Sitting of 9 April 1869

MINUTES.
NEW WRIT ISSUED—For Sussex (Western Division), v. the Hon. Henry Wyndham, called up to the House of Peers.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—On Account of Civil Service.
WAYS AND MEANS—Resolutions [April 8] reported.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Trades Unions, &c* [68]; Post Office Savings Banks* [69]; Government Annuities, &c* [70].
Considered as amended—Sea Birds Preservation * [59].
Third Reading—Inclosure of Lands [31], debate adjourned.

POLICE INTERFERENCE.—QUESTION,
MR. EATONsaid, in the absence of his noble Friend Lord George Lennox, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is true that on Monday 29th March a person named Macdonald, who was engaged in Ms occupation of delivering Treasury circulars to the Members of the House, was stopped by a policeman at the corner of Stratton Street, in Piccadilly, and called upon to state his name and address; whether, on his declining to do so, he was seized by the constable on a charge of "loitering," and taken through the streets to the police station, where he was detained for some time, until the officers on duty could verify his account of himself; whether any report on the occurrence had been made by the officials which explained the action of the police; and, whether the instructions issued to the police authorities, authorizing such conduct, can be laid before the House?
MR. BRUCE: Sir, the account I have received of this affair is as follows:—About eight o'clock on the evening of March 29, a police sergeant observed a man standing in Stratton Street, Piccadilly. He afterwards moved stealthily on towards a doorway, stood at that door for some short time, went away without waiting for the door to be opened, and passed on as if wishing to avoid the policeman. The man's conduct being thus, in the opinion of the police sergeant, suspicious, the latter, as he says, asked him very civilly what his name was and what he was doing, but received a very rude answer. Thereupon the police sergeant told him that it was his duty when he observed people loitering in the streets under suspicious circumstances to ask their names, and if no satisfactory answer was given, to take them into custody. As the man still refused his name he was accordingly taken into custody and removed to a police station, where he gave an explanation, and was released after being detained thirty-five minutes. Now, the police
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sergeant acted under the authority, not of any rule or order given by the Commissioner of Police, but under the authority of the Metropolitan Police Act of 1839 (2 & 3 Vic. c. 47), the 64th section of which enacts—
"It shall be lawful for any constable belonging to the metropolitan police to take into custody without a warrant [among other suspicious persons] all persons whom he shall find between sunset and the hour of eight in the morning lying or loitering in any highway, yard, or other place, and not giving a satisfactory account of themselves."
This Act has been enforced for some thirty years. It confers, no doubt, very large and somewhat formidable powers on the police, and it is to their credit that during these thirty years very few cases appear to have occurred where they have exercised this discretion injudiciously. It so happens that on that very night, under the authority of the Act, three persons were taken up, who turned out to be notorious thieves, and have since been committed to gaol. There is no doubt that in this case a mistake was committed, partly from the fault of the man himself, who might have relieved himself from all suspicion by saying who he was; and it seems only fair that when the police have a very difficult duty to perform they should have some assistance, so as to execute their duty.

INDIA—FINANCE,—QUESTION.
MR. MITCHELLsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether, the Indian Government having inserted in its Budget for 1869–70 an Item for disbursements in India of £8,400,000 as "bills drawn by the Secretary of State for India," it is the intention of the Home Government to carry out the notice so given, all such drafts having been discontinued since the 16th of December last; and, if so, when?
MR. GRANT DUFF MR. GRANT DUFF, in reply, said, it was their intention to carry out the notice and to re-commence drawing at an early date. The precise day was not yet fixed, but it would be duly announced.

THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT—ASSESSED TAXES.—QUESTION.
MR. BARNETTsaid, he wished to ask a Question arising out of the Finan-

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cial Statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon a point which had given rise to considerable misapprehension. The Question was, Whether the Papers now issued for the Assessment for the year 1870 on Articles kept between April, 1868–9, are to be filled up as issued; if so, whether the whole amount now assessed was to be levied, and at what period; and when the happy period would arrive at which we should be exempt for nine months from any payment of Assessed Taxes?
MR. AYRTONsaid, in reply, that the Resolutions proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be considered in Committee of Ways and Means on Monday, and that would be a convenient opportunity for any hon. Member to ask for an explanation.

THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT—THE CORN DUTY.—QUESTION.
MR. MACFIEsaid, he had received a telegram asking whether the Corn Duty was not to be remitted at once; he would, therefore, beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, If he would answer that Question?
MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, inasmuch as there must be some delay before the House can pass judgment upon the Bill to be introduced for altering the time for the collection of certain taxes, I conceived that it was understood in Committee of Ways and Means that it might be for the convenience of all parties that we should take in the meantime the preliminary stages upon the other Resolutions relating to the reduction and remission of duty; but it was also distinctly stated that if we asked that these stages should be gone through, it was on the understanding that no such Votes should be considered as decisive, and that substantially the judgment of the House should only be taken after it had had an opportunity of considering the Bill for the collection of taxes on which these remissions depend. It is, therefore, obvious that the payment of duty on corn cannot be dispensed with until we reach that stage in the financial measures of the Government when the substantial judgment of the House can be given respecting them. It is right that this should be clearly understood out-of-doors. Although the common, but not the invariable practice, has been that re-
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missions of Customs duty should be carried into effect immediately, it is clear that this course cannot be taken in the present instance until the House have definitely decided that the corn duty should be abandoned.

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

CIVIL AND DIPLOMATIC APPOINTMENTS.—RESOLUTION.
MR. FAWCETTsaid, the question he should raise by the Motion which he was about to make, was whether appointments in the Civil and Diplomatic Services should be obtained by personal favouritism and political patronage, or by merit and moral worth. This was no party question, for eminent men on both sides of the House supported the principle of open competition. In 1853, a Commission, on which the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) and Sir Charles Trevelyan served, reported unreservedly in its favour, and the system of open competition was admitted on all hands to have been eminently successful. A few years after the Report of the Commission a Select Committee of that House was appointed to inquire into the subject. It was presided over by the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley), and the whole tone of their Report, and of the evidence was in favour of open competition. It was true that the Committee did not recommend the immediate adoption of that system, because they thought that it had not had sufficient trial, and that its adoption would give too rude a shock to political patronage. Since then ten years had elapsed, and experience conclusive in favour of open competition had been obtained; and, as for political patronage, he did not think that any precious principle worth preserving was involved in that matter. The exercise of political patronage was a source of general corruption. It might be said that there now existed a system of qualified competition, as when an appointment was vacant it was usual for two or three persons to be nominated, and the best of

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them to be selected by competition for the appointment. That new system, however, was just one of those compromises which created as much mischief as it destroyed. It took away that Ministerial responsibility for bad appointments which was the defence of the old system, because if a bad appointment were made under it the fault might be thrown on the system of examination. There was, moreover, in the new system a peculiar uncertainty which had an unfavourable operation. In the case of an office becoming vacant, men far below the average might be nominated for examination, and thus a person of low attainments might get the appointment; while in another case men might be nominated far above the average, so that it would happen that the man who succeeded in the first case was inferior in point of attainments to the man who failed in the second case. These things tended to create an impression, however unjustly, that a great amount of unfair- ness prevailed in mating the appointments. It might be said that the present system secured a certain average of intellectual attainments, because everyone was obliged to pass a fixed test examination; but a fixed test examination was comparatively useless. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had said that competitive examination always maintained itself, but that a fixed test examination had a considerable inclination to be degraded; because, if a man failed in a test examination, an agitation was always raised by his friends, who alleged that the examination was too hard, but no one who failed in an open competitive examination could complain because some other person was found to possess greater intellectual attainments. A test examination, too, did not get rid of political patronage, but was, on the contrary, based on political patronage. Those who had read the Report of the Committee to which he had alluded could entertain no doubt as to the practicability of carrying out the system of open examination; and, if it were thought that too many youths might apply to be examined, there would be no difficulty in sifting them, and reducing the number; for open competition by a preliminary test examination. By the payment of a, small fee the system might be made self- supporting, and there would be no difficulty in obtaining the most eminent men
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to conduct the examinations. It was sometimes said that competitive examination was not a conclusive intellectual test. If property conducted it would be so; and, as the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley) stated at Glasgow, it would, if well managed, have the effect of detecting the imposture of half-knowledge. It was not necessary for him to maintain that it was an infallible test. He needed only to prove that it was an accurate test in the great majority of cases, and the best and available test. No one could deny that the men at Oxford and Cambridge Universities who passed the examination in the first class were better than those who passed the examination in the second, and that the men in the second class wore better than the men in the third. The choice lay between a competitive examination and political patronage. He had already stated that political patronage was a source of corruption which permeated into our electoral system. A Member of the House of Commons was applied to by one of his constituents for an appointment to a son or relative—a thing of daily occurrence. He immediately went to the Patronage Secretary and told him one of his constituents who had worked for him at the last General Election wanted an. appointment for his relative or friend. He knew nothing of the person for whom he made the application, and the Patron- age Secretary knew still less; the Member only knew what important assistance he had received from the applicant at the last election, and how unfortunate it would be if he should vote against him at the next. The Patronage Secretary, always courteous and delighted to oblige, put the name down on the list. Now what was the result? Others of the constituency, seeing an influential elector had obtained an appointment for his son or his nephew, asked themselves why they should not get something at the next election; and if offered £5 for their votes they would naturally think they might as well take it as their influential neighbour the appointment. But the evil did not rest there. The obligation conferred by the Patronage Secretary was not conferred for nothing. The Member of Parliament was expected to render something in return, and thus the system of political patronage seriously detracted from the independence of that

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House. So much was this felt that many Members absolutely refused to ask any appointment for their constituents. There were, therefore, some constituencies to whom no appointments were given, while there were other small places, such as Wells—which had laboured under the misfortune of being long represented by Patronage Secretaries—on which appointments had been lavished with demoralizing profuseness. If his memory did not deceive him, Sir "William Hayter had boasted in a speech he made at Wells how good a representative he had been since he was first connected with the place, having secured no less than 300 appointments for that constituency. In asking Members to give up this patronage, he did not ask them to forego a privilege of any real value, for if they obliged one of their constituents by obtaining such an appointment, the probability was they would disappoint fifty. He therefore said on every ground—the ground of political morality, the ground of fairness in the distribution of this patronage, the ground of the character and independence of that House, and the convenience of Members themselves—the system of political patronage should cease. But it was said that examinations, while they tested intellectual merit, did not test the physical and moral qualities of the candidates? Did the present system test the physical and moral qualities of the candidates? What did Members know—what did the Member for Shaftesbury (Mr. Glyn) know—about the physical and moral qualities of candidates for such appointments? Dr. Gull, who had been appointed to examine the candidates for the Indian Civil Service, and had a large experience on this subject, said that if he noticed any candidate coming to him with any physical weakness which, in the least degree, would interfere with his usefulness as a civil servant he immediately rejected him, and he of course lost the appointment. There were three standards embracing those who were perfectly unexceptionable in constitution and physical vigour, those who came up to that standard stood at 100; those who possessed the average of physical strength were ranked at eighty-five; and those not quite so good at seventy-five. He had examined about 500, of whom 292 came up to the standard of 100; 152 to that of eighty-five, and fifty-two only fell down to the
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standard of seventy-five. He could not therefore resist the conclusion that intellectual vigour and physical strength were, in the great majority of cases, necessary to success in open competitions. As to the moral test, he (Mr. Fawcett) would quote the opinion of one of the greatest and most experienced tutors that Cambridge, or, indeed, either University ever had; a man, who, for thirty years, had examined almost all the distinguished mathematicians that Cambridge had produced, and who had for some years been one of the Examiners for the Civil Service of India. He declared—
"The question is sometimes put to me—Is an intellectual test also any test of high moral feeling? I answer that I know of no test that is half so much to he depended upon. Reviewing the long list of men who have taken distinguished degrees, who for more than thirty years have come under my immediate attention, I am as much surprised as rejoiced to find the high moral tone which, almost without exception, has existed among them. These facts prove to me incontestably that intellectual faculties, developed by study and cultivation, co-exist, in a great majority of cases, with a high moral tone. If you wish for a moral test, I know of none so much to be relied upon as an intellectual test."
This evidence was borne out by the Civil Service examinations. Every man connected with India spoke in favour of the system; Lord Lawrence, Mr. Maine, and the Civil Service Commissioners unanimously approved of it. He believed, indeed, that no complaint had yet been made respecting either the moral or physical capabilities of the candidates. He proposed by his Motion that the principle of competition should be applied to the Diplomatic Service as well as to the Civil Service. If any special capacity—conversational fluency in foreign languages for instance—were required for the Diplomatic Service, that could be tested as rigorously as they pleased by these examinations. But he was told this was not the object, and that "gentlemen" were required for that service. Exactly so; and how, he would ask, could they be more sure of securing gentlemen, in the true sense of the word, than by an intellectual test? Every quality that distinguished the true gentleman, he said, emphatically, was developed by intellectual culture—by bringing him under the influence of science, poetry, and art. It might be said that gentlemen of social position were required. Well, under the pre-

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sent system, they sometimes had social position and nothing else. He desired to bring no sweeping charge against the Diplomatic Service, but he did not hesitate to say that the present system sometimes secured for it men of social position who were not gentlemen. He remembered one striking instance. He knew a man, a student at Cambridge, who went through an almost unprecedented career of vice and dissipation; and he was ultimately expelled the University for having copied at the examinations, and for not having admitted that he had, done so when accused of it. If his career had been less discreditable at the University he was a man who would soon have found his way to that House, for he was influentially connected, and a near relation of a Cabinet Minister. But it was necessary to get him out of the way, and within three months after being expelled from the University he was representing his country at a foreign Court. ["Name!"] He did not wish to recall painful reminiscences, but the case was well known to everyone acquainted with Cambridge during the last fifteen years. Now, under the system of open competition such a case could not occur, while, under the present system, there was no guarantee against its recurrence. Would not the Diplomatic Service represent England better and more honourably in foreign Courts if it were known they were selected for their intellectual distinction? Was not the House gratified to know that the United States were about to send as their Minister to this country a distinguished historian and author, and was not Prussia honoured, as well as England, in having sent as successive Ministers to this country Niebuhr, Humboldt, and Bunsen? It might be said that the Diplomatic Ser-vice was for the rich and not for the poor. Ill-paid work, however, was al-ways dear, and if the service was under-paid men would not enter into a competitive examination for it. But when it was said that peculiar qualifications were required for the Diplomatic Service that could not be tested in a competitive examination, he replied that there was no service that required a higher capacity for diplomacy than the Civil Service of India. It was when England was brought into contact with a subject race that the character of a gentleman and the skill of a diplomatist was tested. But
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then it might be said that if they threw open all the appointments of the Civil Service to open competition men would be drawn away from other appointments, and an undue number would be attracted to the public service. He really thought that people might be left to decide this for themselves. The great principle of self-interest would prevent men from entering the Civil Service if they could obtain more lucrative or more honourable employment somewhere else, and his plan would have this great advantage—that it would prevent men from seeking a livelihood through tin) impure channel of political patronage. If he had spoken warmly on this Motion, it was because he felt warmly upon it; because he had spent a great portion of his life in an institution where no honours or emoluments were given except they were won in a fair and open intellectual struggle, and where they cherished the principle that merit should be the only road to distinction as their most precious possession. They were proud to think that there were no governing families in the Universities, but the poorest youth, had as good a chance there as the wellborn of obtaining honours, renown, and distinction. Applying the same principle to public affairs, he would say that they would never know how wisely England could be governed until the sacred principle for which he contended formed the only claim to employment by the State. In an ancient book, which had exercised an incalculable influence upon the human race, it was said that the ruler who appointed a man to an office when there was in his dominions another man better qualified to fill it sinned against Cod and against the State.
Amendment proposed,
To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words" in the opinion of this House, all appointments to the Civil and Diplomatic Services ought to be obtained by open competition,"—(Mr. Fawcett,)
—instead thereof.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: The hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) seems to think that he has nothing to do but to adduce arguments against political patronage and in favour of open competition in order to support the Motion he has placed before the House. But I think if the House will look carefully into the matter they will

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see that there is a good deal more than that in it. Because the question is really this—What appointments will you throw open to public competition? And that question involves a further question—What is the state of the public offices and departments at present, and are they in such a condition that it would be fair and right to throw everything in them open to public competition without any change or modification? These are the questions which the hon. Gentleman's Motion raises. It raises, besides, other questions which I think he has scarcely considered. He speaks of "all appointments to the Civil and Diplomatic Services." Does he mean to include Staff appointments? Does he mean that gentlemen of mature years obtaining those appointments are to be subjected to examination? If not, would it not have been better if he had limited the proposition to that part of the argument with which we could concur? [MR. FAWCETT: I said appointments to the Civil Service, and not in it.] Exactly so; but gentlemen are appointed to the Civil Service at very mature years, and that is just the point which the hon. Gentleman has omitted. When he asks us to pass a Resolution of this immense importance it would be more satisfactory, I think, to see that these things had been well considered, and in such a way as to contemplate appointments to the Diplomatic Service. A person may be sent out as a diplomatist who has not gone through the whole course of diplomacy. We are not, it is true, making an Act of Parliament, but, still, if the House is to bind itself by Resolution it ought to guard itself against making it so extensive as to involve consequences which the hon. Gentleman, I am sure, does not for a moment contemplate. But to return to the Motion. I do not think anyone who has ever taken the trouble to consider what I have said on this subject will suppose that I am in any way an enemy to competition. Since I have been in Parliament I have always done everything in my power to promote it. Indeed, I had the happiness to take my share in founding the system of Indian competition in 1854, when I was Secretary to the Board of Control. I have not a word to say against the arguments of the hon. Member in my own individual capacity. What I want the hon. Member and the House to see is this—that the hon.
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Member seems to suppose that we could simply by an act of our volition, introduce open competition at once into the Civil Service. I wish to point out the fallacy of that supposition. Our public offices are so organized—in some cases wrongly perhaps—that we have a large number of gentlemen on the establishments, many of whom, when they get in, have really a very limited and poor prospect before them—the prospect of a life of labour without any great chance of advancement at the end of it however competent and able they may be. The organization maybe somewhat different in the different offices, but there is not that entirely open career to merit which seems to exist in the University of Cambridge. I am an Oxford man, but I confess I always understood that the University of Cambridge had been very careful in its institutions to guard against the operation of the very principle of which the hon. Member considers the University to be the representative. I have always understood that Cambridge differs from Oxford in this—that whereas for a Fellowship at Oxford every member of the University can be a candidate, for a Fellowship at Cambridge only members of the particular College can be candidates, and that, in fact, the small Colleges exclude the men belonging to Trinity College or St. John's, just for the very purpose of allowing inferior men belonging to their own Colleges to obtain the Fellowships. They have always excluded free competition, and therefore I do not think that the hon. Member's instance of the poor man at Cambridge was a very fortunate one. I would remind the House that no greater cruelty or injury can be conceived than to invite candidates for Government offices to this open competition, to subject them to strict and difficult examinations, and so to obtain the services of superior or highly educated young men, and then to condemn them to a career of hopeless routine, from which there is no probability whatever of their escape. This is a thing that ought to be considered before we can comply with the hon. Gentleman's Motion. We cannot regard it as a matter which we can introduce at once. We cannot say off-hand that henceforth, instead of patronage or limited competition, we will have open competition in all our public offices. The effect of such a sudden change would be great hard-

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ship and great cruelty, and would undoubtedly not only do a great injury to a number of deserving young men, but would also be a great injury to the Civil Service, because it is not in human nature that a man of high acquirements who has succeeded in a difficult competition should be satisfied unless he had some better prospects open to him than many of the offices under the Crown would afford. I do not say that this is an irremovable obstacle, but I do say that it is one that must be removed by the internal re-organization of these offices, and the division of labour, mechanical and intellectual, before committing a kind of fraud on the public or a great injury on a number of deserving young men by throwing all the appointments open to public competition. The inference is that it would be vain for us to think of passing an abstract Resolution of this kind, unless we carried out a complete re-organization of the different offices, dividing the intellectual from the merely mechanical duties. The question is, what ought to be done with this Motion? I should say that the hon. Member has, in the former career of my right hon. Friend at the head of the Government, as good a guarantee as he can desire that this subject will meet with most favourable consideration. My right hon. Friend was one of those Ministers who, in 1854, inserted in the Speech from the Throne a declaration which was well understood at the time to mean a desire on the part of the Government to introduce competition for appointments in the public departments. From that time to the present the question has never ceased to have the powerful advocacy of my right hon. Friend whenever the opportunity arose. The passage in the Queen's Speech of 1854, which was advised by Ministers, of whom my right hon. Friend was one, is as follows:—
"The establishment requisite for the conduct of the Civil Service and the arrangements bearing on its condition, have recently been under review; and I shall direct a plan to be laid before you which will have for its object to improve the system of admission, and thereby to increase the efficiency of the Service."
Of course those words were guarded, as an intimation put into the mouth of Her Majesty must be; but they were perfectly understood at the time to refer to the opening of the appointments to com-
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petition, and steps were taken not long after in that direction. The hon. Gentleman, therefore, has a fair guarantee in the antecedents of my right hon. Friend that this question will receive his attention; and I would ask, is it fair or right to press the Motion further? I cannot say anything on behalf of the Government at large, simply because we have not had time to consider this question. We have been a very short time in Office, and we have been overwhelmed, as the House may readily believe, with an enormous quantity of business of immense responsibility. A great many other questions of the greatest importance are standing over, very much, to the regret of their advocates, simply because the Government have not been able to give attention to them. This question is among the number. But, considering the antecedents of my right hon. Friend, and also, if it be not presumptuous to say so, my own antecedents, I do not think it can be necessary to press this Motion further. The hon. Member has treated the question simply as one of patronage. I think I have shown that it involves more than that, and, as a necessary condition precedent to the adoption of his principle, that we must have a thorough review and re-organization of the public service to which he wishes to apply it. That review and re-organization we have not had time to attempt, and I certainly think it hard that a Government, which contains some of the warmest and most consistent advocates of this principle, who for years have been fighting its battles, should suddenly have a Motion of this kind pressed upon them before they have had time for deliberation in their collective capacity, seeming to imply that, on their part, there has been some apathy or lukewarmness. The hon. Gentleman must determine for himself the course which he thinks best calculated to advance the cause for which he is contending. If he should think it his duty to persevere, I can only say, speaking for myself, that, worded as the Motion is in so wide and sweeping a manner, omitting as it does the qualifications that are necessary, and overlooking the steps that must be taken for the re-organization of the public departments, in justice to the candidates themselves, before the principle can be carried out, although no one is more

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favourable to that principle than I am, I certainly shall not be able to give my vote for the Motion.
COLONEL SYKESsaid, he had been a Member of the Committee which investigated the subject of appointments in May, 1860. Some scandalous abuses of patronage were brought before them in the Registrar General's Department upon its formation; in one case it was stated that a lunatic had been appointed to a clerkship, and in another a greengrocer. They had several instances of that kind of objectionable appointments on account of age, broken state of health, proper qualifications, and even bad character, and the Committee came almost unanimously to the conclusion that, at all events with regard to the introduction into the service, there should be some proof given that the person appointed should have certain mental qualifications. Appointments in India had been thrown open to competition, owing in a great degree to the efforts of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the experiment had proved highly successful. The standard of mental acquirements, he believed, were higher there than among the civil servants of any other country. The present Government were very favourable to the principle of competition, but at present they seemed indisposed to give effect to it. If, therefore, the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) pressed his Motion to a division, he should vote with him; for he could only mean by his Motion that the qualifications of candidates were to be tested before they were allowed to enter the service.
LORD STANLEY: As I was Chairman of the Committee which sat some years ago upon this subject, I may be allowed to join in the appeal which has been made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett). I decidedly think that if the hon. Member were to divide the house upon this Resolution he would place many of us in a false position, who like myself are generally favourable to the principle of the Resolution, but who are not prepared to adopt it in quite so sweeping and unqualified a form. I have always thought, and I do think now, that a great deal may be done in the way of extending the principle of competition in the administrative
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services of the country; but I do not think it would be a wise or statesmanlike course on the part of this House to say, in an imperative way, by a Resolution to the Government—"You shall adopt exclusively and absolutely the principle of open competition in all branches of the Civil Service," unless you are prepared to do more than that, and to indicate the manner in which the principle can be practically carried out. I must say that if reform in this matter has not advanced so rapidly as it seemed likely some years ago, I think it has mainly been owing to the fact that public interest in it has not been awakened to the extent which one might have expected. When I was at the India Office eleven years ago, I tried the experiment of opening some clerkships to absolutely open competition. Well, there was a very large number of competitors, but those who succeeded, I believe, were neither above nor below the average of gentlemen who ordinarily fill similar situations; but I did not find that any greater interest was felt in the matter, or that any great encouragement was given by the public to the repetition of that experiment. I quite agree, too, with what was said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that, if you are to throw open the Civil Service to competition, you must make the prizes worth having, and you cannot do that unless you separate the more mechanical from the more intellectual part of the duties. It is really a mockery to throw open examinations, to invite everybody to come in and take part in them, and to establish a standard of merit, if the rewards which the successful are to obtain are little better after all, if not actually less in amount, than those which could be obtained by the same persons in ordinary private business. I merely wish to add a word upon another part of the question. I always felt—long before I had anything to do with the Foreign Office—very considerable doubt whether the case of the Diplomatic Service and that of the Civil Service stood in this matter upon the same footing. No doubt diplomacy does require some qualifications which you can test in the ordinary way by examinations, but it also requires other qualifications, which one may say without any disrespect, you are not quite certain to find in men who, by

