Sitting of 16 June 1868

Preamble
The House met at Two of the clock.

MINUTES
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—Municipal Elections (Scotland).*
Second Reading—Ecclesiastical Titles [37], debate adjourned.
Committee—Public Schools (re-comm.) [135]—R.P.; Inclosure (No. 2) * [162].
Report—Inclosure (No. 2) * [162].
Considered as amended—Alkali Act (1863) Perpetuation * [153]; Judgments Extension * [163].
Third Reading—Established Church (Ireland) [117]; Drainage Provisional Order Confirmation * [169], and passed.

SCOTLAND—POOR LAW.—QUESTION.
SIR ANDREW AGNEWsaid, he would beg to ask the Lord Advocate, When the Return of Poor Rate (Scotland), for which an Address was moved on the 9th day of March, may be expected to be laid upon the Table of the House?
THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, it would be laid on the table very shortly.

ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHS BILL.

  QUESTION.
  MR. LEEMANsaid, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether the Boundary Bill or the Telegraphs Bill will take precedence in the Orders of the Day for Thursday?
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, in reply, that the Electric Telegraphs Bill would be taken as the second Order of the Day on Thursday.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS (re-committed) BILL.
(Mr. Walpole, Sir Stafford Northcote, Mr. Secretary Gathorne Hardy.)
PUBLIC SCHOOLS (re-committed) BILL.

  [BILL 135.] COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  MR. NEATE MR. NEATE moved that the Bill be referred back to the Select Committee, in order that clauses may be inserted in it giving power to the new governing bodies and the Commissioners to be appointed by the Bill to deal with the constitution and revenues of Eton and Winchester Colleges, He said he would be unwilling to do anything to impede the
  1632
  progress of a measure which contained in it some useful provisions were he not convinced that no harm would be done by delay, and that no great good could be obtained by legislation at the present time. The public schools of this country were not in a bad state as regarded moral discipline and the formation of character; they might no doubt be improved, but there was no necessity for any hurry in doing so. If hon. Gentleman had gone to Eton the other day as he had done and seen the state of the school they might have asked themselves, just as he had, why need they hurry to reform it? It must be admitted that Eton produced gentlemen; but the masters had little to do with that. The reason why gentlemen were produced at Eton was be cause the boys belonged to families in which they saw and heard nothing at home but what was good. But the boys at Eton, Harrow, and Winchester were after all only specimens of English boys, and one of the objections which he made to this Bill was that it was special legislation for the sons of the upper classes. He would ask whether the idea of having to provide for a mother and sisters, as the sons of those in an humbler sphere so often had to do, was not as ennobling as anything that might be set before the children of the upper classes? He admitted that the public schools were defective as places of instruction; but he would point out to those who were eager to carry the Bill that no effective change in the teaching of the schools could take place until the Universities had set the example and proposed a rule which the schools must follow. As long as the Universities required both Latin and Greek—and he was sorry to say very little else—as the condition of a degree, what was the use of imposing upon the schools the obligation of teaching the boys what would be of no advantage whatever to them in their future career? His Motion referred to Eton and Winchester because they were two special bodies. He believed it was the intention of the Committee to frame a Bill which would enable the new governing bodies with the assistance of the Commissioners, or the Commissioners themselves without the concurrence of the new governing bodies, to deal with the revenues of the two Colleges. He would, venture to say, however, that such an intention would be but very inadequately fulfilled by the Bill. He made bold to maintain that it was wholly inadequate to give any power whatever to the bodies that might be created

  1633
  under it to deal in any way with either the revenues or constitution of Eton or Winchester Colleges. Eton School existed only as an offshoot and dependency of Eton College, which might at any time suppress, suspend, or reduce the School to the condition of a proprietary establishment. The legislation that was proposed three years ago aimed at subjecting Eton College to certain legal obligations to provide for the School, but the Bill before the House was wholly silent in that particular. There was nothing whatever in it to vary the original legal obligations of Eton College to provide merely in a very limited way for a certain number of scholars, and make a payment of a few pounds to a master who might be charged with their education. If Eton College was to say "We have nothing to do with this new-fangled scheme; we are content as a College to enjoy what we now have, our £20,000 a year, which will soon become £30,000, and even £40,000, and we do not care about the school. If the Eton masters can take advantage of the goodwill that belongs to the place and establish a great school we are very willing they should do so, and if they wish to buy the buildings we have erected we do not object to sell them,"—he did not say that such a thing was likely, or that it would be allowed by the Legislature, but the state of affairs that now existed ought not to be allowed to continue. It was intended by the original Bill in the House of Lords to give to the new governing body and the Commissioners appointed to control them the power of dealing with the revenues and constitution of Eton and Winchester Colleges, because a clause of the Bill contained words to this effect, they—
  "Shall have the same real and personal property rights, powers, and privileges, and be subject to the same obligations, as the existing governing body of those schools."
  He saw nothing in the present Bill which at all corresponded with such a provision, and he challenged anyone to show him anything in the measure which would enable the new governing body or the Commissioners to touch the revenues or constitution of the Colleges. He did not go so far as some in his reverence for ancient corporations; but he would not treat the present governing bodies with so little ceremony as that which had been shown them by the framers of the Bill, and they might justly complain that they had been taken by surprise by the proposal to transfer their powers to new bodies. He
  1634
  doubted, however, whether the terms of the measure would have sufficient legal force to transfer to the newly-created bodies the whole management of the revenues of these foundations. He thought that before proceeding to legislate the House ought to be in possession of fuller information as to those revenues. The evidence given on this head before the Royal Commissioners was offered in a very hesitating spirit; but even according to that evidence the income of Eton College was about £20,000, with a probable increase of £10,000, and that of Winchester about £17,000. Knowing the reticence with which public bodies were likely to state their income, he believed the probable future income of Eton might be taken at not less than £50,000, He once suggested £32,000 as the prospective income of Winchester College, and an old friend of his there jocularly expressed a hope that he would not live to see that amount reached, for that his life would be a burden to him; but even this gentleman did not go beyond arguing that a considerable time would elapse before his estimate was realized. He had had some experience of the way in which Returns were made, and hon. Members must be aware that the income assigned to livings in the Clergy List was considerably below the actual value. Assuming that the probable future income of the two foundations was £80,000 a year, it had to be considered how they should be dealt with. Now, this Bill had apparently been framed with the special object of excepting Eton and Winchester from the recommendations of the Commissioners. Dealing with the present income of £20,000 at Eton, they proposed to lessen the number and emoluments of the Follows. The income of the Provost was stated at over £1,800, and of the Fellows at £814; but the latter sum did not include the occupation of a house, and certain perquisites in the shape of coals and candles, which practically raised it to £1,200. The Fellows enjoyed this income without any duty being attached to it, and they might also enjoy livings of the value £700 or £800 per annum, being specially exempted from the condition of residence. The patronage of Eton comprised eight livings worth between £100 and £200; nine between £200 and £300; nine between £300 and £400; four between £400 and £500; two between £500 and £600; one between £600 and £700; one between £700 and £800; one be-

  1635
  tween £800 and £900; and one between £1,000 and £1,200. Any one of these was a very pretty addition to an income of £1,200. These livings might be given to the school chaplains, but they were not, and the Bill proposed to leave the Fellows in uncontrolled exercise of this patronage. There appeared to him two ways in which the surplus revenues might be dealt with. One, which he submitted to the House on a former occasion, was to apply them to the creation of a middle-class school, for which class the endowments were in the first instance chiefly, if not exclusively, designed. The other, which had since suggested itself to him, was to make this £40,000 a year the nucleus of a University in the North of England, founded upon principles similar to those of Oxford and Cambridge, with the difference that its curriculum should be so arranged as to encourage the industries of the district in the midst of which it should be placed. He would not enter into such a scheme now; but he insisted on the right of Parliament to deal with these surplus incomes. He might, indeed, be met with an assertion of the prescriptive rights of corporate property; but he regarded this argument as threadbare, it being repudiated by all who had given attention to the subject. The House was deeply concerned to repudiate the notion that corporations possessed property in the same sense as individuals. They could only hold property so long as they were corporations, and it was absurd to maintain that the State was bound to continue them as corporations after they had ceased to perform the duties which called them into existence. He was far from asking the House to divert any portion of the revenues of Eton College from the purposes of education. All that Eton College gave to Eton School was £400 a year; while the College derived much more than that from the School in the increased value of the College lands. So far from diverting from the School any of the benefits it derived from the College, he would rather make the College subsidiary to the interests and benefit of the School, so that the College should foster the growth of the School more than it did. It was in evidence that the Provost of Eton received £2,000 a year, and the Fellows £1,200 a year each; yet a few years ago they had allowed the School to degenerate, and the number of the King's scholars to be diminished from seventy to forty. Their conduct had, in-
  1636
  deed, been such as to deserve language stronger than it was usual to apply to those who had gone to their account. Let it be hoped that their present successors would enter upon their career in a spirit of sincere and reflective repentance. It was well that those successors should know that the House knew as well as themselves for how many generations of men the Provost and Fellows of Eton had been so indifferent to the pleasures of a good conscience that, in the words of one of their favourite poets, they "seemed to enjoy the anger of the gods." One especial abuse had been the diminution in the allowance to the choristers, who, to eke out a living, had been obliged to run in the most indecorous manner from the services at Eton to take part in those of Windsor Chapel. At the present moment, however, whether he looked at the Eton masters or the boys, it was with kind, respectful, and hopeful feelings. He trusted that, as to Eton at least, the House would make the revenues of the College far more subservient, subsiding, and useful to the government of the School. With regard to the constitution of the College, the Provost was, he thought, of no use whatever. It was said that he was the means of obtaining for the boys an intercourse with the outer world, and that he gave dinners which formed an introduction to society. He did not think that these services were sufficient to justify the continuance of this useless honorary office. The dignity and duty of the Provost ought to be given to the Head master, so that instead of receiving £370 from the College as at present he should receive the £2,000 a year now given to the Provost. The Provost and Head master ought in that case to have a Vice Provost to assist in the management. It was necessary to deal in some way both with the revenue and constitution of Eton and Winchester.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the Bill be referred back to the Select Committee, in order that Clauses may be inserted in it giving power to the new governing bodies and the Commissioners to be appointed by the Bill to deal with the constitution and revenues of Eton and Winchester Colleges,"—(Mr. Neate,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. MOWBRAYsaid, he would not follow the hon. and learned Member for the city of Oxford in his very discursive speech; but would ask the House to consider the position in which, at the present period of the Session, that question stood. The animus of the hon. Gentleman's proposition was disclosed at the commencement of his remarks, in which he said there was no necessity for legislation, and that the question might wait. Now, it was more than four years since the Royal Commissioners presented their Report to Her Majesty. That Report was in the hands of Members of Parliament before Easter, 1864; a measure was introduced on the subject in 1865; the question was referred to a Select Committee of the House of Lords; the Bill that was then framed came down to the House of Commons too late in the Session to be passed; again, in 1866 and 1867, Bills were introduced; and now the existing Government had brought in a measure sanctioned by their predecessors, and on which a Select Committee of that House had bestowed much valuable time and the greatest pains in order to render it as perfect as possible. The hon. and learned Member for the city of Oxford was himself a very active Member of that Select Committee, before which he had an opportunity of urging all the arguments which he had just addressed to the House. The speech which the hon. Gentleman had made that day ought to have been delivered in 1865, 1866, 1867, and 1868 against the second reading of the Bill. The line, Gentleman wanted to refer the measure back to the Committee that they might provide for the cases of Eton and Winchester Colleges; but by the interpretation clause of the Bill the word "school" included, in the cases of Eton and Winchester, the Colleges at those places. If the hon. Gentleman had Amendments to propose, let him propose them in Committee of the Whole House. But what was the hon. Gentleman's object? Why, that those bodies might come before the Committee and be heard by counsel after the 16th of June. If that were done, the Bill was not likely to pass this Session. He believed it was the opinion of the House that legislation on that subject was now required, and he hoped the dilatory plea of the hon. Gentleman would not be listened to. The schools were anxious for the completion of that legislation, and the action of Eton and Winchester themselves, as Well as of the others, would be para-
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  lyzed by a prolongation of the present state of suspense. For these reasons he trusted that the House would now go into Committee on the Bill and discuss its provisions.
  MR. NEWDEGATE, as one of the trustees for Rugby, did not see why Harrow and Rugby should be summarily dealt with, while Eton and Winchester should have legislation in regard to them virtually postponed, or, at all events, be legislated for on a different footing. Harrow and Rugby bad one peculiarity—namely, that their governing bodies consisted of laymen of the Church of England; but he did not see why, on that account, they should be treated, as was proposed by the Bill, in a more summary manner than institutions whose governing bodies were clerical. There was no pretence for saying that the governing body of Rugby bad thwarted the success and prosperity of the School, for their only difficulty was to find accommodation for the number of pupils who were anxious to enter. He attributed the success of the School in great part to the Head master, but the governing body had not impeded—on the contrary, he trusted they had aided—the efforts of the Head master. The Bill proposed that before the 1st of January, 1869, the governing bodies of Rugby and Harrow should be compelled, in Japanese fashion, to effect their own extinction. In Japan, as the House was aware, executions were conducted in this way. The culprit was expected to acknowledge the justice of his sentence, and then to rip up his own belly while the executioner stood by to cut off his head. That was exactly the treatment to which the governing bodies of Rugby and Harrow would be subject by that Bill. He was far from saying that those bodies might not be improved; but he wanted to know the mischief they had done, or the neglect of which they had been guilty. That anomaly appeared to have been introduced by the Select Committee, and not to have been contained in the original Bill, and he had placed on the Paper an Amendment providing that before the governing body of Harrow or Rugby should be compelled to immolate themselves or undergo execution by Special Commission, they should at least have eighteen months to consider what they ought to propose. That, he thought, was only reasonable, as the last six months of the present year would be a period of crisis arising out of the General Election, which would be very

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  unfavourable to calm deliberation. Throughout the whole Bill the powers which the original Bill proposed to confer on existing governing bodies, or on their successors, were limited to their successors. Therefore, the whole purport of the Bill was that those two governing bodies, consisting of lay members of the Church of England, who had not interfered injudiciously with the Head master, or neglected their duties, were to be got out of the way before any reform of the statutes was to be proposed. Nothing could be more extravagant than the powers which it was proposed by the Bill to invest in the new governing bodies, and more particularly in the special Commissioners, who would be enabled under its provisions to deal with the whole of the property of the schools in the most summary manner, with the single check that any scheme for changing the application of their funds should be submitted to Parliament for forty days. As to the principle which had been laid down by the hon. Member for Oxford, that no corporate body had a title to any property and that all such property belonged to the State, he could only say that it had its origin in the Convention of the first French Revolution; that so strongly had the force of the analogy been felt that the principle was afterwards transferred to the case of private property, and that there had been a perpetual struggle during the whole of the present century to get out of the difficulties which resulted from its application. But, be that as it might, he should like to know why it was that Eton and Winchester were to be dealt with by the Bill in a manner different from Harrow and Rugby with respect to their properties? He objected to any such difference between them being made; and he was also opposed to the Bill because it contained an element of secresy, inasmuch as the new governing bodies would be empowered to make proposals to the Commissioners for an alteration of the statutes of a school without publishing their intentions to those whose interests were immediately involved. It was, moreover, he maintained, contrary to the Common Law of England to have all the property of those foundations dealt with by means of Orders in Council, as was proposed, and he, therefore, should support the hon. Member for Oxford in his endeavour to prevent the Bill from being proceeded with.
  MR. GOSCHENremarked, that the hon. Gentleman who spoke last was perfectly
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  correct in saying that, by the Bill as it was referred to a Select Committee, the existing governing bodies were to be intrusted with the reforms which were to be made in the schools. It appeared, however, to the Committee a somewhat illogical proceeding to begin by conferring such powers on bodies which were about to expire, and which might make regulations which would not be in the spirit of the new governing bodies by whom they would be succeeded, and which would, consequently, only tend to the creation of much confusion. That being so, the Committee had deemed it advisable to change the order of the reforms to be made, and to recommend that the existing governing bodies should reform themselves before proceeding to reform the schools intrusted to their care, the time being shortened by the Committee from the 1st of January, 1870, to the 1st of January, 1869, in order that no additional delay might be incurred. He was not sure whether the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Newdegate) was aware that this change was made by his hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Neate), whom he was now supporting in referring the Bill to a Select Committee. [Mr. NEWDEGATE said, he objected to the principle of the Bill.] The hon. Member objected to the principle of the Bill. The hon. Member asked why were Rugby and Harrow selected to be dealt with in a different way from the other public schools? It was the first time that he (Mr. Goschen) learned that such was the case, and he had sat on the Committee a long time, and it would be quite as new to the other Members of the Committee. The governing bodies of all the schools were to be called on to reform themselves; but as some governing bodies might not stand so much in need of reform as others, it was provided that "the new governing body" should be held to mean both a governing body, the constitution of which might have been altered under the Act, or a body established under it, or the new governing body, which might, however, be identical with the existing body.
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, that in the Select Committee the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton) brought forward an excellent clause, carrying out the principle of religious toleration. It was a species of "Conscience Clause;" but it was rejected by a strict party vote. He trusted that the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets would propose the clause

