Sitting of 31 July 1866

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBER SWORN—John Edward Walsh, L.L.D., for Dublin University.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—Patriotic Fund٭; Habeas Corpus Suspension (Ireland) Act Continuance.٭
First Reading—Habeas Corpus Suspension (Ireland) Act Continuance [256]; Patriotic Fund٭ [257]; Foreign Jurisdiction Act Amendment٭ [258] [Lords].
Second Reading—Constabulary Force (Ireland)٭ [224]; Expiring Laws Continuance٭ [255].
Committee—Consolidated Fund Appropriation٭; Cattle Diseases Prevention Act Amendment (No. 2) [251]; Prisons٭ [250].
Report—Consolidated Fund Appropriation٭; Cattle Diseases Prevention Act Amendment (No. 2) [251]; Prisons٭ [250].
Considered as amended—Attorneys and Solicitors (Ireland)٭ [172] [Lords]: Landed Estates Court, &c. (Ireland)٭ [174]; New Zealand٭ [225].
Third Reading—Artizans and Labourers' Dwellings (re-comm.)٭ [194]; Turnpike Acts Continuance٭ [229]; Local Government Supplemental (No. 4)٭ [234]; Railways (Ireland) Temporary Advances٭ [220]; Bills of Sale Act (1854) Amendment٭ [235]; Oysters Cultivation (Ireland)٭ [243]; Naval Discipline٭ [231]; Dockyard Extensions٭ [246].

CURRENCY AND BANKING.

  MOTION FOR A ROYAL COMMISSION.
  MR. WATKIN٭ rose to move—
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to issue a Royal Commission, directed to the investigation of the causes which have led to the late severe and protracted pressure in the money market, and to the continuance for a long period of a minimum rate of discount of 10 per cent at the Bank of England; and also to investigate the Laws at present affecting Currency and Banking in the United Kingdom, and to report what (if any) alterations have become expedient therein; and further, that it be an Instruction to the Commissioners to present their Report and the Evidence taken by them on or before the 1st February, 1867."
  He said: Sir, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer informed his hearers, in a speech made a short time ago at Aylesbury, that all that was required to rescue us from the difficulties which everybody deplored, was time, peace, and an abundant harvest. Now, Sir, time has elapsed since the speech of the right hon. Gentleman—peace has been, we trust, restored, and as far as the harvest is concerned, from all the indications around us we have every reason to indulge the hope that an abundant yield is almost within our reach. Yet notwithstanding these circumstances, the minimum rate of discount at the Bank of England is still 10 per cent, while the rate of discount in Paris is 3½ per cent; at St. Petersburg, 5½ per cent; at Berlin and Brussels, 6 per cent; at Amsterdam, 7 per cent; and at Vienna, 5 per cent. Addressing myself to the question of inquiry—for it is inquiry only that I ask for—I may say at once that I need not alarm those hon. Gentlemen who represent great monetary interests by holding over them the danger that I shall either advocate the Birmingham theory, the theory of Scotch banking,

  1707
  or any other of those general theories which some of them seem to be so much, if not so needlessly, afraid of. But I think I may say that the opinion of this House, and of the monetary and commercial interests of the country, may be divided into four classes. The first consists of those who think with myself that inquiry, being desired by the country, ought to be initiated by this House. The next class is composed of those who consider that past inquiries have sufficed to give us almost all the information we need, in order to amended legislation, and therefore that we ought to legislate at once. Then, again, there are those who consider that neither inquiry nor legislation is required—those whom we may, perhaps, call believers in the absolute perfection of our present banking and currency arrangements; and the fourth class consists of those who may be looked upon as some-what inimical to, and perhaps even afraid of, inquiry. With regard to the last class, so far as they represent the great banking institutions of this country, they must be treated as to some extent upon their trial; because the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, with, I think, the consent of this House, gave the Bank of England enormous powers to deal with an emergency, and I think it is only fair to themselves, as far as they are concerned, that instead of opposing inquiry—instead of obstructing the fullest investigation into the manner in which they have performed the trust reposed in them, they should be foremost in demanding inquiry and offering those explanations which a great portion of the commercial and manufacturing interests certainly do demand. Sir, unanimous consent attributes recent difficulty to financial and commercial operations under certain laws. We have had great distress, great difficulty, and great embarrassment, and our writers and speakers in public have attributed them mainly either to errors of legislation, or to the misuse of beneficial legislation on the part of the commercial, banking, and trading classes. But in either case, and in both cases, we ought, as legislators, as those who make the laws, who watch their working and correct them where amendment is requisite, to bottom and probe those difficulties in every way, in order that if further or amended legislation is necessary, we may next Session initiate it and carry it through. This House is always anxious to find precedents for anything it pro-
  1708
  poses to do, and I am bound to quote such as exist. After the deep distress and panic of 1837, we had a Committee of this House, presided over, if I remember rightly, by the present Lord Halifax; after the panic of 1847, we had a Committee presided over by Sir Francis Baring; and after 1857 we had a Committee presided over by the right bon. Gentleman the late Secretary for the Colonies; so that in every case where commercial difficulty, leading to panic, and those disarrangements which have recently again appeared, has arisen, this House has stepped in to inquire into the facts, and to inquire into those facts while they were fresh in the memory of everybody, and when, therefore, the best and surest evidence could be obtained. Some friends of mine have said to me, "All this may be very true, but why do you propose a Commission and not a Committee?" My answer is, that I had hoped that the late Government would have proposed a Committee on the operation of the Banking and Currency Laws at an early period of this Session. I think they gave almost a pledge to this House that they would do so; but we have now arrived at such a period of the Session that the appointment of a Committee would simply mean the shelving of the question till next year, and next year we should have a Committee which would occupy the whole of the Session; so that instead of legislating in 1867, if it should be found necessary to legislate, the whole question would be hung up until 1868, which may possibly be a period of prosperity, and if so, would be again forgotten until brought to our minds by a commercial panic, say in 1876. Under these circumstances, I think, if we are to inquire at all, those who are in favour of inquiry will say we ought to inquire now. We cannot inquire now by a Committee, but we may inquire by a Commission. To meet the objection of those who say that this House ought not to delegate its powers, that, in point of fact, these inquiries are so important that they ought to be in the custody of the House itself, I say that it is quite in the power of Her Majesty, by the advice of her Ministers, to order that the Commission that may be appointed shall consist exclusively of Members of this and the other House; and if this be so, if we can have a Commission so composed, I want to know what objection there can be to the appointment of a Commission instead

  1709
  of a Committee, for in this sense a Commission is practically a Committee of this House, except in name, and of course would have all the powers necessary to elucidate the question. But I should not leave this part of the subject without repeating to the House the pledge that we received from the late Chancellor of the Exchequer last year. The right hon. Gentleman introduced a Bill which was called the Bank Notes Issue Bill, and in withdrawing it he said—
  "Her Majesty's Government, however, do not propose to abandon their intention of prosecuting the subject; and, in the absence of such an agreement as I have referred to, they may conceive it to be their duty to take up the question on a future occasion upon broader grounds, and they reserve to themselves the power of determining whether it would or would not be right that on the first convenient opportunity, which I am not prepared to say will occur during the short remainder of the Session, they should invite the assistance of Parliament to investigate this subject by means of a Committee."—[3 Hansard, clxxix. 1123.]
  I and others thought that that statement conveyed a pledge that the whole subject should be investigated, because it is clear you could not investigate the question of the country issues without inquiring into the operation of the issues of the Bank of England; and you could not go into that without discussing the whole position of the Bank as a bank of issue on the one side, and a bank of recourse on the other. It is stated that on occasions of this kind the House should have a certain amount of pressure put upon it on the part of the public. So far as I am concerned, I may state, that since giving notice of this Motion I have received letters from almost all parts of England, and from many parts of the Continent, and the whole mass of the correspondence urgently pleads for inquiry. In addition to this, we are aware that the right hon. Gentleman opposite received au important deputation from Scotland a short time ago, and he enunciated, by the way, to that deputation some very sound doctrines in reference to the impossibility of an over-issue of strictly convertible bank notes. Besides this, the Chambers of Commerce of Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, and other places, have taken action, memorializing the Government, or instructing their members to move in the question. If the slightest hint had been given by those Members of this House who are connected wth commerce, that pressure was required to be brought to bear upon Parliament, I am bound to say, and I think I shall be cor-
  1710
  roborated by many who are connected with large manufacturing and commercial constituencies, that the table of this House would have been loaded with petitions in favour of searching investigation. Look to the language of the public press, and you will find that it contains considerable complaint and remonstrance. I will only trouble the House with one or two quotations out of scores. For instance, the Economist, which is looked upon as representing the monetary and commercial classes, said on the 30th June—
  "It is alleged that the Bank Directors do not reduce the rate because 10 per cent was fixed in the Treasury letter, and because they are still held to that letter. They reason, it is said, 'that a large sum must in the ordinary course of the quarterly payments go out to the public—that may reduce our banking reserve to £5,000,000 or thereabouts, and if a drain of gold should then set in, the banking department would be in danger, and we should want another letter. But supposing this to be the reasoning of the Bank Directors, it only transfers the blame from them to Mr. Gladstone; it does not prove that the rate ought not to be reduced, it only shows who is the obstacle to reducing it; and it is matter of grave regret, that owing to the present interregnum we cannot search into this matter at once, or discuss it, or obtain upon it the judgment of Parliament."
  That interregnum is now over, and we are now in a position to obtain the judgment of Parliament on this question. Then, again, the paper which is called the leading journal of this country, in an article which appeared on the 13th of July, says—and the passage is somewhat remarkable, and I quote it because of another remarkable article which has appeared in The Times of this morning—
  "We sometimes read with surprise of districts in the East, separated only by a few hundred miles, where the populations are respectively in abundance and starvation; but the fact that money should be seeking employment at 3 per cent in a country separated from us by only twenty miles of channel, while here it is eagerly sought at 10 per cent, argues some still more fatal deficiency of contrivance. Of course, nothing can prevent the consequences of rash and dishonest speculation; but when those consequences have been thoroughly worked out, there ought to be some power to prevent the needless extension of mischief and anxiety such as has been witnessed during the last five or six weeks. Speculation was hopelessly crushed in the middle of May, and no devices of all the most practised operators in London could have availed to restore it for several years to come. Since that date the effect of the pressure has simply been to break down the value of properties that were not inherently unsound, to embarrass all the regular trading transactions of the country, and to pave the way for that future accumulation of unemployed capital which will bring all the evils of a

  1711
  discount rate equally abnormal in the other direction. In ordinary times the mutual relations of credit between England and the Continent, work sufficiently well to preserve some approach to an equality in the terms for money; and when this desirable condition is accidentally interrupted, it is a reproach that no means are found to remedy the difficulty."
  I go, therefore, so far as to say that that is strong evidence at all events in favour of an inquiry into those evils which are so ably and forcibly described. The great panic through which we—I will hardly say have passed, but are passing, is rendered peculiar by two or three circumstances. The one is, by the longer continuance of this excessive rate of discount than the commercial history of the country has under any previous circumstances shown. The second is, that the Directors of the Bank of England, who are assumed to possess more knowledge than the ordinary average of commercial men, seem to have been entirely taken aback and by surprise. The third is, that the Bank of England during that pressure, if public report be true, did what they had never done before in our commercial experience, they actually refused to lend money upon Consols. [Mr. HUBBARD gave a gesture of dissent.] Yes, I say, I repeat the Bank of the nation refused to lend money on the national security. Give us a Commission and I have no doubt it can be proved. If you had visited the Bank parlour last February, I believe you would have been told—I have no doubt this was the language held—that the idea of such a panic as that of 1857, and of another letter being required from the Government to suspend the Bank Act, was absolutely impossible, so well was the diagnosis now known. You would almost have been laughed out of the premises if you had ventured to express such a suspicion; and yet, coming as it were almost like a clap of thunder, they found themselves in the middle of a difficulty, and the Bank was obliged to come again to the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, and, besetting him throughout the whole of the day, they managed at last, at twelve o'clock at night, to induce him, very reluctantly no doubt, to consent to their committing this breach of the Act of Parliament. We all of us remember that remarkable Friday night. I happened, fortunately for myself and for my nerves, to be down in the country at the time. When I returned at eleven o'clock at night, the first thing I did was, as usual, to pay my duty to the
  1712
  gentleman who occupies a little room at one side of the door. I went to one Mr. Brand to report myself to him as an effective vote in this House, but I was ordered immediately away from the door by the messenger, who looked more horrified than any one ever saw him look before or since. I was informed that there was no admittance to the room, because the noble Lord then at the head of the Government and the right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer were "sitting on the Bank." I thought that was a rather odd phrase, but looking around I saw a group of Directors of the Bank of England, with my hon. Friend the Member for the City of London in their midst, who appeared to be inspiring them with the greatest possible confidence, and in another corner a group of directors of joint-stock banks, with the hon. Member for Greenwich amongst them, looking with as much hopefulness as his genial and hopeful nature would enable him to assume. I asked what all this meant, and I was told that these gentlemen had come to apply to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to void this Act of Parliament. While the Bank of England Directors attacked the right hon. Gentleman in the front, the directors of the joint-stock banks assailed him in the rear, almost, I say, from midday to midnight; and the result was that they at length succeeded in constraining the right hon. Gentleman to allow them for the third time to break this law in pieces. But that was not all, because, having issued a letter holding out promises to the commercial interests of the country which gave them great encouragement, and which promises were not carried out by the Bank of England, as I shall now show, a most remarkable despatch was written by the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The noble Lord did then what I believe no foreign Secretary has ever done before. He issued a letter to all the representatives of England on the Continent of Europe, and in that letter, which is certainly an able document, he said that the inhabitants of this country had for some time been overtrading—that they had been endeavouring to accumulate fortunes without going through a sufficient process of labour—that the stoppage of Messrs. Overend and Gurney, a company founded on the limited liability principle, was the great culminating point of disaster, and that the Government were compelled to

  1713
  step in to enable that accommodation to be given to commerce by the Bank, which under the strict reading of the Act could not be afforded. There is one incident which it is necessary to ascertain in this inquiry — namely, under what circumstances and upon whose prompting was it that this letter of the Foreign Minister was written—a letter couched in language not calculated to allay, but to excite alarm in the commercial world abroad. That letter held out hopes to people abroad which to some extent were delusive, because the noble Lord said that though the pressure was excessively severe, yet the causes of it were of such an unusual character, that the Government were satisfied that the commercial and monetary classes would pass out of the peril of this panic with greater ease and much less difficulty than they had ever done under previous pressures. I say those hopes have not been realized. If the information upon which that letter was written were correct, I say that the act of the Bank of England in retaining so long this rate of 10 per cent discount cannot be justified. If, on the other hand, the circumstances known to the Government and the Bank were more grave than the country at large believed, then I think that in a diplomatic document of that kind so hopeful a view of the case ought not to have been taken. It is hardly to be believed that the Bank of England suggested such a despatch, still less such representations. I now beg the House to consider for a moment what this infliction of 10 per cent really means. I have no sympathy with those who have been guilty of wild and reckless speculations. I condemn them; and say that those who embark in such ventures must take the chances of their fortune; but, on the other hand, my sympathy is, I admit, with the great mass of the hard working capitalists of this country of the second and third class, who are careful, substantial, and prudent men, and who, whenever these things occur, are brought down, from no fault of their own, to share in one common disaster, and are made the victims of circumstances for which they are in no way accountable. What, I say, is the effect of 10 per cent discount? It means a tax of more than double the usual amount upon 300 million of current bills, or a transfer of many millions of trade and manufacturing profits to money-dealing profits. It means a general derangement of business, an ex-
  1714
  cessive and unhealthy fall of prices, the ruin of some who deserve to be ruined, but the ruin of far more who have committed no offence whatever. It is estimated that the fall in the prices of commodities and securities since the 11th of May is above £100,000,000. This loss, perhaps, does not affect so much the large capitalist who can afford to hold; but it is obvious that smaller men, deprived of their ordinary banking accommodation, are compelled to realize, and of course lose their proportion of this vast sum. Worse than all, it means a large reduction of employment, and great privation amongst the labouring people. It is a remarkable fact, and I recommend it to the attention of those who follow me, that while commerce is taxed in this way, and a large number of labourers are thrown out of employment, the profits of the Bank of England are larger than usual. The amount of "rest" in the Bank two days before the issue of the Government letter was £3,237,000, and on the 25th July, being the date of the last Return, it was £3,740,000. That means an excess in the shape of profit put by and available to the amount of upwards of £500,000, or 3½ per cent in eleven weeks, or 17 per cent per annum on the whole capital of the Bank of England. Take another view of the matter, which bears also on the past and the permanent operation of the Act of 1844. In 1847 the price of Bank Stock was 180; in 1865, after two panics, it had risen to 250. It is perfectly clear, therefore, that whatever may be the effect on the commerce of the country, the operation of the Act of 1844 on the interests of the Bank is largely to increase the resources of its stockholders. I do not blame the Bank of England for this—I blame the system. The Directors are bound to make a dividend for their stockholders, and they are men of the highest capacity and standing in the country, for whom every one entertains the greatest respect. Under the operation of the present law, the first duty of the Directors is to make a dividend for their stockholders, and their second is to take care of the interests of the public. The result is, that if they commit an error of prudence it is naturally one that goes in favour of the stockholders and against the public, rather than the opposite. There is another remarkable circumstance. Within the last twenty years we have had three panics—one in 1847, another in 1857, and a third in

  1715
  1866, and in every succeeding period the severity of the pressure, as shown by the rate of discount, increased over the preceding one. In 1847 the penal rate fixed under the Government letter was 8 per cent, and it endured for a period of four weeks, and was followed by a rate of 3 per cent within three months of the date of imposing 8 per cent. In 1857 the penal rate was 10 per cent for a period of six weeks, and within three months of the date of imposing that 10 per cent the Bank rate was down to 3 per cent; while in 1866 we have had a minimum penal rate of 10 per cent, which has lasted for nearly three months already. It is obvious from these facts that some cause, some law of aggravation, is at work producing this gradually increasing severity of pressure, and I venture to maintain that it is the duty of this House to trace out that cause, and to apply if possible a remedy. It is contended that severe pressure is salutary, because it represses undue speculation and diminishes the disposition of men to venture on dangerous paths of trade, and because, also, it checks the undue advance in the price of labour. There may be something in that; but the Report of the Committee of the House of Lords in 1857 contained a remarkable paragraph in reference to labour. The Lords' Report of 1848 said—
  "The working classes are the heaviest sufferers from monetary derangements, in consequence of the destruction of that credit and confidence on which commercial transactions are based, and by which the employment of labour is sustained."
  The working classes have obviously most to lose by an unsound, and most to gain by a sound, system of banking and currency; and they cannot protect themselves. I contend that the labour of a country can never be too fully employed, for labour is the main source and origin of wealth, and wealth is capital. Labour, it is true, may be over-employed in one class of production and under-employed in another; as, for instance, it has recently, perhaps, been over-employed in constructing public works and buildings, and under-employed in developing the resources of the soil. But who will venture to contend, when it is alleged that capital is scarce, that the cure for such an evil can be found in throwing labour out of employment, and thus checking the production of wealth? Yet that appears to be the favourite remedy of the moment—certainly it is the logical and inevitable result of 10 percent.
  1716
  Can a financial system be sound which can only correct itself in times of distrust by stopping the production of wealth? Some of our authorities of finance, interested no doubt in high prices of money, seem to regard commerce and manufactures as if made for the Bank of the nation. But why should we grant special banking privileges? Not to subordinate industry to the privileged Bank, but to support and assist and facilitate industry through it. We establish the Bank for commerce—the life-blood of our country—not commerce for the Bank; and when the latter becomes antagonistic to the former it is certainly time to inquire.
  In discussing these questions, the House must not overlook some of the special grievances springing from this long-continued penal rate of discount, and which deserve inquiry. Take, for instance, the case of those who borrow money at what is called "the Bank rate." That rate has been taken heretofore to represent an average rate of not exceeding 5 per cent; and in the case of loans contracted a few months ago, both lender and borrower expected and meant some such average rate. But when a penal rate of 10 per cent is inflicted upon commerce by the Bank of England, and continues long after the rate outside the Bank has been reduced to 6½ or 7 per cent, clearly the action of the Bank alters the whole position of such loans against the borrower and in favour of the lender, neither of whom could foresee the policy of the Bank. I believe, Sir, that this exceptional grievance applies to loans of many millions in amount; and I say again that such a grievance merits inquiry. If we delegate to the gentlemen in Threadneedle Street the power of hoisting at the right time the storm signal, there ought to be some means of protecting those who suffer damage from that signal being kept flying needlessly long. Another class who suffer are the second and third-rate houses, who chiefly carry on our foreign trade, and many of whose operations are entirely suspended by the continuance of this 10 per cent discount. Take the case, for instance, of a firm trading with Hayti, with whom I am acquainted. They have a fair capital of their own, which has sufficed for a safe and steady business for forty years; but as their returns take nine months generally to come home, they are obliged to obtain advances. For these advances they pay 5 per cent, or the Bank

  1717
  rate, and a commission. So long as money can be obtained at 5 per cent they can go on at sufficient profit; but the moment money is at 10 per cent it is positive destruction to their trade profit, because they cannot stand competition with merchants in France, who are enabled to get discounts at 3½, 4, and 4½ per cent. Again, they can usually sell their cargoes of coffee and sugar "to arrive." But during the recent state of the discount market they have often been unable to do so; and in the case of this house, cargoes have been sent on to Continental ports and sold there instead of coming, as usual, into the port of London for the profit of our merchants at home. But I contend, Sir, that the action of the Bank is defeating its professed object of attracting money back again to the Bank, and thereby increasing its reserves and enabling it to do more business at a more moderate rate. I will quote a case as to which I have no doubt the hon. Members for Liverpool and Birkenhead will corroborate me. It applies to the cotton trade done at Liverpool with the manufacturing districts of Lancashire and Cheshire. A correspondent from Liverpool, a gentleman of undoubted position and experience, writes to me as follows. He says—
  "The cotton of Liverpool is ordinarily sold for ten days' payment in three months bankers' bills; now, under the 10 per cent rule cash is required, and this alone keeps some £3,000,000 of notes needlessly in the provinces."
  This effect is injurious to the Bank of England itself, because these notes are kept in the provinces for circulation instead of reverting to the Bank. In fact, a currency of bills has to be substituted by a currency of bank notes. The cotton consumer has to find cash in place of credit, and he draws down into Lancashire the money for that purpose. Sir, we have been told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on a recent occasion, that our difficulties have arisen "from want of capital and not from want of credit." [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: No, not from want of currency.] Very well. Want of capital and not want of currency. Then, Sir, I must show where the currency has gone, and that it is hoarded and not in circulation; that it is passive when it should be active. Now, I contend that this country never was so rich as it is at this period; and if riches constitute capital, then that in the length and breadth of England, Wales,
  1718
  Scotland, and Ireland, we never had a larger capital. Take improved land, houses, ships, railways, all that can be classed under the word property — we never had so much. Take production. We never were producing commodities at so rapid a rate as at the date of the late Chancellor's letter to the Bank. Take capital in the sense of the medium available for the discount of bills—we never had more. Take our trade. Take the savings of the working classes. Take the private deposits at the Bank of England; these, Sir, are at this moment between £7,000,000 and £8,000,000 in excess of the usual average. Take again the bank notes in circulation—here we find an excess of £5,000,000 beyond the usual amount. In fact, the country was never richer than it is at present; it never owed so little nor had so much owing to it. The amount of notes issued by the Bank and in circulation by the last return was £28,000,000, and every one admits that this is a time when there is less trade and fewer transactions than heretofore. This circulation is evidently not active. Why then, I repeat, is it passive? I believe it arises mainly in consequence of the alarm on the Continent of Europe, and at home, caused by the letter of the late Foreign Secretary, and the action of the Bank of England. The Continent, alarmed, would have your money and not your bills, and bankers and merchants at home are protecting themselves by holding a much larger reserve of notes than they ever held before in anticipation of another storm. You persist in threatening them with that storm; you keep your signal flying, and they believe you. It is contended that evil causes have been at work inevitably producing severe pressure. It is true I make those who follow me a present of the admission. But, Sir, I contend that these evil causes may be mainly traced either to the direct consequences of erroneous legislation, or to the abuse outside of legislation in itself defensible; and that they have been aggravated and driven into panic by the other causes which I have asked the House also to investigate. One of the causes has been our railway legislation. Parliament passed last year 300 Railway Bills, and nearly 400, with a nominal capital of £176,000,000, have been proposed this year. Let us look at the way in which this authorization of outlay has been permitted. The old-fashioned plan was this: If a company

  1719
  wished to promote a Railway Bill, they had first to present a subscription contract, containing the names of all the subscribers to the project, who were individually responsible for the amounts set down opposite their names; and, in addition, the promoters were bound to show that the undertaking would pay at least 5 per cent. If a scheme will not pay, the money laid out upon it is only a waste of so much of the National capital. All that is now thrown overboard. Noble Lords and hon. Gentlemen are naturally anxious to have railways through their properties, and great facilities are now afforded to any persons to bring forward Railway Bills. The result has carried with it a stigma on the honour of Parliament and of this country. The system has bred a class of men who trade upon obtaining Acts of Parliament, who, when they obtain them, either sell the projects to established companies under threat, or carry them out themselves upon a system of finance which has had a great deal to do with the ruin and devastation which we have seen in various quarters. This is an Act of Parliament cause; but then there is the action of individuals, under powers given by what is called limited liability—powers which every one will admit have been grossly and shamefully abused. I will take the case of Overend, Gurney, and Co. Every banker in London knew that for years that firm had done a class of business which was in every sense bad and rotten, and had entered into speculations which did not form any part of the legitimate business of bankers. When the concern was made over to the limited liability company, representations were made to the deluded public which were afterwards shown to be in no way founded in fact. The list of such companies is unfortunately a long and discreditable one. If the abuse of the Limited Liability Act produces such results, surely that fact ought to form a good ground for inquiry. Well, then, wherever I look, I must say that I think inquiry is needed, and, therefore, is the duty of this House. But everybody must admit, after making every allowance for these and other causes of pressure and disturbance, that the panic of 1866 has been pre-eminently and exceptionally a credit panic. The letter of the late Foreign Secretary so describes it: he says that for the first time the banking stability of the country has been brought into discredit. Then, Sir, let me
  1720
  ask the House to consider for a moment what credit is. It is not solely a matter of arithmetic—of imports and exports, of revenue and expenditure, or of balances in banks. It is to some extent ideal. It is affected as much by moral as by material considerations. It is influenced by the hopes and fears—often the prejudices—of mankind. In our case our credit in the world at large has hitherto stood high not simply because we are rich, but because of the conviction that this country is the greatest and the richest, the most honest and the most honourable, and that our Government and our people are prudent and sagacious as well as honest, rich, and honourable. Then that being so, it is a question of serious moment to inquire whether the action taken by the late Government had a tendency to perpetuate that idea abroad, or to crush it out of the minds of the people of the Continent. Sir, I much fear that it had the latter effect. What happened in Madrid? A well-known gentleman from Liverpool wrote to me—
  "Our credit in Europe is so damaged that I hear of bank notes sent from Madrid to Liverpool to be sold 'at best,' and proceeds to be remitted."
  Foreigners arrived at this conclusion because the Foreign Minister had spread it abroad everywhere in Europe, in an official despatch, that it was necessary to break an Act of Parliament; and they believed that an act of bankruptcy had been committed, or that there was a danger of it. I think now, Sir, we should inquire what the Bank has done with the authority intrusted to them after so much representation and pressure by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer on the 11th of May last. I hope that to this I shall get a distinct and specific answer, and also have the opportunity of laying it before a Commission of Inquiry. I want to know why the precedent of 1857 was not followed in 1866. Our trade, I need not say, is double the volume of 1857, and our operations in every direction are more and more extended; therefore, of necessity, when pressure comes, it must be more extensive. Being so, it must require a larger amount of assistance on the part of the Bank of Recourse, which the Bank of England claims to be. And yet, notwithstanding there was greater need for assistance—notwithstanding that the panic was one affecting banking credit, and despite the necessity that the banking capacity of

  1721
  the Bank of Recourse should be equal to the difficulty, nothing was done. The Bank in 1857, the moment it received the letter of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, transferred £2,000,000 from the issue department and lent it to the banking department for use, and did not repay it till the 24th of December. In 1866 the Bank never transferred one shilling. The Bank Directors even sent round and borrowed bank notes from their customers to prevent their infringing the Act, and it was not infringed. They have not given the accommodation which, under the circumstances, we had a right to expect would have been rendered. What was the object of the letter? To aid the business of the country. What right had they to keep the letter unless it were to enable them to relieve the commerce of the country? The Government letter indicated clearly that their intention in giving it was to relieve commerce—not a few large firms, but the commerce of England and Scotland—commerce in general, so far as the Bank found the securities sound and good. The comparative figures on this part of the case are very remarkable. First, as to the circulation of the Bank. In 1857, the day before the letter of the Government—the 12th of November—the circulation was £21,000,000; on the 9th of May, 1866, the circulation was £22,810,000. On the 23rd of December, 1857, when there was a reduction of the rate to 8 per cent, the circulation was only £20,130,000; in 1866, now, after three months at 10 per cent, the circulation is £27,890,000. Now, as to the issue reserve of bullion. In 1857 it was £5,710,000; whereas in 1866 it was £7,340,000 at the dates of the Government letters. There was nearly £2,000,000 more gold in the issue department when the strain came in 1866 than in 1857. In November, 1857, the banking reserve of bullion was £2,700,000; and now the reserve of bullion in that department is £12,890,000. In November, 1857, the banking reserve was £1,460,000; in 1866 it was £5,810,000; but it was reduced, according to the statement of the Bank, when they got the authorization to break their Act, to £3,000,000. But in December, 1857, when the rate of discount was reduced to 8 per cent, the banking reserve was £7,970,000; it fell the next week to £6,610,000; and the week following it stood at £7,620,000, when the rate went down to 6 per cent. The Return of last week showed this re-
  1722
  serve to be only £3,440,000. In 1857, when the rate of discount was reduced to 8 per cent, the total stock of bullion was £10,750,000; at the date of the last Return it is £13,770,000, or nearly £3,000,000 more. But, Sir, we find that the Bank, regarded as one concern, is able to afford, still, enormous assistance to trade; but we find that, separated as it is, it fails us in the hour of need. It comes to this, that if the Bank of England were conducted as it was before 1844, when there was no separation of the two departments—if the Bank of England were conducted as the Bank of France is now—for, apart from the appointment of the Governor of the Bank of France by Imperial authority there is small difference—if these two departments, the issue department and the banking department, were combined in one, the Bank having a reasonable discretion to fall back upon its large stock of bullion in the issue department, would use that discretion, and these panics would be met by the easy operation of ordinary arrangement. But the Bank, instead of this, are always looking to the amount of their banking reserve, which they cannot increase out of the issue department, and the result is that they lock up their resources. The figure is now only £3,440,000, and this with an export and import trade of £500,000,000, with £30,000,000 in the savings banks, and a revenue of £70,000,000! If they had used their power the relief, I believe, would have been almost instantaneous. Suppose they had taken a bold course, and had at the period of the late panic transferred £5,000,000 from the issue department to the banking department, which would not have been out of proportion to that which was done in 1857 — suppose, in point of fact, they had increased the banking capacity of the Bank £5,000,000, only £5,000,000, with a total export and import trade of £500,000,000—that, I believe, would have been sufficient to turn the scale. Instead of Continental nations laughing at us, their faith in us would have returned, confidence would have been restored, and we should have been able to tide over our difficulties. Everything which has taken place was predicted long ago by one of the most eminent financial authorities in the country, the hon. Member for Kendal (Mr. Glyn). In the debate of December, 1857, the hon. Member said—
  "He agreed also with those who, though they