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their own unassisted industry, have raised themselves from a very humble social position. There is also this consideration. If you were to apply this Resolution to the Diplomatic Service you would exclude yourselves from employing in that profession anyone who had not been exclusively trained to it. No doubt that has been our system of late years and under ordinary circumstances it has worked well. But it is one thing to adopt a system ordinarily, and another to tie yourself down to it by a Resolution, so that you will never be able to depart from it. I hope the hon. Gentleman will be content with having raised this question. If he divides the House, feeling as I do upon the subject, I shall not be able to oppose him; but, on the other hand, neither shall I be able to vote in favor of the Resolution.
MR. DILKEsaid, he thought the noble Lord, the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley), took somewhat too high a view of a vote of that House if he supposed that it would preclude the Government from employing anyone in the Diplomatic Service who had not obtained entrance into the Service by open competition. It was a remarkable fact that Resolutions very similar to that before them had been on two former occasions carried through the House in favour of open competition, and that the reply of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was almost the same reply that was given thirteen or fourteen years ago by the late Sir George Lewis. When the present Premier pressed Sir George Lewis at that time he asked for a delay of one or two years—"Let us wait," he said, "till we see how the principle of open, competition works in India." The Chancellor of the Exchequer had shown by a passage from the Queen's Speech, in 1854, the interest which was taken in this question by the right hon. Gentle- man now at the head of the Government. But, in 1856, a Resolution was moved by the present Lord President of the Council, seconded by the right hon. Baronet, the Member for North Devon, and sup- ported by the present Prime Minister, which, though not perhaps so sweeping in its terms as the Resolution now before the House, equally pressed the Government of that day to adopt the principle of open competition. If the statistics of the Civil Service Commission were looked into, however, it would be found
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that instead of an increased adoption of the competitive system it was less widely enforced of late years than in 1856–7. The Committee that sat in 1860 reported that the Civil Service should be thrown open for competition to the whole of the Queen's subjects—subject only to certain conditions as to age, health, and other qualifications, and he scarcely thought that the terms of the present Resolution would be found stronger than that. He doubted whether the terms of the present Motion were stronger than those of the former Motion on the same subject, to which several Members of Her Majesty's Government were pledged. He regarded the speech of the Vies President of the Committee of Council, who was speaking as the mouthpiece of the Government, on the second reading of the Endowed Schools Bill, during the present Session, as containing more than a mere promise that the Government would do something at an indefinite time. The objection that it was necessary to separate the merely mechanical from the intellectual labour in the Civil Service was, no doubt, very important; but the gentleman who first suggested that alteration (Mr. Horace Mann) was of opinion that they could not only effect that separation without difficulty, but that it would be better at once to adopt open competition with it. If the Motion went to a division he should vote with the hon. Member who brought it forward.
MR. GLADSTONE: I do not rise, Sir, for the purpose of adding anything to the able statement of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I am very desirous of undeceiving the House—and, I am persuaded, the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Dilke) himself—with regard to the nature of the discussion which took place upon this subject in 1856, both as respects the terms of the Motion the House was then called upon to adopt, and as respects the manner in which that Motion was met by the Government of the day. I would remind the House to begin with that, as my right hon. Friend has stated, many Members of the Government have declared opinions on this subject very much in the direction of the views held by the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett). They have not altered those opinions; they are desirous to move forward in that direction, but they appeal to the House whether, during the four

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months they have held Office, they have been idle. The measures which have been submitted to this House have probably been as considerable as ever were submitted by a Government during a period equally short after their coming into Office; and if the House desires to have work well done, there must be some regard as to the quantity of it which is to be undertaken in a given time. The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down is under the impression that the answer just given by my right hon. Friend is parallel to an answer given, in 1856, to a Motion which he thinks is parallel to the present one. I have hastily referred to the Motion of that date in order to ascertain its terms, and I have also referred to the answer given by the Government on that occasion, and the answers are so different that I am sure the hon. Member himself was not at all aware of the amount of difference between them. You are called upon to-night to accede to a Re-solution which states that all appointments—making no distinction of rank whatever—in the Civil and Diplomatic Services ought to be obtained by open competition, with no exceptions under any circumstances, and no discretion being left to the executive or to the heads of departments. Now, what was the Motion moved by my noble Friend Earl de Grey and Ripon in 1856. It was an Address to Her Majesty, rather a long one. I need not read the whole of it, but the operative part is as follows:—
"To assure Her Majesty of the steady support of this House in the prosecution of the salutary measures which She has been graciously pleased to adopt, and humbly to make known to Her Majesty that if She shall think fit further to extend them, and to make trial in the Civil Service of the method of open competition as a condition of entrance, this House will cheerfully provide for any charges which the adoption of that system may entail."—[3 Hansard, clxi.]
I think that was a very moderate and judicious Motion, and I believe in saying that I am paying a compliment both to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to myself, for unless I am much mistaken, we at the time had some hand in it. But instead of being met on the part of the Government with a declaration that the Government concurred in the principle upon which the Motion was founded, as the hon. Gentlemen appears to think, I find, on referring to the speech of Sir George Lewis, that he
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joined issue upon the principle itself. I find near the commencement of his speech upon this Motion the following sentence:—
"I wish to argue the question simply upon the ground of efficiency of the public service; whether the principle my noble Friend seeks to introduce will or will not render the Civil Service of the Crown more efficient than it has been heretofore—that is the issue I wish to raise."
Therefore, Sir George Lewis disputed the proposition of Viscount Goderich—as my noble Friend then was—that the principle of open competition was calculated to increase the efficiency of the Civil Service. It was under these circumstances that those who were friendly to the Motion were obliged to go forward with the discussion, and that the House carried by a majority of 21 the very moderate, cautious, and qualified Address which was then submitted to its consideration. Therefore I am bound to say, and I really think that the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down will agree with me, that the circumstances of the former Motion are, in every material point, as different as they can be from those of the present—that the proposition which the House was asked to adopt was wholly different, and limited as it was, it was met with open opposition. Since that time undoubtedly—and I hope that what I am about to say will not in any way be misunderstood—the arguments in favour of proceeding further in the direction of open competion have, in my judgment, gained a material accession of force; partly because the experience we have obtained of open competition, so far as I am qualified to judge of it, is of a favourable character, and partly on account of the important Act which was passed by the House of Commons last year, which placed the Members of this House in a much more direct political relation with the members of the Civil Service than they had ever occupied before. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton and those who support him, as well as the whole House, naturally feel, after the Act has been passed which gives the franchise to the Civil Service at large, an increased anxiety for an alteration in those very direct relations which have herertofore subsisted between the Members of this House individually and the disposal of first admissions to the Civil Service. I mention that circumstance to-night as a matter that the Government are perfectly alive to, and which they will cer-

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tainly bear in mind when they proceed to take this matter into their consideration. But my right hon. Friend has stated no more than the truth when he says that we should run a risk of doing mischief instead of good if we were to place the adoption of the principle of indiscriminate open competition before that which is an indispensable preliminary—namely, a thorough re-organization of the Civil Service, with a view to a division being made between the merely mechanical and the intellectual work. And inasmuch as the Government i do not wish to subsist upon promises to the House, but rather upon labour in a practical form, we cannot undertake to concur in any votes that would for our part end in promises only. We trust the House will give us a reasonable time to see whether we are or are not disposed to act upon the principle we have previously announced. It is fortunate that the Motion of the hon. Member is not a distinct Motion, but an Amendment to the Motion that you, Sir, do leave the Chair. We shall, therefore, without giving any opinion adverse to the terms of the hon. Member's Motion, although we regard it as being too wide, vote that the House resolve itself into Committee of Supply in order that we may take the Vote for the Miscellaneous Services, which the public interest requires.
Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
The House divided:—Ayes 281: Noes 30: Majority 251.

IRELAND—JURY PANEL, MONAGHAN ASSIZES.—OBSERVATIONS.
MR. DOWNINGsaid, he rose to call the attention of the House to the proceedings in the criminal trials of "The Queen against Baird," "The Queen against M'Kenna," and "The Queen against Sheridan and Others," in the course of which, on a challenge to the array, the jury panel was quashed, on the ground, among others, that the said panel had been partially and improperly arrayed by the sheriff of said county; and to ask questions in reference thereto of the Attorney General for Ireland. He had already postponed this matter at the request of the Attorney General for Ireland, who wished to be further informed on the subject, and he hoped
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that the right hon. Gentleman had now made himself master of it, and would be able to answer his Question. The subject was one of great importance to the administration of justice in Ireland, especially in the province of Ulster, where he was sorry to say strong party and religious feelings prevailed. At the last Assizes for Monaghan there were several trials arising out of the disturbances which took place on the 13th of July. Among these trials there were those of an Orangeman named Baird, his son, and another party, who were charged with the murder of a man named Hughes, who was a Roman Catholic. Indictments were also found against a large number of Roman Catholics and against seventeen or eighteen Protestants, for riots and assaults arising out of the same transactions that led to the murder; and there were also informations taken against a number of persons for violating the Party Processions Act, but these were not brought to trial. Also, at the same Assizes, a man named M'Kenna, a Roman Catholic, was tried for the murder, in November last, of one Clark, a Protestant; but this occurred in a hotel, and not during a riot. Now, he had to inform the House that, in the year 1866, also at these Assizes of Monaghan, an Orangeman named Gray, who bore rather a notorious character in Ulster, was tried for the murder of a Catholic named Shevlin, who was shot at the election of 1865, and four witnesses swore that it was Gray who fired the fatal shot. But he was acquitted. He was defended by an able and learned Gentleman, who was then an eminent Member of this House—the present Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench in Ireland. On Gray's trial not one of the twelve jurymen was a Boman Catholic. A Mr. Crawford was foreman of the jury. Some strong articles were written on Gray's acquittal in the English journals, and the subject was brought under discussion in that House, the present Attorney General for Ireland declaring that Shevlin's life was wantonly taken without provocation, and that his death was as clear a murder as ever was committed. The panel from which the jury was taken by which Gray was acquitted consisted of 300, a larger number than was ever before known in Monaghan. But among them there were only sixty-seven Boman Catholics. The population of Monaghan consisted of 90,000 Roman

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Catholics, and 30,000 of all other denominations, or three Roman Catholics to one Protestant. The panel was four Protestants to one Roman Catholic. The manipulation of that jury, and of the jury which tried the case in the last Assizes, was so self-evident, that he thought the House would agree with him that the jury system in Ireland required amendment. Out of the first forty-eight names on the panel that tried Gray, who was an Orangeman, only two were Roman Catholics. Out of the first sixty-nine names only three were Roman Catholics; but then to show the liberality of the sheriff, in the next forty-eight names there were sixteen Roman Catholics. It was, of course, intended, and was sure to be the case, that the jury who tried Gray were taken from the first forty-eight names. The sheriff of this year took a most active part in the election at which Shevlin lost his life, though, in 1838, he had been dismissed from the magistracy on account of partiality. At the trial a person of the name of Mitchell was sub-sheriff. Now it was worth stating that up to 1862 or 1863 Orange-ism was not known in Monaghan, and the people lived together on the best of terms; but at that period the Rev. Dr. Bayley was appointed to the rectory of Monaghan, and an Orange lodge was established, of which he believed Dr. Bayley was the chaplain. On the 1st of July last year an Orange flag was hoisted on the steeple of the church—which he (Mr. Downing) thought was a desecration of the House of God—and this flag remained flying till the 12th. The 12th was a Sunday, but on the 13th, which was a fair day, a band of Orangemen marched into the town with drums and banners, and it was quite clear that a collision was inevitable. A collision did take place. The Orangemen entered the Orange Hall and Baird's house, where they had arms, and commenced firing on the crowd, and Hughes, an innocent man who was standing in the street, was shot. After that an assault was made by some of the Roman Catholic party on a man named Wilson. For that assault seven persons were indicted, and among them four women. A large number of Catholics were indicted for riot, and seventeen Orangemen were indicted, and were to be tried at the same Assizes, at which Judges Lawson and Morris presided, for whom he entertained personal esteem. The seven Ca-
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tholics who were tried before Mr. Justice Lawson were convicted of an assault, not of a riot. One of them was sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labour. Two others were sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment, and the four women were sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour. In the other Court two persons were tried for the murder of Hughes, and they were acquitted. There were twelve Orangemen, and not a single Roman Catholic on that jury. On that trial a policeman named Macdonald stated that he did not try to break into the house, because he might have been shot himself, but he went to the back of Baird's house and asked them to stop the firing. He did not go into the house to see who was firing, for soon after the man was shot the firing ceased. At the opening of the Assizes the Judge charged the grand jury, and stated, that he could not understand how, in a proclaimed district, men carried arms who had no licenses, and that the administration of justice in that way was defective. M'Kenna was put on his trial the next day. He was defended by two very able barristers. Mr. Butt put in a challenge to the array on five issues. Four of them were traversed by the Crown. One was admitted—that the sub-sheriff was an Orangeman. The issue that went to the jury was this—Did the sheriff, in contravention of his duty, to which he was sworn, act as a partizan? The jury found that he did, and the consequence was that the panel was quashed. That was the conduct of the sheriff of Monaghan, and he would state to the House the consequences arising from that finding. In charging the jury the Judge said that it was no matter whether the sheriff or sub-sheriff was an Orangeman, for that was no disqualification. In point of law that might be correct, but he recollected many magistrates having been removed from the Commission of the Peace because they had declared themselves Repealers. When Mr. Roche, the father of Lord Fermoy, was appointed sheriff of Cork, an objection was raised in the Dublin Mail that he was a Repealer, in consequence of which the Lord Lieutenant wrote to that gentleman inquiring if he was. Mr. Roche, as every high-minded man, declined giving a reply to the question, although he was no Repealer, and the consequence was that he was

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not appointed to the office. he did not think the Government ought to allow an Orangeman to fill the high and important office of sheriff, because to be an Orangeman was to be a partizan. On the trial of M'Kenna's case the panel consisted of 250 persons. In the jurors' book, there were 1,200 names in round numbers, 400 of them being Roman Catholics, showing a proportion of two Protestants to one Catholic. Out of the first seventy names on the panel there were only seven Catholics, and of these three were ineligible; so that there were only four Catholics left. Such was the state of the panel when important cases involving party and religious considerations were about to be tried. Although there were sixty magistrates in the county of Monaghan, not one of them was put on the panel until a demand was made by the attorney for the prisoners, and then one was placed on the panel. He was aware that the sheriff did not take an active part in framing the panel, but he was responsible to the Crown and was sworn to act fairly between party and party. In 1864 Mr. Riley, who was a Catholic, had the arrangement of the panel, and he returned 200 names, forty-eight of them being-Catholics, and 152 Protestants. In 1865, Mr. Mitchell, the sub-sheriff at the last Assizes, admitted that he took the panel of 1864, and altered it, for he appointed 200, of whom forty-one were Catholics and 159 Protestants. But it was not so much the small proportion of Catholics as the position assigned to them on the list, which made it almost impossible for them to serve on the jury; for the prisoner could only challenge twenty peremptorily, and in the first sixty-seven names, there were only three Catholics. In 1867, the same principle was carried out. When M'Kenna was placed in the dock the finding to which he (Mr. Downing) had referred took place. On the next day, when he was again placed in the dock, Mr. Justice Morris stated that the panel had been quashed. That panel was admitted to be one affecting every case, and the consequence was that 100 Catholics and thirteen Protestants were set at liberty on entering into their own recognizances, and yet the jury taken from that panel convicted the seven Catholics who were now undergoing their sentences. That was all owing to the conduct of the sheriff. And one of the
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questions he would ask the Attorney General for Ireland was, whether that sheriff still retained his office; and, if so, whether it was the intention of the Lord Lieutenant to supersede him. It was not surprising when such proceedings took place that a want of confidence was felt in the administration of the law in Ireland, and that men occasionally took the law into their own hands. At the late trials, on the 5th of March, Mr. Riley, who defended the prisoners, wrote to the high sheriff, asking him to ensure a fair proportion of the prisoners' co-religionists on the panel. The reply of the high sheriff was that he intended making no alteration in the panel, except by adding some fifty jurors to the long panel, thus making it 250—of those forty-nine were Protestants. A similar letter was written by Mr. Riley to the sub-sheriff, who added fifty names to the panel, but forty-nine of them were Protestants, and only one was a Catholic, thus aggravating the case to a considerable extent. Mr. Riley then wrote to the Lord Lieutenant, who replied that it was a matter in which he could not interfere. The result was that the trial proceeded, with the consequences which he had described. The case reminded one of the declaration of Lord Denman—a name that will be ever revered, not so much from his professional knowledge, great as it was, as for his high sense of justice and unbending independence—in relation to the O'Connell trial. He feared that, to use his words, trial by jury in Monaghan had been nothing but a mockery, a delusion, and a snare. the jurors' book was made out and returned by parochial constables who were appointed by grand juries. In the county of Cork, out of thirty collectors, not one was a Roman Catholic. Several hon. Members had on former occasions attempted to induce Parliament to alter the present mode of selecting juries in Ireland, and he wished to ask the Attorney General whether he intended to bring in a Bill for this purpose? The other question he had to ask was, whether the jury panel having been quashed for partiality, it was intended by the Secretary for Ireland to recommend a free pardon to the seven persons who were convicted before Mr. Justice Lawson and sentenced to many months' imprisonment? He should be glad to know, moreover, whether the Attorney

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General would so alter the present system as that jurymen should be selected in criminal as well as in civil cases by ballot? The sub-sheriff for Monaghan admitted that he had been an Orangeman for many years, and that he knew a great many Orangemen. He stated, however, that he could not tell how many Orangemen were on the panel—whether there were as few as ten or as many as 100. The high sheriff on his part denied that he was an Orangeman, but admitted that he did subscribe a few shillings to give the Orangemen something to drink—a very unfortunate thing for a high sheriff to do. He held in his hand a document under the hand of the clerk at petty sessions certifying against twelve Orangemen, but no step whatever had been taken to bring them to trial. The people of Ireland would watch with great anxiety the answer of the hon. and learned Gentleman to the appeal now made to him, and he hoped that answer would be such as to give satisfaction.
VISCOUNT CRICHTONsaid, it was only justice to the Rev. Mr. Bayley to state that he had been curate for ten years in the parish next his own, and that during that time no Orange flags had ever floated from his church. Mr. Bayley, on the contrary, had always discouraged any displays of this kind, and had incurred the displeasure of some of his parishioners in consequence.
COLONEL STUART KNOXsaid, this was not a question of putting people on the jury panel for their religion, but for their fitness. He protested against any comparison between the Orangemen and the Repealers of thirty or forty years ago. The latter were rebels, but the Orangemen were loyal men, who had combined, and would combine, together to support the Queen and the Constitution under which they lived. The sub-sheriff said he did not know how many Orangemen were on the panel, and that was the best proof of his impartiality. Orangemen, being loyal men, had as much right to be upon the jury panel as any other persons.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND(Mr. SULLIVAN) said, that the matter to which his attention had been called was one of the gravest importance. It was only right to state that he was not responsible for the delay in bringing this matter before the House.
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The hon. Member (Mr. Downing) gave notice of his intention to ask certain Questions as to what occurred upon a trial at which he (the Attorney General for Ireland) was not present, and he had accordingly asked that the matter should be postponed in order to enable him to become acquainted with what had occurred at Monaghan. In Ireland, where confidence in the administration of the law was everything, it was most important that the administration of trial by jury should be above suspicion. It appeared that two men, Baird and M'Kenna, were to be tried at the last Assizes, and if the charges against them were true the lives of both were in jeopardy. Baird was charged with shooting a man named Hughes in the street, by firing from a window, and M'Kenna was charged with shooting a man in a house. Both cases arose out of circumstances in reference to which the political and religious passions of the people were strongly excited. Baird was acquitted, and having regard to various circumstances which the jury were bound to weigh, it was impossible to find fault with the verdict. M'Kenna was then put upon his trial, and the array was challenged on his behalf. It was the greatest misfortune which could befal the administration of the law that religious considerations should enter into the selection of juries—but the charge against the sheriff was that he had designedly inserted the names of Protestants upon the panel, intending to prejudice the trial of M'Kenna—and the counsel for the Crown could take no other course but to consent to try that issue. The mode of appointing triers was peculiar, and perhaps not over satisfactory, but it had been transmitted from very ancient times. The two first persons who answered to their names were sworn, and in this case it was certainly a remarkable circumstance that the persons appointed to try such a serious issue were both Roman Catholics. They were, however, as he understood, respectable men, and great weight must be attached in law to their finding, which was adverse to the sheriff. It appeared that there were 1,215 names upon the jurors' book, of which, forming the best judgment that his information enabled him to do, 423 were Roman Catholics. It certainly was a great misfortune that

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out of 250 names returned to form the panel only twenty were from the Roman Catholic barony of Farney, and these were placed at the end of the panel; and no doubt it was a circumstance having great weight with the triers. The explanation of the sheriff was that the barony of Farney being very remote from the town of Monaghan, it would have been inconvenient for jurors to attend, and he swore that their names were placed upon the list without any intention of prejudicing M'Kenna. In a case, however, like that of the last Assizes, where the list for trial was one of the heaviest that had ever been known in Monaghan, the convenience of jurors was not, in his opinion, a matter for the sheriff to consider. When the lives of two men were at stake he was bound to get the best panel he could procure. Personally little blame could be attached to Mr. Coote, for he swore that he had neither hand, act, nor part in the preparation of the list, but, legally, he must of course be held responsible for the acts of his subordinate; it was not for him (Mr. Sullivan) to determine what steps should be taken. "But what occurred at the last Assizes necessarily formed a great obstruction to the law, and, speaking as the public prosecutor in Ireland, in virtue of his office as Attorney General, he was bound to say that when M'Kenna came up for trial again next Assizes it was impossible that the state of things which existed at the last trial in the town of Monaghan could be suffered to continue. Without saying whether the sheriff was wrong or whether he was right, when confidence had once been shaken in the array it would present a serious obstacle to the due administration of justice, if, on a subsequent occasion, the people of the county saw the panel again prepared by the same persons that had been found guilty of framing it so as to press with harshness against a particular prisoner. As regarded the observations said to have been delivered by Mr. Justice Morris, who tried the case, he had inquired particularly into them, and concurred in the propriety of the warning which he had addressed to the triers. It would be, of course, for the Lord Lieutenant to say with respect to the rioters how in his opinion they ought to be dealt with, but he felt persuaded that Mr. Justice Lawson would never have passed upon
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them a sentence disproportionate to the facts adduced in evidence. The present jury system was universally acknowledged to be unsatisfactory, and he had found it so in practice. With respect to the proposal to select jurors by ballot, an admirable Amendment was to be found in the Business Paper of the House to the Jurors Bill introduced by the hon. and gallant Member for Longford (Mr. O'Reilly). But it was one thing to select a general panel for the Assize by ballot, and it was another to select a jury to try a particular case in that manner. However advantageous the adoption of the former system might be, the latter would never be tolerated for a moment, because it would take away from the prisoner the safeguard which he now possessed in the right of challenging, without assigning any reason, a certain number of jurymen. He could not hold out to his hon. Friend any hope that a Bill would be brought in during the present Session; but no doubt the condition of our jury system would engage the attention of Her Majesty's Government as soon as the state of Public Business afforded a convenient opportunity. With respect to the complaint of his hon. Friend about the party procession he could give no information, as he knew nothing about the matter, which had not occurred during his period of Office, but he thought it required explanation. he trusted that his hon. Friend would be satisfied with the answers he had given.
MR. O'REILLYsaid, that in answer to the question whether the fact of a man's belonging to an Orange society was not sufficient to disqualify him from serving as a juror, he wished to state that an Act of Parliament had been passed which suppressed the original Orange Society.
MAJOR KNOX: You will find that is not so.
MR. O'REILLYsaid, it was on account of its signs and passwords and oaths that the original Orange Society was suppressed; and a case was laid before ex-Chancellor Napier, and new rules were formed, signs and passwords and oaths were abolished, and a new society was constituted so as to evade the law, and there the fact of being an Orangeman was not a legal disqualification. He believed that in this particular case the evidence of the sub-sheriff was

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not accepted because it was not consistent, he having stated at one time that he had placed the jurymen from the barony of Farney last on the panel because they would have a great distance to come, and in another that he had taken the jurors indifferently and put them through the panel, in which case of course the names of the jurors from Farney would have been found mixed with the others. The subject was, however, one of some importance as affecting the administration of justice in Ireland. Irish Members could not, unfortunately, but acknowledge that the law was not so much respected in their country as they would wish to see it, and though the population generally were not given to crime, there was too frequently a tendency to protect the criminal. This feeling of antagonism to the law arose mainly from the long years in which the law was against the people of Ireland, and when it represented a tyrannical power which was always against and never for the people. This feeling, which was gradually wearing away, was perpetuated by such cases as this, which, in the minds of a large number of the people, gave rise to the suspicion that partiality had been exercised. He fully concurred in the general principle that a man's religion ought not to be considered when calling upon him to act as a juryman; but it must be remembered that, in cases where party or religious prejudices were enlisted, the due administration of justice could not be secured without adopting what would otherwise appear to be an exceptional course. Even in Wales popular feeling ran so strong, at one time, that trial by jury was regarded as a farce; it being generally believed that no jury in that country would convict a Welshman, while a Welshman on the border, and with a border jury, would have stood very little chance indeed. In cases where anything like a selection of a jury on party grounds was suspected all respect for the law administered by the court was gone. He had before pointed out that the Crown could take measures to have the venue changed from a place in which party spirit was rife. Under the direction of the present Chief Baron Pigott, juries composed one-half of Roman Catholics and one-half of Protestants had been empannelled in party cases, and, he believed, the result was that satisfactory
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verdicts were in every case returned. He hoped that some Act would be passed to take away the unlimited discretion to form the panel that rested in the sheriff and still more in the sub-sheriff, who was very often a small local official who mixed himself up with party politics. He was glad to hear that the plan, which he had recommended on a former occasion, of forming the panel in criminal cases by ballot, reserving the right of challenge at the time of the trial to the Crown and the prisoner, was under the consideration of his right hon. Friend the Attorney General for Ireland.

