Sitting of 14 June 1864

MINUTES.
SUPPLY —Resolutions [June 13] reported.
PUBLIC BILLS—Resolution reported—New Zealand (Guarantee of Loan)*.
Ordered—Portsmouth Dockyard (Acquisition of Lands)*; Registration of Deeds (Ireland)*; New Zealand (Guarantee of Loan)*.
First Reading — New Zealand (Guarantee of Loan)* [Bill 150]
Second Reading — Factory Acts Extension [Bill 55].
Committee—Valuation of Rateable Property (Ireland)* [Bill 102].
Report— Valuation of Rateable Property (Ireland) (re-committed)* [Bill 102].
Third Reading—Beer Houses (Ireland)* [Bill 109], and passed.
Withdrawn—Valuation of Lands and Heritages (Scotland) Act Amendment * [Bill 81].

FACTORY ACTS EXTENSION BILL.

  [BILL 55.] SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. H. A. BRUCEsaid, he rose to move the second reading of this Bill. It had been introduced in consequence of a Report which had been presented by a Commission appointed by the late Sir George Lewis, to make inquiries into the employment of children and young persons in trades and manufactures not regulated by law. A similar Commission was appointed twenty years ago, whose Report coincided very much in its general results with the Report which was presented last year. The Commissioners had inquired into and had reported on the state of the children and young persons employed in the manufacture of pottery, lucifer matches,

  1709
  And percussion caps, paper-staining, finishing and hooking, and fustian cutting. The recommendations of the Commissioners resolved themselves into three heads— that the places in which those manufactures were carried on should be properly cleansed and effectually ventilated; that special means should be provided for alleviating the peculiar dangers arising from such of the processes employed as were unusually noxious and dangerous; and that the provisions of the Factory Acts should be enforced with reference to these manufactures and employments; The number of children employed in those trades was between 17,000 and 18,000, and he was the more desirous of stating that fact as the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Ferrand) had computed them at 100,000. Although it was possible, in case the House should assent to the principle of the Bill, that ultimately a much larger number of children than he had mentioned would be affected by similar legislation, yet, as a matter of fact, the number of children and young persons who would be immediately affected by the Bill was between 17,000 and 18,000. That number might be divided as follows:—11,000 were employed in the potteries, 1,613 in the lucifer-match manufactories, 150 in the manufacture of percussion caps, 1,150 in paper-staining, 2,300 in finishing and hooking, and 1,563 in fustian cutting. The Bill before the House embodied all the recommendations of the Commissioners in its clauses. It first of all provided that the places in which those trades were carried on should be painted in oil once in seven years, and lime-washed once in fourteen months. The only deviations from the recommendations of the Commissioners were to be found in the following provisions:—
  "(1.) During the first six months after the passing of the Act children not under eleven to be employed as young persons, (2.) During the first thirty months children not under twelve may be employed as young persons. (3.) No child, young person, or woman, employed in lucifer-match manufactory to take meals in any part of the factory where the manufacturing process is carried on. (4.) No child to be employed in fustian cutting before eleven years of age. (5.) During the first eighteen months after the passing of the Act, so much of the Factory Acts as provide that no child, young person, or woman shall take meals in any part of the factory where the manufacturing process is carried on shall not apply to the employment of paper-staining or the manufacture of earthenware."
  In addition to the provisions contained in the Bill with regard to ventilation and
  1710
  cleanliness, the master was empowered to make special rules in order to secure those desirable objects, and summarily to punish any workmen who should set them at defiance. This provision would remove the only objection he had heard made to this clause, which was one that the masters regarded as essential to their security. The factory Acts had been incorporated in the present measure with a few exceptions and those exceptions had been made with the object of rendering the transition from the present state of things easier and more convenient than it otherwise would have been. He would not enter upon the general question of the propriety of legislative interference for the protection of women and children against excessive or unhealthy labour, because that question had been fully discussed on the first introduction of the Factory Acts, and those who were most opposed to those measures at the time of their introduction — and among the number were not only employers of labour, but many statesmen — distinguished as much for philanthropy as for their political ability—had now been forced to admit the wisdom of those Acts of the Legislature. There was not one hon. Member who took part in those debates, he believed, and who opposed the introduction of the Factory Acts who did not now admit that he was wrong—and the Factory Acts so far from having proved tm evil had been a great blessing. He, nevertheless, confessed that, in spite of the success which had attended the introduction of those Acts, the Government was bound in all cases to assign sufficient reason to warrant its interference, and in doing so he was fortunately spared the necessity of using much argument. In a memorial which had been presented to the Government from the employers in the Potteries the memorialists, after stating various facts with reference to the health and education of children in the Potteries, said that their employment was the cause of various moral and physical evils; that it was the origin of a vast amount of ignorance; that the employment of children at so tender an age stunted their growth, and caused in many cases a tendency to consumption, distortion of the spine, and other complaints; and that, much as they deplored these evils, it would not be possible to prevent them by any scheme of agreement between the manufacturers, as a portion only of the employers could be brought to consent to such an agreement. The memorialists also urged the desirableness

  1711
  of appointing a Commission to inquire into the subject, and to consult as to the best means of remedying the evils complained. The memorial was most creditable to those who had signed it, sad it was perhaps the first instance in which an agitation for the security and advantage of the working people against excessive hours and labour had been initiated by the masters themselves; He should have been quite contented to allow his case to rest upon the evidence of the memorialists, had not the correctness of their statements been lately called into question. He therefore felt it his duty to lay before the House reasons for believing that the memorialists were fully justified in what they said and that there was every cause why Government should interfere. In the Potteries the number of young persons employed between the ages of thirteen and eighteen was 6,500, and the number of children between eight and twelve was 4,500, A great many children commenced work when they Were eight years of age, and they were at once put to labour which, under the best masters, generally lasted for eleven or twelve hours, and under the worst was sometimes extended to thirteen or fourteen. A large number of the children were employed in turning the "jigger"—an operation not requiring much strength, but which overtasked the strength of children when continued throughout the day—and in "mould-running." Children were rarely employed at the first only. They varied their work of jigger turning by carrying the clay which had been moulded into a hot stove, where the temperature was often between 120 and 130 degrees. He did not regard that portion of the work as severe, even if the child were so young as eight, provided that the hours of labour were limited; but he was aware that difference of opinion existed upon the point. The process termed "wedging clay" was chiefly performed by boys, and involved an amount of continuous exertion much beyond their strength. In reference to the processes of "dipping" and "scouring" the Government Inspector said—
  "The operation of dipping the ware is a specially injurious employment, owing to the poisonous nature of the lead which generally forms a large ingredient in the glaze. Boys of a very young age are employed in carrying the ware to the dipper, and are thus Compelled to spend much of their time in the poisoned atmosphere of the dipping house. The injurious effects of the dripping tub are well known. Few dippers Continue many years at their work without suffering from painter's
  1712
  colic or paralysis; many become crippled at an early age. Boys of about fourteen or fifteen years of age are employed to 'gather' the ware from the dipper; they are brought more in, contact with the glaze than the other boys. Women are also employed in the dipping house, to brush the ware. Nearly all the boys whom I found engaged in this work had felt its effects more or less; some had suffered very seriously. There seems to be ground for supposing that some constitutions are more affected by the lead poison than others. The boys employed in the dipping house are generally a better class than the flat pressers' assistants. Their wages are much higher and the work is less laborious… The operation of scouring china,—.i.e. dusting and cleaning the ware from the fine flint powder in which it has been fired is a very injurious employment The persons, engaged in this work are women. No children are ever employed in it, but many young women are tempted to sacrifice their health for the high, wages which this employment affords."
  The paper cutters were mostly children. In the operation itself there was little that was injurious, but the health of the children suffered in consequence of over work, the great heat of the room in which the labour was carried on, and from deficient ventilation. With respect, to the health of the potters Dr. Greenhow said, in 1861, in is Report on Public Health—
  "The potters of Stoke and Wolstanton are of short stature and sickly appearance Boys are put to work at a very early age. Boys were observed carrying recently made ware into the stoves at the age of seven, and at all intermediate ages between seven and fourteen years.… Young females, were seen turning the jigger at the ages of twelve and thirteen years, and sometimes, but rarely, at an earlier age.… It was stated by Mr. Boothroyd, a medical practitioner of Hanley, that each successive generation of potters became, more dwarfed and less robust than the preceding one, and that, in his opinion, but for their occasional intermarriage with strangers, the deterioration Would follow much more rapidly. This statement was confirmed by Mr. M'Bean, another medical man, who said that he had observed a marked degeneration in the potters, especially shown in diminution of stature and breadth, since he commenced practice among them twenty-five years ago. This falling off he attributed greatly to the neglect of children by their mothers, bat more especially to the early age at which, they are put to labour, and to the unhealthiness of their parents."
  Dr. J. T. Arlidge, senior physician to the North Staffordshire Infirmary, expressed himself in even stronger terms—
  "The potters, as a class, both men and women, but more especially the former, represent a degenerated population, both physically and morally. They are, as a rule, stunted in growth, ill-shaped, and frequently ill-formed in the chest; they become prematurely old, and are certainly short-lived; they are phlegmatic and bloodless, and exhibit their debility of constitution by obstinate attacks of dyspepsia and disorders of the liver

  1713
  and kidneys, and by rheumatism. But of all diseases they are especially prone to chest disease, to pneumonia, phthisis, bronchitis, and asthma. One form would appear peculiar to them, and is known as 'potter's asthma' or 'potter's consumption' Sorofula, attacking the glands or bones or other parts of the body, is a disease of two-thirds or more of the potters. The men are more subject to chest disease than the women; the latter employed in 'dipping' and in 'printing' suffer most. Those engaged in painting, burnishing, and in the ware-rooms least. The most sickly men are the hollow-ware pressers, firemen, and dippers. That the 'degenerescence' of the population of this district is not even greater than it is, is due to the constant recruiting from the adjacent country and to inter-marriages with more healthy races."
  Those statements, however, having been the subject of much discussion, he would fortify them by independent evidence which fully sustained their general accuracy. From a Return which had been made to Parliament it appeared that certain districts of Northumberland were the most healthy in England. A comparison between the deaths from phthisis and other diseases of the chest between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five showed that at Stoke-upon-Trent there died from those diseases 584 men and 542 women per 100,000 living; in Northumberland 335 men and 406 women; and in England and Wales, 512 men and 518 women. Between the ages of forty-five and fifty-five the deaths among the male population at Stoke-upon-Trent had increased to 1,309; and among the female population it remained stationary. In Northumberland there were 322 deaths among the men, and 361 among the women; while in England and Wales the numbers were 692 and 518 respectively. Between the ages of fifty-five and sixty-five the number of men who died from diseases of the lungs had increased at Stoke-upon-Trent to 1,787, and of women, to 882; while the numbers in Northumberland were 477 and 407, and in England and Wales 995 and 741. The result of the Commissioners' Report showed that employment in the Pottery manufactures undermined the constitution and encouraged and propagated forms of disease most productive of human suffering, and ultimately of decay. So much for the health. Now, with respect to education. The inquiry of the Commission stowed that education was very backward. In 1841 the population of the whole of the Pottery district was 70,000, and out of that number there were only 1,712 day scholars, or a proportion of 2·4 per cent. In 1862 the
  1714
  state of things was considerably improved, because while the population had increased to 80,237, the day scholars had also increased to 5,450, or about 6·7 per cent. Mr. Longe gave as the result of his personal examination of the children among the flat-pressers and lower classes of workmen:—

  No. of Children Examined.

  Could read.

  Could not read.

  Stoke-on-Trent

  43

  27, or 62·7 p. ct.

  16, or 37·2 p. ct.

  Hanley, Shelton, Etruria

  131

  74, or 56·4 p. ct.

  57, or 43·5 p. ct.

  Fenton and Longton.

  69

  25, or 36·2 p. ct.

  44, or 63·7 p. ct.

  Statistics on the subject had been, prepared in the Education Department, which would enable the House to judge of the difference between the state of education in the district to which he referred, and in districts in which the Factory Acts were in operation. In making a comparison between three districts where there was no compulsory legislation with three factory towns, he found that in Newcastle, Stoke-on-Trent, and Wolstanton, the percentage of children at schools receiving the grant amounted to 7·89 above ten years, and 5·12 above twelve. In Halifax, Bradford, and Rochdale, the numbers were 17 per cent above ten, and 12 per cent above twelve. So that in spite of the desire of the parents to have their children educated, and of the masters to provide schools, the state of education in the Pottery districts was very unsatisfactory. It was urged by some that the educational clauses of the Mines Regulation Act would have the desired effect; but the success of that experiment in legislation had not hitherto been encouraging. It had certainly discouraged the employment of children underground between the ages of ten and twelve, but it seemed to have failed almost wholly in one of its chief objects, namely, in securing for them a certain amount of education. The recent Report of the Committee of Council on Education contained several notices of its operation in the principal Mining districts. Of their effect in Lancashire, Mr. Kennedy said —
  "I have reason to fear that, as a rule, this law is of little practical effect in Lancashire, from three causes:—1st, because the expression 'competent schoolmaster' admits of a wide application; 2nd, because the expression 'able to read and write' is also susceptible of loose interpretation; and 3rd, because the supervision of the working of the clause is not, and probably cannot,

  1715
  be rigidly carried out. The result is that the educational provisions have not had much effect in Lancashire."
  Mr. Moncrieff thus spoke of the results in Northumberland—
  "wherever I have had the opportunity in colliery schools I have inquired whether the Mines Regulation Act of 1860 has had any perceptible influence in promoting the attendance of boys between ten and twelve. The answer, both from schoolmasters and from owners or viewers, has, I believe, invariably been in the negative. I believe the provisions of the Act are fairly carried out, but I am not aware of any instances of boys attending school and receiving the certificate required. Viewers would rather dispense with them altogether than have the trouble of looking after the certificates. It does not, however, I am sorry to say, follow, that because they do not go down the pit they are therefore at school. Other employment, not within the scope of the Act, is found for them, so that nothing is commoner than to be assured that there are no boys of that age in the pit, and to see on the other hand, that there are hardly any of them in school."
  Mr. Norris said, that in Staffordshire—
  "The Mines Act of 1860, so far as its educational provisions are concerned, has been a complete failure in the mining districts of Staffordshire and Shropshire."
  Of their working in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Mr. Watkins said—
  "Judging by the-schools which I have inspected in the mining districts, and by information obtained from their teachers and managers there seems to be no doubt that the Act has produced some, but hitherto only a slight, effect. I proceed to state the reasons which in the opinion of many persons well qualified to judge, have hindered and defeated the object of the Act. With regard to the education of children working in mines, the Act provides that a boy above the age of ten years and under the age of. twelve years may be employed in a mine, or colliery, if he obtains a certificate, under the hand of a competent schoolmaster that he is able to and write. These expressions open a wide door for abuse. The term "competent schoolmaster" is very vague. Under this nomenclature, any schoolmaster teaching any kind of school may give the certificate required. Possibly there is no schoolmaster who is actually unable to tell whether a boy can read or write But there is no doubt of the fact that boys obtain their certificates whose reading and writing, they can be so called, are of the most wretched character, and perfectly useless for the purpose of education. Without some arrangements for a really 'competent master' and some settled test of ability to read and write, the object of the Act will be defeated not only by dishonest, persons but by those who believe that they are carrying out the point when they keep within the letter of the law."
  Against the half-time system proposed by the Bill, it had been urged by the masters,
  1716
  and even by the men themselves, that it would be impossible to obtain the necessary supply of children to carry on the work of factories. Undoubtedly a great number of workmen had petitioned against the application of the Factory Act to the district, but those workmen were themselves the employers of the boys, and generally less inclined to employ the boys moderately and humanely than the masters. A complete answer to the objection was the fact, that, in Glasgow and Newcastle, machinery had been employed to supersede the labour of children in some portions of the work. Much of the overwork of the children arose from the practice of many of the potters in working irregularly, or not at all, at the beginning of the week, and making up the time by extra exertion— longer days, towards the end of the week — a practice which created a greater demand for the labour of children than would have existed had they worked regularly. On that point the Commissioners said—
  "If the master's propensities prompt him to loiter away the earlier days of the week, he works the extra hours on middle days to make up his losses. Thus the child—the almost infant child —is taxed with three or four, hours' increased exertion, to the sacrifice of his, health, his morals, and every domestic comfort that he would otherwise enjoy, and his without the least remuneration, as in every case his wages are the same, whether he makes the twelve hours or the sixteen. The evil is lamented by the honest workman, by the children, by the parents, and universally by the manufacturers, who acknowledge their inability to correct it themselves without incurring the risk of exciting tumult, and thereby occasioning some delay in the execution of their orders, as the processes are so linked in with each other that by losing one set of men the others are rendered useless."
  At present a large number of the more respectable persons engaged in the Potteries declined to allow their children to be exposed to the danger and fatigue which they knew to be inseparable from some portions, of the business, and consequently a large proportion of the children who worked in the Potteries were drawn from the neighbourhood of collieries, and from amongst the children of the poorer classes, They had the strongest evidence that if the work was made more healthy, a larger number of the children of the potters, themselves would be employed, and by that means an ample supply of children would in a short time be obtained. An argument that had been used was, that the works in which; the children were employed were so numerous and detached

  1717
  that it might be difficult to enforce the law. That matter had been considered. The same state of things existed in the cotton and woollen manufacturing districts, but no difficulty whatever in practice had resulted from the application of the Acts in those districts. Another argument used was one which was stale in the cars of the House, and it was that the unexpected receipt of orders made it necessary at times to work for a greater number of hours than the Factory Acts permitted. That argument had been too often refuted by experience to have much weight with hon. Members. It was also said that the competition of the iron works and collieries drew off a great number of boys who would otherwise be employed in the Potteries. But in the cotton, linen, and woodlen manufacturing districts, which were surrounded by iron works and collieries, no difficulty was experienced in obtaining labour, and the House might rest assured that whenever the children were employed under healthy conditions, the supply would be sufficient.
  The strongest objection to the application of the half-time system, and one which would probably receive more sympathy on the part of that House, was, that the age of eight was too early on age at which to employ children even under the restrictions imposed by the Factory Acts. He was bound to say that there was a strong feeling throughout the district against employing children at so early an age; but the experience of Inspectors was that, with very rave exceptions, the employment of children of that age, under the restrictions of the Factory Acts, was not followed by any evil effects upon their health. If the permission to employ children at the age of eight might be to a certain extent an evil, it was also an advantage, because it was a security for the education of the child. The parents were apt to postpone sending the child to school until he began work, and there was no doubt that was an evil which would be augmented if the age of commencing work was altered from eight to nine years. That was a matter, however, which could be more conveniently dealt with in Committee.
  He would next state a few facts with respect to another manufacture which would be included in the measure—the manufacture of lucifer matches. It was of recent growth, having only been commenced in the year 1833. The total number of young persons engaged in it was 1,800 and of adults 850;
  1718
  in other words, about two-thirds of the persons employed in the trade were children or young persons. The evidence taken before the Commission showed that these children were frequently employed from six in the morning till nine or ten o'clock at night, that they were the most neglected and worst educated of any class, and that they were the poorest of the poor and the lowest of the low. Their employment was exceedingly prejudicial to health, and induced a most distressing and painful disease of the jaw. They often lost portions of the jaw, and in some cases the lower jaw was entirely destroyed. The effect of attention, having been directed to the matter had been to diminish the, evil, but still the application of the Bill would be of the greatest use not only in limiting the number of hours during which the child was exposed to the fumes of phosphorus, but in securing ventilation, and preventing the children having their meals where they would still inhale the fumes of the phosphorous. The next trade—that of percussion caps and cartridges—did not employ many children, but it varied from time to time, and the Commissioners saw no reason why the children should not be included in the Act, their circumstances being generally the same. The next trade was that of paper-staining, the principal seat of which was in London, but it was also carried on in Manchester and other large towns. The number of children employed was 1,100 of which 643 were children under thirteen, and 82 were under ten years of age, and 507 were young persons. The trade was not necessarily injurious in itself, but the hours of labour were excessive. There were a certain number of busy months in the year in the trade, and in four of the busiest of these months the work went on from six in the morning till nine or ten at night, and even later, with little intermission. The effect of these long hours of work had been described by various witnesses. One witness stated that last winter six out of nineteen were away front ill-health from overwork, Mr. Duffy, a workman, stated that he had seen the children when none of them could keep their eyes open to do the work, and a boy thirteen years of age stated that he was kept so long on his feet working that they became sore. The workpeople also suffered from the heat and the fine dust which was suspended in the air during the progress of the work. Witt respect to the next trade, that of finishing, hooking, and lapping, the House had had the subject

  1719
  frequently before them in connection with the Bleaching and Dyeing Works' Act. It was believed, both by the Inspectors and the majority of manufacturers, that, the finishers had been included in the Act, A case, however, having been brought before the Court of Common Pleas, it was decided that where finishing was carried on as a separate process it did not come under the Act. An, Act passed in last Session partially removed that evil. Upon the statement of facts furnished by the Commissioners the Government had no difficulty is including the finishers and hookers in the Bill. Numerous objections were, however, made from various towns. First, from Bradford, where about 1,500 persons were employed. A petition only young persons; and that the trade so far from being unhealthy, was very healthy; they therefore, objected very strongly to being placed under the Act. Similar Statements came from Bedfast, Dundee, and Leeds. It therefore appeared to the Government that as only inquiry had been made at Manchester, and that as children were not employed in other towns, it would not be expedient to include them within the Act until further inquiry had been made. The Commissioners were about to report upon other traders, and the Government might probably have to introduce another Bill similar to that they were considering. In the meantime inquiry could be made into the condition of hookers, finishers, &c in other districts; and if the statement with respect to Manchester should be supported as regarded other places, it would then be the duty of Government to insert in another Bill the clause which had been introduced into the Bill before the House, and which he now proposed to omit. And now he came to the last part of his statement, the fustian cutters. In that trade there were altogether about 4,000 persons emplyed, 1,560 of whom were children, and out of this number about 600 carried on their employment in private dwellings. The tendency was to increase the number of children employed. In some cases they began as early as seven and eight years of age, and the average hours were fourteen per day, with one and a half hour for meals. Some employers, however, towards the end of the week kept them at work for eighteen or twenty hours a day. The nature of the trade, it appeared, necessitated a peculiar action of the body, which threw its weight in one
  1720
  continuous direction, producing in many cases distortion of the, knee and spine There was a general desire on the part of both employers and employed that the Act should be applied to;-that industry. The difficulty lay in extending it to the private dwellings of the workmen, but that difficulty was not insuperable. Having now concluded his review of the trades affected by the Bill, he felt it his duty to direct the attention of the House to the great importance of the new principles involved in it, Not only was this the first. time that the Factory Acts had been applied to trades in which the motive power was not steam, water, or machinery, but the Bill, if passed into a law, would regulate one trade at least which was carried on in private houses. It was the duty of the House carefully to consider the measure, and to determine whether they would be justified in applying the principle of the Factory Acts to the trades he had named. For his own part, he believed that no other species of legislation, which human wit had recommended; would be so effectual in attaining, the end they had in view, as those Acts of which they had had so beneficial an experience during, the last twenty years.
  MR. CRUM-EWINGsaid, that knowing the beneficial effect the Factory Act had had, he hailed with satisfaction, the introduction, of the Bill, and it was with, considerable regret that he heard a few days back, that the right hon. Gentleman had determined to exclude from its operation the hookers, lappers, and, finishers. The whole of the evidence taken by the Commissioners was in favour of including those classes within the operation of the Act, and he trusted the Government would not exclude them, and that they would not flinch from pressing the Bill forward.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. H. A. Bruce.)
  VISCOUNT INGESTREsaid, he should not oppose the second reading, but he should at the proper time move that it be referred to a Select Committee, with power to send for persons, papers, and records. He wished to put his opposition— if he might use the term — in the mildest form, for he was convinced that in the Potteries something must be done, but the question in his mind was how it should be done. He could not agree to the half-time system, believing-that children should not be employed in the Potteries at all under the age of ten years, and that was the prayer of the memorial, already re-

