruptcy further than the 11th of January. Such salaries will be purely provisional, and the receipt of them will not in any manner affect the ultimate rights of officers. The Lord Chancellor begs that he may receive an early intimation whether the clerks do or do not intend to adopt the course which the Lord Chancellor proposes to facilitate—namely, that of presenting a Petition to the house of commons, in order that their case may be considered, and their remuneration settled before a Select Committee.
  It has been maliciously represented to your Lordships as if that was a threat to deter them, and a part of the clause was read so as to make it appear as if it only contained a direction that the clerks shall hold office during good behaviour, subject to dismissal by the Lord Chancellor. Why, my Lords, the latter part of the clause provides that—
  "Nothing herein contained shall be deemed to deprive any person now holding office in the Insolvent Debtors' Court of any benefit to which he may now be or may hereafter become entitled by virtue of the Acts; "
  and they are mentioned, relative to superannuation allowances. Now, if these gentlemen had gone with their claims

  1729
  before the House of commons, and had been left with diminished salaries, it might have affected their claim to superannuation allowances—allowances which would be claimed upon the right as it stood at the time of passing the Act. Two gentlemen have claimed these superannuation allowances, and have withdrawn their claims under the 36th section; and the suggestion which was made was well worthy their consideration, and was intended to be beneficial to them, and not to operate as a threat. My Lords, this is the whole of the case as it actually exists. I do not know a single particular that I have to regret, except that the clause should have been originally worded under a misconstruction; and the only thing that has been said correctly is that it was the duty of the Attorney General in bringing in the Bill to have acquired the most perfect information upon the subject. I admit that; but I think your Lordships will agree with me, that if you introduce a measure to alter the salaries and emoluments of any set of officers, and they are perfectly passive, do nothing, make no representation or no application to the house of commons, any one would be justified in concluding that they had no reason to complain of their position under the Bill. They may be entitled to say that they misconstrued the Act, and that they had believed that they were provided for. I do not, in the smallest degree, wish to diminish their moral and equitable titles to a favourable consideration; but if they had brought forward their claim in the house of commons, what would have been done? Do you suppose that the House of Commons would have given them for the rest of their lives salaries equal to their then existing emoluments? The House of Commons would have required the taking of an average, and I am very much mistaken if it would have given them full salaries And now observe in addition to that—what you have not yet been told—that the position of these gentlemen has been greatly altered. Many of them—I have not perfect information—held office during plea sure. By the 12th section of this Act it is provided that they shall hold office during good behaviour. Their offices have been converted into freeholds for life, though of smaller annual value; but a small freehold weighs more in the balance than fees which are contingent, uncertain, and precarious, although in particular years they may amount to a larger sum. All these things have to be considered, and where can they
  1730
  be properly considered except before the tribunal which can not only decide upon the case, but apply the remedy? Is the case likely to be forwarded by what we have heard to-night? Can any one suggest a better mode of proceeding than that which has already been suggested to these gentlemen? I therefore leave this case in the hands of your Lordships. It has been to me a subject of deep regret that this scene should have occurred to-night; but I appeal to your Lordships whether what you have heard has been justified in the smallest degree; I appeal to you to determine whether it was possible for the Lord Chancellor, acting from those feelings which alone ought to animate him—an earnest desire to do the utmost that law, and reason, and good faith, and equity, and good-nature, and a spirit of kindness could dictate towards these gentlemen—to take any other course than that which I adopted. I do not want to be tried merely by the standard of whether I have done that which I was compelled to do, but I desire all those who hear me, with candid and upright minds to tell me what more I could have done under these painful circumstances than that which I have manifested my willingness and anxiety to do. If any one can suggest any course which can be adopted, I shall forget all the irritation which this event is likely to produce, and shall apply myself with singleness of mind to do the utmost in my power to make to these gentlemen the best possible return that I am able to make for the loss of income which they are represented to have sustained.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: My Lords, bearing in mind the warning which I received the other night from the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, I refrained, and my Friends near me, from interrupting the noble and learned Lord, even when he used language of a nature which your Lordships are certainly not accustomed to hear in this place. My Lords, I can easily understand that the noble and learned Lord felt considerable irritation at the charges that were brought against him, the representations which were made, and the statements that were supported by evidence, in the very powerful speech of my noble and learned Friend who sits near me (Lord Chelmsford). But the noble and learned Lord must not be surprised if, when a person holding a high station indulges himself by, in the mildest and calmest manner, making use of expressions at-

  1731
