Sitting of 24 May 1870

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Railway Accidents (Compensation), nominated.
WAYS AND MEANS—Resolution [May 23] reported.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—Contagious Diseases Acts (1866–1869) Repeal, debate adjourned; Horse Racing.
Select Committee—Kensington Road Improvement* (128), discharged.
Committee—Report—Benefices* [46–141]; Married Women's Property* [16].

NAVY—THE "ACTIVE" AND "VOLAGE."

  QUESTION.
  COLONEL BERESFORDsaid, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether it be the case that the two ships the "Active" and "Volage" have been constructed of iron and have been covered with wood merely to enable copper sheathing to be used, involving an additional cost of about from £6 to £7 per ton?
  MR. CHILDERS: Sir, the Volage and Active are corvette frigates built for great speed. They have iron frames and are plated with thin iron, with
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  wooden casing, and are copper sheathed. If they had had no wooden easing the iron plating must have been thicker, and more expensively fastened, and the difference in cost would have been, not £6 to £7 a ton, as suggested by the hon. Member, but £2 to £3 a ton. On the other hand, they could not have been copper sheathed, and not only would have constantly lost speed by fouling, but would have annually cost more for docking and cleaning.

NAVY—PRIVATE FIRMS AND THE ROYAL DOCKYARDS.—QUESTION.
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, What are the reasons for the statement of the Secretary to the Admiralty, on Friday last—
"That it was not advisable that a private firm should have the use of portions of the Royal Dockyard for the purpose of breaking up two ships for which they had made offers;"
and, whether, had that offer been accepted, it would not have been the means of giving employment to many men who have been discharged without compensation or employment?
MR. CHILDERS: Sir, I am a good deal surprised at the Question of the hon. Member. I will undertake to say—and I am not without reason for so saying—that if we had admitted workmen employed by private persons to work in the dockyard he would, I have little doubt, been the first to object. However, as he has asked the Question, I may say that the reasons against such a course are obvious. It would be most difficult to maintain the discipline and business of a dockyard if a large number of workmen were employed in it by private persons not under the control of the Government, and it would have led to questions about hours, wages, and discipline which would have been very inconvenient. It is quite impossible to give any reply to the second Question. Whether the two ships were broken up inside or outside, the dockyard labour would be employed, and I have no means of knowing in either case how many labourers might have been formerly in the dockyard.
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, he wished to ask why the Admiralty did not break up the ships themselves?
MR. CHILDERS: It is quite impossible to answer such a Question off hand. Ships are broken up in the dockyards as well as by contract; but the extent of work at each place or time is a matter of careful arrangement.

LICENCE ON FARM HORSES.

  QUESTION.
  MR. HANBURY TRACYsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, If his attention has "been called to the circumstance that sixty-one Farmers, who were carting materials gratuitously for the rebuilding of the Trefeglwys Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Chapel, have been forced by the Excise Office to take out Licences for their Horses, amounting in all to £30 10 s., and that the Building Fund of the Chapel has had to recoup to them that amount; and, whether Farmers are liable for Horse Duty when gratuitously carting materials for building and repairing churches, chapels, and schools; and, if so, whether it is the intention of the Government to take any steps for altering the Law in this respect?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: My answer, Sir, to the first Question of my hon. Friend must be in the affirmative. My attention has been called to it by my hon. Friend himself. But my answer is, that, in my judgment, the Excise officers were in error if they made such a charge. I think we must put a reasonable construction upon this Act. The Act says that the exemption is—"for horses kept solely for use in agriculture." It does not say solely used in agriculture. Therefore, the criterion is not the use that is made of the horse exactly, but the purpose for which it is kept; and the use is valuable as determining whether the duty ought to be charged or not only as it throws light upon what purpose the horse is kept for. The principle I have always insisted upon, and which I hope the Inland Revenue will take notice of and act on as far as they can, is, that the distinction we ought to make is, whether the use of the horse other than for agricultural purposes be a gratuitous use or otherwise. If a farmer makes money by it; if he lets out his horse to hire for any purpose, carting stones to a chapel, or for mending a road, I think he forfeits his exemption. But if he does the work gratuitously I think the horse may still
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  be said in all fairness to be kept for the purpose of agriculture, and he does not forfeit his exemption. We must make some rule. It is manifest that we cannot enforce a forfeiture of exemption merely because a man drives his wife and children to church upon a rainy Sunday; and, if so, the principle seems to me to be that gratuitous action cannot be said to influence the purpose for which the horse is kept. The moment the driver makes money by the use of his horse in any other way than in agriculture, then he forfeits his exemption.
  MR. M. T. BASSsaid, that in the North of Scotland great discontent had existed for some time in consequence of the mode in which this tax had been exacted for horses which had been used for carrying families to church. It was regarded as a tax upon church-going. Would the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to state whether that would longer be insisted on.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: The question is not whether it is church-going, but whether the service is gratuitous. A horse employed in carrying the owner's family to church comes, of course, within the exemption.

ESTABLISHED CHURCH (WALES.)

  RESOLUTION.
  MR. WATKIN WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, with the indulgence and for-bearance of the House, I have now, as shortly as the nature of the subject will admit, to call their attention to the state of the Established Church in the Principality of Wales, and to move, for the consideration of the House, Resolutions to the effect that it is right and just that the Church Establishment in the Principality should, as such, cease to exist; that its union with the State should be put an end to; and that the endowments at present enjoyed by the Establishment should be appropriated to the advancement of secular education in the Principality. Sir, this country has quite recently passed through a storm, and I may even say a tempest, upon the subject of disestablishment in connection with the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland; and we are at present, I think I may say without misrepresentation, in the proverbial state of calm, almost amounting to apathy, which follows a storm; and it has appeared to me, I hope not wrongly, that this is a

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  fitting opportunity to call the attention of the House to the subject of the Established Church in the Principality of Wales, and for this reason—that it can be done—and I hope, so far as I am concerned, that course will be followed—without appealing to angry feelings or passions; and it may be considered in that calm and dispassionate manner which becomes so grave a subject. The Church Establishment in the Principality of Wales is comprised in, although it is not precisely co-extensive with, the four dioceses of St. Asaph, Bangor, St. David's, and Llandaff. It extends over an area of 4,734,000 acres. The population of Wales, according to the Census of 1861, within these dioceses, was 1,111,780; and according to an estimate, which is the best I can form, the population at the present time is 1,220,000. The total revenue of this Church, according to the best estimate I can make of it, is £350,000 per annum. It has four Bishops, four deans, 13 canons residentiary, 10 archdeacons, and numerous minor dignitaries. The parochial clergy, as I calculated from the Clergy List of this year, amount in round numbers to 1,000; although I find that some authorities—I cannot ascertain where the discrepancy arises—put the number down at 733. The Church Establishment in the Principality of Wales is an ancient and venerable institution. It is not like the Church in Ireland, an alien Church forced upon the people by a conqueror and by an oppressor. It is not, I think I am right in saying, regarded by the people with any feelings of hostility. Indeed, in many cases, it is regarded with affection and veneration. If, therefore, as I believe I shall be able to show is the case, the Church established in Wales has not succeeded in gaining the affection and confidence of the people, if it is not trusted as a teacher of religion, the question naturally arises—What is the cause of this failure? It cannot be from want of opportunity—it has not been, in fact, from want of the most favourable opportunity; it has not been because the Church has been regarded with the hostility which was felt towards the Church in Ireland. The question, of course, is a most serious one—What is the cause? And I think I am putting the matter with perfect fairness when I say that the answer to that question—
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  what is the reason why the Church Establishment in the Principality of Wales has not won the confidence of the people?—will naturally give us the solution of the problem which I propose to put before the House. For upon the true answer to that question will it depend whether the remedy for the existing state of things is a separation of the Church from the State, and a removal of its endowments to other purposes, or a remodelling of the Establishment, with an endeavour to constitute it upon a different and more practical basis. Sir, after an anxious and careful study of this subject for some years, I have myself come to the conclusion that the true reason why the Established Church in the Principality of Wales has been a failure, is to be found in the same cause that not only in Great Britain, but, in fact, throughout all Europe is undermining State Establishments of religion everywhere. The feeling is everywhere gaining ground that Establishments of religion by the State are both unscriptural and injurious to the cause of true religion, and that, as De Tocqueville wrote 30 years ago, State religions, if they are sometimes of momentary service to the interests of political power, always become, sooner or later, fatal to the Church. In dealing with this question I am met, before proceeding to consider its merits, with a technical difficulty; and I propose to consider that in the first instance, before I go to what I may call the merits of the question. It is said, even assuming this to be a right course to take, how can you disestablish the Church in Wales, as there is no such thing as "the Welsh Church"; no such corporation as "the Welsh Church?" Well, in one sense, that is true enough. There is no such corporation; in fact, there is no such corporation as the Church of England. The Church of England consists only of the Church body and a number of corporations in whom the property is vested. The Church of England has no legal entity as such, and can neither sue nor be sued. It can neither hold nor does it hold property. The Church of England is a general term representing the body of people belonging to the Church and the various corporations in whom the property enjoyed by the Church is vested. In that sense it is true there is no Welsh Church. For myself I see

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  no real practical difficulty in disestablishing the Church in Wales, or in the city of London, or in the county of Lancaster, if it were thought to be desirable. Whether it is proper or desirable, is, of course, entirely a different question. Still I respect and appreciate the difficulty of many whose opinions I look up to, and who consider that this is one single indivisible Church established in England and Wales, and in that respect different from the case of the Church in Ireland, and who say you cannot disestablish the Church in the Principality of Wales apart from the Church of England. But to those I would respectfully say, in point of history the existence of the Church in Wales is separate. And I use that expression advisedly. I entirely fall in with the arguments of those who say it is not a correct expression to speak of the "Church of Wales." I use the expression "Church in Wales." But I say it is not historically correct to speak of the Church as "the Church of England established in Wales." And I hope the House will not think I am I occupying their time improperly if I shortly glance at a few facts, with the I view of enabling the matter to be decided hereafter, rather than with the intention of going into details now. I will give a few historical dates to show that the I Church in Wales is a different and separate Church, having originated at a different time and from a purer source than the Church of England. I believe I am right in saying that the Britons embraced Christianity about the middle of the 2nd century. It may excite a smile in some, and I see it does, that I should go back to such remote periods; and I am bound to confess that, if it rested with myself, I should not think it very material to go into these dates. It is only out of deep respect to those who believe it is important, that I desire to detain the House for a few moments while I do so. In the middle of the 2nd century the Britons embraced Christianity, and it is stated in Bede's history that they received it and retained it for many centuries in all its purity and simplicity—totally different from what it is at present in the Church of England, and of course differing more particularly from the Church of Rome. So it continued for several centuries, and I have the authority of Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales, for saying that the
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  Christianity of the Britons was driven out of England, and took refuge and was to be exclusively found in Wales. Towards the end of the 6th century the Anglo-Saxons embraced Christianity, and St. Augustine was made the first Bishop of the Church of England, as I find from a letter of Pope Gregory giving him advice what course to pursue. I venture to ask the House to bear with me a little while I go into these details. I have the authority of Bede and of Thiérry, in his history of the Norman Conquest, for this statement, that at the time Augustine started the Church of the English—as it was called in those days, although now called the Church of England—the Church of the Britons, confined as it was to the Principality of Wales, was a Church very different indeed from the Church of the English. That is to say, its Bishops were not great territorial barons, as they subsequently became by the infusion of the feudal system into the Church, but were true overseers of the Church. Their authority was derived from the people, and they acted only in concert with and by assent of the people; and I prove that in this way—When Pope Gregory, in his letter to St. Augustine, advised him how to deal with the Bishops of the British, he recommended him to have an interview with them, and to endeavour to get control over them, and to subject them to his rule. He, accordingly, met many of the Bishops of Wales with, their Archbishop in a Synod. They admitted that he was a messenger of truth; but gave him the significant answer that, although they were willing, so far as they were concerned, to conform to the usages and practices of his Church, they could not do so without first consulting and obtaining the assent of their people. I mention this fact because I have seen the contrary stated. The Bishops and Church of the British claimed to have a commencement totally and entirely irrespective of the Church of Rome. It is not a fact, as has been stated, that they claimed to have received the Pallium, which was the symbol of authority, from Rome: on the contrary, they disclaimed it; and that is proved by the answer which was given by the British Bishops to St. Augustine, at the second interview which they had with him, after having consulted with their people. I

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  ask the attention of the House, for this reason—that in the Resolutions which I bring forward I am taking, as I hope I shall show, no step hostile to the Church—hostile, indeed, to the Establishment, but not to the Church. And I hope I shall be able to support the tradition which we have in Wales, and which we cling to, that the ancient British Church is a Church of pure Christianity, very different from that which is claimed for the Church of England, and that is in many respects curiously analogous to the ideas and opinions of the Nonconformist Churches in Wales at this moment. What was the answer which the Bishops of the British gave to St. Augustine, at the second Synod, when he endeavoured to induce them to succumb to his authority? They say (see Thiérry, vol i., p. 69; Horœ Britannictœ, p. 267):—
  "We will never admit the pretended rights of Roman ambition any more than those of Saxon tyranny. In the bond of love and charity we are all subjects and servants to the Church of God, yea to the Pope of Rome and every good Christian, to help them forward both in deed and in word to be the children of God; but for the submission of obedience we owe that only to God, and after God to our venerable head, the Bishop of Caerleon."
  That is the answer they gave; and I think I am not asking too much when I ask the House to draw from it the conclusion that they claimed independence of the Pope, as well as of the Church of England, and they asserted it for many generations. But, as the great French historian says, for their attachment to the principles of religious liberty they paid dearly. They became, as he says, for ever after an object of persecution to the fearful despotism of the Romish hierarchy. And in the year 1115, Henry II., by the assistance and connivance of the Pope-and I do not think I shall go too far if I say by a combination of fraud and violence—appointed to the see of St. David's, which was the Archbishopric of Wales, a lawyer and courtier, one Bernard, upon the understanding that he should forego the rights of the Archbishop of Wales, and subject himself to the Archbishop of Canterbury. This Bernard accepted those conditions, and acted upon them for several years; but being disappointed in a matter of preferment he asserted the rights of his see, and actually instituted a suit in the ecclesiastical Courts to support his title; but he died suddenly before it could be
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  decided. A small country like the Principality of Wales was obliged to give way, and from the period of Henry II. down to the reign of Henry VIII., Bishops were appointed by the Kings of England to the Church in Wales who were willing to acknowledge the supremacy of the Archbishop of Canterbury. By a combination of fraud and collusion between the Pope and King of England the ancient Church in Wales was subjected to, though not otherwise united with, the Church in England, and in the reign of Henry VIII. this was confirmed by the Act of Parliament which we in Wales regard with different feelings, but which we always look upon as the Act of Union between England and Wales. That Act provided that all the laws of England should be extended to Wales—that, in point of fact, the Principality should become one with England. The forests and marshes of that country were divided into counties; and representatives were, I believe, for the first time sent to this House. Therefore I think I have made good this proposition, that the Church of the Britons, or the Church in Wales as it may be called, was in its origin, its inception, and its spirit, a totally distinct Church—a Christian Church which existed many centuries before the Church of England, and which only by fraud and violence was subjected to the Church of England, a proceeding confirmed by Act of Parliament in the reign of Henry VIII. I use this argument for those who feel difficulties about the ecclesiastical origin of and the relations between the two Churches. Of course what the Legislature has done the Legislature can undo, and there is no practical difficulty in the way. I should myself feel no difficulty if it were thought desirable to disestablish the Church in the City of London, and I introduce this historical argument only as an answer to those who take a different view from myself on this subject.
  I will now, with the permission of the House, come to the practical question—namely, the state and condition of the Church in Wales, as established at the present period; and involved in that is an explanation of the circumstances which show the cause of her failure. I shall endeavour to state the facts simply and without colour; and, I trust, without wounding the feelings or religious

  1281
  susceptibilities of any human being. What do we see when we look back to the reign of Henry VIII.—to the period of the Tudor Sovereigns, who owed their position upon the throne of England, chiefly to Welsh arms; for we hold to the tradition that three-fourths of the army that placed Henry VII. on the throne were those of Welshmen. [Laughter.] We say so, and we believe it. One may naturally suppose that when that great Act of Parliament of Henry VIII., which some persons have referred to as the cause of the peaceable, loyal, and quiet condition of Wales, passed, a spirit of conciliation and enlarged toleration would have been adopted towards a people, who although similar to the English, had sympathies, feelings, and traditions, in many respects, different from them? But what was the actual state of things? I will not quote from Welsh historians or poets, because Englishmen will say they are prejudiced; but I will read what the great historian, Thiérry, says on the subject—
  "When the religious supremacy of the Pope had been abolished in England, the Welsh, to whom the Roman Church had never chosen to lend any aid for the maintenance of their independence, adopted without reluctance, the changes decreed by the Government of England. But the Government, whilst it gave every encouragement to the translation of the Bible into English did not cause it to be translated into Welsh. On the contrary, some persons of that country zealous for the new reforms, having undertaken, at their own cost, the translation and publication of the Scriptures, so far from being praised for it, as had been the case in England, orders were given for the seizure and destruction of all copies, which were carried off from the churches and publicly burnt."
  Anyone who reads the statutes of the reign of Henry VIII., will not for a moment doubt the truth of this passage. When we come to the time of the revival of learning what do we see? The wave of the Reformation spread over Europe by, as I believe, the diffusion of the Scriptures in the native tongues of the people; but in Wales the prohibition of their publication in the language which the people understood continued for the best part of a century. Probably that had no particular effect at the moment, because both England and Wales were in such a state of ignorance and darkness that it would have been of very little consequence whether they were published in English, Welsh, Latin, or any other tongue;
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  but during succeeding years, whilst the reformation of religion was being developed in England, and the Scriptures were being read and understood by the people, what was going on in Wales? To this matter I would ask the attention of the House, for as far as I am aware, and I have studied this subject for several years, this solution of the question has never been put forward before, and I submit it with some confidence as the true solution. Queen Elizabeth, it is true, repealed the Act of Henry VIII., and passed an Act giving liberty to publish the Bible in the Welsh language; but it may be readily understood that, after a period of oppression, that was not a very easy thing to do; but at the end of the 16th century—I think I am right in saying 1588—the Bible, for the first time, was translated into Welsh by a most learned person, Morgan, Bishop of St. Asaph, and in 1620 there was another translation by Bishop Parry. Both, however, were published in folio, and being very expensive, copies were only spread to a very small extent amongst the people. I will not weary the House by going through the history of the different centuries, but will come down at once to the critical point—namely, 1745. At that time no great progress had been made in the circulation of the Scriptures in the Welsh language. Every effort had been made by England to Anglicize the Welsh, and I do not hesitate to state my opinion here, before this great Assembly, that, if English statesmen desired to Anglicize the Welsh, it was a serious error on their part to have taken the steps they did to suppress the Welsh nationality and exterminate the Welsh language. England never committed a greater mistake than in the manner in which she attempted to bring about this result. It was done in a way most hostile and offensive to the feelings of the Welsh people, and consequently very little progress was made in propagating the English language. But at the commencement of the 18th century a more lenient or negligent policy seemed to prevail. In 1730 several persons, who, to the credit of the Established Church, were clergymen of that Church—small humble men, curates and natives of Wales—set themselves about the teaching of the people and planting schools all over the country.

