Sitting of 20 February 1865

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—On Public Accounts, nominated.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—Capital Punishments within Gaols; Court of Chancery (Ireland) (No. 3)*; Union Chargeability.
First Readinq—Capital Punishments within Gaols [30]; Union Chargeability [31].
Second Reading—Bank of Ireland [14]; Civil Bill Courts Procedure (Ireland) Act (1864) Amendment*[29]; Election Petitions Act (1848) Amendment*[19]; Pilotage Order Confirmation*[28].
Select Committee—Mortgage Debentures, &c. Bills; Mr. Hunt added.
Committee—Game Licences (Ireland)*[16J; Dublin International Exhibition (1865)*[17].
Report—Game Licences (Ireland)*; Dublin International Exhibition (1865)*.

PRIVATE BILLS—CHAIRMAN'S CASTING VOTE.—NEW STANDING ORDER.
COLONEL WILSON PATTEN,in rising to move the following new Standing Order,
"All questions before Committees on Private Bills shall be decided by a majority of voices, and whenever the voices are equal the question shall be resolved in the negative,"
said, that he took this course in accordance with a promise which he gave the other evening, when it was resolved that Private Bill Committees should in future consist of four Members. The practice which he proposed to introduce already prevailed in the courts of law and in the House of Lords. He understood that several Members of great experience objected to the proposal which he was now making. He brought it forward in the same spirit in which he proposed the alterations of Standing Orders, which the House adopted at the end of last Session—namely, with a view to save the time of Members of that House, and because it appeared to him to be the wish of the House that the proposal should be made; but he had himself no great feeling either one way or the other. If the House adopted this proposition, it would only be by way of experiment, and it had this advantage, that they could at any moment revert to the old practice without detriment to any party who appeared before Committees of that House.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That all questions before Committees on Private Bills shall be decided by a majority of voices, and whenever the voices are equal, the question shall be resolved in the negative."
MR. R. HODGSONsaid, he hoped that the House would not agree to this proposal of the hon. and gallant Gentleman. He could not help thinking that they were altering the Standing Orders without due deliberation, and with more chance of doing harm than good. Although the principle now recommended by the hon. and gallant Gentleman prevailed in the courts of law and in the House of Lords, he had never known a case in which the members of a Committee of that House being equally divided the decision had passed in the negative. Indeed he had been informed by noble Lords who had acted as Chairmen of Committees that the almost universal practice in case of equality of voices was not to take a decision, but to adjourn. He should prefer to revert to the old number of five members; but if the number was to be
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four, it would be better to abide by the Standing Order of last Session than to hold out to parties and counsel the temptation to be continually fighting to get the Committee into such a fix that the voices might be equally divided. He should oppose the Motion, and if he received sufficient promise of support would divide the House against it.
MR. ROBERTSONsaid, that he should prefer to increase rather than to diminish the responsibility which was cast upon Chairmen of Committees, because he was convinced that it was by the former course only, and not by the latter, that the private legislation of that House could be improved. He strongly recommended the House to make the experiment which was decided upon last year. The Chairmen of Committees who were chosen for their fitness, had most onerous and responsible duties to perform, and the House ought to strengthen rather than to weaken their hands.
MR. ARTHUR MILLSsaid, that when reference was made to the practice of the House of Lords they ought not to overlook the circumstance that in dealing with the Private business of that House great authority was left to be exercised by Lord Redesdale, the Chairman of Committees. In one instance in which he had sat as the Chairman of the Committee upon a Bill, the agent for the promoters afterwards pointed out to him alterations in about 150 clauses, which he said were suggested by the Lords, and upon his inquiring whether he meant the Lords' Committee or Lord Redesdale, he replied that in every instance he meant Lord Redesdale. When they were asked to alter their practice that it might conform to that of the House of Lords, it was important that they should bear in mind that their Committees had a practical authority to exercise and work to do. Having acted as Chairman of Committees, he could imagine the possibility of a Committee being placed in circumstances of great embarrassment by the Chairman being deprived of the authority which might lawfully belong to him, and by two members being enabled to neutralize his influence.
MR. BRIGHTsaid, it appeared to him that there were two objections to the proposal of the hon. and gallant Gentleman which were worth considering. First, it would have the effect of neutralizing the influence of the Chairman, They had been accustomed to believe, and he thought they

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were right in believing, that the Chairman of one of these Committees on Private Bills generally knew more about the matter upon which they were called upon to decide than any of his colleagues, and he suspected that that would continue to be so even if they were to reduce the number of members to three, instead or four. If his authority was neutralized he was afraid the Chairman would feel less sense of responsibility than he had hitherto done; and therefore, as Chairman, he would be less to be relied upon, and less useful under the proposed change. But there was another objection which seemed absolutely fatal to the proposition. It was to be presumed that parties appearing before a Committee to promote a Bill for any great public work, were engaged in doing what was likely to be beneficial to the public, and their proposals ought not to be suspected, or to be rejected upon inconsiderable grounds. According to this proposal, however, any great measure which might have taken many months to prepare, which might have involved a vast expenditure and engaged the labours of the most able men in many departments of science, would, if two members of the Committee voted against it, be rejected, although an equal number voted for it. In his opinion the presumption of a Committee in the case of equal division ought to be in favour of the measure which was before the Committee, as one which was calculated to be of public advantage; and the acceptance of a contrary presumption would be a manifest injustice to the great engineering interest, and to those who were engaged in directing the enterprise of the country, as it would infer that a measure which they sought to have decided in their favour, was one which a Committee ought to reject. In his opinion, the number four was a clumsy one to deal with matters of this kind, and no reasonable argument had been given for having four members instead of five, except that the House had undertaken more business than it could properly carry through. As the number was to be four he should certainly vote against this proposition of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, which might lead to the rejection of some great and useful enterprise, because two members out of the four, for some cause or other, did not think fit to vote in its favour.
MR. MILNER GIBSONsaid, that for his own part he was sorry that the number of the Committees on Private Bills had
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ever been changed from five. He was still strongly in favour of a Committee of five. What was the position of the Chairman in a Committee of that number?—because the influence to be possessed by the Chairman was now the question at issue. The Chairman was in the position that in order that his opinion should prevail he should get two out of four Members to agree with him; while in the case of a Committee of four he must get two out of three to agree with him, so that if he were in the latter instance to have only a single vote, as in a Committee composed of five, the chance of his moral influence prevailing would be diminished, inasmuch as he would find it more difficult to get two men to agree with him out of three than out of four. Now, it was not, so far as he could see, the wish of the House to lessen the influence of the Chairman, who, as a general rule, might be presumed to have more experience than the other Members of the Committee. The question was how this influence was to be made up to him. He saw no other way in which that influence could be upheld in a Committee of four than by giving him a second vote in the event of there being an equality of voices. Therefore, much as he was disposed on all occasions to agree with the hon. and gallant Member he thought on the whole the argument prevailed for giving the Chairman a casting vote. If in those cases in which there happened to be that equality it was to be considered that no decision at all had been arrived at, an obstructive effect would, he thought, be produced; nor could he admit that when a Committee of four had been agreed to by the House there had been any general understanding that the Chairman was to have only a single vote.
MR. CHARLES FORSTERthought the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Arthur Mills) was scarcely correct when he said that the Motion had been brought forward with the view to assimilate the practice of the House of Commons to that of the House of Lords. It was brought forward rather to carry into effect a promise which the hon. and gallant Member for North Lancashire had made on a previous occasion when the Motion for the substitution of the number three for four was rejected—a Motion which he regretted to say he did not succeed in getting the House to adopt.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYasked why the Chairman should not have a casting vote in the present instance as well as in the case of other proceedings before the

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House? With a Committee of five, if one Member was prevented from attending the inquiry was conducted by four Members and the Chairman had a casting vote; and he did not see any reason for adopting any other practice when four was the original number. If that privilege were not accorded to him, an ingenious Chairman might secure a decision in accordance with his views by the mode in which he might put the Question. Suppose he were anxious that a clause should stand, and that he put the Question thus, "That this clause be struck out," the decision, being in the negative in the event of there being an equality of votes, would be in his favour. He considered three a better tribunal than four, but as that number was fixed at four he saw no reason for departing from their usual practice of giving a casting vote to the Chairman.
MR. SCLATER-BOOTHthought it extremely probable the House would find it expedient to return to five, which was much better than the number four, or adopt the proposition of the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. Charles Forster) and fix the number at three.
MR. PEACOCKEsaid, all this discussion would have been avoided if the House had agreed to a Committee of three, and he believed the House had been induced to reject the Motion of the hon. Member for Walsall on the understanding that the proposition of his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Lancashire was to be agreed to. It now appeared, however, that whatever influence his hon. and gallant Friend might have with the President of the Board of Trade, the influence of the hon. Member for Birmingham was still greater, for the right hon. Gentleman seemed to have departed from the views which he held on a former occasion, when he professed to regard the respective merits of three and four as a sort of Schleswig-Holstein question, and to be rather in favour of such a proposal as that under discussion.
SIR FRANCIS GOLDSMIDwas of opinion that if the Motion before the House were adopted the House would not be laying down a rule for the guidance of Committees, but rather raising a number of points tending to embarrass them. The result, indeed, would be that, unless a regular code as to the manner in which the proceedings should be conducted and the Question put were drawn up, the Chairman would get back in an indirect way
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that influence of which it was now sought to deprive him. During the last week, he might add, the Chairman of Ways and Means, under a power given him by a Standing Order of last year, had issued certain regulations, in accordance with which he would have a casting vote in the event of there being an equality of voices among the Referees on Private Bills. If, therefore, the present proposal were agreed to the House would be making inconsistent and conflicting rules with regard to the transaction of Private business.
COLONEL WILSON PATTENsaid, it was only a Chairman utterly unacquainted with the rules and mode of putting Questions in the House who would act in the manner suggested by the hon. Member, seeing that it was the duty of the Chairman to be guided by the rules of the House in that matter. The only reason for changing the system of the House in these matters was, that in practice it had been found by the Committee of Selection so extremely difficult to obtain five Members to serve upon each Committee that it became necessary to consider whether it was absolutely requisite to adhere to that number. A great deal was to be said in favour of both views, but the House last Session adopted the Resolution for the reduction of the number by a considerable majority. From the expressions of opinion now put forward, however, it seemed that there were many who were strongly in favour of going back to the number five; and if that view should prevail, if hon. Members thought that the Private Bills could not be properly entertained by a less number, by all means let that course be adopted. He must say, however, as Chairman of the Committee of Selection, that their duties in framing the Committees would be very considerably increased. If he were quite certain that Committees composed of three Members would be fully attended in every case, he should be willing to vote for three as a proper number. But knowing the enormous amount of capital with which the Committees were called on to deal, he was quite certain that the large companies, having enormous interests at stake, would not be satisfied if by any accident the number were reduced to two. With two Members, the House must bear in mind that all the objections urged against the casting vote of the Chairman applied with still greater effect. He entirely disclaimed any personal feeling on this question. His only object was to get the Private business

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as satisfactorily disposed of as possible, with the least practicable expense to the parties, and the least practicable inconvenience to hon. Members.
MR. BONHAM-CARTERsaid, the mass of Private business had certainly worn a sufficiently alarming appearance to justify the hon. and gallant Gentleman in entertaining the subject originally, but he was not without hope that the difficulty would prove less overwhelming than he anticipated. Having to choose between two inconveniences arising under the new system, he should give his voice in favour of the Chairman's casting vote.
Question put, and negatived.
Standing Order No. 87 read, and amended, by leaving out the words "Chairman of Ways and Means," and inserting the words "Referees on Private Bills," instead thereof.
Standing Order No. 125 read, and amended, by leaving out the words "Chairman of Ways and Means," and inserting the words "Referees on Private Bills," instead thereof; and by leaving out the word "he," and inserting the word "they," instead thereof.
Standing Order No. 128 read, and amended, by leaving out the words "Chairman of Ways and Means," and inserting the words "Referees on Private Bills," instead thereof; and by leaving out the word "he," and inserting the word "they," instead thereof.—(Colonel Wilson Patten.)

THE MARRIAGE LAW.—QUESTION.
SIR COLMAN O'LOGHLENsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If it be the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce this Session any Measure to regulate the Law of Marriage in the United Kingdom, or to institute any inquiry by means of a Committee of that House, or a Royal Commission, with a view to future Legislation?
SIR GEORGE GREY: Sir, Her Majesty has been advised to issue a Royal Commission for the purpose of inquiring into the state of the Marriage Law.

LEGACY AND SUCCESSION DUTIES.

  QUESTION.
  MR. LOCKE KINGsaid, he would beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he has directed the Board of
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  Inland Revenue to take the evidence of professional men, and of the public generally, upon any improvements in the present mode of collecting and assessing the Legacy and Succession Duties; also, whether, through the same sources, he has ascertained if any, and what grievances
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, in reply, that the Board of Inland Revenue had no authority, nor could he give them any, to apply generally for the evidence of professional men, in regard to collecting and assessing the Legacy and Succession Duties. It would, however, be very agreeable to the Government or the Board to receive the assistance of any professional men who were likely to conduct these inquiries. With respect to the latter part of the Question of the hon. Gentleman he had, no doubt, the means of knowing what were the grievances complained of. The Government and the Board of Inland Revenue were cognizant of the additional charge, for instance, over and above the duties themselves. They were, of course, in contact with a body of professional men, whose duty it was to conduct that part of the business on the part of their clients, and it was probably known to the hon. Gentleman, that considerable discussion took place last autumn in the public journals, which had the effect of drawing general attention to the subject. There was a certain number of particular cases which were brought before him (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) in connection with the correspondence inserted in the public journals, and the communications which he had had with the parties on the subject of their complaints, pretty well opened to the Government the difficulties that occurred in the administration of the Jaw. That correspondence had not all been brought to a conclusion; but, as it was of a public character, there would be no objection, when it was finished, to lay it upon the table. He believed that the result of the inquiry would be to show that the principal part of the difficulty was inherent in the nature of the law and of such taxes. These taxes were more obviously justifiable in principle than, perhaps, any others, but in their administration they were necessarily attended with considerable difficulty. However, he entertained the hope that in revising a complicated system of procedure in an office of that kind, after a long period had elapsed since such a review had taken place, it might be found possible to intro-

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  duce many practical improvements which would afford some satisfaction and relief.

  MR. CLARE'S PATENTS.—QUESTION.
  MR. MAGUIREsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, To lay upon the table the Report of William Carpmael, the Patent Agent, on Mr. John Clare, junior's, patents, which Mr. Clare alleges to have been made use of by the Admiralty in the Warrior, and subsequent iron ships for the Royal Navy?
  LORD CLARENCE PAGETreplied, that the Report of the Patent Agent had been laid before the Board of Admiralty but it was in the nature of a confidential Report, and he thought it was not advisable to lay it on the table of the House.