  tributing to noble Lords malignant feelings—feelings of rankling irritation and malignancy—and ascribing every kind of injurious motives of which we are not accustomed to hear in this House, and which, I believe, are not attributed in the other House of Parliament—if, I say, a noble and learned Lord who can make use of such expressions in this House, and who can speak of a gentleman as honourable and; as highly respected as Mr. Commissioner Law as a person who is utterly unworthy of his notice—
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The cheers prevented my hearing the words which fell from the noble Earl.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: The words which I understood the noble and learned Lord to make use of were, that Mr. Commissioner Law was a person unworthy of his notice.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I said the manner in which that correspondence had been used was unworthy of any further notice.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: I certainly rejoice to hear this correction of the noble and learned Lord; but so he was understood by those who sat near me, who certainly commented on it, at the time as very strong language. But I was about to say, and I repeat, that the noble and learned Lord, if he indulges in the habit—and that not under the influence of violent feeling, but in the calmest and most placid manner—of attributing most sordid motives to those associated with him in this House, he cannot be surprised that such a course should lead to some corresponding irritation; nor must he be surprised if his own conduct is spoken of in hard words, and his own motives called in question. Now, the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack began by complaining that my noble and learned Friend near me (Lord Chelmsford) had sat with, him during the last three weeks, and had had confidential communication with him during that time, without giving him any intimation of what be has brought forward to-night. I do not know what was the confidential communication between the noble and learned Lords. I presume that in the discharge of their official and legal duties they have been in constant: and frequent communication; but I apprehend that such an association does not prevent either from making comments on the other's political conduct, or bringing forward in the debates of the
  1732
  House the arguments by which he can substantiate to the country that injustice has been done to many of our fellow-subjects. The noble and learned Lord, however, seems to have an extraordinary idea of what constitutes confidential intercourse and communications. If the correspondence with Mr. Law—a correspondence carried on by the Lord Chancellor's Secretary on the one hand, speaking in the name of the Lord Chancellor, and Mr. Law on the other, in reference to the claims of public officers appointed by another public officer—if that correspondence so conducted is a confidential correspondence, which is not to be made use of, I certainly know not what is the meaning of confidential communications, or what can be correspondence of a public character. I shall not pursue any of the irritating topics which have been introduced, further than to assure the noble and learned Lord—and I do so without the slightest feeling of anger—that if he desires not to excite unpleasant feelings in this House, he must not make use of language which appears to intimate his belief that he is infinitely superior to all whom he is addressing, nor 'attribute to other Members of the House motives that, to say the least, are not Parliamentary. I must do the noble and learned Lord the justice to say that he has argued the case, apart from the personal question, with the most perfect calmness; and I give him the credit of believing that he is actuated by a desire to do justice to these gentlemen whose case is before your Lordships. At the same time, I must confess, as he has invited any noble Lord to tell him what further he could have done than he has done, I feel bound to say that I think the course he has taken is not that which, on the part of the Government, he might be expected to take. Now, what are the circumstances of the case that are admitted on all hands, setting aside anything that can be matter of controversy? A Bill is introduced on the part of the Government by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack holding at the time the high and responsible situation of Her Majesty's Attorney General. It dealt with a most important question, with a most extensive subject, and one which no man was more competent to handle than the noble and learned Lord, who deserves a great amount of credit for dealing with a subject so complicated and important. In the course of these proceedings it was necessary—not, mind, to abolish certain offices—but to do away with

  1733
  a certain Court, and to transfer the officers of that Court to be the officers of another Court, with which, in point of fact, it was incorporated—the Court of Bankruptcy. I press this point, because in a further portion of the noble and learned Lord's speech he argued as if the claim of those officers were claims for loss of offices; whereas they are claims for a continuance of salaries and other emoluments, as they were received at the time of the passing of the Act—not on the abolition of their offices, but on the transfer from one Court to the other, and their continued employment in the new offices; and that I believe is one of the questions upon which the noble and learned Lord entertains no doubt, because it is one on which the law officers of the Crown have given an opinion as to the legal construction of the Act; that the actual construction of the Act according to the law officers is that those officers were transfer red. Well, now, surely, the noble and learned Lord never means to argue, that if, for the purpose of facilitating the transaction of public business, some of those officers who remained discharged the duties of the Court that was abolished, finishing up the remaining business of that Court, and it was impossible for