Sitting of 18 February 1867

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBERS SWORN—Hodges Eyre Chatterton, esquire, for Dublin University; Edward Kent Karslake, esquire, for Colchester.
SELECT COMMITTEE—On Public Accounts nominated.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—SUPPLEMENTARY CIVIL SERVICES, 1866–7.
PUBLIC BILLS—Resolutions in Committee—Sugar Duties.
Resolution [Feb. 15] reported—Duty on Dogs.
Ordered—Duty on Dogs; Admiralty Jurisdiction *; Tenants' Improvements (Ireland); Land Improvement and Leasing (Ireland); Land Improvement Contracts (Ireland)*; Land Tax Commissioners' Names.*
First Reading—Admiralty Jurisdiction* [28]; Tenants' Improvements (Ireland) [29]; Land Improvement and Leasing (Ireland) [30]; Land Tax Commissioners' Names* [31].
Second Reading—Trades Unions [18]; Vice President of the Board of Trade [22].

ARMY ESTIMATES.—OBSERVATIONS.
GENERAL PEEL: Sir, the Army Estimates which I have just laid upon the table are only the usual and ordinary Estimates, and they do not include any provision to carry out the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Recruiting and the Army Reserve. Separate Estimates will be laid upon the table for those purposes. I intend, when the Estimates are moved, to call the attention of the House to the Report of the Royal Commission on Recruiting and the Army Reserve, and to explain the measures which Her Majesty's Government propose to take in order to carry out the recommendations of that Commission.
COLONEL WILSON PATTEN: May I ask when that will be?
GENERAL PEEL: I have just laid the Estimates on the table, and I hope they will be in the hands of hon. Members either on Wednesday or Thursday at the latest. I shall bring them forward on the earliest possible day afterwards, and due notice will be given.

IRELAND—RAILWAYS.—QUESTION.
MR. W. ORMSBY GOREsaid, he would beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, When the Report, so far as relates to Irish Railways, of the Royal Commissioners, to inquire into the state of Railways will be issued?
SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE, in reply, said, there would be no special Re-
460
port on Irish Railways; but the Report of the Commissioners would be ready in a short time, probably in a week or two.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENT IN JAMAICA.—QUESTION.
MR. BAXTERsaid, he rose to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether any Despatch relative to the reduction of the Ecclesiastical Establishment in Jamaica has been forwarded to the Governor of Jamaica; and, if so, whether he is willing to lay the same before Parliament; and, whether he will lay before; Parliament the Circular relative to such reduction addressed to the Clergy by the Bishop of Kingston?
MR. ADDERLEYsaid, in reply, that the despatch alluded to by the hon. Member was simply an acknowledgment of the receipt of a communication and of correspondence between Sir John Grant and the Bishop of Kingston; and all that it stated was, that when matters were more matured the Colonial Office would be ready to take the subject into consideration. The Circular only had reference to certain parochial charges transferred to voluntary contributions; and there was no correspondence on the subject in the Colonial Office that could be given to the House.

IMPORTATION OF CATTLE.

  QUESTION.
  MR. EYKYNsaid, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, Whether any, and, if so, what measures have been adopted to prevent the importation from Holland and Germany of the carcases of animals infected by the Cattle Plague?
  MR. CORRYsaid, in reply, that the Privy Council were reluctant to prohibit the importation of articles used as food except under the apprehension of serious risk. It appeared to them, as at present advised, that there was no such amount of risk as would justify them in prohibiting the importation of meat,

IRELAND—DOCKS IN CORK HARBOUR.

  QUESTION.
  MR. MURPHYsaid, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, What progress has been made with the works connected with the Royal Docks in Cork Harbour, and their present position; what progress is proposed to be made with

  461
  them (and the estimated amount of expenditure) in the present year, and whether the supposed amount of Convict Labour originally contemplated will be provided; and, if not, whether Free Labour will be substituted?
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTON: Sir, the progress made in Cork Harbour hitherto, as the hon. Gentleman is doubtless aware, is only of a preliminary nature. I am happy now to inform him that arrangements have been made by which future progress will, I hope, be made more satisfactory. At the time I had the pleasure of seeing the hon. Member at Cork only 121 convicts were at work. Since then a few free men, leading artificers, have been employed; the number of them has now been increased to thirty; and the number of convicts has been raised to 274. In the forthcoming Estimates we propose to ask, instead of £15,000, for £20,000; and this will enable us to increase the number of free labourers from thirty to nearly 100. I hope the answer will be satisfactory to the hon. Member. I am quite sure it is the intention of Government to prosecute the works at Cork Harbour; and, no doubt, under the circumstances I have mentioned, the works will be greatly accelerated.

SCOTLAND—SANITARY LAWS.

  QUESTION.
  SIR ROBERT ANSTRUTHERsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether any measure is being prepared by the Lord Advocate for Scotland for the consolidation and application to Scotland of the various Sanitary and Nuisances Acts at present in operation; and, whether he is about to bring in any measure for the more economical settlement of disputes arising in carrying out the Poor Law Act?
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, in reply, that there was a Bill in preparation for consolidating and amending the Law relating to nuisances in Scotland, and he expected that it would be ready in about a fortnight.

AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. M'LAGANsaid, he would beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, "Whether it is the intention of the Government to adopt the same means for the
  462
  collection of Agricultural Statistics in England and Scotland as last year; and, if not, whether it is their intention to introduce any measure this Session for their collection?
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, in reply, that the Government proposed to adopt, the same measures that were taken last year.

IRELAND—WATERFORD ELECTION.

  QUESTION.
  THE O'DONOGHUEsaid, in the absence of his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Serjeant Barry) who had given notice of the Question, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether the Military authorities have instituted or intend to institute any inquiry, or have taken or intend to take any action, with respect to the alleged conduct of the sixteen men of the 12th Lancers who, on the polling day of the late Election for the County of Waterford, according to the sworn testimony of the officer in command, broke away from his control, and without orders charged the people along the Quay of Dungarvan, the result being that two persons were killed, one of them, a respectable inhabitant of that town, having been, while standing near the door of his dwelling, stabbed by one of the soldiers with a lance, as appears by the reported evidence and verdict of the coroner's jury?
  GENERAL PEEL: Sir, in consequence of the Notice given by the hon. and learned Member, I requested the Commander-in-Chief to apply to the Commander-in-Chief in Ireland to know what steps had been taken; and the answer of the Commander-in-Chief in Ireland is as follows:—
  "It was considered that it would be unusual and an unbecoming interference with the rights of the constitutional and legal tribunal—the coroner's inquest, and of the judicial proceedings which might result from it—to hold a formal military inquiry into the Dungarvan riots and the matters connected with them—a matter which was entirely in the hands of the civil law of the country, and dealt with by it. The military authorities had exhausted inquiry, and had obtained all the information which was in their power to do on this subject. As regards the conduct of the 12th Lancers, the reports of the superior officer, Colonel Sawyer, commanding the 6th Carbineers, who was sent expressly from Cahir to Dungarvan, to command the troops during the contested election for Waterford, prove, as did all the reports of the other officers commanding detachments employed during the election, that, notwithstanding the greatest provocations, the conduct of the troops was very good; indeed, Colonel Sawyer calls it 'admirable,' and that if

  463
  casualties among the people, however much to be regretted, did occur, they were unavoidable."

  ARMY—MILITARY STORE DEPARTMENT. —QUESTION.
  MR. OLIPHANTsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether the scheme submitted to the Treasury by the late Secretary of State for War, and supported by the present Secretary of State for War, which was designed to remedy the grievances of the Military Store Department, has been finally rejected by the Lords Commissioners; and, if so, to state upon what grounds a measure judged necessary by the War Office as the best means of increasing the efficiency of a Military Department, and of redressing grievances which are admitted to exist in it, has been rendered inoperative?
  MR. HUNT: Sir, I must ask leave to point out to the House the unusual character of the Question. The hon. Member for Stirling does not ask whether a decision has been come to, and on what grounds; but whether there is a difference of opinion between two Departments of the Government, and whether I can state the reasons given by one Department for differing from the other. It must be obvious to the hon. Member that no Government business can be carried on unless matters under consideration are freely discussed between Departments. When a decision has been arrived at, the Government, as a Government, is responsible for it, and it is open to any hon. Member to challenge the propriety of it; but I submit to the House that it will not be to the advantage of the public service that a Question should be asked and answered here as to what difference of opinion exists between one Member of Government and another on a given question before it is decided. Therefore, I hope the hon. Member will not think I am treating him with disrespect when I decline to set a precedent by giving a categorical answer, which could only be mischievous in its results.

ARMY—CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.

  QUESTION.
  MR. OTWAYsaid, he rose to ask the Secretary of State for War a Question relating to the report of an inquest held on the body of Robert Symes, a private soldier in the 74th Regiment, on whom corporal punishment had been inflicted by sentence
  464
  of a District Court Martial, on the 24th ultimo. As the Question related to the life and death of one of Her Majesty's subjects, he hoped the House would permit him to state the facts on which he based the Question. ["No, no!"] He was quite in order in stating the facts. It had been stated in many newspapers, and especially in The Lancet, that a soldier belonging to the 74th Highlanders died in the military hospital at Limerick on the 9th instant, after receiving corporal punishment, having been sentenced to receive fifty lashes, and to be confined for 168 days. Shortly afterwards an inquest was held on the body, at which three military medical officers and one civilian gave their evidence. The evidence was to the effect that his death was caused by fever, which set in owing to the punishment which had been inflicted, and the jury found that the deceased died in consequence of congestion of the brain supervening on the punishment to which he had been subjected. Now, he wished to ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, Whether the statement given in the newspapers was substantially correct; and whether the punishment which the soldier had received was of undue and extraordinary severity, or no unusual punishment for offences such as he had committed?
  GENERAL PEEL: Sir, in consequence of the Notice given by the hon. Gentleman, I sent to Ireland for information on the facts, and I find that they are as follows:—Private Robert Symes, 74th Regiment, was tried by District Court Martial on the 9th of January, for an act of gross insubordination in having struck with his fist a sergeant of the regiment, and kicked him on the face when he was knocked down. He was sentenced to 365 days' imprisonment, with hard labour (197 of which were remitted), and fifty lashes. The staff surgeon examined the man on three different occasions, and pronounced him to be in a good state of health, and able to undergo corporal punishment; he was flogged on the 14th of January, a staff assistant-surgeon being present at the parade. After punishment he was sent to the cells, where he was allowed bedding, &c, and seen daily by a medical officer. On the 29th of January (fourteen days afterwards) he was admitted into hospital suffering from fever; his back had nearly healed. On the next day erysipelas of the face and head set in, and he died on the 9th of February. The post-mortem.

  465
  examination showed that death was occasioned by congestion of the brain consequent on the erysipelas; his back bad healed at the time of his death; he had always been a healthy man but of bad character.

  METROPOLIS—PARK LANE AND HALKIN STREET.—QUESTION.
  SIR HENRY WINSTON-BARRONsaid, he would beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works, If it is intended to widen Park Lane from Stanhope Gate to Oxford Street; and if any and what measures can be taken to abate the inconvenience now existing to foot passengers and carriages by the wooden barriers erected in Halkin Street, which have narrowed this great thoroughfare?
  LORD JOHN MANNERS: Sir, it is intended to widen Park Lane from Stanhope Gate to Oxford Street; but I must inform the hon. Baronet that I cannot give him an answer to his second Question, as Halkin Street is not in any way under my supervision.
  SIR HENRY WINSTON-BARRON: May I ask the noble Lord whom I am to apply to?
  EARL GROSVENOR: I do not know whether I may be allowed to answer the Question. The buildings in Halkin Street will take about two years to complete, and I do not know whether the hoarding can be removed before the end of that time.

  REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE—THE RESOLUTIONS.—QUESTION.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, he would beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether, if the House should agree to the 4th proposed Resolution on the subject of Reform—namely, "That the Occupation Franchise shall be based on the principle of Rating"—the carrying out of that Resolution would, in the view of the Government, be necessarily contingent on the passing of the Bill "for promoting Uniformity of Assessment in England and Wales;" and whether, if the House should agree to the 13th Resolution, praying Her Majesty to appoint a Boundary Commission, the passing of a Reform Bill need on that account be delayed beyond the period of the present Session of Parliament?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, the passing of the Bill which we hope to introduce will not in any way depend upon the passing of the two other
  466
  measures to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. But I trust I may be permitted to express my hope that when the Reform Bill is passed hon. Gentlemen will not deny us the portion of their time that may be requisite to pass the two other measures also.

  STANDARDS OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.—QUESTION.
  MR. MILLERsaid, he would beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, Whether it is the fact that the Standards of Weights and Measures have been in use for forty years without re-adjustment, and whether such re-adjustment is intended, and when; and what notice will be given to the public thereof?
  MR. STEPHEN CAVEsaid, in reply, that the official standards of weight and length have been in use since 1825, or forty-two years, and the standards of capacity since 1834, or thirty-three years, without re-adjustment. No legal provision was made for their comparison and re-verification until the passing of the Standards Act of last Session, by which it was provided that the Board of Trade should cause such comparison to be made as soon as conveniently might be after the passing of the Act, and afterwards, once at least in every five years, and the standards to be adjusted or renewed if requisite. It is intended that this provision shall be carried out under high scientific superintendence, and for this purpose to re-appoint the Standards Commission, the members of which have expressed willingness to serve. All the preliminary steps have been already taken for these objects, and the actual comparison of the standards is now being proceeded with in the Standards Department. The weights have been tested, and it may be satisfactory to state that their actual errors are, generally speaking, so small as to be hardly appreciable, except with very fine balances; the 56 lb. weight is the most defective, and that varies only about a 30000th part, that is, thirteen grains in 392,000 grains. The adjustment or renewal of the standards will necessarily occupy some time after the appointment of the Commission, but due notice will be given when the whole work is completed.

  WATERWORKS BILL.—QUESTION.
  MR. A. EGERTONsaid, he would beg to ask the President of the Board of

  467
  Trade, Whether he intends to re-introduce this Session the Waterworks Bill of last Session?
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he did not.

EXTRADITION OF M. LAMIRANDE.

  QUESTION.
  MR. M'CULLAGH TORRENSsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, When he expects to be able to lay upon the table the Correspondence between Her Majesty's Government and that of the Emperor of the French regarding the extradition of M. Lamirande?
  LORD STANLEY: Sir, I will lay the Papers on the table as soon as we have received a further communication from the French Government, for which we are now waiting.

ARMY—QUARTERMASTERS OF MILITIA.

  QUESTION.
  MAJOR WALKERsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to take any steps to improve the position of Quartermasters of Militia?
  GENERAL PEEL: Sir, in the Army Estimates which have been laid upon the table, it is proposed to ask the House to consent to an addition to their lodging money.

  REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE— FRANCHISES.—QUESTION.
  MR. BAINESsaid, he would beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether, in the Statement which he has promised to make on going into Committee on the Representation of the People on Monday, the 25th instant, he will specify the proposed amount of the County and Borough Franchises; and whether he could, for the convenience of the House, give that information on an earlier day?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Mr. Speaker, it is the hope of Her Majesty's Government that they may introduce and pass a Reform Bill adequate to the national necessities, which will re produce concord among classes, and will permit Gentlemen, of whatever political opinions they may be, and to whatever party they may belong, if they sit upon this Bench, to have an opportunity of pro-
  468
  posing those measures of improvement which the country requires, and which, until this question is settled, I fear will not be introduced. But with these views, and with that great responsibility, I trust the House will feel it not unreasonable or in any degree presumptuous on our part, if we wish at least to have the privilege of disposing of the course of public business in that manner which we deem to be most conducive to the end which we are desirous of accomplishing. Under these circumstances, I must say that I think it would be most inexpedient were I to deviate from that course of proceeding which, on the part of Her Majesty's Government, I have already intimated that we are ready to take. There are many reasons which induce me to believe that if we were to alter our course we might injure that chance which, from intimations I have received from many quarters of this House, I confess I view with a sanguine spirit, of coming to a solution of this question. I trust the House will believe that it is from no desire to delay the progress of this business, but from a sincere conviction, founded on the information we have received, that the course we have indicated is best qualified to accomplish the end we all desire, that I must request the hon. Gentleman will not press me to change that course, and I shall be prepared on Monday to offer those explanations which are due to the House.

  THEATRES, &c—QUESTION.
  MR. O'BEIRNEsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is his intention to introduce any measure this Session for the better regulation of Theatres and Places of Public Amusement in Great Britain and, whether the measure to be so introduced if any will be in accordance with the recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee of last Session upon that subject?
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, in reply, that he hoped to be enabled to bring in a Bill on the subject. If so, the Bill would embody some of the recommendations of the Committee, but, he apprehended not all.

IRELAND—CHARITABLE BEQUESTS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. BLAKEsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether he intends introducing a measure during

  469
  the present Session to amend the Laws relative to Charitable Donations and Bequests in Ireland; and, if so, at what period the Bill will be likely to be furnished to Members?
  LORD NAAS: Sir, a Bill has been prepared, and my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General for Ireland will introduce it, I hope, next week.

IRELAND—THE VARTRY WATERWORKS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. VANCEsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If his attention has been called to a statement made by the Chairman of the Waterworks Committee in the Municipal Council of Dublin, that a substantial leakage had taken place in the great reservoir of the Vartry Waterworks; if he is aware that notice has been served by the surveyor of the county Wicklow on the Waterworks Committee in reference to the dangerous condition of that reservoir; and if it is the intention of the Irish Government to have the reservoir and works inspected by and reported on by Government engineers?
  LORD NAAS, in reply, said, the reservoir had been inspected by two eminent engineers, and information of a satisfactory nature had been received; but he was not at present in possession of full information on the subject. He expected the Report in a few days.

  IRELAND—FENIAN DISTURBANCES IN KERRY.—QUESTION.
  COLONEL GREVILLEsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether he has any further information to impart to the House with regard to the Fenian movement in Kerry?
  LORD NAAS: Sir, I have no further information to give beyond this, that I received a telegram two hours ago stating that everything was perfectly quiet, and that there was no appearance of any attempt being made to revive the insurrectionary movement in the county of Kerry. I may add, that from the information which the Government has received it appears that there was not at any one time more than 120 or 130 engaged in the outbreak.
  MR. BRUENsaid, he wished to ask the noble Lord, whether he can confirm the published reports of the gallant conduct of Police Constable Duggan, who was attacked by the rioters while carrying despatches? He would also beg to inquire
  470
  whether the noble Lord can confirm the report of the loyal conduct of the Rev. Mr. Maginn, a Roman Catholic priest, who, it is stated, gave notice to the Police of the intentions of the rioters, endeavoured to dissuade the party from their mad enter-prize, and, on being charged by their leader with having given information against them, boldly and loyally acknowledged that he had done so.
  LORD NAAS: I am happy to be able to say that the statement which appeared in The Times of this morning with regard to Police Constable Duggan is entirely correct. He showed the greatest possible gallantry and devotion to his duty. After being wounded, and after falling from his horse, he still endeavoured to struggle on as best he could in order to perform his duty. He was, unfortunately, unable to accomplish this, and was obliged to take refuge in a house, whither he was followed by some of his assailants. With respect to the conduct of the Rev. Mr. Maginn, the information in the hands of the Government leads us to believe that the statement which has been published is perfectly correct. Shortly after the attack on the policeman the same party designed to attack the police barrack at Ross Bay, not very far off. On meeting Mr. Maginn they stopped, and he addressed them. He warned them of the perilous and wicked course they were pursuing, and endeavoured to dissuade them from carrying into effect the project which he had been led to believe they entertained. They advanced, however, some little distance further, but wiser counsels ultimately prevailed, and when they had got to within 200 yards of the barracks they turned off the road and made for the mountains. The rev. gentleman then proceeded to the help of the wounded man, and I believe remained with him a considerable time, until further assistance arrived.

VICE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE BILL— [BILL 22.]
(Sir Stafford Northcote, Mr. Cave, Mr. Hunt.)

SECOND READING.
Order for Second Reading read.
MR. GRENFELLsaid, be did not rise to oppose the Bill; but be wished for some explanation with regard to the omission from the Bill of all allusion to the office of Paymaster General, and certain duties connected with Chelsea Hospital at present

471
performed by the Vice President of the Board of Trade. He hoped some explanation would be given of the intentions of the Government on these two points, which were rather connected with a Military Department than with the Board of Trade.
SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: Had the hon. Member been in the House the other night when I introduced the Bill he would have been aware that I gave an explanation on both the points on which he now asks for information. I then stated that arrangements would be made for the discharge of the duties to which the hon. Member refers. It would be useless to insert provisions on the subject in the Bill, since Her Majesty may appoint any officer she pleases to undertake those services. It is not necessary—indeed, it would be inconvenient—to prescribe those duties in an Act of Parliament.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, that the Vice President of the Board of Trade had hitherto vacated his seat on accepting office, whereas the Secretaries of the Poor Law Board, the Admiralty, and the Treasury were not required to undergo re-election. He wished, therefore, to know whether, under the present Bill, the Secretary to the Board of Trade would have to go to his constituents, or whether he would be in the same position as the Secretaries of other Departments?
SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: He will not require re-election.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, he thought this raised a very important Constitutional question, because one Member of the Government less than at present would vacate his seat on taking office. The point would require consideration when the Bill was in Committee.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he regretted that the attention of the House had not been drawn to this point when his right hon. Friend (Sir Stafford Northcote) introduced the Bill; for the vacating of a seat upon accepting an office under the Crown was a matter of no small importance both in theory and in practice, and one on which both the House and the country entertained a very just jealousy. His notice having only been drawn to the matter a few moments ago, he would not now undertake to say whether there might or might not be sufficient grounds for the alteration proposed; but the question was one of primary importance, and his right hon. Friend would probably share in his regret that he had not referred to it in the first instance. He
472
was very unwilling to delay the progress of a Bill which appeared to be generally of a useful character; but the matter would require careful consideration at a future stage.
Motion agreed to: Bill read a second time, and committed for Thursday.