  ARMSTRONG TWELVE-POUNDERS—GUNS.—QUESTION.
  MR. H. BAILLIEsaid, he rose to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, Whether any batteries of the present service pattern of twelve-pounder Armstrong field-guns, as reconstructed and shortened since May, 1863, have been subjected to the hundred shotted rounds of continuous rapid fire, such as disabled six out of twelve guns of the previous pattern at Shorncliffe in 1862, and caused the above reconstruction; and, if any gun of the present pattern, with an inner tube of steel or coiled iron, has stood one thousand shotted rounds of rapid fire; and, if so, whether he will lay the Report of these trials upon the table of the House?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, in reply, that the questions of the hon. Gentleman were calculated to some extent to mislead the House; because although the twelve-pounders had been shortened they had not been reconstructed, or, at any rate, no operation had been performed to justify the use of the term. The changes of pattern that had been made in these guns since 1863 had been for the most part extremely slight, and chiefly related to the mode of sighting the guns. The experiment which the hon. Member pointed out had not, as far as he (the Marquess of Hartington) was aware, been tried since the experiments at Shorncliffe in 1862. The experiment was unnecessary, because no failure of the twelve-pounder had been reported, and no complaints had been made, and because the gun so far had the entire confidence of the Artillery. As to the latter part of the question,
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  he was not aware that the particular experiment indicated by the hon. Member had been tried upon any gun of the present pattern. A great many experiments relating to the endurance of the Armstrong gun had been made. He might instance that the seven-inch breech-loading gun had been tried for endurance, one hundred rounds having been fired with 14lb. of powder, and 100 to 1,000 cylinders, increasing from 150lb. to 1,000lb., the gun being, at the conclusion of the firing, quite uninjured.
  MR. H. BAILLIE: Am I to understand that none of the Armstrong guns have had steel tubes put into them?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: I believe that some of the Armstrong guns have had steel tubes put into them.

BRITISH PASSPORTS TO ROME.

  QUESTION.
  MR. H. BARINGsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the fee paid to the English Consul at Rome for obtaining his visa to Foreign Office Passports is the perquisite of the Consul; and, if not, into what fund it is paid?
  MR. LAYARDreplied, that the fees paid to the Consul at Rome were paid under an Act of Parliament, and were not the perquisite of that gentleman, but went into the Treasury, and were accounted for in the Estimates.

DISINFECTING POWDER FOR INDIA.

  QUESTION.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, he rose to ask the Secretary of State for India, Whether a requisition has been received from the Bombay Government for a large supply of Disinfecting Powder; whether the application has not been complied with; and on what grounds?
  SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, in reply, that an application had been received from the Bombay Government, which he referred to the Sanitary Commissions sitting under the authority of the War Office for their opinion. He did not feel himself justified from their Report in complying with the request.

  CONVICTIONS UNDER REFRESHMENT HOUSES ACT.—QUESTION.
  SIR CHARLES DOUGLASsaid, he rose to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If, in consequence of

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  two men having on the 30th of January been convicted at Middleton Cheney Petty Sessions, County of Northampton, of being "drunk and riotous in a public thoroughfare," and who were fined thirty shillings and costs under the Refreshment Houses Act 23 Vict. c. 27, s, 40, and, being unable to pay, were sentenced to three months imprisonment under Jervis's Act 11 & 12 Vict. c. 43, s. 22, Her Majesty's Government are prepared to consider the case of those prisoners, and any others under similar circumstances; and if, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, the Act 11 & 12 Vict. c 43, s. 22, may be interpreted so as to enable magistrates to imprison a man for three months for not paying the pecuniary penalty, when the law only gives power to imprison for the offence itself for which the fine is imposed "for not more than seven days?" He wished to say a few words in explanation. ["Order, order!"] His reason was because two men were now suffering imprisonment. He would conclude with a Motion if necessary. Two men were now undergoing a sentence of three months in gaol in consequence of having been convicted before two magistrates for an offence for which they were fined a certain sum, and when for the offence itself the men could not by possibility legally receive more than seven days' imprisonment. The case had arisen under the Refreshment Houses Act. The men were drunk and riotous in a public thoroughfare, and it was in the power of the magistrates under the Act either to fine them forty shillings or to sentence them to imprisonment for not more than seven days. The two men having been convicted, the magistrates resorted to another Act of Parliament, and, after inflicting a fine which the men could not pay, sent them to gaol for three months under the Summary Jurisdiction Act, not for the offence for which the fine was imposed, but for its non-payment. It was true that under the Metropolitan Act parties could be committed for such offences within the metropolitan district for one month if the fine were not paid, and strange as it might appear, though under Bass's Street Music Act a man could not he imprisoned for more than three days—for non-payment of fine instead thereof parties had been committed for a month. The clauses of the Refreshment Act and the Metropolitan Act were identically the same, but the Legislature at least never intended to imprison a man in the country for three months for
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  not paying a fine for an offence which would not render him liable to imprisonment in the metropolis for more than one month. He should conclude by moving the adjournment of the House.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."
  MR. SPEAKER: This is the time for the Questions. The Motion of the hon. Gentleman should have been made at the time of the Notices of Motion.
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, he had to thank his hon. Friend for having brought the circumstances of the case under his notice on Friday last. He had transmitted his hon. Friend's statement to the magistrates in order to ascertain whether the facts were reported correctly, and also to receive their explanation. He had not as yet received their report, but he expected that he should receive it on Tuesday or Wednesday. With respect to the general law, his hon. Friend had stated it correctly. In default of the penalty being paid, and there being no means of levying it by distress, the defendants might be imprisoned for a period of three months unless the penalty was sooner paid. That was the case generally, unless where it was qualified by an express provision. In the Metropolitan Police Act there was such a qualification, and the term of imprisonment in default was one month instead of three. This state of the law required revision, and he felt obliged to his hon. Friend for having called his attention to the case.

  SUPERANNUATION IN THE DOCKYARDS.—QUESTION.
  SIR ARTHUR BULLERasked the Secretary for the Admiralty a Question of which he had given him private notice—namely, Whether there is any truth in a rumour which was prevalent in the Devonport Dockyard, and he believed in other Dockyards also, that it is the intention of the Admiralty to propose some alteration of the present Superannuation system by substitution of an increased rate of wages or otherwise?
  LORD CLARENCE PAGETsaid, he was not aware of any such intention on the part of the Admiralty.

BANK OF IRELAND BILL— [BILL 14.]

  SECOND READING.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2°."—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
  SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, he understood that this Bill imposed a slight additional charge on the State, though the first clause intimated a slight reduction. He desired, also, information on another point. Assuming the quantity of stock in Ireland to be under £30,000,000, £450 a million was to be paid upon it; but if the quantity was above £30,000,000, then the payment was to be at the rate of £300 per million, which, of course, would be a very considerable reduction. He wanted to know what would be the amount of charge that would be thrown upon the public by the Bill?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the hon. Gentleman was perfectly right in the manner in which he had read the Bill. It would impose an additional charge upon the public, and on this ground. The Bank of Ireland, at present, performed an amount of work for the public, for which it did not receive adequate remuneration. A clear statement would be found in the short correspondence which had taken place on the subject. The Government thought it but fair to the Bank of Ireland that it should receive adequate remuneration for the performance of duties onerous in character, and which it discharged well. He invited the criticism of hon. Members—Irish Members and others—but the Bill, as it stood, represented what, after full examination, he believed the Bank of Ireland was entitled to receive. He had come to the conclusion that the additional payment should be £4,400 a year. The reason why the Bill was somewhat complicated was, that in conjunction with the rectification of the charge he proposed a rectification of form. At present the Bank of Ireland was under an arrangement which did not belong to the present mode of making up the public accounts. The Bank of Ireland managed the Irish National Debt without any remuneration, but it received an extra remuneration in consideration of doing the work of the National Debt for nothing. Instead of that it was now proposed to reduce the rate of interest on their loan to the same rate as that paid to the Bank of England, and to pay a distinct remuneration for the work it had to do in connection with the National Debt. The effect would be that the whole amount spent would be spent in conformity to the rules which governed the public expenditure generally. The hon. Baronet had asked another question with respect to the arrangement of the charge which
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  appeared to involve an anomaly. If it should happen that the portion of the National Debt under the management of the Bank of Ireland should fall below £30,000,000, it would be paid at the rate of £450 per million; but if it rose above £30,000,000 it would be paid at the rate of £300 per million, thereby receiving less for the management of £35,000,000 than for the management of £30,000,000. That was an anomaly of which he could give an explanation. The nature of the scale corresponded with that arranged for the Bank of England. In 1861, when he proposed to alter the rates for the arrangement of the National Debt under the management of the Bank of England he did not make an entirely new arrangement, but was satisfied with accommodating the old arrangement, and altering it only where he thought alteration essential; and, therefore, leaving as they stood under the old law the rates that were payable to the Bank of England for the National Debt at certain amounts very much lower than it now stood, he made a great reduction upon the excess of the National Debt beyond £600,000,000. In point of fact, what he did was this—he settled the practical part of the question, and left that part of it which was of little consequence under the old arrangement. He now proposed to do the same with respect to the Bank of Ireland. It was not necessary to contemplate the contingency of the amount of the National Debt in Ireland being below £30,000,000. An amount below that would presume that the total amount of the National Debt would be reduced to between £600,000,000 and £700,000,000. Now, considering that we had had half a century of peace with only two years of European war, and had not succeeded in getting the National Debt greatly under £800,000,000—it never having been lower than £760,000,000—it was evident that we need not trouble ourselves with the rate of remuneration to be paid to the Bank of Ireland when the portion of the National Debt it had to manage should be reduced below £30,000,000. We could deal with that case when it arose, and he should be happy to see that time arrive. On the whole he believed the measure would be found to work satisfactorily.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill read 2o, and committed for Thursday.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS WITHIN GAOLS BILL.— [BILL 30.]

  LEAVE.—FIRST READING.
  MR. HIBBERTmoved for leave to bring in a Bill "to permit capital punishments to be carried out under certain regulations within the interior of prisons." He did not intend to invite any discussion at this stage of the proceedings, because the right hon. Baronet the Home Secretary had expressed an opinion that, as the who e subject of capital punishments was now under the consideration of a Royal Commission, it would be well to postpone it until the Report of that Commission was received. If he were allowed to bring in the Bill he should, therefore, defer the second reading until after Easter.
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, that as the question was under the consideration of the Commission to which the hon. Member had referred, he could only consent to its introduction on the condition that there was to be no discussion until the Report of the Commission had been made.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill to provide for the carrying out of Capital Punishments within Gaols, ordered to be brought in by Mr. HIBBERT, Mr. BONHAM-CARTER, and Viscount ENFIELD.
  Bill presented, and read 1° [Bill 30].

  PUBLIC ACCOUNTS—COMMITTEE NOMINATED.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER moved—
  That the Committee on Public Accounts should consist of the following Members:—Mr. WALPOLE, Mr. EDWARD PLEYBELL BOCVERIE, Sir STAFFORD NORTHCOTE, Sir HENRY WILLOUHGBY, Mr. PEEL, Lord ROBERT MONTAGU, Mr. HOWES, Mr. GOSCHEN, and Mr. POLLARD-URQUHART.
  SIR HENRY WILLOUHBYremarked that a very small portion of the public accounts was submitted to this Committee. The time was approaching when it would be necessary that there should be a more general audit, although he was afraid it would involve a complete revision of our financial system. What was wanted was a system and an examination which would give the House a clear account of the way in which the public money was expended. He had had the honour of serving on this Committee for some years, and he thought that the House should know that its powers and its usefulness were extremely limited.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERassured the hon. Baronet that the Government were as anxious as any Member of the House could be to see this Committee on Public Accounts, which was an institution well founded, he thought, on the principles of Parliamentary government, made as efficient as possible, and armed with every power which could tend to complete that efficiency. With regard to the imperfection or partial development of the principle of audit in this country, that was a matter under the consideration of the Government, and with respect to which they thought it probable that they would have an opportunity shortly of adopting measures, and even of making proposals to the House, entirely in the spirit of the remarks of the hon. Baronet. With regard to the limitation of the powers of the Committee, he could only say he was quite sure that any recommendation that Committee might make, tending to enlarge their own powers, and supported by reasons to show that at present their powers were not so large as they ought to be, would come before the Government and the House with great authority; for he was satisfied that those hon. Gentlemen who had received such a mark of the confidence of the House as was indicated by their appointment on this Committee would not be likely to make a recommendation of that sort except upon good grounds.
  Motion agreed to.

POOR LAW SECRETARY.

  RESOLUTION.
  MR. AUGUSTUS SMITHmoved, pursuant to notice,
  "That the office of the one Secretary, rendered capable of sitting or voting as a Member of the Commons' House of Parliament by the ninth clause of the Poor Law Act, lately vacated ought to be abolished."
  He said, that this was not the first time he had brought this subject before the House. When the Poor Law Renewal Act was last introduced he took occasion to draw attention to the small amount of the duties the Secretary of the Poor Law Board performed in that House and at the office, and that, therefore, the post might very well be dispened with. He then moved that at the next voidance of the office it should be abolished; and he thought the House would, now the office was vacant, agree with him that it should he done

  457
  away with. They had two officers in the House to represent the Poor Law Board, the President and the Secretary. When the Act which constituted them was passed, it was thought very desirable, as complaints were frequent and inquiries incessant as to the working of the law, that some one should always be in the House to represent the Board; but that necessity had now passed away, and one officer would be amply sufficient. He had carefully looked over Hansard, and he found that in the year 1864 the Parliamentary labours of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board, consisted in addressing the House about thirty times, and these were for the most part merely brief observations, or answers to questions in reference to a Bill connected with the Poor Law then before Parliament; and that was a year in which, owing to the Lancashire distress, there were more than a usual number of Poor Law subjects. But the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Gilpin), the Secretary, was not called upon to say a single word. In 1863 the President spoke fifty times and the Secretary three times, and then only when the President was absent on important business elsewhere. In 1862 the President addressed the House about forty times and the Secretary four times, while in 1861 the President had reason to address the House only twenty-two times and the Secretary not once. In 1860 the President spoke, but on twenty-four occasions the Secretary did not open his lips even once. So much for their Parliamentary labours. With regard to the duties which the Secretary discharged in his office, they were not easily to be ascertained in a direct way, but what they were could be judged of by other means. He did not wish to mention anything invidious with respect to the hon. Member for Northampton, who, he was sure, would not undertake any duty he could not conscientiously perform. But he found that the hon. Member was an officer of other important institutions. He was Chairman of a metropolitan bank, a Director of a provident society, and also of several railway companies, engagements which must necessarily take up a great deal of his time; but he was not to blame for that if his business at the Poor Law Board was so light as to enable him to undertake those duties, and certainly they did not require his presence in that House. The expenses of this Department were very heavy. He regretted very much that the
  458
  expenses of the office itself were not examined into by the Committee appointed on the renewal of the Poor Law Board. This inquiry, the Right Hon. Gentleman who occupied the Chair, seems to have taken care was not entered on. He must say he thought that Gentleman ought rather to have been present as a witness before, than as a Member, much less Chairman, of the Committee—the Chairman having always great influence as to shaping the course of the inquiries entered on. In the year 1835, when it was first appointed, and when its labours were most arduous, the whole expenses of the Poor Law Board were £42,000 a year. In 1843 they had reached £56,000. In 1853 they more than doubled the first year, being nearly £90,000; while in 1865 the expenditure of the office alone amounted to £73,000. He was sure the noble Lord at the head of the Government did not intend to mislead the House when he said the other night that the Committee recommended that the office of Secretary should be continued. On looking at the proceedings he found that there were two Motions submitted to the Committee in reference to the officers connected with the Board. The first was that the Presidency should always be held by a Member of the lower House, but that was negatived. The other was proposed by the hon. Member for North Devon, that the expense of the central Board was excessive, and might be reduced by the abolition of the office of Parliamentary Secretary, and by such, further reduction as might be consistent with the efficient discharge of the duties of the Board. A good deal of discussion, he was informed, took place upon that, and eventually it was allowed to be withdrawn, because the Committee had not sufficient information before it to arrive at any conclusion respecting it. With him (Mr. A. Smith) the saving merely of a salary was only a secondary consideration. He could not help feeling that for many years the official element was becoming more and more powerful in this House. It was not only powerful as regard the individual placeholders in the House, but there were also the expectants. They always saw on questions of economy the occupants of the Treasury Benches voted together, and those who hoped to sit on those Benches generally voted with them, and against any fair, reasonable, and sound retrenchment. The fact was, however, that no evidence was taken upon the subject, and