  1723
  found some advantage in the Act, yet saw in it a restriction which was attended with the most disastrous effects… First, there was the separation of the banking and issue departments… That division was, no doubt, a wholesome plan so long as it was confined to the circle of that establishment, and as carried out by the directors themselves; but, when it was made by statute a regulatory part of the Act, it was attended by most disastrous effects. … With respect to the other point, the limitation of the circulation on securities to £14,475,000, there, he confessed, he found the greatest difficulty of the question. He thought no person who had watched the progress of the crisis in 1847, and again in 1857, could fail to arrive at the conviction that, although the pressure was not caused by the Act, yet the pressure existing, the limitation of power of issue upon securities became in itself a primary cause of evil. The existence of the pressure tended to reduce the reserves of the Bank, and then what did every prudent man do? … In such a time a man with engagements to meet, honourably determined to make every sacrifice to meet them, whatever the rate of discount might be. … He would purchase currency at 10 or 20 per cent, in short, at any cost, for the fulfilment of his honourable engagements, and therefore his proceedings, and those of others, who acted likewise, still more reduced the Bank reserves."—[3 Hansard, cxlviii. 186.]
  I hardly need contend, Sir, for I think everyone must agree, that there is a proportion, be it what it may, or however irregular or easily affected, between the trade and transactions of a country and both its circulation and its banking facilities. And that being so, there must be a proportion between the issue and accommodation capacity of the Bank of England and the demands for currency and accommodation from other bankers and trade at large. And I ask the House whether, now, in 1866, after an interval of twenty-two years, and in view of so enormous — and, so far as 1844 is concerned, unexpected—augmentation of the business of the country, it is not expedient to inquire whether these proportions, whatever they be, are in operation. Is the limitation of issue upon securities of 1844 wise in 1866? Is the limit of its power of accommodation which that issue and the amount of its proprietary capital together give, enough or not enough in 1866, with three times the trade and trade necessities of 1844? Does it not seem, primâ facie at all events, that the channel is now too narrow for the flood? And should the House refuse to inquire whether it is or is not expedient to revise the Act of 1844 in the interests of industry and commerce? A good deal was formerly said about the Bank of France; and I remember a noble Lord in another place,
  1724
  who is considered the great apostle and advocate of the Act of 1844, when examined before the Lords Committee, said he looked on the action of the Bank of France as quackery, and that it was not based on any scientific principle. If the action of the Bank of England is scientific while that of the Bank of France is not, all I can say is, that science has rendered, recently, very little service to the commerce of this country. There were three objects which Sir Robert Peel proposed to accomplish by the Act of 1844—first, to secure the convertibility of the note, which really has never been endangered; secondly, to check undue speculation; and thirdly, to prevent panics. Now, the last two objects have not been attained, for speculation at times since 1844 has been more rife than it has ever been since 1825, and a steady rate of discount, essential as this is to the proper carrying on of business, has not been secured. In fact, since 1844 there have been 133 changes in the rate of discount, and the fluctuation has been no less than 500 per cent, for on several occasions it has been reduced to 2 per cent—thus fostering undue speculation, and calling forth the strong condemnation of the House of Lords Committee in 1848, while the Commons Committee resolving at the same time by a majority of only two that an alteration of the Act was inexpedient. From 1858 to 1866 the changes have been 85, and during that period the Government has three times been obliged to authorize a suspension of the Act. The Bank of France, on the other hand, has only made 34 changes, and the rate has seldom been more than 4 or 5, and at present is 3½ per cent, while the reserve of bullion is £25,000,000. The operation of the Act of 1844 is such that the issue department may be rich to repletion, while the banking department is almost bankrupt. This effect was predicted at the time by one of the highest authorities, for in Mr. Tooke's Inquiry into the Currency Principle we find these words—(March, 1844)—
  "While the circulating department would still have £6,000,000 of bullion, the deposit department would have no alternative but to stop payment—a most absurd, however disastrous, state of things. But it would be too disastrous and too absurd to be allowed to take its course. If such a crisis were to happen, as most probable it would, at the time when the dividends on the public funds became due, the Government would be imperatively called upon to interfere and prevent so ridiculous, however lamentable, a catas-

  1725
  trophe, and the only interference that could meet the emergency would be to authorize a temporary transfer of coin from the issuing to the banking department."
  Perhaps the highest authority in France, M. Michel Chevalier, not long ago wrote a letter in which, after observing that undoubtedly the English were their own masters, and were free not only to make a bad law, but also to keep it, he passed the following opinion on the Act of 1844:—
  "The arrangement is vicious; it is an erroneous one. It offends the soundest ideas in regard to credit; it entirely prevents the use of the invaluable auxiliary of credit in surmounting difficulties. What is still more surprising, it still exists in all its rigour, although at two periods, in 1847 and 1857, it has brought ruin on the country to such an extent that the Government, roused by so many unexpected bankruptcies, deemed it necessary to suspend the law, and on its own responsibility authorize the Bank to issue notes beyond the law. It would be difficult to instance a law which has proved less successful than the Act of 1844."
  M. Chevalier goes on to say—
  "It was the belief of Sir Robert Peel that it would render crises more rare. On the contrary, they have become more frequent and severe. They have become so by Act of Parliament. Never has experience confuted more energetically the provisions of legislation."
  But I need not rely upon Mr. Tooke and M. Chevalier; I can call as witnesses both the present and the late Chancellor of the Exchequer. The present Chancellor, in 1857, was of opinion that immediate legislation was required, and unless he now prefers an inquiry, the right hon. Gentleman will I hope now be able to reassure the commercial world by stating what kind of legislation he intends to propose. Speaking on the 11 th of December, 1857, the right hon. Gentleman said—
  "Believing as I do that the law by its enactments forcing the Bank to treat a foreign and a domestic drain by the same means, not only occasions, but aggravates distress and distrust among the commercial classes of this country, I think we should endeavour to meet that difficulty by remodelling the law in that respect."
  With these remarks I entirely agree, except that with the new facts before us I wish inquiry to precede legislation. The late Chancellor, speaking in the same debate, used these words—
  "But I do feel that there is great force in what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Kendal, whose great experience in these matters, as well as his natural ability, give much weight to the judgment which he has delivered in this House. My hon. Friend says that the existence of a limit, as it is determined by the Act of 1844, has a decided and powerful tendency to create an
  1726
  apprehension gradually deepening into panic, which panic increases the commercial pressure, and finally brings about a suspension of the law itself, so that the very rigour of its provisions in certain states of public feeling and of the public mind becomes an operative cause of the irregular relaxation of the law."—[3 Hansard, cxlviii. 647.]
  The right hon. Gentleman went on to remark that even Lord Overstone, always a strenuous defender of the Act of 1844, had admitted the desirability of vesting some dispensing power either in the Government or in the Directors to check this "rigour" of the law. Another distinguished man, the late Sir George Lewis, is quoted by the Economist, and no doubt correctly, as having said—
  "Peel's Act did great good, except for a week once in ten years, but in that week it did so much evil as almost to counterbalance the good which it had effected before."
  Now, I think, Sir, I have called witnesses enough against the laws affecting the Bank of England. I have shown that they are not approved by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, nor approved by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, that they are not approved by the hon. Member for Kendal, who is at the head of one of the largest banking establishments in the world, and I might go on to quote the head of the house of Baring. I believe also that the hon. Member for Westminster and the present professors of political economy at Oxford and Cambridge are opposed to the limitation of the issue; and, in point of fact, I have hosts of authority to show the evils of our present legislation. No Director of the Bank of England will tell me that if he had the power without making all the disturbance of coming to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, without the necessity of a letter from the Foreign Secretary to every Court of Europe—that if without that there had been some self-acting power which would have enabled him to cope with the difficulty as men do cope with difficulties, the emergency would not have been more easily met and the panic would not have arisen.
  I feel, Sir, that the House has extended to me an unusual indulgence, and I refrain from doing more than suggesting that the whole question of issue, the state of joint-stock banking, and the anomalies and differences in the constitution and action of the banks of England, Ireland, and Scotland, are subjects which should be included in any inquiry by this House. And now, Sir, thanking the House for its patience and kindness, let me repeat, that

  1727
  all I ask for is inquiry. I ask for it because there is much to be inquired into—evils of legislation, evils which amended legislation may cope with, evils in the practice of the Bank of England. I ask for it because the press and the public opinion of the country demand inquiry with a view to legislative remedy. Sir, let me ask the House this question—assuming that the ruling price of discount in this country were to be 10 per cent and that of France 4 per cent, how long would the commercial supremacy of our country continue? For how long would competitive commerce be possible? Let the House, then, measure the evils of to-day by that test, extreme as it may be. Unnaturally high discount can only mean reduced profits and lower wages; for the interest of money is an element of cost, and the more the passive partner in transactions receives, the less is available for profits and wages. I have endeavoured to avoid the discussion of abstract questions; and I trust that that inquiry which on every previous occasion of panic the Government have volunteered, may now be granted, for it would, indeed, be unfortunate if an impression should go abroad, erroneous as it would be, that this House is indifferent to the embarrassment and suffering which have prevailed during the last few months, and which still afflict us.
  MR. AKROYD,in seconding the Motion, said, he could not imagine a stronger or a more severe condemnation of the existing law than to allow it to be assumed that the present state of the money-market was the natural and normal consequences of the Bank Charter Act of 1844, because if that were so they must lay at the door of that Act a state of things unprecedented in this country. He laboured under the disadvantage of prejudice, which seemed to exist against any private Member undertaking to find fault with the existing state of our monetary system; but notwithstanding that prejudice he ventured to second the Motion, and, in doing so, to briefly state his reasons. The cases for inquiry rested primarily on the fact that the late Chancellor of the Exchequer had set aside an Act of Parliament, and he should like to know if the present Chancellor of the Exchequer endorsed the sanction so given, because he considered it was no slight matter for any Government to set aside an Act of Parliament without the House instituting an inquiry into the cause of it. An inquiry followed the suspension
  1728
  of the Bank Charter Act in 1857; but there was this difference between the crisis of 1857 and the present one, that in the former year the Bank Directors exceeded their authorized issue by £2,000,000, which they had not done since the recent suspension. It appeared to him that the Report of the Committee of Inquiry which followed the crisis of 1857 distinctly contemplated further inquiry. It alluded to the question whether the Act of 1844 should remain intact or be subject to revision in times of pressure. It was evident that the time was ripe for further inquiry, and that they must now deal with other branches of the question, though it would be for the House to consider the mode of the inquiry, whether by Royal Commission or Special Commission. There were several additional reasons which tended to the same conclusion, and one of them was that the French had last year instituted an inquiry by an Imperial Commission into the same subject. That inquiry was of a most searching character, and was even extended into this country. At the time it was being carried on he had the honour of holding the position of Chairman of the Halifax Chamber of Commerce, and he remembered some of the questions under consideration by the French Commission were addressed to that Chamber. Among the questions they asked were the following:—What were the causes of the monetary crises of 1863 and 1864? What was the effect of a limited issue on a monetary pressure? Did the Bank of France fulfil all the functions of a bank of issue?— and, if not, what alterations should be effected in its constitution? Did the existence of a high rate of discount tend to bring back bullion into the Bank? This last question raised a very important point for inquiry in this country. For the first time a high rate of discount had failed to restore the stock of bullion held by the Bank of England, although it had ruled for some time past at 10 per cent. That high rate, indeed, had, as he (Mr. Akroyd) thought, tended rather to aggravate the prevailing distrust, for they had even heard of discredit attaching to English securities in the Continental money-markets. The demand for inquiry arose not only from the mercantile and trading classes, but also from the recognized organs of public opinion, which specially devoted themselves to the consideration of these questions. In the ordinary state of commercial credit bills of exchange formed the basis of mer-

  1729
  cantile currency, and there was little need for bank notes in business transactions, the proportion of these to bills not being one-twentieth part. But in times of panic, when credit was disturbed, there was more call for bank notes, and it was certainly very unfortunate that at the moment when Bank of England notes were most in request, the Bank Charter Act should step in and prevent the Directors of the Bank front augmenting their issues. In making these remarks he was far from intending to pass any censure upon the Directors of the Bank of England, especially as they constituted a joint-stock bank, not a national bank, and were bound only by the terms of their charter. He did consider, however, that they ought to possess a certain discretionary power similar to that which had been exercised by the Bank of France. He hoped that Her Majesty's Government would be disposed to assent to the Motion for an inquiry. The Government of this country showed a general desire to give what relief it could to suffering classes of the community, as had been conspicuously shown of late in the calamities which had fallen upon the agricultural body. Yet the mercantile community were now in a much more grave position, and he trusted the House would give the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Stockport its favourable consideration.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to issue a Royal Commission directed to the investigation of the causes which have led to the late severe and protracted pressure in the money market, and to the continuance, for a long period, of a minimum rate of discount of 10 per cent at the Bank of England; and also to investigate the Laws at present affecting Currency and Banking in the United Kingdom, and to report what (if any) alterations have become expedient therein; and, further, that it be an Instruction to the Commissioners to present their Report and the Evidence taken by them on or before the 1st February, 1867."—(Mr. Watkin.)
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: Sir, I think no one can be surprised that this question should have been brought under the notice of Parliament. Indeed, I may go further and say that I think we should have been surprised if the question had not been brought before the attention of Parliament before its prorogation; for, undoubtedly, nothing would be more unfortunate than that an idea should be allowed to go forth to the country that
  1730
  Parliament or the Government were indifferent to the serious circumstances which we have recently witnessed. Most assuredly there is no feeling of indifference on the part of the Government, and equally certain is it that there is no indifference on the part of this House. When so serious a state of affairs arises, and when such large interests are so gravely affected, it is, of course, natural that the attention of the House of Commons should be directed to those circumstances. But still more natural and still more imperative is it, when a measure has been taken by Her Majesty's Government pointing towards the suspension of an Act of Parliament, that some inquiry should be made in Parliament as to the grounds on which the Government of the day had thought it right to give their sanction to a suspension of the law, and that some question should be raised as to how far legislation can be held to be satisfactory and right with respect to which it is necessary from time to time to have recourse to so very serious a measure as that which was resorted to by the late Government with reference to the possible suspension of the Bank Act of 1844. Therefore the Government do not at all complain of the course which the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Watkin) has taken in calling their attention to the subject, and demanding, in the name of the country, an investigation into the circumstances in which we are placed, and into the state of the law as bearing upon the commercial distress and banking currency of the country. I may say at once, on the part of the Government, that they respond entirely to the feeling of the country and to the wish—which is obviously the wish of the House—that an investigation should take place into the position in which we stand, and into the causes, as far as it is possible to investigate them, of the commercial distress and the prevalence of the present high rate of discount. But as to the manner in which that investigation should be conducted, I hope I shall be able to satisfy the House—at all events, I shall have to state on the part of the Government—that in their opinion the measure recommended by the hon. Member for Stockport, the issue of a Royal Commission at the present time to inquire into these matters, with an Instruction, as he says, to report before the 1st of February next, would not be the best measure they could take. I am bound to ask the hon. Member for Stockport what exactly are

  1731
  the functions which he thinks this Royal Commission of Inquiry should undertake. Is it to be a Commission which is to inquire into facts, or is it to be a Commission which is to inquire into principles? I think he will see that there is very great difference between the two. If we are to investigate a number of facts, requiring a great amount of time to ascertain and bring together, undoubtedly a Royal Commission may be, and very often is, a very convenient instrument for the purpose; but if we are to discuss principles, and if we are to investigate the principles upon which our legislation is founded, I do not myself think that a Royal Commission ought to be considered a proper substitute either for the action of the Government or for that of Parliament. If you were to appoint a Royal Commission in this case, for the purpose of investigating all the principles of legislation which affect our currency and banking, the first question that would arise would be, how is that Commission to be constituted? We know perfectly well that different opinions prevail, and are ably maintained by the different schools of opinion, on all the questions that bear upon this subject; and if a Royal Commission were to be appointed it would be necessary to place upon that Commission men in whose skill and intelligence, and in whose experience also, the country would have confidence. We also know that when it should become our duty to make a selection of the gentlemen—few in number as they necessarily must be—to be placed in that important position, we could not select gentlemen who were merely known to be gentlemen of intelligence and experience, but we should have to select gentlemen whose views upon these questions were perfectly well known and familiar to the world, and probably it would not be very difficult, as soon as they were named, and the object of the Commission made public, to foresee what the general verdict of that Commission would be upon some of the main principles which would have to be brought before it. If that were the case, at once the authority of a Commission, and therefore the use of a Commission as far as the investigation of principles is concerned, would be at an end. Those who were satisfied with the opinions of the gentlemen who might be the majority in the Commission would, of course, anticipate the proceedings, and foresee that their opinions would be well brought for-
  1732
  ward, well argued, and very ably, no doubt, elaborated; while, on the other hand, the minority, who would not be satisfied, would say, "Because you have constituted the Commission on this or the other basis, you have failed to obtain a fair verdict. We dispute, and have always disputed, the doctrines of those gentlemen forming the majority of the Commission, and we also dispute the conclusion at which they have arrived." This being the case, we should not be much forwarder when we got the Report of the Royal Commission than we are at the present time. I do not think it would be possible to obtain the Report of the Royal Commission if it were appointed at the early date named by the hon. Member for Stockport; but even when you had got the Report it would be necessary that the Government of the day should prepare measures of legislation founded upon or arising out of it, and it would be for the Government, after all, to consider whether they were able to adopt all the recommendations, or some of them, or whether, indeed, they should propose something entirely different from the Report of the Commissioners. I think we should be only preparing embarrassments for ourselves, and not forwarding any useful solution of this difficult question, by deputing a Royal Commission to go and look for a policy on the question of currency and banking. Now, the hon. Member for Stockport has said that it was not his wish to lead the House into a general discussion on the principles of our currency laws, and as far as it is possible in discussions of this nature he has kept to his pledge, and he has avoided leading us into many of those discussions on details which perhaps might have arisen upon this subject. He has said that all he desires is that a Commission should be appointed to investigate the facts bearing upon the causes of the present state of things. It is obvious, however, that when you come to investigate causes it is not sufficient merely to collect facts, but to collect them with a view to certain conclusions, and select them upon some kind of principles. When you investigate facts, the question of causes necessarily arises. But even were it possible for us to establish a Commission merely to investigate facts, I venture to ask the hon. Gentleman whether it is possible that the facts which would have to guide us to legislation could now be efficiently investigated. The hon. Member has said that to a great extent and primarily the existing commercial distress

  1733
  esults from the action of individuals and the imprudent conduct of certain firms. He says also that the consequences of the proceedings to which he refers are aggravated by the state of our currency laws. Well, then, the first thing would be to inquire into the details of these individual transactions. It would be necessary to ascertain how it has happened that the firms whose failures have led to such considerable embarrassment have got into these financial difficulties. I ask him whether, at this moment, when we have the remains at all events of the panic still upon us, and with a number of houses and firms still feeling more or less the shock of the panic—how far it would be possible to carry on the investigation so as to get at the truth of the facts? Would it be possible to go from this firm to that and to ask them, "What are the circumstances in which you find yourself placed? At what period was it that you began to find yourselves in a position of difficulty? What failures most materially affected you? Under what circumstances did you find it necessary to apply to the Bank of England for assistance, and under what circumstances did the Bank of England consider it necessary or prudent to refuse your application?" It would be impossible to expect answers to such questions as these, unless, indeed, the Royal Commission pursued its inquiry in secret. I ask the hon. Gentleman does he mean that the inquiry should be conducted in public or in secret? If the Commission is to inquire into such matters as those that I have referred to the common sense of every one of us will convince us that it would be necessary that its labours should be conducted in secret. But in that case the Report of the Royal Commission would be very materially impaired, because you would only have its conclusions, and in the absence of the evidence upon which those conclusions were founded the public would give to them just that weight which their former opinions predisposed them to give. I am bound to say that, in this case, and under these circumstances, it does not appear that a Royal Commission would be the best mode of carrying on such an investigation as is desired; and, even if it were the best mode, I think that just now, when we are still labouring under the effects of the recent commercial distress, the time would be particularly inappropriate for the issue of such a Commission. There is one other circumstance, bearing upon the present
  1734
  state of things, to which I would for a moment advert, because I think I gathered from my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Akroyd) that he considers it a reason for inquiry at the present moment, though it seems to me to be a reason against immediate inquiry. I refer to the inquiry now going on in behalf of the French Government into many of the questions which bear materially upon the subject which we are now asked to issue a Commission to investigate. I confess I cannot altogether see the force of the hon. Gentleman's argument, that because the French Government has issued a Commission, therefore it must be a peculiarly appropriate time for us to do the same. I think the hon. Gentleman would have been nearer the truth if he had said that at a moment when we are expecting the results of that Commission, we should wait and see what are the conclusions at which it arrives, before we ourselves plunge into a similar inquiry. The inquiry directed by the French Government was begun nearly two years ago. The Commission has been carrying on a very minute and a very extended inquiry from the commencement of 1865, and as yet their labours have had no result. If, then, we are considering how we shall most rapidly deal with this question, I do not think we shall be greatly encouraged by the result of this Commission to plunge into another inquiry of the same character. It will be surely wiser to wait for the result of the French Commission before deciding whether we shall refer the whole question of the principles of our currency and banking system to a Royal Commission. With regard to the practical position of affairs, I think there can be no doubt whatever that it is one which requires the serious attention of the Government and of Parliament. If we look back to all that has taken place since the passing of the Bank Act of 1844, it is impossible for us not to be struck by the fact that there have now been three periods at which the operation of that Act has been found to jar upon the commerce of the country so sensibly that its provisions were of necessity suspended. That is evidently in itself a fact well deserving of investigation. Twice, indeed, already it has been made the subject of inquiry; and twice the Committees which have sat upon the subject—once in the House of Lords, and once in the Commons—have failed to produce any recommendations which have been accepted by Parliament as

  1735
  indicating the mode of getting out of the difficulties that were attributed to the working of the Act. Now, again, for the third time, something of the same kind has happened. But upon the present occasion, as the hon. Member has pointed out, there are circumstances which distinguish the panic from the panics of 1847 and 1857. We have new facts before us, and it is undoubtedly reasonable to inquire how far the experience we have of the practical working of the Act renders it important and necessary, if we are to maintain the principle of the Act, that we should attempt to improve the machinery by which it is carried into effect. It would be most unwise and unreasonable if the Government were now to say, "We adhere with such tenacity to every detail of the Act of 1844 that whatever may be the experience of its working, whatever may be the inconveniences which are sustained at periods like the present, we will not permit or give our assent to a single alteration in a single provision of the Act." At the same time, if the Government were to assent to the inquiry, which points, or appears to point, to the Act of 1844 as one of the main causes of the difficulty under which we have lately laboured, and are now labouring to a certain extent—if we were to do this, I think the Government would be acting falsely and wrong, and would be creating an impression which they do not entertain that the commercial pressure and inconvenience may be traced to the principle of the Act of 1844, and that we must look to the repeal or material alteration of the Act, or the abandonment of its principle, for the cure of the evils which we find occurring periodically. I am bound to say that though the present Government are in no particular sense bound to defend the Act of 1844—that is to say, have no particular parental interest in that Act — yet, upon the whole, they do believe that the principles upon which the Act of 1844 is based are the sound and true principles upon which our currency should rest. Whether, however, consistently with that general doctrine, it is possible to introduce into the machinery of that Act any improvement which may render its working smoother and less inconvenient—whether the experience of the past panics and present crisis may suggest measures which may from time to time render financial pressure less severe, or which may give effect to the principles of the Act without producing the distress
  1736
  which sometimes accompanies its operation —upon this point the Government can only say that they will give the matter their most serious consideration, will endeavour to investigate carefully all the circumstances which have attended recent panics, and especially the present crisis, will bestow earnest attention upon the details of the working of the Act throughout the present time, and if they find that it is in their power at the commencement of the next Session to propose any measure which, in their opinion, will improve its working, they will do so with the greatest pleasure. If, on the other hand, they find it is not in their power to propose anything likely to be satisfactory, then the Government will not object, but, on the contrary, will think it perfectly fair and reasonable that a Committee of this House should be appointed to inquire into the circumstances of the case and to investigate the position in which we stand. Should that course be adopted I think our position will be a far better one than if we were now to issue a Commission; because it must be obvious to every one that if any inquiries of this sort are to be of real use they ought to be guided by some general principle upon which we are tolerably agreed, and this is especially true of a subject like this, upon which so much controversy and difference of opinion has existed. Upon such a subject a mere fishing Commission which is to go and look for a policy without any decision by the house as to the principles upon which it is to proceed, is likely to do very little good and indeed to bear no fruit at all. We hope that we may be able to investigate the subject during the recess, and if we are able to introduce any measure next Session, that measure may be referred to a Committee of this House for examination. If, on the other hand, the Government, upon full consideration of all the circumstances of the case, think it impossible, without doing more harm than good, to introduce a change in the law, then the Gentlemen who are dissatisfied with that conclusion will challenge it in this House, and the Government will be perfectly ready to assent to the appointment of a Committee to consider the decision at which they have arrived, and before that Committee they will be prepared to justify the views which they may entertain. As I have thus stated the views of the Government upon this matter, and as I hope the House will believe that the matter is one which will receive our earnest,

  1737
  candid, and impartial consideration, I might, perhaps, abstain from saying anything more upon this subject. But there are one or two observations which I feel it important to make in order that our position and our views may not be misunderstood. The hon. Member (Mr. Watkin) has called attention to the fact that this is what is called a credit panic, and the hon. Member for Halifax has very correctly, I think, described what the peculiar features of a credit panic are, and how, at the moment when what is called the credit currently of the country collapses, there is a pressure upon the ordinary currency of the country, and the Bank Act of 1844 to a certain extent prevents the expansion of currency just at the moment when such an expansion is most desired by the public. I do not know whether the hon. Member infers that there should be such an expansion of the currency as should supply the want which the collapse of credit has occasioned. It is no doubt one of the peculiar and distinguished features of the commerce and adventure of England that it is so largely supported by the wonderful system of credit. It is impossible to exaggerate the immense value of the services which this system of credit has rendered to the industry of England. It has enabled us with a large capital to perform the work which otherwise would have required an enormous capital, and with a moderate amount of capital to do the work of a much larger amount. I understand the nature of the case to be something like this:—A manufacturer or merchant, carrying on business and having the command of a certain amount of capital, is enabled to invest the whole of his own capital in business, and to live, during the time his capital is out, and before it returns to him, upon the assistance which he derives from the unemployed capital of others. He is able, to a certain extent, to borrow the unemployed or loanable capital of others, in order to enable him to await the return of investments he has made. At a moment of pressure, when loanable capital becomes scarce, and must therefore be supplied at a higher price, no doubt the merchant or manufacturer who is living on the expectation of being able to borrow at a reasonable rate of interest finds his operations seriously embarrassed by the great rise in the rate of interest, and the difficulty of obtaining money. Nothing can be more natural than that such a state of things
  1738
  should cause distress and inconvenience to the soundest and most legitimate business of the country. But we must remember that although the loanable capital of the country is large, it is not unlimited; and if a demand is made for loanable capital out of proportion to its amount, great as that may be, it is impossible it should not become scarce, and, being scarce, that it should not be high in price. That is, I believe, the real explanation of what has recently taken place. The hon. Gentleman says the capital of England is enormous, and he finds fault with the Chancellor of the Exchequer for saying that there is at the present moment a deficiency of capital, but it is perfectly possible that both these two propositions may be equally true, and that the capital of the country may be enormous and yet deficient. My right hon. Friend was speaking not generally of the capital of the country, but of that portion of the capital which is available for the purposes of loans and discounts. If you choose to lock up an enormous amount of capital in investments and securities, however excellent the undertakings themselves may be, if you cannot immediately and at pleasure withdraw it, of course the capital available for loans and the daily business of life is proportionately restricted. Setting apart altogether for a moment any question about imprudence or unsound speculation, that is in itself, I believe, the explanation of the circumstances in which we are placed, that an enormous proportion of the capital of this country, and a yearly increasing proportion, is locked up in securities from which you cannot immediately withdraw it. Look at the enormous sums raised for railways and for foreign undertakings in which the money of this country is invested. Look also at the immense amount invested in trade itself. I will not weary the House with statistics, but a Return which has been moved for by the hon. Member for Manchester shows that the amount of capital authorized to be raised by the railway and other Bills which have been passed this year and last is £176,000,000. The savings of the country are sometimes estimated at not more than £100,000,000 a year. Obviously the capital to be raised must come out of the savings of the country; and such large investments, however sound, which you cannot immediately withdraw, and the securities of which you cannot immediately realize, must necessarily produce a pressure upon the money-market, from which commercial

  1739
  interests expect to be supplied. The whole question, therefore, comes to this:—If you find there is such a pressure, if it is the case that the commercial interests cannot supply themselves, if money is not at the rate of discount which they think they have a right to expect and upon which they have reckoned, because of the large amount invested in permanent securities which cannot be immediately realized, the question arises, ought anybody, and, if anybody, who is it that ought, to provide the trading interests with money to meet their demands? The question is, can you, and if you can, ought you to make money when money is scarce? I believe that is the real question at the root of these difficulties. It is a question upon which there are two opinions. People are divided into two hopelessly antagonistic schools upon the subject. There are those who say that the money which there is in the country represents the capital, the loanable capital, or gold, or this, that, and the other, for there are different theories as to what money exactly is. They say that when there is little you must cut your coat according to your cloth; and that if you have little money you cannot expect to be able to get a great deal of money cheap. There is the other school which says that when this is the case you ought to look to your credit, that money is only a form of credit, and that you ought not to attempt to cut your coat according to your cloth, but that you ought to make your coat of the size convenient to you, and that if you cannot get the cloth you ought to get something which looks like it. These are, I believe, the real differences which exist between opposite schools upon this question, and it is hopeless for you to investigate practical questions tending to legislation unless you have made up your mind on which of the two theories you intend to proceed. I have no hesitation in saying, on the part of the Government, that they are not of opinion that it is possible, or, if possible, that it is desirable, to meet the difficulties which arise when money has been used up and there is not a sufficiency of loanable capital in the country by any fictitious creation of money. That being so, in the inquiries they may institute into the practical working of the law as it now stands they will be guided by that principle, and they will endeavour to ascertain whether the details of the Act of 1844 can be so far modified as to enable the country to adhere to that principle without the inconvenience which at present
  1740
  arises. Unquestionably the inconveniences are such as no man looking at the subject impartially can fail to recognize. It is impossible to deny the truth of what has been stated by both the hon. Gentlemen who have addressed us, that at the present moment this peculiar kind of panic affects the credit of England, and that the operation of the law and the necessity for authorizing the suspension of an Act of Parliament have had a serious and prejudicial effect upon the credit of England. There is, in fact, so to speak, a run upon England which is not altogether justified by the circumstances of the case. It cannot be denied that as a run upon a bank may be occasioned by a small accidental circumstance, so a run upon a country like England may be occasioned by a matter which to those who understand it, and understand the working of our system, may appear small and insignificant, but which to foreign countries is a serious and alarming matter. When they hear of the suspension of a law they naturally think that there is some peculiar reason for withholding confidence from England; and it cannot be doubted that at this moment there is in foreign countries a want of the confidence which was formerly felt, and which we desire should be always felt, in the solidity and the credit of England. When we admit that to a certain extent that want of confidence is occasioned or aggravated by the action of the law and by the action of the Government supervening upon the law, do not let it be supposed for a moment that that is the whole explanation of the matter. Do not let it be supposed for a moment that by altering the law or getting rid of that anomalous state of things you will really restore the credit of England. If I have ventured upon these observations and this discussion, which may seem somewhat unnecessary at the present moment, it is because I am anxious to impress upon the House and the country that the Government does not believe, and we earnestly hope the country will not believe, that the difficulties under which our credit labours and the want of confidence that has been engendered is to be removed, or is capable of being removed, by any tampering with your currency and banking laws. Admitting, as I do, that there are inconveniences in the law as it stands, and that it is desirable, if you can do it, to alter the law, so far as to get rid of those inconveniences, I think those inconveniences are as nothing compared with the disaster which would