  1721
  ferred to, of the masters in the Potteries. He held in his hand several letters from influential persons favouring the view that children should not be employed under the age of ten years. The feeling was that there should be even very strong restrictions, but the manufactures asked that the Factory Acts should not be forced upon them, inasmuch as they were inapplicable to the Staffordshire Potteries. He believed that the right hon. Gentleman hardly gave the inhabitants of the Pottery districts sufficient credit for the state of education. The information upon the subject was gathered in a hasty manner, and Mr. Sandford, the assistant Inspector of Schools, had since acknowledged that he was mistaken in the opinion which he had given upon the subject. In that statement he was supported by the opinion of several schoolmasters in the district, who were all opposed to the half-time systems.
  MR. H. R. GRENFELLsaid, that he would very briefly express the reasons which induced him to vote for the Motion of the noble Lord the Member for North Staffordshire He could assure his right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Committee of Council that lie was not going to oppose his measure from any reasons of abstract political economy, but solely from a belief that no arguments had yet been adduced to show that the Mines and Collieries Regulation Act might not be applied to the Pottery district. His right hon. Friend said in his speech that various petitions had reached him since the publication of the blue-book at variance with the original memorial of the manufacturers. He (Mr. Greenfell) could assure the House that such was not the case. The petitions were exactly in accordance with the original memorial, and disputed none of its facts. But they disputed many of the facts contained in the blue-book both as to the health of the district and as to the education. The noble Lord having already shown that the educational statistics in the blue-book were not to be relied on, it was unnecessary for him (Mr. Grenfell) to speak further on that point. But he might say that these errors had caused great uneasiness in the district from the fact that they proceeded from Government agents. The Rev. Mr. Sandford was a Government Inspector of Schools, and with regard to the statement of Dr. Arlidge on the health of the district, lie had among his papers a pamphlet, published by a sub-Inspector of
  1722
  factories, Mr. Measor, who took for granted that Dr. Arlidge's statement was true. His right hon. Friend had himself quoted it, and it appeared as a test for almost every paper and pamphlet that had appeared since the publication of the bluebook. Now what were the facts of the case? Dr. Arlidge's statement was so astounding that almost every one connected with the district took notice of it, and having himself been present at severed meetings in the district, called for the purpose of discussing the Government measure, and hearing so much of Dr. Arlidge's statement, he thought there must be some mistake in it. Through the kindness of a friend he was put in communication with Dr. Arlidge, who very politely sent him a letter of explanation, which with the permission of the House, he would read—
  "Newcastle under-Lyme,
  February 17th 1864.
  "Dear Sir,—My friend Mr. Blakiaton, of Shelton, has kindly suggested that it would be well for me to write you in reply to a question put to him in a recent letter of yours, respecting the scope of my letter published in the report of the Children's Employment Commission, p. 24. I gladly avail myself of the suggestion, as my remarks have been much misinterpreted and severely censured.
  "Paragraph 2 has been set forward by itself, and discussed without reference to the explanations in paragraph 1, and I have been made to say that the defects noted in paragraph 2 apply to the whole population of the Potteries. This interpretation is unfair. My assertions, as intimated in the first section, rest upon observations made among sick people almost entirely, and carried on principally at the Infirmary. At the same time this institution offers the best possible field for noting the prevalent disorders of the artisans of the district, and I again asked my opinion of the physical condition of the working potters, I should reiterate the statements in my published letter, with very slight modifications. The word "mentally" crept into my letter without reflection, and I would not repeat it unless convinced by special research of the truth of deterioration of mental condition, ever and above that amount inevitably concomitant with physical deterioration.
  "Then, again, I would not assert that two-thirds of the potters are scrofulous, though probably one-third are. In so saying I was influenced by the vast number of strumeue patients which fell under my observation at the date I wrote, at the Infirmary, and from what I then knew I was justified in making the assertion. That so many scrofulous cases fell to my let at that time was the result of the usage prevailing, to send such cases to the physicians. It would lead me beyond the limits of a letter to enter into further explanation of similar accidental modifying circumstances to be allowed for in a fair estimate of my letter. Saving, however, the two points mentioned, I repeat, my letter conveys the positive

  1723
  results of observation carried on among the potters applying at the Infirmary, and as far as practicable, among those coming within the range of private practice. It should be remembered that by the plan of establishment subscriptions, levied as a tax among the work-people, the Infirmary represents a gigantic sick club, and therefore the results arrived at respecting the physical condition of the artisans of the district, are of wider application than they would be in an Infirmary supported wholly by voluntary contributions, and therefore resorted to by the very poor only. Forgive this long epistle—I remain, yours truly,
  "J. T. ARLIDGE.
  "H. R. Grenfell, Esq."
  P.S.—I have a multitude of statistics which I hope shortly to publish—J.T.A.
  What, then, was the upshot of this piece of evidence as to two-thirds of the potters being scrofulous? Why that two-thirds of those who went to Dr. Arlidge were so. And this, because those afflicted with this disorder were sent to the physician, and he was a physician. After such a piece of evidence as that, no wonder doubt was thrown upon the accuracy of these statements. Passing fro the evidence to the measure before the House, he confessed he had heard no reason as yet why the three first clauses of the Mines Regulation Act should not be applied instead of the half-time clauses of the Factory Act. It was the unanimous feeling of the manufacturers and workmen that such should be attempted. The whole of the clergy were in favour of it, and, indeed, he might say that the Rector of Stoke only a few days ago assured him (Mr. Grenfell) that he considered it better for the health and more conducive to the education of the district. For these reasons he should support the Motion of the noble Lord for a Committee, which he was informed need only last a few days as the object was clearly defined and the evidence could be easily sifted. At the same time, whether this were granted or not, he felt convinced that the manufactures of the Pottery district were desirous of obtaining the best measure for the workmen, and that whichever measure of these two was selected by Parliament, in the wisdom of which they had the fullest confidence—whether it were the half-time system or the Mines Act— they would receive it with the full intention to do their utmost to make it conducive to the health, morals, and education of this important district.
  MR. ALDERMAN COPELANDsaid, he should like to see the Bill so modified that it could be advantageously applied. He
  1724
  desired, and his brother manufacturers concurred in that desire, to see an enactment passed prohibiting the employment of any child before the age of ten years, and then for not more than seven and a half hours a day. He maintained that the blue-book had cast a stigma upon the Staffordshire manufacturers which they could ill bear. He believed that it would be very advisable if the provisions of the Mines Regulations Act could be applied to the Pottery districts. He must also take the opportunity of congratulating the right hon. Gentleman upon the selection he had made in the appointment of mining Inspectors.
  MR. ADDERLEYsaid, he rose to express his gratitude to the right hon. Gentleman for the care and trouble which he had bestowed upon the Bill. The pottery manufacturers of Staffordshire were constituents of whom he might justly be proud. So anxious were they that their trade should not be carried on to the moral or physical injury of those they employed, that they were the first body of manufactures who had themselves sought to inflict this restrictive legislation on their trade. He (Mr. Adderley) hoped the second reading of the Bill would be passed without discussion, and the sense of the House taken on the proposition of his noble Friend for referring the Bill to a Select Committee. He thought it was due to the manufacturers, who had initiated the legislation, that such a Bill should be investigated by a Select Committee as they requested, and he believed that the short delay that would thereby be caused would in no way endanger its passing. The system of inspection which had of late so much spread in this country was not only very costly but was also distasteful to our habits and customs, and could be only regarded as a violent remedy. The necessity of some such infraction of private rights could not, however, be denied, because, but for it, there would have been no Factory Act legislation. Those who at first were the strongest opponents of that, system now admitted the beneficial effects of it. They had, indeed, entirely recanted the opinions which they, entertained, some years, ago. He thought the principle of the Factory Act so successful when applied should be further applied to all trades and employments in the country, if it could be done, and as much as possible by a system of penalties on detection of offences, with as little espionage as

  1725
  possible, The Factory Act was, in reality, a protection of the good manufacturer against the bad, and it ought to be spread equally and impartially over every kind of employment. The difficulty, however, was, that there were some employments—chiefly agricultural—which it would be extremely difficult to place under such restrictions. The present measure extended the Factory Acts to fire or six additional trades. The Bill had been drawn up in a most slovenly and objectionable manner, because it did not specifically state its provisions. It simply declared that certain six trades should be subjected to the Factory Acts, of which there were already thirteen in number. Probably no two lawyers would give the same opinion as to what those six trades would be thus subjected to. This was a slovenly and dangerous mode of framing legislation, and he therefore hoped that an early opportunity would be taken of consolidating the several acts. He gave his adherence to the principle adopted by the Bill, yielding only so far to the noble Lord that he would consent to its being referred to a Select Committee. The sole ground of opposition raised to the half-time system proposed by the Bill was a preference for the Mines Regulation Act, Which permits children's full work from the age of ten. He must say, however, that he adhered to the half-time system. He did not believe that a boy could begin to work too early as long as the work given to him was suitable to his age. He could not commence too early to learn the trade by which he was to get his living in after years, as long as the boy was not subjected to too hard labour. But he did not think children were capable of full work at ten. As to the system of employing children full time and afterwards sending them to school it was a perfect farce. Mr. Bagnall, near Birmingham, a most intelligent and one of the best masters in the iron districts, had tried it, and notwithstanding that he had built schools, furnished them, and found masters, the only result was that instead of the children going home after work to bed, they were placed on benches, where they slept uncomfortably, instead of sleeping at home comfortably. It was said that the half-time system would increase the demand for children, and that the demand would thus get in excess of the supply. The same argument had been urged against the introduction of every factory Act, and had turned out to be without the shadow of foundation.
  1726
  Even if it were found difficult to supply the double requisition of children, their work was of so easy and simple a character that it would not be difficult to find a machine which would act as a substitute. Their work was in a great many cases confined to turning a wheel. If machinery for this is adopted, will parents grudge a slight loss of children's wages to economize their children's lives? It was better during the whole period of childhood to mix a child's proper work with education, than to devote him to education without work till ten, and impose full work on him after.
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, he wished to state his entire concurrence in the expression of gratification at the way in which the Bill had been received. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Stoke-upon-Trent had complained of the manner in which the manufacturers had been treated by the Commissioners in their Report, but it should be remembered that the Commissioners had given the manufacturers credit for admire fully to concur in the objects which the Commission itself sought to promote. The Factory Acts referred to by the Bill were not thirteen, as stated by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adderley), but only five, and those five comprised the whole code of legislation in that direction. He would suggest that the Bill should be read a second time without opposition, and that the only point in dispate, the question as regarded the half-time, should be settled in Committee. He doubted, however, if the question would be so satisfactorily settled by a Committee upstairs as by a Committee of the whole House, while the probable effect of referring the Bill to a Special Committee would be to postpone legislation upon the subject for another year.
  COLONEL EDWARDScongratulated the Vice President of the Council of Education on the production of the Bill, which would be hailed with delight by the whole manufacturing population, and at the same time he thanked his noble Friend (Lord Ingestre) for his very eloquent and able speech. Living as he did in the heart of a manufacturing district, he could bear testimony to the blessings conferred by factory legislation. He trusted he would be excused by the House in not giving a silent vote in support of the extension of the Factory Act as proposed by the Government. It might be in the recollection of the House, that sixteen years ago he had the honour of supporting the views of that true patriot and benefactor of the working classes,

  1727
  John Fielden, in his advocacy, when he achieved the great victory of the Ten Hours Factory Bill. At that period it met with the most determined opposition from the great body of the Liberal party, but he was now happy to find that the majority of its most strenuous opponents to their honour confessed that their views were altogether changed with regard to the measure which had proved by its working to be a complete success. Were that excellent man still living, how gratified would he be to see the introduction of this Bill for the extension of the great enactment, to which he directed his life, to all other manufactures and trades in which females and boys required protection from over-long hours of labour. He would comply with the request of the Secretary of State, and add no more to his remarks at this stage of the Bill, in order that the House might not delay its progress. He would only add that the Chambers of Commerce at Halifax and Huddersfield had petitioned in favour of this Bill; Leeds and Bradford also; and, at the latter place, at an immense public meeting this feeling was unanimous in its favour, with certain modifications in Committee.
  MR. FERRANDsaid, he believed that the majority of the gentlemen engaged in the shipping trade of the country were in favour of the Bill, and he was therefore sorry to see the clause including shipping warehousemen in the provisions of the Bill struck out He maintained that that course shad been adopted by the Government in consequence of the pressure put upon the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department by certain Germans, inhabitants of Bradford. Might he ask the right hon. Baronet, if some pressure of a political nature had been brought to bear upon him?
  SIR GEORGE GREY: I have not had any communication with a single person upon the subject.
  SIR FRANCIS CROSSLEYsaid, he had looked upon the first Factory Act with great fear, because he had believed that it would not answer, but he could now bear testimony to its good effects in every direction. He quite agreed in the opinion that the children worked batter and learnt more under the half-time system than if all their, time were devoted either to school or to labour. He thought that if they found further legislation for the protection of children successful, they might come to the House and ask them to extend the same class of legislation to agricultural labourers.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he rose
  1728
  to express his regret at having heard from the right hon. Gentleman that he intended to expunge from the Bill the clause relating to the hooking and lapping process, but he trusted an effort would be made in Committee to retain the clause. If the Bill should pass with that clause in it, it would entitle the right hon. Gentleman to great credit as having introduced a Reform Bill infinitely more valuable than many of those Reform Bills which had come from the Ministerial side of the House. He might add that he was quite sure that if such a measure as that which had been alluded to by the hon. Baronet the Member for Halifax were introduced, it would receive every favourable consideration from agricultural Members.
  Motion agreed to: Bill read 2°, and committed for Thursday.

CAPE COAST—THE ASHANTEE WAR.

  QUESTION.
  SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he rose to ask the Under Secretary of State for War to lay upon the table of the House—
  "Statements of the number of Officers and Men in the Cape Coast command on the 1st day of July, 1863:
  Of the number of Officers and Men landed from the Megaera, at Cape Coast, in August 1863:
  Return of the number of Officers and Men landed from the Tamar at Cape Coast, on the 9th day of April, 1864:
  Nominal List of the thirteen Officers who have died up to last Returns:
  Nominal List of the fifteen Officers invalided up to last Returns:
  Nominal List of the nine Officers remaining sick at Cape Coast:
  List of the number of Men dead since the 1st day of July last:
  List of the number of Men invalided since the 1st day of July last:
  List of the number of Men in Hospital at last Return:
  And, Statement of the remaining Effective Force at Cape Coast Castle on the 14th day of May."
  He was able to prove that these men had died from the criminal incapacity of Her Majesty's Government.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON, in reply, said, he hoped that all the information that was in the possession of the Adjutant General on the points mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member would be laid on the table, to-morrow or next day, with other papers relating to the Ashantee war. The Returns received up to the present time by the Adjutant General only reached up to the end of last April, and did not contain the names of all the Officers who were stated by the hon. and gallant Mem-

  1729
  ber to have died subsequently to that date. All the information that was in the possession of the Horse Guards would be laid upon the table of the House.

NATIONAL EDUCATION (IRELAND).

  QUESTION.
  SIR EDWARD GROGANsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, When the Return relating to National Education (Ireland), which was ordered on the 19th day of February last, will be laid upon the table of the House?
  SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, he had to express his regret at the delay which had taken place in presenting the Return which was ordered in February. He understood, however, that it would be ready in two or three days, and he trusted he should be able to lay it on the table of the House in the course of the week. The delay had arisen from the pressure on the office in preparing the numerous Returns that had been ordered.

INDIA—THE INDIAN ARMY.

  QUESTION.
  SIR MINTO FARQUHARsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, Whether he can name a day on which he will place upon the table of the House the Warrant for the re-organization of the Indian Army in accordance with the Report of the Commission on Memorials of Indian Officers?
  SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, in reply, that at last he was happy to be able to give a positive answer to the hon. Baronet's Question. The Warrant had been sent by the Secretary of State for War, in whose hands it was, to the Queen, yesterday or this morning. It would be transmitted to the Council on Thursday, and he hoped it would be presented by Monday at the latest.

VICTORIA—EXPULSION OF TICKET-OF -LEAVE MEN.—QUESTION.
MR. BLAKEsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether his attention had been drawn to the Notice given by Mr. Kyte, M.P. for East Melbourne, of his intention to move the following Resolution in the Legislature of Victoria:—
"To move that the House will resolve itself into a Committee of the whole, to consider the propriety of presenting an Address to His Excel-
1730
lency the Governor, requesting that the sum of £5,000 might be placed on an Additional Estimate for the purpose of defraying the expenses of exporting to Great Britain ticket-of-leave men during 1864, not exceeding 300 in number,"
and, in the event (as appears to be generally anticipated in the Colony) that the Resolution should pass before the despatch of the next Mail, what course the Home Government are prepared to adopt?
MR. CARDWELLreplied, that he had not received any official communication from Victoria even, that the Notice of the Motion to which the hon. Gentleman referred had been given. He was sure the hon. Gentleman would not expect him to anticipate the adoption of such a Resolution by the Legislature of Victoria, and still less to state what course it might be necessary for Her Majesty's Government to take in the event of that Resolution being adopted.

DENMARK AND GERMANY—THE CONFERENCE.—QUESTION.
MR. BERNAL OSBORNE: Sir, as the House is not likely to receive any satisfactory answer, I give notice that I will draw the attention of the House, on the first occasion of our going into Supply, relative to the publication of the secret diplomacy in the public newspapers.
MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, that being of a more sanguine character than the hon. Member for Liskeard, he should put the Question of which he had given notice. He wished to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, since secresy is not observed by the other parties to the Conference, it would not be a mere empty form to maintain it towards the House of Commons; and whether, when the extension of the Armistice was consented to, it was understood and agreed that that extension should be final?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Sir, I will not enter into the first part of the hon. Gentleman's Question, which is only argumentative, and, I think, is hardly Parliamentary. With regard to the latter part, I have no reason—but rather the contrary —to believe that when the Armistice was prolonged there was any decision in the Conference that that prolongation should be a final one. The Question is open to the Conference, which may prolong the Armistice or not at the expiration of the present term, according to the then existing circumstances.

BRITISH TROOPS IN CANADA.

  QUESTION.
  MR. ADDERLEYsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, If the Government will fix a day for going into Committee of Supply on Colonial Estimates, on which he may bring forward that Motion of which he has given notice, on the present disposal of the British Troops in Canada?
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, he proposed to take the Colonial Estimates on Thursday next.

INCOME TAX—RESOLUTION.
MR. HUBBARD, in rising to call attention to the operation and extent of the direct and indirect taxation as now levied, with especial reference to the Income Tax, said: Sir, What is the reason that taxes are disbursed more grudgingly than expenditure in any other form—that the tax-gatherer is universally execrated — and that taxation is a subject at once irksome and irritating? There ought, Sir, to be no ground for such a question. Taxes ought to be regarded as offerings cheerfully conceded by the various members of the community—by each according to his means—for objects essential to his welfare, and which singly he either cannot accomplish—or can accomplish only at a much greater sacrifice. In the payment of his taxes every one ought to be able to rejoice as the means by which he is best able to secure his personal safety from external foes or domestic dangers, and protection for his property and for his industry — by which, in short, he obtains the immense benefits which result from the good government, which is a main feature of advanced civilization.
But, Sir, the prevalent notion of taxation has been derived from very different considerations. With too much reason has it been complained that taxes have been levied for the gratification of the ambition and the luxury of the Sovereign; that their administration has been abused to the aggrandisement of state functionaries and their officials; and lastly, that they have been selected without wisdom and exacted without justice. In this country, Sir, whatever may have been its former condition, the two first of these complaints can be advanced no longer. We have the happiness to live under the rule of a Sovereign who, scrupulous in the exercise of her prerogative, never raises the dread ban-
1732
ner of war, except with the concurrence of her constitutional advisers—and who, so far from exacting from the people the cost of personal indulgence, is ever ready liberally to relieve the suffering out of the fund provided for the Royal maintenance; a fund, I must remark, which; measured by the wealth of this great country, and contrasted with the expenditure of other Sovereigns, is not excessive. And again, Sir, whatever may have been the state of previous generations, we may boast, and it is a boast to which of all countries we are the best entitled, that we have a public service distinguished by the integrity of its officials. Whatever be their other faults, no man can impute in our days anything like venality or corruption to our public men. No one can impute to them malversation of the national funds, and we may safely affirm that no portion of the taxes levied upon the people is diverted from the Exchequer by official peculation. But, Sir, as to the last of these complaints, we cannot honestly deny that it applies to our fiscal system, or pretend that the odium connected with taxation in this country is a mere prejudice and not the result of a want of wisdom in the selection of taxes, and in the manner in which these taxes are levied. Our taxation, as it stands, is the result of no recognized principle—it is the growth of no settled system—it is the residuum left by separate and inharmonious acts which imposed taxes when money was wanted, and removed taxes when money could be spared, with slender regard to their bearing on the national interests or to the equity of their incidence. But, Sir, my present object is the consideration, rather of the present than the past; and we may conveniently, for our purpose, divide our taxes into direct and indirect taxes; not indeed that such a division exists in the present classification, but it may with sufficient accuracy be obtained by a careful scrutiny of the Revenue returns. Customs are of course indirect taxes; Excise are chiefly indirect; but Stamps do not of themselves indicate either direct or indirect taxation, and some of the items involve both kinds of taxation. The notice of this fact we owe to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, in the course of the present Session, pointed it out to the House. It is true, as he stated, that the tax upon Fire Insurance presses partly upon stock in trade and partly upon property. That which is levied on stock in trade is an indirect tax in so far as it operates upon the

1733
price of commodities, and is ultimately paid by the consumer; while, on the other hand, that portion which presses upon property is a direct tax, although one most unequally

INDIRECT.

