Sitting of 23 June 1864

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Resolutions in Committee—Harwich Harbour Act*.
Ordered—Inclosure (No. 2); Harwich Harbour Act.
First Reading—Public Schools* [Bill 168] (Lords): Mortgage Debentures* [Bill 169] (Lords); Inclosure (No. 2)* [Bill 170]; Harwich Harbour Act Amendment [Bill 171].
Second Reading—Weighing of Grain (Port of London) [Bill 119]; Inland Revenue (Stamp Duties)* [Bill 159].
Committee—Local Government Supplemental (No. 2)* [Bill 147]; Settled Estates Act Amendment* [Bill 142] (Lords).
Report—Local Government Supplemental (No. 2)* [Bill 147]; Settled Estates Act Amendment* [Bill 142] (Lords).
Considered as amended—Railways Construction Facilities* [Bill 111].
Third Reading—Accidents Compensation Act Amendment* [Bill 143], and passed.

ARMY—ENGINEER OFFICERS AT SOUTH KENSINGTON.

  QUESTION.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of

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  State for War, What is the number of Engineer Officers and Men employed at South Kensington, and what are the duties they perform?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON,in reply, said, that there were two Engineer Officers at present employed in the South Kensington Museum, and a third was about to enter on his duties there. There were also twelve Sappers and Miners usually employed in superintending the lighting and other arrangements, and in learning the arts of photography and drawing. These officers were not, however, borne upon the Estimates of the War Department, but were entirely connected with the Museum. For a detailed explanation of their duties he must refer the noble Lord to one of his right hon. Friends to whose Department they were attached.

ARMY—RIFLE PRACTICE NEAR THE NEW CROYDON RAILWAY.

  QUESTION.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he would beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, Whether his attention has been called to the situation of the Butt which has been erected for Rifle Practice near the New Croydon Railway, between the Streatham Common and the Thornton Heath Stations; and whether the War Office are satisfied that the Range can be used without danger to the public?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONreplied that the Rifle Range in question had been examined, as all Ranges were, by an Officer, who reported satisfactorily on it, and stated it was safe. The Railway Company also were consulted as to the arrangement prepared for the safety of the trains, and no objection had been raised until within a very few days ago, when Mr. Richards called the attention of the War Department to the alleged danger to the railway in question. It was immediately arranged that one of the Assistant Inspectors of Volunteers should proceed to re-inspect the Range. He would have gone down that day, but Mr. Richards could not have met him, but he would go down to-morrow and meet Mr. Richards and several Volunteer Officers, and inspect the Butt.

ARMY—MARCHWOOD POWDER MAGAZINE.—QUESTION.
MR. ALDERMAN ROSEsaid, he would beg to ask the Under Secretary of State
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for War, What is the actual quantity of Gunpowder stored at Marchwood Magazine; and if he has the opinion of competent Military Officers as to the safety of Southampton in the event of an explosion of this Magazine?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON,in reply, said, the quantity of gunpowder at present stored at Marchwood was 50,000 tons. It was not stored in one magazine, but in seven distinct magazines, and the greatest quantity in any one of them was 28,000 barrels. Before the hon. Member gave notice of this question, inconsequence of some apprehension that existed in the minds of the people of Southampton, a Report was called for from Colonel Gordon, commanding the Engineers, the principal officer of artillery, and the storekeeper, with regard to the safety of the magazine, and they stated that they had examined it very minutely, and they were of opinion there was no place in which powder might be stored with greater safety than at Marchwood. It was a mile and a half from Southampton, in a district not very densely populated. There were no houses near it except those occupied by government officials. The most stringent regulations were in force; they were far more strict than those applying to private magazines; and from the position of the magazines and the excellent manner in which they were managed, he thought that there was no reason to apprehend any danger.

ARMY—FIELD ALLOWANCE TO TROOPS ON THE GOLD COAST.—QUESTION.
GENERAL PEELsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, in reference to his statement that the Troops landed from the Megæra, in August, 1863, on the Gold Coast were not intended to wage war against the King of the Ashantees, Whether those Troops had not drawn field allowance before they sailed from Jamaica; and, if so, on what grounds it had been granted to them?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON,in reply, said, the Troops which landed from the Megæra on the Gold Coast from the West Indies had not the field allowance before they left Jamaica. Colonel Conran landed in August, and on the 7th September he acquainted the Home authorities, that as it was probable the troops he had landed under his command would have to take the field, he had sanctioned the issue

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of the allowance, and also permitted the men to draw it from the day of their embarkation, It was, perhaps, somewhat irregular to do so. There was some little doubt whether the antedating should be permitted, but under all the circumstances of the case it was permitted, and the allowance was drawn from the date of embarkation; and it was not till the 7th September that Colonel Conran informed the War Department that he had sanctioned it.

ARMY—REQUISITION FROM THE WAR OFFICE TO THE ADMIRALTY.

  QUESTION.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, The date and terms of any Requisition from the War Office to the Admiralty for transports to remove the Troops from the Gold Coast; and whether such Requisition was marked "pressing" and "immediate," and what was the answer to it?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON,in reply, said, it would be recollected that the Secretary of State for the Colonies on the 20th of May made a statement to the House respecting the arrangements made for the withdrawal of the Troops from the Gold Coast. On the following day all the arrangements respecting the withdrawal were made between his right hon. Friend (Mr. Cardwell) and the Secretary of State for War. On the same day letters wire written from the War Office to the Admiralty and the Horse Guards informing them of the determination that had been come to. Both those letters were marked "pressing" and "immediate."
  SIR HARRY VERNEYsaid, he wished to know whether the sanitary arrangements for Field Service laid down by the late Lord Herbert have been attended to?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Will my hon. Friend give notice of his Question?
  GENERAL PEEL: The noble Lord has not answered the latter part of my Question. What was the answer from the Admiralty?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: The Admiralty replied immediately by letter through the Horse Guards, asking what number of Troops would have to be conveyed. The letter from the War Office stated that it had been determined to remove a considerable portion of the force from the Gold Coast, and requested that the requisite quantity of freight might be taken up for their removal.

INDIA—BANDA AND KIRWEE BOOTY.

  QUESTION.
  GENERAL PEELsaid, he would bog to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, From what source the expense of the reference to the Admiralty Court in the case of Banda and Kirwee Booty is to be defrayed?
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Sir, according to the general practice of the Court of Admiralty, the expense of any proceeding in regard to Prize Money is paid out of the general proceeds of the Prize Money, and is not charged to the individual officers except in cases in which, in the opinion of the Judge, the allegations of the parties have been improper, unfounded, or deserving to be visited by costs. A reference has been made by the Government, but there are several other claims besides those of the Banda claimants to which the attention of the Court of Admiralty is to be directed, and I cannot say whether the Court will be of opinion that they have been improperly brought forward or not.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: Will the noble Lord lay on the table the terms of the reference to the Court of Admiralty?
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Yes, if the hon. Gentleman will move for it.

THE ROYAL FORESTS.—QUESTION.
MR. COXsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether any steps have been taken to carry into effect the recommendation of the Select Committee on Royal Forests (Essex) presented on the 9th day of June, 1863, which recommendation was as follows:—
"Your Committee report that a considerable extent of Ground has been enclosed without any consideration being paid for the Forestal Right of the Crown over them, which do not appear to have been either purchased or redeemed: and your Committee recommend that immediate steps be taken by the Crown to assert its right and to abate such enclosures."
MR. PEELsaid, in reply, that the recommendation was only one of several made by the Committee. They also recommended that the forests should be enclosed, and the forestal rights of the Crown sold. Various reasons had prevented the recommendation from being carried out, but the general subject was receiving the attention of the Treasury.

UNCLAIMED WRECK.—QUESTION.
MR. ROGERSsaid, he wished to ask the President of the Board of Trade, When a Return on the subject of Unclaimed Wreck, ordered on the 29th of April, will be laid upon the table?
MR. HUTTsaid, in the absence of his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, he had to state that all the information was not yet obtained, but he believed it would be complete in a few days.

ANNUAL REPORT ON OUR COLONIAL POSSESSIONS.—QUESTION.
MR. ROGERSsaid, he would also beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, When the Annual Report for 1863, on the state of our Colonial Possessions, presented on March 18th, will be in the hands of Members?
MR. CARDWELLsaid, in reply, that the first part of the Report for 1863 was almost ready to be delivered, and the second part was in the hands of the printer.

NAVY—THE "RESEARCH."—QUESTION.
SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether the attention of Her Majesty's Government has been drawn to the Report of an action which took place last Sunday between the United States frigate Kearsarge and the Confederate ship Alabama; and whether they have considered the Report of the Commander-in-Chief at Devonport on the preparation for battle of Her Majesty's ship Research. With the permission of the House he would read the Report of the Commander-in-Chief at Devonport. It was as follows:—
"The space in the battery is so confined that the men have not room to work the guns with that facility that is required. 1. The battery is 33ft. in length by 32ft. in breadth inside; within this space are four heavy guns, upwards of 80 men, funnel, wheel, hatchway for supplying powder and shell. 2. There is a difficulty in traversing the guns from the broadside to the bow and quarter ports. 3. When the broadside guns were fired with extreme train, foremost ones to the left, after ones to the right, the captains of them could not stand to direct and fire them. These points being of great importance, I have considered it right to bring them before the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty."
He would also beg to ask, Whether, as the last named Report shows, that this class of ship cannot fight her guns with advantage, and the first named Report shows that she
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will easily be destroyed in action, Her Majesty's Government will continue to build ships which cannot be expected either to fight or swim; and he would further ask, as the advantage of guns of large calibre has been so clearly shown in the above named action, whether Her Majesty's Government will at once obtain a proper supply of large rifled guns for the service of the Navy?
LORD CLARENCE PAGET: In answer, Sir, to the Question of the hon. and gallant Member, I have to state that the Admiralty have considered, as I suppose everybody else has done, the report of the action which took place last Sunday between the Kearsarge and the Alabama, which, I may remark, however, has no reference whatever to the Question of the Research. The Admiralty have likewise considered the Report of the Commander-in-Chief at Devonport on the preparation for battle of Her Majesty's Research. That Report goes to the effect that there is not room enough to work the guns, in consequence of the wheel, funnel, and other matters being within the battery. We are taking steps to remove them. These, however, are matters of detail, and in other respects I have no reason to believe that there is any dissatisfaction with the Research. A few days ago I was on board that vessel, and I asked the captain—a young, active, and intelligent officer—whether he was satisfied with her fighting qualities. He replied that he was perfectly satisfied on that point. With respect to the comparison which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has drawn between the Research and the Alabama, perhaps he is not aware that the Alabama was a wooden ship of light scantling, whereas the Research is armour-plated. Therefore, there can be no comparison drawn between the two ships. With regard to the further Question, whether Her Majesty's Government will continue to build ships which cannot be expected either to fight or swim, I must state that Her Majesty's Government have no intention to build ships that can neither fight nor swim. These vessels are undergoing a fair trial, and I ask for them fair play. I ask likewise fair play for another experimental ship going out in a few days—the Royal Sovereign, designed by a talented officer of the Navy, Captain Coles. I shall be happy to make a frank statement in regard to these ships when they have undergone a fair trial. With respect to the

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third Question, about the guns, the hon. and gallant Member must be aware that the Government are taking steps to procure heavier rifled guns. The hon. and gallant Gentleman was present at the trials at Shoeburyness, when the average weight of shot was 167 lbs., the average charge; of powder was 30lbs., and the heaviest charge was as high as 50 lbs. The weight of the heaviest shot was 300 lbs. The Admiralty have ordered a considerable number of 10½-inch guns, throwing 150 lbs, shot, smooth bore, and they have likewise ordered a large number of 7-inch rifled 100 pounders. The Prince Albert, the Royal Sovereign, and the Minotaur will go to sea carrying 12-ton guns, throwing 10½-inch shot. I think this will show that the Government are alive to the importance of the subject.

NAVY—THE TRANSPORT "GLADIATOR."

  QUESTION.
  SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he also wished to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, To lay upon the table of the House any Reports from Captain Shortt, of the Gladiator, on the subject of the convenience and capacity of that ship for the conveyance of troops during this Commission.
  LORD CLARENCE PAGETstated, in reply, that it was very objectionable to lay on the table Reports of Officers to the heads of Departments. Therefore he could not agree to lay upon the table the Reports to which the hon. Baronet had referred; but if the hon. Baronet chose to move for them upon a future occasion, he (Lord C. Paget) would be ready to state his reasons for not agreeing to the Motion.

ARMY—TRIAL OF HEAVY RIFLED GUNS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. MONSELLsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, What is the cause of the delay in the competitive trial to be made by the Ordnance Select Committee of the heavy rifled guns on various systems now lying ready at Woolwich; and whether there is any reason for delaying this trial until the extended trial, by another Committee, of the Armstrong and Whitworth systems is brought to a conclusion?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON,in reply, said, the experimental establishment at Shoeburyness was almost entirely engaged in the trial of the Armstrong and
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  Whitworth systems, and it was quite impossible that the Ordnance Select Committee, to whom was intrusted the trial of the other systems of rifling, could carry on their course of experiments at the same time. A proposal, however, had a short time ago been made, that the trial of the heavy rifled guns on various systems should be made at Woolwich at short range as far as it could be done without danger, and that proposal was now under consideration by the Horse Guards.

DOCKS AT MALTA.—QUESTION.
CAPTAIN TALBOTsaid, before putting the Question of which he had given notice, he wished, by way of explanation, to state he had lately received a letter, written by an eminent Member of Council. ["Order!" "Question!"] Well, his Question was, To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Government have received a letter, dated the 10th of June, from the Chamber of Commerce of Malta to His Excellency the Governor of Malta, expressing their hopes "that His Excellency the Governor will be pleased to direct the necessary steps to be taken in order to obtain from Her Majesty's Government the abandonment of the contemplated Dock at the Marsa, in view of the very serious inconvenience to which it will subject the Mercantile Marine after it shall have been extended from the French Creek;" whether he is aware that this letter was decided on in a very full meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, composed of the principal Merchants of Malta, and that the letter contains a request that it may be forwarded to the Home Government; and whether there will be any objection on the part of Her Majesty's Government to lay this letter upon the table of the House?
MR. CARDWELL,in reply, said, he had not received the letter alluded to by the hon. and gallant Member, but as soon as it arrived he would be happy to lay it on the table.
CAPTAIN TALBOTsaid, he would now beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, whether the report is true that the works of the proposed new Dock at Malta are being carried on with great activity, although the Vote for that work has not yet been sanctioned by Parliament, and the question is now under the consideration of the Committee sitting upon Docks and Basins.
LORD CLARENCE PAGETreplied that immediately after he announced in the House that the Vote for the proposed Dock at Malta would not be proceeded with, a telegram was sent to the Admiral on the station—namely, on the 5th of May last—to the effect that while the Question was under the consideration of the Select Committee, the works of the Marsa Dock were to be suspended.

UNITED STATES—CASE OF MR. JAMES M'HUGH.—QUESTION.
MR. BUTTsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, When the papers relative to the case of Mr. James M'Hugh, moved for on the 14th of June, will be produced; and whether any Communication has been received from the Government of the United States holding out any expectation of an early release of Mr. M'Hugh?
MR. LAYARD,in reply, said, he expected by every mail to hear of the release of Mr. M'Hugh, and he hoped he might be able to lay it on the table to-morrow.

ASHANTEE WAR—OFFICERS AT CAPE COAST CASTLE.—QUESTION.
MR. LONGFIELDsaid, he rose to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, If the same consideration which is shown to the relatives of Officers who fall in battle will be extended to the relatives of those Officers who lost their lives in the late campaign on the Gold Coast; and if the purchase money for the Commission of the late Major Merrick will be returned to his representatives?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, in reply, that the Pension Warrant did not sanction the issue of the same pension to the relatives of Officers who had died of disease as to the relatives of those who had fallen in action. With reference to the latter part of the Question the relatives of Captain (not Major) Merrick would not receive the price of his commission, because the Warrant also laid it down that the purchase money should be returned in the case of Officers who had been killed in action, or had died of their wounds within six months; but, as he stated the other night, Captain Merrick landed from the Megæra in August, 1863, and died of fever at Cape Coast Castle in the following October, and had never taken part, as far as he was aware, in any expedition to the interior.

STAMP DUTIES—ORDERS ON BANKERS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. ALDERMAN SALOMONSsaid, he would beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether it is true that an order addressed to bankers or other persons for any payment of money, whether as dividend or otherwise, and which hitherto has been exempt from Stamp Duty, as being neither a Letter nor a Power of Attorney, is, by a new construction put by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue on the Act of the present Session, to be made liable to the Duty of Five Shillings, or any other Duties charged on Letters or Powers of Attorney; and, if so, whether such new construction will not be a great hardship on individuals, and an interference with established usage?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, in reply, that his hon. Friend must have been misinformed—at least, the facts which had come within his (the Chancellor of the Exchequer's) knowledge were entirely different. The Act of the present Session had no bearing on this subject, except to reduce the Duties which were recited in it, and were not applicable to the instruments of which his hon. Friend had spoken. No new construction had been put on the law as it stood, and as it had stood before the Act of the present Session. What had taken place was this—some persons felt a doubt as to whether the orders to which his hon. Friend had referred were liable to Stamp Duty, as was the case with Powers of Attorney, and the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown was that they were so liable. But the date of that opinion was as old as the month of December, 1860, and he was not cognizant of any further proceedings having been taken since that time. It was not a question of penalty, no penalty being imposed for not using a stamp. It was purely a question of discretion in the parties as to the legality of the instrument they used, and the risk of being unable to enforce it in case it should be questioned in a court of justice.
  MR. ALDERMAN SALOMONSsaid, the answer of the right hon. Gentleman was perfectly satisfactory.

PENAL SERVITUDE ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.—QUESTION.
MR. HUNTsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home De-

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partment, If he will fix some convenient time for the Consideration of The Lords' Amendments to the Penal Servitude Acts Amendment Bill?
SIR GEORGE GREYreplied, that the Bill had been returned from the House of Lords only within the last five minutes. He proposed to have the Amendments printed, and then that a proper opportunity should be given for taking them into consideration,

NAVY—THE "GLADIATOR."

  QUESTION.
  LORD STANLEYsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether it is true that the Gladiator was lately required to carry troops, to the number of two hundred, to Dublin; that objection was made, on the ground of insufficient space, and that the number was accordingly reduced to one hundred and forty and whether he will produce any Correspondence that may have passed on the subject?
  LORD CLARENCE PAGETsaid, there was no objection, if the noble Lord wished to move for it, to produce the Correspondence; but if the House would allow him he would read a very short statement which would explain what had occurred—
  "The Aurora, Gladiator, and Geyser were ordered on the 21st of May to be in readiness to take a Battalion of the 60th Rifles to Dublin, and the distribution of officers and men was as follows:—Aurora, 12 officers, 300 men, 20 women, 24 children, 2 horses; Gladiator, 12 officers, 250 men, 26 women, 30 children, 2 horses; Geyser, 11 officers, 160 men, 20 women, 16 children, 1 horse. Subsequently a Report from the Commander-in-Chief, dated June 3, was received by the Admiralty suggesting another distribution of the troops to prevent the inconveniences that would be occasioned by the women and children to be embarked, and finally the embarkation as now stated was approved; Aurora to take 15 officers, 450 soldiers, 2 horses; the Gladiator, to take 10 officers, 194 soldiers, 1 horse; the Geyser, to take 10 officers, 66 soldiers, 2 horses, and 66 women (wives of the above men), and 70 children."
  With regard to the capacity of vessels for carrying troops, as the House had been in some doubt in consequence of the statements and counter-statements which had been made, he would observe that the Gladiator was of 1,210 tons, and was reported as capable of carrying 400 troops for five days, while the Devastation, which was 200 tons less than the Gladiator, was reported by her captain to be able to take 1,000 men for five days. He had there a
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  list of the capacity of several vessels for the transport of troops, and it varied very greatly, and it was for the Admiralty in each case to determine the number which the ships ought to carry. If the House would permit him, he would refer to a letter which had appeared in The Times of that day from the hon, and gallant Member for Portsmouth (Sir James Elphinstone) on the subject of the removal of these troops. It was usual, when they had debates in that House, that hon. Members should get up and speak what they had to say, rather than write letters to the newspapers. This was a matter in which the House had expressed great interest—namely, the conveyance of troops from the West Indies, and perhaps the House would permit him to read a letter which he had received from the Hydrographer of Her Majesty's Navy.
  MR. DISRAELI: Sir, I rise to order. I am sure the House will give permission to the noble Lord to make any statement which he may think necessary for the advantage of the public service, or in vindication of his own conduct, but it can only be made on that understanding. The noble Lord is now taking a highly irregular course.
  LORD CLARENCE PAGET: It is a personal explanation—not that my personal character is in the least involved in it.
  MR. SPEAKER: If the noble Lord wishes to make a personal explanation I have no doubt the House will permit him to do so, but I lather understand from him that it is not a personal matter.
  LORD CLARENCE PAGET: It is so far a personal explanation that I stated to the House the reasons which induced the Government to send troops from Cape Coast to the West Indies under particular circumstances, and I wish to refer to the way in which my statement was contradicted by the hon. and gallant Member—[Cries of "Order, order!" in the midst of which the noble Lord resumed his seat.]