  1741
  result from its being held out to the world and the commercial public of this country, that it is possible by any remodelling of those portions of our law to obviate the consequences of the imprudence or unsound trading, of which, unfortunately, we must admit there has been too much. If we are to go upon the principle of softening as far as possible the consequences of men's imprudence to themselves and others, we must beware that we do not encourage that imprudence and over-speculation which we have so much reason to lament. In the great success of our commercial enterprize there is something that is fascinating to us, and we are easily carried away by the great power we have of making our large capital do the work of a much larger capital; and, therefore, it is particularly necessary we should impress upon the people of England now that, if we were everywhere to unshackle and set no limits to enterprize, there is too much danger of enterprize rapidly growing into insane speculation. If the Government were indifferent to the sufferings of the commerce of this country, no doubt they would be greatly to blame. If they were unwilling to investigate the possible application of remedies, so far as these sufferings were occasioned or aggravated by legislation, no doubt they would be greatly to be blamed. In my opinion, they would be still more to blame if they were by any action or language of theirs to encourage the mischievous belief that it is possible to avert the consequences of reckless, imprudent, and unsound speculation by any measure tampering with our banking or our currency laws. In assuring the hon. Gentleman that the Government will look into this matter most carefully, and that it is their earnest desire, if possible, to legislate on the subject, or to invite the attention of the House to the subject, at the first moment at which they can give practical effect to their views, which cannot be earlier than the commencement of the next Session, I would venture to press upon him the importance of allowing us time to consider this matter, and to legislate calmly; and after due consideration, I would press him to withdraw the Motion he has now brought forward upon that assurance, and upon the ground, more especially, that if we now issued a Commission, we should be raising false expectations, and producing not good, but most serious evil, mischief, and danger to the country.
  MR. FAWCETTmost sincerely thanked the right hon. Gentleman who had just
  1742
  spoken for what he had said. He thought the Government had come to a most just wise, and proper decision upon the request of the hon. Member for Stockport. The Motion of his hon. Friend divided itself into three heads — an inquiry into the causes of the panic; an inquiry into the causes of the high rate of interest; and an inquiry into the effect of the Bank Charter Act; and by implication it was made clear that the Bank Charter Act had produced the crisis, and was at the present time responsible for the high rate of discount. Now, he considered that was a most unfortunate delusion, and he believed that if the Government had not stood firm and refused this Commission, they would most seriously have encouraged the unfortunate fallacy that the Bank Charter had produced or aggravated the crisis. His opinion had been alluded to, and he would at once frankly say that he was not one of those who had ever been a warm friend of this particular Act. He thought that when the Government came to investigate the subject they would discover that the Act could with great advantage be materially modified, and in such a way that there would not be a recurrence of the unfortunate anomaly that an Act of Parliament had occasionally to be suddenly and almost arbitrarily suspended. But let it not be supposed that he joined with those who thought that the Bank Act had produced the late crisis. The hon. Member for Stockport had told them with great truth that this was a credit panic; and, being aware of that, could any one of commercial experience who had witnessed what had gone on in this country during the last three or four years pretend for a moment to say that the Bank Act had produced the late commercial disasters? Those disasters had been produced by causes far deeper and more serious. A reckless spirit of gambling had spread itself over the commerce of this country. A new school had grown up who seemed to encourage the idea that wealth must not be made in the old-fashioned steady way — namely, by the careful and judicious application of capital to the employment of machinery and labour, but that a new discovery had been made by which even more than the dream of the alchemist of old had been realized, and wealth was to be produced by modern financing, or, in other words, by the skilful manipulation of bits of paper called bills of exchange. And this machinery went so far that he had heard it said that with only an enter-prizing engineer, an unscrupulous promoter,

  1743
  a spirited attorney, and a bountiful supply of Lloyd's bonds, a railway could be carried from one end of the kingdom to the other. The game went on merrily for a time. Promoters were collecting princely fortunes, and directors were realizing in one year almost more than they had been able previously to acquire by a life of steady industry. But any person who had the slightest acquaintance with the principles of finance must have been certain that the day of retribution was near at hand. Those who lent with recklessness were sure to find themselves in such a position that they were obliged to demand repayment with stringency and severity, and that was the time when the Bank was pressed for loans, and people came forward and said, "We ought to have an institution in this country which will supply us with an unlimited quantity of cheap money," and if the Bank did not do that, they said that the legislation which controlled the Bank was faulty and ought to be modified. In his opinion, and he had watched as an outsider as narrowly as he could every fact connected with this crisis, the collapse had not come one moment too soon, and if the day had been by any legislation postponed, the only result would have been that the ultimate crash would have been far more disastrous. There was a gratifying fact connected with all our commercial difficulties. They had had the gloomy side presented to them that day, but there was a brighter side to the picture. He asked any hon. Gentleman of commercial experience in that House to point out to him a single large commercial concern which, having done a legitimate business, had succumbed in this crisis? He threw out the challenge, and be believed it would not be accepted. An hon. Friend of his, the hon. Member for Bury, one of the great merchants of the country, was telling him the other night that the legitimate trade of the country at the present time was in a thoroughly sound condition, and he said that he, for one, did not regret that this high rate of interest had been maintained for so long a time, for in years past legitimate traders had had to carry on a severe competition with persons who borrowed money, and now that there was difficulty in borrowing money, the legitimate trader would be restored to his proper condition. When the mania was at its height attentive observers might have well felt alarmed for the industrial future of the country. They saw an unfortunate spirit of gambling spreading
  1744
  itself over the country, and that people were beginning to think there was a new mode of making money far faster than the old way which their fathers had been content to follow. He had heard more than one person say—and he heard it with fear and trembling—"During my life, although I have worked hard, I have never been able to make more than 10 per cent in business, and I have always considered that a fair trade profit, but if I only send my money to some stockbroker in London, there are numberless limited liability companies in which 12, 20, 30, and even 60 per cent can be realized, and why should I go on working as I have been doing?" This feeling had been spreading, and if it had spread much further, nothing more disastrous could have happened to the pre-eminent commercial greatness of this country. But the evil did not stop there. Money that was made without trouble or industry was spent recklessly, and a spirit of extravagance and luxury was spreading itself over the land, and its mischievous ramifications were penetrating into the heart of English society. He, for one, thought the Bank had been perfectly right in maintaining the high rate of discount. The hon. Member for Stockport told them that while this country had its rate of discount at 10 per cent, the rate in France was 3½ per cent, and in other countries 4 per cent and 5 per cent. If people would rather invest their money in France at 3½ per cent than in this country at 10 per cent, it implied, as the hon. Member for Stockport said, that our credit had been shaken, but he could not believe that it was the action of the Bank that had shaken our credit. If they looked at the proceedings of the Bankruptcy Court and the winding-up courts they could not be at much loss to see what it was that had brought about that result. Those who had shaken the credit of the country were the unprincipled promoters and the reckless directors who lent their names to a business which they never took the trouble for one moment of looking into. There was nothing bad in a moderately high rate of discount, for if the rate was high it showed that a high rate of profit was being realized, and a high rate of profit indicated that capital and labour were meeting with a bountiful reward. All that was required to restore our credit abroad, or, in other words, to make people abroad as willing to invest their money here as in their own country, to equalize, in fact, the rate of discount

  1745
  throughout Europe, was to re-establish the fair commercial name of England abroad; and the way to do that was not to rely upon changing our legislation, but for the commercial public to make up their minds that England's commerce should not be conducted in that spirit of recklessness which had characterized it during the last few years. Though he was not in favour of the Bank Charter Act, he did not wish it to be supposed that he looked for any great advantages from its alteration. If it could be modified, and he believed it could, so as to prevent the necessity of frequent suspensions, a great point would be gained. But, on the other hand, he did not sympathize with those who thought that any great or peculiar advantages had been derived from the passing of that Act. England's commerce would have gone on much the same whether that Act had existed or not. At any rate, he was convinced that even if they repealed that Act it would not prevent a financial crisis, and would do nothing even to lower the average rate of discount throughout the country. It was said that there was not sufficient currency in the country. He believed that the currency, instead of having been unduly decreased, had greatly increased. There was no doubt that, owing to the gold discoveries, the quantity of gold had been quadrupled, and the currency of this and other countries had been so much increased, that throughout the world there had been a depreciation of currency, or, in other words, a general rise of prices. When hon. Gentlemen talked about increasing the currency, they should remember that increase of currency did not mean decreased power of borrowing, for if they increased the amount of the currency in circulation just in the same ratio they increased general prices, and they increased the amount they had to borrow for any particular object. He would only say, in conclusion, that even if the Commission or the Committee had been granted, the fact would have been indisputably established that the Bank had been managed with singular firmness, wisdom, and prudence, and that the Bank Directors were a body of men of whom any commercial country might be proud. They had not produced, they had not aggravated the crisis, but the crisis had been produced because the old simple economic axiom had been forgotten, that wealth could only be made by the application of capital to labour and to machinery, and because it had been
  1746
  thought that wealth could be produced by a system called modern financing. Depend upon it wealth thus produced would soon prove to be illusory, and would fade away like a cloud before the summer sun.
  MR. HUBBARDsaid, the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) had thanked the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devonshire (Sir Stafford Northcote) for his speech, and in his turn he desired to thank the hon. Member for Brighton for his valuable contribution to this discussion. That speech made it unnecessary for him to enter as largely as otherwise he should have done into some of the arguments of the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Watkin), who had introduced this subject with much ability, and imparted to the discussion an interest which, under other circumstances, it would not have possessed. He could not, however, concur in the opinion of the hon. Member for Stockport that this was a moment when such an inquiry as he asked for could be conducted with advantage; because, as the monetary pressure still existed, the passions and prejudices of persons must necessarily be aroused by the manner in which their interests were affected. It could not be denied that while on the one hand the subject of the administration of the Bank and the laws of currency did affect the interests of tens of thousands of industrious people, on the other hand we might deal with the question in such a way as to impair and shake the confidence of the public in a matter of primary importance—namely, the integrity of our system of currency. He must agree with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stockport in lamenting that the late Secretary for Foreign Affairs had thought it necessary to issue a manifesto on the state of our monetary affairs to the Governments of other countries. He believed that circular had encouraged rather than allayed the apprehensions existing abroad as to the internal condition of this country; and one could not be surprised that it should have had that effect. There was one point in connection with the management of the Bank which he ought to notice, and that was the contrast drawn by the hon. Member for Stockport between the suffering and ruin which had occurred in so many commercial and industrial circles, and the large profits and gain of the Bank of England. It must be clear that not only the Bank of England, but every other lending corporation and every individual having money to

  1747
  lend, must be a large gainer when the rate of interest was very high; but the profits of the Bank of England would appear small and diminutive as compared with those of other lending corporations when their relative capital and position were taken into account. And the House should remember that, although those who had borrowed had suffered, the lenders had gained, and that as both were citizens of this country, the gain as well as the loss would be felt throughout the Empire. He admitted that variations in the rate of interest were not desirable. The more equably we could maintain the value of money in loans, the better was it for the commercial community and the progress of industry. He concurred with the hon. Member for Stockport that considerable inconvenience must have resulted from the present high rate of interest to individuals who borrowed for the purpose of speculation; but when the hon. Gentleman said that those transactions had been entered into on the presumption that the Bank rate would not rise beyond 5 per cent he could not concur with him, because, to take that view, he must suppose that those persons had lost all remembrance of the many oscillations of the rate of interest which had taken place within the last few years. The high rate of interest might have many disadvantages; but when the hon. Member for Stockport charged the high rate of interest as the means of arresting the employment of labour, he must dissent from that proposition. There could be no doubt that to arrest the employment of large bodies of the labouring classes was a very great evil; but it was his conviction that there must be something exceedingly unsound in the adventure or business in which an employer was engaged if a rise in the rate of interest could occasion a sudden cessation of his operations; and he must take leave to confidently assert that no case could be found in which a high rate of interest was chargeable with producing such a state of things. It was not interest at the rate of 10 per cent on bills at short periods that would throw out of gear the operations of large labour establishments, and deprive of employment hundreds and thousands of men. That result was attributable to other causes. One of these causes was the operation of companies started with the expectation of gaining enormous profits by speculative business — obtaining popularity by disin-
  1748
  genuous and extravagant statements, but never satisfactorily carried out, and ending in ruin to the last shareholder. The hon. Member for Stockport had charged the Bank of England with being the cause of the existing pressure, and he said, "Look at your bank notes and cheques—in these matters the country is richer than ever; why should it be put to this inconvenience?" Now, he (Mr. Hubbard) was free to admit that the country was richer than ever—that its capital had increased, and that it was outstripping all past experience. But of those who were engaged in the race for wealth, many were men who, not being educated for commerce, desired to grow rich in a moment; they embarked all the capital they could command or borrow, and they maintained no reserve on which they could fall back in periods of difficulty. He applied that censure not only to the commerce of the country, he applied it distinctly and with deliberation to the way in which banking had lately been carried on. Competition up to a certain point was most useful and most salutary; but when carried to extremes was apt to drive men into measures which in their calmer and cooler moments they would have reason to regret. Private bankers had accepted the position of rivals to the joint-stock banks, allowing interest upon deposits not merely at a rate such as they could obtain themselves by holding Government stock or Exchequer bills; but driven by competition they allowed a rate of interest which could only be recouped by becoming themselves investors in railway securities, in foreign bonds, and in engagements of long date and difficult of negotiation. Hence, when the hour of pressure came, they were perfectly helpless, and obliged to apply to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He did not wish it to be supposed that the difficulty which had arisen, and the existence of which he did not deny, were attributable either to the Bank of England or to the high rate of interest, and when the hon. Member for Stockport said the difficulties which they were labouring under were difficulties occasioned by legislation, he thought it would have been fair of the hon. Gentleman to describe more clearly what kind of legislation he meant. There were two kinds of legislation on the subject. If the hon. Member meant that legislation which had regulated with too little circumspection the promotion of railway companies, he (Mr. Hubbard) agreed

  1749
  with him, and if he meant the legislation which had given the utmost license to the propagation of limited companies, without subjecting them to that deposit of capital which would be a security for the fulfilment of their engagements, he also agreed with him. But if the hon. Member attributed the difficulties to the legislation which had taken effect with regard to the currency, he must venture to differ from him entirely. The hon. Member for Stockport, in a distinct and definite way, had addressed certain questions to the House affecting the finances of the Bank of England, and expressed a desire to receive a categorical reply to them. He had, also, addressed some very important and searching questions on the management of the Bank of England. The hon. Member asked why the management was so different in 1866 to what it had been in 1857? In 1857, when a moment of difficulty occurred, the Bank of England placed £2,000,000 of notes to the credit of their reserve, and that amount immediately became available for the relief of necessities. The hon. Member for Stockport was satisfied with what took place then, but he was dissatisfied with what had been going on now. He (Mr. Hubbard) would explain why those £2,000,000 of notes were carried to the credit of the Bank reserve in 1857. The notification from the Government to the Bank of England in 1857 was, he believed, identical with the notification made during the present year; but in 1857 the contingency provided for in the Government letter had actually occurred, and the Bank of England, in the exercise of their discretion in making loans, had passed the amount of credit notes permitted by the Act of 1844, so that it became necessary at once to add £2,000,000 of notes to the reserve. Now, however, this was not the case. In 1866 the Bank had not passed the ordinary limit of their issue, and therefore they had no occasion to create a specific amount of notes in order to replenish their reserve. If the hon. Member imagined from that, however, that the action of the Bank had been less liberal and less extensive on the present occasion, he was entirely mistaken. The hon. Member asked, "Why did you not make £5,000,000 of notes?" But if they had done so they would have had them all in hand to-day, and of what advantage would that have been? The circulation out of the Bank walls was, on the 9th of May, £22,345,000; on the
  1750
  16th of May it was £26,121,000, that was to say, nearly £4,000,000 of additional notes had been issued up to that date. On the other hand, the securities indicating the actual amount of the advances made stood on the 9th of May at £31,778,000; and on the 16th of May at £41,780,000, that was to say, the difference, showing the extent of the action taken by the Bank and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was not £5,000,000, with which the hon. Gentleman would have been satisfied, but £10,000,000 and upwards. He need hardly say more to show the extent of the relief afforded as the consequence of the letter placed in the hands of the Bank of England. The retention of the 10 per cent rate was very distasteful to the hon. Member for Stockport. The Bank reduced the rate of discount in 1857, when the reserve had increased to £7,500,000, but with what consistency could the Bank be asked to lower the rate of interest and relinquish the advantages of the Government letter, when, as the hon. Member himself stated, the reserve in the Bank was only £3,400,000? [Mr. WATKIN: They should have applied for another letter if it was necessary.] To relinquish a letter one day, and the next day ask to have it given back again, would have been a proceeding covering the Bank with ridicule, showing, as it must do, that they did not know their own minds. The hon. Member should bear in mind that the Bank had to consider not merely the state of affairs in Liverpool and London, but also on the Continent, which tended to create difficulties which not even the high rate of interest could effectually guard against. The hon. Member for Stockport had laid down what appeared to him (Mr. Hubbard) to be an exceedingly dangerous proposition, and that was that the supply of currency ought to bear some direct proportion to the progress of trade. Practically, the supply of currency, depending as it did on the influx of bullion, was unlimited. But he denied that any analogy such as was here sought to be sustained could be established between them; for greatly as our trade had been increased, and effectively as its various operations had been carried on, the multiplication and extension of banking expedients had more than counterbalanced that extension of trade. The general diffusion among all classes of the community of the use of banking accounts and cheque books had mitigated materially the necessity for holding a large amount of bank

  1751
  notes. And all these banking expedients, and the extension of all those economizing means, were to be hailed with gladness and satisfaction as long as they were not carried to any dangerous extreme, because they economized the use of that capital for which in our day so many means of employment existed. Many charges had been brought against the Bank Act, which was said to have failed on three distinct occasions. The hon. Member for Stockport was kind enough to inform the House what were the objects of that measure. According to the hon. Member one of the objects was convertibility of bank notes, another the convenience of trade, and the third, avoidance of panic. Let it for once be understood what the Bank Act really was. The Bank Act said not a word about panics—not a word about the convenience of trade. [Mr. WATKIN: No, but its supporters did.] Well, if the purpose of a measure were to be tested by what fell at any time from the lips of enthusiastic advocates, he did not believe any Act in the world had answered its purpose. He thought the Act ought rather to be allowed to speak for itself; its provisions were exceedingly brief and clear. It drew, not one day too soon, a legal separation between the two distinct offices of banking and of issue. It did this on the ground, which it was of primary importance to establish, that, while banking was an industry which ought to be as open as the day and as free as air to every one, the province of issuing or coining paper into money was an Imperial function. It was of the utmost importance that this truth should be established, and that they should not go back, as the hon. Member seemed inclined to do, to the old confusion between banking and issue as a way out of the difficulty. This was a point which he trusted no Government would surrender, but would preserve for the advantage of the whole country. Credit paper being in some degree of an arbitrary nature, but being at the same time based on experience, should always be a defined quantity. It was not capable of being treated with a lax discretion; the quantity must be limited and defined; and the Bank Act limited and defined it. That Act now provided that the Bank might issue on securities to the extent of £15,000,000 and no more, and that was the clause which was assumed now to have been abrogated. But he would ask the House to consider what that abrogation meant. The Act was intended for a cer-
  1752
  tain purpose, and it was found to be so perfectly master of its position, and so capable of bearing its own weight, that it had been burdened sometimes with a great deal more, and burdened successfully. That to his mind was not an abrogation of the principle of the Act. He would offer an illustration: a bridge might be thrown across a river, and to ensure that it should not be tasked above its strength, a limit might be placed upon the amount of traffic to pass over it. But some time afterwards another bridge in the neighbourhood having broken down, and it being certain from long experience that the remaining bridge would bear an additional amount of traffic beyond the amount to which the limitation applied, a further stipulated weight is permitted to pass over it. Surely the permission to carry this further traffic cannot be construed as a declaration that the bridge had failed to accomplish its primary purpose. The Bank of England was the bridge; the Bank Charter Act the regulation limiting the traffic. The Bank, under the Act, had been able to bear the whole burden imposed upon it, and with such ease and certainty that when a suspension of commercial credit had arrived, it was possible to impose upon the Bank the burden of issuing a subsidiary currency without that subsidiary currency being exposed to any risk of inconvertibility. His hon. Friend seemed to imagine that the going back to the state of the Currency Law antecedent to 1844 would put us in a happy and prosperous position; but what would have been their position when the collapse of credit arrived had the Act of 1844 not been passed? He presumed his hon. Friend would not say that the collapse of credit was the fault of the Bank Charter Act, and that to it was to be attributed the fact that bankers kept no reserve. He would endeavour to show the position in which the Bank of England and the country would have been if they had been proceeding under the old system. The average amount of bullion held in the last five years of the old system was no more than £6,700,000; while during the last five years the amount of bullion held was upwards of £15,000,000. if the reserve of the present year had not exceeded £7,000,000, and it had been subjected to the influences which had recently been brought to bear upon the Bank, the panic would not have been arrested by the additional issue of something less than £1,000,000 in bank notes; the inter-

  1753
  nal drain would have been much greater, and the occurrence of many bank casualties would probably have resulted in the suspension of cash payments by the Bank of England. He therefore ventured to affirm that the principle of the Bank Act had proved victorious, and that it had triumphed over the great difficulties placed in its path, and all he lamented was that the language used with respect to it had tended to throw an unfavourable gloss over its operations. The true description of the recent intervention would have been that it was a letter sanctioning, if need be, the creation of an additional amount of credit notes for a limited circulation. So far from the Bank being in danger it was because it was so strong that it could safely be intrusted with the power to issue more notes. He held very strongly, indeed, that any operation which had the appearance of interference with the nature of the credit paper of the country was a great evil, for the creation of which no justification could be found. But he did not deny that it was incumbent upon the Government to find a summary remedy in the emergency which had occurred; nor did he insist that pressure and panic would result only from our system of currency. In the town of Hamburg, with only a silver currency, a crisis occurred in 1847 which resulted in the failure of 140 commercial houses; and he was of opinion that no system of currency could avoid panic and failure. The first duty of the Government undoubtedly was to ensure under all circumstances the convertibility of that currency which was the basis of all monetary transactions; and when that was done then let them find some means of meeting the difficulties occasioned by the collapse of private credit. This was, perhaps, not the moment to say all that might be said on the subject; but he trusted that, whether the Government did or did not during the recess mature some plan which they might bring up for the consideration of the House next Session, at all events, when the House met again this might become a matter for investigation. He could assure the hon. Member for Stockport, on the part of the Bank of England, that they would cordially welcome any inquiry that might be instituted, for that nothing would be farther from their desire than to shroud themselves even for a time under a veil of secresy. His own impression was that the question should be treated in the same way as one of the great fundamental principles of the Constitution was dealt with. The
  1754
  Habeas Corpus Act had been suspended in Ireland; but no Act could be passed declaring under what circumstances the Habeas Corpus Act should be suspended in future; its suspension must be left to the discretion of the Legislature. The matter under discussion demanded attentive consideration, which might lead to some useful legislation; but in no case should encouragement be given to the banking world to assume that, in any emergency, they had a right to ask the Government to supply them at any price with a reserve which they should in common prudence have secured for themelves.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I am afraid that the period of the Session is too far advanced to admit of the adequate discussion by all the Gentlemen who feel an interest in the subject of the numerous questions relating to the present state of our monetary affairs. For my own part, so anxious am I not to trespass unduly upon the time of the House, that I shall confine my remarks within a very few minutes. My main purpose in rising is to accept as far as it belongs to me a share of whatever responsibility may attach to the determination of the Government to decline to accede to the proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport for the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the working of the Bank Charter Act and the recent or present monetary crisis. Not only in that portion, but in its whole scope and extent, the speech of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade was as eminently satisfactory as it was clear and interesting. With regard to the appointment of a Commission, I think that we ought never to ask a Government to undertake a function which it is impossible for them to perform with any approach to satisfaction. Now, in appointing a Commission to inquire into the question of the currency, they must take one of two courses, because there is no answer to the remark of my right hon. Friend, that an inquiry into the recent circumstances of the money-market absolutely involves causes and principles as well as facts. That being so, the Government must either select the members of the Commission from one particular school of politicians, united in principle, with a determination on the part of the followers of other schools to renounce and repudiate and discredit the whole of the proceedings of the Commission from the very first, or else the Government may proceed impartially by combining on the Commission the

  1755
  most eminent men of the different schools of currency, and in that case they must expect to receive three or four Reports from the Commission, because we are none of us sanguine enough to believe that the work of conversion and conciliation would go on amongst distinguished professors of the different schools. And I must say that, whatever might be the result of that Commission, I am convinced that, so far as it related to causes and principles, it would not weigh with this House. Charged as we have been for half a century with all the interesting discussions and considerations of the principles relating to the currency, it would be a great innovation to deliver over the prosecution of that subject into other hands, and the effect of that innovation would, I believe, be injurious and detrimental to the progress of the question itself. My right hon. Friend has stated that the Government will consider the question during the recess, that if they find themselves in a position to propose legislation to Parliament, they will do so on their own responsibility, and that if they should not, they will make no objection to the institution of a Parliamentary inquiry, if it should be desired. I think that that announcement is in both its branches perfectly fair; indeed, I am afraid that in one respect my right hon. Friend was disposed to go a little too far. I understood him almost to promise that if a measure was introduced by the Government, it should be referred to a Select Committee. Now, I do not think that a question of this magnitude and intricacy could with advantage be referred to such a Committee after it had once assumed the definite and determined form which it must have taken in order to be presented in the shape of a Bill to this House. Only recommending further consideration on that point, I think the Government have pursued the right and proper course, and exercised a wise discretion in the announcement they have made. My right hon. Friend has manfully asserted that, in his opinion, the success of the Act of 1844 has been general and unequivocal, although it may remain perfectly open to us to inquire with propriety and advantage what Amendments may be introduced into that Act. And certainly, I had thought that it was admitted, I will not say upon all hands, but generally amongst those who were practically conversant with monetary questions, and who have acquired the greatest authority upon those subjects, that in many
  1756
  respects at least we must recognize the great benefits derived from the working of this Act. At any rate, the convertibility of the bank note, the first object of a system of currency laws, has been placed beyond the smallest question—not only beyond the reach of absolute danger, but beyond the slightest taint of apprehension or suspicion. The whole system of meeting foreign drains has been so completely established, and is now so generally understood, that we may fairly say that so far as foreign drains are concerned there is no longer any apprehension or difficulty either in the present or the future. Well, but the solution of that problem is, of itself, a most important fact. The Bank Act of 1844, as has been stated by my hon. Friend who spoke last, likewise laid down a principle of great importance, and one which, I hope, will never disappear from our statute book, but will, on the contrary, acquire increased recognition as circumstances may permit—I mean this principle, that the whole business of issue is the business of the State—and that where that function is exercised by any body other than the State, it must be considered as exercised by delegation only. The profit of issues belongs to the State, and what is much more important than the profit is that the responsibility of issue also belongs to the State, and for my part I must confess I know not upon what principle we can justify—I speak now of the system of currency which prevails in England—I know not upon what principle we can justify, except as a provisional and temporary arrangement, the circulation of instruments under the name of promissory notes, which are intended to pass, and which do habitually pass, from hand to hand, unguaranteed, unsecured—resting solely on private responsibility, performing work which it is the duty of the State to perform, and yet without any security from the State sufficient to secure the holder of those notes from loss. And this leads me to remark upon a point which has not been noticed, I think, either by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport or by any other hon. Member in the course of this debate. I must say that when this Parliamentary inquiry comes to be instituted, or when the attention of the Government is directed to this subject, I most earnestly trust it will not by any means be confined to the working of the system of the Bank of England with respect to the crisis in which we have

  1757
  been involved. The character of this crisis has been a banking crisis. I cannot help thinking that we have been somewhat too severe throughout this discussion upon the general commerce of the country. That commerce, so far as I have been able to observe, has been in a sound and satisfactory state. The charge of excessive speculation and recklessness is not applicable, I think, to the manner in which for some years the general commerce of the country has been carried on. It appears to be one of the satisfactory incidents of the transition we have made from a system of restriction to a system of freedom, that our commerce is not only vastly more extensive, but more sound and solid. As regards the banking business of the country—as regards the making of investments—as regards the holding, or I should rather say the non-holding, of reserves—as regards the practice of showing reserves upon paper, which reserves themselves have been lodged in investments—as regards the practice of making enormous advances, not upon the well-considered credit of individuals, but upon speculations and undertakings of every kind, enormous in extent, and often wholly unjustifiable in their quality and character, being in fact irrecoverable at the proper time, and illegitimate for bankers, even if they were legitimate for any other parties —as regards these, and more than these points, we have had for some time past a very unsound and unsatisfactory state of things. But now, with regard to banking, I hope hon. Gentlemen will not leave out of view the part which has been played by the unsecured and unguaranteed private circulation in this country during the present crisis. What have we been labouring under? Why is the rate of discount charged by the Bank kept up at 10 per cent? It is because of the limited condition of its reserve. And why is the reserve so limited? Because of the immense demand consequent upon banking discredit —the immense demand made upon the notes and coin of the Bank. Notes and coin have been called to supply this want. But what part has been played during this period by the country bank circulation? Has that circulation been found available for the wants of the country? There has been an immense demand for notes and coin, and under these circumstances, if the country bank circulation had been in a satisfactory state, it is evident that not only the notes and coin of the Bank of England
  1758
  but those of the country banks themselves would have been largely drawn upon. Instead of that, however, we have seen the country bank circulation actually diminished by not less than £1,000,000 at the very time of this drain on the Bank of England. And how has the place of this £1,000,000 been supplied? Why, by an enhancement of the drain upon the Bank of England. It appears to me, therefore, that we find this most unsatisfactory result—that that £1,000,000 of notes in the coffers of the Bank of England, which would have been such a valuable addition to its reserve, has been withdrawn in consequence of the position in which the country banks have been placed. I have not given, and am not going to give, utterance to an opinion, nor am I suggesting that any measure should be adopted that would savour of harshness to the issuers of country bank notes. Still less am I endeavouring to fix upon them or seeking to imply that the country bank issuers have acted either prudently or imprudently in the conduct of their business. Into that question I do not enter. But I think that the system upon which those issues are at present founded, is a bad system. It is a system entirely at variance with the spirit and intention of the Act of 1844, it is entirely at variance, I think, with the laws which ought to regulate our currency. I hold that no bank note ought to circulate in the country unless it is just as secure to the holder as a sovereign. I only wish further to say one word with respect to the letter of Lord Clarendon, which was written shortly after the Government letter to the Bank. My hon. Friend (Mr. Watkin) stated that the effect of that letter was to enhance apprehensions entertained in foreign countries on the subject of English credit. I know not whether that was the case. It is the first time I have heard the statement; but this I can say, the object of that letter was to remove that apprehension and alarm and discredit which already had been propagated abroad —I know not why, inasmuch as this was not the first occasion upon which a suspensory letter had been issued by the Government in reference to the Act of 1844. But undoubtedly it is a fact that that letter, acting on a more susceptible state of mind, was understood abroad as amounting to a suspension of cash payments. That was the construction put upon it; and I think that no later than by return of post there came an offer—a most friendly offer

  1759
  —from the French Government to assist us with a supply of bullion. Is was in consequence of that extraordinary misapprehension, which appeared to be doing great mischief, that it was thought wise by my noble Friend—and I confess I concurred in that opinion—to explain that nothing had occurred to alter the general character of English credit, and to point out the circumstances under which the crisis had arisen. I think, however, it is unnecessary now to enter more fully into those matters with regard to which the working of the Bank Act may be a fair subject of Parliamentary inquiry. Undoubtedly, although it may be said on the one hand that we have had many of those Committees—we have had them in 1832, in 1842, in 1847, and again in 1858 and 1859—yet this fact remains, that each crisis in succession developed new circumstances. The present crisis, in particular, has had a very novel and marked character of its own, in consequence of its being so much connected with the management of banking business, in fact, with the action of what, I think, my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) in one of his interesting works calls the lending capitalists as distinguished from the industrial capitalists. It has been a crisis mainly connected, not so much with the conduct of commerce properly so called, as with the employment of money, and I think, upon that ground alone, the Government would be justified, if it should be the general desire of the House, and if, which I should prefer, they do not at once make any proposal of their own, the Government would be justified in bringing the whole case before a Parliamentary Committee; and I believe the House would not be indisposed to accede to such a proposal.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he had listened with some surprise to the statements made upon the subject in the course of the debate. He was not going to dispute the allegations of the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett), and still less those of his hon. Friend (Mr. Hubbard), that there had been a great amount of gambling, or what might very nearly be called swindling, going on in these companies, which had been the principal cause of all that trouble, and that the crisis had not been entirely occasioned by the existing state of the law. His right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Stafford Northcote) had told them that it all arose from the short amount of loanable capital with
  1760
  reference to the demand upon it. He would not attempt to controvert either of those propositions. There was, however, one proposition that lay deeper than either, and that was that the difficulty arose from the vast increase of banking operations. They all knew that those operations had of late years been greatly extended—that every chandler's shop had a banker, and the use of a banker now was not to take care of money for people, but to lend them money. But a question which lay deeper than that was this — Had or had not the system which had grown up from extensive banking, and which was called "financing," been operated upon, and partially, if not mainly, increased by the working of the Act of 1844? That might seem a paradoxical question, but let them look at what immediately took place after the passing of that Act, and they would find from the evidence adduced before the various Committees which sat on that subject that the action of the Bank of England then changed—that whereas before that time the Bank of England was somewhat above the market rate of interest, after that period, directly money was cheap, they became such competitors in the open market, that they went below the market rate—their figures being under those of the great houses of Gurney and others. He saw an hon. Gentleman shaking his head, but he had the figures in his pocket, if there was any doubt about the fact. Not only was that stated, but the Governor and Deputy Governor of the Bank also stated that they did not at all look at the nature and origin of the transactions connected with the paper offered to them, but only to the security; and it was perfectly clear from the evidence that the great money houses which dealt in all that questionable paper, and upheld all those questionable finance houses, instead of being checked by the Bank of England, were so strong from the peculiar position of the Bank, that they took that paper to the Bank, and they were forced to discount it. All these facts stood upon the Reports of the various Committees, and therefore it might be a matter for inquiry how far the great immorality, as it had been called, which now existed, had been in a great degree, he would not say created, but left without any possible check by the great monetary body which up to that time had put a check upon it, and would not touch paper of a kind which it was not necessary to attempt to name. All these were questions which

  1761
  must arise. He was not at all prepared to say that the Government had not come to a wise decision as to a Commission; but if they had arrived at such a conclusion, he did not see the use of having a Committee afterwards, which would be quite an idle proceeding. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire that, in matters of that nature, any change which was to be made should be proposed by the Government on their responsibility, and not sent to a Committee upstairs afterwards.
  MR. J. B. SMITHmoved the adjournment of the debate.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he had no objection to the proposal, but all he could undertake to do was to give this question precedence of the Orders of the Day on Friday next.
  Debate adjourned till this day.

