Sitting of 15 May 1866

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBER SWORN—Hon. Egremont William Lascelles, for Northallerton.
PUBLIC BILL—Ordered—Colonial Bishops.
First Reading— Colonial Bishops [160].

THE LOSS OF THE "EUROPEAN."

  QUESTION.
  MR. GRAVESsaid, he would beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, Whether it is his intention to cause an inquiry to be made into the recent destruction of the steamer European, with fifty lives, at Colon, from the effects of a quantity of highly explosive oil, called glonoin or nitro-glycerine, which had been forwarded from Germany, through Grimsby, to Liverpool, where it was shipped on board of the European; and whether any, and what, steps have been taken to prevent the reception or transmission of this article without proper notice?
  MR. MILNER GIBSON: Sir, it is not intended to institute an inquiry into the destruction of the European by the explosion referred to, as there has been an inquiry on the spot by a Naval Court under the Merchant Shipping Act. The Report has just been received, and will be published. In regard to preventing the shipment of the explosive oil except on certain conditions the law gives us no power now of interfering in the matter, but the subject is under consideration.

THE CHOLERA—EMIGRATION AGENTS.

  QUESTION.
  SIR ANDREW AGNEWsaid he wished to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Privy Council, Whether he is aware of the extreme danger to the health of the community arising from the neglect of sanitary precautions on the part of Emigration Agents and Contractors; and, whether Her Majesty's Government are prepared to take steps to oblige agents and contractors to provide suitable accommodation for all passengers landed by them at any British Port?
  MR. H. A. BRUCEsaid, in reply, that the Government were quite aware that the accommodation for the reception of emigrants on the eastern coast of England

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  was altogether inadequate, and was fraught with considerable danger to the public health. Her Majesty's Government had communicated with all the ports at which emigrants were landed, and called the attention of the local authorities to the necessity for providing proper accommodation. This appeal had not only been made to them by the Privy Council, but the Poor Law Board had also instructed its inspectors to urge the same recommendations. Her Majesty's Government had communicated with the foreign countries from which emigrants came, and had represented to them that the principal Liverpool steam companies had refused to convey any more emigrants. The effect of this would be to stop emigration from the North of Europe, with the exception of a certain number of persons who had already paid their passage money. The Secretary of State for the Home Department had written to the Mayor of Liverpool, recommending that the companies conducting emigration should be urged to return the passage money of emigrants coming from infected ports, and taking their passage from our ports, and this recommendation was, he believed, being acted upon. The greater part of these emigrants came from Northern Germany, which was free from cholera, but considerable numbers of them passed through Rotterdam, where cholera prevailed. Every effort was being made to stop the flow of emigration from the infected regions and ports.

SPECIFICATIONS OF PATENTS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, he would beg to ask Mr. Attorney General, Whether he is aware that the printing of the Specifications of Patents is often many months in arrear; and whether, both in the interests of the public and of the patentees, such Specifications ought not to be printed as soon as possible after the patentee has deposited his complete Specification?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALstated, in reply, that the printing of the Specifications of Patents had been in arrears in consequence of an insufficient number of clerks, but the numbers had now been increased, and the arrears he hoped would be cleared off in the course of three or four months.

THE DUCHY OF CORNWALL.

  QUESTION.
  SIR LAWRENCE PALKsaid, he would beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, If any arrangement has been made between the Crown and the Duchy of Cornwall for defining their respective rights to the foreshores of South Devon, and their respective jurisdictions; and, if so, whether he will state the nature of such arrangements; and, whether it it true the Duchy have claimed Petty Customs on some of the goods in vessels recently wrecked at Broadsands, as if they had been regularly imported?
  MR. CHILDERSreplied, that by a grant of Edward III. to the Black Prince what were called the Waters of Dartmouth were given to the Duchy of Cornwall, and under that grant the Duchy claimed certain rights not only in the Port of Dartmouth, but on certain portions of the coast of Devonshire. After the grant of a portion of the foreshore, some years ago, those rights became the subject of inquiry, and an arrangement had been made as between the Crown and the Duchy of Cornwall, but in no way prejudicing or confirming the rights of the Crown and of the Duchy as against private persons. When goods were landed from wrecks for consumption they paid the dues, but when they were landed for re-shipment those dues, though legally claimable, had not been exacted.

INDIA—MADRAS IRRIGATION COMPANY.

  QUESTION.
  MR. SMOLLETTsaid, he rose to ask the Under Secretary of State for India, If it be true, as stated in The Times of the 12th May, that the India Council have resolved to offer the shareholders of the Madras Irrigation Company the option of receiving for their property 5 per cent Government Paper; and, whether there is any intention of dealing in a similar manner with the East India Irrigation and Canal, the shares of which are now quoted at 25 per cent discount?
  MR. STANSFELD, in reply, said, the Madras Irrigation Company started with a guaranteed capital of £1,000,000, and after effecting certain works they proposed to raise from the public some unguaranteed capital. From the state of the money-market, however, they were not able to raise the unguaranteed capital, and they applied to the Secretary of State for as-

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  sistance. A correspondence of some length had ensued, which was at present in this condition. The Secretary of State offered them on the one hand £600,000 of debentures; or, on the other hand, he would take back from them the undertaking and give them in Five Per Cent Indian Stock at par, the amount of guaranteed stock invested in the capital of the Company. The Company had that morning replied to the communication, and they declined the latter alternative; and they proposed some modification in carrying out the loan on debentures. That afternoon his noble Friend the Secretary of State for India had replied that he would not refuse the extension of the term of the loan upon debentures to five years, but he required that both the alternatives which he suggested should be submitted to the shareholders of the Company, in order that they might have the opportunity of deciding. As regarded the East India Irrigation and Canal Company, there was no intention of dealing with it in the same way, as it was not a guaranteed Company.

THE NATIONAL GALLERY.—QUESTION.
MR. TREEBYsaid, he would beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works, Whether there is any objection to increase the time for Students to study in the National Gallery from two (as at present allowed) to four days in the week; should it be considered that the students studying on days when the Exhibition is open to the public that it would interfere with the convenience of the public, whether he would object to request the architects for the new National Gallery to provide accommodation for the students during the time the establishment was open to the public?
MR. COWPERsaid, in reply, that one of the important purposes for which the National Gallery had been established was to afford an opportunity to art students to copy pictures. They were allowed to do so when the public was excluded, and when, consequently, they might paint without interruption; but he thought the convenience of the public would be too much sacrificed if the suggestion of the hon. Gentleman were adopted. At present the rooms were not large enough to enable students to copy pictures on open days without interfering with the public; but the new rooms would be much larger, and when they were opened probably some arrangement might be made to enable artists
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to copy pictures even on the days when the Gallery was open to the public.

CATTLE PLAGUE IN IRELAND.

  QUESTION.
  MR. GREGORY: I rise, Sir, to ask my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether he has received any information of the appearance of the cattle plague in the County of Down; and, if so, whether Her Majesty's Government have determined on adopting the most prompt and stringent measures to isolate and stamp out the disease there; and, whether it is the intention of the Government to institute forthwith an inquiry into the origin of the appearance of the disease in-Ireland?
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE: Sir, in answer to my hon. Friend, I have to say that I am afraid it is too true that there is great reason to believe the cattle plague has at last made its appearance in Ireland. From information which we have derived through telegram it appears that Professor Ferguson—whose services have been employed for many months in investigating suspicious cases in many parts of Ireland—reported in the course of yesterday, by letter to the Irish Government, that there were cases in the county of Down, at a place within about six miles of Belfast, which, in his opinion, were cases of cattle plague. It is supposed that the disease was brought over to Ireland by an English dealer who went there to purchase young stock. The most prompt measures were taken in the course of yesterday. The full powers of the Act lately passed were brought into force. A boundary was marked out, within which the infected district was enclosed; and the lands so cut off are closely watched by the police to prevent egress or ingress. The infected cattle were at once slaughtered and buried. Within the last half hour I, in the absence from London of my noble Friend the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, sent over a telegram on the subject; and measures are being taken by the Privy Council to prevent the holding of all the fairs and markets which were about to have been held within some miles of the place where the disease has appeared. Everything, therefore, has been done which the law allowed us to do; so that I hope the disease may be stamped out in the locality where it has made its appearance.
  LORD NAAS: I wish to ask my right

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  hon. Friend, whether the Government are about forthwith to direct an inquiry by persons, in whom the public will have confidence, into the cause of the introduction of the disease?
  MR. OWEN STANLEY: Will the Irish Government take precautions as regards the export of cattle from Ireland?
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE: I have no doubt that we shall have very soon a detailed account from Professor Ferguson, who is very competent to report on the subject. As I have mentioned he was sent down to examine the cases, and it is probable that he must know more about the matter than anyone else; but should anything else be wanted to clear up the origin of the disease in Ireland, means shall be taken to procure additional information without delay. I am not prepared to answer the question of the hon Member for Beaumaris (Mr. Owen Stanley) at present.
  LORD JOHN BROWNE: Am I right in understanding the Chief Secretary for Ireland that the whole of the cattle on the farms where the disease broke out have been killed? If not, will the Government give any instructions on the subject?
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE: I depend entirely on telegrams for my information, which state that all the infected cattle have been killed.

ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, I beg to move that this House will at its rising adjourn till Thursday.

WAR BETWEEN SPAIN AND CHILE AND PERU—BOMBARDMENT OF VALPA RAISO.—QUESTION.
SIR LAWRENCE PALKsaid, he rose to ask the Question of the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs which he had postponed yesterday at the request of his hon. Friend, relating to the bombardment of Valparaiso, which was a wholly defenceless city, having no arsenal, no fortress, no guns, nor soldiers of any sort or kind. The few guns it had possessed for saluting purposes had been, if his information was correct, taken from the battery at the request of the British Minister—that Minister and the British Admiral undertaking to British residents, and also to the inhabitants of the city, that no bombardment should take place. It seemed to him that it was al-
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most, if not quite, a breach of the Law of Nations to attack a defenceless place; and he could not conceive, in these days when we hoped to temper war with humanity, any act which should be more universally reprobated than that which appeared to have been done at Valparaiso. It had been stated that immediately on the Spanish Admiral having intimated that he was about to proceed to extremities, all the Ministers of all the Foreign Powers, including the Minister of the United States, met together and signed a joint protest against such a proceeding. It was also stated that this protest not having received any attention, and the Spanish Admiral declaring his intention to proceed to extremities, the American Admiral proposed to Admiral Denman, the English Admiral, to prevent by force this horrible sacrifice of property. It further appeared that the overtures of the American Admiral were not accepted by our Admiral, who, after having given his word that the city should not be bombarded, thought fit to leave Valparaiso to its fate, and although he had been promised the full support of all countries represented there, and although he knew that any threat to sink the English fleet was perfectly futile, had given orders to English sailors and English captains to retire and allow the Spanish Admiral to wreak his vengeance on the unfortunate town. He wished to ask the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether the English Admiral was justified in moving his ships and permitting the Spanish Admiral to perpetrate this atrocity. Of course, if Admiral Denman acted according to his instructions, no blame could be attached to him; but those orders must be stringent indeed which would prevent him from acting upon such an occasion. He had always thought that the object of maintaining fleets at foreign stations was to protect the lives and property of British subjects; but this was evidently a mistake, and when next the Estimates were submitted to the House he hoped some hon. Member would move that they be curtailed, and that for the future English Admirals who were sent to take care of British interests might be sent in a yacht with a broomstick at the masthead. He would conclude by asking the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If it is true that the Spanish Admiral has bombarded and destroyed the city of Valparaiso; if it is true that the English Minister and Rear Admiral Denman refused to co-operate with the American Ad-

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miral in saving it from destruction; and whether the Admiral was justified in moving his ships out of the way to enable the Spaniards to fire on a defenceless city?
ADMIRAL WALCOTTsaid, the reputation and the honour of a British Admiral was far dearer to him than life itself. He could assure the House that he would not have risen to defend the conduct of any brother officer, even though that officer, as in the present instance, was his personal friend, were he not persuaded that no blame could be justly imputed to him. Thus stood the facts of the case. The Spanish Admiral with a formidable squadron arrived off the Port of Valparaiso, for the alleged purpose of receiving from the Government of Chile satisfaction for acts said to be hostile to Spain, and his first stipulation was that the Spanish flag should be saluted by the Chilean authorities. The Spaniards, he need scarcely remark, were a proud and haughty people and exceedingly obstinate, while the Chilean Government, though, perhaps, less haughty, were certainly equally obstinate. It was scarcely to be expected, therefore, that any pacific understanding could in reason be arrived at. According to a letter which he had read that morning, written by an officer during this transaction from on board Admiral Denman's ship, it appeared the Chilean Government offered to erect the Spanish flag on the parapet of their little fort, and to salute on a clear understanding that the Chilean flag were displayed on board the Spanish Admiral's ship, and the salute they first gave be returned; but the Spanish Admiral was too haughty to accede to this. Now, with regard to the conduct of Admiral Denman, it had been alleged that he gave the English merchants of Valparaiso an assurance that in the event the Spanish Admiral should persist in his threat to bombard the city, failing to receive the satisfaction he had demanded from the Chilean Government, he (Admiral Denman) would protect their property; but had he given any such assurance he was convinced he would have scrupulously fufillled his promise. No doubt he used every remonstrance in his power to dissuade the Spanish Admiral from so dastardly an outrage as the destruction of a city that was utterly defenceless and had no means of returning his fire. When, however, the Spanish Admiral adhered to his intention, the British Admiral had no power to prevent his carrying his threat into execution. He had
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under his command only five vessels, not one of which was metal-plated, and had he interfered in a hostile spirit, the act would have been wholly unjustifiable, with the stringent orders he possessed from his Government to preserve the strictest neutrality as he (Admiral Walcott) believed to be the fact. Had he swerved from these, he might have involved this country in a war with Spain; nor under any circumstances could he have been justified to risk the lives of his officers and men in an attempt that necessarily would have proved perfectly senseless against a force decidedly so superior to his own. All these considerations the British Admiral had to consider deeply. It had been said that the Commodore of the American squadron, likewise before the Port of Valparaiso, had offered Admiral Denman to follow him into action against the Spanish squadron did they persist in their threatened purpose; but this language implied that the British Admiral was to be the first in the hostile movement, and that he was to bear the whole of the responsibility. But God forgive me; can any man believe that an English Admiral would require to be dictated to by an Admiral of any other Power on earth? No, Sir, that is not the spirit of an English Admiral. I believe he (Admiral Denman) did all that was worthy of himself, worthy of his honour, worthy of his reputation, and worthy of his country. The property of the English merchants at Valparaiso, it is true, was very valuable, and reckoned with that belonging to other Powers is, I am informed, of no less value than 30,000,000 dollars. In conclusion, I ask whether the Government will lay on the table of the House any and all such official documents that will clear up the honour and the reputation of Admiral Denman, in my firm belief, thus unworthily assailed?
MR. LIDDELLsaid, that the bombardment of Valparaiso was a question which interested not only this country or the House, but the whole civilized world; for whatever differences of opinion might exist with regard to prize property captured at sea, blockades, and other matters of that kind, there could be but one opinion on this point—that the bombardment of a defenceless city was an act inconsistent with humanity, and to be reprobated by the voice of public justice. He believed the fair expression of public opinion in the House of Commons would not be without its effect in the councils of Europe, nor even in those of Spain herself,

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upon whom rested the responsibility of this act. The House, he felt sure, would not desire to prejudge the conduct of the English Admiral or of any other parties concerned, in the absence of any detailed information, for they had had in the case of Jamaica very recent experience of the mischievous consequences of so doing; but he must say that in the position of neutrality which this country occupied in the war between Spain and Chile, Admiral Den-man would not have been justified in entertaining the suggestion—very hastily made—of the American Commodore to interfere by force to prevent the action of the Spanish fleet. A question had arisen as to the advice given by the British representative at Santiago, Mr. Thomson, to the Chilean Government respecting the defence of Valparaiso. They had been informed that morning that he had used his influence to induce the Chilean Government to disarm the town, and that he even went beyond that, and told that Government that if any measures were adopted to place the town in a position to resist an attack, he should hold them responsible for any damage that might occur to property of British subjects resulting from such measures. That appeared to him to be a very strange course for the British representative to have taken, and he was anxious for information upon this point. In the second place, he wished to know whether it was correct, as had been stated, that the Chilean Government had written by the present mail to the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, requesting that the British Minister should be recalled; and in the event of this being the case, he wished to know upon what grounds that request was based?
COLONEL EDWARDSsaid, he had that afternoon received a mass of papers from an eminent London firm connected with the South American trade, and from the hasty glance he had taken at them they appeared to confirm the statement of the hon. Member for South Devon in every particular. It was true that the British inhabitants of Valparaiso had en masse made representations to the British Admiral and to the British Minister on the subject of the protection of their property, stating that it would be unjust and hard upon them that their interests should be sacrificed in the diabolical manner threatened, while there was an English fleet at hand to protect their property. They
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complained that the agreement between themselves, the British Minister, and the British Admiral, that the town should not be bombarded, provided that no forts were armed nor torpedoes submerged for the protection of the town, had been broken. The town had been left utterly defenceless at the suggestion of those authorities, and yet they had not taken care to prevent the bombardment. This appeared to him to be a repetition of the policy which had been pursued in reference to Denmark, where promises of support were held out, but retracted at the last moment. If such a policy were to be adopted as a general rule, he did not see what it was likely to end in. Probably by this time, owing to the senseless policy we had pursued, most of the principal cities of South America were in ruins, and millions of dollars worth of property had been sacrificed for the purpose of satisfying the honour of the Spanish Crown. He would select from the many papers in his hand one containing a report of the committee appointed at a general meeting of British subjects held on the 28th of March, 1866, to frame resolutions and submit them to an adjourned meeting to be held on the following day:—
"Resolved,—1. That the statement of facts read at the meeting this day by Mr. Hayne be hereby adopted as a true and impartial narrative.
"2. That this meeting cannot too severely censure the vacillating conduct of Rear Admiral Denman in having given to the British community of Valparaiso positive assurances that he would interfere, by force if necessary, to prevent a general bombardment, and afterwards retracting the same, thus causing the loss of much valuable time which might have been profitably employed in securing safety to life and property.
"3. That this meeting cannot but condemn Rear Admiral Denman's conduct as inconsistent with correct ideas of that neutrality which he stated he had strict orders to observe, inasmuch as while he denies to the British community of Valparaiso the protection of the forces under his command, he did not hesitate to detach one of the ships of his squadron for the protection of the Spanish emissaries—contraband of war in Peruvian waters—who left Valparaiso for the north in the mail steamer hence on the 17th inst.
"4. That Rear Admiral Denman's plea of want of sufficient force to oppose the Spaniards is humiliating to his countrymen and inexcusable, considering that the co-operation of a powerful United States squadron was pressed upon him by its commanders. And that this meeting cannot express in sufficiently strong terms its indignation that such an atrocity as the bombardment of a defenceless town, with a population of 80,000 inhabitants, should be permitted in the presence of a British squadron.
"5. That the absence of precise instructions from the English Government with regard to the threatened bombardment can only be accounted

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for by the supposition on its part that our difficulties have come to a conclusion, leaving, therefore, unforeseen complications to be solved by the good judgment of its representative, who, to the great regret of this meeting, would appear to consider the duties of neutrality inconsistent with any action in favour of those interests which are especially confided to his protection, and which, under existing circumstances, are so seriously compromised.
"6. That it is a matter of regret that between the British Charge d'Affaires and this community there has long existed an estrangement which has rendered him unfit to represent its interests, and that in the present emergency the disadvantages accruing therefrom have been more sensibly felt by his passive submission to the abuses of the Spanish squadron, while other neutrals have been placed in much more favourable positions through the exertions of their representatives.
"7. That a deputation be appointed to wait upon the United States Minister, General Kilpa-trick, and upon Commodore Rodgers, and express to them, in behalf of this meeting, its high appreciation of their earnest endeavours to prevent, by co-operation with the British forces, the bombardment of this city, deeply regretting that those endeavours have not been more successful.
"8. That these resolutions, and the documents referred to in them, be laid before the British public."
That being the copy of an authentic document, he thought it deserved the consideration of the Government; and, with those facts before them, he trusted they would receive an explanation upon the subject that would be satisfactory to the House and to the country.
SIR JOHN HAYsaid, that he was glad to confirm all that had been said by his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Christchurch (Admiral Walcott) with reference to Admiral Denman, and he was quite sure that the best vindication of that gallant officer would come from the Secretary of the Admiralty, who would no doubt tell the House under what orders he was acting. There could be no doubt that it was the duty of the British Admiral not to interfere, because if he did he must have committed some act of war on one side or the other. Unless he had express orders to interfere, the House must justify him in the course which he had taken; and, speaking from a personal knowledge of Admiral Denman, he was sure that if he had had orders which would have justified his committing an act of war, he would have interfered with a promptitude and gallantry which would have insured success.
ADMIRAL SEYMOURsaid, the first duty of an English Admiral in command of a fleet was to obey the orders of Government; and no doubt in the present instance those orders were to preserve the
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most perfect neutrality between the contending parties. That being so, it was
impossible for Admiral Denman to interfere to prevent the bombardment. On the other question, as to a promise having been given to prevent the bombardment by force, they had at present only the accusation of the British merchants at Valparaiso, who were just smarting under the loss of their 18,000,000 dollars. He hoped before the House came to any conclusion upon the subject they would wait until they had heard Admiral Denman's explanation.
MR. GRAVESthought it rather unfortunate that this discussion should have arisen before instead of after the explanation to be given by the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In discussing the question under the existing circumstances, the hon. Member for South Devon (Sir Lawrence Palk) and those who maintained his position could scarcely avoid trenching on the professional reputation of a British Admiral, although he would undertake to assert that Admiral Denman had done nothing inconsistent with his orders or with his honour as a British sailor. The wanton attack which had been made upon a defenceless town had caused a general outburst of indignation throughout the civilized world; and, although in the strict letter of International Law they might have had no right to interfere to prevent the action, it was only right that the public opinion should be expressed by means of that House on what he considered was at least a very serious departure from the modern usage of civilized warfare. It would be recollected that when the Spanish Admiral first entered the harbour with his fleet he took exception to some pieces of ordnance that were placed on the ramparts of the forts as threatening his fleet and required that they should be withdrawn. The British Minister advised that they should be withdrawn, and from that moment the city had been left without even the semblance of defence. The next step taken they had heard that night; and if it were true that the British Admiral and Minister had promised to prevent the bombardment by force and had then retracted that promise, although urged to its performance by the American Commodore, the British residents at Valparaiso had good cause to complain. The result was a most fearful destruction of British and neutral property which had been permitted to remain in the bonded warehouses of the city until so late a period that they could