SUGAR DUTIES.—COMMITTEE.
Order for Committee read.
MR. J. B. SMITHsaid, he could not allow the House to go into Committee without again entering his protest against the system of classified sugar duties, the object of which was to give protection to one class of sugar growers at the expense of others. He did not blame the present Government for bringing forward this measure; if it had originated with them there would probably have been a storm of objection to it, as a Tory monopoly scheme. He regretted to say that this measure originated with the leader of free trade in this House, the right hon. Member for Lancashire. The Vice President of the Board of Trade told the House the other night that the duties were, by this Bill, levied on the precise quantity of saccharine matter contained in each class of sugars. Now, it was nothing of the kind. The duties were really levied upon the samples of sugar laid before the Custom House officers, who decided from their appearance what rate of duty each should pay; and as no man could tell from the appearance of sugar what quantity of saccharine matter it contained, it opened the door to injustice and fraud. Besides, this absurd system was attended with enormous expense. According to the Report of the Board of Inland Revenue, in London alone no less than 632,738 samples of sugar, representing 3,123,000 packages, were assessed for duty by the Customs officers. Now, as no two packages of sugar were of precisely the same colour, grain, and quality, some must be charged too much and others too little, what a door is open to fraud! The fact is, that all this labour and expense incurred by the classification of duties is solely to protect West India sugar planters, who persist in old methods of making sugar. He believed that this was the only protection Act on the statute book, and he hoped it would not be long before they were able to say that protection did not exist in this country. Undoubtedly this Bill reduced the amount of protection, and so far it was an approxi-

473
mation to the only sound system of an uniform duty. But the protection was of the worst character; it was a tax upon improvement; it taxed those able to make sugar of a better quality, from the same raw material, by a superior process. Suppose Manchester and Blackburn were each making a particular kind of yarn from the same quality of cotton, and that the Manchester people, in consequence of superior processes and superior machinery, were able to sell their yarn at 1d. per pound less than the Blackburn people, what should we say to the prayer of the Blackburn people that a duty of 1d. per pound ought to be laid upon the Manchester yarn to enable them to compete with their rivals? But this was just what the West India planters demanded, and which this Bill granted. He (Mr. J. B. Smith) was of opinion, with the right hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Cardwell), before that Gentleman ate his own words, that—
"To strike with a superior duty one pound of sugar, which by a better mode of manufacture contains more saccharine matter than another pound, obtained from the same raw material, is to inflict direct discouragement upon improvement."
The whole case could not be better expressed than in this language, and he should only, therefore, repeat his protest against the present system.
(In the Committee.)
Resolution 1. That there shall be charged and paid, on and after the 1st day of March, 1867, the following Duties of Excise on Sugar made in the United Kingdom (that is to say):—

£

s.

d.

Candy, brown or white, refined Sugar, or Sugar rendered by any process equal in quality thereto, and manufactures of refined Sugar

the cwt.

0

12

0

Sugar not equal to refined, according to the Standard Samples approved by the Lords of the Treasury for assessing the Duties of Customs on Sugar imported into the United Kingdom, viz.:—

First Class

the cwt.

0

11

3

Second Class

the cwt.

0

10

6

Third Class.

the cwt.

0

9

7

Fourth Class.

the cwt.

0

8

0

Molasses.

the cwt.

0

3

6

MR. HUNTsaid, that before moving the second Resolution, he wished to explain that its object was to place the Excise duty on sugar used in brewing on the same footing as the Customs duty. The sugar used in brewing paid a duty of 3s. 4d.; this being sugar of the fourth class would now pay a Customs duty of 8s. It used to be 8s. 2d. before the alteration, and it
474
was necessary to put on the brewing duty, the 2d. that was thus taken off, so that the duty on 210 lbs. of sugar should be equal to the duty on a quarter of malt.
Resolution 2. That there shall be charged and paid for and upon every hundred-weight, and so in proportion for any greater or less quantity than a hundred-weight, of all Sugar which, on and after the 1st day of March, 1867, shall be used by any Brewer of Beer for sale in the brewing or making of Beer, the Excise Duty of Three Shillings and Six Pence.
Resolutions to be reported on Wednesday.

DUTY ON DOGS BILL.

  BILL ORDERED.
  Resolution [February] 15 reported.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he did not rise to offer any opposition to the proposal; but there were two points upon which he desired to receive an explanation on the part of the Government. The present duty was 12 s. on every dog. It was, however, found that this duty was too high to be levied with the uniformity and strictness which policy and justice alike required, and, therefore, in the policy of the proposed reduction he fully concurred. But then the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hunt) had stated that it was the expectation and desire of the Government to raise from the new tax an amount not less than that now levied. Whether this expectation would be realized turned upon the question whether the new duty of 5s. could be strictly and uniformly levied. He hoped it would; but this was a point on which the Government of the day would be better able to form a conclusion. The first assurance he wished to receive was that the Government had fixed upon an amount which, in their opinion, might be charged alike upon all members of the community and obtained from them. The second point—which was of a different nature and of some importance—was that although this was not a financial measure of very great importance, yet it was the commutation of a duty that yielded £180,000 a year, and which independent of any increase under the duty would not yield half that amount—perhaps not more than £70,000 or £80,000. Primâ facie such dealing with the revenue ought to be treated as a portion of the financial measures of the year, and form part of the Budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had always held that there was nothing more closely connected

  475
  with the constitutional control of the House of Commons than the principle that, except under special circumstances, all the financial measures of the year ought to form part of the same plan. Of course, in some cases where strong practical reasons existed it might be desirable to depart from this rule. The cause of this departure probably was that the duty, instead of being, as before, a part of the assessed taxes, would now be an Excise duty. The assessed taxes were levied each year on the number of dogs kept in the former year; while the Excise duty was payable beforehand, and the commencement of the financial year would be fixed as the period at which the tax must be taken out. If he were correct in this supposition he had no objection to the proposal.
  MR. HUNTsaid, he would answer the second Question first. It was desirable that, as the duty on dogs was hereafter to be a duty of Excise, the change should be arranged to take place at an earlier period of the year than the Financial Statement, as otherwise a great number of the owners of dogs would escape the tax this year altogether. The assessed taxes for 1866–7, although due this year, were not chargeable until April 5 next. Under the new duty it would be necessary for those who wished to keep dogs this year to take out an Excise licence. For this reason it was desirable not to defer levying the tax until the usual financial arrangements of the year were made. In answer to the first Question of the right hon. Gentleman, the Government were of opinion that the tax of 5s. on every dog was one that could really and uniformly be levied. The Government proposed that there should be no exemptions whatever. When the Resolutions were in Committee his hon. Friend the Member for East Norfolk (Mr. Read) stated, that although he understood it was intended to levy the tax on sheep dogs, he considered it so important that the proposal of the Government should be carried that he was willing to waive the exemption which that description of dogs had hitherto enjoyed. If the owners of sheep dogs were ready to give up their exemption, that was a test of the duty of 5s. being one which the community would bear to see universally levied on dogs. As the present duty of 12 s. was only levied on a very small number of those who now kept dogs, the revenue would not, in his opinion, suffer from the reduction. He rather looked forward, on the
  476
  contrary, to some increase of the proceeds of the tax under the new duty.
  Resolution agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. DODSON, Mr. HUNT, and Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER.

  SUPPLY.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

COMMANDER SAYER'S LIFE BOAT.

  QUESTION.
  MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSENwished to put a Question to the First Lord of the Admiralty respecting the invention by Commander Sayer of a folding life-boat which had been brought under the notice of that Department. Commander Sayer was a naval officer of some experience, who, many years ago, was much struck by the too frequent loss of life from shipwreck or fire at sea, in consequence of the insufficient number of boats carried by vessels. Actuated by no hope of pecuniary benefit to himself, but solely by the humane and laudable desire of mitigating the severity of future disasters at sea, he had devoted much attention to the subject. The result was, that after some expenditure of time and money, he had invented a life-boat, in the construction of which, such was the economy of space, that in the space usually occupied by one ships' boat, a sufficient number of these boats could be stowed away to hold from 800 to 1,000 persons in case of emergency. It would be presumptuous in him to pass any opinion on the merits of the boat; but when Commander Sayer requested him, as his representative, to bring the invention under the notice of the proper authorities, it was his duty so to do. The invention had been submitted to the late Board of Admiralty, of which Lord Clarence Paget was then Secretary, but the reception it met with was not very favourable. The boat was tried at Portsmouth in fine weather, but was not sufficiently tested in rough weather, and Commander Sayer, being satisfied with the result of private trials, became dissatisfied with the conduct of the Admiralty. He consulted him (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) again, and, by his advice, sought the opinions of naval officers independent of the Govern-

  477
  ment. Amongst others, he took counsel and advice with the hon. Baronet opposite, the Member for Stamford (Sir John Hay), who brought his great professional skill to bear on the subject, and after, doubtless, due consideration, thus wrote to the inventor—
  "You should compel Mr. Hugessen and Lord Clarence Paget to give you proper support. Tell them I say so. It is the business of them both to see that so useful an invention is not lost to the country."
  In answer to a Question put to him on the subject in that House in 1865, Lord Clarence Paget, then Secretary of the Admiralty, said that though the invention was ingenious, and one that might be useful in time of war, yet it was not then thought expedient to make further experiments with it. Fortified by the opinion of the hon. Baronet, Commander Sayer became more than ever discontented with the conduct of the Admiralty and at the General Election in 1865 he withdrew his support in county and borough from all candidates, with the exception of him (Mr. Knatchbull Hugessen), who had formed the late Administration. But let the House mark the sequel. Within the brief space of one year the changes and chances of political warfare drove from office those reckless despisers of inventive genius, and hope again dawned on Commander Sayer when he saw the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir John Pakington) again engaged in the congenial task of re-constructing the navy, and seated by his side at the Board that very individual who had pronounced this invention too valuable to be lost to the country. Hope dawned again on Commander Snyer—but alas for the instability of human expectation! He sent his plans and models to the new Board of Admiralty; but they were returned to him with a note from the hon. and gallant Admiral opposite (Sir John Hay)—and this was the "unkindest cut of all"—saying, that however ingenious the invention might be, the Admiralty were not prepared to adopt it for the navy. He must add that Commander Sayer attributed the refusal to his declining to have any personal communication with the Controller of the Navy, by whom he complained of having been treated with great incivility at a former interview. With that he (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) had nothing to do. He only knew that the models had been some weeks at the Admiralty, and the hon. Baronet would never have given the opinion which
  478
  he had read to the House unless he had mastered the invention, so as to be fully able to explain to the Controller, or anyone else, that which he averred to be too useful to be lost to the country. He would respectfully suggest to the right hon. Baronet that, whereas of late years they had spent enormous sums in bringing to perfection instruments for the destruction of human life, when the question concerned an invention for saving that life, it surely would not tarnish the lustre of the right hon. Baronet's Administration if to such an invention he gave some consideration and some encouragement. He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman, What communications had taken place between the Admiralty and Commander Sayer on that subject?
  SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, that the invention in question, whatever its merits, was of so simple and small a character that it was only through the partial views of the hon. Gentleman that it could be connected with the re-construction of the navy, towards which it would go but a very little way. He remembered that Commander Sayer had brought the subject under his notice in the lobby of the House some time since; and soon after he had the honour of holding his present office, Commander Sayer submitted his invention to the present Board of Admiralty, which took the course that was always followed when such inventions were brought before them—namely, referred them to the departments with which such matters were connected. The Board were desirous of giving a fair trial to his invention, and they directed that it should be considered by the Controller of the Navy. When the notice of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) appeared on the paper, he made inquiries, and the answer he received was that Commander Sayer had had some personal difference with the Controller of the Navy, and was so much offended with that gentleman that he would not consent to his examining into his invention. They were perfectly ready to give a fair trial to the invention; but if Commander Sayer persisted in his unfortunate objection to have any connection with the officer who was the proper person to deal with the matter, it was to be feared that the subject must remain in abeyance for some time.

MR. STAYNER, LATE DEPUTY POSTMASTER GENERAL, CANADA.

  QUESTION.
  MR. CHILDERSwished to call attention to a Treasury Minute granting a Compassionate Allowance to Mr. Stayner, late Deputy Postmaster General in Canada. He did not at all object to the grant of this allowance, which was no doubt made on grounds that were satisfactory to the Treasury; but to the form and manner of making it. Mr. Stayner's salary had been paid out of the postal revenues of Canada, which in 1851 or 1852 were handed over to the Provincial Governments, without any provision being made at the time that existing public servants holding warrants from the Postmaster General in England should be protected. Changes were afterwards made by the Canadian Government, involving the loss of his office, and Mr. Stayner applied for some compensation. Now, the Treasury had laid the Minute on the table as if the allowance made him were an ordinary pension under the Superannuation Act; whereas, in fact, it was not in any sense a grant under that Act. The proper course would have been for the Government to have specially called the attention of the House to the matter, and proposed that some compensation should be given to this gentleman, not for the loss of an appointment to which the Act referred, but because the Government in 1851 had omitted to provide some protection for him. It was desirable to prevent these things from becoming precedents; and therefore he trusted that the present inaccurate Minute would be withdrawn, and an amended one substituted for it and laid on the table in the usual course, and that a Motion would be made that it should be printed, so that the real facts should be within the knowledge of the House.
  MR. HUNTsaid, that the words referring to the Superannuation Act had been inserted purely by inadvertence in the Minute in question in consequence of the gentleman who drew the Minute having been misled by following the precedent of the grant of a pension to the Postmaster General of Jamaica. Mr. Stayner was appointed by the Postmaster General here, and, though paid out of the colonial funds, was virtually an Imperial servant. He had been removed from his position because the Colonial Legislature deemed it expe-
  480
  dient that it should be filled by a political officer. For the loss thus occasioned Mr. Stayner had not been compensated by the colony, and the Treasury had therefore thought it right to make him a certain allowance. If his hon. Friend was of opinion that it was desirable, he should be happy to withdraw the present Minute and have it amended, and lay another Minute not drawn under the Act on the table.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE—THE RESOLUTIONS.—QUESTION.
MR. AYRTON, who had a Notice on the paper—
"To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether it will be necessary to proceed with the Committee on the Representation of the People if he receives sufficient assurances that no obstacle will be interposed to his proceeding to a Committee on his intended Bill for amending the Laws relating to the Representation of the People,"
said, he considered it to be his duty, notwithstanding what had been said that evening, to press upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer the question of which he had given notice. It had occurred before now in the proceedings of the House that when considerable embarrassment was felt on the part of a great number of hon. Members in arriving at a satisfactory determination on any important subject about to be brought under their notice, great advantage had arisen from some preliminary conversation on the point before they reached that stage where party excitement was aroused, and when they came there arrayed on one side and on the other, and prepared to discuss the question rather for the sake of victory, perhaps, than for the solution of it upon its intrinsic merits. Therefore, in regard to the state of the great question of Reform it might be desirable that in anticipation of the explanations promised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Monday, they should endeavour to arrive at some understanding as to the best mode in which the House might express its determination upon the leading and most important points awaiting its decision. He did not press his Question on the Chancellor of the Exchequer in any spirit of discourtesy or of hostility to the Government. He could quite understand how it should have occurred to them, having regard to some historic facts, to have re-introduced this subject of Reform in a somewhat unusual and circuitous manner, so as to protect

481
themselves from a repetition of what had previously taken place. He could quite understand that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, recollecting how on two former occasions a Conservative Government had been subverted by the proceedings of then-opponents, must have felt, in endeavouring for the second time to approach one of the subjects which led to their destruction, very desirous to protect himself from the repetition of a similar mode of attack. He did not, therefore, complain because the Government had taken a somewhat circuitous course of bringing the subject of Parliamentary Reform under the consideration of the House. He did not think he should be permitted by the rules of debate to examine in any detail the course the Government proposed to pursue; because he would not be allowed to examine the Resolutions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the purpose of seeing whether they were intricate, complex, or difficult to deal with, or whether, in point of fact, they were likely to embarrass the House in its proceedings, rather than to elucidate the subject which they had to discuss. Still less should he be allowed to refer to those Resolutions for the purpose of asking how far they were consistent with all that was urged during the last Session of Parliament against the proceedings of the late Government, in not disclosing fully, completely, and at once, their entire scheme with regard to Reform. He thought it unnecessary to allude further to these points; because since the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer first brought this subject under the consideration of the House, he had made an announcement of the utmost importance, and one that, regarded from that (the Opposition) side of the House, must naturally affect any course that they might otherwise have been inclined to pursue. The subject had been presented to them in an entirely new light by the announcement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Government would be at once prepared to lay before the House a Bill which would explain and develop the Resolutions that had been laid upon the table. They were now no longer under the impression, as it were, that the Government were groping in the dark—that they were going into Committee for the purpose of finding out what the inclinations of the House might be. The Government had now announced that they were prepared to accept the full responsi-
482
bility of placing a Reform Bill on the table of the House. [An hon. MEMBER: No!] His hon. Friend behind him said "No;" but he understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer to have made a statement substantially to the effect that the Government were prepared to accept the full and undivided responsibility of laying a Bill on the table of the House that would fully explain and develop the general propositions contained in their Resolutions. If that was so, he was entitled to ask what necessity there really was for any preliminary proceedings such as had been proposed? What ground had the Government now to fear that they would be met on this occasion by courses such as those to which he had referred? It was true that many hon. Members on that side of the House took part in the proceedings of 1859; but he thought they ought not to forget that they were now led by a right hon. Gentleman who took no part in those proceedings, or in the anterior proceedings to which he had adverted. As far as they could judge—as far as they had the right to form an opinion from everything the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) had said, not only when he was sitting on the Ministerial Bench, but also since he sat on the Opposition side of the House—the right hon. Gentleman had no great respect for those precedents, and had little desire to imitate them, and was rather of the opinion that what then happened had not been much for the interests of the country. The question then arose, who were the persons who were likely to obstruct the progress of the Government with their Bill? Who was prepared to repeat the tactics the use of which in 1859 had since been so frequently condemned? He confessed he was quite at a loss to know. No doubt some hon. Members on his own side of the House had expressed the strongest objection to any reduction of the franchise at all; but their numbers were comparatively few, and however powerful they might be in debate, they certainly could exercise no very great influence on the division list. Well, what other ground was there for anticipating that the Government would be obstructed in their endeavours to carry a measure of Reform? It was true there were also some hon. Gentlemen—but their numbers were still fewer than those whom he had before referred to—who thought that upon some grounds of political philosophy and morality a Conservative Government ought not to be allowed

483
to bring in a Reform Bill at all. He did not think, however, that this opinion had been so far recognised as to be a source of danger or distrust to the Government, In the present day, when the doctrine of development was so fashionable, he could see no reason why a Conservative Government should not develop a Reform Rill as well as any other party in the State. What cause of difficulty then remained. Where was the real necessity for the circuitous method proposed by the Government? He was unable to find them. He was bound to say that he had heard expressed by hon. Members on his side of the House such disinterested views—he thought he might say, without flattery, such patriotic views—on this subject—such an entire disregard of all the pretensions that they might have made as belonging to a great, and perhaps he might say an ascendant party in the State, that he entertained a deep conviction that there was an anxious desire—on the part of many of them at any rate—to assist in every way the progress of the Bill, so that they might have at the earliest period a legitimate and proper opportunity of expressing the opinions that would arise in the solution of this great question. Well, then, he said that, looking also to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire (Mr. Gladstone), in withdrawing the Reform Bill last Session, and looking also to what the right hon. Gentleman had said in the present Session, he was justified in believing that the right hon. Gentleman would be ready to lend his assistance to the Government in a frank and loyal spirit, and so to enable the House to legislate successfully on this subject without further delay. If he had taken a right view of the subject, he wanted to know why the Government should pursue a career which was pregnant with the greatest embarrassment, difficulty, and perplexity to the House? It would be much better if they could accomplish that which was avowed to be the real object and purpose of the Government without this embarrassment and perplexity; and he thought that it would tend not only to the honour of the Government, but to the honour also of the entire House, if they at once adopted the more usual and more suitable course of proceeding to legislate on this subject by Bill. No doubt, as the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House had said that night, the Government were entitled to prescribe the course they thought it right to adopt;
484
nor did it in any way derogate from their views on this subject when he asked them to alter their present course and prescribe a different one, provided they had sufficient assurance that that course would not result in embarrassment and perplexity. It was the province of the right hon. Gentleman to lay down to the House the mode in which the House should proceed with the consideration of any great measure. He occupied a position which required him to take the initiative and to act for the Government. On the other hand, the Leader of the Opposition could take no course until the Government had completely developed their views on the subject. As he hoped that any overture on the part of the Government would be met on that (the Opposition) side of the House in the most frank and liberal manner, he thought the right hon. Gentleman would do well to indicate his disposition to waive the preliminary proceedings of the Government if he had that satisfaction accorded to him in return. He therefore pressed upon the right hon. Gentleman the Question of which he had given notice, and was sure the Government would sacrifice nothing of its importance or dignity by acceding to that request; and if they could dispense with long debates on the abstract question, and on hypothetical grounds, and get to the investigation of the measure itself, it would tend not only to maintain the reputation of the Government, but what was still more important, the reputation and honour of the House, and the just influence which it ought to exercise over the minds of the people of this country. The hon. and learned Member then repeated his Question.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I am quite willing to accept the assurance of the hon. Gentleman that his observations are made in no unfriendly spirit to the Government, and in a similar spirit I respond to them. I can assure him that he has mistaken the character of the Administration if he fancies they have formed an erroneous or exaggerated idea of their own importance. They ore only anxious to use such influence as they possess to favour the advancement of good legislation in this House, and if possible the settlement of the important question which has so much occupied the attention of the Parliament and the country. I must say, with great respect to the hon. Gentleman, that I cannot think we have erred in the course we have adopted. In taking