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  Their names may not be interesting to this House, but they are dear to the remembrance of the people of Wales. Those gentlemen started schools, and between 1730 and 1777, 6,000 Welsh schools were established in the Principality by their efforts. These schools, in which Welsh was taught, flourished whilst all attempts to establish English schools proved to be a complete failure. When schools had been established there arose, for the first time in Wales, that wave of the Reformation which had passed over Europe and England a long time before, and the people showed a great eagerness to become acquainted with the Scriptures, some of 60 and 70 years of age positively weeping at their not having had before an opportunity of reading them. This is the circumstance which, after a careful consideration of all the surrounding facts, appears to me to be at the root of what afterwards happened. As I have said, this great work of progress began in 1730, and continued unabated until the close of the century; but unfortunately, in 1745, the gentry of Wales joined the Jacobite Rebellion—and whether there is any connection between the two facts, I leave the House to draw its own conclusion—but for the century preceding 1745, nearly all the Bishops and dignified clergy were natives of Wales, and I will specially mention among them the venerated name of Bishop Lloyd, one of the "Seven Bishops," yet from 1745 down to the present year, not one single Welsh Bishop was appointed. I would here make a digression from my speech for the purpose of paying a tribute of gratitude to the great man who is the Leader of the party to which I have the honour to belong (Mr. Gladstone) for his last appointment of a Bishop for Wales—for his appointment of Dr. Hughes, a man not only acceptable to Church people, but to the Nonconformists of the Principality, a man of whom it is only right to say that whilst he is the first Welshman who has been appointed for 125 years he is one whom the people themselves would have elected by an enormous majority if they had been called upon to elect a Bishop. But recollect that from 1745 down to the date of his appointment, not a single Welshman was appointed to a Welsh bishopric. The language of the British Critic and Theological Review describing the nature
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  of the appointment of Bishops between 1745 and the present time, though referring to the Church in England was equally applicable to the Church in Wales. The Critic said that without exaggeration not one Bishop in five was appointed from proper motives during the large period that elapsed between the Administrations of Walpole and Liverpool; that when a Minister of the Crown created inefficient Prelates and those Prelates preferred their inefficient sons, nephews, and cousins to the fourth and fifth generation, how could a private patron be expected to act differently? and that when a Bishop owed his consecration to a job, he would, in nine cases out of ten, be a jobber himself. The hon. Member, having read this passage, asked if this was bad for England what must it have been for Wales, where, in addition, the Bishops were alien to the native language, foreigners to the people in sympathy and thought, and who looked upon and treated them with indifference and contempt? He then read a Petition presented to the House in 1832 from persons in Wales "attached to the Church of England by principle and conviction," which called attention in very forcible language to the grievances which impaired the efficiency of the Church in Wales—that the Bishops were destitute of all knowledge of the language of the Welsh people, as were many of the clergy; that the celebration of religious rites in a language unknown to the people was repugnant to the usages of the Primitive Church and the spirit of the Scriptures; that the richest livings were held by absentees; the larger portion of the tithes of North Wales were absorbed in the repairs of cathedrals, and in the support of Colleges and bishoprics in England; and that the income received by absentees and persons totally unacquainted with the Welsh language was greater than the whole enjoyed by the working clergy. In proof of this it was stated that in 1830 there was taken from the single see of St. Asaph, by Bishop Luxmoore and his family, £27,000 per annum; Bishop Horsley and family, £2,590; Bishop Cleaver and family, £2,126; by English sinecurists, £2,675; by the Dean and Chapter of Winchester, £2,400; Colleges, £2,500; absentees, £3,185. In all, £47,556 per annum was thus diverted from this single see, while the tota

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  sum paid to the working clergy was only £18,391. Such was the state of things in 1830. Now, what was going on out-side the Church? Because my proposition is this—that owing to this circumstance, I admit an accidental circumstance, the Establishment, as such in Wales, has turned out to be a failure. This is the explanation of it. While this condition of things existed among the Bishops and high dignitaries of the Church in Wales, the people were not inactive in the matter of religion, for the good men I have mentioned had established these schools, and a revival of learning, such as it was, took place in Wales, confined principally to the reading of the Scriptures. A spirit of religion was raised amongst them, and the Bible was circulated in the Welsh language by hundreds of thousands during this critical and eventful period. The consequence was that the native people—those who spoke the Welsh language and were engaged in this revival of religion, being thus alienated from the Bishops and the great dignitaries of the Church, resorted, and resorted exclusively to the Scriptures for their information, and reading them in their plain and simple way, they came to this conclusion, which I solemnly believe to be the right one, from their unaided study of the Scriptures in their native language and without the assistance of Bishops, that State Establishments for religion are unscriptural. They found no authority for them in the Scriptures, but everything to the contrary. It is not for me to say whether they were right or wrong, but at least I may say they came to that conclusion honestly, sincerely, and without the aid of those who, if they were wrong, ought to have taken upon themselves the duty of guiding them. Preachers sprang up amongst them, not ordained clergymen, but persons who preached the Gospel in every town and village in Wales. A state of things happened, that, to a very great extent, tended to the disgrace and scandal of the Church, or to those in authority in the Church in Wales at that time. This happened. Many of the inferior clergy, like Thomas Charles, of Bala, sympathized with the movement; they preached, not perhaps in strict accordance with the rubrics of the Church, and they were denounced and condemned for it, and turned out of the Church. The Welsh people,
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  finding that they could get no sympathy or encouragement from the Church found men amongst themselves in whom they could trust. It was proposed as late as the year 1810, when the great separation took place between the Nonconformists and the Church, that they should ordain their own ministers without having recourse to Episcopal ordination. Mr. Charles, and Mr. Rowland, and others in the Church were most anxious to meet and assist this revival amongst the people, and to go amongst them to teach; and what course was taken by the Bishops? They put a stop to it, and. they said—"No; you must not do it; it is not correct; it is not strictly in accordance with the forms and rubrics of the Church." They denounced these people. Scandalous pamphlets were published against Mr. Charles. What was the effect of that? The effect was that those people who had long felt that they could not look to the Bishops and dignified clergy for spiritual instruction and true religion, withdrew from the Church. They said—"If you do not allow your ministers to come amongst us we will withdraw." And thus in 1810, although a few Nonconformist Churches had been established many years before, the great separation of the new and revived Christian Churches from the Established Church took place. At the time when this revival of learning reached the Principality of Wales, when the people read the Scriptures for themselves, and began to understand them according to their light, unfortunately for the Established Church the great Bishops and dignitaries were opposed to the people, and looked down upon them, and treated them with contempt. The consequence was that this people, who now read the Scriptures for themselves, found nothing there that led them to suppose that State Establishments of religion were at all important; and when they found these great Bishops, their families, their cousins, and their distant relatives swallowing up the funds of the Church, what conclusion could they come to but that conclusion which they arrived at from reading the Scriptures for themselves. This House may perhaps say that the conclusion was an erroneous one, and in discussing whether the proper remedy for the state of things to which I have referred is the disestablishment of the Church, it may say that the true

  1287
  line to be taken is not that of disestablishment, but that of effecting an improved organization of the Establishment in order to bring these people back to her. I assure the House that I express my own sincere opinion when I say that it is too late for that. A revolution in thought is taking place, not only throughout Great Britain and Europe, but throughout the whole world, compared with which the old Reformation is as nothing. Everybody seems to be upsetting everybody else's preconceived notions. I believe further, that amongst the revolutions of thought that are going on is a revolution of thought respecting Church Establishments; and I believe that that proposition which was laid down by De Tocqueville—now how many years ago!—is true—namely, that State Establishments of religion—although they may, from time to time, have served the interests of Governments, Kings, and Potentates—have been uniformly detrimental to the cause of true religion. That is the conclusion that I believe my countrymen, almost to a man, have come to; and the question is, whether this House will give effect to that opinion? It may be said—"If you disestablish the Church in Wales, you must, upon the same grounds, disestablish it also in Cornwall and in Yorkshire;" and, in answer to that, I say, as a Welshman—"Let Cornwall and Yorkshire look after themselves." ["Hear!"] I am not sure that I rightly understand that cheer; but I will add that, whenever those places wish to disestablish their Church, they shall have my hearty support. I have no doubt at all that I speak the honest and sincere ideas—the confirmed convictions and opinions of my countrymen in what I say—and in which opinions I myself most cordially and entirely concur. It may be asked, what authority have I for saying that those religious bodies that have seceded from the Established Church in Wales are a success, and that the Established Church there is a failure. I will not trouble the House very long with statistics in reference to this point, and, indeed, in reference to this particular matter it is said that the statistics, so far as we have them—that is, down to the year 1851—are not satisfactory. I should be sorry to make a single statement that is not borne out by facts—and, even upon this question, by facts that are not accepted
  1288
  by both sides of the House; and, therefore, I am bound to say that the statistics are not accepted as satisfactory down to 1851—and from that time to the present we have no reliable statistics. In the year 1801, which was about the time that this great revival took place in Wales, the proportion of accommodation in the churches and chapels was this—In North Wales the proportion of accommodation was, in the Church, 75·2 per cent; and all the accommodation afforded by all the other denominations was 24·8 per cent. Between the years 1801 and 1851 the population of North Wales increased at the rate of 63 per cent; or, to put it in round numbers, the increase was from 250,000 to 400,000; and, if the same proportion that existed in 1801, in reference to the accommodation furnished by the different religious bodies had continued to exist in 1851, then the Church would have added to its supply of sittings the number of 60,000, speaking roundly—the real fact being that they had supplied an addition of only 16,000 sittings. On the other hand, the Nonconformists, if they had maintained the same proportion, would have furnished 20,000 additional sittings; but, in fact, they supplied 217,000. The result of these figures is, to put the matter into terms of percentage, that the Church has retrograded at the rate of 73 per cent, whilst the various Nonconforming bodies have advanced at the rate of 960 per cent. In the whole of Wales, including Monmouthshire, the total number of places of worship is 4,006. In the year 1851, the number of places of worship supplied by the Church Establishment was 1180, whilst the number of places furnished by the Nonconformists was 2,826. As to sittings, the number supplied by the Church was 301,897, and by the Nonconformists 692,339; this being a per centage of 30 to the Church, and of 70 to the Nonconformists. Assuming that the calculation of Mr. Horace Mann is correct, that there should be accommodation in places of worship for 58 per cent of the population, then the Church has fallen off in the supply of such accommodation to the extent of 387,672, whilst the Nonconformists have exceeded their proportion by 2,770. That is to say, in other words, that the Church has provided sittings for 25 per cent of the population, and the Nonconformists for 59 per cent.

  1289
  These are all the reliable statistics that can be brought forward on this subject. I make the calculation that, in 1870, the population has increased up to 1,220,000 people; and, according to an estimate given in the little work by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil, the proportion between Nonconformists and Church people is as eight to one; and I have consulted many people who are considered as authorities, and they give the proportion as ten to one; but I am content to take it upon an estimate that I believe will not be disputed even by Church people themselves—namely, five to one. Of course, I know that a portion of the population cannot be classed as either Churchmen or Nonconformists, because they do not belong to either; but, taking my estimate of five to one, the Church may claim as her share 203,333½, and the Nonconformists l,016,666½. Taking the proportion as one to eight, the Church would claim 135,555, and the Nonconformists 1,084,444. I abstain from drawing any conclusion myself from these facts; but there are inferences of grave importance which I leave the House to draw from them. In drawing to a conclusion, I may be permitted to repeat what I have already said—that we are wanting in reliable figures upon the subject; and, if this be so, I say, let us have a reliable inquiry into the whole of the matter. Let us have next year, when there is to be a Census of the population, a means of testing the accuracy of these statements. That is part of the justification that I have in bringing forward the matter at this time. Many people have said to me that it is premature to bring this thing forward at the present time; but what I say about that is this, that if it be a right and proper thing to be done, it is not premature to make a beginning by calling the attention of this House to the subject. I do not represent to this great assembly that my countrymen are impatient; anxious and earnest they are, but they do not expect at once to accomplish what they desire. This morning I received a letter from one of my most sanguine supporters, and he says—"I wish you God speed; we do not expect immediate success; but we hope you will launch this work." So far as regards myself personally, I venture to say this, that I am not so am-
  1290
  bitious or so absurd as to think that I can, on a Motion of this sort, carry forward legislation upon such a subject; and, indeed, I do not for a moment expect it. To those who say this is a subject too large to be dealt with by a private Member, I say, it is you who have made it too large. I only ask the country to consider it; and I must say, on behalf of my countrymen, that they feel deeply on the subject; that they have an anxious and earnest feeling; and that it is not because they are not impatient that they are the less earnest. What they feel is this—that the time has come, judging from the tone of Government and of recent legislation, when they may make an appeal to the sense of justice and of equity of this great Assembly, and not make it in vain. Even at the moment that I am now speaking they have been successful; they have received one-half of what they are asking in the indulgence and attention with which the House has listened to me on this occasion. I hope and believe that this matter will receive full attention from the Government and from this House. I do not expect now to pass these Resolutions; I do not desire even to press them. My object will be accomplished if they receive the attention of the House; and if, in the future, the statements I have made be confirmed by facts; and if, after further discussion of the subject, some hon. Member more competent than myself should be induced to take the matter in hand, and, in a future Parliament, carry it out to successful legislation, which I conscientiously believe would tend more than anything else to promote the cause of religion and good fellowship in the Principality. I have endeavoured to put the matter before the House and the country plainly and straightforwardly. I have stated in the Resolutions clearly the point at which I am driving, because I thought that it would not be candid to bring forward a vague and general Resolution that might mean anything or nothing. What the Welsh people now wish is, that the matter should be considered and the facts ascertained; and then they believe that, in the spirit of modern legislation, the House will confirm the principles embodied in my Resolutions by extending to Wales that justice and religious equality that they have already extended

  1291
  to Ireland. In conclusion, I beg to move—
  "1. That, in the opinion of this House, it is right that the Establishment of the Church and its Union with the State should cease to exist in the said dominion and principality:
  "2. That it is just and expedient that the public endowments enjoyed by the Church Establishment should, after making provision for all vested interests, be applied to the support of a national and undenominational system of education for the said dominion and principality of Wales."
  MR. GLADSTONE: I am sure that even those who may most widely differ from the opinions and the purposes of my hon. and learned Friend will be ready to admit that they have nothing to complain of in regard to the spirit and the language with which he has treated a very difficult and intricate subject. And, indeed, by the candour of his admissions, he has opened and made ready a way for persons who either differ from him in principle, or who think, as he himself said, that the time and circumstances under which he makes his proposal would not justify the House in entertaining it with a practical view. My hon. and learned Friend has entered into an historical discussion of great interest; but I am bound to say that, having been led to give some attention to this aspect of the subject, I am not able to read the history of Wales precisely in the same sense as my hon. and learned Friend; and yet I do not think that, as far as my view varies from his, it is likely to offend him, because I am disposed to attach even much greater consequence to that unwise and un-national policy which was pursued for a great length of time by this country towards Wales, and of which Church appointments were unfortunately made the medium. But now let us look at the main questions which are raised. I cannot be surprised that my hon. and learned Friend is struck—as, indeed, everybody must be struck—with the gravity of the facts which attach to the condition of the Church in Wales. There is, to a certain extent, a resemblance between the case of the Church in Wales and the case of the Church of Ireland; but that resemblance ought not to be exaggerated. Let us consider and endeavour to compare them with respect to numbers. My hon. and learned Friend says the Churchmen of Wales may be reckoned at about one-sixth of the population. I believe, however, that the Churchmen them-
  1292
  selves, and those Who write in the interests of the Church, are accustomed to claim about one-fourth of the population. But, whichever of these figures may be the nearer to the truth, no doubt the disproportion is very remarkable in the case of a Church purporting to be the Church of the nation. It is not, indeed, at all in correspondence with the disproportion which prevailed in Ireland, because there one-ninth or one-tenth, of the population was the utmost at which the members of the Established Church could be reckoned. There is one other point in regard to which the Welsh Church corresponds—I use the expression for the sake of convenience—with that of the Irish Church. It is that so large a proportion of her members belong to the upper classes of the community—the classes who are the most able to provide themselves with the ministrations of religion—and, therefore, in whose special and peculiar interest it is most difficult to make any effectual appeal for public resources and support. But, Sir, with regard to other points of not less consequence, the case of the Welsh Church is certainly widely different from that of the Irish Church. In the first place, it is quite impossible to compare the severance between the Established Church and the Nonconformists of Wales, with the severance between the members of the Irish Establishment and the Roman Catholics in that country. Not merely upon theological grounds, but also on the ground of actual sympathy or hostility of sentiment, the whole history of the case is entirely different. There was a strong and sharp antagonism between the Established Church and the Roman Catholic Church running through Ireland, and that ecclesiastical antagonism was complicated and embittered by intermixture with political questions, even graver than the ecclesiastical controversies of the country, so that the effect of the whole was that the several portions of the population were placed almost in an attitude of standing social hostility to each other. Now, whatever view we take of the anomalies of the position of the Church in Wales, I am sure my hon. and learned Friend will admit it would be a most gross exaggeration to profess that anything like a resemblance of the general position exists as between Wales and Ireland, or in the attitude of the

  1293
  members of the Church in Wales on the one hand, or the members of the Nonconforming bodies on the other. I Again, the religious differences of Ireland had their root in the ancient history of the country. The religious differences which prevail in Wales are entirely modern. My hon. and learned Friend, in the statistics which he has quoted from the year 1801, has marked that which is familiarly known to those who have considered the case of Wales—namely, that the growth of Dissent in that country has been not less recent than it has been rapid. Even since 1801, which in questions of national history must be considered no very remote date, the figures quoted by my hon. and learned Friend show that the position of the Church relatively to Nonconformity has greatly altered for the worse. These things show that if, from any cause, the discussion of the question of the Irish Church has led to this early discussion of the case of the Church in Wales, still it would be a most precipitate and erroneous conclusion to assume that there was a substantial identity or similarity between them, even if we confine our views strictly to what is between the limits of Ireland in the one case and within the limits of Wales in the other. With regard to the facts, there is no very great difference, perhaps, between my hon. and learned Friend and myself, because the precise figures and precise proportions are not now at issue, and I own I think it creditable to the discernment and good sense of my hon. and learned Friend that he regretted the want of accurate and trustworthy information to enable us to appreciate the real facts of the case as regards the several religious opinions in Wales. I know, in some former years, there have been sharp differences of opinion in this House in respect to the best mode of getting at these facts. Certainly we must feel that the absence of that information is a misfortune, and if it be possible to devise some methods of obtaining real and accurate information in this matter—methods attended with no practical difficulties, and not repugnant to the feelings of the people—an object of some importance will have been attained. Now, Sir, my hon. and learned Friend says that the cause of Welsh Dissent is the conviction of the people, founded upon the study of the Holy Scriptures,
  1294
  that there is no warrant in the Christian religion for the existence of national religious Establishments. If my hon. and learned Friend will permit me to say so, without intending him any disrespect, I must say that my hon. and learned Friend has, in my opinion, entirely failed to prove that such is the case. Sufficient proof of what I say is to be found in this—that although it is true Welsh Nonconformity had taken root in the country, and had become the popular religion of the country somewhat more than half-a-century ago, my hon. and learned Friend would have found it most difficult, if not absolutely impossible, at that time to discover the slightest traces of controversy with regard to religious Establishments. It has not been a question with regard to national Establishments of religion that has had anything to do with the growth of Welsh Dissent. That is an historical challenge which I hold out to my hon. and learned Friend. 11 am persuaded that he has fallen into; an anachronism in what he has stated. My hon. and learned Friend has indicated other causes as the growth of Welsh Dissent. But, in my opinion, the cause is; to be found in the cruel and irrational policy that was pursued, even for a longer I period than has been stated by my hon. and learned Friend, in regard to the ecclesiastical appointments in that country. As I understand the matter, the state of things before and after the period of the Revolution was this—The accession of the Tudor family to the Throne was the epoch at which the sun of Royal favour began to shine upon Wales. The territory of Wales was defined, the laws of England were extended to Wales, and so far from quoting the case of the translation of the Scriptures into the Welsh tongue as an instance illustrating the unkind treatment which Wales has suffered at the hands of this country, I should rather feel inclined to quote it in support of an opposite argument. Whatever may have been the ease in the time of Henry VIII., we have it on record that, in the reign of Elizabeth—and contrast this treatment with that of Ireland—efforts, and effectual efforts, were made towards accomplishing the translation of the Scriptures into the Welsh language, and in the reign of James I. that work was satisfactorily accomplished. And here I may remark that I honoured the national

