Sitting of 27 May 1862

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILL.—1o Roman Catholic Prisoners.
MAYNOOTH COLLEGE

  RETURN MOVED FOR.
  MR. WHALLEYsaid, he rose to move for a Return of the names, ages, and number of Students attending the College of Maynooth on the 31st day of August, 1844 (being the end of the academical year); the names and number who have entered each year from that time till the 31st day of August, 1861, with the age of each Student at entering; the names and number who have left college during that period who have not completed their course of education, with the date and cause of leaving, and the classes which they have respectively attended.
  MR. MONSELLsaid, he begged leave to object to the latter part of the Motion.
  MR. WHALLEYsaid, he had not anticipated that the right hon. Gentleman would have made any objection to the Return being granted, and was about to enter further into the question, when—
  MR. SPEAKERinformed the hon. Gentleman that it was not open to him to give any further explanations then.
  MR. WHALLEYsaid, he had desired to make an explanation in order to make the question which he was about to ask
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  intelligible. The question was, whether the Chief Secretary for Ireland is prepared to give effect to the recommendation in that part of the Report of the Commissioners, appointed in the year 1853 to inquire into the management and government of the College of Maynooth, "that a Calendar be annually published by the College, stating the names of the several Students who have left the College after the completion of the course, and their respective destinations; its alumni at the time alive, and the places in which they are severally performing their functions?" He might state that an order was made by that House recently for a Return which the authorities at Maynooth could not comply with, in consequence of no record being kept. The Commissioners appointed in 1853 suggested that a record should be kept and annually published, stating the names of the several Students who had left the College after the completion of the course, and their respective destinations.
  SIR ROBERT PEELreplied, that he was not able to say at once whether he was prepared to give effect to the recommendation of the Commissioners; hut as regarded the Calendar, he saw no reason why there should not be a Calendar annually published of Maynooth, in the same way as there was of Oxford and Cambridge and other Universities.

  DEANERY OF ADFORT AND CHANCEL LORSHIP OF LISMORE.—QUESTION.
  COLONEL FRENCHsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, By what authority the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, having regard to the views of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and the provisions of the 116th section of the Act of the 3 & 4 Will. IV., c. 37, appointed to the Deanery of Adfort and the Chancellorship of the Cathedral of Lismore, both being without cure of souls.
  SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, he understood that the Statute to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman referred did not apply to these two cases, and that the Statute applied to cases of benefices where Divine service had not been celebrated since 1833. The Chancellorship of Lis-more Cathedral had not been filled up; but he was informed that the tithes and glebes attached to it had been annexed to the funds of the perpetual curacy of the parish. With respect to the Deanery of Adfort,

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  the Lord Lieutenant had filled up the appointment with the assent of the persons immediately interested, including the Bishop.

PATENTS FOR INVENTIONS.

  COMMISSION MOVED FOR.
  SIR HUGH CAIRNSsaid, he rose to move for an Address to the Crown, praying for the appointment of a Commission to inquire into the working of the Law relating to Patents for Inventions. The difference of the views taken of the Patent Laws, when regarded from the side of patentees, or from that of manufacturers and the public generally, was very great, hut in either view the state of those laws was important. At that moment, on the hest calculations that could he made, there were about 14,000 patents in existence. Every one of these patents represented an outlay of a considerable amount of money and time. The property these patents represented, therefore, could not be otherwise than very large. In addition to that, looking at the question from the point of view taken by the manufacturers and the country, it should be remembered that every patent granted, or that might be granted, was in substance a curtailment, to a certain extent, of the wide domain which might otherwise be occupied by the manufacturers generally; and it could not but be the interest of the manufacturers to see that there was no such curtailment, or that their proper province should not be invaded without some consideration and proper safeguards. He could not help thinking that the present was a convenient, opportune time for considering the question. It was rather more than ten years since, during the preparations for the Exhibition of 1851, that there was a considerable agitation in the country in reference to the state of the Patent Law then existing. Some persons who took an interest in the promotion of the Exhibition of 1851 also took a great and lively interest in the state of the Patent Law. After consideration before Committees of that and the other House of Parliament, an Act was passed in 1852, which had since regulated the grants of patents for inventions in this country. Another Exhibition of Arts and Manufactures as great, or at all events more extensive than the first, was then in existence; and it had so happened there had sprung up in the country a loud demand for a reconsideration of
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  the law that had prevailed from 1852 to that time. But he ought to take notice that after he had put his Motion on the paper the hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent (Mr. Ricardo), who was unfortunately not present, gave notice of a Motion, not for a Commission, but a Committee of that House, to consider, not the working of the Patent Law, but the policy of the law itself. For that reason he wished to state briefly the advantages he thought a Commission would have over a Committee of the House of Commons. It was obvious that a Committee of the House must be confined as to its composition to those who had the honour of seats in it. There might be, and there were, a number of Members of the House very competent to investigate a question of the kind, some of whom it would be desirable to have in any body that might enter into the inquiry; but it was clear that a Commission would act at any period of the year, and probably at a time when the pressure of public business would be much less than at that moment; in that respect a Commission would have an advantage over a Committee of the House. The Motion proposed by the hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent referred to the policy of the Patent Laws; the Motion he himself proposed to submit was somewhat different. He proposed to ask for an address for the appointment of a Commission to inquire, not into the policy, but into the working of those laws. The reason he would explain in a few words. He did not mean to say that the policy of the Patent Laws, which he understood to mean the policy of having any patents for inventions at all, was not a very arguable question and one worthy of consideration. It seemed to him that a good deal might be said on both sides of the question, both in favour of maintaining the system of giving patents for inventions and in favour of the contrary position. That was a question, however, which, if it were raised at all, was a fair one for discussion in the House of Commons. It did not require an elaborate investigation by a Commission. If any one wished to raise that question, there were ample materials for the discussion. At the same time, he did not wish to abstain from stating his own opinion with regard to the policy of having patents for inventions. Some persons held that there was a sort of abstract right by which any one who had arrived at an invention should have a property in that invention secured to him as a matter of right.

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  It had always appeared to him to be n doctrine which could not for a moment be supported, and it was quite inconsistent with fixing any limit to the operation of letters patent. He regarded it as a question of expediency. There could be no doubt that it was the interest of the State to encourage inventions, as far as they could be encouraged legitimately. There could be no doubt that it was the interest of the State to encourage the outlay of money for the promotion and discovery of inventions, and to discourage the concealment of inventions. The question was as to the price which it was worth while to give to arrive at those results. At that stage of the argument it was impossible to shrink from the conclusion at which all writers on political economy had arrived—that there was no mode by which the reward for inventors was so completely self-adjusting in its nature as granting privileges analagous to letters patent, whereby the inventor was rewarded by the increased price which was put upon the article manufactured. On the one hand, if the invention were worthless, he would not get the price, and no one would be injured; and, on the other hand, if the invention were valuable, he would reap the fruits of his invention, and exactly in proportion to the demand which existed for the invention which he had made. But although he thought the arguments for a reward for inventions preponderated over the arguments against it, he submitted that in appointing a Commission it would be inconvenient to invite attention to the question of the propriety of granting letters patent at, all, as the inevitable consequence would be a division of opinion among the Commissioners upon that higher and broader question; and, instead of applying their minds to the improvement of the existing system, they would enter upon a series of duella as to whether the whole system should be abolished or not. After balancing the arguments, therefore, he had arrived at the conclusion, which he hoped the House would approve, that it was most advisable to address the Crown for a Commission to inquire, not into the policy, but into the working of the law with regard to letters patent for inventions. It would greatly facilitate his object in bringing forward the particular points in which the law, in his opinion, required amendment, if the House would allow him to direct attention to the important changes which took place in 1852. There were three
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  matters in which the Act of 1852 completely altered the system of patents in this country. In the first place, before 1852 there were no means by which a person who supposed that he had arrived at an invention could obtain temporary protection during the time that he was endeavouring to perfect it by experiments; and while making experiments there was the danger of their amounting to publication and preventing his obtaining any patent at all. In 1852 the Legislature provided, that upon an inventor lodging a description of his invention, he should have provisional protection for six months; and it was universally admitted that it was a wise and beneficial alteration. The second change was in reference to the publication of specifications. Up to 1852 the specifications were kept in writing in certain very obscure offices in London, and were virtually inaccessible to the manufactures of the kingdom. The Act of 1852 provided that all specifications should be printed and sold at a moderate price—not only new specifications, but the specifications of patents from the earliest period when they were granted; and it might be interesting to the House to know, that although only ten years had elapsed, the specifications of all the patents granted since 1611 had been printed, were to be found in the public libraries, and might be bought for a very insignificant price. The third alteration was, perhaps, of very much greater utility than the other two. Up to 1852 there was no possibility of obtaining one patent for the three parts of the kingdom. A patent for England could not be obtained until it had passed through seven different offices, fees and expenses being charged in each, and then the inventor had to get another patent for Scotland and another for Ireland. The expenses, exclusive of the fees of patent agents, amounted to £350. Inventors were now able to take out letters patent for all parts of the kingdom at once, at one office in London, and they had only to pay one patent agent. A mode of payment entirely novel was originated in 1852, and it had proved acceptable to inventors, and extremely useful. An inventor coming for a patent paid £5 on lodging the provisional specification, and he paid nothing more for six months. At the end of six months, if he wished to obtain a grant, he paid a sum of £20, and he paid nothing more for three years. During the three years he was able to consider whether the patent was worth any

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  further outlay; and if so, a payment of £50 carried him on for seven years. During the seven years, he had the opportunity of considering again whether the patent was worth any further outlay; and if at the end of that time he wished to be further protected for fourteen years, he had to make a final payment of £100. The total payment was therefore £175, and it was paid by instalments, hardly irksome in any degree to the patentee, and increasing only in proportion as the profits of the invention might be supposed to increase. In asking attention to the imperfection of the patent laws, he felt bound to give full credit to those wise and beneficial changes which were made in 1852, and he was anxious to say, that ns far as he could judge from the statements of those who had occupied themselves with the question, the changes made in 1852, although they might not have made the system by any means perfect, were as beneficial and as useful changes as were ever accomplished by any one piece of legislation. He would next inquire, what had been the consequence of that change of the law in the increase of the number of the patents? Going back to 1833, twenty years before the Act was passed, the number of patents was 108. In 1851, the year before the alteration of the law, the number of patents was 455. In 1852–53, after the new Act came into operation, the number of provisional protections for inventions was 3,260, out of which 2,050 patents were actually sealed. Not only was there a sudden and instantaneous increase at that time, but down to the present moment, in round numbers, 3,000 provisional protections were taken out every year, and 2,000 patents were sealed. In 1860 the number of provisional protections was 3,196, and the number of sealed patents 2,060. It would be instructive to notice the subsequent history of the inventions after provisional protection. In the interval of six months between the granting of the provisional protection and the sealing of the patent, about a third of the applications dropped off, because the parties, upon consideration, finding their inventions not to be worth the further expense necessary to procure the sealed patents, declined to persevere in their resolutions to obtain them. Of the remainder, two-thirds were abandoned at the end of the third year, which he might term the next turnpike gate, and nine-tenths of the rest disappeared before the seventh year came round. In that way,
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  therefore, 2,000 patents were reduced to 200. Hence the provision of the Act of 1852, in regard to different instalments of payment, had worked satisfactorily, and had produced a wholesome effect in getting rid of a number of patents, which the experience of a few years proved to be of a worthless or trivial character. What, then, were the evils which were made the subjects of complaint, and in regard to which he ventured to ask the House for a Commission? The objections against the system proceeded from different quarters, and were not altogether consistent. They might be classed under three heads. In the first place, it was alleged that the facilities for taking out patents, created by the Act of 1852, had led to a multiplication of worthless and trivial patents, which were looked upon as a source of evil by the general body of manufacturers in the kingdom. The second objection was this, that even after all the reductions of expense effected by the Act of 1852, the cost of the patent was still too high, and that, in point of fact, there was every year a large surplus arising from the fees paid in respect of patents, over and above the cost and expense of the office by which those patents were granted. The third and most serious objection was, that the mode by which patent causes, or causes for the infringement of letters patent wore tried, was not merely expensive, but unsatisfactory, by reason of the want of experience of the tribunal which disposed of them. He could not agree with the second objection, but he thought there was something in the first and third allegations. The multiplicity of patents had been exaggerated. Fie had inquired into the number of patents granted in France and in the United States, the countries in which the greatest number of inventions was patented. In France, where the expense of each patent was only £4, between 4,000 and 5,000 were taken out every year; and in the United States, where the expense was £7, the number was upwards of £5,000 annually. Judging from the number of patents in this country, it could not, therefore, be said that there was an undue expansion of the system; but, at the same time, there could be no question that a multiplicity of patents was a great evil. What was the cause of the multiplication of worthless patents? It would be found to spring from three sources. In the first place, no doubt a great many patents utterly useless

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  were taken out by supposed inventors— workmen, perhaps, who, from the limited sphere of their observation, assumed that they had made discoveries which would probably make their fortunes, when it ultimately turned out that they had been long before anticipated by others, and therefore there was no novelty in these inventions. Another cause was, that many persons applied for patents purely for advertising purposes, in the hope of selling their wares to more advantage, from being able to make use of the word patent in their advertisements, and with no intention of enforcing their claims to monopoly. That, perhaps, did not do much harm, as the public must by that time be sufficiently on their guard against the practice, and as the patentees did not seek to carry their title into effect. The third cause of useless patents was more serious. It was alleged that certain traders, who were the original proprietors of one or two valuable inventions, took out new patents for small improvements and combinations thereon, or bought up all the patents of a similar character they could procure. Thus, they created a sort of network of patent rights to entrap the unwary and to frighten off rivals in trade. He could not say whether that allegation was true or not; but it was a subject that called for investigation; and if the allegation proved to be well founded, the practice was calculated to be seriously detrimental to the manufacturing community at large, and required some steps to be taken for its prevention and cure. At present the only investigation which alleged inventors underwent before patents were granted, was conducted by the law officers of the Crown, Of course, those officers could not examine into the novelty or usefulness of the invention; all that they could do—and that was often a task of some difficulty—was to see that the alleged inventor described in a clear and intelligible manner what he claimed as his invention, so that he might not afterwards add to or take from it. It was by no means uncommon for the law officers to send a description back twice or three times, in order that it might be made sufficiently particular. By some persons it was said that there ought, before a patent was granted, to be some preliminary inquiry of the nature of a public and judicial investigation into the novelty and usefulness of the invention. That was a very plausible demand on the part of the pub-
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  lic, and would be a proper subject for a Commission to inquire into if one were appointed; but, in the mean time, he might be allowed to suggest one or two reasons for doubting the efficiency of such an investigation. Such a system had been tried in the United States; but the late Patent Commissioners of that country bad reported strongly against it. So far, then, as example went, there was not much encouragement to try the experiment in this country. But there was another danger by which it would be attended. A preliminary investigation, let it he observed, must be into either the usefulness or the novelty of the invention. The object of the existing preliminary protection for six months was to enable the inventor to test the usefulness of his invention in the only way in which he could test it, before he completed his patent. If the preliminary investigation was held before this protection was granted, they would be trying the question of utility before the inventor had had the opportunity of trying the experiments by which alone the utility of his invention would be decided. It should be borne in mind that some of the greatest men, and those most conversant with science and manufactures, had been the greatest sceptics with regard to the utility of some of the greatest inventions of which they bad had the benefit. Sir Humphrey Davy, for example, did not believe in the possibility of lighting houses with gas, and, had he been acting as a judge, would have condemned that invention as useless. Then, as to the novelty of the invention. Of course, if the investigation was to be anything more than a mockery, there must be ample advertisement of the nature of the alleged invention, and time and opportunity must be given for obtaining from all parts of the country objections on the grounds of its want of novelty. It was very easy to say "Get objections;" but the fact was that you could not induce objectors to come forward unless some proceedings were adopted against them for alleged infringements of a patent. For those reasons he thought that it was by no means so clear as it was in some quarters assumed to he that a preliminary investigation would be useful, and would put an end to all undue multiplication of patents. His own opinion was that they were compelled to allow every one to take out letters patent at his own peril, and that what was really wanted was not a preliminary