FRIENDLY SOCIETIES—RESOLUTION.
MR. E. RICHARDSsaid, he rose to call the attention of the House to the question of Friendly Societies; and to move, "That this House is of opinion that the Government should introduce a Measure to remedy the present insufficient state of the Law in relation to Friendly Societies." In 1854 a Committee was appointed to inquire into the question, and upon their Report the Act 18 and 19 Vict., c. 67, was passed. It was found, however, that that Act did not remove the evils against which it was directed, and in 1860, another Bill was brought in by Mr. Estcourt to compel the making of returns to the Registrar General of Friendly Societies; but notwithstanding that Act the returns were most irregular and very faulty. In 1861, another Act was passed requiring every society to render accounts to every member, but that Act also had, he believed, been practically inoperative. The evils connected with these societies had forced themselves upon the attention of Members of both Houses of the Legislature, and Lord Devon's Return, obtained in 1857, no doubt did some good by publicity, but those evils still continued. On a recent occasion a case came before Mr. Selfe, one of the metropolitan police magistrates, in which a man named Bohan made a complaint against the West London Philanthropic Benefit Society, which held its meetings at the King's Head, Chelsea. The man had been a member for years, and £7 was to have been paid on the death of his wife. Well, his wife died; but when he went for the money he was told there were no funds, and that the society was dissolved. The magistrate in that case granted a

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summons against the secretary of the society, and said that these Burial Societies were a perfect pest, that a week never passed without his having some complaint against a landlord or a secretary; that those societies took the hard-earned pence of poor people for years, and refused to meet their engagements when the deaths occurred. But complaints of this kind were not confined to the metropolis. They were heard from every part of the country. In speaking of Friendly Societies he wished to divide them into two classes. There were the Burial Societies and there were such societies as the Odd Fellows, the Foresters, the Druids, the Shepherds, and others of a similar character. The Burial Societies were conducted in an entirely different manner from those very large associations. Mr. Tidd Pratt stated that, at the time of the passing of the Act of George III., the Legislature had in view Friendly Societies the members of which knew each other and managed their own business without the intervention of paid officers. But the difference between these old societies and the new Burial Societies was very great. The members of the latter were generally poor persons, and were spread all over the kingdom. These persons never participated in the management, which was conducted by a few individuals over whom the secretary generally had complete control, and it was said by Mr. Tidd Pratt that the only means by which these societies, known as Burial Societies, could be regulated was by exceptional legislation. Mr. Tidd Pratt gave certain statistics of ten societies from the Returns made to the other House, which showed that the number of insurers amounted to 486,612; but it was stated that the number of subscribers to those Burial Societies was altogether not less than 1,000,000. The gross receipts for the year amounted to £94,323, the expenses of management came to £36,301, and the payment on deaths amounted to £64,386; so that the payments on deaths and the expenses of management amounted to £6,364 beyond the total receipts for the year. The amount of the funds in hand was about 2s. 10 d. per member; it was estimated that the whole amount insured was £1,500,000, and to meet the liabilities to insurers the assets wore £67,267. Mr. Tidd Pratt showed that for every 20 s. spent for the relief of
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members the cost of management was, in the St. Patrick's Society, 16 s. 3d. For every pound expended by the Victoria Legal Society, established in Birmingham, in the relief of members, they spent £3 on the management. The average was taken by Mr. Tidd Pratt of the amount each member had in the various societies, and it appeared that in St. Patrick's the amount of funds available for each member was 2s. 4d., in another 5s., and in the Victoria Legal Society, where they spent £3 to give away £1, the amount available for each member was 1d. Mr. Tidd Pratt stated that when the poor people, who had insured, wanted to recover their money they must go to Liverpool or Birmingham to get it in case of any dispute. The Royal Liver Society in Liverpool have in benefit 401,320 members; out of benefit, 52,602; and arriving at benefit, 75,996. The funds amounted to £117,930, or 4.s. 5d. for each member. They spent 15 s. 9d. in expenses for every 20.s. in relief. Each of the committeemen received £520 per annum, and it appeared that no governor or committeeman of any life insurance office in England received salaries equal to those paid to the committee-men of the Royal Liver Society. The Victoria Legal in Liverpool was established in 1843; the yearly receipts were £28,000; members, 127,000; payments for funerals, £ 12,000; and nearly 20s. were expended for every 20 s. paid for benefits. It appeared that the whole of the assets of Burial Societies, consisting of more than 1,000,000 insurers, and with £3,000,000 insured, including value of property and money in hand, amounted only to £181,000. In one of these societies the secretary's salary was raised to £400 a year, and a Judge decided that he had misappropriated nearly £4,000. and ordered it to be refunded; he had no power to do more, and the secretary set the law at defiance. A collector occasionally went from an old society to a new one on being allowed to keep the receipts to himself for the first six weeks. He told insurers in the old society that their only safeguard was to go with him to the new society, and the consequence was that those who took his advice got out of benefit with the old society, and were not at once in benefit with the new society; and in case of a death within the period of six weeks they had no claim

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upon the society they left, and no claim upon the society they entered, and were without any remedy at all. That was a state of things that ought to be remedied by the House. They had done too much by legislation or too little, because poor people joined a society under the supposition that because the rules had been certified by Mr. Tidd Pratt all was right and legal. But when Mr. Tidd Pratt certified the rules, all he said was that the rules were not contrary to law as put before him, and Mr. Tidd Pratt did not mean to intimate that he was satisfied that the tables of those societies were correct. Mr. Johnson—referring to the Liverpool societies in a pamphlet—stated that the extravagant expenditure was without parallel. The tables were in many cases drawn up by actuaries who never saw the rules, and who certainly would not have certified to the tables if they had known that so large an amount of the receipts went for management. It had been announced that Government would bring in a Bill to allow insurances of small amount to be effected in the savings bank department of the Post Office, but from the returns of the expenses already incurred in managing that business he doubted whether it would pay. Next, he would refer to such large societies as the Odd Fellows and Foresters. The Odd Fellows Association consisted of 412,000 members, and the receipts last year amounted to £499,000. The expenditure was £326,000, and the gain on the whole of the operations of the year was £172,000. The valuation of their property was £2,600,000, or more than £6 per head for every member. The Foresters had altogether over 300,000 members last year; the receipts amounted to £366,840; expended, £273,000; gain on the operations of the year, £93,000. It was said by the secretary that £40,000 ought to be put to another account, but after so doing the gain by the operations of last year would be more than £50,000. The total assets of the Foresters were over £1,000,000, so that each of the 300,000 members had £3 9s. 9d. to the good. Much might be said in favour of these societies, but still there was an obverse to the picture. The members, for instance, had not yet become sufficiently alive to the necessity of a valuation of their property, and it would be necessary in legislating on the subject to provide that
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regular periodical valuations should be made of each lodge in the kingdom. The objection hitherto was the cost. But this was a difficulty which might be removed. It would be well to consider whether the Board of Trade could not sanction the appointment of a competent actuary to make these valuations. Stability would be secured to these societies by compelling them to make a quinquennial or a septennial valuation of their assets. He was happy to say that the Friendly Societies themselves were becoming sensible of the importance of these valuations. Every report from the head-quarters of those societies for the last four or five years, he believed, insisted on the necessity for a valuation. He hoped the Secretary of State for the Home Department would carry into effect the wishes of the conductors of those societies in that regard by introducing a Bill to require that such returns should be sent, and that such valuations should be made. It was too much the fashion of writers to assert that all Foresters and Odd Fellow Societies were insolvent. Mr. Neison, the late actuary, gave his opinion some years ago that the Odd Fellows Societies were insolvent to the extent of £9,000,000; but his son, Mr. Neison, actuary, now estimated their liabilities at £2,000,000, and stated that the bulk of that amount was due from the Odd Fellows Societies in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Cheshire. With the exception of these four counties, Mr. Neison believed that the Odd Fellows Friendly Societies by means of increased payments might be placed on a sound basis. He (Mr. Richards) was confident that by the aid of proper legislation and the enlightened management of the gentlemen who were at the head of them, these societies, instead of being insolvent, would become one of the great institutions of this country. A great deal of laughter was frequently occasioned by the regalia and processions of Odd Fellows Societies. It must not be supposed that all who joined those societies approved of all they did. At one of the late gatherings of Odd Fellows Societies, one of their leading men, Mr. Fletcher, said that during the twenty-five years he had been connected with them he had not expended 1d. in decorating himself for a procession, and he hoped the time

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would come when the Odd Fellows Societies would sweep away from themselves that which other people looked upon as humbug. Again, on the question of remunerating the landlord for the hire of a lodge-room by purchasing beer instead of paying in cash, Mr. Kennedy, of Dublin, lately addressed the Foresters in indignant terms against that practice, and stated that, in Ireland, no court would dare to have beer on the council table, much less to enter in their accounts a charge for the payment of it, and he trusted that this improvement would soon extend to all parts of England. These were the opinions expressed by members of those societies. He (Mr. Richards) hoped that the societies would, ere long, clear themselves of these abuses, and take up the position which really belonged to them—that of being the great insurance societies of the working classes. It might be said that it would be much the readier way for working men to go to an insurance office at once. But that was not his view of the matter. He thought it a matter of great importance that they should themselves have a share in the management of their own business. He believed that it was just that feature in these societies which had constituted a great element in their success, and which gave them a special value. It made them, in fact, a great means of teaching the working classes the duties of citizenship, and he believed that the future of this country would be a great deal better than its past, by the education which a great many men received in the Odd Fellows and societies of that description. As an honorary member of one of them he might state that the order and decorum with which their meetings were conducted, equalled the order and decorum in that House. Every member who entered the room had to make the same acknowledgment of the authority in the chair as was made by Members entering that House. There was no swearing, and neither political nor religious questions were allowed to be introduced. He called upon the Secretary of State for the Home Department to assist these men in making their savings safe. He wished to be informed whether the Government were prepared to legislate on this subject, and if not, whether they would assent to a Committee of Inquiry, or the ap-
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pointment of a Commission for the purpose of obtaining further information as to Odd Fellows and Foresters, and more particularly with respect to Burial Societies?
MR. BONHAM-CARTERsaid, that for the last twenty years, with the assistance, and under the guidance of Mr. Sotheron Estcourt, he had taken a deep interest in this question. While agreeing with most of what had just fallen from his hon. Friend (Mr. Richards), he could not quite coincide in the opinion that the existing evils were all susceptible of an easy and immediate remedy by legislation. He looked with satisfaction on the great progress that had been made by Friendly Societies of late years. A very startling attack had been made on the solvency of the Odd Fellows some twenty-two or twenty-three years ago, which had very much to do with the reform of that body; and it was greatly to the credit of the working-men that, in spite of evil report, they had gone resolutely on until they had reached a position in which they were trusted and perfectly solvent. He looked upon these institutions as splendid examples of the foresight and self-denial of the better members of the working classes; and if hon. Gentlemen had followed the efforts of those men they would have been sensible of what an up-hill fight they had to make in order to reach that position, and how they had gone on year by year endeavouring to improve those with whom they were associated. He did not deny that there might be a case for legislative action, but with respect to the great societies, he would say lot them minimize their legislation. The Committee which sat upon the subject of Friendly Societies had, in the first instance, thought it would be possible to apply stringent remedies to the abuses which were formerly so rife; hut further consideration had satisfied them that it would be better to trust to the good sense of the working men themselves. It had given great satisfaction to Mr. Sotheron Estcourt himself, and other friends of the societies, to find that the men who belonged to them had responded so completely to the confidence that had been placed in them. There was nothing that the great clubs more dreaded than that this feeling of confidence should be broken into by any interference. They were, and would be

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quite satisfied with the law as it stood, though there might be some little points of detail which might call for a slight remedy. The question of Burial Societies, however, stood on a totally different footing. They speculated in the most cruel manner on the affection, grief, and ignorance of poor people, whom they induced to make great sacrifices, and whose money they took, and then when the time for meeting the claim came they would say they could only give this or that small sum, and the poor people in the time of their distress had often no alternative but to accept what was offered them. He thought his hon. Friend had, at all events, made out a case for inquiry. An immense body of men, many of them the flower of the working-classes, were interested in the question; and there were but few who really knew what great credit was due to these poor people for the self-denial they practised weekly, monthly, and yearly, and what a cruel thing it was for them to find in the end, perhaps after twenty years' subscription, that there was nothing to depend on after all. Great credit was due to the Earl of Lichfield for his attempt at legislation, and if his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department should not hold out a hope that he would himself take up the question, he had no doubt that the Earl of Lichfield would press the matter again in "another place." In the county in which he (Mr. Bonham-Carter) resided a large proportion of the inmates of the poorhouses were persons who had belonged to Friendly Societies that had broken down. What he would urge on the Government was not to allow that the unsound societies, which brought so many to destitution, should go on without legislation. He was not sanguine that the Government could do anything by legislation on the subject this year, or, indeed, that anything could be done upon it at all by way of legislation; but if, by means of inquiry or otherwise, they could help the people to distinguish between good and bad institutions of that kind they would render a most valuable service to the numerous class interested in that important question.
MR. BRUCE, having long known the earnest and practical interest taken by the hon. Member for Cardiganshire (Mr. Richards) in all that concerned the well-being of the working classes, was
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not at all surprised at the mastery of his subject which he had exhibited that evening; and he only regretted that there was not a fuller attendance of hon. Members to hear the hon. Gentleman's masterly, though maiden, speech as a Member of Parliament. It was quite true that the importance of that question could hardly be exaggerated. It affected millions of the working class, and affected them in a manner that was of the greatest possible interest to the House and the country. What they wanted to do was to increase the habits of providence and forethought among the working class; and whatever gave them a security that their savings and sacrifices should not be lost to them was a matter of vital importance not only to that class, but to all other classes whose prosperity so greatly depended upon theirs. That being so, Parliament had not been unmindful of its duty; for, during the last thirty or forty years, its attention had been from time to time occupied with the question of these societies, and occupied with it not quite in vain, because, as was clear from what they had heard that night, where the working men availed themselves of the power offered them by law they had succeeded in establishing societies on a firm and solid basis. That had happened as publicity had brought home to them the knowledge of what constituted the security of those societies, and almost every year it was found that that which had been the shame of those societies was gradually disappearing. Larger masses of the working people were seen attaching themselves to the larger and more stable societies, and leaving those small and unsound societies which had wrought so much misery and ruin. Knowing how strong the love of independence and the jealousy of Government interference were among the working classes, he greatly doubted whether Parliament or the State could do much more than it had done in that matter. What had been done had been done mainly in the preparation or sanctioning of rules on the part of the Government, and also—though not very successfully, he admitted—in giving publicity to the accounts of those societies. The hon. Member for Cardiganshire suggested that an actuary for these institutions should be appointed—[Mr. RICHARDS: Sanctioned.]—well, sanctioned by the

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Government, whose duty it should be to investigate their tables, to examine their accounts, and see from time to time whether they stood on a firm basis. But what the hon. Gentleman recommended the Government to do on behalf of the Friendly Societies it appeared to him they could do without much trouble on their own behalf. The case of the Burial Societies was a very different one, and the hon. Gentleman had been more successful in establishing the existence of a great evil—which, indeed, had been fully and repeatedly explained in Mr. Tidd Pratt's Annual Reports—than in suggesting a suitable remedy. It was said the more ignorant portion of the working classes were the victims of designing men, who went about the country making attractive statements to them, and inducing them to subscribe to societies which were, in fact, bubble institutions; but the best remedy for that seemed to him to be the spread of greater knowledge among the classes immediately concerned. Parliament could hardly be asked to prohibit the existence of those Burial Societies, although some persons thought they contained the germs of much mischief. The fact was there were honest and dishonest societies. He did not know whether means could be found for bringing the societies into a better condition, except by the one simple method of publishing statements of their accounts, and thus enabling the working classes to obtain accurate knowledge of the good and stable societies as distinguished from those which were of a bad and bubble character. He would leave the remedy, therefore, to time and education. But if his hon. Friend were dissatisfied with that and wished, at a proper opportunity, to move for a Committee of Inquiry into that question, no opposition to the Motion would be offered by the Government. The inquiry need not be a long one, and it would be a matter for rejoicing if its result should be to show that Parliament, without infringing on the laws laid down for its general guidance in dealing with such subjects, could do something effectual to save the working classes from the evils to which they were exposed. The hon. Gentleman deserved thanks for the able manner in which he had brought that question before the House, and he hoped that the hon. Gentleman's statement would have due effect upon the working classes,
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many of whom took a growing interest in the debates of that House, and that they would be led, with time and increasing knowledge, more and more to adopt securer methods of providing against old age and evil days.

INCUMBERED ESTATES COURT (IRELAND)—EARL OF LANESBOROUGH'S ESTATE—QUESTION.
CAPTAIN ARCHDALLsaid, he rose to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, If His attention has been called to a recent decision of the Irish Court of Chancery on an Appeal arising out of a conveyance of a portion of the estate of the Earl of Lanesborough to a Mrs. Catherine Reilly, the purchaser of a portion of a neigbouring property sold in the Incumbered Estates Court; and whether it is intended to propose any amendment of the Law which sanctions the sale of incumbered estates in Ireland? Every man who owned an acre of land in Ireland was deeply concerned in this matter, which was a glaring act of robbery perpetrated by the Incumbered Estates Court. He would beg leave to read a statement of the facts from a letter by the Hon. Cavendish Butler. In the year 1865, a portion of the estate of Loftus Tottenham, Esq., situated in the county of Fermanagh, was advertised for sale by the Landed Estates Court. As this estate was contiguous to the estate of the Earl of Lanesborough, in accordance with the practice of the court, notice of the proposed sale, a rental, and copies of maps of the estate, were submitted to the agent to Lord Lanesborough, in order that he might satisfy himself of the correctness of the boundaries. No error in this respect appearing on the face of the maps, the sale was allowed to proceed. A certain Catherine Reilly rented a portion of the Tottenham estate, containing 16 acres, 3 roods, 29 perches. At the sale she purchased the fee simple of this land, which was separated from the estate of the Earl of Lanesborough by a deep ditch and a high quickset hedge. A Landed Estates Court title was given to her, and nothing further transpired until the year 1867, two years after the purchase, when she claimed a portion of Lord Lanesborough's property, which was bounded on the one side by the portion of land so purchased, and on the other by a public street in

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the town of Newtown Butler, and which contained 49 perches of ground, valuable for building purposes. This claim was, of course, resisted, and eventually, as Mrs. Reilly threatened to take forcible possession, an action for trespass was brought against her in the Court of Common Pleas. For the plaintiff the above facts were stated. The Landed Estates Court proved that the defendant purchased and paid for only 16 acres, 3 roods, 29 perches, which were duly conveyed to her; that if the 49 perches now claimed were added to her purchase, she would become possessed of so much more land than she had actually bid for, paid for, or ever had in her possession; that the said 49 perches formed part of the estate of the Earl of Lanesborough, and had been in possession of the family since the original grant of the estate, and that by no act of the present or late proprietor had it been alienated. The defendant, on the other hand, claimed under the conveyance made to her by the Landed Estates Court, which, although it only specified that it had sold and thereby conveyed to her 16 acres, 3 roods, and 29 perches, still went on to say that "the portion coloured red, defined on a map attached to said conveyance, was the land so conveyed." A draughtsman attached to the Engineers' Office caused the red line alluded to include a portion of Lord Lanes borough's estate, containing 49 perches of ground, and thus made Mrs. Reilly's purchase 17 acres and 38 perches, and not 16 acres, 3 roods, and 29 perches, as stated in the deed. Chief Justice Monaghan held the title good and nonsuited the plaintiff. Upon this, reference was made to the Landed Estates Court for redress, and, upon the re-hearing of the case before Judge Lynch, he, in an elaborate judgment, called upon said Catherine Reilly to re-convey to trustees the said portion of ground thus improperly claimed by her, with a view to its restoration to its rightful owner, the Earl of Lanesborough. Against this decision Catherine Reilly appealed to the Court of Chancery, who again reversed the decree of the Landed Estates Court, and held that the line defined by the red paint was a good conveyance, and that, although Catherine Reilly acknowledged, and the body of the deed affirmed, that only 16 acres, 3 roods, and 29 perches were sold and paid for by the
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said Catherine Reilly, still she was entitled to 49 perches of a property that was never sold by the court, bought by the claimant, or included in the quantity specified by the said deed of conveyance. It appears, therefore, that no matter what the quantity or nature of property described in a deed of conveyance from the Landed Estates Court, the map alone is to be considered the basis of the purchase; and the question was whether a man's property could be conveyed to another, without his knowledge or consent, through the negligence or other default of some official? A portion of the estate of the Earl of Lanesborough had been so conveyed to the purchaser of a portion of a neighbouring estate—no portion of the estate of the Earl of Lanesborough was mentioned in the deed of conveyance—and the only grounds on which Catherine Reilly claimed the portion of Lord Lanesborough's estate, included in the map, was that it was so included. The Attorney General for Ireland would probably remember that when Ahab appropriated the land of Naboth he received a very severe punishment. If the conduct of Ahab was bad, the conduct of the Incumbered Estates Court was worse. Ahab gave notice to Naboth that he wanted the land, but the In-cumbered Estates Court gave Lord Lanesborough no notice whatever. The land, it was true, was of small extent and value, but the question was one of principle, and Parliament ought to interfere to prevent so gross an injustice.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN)said, he would not allude to the Scriptural illustration just introduced, but would remind the House that when the Incumbered Estates Court was founded in Ireland some twenty years ago it was thought to be of vital importance that every title given by it should be indefeasible. He was perfectly familiar with the facts of the case, for it happened that he had been Counsel against Lord Lanesborough. The estate adjoining to Lord Lanes-borough's property was sold in the In-cumbered Estates Court, and, through a mistake on the part of an officer of the Ordnance Survey, the strip of land in question belonging to his Lordship, and forming an acute angle projecting from the mass of the property, was included in the conveyance, though the map served on Lord Lanesborough, as an

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adjoining owner, showed this strip uncoloured. The mistake was to be regretted, but he did not think it properly described by the term "robbery." It should be remembered that during the operation of the court, which had conveyed millions of property, these mistakes had been of the most trivial character, this being, perhaps about the second or third which had been discovered. The remedy now suggested was an amendment of the law, but the only amendment that could be adopted would have the effect of rendering the title disputable. Now, it would be little short of a national calamity if, on account of a mistake with regard to some 49 or 50 perches of land, the validity of titles under the Incumbered Estates Court was impaired.
MR. HUNTsaid, he knew nothing of the case until he had just heard it explained, but he must say it appeared to him that a flagrant robbery had been committed. The right hon. and learned Gentleman admitted that there had been a mistake, but pleaded that it was a small one. Now, they had all heard of excuses made by delinquents where the corpus delicti was a small one, and the excuse now offered was about on a par with that of the female delinquent to whom he referred. If the state of the law in Ireland was that, through the mistake of a Government officer, a man might be robbed of his land, and there was no mode of correcting the error, it was the bounden duty of the Government to see that a change in the law was at once introduced.
MR. TORRENSsaid, the Incumbered Estates Court had proved an inestimable been to Ireland, but its value would be greatly impaired if any doubts were thrown on the validity of the titles granted under it. At the same time, it would, he thought, be possible to devise a remedy for the injustice here pointed out. In Australia he had introduced a Bill for establishing a court similar to the Irish Incumbered Estates Court, and giving indefeasible titles; but there a small percentage was levied upon the value of the land brought under the system, and out of the fund thus formed the persons injured by such mischances as these received compensation. This system of insurance, which fell very lightly on those resorting to the court, worked satisfactorily. In addition to this there was a provision that the Government
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could recoup themselves by bringing an action for damages against the person who had benefited by the mistake that had been made.
Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put. and agreed to.

SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.

  VOTE ON ACCOUNT.
  SUPPLY considered in Committee,
  (In the Committee.)
  MR. AYRTON, in moving that a sum of £1,586,800 be granted to Her Majesty on account of those services, said, it would be desirable that he should redeem the promise given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the hon. Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt) desired an explanation of the difference between a statement appearing in a Paper on the table of the House and that made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in reference to the amount of these Estimates. The difference appeared to be that the Paper laid on the table showed that the Civil Service Estimates for the present year exceeded those of last year by £387,000; whereas, the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that the excess was only £281,000. The difference between these two statements was £106,000. The fact was that the original Estimate had been reduced by one item of £28,250. The Committee would also see that the Paper laid on the table only contained what might be called the old Votes repeated in the present year, and several supplemental and original Votes had been omitted in the comparison, and those Votes amounted to £78,000. Therefore, adding to that sum of £78,000 the other amount of £28,250, it would be seen that together they made the sum of £ 106,000. He would now deal with the proposal to take the Vote on Account. In the first instance, it was intended to ask for a Vote on Account equal to four months' Supply; because, as there had been considerable discussion as to the best mode of conducting the business of that House in relation to the business of the other House, it was thought desirable to postpone until a late period of the Session that part of the business which the other House would not require time to dispose of, in order that hon. Members might devote themselves

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  at an early period to the consideration of the business which it was desirable to send up to the House of Lords as soon as possible. He ventured, therefore, to suggest that they should not proceed with the Civil Service Estimates until the Bills now under consideration should be disposed of; but he understood that some hon. Gentlemen thought that the Government would gain some advantage by taking a large Vote on Account. It was, however, a matter of indifference to the Government whether they took the Vote for a shorter or a longer time; for, if taken for a short time, the Government, when that period elapsed, would only have to take another Vote for a further period, though that course of proceeding might give trouble to the permanent officers of the Department. However, as some hon. Members did not wish that the Government should take a Vote for a long time, he now proposed to take a Vote for two months. In taking this Vote, the Committee must understand it was not the intention of the Government to embark under it upon any new expenditure in respect to which the Committee might desire to express any opinion of their own, and the Vote on Account merely provided for the continuation of those services and works which had been sanctioned in the past year. Therefore, the Committee in sanctioning the Vote did not pledge themselves to any new undertaking, but merely recognized the principle that the services were to be continued on the footing on which they were left by the preceding Committee of Supply in last year. His right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated to the House yesterday the leading causes which led to the increase of these Estimates, and a considerable portion of the increase was only apparent and unsubstantial. The most important item of apparent increase was that for the Diplomatic Service, which was changed from a permanent charge on the Consolidated Fund to a Vote in Supply. A Bill to carry this arrangement into effect would be laid on the table of the House as soon as the necessary details were settled. By that measure the power of the Crown to obtain money for the Diplomatic Service out of the Consolidated Fund would be taken away, so that hereafter those charges must be met by Votes in a Committee of Supply, and
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  the wish expressed by the House last Session would be carried into effect. The details of the present Vote on Account were, as might be seen, spread over almost all the items in the Civil Service Estimates. In proposing a Vote on Account it was not usual to enter upon these items in detail, the Vote being taken in a single sum. Therefore the Committee need not examine them in detail. Indeed, it would be impossible for hon. Members to do so, as the Civil Service Estimates were not yet laid on the table. He therefore presumed that the usual course would be adhered to, of taking the Vote on the understanding that hon. Members reserved to themselves the right of examining each of the items afterwards in Committee of Supply. He very much regretted that he had not been able to have the Civil Service Estimates printed and circulated by the present time; but, after keeping back the present Vote to the last moment, he now found himself compelled, in consequence of the financial year having expired, to propose it to the Committee. He might explain to such hon. Members as were not conversant with the circumstances which rendered the present Vote necessary that in former times it was the practice to apply the balances of old Votes to meet the expenses at the beginning of the year until the new Estimates should be sanctioned; but, under the system now in force, it was not lawful to apply those balances for the service of the new year without the sanction of Parliament, but they must be paid into the Exchequer. It was clear that if all the Civil Service Estimates could not be voted immediately after the commencement of the new financial year, the inevitable result must be that a portion of them must be voted as was now proposed, on account. It was equally obvious that it was impossible to proceed with the whole of the Votes at the present period of the Session, and the Committee would, therefore, he hoped, have no difficulty in assenting to the proposal of the Government, that a certain sum should be granted to meet the wants of the service.
  MR. HUNT: Sir, I will not allude to the first observations of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken as to the discrepancy between the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Papers which have been placed in

  525
  our hands, because there will be an opportunity afforded of discussing that point when the House comes to deal with the full Estimates in Committee of Supply. I must, however, say that the original proposition made by the Government to take Votes on Account for a period of four months seems to me to require some comment. The hon. Gentleman has stated that it was of no importance to the Government whether they took Supply for four months or for two. I cannot think that that is altogether the case. At all events that was not the view of the matter which was taken by those who sit on the Ministerial Benches, when in Opposition last year. Last year the late Government proposed to adopt the usual course, and to take a Vote on Account for a period of three months, but we received an intimation from those who then sat upon these Benches that they would object to the granting of Supply for more than six weeks. We, desiring to have no controversy on the point, consented to take Votes for only six weeks, but we found from the Papers presented to the House, a few days ago, that the Government, many of whose Members were opposed to our taking Supply for three months, proposed to take Votes for four months. Now, the practical consequence of voting money for so long a period must be, as the hon. Gentleman knows, that the Estimates would be hurried through the House at the fag end of the Session, when many Members would be reduced to such a state of lassitude that they would be unwilling to stay in London, and when, practically, the Government would have very much their own way. It is quite right that the Government should have supplies to go on with, but then they should not be allowed, in my opinion, to have them for so long a time as to leave the discussion of the Estimates practically in the hands of official Members. Certainly the Opposition of last year took a very stringent view of their rights in this matter, and I was, therefore, all the more unprepared for the course they have taken now they are in power. We, of the Opposition, made a suggestion to the Government; the consequence of which was that another Paper was placed in our hands, with a little slip pasted on it, with the statement, "It is requested that this may be substituted for the Pa-
  526
  per issued on the 5th instant." It is not, I may add, usual to raise discussions on Votes on Account, and I should on this occasion follow that which is the usual course had it not been for peculiar circumstances connected with two items in these Estimates. The two items to which I allude are those on the second page of the Paper which I hold in my hands. No. 10, the Vote for the Charity Commission, and No. 12, that for the Copyhold, Inclosure, and Tithe Commission. Certain proceedings occurred last year in connection with those Votes to which I wish to call the attention of the Committee. On the 24th of April, 1868, my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Mr. Goldney) moved a Resolution as an Amendment to the Motion for going into Committee of Supply, in the following terms:—
  "To leave out the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'in the opinion of this House the expenses of the Copyhold, Inclosure, and Tithe Commission, Inclosure and Drainage Acts, and Charity Commission ought not to be borne by the public."
  There was on that occasion a division, the "Ayes" in favour of the words proposed to be left out standing part of the question being 104. and the "Noes" 105. The consequence was that the next question put that the words of the Resolution should be added to the word "that," and the numbers were—"Ayes" 106; "Noes," 105. It fell to my lot to take part in that debate, and I stated, in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham, that the Government were altogether in favour of the principle of his Motion, but that they thought its terms required some qualification. I added that, while concurring with him in the opinion that the proceedings for the greater part in those cases ought to be carried out at the expense of the parties interested, yet we looked upon the measure which he proposed as so sweeping that there would be considerable difficulty in giving it effect. I therefore suggested that the word "entirely" should be inserted in his Resolution before the word "borne." thus binding the Government to the view that the expense ought not i to be entirely borne by the public. My hon. Friend, however, at the instigation of the present First Lord of the Admiralty, the President of the Poor Law Board, and others who now sit on the

  527
  Ministerial side of the House, declined to accede to my proposal, and the House divided, with the result I have just mentioned. We voted for the insertion of the word "entirely" because we did not see our way to providing the expenses of those Commissions without having recourse to some extent to the aid of public funds. We thought that the public were interested in some of the proceedings of those Commissions, and that to that extent there ought to be some charge on the public funds, while we entirely concurred in the principle of the Resolution that the general expense ought not to be defrayed from that source. My hon. Friend, however, who perhaps now may perceive that he was ill-advised in the matter, refused to accept the slight qualification of his Motion which I suggested, went to a division, and triumphed by a majority of 1. I was rather curious to see who supported him on that occasion, and I found that no less than fourteen Members of the present Government, and four Members of the present Cabinet, went into the Lobby in favour of his Motion. He was supported, not only by the vote, but by the speech of the present First Lord of the Treasury, while he was assisted in telling the result of the division by the present First Lord of the Admiralty. Now one would have thought that that circumstance would have decided the course of action of the present Government in the matter. But the question does not rest here, because the Prime Minister made a very notable progress during the Recess. He then made a great number of speeches, which occupied a great number of columns in the different newspapers. So profuse were his utterances, indeed, that I almost despaired of getting through so vast a mass of words. I must, however, confess that I paid the right hon. Gentleman the compliment of reading the greater portion of those speeches, and felt much encouraged by those prolix effusions with which he relieved his mind. One of the chief topics on which he dwelt was the extraordinary extravagance of the late Government, and their great desire to squander the public money. I had some consolation in reading what the right hon. Gentleman said on this subject, because my conscience was very easy on the matter, for I felt that a great deal of the public money which
  528
  we spent was expended in consequence of the neglect of our predecessors in Office, in not keeping up the public service in a proper state of efficiency. I can quite understand that the ignorant audience whom the right hon. Gentleman was addressing—["Oh. oh!"]—I mean ignorant on this point—were not so well-informed with respect to it as the Members of the late House of Commons who took part in its discussions; and I am not, therefore, surprised that the statements of the right hon. Gentleman were received with a considerable amount of applause. For some of those statements, made in the excitement of an election contest, I should be inclined to make some excuse; but there were others, which may, perhaps, be brought before the House at some future day, for which there is little excuse to be found, because they were made, I think, without due inquiry into the facts of the case. The right hon. Gentleman alluded, among other things, to the debate on the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham; and one of the chief counts in his indictment against the late Government was that they had opposed that Motion. So important were the utterances of the right hon. Gentleman, that they exist not only in the shape of a newspaper report, but have been bound up together and published in a pamphlet. ["Hear, hear!"] I am not astonished to find that hon. Gentlemen opposite cheer; but the immortality of these speeches may very well be regarded from two points of view, because if they perpetuate sentiments worthy of being perpetuated in the memories of the fellow-countrymen of the right hon. Gentleman, they also preserve many rash and reckless assertions. I only deal with that portion of the speech which refers to the Vote before us. If I referred to the general statements contained in the speech, hon. Gentlemen opposite might be somewhat astonished at the assertions which were then made. The right hon. Gentleman alluded to the course which was adopted by the then Government, and said—
  "We saw on the Notice Paper this year a Notice which would have saved the country a certain sum of money. I think some £20,000 a year, perhaps more. It was to the effect that the expenses of certain Commissions relating to Copyholds, Inclosures, and Tithes which had been charged on the Consolidated Fund should be borne not by the State but by the persons who

  529
  took benefit from the operation of these Commissions. This Motion, which we thought a very rational Motion, was made by Mr. Goldney. Mr. Goldney is a man of much intelligence who sits on the Government side of the House."
  Well, there I am as one with the right hon. Gentleman, for I quite agree that my hon. Friend is a man of much intelligence. Then the right hon. Gentleman continues—
  "Thus we had an opportunity, because Mr. Goldney, being the Mover of the Motion, and not acting in concert with us, it was not possible to cast upon it the discredit of being a party Motion. Well, what did we do? We supported Mr. Goldney, and what happened? We carried our Motion by 1. So keen were the Government to resist this reduction of expenditure, that after being thus beaten in a division some rumour went abroad that one or two Members had come into the House that they might, if they divided again, obtain a different issue. They divided again, and again they were beaten by 1."
  I gather, then, that in the opinion of the present Government this £20,000 a year ought to have been saved to the country and thrown upon the persons interested; and the Members of the then Government were held up as so keen against the reduction that they took a second division. I do not think that this account of what occurred in the House quite accords with the facts; because, so far from resisting the spirit of the proposal, I stated that I entirely concurred in it, but that we thought its terms so strict as to require qualification. However, the Colleagues of the right hon. Gentleman were so determined upon effecting this economy that they refused to admit of any qualification. Well, I cannot conceive—after the right hon. Gentleman had supported the Motion, and after the grave charge brought by him against the late Government—that, coming into power with such a majority, he might not have found means to carry out the views he expressed in Opposition. My hon. Friend the late Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Sclater-Booth) brought in a Bill to enable the Inclosure Commission to levy fees, and the Commissioners will thus be able, according to their estimate, to raise a sum of £17,000 to meet the expenses of £20,000. The late Government were entirely of opinion that the expense should not be borne by the public, and they took measures accordingly. But now a word or two on the subject of the Charity Commission. The right hon. Gentleman, by his vote here and by his taunting speech at the
  530
  election, declared his opinion that the expense of the Charity Commission should also be saved to the country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, in an answer to my hon. Friend (Mr. Goldney), stated, the other night, that the Inclosure Commissioners would raise £17,000 by fees—though he did not add what the late Secretary of the Treasury had done to secure this result—but confessed that the Government did not see their way to relieve the public from the charge of the Charity Commission. He declared that he himself should like to impose an income tax on charities. Now, I say that after what occurred the Government were bound to attempt to carry out the Resolution of my hon. Friend. We were taunted, when in Office, with not having the power to give effect to some of our wishes; but what is the use of having a strong Government in Office, carrying great measures by a majority of 118, if, having decided opinions on such a subject as this, and having pledged themselves as deeply as they can by Resolutions in this House and by speeches out-of-doors, the Government "do not see their way'' to carry out that which they severely censured us for not carrying out? When this sort of thing happens it ought to make Gentlemen careful of what they say in their election speeches. I think they ought not to attribute to their political opponents a desire to squander public money, and to throw upon the public charges which ought to be borne by private persons, whereas when they come into Office they themselves do nothing. At the time when the right hon. Gentleman supported the Motion of my hon. Friend he had had some experience as to the difficulties of imposing charges upon charities, and had made a proposal which he was unable to carry; yet, knowing the difficulties of the case, he refuses to qualify the terms of the Motion, and then goes down to his would-be constituents and charges the then Government with resisting the reduction of expenditure in this instance. What has happened? The right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues propose these two Votes, not having, as regards the Charity Commission, taken one single step to relieve the public.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on having commenced his speech with a criticism

  531
  upon our proceedings, as to which he possibly had something to say. We asked for a Vote for four months on account of the Miscellaneous Services. That was admitted to be unnecessary, though it was for the public convenience, and the Vote on Account was reduced to two months. The right hon. Gentleman compares with this proposal the jealousy of the Opposition of last year, who would only consent to a Vote for six weeks. But he entirely omits from his comparison that upon which the whole merits of the case turns—namely, that last year the Government had been condemned on a vital point of policy, and had been placed in a minority of more than 60 by a vote of which the head of the then Government declared that it would produce consequences more formidable than foreign conquest. Sir, I unfeignedly regret that the right hon. Gentleman has raised this question. We have other matters to transact than to rake up these old controversies—frivolous as I shall show them to be—but I am compelled to follow the right hon. Gentleman on the ground over which he drags me. That was the position of things last year, and the Opposition with singular mildness proposed, after the vote I have mentioned, that Supply should be taken for a limited period. Yet the right hon. Gentleman, while instructing others in their public duties, thinks it right to institute this comparison, omitting from it the point on which the whole case rests. However, with this portion of his speech he was comparatively successful; but he goes on to instruct me upon the mode in which election speeches should be framed, and, rising in the latter part of his speech to a height of calm philosophy, says that great inconvenience is likely to arise when Gentlemen before their constituents—or, as he, with excellent taste, remarks, their would-be constituents—become reckless in the language they use. Undoubtedly those who are unfortunate enough to number the tale of years which have passed since I became a Member of this House must feel peculiar happiness when they receive lessons of this description from Gentlemen who have entered public life some quarter of a century afterwards, and who, growing rapidly in wisdom and experience, have acquired so remarkable a capacity for lecturing their seniors.
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  Now, Sir, the question is one that, after all, it may not be useless to discuss. The right hon. Gentleman speaks of me as if I had raised the subject of the vote of the hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Goldney) gratuitously before my "would-be constituents." What happened was this—I did state to my constituents—as they then were, and as I hoped they would be again, and it is to me matter of grief that they are not—I did state to my constituents that, in my opinion, a due control had not been exercised over the expenditure of the country during the two years the then Government had been in Office; and I am happy to say that it has in some manner or other happened that, when that declaration was made in the face of the country in one of those prolix speeches to which the right hon. Gentleman refers—that £3,000,000 had been added to the public expenditure in two years—the "ignorant audiences" in Lancashire, whom he has thus again the good taste to describe, were considerably impressed with the fact, and the opposing candidates immediately challenged the right hon. Gentleman on the subject—and much notice was taken throughout the country of the matter—and, singular to say, we have been recently informed by the right hon. Gentleman that about and. from that very date it became a great object of the right hon. Gentleman to reduce the current expenditure. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but I am compelled to appeal to his speech last night, in which he said that about the month of September—[Mr. HUNT: I said long before, in the autumn]—the operations of the right hon. Gentleman were specially pointed to the subject—it was in the autumn, he says, he became finally convinced that the revenue would fall short of his estimates, and it was in the autumn he made, not vigorous, but renewed and extended—for I have no doubt he thinks he always made vigorous—efforts for reducing the expenditure of the country. That was the time when the dissolution was in prospect, and when, by means of these prolix speeches and otherwise, the country had become aware of the manner in which its financial affairs were regulated. I was then told that it was my duty, being in command of the majority in the last Parliament, to cut down and keep down the expenditure. I think those ac-

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  quainted with the last Parliament will be aware that any power possessed by myself or others on this Bench was of a very limited character, and I deny the proposition that we could be held responsible for that great expenditure, if we took the opportunity from time to time to make known our disapproval of, and when occasion offered endeavoured to reduce, the public charge. I then made the observation which the right hon. Gentleman has read, and which appears a most just observation—that though it was very difficult for us. engaged in political controversies of the highest moment, to be continually worrying the Government on this and that question of expenditure, which would have degraded the struggle in which we were engaged on the subject of the Irish Church into what would have appeared to be a more contest for the immediate grasp of Office; yet, when we had the opportunity offered us on the Motion of a Gentleman of so much intelligence as the Member for Chippenham, from the other side of the House, we were glad to support it. It was for that purpose I introduced the passage which the right hon. Gentleman has quoted as an instance of the rash and inconsiderate statements in my speeches; but every syllable of which I here deliberately adopt. I then pointed to the proceedings of the right hon. Gentleman. It is quite true he said he thought a part of the expense might be borne by the parties taking the benefit of these Commissions, and he wanted the House to affirm the Motion that the expense of these Commissions should not be entirely defrayed by the public. But the hon. Member for Chippenham, certainly not on my inspiration, would not agree to that Amendment, and he was quite right, for if he had adopted it the House would have declared that a portion of the expenses of those who take the benefit of these Commissions should be borne by the public. I think he was right, and I would vote with him again if the same circumstances should arise. But what I did observe, and what was the point of my criticism, related to the form of proceeding adopted by the right hon. Gentleman—for it was this—The House of Commons gave its judgment—it is true, only by a majority of 1—in favour of the reduction of the public expenditure, and to my astonishment the right hon.
  534
  Gentleman, instead of accepting that vote, because there was some rumour about the House that two or three Members had come into the Lobby which might change the division, declined to accept the vote and challenged it again and was beaten, If the right hon. Gentleman thinks it a right mode of proceeding towards the representatives of the people that when those who are the chosen guardians of the public purse have declared their disposition to abolish a public charge, they should be met by that kind of opposition on the part of the Executive Government, I have the misfortune to differ from him. I hold that such a mode of proceeding is not decorous, and scarcely constitutional. Had it been an attempt to force expenditure on the Government the right hon. Gentleman might have been perfectly warranted in challenging the vote; but, where the House has, by a majority, declared in favour of the abolition of a particular charge, the intimation is entitled at once to the respectful consideration of the Executive Government. So far as regards the proceedings of last April; and, if I understand rightly, the right hon. Gentleman now makes it a charge against the Government that they have not removed from the Estimates the charge of the Charity Commission. It seems that the right hon. Gentleman himself went to work and framed a plan under which a scale of fees was constructed relating to the Copyhold and Inclosure Commission, and estimated to produce £17,000. That scale was, I think, properly framed by the right hon. Gentleman, and properly adopted by my right hon. Friend near me (the Chancellor of the Exchequer). [Mr. HUNT here made an observation.] I beg pardon, the fees were authorized by Act of Parliament. But although £ 17,000, the estimated amount of these fees, was not the precise equivalent of.£20,000, there was so far a compliance with the Vote of the House of Commons. The right hon. Gentleman, however, appears to think that that vote was binding on the present Government in some sense in which it was not binding on the late Government. The vote of the House of Commons, once passed, was not a bit more binding on the Members of the majority than on the minority. The right hon. Gentleman has forgotten to tell us why he did not apply himself

