Sitting of 23 April 1869

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Resolution in Committee—Church Temporalities (Ireland) Commissioners [Advances].
Resolutions reported—Ordered—First Reading—Courts of Justice [Salaries and Funds] * [96].
First Reading—(£17,100,000) Consolidated Fund *; Customs and Inland Revenue Duties * [95].
Second Reading—Naval Stores * [88].
Committee—Irish Church [27]—R.P.
Considered as amended—Newspapers, &c. * [66].
Third Reading—Militia [82], and passed.

NEWSPAPERS AND THE BRITISH MUSEUM.—QUESTION.
MR. A. BASSsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether a copy of each edition of every newspaper published in the United Kingdom is purchased by the Inland Revenue Department for the use of the British Museum; and, if so, whether he can state the annual sum expended for the purchase, and the cost of carriage, receiving, assorting, and forwarding the newspapers to the British Museum, and also the use made of such newspapers by the authorities of that Institution?
MR. AYRTONsaid, in reply, that the Inland Revenue Department had not been in the habit of making purchases of newspapers for the British Museum; but, under an Act passed some years ago to enable the Inland Revenue Department to collect the revenue on newspapers when they were taxed, newspaper proprietors were required to transmit copies to that Department, and the Department, after they had kept them a certain time, sent them to the British Museum. They cost the British Museum nothing, and they were preserved there in order that the public might refer to them whenever they desired. There was a very large collection of newspapers in the British Museum, and it was one of the most valuable parts of the Library. He had laid on the table a Bill for the purpose of making new arrangements, by which those publications would be sent direct to the British Museum at stated periods; so that the collection would be preserved and maintained as it had been hitherto.

THAMES EMBANKMENT (SOUTH SIDE).

  QUESTION.
  MR. GUESTsaid, he would beg to ask the hon. Member for Bath, Whether it is true that the Dock at Ferry Street, Lambeth, has not been made by the Metropolitan Board of Works, although ordered by the Act 26 & 27 Vic. c. 75; and, if so, the reasons for its not having been constructed; and, whether three docks have been constructed on the Thames Embankment (South Side) for private firms; and, if so, whether they have been made at the expense of the ratepayers?
  MR. TITEsaid, in reply, that the Act which authorized the construction of the Southern Embankment on the Thames was passed in 1863. It extended the Embankment from Westminster Bridge, opposite the Houses of Parliament, to a point somewhat beyond Lambeth. When it approached Lambeth it interfered with some docks and wharves belonging to private individuals, and also with a public draw-dock belonging to Lambeth. When they were purchasing the property the parish of Lambeth, through their Vestry, applied to the Metropolitan Board to induce them to abandon the re-construction of the dock, and construct a pier for the landing of steamboat passengers instead, and after much negotiation the Metropolitan Board of Works arranged with the Vestry, and these very important improvements were agreed to. They became law by a Bill which passed on the 13th of July last year. That Act repealed the clause to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, and authorized instead the arrangement of which he complained. The trade of two, not three, important potteries was carried on near that point, and particular clauses were introduced for their protection. The Board had endeavoured to arrange in every possible way for their accommodation, and the gentlemen principally concerned were constructing docks for the convenience of their trade at their own expense, not at the expense of the Metropolitan Board.

SEA FISHING BOATS.—QUESTION.
SIR HERBERT CROFTsaid, he wished to ask the President of the Board of Trade, Whether the words "sea

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fishing boat" in the Sea Fishery Act, 31 and 32 Vic. c. 45, are intended to apply to yachts which may be occasionally used in fishing?
MR. BRIGHT: Sir, the Board of Trade is not in a condition to place an authoritative construction upon the words of an Act of Parliament; but I may tell the hon. Baronet that it is not their opinion that these pleasure vessels were intended to be included, and I suppose I may say the same with regard to those small boats he has introduced into the Question. At this moment it is under consideration whether something shall not be done to exclude them. There are some other small points connected with the same subject and similar small classes of vessels; and by-and-by it is intended to except them by an Order in Council or Act of Parliament. I cannot give any answer more definite than that, but it will be sufficient to relieve the anxieties of those who have been put to inconvenience by that clause of the Act to which the hon. Baronet has referred.

RULE OF THE ROAD AT SEA.

  QUESTION.
  SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he wished to ask the President of the Board of Trade, When the remainder of the Correspondence on the subject of the Rule of the Road at Sea will be laid upon the Table; and whether he will agree to a Motion for the appointment of a Select Committee of the House to inquire into the causes of the loss of life and property at sea by collisions, and as to the possibility of a remedy by some modification of the existing Rules of the Road, so as to bring them into harmony with the custom of the sea and the decisions of the Courts of Law?
  MR. BRIGHT: Sir, I am not aware that there is any Correspondence which it would be advantageous to lay before Parliament. There is a quantity of matter, consisting very largely of articles from newspapers, of a controversial and argumentative character, which it would be expensive to publish, and would be productive of no adequate benefit. But if the hon. Baronet would like to see them, he can do so by applying to the Board of Trade. With regard to a Committee, I think the House will see that to appoint a Committee would be to disturb a question which
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  appears, on the whole, satisfactorily settled. When the hon. Gentleman himself was at the Admiralty, the Admiralty concurred in the arrangement which now exists; and if a Committee were appointed it would be to disturb what all the maritime nations of the earth, in conjunction with this country, have agreed to admit as settled; and, therefore, it is not the intention of the Board of Trade to recommend, nor would they be willing to consent to, the appointment of a Committee on this subject. With regard to the decisions of courts of law, I presume the courts of law will be obliged to give their decisions in accordance with the Act of Parliament or the Order in Council, which in this matter has, I believe, the same effect as an Act of Parliament. From all the advice I am able to act upon, I think it would be very disadvantageous to appoint a Committee, and disturb in this country by inquiry any question which all maritime nations at least believe to be satisfactorily settled.

PARLIAMENT—DISABILITY OF THE EPISCOPAL CLERGY.—QUESTION.
LORD HENRY THYNNEsaid, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he will, in case of the passing of the Irish Church Bill, provide that the Episcopal Clergy shall be placed on an equality with their Dissenting brethren, by removing the disability to sit in this House now imposed upon them?
MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I think that the noble Lord has put this Question to me under some misapprehension as to the actual state of the law. His question appears to rest upon the supposition that by the law of this country the clergy of established Churches are prohibited, or precluded, or disqualified, from sitting in this House, and that the clergy of non-established Churches are not. That, I apprehend, is an erroneous supposition. The fact I take to be this—that it has been ruled and decided that no clergyman in Episcopal Orders can sit in this House; but that is quite irrespective of the fact, whether he is established or non-established. No clergyman of the Episcopal communion in Scotland can have a seat in this House, although no person is more entitled to the character of a non-established than he is, for there were cures in

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Scotland—not now, but some time ago—in which the regular income was so low as £2 a year. In the same way the Roman Catholic priest is disabled from sitting in this House; but I believe I am correct in saying that it has never been determined that the Presbyterian clergymen of the Established Church of Scotland cannot sit in the House. I do not give a definite opinion. This may be a fair subject for consideration, and I do not say that the disestablishment of the Church may not afford a proper opportunity for raising the question; but it is no part of the question of disestablishment and disendowment; and moreover, if it be raised, it cannot possibly be limited in its operation to the clergy of the Church of Ireland.
Afterwards—
MR. GLADSTONEsaid: Upon further consideration, I wish to say that I am doubtful whether I was correct in saying that it had not been ruled that a Presbyterian clergyman of the Established Church in Scotland could not sit in the House of Commons. I think it possible, and may have been ruled. All that I stated with regard to the clergy in Episcopal Orders was, I think, quite correct.

PARLIAMENT—HOUSE OF COMMONS ARRANGEMENTS.—QUESTION.
MR. HEADLAMsaid, he wished to ask the First Commissioner of Works, Whether the plans recently laid by him before the House for the alteration of the dining rooms will be engraved and presented to every Member of the House, or in what way they will be exhibited or made known to Members?
MR. LAYARDsaid, in reply, that the plans would be rather expensive, but he had given directions to have them printed, as all the others had been presented to Members.

CATTLE PLAGUE—INFECTED SHEEP.

  QUESTION.
  LORD ROBERT MONTAGUsaid, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council, Whether he can give the House any further information concerning the two cargoes of sheep from Antwerp and Rotterdam which he had ordered to be slaughtered; and, especially whether any sheep from the same
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  locality have been sold in the Metropolitan Market and sent into the country before the disease was discovered?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, with respect to the two cargoes of infected sheep which had recently arrived at Harwich and London, he found he was mistaken in supposing that one came from Antwerp and the other from Rotterdam. The two lots of infected sheep formed but a small portion of the two cargoes, and they both came from the same owner on the Continent, who had divided them into different cargoes. His noble Friend was well aware that the present state of the law gave no power for compelling the owners of steamers that conveyed infected animals to disinfect those steamers. It was a difficulty that had been felt by the Privy Council, and which it was intended to remove by the Bill he had introduced. In the present case he was happy to state that arrangements for the complete disinfection of the vessels had been made with the owners. As to the cargo which arrived last Saturday he had made inquiries, and had every reason to believe that there were no infected sheep in it. He was certain that there were no sheep that came from the owner who had sent the two former batches of infected sheep.

THE O'FARRELL PAPERS.—QUESTION.
MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he would beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, When the Papers relating to O'Farrell, which the House had ordered, will be in the hands of Members?
MR. GLADSTONE: I rise, Sir, to answer this Question, of which the hon. Gentleman courteously gave me notice, although my right hon. Friend (Mr. Monsell) the representative of the Colonial Department would perhaps have answered it with greater advantage. The substance of my answer will be to refer the hon. Gentleman to a Notice which has been given, and which I believe is already upon the Paper, in the name of my right hon. Friend, for the purpose of rescinding the Motion to which the hon. Member for North Warwickshire refers. The state of the case is this—that some time ago the hon. Member expressed to my right hon. Friend his desire that these Papers should be produced, and the close of the

1469
communications upon the subject was that my right hon. Friend declined on the part of the Government to produce the Papers; but understanding that they were Papers that had already been printed by order of a branch of the Colonial Legislature, he stated that, if the hon. Member chose to move for them, the Government would make no opposition. Since that period we have examined into these Papers, and have become aware of their character in two respects, which I will briefly state to the House. I do not speak of the whole of the Papers, but of the material Paper which the hon. Member has specially in view in his Motion. That Paper consists of a conversation between the convict O'Farrell and certain persons in authority in the Colony, which conversation was taken down by a shorthand-writer—the presence of the shorthand-writer being unknown to the convict. I own I think it is not our practice to obtain confessions or declarations of any kind from convicts, and report them under such circumstances, and I very greatly doubt the policy of unnecessarily associating ourselves with that proceeding. Of course, it is not for me to express any opinion upon the proceeding itself. There may have been perfectly justifiable cause for it; into that I do not enter, but I think there is no necessity whatever for our linking ourselves with it. Over and above that, undoubtedly, I find that the Papers were printed by order of a branch of the Colonial Legislature; but it appears that the printing of these Papers was a matter of very serious contention; it was very much contested there; and we do not feel, therefore, that that authority on the ground of mere fact is wholly conclusive. But when we look at the nature of the Papers, I do not hesitate to say that in these Papers is contained matter which it is contrary to our public duty as Ministers to be parties to laying be-fore this House. That is a very decided statement. Our mind is quite made up upon it, and I fully believe that the House of Commons will place so much of discretion in the responsible attention we have given to the subject, that they will not press us under these circumstances for the production of the Papers. We are convinced their publication can be attended with no public good and advantage, and we mean to ask the House
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of Commons to test this question by the Motion which my right hon. Friend will submit for the rescinding of the Order which, on a less perfect knowledge of the circumstances, we assented to.
MR. NEWDEGATE: AS the statement of the right hon. Gentleman may seem to impugn my judgment, I wish to mention that I communicated fully with the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies before I asked him whether the Government would grant these Papers, and he replied—"With the greatest pleasure," and I then moved for them. I wish to ask when the Motion for rescinding the Order will come on, and I may state that I am not prepared when it does come on to shrink from any responsibility which I have incurred.
MR. GLADSTONE: It is difficult to state the precise day, but I will take care that the hon. Gentleman has ample notice.

PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he wished to make an appeal to the hon. Member for East Suffolk (Mr. Corrance) to postpone the Motion he had upon the Paper on the existing state of Pauperism and Vagrancy in England, in order to allow the House to go into Committee on the Irish Church Bill. At the commencement of the proceedings in Committee, as well as upon the second reading of the Bill, he had stated to the House, in accordance, as he believed, with the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli), that it was the desire of the Government to induce the House to proceed from day to day with the Committee on the Irish Church, whenever it was felt that no matter of urgency stood in the way. It was of great importance that a Bill of that nature should reach the House of Lords, if it was to go there, in very good time in the Session, and, moreover, as many of the provisions were necessarily of so complicated a nature, they would be discussed at a great disadvantage if there was always to be an interval of throe or four days between the several discussions. He had understood last night, indirectly, that the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Suffolk attached great importance to an early discussion of his Motion, and he had caused a communication to be made to

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him that he should be very happy to give him the first day at the command of the Government after the close of the proceedings in Committee on the Irish Church Bill. He thought that the hon. Gentleman would do well to accept this offer, for his Motion would be likely to be much more fully considered upon such an occasion than under existing circumstances. He would therefore propose to the hon. Gentleman that the Government should co-operate with him, and procure for his Motion the very earliest day that they could give after the Irish Church Bill was out of Committee on condition that he would kindly consent to withdraw his Motion now. He hoped that other Members who had Motions on the Paper after him would do the same unconditionally, and thus give the House the great advantage of taking up the thread of the discussion they were engaged in last night.
MR. CORRANCEsaid, that he must, in the first place, acknowledge the courtesy and kindness with which the right hon. Gentleman's request was made. He regretted that he was not in his place last night when this appeal was first made by the First Lord of the Treasury. He could not, he thought, be accused of throwing obstacles in the way of Public Business, considering that he had withdrawn this very Motion twice already to make room for discussions on the Irish Church; and, if he almost found himself unable to comply with the request of the right hon. Gentleman, it was because he had grave reasons to give for his reluctance. The first was this—he thought it would be admitted by the right hon. hon. Gentleman himself that it was inconvenient that there should be even the appearance of proneness to postpone great social questions affecting the poorer classes only to suit the convenience of the House. If another reason was wanting, it was this—by a Member of the Government—the right hon. Member for Birmingham—they had been publicly reproached with slackness in this very matter. And, in spite of the reference made to the right hon. Gentleman on the front Bench, he did not think that the withdrawal of his Motion would be agreeable to hon. Gentlemen on his own side of the House. He must therefore make a qualified promise. He would withdraw his Motion on these terms—that the right hon. Gentleman would
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agree to fix a day, previous to Whitsuntide, for bringing it on.
MR. GLADSTONEassented. He would not fix it to-night, but he would take care to fix a day previous to Whitsuntide. [Mr. CORRANCE made a gesture of remonstrance.] His object was to put the hon. Gentleman in a better position than he might otherwise obtain; because, after seeing the progress that might be made in Committee to-night and Monday, he might be able to fix an earlier day than if he were to fix it now.
MR. CORRANCEasked, whether he was to understand that the right hon. Gentleman would give him a day before Whitsuntide, whether the Bill were through Committee or not?
MR. GLADSTONE: Certainly.
MR. CORRANCEsaid, he would accept the offer of the right hon. Gentleman.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he very thankfully accepted the kindness of the hon. Member, and hoped that now he might be allowed to appeal to other hon. Members to take a similar course.
MR. GOLDNEY, said, he had a Notice on the Paper respecting the recently reported frauds of Mr. Benjamin Higgs, the book-keeper in the employ of the Great Central Gas Company. He would not stand in the way of the business of the House, but he wished to ask a Question respecting it of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade. The subject was an important one, as great losses had been sustained which were likely to fall upon the public; and it was the more urgent as a Bill promoted by one of the gas companies, and which had recently been passed by a Select Committee of that House made important changes in the state of affairs. The Bill of last year gave a controlling power to the Board of Trade, which had acted in a very beneficial manner. But in the Bill passed by the Committee last week that controlling power was omitted. Now he wished to ask whether, if he consented for the second time to postpone his Motion, the Government would support him in stopping any further proceedings with Private Gas Bills till he had an opportunity of bringing forward this question.
[Mr. BLAKE, Sir HESEY LYTTOS BULWER, Sir HAEEY VERNEY, Mr. O'REILLY, Sir HENRY SELWIN-IBBET-SON, and Mr. MILLER who had Notices on the Paper withdrew them.]
Mr. BRIGHTsaid, he wished to state, in answer to the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Goldney), that from the best information he could obtain he was led to believe that the loss occasioned by the frauds alluded to would not fall upon the consumers. With regard to the general question, he believed that before long there would be an opportunity to bring the whole matter before the House.
Mr. NEWDEGATEgave notice that on Monday he would ask the First Lord of the Treasury, when the Motion to rescind the Order of that House for the production of Papers in regard to O'Farrell would be brought on?

IRISH CHURCH BILL— [Bill 27.]
(Mr. Dodson, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. John Bright Mr. Chichester Fortescue, Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
IRISH CHURCH BILL— [Bill 27.]

  COMMITTEE. [Progress 22nd April.]
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 18 (Compensation to lay patrons):—Amendment proposed, in line 4, after the word "ascertain," to insert the words "as hereinafter mentioned."—(Mr. Goldney.)
  Mr. GOLDNEYsaid, he would take up the question at the point where it was left the previous evening. What he wanted was the insertion of a rule that should lay down a basis upon which the sale of advowsons was to be carried on. Since last night he had had the opportunity of referring to the Returns in the Library regarding the sales of the small livings in the Lord Chancellor's gift, and he had also referred to the Act of Parliament by which those sales were authorized, and there he found, as he had expected, that the Act prohibited the sale of these livings at a price below a certain number of years' purchase. On Thursday he mentioned that, under Lord Westbury's Act, some had sold as high as thirty-five years' purchase. That was, no doubt, an extreme case, but they had all brought a price much higher than the minimum laid down in the Act of Parliament. He contended that the same kind of basis should be laid down in the present instance. The hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Blake), had mentioned the case of an advowson, sold in Ireland, which realized a comparatively small sum, but he (Mr. Goldney)
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  never meant to contend that the value of advowsons was as high in Ireland as in England. No doubt the Irish livings would realize a low figure, in consequence of the state of the country. His object was to fix the minimum number of years' purchase at which livings should be sold, instead of leaving it to the discretion of the Commissioners. Of course, the purchase money would be calculated—first by multiplying the income after deducting all outgoings by the number of years' purchase; and, secondly, by making a deduction for the life of the incumbent. He was not assuming that these advowsons should be valued at the same rate as in England, but he thought that some minimum value should be placed upon them. The only difference between this class of property and freehold property was that to the former were attached certain duties, the value of which was to be ascertained and struck off the value of the freehold. He begged to move the insertion of the words "as hereinafter mentioned," with the view of subsequently adding words which would carry out the object he had in view.
  Amendment again proposed, in page 7, line 4, after the word "ascertain," to insert the words "as hereinafter mentioned."—(Mr. Goldney.)
  MR. BLAKEsaid, that as the hon. Member (Mr. Goldney) had referred to him, he would give the House some important information with regard to the value of Irish endowments. The corporations of Ireland, as the House was aware, were in possession of several advowsons, and in particular the corporation of Waterford, of which he was a member, had several of these advowsons in their gift. It must be recollected that no sale by the corporation of an advowson could be carried into effect unless the Ecclesiastical Commissioners deemed the sum offered a fair equivalent for its value. He would read to the House some of these sales. There was the parish of Dunhill, the advowson of which was sold in 1863. Its value was £160 a year, and it sold for £300. There was one case which occurred seven years ago in the county of Kilkenny. The incumbent was over fifty years of age; the value was £260 a year, and the advowson sold for £1,000. The last they had sold was that of a parish, pleasantly situated on the other side of

  1475
  the river from Waterford. They had advertised it for a long time in the English and Irish papers without finding a purchaser. It value was between £200 and £300 a year, and it was at last sold for £800. He could assure the House that there was hardly an advowson in Ireland that was sold for more than four years' purchase.
  MR. WALTERsaid, he wished to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman was in a position to inform the House what was the number of advowsons in Ireland for which compensation would have to be made under the Bill; and, further, upon what number of years' purchase that compensation would be based, and what sum would be absorbed by that compensation?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I cannot answer the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Berkshire (Mr. Walter) in a way that will throw much real light on the subject, because the livings are so very various in their nature, and the deductions to be made from the value differ so much. The incomes of the smaller livings, for instance, are almost entirety swallowed up by the necessary outgoing for which deduction has to be made. The amount of the aggregate value of the livings will, therefore, give nothing like an idea of the real value of the advowsons. The sum that I take as being necessary to compensate for these advowsons is £300,000. That is a rough estimate. The total gross value of the livings in lay patronage is £48,000 a year; therefore the sum likely to be absorbed in compensation comes to six or seven years' purchase. As I am on my legs, perhaps it will be as well to state that we have employed our time, like the hon. Gentleman the Member for Chippenham (Mr. Goldney), in producing data on which to ground our plan. The difference between us is that he persists in producing precedents taken from the case of England, which are wholly irrelevant to the case of Ireland. In the case of England a vast number of persons buy these advowsons, which creates regularity in the market; but that is quite unknown in Ireland, where these sales are fitful and exceedingly rare. I have looked at the cases of which we are in possession, and I will give my hon. Friend a case, which will indicate to him how utterly inapplicable the English rules would be. In this case
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  the living, which was sold in January, 1861, was worth £170 net, and the price for which it sold was £1,419, subject to a deduction of £297, or £1,121. That shows a price of about six and a-half years' purchase. I quote from 1861, because that was a sale not under the influence of any depreciation of landed property in Ireland. [An hon. MEMBER: What is the age of the incumbent?] The age of the incumbent is not stated. I will give the hon. Gentleman two other cases, in which the age of the incumbent is stated. They are later still, and entirely free from any influence of depreciation of landed property in Ireland. On the 25th of June, 1867, the advowson of the parish of Innishannon was sold. The gross income was £470 a year, and the net income £241. The age of the incumbent was fifty-five. The advowson was sold at £1,600—that is to say, about seven years' purchase of the income, without deducting the life interest of the present incumbent. In the same year and at the same period the advowson of Dunderrow was sold. The net annual income was £313, the gross £375; the age of the incumbent was seventy, and the amount of purchase money was £1,210 gross, £910 net, or a price of less than three years' purchase. I think that will show the hon. Member how vain it is to deal with these matters on the footing he proposes. In the 113th clause of the Church Temporalities Act there is a precedent much more available for his purpose, if he wants one, than any he can draw from English practice, where over and over again there was an interference with the value of advowsons, and power was given to Commissioners to compensate patrons in respect of any damage they might suffer in consequence of the changes authorized by that Act; but a maximum is imposed in these terms "so that such sums shall in no case exceed twelve years' purchase of the annual value." When we considered this matter my right hon. Friend near me (the Chief Secretary for Ireland) came to the conclusion that it was fairer to the patron that we should not insert that maximum. If a minimum value were to be introduced into the clause, it must be so small that it might just as well be omitted altogether.
  MR. NEWDEGATEcontended that the fact of advowsons in Ireland commanding fewer years' purchase than in