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not be removed to a place of safety before the bombardment commenced. The warehouses which had been destroyed had been looked upon as specimens of the energy and development of the resources and trade of Chile, and were the depots for the foreign trade of the whole coast. He also desired to call the attention of the House to the fact that the English had, until recently, been regarded as the best friends of the Republic. There was the strongest sympathy existing between the two nations. Our capital was largely invested throughout the country, and we enjoyed privileges which were granted to no other nation. All, however, was now changed, and British interests would probably suffer more than would easily be credited. If his information was correct, that change had already commenced; for it was stated that immediately after the bombardment, when the crews were landed from the men-of-war in the roadsteads for the purpose of putting out the flames, the seamen belonging to the British fleet were requested to return on board their ships, while the assistance of the American sailors was warmly welcomed. If this was true it was a strong indication of the change of feeling which had taken place towards the British nation. He felt convinced that he was but expressing the feelings entertained generally by those engaged in commerce with Chile when he said that, great as their material losses had been—and they had been great—they regarded them as nothing compared with the maintenance of the independence and the honour of those Republics. What would be the effect of those wanton proceedings upon Chile? He did not believe that the destruction of warehouses and neutral property which had taken place would bring the war to an end any sooner. It would, he believed, rather tend to make the Chileans more determined to resist Spanish aggression, and the feeling would be likely to extend even to the other Republics in Southern America. The question with regard to Her Majesty's Government, however, was more one of the future than of the past. What they hoped was that, by the mail leaving our shores on the following day, distinct and definite instructions would be sent to Admiral Denman and to our Minister at Lima. They wished to know whether the repetition of such barbarous conduct was to be permitted, and whether the destruction of British and neutral property was to be allowed? He regretted that he
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was unable to read to the House the resolutions passed that day at a meeting held at Liverpool upon the subject; but he had not the slightest doubt that they were strictly in accordance with the opinions he himself had expressed. The matter could not rest there, he believed. It would be necessary, after they had heard an expiation from Her Majesty's Government, to have an opportunity afforded them of discussing the matter again.
MR. LAYARD: I think that the best answer I can give to the statements and questions which have come from the other side of the House is to state simply what has taken place at Valparaiso. The House is aware that some time last year, in consequence of certain occurrences which had taken place in Chile during the war between Spain and Peru, and which were considered offensive to Spain, Admiral Pareja, who commanded the Spanish fleet, suddenly appeared before Valparaiso, and presented in the form of an ultimatum certain demands upon the Chilean Government, stating that if those demands were not acceded to he was authorized to declare war against Chile. It is not necessary now to enter into the particulars of those demands, or the opinions which Her Majesty's Government formed upon them. As soon as intelligence was received by Her Majesty's Government that this ultimatum had been presented and rejected, and that war had consequently been declared between Spain and Chile, it was their earnest desire that something should be done to bring about peace between the two belligerents. The despatches which announced the declaration of war against Chile were received in this country on the 16th of November, and not a moment was lost in communicating to the French Government the earnest desire of Her Majesty's Government to act cordially with them, and in asking them if they were disposed to join us in offering our good offices to Spain and Chile in order to restore peace. Further, on the day following the receipt of the despatches from Mr. Thomson, our Minister at Chile, instructions were sent to him to do all in his power to protect the property and interests of British subjects, impressing upon him, however, the necessity of maintaining the strictest neutrality; but, at the same time, if he saw any opportunity, he was instructed to do what he thought prudent in using his good offices to bring about a cessation of hostilities—if hostilities should have commenced. The French Govern-

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ment responded most cordially to the overtures made to them by Her Majesty's Government, and both Governments have acted from that time in complete concert in all that has taken place. The despatches announcing the breaking out of war between Spain and Chile arrived, as I have said, on the 16th November, and on the 18th Her Majesty's Minister at Madrid was directed to inform the Spanish Government of the readiness of the English and French Governments to mediate between the two parties. The Spanish Government at once cordially accepted the offers made by the English and French Governments to bring about peace. The terms which were proposed by the mediating Governments as the basis of a settlement were these:—That Chile should disavow any intention of offending Spain; that the treaty in force between Chile and Spain at the time of the outbreak of hostilities should not be annulled; that Spain should express herself satisfied and should disavow any intention of re-conquest in South America; and that on the renewal of diplomatic relations a salute should be fired by both parties, Chile firing the first gun. These proposals were sent out to Mr. Thomson and to the French Minister, with instructions to submit them to the Chilean Government for its acceptance. While negotiations were still going on Her Majesty's Government received information from Mr. Thomson that there was some apprehension of a bombardment of Valparaiso, and that he had made strong representations to the Spanish Admiral against bombarding a town which was utterly without defence, and which, so far as his information could guide him, was entirely incapable of defence; but he stated that the Spanish Admiral would not commit himself to any assurance on the subject, and refused to say whether or not he intended to bombard Valparaiso. The British merchants in Valparaiso, informed of the danger which hung over them and the risk which they ran, addressed themselves early in October to the Government of Chile, requesting it to afford them an opportunity of removing such property as they had at Valparaiso to a place of safety. The Chilean Government at first declined to accede to the request; but on Mr. Thomson being informed of what had taken place, he addressed himself to the Chilean Government on behalf of the British merchants who had not previously consulted him, and through
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his representations the Chilean Government withdrew their objections to the removal of their property, on certain conditions. Those conditions were that the merchants should pay the rent of the warehouses and of the storehouses which they might hire for the purpose of removing their property to a safe position: that they would pay the persons who had charge of the property; and give bonds declaring their intention to observe the conditions imposed. The British merchants refused the offer, complaining that the conditions were too onerous, and declared that they would hold the Chilean Government responsible for any damage to their property in case of bombardment. Mr. Thomson thought the merchants were wrong in declining to accede to the proposed conditions, but forwarded the correspondence between himself, the Chilean Government, and the merchants, to this country. That correspondence was submitted to the proper law authorities in this country, and they gave it as their opinion that the conditions required by the Chilean Government were fair and just, and such as ought to be accepted, and that if the British merchants and others concerned refused to accept them, and anything happened to their property, they would themselves be responsible for it. Mr. Thomson was instructed by Her Majesty's Government to inform the British merchants at Valparaiso of the view thus taken of the matter. Mr. Thomson and the French Minister had been instructed to offer the mediation and good offices of their respective Governments, and in the event of any of the conditions accepted by the Spanish Government being objected to by Chile, they were authorized to make modifications in them if they could do so with the consent of the Chilean Government and of the representative of Spain, who was the commander of the Spanish fleet at Valparaiso. Those instructions were received by Mr. Thomson about the end of January. But unfortunately before they reached him the Chilean Government had entered into a treaty of alliance offensive and defensive with the Republic of Peru, to which were subsequently added similar treaties with the Republics of Bolivia and Equator. The difficulties were still further complicated by the capture by the Chileans of the Spanish vessel of war the Covadonga. These events combined to render mediation more difficult, but Her Majesty's Government and that of

977
the Emperor of the French never lost the hope of being able to arrive at a satisfactory settlement. The Chilean Government professed their desire to accept the conditions offered—indeed, they expressed themselves very grateful to the two Governments for offering their good offices; but they said that having entered into alliances with the other Republics, they could not without consulting them make any separate arrangement with Spain. They, therefore, requested time to consult their allies. The Spanish Government, construing this request for delay unfavourably, desired to make it an excuse for breaking off negotiations and withdrawing their consent to accept our good offices; but neither the English nor French Government would admit the excuse, holding that Spain was still bound by her acceptance of their good office, and that they still could claim to be mediators between the belligerents. A short time afterwards the English Government had reason to believe that instructions had been sent by the Spanish Government to Admiral Nunez to bombard the city of Valparaiso. So long a period had elapsed since the first fear of a bombardment had passed away, that Her Majesty's Government had every reason to hope that a civilized power like Spain did not contemplate the bombardment of a perfectly defenceless city, which contained a large amount of neutral property; but when they ascertained, on what appeared to be authentic information, that instructions to bombard Valparaiso had been sent out by Spain, the Governments of France and England lost not a moment in communicating with the Spanish Government, and asking them point blank whether or not such instructions had been sent. If the answer of the Spanish Government should be in the affirmative, the Ministers of the two countries were directed to make the strongest remonstrances against the act. I must say that the Spanish Government did not act fairly or justly with us in this matter; because, although they did not say that instructions had not been sent out, they equivocated a good deal, and refrained from making any definite statement on the subject. In fact they misled by the answer they gave both Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the Emperor of the French, and it was with great surprise that we heard yesterday that this outrage, which has not been characterized too strongly in this House, had been committed on a defenceless city. The resolu-
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tions drawn up at a public meeting of merchants at Valparaiso and read by the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Edwards), form certainly the most extraordinary document I ever heard read. Almost every one of them contains a misstatement.
COLONEL EDWARDS: Does the hon. Gentleman mean to say that the document itself is not an authentic document?
MR. LAYARD: No, I say nothing of the sort; but I say that the statements contained in that document are entirely without foundation, and contrary to the real facts of the case. One of the resolutions states that Admiral Denman had informed the British merchants that he would defend Valparaiso against an attack by the Spanish fleet. There is not one single word of truth in that statement. It was Admiral Denman's duty to maintain the strictest neutrality; but a circumstance did occur which will possibly explain that statement. At one time it was the intention of the Chilean Government to employ torpedoes at Valparaiso against the Spanish fleet, and they sent to the United States for an engineer who had distinguished himself in the discovery and manufacture of torpedoes. When the Governments of England and France heard of this intention they directed their Ministers to represent to the Chilean Government that it would be unwise to make use of such engines of attack against the Spanish fleet, as it would at once give the Spanish Admiral a plausible excuse for bombarding the place. Indeed, the Spanish Commander had informed Admiral Denman that an attempt to injure his ships by torpedoes would be followed by a bombardment of Valparaiso. The American and English commanders then requested the Spanish commander to give due notice to the inhabitants of Valparaiso, in case he intended to bombard the place—a request with which he led Admiral Denman to understand he would not comply, in the event of torpedoes being used. Admiral Denman then appears to have threatened that if fire was opened on the town without due notice, thus endangering the lives of British subjects and others, he would interfere and stop the proceedings of the Spanish fleet. That, it would be seen, was a very different thing from declaring that he would, under any circumstances, prevent the bombardment of Valparaiso. But the President of the Chilean Government gave up the idea of using torpedoes, and

979
consequently the contingency to which Admiral Denman had referred did not occur, The Chilean Government, as I have said, had accepted our good offices on condition that Peru, and the other Republics with which they had entered into an alliance, consented to accept them also; and she promised to communicate with those Republics, and to return an answer as soon as she received their reply. Suddenly, on the 25th of March, the Spanish Commander declared that, unless the conditions which had been proposed were accepted, he would within a certain number of days bombard Valparaiso. This intimation was perfectly unexpected by the English, French, and American Ministers in Chile. They at once waited on the President of Chile and his Ministers. They found the Ministers disposed to refuse absolutely, but the President himself was still disposed to accept their good offices; only requesting sufficient time to communicate with the Republics with whom he had treaties, to which he could not be unfaithful. The Spanish Commander believed that this was merely an excuse to gain time; and no doubt there was some justification for that supposition, as two months had been allowed to elapse since the offers of mediation of the French and British Governments had been made at Santiago, which gave ample time for the receipt of replies from all the Republics interested. It was also known to the Spanish Commander that Peru expected certain vessels of war, and that Chile would be better prepared to meet the Spanish fleet at a later period. Under these circumstances, the Spanish Commander thought this answer was merely an excuse to gain time, and refused to withdraw his ultimatum. The American, English, and French Ministers at once went down to Valparaiso. The American Minister was the first to have an interview with the Spanish Commander, and he endeavoured to dissuade him from attacking Valparaiso. He made certain proposals on the part of the Chilean Government; but all his efforts to bring about an understanding failed, and the Spanish Admiral declared that, if the conditions he proposed were not accepted in a few hours, he would give notice of his intention to bombard the place. He sent a manifesto to this effect by the American Minister to the Chilean authorities. Subsequently, the French and English Ministers went on board the Spanish Commander's ship, and again remonstrated against a bombardment of Val-
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paraiso, and expressed a hope that the matter would be settled by negotiation. The Commander replied that he had already issued his manifesto, and that it would not be consistent with his duty to withdraw it, or to alter his determination, unless his terms were accepted. He added that he should on the 27th give notice of hostilities, and on the 31st he should begin the bombardment. The British merchants having been informed of the determination of the Spanish Commander, went to Admiral Denman, and urged him to prevent the attack. Admiral Denman said that, however much he would regret an attack upon a defenceless town, he was bound by his orders to preserve a strict neutrality; and that, therefore, it was impossible for him to interfere, and he again urged the British merchants to take some steps to withdraw their property. This formal notification to remove their property was given to them thirty hours before the Spanish manifesto was issued. They had further been informed some days before that the British Government, having taken into consideration the offer of the Chilean Government to allow them to remove their property in bond without charging dues, were of opinion that the conditions were fair conditions, and they ought to accept them, and to take advantage of the opportunity to remove their property. They were warned that if they did not do so they must themselves bear the responsibility of any damage their property might sustain. The British merchants, however, deliberately refused to accept this liberal offer made to them by the Chilean Government, and I am surprised that they now turn round and blame Admiral Denman for what has happened. The resolutions of the British merchants, as I have already stated, are utterly at variance with the facts of the case. The statement that the American Commodore offered to join the British Commander to stop the bombardment is utterly untrue. No such offer could have been made. On the contrary, the American Minister admitted the right of the Spanish Commander to bombard Valparaiso, and had himself come down from St. Jago to endeavour to prevail upon him not to carry out his intention; but it does not appear that either he or Commodore Rogers considered themselves justified in attempting to stop it. Nor is there a word of truth in the statement that Admiral Denman excused himself for not interfering on the plea of want of sufficient

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force. Had his force been ten times greater than it was, Admiral Denman could not have interfered. Besides, I was informed to-day by the Spanish Minister that when the American Commodore went on board the flag-ship to remonstrate with the Spanish Commander, he ended by saying—more, I believe, by way of a joke than otherwise—"Supposing I were to put my ship between you and the town, what would happen?" The reply was, "You are a sailor, and I am a sailor; you know what your duty would be in such a case and you know what mine would be. If you put your ship between me and the town, I will sink you." On this, the American Commodore shook him warmly by the hand and said, "I understand you; I should do the same were I in your place." As regards the accusation against the British Minister that he had prevailed upon the Chilean Government to remove the fortifications of Valparaiso, and had thus been the cause of exposing the place to the attack of the Spaniards, Valparaiso is a town which could not have been fortified even if considerable time had been given. I believe there was a small saluting battery, but so desirous were the authorities of removing any ground of excuse for bombarding the town from the Spanish commander, that they dismantled of their own accord every gun, thus leaving the town absolutely defenceless. As to the statement that so angry were the Chileans at the conduct of the British Admiral that they refused to allow the British sailors to land in order to extinguish the flames when the city had been set on fire, all I can say is, I have today read Admiral Denman's despatch, in which he says that his offer to send men to subdue the fire having been accepted, he sent on shore 150 men from his ship for the purpose, and that they remained on shore until four o'clock, when they returned on board at the request of the General, because all the fire-companies having come down from Santiago, their services were no longer required. The Admiral further says that the conduct of the men was most exemplary, that some charges of plunder brought against them proved to be untrue, and that not a single man was in the slightest degree intoxicated, although a particularly strong kind of brandy was freely offered to them. These are the simple facts of the case. I can make full allowance for the excitement of the British merchants at Valparaiso on seeing
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their property destroyed, but it was not worthy of them to put forward the statements contained in their resolutions, seeing that they are so entirely at variance with the facts. There is no doubt that the bombardment of a town, whether fortified or not, is a right of war, but then comes the question how far ought that right to be exercised, how far is it justified against a defenceless town in which almost all the property belongs to neutrals, or how far is it consistent with the usages of civilization? I am anxious to say as much as I can in justification of the Spanish Commander. That officer appears to have acted in this matter under the express orders of his Government, and he was willing, if he could have done so without actually disobeying his instructions, to refrain from an act which has been characterized as most barbarous; but his instructions were positive. The blame, therefore, rests with the Spanish Government, and their conduct is the less to be excused, because they were fully aware of the efforts that were being made to bring about a peaceful termination of the difficulties with Chile by Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the Emperor of the French; and, because, while negotiations were going on without informing either the French or English Governments, they sent out positive orders which could not be neglected to their Commander in the Pacific Ocean to bombard Valparaiso. Of course he was bound to obey. The Government of Spain are therefore responsible. The Spanish Commander in discharging his duty appears to have taken every possible care not to injure private property, directing his fire exclusively against public buildings, one of which was unfortunately the custom house, in which there was a large amount of British and other foreign merchandise. These facts are stated by Admiral Denman. The inhabitants had full time to leave the town, and appear to have availed themselves of it, as only two persons were actually killed—a woman and a child—by the bombardment, although two others were afterwards killed by a wall falling upon them. The Spanish Commander appears to have carried out his instructions with as much humanity as was possible. I cannot, however, conceal from the House that the bombardment of Valparaiso has produced a very painful impression on Her Majesty's Government. I hoped—everybody had hoped—that the time had gone by for such acts—I may almost say of barbarity—acts

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altogether inconsistent with the character of a great civilized nation like Spain. These are the facts of the case. I have every sympathy for the British merchants, and deeply regret the losses they have sustained; but I cannot but admit that they have themselves to blame, for they might have removed their property with little loss to themselves. With respect to the question whether a demand had been made by the Chilean Government for the withdrawal of our Minister, Mr. Thomson, I have only to say that no communication of that nature has as yet been received by Her Majesty's Government.
MR. WHITESIDEsaid, that before quitting this painful subject, he would venture to make an observation upon the statement which had just been made by the Under Secretary of State, who had endeavoured to vindicate everybody but the British merchants. He understood that a representation had been made by those merchants to the Government with regard to the destruction of their property during the bombardment of Valparaiso, and if that were so, he trusted that the hon. Gentleman would produce the papers bearing on that point, for they appeared to have been the principal sufferers. He would now ask one question for his own information—namely, whether, when a British fleet was before such a town as that described by the Under Secretary of State, containing both British subjects and British property, and a Spanish fleet were to come, and, acting under instructions such as those which had been vaguely described, its commander were to request the British Admiral to sheer off in order that he might bombard this unoffending and defenceless town, it was, as a matter of course, the duty of the British Admiral thus to sheer off, and, after watching the operations, land his sailors, not after the manner of Nelson, but to extinguish the flames by water?
MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEsaid, he thought the question asked by the right hon. Gentleman might be answered by some passages of British history. He remembered the time when the King of the Two Sicilies proposed to bombard the rebellious town of Messina, near to which were stationed several English vessels of war, one of them being the Bulldog, which was very well known. Instructions were sent to the officers of those vessels, if he remembered right, to place them in such a position as to render bombardment impossible without a chance shot striking one of
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Her Majesty's vessels. He called the attention of the House to this instance, because it showed how difficult was the position of naval officers when our foreign policy shifted and changed about as it had done. If instructions given at one time were to be acted upon by the naval officers at another, it was probable that they would find themselves in a false position. He was delighted to hear the denunciations of the Under Secretary of those atrocious proceedings at Valparaiso, which would be condemned by the whole of Europe. He was happy to say this, not only for the sake of humanity, but because from them he augured that for the future our foreign policy would be conducted on principles very different from those which had formerly governed it. Why, it was only last year that the hon. Gentleman rose in his place to justify the bombardment of the defenceless town of Kagosima, in Japan, Indeed, he could recall to mind many debates in that House when the bombardment of defenceless cities had been upheld and justified by hon. Gentlemen opposite. The city of Canton was bombarded, causing enormous loss of life; the real cause of such a proceeding being the refusal to admit Sir John Bowring within the walls of Canton in full uniform. Then, what was done in Pekin? Why, by an act of vandalism millions of pounds worth of property was destroyed, and the Emperor's Palace sacked. It was all very well for the hon. Gentleman to rise and condemn such atrocities as that of Valparaiso, but he hoped the Government would remember what precedent they themselves had given to Europe. He trusted that the present instance would be a lesson to the Foreign Minister to conduct the proceedings of this country in relation to other countries with the humanity which had been so nobly expressed by the hon. Gentleman this evening.
MR. THOMAS BARINGthought the House would see the necessity of its being supplied with ample information on the subject, and that it should have before it the correspondence which had taken place with Spain, as he understood that the Spanish Government had deceived both France and England. The House ought also to have laid before it the instructions which had been given to the British Consul at Valparaiso, as well as those forwarded to the British Admiral. He, with other English merchants connected with the trade of Chile, had waited as a depu-

985
tation on the Foreign Secretary, and called his attention to this subject. It was one of great importance, and it would be desirable that this House should be put in possession of the correspondence relating to it, including the instructions to the British Admiral.
MR. DENMANthought that this debate, so far as it referred to the conduct of a British officer, had been rather premature. He thought the hon. Baronet who had brought forward the subject (Sir Lawrence Palk) should have waited to have the papers in his hand before he assumed misconduct which a British officer ought to be ashamed to be guilty of. He understood the Under Secretary to say that the British merchants had made statements which were directly contrary to the fact; but he also understood the hon. Gentleman to intimate that those merchants had done so under some misapprehension or in consequence of some misstatements which had been made to them. He might state that he had received a private letter from an authority on whom he relied, and the details in that letter were in accordance with the facts stated by the Under Secretary.
MR. BARINGwished to state distinctly to the House that the instructions given by the Admiralty to Admiral Denman were to preserve a strict neutrality between Spain and Chile, and that the gallant Admiral appeared to have strictly and properly carried out these instructions. With respect to the resolutions come to by a meeting of British merchants, which had been read by the hon. and gallant Officer (Colonel Edwards), he very much regretted that he should have read them to the House; but he might now state that, having been passed at the meeting, those resolutions were communicated to Admiral Denman, and he gave the merchants a very courteous reply. He said he would not discuss the resolutions with them; all he would do was to express his great regret at the losses which they had suffered by the bombardment; but in sending home a copy of the resolutions, Admiral Denman also transmitted his replies, which followed the resolutions seriatim. In answer to the first resolution, which accused him of having given a positive assurance that he would interfere by force to prevent a bombardment, he stated that he had promised to do all in his power to prevent the calamity, but had been very careful to avoid giving grounds for supposing that he would inter-
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fere in any other way than by remonstrance, taking care to inform those who had called upon him that he was bound by his orders to a strict neutrality. He need not trouble the House with the second and third resolutions; but, with respect to the fourth, Admiral Denman said that he had never alleged want of sufficient force as a ground for not interfering. Any such reply would have been in contradiction of his statement that he was bound by his orders to strict neutrality. He also said in his reply to the third resolution, that the statement that the United States Commodore had pressed upon the co-operation of his squadron to prevent the bombardment of the city, had no foundation whatever. The mutual arrangements of the United States Commodore and the British Admiral had for their object to secure sufficient notice of the bombardment. The statements of the gallant Admiral would be laid on the table with the other papers; and when the House were in possession of all the documents, they would see that Admiral Denman was not open to any of the attacks which had been made on him during this discussion.