them suddenly and in a body to be transferred from one Court to another, for their services were required in the business of the former Court—it is impossible that the noble and learned Lord can contend that they were not entitled to the full remuneration they would have received from the time the transfer might be effected. It was the intention of the Act that those gentlemen should not be sufferers by their transfer from one Court to another. It was intended that they should receive—continue to receive—the full amount of their salaries, allowances, and remunerations upon that transfer, as they had received them at the period of the passing of that Act. And then the question is whether the words of the enactment are such as bear out that proposition and object of the Government. The noble and learned Lord who as the Attorney General introduced the Bill, says—and of course he says it truly—he admits fairly and honestly—that there was neglect on his part in not making himself thoroughly acquainted with the measure he was about to introduce; but I must be permitted to say, with an acknowledgment of the fairness and candour of the noble and learned Lord in making that admission, that it is a most extraordinary course for the law officers of
  1734
  the Crown to undertake to abolish a Court and transfer the officers to another Court, and to say they really were ignorant how the officers of the Court which was to be abolished were paid. That is a mode of conducting public business which if the noble and learned Lord had not put it forward as his vindication, I could not have believed was a manner in which so important an Act as that for the amendment of the law of bankruptcy could have been introduced. But he says he was not aware that those officers were not paid wholly by salary. That, again, is a most extraordinary case, because my hon. and learned Friend who sits near me (Lord Chelmsford) has pointed to a paper laid on the table of the House of Commons on the subject. I find it was moved for on the 12th February, 1861—and that is the day after the introduction of the Bill of the noble and learned Lord. Upon the introduction of the Bill, though the Attorney General did not think it necessary to inquire into the subject, the House of Commons did, and they ordered a Return how the officers to be dealt with had been paid, and what proportion of their income was in salary and what in fees. On the 12th of February this Return was called for. It could not but have attracted the attention of the Attorney General when a Motion was made for such a Return. It was laid on the table of the House of Commons on the 22nd of March, 1861, while the Bill was still under consideration; and that Return, which the Attorney General admitted was necessary in order to the inquiry it the house of commons, did contain a full and particular account of every individual, and of the amount of every salary, and the average amount of fees for a period of seven years. There is no plea on the part of the Government for being ignorant of the circumstances connected with this paper showing the particular circumstances of each case. One word with regard to that which has been commented on by the noble and learned Lord, the difference between the claims of the officers under the Act and the Return I hold in my hand. The Act declares that the "officers shall severally continue to receive the full amount of the salary, remunerations, allowances, and compensations"—the words are as large, as extensive as possible—" which they now respectively receive." That was the enactment. The Motion, made by an independent Member of the House of Commons, was for a Return of

  1735
  Salary and Emoluments they had been receiving on the average of the last seven years; and then the noble and learned Lord, who is very free in making charges and insinuations, although he himself is so keenly sensitive on that score, makes a charge against these officers, that for the purpose of obtaining an undue allowance they had falsified their incomes.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: What I said was—
  THE EARL OF DERBY: I hope the noble and learned Lord will imitate the forbearance I used while he was speaking. The discrepancy arises from the fact that the Parliamentary Return gives the average emoluments for seven years, while the other Return relates to the year before the passing of the Act; and I must say that because they make two true Returns the noble and learned Lord is not justified in saying that they made a Return to swell the amount they have to receive. Then the question is, first of all, do the words of the Act carry out the intentions of Parliament? and next, if they do not, who is responsible for their not carrying into effect the alleged intentions of Government, and certainly the intentions of Parliament? I am at a loss to understand, certainly, upon what ground the law officers of the Crown have decided that that 30th clause does not give to the officers of the late Insolvent Court the full amount which they claim—namely, the full amount of their salary and emoluments. We have not the reasons of the law officers. We only know they have asserted this; and the noble and learned Lord has been kind enough to say that it was impossible that, however that clause might be strained by my noble and learned Friend—it was impossible for any one possessed of common sense, and certainly not for any one of a legal mind, to read that clause and put upon it the construction of my noble and learned Friend. Whether unhappily or happily for me, I am not a lawyer and I do not possess a legal mind; but on that occasion I sat in Committee with a number of lawyers, including more than one ex-Chancellor and the then Chancellor—who I presume may be considered to have legal minds, or at all events were capable of judging of the construction of a clause—and all those high authorities were perfectly satisfied, and more than satisfied, because they had the assurance of the good faith of the Government, that the clause did carry out that which was claimed by the officers of the Insolvent Court.