  535
  to frame a scheme of fees for the Charity Commission. [Mr. HUNT: Because we had no opportunity.] The right hon. Gentleman framed a plan for the Copyhold Commission, why did he not frame a plan for the Charity Commission.? The right hon. Gentleman remained in Office nine months, under the vote of the House of Commons, which he twice raised, and which was twice carried against him; but he took no step. [Mr. HUNT made an observation.] If I am to understand that he did take any steps, I am only sorry they did not become known to my right hon. Friend near me, because I am sure my right hon. Friend would have been very glad to have availed himself of any suggestion that, by a direct method of operation, would have relieved the public of the charge of the Charity Commission. But he has given us no account whatever of any proceeding taken by him to fulfil the wishes of the House with regard to the Charity Commission. "Well, but we come into power, and he says that his disobedience to the vote of the House with respect to the Charity Commission does not excuse us. That is perfectly true. What did we do? We looked at the matter and found two methods in which effect might conceivably be given to the vote. Looking at it with reference to the direct charge, we did not see our way to get rid of it. But if the right hon. Gentleman is more anxious than we are, and able to devise a method by which we might remove that charge from the Estimates, we shall be too happy to sit at his feet and obtain the smallest contribution towards the public welfare which he may be graciously pleased to bestow on us. We have got another mode of proceeding, and it is to apply to charities the just, rational, and obvious method of prescribing by law that property which is given by persons, when they die or otherwise, not to their own flesh and blood, but to certain objects they choose to prefer, shall pay, like other property, for the protection it receives from the State. And to my perfect astonishment the right hon. Gentleman is so imprudent as to recall the fact that we have already endeavoured to establish this just principle, and says we could not do it. No, Sir, we could not do it. And why? Because the Friends of the right hon. Gentleman would not let us. Because we saw opposed to us,
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  in the Parliament dissolved in 1865, a compact party blanded together almost as one man, when parties were nearly balanced, to oppose the proposal that we made, which would not only have relieved the public from this charge but a great deal more. And that is the plan which, unless we are able to devise a more direct method, we shall desire to give effect to and carry out. But the right hon. Gentleman says—"Why not give effect to it now?" Why do not we postpone the Irish Church to introduce a charge upon charities? Does he not know, if we did introduce such a tax what would be the effect? The time may come when we may impose it, but does the right hon. Gentleman think we are such children in our business as to yield to such a suggestion? Why, we should have immediately banded together not only hon. Gentlemen opposite, but I am sorry to say there would be local agencies exercising a grievous pressure upon divers worthy and enlightened men on this side of the House, We should be compelled to consume day after day in barren and fruitless discussion of a question whether we should levy a tax of £20,000 a year upon charities, and we should be neglecting the promotion of a measure on which we think the harmony of the nation and the prosperity of the country depend. That is our answer to the right hon. Gentleman. I am sorry to be led back over the old ground, because our desire is to go onwards, yet I do not shrink from anything I said to my constituents on the subject of the financial policy of the late Government. On the contrary, I must abide by, extend, and enlarge what I then stated. And I say, on my own part, and on the part of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government, that we shall show we entertain the same opinions in regard to the Charity Commission whenever we have the opportunity. Nay, more, if the right hon. Gentleman will kindly rise in his place and give us the assurance, and without delay, that on his side, or upon the Bench on which he sits, if we propose to apply this principle of taxation to charitable among other funds, we shall receive their warm support, and that we shall not find them voting against us, or taking their flight in a mass from the House, as we have seen before to-night, but that we shall

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  have the aid of their speeches—I think, I might promise that my right hon. Friend, without a minute's delay, will be prepared to relieve the public from the expenses of the Charity Commission and a great deal more besides.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman could hardly require much assistance from that (the Opposition) side of the House in his measures, but it was within his own knowledge that many hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House, himself included, agreed with the right hon. Gentleman in the spirit of the proposal which he made to the House in regard to the taxation of charities. He would venture to say that the opposition to it came in a great measure from the other side of the House. The reason why the Government last year opposed the Motion of the hon. Member for Chippenham was that he (Mr. Sclater-Booth) had made inquiry of the Inclosure and Charity Commissioners, and had foreseen and anticipated the difficulty of carrying the Motion into execution. He ascertained that it would be easy to levy a great part of the expense of the Inclosure Commissioners by means of fees, but from the Charity Commissioners he learned that it would be impossible to exact such fees as would reduce to any appreciable extent the Vote of £18,000 a year by the House. He therefore endeavoured to draw a distinction between the two, and not to put the House in the position, by affirming the Resolution, of committing itself to the levying of a property tax on charities. It was represented to him by the Charity Commissioners that it was not fair to tax the charities that applied to them for a better regulation of their affairs, while the charities that kept away were those which ought especially to be taxed. That opened up the large question of levying the income tax on charities. The answer which the Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, gave to the hon. Member (Mr. Goldney) the other night was precisely that which he (Mr. Sclater-Booth) could have given in August last. Upon the issue of that Resolution he applied to the Charity and Inclosure Commissioners, and drew their attention to the Resolution of the hon. Member for Chippenham, desiring them to place the Government in a position to give effect to the wishes of the House, and to make
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  those Boards self-supporting. The Inclosure Commissioners applied themselves to the task, and before the close of the Session he passed a Bill through the House. They estimated that fees to the amount of £17,000 might be raised, and that more might be done another year. The Inclosure Commissioners deserved, he thought, considerable credit from the House for what they had done. The Charity Commissioners did not show the same alacrity in adopting the view of the House. They were no doubt impressed by the fear lest the levying of fees should exercise a prejudicial effect by inducing the trustees of charitable funds to refrain from applying to the Commissioners. One suggestion he made was that a percentage of 1 or 2 per cent should be levied on the dividends received by them. The sums on which they received dividend amounted to not loss than £3,000,000 sterling, and a small tax on that amount would only be what any agent would charge upon the receipt of income. It appeared, however, that a great number of these charities were of so small an amount that even this moderate change would be ruinous to them, and that the trustees of these charities would not consent to pay it. If there had been a prospect of the late Government holding Office during the present Session, it would have been their duty to bring in a Bill; but the £2,000 a year which the Charity Commissioners were willing to collect amounted to so trifling a sum that it would not, in any commensurate manner, carry out the intentions of the House.
  MR. GOLDNEYsaid, that whatever the result of the discussion might be, he might congratulate the House that the great principle laid down by the present First Minister of the Crown in his magnificent speech of 1853 had been considerably advanced, and he was happy to hear it was his intention to carry out that principle now that he had a strong party at his back which would enable him to do so. For himself, the course which he took last year with the view of reducing the large expenditure of the Civil Service, which was constantly growing, he should endeavour consistently to pursue; and although on general occasions he was proud to act with his party, yet, as far as financial legislation went, he was prepared to support the doctrines laid down by the Prime Minister. One

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  of those doctrines was that it was the duty of independent Members to check the expenditure, and that attempts in that direction strengthened the hands of the Government against the endeavour of the departments to increase the expenditure. With that view he had contended that it was the duty of the parties, who derived the benefit from the labours of the several Commissions which had been referred to to bear the burden of the expenses attached to those Commissions, and that such expenses ought not to be borne by the public. He had no doubt that the late Government did its best to carry out the Resolution of the late Parliament, but the Resolutions of the House could not always be carried into effect immediately, and it was open to any hon. Member to challenge the Government of the day to carry them out. He was glad that by the carrying of his Resolution the country had already been saved £17,000; per annum; and, whether Ms own friends or the party opposite were in power, he should conceive it to be his duty whenever he saw an expenditure that could be reduced to challenge the Vote and endeavour to enforce a further saving.
  MR. DISRAELI: Sir, I do not rise to give any instruction to the right hon. Gentleman opposite (the First Lord of the Treasury) in the art of making election speeches, for he has had as much or more experience than myself on that subject, and probably of a later complexion. But I think I may presume to give him some instruction upon making Parliamentary speeches, because I am sure he will agree in the principle I am about to lay down that a person who makes any statements in this House should, if possible, be accurate. The right hon. Gentleman says that, in consequence of a vote at which the House arrived last year, I declared that the matter was of as great importance as the conquest of this country by a foreign foe, and then he argued upon that assumed assertion on my part. Now, I never made any observation of the kind. I made a similar observation not in this House but in another place, and it referred to an issue of a totally different character. Therefore, I can hardly understand why the right hon. Gentleman should, in so needless a manner, have made a statement of this kind, unless he was at the moment influenced
  540
  by a degree of excitement for which I think no cause whatever was supplied by the constitutional criticisms of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt). I cannot refrain, as I am on my legs, from noticing—and I do so in the interest of the House—the strange doctrine suddenly brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman, that a Minister, who has been beaten in this House by a majority so small that it may be described by a unit, is precluded from asking the opinion of the House upon another occasion, if he thinks there is a chance of its arriving at a different conclusion. And what is the extraordinary ground upon which he founds this new principle in Parliamentary practice? It is, forsooth, because the voice of the country and the opinion of the House having been once ascertained by this magnificent majority of 1, even if the Minister was aware that a considerable number of Gentlemen had entered the House at a subsequent period, he is not to take the chance of the majority being decided in his favour by that accident. Do not those Members who entered the House at a subsequent period represent the country as well as the solitary individual who composed that majority? There are instances without number in which Ministers have taken the opinion of the House on a second occasion, after having been defeated on the first; and not only upon the same subject, but on the same night. Of course the period of time cannot influence the principle. But what are we to think of the more important instances of rescinding a vote on a matter of great importance, such as a matter of taxation? Look at the case in which the vote arrived at by the House on the malt tax, I think in 1835, was rescinded. If the doctrine now laid down be the correct one, how are we to defend the conduct of Sir Robert Peel when he came down and called on the House to rescind that vote? Are we, in consequence of the views as to the management of business in this House now put forward by the right hon. Gentleman, to say that the conduct of Sit Robert Peel, when he called on the House to rescind that rash vote was unconstitutional, and that his conduct as a Minister was reprehensible? Every man must feel that it would be impossible to carry on the business of a

  541
  free House of Commons if views put forward by the right hon. Gentleman in a rash moment, and supported by the cheers of Gentlemen who, I suppose, are to represent the new Members, were to be adopted as a rule. But let us take a later ease than the one to which I have just alluded. Let us take the case of the vote arrived at on the sugar duties, which disturbed—I will not say entirely, but to some extent—the financial arrangements of the Government, I think in 1844. Why, the Government did not hesitate then to call on the House to rescind that vote; and though Sir Robert Peel moved the rescision, I believe the Minister whose department the vote affected was the right hon. Gentleman now at the head of the Government. I may be wrong as to his particular Office, but this I am sure of—that the right hon. Gentleman was a Member of that Government, and, of course, gave his consent to the course the Government took on that occasion. Sir, this new dogma that the Government are not to take the opinion of the House a second time on an issue on which it may once have divided, and on which a decision may have been come to by, perhaps, a majority of 1, is a dogma which I think this House will not sanction with its approbation. This, though an inexperienced House, must not take a course which was invented for the occasion by the right hon. Gentleman at an election in Lancashire, which I am willing to forget, but which appears to have excited him to a high degree of that rhetorical spleen of which he is a master. Now I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has been candid in his answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Northamptonshire. The case of the Inclosure Commissioners is a very strong one indeed. The right hon. Gentleman does not deny that in his agitating tour of last autumn he made a distinct charge against the late Government that they were sanctioning a profuse and unnecessary expenditure of public money, and in support of that charge instanced this case of the Inclosure Commissioners. It is perfectly clear that the right hon. Gentleman was unaware at the time that in the preceding Session of Parliament a Bill, introduced by my hon. Friend the Secretary of the Treasury in the late Government, attained the very results
  542
  which he denounced us for opposing. If the right hon. Gentleman was aware that a Bill of that kind had been introduced by my hon. Friend, and had been passed, no doubt his natural candour of mind would have prevented him from making the statements he has to-night, and the statements which he made in the autumn. With regard to the Charity Commissioners, it is now said that the Government have not time to take a course which we believe would not have occasioned them much trouble or occupied them for a very long period. They can re-construct the whole of our ancient system of taxes; they can make plans which will effect a great change in the collection of the taxes of the country; and yet they cannot give their attention to this particular subject. Sir, I think the answer of the right hon. Gentleman to my right hon. Friend has not been a candid and satisfactory one. A statement made with the clearness and total absence of acerbity which characterized the statement of my right hon. Friend ought not to be met with a torrent of taunts. That is not the way in which the business of the House can be satisfactorily conducted. The right hon. Gentleman says that, in consequence of his speeches, my right hon. Friend found it necessary to look to the finances of the country, and to make certain arrangements to secure a reduction of expenditure. I dare say the right hon. Gentleman has great confidence in the eloquence of his speeches—and he has cause for it—but I can, however, assure the right hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend was influenced in the course he took by nothing else than a sense of duty. His attention was before that period directed to the state of our finances by those official and authentic sources of information with which the right hon. Gentleman is perfectly familiar, and which are open every week on his desk in Downing Street. I think it must have been in the month of July, and long before the, right hon. Gentleman commenced his electioneering campaign, my right hon. Friend called the Cabinet together, laid before us the condition of affairs, and made those arrangements which, though unfortunately the revenue did not rally while we were in Office, had still the effect of preventing a deficit from occurring. I think it right to make that statement in support of

  543
  the observations of my right hon. Friend, as otherwise a very erroneous impression might pervade the House in reference to this matter. I think my right hon. Friend was perfectly justified in calling the attention of the House to the conduct of the Government with reference to matters not in reality of great importance, but of the merits of which—they having unnecessarily been made of great importance—it is desirable that the House should form a true conception. It is quite clear that when the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) made that rash and reckless accusation against the late Government with reference to the Inclosure Commissioners, he was perfectly ignorant of the fact that we ourselves had introduced and passed a Bill which entirely remedied the real grievances complained of.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I do not rise for the purpose of continuing the controversial part of the debate, but merely because I am desirous of making some explanation with regard to a statement attributed to me by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli). The right hon. Gentleman alleges that that statement was inaccurate, and therefore it is necessary that it should be clearly understood what that statement was. It was with reference to the vote of last year, and the right hon. Gentleman says that I was inaccurate in saying that he had asserted that the declaration of this House last year with reference to the Irish Church was calculated to be more destructive than a foreign conquest. The right hon. Gentleman, however, attributes to me that which I did not say. What I did say was that I had understood that the right hon. Gentleman had declared that "the consequences" of that declaration by this House would be more mischievous than a foreign conquest. That is what I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say, and what I believe him to have said. I have further to say that I never laid down the doctrine for one moment—on the contrary, I have always most explicitly guarded myself from being understood to lay down the doctrine—that the Government is never justified in asking a second time the judgment of this House upon a question. What I did say was this—that the manner in which the Government had challenged the decision of the House on the par-
  544
  ticular occasion referred to with respect to a vote by which the House had refused an item of expenditure was, in my opinion, scarcely decorous and scarcely constitutional. The right hon. Gentleman calls that statement rash and ill-considered. I call it measured, true, and constitutional.
  MR. DISRAELI: I have no desire to prolong this controversy. I only rise in answer to what I look upon as an appeal on the part of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman says that the statement I was understood to make with reference to the vote of the House last year upon the question of the Irish Church was that it was in mischievous effects equal to a foreign conquest. Well, I most unreservedly contradict that statement. I did certainly say, or write, on one occasion—and this will probably be the origin of the error on the part of the right hon. Gentleman—I did certainly say, abstractedly speaking of England, that I believed that the severance of the Union between Church and State would be an event in its consequences as deplorable as foreign conquest; but how far the right hon. Gentleman is justified in regarding that observation, made only in reference to the possible effect of a severance between Church and State in England, as a statement having reference to the decision of this House last year upon the question of the Irish Church, I leave the House to decide.
  MR. DILLWYNsaid, he believed that hon. Members had met that evening for the purpose of business. He quite understood the necessity for this Vote on Account. His object in rising was to earnestly impress upon the Government the propriety of presenting these Estimates to the House at an earlier period of the Session in future. The House was asked to give a Vote on Account for Estimates which had not yet been placed in their hands, and he, therefore, trusted that they would have an assurance from the Secretary of the Treasury that these Estimates would be shortly placed before them.
  Vote agreed to.
  Resolved, That a sum, not exceeding £1,586,800, be granted to Her Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the Charge for the following Civil Services, to the 31st day of March 1870:—

  Class I.

  Great Britain:—

  £

  Royal Palaces

  9,000

  Royal Parks

  22,000

  Public Buildings

  20,000

  Furniture of Public Offices

  2,000

  Westminster Palace, Acquisition of Land

  4,000

  Houses of Parliament

  8,000

  Public Offices Site

  8,000

  New Home and Colonial Offices

  5,000

  Public Record Repository

  5,000

  Chapter House, Westminster

  600

  Probate Court and Registries

  1,500

  Sheriff Court Houses, Scotland

  5,000

  National Gallery Enlargement

  9,000

  University of London Buildings

  5,000

  Glasgow University

  3,500

  Edinburgh Industrial Museum

  1,500

  Burlington House

  10,000

  Post Office and Inland Revenue Buildings

  22,000

  Harbours of Refuge

  11,000

  Portland Harbour

  1,000

  Metropolitan Fire Brigade

  1,500

  Rates on Government Property

  5,000

  Wellington Monument

  500

  Palmerston Monument

  200

  Ireland:—

  Public Buildings

  25,000

  Ulster Canal

  500

  Abroad:—

  Lighthouses Abroad

  5,000

  Embassy Houses: Paris and Madrid

  600

  Embassy Houses and Consular Buildings: Constantinople, China, Japan, and Tehran

  15,000

  House resumed.
  Resolution to be reported upon Monday next;
  Committee to sit again upon Monday next.

INCLOSURE OF LANDS BILL— [BILL 31.]
(Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen, Mr. Secretary Bruce.)
INCLOSURE OF LANDS BILL— [BILL 31.]

  THIRD READING.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, it was not his fault that he was obliged to bring on a discussion on this subject at so late an hour. On the previous night an undertaking had been given by the Govern-
  548
  ment that the Bill would not be brought on after eleven o'clock; and why eleven o'clock should be too late on Thursday night and half-past eleven o'clock early enough on Friday night he was at a loss to imagine. This Bill had been hurried through its earlier stages just after the Irish Church debate, when Members were leaving town; and the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department actually attempted to lay down the doctrine the other evening that Inclosure Bills ought to pass as a mere matter of form. He was told at once that any Government which attempted to enforce such a view would contravene the spirit of an Act of Parliament. There was no portion, in fact, of the authority of the House which he would not rather delegate to Commissioners than the power of enclosing land. If a bad law were enacted or an unjust tax imposed, the law could be altered or the tax repealed; but if the labouring poor suffered an injustice by the enclosure of land, the evil continued and the question passed at once and for ever out of the hands of Parliament. Inclosure Bills were based upon an Act, passed in 1845, and the distinguished statesman who was mainly instrumental in passing that measure laid it down again and again that a special object of that Act was to insure to the House the opportunity of fully and adequately discussing year by year the Inclosure Bills that were brought in. In that opinion Mr. Buller was supported by the late Duke of Newcastle, who said, that, without making any accusation against Select Committees, he had come to the conclusion that, in nineteen cases out of twenty, the interests of the poor had been systematically neglected by those Committees, it being absolutely impossible for the poor to appear before them personally or by counsel. The Act of 1845 was based upon the Report of a Select Committee appointed in 1843, of whose recommendations one of the most important was that, in every enclosure where it was possible some land should be retained by way of allotments for the labouring poor, that this land should be let to the poor at a fair agricultural rent, and that the proceeds be handed over to the parochial authorities towards payment of the rates. The Committee justly concluded that if this were carried out a great been would be conferred upon the poor, and a great relief afford-

  549
  ed to the local rates. Since that time 320,000 acres of land have been enclosed; and what has been the result as regards the labouring poor? Why, that their interests have been systematically neglected; the whole amount of land recovered has been 2,000 acres. But this Bill is even worse than its predecessors. Excluding Wisley, as had been done, the Bill proposed to enclose 7,000 acres, and the quantity reserved out of this large tract has been the insignificant, contemptible amount of four acres. The House ought not to pass the Bill until they obtained further information regarding it. He made no accusation against the Inclosure Commissioners, but the reasons given in support of these enclosures in their Report ought to be much more explicit. Of the fourteen enclosures proposed to be sanctioned this year, it was stated in one case as the reason why no land was reserved that it was "too steep," but a little further on, as a reason why it should be enclosed, it was said to be admirably adapted for agricultural purposes. If it was too steep to be cultivated by the spade husbandry of the poor, how was it at the same time fitted for the plough? As to another common, the reason assigned for not preserving any portion was that it was overstocked. What did that mean, except that the demand for common land among the poor was such that they put too many animals to graze upon it? In another case the common was said to be too far off, lying about two miles from the village. But why did not the Commissioners exercise the power of exchange, which they possessed, securing for the poor by this means a slice of land near the village? The Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the condition of Women and Children employed in Agriculture described the state of our labouring rural population as most unsatisfactory, and not so comfortable in many respects as it was four centuries ago. Between 1760 and 1845 no less than 7,000,000 acres of land were enclosed, and the Commissioners stated that in the great majority of instances the interests of the labouring poor had been completely neglected. Had these enclosures been made with proper care for the interests of the people, he believed it would have made the present condition of our labouring population very different from what it was now.
  550
  One great lesson these facts ought to teach the House of Commons, and that was to scrutinize narrowly every fresh proposal for enclosure as it came before them. He based his opinions on the doctrines laid down in 1845 by Sir Robert Peel, who said that the House ought to look after the rights of the labouring poor and their successors. That eminent statesman remarked that, although a man might receive a pound or two by way of compensation for the abolition of his right to turn a horse or a cow on to a common, yet the money would be spent in a few weeks, and nothing would be left for the poor man's successors. He (Mr. Fawcett) was determined that in future these Inclosure Bills should not pass unchallenged. This was a matter which did not affect the agricultural labourers only, for the Commissioners themselves said that, with regard to allotments, the working men in large towns were, perhaps, even more deeply interested than the labourers in country districts. Allotments placed within the roach of the artizan many luxuries and comforts, besides giving him healthy recreation, which would benefit him physically and morally. The agricultural labourers had no direct representatives in that House—he wished they had—but that was the very reason why their interests should be earnestly and closely watched over. He was most anxious that those agricultural labourers who possessed rights in the soil should no longer have those rights ignored and neglected without a protest being made in the House of Commons, and he therefore moved that the Bill be re-committed.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the words "Bill be" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "re-committed, in order that from the proposed Inclosures some land may be reserved as allotments for the labouring poor, in accordance with the provision of the Act 8 and 9 Vic, c. 118, sections 30 to 34,"—(Mr. Fawcett,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be loft out stand part of the Question."
  MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSENwould readily admit that the object of the hon. Member for Brighton was most excellent, but thought the hon. Gentleman had promoted it in such a manner, and at such a time, that the result would