DENMARK AND GERMANY. THE CONFERENCE.—QUESTION.
MR. DISRAELI: Sir, I would take this opportunity of asking the noble Viscount the First Minister of the Crown, Whether he has any communication to make to the House with respect to the proceedings of the Conference yesterday?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Sir, the Question of the right hon. Gentleman is a very natural one, and I am quite aware

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that not only the anxiety of the House, but that of the public at large, upon the subject to which it relates, is entitled to some communication from Her Majesty's Government. The Conference met yesterday, in the afternoon, after the Levee, and it adjourned to Saturday, when it will meet at an earlier hour. The probability is that that meeting of Saturday will be the last and final meeting of the Conference; and it will be my duty on Monday to lay upon the table of this House all the papers connected with the proceedings of the Conference—I hope including the proceedings that may take place on Saturday. I shall also feel it my duty, and my noble Friend in the other House will also feel it to be his duty in his place, not only to lay the papers on the table of the House, but to make a statement connected with the transactions to which the papers relate.
MR. HUNT: Sir, I should like to ask the noble Lord, whether the Conference will meet on Saturday to deliberate, or simply to go through some formulary? I think this House is entitled to know whether the Conference has closed its deliberations or not, and whether it meets on Saturday to go through some matter of form?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: I stated my opinion that the meeting on Saturday will be the final meeting. It is impossible for me to say what will take place at a meeting not yet assembled. I say that on Monday I shall lay on the table a Report of all the proceedings of the Conferences, accompanied, I hope, by the proceedings of Saturday.
MR. DISRAELI: I conclude from what the noble Lord says, that the documents he proposes to lay upon the table will be in the hands of Members on Tuesday.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: They will be laid on the table on Monday, and I presume they will be distributed with the papers on the following morning.

WEIGHING OF CORN (PORT OF LONDON).

  [BILL 119.] SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. CRAWFORDsaid, he rose to move the second reading of the Bill, and with a view of correcting some misapprehensions which prevailed on the subject, both in and out of the House, he would take the opportunity of briefly stating the objects of the measure. From time im-
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  memorial the corporation of the City of London possessed the right of measuring all corn that came into the port, and was entitled to all the profits and emoluments arising from the discharge of that duty. It was, in fact, an office of profit. It was not an office to which a simple duty was attached, but an office of profit in the strict sense of the term. The City claimed its right to the office from prescription, from a time to which legal memory did not go back. As far back as the time of King John the right was possessed by the City, and the right was then in dispute. It was disputed again in the reign of James I., and the dispute was finally settled by the grant of a charter confirming the City in the prescriptive right which they had enjoyed for so many centuries. That right was further recognized by the Royal Commission of 1853. By an Act of the current Session, introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Customs and Inland Revenue Act, it was provided that henceforth the duties on grain should be ascertained by weight and not by measurement. That Act was to come into force on the 1st of September, and if no further provision were made, the consequence would be that the Government would require the grain to be weighed, while the corporation would claim their right of having it measured. He (Mr. Crawford) had, therefore, moved the insertion of a proviso saving the right of the City; but he was advised to provide for the case by special legislation. Hence the present Bill. The gentlemen representing the corn trade had placed themselves in communication with the corporation. They were met by the City in a liberal spirit, and the terms come to were fair both to the public and to the trade. Those terms were embodied in the Bill. It commenced by reciting the rights of the City, in terms identical with those used in the Coal Act of 1861, the change which had taken place in the law during the Session in regard to levying duties on grain, and that it was necessary that various small duties now levied should be commuted. It then provided for the levying of a duty of three-eighths of a penny on every cwt. of grain brought into the port of London, the payment of a certain amount of compensation to the Lord Mayor and other officers, who had been in the habit of receiving emoluments out of the existing charges, and the payment of compensation to the small

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  meters and other persons who might be affected by the Bill. Since it had been printed he had had the opportunity of further considering the matter, and the result had been a modification of the Bill, defining what articles should be considered grain, and providing that grain brought into the City by vessels which did not break bulk, should not be subjected to the duty. The Bill, which had been reprinted in its amended form, accordingly provided for a drawback on grain brought into the port of London and exported without being unloaded or broken in bulk. As the Bill stood, the duty was charged on all corn, pulse, and seeds. The corporation proposed to except seeds brought into the port in sacks or casks. These charges the City were willing to forego. But that was not all. When a cargo arrived a report had to be made at the Mansion House, and the charges arising from that process amounted to about £2,000. The City proposed to dispense with the Mansion House formalities, and to remit the charges connected with them. The City would give up £3,000 a year, which was the difference between the new rate per cwt, and the old rate per quarter, and would hear all the compensations to corn-meters and other persons affected by the Bill. By accepting this arrangement the public would be guaranteed against any excess in the charge for weighing above the rate fixed, on account of any rise in the cost of labour or other cause. On the whole, very little would be left to the City in the shape of revenue. In favour of the Bill there were, first, the corporation of the City of London, and next they had the great body of the corn trade. The Chairman of the Committee of the Corn Trade had written a letter to The Times pointing out the advantages which the corn trade would derive from the City performing the office of weighing as it had hitherto done that of measuring. There would be a saving in the charges, and the proper execution of the duty would be guaranteed. The writer added that the arrangement proposed was deemed satisfactory by the trade. Another correspondent of The Times, under the signature of "Civis," also bore testimony to the benefit which the corn trade would derive from the Bill. It had been stated in another letter in the same journal, that a Committee of the House of Commons had recommended the abolition of metage. In the year 1858 a Bill was brought in by the Home Secretary, the 53rd clause of which pro-
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  vided that metage should be abolished, and the 56th clause rendered the City liable for all the compensation to be given to those who might suffer under the operation of the measure. The corporation were heard against these provisions, which were, however, passed with this modification, that the metage should continue for ten years. Subsequently a Motion was made for the recommittal of the Bill, but the debate was cut short, and the Session came to a close without any further steps being taken, and since then nothing had been done. Besides the parties to whom he had referred as being favourable to the Bill, petitions in support of it had been presented from the small meters and the Fellowship Porters. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets had given notice of a Motion the effect of which was to treat the Bill as a Private Bill. Now the Bill was not promoted as a Private Bill. It was a supplement to the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill of the present Session, and had been rendered necessary not by any Act of the City, but by the force of legislation. In the next place, it concerned the trade of the metropolis, and the whole district between Staines and Erith, and therefore claimed to be treated as a Public Bill. It also concerned the collection of the public revenue and the rights of the City, which bad been dealt with over and over again by Acts of Parliament, such as the corn and wine duties, and other Acts of a similar nature. Without offering any opinion as to the construction of the Standing Orders, he trusted the House would treat the Bill as a Public Bill and give it a second reading.
  MR. A. RUSSELLseconded the Motion.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Crawford.)
  MR. AYRTON,in rising to move the Amendment of which he had given notice, said, the Bill ought to be treated as a private measure because its object was to gain a private advantage for the corporation of London. In principle there was really no difference between the Bill before the House and a Bill promoted by the London and North Western Railway Company, or any other trading association. Let the House look at the manner in which it was introduced. Bills levying duties ought to be founded upon a Resolution previously passed in Committee of the whole House. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had brought

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  in a Bill relative to the payment of certain duties by weight instead of by measure. It was preceded by a Resolution in Committee, stating the amount of duty to be proposed, and it could not be carried beyond the amount agreed to in Committee. Now, that method of proceeding had not been followed in the present instance, though when the Bill came to be examined in detail it would be seen that a private Member should, under no circumstances, be permitted to exercise a power of legislation which was not enjoyed by any responsible Minister of the Crown. But the hon. Member must not be let off from the other horn of the dilemma. The hon. Member had described the Bill as a Private Bill. Now, what were the rules of the House on that subject? They provided that all Bills of a private nature should be classified, and class No. 1 specified, amongst others, "Charters of Corporations, enlarging or altering powers of," one branch of which were Bills levying or altering tolls, rates, or duties. The Bill recited the right of the corporation to measure certain commodities, including grain, and to receive for their own use the wages, rewards, fees, and profits arising therefrom; and it then went on to enact that for every hundredweight of grain brought into the port of London there should be paid to the Mayor and commonalty a sum of three-eighths of a penny. That was the whole taxing power of the Bill, and that tax was to be paid whether any service was performed or not. It was true that other clauses provided that the grain should be weighed if people desired it, and that the work should be done by the fraternity called the Fellowship Porters, who were to be paid for what they did at the rate of ¾d. per cwt. for cargoes under 50 cwt., and ½d. per cwt. above. So that when they came to the working men the corporation knew well enough how to draw the Bill. The men were to be paid only when they did work, but the corporation were to receive the dues without doing anything for them. After that statement of the object and nature of the Bill, he thought there could be no doubt that it fell within the Standing Orders as to Private Bills. The hon. Member, in speaking of the corporate rights, had done well to say that they went back to a period to which the memory of man did not run, especially as the corporation had destroyed their records; at least, being the keepers of them, when it was inconvenient to pro-
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  duce them the corporation said that they could not be found. It unfortunately happened, however, that in the last century they came to Parliament for assistance; and, being required to show what was their actual pecuniary position, they made a statement which was upon the Journals of the House, and in which there was no mention of a single shilling of profit or revenue derived from those sources which the hon. Gentleman said that they had enjoyed from time immemorial. It was true that they claimed the right to appoint meters, but that was all.
  MR. ALDERMAN SIDNEYasked the hon. Gentleman when he alleged that the corporation destroyed their records?
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that it was at the time that the corporation appointed a Committee of Secrecy to raise money to pay their debts, which Committee forthwith embarked in transactions which led to the painful scene that occurred in that House when, some hon. Member having asked Mr. Speaker a question with respect to the corporation funds, he left the chair and never appeared again. From that time till 1834 the corporation did very much as they liked, for there were then no Members for the Tower Hamlets. The Royal Commission of 1854 mentioned this claim, as the hon. Member for the City had stated, but they expressed their opinion that the duty ought to cease; and in 1856 a Bill was introduced by the noble Lord (Lord Palmerston), the right hon. Baronet(Sir George Grey) and the then Attorney General, to abolish it. As the present Home Secretary said on one occasion, the obstructive dining power of the corporation was such that it was almost impossible to proceed with a Bill against them, and that measure was withdrawn. In 1858 another Bill was brought in, which also proposed to abolish this tax. That Bill was referred to a Select Committee. The corporation were heard by counsel before the Committee. [Mr. CRAWFORD: Upon one clause only.] The corporation had an opportunity of putting anything before the Committee, which in the end declared that these duties should end in ten years or sooner. It was too late, however, to carry a Bill in that Session of Parliament. In the following year the subject was again brought before a Committee, of which the then Lord Mayor was a Member, and they reported that they saw no reason to doubt the correctness of the conclusions arrived at by the former Committee. He thought he

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  had shown a large amount of authority against the continuance of the duty. It had been attempted to show that it was a legal duty, but although as a rule individuals could not afford to enter into litigation with a wealthy corporation, yet it did happen on one occasion that the magnitude of his interest induced a trader to resist the demand of the corporation, and he filed a Bill calling upon them to show their title to claim this duty. The corporation fought him at every stage, but when the matter got into the House of Lords they withdrew their own appeal, and thus practically admitted that they could not sub stantiate their claim. The hon. Gentleman, feeling the weakness of his case, asked the House to assent to the Bill because, as he said, it had the sanction of every one except the taxpayers. That, however, was not quite correct. The hon. Gentleman said the corn trade, as represented by the corn market, was in its favour. The truth was, the corporation had been receiving £13,000 a year from the duty without doing anything in return, and although they claimed for themselves the exclusive right of setting up markets in the City and within seven miles thereof, yet they had allowed a close monopoly to grow up which kept the corn market in the hands of a few people, who, for every £200 they had invested, had created by monopoly property worth £1,400. This Corn Exchange was a close body, which had grown upon the corporation like a fungus upon another corrupt body. Of course those people were in favour of the Bill. They were hand and glove with the corporation, and the hand and glove were worthy of each other, for both were unclean. But with all the monopoly they had not yet built themselves a corn market. The hon. Gentleman had also said that the meters had petitioned in favour of the Bill. The sworn meters, who claimed a right to measure grain, had petitioned against the Bill, and it was only the casual meters, who claimed no such right, who had petitioned in its favour. It was also said that the Fellowship Porters approved the Bill. He could only say that the Fellowship Porters had made many complaints to him of the cruel treatment they received from the corporation. In 1835, when Reform was rife, and when there was a probability that the duty upon grain would not endure much longer, the corporation introduced a clause into the document of admission given to Fellowship Porters whereby all vested rights were abandoned. Hav-
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  ing thus got rid of all claims for compensation, they then persuaded the fellowship porters to intrust their interests to the care of the corporation, lest they should be ruined. The corporation next made a bargain with the Corn Exchange to reduce the duties, and undertook that the wages of the Fellowship Porters should also be reduced. The corporation, in return for an income of £5,000, or, as he believed, £10,000 a year, allowed the Corn Exchange to oppress these poor men by taking off one-third of their wages. They must never forget that in dealing with the corporation they were not dealing with a public body for public objects only. The claim of the corporation was, that they were entitled to appropriate these funds for their own purposes. They had seen the corporation already become shareholders in a railway, so completely did they consider the corporate funds as property with which they might do as they pleased. The corporation of London, who said they were protecting the Fellowship Porters, had for a long period compelled them to surrender 1d. on every 1s. of their earnings, and had kept up for them a Benefit Society, as compared with which the worst benefit society mentioned in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's late exposition of malversation and fraud was really a pattern of excellency and virtue; for the Benefit Society of the Fellowship Porters was conducted in this wise, that it actually spent £500 a year in dispensing £250 for the benefit of the poor men whoso wages were mulcted of 1d. in every 1s. He thought the House should pause before allowing its Standing Orders to be subverted in favour of a measure like that. He had presented petitions from the Dock Companies against the Bill, stating that by their Acts they were authorized to weigh everything in their docks, and they did not understand why they were to be deprived of that power. He had also presented petitions from the great dealers in corn, merchants, and others, who said they did not object to an arrangement for having grain weighed when it was needed, but did object to being compelled to pay a tax for weighing whether they required their grain weighed or not. An enactment of on clause would have been sufficient for the corporation, if their Bill were simply consequent upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer's legislation, but they had taken advantage of that opportunity to bring in a Bill to serve their own private ends alone. Let the City give a pledge that they wanted

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  that Bill for public objects only, and let them limit it to all grain which it was necessary to weigh for revenue purposes and for delivery, and he would assist them to pass it. But if they would not give such a distinct and intelligible pledge, then the House would know that the measure was designed for sinister objects and private aims, for banquets to gratify themselves and their families, and for largess to be distributed among their friends and kindred. Trusting that the House would not permit any corporation, however influential, to subvert its rules and orders, he begged to move his Amendment.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "inasmuch as the Bill seeks to enlarge and alter the powers of the Corporation of the City of London to levy a Rate or Duty, and to alter existing Rates and Duties, on Grain and Seeds imported into the Port of London for the use and benefit of the Corporation, this House is of opinion that the Bill ought not to be proceeded with until the Standing Orders relating to Private Bills be duly complied with,"—(Mr. Ayrton,)—instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  COLONEL WILSON PATTENsaid, that as the Amendment of the hon. Member related entirely to the Standing Orders of the House, it was desirable that the discussion of the merits should be disentangled from the difficulty suggested, and that the House should decide whether the Bill was a public or private one. In the first instance, he (Colonel Patten) had been under the impression that the measure was a private one; but after looking at several other Bills which had passed the House, he confessed he entertained doubts upon the subject. He, therefore, would respectfully suggest that it would much simplify the discussion if the Speaker would favour them with his opinion on it.
  SIR JOHN SHELLEYsaid, he would suggest, that before the right hon. Gentleman gave his opinion, that it was desirable they should be told what the difference was in respect to the Standing Orders between the Bill before the House and the City Police Bill, which was stopped by the corporation.
  MR. SPEAKER: The Question raised by the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets is one well worthy the consideration of the House, and has quite properly been brought under its notice by
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  the hon. and learned Gentleman. This Bill has certainly many features which are characteristic of a Private Bill. But it has been the policy of late years to introduce Bills relating to the Metropolis as Public Bills, on account of the great extent and the general interests involved. In 1843, and again in 1846, and in 1851, Bills for the regulation of Coal Whippers were treated as Public Bills. In 1845 the Vend and Delivery of Coals in London and Westminster Bill was introduced as a Public Bill. In 1852 the Ballast Heavers (Port of London) Bill, and in 1861 the Annoyance Jurors (Westminster) Bill, were brought in as Public Bills; though if they had related to other towns, they would certainly have been regarded as Private Bills. The Coal and Wine Duties Continuance Bills of 1861 and 1863, which affected the rights of the City to its local dues and taxes, were brought in as Public Bills. The Bill now before the House relates to the port of London, which covers an extensive area, ranging, I believe, over a considerable part of four counties, and containing a population of nearly 3,000,000. It is introduced, not from any desire of the Corporation to disturb the existing state of things, but in consequence of an Act of the present Session, which enacts that the duty on foreign grain shall be levied by weight, instead of by measure. The Corporation propose to accommodate their system to the new law, and to change the system of measuring corn for that of weighing, which has now for the first time been adopted for the purposes of revenue. It appears that under the existing law the measurement of foreign grain by officers of the City, is accepted at the Custom House for charging the import duties; and by this Bill it is proposed that certificates of weight instead of measure shall be furnished to the Custom House for the collection of the public revenue. The Bill concerns the home and foreign trade of the port of London, and also the public revenue; and on these grounds it seems to me that it has been introduced not improperly as a Public Bill. At the same time, as there are allegations of fact in the preamble which are open to dispute, and which require to be established by evidence, I apprehend it will be the pleasure of the House to commit the Bill to a Select Committee, by whom these facts will be inquired into, and any local or private rights may be duly protected.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman would be of material assistance to the House, not only for its direct purpose in throwing light on the Motion of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, but also in respect to the vote which they would, he supposed, ultimately have to give on the question, whether the Bill should or should not be read the second time. He assumed that the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets would no longer press his Motion on the point of form, but acquiesce in the opinion just delivered from the Chair; and he assumed also that he would not insist on the objection he had raised as to the want of a preliminary Resolution on the introduction of the Bill. Apart from the question, whether or not the Bill required a preliminary Resolution, as being a Bill affecting trade, it was pretty clear that as a Bill affecting taxation it would not require such a Resolution, if, at least, the revenue of the corporation of the City stood on the same footing as the public revenue of the country. Although it was the practice, for the convenience of the House, in moving the reduction of a duty, to do it in the form of a Resolution in Committee of Ways and Means, yet that practice was founded simply on the advantage of giving full information to the House of what the plans of the Government as to the finance of the year might be, and it was quite competent for any Member of the Government, or any independent Member of the House, to introduce any Bill for the reduction of a tax without a preliminary Resolution. The case had been ably stated on both sides. So far as his Parliamentary experience went, and it now extended over a very long period of time, he had never known the duties of a representative of the City of London more ably or satisfactorily discharged than they were by his hon. Friend (Mr. Crawford), who had brought forward the subject in a very clear and practical manner. Then, the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Tower Hamlets set out a great deal of matter, he admitted, of much importance, one portion of it being connected with the subject of the reform of the corporation of the City of London. He took it that there were few who sat on those Benches that could look back with entire satisfaction to the part which Parliament had played, or rather had not played, in the reform of the corporation of the City;
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  but it would not be fair or just to the corporation to allow any opinion they entertained on that subject, or any desire they might entertain for a general rearrangement of the local authorities of the metropolis, to influence them in their conduct upon that occasion. Another part of the speech of his hon. and learned Friend consisted of allegations, some of them relating to the title of the corporation to their dues, and to the arrangement proposed to be made for the Fellowship Porters, and to other parts of the Bill which appeared to him fair matter for a Select Committee. His hon. Friend who brought forward the measure had been the first to anticipate the suggestion of the Chair, that the Bill should undergo investigation before a Select Committee: the question before them therefore practically was, whether the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee; or, according to the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets, be summarily rejected. They should remember that the Bill had not grown out of the suit or petition of the corporation. The State had determined that for the public convenience the mode of levying the corn, duty should be altered, and the corporation was placed under the necessity of doing one of two things—unless, indeed, it was prepared altogether to abandon what it presumed to be its rights, and that, he thought, no one could expect—either the corporation must come to the House for a Bill like the present, or insist on the intolerable injustice of the double process of weighing for the purpose of the corn duty and measuring for the municipal tax. The corporation, he thought, had taken the right course. So far as the Government were concerned, they had taken a strictly impartial course. They declined to pledge themselves to support the Bill until they heard the whole case; but they did undertake that the corporation should not be defeated in consequence of the period of the Session. It appeared to him on the equity of the case that the Bill ought not to be rejected on the second reading, but should be referred to a Select Committee. The fair presumption might be against that source of civic revenue; that presumption arose from the Report of the Committee: but if it was to be abolished, it should be done not accidentally by availing themselves of any difficulty in which the corporation was placed in consequence of measures adopted by Par-