  1736
  Now, I am willing to give the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack credit for wishing to do all that he can to remedy the injustice which has been so unintentionally done to these gentlemen, but he said that Parliament did not make a sufficient provision to meet their claims, inasmuch as it had only voted a sum of £6,000, and consequently it was utterly impossible to pay £19,000, the amount of the claims, out of that provision. I do not know how the noble and learned Lord makes the amount of the claims £19,000; for, according to the correspondence which passed with Mr. Law on the subject, the sum claimed amounted only in the whole to £14,000.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, the claims on the whole were about £19,000; deducting the Government grant, they might be roughly stated at £14,000.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: Well, admitting the noble and learned Lord to be correct in his statement as to the amount, I do not think that the actual sum claimed is material, except as it affects the question of the intentions of the Legislature. If I recollect rightly, Commissioner Law states that the £14,000 is subject to very considerable deductions, and that £8,000 or £9,000 is the utmost required to meet the present case. However that may be, the noble and learned Lord says Parliament granted only a sum of £6,000, which was clearly inadequate to fulfil the expectations of the Act. But I very much doubt whether it was intended that the grant should satisfy the claims of these officers, because that sum was to be applied towards payment of the charges of the Insolvent Court, which were to be provided by Parliament, and the language of the 26th clause implies that the charges for which the Vote was taken were the salaries and the salaries only. If the payment was intended to be made only towards salaries, I want to know from what fund it was contemplated the other charges would be met—namely, for the fees, allowances, and emoluments of the officers transferred from one Court to the other. It is quite clear that Parliament contemplated the insufficiency of funds; and in order to meet the difficulty Mr. Malins brought forward the Amendment to which allusion has been made, providing a specific fund out of which the deficiency should be supplied. The noble and learned Lord says that my noble and learned Friend (Lord Chelmsford) has represented too strongly the language held upon the withdrawal of that

  1737
  Amendment. We all know that Hansard does not give very accurately incidental language used in Committee; and, as to the understanding that the matter was to remain open for consideration, I very much prefer the pencil-note of a Member of the house of commons, and that Member a lawyer, made at the moment, to the necessarily meagre account which must appear in Hansard. Assume that the fund is at present insufficient; assume that the Lord Chancellor has no power of proceeding beyond the funds at his disposal; but assume, also, that the parties who are interested have not been neglectful of their own case, and that they were informed by those whom they had the right to trust, privately and publicly, in Parliament and out of Parliament, that their claims were fully provided for in the Act. When it is admitted that their case went before a Committee of your Lordships' House with all the most eminent lawyers serving upon it, and that the Committee were satisfied that their claims would be met to the full extent—when it is admitted that the plain, manifest, and intelligible construction of the Act by any one understanding the English language would render unnecessary the assurances of the Government, and that these officers had reason to believe no questions would arise to such an extent that the opposite conclusion would be the height of absurdity, are they to be told that by some means or other, for which they are not accountable, they are not entitled to receive that which Parliament intended they should receive, and that they have no remedy except throwing themselves upon the mercy of Parliament, and appealing, not for their rights, but for compensation for offices which have never been abolished? By way of example of the manner in which the incomes of these gentlemen were made up I will mention the case of the Provisional Assignee of the late Insolvent Court. It appears that his salary amounted to only £100 a year—he had ten clerks under him; but his fees amounted to about £1,400. Now, I ask, how was it possible that any human being could suppose it was the intention of the Legislature to continue to that officer his salary of £100 only, and to take no notice whatever of his fees and emoluments? Now, the officers had in their favour the declarations of those they were taught to trust—declarations made to them both publicly and privately—that their case had been fully provided for; they had also the assurance of the Govern-
  1738
  ment; nevertheless they are now told—no provision having been made in the Act to meet their claims—that they are not entitled to that to which it is admitted they have an equitable claim, and that therefore they must throw themselves on the mercy of the House of Commons; that, in fact, they must apply as petitioners, not for their rights, but for compensation for offices which have never been abolished. I can quite understand the noble and learned Lord saying, that if these gentlemen stood upon their strict legal rights alone, they must try the question at law. But in what manner these unfortunate men are to try a question at law against her Majesty's Government I am unable to suggest or to suppose. If the noble and learned Lord, in asking them to admit they had no legal rights, said, "We grant you have a moral and an equitable claim, that we will introduce a measure into Parliament with the object of giving that which we have led you to expect," I do not understand that these gentlemen would make any difficulty in waiving their legal rights, provided