Customs and Excise.

Spirits

…

£12,000,000

Tobacco

…

5,800,000

Wine

…

1,200,000

£19,000,000

Malt

…

5,800,000

Tea

…

4,600,000

Coffee

…

460,000

Sugar

…

5,640,000

Currants and Raisins

…

344,000

Pepper

…

106,000

Corn

…

750,000

17,400,000

Wood

…

250,000

Sundries

…

250,000

500,000

£36,900,000

Stamps.

Licenses and Certificates

…

£2,000,000

Bill Stamps and Receipts

…

1,200,000

Railways and Carriages Hired

…

600,000

Patents and Miscellaneous

…

240,000

Marine Insurances

…

360,000

Fire Insurance on Stock in Trade

…

300,000

4,700,000

£41,600,000

DIRECT.

Stamps.

Probates & Letters of Administration

…

£1,500,000

Legacy and Succession Duties

…

2,500,000

Fire Insurance on Property

…

1,050,000

Deeds, Stamps. &c,

…

1,450,000

Land Tax

…

1,100,000

House Tax

…

860,000

Assessed Taxes

…

1,210,000

Newspapers and Sundries

…

200,000

Excise—Game Certificates,&c.

…

130,000

£10,000,000

Income Tax, 6d. in the Pound

…

7,400,000

£59,000,000

Post Office, profit

…

£1,600,000

Crown Lands, net revenue

…

300,000

Bank of England, for circulation

…

130,000

Fees

…

170,000

2,200,000

Total

…

£61,200,000

I wish to say a few words in passing upon the last four items in this list, for they are neither direct nor indirect taxes. The Post Office profits are the gains upon an industrial occupation, property undertaken by the State; but which, go far from being a tax on the community, bestows on them for each contribution that they make, a benefit far exceeding it in value. The £130,000 received from the Bank of Eng-
levied. I have ventured to classify and estimate the Revenue for 1865–6 as follows:—
land is a part of the larger revenue which the Crown might derive from its prerogative of coining paper into money. Fees and Crown lands require no explanation. Deducting these items we have £59,000,000, as the direct and indirect taxation of 1865–6, supposing the Income Tax of 6d in the pound to be then still in force. But, Sir, the Income Tax expires again in April next. Can we do without it?

1735
The list of items which I have read exhibit a total of £41,600,000 of indirect, against £10,000,000 of direct taxes, excluding the Income Tax. But what do we mean by direct and indirect taxes? I am not aware of any great authority to whom I can refer upon this subject; but I venture to suggest the definitions which these lists bring before my mind. I would say then, that indirect taxes, are such as are levied upon commodities either at their importation or production, or upon their transfer, and which being so levied merge into the constituents of price, and are ultimately paid by the consumer; and that direct taxes are, as such, levied either upon property in its corpus, or on the products of property and industry as they accrue or are created. If we come to examine still further what are the peculiar advantages of each, we must necessarily take a retrospective view. The House is of course aware that, up to 1842, indirect, taxation was the means of raising by far the largest portion of our revenue. Indirect taxation has considerable advantages. Indirect taxation being comprised in the price of commodities, is paid almost unconsciously, and therefore paid not unwillingly. It falls in a great measure upon luxuries, and is levied upon people according to their income, as expressed in their expenditure. It raises no difficulty as between the State and the tax-payer, and it creates no jealousies between different classes of the community. There are, therefore, many very evident advantages connected with indirect taxation. But, on the other hand, we cannot refrain from seeing that there are some imperfections in indirect taxation standing by itself. Through indirect taxation you can tax people according to their means as exhibited in their expenditure. But we know that expenditure is not always an exact test of means. It is so if you take the whole community at large; but it is not so with regard to individuals. Persons who are in a position that obliges them to press closely upon their income are, by indirect taxation, exposed to an aggravation of that pressure; while those who may be called economical, and who lay up a very large portion of their income, escape with a comparatively small pressure upon their means. But there is another and wider disadvantage in indirect taxation. Indirect taxation, as it presses upon the price of articles of general consumption, has the effect of elevating the prices of labour by elevating the cost of
1736
sustaining labour. And when we consider the immense foreign commerce of this country, when we consider how dependent this country is upon foreign trade, upon the export of its manufactures, for the maintenance of its commercial supremacy, we must also see that nothing could be more opposed to the progress of its commercial prosperity than the exclusive adoption of indirect taxation. It is, no doubt, true that the great measure of Sir Robert Peel for the removal of the tax upon corn and other articles of food was a first and most important step towards the liberation of our foreign trade from the prejudicial effects of indirect taxation. His eminent successor, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, has gone a great length in the path of commercial reform upon which Sir Robert Peel entered. But there are still unrepealed a large number of indirect taxes which might be advantageously removed. Let us pass in review our present indirect taxes. With regard to the taxes on spirits, tobacco, and wine, which will produce £19,000,000, I believe the Chancellor of the Exchequer is quite satisfied to leave their efficiency unimpaired. But next we have the Malt duty. Malt is an article which is highly interesting to Gentlemen on both sides of the House, and only recently we have had a discussion upon the propriety of reducing or abolishing the duty upon malt. Amongst the agricultural classes also, from one end of the country to the other, a most active agitation has been initiated for the abolition of the malt duty. I now come to the duty on Tea. I cannot think that a duty of 100 per cent is a satisfactory duty upon an article which enters so largely into the comforts, not only of men, but of all the women and children throughout the country. Again, the duty of 40 per cent on Coffee considerably restricts the consumption of that wholesome beverage. Sugar, also, is an article which, although it is now subject to a duty of only 33 per cent, is more heavily taxed than any article should be which constitutes so important a feature in the sustenance of the people. Then, coming to Currants and Raisins, we all know that English plum pudding is a standing dish for many families on Sunday, and for every family on Christmas day, and that our plum pudding is made of currants and raisins [a laugh], and they pay a 30 per cent duty. I now come to an article which I am quite sure nobody is so anxious to liberate from taxation as my

1737
right hon. Friend. In the course of one of those eloquent and jubilant orations in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer imparted to the discussion of a financial measure the interest of a romance, he took occasion to refer to the state of taxation some forty years ago, and quoted expressions of Sidney Smith, the witty canon of St. Paul's, who, in his peculiar style, described everything in the earth and under the earth as taxed in this country; and amongst the things he mentioned Spices. My right hon. Friend said, "the poor man's salt had been taxed, that salt was now free; the rich man's spice had been taxed, the rich man's spice was free." Well, but did my right hon. Friend forget that pepper is the poor man's spice, and that pepper pays a duty of 133 per cent? Then we come to Corn. Corn is now taxed at an amount which some persons may regard as a mere registration tax. Very rigid votaries of free trade look upon it as a tax equal to 2½ per cent, and therefore as one which is not compatible with the carrying out to their full extent the principles of free trade and the abolition of protection. ["Hear!"] I will not go so far as that, but I must say that I should gladly concur in the reduction to 1d. per cwt. of the present duty of 3d. a cwt. on corn. I now turn to the questionable items of direct taxation; and there I find the duty upon Fire Insurance on property. The ingenuity of my right hon. Friend was never exercised so perversely as when he diminished the duty paid upon the insurance of stock-in-trade, and left undiminished the duty upon the insurance of house property: that very property which is insured when it belongs not to the rich but to the poor, and is therefore peculiarly ill-suited to bear the burden of this arbitrary impost. The utter failure of the professional advocate enlisted by the Government to justify this tax and the unequivocal decision of the House will, I cannot doubt, ensure its diminution in future Budgets.
We have now before us a direct tax of £1,050,000, and indirect taxes amounting to £17,400,000, of which the abolition or mitigation is urgently demanded by sound policy, or advocated by important sections of the community ably represented in this House. And it is obvious that if any of those permanent taxes are to be abolished of sensibly diminished, while the public expenditure remains unchanged, you most provide a permanent substitute. You
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cannot increase the taxation of luxuries. Spirits and tobacco are taxed as highly as they can be without provoking smuggling and illicit distillation, and wine we could not charge with heavier duties consistently with our engagements by treaty. Can we increase direct taxation through any of the existing channels? Probates and letters of administration, legacy and succession duties are very proper methods of taxation, but it is perfectly obvious that you cannot carry either of those taxes to a much greater length without danger of evasion. I heard of a gentleman the other day who distributed half a million sterling before his death among his children, and by doing so he saved £5,000. If you were to increase this tax largely, a much greater tendency to personal disposition would be provoked, and you would take from the tax a portion of its productiveness. Deeds, stamps, and other charges of that kind, are already high enough; they press very sensibly upon the transfer and leasing of real property. The land tax you cannot touch, for from the peculiar position in which it stands, having been partially redeemed, you can neither add to it nor diminish it; all that can be done is, at a favourable moment, to give an opportunity for its entire redemption. The house tax is, I think, one of the least objectionable in principle, because the expenditure in house rent, taking the community from end to end, represents the same proportion of every man's means. Whether we look to the labourer with 15 s. a week, or to the man of £15,000 a year, we may roughly estimate at one-tenth of his expenditure the sum spent in rent. Houses then are a very fair test of meant, and therefore a fair medium of taxation, but even with houses yon soon reach the ultimate point. The tax is now 9d. in the pound; but if you exceed 2s. or 10 per cent, the tax becomes oppressive, and men will try to escape its pressure. To my view, therefore, we are in this position, We have a number of taxes which more or less demand remission, but we have no taxes either direct or indirect which we can venture sensibly to increase. How then are we to dispense with the tax which last yew produced £10,000,000 sterling, and which at 6d. in the pound is calculated in 1865:to produce £7,400,000. It appears to me that the Income Tax stands in a position from which you are utterly unable to dislodge it. Yon cannot do without it, because no one will sacrifice in that tax his hope of the possible remission of other taxes to which

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he is personally opposed. In taking into view the pressure of direct and indirect taxation we must recollect that there are some persons who can be reached only by direct taxation. There are many persons who from their penurious habits, or the magnitude of their wealth, go on accumulating, but pay comparatively little to the State. I believe a miser to be a more useful citizen than a spendthrift, but the miser ought not to escape his fair share of the national hardens. There are, however, others who also escape. There are a large number of our fellow countrymen who live beyond these shores who possess incomes to the amount of £5,000, £10,000 and £15,000 a year, and who spend them in foreign parts. In the absence of direct taxation these persons escape altogether, and the only way you can reach them is by taking a portion of their revenue in the country in which it has accrued. The conclusion, therefore, to which I come is, that it is our duty to maintain in due proportions both direct and indirect taxation. It appears to me that our direct taxation cannot be diminished if you intend to maintain a proper equilibrium, or if you desire to introduce those reductions in our fiscal tariff which so many hon. Members are anxious to effect. For those reductions would leave a vacuum. By what tax are we to fill it? The tax which now supplies all deficiencies is the Property and Income Tax; and in some shape or other an Income Tax you must pay. Upon what principles must it be levied? I believe that no serious difficulty would arise if you only deal with the subject truthfully. What yon want is to provide for the annual expenditure of the country, and that expenditure can only be defrayed from subsidies raised from the community at large. If you take it from annual income you take it at once from the appropriate source; and, if you act upon the principle of levying the tax on the net products of property, you leave, so far as they are concerned, no room whatever for dissatisfaction. We have to look, however, not only to realized property, but to the earnings of industry and skill, and here we arrive at another and more complicated portion of the subject. It is a theory of many who have studied the science of taxation closely, that taxation ought never to infringe on the earnings of skill and industry, but should await the result of those earnings in their future investment. But that is a theory which can hardly be maintained. Take the case of
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a person engaged in law or medicne, who, by his great skill, makes his £15,000 or £20,000 a year, but being of rather Epicurean habits saves nothing. Supposing you were to rely upon the direct taxation of the products of property, the earnings of his skill and industry would escape altogether. And yet that man is protected by the State in his person, and in the enjoyment of everything that constitutes his happiness. I do maintain that he is bound to make some contribution towards the general fund out of his industrial gains. Critically speaking, industrial incomes of the higher classes are not derived from labour alone The learning of the barrister and the science of the physician are acquirements resulting from a large previous expenditure, and constitute their capital; and the more we press this subject to a precise conclusion, the more, as it appears to me, we shall be brought to confess, that there is required in the production of industrial incomes a concurrence of capital with industry. The question then arises, in what proportion is capital combined with industry to be taxed? We cannot here, as in the United States, call for a return of the capital invested; but we can take the combined results and tax them in an estimated average proportion. It has been suggested that a tax of two-thirds upon those combined earnings of industry and capital would meet the requirements of the case; and I will show how closely the present law has sanctioned that proportion. In dealing with this question I am most reluctant to introduce any reference to what may concern me personally. I say this with perfect frankness, because in this matter I have no vanity to gratify and no ambition to promote. I shall probably be told that my plan has been tried and condemned, but I venture to say that any condemnation which has been passed upon it has been pronounced by those who have not made themselves thoroughly masters of the subject, and now I will prove it. I am sure my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer must be considered not inferior in ability or power to any of my opponents. In what light does my right hon. Friend look upon that plan? Really if I did not feel that it was necessary for the elucidation of the question, I would not care to reproduce a series of unfounded censures; but I think it essential to investigate the principles which underlie the taxation of this country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer designated my plan as

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"One which would favour those who were wealthiest, and whose wealth increased most rapidly, and which would lay heavier burdens upon property;" as a plan "which would introduce principles arbitrary and capricious, and which, so far from diminishing existing evils, would only increase them; which would introduce discord between class and class; a plan more dangerous and less plausible than the principle of graduated taxation.," —[See 3 Hansard, clxix. p, 1845–46.] And the Chancellor of the Exchequer has himself introduced the principle of graduated taxation, because he thinks that with all its vices it is better than the plan which I placed before him. But what I have to observe is this, that not one of those allegations has been brought to a definite trial. There was strong language and strong condemnation, but there was no evidence. In one instance only has the right hon. Gentleman given me the opportunity of testing the force of his objections, and in that instance he signally failed to prove his charge. The substance of it was, this, that by the process which I proposed the assessment upon real property would be raised to 1s. 1½d., while the payment of the great merchants would be reduced to 8d.—a difference of something like 70 per cent in favour of the latter. It is only fey means of a Parliamentary paper (No. 248), which came out last summer, that I have had an opportunity of bringing to a definite conclusion the substance of that charge; and the result is this, that if you take the sums which were levied on lands and houses, fines, and farms—the four items which constitute real property— in 1862 at 9d. in the pound, and compare them with the sums which those items would have contributed under my plan, the result would be, that whereas in the first instance they were taxed to the amount of £4,830,000, in the second they would appear to be taxed at £5,023,000, a difference of £193,000, resolving in a rate of 9d. 36–100 per cent. The percentage of; difference between the merchant and the landed proprietor is something under 32 per cent instead of 70, and the rate which lands and houses would be subject to, according to my right hon. Friend's own calculation of 11½d. in the pound, would be brought down to 10 d. I am sure my right hon. Friend would never have made a charge without supposing it to he accurate; but if in the only instance in which he has given a definite expression to his charge he is not justified, I ask the House to suspend its judgment as to my
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right hon. Friend's remarks upon other more important matters which I have submitted for consideration. There is only one other instance upon which I shall comment, and that is a very important one, because it raises the question of graduated taxation. My right hon. Friend said in March, 1863,
"In my opinion more is to be said in favour of graduated taxation than for his (Mr. Hubbard's) plan. A graduated taxation recognizes poverty in one class and overgrown wealth in another, and justice demands that one should pay less and the other more. There is something rather plausible in that principle, more so than in my hon. Friend's plan…He takes a widow, with £200 a year from the Funds, with six children to educate, to train, and to start in the world, and he takes the case of a great merchant—I will not say brewer or banker, as there seems to be some objection to specifying those flourishing classes—but to a great merchant, with £20,000 a year, he grants a relief to the extent of one-third, and in order to do that he adds 25 per cent to the burden of the poor widow."—[3 Hansard, clxix. 1846.]
If I were disposed to create a momentary impression in my favour, and to gain a vote, I could cite extreme cases and deceptive illustrations which would tend the other way. I could have said the subject at issue is this—"Will you tax an industrious hard-working clerk who has his 200 guineas a year, a wife and six children to maintain, who is obliged to lay by one-third of his income (which will procure a certainty of only £100 a year for his surviving family instead of the 200 guineas which he gets now), will you tax him at the rate of 9d, in the pound, while you put the same tax upon the capitalist whose money brings him in an income of £20,000 per annum?" The Chancellor of the Exchequer put extreme cases, but I did not. I thought it better to rest the discussion upon principles which would bear examination, and not to appeal to a morbid and spurious sympathy. But as for "the poor widow" with her £200 a year, is she the widow of a Cabinet Minister, or of a poor clerk? If the former, she is poor indeed; if the latter she is passing rich; and I must say that this illustration of my right hon. Friend brought vividly to my mind an exhibition which I saw some years ago in the suburbs of London. A parochial election was going on. A great parish office was vacant, that of sexton, and there were two candidates, the one the assistant of the late sexton, and the other the late sexton's widow. The assistant was satisfied to base his claim upon his reputation in the parish, and his placard bore simply

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"Dunkley for Sexton." But the widows, more wise, had a placard which ran thus— "Vote for the widow Scroggins, and the five fatherless children," and, no doubt, that appeal found an echo in the breasts of many. And so it is that my right hon. Friend brings forward illustrations which have no proper hearing on the argument, but serve the purpose of raising a prejudice. If you do make comparisons, compare poverty with poverty, and riches with riches, but not poverty with riches, and then how does it turn out? I will take the widow Scroggins with her five fatherless children, and if she has 200 guineas a year in the funds, I say she is much better off than the poor clerk with his salary of 200 guineas, his wife and six children.
But let us pass from the poor widow, the one extreme selected by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to his other extreme, the rich merchant who makes his£20,000 a year. The present law says to him, "You shall never pay in any one year on more than you make in that year. You make a return upon an average of three years, but you need never pay on more, than you make in any particular year." And what is the consequence of that 133rd clause? Why, we had Mr. Pressly before us in the inquiry of 1861, and he gave us a probable scale under which a trader making fluctuating profits would pay three-eighths less than the sum in which he would be otherwise charged. In the ordinary course of trade, a merchant, brewer, or manufacturer might, upon the principle of the fluctuating scale of profits, easily escape by paying half the tax which other persons making equal profits pay into the Exchequer. Therefore, when my right hon. Friend attacks me for taking the part of the rich merchant, I, on the contrary, say, that it is the privilege of the rich merchant which I am anxious to relinquish. And now, Sir, let us consider what is the principle upon which an equitable Income Tax must be constructed. Beginning with the products of real property, are we to tax alike the rack rent of £ 1,200 a year from lands and of £1,200 from houses. If we are, we are adopting a principle wholly contradictory to the principle laid down by this House, acted upon in several instances, and now being carried out throughout the country in the parochial assessment. The principle of the parochial assessment is to tax the net produce of real property, and
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you are doing; a grievous injustice to real property if you attempt to proceed upon any other principle than that which the parochial assessment system involves. But the measure of injustice with regard both to houses and lands is not limited by the mere taxation upon the outgoings. We are indebted to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for having brought clearly into view the injustice done to the owners of encumbered property, for they have alone to pay the tax upon the outgoings of the property. I mentioned last year the case of a man with an estate of £2,000 a year, but burdened to the extent of £1,600, who had to pay the tax upon £400, although the outgoings of £200 left him a net residue of only £200. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, thought that case impossible, but so far was it from being impossible that I myself am trustee to a property in a position precisely similar, and the unhappy landowner does pay 18 d. in the pound when the capitalist mortgagee pays but 9d. on his interest. Can that be satisfactory in a tax which is, perhaps, to take a permanent place in our fiscal system? Now, with regard to the other question, namely, the allowance upon the taxation of industrial earnings. In the year 1853 the Chancellor of the Exchequer frankly admitted the grievance imposed upon industrial earnings, he repeated it in his Budget speech of that year several times, and everybody expected that he was prepared, not only to acknowledge the grievance, but also to apply a remedy. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the land was already overcharged to the extent of 16 per cent, or one-sixth, which so far balanced the overcharge on trade; but he would give a still further remission. Savings are generally considered a fair subject for remission, and accordingly the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, "We will give a further remission of taxation upon all savings to the extent of one-sixth, provided that those savings be invested in a life policy." There was a boon, but it was destroyed by the condition attached to it. But the one-sixth overcharged on land and the one-sixth upon savings make exactly the one-third which I have asked as an abatement upon industrial incomes, concurrently with an allowance for out-goings on land and houses. And now a word as to the way in which the tax acts upon the morals, not only of those who hare to pay it, but of those who have to administer it. We