  1295
  feeling and courage of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Richard) when, some weeks ago, in the debate on the Education Bill, referring to the high esteem which Englishmen placed upon the English Bible, he stated that he preferred the Welsh Bible, because it was finer, just in proportion as the Welsh tongue was finer than the tongue of this country. It was at this early period that that version, with which I am sorry to say I have no acquaintance, was made, and what was the course that was pursued with regard to appointments in the Welsh Church? There is not a more curious fact in English history than this—there are but four sees in Wales; and yet between the reign of Henry VIII. and the Revolution no less than 44 Welshmen were appointed to fill them. Not only, too, were the real Welsh sees occupied by Welshmen, but Welshmen overflowed into this country, and received preferment in England. That was the policy pursued in the reigns of the Tudors and Stuarts. And what was the consequence? Puritanism, which was strong in England at that period, did not exist in Wales at all. It is a remarkable fact, as stated by Hallam, that Wales was one of the strongholds of the Church and of the Royal—or, as it afterwards became, the Jacobite—party in the great struggle during the reign of Charles I. So far, then, it appears that so long as the sympathies of the nation were cultivated, the Church of Wales was perfectly acceptable to the people of Wales. And so matters continued till the Revolution. It is at that Revolution I would place the turning point of Dissent. How many Welsh Bishops have been made since the Revolution? Two. [Mr. WATKIN WILLIAMS: Yes.] Not more certainly. But there was a complete change of policy in this respect. William III. looked on Welsh-speaking Welshmen just as he looked on Gaelic-speaking Highlanders, and Irish-speaking Irishmen, as no friends to him and his new political system, and one plan towards all was pursued. It was thought good policy and good statesmanship to place every office of weight and influence in Wales in the hands of those who, he fondly hoped, would Anglicize the country. That was the root of the misery. No doubt the rise of Dissent in Wales
  1296
  was attributable to this cause; and, as my hon. and learned Friend said truly, it was among the clergy of Wales themselves that the first indications of a religious movement opposed to the chief religious authorities of the country appeared. I believe in the picture my hon. and learned Friend has drawn of the gross neglect, corruption, and nepotism—one cannot call it less than plunder—of the Church of Wales through a number of these Anglicizing Prelates. On that point I believe it is impossible to accuse my hon. and learned Friend of any exaggeration; but it is a proposition completely sustained by history, that the people of Wales were the staunchest Churchmen in the country as long as their Church was administered in the spirit of sympathy to their national feelings; whereas there is little room left to doubt that Wales is that portion of the country where Dissent has the deepest root and. firmest organization, and. claims the direct allegiance of the largest portion of the people. Whether that is to change or not I cannot say. My hon. and learned Friend has done me no more than justice in his allusion to the part which I took in filling up a vacant Welsh see; and I can assure the House that it was with no political view that recommendation was made. That recommendation was made with a view to the religious interests of the country, and whether the cause of the Church of Wales is capable of being materially improved or not is a question which I have never asked myself. At any rate, I hope that the policy which has prevailed more or less for 30 years, and which, I trust, has been largely developed in the instances to which my hon. and learned Friend has referred, will be steadily adhered to, and that the Welsh Church will be administered in a spirit consonant with the feelings of the people, and characterized by a feeling of respect and sympathy for their usages and history. My hon. and learned Friend states that the Church of Wales is a completely separate Church; and here he comes to what I would call the difficult part of his ease, because, except for the sake of truth and for conventional purposes, there is really no Church in Wales. The Welsh sees are simply four sees held by the suffragans of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and form a portion of that,

  1297
  province as much as any four English sees in that province. My hon. and learned Friend says, and shows, that; there was a time when the Welsh Church was a separate Church. No doubt that is perfectly true; but, at the same time, it is necessary to go back nearly 1,300 years for the purpose of proving that distinct and separate existence, and 1,300 years form a period in which the waves of time effectually efface any footprints that may have been made on the sands.
  MR. WATKIN WILLIAMS: Seven hundred years.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I think my hon. and learned Friend does not wish me to enter upon the point of the real nature of the union which occurred at the time of St. Augustine?
  MR. WATKIN WILLIAMS: There was no union, even in form, until after the death of Griffith, the last Archbishop of Wales, in 1115, who was succeeded by Bernard the lawyer.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I am willing to make my hon. and learned Friend a present of those 600 years for the purpose of the present discussion, and to say that as regards the identity of these Churches, the whole system of known law, usage, and history has made them completely one. My hon. and learned Friend should reflect that it was not by the action of Rome that the whole of England was converted after the Saxon invasion. The history of Christianity has shown that a very large portion of England was converted not by the action of Roman missionaries, but from the North; and my hon. and learned Friend might just as well set up the doctrine of a separate Church for the northern portion of England as for Wales. There, is a complete ecclesiastical, constitutional, legal, and, I may add—for every practical purpose—historical identity between the Church in Wales and the rest of the Church of England. After hearing the latter sentences of my hon. and learned Friend's speech, I can hardly say for what he recommends us to vote; but he entertains the opinion that—"it is right that the Establishment of the Church and its Union with the State should cease to exist in the said dominion and principality of Wales." I will not say what it would be right to do, provided Wales were separated from England in the same way that Ireland is, and provided that the ease of Wales
  1298
  stood in full and complete analogy to that of Ireland in regard to religious differences. But the direct contrary of this is the truth. I think, therefore, it is practically impossible to separate the case of Wales from that of England. That is not my assertion alone, it is evidently the belief of my hon. and learned Friend himself. He has not said that we can disestablish the Church in Wales and leave the Church of England established. Nay, more, he has gone very far indeed towards saying the reverse, because he said—
  "It may be said—'If you disestablish the Church in Wales, you must, upon the same grounds, disstablish it also in Cornwall and Yorkshire;' and, in answer to that, I say, as a Welshman—'Let Cornwall and Yorkshire look after themselves.' … I will add that whenever those places wish to disestablish their Church, they shall have my hearty support."
  I am not making any unfair assumption, or endeavouring to entrap my hon. and learned Friend into an admission that he does not intend to convey, when I say that the real question which he endeavoured to raise was the disestablishment of the Church of England. The candour of my hon. and learned Friend is not less remarkable than the clearness with which he has treated the subject, and he has stated frankly and fairly that which, even if it had not been stated, would have been sufficiently obvious. We are not prepared to enter upon any crusade for that purpose. We do not think it our duty, in the first place, to endeavour to determine that question by any abstract arguments about national Establishments. If there are those who consider that national Establishments are opposed, under all circumstances, to the principle of the Christian religion, we do not belong to the number of such persons. It is our duty to look at the case of the Church of England as we find it. It is our duty to look at the facts and principles of the case, and to the feelings and convictions of the people with regard to it. In the first place, we are encountered at the threshold of the question by the old statistical controversy, with regard to which we seem to have been thus far rather too much in the condition of men who are determined to keep themselves in the dark; but we look to such communications as we have at our command, such as the Returns of marriages in the country, for I take them to be a not unfair indication of the relative amount of strength of the reli-

  1299
  gious communities in zealous, intelligent, and attached members; and it is their strength in that sort of vague adhesion which is all that in many cases a national Church is likely to command and to retain, which is one of the purposes for which, it exists. I am bound to say that my belief is that the Established Church of England is the religion of a considerable majority of the people of this country. I can only say that, independently of that which appears to establish a good primâ facie ground for remaining where we are, I do not envy my hon. and learned Friend or my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil, or any other man who ventures to take in hand the business of disestablishing the Church of England. Even if it were as fit to be done as I think it unfit, there is a difficulty in the case before which the boldest man would recoil. It is all very well so long as we deal with abstract declarations put upon the Notice Paper of this House, of what might be done or ought to be done. But only go up to the walls and gates, and look at the way in which stone is built upon stone, on the way in which the foundations have been dug, and the way they go down into the earth, and consider by what tools, what artillery you can bring that fabric to the ground. I know the difficulties, and I am not prepared, in any shape or form, to encourage—by dealing with my hon. and learned Friend's Motion in any way except the simple mode of negative—the creation of expectations which it would be most guilty, most unworthy, most dishonourable on our part to entertain, lest we should convey a virtual pledge. We cannot go in that direction; we do not intend to do so; we deprecate it, and we should regard it as a national mischief. Under these circumstances, I hope the House will be prepared to meet with a negative the Motion of my hon. and learned Friend, and without the slightest reproach to him or to those whom he represents, because we believe it is neither called for by the circumstances, nor agreeable to the desires and convictions of the people of this country.
  MR. OSBORNE MORGANavowed himself to be one of those who believed that a time was coming, surely, though slowly, when such a measure of disestablishment as had already been applied to the Church in Ireland would
  1300
  have to be extended not only to Wales, but to every part of the kingdom. Leaving, however, the wider field of discussion, he undertook to show that this year, in which the Irish Church ceased to exist as an Establishment, the Church in Wales was the greatest ecclesiastical anomaly to be found in the whole world, Applying a numerical test to the subject, he found that the number of people who attended Divine service on a particular Sunday in 1851 was—in churches 10·10 and in chapels 42·10 of the population. Since then there were no official statistics; but he had been furnished with figures which showed that since then Dissent had gained ground in Wales, and that many more services took place in chapels than in churches. The Prime Minister, in stating that Dissenters in Wales were to Churchmen in the proportion of four to one, had considerably understated the fact; the proportion, he believed, was much more nearly seven to one, and that did not by any means represent the whole of the question. Churchmen in Wales were composed almost exclusively of the richer portions of society. Every landowner, every country gentleman, every large farmer, and almost every professional man and large tradesman went to church, while every small farmer, small tradesman, and the whole of the labouring classes went to chapel; so that they had in Wales what was insisted on for the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland—namely, a Church kept up for the rich man at the expense of the poor majority. Differences of religion, again, were perpetuated by differences of language, and the same boundary lines which divided Churchmen from Dissenters practically divided Englishmen and Welshmen. The case for the disestablishment of the Church in Wales was just as strong as it had been for the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland; and Conservative Members, to do them justice—and notably the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gathorne Hardy), had pointed this out clearly in last year's debates. The advocates or disestablishment would, consequently, be fighting the Opposition this year with weapons forged in their own smithy. The arguments, in fact, were driven so tome last year that it became necessary for Liberal Members to distinguish, if

  1301
  they could, between the cases of England, and Ireland. The President of the Board of Trade made great use of "the badge of conquest" argument; but to him, he confessed, that had always seemed a very weak ground to take up. He could not understand the force of an appeal for legislation in the present day based upon the fact that several hundreds of years ago his ancestors—if he had any—might have gone to Ireland and conquered the ancestors of hon. Gentlemen who sat for Irish constituencies in the present day. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government supposed that there was not the same hostility existing towards the English Church on the part of the Dissenters in Wales which existed on the part of Roman Catholics to the Irish Church. The right hon. Gentleman certainly must have been more pleasantly occupied in 1868 than in canvassing a Welsh constituency or he would have known better—he would have found an amount of bitterness and hostility which was deeply to be regretted, but which hardly existed to the same extent in any other country. But there was, however, this difference between the two countries, that whilst Dissent in Wales was a plant of foreign growth—such a thing as a Dissenter having hardly existed there 150 years ago—in Ireland it had existed from time immemorial. It was a singular fact that those who were now anxious to bring back Dissenters to the Church, when they had the opportunity of doing so did everything they could to scatter them. The original cause of Dissent might be summed up in two words—"English Bishops." For where there was an English Bishop there speedily followed English deans, English archdeacons, English vicars-choral, and English rectors. Nowhere had the English Church been more disgraced by the selfish disposition of the English holders of offices. During the reigns of the Tudors and the Stuarts several Welshmen had been mitred; but since the accession of the House of Brunswick, not a single office had been so conferred. The consequence was, that the services in the Church had been changed into English; but the churches themselves were deserted. And to such a point had these preferments of Englishmen been carried that until quite recently, in the largest towns, such as Cardiff and
  1302
  Swansea, the most important preferments were held by men who could not understand one word of the language of the people among whom they ministered. The attempt to suppress the Welsh language had failed, as similar attempts had failed in Poland and Hungary, and the result had been not that the Welsh language had been exterminated, but that the English churches had been deserted, and the English churches being deserted, Dissent rushed in—like air into a vacuum—to supply the religious needs of the people. He would not say, as an hon. Member had done, that but for the efforts of the Dissenters the Devil might have had the whole of Wales for his peculiar province; but the religious life which the people now professed was, without doubt, mainly owing to the exertions of the Welsh preachers. His right hon. Friend appeared to think that by removing the causes which led to dissent, Dissenters would be restored to the Church. But it was one thing to scatter the flock, and quite another to bring them back to the fold. These were not the days for conversions to Church principles; and although it might be true, according to Sidney Smith's witty remark, that carriage horses always drove to the Church, and social considerations might continue to exert their influences in favour of Establishments, these influences were very limited and very superficial, especially in Wales; they did not touch the hearts of the people. The Welsh had been made what they were by Nonconformist preachers, and Nonconformists they would remain to the end of the chapter. Of one thing he was quite sure, when the day for the attack on the Church of England came—as come it must, the weakest part of the fortress would be found to be that which was located in Wales. He did not altogether approve abstract Resolutions; they were like shots fired in the air, and did not hit anything. He was strongly in favour of disestablishment; but he did not like the long agony of piecemeal disestablishment. It was like putting a man to death by tearing him limb from limb. A much larger question was involved, and sooner or later they must be prepared to deal with it—the question of no Established Church at all. The fruit was not yet ripe; but there were powerful influences at work, and a feeling was steadily growing up in the minds

  1303
  of the earnest and far-seeing members of the Church of England that the time would soon come when religion must stand on its own ground, and when they would not be regarded as its best friends who, to adopt the simile used the other night by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. G. Hardy), were afraid to take away from the Church the stick on which she leaned, lest she should fall flat on her face; but those who were for teaching her to walk with freer and firmer tread after she had ceased to lean on the crutches of the Establishment.
  MR. SCOURFIELDregretted the hon. and learned Member had moved these Resolutions, for independent of the general abjection that applied to abstract Resolutions, he had not even urged anything in favour of that part of them which referred to the Church. The only practical result would be to lead to a good deal of irritation between the two bodies in Wales—Churchmen and Dissenters. They combined, no doubt, the pugnacious and pacific elements, and the latter had as much right to be considered as the former. A great number of Churchmen were well-disposed towards their Dissenting brethren, and lived on friendly terms with them; but by these kind of attacks on the Established Church they were put into a false position. The precedent of the Irish Church was no precedent for Wales. As Bishop Butler said—"Everything is that which it is, and not something else." Ireland was Ireland, and Wales was Wales. Wales was not an island, which Ireland was. Besides, the relations between Churchmen and Dissenters could not be compared with those existing between Roman Catholics and Churchmen. What national object could the hon. and learned Member accomplish by a Resolution of this kind? He quoted a passage from a Charge by the Bishop of St. David's to show the relations existing between Churchmen and Nonconformists in Wales, that right rev. Prelate having ordained not a few Nonconformists, who sometimes, at a considerable sacrifice of emolument, sought admission into the ministry of the Church—men of earnest religious convictions, who wished not to preach a new Gospel, but to preach the old Gospel in the pulpits of the Establishment. The recent appointment to the Episcopal Bench in
  1304
  connection with Wales had been commended; but the Welsh Bishops had generally been men of great ability and liberality of sentiment. He might instance both the Bishop of St. David's and the late Bishop of Llandaff. He was at a loss to see what practical object could be gained by the adoption of these Resolutions. With reference to that part of the Motion which related to the application of funds, he believed such a proposition was eminently unsatisfactory, inasmuch as it was calculated to provoke quite as much bitterness, as might be occasioned by devoting the money to educational purposes, as under the present system. He had always objected to abstract Resolutions of this character. Since he first obtained a seat in that House he had observed that it was used for two purposes—namely, as a machine for carrying on business, and as a chimney for letting off steam. He supposed it was under the latter aspect that the hon. and learned Member regarded it when he introduced his Motion; and he hoped that, having relieved his mind, he would not proceed any further.
  Motion made, and Question put,
  "That, in the opinion of this House, it is right that the Establishment of the Church and its Union with the State should cease to exist in the dominion and principality of Wales."—(Mr. Watkin Williams.)
  The House divided:—Ayes 45; Noes 209: Majority 164.

  AYES.

  Allen, W. S.

  Kinnaird, hon. A. F.

  Anderson, G.

  Leatham, E. A.

  Beaumont, W. B.

  Lewis, J. D.

  Brewer, Dr.

  Loch, G.

  Bright, J. (Manchester)

  Lush, Dr.

  Browne, G. E.

  Lust, A.

  Callan, P.

  M'Clure, T.

  Candlish, J.

  M'Laren, D.

  Carter, Mr. Alderman

  Miller, J.

  Cave, T.

  Morgan, G. O.

  Cowen, J.

  Potter, T. B.

  Craufurd, E. H. J.

  Reed, C.

  Davies, R.

  Richard, H.

  Dilke, Sir C. W.

  Shaw, W.

  Dillwyn, L. L.

  Smith, J. B.

  Edwardes, hon. Col. W.

  Stevenson, J. C.

  Ewing, H. E. C.

  Taylor, P. A.

  Fawcett, H.

  Whalley, G. H.

  Fothergill, R.

  White, J.

  Gilpin, C.

  Williams, W.

  Graham, W.

  Hadfield, G.

  TELLERS.

  Henley, Lord

  Lawson, Sir W.

  Herbert, hon. A. E. W.

  Smith, E.

  Howard, J.

  1305

  NOES.

  Acland, T. D.

  Foljambe, F. J. S.

  Adderley, rt. hn. Sir C. B.

  Forester, rt. hon. Gen.