they had any certainty of receiving substantial justice. But if they are first to abandon their legal claim and then petition Parliament, and take their chance of what Parliament will do, that would be very foolish and unwise, more especially after the assurance of the noble and learned Lord, that if they applied for compensation to the house of commons, he was quite sure they would not get it. With such encouragement, it would be unwise to abandon their legal claim, and rest their appeal solely on the strong moral and equitable claim which has been recognised by the law officers of the Crown. The noble and learned Lord asks, what could the Government have done for them? I will tell the Lord Chancellor what he might have done. He might have gone to his colleagues and said, "I find, by a construction put upon the Act of last Session which was never intended, and for which I and you, although I chiefly, are responsible, serious loss, severe injury, and great pecuniary and personal inconvenience have been entailed upon a number of exemplary men, who for twenty, twenty-five, thirty, and forty years have served the public for small remuneration compared with the services rendered." The noble Lord might have said to his colleagues, "It is a case of grievous hardship, but it is a case where these persons have no legal claim for the full amount which they claim, though it is

  1739
  by our act, by our ignorance of the real facts of the case, by our mode of framing the clause, that they are placed in this painful and embarrassing position. It is for our honour"—had I been the Lord Chancellor I should have said, "it is more especially for my personal honour that this grievance should, without hesitation, be redressed." Instead of telling these gentlemen that they may go down to the House and petition, and take their chance of what may be done, the course which the Government ought to pursue, and the course which I hope the Government will pursue, after what has taken place (setting aside any irritation or personal feeling, which I deeply regret should have arisen, and looking only to the merits of this case (is to bring in a declaratory Bill by which justice may be done. If the Government were to go down to the House of Commons with a declaratory Bill, or a Bill to remedy the defect introduced inadvertently into the other Bill, and if they were to say to the house of commons, "These gentlemen are suffering from no fault of their own, but from the inadvertent manner in which we drew up the clauses of the former Bill, and we appeal to you to remedy our inadvertency," I feel as confident as that I am now addressing your Lordships in the cause of justice and equity, that the House of Commons would at once acknowledge, if not the strict legal right, certainly the moral and equitable claim, of these gentlemen, and would take such steps as would do them full justice.
  EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, I am not about to enter into the details of this question, but I must say that I never saw a case in which the lecture delivered by the noble Earl opposite to my noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack, was more undeserved. This conversation was begun by a speech from the noble and learned Lord (Lord Chelmsford), which I will not call "violent" with the Lord Chancellor, nor can I call it "powerful" with the noble Earl opposite; but it was a speech full of details and quotations from beginning to end, which it was not always very easy to understand, and which was delivered in the presence of a much fuller House than is usual, as though noble Lords had come down specially for the purpose of hearing it; it seemed tome to be marked by a tone of banter and sneer which, had it been applied to myself, I should have considered singularly offensive. I certainly did not feel as much indignation as I should have
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  felt had I not been perfectly certain that the answer of my noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack to the question in hand would be thorough and completely conclusive. Not only was the speech of the noble and learned Lord (Lord Chelmsford) delivered in a tone which is most undesirable in this House, but it assumed throughout a degree of hostility on the part of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack towards these officers and clerks which I know does not in the slightest degree exist. The noble and learned Lord opposite went so far as to accuse the Lord Chancellor of garbling the case submitted to the law officers, and he described the manner in which the law officers gave their opinions without referring to the clause of the Act of Parliament, which really one would not have expected to hear from an ex-Chancellor and an ex-law officer. The noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) followed, too, a course which is not usual in this House. After the Lord Chancellor had acknowledged in the most candid manner—going, as I think, even beyond the necessity of the case—that there had been an error in the wording of the clause, on account of imperfect information, and had expressed his regret for it, the noble Earl still persevered in going into the details of the question, criticising all that had been done by my noble and learned Friend. I do not intend to follow him into these arguments, but I wish it to be distinctly understood that the Lord Chancellor is not to be made personally responsible for the course which the Government authorized him to take. The noble Earl gave a very eloquent description of what he would have said to his colleagues had be been in the Lord Chancellor's place. Now, it so happens that that is in fact very much the sum of what the noble and learned Lord did say. Instead of that spirit of hostility against these persons which has been attributed to him, my noble and learned Friend's language has always been that he regretted that a mistake should have been made in the wording of the clause, and he has always been animated by a most sincere desire that full justice should be done to these gentlemen. It is quite clear that these gentlemen have either a legal right or they have not. If they have a legal right, the case is perfectly simple, and their remedy is in their own hands: but if they have not—and I think, after the conversation of to-night, that is the opinion most persons will form,—their claim then rests upon a moral and equitable