485
that course we have been guided by a strict adherence to Parliamentary precedent and practice, not from any superstitious veneration for them, but because we know that our precedents embalm the wisdom and reflect the practical sagacity of former generations. We thought it absolutely necessary to have recourse to procedure by way of Resolution; and when I addressed the House a week ago, if I had confined myself to arguments in favour of that procedure, and had given the main reasons which had induced the Government to adopt that course, I should have been strictly in order, and nothing more would have been required of me. But representations were made to me by hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House to the effect that it was desirable that the general character of the Resolutions should be known, and that the House should understand whether the Resolutions expressed general principles or went into great detail. Therefore, I wished frankly to explain to the House that the Resolutions expressed principles, and I took the opportunity of vindicating in some degree the course pursued. I think it impossible to bring forward Resolutions as the basis of legislation, especially on a subject so vast ns that of the representation of the people in Parliament, except in the way of expressing principles, and I cannot see we have any cause to regret the course we have pursued. From all that has happened since, I have reason to believe that the prospect of legislation on this subject has been advanced and facilitated, and nothing has been said or done by the Government, notwithstanding the criticisms offered here and elsewhere, which the Government have cause to regret or wish to see altered. Therefore, I hope that they may be allowed to pursue the course they have selected to follow. They would not pursue that course if they believed it would lead to delay. On the contrary, I am convinced that, with that candid reception on the part of the House on which we now rely, the course adopted by the Government is one calculated to facilitate the ultimate settlement of the matters in question. The Resolutions are on the table of the House. It would be irregular to enter now into a discussion of their character—as the hon. Gentleman has studiously refrained from discussing them, I think I ought also to refrain from doing so; but this I may say, that the Resolutions express principles, and the Government will put the House in possession of the applica-
486
tion of the principles expressed in the Resolutions which they recommend. It is possible, in the situation in which the Question is now placed, that in adopting these principles the House may think proper to apply them in a manner different from that proposed by the Government; but, at the same time, it would be most unwise in the Government to lose the advantage of the discussion which would arise on the Resolutions, and we believe that, without occasioning delay, the passing of them by the House will greatly facilitate the progress of the measure we shall have to introduce. I trust that the House, considering the difficulty of managing this question, will put a charitable construction on the motives of Ministers, and not believe that they have had recourse to the procedure they have selected in order merely to amuse the House for a time, with a view to the ultimate postponement or procrastination of the subject. They have resolved to use their utmost energy in forwarding the settlement of the question; they have put their hands to the plough, and they will not desist from the work unless arrested in their labours by the House, or until the field is tilled.
MR. GLADSTONE: I am prepared to bestow that charitable construction on the motives of the Government for which the right hon. Gentleman has made an appeal; and I think that the best mode of doing so is to avoid all imputation or reference of whatever kind with respect to the motives of the Government. We are here embarked in a common cause. I am bound, however, to say I think my hon. Friend (Mr. Ayrton), who received just credit from the right hon. Gentleman for the spirit of his observations, was so far justified in the course he has taken, inasmuch as he endeavoured to give expression to the feeling generally entertained in the House that we are placed in a position of considerable embarrassment. As I understand the case, there are in the country and in the House various currents of feeling with respect to the subject of Parliamentary Reform. Some of these currents are in opposite directions, and tend to neutralize one another. Some are desirous of extensive enfranchisement, others fearful of its consequences. They are opposed to each other; but I venture to say there is one powerful and prevailing feeling which, I think, pervades nearly the whole community united, and which likewise is reflected faithfully and generally within these walls, without reference to political

487
opinion, and that is a strong and earnest—I might venture to say an absorbing and overpowering—desire that we should now, within the limits of this present Session, arrive at length at a legislative settlement of this question. There being that desire in the House and the country, it follows that what we wish for includes this important point likewise, that the question should be settled if possible by those who are now in power. It is wholly out of the ability and capacity of any one set of men to conduct the deliberations of this House to a real and satisfactory issue with respect to the representation of the people unless they be the responsible Advisers of the Crown. We have before us a Government, and as far as I am individually concerned, I have expressed my perfect willingness and earnest desire—and I believe that in so doing I have expressed the sentiments of many others on this side—to co-operate with the present Government for an effectual and, above all, an early settlement of this question. What we are anxious for is that the Government should avail themselves of this favourable state of feeling, and take all steps to conduct to a practical effect this disposition so generally prevailing in the House. The Government have presented Resolutions on the subject of Reform, and I, for one, have stated a perfect willingness—suppressing, I am bound to say, my own strong opinion that such was not an expedient course—to accede to the mode adopted by the Government, and to take no objection on general grounds to the course of proceeding by Resolution. But the right hon. Gentleman will be aware that we listened with much anxiety and with careful attention to the justification which he, as the organ of the Government, made for the mode of procedure which he had proposed for our adoption. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave a special reason for that course, stating in effect—for I do not pretend to quote his words—that had the Government submitted their intentions with respect to Reform in the shape of a Bill, they might have been met, as on a former occasion, by the invidious selection of some one point from among the provisions, and thereby their general and comprehensive scheme might have been by no very legitimate process got rid of in this House. My hon. Friend (Mr. Ayrton) has endeavoured to convey to the Government the assurance that there was not the smallest probability of such a proceeding; and after what has
488
fallen from the right hon. Gentleman as well as from my hon. Friend, I cannot help expressing my strong belief in conformity with his. Sir, of course it would be presumptuous in me were I to undertake to bind any Gentleman in this House, far less any body of the Members of this House, by the expression of an opinion of my own beyond the limits to which my personal communications, may have extended; but, at the same time, the circumstances of this case are so clear, and they have assumed a character so historical, that I can hardly think they leave a doubt on the mind of the Government or the right hon. Gentleman for the apprehension he has expressed, and which he has stated led him to the conclusion he has announced. The right hon. Gentleman adverted on a former evening in terms of disparagement and censure to the proceedings of 1859. I am not bound to defend those proceedings further than to say I do not think they merited the kind of censure bestowed upon them. That, however, is immaterial, except so far as to guard me as to what I have further to say. The proceedings of 1859, whether prudent or not, would in my opinion have been perfectly justifiable, had they been taken by a Parliament that had its heart and its mind earnestly set on legislating for the purpose of Parliamentary Reform. But now, with the light that experience affords, it is impossible to regard the proceedings of 1859 without including in our review the proceedings of 1860; and taking the operations of these two years as one operation—taking the strong and decisive measure adopted in 1859 together with the lame and unsatisfactory completion of it in 1860—I am certain I cannot misrepresent either the public sentiment, or the general sentiment of this. House, or the sentiment of the powerful party that occupies these Benches, when I say that these proceedings cannot be repeated. Therefore, the reasons assigned by the right hon. Gentleman for the course he has adopted have disappeared; and undoubtedly it would have been to me a matter of great gratification had the right hon. Gentleman been disposed to accede to the suggestion offered to him in no unfriendly manner by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets. From what he has stated, I fear he is not disposed to accede to that suggestion. For my part, whatever my regret and concern may be, I do not withdraw from any assurance I have ventured to give. I do not refuse, for one,

489
to entertain the method of procedure by Resolution; but I must observe, that at the present moment we are placed in a peculiar position, especially with reference to a particular point. We are greatly desirous of prompt proceeding, and another request was addressed to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer of a much more limited character than that which proceeded from my hon. Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets; it was that we might be favoured upon the earliest day—upon a day earlier than Monday next—with those additional explanations to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred, and which he calls the explanations of the Government Resolutions which are due to the House. Sir, I will not so far bring into question the Orders of this House as to make a single observation on the character of the Resolutions themselves—as to their being general or precise, as to their being declarations of principle or of practice—what they may or may not be; but this I must observe, that upon the comparatively narrow point raised by the request I have just referred to we are in a position, so far as I know, without precedent. On Monday last the right hon. Gentleman gave us an explanation of the Resolutions. The right hon. Gentleman most properly recognised the Parliamentary rule that a measure of such a character cannot be advantageously considered by the House immediately after the statement of its principles by the Minister of the Crown. He proceeded in the same manner as does every Chancellor of the Exchequer upon the somewhat analogous question of the Financial Statement of the year. He submits the Financial Statement, but he never asks the assent of the House to that statement until a future day; or if for financial reasons the affirmation is asked of any particular proposition, it is always considered a mere formal affirmation, and its merits remain open to further consideration. That principle is well established. We thought we had received the statement of the right hon. Gentleman as to the propositions of the Government on Monday last, and we thought we should be in a position on the 25th to proceed with their discussion; but we find now—not to-day only, but on a previous occasion, on Friday—that we have not yet the full explanation of the right hon. Gentleman. We are in possession of one moiety of that explanation, and the other moiety of the explanation
490
is to be delivered on the very day on which we are to be invited to consider the Resolutions. Therefore, Sir, it appears to me that it was with consistency and propriety that my hon. Friend the Member fur Leeds (Mr. Baines) suggested that, as time is admitted to be of such value in this matter, and as the principle is recognised that the Ministerial explanations of a plan or proposition of this kind ought to be in the possession of the House before Members are called on to vote upon it, the right hon. Gentleman would at least have been disposed to accede to that limited and moderate demand, and afford his explanations on an earlier day than Monday next. These explanations, it is quite evident, must be very important explanations. So far as I know, it is very rare—indeed, I do not recollect any example of a Minister in submitting Resolutions that are to be adopted in Committee of the House—to introduce them, not by one, but by two statements of the views of the Government. I am fearful of treading on tender ground, and therefore I confine these remarks simply to matters of fact, patent to us all; but I own I am hardly so sanguine as to believe that it will be possible for the House, after receiving the second statement of the right hon. Gentleman, which must necessarily be a statement in enlargement of the first, and which may possibly be a statement in modification of the first—I do not at the present moment see how the House can be in a position to proceed with advantage to a definitive judgment on the Resolutions on Monday next, unless it be the pleasure of the right hon. Gentleman to save, I think, our time and expedite the progress of business by favouring us at an earlier period with those explanations which, as he says, still remain due to the House. Sir, I feel deeply the responsibility which attaches to us all in the present state of affairs. I hope that I have endeavoured in these remarks to confine myself exclusively and rigidly to what is connected with prompt and effectual progress in dealing with this question. The observation I point out is that I fear a farther delay beyond Monday may have to be encountered, unless the right hon. Gentleman can accede to the proposition of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds; that these delays, if multiplied, will become highly unsatisfactory both to the House and to the country. Having said so much, I leave it to the impartial consideration of

491
the right hon. Gentleman and the Government whether they cannot in some way or other meet the desire—we think not an unreasonable desire—that without any avoidable loss of time whatever we should find ourselves brought to deal practically with the great issues involved in the subject of the Representation of the People.
Motion, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," agreed to.

SUPPLY—SUPPLEMENTARY CIVIL SERVICES 1866–7.

  SUPPLY considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  (1.) £45,721, Purchase of the Blacas Collection of Coins and Antiquities for the British Museum.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, in proposing a Vote for the purchase of this collection, said, the Government were induced during the autumn to take on themselves the responsibility of making the purchase of, I believe, the most celebrated private collection connected with ancient art. That was a stop which, of course, we could only take with great reluctance; but we were compelled to take it by a sense of duty, and I hope we shall have the sanction of the House for the course we have adopted. Sir, this was the purchase of a collection which had been formed by the Dukes de Blacas during the present and the latter part of the last century. Of it it may be said that everything therein was choice, much was rare, and some things were unique. The attention of the Trustees of the British Museum was drawn to the circumstance that at the end of the autumn, by the law of inheritance that prevails in France, this great collection would probably be in the market. There was a particular reason why the attention of the Trustees of the British Museum—irrespective of their anxiety, when such opportunities are offered, to secure for the country specimens of art of a very choice or rare character—was attracted to the Blacas Collection. In our national collection of ancient art, which, on the whole, may be described as unrivalled, there is one great deficiency. It possesses no collection of ancient gems of any reputation. Now, the most rare and valuable portion of the Blacas Collection consists in a number of gems unrivalled in any private collection in Europe, that of Blenheim alone excepted. It was therefore of great consequence that these
  492
  gems should be obtained for our Museum. One great reason why that consequence was so urgent was that no such opportunity would probably ever occur again, and, most certainly, not in this century. All the celebrated gems of antiquity are now well known, and most of them form part of Royal or Imperial collections. It is at St. Petersburg, Berlin, Vienna, and Paris, that the most valuable of these antique gems are to be found; while England, notwithstanding the celebrity of her British Museum, was almost entirely deficient in specimens of these works, which are among the most exquisite and rarest works of ancient art. It was obvious, from all intelligence that reached us upon the subject, that the Blacas Collection would be purchased by some foreign State, should we fail to secure it for ourselves; and, indeed, we were aware that the Emperor of the French had already appointed a committee to examine these treasures in order that they might be obtained for the French nation. There was, of course, considerable hesitation on the part of the Trustees of the British Museum—a hesitation which was naturally shared by Her Majesty's Government—as to the purchase of the whole of this collection. Had not this collection been purchased by some State, it would in the ordinary course of things have been brought to public auction, and it might have been sold under the same conditions as were two well-known collections of late years. In that case the British Museum would have sent an envoy thoroughly acquainted with the subject to the sale, with authority to expend a certain sum in making purchases for the Museum. It was accordingly contemplated that Mr. Newton, who is a gentleman most distinguised in this peculiar class of knowledge, should be directed to attend the sale, in order to purchase the most beautiful portions of the collection for this nation. The Government, however, found that if Mr. Newton were sent to attend the public sale we should have been called upon to give him a credit to the extent of at least £30,000; and it became us to consider whether it would not be wiser, instead of spending this large sum upon particular objects and portions of the collection, by a further expenditure to secure the whole. Mr. Newton went over to France, and examined the whole collection with a knowledge and a taste upon which we have thorough dependence; and he having made his report to the Government, we had reason to be-

  493
  lieve that it would be of the greatest advantage and benefit to this country, as well as for its honour, that it should acquire those treasures. Under these circumstances, we had to consider whether we should authorize Mr. Newton to purchase the whole collection. I will not venture—and perhaps it might be imprudent—to mention the amount that Mr. Newton was authorised by Government to offer; but I may say that that gentleman, acting under our instructions, made an offer of £45,000 for the purchase of the whole collection. That offer was refused; but I am glad to say that in the course of twenty-four hours after it was made the purchase was concluded on behalf of the country for £48,000. We have, however, reserved to ourselves the right of selling those portions of the collection, of which the British Museum possesses admirable duplicate specimens, and by this means we reduce the total sum paid by £2,221. The whole sum, therefore, that appears in the Estimates which I am now going to move, as having been expended upon the purchase of the Blacas Collection, is £45,721. I will now detail to the House with brevity the principal objects which we have obtained by this purchase. In the first place, we have gained one of the finest collections—probably the finest private collection—of gems in the world. It comprises 900 specimens, many of which are of the most exquisite description. These are now added to the British Museum, which before possessed but few works of art of this description and scarcely any of great importance. The British Museum also, which until the time of this purchase may be said to have been without a single cameo, now possesses the finest in the world—namely, that of the head of the Emperor Augustus, a cameo which has a European reputation, and which was purchased among others by the Duke dc Blacas from the unrivalled Strozzi Collection, the beauties of which have been made known to the world by the most celebrated engravers. Hon. Gentlemen are, doubtless, aware that it is a most hazardous experiment to purchase gems whose history is not well known, and therefore the value attached to a well-authenticated gem is very considerable. Besides these magnificent gems we have obtained some of the finest Roman coins that, in all probability, were ever comprised in an individual collection. It so happens that the British Museum, although deficient in gems, is pecu-
  494
  liarly rich in Roman coins; but some rare examples were wanting, and these the Blacas Collection will supply:—moreover, we have secured by the purchase several very rare and some unique specimens, and we may now say that our national collection of Roman coins and medals is the finest in the world. Besides those gems, coins, and medals, we have secured a very numerous and particularly rare collection of fictile vases. In these latter works of art the British Museum was already rich, and especially with relation to the early Greek period; but it was deficient with regard to the later period, when art flourished in its greatest luxuriance in Magna Græcia, and we have now been enabled to add 500 specimens of this latter age to our collection. I should perhaps not trouble the Committee further than to touch upon these three great divisions of gems, coins, and vases contained in the collection, which give an idea of its riches, but, by no means, the whole of its treasures. It contains one magnificent perfect specimen of sculpture in the head of Æsculapius of the period of Praxiteles and Lysippus, the very highest age of Grecian art, which will rank among the finest specimens of that great school. It might, perhaps, not be uninteresting to the Committee were I to point out one article in the collection which is so unique that there is nothing in Rome itself that approaches it. It was discovered in the Esquiline Mount in Rome in 1793. It is a copper casket of considerable size ornamented with silver, and holds the entire toilette service in solid silver of a Roman lady—the whole being in a perfect state—and thus giving us a very curious illustration, not only of the manners, but also of the art of chasing of that period. There are many other heads under which this great and rare collection might be divided. It would, however, be impertinent in me on an occasion like this to trouble the Committee further; but I believe from all that has reached me that this purchase has been made under fortunate circumstances, and that this country has acquired this celebrated collection upon terms which it never will regret. I may add that more than one State in Europe has been greatly disappointed at its being secured for the national collection of England. I trust that the Committee will allow me to move that the sum of £45,721 be voted for the purpose of defraying the coat of purchasing this collection, and that they will sanction the

  495
  expenditure which the Government admit to be exceptional, but which, under the circumstances, they felt it to be their duty to incur.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Had the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman required a Seconder, I should readily have undertaken that office. I do not mean to say that I have the knowledge or the experience in this particular matter which would in any way enable me to judge as to the precise relation between the value of the collection and the sum paid for it; but, having no reason to doubt that the right hon. Gentleman has well examined that question, I have not the slightest reason to believe that the state of the case is other than he has represented it to be. The right hon. Gentleman is himself aware that it would have been far more desirable had that course been possible for him to have submitted this Estimate in the regular course to this House previously to the purchase of this collection. He admits that he has undertaken a special responsibility in authorizing the expenditure of so large a sum without the sanction of Parliament. I wish, therefore, to release him from that responsibility as far as an individual Member of this House can do so. We have certainly arrived at a time when it becomes a very serious question whether we should grudge a sum of money for the purchase of rare articles such as those contained in this collection at a price not in excess of that which usage warrants. Now, I own that I do not see how the wealth of the country can be beneficially employed if not in the acquisition of treasures of this nature, which are themselves not only a perpetual and unfailing source of delight to multitudes of cultivated persons, but which are likewise a most powerful instrument of practical education for the people. If any Gentleman sit within these walls who yet require to be convinced, or, I will presume to Bay, enlightened, on that subject, I would humbly take the liberty to refer them to the masterly address delivered within the last fortnight by a Member of this House (Mr. Stuart Mill) to the students of the University of St. Andrew. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster on this public occasion for the singular felicity and power with which he has illustrated, with the weight of his own great authority, this practical and most important subject. There is one point on which I have a few words to say—namely, in regard to the
  496
  question of Supplemental Estimates; but I do not like to mix that up in the present Vote, because it is a point which stands on its own ground, and therefore I will reserve it till we come to the next Vote. For the present, taking it, it is true, on trust to a great extent, but fully believing that the right hon. Gentleman has been quite justified in the course he has taken, I sincerely congratulate him on having been the means of obtaining for the country this most valuable acquisition.
  MR. GREGORYthought that few persons would censure the Vote now proposed, for the press, as well as every person who had spoken to him on the subject, had with one accord approved most heartily of the course pursued by Her Majesty's Government. Indeed, if we were to have a great collection and to spend large sums of money on works of art, nothing could be so injudicious as to lose, for the sake of a few hundred pounds, opportunities which might never again present themselves. In the course of his experience in the House of Commons he had never known any serious objection made to any special Vote like the present. Private individuals abroad had great wealth, and they knew what rivalry there was on the Continent among Emperors and Kings to secure these treasures of art, so that the obtaining of these works of art was a very difficult task. Therefore, a rich country like England ought not to scruple to purchase a great collection like this when it came into the market. He wished, however, to make one other observation. Could anything be more hopeless or lamentable than the condition of the British Museum? The greater portion of the works of art in the collection which formed the subject of this Vote would, he feared, be stored up, so that the public generally would not have a chance of seeing them. This would be owing to the want of proper accommodation, and he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would, as soon as he was relieved from the present pressure of politics, propose to the House some scheme for the better arrangement of the British Museum, so as to make its treasures available to the public. He, for one, would do all that lay in his power to assist the right hon. Gentleman in carrying out that object; because he felt that the vacillation, the want of system which prevailed in regard to that great national establishment rendered it a reproach to the country.
  Vote agreed to.
  (2.) £165,309, Royal Palaces.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, it would be convenient if he took that opportunity of calling the attention of the House and that of his hon. Friend opposite to the construction of this Estimate, which he believed was almost without precedent. He did not think that hitherto it had been the custom of the House to vote at the commencement of a Session sums similar to that proposed in this Vote, in aid of Votes made in the early part of the financial year—at all events, it had not been the custom for the last few years. He had referred especially to the Estimates of last year to see under what circumstances the Supplementary Estimates had then been asked for, and he found that no Supplementary Vote had been taken on account of the Civil Estimate's for the then current year, but that certain excesses on the Votes of the previous year, 1864–5, had been provided for. This was necessary, because till that time the previous practice in voting the Civil Service Estimates had been different from that which was observed in voting the Army and Navy Estimates; for, whereas the latter Estimates were given in respect of sums which came in course of payment during the year, the Civil Service Estimates were merely in respect of sums required for the service of the year. Two years ago that practice was altered, and it became necessary to wind up the old accounts. Consequently, last year, the Treasury brought in a Supplementary Estimate, not for the service of the year 1865–6, but for the service of the year 1864–5, so that the balances of certain accounts for the year 1864–5 might be closed. The Government then proposed the Estimates for 1866–7—the current year—and in them such provision as was necessary was introduced to make good anticipated deficiencies on the payments for the expiring year 1865–6. It was not usual at the commencement of a Session to vote any excesses on the existing year. All that it was usual to do was to vote any actually ascertained excesses in the Estimates of the preceding year, and to include in the Estimates of the following year any sums which it was thought would be required to make good advances for the current year out of the Civil Contingencies. The sum required last year was rather excessive, because of the change in the method, and he thought the Supplementary Estimates were between £200,000 and £300,000. That Vote passed without
  498
  any objection being made. This year a new process had been introduced by his hon. Friend, who proposed that the House should vote in February certain sums for certain excesses anticipated on the Votes, not of the past, but of the current year. Indeed, it was proposed that excesses on individual items should be voted. The paper did not tell the House merely that the Vote No. 1, or No. 2, or No. 3 would be exceeded, but that certain items in those Votes would be exceeded; and his hon. Friend asked them to include all these individual items of excess in a fresh Estimate, to be accumulated upon the Estimates for the current year. He thought his hon. Friend ought to explain to the House why he had adopted this novel course, which might be attended with inconvenient results. If the House did not know whether the aggregate Vote was in excess, they might, perhaps, vote an additional sum, after all not really required, but which would tend to disturb the calculations on which the total expenditure of the Civil Services had always been based. Thus money would be unnecessarily placed at the disposal of Government which might be applied to other parts of the Vote, not mentioned on the face of the Supplementary Estimate. Besides, the tendency of trusting to a Supplementary Estimate on an ensuing Session would be to induce laxity in dealing with the original Estimate. As the Government was introducing a new practice, they ought to give good reasons for doing so before it was endorsed by Parliament. It had of course been anticipated that it would be necessary to supplement some Votes, and also to meet claims which had not been provided for; but this possibility was expressly contemplated by the Civil Contingencies Fund, the capital of which was £130,000. If the Government, instead of falling back upon this fund, was at the beginning of a Session to recoup itself by a Supplemental Estimate, it would be necessary for Parliament to consider whether the Civil Contingencies Fund was not too large for Government to have it at its disposal.
  MR. HUNTsaid, that the sums which were provided for in this Supplementary Estimate would, no doubt, under ordinary circumstances, have been paid out of the Civil Contingencies Fund; but it must be remembered that quite a new system of audit had been introduced, and it was therefore thought better, in this transition