  551
  be detrimental to the very object he had in view. The question that had been raised was a very large one—namely, whether the poor had been sufficiently well treated under the provisions of the Acts of Parliament relating to enclosures. His hon. Friend had truly stated that in the debates of 1845, when the present General Inclosure Act was brought in, Gentlemen of eminence and ability asserted that the interests of the poor had been neglected. But it was for that very reason that, in the interest of the poor, the Bill of 1845 was introduced. Prior to that time all enclosures which were effected by Acts of Parliament were effected by means of Private Bills. But it was impossible for the poor to be at the expense of appearing before Private Bill Committees of the House of Commons, and they were therefore placed at great disadvantage. The object of the Act of 1845 was to remedy this evil and to provide a cheap and local inquiry which should precede the enclosure of common lands. He (Mr. Knatchbull Hugessen) would beg the House, and those Members especially who had not made themselves acquainted with the existing system, to consider for a moment what that system really was. The Commissioners could initiate nothing until application had been made to them by persons interested to the amount of one-third in value of the lands proposed to be enclosed. They then sent down an Assistant Commissioner, who, after due notice, summoned a meeting to hear any objections to the proposed enclosure, and after full and careful enquiry, made his report. If that report was in favour of enclosure, the Commissioners made a provisional order, of which again full notice was given—another meeting was held to obtain the consent of those interested, and nothing could be done unless the consent was obtained of those interested in two-thirds of the value of the lands proposed to be dealt with. Then, after ample opportunities had been given for objections to be raised, a Bill was introduced into that House to confirm the previous acts of the Commissioners, and when that confirmation was given, the matter went on. But now, after all these preliminary acts had been done without any objection, the hon. Member for Brighton wished to step in and refuse to allow these enclosures to proceed, on the ground that the
  552
  poor had not had awarded to them sufficient allotments. But there had been no complaint whatever of this kind with regard to any of the commons with which this Bill proposed to deal. If the hon. Member had brought forward any specific charge relating to the case of any one particular common, he (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) on being satisfied that there were any fair grounds for such charge, would have acted as he had done in the case of Wisley Common, and would have withdrawn that case and referred it to a Select Committee. But there being only a general idea of wrong to the poor expressed by the hon. Member for Brighton, it was hardly desirable that he should enforce his views by obstructing the third reading of the present Bill. Those who wished for an alteration of the law would do better to propose that alteration in a definite manner, or move for a Select Committee to consider the whole question of enclosures. Now, it was a great mistake to suppose that the Commissioners did not entertain and fully consider the question of allotments to the labouring poor. They did so in every case to which the allotment clauses of the Act were applicable, and they exercised the discretion which was left to them by the Act. It might be doubted whether that discretion should be so left to them; but if the House took a contrary view, and wished that, in every case, without reference to local circumstances, a certain quantity of land should be set out as allotments, let them make that alteration in the law, and the Commissioners would doubtless be ready to carry it out. Now, with regard to what had been already done, he (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) had made careful enquiry, and indeed, long before the Notice of the hon. Member for Brighton, the attention of the Home Office had been called to this matter by the Report of the Commission appointed to inquire into the condition of Women and Children employed in Agriculture. The Inclosure Commissioners had lately obtained answers from 105 localities in which they had made these allotments, with the following results. In seventy cases the allotments made by the discretion of the Commissioners were reported to be perfectly ample and sufficient, in ten cases they were insufficient—that is to say, that more land could have been let, had

  553
  more been allotted; in seventeen cases they were reported as being more than sufficient and found not to be used. In the remaining eight cases the answers were not explicit. Now he had inquired into the enclosures proposed by the present Bill and was assured that the Commissioners had carefully considered each case. It must be remembered that ', the circumstances of enclosures varied greatly; and it was a mistake to suppose that it was a wise and salutary thing to make these allotments everywhere without due inquiry and consideration. In certain parts of the country they might be most desirable, whilst in others they were of very doubtful advantage. For example—was a rule to be laid down that on a bare mountain side, where no labouring poor existed within several miles, allotments should nevertheless be set out for the labouring poor? But the truth was that there was another principle held by some hon. Gentlemen, upon which he would offer no opinion of his own at that moment—namely, the principle of providing allotments for a; prospective population. The Commissioners assigned as the reason why they had not made allotments in some cases, that every existing cottage had a sufficient garden. The House might alter the law, if it pleased, by directing that in all cases an allotment should be set out for every cottage in the parish or district, or a certain portion of land reserved for a prospective population; but then, let such a provision be duly set forth in an Act of Parliament, and do not blame the Commissioners for having exercised, to the best of their ability, the discretion hitherto entrusted to them by Parliament. So far as he (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) could gather he believed they had acted fairly and impartially, and with a due regard to the interest of the commoners. The hon. Member appeared to wish to deal with the question from a broad and national point of view; let him then move for a Select Committee, or bring in a Bill upon the subject, and it should receive the fairest consideration. The desire of the Government was to give every attention to the interests of the poor who were not there to speak for themselves. His right hon. Friend at the head of the Home Department had long been, and still was, as anxious as any man that the interests of the poor should be
  554
  well considered in all these cases of enclosure and, for himself, he fully shared in that anxiety. The House, however, must not forget that there were other points to consider. It was easy to rise in that House and assume a popular position as the especial champion of the poor, but there were rights of property which must also be considered. Although no lawyer, he believed his law would not be disputed, when he stated that the legal right to these common lands was vested in the Lord of the Manor, and in those persons, rich or poor, having certain common rights which were of a varied character. All these persons were invariably considered, and their claims fully dealt with in the case of an enclosure. The rights of the public were really of an indefinite character—such as right of way—and did not exist to the extent which some persons imagined. Of course it was desirable to preserve open spaces near large towns; no one was a stronger advocate than himself of such preservation, and Parliament could, if it pleased, pass a general enactment that no such spaces should be enclosed within a certain distance of the metropolis and other large towns. This, however, was not the present question. Wisley having been removed from the Schedule, none of the commons dealt with in the present Bill were near to large towns, and it was hardly right, at the third reading, when no individual complaint had been made in any case, to step in and prevent persons, who had in every respect complied with the Act of Parliament and had incurred expenses in so doing, from proceeding in the ordinary way pointed out by law. Rather let them pass the present Bill and deal afterwards with the general question. In that way they would arrive at a more satisfactory conclusion than by re-committing this Bill, and he therefore hoped that the hon. Member would not press his Amendment.
  MR. T. HUGHES MR. T. HUGHES moved the adjournment of the debate.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he had hoped that some determination would have been arrived at that night upon the Motion of the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett); but he thought after the speech of the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen), the question had assumed an aspect which called for its

  555
  further discussion by the House. The Under Secretary blamed the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) for introducing a question of that nature at the time he had done so; but it appeared to him the hon. Member was perfectly innocent in that respect, as he had only brought forward his Amendment at a stage of the Bill proposed by the Government. The Under Secretary said that if the hon. Member for Brighton would propose some distinct inquiry on the question there would be no objection to that; but that the present Bill should be passed without further discussion. Now, for himself, he confessed he was unable to reconcile the statements made by the Under Secretary. If they were clearly to understand that no complaints whatever had been brought before the Home Office against any enclosure proposed by that Bill, then there might be force in the argument of the Under Secretary; but if any such complaints had been brought before the Home Office, then he thought the Amendment of the hon. Member was justifiable in point, not only of time, but also of substance. His impression was that, at the time the Act of 1845 was passed, it was the intention of Parliament that whenever an enclosure was made there should be a reservation for the purposes both of recreation and allotment. For a time after the passing of the Act such reservations were made; but, of late years, the practice, he believed, had been very much the other way. He thought the hon. Member for Brighton had a primâ facie case for inquiry; but if the Secretary of State for the Home Department would say that no complaints had been made with respect to any one of these enclosures, then the House would have a right to ask the hon. Member to put his case in a more distinct form without reference to the particular matter now before them.
  MR. GOLDNEYsaid, he hoped the hon. Member for Frome (Mr. T. Hughes) would withdraw his Motion. The discussion was entirely on a collateral issue, and the Bill ought to pass.
  MR. BRUCEsaid, with reference to what had fallen from the noble Lord (Lord John Manners), no objection, he believed, had been made, and none could have been made unknown to him, except with respect to Wisley Common, and they had consented to its with-
  556
  drawal from the Bill in order that the enclosures, to which there had been no objection, should go on. This was a matter of mere administration. The Bill had gone through its other stages in the ordinary way, it had passed through Committee, and now stood for third reading; and yet, without any intimation that injustice would be done, or any complaints being heard from the persons affected, they were asked to recommit it, in order to make special investigation and to invite objections. Under these circumstances, it was for the House to say what they would do with the Bill. For his part, he had no objection to the fullest investigation; but he would appeal to the hon. Member whether it was worth while to pursue the discussion on the Bill, and whether it would not be better to raise the question on the general principle.
  MR. LOCKEsaid, that the Secretary of State for the Home Department had stated that no objection had been made to the Bill by the persons affected. But what the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) contended was that the persons who were likely to suffer by it would not be able to make their complaints heard, and that was the strong ground upon which he asked the House to re-consider the question. What were the facts? It was proposed by the Bill that 7,000 acres of land should be enclosed, and, in spite of the provisions of the Inclosure Acts which directed that certain allotments should be made to the labouring poor, out of these 7,000 acres only four acres was left to them. Now he would ask whether that simple fact would not appeal to the House for the postponement of the third reading? The Under Secretary had said that they had better let this Bill pass, and raise the question on some other measure. But they could not imagine that even Inclosure Commissioners would always act in the extraordinary manner in which they seemed to have done on the present occasion. Did the Inclosure Commissioners enjoy that lofty position which had been ascribed to them? The Under Secretary had said that the House of Commons had referred to these Commissioners the power of disposing of these lands. The House of Commons had done no such thing. If it had, why should this Bill come before the House? Now, what had the Home Secretary

  557
  himself already done? He had struck Wisley Common out of the Schedule. But had he done so upon the representation of the poor people? Not at all; but because there appeared to many hon. Members to be what had been sometimes designated "a gross job." The Secretary of State for the Home Department had said that no complaints had been made; but how were these poor people to make their complaints heard at the Home Office? What was the hurry in this matter? Was the right hon. Gentleman afraid that something else would be found out? He hoped that the debate would be adjourned. He submitted that the judgment of the Commissioners ought not to be accepted as conclusive. The Commissioners had sent the Bill to that House; and unless they were to stultify themselves, they would pronounce an opinion upon it.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, it would no doubt have been desirable that the debate should have closed; but, under the circumstances, the Government would offer no opposition to the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Frome (Mr. T. Hughes). But if they were to adjourn the debate, they had better adjourn it at once.
  Debate adjourned till Monday next.

SEA BIRDS PRESERVATION BILL.
(Mr. Sykes, Mr. Clay, Mr. Ward Jackson.)
SEA BIRDS PRESERVATION BILL.

  [BILL 59.] CONSIDERATION.
  Bill, as amended, considered.
  MR. SYKES MR. SYKES moved, after Clause 7, to insert the following clause:—
  "Where any offence under this Act is committed in or upon any waters forming the boundary between any two counties, districts of quarter sessions or petty sessions, such offence may be prosecuted before any justice or justices of the peace in either of such counties or districts."
  Clause added.
  MR. FORDYCE MR. FORDYCE moved that the Bill be re-committed, in order to exclude Scotland from its operation. He would assure the House that, in making the Motion, he was not actuated by any feeling of hostility towards sea birds; but he entertained a strong conviction that the wholesale destruction of these birds, which, according to the promoters of the Bill, was so common in England, had never extended to Scotland, and therefore to extend the provisions of the measure to that part of the United Kingdom
  558
  was wholly unnecessary. It certainly was not a measure which should be unnecessarily extended to any portion of Great Britain—it was, in fact, an extension of the Game Laws, and that with a severity unknown hitherto, at all events, in Scotland. It placed a great variety of birds practically in the game list, and enacted various penalties, ranging from £1 to £2 and upwards, for infringements of the Act. In addition, one of the provisions of the Bill gave power to any person to demand the name and address of anybody else who he might think was attempting to infringe the Act; and if such person refused to give his name and address, and was afterwards convicted, he was liable, in addition to the other penalties, to be mulcted in a penalty of £2, one-half of which went to the informer. Now, this was a provision which was not to be found even in the Game Laws. It was, in fact, a bribe to policemen and gamekeepers to enforce the Act. Another provision of the Bill proposed to extend the jurisdiction of justices of the peace. Now this was directly contrary, not only to the general feeling of the people, but to the wishes of the justices of the peace themselves. And the Bill gave this extension in the most objectionable form, for it empowered the justice to convict on any evidence he might think proper to admit. Even the Game Laws bound the justices to convict on the evidence of "two or more credible witnesses, or other legal evidence." Then after the justice had convicted the offender, the Bill provided no machinery for enforcement of the penalty—in fact, it was quite evident that the Bill had not been drawn by a lawyer—it was of such a nature as to be practically inoperative in ninety-nine cases out of 100, and oppressive in the hundredth. Such being the character of the Bill, he said that it should not be extended to Scotland, without very good reasons being shown. Now, had such reasons been shown to the House? Had it been shown to the House that the number of sea birds in Scotland was on the decrease? It had not; and he believed that evidence to that effect could not be adduced. He believed that hon. Members from Scotland would agree that the number of sea birds remained very much as it was. It certainly had not been asked for, for only one Petition had been presented in its favour, while ten

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  times as many had signed the Petitions against it.
  Motion made, and Question, "That the Bill be re-committed for the purpose of excluding Scotland from its operation,"—(Mr. Fordyce,)—put, and negatived.
  Bill to be read the third time upon Monday next.

BEVERLEY ELECTION.

  MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he rose to move that an Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying for the appointment of a Commission to inquire as to the prevalence of corrupt practices at Beverley during the last Election. Before entering upon the question he desired to supplement a statement he had made respecting the Norwich Election, to the effect that a number of half-sovereigns had been laid out upon a table at the bank. The cashier had denied this, and said he had given the half-sovereigns to the person who applied for them. It would, however, be for the Commissioners to say which of these stories was correct. In the case of the Beverley Election he proposed to confine himself to the Report of the learned Judge, for he agreed with the opinion expressed by the late Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Gathorne Hardy), that the House should act upon the Report of the Judge, who above all other persons was most competent to form an opinion on the case he had tried. Not only had the Judges heard the evidence and. marked the demeanour of the witnesses in the cases which had come before them, but they were eminent public functionaries of great learning, who had devoted their lives to the hearing of evidence and the sifting of testimony. If the House entered upon an inquiry as to whether the decision arrived at was just, it would inevitably lead to interminable and fruitless debates. He would content himself by calling attention to the Report of the learned Judge. If the case of Norwich was a bad one, and if that of Bridgwater was possibly somewhat worse, the case of Beverley was much worse than both put together, for there was more corruption at Beverley than there was at the other two places. He would con-
  560
  fine himself to such parts of the judgment as were material for consideration. The learned Judge reported—
  "That the number of persons who were proved at the said trial to have been guilty of corrupt practices was one hundred and four, and that their names are written in the Schedule hereunto annexed. And, in further pursuance of the said Act, I report that corrupt practices did prevail, and that there is reason upon the evidence before me to believe that they did extensively prevail, at the said Election."
  The learned Judge gave an outline of the leading features of the election; and the three concluding paragraphs of the Report of Mr. Baron Martin were as follow:—
  "I was perfectly satisfied upon the whole of the evidence that more than 800 Parliamentary Electors were bribed, and what several witnesses stated to have been said to them by the persons who bribed them—namely, that the bribes were for the Parliamentary Election as well as the Municipal Election was the truth. The persons who were alleged to have made these statements were all named, and not one of them were called to contradict it. The excuse alleged for this bribery was that the Liberal party were doing the same. It was stated by Mr. Norfolk that his reason for drawing out the money on the Monday was, that he was told the Liberal party were paying twenty-five shillings a vote with money supplied by Messrs. Maxwell and Trollope, who were at that time in the Borough as candidates. I had no means of investigating this matter as it was not in issue in the Petition before me, nor did I think it right of myself to continue the examination of the witnesses called beyond the examination and cross-examination of the learned counsel. The only witnesses called for the Respondents were Mr. Norfolk and Mr. Wreghitt and the Respondents themselves, neither Mr. Lowther or any of the other persons who paid the bribes were called. If it be thought right to have the condition of this Borough with regard to the general prevalence of bribery and corruption thoroughly investigated it can only be done by a Commission issued in pursuance of the 15 & 16 Vict. c. 57."
  The flimsy pretext was made that the corruption practised was intended solely to influence the municipal election, and had nothing to do with the Parliamentary election, but the learned Judge investigated that allegation, and he came to the conclusion that it was a mere pretext, that the bribes that were given at the municipal election were intended to cover the Parliamentary election, and in fact did so, and that the giving of these bribes was the cause of the return of the sitting Members. It appeared to him that the House would hardly take upon itself to say that the Judge was wrong in the conclusion he came to. As to the excuse alleged for the bribery,

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  "that the Liberal party were doing the same," he thought that highly probable, and it only made the case for a Commission all the stronger. Far be it from him to say that all the reported bribery was on one side; and if 800 voters were bribed by one party and more were bribed by the other he should like to know how many were not bribed. The learned Judge intimated as strongly as it would be respectful in him to do that this was a case for a Commission. Having read the evidence, he thought it entirely bore out the Report of the learned Judge.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as followeth:
  "Most Gracious Sovereign,
  "We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal Subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave humbly to represent to Your Majesty, that Sir Samuel Martin, knight, one of the Barons of the Court of Exchequer, and one of the Judges selected for the trial of Election Petitions, pursuant to the Parliamentary Elections Act, 1868, has reported to the House of Commons, that corrupt practices did prevail, and that there is reason, upon the evidence before him, to believe that they did extensively prevail at the last Election for the Borough of Beverley.
  "We therefore humbly pray Your Majesty, that Your Majesty will be graciously pleased to cause inquiry to be made pursuant to the Provisions of the Act of Parliament passed in the sixteenth year of the reign of Your Majesty, intituled, 'An Act to provide for more effectual inquiry into the existence of Corrupt Practices at Elections for Members to serve in Parliament,' by the appointment of Michael O'Brien, esquire, Serjeant at Law, Thomas Irwin Barstow, esquire, Barrister at Law, and Homersham Cox, esquire, Barrister at Law, as Commissioners for the purpose of making inquiry into the existence of such corrupt practices."—(Mr. Attorney General.)
  SIR LAWRENCE PALKsaid, he quite admitted that, under ordinary circumstances, a recommendation such as the learned Judge had made in this case ought to be accepted indisputably by the House. So long as the trial of election petitions was delegated to the Judges, the representations of a Judge ought undoubtedly to be submitted to and supported. But in this case there were special and exceptional circumstances which the House ought to consider. The learned Judge reported that "no corrupt practice was proved to have been committed by or with the knowledge or consent of any of the candidates," and, therefore, the candidates—Whig or Tory—were not implicated in the corrupt
  562
  practices. In one paragraph the learned Judge said—
  "It appeared that Sir Henry Edwards first came to Beverley as a candidate in the year 1857, upon the invitation of a Mr. Wreghitt, a draper in the town, on behalf of himself and others. Sir Henry Edwards was then elected. Shortly after that time Sir Henry became the chairman of a Company carrying on its business in the Borough, called the Beverley Waggon Company, Limited. Of this Company a Mr. Norfolk here-inafter mentioned was manager, and a Mr. Usher the secretary. From and after the year 1857, and continually until the present time, Mr. Wreghitt has been and is the confidential agent of Sir Henry Edwards for the purposes and management of his Parliamentary interest in the Borough, and during this period, and from time to time, he remitted to Mr. Wreghitt sums of money to be expended by him in support of it."
  If it had appeared to the Judge that the money was to have been used for the benefit of Sir Henry Edwards, one would have expected he would have inquired how it was expended. What did he say in the next paragraph?—
  "It appeared that no detailed account of the expenditure of this money was ever given to or asked for by Sir Henry Edwards, and although both he and Mr. Wreghitt were witnesses at the trial, neither of them were examined as to what amount of money was so remitted and received, or how it was expended, beyond some general questions, which were answered by a statement that money was paid for charitable purposes, and for a subscription to an agricultural association."
  What struck him on reading that paragraph was that the Judge did not consider it necessary to ask for any specific statement of the sums expended, he believing that they had nothing to do with bribery, but that they were for the usual purposes and for subscriptions to charitable objects. So far as this went, he could not see that it brought home a charge of corruption to Mr. Wreghitt, Sir Henry Edwards, or any of the candidates. He admitted at once that there was considerable bribery by Mr. Wreghitt for municipal purposes; and having admitted that he came to this point. The Judge said—
  "Sir Henry Edwards and Captain Kennard came to Beverley the following day, the 3rd November, and there was no evidence that from that day any bribery took place, and Sir Henry Edwards stated that until the trial he never was told or heard of the bribery and corruption which had taken place at the Municipal Election, as it was proved that Mr. Lowther and others who were directly engaged in this bribing canvassed with him during the ensuing fortnight, it is obvious that the Municipal bribery of the 2nd of November, which must have been notorious in the Borough, was of purpose and design concealed and kept back from him."

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  Therefore, at that time neither of the candidates was cognizant of any bribery or of any intention to bribe, as far as they were concerned. He now came to the paragraph quoted by the learned Attorney General, in which the Judge said 800 Parliamentary electors were bribed, but there was no evidence to show that that bribery was for Parliamentary election purposes. The voters were, no doubt, bribed for municipal purposes. The hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) must be aware that most municipal elections throughout this country were carried by the aid of the grossest bribery and corruption, and he did not believe that even Brighton itself was an exception. He was perfectly willing to acknowledge that great corruption had prevailed at the municipal elections; but not only had no bribery or corruption been traced to Sir Henry Edwards or his agents, but no corruption had been proved to have occurred in connection with the Parliamentary election. He did not, therefore, see that they were justified in visiting Beverley with so severe a punishment, and although he, for one, regarded the new mode of conducting election inquiries as perfectly successful, and believed the decisions generally to be very satisfactory, he thought that the House might fairly make an exception in this particular instance.
  MR. BREWERsaid, he was at a loss to understand how any Member could have read the evidence and the Report in relation to the late election at Beverley, and not have come to the conclusion that there had been for the last eleven years in the borough an organized system of bribery, carried on, too, at the instigation of the gentleman who desired to represent the borough in Parliament.
  COLONEL STUART KNOXsaid, he did not desire to cast any imputation on the learned Judge who had tried this petition, but would leave him to the verdict of the country. He believed that, in this instance, the Members for Beverley were made to suffer for faults which were not their own. He could not see what difference there was between the cases of Bradford and Beverley; and yet in these two cases the same Judge gave different decisions. At Bradford, when evidence was being adduced to show that there had been a good deal of drinking in the borough,
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  Mr. Baron Martin observed to Mr. Serjeant Ballantine—"It seems to me that this arises out of your cross-examination. It may be that this beer-drinking may be municipal beer-drinking and not borough beer-drinking." He should be glad to learn why municipal beer-drinking should in Bradford be regarded as harmless, while in Beverley it was to be visited with these penal consequences. He thought, too, that under the present circumstances, with a Committee which had been appointed on the Motion of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and which was now sitting upstairs, it would not be fair to accede to the Motion of the Attorney General, and to throw upon Beverley the heavy expenses which would necessarily attend such an inquiry as that now proposed. He would therefore move—
  "That the issue of a Commission be deferred until an opportunity be afforded for an inquiry by the Select Committee on Parliamentary and Municipal Elections now sitting."
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONE, in seconding the Amendment, said, that in a certain sense the system under which the House had abandoned its jurisdiction with regard to election petitions was as much on its trial as the particular case now under consideration. He thought the discrepancies in the decisions of the Judges were a serious matter, and he was not sure they might not lead to a resumption by the House of its privilege of trying election petitions. At all events, he thought that during the present Session the House ought to deal generously and gently even with per cant constituencies. At the end of the Session the decisions in all the cases might be laid before the Judges, with the view of seeing whether a fixed code of laws relative to election cases might not be laid down.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the issue of a Commission be deferred until an opportunity be afforded for an inquiry by the Select Committee on Parliamentary and Municipal Elections now sitting."—(Colonel Stuart Knox.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, as a reference had been made to Bradford, they might as well put an end to inquiries by the Judges if, on occasions like the pre-

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  sent, evidence given in another case was quoted and relied on, although the Judge himself had decided that it was not worthy of consideration.
  MR. VANCEsaid, that if elections were to be voided, as in this case, although there was no proof of corrupt practices by the Member or his agents, no candidate would be safe, because he might be unseated for bribery committed by his enemies.
  MR. BRUCEsaid, this case was even a stronger one for a Royal Commission than if merely the candidate or his agent was proved to have committed bribery; because, where an election was voided for bribery by an individual, there might perhaps have been only one case of that corrupt practice, while the case alleged against the borough of Beverley was that there had been wholesale bribery. As many as 800 persons were proved to have been bribed, and there was reason to believe that that was not the whole number of the bribed. Why, then, should not the inquiry be made? Simply on the flimsy pretext put forward, that the bribery was not practised at the Parliamentary, but at the municipal election? But they knew that the former followed almost immediately the latter election, and that the sums of money given to the voters at the municipal contest were far in excess of what was ordinarily given.
  SIR FREDERICK W. HEYGATEsaid, that, while he thought the decisions of the Judges should be respected, it appeared to him that the House were going beyond the lengths to which they went under the old system. A Royal Commission did not, as a matter of course, follow a strong Report of a Committee. The question whether such a Commission should issue was debated. He must also remark that he thought the observations made by the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Brewer), to the effect that corrupt practices had existed for years in Beverley, was an unfair one to Sir Henry Edwards, whose absence from that House many hon. Members regretted. At the same time, he would recommend his hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Stuart Knox) not to press his Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Address to be communicated to the Lords, and their concurrence desired thereto.