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  England was a stronger reason for fixing a basis on which the sales were to take place. What was the position of these advowsons now? The right hon. Gentleman announced his measure for the disendowment of the Church last Parliament. That, of course, depreciated the value of those advowsons and he took advantage of this depreciation, which was caused by his own act, in order to depreciate the value of the compensation. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to a clause in the Church Temporalities Act. The livings suppressed by that Act were attached to churches where there were no congregations or very small congregations. But even in those cases twelve years' purchase was assigned to them. The right hon. Gentleman deprecated the idea of taking even the maximum assigned by the Church Temporalities Act—which was notoriously an Act to suppress livings which had fallen into abuse—as the precedent on which he was about to act with reference to the advowsons of livings throughout Ireland. It was perfectly manifest that the right hon. Gentleman's calculations were based on a value depreciated by his own act. And to what purpose was the money to be applied? Why, to purposes which ought at present to be supplied by other funds derivable from local and Imperial taxation. This was confiscation again. It was worse than confiscation, because it was to apply to cases in which no abuse was proved or even alleged. Having had some experience of the Act for disposing of advowsons in the gift of the Lord Chancellor—having been a purchaser of one himself—he saw no difference whatever in point of justice between the case of the English advowsons and that of the Irish advowsons, except that the Irish advowsons might be worth fewer years' purchase, and he should adhere to the principle which was considered justice in the case of England in dealing with these Irish advowsons. Were we to look forward to the application of this principle to England? We were establishing a very wide and dangerous precedent, which depreciated property and took advantage of the depreciation in compensating those whose property was to be taken from them. If they assailed the stability of one kind of property it would affect the credit of every kind of property, and he believed the consequence
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  would be that it would tend to the depreciation of property and the invalidity of public credit.
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, the argument of the hon. Member would be a very strong one if it had any foundation whatever; but it was as visionary and baseless as a dream. The hon. Gentleman argued as if the Government were going to institute a system of forced sale of Irish advowsons at a value depreciated by their own act. Nothing could be further from their intention, and nothing could be further from the effect of this Bill. The Commissioners under the Bill, checked by a system of arbitration, would decide, in the words of this clause, what amount of compensation ought to be paid to the owners of advowsons. If any precedent was required for this mode of action it would be found in the first Church Temporalities Act, in which the value of private patronage was referred to, and in which a tribunal was provided which was precisely that provided by the present Bill. The Commissioners, in case of any disagreement, were to give the natural and normal price under any circumstances, utterly irrespective of depreciation of any kind: that was precisely what was done by the present Bill.
  MR. HUNTsaid, he understood that there was arbitration in the one case and not in the other.
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, the right hon. Gentleman was mistaken. There was a provision for arbitration in this Bill.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he had founded his argument on the English precedent and the last Act passed for the sale of advowsons. He would ask, were they to establish a different rule for Ireland from that which existed in England? Were they to establish a different system of legislation founded on different principles for the two countries? If so, it would be far better that the Union should be repealed, and Ireland should have the benefit of its own rules of practice. What was the position in which the right hon. Secretary for Ireland had placed himself? He said that the Government meant to give the full value in all these cases—to act liberally. Now the Government were not asked to act liberally. English Members were as averse to placing in

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  the hands of the Government the means of giving an excessive value as to give them the opportunity of giving an under value. They claimed for Ireland the same rule that was applied to England. He did not understand the modern system of Irish legislation, and did not wish to rob the present owners of advowsons in order to obtain the means of conciliating support.
  MR. GOLDNEYsaid, the practical way of looking at the matter was to take the case of the owner of an advowson attached to his estate, and the profits of which came entirely from that estate. The advowson, in that case, was his freehold; but by the Act he would have to sell it, and, if the depreciating effect of the Bill were taken into view, the result would be that he might receive only six or seven years' purchase of the tithe rent-charge, while for the re-purchase of his tithe rent-charge he would have to pay twenty-two years' purchase.
  Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 161; Noes 273: Majority 112.
  MR. MACFIE MR. MACFIE moved, in page 7, line 5, after "corporate," to insert "who or which shall within three years therefrom make application in writing to this effect." The effect of the Amendment was to give compensation for advowsons only to those who should apply for it within three years after the passing of the Act.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN)said, there was no objection to that Amendment.
  Amendment agreed to.
  CAPTAIN ARCHDALLsaid, he rose to move, in line 10, to leave out "such person or body corporate," and insert "the corporate body hereinafter referred to as the representative body of the said Church," the effect of this Amendment being to hand over the compensation for advowsons to the Church Body instead of to the lay patrons who had previously possessed the advowsons. He said it might have been urged that this Amendment would rob the lay patrons of the compensation to which they were entitled, had it not been for the fact that the whole Bill was admittedly a measure of robbery and spoliation. It appeared, from the Report of the Irish Church Com-
  1480
  missioners, that out of 1,516 benefices in Ireland the presentation to 309 of them was in the hands of trustees, corporate bodies, and private individuals; and, if they were admitted to be trusts for a religious purpose, it was but just to the country and to the Church that, when that trust ceased, whatever the compensation was made should be paid to the Church Body for the good of the Church and of the country. When they came to discuss the disestablishment of the English Church, this question of advowson would be found to be one of great interest.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN)said, he scarcely thought that the hon. and gallant Member, in moving his Amendment, thoroughly understood the effect of it. It was really one of the most formidable assaults on private property ever made, and was a proposition to take from all the lay patrons of advowsons in Ireland the purchase money of them and hand it over perforce to the Church Body. Was the hon. and gallant Member aware that advowsons, like estates, had been made the subject of family settlements; that there were tenants in tail with the remainder; and that infant children were interested in their proceeds? It was certainly a modest proposal to hand over the property to other persons. Such terms as "confiscation" and "spoliation" had been used against the present Bill; but the proposal of the hon. and gallant Member should be designated, if possible, by even a stronger word. Advowsons were the subject-matter of sale in the open market, and the present Bill, while taking away the right of presentation, would give compensation to the owners of the advowsons, whereas the proposed Amendment would deprive them of that compensation. Such a proposition struck at the root of all property. Moreover, the Amendment would have the effect of endowing over again the Irish Church in an indirect form, for the moment the Church was disestablished, it would be put, if the Amendment were carried, in possession of property which did not belong to it.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he thought it quite refreshing to hear a condemnation of acts of confiscation proceeding from the authors of the present Bill. However, he did not think it pos-

  1481
  sible for the House to support the Amendments, but he thought they might draw a moral from what had passed as to the different principles on which the Government proposed to treat one kind of right and another. What was the origin of an advowson? It was founded on an endowment given, in the first instance, for the benefit of the laity of a certain parish, for the sake of securing to them the right of public worship. In order to secure them that advantage a clergyman was appointed, and was provided out of the endowment with what was called a living. The nomination to the living fell by some means or other into the hands of some person, who thereby as patron acquired an indirect pecuniary interest in the endowment. The Government now said that they would do away with that which was the foundation of the whole affair—the right of the laity—without making them any compensation. With respect to the clergyman, compensation was given to him conditionally; that was to say, on the condition that he continued to perform certain services; but, as to the third right, that of the patron, which grew out of the other two, unconditional compensation was given. Now he wished to call attention to the fact that the persons who would mainly benefit by the application of the surplus of Irish Church property would be the class of persons which supplied the patrons of livings. The tithe rent-charge was, after a certain time, to become the property of the landlords, among whom the patrons were to be found. It was also to be applied, while it continued to be paid, to purposes which would relieve the landlords from considerable burdens. The glebe lands were to be confiscated and thrown into the surplus which would give a further relief to them. The House was continually misled by the account given by the Government of the mode in which the surplus of the Church property was to be applied. They were told it was to be applied to charitable purposes; but the greater part was going to be applied in exoneration of the county cess, and the persons who would really benefit were not so much the unfortunate inmates of the lunatic asylums and hospitals which were to be endowed, as the cess-payers, who were chiefly the landlords in Ireland. He would illustrate this position by a particular case. A
  1482
  parish, having two hamlets connected with it, had a Church population of 820, the dependent district having a population of 1,068. The net revenue of the living, after deducting the salary of the curate and everything, amounted to £839. There were three churches in the district. There was a glebe of 2,000 acres, and a rent-charge of £605, issuing, as he believed, chiefly if not wholly, from the lands of the great proprietor who was the patron. The patron was therefore going to be relieved of the rent-charge of £605. At the end of forty-five years his estate would be the better to that extent, and he would also be better by having considerable relief in the county cess to which he contributed, and towards which the surplus of the Church funds was to go. In addition to this he was to be paid for his advowson, that is to say for a right of presenting to a living, which had been in his family for generations. It was not common in these cases to sell the livings, and they were going to present such an owner with a considerable sum which really he never expected to receive. But what were they going to do for the 1,800 parishioners? Absolutely nothing. They were going to deprive them of all they had been in the habit of receiving, out of which this right of the patron had grown, and to make no compensation whatever. Although it might not be strict justice, yet substantially the injustice that would be done to the owners of the advowson in such cases, if they did take the value of it and apply it to the new Church Body, would be infinitesimal compared to the injustice they were doing by other parts of this Bill. If the Government were proceeding in the same equal spirit with all classes, they would not deal with one class in so different a manner from that in which they dealt with another. It was said that this would amount to something like a re-endowment of the Irish Church. No doubt it was open to that objection, as stated by hon. Gentlemen opposite, but they should remember that they were dealing with this matter in rather a peculiar manner. They were endeavouring to constitute, or facilitate the constitution of, a Church Body, and therefore they had a right to ask whether what they were about to do would contribute towards the formation of such a

  1483
  Church Body which it was desirable should be formed. Was it very certain that they would have a Church Body? It was extremely doubtful, unless they laid such a foundation as would give it a certain amount of power. It was not unlikely that the Church Body might not come into existence, and that private arrangements would be made with the incumbents for working the whole system by insuring their lives through the medium of insurance offices. A certain future endowment would thus be provided which would suffice for the wants of particular parishes, the whole thing being based upon a private deed of contract between the parties. It was very undesirable that they should do anything to encourage such a state of things as that. He thought it would be a very legitimate and desirable thing that the money paid for these advowsons should be handed over to the Church Body; but he admitted that there were some cases in which, on account of money having been laid out in the purchase of the advowsons, this could not be done without injustice to individuals. He could not, therefore, support the Amendment, but he hoped and trusted those gentlemen who did receive large sums in compensation for advowsons would, of their own accord, apply them to the benefit of the parishioners, from whom, in fact, they had been received; but although a great many might be anxious to do so, some, being minors, or owners of limited estates, might not be able. He was glad to see that the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Macfie) proposed that words should be inserted in the clause which would enable the patrons to hand the advowsons over at once to the Church Body. Although he should not support the Motion of his hon. and gallant Friend (Captain Archdall) he was glad of the opportunity of pointing out the extreme inequality of the mode in which different interests were treated by this measure.
  MR. SERJEANT DOWSEsaid, he thought the hon. and gallant Member for Fermanagh had proposed this Amendment as a joke. [Captain ARCHDALL: No!] If not, he really could not see what the hon. and gallant Gentleman was about. Hon. Gentleman on that (the Ministerial) side of the House were often accused of interfering with the rights of property, but he had never heard any-
  1484
  body propose to interfere with them in so audacious a manner. It was really in mercy to the hon. and gallant Gentleman that he thought he was joking. People had bought advowsons on the faith of being able to make presentations, and they were not to be deprived of their property in that way. The hon. and gallant Member a short time ago put a Notice on the Paper to disestablish the Church of England. Perhaps he was not joking on that occasion. Really what seemed to hon. Gentleman opposite "but a choleric word" when it came from their own side, would, if it came from those opposed to them, be deemed "flat blasphemy." The hon. and gallant Gentleman was evidently not a patron; if he had been he would have availed himself of his own large spirit of generosity, and made the Church a present of the proceeds of his advowson, without compelling himself to do it by Act of Parliament. The right hon. Baronet (Sir Stafford Northcote) seemed to have availed himself of the opportunity afforded by this Amendment to make a speech prepared for some other part of the Bill; but he (Mr. Dowse) would join him in his appeal to the good nature of the Irish advowson holders, and would say, as one of the 700,000 "scatterlings" referred to by the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire as left destitute, "the smallest contributions thankfully received." He hoped the hon. and gallant Gentleman would show his good sense, if only for the sake of that part of the country from which he came, by withdrawing the Amendment.
  MR. JOHN HARDYsaid, the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down complained of this as an act of confiscation, and he seemed to forget that there was such a thing as honour among thieves. He would make the whole Irish nation receivers of stolen goods.
  MR. WALTERsaid, he thought his right hon. Friend the Member for North Devonshire (Sir Stafford Northcote) had contrived to mystify a very simple question. These advowsons were not the property of the parishioners. They were not a rent-charge at all. They did not belong to the proprietor in the sense of their being so. An advowson was the right of patronage, and the right of patronage did not belong to the parishioners, but to the owner of the advowson;

  1485
  and all that was proposed to be done was to compensate the owners of these valuable rights of patronage, which had a marketable character, in the same way as they had been acquired in the market. The parishioners were not to be compensated, for what they did not possess—namely, the right of patronage. It might be a question whether the Commissioners would compensate the parishioners. That was not a point with which the owner of the advowson had anything to do.
  MR. W. H. GREGORYsaid, he hoped the House would not be compelled to go into the Lobby on such an Amendment, which would have a contrary effect to that which the hon. and gallant Member desired. He should be prepared to show at the proper time that the Bill did not give the great advantages to the landlords of Ireland which the right hon. Baronet (Sir Stafford Northcote) supposed.
  SIR HERVEY BRUCEsaid he wished to put a question to the First Minister of the Crown with reference to the operation of the clause in a case in which he I was personally concerned. One of the London companies and himself had jointly endowed a living in a small separated parish in Ireland; and he was j anxious to know whether, under this Bill, I they would still hold the nomination and the endowment, or whether they would be deprived of the money value of the endowment, which had been made within the last two years.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he presumed that it would be regarded as a private endowment, and restored either to the Church Body, or to the parties to dispose of for the purposes of the Church.
  MR. HUNTsaid, his hon. and gallant Friend (Captain Archdall) said that the j interests of public bodies and private bodies were considered in the Bill, but not the interests of congregations, and he wished that they should not be forgotten. There was, however, an Amendment on the Paper by which his right hon. Friend (Mr. Disraeli) proposed to provide for the interests of congregations without injury to the vested interests of individuals. He trusted his hon. and gallant Friend would wait for that Amendment, and meanwhile withdraw his own.
  CAPTAIN ARCHDALLcould assure I the hon. and learned Serjeant (Mr.
  1486
  Dowse) that he had by no means brought forward his Amendment as a joke. It was, on the contrary, a very serious matter, as he would have seen if he had listened to the speech of the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote). Nor was he in joke when he proposed to extend the provisions of the Bill to the English Church; because he believed it would be more statesmanlike to consider the circumstances of both the united Churches at the same time, and so prevent the future agitation to which the question of the English Church must give rise.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  On Question "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill,"
  THE O'CONOR DONsaid, the measure was proposed upon the basis of perfect religious equality in Ireland, and by it was therefore provided that compensation should be afforded to private interests only. But by a subsequent clause it was proposed that the educational grant should be taken away from the College of Maynooth, while no similar proposal was made in the case of the University of Dublin, or Trinity College. Under the present clause, indeed, the University of Dublin would receive a large sum of money as compensation for the livings in its gift, about twenty in number, and including some of the most valuable in Ireland. He understood that the amount the University would receive would come to about one-third of what was given to the Church altogether, and he hoped that when the question of Maynooth came to be considered, the effect of this clause would not be forgotten.
  DR. BALLsaid, it was only an act of justice to the University of Dublin that they should receive the value of these advowsons. The advantage of the livings to the College was that they opened a succession to Fellowships to students; the Fellows having the right to take the livings in succession as they became vacant. The University would, under the clause, receive the money for these rights of presentation, but could not waste it, because the last charter bound the governing body to retain the money for the general purposes of the University. A very judicious suggestion had been thrown out, that the money

  1487
  would allow the University to create an additional number of Fellowships. There would be no injustice in giving the value of these livings to the University; it had bought some of them; and one of these livings alone had cost the University £12,000.
  SIR HERVEY BRUCEsaid, he was not perfectly satisfied with the answer which he had received to his question from the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury. In the case he had mentioned, he wished to know whether he would have to give up his turn of nomination to the living, or whether it would be at the disposal of the new Church Body? He had also to ask what would be the position of the corporate body which had contributed the other half of the endowment.
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, he thought it was just and right that the University of Dublin should receive that large compensation for the right of presentation to these livings. But he also believed that, as they had reated the property of the Irish Church as national property, this payment to Trinity College would afford an irresistible argument in favour of their throwing open all the emoluments and offices of the Dublin University to the members of all religious denominations.
  MR. SERJEANT DOWSEsaid, he concurred in thinking that, if these funds were available for the general purposes of the University, they ought to be dealt with in the manner proposed by the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett). He understood, however, that it was the practice of the Senior Board to apply the year's earnings in paying the junior Fellows, the Sizars, &c., and then to divide the remainder among themselves. If the Senior Board regarded this sum as part of the year's earnings, and dealt with it in the way he had described, there would be very little of the amount forthcoming for the purposes contemplated by the hon. Member for Brighton, He wished to know whether the House had not, under an Act of William IV., given a number of livings to Trinity College? If that were so, they ought not to be compensated; for he understood that the Fellows would not take most of the livings in the gift of the College. They were better off as they were; and thus the livings did not fulfil the purpose for which they were in-
  1488
  tended, of causing vacancies in the Fellowships.
  DR. BALLbelieved the livings in question formed a part of the general property of the University, and that the money they fetched could not be applied for the benefit of individual members.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he would not then enter into the controversy respecting Trinity College. What the clause did was no more than to apply the obvious rule of strict justice in regard to the rights of property, as to which he considered that they had no option whatever. No doubt, the practical effect of the enactment would be to extricate Trinity College, as far as those advowsons were concerned, from its direct connection with the Established Church. That, however, was not a matter into which he need enter at present. In answer to the Question of the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Hervey Bruce), he had to state that he could not then undertake to give a full account of what, under the Bill, would be the position of the living to which the hon. Baronet had referred. All that he thought it necessary to state upon the subject was, that the clause dealt with advowsons only. If there were an advowson having a pecuniary value in the case of the chapel in question, the circumstances of that advowson would not be affected by the fact that there were joint or alternate patrons. It would be for the patrons to show that they had an advowson of money value, and that value they would then receive under the clause.
  MR. WHALLEYsaid, he wished to point out that there was not the slightest analogy between the cases of Trinity College, Dublin, and the College of Maynooth, to which the hon. Member for Roseommon (The O'Conor Don) had adverted. The College of Maynooth was devoted exclusively to the education of Roman Catholic clergymen; and it not only instructed, but also supported the students.
  Clause added to the Bill.
  Clause 19 (Repeal of laws prohibiting synods, &c.).
  MR. DISRAELIsaid, he rose to move at the end, to add—
  "And the Bishops, clergy, and laity of the said Church may meet in General Assembly or Convocation by such representatives, lay and clerical, as shall be determined and declared by them in

  1489
  their several dioceses, and, in such General Assembly or Convocation, frame a constitution and regulations for the general management and good government of the said Church, and the property and affairs thereof, and the future representation of the members thereof in Diocesan Synods, General Convocation, or otherwise."
  He had called attention to this matter on the Motion for the second reading. The clause as drawn removed restrictions on public deliberation; but it was necessary that definite powers should be given to the Church Body to meet in Convocation after it had organized itself. He anticipated so opposition to the addition, as it would render the clause much more complete and satisfactory.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he regretted I that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli) had not explained himself more fully than he had done, because his few words in the nature of assertion, and not of argument, did not show the occasion for the Amendment, or that it was in itself exceptionable. He (Mr. Gladstone), as at present advised, believed there was no occasion for it, and that it was exceptionable. The object of the clause was in absolute completeness to remove all restrictions whatever on the action of the Archbishops, Bishops, clergy, and laity of the present Established Church in Ireland, and he believed it did so. If it did not accomplish that purpose he granted that it ought to be amended. Restraints at present attached to the Irish Church in respect of its being established, while other religious bodies had to submit to no such restraints with respect to the management of their own affairs. But having removed those restraints, there, he thought, they ought to stop; because it was not the business of Parliament to confer upon disestablished Churches any positive or constructive power of giving any legal authority to the regulations they might make among themselves. Therefore, the words, besides being unnecessary, were exceptional; and he did not speak without authority in saying this. He would tell the Committee what had happened in an exactly analogous case. In the year 1852, he had proposed a Bill to amend the laws relating to the Church in the colonies. The belief then was that the Church in the colonies did not possess powers for the management of its own affairs, and he sought to give it those powers on the footing of a voluntary contract. The
  1490
  right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli) was then. Leader of the House, and the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) was Colonial Secretary; and on the second reading, of the Motion for committing the Bill, the right hon. Gentleman, on the part of the then Government, took him to task severely—he did not say with undue severity—for making such a proposition, and argued, with great point and ability, that it was exceptional, because its provisions were affirmative and positive in their character. The same view of the matter was urged, with great force, by the present Lord Westbury, and others, and the result was that the House declined to proceed any further with the Bill. Instructed by the argument of the right hon. Gentleman, of his Colleague the (Colonial Secretary, and of the Attorney General of that day (Sir F. Thesiger), he had been careful in the framing of this Bill to leave the Church entire liberty. He thought it must have been in for-getfulness—a very pardonable forgetfulness—of what then took place, that the right hon. Gentleman proposed the Amendment now before the Committee, which was positive in its character, and the effect of which would be to give to the regulations of a voluntary society of Christians, after disestablishment, a kind and degree of sanction, and a basis in law different from that which would attach to the regulations of the Presbyterians, the Wesleyans, or of any other body. He should feel it his duty to object to the Amendment.
  DR. BALLsaid, he was in favour of the Amendment, and he was much confirmed in that view by the fact that a similar proposal had, on a former occasion, been brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman himself. It was proposed for the benefit of the Church, and it would not injure any other person or body, and he could not understand that any other religious body was interested in it. Now, although the right hon. Gentleman's former Bill had been thrown out in the English Parliament, the spirit of it had been adopted in the colonies. In Canada, by an Act of the colonial Parliament, the Preamble of which recited that even the semblance of a connection between Church and State must be abolished in the colony, the Bishops, clergy, and laity