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  again in the Committee of the Whole House.
  MR. POWELLsaid, that though the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets did not succeed in earning what had been called a "Conscience Clause," he did induce the Select Committee to introduce another clause enabling the governing bodies to give facilities for the education of boys whose parents or guardians wished to withdraw them from the religious instruction given in the school.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that he should support the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Mr. Neate), to refer the Bill back again to the Select Committee; for, though the Bill was much improved in details, its main defects remained much as they were before. It seemed a measure designed to carry out the most pernicious principle of selecting a few schools in order to apply to them very large endowments; not because they were necessary for the education of those who resorted to the schools, but merely because they tended to keep up the expensive character of the schools, and to maintain a kind of fashionable system of education for the fashionable classes. The discussion got up in the other House last night showed that the crude ideas of 300 years ago were not applicable to the exigencies of the present time. It was proposed to consecrate to this scheme of education endowments amounting to £70,000 a year, and with the addition of the value of the annual rental of property rent free worth £80,000 a year. The prospective increase in the value of the property might be estimated as likely to raise the amount of the endowments to £100,000 a year. With these great endowments they were now going to do for the education of the poor and the great body of the people of the country absolutely nothing. One might have hoped that the House of Commons would have conducted itself as individuals did at the near approach of dissolution, and would have abandoned evil ways. He thought that it would be much better to give up such a Bill as the present, and to leave the reform of these schools, together with other reforms, to the new Parliament. There was nothing to distinguish the schools comprised in the Bill from many schools left out of it, such as Uppingham and Tunbridge Schools, except that the latter were not so fashionable as Rugby, Harrow, and Eton Schools, and the idea was to apply these great endowments for the be-
  1642
  nefit of the wealthy classes and those connected with them. It appeared in evidence that parents were beguiled by vanity and weakness to spend £200 a year, in order to get their children educated at Eton, though they might have obtained for them a better education in a self-sustaining school for £50 or £60 a year. It was an established fact that no real benefit was to be derived from these enormous endowments. The hon. and learned Member for Oxford broached the extraordinary doctrine that the children of founders had a vested right to the endowments. No such right of property could exist, and the power of the founders to put a limitation on the enjoyment of their property was restricted to lives in being and twenty-one years after.
  MR. LOWEsaid, he could not remember whether this Bill had ever been discussed in the House before. If it had been it had left very little impression on anybody's mind, for he had asked the question of several who seemed to be in the same condition as himself regarding it. He only regretted it had not been discussed, for he thought they might be better employed in settling principles than arranging details. It seemed to him that the Bill proceeded on a false analogy and was founded on an unsound principle. The analogy was that of the governing bodies in the Universities and Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. This unhappy analogy was applied to public schools. But the same public body which existed in the one case did not exist in the other. The body was to be created for the schools. What, then, were they going to do? They were going to create a governing body for those schools that never existed before. They were going to intrust to this now and untried body the powers of a constituent assembly—to make a new governing body; and so jealous were they of them as to their powers that they were to be extinguished at the end of this year. They made them on purpose to destroy them; they lighted the candle for the purpose of snuffing it out. They gave them certain functions to be performed, but under the Commission which had power to undo them. Would it not be better if this was to be done to give it to the Commission at once? It seemed to him there never was a Bill framed on so strange a basis as this. The analogy of the Universities and Colleges, it was found, did not apply; so successive Committees had cut it down to the shape in which they now

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  found it; but the result was most unsatisfactory. There was a greater fault in the Bill, and he hoped he might be allowed to state the objection he felt to its principle, lest it should afterwards be referred to. His objection to the principle was this—when dealing and legislating for anything they ought to look at its substance, and not at the form. Now, the form of these public schools was undoubtedly an endowment. That was the nucleus. But the substance of the public schools was not the endowment, but the great private adventure school which had grown out of the endowment, the good-will being given to the man who held the office of Head master. There were two kinds of property invoiced in the Bill—one was the endowment, the other the good-will which had grown out of it, and which was the property of the Head master for the time being, which was the substance. Thus, with regard to Eton—the Eton they were all so much concerned about—which was educating the young gentlemen of the higher classes of the country was the College or the Oppidan Eton. It was almost ridiculous to ask the question, it was so perfectly manifest that the real strength of Eton consisted in the private adventure school kept by the Head master, and the good-will of which belonged to him. That was the main thing, and the College or endowment might fairly be left to be dealt with like any other endowment. On what principle should they deal with private adventure schools? There was but one course for their improvement, and that lay with the parents of the children who went there. It was to the parents of the pupils, and not to any governing body they might appoint, that they must look for modernizing and making the schools better adapted to the present day. What, then, was their duty in this matter? It was to leave the greatest possible scope to those who managed the school—to the Head master, in fact, to manage it as he pleased, and all they should do was to give parents the best means of knowing the manner in which their children were educated, leaving them to find out whether it was satisfactory or not. He should say form a governing body if they pleased—that was, a body to appoint a master and remove him in case of misconduct or for the interest of the school; but when they had appointed him give him full power and control over it. Let him be the dictator not merely as to discipline, but education and direction. Trust him fully. He would
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  go further. He would say provide some machinery by which the school should be examined by some perfectly independent authority every year; let the result go to the family, be tabulated, and laid on the table of the House, so that they might know exactly the instruction that was given. That was his notion. They had to deal with these schools secundum subjectam naturam, not as an endowment, but as what they really were, private adventure schools in the hands of the Head master. This Bill had been misconceived. Instead of giving the Head master full power, giving the adventure principle fair play, it gave the regulation of the school, and the objects of study, almost everything except the appointment of Under master to a body they were going to appoint for the purpose who had no interest in its prosperity. The endowed element was only a trifle if they gave it to such a body, and withdrew it from the Head master, placing it in the hands of a body not now in existence, but which they were going to create for the express purpose of marring the free trade adventure principle in schools. That was his objection to this Bill, and, as it never seemed to have occurred to any of the Commission or Committee, or any other Gentleman, and therefore he was bound to suppose, being his own, must be wrong, he had felt bound to state it to the House. It was a mere chimera to educate by endowment; they must rely on the free trade principle. So far from an endowment being an assistance to education, it often put the schoolmaster asleep. By keeping him from relying on his own exertions, an endowment was often the means of doing positive mischief. He therefore protested against the notion that they could carry on the education of this country energetically or successfully by means of endowment. All they could do was to take advantage of existing endowments, to cluster round them a system of demand and supply pure and unrestrained.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lowe), seemed to have forgotten that this subject had been made matter of consideration by a Royal Commission some years ago, which sat for two years or more, and very fully considered the whole of these questions—among others, the relation in which the Head master should stand to the school; and if the right hon. Gentleman would take the trouble to examine the Report of the Commission he would see ample reason

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  for not giving the whole matter into the hands of the Head master, and throwing on him a weight he would be unable to bear. With regard to the Bill, the right hon. Gentleman had not stated correctly the history of the clause with regard to the governing bodies. It was not the case that these schools had not governing bodies now. They had; and if the right hon. Gentleman would look into the Report he would find a very good account of the actual state and powers of the governing bodies that existed. The right hon. Gentleman referred to Eton, but it was well known the College was, in fact, the cream of the School, and it was owing to the very great energy with which the College worked that Eton held so high a position, It was very unfair to speak of that School as if it were not doing that which had placed it so high among our public schools. The case for the whole inquiry and Bill rested on this—that Parliament was not satisfied that those schools did as much as with their means and endowments they ought to do. The intention originally had been to lay down in the Bill what the functions of the new governing bodies should be, upon whom would devolve those duties which could not be discharged by the Head master without interfering with his special province. It was obvious that there was an immense amount of work to be done with respect to those schools which could not be thrown on the Head master if he was to be charged with the teaching of the school. But when the matter came to be argued in the House of Lords it was thought better, instead of attempting to deal with those matters of detail by an Act of Parliament, to do so by the appointment of a Commission, with statutory powers to make such alterations as might be deemed necessary. Then arose the question whether or not that statutory Commission should reform the schools at their own instance; but it was stated that the existing bodies ought to have that power given to them; that their hands were now tied, and they were prevented from introducing improvements; and that therefore the fair thing would be to give them the chance of doing that which they believed to be the best, and if they failed to act in a satisfactory manner that then the statutory Commission should take the matter up. That was the shape into which the Bill was put, and as Parliament had for two or three years kept the Bill in that form, he was anxious, without saying that
  1646
  form was the best, that they should go into Committee, and try whether they could work upon it. He believed the general feeling of persons acquainted with the subject was that they should try to improve without altogether revolutionizing our higher class schools; for they held that those schools had a mission of their own, though they were not doing all that they were capable of. He believed, if they honestly set to work and endeavoured to work out the details of the Bill they would make the schools much more efficient and satisfactory. Their policy ought to be to improve and not to revolutionize. He hoped the House would consider that this matter had been very carefully sifted in the other House of Parliament and also before the Select Committee upstairs, and that it was ripe for discussion in a practical sense. He trusted therefore they might be allowed to make use of the remainder of the present Sitting for the purpose of dealing with the Bill in Committee.
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, though agreeing with much that had fallen from the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton) and the right hon. Gentleman beside him (Mr. Lowe), still thought that the House ought to go into Committee on the Bill. At present the education of a boy cost a large sum. He did not exaggerate when he said that a father who sent his boy to one of those public schools without getting any assistance from an endowment, and afterwards sent him to a University, could not do so for less than £2,000. The hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets had said that there was no sufficient reason why those seven schools, or the nine schools that were originally contemplated, should be made the subjects of a special Act of Parliament. But they must take facts as they found them; and he supposed the reason why they were called upon to legislate specially with regard to those schools was because there had been a Report on their condition which showed a state of things that required alteration, notwithstanding the opinion of the hon. and learned Member for Oxford that no reform was needed. It was true that if the House was prepared to deal with the general subject of endowments, as he hoped would be done in the new Parliament, there was not any reason upon the merits of the question for excluding the schools with which the Bill proposed to deal. Nevertheless, as the question with

  1647
  regard to those schools had been debated for three or four years, he was of opinion that the House ought to consider it, because while there was a doubt whether there would be any legislation or not, or what the nature of that legislation might be, the managers of the schools who wished to initiate reforms would find their hands tied. And besides he was afraid—such was the feeling of Members of that House who had personal associations with those schools—that any general scheme of dealing with endowed schools would have a better chance if the question of those public schools was excluded from it. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe) seemed to think that the general use of endowments was a question that they need not pay much attention to, and he talked of endowments as trifles; but he (Mr. Forster) could by no means look upon endowments of £70,000 for the purposes of education in such a light. On the contrary, the management of sums like that was a very grave matter; and it behoved them to see that those endowments were applied to the best possible use. For his own part, he thought the endowments were of little use compared with what they might be in promoting the cause of education generally throughout the country. The Bill was so framed that he was sanguine in hoping that the endowments would be much better used if it became law. He believed that the Commission would see that reforms actually took place. Winchester and Eton, with endowments amounting to £32,000, would, no doubt, under an improved system, still remain the two principal high class schools for boys whose parents wished to bring them up for professions and for the Universities; but they might be made of greater use to those persons who, at great personal sacrifice, desired to educate their sons in that way, and who, if giants were made for elementary education and for lower middle class education, were also entitled to public assistance in carrying out an object from which the country derived benefit after wards. He looked to an advantage in an other way from the reform of the public schools; for he expected the endowments to be so arranged that clever boys of a low sphere of life might be able to obtain a high class education by rising from the National Schools, with the assistance of exhibitions, to the secondary and primary schools. It would be the fault of the Com-
  1648
  mission which was to be appointed by the Bill if those two results were not attained fully from the Bill.
  MR. ACLANDsaid, he could not go the length of speaking of endowments as useless, though it was perfectly true that some of our best public schools did not depend on them. Harrow, for all practical purposes, was an unendowed school, though Eton had very large endowments. But what he wished to know was whether they had power in Committee to provide that the best use should be made of the endowments of Eton and Winchester; for the hon. and learned Member for Oxford seemed to think that in Committee their hands would be tied with respect to the revenues of those schools.
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, the hon. Member (Mr. Acland) had put a very important question, and the whole discussion which had arisen upon the proposal of his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Neate) really turned upon the answer to be given to that question. Having consulted legal authorities, he believed that the Bill as now drawn gave the fullest powers to the governing bodies of the schools and Colleges, whether old or new, in conjunction with the Commissioners, or to the Commissioners alone, of so arranging the funds and property of the schools and Colleges that they might be turned to the best possible use. Such was his belief, and otherwise there would, he admitted, be great force in the argument of his hon. Friend. If the terms of the Bill left any doubt on this head, it might be remedied in Committee, and he hoped that on this understanding the House would proceed to consider the clauses.
  MR. KINNAIRDremarked that the governing body of Eton were very anxious that the Bill should pass, and that it would be very injurious to these bodies to subject them to any further delay.
  MR. DARBY GRIFFITHcontended that the parents of the boys should have some voice in the management of those institutions, and that their supervision would be more effective than that of any Commissioners. He feared that the old and new governing bodies and the Commissioners would come into conflict, and he doubted whether the Bill would operate beneficially on Eton, where reforms were already being introduced by the Provost and Head master.
  MR. MARSHagreed with his right hon. Friend (Mr. Lowe) and the hon. and

  1649
  learned Member behind him (Mr. Ayrton) with regard to endowments. He thought, indeed, that no man should have the power of tying up his property for more than thirty years. As to public school education, he could not concur in the depreciatory view which had been taken of it by the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets, for he himself had enjoyed such an education, and there was not a day passed in which he did not feel the advantages he had derived from it. A great man once said that the chase was the image of war, and a public school might perhaps be described as an image of the battle of life. It was not merely literary knowledge which was acquired there, and he could point to many men in eminent positions whose success might be largely attributed to their public school education. He was sure that in Committee all would be desirous to make these institutions as useful as possible.
  MR. NEATEsaid, that in consideration of the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Walpole) that the Bill would be dealt with as he described, he should not press his Motion.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1 (Short Title of Act).
  MR. ACLANDobjected to the Bill being entitled the Public Schools Act 1868, on the ground that other schools not included within its operations were equally entitled to the appellation of public schools. He moved that the clause be postponed for the purpose of an arrangement being made to get some other expression to indicate the title of the Bill.
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, he could see no reason for postponing the clause, since any alteration which the hon. Gentleman might offer could be now considered. The title of the Bill, however, did not imply that these were the only public schools; it simply indicated what public schools were dealt with in 1868.
  MR. ACLANDsaid, Hint gentlemen connected with other public schools objected to the assumption that those affected by this Bill were the only public institutions of that character. The title might be altered to the "Colleges and Schools Act, 1868."
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. ACLANDthen moved that the word "public" be omitted.
  Amendment negatived.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 2 (Definition of "existing" and "School").
  MR. LOWEobjected to the use of the word "existing."
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, the object of the word was to maintain the distinction between the old and new governing bodies, which ran all through the Bill. For the purposes of this Act, the existing governing bodies of Eton and Winchester were not the governing bodies which existed now.
  MR. J. STUART MILLsaid, he understood that the Fellows of Eton College had very little to do with the school, except to usurp to themselves the greater portion of the endowments. He thought that the Head master rather than the Provost should be the head of the governing body.
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, at Eton the governing body was the Provost and Fellows, but they were not the governing body of the School. The person who had the real governing authority was the Provost, who, no doubt, acted in conjunction with the Head master. It was in the Provost that the property of the College was vested.
  MR. NEATEsaid, he had an Amendment to the latter part of the clause, which went to the whole principle of the Bill. In order to ensure that full power should be given to deal with the revenues of the Colleges, he proposed to insert the words—
  "Including in the case of Eton College the Provost and Fellows, and in the case of Winchester College the Warden and Fellows."
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, there was no doubt that the Bill as it stood dealt with the revenues of the Colleges of Eton and Winchester. It might be proper to add these words to a later clause.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  Clause 3 (Definition of existing "Governing Body").
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that as this clause raised the question how far the Bill should extend, it was the proper time to ask why two of the schools included in the Royal Commission were omitted from this Bill—