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  investigation, but some short, simple, and inexpensive mode of recalling or revoking patents which had been improperly granted. At present the only way in which such a patent could be revoked was by means of a scire facias, a process which was very expensive, and one result of which always was that the person who set it in motion had to pay his own costs. If there was some simple process, such as a rule to show cause or something of that sort, by which a person might be called upon to justify his patent with regard to the utility or novelty of the invention, he believed that the air might be cleared and the manufacturing public would be at a small expense disembarrassed of worthless and trivial patents. Then came the question as to the cost of patents. Upon that part of the subject it was important to attend to the distinction between the charge for the patent and the appropriation of that charge. He did not think that it could be said that the actual charge, £5 in the first instance and £20 at the end of six months, was too high. Some persons, no doubt, thought that it was unjust to tax the inventor, and that the Government had no right to take from him any more than the sum actually required to cover the expense of the patent. He took issue with that doctrine. It seemed to him that, as the question was entirely one of expediency, the point to be arrived at was to ascertain what sum would, on the one hand, be sufficient to deter persons from making idle and useless applications for patents, and, on the Other, would not prevent any real and bonâ fide inventor from obtaining the grant of letters patent for his invention. There might be a difference of opinion as to whether the best amount was fixed in 1852, but he did not think that any case had been made out for the reduction of the sum then charged for patents. There was a much more important point on which inquiry was also necessary—namely, with regard to the disposal of the very large surplus arising yearly from these letters patents, after all the expenses connected with the grants had been provided for. At present these sums, amounting to some £25,000 yearly, were paid into the Consolidated Fund, and became available as part of the general taxation of the country, but it might fairly be inquired whether that was a proper application of the surplus. He could not help thinking that the inventors and manufacturers,
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  from whom the money was derived, had a very strong case for saying that the surplus ought to be appropriated to purposes akin to those which led to the money being paid. The existing Patent Office was in many respects the worst and most inconvenient that could be conceived; there was no library where inventors might find means of consulting former specifications, or of studying the records of inventions in other countries. Above all, there was no museum connected with inventions, though it was very well known, that from time to time there had been almost pressed upon the Patent Commissioners large and valuable models which would be of the greatest value to persona studying the nature of inventions, if they were properly set up and arranged. These were all points to which inventors and manufacturers might fairly hold that the surplus funds which they contributed might more fairly be applied than to the general taxation of the country. Then it was said that the present mode of trying causes for infringing letters patent was very expensive and very unsatisfactory. And he thought the House would be startled with one or two instances of that litigation. There was a case very well known in Sheffield, in which a patent had been taken out by an eminent manufacturer named Heath. It effected a revolution in the manufacture of steel by the introduction of a chemical substance, and enabling steel to be produced at a reduction of 30 or 40 per cent on the previous cost. Mr. Heath, from the time he obtained the patent in 1842, till he died in 1853, spent his life in litigation. The suit was formally carried to the House of Lords; and he had obtained a statement which showed that the costs of the defendant were estimated at £7,000, and those of Mr. Heath at £8,000, showing that the two sides had expended in litigation connected with a single patent the sum of £15,000. It might be said that that case was prior in date to the year 1852; but he had got a later instance. A patent was taken out in 1850 or 1852 by a Scotch gentleman, named Menzies, for capsules and tops of bottles. The invention was no doubt a very valuable one, and litigation in connection with it was carried on both in Chancery and the Courts of Common Law. The question had been lately argued before the House of Lords; he believed judgment had not been given, but the solicitor to the plaintiff informed him that the

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  costs of his client amounted to £14,487, and he estimated those of the defendant at £10,370. So that the total cost of legal proceedings in connection with this invention amounted to no less than £24,857. These cases went to prove that the present tribunal for the trial of patent cases was at all events not a very cheap one. He did not think, however, that any complaints could justly be made against the head of that tribunal; neither did he hold with some that a judge ought to he appointed exclusively for the trial of patent cases, because he believed he would often have very little to do. The question of jurors was a much more serious one. He did not know whether hon. Gentlemen had seen the account, in the ordinary sources of information, of a trial, which took place the other day, with regard to one of the electric telegraph patents, in which, after the case had lasted two or three days, and a great number of experts had been examined on either side, the jury took up their hats, and said they must decline to go any further, as they could not understand the proceedings. He believed jurors might have done the same in many other cases, when, from want of acquaintance with the subject-matter, they were necessarily at the mercy, he would not say of the counsel, but of the experts examined, being unable to exercise any judgment of their own upon the evidence. As a remedy for that state of things, he had heard it proposed to have in place of the ordinary jury one composed of experts— that was to say, of persons engaged in the particular trade or manufacture to which the patent related. But it would probably be found that in many cases a jury such as this would be the very last tribunal to he desired; because it would be composed either of the rivals in trade of the patentee, or else of persons who would be biassed by the effect which the patent was likely to exorcise in connection with their trade or manufacture. A proposition of a different character had been made, which seemed to him much more worthy of attention. The House was aware that in Admiralty cases, when a question of a technical character arose, the judge habitually associated with himself, as assessors, some of the elder Trinity Brethren, who possessed great experience in the technicalities which arose in cases of collision and other maritime questions. It had been suggested that in place either of an ordinary or scientific jury, it might be desirable to have
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  sitting with the judge by way of assessors, in patent cases, three or four persons of general scientific attainments removed altogether from the details of trade and the prejudices likely to arise in connection with it, but still with minds so trained and adapted that they could readily be applied to any branch of science, arts, or manufactures. With such assistance, aided by his own knowledge of law and of the rules of evidence, the judge, it was thought, might be able to conduct an action of the sort in a manner satisfactory both to the patentees and the public. He did not offer any opinion of his own with regard to that proposal beyond saying that between these conflicting suggestions it was very desirable that a body of men should examine the question of patents and manufactures generally for the purpose of determining which was likely to prove the most satisfactorily-constituted tribunal. Out of doors there was a very strong demand for inquiry into the working of the patent system. He hoped the House would be disposed to accept the Motion which he had laid before them. If they did so, and the Commission which he trusted would be appointed was able to see its way, he felt satisfied that by the legislation which Parliament might adopt in accordance with their recommendations, a considerable boon would be conferred on the inventors and manufacturers of the country, and through them upon the public at large.
  LORD STANLEYsaid, he rose to second the Motion. His hon. and learned Friend had gone so fully into the question that he should delay the House but for two or three minutes in adding a few remarks to the observations already made. He thought it would be evident to any one who had looked into the question, that there were only three alternatives open to the Legislature when dealing with it. One was to ignore altogether the claim of the inventor to receive a patent or legislative protection for his invention—to throw open inventions as soon as they were made, and to leave the inventor to obtain his reward simply from being first in the field, and from such secrecy as he might be able to maintain as to the operations he was carrying on. The next alternative was to grant, as at present, patents for a limited number of years, after an inquiry before some tribunal that might be considered competent, that tribunal to have the right to pronounce finally and decisively whether the inven-

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  tion deserved or did not deserve the protection which a patent gave. The third alternative was to grant patents, as at present, either without inquiry, or what was nearly the same thing—after an inquiry little more than nominal and formal, it being understood that the patent was to confer nothing more than a right to sue in a court of law; that it was not of itself an absolute protection to the inventor, but gave him a right to go to a court of law if the monopoly which he claimed was infringed upon. As regarded the first alternative, there might, perhaps, be more justice in it than at first sight appeared, or than would be generally admitted; but the universal practice in Europe and America was opposed to it; it would be condemned by public opinion, and in many cases it would be attended with injustice to individuals, and with great inconvenience to the public. It would lead to attempts being made to maintain secrecy in manufacturing processes, which would at once lead to various kinds of fraud, and deprive the public of much of the advantage of new inventions; and in the end it might become necessary to adopt some means of remunerating inventors at the public expense, which would throw upon Parliament, or upon the Executive, a duty which neither was fitted to undertake. He believed that those who had thought most on the subject, had come to the conclusion that it was impossible to find any other mode of remuneration than that afforded by patents, which would not be open to the gravest objections; but for present purposes it was enough to say, that any proposal to do away altogether with the protection which patents afforded would he universally condemned in this and other countries. The next alternative, that of referring claims for patents to a tribunal which would have the power of deciding finally whether a patent should or should not be granted, was the one which nearly every person on commencing to consider the subject was at first disposed to approve; but the more one looked into that scheme the greater and more serious became the obstacles to it. He did not hesitate to say that, after a good deal of consideration, those objections appeared to him altogether insuperable. In the first place, as discoveries took place in the whole range of the sciences, where were they to find men to compose a tribunal which would be competent to pronounce authoritatively and
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  finally in every branch of science? If the judges had a personal acquaintance with the art or science to which the invention pertained, there would be the risk of prejudice and personal rivalry; if not, there would be the risk of ignorance. Again, before such a tribunal the inventor would be represented, but there would be no one to represent the public. An inquiry of that nature would be a trial between the inventor on one side and the public on the other. The inventor would have an interest in keeping the invention close; and the public, on the other hand, would have as strong an interest in throwing it open. The inventor would be represented by counsel; but who would retain counsel on behalf of the public? Then, again, there would be that objection to which reference had already been made—namely, that those inventions which were most original, and which in the end would be likely to turn out most valuable, would be the most unlikely to receive scientific sanction. Even if all those difficulties had been overcome, how long would such a tribunal, even supposing it to be in the right, be able to bold its ground against the double pressure that would be brought to bear against it—against the complaint of inventors who had failed to obtain what they sought on the one side, and on the other against manufacturers complaining that their operations had been impeded by the granting of unnecessary and frivolous patents? He believed that it would not be possible to maintain such a tribunal beyond a few years; and, further, he was of opinion that during its existence it would not put a stop to litigation. They could not refuse to any person who claimed to show that a patent had been improperly granted for some invention that had previously been made by some one else than the patentee, the right of going to a court of law—the right of a re-hearing in such a case. If that were so, and if the decision of such tribunal would not be final, nothing would be gained by patentees except the right of going to one tribunal to obtain their patents, and afterwards to another to defend themselves against persons who made infringements on their privileges. There would be two trials, instead of one as at present. These considerations led him to believe, that in the first instance the inquiry into the nature of the invention for which a patent was claimed ought, as at present, to be almost nominal and formal.

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  He did not concede, as was sometimes said, that every man had a right to take out a patent, because it was a monopoly, and was a matter of concession; but for the interest of inventors, and of the public, he was convinced that the object which Parliament had in view would best be obtained by allowing persons to get patents easily, simply, and cheaply, at the same time affording an equally easy, simple, and cheap mode of subsequently disputing the grant to every person who was interested in so doing. The first of those objects had been effected by the Act of 1852: the second bad not. Still, the Act of 1852 had effected a great reform. Formerly patents were very costly for the great mass of inventors. Now, he thought inventors bad no cause of complaint on that head; for, though the total amount paid was considerable, the greater portion of it was not paid till it had been proved that the patent was of value to the inventor. The expenses, in the first instance, were not heavy. An objection was, however, taken to the state of the law on the ground that a large number of patents were taken out, not by inventors intending to make a legitimate use of them, but by persons whose object was merely to speculate on patents, by making them a means of annoyance to persons in trade—manufacturers and tradesmen often preferring to pay a sum down, even though not satisfied of the justice of the claim, rather than incur the trouble and expense of a costly litigation. If, as was generally alleged, that practice was resorted to, it afforded strong reasons for a change in the law. His hon. and learned Friend had pointed out, not only the expense, but the difficulty, lying in the way of those who wanted to test a patent. Again, he believed, that if any one wanted to ascertain the validity of a patent, the only practical method of doing so was to begin by infringing it. That was not a satisfactory state of things. Besides the question of the frivolous use of patents and the mode of procedure, there were others deserving of inquiry. He would only mention one. Those who on principle were most opposed to patents, and who thought, as many did, that when they gave a man a monopoly of an invention, they were dealing hardly by half a dozen other men, who, if he had not secured the patent, would have hit upon the same invention not very much later, founded their strongest objection upon this fact—that you not only gave
  46
  the patentee power to levy a toll upon every person who used his invention, but also enabled him absolutely to shut out the rest of the world from his invention for a certain term of years, if he thought that that was a more profitable course than allowing the use of it for a consideration. The remedy suggested was, that instead of allowing the patentee the sole use of his invention, he should be compelled to give licences to such persons as required them on payment of a fair and reasonable consideration. He did not say that there were not difficulties in the way of practically carrying out such a suggestion. For example, there was the difficulty of deciding on what should be an adequate consideration; but if that and oilier questions of detail could be satisfactorily dealt with, the result would be to get rid of one of the greatest objections to the Patent Laws as they stood. These were points which deserved inquiry. It was not his wish, or that of his hon. and learned Friend, to prejudge the case; but, inasmuch as ten years bad passed since the existing Patent Laws were introduced, as that period had been one of great mechanical activity, and a large number of patents had been taken out, he thought a case had been established for a revision of the law, an inquiry into its working, and an attempt to ascertain in what respects it had answered its purposes, and in what it was susceptible of further improvement.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, that the question raised by his hon. and learned Friend and the noble Lord was one which would be of importance in any country, but which was of especial importance in a country like England, where manufacturing industry was so largely developed and the inventive genius of the people was so great. Ton years had elapsed since the last Patent Act was passed; and as considerable diversity of opinion existed upon the subject, the Government were of opinion that a fair case had been made out for inquiry, and it was to be hoped that the result of the inquiry would be such as to render the future working of the law entirely satisfactory. His hon. and learned Friend said very truly that it was matter of just complaint that recourse was had to the machinery of the Patent Law, in too many cases for the purpose of obtaining protection for comparatively trivial inventions. Inquiry might be made as to the best remedy for this evil, At the same