  459
  therefore it was not quite fair in the noble Viscount to say the Committee recommended the office to be continued. He hoped the House would vindicate itself against the charge made against it by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of being guilty of reckless liberality, and it had been said that it would go down to history as the prodigal Parliament; but, if the House now supported the retention of this sinecure, they might indeed be justly charged with reckless liberality.
  MR. HIBBBRTseconded the Motion.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the office of the one Secretary, rendered capable of sitting or voting as a Member of the Commons' House of Parliament by the ninth Clause of the Poor Law Act, lately vacated, ought to be abolished."—(Mr. Augustus Smith.)
  MR. C. P. VILLIERSsaid, his hon. Friend had described the office of Secretary to the Poor Law Board as a sinecure which ought to be abolished, but he seemed to have forgotten what had been decided on this matter upon more than one occasion by the Hou3e. He also seemed to have forgotten what he was understood to say at an earlier part of his speech—namely, that he did not know much of the merits of the question, and that neither he nor the Committee upstairs knew what were the duties which belonged to the Office, and expressed his regret that the Committee did not inquire into the subject.
  MR. AUGUSTUS SMITHexplained that what he stated was that it was not easy to ascertain what the office duties of the Parliamentary Secretary were.
  MR. C. P. VILLIERS: That amounts to pretty much the same thing, for it assigns the reason why my hon. Friend has not become informed about them. My hon. Friend said that the Committee had not taken any evidence. Now, I beg to say that other persons have inquired into this Office, and have collected the information that was necessary to enable them to form an opinion upon the subject. This matter has been deliberately discussed upon three different occasions in this House, and when the hon. Member gave notice of his Motion I presumed that he had some new matter to submit to us. This Office was discussed when the Bill by which it was created was before this House. Again, in the House of Lords the question was discussed. It was then asked whether a Secretary of this Department should be in Parliament, and it was assented to. But there was a still
  460
  more important occasion upon which this subject was very deliberately considered; that was before the Committee which was appointed to inquire into the salaries of Government Departments in the year 1850. That Committee endeavoured to satisfy themselves, first, whether they could not reduce the salaries of the staff of the Poor Law Board, and next whether it was possible or not to reduce the establishment. To convince themselves upon these points they called before them the late Mr. Baines, then President. A more conscientious man, I believe, never sat in this House, and he was called upon by the Committee to answer certain questions with the conviction on their part that they might rely upon what he stated. He was asked—
  "Will you explain why it was thought necessary to have two paid Secretaries instead of one as under the old Commission?"
  And he answered—
  "The Committee will observe that now there is practically but one Commissioner. Formerly there were three, who divided the business among them, but the responsibility now rests upon one Commissioner exclusively; and the same amount of work that was formerly distributed among three Commissioners and one Secretary is now distributed among a President and two Secretaries."
  "Mr. Bright.—Are you of opinion, Mr. Baines, that the expenses of your office, most particularly the staff of your Department, could be diminished?"—"I have considered the matter very fully with an anxious wish to effect a reduction, and I have consulted those of greater experience than myself, and the result of my deliberation is that it would not be possible to do with less with due regard to the efficiency of the public service."
  I do not know whether or not the hon. Member was in the House at that time, but if he will look at the composition of that Committee he will see that its members would not have been satisfied with the mere opinion of one of the persons connected with the Department if they had not thought that he had reason for what he said. They did not recommend that the establishment should be reduced. They only recommended that the salary of one of the Secretaries should be reduced. That was done, and there the matter was supposed to end. Last year, in the course of the general inquiry into the operation of the Poor Laws, an hon. Member raised this question—whether it was not possible to reduce the establishment? Nor was that a mere passing notice. The subject was deliberately discussed one day, and as it was thought that there were not Members

  461
  enough present, or that the question had not been sufficiently considered, another day was appointed for the continuance of the discussion. On the second occasion there was a large muster of the Committee—I think about fifteen Members; the subject was discussed for two or three hours, and almost every Member of the Committee was heard. The argument which was employed was, if I recollect rightly, that there was no reason why the Secretary of the Poor Law Board should not sit in the House as well as the second representative of any other Department—the Under Secretaries of State, for instance, or the Vice President of the Board of Trade, or the Vice President of the Council; and it was, as I thought, in consequence of his conviction that that view was a sound one, that the hon. Member who made the proposition withdrew it. Has my hon. Friend any objection to that argument? If not, this Department stands upon the ground of every other Department. It is one where there is business enough for a President and two Secretaries, and I see no reason for excluding the Secretary from this House. In the Committee referred to there was no question of taking evidence on the matter, nor was there any occasion for it. The Committee was not appointed or controlled by the Government; and I beg to say, in answer to some reflections of the hon. Member on myself for presiding on that Committee, that I did so not at my own desire—for I declined to take the chair—but in consequence of the wish of the Committee. It is not a very agreeable post, presiding over these Committees, because other gentlemen get tired of sitting and are able to withdraw; but the chairman cannot do so. Therefore, when the hon. Gentleman charged me with having guided the Committee and having forced myself into the chair, he was speaking at random. I certainly thought that after all the discussion that has taken place on this Office, which it was quite as open to him as to any one else to learn, he would have come before the House with some fresh information upon the subject. If the hon. Gentleman succeeds in his Motion he will establish an important precedent, for I never remember an occasion where the House was asked to vote blindfold as they are now. I do not believe that my hon. Friend wishes to attack anyone belonging to the Establishment, or to do anything which would be unfriendly or ungracious to the Department. I believe
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  that he is moving on higher grounds. I believe that he considers the influence of the Crown too strong in this House, and that it ought to he diminished, and to abolish this place is one way of doing that. [Mr. AUGUSTUS SMITH: Hear!] I am quite sure that he is acting upon these high and general grounds, the House, therefore, must bear in mind what are his objects. If he gets rid of this Office—and he is wise to commence with the Poor Law Board, because it is always easy to get up a cry against that Department—how long will he be before he attacks the Board of Trade, or the Privy Council, or some of the other Establishments? I have not the least doubt that he is acting conscientiously, but I hope that he will allow the House to exercise freely their judgment as to the manner in which he is seeking to accomplish his objects, or whether they are objects in which they agree with him. I venture to say that he has selected rather an unfortunate moment for making his attack upon the Poor Law Board. He would have had a greater advantage if he had done it at the time when he says that he was not disposed to assail the Office, because its cost was less. He has chosen a time when the work of the Office is far greater than it ever was be-fore. Since I have been at the Poor Law Board there has been more work done and more imposed upon the President than was ever the case before. There have been the public works in Lancashire, which has been the occasion of much anxiety—has involved the Board in a vast amount of correspondence, and in endless interviews with persons interested—there has been the work which has resulted from the Bill proposed by the Poor Law Board for providing the assessment of property in unions—a very difficult matter and one which gives rise to a great deal of trouble and correspondence. Besides all this, additional permanent business has been thrown upon the Office by the transfer, within the last two years, from the Privy Council to the Poor Law Board of the management of the education of the poor, so far as it depends upon State grants, which of itself has produced upwards of 500 Reports, all of which have to be read and considered. I do not think that my hon. Friend knows what the work of the President of that Board is, and I do not wish him so ill, as that he should know it from personal experience; but if he succeeds in this Motion, I assure him he ought to go further, and say

  463
  that the President of the Poor Law Board ought not to sit in Parliament and certainly not to have a seat in the Council. Because, at present, what Mr. Baines said is perfectly true, that the work which was formerly distributed among three Commissioners, now devolves upon one. There is not a single matter which is supposed to receive the sanction of the Board for which the President is not responsible, whatever he may think. The duties of the President of the Board are exceedingly heavy. There is not a question which may arise upon anything which affects the moral, physical, or economical condition of the poor that must not be examined into, and decided by him, and in order that he may give a decision he must read all the papers that bear upon the subject. If a medical man misconducts himself or neglects a patient, an inquiry is held, evidence is taken, and it must all be read by the President before he can give his sanction to the report, or to opposite representation which may be made. The same course has to be pursued in the case of the chaplain and other officers or matters that are referred to him. Whatever receives the sanction of the Board, must be inquired into by the President. Then, during every Session that I have been at the Board, there has been a Committee, over which I have had to preside, occupying three or four hours of the morning, and only concluding when this House begins to sit. I have had then to come here to attend in my place in the House, and afterwards to return to my office and attend to business there for two or three hours. That alone would be a reason for having a Secretary in this House who might answer any question that is asked, or attend to any business that has to be done. I do not know how much the hon. Gentleman thinks that the President ought to do, but not having the advantage myself to sit for a very small constituency, feel that I am perfectly unable to do all that might be required of the President of the Poor Law Board in Parliament, and, I do venture to say, that I require some assistance. And although I should never have asked for further assistance or complained of having too much work, I do not hesitate to say that if you abolish this Secretary ship, one of the first things which you must do, and that before a year is out, is to appoint another Commissioner. I am convinced that if you inquire into the matter, with a view to learn the truth, you will find that
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  you cannot get the business done properly or satisfactorily by the President alone. That is the result of my experience. I have no interest in saying so, because I do not suppose that any one could survive another year at that Board after having been there five years already, and, therefore, I am only speaking with a view to the future. There is no more objection, so far as I can see, to the President of the Poor Law Board being a Member of the Cabinet, than there is in the case of any other head of a public Department; but that would be impossible, if the hon. Member carries his Motion. You might, it is true, have a re-distribution of the service in this Office; and you might have another Commissioner instead of a Secretary in this House, but there should be some more valid reason than any that had been urged by my hon. Friend for thus abruptly changing the arrangement that at present exists, or to induce the House to declare that it was wrong in the decision to which it has on other occasions arrived.
  MR. HIBBERTsaid, he felt bound to support the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Truro (Mr. Augustus Smith). He was happy to bear testimony to the conscientious and able manner in which his duties while at the Poor Law Board had been fulfilled by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Gilpin), nor did he wish to say a single word against the Department itself. It had well performed its functions in the case of the people of Lancashire, who were deeply thankful for its exertions in their behalf, and by whom it was regarded with a higher degree of favour than it had ever been before. The ground, then, on which he should vote for the Motion was because he believed that it never was intended, when the Act of 1847 was passed, that there should be in the House of Commons both a President and a Secretary connected with the Poor Law Board. In the discussions upon that Act it was stated that the intention was, that there should be a Secretary sitting in that House, while the President should have a seat in the House of Lords; and the then Secretary for the Home Department (Sir George Grey), in bringing in the Poor Law Administration Bill, said—
  "There will also be two Secretaries, and it is proposed that the President and one of the Secretaries shall have seats in Parliament. I do not say they both shall have seats in this House, but it is essential that the Board should be repre-

  465
  sented in this House by either the President or Secretary."—3 Hansard xcii. 343.
  Now, he believed the fact to be that the President of the Poor Law Board had never since the passing of the Act occupied a seat in the House of Lords, but that be had sat, in conjunction with one of the Secretaries, in the House of Commons, so that the action of the Government in the matter had scarcely been in accordance with the intentions expressed when the measure was introduced. That being so, the better course, he thought, to pursue would be, instead of filling up the vacant Office, to postpone the appointment of a Parliamentary Secretary until the whole question of Poor Law administration came before the House, as it must do at a later period of the Session. The question would meantime, he hoped, be taken into their serious consideration by the Government. The appointment of a Parliamentary Secretary to the Board gave them no doubt an additional vote, but no one, he thought, could fairly maintain that the services of a second representative of the Department were required in that House. His hon. Friend (Mr. Augustus Smith) brought forward the Motion now for the reason that the Office was vacant. Any one who sat in the House, or who referred to Hansard, would soon find that it was unnecessary to have both the President and Secretary sitting in that House. Indeed, he believed his hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Gilpin) had during the five years he held office spoken only five times on Poor Law matters, simply because in the discharge of his duty he was not called upon to do so oftener.
  MR. GILPINsaid, he had not intended to take any part in the discussion of a Motion which only very narrowly escaped being a proposal for the abolition of himself, nor should he have risen at all but for the personal turn which, owing to the remarks made by the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Augustus Smith), the debate had taken. That his hon. Friend should call the office of Parliamentary Secretary to the Poor Law Board a sinecure, simply proved that he did not know in what the duties of the office consisted. Of his own conduct while he occupied the Office he was not about to enter into any defence. Upon that point he should leave it to those Gentlemen upon both sides of the House who bad had occasion to refer to him for information upon Poor Law matters, to form an opinion. He, of course, he might add,
  466
  acquitted his hon. Friend of any intention to make an attack upon him; but it so happened, that like a celebrated knight of old, the hon. Gentleman had set his lance in rest to have a tilt at certain things he termed abuses—monsters of his own creation—and had run against the Poor Law Board, which he thought he had discovered to be merely a windmill. He, however, who had been inside that windmill as well as outside, could inform his hon. Friend that there was good work done there, and that if he thought the Poor Law Board was over weighted with officers, he was greatly mistaken. He had heard it suggested that the Head of the Board might be in the House of Lords, and it was not improbable that when the party opposite came into power that might be the case. He had made that remark simply because there was in the other House a nobleman of high talent, and in every way qualified to be at the head of a Department to the business connected with which he had devoted years of practical study. If such an appointment were made, would it be tolerated by the House of Commons that the Department should be unrepresented within its walls? He, for one, thought not. The hon. Member for Truro had alluded to his attention having been taken up by other matters than those which properly belonged to his office as Secretary to the Poor Law Board. To that he would reply with perfect good humour that his hon. Friend would find it very easy to satisfy himself, by inquiring whether he had or had not duly performed the duties which devolved on him in his public capacity, and if he had, that it was no more the business of his hon. Friend to inquire into his other engagements than it was his own to inquire into his hon. Friend's relations with his tenantry in the islands of Scilly. He had no personal interest in this matter; he was not likely ever to be again Secretary of the Poor Law Board, but he had this advantage, at least, over his hon. Friend, that he knew from experience what he was speaking of, what work had to be done in the Office, and he believed that if the House knew as well as he did the amount of that work they would not think that the office of Secretary to the Board ought to be abolished.
  MR. LYALLsaid, he was a member of the Committee to which allusion had been made that evening, and the question had been discussed whether the Parliamentary seat of the President of the Poor Law Board should be confined to the House of