  1651
  whether from their extreme virtues or their extreme vices? St. Paul's School had flourished for a very long time in the City of London. It was founded by Dean Colet, who declared by his statutes that a boy who was shown to be inapt to learn was to be removed from the school. The management of the school was intrusted to the Mercers' Company, a body of trustees who, after a time, perverted that splendid charity entirely to their own purposes, and declined to admit any boy freely. The nomination of the scholars had become a simple affair of patronage in the hands of the members of the Court of the Company, and it was not required that a boy should be qualified to be educated in the School. There was no greater mystery in the world than the Mercers' Company—a body which had repeatedly set Royal Commissions of Inquiry at defiance, and re fused to give any information as to its proceedings and the purposes of its existence. He was not aware that this association did any good to anybody whatever; all that was known of them was that they met periodically in the City of London, and ended their proceedings with inordinate festivities. The company had an estate yielding them £9,500 a year, situated in the borough which he represented, and yet when a poor school in the district from which they derived that large revenue was greatly in want of assistance, none could be obtained for it from that wealthy Company. On applying at their Hall in the matter, he received this answer—"We never tell anybody who are the governing body of the Mercers' Company." The general impression was that the whole thing was in the hands of certain families, who kept it entirely to themselves. The result was that a splendid endowment of £9,500 for educational purposes assisted in the education of only 153 boys. It was said that the Company, finding their administration of the school in danger of being reformed, asserted that all the property belonged to them, and then set up a Chancery suit in order to raise that very interesting question. The omission of St. Paul's School from the Bill was a great defect in the measure, as there were many abuses in that institution; and therefore he should move that the words "St. Paul's School" and "the governing body of the Mercers' Company" be added at the end of the clause.
  MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, he had an Amendment to move prior to the Amend-
  1652
  ment of the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets—namely, in line 9 to leave out "and Chapter," and insert "of Westminster, the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge." The Royal Commissioners, in their Report, had recommended extensive alterations in the buildings of the school; but these were entirely set aside. He was very anxious not in any way to delay the passing of that Bill, but an imperative sense of duty compelled him to interpose at that stage; for that was a question of vital importance to Westminster School. It was proposed by the Bill as it stood to constitute, under the title of the governing body, a body which never had been the governing body of Westminster School, and one which was singularly un-suited, from their conflicting interest, to discharge such duties—namely, the Dean and Chapter. But not only would the Bill create such a governing body, but it would summarily abolish a governing body which had existed for many years, and, as he maintained, with good results to the school. The Dean of Westminster, the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, appointed the Head and Under masters, summarily dismissed them if they thought it necessary, and they had practically the regulation of the education, annually examining the scholars. The Dean and Chapter of Westminster never had been, and he hoped never would be, the governing body of Westminster School, and with that object he should move the omission of the words "and Chapter," and the insertion of the words after "Westminster" of "Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge."
  MR. LOWEsaid, he had an Amendment on the Paper which should have preceded the Amendments of both the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton) and the hon. Member for York (Mr. J. Lowther). The question he wished to raise was whether those governing bodies should be created at all, seeing that the sole duty which they would have to discharge would be to appoint other governing bodies; for they would be intrusted with no legislative functions, and would only have, if created, an existence altogether of six months and a fortnight. Believing that it would be ridiculous to create such bodies merely to do a thing for which they had no peculiar aptitude and some inaptitude, he should move to leave out the words

  1653
  from "Existing Governing Bodies," in line 5, to "Trustees" in line 13, inclusive.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out from the beginning of the Clause to the word "Trustees," in line 13.—(Mr. Lowe.)
  MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, he hoped that he would not be prevented by the right hon. Gentleman's Motion from putting his Amendment.
  MR. LOWEsaid, the effect of what he proposed to do would be to carry the hon. Member's Amendment.
  MR. GOLDNEYobjected to the Amendment of the right hon. Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe), on the ground that it struck at the root of the Bill, which he thought it was not desirable should be shelved altogether.
  MR. NEATEsaid, he was of opinion that there was no real necessity for the proposed change, and that it would only be paying a compliment, to which they were entitled, to those so-called governing bodies to give them the right of making suggestions as to those by whom they should be succeeded.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, the right hon. Member for Calne proposed to improve on that Japanese system to which he had alluded in the early part of the day, and to become at once a Nero. He, for one, objected to have the governing bodies disposed of in so summary a manner.
  MR. LOWEsaid, that the hon. Member was under a misapprehension in supposing that the tendency of his Amendment would be to withdraw all control over the Head master. All that he proposed to strike out was the proposition to give to the existing governing bodies the only function the Bill assigned to them—that of appointing their successors.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, that the new governing bodies would have important functions to discharge, some relating to education and others to revenues and emoluments; and as the existing governing bodies were trustees, it became a question how far it was right to take out of their hands the nomination of the new governing bodies.
  MR. ACLANDthought that, as a matter of common sense, full power should be given to the Commission to act in the matter.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERdenied that the Amendment of the right hon. Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe) would strike at the root
  1654
  of the Bill. The Commissioners, under the Bill as now framed, would have full discretion left them.
  MR. KARSLAKEsaid, he thought the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne would practically destroy the Bill. It would be better to accept the Bill as they found it.
  MR. WALPOLEappealed to the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lowe) not to press his Amendment. He thought in all reforms they should attend to this rule, to go as far as they could in perfect harmony with those to whom they had to look for carrying their reforms into effect. He would therefore consult the existing governors of schools as to who should be the proper governing body. Why should they not pay them the compliment of allowing them to consider the matter?
  MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, he would prefer the present system to that which would result from the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman.
  Question put, "That the words 'Existing Governing Body of a School shall for the purposes of this Act mean ' stand part of the Clause."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 152; Noes 69; Majority 83.
  MR. LABOUCHERErose to move to insert in line 5, after the word "Fellows," the word "Head master," with the view of giving him a locus standi among those who were to decide who the governing body were to be. Eton, though the most fashionable, was one of the worst schools in the world. ["No, no!"] He had been there three years himself, and had learnt absolutely nothing. He had to learn seventy lines of Homer every day, but he forgot them the next day; and they did him no sort of good whatever. The present Head master had not been brought up at Eton. [Dissent.] Well, at all events, he had been brought there as Head master from another school, and was in favour of introducing such improvements as were in accordance with the spirit of the 19th century. he thought it right the Head master should have a locus standi on the Committee, so that, if out-voted, he might be able to present a Report of his own.
  MR. LIDDELLthought it was only common justice to point out that the Provost and Fellows of his own School, against whom some harsh expressions had been used by an hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Stuart Mill), had by their choice of the

  1655
  present Head master given the best possible proof of their earnest desire to improve, extend, and, as it was called, liberalize the education of that great School. With regard to the Amendment, he thought there was no necessity for placing the Head master on the governing body.
  MR. J. STUART MILLhoped the right hon. Gentleman who had charge of the Bill would take into serious consideration the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Middlesex (Mr. Labouchere). The object which they all had in view was to improve the schools. The Provost and Head master had the most to do in the management of the schools, and as the good government of those institutions was what should be steadily aimed at, that object could not be better promoted than by including the Provost and Head master in the governing body.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEremarked that the discussion was turning upon the composition of the governing body. The Amendment of the hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. Labouchere) would be worthy of the consideration of the Special Commission; but it would be extremely difficult to deal with it at present. It was obvious that the relations of the Head master with the governing body would be materially altered by placing him upon it, and he was inclined to doubt whether his power of doing his proper work would be thereby increased. He hoped the Committee would adopt the proposal of the Select Committee, and allow existing governing bodies, of which the Head master had never been a member, to prepare a scheme of future government and submit it to the Commissioners.
  MR. GOLDNEYsaid, the Fellows were acquainted with the working of the School, As to the merits of that School, a gentleman who had recently taken high honours at Cambridge informed him yesterday that he attributed his success to his progress at Eton, where he had acquired the best education that could be found in the country.
  MR. FAWCETTthought the Head master was one of the most appropriate names that could be placed upon the list of the governing body, and that the most advantageous results would follow such an appointment.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, the question before the House was simply, whether between August and the 1st of January the Head master should be associated with the Fellows and Provost in making sugges-
  1656
  tions as to the constitution of the new governing body. That was not a matter of very great consequence. The real point of importance was what were the powers of the Head master to be in future and after this Bill was passed. That, however, must be afterwards determined.
  MR. ACLANDadvised the hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. Labouchere) to withdraw the Amendment, and rely on the Commissioners giving an opportunity to the Head master of expressing his opinion.
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, that having regard to the tone of the discussion which had taken place, he should withdraw his Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. J. LOWTHER MR. J. LOWTHER moved an Amendment, providing that the governing body of Westminster School should consist of the Dean of Westminster, the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, in lieu of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.
  MR. MARSHremarked that in his own time the boys had nothing to do with the Chapter, but with the Dean alone, who used to ask them to dinner.
  MR. HURSTpointed out that the pecuniary interests of the Dean and Chapter were hostile to the school, since every farthing spent on it came out of their revenues.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he had no objection to include the Dean of Christchurch, Oxford, and the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, in the governing body of Westminster School, provided the hon. Member for York (Mr. J. Lowther) would consent to retain the Dean and Chapter in the governing body.
  MR. J. LOWTHERaccepted this suggestion, and the Amendment thus modified was agreed to.
  MR. ARYTON MR. ARYTON moved the Amendment to which he had formerly referred relating to St. Paul's School—namely, the addition of the words "of St. Paul's, the governing body of the Mercers' Company."
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, his hon. and learned Friend a little while ago professed his inability to find who the governing body of the Mercers' Company were, yet he now proposed to put them in the Bill. He was so anxious not to impede the progress of the Bill that he would not detain the Committee by defending the Mercers' Company, and would only remind them that the circumstances of St. Paul's School were

  1657
  entirely different from those of other public schools. In the other schools the boarders were the chief element; but in St, Paul's they did not exist at all, for the boys were all day scholars. Whether the Mercers' Company had private rights or not it would not be wise to put St. Paul's in the present Bill, although it might be advisable to deal with it in a future Bill, together with Christ's Hospital and one or two others similarly situated. St. Paul's was maintained not only out of those funds of which the Mercers' Company were trustees, but they also contributed out of their own private property. St. Paul's School was taken out of the Bill in the Lords, and his hon. and learned Friend was beaten in an attempt in the Select Committee to include this School. It was therefore not advisable to include the school now.
  MR. KARSLAKEsaid, that a petition had been presented to the House by the Mercers' Company, in which they stated that at that moment an information was pending in Equity as to whether they had a right to claim the surplus revenues of the School. It was clear that while the matter was thus sub judice nothing could be done as to the insertion of the School in this Bill. He spoke with some knowledge of the School and of the Head master when he said that St. Paul's School not only furnished a good middle-class education, but that the boys obtained a high state of proficiency in Latin and Greek—far in excess of their numbers.
  Amendment negatived.
  Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  Clause 4 agreed to.
  Clause 5 (Power of Governing Bodies to alter their Constitutions).
  MR. WALPOLE: This clause is an important one. It was with reference to it that the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Mr. Neate) made his remarks at the commencement of the debate. Wishing to have time for consideration with regard to it, I now move, Sir, that you report Progress. We propose to proceed with this Bill at a Morning Sitting on this day week.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I believe we can fix it for this day week; but, formally, we may now fix it for Thursday.
  House resumed.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Thursday.

NOVA SCOTIA—BRITISH NORTH AMERI- CAN CONFEDERATION.

  MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS.
  MR. BRIGHT: Sir, about a month ago—on the 15th of May last—I presented a petition to the House from the representatives of the colony of Nova Scotia, and I now rise for the purpose of calling attention to that petition, and to statements made in it, and of proposing what appears to me to be a judicious course in regard to it. The Resolution which I have given Notice of consists of two parts—first, the statement of a fact which is easily proved; and, secondly, a statement of the mode in which the Government would do wisely to meet the difficult questions which have arisen. I am sorry to see that the right hon. Gentleman who has charge in this House of colonial affairs is not here; but in the course of my argument he may come upon that Bench. The petition which I presented to the House makes what to all Englishmen must or ought to be considered a very serious complaint. It complains that the Parliament of this country, by an Act passed in the last Session, overthrew the constitution of the colony of Nova Scotia, and destroyed a description—nay, in fact, a reality—of independence which had existed in that colony for nearly 100 years; that it handed over the Government and the destiny of the colony mainly to another colony—namely, that of Canada; and, taking from the people of Nova Scotia the management of their own affairs, the appointment of their own officials, the collection and expenditure of their own revenues, transferred the whole of these to a Parliament created by the Bill, which was to sit at Ottawa, distant not less than 800 miles from Nova Scotia. Now the petition declares—and I think it is capable of proof—that the House of Commons and the Parliament of the United Kingdom did all they could, not only without the consent of the colonists of Nova Scotia, but directly in the face of their pronounced disapproval; and I think it would be easy to show that what has been done was in reality done as a great surprise to the people of Nova Scotia, and that it was in some degree—though I am afraid to use a word that may seem harsh—a fraud upon the Imperial Parliament. At least, if it were not a fraud—and perhaps I had better withdraw that word—tho Act was passed upon representations which were

  1659
  extravagantly coloured, if they were not absolutely untrue. The Bill that passed last year did not include the colonies of Prince Edward's Island and Newfoundland and for a very good reason, but for only one reason—namely, that the people of those two colonies did not take part in the discussion on this matter, and refused to be united to the other British North American Provinces. A clause was inserted in the Bill which would enable them at any future time to enter on its consideration—a clause which was perfectly wise, and would have been still better if it had included Nova Scotia. It is quite clear that, for the very same reasons, if they have a real existence, Nova Scotia ought to have been excluded; and I shall ask the attention of the House while I show them that Nova Scotia had as much right to be excluded as the other two colonies, and as much right to complain of being included as they would have had if they had been included in the Bill. The petition which I presented to the House describes itself as a petition from the representatives of the people of Nova Scotia, and was signed as I shall state. Out of nineteen Members who were elected last September to represent the Province of Nova Scotia in the Parliament at Ottawa, seventeen Members had given their assent to the petition, and had declared themselves opposed to the Confederation. But of the thirty-eight Members elected last September to the Nova Scotian Parliament or House of Assembly, not fewer than thirty-six have signed the petition. I think that if 640 or 650 out of the Members of this House signed a declaration on some great public question, it would be difficult to say, especially if it were a question of subverting our Constitution, and handing us over to somebody else, that that was not a very fair, satisfactory, and complete expression of the will of the people of the United Kingdom in regard to that matter. The case appears to me to have been on the part of Parliament simply one of great error—an error of haste and precipitation; but to the colony, if their opinions are as I believe them to be, it is one of very serious wrong. I know exactly beforehand what the right hon. Gentleman will say upon this matter. He will say, "We have had the assent of the colony, and it is impossible for anybody to argue now that after what was done by the Legislature of Nova Scotia that the Province was wrongfully included
  1660
  in the Act of last year." I should be very glad to have the matter placed on that footing; because, if it were once concluded by the House that the Bill, so far as Nova Scotia was concerned, was wrong, and ought to be repealed, and that the people of Nova Scotia were not consenting parties to it, then I think I should be able to prevail on the House to exclude Nova Scotia from the operation of the Bill. I say that not only did they not consent, but the Government of this country knew perfectly well that they did not consent. In the debate that took place last year in the other House, where the Bill was first introduced, there was a very able and comprehensive speech delivered by the Earl of Carnarvon, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, in which he referred to the question, and admitted its difficulty. Referring to the case of Nova Scotia, he said there was no petition against the Bill on the table of the House of Lords. He said he believed there were petitions, and he insinuated something rather against them, for he added that though they were drawn with considerable ability, yet they had about them the mark of some single hand. He said it was admitted that there were petitions, apparently from public meetings, signed chiefly by the chairman, no numbers of those who attended the meetings being given. He referred to what was done in 1861, when a Resolution, generally favourable to some kind of Confederation was passed in the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia; but, as he said, it was in very general terms, and therefore no one could say fairly that it had anything to do with this particular Bill or this particular form of Confederation. He referred also to what took place in 1863, when the Parliament of Nova Scotia was dissolved—that the Parliament existing at the moment had agreed to vote in favour of Confederation, and that the British Government and Parliament could not go back beyond that vote, assuming that the Colonial Parliament was perfectly competent to do what it did, and that what it did must be admitted, even if the people did not agree with it. He instanced the example of the Assembly of Jamaica two or three years ago, when that frightful catastrophe took place, and the Assembly was admitted by the Parliament of this country to be competent to destroy itself as a constitutional instrument of government. We know well that the Jamaica Assembly was a doomed body the moment