  499
  period, to clear the account entirely of I sums that might have been recouped from the Civil Contingencies Fund, so that a fair start could be made with the now system. It was on that account that the Estimates were proposed in this form, and the explanation, he hoped, would be satisfactory. The first item in the Estimates was the re-voting of a portion of n sum of £1,780, which was included in the Estimates for 1864–5,and the item was therefore placed in the Estimates in accordance with the usual practice.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he was glad to learn, from the statement which had just been made by the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, that that Vote had been submitted to them under peculiar circumstances, and that it was not to be repeated. He would not take upon himself to decide upon the sufficiency of the reason assigned by the hon. Gentleman for the adoption in that instance of so exceptional a course, and he felt that it was the less necessary he should make such an attempt, inasmuch as the matter was not one of any great importance. But he confessed that he felt strongly in reference to the general question of Supplementary Estimates. He was persuaded that if any party or any Government wished to undermine the Constitution of this country, and the control of Parliament over the public finances, they could adopt no more effectual method for the attainment of that object than the presentation of Supplemental Estimates, which would necessarily prevent the House from exercising any real check over the national expenditure. The power of Parliament depended on its permitting no deviation from the principle of one Estimate of expenditure and one Estimate of revenue, except under very grave and exceptional circumstances. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury seemed by his cheers to assent to that enunciation of opinion, and he (Mr. Gladstone) thought that it would, therefore, be unnecessary for him to state the grounds on which he had been led to that conclusion; but he should repeat that he regarded that question of Supplementary Estimates as one which deserved the anxious and vigilant consideration of Parliament.
  MR. GILPINdid not know that he should object individually to these Votes; but he did object to the Committee being called upon to vote upon all sorts of questions in a way that he never before,
  500
  during his Parliamentary experience, recollected them to have been. He did not think they should be called upon to vote £165,000 in that offhand way. He thought it was due to the House that they should have an opportunity of discussing these Votes in detail. He trusted that the course now taken would not form a precedent for the future.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, he could not conceive why many of those items of expenditure, such, for instance, as the charge for the Royal Parks, should not have been foreseen; and the fact that those Supplemental Estimates were brought forward must, in his opinion, be held to be discreditable to the sagacity of the heads of the different Departments.
  LORD ROBERT MONTAGUwished that the Secretary to the Treasury would explain his former explanation. It was not enough to say that the matter should not be drawn into a precedent, for that would not prevent it. A method of proceeding had been established by the House for such cases. A Civil Contingency Fund had been instituted; it was that fund which should have been drawn upon for the expenses in question, and then a sum would be voted in 1867–8 to make up the deficiency.
  MR. WYLDsaid, there were two points on which he was anxious to receive any information which the Government could supply. He wished, in the first place, to know whether it was the intention of the Government to entrust the execution of the new National Gallery to the architect who might be held to have produced the best design? He further desired to be informed whether intelligence has been received from Mr. Rassam to the effect that the Emperor of Abyssinia regards this as a political question, and will not release the prisoners unless he receives diplomatic communications from the Government?
  MR. E. C. EGERTON, in reply to the last Question, said, that no intelligence had been received by the Government with respect to Mr. Rassam and the Abyssinian captives since the 12th of December; and he regretted to have to add that, according to that account, they were still in chains, although they were in good health and in good spirits as regarded their future prospects. The third item of £4,500 was for the expense of a body of artisans who had been sent out, and who were furnished with an autograph letter from the Queen. They had been

  501
  unable to reach the Emperor Theodore, in consequence of a rebellion in his dominions. They were therefore still at Aden, and Colonel Merewether had instructed them to remain there until the captives had been released.
  MR. OSBORNEsaid, he looked upon that Vote as a sort of olla podrida such as he had never before seen brought before Parliament; and many of the items seemed to him to require explanation. There was, for instance, a sum of £1,575 to be paid to Messrs. Banks and Barry for a design which they had been commissioned to make of a National Gallery on the site of Burlington House. He was quite aware that the noble Lord opposite was in no respect responsible for that sum. He would like to see the late First Commissioner in the House to explain why Messrs. Banks and Barry were originally to receive £5,000 for preparing designs for which that House had never given any authority. He was also struck by a Vote of £3,372 for the railing at Hyde Park; but he supposed that was the cost of the meeting which it was proposed should be held in the Park last summer. Then there was a sum of £1,300 for the expenses of the marriage of the Princess Helena, and immediately after that a sum of £65,000 for the cattle plague. Another item, which he saw with surprise and disapprobation, was an additional payment of £600 to be made to Mr. Cope for repairing the frescoes in the Houses of Parliament. He had always resisted the abominable uses to which the walls of these Houses had been put with respect to frescoes. The frescoes were dropping off the walls for shame. Had Parliament ever given its sanction to such additional remuneration? They were told that the Fine Arts Commission recommended that this sum should be given for the follies perpetrated on these walls. So long as the House of Commons consented so long would the Fine Arts Commission go on indulging their taste, and then call on the House to pay. If he could get any hon. Gentlemen, beside the leader of the forlorn hope, his hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen (Colonel Sykes), if he could get any respectable body of men, even thirteen, the number of the Reform Resolutions, he would go to a division.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, that the Burlington House design for the National Gallery had been prepared in 1859 when his predecessor was in office. When Messrs.
  502
  Banks and Barry sent in their bill it was for a sum of £5,007; but they consented to reduce the amount very largely, on condition that they should be appointed architects for the new buildings on the same site. What had in reality been done was this—the country had been saved £3,000 by the Vote which the Committee was now asked to sanction. He was not responsible for the plan of 1859. The hon. Gentleman opposite had very naturally alluded to the cost of the riot in Hyde Park; but he (Lord John Manners) could not help being a little amused at the suggestion of the hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeen, who seemed to be of opinion that it was the business of the Government to be prepared for everything beforehand, and that therefore it was the duty of the Department charged with the superintendence of the Royal Parks to have foreseen every charge that might arise in the course of the financial year. He did not think that his predecessor was fairly chargeable with having made no provision for this exceptional case. The money had been expended in replacing in a temporary manner the railings pulled down. It was perfectly obvious that it was a proper charge, and it was impossible to make any provision for it at the time. With respect to the frescoes in the Houses of Parliament, he (Lord John Manners) had to observe that the hon. Member for Nottingham was mistaken in supposing that they were repaired by Mr. Cope under the authority of the Fine Arts Commission. The fact was that that Commission had been abolished some time since; but in consequence of some remarks made in that House a year or two ago, a Commission had been appointed to inquire into the claims of certain artists who had been engaged in executing the frescoes; and it was in conformity with the Report of that Commission that it was proposed to pay to Mr. Cope that additional sum of £600.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, his hon. Friend (Mr. Hunt) had not explained the first item of £212 for Royal Palaces. There was a distinct item in the original Vote for 1866–7 for the repairs of the Royal Palace of Windsor; and if it had been found the sum was not sufficient this year the difference might, with the consent of the Treasury, have been made up out of the other items of the same Vote. It is nowhere stated that the total Vote will be insufficient. While addressing the House, he wished to ask a question with regard to

  503
  the enormous Vote of £50,000 proposed for the French Exhibition. The year before last a small Vote—£5,000, he believed—was taken for this purpose, of which only £800 was spent. Last year £12,000 was voted for the service of the present year, and the Treasury was informed at the time that the sum would be sufficient for the expenditure connected with the French Exhibition in 1866–7. The entire Vote for the former Exhibition was £50,000, and of this only £41,000 was spent; but the Secretary of the Treasury now proposed to spend up to the end of March next not less than £62,000, even before the Exhibition was opened. It might be that the requirements of the French Government had necessitated so large an expenditure; but in the absence of any explanation it appeared monstrous. He also wanted to know whether the Royal Commissioners, who had the management of everything relating to the English exhibitors, had anticipated this expenditure; and, if so, when they had brought it under the notice of Her Majesty's Government and of the Treasury? If they had not anticipated it, the House had a right to ask what precautions they took in their arrangements with the French authorities as to the sum we were to be liable for. He need hardly remark that a considerable additional sum would probably be required for the following year. He hoped that those Members of the Government who were upon the Commission would show that proper precautions had been taken against what he feared would end in enormous expenditure.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEwished it to be understood that the great body of the Royal Commissioners had no control over the expenditure which had been incurred, a cut-and-dried schedule being merely submitted to them by the Executive when they met. No one was more astonished than himself at so enormous an outlay.
  MR. HUNTsaid, that when the recent change of Government took place Her Majesty's present Advisers were astonished to hear of the large sum of money that would be required for the French Exhibition. The Government directed their immediate attention to the matter, and made every effort to keep the expenses in check, but they were told that a great part of the money to be asked for was already incurred; that under arrangements made with the Commissioners contracts had been entered into for the execution of certain
  504
  works, and that it was, consequently, impossible seriously to reduce the expenditure. With the view of giving some explanation of why so large a sum was required, he must state some figures on the authority of a paper issued by the Science and Art Department. The space occupied by the United Kingdom and the colonies in the Exhibition of 1855 was 183,000 square feet, and in 1867 it was 360,000. In 1855 the sum voted by Parliament was £50,000, of which only £40,000 was expended, or something like 4s. 6d. per square foot. Under precisely similar circumstances that would make the expenditure for the present Exhibition upwards of £80,000. In 1855 the expense of flooring, decorations, counters, blinds, and other fittings, and nearly the whole staff for cleaning, arranging, and watching, were paid by the French authorities. This year all these things, with the exception of the flooring, blinds, and Fine Art decorations, had to be provided by this country; besides that, additional expense had to be incurred for the erection of supplemental buildings in the park, for agricultural and horticultural exhibitions, for machinery, &c. In 1855, the War Department, the Admiralty, the Trinity House, the Post Office, the Treasury, and the Science and Art Department were but slightly, if at all represented; in 1867 they would all be fully represented. The total Estimate of the Paris Exhibition was £116,650, which included the whole of the money expended during the last three years. He believed that nearly the whole of the sum now asked for would be spent before the close of the financial year; and a part of it was already due. As he had explained, contracts had been entered into before the accession to office of the present Government, and virtually the matter connected with this expenditure had been beyond their control.
  MR. CHILDERSasked whether the late Government had authorized any portion of the expenditure?
  MR. HUNTdid not intend to suggest that they had done so. The expenditure was no more chargeable to the present than to the late Administration. It was a matter for which hardly any responsibility rested upon any Government.
  MR. GLADSTONEput it to the hon. Gentleman whether, under these circumstances, it would not be desirable to lay before the House the Correspondence which had taken place before pressing the Vote.

  505
  By suggesting the adoption of such a course he did not wish to cast the slightest imputation upon the Treasury, or to repudiate any share which the late Government might have had in the transaction. He thought, judging from the feeling of the House, that they should be put in possession of documents to show how this charge of £62,000 had arisen, because it was a thing not to be tolerated that extraneous bodies should dispose of the public money. He was sure the hon. Member the Secretary for the Treasury would not misunderstand him when he asked that the Correspondence upon the subject should be laid upon the table.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, this Vote appeared to him to be a great exhibition of extravagance which it was necessary for the House seriously to consider. He submitted that the mode in which the Vote had been presented was a departure from the proper plan of submitting Votes to the House. He thought it had been clearly understood that no Votes should be submitted upon expenditure for a particular object unless the entire expenditure for the object was submitted to the House, and then the Vote was to be taken upon account. This was a very serious matter. They found that this Exhibition Commission had grown up without any sanction of the House, which was pledged to spend a sum exceeding £100,000. If this had been done at Kensington, it was of some consequence to know that there was at Kensington a fund out of which this could be paid. The expenses of our own Great Exhibition of 1862 could be defrayed without coming to this House, out of the estates ill the hands of the Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851; and it was a curious circumstance that they should now be called upon to pay so much towards the Exhibition at Paris. He was of opinion that to a large extent the expense of exhibiting the productions of this country should be borne by those who were to derive the benefit from the Exhibition. He hoped the House would not allow the Vote to pass without giving it its serious attention, and he trusted, for the reasons that had been advanced, that the hon. Member the Secretary for the Treasury would withdraw the Vote till the Correspondence was produced. He moved that the Vote be postponed.
  MR. CORRYassured the Committee that no one could be more surprised than
  506
  the Lord President and he himself were when they first saw the amount of money that would be required for the British department of the Exhibition. At their first meeting at South Kensington Museum they were informed of the enormous cost which the carrying out of the requirements of the French Government would entail; but the question they had had to consider was whether they should do a very uncivil thing to France by withdrawing altogether from a participation in the Exhibition, or incur the necessary expenditure. The French Government had imposed charges on this and other countries which we did not ask foreign countries to pay on the occasion of our Great Exhibitions; but when they came to a comparison between the forthcoming Universal Exhibition and those which have preceded it—when they saw how much larger was the number of jurors who would be required, and how much greater the extent of space which this country had to fill, the amount did not appear so very large after all. Very heavy charges were thrown on us for a testing-house and other buildings in connection with war implements and working machinery. The engagements in connection with the French Exhibition had been entered into before the present Government came into office; but he and his Colleagues had cut down the expenses as much as possible. He had no objection to give the House every information in his power with respect to details.
  COLONEL SYKESwished to know whether they were to understand that an allowance was to be given to the jurors?
  MR. CORRYreplied that of course an allowance was to be given to jurors, as had been the case on previous occasions. The Committee did not imagine that gentlemen in business would go over to Paris and spend a couple of months there, examining articles, and making awards, and living at their own expense.
  COLONEL SYKEShad served as a juror at a former Exhibition and had not received a penny for his services.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEwished to know whether the foreign jurors had been paid at the Exhibition of 1862, because he had served as an English juror on the occasion and had not been paid?
  MR. CORRYsaid, he was not a Member of the Commission of 1862.
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, the sole question before the Committee was whether

  507
  they were going to vote the money now, or whether they were to wait until the papers were laid before them. His own opinion was the latter course should be followed, so that they might learn upon what items the money was to be expended, and who was responsible for its expenditure.
  MR. WATKINsaid, that the question was whether the Committee would refuse to complete the work which had been commenced, and would intimate to the French that we would not carry out our promise to take part in their Exhibition. No blame for this expenditure rested upon the present Administration. The fault, if fault there was, was with the late Government, who appointed a Commission, the Members of which, not being business men, had, in their anxiety to promote the interests of England, demanded a great allowance of space, and great facilities for the exhibition of articles of English industry, without counting the cost. He should support the Vote.
  MR. OSBORNEobserved, that this was not a question of incivility to the French Government, but one of the responsibility of a large expenditure which Parliament had never voted. The hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Watkin) must not forget, in his desire to promote the Great Exhibition at Paris, that it was his duty, as a representative of the people, to look to the way in which the public money was voted. There was no charge made against the present Government in the matter. Every one knew that they had nothing to do with it. The Vice President of the Privy Council having cut the amount down as much as he could, now took the responsibility of it, He should like very much to know what it was when it first came under the observation of the right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues. This was one of the too frequent instances in which small beginnings grew into large Votes without Parliament knowing anything about what was going on until it was too late to object. The hon. Member for Stockport suggested that the Member for the Potteries and the other Commissioners were not men of business. Now, he suspected that "Science and Art" had stepped in, and that this was another of the South Kensington manœuvres. It was all very well to say, "Don't let us insult the French Government;" but Members of Parliament were bound to look after public money. He hoped the Committee would insist on having the details laid before the House, in
  508
  order that they might be able to fix the responsibility in this affair.
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, the only point was on whom the responsibility was to be fixed. The House was entitled to the details making up the amount of £50,000 before they voted such a lump sum.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I should be very sorry that the question should be bandied about in this Committee as to the responsibility of any body for a proposition of this kind. The persons who are responsible are the Ministers. I myself do not shrink from that responsibility. Whether the late Government or some other persons have suggested the course which have led to these results is immaterial; but there can be no difficulty in deciding who are responsible. The Government would not have sanctioned such a Vote unless they had thought it desirable that it should be granted. When the credit and honour of the country are concerned, I trust it will never be a question as to who are the persons that should undertake responsibility in such a matter. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Goschen) complained that no details of the Vote are given, and with the view of getting rid of the objection I will give the details. They are as follows:—For internal fittings, £16,000; supplementary buildings in the Park, £23,065; ancient and modern art, £11,050; exhibitions of Government departments, £11,490; management, watching, clearing, £14,755; house expenses, £17,190; jurors, £12,000; rating,£8,250; Royal Commissioners, £2,750; total, £116,650. I do not want the Committee to consider, in any course they may take, whether what they are doing will be pleasing or displeasing to the French Government. We ought to perform our duty; and, no doubt, we can do so without doing anything displeasing to the French Government. But I want the Committee to take a largo view of the circumstances—not a petty, personal, or prejudiced one. These great Exhibitions of universal interest are periodical. Expenses such as this have not to be often incurred. There is no doubt, therefore, that when it was determined that England should be represented in this Great Exhibition intended to be held at Paris, those responsible for the management did not consider that it would lead to an expenditure of such magnitude. There can be no doubt about that. But it is a great mistake to suppose that we find ourselves

  509
  embarked in this expenditure because matters have been managed by persons who have been described as not men of business. On the contrary, those who had from the beginning the management of affairs—and as they are gentlemen not connected with me in politics I am speaking impartially on the subject—showed no deficiency of business-like attributes in all their arrangements and all their calculations; everything was planned and everything was foreseen, and many of these noblemen and gentlemen undertook their duty with the advantage of information based upon previous experience and experiments in those matters. The French Government, however, thought fit, after a due consideration of all the circumstances, to change the conditions which hitherto have been observed in all public Exhibitions of this kind. I do not for a moment think of questioning the propriety of their conduct, but that is really the cause of the increased expenditure. And what has happened? Those responsible for the Government of the country, whether those were our predecessors or ourselves, had to consider this simple question. The French Government having, in the exercise of their discretion, changed all the conditions hitherto observed in these Exhibitions, and by that change entailed on this country a considerable expenditure, shall we refrain from giving to the industry of our country that opportunity of showing its ingenuity and its varied powers which it expects at the hands of the Government? That is really the question. I dare say there are other States and countries that may also have been—I will not say annoyed, but may have been astonished at the change that the French Government has thought fit to make. But let us understand this. Every other country, however dissatisfied, or at least disappointed, by the course which the French Government has taken, has agreed to the altered conditions. Their industry will be represented, their ingenuity and acquaintance with the arts will be known to all the world, and the satisfaction and reputation which arise from such representation will be enjoyed by those respective States and countries. Well, would you be content in such a position that we should withdraw from the Exhibition? You know you would not. If we came down and told you, not that £50,000, nor £150,000, but that £200,000 were essential to the proper representation of this country, would you be satis-
  510
  fied at our withdrawal? The right hon. I Gentleman says he must move for papers, I will candidly avow that there are no papers of the slightest importance. There is not a single line upon the subject, as I have just learnt by inquiry from my noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. No doubt there has I been a great deal of bustling second-rate communication between individuals, but nothing that would throw any light upon or affect the main question. That question is simply what I have put before you. There has been no want of intelligence, no want of experience, no want of businesslike habits, on the part of those—some of them filling the highest position in society—who undertook these offices; they did their duty thoroughly and perfectly and in a workmanlike manner. But the French Government changed their conditions, and the change has entailed great expense on every exhibiting country. No one is more annoyed than the Chancellor of the Exchequer at any increased expenditure; but, because of that expenditure, would you wish those who sit on these Benches to deprive England of the opportunity of exhibiting the products of her inventive genius by the side of other countries? You know you would not. You would think that in doing so we had taken up a mean position; a position degrading to the honour and to the highest interests of the country. I therefore trust the Committee will take a large view of the circumstances of this case—which I admit to be unsatisfactory—and will put on them the construction which they deserve, will assent to this proposition, will sanction this Vote of £50,000, and will feel that, in taking that course, they are acting in the manner most conducive to the advantage and the honour of the country.
  MR. GLADSTONE: The right hon. Gentleman towards the close of his remarks admitted that the position of this affair is not satisfactory, and he also told us that he had not in his possession any papers which could throw light on the question. Under these circumstances, I confess I do not see that there would be any object in pressing for a postponement of the Vote; especially as the unsatisfactory circumstances which he confesses are to a certain extent covered by the admissions which he freely made. It is impossible, however, for me to pass over in silence the speech of the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Watkin) He, forsooth, deals very easily

  511
  with this matter, and shows immense anxiety to promote this French Exhibition. But that is not the question at all. Nobody shows any want of anxiety to promote the French Exhibition. I should hope we all come up to the standard of my hon. Friend in that respect. The question is whether engagements of this kind, involving matters strictly in the jurisdiction of this House, and of no one else, ought to be made apart from the responsibility of the Executive Government. My hon. Friend thought the late Government were responsible for this expenditure. My answer is, if the late Government be responsible, let any act of theirs be brought forward and put before the House; but when I ask my hon. Friend to do this he cries out against delay. My own mind is a perfect blank as to what has occurred prior to my leaving office, or what state of maturity the matter had attained at that period; but, substantially, this great charge has grown out of the change in the proceedings of the late Government; and after the frank statement made by the right hon. Gentleman as to the position of the House with regard to this Vote, I, for one, accede to the proposal of the Government. But before the regular Estimates of the year are brought forward I hope the necessary information will be afforded, so that when the Committee is asked for the large residue, as I am afraid it will be, of the Vote, they may see distinctly, and in a written form, what is to be the precise position of the House with respect to it.
  MR. ALDERMAN LUSKwished the House to revert to the question really before it—namely, the jumbling together in one lot a mass of heterogeneous matters. He trusted that such a jumble would not be presented to the House again.
  MR. OSBORNEhoped his hon. Friend would not press his Motion to a division after the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. At the same time, he trusted some assurance would be given that the expenditure under this head would not exceed the limit of £116,000.
  MR. AYRTONthen withdrew his Amendment.
  MR. WATKINobserved, that he had not said the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire (Mr. Gladstone) was responsible for expending the money, but for appointing the Commission which caused the expenditure. Technically, the statement of the Chancellor of
  512
  the Exchequer was accurate; but the French Government changed the original conditions because of the unexpected and enormous demands for space by the foreign Commissioners, among others by our own representatives. The original cause of the heavy expenditure, he repeated, was the appointment by the late Government of Commissioners who were not men of business.
  Vote agreed to.
  (3.) £101,300, Anglo-Chinese Flotilla.
  COLONEL SYKESasked for some explanation of this Vote.
  MR. HUNTsaid, that in the year 1865 an arrangement was made with the Chinese Government that if they would not sell the Anglo-Chinese flotilla they should be compensated for any loss they might sustain. It was thought that if they were obtained by either of the belligerent parties in America Imperial interests might be prejudiced. The value put upon the flotilla when it left China for England was £152,500, and the value for which it had been sold was £51,350. The ships were all either sold or contracted to be sold but one, and if that were sold the money would be paid to the Exchequer.
  COLONEL SYKESdenounced the sending out of these vessels for the purpose of service in China under the command of an English naval officer. Captain Sherard Osborn was put at the head of the expedition; but, unfortunately, a misunderstanding took place when he arrived in China. He found that he was not to be in the service of the Emperor of China, but in the service of the Governor of Shanghai. He very properly declined to accept the pay of a Governor of a province, and threw up his commission. The people of this country were now saddled with this Vote of £101,300, as the expense occasioned by our Government intermeddling between the Emperor of China and the Taepings. The head and front of the whole matter had been Mr. Horatio Nelson May, and now that gentleman, in a letter recently published, acknowledged the whole action of the British Government in interfering between the Chinese dynasty and its subjects the Taepings to have been an error. The result was that the British taxpayers had to pay £101,000 on account of these gunboats. He felt bound to protest against it, and moved the omission of the Vote.
  MR. BAXTERsaid, it was too late to object to the Vote, but he earnestly hoped it would be the lost of the kind that would ever appear in the Estimates. We had virtually interfered with a great civil war in China, and by so doing had committed a great blunder. The British taxpayers were now called upon to pay in respect of a fleet with which they had no concern. He trusted the noble Lord now at the head of the Foreign Office would take care that the policy of his predecessors in this respect would not again be adopted.
  Vote agreed to.
  Resolutions to be reported on Wednesday; Committee to sit again upon Wednesday.