  47
  time it was not easy to suggest one. It might, perhaps, be desirable by express legislation to add to the authority of the law officers as investigators of these patents, giving inventors a right of appeal in case of an adverse decision. Another point was the inconvenience and cost attending the trial of what were called patent causes. There again it was not easy to devise a remedy or to suggest a more satisfactory tribunal. At present these cases were generally decided by a jury under the direction of a judge. It had been suggested that experts sitting as assessors, in analogy to the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House sitting in the Court of Admiralty, should be associated with the judge in the trial of these causes. That suggestion pro-supposed the absence of a jury; and that being so, he was afraid that the decision of such a tribunal would be more unsatisfactory than that of a jury to those against whom it was given. In this country, as to all matters of fact, there was a strong- preference for the intervention of a jury, and the losing party was generally satisfied that he had had his chance and a fair trial. He was afraid, however, that no such satisfaction would result if the decision proceeded from experts sitting as assessors. On the other hand, it was impossible to deny, that though in the north of England and in London competent juries were sometimes impannelled, juries too frequently failed to bring to the trial of these patent causes a sufficient amount of knowledge or intelligence. He, therefore, admitted it would be a subject well worth the consideration of the Commission, whether it would not be possible to constitute some tribunal better adapted for trying these cases than a jury. He doubted whether some of the evils complained of could be effectually got rid of. The great cost of the litigation in patent cases was often caused by incidental circumstances rather than the state of the law, and both the cases referred to by his hon. and learned Friend had, he believed, passed through both courts of law and equity. Of course, if a tribunal could be found, competent to decide these cases in a manner satisfactory to the public and the parties, the necessity for appeals and new trials would be to a very great extent avoided. Complaints had been made as to the expense of obtaining patents; but that expense did not fall very heavy, for it was distributed over a considerable period, £25 being paid within the first six months, £50
  48
  more at the end of three years, and £100 additional at the end of seven years. It sometimes happened that there was a considerable surplus arising from patents, and it was a matter deserving of consideration how that surplus should be dealt with. he sincerely hoped the result of the appointment of the Commission would be to bring about as great an improvement in the present law as the Act of 1852 produced in the law before that date.
  MR. MONTAGUE SMITHsaid, that he was glad to find that his hon. and learned Friend was willing to assent to the appointment of the Commission. He considered that its labours would be well employed if the only inquiry which it instituted was into the mode of trying patent cases. He had had some experience of juries in patent cases; and, with all the respect for that tribunal, he thought it was utterly inadequate to the task of deciding in a great number of them. Juries might be competent to deal with easy cases, but not with those that were difficult and complicated. As science progressed, every improvement was a stop in advance of what had been done before; the cases became more complicated, and it was very difficult for twelve men taken at random as a jury to decide between the different scientific witnesses, and to understand the intricate models that were often produced in court. A present learned judge had assured him, that when practising in Chancery, it once took him a week to understand the model of a lace-machine, that he might be able to explain it to the Court. They could not expect a satisfactory decision from a jury in cases involving novelties in intricate machinery, when they saw the models of machines for the first lime on the floor of the court, and had no opportunity of mastering their details, even if they had the capacity from previous education to do so. He thought the time had arrived when, for the trial of difficult cases, some tribunal should be created better adapted for deciding them than the juries at present selected. He thought, also, though the judicial staff of the country might be sufficient for its ordinary wants, if patent cases were left to be tried at the ordinary sittings and assizes, it would be impossible for the judges to get through all the business. It would be impossible to get through the heavy mercantile cases that arose in London, if the jurors summoned had to try patent cases that might take a week or more to dispose of. In the

  49
  case of "Betts v. Menzies," the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, then a judge of the Queen's Bench, was engaged six long days, the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff on Saturday night, adding to it a few words which induced the judge to remark he was afraid all their week's work had gone for nothing. The manner in which that case was litigated was alone a sufficient reason for inquiring into the state of the law. After the verdict in favour of the patentee, the case was taken to the Queen's Bench, where the patent was defeated on the ground that an old patent had been discovered in the office by which the invention had been anticipated. The Court considered that the discovery was fatal to the patentee, after going through several courts. Finally, the case was carried by appeal to the House of Lords, where it was still pending. He was glad there was to be an inquiry by a Commission; without saying that in all cases juries should be dispensed with, or what should be the constitution of a new tribunal, he thought the principle of the Admiralty Court might be adopted. There a judge sat with the assistance of two Trinity masters, and the decisions, he believed, generally gave satisfaction. So for the trial of patent cases, a judge might sit with two experts, as assessors; persons might be selected for the duty having special knowledge of the subject to which the patent related. In conclusion, he would congratulate the House and the country on the probability of an Amendment of the present state of the law, which was not conducive to the attainment of truth, and was often the cause of scandal to the administration of justice.
  MR. LEVESON GOWERsaid, he could not but express his regret at the very limited field of inquiry upon which the Commission was to enter. Some disappointment would be experienced by the public at finding that the policy, as well as the operation of the present law, was not to be a subject of inquiry. In 1851 men who were most competent to pronounce a sound judgment expressed their opinion that patents practically did more harm than good to inventors as well as to the public; and, although some surprise was excited at the time, it was an opinion which had year by year become more and more general. It was very desirable that the doubts which the weight of these opinions had necessarily created should be set at rest, and he really did not see how
  50
  the Commissioners could consider the operation of the patent laws without extending their inquiries further, and throwing some light upon the general question as to the advisability of having any such laws at all. He concurred in the view of the hon. and learned Member for Belfast that the patentee of a useless invention obtained no reward; indeed, he not only received no reward, but he was induced by the patent laws to spend his time very uselessly, and to incur expenses for which there was no return. But he did not agree with the other part of the hon. and learned Gentleman's proposition, that a patentee of a valuable invention obtained a proportionate reward. Whenever a man was the patentee of an invention of great national importance, it seemed to invariably happen that some ingenious person started up and took out a patent for a slight improvement upon it. They were thus placed in this difficulty—they must either refuse patents for improvements on previous inventions, or, allowing them, deprive the real inventor of his reward. The consequence generally was, that inventors were led into disastrous lawsuits in order to defend their rights, and it was remarkable to see, in reading the history of some of the greatest inventors, how their lives were harassed by such litigation. There was the case of Mr. Cort, the inventor of puddling iron. He was led into litigation and died a poor man, and his son, in a petition to Parliament, stated that his father had never received any benefit from his great discovery. Mr. Watt, too, was involved in some of the longest lawsuits on record, and Mr. Fulton, of whom the Americans were justly proud, died at the age of forty-five, his health having been impaired by the worry of perpetual legal disputes about his invention, in which he became involved. It was matter for consideration whether there was not something inherent in inventions which prevented their being the property of man and precluded any one person obtaining the reward. The speeches which had been delivered that night had told as much against the system as against the existing law; and although remedies had been suggested, he did not believe in their being effectual. He should support the Motion, but he regretted that the inquiry was not to be more extensive.
  MR. VINCENT SCULLYsaid, he agreed that, in the majority of cases, the patent laws inflicted greater injury than

  51
  benefit on inventors; and, if possible, some means ought to be devised to protect: them from such injury. There was no class of men who were so much entitled to the protection of the law as inventors, and there was nothing so peculiarly the; property of a man as the labour of his; brains. The patent laws were improved in 1852, and they now required further; improvement. One great evil was the expense attending legal proceedings in these cases. He did not think a jury a fit tribunal, and he would suggest that such cases should be tried by a judge, assisted or not by a scientific assessor or assistant, leaving it to the option of the parties to have a jury if they preferred one. He believed, that if the option were given, the parties in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred would not withdraw the consideration of the question from a qualified judge. Some restraint ought to be placed on the granting of patents which were neither novel nor useful. It would also be a great blessing to inventors if there were some person to whom they could apply for correct information before throwing away their money, which, as poor men, they found it difficult to scrape together. Any man could set set up as a patent agent, there being no certificate required; but a patent agency required as much skill as any profession. It would be a great protection to inventors if they had some scientific tribunal before which they could go in the first instance, and ascertain whether their inventions were worthy of being followed up or not. To do away altogether with protection for inventions would be not only an injustice to inventors, but a disadvantage to the public. The hon. and learned Gentleman had done much good by bringing forward the subject, and he hoped the result of the Commission would be to introduce some improvement in the present law; but he feared it was too much to expect that it would lead to a perfect legal system upon so complicated a subject.
  MR. FRANK CROSSLEYsaid, that, as a manufacturer, he had some experience on the subject, and could state that the body to which he belonged were becoming more and more impressed, not with the worthlessness, but with the importance of patents. The Act of 1852 effected a great reform in enabling men of small means to procure patents, not so much because the expense was reduced, as because it was distributed in several instalments
  52
  over a number of years. In spite of the strong feeling in favour of juries, there was a growing belief that patent causes ought not to be tried by ordinary juries. Inventions now followed inventions so rapidly that a very small distinction between one machine and another became a matter of the greatest possible importance, and it was very difficult to understand the difference. Jurymen ought at least to be allowed to leave the box and examine the models produced in court. He thought the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn had taken a very sound view of this question. If the proposed inquiry led to as valuable reforms in regard to the protection of inventions as the last Act did in regard to the cost of patents, inventors would have every reason to be satisfied.
  Motion agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, that She will be graciously pleased to issue a Commission to inquire into the working of the Law relating to Letters Patent for Inventions.

  PUBLIC WORKS.—RESOLUTION.
  MR. DILLWYNsaid, he rose to move the Resolution of which he had given notice in regard to Estimates for Public Works. The House had so long shown its indifference with regard to questions of financial reform, that if he had been bringing forward his Motion at the beginning of the Session, or even within the last month, he should have felt it necessary to have detained them longer than he now intended to do. The House, however, was at length awakening to the importance of taking some steps towards retrenchment. Many hon. Members had done their best to awaken the country to a sense of its increasing expenditure. The right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire was a convert to, and had advocated a large measure of, retrenchment, and he was glad to see the right hon. Gentleman among financial reformers, and wished that he had spoken from that side of the House, where he would have been more heartily cheered than he was by his usual supporters. He could not agree with all the right hon. Gentleman said in depreciation of "bloated armaments," but he would point out a. mode in which he thought the expenditure might be reduced. He believed that the expenditure in the War Department, and in other departments,

  53
  might he reduced without any sacrifice of efficiency; and he hoped he should have the assistance of the right hon. Gentleman in asking the Government to take a practical step towards retrenchment. He took the division the other night on the British Museum Bill as an indication that the House was thoroughly awake to the subject, and was determined to carry out a system of retrenchment in some way. He knew that other considerations affected that decision, but he believed it was influenced to the extent of many votes by that consideration. The question was how independent Members could best effect a reduction of the Estimates when the House saw that they could be safely and properly reduced. In the discussions upon the Estimates it was a matter of common occurence that objections to items were met with the objection that the expenditure had already been sanctioned by a vote of the House, and that the refusal to continue it would inflict hardship upon persons who had accepted office on the faith of such a vote; or that it was for the completion of works which had been already commenced, and the money spent upon which would be wasted if a further sum was not expended. No doubt those were strong arguments as far as they went, and the House, frequently for those reasons, rejected a Motion of which in the abstract it approved. Had many of the works which had consumed so large a portion of the public money been fairly and fully explained to the House in the first instance, it was very likely that they never would have been consented to. He might quote as an illustration of this the case of the fortifications at Alderney, which were defended by the noble Lord at the head of the Government on the ground that they were a continuation of works begun by a former Government. And so with the South Kensington Museum. At first they were only asked for the money for a shed; then the shed was enlarged; then they were asked for a corrugated iron shed, on the plea that there were articles spoiling for want of room; and so they went on until at length an enormous establishment had grown up, which cost the country some £20,000 or £30,000 a year besides the expense of the building. As showing how the public money might be saved by the House paying proper attention to the subject in the first instance, he might cite the case of the proposed road across Hyde Park to the Exhibition. It was shown by a high authority in the
  54
  House that the road could not be made in time to be of any service, and the proposition was rejected, the result being that a more economical road, which served every purpose, had been opened. He did not mean to charge either the present or any previous Government with wilfully misleading the House in these matters, or endeavouring to get in the thin end of the wedge.
  An hon. MEMBER moved that the House should be counted; but notice being taken that 40 Members were present—
  MR. DILLWYNsaid, the Motion he had the honour to move pointed, as he thought, to a simple method of checking the continual demands upon the public purse of an unnecessary description. He believed, that if there was a distinct class of Estimates for Votes which were proposed for the first time, hon. Members would think it worth their while to be present when such Votes were taken, and to examine them more fully than they cared to do in the case of Votes which had already in some way or other received the sanction of Parliament. Why should not the House of Commons deal with the Estimates in the same manner as a private gentleman regulated his own expenditure? No private gentleman or man of business would consent to his agent undertaking new buildings without carefully considering the subject, nor would he allow items for such expenditure to he passed under his review as if they were a portion of his ordinary annual outgoings. They had been told over and over again by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Government were responsible to the House for the expenditure which they proposed; but in reality that responsibility was very slight, because the change of Governments enabled them to shift the blame to the shoulders of their predecessors. By the alteration which he sought to introduce, more direct responsibility would be created, and at the same time the passing of the ordinary Estimates would be facilitated. He would therefore conclude by moving the Resolution of which he had given notice.
  MR. AUGUSTUS SMITHseconded the Motion.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that, in all cases in which Her Majesty's Government propose to construct Works or to erect Fortifications or Public Buildings distinct and separate from those already existin or sanc-

  55
  tioned by Parliament, the Estimates for such New Works or Erections should be submitted for the consideration of the House in a separate form, and at a separate time, from the Annual Estimates for Current Expenditure."
  SIR GEORGE LEWISsaid, he hoped that the hon. Gentleman would not think he was treating him with any want of respect, when he stated that it was not his intention to follow him through the several topics of his speech. The hon. Gentleman's proposition was, that a new class of Estimates should be created by the executive Government and laid before the House. There were already four classes of Estimates, one for each branch of the War Service, one for the Revenue Departments, and one for the Civil Service. His hon. Friend proposed that a class should be constituted, to consist of "new works," which were now distributed among the other classes; but he had not gathered from his hon. Friend's Resolution or from his speech whether in the new class were to be included additions to existing works. Would an addition to a barrack be considered a new work?
  MR. DILLWYN: Yes; if it were a considerable addition.
  SIR GEORGE LEWIS: A considerable addition?—then a small addition would not, in his opinion, be a new work. The hon. Gentleman would see that a very nice question would at once arise as to the extent of the addition which was to constitute a new work. But the hon. Gentleman overlooked another inconvenience that would arise. The new works, according to his meaning of them, would be of a very limited extent. In the fourth class of the Army Estimates the Votes were set out in great detail, and, with few exceptions, the new works mentioned therein were works which had previously received the sanction of Parliament by a vote of money. Now, what information could the hon. Member ask for more than was furnished in those details? The only works really new in these Estimates were to be found under the head of Bermuda, the total estimate of which was £5,000. Supposing that Vote were put in a fifth class, what advantage would the House derive from such an arrangement? That Vote was connected with other Votes, for Gibraltar and other fortified places in our Colonies. Now, if that particular Vote for new works were relegated to a fifth class of Estimates, the House would be deprived of that information which was derived from a comparison
  56
  with other Votes, and from the details referring to them all. There was every wish on the part of the Government to present those Estimates in a form most satisfactory to the House, with a view of furnishing the best information possible, and of facilitating discussion. Those Estimates were now set forth in much greater detail than they used formerly to be presented to the House. Their present bulk was occasioned by the frequent demands made on the Government for additional information, and the desire of the Government to furnish such information. It was most convenient, in the discussion of those Estimates, to be able to compare one year with another, and to see the total amount of the Estimates as a whole. [Another attempt was made to count out the House without success.] He would instance the case of a new barrack for which a total estimate of £50,000 would be required; but only a sum of £10,000 would be asked for the first year. Now, though that Vote would appear in the first instance in the proposed new class of Estimates, in the second year it would necessarily be transferred into the ordinary Army Estimates. But how would the Vote of the previous year be entered? Here it was obvious that the necessary information could not be communicated, and the advantage of comparison would be wholly destroyed. The same inconvenience and confusion would arise with respect to the Naval and Civil Service Estimates if the proposition of the hon. Gentleman were agreed to. The Army Estimates were, he thought, presented in such a form that hon. Members could easily see for themselves what was and what was not a new work. If they were not sufficiently clear, he should have no objection to indicate the new works by some typographical arrangement, so as to draw attention to them more forcibly. There was every disposition on the part of the Government to present the Estimates in the form most convenient and acceptable to the House, but he did not see that any good would arise from the adoption of this plan, and he was therefore unable to give his assent to it.
  MR. DILLWYNin reply said, that if the right hon. Gentleman would separate the Vote for new works in each class of Estimates it would be a practical improvement upon the present system.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS.