  1661
  those transactions took place, and that, in point of fact, it only "committed suicide to save itself from slaughter," since if it had not done that, the very first act of the Imperial Parliament would have been to make some substantial change in the government of Jamaica. This is the sentence in which the Earl of Carnarvon expresses his feelings on the matter—
  "The plea for delay is in reality a plea for indefinite postponement, and to this I do not believe that Parliament will lend its ear. This measure has been purchased at the cost of great personal and local interests, and if we now remit it—I care not on what pretence—to the further consideration of the Province, we deliberately invite opposition, and we may be sure that many years will pass over before another such proposal for Confederation is submitted to Parliament"—[3 Hansard, clxxxv. 572.]
  It is quite clear from that expression that he knew perfectly well what was going on in the colony; how entirely dissatisfied the people were with the proceedings of this Parliament; and he feared that if there were any delay—for the Bill would not pass if Nova Scotia was not included—and the question was remitted to the decision of the people of Nova Scotia, the idea of the Federation of all the colonies would not be carried out for many years to come. I think that supports the proposition I am submitting to the House. If the House determines—whether the people of Nova Scotia wish it or not—that that Province should be included in the Confederation, then I have no more to say on the matter. I should argue it no longer, and should leave Parliament and the Government to take the consequences of a policy which in my opinion would be so foolish and so monstrous. What is the course which the House of Assembly and the people of the colony took on this matter? I ask hon. Gentlemen who may fancy there is really nothing in the question to consider it carefully, because in all probability this will not be the last occasion of its being brought before us. In 1861 there had been very naturally a good deal of talk in the British North American Provinces as to the propriety of a Confedetion of the colonies, and in that year the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia passed a Resolution of a general character, which referred to a general or partial Confederation or union of the maritime Provinces, and which appointed delegates to consider the question, and to correspond with others who might be concerned in it. In 1862 certain delegates were appointed to meet
  1662
  the Executive Council of Canada, and another deputation from New Brunswick at Quebec. The whole matter was discussed and the determination come to by the conference was that the consideration of the question was premature, and that, until the intercolonial railway was made, and until the colonies were brought into that kind of amalgamation which would arise from the general establishment of free trade among them, nothing could be done, and therefore no further steps were taken by that conference. The next year a General Election occurred, but it is not asserted by anyone that the question of Confederation was referred to the decision of the constituencies. Two important questions were referred to them—one was that of retrenchment, some thinking that the Government had been very expensive; the other was a proposed limitation of the franchise. The result of the election was a change of Government—a result that sometimes follows a General Election in this country—and a Minister of great authority being deposed, a Minister who has since had great authority—namely, Dr. Tupper—ascended the Nova Scotian ministerial throne. In 1864, soon after Dr. Tupper came to the Premiership, the new Parliament met, and went into the question of Confederation, appointing delegates to consider the propriety of a union between Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward's Island; but I believe that on no occasion has Nova Scotia shown any disposition to unite in any Confederation from which New Brunswick and Prince Edward's Island were excluded. In the same year there was what is called a "deadlock" in the administration of affairs in Canada. The House will bear in mind that for many years past it is not Nova Scotia that has troubled the English Parliament and Government, but any difficulty in connection with the British North American provinces has arisen from embarrassments in Canada. The dead-lock in Canada was such that men looked across the table at each other in the House of Assembly, and asked how things were to go on. It was ultimately agreed that there should be a coalition; that men who had fought violently in Parliament for years before should form a coalition Government, and that its policy should he to combine all the Provinces in a Federal union; or, if that was impracticable, to apply Federal principles to Canada alone, by forming a central Parliament, in which representation should be based upon population,

  1663
  which would give dominance to Upper Canada, and so in all probability get rid of a dead-lock. This was the means by which they proposed to extricate themselves from the embarrassment in which they were placed, and to set their governmental carriage running on its four wheels again. The delegates who had been appointed to consider the desirableness of a union of the maritime Provinces—Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward's Island—met, in August 1864, at Charlottetown, the capital of Prince Edward's Island, and they discussed the question for some time; but whilst so doing they were interrupted by the advent of a powerful delegation from Canada, the Canadian politicians being afraid that the maritime Provinces would get up a more limited Federation of their own. The result was, that these gentlemen having no increased authority from the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia, whatever they had from New Brunswick or Prince Edward's Island, some delay took place, and the delegates met again in Quebec, in October 1864, the result of their deliberations being the formation of what was known as the Quebec scheme, and which really formed the basis of the Bill which the Parliament passed here last year. The delegates from Nova Scotia and from the other Provinces did not agree to the Confederation. There is no proof that Nova Scotia has ever in any way countenanced a Confederation in which all the maritime Provinces should not be included. Bear in mind that up to this moment the policy of complete Confederation was entirely Canadian. It was not Nova Scotian—it was not even Imperial. Judging from the despatches of the right hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Cardwell), the Colonial Office looked at it with great shyness, and probably did not think it was in a position to give immediate and distinct sanction to it. When this scheme became known in Nova Scotia, there arose a spontaneous excitement on the part of the whole people; meetings were held almost everywhere; petitions in great numbers numerously signed were presented to the House, objecting to the scheme; and objecting—as they have done all along—that anything should be done which was not referred to the constituencies at the elections. The Nova Scotian House met in February 1865, and in his opening speech the Governor referred to the Quebec scheme, promising to bring the question before the House; but he did not do so because it
  1664
  was felt that the opinion in Nova Scotia was so entirely against it that it would be in vain to ask the support of the House of Assembly for the scheme that had been contrived and developed at Quebec, The House did, however, in fact revive, not this scheme, but the smaller scheme of a Confederation of the maritime Provinces, to which the Nova Scotians had all along been greatly attached, though they do not appear to have in the least favoured a scheme to submerge them, as it were, in the Canadian power. They revived the Resolution of 1864, which referred only to the Confederation of the maritime Provinces; and to show how determined the House was to do nothing more than that, it actually rejected the Preamble to the Resolutions, which seemed to give some kind of semblance to the idea that under some circumstances they would consent to union with Canada. They thus showed in a very remarkable manner how watchful they were that they should not be committed to a general Confederation in which Canada was included with them. In the Session of 1865 there were 183 petitions, signed by more than 15,000 persons, presented to the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia, complaining of any attempt whatsoever to deal with the question of Confederation until it had been referred for the opinion of the people to be constitutionally expressed at a General Election. There were 183 petitions against any such proceeding, and only one solitary petition—the number of names I have not found stated in the petition—in favour of Confederation. Well, now we come to the Session of 1866. The House met in February. There was not a single word in the Governor's speech on the question of Confederation. If it had been referred to the constituencies—if the people of Nova Scotia were wishing for it—if it was for its consideration Parliament had been assembled, I think we should have had something about it in the Governor's speech. The question had been considered as one virtually settled—the minds of the people of Nova Scotia had been so far drawn from it that the whole matter was supposed to be at an end. What happened two months after? This extraordinary thing—the First Minister of Nova Scotia, Dr. Tupper, brought in a Resolution that a scheme of Confederation should be proceeded with, and delegates were appointed to arrange the scheme. No time was given for public meetings, petitions, or demonstrations of public opinion, and, in fact, the whole proceeding was carried

  1665
  on with an indecent haste, such as I should think there is no example of in a Legislative Assembly that was about, contrary to the will of its constituents, to subvert and overthrow its own power. The Session before there was no majority for doing anything; but in the Session of 1866 there was a majority for this proceeding. How it was obtained I know not; but there are modes of dealing with Oppositions, as we have had any number of times in this House, by which a minority sometimes becomes a majority. Dr. Tupper is a man of whom I will say nothing that is disrespectful. He is a man, I should say, of rather a subtle intellect, and he has what is an admirable thing in a Prime Minister—a persuasive tongue; and, what is more, he appears to me to have an ambition which is not willing to be confined within the comparatively narrow limits of the Province of Nova Scotia; and, somehow or other, Dr. Tupper managed to convert the minority of the year before into the majority of the year 1866, and succeeded in having this Resolution passed and these delegates appointed. Then these delegates came to England, where they were joined by those of Canada and New Brunswick, Prince Edward's Island and Newfoundland taking no part in the matter, and sending no delegates; so that, happily or unhappily as the case may turn out—for I am not arguing for or against Confederation as a principle—their legislation did not subvert their Constitution, and they are free as they were before. But there came to England whilst this question was under discussion a counter delegation sent by the people—not the Assembly—of Nova Scotia. The delegates from the people brought a petition signed, not in favour of Confederation, by 31,000 male inhabitants of Nova Scotia, protesting against the Imperial Parliament giving its assistance to the subversion of the Constitution of Nova Scotia and to uniting that colony to Canada, and till the people should have had an opportunity of declaring their opinion upon that proposal at the General Elections in the Colony. In the month of March last year I protested against the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Colonies proceeding with the Bill, telling him that in three months, according to the ordinary custom of the colony, there would be a General Election, and this question would then be referred to the whole of the constituencies affected by it. But the right hon. Gentleman was very sharp on me, and thought I was step-
  1666
  ping in and interfering with a great transaction of his. I pointed out that in reference to English corporations this House does not put men within the circuit of a municipality until you have ascertained what is the opinion of those who are to be included within it; but here is a whole colony of 400,000 persons—a colony that I venture to say is, for its numbers, the noblest colony probably that England has; a colony that has given us less trouble; a colony having a people of most remarkable qualities; and yet they are handed over to this new Confederation not only without their consent, but absolutely in the teeth of their protestations against it. To show the House that I am not now taking up the question merely for the purpose of stimulating any difficulty that may have arisen, or of making this question embarrassing to the Government, I will state some few of the things I said when I spoke on the subject last year. I said that I had never before known any measure affecting any considerable part of the population hurried through Parliament with the unseemly haste which we witnessed last year; and I referred to the fact that two colonies were left out, and I said I presumed they were left out because it was quite clear that they did not want to come in, The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adderley) interrupted me, and said: "I am glad I can inform the hon. Gentleman that they are—one of them at least—on the point of coming in," I have not heard of their coming in, but they were left out because they did not wish to come in, and that is all I propose with regard to the colony of Nova Scotia. Further, I described what had been done with that petition of 31,000 signatures; and I asked the House not to bind Nova Scotia until the opinion of the constituency of that colony had been ascertained, which would have been within a few months of the time at which I was speaking. I said further—
  "If, at a time like this, when you are proposing a union which we all hope is to last for ever, you create a little sore it will in all probability become a great sore in a short time, and it may be that the intentions of Parliament will be almost entirely frustrated by the haste with which this measure is being pushed forward."—[3 Hansard, clxxxv. 1182]
  The right hon. Gentleman had spoken of the case as one of great exigency, and I pointed out that if we had the feeling of the people of Nova Scotia with us we might go forward in the hope that the transaction would be advantageous to the colony and honourable to the mother-coun-

  1667
  try. The petition to which I have referred was disregarded; the opinions of 31,000 persons were considered not nearly so important as the representations of Dr. Tupper and his friends; my warning with regard to the little sore was considered of no use and not in the slightest degree judicious; and the Bill, being pushed forward, was passed. Now there came on in September, later than usual, a General Election for the Province of Nova Scotia, and it was no longer possible to keep the subject from discussion and decision by the constituencies. The result was, that of the thirty-eight Members returned to the local Nova Scotian Parliament meeting at Halifax, only two were returned in favour of Confederation, and of the nineteen sent to represent the Province in the Parliament meeting at Ottawa, only two were returned in favour of Confederation, and one of these has, I believe, given his assent to the petition I have presented to the House. Thus it will be seen that of fifty-seven Members, only three are in favour of the Bill which was passed with so much haste and so much unstatesmanlike obstinacy last year. The House is landed in this difficulty, that you have been professing to confer a great benefit on your colony—you did it without their consent, and that colony turns upon you, and asks you to take back the gift. The House should bear in mind, when this election took place there were not wanting those means by which Government and officials interfere with the freedom of elections. It was said more than once by persons in authority, that if the people of Nova Scotia voted against the Confederation it would be displeasing to the Queen. The Colonial Office also exercised its authority. The Governor of the colony at the time exercised all the influence he could bring to bear on the matter and the case. The military gentlemen who lived outside barracks, and who never before voted at elections, came forward and Toted, and brought all the force of their opinion, example, and suffrage in support of what they supposed was the intention of the Government at home and of the colony. And the Canadian officials, they were also to exercise whatever influence they possessed. Well, all this was done, and we know how it is done here, and we can guess how it is done in Nova Scotia. But, notwithstanding all this battery and machining against the popular cause, it failed, and failed completely, as I have shown. The House
  1668
  elected last September met in February of this year, and immediately turned their attention to the question of the destruction of their Constitution and their forced union with Canada; and they sent delegates to England to ask for the restoration of the Constitution as it existed previously to the passing of the British North American Confederation Act, and they instructed their delegates they were not to accept any alteration or amendment of that Act. I do not say this for the purpose of saying I agree with or approve of it, or that I think it absolutely necessary for them to stand by those words. I state it for the sake of showing what at the present moment is the unanimous judgment of the whole local Legislature of Nova Scotia. In the eighteen counties of the colony great public meetings were held, and one was held in Halifax, the capital city, and under the eye of the Government. They say the Act of Union has no claim upon the loyalty of the people of Nova Scotia, and that any obedience to it is a matter of coercion, and not given by a free people. There are 48,000 electors in Nova Scotia, and I think only 13,000 voted for the Confederation candidates, with all the influence that could be brought to bear upon them. But in some counties there was no control; in others, the majorities were so great and the minorities so small that the poll was over at a very early hour of the day, and a great number of the electors did not vote. I state this in order to show that the number of electors who voted on the occasion ought not to be regarded in a consideration of this question. I must refer once more to the speech of the Earl of Carnarvon. I say it expresses a fear of public opinion in Nova Scotia, and a consciousness that he was taking a course, in moving the second reading of the Bill, which had not the sanction of the people of the colony. If that be so I put it to the House whether it is not a question of more than ordinary seriousness, and whether the proposition I make for an inquiry—that a Commission should be sent out—is not a rational and statesmanlike proposition? If the House or the Government be disposed to disregard the question, then I assure them it is understood to be a serious question in Canada; and that, although Dr. Tupper is anxious the Confederation should work well, and that all the colonies should adopt it, the present aspect of affairs in Nova Scotia is perilous. In Canada, I am told, the Canadian oath

  1669
  has been altered, because it will not be taken by the people of Nova Scotia. They were required to take an oath that they would defend their dominions. The people of Nova Scotia were not prepared to take the oath, and it was therefore altered. More than that, I believe the Nova Scotia Militia will not be called out for drill this year, because it is felt that the people of Nova Scotia are unwilling to do anything that will put them into action with, or independence upon, or in submission to the Government of Canada. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adderley) will tell the House—I wish I could say what he will doubtless say—that the whole thing will blow over. Well, some things do blow over; some do not: and if they do, it is only with a very rough blast. It is not a very statesmanlike conclusion, after last year committing a great error or wrong, to sit down and refuse to inquire into it, or remedy it, and say it is a momentary passion, and will blow over, and that the opposition will soon be at an end. You have bound them together, and you say there is no remedy in this Parliament which did them the injustice. You tell them, if a wrong has been done, they must go to Canada and get it remedied. If they go to the Parliament of Ottawa they would tell them by a majority of 6 to 1 they could nothing for them. They would say, "You are part of the Confederation, and if any wrong has been done you must go to the Parliament in London." I beg to tell the House that if that is the principle on which we are to net—to allow them to go to Canada for a remedy, and if we undertake to interfere in no way in the matter, and withdraw the troops from Nova Scotia, and leave Nova Scotia and Canada to settle the matter, it will he settled very easily, or perhaps I should say without much difficulty. Canada cannot coerce Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia would know that she cannot be coerced; and therefore either she would secede and revert to her ancient Constitution, which she has by no means forgotten, or Canada would immediately appoint a Commission to inquire into the whole matter, and to offer to Nova Scotia such amendments of the Act, and such changes or concessions in the mode of Confederation, as Nova Scotia might—I do not say it is likely she would—but such as she might ultimately be willing to accept. There is another point which the House should bear in mind—that Nova Scotia is next to New
  1670
  Brunswick, and although New Brunswick has, by her General Election, confirmed the proposition of Confederation, yet there is a growing feeling in New Brunswick, since the Canadian Parliament met, that the Confederation is not a good thing for them. Every day, I believe, a stronger sympathy with Nova Scotia is being created. The other day, in the city of St. John, the principal mercantile city of New Brunswick, a candidate strong against Confederation was returned, and so strong was the party supporting him that no candidate in favour of Confederation could be brought forward to oppose him. I venture to say, if the Government refuse any inquiry into this matter, they will only add to the folly of their haste of last year the greater folly of a more perilous obstinacy this year. It is not a safe course that the Government is going to pursue, if I have rightly heard what is in their mind. It is said that the right hon. Gentleman and the Duke of Buckingham, his Chief at the Colonial Office, propose that by and-by a new Governor General shall be sent to Canada; that the matter shall then be inquired into; that he shall try to ascertain the grounds of discord, stopping a day or so at Halifax; and that, when he arrives at Ottawa, he shall propose something to reconcile Nova Scotia to the Government of Canada. I believe that any such inquiry will be utterly futile. The Governor General going out there will not be the most impartial man to consider the question; and when he gets to Ottawa, and is there surrounded by his Ministers in the Canadian Parliament, who will all be on the other side, it is quite clear he will be in a position of the greatest difficulty. And I think a man must be sanguine beyond what is wise to suppose that any good could arise from a proceeding like that. I think that we have committed a certain wrong. We have done it through error, or in haste; and it is very unstates-manlike to shut the door of Parliament against the prayer of the petitioners, which may be said to represent nearly, if not quite, half the population of Nova; Scotia. I think the sending out of a Commission, or Commissioners, would be more considerate to the colony Such Commission might take into view all the; circumstances of the case; and it would be more soothing to the 300,000 or 400,000 inhabitants who are dissatisfied with the course taken last year. Our colonial experience has not been very