TRADES UNIONS BILL— [BILL 18.]
(Mr. Secretary Walpole, Lord John Manners, Sir Stafford Northcote.)

SECOND READING.
Order for Second Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Walpole.)
MR. POWELLsaid, he could not help regarding the introduction of that measure, and the circumstances connected with it, as a herald and an omen of better times with respect to the relations between the workpeople and their employers. The desire which existed among all classes, both of workmen and employers, for a full and searching investigation, might, he thought, be taken to imply a willingness on their part to submit to any consequence which might be fairly and reasonably deduced from that investigation. The existence of these combinations among working people, the great power they possessed, and the outrages supposed, whether rightly or wrongly, to have connection with them, rendered it highly important [that a Commission should be issued for the purpose of procuring a searching inquiry into the nature of these associations. He did not wish to refer to the special cases that had led to this investigation. To the Royal Commissioners, who had been well and wisely selected, the details of the inquiry ought to be referred without prejudice. Any discussion on the subject that night must be very imperfect, and might, perhaps, tend to excite instead of to assuage irritation among the different classes affected. He did not desire the proposed investigation into trade outrages at Sheffield or elsewhere to range over a very long period of time; but he thought that in lieu of restricting its scope to five years, it would
514
be better to allow it to extend over the last ten years, or to adopt such other limit as the Secretary of State might sanction. If that alteration were made in the second clause of the Bill, satisfaction would be given to those persons in various towns who took the deepest interest in the condition of the work people and in the operation of trades unions.
MR. WATKINsaid, he thought that if the inquiry into alleged trade outrages were to be rigidly confined to what had happened no longer ago than five years back, it would, in many cases, be practically useless, because such a limitation would act as a bar to complete investigation. Again, the Bill proposed to indemnify from criminal proceedings witnesses making full disclosures as to these out rages, provided they were not themselves the actual perpetrators of them. Thus the instigators of these cowardly deeds would be screened from prosecution, while those who only acted as their instruments would be deterred from giving evidence before the Commissioners. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Walpole) would gravely consider whether the measure might not be amended on these two points before it went into Committee. Some of the constituents of the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roe buck) felt very strongly on these heads; and unless some alteration were made respecting them, the Bill would be practically useless. It was also most important that the constitution of the Commission should be such as not only to give satisfaction to the employed, but likewise to inspire confidence in the minds of the employers. Strong pressure appeared to have been put upon the Government in order to get what were called "the working man's friends" put upon the Commission. Now, his own experience of "the working man's friend" was, he confessed, not of a very favourable character. Generally such a person had not himself been a working man nor an employer of labour for a profit; and the sympathy which he showed towards the working classes was remarkably cheap. There was not a strong flavour merely, but a strong infusion of "the working man's friend" element in the Commission, which Commission was to investigate one of the most important questions connected with the future prosperity of this country. Then as to the legal element. He did not quarrel with the appointment of ex-Chief Justice Erie as Chairman of the Commis-

515
sion; because he was sure that if they searched all England through they would not find a fitter man, and perhaps his presidentship would neutralize the inefficiency of other parts of the Commission. But there were not fewer than five or six gentlemen connected with the law among the Commissioners, and two out of the six held offices under the Government. Now, he had always a wholesome fear of the legal profession; but when he found that two out of the eleven Commissioners not only belonged to that profession, but were officers of the Government and in its pay, he felt, as an employer of labour, considerable qualms as to what would be the result upon the efficiency of the Commission. Out of the entire eleven Commissioners they had only one who was, properly speaking, an employer of labour. In one sense the Chairman of the Great Western Railway, who was to sit on the Commission, might be said to be an employer of labour, but they knew he had never employed labour at a profit. He did not mean that that hon. Gentleman had never profitably employed labour; but that he did not come within the ordinary category of those who employed labourers at a profit. The only person of that description on the Commission was Mr. William Matthews, of Birmingham—certainly a gentleman of the highest capacity and influence—but a Commission on such a subject, with only one employer of labour upon it, could not be said to be fairly or efficiently constituted. The object he had in view was that the Commission should be efficient; but he believed he was speaking the opinions of the great employers in the cotton, woollen, silk, iron, and pottery trades when he stated that a Commission so composed would not give satisfaction.
MR. GOSCHENsaid, that he dissented from the view expressed by the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Watkin), that these investigations ought to be carried back not only for five but for ten years. It would be very interesting, no doubt, if they could obtain a history of strikes by such means during the last ten years; but as that was not fairly within the scope of the inquiry to be conducted under the present Bill, he thought the Government acted rightly in fixing upon five years as the period to which they should restrict their inquiries, because it would be a strange thing to compel men to give evidence on oath of events that had happened ten years ago. He trusted that the Government would not accede to the suggestion that the prin
516
cipals who had been guilty of outrages, should, by giving evidence before the Commission, be able to screen themselves from the just punishment of their crimes. As to the composition of the Commission, the hon. Member (Mr. Watkin) had said there were too many working men's friends upon it. He himself would have preferred seeing a working man instead of a working man's friend upon it. But here was one of the consequences of the confusion between the representative and the judicial functions of the Commission. If the Commission were only judicial, then he would have upon it men of marked impartiality, who had as little as possible to do with the question at issue, and who would be quite free from all but that necessary bias so difficult to be overcome by gentlemen who, from mere education and the circumstances which had always surrounded them, could not do otherwise than have more sympathy with the employer than the employed. Of course, he did not mean to say that there would be any wilful misjudging; but it was very difficult for men of that class to throw themselves into the position and to realize the views of working men. If, however, the Commission were to be representative, and information from the working man's point of view were wanted, then the presence of a working man upon the Commission would be very desirable. He desired especially to point out that the two questions to be inquired into by the Commission widely differed in their nature, and he hoped they would be kept distinct. The one was a question between workmen and workmen, and the other between workmen and employers; the one a question of outrage, the other a question of strikes and lock-outs. Police laws would, perhaps, settle the question of intimidation between workman and workman, and the more stringent the laws could be made on this point, the better for the community and for the workmen themselves. But police laws could not be made to settle differences between employers and employed, and he questioned whether courts of arbitration would succeed either. He hoped the Commission might throw light on this part of the subject; but he must be allowed to express a doubt whether any legislation could put a stop to the differences which periodically arise between those who buy and those who sell labour. It would certainly be useful to inquire how far combinations either of masters or workmen,

517
respecting which they had heard much of late, affect the industry and prosperity of the country. They had been told that our commerce was jeopardized, and they had been recommended to look abroad to those foreign competitors, who they had been assured would rob England of, at least, the supremacy in trade which she has so long enjoyed. They had been especially referred to Belgium. But what did they see there? They found that the differences between employers and employed culminated in riots, which were suppressed by the military. This, they had been assured, was what we might expect trades unions would bring us to; but that was a wrong view of the matter. It appeared to him that through which Belgium was now going, England had passed through the stage. Whatever the failing of our workmen, and however defective their views respecting combinations, they had certainly passed the stage in which men openly set the laws at defiance and seek to gain their objects by force. Franco had been referred to as an example. The press of this country had generally given them intelligence of every strike which had taken place in England, great or small. But he had seen very little notice of a strike which so lately took place in France. In the chief coal district of France at the beginning of November last year the miners demanded three or four francs a week more wages, and stopped work on being refused. In consequence, the military were called out, and the soldiers prevented the miners from passing from place to place to induce others to join the strike. Then the Prefect issued a sentimental proclamation, calling the miners his children and telling them they were brave hearts and honest workmen, and worthy sons of France. Eventually, moved either by the display of military force, or by the eloquence of the Prefect, the miners returned to their work, but not without receiving the increased wages they had demanded. Such, then, was the course of strikes in those countries which were going to carry away England's commerce and undermine her prosperity! He was quite ready to admit that this was a dangerous and delicate subject, and it was one on which men were particularly liable to be misconstrued and misunderstood. But he would nevertheless express his belief that the evil influence of trades unions upon the prosperity of our trade had been greatly exaggerated by the press and on the platform. And if that influence
518
had been thus exaggerated in order to alarm the middle classes, as possessors of political power, with regard to the views and objects of the class below, then, in his opinion, that heavy responsibility rested upon those who had been guilty of such exaggeration, of setting class against class. It was, in his opinion, no less a political offence to set the middle classes against the lower by the argument of alarm than to set the lower against the governing classes by the argument of abuse. He had no sympathy with trades unions himself; and, as a political economist, representing a mercantile community, he was bound to watch them with anxiety—nay, even with distrust. He did not, however, think it on that account fair to accept the statement that the commerce of the country was endangered by those organizations without the most thorough investigation. He was therefore glad that inquiry into the subject was to be instituted. The commerce of the country had a deep interest in this question; but they ought not to assert that the prosperity of their trade was in danger because there had been more strikes than usual in the last six months. He trusted the Commission would be able to remove the obstacles to agreement between masters and men. But he thought that the events they now witnessed would have a more powerful effect on workmen than the Report of any Royal Commission. When they found that doors ready made, windows, window-frames, and even locomotives, were imported from abroad—they would, he thought, see the foolishness of their persisting in their present course. If it were possible by legislative action to improve the relations between employers and employed, by all means let it be done. For himself, he very much doubted whether much could be accomplished by such agency. The best way to effect a change for the better was, he thought, to bring public opinion to bear on the question; and the more the discussion of these burning questions was removed from the committee-rooms of trades unions to a wider area and a more public assembly, the more likely was it to lead to a satisfactory solution.
MR. ROEBUCK: I think, Sir, the position I occupy in rising to address the House on this subject is a still more delicate one than that of the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, inasmuch as my name is on the list of the Commission. It so happens that I have been very much

519
mixed up with this matter. I was in fact at its very inception; and, if the House will permit, I will state one or two circumstances which may tend to clear away much of the ambiguity by; which it is surrounded, and to remove some difficulties from the mind of the right hon. Gentleman, which now, it seems to me, is not a little confused and obfuscated. In the course of last year a dispute arose between a particular workman in Sheffield and a body of workmen. Very soon after that man's house was blown up by gunpowder. One side of it was blown out, himself and his family escaping destruction by a miracle. This outrage excited great indignation in Sheffield. A committee was appointed for the purpose of discovering the perpetrators of it. Large rewards were offered with the same object, but without avail. The committee afterwards put themselves in communication with the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department (Mr. Walpole), and asked him to permit them to wait upon him and lay their views on the matter before him. He assented to their request, and they asked myself and my hon. Colleague to introduce them. We did introduce them, and I thought the subject so delicate that I wrote down what I proposed to say to the right hon. Gentleman on paper. After reading it I handed to him the paper, in which it was clearly and positively stated that it was the feeling of the manufacturers of Sheffield that the outrage in question, as well as similar outrages in years past, had been suggested, suborned, and paid for by the trades unions. That was the distinct proposition laid down by the manufacturers. They told the right hon. Gentleman that they had offered large rewards to discover the perpetrators of the crime; that they had come up to London to ask him to issue a Commission for the purpose of making inquiry into the case; that the Commission must, to be effectual, be furnished with Parliamentary powers, and pointing out in what they thought those powers ought to consist. Very soon after, an account of this interview having been published, the working men of Sheffield addressed the right hon. Gentleman, asking permission to wait upon him, and—taking a course which, I must say, was I think complimentary to me as showing their belief in my impartiality—asked me to introduce them. I was accompanied also by my hon. Colleague on that occasion, and I wrote down as before what I intended to say. What was the
520
statement of these men? They alleged that they had been falsely accused, and, in almost the very words used by the manufacturers, they asked for a full and searching inquiry into their whole conduct. So entirely innocent did they feel, they said, that they shrank from no investigation. They added, however, that they thought twenty years too long a period to go back; that many persons had within that time died; and that the inquiry would, as a consequence, be attended with considerable difficulty. I accordingly limited the time to ten years in the paper which the right hon. Gentleman has now in his possession. Shortly after this interview the manufacturers of Sheffield wrote to me, begging me to re-consider the subject of time, and stating that, in their opinion, twenty years was by no means too long a time. I did re-consider the matter. I again waited on the right hon. Gentleman, and told him the representations which the manufacturers had made to me, adding that I still adhered to the ten years. Thereupon, the right hon. Gentleman said he thought he could suggest a mode which would suit all parties. He believed, as I believed, that a Commission appointed by him would gain the confidence of both the working men and their employers, and that in the hands of its members might be safely left the question as to whether the inquiry should be enlarged. The right hon. Gentleman, in substance, said:—"We can give the Commission elastic powers, so that if they should see fit to carry the investigation back beyond ten years, they will be at liberty to do so on their own responsibility." So the matter stood; but we have this evening been treated to a fantastic dissertation as to the difference between an inquiry into the perpetration of an outrage and one into the principles of political economy. The whole thing, however, is as clear as sunlight as put by the manufacturers of Sheffield. They say that the inquiry should be instituted to discover the truth as to what has been the conduct of the men who are members of trades unions, and also as to how those societies have affected the trade of Sheffield. Talk as you like about the doctrines of political economy—on which I suppose my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster (Mr. Stuart Mill) is the best authority to whom you could have recourse—but the real simple point to be inquired into is, have the offences alleged been committed, as suggested? The masters say they have; the

521
workmen say they have not; and the Commission is appointed to decide between them. I am told there ought to be a working man upon it; but let me suppose that a butcher is accused of murder, do you think it necessary that there should be a butcher on the jury by whom he is tried? I would like to have had a Commission composed of three persons, having at the head of it the distinguished, and I might say revered, Judge already named, assisted by two grave, candid, and intelligent assessors. That would have been enough to have inquired into the political economy of the question. The thing is quite clear if we do not mystify it, and bring fantastic notions to bear upon it. It is no use attempting to frighten the working man, for he says he is not to be frightened, that he is innocent, and that he will prove his innocence if you afford him the opportunity of doing so. The Commission will give him leave, and all we ask is to have power to manage matters so as to bring out the truth. But how can we bring out that truth? All these outrages, say the masters, have been perpetrated by the same hand, and though that hand has been bought and instigated by persons behind the scenes, yet all these acts have been the deed of a single man, and the masters think that by giving impunity to that person we shall be able to get at the truth. I go one step further, and say if you give impunity, not only to the man who committed the deed, but also to the man who suggested it—for we do not aim at punishment—we are still more likely to learn the truth. We shall then arrive at what we want to learn. We do not want punishment or penal laws; what we want to learn is whether the trades unions of this country are so conducted that they tend to the damage of our trade and commerce. If you think that the men on the Commission are not honourable men, or if you think that they are unfit for the duty, by all means change them, for there are men in England quite sufficient and equal to the inquiry. Make a careful choice, but give the Commission power to make a full inquiry. This is a very serious matter, and one that ought not to be dealt with lightly. There are great interests concerned, and it becomes us to inquire into the matter impartially. As far as I am concerned, I would rather not be on the Commission; but, being on it, I will bring an impartial mind to bear upon the subject. I care neither for one
522
side or the other. I am, however, firmly convinced that we shall not be able to make a full inquiry unless we are able to extend pardon to all who have been concerned.
MR. SAMUELSONsaid, that the hon. Member for Sheffield had asked whether, supposing a butcher was accused of murder, a butcher should be on the jury? He would put another question. Supposing there was an inquiry into the conduct of butchers and graziers, affecting the public, would it be desirable that the Commission of Inquiry should consist of graziers and consumers, without a single butcher. That was precisely the situation in which the workmen were placed with regard to the Commission, through what he must be permitted to call the precipitancy of the Home Secretary. He thought that if the right hon. Gentleman had taken the working men into his counsels he would hardly have made the omission. If the right hon. Gentleman were determined to inquire into the outrages at Sheffield, it would be the opinion not of the workmen of Sheffield only, but of the workmen of London and throughout the country, that no Commission could possibly give satisfaction to both the parties unless both were fully represented. Yet they had on this Commission two employers of labour, one of them at least an employer for profit. More than that, however respected those gentlemen might be as individuals, they were connected exactly with those branches of trade, the iron and coal trade and the engineering, that had been most disturbed by strikes. Yet there was not a single workman. He was aware that Mr. Harrison had been approved of by a deputation of working men that had waited upon the Home Secretary, headed by a gentleman with whom the right hon. Gentleman had had many interviews of late, Mr. George Potter; but he could not learn that the representatives of the trades unions, as a body, had ever been consulted as to the composition of the Commission. It was, perhaps, too late to alter that now; but he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would devise some plan by which working men might be more directly represented or might be present at the inquiry. With regard to the limitation of the Commission, he approved of its being confined to five years. If they wanted to go farther, and to have a history of trades unions, they ought also to inquire into the prior events which caused trades unions. It might suit

523
the honour of the Sheffield workmen to extend this inquiry, but what good would it do to the country at large? He feared that if it went farther back the old grievances of the workmen, including the truck system, might crop up. To put down that system it had been necessary to have recourse to legislative measures of the most stringent character. Indeed, it would be found that in many, if not in all of the trades, where a feeling of hostility towards the masters prevailed at present, it might be traced to acts of oppression on the part of the masters at a former period. A3 to foreign legislation, he did not think they had much knowledge to get from abroad. The French workmen had not had the right to combine for increase of wages for more than two years, and their right of meeting was only one year old. The Tribunals of Conciliation—Conseils des Prud' hommes as they were called—did not meet to settle strikes or combinations at all, but only to decide on questions arising out of agreements previously made between employers and employed. If any Council to arbitrate between the workmen and the masters were to be set up in this country, it had yet to be invented.
MR. WALPOLE: I think, Sir, I may divide the debate of this evening into two branches. One is a branch of the subject not strictly before us—namely, the constitution of the Commission, the position and terms upon which the Commission is to act, and the extent to which the inquiry is to go. The other, which is strictly before us, confines itself to the provisions of the Bill, in reference to which several suggestions have been made. Upon each of those suggestions I will offer a few remarks. Following the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Goschen) into that portion of his speech with regard to the composition of this Commission, I cannot but observe that when I see the manner in which different Gentlemen have spoken of this Commission, and that their opinions exactly balance each other, it seems to me that the impartiality which I wished to attain in this Commission has been fully accomplished. The hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Watkin) complains that on this Commission the masters will have no power. The hon. Member who has just sat down takes an entirely different view of the question, and complains that while there are masters on the Commission, the workmen are excluded. Now, it ought to be
524
borne in mind that if any workmen were to be appointed on the Commission then yon must have had a corresponding number of masters. The country would not have been satisfied unless you did that. But I believed it was better to do with regard to this Commission what is usually and wisely done in all Commissions of a judicial character—namely, that in such a case none of the parties who are directly concerned in the issue should be put upon the Commission; but that those men should be placed there who, without being directly concerned, take a deep interest in the subject, and are able to represent the views of the different parties. That, I believe, I have completely accomplished. It has been objected that there are two masters on the Commission—one of the gentlemen referred to is my hon. Friend the Member for Cricklade (Sir Daniel Gooch); but I am quite sure there is no man on the Commission or in this House who would more truly represent the workmen. The other is Mr. William Matthews; and I am equally sure there is no one who will inspire either master or workman with more satisfaction and confidence. Whom have we appointed on behalf of the workmen? Let it not be forgotten that I earnestly wished the ablest writer and philosopher on these subjects to allow his name to be placed on the Commission. I entreated the hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. Stuart Mill) to act, that he might represent the political economy of the question, as well as the interests of the working men, and give both masters and workmen the benefit of his philosophy and experience. More than that, let it not be forgotten that we did appoint two persons who have given great attention to this subject—first the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. Thomas Hughes), who is known to take the deepest interest in all that concerns the elevation of the working classes; and next a barrister, Mr. Frederic Harrison, who has written more ably on this subject, in favour of trades unions, than any other author I know of. If any Member in the House has read Mr. Harrison's works, he will know that I do not in the least exaggerate when I affirm, that there is no man who more fully, more completely, or more ably represents the views of the working classes than Mr. Harrison. With regard to the objection that employers and workmen are not properly represented on the Commission, I can only say that if I were engaged in any business or profession