THE CHOLERA.—QUESTION.
MR. SANDFORDasked the Vice President of the Privy Council, What precautionary measures Her Majesty's Government have taken against the spread of cholera? He knew that it was the fashion in this country to deny the effect of quarantine; but in reply to that he would point to the case of Sicily, which, though the cholera was raging all over the basin of the Mediterranean, had enjoyed an absolute exemption from the scourge by means of the stringent quarantine regulations they had adopted. The kingdom of Greece had also enjoyed the same immunity through the same means; and therefore he thought they would agree that this was a considerable evidence in favour of the system. He might be told that the operation of quarantine would be detrimental to commerce. Of course it would; but he thought that even the claims of commerce ought to give way when human life was at stake. From all he heard—and he derived his information from the public journals—it would appear from the state of Liverpool, either that there was a great defect in the law or a defect in the arrangements for putting the law in force. It appeared that a vessel

987
named the Helvetia returned to Liverpool, cholera having broken out among the emigrants who were on board of her. One would have thought that the first duty of the local authorities would be either to keep the passengers on board, or to remove them to a hulk, or to place them in some isolated spot on shore. Instead of that, however, the passengers were sent to the workhouse. Now, if there was any course that could be taken to propagate the disease it must be that. He would contrast the power existing in this country to check the progress of this scourge at the outset with those which were issued by the authorities of Bavaria. The instructions issued there, and sent home by our Secretary of Legation, were that every householder and head of a family should give information to the police of any case of cholera that occurred in his house within three hours of the fact, and certain distinctly prescribed measures were at once to be put in execution and continued for three weeks from the occurrence of any outbreak. Among other regulations was one that no bed or body linen which had been used by the infected should be washed with other linen or used in any way till it had been thoroughly disinfected. Now, if there was one regulation which he would venture to urge the adoption of more than another, it was that of ordering clothes to be disinfected or destroyed, for he was told that the recent outbreak in Asia Minor could be distinctly traced to the fact of clothes belonging to cholera patients having been sent from a vessel to be washed on shore. He hoped Her Majesty's Government would excuse him for reminding them of the course they pursued in reference to the cattle plague. If they had only displayed a certain amount of energy and decision at first, he believed they would have arrested the ravages of that pestilence, and if they were content now to sit with folded hands until this pestilence should have decimated the population of these islands, they would incur a most serious responsibility.
MR. H. A. BRUCEsaid, the powers of Her Majesty's Government with respect to cholera were founded upon the 6 Geo. IV.; for, though that Act was directed not against cholera, but against plague and yellow fever, its terms were so general as to be applicable to precautions againt cholera. For internal arrangements there was the Diseases Prevention Act, the provisions of which, in the event of
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any contagious disorder appearing imminent, the Privy Council had the power of enforcing throughout the whole kingdom. With respect to the exercise of these powers, the subject had, on this as on previous occasions, been one of very anxious consideration. The Privy Council had, no doubt, considerable latitude, but he did not think it would be expedient to use the powers confided to them so far as to establish a system of strict quarantine. His hon. Friend had mentioned Sicily as a case in which strict quarantine precautions had prevented the introduction of cholera. Now, during the whole of last summer, the cholera raged with more or less virulence in France and Holland; and it must be remembered that to exercise a really effective quarantine it would have been necessary to suspend all communication with infected countries—that was to say, that from last summer up to the present time no ship should have been allowed to land passengers on the shores of this country without previously undergoing a quarantine of at least ten days. Even then there appeared to be no absolute security; for in the cases recently reported, in which ships arrived at Halifax and New York with cholera patients on board, the lisease did not break out until six days after the vessel's departure from Liverpool. The passengers had come from Holland, had passed through England, and had remained some little time in Liverpool, and they had been six days at sea; so that the least time that could be assigned for the appearance of the cholera in these instances, supposing it to have been contracted in foreign countries, was ten days. We were accustomed to think of cholera as marked by clear and unmistakable symptoms, and the stage of collapse was, no doubt, one about which there could be no mistake; but the earlier stages of the malady were not so easily discoverable. A person might have the disease lurking in his system for many days without suspecting it. He suffered but little pain, and the symptoms were such as persons often experienced without any interruption of their ordinary vocations. It would, therefore, be impossible, unless communication were absolutely forbidden between England and the infected countries, to expect that quarantine laws would prevent the introduction of the disease. This being the case, Her Majesty's Government had to consider to what extent the powers intrusted to them ought to be exercised; and they considered

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it with reference not only to the present case, but to what had been done on previous occasions. In 1852, when a visitation of the same nature was expected, the Government of Lord Derby issued an order, or rather general directions, similar to those issued by the Privy Council last week. They were to the effect that, as cholera had appeared at Dantsic and other ports of the Baltic, vessels coming thence should be examined, and that any person found to be suffering from it, or to hare suffered from it, should be removed to some hospital-ship, and that all passengers who were free from the disease should be allowed to land. In 1859, under similar circumstances, the Government again decided on regulations of a like character. In August last the cholera again made its appearance, and a circular was addressed by the Privy Council to all seaports, stating that they were desirous to interfere as little as possible with the interests of commerce, and, as it was doubtful whether strict quarantine regulations would afford any security, recommending certain general precautions and regulations to be enforced by the local authorities. During the last month a sailor who had landed in London from Rotterdam and had gone by railway to Bristol had died at that port of cholera. But the case was an isolated one. More recently, on the appearance of the disease among emigrants at Liverpool, an Order in Council was issued giving local authorities power to examine vessels and to isolate persons suffering from illness, allowing other passengers to land. Now, the only ship that had arrived in this country under those circumstances, as far as he was aware, was the Helvetia. It started from Liverpool with a crew and passengers numberng about 950, about 450 being Germans and Dutch, and 400 Scotch and Irish. Before reaching Queenstown the cholera had broken out, and the healthy passengers wished to land; but by a somewhat arbitrary exercise of power they were not allowed to do so, and the ship was sent back to Liverpool, whence a telegram reached the Government, asking what precautionary measures were to be adopted. A medical inspector of the Privy Council Office was immediately despatched, and two ships were there provided, the sick being taken on board one, and the healthy, as far as possible, on the other. The numbers, however, were too considerable to be accommodated in those ships, and, con-
990
sequently, about 400 were landed and placed in a depot at Birkenhead belonging to the Emigration Board, where they remained while the ship was being disinfected. He hardly gathered from the observations of his hon. Friend that he would have prevented the landing of these 400 persons. He must remind him that this country had never adopted in all their strictness the laws of quarantine. They must depend upon the conduct of the local authorities, and in this instance he thought the local authorities had done all that was possible for them to do. The disease had been confined almost wholly to foreigners, only four Irish and one Scotchman having been attacked by it, and as far as he had learnt it bad not up to the present time spread among the inhabitants of the town. All the seaports and many of the considerable inland towns had been informed that should they desire it they could have the Diseases Prevention Act enforced, and the regulations which it would then become the duty of the Privy Council to enforce had been submitted to them. Many of those towns had already applied to have the Act put into force; but he was sure that the hon. Member would agree with him that the best security against the disease was to be found in the energy of the local authorities, in the supply to their towns of pure water, and by thoroughly cleansing and draining their streets and houses. He trusted that the country would benefit by the experience of past years, and that the local authorities would second the efforts of the Privy Council to prevent the visitation of the dreadful disease.
Motion agreed to.
House at rising to adjourn till Thursday.

NATIONAL EDUCATION (IRELAND.)

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  MR. O'REILLY, in moving for a Select Committee to inquire into the subject of National Education in Ireland, said, that he had on several occasions ventured to trespass on the attention of the House in reference to this subject; he trusted that the discussions on these occasions had not been altogether without effect, and that the question was better understood in this country and in the House than it had been formerly; so that there might be some chance of an amicable understanding being arrived at, which would be for the good not

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  only of Ireland but of the Empire generally. The Committee he moved for would have to take into consideration certain distinct changes proposed to be made in the system of primary education in Ireland—he did not propose that it should inquire into the general subject—they had had enough of inquiry, and the object of his Committee was to consider how the changes proposed should be carried out, not what were the changes that should be made. It was not necessary for him to show that discontent existed in that country in reference to this question, and that complaints with regard to it had been made by Protestants and Roman Catholics, and by members of every party in the country. The object of his Motion was to show the necessity to guard against proselytism, and to protect the faith of the children attending the schools supported by the State. In former times it had been the admitted desire of the Government to enforce upon Ireland the religion of the Church of England, and accordingly every child attending a school supported by the State was compelled to receive instruction in that religion. The attempt thus to Protestantize Ireland failed, and the system was gradually modified, first so that children should only be compelled to read the Scriptures and to learn the Catechism, and then that they should be compelled only to read the Douay version of the Scriptures. But that, too, failed like every other attempt to interfere with their religion. A wiser race of statesmen then arose who determined that education should be imparted without any interference with the religion of the scholars. The charter of the present system was Lord Stanley's letter, declaring that the schools should be such as that even the suspicion of proselytism should be excluded. In order to carry out that principle the original rule was that certain specified times should be set apart for religious instruction, and that no child of a different religion should be permitted to be present when such instruction was given. That was the rule which he wanted to see in its spirit and essence restored. But time rolled on, pressure was brought to bear upon those in authority, and the character of the rule was changed. In 1855, a rule was issued that the patrons, managers, and teachers of schools should not direct a child to withdraw from the hours of religious instruction, but that all children should have power to absent themselves or to withdraw. The House would under-
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  stand what was the power of a little child of five or six years of age. Then it was stated in the rule that if a parent objected to his child attending religious instruction, it devolved on him to remove the child—that was to say, that it devolved on a parent to leave his work, it might be miles away, and remove his child during the hours of religious instruction. Complaints were made of this alteration, but no redress could be obtained. An order was, however made that a notice was to be sent in writing to all parents whose children were attending religious instruction. Now, mark the snare of this. The House would imagine that the notice was to be sent to those parents whose children were attending religious instruction different from that of the parent, but it was not so; the notice was to be sent to the parent of every child attending religious instruction given by a person of a different religion from that of the parent; so that if Protestant instruction was given to Catholic children by a nominal Catholic the notice would not be sent. The rule was vague and unsatisfactory. When the parent received such a notice he might suppose from it that the religious instruction given to his child was not different from that professed by himself; whereas, as it often turned out, the religious instruction was of a very opposite character indeed. Well, that notice, such as it was, would not be served personally on the parent, but it was to be handed over to the little child at the school—a child, perhaps, of only seven or eight years old, who was supposed to give it to the parent at home. That was the full and efficient guarantee which the wisdom of the Commissioners had devised. It would be universally admitted that the plain object of the institution originally was that the child should be educated in the religion of the parent. That principle, however, had been departed from in the operation of the new rules, which indirectly allowed proselytism to be practised in those schools. He was sorry to say that those Commissioners who professed the Roman Catholic religion were just as much accountable for this change as any other members of the Board of Education. They had not only not opposed those changes in the rules to which he had adverted, but they had actually concurred in them. It might be asked, had the change been objected to? He answered it had, and from the very hour it had been introduced it had been brought to the notice of the Commissioners and of succes-

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  sive Governments. The matter had been brought before the Secretary to the Colonies (Mr. Cardwell), when Chief Secretary for Ireland, in the most formal manner by the Catholic Bishops. About the same time a change was made in the constitution of the Board, and the Roman Catholic Commissioners were increased to ten. He then urged upon Mr. O'Hagan, one of the proposed new Commissioners, the necessity of having the rule changed, and entreated him not to accept the office of Commissioner unless that concession was made. The right hon. Gentleman a short time ago stated, in reply to him, that not a single case of proselytism had taken place in consequence of the alteration of the original rule. He (Mr. O'Reilly) was silent upon that occasion because be had no evidence to bring forward; but having moved for certain Returns on this subject, he was now in a position to state the result. In one of the Returns from a Presbyterian school he found it stated that the "Roman Catholic pupils attend the religious instruction, but they do not take part in it"—a distinction which he confessed himself totally unable to comprehend. In another school the teacher, who was of the Established Church, "instructs in religion pupils of all creeds," and be did not find that any Roman Catholic books were used in the school. In another instance it was stated that "the Roman Catholic children receive Presbyterian instruction." In another that "Roman Catholic pupils receive religious instruction from a Presbyterian mistress in a Protestant course of instruction." In another, that the "Catholic pupils receive instruction in the Presbyterian catechism;" and in another that they receive instruction in the catechism of the Church of England—and here it was stated, and it was the only instance in which it was—that it was with the sanction of their parents. These few instances were sufficient to prove that the present rule was not without its fruits. He would only add on this subject that he had heard a rumour from Ireland that it was under the consideration of the Commissioners whether they would not introduce some change in the rule. All he could say was, that even a tardy repentance on their part would be, if not graceful, at least just, and the public would attribute it not to the Commissioners, but to the influence of his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who was accountable only
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  for the last few months. The principle which ought to be carried into effect had been well stated in the letter of Lord Stanley, in which he said that—
  "It should be a system of education from which should be banished all suspicion of proselytism, and which, while admitting children of all religions, should not interfere with the peculiar tenets of any,"
  That principle had been recently admitted by Lord Russell, when he stated that it was the duty of the Government not to interfere with the religious belief of any. Now, there were two assumptions not altogether correct which were usually made in discussing this question. The one was that the population of Ireland was of mixed religions. That was quite true of the population generally, but it was not true that the population of each school district—which was the only thing that ought to be taken into account in this case—was generally mixed. There were school districts in the North of Ireland which were purely Presbyterian, and there were school districts in the South and West which were purely Roman Catholic, as regarded the religion of the inhabitants. The second erroneous assumption was this, that there should necessarily be in each school district only one State-supported school. Now if there was to be but one State school in those districts where the population was mixed, the school must be a neutral one, and in these places he freely admitted the necessity of the present system. But, on the other hand, there were two other cases which ought to be considered—one was the case of a district with only one religion, and for that there ought to be one school; the other was the case of a district inhabited by a population of two or more religions, and in which there were two or more schools. There could be no difficulty in each religion having its own schools in districts where there were two schools and two religions, and in many parts of Ireland that was practically the system adopted at the present moment. In the school country parish of Louth, in the county of the same name, there were two National Schools: of one the parish priest was the patron, and the teachers were Catholics, and it was attended exclusively by Roman Catholics; of the other, the rector was the patron, the teacher a Protestant, and all the pupils of the same religion. What, however, was the fact in regard to Dublin? He knew that in one street of that capital there were two National Schools established. Upon

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  one side of the street was a school in which the patron, the teachers, and the pupils, were all of the Protestant faith; whilst on the other side was a school in which the patron, teachers, and pupils all belonged to the Roman Catholic religion. He knew of schools in the South in which there had not been a Protestant pupil for the last thirty years. In the North of Ireland there were Presbyterian schools which no Roman Catholic child ever entered, and yet the teachers were supposed not to utter a word relating to the Scriptures except at a particular hour, because, forsooth, they might offend the Roman Catholics who were never to be found there! The same principle was required to be observed in convent schools, where numerous children were being taught by the nuns, in which there were none but Roman Catholics. And yet if the rule were rigidly applied the nuns themselves should be excluded from them. What he proposed was that in a district where the Commissioners knew that there was no religion but one the children of the school might, under proper restrictions, provided, of course, that it were not attended by pupils of other religions, be instructed in the principles of their own religion; and that in districts of mixed religion, where there were two or more schools, the same rule might be applied; but this proposal was, of course, subject to the understanding that the minority should not be left without a school which they could attend. To show that this denominational system was very prevalent, he might instance the case of Belfast, where there were twenty-two Roman Catholic schools, in nine of which there was not a single pupil of any other religion; and in the others minorities, varying from one to sixteen. The Presbyterians enjoyed the almost exclusive possession of eighty-eight schools, and the Church of England four, while the Dissenters also had their own schools, the patrons of which and the teachers belonged to the Protestant religion. Now what objection would there be to say to them that they might teach their children as they pleased, and to the members of the other denominations that there was a school across the street for them. The Presbyterians, if they chose, might have a mixed system, and so might other sects who preferred it. Belfast supplied an instance of the third case he had mentioned—namely, a district with a mixed population and only one school; and there the principle of neutrality on joint secular
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  and separate religious teaching must be adopted, and that was in the workhouse. He might, perhaps, be asked where the practical grievance of the present system lay. Their grievance was that an ingenious string of rules, framed to prevent any allusion to religion except at a stated time in the day, intended to he applied to the mixed schools, was enforced most rigidly in schools that were not and never had been at all mixed. They were intended to be most rigidly enforced in the mixed schools, but they never were intended to be so enforced in Roman Catholic schools in districts where there were no Protestants. In one of these the inspector found a Roman Catholic catechism-book lying on a window during the time devoted to secular instruction, and the consequence was an inquiry and investigation and a correspondence, similar to that in the military department respecting a pair of bellows. Many Roman Catholics were in the habit of making the sign of the cross before they commenced prayers or work, and he had a bundle of correspondence that had passed with the Commissioners on that point. By the rules no religious exercise or instruction should be given, except at the proper time, and the question was whether if a child chose to bless itself it was a religious instruction or an exercise, or was it not an individual act? The result was that Roman Catholics were worried and harassed in every way. Now, he had the high authorities of two Churches in Ireland in favour of his proposition. One was all the Prelates of the Roman Catholic Church, who had memorialized the Government for an alteration of the rules, and the other was Dr. Trench, the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, who had expressed himself strongly on the subject, and had in great detail advocated the plan he (Mr. O'Reilly) proposed, and pointed out that it would be of advantage to the Protestants in that country. The present system was not practically a mixed system of education, and the plan he advocated, if universally adopted, so far from increasing the present divisions and quarrels, would tend materially to diminish them. An incident had occurred in his presence in the Secretary's Office which he would relate. The clerk was remarking that in his (Mr. O'Reilly's) district there were very few mixed schools, when he observed that he knew a school which had one Protestant in it. The clerk immediately declared that

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  be was delighted at having discovered another mixed school, and had the return altered accordingly. The only objections he had heard raised to what was called the principles of the proposed system were, first that it would destroy competition. His answer to that was, that no such competition existed; the Roman Catholics naturally went to the one school and the Protestants to the other. The second was that it would diminish the control of the Board, and prevent efficiency being insured. That, however, was not found to be the case in England. Again, it was said the Presbyterians had petitioned against the change; but he desired to point out that no one wished to enforce his plan upon others; all he asked was that whilst the Presbyterians retained their wishes in the matter of education, and carried them out, they should not force it on the members of other religions, or on the other three Provinces of Ireland which did not hold the same religious opinions. It was also asserted that the proposed change would lead to quarrelling; he contended that the present system gave rise to far more serious heart burnings than the proposed change would ever result in. The greater portion of the people of Ireland were Roman Catholics; the Government of England was essentially and necessarily Protestant; and the practical effect of these rules—he did not say the logical effect—was to lead the people to believe that the Government interfered harshly and offensively with their religious feelings, leading to a feeling of discontent which it was not to the interest of England to foster. The greatest and most serious complaint was the manner in which these rules and regulations affected the training schools; but he had refrained from saying anything upon that point because he had fully explained his views on that point before, and because he understood it was under the consideration of the Government. On former occasions when he had brought it forward the Government had given a decided refusal to consider it; but as he understood the Government were disposed now to consider, it in deference to a memorial that had been presented to them, he thought it would be more respectful and courteous of him to remove it from the immediate consideration of the House, in the hope that Her Majesty's Government would step forward with some proposition which, if not such a one as he would have brought forward, would be one that might conciliate the opposition
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  on both sides. On a former occasion he postponed his Motion because the Chancellor of the Exchequer informed him that a correspondence was then going on between the Government and the heads of the Roman Catholic Church on that subject. He was bound to say that the answer to the memorial gave little hope that the Government was disposed to meet the wishes of the Roman Catholics. The House would understand that the question of training schools, where the whole of the education took place, was quite different to that of the day schools, where only part of the education was given. The training schools took these young men and women from their homes, and from such religious training as they might receive there, and undertook the formation of their characters. It was impossible to leave out religion as an element in a complete education. The Roman Catholic Bishops had on many occasions formally resolved that none but a Catholic preceptor should give instruction in their training schools upon moral, religious, or historical subjects. And what were these training schools? The young men and women educated in them were instructed by professors and attended lectures on scientific subjects, but they were left at a most critical time in their life without any religious supervision; and this remark applied much more strongly to schoolmistresses. Such a system could not be satisfactory—not to mention particular scandals to which it had given rise, he would state its effect in respect of Fenianism. He did not say these training schools were hotbeds of Fenianism; but many of those superficially educated young men were connected with Fenianism, while several of the informers as to the movements of the conspirators had been teachers who had been carefully trained in the model schools. On the other hand the schools of the Christian Brothers contained about 30,000 pupils, but there was no evidence to show that any educated by them, with the exception of one very young lad who had left their schools at the age of eleven, had been implicated in the Fenian movement. In the central training school there was actually established a lodge of female Fenians, and one young woman sent out a large box of offerings from that school to the Chicago fair which was held in the interests of the Fenians. The result of the course now pursued was, that the Commissioners dared not enforce training in their central schools upon any but the high-

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  est class of teachers. A person might teach in the National Schools as long as he liked, and rise through the various gradations; but then the Commissioners stepped in and said, "You shall not qualify as a teacher of the first class unless you come up and spend so many months in the year in the Central Training School in Dublin." Now this the Roman Catholic teacher would not do; and hence first-rate teachers, who were of that religion, were deprived of their own promotion, and many in consequence left the country. The number of pupils in the model schools was gradually diminishing, and distrust in regard to them wa3 generally entertained by Roman Catholics throughout the land. In this way the best teachers were gradually diminishing; indeed, many were being draughted over to England, because there they could rise to a higher rank than they could in their own country. He asked the House to return to the original rules for the prevention of proselytism, and to examine and test the pupils in whatever way was deemed necessary; but not to force upon the country schools which the people would not enter. This was a question which touched the whole Roman Catholic population of Ireland to the heart's core, for they were much more concerned with it than with a Bill for the extension of the franchise or re-distribution of seats. If justice and fair treatment were extended to Ireland in this matter it would do much to bind the people of the two countries together, and remove the bickerings and heartburnings which had so extensively prevailed. The hon. Member concluded by moving the appointment of a Select Committee.
  THE O'CONOR DON, in seconding the Motion, said, it was proposed that a Committee should be appointed, not to inquire whether certain principles should be adopted with regard to education in Ireland, but, admitting those principles, that a Committee should be appointed to inquire in what way they might best be carried out. The Motion divided itself into two parts. The object of the first was to give greater freedom of education in schools which were practically denominational; the second referred to the restoration of those rules of the National Board which were adopted as guarantees against anything like proselytism. His hon. Friend (Mr. O'Reilly) had laid down that the essential basis of the system in Ire-
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  land did not differ from that in England, but that difference in detail had arisen because the more mixed character of the population of Ireland rendered the establishment of the exact English system impracticable and inexpedient in that country. The system adopted in Ireland by no means excluded the idea of religious education; but, on account of the mixed population, it kept religious separate from secular instruction. It would therefore be no departure from the principle on which the system was founded to allow greater freedom of religious instruction in schools which were essentially denominational. As to the abrogation of the rule which was considered as a protection against proselytism, his hon. Friend had shown the effect of that abrogation in the fact that a number of children were receiving religious instruction under the National Board inconsistent with the faith of their parents, and he called on Government to restore the original rule, on the faith of which the system in Ireland was accepted. The abrogation of that rule was a direct breach of faith, and since its abrogation public confidence had gradually given way until the system had fallen into the greatest disrepute in Ireland. The alteration to which he alluded was not accidental, nor was it of a trifling character; it was of the whole root of the discontent; and if confidence were wished for the original rule must be restored. He wished also to make a few observations with regard to the model and training schools established in different parts of the country, which, he maintained, were not consistent with the original system established in Ireland by Lord Stanley, but were excrescences upon it. He would remind hon. Gentlemen who complained of the lavish expenditure of public money, that they annually voted over £35,000 for these training and model schools, and the expenditure for each pupil attending the model schools (excluding what were called infants from the calculation) amounted to £5 a head, while the amount per head in England was only about 16 s. Another objection to these schools was, that they resulted in an assumption on the part of the State of the whole education of the people. Their teaching was not confined to the mere lower classes, but extended to persons whose parents could afford to pay for their education, and they therefore had a tendency to prevent the establishment of private educational institutions conducted on the voluntary