IRELAND—SLIGO ELECTION.

  MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS.
  THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN)THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN) moved for a Royal Commission in the case of the borough of Sligo. Mr. Justice Keogh had reported that corrupt practices extensively prevailed at the last election for that borough. The learned Judge had also reported that intimidation had likewise prevailed at the Sligo Election, though not on the same side as the corrupt practices; but it would not be competent for him, under the Act of Parliament, to make the intimidation a subject of reference to the Royal Commissioners.
  Resolved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as followeth:
  Most Gracious Sovereign,
  We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal Subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave humbly to represent to Your Majesty, that the Right honourable William Keogh, one of the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas in Ireland, and one of the Judges selected for the trial of Election Petitions in Ireland, pursuant to the Parliamentary Elections Act, 1868, has reported to the House of Commons, that corrupt practices have extensively prevailed at the last Election for the Borough of Sligo,
  We therefore humbly pray Tour Majesty, that Your Majesty will be graciously pleased to cause inquiry to be made pursuant to the Provisions of the Act of Parliament passed in the sixteenth year of the reign of Your Majesty, intituled, "An Act to provide for more effectual inquiry into the existence of Corrupt Practices at Elections for Members to serve in Parliament," by the appointment of Denis Caulfield Heron, LL.D., one of Her Majesty's Counsel, John Alexander Byrne, esquire, Barrister at Law, and William R. Bruce, esquire. Barrister at Law, as Commissioners for the purpose of making inquiry into the existence of such corrupt practices.
  Address to be communicated to The Lords, and their concurrence desired thereto.—(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)

  WAYS AND MEANS.
  Resolutions reported;
  (1.) "That, towards raising the Supply granted to Her Majesty, the Duty of Customs now charged on Tea shall continue to be levied and charged on and after the 1st day of August 1869 until the 1st day of August 1870, on the importation thereof into Great Britain and Ireland: viz.

  s.

  d.

  Tea

  the 1b.

  0

  6."

  (2.) "That it is expedient to amend the Laws relating to the Inland Revenue."
  Resolutions agreed to;—Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. DODSON, Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, and Mr. AYRTON.

  CAPITAL PUNISHMENT ABOLITION BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. GILPIN, Bill to abolish Capital Punishment, ordered to be brought in by Mr. GILPIN, Mr. HADFIELD, Mr. M'LAREN, and Sir JOHN GRAY.

  TRADES UNIONS, &C. BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. THOMAS HUGHES, Bill for amending the Law relating to Combinations and Trades Unions, ordered to be brought in by Mr. THOMAS HUGHES and Mr. MUNDELLA.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 68.]

  POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANKS BILL.
  On Motion of The Marquess of HARTINGTON, Bill to amend the Law relating to Post Office Savings Banks, ordered to be brought in by The Marquess of HARTINGTON, Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, and Mr. STANSFELD.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 69.]

  GOVERNMENT ANNUITIES, &C. BILL.
  On Motion of The Marquess of HARTINGTON, Bill to amend the Acts relating to the purchase of small Government Annuities, and assuring payments of money on Death, ordered to be brought in by The Marquess of HARTINGTON, Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, and Mr. STANSFELD.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 70.]
  House adjourned at a quarter before Two o'clock, till Monday next.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Colonial Offenders Removal * (46); Life Peerages (49); Representative Peers for Scotland and Ireland (50).
Report—Governor General of India* (42); East India Irrigation and Canal Company * (31).
Third Reading—Lord Napier's Salary* (37); Mutiny *; Marine Mutiny * and passed.

IRELAND—SALES OF TITHE RENT-CHARGE, ADVOWSONS, &c.

  MOTION FOR RETURNS.
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDE THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDE moved that there be laid before the House—
  "1. Return of all sales of impropriate tithe rentcharge in the Landed Estate Court (Ireland) for the last ten years, in a tabular form, distinguishing the title of the proceeding in which each sale was had, the date of such sale, the annual amount, and the amount of the purchase money respectively of such tithe rent-charge, and stating the parish and county within which the same is payable:
  "2. Return of all sales in the Landed Estate Court (Ireland) of advowsons for the last ten years, in a tabular form, distinguishing the county in which such advowson is situate, the age of the incumbent at the time of sale, the building charge (if any) on the glebe house, and the amount of the purchase money of such advowson:

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  "3. A copy of the particulars of the estimate of the amount of private endowments belonging to the Established Church in Ireland upon which the calculations of Her Majesty's Government respecting same have been formed:
  "4. Return of the several district lunatic asylums in Ireland, and the amount levied in each county in Ireland during the year 1868 for or in respect of the original expense and the present maintenance of such asylums respectively, including any criminal lunatic asylums supported wholly or partially by local rates:
  "5. Return of the names of the Presbyterian and Non-conforming and other Protestant dissenting churches and chapels in Ireland, the clergymen of which in the year 1868 received aid from the Regium Donum or other contribution from the State, together with the amount paid to each:
  "6. Return of the amount paid in each of the last five years to the Royal College of Maynooth from the Consolidated Fund, distinguishing the amounts paid to professors from those paid to students or for the establishment; also of any expenditure incurred by the Board of Public Works in Ireland for maintenance of the buildings in each year since 1845."
  The noble Marquess said, it was essential that these Returns should be in their Lordships' hands before they were asked to consider, or even understand, the measure which was pending in the House of Commons, and he believed there would be no difficulty in producing them, except, perhaps, with regard to the private endowments belonging to the Established Church. Those endowments were valued by the Government at £500,000, and probably this would turn out to be a very fair estimate. As to the tithe rent-charge, the landowners were asked to redeem it at twenty-two and a quarter years' purchase; but he believed sales of tithe rent-charge ordinarily produced only sixteen or eighteen years' purchase, and it was desirable that the actual market value should be ascertained. It was also very important to both the clergy and the laity to know what provisions there would be for the Church after it was disestablished and disendowed, in order that they might be guided to act according to circumstances. The information for which he asked as to the Regium Donum and Maynooth was requisite in order to judge what should properly be given.
  LORD DUFFERINsaid, there would be no objection on the part of Her Majesty's Government to grant the Returns, with the exception of that containing the particulars of the estimate of the amount of private endowments belonging to the Established Church in Ireland upon which the calculations of Her
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  Majesty's Government had been founded. Respecting that Return there would be great difficulty, and therefore he hoped it would not be pressed for. The Prime Minister, in addressing the House of Commons, had been very careful to state that the calculations of the Government in regard to private endowments were founded in many instances upon conjectural information. In the other Returns which the noble Marquess asked for accurate information could be obtained, and therefore the Government were willing to grant them; but, with regard to the Return relating to lunatics, he must request the noble Marquess to substitute the year 1867, the Government not having yet received the information for the year 1868.
  Motion agreed to, except as to No. 3, with the substitution of 1867 for 1868 in No. 4.

LIFE PEERAGES BILL.

  PRESENTED. FIRST READING.
  EARL RUSSELL: My Lords, on rising to address your Lordships on the important subject of Life Peerages, I think the most convenient course to take will be that I should, in the first instance, refer to the state in which the question was left by the Resolution which was passed by your Lordships in 1856. The Resolution of this House of February, 1856, respecting the title of Lord Wensleydale to sit and vote as a Peer for life, moved by the late Lord Lyndhurst in a speech to which no one could Listen without being charmed, is one which I do not seek to disturb, but I wish to state precisely what that Resolution decided. Your Lordships will remember that Lord Wensleydale had been created a Peer for life, that the patent of creation was submitted to a Committee of Privileges, and that they reported that in their opinion that patent did not entitle him to sit and vote in this House. That, I take it, is the exact extent of the Resolution to which your Lordships agreed. Nobody attempted to question the fitness of Lord Wensleydale to receive a peerage, and nobody positively affirmed that the Crown could not confer a peerage for life. The dictum of Lord Coke that the Crown could, by its Prerogative, create a peerage for life was adduced; and nobody could quote any legal authority for debarring the Crown

  453
  from confering such peerages. The question, however, was raised whether, even supposing that Lord Wensleydale was entitled to all the other privileges of the peerage, he was entitled by that patent to sit and vote in this House, and Lord Lyndhurst contended that your Lordships had an undoubted right to determine whether the patent did so entitle him—because the peerage might, for example, be conferred on an alien, who by the law of the land could not sit and vote in Parliament. In saying so, I think Lord Lyndhurst stated a proposition that was unquestionable. But he went on to maintain that when the law of the land did not interpose any obstacle, your Lordships, by your own will, your own line of policy, could prevent a Peer from taking his seat. This was far more questionable. But Lord Lyndhurst urged, in confirmation of his proposition, that this House, in 1711, refused to admit a Scotch Peer, the Duke of Hamilton, who shortly after the union with Scotland was created Duke of Brandon,; on the ground that the Crown had no power to grant a British dukedom to a Scotch Peer. That decision, as he pointed out, remained unchallenged for seventy years, and it tended to prove that this House had the right to judge whether a patent of peerage enabled the Peer so created by the Crown to sit and vote in this House. It is impossible, I think, to controvert that argument; for though the House decided in 1782 that the Resolution was void in law and overruled it, that did not affect the right of this House to decide whether any particular person was entitled to sit and vote in this House. It is, equally, I conceive, in the power of your Lord-ships, if you should see fit, to reverse the decision of 1856, and to decide that a person created a Peer for life may sit and vote in this House. But until your Lordships do reverse that decision, I hold that it is unquestionably the law of Parliament that a Peer created for life cannot sit and vote. The decision of 1856 has not been since questioned; but in the same year a most unfortunate attempt, as I think, was made to improve the appellate jurisdiction of this House, it being proposed to appoint two Law Lords as Deputy Speakers to assist the Lord Chancellor in hearing appeals, with a salary of £6,000 a year each. That proposition was attempted to be
  454
  carried out by a Bill. The measure was much discussed in the House of Commons, and it was opposed by Sir James Graham, by Mr. Gladstone (the present First Lord of the Treasury), and also by me, and others. It seemed to me open to great objection; and, though it passed the second reading, it was laid aside in the month of July. Lord Palmerston, in the course of that debate, said:—
  "There can be no doubt that the House of Lords would derive great influence and consideration in the country, if there were the means of placing within its limits men who had distinguished themselves, either by their legal attainments or by great military or naval achievements, but who, not having that fortune which would enable them to transmit to their descendants the means adequately to maintain the dignity of the peerage, would be placed in an improper, and, to themselves, a painful, situation, by being made hereditary Peers."—[3 Hansard, cxliii. 609.]
  Now, the Government of the day had not gone to the extent which Lord Palmerston shadowed forth of proposing to create peerages for men of great military or naval achievements, as well as for men of high legal attainments. Had they done so, I think their proceedings would have met with more favour in the House of Commons. Let me now call your Lordships' attention to the reasons given by Lord Lyndhurst on which the Resolution of 1856 was founded. I had the pleasure of listening to him at the time, and I remember that Lord Lyndhurst took his stand on what he justly called the constitutional principle of jealousy of the Crown, and on the fear that the power of creating Peers for life might be abused. A life peerage had been granted to Lord Wensleydale without any proposal or suggestion that the power should be limited, and it might thereforebe urged that this House might be crowded with life Peers created with the view of obtaining a majority for the Ministry of the day. That fear, I think, was an exaggerated one, and the jealousy of the Crown, though a constitutional principle, was carried to too great a length. In reviewing the question, I wish, however, to steer clear of these objections that a great number of life Peers may be created, and that the independence of this House might be diminished or destroyed. I remember that Lord Lansdowne, in a conversation with me at the time, said the question of life peerages was one very fit to be entertained, but he thought that the number ought to be

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  limited, and he had heard it suggested that there might be certain categories or classes to which the power of the Crown to create life peerages, as far as it gave a right to sit and vote in Parliament, should be confined. That certainly appears worthy of consideration, and I should wish carefully to avoid giving any power which would enable Ministers of the Crown to place an indefinite number of life Peers in this House. What I propose, therefore, is that the number of life Peers should not, at any one time, exceed twenty-eight, which is about the number of the Irish representative Peers and also of the English Bishops, who are Peers for life. Then, to avoid a creation to that extent in a single year, I propose that there should be a limitation that not more than four should be created in any one year. It would thus be, at least, seven years before the total number of these life Peers would be created; and, considering the changes which occur in the state of parties and Ministries, it is not likely that a single Administration would have the power of creating the whole number. It may be asked however, why have life Peers at all? Why not go on with the power of making hereditary Peers, which had existed for so long a period and has been so freely exercised? My reply to that is that in the course of time circumstances have very much changed, and that the Prerogative of the Crown does not and cannot act so beneficially as in former times. We know that in former times there were vast domains in the hands of the Crown, portions of which might be conferred on men who had distinguished themselves in the service of the State. Such men having perhaps entered on life with very small means, by receiving the bounty of the Crown, were enabled to maintain the dignity of the peerage. There are other instances of the same kind. It was not difficult in former times for persons who held the office of Chief Justice of the King's Bench, or other high judicial offices, to bestow very valuable appointments on their sons and near relations, and thus, as it were, to furnish dotations to the peerages which were created. Now those domains of the Crown are no longer bestowed on persons serving the Crown, and reforms have been made with regard to the patronage of the Chief Justices, the abolition of sinecures, and the suppression
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  of the very valuable offices which were formerly attached to courts of law. I hold in my hand some extracts from a letter which was quoted by my noble Friend the present Secretary of the Colonies in the course of a very able speech which he made in 1856. It was addressed by Lord Eldon to a friend of his, and it contains at considerable length Lord Eldon's opinion as to the acceptance of a peerage. He was, at the time, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and his words are these—
  "When I came to the Common Pleas I had made some fortune in a successful practice at the bar and in the great law offices which I held nearly twelve years. Mr. Pitt was unwilling to give me an office which would take me out of Parliament. I could not be in it unless in the House of Lords, and I can assure you I have often thought that if I had survived the acceptance of the peerage but a short time I had accepted what would have been a nuisance to my family and no benefit to the public. Of our dear friend Lord A."—I suppose Lord Alvanley—"can anybody now say that it was a wise measure on his part to accept a peerage?"—[3 Hansard, cxl. 291.]
  Lord Eldon goes on to narrate the circumstances connected with Lord Chief Justice Abbott, afterwards Lord Tenterden. Lord Tenterden never had much practice at the bar, he never had a silkgown, and never held any of the great Law Offices of the Crown; his health was tender, his eyesight was not in a very safe state, and had he been told he must accept a peerage Lord Eldon thinks he would have refused the Chief Justiceship. The services, therefore, of that eminent Judge might have been lost to the country on account of his inability on pecuniary grounds to accept an hereditary peerage. My general proposition is, as I have stated, that there shall only be twenty-eight life Peers. I now proceed to the various classes from which I propose that these twenty-eight Peers should be taken. I propose, in the first place, that Scotch or Irish Peers may be selected for peerages for life. My noble Friend on the cross-Benches (Earl Grey) is about to bring forward a proposal with respect to the election of Scotch and Irish Peers to seats in this House, and I am very glad he has undertaken that task; but I think, nevertheless, the Crown should have the power of selecting some of those Peers for life peerages. The rule, I have understood, used to be that the recommendation of the Government of the day was always taken in

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  the election of those Peers; but if that was ever the case it has not been so of late years, and this year the people of Scotland have elected representatives to the other House in the proportion of fifty-two on one side to eight on the other; while the Scotch Peers have elected their representative Peers in the proportion of fifteen to one the other way. The predominance among the people has been one way, and the predominance among the Peers the other way. Now, this shows a very anomalous state of things. I remember, moreover, a Scotch Peer, who, I think, was one of the cleverest, one of the wittiest, and one of the readiest men I ever knew. He sat for a short time in the House of Commons; but, becoming a Scotch Peer, he was excluded from Parliament all the rest of his life. That is not a good state of things, and a remedy can be provided by the power I propose. The next class consists of persons who have sat for upwards of ten years in the House of Commons. Now. a great change has occurred with regard to that House. Formerly a Gentleman accepting a seat for a small borough attended to his duties in Parliament or not as his leisure permitted him, and he might retain his seat for many years without taking any active part in affairs. Now-a-days, however, a Member is obliged, by the call of his constituents, to attend constantly and to take part in all important divisions. It is not extraordinary, therefore, to find excellent Members of Parliament, men whose conduct is approved by all parties, most respected for their attainments and their conscientiousness, retiring from the House of Commons at an early period of life, because they feel their health and spirits unequal to the fatigue of regular attendance. I think, therefore, that the Crown might elect some of the life Peers from Gentlemen who have been for ten years Members of the House of Commons. Supposing a young man to enter the House of Commons at the age of twenty-one, he would at the age of thirty-one be qualified to accept a life peerage. The next class which I propose consists of officers of the army and navy eminent for distinguished services. I do not lay down any particular qualification, because very frequently there are men whose services to the country have been very valuable, who have been, per-
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  haps, in command of troops in our colonies and have served for many years, and yet, not having had an opportunity of commanding in chief, have not been remarked for those distinguished services which enable the Crown to say—"Here is a man to whom a peerage should be granted, together with an annuity of £2,000 a year for two or three lives." I remember a very distinguished man to whom I thought the country owed the safety of one of its colonies, and who had performed distinguished services to the Crown. I informed him that it was Her Majesty's pleasure that a peerage should be conferred on him; but I saw that he doubted whether he could take it. He was about, as I thought, to refuse it, when I told him further that the Crown would send down a Message to Parliament to propose a grant of £2,000 a year for three lives; and he thereupon accepted the peerage. Now, it would have been a great misfortune if so eminent a man bad been unable from the scantiness of his fortune to accept so deserved an honour. The pensions of £2,000 for three lives have been much less frequently granted of late years, and it would, therefore, be a great advantage to have life peerages conferred on eminent men of this class. It is easy, indeed, to say with regard to these men, and some of the other classes I am about to name, that they may enter the House of Commons. When, however, a man has spent many years of his life in the East or West Indies, or has been engaged in a laborious profession such as the law, and has got to be fifty years old, he hesitates to undertake a laborious course of service for the people in the House of Commons, and though he would be willing to accept a life peerage and take part in your Lordships' deliberations, he probably prefers retiring into private life and being unknown for the rest of his days to attempting the labours of the House of Commons which a body of constituents might feel inclined to exact from him, even if he could find a county or borough ready to accept his services. The next class I propose is that of persons who preside, or shall have presided, in any of the superior Courts of Law or Equity in England, Scotland, and Ireland, persons who have for a period of two years held the office of Puisne Judge in any of those courts and have retired from office,

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  or persons who have held the office of Attorney General in England or Ireland, of Queen's Advocate, or Lord Advocate in Scotland, and have ceased to hold it. Such men, again, would be well qualified to sit in this House; they would bring here great powers of debate, as well as great experience as regards the appellate jurisdiction of this House. A noble and learned Lord (Lord Colonsay) who had held high judicial offices in Scotland was created an hereditary Peer a year or two ago, and no doubt you may now and then find a person ready to accept an hereditary peerage who has sat in one of the superior Courts of Common Law in Scotland, but such cases cannot be frequent, and since noble and learned Lords well qualified as regards other departments of the law are sometimes ignorant of the Scotch Law, it would clearly be of great advantage when Scotch appeals come on to have persons thoroughly acquainted not only with the general law of Scotland, but with the existing practice of the law, to assist your Lordships in deciding such cases. The next class of men are distinguished for their attainments in science, literature, or art. I remember in the history of the Revolution that Sir Isaac Newton was elected a Member of the House of Commons, which it appears to me was made more illustrious by having such a man one of its Members; but in 1690 there was a change of politics in the Universities, and he ceased to be a Member. Now it would strengthen the influence and character of this House if such illustrious men as Newton or Locke had seats among us. I now come to the last class—namely, persons who have been in the service of the Crown for not less than five years, and who, whether they have served in India, or the Colonies, or at home, have distinguished themselves by their talents and services, but who have no large fortune enabling them to go into a contest for a seat in the House of Commons, and who have no disposition to take part in party politics, but whose services to the Crown entitle them to some mark of special favour. I have now gone through the different classes of persons on whom I think life peerages might be conferred. This House would gain strength from having such Members, and I think it cannot be denied that the means which formerly existed of
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  granting considerable fortunes to men of eminence who obtained a peerage from the domains of the Crown and from sinecures have ceased to exist. Some measure of the kind is, therefore, required, and by the plan I propose there would be no change in the constitution of this House. I believe there were at the beginning of the Session, including Bishops, 467 persons entitled to sit and vote in this House. Of these about seventy are Peers for life; and, supposing the numbers of the House increased by the course I propose, the proportion of life Peers would be only one-fifth, so that no alteration would be made in the general constitution of your Lordships' House. I do not think it desirable that such an alteration should be made, for I believe that the hereditary peerage is an institution which has the respect of the country. There is a respect in all countries attendant upon hereditary descent, and in no country is that respect more deep and general than in the United Kingdom. There are, however, some considerations which cannot fail to occur to your Lordships. It has been said by the most profound historian of antiquity that a Government composed of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy could hardly exist, or that if it should exist it would not be durable. Notwithstanding, however, so high an authority, we have now experienced during 180 years the harmonious operation of a Constitution so composed—a Constitution in which monarchy and aristocracy are as necessary parts as democracy, and in which democracy is a not less necessary part than monarchy and aristocracy. To what do we owe the benefit and harmonious working of a Constitution, thought by so great an historian to be impossible? We owe it, I think, to the general temper and forbearance by which that part of the Constitution which was at the time the weakest has not entered into collision with the other parts, and thus harmony has been maintained. Now, it was obvious at the commencement of the last century that the House of Commons was acquiring great power, and that that power would enable it to become superior to the other branches of the Constitution. When Sir Robert Walpole was taunted with the charge of ambition, "Can I be accused of ambition," he retorted, "I who have refused the White