525
which was made the subject of inquiry, I would infinitely prefer that the persons selected to adjudicate on the matter should not be interested as parties, though of course I should wish them to be competent to judge of the whole case. With regard to the other members of the Commission, the hon. Member for Stockport complains that there are on it six lawyers and two officials. The hon. Member is wrong in both instances. There may be six members on the Commission who have been lawyers, but there are not two who are now in practice. So with regard to the officials he is also wrong. I presume the hon. Member refers to Mr. Herman Merivale and Mr. Booth. It is true the one gentleman is in the Colonial Office; the other was connected with the Board of Trade, and he was also a lawyer, but he has retired from both, and I venture to say you will find no men better fitted to manage this inquiry than they are. If you analyse this Commission, I believe you will find that it is composed of honourable and impartial men—that the views of the employers and the employed are fully represented; and I trust that, presided over as it will be by that able man (Sir William Erie) who is at its head, and in whose fairness every one has the most perfect confidence, I have no fear but that it will be conducted in the fairest and most impartial manner. With regard to one or two other points. The right hon. Member for the City (Mr. Goschen) on a former occasion criticized the terms of the Commission as if the whole affair was made to hang on the outrages at Sheffield. I felt the justice of that criticism; and I took advantage of the appointment of Mr. Harrison to cancel the first Commission, which had been signed and countersigned, and could not therefore be altered; and in the new Commission I have adopted words which I hope will meet the right hon. Gentleman's views. With regard to the limitation of the period of examination for five years, I may state that it was first intended to extend the inquiry to the last twenty years, and we afterwards limited it to ten. But, after all, our object is not so much to inquire for the purpose of detecting outrages, as to inquire how far those outrages are connected with trades unions. For this purpose I doubt whether it will be necessary to go more than five years back, or at any rate for more than ten years back. The hon. and learned Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck) thinks we ought to
526
have gone further. That is a point rather for the consideration of the Committee; and if the Committee should be of opinion that five years is not a sufficient period in which to trace out the connection, supposing it to exist, then power may be taken to go back for five years more. Another point was made by the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield, who complained that indemnity was not granted even to the actual perpetrators of these outrages. I confess that if these outrages had not been connected with the worst crime known to law—to that of murder—it might have been reasonable to extend the indemnity even to the actual perpetrators of the outrages. But I entertain grave doubts whether we ought to give a Parliamentary indemnity to persons who on inquiry may be found guilty of an attempt to murder. This, however, is a grave question, which ought not to be discussed on the Second reading of the Bill; but it will be for the House to consider the subject fully and deliberately in Committee. I will only express my hope that I may draw from the observations made in the House—which I have heard with great satisfaction—an augury that much good will result from this inquiry, and that it will lead to a better state of feeling between masters and workmen. If that should be the result, I can only say there are few measures I have had the honour to submit to the House that will afford me in the retrospect more satisfaction than that Bill which is now, I trust, about to be read for a second time.
MR. HADFIELDsaid, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would allow a little time to elapse before the Bill went into Committee. It had only been recently introduced, and it had taken some of the leading men of Sheffield by surprise. His constituents were of opinion that a longer period than five years was necessary in order to get at the facts; and also that it was absolutely necessary that the Commission should have the power of indemnifying principals who had been engaged in unlawful acts. When it was recollected that a reward of £1,000, supplemented by a reward of £100 by the Government, had not had the effect of detecting the persons who were engaged in the recent transactions at Sheffield, it showed how well the secret was kept, and that it would be impossible to arrive at the truth without some such power as he suggested was given to the Commissioners. He had been informed

527
that evidence of a surprising character would be given if it were done. The inquiry was not for the purpose of convicting the perpetrators of heinous offences, but to ascertain what was the effect of trades unions on the commission of crime; and therefore it was that he pressed, at the request of his constituents, the latter point on the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman. He concurred with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Oldham (Mr. Samuelson), who was one of the largest employers of labour in Lancashire, that it would have given greater confidence if a workman had been appointed on the Commission. It was a hopeful sign of the times that the masters and men had joined in a petition to the Government for the appointment of this Commission.
MR. OSBORNEsaid, he very much regretted that the right hon. Gentleman had in his Bill mixed up two distinct questions—namely, the outrages that had been committed at Sheffield, and an inquiry into the operation of trades unions in other places, because he was inclined to think it would prejudice the Report that might be made to the House. He acknowledged the excellent disposition with which the right hon. Gentleman had met the question, and he deserved great credit for the open manner in which he had constituted the Commission. At the same time, he thought it would have been more desirable if the right hon. Gentleman had put a working man on the Commission; and he could not understand why a working man and a master had not been named on it. He had seen the advantage of this in the town he had the honour to represent. An hon. Gentleman sitting near him had said that no attempt had been made in England to constitute boards of conciliation and arbitration; but in Nottingham there had been a most successful instance, of it. In Nottingham, which was the centre of the hosiery and glove trade, boards of conciliation and arbitration had worked most successfully. Up to 1860 strikes were very frequent in that district, and of the most dangerous description. It would be recollected that Luddism originated there, in striking against the introduction of improved machinery. There were a few strikes in 1860, and in the autumn of that year the masters and men met and formed boards of conciliation and arbitration, consisting at first of nine masters and nine men, but they were now composed of seven masters and seven men, and from 1860
528
down to the present time, although great distress in the trade had existed, there had not been a single strike or lock-out. The men elected the president, the masters the vice-president. The conciliation shown by the masters had been appreciated by the men, and the rate of wages was amicably discussed and settled. The truck system and the payment of wages on Saturday night—which caused great inconvenience through the markets being closed—had been abolished through their agency. That beneficial change was owing to the exertions of a gentleman who was at the head of the Nottingham trade. He pressed on the Government the propriety of the examination of the president and vice-president of these boards by the Royal Commissioners. He had been informed that most of the evils that had occurred to the trade and commerce of Nottingham were owing not so much to the effects of trades unions as to the ignorance that prevailed amongst the working classes, and the necessity there was of promoting some great system of national education. He had been told by a large manufacturer at Nottingham, who had also a large manufactory in Saxony, that he felt greater apprehension from the want of education than from the effect of trades unions. That gentleman employed 750 hands in Saxony, and although they worked for lower wages than his work-people obtained in this country, he felt humbled in being obliged to admit that their knowledge on all questions was superior to that of his English workmen. That gentleman also said that until they promoted education and dissipated ignorance there was greater danger to apprehend from the latter than from trades unions to the trade and commerce of the country. Much as it was the fashion to flatter the masters, and to run down trades unions, in consequence of the outrages that had been committed of late in one district, there was much to be said for them. If the working classes were met in a spirit of conciliation they, like other men, would not be insensible to it. He regretted that the two questions had been mixed up; but even as it was, he thought nothing but good could result from the inquiry.
LORD ELCHOsaid, he thought his right hon. Friend had performed a great public good by issuing this Commission, and he was able to state from personal observation that the working men were in favour of this inquiry. At the large

529
meeting of workmen recently held in Scotland, he put it to them whether, in the event of an inquiry taking place, and it was shown that trades unions acted injuriously, they would abandon them so far as strikes were concerned, and accept the medium of courts of conciliation, and they replied they would. That, at any rate, showed good feeling on the part of the men. Only to-day he had received a letter expressing a hope, on behalf of 90,000 or 100,000 men, that this Bill might pass through Parliament as rapidly as possible. There was one point to which he wished to call the attention of his right hon. Friend. It did not affect the inquiry generally so much as the labour of the Commission. Having the honour to be a member of the Commission, along with his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck), he must refer to the second clause, the phraseology of which led to the conclusion that the inquiry could only take place at Sheffield. The Commission would be bound, unless they had the special permission of the Home Secretary, to sit permanently at Sheffield. He doubted whether even his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sheffield would like that, and certainly the other members of the Commission were under the impression that the inquiry might be conducted in London.
MR. WALPOLEsaid, his attention had been called to this point. The second clause referred not to the general inquiry, but to the outrage at Sheffield, which would have to be inquired into on the spot.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time, and committed for Friday.

ADMIRALTY JURISDICTION.

  LEAVE. FIRST READING.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE moved for leave to bring in a Bill for extending and regulating the jurisdiction of the High Court of Admiralty, and for conferring Admiralty jurisdiction on the County Courts. He said, he thought it would be better to postpone any discussion upon its nature and principle until the House had had an opportunity of examining it. He might, however, state that for some years there had been a great desire on the part of the various mercantile communities, more particularly at Liverpool, that local tribunals should be established, before
  530
  which questions relating to shipping might be easily and speedily decided. Two years ago the hon. and learned Member for Tiverton (Mr. Denman) with regard to England, and last year the right hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Monsell) with regard to Ireland, had endeavoured to obtain the sanction of Parliament to the establishment of local tribunals of this nature, and both propositions were supported by memorials and deputations to Government from the various mercantile communities of the country. They were not, however, proceeded with. Government had now decided to endeavour to meet these general wishes by bringing in a Bill by which it was proposed to establish courts of this description. In order that the proposed courts should be enabled to deal with questions of all kinds connected with shipping, it was desirable that the jurisdiction of the Court of Admiralty should be extended. The Bill he proposed to introduce extended the jurisdiction of the Court of Admiralty to the necessary extent, and gave power to the County Courts, or to such County Courts as Her Majesty by Order in Council should name, to take cognizance of all causes relating to shipping where the amount involved did not exceed £500, or with the consent of parties to any amount, an appeal lying to the Court of Admiralty. It was thought better to give this jurisdiction to County Courts than to create new tribunals.
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, he could assure the House that the mercantile community would hear with the greatest satisfaction of the introduction of the Bill.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill for extending and regulating the Jurisdiction of the High Court of Admiralty, and for conferring Admiralty Jurisdiction on the County Courts, ordered to be brought in by Sir STAFFORD NORTHCOTE, Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL, and Mr. CAVE.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 28.]

TENANTS IMPROVEMENTS (IRELAND) BILL.
  LAND IMPROVEMENT AND LEASING (IRELAND) BILL.

    LEAVE. FIRST READING.
    LORD NAAS LORD NAAS moved for leave to introduce a Bill to promote the improvement of land by occupying tenants in Ireland. He said, in submitting some observations to the House upon this important question, he should take up the question as nearly as

    531
    possible where it was left by the House last year. It would be idle to waste the time of the House in arguing upon the necessity or the advantage of legislating upon this subject. It was a matter for argument whether legislation at all was desirable, and very strong and cogent arguments had been adduced to show that the relation of landlord and tenant in Ireland was a subject that might fairly be left to arrange itself under the ordinary law which regulated supply and demand. The House of Commons, however, had repeatedly affirmed a principle contrary to that doctrine, and he himself believed that there were circumstances in the condition of that country which rendered legislation on this question desirable if not necessary. The relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland before 1845 were but little spoken of as a political question. Agitation at that time was carried on with great violence, was conducted by men of great genius and intellect, who possessed almost unlimited sway over the feelings and affections of the Irish people. But in those times what is called the land question did not take a prominent position in the list of Irish wrongs, and the existing tenure of land was seldom, if ever, put forward by popular leaders as a substantial grievance. But in 1845 the Government thought that the relations between landlord and tenant were in a sufficiently unsatisfactory state to justify them in issuing an important inquiry, known as the Earl of Devon's Commission; ever since that Commission made their celebrated Report this subject had every year occupied more or less of attention of Parliament. Since that time he believed no fewer than twenty-five Bills had been introduced into that House on the subject. It was not his intention to raise again this dreamy row of ghosts, or to weary the House with a description of the provisions contained in those abortive measures. It would suffice to mention that only one of them had become law—that which was introduced and passed through that House by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Oxford (Mr. Cardwell). How did it happen that legislation on this subject, though attempted on many occasions by men of great Parliamentary experience, knowledge, and talent, and also by men who, though not holding office, were well acquainted with the wants and wishes of the country, had resulted in so many conspicuous failures? He believed it was principally owing, not to any disposition
    532
    on the part of the House to shrink from the question, but from the enormous difficulties inherent in it. While evils were admitted to exist, the remedy proposed always appeared to the House to be either wholly insufficient or to go so far as to interfere materially with what were considered to be the undoubted rights of property. With regard to the extremer measures which had been proposed elsewhere, they had seldom found their way to that House in the shape of a substantive proposition. Such extreme proposals had been generally confined to the platform, hustings, and pamphlets, and had seldom been submitted in detail to the consideration of Parliament. In attempting to legislate upon this subject the House must approach, and endeavour to deal with interests of a private nature, and matters most varied and complicated in their character. It was almost impossible to legislate fairly in regard to all the numerous interests which must come under the purview of any proposal on this subject. This was the more remarkable because of late years there had not been any great divergence of opinion as to the objects to be attained by legislation. It is alleged and generally agreed that it was a grievance that tenants in Ireland were in the habit of making improvements at their own expense; but that, in the event of their being evicted or leaving their farms before they had an opportunity of reaping the fruits of the money they had laid out, no machinery existed for providing adequate compensation. It is further alleged that this absence of security discouraged industry and rendered the land unproductive, that it begot a feeling of carelessness and indifference, so that a lack of exertion existed among the peasantry of Ireland. That was generally, he believed, the substance of the view put forward by moderate politicians, and it was not very different from that of the Devon Commissioners as far back as 1845. The Commissioners said—
    "In some instances the tenant may have capital which he will readily expend upon the land, if he can only be assured that he shall enjoy an adequate return for his expenditure in the length and certainty of his tenure, or can have secured to him a fair compensation for his outlay and labour on quitting the farm. On the other hand, it not un-frequently occurs that the only capital which the occupier of the soil possesses is to be found in the labour of himself and his family. If you show to him in what manner the application of that labour may be rendered most conducive to his own comfort and permanent benefit, and assist him with money or materials which his labour cannot sup-

    533
    ply, you will generally find the Irish peasant ready to co-operate with you in effecting improvements beneficial alike to himself and to the country. It is because we believe in the concurrent testimony of many witnesses, that the attainment of these desirable objects is impeded by the feelings of distrust and insecurity that too often prevail among the tenant class in Ireland, that we venture to recommend some legislative interference upon this point. Although it is certainly desirable that the fair remuneration to which a tenant is entitled for his outlay of capital or of labour, in permanent improvements, should be secured to him by voluntary agreement rather than by compulsion of law; yet, upon a review of all the evidence furnished to us upon the subject, we believe that some legislative measure will be found necessary in order to give efficacy to such agreements as well as to provide for those cases which cannot be settled by private agreement. We earnestly hope that the Legislature will be disposed to entertain a Bill of this nature, and to pass it into a law with as little delay as is consistent with a full discussion of its principle and details."
    So, in reality, the reasons put forward by the Devon Commission twenty-one years ago varied but little from those advanced at the present time in favour of legislation on this subject. It appeared to him that the discussions which took place last year were characterized, as far as that House was concerned, by a far different spirit from that which formerly prevailed respecting this question. Though these discussions were few—he believed they only extended over one night and a half—they were distinguished by a spirit of moderation and an apparent desire to do something practical, such as had seldom or never been evinced before, the objections there from raised against the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman opposite were not so much against the objects he had in view as against the machinery he suggested for attaining his end. In the present Bill he proposed to arrive at the same object as the right hon. Gentleman, but by a somewhat different road. He should endeavour to attain that object by apian which should offer to the tenant the means of obtaining compensation for bonâ fide improvements of the land, without incurring the dangers of the proposal introduced last year. On the present occasion it was not his intention to enter into a discussion on the general state of Ireland. In that country, which was almost wholly agricultural, there was hardly any political or social question which was not in a greater or less degree mixed up with the land. On the present occasion, however, he should merely submit in the briefest possible way the provisions of the Bill which he was about to ask leave to introduce, although no doubt in the future
    534
    stages of the measure many questions would be discussed which though, perhaps, not comprised in its provisions were yet to a certain extent connected with it. He should now endeavour to avoid any question which might raise differences of opinion, least of all was it his intention to attack or find fault with the measures proposed in previous Sessions. A great number of those measures were proposed in the sincere desire to effect something towards a settlement of the question, and he believed the chief cause of their failure was the enormous difficulties inherent to the subject. In most of the moderate measures which were introduced the great defect was that it was proposed that the tenant should be obliged to serve a very elaborate notice on the landlord as to what improvements he proposed to make, and that notice was liable to be considered by the landlord in the shape of a hostile proceeding, and might be challenged item by item before an officer before the landlord's consent was given. The second defect, common to most of the Bills, was that when the claim which was made and had been established came to be settled a great and elaborate machinery of arbitrators, courts and Judges, assistant barristers, clerks of the peace, and so forth, was considered necessary in order to decide upon the value of the claim and the amount to be paid to the tenant. In fact, in many instances litigation was made not only possible, but probable in every case. Now, in the Bill which he proposed to submit there would be no elaborate machinery of that kind. In his Bill there was no trace of a Judge, clerk of the peace, arbitrator or umpire, while even the well-known form of the assistant barrister was conspicuous by its absence. He should propose as simple a machinery as possible, his great object being to avoid, both at the commencement and termination of each transaction, anything likely to lead to litigation. He proposed to found his Bill upon the principle of the Lands Improvement Acts, which had been in operation for many years, both in Great Britain and Ireland, and had been attended invariably with beneficial results. Perhaps no Acts had ever been passed by the Legislature that had worked more easily and beneficially. They had been tried under different forms in the various parts of the United Kingdom with invariable success. The principle of those Acts was that money lent to or expended by the owners under the provisions of the Acts

    535
    should be charged upon the land without reference to title, so that the money being expended under certain restrictions and rules it became a charge on the land and the land only. If, for example, an owner borrowed money under the Lands Improvement Acts, and laid it out upon the land, even though it turned out the very next day that he was not the rightful owner and had no right to effect the loan, yet whoever the owner might be, the charge would attach itself to the land until the debt was entirely paid off. In England and Scotland the operation of this principle had been very extensive. Here the money was provided by financial companies, who undertook that duty, but the carrying out of the improvement was sanctioned by a public body. In Ireland, however, the money was provided by Government. The beneficial effects of the working of this principle in England and Scotland were illustrated by what had been done by one company. It had been in existence nearly twelve years; it had lent £2,300,000, every farthing of which had been expended upon permanent improvements in land; and the repayments had been as satisfactory as the advances had been large. The annual repayments of principal and interest had amounted to something like £128,000 a year, and the arrears at this moment were only £689, so that in England and Scotland there was absolute certainty of repayment of the money advanced. In Ireland the mode of proceeding was somewhat different, and, though it was well known, it would be convenient to remind the House what it was. The owner of land might apply to the Board of Works, by means of an easily obtained form, for a loan to be employed in making improvements specified by the Act. The form was precise, but it was not so minute that there was any difficulty in filling it up. It required the applicant to state the probable expense of the improvement, the estimated increase of value that would be conferred on the land, and the actual sum required. Upon receipt of the application a notice was published by the Commissioners of the Board of Works inviting objections, and, if no objection was made within a fortnight, inquiry was instituted. If that were satisfactory the money was granted, and the work was carried on under the superintendence of the Commissioners. No second instalment was paid until the Inspector certified that the first instal-
    536
    ment had been fully and properly expended in the proposed improvements. The loan was made a first charge upon the land, repayable in twenty-two years, and last year an Act was passed extending the term to thirty-five years. As yet, the money had been advanced for the extended term only for buildings and improvements of an expensive character, but there was nothing in the law to prevent money being lent for the full term for any contemplated purpose. It was competent to the Commissioners to lend the money at 5 per cent, repayable in thirty-five years. At present they had not done this, but they had power to do so. The result of the working of these Acts—for there were three or four of them—was most satisfactory, and from the first the beneficial effects of the advances had been manifest. In the Eighteenth Report of the Board of Works, made in 1850, Sir Richard Griffiths said—
    "The Irish agriculturist complains r of low prices and deficient produce; let him drain and subsoil by the spade, and the return will be doubled, and frequently quadrupled. He is deficient in capital; a loan under the Land Improvement Act will provide it. He alleges he is borne down by rates, particularly the poor's rate; let him employ the people in draining and subsoiling his land, and his rate will be light. In fact, the provisions of the Land Improvement Act meet nearly every requirement necessary for the agricultural improvement of the country. We hear on all sides that it is impossible to support the present pauper population, but it should be borne in mind that the people have become paupers from failure of employment; and it is gratifying to know that, where employment has been afforded them on useful works their labour has been rendered productive, and that when employed by task, as is universally the case in the land improvement, as well as the arterial drainage, they have become industrious, skilful, and thankful labourers; and it is to be observed that, including the attendant main drainage, every acre drained and subsoiled gives full employment to about 160 labourers for one day,"
    That was the opinion expressed nearly fifteen years ago, and it had been fully confirmed by the subsequent operation of these Acts. What was the financial result of the working of the first Land Improvement Act? Advances had been made to as many as 2,000 owners. The number of loans had been 4,210. The largest loan made was £7,000. The smallest £100. There had been 2,092 loans under £500. The total amount advanced since 1847 had been £1,866,000, the whole of which had been expended in the permanent improvement of land. The re-payments were nearly as satisfactory in Ireland as the re-payments