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  Commons. That proposition was, however, negatived, and it then followed as a matter of course that there should be a Parliamentary Secretary; otherwise, if the President happened to be in the other House, there would be no one in the House of Commons to answer questions connected with the administration of the Department,
  VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: I think the question at issue scarcely admits of argument after the able statement of my right hon. Friend near me (Mr. C. P. Villiers). I wish, however, the House to consider what is the tendency and what would be the probable effect of the Motion of the hon. Member for Truro. He says the Government is too strong in this House; but a very different opinion has more than once been expressed by many hon. Members. I have heard complaints made that the different Departments are not sufficiently represented here, in order, face to face with the House of Commons to explain and account for the conduct of those Departments. We were told last year that there were too many of the representatives of some of the great Deparments of the public service in the House of Lords, and that it was a constitutional principle that this House should have in it Members of all the Executive offices of the State, in order that full information with respect to them might be given to hon. Members when they required it, and defence and explanation offered for conduct that might be impugned. My right hon. Friend has stated that his public duties elsewhere might interfere from time to time with his being present here, and if there were no Parliamentary Secretary there would then be no person to furnish that information. As to the opinion of my hon. Friend (Mr. Augustus Smith) that the Office is a sinecure, I think that the statement of my right hon. Friend (Mr. C. P. Villiers), confirmed by that of my hon. Friend (Mr. Gilpin), who lately filled the office of Parliamentary Secretary, and whose valuable assistance I regret to say we have lost, completely disposes of the allegation that the Office is a sinecure. There is no more reason, in my opinion, why this Secretary ship should be abolished than that connected with any other of the public Departments, and I do hope that as the Office is necessary to the proper working of our system of Parliamentary responsibility the House will not accede, on what I cannot help thinking insufficient grounds, to the Motion of my hon. Friend.
  SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYcould not see why the Poor Law Board should have two representatives in that House, and the Department of Woods and Forests not one. A Committee of that House had recommended that there should not be a second representative of the Poor Law Board in that House, and he thought the noble Lord at the head of the Government ought to have taken that opportunity of correcting—without any change in the number of office-holders in Parliament—the anomaly of the double representation of the Poor Law Board and of no representation of the Woods and Forests. He wished to see all Departments represented.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, the hon. Baronet the Member for Evesham had overlooked this fact, that the Poor Law Board was a body controlling the free action of the ratepayers and magistrates throughout the United Kingdom, and, therefore, could not be said to form part of the general representation of the kingdom, whereas the Woods and Forests had to perform duties of a purely economical character. This made it doubly important that an official from that Department should always be present in the House to answer questions.
  MR. AUGUSTUS SMITHcomplained that he had been entirely misrepresented by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. C. P. Villiers), and explained that he did not object to the representation of the Poor Law Board in that House, but he did complain that it should be represented by two Members; what he opposed was superfluous representation, and in his opinion one officer would be quite sufficient. In the case of other offices which had a double representation, one representative sat in the other House of Parliament. At present it was more largely represented than any other public Department of the Executive.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 17; Noes 193: Majority 176.

UNION CHARGEABILITY BILL.
[BILL 31.] LEAVE. FIRST READING.
MR. C. P. VILLIERS: Sir, I rise to ask leave to introduce the Bill of which I have given notice, the purport of which is properly described in the terms of that notice as a Bill to provide for the better distribution of the charge for the relief of the poor in Unions. That is the limit of

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the Amendment which the Government intend to propose in that branch of the law which affects the settlement and removal of the poor. Greater purposes have been ascribed to their intention in another place, and it has been supposed that the object of this Bill would be to abolish at once the laws of settlement and removal. That was, however, a gratuitous assumption, and was not made upon the authority of any Member of the Government. I am not ignorant of the evils of the law of settlement and removal, but I am also aware of the difficulty of dealing with that subject, When I entered the Office of the Poor Law Board I was no stranger to the operation of the Poor Laws, either as they existed before the Amendment made in 1834 or since the passing of that Act. I was associated with the great inquiry that took place in 1832, and I believe that there has not been since that time one important inquiry into the operation of the Poor Law in this House on which I have not sat. I am, therefore, acquainted with the operation of the laws of settlement and removal, and also, as I have said, with the great difficulties of dealing with that subject. I certainly received an impression during those inquiries which I have never seen reason to change; which was, that the abuses, mismanagement, and malpractices which the inquiry disclosed were, more or less, directly or indirectly, to be attributed to the operation of the laws of settlement and removal. The system of settlement, as the House knows, was a device of the 17th century, that cast the burden of the support of the destitute poor upon the realized property of the country. Having operated for a length of time with great injustice and very capriciously, the remedy was devised of conferring upon the parochial divisions of the country the power in certain cases of removing the poor that sought relief and had become settled in those divisions. The right of claiming relief was given to the poor in the district where they became destitute, and the remedy was given to the owners of property there, subject to the conditions of law, to remove these claimants to some other district. The first enactment on this subject was passed in the reign of Elizabeth, and the second in the time of Charles II., and the parochial divisions having been extended to all the townships, and being altogether of the number of about 15,000, the practical operation of the law of settlement and removal has been for two centuries to
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array the arbitrary divisions of the country in active hostility to each other upon this matter, each being obliged by law to bear a burden, without reference to its extent or to the ability to bear it, and each having the right, subject to certain conditions, of casting the burden on its neighbours. That is the history—or, at least, the character—of the Poor Law for two centuries—15,000 arbitrary divisions saddled with the burden of relieving the poor within its own limits, and each trying to cast its burden upon the other without the slightest reference to the interest, the morals, or the well-being of the poor in any respect. We know in this House what has been the result of that system. The statute-book has been encumbered with every variety of enactment to mitigate the mischief and correct the errors of the system. Every one who is familiar with the proceedings of courts of justice is aware that the Law of Settlement and Removal has been the fertile source of litigation, expense, and discontent. It would have been well if the evils of the system ended there, but we know what irritation, discontent, and disaffection among the poor themselves have been occasioned by the schemes and devices invented by the parochial authorities in order to escape from their burdens. What might be called a climax, indeed, in the system was reached, as it were, in our own time. In 1830 this result manifested itself in something like a servile insurrection, the like of which had not occurred for five centuries before in this country. There are many persons still living who remember the terror which for the moment was produced by the riots and disturbances in the agricultural districts, and how universally they were ascribed to the long-continued maladministration of the Poor Laws. There was, perhaps, one redeeming circumstance in these events—namely, that they seemed to have first thoroughly awakened the State to the great importance of that policy that provides for the wants of the poor by a compulsory system of relief. These events seemed to have impressed the Government with the necessity of some closer relationship of the State with the responsibility of a proper application of this law. It was a question, before that time, among philanthropists and philosophers, whether a system of compulsory charity could be an advantage to society, or to the poor, and whether it was not dangerous to property. But of late years it may be said to be a

471
settled conviction that this is a matter of sound policy, and that in a densely peopled country like this there must always be a great number of persons who, from a variety of circumstances—from sickness, infirmity, and bad habits of life—must be in danger of experiencing the extreme consequences of want, and that our present system of compulsory relief is deemed a matter no less of wisdom than of humanity. These views led to the appointment of the great Commission of Inquiry of 1832, composed of many of the ablest men in the kingdom, assisted by gentlemen who went into every part of the country, and made the fullest and most searching inquiry into the operation of a Poor Law, which had endured for upwards of two centuries and had produced such disastrous effects. I may here say with confidence that the first conclusion to which all the Commissioners came was that the parochial system had utterly broken down and failed, and that with such capricious and arbitrary divisions it was impossible to obtain an authority equal to the difficult and delicate task of distributing public relief to the poor. The foremost remedy determined upon then, was to extend the area of relief, and to accomplish this by a system of combination or union of parishes, each to be represented at a Board. The extension of the area and creation of the Board was not objected to, because the principle of representation, those who contributed to the rates, was recognised in the constitution of the Board. A house was then established for the maintenance of those who were relieved within, and officers of the union were appointed to distribute the relief to those who were to be relieved without. The next Amendment necessary was to establish such a system of supervision that would effectually prevent the recurrence of all the great irregularities that had existed throughout the country. A central authority was required that might gather experience from all parts of the country, enabling them to frame rules and regulations that they might then prescribe to the local boards, and thus secure uniformity and something like a wise and proper administration of the law. That was effected, and a great improvement was accomplished by the system that was thus established in accordance with the recommendations of the Commissioners. Rule and method took the place of confusion and disorder. The administration of relief to the poor was taken out of the hands
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of ignorant, illiterate, and irresponsible men, and placed in those selected for their competency, and many of the mischievous practices were put an end to that had prevailed throughout the country, and had been at the root of much of the riot and disaffection to which I have referred. The Commissioners, however, at that time, were not satisfied with what they had accomplished, because they had not completed the system which they had in view, in the changes they proposed. The principle of their system was based on the failure of the parochial system, and they considered that if those arbitrary areas were still left with power that many of the objectionable features of the former system would re-appear. But at that time there was considerable alarm among the influential ratepayers, who were afraid of having to contribute a greater share of the burden than they had had formerly. These persons were fully represented in Parliament, and they succeeded in preventing the Commissioners carrying out the plan they had in view, which was to do away with the parochial liablity for maintaining the poor, and to have Union administration and Union chargeability commensurate. I well recollect the disappointment of the Commissioners at being unable to carry out the principle to this extent; and the fact that the new Poor Law, although it has been attended with many advantages, has not succeeded to the extent its great advocates expected, is doubtless much to be ascribed to the failure of the Commissioners in this respect. To this circumstance are owing many of the malpractices and measures adopted by parishes for reducing their liability, such as that of driving the poor from their own into adjoining parishes, and the many evil results of that system, and which fall upon the poor in consequence. These have been frequently the subject of Complaint both in this House and in the columns of the press, and it is known that many parishes have been overburdened with poor driven there by others to escape their fair share of the burden. This is owing to the parochial chargeability having been continued in deference to the opinions and interests of persons in this House. I doubt, indeed, if anything would have changed the system, but for what may be considered to have been accidental, which led to important alterations, and I trust will form the ground for still further improvement. This was in 1846, when there were great appre-

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hensions that the landed interest might suffer from the change in our commercial system, and in resisting which, many statements were made in this House as to the peculiar liabilities to which that class of property was subject. Among those liabilities were particularized the consequences which resulted from the system of the removal and settlement of the poor. It was stated that those engaged in trade and manufacture induced the people to leave their villages when trade was brisk; but when the trade was bad the operatives were forthwith removed hack to their parishes, where they were not required, and the burden of supporting them was thrown upon the land. The matter was then much discussed in this House, and among several other compensations that Sir Robert Peel devised for the relief of the landed interest a perfectly new system was proposed, namely, that wherever the poor had lived for five years they should not be removed to the place of their settlement. This, however, was not felt in practice to be a great boon to the landed interest, and, in fact, the parishes generally throughout the country were greatly incumbered by it. The overseers, acting in the full belief that they were properly discharging their duty, by every possible device, as by inducing the poor prematurely to accept relief, or to leave the parish when about to become irremovable in order to break the residence, endeavoured more zealously than ever to get rid of their poor in order that they might go before the expiration of their five years' residence. Then Mr. Bodkin, a Member of this House, proposed that, inasmuch as there was this serious aggravation of the charge which parishes had to bear, that the charge should be cast upon the union fund, that is the common fund, which had always been collected from the parishes in proportion to the number of their paupers, and distinct from the several parochial funds which were only applicable to the relief of their settled poor. But the instant this was put upon the union fund the parishes having always been charged to this fund, according to the number of their own poor, said, "We submitted to this regulation; but when you put other charges upon that common fund than those which relate to our own poor, it is a hardship to charge us upon that principle, for, by this means, those who have no poor at all are entirely exempt." When I entered upon my present office, I became
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Chairman of a Committee which had sat for two years, and I found the evidence overwhelming as to the extreme injustice of charging parishes according to the number of their poor, and relieving those parishes that had no poor altogether from contributing to the establishment charges, which was the case before the new system of irremovable poor not settled in the Union at all was adopted. This Committee then came to the conclusion that the whole system was faulty, and declared that the area of rating ought to be extended to the Union, that the whole cost for the poor in each Union should be chargeable on the common fund of the Union, that the establishment charges should be defrayed by the parishes in proportion to the valuation of their property, and not in proportion to the number of their poor, and that no person should be removed who had resided three years in the parish. This was a sort of revolution in the whole system of rating the property, and of relieving the poor of the parish, and the House then, much to its honour, carried a Bill, introduced for the purpose, giving effect to this Resolution, whereby every person who has lived in a parish for three years, without any other qualification, becomes irremovable, and his maintenance is to be provided for out of the union fund, to be contributed towards by everybody according to the value of his property. This is a very important change, effected three years ago, and which has been attended with such remarkable results so satisfactory indeed in their nature, as I think now justify me in asking the House to make a further advance and another change in the same direction. The general idea is, that if you do away with the Law of Removal particular districts would be overwhelmed with paupers, and property would be consumed by the rates. But what has really been the result of this experiment so far as it has gone? The results are, that the number of removals has decreased greatly, the number of irremovable paupers has largely increased, and the common fund, now subject to the control of the guardians, has been greatly augmented. The House, therefore, has an opportunity of considering how far the objections which have been taken to the principle of Union chargeability are just. No one will say—even of those who contend it is necessary—but that the removal of the poor is a very great evil—these, then, have diminished. In 1857 the

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number of poor removed was 16,546, at a cost of £21,500; in 1863, the year after this Bill was passed, making them irremovable after three years' residence, the number of removals had fallen to 13,601, at a cost of £18,717. Of course the passing of the Bill led to an increase in the number of irremovable poor, but one would hardly have been prepared to find that while in 1861, the year before the Act passed, the cost of irremovable paupers was only £852,372 it had increased in 1863, the year after the Act passed, to £1,413,610, and in 1864 to £1,433,990. There is one branch of this subject which received much attention from my predecessor, Mr. Baines—namely, the removal of the Irish poor. He was under much apprehension on this point—indeed, he was so little prepared to deal with it, that he left out the Irish altogether, in a measure he had proposed on this subject in the year 1854. In proposing the Three Years' Residence Bill, I did not omit then, but provided for all alike becoming irremovable, and required that if they were removed, that it should be done with humanity and care, not distinguishing between Irish and other removable paupers. In the year Mr. Baines proposed his Bill—1854—there were 16,047 Irish removals, and in the year 1857–8, 10,308, while in the year after the Three Years' Residence Bill was passed, there were only 1,212. The Irish removals from Liverpool alone, a great place for this class of removals, were in 1856, the last year we have had any account of them, 5,043. Last year there was not one, and the year before the number was very small indeed—I understand something under twenty. And I ask, if any one supposes that if these 1,212 Irish paupers had not been removed in the year 1863, any evil would have followed from it? But there is a general apprehension that if the guardians were allowed to apply the relief for the poor from so general a fund as the common or Union fund, they would be lax in its administration, and relief would be given indiscriminately. Well, we have some means of judging of that from what has already occurred. The total expenditure for relief in unions for the year ending Ladyday 1864, was £4,835,953, of which £2,468,508, or 51 per cent was charged to the common fund. Therefore the guardians have been administering during the last year out of this fund half of the whole sum raised for the relief of the poor. I ask whether there are any persons in this House conversant
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with the administration of the law who have ever heard of any evils or mischiefs that have arisen from the application of the funds from this particular source. I have made particular inquiry upon this point among persons of experience, and have directed the Inspectors to do the same, and the answer has always been that there has been no more laxity in administering this fund than the other whatever; the only thing is that at present there are two classes of paupers who come before the guardians—one class who are to be relieved from the union and the other from the parochial fund, and there is a great temptation to them to be more strict with regard to their own fund than that of the union. But that is an evil which can he remedied, and which will at once be cured by the operation of the Bill I am proposing. But there is evidence of a general kind with respect to this expenditure for the irremovable poor which is calculated to allay alarms on the ground of profuseness on the part of the guardians. In 1855, when the expenditure for the irremovable poor was only £793,648, the total cost of relief per head was 4s. 11 d. upon the population; whereas in 1864, when the expenditure had increased to £1,433,990, the ratio per head was only 4s. 8d., which was actually less, therefore, although the expenditure for the irremovable poor was very much more. I ask the attention of the House to these results, because it is the main point in the discussion as to carrying out this system farther. I say, then, there is no proof whatever that upon economical grounds there is any danger in casting the relief of the poor upon the general fund, or that danger will arise from the carelessness of guardians. We know they are particularly careful—some people say, too rigid, a great deal—when they have to provide for salaries or charges which fall upon the general fund. The question, therefore, is, whether these considerations should not lead you to carry the principle which you have already adopted still further, so as farther to diminish the number of the removable poor, to allow them to circulate, at least, freely in the unions, and prevent them from being carted out of places to which they are attached into places to which they are hardly known. I cannot help thinking that moral considerations connected with this subject will weigh with this House. The enormous evil of casting off poor people from a parish