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  principle; for it was impossible that a voluntary school could compete with a State-supported school, inasmuch as those who supported the voluntary schools would as ratepayers, in fact, be supporting both systems. He believed it would be a good thing if these schools were placed more under local influence, and were made to a certain extent more self-supporting. Several Motions on the subject under discussion had from time to time been submitted to the notice of the House, but those by whom they had been brought forward were informed that all their complaints against the National system of education in Ireland were answered by facts. No attempt was made to reply in detail to the objections raised, the sole argument of those who upheld the existing system as it stood being that its results were satisfactory. But in what, he would ask, had the schools in question been successful? A generation had grown up under their influence, and was that generation, he should like to know, more prosperous, more contented, or more loyal than those by which it was immediately preceded? If the answer was in the negative, then he must maintain that a system of education which had not produced better fruits could not fairly be set up as having completely secured the objects which it was intended to accomplish. When hon. Members talked of the enormous attendance of scholars at those schools, they seemed entirely to forget that that fact alone did not constitute an irrefutable argument in their favour. Under the existing state of things the people of Ireland were offered the alternative of no education at all, or the acceptance of that which they could get in the National Schools; and the fact that they chose the later alternative was simply a proof, not that they were satisfied with the present system, but that they preferred availing themselves of it to allowing their children to grow up in perfect ignorance. Neither his hon. Friend nor himself wished to overturn the National system of education in Ireland. What they desired was to make it more popular, and that result they believed would be best secured by a strict adherence to the original rules laid down by Lord Stanley, and by providing that in districts in which a population belonging exclusively to one denomination existed, harassing or religious instruction restrictions should be done away with. He had heard it stated that the people of Ireland were really in favour of the mixed system, and that
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  the agitation against it was got up by interested persons; but that statement was fully disposed of by the piles of petitions which were year after year presented to that House, praying for an alteration in the state of things, as well as by the fact that not a single representative of any Irish constituency in which the popular element prevailed would say that he was a supporter, in its integrity, of that National system of education which some persons maintained was imbedded in the affections of the Irish people. In conclusion, he begged to impress upon the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland the necessity of distinctly stating what it was the Government proposed to do in reference to the subject, especially what they proposed to do in reference to the question of the training schools.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire what changes may, with advantage, he made in the system of National Education in Ireland, in order to allow greater freedom and fulness of religious teaching in schools attended by pupils of one religious denomination only, and to guard effectually against proselytism and protect the faith of the minority in mixed schools."—(Mr. O'Reilly.)
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, he confessed he had heard with considerable surprise his hon. Friend who had just spoken (The O'Conor Don) throw doubt on the good results of the system of National Education in Ireland. He seemed to treat it as a commonplace, scarcely worthy of being mentioned in debate, that the House had before it, in dealing with the present subject, a great existing scheme of popular education. For his own part, he must admit that he never listened to able and ingenious criticisms such as those which he had heard that evening—and he was far from saying that there was not considerable force in some of the observations which had been made—without having before his mind that which he regarded as one of the most important facts which could, under the circumstances, be kept in view, and that was that the House was not asked to deal with the problematical case of a system of education to be established, but with a system of primary popular education which flourished at the present moment, and which embraced within the schools connected with it in Ireland—he spoke of the ordinary primary schools as distinct from the model and all other schools—a number of children on the rolls not far

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  short of 900,000. The system with which they had now to deal was—with many faults, no doubt, but as a matter of fact—carrying on the education of the great mass of the people of Ireland. If he thought the Motion of the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. O'Reilly) did not trench upon the fundamental principles on which the ordinary National Schools of Ireland rested, he should certainly have no objection to make to it. He was glad to hear from both the Mover and Seconder of the Motion that their intention was not to destroy but to improve the system. He accepted and hailed that declaration from his hon. Friends, which he conceived to be most valuable, and to hold out, as he hoped, some fair prospect of their being able at some not far-distant day to remove all well-founded objections that could be urged against the system. But could it be said that the Motion in none of its parts trenched upon the essence and foundation of that system, or upon the principles on which its stability and success might be deemed to depend? By the terms of the Motion his hon. Friend asked for greater fulness and freedom of religious teaching in certain schools which, as a matter of fact, contained children of one denomination only. These were attractive words, no doubt; but let them see what they meant. In the first place, they meant that in a large portion of the National Schools of Ireland all those restrictions and conditions which the State had imposed with respect to religious instruction should he totally withdrawn. That total withdrawal might, of course, come into play in either one of two ways. Every child attending the school might be required to submit itself to the religious instruction of that school, irrespective of its own religious creed; and that, he must say, was not the demand made by his hon. Friend. The other mode was that such schools should be rendered practically exclusive. His hon. Friend might say that that was not his intention; and that if one of those schools which to-day was purely denominational, containing children of only one denomination, should become to-morrow in any degree a mixed school, it might at once fail within the category of mixed schools, and be subject as such to the rules which were now and always had been provided for every National School in Ireland. But it was impossible to conceive such a state of things in practice. For his own part, at least, he felt the greatest difficulty when he attempted to conceive a hybrid
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  condition of things such as that. He was at a loss to imagine how the course recommended by his hon. Friend would work. Practically, it seemed to him that it would he impossible every time that, in the strict definition of the term—and in these matters they were bound in common justice, even to the smallest minorities, to interpret "mixed school" in the strictest and narrowest sense of the term—it would, he said, be impossible to alter the rules of a National School every time that a Protestant or a Roman Catholic family, as the case might be, found its way into the neighbourhood of a school which was denominational yesterday, and might be mixed to-day; or again, when a family, as constantly happened, chose to transfer its children from some particular school, the instruction of which it did not approve, in order to send them—as, to the honour of Irish parents of the poorest class, they often would do—to the best schoolmaster they could find in the neighbourhood. But, more than that, without imputing blame to patrons, managers, or any one else connected with these schools, it was impossible not to see practically that, having once got rid of all restrictions upon the religious instruction of a school—restrictions which he considered to be of a very light and harmless character, but from which, as they knew from the Motion made that night, many persons desired to be relieved—care would undoubtedly be taken that the school, having once become denominational, should continue to be denominational. It would be impossible for the patrons and managers to resist the temptation they would be under to discourage the attendance at their school of children of a different creed when they knew that the entrance of perhaps one such child would alter its rules, and subject them at once to restrictions which they disapproved. The result, then, would be that, either avowedly or virtually, by rule or by practice, these schools would acquire the right of excluding children belonging to a religious denomination different from that of the patrons—of excluding them, that was to say, from the benefits of that secular education which that House had intended should be open to all comers in Ireland. He did not mean to deal at any length with the other point which he had just touched.—namely, the imposition of one form of religious instruction upon all children applying for the secular advantages of the school. His hon. Friend did not make that claim. It was a claim which

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  he was sorry to see still made by many members of his own Church, and he freely admitted it was one which was far more utterly opposed to the principles of the National system than the claim put forward by the Mover and Seconder of the present Motion. Those two hon. Gentlemen claimed greater freedom of religious teaching for children of their own creed; while those persons who made the other claim to which he had referred asked for greater freedom to impart religious instruction to the children of a different creed from their own. But in practice, under the system which his hon. Friends advised the House to adopt, either children of another persuasion would find their way, in their pursuit of knowledge and education, into these schools, and would therefore require the protection of those safeguards which the present rules threw around them, or else the schools would be rendered exclusively denominational, and the minorities in the districts where they existed would thus be deprived of the benefits which Parliament meant they should enjoy. Now he held that, under the circumstances of Ireland, the Government and Parliament would not be justified in providing schools, maintained almost entirely at the expense of the State, the doors of which should be shut in that way against any children offering themselves for education. And he need not remind the House or his hon. Friend that if there was one rule of the Board which was more fundamentally essential than another, it was this—that the religious instruction in every National School should be so arranged that each school should be open to children of all persuasions. Undoubtedly the rule suggested by his hon. Friend would be a direct infringement of that fundamental principle of the present system. But then let them look at the manner in which Protestants were scattered in small minorities—sometimes in mere handfuls—in almost every parish in the larger portion of Ireland, and also remember how many Roman Catholics were scattered over the greater part of the Protestant North. He would not dwell upon the facts which had been so often stated, as to the degree in which the system of National education in Ireland was mixed or not. On the one hand, he did not overrate the importance of those facts; nor, on the other, was he prepared to treat them in the spirit which some had exhibited. He would only allude to the case of Ulster, where it was well known that
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  some 86 per cent of all the children were actually in mixed schools; and to the fact that in Ulster there were between 900 and 1,000 National Schools, in every one of which the minority, whether it was Protestant or Roman Catholic, was not less than 10 per cent, and ranged from that point up to 49 per cent. But the truth was, that all over Ireland these mixed schools, in the strict sense of the term, did exist to a very great extent. They were more than 50 per cent—he thought they were 54 per cent—of the whole number of National Schools in Ireland. Of course, the returns were shifting in their character from week to week and month to month, according to the entrance or departure of small minorities of the other creed. Another fact was, that the number of these mixed schools was increasing in Ireland. He would just mention the figures to the House. He found that in 1859 there were within the walls of mixed schools, in round numbers, 80,000 Protestants and 215,000 Roman Catholic children. In 1865 there were in mixed schools 103,000 Protestant and 240,000 Roman Catholic children. These were, he thought, significant facts; but he only used them for the purpose of showing that throughout a great part of Ireland there existed minorities so small as either to be totally incapable of providing schools for themselves, or only capable of providing small and bad schools. Then came the further question as to the restrictions of which his hon. Friend complained. If those conditions were of a very serious, onerous, and pressing character, he should refuse to defend them; but seeing what they were, he could not bring himself to believe that they were of so onerous a character, or in any degree so detrimental to the religious education of the children, as to demand the sacrifice of what he conceived to be the fundamental principle of the National system. It was in the power of the patron to give religious instruction before and after the secular instruction, and also at intermediate times. He had seen a good deal of the working of the National Schools, which were, in fact, the parish schools of the parish priest in his own part of Ireland, and they were, to a large extent, denominational schools. The hon. Member (Mr. (O'Reilly) smiled at that, but no one had any reason to be ashamed of the fact. In his view the non-vested schools were, in fact, denominational schools, but with an Irish conscience clause—a conscience clause that was practically adapted to the wants and

  1007
  necessities of Ireland. The patron was, in the majority of schools, the Roman Catholic priest or the Presbyterian minister, who looked to the religious instruction of the children, and he had a right to exclude every other form of religious instruction but his own, if he gave the minority freedom to obtain instruction from their pastor elsewhere. He appointed or dismissed the teachers to these semi-denominational schools, which were, as he had said, under the operation of an Irish conscience clause, such as was fit to deal with the jealousies, the fears, and the religious passions that unfortunately prevailed between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. Had these schools with their restrictions inflicted injury upon the faith and morals of the Roman Catholic population of Ireland? The present generation of Irishmen had for the most part passed through those schools. He spoke of Ireland as a whole, and no hon. Gentleman would stand up in that House and say that the present generation of the Irish peasantry, who had been brought up in the National Schools, would yield to the peasantry of any Roman Catholic country in the world for devotion to their Church or for purity of morals. Unless he could give stronger reasons than he had offered, he hoped that his hon. Friend would not ask the Government to give up these restrictions, and so to endanger the system of education in Ireland, or to surrender the conscience clause, and thus cover Ireland with schools that would either peril the faith of the children or exclude them altogether. He now came to the second part of the Motion, and which he admitted to be very important. It was directed against the state of facts known to exist in some parts of the North, where the school children of one religious communion were sometimes receiving religious instruction from the teachers of another religious communion. The facts, indeed, were greatly exaggerated. He had seen figures of a preposterous amount quoted. No doubt, however, there was a considerable number of children—mainly, but not exclusively, Roman Catholics—in the North of Ireland who were receiving religious instruction from teachers of another faith. That, he admitted, was not in accordance with the fundamental principles of the National system. That principle was united secular and separate religious instruction. In the case in question it was a system of united secular and religious instruction.
  1008
  That was a state of things never contemplated by the National system, and it was condemned alike by the authors of the system and by the Government. Such cases were exceptional, and could only be justified upon one understanding—that the children received this religious instruction by the wish and positive consent of their parents. He by no means asserted that in these cases proselytism was intended; but neither Protestant nor Roman Catholic children ought to be expected to receive religious instruction from the teachers of another creed, except by the express consent of the parent. That was an opinion he had long and strongly held; and the system described to-night, under which the teacher put a printed notice in the hand of a child the first time he came to the school, and it was supposed the parents consented to his receiving religious instruction, unless measures were taken by the parents to prevent it—that system was to his mind an illusory one, and one well deserving the consideration of the House. He was happy to state that the National Commissioners were propria motÛ considering the present rule, and would endeavour to devise some means by which the professed objects of the rule might be more faithfully carried out; so that children might not attend religious instruction from a teacher of another faith, unless with the positive instead of the presumed consent of the parents. There was thus a fair prospect that the blot of the system to which the Motion of the hon. Gentleman pointed might be rectified and removed. He now came to the third point treated by his hon. Friend, which was of great importance; but a point of which no notice had been given by the terms of the Resolution. He referred to the model and training schools. His hon. Friend made some allusion to the fact that the answer of the Home Secretary to the letter of Archbishop Cullen and the Roman Catholic prelates was not satisfactory on that point. But his hon. Friend should recollect that the only suggestion made in the letter of the Roman Catholic prelates was that these model and training schools should be swept off the face of the earth altogether. It was therefore neither the time nor the opportunity for the Secretary of State to make suggestions for the amendment or the improvement of those institutions. He was far from saying that the Government were of opinion that the model and training schools, especially the model schools, of Ireland

  1009
  were in a satisfactory condition. It was impossible to shut their eyes to the fact that these schools were not performing all that had been hoped from them when they were first introduced, or to deny that the number of Roman Catholics in them had largely and steadily decreased. He defied any one to read the last Report of the Commissioners of National Education with- out being painfully struck by the opinion of the inspectors as to the deterioration of the teachers in some parts of Ireland, ! which had begun, and must be expected to increase. In many Roman Catholic schools that might he accounted for by the fact that they had not obtained the advantages of training in the central or training schools. He was not going into the causes. He took the facts as he found them, and he fully admitted that they constituted a very grave state of things, and one deserving to obtain, and which would obtain, the anxious consideration of the Government. He lamented the course taken by the heads of the Catholic Church in Ireland upon this subject; the Government could not entertain the proposal that the model schools should be swept away; but, for the reasons he had stated, they felt that these schools were not performing those functions, especially with regard to the Catholic body, which they were established to discharge. Many modifications, he had no doubt, might be made in them, in accordance with the principles of the National Board, and with advantage to the country. He had not treated this Motion so far as if it were one for a Committee, and his hon. Friend (Mr. O'Reilly) himself was very much the cause of that, for he very frankly told the House that he wanted no information, and he certainly showed that his stores of information were as ample as they were accurate. His object, then, was to raise a discussion and to discover the best mode of applying the information to the facts of the case. With respect to discussion, his hon. Friend had succeeded in raising it, and he had no doubt it would be continued in a satisfactory manner. With respect to the application of the information, he ventured to submit that that was rather a matter for Her Majesty's Government than for anybody else. He hoped, then, his hon. Friend would not insist upon a Committee to deal with so narrow a part of the subject. As to the second part of the Motion, he had said enough to show that it was at this moment under the consideration of the National
  1010
  Board, and he had no doubt before long the Government would receive the result of their deliberations. On the subject of the third part—not of the Motion, but the speech of his hon. Friend—he (Mr. Fortescue) had frankly admitted that there were circumstances connected with the model schools which deserved to receive the anxious consideration of the Government. Under these circumstances, he hoped his hon. Friend would not force the House to a division, which he would probably see would be both inopportune and premature.
  MR. WHITESIDEsaid, the Motion which had been made by the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. O'Reilly) had been brought forward with great temper and ability; but the defect of his speech and Motion was that he left wholly untouched an important part of the inquiry—namely, the secular part of the system. That question the hon. Gentleman had judiciously and wisely for the present left wholly in the back ground. The subject of education had received the attention of all good and wise men in this country some time back. The hon. Gentleman had professed to give a short account of the mode in which education was conducted in Ireland, Nothing could be worse, and in that all were agreed, than the hedge schools which prevailed in Ireland at the end of the last century. Shortly after the rebellion of 1798 an attempt was made, and very successfully, by the Church to which he belonged to remedy this state of things by establishing a system of Sunday-school teaching. Subsequently a better and larger experiment was made by a body which was known as "the Kildare Place Society," and which the hon. and gallant Gentleman might have stated met at first with the entire approval of his Church. The hon. and gallant Gentleman ought to have recollected that Mr. O'Connell attended at the Society and approved its principles—principles upon which it still rested, for he stated—and his speech was preserved by the Society, and hon. Gentlemen would do well to read it—that the system was a tolerant one, and that it would enable Christians of all denominations, particularly Roman Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, to meet in the same school upon the common ground of reading the Scriptures. The Douay version—and a very good version it was—was that which the Roman Catholic pupils were permitted to read. Well, 200,000 children attended

  1011
  the schools of the Society, and if any one would read the reports of Sir Frankland Lewis, he would find a great number of letters from Bishops of the Church of Rome approving the system. It was, however, in due time attacked. Everything in Ireland at one time or other was attacked. A thing grows up and becomes popular; but after a little time it is found to have some vice which had escaped the notice of wise and good men for a long time, and then it is overthrown, and another thing established which in due season will be pronounced more vicious than the system which preceded it. They were all agreed that National education ought to be encouraged, but the principle upon which it was to be conducted had been the subject in dispute. Was it to be secular education exclusively, or religious mixed with secular education. And which was to be preferred? The Church of England had fallen into the blunder—if blunder it was—of saying that the Book of Revelations was to be taken first, and afterwards the Book of Nature. The case which he had to bring forward was that of a real grievance, and though the hon. and gallant Gentleman was very clever and very plausible, his grievances were not very deep; at the same time, the hon. Gentleman had a right to submit those grievances to the House; and, as far as he could collect any meaning from the peculiar official phrases they had heard from the Treasury Bench, the Chief Secretary was willing in some way or other to consider at least two of them. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said that we must revert to the system of Lord Stanley. Now, he ventured to say that Lord Derby would be the very first man to deny the application of that system to the present state of things in Ireland. He heard Archbishop Whately say that he would never have been a party to that system in Ireland only that there was to be a certain amount of religious education connected with it; and, accordingly, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman knew very well, there were Scripture lessons, and the evidences of Christianity, and a hymn-book which Sir John Young used to read to the House—but that had gone out of date now—all under the sanction of the Board for use in the schools. Archbishop Murray and other eminent ecclesiastics of the Catholic Church approved these things. Everyone who objected to the system now attacked the model schools, the fact being that they were the only schools which pre-
  1012
  served the plan of Lord Stanley, and which were frequented by a large number of Protestants. For a long time these schools had been popular in Ireland. They were"vested"schools—vested in the Board. The great blunder which had led to all the confusion was in allowing non-vested schools under individual patrons, for then the happy state of things referred to by the hon. Gentleman arose—namely, the patron might give any religious instruction he chose, or none at all. That system had been described by Mr. Warren, a gentleman of the Bar in Ireland, in a pamphlet, in which he said that the rules of the National Board were negative, permissive, prohibitory, and that the system did not provide any religious instruction in any school. He added that the rules required freedom of religious instruction before and after school hours, but did not oblige the school to provide it; and that the system of non-vested schools excluded any and all kinds of religious instruction, and that without reference to the wishes of the parents or of the clergy. Notwithstanding the absurdity of the idea for a politician, the hon. Gentleman opposite seemed to think he was about to convert the clergy of Christian Churches to approval of schools from which the patron might exclude "any and all kinds of religious instruction." The allowance of non-vested schools established a principle opposed to that on which Lord Stanley rested the National system, and led to certain consequences. It was originally contemplated that the clergyman and the priest might co-operate in the management of the same school. He had read of a case in which this arrangement gave the Board more trouble in composing the differences of the two than the management of a thousand schools. On this ground joint management had ceased entirely, and the truth was accurately stated when it was said that the 3,000 schools were presided over by as many priests. He did not complain of this, but it was right that the House should know the fact. It would be difficult, under these circumstances, to find out the grievances of the parish priests, who nominated the master and mistresses and superintended the religious instruction. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that practically those schools were exclusive, or, as he called them, denominational schools, and to the extent that they existed they had changed the system. The monastic or convent schools were intro-