  RESOLUTION.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, he rose to submit the following Resolution: —
  "That, in any system of Education by Government aid, provision should be made for teaching in Industrial Schools; and that, with a view to encourage evening study by adult operatives, provision, be made for supplying a Teacher in such Mechanics' Institutes as may apply for one."
  The results obtained from the system of education in the schools assisted by the Government grant were admitted to be very imperfect and unsatisfactory. Even the elements of reading and writing tolerably well were limited to a minority of the pupils, and it was not usual to find a child able to master the multiplication table. But supposing these things learned, they no more constituted education than plates and knives and forks made a dinner; they were merely means to an end. By far the greater number (at least 86 per cent) of children in Government schools, who entered at or after six, were compelled to leave the schools before or at ten years of age, their parents needing the profit of their labour. Those who remained beyond that age were not the children of the labouring poor, but of the middle class, who were able to pay for their education elsewhere. The returns indicated that the maximum attendance of children at school was at eight years of age, and that after that age the attendance rapidly declined. If Members compared the results of the system pursued in these schools with the benefits actually conferred on the poorer class of children by the training of the Industrial Schools supported by private efforts, they would agree with him in urging them on the Government for assistance. The Industrial Schools, by the combination of mental and physical labours, reconciled children to the restraints of school. While, in addition to literary culture, the girls were taught washing, cooking, housework, and needlework, the boys learned trades, gardening, agriculture, household work, baking, &c. In Scotland these schools had been eminently successful. In Aberdeen-shire, Sheriff Watson's Industrial Schools had greatly diminished juvenile offences and vagrancy; and Dr. Guthrie, who had greatly interested himself in this class of schools, bore strong testimony to the advantages society derived from them; and the Inspector of Reformatories reported—
  58
  "I think the value of these industrial certified schools in Scotland can scarcely be exaggerated."
  And the Commissioners, in their Report on the State of Popular Education in England, at page 402, used these words—
  "It appears to us that the object which Industrial Schools are intended to promote is one which should not be left to private individuals, but should be accomplished at the public expense and by public authority."
  Nevertheless, such serviceable schools were left without aid from the education grant; though, with singular incongruity, if the children educated by philanthropic individuals at such schools had committed offences against the laws, and had been passed to a reformatory, an allowance of five shillings per head per week would be granted for them! In consequence of this state of things, Dr. Guthrie addressed a memorial to the Committee of Privy Council on Education, asking for aid for Industrial Schools, and was refused. he then called public attention to the subject in a letter, dated Edinburgh, 17th May, 1862, from which he (Colonel Sykes) would quote a few words—
  "I pray you to observe that we do not ask one penny from the public funds to feed these hungry, to cloth these naked, or, when it is necessary, to house these homeless children; but we complain of it as a monstrous wrong, that the Committee of Council, to whom are intrusted the monies voted for education, should deny us all help to educate them ! They refuse to aid us in educating those whose circumstances are so desperate, that unless we burthened ourselves to a greater or less extent with their maintenance, they must go altogether uneducated, having no choice but to beg, steal, or starve."
  Although this language was strong, it was not too strong for the occasion; for social economists were quite aware that ignorance and want of occupation in nine cases out of ten were the causes of juvenile crime; and it must be patent to Members, that the "Blacking Brigades" of poor boys in London had done more to diminish juvenile offences than all the legislative Acts ever passed. He therefore trusted that in any grant for educational purposes regard should be had for that class of children to whose case he now called the attention of the House.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That, in any system of Education by Government aid, provision should be made for teaching in Industrial Schools; and that, with a view to encourage evening study by adult operatives, provision be made for supplying a Teacher in such Mechanics' Institutes as may apply for one."
  MR. LOWEsaid, that the hon. and gallant Gentleman had with much force pointed out the early age at which children left the schools under the system of the Privy Council, and also that many of the children left the schools without having acquired the rudiments of education. Agreeing with the hon. and gallant Member on these matters, he could not, however, join in the inference, that because children left the schools at an early age, without having acquired, in many instances, the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and of religion, therefore the remedy was to be sought in teaching them something else. He should have thought that the inference ought to be quite the opposite. It was unnecessary for him to go at any length into the subject, which had been thoroughly investigated by the Royal Commissioners, who reported against continuing the aid to the schools adverted to by the hon. and gallant Member. Last year a Committee of that House also investigated the subject, and reported against the grant of aid. The opinion of the Select Committee of the House of Commons was, that if the children in these schools were children who had committed offences of a minor description, there were reformatories in which they might be retained and reformed; and that if they were only poor and destitute, their case was then one for the intervention of the Poor Law by district workhouse schools. If, however, they were of a nondescript class, not comprisable in either one or other of the categories just mentioned, then the recommendation of the Select Committee was, that they should he left to the voluntary attention and kindness of persons actuated by charitable feelings; and the Select Committee most expressly reported against the proposition of the hon. and gallant Member. Such were the views of the Select Committee of last year, and they appeared to be founded in justice and good sense. The House would understand how difficult, or, indeed, how impossible, it would be to devise conditions on which public money should be granted to these schools, the very essence of them being that they were missionary efforts, trying to pick up the waifs and strays of society not amenable to discipline. Were he to put them under the discipline of the Privy Council and exact from them something definite in the shape of intellectual progress in exchange for money given, he should be injuring in the most vital man-
  60
  ner the object of these Industrial Schools, which was not so much intellectual as moral. It had been said of the ragged schools of London, presided over so admirably by the Earl of Shaftesbury, that they would be seriously injured by interference of any Government department. In like manner he was convinced that by interfering with Industrial Schools they would be doing harm instead of good. The hon. and gallant Member might, nevertheless, have made out an excellent case for private charity. Dr. Guthrie, it was true, had applied to the Privy Council for £700 in aid of similar schools, and was refused. Dr. Guthrie then appealed to the benevolence of the public, and the consequence was that he got £2,000; and that result Dr. Guthrie thought a great reflection on the Privy Council, but the matter ought to be regarded in quite a different light, not only as showing the extent of Dr. Guthrie's influence, but as pointing out a legitimate field for the exercise of private benevolence. He was perfectly convinced, that the duty of sustaining these Industrial Schools did not fall within his department, circumscribed within the limits in which it was restrained at present, and he was neither disposed to trench on the business of the Home Office with respect to the imprisonment of young criminals, nor upon that of the Poor Law Department in respect to feeding and supporting destitute children.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  BALLOT.—LEAVE.
  MR. SPEAKER: Mr. Henry Berkeley,
  MR. H. BERKELEY: Sir, I answer your summons, and rise to ask leave to bring in a Bill to cause the votes of Parliamentary electors to be taken by way of ballot. It strikes me very forcibly that the arguments I have hitherto used are entirely unanswered. I shall, therefore, leave the question in your hands.
  LORD FERMOYseconded the Motion.
  Motion made, and Question put,
  "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to cause the Votes of Parliamentary Electors to be taken by way of Ballot."
  The House divided:—Ayes 83; Noes 50: Majority 33.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. HENRY BERKELEY and Lord FERMOY.

BALLOT AT MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS.

  LEAVE.
  MR. AUGUSTUS SMITHsaid, the Motion which he had the honour to submit was one so very similar to that which had just been decided, as to make it unnecessary for him to take up the time of the House by advancing any arguments in its support. He would therefore content himself by simply moving for leave to bring in a Bill to allow the votes of municipal electors to be taken by way of ballot in all places where the town council should so think fit.
  MR. COXseconded the Motion.
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: After the agreeable surprise which we have had enacted this evening, and the hon. Member for Bristol having given us an example in his own person that silent voting is better than audible argument, of course this Bill will take its fate with the other, and therefore I will defer any remarks until another occasion.
  Motion made, and Question put,
  "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to allow the Votes of Municipal Electors to be taken by way of Ballot, in all places where the Town Council shall so think fit."
  The House divided:—Ayes 82; Noes 48: Majority 34.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. AUGUSTUS SMITH, Mr. Cox, and Mr. DILLWYN.

ROMAN CATHOLIC PRISONERS' BILL.

  LEAVE. FIRST READING.
  MR. HENNESSYsaid, he rose to move for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the law relating to the religions instruction of Roman Catholic prisoners in England and Wales. In the present temper of the House, and as the principle of the Bill had been admitted in the fairest manner by the noble Viscount, he would simply move for leave to bring in the Bill.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid, that looking to the character of the Bill, he thought it ought to be introduced in Committee of the Whole House.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr, Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  Motion agreed to.
  House in Committee.
  MR. SERJEANT PIGOTTsaid, he thought that some explanation of the provisions of the Bill ought to be given.
  MR. HENNESSYsaid, the Committee were aware that the religious instruction of Roman Catholic prisoners in England and Wales was given under an Act of Parliament which was passed before the period of Roman Catholic Emancipation. It was, therefore, impossible that Roman Catholic prisoners could be legally assembled for religious worship within the walls of the prison. The visiting justices of some county prisons had dwelt on the injustice of the present state of things, and had expressed their regret that the law was so strong that Roman Catholic prisoners could not be assembled in class to be instructed by priests of their own persuasion. In 1853 the noble Lord at the head of the Government said—
  "As far as Government prisons were concerned, he was quite prepared to state that he should feel it to be his duty to take steps for carrying into effect the views which had been expressed,—that in every Government prison there should be religious instruction given to every Catholic and Dissenter, as well as to every member of the Church of England, and that the person who gave it should receive that treatment which was consistent with a duo respect to his character, and such reward as might be adequate to the duties which he had to perform." [3 Hansard, cxxix., 1569–70.]
  And the noble Lord concluded—
  "It would be his duty early next Session to prepare and submit to Parliament a measure for the purpose of placing religious instruction in county gaols on the same footing as religious instruction in prisons more immediately under the control of the Government." [Ibid.]
  The Government, however, did not bring in a Bill. The law continued unchanged. The grievance remained, and he now proposed to apply a remedy.
  MR. SERJEANT PIGOTTsaid, he was much obliged to his hon. Friend for the explanation he had given. He would admit that full liberty ought to be given for the religious instruction of Roman Catholic prisoners. His only fear was that the Bill involved a proposal for an additional grant of money from the public funds.
  MR. WHALLEYsaid, he would advise the hon. Member to postpone legislation for the present. Thirty thousand pounds a year were already appropriated to Roman Catholic purposes; and though it was painful to him to have to make further efforts to inform the House on the subject, he thought they ought to ascertain what system, doctrines, discipline, and laws the grant of that money to Roman Catholics tended to disseminate. It was a mistake to regard it as a question of

  63
  religion. In the name of religion Roman Catholicism was a political system, the operation of which, in the opinion of the ate Sir Robert Peel, was utterly at variance with the social interests of the country. The canon law, which was in force to the full extent of the power of the priests, set at defiance every principle of social order, and sanctioned murder, theft, perjury, and every violation of the common law. The Commissioners in 1853 reported that they could not refer to books for the purpose of ascertaining what doctrines were taught in Maynooth. The system was one of practice, and the result was seen in the renewal of assassinations and agrarian outrages in Ireland. There were two societies in Ireland—St. Patrick's Brotherhood, at the head of which was Father Labelle; and the Catholic Young Men's Society, at the head of which was Dr. O'Brien. He might quote the opinion of Dr. O'Brien a leading authority in the Roman Catholic Church, to the effect that there were men who had taken oaths of conspiracy in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and elsewhere; and that the aim of the combination was the suppression of public opinion. He also cited a statement of Father Labelle to a similar effect.
  MR. BRIGHT: I understand the hon. Gentleman has, in accordance with one of our rules, moved the House into Committee for the purpose of asking leave to introduce a Bill, which is supposed, in some degree, to refer to the subject of religion. I am not aware that the hon. Gentleman proposes to ask the House to vote any sum of money in addition to what may be already granted by Parliament for Catholic priests or Catholic instruction. The hon. Gentleman's object appears to me very proper, and one which need not create much alarm here or elsewhere. We know there are about six millions of persons in the United Kingdom who are in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. They are called upon to pay taxes; they are subjected to the control of the laws; they form an important element in the population and power of the United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman does not ask anything for them which Parliament does not constantly and willingly grant for the rest of the population. That being the case, I cannot understand the wisdom, patriotism, generosity, or Christianity of any Member of this House who seizes an opportunity like this to make a violent and abusive attack directed generally against
  64
  6,000,000 of people, but particularly against the priests in whom they repose confidence, and by whom they are taught the principles of their religion. Surely, if there be, as there unfortunately are, a good many members of that Church who, being in poverty and ignorance, fall into crime and are thrown into prison, what can be more proper than that they should there receive religious instruction? The hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley) acts on the assumption, that if any of these persons are brought into contact with a priest, they are more likely than they otherwise would be to commit a crime. Therefore he would be glad to shut them out from the instruction which the hon. Gentleman proposes they should receive. Now, you cannot exterminate the Catholics, nor can you convert them by any process of which the hon. Member for Peterborough is the apostle. I undertake to say, that if there be any man who is responsible more than another for anything that may be deemed disloyal or disaffected towards the Government on the part of the Roman Catholic population or Roman Catholic priests of the United Kingdom, it is the man who here and elsewhere takes every opportunity of making it appear that there is in the conduct or belief of 6,000,000 of our countrymen something which makes them unworthy of being treated by Parliament with common generosity and justice. I do not think that the Committee sympathizes with the hon. Gentleman. It is obvious that it does not, for I have heard from both sides of the House exclamations which we all understand, and which should have led the hon. Gentleman to abbreviate his speech. I beg of him, for the sake of his own character, for the sake of that Protestantism of which he professes to be the champion, and for the sake of the House of Commons, to refrain from heaping unmeasured abuse upon the Catholic priests of Ireland and England, and to allow us to deal with such questions as the one before us with calmness and justice.
  MR. MAGUIREsaid, he was sure that every hon. Member in the House would appreciate the kindness of the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright), but he would assure him that it was not worth while at any future time to take the trouble to rebuke the hon. Member for Peterborough. In common with many others, he hoped that hon. Member would persevere in his course, for he firmly believed he had turned the whole anti-Catholic cause

  65
  into ridicule, and it was now very little matter what he said. The hon. Member for Birmingham besought the hon. Gentleman, for the sake of his character, not to persist in his present line of conduct. Why, it was this mission which gave him a character, and it would be the height of cruelty to deprive him of it. For his own part, he really liked the hon. Gentleman, and thought him exceedingly entertaining. Instead of going to hear Buck-stone, he stayed in the House and listened to the hon. Member for Peterborough. The question before the House was one of common justice and prison discipline. There was unfortunately a large percentage of the poorer Roman Catholics who got into gaols from crimes to which their poverty had driven them, and they ought not to be sent back to the world worse than they went into prison. As a matter of policy and common fairness, the Catholic culprit ought to have the benefit of the ministration of the priest whose religion he professed. The object of the law should not be to punish, but to reform; and if a criminal was to be reformed, it would only be by the precept of religious teaching in the prison.
  SIR GEORGE GREY: I am not acquainted with the nature of the Bill, and therefore I do not resist its introduction. But the question is evidently one that does not in the least affect the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church; and I think it is very much to be regretted that the doctrines of that or any other Church should become the subject of discussion in this House. Whether the hon. Gentleman behind me is well founded in his objection to the Bill or not, he ought to be the first to move for leave to introduce a measure on the subject, because the law as it stands distinctly recognizes the right of every Roman Catholic to be attended at his own request by a priest of his own Church; and, moreover, persons under sentence of death are by law exclusively under the care of the priests of their own religious persuasion. The law at present is certainly in an anomalous condition, and therefore, though I do not know what the Bill of the hon. Member is, I think it quite right to allow him to lay it on the table, and I shall be very glad to consider its provisions carefully and impartially.
  Resolved,
  That the Chairman be directed to move the House, That leave be given to bring in a Bill
  66
  to amend the Law relating to the Religious Instruction of Roman Catholic Prisoners in England and Wales.
  House resumed.
  Resolution reported.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. HENNESSY and Mr. SCHOLEFIELD.
  Bill presented, and read 1o; to be read 2o on Tuesday next, and to be printed [Bill 140].

MAYNOOTH COLLEGE.