  Amcotts, Colonel W. C.

  Forster, rt. hon W. E.

  Amphlett, R. P.

  Foster, W. H.

  Anson, hon. A. H. A.

  Fowler, R. N.

  Arkwright, R.

  Gallwey, Sir W. P.

  Assheton, R.

  Galway, Viscount

  Ayrton, right hon. A. S.

  Gladstone, rt. hn. W. E.

  Bagge, Sir W.

  Gladstone, W. H.

  Bailey, Sir J. R.

  Gore, J. R. O.

  Baker, R. B. W.

  Goschen, rt. hon. G. J.

  Ball, J. T.

  Grant, Col. hon. J.

  Bass, A.

  Graves, S. R.

  Bass, M. T.

  Greaves, E.

  Bateson, Sir T.

  Greville, hon. Captain

  Beach, W. W. B.

  Grey, rt. hon. Sir G.

  Beaumont, Captain F.

  Grosvenor, Lord R.

  Beresford, Lt.-Col. M.

  Grove, T. F.

  Birley, H.

  Guest, M. J.

  Blennerhassett, Sir R.

  Gurney, right hon. R.

  Bonham-Carter, J.

  Hambro, C.

  Bouverie, rt. hon. E. P.

  Hamilton, Lord C. J.

  Bowmont, Marquess of

  Hamilton, Lord G.

  Bowring, E. A.

  Hamilton, I. T.

  Brassey, H. A.

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Brown, A. H.

  Hardy, right hon. G.

  Bruce, Lord C.

  Hardy, J.

  Bruce, rt. hon. Lord E.

  Hardy, J. S.

  Bruce, right hon. H. A.

  Hartington, Marquess of

  Bury, Viscount

  Hay, Sir J. C. D.

  Buxton, C.

  Headlam, rt. hon. T. E.

  Cameron, D.

  Henley, rt. hon. J. W.

  Cardwell, right hon. E.

  Henry, J. S.

  Cave, right hon. S.

  Herbert, rt. hn. Gen. Sir P

  Cavendish, Lord F. C.

  Hermon, E.

  Cavendish, Lord G.

  Heygate, Sir F. W.

  Cawley, C. E.

  Hibbert, J. T.

  Cecil, Lord E. H. B. G.

  Hodgkinson, G.

  Chambers, M.

  Hodgson, W. N.

  Charley, W. T.

  Holland, S.

  Childers, rt. hn. H. C. E.

  Holmesdale, Viscount

  Clive, Col. hon. G. W.

  Hornby, E. K.

  Coleridge, Sir J. D.

  Hunt, rt. hon. G. W.

  Collier, Sir R. P.

  Hurst, R. H.

  Corbett, Colonel

  Hutt, rt. hon. Sir W.

  Crawford, R. W.

  Hyde, Lord

  Dalrymple, C.

  Ingram, H. F. M.

  Dalrymple, D.

  James, H.

  Davenport, W. B.

  Johnstone, Sir H.

  Davie, Sir H. R. F.

  Jones, J.

  Dawson, R. P.

  Kavanagh, A. Mac M.

  Denman, hon. G.

  Kay-Shuttleworth, U. J.

  Dent, J. D.

  Kekewich, S. T.

  Dickinson, S. S.

  Kennaway, J. H.

  Dimsdale, R.

  Kingscote, Colonel

  Dodson, J. G.

  Lancaster, J.

  Dowse, R.

  Langton, W. G.

  Duff, M. E. G.

  Lefevre, G. J. S.

  Duncombe, hon. Col.

  Liddell, hon. H. G.

  Eastwick, E. B.

  Lindsay, hon. Col. C.

  Elliot, G.

  Lindsay, Col. R. L.

  Erskine, Admiral J. E.

  Lloyd, Sir T. D.

  Ewing, A. O.

  Locke, J.

  Eykyn, R.

  Lopes, Sir M.

  Feilden, H. M.

  Lorne, Marquess of

  Fielden, J.

  Lowe, rt. hon. R.

  Finch, G. H.

  Lowther, Colonel

  Fitzwilliam, hn. C. W. W.

  Lubbock, Sir J.

  Fletcher, I.

  Lyttelton, hon. C. G.

  Floyer, J.

  Mackintosh, E. W.

  1306

  M'Lagan, P.

  Scourfield, J. H.

  Mellor, T. W

  Selwin-Ibbetson, Sir H. J.

  Meyrick, T.

  Milles, hon. G. W.

  Smith, A.

  Mills, C. H.

  Smith, F. C.

  Monk, C. J.

  Smith, R.

  Morgan, C. O.

  Stanley, hon. F.

  Morgan, hon. Major

  Stanley, hon. W. O.

  Morrison, W.

  Stansfeld, rt. hon. J.

  Mowbray, rt. hon. J. R.

  Stone, W. H.

  Newdegate, C. N.

  Talbot, C. R. M.

  Noel, hon. G. J.

  Talbot, J. G.

  North, Colonel

  Talbot, hon. R. A. J.

  Paget, R. H.

  Taylor, rt. hon. Colonel

  Pakington, rt. hn. Sir J.

  Tipping, W.

  Palmer, Sir R.

  Tollemache, hon. F. J.

  Parker, C. S.

  Tracy, hon. C. R. D. Hanbury-

  Parker, Lt.-Col. W.

  Patten, rt. hon. Col. W

  Trelawny, Sir J. S.

  Peek, H. W.

  Turner, C.

  Peel, A. W.

  Turnor, E.

  Pelham, Lord

  Vivian, A. P.

  Phipps, C. P.

  Vivian, Cap. hn. J. C. W.

  Playfair, L.

  Walker, Major G. G.

  Plunket, hon. D. R.

  Walpole, rt. hon. S. H.

  Price, W. P.

  Walsh, hon. A.

  Raikes, H. C.

  Waterhouse, S.

  Rebow, J. G.

  Whatman, J.

  Robertson, D.

  Whitwell, J.

  Round, J.

  Wilmot, H.

  Russell, F. W.

  Woods, H.

  Russell, H.

  Winn, R.

  St. Aubyn, J.

  Wynn, C. W. W.

  Salomons, Sir D.

  Wynn, Sir W. W.

  Sandon, Viscount

  TELLERS.

  Sclater-Booth, G.

  Adam, W. P.

  Scott, Lord H. J. M. D.

  Glyn, hon. G. G.

CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ACTS (1866— 1869) REPEAL.
MR. W. FOWLERrose, pursuant to Notice, to move, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts (1866–1869)"—

STRANGERS ORDERED TO WITHDRAW.
MR. CRAUFURD: Mr. Speaker, I see Strangers present.
After a short pause—
MR. BOUVERIEsaid, that if the hon. and learned Member persisted in calling attention to the presence of Strangers they must be ordered to withdraw.
MR. SPEAKER: I beg to suggest that on re-consideration the hon. and learned Member for Ayr will not insist on excluding Strangers. Does the hon. Member persist?
Several hon. MEMBERS were understood to call upon the hon. Member for Ayr to withdraw his Motion.
MR. BOUVERIE: There is no Motion.
MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. Member persist?
MR. CRAUFURD: I do, Sir.
MR. SPEAKER: The Galleries must be cleared.
Those parts of the House to which Strangers are admitted were accordingly cleared by the officers of the House.
On Strangers being again admitted the House was proceeding with the next Notice of Motion.
The following is believed to be an accurate representation of the opinions of the several Members who addressed the House on the Motion, so far as they can be ascertained:—
MR. W. FOWLER: Sir, in rising to move for leave to bring in the Bill mentioned in my Notice, I must observe how sincerely I regret the course taken by the hon. Member for Ayr. I think we had too much of secresy in this matter last year. This Act was passed without discussion, when most of us were out of town, and it is high time that the whole question was thoroughly discussed here. The origin of these Acts is easily explained. Some years since attention was drawn to the state of the camps, arising in the main from the enforced celibacy of so great a body of men. I do not deny the importance of the evil. My doubt is as to the character of the remedy. I will state on this question the views of a very distinguished surgeon, Mr. Holmes Coote. He says—
"The few earnest men, who, some years ago, assembled together to originate the movement which terminated in the passing of the Contagious Diseases Act of 1866, had little idea of the use which would be made of their labours and advice. As one of those who took an active part in all that then transpired, I loudly maintain that the idea of the compulsory examination of women, their enforced subjection to the police, their exposure to the penalties of registration and imprisonment, were views which would have been scouted by the few quiet gentlemen who met to devise means of giving shelter and protection to many unfortunate females, whose outcast and neglected state was bringing a scandal upon the nation."
I must next state the character of the Acts, for I am satisfied that many hon. Members are ignorant of their provisions. I will read an extract from The Westminster Review for April, 1870—
1308
"In 1864 the English Parliament signalized itself for the first time as the protector of men from the baneful physical consequences of their own profligacy, by enacting what was called 'The Contagious Diseases Prevention Act, 1864.' This was a merely tentative measure, and was wholly superseded by 'The Contagious Diseases Act, 1866,' which is entitled 'An Act for the better prevention of contagious diseases at certain naval and military stations.' This Act was amended, and, as we shall see, its application was greatly extended, by virtue of 'An Act to amend the Contagious Diseases Act, 1866,' which received the Royal Assent, 11th August, 1869.
"By these Acts the Metropolitan police employed in each of the 18 named districts, have virtually the power within these districts, or within ten miles of the limits of them, as defined by the Act of 1869, of designating any woman they choose as a common prostitute, and of causing her to be submitted to medical examination as such. The words of Section 4 of the Act of 1869, are as follows:—'Where an information on oath is laid before a justice by a superintendent of police, charging to the effect that the informant has good cause to believe that a woman therein named is a common prostitute, and either is resident within the limits of any place to which this Act applies, or being resident within ten miles of those limits, or having no settled place of abode, has within 14 days' before the laying of the information, either been within those limits for the purpose of prostitution, or been outside of those limits for the purpose of prostitution in the company of men resident within those limits, the justice may, if he thinks fit, issue a notice thereof, addressed to such woman, which notice the superintendent of police shall cause to be served on her.' 'Moreover, any woman who, on attending for examination, or being examined by the visiting surgeon, is found by him to be in such a condition that he cannot properly examine her, shall, if such surgeon has reasonable grounds for believing she is affected with a contagious disease, be liable to be detained in a certified hospital, subject and according to the provisions of the Contagious Diseases Act, 1866 to 1869, until the visiting surgeon can properly examine her, so that she be not so detained for a period exceeding five days.'
"When a woman has been constrained to submit herself to a medical introspection by a 'visiting surgeon' or his assistant, and has been found free from disease, she is allowed to return home; but is ordered to present herself again for examination, 'from time to time as occasion requires,' and is given 'a notice in writing of the time and places' at which she is to attend for that purpose. If, notwithstanding that she is found free from disease, she 'temporarily absent herself in order to avoid submitting herself to such examination on any such occasion, then, and in every such case such woman' is held 'guilty of an offence against this Act, and on summary conviction' is 'liable to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, in the case of a first offence for any term not exceeding one month, and in cases of a second, or any subsequent offence, for any term not exceeding three months.' But if, on examination, 'the woman examined is found to be affected with a contagious disease,' she is at once 'liable to be detained in a certified hospital,' when she is, to all intents and purposes, a prisoner during the

1309
long period of nine months. The power of thus detaining her during any period not exceeding nine months, 'under one certificate,' is exercised by the visiting surgeon or his assistant. After receiving from him 'a certificate to the effect that she is affected with a contagious disease,' and 'naming the certified hospitals in which she is to be placed,' she may, 'if she thinks fit, proceed to the certified hospital named in the certificate, and place herself there for medical treatment; but if she neglects or refuses to do so, the superintendent of police, or a constable acting under his orders,' may be called upon to 'apprehend her, and convey her with all practicable speed to the hospital.' Moreover, just as prisoners are conveyed from one prison to another, she may be conveyed in the custody of the police, from one hospital to another. 'The inspector of certified hospitals may, if in any case it seems to him expedient, by order in writing, direct the transfer of any woman, detained in a certified hospital for medical treatment, from that certified hospital to another named in the order.'"
"By virtue of a clause in the Act of 1869, a woman who thus voluntarily subjects herself to medical treatment puts herself in exactly the same position as if she had been forcibly subjected to examination by order of a justice of the peace 'Such submission,' it is ordained, 'shall for all the purposes of the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1866 to 1869, have the same effect as an order of the justice subjecting a woman to examination,' and all the provisions of the principal Act, respecting the attendance of the woman for examination, and her absenting herself to avoid examination, and her refusing or wilfully neglecting to submit herself for examination, and the force of the order subjecting her to examination after imprisonment for such absence, refusal, or neglect, shall apply and be construed accordingly."
Now, Sir, I consider that there are three main arguments against these Acts—the medical, the constitutional, and the moral. I will take them in their order. We are constantly told that the Acts have done much to reduce disease in the Army and Navy. Now, I maintain that this reduction began before the Acts were passed, and I can show that the reduction was much greater before the Acts passed than after; and, therefore, I defy my hon. Friends to show that the Acts have caused diminution of disease. I quote from the figures of Dr. Balfour. In the stations to which the Act has been applied, they are as follows:—Men affected in 6,000—in the year 1860, 2,433; in the year 1864, 1,729; in the year 1868, 1,628. So that the reduction in the four years before the first Act was 704, and in the four years afterwards 101. I maintain, therefore, that it is impossible to say that the Acts have caused the diminution. As to the year 1869, I have the authority of Dr. Balfour to say that there are no re-
1310
liable statistics as to the increase or decrease of the really important disease. But I would point out to the House that these figures are, in one sense, deceptive. There is much disease not set forth in the Returns of the hospitals. Take the evidence of Inspector Smith (Commons Committee, 1869, p. 53.)—
"1007. Can you tell the Committee whether you have any grounds for believing that there are many diseased soldiers going about who have not given themselves up, and who are not under treatment in hospital for diseases of this class?—Yes; I have for a very considerable time been impressed with the belief that many men are at large who are diseased, and who ought to be in hospital, from seeing them so frequently in the chemists' shops at Aldershot. I have taken some trouble to see what they were doing and bringing out; and I thought I could see, by what they were taking out, what they were having; so I asked one of the chemists if he would be kind enough to take the number of the men whom he served with the particular medicine during one week; and he did so, and he very kindly gave it to me.
"1008. Have you that with you?—I have.
"1009. Will you read it, if you please?—On Monday, 14th June, 1869, there were 16; on Tuesday, 15th June, there were 13; on Wednesday, 16th June, there were 17; on Thursday, 17th June, there were 18; on Friday, 18th June, there were 11; on Saturday, 19th June, there were 23; the total being 98 in one week."
But, even if we admit that there is a decrease in the disease, we must not forget that, while for many years we despised or neglected these poor women, we have now provided them with accommodation in hospitals, and this is quite sufficient to account for an improvement in their condition, and a diminution of the disease. The existence of hospitals is one thing, the passing of such Acts as these is another. But I should observe that this diminution in the intensity of this disease would seem to have been going on elsewhere. I would refer to the evidence of Mr. Acton. At page 89, he says—
"Since the last edition of this book appeared, venereal diseases must have become much modified. Mr. Callender, in charge of Mr. Paget's wards, has kindly furnished me with the following observations:—He says—'That at the present day the system of competition (to which I alluded at page 138 of my former edition) for admission to the female venereal ward has ceased. It oftentimes happens that there are not enough applicants for the empty beds. The cases are comparatively slight: a warm bath, rest in bed, and a little lotion, causes a complaint which looked very formidable on entering the hospital, to become a relatively mild affection.'"
Take, too, the evidence of Mr. Skey, given to the House of Lords in 1868—

1311
"617. The disease is by no means so common or so universal, I may say, as is represented in that article, in my opinion; and I have had an opportunity of communicating with several leading members at the College of Surgeons, and they are all of the same opinion that the evil is not so large as is represented by the Association (for extending the Acts)."
"628. I think the reports are too highly drawn. I think, if you took the impression of any individual in reading these reports, you would infer an extent of syphilis in society far beyond the truth—very decidedly beyond the truth: it is not so common, and it is not so severe."
Let us take the evidence of another witness, Surgeon Wyatt of the Coldstreams. He says—
"700. You do not refer that (the milder character of the disease) to the operation of the Act?—No: I think certainly not in London. The class of syphilitic diseases which we see are of a very mild character, and, in fact, none of the ravages which used formerly to be committed on the appearance and aspect of the men are now to be seen.
"701. And you do not think that that is rightly to be attributed to the operation of the Act?—I think not: I think that the whole type has changed, and that hygienic considerations are better known by the people who have intercourse with those persons, and by the women themselves. It is an undoubted fact that in this country and in France the character of the disease is much diminished in intensity."
"708. I understand you to say that, in your opinion, the venereal disease has generally, independent of the Act, become more mitigated, and of a milder type?—yes: that is the experience of all surgeons, both civil and military."
Again, it is a remarkable fact, that, according to Mr. Acton, the health of prostitutes is really far better than that of other women of their own rank. He remarks—
"All that I have said on the chances of contracting disease to which prostitutes are exposed, confirms the truth of the position taken by surgeons and others who have had their charge—namely, that, notwithstanding all their excesses and exposure to so many causes of disease, their health resists all attacks better than that of the ordinary run of women, who have children, and lead ordinary lives. They have (as some one has remarked) iron bodies, which enable them with impunity to meet trials such as would prove fatal to others.
"If we compare the prostitute at 35 with her sister, who, perhaps, is the married mother of a family, or has been a toiling slave for years in the over-heated laboratories of fashion, we shall seldom find that the constitutional ravages, often thought to be necessary consequences of prostitution, exceed those attributed to the cares of a family, and the heartweary struggle of virtuous labour."
Now, if this be so, it is really hard to suppose that the disease can be so alarming as some would have us believe. But
1312
this is not all. However bad the disease may be, it is perfectly clear that these examinations are no safeguard against it. These medical tests are entirely imperfect and unsatisfactory. A woman may have the disease, and the doctor may be entirely unable to prove it or disprove it. I have, on this point, the evidence of Mr. Simon and Mr. Holmes Coote, and their view is entirely confirmed by that of Dr. Taylor and by the French statistics, which are truly astonishing. Dr. Fournier says—
"That out of 873 cases where the disease was traced, in 625 the disease had been taken from public prostitutes, registered and examined."
Now, I say that, this being so, the examination is utterly worthless—as a certain test of disease or no disease. What, then, becomes of the system on which these Acts are founded? But further, I assert that the title of the Act is a "misnomer." You call them "Contagious" Diseases Acts, and there are two parties to the contagion, one of whom only you affect by your law. It is notorious that the men spread the disease as much or more than the women, and you have given up the examination of the men, and put the whole burden on the women. And why do you do this? Because the men, and the officers, and the surgeons, are alike disgusted with the examination. Now, I ask, if it would be disgusting for a man to be examined by a man, is it not far worse for a woman to be so examined by a man? It is needless to quote evidence to show to how serious an extent the disease is spread by the men. Dr. Leonard says—"Unless it (inspection) is done, I do not believe we can expect to get rid of disease at any station." Dr. Barr says—
"589. A large portion of those women present themselves voluntarily for examination; but some of them, I apprehend, are brought up by the police?—Some of them are brought up by the police."
"610. I gather from the answer that you do not think that this Act can be completely successful, if the examinations are confined entirely to females?—I certainly should strongly advise such an inspection of men; no doubt, that is absolutely required, at any rate, for a considerable time."
"617. Would you, therefore, suggest that the system of examining soldiers periodically in the Army be resumed?—If I may be allowed, I will read a short paragraph upon that subject, from the Report—'The first and most obvious measure to be adopted is the practical application of periodical examination to the whole body of troops,