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  liament for the public good, but in a straightforward manner, by a measure directed ad hoc, explicitly and expressly dealing with the question by legislation. He thought it would be a harsh and severe measure under the circumstances if they withheld their sanction from the second reading of the Bill. It would not be a worthy mode of dealing with the subject. He thought the arrangement proposed by the Bill was an equitable one. The corporation relieved the trade of a portion of the tax; it also gave considerable relief in point of time and trouble. He should certainly support the second reading, with the view of referring the Bill to a Select Committee.
  MR. ALDERMAN ROSEsaid, he thought the right hon. Gentleman had very fairly stated the manner in which the Bill came before the House, and as the judgment from the Chair had disposed of the Amendment, he need not refer at any length to the manner in which the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets had unburdened himself of his peculiar notions with regard to the City of London. The hon. Member said that he represented the Docks and the Fellowship Porters. He ought to be aware that the Docks charged the public 3½ per cent more than the City of London charged. As to the Fellowship Porters, they came before the House last Session under the auspices of the hon. Member; but from the petition of an immense majority it appeared that the control of the funds of that body was in the hands of a few who wished to distribute them among themselves. The fact was that, the moment the question was raised, the corporation had called a meeting of the trade, those who were most competent to give an opinion as to the work to be done, the prices that should be charged for it, and what the trade were prepared to pay. The corporation deliberated upon it, and it was found the charge made in the Bill was fair and reasonable to have the work satisfactorily done. It was very easy to throw any quantity of dirt upon a public body, but he declared emphatically that the random assertions made by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets on a former evening were totally unfounded.
  SIR JOHN SHELLEYsaid, there was no one who had more zealously devoted himself to the interests of the metropolis at large, as distinguished from that small portion of it compromised within the City, than the hon. Member for the Tower Ham-
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  lets. The views of that Gentleman might be peculiar in the eyes of a former Lord Mayor, but they were shared by a large body of inhabitants of the metropolis. The Corporation, paying its servants liberally, and always taking pains to secure the best available talent, was sure of having its work well done; and he believed its officers had wisely advised the Corporation to make that concession on which he congratulated the public, and which he believed was traceable directly to the opposition thrown in their way. The Government having cast their protecting influence over this Bill, he hoped would take pains to secure the appointment of an impartial Committee.
  MR. HUBBARDsaid, he doubted the propriety of introducing into a Commutation Bill a preamble reciting the existence of a prerogative which had been much doubted, often disputed, and in many cases could not be enforced. He thought it a dangerous thing that the corporation should be enabled to claim as a debt due by the owners of a cargo so much per cwt., especially as a debt preceding the execution of the work which formed the consideration. As the measure stood, it would establish a monopoly and ignore the changes which mechanical facilities might hereafter provide for the execution of the work. He thought it highly undesirable to stereotype a rate of charge without reserving some power of competition.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that after the decision from the Chair, he had no option but to submit to the proposal of the Government, but he would suggest that the Bill should be committed pro formâ on the following day, so that the House might know the alterations intended to be made.
  MR. CRAWFORDsaid, he would accede to the suggestion, but on Monday he should move that the Bill be referred to a Committee of ten Members, to be named by the Committee of Selection.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read 2o, and committed for To-morrow.

NATIONAL EDUCATION (IRELAND).

  RESOLUTION. ADJOURNED DEBATE.
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [14th June],
  "That, in the opinion of this House, the Rules sanctioned by the Commissioners of National

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  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.)
  Question again proposed.
  Debate resumed.
  THE O'CONOR DONsaid, he trusted it would be unnecessary for him to remind the House of the condition in which the Question stood. He regretted not to see the hon. and learned Member fur Belfast (Sir Hugh Cairns) in his place, because having proposed a Question, he thought that he ought to have been present when it was called on. He (the O'Conor Don) did not propose to enter into the general subject of national education in Ireland. There was only one particular phase of the Question to which he would endeavour to confine his observations. At the outset he found a difficulty in understanding the object of the Resolution proposed by the hon. and learned Member. The Motion was—
  "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."
  Meaning thereby of National Education as first established. But the House must bear in mind that the rules sanctioned by the Commissioners in November, 1863, were not any particular rules, but the general rules of the National Board. They comprised not only new rules, but all the rules that had at any time existed. But when he came to examine the speech of his hon. and learned Friend he found quite a different interpretation put upon the Resolution; and his hon. and learned Friend had assured the House that he had the sup port of several members of the National Board, such as Dr. Henry and the Bishop of Derry. But did his hon. and learned Friend mean to tell the House that he had the support of the Bishop of Derry in con derailing all aid from the Board to convent and monastic schools? The Bishop of Derry said he became a Commissioner under the rules of 1855, but the Resolution before the House was equally condemnatory of the rules of 1855 as of the rules of 1863, and of all others. The hon. and learned Gentleman said it was contrary to the principle of National Education to grant aid to voluntary efforts.
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  He maintained, on the contrary, that the system was expressly designed by the Earl of Derby to aid and assist the voluntary efforts of the country. The hon. and learned Member's Resolution appeared to condemn the appointment of monitors, except in State schools, and to be opposed to help of any kind being given to conventual or monastic institutions. He was at issue with the hon. and learned Gentleman on both these points. A discussion took place at the outset on the question, whether these convent schools would come under the rules laid down by the Earl of Derby equally with all other schools. The result was that they received the same amount of aid, and in the same way as the ordinary schools, on compliance with the usual conditions. Up to 1839 the grants were given by way of capitation on the number of pupils on the rolls. It was then thought desirable to alter the mode of allocation; but no alteration took place in the principle on which assistance was given. It was discovered that some of the school teachers were very incompetent, and it was determined that the teachers should be classified, and a higher amount paid according to the classification. There existed, however, some schools to which it was unnecessary to apply the classification. There was, he maintained, no essential principle altered in the alteration which had been made in 1839. If the Resolution of the hon. and learned Member applied to all aid given to convent and monastic schools, it was one which the House could not adopt. It was, however, perhaps to the conjunction of the establishment of monitors and of additional assistance being granted to those schools that he objected; but if that were so, he could not see how, when taken separately, neither one nor the other was contrary to the principles of the system, they could fairly be said to be so when united. And from whom, he would ask, did those complaints against the alteration in the rules, which the hon. and learned Gentleman had urged, come? From the Presbyterians of the North of Ireland, who had shown themselves to be the friends of the system established by the Earl of Derby, by refusing to join the National Board until alterations were made which were an essential departure from the principles which that noble Lord had at the outset laid down. Nothing was more clearly expressed in Lord Stanley's letter than that in every school there should be combined both secular and religious in-

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  struction; that, on a certain day in each week, and at a certain hour, time should be devoted to religious instruction; and that the pastors belonging to the faith of the minority should have the right to enter the schools in order to teach the children of their own flock. Yet these vital principles had been departed from by the clients of the hon. and learned Gentleman himself. The hon. and learned Gentleman was, in short, the spokesman of that very party which had brought the National system into that state of disrepute in which it was at present placed, and it seemed to him, he must confess, somewhat extraordinary that, having gained all the privileges which they had claimed for themselves, the Presbyterians of Ulster should come forward and object to any sort of additional aid being given to the schools of other denominations. Now, he was at once prepared to admit that if the convent schools were not satisfactorily conducted, any rule which had for its object to extend aid to them ought not to receive the sanction of the House. But the hon. and learned Gentleman himself had stated at the commencement of his speech that he was ready to acknowledge that these schools were conducted in a satisfactory manner in many instances, although that view did not appear to be quite consistent with that which he had enunciated before he sat down. Indeed, the hon. and learned Gentleman had devoted more than half of his speech to running down those establishments. He asked the House to believe that the teachers in them were inefficient, and that it would be a great error to extend to them any further assistance. Those statements the hon. and learned Gentleman based on the Report of one of the Inspectors—Mr. Sheridan; the only Report, so far as he (the O'Conor Don) could see, which he could find to bear out his views. The fact, however, was, that Mr. Sheridan passed his judgment on those schools before inspecting them; and what, he would ask, were the charges which he made? They were shortly as follows:—That the teachers did not possess a technical knowledge of the method of teaching; that through their over-impatience of competition they destroyed other schools in the districts in which they were established; that, in consequence, the population in those districts were to a certain extent inadequately supplied with the means of receiving education; and that, in consequence of the competition and the overcrowding of chil-
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  dren in the schools, there was not sufficient teaching power in proportion to the number to be taught, and the education was of a very inferior description. Such were the three charges which were brought against the convent schools by Mr. Sheridan. It must be recollected that Mr. Sheridan had not inspected these schools himself. Now, with respect to the first charge, the want of a technical knowledge of the method of teaching, he should like to refer to the Report of Inspector Sheehy, of the Cork district, who said that success in teaching depended chiefly on practice and a thorough knowledge of the subject taught. If the teachers read well, wrote well, and spelt well, they would produce infinitely better scholars than those who, while possessing technical knowledge, were deficient in the higher qualities of teachers. Mr. Sheridan stated that the convent schools showed great impatience of competition, so that the ordinary schools were shut up, and the population left without adequate means of instruction, and he named Killarney as an instance. But, on referring to the Reports of the Killarney district Inspector himself, he found that that statement of Mr. Sheridan was far from being borne out. In fact, it appeared that the number of schools was quite adequate to the wants of the district. The third charge brought by Mr. Sheridan against the convent schools was, that the teaching was inefficient. But he found in the Reports that the Inspectors over and over again complained that reading, writing, and the other branches of education were taught badly in the ordinary schools, and whenever any particular school was pointed out as excellent, it was sure to be either a convent school, a model school, or one of the workhouse schools. Therefore, without going outside the four corners of the Report made by Inspector Sheridan, it could be shown that the charges which he brought were not borne out by the reports which he himself had received. A Report had been made by Inspector Mahony, in which he said that while in the ordinary schools the poorer classes had to pay at the rate of 2s. 9d. for each child, in the convent schools they had to pay only 11¼d. Mr. Mahony looked upon that relief to the poorer classes as a disadvantage, because he found that though at those convent schools the attendance of the children was 60 per cent as compared with 51 per cent at the ordinary schools, yet at some convent schools,

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  where the payment was more regularly enforced, the attendance was 80 per cent. Now, as to the question of cost, the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Hugh Cairns) had made use of an argument which, if examined, would be found not to warrant the conclusion drawn from it. It appeared from the Report of the Commissioners that the total cost of the education of a child in the convent schools was something like 7s., whereas in the ordinary schools it was 14 s. Inspector Sheridan stated that (he great majority of the children in the con vent schools never reached the higher classes, and therefore the hon. and learned Gentleman concluded that 4s. 6d., or, correcting his estimate as it should have been, 7s. a child was paid for half education. But, in order to prove his case, the hon. and learned Gentleman should have proved that a better education was obtained at the higher cost, or, he should have proved that the children in the ordinary schools were more than half educated. But, according to Inspector Sheridan, the State was paying 7s. a head for half education in the convent schools, and 14 s. for something less than quarter education in the ordinary schools. That was exactly what resulted from the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument, because it appeared that only 18 or 19 per cent of the children in the ordinary schools reached the higher classes. And what was the remedy proposed by the hon. and learned Gentleman? He objected to the new rule on the ground that it would favour the convent as distinguished from the model or training schools. But what was the cost of educating children in the model schools? According to the Report of the Education Commissioners it was no less than £1 16 s. 6d. per head, so that the hon. and learned Gentleman wanted to have the children educated in the higher class of schools at that enormous expense.
  Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
  THE O'CONOR DONresumed: He would, therefore, ask the House, whether it was prepared to condemn schools which gave education at a cheap rate, and which the people of the country favoured from religious motives? The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin objected to the convent and monastic schools because they had a religious tendency,
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  and were consequently in contradiction to the spirit of the system adopted by the Board. If so, then it must be admitted that the system of education established by the Board was on irreligious education. But Lord Stanley's letter laid it down that religious as well as secular instruction should be given in the schools. Under all these circumstances, he could not conceive what argument could be urged against the rules recognized in 1863, on the ground of the aid afforded to convent and monastic schools. The hon. Member for the King's County intended to move the omission from the Motion of the words referring to convent and monastic schools, so that the Motion would then declare that the rules sanctioned by the Commissioners on the 21st of November, 1863, were at variance with the principles of the system of National Education. He admitted that there were among the rules some, introduced at the instance of the Presbyterians of Ulster, which were contrary to the principle contained in Lord Stanley's letter; but he thought that a general Resolution, such as the hon. Member for the King's County desired, rather dangerous for the House to adopt, and it would have been better if the hon. Member had stated in his Amendment what were the particular rules which were objectionable. On various occasions he had stated his views respecting the general principle of education which he would wish to see adopted. The principle established by Lord Stanley's letter had failed to meet the views of all the parties in the country, and had in practice broken down, and he would be ready to support a system for Ireland similar to the one existing in England, if he saw the means of establishing it there. He could not, however, support the Resolution moved by the hon. and learned Member for Belfast, because it was opposed to the principle laid down by Lord Stanley's letter. He had no hesitation in voting against the hon. and learned Gentleman's Motion, and as to the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite he should prefer before deciding to hear his explanation of it. He agreed with him that there had been departures from the rules, but he should like to hear at what departures his hon. and learned Friend pointed, for the hon. and learned Member for Belfast had the other evening mentioned departures from the rules which he believed could not be so characterized.
  MR. BLACKsaid, that in times past

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  there had been much discussion in Scotland on the subject of education, and they had arrived at the conclusion that the system of National Education which had been adopted in Ireland was infinitely better than that which existed in England. The English system was disliked in Scotland because it was sectarian, and they hailed Lord Stanley's scheme because it had a tendency to tone down religious animosities, and to bring up children of different sects together, so that they might learn to love and respect each other. It seemed, however, that for thirty years they had been under a delusion in thinking thus of Lord Stanley's system, for they were now told that the system in Ireland was in a great measure sectarian. Some blame had been thrown upon the Presbyterians, as though they were the first to try to break down the unsectarian system; and, if they had done so, he must say that they were wrong. All he asked was, that fair play should be given to Presbyterian and Roman Catholic alike, and that the spirit of Lord Stanley's proposals in that respect should be adhered to. It was obvious that one of the fundamental rules of that system—that no minister of religion or member of a religious order should be a teacher in one of those schools—had been departed from. We have been told that in the model schools the instruction was of the very best description, and that the pupils were there made effective teachers; but we have reason to believe that the priesthood in Ireland have denounced these model schools, and have done their best to prevent them being well attended. The percentage of Roman Catholics attending all the National schools in Ireland was eighty-one, whilst the percentage of Roman Catholics attending the model schools was only forty-three. It was plain, therefore, that some means must be used to discourage attendance at the model schools. He could easily conceive that in convent schools young ladies of earnest minds, who had renounced the world and devoted themselves to doing good to their fellow creatures, made zealous and kind teachers; but the question was not whether these ladies taught well or ill, but whether there had been a departure from the fundamental principle upon which the National schools were originally founded; and the hon. and learned Member for Belfast had proved this beyond a doubt. The system which the
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  country wanted was that which had been established by the Earl of Derby when Lord Stanley; and that system could be carried out if those who had the management of it only acted honestly, and did not give any one sect an advantage over the others. The other schoolmistresses were required to have been trained in a model school or to have passed an examination; but these conditions were dispensed with in the case of the nuns. He did not object to this advantage being given to them because they were nuns. He should object to it equally if it were granted to Presbyterians. The rule laid down by Lord Stanley was a good one, which in Scotland they were anxious to see carried out. Under it all schools were to be on the same footing—there was to be a common literary and a separate religious education. The experiment had been tried successfully in Edinburgh, where both Protestants and Roman Catholics were taught in the same school receiving secular instruction, sitting together on the same benches, and receiving religious instruction, and reading the New Testament, under teachers of their own faith in separate rooms. So long as the system was carried out honestly it would succeed, but if either party attempted to secure advantages for itself the system would break down. They ought to take their stand on the rules, and not allow them to be broken through; but if pupil-teachers were to be trained under nuns they would have all the feelings of the "nunnery" about them, and would not act in training children upon the same principles, and with the same unbiassed sympathies, as the teachers brought up in model schools under persons not confined to one sect. Now, it was not because the deviation was allowed to Roman Catholics that he offered objections; he would lay down the same if Protestants sought it. If the Government has already yielded to pressure from without it ought to go no further in this direction, and for that reason he should support the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Belfast.
  MR. HENNESSYsaid, that the hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland told them the other evening that the present agitation was an attack on the system of National Education in Ireland. If so, by whom was it made? From the papers laid on the table he gathered that the right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary was one

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  of the leading promoters of the attack. [Sir ROBERT PELL: No!] The right hon. Gentleman in a letter dated the 30th of January, 1864, said—
  "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 effects of which will be seriously to imperil the principle upon which the system is based."
  And the right hon. Gentleman added that the Bill had "no power to change any fundamental rule without the express permission of his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant." It was a remarkable fact that on the preceding day, the 29th of January, language almost identical was used by Dr. Henry, a member of the Board and President of Queen's College, Belfast, who expressed his opinion that "the recent changes of rule seriously interfere with one of the fundamental principles on which the system of National Education was founded," and desired that his solemn protest should be communicated to the Government. He presumed that the protest had been communicated, and the next day it was followed by the letter of the right hon. Gentleman. It also appeared that a deputation on the subject waited on the Lord Lieutenant, headed by the Protestant Bishop of Down and Connor; and among those who entered protests were the Bishop of Derry and Mr. Gibson, who was also a member of the Board. These were the gentlemen who promoted the attack, and every one of them, with the exception of the Chief Secretary, was a member of the Whig party. The two bishops were both stout Whigs, and Dr. Henry and Mr. Gibson were tried servants and consistent placemen of the same party. The present assault on the Government system was made, therefore, by the supporters of the Government in Ireland. It was not, however, the first time that the institution had been attacked in that Parliament. In 1859 the Roman Catholic Members raised an opposition to it, and in the same year the Roman Catholic Bishops published a pastoral against it, and recommended that the English system should be adopted in Ireland. Dr. Henry and Mr. Gibson, to whose protests he had referred, were leading members of the Presbyterian party, for whom the hon. and learned Member for Belfast (Sir Hugh Cairns) also spoke; and the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Whiteside), who might be regarded as the
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  representative of the Established Church, had on more than one occasion attacked the system. Thus, then, the three denominations were arrayed against the institution of National Education in Ireland. In England the system which prevailed was satisfactory to the various religious parties. Why should the reverse be the case with the system in Ireland? It was because the principle adopted in England was different from that in Ireland. The recent attack on the Irish system was of great importance, because it disclosed among the opponents not merely adherents of the three denominations, but even members of the Board, The fact was that the Board was divided against itself, and one section was fighting the other. The Motion set forth that the rules sanctioned on the 21st of November, 1863, were, as far as regarded their operation on the aid afforded to convent and monastic schools, "at variance with the principles of the system of National Education." What was an Irish Catholic gentleman to say to that assertion? He was bound, on consideration, to say that he believed the rules were at variance with the principles of National Education. He was also of opinion that they were most unjustly oppressive to convent and monastic schools. The Attorney General said that those institutions received aid like other schools, That was not the fact.
  MR. O'HAGAN (THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND)denied that he had ever said anything of the sort. He distinctly explained the difference as to the subvention in the case of convent and other schools.
  MR. HENNESSYsaid, he did not refer to the subvention. The point to which he desired to draw attention was that, while the promoters of an ordinary National school might establish another in the same town, and receive aid for both, there was a rule of the Board which provided that one school only attached to any conventual community should receive aid. In England, if there were two schools connected with a convent both would receive aid. Thus, in Blandford Square, there was a community of nuns with two convent schools attached, both of which received aid. In Ireland, only one in connection with any single community would be assisted. Thus in Limerick the Sisters of Mercy had several well-conducted schools, but they only received a grant for one.
  MR. MONSELLsaid, that was a mis-