  RETURN MOVED FOR.
  MR. WHALLEY, in moving for Returns connected with the course of education at Maynooth, said, he had obtained the consent of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to his Motion, as well as that of hon. Gentlemen who usually took a prominent part on the question on the opposite side of the House. He therefore believed that the Returns would have been granted, as a matter of course; but as he found that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Limerick was about to oppose the Motion, he was compelled to make a short statement. The details which he now sought to obtain were called for under the terms of the Motion of last year; but, at the suggestion of the then Chief Secretary for Ireland, an alteration having been made to meet the wishes of the authorities of the college, they took advantage of that circumstance and kept back the most material portion of the information, alleging that there was no record kept of the subsequent destination of the students on leaving the college. But in the Report of the Commissioners of 1853 it was recommended that a record of that very nature should be kept, and it was stated that there would be no difficulty in obtaining the information. The object of his Motion, therefore, was to supply the omission. He denied that he had ever used violent language against the Roman Catholic population. All he had maintained was, that the priests who left Maynooth, and were scattered over the world, preached doctrines antagonistic to the intentions with which Maynooth was endowed. The return would enable him to prove the particular teaching at Maynooth and other Roman Catholic seminaries.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That there be laid before this House, a Return of the names, ages, and number of Stu-

  67
  dents attending the College of Maynooth on the on the 31st day of August 1844 (being the end of the academical year); the names and number who have entered each year from that time till the 31st day of August 1861, with the age of each Student at entering; the names and number who have left College during that period who have not completed their course of education, with the date and cause of leaving, and the classes which they have respectively attended."
  MR. MONSELLsaid, he only desired to call attention to the last line of the Return asked for—"The names and number who have left College during that period who have not completed their course of education, with the date and cause of leaving." He would put it to the House whether it would not be a most improper thing to ask for such a Return. Persons who had left College, and were now leading useful and creditable lives, would not desire to be stigmatized by the entry of "stupidity," or other more discreditable epithet against their names.
  MR. VINCENT SCULLYsaid, that some strong course ought to be taken to put a stop to the proceedings of the hon. Member for Peterborough, which were becoming intolerable. It was no recommendation of his Motion that it had the consent of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. Would the hon. Member like to have such a Return as that moved for respecting the school which he had attended? Perhaps it might show that he was in subordinate, or offensive to his schoolfellows. Hon. Members who had been guilty of boyish tricks would not like to have them put on Parliamentary record. The hon. Member for Peterborough, who denied that he used abusive language in speaking of Roman Catholics, was reported to have said, at one of the meetings he had addressed when "starring" in the country, that "If a Roman Catholic lived next door to him, he might consider him to be a very good fellow, but he would not trust him." Was not that offensive language for one gentleman to use towards another? The hon. Member would not venture to address it to him outside of that House. He hoped the hon. Member would keep the anti-Popery subject from getting into more serious hands, in which it might be made more mischievous.
  SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, he felt bound to say that he had not been consulted on the subject. The right hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Monsell) would bear him out that he had urged in the
  68
  lobby that it would be better to leave out the clause why students had left the college and the classes they had attended. It would be very unfair that a student after a lapse of ten or fifteen years should be affiché in the manner proposed by this Return. If the hon. Member would withdraw these words, he should riot object to the Return.
  MR. WHALLEYsaid, the statement of the right hon. Baronet would imply that he (Mr. Whalley) had had no communication with him. Would the right hon. Baronet say that?
  MR. KENDALLobserved, that it must require some little courage in the hon. Member for Peterborough to boar up against the attacks made, ns he (Mr. Kendall) thought, rather unfairly upon him. The hon. Member said, "I am accused of being unjust to Maynooth. Give me the Return of the persons educated there, and I will prove to you that they have not acted justly towards the persons who have been called upon to pay for their education—that they have not discharged their duty to their Queen and country." The hon. Member for Peterborough had from time to time attacked the priests educated at Maynooth, and had pointed out many evils resulting from their teaching. He now sought substantial proofs in the Return he moved for. That was the fair and honest way of putting the question, and he did not think the hon. Member should be run down for seeking the information.
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, the question was whether the hon. Member would agree to omit the words.
  MR. O'BRIENobserved, that if this Return had been asked as from Oxford, Cambridge, or any other place of education in Ireland, it would have been scouted by every Member in the House. Let the hon. Member attack the Roman Catholic priestood in his annual Motions, but do not let him indulge in this eccentric abuse of them.
  MR. WHALLEYsaid, he was willing to withdraw the words to which exception, had been taken, and should not have inserted them if hon. Members had communicated their objections to him privately. He must, however, state that he had not only obtained the consent of the right hon. Chief Secretary, but that, so far from wishing to offend Roman Catholics, he had consulted several hon. Gentlemen of that religion before moving for the Return.

  69
  He felt it very hard that he should he constantly accused of making sweeping attacks upon the Roman Catholics, when in 1847 he had saved the lives of many members of that body in Ireland, and that at the risk of his own.
  MR. HENNESSYsaid, that in justice to the hon. Member he must say that he had done him the honour of consulting him previous to making the Motion, and that he (Mr. Hennessy) had—on his own account only—said that he saw no objection to the fullest inquiry being made into the working of the College of Maynooth.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Return ordered,
  "Of the names, ages, and number of Students attending the College of Maynooth on the 31st day of August 1844 (being the end of the academical year); the names and number who have entered each year from that time till the 31st day of August 1861, with the age of each Student at entering; the names and number who have left College during that period who have not completed their course of education, with the date of leaving."

EDUCATION OF PAUPER CHILDREN BILL— [BILL No. 87.]

  COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  House in Committee.
  Clause 1 (Guardians may send Children to Schools and Institutions).
  MR. HENLEYsaid, that guardians of the poor would have under the Bill power to send "children thereinafter described" to certain schools. He thought that the clause should define the class of children. He would also suggest that some words should be inserted which would meet the expense to be incurred in their education and maintenance.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, that that point had been considered by the Select Committee to which the Bill had been referred, and it had been thought the object of his right hon. Friend would be attained without the introduction of any set form of words into the clause. The intention was that any excess over the ordinary cost of the child's maintenance in a workhouse should be defrayed by private charity.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he thought that some limit should be named, such as that the expense should not be greater in these institutions than in the workhouse, for the guardians would take no care except in reference to money which came out of their own pockets.
  MR. SOTHERON-ESTCOURTsaid, the children to which the Bill applied were principally orphans, and there was little reason to fear the boards of guardians would incur undue expense on their account.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he had not the same confidence in boards of guardians, and preferred that some check should be imposed upon them. The clause extended to other children besides orphans, and would give an advantage to parents whose children were supported by the parish over those whose children were supported by industry.
  MR. SOTHERON-ESTCOURTsaid, that if the limitation was mentioned, in all likelihood it would be adopted in almost every case; whereas, if left open, he thought the guardians, in a matter of expenditure, might fairly be trusted.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, he concurred in the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley). The Education Commissioners had possessed the public mind with the idea that the workhouse schools were the worst in the country, whereas they were really the best.
  MR. C. P. VILLIERSsaid, the Pool-Law Board had no reason to be dissatisfied with the present provision made for educating pauper children, which was, in fact, the bright part of the Poor Law system. That provision was liberal: as an experiment it had been followed by great results, and what was most striking about it was, that the improvement thus effected was progressive. An opposite opinion, however, pervaded the community, and the Bill proceeded on the assumption that the workhouse schools were attended with positive evil. He was inclined to think the measure would prove a dead letter, though some persons of experience were confident it would operate beneficially. As it stood, the Bill was, he believed, a perfectly innocent one, and he was not therefore prepared to oppose it. In the Bill before the Committee, there was a provision that the guardians should not contract with a school unless it had previously been examined and certified by the Pool-Law Board. As the system about to be adopted was an experiment, it might be advisable to adopt the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley), and limit the expense.
  MR. KENDALLsaid, he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire would persevere in the course he had adopted.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he would propose to insert the following words to meet the difficulty:—
  "Not exceeding the average amount of maintenance and establishment charges incurred in respect to children maintained in workhouses."
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clauses 2 to 5, inclusive, agreed to.
  Clause 6 (Continuance in School not to be compulsory).
  MR. HENLEYsuggested that children, instead of being kept at school till sixteen years of age, should be sent out as apprentices at fourteen. He considered it absurd that children educated in workhouse schools at the expense of other people, should he kept there after other children in the same rank of life were sent out into the world to get their own living.
  MR. C. P. VILLIERSsaid, the power given to the guardians by the clause was merely discretionary; and at present they had a similar power in respect of keeping children in the workhouse up to the age of sixteen. He was not, however, adverse to the Amendment of the clause, if it could thereby be rendered more effective.
  MR. LYALLsaid, he was in favour of giving the guardians the discretionary power provided by the clause.
  MR. PULLERsaid, he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire, that as a general rule it was not desirable to keep children in workhouses after the age of fourteen, but there were exceptional cases; and if there was a discretionary power in respect to keeping them in workhouses up to sixteen, it would be well to allow the same discretion in the case of the schools. It might meet the right hon. Gentleman's view to leave out the words referring to age.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he had no objection to strike out the words with reference to the ago of children, leaving the matter entirely within the discretion of the guardians.
  Words struck out; Clause agreed to.
  Remaining Clauses agreed to.
  House resumed.
  Bill reported; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

SALMON FISHERIES (SCOTLAND) BILL.

  [BILL NO. 81.] COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  House in Committee.
  Clauses 1 to 4 agreed to.
  Clause 5 (Commissioners to be appointed by Secretary of State).
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, he proposed to amend the clause by a provision under which each Commissioner was to receive a salary not exceeding £350 per annum.
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. CAIRDsaid, as the duties to be intrusted to those Commissioners were of a most important character, it was desirable to have the names of the gentlemen to be appointed Commissioners publicly announced.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, it would be impossible to accede to the suggestion.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 6 (Duties of Commissioners).
  MR. W. LESLIEsaid, he objected to that portion of the clause which empowered the Commissioners to define the boundaries between the river and the sea, and between an estuary and the sea. Such a power was too great to intrust to any body of men.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEstated, that the Bill of the last Session proposed that the boundaries should be determined by a judicial process; but fishery proprietors having represented to the Government that that would be too expensive a process, and that the Commissioners ought to fix the boundaries, the Government had adopted their suggestion. The boundaries would be fixed, not arbitrarily, but upon scientific principles.
  MR. MUREsaid, he should oppose the clause, which would interfere with vested rights to an extent never proposed by any previous measure.
  MR. BLACKBURNsaid, he thought that intelligent Commissioners would be far more competent than a jury to fix the boundaries.
  MR. E. ELLICE (Kilmarnock)said, the unanimous opinion of several fishery proprietors with whom he had communicated was in favour of the clause.
  MR. LESLIEsaid, he would agree to withdraw the Amendment, but he must at the same time protest against handing over to any persons the irresponsible powers conferred on the Commissioners.
  MR. WEMYSSsaid, he hoped the hon. Member would not withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he proposed to

  73
  move, with reference to the weekly close-time, the insertion in Clause 6, after the word "district," of the words, "and shall not commence later than six p.m. on Saturday, nor end before six a.m. on Monday."
  MR. D. ROBERTSONsaid, that he had given notice of an Amendment on the same point, and the two might be discussed together. He proposed to introduce the following words:—"That the thirty-six hours of weekly close-time proposed by the Bill shall be from two o'clock p.m. on Saturday till two o'clock a.m. on the following Monday morning."
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, that last year the weekly close-time was fixed as the hon. Baronet proposed. But there was a very strong opinion that the periods were too arbitrary. He was not ready to depart from the provision of the Bill, whereby it was left to the Commissioners to say—taking into consideration the peculiarities of each river—when the period should commence and when it should terminate.
  MR. R. HODGSONsaid, he thought it would be better to adopt universally the hours from six p.m. on Saturday to six a.m. on Monday, those marking the usual working hours.
  LORD NAASsaid, he thought it very inexpedient to close the fisheries at a late hour of the night. The effect would be that a great deal of poaching would go on. He recommended the extension of the close-time till six o'clock in the morning.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, he did not propose to close the time for fishing at two o'clock in the morning. He intended to leave that question open to the Commissioners for each particular river.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  Clause 7 (Annual Close-time).
  MR. WEMYSSproposed to alter the annual close-time from 180 days to 150 days. By so doing they would assimilate the Act in that respect to the Irish Fisheries Act.
  Amendment negatived.
  MR. W. LESLIEproposed to leave out the words "thirty-six hours," and insert the words, "from the hour of six o'clock on Saturday night till six o'clock on the Monday morning."
  Amendment proposed,
  In line 11, to leave out "for thirty-six hours,"
  74
  and insert "from the hour of six of the clock on Saturday night to the hour of six of the clock on Monday morning."
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
  The Committee divided: — Ayes 4; Noes 56: Majority 52.
  Words inserted.
  Clause, as amended, put, and agreed to.
  Clauses 8 to 15, inclusive, agreed to.
  Clause 16 (Election of District Boards).
  MR. D. ROBERTSONmoved to strike out the words "or if such fishery be not valued on the valuation roll of half a mile of frontage to the river with the right of salmon fishing."
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, he thought it would be hard that such persons should be deprived of their right.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clauses 17 to 29 agreed to.
  Clause 30 (Certain Provisions of Act 24 & 25 Vict., c. 109, applied to Solway Firth).
  MR. W. EWARTsaid, that some of his constituents had exercised the right of fishing for 300 years on the northern, shores of Solway Firth, which the clause would deprive them of. Unless he obtained a guarantee that they would continue in the same position after the passing of the Bill as at present, he should oppose the clause.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, chartered rights, or rights which rested on immemorial usage, were saved. It was quite out of the question to have one law applicable to one side of the Solway and another law to the other side.
  MR. E. P. BOUVERIEcontended that it was unjust to deprive these people of their property in the fishery without giving compensation.
  Question put, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 32; Noes 14: Majority 18.
  Clause agreed to; as were the remaining Clauses.
  THE LORD ADVOCATEthen proposed an additional clause, providing that the River Tay should continue to be governed by the special Act, provided that the close-hours from twelve on Saturday

  75
  night to twelve on Monday morning were adhered to.
  MR. D. ROBERTSONsaid, he did not sec why the hours for the Tay should he different from the rest of Scotland.
  Clause agreed to.
  House resumed.
  Bill reported; as amended, to be considered on Monday next, and to he printed [Bill 139].
  House adjourned at half after Two o'Clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Unlawful Oaths (Ireland) Act Continuance; Oxford University. 2a Leases, &c. by Incumbents Restriction Act Amendment; Public Houses (Scotland) Acts Amendment; Local Government Supplemental.
THE SLAVE TRADE.
  TREATY WITH THE UNITED STATES.

    OBSERVATIONS.
    LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he wished to refer to the reply of the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary, on the previous evening, that there was a difficulty in applying the law respecting the slave trade to a foreign ship fitting out in an English port, for the purpose of stating that he had referred to the Acts of 1811 and subsequent Acts, and was obliged to confess that he could see no difficulty; but, at all events, he trusted that measures would be taken now to repress that abominable trade. He desired to urge strongly upon the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary that our Ambassador at Madrid should be directed to urge upon the Spanish Government the propriety of adopting the suggestion of Marshal Serrano, Captain General of Cuba; namely, that slave-trading on the part of
    2
    Spanish subjects should be made piracy and capitally punishable. The noble and learned Lord was understood to say that certain Spanish officers were believed to have received bribes for conniving at the slave trade.
    EARL RUSSELLsaid, he would look into the papers on this subject, and make a statement on Friday on both the points referred to by the noble and learned Lord. With respect to Marshal Serrano, he believed that he was incapable of receiving bribes to permit the prosecution of the slave trade.
    LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he had never heard that Marshal Serrano had been charged with or even in any way suspected of such conduct. On the contrary, he had been most pure and honourable in his government, and, as an instance of that, he had actually suggested that slave trading should be declared piracy and those engaged in it pirates, as the best mode of suppressing that abominable traffic.