  1491
  were empowered to make regulations for enforcing discipline in the Church. The entire government of the Church in Canada was carried on by virtue of such a provision, as was also that of the colonies of Australia. In the colony of Victoria the Act declared that the resolution of the Assembly or Synod should be binding on the Bishop and his successors, and on the clergy and the laity, and that it should be lawful for the Assembly to establish a Commission for the trial of ecclesiastical offences. Therefore, two most important dependencies in this Empire had found it necessary to pass a measure similar to that which the right hon. Gentleman had failed in passing through that House. If the clause passed as it stood, then he saw nothing in it to prevent the people of Down and Antrim forming a Church for themselves, the people of Leinster another, and the people of Connaught a third; but as they were going to give these people the glebes upon their paying ten years' purchase for the sites, the House was entitled to make some bargain with them, and to say—"We will not allow you to divide yourself into a number of minute sections." Such a restriction would be conducive to good order and good government of the Church. In the United States, a sort of enabling power had been given to each religious body to form a corporation for itself, and he could not see why such a power should not be given to the Church in Ireland.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEmight point out to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, in confirmation of what had fallen from his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for a sister University, that there was one great difference between the Bill he introduced, in 1852, and any legislation that might possibly occur under the present Bill. He spoke from a rather vague recollection of the former Bill; but he believed that that Bill was an enabling and an incorporating Bill, and it dealt with the ecclesiastical constitution of many of our colonies, each of them with its own special form of constitutional government, and very jealous of any general measure emanating from the mother country, and dealing with them in the lump. It was very difficult indeed for the Imperial Legislature in England to deal with the ecclesiastical
  1492
  constitution of several colonies in one Act, in consequence of its involving the question of colonial versus Imperial administration. In consequence of this miscarriage, a short enabling Act was subsequently introduced, though it afterwards fell through, and he believed that the synodical government now existing in various colonial churches was by Acts of the different local Legislatures. Hereafter the Church of Ireland would stand in the position of the Churches in Canada or Victoria. It would be a colonial Church in a country which did not possess an establishment; but Ireland would still be governed, as to its local concerns, as far as secular affairs were concerned, by the Imperial Parliament, while the colonies were locally governed by their respective Parliaments. As far as Ireland was concerned this Imperial Parliament was to that country just as its own Legislature was to each colony—namely, an individual engine of domestic government. It had not been regarded as unconstitutional for the colonial Parliaments to pass enabling Acts incorporating their Churches, and therefore, by parity of argument, it would be no violation of the principle of religious equality if the Parliament of Great Britain should pass such an Act or put a clause in the present Bill with reference to the Disestablished Church of Ireland. As to the point of religious equality so often thrown in the teeth of those who opposed this Bill, he did not see why, if a similar provision were applied for by the Roman Catholic or the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, it should be refused.
  MR. SAUNDERSONsaid, that a doubt had arisen in the minds of members of the Irish Church as to what religious persuasion they would belong to when this Bill was passed. As at present advised they would belong to the sect of the disestablished Irishmen. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government appeared to assume that, after the passing of the Bill, members of the Church from all parts of Ireland would assemble in Dublin in order to form themselves into a Church Body, and to decide what form of religion they would adopt. He thanked the right hon. Gentleman for leaving them perfectly free in this matter to chose what form of doctrine they might think most advisable and suitable; but it was quite

  1493
  within the bounds of possibility that when a number of Irishmen assembled together for this purpose some slight disunion might arise among them; and whereas some might be in favour of adopting the whole of the Thirty-nine Articles, some might prefer a smaller number. A portion of the clergy might refuse to adopt the proceedings of the Church Body, as not in any way binding on them; and he wished to know whether the Church Body, as contemplated by this Bill, would have any power of interfering, or of enforcing discipline in the parishes of Ireland. Or if a certain number of parishes adopted the principles of the Church Body, would the others still continue to belong to the Protestant Episcopal Church of Ireland. This was an important matter. It was felt that if the Church Body was to meet in Dublin and have no power at all, it would be simply a farce. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland would state what position they would be in after disestablishment and disendowment.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN)said, it appeared to him that the words proposed to be added by the right hon. Gentleman were not wanted at all, or, if they were, it was for a purpose not very clearly disclosed in them. If they had any object, it must in reality be to obtain for the Disestablished Church a recognition by the State which no other religious body in Ireland would have. According to an Act of Parliament peculiar to Ireland, no body in that country could meet by representation or delegation: the prohibition in that Act extended to Convocation of the Established Church, save when it met by consent of the Crown. It was rather curious that in an Act of Parliament which had been passed with a view to the suppression of the United Irishmen and other secret societies, Convocation should be specially referred to; but so it was. It was necessary to repeal the prohibition contained in that Act so far as it affected the Church Body, as the Church was about to be disestablished; but to give the disestablished body privileges which no other body would have would be to perpetuate the grievance which now existed. The 19th clause would leave the Archbishops, Bishops, and clergy of the Disestablished Church as free as air to
  1494
  meet and form any constitution which they themselves might choose to form. If the case put by his hon. Friend the Member for Cavan (Mr. Saunderson) should arise—that was, if the Church Body should not agree—they would be in no worse position than the Presbyterians or the Wesleyans. If one portion of the Presbyterian body did not agree with the rest, the dissenting portion formed another Synod. Well, if twenty or thirty parishes of the Disestablished Church did not agree with others, they need not send representatives to the general body. The case of the colonies, relied on by his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Dr. Ball), did not apply. In the colony of Victoria the Act was not passed by the State to bind the Church, but it was passed by the State at the request of the Church Body. He could imagine nothing more objectionable than that a central Church Body in Ireland should come to Parliament for an Act to enable the majority to bind the minority. He believed that the Protestants of Ireland did not want to be dictated to in the manner they would be dictated to if the Amendment were adopted.
  MR. BRUENsupported the Amendment.
  MR. DISRAELIsaid, that the Attorney General for Ireland had given them a lively picture of the impending religious amity which they might expect in Ireland. The result depicted by the right hon. and learned Gentleman was one which he was anxious, if possible, to prevent. He did not think it a necessary element of religious freedom that every facility should be given for discordancy of opinion. In the proposition which he made, he did not ask for any great authority for the Church Body. On the contrary, a subsequent clause of the Bill would give that body a much larger measure of authority, to be exercised in much more important matters. After all, what was it that he proposed by his Amendment? That the new Church Body should conduct their affairs with the authority and decorum of an ecclesiastical Parliament, instead of being made a sort of Donnybrook fair. To allow the opinion of the majority of the Church Body to be the opinion which should regulate the conduct of the whole body appeared to him to be only in ac-

  1495
  cordance with, the Constitution and the habits of this country. He believed that the great grievance of the Amendment was that it would carry into effect convictions entertained by the First Minister of the Crown, in 1852. He was willing to give all the credit of the principle of his Amendment to the right hon. Gentleman. He was only proposing something that the right hon. Gentleman proposed in 1852; but as he (Mr. Gladstone) did not see his way to a concurrence in anything of that kind, he would not press the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 20 (Existing law to subsist by contract).
  DR. BALLsaid, he would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he objected to the adoption of the following Amendment, which had been placed upon the Paper by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer):—
  "In line 34, after 'accordingly,' insert 'and no alteration in such Articles, doctrines, rites, rules, discipline, or ordinances shall be deemed binding in law upon any Archbishop, Bishop, or other person entitled to any annuity under this Act, who shall not consent thereto?'"
  He regretted the absence of the hon. and learned Member, and he did not feel himself empowered to move the Amendment in the absence of his hon. and learned Friend, if the right hon. Gentleman objected to its adoption.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that he also regretted the absence of his hon. and learned Friend (Sir Roundell Palmer). He had had some communication with him, and he believed that his hon. and learned Friend was not indisposed to look with favour upon the view taken of this matter by the Government. Now, he freely admitted that it was one of real difficulty, and different from that which they had just been discussing. They were dealing with the pecuniary interests of a large body of men, and they made the arrangements on the assumption that they would continue to belong to the body to which they now belonged. But then arose the question, what is to be done if that body altered its laws and circumstances in a manner that some particular Members might not approve of? The Amendment of his hon. and learned Friend would provide that no such alteration should
  1496
  be binding on any annuitant, but the objections to such an Amendment were fundamental. How was "consent" to be denned or provided for? A person, under such an Amendment, might object to the action of the representative ecclesiastical assembly contemplated by the Bill, and might refuse to be bound by its decision, even though, with the exception of himself, the whole body of the Church was in favour of it. At least upon the passing of any particular Act by the Church Body any small minority might object to being bound by the decision of the majority, and thus two or perhaps many systems of law might be established within the Church. He did not know how to distinguish between such a state of things and anarchy. How could it be known to what laws the Church was subject, and to what she was not subject? The Bill, as it now stood, proceeded on an uniform and just assumption. The Church in Ireland was to be set free without restraint or qualification; the Government thought that incumbent on them when they took away its privileges. They were then asked—"Won't you take securities for a right use of that freedom." They answered—"No, because if we do so it is freedom no longer." But then came the question—"How will you deal with the rights of individuals?" The best answer he could give was this—if any individuals of the clergy of the Church of Ireland were not content to accept the position which the Bill as it now stood gave them—if they mistrusted the body to which they belonged—the only remedy for the difficulty was this, that the Government must—and he thought they would—endeavour to construct some provision under which, upon certain terms in regard to their annuity or commutation, such persons might cut of out the game altogether—of course he used the expression not irreverently—and release themselves from all obligations to, and connection with, that body. This might be done, but he did not see how it was possible that they should continue members of that body and yet enjoy the license of individuals dissenting from this or that particular rule or constitution. It was quite evident that it was of the greatest importance to know what view was taken by the Irish clergy themselves of the new liability they would come under as members of the Disestablished Church;

  1497
  that was to say, the liability to have their religious affairs affected by the proceedings of the proposed assembly that might meet under that measure. If the clergy declined to trust their religious affairs to the control of the proposed assembly, the House could not bind them to become members. In that case it might be right to introduce a provision to enable them to resign some proportion of the compensation contemplated by the Bill for the purpose of permitting them to go away free from all obligations. But it was very satisfactory to know that from no one quarter in the Church of Ireland—and the Government had been in communication with a number of persons on this subject—had there proceeded the slightest sentiment of distrust of that nature, or the least disposition to assert their individual rights as against the body. Well, if the clergy of the Church of Ireland were satisfied with the prospect and content to take their chance, so to speak, as members of that community, it was not necessary for the House to trouble itself very much upon the question. It was a matter that had received, and would continue to receive, the earnest attention of the Government.
  DR. BALLsaid, that he had received from some of the Irish clergy communications expressing the wish that this Amendment should be passed. In the absence of the hon. and learned Member for Richmond he could not, however, undertake the responsibility of moving it, especially after the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, who had certainly suggested an alternative that had not yet been taken into consideration.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he was very glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Dr. Ball) was giving his attention to this point. It was not one involving any party considerations, and he had some confidence that the proposal of the Government would meet with the approval of hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House.
  MR. SHERLOCKsaid, he rose to propose the omission of the clause, on the ground that it was inconsistent with the leading principle of the Bill—the establishment of complete religious equality in Ireland, while it was also of far too inquisitorial a character. The objection that had been made against Clause 18, that it would virtually re-establish the
  1498
  Disestablished Church was still more applicable to this clause. The effect of it was to distinguish the clergymen of the Episcopal Church in Ireland from those of the Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, and other religious denominations, and if any such provisions were to be carried in favour of the members of the present Establishment, they ought to be extended impartially to all other sects. He did not mean to argue that the Roman Catholics of Ireland would be willing that their ecclesiastical discipline should be supported by appeals to the temporal courts, except in cases where questions of property were concerned. He thought that, on the principle of equality, and in a Bill establishing voluntaryism in Ireland, this was a clause that ought to be omitted.
  MR. CANDLISHsaid, he thought that the clause would create a marked distinction between the Disestablished Church and other religious bodies, and he wished that the Government would leave the members of the Disestablished Church entirely free.
  MR. R. BRIGHTsaid that he was in favour of the clause, and only doubted whether it would be sufficient to secure, as he hoped it was intended to do, the indentity of doctrine and discipline between the Churches of England and Ireland. He could see no force in the objections of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Sherlock); but, on the other hand they must remember that in the first days of disestablishment the Church would be feeble and it was the duty of the House to lend them a helping hand, and the process of disestablishment would be really a gradual one, for when the Act came into operation, in 1871, there would be a large portion of the clergy who would not be under the voluntary system, but bound by their ordination vows to obedience to the laws of the Church. In the event of any question of doctrine arising to what court could they appeal? The Committee had done away with the ecclesiastical courts and substituted for them the temporal courts, which might not always decide upon the same principles as the ecclesiastical courts had been accustomed to do. In fact, it was probable that questions would come before the temporal courts which had never been before the ecclesiastical courts at all. It would, no doubt, be necessary in the end to re-

  1499
  sort to the highest court of appeal in this country, but in the mean time there would be danger of a great schism being created in Ireland.
  MR. O'REILLY DEASEsaid, he thought that the most unlimited freedom of action should be given by the State to all denominations whatever.
  MR. PIMdesired that all the religious bodies in Ireland should be placed on a footing of equality. He should not have objected to the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli). It would be almost necessary, in order to prevent the Church, when once placed in a voluntary position, from getting into absolute confusion. He reminded the House that they were about to leave the Church in a condition of which there was no example since the disestablishment of the Church of Rome in Ireland. But in that case that Church had an organization of its own, and it received its directions from abroad. It was said that this clause was only introduced for a temporary purpose till the Church was in a condition to make arrangements for itself. That might be, but then see what was done by a subsequent clause, which provided that, when the Church Body had made laws and regulations for itself, it should be lawful for the Queen to incorporate that body and enable it, notwithstanding the Statute of Mortmain, to hold lands. But no other body in Ireland had that power. Before this section had the approval of the Committee he hoped a full understanding would be come to that some similar power would be conferred on other religious bodies in Ireland.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, he thought this a very curious clause, and the more curious coming from the quarter it did. They had heard a great deal lately about the hardship of subscription; but here parties were not to subscribe, yet they were to be bound, not by any existing law they might now believe they knew, but, as if they had entered into a contract, by something that might be made by some other body. ["No!"] That was the construction he put upon the clause. It was not always very easy to say what were the obligations of Church membership; but how were these obligations to be enforced? Not by the ecclesiastical, but by the temporal
  1500
  courts. That seemed to him rather a complex mode of proceeding. The hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer), whom he was sorry not to see in his place, seemed to think it necessary to put in words to save the clergy from the inconvenience of any alteration that might be made in the existing law. What was the case? That House, so far as it was in its power, had decided by a large majority that Ireland, so far as the governing power of this country is concerned, might—he did not say should—be for the future "without God in the world." ["No, no!"] The House had come to that decision; that was the position in which they were about to put one of the three kingdoms. It was a very grave question, whether, having taken that step, they had a right to interfere with the new body in any way—whether they ought not to leave them to their own free action—whether, by any attempt of this kind to keep them in conformity with some other body, they might not be doing the same very serious mischief. If they were to be entirely free from the State let them be free. They had sometimes heard of the Church in chains—that was rather a favourate phrase with some; but if there could be a Church in chains it would be the Church of Ireland disestablished and disendowed, with this 20th clause round its neck, He did not see any use at all in hindering the free action of the Church after the cable had been cut.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid, he thought that if the 20th clause were looked at fairly, it would be seen that it was not open to the objections with which it had been assailed from various quarters. Beginning with the words—
  "Subject to any alteration which may be made after the said first day of January, One thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, by the members for the time being of the said Church, or their representatives,"
  it enacted that the present ecclesiastical law of Ireland would be binding on the members as if they had agreed to observe the same. It was important to remark that this clause was entirely of a transitional character, and only proposed to operate so as to lift over the members of the Church from one state of things that had been entirely destroyed to another with which they might themselves deal. The view of the Govern-

  1501
  ment in agreeing to the clause was that the members of the Church would create a state of things for themselves. Until the voluntary body made some regulations analogous to those that governed all other religious bodies, there must be some such provision as this made by Parliament, or the whole body would be in a state of absolute anarchy. If they took from the members of the Church the courts in which their own peculiar obligations were enforced, they would not be placed in a better position than was occupied by other voluntary bodies in the kingdom; and the only difference between the position of a clergyman who refused to join the Church Body, and the one who did, was, that the one who did not join would be in a worse position than Dissenters, because in the one case they would enter into a contract to be bound by regulations to which they consented, while in the other they would be bound by those to which they did not consent. Suppose a minister guilty of any offence which would subject him to the censure of an ecclesiastical court, or to deprivation of his living. Under the new state of things he would be taken to have broken a contract which he would be supposed to be bound to keep, and which would be enforced against him by the temporal courts, the penalty for breach of which might be the deprivation of his living. The only difference would be that the sentence would be a temporal instead of an ecclesiastical sentence. Without such a clause the Bill would not work, because it provided for the discipline of the Church in the interval in the only possible way.
  MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, he thought it was possible to come to a common understanding in this case. As he understood the matter, it was a pity that this clause preceded the 21st. By the 21st clause the ecclesiastical courts were to be abolished on the 1st January, 1871, and this clause coming before it left some misapprehension as to its meaning. Coining before the abolition of the ecclesiastical courts it gave some persons the idea that it would subject them to a discipline that they had not before been called to submit to. But as he understood the clause it would not come into operation till 1871, and he admitted it was necessary that some provision should be made until then. Up
  1502
  to the 1st of January, 1871, everything was clear—everything would be administered by the ecclesiastical courts as at present. Then would come 1871, and by that time it was supposed the Church Body would be constituted. Till that Church Body, as a constituent body, representing the Church, altered the constitution, it was the intention of the Government that the civil courts should put in force the laws of the Church as they existed at present. That seemed to him very reasonable also. He saw no difficulty in it as far as property was concerned. But a question might arise as to the Bishop's jurisdiction, such as in the matter of a certificate of sequestration. He wished to know whether the Bishop's certificate of sequestration could be enforced in the temporal courts? He wanted to know whether, if the Church, though altered in organization, did not alter its laws, the Bishops, with the consent of the Church Body, could prosecute in the temporal courts in a question of doctrine? He supposed it would be so, for he remembered a dispute among the Dissenters, whether a certain chapel belonged to the Particular or to the General Baptists. It was a question of doctrine, and it was enforced in the Court of Chancery. But he wanted this point specifically stated, as much misapprehension existed on the subject out-of-doors.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN)said, that the right hem. Gentleman (Mr. Hardy) had stated the effect of the clause with perfect fairness. The ecclesiastical courts were not to be abolished until the 1st of January, 1871. The effect of that would be that inasmuch as these courts had authoritative jurisdiction over the members of the Established Church, the coercive jurisdiction of the Bishops, as enforced by those courts, would last until that time. The Bill provided machinery by which the Church might be ready on the 1st of January, 1871, to have statutes and a representative body of its own. But it might possibly be that differences would arise, and in such an event the clause provided for the interregnum. But for the clause everything would fall into perfect confusion, and a minister might out or the pulpit and preach doctrine quite contrary to that of the Thirty-nine Articles, and to that which his congregation accepted

  1503
  and believed. The clause granted power of appeal under such circumstances to the temporal courts. It gave the temporal courts no additional jurisdiction, but merely confirmed to them the same jurisdiction as was actually exercised at this moment by the Court of Chancery over Wesleyans, Presbyterians, and other Dissenting bodies.
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, he found difficulty in assenting to the clause from the fact that the Bill would drive the Church of Ireland into a transition state, the result of which could not be ascertained until the new Church Body had been determined. The two clauses taken together, and they could not be separated, provided that the ecclesiastical law should cease to be administered in Ireland on the 1st of January, 1871, and that the interval, if there should be one between this and the time that the new Church Body framed its constitution, should be provided for under Clause 20. Now, if all the parties in the Church agreed as to its government, no difficulty would arise; but it must be remembered that the Bill dealt with a body which had certain existing laws, to which its officiating members had subscribed. Some of its members would wish those laws to be maintained, while others might desire to see them put an end to in the new laws which the new Church Body might desire to create. Supposing, then, that a large portion of the new Church Body did not agree to maintain the existing laws, what protection would the members of the Church have? And what would happen if the clerical authorities of the Church did not subscribe to the new doctrines laid down? He was not prepared to propose any Amendment to these two clauses, but he feared that great difficulties might arise if they were carried in their present form. There was another point on which he desired to have additional information. He should be glad to learn from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Sullivan) what was meant by the words "ecclesiastical law." What did those words include? It was distinctly said in one clause that the ecclesiastical law should be binding till the new provision was made, and by the next clause it was provided that the ecclesiastical law should be entirely abolished. How many Acts of Parliament and regulations affecting
  1504
  the Church did these words "ecclesiastical law" include; which would be binding, and which would be abolished? There ought to be some explanation of this.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, his right hon. Friend (Mr. Walpole) had remarked that there was much difficulty in regard to these clauses and the arrangements they contemplated. Well, the Government also admitted that that was the case. Indeed, he should like to know how any Legislature was to go through the operation of converting an established Church into a voluntary community of Christians, and to reserve, at the same time, all its legal rights as far as possible, without encountering difficulties. As regards the difficulty which might possibly be experienced at a future period by individuals who might not feel disposed to assent to particular regulations made by the new Church Body, that was a subject which had been already discussed on the Amendment proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer), and it would not be convenient to revert to it on the consideration of this clause, which affected the new Church Body as a whole. The right hon. Gentleman had asked what would be done if the body went to pieces or could not constitute itself. Well, the present Bill had been constructed throughout upon the supposition that a new Church Body would be formed, and he did not say that, in case it was not, further legislation would not be necessary. But he defied anyone to propose a law which should be perfectly adapted to the two suppositions—that the members of the Church in Ireland would and would not constitute the new Body. It would not be pursuing a course friendly to the Church if they were to include a set of propositions in the Bill on the supposition that it would, after the passing of the measure, disperse into fragments. It was more respectful, and it would be more beneficial, to assume in the first instance, as the Government had assumed, that the Church would be disposed to keep together hereafter, as it had done heretofore, although the means by which it operated would be different. If these expectations were not realized it would then be time to attempt to deal with the fragments into which the Church might be dispersed. He desired nothing better for the clause