  1013
  duced into the National system as a tribute of respect to the religious principle that that might be done which it was pretended was not done; and there was nothing more offensive to a lover of truth than to do that indirectly which you were forbidden to do directly. As to the ex-elusion of symbols, the nun was the most complete symbol and the proof of the exclusion of the school. Protestants were not deceived in the least; they did not enter such a school. Roman Catholics stated that they preferred such schools, because they got there religious instruction, and they liked the instruction of the ladies. Although he did not approve monasteries and convents, he could understand and respect the principle. The reason, then, why the model schools were not so popular as they had been was that the Board, with an incomprehensible fatuity, had established in each district where there was a model school a convent school. The priest said, "That is what I want; I am for religious education;" and the people went with him; and at his behest, as soon as the convent school was ready, the model school was emptied of scholars. And then it was said, "How is it possible for these model schools to exist? they have become unpopular in the country." The Board had established inconsistent schools side by side, and then they affected great surprise that the people acted according to their judgment. The Reports of the Inspectors showed that the model schools were everywhere suffering from the opposition of the Catholic clergy and rivalry of the model schools. Every Member of the Ministry ought to read the Report of Mr. Sheridan, one of the inspectors, which was not published for some time, but was at length produced on the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Belfast. In speaking of these convent schools, Mr. Sheridan said, that the teachers very seldom had any opportunity of obtaining a technical training, either before or after they made a religious profession; and hence, although they were well educated generally, he apprehended that many of them had but a limited acquaintance with improved methods of teaching and school organization. With candour and fairness he added that these teachers were impatient of the competition of a rival school; that in many of the smaller towns no female schools except those connected with convents were to be found, and that in some towns in which
  1014
  there were monks' school as well as nuns' schools, the ordinary male National School had been proscribed. Mr. Sheridan observed that the teachers were actuated by good motives—they had faith in themselves, believed their own schools the best adapted for the training of youth, and therefore thought they were justified in using their influence to remove all other schools out of their way. Mr. Sheridan denounced such a policy as intolerant, and said that like every intolerant policy, the evils it gave rise to were more than sufficient to counter-balance the good it was expected to effect. Mr. Sheridan summed up by saying that the schools in most cases were crowded to excess, and that as the inevitable result, the rate of progress was extremely slow, a child very rarely reaching the upper class before completing his school course. He stated that there were ample funds for all persons in the country to receive a share, but that the most curious and remarkable feature was that only 18 or 19 per cent of all the pupils attending the National Schools ever reached the higher classes, and he hoped that the Commissioners would take such steps as would lead to a radical change in the course and system of instruction at present adopted. Some of the Reports of the sub-inspectors were of an equally unsatisfactory character. The Board having established convent schools, the next thing that happened was an application for a large body of monitors of their own selection, which would have got rid of the training schools at once; and though the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tam-worth (Sir Robert Peel) reminded the Commissioners that they had no power to alter fundamental rules of the system of National education without the consent of the Lord Lieutenant, he was answered in a long letter, and apparently put down. Hosts of protests were sent up against the convent schools as directly contrary to the system on which National education rested, and as likely, if persevered in, to be the death-blow to that system, and he believed it was admitted that the object of these schools had been fully realized. The present Secretary for the Colonies (Mr. Card-well), when Chief Secretary for Ireland, in writing to the late Primate, laid down, as the only principle applicable to Ireland, that the education given in schools deriving assistance from the State must be of so comprehensive a character as not to exclude pupils belonging to any religious commu-

  1015
  nion; but surely no one could pretend that the convent and monastic schools described by Mr. Sheridan, and founded in deference to the religious principle prevailing in the Roman Catholic Church, were of this character. Roman Catholics, indeed, were too candid to make any such representation. He was not authorized to express the views of any particular body in this matter, but he conscientiously believed that the attempt to maintain the system as it now stood was most unwise, and he would state his reasons for that opinion. Much had been made of the alleged grievances of the Roman Catholics, but the substantial grievances of the Church of England in respect to education were passed by unnoticed, and he believed would never be redressed unless through the intervention of Parliament. The principle with which they started was that the Scriptures should be used in the parish schools, though not with any intention of proselytizing. The Douay version was allowed for Roman Catholic pupils, and it could hardly be alleged that the reading of this was likely to make them less attached to their religion. It being held, however, that the use of the Scriptures was altogether forbidden, some of the clergy were willing to assent to a modification of their original principle, and inquired whether they would be allowed to make an incidental reference to Christianity in the course of the day. That was certainly a very modest request, and Lord Carlisle, then Lord Lieutenant, acknowledged the receipt of their communication very courteously. The Commissioners, however, decided that it was impossible to allow even an incidental reference to the Word of God. Then it was asked whether, if a question arose which required to be solved by reference to the rule of faith contained in the Scriptures, a master might correct a pupil by reference to that standard; and the answer was that it was impossible—that such a practice would be a departure from the rules. Zoroaster, or anything else might be alluded to during the day, but the New Testament was a forbidden book. In the ragged schools they began by teaching the children, "Thou shalt not steal," but the National Board would not tolerate such a thing, because it involved a reference to Christianity. ["No, no!"] He maintained that such was the case, and would tell the gentlemen who entertained the notion, that they could convert the Church of England to such views that it would be as reasonable to
  1016
  suppose that the Chief Secretary for Ireland could take St. Paul's in his hand and drop it in Pimlico. In reality no such thing existed in Ireland as mixed education. About three years ago a Return was made to Parliament showing that there were 5,496 schools in Ireland, 2,598 of which did not even make a pretence of imparting mixed education. Of the2,898 which remained, there were 478 in which the minimum attendance of Protestants was one in each. But the House should remember that according to Mr. Ferguson's report, of 105 children on the rolls only 49 attended the schools, and he asked them how much of Protestanism had they with the chance of the 49th part of one Protestant attending them. Then there were 385 schools in which the minority of Catholics or Protestants, as the case might be, consisted of two; 281 schools in which there were three Protestants; 210 in which there were four Protestants; and 164 in which there were five Protestants. In a very large number of these schools, therefore, it was obvious that there could be no mixed education at all. Did his right hon. Friend think there was any such thing as mixed education in Dublin? Why, in one street in that city there were two schools—one Church of England and the other Roman Catholic. In the Church of England school the Scriptures were read. He did not know what was done in the Roman Catholic school, but he supposed they did what they liked. He thought it quite right that the State should insist on getting value for the money it voted, and should see that a good secular education was imparted, the religious element being left free. At one time he had intended to submit to the House a Resolution to the effect that the Board for the management of National Education in Ireland, consisting of twenty Commissioners, was inconveniently large for the despatch of business, and calculated to cause disputes and delays; that the said Board should consist of a limited number of paid Commissioners, with administrative functions only, to conduct the secular system of National education in Ireland in conformity with the prescribed rules, and to impart its advantages to all denominations without distinction, and that the said Commissioners should not interfere with the religious instruction to be given in the schools. He saw no way of getting out of the difficulty, unless the secular system were brought up to the

  1017
  highest degree of pefection. It might be asked how Churchmen got on with their schools. He would quote the last report of the Church Education Society. Their grievance was that they were taxed for the National system of education while none of their schools received the slightest assistance from the Board. While the convent schools were paid for their exclusive system of instruction the Church of England schools derived no assistance whatever—not even books or school requisites—from the National Board, and were not even under inspection, because they read the Scriptures in them. Well the report in question stated that none of the teachers or persons connected with the society had been mixed up in the Fenian conspiracy, they having acted upon the principle of "Fear God, honour the King." If those words were inscribed in any National School it would not be entitled to a farthing. The schools of the Society had diminished, but still they were 1,498 in number. The number of children was 68,856, of whom 47,397 belonged to the Established Church, 12,773 Dissenters, and 8,686 Roman Catholics. A decrease had taken place in the number of Roman Catholic children, while the children of Dissenters had increased in number. The funds during the year amounted to £45,155 12 s. 6d. Upon what ground, he asked, could Christian men refuse to assist those who were really working in the cause of education? Earl Granville had once proposed in the other House of Parliament to give to the Church of England schools, not money, but school requisites, books, and inspection. Afterwards, however, the noble Lord repented of his liberality, and excluded the Church schools from State assistance. Looking at the manner in which the system of National education established by Mr. Stanley had been departed from, he submitted to the wisdom of the House that the real question before it was not the narrow subject touched on by the Motion of the hon. Gentleman, but the subject of National education in Ireland generally; and although the present system had conferred some benefits as a secular system, these might have been rendered far more effectual for the promotion of the great ends of true education if its administration had been more wisely and beneficially directed.
  MR. GREGORYsaid, he was surprised at the first objection raised by so good a Liberal as Mr. Fortescue, to the proposal of Mr. O'Reilly. The right hon. Gen-
  1018
  tleman said that the present system of National education was not a new thing, that it had been in operation for many years, and that there would be difficulties in altering it. The right hon. Gentleman might perhaps have remembered that National education was a contemporary of the Reform Bill, that their early days were passed together; when, therefore, he was prepared to swallow changes in the Constitution, no doubt very salutary, it was strange that he should strain at changes in the present system of National education, which would be salutary also. He (Mr. Gregory) would take no account of the first objection, but he came to another far more formidable, and that was the difficulty of dealing with schools in localities where one or two children might be of a faith differing from the majority, and yet who on that account should not be deprived of education. The right hon. Gentleman instanced the case of the few Protestants who were scattered about in the different counties of the South and West and middle of Ireland. But while the Chief Secretary was using these words, he (Mr. Gregory) was handed by the
  Member for Roscommon (The O'Conor Don) the charge of the Archbishop of
  Dublin, in which the Primate particularly alludes to and meets that difficulty. He says, as the Protestants in Ireland have hitherto supported their own schools by private liberality, so would they provide for any such cases as those referred to, because then they would be enjoying State assistance while giving religious education. He (Mr. Gregory) would venture to say that in similar cases in the North of Ireland the Roman Catholics would equally be able to provide for the instruction of their children in those rare cases where there was not room for two schools of different denominations. While referring to the Archbishop of Dublin's charge, he might remark that during the last seven or eight years a considerable change has taken place in the position which the subject of National education occupied in Ireland. Up to a recent period the great bulk of the Irish Protestant clergy were adverse to the system. The petitions against it were originally from the clergy and those who were influenced by them; the attacks on the system emanated from the Protestant press, and the Members of the Dublin University, who may be called par excellence the representatives of the Established Protestant Church, denounced it in the House. Now,

  1019
  however, a great change has taken place. The late Primate of Ireland signified his adhesion to it, and a great body of the clergy of the Established Church have followed his example. On the other hand, a vigorous agitation against it and in favour of the denominational system had sprung up on the part of those who originally adopted and upheld the National system, as based upon the celebrated letter of Mr. Stanley. He referred to the Roman Catholic episcopacy and clergy. Now, as those who originally accepted the system have become its antagonists, and as many of those who before opposed it have abandoned their resistance, he thought it by far the most proper and statesmanlike course not to impute improper motives to either party, but to see if anything had occurred which had created this somewhat strange shifting of opinion. It was his intention to have referred at some little length to the changes that had sprung up in the system since Mr. Stanley's letter—changes by-the-bye strongly condemned by Lord Derby himself, whom he should personally call as a witness into court. He was happy, however, to say that his hon. and gallant Friend (Mr. O'Reilly) had so clearly and forcibly put these points before then, that he was spared the necessity of inflicting more than a few remarks upon the House. He (Mr. Gregory) begged so far to go over the ground again as to trace succinctly, and in a few sentences, the changes which have occurred since Mr. Stanley's letter of 1831. Mr. Stanley's letter was to this effect—
  "That the school should be kept open for a certain number of hours on four or five days of the week for moral and literary instruction only, and that the remaining one or two days in the week be set apart for giving separately such religious instruction to the children as may be approved of by the clergy of their respective persuasions."
  The system was thus started by a distinct pledge that religious instruction should be given, and given separately, to the children of different creeds. Now, let them mark the gradual departures from that pledge:—In 1833, no child was allowed to continue in the school except such as was directed by his parent to remain. In 1835, the Board acceded to the request of the Pres byterians, and permitted religious instruction to be given every day "either before or after the ordinary school hours." In 1838, a course of religious instruction was allowed during school hours, but no child
  1020
  was to be present whose parent objected. In 1840, children were to remain unless directed by their parents not to remain. In 1855, the principle of non-exclusion became thoroughly recognized. Not only that, but religious teaching is no longer an essential part of the system; a school devoid of any religious instruction may receive aid from the Board. The patron is not bound any longer to provide for the religious education of all the pupils of his school. He may select one form for his exclusive patronage. He may prohibit any religious teaching not in accordance with his own views. No wonder Lord Derby was indignant at the changes effected in his great work, in its main features being so altered, and he thus expressed himself in March, 1858—
  "I regret that in so large a portion of the schools support has been given to the arguments of those opposed to them,"(namely, Protestants,)"and that, in fact, in the great bulk of the schools, contrary to the intention of those who originally proposed the system, there is not only no religious instruction given, but no facilities even for separate religious instruction by the ministers of different persuasions out of school hours."
  In fact, the system was burdened with complaints on all sides. It might be assailed on the most conflicting grounds. As a system in which the religion of the pupil may be tampered with—as a system in which children may be brought up without the slightest fear of God, or knowledge of his law. Let him (Mr. Gregory) deal for one moment with the first case. Children may now remain during religious instruction unless directed by their parents to absent themselves. But religious instruction may now be given every day and at any hour, and what were these poor children to do during that time—were they to sit down by the roadside in snow, and rain, and cold? Certainly not. They would remain in school—in a warm room—and listen to instruction in a faith which was not theirs. The Commissioners are now satisfied if on the child's first attendance a notice is handed to him by the manager to apprize the parent that his child is attending religious instruction in a creed differing from his own. Possibly the parent is indifferent to the notice, and the child continues to attend this religious instruction; possibly the parent desires him to absent himself, but cold and wet are present to him, and are stronger than the injunction of the parent who is absent. Thence comes disobedience and evasion. In 1862,

  1021
  16,000 children of Ulster were served with this notice. Now, is it wonderful that Roman Catholics are suspicious of this system when they remark these various changes arising out of it—all of them, as they believe, essentially insidious and leading to the subversion of the religion of the pupils—when they see temptations offered to children to induce them to acquiesce in a teaching differing from, nay, even hostile to their own? He had shown the number of cases of Roman Catholic children attending Notional Schools of Presbyterian or Church of England patrons in Ulster. He had now to speak of inducements and temptations held out to children. There was an investigation held on the proceedings of a National School, Belfast. The Report stated that from 1849 to 1855
  "Clothing was supplied, but breakfast, dinner, and supper was denied to those who absented themselves from religious instruction, illness alone being considered a sufficient apology for absence."
  This instruction, be it remembered, was given exclusively by Presbyterian teachers. Formerly the objections of a parent, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, was sufficient to remove from the hours of combined instruction any religious book which he deemed pernicious to the faith of his child, but in 1853 the rule was altered, and now extracts and sacred poetry cannot be removed as a portion of combined instruction so long as a solitary pupil does not object to read them. Let the House now see what some of the most influential clergymen of the Church of England think of all this. Archdeacon Stopford thus expressed himself—
  "The Board has ever since their establishment laboured under the difficulty entailed on them by Lord Stanley's letter. Public opinion and experience have led them to a gradual though un-avowed and incomplete correction of the original letter for which they have not obtained due credit."
  In referring to the change of the rule whereby non-compulsion instead of exclusion was sanctioned, Archdeacon Stopford advised the Protestant clergy of Moate to adopt the National system. He says—
  "I counsel you to connect your schools with a system which has achieved its present form through a course of silent changes."
  And now the House should hear the fruits of these silent changes, as described by two Protestant clergymen, whose opinions are entitled to much weight from the
  1022
  prominent part they have taken in this controversy. Dean Kennedy says—
  "In my schools there are Roman Catholics receiving a greater amount of Scriptural education through the means of the secular books of the National Board and the Scripture lessons, than in any Church Education School that I know. This is my deliberate conviction. I think the principles of the National Board are the principles of the Reformation."
  He (Mr. Gregory) might say that however excellent these principles of the Reformation might be, they were not exactly the principles in which four-fifths of the Irish people, if they had their own way, would wish to be instructed. The next witness, the Rev. F. F. Trench, exhorts the Protestant clergy to join the Board on these grounds, and pretty strong grounds they were—
  "I say that in the compact to have those points taught in schools upon which Protestants and Romanists agree, the Protestant has decidedly the advantage, and the patron can teach Protestantism to every child in the schools. I am of opinion that the patron might even pledge himself underhand, and state that he will let Romanism alone during certain hours of the day, so far as refraining from controversial teaching can be considered as letting Romanism alone; but, in my judgment, if a Christian Minister educates Roman Catholic children on the points upon which Protestants and Catholics are agreed, which he may I do, at all hours, he is very far from letting Romanism alone."
  He (Mr. Gregory) wondered if these were the incidental allusions to Christianity, the deprivation of using which seemed to have wrung so deeply the bosom of the right hon. and learned Member (Mr. Whiteside) who had just spoken. Such extracts as these were alone sufficient to condemn the system in the eyes of every man of common fairness. Could they then wonder that men's feelings in Ireland were outraged, their consciences shocked, and the old soreness and suspicion against English legislation was fostered and maintained by the insistance on a system so handled, a system which, by the enormous grant of public money, beat down all before it, and became a weapon of such power in the hands of those who wielded it? Let the House now see the way a Roman Catholic Prelate had dealt with this system when it was introduced, and he (Mr. Gregory) thought that was the true spirit in which any combined education should be managed. Dr. Doyle, the Catholic Bishop of Kildare, had issued instructions to his clergy on this point, in which he says—

  1023
  "Whenever Protestant children attend let them not share in the duties of prayer or religious instruction unless at their own desire, sanctioned expressly by their parents; and when the number of such children shall be at all considerable the committee, if required, shall afford time and place for religious instruction being imparted to them by a person of their own communion, and in the manner prescribed by their own pastors."
  He (Mr. Gregory) had now said enough to show briefly some of the points which grated on the feelings of and offended those who spoke with authority on the subject of that education which was offered by the State to the children of the mass of the Irish people. He would now address himself to the great objections which were entertained alike by the majority and the minority, by the Protestant as well as by the Catholic, and that was the total absence of all religious teaching, which might be and was in many instances the characteristic of the system. The real charge against it was not that of proselytism, it was that of absolute indifference to all doctrinal teaching and distinctions; nay more, and far more, of absolute indifference to all religious teaching whatsoever. Hence came not conversions to the Church of England, or to the Church of Rome, but hence came a gradual, insensible, but certain drifting into practical infidelity. The hon. Member for Longford (Mr. O'Reilly) said rightly enough that the fruit of all this was Fenianism. That was what the clergy of both creeds dreaded and deplored-—that was the blot on the system. It was perfectly useless to throw to him as an unanswerable reply, the success of the system. He did not accept the argument. The fact of there being hundreds of thousands of children in the schools proved nothing. He (Mr. Gregory) did not even assert that there would be one child more instructed in Ireland under the Board if the system was altered. Education in Ireland was a State monopoly; it was like the railways, one must travel by it or not at all. Now, no power on earth can at present restrain the Irish people from education. The days had passed when they were content to be a nation of Gibeonites, hewers of wood and drawers of water; they had now entered the arena—they had contended with the same arms as Englishmen, and those who competed with them had no great cause for triumph. Now he (Mr. Gregory) said they had no right to use this immense monopoly in a way that offended the convictions and
  1024
  which ran counter to the authority of those who had of all men a right to be heard on this subject. He meant the Ministers of both creeds. It may be said we deny the right of any clergy to arrogate to themselves any species of interference or superintendence in the education of the country. That was another question. He was not going to argue on that point now. It was quite sufficient to show that that claim had been recognized and acted on in England and proclaimed aloud by the heads of the two great parties. He would quote the words of the leader of the Tory party, Mr. Disraeli, at Oxford, in October, 1860, He says—
  "If I am to consider what are the means by which the nationality of a church is to be asserted, I say, in the first place, it is hardly necessary to affirm that the church should educate the people."
  Mr. Henley, in a debate last year, laid down distinctly that dogmatic teaching was an essential in all education; the present Member for Oxford University (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) followed, and asserted that no education would be right without doctrinal teaching, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer insisted that denominational instruction was the principle on which the whole fabric of English education rested. The claims, then, of the clergy in England are recognized—in Ireland they are ignored. That mode of teaching which is thought essential for the young hearts and minds of England, is thought non-essential for the young hearts and minds of Ireland. Those impressions of reverence, faith, obedience, and religious duty, which are deemed necessary for a comparatively sober, calm, matter-of-fact race, are deemed unnecessary for a race quick, susceptible, ardent, imaginative, ready for good, but ready also for evil impulse. He would ask, did they think early religious teaching and restraint to be nothing in the training of such a race as this? Professor Butt, in his able pamphlet on freedom of education, makes this most pertinent remark—
  "It seems an anomaly that a man who desires to found a school in which the children should be educated in the principles of their religious faith, should from that very fact be denied all State assistance. In England it is different—religious instruction is interwoven with the whole system of education. That which in England is made an indispensable condition of assistance, is treated in Ireland as a disqualification. The system which England has deliberately chosen as the best for her own people is denied to
  Ireland, or rather in Ireland is reversed. In a united kingdom religious freedom in education is regarded as a privi-

  1025
  lege which only one part of that kingdom is to enjoy."
  And all this is done to keep up what was the merest myth of united education. He called it the myth, because it was notorious that in not more than a few counties in all Ireland was there to be found the semblance of this united education. In Ulster, no doubt, there were mixed schools, but with what result? Why that 16,000 notices were served on parents in Ulster, warning them that their children were attending the teaching of doctrines not their own. It might be said that the clergyman could teach them at certain hours, but that was not enough. He (Mr. Gregory) claimed for the Irish that constant and distinct teaching which Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Hardy, and Mr. Disraeli claimed for Englishmen. He contended that education in Ireland was carried on under the most vexatious supervision of a moral excise, a constant and harassing vigilance against contraband religious teaching. He would again appeal to them in the admirable words of Mr. Butt—
  "Such a system is just as destructive of all hearty earnestness. What nun can really feel her interest in her school not abated when she dares not speak at all times to her favourite pupil of the subjects that are most to her heart? What Protestant clergyman will be as zealous in his visits to a school in which if a boy asked him a question outside the house of religious instruction he must take care that his answer is one which will not appeal to any Protestant feeling in his heart."
  Now he (Mr. Gregory) would ask the House to bear with him for five minutes, and to hear what was going on in two Protestant States, where education was more widely spread than in any other countries in the world; he referred to Prussia and Holland. He was almost using the words of a gentleman who devoted last autumn to inquire into the religious and educational systems prevalent in Germany and Holland—the accuracy of all facts stated as regards Prussia may be relied on, as they were derived from Doctor Engel, Director of the Statistical Department of the Ministry for Public Worship and Instruction at Berlin. The State in Prussia insists that every child shall be educated, leaving the mode at the option of the parent. If the parent cannot and does not educate properly at home, he is obliged, at the completion of their fifth year, to send his children to an elementary school. They remain there till they have completed their fourteenth year, but if sufficiently advanced
  1026
  in reading, writing, and knowledge of religion, the clergyman and teacher are permitted, after his fourteenth year, to dispense with the future attendance of the pupil. Neglect to have children duly educated is punished by fine and imprisonment. The poorest children are paid for entirely out of the parish rates, and those better off subscribe. Every manufacturer employing children is bound to maintain a school for them, and in factories children attend school in the evening, but then there are also Sunday schools, and inspectors are appointed to see that there is no evasion, which is punished by fine and imprisonment. Every parish must have its school and schoolmaster, and is left to manage the details. If a new school is to be established the parish authorities, elected by the householders, decide as to what description it is to be. According to the religious denomination of the parishioners it is Evangelical, Roman Catholic, or mixed. If there be a sufficient number of both sects then two schools are established, If the district be too poor to support two schools all children attend secular instruction, but the master imparts religious instruction solely to those of his own faith, and the other children absent themselves while this is going on, and their clergyman undertakes the duty of instructing them. In no case does a Protestant child attend the instruction given to the Roman Catholic, or vice versd. The question whether the school is to be mixed or separate is left entirely to the parishioners. That is decided by the majority. Should the minority be dissatisfied they have only to contribute for the support of a school house and teacher, and they are not called on to subscribe to the other school. These efforts to obtain complete religious freedom have been crowned with success. The system at first met with opposition. Now it is the subject of universal pride and satisfaction. The Roman Catholic clergy of Prussia are stricter even than in Ireland. Those books which Archbishop Murray approved of would not be tolerated there. The greatest jealousy is evinced at any attempt being made to entrust the teaching of a child on any subject connected with religion to any but a minister or a member of it. No religious instruction, however small and unimportant, would be permitted to be imparted by a minister or teacher of a different faith, and this feeling animates both Evangelicals and Roman Catholics. Now,