  ACT OF UNIFORMITY AMENDMENT BILL.

    SECOND READING.
    Order of the day for the Second Reading read.
    LORD EBURY*(having presented numerous petitions in favour of the Bill) pro-

    3
    ceeded as follows: My Lords, the question I am about to raise is one of considerable importance, and the state of the House proves that the public regard its solution with interest. Under these circumstances I regret that the subject has not fallen into abler hands; but it is not my fault: I have endeavoured to induce others, whose opinions would have been received with more consideration, especially members of the Episcopal Bench, to take it up, but quite in vain. All that remains for me, therefore, is to endeavour to perform the task to the best of my ability, and, at the outset, to beg at your Lordships' hands a patient and indulgent consideration. Having alluded to the right rev. Bench, I think I ought to say, that whilst I feel sure that the opinions of that right rev, body will weigh much with your Lordships, yet, in truth, this question is rather a lay question than a clerical one; for, as the right rev. Prelate who presides over this diocese truly observed in a recent speech—
    "The ecclesiastical authorities are not to blame for the provisions of the Act of 1662; it was simply and solely the work of Parliament, and Parliament alone is responsible for it."
    I will commence by explaining why it is that I have adopted the present mode of proceeding, after the very small share of success which attended a Motion which I made two years ago of a description so far similar that it included the question now before the House. Your Lordships will remember that on that occasion I moved, in the very terms which found acceptance in this House in 1687, an address for a Royal Commission (the only method known to the Constitution for such a purpose) to examine and report upon the changes which were demanded, and which the lapse of two centuries had, in the opinion of many, rendered necessary, in the liturgy, canons and formularies of our National Church, including also the Act of Uniformity of Charles II. I was opposed on that occasion by all the speakers but one, not upon the ground that no change was necessary, hut because my Motion was too extensive and indefinite, and contemplated the revision of some portion of our formularies involving disputed doctrine, which was said to be dangerous to the peace of the Church. The most rev. the Primate, whose absence upon this occasion we all in common regret, candidly avowed his preference generally for the alterations
    4
    made in our Prayer Book by the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States. The right rev. Prelate the Bishop of London went further, and said, that had I confined myself to the terms of subscription, and the rubrics, he thought the result of the Motion would have been different. The noble Lord (Lord Lyttleton), who takes a great and most intelligent interest in these subjects, strongly repudiated the notion of finality. Such being the case, I thought myself justified in taking further counsel on this matter; and, deferring to the views of those distinguished persons, I prepared my measures accordingly. Of two Bills which I have laid before your Lordships this Session, the object of one is to give the officiating minister, in certain defined cases, a discretion in the performance of Divine worship which the rubric at present prevents his exercising. On that Bill (the Public Worship Bill) I shall not offer any observations, as it is for the present virtually withdrawn; but I will proceed as briefly as I can to endeavour to persuade your Lordships favourably to receive the measure which stands for second reading this evening, being a Bill for the relaxation of the terms of subscription imposed by the Act of 1662.
    I cannot satisfactorily perform the duty I have undertaken without entering a little into the history of that well-known, but often not-very-well-understood Act. It is neither the first, nor the second, nor the third Act of Uniformity which has been passed by Parliament, nor is it the only one now in force; that enacted a hundred years previously (1st Elizabeth) being in full vigour, with all those tremendous penalties with which the Legislature of those days was wont to enforce its provisions. Even should my present Bill fail, it would be as well that these two Acts of Uniformity should be reviewed, with the object of making them somewhat more intelligible than they are at present, and bringing them into harmony with the more temperate legislation of the present times. Two Acts of Uniformity succeeded each other within two years in the reign of Edward VI. They were repealed by Mary. Then came the Act of Elizabeth, to which I have alluded; and, lastly, that of Charles II., which it is the object of the present measure to amend. It is quite true that all these Acts pass equally under the name of Acts of Uniformity. They all declare that a particular Book of Common

    5
    Prayer, and no other, should be uniformly used in public worship; and with such portion of the Act of 1662 the Bill your Lordships are now asked to consider in no way interferes; but the essential difference between the Act of 1662 and all its predecessors is this:—Not satisfied with enjoining the use of the altered Prayer Book, it makes that book a "test," and prescribes two different forms of subscription—one of a general nature, the other a form of absolute and unconditional assent, not to the use only, but to everything contained in and prescribed by the Prayer Book,—in short, to every line and letter which belongs to it. Even after all the allowances—the most ample that can be made for the temper of those times—it is difficult to understand the state of public opinion which could have witnessed—I will not say with complacency, but absolutely with applause, the insertion of such provisions. That the tide should have set strongly against the regicides, against the Independents, against the violent sectaries of Cromwell's army, was natural enough; but that all this vengeance should have been discharged upon the Puritans, who were strongly attached to the Established Church, who had always belonged to it, who had remonstrated bravely against the trial and condemnation of the King, who had resisted the imposition of the Covenant, and, above all, who had been foremost in promoting the restoration of the exiled dynasty, does appear difficult to account for. We must not, however, be too hasty in casting indiscriminate censure upon those who framed this Act of Uniformity. It is easy enough to judge their conduct by the light we have now to guide us. It is not so easy to put ourselves in their places, and to feel quite certain we should have acted differently. At that time, it is to be recollected, the true principles of religious liberty had scarcely dawned, even upon Protestant communities; and when we find traces of this intolerant spirit still upon the statute-book, —above all, when we see that this most disastrous enactment still remains unrepealed, we should feel thankful that our lot has been cast in happier times, and should endeavour, as far we can, to undo some of those mischiefs which past legislation has entailed upon us. The effect of the Act of Uniformity was quite as severe upon Puritan ministers as the authors of it could have desired; but it had another effect, which in their blindness they could
    6
    not foresee, and which fearfully verifies the Roman poet's maxim,—
    "Nee lex hâc justior ulla est,
    Quam neeis artifices arte perire suâ."
    It dealt so deadly a blow to the Church, that for a century and a half her arm was literally palsied, and to this hour she has not recovered from it. The injury inflicted on their nonconforming brethren was a mere nothing to that inflicted on their Church and country. To use the language of Archdeacon Hare—
    "So terribly is the sin of our forefathers, who framed the Act of Uniformity, visited upon England to this day; nor can any human foresight discern how or when those evils are likely to terminate. From that day we date the origin of that constituted dissent and schism, which is the peculiar opprobrium and calamity of our Church."
    And then he concludes with this curious observation—
    "The age which enacted this rigid ecclesiastical uniformity was addicted, as might he imagined, to the practice of uniformalizing all things. It tried to uniformalize men's heads by dressing them out in full-bottomed wigs; it tried to uniformalize trees, by cutting them into regular shapes. It could not bear the free growth and luxuriance of nature. Yet even trees, if they have life, disregard their Act of Uniformity, and put forth leaves and branches according to their kinds, so that the shears have constant work to clip their excrescences. None submit quietly except the dead."
    Even the Episcopal Bench was unable to escape from the rage for uniformity thus described by the venerable Archdeacon. Formerly they wore a kind of cap, with which the portraits of Jeremy Taylor and other worthies of that age have made us familiar; and those who have the misfortune to be as old as myself will recollect that curious headpiece, the episcopal wig, which formerly made it so difficult to distinguish one right rev. Prelate from another, but which the innovations of the present age have so far affected, that, however uniform may be the votes of the Bench this evening, there is no visible uniformity in their heads. It is not very easy to discover what can be said in favour of the continuance of such an enactment at the present day. I have made search in histories, biographies, annals, charges, tracts, to find — I will not say a eulogy, but any vindication of this Act; but all in vain. Nothing is to be met with but one universal condemnation. In most cases the pro-pounder of a measure, however confident in the superiority of his own arguments, is obliged to arm himself beforehand to meet well-known objections, which may be urged against him; but hero it is next to

    7
    impossible to anticipate a reply, whilst the arguments in disparagement of the Act of Uniformity, drawn from all sources—history, philosophy, and the genius of our religion—are so overwhelming, that it is difficult to make a selection. Although the present proposal was made by me on the first night of this Session, I find but one petition against it, whilst there are many in its favour. If I consult the press, I find that the organs of the two great parties in the Church—the Record and the Guardian—which do not often agree, have both spoken more or less favourably of my proposal. In truth, this matter exactly resembles the case of the passport system, of which, when it was abolished, The Times newspaper justly observed—
    "That we never know the folly of a bad habit until we get rid of it, and find how easily we can get on without it. It was the peculiarity of the passport system, that whilst it wrought an infinity of mischief, which was never contemplated, it proved utterly useless for the object it was presumed to have in view."
    And so with the Act of Uniformity. We know that this test was intended to make a schism in the Church of Christ in this country, and that it was eminently successful. We know that it was intended to drive out of the Church hundreds of men who would have been its pride and ornament; and that it did drive them out. We know, also, by lamentable experience, that it has kept out thousands of pious men of a like stamp ever since. We know that it has created a permanent Nonconformist institution, which is taking gigantic proportions. But where are we to discover any advantages which the Act of Uniformity has conferred upon us? Has it even within our own restricted pale secured unity or orthodoxy, or even uniformity? Has it in any way contributed to the piety, the wisdom, the learning, the usefulness of the clergy, or the extension of our own Church system? I listen in vain for an answer in the affirmative. This, however, we know it has done: It has exposed our clergy to an imputation not only, or chiefly, from Nonconformists, but principally from their own brethren, of making a solemn declaration before God and the congregation in a "non-natural" sense, and with mental reservation; and I must say more—that, in reference to the whole of our subscription, glosses have been put forth, modes of interpretation resorted to, by men of every party in the Church, in
    8
    order to justify these subscriptions, which, were they introduced into the transactions of private life, would put an end to all confidence between man and man.
    What, then, are the arguments which are to be brought forward to induce your Lordships to reject this Bill? What is it that has inflamed the zeal of my noble Friend the noble Viscount opposite to such a pitch, as to have brought him to the conviction, even before I had opened my mouth in defence of it, that the Bill I propose should be cast out at once? With some industry I have collected that, in the opinion of some persons, the National Church is in such a state of weakness and peril, that these subjects ought not even to be broached at all in Parliament; whilst others, not sharing this opinion, have yet conjured up some phantom of danger likely to happen, should this test, after existing a couple of centuries, be withdrawn. "We would be no parties," they say, "to its enactment; but we dread the effect of abandoning it;" and, lastly, there are some who think that this test is the only security a layman has for the orthodoxy of his minister. I will apply myself to these objections in the order in which I have stated them. First, I am sure that your Lordships will agree with me that our National Church, so far from being in a state of weakness and peril, was never in a greater state of activity and vigour; and that all she wants is to be freed from some of those trammels which alone prevent her being, in reality, what she is in name— the Church of the Nation. Then, as to the danger to be apprehended if we abandon, as an evil practice, this ecclesiastical passport system. What, then, do those fear who cannot bring themselves to get rid of an evil, because of its having been in existence a couple of centuries? for they admit that it is an evil, saying that they would not have consented to it. Are such persons apprehensive that an alteration would let in a flood of heretical teachers— Socinians, Universalists, Essayists, Brownists, and God knows what? I pray them to calm their fears. This Bill in no way alters, nor does it interfere in the smallest degree with, the standards of our Church. Should any minister, after this Bill passes, teach false doctrines, he must be tried by the same rules, and judged by the same tribunals, as before. Besides that, if any one places any confidence in the value of these subscriptions, there are enough left to satisfy the most exacting and timorous

    9
    mind. Independent of tests of character and examination at or previous to taking orders, every one before ordination must declare his assent to the Thirty-nine Articles in the terms of the 13th Elizabeth, and must then subscribe to the three articles of the Thirty-sixth Canon: the first of which is the Oath of Supremacy; the second, an affirmation that the Book of Common Prayer containeth nothing contrary to the Word of God, that it may he lawfully used, and that he will use the same and none other in his public ministrations; and the third, another subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles. Then, on being admitted to a benefice, he has again to declare his conformity to the Liturgy, and his assent, for the third time, to the Thirty-nine Articles. Surely in all these subscriptions there is sufficient (if such defences are of any real value) to keep out everything except a wolf in sheep's clothing, against which, as Dr. Vaughan truly observes, nothing will avail. And these facts I would also recommend to the third class of objectors—those who are of opinion that without this stringent subscription the laity would not have sufficient security. To these I may further observe, that a great many livings are solely intrusted to curates, and that some remain curates all their lives. No one ever heard that these rev. gentlemen are particularly heterodox, and yet they do not make this declaration at all. Happily, we are not without a very valuable example, which may safely guide us in this matter, and which I hope will entirely allay any alarms which may be felt on the subject. In a Church which received orders from us, which uses our Prayer Book (only sensibly revised, as I had the happiness to think in unison with the most rev. the Primate), which is in full communion with us, and one of whose Bishops is at this moment doing episcopal duty in Paris for the Bishop of London—I refer to the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, where no such subscription as that I seek to abolish is to be found. When our North American colonies separated from Great Britain, and their Church had to reconsider its whole position, after very much deliberation and careful consideration they did away with the whole of their former code of subscriptions, and substituted in lieu of them this very simple and sensible form; it, is very like a form proposed by Lord Nottingham and Tillotson at the end of the seventeenth century, which is to be found
    10
    in the records of your Lordships' House, but is an improvement even on that—
    "I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation; and I do sincerely engage to conform to the doctrines and worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States."
    I hope your Lordships will consider that I have established my position, that there is nothing to fear from the abrogation of this test, whilst there is much of good to be hoped for from it; and that the Church of England is far too strong to fear any such discussions as these.
    I am unwilling to trespass on your time unnecessarily; but, at the same time, I must not leave my case in any part incomplete. Some persons have imagined, doubtless from not having the facts brought specially to their notice, that this test has not been productive of so much evil as has been said. I do not like to trouble the House with too much documentary evidence, but I can assure your Lordships I have in my possession numerous letters from clergymen, giving very touching accounts of their having been compelled to give up their cures, where they were otherwise happy and useful, on account of the stringency of these terms of subscription. They have told me of others who, within their knowledge, have gone through the same ordeal —of many who, on the same account, were compelled to abandon their cherished desire of dedicating themselves to the service of the ministry—of still more, who are Dissenters, who long to join the Establishment, having no essential differences with her. Of such documents I have selected the following, which I thought were worthy of your Lordships' attention:—
    Extract of a letter from a Dissenting minister—
    "I am a Dissenting minister, much against my wish. My forefathers were ejected in 1662, and I remain excluded for the same reasons for which they resigned large livings. Formerly I was connected (as I was bred) with the Unitarian body, but was obliged to relinquish the pulpit of one of the old Presbyterian chapels founded by the compeers of my forefathers, because I could not preach the peculiar negative doctrines of the sect that has got possession of many of those places. Willingly would I have rejoined the Church to which all my sympathies inclined me, and from which I have no doctrinal difference, but I could not 'assent to all and everything,' as required."
    Extract from a charge of the Venerable Archdeacon of Northampton, delivered May 5th, 1862—