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in which they have resided for a great part of their lives because they become chargeable should have an end. It is impossible to doubt that the system of settlement and the calculations which the poor and their employers make on this subject, and the means which parishes devise in order to escape from their liability of supporting the poor, produce the most injurious results upon their conduct and character. We have very high authority also for tracing to this source the lamentable want of cottage accommodation that still exists in the rural districts. I remember hearing my late distinguished relative, Sir George Lewis, in his evidence before the Committee on Settlement and Poor Removal in 1847, speak thus—
"One of the principal effects of the law of (Parochial) Settlement is on the building of cottages, and that effect it has exercised ever since its first introduction. I could refer the Committee even to pages in Arthur Young's Letters, in which he deplores the effect of the Settlement Law as leading to the demolition of cottages."
And Mr. Baines said in this House ten years ago, when introducing his Bill on the 10th of February, 1854—
"It is with regard to the residence of the labouring classes that the law is productive of the most cruel hardship of all.… Many respectable witnesses examined before the Committee of 1847, and before the gentlemen appointed by the Poor Law Board in 1848, give numerous instances, within their own knowledge, of labourers having to walk several miles to work every morning, and as far home every night.… The labour which the farmer thus procures is deteriorated in value, and the open parish in which he (the labourer) dwells is often so overcrowded with labourers driven into it from the neighbouring close parishes that the greatest evils, social, sanitary, and moral, are found to be the result."
Let not people say this was ten years ago, and that the evils of the system are at an end. The evils still exist, and will continue to exist as long as the power, the interest, and the same motives for getting rid of the poor also exist; evils that are deplorable on social, sanitary, and moral grounds. I do not intend to give the House the pain of listening to the details of the mischiefs which I hold in my hand, because I trust that hon. Gentlemen are inclined to give a fair consideration to my proposal. I will not state at present what I could state on this subject, and that from very recent reports. I may refer, however, to what is to be found in the Census Returns, which would lead to the conclusion that the dwellings for the poor are being reduced. I find in the Census Returns
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that in 821 agricultural parishes in England there has been between 1851 and 1861 a decrease of houses accompanied with an increase of population. The total decrease of houses in these agricultural parishes within these ten years has been 3,118, while the increase in the number of persons has been 16,497. These documents, I believe, furnish proof of the continuance of the evils which have been remarked upon long since and lamented by the highest authorities. Looking, therefore, to the advantage which has been derived from some modification of the system of settlement and removal within the last three years, I will now ask the House to allow me to introduce a Bill for carrying still further the better principle which will, I believe, remove many existing evils, which will be of great benefit to the poor, and will not impose any fresh burden or entail any hardship upon property. It is with these objects that I propose that the union fund shall in future be made available for the maintenance of all the poor within the union. I propose to extend the area of charge from the parish to the union—and thus to make the charge commensurate with the administration. When we have already proof that 51 per cent of that which is charged upon the union fund is now wisely administered by the guardians, and have no proof of any evil, but rather of a mitigation of many evils, that have existed, I come forward on strong grounds to recommend the extension of a system which this Parliament has already sanctioned. The Bill will be a very simple and short one, because all that is necessary is to repeal a clause in the Act 4 & 5 Will. IV., called the New Poor Law Amendment Act, which provides for the retention of the parochial system of settlement. The Bill will cast the poor upon the general fund; and, what is extremely important, will transfer the power of removal from the overseers to the guardians. These are the two principal features of the measure which I now propose. One of its effects would be at once the cessation of all removal between parish and parish in the same union. And then, according to the opinion and experience of the most competent authorities, removals would at least fall off one-half between union and union. An overseer may be, and often is, uneducated, incompetent, and almost irresponsible; but he believes it to be his duty when he finds a man in a parish not properly settled there

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to do all in his power to shift and shuffle him off elsewhere, and for this purpose he will take long journeys all over the country at the expense of his parish. But everybody who knows anything of the guardians know that they proverbially shrink from all the expense and litigation and trouble that arise on questions of settlement. I am very glad to have an opportunity of referring to the experience of the working, in a particular case, of the system which I now ask the House to sanction. The House naturally proceeds with caution in such matters, and it is well to refer to experience in order to ascertain what is likely to follow from the course which I propose. I should observe that the promoters of the New Poor Law being disappointed in not being able to accomplish what they intended to be the general law, inserted in that Act a provision by which, if the guardians in a union were unanimous, they could combine to unite all the parishes of a union so as to make them one for Poor Law purposes. As might have been expected, there has almost invariably been some one or more dissentient; but there is one case in which unanimity was found, and the system has been in operation for a sufficient number of years to enable us to judge of its results. There is a district in Norfolk, in which the guardians were unanimous, and they formed themselves into one union, such as I propose should be formed throughout the whole country under this Bill. And now on the point of economy—as to whether this measure is likely to increase the expenditure for Poor Law purposes—I shall state to the House what has been the result in the Docking Union—the one to which I am referring. In the three years which preceded the arrangement of forming the several parishes into one for the purposes of rating and settlement—namely, the years 1846, 1847, and 1848, the average expenditure on relief was £9,828; in the three years 1856, 1857, and 1858 it was only £8,773, showing a decrease of £1,055, or 10·73 per cent. In the seven unions nearest to Docking the decrease during the same period was only 1·82 per cent. But I have communicated with the chairman of the Docking Union to know from him whether he is satisfied with the results of the system. The following are the question and answer on this point:—
"Whether after fifteen years have elapsed since the Docking Union was constituted a union for
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settlement, &c, I and my colleagues have any reason to regret that our union has been thus constituted?—For myself, and also for those guardians with whom I have been associated mainly, in conducting the weekly business of the union, I can answer that we have discovered no reason to entertain any regret that our union has been constituted one parish; but, on the contrary, that our united experience has resulted in a conviction that much benefit has been derived from its establishment."
Now, a good many people, whether sincere or not I do not know, say that under the parochial system a great inducement is given to ratepayers to employ labourers, and that many of the former zealously look out for labourers who are not exactly able-bodied and give them employment, and that this inducement would be taken away under the union system. On this point a question was put to the chairman of the Docking Union, and here it is with the answer—
"Whether second rate, or partially able-bodied, labourers have failed to find employment, because no longer directly chargeable to their respective parishes?—I believe this class of labourers now experience less difficulty in finding employment, as they have less repugnance to move about the union in search of work. But that which to me seems of the most importance and the most valuable result of this measure is that the character of the able-bodied labourer is now much more appreciated by himself, from the knowledge that there exists no longer any reluctance on the part of employers to find good and constant work for a good, steady, and industrious man, come from whatever parish he may in the union, an employer having, in fact, a decided preference for such a labourer, to one, in his own parish, of a doubtful character."
It is satisfactory to know that; but there is another important point upon which there is a question and answer—
"Whether removal by orders of magistrates have been fewer?—As a consequence of our present system, removal orders from one parish to another in the Docking Union have entirely ceased, a not very inconsiderable advantage; and I believe I am justified (judging from the reports of our county sessions) in adding that removal orders to other unions have greatly diminished, from the fact that the guardians are now more vigilant in investigating all cases of doubtful settlement ere they run hastily into the expenses entailed by re-sorting to a court of law."
The House will see that experience in the Docking Union literally verifies what those who had advocated the systems of uniting the parishes of a union for rating and settlement felt must be the result of its operation, and this experience of fifteen years is a very strong recommendation of the general measure which I now propose. I should like to read the opinion of a very

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experienced person who has lately written a paper on this subject. This gentleman, Mr. J. L. Foster, is the editor of a very widely circulated Conservative paper, and an old guardian of the York Union, which includes a number of agricultural parishes. I shall read one extract from his letter. He says—
"One important result I anticipate from the transfer of all relief to the common fund; it will have a tendency to obliterate any spirit of selfishness in those who are intrusted with the responsible duties of a Poor Paw Guardian, They will no longer feel, as some men possibly do, that their principal mission to the board room is to watch the particular interests of their own parish, and that they have no concern in the general business of the union. There will be no longer an arena for conflict as to chargeability between one parish and another. The attention of the guardians will be directed to consider the necessities of the applicants and the assistance which their eases require; to supervise the general business of the union and the conduct of the officers. In fact, they will have one object in common."
Considering that there is evidence of this character to be found as accessible to every one as it is to me, and doubtless familiar to many in this House, I can hardly anticipate any great opposition to the introduction, nor, indeed, to the passing of this Bill. In a case like this there will be opposition, no doubt, as there must be some disturbance of existing charges, and some people may have to contribute more than they have done, but I cannot suppose that will be sufficient to prevent Parliament from passing a Bill having useful and general objects. The measure which I proposed on a former occasion by which different parishes were made to contribute to the union according to the value of their property, instead of the number of their poor, and which passed by a large majority in this House, effected a far greater change as regards redistribution of charge than the one which I am now submitting to your consideration. There were instances of hon. Members who, though one of the effects of that measure was to entail considerable sacrifice on their part, and though it was known at the time that such would be one of its effects, admitted it was of so valuable a character to the poor that they could not think of offering it any opposition on personal or interested grounds. The hon. Member for Cheshire stated, I think, that in several parishes his interests were opposed to it, but that, knowing it would be of such advantage to the poor, he gave it his cordial
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support. When it was brought up to the other House it was introduced by my lamented Friend the late Duke of Newcastle, whose interests were directly opposed to it. Seeing, therefore, the success of that measure, and that this is likely to result in even greater advantage, seeing the numerous evils that will be removed by it, seeing what benefits it may confer upon the poor, and in promoting good feeling between labourer and employer, between tenant and landlord, between servant and master, by removing from their mind considerations that spring out of the present system, I feel great confidence in asking leave of this House to bring in this Bill; and with perfect confidence in this Parliament and this House I now ask leave to bring in the Bill,
Moved, That leave be given to bring in a Bill "to provide for the better Distribution of the Relief of the Poor in Unions."—(Mr. C. P. Villiers.)
MR. HENLEYsaid, he had no intention of offering any opposition to the introduction of this Bill; but the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board, in the last portion of his speech, had touched on a matter respecting which it would have been a great advantage if he had afforded some information—namely, what the amount of the shifting of burdens would be. It would be very desirable before they came to decide the question that he should give the House that information, for, no doubt, it was in his power to do so. The right hon. Gentleman stated that the change made in the law as regarded the removal of the poor was one made in the interest of the landlords on the repeal of the Corn Laws. Now, that great boon to the poor arose out of the terrible distress resulting from the sending back from the manufacturing districts in 1840, 1841, and 1842, of great masses of people who had gone to work in those districts. That was the foundation of the change. It had nothing whatever to do with the Corn Laws. The right hon. Gentleman said, also, that the riots of 1831 and 1832 were owing to the settlement laws. He was old enough to remember them; and, living as he did in the middle of England, had seen something of them, and he never heard them attributed to that course before. There was great distress in the country; the changes from the great war were just working out; there were changes

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in the currency also; the agricultural interest died hard, and the repeal of the beer duty no doubt had a great deal to do with them. They were "swing" riots, and took the form of breaking machinery. But though he was in them, he had never before heard them attributed to the Settlement Laws. The right hon. Gentleman also touched upon the question of the desire to get rid of people in cottages. Since the new Poor Law, and since the different modes of settlement had been done away with, a poor man could not easily get a settlement in a cottage, and he believed that the right hon. Gentleman's Bill, if it passed into law, would lead to a very extensive pulling down of cottages. Looked at in a proprietary view, cottages were a dead charge on the owners of estates, and did not pay the expense of keeping them up; and a system like the Scotch was growing up, he believed, of letting a certain number of cottages with each farm for a few labourers—such as carters and shepherds—and leaving the farmer to get the rest of his labourers where he could, away from the spot. He thought that system would extend under this Bill. The thing which ought to be kept in view was the amount of shifting of the burden. He could not understand the reason for the right hon. Gentleman saying that the overseers, in whose hands the removals were, were ignorant, uneducated men, for they were of the same class as the guardians. A man who was overseer one day was guardian the next, and why he should be educated when he was guardian and ignorant when he was overseer could only be explained by some peculiar information in the private possession of the Poor Law Board. The right hon. Gentleman had put the common fund charges at 51 per cent; and he hoped he would be able to tell them how much of that 51 per cent was establishment charges, and how much relief charges; because, with all the flourish of trumpets which accompanied the administration of the Poor Law system, he believed the establishment charges were very heavy. When the House almost unanimously agreed to do away with the removability of certain persons who had resided for a certain number of years, the charge was put on the common fund, without any consideration of the proportion in which the common fund was contributed. But when those charges came to increase, of course the common fund showed an inequality, and there was
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greater reason for complaint, as it was a new charge to which people had not been liable before. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would allow some time to elapse between the printing of the Bill and the second reading, in order that hon. Gentlemen might take counsel with their constituents. As it was to be a short Bill, there was more reason for delay, as it was the principle rather than the details which would have to be considered. He hoped, therefore, the measure would not be unduly pressed forward.
MR. LOCKEsaid, that he regretted that the right hon. Gentleman, in bringing in his Bill, had not complied with the recommendation of the Committee that in any legislation to extend the area of charge or management particular attention should be paid to the requirements of the metropolis. When the Bill of 1861 wa3 before the House he had showed that so far from the substitution of three years for five years being a relief to the metropolis it would be a burden to it, casting an extra charge upon the large single parishes; and he hoped his right hon. Friend would in his Casual Poor Bill pay particular attention to the peculiar requirements of the metropolis. This Bill, like the three years' Bill, would be a detriment to the several parishes, especially those that were unions in themselves. This he had shown to be the case with respect to St. George the Martyr, in Southwark. A statement had been prepared by the Board of Guardians of that parish showing the number of persons who had become chargeable as irremovable poor there, who, but for that Act must have been relieved in other parishes where they had a settlement; and this statement he had the honour of laying before the President of the Poor Law Board, when he introduced a deputation from the Guardians of St. George the Martyr, on the subject of the equalization of the poor rates in the metropolis. From this statement it appeared that a great number of persons who had no legal settlement in St. George's parish had become irremovable in consequence of their three years' residence, and this poor parish had to bear the consequent expense. Now, what advantage did this Bill afford to the poor parishes in the metropolis? Why, none whatever; and it would seem strange only to pass a Bill such as this, which left out of consideration the interests of the metropolis, consisting now of between three and four millions, or nearly one-fifth of the entire