    537
    in England, for since 1847 the re-payments of principal and interest had amounted to £1,618,000. The arrears amounted altogether to only £3,899, every shilling of which was, he believed, good and recoverable. He had received a letter from the Secretary of the Board of Works expressing his opinion to that effect. The conclusion to which he came to was, that the principle of these Acts was good, and that it was desirable, if possible, to extend the benefits they conferred. The proposed Bill was very simple and short, numbering only twenty-one clauses. The improvements it proposed to effect were—thorough and main drainage, reclamation of waste land, and the clearing of land from rocks and stones, the removal of old and useless fences, the making of new fences, the making of farm roads, and the erection of farmhouses and other buildings. With the exception of the reclamation of land from the sea, and other works of a large character, which were not suitable for tenants' improvements, the Bill comprised nearly every description of improvement that had been introduced in former Bills. As to the machinery by which the objects of the Bill were to be attained, he proposed that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with the approval of the Commissioners of the Treasury, should appoint a Commissioner of Public Works, for the special conduct of the operations to be carried out under the Act. Machinery existed already in the Board of Works, which rendered the appointment of a large staff unnecessary. The Special Commissioner would have to devote his whole time to the discharge of duties imposed by the Act; but he would be associated with the present Commissioners, and he would have the advantage of the assistance of the solicitor, architect, and inspectors, and the various officers of the Board now employed under the Lauds Improvement Acts. He (Lord Naas) did not propose to create a new department, to employ a large staff, or to incur any great expense. The great difference between the position of the Special Commissioner and that of the officers of the Present Board of Works would be that he would be more directly under the control of the Irish Government, and that the Irish Government, in conjunction with the Treasury, would be responsible for all his acts. More than once objection had been taken to the action of the Commissioners of the Board of Works in Ireland, and complaint had been made that
    538
    there was not sufficient responsibility attached to their conduct. He therefore proposed that this Commissioner should be more under the control of the Irish Government than the present officers of the Board, and in this way the objections alluded to would be obviated. He proposed that this Commissioner should have the power, from time to time, with the sanction of the Lord Lieutenant and the Commissioners of the Treasury, to make rules and regulations for the carrying out of the Act, to frame rules for the making of preliminary inquiries, to defray and secure the repayment of expenses, to see to the due expenditure of each instalment of a loan, and the proper execution of the improvements, and to collect the rent-charges payable under the Act. These rules and regulations were, within a month of their being framed, to be submitted to Parliament, and an annual Report was to be presented to the Lord Lieutenant and also laid before this House. In order to provide the money which would be required in the first instance to give effect to the provisions of the Bill, he did not propose to ask Parliament to make any advances beyond those which had been already sanctioned. The Act passed last year, in addition to authorizing the Commissioners of the Board of Works to extend the time for repayment, sanctioned the advance out of the Consolidated Fund of £1,000,000 for the improvement of land in Ireland, and this, added to the advances authorized by three preceding Acts, gave a total of £3,000,000. He was happy to state that no further sum would be for the present required. The advances made under the four Acts, up to the 31st of January last, amounted to £1,874,042; the balance unissued was therefore £1,125,958. The claims outstanding sanctioned at that time amounted to £111,460; the loans applied for but not then sanctioned would absorb £36,656; these two sums amounted to £148,116, and that left a balance of £977,842. So that there was nearly £1,000,000, the advance of which had been sanctioned by Parliament, available for the object of land improvement. It might be said that this money was advanced for landlords' improvements, and that now it was proposed it should be laid out by tenants. There was not, however, much weight in that objection, for all the money was to be spent on the landlords' property, and if the plan worked well Parliament, he believed, would never be unwilling to

    539
    lend the credit of the country—for that was what it came to—for an object so desirable as the improvement of the soil in Ireland. There could, therefore, be no substantial objection to the proposal that this £1,000,000 should be devoted to the purposes of the Bill. The next proposal was, that if any tenant was desirous of availing himself of the provision of the measure he should apply to the Commissioners by memorial, pretty much in the same form as the owner now did when he made application for advances, and that most of the proceedings necessary in the one case should be requisite in the other. The Commissioners would then give notice to the landlord and also to the person in actual possession of the land that such an application had been made, and would proceed to institute the proper inquiries in order to enable them to judge of the propriety of the proposed improvement. As soon as the Commissioners were satisfied that the improvements were good and would immediately or prospectively effect a considerable increase in the value of the land—that is, an increase above the charge which it was proposed to place upon it—they would grant to the tenant a certificate sanctioning the improvement, and that certificate would be in the form provided by the rules and regulations he had alluded to before. The proceedings, therefore, to be taken so far would be almost the same on the part of the tenant as were now required on the part of the owner. With regard to the different kinds of improvement he intended to make sonic distinction. As he had already stated there were six kinds of improvement proposed under the Bill. The first three were the main and thorough drainage of land, the reclamation of waste lands, the clearing of the soil from rocks and stones, and the removal of old and useless fences. That these must always be improvements would be admitted; but there was a substantial difference between these three descriptions of improvement and the three last, which were the erection of farm buildings and dwellings, the making of new fences, and the construction of farm roads. With regard to the first three classes, therefore, it was proposed that the Commissioners having been applied to in the first instance by the tenant, and having given notice to the landlord of his intention to permit the improvements, that notice should be sufficient. But, with respect to the last three classes of improvement, con-
    540
    cerning which great difference of opinion might exist, and concerning which the landlord might think that they ought not to be made, and might be contrary to ulterior objects which he might have with regard to his property, it was proposed that if, in that case, after hearing what was to be said upon the subject, the landlord expressed his dissent, the Commissioners should not be allowed to sanction the improvements. He had said there was a substantial difference between the two classes of improvements. The first description, if done in an efficient manner, could not but he regarded as beneficial, and could not but make the increased value of the land greater than the charge proposed to be laid upon it. No difference of opinion ought to exist on the subject. But it might be otherwise with regard to the other class. He did not think it necessary, therefore, that the dissent of the landlord should put a stop to improvements of the first kind. The Commissioners should proceed, then, to advance out of the money provided by the Act the amount specified, and when that advance had been made he should make a certificate of charge, and the land would be affected by that certificate precisely in the same way as it was affected by the certificates of charge for improvements made by the owner. The term of repayment was to be thirty-five years, and the charges should be repaid in the usual half-yearly instalments in the same way as were the charges under the old Lands Improvement Act. He now came to another portion of the Bill, which he hoped would be still more extensively useful than the part he had described. He proposed that in cases where the tenant should find it more to his convenience to lay out either his money or labour on his holding, if he should think fit to go through those easy and simple forms which he would have to do in order to borrow the money, the Commissioner would be enabled to charge the land precisely in the same way as if the money had been advanced by him. The tenant would, therefore, be in this position—if at any time he was evicted or wished to leave his land, or to get hack the sum of money that he had laid out upon it; if he should be able to prove to the Commissioner that the improvements made were maintained in an efficient manner, he would then be entitled to go and receive back from the Commissioner the money charged upon the land in a lump sum, minus only the instalments

    541
    he should have paid had he borrowed the money in the ordinary way. The tenant, therefore, would be able during the period of his tenancy to recover from the Commissioner the remaining portion of the charge placed upon the land. There was ample provision made to enable the Commissioner to discover whether the improvements were maintained in thorough and efficient repair. The Commissioners would be able to say to the tenant, "If you have no money to lay out, if you show us that the improvements are good, we will lend you the money; or if you have money or its equivalent—labour—we will secure it to you in such a manner as will repay you over and over again for the improvements you may have effected." The Bill had a great advantage in this respect. The great blot in the tenant-right system of the North of Ireland was this, that the outgoing tenant in every case received a lump sum for his improvements from the incoming tenant. It was quite right that the outgoing tenant should be paid in this manner for his improvements, but it was very much to the disadvantage of the incoming tenant, because by the payment of a large sum, which he ought to have kept for the improvement of his farm, he was—as gentlemen connected with the North of Ireland could testify—often pauperized and rendered incapable of working his farm in a profitable manner. He would, therefore, by this Bill save tenants who chose to take the benefit of it from so great an evil. The outgoing tenant would still receive a lump sum, but the incoming tenant would be able to spread the payment of it over a number of years, the number to be measured by the remainder of the thirty-five years which still had to run. There was another great benefit which it was intended to confer upon the country by this Bill. They heard a good deal of improvements effected by the tenant, and no doubt some had been made; but they all knew that there was in Ireland a great want of agricultural knowledge, and that a great deal of money and labour had been expended upon works which were no improvements at all. It was intended by the machinery of this Bill to put within the reach of the tenant sound agricultural instruction for the making of improvements. The improvements before they were undertaken would have to be specified and described, and afterwards they would have to be carried out according to the description and specification.
    542
    They would not be carried out in an expensive and extravagant manner, but according to the plans which our improved agricultural science and knowledge showed to be the best. Objection might be taken to the necessity which the Bill would impose upon perhaps a poor tenant, of serving such a notice as this. But let the House consider how it would act. The tenant would not be placed in the position in which other Bills put him, of serving notice upon the landlord, which, in many cases, would, he feared, he taken as a hostile proceeding. He would serve the notice on the Commissioner. Again, it would be objected that a poor and illiterate man would find great difficulty in drawing up the necessary specifications. But that would not be the case, for in every district there would be a surveyor of the Board, who would be perfectly competent to draw up those specifications and plans; and more than that, the officer of the Board would have a direct personal interest in persuading the tenant to make those applications, because he would be paid according to the work which the tenant undertakes. There would, therefore, be no difficulty in a tenant obtaining the assistance of a person of sufficient skill in drawing up notices and plans. There was no country in the world which offered such facilities for the framing of such notices as Ireland, inasmuch as there was an admirable staff of surveyors in the conn-try—one in each county—fully competent to perform those duties which the Bill proposed. Having placed the working of the measure in the hands of the Commissioner, he did not think it necessary to limit the outlay with regard to the size of the holding, because the Commissioner could not sanction any improvement unsuitable to the holding, or which would not increase its substantial value. The extent of land which would probably be affected by the measure would be very large. A Return, which had been prepared with the assistance of Sir Richard Griffiths the Commissioner for valuation, and which was one of the most important Returns ever made connected with the owners and occupiers of land in Ireland, would shortly be laid on the table of the House. Excluding altogether the tenements in towns or in the neighbourhood of towns, and those which could in any respect be regarded as urban, it showed the number of purely agricultural holdings, with the area, value, and population of each district. The number

    543
    of such holdings in Ireland was 608,864. Were the Bill applied to all holdings of the value of £10 and upwards, it would; include 242,998; if to holdings of £15 and upwards, it would include 165,193; and if to those of £20 and upwards, 119,214. Taking the average valuation of the holdings under £10 to be £6, the Bill, if limited to the former sum, would embrace holdings valued at £7,980,552 out of a total of £10,175,748, or as nearly as possible 4–5ths of the holdings in all Ireland. As, however, the small farms were mostly situate in Ulster, where tenant-right already existed to a great extent, it would actually include nearly 9–10ths in value, and at least 5–6ths of the whole surface of Ireland. These were the principal provisions of the Bill, to which he had added two clauses relating to fixtures, taken from the Bill introduced by Mr. Napier in 1852. These would simplify the law on that subject, and would clear up some of the doubts which attended the construction of two recent statutes. They provided that all buildings and fixtures hereafter attached to the holding by the tenant at his sole expense, and not erected in pursuance of any contract, obligation, or agreement on his part, should be his absolute property, and might be removed by him at any period of his tenancy. The only stipulation was that he should give notice of his intention to the landlord, and that the latter should have the option of purchasing them at a valuation fixed by two arbitrators, or, in case they disagreed, by an umpire to be then appointed. These clauses went very little beyond the existing law, especially the provisions of the Act of 1860; but as there was some doubt as to the operation of that clause, they would, he hoped, receive the sanction of the House. He had thus explained the provisions of the measure, which, based upon the principle of a well-known and successful code, though it contained nothing new in principle, applied well-known principles in an extended and novel form, such as had never before been proposed. It was framed entirely in the interests of the Irish tenantry, and he believed that any occupier desirous of securing the benefit of his improvements would experience but little difficulty in availing himself of its provisions. While, however, it would tend to encourage industry and increase contentment, to promote exertion by the tenant, and to make his dwelling more fit than it usually is in Ireland for
    544
    human habitation, the landlord also would, he believed, be no inconsiderable gainer. The Bill was calculated to show to the tenant that he had nothing to do but really and honestly to take advantage of it, and he would be able to make sure that that which he sowed he should also reap. If it benefited the tenant, it must also benefit the landlord, because there were no two classes in the social state whose interests were more identical than those of the landlord and tenant. The well-being of the tenant was really the life-blood of the prosperity of the landlord. The tenant might exist alone; but it was dear that the landlord could not exist without the tenant. He asked the House to consider whether the Bill would not really go far to remove many of the grievances complained of. The hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. Stuart Mill), in a remarkable speech which he delivered last Session, thus summed up what he regarded as the objects to be kept in view with reference to the Irish tenantry—
    "How are the present tenantry, or the best of them, to be raised into a superior class of farmers? … Give them what you can of the encouraging influences of ownership. Give them an interest in improvement. Enable them to be secure of enjoying the fruits of their own labour and outlay. Let their improvements be for their own benefit, and not solely for those whose land they till."—[3 Hansard, clxxxiii. 1091.]
    Now, this was exactly what the present measure was calculated to accomplish. It would enable the tenant to obtain all those advantages by the exercise of industry and exertion, which was the only way by which any tenant, whatever the nature of his tenure, could expect to obtain them. He would not describe the Bill as a settlement of the question. In a free country, and in an age of rapid change, it was presumptuous to affirm that any great question, political or social, was absolutely settled; but he believed that if the House, after calmly considering and possibly amending it, should pass this measure into law, it would remove many, if not all, the complaints that had been urged from time to time on behalf of the occupiers of land in Ireland.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That Leave be given to bring in a Bill to promote the improvement of Land by Occupying Tenants in Ireland."—(Lord Naas.)
    MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, he would not attempt on that occasion to discuss what his noble Friend called the simple, but what appeared to him the very

    545
    complicated and elaborate provisions of this measure. He must, however, congratulate him on having—though somewhat timid and restrictive in his application of it—entirely departed from the principle which he so zealously impressed upon the House last Session for the purpose of defeating the second reading of the Bill introduced by the late Government. The Resolution which his noble Friend then moved declared that compensation should be given to the tenant in respect only of improvements made with the consent of the landlord; whereas, with regard to one class of improvements made in the land—namely, drainage, reclamation, and clearing of land from stones, and the removal of old and useless fences, his noble Friend, in defiance of his own antecedents, now entirely abandoned that principle. It was only to be regretted that he had not carried his change of opinion further, and had not extended the principle to improvements in farmhouses and buildings, which were above all others required on Irish farms. Upon the first blush, the measure appeared liable to many and serious objections, the cardinal one being to the lending of money by the Treasury to those who were in one sense tenants-at-will. It was surprising that the present Treasury should have consented to such a proposal. The principle of lending money on laud to those who had a long interest in it was a recognised one; but his noble Friend proposed to make loans of the public money to tenants who were liable to be removed at six months' notice. This, of course, was an objection from an official or Governmental point of view, but he thought it was one of no slight importance, and one which be should have thought would have nipped the Bill in the bud. Another objection was that the plan of his noble Friend required more from the poor Irish tenant than could be fairly required from him. The fatal error which had prevented the twenty-five ghosts of Bills spoken of by the noble Lord from being embodied into Acts of Parliament, and which had led to the Act of his right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Cardwell) becoming a dead letter, was that too much had been expected from the peasantry in the way of putting those elaborated processes in motion. His noble Friend had spoken of the tenant arriving at the same result by this Bill as the late Government had intended he should arrive at by theirs, and he gave him credit for that intention; but before one arrived he
    546
    must start. What he feared was that under the Bill of his noble Friend the Irish peasant never would be able to start on the race of improvement. Was it to be supposed that the Irish tenant would go through all the proposed forms of applying to the Board of Works for a loan to enable him to begin and carry on his improvements? He must confess that to him it appeared that unless some of these preliminaries were struck out, and the proceeding were made more simple, the Bill would contain in itself a fatal obstacle to its provisions being carried out by the occupiers of Ireland. It was this view which had induced the late Government to proceed on a totally different plan, and to provide what he might call a self-acting piece of machinery. The principle upon which they had proceeded was not only to change, but actually to reverse, the general presumption of the existing law as regarded landlord and tenant in Ireland. In nine cases out of ten, improvements on the land in Ireland were made by the tenant. Under the existing law, those improvements were handed over to the landlord on the expiration of the tenancy, unless there had been an agreement to the contrary. In the Bill brought in by the late Government that principle was reversed, and those improvements became the property of the tenant, unless the two parties had specially agreed to the contrary. He believed a self-acting system, such as that, would have had a most salutary influence on public opinion, and on the dealings between landlords and tenants in Ireland. He did not wish to prejudge the Bill of his noble Friend; but he feared from the character of its machinery that the measure would not work in the beneficial manner that the Government wished and intended it should.
    THE O'DONOGHUEsaid, there was an unintentional inaccuracy in the statement of the noble Lord that previously to 1845 no person possessing popular influence in Ireland had manifested an interest in the settlement of the land question. Long previously to 1845 O'Connell had pointed to the position of the Irish tenant, and indicated the manner in which it ought to be improved. The Bill now before the House must be regarded as one of the most important measures of the Government; because, no doubt, it formed part of that great scheme by which, according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, they were to stop the hæmorrago of people from Ireland, and by which, accord-

    547
    ing to the Attorney General for Ireland, there was to be a prodigious development of that country's resources. Much must have been expected from the measure, because it was known that one of its principal framers was acting under a revulsion of feeling. The noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland had more than once stated in that House that the measures brought forward to improve the relations between landlord and tenant would have the effect of injuring rather than of benefiting the tenant. He was far from blaming the noble Lord for having changed his mind. He rejoiced at the circumstance, because he thought it was a confession on the noble Lord's part that those relations were not satisfactory, and that those who would have the confidence of the Irish people must endeavour to deal with the land question. The House and the country had now to consider whether the Bill which the noble Lord proposed to introduce would be accepted as a satisfactory settlement of the land question. It was quite possible that the provisions of the Bill might be good in themselves, but, at the same time, fall so far short of what was required as to insure the condemnation of the Bill as a proposal for such settlement. The land question was not an abstruse one. They all knew of what it was the occupiers complained. They all admitted that every facility which could be given to all classes of cultivators to improve the land ought to be given to them, and that every obstacle in the way of such improvement ought to be removed. He believed that this Bill would have no beneficial effect practically on the masses of occupiers, while it might make that position worse than it was at present if it could possibly be accepted as a final settlement of the land question. He believed the provisions of the Bill might in themselves be good; but it never could be accepted by the occupiers as a fair settlement of the land question.
    MR. AGAR-ELLISsaid, he wished to inquire whether it would be necessary for the tenant to get the landlord's sanction before he could borrow money for improvements?
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHATTERTON)said, that as one of the framers of the Bill, he shared in the responsibility of the proposals now before the House. He was surprised to hear the charge that the noble Lord had departed from the principles upon this subject
    548
    on which he acted last year; and he could only account for the charge by supposing that it was forgotten that the present Bill was founded upon totally different principles from that of last Session. The Bill of the late Government proposed that the tenant, without notice to the landlord, might make improvements, and that after a number of years, and when there could no longer be an opportunity of testing the validity of the claim in a satisfactory manner, he might demand compensation for those improvements from the landlord or his successor. Under the Bill which his noble Friend sought to introduce, all parties were effectually guarded. The tenant was made to a certain extent independent of the landlord for improvements made in the land; but, on the other hand, the landlord had a security that the improvements would be beneficial. Notice was required, but it was notice to a public officer, independent of both the parties, whose duty it was to see that the money was honestly expended, and that the improvements were bonâ fide, and such as to increase the value of the land. Was it fair to represent such a proposal as a departure from the principle on which resistance was last year made to the proposals of the then Government? Improvements in the land were distinguishable in general from improvements on the land. There were improvements on the land, particularly in the case of buildings, by which a landlord might be improved out of his estate; buildings of so extensive a character, and so entirely unsuited to the character of the holding, that the landlord might never be able to recover anything proportionate through an increased letting value. The veto of the landlord against this latter class of improvements was to be exercised after the Commissioner, an impartial public officer, had been afforded the opportunity of putting before him reasons which ought to be solid. If the landlord were convinced that the change was really for the benefit of the estate, the veto of course would not be exercised; but if he were not convinced, he had clearly a right to exercise that veto. The next objection of the right hon. Gentleman was that the money to be lent to the tenant was the money of the State. But whose money did the Bill of last year propose to lend? The money of the landlord, without security or check of any kind. The present Bill, on the contrary, only sanctioned what would be a secure investment, for the money was to be invested

    549
    under bonâ fide inspection from time to time by a public officer. As to the fear that tenants of small holdings would not understand the complicated provisions of the Bill, what were these when looked into? Printed forms containing all the necessary heads would be freely supplied to persons requiring them, and the Inspector in the district would supply every information requisite as to how these were to be filled up. When a tenant was about to give the legal notices, it surely was not too much to expect that he should have made up his own mind as to the character of the improvements which he contemplated. Between the tenant and a captious or objecting landlord, if any such should be found, an impartial public officer was judicially interposed by the Bill. He would not enter into a discussion of what the hon. Member for Tralee called "the land question." He did not really know what the land question meant. But he might suggest that this measure afforded a very good test of what some meant by that phrase. If by the land question were meant something in the nature of a transfer of property from the landlord to the tenant, this measure was not intended to do anything of the kind, or to aid or abet any such design. But if it meant merely an honest desire to get secured to the tenant the value of bonâ fide improvements effected in the land, then he believed this measure would deal justly and effectually with the land question. As to borrowing money, the provisions of the Bill, when these were in the hands of Members, would bear upon their face evidence that they were intended to apply to improvements in the land as distinguished from those on the land—that was to say, to improvements by which all who were interested in the land would be benefited.
    COLONEL GREVILLEsaid, he admitted that the Bill would not constitute a settlement of the land question; but he did not think the objections taken by his right hon. Friend (the Member for Louth) were well founded. It was a very fortunate thing, he thought, that his noble Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland had been able to induce the Treasury to lend the money of the State to the Irish tenant farmers to improve their lands. As to any objections on that score, let the noble Lord settle those with his own Colleagues; as far as the country was concerned, it was of great benefit that the noble Lord had been able to carry his Colleagues along with him.
    550
    Bearing in mind that of the £3,000,000 advanced for improvements in land a balance of £1,200,000 was available, the noble Lord, he thought, was quite justified in his proposal. Moreover, the improvements being made in the land itself, and remaining a charge upon the land, there would always be good security for the investment. He found no fault now with the noble Lord for any opinion which he might have expressed in former times. He had come down now, in the responsible position of Chief Secretary for Ireland, speaking the sentiments of the Government, to recommend a principle which went considerable lengths in the direction for which Members at that side of the House always contended. He wished the measure had been more extensive; but such as it was it ought to be welcomed, and, if possible, improved when before the House in detail.
    MR. BRADYsaid, he wished to express his grateful thanks to the noble Lord for having introduced the Bill, the principle of which he hoped, for the advantage of Ireland, would be carried out. The people of Ireland were in a very distressed condition owing to the state of the law as regarded landlord and tenant, and any measure which would have the effect of alleviating that distress ought to have the sanction of every Member of that House. If this question could be settled the people of Ireland would become more happy and prosperous, and in the future would be as loyal as the citizens of any other part of Her Majesty's dominions.
    MR. BLAKEsaid, he thought the Bill a good one as far as it went, but it did not meet the case of three-fourths of the tenants of Ireland. The noble Lord, who understood the Irish land question as well as any Member of that House, must see that its provisions did not meet the case of the tenant who little by little, without the consent of or having given notice to his landlord, and probably without any settled intention of doing so at the outset, by long years of labour reclaimed the hog or cleared the mountain side of stones. In many cases, also, he believed that the very dread of the landlord entertained by the tenantry would deter them from giving notice to the Commissioner.
    SIR PATRICK O'BRIENsaid, he thought that the Bill would be in a great degree inoperative, because, if it became law, a tenant would not be able to make improvements without the consent of the landlord. If a landlord did not desire his