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have had over and over again instances of the most grievous fraud; instances in which the fraud was so gross that the authorities did not dare to expose or punish it. The fact is, the law is so unjust that you dare not enforce it and punish those who are guilty of its violation. It is a law which demoralizes not only its victims but its administrators, I will communicate to the House a most remarkable paper which lately came into my possession. In the year 1846 the Government made a loan to the landed gentry of the country, and it was principally taken up by the Scotch proprietors. It was made repayable in the shape of a twenty-two years annuity; and the document which I hold in my band is a circular issued by the Stamps and Taxes Office in Edinburgh to the assessors and collectors throughout the country. It is as follows:
"DRAINAGE ACT—CIRCULAR TO COLLECTORS.
"Stamps and Taxes, Edinburgh,
1st March, 1849.
"SIR—It is proper that I apprise you, for your information and guidance, that the Board are of opinion that parties to whom advances have been made under the Drainage Act, 9 and 10 Vict. cap. 101, are entitled to claim deduction of the property tax on the rent charges payable by them. The Board, however, do not consider it necessary to offer such deduction to parties paying those rent charges, but that it will be sufficient to allow it when claimed. I have also to inform you that such parties as claim the deduction due at 16th of October last, but which they omitted to do at that time, may be allowed to claim it at the 5th April next, along with the deduction due at the latter date, but always in the event only of the parties making the claim.
"When you transmit to me the half-yearly return of the drainage rent charges, you will accompany it with a list of the names of the parties who claimed and received deduction of the property tax, stating the amount of deduction claimed and allowed to each for said half-year, and you will be allowed credit for the amount at this office.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
(Signed) "ANGUS FLETCHER."
Well, Sir, this circular may have been issued by the Edinburgh Comptroller only in obedience to instructions from his superiors in office; but I must say that it is a document which I blush to read, because it is nothing more nor less than an instruction to collectors that, whereas certain persons indebted to the State have a right to deduct from their payments the amount of their Income Tax, yet if these persons, in their unsuspecting ignorance, failed to demand that concession, it was not to be offered or to be hinted at. The money is to be taken and no questions asked, unless a specific demand is made for a deduction.
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This is equivalent to what other Governments have done when they have received their dues in sterling coin and have paid their debts in a base currency. They have received on the one hand that which was their due, and have given on the other something of less value. The transactions to which this document referred were the occasion of a special enactment in 1853, under circumstances to which I must also allude. In the Income Tax Act of 1853, the Government introduced a clause providing with especial reference to the Drainage Annuities of 1846, that those who paid them should be allowed Income Tax only on the interest and not on the principal repaid. This clause was in the words of the enactment a "just provision," and yet at the same time the Government refused the same justice to their own creditors, under precisely analogous circumstances. Before I leave the question of trade incomes, I wish to direct the attention of the House to the 133rd clause of the Act of 5 & 6 Vict. I do not believe that the House is aware of the extent to which the existing law favours those who make large but fluctuating profits. We have heard that in the course of the great speculation in cotton, which has taken place of late years, enormous sums—such as £200,000 and £300,000 — have been made by individuals in the course of a year. Would the House imagine that it is perfectly possible for persons making £300,000 in one year as traders, to escape the taxation of that sum altogether under the operation of the 133rd section. The process is this: A man making £3,000 a year in ordinary trade, returns £3,000 as the average of 1861, 1862, and 1863, for assessment in 1864; but in 1864 he realizes £300,000 by his speculations. What happens then? Although he realizes that sum of £300,000, making altogether £303,000, he only pays on the previous returns of £3,000. The next year that large sum comes into his average, and he returns for assessment £103,000, but if in 1865 he makes only £3,000 be only pays on £3,000. In 1866, he would also return £103,000 as the average, but if again he made only £3,000 in that year he would pay upon that amount only. Again, in 1867, he would return £103,000 for assessment, but would pay on £3,000. The next year the £300,000 will pass altogether out of his calculations, and upon that enormous sum he will not have paid one farthing. That is a remarkable but

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true illustration of the way in which this 133rd section operates in favouring persons making large profits by speculation. Then again if a man takes stock every year; and Values his profits every year, he would pay on all he makes, but if he takes stock every other year he would only pay half the tax. If he took stock every third year then he would only pay one-third of the tax. If he only took stock every fourth year, by this clause he would escape the tax altogether. I think my right hon. Friend could not have been aware of the way in which this clause operates when he ventured to stand up for the integrity of the present Income Tax. I should have felt that it was somewhat presumptuous to bring the question of taxation again before the House this year, had it not been for what has happened in the course of the present Session. In his Budget speech, the right hon. Gentleman said
"There is another question that it is my duty to bring under the view of the House; it is the question of the Income Tax," — [3 Hansard, clxxiv. 583.]
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman is out of order in making any reference to a speech delivered in this House in the course of the present Session.
MR. HUBBARD: All I will say is that the House has gathered from what has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman on other occasions that the Income Tax was a subject upon the future of which the Parliament had yet to decide, and I therefore imagined that I was really assisting the object which the right hon. Gentleman has in view in bringing before the House some of the features connected with the tax as it now stands. It is quite true that in previous Sessions the right hon. Gentleman has remarked that with the peculiar views which I entertain with regard to the oppressive and unjust character of the tax he does not agree. I am sorry for that, because, if he himself were sensible of these defects and inequalities, he would not only acknowledge them, but would probably attempt to apply a remedy. And now, Sir, I would notice one further argument which may be urged to arrest the disposition of the House to reform this tax. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has brought this question before the House: Is public economy compatible with the maintenance of the Income Tax? He has stated that his great experience in the office he holds has raised in himself serious doubts whether His possible to retain the Income Tax as
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an habitual means of raising our national revenue compatibly with the exercise—he does not say of a rigid economy—but of reasonable thrift. Well, Sir, I think that not only is an Income Tax compatible with due economy, but that it is highly eligible, upon the very premises suggested by the argument of my right hon. Friend; for let me observe this that to arrive at any other conclusion would be to admit that a tax may be devised, the most just and the most equable, and one to which the whole country will cheerfully contribute; but if the tax is supposed to provide the Government of the country with a revenue more easily than would a less popular tax, it should be rejected. That appears to me to be an extraordinary doctrine, for it rests upon the assumption that the Finance Minister himself is either weak or incapable, or that he has to deal with a profligate House of Commons, ready to back him in any unwarrantable expenditure of the public funds. Now, I cannot admit that the right hon. Gentleman is weak or incapable; nor can I venture to believe that any of his successors, whoever they may be, are likely to be either weak or incapable. Neither can I apprehend that the present, or any succeeding, House of Commons will be so profligate as to connive with the Government of the day in wasting the public resources. The House, I feel sure, will join me in altogether disregarding that argument. I have little more to say upon the subject. I conceive that as taxation in itself is a proof of civilization, so I am satisfied that an Income Tax equitably devised, and, therefore, readily accepted by the country, would be a mark not only of high civilization but of high morality; and I do believe that this country does possess that amount of high morality which can enable it more than any country to support an Income Tax. I will here advert to one incident which falls under the eye of every Gentleman in this House—I mean the constant recurrence in the public prints of notices from the Chancellor of the Exchequer in acknowledgment of the receipt of such and such sums from A., B., C., or D., as Income Tax due to the State. These remittances vary from large sums to very small ones, and they amount to as much as from £5,000 to £10,000 a year. I was touched by observing a notice not long since of the receipt of 20 s. from a curate. Incidents such as these prove how scrupulous many of our countrymen are to give to the State every-

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thing which they believe to be its due; and I say that while that high tone of feeling does survive, we ought to be aware of discouraging it by either careless or wilful disregard of justice in our legislation. But I do believe that be long as the present tax lasts you will diverge further and farther from that state of public mind and feeling which alone can make an Income Tax tolerable. My right hon. Friend in some of his speeches illustrated the difficulty of fiscal legislation as a "dealing with flesh and blood." No doubt there is a natural aversion on the part of any man to pay that which is extracted from him at the cost of personal sacrifices. But, in looking at this question, I think there is more than flesh and blood concerned in our legislation—these taxpayers have souls and intellects, and they ought to have consciences; but their souls have been degraded and their consciences dulled, while their intellects have been striving to baffle injustice and oppression by fraud and evasion.
An hon. MEMBER moved that the House be counted, but the Speaker having counted and found that a House was present—
MR. HUBBARDresumed: The Chancellor of the Exchequer has spoken of this tax as one of which the defects were known, so that the back had adapted itself to the burden; but I believe that his proverb should be read the other way, and that the back on which the burden rested becoming impatient had thrown off just as much of it as seemed convenient. The evil is, that in that process there is an essential and inevitable degradation of the whole man, and that is a far more important consideration ["Hear, hear!"] than the mere money grievance. I make this Motion at a period when the Budget has been disposed of, and in such a way that its affirmation can cause no inconvenience to the Government. I have stated that the change I desire is one to be adopted not now but hereafter. I therefore do appeal to the House and to those who are connected with the Government, to put away from them the idea that in voting for my Motion they will cause any embarrassment to the Government. And I venture to entreat the House, with all the earnestness I possess, to join me in deprecating the re-imposition in its present form of a tax inevitable, but which as now administered is rife with pecuniary wrong and moral deterioration to our fellow countrymen. The hon. Member concluded by moving his Resolution:—
SIR JOHN HAYseconded the Motion.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That the inequalities and injustice attending the operation of the existing Property and Income Tax, disqualify it for being continuously reimposed in its present form, as one of the means of levying the National Revenue."
MR. WHALLEYsaid, it was unnecessary to follow the subject further than the hon. Gentleman had done in order to show the inequality and injustice of the tax, and he hoped the enlightened pertinacity of the hon. Member would induce the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider the effect of the tax on those who had to pay it. He would, however, venture to remind the Chancellor of the Exchequer that when some years ago he (Mr. Whalley) ventured to call attention to the injustice and immorality of the tax, the answer of the right hon. Gentleman was, not to deny the statements put forward, but to ask how they were to find a substitute. The Income Tax was, to all intents and purposes, not a direct tax, but an indirect tax, the most injurious and oppressive that could possibly be devised, so far as it was levied upon persons in respect of trade or occupation. A grocer or a draper regarded it as a necessary outgoing, and one which he must recompense himself by charging more for his goods. It was against the science of political economy to tax trade in that manner. Under the statute of Elizabeth for raising rates for the relief of the poor, vestries might levy the rate not on lands and houses merely, but on stock in trade and other personal property, but they knew that to do so would be unwise, as the result would be that the tradesman would have to charge more for his goods, and in that way the public would suffer. And he did not know what distinction there was between the imperial tax and the local tax. But the great question was, did the income tax tend to demoralize the traders of this country—and in his opinion it did. He did not agree with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckingham that the tax should be continued, and be modified. He thought the Property Tax should be separated entirely from the Income Tax, that the Income Tax should be done away with and the Property Tax maintained.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, I freely admit that it would be most unfair to charge my hon. Friend who brought forward this Motion either

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with seeking to embarrass the Government, or with, a desire to place the prosecution of his own purposes in the way of the necessary financial legislation which devolves upon this House from year to year. On the contrary, I thank my hon. Friend for having upon, all occasions been ready and desirous to distinguish between this annual Motion, as I think I may call it—for, though the form has changed, the substance remains the same—and the prosecution of these financial measures. But I still think that my hon. Friend, having watched the course of affairs in this House during the last two hours, must be of opinion with me that it is not the desire or the sentiment of the House that this Motion should be adopted, or even that it should, be discussed in that infinite variety of detail which is necessary for its adequate discussion. My hon. Friend, having' explained his views with his usual ability, has been supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough, and by no one else, although the last moment was given for any one else to interpose, and I only rose to speak as the question was about, to be put from the Chair. But the champions of the Motion, who are only two, are themselves wide as the poles asunder. My hon. Friend opposite recommends a modification of the schedules, adhering to the principle of: the taxation of income, but giving, as he thinks, to that principle a more just and accurate application. But his only supporter in this House entirely repudiates the taxation of income—proposes to abolish and erase it altogether from the statute-book, and to substitute simply the taxation of property. The hon. Member for Peterborough has stated the principle of his proposal, but he has refrained from drawing aside the veil of general declaration, so as to enable the House to comprehend what was really meant. Let me attempt to fill the void which he has left, and state what I understand to be the practical effect of his proposal. The Income Tax is at present levied upon an annual income which may be stated roughly at £300,000,000. It is something more than that amount, but that Sum will do for the purposes of argument. Of that amount £100,000,000 consists of income derived from visible property, or that which is popularly known by the name of "Schedule A" This may be taken as about one-third, of the income which bears the tax, and the proposal of my hon. Friend (Mr. Whalley)
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is to abolish the tax upon income so far as regards Schedules B, C, D and E, leaving Schedule A the undivided honour and responsibility of furnishing whatever proceeds we may require from the tax. In other words, at the comparatively moderate figure at which the tax now stands he would propose to relieve all other classes of income except those in Schedule, A, to reduce the tax from 6d. to zero upon these classes of income, and in order to fill up the gap he would raise the tax in Schedule A from 6d. to 1s. 6d. in the pound; or if we are to suppose the return of periods of crisis and of exigency, such as the nation has seen—the occurrence of a great war threatening our national existence—the farmers in Schedule B, the fundholders in Schedule C, the traders in, Schedule D, and the salaried officials in Schedule E—who, under the old method of imposing the tax, might pay 2s. in the pound—would pay nothing, while those assessed in Schedule A would pay at the moderate rate of only 6s. in the pound. That is the proposal of the only supporter of my hon. Friend, and, considering that the supporters of the Motion are but two, and that their views are so widely apart, I recommend a serious and prolonged conference between them respecting the principles upon which they are to prosecute this great cause in the House of Commons, so that when next it is brought forward we may somewhat narrow the field of discussion. My hon. Friend opposite has replied to speeches made by me on former occasions in this House; but, considering what has since taken place in respect to this tax, I am sure he will not require from me that I should follow him through these details. If it were the will of the House that we should seriously address ourselves to this question with a view to a present and a regular issue, I should be at once prepared to obey and take point by point the topics urged by my hon. Friend. But, reading the intentions of the House in a different sense from my hon. Friend, I mean to deal very briefly with the subject. I shall, therefore, only refer to one or two points casually mentioned, by my hon. Friend, and then state what I propose with regard to his Motion. He complains that I have illustrated his scheme unfairly by selecting extreme cases, and he says it would be, easy to take extreme cases in illustrating the working of the present law. But I do not think my hon. Friend gives due weight

1753
to the enormous difference in our respective positions as regards the argument upon this subject. My hon. Friend proposes a plan which he has matured in his ingenious mind, but which has never yet obtained the acceptance either of Parliament or even of a Minister responsible for the conduct of the finances of the country. For more than forty years an Income Tax has been in operation in this country, but the plan of my hon. Friend has never been in operation, and consequently remains a matter of rhetoric or of speculation. The anomalies and inequalities, the existence of which in the Income Tax I do not deny, do not stand upon the same footing with the anomalies and the inequalities which he would seek to introduce. My hon. Friend does not propose to get rid of anomalies; he merely proposes to displace a system to which the nation is habituated in order to substitute a scheme full of anomalies not less gross than those of the present tax, with the additional disadvantage that they are perfectly novel. Why are we to undertake the labour, and undergo the risks and the responsibilities attending the replacing of a scheme that is imperfect and full of solecisms by another scheme which is also imperfect and also full of solecisms? Passing from this point, let me say that I only heard with regret one portion of my hon. Friend's speech — in which he impeached the morality of the officers of the revenue department, and, quoting a circular issued in 1849 from this department in Scotland, said that the consciences of the officers there, if not of the officers in the three kingdoms, were tainted and rendered impure, and their integrity deteriorated by being called upon to administer the Income Tax. If my hon. Friend takes so extreme a view of the operation of the tax I think he ought to have given us the opportunity of consulting some of those gentlemen, and of knowing what was to be said in their defence against so grievous and, as I think, so needless and gratuitous an imputation. My hon. Friend says I have dealt in general imputations against his scheme and have produced no evidence. In answer to this I request the House to reflect what has taken place in regard to the Income Tax since my hon. Friend took the championship of this particular view of the subject into his hands. When my hon. Friend began in 1860 the crusade, he did not find the House at all indisposed to go with him. My hon. Friend invited in-
1754
quiry by a Committee. The Government, disbelieving in any useful result in the sense described by the hon. Gentleman, did their best to oppose it, but they were overruled by a majority of the House. I mention that to show that my hon, Friend addressed an audience favourably predisposed to his view. The Committee sat, and if it took no evidence, I know that some of the ablest men acquainted with this subject were examined, and if their testimony is not to be called evidence, I do not know what deserves that name. Those gentlemen, the ablest that could be found to support my hon. Friend's views, were examined, and cross-examined by a Committee composed of some of the best men in this House, and so most competent to deal with this subject. [Mr. HUBBARD: That evidence was all in favour of the plan.] Was it? I do not think my hon. Friend gained much advantage by it. What was the effect of, all the evidence which, we are told was entirely in favour of his plan? It was this — that not only those who had been previously opposed to his plan remained unconverted, but that divers gentlemen, who when they entered that Committee had been more or less favourably disposed towards the views of my hon. Friend, ultimately concurred in a Report which repudiated and rejected his proposal. My hon. Friend made his own Motion, found the House willing to adopt it against the view of the Government, obtained his own tribunal, produced the best witnesses he could find, before the best men the House could select, and the result was a decision adverse to his views. What degree of respect has he shown for the conclusion of his own Committee? Did he allow even a decent interval to elapse? Did he allow this question to lie fallow for even one year? Having failed in that Committee, he came down to the House with unbated breath and with unalterable resolution to protest against the decision of his own Committee, and with determined purpose, and what my hon. Friend behind me calls "enlightened pertinacity," he has made up his mind that the House shall accede to his plan, whether it will or not. He has, indeed, this year varied the terms of his Motion. He has not called upon the House directly to adopt his plan, although a great portion of his argument was addressed in support of that plan. He has now called upon the House to adopt a Resolution which recites "that the inequalities and injustice

1755
attending the operation of the existing Property and Income Tax disqualify it for being continuously reimposed in its present form as one of the means of levying the national revenue." I do not think the House of Commons will be disposed to adopt a Resolution of an abstract nature, especially upon such a subject. The experience we have had of abstract Resolutions upon questions of revenue has not been so inviting as to induce us to repeat the experiment now. Unsound in principle, they have been found inconvenient in practice. They are objectionable, because they involve the proceedings of this House in ambiguity, because they raise expectations which are afterwards disappointed, because they multiply and even embitter the causes of divided opinion and party conflict, always of necessity sufficiently numerous in a popular assembly. In my opinion, the arguments against these Resolutions were quite strong enough before the Resolution upon the Paper Duty, and the experiences which followed the adoption of that Resolution has afforded an additional lesson of warning against the repetition of the practice. Let the House deal as it can with taxes which affect the country, but let it promise nothing with respect to a tax except that which it is able and willing to perform. But my hon. Friend in proposing this abstract Resolution at the same time condemned it. The first half hour of his speech my hon. Friend employed in analyzing the present state of our taxation, and in showing that at least twenty millions in value of our indirect taxation ought to be greatly reduced or entirely abolished; that the tea duty should be largely reduced; that the sugar duties should be considerably reduced; that the coffee duty should be got rid of; that the pepper duty should be got rid of; and that the malt duty should be altogether abolished. Having had a ground for sweeping away a great portion of twenty millions of taxation we had a right to expect that the man who wrought such a work of ruin and desolation among the resources of the Exchequer would have devoted the rest of his speech to an endeavour to rebuild the edifice which he had cast down. It was with astonishment that I heard my hon. Friend not recommending any reduction of expenditure— and I never see my bon. Friend taking any part in a vote for reducing expenditure—but, not recommending any reduc-
1756
tion of expenditure, he devoted the last moiety of his speech to urging upon the House to adopt a Resolution that eight millions more should be cut off from the Exchequer. I do not think that is a proper way of dealing with a matter of taxation. No doubt there are inequalities and evils attaching to the existing system of Income Tax, but let us not part with that tax until we know how to supply its place. Do not let us adopt a Resolution which holds out an expectation of parting with that tax until we have something in the nature of a practical scheme laid down and matured, by which we may be able to attain that much-desired consummation. I promised the House not to enter into the question at length, but I trust that although I have been brief in my observations I have said enough to induce the House not to assent to the Resolution preferred by the hon. Gentleman.
MR. BOVILLsaid, he thought the House must be surprised at the charge made by the right hon. Gentleman against his hon. Friend, of raising expectations that could not be fulfilled, for if ever anyone had raised expectations upon the subject it was the right hon. Gentleman, when he declared that the Income Tax should not be permanent. Neither was it fair to say that, because the tax had been borne for twenty-two years, therefore the public had become habituated to it. The public had always deeply felt the inequalities and the injustice of the system; but they had tolerated them because they believed that the tax was not to be permanent. With respect to the Committee which had been appointed upon the Motion of his hon. Friend, he thought that there never was a Report which presented such unsatisfactory results. It admitted the inequalities, referred to evidence of which it gave no abstract, drew no conclusions, but printed the evidence at length. There was not a single gentleman of eminence examined who did not find fault with the mode in which the Income Tax was levied. The Report of the Committee was simply against the proposal of his hon. Friend, but the proposal now made by him was not of any particular plan, but was one which merely expressed the results of experience, and the opinions of most eminent statesmen. The tax had been tolerated in its present shape, because it was looked upon as a temporary tax, and therefore his hon. Friend was justified in

1757
proposing a Resolution — not an abstract Resolution, but one which would have practical operation—in order that if it should be intended to reimpose the tax and to make it permanent, some attempt should be made to remedy its admitted inequalities and injustice. He contended that it was not impossible to rectify the present unfair treatment of different classes of property. No one could justify the taxing of flesh and blood, brains and intellect, on the same principle as realized property. Every one must admit the injustice of taxing income dependent on age, health, mental and bodily infirmity, and all those circumstances which rendered income precarious, on the same principle as what was called spontaneous income. The Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted the inequalities of the tax, but would make no attempt whatever to remedy its injustice and unfairness. The proposal of his hon. Friend was this— if they allowed these inequalities to continue, then the tax was not fit in its present state to be imposed as a permanent source of revenue. Did the Chancellor of the Exchequer say that no means could be adopted to remedy the inequalities of the tax as regarded income? Thousands of professional men felt the injustice of taxing their incomes, not only as compared with incomes derived from property alone, but also as compared with incomes from capital and trade. He knew by painful experience in the course of his profession, that the returns by traders of their income were not accurate. He had seen it particularly in cases in which they came forward to claim compensation for the loss of trade. A person by the present system might realize £160,000 in one year, and escape payment of the tax on that amount. What was the true principle on which taxation should proceed? The advocates of the Income Tax said that it taxed men according to their means; and, if that were so, they would have a principle of equality. But the tax sinned against the first principle of equality. It taxed not only the professional man's income, but his savings. The Committee reported not that there were no inequalities, injustice, and unfairness in the tax, but, all these being admitted, that the former plan of his hon. Friend was insufficient to remedy them. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was good enough to tell them that if this plan were adopted there would still be anomalies; but did he mean to say that the grievances
1758
which existed could not be remedied? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stroud a few years ago, with considerable approval, drew a distinction between spontaneous income and that arising from the exercise of genius and intellect. He divided income into three classes—income derived from the possession of property, income derived from the possession of intellect, and income derived from combined property and intelligence—of which the merchant was an instance. Was there no practicability in that plan? Some scheme of that kind might easily be adopted. Suppose a tax of 6d. in the pound on income derived from realized property, there might be a scale of 2d. in the pound on income derived from professions, and an intermediate rate of 4d. on that derived from intellect and capital combined. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer, admitting all the inequalities of the tax, did not propose to adopt any remedy for them, and contented himself by rejecting as insufficient the present proposition, which, he said, was the same as that negatived by the Committee, but which only declared that with such recognized defects the tax was not fit to be imposed, contrary to the right hon. Gentleman's own promise, as a permanent source of revenue. He should support the Motion.
SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he had not intended to take any part in the discussion, but he could not allow the remarks of the hon. and learned Gentleman to pass without some notice. The hon. and learned Gentleman found fault with the Chancellor of the Exchequer because, on the strength of the evidence before him, that the plan formerly proposed by the hon. Member for Buckingham to his Select Committee would not answer, he proposed now to reject this new Resolution, which did not bind the House to that particular plan, but only to something which was perfectly vague and indefinite. The hon. and learned Gentleman said the Chancellor of the Exchequer was quite in the wrong if he called on the House to make the Income Tax a permanent part of our taxation without rectifying its inequalities. Now, in the first place, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not at present asking the House to make the Income Tax permanent. If the right hon. Gentleman were proposing a Bill for that purpose, or if they were discussing the details of an Income Tax measure, it would have been open to the