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  take, for aid was given by the National Board to several schools of the Sisters of Mercy at Limerick.
  MR. HENNESSY: Not of the same community.
  MR. MONSELL: Yes; of the Sisters of Mercy.
  MR. HENNESSY: The Report of the National Board did not corroborate what the right hon. Gentleman said. He did not, however, deny that such a rule was in existence.
  MR. MONSELL: I am aware of this particular rule, but it does happen that in Limerick the Sisters of the same community have several schools, and receive assistance.
  MR. HENNESSY: The rule told them one thing, the blue-book told them another thing, and the practice told them another thing. The practice of the Board was at variance with their own rules.
  SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, he would beg leave to put the hon. Member right on that point.
  MR. HENNESSYsaid, he thought it would be better for the right hon. Gentleman to explain after he had concluded his remarks. The rule, he believed, existed, and if so, only one school in connection with one community could receive Government aid. That was the rule passed in 1855, and he thought it would be found to be as he had stated. But there were other rules which struck mainly at convent schools. One was that the children should not make the sign of the cross, and another rule was that no crucifixes, no religious pictures or emblems of religion, should be exhibited in the school in school hours. Was it possible that such rules should be enforced in a convent? Speaking as a Catholic, he said it was utterly impossible to do so, and it would be unwise for any Government to attempt to enforce them. At a late meeting in Dublin, presided over by the Lord Mayor, and attended, among others, by the Bishop of Saldes, the Rev. Mr. Kirby said that a certain individual had visited a school in Cork kept by the good Sisters of the Presentation Convent, but under the Board of National Education. The children had been taught to make the sign of the cross whenever the clock struck, but the nuns told the children not to make the sign while the visitor was present, he being an Inspector of the National Board. When the clock struck, however, the custom overcame the injunction, the tiny hand of every child in the
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  school was raised, and the sacred sign was made, while the poor nuns were filled with trepidation. The fact was that ladies who devoted their lives to the service of God could not be tied down by such straight-laced rules. A French abbé, who, upon a recent visit to Ireland, noticed the rule of the Board, that no crucifixes or religious pictures should be exhibited, said—
  "However, in many of the schools I visited, these objects are kept in a little recess in the wall at the end of the room, and are hidden by a curtain."
  Here were ladies bound by religious vows, and performing religious duties, and it was attempted to make them hypocrites. The fact was that the Board of Education, anxious to conciliate the multitude of its enemies in Ireland, was willing to make concessions to all parties, under a false impression that by doing so the Catholic party could be conciliated. Now, the one thing which would satisfy Catholics was the same justice that they received in England. He agreed that there was not a mixed but a separate education in the convent schools, and he did not expect that a zealous Protestant or Presbyterian would consent to send his children to those schools. On the other hand, assuming a convent school and a common National school to be not far from each other, a Catholic would prefer to send his children to a convent school. But if it were true that the aid given to convent schools was opposed to the whole system of mixed education, why, it might be asked, should he not agree to the Resolution? He sought, however, by his Amendment, to make the Resolution a general one. He would declare the opinion of the House to be that the rules sanctioned by the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland on the 21st day of November, 1863, were at variance with the principles of the system of National Education, instead of saying that these rules were only at variance "so far as regards their operation on the aid afforded to convent and monastic schools," He, and those who thought with him, desired to mark their sense of the fact, that owing to the changes which had taken place in the system of National Education in Ireland, all its vital principles had altered. In 1840, one of these changes attracted the attention of the Catholic Bishops in Ireland, and was commented upon in another place by Lord Derby so lately as 1858. In 1834, a rule was issued, securing to the clergy liberty to as-

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  semble the children in the schoolroom, if they saw fit, for purposes of religious instruction. That rule was acted upon for many years, the Board providing that one day in the week should be given for religious instruction, and various parish priests regularly assembled their children in the schoolroom. In 1840, however, a serious change was made by the adoption of a rule to the effect, that the patron of a school might prevent any clergyman from giving religious instruction in the schoolroom—a rule which drew from the Earl of Derby an expression of regret that in the great bulk of the schools, contrary to the intention of those who had proposed the National system, there was not only no religious education given, but no facilities were afforded for separate religious instruction by the ministers of different persuasions out of school hours. According to the evidence of the Rev. Mr. Carlisle before the Commons' Committee of 1837, the Board itself had no power to alter the original rule, and yet three years afterwards it was changed, he presumed with the sanction of the Government of the day. The Rev, Mr. Trench explained how the alteration was introduced. He stated that his sole objection to joining the Board was the rule which allowed Roman Catholic priests to go into the schools to teach error, but he added that when that point was conceded to the Presbyterians in 1840, and the rule altered, the Board saying they would be satisfied if children were permitted to go to their respective teachers elsewhere, his objection to the system was at once removed. In 1847, the Roman Catholic Bishops met, and passed the following Resolution:—
  "That notwithstanding the explanations so kindly given, we are still of opinion that the changes introduced in the National System of Education are most serious and dangerous, and incompatible with the safety of the religious principles of our Catholic children."
  It thus appeared that two important rules had been altered, and that the present system was different from that established by the Earl of Derby. There was a third variation to which he would ask the attention, of the Government. When the system was first established, the Earl of Derby said it was of vital importance that it should command the confidence of the Roman Catholic bishops and priests, and that it should exclude even the shadow of proselytism. Accordingly, it was provided that when a clergyman of any denomina-
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  tion chose to give religious instruction, he should tell the children of other denominations to retire from the school, unless their parents had specially directed them to attend. The Presbyterians, however, declined to be guilty of what they thought the sin of driving Roman Catholic children from the school when they were about to teach the Word of God, and they would I not join the Board till the rule was altered. At that time, however—1833—the Board was firm, and the Rev. Mr. Love, a Presbyterian minister, was informed that the Holy Scriptures might be read in his school, provided that such children only as were directed by their parents to attend were allowed to continue in the school. Before the Committee of 1837, the Rev, Mr. Carlisle and Mr. Blake, both members of the Board, gave important evidence on that point. The latter said he considered it particularly necessary that the rules should require the approbation of the parents, for otherwise tricks might be played, perhaps on both sides; and he added that he should not regard the absence of dissent on the part of the parents as a I sufficient justification for allowing their children to receive religious instruction from the clergyman of another denomination. Nevertheless, in 1855, the following rule was published by the Board:—
  "Patrons, managers, and teachers, are not required to exclude any children from any religious instruction given in the school; but all children are to have full power to absent themselves, or to withdraw from it."
  It would thus be seen that while the old rule compelled children of other denominations to leave the school when religious instruction was about to be given by a Protestant or Roman Catholic clergyman, as the case might be, the new rule merely provided that they should not be forced to remain. Archdeacon Stopford, when examined before the Lords' Committee in 1854, frankly stated that the rule was altered to meet the views of his party, those views being that it would devolve on the parent to withdraw his child, and that he would not claim the right of having the child told by others to leave the school. Mr. M'Creedy, one of the head Inspectors at the time, told the same Committee that the modification of the rule had generally satisfied the Protestants, at whose instance it was made; but that he did not think it was perfectly satisfactory to some Roman Catholics. The effect of the change was stated by Archdeacon Stopford, when he

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  said that all the children in his National schools, of whatever religious persuasion they might be, attended the religious instruction as they did any other lesson. Dr. Henry a member of the Board, stated that in many parts of the North of Ireland, the Roman Catholic children read the Scriptures with the Protestants and Presbyterians; and, in fact, at the present moment, there were great numbers of Roman Catholic children receiving a Protestant education in National schools. He might be told by the Chief Secretary, that a notice was given to parents before their children were taught by a clergyman of a different denomination, but that notice, according to the words of Inspector Keenan, an able officer of the National Board, was a sham, and had no effect whatever. One would have thought that the National Board would have been satisfied with what had been done. They had destroyed their system in the case of convent schools. They had destroyed their system in order to obtain the support of the Presbyterian party. The Commissioners, however, had granted a concession at the instance of the Presbyterians, and had allowed their fourteen class books to be interwoven with religious teaching. Mr. Carlisle, a Presbyterian member of the Board, in a letter which he was injudicious enough to write to The Times in 1854, said upon that subject—
  "This concession considerably altered the original proposed system. It rendered it, instead of being a rigid system of exclusion of all religion from the common education of the people, an experiment how far Roman Catholics and Protestants could proceed together with perfect unanimity in introducing Scriptural light among the population generally, an experiment the most interesting and important, but the most delicate and difficult ever intrusted to any Commission."
  Now, of the fourteen literary books used by the children by the direction of the Board, he believed thirteen to have been written by English or Scotch Protestants, and one only by an Irishman, who was also a Protestant. These books were imbued, he did not say it offensively, because he thought it was but natural under the circumstances, with a strong anti-Catholic, and, he might also add, with an anti-Irish spirit. As an instance of the latter fact, he might mention the circumstance that Irish children were called upon to sing a hymn, one of the lines of which ran—
  "And thus I am a happy English child."
  That was a sentiment that Irish children did not approve, and they ought not to be
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  called upon to sing it. They might say with much more reason—
  "We are unhappy Irish children."
  He believed that there occurred in the same hymn a delicate reference to the fact that—
  "We do not worship stocks and stones."
  The fact was, of course, true enough, but every one was aware of the meaning which the, phrase was intended to convey. He would contrast the practice pursued by the National Board with that followed by the Committee of Council in England. The National Board had refused to sanction the use of the schoolbooks written by the Christian Brothers in Ireland, a number of Irish Catholics who had devoted themselves to the education of the people, and who in furtherance of that object had written some excellent educational works. The House would find, however, that every one of these publications were in use in England, not only in the Catholic schools, but that they were also largely ordered for use in the English Wesleyan schools. And yet these books, written by Irishmen and largely used in England, were excluded from the list of school works in Ireland by the National Board. He anticipated that when the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland rose that evening he would be prepared to withdraw his letter of January, 1864. [Cries of No, no!] It must strike English Members with surprise to find that so much of the public money was lavishly expended every year upon education in Ireland, when the system adopted had met with so much opposition in that country. The rules had been attacked by the Catholic party, and the Church and the Presbyterian parties had alike denounced them. He appealed to the House whether it were politic or just to force upon the people of Ireland a system of education, which the three great denominations in the country disapproved. Did the House deem it prudent to expend hundreds of thousands a year for the benefit of Ireland in a manner opposed to the wishes of the people themselves? The practice in this country was to educate the people in accordance with the wishes of the various denominations to which they belonged, and that was precisely the principle which Ireland had demanded, and which she had been refused. The time, however, was approaching when that demand would be granted. Although the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General for

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  Ireland defended the system, it was only the other night that he dealt it a deadly blow. Baron Deasy, who formerly filled the same office as the right hon. Gentleman, spoke of the system as one of united education; but the right hon. Gentleman said that, however loudly agitators might talk of a united education, no such thing practically existed in Ireland. He would therefore conclude by moving, as an Amendment, the omission of the words which confined the expression of opinion upon the rules to their operation on the aid afforded to convent and monastic schools.
  MR. BLAKE,in seconding the Motion of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for the King's County, fully concurred in everything that had fallen from him, except the latter portion of his speech, where he expressed fears that the Chief Secretary for Ireland would withdraw the opinion contained in his letter to the Education Commissioners. However he differed in many things from the right hon. Baronet, he bad a better opinion of him than to apprehend he would do anything of the kind, because whatever his faults were—and he had not then the least intention of charging him with any retractation of what he avowed, or playing the hypocrite to his opinions, whether right or wrong—the habit of retractation could not be included amongst them. He congratulated his hon. and learned Friend for the bold and straightforward course he had adopted in moving the Amendment. It was better that the truth should be admitted, and that every man should declare his opinions and the course he would take on this most important question. He was prepared to do both, and would lay in plain terms before the House what be believed to be the real facts of the case, and his own reasons for his change of opinions, and the course which he had taken, and would adhere to, on the Education question. He was for denominational grants and for combined religious and secular education, which necessarily involved the separate system, which he sincerely believed was best to insure sound moral training, which was a consideration of the greatest importance; and he had no doubt pupils would acquire worldly knowledge all the better for the combination, and in order to accomplish what sincere religionists on both sides rightly desired—the power to educate their youth in the manner they deemed best calculated to promote their temporal and eternal welfare—he thought it better that the truth should
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  be neither concealed nor evaded; and he, for one, declared his belief, notwithstanding all the logic and eloquence of the Attorney General in attempting to prove the contrary, that the separate system was really in operation in nearly every successful school under the Board, excepting of course the model schools, which were not successful; and he made this avowal in order that the House might see the utter uselessness of expecting that any other I system would succeed, and assist to compel the Government to do that which they must do sooner or later—sanction the denominational system in all its integrity, and thus put an end to subterfuge and dissension. Theoretically, National Education in Ireland was on the mixed system, but practically it was denominational, and if it were not so the Commissioners would I have very slender returns to show as to the number of their pupils. Attending the schools were upwards of three hundred thousand Roman Catholics, sixty-four thousand Presbyterians, and about thirty-nine thousand Protestants. Now, he dared to assert that if the National system was carried out in its full integrity as originally; established by Lord Stanley, there would not be one quarter of any of these religious denominations attending the schools. ["No, no!"] Well, he would give them the best proof of it, but would first define the main principle which Lord Stanley laid down as the one which was to guide the administration of the system, and that was, that the religious element should be entirely eliminated from the instruction and conduct of the schools, and that a secular instruction, bare of religion, was to be rigorously pursued. Now, could the Attorney General for Ireland honestly say that such a system was everywhere carried out in its integrity? He was quite sure I the right hon. Gentleman could not. Wherever there was a Catholic patron of a school, and they were usually the Catholic clergy, they, of course, appointed the most zealous Roman Catholics they could get, provided they were otherwise competent; and, no doubt, the Protestant clergymen or landlords provided staunch Protestant masters in their schools. Now, amongst the other duties imposed by the patrons on the teachers they appointed was to give their pupils religious instruction at the times allowed, and very faithfully they performed that task. He had often visited schools, and found the masters and mistresses explaining the sacred Scriptures, teaching

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  catechism, or engaged in prayers with the children, and a very edifying and gratifying sight it was. Now, he asked hon. Gentlemen, was it rational to suppose that the teachers who thus gave religious instruction at one period of the day could so completely dissever themselves at another from their religious bias and feelings as not to tincture their secular instruction with it more or less? He believed such to be a moral impossibility; and the sooner the fruitless attempt at restraining them from obeying their natural and legitimate impulse to give a religious colour to their teachings the better. Some of the Commissioners had tried their hands at writing books of instruction for the pupils which should not trench on their religious belief or prejudices. He would not deny but that they had intended to discharge their task honestly; but the strong and just complaints which the Catholic bishops and clergy made against many of these books, proved it was impossible for any man having a religious belief to write on even the most ordinary topics in a strictly neutral spirit. When such was the fact, would it not be infinitely better not to attempt to place a curb on the introduction into the educational system, without which it was necessarily poor and imperfect; and instead of the system of repression, evasion, subterfuge, and angry recrimination which was perpetually going on, would it not be infinitely better for the sake of peace, as well as the interests of the pupils, to leave to each denomination their own people in conformity with their religious views, the Government reserving to itself sufficient control to insure secular instruction being properly carried out? He could bring forward no better proof of the fact of the denominational system being practically in existence than the failure to carry out the mixed system in its full integrity in the model schools. There were, he believed, upwards of twenty of these schools in operation. It would be tedious to give an account of each of these schools; but he would adopt the one he was best acquainted with, that at the city he represented—Waterford—which would afford a very good illustration of the entire. Nevertheless, the fact was that this school had failed, because it was not denominational, and was carried out on the mixed principle, and no doubt consistently with that, had been honestly and impartially conducted. There were many favourable circumstances about the school calculated
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  to make it a success. Excellent masters and mistresses had been appointed; there was every appliance for instruction, which was of the best kind for the class for whom it was intended; and no attempt, so far as he had hoard, had ever been made at proselytism. But the greater portion of the Catholic and Protestant clergy were opposed to it, not being allowed to have any voice in its management. The Roman Catholic Bishop, a most learned and zealous prelate, discountenanced it, as he felt he could not give his approval to an institution in which he was precluded from exercising any control over the appointment of the teachers, the selection of the books, and the course of instruction; and he therefore forbade his flock from sending their children, which holiest was almost universally obeyed. The right rev. Dr. Daly, the Protestant Bishop of Cashel, equally earnest in his own way, discountenanced the school because the Scriptures were not allowed to be read there. So that, owing to the opposition coming from honest and zealous men, (though entertaining very opposite views on religion,) this school, in point of obtaining the number of pupils contemplated, had undoubtedly failed. Elsewhere the Catholic prelates had discountenanced the model schools in their dioceses, and with the same result as at Waterford; and latterly, he believed, they directed their clergy not to appoint masters to the schools in their parishes who had been trained in them. The Catholic bishops unquestionably had it in their power to prevent the mixed system being extended to those over whom they had ecclesiastical control, and it was equally manifest that they were resolved to exercise that power, believing, as they did, that they were bound to do so. And the Protestant clergy, on the other hand, were equally determined, unless the Protestant version of the Scriptures were read in the schools, to discountenance them. Each side, if they believed themselves right, ought to act on their convictions. For his own part, he sided with those who were for having religion as far as was practicable and judicious interwoven with nearly every kind of instruction. The bishops and clergy of the Catholic Church in Ireland had taken their stand on the question of the denominational system against the mixed system, and would undoubtedly have their flocks with them—for one, he certainly would take the side of the hierarchy of his Church in a matter which

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  they were best entitled and qualified to pronounce. The great majority of the Protestants and Presbyterians also wished to educate their co-religionists their own way. It was, therefore, difficult to understand why the Government resisted what was manifestly the desire of the great majority of the Irish people of every denomination. When separate grants were not only given in England, but that subsidy would not be given to a mixed school, and that it was absolutely necessary for a school to belong exclusively to some known religious denomination before it could obtain assistance from the State, it was incomprehensible why the very opposite practice should be pursued in Ireland, where religious feeling on the part of Catholics was much stronger, and where, unhappily, no religious animosities were much more bitter. It would probably be urged, that if the denominational system was sanctioned by law that many poor children would be left without education, as in many districts of the North of Ireland the population were almost wholly Presbyterian, and in the county Deny Protestants, and that there would not be numbers enough for exclusively Catholic schools, so that Catholic children should go to the Protestant or Presbyterian denominational schools, or remain uneducated; whilst, on the other hand, Protestants would be subject to the same inconvenience in the southern and western provinces, where they were thinly scattered about. It must be freely admitted that such inconveniences would occur, and that some Catholic and Protestant children would be placed at a disadvantage; but the numbers who would thus suffer would be very few indeed in comparison to the thousands upon thousands who would be benefited by having a sound religious education combined with the secular one; and in this, as in all other cases, it was the advantage of the vast majority which should be looked to. Besides, he thought arrangements might be made by which Protestant or Catholic children might receive secular instruction from the master or monitor where they were too few to have a distinct school of their own. In conclusion, he repeated his belief that not only had the fundamental principles on which the National system was founded been violated in favour of Catholics, Protestants, and Presbyterians, but that if it had not been done, the Commissioners might shut up their schools. In order to keep up the number on their rolls, they had
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  to make concessions to all parties in violation of the principles laid down by Lord Stanley. Wherever that principle was sought to be maintained the schools had failed. When, therefore, everyone knows that monastic and convent schools, and also those having Catholic and Protestant patrons in connection with the Board, were virtually denominational, why, in the name of candour and common sense, not let them become to all intents and purposes so? For all parties concerned it would be the best course. As things stood now, the Board of Education, patrons of schools, and the officers connected with them, were all in a false position. The whole affair bore a sort of half fish half flesh character, that was not pleasant; and certainly the angry debates which it provoked in that House were neither agreeable nor creditable, and no good purpose could be served by recriminations and charges and counter charges as to concessions made to convents or Presbyterian schools. No one knew better than the Chief Secretary for Ireland that the fundamental rules of the Board had been violated, or he would not have written the following very remarkable letter:—
  "Dublin Castle, 30th Jan. 1864.
  "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 effects of which will be seriously to imperil the principle upon which the system is based; and I am to remind you, 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 His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant.
  "I am, &c.
  (Signed) "ROBERT PEEL.
  "Right Hon. Alex. Macdonnell, &c. &c. &c."
  Now to withdraw from the statement which, as a Minister of the Crown, he could not have made without reflection, he hoped, for his consistency sake, he would not attempt to do, but would follow it up by voting in the same division with him on the Amendment which he had seconded. He hoped all parties who felt with him (Mr. Blake) in this matter would continue to press on Government the necessity of conceding to the wishes of the great bulk of the Irish people in the matter, and allow every denomination to educate their youth in the manner which would make good Christians, at the same time that they acquired scholastic knowledge under a right system, Both ought to go hand in hand together. He earnestly trusted, as one