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population of England. Recent legislation had cast great burdens upon parishes in the poorer parts of the metropolis. They had passed Bills for new streets, new railways running through London, and they were about to pull down a large number of houses for the new courts of law. Now, the poor people who were removed to make way for these improvements were driven across the water into districts where they were crowded in the most deplorable manner, into small tenements which had, some of them, nine people in a room. No provision was made for them in the richer parishes from which they were dislodged. Two thousand poor persons were driven out when Victoria Street was made, and the dean and chapter, when asked, said that they had made no provision for them, and that they must go across the water. They did so, and remaining three years became chargeable there. There was no doubt that great grievances occurred in reference to the inadequate supply of cottages in the rural districts; but the evil was much more severe in London, where it affected thousands instead of hundreds of people. The borough of South-wark was a gridiron of railways, for there was scarcely a street but was crossed by one or more of them. There was the South Western, the Brighton, the South Eastern, and the London, Chatham, and Dover, which passed through whole districts covered with houses. To such an extent had this affected the locality that the constituency even had decreased, and of course the effect was much more serious upon the poorer classes who had no votes. He hoped that his right hon. Friend would take this question into his serious consideration. He (Mr. Locke) had proposed an Amendment in Committee, on the Irremovable Poor Bill of 1861, that for the purposes of that Act the metropolitan district should form one union, which was rejected. And in the Committee which concluded its labours last Session, he had moved the resolution—
"That the circumstances of the metropolis are so peculiar that in any legislation to extend the area of charge for management, it would be necessary to have regard to those circumstances."
This resolution was adopted by the Committee unanimously. The metropolis, in his opinion, ought to form one union only, for all the interests of the various parts of the metropolis were bound up together. The City of London, for instance, employed an immense amount of labour, and a vast pro-
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portion of the people who did the work lived in Southwark and Lambeth, and these districts had to support them if they became chargeable, though the whole benefit of their labour had been given to those who carried on business in London. In the Tower Hamlets, also, there was an immense number of persons who worked in the docks, which were owned by shareholders living in all parts of the town, and yet the poor who became chargeable among these labourers had to be supported solely by the parishes in which they dwelt. He thought that these matters called loudly for consideration, and he trusted that when his right hon. Friend (Mr. C. P. Villiers) brought in his Bill to continue the Casual Poor Act another Bill also would be introduced to carry out what might be called his promise to the Committee, who unanimously passed a Resolution that the metropolis was entitled to peculiar consideration in this matter.
Motion agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. C. P. VILLIERS and Sir GEORGE GREY.
Bill presented, and read 1o. [Bill 31.]
House adjourned at a quarter after Eight o'clock.

COURTS OF JUSTICE SITE BILL.

  RETURNS.
  THE EARL OF LONGFORDsaid, he wished to call the attention of the House to a Return which had just been laid upon the table of the number of houses to be removed and the persons who would be displaced in consequence of the proposed erection of the new Courts of Justice near Temple Bar. The Return professed to give the number of inhabited houses to be removed at 151, and of the number of persons who would be displaced at 302, being two persons to each house. It occurred to him that there must be some inaccuracy in the Return, and he had, consequently, referred to the Parliamentary agents, whose names appeared upon the back of the Bill, and they had stated that the Return was correct, it being a list of the owners and of the leaseholders of the property to be taken; and that the Return omitted all notice of the lodgers, who were very many. It was clearly the object of the House that a full Return should be made of all the persons who would be displaced, and he felt sure there had been some misapprehension in regard to it. He should like to know how many of the working classes would be removed out of their houses. He therefore suggested that a supplementary Return should be ordered, in order to afford the required information, which would certainly be required when the Bill came before the House.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that the objection of the noble Earl appeared to be well founded. The question was not
  as to the accuracy of the Return, but merely whether it included all the information required, which, in his opinion, it did not do, as it was a farce to say that only two persons resided in each house. He would see that a further Return was made, which would give the number of all persons who would be displaced by the projected plan.
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, that the Return was not in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House, which directed that before the second reading of any Bill involving the removal of houses in the metropolis a Return should be made stating the number of such houses required, with their character and the positive and actual number in detail of the persons who would be dispossessed, and, further, whether there was any provision made for their accommodation. The Return put the number of houses required at 151, each of which might be assumed to contain from two to twenty rooms; and yet it put the number of inhabitants at only 302. This on the face of it was a perfect mockery of a Return, and did not in the slightest degree pretend to meet the requirements of their Lordships' Standing Orders. He trusted that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack would insist upon a proper Return being made of the actual number of poor persons who would be deprived of their homes through their houses being required for the purposes of the Courts of Justice Site Bill.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he had been much struck with the form of the Return, and he would take care that a Return was made in accordance with the Standing Orders.

  DEFENCES OF CANADA—REPORTS OF COLONEL JERVOIS.—QUESTION.
  LORD LYVEDEN,in rising to ask Her Majesty's Ministers what they have done, or intend to do, upon the Report of Colonel Jervois on the Defences of Canada, said, he did so in the hope of eliciting some information from the noble Earl the Secretary for War, rather than thinking anything he could say himself would interest their Lordships; because it appeared to him that the Report which had been laid upon the table was, to a certain extent, an official indiscretion, as it disclosed a state of things which ought to have been kept from the public eye until some steps had been taken to remedy it.

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  There might, perhaps, be a great number of persons, many of whom regarded this country with no friendly feelings, as well as others who were friendly to it, who were perfectly well acquainted with the state of the fortifications in Canada; but that was a very different thing from producing a document of this kind, published under official authority and presented by command of Her Majesty to both Houses of Parliament, setting forth the exact condition of those fortifications. The Report of Colonel Jervois was a sort of abstract of a more detailed Report such as was also made in 1864, which had very properly not been made public up to this time; but he should now ask, whether it was the intention of the Government to produce it for the information of the House? By this act of the Government he was at any rate acquitted of any indiscretion, in bringing the matter under their Lordships' notice. The Report of the gallant officer showed—not to use any equivocal expression—the utterly defenceless state of Canada. He had been sent out by Her Majesty's Government to inspect the state of the fortifications; and his Report stated, in unmistakable language, that the troops sent out from this country and the local troops together could not defend the colony. In fact, if it were attacked, there would be nothing for them but to retreat—he would not use a more offensive term—as fast as they could to our ships; and it would be lucky for them if they could gain them without destruction. Was that a state of things which was pleasant to contemplate? Some sanguine or philosophic persons might say there was no chance of an attack upon Canada—that the Americans had too much wisdom to imagine that Canada would be an acquisition to them—that any such addition to their already too extensive territory would only be a source of increased difficulty to the American Government. Four or five years ago one might have talked of American wisdom; but since what had occurred of late we must have seen that American institutions were quite as subject to fits and gusts of passion as were those of any other people. On this point he would quote from a despatch of his noble Friend the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who ought to be well acquainted with the motives of the American nation. In a despatch of the 26th of November, his noble Friend stated—
  "If Her Majesty's Government have not resisted more strenuously than they hitherto have done
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  these illegal and unfriendly proceedings, the cause is to be found in their belief that the passions and excitement of the contest have for a time obscured the sense of justice and respect for law which usually distinguish the United States, and that with the close of the contest calm consideration will return, and a just view of these transactions will be taken."
  It was quite true that the passions and excitement of the contest had obscured their sense of justice and respect for law; but that being so, it might possibly happen that if a peace were patched up between the contending parties, passions and excitement might induce them to turn their arms against Canada and against this country. What was the lesson which recent reports taught us? Had we to learn that peace in the Union in America meant war against England? It appeared to him that we might infer as much from recent indications. It was only the other day that there was a report that peace had been patched up, and the telegram informed us that this peace was founded on what was known as the Monroe doctrine, which went, or might easily be pushed the length of affirming that no European country should hold any part of the North American continent. In the sober correspondence with his noble Friend the Foreign Secretary the Government of the United States seemed to be friendly with the Government of this country; but was the Government always able to control the people? Let their Lordships only reflect on what must have followed if the order of General Dix had been followed. In December that General gave the order for the crossing of the boundary; and yet so amiably disposed towards this country had he appeared to be that, writing on the 18th of October, Lord Lyons said—
  "I should observe that General Dix spoke to me in a very frank and friendly manner, and expressed the most conciliatory intentions, and I should wish Mr. Seward to be informed that I feel much obliged to the General."
  Luckily, however, President Lincoln had the good sense to countermand General Dix' order, and nothing happened—but the same thing might occur immediately that the civil war ceased. He hoped the accounts were exaggerated which described American hostility to England as intense, but that such hostility did prevail to some extent he believed. It was true that we had preserved our neutrality as between the combatants; but neutrality was always odious, even those who remained neutral on political grounds were looked upon with

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  distrust and dislike by both parties; and the amount of hostility said to prevail in America against this country might be chiefly owing to our neutrality. If this was the state of things in America, if the danger was imminent—and he was satisfied that it was imminent, because at any time that peace was patched up the arms of America might be turned against us—their Lordships would do well to consider what was the condition of affairs in Canada. Were the defences of that colony in a satisfactory state? It appeared that, acccording to the latest Returns, the number of volunteers in Canada was 21,700, and the latest reports stated that as soon as the Government could take the ballot the service militia, exclusive of officers, would number 88,245. With respect to the latter force one of the Questions he proposed to address to his noble Friend the Secretary for War would be, when would the Government be able to take the ballot—because even after that there would be a great deal to do. Two years ago he ventured to put a question to the late Duke of Newcastle on this very subject, and the answer of the noble Duke was a most unsatisfactory one; for he had to tell their Lordships that the Canadian Parliament was unwilling to bestir themselves, and that they regarded the proposal made to them by this country on the subject of their defences as unconstitutional and one which they ought not to have been called upon to adopt. Now, though he had no official information, he hoped that a better spirit had been manifested in Canada, and that the Parliament of that country had received the proposals made to them in a fair and becoming spirit in regard to their own defences. Colonel Jervois now reported—
  "I have had no official intimation of the course which the Provincial Government propose to adopt with respect to the suggestions which I had the honour to submit to them; hut I have the best reason for stating that they concur generally in the whole of my proposals, and that they are ready to meet the mother-country in a fair and becoming spirit in carrying out the measures which are requisite for the defence of Canada."
  He should like to know what was meant by "a fair and becoming spirit," and how this disposition had been manifested. Had anything been done? Had any measures of defence been agreed upon, or were Canada and the mother-country still fencing with each other who should contribute least to the defences of the colony? Two years ago, certainly, he was one of those who would
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  have ventured to give what some might consider to be a bold advice. He would have said that, if Canada persisted in refusing to provide for its own defence, we should leave Canada alone. It was perfectly clear that, in respect of mere emolument, Canada was of very little use to us; and as long as it would not defend itself, as long as it levied differential duties against this country, as long as it pursued a course which showed rather hostility than friendship towards England, we were justified in saying, "You may provide for yourself; we shall withdraw our troops." Leaving our troops there without proper defences meant not only the discomforture of those troops, but their destruction and the disgrace of this country. The state of affairs had, however, to a certain extent, changed since that time, because the important step of a Confederation of the British Provinces had been proposed. Some said that a Confederation led to separation. He hoped it did. He hoped that in the case of Canada it would lead to a happy and amicable separation, such as ought to exist between the mother-country and that colony. With countries it was the same as with the members of families—when the younger branches became sufficiently vigorous to do for themselves they would no longer depend upon the parent. But it was to the immediate defence of the North American Colonies, and not to their future destiny, we must now look; and he found that the gallant and distinguished officer who had reported on the defences of Canada, while stating the measures necessary for the future, did not tell us how the colony was to be defended in the meantime. Above all, he did not tell us what was to happen on the Lakes. They had lately heard that in November the American Government bad given notice that they intended to put an end to the Treaty of 1817, and to establish a force on the Lakes. Mr. Russell, in his able work on Canada, stated what every other writer on the subject had stated also—namely, that Lake Ontario was the only one of the Lakes that we could possibly undertake to defend. He wished to know, therefore, what measures had been taken for the defence of that Lake—whether preparations had been made for putting additional or any gunboats upon it? The questions he wished to put to the Government were, what interpretation they placed on the steps which had recently been taken with regard to Canada

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  by the United States Government; what had been done with regard to the Lakes, and especially Lake Ontario; whether Canada would be able by any provision to impose any charge on the future Confederation in regard to any outlay they might incur for her defence; and what time it would take to complete the fortifications? He had no quarrel with anything the Government had done or omitted to do; but the time was certainly come when instructions must be sent out to Lord Monck to say at once to the Canadian Assembly in a peremptory and positive, but not by any means in a menacious manner, that they must undertake some proportion of the expenses of their own defence, and that whatever they did would be met by this country in a fair and liberal spirit. There were but two manly and vigorous courses of policy open to us in this matter. One was to say at once to the Canadians that we found it impossible to defend them, that we saw they did not mean to defend themselves, and we, therefore, should withdraw our troops whom we did not wish to see massacred on their soil; but that we should part with them of course in a friendly spirit, in the hope that when this was no longer an Imperial question, and when the sovereignty of England was withdrawn, the enmity of the United States, said to be based on these considerations, would be withdrawn. That would be a straightforward, and perhaps on the whole not a dishonourable course; but there was another course more fitting a gallant and high-spirited nation, and more in accordance with the courage of the British people. We might say to the Canadians, we consider you part of our Empire, and that your vast territory belongs to us, and we will not suffer your soil to he invaded. We will supply you with troops to scatter your enemies, and without delay will improve the fortifications by which your country is defended. For both these courses there might be much to be said; but the course for which there was nothing to be said, and which ought to be avoided by the Government, was, that intermediate policy which consisted in telling the Canadians that we would send them troops only in driblets—and that we would spend on their fortifications just as much as we could slip quietly into the Estimates each year. Thus, we should have been exposed to the danger of invasion, and possibly to the chance of a foreign occupation, and in the meantime we
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  might be losing the choicest of our troops, consigning ourselves to eternal infamy as a nation, and be committed to the excessive difficulties of a war with the United States, waged on a field most disadvantageous to us, which could only result in misery to both nations, and could produce neither honour nor profit to either.
  EARL DE GREY AND RIPON: My Lords, I quite agree with the noble Lord who has just sat down, that this question is one of great importance. I also agree with him that it is a question surrounded with great difficulty. My noble Friend has said that Her Majesty's Government were guilty of an "official indiscretion" in having laid this Report upon the table of both Houses of Parliament Now, I will state the grounds upon which we took that step—observing, in the first instance, that if we are guilty of official indiscretion in the production of this Report, I think my noble Friend himself is open to the charge of "Parliamentary indiscretion;" inasmuch as in his speech he has 3poken in terms of the Government of the United States, and of the motives likely to actuate them in certain circumstances, which perhaps it would have been as well if he had not employed. And, moreover, he told us certain grounds upon which he imagines that the peace negotiations recently going on were based, which, as far as I know, had no foundation, except in the telegraphic reports which reach us from day to day from the United States, founded on the speculations of the American newspapers, and which are very frequently not confirmed. I shall not, therefore, notice the speech of my noble Friend, except so far as it is associated with the facts of the case. The Report of Colonel Jervois contains a statement—a statement, no doubt, serious, and worthy of grave consideration—of the real facts of the case; but I must tell your Lordships that there is nothing after all in this Report which was not already perfectly well known to those who had taken any interest in, or bad previously studied the subject. In public documents laid before other Assemblies, and speeches made in other countries, will be found all the principal facts broadly stated in this Report. It hardly contains anything but what was known before it was made; but, my Lords, the reason which induced Her Majesty's Government to produce such a report was this. We propose to ask the Parliament of this country, and the Legislative Assembly of Canada, to bear their