  1671
  satisfactory to us in some things. We fancy that people 3,000 or 4,000 miles off are as tractable or as easily governed as people in a neighbouring colony. It is quite a mistake. They have ideas which Englishmen have not. The tie which binds them to this House, though strong, is very much less strong than the ties which bind our English counties to the sovereignty of this House. It is only about 100 years ago that the wise men in this House proposed in a single Session to pass three coercive Acts against the North American colonies. I have no doubt that there were many men in those days who stood up to object to those Acts, and were deemed fools or something worse for their pains. And yet their folly turned out the greatest wisdom, and the almost unanimous wisdom of Parliament turned out to be the greatest folly; and this is now pointed at by every historian as one of the most remarkable transactions of unwisdom that ever occurred in the English Parliament. It is not now a question of mere stamps, or of 3d. or 6d. a pound on tea. It is a question of the absolute subversion and abolition of an ancient, honoured, and valued Constitution. I consider it quite likely that the people of Nova Scotia, who have been free, happy, independent, and prosperous for so long a time, may have just as strong a love for the Constitution of their comparatively small population, as any of us may have for the Constitution under which we live. The noble Lord who moved the second reading of the Bill in the other House said we were now laying the foundation of a great State. Last year we all hoped so. I hoped so myself although I confess I had not much faith in it. But to build up a great State by making a victim of this colony, and to make a victim of this colony in order to meet certain difficulties in Canada or in the Colonial Office, does not appear to me to be wise; and to endeavour to build up a great State from those discordant materials, partly from fear, and partly from jealousy of the United States, is a far more objectionable feature in the matter. I know very well there is an idea that this union with Canada is one mode of preventing the North American colonies from annexation to the United States. The motive is hardly wise, and in the mode of accomplishing it there is no wisdom whatever; for you are attempting now to build a great State on a foundation which shakes under you the very moment you are beginning to
  1672
  build; and when you passed your Bill of Federation last year for the foundation of a great State, you were putting together materials which were not in accord, and out of which the moment they were brought together would arise something like we have now seen. We know what the official view of things is. It, we generally find, is to do nothing; and it goes on doing nothing until the case gets so bad that nothing can be done. And that is precisely what the Colonial Office tonight will ask the House of Commons to do in this matter. It would not do anything last year but contradict me when I said the Nova Scotians were against that Bill, and the right hon. Gentleman was positive and rather insolent, and thought I was meddling where I did not understand it. And now, when I ask him to inquire, he will tell the House that inquiry would only make the difficulties greater, and would hear the appearance of a concession which the House does not intend to make. Now, I hope the House and the Colonial Office will beware of saying anything like that. You do not know yet that you will not have to make concession. And therefore I say to the right hon. Gentleman and to his Colleagues not to agree to any statement like that, because next year we may look upon a state of things far less palatable than those of today. What is the difficulty of inquiry? There have been Commissions of Inquiry before of an important character, and there may be one now. The result would be this—that all the Canadian people would say—"Well, the English Parliament have behaved to us, after all, in a certain degree of moderation and reasonableness. What they did was through misapprehension, and when we represented it to them they were ready to inquire. They have sent out a Commission, and we will go fairly into the question with them, and we will see if the difficult question can be adjusted." Now, there are several things which could be done. There could be a Confederation of all the Provinces, as at present proposed, but with certain modifications, and this might possibly meet the views of the Nova Scotians; there might be a Confederation of the maritime Provinces only, which would be probable most likely to meet the views of the Nova Scotians; or you might take the alternative scheme proposed by the Canadian Executive Government—apply the Federal principle to the two Canadas with a central Parliament. So that, after

  1673
  all, there are two ways out of this difficulty, and the proper way would be discovered by a Commission sent to Nova Scotia to inquire into it. But whatever you do, I say to have no inquiry, but to stand on the Bill passed last Session—to shut the door of the House in the face of that new colony—would be one of those acts, not of statesmanship, but of madness, which statesmen and Ministers ought on all occasions to avoid. If you shut the door of hope, what will be the effect upon the minds of this population who are so agitated? They will feel that they are made the victims of Canadian ambition and of Imperial policy in which they do not in the least sympathize. I am afraid, Sir, to treat this question in one part of it, because it will lead me to say, though it will be false in detail, what will be likely to increase the difficulty I point out. If you propose a union at all hazards, the danger to my mind is apparent. From the moment that resolution reaches Nova Scotia there will be created a deeper hostility to Canada. I do not know why it is that the smaller Provinces have no love of Canada, They do not believe in her political system. They have no faith in the wisdom and morality of her statesmen. They go there with nineteen Members to a House of 180 Members, and they think they will be lost when they get there, and that their own complete government will be gone. They are not placed under the Imperial Parliament, but under what is only a Colonial Government, in which they have no faith and for which they have no love. I say therefore if you turn them from this House, not only without remedy, but without inquiry, you will create a deeper hostility to Canada. You will create also a growing estrangement from England, and what is perhaps dreaded by some more than anything else, you will create and increase the sympathy with the neighbouring New England States of North America. When men are irritated, as the Nova Scotians are now irritated, and when nothing is done to soothe the irritation—when you will not inquire—when you will not remedy-when you will not listen—it takes a very little thing indeed where a colony is 3,000 or 4,000 miles away from the mother country, to turn its eyes in the direction of the government of a great country—of its own race and with institutions as free—and probably willing, when the colonies are willing, to receive them within its ample borders. This is what I am afraid may happen. Your scheme must break down if the Nova Scotians resolve they will not
  1674
  have it, It is impossible for you to coerce them. I do not think there is the temper in the English House of Commons, nor amongst Englishmen in the United Kingdom, that would allow the Government by force to coerce the population of Nova Scotia into the subversion of her very government, and into annexation with Canada. But if you are not prepared to coerce, then I say the proper course for the Government to take—and I never gave any Government an opinion with more conscientious belief in its reasonableness and its propriety—the course which the Government should take is to select one or two men of high position and character in this country, who would go and give two or three months to this question this autumn, to examine into the whole matter in Nova Scotia. They would also see something of the state of public opinion in Canada; because they would necessarily see the Governors and the authorities there, and possibly—probably—I will not say certainly—they may propose some plan which would relieve the colonies from this difficulty, and would show the House of Commons and the Government here a path out of a difficulty which I think every day we tread in it becomes more difficult, and which may land us in disasters which are fearful to contemplate. The other day the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government met the deputation upon Ireland. It was not upon this question—it was upon a question which has been much discussed in the House during the present Session—and he made an observation to them which would have been very wise under certain circumstances, but, as it was not true, it was not very wise under the circumstances in which it was spoken, He made this observation. He said—"we have secured this for the people of this country, that the Constitution shall not be subverted without an appeal to them." But you have subverted the Constitution of Nova Scotia without any appeal to the people of Nova Scotia. You did it from what I think an exaggerated statement of persons connected with the then Government of Nova Scotia, and the House did on the representation of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who certainly was very much more sanguine than he had any right to be. You have done to the people of Nova Scotia what I maintain is one of the greatest wrongs that despotism in any form can do to any people. You have power to maintain it so long as Nova Scotia has no assistance from outside its own borders, But there is no

  1675
  statesman in England who will venture to bring about the shedding of one drop of blood upon that Continent. No man in this House more entirely hopes that such a thing is absolutely impossible than I do. Yet these questions may be driven to a point where difficulties will arise which the English Parliament will be utterly unable to settle. And whilst we have been endeavouring to bring about important arrangements for the Federation of our fellow-subjects in the British North American Colonies, we may possibly have been taking the step that will thrust them into the United States. Only the other day I met an Englishman who has lived in the United States, and who is familiar with everything there, and he asked me whether I thought the Government intended to refuse my claim. I said, "I think they do. They generally refuse everything, and I understand they are going to refuse this." "Well," he said, "I am very glad to hear that;" which rather struck me with surprise, and, indeed, with pain; and I said, "Why are you glad?" He said, "I believe nothing can prevent the absorption of these colonies within the Republic of the United States;" and he added "There is no step the Government could take so certain to hasten it as to object to your Motion and refuse the Commission of Inquiry which you propose." Now, Sir, I cannot say what he says, because I am not glad of it—I regret it, and regret it sincerely, because I think nothing could be more unfortunate for these colonies and this country than that we should do anything to hasten the accession of these colonies to the United States. Our duty is, so far as we can in legislating for them and in governing for them, to do it all freely, honourably, and generously to them, with their consent in every step; and to the last moment that these colonies shall be dependent on the British Crown, that every person within them shall feel that that Crown has not been a Crown of tyranny, but the Crown of just government to them. Now, Sir, I have submitted this ease. I do not know that it is necessary to say anything more about it. I submit it as I see it, and as it commends itself to my view. It is a case not for opposition nor for obstinacy. It is a case which calls for statesmanship and for justice. Last year the House legislated in error and in the dark. Tonight I hope, after the simple narrative I have given of these transactions, it can never be said that the House can act otherwise than in the broad light of day with respect to this question. I
  1676
  advised the right hon. Gentleman last year, as he knows, not to be precipitate with that Bill. If he had taken my advice this difficulty would not have occurred. The right hon. Gentleman made a mistake. He placed too much reliance on evidence which was not trustworthy. Now, in this matter I have no party or personal interest to serve. We ought all to be alike anxious that what is just and what is generous should be done to the colony of Nova Scotia, and that fair inquiry should be made into the grievances of which complaint is made. And if the right hon. Gentleman refuses this course, and if difficulties should come of it, the responsibility must rest with the right hon. Gentleman and with his Colleagues; not with me. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving his Resolution.
  MR. BAXTER, in seconding the Motion, expressed a hope that it would be acceded to by the Government. He believed that if a petition so influentially signed and so effectually worded as that presented by his hon. Friend were entirely disregarded by the Imperial Parliament, consequences must ensue most humiliating and disastrous to this great Empire. If his hon. Friend had proposed that the House should adopt any Resolution or affirm any measure to carry out the views of the delegates of Nova Scotia, then he could understand why the House and Her Majesty's Government should feel great hesitation in doing anything of the sort. He believed that any Gentleman who had carefully looked at the Papers that had been circulated with regard to this question must admit that the delegates from Nova Scotia bad made out a very strong case. But his hon. Friend did not ask the House to repeal the Union Act nor to pronounce any opinion on any branch of the subject; all that he asked for was, that having regard to the universal dissatisfaction which prevailed in Nova Scotia, there should be an inquiry into the cause of that dissatisfaction, with a view to its removal. He could scarcely conceive that this House would refuse so reasonable a request, whatever view they might take of the Confederation of Canada. His hon. Friend had, perhaps, seen the delegates from Nova Scotia; but he (Mr. Baxter) stood in a totally different position. He had not had any communication with those delegates, either direct or indirect. But he had taken the trouble of making inquiry into this matter. He received the other day from a friend long resident in the colony, a gentleman in business at Halifax, and

  1677
  having no connection with the party politics of the colony, a letter which fully confirmed the statements made by the delegates sent over by Nova Scotia, In that letter it was stated that the whole population of the Province was opposed to the union; that the Imperial Government had been entirely deceived as to the feeling of the Nova Scotians themselves; and that the people would resist the change. It should not be said that, in consequence of our legislation, we had driven a loyal and influential State to take a step of that sort. The letter went on to say that Nova Scotia had already experienced the disastrous effects of the union in the increase of the duties imposed upon most commodities. The Nova Scotians ridiculed, too, the idea, of our giving an Imperial guarantee in connection with the construction of an intercolonial railway, on the ground that they were perfectly able and willing to raise the money themselves. The colony was one which had been loyal and true, and the people complained that the Act had been passed without seeking their opinion upon it. The people of the colony deserved the utmost consideration at the hands of the Imperial Parliament, and he quite agreed with the hon. Member for Birmingham, that if the House took the strong stop of refusing any inquiry into the case, the people of Nova Scotia might come to the conclusion that the present generation of Englishmen had forgotten the lesson of the American War of Independence. He had much pleasure in seconding the Motion
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That this House is informed, by a Petition presented on the 15th day of May last, signed by 36 out of 38 Members of the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia, and by 16 out of 19 Members elected by that Colony to the House of Commons at Ottawa, that great dissatisfaction prevails in Nova Scotia with the Act passed in the last Session of Parliament, intituled 'An Act for the Union of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick:' And that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to appoint a Commission or Commissioners to proceed to Nova Scotia for the purpose of examining into the causes of the alleged discontent, with a view to their consideration and removal."—(Mr. Bright.)
  MR. ADDERLEYsaid, that the Motion of the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) could not be regarded as raising in any way a party question, because both sides of the House were equally interested in this great Confederation of the North American Provinces obtaining a successful start, and were equally interested in the
  1678
  Act of last Session, which was passed almost unanimously. But, although the question raised was not a party question, it was one of the gravest importance, and one that ought not to be judged by outside appearance, but by the gravest and most thorough consideration of the intrinsic merits of the case. The question raised by the Motion before the House was whether the Province of Nova Scotia was so wrongly, and in the dark, drawn into this union by the Imperial Act of last Session that it became this Mouse to ask the Queen to issue a Royal Commission of Inquiry on the spot, undertaking on the part of this country a most questionable interference with the local affairs of North America. The proposition was startling and obviously dangerous, and nothing but the strongest reasons should induce the House to assent to it. Great dissatisfaction undoubtedly had been recently shown in the Province of Nova Scotia with the union of the North American Provinces. That dissatisfaction cannot be disputed, and he had no doubt that the House would deeply regret with him that it should exist. He could only say that Her Majesty's Government regretted the existence of that dissatisfaction as strongly as any one. But this proposition for a Commission from this country to inquire into it was, notwithstanding, so unpromising a remedy that it became the House to consider the allegations on which it was based, and the nature of the recommendation which they were asked to agree to. He would endeavour, in the first place, briefly to show that those allegations were wholly erroneous, and without foundation; secondly, that if even the allegations which had been made were true, the recommendation of the hon. Member was about the most insane thing the House could agree to; and thirdly, that the alarm and discontent in Nova Scotia could be much better met, and were rapidly being met, by a totally different process. The allegations were that Nova Scotia had been entrapped into this union by surprise, and that this House was induced to sanction the Act by a fraud practised upon it. The truth of these allegations he entirely denied. Parliament, in passing the Act of Union, simply put Ministerially into the form of an Imperial statute, Resolutions which had been passed by the Provinces themselves. The subject of union had been agitated for no less than fourteen years in the Provinces, and in no instance had this country done more than accept the propositions made by the Provinces to it, and offered to do its part in carrying