  IRELAND—HARBOUR OF REFUGE ON THE EAST COAST.—QUESTION.
  MR. FITZWILLIAM DICKsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether his attention has been directed to the great necessity that exists for a Harbour of Refuge on the Eastern Coast of Ireland, particularly between Wicklow and Waterford, where of late years, for want of which, so many vessels have been lost; and whether it is the intention of the Government to take any steps in the matter next year?
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE,in reply, said, the Question was one which more properly belonged to the Department of the Board of Trade than to that of the Secretary for Ireland. The matter was one of great importance, as there was no doubt that a considerable number of wrecks had taken place on the Eastern Coast of Ireland; but, so far as he was aware, it had never been suggested that a harbour of refuge was required on that portion of the coast to which his hon. Friend referred. He believed the wrecks were occasioned by the vessels running on the Arklow and other banks, and it was more important to warn vessels off the coast than to give them facilities for going near the coast. At the present moment an inquiry was being made as to the lighting of those banks, and he thought it possible that some arrangement would be made between the Trinity House and the Board of Trade for some improvement in the lighting of that coast. It was not in contemplation
  1762
  to take any steps for constructing a harbour of refuge.

METROPOLIS—WATERLOO BRIDGE.

  QUESTION.
  MR. ALDERMAN LAWRENCEsaid, he would beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works, Whether, in consequence of the large number of persons who will be turned out of their homes in the neighbourhood of Temple Bar and the Strand by the clearing of the site for the New Courts of Justice, he will bring in a Bill in the next Session of Parliament for the purchase of Waterloo Bridge and opening the same to the public free, there being no free bridge between Blackfriars and Westminster Bridges, a distance of nearly two miles?
  LORD JOHN MANNERS: Sir, it is not my intention to introduce such a measure.

METROPOLIS—LONDON UNIVERSITY.

  QUESTION.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEsaid, he wished to ask the First Commissioner of Works, Whether he has any objection, in compliance with the intimation made by his predecessor, to exhibit, for the benefit of Members, the design which Mr. Pennethorne has been commissioned to make for London University, proposed to be built in Burlington House Garden?
  LORD JOHN MANNERS: It is impossible for me to exhibit the design referred to by the hon. Member, as it is not in my possession.

  MINES.—QUESTION.
  MR. CLIVEsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he will introduce a Bill next Session founded on the Report of the Commission appointed to inquire into the condition of all Mines in Great Britain to which the Act 23 & 24 Vict. c. 151 does not apply?
  MR. WALPOLE: The only answer I can give at present is, that I think some Bill will have to be introduced on the subject, but as to the provisions of such Bill I cannot at present form any opinion.

  INDEMNITY BILL.—QUESTION.
  MR. HADFIELDsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, after passing this Session the Parliamentary Oaths Bill and

  1763
  the Qualification for Offices Abolition Bill, he considers it necessary for any, and what, reasons to introduce a yearly Indemnity Bill?
  MR. WALPOLE,in reply, said, the Act would be clearly unnecessary with reference to those offices alluded to in the Act of Geo. IV., but there were Acts of older date which he did not think that the hon. Gentleman's remarks applied to. He was now inquiring into the matter, which was a complicated one, and he hoped by Thursday next to be able to say whether a modified Indemnity Bill would be required. He thought that it would.

DISTURBANCES IN JAMAICA.

  RESOLUTION.
  MR. BUXTONrose to call attention to the concluding paragraph of the Report of the Royal Jamaica Commission, namely—
  "That the punishments inflicted were excessive; that the punishment of death was unnecessarily frequent; that the floggings were reckless, and at Bath positively barbarous; that the burning of 1,000 houses was wanton and cruel;"
  and to the further statement of the Commission that among the sufferers—
  "There were many who were neither directly nor indirectly parties to the disturbances;"
  and to move the following Resolutions:—

  1. "That this House deplores the excessive punishments which followed the suppression of the disturbances of October last in the parish of St. Thomas, Jamaica, and especially the unnecessary frequency with which the punishment of death was inflicted.

  2. "That this House, while approving the course taken by Her Majesty's Government in dismissing Mr. Eyre from the Governorship of the Island, at the same time concurs in the view expressed by the late Secretary of the Colonies, that 'while any very minute endeavour to punish acts which may now be the subject of regret' would not be expedient, still, that great offences ought to be punished;' and that grave excesses of severity on the part of any Civil, Military, or Naval Officers ought not to be passed over with impunity.

  3. "That, in the opinion of this House, it is the duty of Her Majesty's Government to award compensation to those whose property was wantonly and cruelly destroyed, and to the families of those who were put to death illegally.

  4. "That, since considerably more than 1,000 persons are proved to have been executed or severely flogged on the charge of participating in these disturbances, all further punishment on account of them ought to be remitted."

  He said: No one need fear that in supporting these Resolutions he would run any risk of hampering or increasing the responsibility of any Governor or other
  1764
  official who might have to deal with any insurrection that might arise on future occasions. He did not ask the House to express any opinion whatever upon anything that was done during the suppression of the disturbances. On the other hand, he wished it to be clearly understood that these Resolutions meant nothing else than a decisive and emphatic condemnation of the excessive severity with which the disturbances had been punished after they had been suppressed and authority had been completely restored; while, per contra, those who might vote against these Resolutions would in the first place be incidentally censuring the course taken by the late Government, but much more than that, they would, so far as in them lay, be expressing a deliberate approval on behalf of the British people of the excessive severity with which the disturbances had been punished. With regard to the proposal for compensation, of course the funds must be supplied by the mother country, as the acts were done by English officers under the authority of the Governor. Now, it had been officially proved that besides mill-houses and so forth, 1,000 dwellings had been destroyed by the troops. A great deal had been said about these houses being mere hovels of no value. But on this point he would read the description given of them by one of the gentlemen who took part in destroying them, and which appeared in the Army and Navy Gazette of December 16. The writer said—
  "This morning found us again on the march for Somerset, a rebel settlement. I could have wished to sketch this extraordinary place. In Ross Island the rebels lived in comfort, at Mount Lebanus in affluence, but in Somerset it was downright luxury; boarded houses, cedar tables and chairs, quantities of beautiful glass and china, carved mahogany bedsteads, &c., display an amount of comfort unknown in England even, and when to this we add the horses mules, pigs, poultry, and extensive provision grounds, it makes it all the more remarkable that people like this should rebel. Whoever wants to see a crop of coffee let him go to Somerset and Mount Lebanus. Passing through this beautiful spot, and firing every house in it, except three, we then recrossed the river."
  The late Governor of Jamaica, Sir Henry Barkley, stated in one of his despatches that he was reminded by the negro settlements in the hills of the villages in Switzerland, and says—
  "They have a decided air of progressive civilization and comfort about them," and speaks of "the thousands of well-cultivated settlements, with their tastefully arranged cottages and gardens, bespeaking the prosperity and comfort of

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  the occupants, and presenting a cheering prospect of the future."
  Let him add that the suffering of the people from the destruction of their houses was shown to have been most severe. The misery of the women and children from hunger and cold in the mountains was actually mentioned by one officer in his despatch. With regard to the last Resolution there were at the moment when he was speaking, fifteen persons under sentence of penal servitude for life, eleven for twenty years, two for ten years, and another for two years' hard labour, on account of their connection with this so-called rebellion.
  COLONEL NORTH: Can the hon. Member give a detailed account of the crimes for which those men were sentenced? [Cries of "Order!"]
  MR. BUXTONsaid, he did not complain of the interruption of the hon, and gallant Gentleman. He would enter fully upon that part of the subject presently. Surely Her Majesty's Government might well be satisfied with the execution and flogging of nearly 1,100 persons, and the destruction of 1,000 homes belonging to the so-called rebels, and it would be only just and prudent to pardon those few unhappy wretches, the gleanings after the harvest of vengeance. He must now dismount, if he could, some of the pleas that had been advanced in defence of the authorities. The main plea that had been put forward was that the outbreak at Morant Bay had its origin in a deep, dark, widespread conspiracy to massacre the whole white population of Jamaica, to overthrow the authority of the Queen, and to establish a Republic after the model of that of Hayti. Perhaps it might suffice if he quoted the deliberate statement of the Royal Commission, that—
  "The conclusion at which they had arrived was decisive as to the non-existence of any such widespread conspiracy."
  But lest anyone should dispute the dictum of the Commission, he felt it necessary to enter with some minuteness into this very important question. The outbreak at Morant Bay clearly arose from some violent local squabbles about the land on which the negroes had settled, and from which they were expelled. Their irritation was greatly increased by their feeling that justice was not to be got in the Courts, and the negroes, debarred from what they supposed to be their rights, were seized with a desire for vengeance against the indivi-
  1766
  duals by whom they conceived themselves to have been wronged. He should not be justified in concealing his belief that at any rate the leaders of the riot at Morant Bay meant mischief, perhaps even murder against Mr. Herschell and Baron Ketelholdt, who had taken an active part against them. A negro named Lawrence on the morning of that day advised Dr. Major not to go to the vestry meeting, and afterwards informed Mrs. Major that "there was a great disturbance, but that she need not be under any apprehension about the doctor." He had no doubt the aim of the rioters was to murder, or, at any rate, to illtreat those two individuals, and there was no reason whatever, except vague bits of talk reported afterwards by excited persons, for believing that they had any design of overthrowing the authority of the Queen or massacreing the white inhabitants. They came down a mere unorganized horde, as every witness but one or two described them, armed only with the hooks used in cutting canes and bushes, and sticks and stones, except the muskets which they snatched from the police-station on their road, and which had neither flints nor powder. When they advanced upon the Court House, finding the Volunteers drawn up in front of them, they flung stones, wounding some of the company, and among others its captain, who thereupon, quite justifiably, for the Riot Act had been read, gave the order to fire. According to Corporal Marks some twenty negroes fell killed or wounded. This maddened the mob, and, rushing upon the Volunteers before they could reload, they seized some of their rifles and drove them all inside the Court House. The Volunteers began firing from the windows, the negroes, in return, firing upon them; but it was a remarkable fact that those wounded in the Court House were shown in evidence to have been shot with gravel, not with bullets. The negroes at last set the Court House on fire, overpowered the whites, of whom eight civilians and seven Volunteers, making a total of fifteen, were killed, besides three old pauper negroes said to have perished in the ruins. Thirty-six or thirty-seven others escaped with their lives, though mostly more or less injured. During the whole of that night the town was in complete possession of the rioters; yet not a single other white person was touched. Did this square with the theory of a design of massacre? Moreover, Paul Bogle, the undoubted head

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  of the movement, retired on the night of the 11th with a large body of rioters to Stony Gut, about six miles north-west of Morant Bay; and though he, if any one, knew what was meant, he had nothing to do with the two murders, these being committed by a mob without a leader, which started from Morant Bay, and traversed the eastern end of the island, plundering on their way several houses whose owners had fled. A book-keeper, said to have been a mulatto, was beaten and wounded while nobly defending his master's property, and died sixteen days afterwards. Some of the rioters turned aside to attack Amity Hall. The occupier, Mr. Hire, who had made himself exceedingly bated for the part he had taken in expelling the negroes from the back lands, was cruelly beaten and died the next morning. His son and two others were also wounded, but another Englishman, who was ill in bed, was unmolested. The next morning when some of the rioters returned and found Mr. Creighton severely wounded, they tended him with great care, and he recovered. They did not kill any other white or coloured persons, but went on along the east coast, plundering the houses which had been deserted on their approach, until on Sunday, the 15th, they reached Elmwood, about thirty miles from Morant Bay. On that day troops were landed at Port Antonio, twelve miles distant, and either owing to the news of the landing or to the movement having spent itself, the disturbances then entirely ceased. Between 100 and 200 English people were on these estates, and no doubt they were terribly frightened; but, although the negroes were in complete possession of the disturbed districts from Thursday morning to Sunday, the 15th, two, and only two, persons were killed, against one of whom they had special causes of irritation, and both these were killed on the first day after the outbreak. But what appeared to him absolutely to refute the surmise of an intended massacre was that though the Manchioneal district was in the very centre of the disturbances Mr. Fleming, a magistrate, and two Miss Flemings, the Rev, Alfred Bourne, two Master Bournes and a nurse, Miss Gibbs, and Mr. Dobell remained at Bettis Hope, and not one of them was so much as insulted, although their presence was well known to all the negroes of the district. In fact, Mr. and Miss Fleming intrusted themselves to the negroes for concealment during the first
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  few hours of alarm. Judging the rioters by what they actually did, and not by a few wild cries or words, the irresistible conclusion was that a general massacre was no part of their design. At first, moreover, it was generally believed that they intended also to seize on the persons of white women; but, in fact, only one coloured woman, Mrs. Hutchins, was treated with much insolence, and that was all. The next plea by which the excessive punishments were justified was that the negroes had been guilty of such horrible cruelty to some of their victims as to demand the meting out to them of almost any amount of vengeance. On that point he did not think it possible for the warmest advocates of Governor Eyre to justify his conduct. In his despatch of October 20, nine days after the massacre, the Governor wrote officially to Mr. Cardwell—
  "The most frightful atrocities were perpetrated. The Rev. V. Herschell is said to have had his tongue cut out whilst still alive, and an attempt is said to have been made to skin him. One person, Mr. Charles Price, was ripped open and his entrails taken out. One gentleman, Lieutenant Hall, is said to have been pushed into an out-building, which was then set on fire, and kept there until he was literally roasted alive. Many are said to have had their eyes scooped out. Heads were cleft open, and the brains taken out. The Baron's fingers were cut off, and carried away as trophies by the murderers;"
  and then Mr. Eyre went on to attribute these atrocities to the women who were present. And now it was proved beyond all dispute before the Commission, by the medical men and others who examined the bodies, that the Rev. V. Herschell's tongue was not cut out, that no attempt had been made to skin him; that Mr. Price, the negro, was not ripped open, and that Lieutenant Hall was not roasted alive; that no eyes were scooped out, no brains taken out, nor, as some said, mixed with gunpowder and drunk; and the Baron's fingers, though chopped with the cutlass, were still hanging to his hand. How could the Governor of the Island be justified in not having taken the small trouble of inquiring from Dr. Major or Dr. Gerard whether these rumours were true? The result of his neglect was terrible. It was an actual fact that a girl—she was said to have been a fine-looking young woman—was tried by a court martial and sentenced to be hung, but recommended to mercy. Brigadier General Nelson officially informed General O'Connor that he hung her in spite of this recommendation to mercy. And these were his own almost incredible words. He said—

  1769
  "The atrocities perpetrated by women on the occasion of the massacre of Baron Von Kettleholdt communicated to me verbally by the custos, Mr. Georges, decided me to confirm the sentence, and ignore the recommendation for mercy."
  That is to say, General Nelson hung this woman, not because she had been proved to have perpetrated these atrocities, but because he was told by Georges — who would appear again in a most disgraceful aspect—that women had committed atrocities; whereas, ten minutes' inquiry would have shown that no atrocities had been committed at all. So much for that plea. A third plea had been loudly put forward by some of the more foolish advocates of the authorities—namely, that the hanging, shooting, and flogging of these 1,100 people was necessary, because, forsooth, the force at the disposal of the Governor was so small that had it not been, as it were, supplemented by measures calculated to strike terror into the disaffected population, the authority of the Queen, nay the very existence of the European population, would have been exposed to extreme danger. This view was expressed with great force and clearness by the hon. Member for Beverley (Sir H. Edwards) in addressing his constituents last winter. He said that but for these severities not a white person would have been left alive in the island. Now, had the Governor's force really been so slender and the enemy so powerful that it was the turn of a hair whether the European population was massacred and the colony lost or not, then he (Mr. Buxton) admitted that we could not find fault with almost anything that might be done in such a fearful emergency. But what were the real facts? The official return from Admiral Hope, of October 9, proved that at the time of the outbreak there were in Jamaica thirteen vessels of war, and just 1,700 men, whereof eight vessels and 1,135 men were available at short notice for active service about the island. In the Governor's very first despatch he referred to most of these vessels, and further mentioned two regiments of regular troops, while in a subsequent despatch he stated the number of these troops, at the time of the outbreak, at having been 1,000 men. Two additional battalions were immediately fetched from Barbadoes and Nassau, giving him 700 additional troops, so that he had 1,700 regular disciplined soldiers, in addition to the force of 1,135 men on board the various men-of-war. This amounted, therefore, to a regular force of nearly 3,000 men. More
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  troops were ordered from Halifax, and two vessels of war were sent to his assistance from Cuba. But, again, in his very first despatch he speaks of the militia under Colonel Lewis, the Volunteers, who soon amounted to 700 men, the pensioners, the marines, the mounted police, the Royal Artillery, and a force of some 300 or 400 maroons, under an experienced colonel. At the head of this very considerable force was Major General O'Connor, Brigadier General Nelson, and Admiral Hope. What was this overwhelming enemy with which this force could not be expected to cope, and into whom, therefore, it was necessary to strike terror by measures of tremendous severity? Why, in the first place, the enemy had no existence. The Governor himself said that the so-called rebels had no organization. Their only arms were the hooks with which they cut the sugar canes, and some very few guns; and the only difficulty with which the troops had to contend was that of discovering the rebels, whose only object was to escape. In one of his despatches to General O'Connor, Governor Eyre said—
  "Even in the districts where the rebellion actually broke out there was no attempt to resist the troops. An organized force of thirty-five men marched through the heart of the disturbed districts, from Port Morant to the Rhine beyond Bath."
  Before those severities, to which he should subsequently refer, were exercised, it had become evident that the movement in St. Thomas-in-the-East had not been followed by the faintest shadow of a shade of disturbance in any other part of the island. Silly people went on writing panic-stricken letters, but even what might have seemed at first the splendid success of the rioters, had not stirred a single negro in any other district to move a finger against the authorities. In fact, he was almost reminded of the old story of the skipper's reply to his terrified lady passenger, "Yes, ma'am, there's a great deal of fear, but there arn't no danger." Looking to these facts, he was utterly amazed that any one, who had any regard for the honour of England, dared to maintain that all this hanging, shooting, and flogging that went on for more than a month was necessary, because otherwise the negroes would have shaken off the Queen's authority, and driven the white inhabitants into the sea. Perhaps he had made too much of that despicable plea. He was sure that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite would scorn to put forward an argument at once

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  so cowardly and so futile. Then, again, it had been said that Governor Eyre had shown such wisdom and coolness in refusing to put Kingston under martial law, when strongly urged to do so, that we ought to confide in his judgment with regard to the other measures taken by him. Why, did those who urged this, remember that Kingston was forty miles to the west of Morant Bay, while the rioters went away to the eastward; that Kingston was separated from the disturbed districts by a chain of mountains; that General O'Connor was there with a considerable force; that not the faintest semblance of disaffection was exhibited by the people in that district, and that the occasion on which the Governor was thus urged by some frightened people was on his return from Morant Bay, when, according to his own official statement, the rebellion was got under. Had he proclaimed martial law at Kingston, at that time, he could never have held up his head again; he would have lowered himself to the level of such panic-stricken cowards as Dr. Bowerbank. With regard to Brigadier General Nelson, a despatch of his had been quoted a hundred times, as showing his prudence and humanity. Why, that despatch was not written, until the whole thing was over, on November 3. Nay, it was not addressed to any of the columns that went after the rebels, but to an ensign who was sent with a company to occupy a permanent post on the mountains. So much for the pleas that had been put forward to justify the acts of the authorities. He now came to the question, what these acts really were—and he would at the outset make two concessions, which might almost seem to go to the verge of extravagance. But he did not desire to go an inch beyond what truth and justice required; and for fear of running the shadow of a risk of any possible exaggeration, he would in the first place resist the strong temptation to make any use of that vast mass of evidence, much of it of a most telling kind, which had been given before the Commission by the negroes or their friends; nor would he use the abundant narratives written by eye-witnesses, written at the time or afterwards; nor would he deal with any cases which had already drawn the attention of the public; he would not enter into the atrocities committed by Provost Marshal Ramsay, or the sufferings of Mr. Levien and Mr. Bruce, or on what, primâ facie, would certainly appear to be the murders committed by Ensign Cullen
  1772
  and Surgeon Morris; nor on the doings of Colonel Fife when hunting the fugitives with his Maroons, nor on the terrible case of Mr. Gordon, because he understood that it would be brought forward by far abler hands. He could not, however, refrain from expressing his deepest indignation at the way in which efforts were made to ruin the character of that man, who in his heart he believed to have been of a most generous, noble, and kindly nature—and especially his scorn for Dr. Bowerbank, not only for the active part he took in his prosecution, but for coming to this country for the express purpose of blackening his memory. Throwing aside all this vast amount of material he had mentioned, he would confine himself wholly to official statistics, returns, and despatches. Of course, that would preclude him from any attempt at eloquence; it would make his speech dry and dull. Nor could he hope to touch the feelings of the House; but he believed he should in reality attain best what he wanted—namely, the deliberate decision of the House of Commons on the case, by avoiding anything that could be thought sensational, and appealing to the calm judgment of the House alone. Again, he would make another still larger concession. As he had said at the outset, he would refrain from touching on the acts done while the disturbances lasted. For argument's sake he would admit the truth of what had been so often said, that it was not right for us, sitting at home at ease, to criticize the acts done by men in a great emergency. He would not, then, dwell upon what was done until the insurrection had become entirely extinct, and the moment of peril and alarm was completely passed. Well, then, the dates of the events became of great importance, and he begged the attention of the House to them. The Report of the Commission showed that on the following Sunday Paul Bogle's party at Stony Gut were panic-stricken at the rumoured approach of the troops, and fled; while the other mob of rioters who had gone along the east coast vanished, either on hearing of the landing of the troops twelve miles off at Port Antonio, or because the movement had spent its force. But in the Report of the Commissioners before them, there was no dispute as to the facts he had mentioned. The rebellion, disturbance, riot, or whatever they might call it, became extinct on Sunday, the 15th. [Mr. BUXTON proceeded to quote a large number of extracts from Governor Eyre's despatches and his address to the

  1773
  Legislature of Jamaica, and an official entry, the upshot of which was that the rebellion had been completely got under by Sunday, the 15th.] The hon. Gentleman proceeded to say that by that time it was known that the outbreak on the previous Wednesday had not produced the faintest disturbance in any other part of Jamaica beyond the parish of St. Thomas-in-the-East. He should not be acting at all unfairly towards the authorities, if he took Monday, October 16, as his starting-point. However, he wished to go to the furthest extreme of fairness. He would, therefore, concede that this was too short a time for the panic to have subsided. He would give the authorities a few days more for growing cool. He would jump on as far as the end of the week after that of the riot —until, in fact, the tenth day in the history of the affair. By that day, beyond all possibility of denial, everything like peril or panic, or what might be called an emergency, was over. The Government wrote officially to Mr. Cardwell, saying that on the 21st he refused the aid of two Spanish vessels of war, "because long before their arrival we had got the rebellion under." Everything, therefore, done after that Friday, the 20th of October, was done in deliberate cold blood, not as precaution but as punishment alone. Now, let them mark this. On that day, October 20, fifty-three persons were executed. On and after that day, exclusive of all who had perished before, considerably more than 300 persons were put to death. But now he would go into detail; and, first of all, he would take the proceedings of Lieutenant Adcock. Lieutenant Adcock, in his despatch, considered the state of the country quiet throughout the district. He expressly says, in his despatch, "I consider the state of the country perfectly quiet throughout this district;" but on and after Friday, the 20th, he burnt fourteen houses and a meeting-house, and executed thirteen persons in that perfectly quiet district, besides flogging a large number more. Captain Ford again, who commanded a troop of mounted Volunteers, at the very end of October, said—
  "This morning we made a raid, and got back by 4 p.m.; then had a court martial. Several were flogged without court martial, on a simple examination. One man, a schoolmaster, got fifty lashes; one man 100; eight were condemned to be hanged or shot."
  But now they would turn to the district about Manchioneal, where that party of
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  English had remained perfectly untouched in the house of the Rev. Alfred Bourne, thirty miles away from Morant Bay. He would make no complaint of the fact that seventy persons had been put to death before Friday, October 20, but he found that on that day seven persons were executed, eighteen more before the end of October, and in November nineteen in addition; and scarcely any of those were accused of anything worse than rebellion. James Henry, for example, was charged with riot and stealing; Thomas Miller, with plunder; Samuel Bailey, as a constable joining rebels. Nay, even so late as November 11, a month after the outbreak, Alexander Wilson was hung as having been a spy, and inciting to rebellion. One man was put to death for blowing a shell at Manchioneal, another man for being concerned in rebellion, and so forth. In addition to these executions we find that at Manchioneal Captain Hole condemned thirty men to 100 or 150 lashes each, and many to lesser amounts, not one of whom had committed any offence greater than that of being with the rioters, and stealing. One, for example, was condemned to 150 lashes for having in his possession a mustard pot belonging to some Mr. Jones. Seventy-three persons were condemned to tremendous corporal punishment, and he (Mr. Buxton) blushed to say that in the official list seventeen women were stated to have received thirty lashes each with the cat-o'-nine-tails, though only charged with stealing. But this was not all. Exclusive of the above, sixty-one persons were condemned to long terms of imprisonment by Captain Luke or Captain Hole, of these, ten received 100 lashes, but in addition were condemned, six of them to ten, and four of them to five years' hard labour, and this for no other offence whatever, except that of having used seditious language, which in the eye of English law is no crime at all. Nearly all the rest had received fifty lashes each for the same offence, and had in addition been condemned to hard labour or penal servitude. Exclusive of all these, Captain Luke and Captain Hole, so late as October 28, and going on to November 13, condemned twenty-nine women for various periods of imprisonment and hard labour, sixteen of them to five years' hard labour. Of all the atrocities—for he would not hesitate to call them so—committed by Captain Hole and Captain Luke, none was more painful than the fact that a man

  1775
  named Donaldson was actually put to death by Captain Hole simply because he would not betray his friend "who was believed" —those were the official words—" who was believed to be guilty of complicity in the murder of Mr. Hire." Without the deliberate assurance of the Commissioners to that effect, could the House have credited that an English officer put a man to death in cold blood because he would not betray his friend? Again, three of Captain Hole's soldiers straggled away, or rather went out on a little shooting expedition of their own, and reported on their return that they had shot ten rebels, three of them supposed to have been mixed up in the murder of Mr. Hire; and they brought with them two cartloads of plundered property, part of which had belonged to that gentleman. Captain Hole's idea of discipline was shown by his writing an official despatch to Brigadier General Nelson, in which he reported "that these three men had done good service." How completely the rebellion was extinct at this time was clear from a subsequent passage, in which he said—
  "A great number of prisoners have been brought in, all of whom seem to vie with one another to make amends for their late delinquencies by capturing all the people concerned in the late rebellion."
  It was almost amusing to find this officer claiming to have rescued the Rev. Alfred Bourne and the party at Bettis Hope, who had not been in the smallest danger, and who only wished to remain quietly where they were. A black soldier, a deserter, shot ten persons without trial, and purely on his own hook; but not the slightest attempt was ever made by Captain Hole to identify or to punish him. Turning westwards towards Monkland, not a single act of slaughter, only one of plunder, was attributed to the rebels in the whole of this district. But here, again, on Friday, October 20th, no less than twenty-nine persons were executed by Colonel Hobbs, among them Arthur Wellington, whom he put up to be shot at, at 400 yards, and who was stated by the most trustworthy witness not to have been killed until the seventh shot. He did not complain of the leniency shown by the Commission to the authorities, but delicacy of feeling, perhaps, was carried to excess when they justified this transaction. After the melancholy end of Colonel Hobbs' career, he (Mr. Buxton) need not cast any blame upon him, but in truth the responsibility of his proceedings
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  lay elsewhere. In his evidence before the Commission poor Colonel Hobbs, when required to do so by the Commission, produced a letter which he said was not a private letter. It came to him in an official envelope; it was signed by Colonel Elkington, with the addition of his initials as Deputy Adjutant General; and Colonel Hobbs swore that this letter it was that caused him to act as he had done. This letter was as follows; it was dated so late as October 18:—
  "Dear Colonel,—I send you an order to push on at once to Stony Gut, but I trust you are there already. Hole is doing splendid service with his men all about Manchioneal, and shooting every black man who cannot account for himself (sixty on line of march.) Nelson at Port Antonio hanging like fun by court martial. I hope you will not send any black prisoners. Do punish the blackguards well."
  This letter was followed the next day by a formal despatch, in which the Adjutant General ordered Colonel Hobbs to make Monklands his head-quarters—
  "Hunting out all the rebels you find, and the Major General hopes you will deal in a more summary manner with them, and on no account forward prisoners to this place."
  Unquestionably, after receipt of these despatches, it was not Colonel Hobbs, but his superiors, on whom the responsibility mainly rested of the executions that ensued. There was, however, one feature with regard to them which deserved some notice. It was officially stated by Colonel Hobbs that the twenty-seven persons put to death on the 20th of October were all executed on the testimony of one single witness; and it turned out that this witness had himself been sentenced to death, but his life had been spared on the express condition of his making himself useful to the authorities. Besides the seventy-seven persons put to death, Colonel Hobbs flogged a large number, who, he says, "were chiefly youths and had been arrested as fugitives in the woods," and, he added, "the writhing and intense agony of the lash is frightful to witness." He goes on—
  "I adopted a plan which has struck immense terror into these wretched men; far more than death; that is, I caused them to hang each other. They entreat to be shot to avoid this, which appears to me to be a far more dreadful ordeal to them than death;"
  and then added, "I fired all the houses from which the inhabitants had fled;" and he afterwards goes on, "Your letter of approval of my proceedings has encouraged us to fresh energies," and accordingly the next day he shot four more and

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  flogged several who were "indirectly connected with the rebellion." Strangely enough for an official despatch, Colonel Hobbs proceeded to remark that what he had seen was "calculated to endear a man to the Established Church." So far (continued the hon. Gentleman) we have been dealing with the proceedings of subordinate officers who had had no instructions beyond those contained in letters and despatches such as those from Colonel Elkington. Now, let us turn to what took place under the direct superintendence of the authorities. What a relief it must be to pass from the sickening scenes at Manchioneal and Monklands, to the administration of justice under old and experienced soldiers like General O'Connor and Brigadier General Nelson, nay, under the very eye of the Governor himself. Here again, starting with Friday, October 20, we find that on that day, at Morant Bay alone, 19 persons were hung. The next day, Saturday, 18 were hung. On Monday, 19, including poor Mr. Gordon. On Tuesday, 14; Wednesday, 10; Thursday, 13; Friday, 13; Saturday, 11. On the following Monday, October 30, 18 days after the outbreak, 12; on the Tuesday, 14; on the Wednesday, 15; and still later 23 more persons were hanged. I say "persons," because I grieve to say that seven of those who were hanged were women. It would naturally be supposed that the 189 persons who, in batches, day after day, were consigned to the hangman at Morant Bay alone, had been guilty of aiding at least in the slaughter of Europeans. That was not so; for the official proceedings proved that of these 189 persons only twenty-five were even so much as accused of having been guilty of murder, or assisting in the commission of any murders, or even of any attempted murders; while all the rest were consigned to the gallows at this one place, by this one tribunal, upon no other charge except that of having been engaged in the so-called rebellion; and of these rebels three were women, Justinia Taylor, Mary Ann Francis, and Letitia Geoghegan. Nor were these 160 or more persons, men and women, even rebels taken red-handed in armed resistance to authority. But what made this case still more terrible was the reflection that the trial of these poor wretches at Morant Bay was conducted by a court martial, consisting of Lieutenant Brand, assisted by Lieutenant Errington, or Lieutenant Taylor, and Ensign Kelly, or Ensign Cole; and these young gentlemen com-
  1778
  menced their proceedings at eleven in the morning, finished them in the afternoon, and then, says Brand, in his flippant and shameful evidence, "he went off to his dinner," while the poor wretches whom he had been condemning were put to death, often under circumstances of shocking torture. Lieutenant Errington, who superintended 130 executions, says—
  "Occasionally the sailors had to assist the poor wretches to death, pulling them by the neck, or pushing the knot down closer to the neck;"
  and we are told elsewhere, though not officially, that sometimes large stones were put upon the necks of the sufferers to put an end to their fearful struggles. But now here is another frightful fact. On the 30th of October, Governor Eyre officially proclaimed—
  "That the wicked rebellion lately existing in certain parts of the county of Surrey had been subdued."
  He adds—
  "The chief instigators thereof and actors therein have been visited with the punishment due to their heinous offences; and I am certified that the inhabitants of the districts lately in rebellion are desirous of returning to their allegiance."
  Now, will it be believed that on and after the day of the publication of these words more than 100 negroes were executed, of whom sixty-four were executed at Morant Bay, with the express sanction and approval of Brigadier Nelson? It would be said, no doubt, that these men who were put to death after this solemn proclamation of the Governor must, of course, have been murderers. That was not so. Of the sixty-four men hung at Morant Bay after the publication of this amnesty, forty-six were charged with rebellion only, not with complicity in any murder. But, besides all these, 202 persons were flogged at Morant Bay alone, and great numbers were also condemned to long terms of imprisonment. Only in a very few cases had it been possible to discover what grounds the officers constituting the courts martial had for proving the guilt imputed to the prisoners. The Commissioners had discovered that three persons were hung merely for having taken a part in the petty local riot some time before the outbreak at Morant Bay, while three others were convicted, to use the words of the Commissioners, "upon affidavits made behind their backs by persons who, for anything that appeared to the contrary, might perfectly well have given their evidence in open court." Five persons were