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  anxious for the advancement of his country and willing to concede to every other creed what he claimed for his own, that whether under this or another Ministry, a system of education for the poorer classes in Ireland would obtain the sanction of Parliament, more acceptable to the wishes of the people and more suited to the peculiar circumstances and wants of the country.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out the words "so far as regards their operation on the aid afforded to Convent and Monastic Schools."—(Mr. Hennessy.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  SIR ROBERT PEEL: After the direct appeal that has been made to me, it is necessary that I should address a few remarks to the House, and I think before I conclude I shall be able to convince the two hon. Gentlemen who have last addressed us, that the letter which has been so frequently referred to was not altogether unjustifiable. Before going to that particular subject, I am anxious to allude to one or two remarks which fell from the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Hennessy). I have often heard him make good speeches in this House, but I do not think his speech on this occasion was worthy of him. The National system during its existence has had many difficulties to encounter and many fiery trials to go through. It has had antagonists from all quarters; but I rejoice to think that it still works for good, when I know that there are more than 6,000 schools in operation, with an average number of children on the rolls for the year of more than half a million. Therefore, I think that no one will be inclined to give his assent to the sentiment of the hon. and learned Gentleman, when he almost rejoiced that the National system was, as he said, upon its last legs. That is not the belief I entertain. It is true that since 1831, when the Whigs of that day to their immortal credit established the system which now prevails—no doubt since then, many changes have been made in the rules and regulations of this National institution, but deliberately in every instance with the approval of the Government of the day. But, referring immediately to the question before us, I must, in the first instance, notice the remarkable speech of my right hon. Colleague the Attorney General for Ireland. But if I am desirous of supplementing the remarks which he then made,
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  it is not for the purpose of being hypocritical—as the hon. Gentleman said I would not be—in regard to the opinions I entertain, but to show that my right hon. Friend and myself hold identically the same views on this subject. The principal reason then why I wish to address the House is first of all to show that the letter which I, as Chief Secretary for Ireland, sent to the Resident Commissioner, does not imply that there is that very great difference of opinion which some have inferred, and in the next place to express again in this House, as I have done on former occasions when the system has been here attacked, my firm and abiding approval of the National system as established in Ireland, and which I now do after three years of close observation and experience of its working. Therefore, whatever minor, whatever partial differences of opinion may exist, or may be supposed by some to exist, as regards the rules and regulations of that great National institution, for my own part, speaking candidly and honestly, I say that if I have called in question anything connected with that institution, it has been solely from a desire to see it maintained in its integrity, and on the basis which its founders laid for the social regeneration of the country. I think the hon. Member for Roscommon (the O'Conor Don) in his able speech rather misinterpreted, in common with some others, what fell from the hon. and learned Member for Belfast, thinking that the hon. and learned Member had attacked both the Commissioners as also the whole system of the convent schools. I listened attentively to the hon. and learned Member for Belfast's speech, and I did not understand him to cast any imputations upon the Commissioners. He spoke of them with praise, and, if I caught his meaning correctly, he did not impugn the motives which influenced them in the conduct they had pursued. Again, as regards the convent schools, he did not, as far as I can recollect, attack the convent schools which are prepared to abide by the rules; and therefore the hon. Member for Roscommon went too far in saying that he did.
  THE O'CONOR DON: I never meant to imply that the hon, and learned Member for Belfast meant to attack convent schools, except so far as Mr. Sheridan's Report was concerned. I, however, hold that his Resolution in effect attacks all convent schools.
  SIR ROBERT PEEL: The hon. and

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  learned Gentleman said that the fundamental alterations in the rules which were contemplated would strike at the root of the system and tend to raise a serious antagonism to it. The hon. and learned Member is not the only person in Ireland who has expressed the same opinion. First of all a very remarkable article in a London paper, the Daily News, attracted my attention. The writer, evidently a very able man, felt that the contemplated changes would affect the fundamental principle of the system. I do not, of course, wish to quote the whole article, but its aim was to show that encroachments are being made in the National system in favour of schools which offer gratuitous education to the poor, but which, as schools of a particular character, ought not to receive exclusive aid, because children of only one denomination attend them. That article was copied into a great many of the Irish papers, and previous to its appearance there had been strong protests against the contemplated changes from various denominations in Ireland, and from parties entitled to the greatest consideration. The hon. Gentleman has sneered at the Presbyterian body, a body which, at all events, has been conspicuous for moderation and for its loyalty, and which has certainly been instrumental in bringing about an improved state of things generally in the North of Ireland. It was therefore, I think, hardly worthy of the hon. Gentleman, whatever may be his own religious opinions, to sneer at and cast a slur upon that body. But while these regulations were in course of consideration, I, as Chief Secretary, received communications from certain of the members of the Board who dissented. I have in my hand a letter from one of those Commissioners—I mention this as a justification of the step I took as Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant in drawing the attention of the Resident Commissioner to what I believed was a source of dissent in the counsels of the National Board. The Bishop of Derry, one of the members of that Board, in a communication which I received from him, I may almost say officially, wrote—
  "I deprecate the introduction of rules eminently calculated to bow the seeds of discord, and to subvert one of the noblest institutions of our land."
  I received the protests of four distinguished men, including Dr. Henry and the other gentlemen mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Belfast, and, under
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  the circumstances, I think I was bound, without expressing any opinion of my own, to direct the attention of the Resident Commissioner to the opinions of important individuals and bodies in Ireland. I am quite satisfied the course I adopted had the approval of my right hon. Colleague in the Irish Government, and certainly it was not disapproved by the Lord Lieutenant. Well, that letter was written on that account, and on that account only. There is no hypocrisy in it, no variance of opinion with others; it was written because I felt that important bodies, the Presbyterians and others, were objecting to the contemplated changes, as being, in their view, fundamental alterations of the system. The Presbytery of Derry passed a resolution to that effect, and a similar resolution came from the Presbytery of Belfast. The latter body also petitioned Parliament on the subject, distinctly alleging that they viewed with alarm the proposed change in the rules and regulations, as calculated to place the training of the future teachers of the Irish people in the hands of the religious orders of the Church of Rome. At a meeting of the Ulster National Education Association, the Bishop of Down and Connor also said he looked on the new rules as tending to effect a fundamental change in the system. In the face of all that, it was difficult for me to follow any other course than I did; and I think every impartial man in this House will see that I expressed no dissent from the opinions of my right hon. Colleague in writing that letter, but that as Chief Secretary I felt it my duty to lay before the Resident Commissioner the views entertained by the authorities I have mentioned.
  A great deal has been said about the administration of the Board, and the hon. Member seemed to imply that it has been the root of much mischief in Ireland. When first established it was intended to take the place of the Kildare Place Society, which, no doubt, did an immense amount of good, and had 1,100 schools connected with it when it ceased to receive grants. But that society would not adopt the principle of combined secular education with religious instruction, and then the celebrated letter of Mr. Stanley appeared, which inaugurated a system that has, I must say, conferred great and substantial blessings upon Ireland. During the first twelve years of its existence that system received the sanction, not only of five sue-

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  cessive Cabinets, but passed through the ordeal of three Select Committees of Parliament, one in 1835, and two in 1837. In the constitution of the Board, Mr. Stanley and the Government of that day endeavoured to embrace men of different denominations, men of high personal character and exalted station in the Church, but professing different religious principles. Dr. Whately, the late Archbishop of Dublin, acted upon it in perfect harmony with Dr. Murray, a distinguished Roman Catholic prelate. But it is wrong to imply with regard to the constitution of this Board that it cannot be changed. It has been changed. First of all it consisted of seven, then ten, then fifteen, and ultimately it was in 1860 increased to twenty members. But that increase to twenty did not, I admit, satisfy every one. The Cork Examiner, which ought to understand the feelings of the Roman Catholics, and represents the views of the Member for Dungarvan, candidly admits that it is not satisfied with a Board of twenty members, adding, however, that National schools are only tolerated because, under Roman Catholic patrons, the principles of the system are not carried out.
  "In three provinces" says that journal, "it is very well known the system of mixed education does not exist; in nearly all the schools the Roman Catholic clergy have almost unlimited discretion as regards religious instruction; were it otherwise, the National system would be intolerable; it lives, in fact, upon the false pretence of being what it is not."
  And Dr. Cullen distinctly stated last year that he would not be satisfied unless there were seventeen Roman Catholics and only three Protestants—five to one—on the Board. That shows there is still a great difference of opinion on the subject. Recently it has been said that a Board of three or five paid Commissioners would be better. That is not a new idea. I was myself very much impressed with the advantages of a paid Commission. When the Earl of Derby appointed the Board, he admitted the difficulty of calling upon its members to give their full attention to the business, and therefore he appointed one paid Commissioner, the Rev. J. Carlisle. Even Archbishop Whately, when a member of the Board, was in favour of that system. So was Mr. Cross, the secretary of the Board. Lord Eglinton also before a Committee of the Lords in 1854 advocated the payment of four paid Commissioners, who should be laymen and responsible to the Lord Lieu-
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  tenant. All this shows that the idea of changing the constitution of the Board is not a novel one, and that those who advocate it do not imply blame on those distinguished persons who constitute it.
  I have already remarked that the Board has had to encounter a great deal of opposition. Almost all the Protestant bishops in times gone by have attacked the system. Petitions were also presented against it signed by both clergy and laity; the Presbyterian body also, the Synod of Ulster, decidedly opposed the National system. In spite of all that, the system has worked well. The difficulties against which it has had to contend have been of no ordinary character, and I am sorry to think that even now, after the acknowledged benefits it has conferred, it is open to question. The principal charge against it now arises from the money that is given to these conventual establishments—that by these additional grants you are interfering with the model school system. No doubt you are. It must be admitted, however, the convent schools have, for the most part, done their work well. Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, members of the Established Church, all have been appointed to examine into the constitution of these schools, and I am bound to say frankly and fairly that the great majority of the Reports which will be laid on the table on Monday or Tuesday next, in accordance with the Motion of the hon. Member for Limerick, are most favourable to these convent schools. But then I say they are of a denominational character, and I should be sorry to see a strictly denominational policy pursued as regards these grants. I think if that course were adopted it would strike at the very root of the system. No doubt when the National system was introduced, in 1831, the Government of the day had to consider whether convent and monastic schools should be associated with the Board; and although they were unfavourably reported on in 1832 and 1833, it was decided that but for that they should be established in union with the Board. But certain exceptions were made. What I fear is that the grants now about to be given may affect the model school system, which is certainly wrapped up in the National system. From the 4th and 7th Reports you can see what advantages were expected to attend the working of model schools. Wherever there is a model school there you find the schools in immediate contiguity conducted on a very excellent

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  system. Now, if you destroy the model schools you will give immense extension to the conventual system. I think there is a limit here beyond which you ought not to go. When the Board was established there were 42 convent and monk schools in connection with it. Their numbers have very considerably and rapidly increased of late. I believe there are as many as 145 attached to the Board at present. Last year the number was 133; the year before, 128. Now, although each convent establishment can only have one school in connection with this Board, there is, from the figures I have just given, a very considerable extension to the conventual system in connection with the Board which I think ought to be checked. I do not think it good for the country that an extension of that kind should take place, particularly if you affect the model schools. Now, a model school is for the purpose of preparing teachers and giving an example to the surrounding country of what a good teacher should be. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh observed that these model schools have been the subject of very serious attack on the part of the Roman Catholic Church. We must all regret that in Clonmel, Galway, and Limerick, in consequence of attacks on these establishments, Roman Catholic children have left the schools. That cannot be for the general good of the system, and I do hope, the times of strong religious animosity having passed away, these attacks on the National system will cease. We have heard to-night what takes place in Edinburgh, where there are schools in which Roman Catholic and Protestant children can meet; together and in harmony learn the simple Scripture lessons they are taught, and why should not this be the case also in Ireland?
  It is of the greatest possible importance that teachers should be educated on some: fixed system—that they should have practical elementary instruction, Now if these convent schools send out a great number of pupil-teachers to become teachers of National schools, what I fear is that they may affect the teaching of the National schools. No doubt the instruction given by the nuns is of the kindest and most considerate description; the affection with which they treat the members of their community is fully acknowledged; but if you throw too much the education of teachers of the National schools into the hands of the conventual schools you will lower the standard of their teaching, and
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  ultimately inflict a blow on the National system. What I hope to see carried out is a system of education such as exists in Bavaria and in Prussia, where the children of different denominations meet together, the Roman Catholic and Protestant ecclesiastics act in harmony, and no sectarian feelings are evolved. I speak in this way because I am a firm friend of united secular education. It has worked immense good in Ireland, and we ought, therefore, to be careful how we listen to attacks against the Board which has carried into execution the designs of the framers of so great a work. You must recollect that the Commissioners have a very difficult task to perform. Some persons say that they are ambitious, prone to make changes, and impatient of control and Government interference. I do not believe that. I am one of those who think that the Commissioners are not likely to make changes which will prejudicially affect the working of the system; and I think that it is but fair that the voices of those persons who approve the system should be raised in this House in praise of the ability and character of the members of the Board. We ought to recollect that they render gratuitous service. There is only one paid Commissioner, Mr. Macdonnell, who has been connected with the Board, I think, since 1837. My right hon. Friend the Attorney General spoke of that gentleman as a colleague at the Board and a personal friend. I have had three years' experience of this system in Ireland, and I wish to speak of him, as a public servant, in the sincerity of my mind and without any varnish whatever. Mr. Macdonnell, in managing this system, has an immense task to perform. He has the direct superintendence of more than 6,000 schools, which have over half a million of children on the rolls. He must always be at his office; he must never be absent from his duty, and he is almost overwhelmed by the responsibility which weighs upon him in the discharge of his duty. [An hon. MEMBER: Not a bit of it.] The hon. Gentleman says "Not a bit of it," but I venture to say that no one who knows that gentleman, and knows the zeal and spirit with which he discharges his duties, will deny that he is entitled to the gratitude of the country for what he has done. Then do not let us fall into any error as to the benefits and blessings which this system has produced in Ireland. I do not know that any higher eulogy can be pronounced

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  upon the men who founded it than that they have by means of these 6,000 schools sown broadcast in Ireland opportunities of education which were before denied to the people, opportunities of obtaining instruction which they certainly had not before, and opportunities of sharpening that natural quickness of intellect which is so remarkable and which is so conspicuously displayed under the influence of this system. If that is what the National system has done in Ireland, I hope that the House will not agree to the Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Belfast, because I believe that convent schools are a part of that system. They have been connected with it since the year 1835, and now contain 20,000 children. [Mr. MAGUIRE: 40,000.] 40,000! That makes the case stronger. There are then 40,000 children in daily attendance in those schools, and I think that it would be a very serious thing if we were to attempt to separate them from the National system. [Sir HUGH CAIRNS: I do not want to do it.] The hon. Gentleman says that he does not want to do it, but he says that the aid afforded to convent schools is at variance with the principles of the National system.
  "The rules sanctioned by the Commissioners of National Education, so far as regards the operation of the aid afforded to convent or monastic schools, are at variance with the principles of the Board of National Education."
  That I deny, and I believe that the House will agree with me. I hope that the House will not adopt either the Motion or the Amendment; because I am sure that this is an insidious attack upon the National system; and if you adopt this Resolution, and approve a censure upon a charge involving no sacrifice of principle, Parliament will be lending itself to an attack upon the Commissioners which will seriously affect a system which, so far from being, as the hon. Member for the King's County asserted, contrary to, is working in entire harmony with the wants, the wishes, and the feelings of the great bulk of the people of Ireland.
  MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, that he was sorry that an English Member interposing in an Irish debate should be thought out of place. ["No, no!"] He should not detain the House long, but he thought it right to reply at once to the speech of the right hon. Baronet, the conclusion of which was so entirely inconsistent with its commencement. The right
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  hon. Baronet had told the House that the convent schools were essentially denominational, and he ended by saying that they contained 40,000 children, and therefore fell within the purview of the National system and ought to be kept within it. There were other denominational schools which had more than 40,000 children in them. Was the right hon. Baronet prepared to admit them too? [Sir ROBERT PEEL: The convent schools were recognized so far back as 1835.] No one had in that debate found fault either with the convent schools or with the ladies who managed them so admirably. The point was, these ladies having entered upon a religious life, and being surrounded by emblems of denominational character, the children in these schools were as much brought up under a denominational system as if the schools were maintained specially as denominational schools. That had been recognized and condoned by Parliament, because it had gone on voting grants for education since the existence of these schools was brought to its knowledge in 1854. But the Commissioners were now introducing something which was entirely new, and which was giving rise to great dissatisfaction. Not only were the children to be educated in these convent schools, but teachers also, who were to go out and teach children in other schools; and the right hon. Baronet had admitted that the effect of that would be to destroy the district model schools, which were an essential feature of the system, and in which alone united education was carried out to any extent. The right hon. Gentleman said he wrote his letter before he knew what were the rules which the Commissioners proposed; and he received from the Commissioners a reply which was most insulting to him, which pooh-poohed him as a person who had no influence or power to affect anything which they did. They referred him, as a servant might be referred to his master, to the Lord Lieutenant, in terms which he should have thought might have kindled some little indignation in his mind. [Sir ROBERT PEEL: Will you read them?] He was speaking of the tone of the letter, but as the right hon. Baronet wished him to read the Correspondence he would do so. In the letter which the right hon. Baronet wrote before he knew what the rules were, he said—
  "The attention of the Irish Government has been drawn to certain contemplated changes in the fundamental rules of the system of National

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  Education in Ireland, the effects of which will be"—[not "I am told"]—"will be seriously to imperil the principle upon which the system is based."
  That was what the right hon. Gentleman wrote to the Commissioners, and now he told the House that when he wrote it he did not know what the rules were. [Sir ROBERT PEEL: I entirely deny that assertion.] He did not wish to imitate irregularities, but he should like to ask the right hon. Baronet whether he had seen the rules when he wrote his letter?
  SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, that he had not seen the written rules, but he had received verbal information from the Bishop of Derry, Dr. Henry, and other Commissioners as to the changes which were contemplated.
  MR. GATHORNE HARDY: Four Commissioners told the right hon. Gentleman they had done so or were about to do so—[Sir HUGH CAIRNS: Had done, three months before]—and informed the right hon. Gentleman against what points these protests were levelled. The right hon. Gentleman thereupon wrote to the resident Commissioners, and from the Commissioners received a reply denying that a change in any fundamental principle of the system would be affected by the new rule, should it be carried into operation, or could have been contemplated by the Commissioners when they framed the proposed regulation, Until that evening it had always been supposed that the right hon. Gentleman objected, in the spirit of his letter, to the mode in which the rules had been dealt with; but now he found fault with the hon. Member for the King's County for having, as he said, blamed the Commissioners. Why, who began the blame? The right hon. Gentleman himself. Of the Commissioners some had protested against the acts of their colleagues; the Bishop of Derry—according to the right hon. Gentleman, one of the oldest friends of the system—declared that the fundamental rules had been altered. The right hon. Gentleman himself showed that the schools had been changed practically into denominational schools, and therefore it was idle to say that the system had not been departed from. It was the inevitable tendency of systems of education to fall into the hands of persons zealous as to religious matters. Except in the model schools they had always found great difficulty in carrying out the joint system. From the beginning there had been comparatively few schools under joint management. Rules
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  had been made from time to time which were intended to check denominational education, but there had been a steady advance in that direction. After all the system of denominational education was that which had been the most successful. When they came to the question of educating the teachers they found themselves involved in something more material than the mere education of the children. As had been said by a great authority on this question of mixed education in Ireland—
  "One of these religious persons in giving instruction will not only give it after secular education has been supplied, but will give it in conjunction with literary instruction."
  It seemed to him a most remarkable thing that the Chief Secretary for Ireland should have sat down without intimating in any way the remedies which ought to be applied to cases that he admitted. Taking a great interest in the subject of education both in England and Ireland, he had read nearly all the Parliamentary papers issued on the subject, and thought it abundantly clear that the system originally established by Mr. Stanley had been departed from in many particulars. An atmosphere existed in the convent schools which must make them essentially places of religious instruction, and the same observation applied to Presbyterian schools. For the Presbyterian clergy in their evidence given before the Committee of 1854, admitted that when they gave religious instruction, although children might absent themselves if they thought proper, they would never desire them to leave, and everyone knew that, except acting under express direction, children in such matters were altogether helpless. The question for the House to determine was, whether the system of combined secular and separate religious education had been carried out as originally intended; had children of all denominations been brought together—in short, had the system succeeded or failed? The tight hon. Gentleman held that it had succeeded, but seemed to stand nearly alone in that opinion. In fact, it was natural that persons, where they got a pretty good school, conducted according to their own principles, should prefer sending their children there than to a mixed school. In one small place, Castlecomer, he had heard of as many as eight schools being founded to accommodate the peculiar views of the parents, when one would have sufficed to do the work. In Ireland thirty scholars seemed to be considered sufficient