  1027
  as to teachers, it will be seen that in Prussia the normal schools which have caused such deep dissatisfaction in Ireland are of a very different character. There are in Prussia normal or training colleges, no less than five or six in each province, established expressly for the training of teachers. The young men purporting to become schoolmasters, after passing through the primary and upper public schools, enter the normal colleges at eighteen, and remain there two or three years. Having gone through several examinations by the masters of the school and the Public Board of Examiners, they get their diploma, which enables them to accept the situation of teacher. This education is all but gratuitous, the cost being defrayed by the State. Some of the normal colleges are for Protestants, some for Roman Catholics—but while all are under civil surveillance so far as testing proficiency goes, the heads are generally ecclesiastic, it having been found that these institutions should have a religious character. The result of this system is this—an admirable education pervading the whole community, only two out of 100 not being able to read, write, and cipher, and a thorough and cordial acceptance of it by every religious denomination. Now, if he turned to Holland, he found that the changes that have taken place in the educational system of that country are very remarkable, and illustrate our present position in Ireland. Education in Holland is not compulsory—it is mixed and purely secular—no religious instruction whatever is imparted. This exclusion of religious instruction dates only from 1857. Before that it was attempted to give combined secular and religious instruction, it having been imparted on those points on which both Churches, Roman Catholic and Protestant, were supposed to agree, terminating only when their respective doctrines oppose. "This failed," as well it might, "to give satisfaction to either sect." Those who favoured the present system think that bringing together children of all creeds establishes a friendly feeling and diminishes religious differences. The same arguments which are used in Ireland—namely, the large number of attendants at the schools—is instanced as a proof of the popularity of the system. These are the opinions of the few. On the other hand, the great majority and the almost unanimous feeling of the ministers of both religions is opposed to the present system, and the great number of children
  1028
  attending private, or, as they are called, "Christian schools," is instanced as a proof of their dislike to "Godless education." A large and constantly increasing body of malcontents are endeavouring to procure the overthrow of the present system; and Protestant and Catholic, so seldom united, join heartily in this. A very different state of things is thus prevalent in Holland from that thorough unanimity which prevails in Prussia. His (Mr. Gregory's) informant says—
  "It would appear as if Holland and Ireland were on a par as regards the system of National education. Intended to reconcile both religions to a common system, that introduced may be said to have obtained their united disapprobation; and while we behold in Prussia a success almost incredible, after witnessing the results of other efforts for a like purpose, it is impossible not to be forced to the conclusion that any purely secular system would infallibly excite the hostility of those who wish their children to be brought up and instructed in the tenets of the faith which they themselves profess."
  Now, the Chief Secretary had said that this subject was full of difficulties, but the object of this Motion was to investigate these very difficulties, and to pave the way to their solution. He (Mr. Gregory) felt convinced that a system which was only a few years ago repudiated by the mass of the clergy of the Church of England, which was now objected to by the great body of the clergy of the Church of Rome, at least deserved inquiry. But he confessed that he could not conceive why, with the path clear before our feet, we could not walk in it. Why, with the example of Prussia to point the way, we might not strive to attain that blessed unanimity and concord which Prussia has attained. He took the concessions offered by the Chief Secretary with satisfaction, but he wished he had had the courage to go further, and to take the one course which alone could raise this great question of a nation's education from animosity, or, at best, distrust, and place it in such a position which would enable every member of the community cordially to endeavour to extend the blessings of instruction, untainted by suspicion,' and hallowed by religion to every poor man's home in Ireland.
  MR. SYNANsaid, that the great grievance of which the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Whiteside) seemed to complain of was, that the National Board would not accept the terms of the Kildare Street Society, or, in other words, would not help that body to

  1029
  proselytize Roman Catholic children. The object of his hon. and gallant Friend (Mr. O'Reilly's) Motion was to adapt the National system to the people of Ireland, instead of compelling them to conform themselves to the system. Out of 6,263 National Schools in Ireland there were only 1,400 mixed schools; go that in point of fact one-fifth of the schools were mixed, and four-fifths were denominational. The fact was, that the National system was not received with favour in any part of Ireland, and consequently was making very little progress. He hoped that the step in the right direction which the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland said the Government were prepared to take would be followed up by them, and he trusted they would go further in that direction when they had started. He desired to call attention to the small number of Roman Catholics in the model schools. For the instruction of 300 Roman Catholics in those schools the country had to pay £30,000 for their erection, and £8,000 a year for their support. It might be said that the hostility manifested against these schools arose from prejudice or a sentimental feeling; but it was founded upon the most sacred feeling of human nature—namely, religious feeling. He asked the House to grant what was indispensably necessary to the welfare of the country, which was freedom of education,
  MR. O'REILLYsaid, he would not, after the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, press his Motion to a division. In the first place, he understood that the rules for the prevention of proselytism were under the consideration of the Commissioners With regard to the second part of his Motion, opposition was brought against it on the belief that the proposals could not be practically carried out. With respect to the third point on which he had spoken, but which was not embodied in his Resolution for the reasons he had stated—namely, the consideration of the present position of training schools in Ireland—the Government were far from holding that it was satisfactory, and they promised that it should receive their earnest consideration. He was quite ready to leave the responsibility of dealing with this subject with the Government, and he hoped the result would be the production of such a measure as would be satisfactory to the people of Ireland.
  SIR HUGH CAIRNSsaid, he under-
  1030
  stood from the statement of the Chief Secretary for Ireland that they were en the eve of great changes in the National system of education in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman had shadowed forth two of them, one having regard to the rules for religious instruction in the National Schools, and the other affecting the model schools. As to the first, he understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that the subject was under the consideration of the Commissioners, and that it was expected that they would propose some alterations in the rules with regard to religious education. The question of the model schools was one deeply interesting to the people of Ireland, and the Government, it seemed, were considering the changes which ought to be introduced, and what the character of those changes should be. He, however, rose for the purpose of asking whether the changes in the model schools to be proposed—should any be determined on—would be submitted to the House before the Vote was taken this year for Irish education?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that although the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Hugh Cairns) bad stated that great changes were about to be introduced into the National system of education in Ireland, his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland had not so described them in the earlier part of the evening. Of course, it was quite competent to the hon. and learned Gentleman to describe those changes in any terms he pleased; but he wished it to be understood that his right hon. Friend had not announced anything which in their opinion justified that description. But, whether the changes be great or not the subjects were of great interest, especially that part of the subject relating to the model schools. With respect to the question which the hon. and learned Gentleman had put, it was a very fair one. From the course of public business it wa3 probable they would not be able to propose the Vote for Irish Education for some time. They were now in the middle of May, and several weeks must certainly elapse—perhaps six or seven—before that Vote could be proposed. The interval would allow his right hon. Friend and the Irish Government time for considering any matters connected with this interesting subject, which was now under the examination of the Government; and he quite agreed with the hon. and learned Gentleman that

  1031
  it would be very desirable that whatever changes were proposed by Government should be before the House when that Vote was taken. It was difficult to give any absolute pledge, but care would be taken, if possible, to put the House in possession of the views of the Government on the changes proposed before the Education Vote was proposed.
  MR. WHALLEYfelt it would be impossible for him at that late hour to bring forward the Motion of which he had given notice. He should, therefore, postpone it till Friday next on going into Committee of Supply.
  LORD NAASsaid, he had heard with some satisfaction the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it was not the intention of the Government to propose any very serious changes in the system of National education in Ireland ["No, no"]; although, certainly, from the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. C. Fortescue) at an earlier period in the evening, it did seem that some such changes were in contemplation. He wished to know in what form these changes would be brought under the consideration of the House. On former occasions of this kind a letter had been addressed to the Commissioners, indicating the changes proposed to be made, and that letter was laid before Parliament. Would that course be adopted in the present instance? He also wished to know whether, if the Government had not time to mature their plan sufficiently during the present Session, they would distinctly pledge themselves not to introduce the changes during the recess or until Parliament had an opportunity of considering them?
  MR. ESMONDEobserved, that it was quite competent to the Commissioners of National education in Ireland to make the alterations themselves. On a former occasion changes had been introduced, not by Parliament, but by the Commissioners.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAWSON)said, it was a matter entirely within the province of the Commissioners to alter or modify their rules. That required no action on the part of the Government. Any changes necessarily affecting the system would be brought before the House before they were carried into effect.
  SIR FREDERICK HEYGATEsaid, he hoped they would receive from the Government a distinct intimation of the mode in which the question was to be dealt with,
  1032
  and of the opportunity that was to he afforded for its consideration.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

COLONIAL BISHOPS BILL.—LEAVE.

  FIRST READING.
  MR. CARDWELL, in moving for leave to bring in the Bill of which he had given notice for removing doubts as to the effect of Letters Patent granted to certain Colonial Bishops, and to amend the law with respect to Bishop and Clergy in the Colonies, said, it was well known to the House that by a recent very important decision the Privy Council had arrived at the conclusion that while in Crown Colonies a bishopric might be created and ecclesiastical jurisdiction conferred by the sole authority of the Crown, yet letters patent would not have any such authority in any colony which was in possession of an independent Legislature. That decision had removed the foundation on which the great majority of the colonial dioceses rested. They were therefore driven to this alternative—either they must restore by statute the foundation which that judgment had withdrawn, or they must take the other side of the alternative and accept the decision of the Courts and remove those statutory enactments which, having been formed on the opposite hypothesis, were inconsistent with what the Courts had now declared to be law. In that state of things they had to consider what was the position of the Church in the Colonies. In Canada, Victoria, South Australia, and New Zealand, the Church exercised its powers by voluntary arrangements, either by mere force of compact or by compact confirmed by the Colonial Legislatures; but the authority which had been supposed to he vested in the Crown in respect of the Church in the Colonies did not, according to the decision of the highest Court of Appeal, exist in any Colony possessing an independent Legislature. This being the established state of the law, the Government thought it their duty to consider which branch of the alternative they ought to adopt. They arrived at the conclusion that it would not he consistent either with the will of Parliament or with the modern policy this country had adopted towards the Colonies to attempt to re-establish by Imperial legislation that power which formerly had been supposed to be vested in the Crown, but which had been recently

  1033
  decided not to exist. The Bill which he was about to ask leave to introduce was founded on the opposite hypothesis. The Government proposed to assume that the decision of the Court would be the foundation of our future legislation, and they proposed to repeal those enactments which were not consistent with that decision. The Bill would be framed on the principle laid down by the Privy Council, when they said that the Church of England, in Colonies where there was no Church established by law, was in the same situation as any other religious body—no worse and no better. One of the enactments which were inconsistent with the legal decision and with the principle on which this Bill was founded was the Act of 1819, in which it was enacted that a person ordained by a Bishop, not having Episcopal jurisdiction over a defined district, should not be capable of holding any preferment within Her Majesty's dominions. But the majority of the Bishops, it had now been decided, had no such jurisdiction; and therefore all the clergy ordained by them were subject to this disqualification. This was entirely at variance with the intention of Parliament in passing the statute; the consequence in respect of the clergy themselves was intolerable; and it was impossible to say how far it might extend in respect of marriages and other religious services which had since the passing of the statute been performed by these clergy. Obviously it would be necessary to repeal that disqualification. A Bill passed not very long ago defined the position of clergymen coming into England who had been ordained by Bishops of the Episcopal Church in Scotland. The Bill which he was about to lay on the table would extend to clergy men ordained in the Colonies the rights extended to clergymen ordained by the Bishops in Scotland. The Bishops of New Zealand had addressed to the Crown a petition which the Government thought might reasonably be complied with. They asked to be allowed to surrender their letters patent; and the Ministers of New Zealand had forwarded a memorandum, in which they recommended that the Crown should not issue letters patent without the advice of the Colonial Ministry. That was an advice which was not likely to be given. The Bill proposed to give power to those Colonial Bishops who had letters patent to surrender them, and in future no letters patent or mandate, but only a Royal license,
  1034
  would be necessary to enable Bishops of the Church to consecrate Bishops in this country; and neither license nor any other Royal sanction would be required for consecrations elsewhere than in this country. The main effect of the provisions of the Bill would be, that it having been decided that the power supposed to exist in the Crown of creating a diocese and conferring a jurisdiction in Colonies which had independent legislation—which would include the great majority of our Colonies—did not exist, that the legislation for the Church should be based upon the hypothesis which the judgment of the Privy Council had established, and that those restrictions and statutory enactments which were at variance with that principle being removed, the Church of England should, in the language of the Privy Council, be in no worse position if in no better than any other denomination of Christians. He believed that this measure, instead of being detrimental to the Church, would really tend to its advantage. The principle of the Bill might be summed up thus—namely, that it accepted as final the decision of the Court, and proceeded to make the whole of the statute law upon the subject consistent with that decision.
  MR. WHALLEYhoped that means would be taken to uphold the supremacy of the Crown in the Colonies.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill to remove doubts as to the effect of Letters Patent granted to certain Colonial Bishops, and to amend the Law with respect to Bishops and Clergy in the Colonies, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Secretary CARDWELL, Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL, and Mr. WILLIAM EDWARD FORSTER.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 160.]
  House adjourned at a quarter before One o'clock, till Thursday.

MINUTES.
Took the Oath—The Lord Fitz-hardinge.
PUBLIC BILLS —First Reading—Crown Lands * (114); Grand Juries Presentment (Ireland) * (115); Convicts' Property * (116); Landed Property Improvement (Ireland) * (117).
Committee—Selling and Hawking Goods on Sunday (92 & 119); Inclosure * (107); Harbour Loans * (104); Superannuations (Officers Metropolitan Vestries and District Boards) * (91).
Report—Attorneys and Solicitors (Ireland) 1866 * (60); Contagious Diseases * (95); Inclosure * (107); Harbour Loans * (104); Superannuations (Officers Metropolitan Vestries and District Boards) * (91).

CATTLE DISEASE IN IRELAND.

  QUESTION.
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEasked, Whether Her Majesty's Government had received any accounts confirming the statements contained in the morning newspapers that the Cattle Plague had broken out in Ireland?
  EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, in answer to the Question of the noble Marquess, I may state that the only information which the Government has received to-day consists of a telegram to the following effect:—
  "Professor Ferguson had reported that cattle plague had broken out in the townland of Drennan, county Down, within a few miles of Belfast, that the infected cattle had been killed and buried, and an 'infected district,' under the Irish Act, marked out and watched by the constabulary, no egress or ingress of cattle being permitted. Sir John Larcom telegraphed that certain fairs in the immediate neighbourhood of the 'infected district' ought to be stopped. Assent was telegraphed, and doubtless the Lords Justices of Privy Council will stop the two fairs in question."

SELLING AND HAWKING GOODS ON SUNDAY BILL—(The Lord Chelmsford.)

  (No. 92.) COMMITTEE.
  Order of the Day for the House to be put into a Committee read.
  Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into a Committee on the said Bill.—(Lord Chelmsford.)
  LORD TEYNHAMsaid, that in moving as an Amendment that the Bill be committed on this day six months, it was no part of his case that the noble and learned Lord who introduced the Bill (Lord Chelmsford) had overstated the amount of Sunday trading. On the contrary, he was ready to admit that the noble and learned Lord had understated rather than overstated the matter. The noble and learned Lord had said that 10,000 shops were kept open on the Sunday; but he should have said that 20,000 poor traders were dependent on Sunday trading for their means of livelihood. Taking the whole of the country, to which the Bill was intended to apply, the habits and practices of many hundred thousands, the poorest of the poor for the most part, would be affected by the Bill. Not only for the sake of the poor, but for the sake of religion, and on the grounds of humanity and political wisdom, he hoped to persuade their Lordships to reject the present measure. Their Lordships were aware that in order to effect a diminution of Sunday trading various Christian and moral forces had been brought into operation. A large number of worthy men were now employed as missionaries, and their labours were especially exercised among the buyers and sellers on Sundays. From year to year they reported progress, and they declared that their labours were not in vain, but that from their influence and persuasion a consider able number of persons were ready to give up Sunday trading. The Saturday half-holiday and the payment of wages on Friday had, no doubt, likewise tended to diminish trading on the Sunday; but so many were those who remained unaffected by these circumstances that the necessity for Sunday trading remained to a great degree untouched. The noble and learned Lord had referred to Sunday fairs held in various parts of the metropolis; but, while the adoption of means to diminish that evil was a fit subject for Christian
  930
  and patriotic consideration, it should be borne in mind that the present Bill not merely affected the practices of individuals, followed by them for an insignificant period of time only, but in attempting to "stamp out" in a day the rooted habits of the lower classes in the metropolis, it attacked a system which had existed from generation to generation. The noble and learned Lord regarded the Act of Charles II., imposing a fine of 5s. for trading on the Lord's Day, as too weak an instrument for his purposes. He would refer to one or two facts in illustration of his argument. Four or five years ago, owing to some circumstances, the police were ordered to take steps under the Act. Five women were taken up and brought before the magistrates for selling some trifling articles to children, and in two or three of those cases in which these poor persons were convicted it had been found necessary to distrain in order to obtain the fines which had been inflicted, therefore the apprehension of such women was discontinued. It happened also some years ago that Mr. Charles Pearson, the late Solicitor of the Corporation of London, had, backed by some other persons, determined to put the Act of Charles II. into force, with a view to put a stop to Sunday trading. Every Sunday, accordingly, people were employed for the purpose of detecting those who might be guilty of transgressing the law, and each Monday the offenders were summoned and fined; but it was discovered that in the greater number of cases it was impossible to get the fines without levying a distress, and the impression left on the mind of Mr. Pearson was that so much misery was thus inflicted by well-meaning persons upon their neighbours that they could not find it in their hearts to go on in the course which they had commenced, and eventually they were obliged to give up the operation of watching, fining, and distraining. Those facts occurred under the action of the existing law, and might be repeated as often as persons could be found cruel enough to put it in force; yet it was because the law which took the bed from under poor women and children was not strong enough that the noble and learned Lord asked their Lordships to put this new law upon the statute book. In asking their Lordships to reject that Bill he was not calling upon them to signify their disapproval of some

  931
  imaginary scheme to put down Sunday-trading which might be devised—he was arguing against a measure under the operation of which a fine not exceeding 20 s., and not less than 5s., might he inflicted for each offence under its provisions; and if 5s. could not be recovered as matters at present stood from the poor women who were convicted of selling on the Sabbath without taking their beds from under them, how, he would ask, was the higher fine of 20 s. to be obtained? He was not now, it must be understood, speaking of a state of things in which the law might or might not be put in force, but of a totally altered condition of circumstances; for if the Bill of the noble and learned Lord were to receive the sanction of Parliament it would become the duty of the police to see that its provisions were carried into effect Sunday after Sunday, and Monday after Monday the magistrates would be employed in the imposition of the proposed fines, thus being made the instruments of taking their little means from the poor and leaving their homes desolate. The people, he might add, who were generally occupied in selling in our streets on the Sabbath might be divided into two classes—the poor Irish and the poor costermongers. Their Lordships were aware how remarkable were the lower orders of the Irish for the strength of their domestic feelings and for the most part for the purity of their domestic conduct; but if the present Bill were to pass the officers of the law would be obliged to go into the courts in which they were collected together in the metropolis, and Monday after Monday to distrain the furniture of their little rooms; and would it, under these circumstances, be surprising if a spirit of antagonism to the police should be aroused among them? Was the noble and learned Lord prepared to answer for the peace of the metropolis when such was likely to be one of the consequences resulting from his measure? In the administration of the law it was at all times an exceedingly difficult matter to apportion the punishment to the offence, and he would invite their Lordships to weigh the offence against which it was proposed to legislate, and the punishment by which it was to be provided it should be followed. A poor girl might, under the Bill, be convicted of selling a few bundles of watercresses on a Sunday afternoon; and when it was borne in mind that after a first conviction for such an
  932
  offence a fine of from 5s. to 20 s. might be inflicted, was there, he would ask, a fair proportion between such a punishment and the same amount of fine inflicted, it might be, for selling cigars in a cigar shop? The Bill was one the operation of which would extend over the whole country, and many of their Lordships would, as Justices of the Peace, be compelled to adjudicate under it. He would, under those circumstances, appeal to them to say whether they were prepared to fine their poor neighbours for selling an article, however trifling or however innocuous it might be, on a Sunday? If not, they would feel it to be their duty to reject the Bill, for once it became law they would have no option but to act in obedience to its provisions. In Excise and Custom House cases, whenever an inordinately heavy fine was imposed, the person on whom it was inflicted might, upon the recommendation of the magistrate, apply to the head of the Revenue Department for some remission of the amount; but under the present Bill there would be no court or individual to whom an appeal from the decision of the magistrate could be made; so that, no matter how disproportionate to the offence committed the magistrate might think the penalty which he found himself obliged to inflict, there would be no means of obtaining redress. He would now pass to another view of the subject. Convictions and punishments, whatever their nature and extent might be, were recorded in juxtaposition in the newspapers. A man might be brought before a magistrate for well-nigh killing an unoffending person in the street, and if for that unprovoked outrage even the full fine of £5 were imposed upon him there would be no comparison whatever between that punishment and the amount of the fine which might be inflicted on a poor woman for selling, it may be, watercresses or some other trifling article on the Sabbath. Was it for the honour of our law, then, that people should week after week have the disproportion between the two classes of cases brought under their notice in the public press? With whom would the Bill, if it became law, deal? With hundreds and thousands of the lower orders of the metropolis and other large towns; for, although the measure was primarily directed against sellers, it would exert a moral effect upon the buyers, who were the neighbours and associates of the sellers; and, indeed, to a large extent, among the poorest of the poor, the buyers