  1679
  out their wishes. When propositions were first made the Duke of Newcastle was Colonial Secretary, and he received them very cautiously, saying—"If you really want this union, make it clear to us, and we will entertain your proposition." When a similar proposition was made to the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Cardwell) he received it with similar caution, saying—"Confer with your colonial Legislatures and let us know the conclusion at which they arrive upon the subject." In both instances the Colonial Secretaries of State, be far from initiating propositions of union received those made to them most cautiously. He did not mean to say that the Government might not have been perfectly justified if they had treated the subject less scrupulously. Far be it from him to say this country was not concerned and deeply interested in this Confederation. The British taxpayer who maintained 12,000 British troops for the defence of North America was certainly interested in consolidating the strength and developing the resources of his fellow-subjects. It was unnecessary to raise the question whether this country could not have instituted this Confederation even without the consent of the Provinces. But this country always felt that it was better that we should not initiate, still less urge, such a union, but that we should rather wait upon the inclination of the Provinces. His object was to show the House, by mere Statement of facts, that this proposition came from the Provinces themselves, and that history, without any argument, would dissipate to the winds the allegation either that Nova Scotia was taken by surprise, or that this House had been in any way imposed upon. Lord Durham, in 1838, reported that deputies from Halifax urged the necessity of a general union of the Provinces as the most likely measure to preserve their connection with the British Crown. The proposal for union was first made by the Leaders of the two opposite parties in Nova Scotia in 1854, Mr. Howe being one of them; and a proposal to that effect was made to this country by the then Colonial Government. In 1857 the proposition was renewed at the instance of the other party, and delegates were sent to this country upon the subject. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bright) had mystified himself by the distinctions drawn by those who had placed in his hands the case for Nova Scotia between the various propositions made at different times for different kinds of union—Legislative union, Federal union, and union by actual representation
  1680
  in that House. The proposition for a union of some kind of all the North American Provinces had been a leading topic in Nova Scotia for fourteen years, and was a topic of common consent between the opposite parties in that Province. In 1861 a unanimous Resolution of the Nova Scotian Parliament in its favour stated that the subject had been mooted from time to time and should be sealed—this subject which in 1868 was said to take that Province by surprise. The election of 1863, instead of supporting the case of the hon. Gentleman, went really decisively the other way. The hon. Gentleman said the topic of Confederation was not made a party cry at that election, and seemed to think that that was a point in his favour; but the fact of the subject not having been made a party cry was a convincing proof that no feeling against the proposition existed. Had such a feeling existed the question undoubtedly would have been made a party cry, and would have been a chief topic at the hustings. The fact was that all parties were then agreed upon the subject; and therefore nobody touched the question at that election. In 1864 the proposition was again brought forward, and a Resolution was passed by the new Parliament approving it. The hon. Member said that when the delegates met at Charlottetown Canada came in unexpectedly. All he could say in reply to that statement was, that Canada asked to be invited, and was invited to send delegates to the meeting, and therefore it could scarcely be said that the other Provinces were taken by surprise by her taking part in those proceedings. When the Conference was adjourned to Quebec, in 1864, Resolutions were passed which were the ipsissima verba of the Imperial Act which was passed last year. Before these Resolutions were presented to the Legislature of New Brunswick, an election had taken place in that Province which returned an Assembly adverse to the union. But in the course of the very next spring they changed their view, and were as strongly in favour of the union as they had at first been against it. That change of opinion appeared to be incomprehensible to the hon. Gentleman. That change of opinion, however, was the rapid first-fruits of mature consideration on the part of the Legislature of that Province. A similar change may result from Nova Scotia's reflection. It was not until after Resolutions in favour of the union had been unanimously agreed to by all the Legislatures of the interested Provinces that the Act of last Session was passed by the Imperial

  1681
  Parliament. He would not waste the time of the House further in endeavouring to show that the Nova Scotians were not taken by surprise by the Act of last Session; but the hon. Gentleman, departing from that ground which, he thought, he must have found a somewhat weak one on which to take his stand, appealed from the Legislatures of the Provinces to the people. It was true he admitted that the Legislatures were in favour of the union; but then he contended that the Nova Scotian Legislature did not faithfully represent the inhabitants at large. Now, what he had already said about the election of 1863 fully disposed, in his opinion, of the hon Gentleman's argument on that point; for all parties at that election were so unanimous on the long-mooted question of Confederation that it was not even raised on the hustings; and the Assembly then returned passed immediate Resolutions in its favour. But he would deal with the hon. Gentleman's proposition of an appeal from representatives to the people on such a question on grounds of abstract principle. The hon. Gentleman had quoted the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government as having laid down the principle that an existing Legislature was not to deal with a great constitutional change without an appeal to the people. But had hot the hon. Gentleman himself, he would ask, repudiated that principle in the debate on the Irish Church this very Session? [Mr. BRIGHT dissented.] He was glad the hon. Member thought the Irish Church could not be abolished by this Parliament. He would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire, who he was certain had repudiated that principle in reference to the Irish Church; for he had quoted a speech of Mr. Pitt on the Union with Ireland, in which that statesman said that a principle so democratic as that representatives could not deal with constitutional changes without special reference to their constituents struck at the root of representative government. The Irish Union was a precedent against the hon. Member for Birmingham. The Scotch Union was another precedent against him. Commissioners in that case were appointed on both sides to draw up terms which were enacted without an appeal to the people. Again, in the case of the Canadian Union in 1842 an appeal to the people was proposed and rejected; but, perhaps, the best precedent was that which was furnished by Mr. Howe himself, who in 1863 passed a Nova Scotian Reform Bill, reducing the constituencies of Nova Scotia by one-third,
  1682
  without ever deeming it necessary that an appeal to the people should be made. On the contrary, the change occurred immediately after his election, and he repudiated the notion of appealing to the people even on the subject of their extensive disfranchisement. And he must remind the hon. Member for Birmingham that in making the appeal which he now so strongly advocates he was asking for an appeal from a larger to a smaller constituency—to a constituency which since 1863 had been diminished by one-third. And when the hon. Gentleman talked of the old Constitution of Nova Scotia, and said that if care were not taken the people of that Province would violently resume that Constitution, he would beg him to remember that the old Constitution of Nova Scotia was simply, after all, the gift of the Crown. The Lieutenant Governor was sent out from this country with a commission which authorized him to summon an Assembly. There was no charter for Nova Scotia and no foundation for a Constitution enjoying the advantages of that great Confederation in which they had now their share, which had a Government as free as our own, and a Parliament as powerful as the House of Commons to manage its own affairs. But then the hon. Gentleman laid stress upon the fact that in the recent elections in Nova Scotia since the union it had been triumphantly condemned. Now, he disputed the statement that the union was condemned in those elections, and he had taken the best means to inform himself as to what had been the real expression of feeling at those elections. Looking through a file of the Halifax Morning Chronicle, which was the organ of Mr. Howe, he found that the cry at the elections was not against the union generally, but that it had almost wholly reference to two things—the possible injury that might accrue to the interests of Nova Scotia from Confederation with the larger State of Canada, but still more was it directed against what was called the Tupper-Archibald party and their past misdeeds. It was certainly quite true that there was great alarm in Nova Scotia; but history furnished no instance in which a smaller State did not entertain some fear and jealousy in confederating with a larger State. No man, for example, possessing a genius inferior to that of Washington could, he believed, have overcome the mutual jealousies he had to contend with before he effected the first Confederation of the United States, and it was not surprising that similar jealousy should prevail in the smaller States of our North

  1683
  American Confederation. The hon. Gentleman would, however, find that the existence of a feeling at the recent elections in Nova Scotia against the union with Canada was by no means so conclusively established as he seemed to suppose; but that, upon the contrary, the people of that Province had for the most part made up their minds to give it a fair trial, the chief objects of abuse at the election being the Fishery Licence Act and that compulsory education tax for which Dr. Tupper enjoyed the credit and the blame. Mr. Howe, he saw by the Halifax Morning Chronicle, was in favour of giving a fair trial to the new Constitution, though he described the result of his electioneering as having been against it. Mr. Annand, who declared for its repeal, was ousted from his seat; and Mr. Stewart Campbell, the leader of the opposition to the union in the Assembly, stated that he would accept the Act now that it was passed, and help to carry it out in the interests of the colony. These quotations from Mr. Howe's paper tended very much in his opinion to upset the general view which the hon. Gentleman had taken of the elections. He might also observe that out of 48,000 electors only 23,000 had given their votes for what the hon. Gentleman would call the popular or anti-union party, so that though the elections went against the Government, not half the electors so voted. He thought he had now shown that the allegations which had been made by the hon. Gentleman were not well-founded, and he should in the next place proceed to contend that even if they were, his proposal for an Imperial Commission of Inquiry was about the worst which the House could adopt. We had no business to inquire into the local arrangements of the North American Provinces. By doing so we should be going back for some thirty years in colonial policy. In 1839, when Lord Durham was sent out, the object was to redeem the North American colonies from evils which our interference had caused, and to allow them to manage their own affairs. We had recognized self-government of the most ample kind in North America. If the hon. Member would place himself in the position of a member of the Confederation Parliament he would feel himself insulted by the proposal of a Commission to be sent out from this country to inquire into the policy of a representative Legislature of which he was a freely elected Member. Besides, let the House consider what the effect of such a course would be upon this country. If we were to send out a Com-
  1684
  mission of Inquiry into the constitutional arrangements of these Provinces, we should take upon ourselves the responsibility of their future government; we should be assuming the burden of their maintenance and perpetuating the responsibility of garrisoning the colonies with our troops. And then let the hon. Gentleman and let the House consider what the effect would be upon the influence and authority of the new Government if we were now to send out a Commission to inquire into its validity and possible change or disruption. Just at this critical moment, when a new Government is called upon to conduct its affairs amidst the jealousies of the smaller partners, and those difficulties are still further aggravated by the drilling of Fenian conspirators openly along their frontier, and by projects and agitations for the annexation of these colonies to the United States, who deprecate Confederation because annexation is thereby rendered more difficult—at such a moment as this the hon. Gentleman says it would be a statesmanlike proceeding to send out a Commission which would paralyze the Executive and weaken the union, and encourage every disturbance and complaint. Just at the moment when, in the midst of difficulty, they had launched the new State on the enterprize of self-government the hon. Gentleman came forward with a proposition that would have no effect more surely than to expose it to every trial from within, and from without. And that the hon. Gentleman called a statesmanlike proceeding. Then look at the effect upon the financial proceedings of the Confederation. The credit of the Confederation was already pledged to many public works. The National Debt of Nova Scotia was merged in the debt of the Confederation, in consequence of which the interest had been greatly reduced, and yet the hon. Gentleman proposed a Commission which would strike a blow at the very root of public credit, and reduce everything to a state of uncertainty, and attach suspicion to all future securities. Both, therefore, for the interests of the colonies themselves, and for the integrity of the Empire, and for the power of the new Government and its financial position—so far from this being a statesmanlike proposition, he thought it was little short of insanity to hang up the recent work of North American Confederation upon the issues of a Commission of Inquiry from this country. But, though that appeared to him to be the very last thing they ought to think of, he would tell the House that there were other modes of meeting the alarm which pre-

  1685
  vailed in Nova Scotia, which he believed was already rapidly subsiding. If, instead of sending out a Commission, they were to follow out the line which was indicated in a late despatch of the Secretary of State that this country would not place itself in the position of judge and dictator, but would use all friendly moral influences to assist the Provinces to settle mutual claims amongst each other, then they might hope to reap all the benefit and avoid all the mischief of interference. This had already been done to a very great extent. So far from Nova Scotia having no influence, it appeared to have dominant influence, and at this moment to rule the policy of the Dominion Parliament. Every Act that had yet been passed was in favour of Nova Scotia. The first Act perhaps must be excepted—which he admitted, however, was a necessary one—to sweep away all the internal tariffs which were mutually destructive, and to pass an average tariff externally to other nations, which had the effect of raising the Customs' dues of Nova Scotia from 10 to 15 per cent. The fears of Federation felt by Nova Scotia were undue taxation, and a force put upon their local government; that their interests would be oppressed by the larger interests of Canada; and that the protective policy of Canada would over-ride the free trade policy of Nova Scotia. But see what had been done. One of the first acts of the Dominion Parliament was to take off the duties on flour, grain, and meal of all kinds. It had also taken off the tonnage duties on lighthouses and placed the whole burden, which chiefly rested on the maritime Provinces, on the central revenue—proceedings all in favour of Nova Scotia. All the materials used in ships—cordage, canvas, iron, &c.—had had their duties abolished, and the duties on sugar had also been diminished in order to draw the West Indian trade to the ports of Nova Scotia. Therefore, he repeated that so far from Nova Scotia having but slight influence, the Parliament of the Dominion seemed to have studied its interests in a primary degree; and so far from the free trade policy of Nova Scotia being over-ridden, Customs' duties had been reduced, and revenue raised instead from direct taxation. In fact, the union of Nova Scotia with Canada seemed to have had the singular good effect of relaxing the protective policy of the latter country, and not of over-riding the free trade policy of the former. The Militia was alluded to by the hon. Gentleman, who said that it was not to be called out this year because Nova Scotia was disaffected. It was not going to be called out because
  1686
  there had not been yet time enough to put the new enactments relating to that force into operation. By the new enactments Nova Scotia would be taxed much less on this as well as the other heads. The Militia force was to be smaller in amount, but much better drilled than heretofore; and the taxation of Nova Scotia for a more efficient force would be just one-tenth of the amount she formerly paid. It was astonishing in how short a time a beginning had been made in the settlement of all these beneficial reforms; and the House must look beyond the mere first jealousies and apprehensions of smaller States, and consider the ultimate destiny of the whole Confederation. Was it possible the hon. Gentleman could tell the House that he gravely considered it practicable for a small colony like Nova Scotia to remain permanently disunited from its neighbours? It, was clear that one of three things must happen to Nova Scotia: either it must rest for ever—with what chance of success he would not now discuss—upon this country for its support and defence—and here he must remind the House that there were at the present moment 12,000 regular troops in the North American colonies supported out of the funds of the British taxpayer—or else they must, as the hon. Gentleman seemed to desire, annex themselves one by one to the United States; or the third and only remaining plan was what they were now doing, to consolidate their power by union among themselves. Would the hon. Gentleman like to see these colonies annexed to the United States? The hon. Gentleman said that anxiety to prevent annexation was not a wise motive. He knew the hon. Gentleman would argue, and with great justice, that it was unwise to try to prevent any people from doing that which their own feelings and interests dictated. We certainly had no interests separate from those of Nova Scotia; nor, if we had, would we sacrifice hers. But more than that, the hon. Gentleman had a feeling of preference for the United States, and he believed the hon. Gentleman had grand ideas of their destiny of extension under one Government from the Equator to the Pole. But whatever the hon. Gentleman might think desirable, the Provinces did not wish to lose our connection, and we did not wish to lose them; and he did not know why separation was to be forced upon this country and the Provinces against the wishes of both. He knew the hon. Gentleman had a great liking for the institutions of the United States; for when the Bill of Confederation was under discussion last year the hon. Gentleman ran through its pro-

  1687
  visions; and whatever clause was in accordance with the laws of the United States that in his view was good; whatever differed from them was bad. But there was no such feeling as this in the colonies. So far from that, when the delegates met in Quebec one of the first Resolutions they drew up was that, whatever else their Constitution might be, it should be framed upon the model of the Constitution of Great Britain.
  "'Twas distance lent enchantment to the view"
  of the hon. Gentleman of the United States. These, then, were the alternatives. Was it not obvious that the destiny of these Provinces was union? Was it not obvious that Nova Scotia and its harbour of Halifax was the outlet to the sea for Canada? And was it not equally clear that a small Province could only find its security and the elements of nationality in joining its large and powerful kindred round it, to give the whole weight and importance? And when Canada increased, as it would increase, then the union of the whole would appear as necessary for the interests of the colony as its defence would be clearly an impossible undertaking for this country. He implored the House, therefore, not to take a step which would throw back our colonial policy for half a century, which would have the appearance of an insult to the Government that had been offered a great career of self-government, and which would tend to destroy its credit and its stability; but to follow the course that was indicated in the despatch of the Secretary of State, to exercise their influence in assuaging alarms, in soothing jealousies, and in friendly aid to those engaged in the endeavour to build up a strong, a vigorous, and a self-reliant State.
  MR. AYTOUNsaid, he hoped the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) would divide the House on his very moderate proposal. He believed the subject to be one of the greatest importance. The union of Nova Scotia with Canada had occasioned very widespread dissatisfaction; and he believed there were good grounds for this discontent. The evil consequences that had arisen were certainly greater than any prospective good that could be anticipated from it. The duties on the commerce of Nova Scotia had been increased and the control over their own revenue had been taken from them. These evils might be counterbalanced by some prospect of future good; but what could Nova Scotia expect from its union with Canada? All it could hope to derive was an increase of security from aggression on the land side.
  1688
  It was notorious that in the event of Canada being attacked by the United States, no efficient defence could be made, so that even this benefit was rather imaginary than real. The main question was this—whether the union had been effected in a way to give the people of Nova Scotia reasonable ground for dissatisfaction? He thought it had. The hon. Member for Birmingham had shown how entirely the Earl of Carnarvon had failed to establish the position that Nova Scotia had been properly consulted on the question; they had not expressed their concurrence in it; and when, on the third reading, Lord Campbell proposed that the Bill should be delayed for a month, to enable the people of Nova Scotia to express their opinion in. regard to it at the elections about to be held, the proposal was rejected, and the suggestion that a petition signed by 30,000 upon the subject was ignored because it happened to be presented in "another place." Even the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire had admitted, speaking on the question of the guarantee for the intercolonial railways, that the Bill had been passed in a manner which, had it related to a matter of legislation affecting ourselves would have been termed precipitancy. The House was, he believed, to a great extent ignorant of the facts of the case; and he thought it would be wise, by granting a Commission, to enable them to judge whether it would not be expedient to reverse the decision taken last year. The Under Secretary for the Colonies had talked of the expense to which these small colonies had put us; but the expense seemed to be as much since Confederation as before. Whether these Provinces remained united with us or joined the United States, it was of the utmost importance to retain their good-will, and we could only do this by consulting their feelings and by doing them justice. With that view he hoped the Motion of the hon. Member for Birmingham would be assented to by the Government, and if pressed to a division he should support it.
  MR. CARDWELL: I have had so much to do with the Confederation of the North American Provinces that I am sure the House will indulge me with the opportunity of making a few remarks upon this question. My hon. Friend (Mr. Bright) has drawn a picture, which I hope is overcharged, of the discontent and dissatisfaction which prevail in Nova Scotia on this subject. He has spoken of the colonists in terms which their well-proved loyalty to this country merit at our hands. I am