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resident in the district and at other stations. This should be conducted strictly and carefully, without exception, and be of sufficiently frequent occurrence.' I am of opinion that every soldier should, for some time to come, be examined once a week."
The thing requires no further proof, and if proof is needed, the Blue Books are full of it. I will only add, on this point, that there can hardly be a doubt that the superior state of health of the French and Belgian Armies is largely due to the constant examination of the men. I now go on to assert that the forced examination of the women tends directly to increase clandestine prostitution, and to increase the amount and the intensity of the disease. This may be said to be admitted by those who are conversant with the subject; but I will mention one or two authorities. Dr. Chapman says—
"It seems to us that anyone studying those regulations will be prepared to expect that the women who are subjected to them will resist and evade them by every means in their power. Whether well or ill, they are compelled to submit themselves at the ever recurring periods prescribed to an examination, which, in a large proportion of cases, is at once so distressing and repulsive, that, as stated by the great advocate of the system, Duchâtelet himself, many women only approached the dispensary with a kind of horror!"
Again, Dr. Simon says—
"1300. There would be, I think, no possibility of dealing with clandestine prostitution?—I believe, so far as I can judge from the Paris information on this subject, that what they call clandestine prostitution breaks down their system. They catch a number of specially flagrant, unregistered prostitutes, and bring them before the police; but the quantity which evade is enough to defeat them."
But I have a more powerful witness. I will read a few words recently written by M. Lecour, the head of the Paris police. After referring to the statistics of the matter, he says—
"All these results prove that prostitution is increasing, and that it is now more dangerous than ever to the public health. Has the action of the police been relaxed? No; on the contrary, it has constantly more powerfully organized its means of repression, by surveillance, and sanitary control. It has never been more active than now. This is proved by the fact that the number of daily arrests of unsubmitted girls, filles insoumises, is on the increase; while the sanitary state of the registered women is satisfactory. The evil is a moral and social one, and cannot be controlled by the police, who can neither restrain nor destroy it. The number of permitted houses (brothels) is diminishing. This sounds well; but now let us see. The fact is this—women leave the permitted houses to swell the list of solitary prostitutes,
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files isoliés, whom it is much more difficult to bring under police control. These filles isolées, with difficulty brought under control, are again from year to year being diminished by going over to, and augmenting the ranks of the filles insoumises, clandestine prostitutes. The numbers of these are continually increasing, and are a great danger to public health; and the difficulties encountered by the police are insurmountable. I have shown you what we have done by science. I have shown that the evil is increased and increasing. I have indicated the cause. I have pourtrayed the work of the police, and the limits of their mission. The evil must be overcome, not by legislative, but by moral means."
Nor is this all. Lefort, another great French authority, says that 40,000 more women ought to be put on the register, and that the examinations ought to be made twice a week, or even, according to one eminent doctor, every other day. The French system has utterly failed, after long experience and full trial; and we are asked to begin the same wretched system by men who, in their evidence before the House of Lords, confessed they knew hardly anything of the working of the plans adopted on the Continent. I ask with confidence, why should we make this beginning, and why should we not rather take warning by the failure of others? Depend on it we shall have to go back and not forward in this matter. I cannot conceive why we should expect to succeed where others have failed so signally. But, remember, if you are to do any general good, you must go forward. Much is said about the "innocent women and children;" but you are doing very little for them while you confine your operations to these garrison towns. These poor miserable women have very few children as the fruit of their wretched lives. I should like to see the man who would propose to extend these Acts to the general population, for the sake of the women and children. And now I must say a word about the cruelty of these examinations. The doctors say there is no pain. For my part, I would rather take the evidence of the patient than the doctor on that point. But I have a doctor's evidence which I will read to the House. This very day I have received a letter from Mr. Baxter Langley, which I will read to the House—
"50, Lincoln's Inn Fields, W.C.
"23rd May, 1870.
"William Fowler, Esq., M.P.
"Dear Sir,—As a surgeon who, when in practice, had an opportunity of seeing a great deal of obstetric, and what is called 'special' practice,

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desire to convey to you my impressions as to the cruelty and impropriety of some of the clauses of the Contagious Diseases Acts, more especially those relating to the use of the speculum vaginœ.
"In cases of health or disease great discretion is required by the surgeon in the use of such an instrument, or great pain, and even permanent injury may be inflicted on the person examined. And from what I know of the rapid manner in which the examinations are conducted by the examining surgeons under the Contagious Diseases Act, I should say that such care and discretion could not be exercised, and is not attempted, for want of time. (I have heard of one a minute being examined.)
"Moreover, I am prepared to declare from experience that, in a very large number of cases, it is quite impossible to decide, after such painful examination as may be sometimes necessary, whether the woman is suffering from contagious disease or not; and it is a manifest injustice to compulsorily demand or take doubtful evidence when the examination of the men would give positive and certain proof of the existence of disease, and this without any painful examination of any kind.
"In cases of women who have not borne children, the examination is by the same instrument as that used in the cases of mothers, and there is great cruelty in the application of any uniform instrument.
"It is said that there is no more degradation or pain inflicted on a prostitute when examined than upon a modest woman who is subjected to a similar process in consequence of uterine disease. Women, under any circumstances, shrink from the ordeal, which is conducted in the most private manner, in the presence of a mother or near female relative; and the fact is most studiously concealed from all the patient's friends and acquaintances, and even from her husband.
"The case is wholly different with an 'unfortunate.' She is brought publicly to the place, and the constables know for what purpose. The days of examination are publicly known—the women are herded together for a purpose known to each other (good, bad, and indifferent), and when they leave it is with a consciousness that all the officials know what has been done. This is calculated to blunt and destroy all sense of modesty, and notoriously does so. Moreover, the women are conscious in the one case of the necessity of an examination for their own benefit, and that it will be conducted with the most delicate care by the confidential adviser of the family. In the other case the women are conscious that they are subjected to a revolting introspection for the benefit and advantage of others who do not hesitate to pollute them when healthy; and they undergo this at the hands of a public official in a public place.
"Under all these circumstances, I declare that the promiscuous examination of women with the speculum vaginœ is cruel, because it is often very painful, and because it cannot be properly conducted without time, caution, and care; that it is degrading because it is publicly known, and in that sense it is demoralizing; and lastly, the evidence it affords is uncertain in a very large number of cases.—I am, dear Sir, yours faithfully,
"J. BAXTER LANGLEY, M.R.C.S., &c."
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The examination of the men is easy and painless, and yet you put the whole burden on the women, and can you expect that they will take it patiently? I will only repeat, on this part of my argument, that you do not know what you might have effected by other means, and that you ought not to have adopted such means as those I have described till other plans had had a full and fair trial. You have gone to work ignorantly and hastily, and we see the result. But I must just add that the examination of women tends to increase disease by causing men to frequent them more often than they would otherwise do; and it is obvious that this must be attended with danger if the examination be as I have shown an uncertain test of health. Now, that men are tempted in this way by the hope of immunity, I will prove from the evidence of Mr. Acton himself. He says (119, N.)—
"I was informed that on the day after their inspection the houses are specially frequented by the public, in the belief that there is then less chance of contracting disease. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that, under the French system, many yield to indulgence whom the fear of the natural penalty would otherwise deter."
Sir, I must now turn to the second head of my argument. I object to these Acts on constitutional grounds. What is the general effect of the Acts? It is to subject poor women to arrest on mere suspicion. The magistrate need not take corroborative evidence as to the character of the woman. He may make the order on the oath of the policeman. An hon. Member tried to have a clause introduced compelling the magistrate to demand other evidence, but this was refused by this House. The result is, that the poor woman is handed over to the tender mercies of the police, absolutely. Last week I found the following remarks in The Daily Telegraph, on the present bearing of the police:—
"He would be a foolish person indeed who would enter into conflict with the police, unless by accident—we should rather write by miracle—he had the most overwhelming proofs upon his side. Independently of direct evidence of the kind named above, we assert, without fear of contradiction, that there is a universal complaint amongst Londoners as to the tyrannous and masterful bearing of the police on our streets."
These are the words of a man writing about the police; but I am speaking of poor helpless women, utterly unable to

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protect themselves, and I say that this Act has put them entirely in the power of the police, without any appeal whatever. To show that I do not exaggerate, I will call a witness who is a strong supporter of the Acts. Mr. Parsons, in his evidence last year, says, in reply to questions put to him—
"399. Supposing that a woman is brought up by the police, who is a modest woman, surely she would decline to sign the paper, would she not?—No; for this reason: the police, believing the correctness of their own impressions, say—' Very well, if you do not sign that, you go to the bench;' and then the woman says, in order to avoid that—'I do not mind going into a private room and speaking to Mr. Parsons;' and she will sign the voluntary submission.
"400. Therefore they sign a voluntary submission, under the fear of being taken before the magistrate?—Unquestionably."
Now, mark the ingenuity of this machinery. The more innocent the woman is the more determined she is not to go before the magistrate, lest she should lose her character for ever; and if she signs the submission, she is liable to be called up at the will of the surgeon for a whole 12 months, to go through this disgusting examination as a common prostitute. I do not care whether any cases have or have not occurred where women have been oppressed by this law; I say that it is an utterly unjust and scandalous law, and unworthy of the British Parliament. Observe, that no proof of prostitution is required, and further, that no definition of the word "prostitute" is given in the Act. Mr. Parsons says, it is "a question of mannerism." I heard the other day of two English ladies being locked up in Paris on suspicion, and I suppose that with them, too, it was a "question of mannerism." Mr. Parsons tells us more. He is asked—
"375. Must she be making a livelihood by it?—Yes, she ought to be; but if you confine yourself to that definition, all I can tell you is, that your Act will never succeed. The amount of clandestine prostitution is very large. Unless the Act includes every class of that sort, you cannot possibly hope to extirpate disease."
I should like to read to the House a few words of Lord Hardwicke as to this arrest on suspicion—
"Facts only are admitted as proofs by our laws, and by these facts a judge and jury are to form their opinion of the character of the accused. A great security for our liberties is this—that no subject of the realm can be imprisoned unless some felonious and high crime be sworn against
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him, or her. This, with respect to private persons, is the very foundation stone of all our liberties; and if we remove it, if we but knock off a corner, we may probably overturn the whole fabric."
But it is said that there have been no cases of hardship. This I deny. Take the case mentioned by Mr. Parsons himself—
"345. How do you obtain the information of a woman not being guilty of prostitution being brought before you as a public prostitute?—I knew one instance of my own knowledge, by my happening to know the woman as a respectable married woman. She had been guilty of a little indiscretion; she had, I believe, even accosted one of the police officers themselves, not for the purpose of prostitution, as he admitted, but she was, to use his own term, 'larking about the streets;' and he concluded that she was a prostitute."
"346. What injury occurred in consequenee of that case being brought up to you?—No injury, except to her feeelings, at having been brought there."
["Oh, oh!"] The hon. Member says Oh, oh!" but I say that, even if the woman had been indiscreet, it would have been a terrible punishment to subject her to this disgusting examination for twelve months. But the evidence does not end here. I will read one or two other cases to show what is going on. Both are authenticated by the Rev. W. Heritage of Canterbury. I give them as they are given to me—
"Mrs. Baker, a respectable married woman, had one evening gone to fetch her husband home from a public house, and met the detective. He asked her name, and ordered her to go to Hawkes Lane for examination. Her husband enquired at the police station to know if anything could be done to the officer for assaulting and annoying his wife, and was informed he could take out a summons for him, stating the case before a magistrate; but if the inspector had ordered her up, he would try to prove she was a prostitute. The whole thing was so disgusting to them, and the exposure she could not endure, so they immediately left the town."
The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bruce) shakes his head. I am not responsible for the statement. I give my authority, and he can make his own investigations. I will read the second case—
"Mrs. Dodds, the wife of a pig-dealer, residing at 21, Best Lane, says that she has four grown-up daughters residing at home with her, and that they are all respectable girls. About three months ago the two officers came to her house and insisted on seeing her daughters. They said they were sent there by girls in the town. They said her two eldest daughters must go to Hawkes Lane to be examined. She said they should not go, and they have not done so, and no proceedings

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have been taken to make them. One of her daughters went out one evening after this, and the next day one of the officers came again to the house, and told her of every place she had been to, showing that she had been followed all the time she was out. He also demanded the names of two acquaintances (men) she had spoken to in the High Street, and again ordered her to go to Hawkes Lane for examination. She again refused to go. Some of the neighbours, however, seem to have been aware of the visit of the officers to Mrs. Dodds, and she and her daughters have since this been frequently called after in the streets, being asked if they had been to '—Fair,' if they had 'just come back from Shorncliffe.' These expressions refer to Hawkes Lane, where the examinations are carried on, and to the hospital at Shorncliffe, where most of the women found to be suffering from disease are sent to. In consequence of this her daughters are afraid to go out, and one of them has not been out for two months. In one instance the annoyance to Mrs. Dodds was so great that she was obliged to appeal to the police for protection."
There are many other cases whore the same sort of injustice is alleged to have taken place. I repeat that if there were not one, my objection to the law would be just the same. It is an oppressive law, and therefore a bad law. And now, Sir, I will ask the House to observe how the evidence is got up in these cases. The police must have evidence. Mr. Mallallieu tells us where they get it. (Lords, 1868. Q. 147.)—
"Our sources of information are these—we have the military and naval hospitals, and our men visit them, and ascertain from the patients themselves from whom they contracted the disease. … We get information from the men themselves, and frequently from private sources. Gentlemen, for instance, or persons of a superior class, who have been so unfortunate as to become tainted, will denounce the women in writing, and send their address, and the police look out for them. … The brothel-keepers, who are subject to penal consequences if they harbour diseased women, are also very valuable sources of information to us. It is becoming well known that a woman in a state of disease is not to be tolerated even by the person who keeps the house, and they give information to the police."
So we see the police are put en rapport with the keepers of houses which ought to be suppressed by them. These men are the agents of the police. They give "valuable information." And what shall we say of the generosity of the man in a higher rank who reports his partner in sin to the police? What an exhibition of chivalrous feeling I must here refer to one other part of the Act. By a section introduced last year the surgeon can detain any woman who is brought to him and cannot be examined owing to natural causes for five days.
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So the poor creature is in fact imprisoned, although it is quite impossible for anyone to say that she is suffering in any way. Such a clause involves a most gross violation of liberty. But this is not all. I say that the system I have described must lead to a most hateful espionage which is most obnoxious to our feelings as Englishmen. No woman will be able to walk out alone under such police regulations. Such is the case now in Paris. ["Oh! oh!"] The hon. Member dissents, but I will read what Mdlle. Daubié says on this matter—
"We have been enabled to see what a mistake it is to pretend that our Government toleration is necessary for the protection of modest women. If that were the case, we may be sure they would reject this annihilation of their sisters for their benefit; but it is proved, on the contrary, that the insecurity of every woman results from the prerogatives granted to vice in France. Are we not aware that nations, which have not our monstrous measures of preservation, permit the girl to go out, to travel, and live by herself, for the purpose of either the secondary or the higher course of instruction; whilst in Paris more than 100,000 regulars and soldiers of the National Guard, and a numerous body of police, fail to inspire the young woman of the middle class with sufficient confidence to allow her to venture a single step without a protector, or the lower-class young woman with a security sufficient to keep her from being made a merchantable article."
I do not want to see any such state of things here, and I would observe that its existence would be especially hard on the wives and daughters of working men. They are often compelled to be out late, and are they to be dogged and watched police and to be suspected? Moreover, I say that such a system causes the whole atmosphere to be tainted. A mother has very early to warn her daughters about things respecting which the longer she is ignorant, the better,—and this is no fancy of mine, I will call in Mr. Parsons again as witness. He says—
"It must be borne in mind that the practical execution of the Act is confined to a class of men who probably are not the best versed in using judgment as to their selection: they see a woman out late of an evening, and they are very liable to jump at the conclusion that she is a prostitute."
The policeman "jumps at the conclusion." That is the very thing I object to. I will only add on this head that I understand the French system is much more careful than ours in protecting women from false accusations. A policeman who reports falsely is severely punished; whereas, here, a poor woman

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who is so injured has to bring an action against the policeman who is backed by the Government. She gets no costs if she succeeds, unless the Judge certifies, but pays them if she fails, under this merciful Act. What a mockery of a remedy for a poor woman! And now I come to the third head—the moral argument. I assert, Sir, that these Acts are based on the theory that prostitution is a "necessity." It is impossible to understand them on any other theory. I deny that this assumption is true. With my whole soul I deny it. But it is said it is an evil that has always existed and we must recognize it. Well, stealing is an evil which has always existed; but we do not recognize it with a view to regulate it. We seek to get rid of it. We punish it. The law tries to put it down. I say, Sir, that if once you assume an evil to be necessary you lose your power over it. We are here dealing with what is a sin according to our law, and according to the law of God; and I agree with John Milton, that when we fall to regulating a sin, we make a great mistake. I will read the words of this great man—
"As for sin, the causes of it cannot consist with rule; and if the law fall to regulate sin and not to take it utterly away, it necessarily confirms and establishes sin. To make a regularity of sin by law, either the law must straiten sin into no sin, or sin must crook the law into no law."—(Works, iv. 96.)
I think, Sir, that so far from this indulgence being necessary, it is simply degrading, and that these Acts are based on a false view of the sexual relation between man and woman. When I consider, Sir, that the whole family life of our countrymen is based upon this relation, and when I think that thus we owe to it all that is noblest, and holiest, and purest in our lives; and when I consider how, in this ghastly system, this relation is degraded into a source of mere animal indulgence, I cannot but deplore that any Act of Parliament should sanction that which is so utterly repugnant to my best feelings and my firmest convictions. I have asserted that the direct effect of these Acts must be to increase the license of profligate men and women, and I have proved it by the evidence of a great supporter of these Acts. It is certain, in my opinion, that men will argue—if the State recognizes and regulates our proceedings in these matters, there cannot be any in
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herent evil in them. I am told there is a difference between regulation and license, but, surely, such a position is wholly illogical. I find in the evidence laid before the House that, under this system of regulation, the doctors instruct the women how to make their vocation more easy and less harmful by all sorts of medical appliances, and to prove my position on this head, I will call a professional witness. Dr. Balfour, in the Committee of the House of Commons last year, was asked—
"With regard to putting lavatories in these places, would not that be legalizing or supposed to be legalizing prostitution?" "I am afraid" says he "that you have legalized it under the present Act."
And I would further observe that in Trance the carte carried by the women is no more a formal licence than the summons which is used by women under the present Acts. The French carte is merely a record of the times of examination, with certain regulations as to what a woman is not to do on the back; and I hold in my hand a summons under this Act given to a woman, and which has been used by her as a means of soliciting the patronage of men. In truth, Sir, the statute says—"Come, I will cure you; then you may go on with your trade again: as long as you are not diseased, it does not matter what you do." For the first time in our history prostitution has become a "legalized institution," and a woman is made a chattel for the use of men. We hear a great deal about the "innocent women and children" who are injured by this disease and by this sin. But if that argument means anything, it means this—that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to find money to provide clean women for married men. And let me add, that we hear very little anxiety expressed on account of the victims'—the innocent women and children who are the victims—of the drunkenness of husbands and fathers, and we hear very little said respecting the children of criminals. They are left to take care of themselves. In my opinion, Sir, the title of these Acts ought to have been different. The Act ought to have been called—"An Act to provide clean women for profligate soldiers," and then it would never have passed this House. But, Sir, in reply to all that I have said, it is sometimes asserted that a great moral improve