1759
hon. Member for Buckingham, and to the hon. and learned Member for Guildford, to have proposed Amendments in order to have a discussion of a practical plan; and this would have brought the question to something like an issue. But how stood the case now? The Income Tax had existed some twenty-two or twenty-three years, and had been renewed sixteen or eighteen times. On the occasion of each of those renewals there had been an opportunity for revising the details of the tax. Nor were these the only opportunities which had offered. Various discussions had been raised at different times. On one occasion the right hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Horsman) — on another the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck) had brought forward plans for its amendment. The late Mr. Hume had done so too. So had his hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham himself. But none of the proposals which had been made had found acceptance in the House. The House had always found it impossible to make such alterations in the structure of the tax as would get rid of the present inequalities without introducing considerably greater evils. No one could deny that the Committee which was moved for by his hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Hubbard) had taken evidence which hit some of the blots of the present system, but the plan proposed by the hon. Gentleman was rejected by the Committee as unsuitable. The Committee did rather more than merely reject; for if his recollection served him right, they reported that the inequalities complained of were of the essence of the tax, and that it was hopeless to expect to be able to put the tax on a footing which would altogether get rid of inequalities. His hon. and learned Friend now proposed a scheme of his own —6d. per pound on realized property, 2d. per pound on professional incomes, and 4d. per pound on mixed incomes; but where was the line to be drawn? The whole question turned on the possibility of drawing a line between the higher rate and the lower rate, which should not occasion manifest injustice. Were all mixed incomes to be taxed alike? What was to be done if the income was derived chiefly from realized property, and but slightly from labour? What if from both in equal proportions? Who was to decide on the proportion? How were you to deal with sleeping partners? Those were some of the practical difficulties with which it was
1760
necessary to deal, and his hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham had grappled with them with great skill; but when his witnesses before the Committee had been pressed in the matter, and asked how they would deal with this case and that case, they escaped the difficulty, and his hon. Friend escaped the difficulty by saying, "Oh, those are border cases. I want you to admit my general principle." He recollected a somewhat startling case which would serve as an illustration of the difficulties which had to be met. His hon. Friend laid down a principle to the following effect, that annuities were to be taxed on a different principle from interests arising out of land, and the case was put of a gentleman who in making provision for his two daughters, settled upon each of them an income of £1,000 a year for life at his death, the income of the one being by way of annuity purchased at an Insurance Office, and that of the other being derived from landed estate. That being so, the conclusion at which his hon. Friend had arrived in the maintenance of his theory was that of those two sisters possessing exactly the same income, the one was to be taxed at the rate of £37 a year, while the other would have to pay only £19. They were obliged, therefore, to say that the scheme proposed would bring about as many difficulties as existed under that sought to be got rid of. Joint stock companies were also to be treated on a different footing from private traders; and it came to this, that if two or three persons were carrying on a brewery, they were to be taxed according to one rate, and if they sold the concern to a joint stock company, the tax was to be different, and higher by one-third than the tax on the private firm. How could such distinctions between persons or firms engaged in active competition fail to operate unjustly and to cause heartburnings? He did not say that it was not a question into which the House might not be persuaded to look; but there were points in reference to it which ought to be fairly brought before them. If the hon. Member thought he had a better settlement of the Income Tax to propose, let him take a proper opportunity of doing so, but do not let the House condemn a tax which furnished a very important amount of revenue by passing a general Resolution, the effect of which would be simply to throw a vagueness and uncertainty over our financial system, without doing any good whatever. He thought

1761
that if the House looked at the matte upon the ground upon which the Chancellor of the Exchequer placed it, when he appealed to them not to pass an abstract Resolution upon a question of this importance, they would see that nothing could be more inconvenient than to adopt a Resolution of this kind.
MR. HUBBARD: I have very few words to add to the discussion. The deserted condition of the House is less to be ascribed to a want of interest in the subject of taxation, as supposed by my right hon. Friend, than to the fact that dinner is a subject of still higher interest. I have no other point to notice in the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In answer to the hon. Member for Stamford, I must remind him that the apparent anomaly to which he refers as an objection to my plan has been thoroughly explained, and the principle of the supposed case affirmed in the memoranda appended to the Report of 1861. That principle has been approved, and the provisions necessary to give it effect have been framed by one of the most acute and logical lawyers of our day; and it will remain superior to all impeachment, until the impeachment is supported by argument and demonstration. I entertain unfailing confidence in the ultimate triumph of right principles of taxation, although I may have to regret that the Vote of the House to-night will postpone the result which I desire.
Question put,
"That the inequalities and injustice attending the operation of the existing Property and Income Tax disqualify it for being continuously re-imposed in its present form as one of the means of levying the National Revenue,"
The House divided:—Ayes 28; Noes 67: Majority 39.

NATIONAL EDUCATION (IRELAND).

  RESOLUTION.
  SIR HUGH CAIRNS: Sir, I rise to move—
  "That in the opinion of this House the Rules sanctioned by the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland on the 21st day of November, 1863, are, so far as regards their operation on the aid afforded to Convent and Monastic Schools, at variance with the principles of the system of National Education."
  It is some years since there has been in this House any discussion upon the subject of the National System of Education in Ireland; and the question is one the im-
  1762
  portance of which it is hardly possible to overrate; for an establishment that receives from the Imperial revenue an annual grant of £316,000 deserves the careful consideration of this House as guardians of the public purse, and a system which educates, or undertakes to educate, something like 600,000 children, requires the superintendence and care of the Legislature of the country. In former discussions in his House attacks have been made upon the National system of Education, but the subject which I am anxious to bring under the attention of the House to-night is one in which the complainers are not the foes of the National System, but its warmest and most consistent friends; and the importance of the matters which have originated this complaint may be judged of by the House when I tell them, that the complaint has been made by the most prominent of those who have asserted that the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland have departed from its fundamental principles. The oldest, I think, or almost the oldest member of the Board of Commissioners is the Rev. Dr. Henry, the Principal of one of the Queen's Colleges, and this gentleman, after administering the system for twenty-five years, and speaking of the changes in the rules, the particulars of which I am going to state to the House, protested against them and said, "They amount to a departure from the fundamental rules of the system." I take the next one of the most consistent and oldest friends of the system, the Bishop of Derry, and he also protests against these rules as the introduction of a new principle, and he cannot, he says, "avoid expressing his dissatisfaction and alarm." I pass on to two of the Commissioners—Mr. Gibson and Mr. Hall—who are peculiarly the representatives of the Presbyterian body on the Board, and they likewise enter a protest against the changes in the rules; and then I find a deputation waiting on, the Lord Lieutenant, headed by another earnest and consistent friend of the system, the Bishop of Down, and accompanied by a gentleman, whom we all remember as having been for many years a Member of this House, and who always took a part as a defender of the National System, Mr. Kirk, and that deputation states that "these rules as altered subvert the principle upon which the National System is based. But it does not stop there. I have yet to mention the right hon. Baronet, the Chief Secretary for

  1763
  Ireland (Sir Robert Peel). The right hon. Baronet has always been in favour of, and has lent his aid to, this system, and I find him writing on behalf of the Government to the Board of Commissioners, and pointing out what he regards as a change in the fundamental rules of the Board, which must seriously imperil the principle upon which the system of education is based. Now, these are the friends of the system. I wish to say a few words as to, my own feelings upon this question. I have had the opportunity of stating more than once in this House, that I have never joined those who have attacked this system of education. I believe that, in many respects, it might have been better constituted. I should have been glad if alterations could have been made to conciliate sooner objections which have been made to it; but of this I am satisfied, that the introduction of the system into Ireland has done incalculable good. And of this also I am satisfied, that no more perilous step could be taken towards the country than to overthrow the system. In the Motion of which I have given notice, I refer to certain schools in Ireland which are called "convent and monastic schools," and I have used those terms because I do not know how otherwise to describe them; but I have never in this House attempted, and I have always endeavoured to avoid, the mixing up of this question with denominational differences, and I should have been prepared to take the same course if these schools had belonged to a different denomination. This is not a question of difference between one denomination and another, but it is a question of the fundamental principle of the system itself. It is so long since there was any discussion on this point that perhaps the House will allow me to direct attention to the principle of the National System. The House will recollect that the origin of the system was in a letter addressed by the present Earl of Derby, then Mr. Stanley, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, to the Duke of Leinster. In that letter matters of principle were pointed out which were to govern the Board of Education, and I found the chief of these principles to have been—first, that the new system, while admitting children of all religious denominations to partake of its benefits, would not only make no effort for, but would avoid even the suspicion of proselytism; secondly, that in the schools instruction should be given to children of all churches,
  1764
  in the common branches of education, while they were to have separate instruction in the doctrines of their several creeds according to the appointment of their parents and guardians; and thirdly, that the teachers should be persons who had previously received instruction in model schools in connection with the Board, where the fundamental principles of the National System were carried out. These were certainly three of the fundamental features of the system of National education. I must explain also what the model schools were intended to be. Upon the establishment of the system, district model schools were erected, and there was a central model school in Dublin, the object being that they might train young persons to become teachers in the schools of the Board, and the House will understand the magnitude of the question when I tell them that the cost of the central model school was £17,000, and that of the provincial model schools £110,000, and the amount annually granted to the support of the model schools alone is £24,000. Now, any one who has observed the course of events in Ireland of late, will know that these model schools have been the objects of the special hostility of the prelates and clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. I do not complain of this hostility, for they have a right to manifest it; but the fact no one will deny. Proof of this may be found in the fact that while in the model schools there were 9,700 scholars, there were only 3,626, or about one-third, Roman Catholics on the books, and a very much smaller number in constant attendance, while in the ordinary schools there were 584,000 scholars, of whom 479,000 were Roman Catholics. I believe that in the model school at Sligo there was not a single Roman Catholic child either in attendance or on the books. At the same time that this opposition has been shown to the model schools, there has proceeded from the Roman Catholic Church a demand of a very urgent kind for a separate training of the teachers of the Roman Catholic children. I will show that the Board of Education have in reality granted this, while in name they have professed to refuse it; and I will rely on the admission of the Board itself, that the separate training of teachers is contrary to the principles of the Board, while in reality and substance the thing is done. It may be said by English Members, "What harm is there after all that

  1765
  there should be separate training for teachers of different denominations?" There would be no harm, provided the system were different from what it is. If the Irish system were like the English system there would not only be no objection, but the thing would be perfectly natural; but what we are dealing with, what we are anxious to preserve, is the essential principle of the Irish system, and the consequences of a separate training in Ireland would be such that I think the House should be very unwilling to assent to it. In the first place, if you accede to the demand of one denomination, you must accede to the demand of all for a separate training, and if you accede to that you must accede to the demand of all for a separate education. You cannot justify the separate training of teachers upon any principle which would not compel you to adopt a system of separate education. But that is not all. Of course, if I am right in saying that the object of the model schools built at so great a cost, and supported by so large an annual grant, was to secure the training of teachers and to provide teachers for other schools, the moment that you have separate training out of the model schools you will over- throw them. Still further, if you have separate training carried on, we will say; by hypothesis, in the schools of the convents or monastic schools, the teachers there trained will be the only teachers which the Roman Catholic patrons will accept, and, virtually, the whole of the education of the Roman Catholic population of the country will be in the hands of teachers trained in these separate institutions. With this preface I will proceed to show to the House what the Commissioners have really done, and how they have met the demand for separate training. The first thing done by the Board was this. They began to apply to convent schools the system which has prevailed in other schools of appointing monitors, another name for junior or pupil-teachers. Not only are grants given to convent schools, but sums are given to pay the annual stipends to junior and senior monitors. But that was not enough, for it was found that the payment of these monitors extended only to persons of seventeen or eighteen years of age, and the Board had more recently created a new class of monitors whom they called first-class monitors, whom they describe to be young persons of an age when they become com-
  1766
  plete teachers, and who are to receive grants from the Board for their payment, That may be a judicious or an injudicious course, but it certainly constitutes a breach of a positive rule of the Board. How was it that convent schools originally became part of the schools of the Board? I find that the defence of the Commissioners rests upon this. They say that convent schools were always part of the schools of the Board, and that they are doing little more than was done at all times, and they ask how it is that they can be said to be altering the rules of the Board. I agree that convent schools were included in the schools of the Board; but I assert, and I may be set right if I am wrong by hon. Gentlemen opposite, that until 1855 there was no rule of the Board relaxed upon the face of it; convent schools submitted to all the rules of the Board; they accepted a grant, but it was on a different mode of remuneration, and with that exception prior to 1855 in the published rules of the Board there was no relaxation, convent schools being dealt with on the footing of other schools, or if anything was done it was without the knowledge of the public, and without any communication to Parliament. I now come to 1855. Down to the year 1855 the rule had been that no clerical person and no member of a religious order could be a teacher of a school under the control of the Board; but in that year the following rule was published for the first time:—
  "No clergyman of any denomination or member of any religious order can be recognized as a teacher of a national school. This does not apply to the teachers of convent schools."
  That was the first time the public were informed of an alteration in the rule. And did the change pass unnoticed? I find that in that year, and as soon as the new rule was published, a protest was signed against it on the part of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, upon the ground of its
  "Creating an invidious distinction, and giving an undue advantage to one denomination, contrary to the previous principles of the Board."
  And were they justified in making that protest? Why, I find that in the same rules it was declared that, if the Commissioners should consider a teacher in a non-vested school objectionable, they could withdraw his salary till a suitable teacher should be appointed, that teachers should be trained in a particular way, subject to the direction of the Board, and that they

  1767
  should be classified under certain classes. The teachers of convent schools were manifestly made exceptions to those rules. They were not liable to dismissal by the Board, or to have their grants suspended as the result of any examination, they were not trained or classified by the Board; and it was, therefore, perfectly true, as stated by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, that the new rule issued by the Board in 1855
  "Created an invidious distinction and gave an undue advantage to one denomination."
  But it was alleged by the Commissioners in their own defence, that they had always treated conventual schools in an exceptional manner. The opponents of the new practice observed, on the other hand, that the rules of the Commissioners had been relaxed in favour of convents in many particulars, not in form or in words merely, but in practice; and that subject was discussed in the course of a debate which took place in this House in the year 1856. During that debate I read extracts from evidence laid before a Committee of the other House in 1854, for the purpose of showing that convent schools were of necessity exclusively Roman Catholic. I quoted the statement of Archdeacon Stopford, a warm friend of the National System, that convent schools must, of course, be schools of separate education, and that it was equally impossible Protestants should send their children there as that Roman Catholics should send their children to schools where the teaching was exclusively Scriptural. Mr. Cross, the excellent and intelligent secretary of the Board, said he
  "Should admit that convent schools must be looked upon as practically exclusive schools."
  In the course of the same debate, I also adduced evidence to show that in the convent school at Youghal there were religious exercises every hour or half hour of the day, that Roman Catholic catechisms were at all times lying upon the desks, and notices were hung up calling attention to various dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church, and where eight Protestant children were found to be present on the day of inspection, the inducements consisting in the work that was taught and the price paid for it. These charges were taken from the Inspector's Report, formed the subject of investigation by the Board, and in their main features were all substantiated. But these are only instances of a universal practice. Every one who possesses any personal acquaintance with Ireland
  1768
  is aware that these convent schools are strictly and exclusively the schools of one particular religious denomination. I readily admit that they are schools which are productive of great good, that in them the industrial education is most admirable, that the secular education, subject to some grave drawbacks and qualifications, is good, and that the teachers are remarkable for their disinterestedness and their charitableness; but I believe those ladies themselves would be the first to acknowledge that they would insist on teaching their own religion at all times in those schools. I find it was stated before the Committee of 1854, that it was a mere mockery to pretend that any person might at any moment obtain admission to those schools, because the doors were always kept closed, and fifteen or twenty minutes usually elapsed before admittance to them could be obtained by strangers. I mentioned these facts in the debate of the year 1856; and what was the course which the Government pursued upon that occasion? The noble Lord the present Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who at that time was not a Member of the Government though he sat on the Treasury Bench, undertook the duty of answering the attack made on the National Board, said that the cases which had been adduced appeared to be breaches of rules of the Board, and that he had no doubt that the Board would take care that a stop should be put to those proceedings. He did not justify these departures from rule, but admitted that they were errors which ought to be redressed. But the Board has since done nothing to retrace its steps, and the expectation held out by the noble Lord has not been in any way realized. There is another very remarkable fact to which I have to invite the attention of the House. We have lately heard a great deal of the suppression of the Reports of the School Inspectors in England; but the Reports of Inspectors in Ireland have been suppressed in a manner to which anything that has been done in this country is the merest trifle. It had been the practice of the Commissioners in Ireland to make annual Reports to this House. They are bound to do so. And they had also been in the habit, until within the last few years, of appending to their Reports the Reports of the head Inspectors of the different districts in the country. The Board produced these Reports without any abridgment. But they were also in the habit—and

  1769
  very properly — of prefixing to those documents a notice to the effect, that although they produced them they did not feel bound to indorse every statement they contained, or to carry out every recommendation the head Inspectors might make. The Reports of the head Inspectors were submitted to Parliament every year until 1861, but in that year for the first time those Reports were wholly omitted. The volume, however, lost nothing in bulk, the size of it being made up in a great measure by the insertion of the names of all the schools in the country ranged in a tabular form, without any comment, but with a statement on some of the tables that they were taken from the Reports of the Inspectors, not one word of which Reports were produced. The most remarkable Report, I believe, that ever came from a head inspector was made in that year; but although it was made in 1861 it was not discovered until 1864, when, in compliance with a special Motion, it was laid before the House; and I now hold it in my hand. It is the Report of Mr. Sheridan, who is the head Inspector for about one sixth of the whole of Ireland. His district lies in the south, where there is a great number of convent schools. He is himself a Roman Catholic; and he could not, therefore, entertain, in consequence of difference of religion, any feeling unfavourable to convent schools. He invited the special attention of the Board to his statement, and assured them that that statement referred to matters of which no mention had previously been made. He appears fairly to apportion praise and blame to these convent schools, and he goes on to state that thirty-five of them situated in the South of Ireland contain 9,015 pupils, or about one-fifth of the number of pupils in the whole 854 schools in his district. Mr. Sheridan said—
  "These teachers are not classified by the Board, nor are they required to submit to an examination, as the Commissioners take for granted that they are sufficiently well educated to discharge the duties of national teachers efficiently; and, in point of feet, it is undeniable that the majority of them—of the nuns especially — are infinitely better educated than the teachers of ordinary National schools, while it is equally true that they bring to the discharge of their duties a disinterestedness and devotedness to which even the most zealous of the lay teachers can have no claim. It is also undeniable that their schools do an incalculable amount of good. Their pupils receive a moral and religious training of the highest order; they are educated to habits of truth-telling, modesty, order, and cleanliness, and such of
  1770
  them as attend with fair regularity and continue at school till they reach the upper classes are sure to receive an excellent literary education."
  Mr. Sheridan having thus done justice to these schools, proceeded to notice two circumstances which seriously interfered with their efficiency:—
  "These teachers very seldom have any opportunity of receiving a technical training as teachers, either before or after making their religious profession; and hence, although they are undoubtedly well educated in a general sense, I apprehend that many of them have a very limited acquaintance with those improved methods of teaching and school organization which have received the sanction of experience. The want of such technical knowledge is most apparent in their management of the junior classes. It is a characteristic of these teachers that they are impatient of competition. A rival school, if it can possibly be extinguished, is not allowed to exist. In crowded cities this is, of course, impossible; but in Tralee, Killarney, Newcastle, Kinsale, Queenstown, Middleton, Skibbereen, Bandon, Dingle, and a host of smaller towns, no female schools, except those connected with convents, are to be found; none are permitted to be established. In some of them, indeed, such as Tralee, Killarney, Newcastle, and Dingle, in which there are monks' schools as well as nuns' schools, even the ordinary male National schools have been proscribed."
  Now, I am perfectly convinced that these teachers, in pursuing this course, are actuated by worthy motives of faith in themselves and a conscientious belief that when, schools are opened adapted for the proper training of youth, they consider they are justified in using every influence to remove them out of the way. Such a course Mr. Sheridan describes as intolerant, and the evils which arise are more than sufficient to counterbalance any good they might effect; and he goes on to say that in very vast populations, where large proportions will attend schools of their own religious community, there was no inconsiderable number of them who attend lay schools that cannot be induced to attend these. That is, I say, they will not, although Roman Catholics, go to the schools, which belong to the conventual and monastic order; and Mr. Sheridan gives a remarkable instance, that in Killarney, where there are two convent schools and one monks' school, every other being proscribed, the consequence is that there are fewer children who go to school than those who do not go to school. The principle of emulation and competition is by this policy extinguished, and they are left to receive pupils without limit as to their teaching powers. The Board, Mr. Sheridan says,