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  Staff with an earldom?"—meaning that he might have been Lord High Treasurer and an Earl. But while disclaiming ambition, Sir Robert Walpole had the sagacity to perceive that the seat of power was then changing, and that as First Commissioner of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Commons he would be more powerful than if he gained a seat in the House of Lords. It is true that afterwards, at the moment of being driven from power, he accepted a peerage. But meeting his rival, the Earl of Bath, in this House, he said to him—"You and I, my Lord, are now two of the most insignificant fellows in the kingdom." Has the power of the House of Commons decreased since that time? On the contrary, the power of the House of Commons has greatly increased and especially as a consequence of the measure which the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby) and I concurred in passing in 1832, and of the measures which the noble Earl passed in 1867 and 1868; the reason being that the constitution of that House was placed on a larger and a wider foundation. A gentleman who possesses a great knowledge of statistics has said that the members of the Liberal party had a majority of no more than 4,000,000. Well, a majority of 4,000,000 is no trifling majority, and it ought to be treated with the utmost deference and respect. I hope that the same hereditary constitution of your Lordships' House which now exists will continue to exist, that it will continue to be generally respected, and that the moderation and forbearance which the different parts of the Constitution—namely, the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the democracy—have shown towards one another hitherto will continue to exist. I am convinced that if the Bill which I shall have the honour of laying upon the table be adopted it will strengthen this House and not weaken it, that the hereditary principle will still be the main foundation of the House, and that the various parts of the House will act in unison and will tend to the consolidation of the Constitution.
  Bill enabling Peers created for life under certain limitations and restrictions to sit and vote in the House of Lords presented.—(The Earl Russell.)
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I cannot allow the speech of the noble Earl (Earl Russell) to pass
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  without some remarks from this side of the House, although I am aware that it is not consistent with the ordinary practice of your Lordships to enter into a debate on the principle on the first reading of a Bill. I only desire to thank the noble Earl for the speech which he has made, and for the Bill which he has laid on the table, believing, as I do, that the proposal he has brought forward is founded on a sound principle, and that if, in any way, it requires alteration, the alteration ought to be rather in the way of extension than of restriction. At the same time, I need hardly say that I concur most heartily in all the remarks made by the noble Earl with respect to the necessity of maintaining the hereditary character of this House; and if I should wish for any extension of the principle of the Bill of the noble Earl, it would not be an extension of the number of life Peers, whom he is desirous to introduce—for I think he has shown great judgment in the limitation which he has put on the whole number to be created, and also on the number to be created in each year. But, my Lords, if I do not find fault with the principle of the Bill, I would, nevertheless, say that the noble Earl has looked too much to one side of the object of extending the power of conferring peerages to the exclusion of the other. A peerage has a double function. It is a great honour conferred by the Crown, and it is also a membership of a political assembly. Now, in dealing with the peerage and the modes by which it is recruited, it is not only our duty to consider what classes of persons are most worthy to receive the honours which the Crown desires to bestow, but we must consider also how we can best strengthen and make permanent the political assembly in which we sit. Now, some of the categories of the noble Earl did not seem to me to be adapted for strengthening any political assembly. I do not myself see the advantage of introducing into this House persons who are simply distinguished for their position in science, or art, or literature, without any other qualification. No doubt they are persons who are worthy of all honour, and if, among the honours at the disposal of the Crown, there are none fit to be bestowed upon them, it is quite right that such a deficiency should be remedied. But I do not think they are persons who, however great their attain-

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  ments, are as such particularly qualified to be members of a political assembly. They have not been trained, and their minds have not been exercised in politics, nor do they represent the great political classes in this country; and consequently they would not add to the strength of the House of Lords as a political assembly. Something, though not so much, of the same objection applies to limiting the creation of life peerages too exclusively to the two services. In the first place, I doubt whether we want more representatives of the two services in the House. We have already many distinguished officers in the House, and military merit is a kind of merit which so promptly attracts the recognition of the Crown and of the people that all the distinguished soldiers of the day will find their way into the House of Lords in the ordinary manner. At no time in our history—as far as I am aware—has this House suffered from a want of representation of the military element. Therefore, in dealing with the restriction of the number of life peerages, I should be sorry to see any large proportion of them devoted to representation of that kind. This is, of course, a very delicate matter even for the noble Earl, who has had so much experience, to take up, but it is very much more difficult for a young Member like myself; it appears to me, however, that the deficiency which may be recognized in the constitution of the House of Lords has been imprinted on it by the lapse of time, and does not belong to its original constitution. That deficiency consists in this—that we want a larger infusion from those large classes among whom is to be found so much of the wealth and power of the country. We belong too much to one class, and the consequence is that with respect to a large number of questions we are all too much of one mind. Now, that is a fact which appears to me to be injurious to the character of the House as a political assembly in. two ways. The House of Lords, though not an elective, is strictly a representative assembly, and it does, in point of fact, represent very large classes in the country. But if you wish this representation to be effective, you must take care that it is sufficiently wide, and it is undoubtedly true that, for one reason or another, those classes whose wealth and power depend on commerce and mercantile industry do not
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  find their representation in this House so large or so adequate as do those whose wealth and power depend upon the agricultural interest and landed property. We have, indeed, a certain number of mercantile representatives in this House. They are admirable in every way, and I confess that if it were possible to increase their number the House would be a large gainer by the change. And it would be a gainer also in another way. We want, if possible, more representation of diverse views and more antagonism. On certain subjects, it is true, we have antagonism enough—on Church subjects, for instance, and on the interesting question as to who should occupy the Benches opposite. But there are a vast number of social questions deeply interesting to the people of this country, especially questions having reference to the health and moral condition of the people—and on which many Members of your Lordships' House are capable of throwing great light, and yet these subjects are not closely investigated here because the fighting power is wanting and the debates cannot be sustained. Now, if it were possible that the machinery proposed by the noble Earl could be to any extent effective to correct this evil, the advantage to the deliberations of your Lordships' House would be very great indeed; and it was in that sense that I said I should like to see the propositions of the noble Earl carried further. I do not wish to see life Peers more numerous, but I should like to see the choice of them somewhat more unfettered than the noble Earl proposes. I must apologize for having made these remarks; but I only wished to thank the noble Earl for bringing in the Bill, and to express my hearty concurrence with him in believing that it will tend to meet all the large advances of democracy as the third power of the State, as we must meet those advances, by making this House strong in the support of public opinion, strong in its influence with the country, and strong in the character and ability of those who compose it—strong in its relation to the other powers of the Constitution. We must try to impress on the country the fact that, because we are not an elective House, we are not a bit the less a representative House; and not until the constitution of the House plainly reveals that fact shall we be able to retain permanently, in

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  face of the advances of the House of Commons, the ancient privileges and constitution of this House. I feel that the question is an important one, and I am the more anxious to say a few words upon it, because I differ in opinion from those with whom I ordinarily concur. The future of the House of Lords is one of great hope as regards its stability, and the wisdom of your Lordships at this particular crisis of time in dealing with its constitution will decide how far the power of this House shall remain intact, or how far it shall sink before the advancing power of the House of Commons.
  LORD CAIRNS: My Lords, I agree with my noble Friend who has just sat I down that the question which has been brought under your Lordships' consideration to-night is one of the most important which can occupy your Lordships' attention. Upon a question so important I should have expected that Her Majesty's Government would have formed and been able to express some opinion to your Lordships. As, however, no Member of Her Majesty's Government has risen to express any opinion on the subject, I venture, before the conversation closes, to make a very few remarks on what has fallen from the noble Earl (Earl Russell). It would, my Lords, be entirely out of place now to say anything by way of criticism on the details of a measure which we have not yet had an opportunity of considering in the shape of a Bill. But there is one question which I cannot help thinking your Lordships will find it convenient to ask yourselves, and to answer, in considering a measure of this description. And I own I was somewhat disappointed that, following as well as I could the speech of the noble Earl, he did not appear to me to have proposed that question to himself or to have assisted us to a satisfactory reply. That question is—What is the precise object and aim you have in view in proposing a measure of this kind? It seems to me that there are three separate objects which have in a somewhat vague way been referred to by the noble Earl and by my noble Friend who has just sat down (the Marquess of Salisbury); and yet the opinion which I at least should form on a proposal of this nature would be very different according to which of those three objects you
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  select and fix upon as the particular object of the measure. One of those objects would be in order to supply the Crown with the opportunity of affording to those who have distinguished themselves in the military or the naval service of the country—or, I might add. in the diplomatic service—a reward in a form more suitable to their wishes than that which the Crown is able at present to offer them—I mean a peerage limited to their lives rather than an hereditary peerage. That would be out: object. The second object would be this—in order to increase what I may, for brevity, term the judicial strength of your Lordships' House in disposing of the business that comes before them for decision. Those two objects are very simple and very plain. But there is a third object, which was referred to by my noble Friend who has just sat down, and which is of an essentially different character from either of the others. I mean the object of altering the entire composition of this House, and making this House what my noble Friend termed more of a representative body than at present he deems it. Let me say one word with regard to these different objects; and I do so not at all professing that on so short a discussion any definite opinion ought to be formed or expressed at this moment. I agree that there is weight in the argument which says that there are, there have been, and there may be again, persons in this country who have deserved well of the country by their military and naval achievements, and to whom the gift of an hereditary peerage may be an encumbrance rather than advantage; and it may be very fitting that the Crown should be supplied with means—which, after the decision of your Lordships it cannot have, as amply and fully as might be desired—to enable them to take seats and vote in this House. From what was said to-night, and what has been often said before in this House, I cannot help thinking that upon that there would be very considerable agreement among your Lordships. But, on the other hand, I think it must be obvious that, for the purpose of making the peerage a reward of distinguished service, the number of life peerages mentioned by the noble Earl goes beyond what the occasion requires. We are fortunate in this country in having distinguished men who

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  have deserved well of the country; but I do not think it would be unsafe to say that there is no need of the Crown being provided with the means of conferring such rewards to a greater extent than one peerage in a year. Therefore, so far as concerns supplying the Crown with the means of bestowing rewards for distinguished services, every one I suppose would admit that the power of creating ten or twelve peerages to take effect at the rate of about one in each year, would be ample for the purpose in view. As to the second object, that of strengthening the judicial power for the exercise of the appellate jurisdiction of this House, all that I will say is this, that if that be the object of the noble Earl, I venture to think it ought to be dealt with in a very different way from that which he proposes. It should be dealt with upon a full consideration of what the appellate jurisdiction of this House requires, and of the strength which at the present moment it possesses. I believe it will be found that there never was a time when, from various circumstances, this House was in possession of greater strength for the discharge of its appellate functions than it is at the present moment; and I think it would be impossible to consider that question without at the same time considering the changes which will in all probability before long be made with reference to the other appellate courts of this country—the whole of that subject being now under the consideration of a Royal Commission. I pass, then, from these two objects, merely observing that if the ends sought are simply to confer rewards for distinguished services, or even to add to the judicial strength of this House, the number of life Peers proposed by the noble Earl is much greater than is required. But now I come to the third object, the change which my noble Friend (the Marquess of Salisbury) desires to see effected in the composition of this House, in order, as he says, to make it more of a representative assembly than it is at present, and for the purpose of producing that greater opposition, that greater pugnacity, which he wishes to see prevailing in this House, and which he thinks could be accomplished in this way. I beg, my Lords, to say, if that be the object in view, it will be incumbent on those who desire to see it attained to explain how it is
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  that the composition of this House would become more representative in its character by power being given to the Government of the day to name annually for life four additional Members of the House. My noble Friend who wishes to see this object attained himself admitted that it would not be attained by selecting Members merely because they had sat for ten years in the House of Commons, or by selecting them merely because they happened to be Irish or Scotch Peers. The effect would be this—The Government of the day would have the absolute power of naming these persons; and if they had such a power of selecting men whom they supposed to be most eminent in science, literature, or art, or who might have sat for ten years in the other House of Parliament, I ask would there be any security that your Lordships' House would in any way become more of a representative Assembly than it was before? But I venture to take exception altogether to the view which has been expressed on that subject. I say, if you desire to make this House a representative Assembly, you desire to make it different from that which by the Constitution it is and always has been. You must make up your minds to choose between two things—either you must have the House of Lords that which, according to the Constitution of this country, it ever has been, an hereditary assembly—you must have it in the main an hereditary assembly still, with that consequence which, I am happy to say, has always flowed from its constitution—namely, that by additions made to it from time to time it has obtained not a direct, but an indirect, and yet a true representative character, inasmuch as it represents the different phases of opinion which exist throughout the country; or, if you are not satisfied with that, it is not by the paltry measure of adding four life Peers in a year to its numbers that you will give a representative constitution to this House. I trust, therefore, that at a future stage of this measure further discussion will be given to this question—whether we desire to obtain the means of rewarding those whose merits demand or are entitled to reward, or whether the object is to change the constitution of this House and turn it into a representative Assembly through the medium of allowing the Government of the day—in addition to their present

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  power of advising the Crown to create hereditary Peers—to advise the Crown also to appoint four life Peers in a year to sit and vote in this House.
  EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, although I had no intention to rise, I am not sorry to have been called up by the noble and learned Lord to say how much I have been struck—and I cannot help thinking that your Lordships must also have been much struck—by the difference both in substance and in tone between the speeches of the two noble Lords who have followed my noble Friend who opened this discussion. It was impossible for us not to listen with the greatest interest to the speech of the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury), seeing the ground he took up in reference to the Bill of my noble Friend. It was peculiarly gratifying to many who sit on this side of the House and who are deeply committed to the principle of life peerages to hear the assent which the noble Marquess gave to the general principle of the Bill now laid upon the table. But during the whole course of that speech there was entire freedom from any party feeling, his only object appearing to be to consider what was best—and, I may add, best in the most truly Conservative sense—for the honour and the just influence of this House. The speech of the noble and learned Lord (Lord Cairns), however, was in strong contrast to that of the noble Marquess. In the very first sentence of his remarks he complained against Her Majesty's Government for not having at once given an opinion on this Bill at its first reading, when we have not had it before us, and when it is obviously most important that the Government should have time for very carefully considering it before expressing a definite opinion upon it. I may mention—for on doing so I violate no confidence—that I consulted with my noble Friend (Earl Russell) after he had intimated his general intention of bringing in this measure, as to whether he would prefer that it should be done in concert with the Government, or whether he thought it would be better to introduce it in his individual character, and I believe he judged rightly in thinking it would be better for him not to act in concert with the Government in order to avoid giving to this measure any appearance of a party character. My Lords, both of the speeches to which I
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  have referred—so different in tone and in substance—produced in my mind a feeling that, if there be any danger in the proposal of my noble Friend, it arises rather from its being too limited in its operation than otherwise. With regard to the question of numbers, I must say that when it is objected that four life Peers would be too many to be admitted in one year, I think that is just one of those things which must depend upon circumstances. The noble and learned Lord reckons that there is one person in a year on whom such an honour as a life peerage might be conferred. I do not know whether his statistics are correct; but it is quite clear, on the one hand, that there might not for several years be a necessity for bestowing a reward of this kind; while, on the other hand, there might occur several deaths among the Law Lords, or there might in any year be several men of great naval, military, or professional distinction whom your Lordships would think it desirable to have among you, and whom you would regret to see excluded owing to circumstances which rendered them unwilling to accept an herditary peerage. I cannot think it would be right for me on this occasion to go further than to say on the part of the Government that we are in favour of the general principle of life peerages; and I believe there is not one of us who does not deeply regret the vote come to by this House, I think in 1856, when the case of the Wensleydale peerage was before it. I have only further to add that Her Majesty's Government will be prepared to give a careful consideration to this Bill and to express their opinion upon it at a future stage.
  EARL STANHOPEsaid he thought their Lordships would be hardly disposed to agree with the noble Earl who had just sat down (Earl Granville) in his concluding remarks with respect to the course taken by their Lordships upon the question of the Wensleydale peerage. For himself he could say that subsequent experience and reflection had convinced him that their Lordships were most fully justified in the course which they took upon that occasion. He maintained that the proposal which was made in the case of the Wensleydale peerage was altogether different from that which had been submitted that night by the noble Earl (Earl Russell). The principle in-

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  volved in the Wensleydale case was this—that the Crown might have power to create life peerages without limitation of numbers or regard to qualification. He (Earl Stanhope) said then and he repeated now that such a power would be fatal to the honour and independence of their Lordships' House. It would enable the Government of the day, on any question upon which political excitement might arise, to fill the House with nominees, undistinguished by any particular merits, for the purpose of carrying particular measures. But the evil would not stop there; for whenever one Government ceased to hold Office their successors would have a pretext for pursuing a similar course, and filling the House with nominees of an opposite complexion, in order to over-rule the majority that had been previously created, and the consequence must be that the House, instead of the proud and independent position which it now held, would become a mere shuttlecock between contending parties. For this reason he dissented entirely from the concluding remarks of the noble Earl the Secretary for the Colonies. He would further say that for himself he did not repent of the vote which he gave in 1856, and he felt that their Lordships had no reason to repent of the decision to which they had come on that occasion. But in reflecting on the subject, he had certainly arrived at the conclusion that, although the unlimited creation of life peerages would be fatal to the independence and dignity of their Lordships' House, yet, that a limited number of such Peers might be added to their Lordships, whose presence would be an ornament and an advantage. And here again he was not in unison with the noble Earl the Secretary of State for the Colonies, who had objected to the limitation.
  EARL GRANVILLE: I beg the noble Earl's pardon; I did not object to a limit. I merely said that if any objection was to be taken, it was rather with respect to the extent of the proposed limitation than otherwise.
  EARL STANHOPEsaid, he had misunderstood the noble Earl; but had he not argued that there might be so many cases of merit in the military and naval services, and so much need for legal assistance in that House, that in one year many more than four new creations might be required, though in another there might be fewer? What object could there pos-
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  sibly be in urging that point at all if the limitation was approved? But reverting to what he had said—he would repeat that he looked upon limitation as absolutely essential; and he conceived that this limitation must be of two kinds—first, as to the total number of life peerages, and secondly, as to the number that might be created in any one year. In taking that view he held that the number proposed by the noble Earl opposite (Earl Russell) was somewhat larger than there was occasion for. He should have thought that three life peerages in one year ought not to be exceeded. Their Lordships must remember that besides the life Peers, there would be hereditary Peers also; and the numbers not of one class only but of both would have to be considered. Then he took exception to some of the classes to which, as he understood, the noble Earl proposed to extend the privilege of life peerage. What reason, for example, could be alleged for placing Irish and Scotch Peers as one of these classes? All the other classes assumed some sort of merit or service, but there was no merit or service in being an Irish or Scotch Peer. However, this was not the time to discuss the matter fully. They would be in a much better position to do so when they had seen the Bill. There was one point, however, which he desired to notice, and upon which he was at issue with the noble Marquess near him (the Marquess of Salisbury). He could not desire that their Lordships' House should have any thing of a more strictly representative character, and he quite agreed in what had been said by his noble and learned Friend (Lord Cairns) if they were called upon to decide between the general constitution of the House as it existed upon the hereditary principle and the representative character which the noble Marquess desired to give it. On the whole, he thought the noble Earl opposite had brought forward his measure in a most temperate and judicious spirit, with an entire absence of party feeling, and it was in the same spirit he trusted the measure would be entertained by their Lordships. He did not wish to pledge himself to a Bill that he had not seen; but he had no hesitation in saying that he rejoiced that an opportunity would be given to their Lordships to express an opinion on the question of life peerages under circumstances more likely to recommend it than those under

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  which it had been brought forward on former occasions.
  LORD COLCHESTERexpressed his repugnance to any measure for the creation of life peerages which might interfere in any way with the hereditary character of their Lordships' House. He admitted, however, that he saw a great difference between such a measure and the Bill which the noble Earl had proposed for consideration. When the Bill had reached another stage he hoped they would obtain from the noble Earl some clear definition of the claims and kind of merit which were to make persons eligible for the distinction of a life peerage. The Bill was one of great importance, and he hoped that at its next stage their Lordships' would give the measure careful examination.
  EARL RUSSELLexpressed his gratification at the favourable reception given to the measure by those noble Lords who had taken part in the discussion, and the desire they had evinced not to consider it in any party spirit. With regard to any alteration in the character of the constitution of their Lordships' House, he thought he had shown by the advice he had thought it his duty to give to the Crown when he had the honour to hold the Office of First Lord of the Treasury that he approved the selection of persons engaged in trade, if of sufficient wealth and eminent merit, for hereditary peerages. So far he agreed with the noble Marquess. The Irish Peers appeared to him always to have enjoyed a privilege which had been denied others, and one of the most prominent was their power to sit in the House of Commons, Two Irish Peers, since the Union, be- came Leaders of the House of Commons. Lord Castlereagh was still Leader of the House after he became Marquess of Londonderry, and the case of Lord Palmerston was well known.
  Bill read la; to be printed; and to be I read 2a on Tuesday the 27th Instant. (No. 49.)

REPRESENTATIVE PEERS FOR SCOTLAND AND IRELAND BILL.

  PRESENTED. FIRST READING.
  EARL GREY: My Lords, during many years the manner of electing Representative Peers for Scotland and Ireland in this House has been a subject of great
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  complaint, on account of its giving to one party a complete monopoly of the representation. And in the case of Scotland the further grievance exists that not only does that one party choose the whole sixteen who shall be returned, but it has power to dismiss any one of these Peers if he should offend them by giving an independent vote. I believe that of late years an understanding has existed among the Scotch Peers that a Peer once placed on the list, he shall not be removed from it except for some special and strong reason; but such was not the ease formerly. A Peer who gave an independent vote, displeasing to the majority, was sure to be rejected at the next election; and as, from various circumstances, the Crown was enabled to command the votes of a large proportion of the Scotch Peers, the Government for the time habitually nominated these Scotch Peers, and thus exercised great influence in this House; indeed, at about the middle of the last century it was notorious that the sixteen Scotch Peers might be counted on to vote with the Government. No doubt it was an advantage in one sense, because it is always desirable that the Government should possess considerable weight in both Houses of Parliament; but even this incidental advantage no longer arises from the objectionable mode of electing the Representative Peers; because during the greater part of the last half-century the Government of the day has generally been found with the Representative Peers entirely opposed to them. This state of things has attracted considerable notice out-of-doors, and we learn from the Votes of the House of Commons that a proposal has been made in that House to remedy some of the defects in the system of electing Scotch and Irish Peers. The first Minister of the Crown is reported to have expressed an opinion that the grievance it was sought to remedy was a real one, but thought this House was a proper place for originating the remedy. That opinion having been expressed, I certainly expected some of the right hon. gentleman's Colleagues in this House would have undertaken to deal with the question; and it was only because I was assured the Government was not likely to undertake the task that I ventured to enter upon it myself and submit a Bill to your Lordships. In the first place,

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  then, my Lords, I propose, by this Bill, to place the Scotch Representative Peers upon the same footing as the Irish Representative Peers with respect to the duration of their legislative existence—that is to say, the Bill provides that they shall be elected for life, and not for a single Parliament. I can hardly doubt that it must have been from experiencing the great evils resulting from the practice of electing for the Parliament alone that Mr. Pitt, in bringing forward his measure for the Union with Ireland, wisely resolved to have the Irish Peers elected for life. I also propose that those Peers elected for life shall have the power, if they think fit, to resign their seats; at present I believe no such power exists in the case of Peers of either Scotland or Ireland. And I think we should go a little further than this, and say that any Peer who habitually absents himself from this House without some sufficient cause should be considered as having resigned his seat.
  LORD CHELMSFORD: Is that to be confined to the Scotch Peers?
  EARL GREY: Your Lordships will perceive that if a British Peer does not attend it makes no difference—that is to say, his absence affects only himself; but in the case of the Scotch Peers habitual absence reduces the number of Scotch Representative Peers, and makes them too few. I would suggest that a Representative Peer who shall absent himself for two consecutive Sessions without leave of the House should be deemed to have resigned his seat. I further propose that the Peers of Scotland, instead of being sixteen, should be not less than sixteen, and not more than eighteen; and, in the same manner, the Irish Peers, instead of being twenty-eight, should be not less than twenty-eight, and not more than thirty. I propose this with a view of introducing the further provision that no election for a representative Peer of either Scotland or Ireland should occur until the number of those Peers shall have fallen by death or resignation below sixteen or twenty-eight respectively. Whenever the number of Peers shall have fallen below the present established number of Peers for the two countries, then a Writ shall issue for the election of three Peers; so that, whenever the Scotch Peers shall fall below sixteen, or the Irish below twenty-eight,
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  the Peers shall be summoned and shall be directed to choose three Peers, thus bringing up the number at the time to eighteen or to thirty; and, in the choice of those three Peers, the Bill provides that every Peer shall have the privilege of giving three votes, which it shall be in his power either to give in favour of a single Peer or to divide between two or three Peers, according to his discretion. The object of that is to insure that every shade of opinion shall have fair representation in this House. It is not precisely the representation of a minority, because there may be two or three shades of opinion to represent. Such are the simple provisions of the Bill I have now to lay on your Lordships' table, and which I trust will receive your Lordships' support at the next stage, which I purpose taking on the same day as is fixed for the second reading of the Bill of the noble Earl (Earl Russell).
  Bill to amend the Law relating to the Election of Representative Peers for Scotland and Ireland presented.—(The Earl Grey).
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEsaid, he was rejoiced that the subject had been taken in hand, and he would only offer one suggestion, which was that those who sat in that House as English Peers, and who were also Irish Peers, should not vote in the election of Representative Peers. He hoped the noble Earl would consider the propriety of introducing a provision to give effect to that suggestion.
  Bill read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Tuesday, the 27th Instant. (No. 50).
  House adjourned at a Quarter past Seven o'clock, to Monday next, Eleven o'clock.