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ment has obtained among these women by reason of their entrance into hospitals, and the care that is taken of them. Now the fact is, that what good has been done has been done by the fact that hospitals have been established where care has been taken of these poor creatures, and not by the peculiar provisions of the Acts to which I have objected. Moreover, it is beyond dispute that hundreds are yearly turned away by the Rescue Society for want of funds; and I feel confident that the money spent by the Government, if spent brothers, would have reformed a far larger number than have been reformed by the agency of the Government. I find the following statistics as to the number said to be reformed between the 1st of April, 1868, and the 1st of April, 1869. The total number taken into the hospitals during that period was 4,864, of whom there had entered homes 177, and returned to their friends 214, making a total of 391. Now, in my opinion, at least double that number ought to have been reclaimed, and not merely "returned to their friends," had the agency of these hospitals been anything like as successful as that of the ordinary societies. Much more might be said on this point, but I must draw to a conclusion. One other argument I will refer to, and I have done. In answer to everything that is alleged, it is said that these Acts are necessary for the Army and Navy. I must say that I think this a dangerous argument. If this argument be pressed, people will be apt to say—that, if the existence of the Army and Navy involves so great a breach of the moral law, it is high time to consider whether the system of the Army and Navy as at present established be not unsound and unwholesome. But I will not, on this point, use my own words. I will quote to you from a speech delivered only last week, at a great meeting at Birmingham, by a clergyman, who made use of the following language. He said:—
"He, who had been in the 73rd Regiment for two years, refused emphatically to say that it was a noble Army. He knew better. As long as they would keep so many thousands of poor, miserable, ignorant, homeless, unmarried soldiers and sailors, they would have this evil with them. They left these poor young men, full of health and vigour, in comparative idleness, shifted them about continually, and refused to allow them to marry, while at the same time they supplied them with
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drinking shops in every barrack. Was there any wonder that they were a curse to society, that they were the cause of prostitution and disease. The real source of the evil, then, was the standing forces of this and other countries. Many years ago, in Birmingham, they had opposed the idea of making it a garrison town, and so they had kept it comparatively pure and healthy; but other places in the land were suffering, and it was as well they should know the real cause. In the matter of standing armies, they might well take a lesson from across the Atlantic, and imitate America. There they had no standing army; and yet they had recently shown—especially the North—that they were capable of defending their wives, homes, and hearths."
At length, Sir, I have come to the end of this long and intricate discussion. I assert, as the result of my argument, that these Acts offend against common sense, against justice, and against morals; and, therefore, in the name of common sense, and of justice, and of morals, I ask this House to tear from the statute book this disgusting page, and I ask you to obey, as an Assembly, that command which is addressed to each of us, as individuals, not to make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof.
Dr. LYON PLAYFAIRsaid: the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Fowler) makes so many grounds of impeachment against these Acts that it is difficult to know with which Ave should begin. None, however, appear to me more unwarrantable than the allegation that Parliament passed thorn hastily and inconsiderately. In 1864 an experimental Act was passed, and, in the following year, an excellently constituted scientific Commission was appointed by the Government to investigate all questions relating to these contagious diseases. In 1866 the experimental Act was made more comprehensive. In 1868 the House of Lords appointed a Select Committee to inquire into the working of that Act, and in the following year this House appointed another Select Committee for the same purpose. The Scientific Commission of 1865, having occupied a long time in its investigations, now published its elaborate Report. Fortified by three inquiries and Reports, Parliament passed an amending Act last Session. Few subjects have received such full and exhaustive inquiry before being legislated upon. The complaint then limits itself to the fact that, though the subject was well considered, it was not fully debated. But there are subjects which Select

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Committees can consider more calmly and thoroughly than a large Assembly, and, doubtless, the House thought that this question belonged to that class. I agree in that view, though I think it is right, in the present state of public opinion, that we should now discuss it, and I hope to do my part in a way that will not prove offensive to any hon. Member. The very existence of the Acts carries us beyond the stage of proving their original necessity. Previous to 1864, the diseases, to which they relate, prevailed to such an extent in the Army, that Dr. Parkes says they prove "equal to the loss of two regiments constantly." As regards the Navy, I think it is the Scientific Commission which states that, even on our home service, the loss is "equal to the complement of an iron-clad." No doubt much of the opposition, which is now manifested, is due to the fear that the Acts may be extended to the civil population. This would be a serious question; but it is not before us. What the hon. Member for Cambridge asks us to do is to deprive our soldiers and sailors of certain sanitary safeguards which these Acts afford to them. In order to keep our Army unencumbered, State policy enforces celibacy on about 90 per cent of the soldiers. The Navy, by the nature of its occupation, acts in a like way. Now, these contagious diseases are certainly largely promoted by celibacy, and the State is bound to preserve its combatants from the consequences of an abnormal position. But we are told that the Acts passed for this purpose do not accomplish their end, and if this be true, I allow that they should be repealed. If the assertion simply means that they have not stamped out disease, as the cattle plague was stamped out, I admit that they have not done so, nor were they ever expected to act in this way. An epizootic can readily be dealt with; for it is easy to prevent the movement of cattle, and even to kill infected animals. But when human beings are the subject of disease, the case is very different, and it is rare that you can stamp it out, though you may largely mitigate it. Though the Acts have only been three years in force, yet the results obtained in this limited period are conclusive as to their efficacy. Before describing these, it is necessary that I should remind the House that two main diseases are included in the general
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term. The one is a minor form, and has existed from early periods; for it is frequently referred to by classical authors. It inconveniences the individual affected, but only rarely injures his constitution; it is local in its character, and is not transmissible to his offspring. Though the Acts have mitigated the severity and duration of this minor disease, they have had little influence on its frequency. The second, or major disease, is that which we chiefly aim to subdue. It is comparatively new, for Europe did not know it till the end of the 15th century. Of all diseases it is one of the most loathsome and terrible; it often saps the constitution of its victim, and is readily transmissible by descent to his innocent offspring. Upon this major form, the Acts have had a most beneficial effect. The statistics, which I shall quote in proof, have been furnished to me by Dr. Balfour, the eminent statistician at the head of the Statistical Department of the Army. It is well known that he was not favourable to the introduction of these Acts, and that at first he doubted their success; but now I am authorized by him to state that he can no longer resist the favourable evidence which the Returns afford of their efficiency. In 1869, there were seven protected stations and 15 unprotected stations of our home Army. The first Act of 1864 had thrown a partial protection over the former, and this is seen in the period of three years ending 1866, for the ratio of disease in the protected towns was, in the case of the major disease in its primary form, 93 cases per 1,000 men, while in the unprotected places, it was 107. But it was only in 1866 that an effective Act was passed, and it did not come into operation till towards the close of the year. In the next period of three years, ending 31st December, 1869, we find a large reduction of the major disease; for the protected stations had now a ratio of 71 cases per 1,000 men; while the unprotected stations increased to 111. This fact renders all doubt impossible. During the last three years there is no diminution at all, but some increase in the unprotected stations; while at all the protected stations there is a steady diminution until, in 1869, the ratio was only 58 to the 1,000, or nearly half the number found where the Acts are not in force. The mean reduction

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during the three years has been quite steady, in one direction, in the protected districts. In the first year, the ratio was 86; in the second year, 70; in the third year, 58. You will observe that this mode of comparison between protected and unprotected districts eliminates all chances of error as to a natural decrease in the disease down to I860, which my opponents make much of, but which must tell equally upon both; nor was this decrease maintained up to 1869, for in 9 out of the 15 unprotected stations the ratio was higher in the latter year thrn in the preceding years. I have confined myself to Dr. Balfour's statistics of the major disease in its primary form, because I believe that they are strictly and scientifically accurate. Perhaps you may think that I ought to state the proportions of all enthetic diseases. For this purpose I must use the Returns of the police, which are no doubt approximatively correct, though they can scarcely claim the rigid accuracy of those to which I have referred. By these Returns, owing to an increase in the number of cases of the minor disease, Portsmouth has neither gained nor lost by the Acts, and it may, therefore, be classed as a case of failure, though as regards the major disease this is not true. The Acts have been applied to the various stations at different dates, but if we take the mean ratio in the year preceding the application it was 22·8, and in the last quarter it was only 11·27, or less than half. This refers to all enthetic diseases. If we take two special cases, by way of illustration, the difference between a protected and unprotected station will be bettor understood. Last year a battalion of Guards left London for Windsor on the 1st of March. "Windsor has only recently been brought under the Acts, but formerly was notorious for its unhealthiness. During their stay of four months, thirty cases of sickness occurred. The battalion then returned to London, which is unprotected, and in the corresponding period of four months there were 108 cases, or three and a-half times more. Again, the 5th Fusiliers were at Aldershot, a protected station, for the first eight months of last year, and their average daily roll from these diseases was 3⅓ they then went to the unprotected stations of Glasgow and Ayr, and in the last four months of the
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year the daily roll was 7⅓, or more than double. I have hitherto treated only of the quantity of the disease, but the quality of it has been much changed in the protected stations. By this I mean that the severity and duration, both of the major and minor diseases, have been much lessened. Thus, in the first year of the Act, at Devonport, the duration of treatment of the major disease was 85½ days; in the second year, 66J days; in the third year, 53 days; and in the last quarter of 1869, 37 days. So that, if the experience of Devonport is general, while the quantity of disease has been reduced by a little less than a-half, the actual duration of what remains has been also lessened by more than a-half. In the Metropolitan Female Lock Hospital there are patients sent by Government from military and naval stations, and ordinary patients from London. It is pitiable to visit this hospital, and see the ravages of disease among the latter, as compared with the former. Mr. J. R. Lane, the surgeon to the hospital, has kindly given me the periods for cure on an average of three years. As regards the major disease, a Government patient is cured in 45 days, while an ordinary patient requires 56 days; and, as regards the minor disease, a Government patient is cured in 25 days, while an ordinary patient requires 39 days. Surely I have said enough to prove how successful these Acts have been. Since 1846, when I acted as a Royal Commissioner on Public Health, sanitary laws have been to me an incessant object of interest; but, with the exception of the compulsory Vaccination Acts, I know no such achievements of legislation as have been performed by the Acts under discussion. Before leaving this part of the subject, I ought to refer to the effects of the Acts in diminishing disease among-fallen women. For this object the statistics available to me are limited; but I possess them for several stations. At Chatham, for instance, when the Act was first applied, 70 per cent were found to be diseased; last quarter only 6 per cent were in this condition. This is, no doubt, the most marked case; but we are assured that the amelioration at every station has been great. Perhaps we may get a fairer view if we compare the state of common women at Winchester, in which the Act came into force last January, with that of Devonport, where it has

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been, in operation, since 1866. In Winchester, in the two first months of the year, 43 per cent of the unfortunates were found to be diseased; while, in the corresponding months, at Devonport, only 14 per cent were in that condition. In our foreign stations similar Acts are in operation. At Malta traders in vice have been inspected since the time of the Knights, though by custom merely, for a law enforcing it was passed only in 1859. That law made the custom efficient, and its results are stated in Mr. Inglott's evidence. He says—
"The operation of the law has had the effect of checking public prostitution to a great extent, besides of almost annihilating the disease."
In almost like terms Sir Henry Storks describes its effects in the islands of Corfu, Zante, and Cephalonia, before our connection with them was severed. If we go beyond the experience of our own Army, and take that of foreign, nations, which pursue a like system, the evidence is conclusive. In England our troops lose seven days of service; while those of France lose only four days, and those of Belgium only three days. Hitherto I have confined myself to answering the allegations that the Acts have failed in their sanitary aspects. But this is a small part of the issue raised. The main contention is, that the Acts are opposed to religion, justice, morality, and public liberty. The religious objection belongs more to a past than to the present age, but must still be combated, because even now a few men of knowledge are influenced by it. Thus a distinguished surgeon, a Fellow and Member of Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, announces his belief that this disease is not an evil but a blessing, and "that it was inflicted by the Almighty to act as a restraint upon the indulgence of evil passions;" and the right hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) whose honest and outspoken opinions are always valued by this House, seems to share these sentiments. I do not pause to remind him that it is strange thus to characterize a modern disease, only three and a-half centuries old, as the special punishment for profligacy; because it would follow that ancient profligacy, which was certainly not less, escaped, the infliction. But I prefer to remind the House that similar opinions in regard to disease have constantly prevailed from remote antiquity, and have as con-
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stantly been refuted by the progress of knowledge. It is a very old notion that diseases should not be combated because they are Divine punishments for sins, relevant or irrelevant. Such views have become more rare in modern times, because we are constantly reminded, in the progress of science, that there is far more of mercy than of wrath in Divine arrangements. The angel who stood in the path of the prophet had a sword; but still we are told it was an angel of mercy. Yet, whenever we reach a stage when a disease is proved to be preventible, it is found that a few religious enthusiasts cling to the wrath and spurn the mercy. We need not go further back than Jenner's great discovery for a proof of this. Vaccination gave us a protection against a disease only less abhorrent and repulsive than that under consideration. But its introduction was fiercely opposed, because it was alleged to be repugnant to religion, morality, law, and humanity. Large associations were formed to resist its extension; the pulpits resounded with attacks on the impious and presumptuous man who dared to interfere with a visitation from God. The introduction, of a disease from a cow into the body of a man was thought to give him bovine and beastly propensities. Excited by this clamour, the people rose in riots and pelted the vaccinators with stones—just as the Scotch peasantry pelted their first benefactor who introduced potatoes with his own tubers, as being an irreligious crop, for they were nowhere mentioned in the Bible. We have lived down all this clamour, and 80,000 lives of our present population are annually saved by Jenner's discovery. Misdirected religious zeal of this kind opposes many great benefits. When my lately deceased friend, Sir James Simpson, introduced chloroform—that great boon to suffering humanity—he, too, was denounced as irreligious, because he was interfering with a Divine punishment for woman's primeval sin, that in sorrow and travail should she "bring forth children. And so was it also in regard to these very contagious diseases in the 15th and 16th centuries. The afflicted patients, smitten, as it was thought, by Divine punishment, were refused admission into hospitals. This refusal, as a traditionary usage, prevails to the present day, and has led to the special

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class of Lock hospitals. This special provision shows that we have advanced somewhat in Christian humility since those times, and that few dare to express the arrogant conceit that they are en-titled to he exponents of Divine retribution by excluding any class of the afflicted from mercy and compassion. But though the religious argument fails entirely, when examined by the light of; past experience, the allegations of injustice and immorality brought against the Acts are not affected by it. The injustice is said by my hon. Friend to rest in the fact that they apply restrictions upon women and not on men, although both are equally propagators of the disease. Unquestionably both are, though my hon. Friend, in his leaning to women, thinks men are the worst. To discuss which sex is most effective in the dissemination would be as little profitable as to debate which side of a pair of scissors is most useful in cutting, or whether the upper or lower jaw is most useful in chewing. But the law does not deal with things in this abstract fashion. A purchaser is as necessary as a vendor in the carrying on of a trade; but the law always regulates the trade through the vendor. The fact that these Acts compel the inspection of fallen women and not of vicious men, simply depends upon the circumstance that the former alone are traders in this sinful traffic. There is another law as to the regulation of this particular traffic which will explain my meaning. The general police law authorizes a policeman to arrest, without a warrant, any common woman who is seen to solicit a man. No one says the law is unjust because a man is not arrested for soliciting a woman; and the reason is, that the law is not framed on any abstract principle of morality, but simply for the regulation of a traffic, which it has never been able to repress, though it has often tried to control. Nor does the extension of law to sinful trades recognize these in anyway. Thus, in 1430, the Bishop of Winchester was specially charged by ordinance with the regulation of 18 houses of bad repute, which stood then, and for centuries after, on Bankside, Southwark. But no one on that account has contended that they had episcopal sanction. The form of immorality, which we are dealing with, is certainly not an abstract necessity, but it is a notorious
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fact, just as drunkenness is a fact impossible to be ignored; and when the law intervenes to regulate the traffic in both cases, so that the public may be as little injured as possible, it does not stamp these sins as virtues. You might as well say that when the law regulates the sale of poisons, it thereby sanctions the poisoner. Regulation is not recognition. When, then, you pass a law for the inspection of fallen women and not of vicious men, you introduce no new principle into legislation, but carry out your usual practice of regulating injurious trades through the vendors. It is altogether a different contention, if you put the case on sanitary grounds. Our combatants contract with the State to give efficient personal service, and anything that interferes with their personal efficiency may be regulated by law. A more frequent inspection than that now given may be advisable, but only as a sanitary safeguard, and not on the grounds of unequal treatment of sexes; and this personal examination is already enforced in the Guards, and is being rapidly extended to every regiment. A further contention of my lion. Friend is that the Acts infringe the liberty of the subject. Undoubtedly they do, and so do a hundred other Acts, when a subject uses his liberty to the public detriment. If a parent put his child, suffering under scarlatina, into a cab, in order to convey him to an hospital, the law punishes him; if a lunatic run through a town with, a firebrand he is locked up; if the Irish Press disseminate political poison, the law intervenes; and if a woman spread physical poison through our troops, we prevent it also. It is when liberty becomes license that you interfere. This argument about liberty is much used in the Petitions and communications from Scotland. Why we Scotch had the credit, as I think it, or the discredit as the opponents would deem it, of discovering how to prevent the spread of these diseases, and they applied the I discovery to the civil population which these Acts do not. In 1497, when these diseases were supposed to spread as an epidemic, like cholera or scarlatina, the sagacious magistrates of Aberdeen thought differently, and shut up diseased I women in their houses, branding them on the cheek with a red-hot key if they came out before being cured. This was found so effective, that, six months after,