  1771
  deals with these schools differently from the others, for whilst they remunerate the teachers of the others by a stipend and the supply of school materials, they pay the convent schools by a capitation grant, the direct and positive object of which is to get as many children as possible crowded into these schools. The attendance, he says, instead of being restricted to the number of children the schools are capable of accommodating practically, is crowded to excess, and the attendance being out of proportion to the teaching powers, the rate of progress is consequently so slow that it takes a long time for a child to work its way from the lowest to the highest class, and, in point of fact, comparatively few reach that class, for the great majority of the children leave the schools before they have completed half their school course. Mr. Sheridan suggests three remedies for this state of things—first, a better organization with regard to numbers; secondly, the appointment of lay teachers; and thirdly, more efficient inspection. But then he went on to say that no improvement in organization and no amount of skill would make one teacher do the work of two, or ten do the work of fifteen. Could any one doubt when Parliament was asked to give large capitation grants, that they should have been made acquainted with that Report. It was a breach of duty not to communicate it to Parliament. But the matter did not stop there. Mr. Sheridan had said—
  "It is not my intention, however, just now to enter at greater length into the state of these schools and their teachers, as I have it in contemplation to inspect all the other convent schools in my district, and, when I have time, to make them the subject of a special Report. There are, however, two circumstances I must mention which cannot but interfere with their functions—one is, that these teachers have no opportunity of receiving educational training as teachers either before or after making their profession of faith, although they are well educated in a general sense, and they have necessarily a limited acquaintance with those methods of training and school organization which have received the sanction of experience, and the want of which is apparent in the management of these schools."
  Different opinions, however, prevail with regard to Mr. Sheridan's Report. [Sir GEORGE BOWYER: Hear, hear!] My hon. Friend below the gangway is evidently more disposed to differ from it than I am,-but no one can doubt it is a Report that ought to have been communicated to Parliament, and that when we were asked annually to give large capitation grants,
  1772
  we should have been told what the Board knew the confidential Inspector had informed them, and which Mr. Sheridan describes as unpleasant truths, and all the more unpleasant now that they are offered for the first time, and it was a dereliction of duty not to have communicated them to Parliament. But the matter goes further than that. A short time since I asked the Attorney General for Ireland, who represents the Board in this House, whether Mr. Sheridan had made his promised further Report, or whether orders had been given to him to make it, and the right hon. Gentleman said he had not made it, and that he had not received orders not to make it. I do not care which horn of the dilemma the Commissioners choose to adopt, as one seems quite as bad as the other. There are many ways by which an Inspector might be led to understand it is better not to make a Report until it has been promised. But if there were not, have the Commissioners discharged their duty in not calling upon him for his promised Report, in order that the truth might be known? In the rules which were made last year the Commissioners determined to act upon the principle that these convent schools should be efficient first-class schools, and they gave them that character in their Report and in their rules, in the face of Mr. Sheridan's Report, which they concealed. As soon as they had made these rules, and had come to the conclusion to publish them to the world, this Report was discovered, and they were forced to produce it, and they then instructed the other district Inspectors to inspect and report upon the other convent schools. Having given these schools the character they asserted belonged to them, they directed the other Inspectors to report, which is very like to deciding first and inquiring after. In the meantime the pressure from the Roman Catholic prelates and clergy for a separate system of training went on; and it is now confessed, on the part of the Board, that before any new rules were made they yielded to the pressure by appointing monitors and teachers to the convent schools, which is a direct breach of their own rules. For how did the rules stand before the month of November last. Before that time the members of the convents might discharge the duties of literary teachers, either by themselves or by the aid of such others as they might choose to employ, the salaries of such teachers to be defrayed by the communi-

  1773
  ties; but by the proposed sew rules it is provided that in schools where the teacher does not rank at least in the third class he can have the assistance of a junior monitor, and where the teacher does not rank at least in the second class he is to be allowed the services of a senior monitor. Now there is no teacher in the convent schools in the second or third class. I call upon the Board to show by what authority they violated the old rules. The new rules have not yet been acted upon, and the present moment is the most fitting for considering the question, because in a few days the House will be asked to grant a sum of money, which is to give effect to these new rules. There are only three of these rules to which I need refer. The old rule the House will remember, as I have already said, was that the members of the convent schools might, if convenient, discharge the duties of literary teachers by themselves or others, the salaries of such assistants to be defrayed by the community, and then there is inserted, for the first time, except in the case of monitors. That is to say, they really prohibit teachers in any convent school except those who are paid by the Board. The next alteration is this. Under the head of convent schools the rule says that schools of this class are entitled to the services of paid monitors. But the third alteration is the great one, whether as regards the singular manner in which it is framed or in the alteration which it makes. And when the House hears this rule I think they will see that the alarm which it created is not altogether unfounded. At first sight the rule may appear to be harmless enough. It is this—
  "In the case of a few very large and highly efficient schools the Commissioners are prepared to appoint young persons of great merit to act as first class monitors, with a rate of salary higher than the rate of salaries of the above grades."
  Now, in the first place, I ask, is this the proper way to make a rule to be enforced in the country and to be acted upon? The Board is to appoint young persons of great merit without describing how that merit is to be discovered; and, finally, at a salary somewhat larger than the paid monitors, without stating the excess of such salary. I have got the admission of the Board of Education itself that this rule was intended to meet the case of convent schools, and practically it meets be other case. I should be sorry to sup-
  1774
  pose that gentlemen of the eminence of those who compose the Board could have used words to conceal their real intentions. But they must be now aware that, knowing the purposes for which this rule was intended, it is most unhappily expressed, and gives rise to the suggestion that it was couched in these terms in order that persons should not know what it was intended for. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman the Commissioner of Education to state to the House, that putting aside the case of model schools, for which there was no pretence to apply this rule, that there is any school in Ireland within the mind and view of the Commissioners to which the rule will apply other than convent schools. I say there is none. If there be one other it is a school in the North of Ireland which is described as a large school. To that alone could the epithet be ascribed. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to say there is any other school to which it will apply. But whether he accepts the challenge or not, I have the confession of the Commissioners, that it was intended to apply to the convent schools chiefly. Now what would be the effect of this rule if acted upon? They would have junior monitors and senior monitors paid by the Board. They would first have their capitation grant in respect to their pupils. They would then have the monitors, both junior and senior, paid by the Board. Then they would have a new class not heard of before—the first class monitors—the object of which was, that they may be trained as teachers to go out to other Roman Catholic schools in the neighbourhood. The result would be that you would have a separate training establishment where the expense of separate training was defrayed by the State. You would have in substance and reality, the very thing that the Board said when they were asked on the subject they were not at liberty to grant. But what is the effect on the model schools? We have got the estimate upon the table prepared under the direction of the Board, which must soon come under the consideration of the House. And what do I find there? I find that there are struck off from monitors and pupil-teachers exactly the number which makes the diminution of the grant of £2,011. Monitors and pupil-teachers are annihilated to that amount, and a grant requested for these first-class monitors in convent schools of £2,000. So that that

  1775
  amount is actually given to the convent schools which was withdrawn from the model schools. Now, what is the justification of the Commissioners upon this point? The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, on being waited upon by a deputation, referred to the Commissioners for their observations upon this question. They have furnished his Excellency with an explanatory paper, which has been laid upon the table. Now, I will venture to say, though representing the Commissioners, that there never emanated from any public department a document to be paralleled with this for recklessness and audacity. In the first place, the Commissioners say there is a perfect distinction between monitors and teachers, and that monitors are not teachers at all. Now, I will judge them by their own rules. I will take two passages only from their defence. Under the head of "classification of teachers" occurs this rule—
  "Besides the principal and assistant teachers included under the foregoing head, there are other junior literary and industrial assistant teachers, pupil-teachers, and paid monitors."
  And the Commissioners in the same document, forgetting their own rule, assert that the teachers, assistants, and monitors are perfectly different things; and under a rule which prohibited paid teachers the Commissioners say that they are at liberty to have paid monitors. But the second observation of the Commissioners is still more remarkable. They say, as to the district model schools being injured, that they were never intended as training establishments for teachers, and that it is quite a mistake to suppose that it entered into their conception to support model establishments as training schools Let me read their own words, for I will ask the right hon. Gentleman to give an explanation, for without an explanation it appears to me to be an audacious evasion of the rule on the part of the Commissioners. I will ask the House to judge between us. These are their words—
  "The district model schools are never intended to be training establishments for teachers."
  Now, this is a short, clear, and pithy assertion of a fact. Before the echo of that sentence dies away we may read this rule. Under the head of "District Model Schools" they say—
  "The chief object of model schools is to promote a united education, to communicate a literary and scientific education, and to train young persons for the office of teachers,"
  1776
  In the same page the Commissioners say that they were never intended for training establishments for teachers. Well, I will now take up the covenant which occurs in all model school leases—in the leases of all the schools under the Board. I find that it is to this effect—it binds all teachers, male and female, teaching in schools connected with the Board, to hold themselves in readiness to attend when called upon at the normal establishment in Dublin, or at one of the district model schools hereafter to be opened, for the purpose of training. I have here before me the correspondence which had taken place between the resident Commissioner and Mr. Wynne, once a Member of this House, and a gentleman we all respect; and in that correspondence I find that Mr. Wynne complained of the manner in which the teachers in the model schools in Sligo were distributed amongst the various denominations. The answer which the Commissioner gave to this complaint was that the district model school is not the model school of a mere town or village in which it is placed, but of the whole district, for the purpose of preparing the future teachers for the 400 or 500 National schools of the district. Now, nearly all of those schools were Roman Catholic ones that lay within that district. But I ask, then, what is the justification for the statement made to the Lord Lieutenant as to a matter of fact? What is the next explanation they give? They say that the district model schools do not supply a sufficient number of teachers, and the object of this rule is to increase that supply. Now, let the House mark the consistency of those statements. What are the facts? The Commissioners say that they amount to 700 teachers a year, and that the model schools only give 130 a year. I will ask the right hon. Gentleman for some warranty for this surprising statement. I find that Mr. Inspector Newall, one of the head Inspectors, says that he cannot get places for his teachers in his district—that one-sixth of the whole only amount to forty in the year; so that, multiplying that number by six, you get the number 240 in place of 130, which the Commissioners say the model schools only give, I also find that in Belfast alone the schools turned out sixty-three teachers in 1861, and seventy-six in 1862, and this is only one of the seventeen model schools in Ireland. I want then to know, if the object of these model schools be to supply a sufficiency

  1777
  of teachers, how that is to be done, inasmuch as I have before observed that the Commissioners have reduced the estimate for the model schools by the sum intended to meet and satisfy the rule of which I complain. But there is another explanation given by the Commissioners. They say that the convent schools have only a small capitation allowance, and that that does not produce as much money as the capitation allowances in other schools; that consequently the teachers in the convent schools are worse off in point of salary than those of other schools, and that it is, therefore, unfair to grudge them this little addition to which I have alluded. But why are they worse off in this respect? They are worse off because they refuse to submit to the rules laid down. If they submitted to those rules they would get exactly the same allowance as other schools. Are they then unfairly paid, and does the country exact from them a cheaper rate of education than from other schools? The Commissioners say that each child in a convent school costs 4s. 6d. altogether, and that each child in any of the other schools costs 7s. 2d. That is to say, the convent school child costs a little more than half what the other school child costs. But Mr. Sheridan says that the children in the convent schools are not half taught; that one teacher does the work of two; and that the inevitable result in such schools is that the rate of progress is extremely slow; that it takes a long time for a child to work his way from the lowest to the highest classes, and that the majority of the children leave the schools before they have completed their education. He says that no improvement in the school will enable one teacher to do the work of two. Now, am I justified in the statement which I made to the House? Then do not tell me that the State pays 4s. 6d. a head in one school, and 7s. 2d. a head in another school, when I am distinctly told that the child in one school is only half taught, and that the school has only one-half of the teaching power they ought to have. What are the protests against the National system? One of the Commissioners said that the rule limiting the allowance to convent schools was made to meet isolated oases; and Dr. Henry, the oldest Commissioner on the Board, said that, in his humble judgment, the repent change in the rule seriously interfered with one of the fundamental principles relating to
  1778
  secular instruction, and that it fostered a spirit of separation and exclusiveness. I invite the House to a passage between the Board of Commissioners and the right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary for Ireland. I shall even claim the vote of the right hon. Baronet. I find that on the 30th January this year the right hon. Baronet wrote to the Resident Commissioner in these terms—
  "Sir,—The attention of the Irish Government has been drawn to certain contemplated changes in the fundamental rules of the system of national education in Ireland, the effect of which would be seriously to imperil the principles on which the system is based. I have to remind you that the Board has no power to change any fundamental rule without the express permission of his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant."
  This is much more clear than what I have put before the House. The answer of the Commissioners really raises a question the importance of which this House will see, and the House must determine whether they will have a control and authority over the Board of Commissioners or not. The Commissioners disown control. In their answer there are one or two very curious things. Although there is not a word in the secretary's letter relative to convent schools, or any enumeration of the changes which the right hon. Baronet conceived to be fundamental, the Commissioners accept the suggestions and the insinuations, and they at once enter into the question of the convent schools. They say, "Oh, it is the convent schools you are speaking of;" and they tell the Chief Secretary it is no business of his. They say, moreover, they are quite sure that the Lord Lieutenant will agree with them. They further say, "We don't care for either you or the Lord Lieutenant, because the only thing we have to do is to get our money from Parliament, if we can only scramble through the Estimates"—I call the particular attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to this—"If we can only scramble through the Estimates and get the money from Parliament, we may spend it in any way we like; and with anything connected with the spending of money you have nothing to do." The House will consider the relations which exist between it and the Board, who receive £16,000 a year, and they will consider the extent of the information contained in the Estimate. The secretaries to the Commission, in reply to the right hon. Baronet, wrote as follows:—

  1779
  "That though it seems to them there is nothing in the charter of incorporation forbidding the change of any rule of the Board, they are aware that, by one of the rules which were approved by the Government in 1855, it is provided that the Commissioners are not to change any fundamental rule without the express permission of his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant. We are directed further to state that, in approving the recent rules, supposed to be referred to by you, the Commissioners are of opinion that in so doing they made no change in any fundamental rule; and they are disposed to think that the Lord Lieutenant—to whom, in answer to his Excellency's letter of the 23rd ult., they have now forwarded a communication on the subject of these rules—will concur with them in this opinion."
  Then they proceeded to lay down four fundamental rules, and I should very much like to know where they got them from. Certainly there is no document before Parliament which contains them. These are the rules—
  "1st, Those rules which protect the children from interference with their religious opinions; 2nd, those rules which entitle the pastors to give religious instruction to children in vested schools; 3rd, those rules which regulate and confirm the rights of the patron, and the succession in case of a vacancy; 4th, the rules which give to managers the right to use the schools, or to the public the right to visit them, in order to see that they are properly carried on."
  They contend that these rules are not fundamental. I however understand these rules to be fundamental in this way, that they are solemnly established by the Board, and published to the world, as are the rules with regard to teachers, and with regard to convent schools—the one as much as the other. But so shortsighted are the Commissioners that they actually forget that if they are right in saying these four rules are not fundamental, and that therefore they may be changed without the consent of the Lord Lieutenant, the result will be that the very rule which says that fundamental rules cannot be changed without his consent is not itself fundamental and might itself be changed. That, I think, is not an argument that can be sustained for a moment. They went on to speak of the taxpayers and the House of Commons. This makes it proper for me to ask the House to observe that to the Estimate for this year there is appended a Vote relative to the creation of first-class monitors. The House knows pretty well what the class was created for. It was created for the convent schools, and for training teachers in the way I have pointed out. This is the information for the taxpayers. The note is—
  1780
  "In order to perfect the monitorial system the Committee are convinced it is necessary to extend somewhat the period of monitorial service where special aptitude is manifested either for training teachers or for receiving the instruction."
  Do the Commissioners mean to say that the ladies at the head of nunneries, who never have been trained for teaching, who have never been put in possession of the technicalities of teaching, are peculiarly qualified to instruct pupil-teachers? I have no doubt that the time is coming, and that it is coming very fast, in which the House will have to consider the constitution of this Board, if it desires to retain the system of National Education in Ireland. Originally the Board consisted of seven Commissioners. The number was subsequently increased to ten, and later still to twenty. Only imagine a system of education in England conducted by twenty persons selected from different parts of the country who could never be got together! The result must be that the whole executive management must be left to clerks or cliques of a limited number of the Committee. The subject has before occupied attention. Mr. Cross, the secretary, appeared before a Committee of the House of Lords, and said a numerous Board was very undesirable, that three Commissioners were enough, and ten too many. The Bishop of Deny also said he was satisfied, from experience and observation, that if the system was to be saved there must be three paid Commissioners in the place of the present Board. Practically, this happens: in Dublin there are six, seven, or eight Commissioners—one in Belfast, one in Derry, and so forth; and the difficulty of getting them together is so great that the Dublin Commissioners do the whole business. I have brought this question before the House, this being a branch of the Legislature which has always been desirous to promote Irish education. If I wished the National system to fail, the best way would be to let it alone. I believe that two years would, in that case, overthrow the system to a certainty; but if the House desires to retain the system in the efficiency and spirit which has hitherto attended it, I call on the House, while yet there is time, to show the Commissioners that their course is one in which they will not be supported by the House, and to do so by affirming my Resolution.
  MR. DAWSONsaid, he begged to second the Motion. He had always been of opinion that the true and only groundwork

  1781
  of a National System of Education in Ireland must be based on the Earl of Derby's declaration in favour of combined religious and secular instruction. He had, therefore, always rejoiced at the advancement of the system under difficulties almost unparalleled; and he now protested against the recent departure from that Bound principle. No concession to any party ought to be permitted. The rules of the system should be common to all, and indiscriminating in their application. In the answer of the Government to-night there should be no mystification about the rules, but there should be laid down some broad and general principle upon which there could be no misunderstanding, and for the maintenance of which the Commissioners hereafter should be held responsible. As it was not likely that the Irish people would ever agree where a question of religious opinion was discussed, he would avoid all controversy which was more likely to excite the passions than promote reconciliation. No clergyman of any church should be permitted to undertake religious instruction, excepting at certain specified school hours, and then only to children of his own persuasion, as no parent could be expected to approve of the teaching of any minister not of his own faith. He was not about to express an opinion whether the educational grants, although differing in their form, but still proceeding from the State, should ever have been granted to these institutions. He objected to any extension of the exception. It was sheer nonsense to suppose that the convent schools could be made instrumental for the purposes of united education. The late rule promulgated by the Board must bear with it these characteristics. It must weaken the authority of the model schools, whilst it encouraged the hostile attitude of the other schools, which would assume the character of training establishments. The State had expended large sums of money for the establishment of these model schools, but in doing so it had acted wisely and well; and although the course of education pursued therein might not be altogether free from criticism, and although it might be impossible to say that the children were of an exclusively unmixed class, they were valuable as training establishments to those who were hereafter to be intrusted with the development of the system. He could confirm what had been stated by his hon. and learned Friend that a growing dissatisfaction had arisen in Ire-
  1782
  land with regard to the Board of Education. In the place of the present Board he would gladly see appointed three salaried Commissioners representing different denominations—the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, and the Roman Catholic; and to these he would add a fourth, the Chief Secretary of Ireland for the time being, who in Parliament should be held responsible for their acts. He would rather that these duties should be of an executive and administrative than of an original character. Let Parliament lay down a system of administration impartial in its rules, and giving common justice to all without favouring any political creed. If such a change were made, and the system were hereafter to be honestly and efficiently worked out, it would render education in Ireland abundantly productive of the greatest blessings to all classes of the community.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That, in the opinion of this House, the Rules sanctioned by the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland on the 21st day of November, 1863, are, so far as regards their operation on the aid afforded to Convent and Monastic Schools, at variance with the principles of the system of National Education." — (Sir Hugh Cairns.)
  MR. O'HAGAN (ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND)said, he would not shrink from the responsibility of replying to the very able speech of the hon. and learned Member for Belfast (Sir Hugh Cairns), because he thought it was quite fit and becoming in one who had been assailed, not so much in that speech as in the agitation of which it was a very mild expression, that he should say, on behalf of himself and others, what he conceived ought to be satisfactory to any reasonable man in relation to charges which he knew, so far as imputations of motives were concerned, to be utterly unfounded, and which he believed to be, in relation to fact, equally unfounded. He had for some months past been observing the demonstrations—to use a word which was familiar to them in Ireland—which had been made in the press and on the platforms of certain districts of that country; and, beyond a doubt, the accusations which had been made against the Board of Education had been of a very grievous character. There had been accusations made against men of whom, although he was one of them, he presumed to say they were persons of the highest station in Ireland, and who had

  1783
  devoted their time and their thoughts—their anxious thoughts, in the face of much unfounded aspersion and much unmerited obloquy, to the advancement of the social and moral improvement of their country. He was very happy to have this question ventilated in the free air of the House of Commons, because he thought the opportunity was there afforded him of justifying those men, and, above all, of justifying one who was unjustly attacked, and whom, being a friend of his, he could with all sincerity describe as a man of the largest accomplishments and of the noblest nature; a man who having early achieved intellectual triumphs in a University in England, such as were unexampled in that University, had devoted his life in an office far below his mental and social attainments for advantages which, in a worldly point of view, were very contemptible indeed but with this reward for him—that he had been able to confer benefits on the poor people of Ireland which would make his name an honoured one when the heats of party were over, and slander was at an end. He was happy to speak in that House on behalf of Mr. M'Donnell; and he thought that before he had concluded it would be patent to the House and to the world that the accusations which had been—in terms, gently, but in effect, strongly—urged by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Belfast against him and his Colleagues, that they had been false to their trust—for it was no less than that—and that they had altered fundamental rules of the system without the sanction of the representative of the Sovereign, were accusations without a shadow of foundation. He could clearly understand this Motion if those at whose instance it was brought forward plainly avowed that their object was the one suggested by the hon. Gentleman, who had just addressed the House, at the close of his speech. He could well understand the movement if it was avowed that the object was not to bring before the public miserable charges which he should demonstrate to be unfounded, or to discuss a thing which was wretched and contemptible, whether they regarded its influence on society in Ireland, or as a pecuniary burden on the State; but to destroy a great institution, and substitute for a representative Board which commanded, in a great degree, the confidence of many and Various parties in Ireland, a Board of three paid Commissioners—a Protestant, a Presbyterian, and a Roman Catholic.
  1784
  This was the object of the agitation and the attack, and the object of the clever speech which they had heard to-night. That he believed. But what was the charge which he had to meet? Not embarrassing himself, in the first place, with the number of criticisms which his hon. and learned Friend had so ably made on certain documents, he should meet the broad charge against the Board—namely, that it had introduced an innovation; that it had connected the convent schools with itself, and dealt with them in a mode different from that in which they had been dealt with before. That charge was put forward in this way—that a fundamental change had been accomplished in the rules of the Board, and that the change so made had not the sanction of the Government. Now, he asserted that no change had been made which in any way conflicted with the duty of the Board, or interfered with the established principles of the system. He asked the House to consider this question very deliberately, not with reference to the position of individuals, but with reference to the safety of the system which he and many in Ireland believed to be connected with the best interests of that country. He believed that, although the system might have errors which ought to be corrected, and imperfections which it might be well to remedy, it had advanced the morals and intelligence of the people of Ireland, which was one of the most moral and the least criminal countries on the face of the earth. He asked the House to remember this great fact, that though the hostility to the National Board had been multiform and long-continued, though it had to contend with much of party spirit, it had so commended itself to the confidence of the people of Ireland, that the number of schools had increased from 789 in 1833 to 6,010 in 1862, and that in 1863 the number had still further increased to 6,163. The total number of children attending the schools, which in 1862 was 812,527, notwithstanding the depression which existed in Ireland, and the enormous emigration which had borne such vast numbers from the shores of that country had increased in 1863 to 840,569. With such facts before it, the House should be cautious before it came to a decision which might be most detrimental to the future interests of this great institution. Now what had been the relation between the conventual schools of Ireland and the Na-