  1505
  than that it should rest on the speeches which had been delivered in succession by his learned Friend the Solicitor General, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gathorne Hardy), and the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Sullivan). In reply to the appeal made, at an earlier period of the evening, by the Member for Sunderland (Mr. Candlish), he could not help expressing his belief that the hon. Gentleman's objections to the clause must have been mitigated by the speeches he had just alluded to. One indication of the importance of the clause was that neither the right hon. Member for the University of Oxford nor the right hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole) had proposed any alteration. No authority whatever was given by this clause to the present ecclesiastical law, the subject-matter of which would remain simply as a matter of contract between individuals, and not as imposed by authority of the State. Although the clause was most necessary for the purpose of the Disestablished Church, it was not either exceptionally advantageous or exceptionally disadvantageous to that body. Every religious body found it necessary to constitute tribunals of its own, which dealt with various circumstances which arose in the first instance; and, as a general rule, it was only in any difficulty, when their own machinery happened to be insufficient, that they were driven to appeal to the temporal courts as a last resort. But this new religious body, so long as the clause remained in action, would have no resort but to the temporal courts; therefore they would have the strongest practical motives for exempting themselves from the operation of the clause in order to voluntarily constitute their own tribunals. If he were asked, with regard to the general prospects of this Bill, and the hopes he entertained of carrying it into law, he should not hesitate to say that, in that point of view, the importance of the clause could not be exaggerated. It involved no violation of the principles of the Bill; it was, he believed, required by the common dictates of justice, and he strongly commended it to the acceptance of the Committee on account of the tendency it would have to lessen the difficulties and promote an early settlement of the question.
  MR. SHERLOCKsaid, that, although he still entertained some doubts as to the effect of the clause, he would not trouble the Committee with dividing, but would withdraw his Amendment.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 21 agreed to.
  Clause 22 (Incorporation of church body).
  DR. BALLsaid, he rose to propose as an Amendment, to leave out at the end of the clause the words "to such extent as is in this Act provided, but not further or otherwise." The effect of the clause as it at present stood was this—The representative body of the Church might hold lands. There was no limitation or obstruction as to any amount of money, because there were no laws or rules of law in Ireland to prohibit anybody, whether a corporation or an individual, for any religious or charitable purpose from holding any amount of money. There were laws in Ireland to prevent corporations, but not individuals, from holding lands. Now, the first part of this clause provided that if at any time it was shown to the satisfaction of Her Majesty that the Church, as there described, had agreed upon a representative body, then it should be lawful for Her Majesty by charter to incorporate such body. That would make the new Church Body a corporation, and when it was made a corporation it was brought under the law of Ireland applying to corporations. The law of Ireland applicable to corporations was this—The old statutes passed in England in the reigns of the Edwards and Henries prohibiting corporations from holding lands were introduced, or rather the effect of them was introduced, into Ireland by Poyning's Law. Therefore since Poyning's Law corporations in Ireland could not hold lands without license. There was no prohibitory law in Ireland preventing any property from being applied to religious uses; the sole restriction in Ireland was against land being acquired or held by a corporation. In consequence of the Church Body being incorporated, the general law of Ireland would prohibit that body from holding any lands whatever except so far as it was licensed. Now the close of the clause dealt with that, as it said that the Church Body should have power, notwithstanding the Statutes of Mortmain, to hold lands to

  1507
  the extent that was provided in the Act, but not further or otherwise. But the only license to hold lands given in the Bill was contained in one clause, making provision for thirty acres in the case of a Bishop's house and for ten acres in the case of a glebe house. He objected to that limitation in both cases. The thirty acres and the ten acres would be too small. What were thirty acres in connection with the see house of Armagh, to which it had taken £14,000 to add one storey? The whole demesne, too, which was about 200 acres, was planted in such a manner that you could not carve it and cut it up without injuring the entire place. Viewing it merely as regarded the Government plan, the quantity defined was entirely too small. But he had a further objection to the limit imposed; he did not know why they were to put any restriction at all. The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland could hold land there to the extent of £10,000 or £100,000 a year, because the corporate character did not apply to that Church. The Roman Catholics had never been allowed to form a corporation sole or corporation aggregate. He did not deny that an individual could endow a bishopric or a glebe by conveying it to trustees, but that would be a very inconvenient mode of proceeding. The hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) had another Amendment, with something like the same object, leaving the limitation contained in the Bill, but open to such further extension as Her Majesty might hereafter authorize. The spirit of that Amendment would, however, he feared, be considered contrary to the decisions already arrived at by the House, to the effect that there should be a complete severance between the Crown, or in other words, the State, and the Church Body. Then, again, it was not altogether fair to place the Church Body at the mercy of whatever Government was in Office, which would be the effect of the hon. and learned Gentleman's Amendment. In various countries various limits as to the extent of land to be held in mortmain were adopted. In America and the colonies, £200 or £300 a year were allowed for each clergyman, and he would have no objection to accept a limit of that kind in this case. The Roman Catholic Church could not be prevented from acquir-
  1508
  ing property in Ireland, because there was no statute against superstitious uses in that country. Under the Charitable Bequests Act a deed or will, confirming endowment for religious uses, might be executed three months before the death of the testator, and this limit of time was the only restriction in the case of the Roman Catholic Church, and that was founded not on motives of religion but policy. The Amendment which he would propose was to leave out the limit as to extent, and therefore he would move in page 8, line 19, to leave out "to such extent as is in this Act provided, but not further or otherwise."
  Amendment proposed, in page 8, line 19, to leave out from the word "lands," to the end of the Clause.—(Dr. Ball)
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN)said, the effect of the Amendment would be to enable the Church Body, when constituted, to hold lands to any extent whatever—a proposal utterly contrary to the spirit of the law. He could understand his right hon. Friend (Dr. Ball) proposing to enlarge the limitation, but to say that this corporation was to be favoured beyond all other bodies whatever he could hardly conceive to be a serious proposition. What his right hon. Friend had said with respect to the Roman Catholic Church was to be taken with a qualification. By the Charitable Bequests Act property could be held for them by trustees, and that he thought the Church Body might fairly ask. But the law never allowed the Roman Catholic Church to hold an acre of land as a corporation. On the contrary, that Church had been driven to every possible shift and device and to enormous expense to obtain the means of doing so, while the Established Church had been favoured by statute after statute, giving the most comprehensive powers with respect to these things. His right hon. Friend had spoken of the Palace of Armagh, and had told the House that it had cost £14,000 to put one storey on it. Well, if anything were wanting to add force to the argument in favour of the proposal of the Government, it had been supplied by his right hon. Friend. His right hon. Friend regretted that the see of Armagh should be deprived of its beautiful demesne; but thirty acres were a pretty fair allowance, and a Bishop

  1509
  would probably be better employed on his thirty acres than in putting a new storey on his palace at a cost of £14,000.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland seemed to have landed the House in a very unfair conclusion. He could not say that he was as much taken by surprise, as the right hon. Gentleman seemed to be, to hear that a country house in a former generation, when labour was high, and when the situation was remote, should have cost more than, perhaps, it ought to have cost, or would now cost, in a state of things like the present; but it hardly comported with the position of the right hon. Gentleman, or with the feelings with which he ought to have approached this question, for him to come forward, and to excite something like what, if it had not come from so august a personage, he should have called a claptrap cheer. Well, he would simply ask the Committee whether it was prepared to strip this Disestablished Church of all its property, and then turn it out naked into the world? Was it not a great hardship and unfairness that the Church, when constituted into a voluntary body, should be prevented from making itself into a benefactor of Ireland in the way of agricultural improvement? Was it not a great hardship if the Church, stripped of its old possessions and turned out almost naked, is to be precluded from making the best investment for its money it could, or, if it pleased, turning it into land? With so much unreclaimed land as Ireland still contained, and so many complaints rife about the absenteeism and want of interest of the landowners, any body of men who were induced to undertake and superintend reclamation and cultivation would be Ireland's natural benefactors. No obstacle, he maintained, ought to be thrown in the way of the Church Body investing its money, acquired by way of commutation or of voluntary gifts, in the purchase of land. The hon. and learned Gentleman opposite maintained that for corporations to hold lands to an indefinite amount was a power unknown to the law, but at present a factor of the United Kingdom without an established Church was equally a thing unknown to the law, and if disestablishment were resolved upon in any one of
  1510
  these factors it must be faced and taken with all its sequelœ. There might be invidiousness in an Establishment having this power of holding land; there could be none in its being conceded to a voluntary body. One unknown state of things ought to be established to meet the other. If there was a fear that the effect of this Amendment would be that the Protestant laity of Ireland would flock into the market to buy land for the benefit of the clergy of their Church, to an extent detrimental to public polity, he could only say he should be glad to see such a burning zeal realized, and he should not then look upon this Bill with so much apprehension. But all people know that the new Body would, at best, only have a moderate income, and it was an act of tyranny to limit it in its commercial freedom to invest what it might obtain at the most remunerative interest, including landed securities.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, they were not now discussing the question whether thirty acres were sufficient for a Bishop or ten for a clergyman. He was disposed to admit that, in certain cases, those limits would require modification as regarded glebes in the occupation of the clergyman, and where the Commissioners were of opinion that severance would be injurious, but that would come in a later clause. With regard, however, to the present Amendment, so far as he understood it from the observations of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Dr. Ball), and of the hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Beresford Hope), the Government must distinctly and decidedly join issue with the right hon. and learned Gentleman. It was proposed that the Disestablished Church should have the opportunity of investing in land without any legal limitation to whatever extent it might find convenient, and the hon. Member for the University of Cambridge anticipated that the Disestablished Church would then take the read in the great work of agricultural improvement. His own impression was that the Disestablished Church would have something else to do. Ecclesiastical landlords, as a general rule, were bad landlords, and could not well be otherwise. If the ecclesiastics of the Irish Church engaged in land accumulation and management, they would be ecclesiastics of a very different

  1511
  kidney from those of which the Disestablished Church would have need. On grounds of public policy he was averse to the principle of accumulating lands in ecclesiastical hands. Whatever they did for the Disestablished Church they must be prepared to do for all other bodies in Ireland; and then arose this further question—the question between the various religious bodies and the State. Time was when almost the only kind of productive property was landed property. No wonder, then, that great license was given 500 years ago for its tenure by the Church, though even then it was continually found necessary for the State to interfere to impose limits on the power of holding endowments of land. But we had now lived into a period when the proportion of personal property had become very great, was every day increasing, and admitted of every variety of investment. He was not arguing that they should limit the power of bequests, but he thought it was enough for the religious bodies, as a general rule, to have the power of investment other than in land, and that it was necessary to apply a somewhat rigid rule as to the amount of landed property which they should be allowed to hold, especially in a country where the quantity of soil was limited, and where an ecclesiastical landlord, from the nature of things, could not be a good landlord. The Government could not accede to any change in the structure of the Bill which would entirely and essentially alter the present character of its provisions, and they objected to recognize landed property as a fit receptacle for ecclesiastical investments.
  MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, he thought it probable that the Church Body would be inclined to invest more in personal than in real property, for their own sakes. The right hon. Gentleman opposite the First Lord of the Treasury had, however, laid down a principle to which, if he adhered, he could not refuse to assent to what was now proposed. The right hon. Gentleman declared that what they did for the Disestablished Church they must do for all other religious bodies in Ireland. He (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) would reverse that, and say that what they did for others they should do for the Disestablished Church. The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland was not an established Church, and could
  1512
  not be from its organization, a corporation, and to get over the difficulty thus arising, the Commissioners of Charities were authorized by 7 & 8 Vict. c. 97, the Charitable Bequests Act, to hold any amount of lands or property for the benefit of the priests of that Church and their successors, and for the Bishops of that Church and their successors. And, therefore, these charitable Commissioners held lands as trustees for those persons, of whom the First Minister of the Crown had stated that they could not be good landlords without being bad ecclesiastics. In that way he maintained that a fiduciary body had been created by Act of Parliament, into whose hands funds and lands were put by to accumulate. The fiduciary body, in the present instance, was created by the Government itself, and the Bill put into the hands of a corporate body all the funds of the Church. The Bill gave them a power to hold any amount of personal property, and he could not understand why it did not give them the same power with regard to real property also. The First Minister of the Crown, and the Attorney General for Ireland had laid down the principle that the same measure should be meted out to all religious bodies in Ireland. Well, then, having put the Roman Catholic body on that footing by the Charitable Trusts Act, he thought that the Government were bound to introduce into this Bill clauses similar to those in that Act.
  MR. BENTINCKsaid, he happened to have been a member of the Ecclesiastical Titles Committee, and had heard a great deal about the land question; and it was admitted that, as stated by his right hon. Friend, the Roman Catholic clergy had the power to acquire, and, in point of fact, did acquire, any amount of real estate. The right hon. Gentleman, though he had to a certain extent consented to modify the clause, never said that he would put the new Church Body upon the same footing as the priests of the Roman Church. He (Mr. Bentinck) maintained that this was not equality.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, the late Mr. Southey asked why a man who were a black coat should be a worse landlord than he who were a blue one, and he could not concur in the apparent conclusion of the First Minister of the Crown, that a gentleman wearing a

  1513
  black coat would make a worse landlord than a gentleman wearing a blue one; indeed, he thought that as regarded Ireland, at all events, the reverse was true; and he had never heard that clerical landlords had been the victims of the violence to which other landlords had been subjected. Be that as it might, if the Church of Ireland was to be committed to the voluntary principle, why should the State step in and say the voluntary principle should not apply to the holding of land, except in the limited degree stated in the Bill? Through the mouth of the Attorney General the Government had declared the proper size and limit of glebes and episcopal domains; but that declaration was at variance with the first principle of the measure, with which the Amendment of his right hon. Friend was quite consistent; for what was that principle? It was that henceforth the State should not concern itself with the arrangements or affairs of the Irish Church. It was laid down, as a principle of public policy, that corporations should not hold land; but the Charitable Bequests Commission in Ireland was at liberty to hold an unlimited quantity of land for the purposes of the Roman Catholic Church, and he, therefore, wished to know whether that power was consistent with public policy? The right hon. Gentleman had admitted that, so far as regarded bequests of land, the Disestablished Church ought to be placed on the same footing as the Roman Catholic Church; but did the Bill place the two on an equality? It did not, and he therefore wished to know whether the right. hon. gentleman would bring up clauses to place the two Churches on an equality? As to the principle of public policy which prevented the right hon. Gentleman acceding to the proposal, he ventured to say there was no country in the world in which that principle, or the dread of ecclesiastical domination and spiritual influence, prevailed more than in the sister kingdom of Scotland. But did the law in that country say that gifts of land to a Church should be void? Not at all; the only limitation of the Scotch law was that the person who made a bequest of land for a religious or charitable purpose should have been seen at kirk or at market after he made it. He would venture to say that in no colony was a disestab-
  1514
  lished Church placed in so unfavourable a position as the disestablished Church of Ireland would be placed in by this Bill with respect to the bequests of land. On all these grounds the First Minister of the Crown was bound to assure the Committee he would bring up clauses to place the Disestablished Church on the same footing with respect to bequests of land as the Roman Catholic Church, or to show greater favour than he had shown to the Amendment.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he rose to reply to the challenge of the noble Lord (Lord John Manners), and he was glad of the opportunity it afforded him of removing some degree of misapprehension which probably existed in reference to this subject. The hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Bentinck) had read them a lecture on equality, and to use a phrase from the same side of the House, he (Mr. Gladstone) would say it was very refreshing to hear a lecture from that quarter on the principles of equality. But were they departing from the principle of equality in the proposal they made? This clause was of a limited character, its object being to incorporate the Church Body, and to give to it certain limited powers in regard to the holding of land. Now, that was a question totally distinct from the general state of the law in respect to the holding of land in Ireland. Apparently, and in the letter, an advantage was, no doubt, possessed by the Roman Catholic Church, which had the power, indirectly, through the Commissioners of the Charitable Trusts, of receiving bequests in land, without any specific limit; and the Government were now told that they ought to bring the clergy of the Disestablished Church under the provisions of the Charitable Trusts Act. In reply, he was bound to say that this Bill did not attempt to re-model generally the Law of Mortmain in Ireland. In his opinion, however, the Charitable Bequests Act ought not to be taken as the standard of their proceedings on this Bill. He was a Member of the Government of Sir Robert Peel that had passed that Act, and he could say that it was another of those buttresses of the Established Church of Ireland, and therefore an exception to general principles. How was it possible, at a time when the Established Church, having one-tenth of the people for its followers, held hundreds

  1515
  of thousands of acres, to place a specific limit to the property to be held in trust for the Roman Catholic Church under the Charitable Trusts Act, which was framed solely for the purpose of allowing the clergy of that Church to pick up some of the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. That Act was passed to mitigate in some degree the remarkable anomalies connected with the Established Church. Was the House aware of the extent of the operations of that Act? Unless he (Mr. Gladstone) was misinformed, the extent of property held on behalf of the Roman Catholics under that Act was utterly insignificant. If the noble Lord approved of the principle of the Charitable Trusts Act, let him propose its application to the present Bill. It was one thing to constitute a Church Body a corporation, and allow it to hold land for itself, and another to set up a colourless representative of the State as a corporation in the face of the country, and allow that body to hold land on behalf of a religious community. He entirely agreed with the noble Lord and the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) that there was no liberty given to any other religious body in Ireland which ought not to be given to the Disestablished Church. The proposition to put the Church under the Charitable Bequests Act would be a fair one for the noble Lord to make from his point of view, if he approved the Act. The general Law of Mortmain in Ireland required revision in connection with the Charitable Bequests Act or otherwise. The provision in the clause was forced upon the Government by the circumstances of the case; but the Bill did not propose any change for the sake of theoretical equality. They were compelled to constitute the Church into a corporation, and to say something as to the principles on which it should be regulated with regard to the holding of land. Let them do what was fair and reasonable, and then they would be the better prepared to revise the Law of Mortmain on the principle of perfect equality.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he observed that, whenever the right hon. Gentleman got into a difficulty with regard to the principle of his Bill, he invariably fell back on what he called "a buttress" required for the Established Church in Ireland. They were told, first
  1516
  of all, that the Regium Donum was such a "buttress;" next, they had the same statement applied to the establishment of Maynooth College by Mr. Pitt; then they afterwards found it extended to the enlargement of the Maynooth Grant by the late Sir Robert Peel; and now they heard the Charitable Bequests Act described as a fourth "buttress" of the Established Church. But what was most remarkable was the use made of that "buttress." The use made of it was to prevent equal justice being done to the Disestablished Church in Ireland, as compared with the existing non-established religious communions. The right hon. Gentleman gave him (Lord John Manners) leave to bring forward clauses for placing the Disestablished Church on what might be called the "favoured footing" on which the Roman Catholic Church stood; but he had not gathered from the right hon. Gentleman's speech that he intended to give him his support and that of the Government in the event of his taking him at his word. Should, however, the right hon. Gentleman decline to support such clauses, and merely tell them that, at some time or another, he might probably undertake to remodel the Law of Mortmain as applied to the kingdom of Ireland, the provisions of the Bill would be open to the charge of dealing out one measure to the Established Church of Ireland, and another to the Roman Catholic Church.
  MR. CRUM-EWINGsaid, that he thought it would be most dangerous to invest such a corporation as the Disestablished Church with the power of holding landed property. It would become an imperium in imperio. He earnestly hoped the Committee would not adopt the Amendment.
  MR. G. GREGORYsaid, the clause as it stood proposed to give an unlimited power to the Church Body to hold property, but limited its power to invest that property in land. The clause, however, did not prevent the Church Body from investing money upon mortgage, by which, to all intents and purposes, it might become the proprietor of an unlimited quantity of land. The Attorney General for Ireland must be aware that the direction of recent policy was to relax the Statutes of Mortmain, and that, at the present time, corporations held vast properties under the license of the Crown; and, therefore, there could

  1517
  be no reason why the Church Body should not be permitted to hold land without limitation. He did not see why the Church Body should be put upon a different footing from the Roman Catholic Church, for whom trustees held large quantities of land which practically belonged to that Church.
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, that the Government were prepared to accept the engagement which the noble Lord the Member for North Leicestershire (Lord John Manners) wished to impose upon them. His right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Treasury had stated his readiness to extend to the members of the Church any concession which might be made to other religious denominations in Ireland; and the only question was as to the application of the principle. The only possible inequality that could arise under the clause as against the Church Body would be due to the operation of the Charitable Bequests Act, which it was stated would create an inequality in favour of the Roman Catholic Church. It had been shown, however, that that inequality was more theoretical than real, because it was well known that, in the matter of the acquisition of landed property, the Charitable Bequests Act had been almost a dead letter. But such as that inequality was, his right hon. Friend had expressed himself as prepared at the proper time to correct it in one way or the other—either by a modification of the Charitable Bequests Act, or by the extension of that Act to the members of all religious communions, including the Disestablished Church. He presumed, however, that the Committee was not going to stultify itself by remedying that trifling inequality in the manner proposed by the Amendment, that was to say, by creating on the other hand a gigantic inequality, and erecting an ecclesiastical corporation which would tower over all other corporations, lay or clerical, throughout the country, in respect of having the sole and exclusive privilege of investing an unlimited amount of money in land.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he would beg to ask whether the provisions suggested by the right hon. Gentleman were intended to be introduced into this Bill? [Mr. GLADSTONE replied in the negative.] He must point out that, in that case, it was impossible that those provi-
  1518
  sions could be presented to the House for consideration during the present Session, and no one knew when they would be brought in. He trusted that if the right hon. Gentleman refused to introduce such provisions into the present Bill, the noble Lord (Lord John Manners) would take upon himself to do so by way of Amendment. As to the supposed danger from the wealth of the Church Body, he could only say, that if the. Bill passed, people would probably not be so ready to give money to corporations as they had heretofore been.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 259; Noes 157: Majority 102.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 23 (Redemption of annuities and life interest of ecclesiastical persons).
  MR. DISRAELI: Sir, whatever views may have been altered during this discussion, mine continue unchanged; and the experience of every day more and more convinces me of the difficulties which we have to encounter in connection with this question. I think that they were bound, when proposing, as they admit, a revolutionary measure like the present, to prepare all that subsequent legislation, which they now tell us is necessary. Looking upon this Bill, as I do, with unaffected repugnance, and believing that we have embarked in an enterprize that may prove disastrous to the realm, I am equally of opinion that if it is to pass—and in Committee we ought to work upon the assumption that it may or will pass—we ought to do everything we can to facilitate its provisions being carried into effect. With this view, therefore, I have considered this important clause, by which the redemption of the annuities and life interests of ecclesiastical persons is provided for under certain circumstances and certain conditions. It is proposed in the Bill that the representative body of the Church may assent to the Commissioners commuting the annuity or the value of the life interest of any ecclesiastical person; and that upon a person applying to the Commissioners they may pay the capital sum for that interest to the representative body of the Church. Now, it is evident that this may be a very long