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  respective shares of the expenditure necessary for the defence of that province, and when we were about to ask two Legislative Assemblies to vote money, we felt that it was necessary that we should lay before them the grounds on which we made the proposition. That is the reason why this Report has been laid before Parliament, to show the grounds on which the Government base their proposed action, and to enable the Canadian Government to do the same with their Legislature. Therefore, I must say I do not think that Her Majesty's Government are at all guilty of that portion of the indictment preferred against us by my noble Friend, which charges them with "official indiscretion." This brings me to reply to the Question which he has put. The Report touches principally upon two points—first, the works of defence to be erected in Canada, for the defence of that territory; and secondly, the measures to be taken to improve the organization and system of training of the Canadian militia. In regard to the first, my answer is that as soon as this Report came into my hands it received the immediate and serious consideration of Her Majesty's Government, and that we forthwith entered into communications with Lord Monck, based upon its recommendations. We informed him that we should, in the Estimates of the present year, propose to Parliament a sum of money for the improvement of the fortification of Quebec, and that we looked to the Canadian Government to take steps for the fortification of Montreal, and for the erection of any works that might be necessary to the westward of that important place.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: What about Halifax?
  EARL DE GREY AND RIPON: I will speak of Halifax presently. I am now confining my remarks to my noble Friend's Question which related to Canada alone. The proposal is that we should undertake the expense of the necessary improvements in the defences of Quebec, which, as your Lordships are aware, has always been considered an Imperial fortress. In former days that fortress was strong and adequate to the times; but, like many other fortifications, it has grown unequal to the altered circumstances of warfare of the present day, and requires alterations and improvement. That work we take upon ourselves. We propose to the Canadian Government to undertake the expense of the fortifications of Montreal and the districts to the westward. The Canadian Government are well aware
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  of the obligations that rest upon them, and I have reason to believe that they will place themselves in a position to meet the requirements of the case. With respect to the point adverted to by the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby), there has been a Vote for the defences of Halifax for several years upon our Army Estimates, and there will be a larger sum in the Estimates for the present year. As regards the Canadian militia, it is no doubt true that some time ago the arrangements made in Canada with respect to the militia were by no means satisfactory; but my noble Friend must recollect that since the period of which he speaks, and since the statement made by the noble Duke, whose loss we all regret, a new Government has been formed in Canada, entertaining much wider views than its predecessor; and according to the information we have received, determined to turn their attention to this question, and to take measures for placing the militia in a state of efficiency. My noble Friend asked me a question with regard to the ballot; and I am enabled to inform him that not the mustering of the troops, but the first process of the ballot, has already taken place.
  LORD LYVEDEN: How many have been ballotted for?
  EARL DE GREY AND RIPON: I cannot exactly say at this moment. There is no doubt on my mind that the present Government in Canada are determined to do their duty as regards this question of the militia; and Her Majesty's Government, on their side, will be willing to afford them all the encouragement with respect to the formation of the training schools for militia officers, commissioned and non-commissioned, that may be required to put the force into an efficient state. The proposals contained in Colonel Jervois's Report with respect to the militia and volunteers have been communicated to Lord Monck. The details of the organization of that purely local force rest necessarily in the hands of the Canadian Government, but Colonel Jervois's suggestions appear to Her Majesty's Government well suited to the circumstances of Canada. In the peculiar circumstances of Canada the chief difficulty is with a sparse population to bring them together to centralized points, and to unite them for the purposes of drill for a few weeks or a month; but by the combination of the volunteer and militia systems as existing in this country, I think it possible to effect an efficient training of

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  the militia force in Canada, without asking the men to submit to the sacrifice of leaving their own homes and going to long distances for a considerable period. I am not in a position now to enter more into details upon these questions. My noble Friend (Earl Granville) tells me that he has just ascertained that for 88,000 men the ballot has been taken, and I know the training of the officers is going on satisfactorily. Every Report I receive from the Commander-in-Chief in Canada (Sir Fen-wick Wililams) confirms that statement, and leads me to believe that the system of schools for militia officers will be a most useful and valuable one. The Canadian Government propose to extend it, and Her Majesty's Government, on their part, will afford every facility for so doing. Such, then, is the state of affairs. We think we have duties to perform in this matter, and that we are entitled to ask Parliament to incur certain expense for the defence of this portion of Her Majesty's dominions. But at the same time we do not think that this country should be called upon to undertake the whole of the cost. We think that the Canadian Government and people ought to take a large share of the expense upon themselves. We have reason to hope that they are alive to that necessity, and that in that, as in other respects, the North American Colonies have made a considerable stride within a short time. They are showing a spirit of loyalty, good sense, and the leading men of these provinces have exhibited a statesmanship which is very creditable to them and gratifying to the country, and to all who are interested in the welfare of the colonists. Upon these principles we are acting. We take a share of the expense upon ourselves. We ask them to take the larger share. We believe that they will readily respond to the call made upon them, and that in a short time Her Majesty's North American Colonies will be placed in a satisfactory state of defence.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: My Lords, I feel the present state of our relations with the Federal States of America to be so critical that for my own part I should have been desirous of maintaining an absolute silence, and leave to Her Majesty's Government the responsibility of dealing with this difficult and delicate question, lest any interference on our part should tend to increase the difficulty of their task. Accordingly, on the occasion of the moving of the Address to the Crown, I contented myself with pointing out simply what I believe to
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  be the threatening state of affairs in North America—not expressing any opinion whatever at to the course to be pursued, but leaving to Her Majesty's Government the responsibility of the position and the precautions to be adopted. But, my Lords, Her Majesty's Government have now taken a step which I think entirely justifies the question raised by the noble Lord opposite (Lord Lyveden). Because, when Her Majesty's Government have officially laid upon the table of this and the other House of Parliament a Report showing the defenceless state of one of our most important provinces, and thereby calling the attention of this kingdom and of foreign countries to that defenceless state, Her Majesty's Government themselves appear to invite a discussion upon that subject, and to ask the opinion of Parliament—I do not mean to say the opinion of Parlialent formally taken, but the expression of the opinion of individual Members as to the responsibility of that position. I cannot but think, however, that as it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to enter upon this large and critical question, involving, as it does, the expenditure of large sums of money, and inaugurating a new course of policy altogether—I cannot but think that the subject was much more worthy of being noticed in the Speech from the Throne than any of those comparatively unimportant questions which formed the staple of that document. I will not pretend to say that the communication of this most unsatisfactory Report of Colonel Jervois is likely to afford to your Lordships, or to the American Government, any information which you were not already in possession of. At the same time I think it is humiliating to this country to set forth officially the utterly unprepared and defenceless state in which one of our most important possessions is kept, at a moment when the question of peace and war depends, not upon the calm consideration of friendly Governments, but very much upon the excited passions of popular assemblies of a nation which, whether rightly or wrongly, does entertain, to a very great extent, hostile feelings towards this country. I think Her Majesty's Government, in laying that paper before Parliament, have given to it a character far more important than if they had left the subject to the universal knowledge which exists in the state of affairs, and had contented themselves with silently and quietly taking the steps necessary to counteract

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  the danger which it is too plain Her Majesty's Government now apprehend. I do not complain, and never have complained, of the course of neutrality which Her Majesty's Government have pursued between the two contending Powers of North America. But, looking as I do with the utmost horror to the possibility of a war between this country and the Federal States, or this country and the re-United States—if such a reunion be possible—I must say I think that Her Majesty's Government have been slow to take steps, with the symptoms of increasing dissatisfaction and discontent which have been brought to their notice, and of increasing menace on the part of the United States—I say I think they have been slow in making adequate preparations to meet the danger, which now they confess to be one of a real and substantial character. There is one point to which the noble Earl did to some extent advert, but which, I think, deserves more attention than he has given to it—I mean the state of our naval preparations on the Lakes. What is the state in regard to that? As your Lordships are aware, there has hitherto been an agreement by which an absolutely insignificant naval force should be maintained on either side. But just before the commencement of the season, when it would he impossible to take any decisive measures on our part to increase our force, steps were taken by the Federal authorities in absolute and direct violation of the conditions of the treaty. It is true that the American Government have declared that it is not their intention to violate the treaty beyond the period when they found it absolutely necessary for their own security. But they have taken upon themselves to violate the treaty without previous notice to Her Majesty's Government. They have, in violation of the treaty, placed a force upon the Lakes, which menace the security of Canada, and they have not given, so far as I am aware, any reasons which might seem to render necessary the infraction of the solemn conditions of the treaty. The American Government simply say that they do not intend that this suspension of the treaty should not last longer than the period of absolute necessity. But, at the same time, they take steps which will enable them to carry on that period of supposed necessity as long as they think fit, and after the period of six months from notice of the suspension they will be in a state of perfect liberty and of perfect rea-
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  diness to place upon the Lakes any amount of force they please, and Her Majesty's Government, as far as we know, have taken no measures to place themselves in a proper and corresponding condition. I ask Her Majesty's Government, do they take credit for having made preparations to meet these difficulties? God forbid they should prove to be real difficulties! God forbid they should be confirmed in point of fact! But there are these threatening circumstances, these eventualities, to be provided against. Her Majesty's Government admit by the fact of coming down to Parliament at the eleventh hour to ask for the means of erecting fortifications to supply that which is an absolute necessity—they admit, I say, that they see the danger, and they say that that danger can only be successfully encountered by a large contribution on the part of the Canadian Government and that of other Provinces. But, as Colonel Jervois truly observes, men are not sufficient without fortifications, and that fortifications for Montreal and Quebec are objects of peremptory and pressing importance. Connected with this subject there is one point of great importance—namely, that the Americans should not, in the event of a rupture, be permitted to have, in the first instance, the command of the Lakes. You now ask a large amount of money for fortifications, which you now admit to be of urgent necessity; but I do not find that you turned your attention during the whole period that these unfortunate events have been going on, although you must have known that in certain events the amicable relations between this country and the United States would be interrupted. You have taken no steps up to the present moment to provide the fortifications of which you now speak; and even now, when we know there is a preponderating American force on the Lakes, I do not believe any measures have been adopted to place a force on the Lakes sufficient to meet that danger. Although a rupture might take place at any moment I am not aware that any steps have been taken to meet the danger by land, and none whatever have been adopted to meet the danger which threatens you by water, and which, as I say, may come upon you at any moment. As far as I understood the sketch which the noble Earl gave of the intentions of Her Majesty's Government it is intended to ask Parliament for the sum of £200,000. I believe that is the estimate for the defences of Quebec.
  EARL DE GREY AND RIPON: That is the whole amount, but it is intended to spend only £50,000 this year.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: Only £50,000 this year! Then I want to know from the noble Earl when he thinks this danger threatens us? Is it imminent, or is it one which may be apprehended in three or four years? You ask this year for £50,000 to he expended on the fortifications of Quebec, and you say the whole will cost £200,000, and the Canadian Government are to expend £400,000 or £500,000 more on the fortifications of Montreal, which you say are more urgent and more pressing than Quebec. And then the noble Earl astonishes us by telling us that seeing this threatening aspect of affairs Her Majesty's Government are about to erect works which will cost £200,000, but that they are going to ask for only £50,000 this year. I do not know whether even £50,000 will be asked for; perhaps it may drop down to £20,000—so that in the course of ten years these fortifications, upon which the safety of the North American provinces depends, may possibly be constructed; whereas the danger, if danger there be, is one which may be realized not in the course of years but of months. My Lords, I deprecate as much as any man can do the utterance of language which could increase the exasperation or any ill-feeling which may, and, as I am afraid, does prevail on the part of the United States towards this country. But it is the part of common prudence to be prepared against a danger absolutely and imminently threatening, and I must say that neither in anything that Her Majesty's Government have done, or, as far as I understand, in what they propose to do, have they taken adequate steps to meet that which they consider to be a great urgent and imminent danger. I think it possible that, in a pecuniary sense, the western provinces of Canada are rather a drain upon our resources; but the incidence of this would not be felt if a large and powerful federation should be formed. If Canada were to manifest a desire to separate from this country and establish their independence, I do not think it would be desirable for the mother country—I do not think it would be for our honour or interests—to endeavour to retain her in unwilling and reluctant association with us. So long, however, as she is desirous of remaining in union with us we are bound, by the ties both of duty and of honour, to the utmost
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  of our power, to second their efforts; because I differ from the noble Lord in his estimation of the value of our American possessions, because I think that the possession of the navigation of the St. Lawrence, and the occupation of New Brunswick and the rest of the seaboard of our American colonies is, to a maritime country like this, of the utmost importance, and is a question far too great to be considered merely as one of money and of economy. Therefore I do not think it unimportant whether this country remains connected with Canada or not, and I say it would be a lasting disgrace to this country—it would be an ignominy to which I trust we shall never submit—to allow that, upon any pretext whatever, these Provinces should be suddenly, while in a defenceless state, turned over to their own care, and exposed to the possible invasion of a foreign country, whose good-will we have endeavoured, however unsuccessfully, to propitiate, if not by strict neutrality, at any rate by a neutrality more favourable to the North than to the South. I say that, under such circumstances, to allow that colony to be wrested from us without putting forth the full strength of the Empire to repel every attempt at invasion, would be a gross and lasting disgrace and ignominy which I hope this country would never suffer.
  EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, I feel that this is not only an important question, but one which must be approached with considerable delicacy. I cannot help thinking that the noble Earl following the noble Lord behind me (Lord Lyveden), in charging the Government with indiscretion in laying this Report before Parliament, has taken a very exaggerated view. I do not see how it was possible for Government to ask Parliament for money unless they placed before them some official information such as this Report on which to base their application. My noble Friend the Secretary for War stated, with great truth, that it was necessary to give some statement of this sort to enable the Government of Canada to make application to their own Legislature. The noble Earl opposite says that if this great and sudden change of policy was to be adopted by Her Majesty's Government it should have been announced in the Queen's Speech. I deny, however, that there has been any such change. This subject of the defence of Canada has been one of anxious inquiry for some time past. I am sure there is no Peer in this House who will deny that Canada is bound to