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the Privy Council ordered the Town Council of Edinburgh to gather all diseased women, along with their doctors, on the sands of Leith, when boats were provided to transport them to the island of Inchkeith, and, if either they or their physicians returned before being cured, the branding iron was to be applied. Hence the Scotch are really the fathers of these Acts, and should not be so indignant with their gentler Southern progeny. Now we have to answer the serious charge that the Acts tend to degrade and not to uplift the fallen women. For my own part, this would be their thorough condemnation in my eyes, and if I believed it, I would not be here as their advocate. But this charge is not only unsupported by, but is totally opposed to all evidence. And that evidence is unimpeachable, for it consists of the concurrent testimony of chaplains, medical men, and the police, all of whom cannot be in league to pervert facts. Thus, speaking of Aldershot, Dr. Barr describes the condition of the unfortunates in terms, which are actually painful to read. After stating that they were dirty, starved, covered with vermin, and clad in unwomanly rags, he says—
"Thus less than two years ago, in a terribly morbid condition, with the habits of beasts and the appearance of beggars, the majority of these outcasts of society were alike endless sources of sickness among the troops and disgust among the respectable inhabitants of the neighbourhood."
This was their state before the Act. Now, we are told that they have acquired habits of cleanliness; that diseases, such as itch, arising from filth have disappeared; that the use of profane language in the wards occurs very seldom—
"And that the chaplain has on several occasions mentioned the pleasure with which he has noticed their uniformly decent behaviour, as well as their quiet attention to his ministerial addresses during the religious services held by him."
Captain Harris, speaking of the women at all the protected stations, describes the general improvement as follows. I quote from his report to the Chief Commissioner of Police—
"The improvement which has taken place in the persons, clothing, and homes of common women, as regards cleanliness and order, is most marked. Many of the women formerly looked bloated from drink, whilst others were greatly emaciated and looked haggard through disease. Their language and habits are greatly altered. Swearing, drunkenness, and indecency of behaviour have become quite exceptional. The
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women now look fresh and healthy, and are most respectful in their manner. In fact, these poor creatures now feel that they are not altogether outcasts from society, but that there are people who still take an interest in their moral and physical welfare."
Like testimony, less graphically described, perhaps, but in substance similar, reaches us from each of the protected districts. It is surely more hopeful for the reformation of these unhappy creatures—especially if cleanliness be akin to godliness, that they should be redeemed from a state of savagery to something approaching civilization, even if they are not reclaimed to virtue. But if evidence be worth anything, there is not the slightest doubt that large numbers of them have been reclaimed from vice and now lead virtuous lives. In Malta, where the experience has been longest, this reclamation is described as one of the most marked and happy features of the Act. And in every protected district in England the evidence is concurrent and decisive. In some of them the actual decrease of unfortunates has been more than half; while about a quarter of the whole have been restored to a respectable life. At the whole of the stations 7,766 common women were registered, of whom only 3,016 now ply their vocation in these districts. So that 4,750 have passed from the registers. What has become of them? The answer is most satisfactory. Of this number only 107 are known to be dead, 385 are married, 451 have entered homes or refuges for fallen women, 1,249 have been restored to their friends. Hence 27 per cent have been rescued from infamy. Of the 2,558, or 32 per cent, who have left, all that is known is that they are no longer in the districts, and that their places have not been supplied. Doubtless, many of them are pursuing evil courses elsewhere; but many also, as the police believe, and as charity compels us to hope, have returned to their own homes. These are most striking results of the moral effects of these Acts, and dwarf all voluntary and philanthropic efforts to reform these fallen women. The opponents of these Acts meet such statistics by saying that the women have simply been driven from open to clandestine practices. But this is inconsistent with their allegations that the police have exercised an effective spy system, which is dangerous even to respectable women. It is wonderful, then, that the

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police know nothing of this increase of clandestine practices. On the contrary, they aver that there is a large diminution of them, and their explanation is this—There are always some women on the verge of vice, and the fear of the Acts has exercised a wholesome restraint on such persons. Afraid of being classed among the fallen, they have withdrawn from attendance at singing saloons and other places of resort, and are thus removed from dangers to which they were exposed. But common sense tells us, that the open and concealed profession of this sinful traffic are bound together. The first class gives the chief supply to, and fast merges into the second class. The large and positive diminution in the number of the open fallen is a proof that there must be a corresponding lessening in the sources of their supply—the clandestine fallen. Nor is this reform surprising when we recollect the humanizing and religious influences under which these unfortunates are brought; for you will recollect that the Act permits no hospital to be certified, till ample provision has been made for the moral and spiritual instruction of the inmates. From the unattractive sensational literature, which has been, with more zeal than discretion, put upon our tables for the last few months, one would be inclined to believe that the hospitals under these Acts are prisons and places of torture. Well, in former periods of history, when an excited and false public opinion on such subjects was allowed to prevail, Lock hospitals deserved this description, but now the hospitals are conducted with kindness and consideration to the fallen. Medical men, chaplains, and nurses gladly aid them in their attempts at reform. So little are these poor creatures accustomed to such humanizing influences, that their hearts become touched, and, in enforced leisure, they are awakened to the shame and misery of their lives. If you will not credit the Return of the police, at least let us believe the chaplains who testify to these results. Were it not that I am unwilling to detain the House, I should read to you the strongest letters in support of this, from clergymen of all persuasions in the protected stations, none of whom have official connection with the Acts. What do the opponents say in reply to such united testimony? They simply murmur their fears that the
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inspection of such women must have a tendency to degrade and not to elevate them. Well, I would treat those fears with the respect which is due to all sincere convictions, especially as they are the offspring of virtuous minds, who cannot conceive the degradation of the fallen. Unquestionably, modesty in a woman is at once her glory and protection, and I hope it is not wholly extinguished among unfortunates. But traders in immorality, whose bodies are the subject of commerce, have not those feelings of delicate susceptibility which are claimed for them. I admit that it would be a terrible thing if any innocent woman could, by a miscarriage of law, fall under the operation of the Acts. But women, as a class, are as much outside legislative interference, as their virtue and goodness are outside and far removed from the sins of the fallen of their sex. In the operation of all laws there have been isolated cases of miscarriage of justice. I shall leave to the Home Secretary the defence of the police, who seem to me to have exercised a really marvellous tact and discretion in carrying out these Acts, and I will admit, for the sake of argument, though I do not believe it, that there may have been one or two cases of mistakes in the character of the women who have been summoned. But even for robbery or murder, innocent persons have been tried and convicted. When a misadventure occurs in the application of a law, it is a subject of deep regret, and a warning that our safeguards against such contingencies should be multiplied; but it forms no argument for the abolition of a salutary law. The law, as it stands, is singularly careful. It takes no notice of individual immorality, but only of the immoral trader who plies her trade to the detriment of the public forces. It does not allow a common policeman to be an indicator of the trader; but reserves that power to a skilled and. responsible superintendent or inspector. No such woman need come under the Acts, if she choose to abandon her courses, or even to leave the district, and in no case need she, without being brought before a magistrate, in public or private as she prefers. So that the constant statements made that any woman can be arrested, detained, or inspected, at the mere will of the police, are utterly without foundation. In conclusion, I trust that I have

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treated this delicate subject as little offensively to the House as its nature permits. I have tried to show dispassionately that these Acts, viewed as sanitary measures, have been successful, and are becoming progressively still more effective. I have endeavoured to show that they are not unjust, inasmuch as they deal only with traders in a vicious and injurious traffic; and, so viewed, that they are consistent with our usual habits of legislation. So far from degrading the unfortunates subject to them, they have largely ameliorated both the physical and moral condition of the women who have been brought under their operation, alike out of mercy to our forces and of mercy to themselves. For three centuries and a-half these diseases have been the scandal of civilization, and neither philanthropy nor religion have stopped their growth. It is long since that Parliament became cognizant of their serious character. In the year 1529 it arraigned Cardinal Wolsey, inter alia, for daring to go into the presence of the King while he was afflicted with the major disease, when he ought to have isolated himself from one in whom the State was interested. This enforced isolation we now extend to the forces which are kept up for the protection of the State. For three years and a-half this active policy of prevention has substituted the do-nothing policy of three and a-half centuries; and the undoubted result has been largely to mitigate disease and to lessen immorality. I trust, therefore, that the House will not repeal Acts, whose past history has answered our expectations, while their future history is full of promise.
Mr. HENLEYfelt strongly on this legislation. He thought that the Standing Orders should not be put in force when large numbers appealed to the House; 270,000 people had petitioned against these Acts; 67 public meetings had been held. He objected to this legislation in the dark—they had had too much secresy already. Their constituents had a right to know what was said and done, and should not have elaborate statistics shoved down their throats. After referring to the speech of the hon. Member for Edinburgh University, contrasting his figures with the facts that came out in Committee, he (Mr. Henley) said he had referred to these statistics rather to weaken the case of the hon. Member—for him-
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self, he preferred to argue the subject on high moral grounds. So much, he said, for this worthless portion of the subject. They were sapping the morals of the country. The hon. Member was using these great towns as a lever to extend that legislation to the whole country. The system was an immoral one. He knew great names held otherwise; but, in fact, it was licensing prostitution. On June 1, the Derby Day, the cabs were to be examined. Those that were fit were to go on. That was what they did in the case of women. The system was vicious, and one which they dared not debate in public. He deprecated these "secret, dirty, underhand proceedings." Why did not the Committees go a little further? The witnesses in Committee related that some of the women were married, some reclaimed. The figures were remarkable. He (Mr. Henley) dissected the figures at length; but resisted the argument based on those figures. He said, would they take the whole prostitution of the country into their hands? He would make no crusade against any special vice. He objected to making a vice more useful. The Almighty had created a penalty. He (Mr. Henley) said—Relieve misery, relieve disease; but do not turn loose those who are clean. They dared not argue this matter in open day. So many had petitioned—the subject had been so frequently discussed—that they might as well have debated it in open day. What would people say? Every statement might be tested. To-morrow the hon. Member for Edinburgh University would say his figures were right; he (Mr. Henley) would say his were right. He could not sit down without referring to a document signed by many great names, including five Bishops—"a smartish lot to go into an affair of this kind," "some of them colonial." It was a disgrace not to argue it in open day. If it could be shown that it was not licensing prostitution, it would have been well to show as much. As to the document to which these Bishops had appended their hands, the evidence was unsatisfactory. He went on to dilate on Mr. Parson's evidence. The appeal to a magistrate was illusory. The woman preferred to go to be examined at the dictum of a police officer. Officers were men, and liable to be misled. Would they dare to put the law in force in the case of

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men? He criticized Mr. Sloggett's evidence and the questions put to him, and the motives with which they were put. He was sorry to have detained the House. The prosperity of the country had increased, marriages had increased, and children had increased, and illegitimate children had diminished. He would never be a party to licensing this offence. But "the rulers had taken counsel together" and was it not possible they might be laughed to scorn? Medical testimony was not trustworthy, for men would sometimes treat themselves. This was human nature. He repeated—this legislation was immoral; they dared not proceed with it openly, and so they were proceeding by sap. He cast upon them the responsibility of the cursed legislation on which they seemed determined to proceed.
MAJOR ANSON said: Whatever the opinion of individual Members of this House may be with regard to the Contagious Diseases Acts, we must all agree that it is a matter of the greatest importance, and one, moreover, upon which the people of this country would be justified in feeling extremely jealous as to any action which might be taken with regard to it, either by the House or by the Government. It is, therefore, not only to be regretted that the speeches to which we have already listened should have been delivered in the absence of the only channel of communication between this House and the general public; but it is also of the deepest importance that the general views of Members of the House on this subject, and the evidence which they may advance, whether for or against the working of the Acts, should be laid before all classes in the country, in order to enable them to form a sound opinion on the subject. It is with this object in view that, in the absence of the usual means of spreading this information, I beg to move the adjournment of the debate.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Major Anson.)
Mr. BRUCEannounced that the Government were prepared to authorize the issue of a Royal Commission.
SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he had heard the decision of Her Majesty's Government with very great regret. He
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thought it a weak and most unfortunate course, especially at a moment when the fair trial of a great experiment was only just commencing, and when a great majority, both in Parliament and the country, was prepared to support the Government in resisting a premature demand for a change of policy.
Mr. CARDWELLsaid, that the granting of a Commission was no proof of weakness on the part of the Government in their support of the system in force under the present Acts. On the contrary, if the discussion had proceeded, he should have been prepared to bring forward proofs of the great advantages—moral as well as physical—which had resulted from the system. But was it desirable that such a discussion should proceed? Were they not under great disadvantages in discussing such a subject in that House? If they discussed it, as they had to-night, with the Galleries cleared, they excluded those whose representatives they were from the knowledge of the proceedings they took on their behalf. If they discussed it with the Galleries open, then a subject—which, until this year, there was a very natural indisposition on the part of everybody to discuss at all—was made painfully familiar to the young as well as to the old, and brought next morning under the notice of ladies, perhaps, as well as of men. It seemed to him, then, that this dreadful subject ought to be thoroughly examined, but not in Parliamentary debate; and that a Commission afforded, the best means of probing it to the bottom without giving needless offence to public decency.
Mr. LIDDELLhoped the House would, even at this protracted period of the debate, agree to the Motion for Adjournment. It was most desirable that a debate upon this subject should take place; and, above all, that constituents and the public generally should be informed of the reasons for or against maintaining the Acts now under discussion. So strongly had he felt this conviction that he had risen an hour and a-half ago, quite early in the debate, to make a similar Motion. He was not in favour of the repeal of these Acts upon an imperfect knowledge of their working and effect; but he was fully aware that, rightly or wrongly, wisely or unwisely, the public mind had been deeply stirred by the agitation of this question out-of-

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doors. He believed the public were ill-informed upon this question, and that much misapprehension and no small exaggeration prevailed respecting it. He had no fear of inquiry, because he believed it would confirm the policy of these laws; but it was precisely for these reasons that he had so deeply regretted the injudicious course adopted by an hon. Member earlier in the evening. He regretted that this painful subject had been discussed with closed doors and empty Galleries. He thought the step taken to secure secresy for this discussion was, to say the least of it, inexpedient. What the public wanted to know, and had a right to know, was—if these laws were to remain in force—why? They were waiting to hear what the Home Secretary had to say on behalf of the "Police;" what the "War Secretary had to tell them for the "Soldiers;" and the First Lord of the Admiralty for the "Sailors" of this country—and regretting, as he did, that much had already been said in secret which ought to be heard openly, he trusted they would, with one voice, assent to the adjournment.
Mr. RUSSELL GURNEYsaid, he was exceedingly glad to hear of the determination at which the Government had arrived. In consequence of the great interest taken in this question in the town which he had the honour to represent, he had felt it to be his duty to take great pains to ascertain what was the right course to pursue with reference to the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge. He had carefully read the evidence given before the Committee of this House, as well as the numerous pamphlets which had been published on the subject; and the only conclusion at which he had been able to arrive was, that further inquiry was absolutely necessary. The evidence of Mr. Simon was, to his mind, perfectly conclusive upon this point. He had pointed out what the points were on which further evidence was necessary, and the manner in which it could be obtained. There was only one other matter which he wished to press, and that was that, until this further information was obtained, there should be no extension of the area over which the Acts now in force should have operation. It being admitted that further inquiry was necessary, it was exceedingly undesirable that
1342
any district should be brought under the operation of the Acts until the information was furnished which it was hoped would satisfy the public of the groundlessness of the objections which had been urged with so much force by the opponents of the Acts.
MR. CRAUFURD MR. CRAUFURD—
Mr. M'LARENsaid, he had risen to address the House for a few minutes, only to correct a misapprehension on the part of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War, who appeared to think that the numerous public meetings, and the 270,000 petitioners who had addressed this House, desired only an investigation into the operation of these Acts. Now, this was a most erroneous opinion. He (Mr. M'Laren) had presented many Petitions, and had read the resolutions and proceedings of many meetings; and, as a rule, they did not ask for any inquiry, nor would the petitioners be satisfied with the result of any inquiry, however favourable it might appear to be to the operation of the Acts. The petitioners took up the question on the ground that these Acts were a violation of justice and of civil liberty—a contrivance to oppress weak and defenceless women for the gratification and supposed benefit of men; and being already satisfied with the inquiries which had been made, they held mainly to the moral aspects of the question, and called for the total repeal of these iniquitous Acts. None knew this to be the general feeling of the petitioners better than his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary; for he had received a very large deputation, consisting of gentlemen and ladies, appointed by a conference of the delegates from all parts of the kingdom recently held in London, and who had stated to him their views, and had left with him their memorial, which had since been printed. He (Mr. M'Laren) would, with the permission of the House, read from it a short passage to show that he had correctly represented the views of the petitioners—
"We unhesitatingly adopt an ancient sentiment, that an injustice to the meanest citizen is an insult to the whole community. Grant that a woman who trades in her person is the meanest of citizens, yet she does not cease to be a citizen, much less to be a woman. In our belief we are speaking truthfully and soberly in pronouncing the treatment of the women indecent, depraving,

1343
and barbarous. Moreover, the Acts overthrow legal safeguards for all women, as is stated below in detail. To us it seems that the phrase instrumental rape,' applied by a leading physician to that which is by the Acts called medical examination, is strictly correct. The examination is made not because disease exists, nor for the purpose of curing disease, but merely to ascertain whether the woman may be pronounced by the authorities fit for prostitution. The process is used even against wives and against women who recently have been, or are about to be, mothers. Such violation of the person is in our judgment an intrinsic wickedness; and we feel called on to avow this judgment plainly."
In these sentiments he (Mr. M'Laren) entirely concurred. It had been argued by his hon. Friend the Member for the University of Edinburgh that disease had, in some cases, been diminished 50 per cent under the operation of these Acts. Even if this were conceded, in place of being controverted, and even if it could be shown that the diminution was 90 per cent, this would not alter the views expressed by the petitioners, for they did not regard the question as one of sanatory statistics, or of medical knowledge, but of moral justice; and therefore they desired no farther inquiry, and nothing would satisfy them but the entire repeal of these Acts, in which views he most cordially concurred.
MR. NEWDEGATE: Sir, I desire to tender to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. W. Fowler) a very simple piece of advice, and this is, that he should divide the House against the Motion for the adjournment of this debate. It is quite obvious, that if this debate is adjourned and again renewed, that it is very improbable that the hon. Member for the Ayr Burghs (Mr. Craufurd) or any other Member will move that strangers should again be excluded from the House. During the absence of the reporters on this occasion the hon. Member for Cambridge has made a most able speech in moving for leave to introduce his Bill. He was followed by the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Dr. Lyon Playfair) in a speech, of which I will only say that its purport was very materialistic. My right hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) has made a very able speech in the sense of the Member for Cambridge, impugning the highly immoral character and. tendency of this contagious diseases statute. I feel strongly on this subject with the hon. Member for Cambridge and the right hon. Member for Oxford-
1344
shire. In my opinion, the sooner the House gets quit of this nauseous, this noisome piece of legislation, of this aping of foreign police espionage, of this unconstitutional system of foreign police, the better for the country and the better for the reputation of this House. It is obvious that there is an intention to extend the sphere of the operation of this noxious statute beyond the already wide limits of its operation around the garrison towns and camps in which it already prevails. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War has intimated, since the Adjournment was moved, that the Government intend to issue a Commission to inquire into the operation of this statute, while expressing approval of its operation. [Mr. CARDWELL here rose, as though to make some explanation, but sat down again without uttering a word.] If Her Majesty's Government are contented with the operation and effects of the Contagious Diseases Acts and do not intend to extend the sphere of their operation, why, I repeat, do they propose to inquire? No one could doubt, after hearing the speech of the hon. Member for the University of Edinburgh—who appeared armed with privileged statistics unknown to Members in general—that there is an intention to extend the operation of this statute, and of the police system it enacts, to the general population of this country. What did the hon. Member say? He said that the operation of the Acts in and around Windsor had, in his military sense, been so successful that he hoped they would be extended to the metropolis; and, again, he cited what he considers the success of the statute in and around Aldershot (I think), and that, therefore, he desired the extension of the operation of the statutes to Glasgow. There can be no doubt of the intention to extend the operation of this noisome legislation, to which the people object. I advise the hon. Member for Cambridge to divide the House against the adjournment of this debate, as the only means by which he can avoid being taken advantage of. He spoke very ably in moving for leave to bring in his Bill; he spoke in the absence of the reporters; so has my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire. The Government—Her Majesty's Ministers—have not spoken; neither the hon. Member for Cambridge nor the right