  1785
  tional Board from its first establishment by Lord Derby? Soon after the famous letter by which the Board was founded, the question arose whether these schools should be connected with the Board. In point of fact, they had existed before the Board itself existed, they had been useful to Ireland, and had educated the people at a time when the State gave no aid for the purposes of education; and even the Kildare Place Society had helped these convent schools, giving them books and school requisites, though the managers of the society could not be accused of peculiar leaning towards the Irish Catholics. The matter was brought formally before Lord Stanley and the Irish Government, it was discussed by them, and in the first or second Report of the Board, answering the pamphlet of the Bishop of Exeter who had assailed them, the Board said that upon this point they had communicated with Lord Stanley, who thought it desirable that those schools should be brought under their superintendence, and that they should grant aid to them, which they accordingly had done. That was the Report of 1836. In 1837 there was a Commission of Inquiry of this House, and Mr. Carlile, a very able man, and a minister of the Church of Scotland, who was at the time resident commissioner, in reply to Lord Stanley, said the Board had received applications from some schools connected with nunneries and monasteries, that they had felt a difficulty in knowing how they were to proceed, and what the Government wished on the subject, but that, after communicating with Lord Stanley, they had unanimously resolved that it was desirable to include these schools. The House would see whether the effect of the Motion before the House would be exactly in harmony with this unanimous decision of Lord Stanley's Commissioners. In the same Report it appeared from the evidence of Dr. Kelly, now Judge Kelly, that when the convent schools were allowed to be taken into connection with the Board, Protestant and Presbyterian clergymen were applicants for the adoption of this course. The Presbyterians in the North of Ireland had taken a strong part in the discussion of this subject, but urged that the aid given to these schools should be withdrawn or diminished on the ground that they were exclusive and sectarian, and that the public ought to have nothing to do with them under a system of united education;
  1786
  but the effect of the amended rules in Ulster had been to make the Presbyterian schools there, to a large extent, as exclusive as the convent schools, and the Commissioners were quite right in 1839 in putting the two classes of schools very much on a par in point of exclusiveness. It was said that the connection of the convent schools was brought about in a concealed way; but in 1854, during the inquiry which took place before the House of Lords, this point was gone into particularly, and in a Report prepared by Earl Granville there was a specific reference to the convent schools, and specific suggestions or directions were given, which were communicated to the Board, and must have been known to the public. There was thus the fullest opportunity of inquiring thoroughly into the annection, and of ascertaining what the conditions were. The fact was that the convent schools were, from the very inception of this system, recognized as worthy of connection with it, and as institutions which might be aided for the public advantage, and quite consistently with the principles of the Board. These had been a vast deal of talk about united education by a number of very energetic agitators here and there, and it was asserted that only those schools should be aided where there were children of various religious persuasions. But this never had been the principle of the Board. Its principle had been to establish certain rules under which every school seeking aid should come, that those rules should be of such a character as to prevent the possibility of proselytism, and that there should be a complete protection for a religious minority against a religious majority. That was the principle of the Board, and the principle of Lord Stanley's letter was, that there should be good secular instruction without interference with peculiar religious tenets. Qui haeret in literâ haeret in cortice. It would be an abuse of the principle which that letter contained, if it were contended that no school should receive aid from the State unless it had a mixture of scholars. The value of the Board was shown in the representative character which was now assailed—that it had adapted itself to the peculiar circumstances of Ireland, that it had not acted in a doctrinaire spirit, but that respecting the great principle of religious freedom, it had not sought to tamper with the purity of religious faith, and therefore it had afforded aid to every school

  1787
  which could honestly accept aid upon the terms indicated in the constitution of the Board. Besides adapting itself to the circumstances of the country, it had respected the opinion of the people, and consequently it had been able to confer, as he believed, great benefit upon the country. Then what was the state of the case with regard to the principle as indicated by the Board itself, and as bearing upon the question before the House? In an able Report of the Commissioners of 1844, it was stated that the principle had been from the beginning that the National schools should be open alike to Christians of all denominations, and that accordingly no child should be required to receive religious instruction to which its parents or guardians might object. Under these circumstances, the convent schools came into connection with the Board. It would surely have been wrong if the Board had refused to admit those schools. Having been admitted into connection with the Board, it was not necessary for him to dwell upon the efficiency of those schools; but, as the question had been mooted, he would just refer to one or two authorities upon that point, to prove that they had been of great benefit to Ireland, and had more than repaid the amount of assistance which had been extended to them. Dr. Henry gave it as his opinion that it was most important to retain the conventual schools under the Board, as they had more than 40,000 children under their charge, and he believed that the education imparted was of a very excellent character. Mr. Keenan, the present chief Inspector, spoke highly of conventual schools as giving a valuable elementary education, and Dr. Sullivan bore testimony to the value of those schools in training teachers. It was quite true that Mr. Sheridan had reported against those schools, but that gentleman's opinion was set against the authorities he had mentioned, and the Board could not be required to act upon the opinion of a single Inspector, however able, whose experience only related to a particular district. Then came the question whether these schools in respect of payment were such as they ought to be. They had been originally paid precisely as all other schools under the Board by a capitation grant. For the first ten years they received 10 per cent upon all children enrolled, and afterwards 15, and then 20 per cent upon all children in attendance. In 1839 the system of classification was
  1788
  established; the nuns could not, from the nature of the case, take the burden of that system, and the result was that at this moment these conventual schools, which were teaching more children than the Church Establishment of Ireland, and teaching them most efficiently, received something like one-fourth of the first-class teachers and one-third of the ordinary class. They did the work of the State most effectively, and they received about 7s. 2 3/2;d. per head, including monitors, while common schools got something like 14 s. 4d. The convent schools, therefore, were doing work for which they were not paid. What did the whole of this agitation amount to? £2,000 was sought for a new class of monitors, to be divided between the convents and convent schools. The rule did not recognize the convents, but to large and very efficient schools certain advantage was to be afforded. Upon that was based the whole of this agitation. The pretence was not the reality. It was to destroy the convent schools, or separate them altogether from the Board. Such being the historical relation subsisting between the Board under the authority of Lord Derby, under the able men who had been Commissioners, and under the sanction of Parliament, he now came to consider whether there had been a violation of any fundamental rule in providing that in certain large and efficient schools a third class of monitors should be provided. For a course of years—more than twenty —the monitorial system had been established by the Board; it had been altered from time to time; it had been increased in efficiency by the Board; and when the Board, having large experience, very slightly modified that system, by a mere administrative act, for a mere administrative purpose, it would be very hard for the House to come to the conclusion that there was a change in fundamental principle which required the assent of the Lord Lieutenant before the Board should be allowed to act upon it. He read extracts from the Reports of 1843 and 1844, which showed that the Board had established the system of monitors, paying them from £4 to £7 a year. In the latter year they had fifteen boys and fifteen young women in training for that purpose, and they hoped gradually to bring forward a body of masters and mistresses thoroughly qualified to undertake the management of the schools. They did not ask the assent of the Lord Lieutenant to that. It was regarded as a

  1789
  mere administrative act. It appeared quite clear that no fundamental principle was involved in the arrangements which had been made by the Board with regard to the monitors from 1843 to 1860, and, indeed, nobody had suggested that such was the case. That being so, was the Board, he would ask, to be condemned as having betrayed its trust because it had not appealed to the Government to confirm the particular alteration in question? In 1855 a second class of junior monitors was appointed, who were to receive a smaller sum ranging from £2 to £4 a year, and the Commissioners in that year said that "in the case of schools commanding a larger attendance and distinguished by their superior efficiency, it should be allowable to appoint two or more monitors." It would at once, therefore, be seen, that if a covert design lurked under words almost identical in 1864, that same design must have been present to the minds of the men by whom the Report of 1855 was drawn up. Yet in 1855 no one presumed to say that a fundamental change was made in the rules, or that the Lord Lieutenant should have been consulted in the matter. It was stated on the other side that in 1862 the Commissioners, acting without any legal authority, instituted certain monitors in a certain school in Dublin; but the transaction was a very simple one, and one which had been recognized by every set of Commissioners from the first. It became a serious question with the people in Ireland, who took an interest in educational matters, whether or not it was desirable to continue the monitors after a certain time in connection with the Board for a short period. There were, it should be borne in mind, two classes of monitors—the seniors and the juniors. The senior class continued in connection with the Board until about the age of eighteen, at which age a monitor became eligible to receive a teachership. It was, however, found that though eligible he or she was rarely elected, because there was a feeling that it wag better that persons of maturer age should be appointed. The result was that when boys or girls arrived at the age of eighteen, and found they could not get a teachership, they left the school, and in many cages emigrated; so that though educated for the public benefit, and at the public expense, they were lost to the public service. It occurred, therefore, to rational people in Ireland, that it would be a matter of great impor-
  1790
  tance that these children should be continued in connection with the Board until the period at which they might receive teacherships, and it was considered that by keeping them for a period of two years, that desirable object might be accomplished. And what, he would ask, had been the practice of the Board since its institution? It did not frame rules until it had some means of ascertaining whether they were workable and wise by experiment, and acting upon that principle they came to the conclusion to add to the two classes of monitors which he had already mentioned a third class, which might continue to operate in the schools. Such, then, was their appalling interference with the settled institutions of the country, and the fundamental principles of their constitution. Two or three collateral matters had been mixed up with that question, certainly not for the purpose of making it clearer and more comprehensible. It was not the fact that convent schools were the only schools with which the Board would deal under that rule. The rule extended to every large and efficient school in the country, whether Protestant, Presbyterian, or Catholic. [Cries of "Name!"] He believed there was such a school in the town of Belfast. [Sir HUGH CAIKNS: "I expressly said that no school could be named but that."] The rule had not yet been acted upon, but he was informed, on the authority of as trustworthy men as ever breathed, that there were some fifty, or perhaps sixty, schools in Ireland which would be perfectly capable, from their size and efficiency, of availing themselves of the operation of the rule. That was an answer which ought to satisfy any reasonable mind. As to the model schools, the allegation of the hon. and learned Member was that they should be and were the training schools of Ireland. Now he would assert the contrary of that. The model schools grew up in this way. When the Board was originally constituted it did not appear to have occurred to anybody that more than one model school would be necessary; but very soon the Commissioners took a different view, and began to establish model schools in the various counties of Ireland. That was done, not in order to train teachers, but that, as the name implied, models should be set up, complete in all their parts, as examples to be followed in the rest of the schools throughout the country.

  1791
  A model school, no doubt, trained teachers to a certain extent, but every school under the Board where there was a monitor also did the same in a degree; and it would be quite contrary to the principle of a model school to make it an institution for the training of teachers only. The hon. and learned Gentleman said the model schools were sufficient to supply all the teachers needed for Ireland; but the fact was they had 7,247 teachers in all in connection with the Board, and only 3,331 had been trained in those establishments. There were 700 teachers required every year, and the model schools did not supply one-half of that number. The authority of Mr. Newall had been cited in opposition to that calculation, but Mr. Newall must have been under a mistake, for in the year to which he referred there were actually 732 new teachers required. It might be confidently asserted that the model schools ought not to train all their teachers. It was a wise arrangement to have those schools retrenched. There were thirteen of them in Ulster; he did not know whether there was one in Connaught, and there were not many in Munster. It would be monstrous to think of sending young persons from one province to another to be trained as teachers, when they would be at a great distance from their parents and friends, and when an enormous expense would be incurred without securing any better results than were now obtained in a much more economical manner. He maintained, then, that the model schools neither were nor should be the training establishments for teachers in Ireland. Attention had been called last Session by his hon. Friend the Member for Longford (Mr. O'Reilly) to the question of the model schools, and that hon. Member certainly raised an argument with reference to some of those institutions which appeared not to admit of a very easy answer. The expenditure made upon them was regarded as excessive; and the Treasury, having had the circumstance brought to its notice, had done what he generally did—namely, performed its duty, and directed the Commissioners to look into the matter, with a view to curtail any useless outlay of public money. The Commissioners obeyed their instructions, and suggested a reduction of £2,500, which was agreed to by the Treasury. That proceeding had no possible connection, either in intention or in fact, with that other arrangement, the
  1792
  Creation of a third class of monitors. No doubt in the Belfast school a considerable reduction had been made; but in that school it turned out that there was a teacher for every twelve pupils. In the Enniscorthy school it also turned out that there was a teacher for every eight pupils. He had endeavoured to present broadly to the House the history of the connection of the convent schools and the monitorial system with the National Board, and he said, again, that whether the object of this Motion was to effect a small arrangement, or whether it was really designed to effect the connection of convents with the National Board, the case had entirely failed. If the objection were confined to the arrangement, he answered that it was according to the settled practice of the Board, and was justified by the necessity of the case. If he was told that the desire was to sever the connection of the convents with the Board, as had been suggested elsewhere, and as would seem to be the legitimate corollary from the argument which they had heard that evening—even though it might not be intended—then he invoked the authority of Lord Derby, the founder of the system, and referred to the unbroken course of action of the Commission, to the admirable results which that course had produced, and to the danger and destruction which its abandonment would undoubtedly involve. The people of Ireland had a great regard and a deep love for their conventual institutions. They were attracted to education by those institutions as nothing else could attract them. Would it not be a pity and a shame to deprive them of those advantages which they had heretofore enjoyed at so trifling a cost to the State? It was not desirable that they should in dealing with Ireland act always with the rigidness of logic or in the narrow spirit of doctrinaires. It was necessary to look to the feelings of the people, to the position of the people, and to the traditions of the people in order to govern Ireland rightly. The people were impulsive, they were impressible, they were ardent. Sometimes they exhibited an excess of love and hate; but those very circumstances, their peculiar history, and the position in which they stood, entitled them to and required for them special generosity and special kindness. They might be sure that if they gave them kindness it would be answered by trust; and if they gave them kindness

  1793
  they would return more than gratitude. That had been too often forgotten, but it ought especially to be borne in mind with reference to this question. The schools to which the people were most deeply attached were the convent schools. They were to them a sacred thing. If the connection which had been wisely established and well maintained between those schools and the National Board was severed, the people of Ireland would be led to repel and repudiate the principles of that body. It was not desirable to produce such a result. It was desirable to inspire the people with confidence and with trust. There was in operation in the country a great influence — an incalculable power which would exist whether hon. Members desired it or not, and it would be infinitely better to accept that influence, to cultivate kindly and friendly relations with it, and to utilize it as far as possible. Dean Kernan, of Dundalk, in his evidence before the Lords' Committee of 1854, stated that the connection between the convent schools and the National Board had done a great deal to remove the suspicions with which the people, the clergy, and the bishops of Ireland at first received the National system, and that if that connection was broken their confidence in it would be gone. These were grave and weighty words. The Motion before the House would very much endanger the connection to which this distinguished dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church attached so much importance, and therefore he hoped that the House would not agree to it.
  MR. WHITESIDEsaid, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland having anticipated that his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Belfast (Sir Hugh Cairns) would make an attack upon the National Board, had prepared a speech, the greater part of which was not ad litem, and had with scrupulous care avoided the three important points which were alleged by his hon. and learned Friend. This, which the Attorney General treated as a trifling and contemptible matter, had excited the opposition of all the respectability of the North of Ireland, and even some of the right hon. Gentleman's colleagues had protested against this act of arbitrary power, which was justified or attempted to be palliated by him as a mere act of administrative authority. But what was the opinion of the organ of the Government? The Chief Secretary for Ireland, writing from Dublin
  1794
  Castle to the resident Commissioner, said that the attention of the Irish Government had been drawn to "certain contemplated changes in the fundamental rules of the system of National Education in Ireland, the effect of which will be seriously to imperil the principle upon which that system is based," and reminded him, as resident Commissioner, "that the Board of Commissioners, as incorporated by Royal Charter, has no power to change any fundamental rule without the express permission of the Lord Lieutenant." These were the expressions of the Chief Secretary; and then the Attorney General, who ought to be his right hand, to sustain him in his exposition of the law, stood up and said that there was not a word of truth in that letter, that no fundamental rule was altered or amended, and that the changes had no foundation except in the imagination of the right hon. Baronet. He believed that both as to law and fact the right hon. Baronet had stated exactly that which it was his duty to state. It was a very pretty quarrel as it stood, and there he was quite ready to leave it. What could be the value of a Government the leading members of which differed point blank from each other? The National system was founded in succession to the Kildare Place Society, a tolerant institution, established by the Church to which he had the honour to belong, and it was a significant fact that those who now advocated an exceptional policy for the Roman Catholics and the Presbyterians persistently refused the smallest concession to the Established Church. It was quite true that the Kildare Place Society gave their good books to the Roman Catholic convents, but on one condition, that they would read and understand them. One of the books so given was the New Testament. The Kildare Place Society insisted that it should be read, and on that point, after some time, a split took place, and the National Board was established. For several years the new system worked very well. It was supported by Archbishop Whately, the foremost man in Ireland; but at length Archbishop Murray died, and then the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland received a new head from Rome. That personage immediately took the government of the business into his own hands. He at once objected to the books which had been assented to by the right rev. Dr. Murray, and when Archbishop Whately said that he had induced his clergy to join the National Board on the faith that those books would

  1795
  be used, Dr. Cullen replied that he had nothing to do with engagements entered into before his arrival in Ireland. The result was that the Commissioners, like obedient men, kicked the books out, and when Archbishop Whately asked to reason it with them they flatly refused, for it was a remarkable peculiarity of the National Board that it never reasoned. Archbishop Whately, who was a logician, charged them with having departed from the principle on which the National system was founded, but they declined to give any reply, and contented themselves with obeying the behest of Dr. Cullen. Finally; the Archbishop told them they had been guilty of a breach of faith to the public, and withdrew from the Board. No doubt they were glad to get rid of him, for the presence of an eminent, honest, thinking man must have been a great obstruction to their proceedings. Shortly afterwards the Synod of Thurles published its decrees, all of which were aimed directly at the National System of Education, as originally established, and ever since the Board had acted in exact accordance with the commands of the Synod. Lord Derby intended that there should be a combined literary and a separate religious education. The Synod of Thurles decreed that an end should be put to that principle, and Dr. Cullen openly and honestly advised his clergy to take advantage of the National system in order to defeat the plan of its founders. All the Roman Catholic children were withdrawn from the model schools, one of the objects of which was, notwithstanding what the Attorney General had said, to train young persons as teachers. It appeared from the Reports of the Inspectors—a body of gentlemen, many of them Roman Catholics, for whom he had the highest respect—that the plan adopted was, first to establish a convent school in 'the neighbourhood of a model school, and then to induce Roman Catholic parents to transfer their children from the latter to the former. In some cases, not merely were the pupils withdrawn, but the paid monitresses were directed to resign. Thus the schools established to carry out the original principle of the Earl of Derby were gradually brought to the brink of ruin, and now the question arose, where the masters and mistresses were to come from who were to continue what was still preposterously called the National System of Education in Ireland. Upon these convent schools he made no attack whatever. They were conducted by highly respectable
  1796
  ladies, deserving much praise for their zeal and devotion. But he could not stand up and conscientiously say with the Attorney General for Ireland, that he believed conventual and monastic bodies to be best fitted to undertake the education of mankind. He believed the account to be strictly correct which was given of them ill that Report of the Roman Catholic Inspector, which was shamefully concealed from Parliament, and even from some of the Commissioners of National Education, till one of them found it out, and led to its being moved for in that House. In that Report they were shown to be founded on virtuous intolerance. The Attorney General for Ireland had said that complaints had been made about nothing at all. But it was impossible to read those able protests without seeing that they were levelled against the system of giving money for the spread of the religions principle, the very reverse of that animating the National system, against diverting the funds intended for the secular education of the country to the training of masters and mistresses in religious establishments, so as to indoctrinate the country with their peculiar principles. Into the Emancipation Act clauses were introduced forbidding the establishment of monastic institutions in Ireland, but to the very establishments proscribed by the law the State was now paying money for the education of youths. A clergyman of the Established Church could not get so much as a book from this National Board, which the country was taxed to support. Books, money, influence were all handed to monks and nuns, friars and Jesuits, to carry out their views. And this was called even-handed justice. What has been the result of this action of the Board? The Lady Superioress of Baggot Street Convent modestly demanded that no leas than forty monitresses should be sent in one consignment to that institution, that large number being requisite, it was stated, to satisfy the wishes and feelings of the general population of Ireland. The reasons on which the demand was based were ably set out in the despatch, for attached to each of those convents, he believed, there was always a highly educated and distinguished member of some confraternity: the document closed with a reference to the recognition attributed to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies of the importance of separate denominational training establishments. The object of the application was to supply