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  take a part, and a considerable part, in providing the defence necessary to protect herself from the attacks of a hostile force. What has been the case? The Government of Canada at one time absolutely declined to bear any of the burden. It is only recently that we have had a Government there with which we could deal at all on this subject, and it was not till that Government came forward with commendable public spirit that we could bring the subject under the notice of Parliament, and ask them to grant money to a colony which formerly declined to put forth efforts to protect itself. This state of things has now been changed, and I rejoice in the proofs of the good feeling that now exists between the colony and the mother country. I do not know that any greater proof of the good will entertained towards us by the colony can be adduced than the following Resolution, which was adopted at a Conference of Delegates, held at Quebec in reference to the basis of the proposed Confederation:—
  "All engagements that may before the union be entered into with the Imperial Government for the defence of the country shall be assumed by the general Government."
  Nothing can be more decisive as showing the honourable spirit by which our fellow-subjects in North America are actuated. With reference to the limited naval force to be maintained by the two Governments respectively on the Lakes between Canada and the States, there is no doubt it is a very difficult one; but it was not until November that we had any intimation from the American Government of their desire to put an end to that arrangement. The noble Earl says there has been a very great violation of the treaty. That was a very strong expression to use. The American Government may have gone further than they ought to have done in maintaining a revenue cutter upon the Lakes beyond the stipulated naval force; but they allege that they have committed no violation of the treaty. I am sure that in treating these questions the wisest and most patriotic course—one showing no unnatural alarm—is to treat them, in our discussions, with the greatest moderation and the greatest calmness. I believe this would not diminish our heartiness in lending aid to Canada in the possible but terrible alternative—which may God avert—of our being engaged in war with the United States. As long, however, as these strong feelings which animate both ourselves and our colonists
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  of mutual attachment and affection exist, and while the colony is prepared to take her full share of the exertions and expenses which are necessary to her defence, I believe the mother country is bound to stand by her—I believe that a great country like England is bound to come forward in time of need to assist the efforts of such a dependency.
  LORD LYTTELTONwas understood to say that, from the complexion which events had recently assumed on the American Continent, it was evident that no time should be lost in putting Canada into a proper state of defence. The danger which threatened that country might be imminent, and he did not think it could be maintained that £200,000 was an extravagant sum for the mother country to contricute towards placing the fortifications of the province on a proper footing.
  THE EARL OF MALMESBURY: My Lords, if the Government really are in earnest with respect to these defences, it appears to me that the sum which is to be devoted to the defence of Quebec is really so trumpery as to assume the character of a farce. As I understand the matter, £200,000 are required from us for placing these fortifications on a proper footing; but, if this sum be necessary at all, it must be necessary very Boon. What, therefore, is the use of dividing this amount into four parts? I understand, too, that the army is to be reduced—not by any very large number of men, it is true, but still a reduction is to be made. Now, if any force can act efficiently in Canada, that force is infantry, and the Canadians ought to give us a guarantee to find an infantry army, whatever we may do with respect to ships and stores. It seems to me trifling with the question, if Quebec is to be fortified and improved, not at once to try and obtain the necessary £200,000 and finish those fortifications. I cannot help thinking that there is more than one reason for the delay, amounting almost to neglect, which the Government has exhibited during the last four years, when—I will not say everybody, but a great many persons, at all events—foresaw that Canada would be threatened, so soon as there should be an end—as there now seems likely to be—of the war which has raged for the last four years among the American States. There seems to have been an opinion widely prevalent that the war was founded on the slave question. That delusion must, I think, have disappeared from the

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  mind of every one after what has occurred within the last three weeks. What is the only point of contest, according to the best information, between the two parties? It is independence on one side, and undivided dominion on the other. That is the apple of discord over which they have been fighting for the last four years; and to suppose that when the present war ends, the Americans will sit down quietly and disband their forces, and that there will then be no danger to ourselves in Canada, is a delusion which, if it ever existed, ought by this time to be dispelled. I sincerely hope that the Americans when they emerge from this contest will look back upon it with the same feelings of horror which it excites in us as it proceeds, and that they will not turn their eyes on other nations with a desire to continue their military career. It is apparent, however, from what has lately taken place, that a passion of dominion does prevail among the Americans; and whether it be directed to the north or the south, the east or the west, the existence of that passion ought not to be disregarded.
  THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: My Lords, I think it would be well if Her Majesty's Government would take into their consideration in what position the Confederates would now be had they acted on the principle on which the Government are about to proceed in regard to Canada. The Confederates immediately set about constructing fortifications at Charleston, Mobile, Wilmington, and other places. The whole country was at once covered with the works necessary to assist the operations of the army. If they had gone on the supposition that there was plenty of time, if they had endeavoured to do the thing by driblets, setting up a fort in one year, and one in another, the Confederate armies would long before now have been overwhelmed, and every one of the places they wished to preserve would have been lost. We are, as has been said, in this position—if the people of Canada are really desirous, as they appear to be, of continued connection with this country, and are willing to put themselves forward for their own defence, we are bound in honour to give them such assistance as we can. I deeply lament the position in which we are placed. I deprecate a war with America as fatal to the best interests of both countries, and incapable of producing, under any circumstances, the slightest benefit to either. But we may be compelled by
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  honour to engage in these hostilities. But the Canadians must do more than merely express a desire to remain united to this kingdom; they must do more than merely pass Acts which may ultimately lead to the formation of a sufficient defensive force. Unless the Canadians are prepared to come forward as the Southerners have done, by the exertions of every man among them, to defend the soil which ought to be most dear to them, the property which they possess, and, above all, the safety of their families—unless, I say, they are prepared to go to that extent, although honour may oblige us to endeavour to assist them, any really useful efficient assistance, it will be impossible for us to afford. Canada must be defended by Canadians. If it be not, we shall sacrifice many of the gallant men sent to their assistance, and we shall lose the honour of the country through the destruction of the inadequate force provided for the defence of Canada. These are my feelings, and I hope they will also be the feelings of the Canadians. But this danger, remember, if it ever befall us, is one which may come at any moment. If the recent negotiations had succeeded, it might have been preparing at this hour: and when I feel that nothing we can possibly do can avert that danger, that there is not a man in the country who does not see it and measure its extent. I must say, it is to me almost incredible that the Government should be content with voting only £50,000 for the purpose of fortifying what must be the place of disembarcation of our troops if we should be compelled to go to war. This is not a new subject—at least as regards former Governments, although it may be so to the present. If the Ministers will look through the records of their offices they will find—I cannot tell exactly in which Department—some opinions of the late Duke of Wellington with regard to the state of the defences of Canada, ranging from 1828 to the period of his death. I can recollect communications on the subject from the Duke of Wellington as far back as 1828, and I know it was one on which he thought very deeply and strongly, and on which he entertained very decided opinions. I hope that when the Government are preparing measures for the defence of Canada they will not be satisfied with the Report of this Colonel which has been laid on the table, but will go to the opinions of the Duke of Wellington and consult his wisdom on the matter.
  EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, I own I

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  very much regret that my noble Friend (Lord Lyveden) has deemed it necessary to bring on this discussion. Her Majesty's Government are blamed for publishing a Report exposing the weakness of Canada. Now, the course which we have taken is this—having to provide a remedy for the weakness of Canada, we have presented a Report showing the defects to which the remedy was to be applied. It ought to be remembered that this is a question of a Vote of money—which may not, perhaps, be of a very considerable amount at first, but which may come to be very large in future years. In order to obtain the assent of the House of Commons to our proposal it is necessary to show both the need of a remedy and that the remedy proposed to be applied will be efficient. The noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby) has complained very much of the years which have elapsed during which nothing has been done. But, as has been justly remarked, there were two things to be proved—one was that Canada required improved fortifications, and the other that the Canadians were disposed to take part in protecting their soil from invasion, and to contribute largely for that object. If the Government had come forward three years ago and asked the House of Commons for a large Vote for the fortification of Canada, the great body of the House would have said, "Where is the proof that the people of Canada are disposed to defend themselves? Have they any militia?" The answer must have been—no, they have none. Have they made any preparation, are they disposed to make any preparation, to share the expenses we are asked to take upon ourselves? Again the answer must have been—no, they are not disposed to go to any expense to defend their soil. Under these circumstances could we—could any Government—expect to get a large sum of money from the House of Commons? The noble Earl opposite said we ought quietly and silently to have been going on with these works. What, spend £200,000 quietly and silently! I know not from what source the noble Earl, had he been first Lord of the Treasury, could have procured £200,000 quietly and silently without mentioning it to the House of Commons, keeping it a secret from all the world. It is not easy to see how fortifications could be erected in Canada at the expense of this country without a word being said
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  about it. Therefore I hold that the charges which have been made are totally devoid of any solid foundation. It is said that we ought to have thought of these things before. So we did. When my lamented Friend Sir Geroge Cornewall Lewis was at the War Office he had the subject very much in his thoughts. The state and disposition of Canada appeared to him, as to all those who have held the office since the present Government was formed, to be material points for consideration. During the middle and end of the past year a different disposition has been manifested by Canada to what was formerly the case. Indifference gave place to a strong spirit of loyalty, and there is a great wish to form an extensive Confederation, a readiness to furnish the means of fortifying Canada and of establishing some 90,000 or 100,000 militia. When that disposition appeared the Government thought it was their duty to bring forward the question, having a strong case to place before the House of Commons, and reasons, which, I trust, will induce the House to vote freely the grant proposed. Complaint has also been made that only £50,000 is asked for now. But, my Lords, it is for the official persons in charge of the Vote in the other House to explain why this amount has been fixed on, and all those details upon which the proposal is based. These details cannot now be laid before this House, and the discussion of the question here must be abortive, as no Vote can be come to on it at present. I repeat that it is to be lamented that the discussion has been raised. There is, however, one point on which I am quite ready, as the subject has been referred to, to express my opinion. I am entirely of opinion with the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Ellenborough) that if Canada is ready to stand by this country, this country is bound in honour to stand by Canada; and if they are disposed to grant their resources to defend their soil in connection with Great Britain, we ought to be ready to expend our resources in order to defend them. That is a point not only of interest, but of honour. The noble Earl opposite has said that we are perfectly deceived in considering this as a war for the destruction of slavery. For my part, I have always thought, and I stated the opinion at the commencement of the civil war, that on the part of the North it was a contest for empire; just as I believe our contest in 1776, which we continued till

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  1783, was a contest for empire and for nothing else. I believe, as we acted then, the United States have acted now; and had our position been similar to theirs, we should have acted much as the Northern States have done. I do not wish to say anything further with regard to questions which the noble Lord opposite seems to raise in no very impartial spirit, with regard to the attacks that are made from time to time in the American Legislature on this country. But this I will say—that whatever may be the intemperance shown by certain orators in the Senate and Congress of America, whatever may be the violence—the unjust and extreme violence—shown by the press of America, I cannot think the Government of the United States have been wanting in moderation in their communications with us. And when the American Minister says to me, as he does, "Suppose you were at war with any European Power, and vessels were to come constantly out of New York to attack your commerce and destroy your merchant ships on the high seas, do you believe that the English people would have borne it as quietly as our Government has done?" I own I think it somewhat difficult to answer that question. I think, while in point of law and reason they have nothing to say against us, yet in point of feeling and in point of impression it is very irritating and provoking to them to consider that a friendly Power, a neutral, has had ships fitted out and crews provided in their ports by which American commerce has suffered. I think, as America and England are apt to take their own view of what is right and wrong in this matter, it is but fair that we should now and then consider what would be our own conduct under similar circumstances, and that we should make some allowance for a people engaged in this most dreadful war, and I think it much better to avoid questions which, considering the nature of their country and the nature of this country, we could scarcely expect they would have altogether avoided. And now, with regard to slavery, while I quite admit the North has been fighting for empire and not for the abolition of slavery, yet I think, though you will give them no credit or praise for it, it is a thing to be thankful for that the Congress of the United States, by a majority of two-thirds, have agreed that from henceforth it shall be a part of the Constitution of the United States, that no slavery, no compulsory servitude, shall be admitted under
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  it. I do not ask your Lordships to give them any praise or credit for that; but I do rejoice, for the sake of a cause in which this country, at least in former days, took a deep interest—for the sake of the abolition of slavery, which I believe concerns the best interests of mankind—I do rejoice that that law passed the Congress of the United States; and that whether they become again a united people, or whether they form a separate North American federation, there will be a great State a great Republic, on which the stain of slavery will not exist.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: I have no right again to address your Lordships, and certainly I am not about to discuss the question whether the abolition of slavery is a result which may follow from this civil war—if so, I shall be sincerely glad to see it; but I wish to call the attention of the Government to an important point connected with the question put by the noble Lord opposite. I wish to know whether the Government have taken, are taking, or intend to take any steps in the face of the pressing and threatening danger of an absolute naval superiority of America on the Lakes?
  THE DUKE OF SOMERSETsaid, that perhaps the noble Earl was aware that notice had reached this Government that those arrangements which had hitherto operated so happily in favour of peaceful relations between the two countries were about to be put an end to. That information arrived at the end of November last, and was to the effect that in six months from that time our relations would he so far changed, that the American Government would be enabled to put armed vessels upon the Lakes. Now, owing to the freezing of the canals and of the river St. Lawrence, it would have been quite impossible for Her Majesty's Government at that time to have taken any active steps. But he (the Duke of Somerset) had been in communication for two or three years past with naval officers of experience upon this subject, whose opinions wore being constantly brought before the Cabinet, and he should be prepared, when the proper time came, to state the course which Her Majesty's Government would take upon the matter.
  THE EARL OF LONGFORDsaid, there was a matter of importance connected with this subject which had not been mentioned by any speaker. He meant the opening up of the great main route from

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  the Atlantic to the Pacific upon British territory. He was aware that this was a great project, requiring the expenditure of some £60,000 or £70,000 a year, hut it was not a new one, having been under the consideration of more than one Government. It was not, perhaps, necessary for him on that occasion to enlarge upon the advantages, civil or military, which would attend the carrying out of this great undertaking. He would observe, that whilst of British emigrants, during last year 170,000 had emigrated to the States and only 19,000 to British provinces, it must be remembered, that for the defence of Canada there were required strong hands and many, and it was highly desirable that we should encourage the stream of emigration to our own colonies, instead of to a foreign country, and bear in mind that we had possessions on the Pacific as well as on the Atlantic.
  THE EARL OF HARROWBYsaid, it appeared from the Report of Colonel Jervois that £1,340,000 would be required for the defences which he recommended. Now, with a surplus revenue of between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000 £50,000 was a very small sum to propose to vote during the present year for the defence of Canada.
  LORD WHARNCLIPFEdesired to know whether this small sum of £50,000 was to be concentrated on the defences of Quebec, or was to be dribbled away by being scattered over the defences of the entire country. It seemed to him absurd to construct expensive fortifications at Quebec unless they erected sufficient earthworks at a proper distance from the St. Lawrence. He wished to know what Government intended to do with respect to earthworks, which were admitted to be more efficient than fortifications.
  EARL DE GREY AND RIPONsaid, that as to the observation of the noble Lord who had just sat down, what he had suggested was exactly what the Government were going to do. They did not propose to expend their money for the defence in Canada in driblets here, there, and everywhere, but rather to concentrate it upon one spot, and that a most important position—namely, Quebec. He would not, however, enter into the nature of the works that would be executed there. With respect to the amount to be taken for them, it would be quite impossible, with the best intentions in the world, to spend £200,000 in the course of the present year. The
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  working season in Canada, from the character of the climate, was necessarily short; and, moreover, at the commencement of such undertakings they could not spend the same amount upon them as they would be able to do when they had made some progress. Nothing could be done until Parliament had voted the money. Then they would have to buy the land and begin the works. The £50,000 included in the Estimates was the sum which the officers of the Fortification Department thought could be advantageously laid out during the ensuing season; but it would, of course, be possible, as always happened in these cases, to expend larger sums in subsequent years. It was the object of the Government to proceed with these works as rapidly as possible, consistently with the due solidity and permanence of the fortifications to be constructed, and they would each year ask Parliament to vote such sums for their execution as, guided by the professional advice they received, they should deem expedient.
  LORD LYVEDENsaid, he did not agree with the opinion expressed by the noble Earl the Secretary for Foreign Affairs upon the policy of originating the discussion which had arisen from his question. It was of importance to have elicited the views of the noble Lords who had taken part in it, and if the noble Earl had been in his (Lord Lyveden's) position it would have been exactly the kind of discussion which he would have been glad to provoke.
  House adjourned at a quarter before Seven o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.