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  ground. I can see no reason whatever for departing from the course which the Lord Chancellor has announced. My noble and learned Friend has already given a reason for not bringing in a declaratory Bill, as suggested by the noble Earl opposite. He has explained why it was not thought for the interests of the clerks that a Bill should be brought in crudely, without giving the House of Commons an opportunity of examining into the merits of the question, and without any opportunity being afforded of making out that Parliamentary case which the noble and learned Lord, from his experience of the other House, must know is so necessary before any remedy can be applied. It is with these feelings that the Government have pursued the course which they authorized the Lord Chancellor to announce to the officers and clerks, and I trust that this debate—though certain things have been said in it which I much regret—will not tend to create any prejudice that might interfere with a fair and equitable consideration of the matter in hand.
  LORD CRANWORTHsaid, there was much in the debate to which he had listened with the greatest possible pain, Any personal disputes, or anything which could lead to personal acrimony between two noble Peers who had to sit together day by day in the administration of justice, was very much to be deplored. When his noble and learned Friend opposite (Lord Chelmsford) first introduced the question, he concurred with him entirely that it was the bounden duty of the Government, for their own credit, and for the credit of the Legislature, to lose no time in setting the matter to rights. He hoped that no time would be lost in adopting whatever course might be best suited to lead to the application of a remedy for the position in which these persons were placed, whether it might be by referring the matter to a Select Committee of the house of commons, or any other course. It certainly would be somewhat of a scandal on the Legislature if there should be any hesitation in setting right a mistake which had occurred from the over-confidence of these persons in all the law Lords, and all the other noble Lords who were on their Lord ships Committee. He believed it was the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby) who first called attention to the point in Committee, and mentioned that doubts had been suggested whether the language of the clause was sufficiently strong; and he recollected that the late Lord Chan-
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  cellor then replied that the matter had been thoroughly considered, and that there was no doubt that the words were quite strong enough.
  EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, I rise merely for the purpose of observing, in answer to the appeal of the noble and learned Lord opposite (Lord Chelmsford), that these acts are the acts of the Government—they are acts for which the Government are responsible, and it is unjust to charge my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor with particular acts as separate from the Government of which he is a Member, when he is supposed or represented to have acted harshly. Now I beg you to consider what was the question which the Government had before them. The late Lord Chancellor and several law Lords had agreed to a clause that seemed to grant to these clerks compensation for the whole of their fees; but if the Treasury had been asked to pay the compensation, the proper fund being insufficient, the Treasury would have required legal authority for the payment. If the law officers of the Crown said that no such charge was created by the clause, would the Treasury have been justified in paying it? Another course to be considered was, whether a Bill should be brought in in order to give the clerks the full amount of their salary. The Government thought that that course would not be successful, and that the clerks would not obtain by it what they expected and asked. Another course then remained—namely, that the clerks should state their case, state their grievances, state the assurances which they had received, and the expectation they had entertained, on the matter being brought before a Select Committee; and although the Government could not say, after the opinion of the law officers of the Crown, that this is a legal claim, they nevertheless could have said that they considered it a moral and equitable claim, and have asked the House to consider the circumstances with a view to satisfy that moral claim. The noble and learned Lord assumed that this Committee would be called upon to consider the question of law; but that is not so, the Committee would not have to enter on the question of law at all; for if this were a legal claim, the matter could have been sent to a legal tribunal; but if the clerks decline that course, and consider this a moral and equitable claim, then it becomes a question for consideration by a Committee of the house of commons, and

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  I believe it can be better thus considered than by any other body. I have always been of opinion that the claims of losers by any legal reforms were best consulted by a Committee of the House of Commons; but before the imposition of a charge on the public, the House of Commons must be satisfied of the justness of doing so. I hope the clerks will be induced to take the course pointed out by the Government, which is prepared to support them in this as an equitable and moral claim.