  1797
  the places of the teachers who before were taught in the training establishments and in the model schools with others trained upon their conventual system, [Mr. O'HAGAM: Read, the answer of the Commissioners.] The answer was dated 1864, and he need not remind the right hon. Gentleman that there was such a thing as the House of Commons. Only for it he knew not what would become of them in Ireland. The answer stated that it was entirely out of the power of the Commissioners to comply, with the request made to them. But if that were so, it must have been equally out of their power to give paid monitresses, which was the same thing under another name. They knew there was to be a full discussion in the House of Commons. [Laughter.] A laugh, he might remind the hon. Gentleman, wag no argument, and he should be glad if he would debate the matter in sounds less audible but more sensible. The spirit underlying all these movements might be gathered from the letters of Mr. Kavanagh, a zealous Roman Catholic, formerly holding high office under the National Board. In one letter addressed to the Earl of Carlisle, he boasted of what the Catholic strength of the country had already achieved, adding—
  "We have our heel on the neck of the National system, the vitals of which are well-nigh strangled."
  Formerly, the matter in dispute between Protestants and Roman Catholics was as to the reading of the Scriptures. That stage had long since passed, and a reference to the reading of the Scriptures was scarcely ever heard in the present day. There were 3,000 schools, of which 3,000 priests were patrons, and as to what became of the Scriptures in those schools it was not necessary to inquire. He wished to speak with all respect of the National Commissioners. They were, however, a Board; and a Board was a thing without heart, without feelings, without substance or affections—in short, it was a Board. He asked the House, which had visited with its indignation practices in the Educational Department in England not one-hundredth part as much to be complained of as those in Ireland, to express its opinion fearlessly on the conduct of that Board, and in particular to remember its suppression of a most valuable Report. That document reflected the highest credit on the abilities, candour, and honesty of
  1798
  the gentleman who framed it. His division of the subjects treated of was most skilful, and in it he showed conclusively that the alleged success of the National system in secular education was purely a myth. Mr. Sheridan in that Report said, that should his conclusion be verified it behoved the Commissioners to take some steps to effect a radical change in the course of the secular instruction. Having that Report before them, it was the duty of the Government to act upon the information which it contained. He regretted that the principle on which the Commissioners enforced, endowed, and enriched these schools, for the purpose of overthrowing the model and training schools, was that of carrying out Ultramontane views. No doubt the Secretary for Ireland would follow him in debate, would vindicate his letter, and with his usual frankness would state why he differed from the Attorney General on this subject. But the present discussion gave him and those around him no redress. The system pf united education was a myth. He would admit that some Protestant children went to the Roman Catholic schools, and that the humbler classes of Irish children went to the convent schools because they were religious institutions. But the principle of the Board was that the schools should be opened to all classes of Her Majesty's subjects alike. Would any one say that these convent schools were intended for Protestant children? He believed that they were intended to separate the Roman Catholics from the Protestants, in order to educate the former as the priest wished. He had been assured by a Roman Catholic that every book in these schools, even those on secular subjects, was to be permeated with the spirit of the Catholic religion. This was a big and mighty question. It might be asked what part the Established Church in Ireland would take in it. He did not ask for one guinea for the Church Education Society, but he wished the reins to be held tightly over the secular system of education in Ireland, so that it might not be perverted or spoiled. He thought that secular system good. He was willing to take the books, the training, and the inspection of that system, but the Church would never give up the right to use the Scriptures, in the schools. The great principle of Church education was just as strong as ever, and the society had 1,800 schools open, and about 40,000 scholars. Yet the Board would not give any books

  1799
  to the schools of the Church Education Society, while they gave them to the nuns, who were far more exclusive. The question now arose what was to be done with the Board? There could be no doubt it must be knocked down. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cardwell) constituted a Board of twenty in number, and every one rightly prophesied that they would meet to debate, and not to administer, the affairs intrusted to them. That first thing would be to get rid of the Board. It would be for the House of Commons to say whether there should be paid Commissioners in its place. He would ask the House whether it was possible, in the present condition of this question, to coerce the consciences of any class of persons? He asked them to consider whether it was not possible to extend to all classes of Her Majesty's subjects the blessings of a good sound secular education in addition to that religious education which Protestants had always contended for, and which they would not be true Protestants if they did not contend for still? He would entreat the House, in justice to the Roman Catholic as well as the Protestant population of Ireland, to affirm the Resolution so logically advocated by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Belfast.
  MR. MAGUIREmoved that the debate be adjourned.
  Debate adjourned till To-morrow.

  PORTSMOUTH DOCKYARD (ACQUISITION OF LANDS) BILL.
  Bill to authorize the Acquisition of Lands by the Admiralty, with a view to the extension of Portsmouth Dockyard, and for other purposes connected therewith, ordered to be brought in by Lord CLARENCE PAGET and Mr. CHILDERS.
  REGISTRATION OF DEEDS (IRELAND) BILL
  Bill to make valid Defective Registration of Deeds in certain in Ireland, ordered to be brought in by Sir EDWARD GROGAN, Mr. GEORGE, and Mr. VANCE.

  NEW ZEALAND (GUARANTEE OF LOAN) BILL.
  Bill "guarantee the liquidation of a Loan for the service of the Colony of New Zealand," presented, and read 1°. [Bill 150.]
  House adjourned at a quarter before Two o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Select Committee— On Improvement of Land Act, 1864 * (No. 36) [H. L.]; Report (No. 130).
Committee—Union Assessment Committee Act Amendment* (No. 102); Ecclesiastical Courts and Registries (Ireland) (No. 96) [H.L.]
Report— Improvement of Land Act (1864)* (No. 36) [H. L.]; Mortgage Debentures (No. 107) [H. L.]; Public Schools* (No. 128) [H. L.]; Scottish Episcopal Clergy Disabilities Removal * (No. 123) [H. L.]
Third Reading—Court of Justiciary (Scotland)* (No. 82), and passed.

LORD ELGIN AND LORD CANNING.

  EXPLANATION.
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEsaid, he wished to call the attention of his noble Friend the President of the Council to a statement made by him yesterday evening, which had been misunderstood or misreported not only by one, but by several, of the newspapers of that morning. It was on a point mainly personal, but not wholly devoid of historical importance, and perhaps not without some interest in an official point of view. When his noble Friend was speaking of Lord Elgin's career, and rendering no more than

  1699
  a just tribute to his merits, he referred to that part of his career in which, at Singapore, on his way to china, he agreed to divert and did divert the Droops which were then on their way from England to China, in order that they might be sent to India to assist in suppressing the mutiny, and he understood his noble Friend to say that he did so at the urgent request, of the Governor General of India, and on his responsibility. Reading the reports, however, he found that his noble Friend was represented to have said that Lord Elgin
  "Was fully rewarded by having an opportunity of showing his disinterestedness when on his way to China he was met by, the, news of the rebellion, and took upon himself the responsibility of diverting his troops to India."
  Any one who read that report would naturally think that Lord Elgin in diverting the troops under his command to India had acted on an original notion which had occurred to him. Lord Canning had been charged by those who knew nothing of the circumstances of the case with having been the last man; to acknowledge the gravity of the revolt; whereas the papers laid before their Lordships showed that Lord Elgin had acted upon a distinct and urgent demand made on him by the Governor General of India. Lord Canning in fact, Wrote to Lord Elgin, asking him to move to India as many regiments as possible at his disposal before sending them on to China, and he concluded thus—
  "I place the matter briefly before your Lordship, but I hope, clearly enough to enable you to come to a ready decision. I will add that I am willing and anxious to bear the whole responsibility of all the consequences of turning aside the troops from China to India."
  Lord Elgin, in cordially acceding to this request after consultation with General Ashburnham to divert the troops, said—
  "In diverting from their destination a portion of the troops under my command, both the General and myself feel that we are incurring a heavy responsibility and are making great sacrifices."
  The merits of Lord Elgin were of so high a character, that they did not need enhancement by detracting from the merits of anyone else; and he thought that his noble Friend the Lord President would not hesitate to state distinctly that while Lord Elgin had entered most cordially into the execution of the plan proposed by Lord Canning, the proposition emanated from Lord Canning, and that he emphatically stated that he was willing to take upon himself the whole of the responsibility.
  EARL GRANVILLE: I should be one
  1700
  of the last to find; fault with the accuracy with which the speeches made, here are reported in the newspapers; but if we re collect how often we speak in a conversational kind, of tone across this table, and what a noise there is often going on under the reporters' gallery, it is difficult to understand how even the substance of our observations is caught. My noble Friend is quite right in bringing the matter under the attention of your Lordships, because everything that happened at the time referred to is worthy of being correctly recorded. My noble Friend is perfectly correct as to the substance of what I in tended to say; I will not answer for the words. What I meant to say was that Lord Elgin on his way out to China was met by the news of the Indian rebellion, and received an urgent appeal from Lord Canning to divert the troops under his command to India, and that Lord Canning took upon himself the entire responsibility of the act. It never occurred to me to detract from the merits of either of these two great and distinguished men — and, indeed, the fact always struck me as a singular instance of the presence of mind with which Lord Canning availed himself of every possible resource at his command in a great emergency With regard to the responsibility, Lord Canning took upon himself the responsibility of making the request, and Lord Elgin the responsibility of granting it. I think, my chief reason for alluding to the circumstance was to remark on the singular coincidence of two college friends after a separation by political employment for many years, finding themselves meeting in a distant part of the world under such circumstances, and joining cordially in a measure which, if not the turning-point of the rebellion, was at least of the greatest importance in enabling the Governor General to suppress it.
  LORD LYVEDENsaid, that his noble Friend had certainly been misrepresented by the newspapers, for he had paid particular attention to his speech, having remarked that in the other House both Lord Palmerston and Sir Charles Wood had laid too much stress on Lord Elgin's conduct in this affair, and to a certain extent had detracted from the merit of Lord Canning—though that might be quite unintentional. The Secretary of State said that the reason why part of Lady Elgin's pension was charged on-the Indian revenues was that at a critical moment Lord Elgin had diverted the troops from China to

  1701
  India, The memory of Lord Canning did not need any vindication from any one; but when that statement had been made in the House of Commons, it was only right that his noble Friend the President of the Council should have given the explanation which their Lordships had just heard. Lord Canning sent a message to Lord Elgin and General Ashburnham, urging them in a way that did not admit of refusal for troops, and under these circumstances Lord Elgin was entitled to the credit of allowing the troops to be diverted; but the idea had originated entirely with Lord Canning. At the same time he sent to Sir Henry Ward at Ceylon, and a short time after he sent to Sir George Grey at the Cape for similar assistance. Having said so much on that point, while expressing his concurrence in what had been said as to the merits of Lord Elgin, he thought the Government ought to consider whether any portion of the pension to be given to Lady Elgin ought to be charged on the finances of Indian. No pension had been given to Lady Ward out of the Indian revenues, although Sir Henry Ward died at Madras immediately after his removal from the governorship of Ceylon, from the effects of the climate of India. He was glad to say that Sir George Grey was still performing excellent service for his country; but those two men had sent troops to India as well as Lord Elgin, and it could scarcely be said that the fact of his Lordship having been for a short time Governor General entitled his widow to a pension charged on the finances of India.
  VISCOUNT STRATFORD DE RED-GLIFFE, as a very near relation of one of the parties and as a friend of the other, wished to say that he understood the speech of the President of the Council last evening as one which did equal justice to Lord Canning and Lord Elgin. As he had not spoken on the previous occasion their Lordships would allow him to take the opportunity of expressing his satisfaction, and more than satisfaction, at the statement in which his noble Friend the President of the Council had done justice to Lord Elgin and his widow. He had listened with attention to every word which fell from his noble Friend, and he found that the speech of the noble Earl entirely expressed his own feelings on the subject. It was impossible to have heard the recital of the eminent services of Lord Elgin without a feeling of gratification; and it was equally impossible to contemplate the
  1702
  loss the country had sustained by his death without a feeling of the deepest sorrow. He was sure their Lordships all felt grateful to Her Majesty for having given so signal a mark of her appreciation of Lord Elgin's great merits, and for having done justice to an illustrious public servant. It was most satisfactory to find that in a monarchical country such sentiments of gratitude for public services should exist; that those feelings of jealousy which were so often found to prevail in democratic communities had no place here, and that the nation responded to the example given to it by the Crown, and was anxious to do justice to those who deserved well of their country.

SIR ROWLAND HILL, K.C.B.—ADDRESS ON THE QUEEN'S MESSAGE.
Order of the Day for the consideration of the QUEEN'S MESSAGE of the 6th instant read.
MESSAGE read.
EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, last evening I asked your Lordships to concur in measures to secure a pension to the widow of a distinguished Member of your Lordships' House, who, having entered early into the service of the country, fell full of honours, if not of years, before the nation had reaped all the benefits which his great knowledge and experience would have conferred upon it had he been spared to a more advanced age. To-day I have to make a somewhat similar proposal in favour of one who, having entered comparatively late into the public service, and having served the public faithfully for a quarter of a century, now enjoys the satisfaction of seeing the great scheme of his life carried out with entire success, to the great advantage of this country, and, I may add, of the entire world. We can hardly conceive the progress that has been made in postal development without referring back to the postal history of that time. I cannot doubt that your Lordships will entirely concur with the Report of the Committee which sat twenty-five years ago, to inquire into the measure proposed by Mr. Rowland Hill's penny postal scheme. In that Report it is stated that—
"On the management of the Post Office, and the regulation of the postage rates, depends in a great measure the entire correspondence of the Country, and in that correspondence is involved whatever affects, interests, or agitates mankind— private interests, public interests, family, kindred, friends, commercial interests, professional business, literature, science, art, law, politics, education, morals, religion."

1703
They reported on the almost universal evasion of the postage, It was shown that in some of our commercial districts five-sixths and four-fifths of the letters were sent in violation of the law. In some towns only one letter in fifty went through the post office. All over the country the law was systematically violated in the transmission of letters. They found that the system which then existed pressed with peculiar hardship upon the poorer classes in this country. Sir Rowland Hill then brought forward his scheme. I am aware that there is some dispute as to who was the first person to propose the scheme of a penny postage; but every one must acknowledge that, if not quite the foremost, Sir Rowland Hill was one of the foremost in advocating that plan. He was certainly assisted in it by various persons and bodies. Mr. Wallace took an active share in forwarding it. The Chambers of Commerce took an active share, and especially the London Mercantile Committee, of which Lord Overstone was a distinguished member, and which issued papers on the subject marked by great activity and ability. But, whatever were the merits of this advocacy, we are accustomed in this country to ascribe the real credit of any reform to the energy, and industry, and determination of the men who practically carry it out. Great credit is due to the noble Marquess behind me (the Marquess of Clanricarde) for the appointment of Sir Rowland Hill to a position in the Post Office which enabled him to carry out his scheme—for your Lordships must not forget that, however successful the penny postal system may now be, it was much opposed at that time, and Sir Rowland Hill was looked upon as a rash schemer and innovator. But the result of his innovation has been entirely satisfactory, and the number of letters which pass through the post is now nine times what it was twenty-five years ago. It is not only in England, too, that communication by letter has vastly increased. In the colonies there has also been a great increase; and the example set in this country has been followed to a certain extent by every civilized nation. But the scheme for the penny postage does not embrace the whole of the postal reforms introduced, by Sir Rowland Hill. By developing the book post he has conferred a great boon on literature, and has given a great impetus to education, while the money order system has given immense facilities for the transmission of money from one part of the kingdom to the
1704
other, and has assumed extraordinary proportions. Here are some statistics which will show your Lordships what has been the development of the postal system. In 1838, before the penny postal system, the total number of letters which passed through the Post Office was 76,000,000; in 1863 the number was 642,000,000. In 1838 the amount of money orders was £313,000; in 1863 it amounted to £16,494,000. My Lords, I think I have stated enough to show that one who has accomplished so much for the people of this country, and for mankind at large, is entitled to some national reward; and I am sure your Lordships will pass this Vote with the same cordiality with which you yesterday evinced your sense of the merits of another public servant. The noble Earl concluded with his Motion.
Moved,
"That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, to return Her Majesty the Thanks of this House for Her Majesty's most gracious Message informing this House 'That Her Majesty, taking into consideration the eminent Services of Sir Rowland Hill, K.C.B., late Secretary to the General Post Office, in devising and carrying out important improvements in Postal Administration, is desirous, in recognition of such Services, to confer some signal Mark of Her Favour upon him;' and to assure Her Majesty that this House will cheerfully concur in such Measures as may be necessary for the Accomplishment of this Purpose."—(The Lord President.)
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he desired to express his entire approval of the Motion. There was this peculiarity in Sir Rowland Hill—that whereas inventors in general were the most sanguine of men who saw no difficulties in the way, and who exaggerated the probable results of their invention, he under-stated the value of his invention and over-estimated the difficulties and the expense of adopting it. He calculated that from the adoption of his scheme there would be a loss of £300,000, instead of which the gross increase of revenue had been £1,700,000; and after deducting £500,000 for the packet service and all other expenses, there was a clear net increase of £1,000,000. He agreed with his valued friend the late Lord Ashburton, that the carriage of letters was not a proper subject of revenue at all. With regard to the proposal now before the House, he could not doubt that their Lordships would be of opinion that Sir Rowland Hill well deserved the reward which was to be bestowed on him.
THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEhad the satisfaction of remembering that

1705
being then Postmaster General it was under him and through him in some degree that Sir Rowland Hill had entered the Post Office, and he felt bound to bear testimony to the extraordinary zeal for the public service, the judgment, the discretion, the temper, and unvarying urbanity with which he met all the difficulties that he had to encounter. Of course those who had been accustomed to the old system viewed the innovation proposed with great alarm and suspicion. He attributed no blame to these officers, believing that the opinions given by them against the new system were founded upon very natural fears and bias. As their Lordships were aware, the plan, on the contrary, proved eminently successful, and that success was owing in a great degree to the energetic perseverance of Sir Rowland Hill. But penny postage, as his noble Friend had said, was not the only improvement for which the nation had to thank Sir Rowland Hill. His belief was, that if it had not been for Sir Rowland Hill the business in the Money Order Office would not have reached to one-sixteenth of its present proportions—he doubted, in deed, whether that business would have been carried on any longer. No balance had been struck, and no one could tell what assets were in hand. He then asked Mr. Hill, who at that time had introduced some important improvements in the circulation of letters, to take this subject in hand. The result of that gentleman's efforts was to establish, if not an exact balance, at least what practically amounted to it; the system was materially altered, and instead of eleven entries for every money order the number was reduced to four or five, and since that time he had heard of no defalcation or fraud on the part of postmasters, such as had frequently occurred before that time. There could be no question whatever that the system had been productive of immense benefit to the lower and the humbler portions of the middle classes. During the time that he had the honour to be connected with the Post Office he always found that Sir Rowland Hill laboured zealously and efficiently, and always to his satisfaction. When objections to his plans were raised, Sir Rowland Hill always received them in a fair and temperate manner, and never complained of being overruled when fair grounds for so doing had been shown. Upon the whole, this country had never rewarded by a grant of money any public
1706
servant who more richly deserved it. Sir Rowland Hill's name would live in every country, for every country had derived benefit from his labours.
Motion agreed to.
Address Ordered, Nemine Dissentiente, to be presented to Her Majesty, to return Her Majesty the Thanks of this House for Her Majesty's most gracious Message informing this House,
"That Her Majesty, taking into consideration the eminent Services of Sir Rowland Hill, K.C.B., late Secretary to the General Post Office, in devising and carrying out important Improvements in Postal Administration, is desirous, in recognition of such Services, to confer some signal Mark of Her Favour upon him;" and to assure Her Majesty that this House will cheerfully concur in such Measures as may be necessary for the Accomplishment of this Purpose."
And the said Address was Ordered to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

MORTGAGE DEBENTURES BILL.

  (NO. 107.) REPORT.
  Amendments reported (according to Order).
  THE EARL OF MALMESBURY, on behalf of the Duke of Marlborough, moved the insertion of a new clause, providing that in cases where, by the instrument creating the trust, trustees are expressly authorized to invest the trust money upon the security of land or real property, they or the major part of them may apply to the Court of Chancery in England or Ireland, or to the Court of Session in Scotland, for an order or declaration of the Court empowering the trustees to invest any monies subject to the trust upon the security of mortgage debentures issued under this Act.
  After a short discussion, Amendment negatived.
  Bill to be read 3a on Thursday next.

ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS AND REGIS TRIES (IRELAND) BILL—(No. 96.)

  COMMITTEE.
  Order of the Day for the House to be put into a Committee on this Bill read.
  THE BISHOP OF OXFORDsaid, that his right rev. Brother the Bishop of Exeter, who had given notice of a Motion, on going into Committee on this Bill, to move that a Select Committee be appointed to consider and report on the Modes of Appeal proposed in the 83rd, 84th, and 85th. sec-

  1707
  tions of the Bill, had requested him to state to their Lordships that he had become so exhausted in his efforts to come to. and remain in the House, that he could not stay until this Bill was brought on. But as the most rev. Primate of Ireland bed intimated his intention not to proceed with the clauses which, were objected to that night, he (the Bishop of Oxford) would not move the Amendment of his right rev. Brother; and he would take that opportunity of stating that he would withdraw the Amendment of which he had himself given notice and leave the matter in the hands of the most rev. Prelate.
  House in Committee.
  Clauses 1 to 82 agreed to.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF ARMACHmoved to omit Clauses, 83, 84. and 85.
  THE EARL OF BELMOREsaid, that although he Bought that the most rev. Prelate had taken a prudent course in consenting to the rejection of these clauses, which related to the question of the final appeal in matters of doctrine, when he found that, from the state of feeling in the House with regard, to them, to press them would endanger the safety of the Bill, it was a matter very much to be regretted that it was rendered necessary to give them up. The Court of Final Appeal in Ireland at present was the Court of Delegates, which he was informed consisted of three Puisne Judges and a certain, number of civilians. Now, in: Ireland, there were nine Puisne Judges, six of whom were now Roman Catholics, so that practically there were only three Judges who could be members of this court. Of the remaining persons, namely, the civilians, he doubted if there were any who were well qualified to undertake this sort of duty. With regard to the alternative, namely, the Judicial Committee (of the English Privy Council) he would not undertake to say whether it was a satisfactory tribunal or not, but what he wished to. insist upon was, that he considered that under the 5th Article of the Act of Union, the Church of Ireland had an absolute right to have in matters of doctrine the same Court of Final Appeal as the Church of England. The terms of that Article were, that, the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government; of the said Church (meaning the Church of Ireland) shall be and shall remain, in full force for ever, as the same are by law established for the Church of England." And he (Lord Belmore) could not see now, as long as there
  1708
  were two separate Courts of Final Appeal this uniformity could be made certain. At the same time, as he said before, he thought that the most rev. Prelate had exercised a wise discretion in now yielding this point, which might be more successfully brought forward another day, rather than risk the safety of this very important measure.
  Clauses struck out.
  Remaining clauses agreed to.
  Report of the Amendments to be received on Friday next; and Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 132.)
  House adjourned at half past Seven o'clock, to Thursday next, half past Ten o'clock.