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  to found a school, whereas in England small rural schools of less than one hundred were discouraged, it being one of the recommendations of the Committee of Council that small schools should as much as possible be combined with a view to getting better teaching. He had not spoken of any denomination with disrespect; his wish was that all should have fair play, and that education of the people should be made the paramount object, and not the advancement of any single denomination. But if it turned out that the working of the system was unsatisfactory, if nominally united it was practically a denominational system, then he thought that inquiry should take place, not, perhaps, by a Parliamentary Committee, but by an independent Commission. It might then be seen how much of the results complained of were attributable to the constitution of the Board, and whether twenty men living in different parts of Ireland, who could not be brought together with certainty at any one time, but some who might sit one day to reverse the decisions of their colleagues the day before, was not a system tending to throw too much power into the hands of a resident Commissioner. Of that gentleman he should speak with the highest possible respect; but he thought the charge devolving upon him was too great for a single mind, weighed down as he was in addition by the distracted counsels of a dissentient Board. The rule now introduced was essentially new, though it appeared from official documents that the payments it was intended to sanction had been made in past years without the sanction of any rule. Wherever a convent school was established, there, according to Mr. Sheridan's Reports, a secular school was put down; and under all the circumstances it appeared to him that inquiry must take place before the system could be put upon a basis satisfactory to Ireland, intelligible to that House, and worthy of the money voted by Parliament.
  MR. MAGUIREsaid, that as a Roman Catholic Member he might be supposed to know something of the class of schools that had been attacked by the Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Hugh Cairns). He would do that hon. and learned Gentleman the justice to say that he dealt with every question in the spirit of a gentleman, with great calmness, courtesy, power of logic, and arrangement of his subject. But the hon. and learned Member for Belfast was in that
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  instance the representative and organ of a body which had been the most bitter assailants of the National system, so long as that system was carried out on terms that were acceptable to the Roman Catholic people of Ireland. ["Oh!"] If he wanted to know the object of the Resolution he had only to listen to the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin. He regretted that the right hon. Gentleman had been carried away by his excitement to use expressions that were not creditable either to his good sense or his political tact. He did not say it to the disparagement of the National Board, which had been of late very much improved, but he would assert that practically the mixed system in Ireland was a mockery and a sham, and the House must come to the same conclusion. To show that he did not indulge in mere claptrap, he would refer to the latest Report of the Commissioners. That Report, which came up to January 1, 1864, showed that the so-called mixed system never had, and had not now, any practical operation in Ireland. He was in favour of the existing machinery—of the central authority—of the assistance of the State in aid of local efforts—and of a system of inspection which would justify the State in giving that assistance; but he believed that the mixed system had practically failed. The opposition manifested between the Chief Secretary and the Attorney General for Ireland and the divisions in the Board showed that the machine was not working well, and that if Parliament did not change the machinery it must change the essential spirit of the system. He would prove his point by a few figures. Leaving out Ulster, he would take the three provinces of Leinster, Minister, and Connaught. In the last quarter of 1863 there were, within a fraction, 400,000 children on the rolls of the National schools in those three provinces. In county Clare there were 20,043 on the rolls, but only 144 Protestants and 7 Presbyterians. The rest, 19,892, were Roman Catholics. In the county of Kerry there were 24,367 on the rolls, and only 337 Protestants and 5 Presbyterians. In Carlow there were 6,006 on the rolls, of whom 86 were Protestants, and only one a Presbyterian. In Kilkenny there were 15,984 on the rolls, and only 293 Protestants and 8 Presbyterians. The total number on the rolls in

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  those three provinces was 397,000. In the entire province of Munster there were only 2,827 Protestants on the rolls, and 262 Presbyterians. In Leinster there were 4,448 Protestants and 576 Presbyterians. In Connaught there were 3,164 Protestants and 485 Presbyterians. The total number of Protestants on the rolls in those three provinces was 10,639; of Presbyterians 1,323. After that statement would any one tell him that the mixed system was not a sham. He believed the time was coming when the advocates of the denominational system in Ireland would triumph. That system existed in England, and no Minister of the Crown would change it. The scheme of Lord Stanley was conceived in the most admirable spirit, and for years faith was kept with the Catholics of Ireland. But why were the Catholic prelates and people alarmed? In consequence of the increasing attacks that were being made, some of them by insidious foes, others by open and aggressive enemies. The hon. Member for Roscommon had admitted that many of the safeguards of Lord Stanley's system had been broken down, to the injury of the Irish Catholics. He maintained that it was the duty of the Commissioners to do as they had done, and that it befitted the wisdom of the House to sustain them in what they had done. He had been astonished to hear the right hon. Gentleman the representative of the University charge the Commissioners with having lent themselves to further the machinations, ends, and objects of the monastic institutions. The right hon. Gentleman became animated by a most extraordinary frenzy when he spoke of nuns, monks, friars, and Jesuits. His hon. Friend (Mr. Hennessy) made a remarkable statement, on the best authority as he conceived. It appeared in a report of a meeting held in Dublin a few days ago, when the Rev. Mr. Kirby, one of the fathers, made a statement which had been answered and refuted by the Roman Catholic Dean of Cork. The story was that when the Inspector of the Board visited the Presentation Convent at Cork the children received instructions not to make the sign of the cross. When the hour struck, however, the instinct of the children was too strong to be repressed, and they made the sacred sign, the nun being in a state of trepidation, and afraid that the school would lose the grant. The answer of the Dean of Cork was, that there was but one Presentation Convent
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  in Cork, of which he was the ecclesiastical superior, and he denied in the most explicit manner the statement that the Catholic children had at any time been directed not to make the sign of the cross, or that the nuns made use of any such words as had been attributed to them; nor did he believe that there were any nuns in Ireland capable of conduct which would have been a combination of meanness, deception, and dishonesty, and he regretted that Father Kirby should have been deceived by such a falsehood. Now, the attack which had been made on the convent schools—for everybody in Ireland believed that it was an attack—had been justified by quotations from the report of Mr. Sheridan. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Whiteside) no doubt read the Mail, and, if so, he might have seen a letter from Mr. Sheridan explaining his report, and denying the inferences which were sought to be drawn from it. He had the letter of Mr. Sheridan in his hand, it was dated the 2nd of May, 1864, and in it Mr. Sheridan said, that so far from being dissatisfied with the extension of the convent schools he viewed it with the greatest satisfaction, and he hoped to live to see the day when such schools would be found among the mass of every Catholic population in Ireland, because he knew that it was only by means of those schools that the blessings of a sound literary and religious education could be given to those whom the National schools could never reach—namely, the homeless, outcast children who were sought out by the good men and women who conducted those schools. That was the deliberately recorded opinion of one of the head Inspectors of the Government, vindicating his Report from the interpretation sought to be put upon it by hon. Gentlemen. It was true that Mr. Sheridan had said that there was not sufficient teaching power in the convent schools. But that was in 1860, and since then there had been a great change, and the monitorial system, which had risen and expanded against the will of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House, had given that teaching power, so that the fault found by Mr. Sheridan in 1860 no longer existed. There were convent schools in his own city which educated from 3,000 to 4,000 children, and which were admitted by the Protestants of Cork to be a blessing to the community, for this reason, that they gave a good literary as well as sound moral education. They

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  taught cleanliness, industry, honesty; nor was the solicitude of the nuns confined to the school, but it followed the scholars into the world, watching over, directing, and advising them. At Kinsale there was a school of 800 girls, at the head of which was Mrs. Bridgman, who had followed Miss Nightingale to the Crimea, and with her band of sisters had been among the most successful of the nurses of our soldiers. That school had cost £2,200 in its erection; it was large, spacious, and commodious as any of the model schools which had been built at such vast expense to the State. In Middleton there was a school which contained 800 children, and which cost £1,300 or £1,400 in building. Some of the best teachers came out of those schools, and they were even the means of supporting families by the industry which they taught the pupils. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University had laid great stress on an unhappy phrase which had been used by Mr. Sheridan, who happened to say that the nuns were intolerant; but Mr. Sheridan's explanation was that he ought not to have used that word, because it was objectionable in itself and was liable to misinterpretation. He went on to say that he used the word intolerance, as was obvious in the context, simply to imply impatience of competition, and that he never meant it to signify religious intolerance, apologizing at the same time for employing a term capable of so offensive an interpretation. After that explanation, the charge of intolerance would, he hoped, never again be brought against the nuns of Ireland. It appeared, he might add, from what had been stated by the Commissioners, that so far from any favour having been extended to the convent schools, the very contrary was the fact. So far as pupil-teachers were concerned, any large and efficient school might have them as well as those which were attached to a convent, while the nuns, the Commissioners said, now received only one-third of the average sum paid to teachers of all classes. After an authoritative statement of that kind there ought, he thought, to be no alarm on the part of the Presbyterians of Ireland, whose memorial for an increase of the Regium Donum he had not long since signed on the principle of religious freedom. The Roman Catholics, he might add, asked for no assistance from the State for their Church or their clergy, and when men came from Ireland and sought for aid in
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  the way in which the Presbyterians had done from Irish Roman Catholic Members, it was, he thought, scarcely right of them to urge two distinguished Members of that House to come forward to make an attack on institutions which were dear to the Roman Catholic people of that country. Seeing, he would further observe, the difficulties which existed in reference to the question of education in Ireland, the time must, in his opinion, come when the denominational system must be substituted for the mixed. The Archbishop of Canterbury was in favour of the denominational system, and Archbishop Cullen did not go one bit further in Ireland than the right rev. Prelate did in England. They were, he contended, both right, and Earl Russell was right in the view which he took on the subject. The Roman Catholic Church had made great efforts and sacrifices in the cause of education. All she asked was fair play and equal justice, and if that could not exist under a mixed system, it must be sought under that which solved all difficulties—the denominational system.
  MR. BUTTsaid, he thought it unfortunate that they had been carried away into a general discussion of education in Ireland. He must confess that there never had been so much agitation raised about so small a change. In the month of November last the Commissioners republished their rules, and in one respect did they make a material alteration, which the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Hugh Cairns) invited them to declare was at variance with the principles of National Education, and thus practically asked the House to pass a Vote of Censure on the Commissioners. Now, in 1831, immediately on the establishment of the system, the question arose whether the convent schools should receive aid; and it was found that the Kildare Place Society, which the system was intended to supersede, did give a large number of these schools assistance. The lending of support to them, therefore, was no new thing, nor could he understand how any person anxious to bring education and civilization to the lower classes in Ireland, could deliberately reject the services of those ladies who were so well calculated to effect those objects. The whole ground of the Vote of Censure which the House was asked to give was this, that the Commissioners had agreed to give in some schools of greater efficiency a little higher salary to first class monitors; and it was supposed that many of

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  these would be convent schools. Had it been alleged that the convent schools had in any case injured the Presbyterian population? Yes; one solitary case had been raked up, but so far from establishing anything against the convent schools, it did quite the reverse. It appeared that at a school in Youghal two Protestant children remained there after the prescribed hours, and while certain prayers were pronounced. A great deal of correspondence took place, a special Inspector was sent down, and a Committee of the House of Lords was occupied in investigating the case. The consequence was, that the school at Youghal was separated from the National Board, and was afterwards supported by the people without National aid. That was the one solitary instance of anything like an approach to interference with the religion of Protestant pupils, and it showed that such a vigilance was exercised that any attempt to interfere with the religion of Protestant children in Catholic schools was almost impossible. It was objected that teachers would be educated in these, but that was not a departure from the principles of the National Board, for one of the first rules of the Board was, that patrons were to be at liberty to select their own teachers without government interference, if no special objection, arising from want of educational ability, were advanced. There was no reason why war should be made on these schools. The convent schools were not antagonistic to the educational system. If a denominational school meant the preponderance of any particular religious feeling, there was an end of the educational system; but the educational system did not contemplate that contingency. Peace and harmony would not be promoted by declaring that Catholic parents should send their children to schools presided over by a Presbyterian schoolmaster, or vice versâ. With regard to the Question before the House, he trusted that in common honesty the Amendment would find no support. He believed the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Belfast to be very mischievous, and that it would be understood in Ireland in a sense the hon. Member did not mean—as representing, not his own views, but the bigotry which had forced the proceeding upon him. With regard to the Amendment, he asked whether the hon. Member for the King's County joined in the attack on convent schools, and upon priests, friars, and Jesuits, for whom the House
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  had been told the money of the State was voted. He believed that the hon. Member rather tried to get rid of that special attack, by involving the House in a general discussion, and converting the Resolution into an attack on the system of National education. But was that a fair way of dealing with the question? A distinct issue had been raised by the hon. and learned Member for Belfast—namely, whether the House should sanction a trifling concession to convent schools, and it was not fair to the House to attempt to evade that issue. He trusted that the Amendment would be rejected, and that a distinct decision would be come to on the issue raised by the hon. and learned Member for Belfast, so that the people of Ireland might have the satisfaction of perceiving that the unworthy feeling of bigotry of those who had induced that hon. and learned Member to bring forward the Motion could not find many supporters in that House.
  MR. LEFROYsaid, he regretted that the hon. and learned Gentleman had introduced into the debate a tone which hitherto had been entirely strange to it. He did not think that his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Belfast (Sir Hugh Cairns), in the able and powerful speech which he made on the question, ever intended to make the attack attributed to him by the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken. The argument of the hon. Member for the King's County in support of his Amendment was, that the rules of the Board had been changed to meet the views of the Presbyterians, although their schools remained in connection with the Board. The foundation upon which his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Belfast rested his Motion was that the rules relating to convent schools had been a breaking in upon the original system of National Education. The concession to convent schools showed how much the original system had been changed. His objection was that the system was thus made denominational, and that the change tended to give convent schools the command of the education of the country. He (Mr. Lefroy) honestly avowed that he felt considerable difficulty in refusing to support the general Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for King's County, while he was prepared to support the particular Motion of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Belfast; but his hon. and learned Friend had supported his

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  case by such plain and urgent reasoning, and facts, that on the whole he did not see why his support should be diverted from the Motion by a general Amendment. In giving his support to the Motion he stood in a different position from his hon. and learned Friend, who was a supporter of the National system. He himself never had been a supporter of that system, and in supporting the Motion he did so not so much from a desire to bring that system back to its original plan, as from a disinclination to see a denominational system established in Ireland. It was a hard thing for the clergy of the Established Church in Ireland that while, by changes in the rules, the Presbyterians and the Roman Catholics had been enabled to avail themselves of the benefit of the system, they were the only body who had been deprived of its advantages. However unjustly he might be attacked for avowing it, he believed the clergy of the Established Church had done themselves great credit by the consistency and firmness with which they had stood aloof from a system which did not allow them to teach the children the simple Word of God.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I do not think there is any one who has listened to the speech of my hon. Friend (Mr. Lefroy) who will complain of its temper or tone, nor can any one charge him with disingenuousness in regard to the motives which govern his conduct in this matter; but I must confess I cannot understand the difficulty he feels in rejecting the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for King's County for the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Belfast. It appears to me that the Motion and the Amendment are ostensibly in diametrical opposition to each other. In fact, the Amendment is hardly within the limits of Parliamentary Amendments; it is a complete inversion of the Motion, and it is such an extension of its scope as entirely to change the character of the debate. The hon. and learned Member for Belfast, assuming the language of the straitest sect of those who support the National Board, complains of an undue deviation from the original system; and the hon. and learned Member for King's County picks out of his Motion the very words on which its pith depends, and substitutes for it a Motion of a totally different character, assailing the very institution which the hon. and learned Member for Belfast professes to uphold. It is another question whether we may not find
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  that there is a latent sympathy and concurrence in the object of the Motion and the Amendment; but on the surface they are like two valorous knights tilting against each other in mortal combat. I begin by declining to discuss the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman, whose abilities will always entitle him to the attention of the House, provided his Motion is made in the manner usually required by the rules of our proceedings. The question of the vital principle of the National system is of such vast importance to the internal condition, that if it is discussed it should be in a substantive Motion, and not by the introduction of an Amendment at a late period of a debate which seems to contemplate quite a different object. The system of National Education was devised in a spirit of political benevolence, and also of no small practical wisdom, and the very last object of its founders was either to wound religious feelings or to impair the efficiency of religious education. If we take the system in its principle, it is one of united literary and separate religious education; but we find from the first moment it was launched that it was, to a certain extent, out of harmony with the feelings of the country. It was thus far out of harmony with the feelings of the country that a series of adaptations were required to be introduced, beginning with the first establishment of the system, and coming down to the present time, none of which tended to subvert the essential principle of the scheme, but all of which have been departures from the abstract rigour of the theory. In the first place, the different Administrations of this country were most desirous to promote the principle of united education in Ireland. It appears, too, that in a large proportion of the schools there has been an admixture of pupils of different religious denominations; and I do not know, therefore, that we have any reason to suppose the effect of that admixture has been any other than what was contemplated by those who founded the system. The principle is one of united literary education; but, on the other hand, respect had to be paid to a fixed, and, with those who entertained it, a sacred feeling prevailing in Ireland, by separating, in regard to religious education, the creeds into which the people of that country are divided. My hon. and learned Friend fairly said that the mass of the clergy of the Established Church have not found it consistent with their religious feelings to avail themselves of the Government aid by ac-

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  cepting the National system. Well, whatever one may think of the abstract merits of the opinion held by those rev, gentlemen, no one can deny that the fact to which I have just referred bears evidence of their highmindedness. One may regret their decision, but all must admit that the fact of their willingness to suffer the loss of the contributions of the State is evidence of the highmindedness of the body. This is, however, certain, that the members of that body—I do not mean to say all, but the mass of them—represented in this discussion by my hon. and learned Friend, have put themselves in conflict with the principle of the National system by insisting on instruction from the Holy Scriptures being given in the schools, irrespectively of the desire of the children and their parents. Therefore, as far as regards those who are outside the limitations of the system, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Belfast in bringing forward and supporting this Motion does not want to have that system made more strictly in keeping with the original intentions of the founders, because he has disapproved it—disapproves it and will continue to disapprove it as long as the system lasts. Heretofore the administration of the system has been characterized by successive modifications. But has there been any inequality in these modifications? If there has been a departure from the strict theory, has not that departure been in favour of all? Can it be said that exceptional favour has been shown to those conventual schools? I apprehend that cannot be said. I think it appears from the Returns that the amount of pecuniary support—which may be taken as the measure of the favour of the State—is less in the case of the convent schools, regard being had to the amount of work done by them than in that of other schools. It is true they enjoy an exemption, inasmuch as the teachers are not required to be examined or qualified in a model school; but in escaping from the ordinary regulations on that head they have lost a privilege much greater than that which they have accepted, because they lose the increased remuneration. Now, when we look at the Motion of the hon. and learned Member, what is it? He complains of a certain regulation of a certain date. And what is this regulation? Why, really those who do not look below the surface would find it difficult to understand why this regulation should be made the ground for an attack on the system.
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  What is there suspicious in permitting schools of a larger and more important class to have monitors of a more advanced age than those who are admitted in other schools? For nearly twenty years we have been engaged in developing and encouraging the monitorial system of education by means of subsidies from the State; and to retain the services of monitors who are not considered sufficiently advanced in age to become teachers, you have decided that in a more important class of schools monitors may be retained and trained for two years longer. Is there anything unjust and improper in that? It is found that convent schools obtain a considerable share of the advantage arising from that relaxation of the rule. And why is this the case? Because those schools are large, which testifies to the confidence which the people have in them; and because they are efficient, which is proved by the fact that they receive the benefit of this new arrangement. It is not because they are Roman Catholic; it is not because they are conventual, but because, on the grounds to which they have just referred, they become entitled to the favour of the State. If the hon. and learned Member for Belfast holds that the new rule deviates from rigid impartiality in favour of the conventual schools, that is no reason for attacking a plan which aims at giving perfection to the monitorial system. If any conventual school deviates from the rules of the Board, by all means visit it with corrective measures. It is stated that not long ago a conventual school at Carrick-on-Shannon was struck off the list because the use of the sign of the cross was practised during the hours of united education; but I think the scope and object of the Motion of my hon. and learned Friend are a great deal wider than its words. Why object to having three classes of monitors if you do not object to having two classes? Why is it right to train them up to eighteen years of age, when in the opinion of many persons they are not fit to take charge of schools, and wrong to train them up to the age of twenty, when they are fit to do so? The real scope and animus of the Motion seem to be to break up the original rule which let those convent schools in, for I find in a pamphlet put forward by the Ulster National Educational Association this statemeut—"Those conventual schools are institutions which, by their very nature, are of a sectarian character." Well, if by their nature they are of a sectarian cha-