  1779
  convicted at Port Antonio, on the unconfirmed testimony of a man who had himself just been sentenced to death as a spy; and actually, one of the persons thus convicted on the evidence of the condemned man had been one of the witnesses against him. He then adverted to the case of George Macintosh, who was hung because he had, as the witness deposed, attended a meeting in Gordon's house, and had been much opposed to the "respectability of the parish," although he had been seen attempting to dissuade the rioters from committing further mischief. This charge was made by a petty local officer. What a shocking crime! Opposed to the respectability of the parish! And this man was hung on the very day when Governor Eyre was writing his despatch, sending away the two ships of war from Cuba, because, in his own words, the rebellion had been got under long before. But now let him give a single specimen of Lieutenant Brand's administration of Justice. On the 3rd of November, some days after the proclamation of amnesty, Lieutenant Brand's court martial tried seven men, and hung them. Not a single one of the seven was so much as accused of any complicity in any murder, but only of rebellion, and one of them of treason. Let us select the case of this traitor: they had an official minute of his trial. The leading witness against him was Mr. Georges, and Mr. Georges himself mentioned, as part of his accusation, that the prisoner had used some insolent words of himself. Now, Mr. Georges had been convicted on several occasions of assaults and other offences against the negroes about him. However, his main charge against Samuel Clarke was, that in July, three months before this outbreak, at one of the so-called Underhill meetings, Clarke used some words of a seditious character. The reporter who was at the meeting also came forward to give evidence against Clarke, and gave an account of his speech, which also might have been regarded as indicating disaffection; but then the reporter and Mr. Georges gave a perfectly different account of what he had said. But then, in addition to this, Mr. Georges declared that when Mr. Cardwell's reply to the Underhill meetings was posted up, this man Clarke actually said of it, "It's a damned lie; neither the Queen nor Mr. Cardwell has ever seen the petition from the poor people of St. Anne's." Lieutenant Brand was forced by the Commissioners to admit that this proclamation was not
  1780
  signed by the Queen, but only by Edward Cardwell, so that in fact this poor fellow was hung for treason because he had accused the late Secretary of State for the Colonies of telling a "damned lie." The poor fellow appealed to Mr. Georges whether he was not an industrious man—a carpenter, who often brought the canes from his little freehold to be ground at Mr. Georges' mill; and he further pleaded, that at the time of the outbreak he was not living in the disturbed district at all, or anywhere near there, and that on hearing he was looked for by the police, he gave himself up, and had now been in prison for seventeen days. When he (Mr. Buxton) read the minutes of the proceedings in this case, he could hardly believe his eyes when he found that nothing else was charged against the prisoner, and that there was not so much as the faintest hint of his having been connected in any way with the recent riots, and yet that he was sentenced to be hanged for words used months before. What could add to the blackness of this black story? He blushed to say there was more. He was almost ashamed to tell what followed. It was proved before the Commission by four several witnesses that Samuel Clarke, this poor industrious carpenter, was one of a batch of prisoners who were flogged the day before his execution by Provost Marshal Ramsay, simply, as it would seem, as a kind of little gratification for that worthy after the labours of the day. After the flogging Ramsay thus addressed them:— "Damned brutes: Damned Baptist brutes! Damned political brutes, lie down;" and then they were marched as usual to the hanging-ground to see the dying agonies of their fellow prisoners. The Attorney General's clerk also swore before the Commission that he was present when General O'Connor said to him, "Oh, Clarke, is that you? Your brother was hung three days ago, and you will be hung on one of those trees." The witness added that the poor fellow on hearing it trembled fearfully. Could anything else be added to the blackness of this story? Yes; in tracking it through the blue book he found to his amazement a despatch of Governor Eyre, which shows that actually this man Clarke was one of a batch of prisoners whom he sent himself on October 31, the day after his own proclamation, from Kingston, an unproclaimed district, to be tried, or rather to be executed, at Morant Bay. He refused to join in the prosecution of

  1781
  Mr. Eyre for the wilful murder of Mr. Gordon, because he thought he really believed that Gordon was a conspirator; but he had in vain searched for any possible explanation of his conduct in putting Clarke to death, except that Clarke had made himself hated by Mr. Georges. If so, the act was neither more nor less than murder. Such is a specimen of the treatment of the 189 persons who were put to death at this one place. He could have wished to close his hateful task, but he should be accused of a want of candour if he did not mention the proceedings of the court martial at Uppark Camp, which is highly praised by the Commissioners for the great regularity of its proceedings, in contrast, of course, with those of the other courts martial. It must be remembered that Uppark Camp is close to Kingston, forty miles from the disturbed districts, and was under the immediate eye of General O'Connor and Governor Eyre. Well, but the Commissioners themselves tell us that this court martial, whose great regularity they praise, actually hung one man against whom, say the Commissioners, the only offence charged was the use of a few words said to be seditious while he was confined in gaol for some other offence. This order was executed on the 27th of October. This same court martial, so admirable as compared with the others, on the 9th of November, ten days after Governor Eyre's own proclamation, hung Alexander Hargate for rebellion alone, and for alleged treasonable language. This same court martial, so highly praised, condemned a long list of persons to most fearful punishments, not for anything they had done, but for words they were said to have said, which, as he said before, in the eye of the law of England, is no crime at all. In fact, when you have no overt act, nothing but somebody else's loose evidence of what somebody said, proof of the commission of the crime is absolutely impossible. Well, for this crime of talking. Richard Houghton was condemned to 100 lashes and ten years' hard labour; Richard Afflick to 50 lashes and five years; James Frazer to 100 lashes and five years; Joseph Scott to 100 lashes and ten years; William Donnan to the same; Robert Pike to the same; Richard Thompson and Philip Berry to the same; and many others to similar punishment on similar grounds as described in the appendix to the evidence taken before the Commission. He was almost sorry to have confined himself
  1782
  to official documents. How could he expect to rouse the feeling of the House with mere dry statistics like these? He wished it were possible for him to pause here, but he was bound to remind the House that, besides 439 persons who were put to death, the Report of the Commissioners stated that at the very least 600 persons were torn to pieces by the lash. He had already quoted Colonel Hobb's words, that the writhing and intense agony of the lash to the negroes was frightful to witness. Colonel Hobbs, however, only used the ordinary cat-o'-nine-tails. At Bath alone a multitude of men and women were flogged, "after a very slight investigations and frequently at the instance of book-keepers and others, smarting under a sense of recent injury." What, then, could be thought of the atrocious ruffian, Mr. Kirkland, who was not content with that intense agony? He must needs twist strong pianoforte wire with the cords, sometimes with twelve, sometimes with more lashes, and then tie them up in knots, so as to cause the utmost conceivable amount of agony, and with these infernal instruments some hundreds of persons were flogged until the ground was soaked with gore, some of them having received as much as 100 lashes each. All this was notorious at the time, yet not a finger did Mr. Eyre move to punish this ruffian? He was allowed by Mr. Eyre to continue as a magistrate, and as the holder of some petty office under the Crown; and the most painful thing is to learn that many of those who had thus been flogged were afterwards sent to Morant Bay and executed. But nothing appeared to him so utterly horrible as the fact, described with great feeling by some of the prisoners at Morant Bay, and not denied by Lieutenant Brand, that day after day the unhappy prisoners at Morant Bay were brought out to witness the agonies of that death to which they knew that, though still untried, they were already doomed. As he followed the ghastly story of those amazing freaks, he involuntarily exclaimed—
  "Man, proud man! Dress'd in a little brief authority; … Like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven, As makes the angels weep."
  He did not think he could better sum up this part of the case than in the words of a leading article in The Times on the 19th of March last. It would be remembered

  1783
  that for a long time the leading journal, in common with many persons, refused credence to the narratives that came from Jamaica, but with the evidence before it, that was given to the Commissioners at length, The Times said—
  "There is no longer any reasonable doubt that cruelties, of which it is impossible to think without shuddering, were perpetrated in the suppression of the Jamaica insurrection. It is now certain that scores and, perhaps, hundreds of prisoners were flogged before being hung, and often before being tried. It is certain that some, though it is uncertain how many, were compelled to run the gauntlet after being flogged through a crowd of brutal spectators, who were allowed to insult them as they pleased. It is certain that several at least were shot or hung without even the pretence of a trial, at the caprice of an officer or subordinate. … It is probable, moreover, that men were bribed with the hope of life—a hope not always realized—to betray their accomplices; that persons accused of crimes were refused permission to call witnesses in their defence, and that some were executed, the only proof of whose guilt was their being found wounded. … These were acts not military, but judicial, done for the most part after armed resistance had ceased, and when there was nothing to prevent a deliberate separation of the innocent from the guilty."
  Upon the whole, exclusive of those who were put to death during what might be called the suppression of the disturbances, and exclusive of those who were shot or hung without trial, the number executed in cold blood, on and after Monday, October 15, when, by the Governor's official statement the rebellion was put down, amounted to 350 men and women. That number cannot but suggest an historical reminiscence. Many years ago a rebellion took place in one of the countries of Europe against its lawful Sovereign. It was the result of a deliberately planned conspiracy. Its object was to dethrone the legitimate dynasty. Nearly all the leading actors in it were deserters from the service of their master and king. They called in foreign aid to their designs; they kindled the flame of civil war, with all the bloodshed, rapine and misery that civil war engenders. They were overthrown, and the chief actors were tried for their lives; not, indeed, by a court martial of lieutenants and ensigns, but before the highest court of justice in the land, with every privilege—even with trial by juries of their own countrymen. 350 of them were executed — exactly the same number as in Jamaica. The page of history that presents so curious a parallel has not found great favour in the eyes of the English people. It goes by the
  1784
  name of "Judge Jeffrey's Bloody Assize." Now, is there indeed to be absolute impunity for all these butcheries? As to the young men, indeed, who formed the court martial at Morant Bay, their guilt is not to be compared for a single moment with that of their superiors, who for a whole month sanctioned and approved their doings. But, while admitting that the deepest guilt did not lie with them, I would a thousand times rather have followed a son of mine to the grave than have had him sit as a member of that court martial, and have shown himself so lost to every feeling not only of humanity, but of personal honour—so dead to every generous youthful impulse —as to have stooped to the utter degradation of being merely the executioner, the hangman, the base instrument used by the authorities for consigning those 400 trembling wretches to the whipping post and the gallows. But while our indignation against them is largely qualified by contempt, what shall we say of Brigadier General Nelson, who, day after day, wrote "approved and confirmed" against everyone of their proceedings? What shall we think of the tremendous responsibility incurred by the Governor of the Island in his cold indifference to the anguish of the people who had been intrusted to his protecting care? It is now the grave duty of this House to decide what course is dictated by justice and humanity. The broad question is, whether the people of England approve or condemn the deeds I have described. It is rumoured that the Government will neither have the courage to accept the Resolutions nor yet to meet them face to face, but that they hope to get rid of them by a side-wind, by urging some trumpery, technical difficulties about political etiquette, as if, forsooth, the people of England with these facts before them have no right to an opinion of their own, or to demand, and insist on the demand, that the conduct of the actors in those scenes shall be investigated. I am confident, however, that Her Majesty's Government will not condescend to take refuge in such a paltry line of argument. The whole country and the whole of Christendom, which has looked on with more interest at this matter than is perhaps generally known, will fully understand that the question on which we shall divide is simply as to whether England will or will not sanction these butcheries. I await that decision with the deepest anxiety. It would, indeed, be

  1785
  a blow to the cause of humanity, it would indeed be a dark stain on the character of the British people, should the House bestow its sanction upon such doings. I trust that the party to which I belong will refuse to identify itself with them. I earnestly appeal to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Liberal party in the House to come forward in our behalf, and clear us, at any rate, from any share or complicity in such degradation. But must I, indeed, look forward to a defeat, or even to resistance, from the party opposite? The chief of that party, Lord Derby, admired for his splendid powers, has endeared himself to the hearts of his countrymen by the part he took in mitigating the calamity that fell upon the North of England a few years ago. Upon the Treasury Bench, also, and on the Benches above and beside it, sit men whose lives are ennobled by their zeal in every cause of humanity. I ask them whether they in their hearts believe that the course taken by the authorities of Jamaica was one breathing wisdom and sound policy, or wild rage and vengeance? Do they regard it as an example to be followed by authorities elsewhere, or one to be repudiated and abhorred? Do they think that it threw a ray of glory over the name of England, or has it covered us with shame? Was it worthy of the professed servants of him whose name was Mercy? I implore them—I cannot believe that I shall implore in vain—to trample under foot mere prejudice and party feeling, and to ask themselves solemnly, whether, as the Government and representatives of the British people, they dare, in the face of the world and in the face of Heaven, to stamp the seal of their deliberate approval on these ruthless deeds.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That this House deplores the excessive punishments which followed the suppression of the disturbances of October last in the parish of St. Thomas, Jamaica, and especially the unnecessary frequency with which the punishment of death was inflicted."—(Mr. Buxton.)
  MR. ADDERLEY: I certainly am very much surprised that the hon. Gentleman should ask whether the Government approve or not of the proceedings which have occurred in Jamaica. Does he suppose that there is a single man who approves of these occurrences? What right has he to consider himself the exclusive champion of the oppressed, and to consider every one else who is going to oppose
  1786
  these Resolutions as the champions of authority? I can hardly imagine a more gratuitous assumption. The hon. Gentleman appeals to parties in this House. Now, is this a question of party? Is there one party in this House who is going to uphold these proceedings, and another party who is going to condemn them? Does he appeal only to the Liberal party to support him, and point to those on the opposite side as likely to oppose him? On what grounds does he do this? The hon. Gentleman proposes to discuss the question upon the assumption that he is a philanthropist, and that all those who oppose him are the enemies of mankind. That is a very comfortable doctrine, but the hon. Gentleman misunderstands his own Resolutions. The staple of his speech is the discussion of the merits of the events and the investigation which have taken place in Jamaica. Nobody disputes them. They have been matters of trial by a properly constituted tribunal, and the evidence and Report of that tribunal are before the House and the country. [An hon. MEMBER: Do you mean the Commission?] What else should I mean? There is but one constituted tribunal. There is the evidence before us, there is the Report before us, and the Government accept them as the only authoritative decision. The hon. Gentleman is mistaken if he supposes that the House are going to re-open the case—to try it again. ["Oh, oh!"] I do not understand what that shout means. Was not the speech of the hon. Gentleman throughout an attempt to re-open the whole question and to try the case over again? The Government decline altogether to re-open the case. We have not the means to do so. We have not the witnesses. This House is no judicial tribunal. We must take the evidence and the Report as given to us. The question which the hon. Gentleman proposes is a very different one. The question is whether it is wise for this House to pass Resolutions founded upon that Report, and, if so, whether the Resolutions he proposes are those which we ought to adopt. It is all very well for the hon. Gentleman to give the House his version of the state of things during the insurrection. He made very light of the insurrection. It was in his mind a very trifling affair. He said there was much fear, but little danger. Six months after the event, in his place in the House of Commons, some thousands of miles from

  1787
  the spot, he may think it a trifling affair, but I wonder if he would have taken the same views if he had had the charge of the Government of Jamaica at that time. But if the hon. Gentleman really thinks the rebellion was such a trifling affair, let me ask him why he first drafted his Resolution in such terms, as that—
  "This House admits that credit is due to Governor Eyre for the skill, promptitude, and vigour which he manifested in the early stage of the insurrection?"
  [Mr. BUXTON: These are the words of the Commissioners.] But you adopted them. Surely you will not draw that distinction. [Mr. BUXTON: No.] Then you should not have interrupted me. Last night the hon. Gentleman was ready to ask the House to praise Governor Eyre for the skill, promptitude, and vigour, manifested by him in the early stages of the insurrection, and to-night he is ready to call the rebellion a mere trifle, and say there was a great deal of fear and very little danger. So much for the consistency of the hon. Member's views, and so much for the firmness of conviction at which he has arrived after a long study of the case. Perhaps the House is not aware of the fact that there are threats at this moment of a renewal of disturbance, and that some authorities in Jamaica have within the last few hours asked for further precautions against renewed disturbances. I think we had better ask the hon. Member for Surrey to take charge of the island under such circumstances. The question really raised by the hon. Gentleman is whether, assuming the Report of the Commissioners and the evidence to be correct, it is advisable to pass Resolutions on that Report, and, if so, whether the Resolutions which he proposes are those which ought to be adopted? I must point out to the House the modifications which the hon. Gentleman has introduced into his Resolution since yesterday. I presume those modifications indicate some change of his opinions on the subject. As they were first drafted, he asked the House to concur in the last paragraph of the Commissioners' Report in condemning the excesses which took place in the suppressing of the Jamaica insurrection. He next proposed that the House should praise Governor Eyre for the promptitude and vigour with which he had suppressed it, and at the same time asked the House to approve of Her Majesty recalling Governor Eyre on grounds stated
  1788
  inaccurately and unfairly. Thirdly, he asked the House to advise Her Majesty to proceed against other officers who had been guilty of great excesses. In his second draft these two first Resolutions were blended into one, in which the praise of Governor Eyre was omitted, and the House was asked to take no notice of that portion of the Commissioners' Report, but merely to endorse their censure of Governor Eyre, to approve of Her Majesty recalling him, and asking the Government to proceed against the other officers. The fourth Resolution asked the House to request Her Majesty to empower the Governor of Jamaica to award compensation—it does not say whether out of the Colonial or Imperial revenue—to those who received damage from the excesses committed by Her Majesty's officers, or who had lost relations who were alleged to have been illegally put to death. Now, if these alterations have any significance, it is clear that what the hon. Member wants the House to do is to pick out of the Report of the Commissioners all that censures the authorities in Jamaica, and to omit all that praises their action or excuses in any way their excesses in suppressing the insurrection. Now, my opinion is that these Resolutions ought not to be adopted by the House. I believe that some of them are altogether inadmissible; for instance, the Resolution which asks the House to call upon Her Majesty to empower the Governor of Jamaica to award compensation to those who have received injuries in the suppression of the rebellion. I should also object to the last Resolution, in which the hon. Member proposes to ask Her Majesty to remit all punishments which are unexpired, and to take no further proceedings against those who were engaged in the rebellion. Others of the Resolutions, if admissible, I think it would be unwise, or at least unnecessary, for the House to adopt; and all the Resolutions from first to last are in a remarkable manner partial and one-sided. There is one fact which the hon. Member seems never to have had present to his mind, but it is one which covers the whole history of those transactions—namely, that all these events took place under the proclamation of martial law. The hon. Gentleman as much ignores the facts as did the hon. Member for Westminster, when he put a long category of questions, altogether unprecedented, upon the Notice paper of the House, throughout the whole of which

  1789
  he seemed to ignore the fact that all these events occurred under martial law. That martial law had not been called in question by any authority. On the contrary, it was the opinion of the Commissioners, and all the authorities who had been consulted on the matter, that martial law was fully and properly established, that it was fully justifiable, and proclaimed upon good reasons. If that were so, there can be nothing illegal, at all events, in the constitution of the tribunals, and the supposition of the hon. Gentleman to the contrary is opposed to the opinion of every authority on the subject. Nor can there have been anything illegally done by those who were bonâ fide engaged in the suppression of the insurrection. That very much narrowed the debate, because all that could be assigned in the Resolutions as faulty in the conduct of Governor Eyre and of those who acted under his authority was that which both the Report alleged against him and which the despatch of the late Government had endorsed—namely, that he was wrong in continuing martial law too long in full force up to the utmost period allowed by law—namely, thirty days. That continuance of martial law, and the excessive punishments under it, were all that could be alleged against Governor Eyre. Well, then, upon these two grounds of condemnation, the hon. Gentleman proposes to the House to endorse the decision to which the Commissioners came, and to approve the action which the Government has taken. With regard to the first Resolution, I do not say that it is inadmissible, but that it is unnecessary. We all deplore the excesses that have been described by the Commissioners, and which have been the ground of the recall of Governor Eyre, and of the further proceedings now in process. Her Majesty, at the opening of Parliament, informed us that an inquiry had been instituted, and promised that the Report of the Commissioners should be laid before us. We thanked Her Majesty for the information. We have received the Report, and we know what has been done by Her Majesty's Advisers in consequence of it. For what object, then, should we endorse the Report, and approve what the Government has already done in pursuance of it. It is a question whether the Legislature ever does well needlessly to step out of its usual functions, and take part either in the judicial or the Executive proceedings of the country. I suspect that the House will be ready to lay it down as a general proposi-
  1790
  tion that it is wiser for the Legislature not to go beyond its proper functions of legislation unless it is for the practical purpose of influencing the Executive to do what it is not doing, or to leave undone what it is doing, according to the wish of the House. But are they asked to do that now? No; precisely the reverse. Taking the hon. Gentleman's second Resolution, we find that it does not condemn but approve the conduct of the Executive in regard to the recall, or, as the hon. Member terms it, the dismissal of Mr. Eyre from the Governorship of the island, and in its proceedings against other officers. I must, in passing, take notice of the first branch of the Resolution, in which the hon. Gentleman states that Governor Eyre was recalled on account of the excessive severity with which the disturbances were suppressed. Now, the only source of information open to the hon. Gentleman on this point is the terms of the despatch in which the late Secretary for the Colonies recalled Mr. Eyre. The hon. Gentleman made a misquotation of the despatch in giving the excesses which took place as the only ground upon which Governor Eyre was recalled. On the contrary, there are several grounds alleged for his recall. The first of them was a ground of policy—namely, for the purpose of allaying animosities and irritation; and other grounds were—that the Governor had committed an error of judgment in continuing martial law in full force for the whole period allowed by the statute; that he had also been wanting in not giving sufficiently clear instructions for the regulation of the conduct of subordinate officers; and lastly, because of his having approved the trial and execution of Mr. Gordon. Therefore, up to last night the hon. Gentleman intended to ask them to approve the recall of Mr. Eyre upon a wholly mistaken recital of its grounds. At all events, I believe the House in common English fairness would have said, in respect to the first branch of the Resolution, that if they are to express an opinion on the conduct of Governor Eyre, they must not refuse to notice the praise which has been awarded to him while they endorsed the censure that had been cast upon him. But the hon. Member for East Surrey asked them simply to endorse the censure and to omit all mention of the praise. I conceive that this alone is a good and sufficient reason for the House refusing to accept this Resolution. It is all very well to say that we ought not to shut our eyes to

  1791
  the faults of officials, or to screen them from the consequences of their misconduct, I quite agree in that; I am in earnest in prosecuting those who have been guilty of excesses; but, on the other hand, why should not equal justice be dealt out to the Governors of colonies as well as to any other persons? Are there any class of servants of the Crown who have a more difficult task to perform than those who are placed at distant and often unhealthy stations, and confronted from time to time by most trying circumstances, in which they have to act upon their own judgment at a moment's notice, and have the most onerous and responsible duties imposed upon them? Are they, of all men, to be treated with the scantiest justice, and when the House of Commons came calmly and impartially to review their acts, is it to omit all that can be said in favourable construction of them, and carefully collect all that can be said against them? I appeal to the hon. Member for East Surrey himself as a man who has an interest in the Colonial Empire of England, and who also has the high principles and feelings of a gentleman about him, whether it is not the part of a generous mind, and likewise of the policy of a great Empire, to put the most favourable construction upon the conduct of a Colonial Governor, called to act upon his own judgment in a great and sudden emergency? The hon. Gentleman has spoken with levity of the amount of danger which Mr. Eyre had to encounter, but he will not dispute that the emergency was sudden, and that it is not very easy to see at one moment how far insurrection is likely to extend. Nothing but the fidelity of the Maroons prevented its horrors spreading over the whole Island. Even at this moment, they do not know whether it may not break out again. But the danger having arisen suddenly, and having primarily to consult for the safety of the colony intrusted to his charge, he felt this to be the paramount duty to his Sovereign. It was certainly also his duty to temper his measures with moderation and mercy. [Cheers from the Opposition.] The mention of the first of those duties hon. Gentlemen opposite received with silence, but the mention of the second they greeted with cheers. They are all for mercy to those who attack public order; but they are blind to the difficulties of those who have to maintain it. They may possibly find the Governor of a colony who, with
  1792
  insurrection springing up all around him, and with the knife of the assassin at his throat, has all the calmness and composure of mind needed for balancing with rigid exactness those two conflicting duties. But such men are rare. It is not every man who is able so to hold the scales of justice through the difficulties of a terrible crisis; and let me tell you that if you always expect these rare qualities to be displayed by every Governor, you will find it no easy matter to get men to undertake Colonial Governorships. I perfectly agree that we must look fairly on both sides. There may be too strong a feeling shown in favour of official authorities; but, on the other hand, there may be a blind sympathy with those who outrage public order. But this House, I think, will refuse to lend itself to the one side or the other. I did not see, till I came down to the House, the Amendment of which the hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. Stuart Mill) had given notice. Dissatisfied with the strength of the Resolutions on the paper, the hon. Gentleman asks the House to declare that nothing short of a trial of Governor Eyre for murder before a judicial tribunal will be satisfactory to it. I presume that the hon. Gentleman, taking that view of the case, will not mix himself up with the present discussion. It would be a monstrous thing in him to prejudge in debates here a case which he himself proposes to refer for decision to a judicial tribunal. I must, at the same time, confess that I distrust the judicial reserve of the hon. Gentleman in this case, because he has prominently mixed himself up with the proceedings of the Jamaica Committee, from which, I am happy to say, the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Buxton) has thought it right to separate himself. The members of that Committee might, indeed, as well have taken the proceedings they have in view eight months ago as now. The hon. Member for Birmingham, one of their leading Members, did not think it at all necessary to wait for any investigation into the subject. Before any inquiry could take place into these events, the hon. Gentleman felt himself competent and ready to declare his opinion, in the presence of a large assemblage of his fellow. countrymen, in one of the Northern town halls, that Mr. Eyre was guilty of murder. It was clear that the hon. Gentleman wanted no inquiry, and that, as far as he and those who acted with him were concerned, the labours of the Commis-

  1793
  sioners were the idlest waste of time. They agreed to their verdict before they had heard the evidence, and pronounced the capital guilt of a man who had not then had any opportunity of answering any accusations brought against him. They saw but one side of the question; strong prepossessions, invincible prejudices incapacitated as well as disinclined them from seeing more than one side, but it is remarkable that they prefer to range themselves on the side of those who are the disturbers of order, rather than on the side of those who have upheld it. And I must say that by their manner of proceeding in this case these gentlemen have forfeited for ever any title to be beard on any question that demands judicial calmness and impartiality for its consideration. It is not a part of judicial proceedings, and in keeping with them, that they come here on this occasion to announce in the midst of condemnation their appeal to future judgment. Holding the opinions they do, they should surely have done their utmost to prevent this debate. Surely, if the hon. Member for Westminster is right in his Amendment, it is monstrous and contrary to every principle of justice that he should come here to prejudge the case and prejudice the decision, which he considers ought to be left in the hands of a jury, who would have to decide upon a question of life or death, and I think that, besides discouraging this debate, they might even have gone a step farther, and, when they met on Saturday in Committee, they might have abstained from such extravagant speeches, made to the prejudice of persons whom they were endeavouring to hand over for trial to the judicial power. With regard to the recall of Governor Eyre, I do not think the case against him is yet made out, even taking the facts as we can get them from the Report. The law of the case is by no means settled. The illegality of Gordon's trial is a question still undecided. He was violently arrested outside the province of martial law, which, however, might have been extended. You may get as high legal authorities on one side of the question as on the other, and it is a very nice question to deal with. The justice of Gordon's death appears to me, so far as I can read the minds of the Commissioners, to have been by no means out of dispute. There is much in this Report to show that the Commissioners were convinced of the guilt of Mr. Gordon. It would be a waste of time to read passages from the Report, but I think it
  1794
  is clear that it was the conviction of the Commissioners that there was a case on which no jury would have acquitted. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen express their feelings without having the facts of the case before them, but I will not weary the House by reading the passages. [Cries of "Read!"] At all events, I do not wish to press that point, but I may say that, although there is some question about the illegality of the arrest, and the sufficiency of evidence, there is less question about the practical justice of the result. The hon. Gentleman desires the house to ask Her Majesty to go on with the proceedings against officers who were concerned in excessive punishment, as she has already proceeded against Governor Eyre. That would be a Resolution on the part of the House of Commons to ask the Executive to do what they are doing—to do, in fact, what the House knows they have been doing from the first and are still doing. I therefore appeal to the sense of the House to know whether it is advisable to establish a precedent for passing Resolutions requesting the Executive to do that which they know the Executive is doing. The natural inference of passing such a Resolution is, that the House does not believe they are doing what they pretend and assert they are. You can approve, if you like, of what the Executive are doing. I have no objection to a Resolution of approval. I am speaking now as much in the name of the late Government as in the name of the present one, for the present Government has done no more than carry out the proceedings which were initiated by the late Government in whose administration these events occurred. All I take credit to the present Government for is, that they have vigorously carried out the measures of their predecessors and endorsed their instructions. The various offices—the Colonial, Admiralty, and War Offices—sent instructions to the heads of their Departments in the colony to proceed as recommended by the Royal Commissioners, and in all cases to proceed where there was any fair allegation of misconduct on the part of officers of those different Departments — Civil, Naval, and Military. Proceedings are going on. It is perfectly well known that Ramsay, the provost marshal, is at this moment indicted for wilful murder, and there are proceedings going on against Ensign Cullen and Dr. Morris which the hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. Stuart Mill) did not seem at all