  933
  were sellers and the sellers were buyers. What was the state of civilization among that large portion of the community? The notion of their Lordships with regard to these poor people probably was that they were too violent and rude in their manners and habits, and stood much in need of education and instruction in religion and in gentleness. But would they teach gentleness on the part of a poor man towards his wife, his children, or his neighbours by going into the court or alley where he lived, and enforcing against him a measure like this of unheard-of violence and rigour? Moreover, there were already too many of those concerned in Sunday trading who were more or less tainted with crime, and had not a proper regard for the principles of honesty. But a Bill which inflicted fines for the selling of oftentimes innocent things on a Sunday, and which sought to recover those fines by going to their humble dwellings and violently taking away the few wretched articles of furniture which they might possess, would hardly teach those persons a due regard for honesty, or tend to make them refrain from preying upon the property of other people. Turning to the details of the measure, it would be found to hold that it was a right thing on the afternoon of Sunday to sell fruit and pastry, but that it was a wrong thing to sell water-cresses and shrimps at the very same hours—those who were guilty of selling water-cresses and shrimps on Sunday afternoon were liable to be fined and distrained upon; and those persons dwelt in the same courts and often in the same houses with the sellers of fruit and pastry, who were favoured by the noble and learned Lord. How would the Christian missionary who went among these people be able to reconcile such law as that with the religion which he had to teach them? How could they show these poor people the distinction between the criminal and the permitted trade? Again, was not that a class measure? At any time during the Lord's Day their Lordships might in their clubs buy what they pleased, and by this Bill they were called upon to legislate with respect to the offences of other people and not their own—they were invited to legislate concerning the lives of other people which were governed by circumstances that did not at all affect their own lives. He asked their Lordships to leave them alone. He appealed to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, and also to other noble and
  934
  learned Lords; he appealed especially to those Peers who were Justices of the Peace—whether it was possible on the principles of justice to carry into execution the penalties laid down in that Bill. A policeman acting under that measure might summon an individual for the offence of Sunday trading, and if the magistrate asked the policeman, "Supposing I convict this man or woman, what interest have you in the fine?" his reply might be, "That fine is to pay my wages. I shall he fed and clothed in part by it." He now came to the religious aspect of the question. The noble and learned Lord professed to have introduced the measure solely on municipal grounds; but it could not be concealed from their Lordships that the Bill would never have been introduced but for the ancient law given to the Jews that on one day in seven they should do no manner of work. The commandment which the noble and learned Lord would introduce was, that for three hours of one day in seven no manner of work should be done—for to that extent alone did the Bill really proceed. He did not know where the noble and learned Lord found his authority for a certain kind of observance of the Sabbath during a limited number of hours and for no other period, for that was the ultimate extent to which the Bill proceeded. On the other hand, when He who was Lord of the Sabbath went through a corn-field on the Sabbath day his disciples gathered of the corn and ate it, nor did He reprove them. The interpretation he put upon this was that a hungry man was authorized by Him to obtain food for himself throughout the whole of the twelve hours of the Sabbath day. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. It is impossible in a statute to provide at once for exact obedience to a law forbidding all selling during all hours of the Sunday, the only law which would agree with the fourth Commandment; and also, when the need of man required, permitting buying and selling in any hour of the Lord's Day, the three selected hours of the noble and learned Lord not excepted. Whereas Keble, in his preface to Hooker, represents that that celebrated man urges the perpetual observance of the Lord's Day (carefully separating from it the name of Sabbath), as a sacrifice of one-seventh part of our time to God. And Joseph Mede, of Cambridge, no inferior scholar, reminds us that all nations had something

  935
  in their ceremonies whereby they signified the God they worshipped. So in those of the Celestial Gods, and those which were deified souls of men, were different rites, whereby the one was known from the other, as—those Gods which were made of man, having funeral rites in their services, as cognizances that they were souls deceased. So the Jews, by sanctifying the seventh day, professed themselves worshippers of that only God who created the Heaven and the earth, and rested the seventh day, and who is the God of the noble and learned Lord, whose act of resting for three hours during one day in seven he would by this Bill require all England to celebrate. He asked their Lordships, therefore, to reject this Bill, and he would remind such of them as were Scotch Peers that many of them were requested by their countrymen, who were famed for their regard for the Sabbath, to support his Amendment. The Bill enacted that no person should here after expose for sale any goods, wares, or merchandise, or anything whatsoever except what was excepted by the Bill. He did not see how railway and steamboat travelling could be continued if this Bill passed, because it would prevent the sale of railway and steamboat tickets. A very large portion of the poor of London were engaged in buying and selling until one or two o'clock on Sunday morning, and was it a merciful thing that they should be required to resume their occupations so early on Sunday morning as that all their buying and selling should be finished by nine o'clock? He was informed that persons came all the way from places as distant as Gravesend to Middlesex Street on Sunday morning, for there only could they provide the garments required for their families. The details of the Bill were open to innumerable exceptions. Those who sold vegetables usually sold also the fuel to cook them with; but the present Bill allowed persons to sell the vegetables, but not the coal or coke their customers required. The noble and learned Lord utterly excluded the sale of tea and sugar on the Sunday, while he would allow a man to buy at the baker's, butcher's, or greengrocer's what he required. More than one person had pointed out to him the imperfections of the clause which contained the exceptions with regard to pastry, fruit, and certain beverages. They stated that there were many poor persons who eked out a scanty living by the sale of fruit, pastry, and
  936
  those excepted beverages, who also sold ices and sweetmeats for children; but by this Bill they would not be allowed to expose the latter for sale on the Sunday in the same shop in which they sold the former; and yet it was by the sale of all this variety of things that they were able to pay their rents and obtain an honest livelihood. The noble and learned Lord intended to stop one-half of their trade. To a great many, the most interesting portion of the exceptions applied to the sale of newspapers, or, in the language of Parliament, periodical publications. These were allowed to be sold until ten o'clock on the Sunday morning. Among them there was one in particular—The Observer—a paper of some repute, which was published only on Sunday morning. Well, according to the Bill of the noble and learned Lord, as far as the railway could carry it up to ten o'clock the paper might be sold; but if the speed of the train would not allow the paper to arrive at ten o'clock it would be an unlawful and wicked thing to expose it for sale, and the seller after one conviction would be liable to a fine of 20 s. for every paper sold. In the country—particularly on the Sunday—newspapers were sold by persons who also sold paper and envelopes, and there was a post to London on that day. Up to ten o'clock the sellers of newspapers would be held harmless; but to sell letter paper or envelopes for the post would be a penal thing. Then the exception with regard to cook-shops was objected to by the poor on the ground that the effect of it would be to drive them in the afternoon from their homes to places of public entertainment; and not only that, but practically to compel them to buy cooked food when they might buy uncooked food more cheaply, and enjoy it with their families in their own homes. The clause with respect to bakers and licensed victuallers approached them with an air of gentleness. There were certain hours on the Sunday when their lawful business might be carried on. Under the present law if a licensed victualler was convicted for selling to ten or twelve persons within the prohibited hours he had to pay only one fine, but this Bill would bring him under the operation of the clause which multiplied the fine. On the grounds, then, of policy, of religion, and of detail, he asked their Lordships to support him in the Motion that the House go into Committee on the Bill this day six months.
  An Amendment moved to leave out ("now") and insert ("this Day Six Months.")
  LORD CHELMSFORDsaid, the course pursued by the noble Lord was one, to say the least of it, very unusual and open to very considerable objection. It might be in the recollection of their Lordships that when the Motion was made for the second reading the noble Lord made a speech against it. He began by expressing himself favourable to the Bill in one respect, because, unlike the measure of 1860, which was confined to the metropolis, it extended to the whole of England; but he was at a loss to understand how the noble Lord could think it a recommendation in favour of a measure to which he absolutely objected that the sphere of its operation was to be extended. The noble Lord, however, proceeded in the usual form to move the rejection of the Bill; but when the question was put, he found himself the only one to say "Not-Content," and he did not think proper to go to a division. Now, though he (Lord Chelmsford) might have no right to infer from that circumstance that their Lordships were in favour of the Bill, he was, at all events, entitled to say that the noble Lord expected there would be so large a majority against him that he did not think it prudent or even necessary to divide against the second reading. Under these circumstances it was not a very usual, nor did he think it a very fair course, for any noble Lord to interpose to prevent the Bill going into Committee. However, the noble Lord entertained a different opinion, and they must submit to the course which he had thought proper to pursue. Now, he had listened with great attention to the speech of the noble Lord, and to the arguments which he had offered against the Bill. These arguments were of various kinds, and many of them conflicting with each other; but if he understood him correctly, the noble Lord based his principal objection to the Bill upon the ground that it restrained Sunday trading at all, and he put forward that objection on behalf of the poor. The noble Lord admitted that he (Lord Chelmsford) had understated the amount of Sunday trading—that, instead of there being 10,000 shops open every Sunday in the metropolis, there were at least double that number, and, taking the whole of England, there were about 500,000 persons who were engaged in this unlawful species of trade. And the noble Lord
  938
  seemed to say that this had been continued for such a number of years, it had become such an inveterate habit, that these people had a prescriptive right not to be interfered with to carry on their trade as before. The noble Lord having taken this strong ground, and objected to any interference with Sunday trading, then complained of the inconsistency of the measure in making certain exceptions, shifted his position altogether, took up the religious view, and complained of the three hours' exception, and then he attacked the Bill on the ground that its provisions were too stringent, and the penalties extremely high. The noble Lord had, perhaps, made out a case for the dealers in shrimps and water-cresses and other persons in a humble position; and the way to obviate that objection was to leave the amount of the penalty to the discretion of the magistrates, under a certain maximum. He anticipated the petition which the noble Lord had presented, because a few days ago he read this paragraph in the newspapers—
  "Last evening a crowded meeting of the retail dealers and traders of Whitechapel and neighbourhood was held at the Exhibition Clothes' Exchange, Hounsditch, to protest, as stated by the circular convening the meeting, against the unjust and arbitrary Bill now before the House of Lords as affecting trading and hawking; Mr. Moss in the chair. Mr. Levy moved that the Bill introduced into the House of Lords in reference to selling and hawking on Sunday is most unjust and arbitrary, favouring many tradesmen, oppressing others, and deeply affecting many thousands of the poorer classes.
  The district from which this petition emanated happened to be one of those most strikingly distinguished in all the evidence given upon the subject as being one in which Sunday trading was carried on to the greatest possible extent. The words the noble Lord had used—"a fair or market"—applied most strictly to the sort of dealing carried on there, in which he understood that every Sunday no fewer than 10,000 persons were engaged. It was all very well for those persons to characterize the Bill as arbitrary and unjust; and the noble Lord might come forward as their advocate, and insist that they ought not to be prevented continuing a system which had become to them so habitual as to give them a prescriptive right in it; but he (Lord Chelmsford) hardly anticipated that their Lordships would adopt that view, and say that the proposed law would be an arbitrary and unwise one, What was the state of the

  939
  case? For nearly 200 years there had been a law prohibiting Sunday trading; that law had become utterly inefficient; the penalty was much too small, and there were no adequate means of enforcing it. No doubt, whatever, when the law was passed, the intention was that it should be efficient for its purpose; and the object of this Bill was to strengthen the arm of the law, which had been raised for so long a period against Sunday trading, but which had become almost paralyzed. What possible objection could there be, in point of principle, to the object of this Bill? It was to render the law efficient for its purpose, and to put down that which, in defiance of the law, had been carried on for so long a time, and which could not, as Committee after Committee had declared, be put down effectually by the existing law, so that further legislation was absolutely necessary. He was not, he confessed, apprehensive of the class of opponents just named, who offered no solid argument against the Bill; but he had more apprehension of the opposition of the good and conscientious persons who, upon principle, thought that there ought to be a strict and religious observance of the Sunday, and who objected to any relaxation of the law with regard to Sunday trading. He respected the motives of this class; but, at the same time, he would ask whether they were acting judiciously on this occasion. He trusted they would not suppose that the promoters of the Bill were not as sensible as themselves of the propriety of a general and reverential observance of the Lord's Day; at the same time, the promoters of the Bill were satisfied that it was quite impossible to enforce that observance by any legislation. They saw a state of things which had existed for a very considerable time, and which, he thought, had almost become a national reproach; they saw that in the most populous and crowded parts of the metropolis Sunday seemed to be almost especially selected for the purposes of traffic; they saw that thousands—he might say, tens of thousands—of tradesmen were drawn into the vortex, and, against their will, were compelled to resort to the same course of illegal trading; they observed that these persons petitioned their Lordships to interpose for their protection, and to ensure to them the blessings of the day of rest. The Bill now before their Lordships had been framed to attain that desirable object. They knew very well from former attempts
  940
  of this kind that it was quite impossible to accomplish all they wished; but this class of his opponents would agree with him that it was a most desirable object to free tradesmen from the pressure which was placed upon them by the action of a minority who compelled them to Sunday trading in their own defence—it desired to set them free to employ the Sunday in accordance with the dictates of their own conscience, so as to leave them open to moral and religious influences. Was this class of opponents satisfied with the present state of things? Did they think that the desecration of the Sunday ought to be allowed to continue? They could not think so; and yet, unless they gave way in some degree—unless they admitted of some exceptions—it was quite impossible they could expect to advance towards the object which all their Lordships had in view. It would be a matter of regret to this class of objectors if, acting rigidly upon the principles they professed, they interfered with the passing of this Bill, and, by so doing, perpetuated a state of things which was a scandal and a reproach to the country, and deprived tradesmen of that day of rest which they earnestly implored the Legislature to protect for them. Having trespassed upon their Lordships' attention on the second reading of the Bill, he was unwilling now to occupy further time in defending its provisions.
  THE BISHOP OF CARLISLEsaid, he was one of the class whom the noble and learned Lord had just addressed who felt some difficulty in accepting the Bill simply on the ground of religious principle. In common with many others, he had no notion that such a Bill was on the table of the House until he read the speech of the most rev. Prelate who presided over the see of Canterbury, on the second reading. He did not wish to identify himself with the long series of incongruous arguments addressed to their Lordships against the Bill. As some machines were self-adjusting so some speeches were self-answering. He felt very deeply the importance of protecting their poorer fellow countrymen from a servitude continued from week to week and year to year—a servitude which was most galling to conscientious men, and which he knew had the effect of wearing out prematurely many a strong constitution—he had the strongest desire of doing everything that could be done to deliver a large number of tradesmen in London from the galling yoke of Sunday trading. While

  941
  he wished for the success of the noble Lord's design, he hesitated to support the Bill. Their Lordships would perhaps allow him to state the predicament in which he was placed. His first difficulty was one of principle. It was a well-known proverb that the strength of a chain must always be tested by its weakest link. Now, the preamble of this Bill was a very strong link indeed, and so also was the first clause; but the weakness of the measure lay in the second clause, which contained the exceptions. He would ask their Lordships how, as a matter of principle, they could logically sanction the various exceptions contained in that clause? Many of them could certainly not be justified as falling within the class either of works of necessity or works of mercy. With respect to the delivery of meat, he had been informed that an association had been formed by West End tradesmen to put an end to the delivery of meat on the Lord's Day, and one of the arguments adduced in the address they sent to their customers—among whom, probably, many of their Lordships might be included—was, that there were no markets for the sale of meat on Sunday, and that, consequently, meat was not more fit to be used because it was delivered on that day. Again, the sale of pastry and vegetables did not appear to be a work of necessity or mercy; and the same remark applied to the sale of periodical publications. He hoped that in Committee the last-named exception, at all events, would be struck out of the clause. Again, was there any warrant for drawing a distinction like that drawn in the Bill between certain hours of the Lord's Day and the remaining portion of the day? He was aware that the evil of Sunday trading existed to a very large extent; but if they legalized it to some extent, by authorizing these exceptions and recognizing this distinction, would they not make themselves participes criminis, would they not thereby take upon themselves by this measure a national guilt? As education advanced and public opinion improved, the evil would be gradually put down. He was one of those who believed—and he was sure their Lordships were of the same opinion—that one great element in the success of any measure was the blessing of Almighty God; and how could they expect to have the blessing of Almighty God upon a measure which legalized certain acts of Sunday trading? In carrying out a measure for the preven-
  942
  tion of Sunday trading it was necessary to enlist the support of the parochial clergy, the religious men of every parish, the Dissenting ministers, the City Missionaries, the Scripture readers, and all those who were working directly or indirectly to procure a better observance of the Lord's Day. He sincerely hoped that their Lordships would take the subject into consideration from that point of view. He might remark that the speech of the noble Lord who moved the Amendment contained some arguments which really bore upon the subject, for certainly the Bill made distinctions which could not possibly be maintained. How, for instance, could a distinction be consistently maintained between the sale of vegetables and the sale of the wood and coals required for cooking them? He wished, however, to allude to another feature of the measure. Its operation was not confined to the metropolis; indeed, if it had been, he should have been very loth to address their Lordships on the present occasion—on the contrary, it extended to the whole of England, and he would ask the House to consider whether the Bill would not, if passed in its present state, inflict upon many a village and small country town the very evils which were so much deplored in the metropolis. He had been for twenty years in active work as a parish priest. For four years of that time he was in a large town, the remaining sixteen years being spent in a country parish. Well, during the whole of the time he resided in the country Sabbath desecration was unknown, not because there were no persons who would have sold their goods on Sunday, but because there was a strong restraining public opinion, supported by law. But if public opinion were deprived of the support given to it by law, there would be persons in country villages who, bidding defiance to the laws of God and deaf to the wishes of their neighbours, would open shops for the sale of such goods as were allowed to be sold under the second clause of this Bill. And the mischief would not stop there. Other things than meat and poultry were perishable. He did not know any sight more instructive, more worthy of praise, than the observance of the Lord's Day in hay time and harvest. From earliest dawn till latest night for every one of the six days the husbandman toiled at gathering in these fruits of the earth. But let the day of rest come round and all labour ceased, even though the un-

  943
  certainty of the weather might suggest many a fear. Such was the state of things now. But let this Bill pass, and gradually all this would come to an end. The result, of course, would be most disastrous to the cause of Sabbath observance. In his opinion, this measure would let in the thin end of the wedge, and he believed that the noble and learned Lord, instead of succeeding in his high and excellent enterprize of discouraging and putting an end to Sunday trading, would practically fail altogether in the metropolis, and would extend all the evils of Sunday trading to the whole of the country.
  THE EARI, OF HARROWBYsaid, he could not agree with the view of the right rev. Prelate (the Bishop of Carlisle), who seemed to think that the law must be held to sanction everything which it did not expressly prohibit. In all legislation there was the difficulty of deciding how much should be left to the domain of private conscience, and how much should be undertaken by law; and this difficulty, perhaps, existed in legislation upon the observance of the Lord's Day more than in any other question. The difficulty arises in this way—all classes—the wealthier not less than the poorer—make exceptions to the obsolete rule of abstinence from labour on that day, and thought themselves justified in doing so by considerations of convenience or necessity not very strictly interpreted. Their Lordships, no doubt, had all of their dinners cooked on Sundays, at least, if they imposed no other labour on their households, although the wants of nature might be sufficiently satisfied by cold viands. But there was this difference between their case and that of the poorer classes, that which their Lordships did took place privately within their own dwellings, and, except in pure wantonness, they had no occasion to go out into the streets and make purchases, and infringe a public law. But with the poorer classes it was otherwise. Their necessities, and their imperfect means of making and having provisions for the morrow, might compel them to make these open purchases on the Sunday, which would be quite wanton in their Lordships. It was clear, therefore, that without any wider interpretation of the law of necessity and convenience that the wealthier classes felt themselves entitled to adopt exceptions on behalf of the poorer classes, and their
  944
  necessities must be admitted into any Bill which professed to give increased strictness to the laws against Sunday trading. Whether the exceptions proposed by the Bill, whether as to articles or hours, were the right ones, it was not then the proper opportunity for discussing. That was the business of the Committee. Exceptions of some kind, for perishable articles at least, always had been and must be made, and he should, therefore, feel himself entitled to go into Committee on the Bill; anxious, on the one hand, to make such exceptions as were necessary to meet the poor man's wants and convenience, and, on the other, to take additional securities against these needless invasions of the poor man's and the tradesman's day of rest, which are creeping in more and more, especially into the habits of our great metropolis, such securities as can be enforced consistently with the habits and necessities of a great population.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, that having been intrusted with many petitions on this subject, he wished to say one word, and one word only. He had presented two petitions—one from the Sabbath Alliance in Edinburgh, and another from Glasgow, and both objected to this Bill on the religious grounds referred to by the right rev. Prelate. He thought this an erroneous objection, and it had been well replied to by his noble Friend who spoke last. He entirely concurred in the reasons his noble Friend had given as to the necessity for making exceptions. There was a large number of the poorer classes who could not live from day to day, almost from hour to hour, without the purchase of certain articles. Such an exception was, therefore, almost a work of necessity and mercy. The intention of Parliament was not to enforce a theological opinion, but to secure to the working classes of this country a day of rest sanctioned by the traditions of the Christian Church. They did not wish to force on any one their opinions as to the mode of keeping that day; their object was, if possible, to secure to the working classes that day of rest. There would be no necessity of legislation on the subject if the trading classes had free will in the matter; but under the pressure of the tremendous competition which existed, if one opened his shop others must, and therefore the protection of the Legislature was necessary to secure to them the rest of one day in

  945
  seven. This was the only ground on which they ought to legislate, and he thought they were bound to legislate unless it could be shown that the provisions of the Bill would impose such restrictions as would be intolerable. But while their Lordships were bound to protect, so far as lay in them, the sanctity of the day of rest, they were also bound to provide for those exceptional circumstances under which they themselves did not suffer. So far from this being class legislation, he held the enacting clauses to be a protection to the trading class, and the excepting clauses a protection to the consuming class.
  THE BISHOP OF OXFORDsaid, he would not detain their Lordships for more than a single moment. He did not entirely agree with what had fallen from his right rev. Brother (the Bishop of Carlisle), but rather with the noble Earl (the Earl of Harrowby) who spoke from the cross benches. One thing only he wished to add. Of course if the Christian Sunday was really by God ordered to be kept as the Jewish Sabbath was ordered to be kept, his right rev. Brother's argument was perfectly sound. We must keep God's law as it was laid down to us to the full, come what might. But it was because he believed that the rest of the Lord's Day—one of the greatest blessings to a nation or an individual that could be conceived—was based on a different set of Divine charges from what the Jewish Sabbath was based on, that he thought they had full liberty to entertain the consideration of the weaknesses and wants of certain classes of the community, without being in any danger of incurring that Divine wrath. Holding himself quite at liberty in the Committee to deal with any of the exceptions contained in the Bill, he was quite ready to give his support to the present Motion.
  On Question, That ("now") stand Part of the Motion? Resolved in the Affirmative.
  House in Committee accordingly.
  Clause 1 (Penalties for Selling, Offering, and Exposing for Sale) agreed to.
  Clause 2 (Certain Cases to which this Act does not apply).
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYasked upon what principle the exceptions were constructed? If it was to exempt the sale of periodical publications it would be bet-
  946
  ter to exempt booksellers' shops altogether, otherwise a person would be permitted to sell a penny newspaper of infidel tendencies or immoral character, while he would be liable to a fine of 20 *. if he offered for sale Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, or even a copy of the Holy Scriptures.
  LORD CHELMSFORDsaid, he was not aware that there was any general principle applicable to the exceptions. Each exception stood on its own ground.
  THE EARL OF HARROWBYthought that some words ought to be introduced which would prevent persons from buying fish on Saturday and requiring their delivery on Sunday. The salesmen in the West End had complained of the delivery of fish and fowl on Sundays, and there had been an improvement in this respect; but the prohibition would relieve them from a labour still to some extent imposed upon them, while it would not affect the poor, who carried away their purchases themselves.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYinquired whether the clause would prevent any newspaper being bought or delivered after ten o'clock on Sunday morning?
  LORD CHELMSFORDreplied that it would; but he had no objection to leave out the words excepting the delivery of periodicals after ten o'clock on Sunday.
  LORD STANLEY OF ADDERLYobserved, that the effect would be to prevent persons who were living any distance from London from getting their Sunday newspaper.
  THE MARQUESS OF WESTMEATHsaid, it would be a national sin to legalize the sale on Sunday of Sunday newspapers, which might contain infidel matter. If people wanted what they called Sunday newspapers they might get them on Saturday night.
  The words "nor to the delivery" struck out.
  LORD HOUGHTONunderstood that the Bill would prohibit the circulation of any important intelligence which reached on Sunday afternoon; and that it would have prevented the announcement of the fall of Sebastopol if it had been in operation at that time. He should therefore move an Amendment to leave out the words "before the hour of ten o'clock in the morning."
  An Amendment moved to leave out ("before the Hour of Ten o'clock in the Morning.")—(Lord Houghton.)
  On Question, Whether the said Words shall stand Part of the Clause? their Lordships divided:—Contents 37; Not-Con-tents 13: Majority 24.