  LORD KINGSDOWNhoped that this discussion would facilitate the adjustment of these claims. He had the fullest confidence in the opinions of the law officers on this subject, but he did not understand what were the precise grounds on which they said the clerks had no legal claim. There were two possible grounds—the one that the language of this clause did not provide these people with compensation; or they might have proceeded on the ground that the emoluments were directed to be paid out of a distinct fund, but that there was no fund in existence out of which the emoluments to which they were entitled were to be paid. He was not aware on which of these grounds the law officers proceeded, but there was this distinction—in the one case the Act of Parliament had given them a legal right without providing a fund to satisfy it; the other view of the case was that the clause itself would not give a legal right, even if there were a fund. If the intention of the Legislature was—and there appeared no doubt that it was—that the clerks should have their emoluments and salaries, he confessed his opinion was that the proper course would have been to introduce a declaratory Act, explaining that such was the intention of the clause, although the language had not given effect to that intention. If, on the other hand, the clause was sufficient to give the right to the salaries, and no fund was provided out of which to pay them, then, of course, the House of Commons would necessarily be the authority to which to go. He was satisfied that in proposing this course it was the intention of the Government to support the moral and equitable claims of the clerks, and he contended that what the Legislature intended to do in this matter would be done readily, and that eventually this debate would assist in effecting the intentions of the Legislature.
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, if there was any doubt about the equity of the claims, he could understand the proposal to refer
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  the matter to a Select Committee of the House of Commons; but there appeared, from the conversation which had taken place, no doubt upon the subject; and if similar explanations to those which he had heard were made in the other House, the matter could be settled without reference to a Select Committee, or wasting much of the valuable time (already overtaxed) of Members of Parliament.
  THE DUKE OF SOMERSETbelieved, the House of Commons would not listen to such a proposal so easily as the noble Lord imagined. Where the question was one of compensation for fees, the amount of those fees must necessarily be inquired into, and the fact that there were two very different returns as to the amount of the salaries and fees received, would induce them to sift the matter very carefully. The noble and learned Lord (Lord Chelmsford), while accusing his noble and learned Friend upon the Woolsack of suppression, had himself omitted to read some very important words in a letter from the Lord Chancellor to Mr. Commissioner Law, in which he stated that the law officers were of opinion that the clerks had a moral and equitable claim.
  LORD CHELMSFORD: I did read the letter.
  THE DUKE OF SOMERSETregretted that it should not have been heard by any one on that side of the House.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that before the discussion closed he wished to correct one observation of the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby). He had not accused the clerks of the Insolvent Court of falsifying returns, but he had mentioned the great difference between two returns, as showing the difficulty in which he was placed in dealing with this matter. The return prepared in March stated the amount of fees at £3,000 and the late return at £14,000. The noble Earl had also said it was strange that he (the Lord Chancellor) had not known that the salary of the provisional assignee was only £100 a year; but the fact was, that the Bill provided that that officer should become an official assignee of the Court of Bankruptcy, and he was therefore provided for.
  THE EARL OF DERBYwas glad to hear that the noble and learned Lord disclaimed any intention of imputing falsification to the clerks, but thought that he was justified in supposing that such an imputation was conveyed in the terms of the noble Lord's letter which he had quoted. He had

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  therefore explained that the first Return to the order of the House of Commons gave the average amount of seven years, and the Inter return that for the last year only, and that therefore the apparent discrepancy did not justify any such imputation.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORexplained, that his letter referred to the difference between the Return of March and that up to the 11th of October.
  After a few words from the Earl of DERBY,
  House adjourned at a quarter before Nine o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter before Five o'clock.