  1795
  aware of the other night when he put his long list of Questions, and asked whether those men were to be brought to trial for putting certain people to death, assuming before the trial that they had put those people to death. If he had read the whole Report as carefully as be had read those parts which were favourable to his views, he would have known that the Commissioners stated that the evidence against those two men was perfectly contradictory—the evidence was as strong on one side as on the other—and that the Commissioners left the case for further inquiry. That further inquiry is now going on, and in other cases also proceedings are being taken. Only a short time ago, since the present Government came into office, they sent out the most express and emphatic instructions to the new Governor of the island (Sir John Grant) to proceed in this direction and to report immediately upon the measures which he took, in order that Her Majesty's Government might know what he was doing. Under the circumstances, I conceive the House will think it unnecessary, and if unnecessary unwise, to ask the Executive to do that which they know they are doing, for at least it expresses a doubt whether the Government are doing it or not. On the Resolution for compensation I must say a few words. In the new draft of Resolutions, which has been submitted to-day, it is proposed that compensation should be awarded to the sufferers from excessive or illegal punishments. The alterations in that draft, however, are not merely verbal. That Resolution, for instance, in its first form was that the House should call upon Her Majesty to empower the Government of Jamaica to award compensation; but as it now stands, it says that it is the duty of Her Majesty's Government to award compensation. Seeing the material alterations that have been made in the original draft, I should like to ask the hon. Gentleman what are his reasons for these changes made within the last few hours? Why was it proposed that compensation should be awarded out of the revenues of Jamaica, but to-day to charge the Imperial revenue with that compensation. It is not, moreover, clear to my mind whether that compensation is to be limited to those who were sufferers from punishments, or whether it is to include the damages done to the property of planters during the progress of the insurrection. That, of course, would
  1796
  make a very material difference, but the Resolutions are so carelessly worded that it is difficult to see what the effect of them would be. I can only say that the power already possessed by the Governor of Jamaica would not be made any greater by any Resolution passed by this House, nor by any power given him by the Queen; but this effect might result—an infinity of claims of all sorts would be raised in consequence of such a Resolution being adopted by the House of Commons. We know that the arrival of the Royal Commissioners, although their functions were strictly judicial — ["No, no!"] — then what were their functions, for I cannot understand the interruption? [Mr. BUXTON: They were sent out for the purpose of inquiry.] Just so; inquiry for the purpose of forming a judgment. ["No, no!"] At all events, what I meant was, and I think it comes to the same thing, that those who were sent out to inquire and report, and so far had judicial functions assigned to them, could not even discharge such duties without raising expectations and claims. I think the effect of this Resolution, if it were passed, would be to raise considerably higher and more extravagant expectations than those which are already rife there, and I think it would be an evil. At the same time, I am ready to say that such a proposition as this would be worthy to be discussed by this House—if it is shown that damage has been wantonly done by the agents of the Government, the Government should consider how far there were claims upon them for compensation. Claims on the Jamaica revenue the Jamaica Governor will deal with. I think the proposition of applying to the Government for compensation, although it does not diminish the objectionableness of the Resolution, as a Resolution of this House, yet certainly embodies a principle which the Government should entertain. As to the last Resolution, which is a new one altogether —that we should invite Her Majesty to remit all further punishment—that seems to me a very loose sort of proposition indeed. I presume it is a part of those changes which have come hastily and inconsiderately over the hon. Member's mind in the course of the last few hours. Though an amnesty would be a proper matter for Her Majesty to consider, yet I think that this would be the last mode of carrying it out that any reasonable Government would ever dream of entertaining, for it proposes

  1797
  that the injustice which has taken place on one set of men should be balanced by the abandonment of the justice which had been administered to others, and that the most atrocious scoundrels now being punished for the most bloody outrages should have their punishment remitted because others have been unjustly put to death. I can hardly see how the Government can for a moment entertain such a proposition as that. I have now discussed to the best of my power these Resolutions which have been proposed to the House, and I have given my opinion, as well as I can form a judgment, that it would be unwise for the House to pass at any rate more than one of them. Some of them are unnecessary, and therefore unwise, while some of them are wholly inadmissible. A Resolution embodying any general expression of our deep regret for what has taken place in Jamaica I should be glad to agree to. It would be impossible for me to refuse my vote to such a Resolution as that; but that, I suppose, would not meet the object of the hon. Gentleman who has brought the matter forward. I have no hesitation, however, in recommending, the House to reject all the rest of the Resolutions which are now before it. The hon. Gentleman says we have neither the courage to meet these Resolutions nor to reject them. I do not think it shows a want of courage not to meet them, because some of them undoubtedly express feelings which every Member of the House cordially entertains, but at the same time we deny the wisdom of them. As a matter of judgment, and not as a matter of courage, or the want of it, I should recommend that this House should not pass any of these Resolutions if they must all go together. I am not prepared to deny all that they contain, but I am prepared to maintain that it would be unwise for the House to adopt all of them, and I have, therefore, no alternative but to move the previous Question.
  Whereupon Previous Question proposed, "That that Question be now put."—(Mr. Adderley.)
  MR. J. STUART MILL: Those who seek to obtain an authoritative condemnation of the transactions in Jamaica, whether they take the milder view of my hon. Friend the Mover of the Resolutions, or the severer view of the body which has been alluded to in such disrespectful terms, the Jamaica Committee could have desired
  1798
  nothing better for their cause than that the speech which has just been delivered by the right hon. Gentleman should go forth to the country as the defence of the Government for not taking any measures to bring those events under the cognizance of a judicial tribunal. I should myself be well content to go to the country on my hon. Friend's speech, and that of the right hon. Gentleman, without any further discussion. But since nothing has been said in vindication of the view I take of the course proper to be pursued, which is different from that recommended by my hon. Friend, I shall state to the House what to my mind justifies that course. The hon. Mover of the Resolution has called upon the House to consider the proceedings of the civil and military authorities in Jamaica, which have been so deservedly but so mildly condemned by Her Majesty's Commissioners of inquiry, and has invited the House to express an opinion on those proceedings, to the same effect and nearly in the same language as the Commissioners. I, also, contend that the acts which have been committed demand the particular attention of the House, not however for the purpose of itself pronouncing any judgment on them, but for the purpose of requiring that they be referred to an authority more competent than this House—the only authority that is competent to pass a binding judgment on such acts—the authority of a judicial tribunal. According to the catalogue furnished by the Commissioners, 439 of Her Majesty's subjects, men and women, have been put to death, not in the field, not in armed resistance to the Government, but unarmed, after having fallen into the hands of the authorities, many after having voluntarily surrendered to them. Some of these were executed without any semblance of a trial; the remainder after what were called trials by what were called courts martial. In addition to those who were put to death, not fewer than 600 men and women were flogged, partly without trial, and partly by sentence of these same courts martial; and about 1,000 houses, besides other property, were destroyed by military violence. Now, if, after due investigation, the Government and the country generally had made up their minds that all these lives were justly and properly taken, and all these floggings and burnings justly and properly inflicted, there would have been no ground on which to require the Government to prosecute the agents and authors, though private individuals would be at liberty to do so if they

  1799
  pleased. The case, however, is far otherwise. Respecting the degree of culpability of these transactions there is a wide difference of opinion, but that there has been serious culpability no one now disputes. The events have undergone a minute inquiry, by Commissioners carefully selected and invested with full power to ascertain the facts, but not, I must remind the right hon. Gentleman, empowered to declare what is the character of those facts in the eye of the law. The Commissioners have emphatically condemned a large portion of the proceedings. They declare that many more persons have been put to death than ought to have been put to death; some of these on evidence which they declare to have been, so far as it appears on record, wholly insufficient to justify the findings, while in other cases, assuming the evidence to be unimpeachable, the sentences were not justified by the facts deposed to. The floggings they pronounce to have been reckless, and some of them positively barbarous: the flogging of women they reprobate under any circumstances, and in that I am sure the House will not differ from them. The burnings they pronounce wanton and cruel. There is no need to go one step beyond the verdict of the Commissioners. I am almost ashamed to speak of such acts with the calmness and in the moderate language which the circumstances require. The House has supped full of horrors throughout the speech of my hon. Friend. But we need not go beyond the dry facts of the Commissioners' summary. On their showing, the lives of subjects of Her Majesty have been wrongfully taken, the persons of others wrongfully maltreated; and I maintain that when such things have been done, there is a primâ facie demand for legal punishment, and that a court of criminal justice can alone determine whether such punishment has been merited, and if merited, what ought to be its amount. The taking of human lives without justification, which in this case is an admitted fact, cannot be condoned by anything short of a criminal tribunal. Neither the Government, nor this House, nor the whole English nation combined, can exercise a pardoning power without previous trial and sentence. I know not for what more important purpose Courts of Law exist than for the security of human life. Hitherto in this country the agents of the executive Government have had to answer for themselves in the same Courts of Law as the rest of Her
  1800
  Majesty's subjects. But if officers of the Government are to be allowed to take the lives of the Queen's subjects improperly—as has been confessedly done in this case—without being called to a judicial account, and having the excuses they make for it sifted and adjudicated by the tribunal in that case provided, we are giving up altogether the principle of government by law, and resigning ourselves to arbitrary power. Under these circumstances, it appears to me that the proper course to be adopted by Members of this House was to attempt to elicit from Her Majesty's Government, before the end of the Session, some statement of their intentions respecting what, to me and others, appears the solemn duty of bringing the authors of at least the most flagrant of these universally condemned acts before a criminal tribunal. The House knows that this attempt was made, and it knows what was the result. We obtained by it no direct, but a good deal of indirect, information. Since then I have redoubled my efforts to learn, or to divine, what reasons there are against the propriety of a criminal prosecution, and I have arrived at the conclusion that if those I have heard are the best, there will not be much difficulty in resisting any of them. I have been told, for instance (but by whom, or on what occasion, the rules of the House forbid me to recollect), that to warrant a criminal prosecution for homicide, it is necessary that the act should have been committed with malice prepense. But the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot make such a mistake as this; for if not a lawyer himself, he has able lawyers for his advisers, and one need not be a lawyer at all to know that there is such an offence as manslaughter, which I have hitherto in my ignorance believed to differ from murder precisely by the absence of malice prepense. The wonder which I felt at this singular specimen of legal knowledge would have been still greater than it was, if I had not just before been told by a very eminent person (but it could not be the right hon. Gentleman) that I was grossly inconsistent in assuming through nine questions that certain acts were unlawful, and asking in the tenth whether they were unlawful or not? Now, since what I asked was, whether they were offences under the criminal law, I must conclude that, in the opinion of this eminent person, no actions are unlawful but those which are offences under the criminal law. Did he ever hear, I

  1801
  wonder, of such a thing as an action for damages, which everybody knows will lie in many cases in which a criminal proceeding could not be sustained? And, again, is he not aware of cases in which the law imposes pecuniary penalties, but leaves them to be enforced by anybody who chooses to sue for them by a civil action? Now, as the authority to whom I allude said that no act that could not be the subject of a criminal prosecution is illegal, it follows that, in his opinion, the law awards penalties for lawful acts. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer is just now absent from the House, but I trust that in the course of the evening he will utterly repudiate these peculiar views. I am ready to accept the right hon. Gentleman as an authority on some subjects, but I shall be quite unable to accept his guidance in any matter of criminal law, unless he entirely throws over that other great luminary to whom I have been referring. Then, again, it is asked, "How can we think of prosecuting anybody for putting people to death, when we cannot possibly suppose that those who did it believed them to be innocent?" Well, very probably they did not; though even this is by no means a thing which it is permissible to take for granted. But admitting the fact, it is an excuse that may be made for actions of still greater atrocity than I claim any right to attribute to these. Did the perpetrators of the massacre of St. Bartholomew think their victims innocent? On the contrary, did they not firmly believe them to be hateful to God and to all good men? Again, did the authors of the September massacres—did the French revolutionary tribunals, and the Terrorist Government, believe in the innocence of those whom they put to death? Were they not fully persuaded that they were traitors and enemies of their country? I do not want to compare Governor Eyre and his subordinates to Robespierre and Fouquier Tinville, though I confess that their modes of proceeding sometimes remind me very forcibly of some of the minor actors in that great tragedy: but the same sort of excuse may be made for Robespierre and Fouquier Tinville as for them. I dare say that if Gentlemen on the other side of the House, and I am afraid some on this side, had had the duty of sitting in judgment on those very vigorous rulers, they would have thought it quite enough to visit them with the penalty with which, for example, Governor Darling has been visited for following his
  1802
  constitutional advisers in an erroneous interpretation of the constitution of Victoria. We should perhaps have been told that the case as respects Robespierre was closed by dismissal from his office as a Member of the Committee of Public Safety. As for Fouquier Tinville, it probably would not have been thought advisable, after so many errors of judgment, to re-appoint him to the responsible situation of public prosecutor. We might have been told, in words with which the House is probably familiar, that it would be desirable "to intrust that arduous task to some other person, who may approach it free from all the difficulties inseparable from a participation in the questions raised by the recent troubles," and that by placing the office "in new hands" Government were "taking the course best calculated to allay animosities, to conciliate general confidence, and to establish on firm and solid grounds the future welfare of" France. Again we are told that in proposing to make the authors of those acts criminally responsible for them, we forget that those acts were done under martial law. Sir, we are not at all likely to forget that; we remember it but too well: and we shall remember as long, what it has been declared by the leading Member of the Government that martial law is—the total suspension of all law. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adderley) will admit that this is something worth remembering. Well; martial law, while it lasts, is the negation of all law; and therefore (such is the conclusion of the right hon. Gentleman) it is the negation of all responsibility. Not only, as soon as martial law is proclaimed, the civil and military authorities and their agents may run amuck, if such is their pleasure—may do, as far as any legal restraint is concerned, anything they please—but if they please to do what is wrong, they cannot be made to account for it afterwards, except to their official superiors, nor to suffer any but the official penalties which those superiors can inflict. If that is Our condition, and if any Government or any local administrator that chooses to proclaim martial law, can place us under this regimen, we have gained little by our historical struggles, and the blood that has been shed for English liberties has been shed to little purpose. But it is not so, Sir; it is not so. I do not deny that there is good authority, legal as well as military, for saying that the proclamation of martial law suspends all law so long as it lasts; but I defy

  1803
  any one to produce any respectable authority for the doctrine that persons are not responsible to the laws of their country, both civil and criminal, after martial law has ceased, for acts done under it. The legal opinions, which the right hon. Gentleman misunderstands, affirm only this, that martial law is another word for the law of necessity, and that the justification of acts done under that law consists in their necessity. Well, then, we have a right to dispute the necessity. If the right hon. Gentleman will consult his legal advisers, he will find that the law is perfectly settled on this point. With the permission of the House I will read a short extract from a law opinion given specificially on the point by two gentlemen, both of them ornaments of their profession, and one of them a Member of this House—
  "The officers of the Crown are justified in any exertion of physical force extending to the destruction of life and property to any extent, and in any manner that may be required for this purpose. They are not justified in the use of excessive or cruel means, but are liable civilly or criminally for such excess. They are not justified in inflicting punishment after resistance is suppressed, and after the ordinary courts of justice can be re-opened. The principle by which their responsibility is measured is well expressed in the case of Wright v. Fitzgerald. Mr. Wright was a French master, of Clonmel, who, after the suppression of the Irish rebellion in 1798, brought an action against Mr. Fitzgerald, the sheriff of Tipperary, for having cruelly flogged him without due inquiry. Martial law was in full force at that time, and an Act of Indemnity had been passed to excuse all breaches of the law committed in the suppression of the rebellion. In summing-up, Justice Chamberlain, with whom Lord Yelverton agreed, said:—'The jury were not to imagine that the Legislature, by enabling magistrates to justify under the Indemnity Bill, had released them from the feelings of humanity, or permitted them wantonly to exercise power, even though it were to put down rebellion. They expected that in all cases there should be a grave and serious examination into the conduct of the supposed criminal, and every act should show a mind intent to discover guilt, not to inflict torture. By examination or trial he did not mean that sort of examination and trial which they were now engaged in, but such examination and trial the best the nature of the case and existing circumstances would allow of. That this must have been the intention of the Legislature was manifest from the expression 'magistrates and all other persons,' which provides that as every man, whether magistrate or not, was authorized to suppress rebellion, and was to be justified by that law for his acts, it is required that he should not exceed the necessity which gave him the power, and that he should show in his justification that he had used every possible means to ascertain the guilt which he had punished; and above all, no deviation from the common principles of humanity
  1804
  should appear in his conduct.' Mr. Wright recovered £500 damages; and when Mr. Fitzgerald applied to the Irish Parliament for an indemnity he could not get one."
  In the year 1866, thirty-four years after the passing of the Reform Act, we have to re-affirm the principles of this judgment, and re-assert the responsibility of all officers of the Executive to the tribunals, in order that, in our regard for law and liberty, we may be on a level with the Orange Government and the Orange Parliament of Ireland in the most tyrannical period of modern Irish history, the rebellion of 1798. And great cause is there why we should assert this responsibility. If martial law indeed is what it is asserted to be, arbitrary power—the rule of force, subject to no legal limits—then, indeed, the legal responsibility of those who administer it, instead of being lightened, requires to be enormously aggravated. So long as the power of inflicting death is restricted by laws, by rules, by forms devised for the security of innocence, by settled usage, by a long series of precedents—these laws, these forms, these usages and precedents, are a protection to those who are judged; but they are also eminently a protection to those who judge. If a law is prescribed for their observance, and they observe the law, they are, in general, safe front further responsibility. The less we leave to their discretion, the less necessity is there, in the interest of the general safety, for making them personally accountable. But if men are let loose from all law, from all precedents, from all forms—are left to try people for their lives in any way they please, take evidence as they please, refuse evidence as they please, give facilities to the defence or withhold those facilities as they think fit, and after that pass any sentence they please, and irrevocably execute those sentences, with no bounds to their discretion but their own judgment of what is necessary for the suppression of a rebellion—a judgment which not only may be, but in a vast proportion of cases is sure to be, an exasperated man's judgment or a frightened man's judgment of necessity; when there is absolutely no guarantee against any extremity of tyrannical violence, but the responsibility which can be afterwards exacted from the tyrant—then, Sir, it is indeed indispensable that he who takes the lives of others under this discretion should know that he risks his own. I do not wonder that there are conscien-

  1805
  tious military men who shrink from so vast a responsibility, and prefer any view whatever of martial law to that which we are given to understand is the true one. I hold in my hand a letter written to me by a retired general officer, which, after saying that the intelligent officers of the army feel bewildered at the very idea of martial law, from the absence of all precise instructions on the subject, goes on to say—
  "I had fully made up my mind how I should act if ever called upon to enforce martial law. I had resolved, as the only safe and prudent plan, to consider martial law as simply military law extended to civilians, feeling convinced that a fixed or written code was indispensable, and that what was sufficient to curb soldiers in war was surely sufficient to restrain civilians in revolt."
  He adds—
  "Taken fighting with arms in their hands should alone justify the summary execution of rebels; whilst the composition and powers of the courts martial on rebels should follow the Articles of War, which are amply sufficient to cover all cases that could ever arise under martial law."
  "We are now informed that neither the Articles of War nor the Mutiny Act are in force at all during the proclamation of martial law, and that the courts martial are not bound by their provisions; but the oath which is administered to the members of every court martial, and which was taken by all the members of the courts martial in Jamaica, begins with these words—
  "You shall duly administer justice according to the rules and articles for the better government of Her Majesty's forces, and according to an Act now in force for the punishment of mutiny and desertion."
  This is what they swore to do: nobody pretends that they did it; and they are now justified by saying that they were not bound by their oath. Sir, I have stated to the House the principles on which I am acting, and on which those act with whom on this subject I am co-operating. We want to know—as the noble Lord the Secretary for India said on a not more important occasion—we want to know who are to be our masters: the Queen's Judges and a jury of our countrymen, administering the laws of England, or three military or naval officers, two of them boys, administering, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer tells us, no law at all. This we want to know; and this, if it be humanly possible, we mean to know. It remains to be seen whether the people of England will support us in the attempt to assert the great principle of the responsibility of all agents of the Executive to the laws, civil and criminal, for
  1806
  taking human life without justification. This great public duty may be discharged without the help of the Government: without the help of the people it cannot. It is their cause; and we will not be wanting to them, if they are not wanting to us.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, this was a question on which he could not give a silent vote. It was his intention to vote for the first and second Resolutions of his hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Buxton); but he should like to say a few words on the third and fourth, because he could not vote for them if put in the words proposed by his hon. Friend, though in principle he concurred in the statements which they contained. He thought the least they could do was to award compensation to those whose property had been wantonly destroyed, and to the families of those who had been put to death illegally. That principle seemed to be admitted by his right hon. Friend the Under Secretary for the Colonies. He trusted also that some answer would be given to the petition from Mrs. Gordon, presented by his hon. Friend the Member for Westminster. He confessed his right hon. Friend surprised him when he stated his belief that the Commissioners were fully convinced of Mr. Gordon's guilt. He certainly did not gather that from the Report on the evidence, and no doubt his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southampton (Mr. Russell Gurney) would state whether such was his impression. What the House had officially before them was, that Mr. Gordon, a member of the Assembly of Jamaica, had been illegally tried and unjustly convicted; and therefore he thought that the petition of Mrs. Gordon, the terms of which must commend itself to every one, ought to receive the attention of the House, and that, in compliance with its prayer, they ought to vindicate the memory of her husband. With regard to the fourth Resolution he did not think his hon. Friend ought to press it, because it was open to this objection—that however illegal some of the acts committed in Jamaica might have been, it did not follow that the persons under sentence inflicted by the Special Commission were undergoing unjust sentences. He thought that if his right hon. Friend the Under Secretary for the Colonies read the evidence and came to the conclusion that the sentences were excessive, he would recommend the Government to interfere in the matter. In any case he would ask his right hon. Friend to do

  1807
  that which, no doubt, the late Government would have done—namely, to institute a strict inquiry into those cases, and consider whether the time would not shortly come—if it had not arrived already—when the persons undergoing sentences might not be recommended to the favourable consideration of the Crown. With regard to the statement in the second Resolution, he could not concur with his right hon. Friend in thinking that because a Commission had been sent out to inquire into the events which had occurred at Jamaica, the House of Commons ought not now to inquire into and give an opinion on those events. On the contrary, he thought that was the reason why the House of Commons should consider those sad occurrences. In the speech from the Throne at the beginning of the Session, Parliament was told that Her Majesty, regretting the deplorable events which had occurred at Jamaica, had determined to send out a Commission to inquire into them. That Commission had gone out, every one had the fullest confidence in the Commissioners, and as their Report was officially before the House of Commons, he thought that House was bound to give an opinion on the circumstances into which the Commission had inquired. Certainly, he did not see how they could allow the Session to close without giving some opinion on that occurrence, and stating what in their judgment ought to be their verdict. Only two opinions were possible. One was that expressed in the second Resolution of his hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey, which meant approval of the censure on the Governor of the colony for unnecessary severity, and stated that there were circumstances which afforded ground for further inquiry as to any steps which ought to be taken; the other opinion was that put forward by his hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, who thought the House ought to take upon itself the office of public prosecutor, and declare that a public prosecution ought to be adopted. He would explain why he thought the hon. Member for East Surrey right in the course he had adopted, and afterwards he would state why he could not agree with the hon. Member for Westminster. He understood the right hon. Gentleman opposite to object to the Motion because he held it to be unnecessary to re-open the case, because the late Government had given an opinion on the conduct of the Governor, for whom great allowances should be made, and because
  1808
  it was unfair for the House to blame without at the same time praising. Now, it appeared to him that the altered Resolution of the hon. Member for East Surrey contained that censure of Governor Eyre which the House was bound to declare. He did not accuse Governor Eyre of any intentional cruelty, but what he had been the means of doing merited such deserved odium that when it was brought before the House of Commons he did not conceive that it could be passed unnoticed. The conclusion of the Report of the Commissioners condemned the unnecessary frequency of the executions. That expression when tested by the evidence meant the killing of hundreds of Her Majesty's subjects without need and without justice. The House could not refrain from expressing an opinion on that fact when it was brought to its notice. The object of martial law was not punishment, but suppression; but his hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey had proved that after the outbreak was suppressed the greater number of these executions took place. Take Morant Bay: 186 executions took place there after the insurrection was suppressed; 180 after Captain De Horsey said the insurrection was over; 161 after Governor Eyre left Morant Bay and said the insurrection was suppressed. These executions were under the superintendence of General Nelson, who in October signed an order for the trial of the ringleaders. After issuing that, 124 persons were executed, three of them being women. Thirty were charged with attempts to murder—only five with being ringleaders — and eighty-two were charged merely with rebellion, or with rebellion, plunder, and riot. After the outbreak was entirely suppressed, from ten to fifteen per day were executed for days together. Such a case he did not think could be found in all their annals. Even if all of them had committed murder it would have been considered an outrageous thing to have executed them all. The murder of Mr. Hire was, no doubt, barbarous, but what would be said if for a murder in Ireland 130 persons were executed? But these persons in Jamaica were not charged with murder, but were mere rioters, and had joined in plundering when no troops were in possession of the country, and when they thought that they had an opportunity for plundering. How was it possible, then, not to take notice of their execution? The right hon. Gentleman asked where would they get

  1809
  a Governor if they judged with such severity, but he did not know any case in which a Governor had acted in the same way. In the outbreak in Cephalonia in 1859 there was much armed resistance, and the troops were under fire for four days. In Jamaica, on the other hand, only one shot was fired at the regular troops, and five or six shots at the Maroons. That was all the armed resistance. It must not be supposed that the outbreak at Cephalonia was not serious, for, as he had stated, the troops were under fire four days, and martial law lasted for more than a month. Yet only twenty persons were executed. The case of Ceylon in 1848 was something similar to the present case. A Motion was brought forward with regard to the suppression of the rebellion in that island, and it was thought that the measures of suppression had been too severe. A Select Committee inquired into the case and made a Report on it to the House. In May, 1857, the hon. Member for Inverness moved a Resolution which in its object was similar to the present, and called on the House to express an opinion that the punishment inflicted in suppressing the disturbances had been excessive and uncalled for. The right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire stated on that occasion—
  "It is because I do not believe that the interests of true humanity were consulted, but because I believe the policy pursued has been a policy of panic—a policy under which measures have been adopted disproportioned to the emergency—it is because I feel what would be the consequence of encouraging such a policy—and we do encourage such a policy, if it is allowed to pass uncriticised and uncensured in this country —it is because I believe the consequence of such a policy would be perilous to the Empire, that I will support the Resolution of my hon. Friend."—[3 Hansard, cxvii. 242.]
  The case of Ceylon was far stronger than that of Jamaica. In the former case the British power was really in danger; the number of Natives supposed to have joined the rebellion was 60,000, and three actions were fought with them. It was said that an exterminating desire was entertained by the rebels, and martial law lasted for ten weeks. How many persons were executed? Only eighteen, though the disturbances were much more dangerous than the disturbance in Jamaica. He could find no precedent for the proceedings in the outbreak in Jamaica. It could not be compared to the previous outbreak at the time when the negroes were greatly excited. It was not too strong a word for
  1810
  him to use, to say that these 354 persons were legally massacred. Even Continental despotism, including the conduct of Russia to Poland and that of Austria to the Hungarians, did not exhibit any instance where there had been so great a number of executions with so little justification either on the ground of justice or military necessity. It was said that what had been done was in order to prevent the insurrection spreading to other parts of the island. If they were to apply that to Ireland, what would be said if 300 were executed in Tipperary for an insurrection that had broken out in Galway? The facts proved it could not be so; for Governor Eyre, while allowing the executions to proceed, would not, if he had been afraid of the insurrection extending, have taken on himself the responsibility of countermanding the troops from Halifax. But while he said this, he could not concur with his hon. Friend the Member for Westminster that a prosecution should be instituted against Governor Eyre. He was mainly responsible for these executions. He had the power of putting an end to martial law; but he could not go along with his hon. Friend the Member for Westminster in saying that a prosecution should be instituted against him for two reasons. First, because after all this was a mistake. The Governor thought, strange as it might appear, that he was acting for the best; he honestly believed he did. That alone would not be sufficient. There would be little security for life and property if no proceedings were ever to be taken against men in authority who by mistake, scarcely to be accounted for, had condemned so many persons to death. But there were particular circumstances connected with Governor Eyre's position under the Jamaica law which ought to plead very strongly against further proceedings. He believed he had acted for the best in his own discretion; and when they had placed a man in a very responsible position, although in fulfilling its duties he had made a most deplorable mistake, yet, having acted to the best of his ability, he did not see how they could institute proceedings against him. His position was such that he was tempted, almost forced, to declare martial law, and therefore obliged to use his discretion. His hon. Friend the Member for Westminster had left out of sight the way in which, the Jamaica Act staring him in the face, the Governor would be almost obliged to deplore martial law; and once

  1811
  martial law was declared there could be no doubt as to the suspension of the ordinary law. In the absence of any reason to suppose bad motives, he could not admit the propriety of instituting proceedings against him. Such being the case, it was the more necessary that the present Government should do what he had no doubt the late Government would have done, that was, most seriously to inquire into the state of the law in Jamaica, and in the rest of the West India colonies, with regard to the possibility of declaring martial law. He thought two facts were brought out very clearly by this sad story—first, it was not martial law which put down the outbreak, but the skilful conduct of the troops under General Nelson. The second lesson was this—that if they continued to subject the Governor to the responsibility of declaring martial law by having Acts of the Colonial Legislature unrepealed, they were bound to issue regulations exactly defining his position. He did not think it was possible to regulate it so as to prevent lose of life and cruelty, for martial law was truly said to be the devil let loose. This ought to be a warning to them to be much more careful for the future. Considering what a terrible evil it was and must be, involving as it did the suspension of all law, he thought martial law ought never to be proclaimed so long as the troops were able to act efficiently without it. They knew that in this case this condition of things did not exist, because the troops, in fact, put down the rebellion. He did not, however, blame Governor Eyre for declaring martial law, for seeing that that law had been on former occasions declared in Jamaica, and there being a law which almost told the Governor to declare it, under such circumstances he would naturally feel that he would be severely blamed if he did not declare it. His own opinion was that the Government should look very seriously into these Acts as to martial law, in order to see whether they could not be repealed, and the matter placed upon the same footing in the colony as it was in England. He believed he was right in saying that the meaning of the Jamaica law, as regards martial law, was this— that the Governor of Jamaica, with the assent of his Privy Council, could at any moment, at his discretion, suspend all law, and put any district of the colony, or the whole colony, under military authority, with as few safeguards and as little
  1812
  regulation as had taken place in the late disturbances. This was not the law in this country, and ought not to be in Jamaica. What he had said with regard to proceedings against Governor Eyre applied à fortiori to all who were under him. No proceedings should be taken against any of his subordinates unless there was reason to suspect them of bad motives. If there was primâ facie a case of cruelty or wilful recklessness —like Ramsay's case—the Government should institute an inquiry into it, and he had the fullest confidence in his right hon. Friend that he would undertake that inquiry as fully, fearlessly, and impartially as it would have been undertaken by his predecessor. He did not think it would be for the interest of the future Government of Jamaica that they should have more prosecutions than were absolutely necessary for the sake of justice. In giving Jamaica a fresh start, with all the lessons of many years, he did not think they would enable the future Government to be conducted with efficiency if there were more prosecutions than were absolutely necessary for the vindication of justice. He believed they were all ashamed of what had taken place, and the chief question which remained to be considered was how to prevent such things happening again. Now, how was it that Governor Eyre, whom he believed to be a humane and conscientious man, sanctioned proceedings of this kind, and how was it that British officers perpetrated atrocities from which they would have shrunk had the victims been white people? The reason was that they were not free, and he did not know that he himself or any Member of the House would have been free, from the race feeling—the feeling of contempt for what was regarded as an inferior race. This, however, only made it the more incumbent upon Parliament, able as it was to sit calmly in judgment upon these things, to affirm that there ought not to be one code of morality for one colour, and another code for another. Some persons, it was true, maintained that we could not afford to deal with other races on the principle of morality; but surely ferocity was as unwise towards black men as towards white; surely justice and mercy were as much an act of duty towards one class as towards another. It was because he felt that the fault was not so much that of an individual as of a feeling to which we were all tempted in dealing with