  CONTENTS:

  Cranworth, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Clancarty, V. (E. Clancarty.)

  Hardinge, V.

  York, Archp.

  Hawarden, V.

  Stratford de Redcliffe, V.

  Marlborough, D.

  Richmond, D.

  Bristol, M.

  Carlisle, Bp.

  Lincoln, Bp.

  Belmore, E. [Teller.]

  Oxford, Bp.

  Carnarvon, E.

  Chichester, E.

  Berners, L.

  Dartmouth, E.

  Boston, L.

  Fortescue, E.

  Chelmsford L. [Teller.]

  Harrowby, E.

  Denman, L.

  Leven and Melville, E.

  Dunsany, L.

  Morton, E.

  Foley, L.

  Nelson, E.

  Hay, L. (E. Kinnoul.)

  Romney, E.

  Heytesbury, L.

  Shaftesbury, E.

  Redesdale, L.

  Stanhope, E.

  Templemore, L.

  Strange, E. (D. Athol.)

  Wynford, L.

  Tankerville, E.

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Somerset, D.

  Granard, L. (E. Granard.)

  Normanby, M,

  Houghton, L. [Teller.]

  Llanover, L.

  Granville, E.

  Mostyn, L.

  Minto, E.

  Oxenfoord, L. (E. Stair)

  Morley, E.

  Stanley of Alderley, L. [Teller.]

  Abinger, L.

  Wentworth, L.

  THE LORD CHANCELLORthen moved after ("Morning") to insert (" Or after One o'Clock in the Morning.")
  On Question? their Lordships divided:—Contents 17; Not-Contents 20: Majority 3.
  On Question that the clause as amended stand part of the Bill,
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, that the Act of Charles II. totally forbidding Sunday trading was not repealed by any provision in the present Bill. As both measures would be in operation simultaneously, he wished to know how one would work in connection with the other.
  LORD CHELMSFORDsaid, there could be no doubt that the later law would prevail in the event of any conflict.
  THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGHdesired that this Bill might be the means of doing some good, but he was afraid that if they drew the string too tightly there would be a reaction against the law. If the Clubs were not allowed to receive their periodicals on Sunday there would be a great outcry.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 3 (Provision as to distinct and separate Offences) agreed to.
  Clause 4 (Police Constables to enforce the Provisions of this Act).
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYobserved, that it was an entire novelty to require the police to put a law of this kind in execution.
  LORD CHELMSFORDsaid, that the evidence given before Committees was very strong to show that unless the police were intrusted with the duty they might as well not pass the law at all. The omission of such a requisition was partly the reason why the Act of Charles II. had become a dead letter. People would not inform against their neighbours, and the only means of putting the law in force would be by the police.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clauses 5 to 8 agreed to.
  Clause 9 (Limitation of Act).
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, that all that they had heard showed the

  949
  extreme difficulty of Sabbath legislation, and he had been forced to the conclusion that it was utterly hopeless to pass any Bill of that kind 'which would be of real and permanent benefit. He had himself dissuaded his friends in hundreds of instances from attempting to pass such laws. He deeply regretted that the noble and learned Lord—of course, with the best of motives—should have introduced it on that occasion. It would have been much wiser, he thought, to leave matters alone. If it were extended universally throughout England it would do irreparable mischief. In most of the villages and small towns of the country the shops were shut up all day on Sunday; but once a legislative sanction was given to the carrying on of certain descriptions of traffic at particular hours on the Sabbath, he was much inclined to believe, from what he knew of the mercantile spirit, that many of those shops in the villages and smaller towns which were now closed throughout that day would be opened within the permitted hours. The great evil prevailed in large and populous districts, and therefore he thought that if the Bill were made to apply only to towns in England having a population of 10,000 persons, that would, he thought, do something towards the abatement of the evil. The noble Earl concluded by moving the insertion of words to this effect in the clause.
  An Amendment moved, after ("to") to insert ("Towns containing Ten thousand Inhabitants in.")—(The Earl of Shaftesbury.)
  LORD CHELMSFORDthought that this was a good illustration of the difficulty of legislating on this question. The Bill which he introduced in 1860 was rejected because it was confined to the metropolis; and now when he introduced a general Bill his noble Friend objected that it would be very prejudicial by causing persons in small towns to open their shops on Sundays. He (Lord Chelmsford) very much doubted whether any such advantage would be taken of the exceptions in the Bill; and he could not see why the application of the Bill should be confined to towns of 10,000 persons, rather than to towns of twice that population. He believed that such a limit to the operation of the Bill would introduce another element of discord; and therefore he proposed that the clause should stand as it was.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, the extreme
  950
  difficulty of legislating on that subject arose from the fact that they were attempting by legislation to do what they could only effectually do by the operation of moral means.
  On Question, their Lordships divided:—Contents 7; Non-Contents 26; Majority 19.

  CONTENTS.

  Carnarvon, E.

  Shaftesbury, E. [Teller.]

  Harrowby, E. [Teller.]

  Carlisle, Bp.

  Leven and Melville, E.

  Romney, E.

  Wentworth, L.

  NOT-CONTENTS

  Cranworth, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Abinger, L.

  Berners, L.

  Somerset, D.

  Chelmsford. L. [Teller.]

  Denman, L.

  Normanby, M.

  Dunsany, L.

  Belmore, E. [Teller.]

  Foley, L.

  Granville, E.

  Granard, L. (E. Granard.)

  Minto, E.

  Hay, L. (E. Kinnoul.)

  Morton, E,

  Heytesbury, L.

  Stanhope, E.

  Houghton, L.

  Strange, E. (D. Athol.)

  Llanover, L.

  Tankevville, E.

  Redesdale, L.

  Hardinge, V.

  Stanley of Alderley, L.

  Stratford de Redeliffe, V.

  Wynford, L.

  The Report of the Amendments to be received on Thursday next; and Bill to be printed, as amended. (No. 119.)

CHOLERA AMONG GERMAN EMIGRANTS.—MOTION FOR PAPERS.

  QUESTION.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVON, in rising to move for copies of Correspondence between the Privy Council Office and the local authorities of Hull and Liverpool, relative to a recent outbreak of Cholera, and to ask Her Majesty's Government, What precautions they had adopted in relation thereto? said, that the Question he had to put was of a very serious and pressing character. Several cases of cholera had recently occurred in Liverpool, and although there was nothing to cause panic, there was everything to justify the greatest caution on the part of the Government and the local authorities. There was no doubt as to the origin of this outbreak. A large number of German emigrants had landed at Hull, and had travelled by railway to Liverpool, and it was at Liverpool, without an exception, that all these cases had arisen. The most formidable outbreak had occurred on board

  951
  a vessel that had sailed from Liverpool for New York. It was at Liverpool, again, and among this body of emigrants, that diarrhoea and typhus had been prevalent, and the House was aware that diarrhoea was the first stage, and, at all events, the harbinger of cholera. The habits of these emigrants were the reverse of cleanly, and they were congregated together in the most unhealthy quarters of the town. A case had been stated where 150 of these emigrants lived in one house in Liverpool, and forty in a single room. If these persons really came from cholera-infected countries, were these not all conditions that would justify them in expecting cholera to break out? Assuming that the theory of quarantine was a sound one, it was most desirable to take precautions against this through-traffic of emigrants from these cholera-infected districts. He did not pretend to point out how this was to be done, but probably the best way might be for Government to enforce the laws of quarantine that were already laid down, and to institute any fresh precautions that might seem necessary. A frightful mortality had already taken place, and there was no advantage to this country in running the risk of receiving emigrants who carried with them the seeds of cholera poison into a thickly populated town. A few days since there had appeared an Order in Council on the subject of cholera, which laid down four rules—first, that no one should land from a ship infected with cholera without the permission of the local authorities; secondly, that a medical inspection should take place; thirdly, that the sick should be removed to some hulk; and fourthly, that the bodies of the dead should be thrown into the deep sea. Looking at the question from a common sense point of view, these measures were, no doubt, good as far as they went; but they ought to have gone further. He did not know why such powers should have been placed in the hands of the local authorities. The prohibition to healthy passengers to land seemed to him to be of very doubtful advantage. They might say that the medical authorities would not give permission to the passengers to land unless they were healthy; but unless they exercised a constant surveillance over each person, to satisfy themselves that the disease was not incubating among the passengers, such inspection would be useless. To keep people separate from the rest of the community by detaining them on board
  952
  ship would be a thing unheard of except during a state of strict quarantine. The regulations issued appeared to him to apply only to persons on board ship, and, if he did them no injustice, they made no provision for the separation of the sick and the healthy, which would be impossible without the provision of a proper floating hospital. He would be glad to hear what recommendations had been made to local authorities with regard to those persons who had landed, and how far those recommendations had been carried out. Accounts had been received from Liverpool which stated that some of the emigrants who had arrived there had been placed in the workhouse, that others had been placed in lodging-houses, and that a third party had been provided with a separate room by the workhouse authorities, and, having spent the night there, they were discharged next morning. If the latter were infected, it was obvious they would carry infection wherever they went. The requirements of a hospital were very simple indeed—a construction of the most temporary character would answer the purpose, so long as there was cleanliness and good ventilation. He believed that these requirements were effectually combined in hulks, and he would invite the noble Duke at the head of the Admiralty to state how far it might be possible to place a sufficient number of hulks at the disposal of the proper authorities. No doubt hulks would be only a temporary expedient, but the ventilation in them was very fair, and by means of their isolation might be rendered complete, and communication with the shore might be entirely cut off. The noble Earl concluded by moving an address for,
  "Copies of Correspondence between the Privy Council Office and the Local Authorities of Hull and Liverpool, relative to certain Cases of Cholera."—(The Earl of Carnarvon.)
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that the question had the serious consideration of the Government both this year and last year. If the Government did not adopt what the noble Earl called half measures they must do one of two things—either make no regulations at all and allow persons sick of cholera to land wherever they liked, or establish a rigid quarantine. It was doubtful whether even quarantine, as carried out by foreign Governments, was effectual in preventing the spread of cholera, for, notwithstanding quarantine, we knew how much Marseilles and other

  953
  ports Buffered from cholera. At this moment we were unprovided with any of the machinery necessary for maintaining quarantine with any chance of making it an absolute bar to the spread of cholera. In the opinion of the best medical authorities a quarantine of ten days was the shortest period which would prove any security against the spread of the disease; and to carry out such a quarantine between Dover and Calais would convert a passage of two hours into one of ten days; that, of course, would be impossible in the present state of our relations with Europe; and it was not the intention of the Government to attempt it. On hearing of the danger of the outbreak of cholera at the outports, the Government communicated with the local authorities in letters, which were in perfect accordance with those issued by the Derby Government in 1852. A letter of recommendation since issued insisted on the necessity of adopting all sanitary precautions, which really might be summed up in the terms—a plentiful supply of fresh air and fresh water to the town populations. That was the best precaution against disease. He quite agreed with the noble Earl that some of the outports really stood in urgent need of sanitary measures. They had offered to Liverpool and to the other ports to issue an Order in Council putting them under the Diseases Prevention Act; and a Bill to amend and extend that Act had been prepared and was before the House of Commons. In addition to all this, the Poor Law Board had communicated with the local authorities of all the outports. The Government had also issued the order to which the noble Earl had referred, and it did all that was practicable, unless they went to the extent of establishing quarantine. To keep people on board ship, as was suggested by the noble Earl, would endanger the lives of both passengers and crew, for emigrant ships were ordinarily much crowded, and to detain cholera patients on board them would be inhuman and fatal. He believed that the great influx of foreign emigrants into this country was practically at an end. The Government telegraphed to the Consuls at those ports from which the emigrants chiefly came that the shipowners here would take no more emigrants on board their ships. This intelligence did not produce at once the desired effect, because some emigrants had paid the whole of their passage money to the United States,
  954
  and they chose rather to run the risk of coming to Liverpool than to stay in German ports. When this became known the Home Office communicated with the mayors of the outports respecting the arrival of the emigrants still expected. The Government also entered into communication with a view to arrangements for the return of passage money to emigrants on the Continent, so as to prevent their sailing for this country; and one result of the correspondence had been that the emigration agents at the outports of Germany whence the emigrants came had issued orders to their inland agents to make no further contracts whatever for the conveyance of emigrants to America, vid Hull and Liverpool. In this way the danger from emigration had been stopped for the present. The Government were most anxious to co-operate with the local authorities, and to help them in every possible way in the measures they might adopt. Medical officers had been sent down to confer with the local medical officers, and the applications for the supply of hulks or vessels, which had been numerous, had been forwarded to the Admiralty. It would be convenient that the noble Duke at the head of the Admiralty should state what had been done by that Department.
  THE DUKE OF SOMERSETsaid, there were very few hulks at the disposal of the Admiralty that were capable of being fitted up readily as hospitals; but one at Cork had been offered to the Emigration Commissioners for the use of the emigrants arriving there, and one at Plymouth, and another in the Thames had also been placed at the disposal of the Commissioners. To prepare and fit up other hulks for a similar purpose would involve an expenditure of £3,000 or £4,000 each, and a delay of some weeks; and, therefore, the Admiralty were practically restricted in the number of hulks they could supply to meet the emergency. Where hulks had been already used as hospitals, the Admiralty would readily lend them for the purpose.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVONsaid, the noble Earl the President of the Council had somewhat misunderstood him. What he urged was that there should be separate accommodation, and that patients should be drafted to hospitals on land or on sea, so as to be entirely isolated from the rest of the community. He had never dreamt of putting the whole country, from Dover to the Land's End, under quarantine—all

  955
  he said was that quarantine should he more strictly performed at Hull and other ports at which emigrants arrived. He should like to he informed as to the exact amount of accommodation already provided by the local authorities at Liverpool—whether they had established an hospital on sea or land, no matter of how temporary a character.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, the accommodation provided consisted of the two vessels to which he had alluded. Some of the sick persons, however, had been removed to the emigration depot. He hoped that Liverpool would make greater exertions in order to supply more ample accommodation than it had hitherto done.
  Motion agreed to.

WAR BETWEEN SPAIN AND CHILE AND PERU—BLOCKADE OF THE CHILEAN PORTS—BOMBARDMENT OF VALPARAISO.—QUESTION.
LORD HOUGHTONdesired to ask the noble Duke the First Lord of the Admiralty, What were the instructions given to Rear Admiral Denman with regard to the Blockade of the Chilean Ports? Serious hostilities had for some time existed between the Republic of Chile and Spain, which had resulted in the bombardment of the town of Valparaiso by the Spanish fleet. The town of Valparaiso stood on a coast which was open and unprotected; it had no fortifications, but at the same time was an important commercial port of the Republic of Chile. Well, the Spanish Admiral had thought it his duty, not only to blockade Valparaiso, but to bombard the town in such a manner as to occasion a very large destruction not only of Chilean but of British and other foreign property. As to the act itself, it did not become him, on the present occasion, to give any opinion upon it. It might have been within the rights of war, but he thought—though he might be wrong—that to bombard a perfectly innocent town, which had not offered any resistance, and had not fired a single shot, was an act without a parallel in the recent annals of war. He did not believe that during the extremities of our war in the Crimea, either in the Black Sea or the Sea of Azor, any town had been bombarded which had not assumed offensive operations against us. That, however, was a matter which might be brought before the House at some other time. On the present occasion his ques-
956
tion referred to the conduct of the British Admiral. Rear Admiral Denman was well known in this country, and certainly he was not a man to shirk responsibility under any circumstances. His conduct on the West Coast of Africa would be in the remembrance of their Lordships. He was then in a position of great difficulty, and the error he committed—if he committed any at all—had been on the side of enterprize and courage. But the British merchants at Valparaiso, having lost a very large amount of property, naturally felt annoyed, and they seemed to imagine that the conduct of Admiral Denman was not what it might have been. He had been informed that they held a meeting after the bombardment, and passed resolutions condemnatory of the conduct of Rear Admiral Denman. It was stated also at the meeting that the Admiral had given them some assurance, or something which they took as an assurance, that the British and American fleets would intervene to prevent a bombardment of Valparaiso. He believed that Admiral Denman had only one ship, and that a wooden one, while the Spanish Admiral had an iron-clad, and the American Commander had a turret ship of peculiar construction, but well suited to the present mode of warfare. He mentioned these circumstances, because they might have had some effect upon the decision of Admiral Denman. The ultimate fact, however, was that the British Admiral altogether declined to interfere in a defensive manner between the Spanish fleet and the Chilean town, and the bombardment took place. A very large amount of British property was destroyed, and the merchants there, and he believed some commercial bodies in this City, were inclined to make Rear Admiral Denman, and through him the British Government, in some degree responsible for the loss which had been sustained. He desired that this matter should be clearly stated, and that justice should be done to all parties. He therefore begged to put his Question to the noble Duke.
THE DUKE OF SOMERSET: In order to answer the Question of the noble Lord (Lord Houghton) it is necessary that I should first state what were the instructions originally given to the senior officer on the coast of Chile. The first instructions were sent out as early as the 17th of November last. At that time we first heard that there was a blockade of the

957
coast of Chile. The fact was communicated by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the first instructions were sent to Commodore Hervey, who was at that time Senior Officer in the Southern Pacific. These instructions contained a copy of the despatch forwarded by the Foreign Office for the guidance of Her Majesty's Charge d'Affaires in Chile. That despatch was to this effect—
"Her Majesty's Government rely upon your using your utmost exertions for the protection of lives and properties of British subjects in the lamentable state of things which prevails in Chile; but you will be careful not to transgress the limits of intervention permissible to the agent of a neutral Power; and Her Majesty's Government would be prepared to approve the exertion of any friendly influence which you might bring to bear on the contending parties within those limits, to mitigate the horrors of war, or to bring about a cessation of hostilities until reference could be made to the Spanish Government in Europe."
At that time Admiral Denman was not on the coast of Chile, but he was on his way there; and when he was at Panama we sent to him these clear instructions, to the same effect as those which had been sent to the previous Senior Naval Officer—
"My Lords desire me to inform you that the course hitherto pursued by Commodore Hervey in regard to the hostilities between Spain and Chile has been fully approved by Her Majesty's Government. You are to observe the strictest neutrality towards the contending parties, and to give all the assistance in your power to Her Majesty's Charge d'Affaires in Chile in his endeavours to protect British interests and to bring about a settlement of the dispute which has been so prejudicial to neutral trade. My Lords have communicated the contents of your despatches to Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who has informed their Lordships that he entirely concurs in the instructions now given to you."
Your Lordships will, therefore, perceive that under these instructions Admiral Denman was ordered to be strictly neutral between the contending parties. Now, if he had interposed in any way to prevent the bombardment of the city it is obvious that he would have been taking a decided part on one side, and acting, therefore, in direct contravention of the instructions which had been given to him. I believe that this was what actually occurred. When Admiral Denman arrived at Valparaiso he communicated with the Senior Officer of the American force there, and they thought that—although, I understand, the American officer had received much the same instructions as had been given to Admiral Denman—they thought that any bombardment of the town, if
958
done on a sudden, would be attended with such loss of life, and would be an act of so much cruelty that they might protest against it. Accordingly they made it known that if the bombardment did commence without a notice of a few hours at least being given to the town in order that the women, children, and non-combatants might retire, they would proceed to interfere to prevent it. That was a measure of humanity alone proposed to be carried out by Admiral Denman in conjunction with the officer in command of the United States forces. Even that, however, was somewhat beyond the instructions which had been given. But, in fact, a notice, not of a few hours merely, but of four days, was given of the bombardment, and the conditions, therefore, which would, in Admiral Denman's opinion, have justified his interference no longer existed. He was then strictly bound by the letter of his instructions, and could do nothing else but withdraw and allow the Spanish vessels to fire upon the town, or rather the railway station and other buildings. I have heard that in consequence of the withdrawal of the inhabitants there has been hardly any loss of life. I believe that only two persons were killed, and they were looking after their property, and were killed rather accidentally than in consequence of the bombardment. The loss of life, therefore, has been very small. In regard to the loss of property, as the bombardment was directed against the Custom House, and as that was full of English, French, and other foreign property, I am afraid that a very considerable loss has fallen on all the foreign merchants; but with respect to that I must add that notice had been given to the merchants early in December, and it had been proposed by the English Charge d'Affaires that they should remove their goods from the Custom House. That gentleman had communicated with the Chilean authorities, who expressed their willingness to allow the merchants to withdraw their goods on certain conditions; but the conditions were somewhat vexatious, and the foreign residents, moreover, trusted that no Power would in these days attack an unoffending town, and therefore they preferred leaving their goods in the Custom House to taking them out on the conditions which were proposed, and the result has been that a great destruction of their property has taken place in consequence of the bombardment. I be-

959
lieve I have now answered the question of the noble Lord.
LORD DUNSANYsaid, he could not help thinking that the terms in which the conduct of Admiral Denman had been spoken of by some of the residents were very ridiculous, although great allowance must be made for the exasperation of men who had just seen their property destroyed. But no one who knew that gallant officer could for a moment believe that he would be backward to undertake any work in which it was his duty to engage. The noble Duke had alluded to a contingency which might have happened, and the British Admiral would then have found himself in a position in which he ought never to be placed. The residents had certainly a right to expect some notice before the bombardment commenced, and with the view of obtaining it Admiral Denman no doubt gave the intimation he did to the Spanish Commander-in-Chief; but he thereby placed himself in a very awkward predicament. If he had felt it necessary to resist the Spanish fleet he would have found that he had no adequate force for that purpose. He believed, however, that an iron-clad had now been sent out to him, although he feared it was rather late.
THE DUKE OF SOMERSETsaid, that there could have been no use in sending out an iron-clad ship to Admiral Denman unless new instructions were sent to him at the same time. But his instructions were that he was to remain strictly neutral between the belligerents; and however much that which had occurred was to be regretted, the evil might have been increased if we had mixed ourselves up with the quarrel. Admiral Denman's instructions were that he should remain strictly neutral; but the intimation he gave to the Spanish Commander-in-Chief was no doubt to induce him to allow sufficient time for women, children, and non-combatants to leave the town, and probably it had the effect desired.
House adjourned at a quarter before Nine o'clock, to Thursday next, half past Ten o'clock.