  1519
  operation, and probably there would be a very considerable period before any great result could be accomplished. All must, I think, deprecate an operation of this character being carried on in so desultory and fragmentary a manner; and it is highly desirable that if this great result is to be accomplished it should be accomplished as soon as possible. With this view I propose an Amendment to the effect that the repretative body itself shall apply to the Commissioners for a commutation of the life interests; and that the Commissioners themselves, after they have ascertained and declared the aggregate amount of the yearly income, shall then commute this value, and capitalizing the amount, pay over that capitalized sum at once to the ecclesiastical body. This appears to me to be a course that recommends itself to all who have any regard to common sense; for if an operation of this kind is to be achieved, it should take place as soon as possible, and as completely as possible. If it could be done within a year it would be most advantageous to the country. I, therefore, propose instead of every individual—by the somewhat complicated course proposed in the Bill—applying to the Commissioners—for I do not see any satisfactory solution of the question if that course is pursued—I propose that, by the simple machinery contained in my Amendment, the whole capitalization shall take place at once, and I hope that, with the sanction of the Government, I may induce the Committee to assent to this. If this should be agreed to it would remain for us to consider the period upon which the commutation should be calculated. As far as I can gather from the general scope of the Bill, from the speeches of the First Minister of the Crown, and from casual observations made during these now somewhat protracted debates, I think that the mean term that would meet the justice of the case, and the arrangement that would be satisfactory to both sides of the House, is what I propose—that the capitalization should be made at the rate of fourteen years' purchase. This arrangement, if adopted, would greatly facilitate the settlement of the question now before us, and although, at the time that this clause was originally framed, the proposal it embodied was, no doubt, the best that suggested itself to the mind of the Government, I
  1520
  trust that their candour will induce them to acknowledge that the course I now propose is infinitely preferable. If the Committee should agree to what I have mentioned as a mean term, it appears to me that we shall have come to a settlement of this, which is, perhaps, not the least important clause in this measure, with less difficulty than has been generally anticipated. The right hon. Gentleman, in conclusion, moved his Amendment.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out from the word "Church," in page 8, line 24, to the word "Any," in page 9, line 6, in order to insert the words—
  "It shall be lawful for such representative body, at any time between the first day of January one thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, and the first day of January one thousand eight hundred and seventy-two, but not afterwards, to apply to the Commissioners for such commutation of life interests as hereinafter mentioned, and thereupon the Commissioners shall ascertain and declare the aggregate amount of the yearly income to be computed as mentioned in Section 14 of this Act, of all persons holding, on the first day of January one thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, any archbishopric, bishopric, benefice, or cathedral preferment in or connected with the said Church, and also the aggregate yearly value as on that day of any ecclesiastical property passing to the Commissioners, on the death of such holders, such yearly value to be the full and true value of the property after deducting all rates and taxes other than income tax, and to include the benefit (if any) derived from fines paid on renewal of leases on an average of fourteen years preceding the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine; and the Commissioners, if the representative body shall satisfy them that such incomes and life interests are unincumbered, or, if incumbered, that the incumbrancers consent to the commutation, and also that the persons entitled to such incomes and life interests have consented in writing to such commutation and payment as herein mentioned, or, as regards those who have not so consented, that the due and punctual payment for their respective lives of the annuities which would be coming to them under Section 14 of this Act, and of the said yearly value of their life interests, has been secured to them respectively by the said representative body, to the satisfaction of the Commissioners, shall pay to the said representative body a capital sum equal to fourteen times the amount of such aggregate yearly incomes and life interests; and, upon such capital sums being paid, the several annuities provided for such persons under Section 14 shall not take effect or shall cease (as the case may be), and all the estates and interest of such persons in such ecclesiastical property shall vest in the Commissioners,"—(Mr. Disraeli,)
  —instead thereof.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman

  1521
  (Mr. Disraeli) that the consistent course for those who, like himself, felt a repugnance to this Bill was to amend its provisions, so far as they might he able to induce the House to agree with their views, and he had not the least doubt that that was the spirit and intention with which the right hon. Gentleman had proposed the Amendment. The immediate effect of that Amendment would he to increase the compensation given to the Church. The Amendment had fallen rather out of harmony with the general plan of Amendments of the right hon. Gentleman, in consequence of the Committee having declined to substitute 1872 for 1871. As it originally stood, the ordinary income of the Church would have continued till 1872. But he had objections which went to the substance of the proposition, and which he would endeavour to state to the Committee. In the first place, the clause would interfere with the individual liberty of clergymen as to commutation. He admitted that, in effecting the great changes contemplated by this Bill, it would be impossible to leave every individual precisely in the same condition which he now occupied; but he also thought it was their duty, and that it was highly politic, to confine those changes within the narrowest possible limits; and he could not understand why they should force the clergy, as a body, to proceed upon the principle of commutation implied in this Amendment. It was proposed that before the Church Body could carry out the commutation in the case of persons who did not consent to it, they should show that the due and punctual payment of the annuities was provided for. Were the Commissioners, then, to enter into the whole pecuniary position of the representative body, to examine its solvency, and satisfy themselves that the representative body had made such arrangements as would insure the payment of annuities, some of which would last for thirty, and even for forty or fifty years? The obvious effect of such a provision would be to make the Commissioners interfere at every point with the pecuniary arrangements of the Church Body, to exercise a virtual control over every investment which the Body wished to make, probably to compel the Church Body to accept less profitable securities than they would otherwise invest in, and
  1522
  thus raise a conflict of interest between the State and the representative body. But suppose the Commissioners satisfied themselves that the pecuniary arrangements were satisfactory, and the money would be paid. What would this amount to? It would be nothing else than a Parliamentary guarantee. It was quite impossible that the Commissioners could, under the terms of this clause, subscribe a document declaring that, in each case, the payment of the annuities had been secured by the representative body without entailing this consequence, that, if the arrangements of the representative body proved insufficient or unsatisfactory, the faith of the State would be pledged to everyone of these annuitants, and the State would have to bear the whole responsibility for the good or bad finance of the body. It was impossible for the House of Commons to undertake this liability. He had another word to say with regard to the fourteen years. If they were to increase the commutation money, it should be increased upon some intelligible principle; but the principle laid down by the right hon. Gentleman was not intelligible. He had referred to a declaration that fourteen years was about the mean value of the life interests compensated by the Bill. That was true, but it was not the mean of the life interests affected by this clause. There were five principal classes of life interests—the life interests of Bishops, of incumbents, of persons connected with cathedrals, of curates, and of Presbyterians. Of these, the life interests of curates were the best. They came to either sixteen or seventeen years' purchase. The life interests of the Presbyterian ministers were the next best, and they came to something under fifteen years' purchase. The life interests of persons connected with cathedrals, on account of the great varieties of age, were the third best; these fell under fourteen years. The life interests of incumbents fell yet more considerably under fourteen years, and those of Bishops, invariably men who had reached a respectable maturity, fell yet more under the line of fourteen years. In the Bill he had had to deal with these five classes of life interests, of which two were above and three under fourteen years; but the right hon. Gentleman struck off the two above fourteen years, and then took the fourteen years as the

  1523
  mean of the three classes, everyone of which was under that line. It was quite plain that such a proposal would not hold water. How, for instance, would you deal with the Presbyterian clergy? There should he uniformity of treatment, and therefore the right hon. Gentleman would take fourteen years as the mean in their case. The classes referred to in his clause would gain a year or a year and a-half. But if you proposed to deal with the Presbyterian clergy on the same footing, they would reply—"No, narrow as our stipends are, and small as is the commutation to which they entitle us, at least do not clip and curtail us in respect of that natural advantage of which you cannot deprive us—namely, our age." While in the Established Church a man did not usually come to his living before thirty-five or forty years of age, Presbyterian clergymen obtained it at twenty-four or twenty-six, and, therefore, commutation based upon fourteen years' purchase would deprive them of the compensation to which they were entitled. He objected, then, to the clause upon three grounds—because it would interfere with the free action of individuals; because it put the State, through the Commissioners, in an entirely false position relatively to the representative body of the Church; and because of the inaccurate figure adopted in the clause as the mean value of these particular commutations. It was impossible, therefore, for the Government to accede to the proposal.
  DR. BALLsaid, he apprehended that the larger number of persons would be quite willing to commute, and he thought that no injustice would be done to individuals under this clause. It was unreasonable in such a case that a minority should be able to oppose a proposition of great utility and fairness. This Bill was by no means an original one. It was modelled upon the case of the Church in Canada, and, he believed, that the number of the clergy who refused to commute there was extremely small. But it was scarcely fair that they should be able to hold out separately from the rest, because the representative body would be just like an insurance office in this respect—they could not undertake to pay the annuities unless a large number of persons came into the arrangement, and unless, therefore, there was a large area over
  1524
  which the calculation ranged. A calculation respecting lives was not certain as to a few individuals, but it was absolutely certain as to a large number of individuals. If a clergyman were shown ample security for his money, he did not think that there was any interference with his freedom of action. As to the fourteen years, he admitted that the right hon. Gentleman might say this was a greater age than the mean affecting those classes: that the clergy were only worth thirteen and the Bishops twelve. But when the right hon. Gentleman dealt with Maynooth and the Regium Donum, he was able to find that fourteen years was an exact measure of the value of the lives concerned there. The arrangements contemplated by the 39th clause for compensations in these instances were based upon that assumption. Now, the mode adopted in the 39th clause was, he contended, the true mode to adopt, because it did not weigh out the compensation to be given in grains and scruples, but fixed it at fourteen times the annual value, which was a fair round sum. He did not say it was the right figure, but fourteen was the Government's own multiplier. The mode proposed in the clause under discussion was a miserable and poor way of proceeding.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN)said, he could not understand why any individual clergyman who would, under the operation of the Bill, be guaranteed his £500 or £600 a year, should be compelled to surrender it and take security which he would not himself voluntarily accept. Why should that House force the whole of the incumbents of the Irish Church to surrender their life-estates in land at the dictation of the governing body? Yet that was the proposal made by hon. Gentlemen opposite, who were constantly speaking of vested interests, because they found it convenient to alter the principles on which the Bill was based, when an endowment might be obtained by the Church by force. He maintained that the moment a man was compelled to submit to the jurisdiction of the Commissioners in the matter, the nature of his vested interest was annihilated. The Amendment was, in fact, but a repetition of the attempts which had already been made in several proposed Amendments which really pointed to endowment over again. It was a

  1525
  total mistake to say that any part of the Bill gave the Presbyterians fourteen years' annuity as compensation for what the ministers received from the Regium Donum. There was a clause having that effect where the annuities of widows were concerned; but the Committee must not anticipate the discussion on that clause. The cases of the Presbyterian College at Belfast and Maynooth were exceptional, and what was pro-posed with regard to them could, he believed, be as well defended at the proper time as any other part of the Bill. He hoped the Amendment would be rejected.
  SIR ROUNDELL PALMERsaid, he was desirous of stating the reasons why he should support this Amendment. The Government might succeed in carrying the clause, but those who might be in a minority would do right to state their opinions and to leave them upon record. And in saying this he would bear testimony to the courtesy which, in the main, had been extended to them. His reason for supporting the clause was that it gave some small chance of doing some little justice to those for whose vested interest no provision had been made—he meant the laity. If this general system of commutation were established, there might be some means of retaining some small provision for those whose claims would be otherwise ignored. Let it not be said that the difference between the Government and their opponents was simply one between endowment and the reverse. He believed the intention of the Government to be, within certain limits, to give a chance of saving something out of the property of the Church, and he recognized a generous intention, so far as it went in that direction. The question was whether they might not give fuller and more perfect effect to that generous intention. He understood there were three objections to the Amendment—first, that it dealt unfairly with the individual by subjecting him to the general commutation without his own consent; secondly, that they might involve the State in a sort of implied guarantee if the Commissioners should be mistaken in the judgment they might form as to the security given for personal interests; and thirdly, that fourteen years' purchase was an improper amount on which to fix. In the first place, as to the un-
  1526
  fairness of dealing with the individual, without allowing him to exercise any sort of power. On this point he could not help saying that he was very much struck with the way in which the argument varied from clause to clause. He received information, last night, not from the Government, which led him to believe that this Bill would not be proceeded with to-night, and in consequence he was absent during the earlier part of the evening; but he had since been told that an Amendment which he had placed on the Paper was taken some notice of. The object of that Amendment was to prevent any clergyman, who received an annuity by way of compensation under this Bill, from losing his annuity in the event—which he owned was very unlikely—of the representative body making alterations in the terms of communion, as to doctrine, discipline, or any other matter with which he could not comply; and he was told that when that point came on for discussion the right hon. Gentleman said that, in a matter of that kind, the interest of individuals must be subordinated to the discretion of the general body. ["No, no!"] He begged pardon; he had been misinformed. [Mr. GLADSTONE here made an observation to the hon. and learned Gentleman.] He was happy to have received the right hon. Gentleman's correction. The right hon. Gentleman said that these individual interests must be subject to the discretion of the general body to a certain extent. Well, but this Amendment made the interests of individuals subject to the discretion of the general body only to a certain extent. The question whether the exercise of that discretion would give sufficient security to the individual or not would be left to the determination of the Commissioners who were proposed to be nominated under the Bill, and who were to be the final judges of questions of compensation and of a great number of other matters equally affecting the interests of individuals. Then, he said, why in the world should it be supposed that these Commissioners would be unable to form a correct judgment as to whether the interests of a small number of dissentients were sufficiently secured by the general body? In his judgment, it was only fair and right that they should incur this infinitesimal risk of an individual clergyman for the sake of the general interests. As to the second ob-

  1527
  jection, he would remark that the very object of the Bill was to make a final settlement, and, if there were not a guarantee on the face of the Bill itself, everyone would understand that the interest of the individual had been left subject to the judgment of the Commissioners. As a mere matter of law, no man could dispute that an individual would have no sort of claim against anybody except the representative body of the Church. Last of all came the objection of fourteen years' purchase. Now, the point of view from which he looked at the question was this, that some regard was due to the permanent interests of the laity of the Church. He was unable to see why the same measure of justice should not be dealt out to the permanent interests of the laity of the present Established Church that was dealt out to the permanent interests in Maynooth and the Presbyterian institutions. He was not satisfied—though he might be obliged to acquiesce—at being told that this would be explained when they came to the 39th clause. He owned he saw no good reason why it it should not be explained at once. He wished it to be observed that he did not complain of the measure of justice that was about to be dealt out to Maynooth, and to the Presbyterians. On these points he would go with the majority, however that majority might deny him what he thought justice on this and on other points. He thought too much was not proposed to be given either to Maynooth or to the Presbyterians; but he noticed that under the 39th clause those bodies would be allowed certain annual sums not payable to individuals for their life interests; and he said, from the point of view from which he looked at the matter, that it was just and reasonable that the Committee should agree to this Amendment, which would give to the laity of their own Church in Ireland a chance of obtaining the same benefits, consistently with the protection of the individual interests of the clergymen, by means of commuting them.
  MR. WINGFIELD BAKERsaid, he wished to ask whom the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Roundell Palmer) called the laity of Ireland, and where were the permanent interests to which he alluded? For his own part, he thought the laity were the majority of the people of Ireland, and the permanent interests were
  1528
  the interests of the great body of the people.
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, the object of his hon. and learned Friend (Sir Roundell Palmer) was one which he was not sure was shared by the proposer of the clause. His hon. and learned Friend wished to provide for the laity, whom he said the Government had totally and unfairly neglected. Now the Government never professed to provide for any supposed vested interests of the laity. A Bill for the disendowment and disestablishment of the Irish Church, which, at the same time, professed to provide for the vested interests of the laity, would be an absolute folly and self-contradiction. But if they had proposed to provide for the interests of the laity, they would have carefully avoided doing so by the method proposed by his hon. and learned Friend, which was the sacrifice or the endangering of the vested rights of the clergy. The effect of the Amendment would be this—that in every case it would destroy the free discretion of every individual clergyman in the Irish Church, and would transfer that discretion to other parties. It would depend first upon the Church Body, and next upon the Commissioners, whether any particular clergyman should be brought within the compulsory powers proposed to be conferred. The case of Canada had been referred to, but he denied the justice of the parallel, for though a good deal of commutation did take place there, yet every clergyman had the right to refuse his assent, and there was one case of a celebrated clergyman that withheld his assent to the last. Under the proposal now made no such discretion could be exercised—no such case as that of the Canadian clergyman could exist, though many Irish clergymen might desire to take the same course. It was perfectly true, as had been stated by his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Sullivan), that this was not a simple question of fixing the amount of the annuity, for it involved, in very numerous instances, the change from the position of a landowner into that of an annuitant. They had carefully distinguished between tithe rent-charge and ownership of property; but they were now called upon to sweep away that distinction, and to transform the clerical landowner into an annuitant

  1529
  in every case. Then as to the fourteen years which his hon. and learned Friend thought was fair and right, because it had been adopted in other cases, and for other purposes. He denied the justice of his hon. and learned Friend's allegation. In every case of life interest, whether the individual was clergyman or layman, the true life interest had been taken, though there were a few exceptional cases in which, not the maintenance, but the education of the clergy, and purposes of charity were concerned, where they could not go upon a life interest, and were obliged to take a commutation at an arbitrary number of years' purchase.
  MR. NEVILLE-GRENVILLEsaid, he felt grateful to the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) for having called attention to that very important matter in connection with this measure—the interests of the laity. The interests of the impropriators, of the incumbents and curates, and of vergers and choirmen, had been much discussed and well-cared for; nay, the class of permanent curates had even been invented, or, at least, resuscitated, for the purposes of that Bill; because last Session considerable trouble was taken to extinguish the class of perpetual curates in the Established Church. Indeed, the interests of every class, but the poor scattered congregations throughout Ireland, who would be the real sufferers from the measure, and for whom he felt most concern, had been provided for in that scramble for the plunder of the Church.
  SIR JOHN GRAYsaid, he thought the Committee ought scrupulously to avoid doing anything by way of compulsion to make the incumbents capitalize the annuities offered them as comgensation for their vested interests. Those annuities, if so capitalized, would form a permanent endowment for the Church which they were professedly disestablishing and disendowing; and it would convert an assailable endowment into an unassailable one. As to providing compensation for the Protestant laity in Ireland, that laity had always taken good care of themselves. Go to any district or diocese of Ireland, and it would be found—to use the words of Bishop Bramhall's biographer—that the print of their sacrilegious paw was upon everyone of them. Let the Irish Pro-
  1530
  testant laity manfully come forward to support their own Church, and not ask the public to do so. They had obtained quite enough out of the funds of the Church to be able to support their own religion without personal loss or inconvenience. It is admitted that the Protestant Parliament of Ireland by abolishing the tithe of adjustment transferred from the Church to the pockets of the landlords four-fifths of the tithes of that kingdom; and any person who will take the trouble of enquiring into the present condition of the Episcopal lands will not fail to see that the Church gets about one-sixth of the rental value, and that the Protestant landlords divide amongst themselves, in various proportions, the remaining five-sixths. The Protestant laity of Ireland can therefore well afford to sustain their ministers, and will have in their pockets a large surplus of the property the nation set apart for ecclesiastical purposes after paying for their own Church administrations.
  MR. PERCY WYNDHAMsaid, he should like to know why the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government thought that the individual interests of the incumbents of Ireland were more likely to suffer at the hands of the Commission than the individual interests of the professors and students of Maynooth at the hands of the trustees of the College. He should also like to hear the ground of the distinction which the right hon. Gentleman drew between the interests of the professors and students of Maynooth College and the interests of the incumbents in the Established Church. Maynooth and the Protestant Episcopal Church were both ecclesiastical Establishments, and should be dealt with on precisely similar grounds and on the same terms. It was said the intention of the Amendment was to confer permanent endowments on the Irish Church. Then he answered that it was the intention of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government to confer permanent endowments on Maynooth. The Bill went far beyond the individual interests of the professors and students of Maynooth; and if the right hon. Gentleman adhered to his present proposal in regard to that College, there was no ground of justice or of common sense for his refusal to accept the Amendment before the Committee.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 294; Noes 194: Majority 100.
  SIR HERVEY BRUCEsaid, as it was past twelve o'clock, he thought the further progress of the Bill should be postponed, and accordingly moved that the Chairman report Progress.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, there was no other Amendment to the clause, and he hoped the Committee would not object to pass it.
  MR. DISRAELIsaid, the clause was a very important one, and he should himself approve their reporting Progress. But it would certainly be in unison with the usual practice to adopt the clause, and, therefore, he hoped his hon. Friend would not press his Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause agreed to.
  House resumed.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

CHURCH TEMPORALITIES (IRELAND) COMMISSIONERS. [ADVANCES.]

  COMMITTEE.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  MR. GLADSTONEin rising to propose a Resolution of which he had given Notice, said, that under the provisions of the Irish Church Bill what were, in point of law, advances would not be, in point of fact, advances, as far as regarded the necessity for cash. They would be, in point of fact, credits upon paper. Commutations might probably require large advances of cash, which could be conveniently made, conformably to the Bill, by the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt; but as that involved a public charge, it was necessary to have a Resolution to constitute it, and when that Resolution was reported he should be able to place on the table various clauses which would explain the financial part of the proposition. He concluded by formally moving the Resolution.
  Resolved, That the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt be authorized to advance, with the consent of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, to the Commissioners of Church Temporalities in Ireland to be ap-
  1532
  pointed by any Act passed in the present Session of Parliament "to put an end to the Establishment of the Church of Ireland, and to make provision in respect to the temporalities thereof, and in respect to the Royal College of Maynooth," such monies as the said Commissioners of Church Temporalities may require to raise for the purposes of the said Act; and that it is expedient to authorize the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury to guarantee the repayment to the said Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt of any monies so advanced.
  House resumed.
  Resolution to be reported upon Monday next.

MILITIA BILL— [BILL 82.]
(Mr. Secretary Cardwell, Major Vivian.)
MILITIA BILL— [BILL 82.]

  THIRD READING.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  GENERAL PERCY HERBERTcalled attention to the fact that the 2nd clause, which gives power to attach officers of the regular forces to the Militia, did not embrace non-commissioned officers, which it was desirable to do.
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, he did not see any objection to including non-commissioned officers.
  Bill read the third time and passed.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (£17,100,000) BILL.
  Bill "to apply a sum out of the Consolidated Fund to the Service of the year ending the thirty-first day of March, one thousand eight hundred and seventy," presented, and read the first time.
  CUSTOMS AND INLAND REVENUE DUTIES BILL.
  Bill "to grant certain Duties of Customs and Inland Revenue, and to repeal and alter other Duties of Customs and Inland Revenue," presented, and read the first time. [Bill 95.]

  COURTS OF JUSTICE SALARIES AND FUNDS BILL.
  Bill "for amending the Law relating to the Salaries, Expenses, and Funds of Courts of Law in England," presented, and read the first time. [Bill 96.]
  House adjourned at half after Twelve o'clock, till Monday next.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Norfolk Island Bishopric * (73).
Second Reading—Lands Clauses Consolidation Act Amendment * (38).