  1813
  weaker races that he wished the House to protest against the proceedings in Jamaica, and to condemn that misuse of strength to which there was always a temptation.
  MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEwas surprised that during this debate he had heard no sympathy expressed on the opposite Benches for the whites who were the first victims of this rebellion. And he must also say that it was with regret that he heard that the subject was to be discussed at all; because it could hardly be discussed without producing bitterness of feeling, and in the course of the discussion it was almost sure to be implied that Gentlemen on his side of the House had sympathy with acts which they regarded in much the same light as the hon. Member who brought forward the question. The hon. Member for Westminster had compared what had happened with the massacres of St. Bartholomew and of the French Revolution; but that was an exaggerated way of speaking that was scarcely worthy of a man of his philosophical temper. It should also be borne in mind that there were 500,000 of blacks in Jamaica and only 15,000 whites, and what would have been the position of Governor Eyre if he bad not used the most energetic measures, and if there had been a general massacre of the whites? It should not be overlooked that public opinion had been, he might almost say, manufactured upon this subject. It might have been supposed that there would have been the greatest sympathy for Governor Eyre and his officers; but instead of this, meetings were held in the opposite interest. One was at Exeter Hall; and at the door copies of Gordon's letter to his wife was printed on black-edged paper, and was distributed at the door, and at a meeting at Brighton a gentleman who said a word in favour of Governor Eyre was turned out. It was quite clear from the Report of the Commissioners that Gordon, although he might not have been cognizant of the rising, had made inflammatory speeches which created a general impression that he would approve such a proceeding. As to the cruelties practised by the rioters at Morant Bay, which had been denied by hon. Members opposite, private correspondence fully confirmed them. He held in his hand a letter written from Kingston, by Mr. Radcliffe, a minister of the Scotch Church, in which was the following passage:—
  "It has come to light that the insurrection was a portion, and only a portion, of an intended mas-
  1814
  sacre of all the whites and respectable coloured people. The time was to be Christmas Day, the directors the members of a secret society which has existed in Kingston for some time, and the object the slaughter of the whites and the seizure of their property. Surely the people of England will at last have their eyes open to the character of the negro; they have been petting panthers, who, not satisfied with murdering their victims, mutilated them. We have been living on a mine, and we wish the people of England to know it. We were all to have been murdered on Christmas Day, and if the anti-slavery people do not know it, we do. There is not a respectable man in Jamaica will ever sleep again with the confidence he did before, and there is not one of that class who would not leave it to-morrow if he could.
  The truth was that a general insurrection was prepared, and nothing but the energy of the Governor saved the white population from extermination. That such a conspiracy existed was admitted even by the Colonial Standard, a paper strongly opposed to Mr. Eyre, and which actually condemned him for not having sooner credited the premeditated massacre. The blame, therefore, which the people of the colony attached to Governor Eyre was that he did not sufficiently believe in the general character of the insurrection. The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had asked what was to be done now; but a more important question even than that was, what was the cause and origin of the outbreak? Now, Jamaica ought to be one of the most prosperous of all our colonies. It appeared from the most authentic documents that Jamaica was far more lightly taxed than Barbadoes, Trinidad, or our other West India colonies. Before the abolition of the slave trade Jamaica produced about four times more sugar than any of the other colonies, and since the passing of that measure, whilst the other colonies had progressed 50, 60, or 100 per cent, Jamaica had fallen off about 62 per cent. The reason for the retrograde position of Jamaica might be found in the following facts:—In Barbadoes the proportion of the blacks to the whites was nine to one, in Guiana eleven to one, in Trinidad eleven to one, but in Jamaica it was thirty to one. This disproportion between the two populations explained much that had occurred during the insurrection. Had Governor Eyre permitted the 500,000 of blacks to get the upper hand, how terrible the position of the 15,000 whites would have become! Were the feelings of those most interested in the matter—the white inhabitants of Jamaica —to be overlooked entirely? The white inhabitants poured into the Governor ad-

  1815
  dresses upon addresses, expressing their utmost sympathy with him and their approval of his conduct throughout those sad and disastrous events. The Bishop, Archdeacons, and the clergy of Jamaica, had sent the following letter to Governor Eyre:—
  "We, the undersigned clergymen of this island, feel strongly called upon at the present crisis to express our deep sympathy with your Excellency, and our utter condemnation of the hasty and uncharitable judgment passed upon you. We feel the utmost indignation at the attacks made upon you by a portion of the British press, by persons who are incapable of appreciating the dangers and difficulties of our position, who, falling into the very error they would condemn, are clamouring for the punishment of persons whose crimes exist only in their imaginations. We fully share in the conviction, general in this island, that your promptness, decision, and energy have saved Jamaica from ruin. And we would hope that the time is not far distant when many of those who have been led to join in unfair attacks upon your Excellency will be convinced of their error, and will be forward to acknowledge that they have grievously wronged you. Those of us who have had the privilege of private intercourse with your Excellency are prepared to testify that never were charges of injustice and inhumanity more inappropriate than those with which your detractors have assailed you; but rather that decision, kindness, and humanity have uniformly characterized your conduct. The lasting gratitude of the colony will, we believe, follow your Excellency for your successful endeavours to bestow on us a form of Government calculated to insure peace and security, and to promote the welfare of all classes of the community, and our individual prayer will attend your Excellency, Mrs. Eyre, and your family. May the blessings of the Almighty grant you a happy issue out of all your difficulties, and a long future of successful administration as a Colonial Governor; and, whenever it may be needful, an honourable repose from the arduous toils of high office, heightened by the remembrance that, in the opinions of those best able to judge, you have faithfully done your duty."
  He contended, that it was the duty of every Government to support their officers who were placed in such a high and responsible position as that of Governor Eyre under such trying circumstances as had occurred in Jamaica. He (Mr. Baillie Cochrane) regretted that the late Secretary for the Colonies had resorted to the measure of suspending Governor Eyre before the inquiry. He considered that step of the right hon. Gentleman opposite to be one of an almost ungenerous character. He denied that it was incompatible with the proper conduct of that inquiry to continue Governor Eyre in his position. When the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gladstone) went to Corfu upon a special Commission, it was not deemed necessary
  1816
  to remove Sir John Young from his position of Governor. Governor Eyre had, however, suffered the punishment of deposition before the inquiry in Jamaica, and was treated in the most ignominious manner. He thought that the hon. Gentleman would have pursued a much wiser course if he had not brought this question forward, as he could not see how any practical result could arise from his Motion. Knowing what a humane and honourable man Governor Eyre was, he (Mr. Baillie Cochrane) had the satisfaction of availing himself of this opportunity before the close of the Session of expressing the feeling with which he was impressed that the late Governor of Jamaica had acted in a most admirable manner in the difficult and dangerous position in which he was placed.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL: I do not rise, Sir, for the purpose of entering into the consideration of the facts of this most painful case, neither do I intend to offer any opinion upon the points of law which have been adverted to in the speeches of some hon. Members who have addressed the House. I do not propose to enter into the facts of the case, because I feel I could add nothing to what has been already set forth in the Report of the distinguished and learned persons who have executed Her Majesty's Commission to inquire into this matter, although I am sure that no person can rise from a perusal of that Report without an intense feeling of pain, whilst feeling admiration for the temper and excellent manner in which the Commissioners have executed their difficult and important duties. I do not rise, I say, to enter into the legal questions involved, for this reason—that from what we have been told to-night, and considering the despatch of the right hon. Gentleman the late Secretary for the Colonies, I feel it is quite possible that legal proceedings may stillarise out of the transactions that have taken place, and I think, therefore, it would be in the highest degree improper for any one holding the position I have the honour to occupy, or even for this House, to arrive at any conclusion as to what ought to be the decision of those legal questions. But I rise simply to ask the House to consider the position in which it is placed with regard to the Resolutions to which it is asked to agree. I do not intend to say a word about the first Resolution of the hon. Gentleman, but I ask the attention of hon. Members to the second Resolution, which is in these words—

  1817
  "That this House, while approving the course taken by Her Majesty's Government in dismissing Mr. Eyre from the Governorship of the island, at the same time concurs in the view expressed by the late Secretary of the Colonies, that, 'while any very minute endeavour to punish acts which may now be the subject of regret' would not be expedient, still 'that great offences ought to be punished,' and that grave excesses of severity on the part of any civil, military, or naval officers ought not to be passed over with impunity."
  Now, I observe in passing that the answer to that would be that the late Secretary of the Colonies did not use the words "that grave excesses of severity on the part of any civil, military, or naval officer ought not to be passed over with impunity." In point of fact, we find that the late Secretary of the Colonies, in his despatch to Sir Henry Storks, says—
  "I have communicated copies of your Report, with the appendix, to the Secretary of State for War, and to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, who are the proper judges of the conduct of the military and naval officers engaged in these transactions. On my own part, I have to request that you will cause careful investigation to be made in those cases of civilians which appear to require it, with a view to such further proceeding as may be requisite and just. It will not be desirable to keep alive in the colony the heart-burnings connected with these lamentable occurrences by any very minute endeavour to punish every act which may now be the subject of regret. But great offences ought to be punished. I rely on your Government to accomplish this necessary object, and shall expect to receive a full report of the measures which have been taken with that view. You will, of course, be very careful not to give certificates under the Indemnity Act in any cases in which there is reasonable ground to question the propriety of giving them."
  Now, I ask whether the House does or does not agree with that statement contained in that despatch from the right hon. Gentleman. If the House does agree with it I should wish to know what is the object of passing a Resolution couched in the same words? The present Governor of Jamaica is acting upon the instructions contained in that despatch, and we see that they go to the extent of directing the prosecution of some of the persons connected with these unhappy transactions. It appears, then, to me that it would be superfluous for the House to affirm any of those instructions by embodying them in a Resolution of this House. If, however, the Resolution implied that something more is intended, then I think that we ought not to assent to it, as it would, in effect, amount to a prejudging the question as to the alleged commission of grave excesses of severity on the part of the authorities in the island, and as to whe-
  1818
  ther they ought to be punished. With regard to the other two Resolutions, I understand the third not to be supported by any hon. Member, and as to the mode in which compensation should be awarded, the hon. Member himself seemed to have a very vague idea of the principles on which it would be prudent to proceed, for when asked whether compensation out of the Imperial funds ought not to cover the losses of those planters who suffered injury at the first outbreak of the rebellion he said he did not in the least care, he would not object to their being included also. But I think this House will be slow to give its assent to an abstract Resolution in favour of some loose, vague principle of compensation to be awarded in a manner and to an extent which the Resolution leaves altogether unexplained. As to the fourth Resolution, I do not know how it is to be described. It asserts that because certain persons have been put to death without justification, and certain others have been punished with great severity, therefore persons now undergoing punishment—who, for all that the Resolution affirms, may be suffering with perfect propriety and according to their desert—ought to be released from that punishment, because, forsooth, some other persons were treated harshly. That is a system of compensation this House ought not to adopt, and I cannot think that the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Surrey intends to ask the House to affirm that Resolution. My right hon. Friend the late Under Secretary for the Colonies, looking on the four Resolutions as one, said they were not such as the House could be called upon to accept—though there were portions of those Resolutions to which individually he would not object; and accordingly he proposed to move the previous Question. My right hon. Friend, however, did not advert to the practice of the House which would lead to you, Sir, putting from the Chair the first of those Resolutions distinct from the other three, and, consequently, to the previous Question being moved to the first Resolution. Now, what does this first Resolution affirm?—
  "That this House deplores the excessive punishments which followed the suppression of the disturbances of October last in the parish of St. Thomas, Jamaica, and especially the unnecessary frequency with which the punishment of death was inflicted."
  I have read that Resolution over and over again, and I must own that as I read it I do

  1819
  not think there is a man in this House who would not affirm that Resolution if it stood alone. It seems to me to steer clear of every objection that might be made to other Resolutions, because it uses the word "punishment" and does not assume, as has been done in other Resolutions to-night and on former occasions, that particular acts committed in the island were illegal. On the contrary, by employing the word "punishment" it assumes the legality and necessity of the acts of authority at the time when these were committed. But I want to know can there be a doubt that every one of us must deplore in our hearts, and in a manner which, I fear, no words of a Resolution can adequately express, that such acts should have taken place, that such excessive punishments should have been inflicted, and, above all, that the punishment of death should have been imposed with such unnecessary frequency? I give those who directed these measures full credit for rectitude of purpose; I do not desire to say one word against their motives, but I deplore what I believe was an error of judgment of a most serious kind. For my part, I trust that if the previous Question is to be moved, the first Resolution may be put separately, that we may have the opportunity of voting upon it apart from the other three Resolutions which have been proposed.
  MR. CARDWELL: It is but natural, even at this late hour, that I should wish to address the House upon this subject. And without troubling you at any great length, I hope I shall be able to express the views I entertain with reference to these Resolutions. It would not have been natural for the Session to terminate without a discussion in this House upon a subject which more than any other in recent times has stirred the feelings of the community, and, as I can testify, has given to those intrusted with the responsibilities of power the deepest anxiety and pain. And if it was natural that the question should be discussed, from every consideration, personal and hereditary, it was natural that my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey should be the man to bring the question before the House of Commons, especially when we wish to deplore the severities exercised towards the black subjects of Her Majesty in Jamaica by those of the white race. I listened to the speech of my hon. Friend, and I must say, as far as spirit and intention were concerned, that I did not see in it those qualities of unfairness which, were so severely
  1820
  censured by my right hon. Friend opposite. No one who knows my hon. Friend, and no one who listened to his statement, could for a moment believe that every word which fell from him did not fall from the convictions of his head and the feelings of his heart. But my hon. Friend did nevertheless convey to the House, I think, a different impression with regard to the complaints contained in the ponderous book which the Commissioners have prepared than that conveyed by the Royal Commissioners themselves—a difference not in character, but in degree, and in a question of this kind degree is all important. I hope I shall be excused by my hon. Friend if I say that upon a question of this gravity to the character and interests of this country, and to the feelings of all who are dealt with when the House of Commons entertains such a question, I must prefer the deliberate and careful finding of the Royal Commissioners, who heard and saw the witnesses, to the comments of any Gentleman who takes his view from reading the documents accompanying their Report. I must say that in reading this volume I was myself impressed with a more intense feeling of regret for all that has occurred in Jamaica than any previously acquired knowledge, or than even the Report of the Commissioners had conveyed to my mind. It is the invariable effect of detail to influence the imagination and the feelings. But, I must say, that having gone through, as was my duty, the contents of this ghastly volume, the feeling left on my mind was one of the deepest sorrow and regret. My hon. Friend spoke very strongly of those who were the subject of alarm at the first outbreak of those disturbances, that they had acted as cowards, and as if there was much less danger than it appears to me there really was. He negatived many of the atrocities which were at first reported to me in the despatch of Governor Eyre, many of which certainly do not appear to have occurred precisely as Governor Eyre at first represented. But let anyone read in the evidence the records of those atrocities, and he will not only be deeply shocked, but will feel that those who had to deal with them in the first pressure of the emergency were not likely to view the details with that calm impartiality and dispassionate judgment that we are now able to bring to the consideration of the subject. In dealing with Governor Eyre we ought, I think, to remember the state of things at that time among the

  1821
  black population of the Southern States of America; that a civil war was going on in the neighbouring island of Hayti; and that he was suddenly called on to face an emergency which arose in a manner as much unexpected by him as by anybody else; entertaining what proved to be an erroneous consciousness of safety, he had permitted nearly the whole squadron to leave the island, and at the moment the force of troops at his disposal was not sufficient to secure the permanent restoration of order. Surrounded by the tears of those who had lost their relatives in these dreadful atrocities, and by the fears of those who wrote to him, sometimes truly, often in exaggerated terms, from all parts of the island, you must bear in mind the difficulties of the position in which he was placed. You ought not to forget that there was a man who, among all these anxieties and alarms, did retain some portion of his self-possession and natural courage, and that man was Governor Eyre. When a proposal was made to apply for aid to Cuba, he was the person to set his face against it; when a proposal was made to put Kingston under martial law, he was the person to refuse; and still later, I think as late as November, when the suggestion was made by a brave and experienced soldier, whose recommendation was endorsed by the Major General, that four other parishes should be put under martial law, Governor Eyre was the man who opposed the project. It was our duty not to forget these considerations; and we did, therefore, cordially agree with the Commissioners in giving Governor Eyre credit for the vigour and promptitude with which he repressed the insurrection. We were told to-night that no great danger ever existed. But such is not the language of the Commissioners. In one of their resolutions they spoke of an apparently formidable insurrection. Do we not know that forty miles of country were for days in the possession of the insurgents, that houses were gutted and in flames, that loyal inhabitants of the district had been killed, that the Court House was burnt down, the Custos and inspector of police were murdered, and that magistrates with their families were flying from the locality? In one of the resolutions the Commissioners say—
  "That though the original design for the overthrow of constituted authority was confined to a small portion of the parish of St. Thomas-in-the-East, yet that the disorder in fact spread with singular rapidity over an extensive tract of country, and that such was the state of excitement prevailing in other parts of the island, that had
  1822
  more than a momentary success been obtained by the insurgents, their ultimate overthrow would have been attended with a still more fearful loss of life and property."
  Now, that is what I call the solemn decision of the Commissioners, arrived at after a most careful and anxious study of this painful subject. They were of opinion that the prompt repression of the disturbances was a measure of mercy, as well as a measure of justice—
  "A little fire is quickly trodden out Which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench."
  Feeling the justice of this judgment of the Commissioners, we felt it our duty to give the credit due to Governor Eyre. But when I come to speak of the measures which were afterwards adopted, a very different duty devolves upon me. I see my right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Russell Gurney) who, at great sacrifice to himself, undertook, with Sir Henry Storks and Mr. Maule, this responsible, difficult, and painful duty, and if I say anything at all at variance with the facts he will be able to correct me. The continuance of martial law for so long a period of time, and the execution, and the flogging of so large a number of our fellow-subjects in pursuance of the sentence of martial law, were proceedings which it is certainly impossible to do other than in the strongest way to deplore and condemn. It was a grievous fault; and, by the censure it has entailed, it has been answered grievously. I have reason to know that the punishment which has fallen upon Governor Eyre has been deeply felt. I have not the honour of his acquaintance, but I believe him to be a man of courage and also of humanity. I do not palliate his errors; I deeply deplore them; but I am, nevertheless, convinced that he acted with the real belief that he was discharging his duty. The House is aware that, from the reign of Charles II. to the present time, statutes passed by the Legislature of Jamaica, and sanctioned by the Crown, have authorized, under certain circumstances, and with certain limitations, the proclamation of martial law. The statute now in force limits to one month the duration of any such proclamation. For the existence of these statutes Governor Eyre was not responsible. If they ought to have been repealed, which is not the question we are now considering, the blame may rest upon successive Governments, which have permitted them to continue. But it appears to me that Governor Eyre

  1823
  fell into the mistake of considering that because a month was the extreme period limited by the statute for the duration of martial law when once proclaimed, therefore its continuance for a month was justifiable and regular, irrespectively of any continuing necessity. The Commissioners and Her Majesty's late Government agreed in their conclusion, approved the original proclamation, but disapproved and condemned its continuance. Then, the question has been raised whether Mr. Eyre ought to be brought to trial before a jury of his countrymen. Her Majesty's late Government were not of opinion that he ought so to be put upon his trial. I do not think my words were correctly quoted in the early part of the evening. The despatch will show that the first reason given for not replacing him in his position as Governor was our disapproval of his conduct created by the Report of the Commission; but we did not think that it was consistent with our duty to expose him, as my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster suggested, to trial before a jury of his countrymen. On the contrary, we agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey who left the chair of the Jamaica Committee rather than be party to a prosecution. I do not think that any one who has due regard to the truth can deny that Mr. Eyre really shared in the belief, universal at the moment among all the white and coloured men of the island, that a conspiracy for their destruction had existed, and that Mr. Gordon was to a great extent guilty of promoting it. We were of opinion, for the reasons stated by my hon. Friend, that it was not a case for a criminal prosecution, but was properly dealt with by the removal of Governor Eyre from his office. With regard to martial law itself I shall say nothing, for the reasons stated by the hon. Gentleman who last spoke. I will only observe that what we have done in respect to Governor Eyre was founded upon principles that are laid down by the greatest authorities that have adorned the literature of this country. In one of them I find—
  "When law is silenced by the noise of arms, the rulers of the armed force must punish as equitably as they can those crimes which threaten their own safety and that of society. Every moment beyond is usurpation. As soon as the law can act, every other mode of punishing supposed crime is itself an enormous crime."
  Upon that principle we have acted throughout. So much with regard to Mr. Eyre:
  1824
  with regard to those who have acted under him, I gave the following instructions:—
  "I have communicated copies of your report, with the appendix, to the Secretary of State for War, and to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, who are the proper judges of the conduct of the military and naval officers engaged in these transactions. On my own part, I have to request that you will cause careful investigation to be made in those cases of civilians which appear to require it, with a view to such further proceedings as may be requisite and just. It will not be desirable to keep alive in the colony the heart-burnings connected with these lamentable occurrences by any very minute endeavour to punish every act which may now be the subject of regret. But great offences ought to be punished. I rely on your Government to accomplish this necessary object, and shall expect to receive a full report of the measures which have been taken with that view."
  Now, I understand from the speeches of my hon. and learned Friend and of my right hon. Friend the Under Secretary for the Colonies that the present Government will adhere to those instructions, and that the Governor of the colony is carrying them into effect. Ramsay is being tried for his life, and Ensign Cullen and Dr. Morris have also been arraigned, while further proceedings are in progress. I now come to examine the Resolutions proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey. I am quite sure that he has no other object in view than to promote the ends of justice and humanity; and that he has introduced the subject in order that it may be considered by the House of Commons with a view to furthering the ends of justice and promoting the interests of the colony. Looking at it, then, in that light, it appears to me that it is impossible that any Member of this House can differ from the opinion expressed in the first of those Resolutions. With regard to the other three, I will frankly say that I sympathize with the spirit which has dictated them. As to the second, it would be strange if I did not agree with it, since I believe the sentiments it contains have been largely taken from the despatch I had the honour to lay upon the table. With regard to the next, which deals with compensation, I should undoubtedly have pursued, had I remained in office, the policy which I doubt not will be pursued by those who have succeeded me. I should have communicated with the new Governor of Jamaica, and requested him to consider how far it was expedient to make compensation to those who have sustained unmerited injuries in the

  1825
  course of the disturbances in the island. Neither should I have confined it to one side, but have required investigation into the claims not only of the poor people who had suffered from the severities we all deplore; but also into the claims of those magistrates, landed proprietors and others, whose property was destroyed in the original disturbances. Then as to the amnesty. My hon. and learned Friend was very satirical upon the logical absurdity of remitting sentences that might have been justly passed, while other sentences that were too severe, or altogether unjust, were not touched: and it must be borne in mind that the severities of martial law lied already terminated, when martial law itself had ceased; amnesty could now have no effect on them. The only sentences which could now be affected by an amnesty would be sentences which had been passed by the constituted tribunals of the island in the regular course of law. I will now state to my hon. Friend what appears to me to be sufficient reason for net pressing this matter upon the House. First, I do not think it has been the practice of this House—the ultimate Court of Appeal, which is always ready to redress the grievance of every subject of Her Majesty—to interpose its high authority while proceedings of a judicial character are actually in progress. Ramsay is being tried for his life, while serious charges against others are being investigated by the constituted authorities. It seems to me more natural and desirable that the House should reserve its decision until those proceedings are over; it will then be competent to form an opinion upon them. Then, as to compensation my hon. Friend seems to think it should conic from the revenues of this country; but I feel sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not be so ready to express such an opinion. As it is, we have two regiments supported at the public expense for the protection of Jamaica, and my impression is that, if any compensation for these disturbances were granted, it would be out of the revenues of the colony itself; and if that be so, it would be unusual for the House of Commons to pass a Resolution upon the subject. Another most powerful reason for declining to come to the Resolutions offered for our acceptance is to be found in the arrangements made for the future government of the colony. A most able man has just been appointed Governor of Jamaica. You have been most fortunate in securing the services of Sir
  1826
  Henry Storks, and of the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Russell Gurney), and lastly, of Mr. J. B. Maule, upon the Commission. You have also been most fortunate in having for your first Governor, under the new constitution, such an able and experienced public servant as Sir John Grant. What will be Sir John Grant's first object in beginning his new Government? He will endeavour to secure the confidence of all classes in Jamaica—to assure them by his acts that he is not the representative or partizan of the white or black, but the servant of the Queen—come to give equal justice to all. That I am sure is his desire, and it will also, I hope, accurately describe his conduct. But if we fetter him with the Resolutions proposed, the second of which tells him to deal with severity towards the white, and the last to give amnesty to the black, while the third proposes to give compensation only to the black to the exclusion of the white proprietor who has suffered—my belief is that Sir John Grant will not be placed in very advantageous circumstances for commencing his new Government. It seems to me that it would be far better to leave cases where compensation and amnesty are prayed to be decided in the natural course by consultations between the Government of Jamaica and the Secretary of State at home. I say this without objecting to the spirit of the Resolutions; I entirely concur with the proposals to grant both amnesty and compensation, and also to administer punishment when deserved; but I believe, from the reasons I have given, that it would be unwise for the House to express that opinion by a formal Resolution. Before I sit down I wish to allude to another subject which has not been mentioned in the course of this debate, but which I should not pass by unnoticed. It will be remembered that in the first despatch, in which Governor Eyre spoke of the principal causes of the disturbances, he alluded to a letter which had been addressed to me by Dr. Underhill, and he attributed to that letter in great part the origin of the disturbances. As it was in consequence of my having communicated the letter to Governor Eyre that it obtained publicity, I feel bound to express an opinion upon that part of the case. The letter, which was brought to me I believe by the hon. Member for Bristol, was perfectly bonâ fide, and addressed to me for the purpose of obtaining practical inquiry into the subject. I accor-

  1827
  dingly sent it to the Governor for that purpose. If the consequences which have been said since to have resulted from that letter could have been reasonably expected by the Government of Jamaica, I think it was not necessary to give the letter publicity; and that the publishers of the letter, and not its writer, must be held responsible. I will further say, in regard to the persons connected with that letter, that when the despatch was published in the London Gazette, nothing could have been more reasonable and moderate than the course they pursued; and of all the deputations which came to me in that period of excitement, there was none more temperate and cairn in dealing with the subject than a deputation of Baptists which came from different parts of the country in company with the hon. Member for Bristol (Sir Morton Peto). In conclusion, Sir, I hope my hon. Friend will agree with me, that we should not be justified in dividing upon the Motions which have been submitted to the House. He must see that even among his own friends there is not a perfect concurrence of opinion. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Westminster would vote with him, but he has given notice of an Amendment which asks us to declare that the recent transactions in Jamaica require investigations of a character which can be satisfactorily met by a judicial tribunal only. I trust, then, we shall not divide upon the question, and I sincerely hope that these disturbances, the last of a long series of troubles which have afflicted Jamaica, will be succeeded by a period of prosperity such as the colony has never before known. It is in itself one of the most fertile in Her Majesty's dominions, and is blessed with a splendid climate. It was called by Lord Rodney, when by his splendid victory he had saved it, the first gem in the diadem of England, and without going as far as Rodney in his enthusiasm went, I think it reasonable to hope that, under her future Government, the island, which has hitherto been a warning to our other possessions in the West Indies, may enjoy such prosperity as to make it an example to the surrounding colonies.
  MR. THOMAS HUGHES,in supporting the Amendment of the hon. Member for Westminster, said, he found himself in the category of those who, according to the dictum which they heard earlier in the evening from the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Colonies, had for-
  1828
  feited for ever all title to be heard on this question in this House. He wished, however, to impress upon the House that if they now allowed the deeds which had been done in Jamaica to pass without being dealt with by any judicial tribunal, they would be the first generation of Englishmen who had shirked the duty of seeing that the honour of England did not come to disgrace in the hands of persons who represented us in the colonies, and who bore our honour and our authority on their shoulders. He would not go far back, but he would give two or three instances of what had been done in this country with regard to Colonial Governors within the last 100 years. He did not intend to say a word with regard to Governor Eyre and the case of Mr. Gordon, for he quite agreed with the Attorney General that, as these matters might come before a judicial tribunal—and he certainly hoped they would—this was not the place to speak of them. The first case to which he would refer was that of Governor Sabine, the Governor of Gibraltar, just 100 years ago. A military train started from Gibraltar, and connected with the artillery train was a carpenter who was tried by court martial and flogged. The sentence passed upon the man was simply affirmed by Governor Sabine, and for that he was tried in this country and found guilty of trespass. The case was mentioned shortly by Lord Mansfield, but the amount of damages was not stated. The next case was that of Governor Mostyn, of Minorca, in 1773. At that time the island was in at least as troubled a state as Jamaica in 1865, and there was a certain wine grower, named Fabricas, who was very troublesome to the Government, who was in the habit of perpetually getting up petitions in favour of free trade in wine, and at last he threatened to come with 200 wine growers behind him. The Governor called a council of field officers in the island, and consulted three of the Judges, and with the consent of that body so formed he seized upon Mr. Fabricas, imprisoned him for a week, and then sent him away to Carthagena, his own country, for a year's banishment. Mr. Fabricas prosecuted the Government in this country for that conduct. It was an action brought before a civil judicial tribunal, because the offence charged was not of a nature to be heard before a criminal tribunal. The defence was that the island was almost in a state of insurrection, and that in three cases former Governments had done exactly the

  1829
  same thing. The Lord Chief Justice De Grey, who tried the action, laid it down that the defendant had acted with a great deal of caution, judgment, and prudence—he might almost say with impartiality—but yet a verdict was found for the plaintiff with £3,000 damages. A new trial was moved for and refused, and upon a writ of error being brought, it was contended for the Governor that he was only accountable to the King in Council. Lord Mansfield, before whom the case then went, laid it down that in an English Court of Justice such monstrous propositions as that a Governor acting by virtue of letters patent under the Great Seal could do what he pleased, and was accountable to God and his own conscience, formed a doctrine which could not possibly be maintained, because if he was not accountable in that court he was not accountable anywhere. He added that the King in Council had no jurisdiction in the matter, not being able to give damages, reparation, or punishment. The judgment was, therefore, affirmed. The last case was that of General Picton, who became Governor of Trinidad after it was taken by Sir Ralph Abercromby, and who had received written instructions from Sir Ralph that no sentence was to be executed in criminal matters without his (General Picton's) approbation. Everything in the island at the time was disturbed, and no man's property was safe. A robbery was committed in the colony at the house of a person named Peter Roez, and suspicion fell on a mulatto girl named Louisa Calderon. The Judge referred the matter to General Picton, and the mulatto girl was subjected to torture, with a view to extract from her a confession of her guilt. She was tied by the right hand, and the left foot rested on a spike, and there she was kept till she fainted. It happened that a Commission was sent at the time to advise as to the state and government of the colony, and that Commission brought home news of what had taken place, and a public prosecution was instituted, and a defence was set up which seemed to answer the objection of the hon. Member for Bradford as to any judicial proceeding in the present case. The defence was that under the law of Spain torture of this kind was allowable, and that the Governor was within the law when he ordered the girl to be tortured. General Picton was found guilty of having violated the law. A motion was then made for a new trial, and the charge continued to hang over
  1830
  General Picton throughout the whole of the time he had so gloriously led the fighting brigade in the Peninsular war. The men of that day felt that such a course as that pursued by Picton ought not to be allowed to remain unpunished; and he (Mr. Hughes) contended that at the present moment the conduct of Governor Eyre ought not to be condoned without the intervention of a trial before a legal tribunal. He had no hesitation in declaring that if he found himself placed in the position at present occupied by Governor Eyre be would ask for such a trial as the only mode of duly consulting the honour and interest of England which had been committed to his charge; and he earnestly hoped that that was the mode in which that question would yet be determined.
  COLONEL NORTHsaid, he would not have troubled the House with any observations except for one or two of the remarks which had fallen from the hon. Member for East Surrey. That hon. Member had thought fit to apply the epithet "cowardly" to Dr. Bowerbank, a friend of his; but he had not explained in what way the conduct of that gentleman was cowardly. As the Custos of Kingston, it was Dr. Bowerbank's duty to arrest Mr. Gordon, and that duty he performed in as unobjectionable a manner as possible. The term "cowardly" could not well be applied in this country by one gentleman to another with impunity; and, as Dr. Bowerbank had been in England for several months, it would have been better if the hon. Member had applied it to him during that period. [Laughter.] He quite understood that laugh, but English gentlemen usually refrained from using epithets of that kind towards each other. The hon. Member had also stated that Governor Eyre had a force of 2,000 men at his disposal, but that number was only arrived at by mixing up with the regular troops sailors, marines, mounted police, and persons of that description. Governor Eyre had only a weak battalion of the 6th Regiment and a black regiment, and remembering what occurred in India in the case of the Native army, and bearing also in mind that no one knew beforehand what course the Maroons would take, it was obvious that Governor Eyre could safely rely only on the 6th Regiment. The flippancy which individual officers had exhibited had been animadverted upon, and any such spirit was certainly much to be regretted; for he believed that, if there was