    551
    land to be improved, he would forthwith give his tenant notice to quit. He feared that the Bill of the noble Lord would not settle the land question in Ireland.
    MR. GREGORYsaid, he approved of the principle contained in the Bill of allowing the tenant to become a borrower, which might get rid of many existing difficulties which occasioned the eviction of tenants, under whatever circumstance they might be evicted. The value of their improvements would, at all events, not be lost to them. The proposal of the noble Lord seemed, however, to be surrounded with considerable difficulty. The system was too complicated and elaborate for a simple people like the Irish peasantry. The appointment of the local inspectors, who were not to be paid salaries, but according to the amount of money expended on the work under their supervision, might have the effect of increasing the expenditure without due regard to the requirements of the land. The noble Lord must not flatter himself that this Bill, however well it might he accepted, would settle the land question. He had been much about Ireland of late, and had endeavoured to ascertain from the people what their feeling in the matter was, and he was convinced as to what was at the bottom of that discontent which had made the soil there so ready to receive the seeds of every attempt made against our Empire. The source of discontent in Ireland was not a feeling that the tenantry were not paid for their improvements, but a conviction that the whole system of land tenure in the country was abnormal, since the tenants had no security for their holdings. In Scotland, on the contrary, they found a tenure in which the largest amount of produce was derived from land; while, at the same time, the largest rents were there paid, and the tenants were contented. Security of tenure, even for a limited period, was the source of Scotland's contentment; insecurity was the cause of Ireland's discontent. Some Irish landlords were surprised at the views he entertained, knowing the perfect security their tenants had enjoyed from father to son, and how little weight they attached to leases. But it was not for the good, but for the bad, that he would legislate; and the language of all the tenants advocated before the late Committee was to this effect:—that if all landlords were considerate and just, there would be no cry for tenant right. There were, however, too many cases where
    552
    tenants were turned out, sometimes from caprice, and sometimes from interested motives, under circumstances which produced the most painful impression in the country, and gave rise to that feeling which indisposed the people to the institutions under which they lived. He was convinced that if the general system of tenure in Ireland was assimilated to the system in Scotland, and the tenants were secure of their holdings for a certain period, every man thus secured would be, as it were, a sworn special constable in favour of law and order. He should do his best to assist the noble Lord; but he did not think we should ever have thorough peace in Ireland until the tenure of land was assimilated to the tenure in Scotland and Prussia, and in those other countries where agrarian discontent was unknown.
    MR. O'BEIRNEsaid, he had looked in vain to find a satisfactory measure in the Bill of the noble Lord, and he regretted that he had not been able to find it. He was anxious to give the noble Lord all the assistance in his power if the Bill could be made a satisfactory one, but he feared that that was impossible. He believed that a much shorter and more effective road must be taken in dealing with the question, which was one more of tenure than of compensation, and he believed the Bill to be brought in by his hon. Friend (Mr. Agar-Ellis), which related solely to the tenure of land, would be much more likely to prove an effective remedy for the existing state of things. The evil against which he wished them to provide was not one of a merely imaginary character, and he would give an instance of the mode in which it operated. A Belfast merchant had lately purchased in the county of Down a large estate, on which were settled a thriving tenantry. But those people were tenants-at-will, who paid 7s. 6d. per Irish acre. The new proprietor, thinking, as he had a perfect right to do, that that sum was too small, served the different holders with notices to quit; but, at the same time, intimated that he was prepared to accept from them rents which were to be increased by sums varying from 37 s. 6d. to 57 s. 6d. per acre. They declined to accept that offer, although some of them expressed their readiness to pay an additional rent of 40 s. per acre, and as he was not satisfied with that proposal, they were all threatened with the total loss of their farms. But if that threat were enforced, they would, under the operation of the existing law, in ten days, be thrown

    553
    helpless upon the world, and be deprived of any kind of claim to compensation for that improved value which the application of their own capital and industry had given to the land.
    SIR FREDERICK HEYGATEsaid, be wished to congratulate the noble Lord on the introduction of his Bill, and on the reception which the House bad accorded to it. "Until they had seen the measure it was premature to talk of its complication. The noble Lord bad been taunted with altering his opinion on the subject; but surely, considering the recent circumstances of Ireland, he could well afford to bear that reproach. The emigration still going on from that country was a most serious matter; and, although a Bill such as this might not stop that emigration, yet anything which checked that tendency would be a blessing to Ireland. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Gregory) had contrasted the Scotch system of tenure with that prevalent in Ireland; but bow was it possible to compare the case of a country where land was so much subdivided as it was in Ireland with that of a country like Scotland, where the farms were generally of great size? The introduction to a moderate extent of the tenant right principle which existed in Ulster would, he thought, prove beneficial. That principle might be carried to an unreasonable length, so as to be a bar to the landlord's sanctioning improvements; and he bad known a man to be pauperized by the large sum he had to pay for the tenant right. But where there was a moderate amount of tenant right, and where the tenant had a security, whether by a lease or through his confidence in his landlord, he had a permanent interest in the soil, and would think twice before he exchanged the security and associations of his native country for the attractions of the new one across the Atlantic.
    MR. REARDENsaid, he thought they were indebted to the noble Lord for the kind intentions with which he had introduced that measure; but, at the same time, he (Mr. Rearden) believed that the scheme would be found to be of very little value unless it were considerably amended. He should propose Amendments when the Bill was in Committee. He thought it fell far short of a final settlement of the land question.
    MR. MURPHYsaid, he wished to suggest that when the Bill got into Committee a clause should be introduced into it pro-
    554
    viding that a tenant-at-will, spending his own money on improvements, should have some kind of security in the shape of an extended period for his occupancy, and not be liable to be turned out summarily at the end of six months. He gave the noble Lord every possible credit for good intentions; but doubted whether the plan for making advances to tenants would be found to work in practice where they had not some security of tenure. The whole complaint of tenants in Ireland, as a class, was the want of security of tenure, in other words, an incentive to lay out their money, and to take an interest in their business. He remembered the time when leases in Ireland were the rule and not the exception as now. He thought a better Bill might have been introduced, but he reserved further observations for the Committee.
    LORD NAASsaid, with regard to the charge of inconsistency which bad been sought to be fastened upon him, that it was true he had moved a Resolution last year in the terms which had been quoted; but that Resolution was, in effect, the Resolution of the late Government. It was proposed in the Committee in 1865, by the desire and with the consent of two Members who represented the late Government in that Committee, one of whom was the right hon. Member for the city of Oxford (Mr. Cardwell). So that if be was open to the charge of inconsistency in to a certain extent now departing from the principle of the Resolution of last year, how much more was the late Government open to it, seeing that they departed much sooner from that principle, and introduced a Bill directly opposed to it in every clause? He therefore left the House to judge on whom the charge of inconsistency principally rested; but, in reality, he only extended the provisions of the Land Improvements Acts now, which provided that the charge of re-payment should attach itself to the land, not to the owner. But he now turned to a more important point. It was said the Bill proposed that the Government should lend money to occupiers in Ireland, no matter what was the size of their holdings. Now, it was perfectly true that it did so to a certain extent; but, in reality, the charge was not upon the occupying tenant, but on the land; and the security to the Treasury for the loan under the Bill would be as sound, good, and easily enforced as a security taken under the Land Improvement Act. Additional security to

    555
    what was given by that Act was taken; because the Bill provided, with regard to the repayment of the instalments, that they should, if the Commissioners saw fit, be collected with, and in the same manner as, the county cess and the poor rate.
    MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, he wished to ask whether they would be levied from the tenant or the landlord?
    LORD NAASsaid, they would be levied from the occupier of the land whoever he might be, and not only would the land be liable, but the property of the tenant would also be liable till the money was paid. In the case of a change of tenancy, the tenant would take the land with that charge upon it. The Bill exactly met the case suggested by the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Blake), with reference to the reclamation of mountain or bog land. As to the assertion that landlords could evade the Bill by giving their tenants notice to quit, be would ask what man could frame a Bill not open to the same objection? The Bill of the late Government not only permitted the landlord to evade the law by giving his tenant notice to quit, but actually suggested that course to him by the contract clause framed for the purpose of enabling the landlord to evade the preceding one. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Gregory) had made some excellent remarks upon the subject of agriculture in Scotland; but, although they would all join with him in wishing for Ireland as happy a state of things as existed in Scotland, he did not believe the tenantry in Ireland would prosper under a system of short leases. Irish tenants would not relish having their holding put up for auction and let to the highest bidder after their nineteen years' lease had expired. Short leases might be profitable to landlords, and conduce to the improvement of the land; but they would operate harshly upon the holder, and lead to a constant change of tenantry, which was undesirable. There were no holdings the tenancy of which were oftener changed than these Scotch cases, and at the termination of the lease the land was frequently re-valued and sold by auction to the highest bidder. He hoped the House would calmly consider this Bill, which was simply a Bill to provide a tenant with compensation for his improvements. His Bill did not affect the question of tenure, and he would not recommend legislation upon the subject. If the House attempted to force the landlords of Ireland to grant any specific tenure, hon. Gentlemen would find the attempt both danger-
    556
    ous and difficult; and the result would show that the greatest sufferer by coercion of this description would be the tenant.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill ordered to be brought in by Lord NAAS and Mr. SOLICITOR GENERAL for IRELAND.
    Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 29.]

    LAND IMPROVEMENT AND LEASING (IRELAND) BILL.
    On Motion of Lord NAAS, Bill to facilitate the Improvement and Leasing of Land by limited owners in Ireland, ordered to be brought in by Lord NAAS and Mr. SOLICITOR GENERAL for IRELAND.
    Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 30.]

    PUBLIC ACCOUNTS.
    Committee of Public Accounts nominated:—
    Mr. BOUVERIE, Mr. HOWES, Mr. LAING, Lord ROBERT MONTAGU, Mr. POLLARD-URQUHART, Mr. HUBBARD, Mr. CHILDERS, Mr. ALGERNON EGERTON, and Mr. HUNT:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records:—Standing Order, That Five be the quorum, suspended:—Three to be the quorum.

    LAND IMPROVEMENT CONTRACTS (IRELAND) BILL.
    On Motion of Mr. AGAR-ELLIS, Bill to enable Contracts to be made between Landlord and Tenant for the improvement of Land in Ireland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. AGAR-ELLIS and Colonel FRENCH.

    LAND TAX COMMISSIONERS' NAMES BILL.
    On Motion of Mr. HUNT, Bill to appoint additional Commissioners for executing the Acts for granting a Land Tax and other Rates and Taxes, ordered to be brought in by Mr. HUNT and Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER. Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 31.]
    House adjourned at half after Twelve o'clock.

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—On Traffic Regulation (Metropolis), The Marquess of Westmeath, The Earl of Airlie, and The Earl Stanhope added.
PUBLIC BILL—First Reading—Alimony Arrears* (17).

PRIVILEGE.—PAMPHLET OF MR. R. S. FRANCE.
LORD REDESDALEsaid, he had hoped, after what he had stated to their Lordships on a previous occasion, that it would not be necessary for him to ask the House to take any steps in reference to Mr. France, who had made incorrect statements with respect to the course taken by him, as Chairman of Committees, when dealing with a certain Bill. As, however, Mr. France would not add to the correspondence which had taken place between them a letter explaining that he had been mistaken in what he had said as to particular clauses in the Bill, he now moved that Mr.

453
France be required to attend at the Bar to-morrow, and to bring with him the correspondence on the subject.
THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEsuggested that the correspondence between the noble Lord and Mr. France ought to be placed in their Lordships' hands before they were called upon to send the latter gentleman to prison.
LORD REDESDALEsaid, he had not moved to commit Mr. France to prison, but only that he be directed to attend at the Bar. He hoped that, in answer to one or two questions which he should put to him, Mr. France would give the explanation which, as Chairman of Committees, he thought he was entitled to expect.
Motion agreed to.
Ordered that Mr. R. S. France do attend at the Bar of this House To-morrow, at Five o'clock, and bring with him the Letters addressed to him by The Lord Redesdale on the Subject of a Pamphlet written by him entitled "Lord Redesdale and the new Railways."

HABEAS CORPUS SUSPENSION (IRELAND) ACT.—QUESTION.
THE EARL OF ESSEXsaid, he wished to ask the noble Earl at the head of the Government a Question—namely,Whether, considering the state in which Ireland now was—considering that Fenianism was only scotched, not killed—knowing that the very day after the affair at Chester a large number of men were arrested in Dublin immediately after their arrival from England, having, it was supposed, returned to Ireland in the belief that the law under which the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended had expired—he wished to ask whether, under all these circumstances, and considering what had since taken place in other parts of Ireland, it was still the opinion of Her Majesty's Government that the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act should cease at the end of the present month? He would take this opportunity of expressing a strong hope—even at the risk of offending the delicate susceptibilities of the Exeter Hall people—that if any of those unfortunate Fenians fell into the hands of the Government—being captured as it were red-handed—they would be treated with the utmost rigour of the law as being guilty of high treason. He hoped that no humanitarians, so common in our days—excellent men no doubt in other respects—would be allowed to stand between those people and the punishment which
454
they so richly deserved. He would further express a strong hope that if on those occasions the military should be called upon to act, and that blood should be shed, they would not be exposed to the risk of criminal proceedings for acting vigorously in defense of their Queen and country. He could conceive nothing more discouraging to both officers and soldiers than that when called out to act in defence of law and order against a body of rebels, they should feel that they might perhaps be exposed to a criminal prosecution if lives were lost through their vigour and promptitude in suppressing a revolt. He could conceive nothing more humiliating than the position in which the officers of the British army were sometimes placed in cases of great danger and emergency. If they hesitated to do their duty, probably they would be professionally disgraced. On the other hand, if they acted vigorously and resolutely, they ran the risk of indictment in a criminal court. He believed that the extraordinary leniency shown to State criminals since the period of Mr. Smith O'Brien's affair for crimes which were formerly characterized by the old-fashioned names of rebellion and high treason, and punished as such, had acted in effect as a premium for the encouragement of similar crimes. It was well to say that prevention was better than cure. The Government had tried that principle, and had it succeeded? It had tried leniency—had it succeeded? Witness the return of the Fenians from other countries to which they had been allowed to remove themselves, to their own country, for the purpose of renewing their rebellious machinations. What did they care for the consequences when they believed that if captured they would be only condemned to a few months' imprisonment, or at the utmost to a few years' penal servitude? What did they care, if even the military were called out, if they believed that they would not be allowed to act with energy or vigour against them? He should be sorry to be supposed harsh or unfeeling; but he believed that this principle of leniency had been carried too far, and he believed that if the Government wished to put a stop to such wicked proceedings as those to which he had referred, it could only do so effectually by dealing with the leaders in the most summary manner possible, and by teaching their misguided followers that they could not raise the flag of rebellion and disturb the peace of the country without incurring

455
the penalty which the law attached to such a serious crime. The noble Earl concluded by again asking whether it was the intention of the Government to persevere in their expressed intention to allow the Act for the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland to expire?
THE EARL OF LEITRIMsaid, that before the noble Earl at the head of the Government answered the Question, he wished to make a few observations. He positively denied that all this mischief had commenced in Ireland. He believed that it was concocted in Manchester and other large towns in England. He was informed, and believed his information to be correct, that a Member of the House of Commons connected with Ireland, who had distinguished himself at some of the Reform meetings in this country, had been telegraphing brief reports of these proceedings to his friends in Ireland. He must protest against the whole blame being thrown on the Irish population—they were all Reform demonstrations, in fact. They had first the Hyde Park riots, then the Chester affair, and lastly the Killarney demonstration, and they were all organized to demand "Reform" of some kind or other. He should like to ask whether Her Majesty's Government had any intention of suspending the Habeas Corpus Act in Chester? Noble Lords on the other side of the House must see that outbreaks such as had taken place in Kerry were very much what was to be expected from their own policy.
THE EARL OF DERBY: With regard to the Question put by the noble Earl who has just sat down, I have to say that the Government has decidedly no intention of proposing to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act in Chester. With regard to the other Question put to me, I regret to say that I heard the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Essex) very imperfectly; but, as far as I understood him, he inquired as to whether the Government intends moving for a continuance of the Act suspending the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland; and, at the same time, the noble Earl expressed a hope that if any of the Fenians connected with the recent disturbances were captured, the utmost rigour of the law would be administered to them; and, also, that military officers would be protected by the Government from any criminal proceedings which might be brought against them in consequence of any acts committed by them in the discharge of their duty. The question
456
is one of such great importance that I think it would have been better if the noble Earl had given me notice of his intention to put it. At the same time, I can quite understand that, as the Act of suspension has so nearly run out its term, your Lordships are all anxious for some information as to the Government's intention with reference to the matter. But I regret I cannot yet give a positive answer to the noble Earl. Your Lordships know that in Her Majesty's Speech from the Throne a hope was expressed that the Government would be able to dispense with any exceptional legislation on this subject with regard to Ireland. It must, however, be borne in mind that the recent outbreak, insignificant as it was, was perfectly unexpected and unforeseen by any party. I am happy, however, to say that, from the accounts we have received, the affair has been entirely put down, and that the result has to a great extent refuted the anticipations of the late Lord Lieutenant, who feared that any rising in the country would at once be joined by a large portion of the population. As a matter of fact, the rioters have been joined by no one; they were insignificant in point of number, utterly deserted by everybody, and exercised not the slightest influence on the surrounding population. It is impossible to say at present whether similar insane attempts to theirs may not be made in other parts of Ireland; and I think it better to postpone the consideration of the subject until the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who has returned from Dublin, and who will, of course, be able to furnish the latest information, has been conferred with. As to the prisoners who may be taken, I can assure the noble Earl that the Government will endeavour wisely to discriminate as to the relative guilt of each prisoner; and while, with regard to the highest description of offenders, they will not shrink from enforcing the utmost rigour of the law, yet every case will be judged on its own merits. I am sure, however, that it is not your Lordships' wish that the less guilty should be visited with undue severity,. As to the hope expressed by the noble Earl with reference to the officers now in Ireland, I trust it is not necessary to say that, in the discharge of the painful duties which may devolve upon them in suppressing these disturbances, they may rely upon the fullest support from Her Majesty's Government.

ROYAL COMMISSION ON RAILWAYS—THE IRISH LINES—QUESTION.
THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEasked, When the Report of the Royal Commission on Railways would be presented; and whether the Government had yet considered the applications for Government interference in the concerns of Irish Railways? He apologized for having introduced the Question at such an early period of the Session, but thought himself justified by the pressing importance of the subject; for in his opinion the most effectual way to improve the condition of Ireland was to aid the development of her material resources.
THE EARL OF DERBY: It is quite true that the Question referred to by the noble Marquess is one of very great importance to Ireland: and the Government have received a great many memorials praying that the subject should be taken up. It is quite true, also, that the evidence taken before the Commissioners has been before the public for some time; but the Commissioners have not yet made their Report, and it may be three weeks or a month before they are able to do so. Until the Report has been presented the Government cannot, of course, come to a conclusion upon the subject. The question is not only of the greatest importance, but also, as the noble Marquess should know, of the greatest difficulty. There can be no question that the railways of Ireland can be more economically managed, and that the great expense to which the different companies are put, solely in consequenee of their number, would be very largely decreased if the proprietary were consolidated under one head, with one management. This would not only decrease expense, but probably tend to an increase of productiveness. But, at the same time, we must remember that railway property in Ireland is not in the most prosperous condition; out of the 1,800 miles of railway in the country, only six miles—the line from Dublin to Kingstown—pay a really satisfactory dividend. I am afraid to say how many companies are absolutely bankrupt, or how many have suspended operations altogether. But I must say that Her Majesty's Government are asked to undertake a very grave task when they are invited to undertake the management of such a property as the Irish railways, putting aside pecuniary considerations. I do not understand that the railway companies are at all agreed as to the
458
course they would desire us to pursue, except that they would like us to buy all their railways at their own price—especially those lines which pay no dividend at all; but that would not be a very profitable speculation for the Government to enter upon. Then there are many objections to the proposal that the Government should undertake the management of railway property; there are political reasons, such as the enormous patronage which would in that case be vested in the hands of Ministers. But supposing the Government did buy the railways, a question arises which is not easily answered. We are told that it would be infinitely to the advantage of the country if the railway fares were lowered and all the railway directors say that lowering the fares would be to the advantage of the companies; but they also agree in saying that the shareholders object to lower the fares because, whatever the ultimate result, the immediate consequence would be a considerable loss. Accordingly, a few of the Irish railway companies desire the Government to bear that loss, though they think it very undesirable the shareholders should do so. On the whole, much difference of opinion prevails upon this question, which demands most serious consideration; and at present I can only promise that, as soon as the Commissioners have furnished us with their Report, we will give our best attention to their recommendations—we will consider how far their recommendations are borne out by the information brought before them and shape our course accordingly.
THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEthought the railway companies would be very glad to take less for their lines than the Act of 1844 prescribed.
THE EARL OF DERBY: The Act of 1844 fixes the amount to be paid by the Government as twenty-five years' purchase of the net receipts. But suppose a railway has received nothing, how much will twenty-years' purchase of that amount to?

ALIMONY ARREARS BILL [H.L.]
A Bill to facilitate the Recovery of Arrears of Alimony in certain Cases under Decrees and Orders of the Provincial and Diocesan Courts in Ireland—Was presented by The Viscount LIFFORD; read 1a. (No. 17.)
House adjourned at a quarter before Six o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.