    11
    "What may be the effects of an alteration in the terms of subscription it is not given me to foresee. For myself, I would, not unwillingly, admit any good man into the ministry who would subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles, and declare that he approved of the Liturgy more than of any other book of public prayers, and that he would consent to use it, and no other, in the public services of the Church. Nor would evil follow in these times, I think, if the declaration we are now required to make, 'I will conform to the Liturgy of the Church of England and Ireland,' were the only one; we should not then have to regret the departure of so many good men from the Church To this class, that of political Dissenters, the really conscientious Nonconformists do not belong; and of these there is a very considerable body who do not disapprove of the doctrines of our Church, and who have been deterred from joining our communion only by some stringent portions of the Act of Uniformity."
    Extract from speech of Mr. E. Ball, M.P., in the House of Commons, on Mr. Bouverie's Clergy Relief Bill, April 9th, 1862—
    "Though not himself a member of the Established Church, he recognised its great importance, and would be the last man to impair its stability. He hoped that the Select Committee would inquire, not only how clergymen were to be permitted to leave the Church, but how the obstacles which now prevented many valuable young men from entering its service could best be removed. The latter of these questions was much more important than the former. Hundreds, and even thousands, of young men were excluded from the ministry of the Established Church because the oath and the other requirements were so stringent that they could not conscientiously subscribe them."
    I have now brought my case to a close. I have endeavoured not to leave out anything essential to it, and at the same time to avoid overlaying it with extraneous matter. I am, however, painfully conscious how imperfect has been the performance of my task. Would that I had the abilities and the influence of many I see before and around me! Then I could not have failed to impress upon the House the immense importance of the decision they are about to arrive at. The vote they are about to give will decide whether your Lordships will promote that best of all things—religious unity, or whether you will continue to foment that worst of all evils, and greatest of hinderances to the spread of the Gospel— religious discord. Whether you will assist in enlarging the bounds, in lengthening the cords, and strengthening the stakes, of our National Church—or, whether you will continue to wall her up within the narrow limits to which, by ill-starred legislation, she has been hitherto confined?
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    Will you maintain in all its deformities an Act which has no defender; or will you expunge from your statute-book a provision, the suggestion of intolerance and persecution, and the offspring of the worst period of our Parliamentary history? My voice may fail to persuade your Lordships, but you will not, I hope, turn a deaf ear to one of our greatest philosophers and orators, who, although he has passed away, yet lives and speaks amongst us by the imperishable works of his genius.
    "Et si mihi non datis arma,
    Huic date."
    It was in the year 1773, that Mr. Burke, speaking on the Dissenters' Relief Bill, made use of the following remarkable language:—
    "I would respect all conscience—all conscience that is really such, and which, perhaps, its very tenderness proves to be sincere. I wish to see the established Church of England great and powerful; I wish to see her foundations laid low and deep, that she may crush the giant powers of rebellious darkness. I would have her head raised up to that heaven to which she conducts us; I would have her open wide her hospitable gates by a noble and liberal comprehension; I would have her give a lesson of peace to mankind, that a vexed and wandering generation might be taught to seek for repose and toleration in the maternal bosom of Christianity, and not in the harlot lap of infidelity and indifference. Nothing has driven people more into that house of seduction, than the mutual hatred of Christian congregations. The hon. Gentleman would have us fight this confederacy of the powers of darkness with the single arm of the Church of England,—would have us fight, not only against infidelity, but fight, at the same time, with all other denominations except our own. In the moment we make a front against the common enemy we have to combat with all those who are the natural friends of our cause. Strong as we are, we are not equal to this. The cause of the Church of England is included in that of religion, not that of religion in the Church of England."
    With a grateful sense of your Lordships' kindness and patience, I beg now to move the second reading of the Bill.
    Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.
    VISCODNT DUNGANNONsaid, he appealed to the House not to agree to the second reading of this Bill on two grounds; first, on account of the encouragement it afforded to latitudinarianism; and secondly', because ha was convinced that it would open the way to other and still greater innovations. By the law as it now stood it was required that every clergyman should subscribe to the Articles of the Church, and that he should sign a declaration that he assented to the Form of

    13
    Common Prayer. Another declaration made by a newly-inducted minister was, that he would act in conformity with the rubric in reading the services on Sundays, and on certain other days. Now, ! it was perfectly possible for a clergyman to act formally in accordance with that pledge without really believing or in his doctrine upholding the Book of Common Prayer. The real question involved in the noble Lord's statement appeared to him to be, Whether any profession of faith on the part of the clergy of the Established Church was necessary or not? That a profession and declaration of faith was considered necessary was evidenced by the history of the early Church, and they also had in the Holy Scriptures the declaration that such a profession was required. With these precedents, it was unnecessary for him to say more on this point. The objection urged against this profession seemed to be this, that it fettered the ministers of the Church, and imposed a chain on Christian labour. But surely it would be admitted that society could not be carried on without certain restrictions being placed upon its members; and how could the Church continue, unless the duties of her ministers and their obligations were defined and limited by some such rules as these? It appeared to him that the question resolved itself into this—was it right, or not right, that the people at large should know in what manner the ministers of religion were restricted in respect of the doctrines which they promulgated? Was it necessary, or not, that the congregations should know that the clergyman had acknowledged his belief in the doctrines which he formally taught? Undoubtedly, if it were supposed that the minister did not believe in the doctrines he taught, and did not in his heart confirm the Prayer Book he read to them, his influence with his congregation would be very greatly diminished. If their Lordships looked at the state of the German Protestant Church, they would find that the latitude allowed in it had given rise to serious and never-ending dissensions. Was this, he would ask, the time when the Church ought to relax in its rules and discipline? For, although he believed that the Church reigned pre-eminent in the affections of the country, there were reasons why they should be careful not to do anything tending to impair its efficiency. Moreover, no one was compelled to enter into holy orders; therefore, when a man did so of
    14
    his own free will, there could be no possible hardship in calling upon him to declare his adherence to the doctrines which it was one of the duties of his profession to inculcate. The noble Lord had three times brought the question of a reform in our liturgy before their Lordships, and, on the last occasion, had almost stood alone. Since then the noble Lord had placed two Bills on their Lordships' table, with regard to one of which, he had no hesitation in saying, had it become the law of the land, it would have produced nothing but schism in every parish in the kingdom. For this reason bethought their Lordships were bound to look with great care at the measure which the noble Lord proposed. he could not but hope that their Lordships would reject the Bill. He looked on it as one productive of nothing but evil, and the forerunner of greater and even more dangerous innovations. He felt, as a Churchman, that he was bound to oppose this measure, believing conscientiously that some restriction ought to be put on those who sought to become members of the Established Church as ministers of the Gospel. He could not allow to those gentlemen that latitude which he did not begrudge to the Dissenters; and so long as he was spared, and had a seat in their Lordships' House, he would resist any attempt at innovation on the rules and ordinances of the Church. It was perfectly idle to say, that because the Church was strong in the affections of the people these restrictions should be withdrawn. That the Church was strong was owing to the fact that her bishops and her clergy had done their duty; and it must be remembered that this declaration of faith had been made by the greatest ornaments that ever existed within its pale. But, strong as the Church was in the affections of the people, it had yet insidious enemies within it—witness the Essays and Reviews, the publication of which, emanating as they did from ordained ministers of our Church, those moreover intrusted with the education of the youth of the country, afforded no unreasonable ground for alarm; and it was, on that very ground, more incumbent on their Lordships not to admit any innovations which might give an advantage to their attacks. For these reasons he must give his strenuous opposition to the Bill now before the House. he gave the noble Lord credit for the most pure and conscientious intentions, but believed his views on this matter were fear-

    15
    fully erroneous and mistaken. If such innovations were to be allowed, there would soon be an end to the Established Church in this country, for how could it flourish without discipline and without government? Such a measure as the present would annihilate Church discipline and Church government; and without them how was it possible that the Established Church could continue to be, as it now was, a visible society? He hoped their Lordships would on this, as they had on other occasions, prove themselves the true guardians of the interests of the Church, and of its liturgy and admirable formulas. He would move, as an Amendment, that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.
    Amendment moved, to leave out "now," and insert "this day six months."
    THE BISHOP OP LONDONsaid, he ventured to present himself to their Lordships, because in this matter he felt that he, in some respects, differed from many of those with whom on all matters of importance he should desire always to concur. He confessed himself obliged to the noble Lord the proposer of the Bill, not only for the temperate way in which he had introduced it to their Lordships, but for the distinct form in which his propositions were stated. The noble Lord had reduced his attempts on this subject to very simple points; but these points, however small and simple they might appear, were of very great and grave importance. He thought it a very serious thing, to tamper with an Act of Parliament which had existed now for 200 years, notwithstanding the attempts made at different times to subvert it. An attempt of that kind was made only twenty-five years after the time when it was originally adopted; but it passed safely through the epoch of the Great Revolution, when many were desirous to conciliate as much as possible the Protestant Dissenters. He considered, likewise, that it was a very grave matter indeed, when they regarded this Act as not only a time-honoured Act, but as partaking of the character of a charter by which the Church and State were united. Therefore he felt gratitude, he repeated, for the plain and distinct manner in which the proposed alterations had been introduced to their Lordships, and it was with great pain and hesitation that he differed from several of those whom in a matter of this kind he should desire always to follow. So great
    16
    was the gravity of the subject that he ventured to urge the noble Lord not to divide the House on the present occasion. The noble Lord had said that no petitions had been presented against his proposal; but that might be accounted for by the fact that it was not known throughout the country, for it was only a week ago that he (the Bishop of London) had been able to obtain a copy of the Bill. Two other Bills, which professed to have a similar object, had been introduced in the course of the Session; but this Bill was of a very different character—it was very important because it had much in it that was good, and at the same time it touched on very delicate ground. He did not think, therefore, that during the week which had elapsed since the Bill was printed the country had had a sufficient opportunity of considering what would be its probable effects. It seemed to him that their Lordships and the country should have more time for consideration before they pledged themselves to a decision on so important a matter. A few petitions had been presented on the other side, but they were from persons with whom the noble Lord co-operated. There was one very important principle which seemed to be embodied in the remarks of the noble Lord—namely, that persons ought not to make solemn declarations which did not perfectly express in their plain and obvious sense the sentiments of those who were called upon to make them. No doubt, when they received old forms of subscription prepared in days of controversy long past, they must take them in their general sense as honest men rather than in their strict grammatical sense; but still they were always glad when there was not a single syllable which did not exactly express the conscientious views of the men who were to be bound by them. Far be it from him to say that there were any clergymen in the Church of England who did not unfeignedly assent to the Book of Common Prayer. He was convinced that those who found a difficulty in signing that declaration would very generally find an equal difficulty in using the prayers which that declaration prescribed. But they were not to judge of men's consciences as if all were alike, and he had no doubt of the truth of what the noble Lord had stated, that there were many excellent men who had been tormented by scruples with regard to the words of the existing declaration—men whom they would desire

    17
    to retain in the Church of England, but who, from what appeared to him unnecessary scruples, had felt obliged to withdraw from her communion. He called those scruples unnecessary, because he thought that there was in this matter a fallacy into which the noble Lord and persons who had written on the subject had fallen. They were told that that declaration had been inserted in the Act of Uniformity for the distinct purpose of causing the Puritans to give up their livings; and no doubt it had that effect. But there was another clause in that Act which grated far more against their consciences—a clause which was removed in 1688—a clause to which he believed not one of their Lordships would have subscribed—that under no pretence whatsoever was it lawful for a Christian man to take up arms in defence of his liberty against the civil power. He believed that when Baxter and others gave up their livings they were influenced to some extent by the clause in question; but they were influenced to a far greater extent by the latter clause, which acquiesced in would have made all their previous lives a lie. He thought that any man who calmly studied the history of the times would arrive at the conclusion that it was the two clauses united which had driven those men from their livings. It was generally stated that the proposal of the noble Lord would altogether change the subscription made by clergymen at their ordination. But one reason why he was disposed to give his approval to the proposal was that it would do nothing of the kind. He himself for twelve years had had to discharge responsible duties in the University of Oxford, and during that time he had never made this declaration. He believed there were instances of other right rev. Prelates who had never made it. Why, then, was every man instituted into a living called upon to make it? His approval of the proposal was grounded on this, that it put an end to a partial and foolish arrangement. The fact was, the declaration was not to be made at ordination, nor by persons in the Universities who were intrusted with grave duties; it was simply to be made by a man when taking possession of a benefice; and the distinction was probably accounted for by the fact that the persons who framed the Uniformity Act had principally in view to turn obnoxious persons out of their livings. The noble Lord, therefore, would scarcely relieve as many as he expected; and he either meant a
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    great deal more than he said, or he wished for something which was scarcely worth taking. There were numerous other declarations, and why should a man who made them hesitate to make this one also? The Bill of the noble Lord, therefore, was chiefly important as enunciating an important principle — that these declarations should be made as simple and as plain as possible. He had also enunciated the principle that their forms should be divested as speedily as possible of everything which would remind men of departed and painful controversy. Now, it was only two Sessions ago that their Lordships had agreed to expunge certain services which were painful to the feelings, because they reminded men of bitter discussions and controversies long past. It would therefore only be following up the same principle which had induced their Lordships to do away with those services, if they were to agree that this clause, so far as it was a memorial of a departed controversy, should also be abolished. He had heard it said that there was now more difficulty than formerly in inducing young men of talent to enter on holy orders. This was a more thoughtful age than many which had preceded it, and he was glad that young men took more time to consider before they made the declaration required. He should rejoice to simplify the forms of declaration in respect to such men; but they must not magnify the principle involved. His experience would not lead him to suppose that there was a gradual deterioration in the qualifications of the persons taking orders. His experience was that the young men whom he ordained this year and last year were superior in learning and attainments to those whom he had ordained five years ago. For his own part, he believed there never was a time when the Church of England held a more important place in the estimation of the country. The clergy were zealous in the discharge of their peculiar duties, and he doubted also whether there ever were more men of literary taste and sound thought who sought to enter the ministry than now. He believed that the same complaint was made in other professions. It was said the young men who entered the profession of the law, or gave themselves to political life, were not equal to their predecessors; and there was a general fear lest if those honoured names which had long been before the country were removed, they would find no worthy successors. He had no such

    19
    fears as to the clergy. Tie did not doubt, that if himself and all his right rev. Brethren were removed to-morrow, there would be no want of properly-qualified men to fill their places. He saw nothing of this gradual deterioration, and he would advise the noble Lord not to lay too much stress on this argument. Whilst, therefore, it was quite right that they should endeavour to conciliate the scruples of young men who were desirous of entering into holy orders, at the same time they ought not to magnify the importance of the change now under consideration. With respect to the effect of removing these declarations on the Dissenters, he believed, that if not only the declarations but also the Liturgy were swept away, a good many Dissenters would be just as far from the Church of England as at present, because they announced that the one vital question was the separation of Church and State; and they would continue to hold aloof from the Church so long as the clergy of the Establishment accepted the hire and pay of the State. It was hopeless, therefore, to suppose that by any concession of the kind now contemplated it would be possible to conciliate these persons. They, however, formed only a small fraction of those who separated from the Church of England, and he was hopeful enough to believe that a day would come when a large portion of those who now dissented from the Church of England would return to it, and be gathered within its pale. He believed, that if the Church acted not hastily, but on mature consideration, it might, without any sacrifice of principle, gradually conciliate many who now kept at a distance from its services. The day might come when that great mistake which sent the whole Wesleyan body adrift from the Church of England might be remedied, and that this body, whose great founder and leader was a minister of the Church, would return to strengthen the hands of the clergy. It might be said that he had spoken on both sides; but, as he had been forced to express his opinion at so short a notice, their Lordships would, he trusted, forgive him for the manner in which he had spoken. With regard to the Bill, he trusted that his noble Friend would wait until the country had had an opportunity of fairly considering this question.
    THE BISHOP OF ST. DAVID'Ssaid, that if he could accept what had been said by his right rev. Brother as a full expression) of his own sentiments, he should have
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    abstained from addressing their Lordships on the present occasion. But although he fully agreed that more time ought to be allowed, in order that public attention should be drawn to this subject, still he must own his mind was not in that state of suspense and fluctuation with regard to the merits of the question which appeared to be the case with his right rev. Brother. He therefore asked their Lordships' permission to state how far he was prepared to go along with the noble Lord who brought forward the measure, and at what precise turning-point he felt compelled to part company with him. He would first say that he not only gave the noble Lord the fullest credit for the purity and excellence of his intentions, but that he sympathized with him in the general tenor of his observations. He sincerely deplored, in common with the noble Lord and the majority of the Christian world, the character of the times which gave birth to the Act of Uniformity, and the spirit in which that act was framed. It must not, however, be forgotten that it was enacted at a period of very great excitement and reaction. Still, he would remind their Lordships that it was not the substance of the declaration to which objection was made, but its phraseology and form, which might possibly offend some tender consciences. -Undoubtedly, if their Lordships were now for the first time considering the form of declaration, he should oppose the introduction of the declaration now imposed. But this Bill was grounded on a proposition to which he for one could not assent. He was required by the Bill to assert that of the two declarations cited in the present Bill one was sufficient. It would thus be enough if a clergyman, on taking possession of any benefice, promised to conform to the Liturgy of the Church, instead of, as now, being obliged to declare his assent and consent to everything contained in the Prayer Book. This declaration was a quite different one from that required to be made on admission to holy orders; and though, if the declaration had to he prepared over again, he should not frame it in the same way, he could not admit that on such an occasion as a clergyman taking charge of a parish he should not be required to make some profession of his adhesion to the Common Prayer book. If he were not required to make some such declaration, an external and mechanical conformity with the terms of the Liturgy would be all that would be obtained. He could not but think that