NEW PEER.
The Right Honourable Sir James Plaisted Wilde, Knight, Judge of Her Majesty's Court of Probate, and Judge Ordinary of Her Majesty's Court for
1420
Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, having been created Baron Penzance of Penzance in the county of Cornwall—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

ARMY—THE MILITARY FORCE OF THE KINGDOM.—OBSERVATIONS
LORD MONCK, in rising to call attention to the present condition of the Military Force of the Kingdom, with a view to suggest means for improving its efficiency, diminishing its cost, and securing more systematic co-operation between the active and reserve branches of the Army, said, that the subject was one of so much importance, whether looked at with regard to the safety of the kingdom or in its financial aspect, that their Lordships would not require an apology from any man, who had devoted time and thought to it, for bringing before them the results of his study and consideration. He would premise that he had no fault to find with the course pursued by the Government, for, as far as they had yet developed any policy on the question, every step they had taken met with his full concurrence; and the fact mentioned by his right hon. Friend the Secretary for War, that they had to decide on the principles on which their Estimates should be framed within the first fortnight of their tenure of Office, was a sufficient reason why they should not have rushed precipitately into larger schemes. No one, however, he was sure, would admit more readily than his right hon. Friend the advantage which a Minister might derive from public attention being directed to the affairs of his Department; and he hoped—should he be so fortunate on the present occasion as to obtain the attention of the House—to elicit from Members, whose acquirements and abilities rendered them high authorities on the subject, observations which might tend to smooth the path and strengthen the hands of his right hon. Friend in the difficult task which lay before him. He (Lord Monck) was no enthusiast for military glory, nor did he desire large armaments for their own sake; his aspirations were of a very moderate character; and he should be quite satisfied if he could convince himself that we had within the country a body of trained men numerically sufficient to protect us from the risk of invasion, and an organization

1421
capable of wielding that force. Regarding our military provision in the light of an insurance against the risk of danger, he was desirous, like all insurers, of obtaining the highest degree of security with the smallest rate of premium. Now it could not be denied that a strong impression existed in the public mind that we were paying an extravagant rate of premium, and that the security was of a very inefficient, if not of an entirely illusory, character; and, believing this impression to be in a great measure well-founded, he was anxious that no time should be lost in placing matters on a more satisfactory footing. The adequacy of our military preparations was a compound question, and depended for its solution on the views which might be entertained on two preliminary questions—the likelihood of our being attacked, and the strength of our possible assailants—for were there no probability of our being attacked, the obligation of providing for defence would be reduced to the smallest point; and, were there absolutely no assailants, that obligation would disappear altogether. Most happily we were at present on terms of peace and friendship with all foreign Powers; but it would be imprudent on that account to disregard the fact that, about every six months, we are disturbed by rumours of war impending between some of the great European Powers, into which wars we might be drawn whether we would or not; that Europe was literally bristling with bayonets from one end of it to the other; and that there was a strong tendency, where a highly organized machine adapted to a particular end had been created, to test its efficiency in practice. We knew, on the other hand, that, other things remaining the same, the chances of invasion varied in an inverse ratio with the power of resistance; and he thought we could afford to disregard the speculative, and to apply ourselves to the practical, question—namely, what the forces were which might be brought to attack us, and what powers we possessed for resistance. Now, since any danger of attack could only proceed from one or more of the great military Powers of the Continent, our military preparations must clearly bear some relation to theirs. It would be childish to shrink from this comparison through any motives of a merely sentimental character—especially
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as such a comparison with reference to strength, efficiency, cost, and system of management would not only enable us to judge of the sufficiency of our arrangements, but of the reasonableness of the price we paid, and might furnish hints for the improvement of our military system. He proposed to select for this purpose the Armies of France and Prussia—because those Powers were our nearest neighbours; the Armies of both had lately been tested by the experience of actual war with eminent success, and their systems embodied principles of organization distinct from each other and our own; while, together with our own, they exhausted the principles applicable to the subject. He wished it to be understood, however, that it was not to the numbers of the force available for our home defence that he objected, but to their quality; for, were he satisfied of their efficiency, he should be content with a smaller force than 400,000 men, the number recently given by his right hon. Friend. In order to make the comparison, he was about to institute a profitable one, these considerations should be borne in mind—first, that the practice adopted by Continental nations of making their Reserve largely consist of trained soldiers enabled them to place in the field at the very commencement of war a very large and efficient army; secondly, that their custom of dividing the country into military districts, each with its general, divisional, and brigade staff complete, enabled them to move their troops immediately on the outbreak of war; thirdly, that the application of steam to locomotion, both by land and water, enabled them rapidly to concentrate their forces on any given point; and, fourthly, that the weapon with which the soldier was now armed made him more of a skilled labourer, rendering instruction in his art more indispensable to his efficiency, and the communication of such instruction less easy; so that mere numbers, unless accompanied by military efficiency, were very little protection in time of war. The figures he was about to quote were derived partly from The Statesman's Manual, and partly from a statement made by Baron Kühn in the Austro-Hungarian Parliament, and reported in The Times of the 15th of January; but he had had an opportunity of comparing them with statistics derived from official sources,

1423
and he believed they were, in the main, correct. The standing Army of France, with the colours, was in round numbers, 404,000; the Reserve consisted of 353,000 men, all trained soldiers; and the National Guard Mobile, which, he believed, could not be called out without a special Act of the Legislature, consisted of 550,000 men: making in all 1,307,000. In North Germany, the standing Army, with the colours, consisted of 319,000; the Reserve—all men who had passed through the ranks, and therefore, trained soldiers—of 524,000; and the Landwehr or Militia of 185,000:—together 1,028,000 men. With a smaller population, and. a much smaller expenditure, North Germany, he might remark, had a more effective army even than Prance. Now, supposing we should come into trouble with either of these Powers, we had, according to the statement of the Minister of War, recently made in the other House, a force of 400,000 men; composed of 92,000 regular troops, 100,000 Militia, and 24,000 Reserve and Pensioners, the balance being Yeomanry and Volunteers. The first observation that would strike anyone on reading this statement would be that this was really not an Army in any sense whatever, but was a vast agglomeration of soldiers, more or less—he was afraid rather less than more—trained in the duties of military service, and unconnected by any unity of command, or any systematic organization. There was no military organization higher than that of the regiment, and even that, in the case of a large portion of the force, was very imperfectly carried out. Should there be a threat of invasion to-morrow we should have to extemporize, under the pressure and confusion of the moment, the whole distribution of our force into armies, divisions, and brigades, and to appoint the whole of our general, divisional, and brigade commanders and staffs; so that there would be officers going into action without any knowledge of the troops under their command, and soldiers led by officers of whom they had no knowledge, and in whom consequently, they had no confidence. This, he believed, was no highly coloured picture of what would occur. He did not, however, wish to press this point, for he observed that the defect had not escaped the observation of his right hon. Friend, and he hoped that, in any steps taken to correct it, the great
1424
object of securing unity of command over all the military forces of the Queen would not be lost sight of. Turning to details, it was obvious that the 92,000 regular troops included every name borne on the strength of the Army within the British Isles. They included all the recruits at the depots, who could not be regarded as available for immediate service; and when this deduction was made, as well as the further deduction always to be made from the force on paper in ascertaining the effective force in the field, our Regular Army would shrink to very moderate dimensions. Of the residue he would only say that he felt sure that they would prove worthy of the eulogium pronounced by Marshal Bugeaud on British troops—"L'Infantèrie Anglaise est la plus redoutable de l'Europe;" and would exemplify the remark with which it was accompanied—"Heureusement il n'y en a pas beaucoup." The Reserves were so few as to be scarcely worth mentioning; indeed, he believed his right hon. Friend had stated that they were only to be found between the covers of a body of statutes. They would, however, probably perform as good service as could be expected from a force consisting principally of worn-out Pensioners. The next force was the Militia, which his right hon. Friend called the ancient constitutional force of the country, and on which he pronounced a very high panegyric. He (Lord Monck) concurred in every word of his right hon. Friend with regard to that force; and, in any observations he might make, he wished to guard himself against being supposed to utter one word in disparagement of the officers or men of the Militia. In his criticisms it would be to the system and not to the men that he would take exception. He agreed with his right hon. Friend that we must mainly depend on the Militia for the protection of the country; but it required an application of that process of reform, which had been already applied to many of our institutions, to bring it into harmony with the spirit of the age, and to make it sufficient for the requirements of our military service. His right hon. Friend need not, on a recent occasion, have quoted the authority of the great Duke of Wellington to show that the Militia might be made a very available force for defensive purposes, nor did it require

1425
the large military experience of the late Lord Seaton to prove that a regiment of Militia, if embodied for six or perhaps twelve months—as he ventured to say was the case with the regiment to which his right hon. Friend's anecdote referred—could be fit to take its place beside a regiment of the Line. What it was important to ascertain was whether the system of instruction applied to the Militia made effective and available soldiers out of the undeniably good materials of which that force was composed? Now, having had some experience in endeavouring to bring into form raw levies of Militia and Volunteers, his deliberate opinion was that it would be difficult for human ingenuity to devise a system of training more wasteful of the public resources, more ineffective in military results, and more injurious and onerous to the men than that now applied to the Militia. As their Lordships were well aware, the system adopted for training the Militia was that the men were called out for twenty-seven days in each of the five years of their period of service, with an addition of fourteen days for recruits in the first year. Now, according to the best information he could obtain, it took six months' continuous training to make a recruit fit to take his place in the ranks of a regiment of the Line. He left it, therefore, to the common sense of their Lordships to decide on the degree of proficiency that could be gained by Militiamen in a period of five months, or rather less, spread over five years, with an interval of twelve months between each period. The time was manifestly too short to give them any really useful military knowledge, while it was long enough to disturb and dislocate their industrial arrangements with their employers. He did not wish to insist much on the point that the Militia were armed with the old muzzle-loading rifle, because, if we had the rifles, it was easy at any time to serve them out to the Militia; but it should be borne in mind that to arm men with new weapons involved an additional delay in training them to the use of them, and that one of the inexorable conditions of the problem was to have troops ready for action at the outset of war. As to the officers, he should be sorry to say a word hurtful to the feelings of so excellent a body of men; but he believed they would themselves be the first to admit that they
1426
were not sufficiently instructed in their duties—a circumstance which was no disgrace to them, since he knew of no machinery provided by the country by which they could obtain that instruction. He now came to the Volunteers—a force of which in its proper place he desired to speak, not only with respect, but with admiration. The creation of that force had produced a moral effect, both in England and on the Continent, which it would be difficult to exaggerate, and for which the country owed them a debt of gratitude. They had effectually vindicated the national character from the oft-asserted charge of degeneracy; and no man, who had not himself tried it, could appreciate the irksomeness of the discipline to which they had subjected themselves in order to attain their present state of efficiency. With all these merits, however, he objected to the Volunteers being treated as other than auxiliaries, or to their being reckoned among the standing forces of the country. He objected to it on principle, because it was an attempt to transfer, to the shoulders of those willing to bear the burden, a public duty which should be of universal obligation. The pay of the Soldier and Militiaman represented the contribution towards the public defence of those who did not give their personal service; and the continual applications on behalf of the Volunteers for assistance from the State proved the unsoundness of that mode of treating them; while every contribution from the public purse destroyed the essential characteristics of the force, and rendered them a burden on the public treasury, without giving the Government that control over them which it ought to have over all forces for which it paid. He was about to make a remark which might subject him to some obloquy; it was not a speculative one, but was founded on his own observation, and the subject was far too important to be dealt with merely in complimentary phrases. His experience was that the original voluntary nature of the organization coloured the whole tone and character of the force, and prevented the growth of that feeling of implicit obedience and complete subordination to authority which lay at the foundation of all military efficiency. To his mind the Volunteers were a reproduction in another form of the feudal array of the Middle Ages, and of the voluntary armies which

1427
in the early part of the last century used to follow the Highland chiefs to battle—such troops, as history informed us, were never found capable of bearing the strain of a protracted war, and were never efficient when brought into collision with regular troops. Another reason against treating the Volunteers in this manner was that their services would never be required except in the case of actual invasion. Now in such an emergency it was of the utmost importance to keep, in the highest degree of working order, all the public Departments—especially the locomotive, the intelligence, and the supply services of the country; and he believed a large portion of the Volunteers belonged to that class of society who could not be spared under such circumstances from their ordinary vocations, and who would really be performing more efficient service against an invader by discharging their civil functions than if called out for military service. By all means let us, if we would, encourage volunteering as a means of developing the martial spirit of the country, and of creating a very useful auxiliary force in time of war; but we should not reckon them as part of our standing force or as a distinct military organization in substitution for more regular troops. This was the last branch of the military force of the country enumerated by my right hon. Friend. Now, the general estimate he (Lord Monck) had formed of our defensive forces was this—We had a highly efficient but small regular Army, and all our supplementary forces were in such a state, from imperfect organization, training, and armament, that it would be simply madness to expose them to collision with the highly organized, highly trained, and well armed troops which, might be brought against them by foreign nations in large numbers. It was some satisfaction—though he must admit it was not a pleasing one under the circumstances—that one of the most distinguished and experienced officers in the British Army, Sir John Burgoyne, had, within the last few days, published a pamphlet on our defensive force, which he had only seen within the last forty-eight hours; and the conclusion to which that distinguished officer came with regard to the condition of what he (Lord Monck) had called the supplementary force, was precisely the same as that he
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had announced to their Lordships, Sir John Burgoyne's statement being that they would require embodiment for, at least, a year or two before it would be wise to trust them in collision with an enemy. This being the character of the article we bought, he now turned to the price we paid for it compared with that paid by other nations. In France the military expenditure for last year was £14,953,431, being an average for each soldier of the standing Army with the colours of £37. Including the Reserves, the average cost was less than £20 per man; and including the National Guard Mobile, £11 per man. In North Germany the military expenditure was £10,175,444, giving an average for the standing Army of £33 per man; while, including the Reserves, it was £ 13 per man; and including the Landwehr £10 per man. In this country the estimated net charge, deducting all probable or contemplated receipts by the War Department for the current year, was £12,795,400, giving an average for the regular Army of £100 per man; including the Reserves, £80 per man; and, if all forces were included, of £30 per man. Thus against £37 in France and £33 in North Germany, there was £100 in England; against £20 in France and £13 in North Germany, £80 in England; and against £11 in France and £10 in North Germany, £30 in England. These figures spoke for themselves, and needed no commentary. Of course, the power of conscription gave great advantages in reducing the pecuniary cost of an Army; but, instead of sittting down contented with this excuse for so enormous a disparity, ought we not to consider whether the principles on which our system was based were such as to insure economy; and should we not try, by increasing in every way the moral attractions of the Service, to diminish to the utmost extent the price we had to pay? That pecuniary cost, moreover, was not the only price the country paid for the maintenance of its Army; for there was the pressure on its resources produced by the withdrawal, during a portion of their lives, of a large portion of its able-bodied population from productive industry; and we had also to consider the effects on the Soldier himself and, through him, on society at large, of withdrawing him from his home and relatives for so long a period

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as was imposed by the conditions of our Service. These influences evidently varied in their intensity according to the system adopted for recruiting and management; and this brought him to a comparison of the different methods pursued in the three Armies which he had been reviewing. The English might be called the long-enlistment system; for, though, of late years, ten years' enlistment had been sanctioned, our policy had always been to encourage re-enlistment; and it had been shown by the illustrious Duke who commanded the Army, in his evidence before Lord Hotham's Commission of 1861, that the period of ten years, while too long to secure to the soldier the moral advantages resulting from restoration to civil life at an early age, was too short to maintain the strength and efficiency of the Army without large annual draughts of recruits. In fact, the English system combined the evils both of the long and short-enlistment system, without securing the advantages supposed to be derived from either. The effect of this system on numbers was that it could not give us the command of a large force. With regard to efficiency, he thought the prevailing opinion was that the efficiency of an Army was not promoted by keeping men in time of peace for long periods of service. The system was necessarily expensive, for a man being kept in the Army during the best portion of his life, he had not only to be paid for that period, but to be provided with some maintenance when he left it; and it pressed heavily on the industry of the country by withdrawing for the best portion of their lives the whole of the men devoted to military service. Its effect, too, on the individual soldier was demoralizing in the extreme by its practice of enforced celibacy, by the monotony and weariness of a soldier's life, and by withdrawing him during the best portion of his life from the influences of home and of the family. The greatest contrast to this was the system of short enlistments, which sought to diminish the pressure of military service by diffusing it over a large mass, and thus equalizing the burden over the whole community. The nearest approach to this system was that of France, where a soldier serves for five years in the regular Army and four years in the Reserve, after which he passes into the National Guard Mobile,
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becoming practically a Militiaman. This, like the long-service system, drew a "hard and fast" line beyond which it could not reach, the numbers being confined to the men in the ranks; but it was more likely to produce efficient soldiers, and it certainly pressed less severely on the industry of the country and on the habits of individual men. Whatever their merits or demerits in other respects, these were essentially systems of large standing Armies—for the absence of any principle of elasticity, and the impossibility of expanding the force in times of emergency necessitated the keeping up, if efficiency was desired, of a large body of men constantly with the colours. The third system was one of long engagement and short actual service. It was best exemplified in the Prussian military system. A soldier served three years in the Army, four years in the Reserve, nine years in the Landwehr, with liability to be called out for service in the regular Army in time of war, and then, up to fifty years of age, was enrolled in the Landsturm, being only called upon for service in case of invasion. Practically, he was dismissed to civil life at the end of three years' service in the regular Army. This system, when it had been some time in operation, obviously gave the disposal of large numbers of trained men, and by making the Army in time of peace a military school for the population, as also by its expansive powers, enabled the country to keep its standing Army in time of peace at a much lower strength than either England or France. It pressed lightly on industry, for it withdrew men for only a short time from industrial occupations; and, so far from being injurious to the individual, it was calculated to be beneficial, taking men at an early period of life, when they were capable of receiving impressions, and keeping them just long enough to inculcate habits of order, discipline, and regularity, without retaining them so long as to destroy their capacity or taste for civil life. In a country like Prussia, which in time of peace required no foreign service, this system combined all the elements of efficiency and economy, and though not applicable in its entirety to England, it furnished hints for materially improving the condition of our military force. The obstacles to the complete adoption of the Prussian system into our

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service were principally under three heads—first, our colonial service; secondly, the purchase system; and, thirdly, the necessity of maintaining a European garrison in India. He hoped, however, that the first obstacle would be very soon swept out of our path, and that detached military stations and posts might be provided for without drawing on the ranks of our regular Army. In justice to the colonies, and in order that they might be able to place themselves in a condition of self-defence, they should be explicitly informed that the withdrawal of troops now going on resulted from no spasmodic effort at economy, but from deliberate policy; and that in time of peace they must, under no circumstances, expect to see an Imperial soldier within their limits; while in time of war Imperial troops will be handled and distributed solely with reference to Imperial strategical considerations, and will be sent to a colony in the event only of its becoming the theatre of the decisive contest of a war. All local disturbances in time of peace, and desultory attacks in the nature of a diversion in time of war, must be met, they should be given to understand, by colonial forces. With respect to the second obstacle—the purchase system—he was not about to argue the question, but merely mentioned it because he believed it to be intimately connected with the difficulty of obtaining recruits. There were but two ways of obtaining recruits—compulsion and attraction; the former being the system which had always prevailed on the Continent, while the latter was that which we had hitherto adopted. He should be sorry to see the introduction in this country of a compulsory system; and no one had a right to argue for its necessity, until he showed that all means of rendering the service attractive had been exhausted. Now it was absurd to say that those means had been exhausted, when we maintained a system which practically debarred from all the prizes of the service the great body of men who entered it. The partial discontinuance of the system was recommended more than ten years ago in the Report of a Commission bearing the signatures of Somerset, Stanley, Sydney Herbert, De Lacy Evans, Harry D. Jones, and George Carr Glyn. In arguing this question it was always assumed that the officers of the Army
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generally were opposed to the abolition of the purchase system. Now, he had taken the trouble to read the evidence taken before the Commission to which he had referred, and he found that such soldiers as Lord Clyde, Sir Duncan M'Dougall, Sir De Lacy Evans, Lord West, Sir James Scarlett, Sir John Franks, and General Spencer, and other distinguished officers, all gave their evidence before the Commission against the continuance of the purchase system; and he was sure that the experience of their Lordships would suggest to them the names of numerous intelligent officers of their acquaintance who were opposed to the continuance of the system. It used to be a stock argument against the abolition of purchase that no scheme had ever been proposed to carry it into effect. That argument, however, was no longer open, because there was laid before the Commission a most able scheme for the abolition of purchase in connection with the general re-organization of the Army. That scheme was elaborated by an hon. Friend of his, whom he thought it was no flattery to call the greatest master of the principles of administrative organization that England possessed—he meant Sir Charles Trevelyan. That scheme was based on the same principles which, chiefly through the instrumentality of his hon. Friend, had then been lately applied to the Civil Service of the country. The experience we then had of that system in regard to the Civil Service was not sufficiently long to render the argument very strong in favour of the scheme of his hon. Friend; but that system had ever since been in operation in respect to the Civil Service, and if he did not know that it was working satisfactorily and efficiently from other sources, he should derive that impression from the fact that the annual attacks upon that system in the House of Commons, which characterized its infancy, had of late years entirely ceased. As he said before, he did not mean to argue this question now; but he might express his opinion that, if service in the ranks were recognized as one of the ordinary modes of obtaining commissions, you would attract to the ranks a class of educated men who were now in vain looking out for a career, who would compose the working officers of the Army and. whose presence in the ranks, while they remained there, would

1433
tend to raise the character of the entire force. The third obstacle to the introduction of what he conceived to be sound principles in our military organization was the necessity for maintaining our force in India; and he might as well at once admit that he did not think any application of the short-service system could be made to our Indian service; because no period of service longer than one of from three to five years would secure to the State the economic, or to the individual the social, benefit arising from the short-engagement system; and when you considered the great expense of constant reliefs, and the difficulty of obtaining the number of men for the Indian service, which would be involved in that short system, he feared it would be found impracticable. Another consideration was also worth mentioning. It was notorious that the large mortality among our Indian troops occurred chiefly among the soldiers just arrived from Europe. This mortality arose, not so much from the want of acclimatization as from ignorance, and the consequent neglect of those precautions in respect of exposure and diet, which were found to be so necessary in tropical climates. A system of frequent reliefs would, of course, increase the risk of this mortality, and, therefore, a long period of service, much as he disliked the principle, must be retained in India. From what he had said, then, the following principles might be deduced as those which should regulate our military system:—Any system which laid claim to the character of efficiency ought to give us the command of large bodies of well-trained troops, together with an organization which would consolidate into one body, and animate with one spirit, the whole body of the military forces of Her Majesty. Economy ought to mean the sparing use, not only of the money, but of the time of our population; and the conditions of service should be such as would interfere in the slightest possible degree with the ordinary social and domestic habits of the people. He had detained their Lordships an unreasonable time, but he had been acting the not very agreeable part of censor, and he did not think that any man had a right in public to attack a system—particularly a system of this kind, which was of such immense importance to the welfare of the country
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—unless he were prepared to undertake the responsibility of suggesting a mode of amending it. With their Lordships' permission he would now conclude by stating the mode in which he thought that a modification of the Prussian system might be applied to our own military forces. He took for the basis our Army, that portion which would be required for foreign service in time of peace, and which would consist principally, if not entirely, of our Indian garrison, and those of the Mediterranean stations on the road to India. He meant to illustrate his plan by a reference to the Infantry of the Line alone, because, though he thought the Cavalry and scientific corps might be dealt with on the same principle, their peculiarities might require some variations of detail. We have now, exclusive of the Guards, 110 regiments of infantry of the Line, including the Rifle Brigade. At 700 men each, these would give 77,000 men. The Infantry garrison of India now absorbed 45,416 men. Sixty-five battalions of 700 men each would give 45,500 men, leaving 45 battalions for the home turn of duty and for the Mediterranean stations. He took the latter service at 9 battalions, or 6,300 men. This would leave 36 battalions for home service, which might, if it were thought right, be reduced during their time in England to 500 men each. This portion of the Army would take its turn of home and foreign duty on the same plan that now prevailed; and its numbers would admit of seven years of European to twelve years of Indian service. To each of these regiments would be attached a. second battalion, bearing, so far as the officers were concerned, the same relations to the first as were now borne by second battalions—that was to say, the officers would receive their promotion interchangeably from one to the other, and would all be liable to their turn of foreign service. Each regiment of the regular Army should be connected with a territorial regimental district of the country, and its second battalion should be permanently quartered in that district. All recruiting should be transacted by the second battalions; all recruits should be enlisted for twenty-one years. At the end of his second year of training, each, recruit should be allowed to elect whether he would join the first battalion for the remainder of his period of engage-