  1689
  sure it is with the deepest regret that we hear complaints made in Nova Scotia of the measure which we passed unanimously last year, and of the mode in which that union was accomplished. But I cannot admit either that the consent of Nova Scotia was not given to the Confederation or that the measure was any surprise to them. The history of North American Confederation is at variance with such a statement. The original idea of such a Con federation was contained in the Report of Lord Durham; but that seed remained unfruitful in the ground; and when at last it began to germinate, it was not Canada which tried to obtain Confederation from Nova Scotia, but Nova Scotia which tried in vain to obtain Confederation from Canada. Passing from the early history of this question, with which at this late hour I will not weary the House, let us come to the precise period when this difficulty arose. In 1861, Mr. Howe, the author or principal exponent of the present dissatisfaction, was at the head of affairs in Nova Scotia, and Dr. Tupper was at the head of the Opposition. Resolutions, in favour of the union of some or all the colonies were moved in the Assembly of Nova Scotia by the First Minister, Mr. Howe they were seconded by Dr. Tupper; they passed with general consent, and I believe with unanimity. In 1862, Mr. Howe, having advised Lord Mulgrave to apply to the Duke of Newcastle for permission, wrote on the part of the Government of Nova Scotia a Circular Letter to the other colonies, inviting them to enter into union. It was Canada which then rejected the application of Nova Scotia. In the following year there was a dissolution of the Nova Scotian Parliament, and the subject was before the people. My hon. Friend says it was not the subject of a hustings cry. Was it likely that it should have been? It was not because there is no party spirit in Nova Scotia. Like most small communities enjoying free institutions, Nova Scotia had plenty of party spirit and acrimony; and if this question did not form a hustings cry, what is the natural inference? Just what you might infer—namely, that there was at that time no difference of opinion on the subject. My hon. Friend said that in 1864, when I was Colonial Secretary, I was shy in taking any steps when I received communications respecting the union of the Provinces. Feeling strongly the benefits which will result from Confederation, I shall be very sorry if anybody can
  1690
  blame me for lukewarmness in this matter. But I accept the charge as showing that the mother-country, through me, made no undue attempt to force on Confederation, but that we rather acted Ministerially in forwarding and promoting what we believed to be the objects and wishes of the colonists. The project of union first became popular in the maritime provinces; and the moment it was discovered that Canada was willing to enter into the union, it was received with the greatest cordiality throughout the maritime Provinces. My hon. Friend has been a little misinformed when he says that, immediately after the dissolution, they were afraid to bring forward this measure in the Assembly of Nova Scotia. There was a good reason for not bringing forward the measure, without diving into motives not upon the surface. No sane man would have proposed to unite Nova Scotia with Canada when the intervening country, the colony of New Brunswick, was supposed to be entirely hostile to Confederation. At that time there was as much disinclination to Confederation in New Brunswick as there is said to be in Nova Scotia now. That being so, what course did we adopt? We waited quietly. Within a year there was an appeal to the people of New Brunswick. The result was a large majority in favour of Confederation, and the measure was carried. I draw from what has happened in New Brunswick the inference that, though in a small community a particular grievance may have a great effect for a time in leading it to oppose a measure of general interest and advantage, that measure upon more mature consideration will by-and-by be cordially approved. Such a grievance is now felt by Nova Scotia. Let us hope that when it is redressed, the same result will follow as in New Brunswick, and that in a short time we may find Nova Scotia as sensible of the advantages of Confederation as New Brunswick now is. My hon. Friend talks about the measure being a "surprise" to the people of Nova Scotia, and that there was no time for public discussion before the Resolution was arrived at. Now, it so happens that after it was known there that the measure was before the Imperial Parliament the Assembly a second time expressed an opinion favourable to Confederation, Here is an extract, and it is the only one with which I shall trouble the House, from the Address of the Assembly to the Governor, dated March 16, 1867—

  1691
  "We have learnt with deep satisfaction that the efforts to effect a satisfactory union of the British North American colonies have been so successful, and we entertain no doubt that the best interests of all these Provinces will he greatly enhanced, and their connection with the Crown and the parent State permanently secured thereby."
  "Surprise?" "No time for discussion?" "No opportunity of appealing to the public?" Why, this Address was passed six months or more after the delegates had been sent to this country, and when the news had returned to Nova Scotia that we were actually engaged at that moment in giving effect to their wishes. What are we to do under such circumstances? Determine that the Legislature of a colony is not the true exponent of the feeling of a colony? What consequences will flow from such a doctrine? When we have conceded free institutions to a colony, are we to turn round upon the representatives elected by the people, and say, "You are not the true judges of public opinion in the colony. We shall constitute ourselves the judges?" That is a principle pregnant with evil consequences, and cuts at the root of the self-government which it is our boast that we have conferred upon our colonies. We are no doubt bound to do all we can to remove discontent, and I was glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman opposite that measures are already in progress that I trust will have the effect of turning the tide of opinion in Nova Scotia. There can be no doubt in what that discontent originated. When the colonies were separate their tariffs were different; there were different currencies and different circumstances of trade. The first effect of this Confederation was to alter this state of things, and it could not but be expected that the alteration would be attended with some dissatisfaction, some dislocation of existing interests, some violence to habits long cherished. In the present instance it is at once accounted for because the Canadian tariff, which was 15 per cent, seems to have been substituted for the Nova Scotian tariff, which was one of 10 per cent. That is a case, no doubt, that calls for consideration and redress, and I am glad to understand that measures are being taken which I hope are likely to conduce to that result. I should he glad to learn that the influence of the Colonial Office is to be applied so far as it legitimately can be with the view of attaining that result. My noble Friend the present Governor General of Canada
  1692
  has administered the duties of his high office in a way which has earned for him the highest eulogiums from all quarters, and therefore I shall not be deemed disrespectful to him when I say that during the period of his office he has, no doubt, been influenced to a great extent by the opinions of the Members of the Government in Canada, and there is no doubt, too, that he has greatly contributed towards a measure which we have carried with so much satisfaction. But his time of office is coming to a close. It will be the duty of the Government to select a new Governor—one who has no Canadian associations, and one who has had nothing to do with the question of Confederation. They will then have an opportunity of selecting one who can bring a free and unembarrassed mind to this question, and who will be in a position to judge dispassionately of the complaints made by Nova Scotia. For my own part I should hesitate to consent to any direct interference in the affairs of this great dominion. If we sanctioned that interference we might find at some future day that we had incurred a serious and a weighty responsibility—a responsibility incurred in consequence of our taking a step which in the first instance arose from the most honourable and kindly intentions. I believe that this feeling of discontent in Nova Scotia will pass away as it has done in the case of New Brunswick. There is not, in my opinion, in any colony a stronger feeling of loyalty than there is in Nova Scotia, nor do any of our colonies possess a population with more business-like and active intelligence, and when this grievance has been removed and this discontent has passed away they will, I believe, look upon this Confederation with satisfaction. I do not know how far anything I may say may have any weight with the hon. Member for Birmingham in dealing with the feelings and interests of those who have intrusted their case to his hands; but if he were to leave the responsibility of dealing with this question to the Ministers of the Crown, remembering that our interference might possibly be attended with injustice, he would, I think, be pursuing a course worthy his high position in this House, and calculated at the same time to promote the boat interests of those whom he desires to serve.
  MR. GORST, in rising to support the Motion of the hon. Member for Birmingham, said, that there could be no doubt

  1693
  that the House legislated last year in the belief that all the States concerned were consenting parties to the Bill. He could not, however, agree in the opinion expressed by the hon. Member for Birmingham—that the measure was proposed by the Earl of Carnarvon with the full knowledge that Nova Scotia had withheld her consent, nor could the House be aware that such was the fact. In matters of this nature the House must to a great extent rely upon the statements of the Government; for it would be impossible for the House, with its small experience of colonial affairs, to examine such allegations as those contained in the petition presented last year by the hon. Member for Birmingham. If the House, therefore, made a mistake last year it was an innocent and inoffensive one. But it was now evident from the flood of information which had since poured in, not only that the Nova Scotians were now unwilling, but that they had always been unwilling to consent to form a portion of this Confederation. The delegates from Nova Scotia had, indeed, misrepresented the feelings of the people on whose behalf they spoke, and the people of Nova Scotia did not hesitate to use strong language; for they did not hesitate to declare that Her Majesty was led to believe that they were favourable to the scheme by means of a "fraud" and an "imposition." How could we turn a deaf ear to the statement that the constituted authorities of Nova Scotia were opposed to the union with Canada, and that a fraud and imposition had been practised upon the House? Acting on the principle adopted last year, the least the House could do was to pay attention to the representations now made, and to institute inquiry; for it was not asserted that there was any mistake in the strong representations which the delegates from Nova Scotia had come over to make. On any ordinary question Nova Scotia might be referred to the authorities of the Dominion; but not when she complained of being included within that Dominion. We had only a choice of evils; but was it not a greater evil to coerce an unwilling people into subjection to a detested Power than to shake somewhat the security and stability of the new dominion? If kind words could stop the mouths of the Nova Scotians, the right hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Cardwell) might conciliate them; but it was useless to attempt such conciliation when denying a right. It was so clear that the Nova
  1694
  Scotians had a right to inquiry, that in the event of a division he would support the hon. Member for Birmingham.
  ADMIRAL ERSKINE, having presented on a former occasion a petition from 31,000 inhabitants of Nova Scotia, wished to say, he believed their disinclination for Confederation was founded, not upon any apprehension of increased burdens or damage to material interests; but rather on a fear lest their connection with this country should he imperilled, for they were distinguished by a rational loyalty based upon identity of feeling and sympathy with ourselves. After the conflicting statements that had been made, it would be unreasonable to refuse the request for inquiry.
  MR. KARSLAKEsaid, he thought the last letter of the Duke of Buckingham to the colony, dated the present month, showed that the Government intended to consult the interests of Nova Scotia in the future.
  MR. BRIGHT: I shall make only one or two observations on the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Colonies. His principal objection to my proposition was that the issue of the proposed Commission would, in point of fact, be a direct insult to the whole of the Canadian Dominion. My right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Card well) at the same time said that the Colonial Office, through its new Governor General, and that the Crown through him, would exercise certain influences as far as they might upon the Government at Ottawa for the purpose of adjusting the differences of Nova Scotia. It appears to me that if my proposition would be held to be an insult, the continual and repeated interferences of the Colonial Office, and of the Crown, through the Governor General, would be liable to the same description. Now, the difference between the Treasury Bench and the right hon. Member for Oxford and myself is this—that they do not regard the present state of things in Nova Scotia as at all as serious as I regard it. Of course, if the thing will blow over, and you can, through the Governor General coming into the harbour at Halifax, and seeing leading men there, rub away everything that is unpleasant, then my Motion is in no degree necessary; but I believe that the state of things is far more serious than either the Under Secretary for the Colonies or my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford seems to suppose. My own impression is that the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary

  1695
  has made a speech about the most injudicious that could possibly have been made on the question for any Member of this House holding his office; and I believe that when his speech reaches America he will find that it will have a very injurious effect in Nova Scotia, and will not tend in the slightest degree to allay the gathering discontent which is felt in New Brunswick. The right hon. Gentleman, as he does upon other occasions, did me an injustice with regard to what I said last year. He said that when the North American Confederation Bill was under discussion, I approved everything in it which would make the Confederation like America, and condemned everything in it which would] make the Confederation resemble England. Now, what I condemned in the Bill was the putting a Province into it whose population had not consented; and next I called in question the wisdom of nominating a Legislative Council, or Upper House, for the whole dominion of Canada. The first part of my objection to the Bill, I think, is justified by what has taken place. Although there is no complaint now with regard to the other part of my objection, I have every reason to believe that before we are many years older we shall find that that Council will not be satisfactory to the people of the dominion. Now, with regard to dividing on this question, I have this to say—If I were to divide with a very small minority, the impression on the other side of the Atlantic would be this—that the House of Commons has emphatically shut the door in the face of the petitioners whose petition I have presented, and whose case I have endeavoured to represent to the House. At the same time, the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Colonies holds out no hope whatsoever that the Government will even fairly consider the question. His speech is a speech of indignation positively at the Canadian people coining here to lay their case before this House. As this House passed the Bill last Session, and the Nova Scotian people came here to lay their complaints before the House, surely they have a right to be treated with great consideration. The course which the right hon. Gentleman has taken forces me to ask the House to divide upon the Motion. I do not at all conceal from myself that the House may not agree to my Motion; but possibly, if they do not, they may, in the course of another year, make an inquiry into this
  1696
  question, and they will then probably discover that it is as serious as I have endeavoured to describe it. The speech which my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford made was temperate and conciliatory; and but for the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary I should not have asked the House to divide.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 87; Noes 183: Majority 96.

ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES BILL.
(Mr. Mac Evoy, Sir Joseph M'Kenna, Mr. Leader.)
ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES BILL.

  [BILL 37.] SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. MAC EVOYsaid, that as the Report of the Lords' Committee on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill had been presented to the other House only to-day, he would not ask the House to go on with the second reading of this Bill at present if the Government promised him a day for it. Otherwise he should feel bound to divide the House. The hon. Member moved the second reading.
  MR. G. MORRISbegged to second the Motion.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Mac Evoy.)
  MR. SCHREIBER, who had a Notice on the Paper that the Bill be read a second time that day three months, suggested that the better course would be for the Government to give a day for the discussion.
  MR. VANCEsaid, he hoped the Government would not do such an injustice to other private Members as to give the hon. Member for Meath a day for the Bill.
  MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, he believed that the hon. Member for Meath had several times postponed the Motion for the second reading, in order that hon. Members might have an opportunity of perusing the Report of the Committee of the House of Lords before discussing the measure. He presumed that a Motion would be made for obtaining a communication of that Report to the House of Commons, and when it was in the hands of hon. Members the hon. Gentleman might find an opportunity for moving the second reading of his Bill. The Government had no object in preventing or delaying the

  1697
  discussion of the Bill; but, having regard to the state of Public Business, he could not promise a day for it.
  THE O'DONOGHUErecommended his hon. Friend the Member for Meath to divide the House,
  SIR JAMES M'KENNAthought the Bill had been postponed so frequently that, a division should take place without any further delay. He did not see why the legislation of the House should be stopped in reference to the opinion of a Committee: of the House of Lords.
  COLONEL W. STUART COLONEL W. STUART moved the adjournment of the debate.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Colonel William Stuart.)
  The House divided;—Ayes 142; Noes 85: Majority 57.
  Debate adjourned till To-morrow.

ESTABLISHED CHURCH (IRELAND) BILL— [BILL 117.]
(Mr. Gladstone, Sir George Grey, Mr. Lawson.)
ESTABLISHED CHURCH (IRELAND) BILL— [BILL 117.]

  THIRD READING.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."—(Mr. Gladstone.)
  SIR FREDERICK HEYGATEsaid, he did not rise for the purpose of offering further opposition to the Bill, but wished to clear himself from a statement which he was reported to have made upon the Motion with regard to a Royal residence, by the hon. Baronet the Member for Clare. ["Order, order!"]
  COLONEL STUART KNOXprotested, in the name of all the independent Members of every class and creed in Ireland, against the third reading of this Bill; but, as it was going to its last resting-place, he should not give the House the trouble of dividing upon it.
  Bill read the third time and passed.

  MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  On Motion of The Lord Advocate, Bill to amend the Laws for the Election of the Magistrates and Councils of Royal and Parliamentary Burghs in Scotland, ordered to be brought in by The Lord Advocate and Mr. Secretary GATHORNE HARDY.
  House adjourned at a quarter after One o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Thames Embankment and Metropolis Improvement (Loans) Act Amendment* (152); Voters in Disfranchised Boroughs* (153); New Zealand Company* (154).
Second Reading—Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) (142).
Committee—Poor Relief (132–155).
Report—Sale of Poisons and Pharmacy Act Amendment (148).

NEW PEER.
William O'Neill, Clerk, having been created Baron O'Neill of Shanes Castle in the County of Antrim—Was (in the usual Manner) introduced.
POOR RELIEF BILL—(No. 132.)
(The Earl of Devon.)
POOR RELIEF BILL—(No. 132.)