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  racter, why did the Earl of Derby admit them to receive aid from a non-sectarian system? They were admitted by him, for in 1836 the Commissioners, alluding to an attack made in a pamphlet, stated that they had been in communication with Lord Stanley, and that he thought it desirable that those schools should be brought under the National system. In my opinion the Earl of Derby would have committed a gross error if he had taken any other course. How was it possible to take any other course when those schools had received aid from the Kildare Place Society? How was it possible to take any other course when those schools had on their side the dearest religious feelings of the country? The Commissioners were right to grant them aid, though they could not expect men to be free from a strong religious and even ecclesiastical feeling. All that could be expected from them was, that they would conform to the rules of the Board; and it has been shown that any of them which do not conform to those rules and afford protection to the creed of the minority will not continue to receive the assistance of the State. Then see what was done after the admission of these schools. Are they the only ones which have got the benefit of the rule? I grant that the clergy of the Established Church have not extensively availed themselves of it, but the Presbyterian body have obtained the benefit of it. The Commissioners held that schools in connection with Presbyterian meeting-houses stood in the same position as those connected with communities of the Roman Catholic persuasion, and have, with impartial justice, granted to Presbyterians the privileges already given to Roman Catholics, on the ground that the special definite religious character of a school ought not to exclude it from the aid of the State, provided there is conformity with the rules of the Board. That is a broad, intelligible, rational principle, and having been announced, it ought to be acted upon fairly. It has been said that the effect of the regulation would be extremely injurious to the model schools, and that, in fact, the source and secret of it is hostility to these establishments. It seems to be held by some, that these model schools have a sort of exclusive claim to provide all the schools in Ireland with teachers. Now, from a very early period in the history of the system, when a distinction was introduced between vested and
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  non-vested schools, it was resolved to allow very large scope to the discretion of local patrons and promoters. If that scope is to be allowed, if you expect the local patrons to give that vital aid to the schools which no mere money grant can supply, and to animate them with a spirit of religion and order, you must leave to them considerable latitude in the selection of masters, and must not confine them exclusively in their choice to those trained in institutions under the control of the Government. My desire would certainly be in dealing with such a question, as far as the difference of the circumstances permit, to apply the same principle of equity and consideration to the feelings of our fellow-subjects in Ireland as in England. Well, has the Government in England ever dreamt of monopolizing the supply of teachers for the primary schools? On the contrary, the first attempt of the Government in this country to establish an institution for the preparation of teachers was regarded with jealousy, and although it was conducted with judgment, although no charge was ever made against the training school at Knellerhall, yet it has been deemed a better and wiser course to allow the primary schools to depend upon voluntary agency, as far as the provision of teachers is concerned. Nay, more; the Government, while liberally furnishing the training colleges with funds, has left to the managers, an almost absolute discretion as to the mode of administration. When such consideration has been shown in England to the feelings of the clergy, not merely of the Established Church, but of all religious denominations, is it wise or just, is it even decent, to go to Ireland and say, "Here is so much money for your schools, but we insist on your coming to the shop of the Government and no other, in order to obtain the commodity of a teacher?" I am very friendly to the principle of competition. I will not now discuss the question of the Government model schools in England; but I say that very considerable advantage would arise in Ireland from healthy competition between different nurseries and training grounds, under different auspices, for the preparation of teachers for primary schools. The Irish model schools, moreover, are not capable of turning out a sufficient number of teachers to meet the demand. ["Oh!"] Some men take their own opinions to be facts; but the fact is, I believe, as I have stated. At any rate, I will not contest

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  the matter any further. But if that point be conceded, I do not scruple to say that it is not desirable to exclude that class of teachers who receive their education in schools which possess the undivided confidence of the great religious persuasions of the country. I see an hon. Friend opposite looking rather startled at that declaration; but, if the schools were all those of the Church of England, or of the Established Church in Ireland, would he be equally astonished? He would then, no doubt, take another view of the reasonability of giving free scope to the religious feelings of the managers of these institutions. It is only right and proper that the patrons of schools, as long as they adhere to the rules of the Board, should be at liberty to seek for teachers trained in establishments in which they themselves repose the fullest confidence. Allusions have been made to the approaching downfall of the National system, and a Board of three paid Com-missioners has been proposed as a substitute for the present Board. I regard that proposition not as Chancellor of the Exchequer, considering the salaries involved, but on far higher and broader grounds; and I say that it inspires me with serious apprehensions. The existing Board is by its constitution and numbers something like a fair relative representation, and is, therefore, better calculated to maintain the system in the confidence of the people of Ireland than any scheme devised in a bureau for intrusting the distribution to three paid Commissioners. We know what the result would be—one would be claimed by the Presbyterians, another by the Established Church, and the third by the Roman Catholics. [Sir HUGH CAIRNS: I did not propose such a scheme.] I did not attribute any detailed scheme to the hon. and learned Gentleman. With a Board of three Commissioners there could not be nearly so fair a distribution of influence as with the existing Board. It seems to me that the very narrow scope of the hon. and learned Gentleman's Motion is a reason for supposing that he has some larger object in view. On what ground does he object to this third class of monitors? Why does he seek to disparage the rule of the Commissioners, and to deprive them of any discretion in this matter? In terms the Motion is narrow; in spirit it is broad. Whatever may be the motive with which it has been brought forward, its tendency would certainly not be very different from that of the proposal
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  of the hon. and learned Member for the King's County—to undermine and overturn a system which, upon the whole, has been accepted by the people of Ireland as a benefit and as a proof of confidence and kindly feeling on the part of this country, and which, if it continue to be administered as hitherto, in the same liberal spirit in which it was conceived, will not lend itself, under whatever pretext, to any considerations or proposals less broad and comprehensive than those upon which it was originally based.
  SIR HUGH CAIRNS: Sir, I think the House has reason to congratulate itself both as to the substance and the tone of the greater part of the debate upon this subject. If I might take leave to refer to one particular speech, I would say, with the permission of the hon. Member for Roscommon (the O'Conor Don), that I never heard a question of this importance argued with greater fairness, ability, and point than by the hon. Gentleman, though I do not agree with his argument. If I might make an exception, I would say that I think the hon. and learned Member for Youghal (Mr. Butt), in his speech, brought into the debate an asperity and an acrimony which I hope he did not intend to evoke, and from which, fortunately, up to that time, the debate had been free. Finally, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had obviously heard extremely little of the debate, and still more obviously had studied very little of the question, has made it necessary that I should set right some misrepresentations which he has—of course, unintentionally—made. It has been said that the form of the Motion which I have submitted to the House is really an attack upon convent schools, and a demand that convent schools shall be deprived of any aid from the Education Board. Now, I thought that in opening the discussion I had prevented any such apprehension. But I now repeat that not only would I not advocate any proposition for depriving convent schools, educating as they do some 40,000 or 50,000 children, of aid from a Board which calls itself National, but I would go further, and say that a Board of National Education would not be worthy of the name unless it applied itself to the question of how schools which educate such a body of children should be brought within its reach and supplied with aid by its means. I say now, as I have said in this House before, that in like manner the Board has to some

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  extent deprived itself of the right to the name it bears, because, with regard to another large denomination in Ireland, educating a very large number of children, it has not in my judgment made all the exertions it might have made to bring them within the reach of its operations. Well, then, it was said I had expressed an opinion which must be considered a reprobation of convent schools as regards their mode of teaching and their general conduct. Sir, I expressed no opinion upon the merits of convent schools but one—namely, that, so far as I had heard, I believed the ladies presiding over those schools deserved every praise; that the industrial training of the children was excellent, and that the literary education was in many respects extremely good, though it was subject to some observations which I afterwards particularized. I say further, that it is impossible not to echo what has been said to-night in praise of the devotedness, the single-mindedness, the charity and benevolence of the ladies who conduct, and to a great extent support, these schools. All these matters are foreign to the question before the House—a question which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not fully apprehended. We do not desire to deprive convent schools of any Parliamentary aid, or to cast any reflection upon the conduct of them. I read the Report of Mr. Sheridan, the head Inspector of the Board, and I founded upon it a charge against the Board, because I say that if the Board had performed its duty properly, that Report would have been upon the table of the House, in order that we might see what Mr. Sheridan's opinions were, and might have controverted them if they appeared to be untrue, or acted upon them if they were well founded. I have not heard any justification for what the Board did in withholding the Report. And now that I am on the subject of the Board let me make another observation. With many members of the Board I have the pleasure of being acquainted; among them there are some valued friends of mine, and none more so than the resident Commissioner. But I must say that if the Board expect to command our confidence in this matter of reports they must not act upon their present system. With regard to Mr. Sheridan's Report, they concealed it from the House—I can use no other term. Perhaps they did not consider the matter as they ought to have done. Then, after this question had arisen at the Board between the Commissioners themselves as
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  to the mode in which convent schools should be dealt with, and after the majority of the Board had announced their opinion upon the point, they next, as soon as Mr. Sheridan's Report finds its way to the light, call for new Reports from their various Inspectors. We have heard from the right hon. Secretary for Ireland that in a few days these Reports will be in the hands of Members. But this morning there came into the hands of hon. Members a circular or instructions to Inspectors as to the mode in which they are to make these Reports. I should like to call the attention of English Members to this point. A general form is given, twenty or thirty queries are put, and appended to them are four circular letters of instruction, issued in hot haste, one after the other, within a week. The first says—
  "The Commissioners of National Education have directed us to call upon you to make a special inspection of and report on each convent or monastic school in your district. We are, therefore, to instruct you to suspend at once the discharge of every other duty, no matter what its character, in order to carry out the wishes of the Board on this important business. We have, accordingly, to request that you will spend a day or so in the study of the queries and headings contained in the special form, on which you are to make your report on each school, and we cannot possibly doubt that, after an inspection based upon an intelligent apprehension of these queries, you will be able to give such an honest, thoroughly impartial, and comprehensive report of each convent or monastic school in your charge as will assist in the elucidation of truth in respect to a controversy which you can scarcely have failed to observe is going on in reference to convent schools."
  That is, a controversy one party to which were the Commissioners themselves. They had pronounced in the most solemn way their positive and distinct opinion upon every one of those points on which they were asking for a Report; and, I ask, is it right after that to send out a circular telling the Inspectors that the object of the information they are to supply is to prove which of two parties is right in a particular controversy, the Board themselves being one of the parties? Two days' reflection leads the Board to think that a little more instruction was necessary, and what do they tell the Inspectors?—
  "That suggestions, technical details, &c, appropriate in ordinary reports, are accordingly to be avoided. Should the consideration of this Report suggest any points of an important nature for the improvement of these schools as to organization, &c, such points can be made the subject of a special communication to the Board at some future period."

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  So the Inspectors are told—"Go and examine the schools; answer the queries put to you; if, however, you see anything in the schools which requires improvement, do not tell us of it in this Report, which is to go before Parliament in order to settle the controversy, but supply the Board with private information on the subject at some future periods." Now, I see opposite to me one of the Commissioners, and I ask, was he a party to the settling of those instructions, or, if not, does he approve them? I feel satisfied as to what his answer must be. Far be it from me to suggest that there is any ground for an attack upon the convent schools as regards their mode of teaching; but I do say, if anything could lead the public to believe that there was such a ground, it is the issue of such a circular, with such special directions. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says, the true explanation is that from the very beginning the rigid theory of the system had to be adopted from time to time in order to make it suit the various strong religious feelings and sentiments which were found in the country; and the first instance of this, he says, is when the Earl of Derby, as Chief Secretary for Ireland, approved the introduction into the system of convent schools, they being sectarian schools; and he adds that my Motion is a covert disapproval of that step. Now, I have had the honour of a seat in this House for a number of years, and although during that time we have had many discussions on National Education in Ireland, I do not remember that we were ever before favoured with one sentence from the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I spoke on it before you came into the House.
  SIR HUGH CAIRNS: Well, for ten; or twelve years, although there have been many debates, I have never heard him open his mouth before upon this subject. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has no right to say, I having on scores of occasions expressed my opinion in favour of the Board generally, that under cover of this Motion I am seeking to undermine it; but let us see whether the Board has always shown itself so very anxious to conciliate persons of religious feelings in Ireland by softening the rigid theory of the system as it originally stood. I could mention several cases, but let me take the most recent one, In 1860 the clergy of the diocese of Deny, who were desirous of putting their schools under the Board, said they were willing to
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  allow any child whose parents objected to leave the school-room during religious instruction, but they did not like to appear as if they were driving children away when religious instruction was about to be given. They accordingly asked to be allowed to make a slight alteration in the notice to be put up, be that they might not appear to be urging children of other denominations to go away, but rather to be encouraging them to stay. A proposal to that effect was made to the Board, but that body, so anxious to soften the rigid asperity of the original system, flatly and even rudely refused the request preferred to them, and in a curt answer declined to sanction any alteration whatever. Again, the Chancellor of the Exchequer told us that a large alteration has been made in the rules, to meet the views of the Presbyterians j but the truth is there never was any printed or published rule altered on behalf of that body. I admit that a degree of facility was given to schools taught and conducted as the Presbyterian schools were which led to their placing their schools under the Board; but nothing whatever was done with respect to the Presbyterians or their schools which was not freely offered at that time and since to all denominations in Ireland. The modification in question was not made exclusively on behalf of the Presbyterian body, but embraced all schools under the guardianship of the Commissioners—a fact which marks the difference between the case of the Presbyterians and such a case as the Motion before us would deal with. But to come to the precise point of my Resolution, the Chancellor of the Exchequer asks what objection we can possibly have to a third class of monitors, there being two classes in existence already. The right hon. Gentleman is evidently not aware that, so far as the printed and published rules went, up to November, 1863, it was not lawful for convent schools to have any kind of monitors, either senior or junior, not, to speak of that class now invented for the first time, and to be called first-class monitors or pupil-teachers. In the original letter of Mr. Stanley, it was laid down as one of the essential principles of the Board, that the teachers should be trained in a model school under the sanction of the Commissioners. Every one knows that the model schools are at this moment, and have been for some time, the objects of special enmity and attack by a certain body of great numbers and influence, whose aim is to have teachers who shall be trained, not in the model

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  schools, but in schools under the direction and exclusive government of themselves. The Board has established rules by which, under the name of monitors, teachers can be trained in those exclusive schools, and the consequence must be that the teachers so trained will be selected for all the schools of the same denomination throughout Ireland. It seems the Chancellor of the Exchequer likes a healthy competition, and he wants to see such a rivalry between the teachers trained in the model schools and those trained in the convent schools; but the fact is the competition will be confined to the Government themselves. They have built model schools for the purpose mainly of training teachers, and upon those schools they spend a very large sum yearly, and now we see them encouraging a system which is to withdraw all the children from the model schools in the first place, and, in the next, to put an end to all the demand for teachers from institutions founded and maintained at such great expense, because, of course, the teachers trained in the exclusive convent schools will be chosen by the Roman Catholic body for their general schools throughout the country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer talks of my hostility to the Board, and yet in the same breath he rings the knell of the model schools, which, I venture to say, cannot survive the system inaugurated and approved by the Government for the space of two years. One word with respect to the speech of the Chief Secretary and I have done. I was under a delusion during almost the whole of that speech. I thought the right hon. Baronet was supporting my Motion with great vigour and effect. He said it was a mistake to suppose that my Motion was intended to cut off the convent schools from the Board, or was meant to cast any imputation upon the teaching of the convent schools. No person could deny, he added, that the convent schools were in direct competition with the model schools, which he thought must be seriously damaged; and he said, moreover, that it was necessary the convent schools should be checked. He also told us that the teachers should not be trained by those who, like the ladies in convent schools, were not able to train them upon fixed and scientific principles; but he concluded by assuring the House that the Attorney General for Ireland and himself were quite "synonymous"—I think that was the word he used—quite synonymous in their views. Not only does the right hon. Gentleman
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  the Chief Secretary hold these opinions, but they are those also of the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General, for their opinions are "synonymous." I fully expected, after hearing those opinions, that the right hon. Gentleman was prepared to support my Resolution; but, on the contrary, he has told us that he intends to vote against it, and that he believes such a course to be perfectly inconsistent with his letter of the 30th of January, 1864. Now, what was the opinion that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary then held, and which he holds still? He said that when he wrote the letter he had not seen the rules of November, 1863. He said, however, that he had received remonstrances from the Presbytery of Derry and the Presbytery of Belfast. Both those bodies had seen the rules, and not only adverted to them, but stated their opinion and argued upon them. Does the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary mean to say that at the time he wrote the clear and definite letter of the 30th of January he had no distinct knowledge of the nature of the rules?
  SIR ROBERT PEEL: I had not seen the rules myself; but, as I have already stated, I had been told by four Commissioners what they were.
  SIR HUGH CAIRNS: The House will, no doubt, be glad to hear if the business of the Government is always conducted in the same manner at Dublin. Would the right hon. Baronet be content, on the strength of a simple assurance, and without examination, to write, "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 effects of which will be seriously to imperil the principle upon which the system is based?" But the matter does not rest upon that. He had those two remonstrances in addition to what he might have been told by the four Commissioners, and it is impossible to avoid seeing that the Chief Secretary believed them to be, as he affirmed, "fundamental rules of the system of National Education in Ireland." The right hon. Baronet said that the convent schools were in direct competition with the model schools, and that they ought therefore to be checked.
  SIR ROBERT PEEL: What I did say was, and I gave it as my opinion only, that the convent schools had increased so much of late years that they would soon destroy

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  the model schools altogether, and that they ought therefore to be checked.
  SIR HUGH CAIRNS: The right hon. Baronet has repeated in stronger terms still the very expression which I endeavoured to put down in writing. He says that it is his opinion, but it is something more. It is the opinion of the Attorney General, for they are "synonymous." And then the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer says that in England you have separate training for teachers—why not, therefore, adopt the same practice for Ireland? The right hon. Gentleman's theory appears to be that the system is to be defended in one country because it exists in another.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I said no such thing. I said that, so far as circumstances would admit, the same principles would be applied to the two countries.
  SIR HUGH CAIRNS: It is the Chancellor of the Exchequer who has pronounced the doom, if that doom has been pronounced, of the Irish system of National Education. To him and the Chief Secretary and the Attorney General belong the honour, if honour it may be, of destroying a system which, if carried out in the spirit in which it was originally designed, without the alterations introduced since, has bestowed, and is still bestowing, inestimable benefits upon the people of Ireland.
  MR. O'HAGAN (THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND)said, he could not but complain of the unfounded insinuation which the hon. Member for Belfast had urged against the Commissioners—that they had perverted the truth. The extract from the instructions to the Inspectors, which had been quoted by the hon. Member, ought not to be read alone, but ought to be accompanied by the two previous clauses. The Commissioners desired to receive every information and suggestion about the schools which could possibly be of any advantage; but as those statements were too long and wearisome for the public generally, another form had to be filled up, confining the Report to the bare statement of facts. He would only say further, in reference to some humorous observations which were made by the hon. and learned Gentleman, that many things might be said in the course of debate by one Member, which another Member could not approve; but, as far as his own opinions were concerned, they had been stated perhaps at
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  too great length, and possibly with too great elaboration, on a former occasion, but he was quite willing to stand by his own opinions and by nothing else.
  MR. WHITESIDEsaid, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had asked why the clergy of the Church of Ireland did not avail themselves of the advantages offered by the Board, and he declared that a man of his great understanding could not comprehend why they did not. He would tell him why. Because they belonged to the Church of England, which the right hon. Gentleman was supposed to represent, and he referred him to a petition signed by 5,000 of the clergy of the Church of England to that House, in which they said they approved that decision. They were the founders of the Kildare Place Society, and he spoke truly when he said that that society did give aid to convent schools, but they did so upon the condition that, in the schools receiving aid, the Scriptures should be read. He thought Lord Stanley was right in directing that aid should be given to those convent schools, and he also thought the convent school of Youghal should receive aid, but not under false pretences The point for the House to consider was, whether there was any solution but one—to let the religious element free, and to provide a good secular education available for all classes. He knew no other solution but that. The hon. and learned Member for Youghal had declared that the Motion proceeded from bigotry of gentlemen in the North of Ireland. Was the House aware that the promoters were strong supporters of the Government, that Mr. Gibson, who was returned for Belfast by the Catholics and Presbyterians, had signed the protest? If the Attorney General for Ireland had read the names of the eminent merchants of Belfast who were strong supporters of Roman Catholic emancipation, he would find those names amongst those who were now protesting against these changes; and it was, therefore, unwise of the hon. and learned Member for Youghal to attack some of the most acute and intelligent men to be found in all Ireland.
  MR. HENNESSYsaid, he would not press his Amendment if the hon. and learned Gentleman would withdraw his Resolution.
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, the Government would vote against the Amendment, and then the division would be taken upon the original Resolution.
  Question put.
  The House divided;—Ayes 112; Noes 8: Majority 104.
  Main Question put.
  The House divided;
  Notice being taken that Sir George Bowyer, the Member for Dundalk, having given his voice with the Ayes, had voted with the Noes, Sir George Bowyer was called to the Table by Mr. Speaker, and stated that he had given his voice with the Noes, but had called out "The Ayes have it," in order to force a Division; whereupon Mr. Speaker directed his Vote to be recorded with the Ayes.
  Ayes 59; Noes 91: Majority 32.