1435
ment, or serve it out in. the Militia. In the former case he would, serve for another year with the second battalion, unless required for immediate service in the first. In the latter ease, he would be released from further active service, being, however, still borne on the strength of the second battalion until his place should be supplied by the succession of recruits. After this he would fall back into the Militia of the district, receiving a small annual retaining fee, and being liable to be called out for a short period of training in each year. In the event of war, all Militiamen to be liable to be called out for general service, the liability being deferred as the men advanced in age. The actual strength of the second battalions should be maintained at 400 men, with full cadres of officers and noncommissioned officers, and with trained men borne on their books sufficient to raise them immediately to a strength of 1,000 men. In this way a machinery would be created by means of which, in a few years, we should pass through a course of regular military training a sufficient number of men to give us a large and efficient Militia; the number of men required for foreign service in time of peace would be largely diminished, and the difficulty of obtaining them proportionately decreased; and the system would have the effect of consolidating into one compact body the whole military strength of the country. It would give, in addition, in each regimental district, a permanent military school, to which might be attached for training the officers of the Militia and Volunteers, and by means of which the annual training of the Militia might be made easy to the men. In addition to the regimental divisions the whole United Kingdom should be mapped out into district commands, the officer in charge of which should have the control of all military forces within his district, subject to the central command of the Commander-in-Chief. The effect of the proposed alteration on numbers would be as follows:—Infantry of the Line.—Present strength: India, 45,416; at home and colonies, 68,023–113,439. Proposed strength: India, 65 battalions, 700 men, or 45,500; Mediterranean, 9 battalions, 700 men, or 6,300; at home, 36 battalions, 500 men, or 18,000–69,800. Reduction, 43,639. This would
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be a real reduction of the men required for foreign service in time of peace; but it would not operate to the full extent as a reduction of the charge for the Army, because it would be almost exactly balanced by the numbers which would be kept in training at the second battalions. A real saving, however, to the extent of about £1,000,000 a year would be produced by the abolition of the whole depot system and recruiting establishments. He had begun his observations by saying that he would offer no apology for bringing the subject before their Lordships; but he felt that a large apology was due for the length of time he had occupied, and he begged heartily to thank their Lordships for the kindness with which they had listened to his remarks. He would only add that he should feel that he was amply repaid for any labour which he had bestowed on the subject which he had brought under their notice, if he should succeed, in the slightest degree, in contributing to the solution of a question which he believed intimately affected the honour of the Crown, the security of the country, and the efficiency-and economy of one of the great branches of our public administration.
LORD NORTHBROOK: My Lords, I feel that my noble Friend who has just addressed your Lordships (Lord Monck) did not require in any degree to use those expressions with which he has concluded his speech, because I am sure none of your Lordships will differ from me when I say that that speech shows that he has considered this subject with very great care, and that in bringing forward the plan which he has laid before the House, and making the criticisms which he has made on the military system of the country, he has been actuated solely by a wish to throw all the light which the information at his command, and the thought which he has bestowed upon it, enables him to do, on a question which at the present moment excites great public interest. I quite concur with my noble Friend in the remarks he has made respecting the manner in which Her Majesty's Government have dealt with the subject he has discussed. He has stated with perfect truth that Her Majesty's Government, on assuming Office, as they did at the beginning of the month of December last, had, in point of fact, within a very few days afterwards to de-

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cide on the amount and nature of the Estimates for Army Expenditure which they should lay before the other House of Parliament; so that they could hardly have been expected to produce such a scheme as that, for example, which my noble Friend himself has sketched out, entirely altering the whole system of the Army and Reserves of this country. None of your Lordships can feel more deeply than I do the great difficulty of dealing with this question, both on account of the organization, and the nature of the different forces with which we have to deal. I therefore think my noble Friend has only done justice to Her Majesty's Government when he said that he could not expect from them such a comprehensive scheme as he would desire to see produced and submitted to Parliament and the country. But, although no such scheme was or could have been produced by them at that time, a decision was taken by the Government immediately on their assuming Office which, as it appears to me, has laid the soundest foundation for any further measures which may have to be introduced at a future time on this important subject. I allude to the decision which was arrived at by the Cabinet to concentrate in this country a very much larger force than has been at any previous time concentrated in the United Kingdom, by withdrawing several battalions of Infantry from the colonies. This seems to me to be at the root of any improvement in military organization; because the great difficulty which has been experienced both in enlisting men and in the management of the whole of our military forces, has been the necessity of providing reliefs for the Army in India, and the difficulty which has been found on many occasions, by those responsible for the administration of the Army, in giving a sufficient term of home service to regiments which have had to serve for a long period abroad. It is, therefore, I think, of very great consequence that the number of battalions of Infantry of the Line at home should bear a larger proportion to those engaged in service in the colonies and in India than has hitherto been the case. Comparing this year with the last, I may state that there are, or will be, 61 battalions of Infantry of the Line in this country this year, 28 battalions in the colonies, and 52 in India; making a total of 141
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battalions. Last year there were 46 battalions at home, 43 in the colonies, and 52 in India; so that the number of battalions at home has been raised from 46 to 61, and that of those abroad diminished from 95 to 80. This is a step which, as I have said before, appears to me to stand at the root of any sound principle of Army organization; because, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary for War has said, what we require in this country is the complete cadres of regiments at a small strength, and to be able to recruit those cadres in the event of an emergency arising to the full complement they should possess. This leads me at once to the question—the real question at the bottom of my noble Friend's speech—namely, how is this to be done and what system of Reserve should be instituted in this country for the purpose of augmenting the cadres of the Infantry battalions in case of emergency? When my right hon. Friend the Secretary for War assumed Office he found in existence two classes of Reserve intended to effect this object. The first is called the first-class Army Reserve, which was intended to consist of men who had fulfilled the first term of their engagement and who afterwards enlisted for another five years for service in any part of the world. Of these men there were, at the beginning of the year, about 1,000. The other class of Reserve, which is called the Militia Reserve, consists of 2,700 men. They are Militiamen who, in addition to the extension of their Militia engagement, have volunteered to serve with the Army in any part of the world for five years, the two engagements running on pari passû. Now, I must ask your Lordships to bear with me while I endeavour to draw a distinction between the value of those two classes of Reserve. There is no doubt that' on many occasions, the Militia have been of the greatest service to the country in providing recruits for the regular forces; but, upon the other hand, there are several serious objections to depending entirely on a Reserve connected with the Militia. An obvious objection is that while you replenish your cadres of Infantry of the Line you for the time disorganize your Militia regiments by withdrawing men from the one force and putting them into the other. If therefore you depend entirely upon the Militia Reserve to recruit your cadres

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and you have the misfortune to require the whole forces of this country at home, you will be deficient of the number of men in the Militia regiments which you have added to your Line battalions. There is also another objection. It is of advantage, if possible, to avoid the complicated arrangements which necessarily follow from having men enlisting in the Militia under two parallel enrolments. If the Militia in this country is to be recognized as a Reserve for the regiments of the Line, I should be inclined, for my own part, to agree with the suggestion of my noble Friend, that all Militiamen should be enlisted subject to service in the Line, in time of war, rather than have any division of the force under different engagements. With respect to the other possible Reserve for the Line, it would be secured by expanding what is termed the first-class Army Reserve, as introduced by General Peel when he was Secretary for War, and connecting the first-class Reserve with a system of shorter enlistment in the Army—or, rather, by establishing a system of enlisting men to serve, say for twelve years, in the Army and in the Army Reserve combined, in whatever proportion might be deemed desirable—whether five years in the Army and seven years in the Reserve, or vice versâ. I think that, provided we could be sure that, in a reasonable space of time, it would be possible to carry out such a system as that, the Army Reserve so formed would be far superior in every respect to any other Reserve on which we could rely in this country for recruiting the cadres of the Line regiments. The great difficulty with which we have to contend in this matter arises out of the question whether we should be likely to get men for an enlistment of that kind; and that, of course, is a question which can be determined only by a trial of the system proposed. There are many reasons for believing that it would not be impossible to get the men. There is no doubt that since the addition to the rate of pay in the Army no difficulty has been experienced in obtaining recruits for the service. Considerable alterations have of late been made in consequence of the Report of the Recruiting Commission, and great improvements have been introduced in the mode of recruiting for the Army. General Edwards, who has paid great attention to the subject since he has occupied the position of In-
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spector General of Recruiting, has had a very considerable number of letters addressed to him from different parts of the country by men of some intelligence and education, requesting to be informed how they should proceed in order to join the Army. As your Lordships may be aware a change was lately made in regard to the sending of recruits about the country. They formerly used to be sent about the country as though they were culprits; but they now go without any guard at all, and it has been found that in no case, or, at least, in hardly any case, have they attempted to leave during their transit by railway or otherwise. It is also notorious that men who enter the Army often desire to leave it before the expiration of the present term of service—every year, indeed, about 2,000 men are prepared to purchase their discharge; and this fact tends to show that if the period of service were abridged we should be likely to obtain a larger number of recruits. My Lords, the great difficulty in the way of adopting a system of short enlistments is that which has been referred to by my noble Friend—namely the necessity of providing a large number of men for service in India. My noble Friend, in the course of his remarks, was obliged to admit that it would be necessary to have a longer term of enlistment for India, and therefore he found there was a great difficulty in joining any plan with respect to India with the scheme which he has explained to your Lordships. With respect, however, to one difficulty which was mentioned by my noble Friend, I am happy to say that I can remove it altogether. My noble Friend stated that the greatest mortality in India occurred among the young soldiers who had just arrived. Now that statement is totally contrary to the recent statistics of the Indian Army. So much, indeed, is it contrary to the statistics, that they show the fact to be diametrically the reverse. I have here an extract from the last annual Report of the Medical Director General of the Army, and it appears that the average annual number of deaths per 1,000 of Her Majesty's troops in India is, among men under 20 years of age, 7·11. Among men between 20 and 24 years of age the average rises to 16·19 in the 1,000; among men between 25 and 30 years old it is 25v64 per 1,000; among men between

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30 and 34 years old it is 32·03 per 1,000; among men between 35 and 39 years old it is 42·78 per 1,000; and among men over 40 years of age it is 62·23 per 1,000. And the observation made by the medical authority on this point is that—
"The rapid increase of mortality with the advance of age is a strong proof of the injurious influence of tropical service on the constitution."
It is found, therefore, that the longer a man remains in India the greater chance there is of his death; and, putting aside all questions of humanity, the greater is the expense to the people of India who will have to pay for a recruit to replace him. Now, my Lords, the same observation is correct even with respect to men who remain long in the Army in this country. Sir Charles Trevelyan has pointed out in one of his pamphlets on Army Administration, that, whereas in the case of men under thirty, the average annual rate of mortality among soldiers is less than the average rate of mortality in civil life, yet, the moment you get beyond that age—between thirty and forty and upwards—the average mortality of soldiers is greater than the average mortality of men in civil life. It would appear, therefore, that the Service loses by death a larger proportion of men who are above thirty or thereabouts. In dealing with this question, there is also a very important point to be considered—namely, the cost of the system of re-engaging men in the Army at the expiration of their first engagement, which re-engagement entitles them to pensions. It has been pointed out in an able Paper read before the Royal United Service Institution by Major Leahy, of the Royal Engineers, that, if you re-engage a man, it will be found, on taking into consideration the value of the pension to which he will be entitled, that he costs just twice as much as a recruit. That being the case, my Lords, and there being evidently very great advantages in having a Reserve of trained men who have passed through the Army, instead of a Reserve of men who have only received the training of a Militia regiment, which training must, of course, be of an inferior character to that of four or five years in a Line regiment—this being the case, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State deemed it advisable that, before we adopt the Militia
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Reserve as the only Reserve for the Army, it should be ascertained whether some scheme cannot be devised whereby a system of shorter enlistments may be introduced, coupled with service in the Army Reserve. My Lords, it is a satisfaction to find that the opinion of my right hon. Friend on this subject has anticipated the strong expression of opinion in. a similar sense which has been since given by the very distinguished officer to whose opinions my noble Friend has alluded, and whose opinions must be ever regarded by your Lordships with respect—Field-Marshal Sir John Burgoyne. He uses the following expression, which summarises the views which my right hon. Friend has expressed on this subject—
"If the service in the Line could be made more palatable, so as to induce a more numerous and somewhat superior class to enter as soldiers, it would tend to the greater diffusion of a general military capability throughout the community; and this would be much increased if, instead of lengthening the periods of service, they could be much reduced, and if the soldier of sonic few years' regular training were again absorbed among the civil population and available in whatever shape might be thought best for the Reserve force."
I think the substantial reasons which can be urged in favour of the establishment of some such system as this render it worthy of consideration by your Lordships and by the country. One other word, my Lords, upon this subject. Sir John Burgoyne speaks of inducements to a superior class of men to enter the Army as soldiers. Now I consider this to be a subject of great interest and importance. The desirability of having our soldiers better instructed and employed in trades of different kinds in the course of their service, is a subject which, I believe, is under the consideration of the illustrious Duke the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief at the present time. There is also another question which excites considerable interest among those who have paid attention to Army administration. It is believed that considerable inducements would be held out to respectable men to enlist in the Army if men who leave the Army with good characters, and who are intelligent, and good writers and accountants, were more made use of in the public offices than they are at the present time. We find that the Sappers can readily obtain employment after leaving the service; and it appears to

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me quite possible that matters may be so managed that we may hereafter have in the Line regiments men who, in like manner, on leaving the service, will experience no difficulty in obtaining employment in civil capacities. My noble Friend has alluded to the condition of the Militia. As I before remarked, when my right hon. Friend came into Office the attention of the Government was first called to the concentration of the forces at home by means of reducing the battalions in the colonies. My right hon. Friend's attention was next directed to the condition of the Militia, which has been rightly characterized by my noble Friend as the first Reserve in this country. My noble Friend called it "the first constitutional Reserve," and, indeed, the word "constitutional" is constantly used in connection with the Militia. I believe, however, that in this country no one force is more constitutional than another; that the Army is as constitutional a force as the Militia, and the Volunteers are as constitutional a force as either. With respect to the Militia, I think your Lordships will be of the same opinion as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in regretting that the novelty and popularity of that very valuable force the Volunteers should, for a time at least, have apparently detracted from the public estimation in which the Militia was formerly held. Because nobody can draw an invidious comparison between the two forces; they are totally distinct in their character—each has its own functions; and I am sure noble Lords who are connected with the Volunteers will not wish to detract from the merits of the Militia, while those noble Lords who are connected with the Militia will not wish to detract from the merits of the Volunteers. No doubt it was found at the beginning of this year that the Militia was exceedingly deficient in officers, and especially in subaltern officers. Of the establishment of 3,485 officers, which is the Staff of the Militia, there had only been appointed 2,138, and of these only 1,859 were trained last year. My right hon. Friend paid immediate attention to that point, and he took in the Estimates of this year a sum of £20,000, which it may be hoped will remedy some of the matters with respect to which Militia officers have had to complain. In the first place, the pay of regimental officers
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of Militia, of and above the rank of captain, during training, which had been by some accidental circumstance less than the pay of officers of the Line, has been equalized with that of officers of the Line. The grant to Militia officers of 1s. a day is obviously too small to enable them to pay for the necessary expenses of their mess. That sum has been raised from 1s. to 4s. Officers of Militia also find it very expensive, when put in quarters, to provide themselves with that moderate amount of furniture which is necessary for their comfort in addition to that which they find in barracks; and a small allowance has been given to officers when so situated. Some other changes have also been made. In the first place, officers of Militia have been allowed, with the consent of the Lords Lieutenant of the different counties, to exchange from one regiment to another, which has been represented to be a great advantage to themselves; and likewise, with the concurrence of the illustrious Duke at the head of the Army, the arrangement has been made that a step of honorary rank shall be granted to officers retiring from the Militia after a certain number of years' service; to field officers after twenty-five years' service, of which fifteen have been in the Militia; to captains after twenty years' service, of which fifteen have been in the Militia; and to lieutenants after twenty years' service, of which ten have been in the Militia. In addition to these alterations, none of which require legislative sanction, a Bill has been introduced, and will shortly come before your Lordships, which provides for two important matters connected with the Militia, and for one minor matter. The minor matter is, that it is proposed to do away with the property qualification now required for some ranks of officers. It appeared to my right hon. Friend that, after the property qualification for Members of Parliament had been abolished, it was hardly necessary to insist upon it in respect to Militia officers; and it has been represented as a bar, in some cases, to obtaining good officers to fill up vacancies in the Militia. The two important points are these—In the first place it is proposed to give power to Her Majesty to put the Militia, when out for training, under the command of general officers of Her Majesty's Army. By an accidental omission

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in our legislation, while the Volunteers can be placed under general officers, no power exists to place the Militia under such command unless they are actually embodied. The third provision included in the Bill is, that when there is a want of junior or subaltern officers in regiments of Militia called out for training, officers of the regular Army may be sent for a time to assist in training those regiments. There are several other questions relating to the Militia of very considerable importance. Perhaps the most important of all relates to the system of billeting; because those who know the Militia are, I think, of opinion that so long as that system is continued, it must be with very great difficulty that commanding officers of Militia regiments are able to keep their men under proper discipline during the time of training, and that it would be of the greatest possible advantage to the Militia if any method of getting rid of that system could be found. There is also, again—as has been pointed out by my noble Friend—the system of instruction for officers of the Militia. I do not know that the officers of the Militia have been complained of as ignorant of their duties: on the contrary, the Reports of the Inspecting Officers, in the course of last year, in regard to the Militia regiments have been favourable; and I can further say, from personal communication with officers upon whom I can depend to give an honest opinion on the subject, that the condition of the Militia is not that which was shadowed forth by my noble Friend. At the same time I am far from asserting that twenty-eight days' training will produce a battalion of Militia perfectly organized, and capable of immediately taking its place with the Infantry of the Line—that would be an exaggeration; but, nevertheless, I think that, if called out for service, the Militia would be found able, as they have been heretofore, to perform any duty that might be required of them. With regard to the efficiency of the Militia, I take the liberty of quoting the following words of a very high authority:—
"If you begin with the formation of Militia corps under this Act of Parliament they will in time become what their predecessors in the Militia were; and if ever they do become what the former Militia were, you may rely on it they will perform all the services they may be required to perform."—[3 Hansard, cxxii. 731.]
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On the 15th of June, 1852, that was the opinion expressed by the late Duke of Wellington, when the Bill for the establishment of the present system of Militia was before your Lordships, and I may add that they were nearly the last words spoken by that illustrious man in this House. As to the instruction of the officers of the Militia, it is quite possible that improvements may be introduced into the training and examination of those officers. At the present time there is a Royal Commission inquiring into the system of education in the Army, of which my noble Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Dufferin) is Chairman, and of which I myself have the honour to be a Member. It is obvious that no system of schools of instruction, such as, I believe, has been instituted in Canada, could be introduced in this country with respect to Militia or Volunteer officers, until the question of the instruction, the training and the examination of officers of the Line has been previously decided. The key of the whole education of the Army must be the education of the Regular forces, and the Militia and Reserve forces must follow their lead in that respect. Therefore, until the Commission reports, it would be premature to establish any system for amending the instruction of Militia officers. The main point, I think, in the speech of my noble Friend—and I entirely agree in the observations that he made upon it—was that he wanted some organization in this country which will bring together the military forces, of whatever class they may be, and will, in times of emergency, enable them to act with promptness and with harmony. That is a subject to which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State devoted his attention immediately after assuming the Seals of Office. The first thing which my right hon. Friend did with regard to it was to consult with the First Lord of the Admiralty and with his Royal Highness the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief upon the general principles of our defence. And I must here venture to remind my noble Friend that in his admirable speech he made one most important and, I think, essential omission. The word "Navy," I believe, did not once fall from his lips. It seems to me that the whole of his argument—the whole of his comparison in respect to the condition of our forces with those of

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France and Prussia—might have been sound if this country had been in the position of a Continental Power, with frontiers conterminous with those of other Powers. But when his argument comes to be applied to this island of ours, providentially separated and protected by a great natural defence from any attack from abroad—and not only protected by a great natural defence, but supported by a force in which now, as at all other times, we hold ourselves to be superior to all other nations in the world—the reasoning and the comparison fail—and the position which we occupy is one which renders it unnecessary for us to arm the whole population of the country, as other nations have, unfortunately, been almost obliged to arm their whole population, in consequence of the mutual armaments of their neighbours. My Lords, to resume—After settling and laying down the main principles of our defensive force, my right hon. Friend appointed a sub-Committee, which is now considering what military divisions should be made in this country, and what Staff organization should be established in those divisions for the sake of bringing all the forces of the country together. Now, my Lords, that organization appears to be perfectly indispensable in order that the forces of the country should be put upon a proper footing. At the same time your Lordships will be glad to hear that it is far from improbable that very great improvements in the organization of the Reserve forces may be made, and that there is also room for effecting no little economy when that improved organization is carried out. The noble Earl on the cross-Benches (Earl Grey), who has often addressed your Lordships with great weight upon questions relating to Army organization and the Reserve forces, has called attention several times to the expense occasioned by maintaining, in connection with the Reserve forces, a permanent Staff for the whole year, who necessarily are employed but for a very short time. Now, the cost of the permanent Staff of the Reserve forces, which I have on this paper, I will venture to read. There are no fewer than 717 officers and 6,391 noncommissioned officers, and the cost of pay and allowances for the Staff is, including clothing, no less than £491,000 per annum.
THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLANDthought there must be some mistake.
LORD NORTHBROOK: The noble Duke expresses some apprehension that I have fallen into a mistake; but I will give the particulars. There are 15 officers engaged in the inspection of the Reserve forces, at a cost of £8,425 per annum. In the Militia there are 290 officers and 4,776 non-commissioned officers, costing in pay, allowances, and clothing £287,250 per annum. In the Yeomanry there are 35 officers and 328 non-commissioned officers, and their cost is £19,191; and in the Volunteer force there are 291 officers and 1,163 noncommissioned officers, the annual cost being £154,950. Then the cost of the Staff of the Pensioners is about £21,200 per annum, so that the Staff of the Reserve forces alone costs, as I have stated, £491,016 per annum. But that is not all; for, independent of this Staff we have recruiting districts, and the pay, allowances, and clothing of those connected with them amounts to £26,934 per annum. Independently of that again, we have the Staff of the depot battalions, who are, to a great extent, employed in similar duties, and their cost for pay, allowances, and clothing amounts to £36,030. Therefore, my Lords, if you add to the cost of the Staff of the Reserve forces that of the Recruiting Staff and of the Staff of the depot battalions, which might be diminished by a different organization, the total cost per annum is no less than £553,980. I am not, my Lords, at this time going to propose any plan by which this Staff may be consolidated and economy enforced; all that I say is—that, with such figures before us, it certainly appears that, while greater efficiency might be secured, a considerable degree of economy may also be effected. I will now say a few words with respect to the observations which my noble Friend has made in regard to the Volunteers. My Lords, I think there is no officer of Volunteers who would assume, as my noble Friend appears to think they do, that the Volunteers ought to be regarded as part of the standing Army. From all that I have seen and heard among Volunteer officers and from my own feeling as a Volunteer officer of humble position, I do not think that the Volunteers ever supposed that they were part of the standing Army of this country.