  COMMITTEE.
  House again in Committee (according to Order).
  Clause 9 (Poor Law Inspectors to make Report as to idiotic and harmless Lunatics in Workhouses).
  LORD PORTMANsaid, he objected to this and the five following clauses, which provide that Poor Law Inspectors shall report to the Clerks of the Peace the number of idiotic, imbecile, and harmless insane paupers in union workhouses on each 29th of September; that on receiving the Reports the Justices at the next Quarter Sessions may appoint, a Committee; to consider the expediency of providing an asylum for the county alone, or, in conjunction with some adjoining county or counties; that the Justices at Quarter Sessions may provide such asylums; that
  1622
  Guardians, on receiving notice of their completion, may send idiotic and imbecile paupers to such asylums, and that the Poor Law Board, or a Poor Law Inspector may, after due inquiry, require the removal of a pauper to such an asylum. He thought that clauses of this description, which must greatly increase local taxation, ought to have originated in the other House of Parliament. He objected also that it was very undesirable to increase the discretionary power of Courts of Quarter Sessions. If it is necessary to establish such asylums, the law should be imperative; but, in his opinion, the number of idiots would not require many asylums, and that it would be better to establish as many as may be required in a few convenient localities, and to manage them under the control, and at the expense of the Government, out of the Consolidated Fund. He also thought it was a subject that should be considered apart from the Poor Laws, and from the attention it might require, should be proposed to Parliament in a separate Bill. For these reasons he should divide the House against the clause in this Bill.
  Moved, "To leave out Clause 9."—(The Lord Portman.)
  THE EARL OF DEVONsaid, he could not concur with his noble Friend in thinking that the subject with which these clauses dealt was not one which should have been included in the Bill. The clauses as they stood were not in the Bill as it was originally submitted to the Select Committee. He had himself proposed clauses in the Committee which were permissive; and he did so in full confidence that their Lordships would not shrink from making the provision required for the large numbers of the unfortunate classes in question, especially when it was remembered that there were many young persons whose condition might be improved by judicious treatment. The Select Committee took a different view of the clauses, and, on the suggestion of the noble Earl below the Gangway (the Earl of Carnarvon, they introduced the clauses now in the Bill. He opposed the introduction of the clauses because he then believed, and he still believed, that the substitution of a degree of compulsion for permission would to a certain extent defeat the object in view; and he had more confidence in the object being attained if the matter were left to the Guardians. There-

  1623
  fore he would support the noble Lord opposite (Lord Portman), if he divided the Committee. The clauses now under consideration went no further than the law did at present; for the present law empowered the Justices in Quarter Sessions to enlarge existing asylums, or to combine with the Justices of other counties in erecting asylums where those who were deemed fit persons might be placed in safe custody. His first objection to the clauses in the Bill was that they would excite alarm in the country in reference to the additional burdens to be thrown upon the rates; and his second objection was that the clauses were unnecessary, because the present law gave power to do that which was proposed.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVONasked what course the noble Earl would pursue if the clauses were struck out of the Bill, on the Motion of the noble Lord?
  THE EARL OF DEVONsaid, that respect for the Select Committee would have prevented him bringing his own clauses forward in Committee; but if the present clauses were struck out he should be prepared to move his own on the third reading.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVONsaid, that one and the same principle was recognized by the original clauses and by those introduced by the Select Committee. It was admitted that provision must be made for the insane, and the only point was as to the manner in which the principle should be carried out. The original plan threw the formation and superintendence of the districts entirely into the hands of the Guardians. The real difference between the two proposals was that, whereas his noble Friend aimed at placing asylums of this kind under the management of the Guardians, his plan was to put them under the control of the county Justices. If the Boards of Guardians had the management the result would be that there would sometimes be two different sets of lunatic asylums for this particular class of patients—one under the control of the Justices and the other under the Board of Guardians. Under such a system it was not improbable that conflicts would occur and much inconvenience be produced. But if the control were vested in the Justices there would be but one of these subordinate and inferior establishments in each county, and, as it would probably be placed in most instances in the immediate neighbourhood of the county asylum, great advantages would be gained, because the staff of the former
  1624
  might be rendered available for the inferior institution. Better medical advice would be obtainable, while the management would be much more economical than if the Guardians had the control. In conclusion, he expressed a hope that their Lordships would not without full consideration strike out the clauses which had these beneficial objects in view. As a matter of fact there was scarcely any accommodation throughout the country for the treatment of paupers whose imbecility or idiotcy did not bring them within the technical definition of lunacy or whose cure was hopeless; while there was abundant reason for their separation from the thoroughly sane inmates of workhouses. Their Lordships would do well, therefore, to pause before they struck out clauses which, he firmly believed, constituted the best part of the Bill as it at present stood.
  THE MARQUESS OF BATHfelt it to be his duty to vote against the clauses as they now stood and in favour of the change proposed by the noble Lord opposite (Lord Portman). He thought that as a matter of justice, both to the Courts of Quarter Sessions and to the ratepayers, the power of increasing the local burdens should be vested in Boards of Guardians, who represent the ratepayers and not in the Justices of the Peace, who do not. At the same time he confessed that he should vote against the original clause, if it was proposed to reinstate it; because he did not think that the burden of establishing these asylums, if they were necessary, should be thrown upon that particular class of the public who paid rates. It should be borne by the nation at large, and should be defrayed out of the Consolidated Fund.
  THE EARL OF STRADBROKEthought that the unhappy persons referred to should be to some extent classified, and that lunatics should be sent to a lunatic asylum, idiots in a proper asylum, and the harmless imbecile paupers should be kept in the Union houses, where they were much more happy among those with whom they had long lived, and where they found a kind of employment in performing some of the requisite duties of the house. In reply to the noble Earl (the Earl of Carnarvon)—who seemed to think that the change of system would not add to the Union charges, he must say that—although expense was a secondary consideration—the cost of building new houses, and attaching the necessary staff would at least double the expense now required.
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, he thought the striking out of the clauses would produce consequences more serious than the noble Lord intended. No doubt, the intention of the noble Lord was to secure a peculiar protection and care for the congenital idiots; but the rejection of the clauses would affect lunatics of other descriptions, and would go far to prevent the depletion of the county asylums, where there were now a great many patients who ought to be removed in order to make way for more recent cases. Where cases remained without treatment more than twelve months their affliction would most probably become chronic, and their recovery was almost an impossibility. Indeed, trustworthy authorities on this subject stated that 80 per cent of recent cases could be easily cured; but that not move than 10 per cent at the utmost of those patients were curable who had been left without medical care more than a year. These chronic lunatics required a certain treatment and diet, which they could not get in our workhouses. He thought that if the clauses were carried into effect, with some slight modifications, very beneficial results would ensue.
  EARL GREYsaid, some change in the present system was desirable; but he thought their Lordships hardly competent to deal with the subject, as it was one affecting the taxation, of the country.
  THE EARL OF MALMESBURYsaid, there could be no doubt that great efforts had been made of late to improve the state of our workhouses and the condition of their inmates. His own knowledge enabled him to confirm the statement of his noble Friend (the Earl of Stradbroke) that insane persons were much more happy among their own class than they would be if shut up in what they would regard as a kind of prison.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, the proposition of the noble Earl who brought forward the Bill (the Earl of Devon) was that the rates for these asylums should be raised on the authority of the Guardians. The proposition of his noble Friend near him (Lord Portman) was that the expenses of these asylums should be under the control of the magistracy. His noble Friend (the Earl of Shaftesbury) had just pointed out how desirable it was that lunatics and idiots should be under the same management. But if they waited for this purpose till they could arrange their differences as to the disposal of local rates, they would
  1626
  not be able to move in the matter at all till they had established Financial Boards. He agreed in the desirability of idiots being removed from the workhouses and from under the control of the Guardians. However, as so much difference of opinion appeared to prevail with respect to the clauses under discussion; and as those clauses could hardly be sent down to the other House in time to admit of their being properly considered there, he thought the best course would be to allow them to be struck out of the Bill.
  THE EARL OF DEVONthought that the difficulty which his noble Friend (the Marquess of Bath) had pointed out as to the management of the funds lay at the root of the whole question. In the one case it was contemplated that the funds should be expended by the elected representatives of the ratepayers; in the other, it was proposed that they should be administered by the Justices of the county. Now, independent of any argument on the subject, there could be no doubt that the first plan was the more popular. There was one other point to which he wished to revert. It had been argued as if he (the Earl of Devon) was desirous of keeping idiots and the chronically insane in the workhouse; but the reverse was the fact, for the proposition which he brought forward had for its special object, to facilitate the removal of these classes from the workhouse, by enabling several Boards of Guardians to unite for the purpose of forming a special establishment for their reception.
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, there were cases of hopeless idiotcy, where but little actual benefit could be looked for from removal. But there were many others in which by removing idiots from the ridicule and annoyance to which they were too often exposed, and bringing them under proper tuition and treatment, they could be rendered capable of the enjoyment of life.
  EARL FORTESCUEsaid, nothing could be more undesirable or unpopular, than any attempt to increase the burdens of the ratepayers at the mere discretion of the county magistracy. But any man must be blind who did not see that before long the representatives of the ratepayers must be admitted to a share in the control of the expenditure of the county rates. But if they were now to have unions for the purpose of dealing with those chronic cases of idiotcy that were now in workhouses—and no one was more sensible than he was of

  1627
  the desirableness of removing them—then they would create an anomalous and embarrassing system in dealing with two analogous classes, lunatics and idiots, and all because they could not rely upon the speedy establishment of Financial Boards. Their parochial system was now practically at an end. Parishes were superseded except for the purposes of voting church rates, and no one supposed that would last long, The Union was now the unit of administration, and it was very undesirable that there should be no intermediate stage between the Union and the Central Board in London—a Board that had not been able to inspire the public with confidence.
  LORD LYTTELTONhoped that no discretionary power would be given either to Justices or Boards of Guardians. In a great many large workhouses there was abundant space for keeping idiots and incurable cases; but all curable cases, all young persons affected in this manner, and all recent cases, especially, ought to be dealt with separately.
  EARL GRANVILLE, differing from some previous speakers, believed that this was just the sort of question upon which the House was competent to pronounce an opinion with advantage. He therefore hoped their Lordships would not hesitate to adopt whatever clauses they thought best adapted to secure the end in view.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVONsaid, the usual course in dealing with such a clause as the present in this House was that after the third reading the clause was struck out, but was afterwards printed separately and sent down to the Commons along with the Bill. If the clause was then accepted by the Commons it came up to their Lordships as a new clause inserted by the Commons, and was passed accordingly.
  LORD PORTMANthought the subject was such as could be more satisfactorily dealt with by an altogether separate measure.
  On Question, That the said Clause stand Part of the Bill, their Lordships divided:—Contents 26; Not-contents 61: Majority 35.

  CONTENTS.

  Salisbury, M. [Teller.]

  Fortescue, E.

  Westmeath, M.

  Granville, E.

  Kimberley, E.

  Airlie, E.

  Morley, E.

  Amherst, E.

  Nelson, E.

  Carnarvon, E. [Teller.]

  Romney, E.

  Ellenborough, E.

  Shaftesbury, E.

  1628

  Eversley, V.

  Belper, L.

  Lifford, V.

  Churchill, L.

  Ebury, L.

  Bangor, Bp.

  Fitzwalter, L.

  Carlisle, Bp.

  Foxford, L. (E. Limerick.)

  Gloucester and Bristol, Bp.

  Lyttelton, L.

  Oxford, Bp.

  Northbrook, L.

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Cairns, L. (L. Chancelllor.)

  Bolton, L.

  Calthorpe, L.

  Cleveland, D.

  Camoys, L.

  Devonshire, D.

  Castlemaine, L.

  Manchester, D.

  Churston, L.

  Marlborough, D.

  Clandeboye, L. (L. Dufferin and Claneboye.)

  Richmond, D.

  Somerset, D.

  Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

  Clonbrock, L.

  Bath, M.

  Colchester, L.

  Exeter, M.

  Colville of Culross, L. [Teller.]

  Bandon, E.

  Bradford, E.

  Congleton, L.

  Cadogan, E.

  Delamere, L.

  Camperdown, E.

  Dunboyne, L.

  Chichester, E.

  Elphinstone, L.

  Devon, E.

  Foley, L.

  Lucan, E.

  Kingston, L. (E. Kingston.)

  Malmesbury, E.

  Morton, E.

  Mostyn, L.

  Powis, E.

  Penrhyn, L.

  Selkirk, E.

  Portman, L. [Teller.]

  Stanhope, E.

  Redesdale, L.

  Stradbroke, E.

  Saltersford, L.(E. Courtown.)

  Strange, E. (D. Athol.)

  Tankerville, E.

  Saltoun, L.

  De Vesci, V.

  Silchester, L. (E. Longford.)

  Hardinge, V.

  Hawarden, V.

  Stanley of Alderley, L.

  Powerscourt, V.

  Sidmouth, V.

  Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.)

  Strathspey, L. (E. Sea-field.)

  Strathallan, V.

  Sydney, V.

  Templemore, L.

  Vaux of Harrowden, L.

  Abinger, L.

  Vernon, L.

  Further Amendments made; the Report thereof to be received on Thursday next; and Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 155.)

SALMON FISHERIES (SCOTLAND) BILL.
(The Duke of Richmond.)
SALMON FISHERIES (SCOTLAND) BILL.

  (NO. 142.) SECOND READING.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMOND, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that in 1859 a Commission which had inquired into this subject, had recommended that a Commission should be created to regulate the Scotch fisheries with power to make by-laws. The law respecting the Scotch salmon fisheries had been dealt with by several Acts of Parliament in 1862, 1863, and 1864. In 1866 a Bill was introduced in their Lordships' House

  1629
  the main object of which was to confirm and make binding the by-laws which had been framed by the Commissioners. The Bill was referred to a Select Committee of their Lordships, by whom it was considered, and was afterwards passed by the House as amended; but in the Commons it was withdrawn on account of the lateness of the Session. The present Bill was substantially the same as that of 1866. There were, however, some recommendations of the Committee which being likely to give occasion to controversy had not been embodied in the present Bill. If their Lordships were pleased to read the Bill the second time these questions could be very properly considered in Committee.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a"—(The Duke of Richmond.)
  THE EARL OF AIRLIEapproved the general principle of the Bill; but believed he was not singular in fearing that some most desirable clauses had been omitted from it.
  LORD ABINGERsaid, he believed that the main object of the Bill was the confirmation of the by-laws of the Commissioners. By the Act of 1862 every river in Scotland had been formed into a separate district; but it had been found in practice that the provisions of the Act could not be carried out. He trusted that the question of the Solway would receive attention, and that the present anomalous system by which the fixed engines in the English and Scotch sides of the river were differently dealt with would be abolished. This could only be accomplished by providing that no method of fishing should be legal in Scotland which would be illegal were it situated in England. He perfectly acknowledged the necessity of legislation on the question of the Solway Firth; but he doubted whether it was prudent to attempt to deal with it at this period of the Session.
  Motion agreed to: Bill read 2a accordingly and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Tuesday next.

SALE OF POISONS AND PHARMACY ACT AMENDMENT BILL—(No. 148.)
(The Earl Granville.)
SALE OF POISONS AND PHARMACY ACT AMENDMENT BILL—(No. 148.)

  REPORT.
  Amendments reported (according to Order).
  LORD REDESDALE LORD REDESDALE moved to insert a new clause to follow Clause 17;—
  1630
  "From and after the 31st day of December, 1868, it shall not be lawful to sell any Poison in a Bottle unless such Bottle shall be of an singular Form, corrugated and opaque, to be thenceforth known and described as a Poison Bottle; and it shall not be lawful to sell any preparation not Poisonous in any such Bottle; and any Person offending against either of the aforesaid Provisions shall be liable to the Penalties hereinbefore en acted for selling Poison not distinctly labelled."
  THE LORD CHANCELLORdoubted whether the noble Lord could have been fully aware of the consequences of proposing this clause—which, moreover, in its language was not reconcilable with some of the other clauses. The Bill, it should be remembered, referred to compounding as well as to selling, and did the noble Lord intend to render a chymist liable to the penalties of the Bill if he compounded a prescription which contained something poisonous but did not supply it in a bottle of the shape suggested in this clause?
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYalso expressed a hope that his noble Friend would not persist in his Amendment, which treated the subject with o minuteness and detail which ought only to proceed from an executive body such as the Board of Trade.
  After a few words from Lord NORTH-BROOK,
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, that he must press the clause upon their Lordships, as he thought something ought to be done to protect the public with regard to the sale of poisons.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsuggested that the object of the noble Lord might be answered by the Pharmaceutical Society determining what the shape of the poison bottle should be, that shape being approved by the Privy Council, and advertised in the London Gazette.
  EARL GRANVILLEwished to know what were the views of Her Majesty's Government upon the question?
  THE EARL OF MALMESBURY: What, upon the shape of the bottle?
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, that he would not divide the House now, but would move the clause on the third reading of the Bill.
  Motion (by Leave of the House) withdrawn.
  House adjourned at Seven o'clock, to Thursday next, half past Ten o'clock.