    21
    the effect would be to give a Parliamentary authority to men conforming to rites and doctrines which did not correspond with their inward convictions. Therefore, however much he might disapprove the terms of the declaration, and might desire to see some modification introduced, he could not assent to the proposition of the noble Lord, which he thought would deal a heavy blow to the Church of England. He concurred in the wish that had been expressed by his right rev. Brother, that the noble Lord would upon this occasion withdraw his Bill; but in giving utterance to that desire he wished it to be understood that he did so, not because he did not sympathize with the object, but because he believed that the form in which it was proposed to attain it would completely defeat that object.
    LORD LYTTELTONsaid, that while he felt bound to oppose the Bill, he did not wish to be understood as holding that the present declaration might not be modified with advantage to the Church; for he was inclined to think that it was drawn up in terms somewhat too stringent. He might remark, in reference to that point, that the Royal declaration prefixed to the Articles of Religion in the Prayer Book required that all who accepted that import-nut portion of the book should accept them in their usual and literal sense. But it was a fallacy to suppose that the usual was always the literal sense. No one could be bound to accept in every case the words of the Scriptures in their literal sense. He thought the Clergy ought not to be bound to adhere to the Prayer Book in any such way as to prevent them from considering any amendment in its terms, the substance being adhered to; and therefore he was willing to consider whether a declaration from the clergy that they adhered to the substance of the Prayer Book would not be sufficient. But there was a wide gulf between those views and the views which had been advocated by the noble Lord who moved the second reading. The noble Lord proposed, not a revision of the Act of Uniformity, but the abolition of all securities to congregations that their clergy adhered to the Prayer Book. It might be said that a clergyman conforming outwardly to the Prayer Book might be assumed to agree with it in substance; but such a matter was not to be dealt with in the abstract, but according to the light of experience. Some years ago a reverend gentleman claimed the right of remaining a minister of the Church of
    22
    England while he held all Roman doctrine; and there were other similar cases in that and in the opposite direction. It was true these cases were exceptional; but if all securities were abolished, they might cease to be exceptional. He also deprecated the initiation by Parliament of measures directly or indirectly affecting the doctrines of the Church of England, and he thought that the present measure did indirectly affect those doctrines. The Church had never been looked upon as liable to be dealt with by the civil Legislature without any voice on the part of the Church itself. In former times the voice of the clergy was heard in Convocation, and the voice of the laity in Parliament; but Parliament could not be said now in any sense to represent the laity of the Church of England. He did not mean to say that Convocation was a satisfactory representation; but such as it was, it was the only representative, not only of the clergy, but of the Church. He did not desire to give that body greater executive power; but he thought that before any measure affecting the doctrines of the Church of England was proposed, it ought to be referred by the Crown to Convocation for their opinion, which opinion must necessarily carry much weight in the ultimate decision of Parliament.
    THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, he should deeply regret if this Motion were pressed to a division, because he knew the extreme delicacy and difficulty of this subject, and how little the clergy and the public were yet prepared for its decision. At the same time, it was impossible to have mixed much with the clerical, and what was called the religious world, without seeing that principles and feelings were now at work which threatened, sooner or later, to issue in something very serious to the Church of England. It was perfectly true that for a very long time past there never was a period when that Church stood so well as it did now with the country, or in which it showed itself so active or was so safe. Nevertheless, there were springing up around her dangers of great intensity and force, and which were pushed forward by persons of great zeal and intelligence. One of the greatest of those dangers, in his mind, was the demand for what was known by the name of liturgical revision; and unless something analogous to this proposal—he would not say precisely this Bill—were adopted to satisfy tender consciences, he was con-

    23
    vinced that the integrity of the Church would be very much compromised. It was very desirable that the attention of the clergy and the country at large should be directed to this subject, and he felt satisfied that in no long space of time the great body of the clergy and a considerable proportion of the Episcopal Bench would acquiesce in some measure of this kind for affording relief to tender consciences. No doubt, the young men who now offered themselves for ordination were well qualified for the office they sought; but it should be remembered that those who had scruples against subscription did not offer themselves at all for ordination. Hundreds—he might say thousands—of young men, who would make highly competent ministers of the Church, never presented themselves to the Bishop, because they knew that they would sooner or latter be compelled to take this subscription, and it was an undoubted fact that a vast number of them went over to the various Dissenting denominations. He was not at all anxious to bring into the Church of England the great body of Nonconformists. He knew the good that those bodies were doing in their respective spheres, and he had no wish to disturb or interfere with them in the good they were working out; but he was very desirious to secure for the service of the Church those hundreds of energetic, pious, and zealous young-men who were now deterred by the stringency of the present terms of subscription from presenting themselves for ordination. He trusted the noble Lord would not press the Bill at that time, but that further time would be given for the consideration of so important a subject.
    EARL RUSSELLsaid, he could not allow this discussion to close without expressing to his noble Friend, who had had to encounter many objections, his belief that he had rendered a public service by calling the attention of their Lordships and of the country to this important subject, because the question was really one of growing and pressing importance. He might be mistaken in his view of the present times; but, as it appeared to him, these were times remarkable for individual learning, individual inquiry, and for individual and independent judgment. It was not so in the century when this test was created. That was a period when, on the one side, many men were banded together in order to obtain the emoluments and rewards of the Established Church, and
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    when, on the other, a number of men banded themselves together resolutely to encounter suffering and even persecution rather than subscribe to religious doctrines to which they could not conscientiously assent. We were now, however, happily living at a totally different epoch. No one was now subjected to any privation or hardship on account of his religious faith; while, at the same time, men were not ready to give up their conscientious belief for any advantages which they might obtain by joining a Church to which they did not in their hearts adhere. But, if that were so, certain inconveniences must arise from such a state of things. They had the testimony of his right rev. Friend (the Bishop of London) to the fact that there were many men sincerely attached to the Established Church who suffered great distress of mind from being unable to reconcile their consciences fully to the declarations which his noble Friend proposed to modify. That of itself was a very considerable evil. Having a national Church and wishing to support it, it was a misfortune if many men, from the number or the ambiguity of those declarations, should feel pained in their consciences. But there was another very important matter to which his noble Friend who spoke last (the Earl of Shaftesbury) had called attention. The Church was not threatened externally. Nothing proved that more than the little progress made by those who advocated the separation of the Church from the State. They were a small minority; their views might, indeed, be maintained by men of talent and energy, but the great majority of the country was opposed to them. But there was an internal and perhaps a growing danger, such as his noble Friend had pointed out, arising from the independence of mind and the spirit of inquiry to which he had referred. There were many young men of Christian piety, of Christian zeal, and of talents which, if devoted to the Church of England, might produce works of learning and earnest exhortation to the people, and which would strengthen the Church in the affections of the country. But these persons had certain scruples which prevented their joining the Established Church as clergymen, though they might still, perhaps, be ready to conform to her ordinances. It was, he thought, a great disadvantage, not to the Church alone, but to the Church and the State together, that the former should be deprived of the ser-

    25
    vices of men who might he among her brightest ornaments. These were considerations, then, worthy of their Lordships' attention, and worthy of the attention of the Church itself—although he quite agreed that it was not at all desirable that they should now come to a decision on that question. There was one point which lay at the bottom of the subject, in respect to which their Lordships had given opinions much differing from each other. Indeed, the noble Lord who proposed the rejection of this Bill (Viscount Dungannon) had himself expressed in the course of his speech two entirely discrepant views upon it; because he stated, first, that the measure would leave no standard whatever in the Church, but would give the clergy complete freedom and latitude of opinion, without any test to mark them off from any species of dissent; while he further on expressed quite a contradictory view in replying to an argument of his noble Friend. There was much force in what the right rev. Prelate (the Bishop of London) had said as to their not being able to see what would be the effect of the Bill upon the declaration made by the clergy at their ordination. That was a point which required grave consideration before any satisfactory decision could he come to on a matter of that kind; but if the grievances to which he had adverted existed, the question was one which must excite further discussion, not only among the clergy, but in the Universities and all the other places where men took an interest in the well-being of the Church. To that future discussion he thought the question ought for the present to be left, and he trusted that his noble Friend would not now press his Motion. The subject was one of growing importance, and it was desirable that the House should not be divided at once into two opposite parties upon it; but that, if the question were hereafter to be revived, it should come before them in a shape that might facilitate a settlement conducive to the advantage of the Church, and which should not afford an unseemly triumph to her enemies.
    THE BISHOP OF OXFORDsaid, their Lordships were much indebted to the noble Earl who had just sat down for having brought this matter to the real point on which, whenever they should be called upon to decide such a question, they must deal with it. The noble Earl had observed that in the present state of men's minds there
    26
    was great readiness for each man to assert his own particular opinion, and for all to reject the authority of others. He pointed to the difficulties which such a state of things must necessarily cause for maintaining any Church which should be the Church of the nation, requiring its ministers to make any declaration of faith whatever. He begged their Lordships to look that matter in the face. The arguments of his noble Friend who introduced the Bill seemed to him entirely wide of his proposition, for this reason—they went against all subscription, while his Bill went to that most minute, perplexing, insignificant, useless, and therefore mischievous relaxation of one particular subscription to which he was opposed. The noble Lord was quite wrong in his facts. He supposed that it was only every beneficed clergyman who had to take this test; but the 31st canon said "none licensed to read, preach, lecture, or catechize, shall be admitted to do so unless he first consent and subscribe to the three articles in the 36th canon," which stated that the Book of Common Prayer contained in it nothing contrary to the word of God. By what possible ingenuity could it be said that a person called on to make the declaration that he assented to the whole Book of Common Prayer as containing nothing contrary to the word of God, was to get a great relief to his agitated conscience by saying he assented and consented to what he really meant? It came to this, that for the sake of including all who were willing to serve in a national establishment they should allow men to believe anything they liked, provided they consented to the noble Lord's formula. The noble Lord promised the effect of such a system would be harmony; but there was something better than harmony, and that was truth—truth objective in what we hold—truth subjective in what we believe as we teach it—and the whole tenour of what the noble Lord said was, that provided men were willing to use the appointed service, they might attach any meaning they liked to the words they subscribed. For his own part, he believed that no injury could be more deadly to the Church than that such a practice should gain currency, and that the people should believe this to be the meaning of the language used by the clergy. He believed the great power and prosperity of the Church was, under God's blessing, owing to this—that her ministers had laboured diligently, held the truth sternly, and

    27
    taught what they believed distinctly. The noble Earl (Earl Russell) hail done great service by bringing them face to face with the difficulties of the question. The question before them was this—Did they mean, in a day which, as he thought, the noble Earl had rightly described as one of unexampled boldness, not to say audacity, of individual belief, to withdraw all declarations on the part of those who were to be the teachers of the people that they held any amount of truth whatever? The question came to this—Was there such a thing as truth? Was truth that which every man thought, or was it that which the Word of God taught, and that which the Reformed Church of England held? If there were such a thing as truth, then he said it would be a most dangerous thing to teach a number of young men in training for the ministry that provided they consented to use certain formularies no one cared what sense they attached to them. He was astonished at the exaggerated statements which had been made of hundreds and thousands of young men who became Dissenting ministers rather than remain in the Church, because some day or other they might have to make the dreadful declaration that they believed what they said. The men at the Universities did not fall off under the unaccountable dread of this declaration. So far from it, during the seventeen years he had been connected with the great University of Oxford, having had hundreds of conscientious young men coming to him perpetually for assistance in the resolution of their doubts, he could say he had never found one who, in the midst of his scruples, scrupled about this; and when, on a recent occasion, a number of the Prelates in town met together for the purpose of considering the noble Lord's proposal, he took the liberty of asking them whether, in their varied experience, they ever found such a case. The answer of every Bishop was that he knew of none. He ventured, therefore, to think that this was one of those chimerical creations of "men in buckram," who were always ready to be called on the stage to represent a mighty army by flitting to and fro across the vision, but who, if they could really be seen at once, would turn out to be a very paltry assortment of country actors. He would frankly confess that he could not agree in the compliments which had been paid to his noble Friend for introducing this subject. If his noble Friend had been driven by a
    28
    very strong sense of conscience to propound to their Lordships, gravely and deliberately, some conclusion which he had come to after full inquiry, and was determined, even at any risk, to let their Lordships decide, he should not blame him for the course he had taken; but he thought his noble Friend was only trifling with a very great subject in laying on the table two Bills, one so extravagantly ridiculous that it was thought by most people to be a practical joke, and which he withdrew without daring to ask for it a second reading; and the other, having minimized the alterations he proposed, being now brought forward, he did not dare to take a division on it. To thus stir the entire minds of the people and Church of England, to call on their Lordships to alter the whole standing-place of the ministry of that Church, and having made his speech, and introduced those fabulous numbers of men under the deep conflict of conscience, to set them free from all discomfort by such a declaration as he had proposed, he did say was trifling. Nothing was more calculated to do harm than stirring such questions, unless with the resolute determination on conscientious grounds to go through with them to the very utmost, till they were brought to a final settlement. He believed their Lordships were not prepared to give up the principle of subscription; and unless they were so prepared, they could not entertain such a measure as this. What was wanted was that they should have the guarantee which honest men would consider binding on them—not that they would not hereafter alter their opinions—that was not the meaning of subscription—no man ever said he would not alter his opinion on any point; but what he said was, he now held certain definite and intelligible views of the truth, which he proposed to teach, that he took his teacher's office on condition of teaching them, and as an honest man, if he changed those views, he was prepared to lay down the office which he held on the condition of maintaining them.
    LORD EBURYbriefly replied. He regretted the speech which had just been addressed to their Lordships; for the right rev. Prelate had indulged in ridicule and sarcasm rather than in argument, and had misrepresented the nature and object of the present Bill. His only motive in introducing the measure was to promote Christian union and harmony, but after

    29
    what had passed he would not ask their Lordships to divide.
    THE BISHOP OF SALISBURYsaid, he believed it was not desirable to make any change, unless it was made for some really great object, and he did not think that such an object could be gained by the adoption of this measure. He felt persuaded that no real relief could be given to tender consciences by any other means than by the abolition of all subscriptions.
    VISCOUNT DUNGANNONsaid, that as the Bill was withdrawn, he should not, of course, press his Amendment.
    Amendment and Original Motion (by leave of the House) withdrawn.
    Then the said Bill, on Motion, was (by leave of the House) withdrawn.
    House adjourned at Eight o'clock, to Friday next, Ten o'clock.