  INCLOSURE (NO. 2) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. BARING, Bill to authorize the Inclosure of certain lands in pursuance of a Special Report of the Inclosure Commissioners, ordered* to be brought in by Mr. Baring and Sir GEORGE GREY.
  Bill presented, and read 1o.* [Bill 170].

  HARWICH HARBOUR ACT BILL.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Resolved, That the Chairman be directed to move the House, That leave be given to bring in a Bill for amending the Harwich Harbour Act, 1863.
  Resolution reported.
  Bill ordered * to be brought in by Mr. MILNER GIBSON and Mr. HUTT.
  Bill presented, and read 1o.* [Bill 171.]
  House adjourned at a quarter after Two o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Countess of Elgin and Kincardine's Annuity* (No. 149); Superannuation (Union Officers)* (No. 154); Bribery (No. 155) [H.L.]; Cathedral Minor Corporations* (No. 157) [H.L.]
Second Reading—Facilities for Divine Service in Collegiate Schools (No. 117) [H.L.]; Beer Houses (Ireland)* (No. 134); County Constabulary Superannuation* (No. 140).
Committee—Vacating of Seats (House of Commons)* (No. 105); Banking Co-partnerships * (No. 113).
Report—Vacating of Seats (House of Commons)* (No. 105); Banking Co-partnerships* (No. 113).
Royal Assents—Under Secretaries Indemnity [27 & 28 Vict. c. 21];
Registration of County Voters (Ireland) [27 & 28 Vict. c. 22];
Local Government Supplemental [27 & 28 Vict. c. 26];
Naval Agency and Distribution [27 & 28 Vict. c. 24];
Naval Prize [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25];
Naval Prize Acts Repeal [27 & 28 Vict. c. 23];
Chain Cables and Anchors [27 & 28 Vict. c. 27];
Common Law Procedure (Ireland) Act (1853) Amendment [27 & 28 Vict. c. 28];
Insane Prisoners Act Amendment [27 & 28 Vict. c. 29];
Court of Justiciary (Scotland) [27 & 28 Vict. c. 30].

DENMARK AND GERMANY—THE CONFERENCE.—OBSERVATIONS.
EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, a short time ago I had the honour to inform your Lordships that in all probability in a few days I should have to announce to you that the Conference had agreed to the bases preliminary to a peace; or, upon the other hand, that the object of the negotiations had failed, and that war would be renewed on the termination of an armistice. My Lords, I am sorry to say that the latter alternative appears to be most likely. On Monday next I shall lay upon your Lordships' table, by command of Her Majesty, the Protocols of the Conference, and in so doing I shall state what has been the general course of the negotiations.
BRIBERY AT ELECTIONS BILL.

  BILL PRESENTED. FIRST READING.
  LORD BROUGHAM,in presenting a Bill for the Prevention of Bribery in the Election of Members to serve in Parliament, said, he found in the other House great expectations, he might rather say apprehensions, were entertained, of a general election this Session, and be they well or ill grounded, at all events this was certain to happen next Session. He was, therefore, led to the consideration of those corrupt practices he had so often brought to the attention of the House, and in which he bad proposed Resolutions some years ago as well as introduced measures. His noble Friend, then President of the Council (Lord Lansdowne) admitting all that the Resolutions asserted, complained that no measure was propounded, and he (Lord Brougham) pledged himself to bring one forward. That pledge he now rose to redeem, in presenting a Bill to the House for the future prevention of bribery and corrupt practices. Nothing could be more futile than the objection sometimes taken to such a measure originating in that House—their Lordships had the same right as the other House to take up the subject, and they had exercised that right again and again. The very Bribery Bill of George II.'s time was a remarkable instance. There were two important provisions of the Act inserted in this House (as their Journals of May, 1729, showed). One was a money clause, raising the penalty from fifty to five hundred pounds. Unhappily having never been enforced, as,

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  indeed, none of the Act had been, except the other section, added by this House, which had been constantly in active operation, he meant that provision that the last determination of Election Committees should be binding on all persons and in all times. The Commons were minded to object to these Amendments of the Lords, but Sir W. Pulteney (afterwards Lord Bath) reprobated this objection as soon as it was urged; he said—
  "The Lords were the proper guardians as well as the Commons of the purity as well as freedom of the election; and the Lords were the guardians, not only as a branch of the Legislature co-ordinate to themselves (to wit, the House of Commons), but as the supreme court of judicature of the realm; and no man having a value for liberty could grudge the Lords the honour of rendering the Bribery Bill more complete and more efficacious."
  This sound and rational opinion prevailed, and the Commons (though by a very narrow majority) accepted the Lords' Amendments. It was lamentable to reflect how this and all former measures had failed to suppress these pernicious and demoralizing practices. They had, on the contrary, gone on increasing at each dissolution. Nothing could be worse than the facts stated on the best authority. His esteemed Friend, Sir John Pakington, showed, in bringing in his Bill some years ago, that the purchase of votes either directly, or under various pretences of head money, employment of messengers, or charity, was in many boroughs universal. In one, having 3,000 voters, 18 in every 27 were thus bought or sold at £10 a head, so that the candidate must know that he paid £18,000 for his seat. In another place 13 in 14 of the voters took bribes; £5 at the beginning was the price, but it rose as the polling went on, and it became £40 or £50, till at the close as much as £100 had been paid in one or two instances; and the candidate's expenses were as much as £8,000, almost all spent in corrupting the electors. He knew from a learned Friend of his (Lord Brougham's), Member for a county, that he had actually seen a gentleman walking round the streets of a town during a contested election, and provided with a large sum, all of which he paid in what was called head-money, that is in buying the voters. Now it was very lamentable to think how so many measures devised for checking this offence had failed. One of the latest had been proposed by his esteemed Friend Sir John Pakington, but, though well calculated for
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  its purpose, had been defeated by the Select Committee of the Commons, expunging the provisions which contained the proviso which he (Lord Brougham) had the honour of proposing, that every Member and every candidate, on the request of a voter, should make a solemn declaration, not only that he by himself or his agents had given no money in bribes, but that he was wholly ignorant of any money having been so applied. The present Chief Justice of England, then a Member of the House of Commons, a strong supporter of this proviso, which he said he should himself have proposed if Sir John Pakington had not, observed that no person having the least regard for his character, could possibly make the declaration, if thousands of his money had been spent in bribery by his agents. The House of Commons' Select Committee, however, struck the declaration out of the Bill; and when it came up to this House, as without it the Bill was not merely useless, but mischievous, their Lordships refused to pass it. All attempts to check bribery having proved fruitless, and it being generally supposed to have increased under all the laws made against it, he (Lord Brougham) ventured to hope that the course be now took might prove more successful. When his Act of 1811 effectually put an end to the slave trade, which all the penalties and the loss of ships had not materially affected, the effect was produced by treating it as a crime, because though the gains of the traffic were such as to make men run the risk of capture, they would not expose themselves to the risk of being tried and condemned; so he trusted that those who encountered the expense of contested elections, and exposed themselves to the pecuniary penalties of the Acts of George II. and George III., from the anxiety to have a seat in Parliament, and their agents hired to bribe for them, would not expose themselves to the risk of being sent to the treadmill. The Bill which he presented was drawn according to the provisions of the existing Acts, that of George II. in 1729, and that of Lord Eldon in 1809, with this difference, that it made those offences punishable as a misdemeanour with a year's imprisonment, with or without hard labour, and he prayed their Lordships to give it a first reading.
  A Bill for the more effectual Prevention of Bribery and Corruption in the Election of Members to serve in Parliament—presented by the Lord BROUGHAM and VAUX; read 1a, and to be printed. (No. 155.)

MOUNT ST. BERNARD'S REFORMATORY.

  EXPLANATION.
  EARL GRANVILLE,referring to the debate which had taken place on a previous evening, said, he desired to read to their Lordships a letter which had just been received by the Secretary of State for the Home Department—
  "Office of Reformatories and Certified Industrial Schools, 15, Parliament Street, S.W.
  "Leeds, June 22, 1864—St. Bernard's Reformatory.
  "My dear Sir George Grey,—I observe that Lord Berners asserted, on the authority of some parties at Ashby, that on my inquiry into the recent outbreak, I had not inquired of cither of the magistrates or the police upon the subject, and that my report, therefore, could not be depended on.
  "I beg to mention for your satisfaction on the matter, that I had a full private conference with the superior of the Ashby divisional police, whose men were in charge of the delinquents, and that from him I had the full particulars which I have given.
  "As to the magistrates, I found the report made in Mr. Ashby's letter to you substantially correct, and the managers of the reformatory fully admitted the circumstances detailed. There was, therefore, no reason for troubling them on the subject.
  "The business in hand was not so much to settle the facts—for they were plain and undisputed—but to get at the cause of the disturbance, and to see whether that was a transient and incidental impulse that might be safely expected not to occur again, or a corrupt and inefficient style of discipline that would be sure to lead to a recurrence of the riot. I think I had fair grounds for concluding in favour of the first of these alternatives.
  "I should be glad if the inaccuracy of the charge made by Lord Berners against my inquiry could be brought out. I have the honour to be yours very faithfully,
  "Sydney Turner.
  "The Right Hon. Sir G. Grey, Bart., M.P."

FACILITIES FOR DIVINE WORSHIP IN COLLEGIATE SCHOOLS BILL [H.L.]

  (No 117.) SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE BISHOP OF OXFORD,in moving the second reading of the Bill, said he had been asked to undertake the charge of the measure by a clergyman in his diocese, who was at once the incumbent of his parish, the patron of the living, and the founder of a large chartered school in his parish, and who in these three capacities found himself inconvenienced from the want of some such powers as this Bill would confer. He had submitted the Bill to Convocation, and he believed that no objection had been taken to it in either
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  House; and he had received communications from a large number of beneficed clergymen, all on the whole in its favour. The object of the Bill was twofold. The first provision was to allow the Bishop of a diocese to license one or more of the masters of any collegiate school or college, being in priest's orders, to perform divine service in the chapel of a school, and to administer the sacraments strictly to the inmates of the school exempt from all control from or responsibility to the incumbent of the parish. In Committee on the Bill he proposed to strike out the words in one of the clauses "or connected therewith," as he thought they were too large, and might include those who properly belonged to the care of the parish clergyman. He should also propose to introduce a provision for the disposal of the alms collected at the communion in these chapels. When one of these schools was built in a small parish, there was sometimes great inconvenience occasioned to the parishioners, the church of the parish being, perhaps, hardly large enough to receive the pupils without displacing the other worshippers. It was desirable that the boys should have full facilities for their religious duties, while at the same time the latter ought not to be incommoded. There was also a special advantage in making the head of a school the religious instructor. It sanctified the relation between master and pupil, and it might also be said to carry out the wishes of the parents who had selected the head of the school as the instructor of their boys. Neither was it really an interference with the proper duties of a parochial clergyman, because the parish church was founded for the parishioners and not for these schools, which had sprung up since. No one would be more ready to oppose any interference with the rights and independence of the parochial clergy than himself, but he believed that nothing but good would flow from this Bill. He had received a letter on this point from the parish priest of Hurst Pierpoint, in Sussex, in which parish there was one of the largest of these schools, who expressed his hearty gratification at the Bill. The only other provision of the Bill was to allow, with the consent of the clergyman of the parish and the Bishop of the diocese, the parish church to be used for these services until a chapel should be built for the school; of course at times which would not interfere with the regular service of the church. He hoped, there-

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  fore, that their Lordships would allow the Bill to be read a second time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Bishop of Oxford.)
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, he entertained grave objections to the Bill; and he hoped that the right rev. Prelate would be induced either to withdraw the measure altogether for the present Session, or give their Lordships ample time for its consideration. He would undertake to say that the provisions of this measure were wholly unknown throughout the country. It was only ordered to be printed on the 20th June, and he was sure that not twenty of the 20,000 beneficed clergy throughout the kingdom knew a word about it. It appeared to him that the Bill would interfere seriously with the rights and independence of the parochial clergymen of die Church of England. The 3rd clause authorized the use of the parish church (with the consent of the incumbent) as the college chapel. Now the Rubrics directed that the money collected during the Sacrament should be applied to pious and charitable uses; but here there was no provision that the minister of the parish should receive it—it might be applied to building the college chapel. Then Clause 5 would enable the Bishop to license any one to perform "the services aforesaid," though it was difficult to put a precise meaning upon that expression. The effect of the clause would be that the Bishop of the diocese would have power, with or without the assent of the rector or vicar, to thrust any one into his pulpit. He did not say that such was the intention of the right rev. Prelate, but that was the interpretation which the Bill would bear. That being the case, without going further into the provisions of the Bill, to many of which he entirely objected, he must express his hope that the right rev. Prelate would not press the measure, otherwise he (Lord Shaftesbury) should feel it his duty to move that it be read a second time that day six months.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYsaid, that he certainly was not prepared for the opposition threatened to the Bill, which simply legalized that which had been constantly the practice in parishes where there were chartered schools, and set at rest some questions which had sometimes been raised in matters of detail. He certainly should be very sorry to see any Bill adopted by Parliament which would affect
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  injuriously the position of the parochial clergy.
  LORD PORTMANsaid, that the most rev. Prelate had spoken of chartered schools, and if the Bill were confined to them the objection to it might not have been very strong; but the provisions of the Bill went much further, and, therefore, if his noble Friend divided their Lordships upon the question he should vote for the Amendment.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he was of opinion that the Bill would introduce a very dangerous innovation. He had no doubt of the good intentions of the right rev. Prelate who had introduced the Bill; but, at the same time, he must observe that there was no grammar school in the kingdom which might not come within its provisions. There was nothing which, from the earliest times, had been more specially enjoined by the founders of these institutions than that the scholars should attend divine service in the parish church—it was the particular desire of the founders to connect their foundations with the parochial system. This desire their Lordships were now asked by this Bill entirely to set aside. They were asked to sanction a measure which would allow within the walls of any private chapel the performance of a service in which any amount of ceremony, any sensuous observance, might be displayed, though it might be entirely at variance with the mode in which Divine worship was usually performed in parish churches. There would be in such cases no public superintendence, and there would be no opportunity of discovering what were the forms of worship, or what ceremonies and solemnities were introduced. He thought it would be better to adhere to the old and wholesome injunction in the charters, that the master with his scholars should attend the parish church on the Sunday. With respect to some of the latter provisions, he would ask the right rev. Prelate to pause before proceeding with them, and if the right rev. Prelate persisted, he thought the best course would be to support the Motion which the noble Earl had threatened.
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONsaid, that after the expression of opinion they had just heard he thought it might be wise to defer the second reading, but was surprised to hear that there was anything dangerous in the principle of the Bill. The system which it was sought to establish was that in use at all the great schools; and at

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  Rugby it was regarded as one of the greatest improvements introduced by his illustrious predecessor, that he had the boys in the school chapel and kept their religious instruction entirely in his own hands. The greatest satisfaction was expressed with that change, though if the law had been put in force it might have been put a stop to by the clergyman of the parish. The intention now was to legalize that which could be at present done only by sufferance. At the same time, if any danger was likely to result from the Bill, it might be well to give time for consideration.
  EARL GREYsaid, he trusted his noble Friend (the Earl of Shaftesbury) would withdraw his opposition and allow the Bill to be read the second time. There might be questions of detail which it would be necessary to consider in Committee, but the principle of the Bill was a very simple one, the object being to give facilities for affording religious instruction in schools. He could not say that the law as it at present stood was in a satisfactory state. The law allowed Roman Catholic and Dissenting ministers to give religious instruction to the boys under their care, and why should ministers of the Established Church be debarred from doing so?
  EARL RUSSELLthought that his noble Friend's objections were not entirely without foundation, for some of the provisions of the Bill would seriously interfere with the rights of rectors and vicars. The object of the Bill might be a very desirable one, but without the general consent of the clergy it might lead to considerable evil; and the clergy ought, therefore, to have time to consider its provisions. The right rev. Prelate who spoke last (the Bishop of London) had stated what was the practice at Rugby, and said that it was by the sufferance of the rector. But it was a very different thing between a rector allowing these services to take place in his parish and the giving of power by an Act of Parliament, which would enable these services to be performed without the consent of the rector or vicar.
  THE BISHOP OF OXFORDsaid, he was in the hands of their Lordships, so far as the progress of the measure was concerned, but he had not yet heard any reasons to induce him to desist from persevering with the Bill, the opponents of which seemed, he must say, to view it with preternatural suspicion. He should call it trifling with their Lordships if he had not thoroughly
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  considered much more than had been urged upon their Lordships. He was at a loss to understand what opposition there could be to the principle of the Bill, and really until he had read that day in a newspaper which represented the extreme views of the noble Earl (the Earl of Shaftesbury), some of the views which the noble Earl had just expressed, he was ignorant of the intention to offer any opposition to the progress of the Bill. The objections taken by the noble Earl were purely matters of detail. Surely, every one of their Lordships would feel that the sort of preaching required by a common agricultural population was not that which would be suitable to their sons; the classes of hearers were entirely different, and their powers of comprehending what was said to them were altogether diverse; besides which there was a great advantage in bringing boys under the direct spiritual teaching of their masters! Those sermons of Dr. Arnold, which they all so much admired, would not have been delivered by him if he had been preaching to a mixed congregation. The kind of objections which had been urged showed the animus of the opposition, and it was evidently a previously formed conclusion that there must be some mischief in the Bill. As to the validity of the objection, that every parish minister might have somebody holding different views "thrust" upon him, this Bill applied only to incorporated schools, and he would ask how many of the 10,000 parishes of England had incorporated schools in them? Then, as to the pious zeal of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, who spoke of the "sensuous observances" that were to be performed in these chapels, he thought such an objection scarcely deserved an answer. Did not the noble and learned Lord know that these chapels must be licensed by the Bishop of the diocese? Surely that formed a sufficient answer to the complaint of the noble and learned Lord. The truth was that there was an evil to be remedied. They were positively told, indeed, that differences would be most likely to arise when these rights were regulated by Act of Parliament than at present. That was contrary to all the experience he had ever had of human nature. This was a simple measure for allowing that to be done with reference to chartered schools which the experience of all our great schools had shown to be essential to their well being and their good order. This Bill was calculated to bring peace and not war into every parish

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  which it affected, and only those parishes were concerned which possessed chartered schools, and instead of being applicable to every school that called itself a college it would only be applicable to incorporated schools. It seemed to him that there was great force in the argument of the noble Earl (Earl Grey), that while you allowed ministers of every other denomination to minister in things spiritual to the children under their charges, you laid an embargo on priests of your own Church to do this under the direct licence of the Bishop. He could see no ground for consenting to delay, and he hoped their Lordships would not be deterred by the objections which had been stated, but would give the Bill a second reading.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that the Bill involved a large question, and he would rather that longer time were given for considering its provisions.
  LORD CRANWORTHsuggested that the Bill should be read a second time, and that a late day might be fixed for the Committee.
  THE BISHOP OF OXFORDsaid, he was quite ready to assent to that course. He thought the measure might be very properly considered at that stage of the Session, and that when the House was so full it was an appropriate occasion for their Lordships to give their assent to the principle of the Bill. Mutters of detail might be considered in Committee.
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, he was satisfied that nothing could be worse than to establish a kind of monastic system, which would have the effect of withdrawing the boys from the parish church. At the same time it was not only advisable, but absolutely necessary, that the boys should be for a certain time subject to the religious tuition of their masters. He still believed that, under the fifth clause, the Bishop of the discese, with or without the consent of the incumbent, might license the master to occupy the pulpit of the parish church.
  THE BISHOP OF OXFORDsaid, he challenged the noble Earl to mention any portion of the Bill which would be open to such an interpretation. It was expressly stated in the words of the Bill, as it was the intention of the framer, that the master could only enter the pulpit of the parish church with the consent of the incumbent, received from time to time.
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, that he believed, and others concurred in
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  that belief, that the fifth clause was liable to that interpretation. He, therefore, thought the matter was one which required further consideration.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORwas understood to say the consent of the rector was undoubtedly necessary, but it would be open to question whether the consent would not be binding after it had been once given.
  THE BISHOP OF OXFORDsaid, he proposed that it should be necessary to procure the consent of the incumbent from time to time.
  Motion agreed to: Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Tuesday, the 5th of July next.

  CATHEDRAL MINOR CORPORATIONS BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to substitute fixed instead of fluctuating Incomes for the Members of certain Minor Corporations in certain of the Cathedral Churches in England—Was presented* by The LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK; and read 1a*. (No. 157.)
  House adjourned at a Quarter past Six o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.