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We are quite content with the position which my noble Friend has given us of being valuable auxiliaries in time of invasion. The consideration of the position of the Volunteers was forced upon my right hon. Friend shortly after he assumed the Seals of Secretary of State. It will be in the recollection of some, at least, of your Lordships that Sir John Pakington, when Secretary of State, received a deputation of Volunteer officers, and communicated to them the decision of the late Government against an increase of the capitation rate to Volunteers. My right hon. Friend shortly after he came to the War Office received a deputation of the Volunteer officers, by whom the same request was made, and to whom the same reply was given. My right hon. Friend said that the view he took of the question was that it would not be right to give broadcast an increase of the capitation rate to the Volunteers; but if an increase was to be given out of the public taxes, such increase must be coupled with a comprehensive review of the whole position of the force; that it would be necessary in the first place that no more separate corps should exist than could be usefully established in any particular locality; that officers and non-commissioned officers should be appointed, not from social or other similar considerations, but because they were able to command men with efficiency; and, lastly, that some better test of efficiency should be afforded than the number of drills which were required, as the force was now constituted, to entitle a Volunteer to the capitation grant; and that more would be necessary than the small increase which was proposed by the Volunteer deputation as a kind of ultimatum. Now, this question of the Volunteers is intimately connected with that of the organization of the whole of the Reserve forces; and, therefore, my right hon. Friend proposes—after the Committee which is now considering the general organization of the Reserve forces has proceeded somewhat further towards the completion of that part of its work, and at the time of the Wimbledon meeting, when many of the Volunteer officers will come to London—to invite some of them to assist him in taking a comprehensive view of the position of the Volunteer force, which appears absolutely essential before Parliament is asked to vote an
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increase of the grant. I need hardly remind your Lordships that the money paid to the Volunteer force in one year is for services rendered in the year before; and, therefore, that, before the Estimates for next year are laid before Parliament, there will be ample time to mature any measures which may be necessary for the improvement of the force. It appears to the Secretary of State that it might be exceedingly desirable, if any increase is given to the Volunteers, to devote it more to enabling them to unite with the Militia and the Line, in order to train them practically to their duties, in smaller bodies than those which have been collected together at the great reviews. I have already said, my Lords, that I cannot accept the position which my noble Friend (Lord Monck) has taken in the course of his able speech in instituting comparisons between the position of this country, and such countries as France, Prussia, Austria, or Russia stand with respect to defence. I must refer, however, for a few moments, to the comparison which my noble Friend made as regards the cost per man of the Army and Volunteers of France and Prussia, as compared with that of; the Army and Volunteers of this country. When I was in the other House of Parliament, when the Estimates were being discussed, I have constantly heard comparisons made between the cost of the French and English Armies; but I never found any possible point of agreement in which two people who took opposite views could meet. It is utterly impossible, unless you have every particular detail, and work the calculation out from top to bottom, to institute any sound comparison between the Estimates of the two countries. We are told that one English soldier costs £100 per annum; but in that £100 is included pensions of all kinds, the cost of fortifications, and of military experiments of all sorts, and many other matters which may or may not be included in calculations based upon the French Budget, but which require to be carefully considered before such a comparison can be accepted as fair. The fact is, we see our own defects, and our own expenditure is brought especially home to us; but when we come to discuss the expenditure of other nations there may be things which we do not know, but which they do; and therefore

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I altogether take exception to the comparison which my noble Friend has instituted. But I will take him to one point which will show that he has been hardly fair to this country in his comparison of the cost of the French and English soldier. In making his comparison he calls the Garde Mobile soldiers, but excludes the English Volunteers.
LORD MONCK: I beg my noble Friend's pardon. I included the Volunteers, the Militia, and every other force.
LORD NORTHBROOK: If my noble Friend included them I am utterly at a loss to know how to make his calculations tally with the Army Estimates; because if all are included we should have 436,000 men—namely, 400,000 at home and 36,000 in the colonies, who also fall on the Army Estimates. But if you divide the Army Estimates, which, I believe, are £10,834,000, for the Effective Services, by that number it does not produce anything like the sum mentioned by my noble Friend. The calculation produces something like £25, instead of the sum the noble Lord mentioned. I cannot profess to go into the details of the calculations which he has made with respect to foreign Armies; but if they are made at all in the same way as his calculations respecting our Army, they may not be so unfavourable to our administration as at first sight they appear. Of course, my Lords, it is self-evident that if you have conscription, you can have a cheaper Army than you can get on the voluntary system. I was sorry to hear my noble Friend shadow forth a system similar to the Prussian. Conscription always bears most hardly on the working classes. As long, therefore, as we can get soldiers by the voluntary system, we should be doing a foolish and unjust thing to throw the burden of our military defence on our poorer fellow-countrymen. If you have a voluntary system the average rate of pay must be equal to the pay of artizans and labourers, and the Army cannot consequently be cheap. Besides this, everything in this country is dearer than on the Continent. I confess I was unable to follow my noble Friend completely; but, as far as I understand it, I must say that any system such as he proposes, which would establish a different system of enlistment for the service at home and service abroad, would involve great,
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if not insuperable difficulties. His system contains a fault common to many of the systems which have been designed of late with a view to reform our Army organization. One Paper, read by Mr. Cole, which gave rise to a very interesting discussion at the Society of Arts, was based upon the proposal to leave India entirely out of the question; and some other schemes have been designed in forgetful-ness of the fact that we have to provide an Army for India. I trust, by the way, that whatever scheme may be adopted for the organization of the English Army, we shall not revert to the system of having a local European Army in India. When the local Army existed, I was strongly against it, and now that it has been abolished, I deprecate any change which would restore it. I believe it to be an unsound system for the maintenance of the British supremacy in the East. My noble Friend has more than once referred to the views recently expressed by Sir John Burgoyne. But the name of Sir John Burgoyne brings me back to the time when a celebrated letter was written by him, at a period when there was some anxiety, as there is at present, respecting our home defence. It will be some satisfaction to your Lordships to compare the state of those defences then with their condition at present. In 1851, the regular forces numbered some 67,500; of Militia there was only a small permanent Staff of 700 men, and there were 15,500 Pensioners, &c. We had altogether 84,000 of those forces, besides a Yeomanry force of 14,600 men, but no Volunteers. In 1869, we have 92,000 Regular Army, 83,000 Militia, actually trained, independent of those who will be called out for training this year, and 24,000 Pensioners, &c.; giving a total of 200,000 as against 84,000 inl851. If you take the Infantry of the Line, you will find that we had only 43 battalions in 1851 at home; now we have 61: in 1851, we had only 5,000 Artillery; this year we have 18,000: in Volunteers we had only the Yeomanry against 170,000 "efficient" Volunteers. Therefore if we stood alone on the comparison of the Regular and Reserve forces in 1851 and at the present time, we have the satisfaction of knowing that we are in a far superior position to that in which we then were. But, in 1851, as was pointed out by Sir John Burgoyne, we had no system of fortifications. At this time, we have

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perhaps the most admirable system in the world rapidly advancing to completion. We have also a means of defence which did not exist in 1851—I refer to the floating mines or torpedoes. This species of defence has attracted great attention, and there is no doubt that torpedoes will form a powerful auxiliary for the defence of harbours in the future. Look how the system developed during the progress of the American War. In 1862, there was only one vessel destroyed by them; in 1863, there were two; in 1864, ten; and in 1865, twelve. Twenty-five Federal vessels altogether were destroyed, and nine injured by torpedoes during that war. My Lords, the introduction of steam, so far from being a weakness, has been a great addition of strength to this country; improvements in artillery have been a strength to us; and torpedoes will give additional strength to the defence. The policy of the Secretary of State and the Government is to concentrate the forces in this country; as far as possible to establish such a system of Reserve as to enable the battalions of Infantry to be raised at once in case of necessity to war strength; and, at the same time, to organize such a system of military administration throughout the country as will unite, as far as possible under one command, for purposes of organization and control, all the different forces which now have no connection one with the other, and enable them to be used with the greatest advantage whenever necessity shall arise. I feel sure that my noble Friend will give credit to the Government for having taken up this question, not in a perfunctory spirit, but with the determination to go to the bottom of every portion of our military system, and not to be satisfied until those defects which now exist in certain portions of that system are remedied, and that such an organization is adopted as will enable us to recruit our Army with promptitude when it is desired, and to have all the defensive forces of this country in the most efficient state if, unfortunately, we should be called upon to demand their services.
THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE: My Lords, it is not my intention, after the able speeches we have heard from the Under Secretary for War and my noble Friend who introduced the subject (Lord
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Monck), to take this opportunity of going into the details of a question of such importance and breadth, as there will, no doubt, be other opportunities of discussing it. It will, however, be right for me to say a few words and to warn your Lordships and the country that this grave question is one that ought not to be disposed of hastily, but which ought to be decided after the most serious consideration, after the fullest investigation, and after you have exhausted all the information it is possible to obtain. From the observations made by my noble Friend who introduced this question, I thought he was going to conclude with a proposal for the introduction of conscription into this country—for all his arguments and views were in the direction of conscription; but I do not believe that either your Lordships or the country are at all prepared for such a proposition, and I am certainly the last man who, from a military point of view, would urge the resort to conscription in this country. At the same time I admit that conscription is, of all measures, that which makes military organization most simple and easy. I agree very much with what fell from the noble Lord the Under (Secretary with respect to the unintelligible character of the figures of the noble Lord who introduced the question. I did not understand the noble Lord's figures; but, supposing they are correct, I contend that the whole question is one of conscription, and that the question of expenditure rests entirely upon conscription. If you have conscription, you can force a man to serve you for nothing. What is the question with us? It is entirely one of the labour market. You must go into the labour market and make it worth a man's while to serve you as a soldier in preference to following any trade or profession. This is a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence; and men cannot be got without expense. A man will not come into the Army merely for the pleasure of serving you; he comes for the advantage it is to him. The greater the advantage in money and money's worth, the more easily will you get recruits. This is a question of finance and of comparative expenditure, and on every one of these points it is an absurdity to compare our Army with any other Army which is a conscript Army. The only Army you can compare ours with is one formed like the

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American Army, only a small portion of which is a standing Army. We must be prepared, under any circumstances, for a considerable outlay, and we must not compare our outlay in these respects with the outlay upon the Armies of France, Russia, or Prussia. Ours is not a conscript Army, and that is really at the bottom of the whole question in that respect; and the same as regards enlistment. If my noble Friend can assure me that we can get men to serve without a pension, I shall be glad to hear it; but, so far as my convictions go at present, they are very strong in the direction that the pension is a great inducement to men to enter the Service. No arrangement you may make is of any use if it will not produce the men; ii you can produce the men, that is what is required; but if you cannot produce the men, the ground is cut away from under your feet. Recollect this is a voluntary service, and if you adopt a system which will not bring the men, you are checkmated. Therefore, whatever we do, we must obtain the men, and any change introduced must be introduced in such a manner that we shall be sure of the result before the change is made. I am under the impression that there may be an attempt made to introduce enlistment for short periods; but I do hope, at all events, that there is no intention of giving up the present system of enlistment before you are sure of the result of any new experiment. I would say let short enlistment be tried pari passû with the present system; and if you adopt that course you will lose no men. Another important point is that of enlistment for India and for colonial garrisons. I cannot conceive of any system of enlistment answering which makes a difference between enlistment for foreign and enlistment for home service. Such distinctions lead to endless confusion and inconvenience, and involve injustice even to the men themselves. Following up what has been said by the noble Lord the Under Secretary, I can only assure the noble Lord (Lord Monck) that Her Majesty's Government are perfectly alive to the necessity of having this subject most exhaustively inquired into, and that every endeavour is being made to see how the Reserve forces can be brought into relation with the regular Army. If any arrangement can be made—and I have no doubt it can—by
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which that desirable end can be attained, I am sure that not only Her Majesty's Government, but all military authorities, will see with great satisfaction any such proposal judiciously carried out to the fullest extent. As to Reserve forces, to which reference has been made, I quite agree that if you could get Reserve forces that are not connected with the Militia, or any other body, it would be a great advantage; but the question is, how to get them? Can you get them? My impression is you cannot. If we can get them, by all means let us do so; let us try a system of raising the Reserve forces without its having anything to do with the Militia, and let us also continue to try the scheme of a Militia Reserve introduced by General Peel. I believe if that measure were systematically carried out it would work well, that there would be no difficulty in getting the Reserve men from the Militia, and in filling up the Militia regiments which supply men for the Reserve, and that the working of the measure need involve no disorganization of the Militia force. I entreat your Lordships to reflect, and not to be hurried into making any organic change in the recruitment of the Army—an Army which I think all your Lordships will admit has, under all circumstances and on all occasions, proved itself worthy of the country, and which has done its duty in a manner which ought at least to be borne in mind when you propose to make a grave and serious change in its organization.
EARL DE LA WARRsaid, it would be early enough to express an opinion on the various schemes which had been propounded when any of them had taken the shape of a Bill. It was satisfactory to observe that the Government was at last entering boldly and earnestly on the path of military reform, and that it was prepared to give more attention to questions of military organization than its predecessors were supposed to have done. He did not agree with the proposal to curtail the period of enlistment in the regular service, and he believed that to dispense with the lengthened service which those who now entered the Army gave freely and voluntarily, would deprive the Army of strength, power, and stability, which it would be impossible to replace. If our battalions were composed of men of two years' instead of seven or eight years' service, we should

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miss those whom the Duke of Wellington called the backbone of the Army when the stern ordeal of battle had to be gone through. If, therefore, we were to make the experiment of passing soldiers rapidly through the ranks, consigning them to the Militia and afterwards recalling them to their colours in time of war, let it be tried first with only a few regiments of the regular service. He believed that the services of the men we now had were cheaply purchased at the cost of the pension they were entitled to on their discharge. He admitted that the cogency of these arguments depended on the truth of the postulate that prolonged training produced increased efficiency. Many denied this, but he believed the majority would affirm it; and on this point an able military writer of the day said—
"It was the fate of the writer to be once with one of England's greatest soldiers, now no more, in a distant land during the mutiny of an army and the revolt of a people, and nothing struck him so much as the deep anxiety of that veteran chief, who was literally grown gray in war, to obtain even one regiment of old soldiers whom he know and on whom he could rely, and the perfect tranquillity which came over him when he did obtain it."
The preponderance of opinion was, he believed, in favour of service not much shorter than what now prevails—at least among all who had seen troops in action and in the field. Instead of dispensing with the services of those whom he would call professional soldiers, mainly with the view of saving the pensions to which they were entitled on discharge, the Government should try to devise some plan equally acceptable but less costly to induce our soldiers to remain in the ranks; and then the bulk of our Army would continue to receive that lengthened training which would be of incalculable value if ever they were called upon to take the field.
THE EARL OF DALHOUSIE: I wish to make a few remarks on this subject, particularly as I differ to a considerable extent from some of the propositions of the noble Lord who has just sat down (Earl de la Warr). I think we have lost sight in this discussion of the main object for which it was brought on. It appeared to me to be instituted for the purpose of endeavouring to arrive at that which is really wanted in this country—namely, the best mode of establishing an Army of Reserve. I think that
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Her Majesty's Government have pursued a right line in the direction of military organization. I think that they have been quite correct in withdrawing, as far as possible, the troops of the Line from service in the colonies. They have also done quite right, while maintaining at home a larger force than existed last year, in distributing that force throughout a greater number of regiments. They will thereby be able to reduce those regiments into distinct cadres; and the question that then arises is how these cadres are to be best filled up on an emergency? Now, my opinion is that these cadres ought to be filled up by men who have passed through the Army itself. It is quite true that that principle was tried by those who originally framed the Short Service Act, which I had the honour of carrying through this House. At that time it was believed that, after a service of ten years in the Army, we should induce the men to take their discharge, and to fall back into the Army of Reserve. It turned out that that plan did not succeed except to the most trifling extent. The same want of success attended General Peel's suggestion; and I consider, therefore, that the attempt to form an Army of Reserve upon either of those principles is perfectly futile. But I do think, if it appears to Her Majesty's Government to be advisable, that an Army of Reserve may be formed by shortening the period of enlistment, and making the entry into the Reserve compulsory and not voluntary. I think that if men were enlisted for twelve years, and seven, or even five, of those years were passed under the colours, and then the men were sent at once to form a nucleus of men available for future service, that would be the most efficient Army of Reserve you could obtain. From that body of men I would fill up the cadres of regiments when necessity required; and in the course of time I have no doubt that that Reserve might amount to some 30,000, 40,000, or even 50,000 men, and in case of need you would be sure of being able to fill up your regiments to their proper strength. Moreover, let me point out the immense economy of such an arrangement. When you enlist a man for twelve years, and say that he needs only serve five or seven years under the colours, you get rid at once of all married soldiers. Such a

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thing as marriage in the Army would then be unknown, and the enormous expense of the transport of women and children would be altogether saved and avoided. With regard to regiments sent to India, it has occurred to me that they might be sent out there stronger in numbers than the regiments you would send to your colonies—containing say, 1,000 men. I would allow these men to drop down to 400 or 500, as they naturally would in the course of five or seven years' service; and there would thus be a large saving of expense in sending out reliefs. I believe that the change I have suggested would make the service much more popular than it now is. If, however, an Army of Reserve is established upon these principles, care must be taken that those who have passed through the Army should not forget the drill they received while they were in it. This could be done by calling them out as the Pensioners were called out. With regard to the Militia, I think it ought to constitute a distinct force for the defence of the country in time of war. I would not allow it to be drawn upon in any manner whatever for the recruiting of the regular Army; but I would enable it, by an Act of Parliament to be obtained upon the emergency, to volunteer by whole regiments for foreign service if the necessities of the country demanded such a measure. As to the Volunteers, I only hope that Her Majesty's Government will never look upon that force as any other than a force to be used in the last extremity. The cry "The country is in danger" should be raised before the Volunteers are embodied under the Queen's Orders; and, while we attend to the proper training and exercising of that force, it is only upon a great emergency that they ought to be put side by side with the regular forces of the country and embodied under the Mutiny Act. In listening to the suggestions of my noble Friend behind me, I could not help being struck with the comparisons drawn between the Army of England and the Armies of the Continent. Now, as the illustrious Duke and the Under Secretary said, no comparison is possible between the forces of a country which is supplied by voluntary service and countries which are supplied by conscription. The whole tendency of military legislation in this country of late has been to render the Army more
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acceptable to the whole body of the community. I believe that efficient steps have been taken in that direction, and that the Government are disposed to go even further. But there was one point to which my noble Friend referred in opening this debate, and which the Under Secretary of State passed over, to which I beg to call your Lordships' attention. I do trust that whatever reforms Her Majesty's Government may be disposed to make with regard to the officering of the British Army, they will be most cautious how they meddle with the system of purchase. My noble Friend quoted the opinion of a French Marshal with regard to the character of our infantry. Now, I will tell him what another French Marshal said, when he came to see, in combination with the Armies of his own country, the English Army in the Crimea. He was at the head of an Army whose officers rose from the ranks, and who were in consequence always associated with the men whom it was their business to command; and he contrasted that Army with ours whose officers only exceptionally rose from the ranks, and where the system of purchase prevailed. He saw in one Army that the officers were zealous, painstaking, constantly anxious for the comfort of their men; and the consequence was that the men, seeing the deep interest which their officers took in them, obeyed them with alacrity, and executed the orders given to them with steadiness and zeal. On the other hand, in the French Army, from the constant association of the officers with the men, there was no respect on the part of the men for the officers; and Marshal Canrobert said to Lord Raglan—"Whatever you do, take my advice, and never alter the system which establishes the relations now existing between the officers and men in your Army." I trust that in all measures of Army reform to which Her Majesty's Government may direct their attention they will be cautious about meddling with a system which has proved to be of such advantage to our Army hitherto, and which will, I am quite sure, notwithstanding all that has been said against it, continue to give the British Army a system of officering to which no other system can come up. The whole of this question ought, in my opinion, to undergo careful consideration; but I am perfectly convinced that the result of that

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consideration, whenever the Government may deem it right to take up the subject, should not lead them to put two or three systems on their trial. Let them make up their minds as to what the best system is to adopt, and adopt it—for depend upon it if they put different systems on trial they will succeed in none, and the country will be no better provided to meet any contingency which may arise than it is at the present moment.
LORD TRUROexpressed his opinion, as a Volunteer, that the Volunteer Force could never act effectively in this country except as an auxiliary to the Regular Army; and, at the same time, he urged that it was most desirable that the War Department should pay much greater attention than it had hitherto done to the organization, development, and equipment of the Volunteers, in order that they might be as efficient an auxiliary force as possible. The question which had been raised by the noble Lord who opened the discussion (Lord Monck) was, he might add, a very large one. The noble Lord very properly gave credit to the Government for having recalled from the colonies several of the regiments which had been stationed there; but he very much doubted whether this country would remain satisfied hereafter with a force of sixty-one battalions. As their Lordships were aware, there had always existed in England a very rightful jealousy of a large standing Army, and should those regiments be maintained at anything like their full complement, the present or some future Government might think it expedient to inquire whether such a force was one which, together with the Militia and Volunteers, the country required for its defence, or whether its maintenance was consistent with the scale of expenditure which ought to be incurred. When he heard the noble Lord speak of the battalions in this country being kept at a low strength he felt it would be an impolitic course to pursue to have merely the cadres of several battalions as proposed, and he should have thought that it would be more acceptable to the country to have a smaller number of regiments kept in a state of efficiency not to be surpassed. That, in his opinion, would be a much wiser course to adopt than to have a number of semi-regiments. The noble Lord had also drawn a comparison between our Army and the Armies of the
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great Continental States; but he could not help thinking it would be a great mistake to model the military system of this country, with all its idiosyncracies and peculiarities, on any foreign system whatsoever. As to the remarks which had been made about bringing the several forces of this country into harmony with one another, he would merely observe that, instead of troubling ourselves with a vast system of organization, the preferable course, so far as he could see, would be to bring to a state of the utmost perfection the several branches of our defences. He lamented that year after year reforms in that respect had been postponed; and he trusted, after the repeated inquiries which had been instituted into the subject, the Government would become alive to the fact that the country would no longer be content with allowing our defences to remain in their present unsatisfactory condition; and he trusted that another Session would not be allowed to pass without a remedy being applied. The question was one on which he had intended to make some further observations; but, owing to the lateness of the hour, he should postpone those observations to a future occasion.
LORD NORTHBROOKsaid, he wished to explain that for this year the arrangement for completing the cadres of the infantry battalions of the Line, which now stood at 560 rank and file, would be as follows:—The regiments of Militia would be invited to raise in the Militia Reserve a number of men which, on the whole, including the 2,700 now raised, would amount to 15,000, and that would enable the cadres of battalions of the Line to be increased, in case of war, from 560 to 800 men.

NORFOLK ISLAND BISHOPRIC BILL [H.L.]
A Bill to amend so much of the Act of the session of the sixth and seventh years of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter thirty-five, as provides that Norfolk Island is to be part of the Diocese of Tasmania—Was presented by The Earl GRANVILLE; read 1a. (No. 73.)
House adjourned at half past Eight o'clock, to Monday next, Eleven o'clock.