  1831
  one feeling more conspicuously displayed than another by English officers generally, whether belonging to the army or the navy, it was that of extreme humanity, and nothing could be more painful to a British officer than to be called upon to perform anything like an act of cruelty. But it should be recollected that those acts were done during a time of insurrection, when there were but a few thousands of white people whom a handful of troops had to protect from the mass of the population of the island. Some hon. Gentlemen appeared to think that every negro who was killed during these unhappy transactions was murdered, while every white man who was butchered only got what he deserved.
  SIR ROUNDELL PALMER: Sir, I shall not detain the House for more than a few minutes; but I am anxious briefly to state the view which I take of the Resolutions now before us, and also to notice some of the points that have been raised in this discussion. As to the Resolutions, there is not a word from which I dissent, either in the first or the second of them; and, from what I have gathered in the course of the debate, I think the House generally is disposed to place upon record its affirmance of the first Resolution. But, as to the second Resolution, the reason why I do not wish to see it placed upon record as a Resolution of this House is because I approve of the substance of it, and because the course which it recommends is the course which the Government have already taken, and which they are continuing to take. If the Government were not adopting the course which the House thought ought to be adopted — if they appeared to be remiss and inattentive to the necessity of dealing with serious abuses committed in the course of the insurrection, then, no doubt, it would be most competent and might be proper and perhaps also necessary for the House to express its opinion in order to compel the Government to do their duty. But I believe it to be a proceeding most unusual, and I think not convenient, certainly unnecessary—if the Government are already pursuing the course which the House deems to be right, and which has for its purpose and object the execution of justice against any persons who may be inculpated by these transactions—for the House under those circumstances to pass a Resolution which, if it could have any effect at all, could only have the effect of infusing a political ele-
  1832
  ment into what ought to be a strictly judicial proceeding. And here I must repeat that I give my entire and cordial assent to the substance of these Resolutions, and, with little exception, to the substance of what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey, so far as I can recall it, in his able speech. But I cannot agree with what he said at the conclusion of his speech, when he seemed to put the case in this way—that the House must either approve and endorse the occurrences to which he referred, or it must adopt these Resolutions. Now, I do not think that the House is put into any such dilemma. The House may approve the sentiments expressed in the Resolutions, and while it does approve them may feel it to be unnecessary and inexpedient to interfere either with the due course of justice or with inquiry. Before sitting down I should not like to omit saying that I dissent from any observations which may be made for the purpose of extenuating these excesses. There can be no doubt of the general truth of that which the hon. Member (Mr. Stuart Mill) has ably stated, that exactly in the degree in which those who administer martial law are removed from the responsibilities attending the ordinary administration of justice, in that very degree is it the duty of those who are in charge over them to watch, and severely repress all excesses and abuses which may be committed in the operation of martial law. And when we look to the numbers of those who have suffered death in these unhappy transactions, even without drawing the limit of time, and seeing how large a proportion of these persons were put to death after the practical suppression of the insurrection, it is impossible not to conclude that errors, not to say crimes, of a deplorable character have been committed. Now, a few words only with regard to the observations of my hon. Friend (Mr. Thomas Hughes) upon the Motion of the hon. Member for Westminster, which he supports. Every word which my hon. Friend said to show how necessary was that Motion seemed to me to show how unnecessary it was. He cited several cases in which actions for damages had been brought against Governors of colonies by persons who had illegally suffered wrong at the hands of those Governors. Well, that is a remedy which belongs to the person aggrieved. He wants no Resolution of this House to enable him to bring his action. My hon. Friend mentioned the proceedings

  1833
  taken against Governor Picton for permitting the administration of torture to an individual in an illegal manner. If anything of that sort can be proved against the Governor, a public prosecution will also lie here. No Resolution of this House is needed for the institution of a criminal prosecution. And, further, I collect that in the opinion of some persons there is a case of this kind, and that it is their intention to bring it to the test of law. They can do so if they please, but that is no reason for passing a Resolution, especially one couched in a vague form, not showing what particular kind of judicial investigation is to be instituted, or by what authority, but simply stating that the recent transactions in Jamaica require investigation of a character which can be only satisfactorily made by a judicial tribunal. Now, we know perfectly well that a judicial tribunal cannot investigate these transactions generally; they can only be brought before such a tribunal by means of a definite charge against an individual, and then of course it will be for the Court to say whether the charge is or is not made out upon the evidence. No vote of the House is necessary for the purpose; and, therefore, all the reasons which have been given in support of that proposition are in truth reasons for confining ourselves at present to that general expression of opinion which will be given if we assent to the first Resolution of my hon. Friend.
  MR. RUSSELL GURNEY: I have been exceedingly unwilling to take any part in this debate, believing that the proposition which I had the honour of holding precluded me from entering into many of the topics which have been discussed this evening, and feeling, also, that in the position I at present fill I may possibly have to pronounce judicially upon other points which have been raised in the course of the debate. Upon some of the questions touched on this evening, therefore, I feel myself debarred from saying a single word: and I do not think I should have been induced to break the silence I had imposed upon myself had it not been for some observations which fell from my right hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Adderley), and also for the challenge given by my hon. Friend the late Under Secretary. I was called upon by him to state whether, in point of fact, I had changed the opinion expressed in the Report to which I was party—namely, that Gordon
  1834
  in our opinion was not shown to have been guilty of the offence attributed to him, or of any complicity in the conspiracy. I certainly have not changed that opinion. I entertain it as fully now as before. I am perfectly satisfied that the evidence on which Gordon was convicted was wholly insufficient to justify the conviction, and I am also satisfied, having carefully examined all the evidence adduced before us in the course of our inquiry, that, in the words of the Report—
  "Although it appears exceedingly probable that Mr. Gordon, by his words and writings, produced a material effect on the minds of Bogle and his followers, and did much to produce that state of excitement and discontent in different parts of the island which rendered the spread of the insurrection exceedingly probable, yet we cannot see, in the evidence which has been adduced, any sufficient proof either of his complicity in the outbreak at Morant Bay or of his having been a party to a general conspiracy against the Government."
  Of course I do not shrink from what is stated in the Report—that we were of opinion that there had been very questionable speeches and writings on the part of Gordon—matters that might possibly have subjected him to an indictment for sedition—but that was a wholly different thing from the crime for which he was convicted, and it would not justify the sentence passed upon him, and, unfortunately, carried into execution. I do not know whether I ought to go further; but I cannot help saying a few words respecting the description of the original outbreak given by the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Buxton). I cannot conceive how he could have looked at the Report, or at the evidence on which it is based, without coming to the conclusion that the outbreak had in it something far more serious than that which he has suggested. The hon. Member told us that candour compelled him to state that at the time of the outbreak considerable irritation existed among the black population, in consequence of their being driven from lands which they thought they were entitled to possess. But that was not the origin of the outbreak. Those who originated it were not persons who had been driven from lands to which they believed themselves entitled. They were persons who, to a very great extent, were settled upon their own freeholds. No doubt they availed themselves of the general desire on the part of the black population not, indeed, to retain possession of lands on which they had settled with a questionable title, but to become possessed of lands which had never been

  1835
  occupied by them, and to which they had no title whatever. There was a general idea among the black population that all "the back lands," as they were called, had been originally the property of the Queen, and that the Queen by some grant, which had been concealed from them by the manœuvres of the white population, had made these "back lands" over to the negroes. That was the notion which existed among the blacks about the land, and the originators of the outbreak took advantage of the excitement upon that subject in order to produce the "disaffection" which undoubtedly prevailed to a large extent in the island. But the hon. Gentleman altogether ignores the planned rising among the negroes, proved by witness after witness who came before us, and upon which I cannot understand that there can be any question—the actual drillings which went on among the people, their formation into different companies, with colonels and captains appointed over them, and the speeches addressed to them, in which they were told that the time would come when the effect of their drilling would be seen, and they would obtain the advantages promised them by those who originated the outbreak. We find from what occurred afterwards that there was a great deal more in the outbreak than a dispute about land. Throughout the few days that the outbreak lasted, the war cry and watchword of the negro was "Colour for colour!" "Buckra country for us," they said, "buckra" being the negro term for the whites. Then a perfectly different course was pursued from that which was followed in other insurrections. Formerly the regular course has been to set fire to the planters' houses and burn down the estate buildings. In this case, however, every plantation, with the trash-houses, where the sugar is manufactured, and the estate buildings, remained untouched — the cry being, "No touch trash-houses; we want them for us." At another place the plan was distinctly announced that in the following week, after the negroes had possessed themselves of the whole country, they would come down and take up the crops, because the white population would then be driven away, and would be no more seen in the island. Now, in dwelling upon the severities employed, which I deplore and condemn as strongly as anybody can, and which I think we have condemned pretty strongly in our Report, it is not quite right to ignore all this and to forget the real state of the island,
  1836
  the danger which had to be encountered by the whole white population, and the difficulties which beset those in authority at the time of the outbreak. I join most cordially in almost everything which has been said by my hon. Friend the late Under Secretary for the Colonies; and the anxiety which I felt, and which all the Commisioners felt, was that something should be done in order to prevent the recurrence of events similar to those which took place in Jamaica. I do trust that we shall not allow this occasion to pass away, without doing something in order to insure that if martial law is again resorted to in that island, steps shall be taken to point out how it is to be enforced. That the practice of proclaiming martial law has existed for centuries in Jamaica there can be no doubt. That every Governor has gone out with the belief that he had that power in his hands, and could exercise it when the occasion required, there is also no doubt. One of the misfortunes of Mr. Eyre was the nature of the advice which was offered all around him, and the utter want of any assistance from any persons with whom be was brought into contact. I do trust that the suggestions made by my hon. Friend will not be allowed to drop. Not only has martial law existed for centuries in Jamaica, but very recently power to declare martial law where it did not exist before has been given in other parts of the West Indies; and these laws have been sanctioned by the Home Government. The time has, therefore, really come when, seeing what has been the result of the declaration of martial law in this instance, and what disgrace has rested upon this country in consequence, we should not content ourselves with condemning those who were placed in such difficult circumstances, but should see whether some steps cannot be taken to lay down what these powers are, and in what mode, and with what safeguards, they may best be exercised.
  MR. BUXTON,in reply, withdrew the expression "cowardly," as applied to Dr. Bowerbank, and said he had candidly admitted that the rioters who went to Morant Bay intended mischief, and perhaps murder, and that expressions were used which seemed to indicate an intention to massacre the whites, but he had shown from what occurred that such a design could have been entertained by only a few negroes. The first Resolution had been accepted by the House, and he was glad

  1837
  of it; but the House should clearly understand that in accepting it they were passing a most decisive and emphatic condemnation upon excessive severity, which had been employed after the disturbances had been put down.
  Previous Question, by leave, withdrawn.
  Original Question again proposed.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that if it were accepted in the sense stated by the Mover, the House would commit the injustice it denounced by condemning persons whose conduct had not been inquired into, and who had not been heard in their own defence; and it would be a most extraordinary thing for such persons to be sent before a legal tribunal with the weight of an emphatic vote of condemnation by the House of Commons hanging over them. Either these persons had been guilty of a most serious offence, or they were innocent. If guilty, they ought in some way to be brought to justice; and he could not conceive that the House would evade legal proceedings by "deploring" something which had happened. He regretted to hear it contended that there was any difficulty about bringing to justice persons who had unnecessarily put the Queen's subjects to death by hundreds. We had a precedent in what happened in the case of an insurrection in India thirty years ago. It had to be grappled with by a small military force, and a Civil officer sent a young military officer into the field with an ambiguous commission to put down the insurrection, and not to embarrass himself with prisoners. The insurgents as a body fled; some surrendered and sought the protection of the military officer, who had them hanged by his troops, whose courage was sustained by music. He was properly tried by court martial, for inter arma silent leges. He was dismissed the army; and although on account of his youth there was a great disposition to restore him, the Duke of Wellington firmly insisted that he should not be restored, because he had carried on warlike operations with cruelty. If officers of the army and navy, in carrying on military operations, put people to death unnecessarily, it was the bounden duty of the Government to have them brought to trial, like that officer, and judged by courts martial. The proclamation issued in Jamaica authorized Her Majesty's troops to exercise all the rights of belligerents; and during the four year's civil war in America every attempt to put to death any who
  1838
  were taken prisoners with arms in their hands was deprecated in this country with the odium it deserved. Should it be said that in one of our colonies a military force, putting down insurrection, unnecessarily put hundreds to death, and that the House of Commons did nothing but deplore the unfortunate circumstances. Obviously for such excesses both military officers and civilians must be held responsible in the only way they could be. When it had been proclaimed that the law was suspended, and that the civil tribunals had no cognizance of what had occurred, there was but one tribunal to which any man could be held responsible, and that was the tribunal of Parliament. The House was bound to inquire into this matter, and to ascertain who was responsible for the acts which had been committed. If this Resolution were passed it could only lead to further proceedings. This was a question of misconduct in the discharge of a great public duty, and the man who had misconducted himself must be brought to justice in that Assembly. He maintained, therefore, that the House ought not to pass this Resolution. The hon. Member for Westminster ought to be allowed to bring forward this subject again on the reassembling of Parliament, when he trusted that the House would vindicate its authority.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: If Governor Eyre is to be brought to justice in Parliament it must be by process of impeachment, and it is for the hon. Gentleman and those who act with him to consider whether they have grounds for so grave an act. But what I want to call the attention of the House to is that this Resolution, if it be passed, could never be the foundation of an impeachment, because it is based throughout on the assumption that everything which was done was legal. The expression here, "that this House deplores the excessive punishments which followed the suppression of the disturbances," of course implies that those acts were legal, because the use of the term "punishment" is an acknowledgment that it was the result of a legal act. It would not, therefore, be possible to take this Resolution as the groundwork of an impeachment of Governor Eyre. In passing the Resolution the House would only express what the words expressed, and not the interpretation put upon them by the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Buxton); for, indeed, I must protest against that interpretation. The Resolution deplores what took place

  1839
  in Jamaica, and I suppose there is no one in this House who does not deplore that which, whatever may be the result, all must look upon as a great shame and calamity to this country. But, at the same time, the Resolution assumes throughout that all which was done was done legally; and while it regrets everything that occurred, it does not leave in doubt its opinion that the action of the authorities was perfectly legal. Nor is there any allusion in this Resolution to any individuals. The hon. Gentleman, it is true, said that there was au allusion to the conduct of individuals who ought to be proceeded against; but, on the contrary, expressions of that kind are entirely avoided throughout the Resolution. It says—
  "We deplore the punishments which followed the suppression of the rebellion, and especially the unnecessary frequency with which the punishment of death was inflicted."
  The very phrase "punishment of death" implies a legal act, and therefore there will be no ground whatever, in the event of the Resolution being passed, for the assumption that we are necessarily called upon to act against individuals. The result of passing the Resolution will, in fact, be quite contrary to that course which the hon. Gentleman seems to imply will be the logical consequence. I think that this is a Resolution very proper to pass, and one in which all can join. I trust, therefore, that the House will adopt it.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Resolution 2.
  MR. BUXTONwished to know, whether the Government intended that the conduct of the officers should be inquired into with a view to their punishment; because, if so, he should have no occasion to trouble the House with a division upon the second Resolution?
  MR. ADDERLEYrepeated that the instructions given in the despatch of the late Government to the Governor of Jamaica had only been more imperatively insisted on by the present Government, and proceedings were now taking place.
  MR. BUXTONasked, whether the proceedings would apply to naval and military officers?
  MR. ADDERLEYstated that the instructions had been sent out from the Colonial Office to proceed against civilians, and similar instructions had gone from the Admiralty and the War Office with reference to the naval and military officers.
  Resolution, by leave, withdrawn.
  Resolution 3.
  MR. BUXTONsaid, with regard to the third Resolution, that he understood it was under the consideration of the Government whether it might not be desirable to give compensation to those whose property had been wantonly and cruelly destroyed, and therefore he would not press the Resolution.
  MR. ADDERLEY: What he had said was that this Resolution was differently worded from the one which was on the paper yesterday, when the proposition was that compensation should be charged upon the Imperial revenue. He thought that the question of compensation was one that should be left to the consideration of the Government of Jamaica.
  MR. BUXTONsaid, that all he wished was that compensation should be given, and it was a matter of indifference to him whether it came from this country or from Jamaica. What he wished was that compensation should be given to the sufferers, and if he understood that the Government contemplated such a proceeding he would not press his Resolution.
  MR. ADDERLEYconsidered that it should be left to the Governor of Jamaica, he having full power to deal with it.
  Resolution, by leave, withdrawn.
  Resolution 4.
  MR. BUXTONsaid, that notwithstanding what had been stated by the Attorney General, he could not conceive why they should not remit punishment because a certain number of individuals had been already punished. Every rebellion was followed by an amnesty, and a remission of punishment; and he would most certainly divide on the fourth Resolution, unless he understood from the right hon. Gentleman that it was the real desire of the Government to remit further punishment wherever possible.
  MR. ADDERLEYsaid, that he must object to the looseness of the wording of the proposition in the Resolution; but there would be a revision of sentences. Some days ago instructions were sent out to Sir John Grant calling for the Judge's note in each case, and for a report as to which cases there might be ground for remitting any part of the punishments in,
  Resolution, by leave, withdrawn.

  ITALY—MONASTERY OF MONTE CASSINO.—MOTION FOR PAPERS.
  MR. HUBBARDrose to draw the attention of the House to certain circumstances relating to the great Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, in Italy, and other distinguished seats of learning. The inmates of this convent were not what we supposed the inhabitants of convents generally to be. They were men of family, education, and independence, who in their retirement guarded literary treasures of great value, and whose learning had been of advantage to the whole of Europe. He might also observe that they had taken a warm interest in the progress of Italy. He begged to move for Copy of any Communications received by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from Her Majesty's Minister Plenipotentiary at the Italian Court, upon the subject of the Statute of the 7th of July, for the suppression of Ecclesiastical Corporations; and he wished to inquire whether, in the opinion of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the terms of the Statute sanction the expectation that without derogating from the principle of the decree, the Italian Government may devise means for preserving institutions which, like the Monastery of Monte Cassino, have for centuries been distinguished as seats of learning, and have acquired the sympathy and respect of the civilized world?
  SIR GEORGE BOWYERsaid, the question was one interesting to civilization and science, and apart from all religious, political, and party feeling, he would press upon the Italian Government not to destroy so ancient and influential a seat of learning as that referred to. He hoped the Government would use their influence to prevent such a disgrace to the civilization of Europe as that which it was feared was contemplated.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, as foreign intervention was given up by our Government he hoped that it would not be induced to interfere in the internal affairs of Italy. He could not suppose that the Italian Government was so lost to the traditions of its own people as to be guilty of anything like the destruction or desecration of its own monuments of art or literature, and he thought that any expression of suspicion on our part in respect to its conduct in these matters would be received by the Italian Government as
  1842
  something like an insult. If addressed upon this point the Government of Victor Emmanuel might reply that it had had experience of those monastic orders, and was, of course, much more competent to form a judgment in respect to them than we were. It might say—
  Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEsaid, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire had evidently misunderstood the Motion of his hon. Friend, who had no idea whatever of urging our Government to interfere with the Government of Italy, or that of any other country in the world. All he asked was that the noble Lord the Minister for Foreign Affairs would use his influence to prevent the destruction of those beautiful monuments of art such as Monte Cassino by the Italian Government.
  LORD STANLEYsaid, the papers referred to were very few, and he had no objection to their production. His predecessor (the Earl of Clarendon) addressed one or two communications to the Italian Government with reference to Monte Cassino, and an answer was returned on the 27th substantially to the effect that it was not in the power of the Italian Government to modify the law which had been passed by the Italian Chamber with reference to these establishments, more especially as an Amendment which was expressly moved in the Chamber in favour of this institution was rejected by the Chamber, but that they would use what discretionary power they possessed to preserve the library and monuments of antiquity which the institution possessed. It was a matter which belonged to the Italian Government; and he considered that, under the circumstances, our Government ought not to further interfere, and Her Majesty's Government did not propose to take any further steps in respect to it.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he did not complain of the course adopted by the Government, as the repetition of a formal application might bear an aspect which ought not to be assumed by one friendly Government towards another on such a subject. It was, however, a matter which went far beyond the limits of Italy, and one in which other countries were greatly interested. When Monte Cassino and other similar institutions were first founded Italy was but just beginning to abdicate her position of supremacy of the

  1843
  civilized world, and in fact it was the mother of civilization, by which all had been nurtured and enriched, and therefore we had almost the same interest in what took place in connection with this institution as the people of Italy had. Although Italy could not recognize this institution, he believed there was a provision which could be so liberally interpreted as would preserve the library, archives, and monuments of the institution of Monte Cassino and other similar institutions in Italy.
  Motion agreed to.
  Address for "Copy of any Communications received by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from Her Majesty's Minister Plenipotentiary at the Italian Court, upon the subject of the Statute of the 7th July, for the suppression of Ecclesiastical Corporations."—(Mr. Hubbard).

HABEAS CORPUS SUSPENSION (IRELAND) ACT CONTINUANCE BILL.

  LEAVE. FIRST READING.
  LORD NAASmoved for leave to bring in a Bill to continue for a limited time the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland. Ho said, he would fix the second reading of the Bill as the first Order on Thursday evening.
  SIR GEORGE BOWYERsaid, he would not resist the introduction of the Bill, but he believed the measure to be unnecessary, as Ireland was in a state of tranquillity, and in several cases at the assizes the Judges had been presented with white gloves. There was less amount of crime in Ireland than in England, and as to the Fenian conspiracy, the circumstances which had passed showed that it was not to be feared. Under these circumstances, be entered his protest against the continued Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. It was remedial measures which the wants and aspirations of the country equally required.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill to continue, for a limited period, the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland, Ordered to be brought in by Lord NAAS, Mr. Secretary WALPOLE, and Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 256.]

  CATTLE DISEASES PREVENTION ACT AMENDMENT (No. 2) BILL.
  (Mr. Secretary Walpole, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Hunt.)
  [BILL 251.] COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1.
  MR. WALPOLEstated that he had found it absolutely imperative that the rate of interest on the loan by the Public Works Loan Commissioners should not be less than 3¼ per cent, instead of 3 per cent, as had been proposed.
  MR. WATKINcomplained that by the wretched legislation of the late Government Liverpool had been entirely exempted from the cattle disease rate, while Birkenhead, Stockport, and other towns had to contribute towards it. Moreover, instead of Parliament being called together in October to legislate for stamping out the disease, nothing was done till February or March, when the disease had broken out in 450 places in Cheshire. The loan at 3 per cent was part of a compromise between the county and the boroughs, and he regretted that the arrangements should be disturbed.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the Government had every desire to assist the county in the present emergency, but 3¼ per cent was the rate fixed for the advances made during the cotton famine, and the conditions of repayment would, he hoped, be some alleviation of the increased interest.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, it was necessary to fix 3¼ per cent as the minimum, otherwise the Commissioners would be inundated with applications.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause agreed to.
  On Question that the Preamble be agreed to,
  MR. WATKINinquired, what course the right hon. Gentleman intended to pursue in future with regard to remedying the inequalities in levying the rate in boroughs?
  MR. WALPOLEadmitted that the rates were raised very unequally. However, he was happy to say that the plague among cattle had greatly diminished of late, and

  1845
  during the past week it had reached a minimum of 250 or 300. He therefore trusted that, with the blessing of Providence, there would be no necessity for altering the method of levying the rate, but if unfortunately the plague should again increase, the Government would bring in some measure to rectify the inequalities in the rate.
  Preamble agreed to.
  House resumed.
  Bill reported; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

  PATRIOTIC FUND.
  On Motion of General PEEL, Bill to make provision for the administration of the Patriotic Fund, ordered to be brought in by General PEEL, Sir JOHN PAKINGTON, and Mr. JOHN ABEL SMITH.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 257.]
  House adjourned at half after Two o'clock,

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Report—On Thames Navigation (214).
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Turnpike Trusts Arrangements٭ (247); Poor Law Amendment٭ (248); Public Libraries Act Amendment٭ (249).
Second Reading—Local Government Supplemental (No. 2)٭ (201); Local Government Supplemental (No. 3)٭ (202); Land Drainage Supplemental (No. 2)٭ (224); Railway Companies' Securities (240).
Committee—Suburban Commons (222), now Metropolitan Commons (250); Parochial Buildings (Scotland) Act Amendment٭ (226); Fees (Public Departments)٭ (233); Parishes (Scotland) Act (1844) Amendment٭ (235); County Assessments٭ (221).
Report—Parochial Buildings (Scotland) Act Amendment٭ (226); Fees (Public Departments)٭ (233); Parishes (Scotland) Act (1844) Amendment٭ (235); Rochdale Vicarage٭ (251); County Assessments٭ (221),
Third Reading—New Forest Poor Relief٭ (205); Courts of Justice٭ (218); Inland Revenue٭ (229); Colonial Branch Mints٭ (227); Oyster and Mussel Fisheries٭ (212), and passed.

CONFEDERATION OF THE BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES.

  QUESTION.
  LORD LYVEDENsaid, as he understood the project of the Confederation of the British Provinces of North America was now more likely to be carried into effect than at any former period, and that the assent of most of the colonies had been obtained to it. He also understood that delegates from several of the Provinces had arrived in this country to confer with the Colonial Secretary on the subject. Certainly no time could be more opportune than the present was for the passing of such a measure, when the United States had shown so friendly a feeling in interfering to prevent the invasion of Canada, and the colonists had behaved with such gallantry and loyalty in repelling invasion. No doubt we were now approaching the close of the Session, and there would be great difficulty in passing the necessary measure on the subject—still, the subject ought not to pass sub silentio. He would, therefore, ask the Secretary for the Colonies to inform the House, Whether he intended to submit any measure upon this subject in the present Session; whether it would not be desirable to act immediately in this matter, or whether he saw any reason for delay?
  THE EARL OF CARNARVON: It would be impossible to overrate the importance of the subject to which the noble Lord has drawn attention. I should say that, of all the questions that come within the range of the Colonial Administration, there is none that is more important than the question of the Confederation of the British North American Colonies; it is also of vast importance to the inhabitants of those colonies, as affecting their own future fortunes and the destinies of the colonies themselves. This is a question not of to-day merely—it is one that for several years has been the subject of anxious thought and deliberation by successive Governments. It dates back certainly as far as the time of Lord Durham. No doubt the chief result of the matter at that time was the legislative union of the two Canadas; still, it is clear that Lord Durham's Report contemplated the incorporation of the other British North

  1701
  American Provinces. From that time no active practical steps were taken until 1858, when Sir Edmund Head, Governor General of the British North American Provinces, in opening his Parliament, announced the revival of the question of Confederation. That year delegates came over to this country and made proposals to the Home Government. These were entertained; but no progress was made, and the delegates returned to North America without having accomplished the object they had in view. In October, 1864, delegates from Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward's Island met at Quebec for the consideration of this subject, and they passed a long series of resolutions relative to the terms and principles upon which a measure of this nature could be carried out, which have since been known by the name of the Quebec Resolutions. Difficulties arose and delays intervened; and it is only a fortnight since we received what may be regarded as the last piece of documentary evidence required of the feeling in favour of incorporation. We have received the Resolutions of the Assembly of New Brunswick announcing their final adhesion to the scheme, and requesting the Government to appoint delegates to confer upon the matter. On Saturday last the delegates of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia reached this country, and it is understood that they are to be followed in a few days by the Canadian deputies. This may seem to be a very lengthy and tedious mode of procedure; but I am bound to say, looking to the great magnitude of this question and the many details involved in it, the great interest, both national and individual, raised by this discussion, I am not surprised at the delay. I am bound to say further that the conclusion at which the colonies have arrived in favour of a great Confederation has not been arrived at without great sacrifice of personal and local feeling; but it comes to us as the unanimous decision of the local Government of the colonies. Under these circumstances, I conceive it is the duty of Her Majesty's Government not only to lend a respectful attention to the representations which these delegates may make to us, but, if I may say so, to meet them half way, and to facilitate the object they have in view, so far as they are in conformity with the wishes of the colonies and with the interests and policy of this country. And when
  1702
  I say "consistent with the interests and policy of this country," I mean that everything which can deepen and broaden the constitutional foundations of those great colonies and give life and strength to their political organization must be not only consistent, but identical with the interests and policy of this country. The noble Lord asks me as to the intentions of Her Majesty's Government. I can only say in answer that this great measure raises so many and such complicated questions that time, at all events, must be given for the consideration of them by the Government and the delegates. The Canadian delegates have not yet arrived, nor, as I have said, is it absolutely certain that they have left Canada. Under these circumstances, looking at the advanced period of the Session, looking also at the absence of those delegates whose presence is absolutely necessary to the practical consideration of the question, it is obviously impossible for the Government to submit to Parliament a measure on so important and complicated a matter. It will be my duty during the recess to enter fully and frankly into communication with the delegates of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and to endeavour with them to arrive—as I trust we may—at such a conclusion as will be satisfactory both to the colonies and the mother country.
  THE MARQUESS OF NORMANBY: As this is a question which affects the interest of the great colonies over which I recently presided, I trust your Lordships will permit me to make one or two remarks. I think that Her Majesty's Government act wisely in postponing any legislation on this question. It is one so vast and of such vital importance to the colonies affected that, although I am in favour of the union of the North American Colonies, I feel that justice could not be done if it were attempted this year. The question is one which demands the most careful deliberation and much consideration. Although the union has received the sanction of the Legislature of the colony over which I presided, still there is in that colony considerable opposition to the measure; and so much does the success of the union depend upon the unanimity and the cordiality with which it is received by the people, that I trust Her Majesty's Government will use the time they will now have at their disposal in endeavouring to frame a measure, to be submitted to Parliament next year, which shall overcome the objections which are now, I

  1703
  believe, conscientiously entertained by the opponents of the scheme. I do not concur with their views, for I think that the union of the North American Colonies is essentially necessary; but, at the same time, there are details which it will be well to consider with a view to removing objections that do exist. I trust, therefore, Her Majesty's Government will give careful consideration to the arguments of those who oppose union, and that they will succeed in framing a measure that will meet with universal approval.

  SUBURBAN COMMONS (now METROPOLITAN COMMONS) BILL—(No. 222.)
  (The Earl of Belmore.)

  COMMITTEE.
  Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
  LORD REDESDALEobjected that the Bill which had been introduced into the House of Commons as the Commons (Metropolis) Bill, and referred to a Select Committee, had been altered both in name and scope, so that, instead of affecting only commons within fifteen miles of the metropolis, it now applied to all commons within two miles of any town containing 10,000 inhabitants, and would therefore affect the rights of landowners in nearly every part of the kingdom. This alteration had been made practically without any notice at all, and he was sure that many who would be affected by it were not aware of the alterations which had been made. Under these circumstances, it was a question whether they should proceed further with the Bill.
  THE EARL OF BELMOREexplained that the object of the Bill was to authorize the preservation of suburban commons within the metropolitan police district, and also within two miles of any town containing 10,000 inhabitants, or within certain greater distances of towns containing larger populations. In the case of any common which it was desired to preserve for public recreation a scheme was to be drawn up by the local authority and presented to the Inclosure Commissioners, who were to inquire into the statements of the memorial; the scheme was then to be printed and circulated; and when finally settled was to be certified by the Commissioners under their seal. The expenses of the local authority were to be defrayed by a local rate. There were clauses at the end protecting the rights of the Crown and of the lords of manors,
  LORD CRANWORTHsaid, that the statement seemed to involve an objection to the Bill more forcible than any which had been stated—namely, that it would interfere with the rights of property.
  THE EARL OF BELMOREsaid, the Bill had been brought in by the late Government, and had been referred by them to a Select Committee, in which the title of the Bill was changed, and its operation extended. Care had been taken, however, to protect manorial rights.
  House in Committee; Amendments made; the Report thereof to be received on Thursday next; and Bill to be printed, as amended. (No. 250.)

  RAILWAY COMPANIES' SECURITIES BILL—(No. 240.)
  (The Earl of Belmore.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE EARL OF BELMOREsaid, the measure had been brought in by the late President of the Board of Trade, and was founded in great measure on the Report of a Committee of their Lordships' House appointed three years ago, and re-appointed two years ago on the Motion of the late Lord Donoughmore. He (the Earl of Belmore) had, at the suggestion of that noble Lord, brought in a Bill on the subject last Session; but after being sent down to the House of Commons it was withdrawn, in consequence of the late period of the Session and the opposition which it was found likely to encounter. That Bill, however, was founded on the second Report of the Committee, whereas the present Bill was founded on the first Report. The chief object of the measure was to compel Railway Companies to make every half year certain returns relating to the state of their borrowing powers, and to deposit such returns in some public office, so that they might be open to the inspection of intending lenders amongst the public.
  Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.

SHEEP DISEASE IN SCOTLAND.

  QUESTION.
  THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCHasked the noble Duke the President of the Council, Whether the time had not arrived when

  1705
  the restrictive orders against the removal of sheep in Scotland could be modified or rescinded? The question was one of very great importance. He believed that sheep in the South of Scotland were in as healthy a state as they ever were known to be, and that the mortality among those animals was below the average. On the morrow the first great sheep sale would take place, and it would be followed by many more in August, September, and October, at which hundreds of thousands of sheep would come into the market. Unless the restrictions on removal were discontinued very great inconvenience would be experienced.
  THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMsaid, the question had been under consideration for the last three weeks, and the Government had hoped that the cattle disease in Scotland would have completely ceased ere this, and that all restrictions against removals could have been taken off. But, unfortunately, during the month of July some fresh cases had broken out in Perthshire, and the last information received made it quite impossible to pass any order absolutely abolishing all restrictions. He was happy to say, however, that from information which had been received at the Privy Council Office it would appear there had been no fresh case for the last eight or nine days; and he therefore hoped that before very long the whole country might be declared free from disease, and sheep might be allowed to pass freely from one part of Scotland to another. He might observe, that at present removals could take place on licenses from the local authorities.
  House adjourned at Six o'clock, to Thursday next, half past Ten o'clock.