1345
hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire can, according to the rules of the House, speak again upon the Main Question. If, therefore, this debate be now adjourned, and when it conies on again the reporters be not excluded, the speeches of Her Majesty's Ministers and of other Members, in defence of this noisome statute and in answer to the Members for Cambridge and Oxfordshire, will be reported, while their able speeches will not be reported; this would be obviously unfair, and tend to the misinformation of the public. It is obvious that this debate ought in fairness to be concluded, as it began, in the absence of the reporters and of other strangers.
Mr. CLAYsaid, that the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) asserted, with truth, that the very numerous petitioners in favour of this Bill asked for a repeal, and not for inquiry; but it did not follow that they would not be, at least, partially satisfied by the latter course. The hon. Member had mentioned a very influential deputation which had waited on the Home Secretary to urge upon him repeal; but the hon. Gentleman was either ignorant of the fact, or had forgotten to mention it, that that deputation expressed satisfaction at hearing the intention of the Government to appoint a Commission. But the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) insisted that it was the intention of the Government to extend the operation of this obnoxious law, and he used this singular argument—"If this is not so, why inquire?" Why inquire In order to enable us to decide whether it is right to support such a Bill as the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. W. Fowler) seeks to introduce to-night. Inquiry was asked for not with the view of ox-tending the operation of the present law, which, in the present state of feeling in the country, would be madness, but in order to know whether it is right to repeal it.
MR. BAINESsaid, that as a member of the deputation which had waited upon the Home Secretary, he could bear witness that the deputation expressed gratitude to his right hon. Friend for having received them with his wonted candour and courtesy, but not for his promise of a Commission. He did not know whether an individual or two might have
1346
spoken in that sense; but, certainly, the deputation in general signified no approbation or acceptance of the proposition, which was quite new to them, and on which they had no authority to speak. He had one remark to make—namely, that he had heard with pleasure that evening from his right hon. Friend that, if a Commission were appointed, it would inquire into the moral bearings of the question, as well as its physical bearings. He was sure that, in the present state of public feeling on the subject, the moral question could not safely be disregarded.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, his object would be to widen the scope of the Commission; and he could assure the hon. Member (Mr. Baines) that the moral aspect of the question should not be lost sight of. And he could further promise that those selected for the Commission should be persons of knowledge and authority, and enjoying the confidence of the community. He must say that he protested against the course taken by the hon. and learned Member for Ayr (Mr. Craufurd)—he thought it was an unhappy course, and that the subject was one from which public advantage would result from its being openly discussed. The public were already distrustful on the subject, and ought to have every opportunity of being re-assured by public discussion.
MR. MUNDELLA: Sir, the Motion for the adjournment of the debate prevents me from submitting to the House my reasons for supporting the Bill of my hon. Friend for the repeal of those Acts. I have arrived at the conviction that they ought to be repealed from different reasons to those already advanced; and I could have wished that a full discussion of this important question had been permitted, and that it should have gone forth to the country through the ordinary channels. This, I regret, has been prevented by the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for the Ayr Burghs. I hoped that one result of this debate would have been a cessation of this agitation, and a stoppage of that stream of offensive literature which has flooded our houses for several months past. This desirable result, however, has been frustrated by the injudicious exclusion of reporters from the House. And the discussion of this disagreeable question, which has

1347
penetrated into the kitchens and factories, will be prolonged, and the agitation intensified, by the conviction on the mind of the country that investigation has been stifled in this House. In our present position those of us who are opposed to these Acts have no alternative but to vote against the Adjournment and accept the Commission offered by the Government. But the House may be assured we have not heard the last of this question. It will meet us in a less decorous form than it has done to-night. These Acts are opposed to the sacred family life which is the glory of this country; and I was prepared to show that in those countries where they had been most stringently enforced, they had most signally failed. At the commencement of this debate, two intelligent foreign merchants of my acquaintance, were under the Gallery. I inquired of them the effects of these Acts on the health and morals of their respective countries. One answered he believed they operated injuriously to both. The other objected. He said—"They are favourable to health, but as for morals—we have none."
Mr. BONHAM-CARTER Mr. BONHAM-CARTER—
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONE SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONE—
MR. GILPIN: Sir, I respectfully protest against the course just taken of advocating the Acts which have been under discussion while speaking on the subject of the adjournment of the debate. I submit that it is quite out of Order. Referring to the subject to which several hon. Members have alluded—the exclusion of the public upon the Motion of the hon. Member for Ayr—I have shown my opinion of that exercise of a questionable privilege by placing in your hands a Notice of Motion restricting such privilege in future to the majority of Members in this House.
MR. W. FOWLER, in reply, said, he objected to the decision of the House being taken upon a side issue. The appointment of a Commission would not remove the difficulty which he felt, which was one of principle.
Question put, "That the Debate be now adjourned"—The House divided: Ayes 229, Noes 88; Majority 141.
Debate adjourned till Tuesday 21st June.

YES.

Acland, T. D.

Enfield, Viscount

Agar-Ellis, hon. L. G. F.

Ennis, J. J.

Amcotts, Colonel W. C.

Eykyn, R.

Amory, J. H.

Feilden, H. M.

Amphlett, R. P.

Finch, G. H.

Anson, hon. A. H. A.

Finnie, W.

Archdall, Captain M.

FitzGerald, right hon. Lord O. A.

Ayrton, rt. hon. A. S.

Bagge, Sir W.

Fitzmaurice, Lord E.

Bailey, Sir J. R.

Fletcher, I.

Baker, R. B. W.

Foljambe, F. J. S.

Ball, J. T.

Forster, rt. hon. W. E.

Barnett, H.

Fortescue, hon. D. F.

Bass, M. T.

Galway, Viscount

Beaumont, Captain F.

Garlies, Lord

Bentall, E. H.

Gladstone, rt. hn. W. E.

Bentinck, G. C.

Gladstone, W. H.

Blennerhassett, Sir R.

Goldney, G.

Bolckow, H. W. F.

Goschen, rt. hon. G. J.

Bonham-Carter, J.

Grant, Col. hon. J.

Bourke, hon. R.

Graves, S. R.

Bouverie, rt. hon. E. P.

Gray, Sir J.

Bowring, E. A.

Greaves, E.

Brassey, T.

Gregory, G. B.

Brewer, Dr.

Greville, hon. Captain

Bruce, Lord C.

Grey, rt. hon. Sir G.

Bruce, right hon. H. A.

Grosvenor, hon. N.

Bruen, H.

Grove, T. F.

Burrell, Sir P.

Gurney, rt. hon. R.

Buxton, C.

Hamilton, Lord G.

Cameron, D.

Hamilton, Marquess of

Campbell, H.

Hanmer, Sir J.

Cardwell, right hon. E.

Hardy, right hon. G.

Carnegie, hon. C.

Hartington, Marquess f

Carter, Mr. Alderman

Hay, Sir J. C. D.

Cave, right hon. S.

Henley, Lord

Cavendish, Lord G.

Herbert, rt. hon. Gen. Sir P.

Cawley, C. E.

Cecil, Lord E. H. B. G.

Hildyard, T. B. T.

Chadwick, D.

Hoare, Sir H. A.

Chambers, M.

Hodgson, W. N.

Childers, rt. hn. H. C. E.

Hornby, E. K.

Cholmeley, Sir M.

Hoskyns, C. Wren-

Clive, Colonel E.

Howard, hon. C. W. G.

Clive, Col. hon. G. W.

Howard, J.

Clowes, S. W.

Hughes, T.

Cogan, rt. hon. W. H. F.

Hunt, right hon. G. W.

Colebrooke, Sir T. E.

Hurst, R. H.

Cowper-Temple, rt. hn W

Kavanagh, A. Mac M.

Craufurd, E. H. J.

Kay-Shuttleworth, U. J.

Crawford, R. W.

Kekewich, S. T.

Crichton, Viscount

Kennaway, J. H.

Cross, R. A.

Kingscote, Colonel

Cubitt, G.

Kinnaird, hon. A. F.

Dalrymple, D.

Kirk, W.

Davenport, W. B.

Knatchbull-Hugessen, E. H.

Dease, E.

Denman, hon. G.

Lea, T.

Dickinson, S. S.

Lefevre, G. J. S.

Dickson, Major A. G.

Lewis, J. D.

Dillwyn, L. L.

Lewis, J. H.

Dowse, R.

Liddell, hon. H. G.

Duff, M. E. G.

Lindsay, hon. Colonel C.

Duff, R. W.

Lindsay, Colonel R. L.

Du Pre, C. G.

Locke, J.

Eaton, H. W.

Lorne, Marquess of

Edwardes, hon. Col. W.

Lowther, J.

Egerton, Capt. hon. F.

Lubbock, Sir J.

Egerton, hon. W.

Lush, Dr.

Elphinstone, Sir J. D. H.

Lyttelton, hon. C. G.

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M'Lagan, P.

Selwin-Ibbetson, Sir H. J

Magniac, C.

Mellor, T. W.

Shaw, W.

Melly, G.

Sherriff, A. C.

Milles, hon. G. W.

Simonds, W. B.

Mills, C. H.

Smith, E.

Monk, C. J.

Stacpoole, W.

Monsell, right hon. W.

Stansfeld, rt. hon. J.

Montgomery, Sir G. G.

Stapleton, J.

Morgan, G. O.

Stone, W. H.

Morrison, W.

Strutt, hon. H.

Mowbray, rt. hon. J. R.

Stuart, Colonel

Murphy, N. D.

Sturt, H. G.

Noel, hon. G. J.

Talbot, C. R. M.

Ogilvy, Sir J.

Talbot, J. G.

Onslow, G.

Talbot, hon. R. A. J.

Otway, A. J.

Taylor, P. A.

Pakington, rt. hn. Sir J.

Tipping, W.

Palk, Sir L.

Tollemache, hon. F. J.

Palmer, J. H.

Tollemache, J.

Palmer, Sir R.

Torrens, W. T. M'C.

Parker, Lieut.-Col. W.

Tracy, hon. C. R. D. Hanbury-

Parry, L. Jones-

Patten, rt. hon. Col. W.

Trelawny, Sir J. S.

Pease, J. W.

Trevelyan, G. O.

Peek, H. W.

Turner, C.

Peel, A. W.

Turner, E.

Philips, R. N.

Vandeleur, Colonel

Phipps, C. P.

Villiers, rt. hon. C. P.

Playfair, L.

Vivian, H. H.

Plimsoll, S.

Vivian, Capt. hon. J. C. W.

Plunket, hon. D. R.

Walker, Major G. G.

Pollard-Urquhart, W.

Waters, G.

Potter, E.

Welby, W. E.

Power, J. T.

Whatman, J.

Price, W. P.

Williams, C. H.

Rathbone, W.

Williams, W.

Rebow, J. G.

Williamson, Sir H.

Ridley, M. W.

Willyams, E. W. B.

Roden, W. S.

Wingfield, Sir C.

Rothschild, N. M. de

Winterbotham, H. S. P.

Russell, A.

Woods, H.

Russell, H.

Wyndham, hon. P.

St. Aubyn, J.

Wynn, Sir W. W.

Samuda, J. D'A.

Young, G.

Samuelson, B.

Sartoris, E. J.

TELLERS.

Sclater-Booth, G.

Adam, W. P.

Scourfield, J. H.

Glyn, hon. G. G.

NOES.

Allen, W. S.

Dixon, G.

Anderson, G.

Downing, M'C.

Arkwright, R.

Duncombe, hon. Col.

Armitstead, G.

Eastwick, E. B.

Aytoun, R. S.

Edwards, H.

Backhouse, E.

Ewing, A. O.

Baines, E.

Ewing, H. E. C.

Brinckman, Captain

Fawcett, H.

Bristowe, S. B.

Fielden, J.

Brown, A. H.

Figgins, J.

Buckley, Sir E.

Forster, C.

Butler-Johnstone, H. A.

Fowler, R. N.

Candlish, J.

Gallwey, Sir W. P.

Cholmoley, Captain

Gilpin, C.

Corbett, Colonel

Goldsmid, Sir F. H.

Cowen, J.

Gore, J. R. O.

Davie, Sir H. R. F.

Gourley, E. T.

Davies, R.

Graham, W.

Davison, J. R.

Greene, E.

Dilke, Sir C. W.

Grieve, J. J.

Dimsdale, R.

Grosvenor, Capt. R. W.

1350

Hadfield, G.

Mundella, A. J.

Hambro, C.

Newdegate, C. N.

Hamilton, Lord C. J.

North, Colonel

Haviland-Burke, E.

Pell, A.

Henley, rt. hon. J. W.

Pim, J.

Henry, J. S.

Potter, T. B.

Herbert, hon. A. E. W.

Reed, C.

Hermon, E.

Richard, H.

Hick, J.

Russell, F. W.

Hill, A. S.

Rylands, P.

Hodgkinson, G.

Seely, C. (Nottingham

Holms, J.

Shaw, R.

Jones, J.

Simon, Mr. Serjeant

Lancaster, J.

Smith, F. C.

Lusk, A.

Smith, R.

M'Arthur, W.

Stevenson, J. C.

M'Clure, T.

Whalley, G. H.

M'Combie, W.

White, J.

M'Laren, D.

Whitwell, J.

Matthews, H.

Whitworth, T.

Miall, E.

Winn, R.

Milbank, F. A.

Miller, J.

TELLERS.

Mitchell, T. A.

Bright, J. (Manchester)

Morgan, hon. Major

Fowler, W.

HORSE RACING.—LEAVE.
Mr. T. HUGHES, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the Laws relating to Horse Racing, said, that since he had placed his Notice of Motion on the subject on the Paper he had received a large number of letters, assuring him that the evils which attended on the sport of horse racing had spread more widely and much more deeply than he had any idea of. One letter which he had received was from a turf agent in times past, who had conducted many large money operations, and who stated that he had witnessed the ruin of hundreds of persons of all classes, and could tell of bankruptcies, robberies, suicides, and other ills, all arising from the habit of betting, as well as the rise to wealth of some of the greatest and most illiterate vagabonds. He had also had many letters, chiefly anonymous, abusing him for taking the step which he was now taking. In one of those letters—he would pass over all the personal abuse with which it opened—it was stated that it was, in fact, difficult for any one to define in what the evils of betting consisted; that in the opinion of the writer they were more imaginary than real, and that they existed in the minds only of prejudiced idiots, as thousands of persons were getting their living by betting. Now, his reason for bringing the subject before the House was precisely this—that thousands of people were getting their living by betting, just as thousands were getting

1351
their living by picking pockets openly. He would refer, in support of the view which he took, to a case which had happened within the last few months. It appeared, from the sporting newspapers, that at a race meeting at Chester—a very important meeting—a gentleman well known on the turf had a horse which was a favourite for an important race. That gentleman, it seemed, on arriving at Chester, communicated with persons interested in racing in the town his intention not to run his horse. When asked why he came to that resolution, he said he had not money enough on the race, that his price was £14,000, and that if he did not get that sum his horse should not run. There was no pretence of sport; but it was simply a case of speculative trading of a mischievous character. Now, that was a case which clearly showed, he thought, that betting was degenerating into a trade, and no one would maintain that it was a useful trade to the country. It was, however, said—"Why not leave the whole matter to the Jockey Club?"—and so far as he was concerned he should be glad to do so, if the Jockey Club of the present day were only like that of our fathers or grandfathers. The Jockey Club of 60 years ago were vigorous rulers of the national sport. They had turned out of their own body the highest Gentleman in the realm, the then Prince of Wales, and prohibited him from running his horses on the turf, on the simple suspicion that he had instructed his jockey not to win a race when he could have won. The jockey, whose name was Chiffney, published a pamphlet, in which he brought forward evidence to show that the accusation was untrue. He had not himself seen this work, which was so rare that a copy of it was, he believed, now worth something like £5. In it, however, Chiffney made a solemn declaration that he had not been instructed not to win, and that he had, in fact, done his best to win. But be that as it might, the Jockey Club, in former times, proceeded on mere primâ facie evidence, while the Jockey Club of our own day had not shown the same power of dealing with such matters. At the commencement of the reign of her present Majesty there were four Acts by which affairs relating to the turf were regulated. There were the Acts of Charles II., and of Anne; and, by the combined operation of those
1352
Acts, any person who lost more than £10 by betting on horse racing was empowered within three months to sue and recover that sum from the person who won it. If, after the expiration of three months, he did not so proceed, power was given to any common informer to proceed against the person who won the bet, and he was entitled to recover three times its amount together with the costs of the action. Besides the two statutes he had mentioned, there were two of the reign of George II. The first of these was the 13 Geo. II., by which it was enacted that no person but the actual owner could run any horse; that no person should run two horses in any race; and that no race should be run for a less stake than £50. Again, there was the 18 Geo. II., which provided that any person who either won or lost a sum of £20, on any one day, in betting should be liable to be sued by any person who might take the matter up, and that five times the amount might be recovered, either from the persons who lost, or those who won. For the alterations made in the law as it stood at the beginning of the present reign the Jockey Club were responsible. The first alteration took place in the third year of her present Majesty. In 1840 the Duke of Richmond of that day brought in a Bill, as the representative of the Jockey Club, to repeal the 13 Geo. II., and that Bill was passed. The result was, that within three years afterwards the whole country was filled with little races. Every second-rate town, where a publican found a spot to set up a racecourse, came to have its races for all sorts of small stakes. That was the commencement of the system which brought racing into the position in which it now stood. The Jockey Club appeared to have soon become alive to the mischief of the change, and in 1843 the Duke of Richmond, again as the representative of the Jockey Club, took very strong measures, for certain persons were ordered out of the racecourse at Goodwood to mark the sense in which the Jockey Club viewed their conduct. In answer to this decided declaration of hostilities, actions, varying from £5,000 to £120,000, were brought against gentlemen of the highest position in the country on account of Bets they had made—one of the Gentlemen, the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Gregory), being at that moment in

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the House. He had no doubt that the result of these actions afforded great relief to the mind of the hon. Gentleman and his fellow-sufferers. The only one really brought to an issue was the one against the late Lord George Bentinck. That action was brought to recover three times the amount of a bet of £3,000 laid by the late Lord George Bentinck, and it would have gone hardly against him had it not been that the late Mr. Gully, then a Member of that House, appeared as a witness, and stated that the bet had been made with him instead of with the person whose name was mentioned in the indictment. Before the other actions could be brought to trial the then House of Commons decided to interfere, and a short Act was passed in 1844, suspending all legal process while inquiry into the matter was made. A Committee of both Houses sat, and the result of their deliberations was the Act of the 8 & 9 Vict., which was the present law for regulating horse racing. By that Act the whole of the statutes on the subject were swept away, a tabula rasa was made, and all the notice that the statute took of the subject was in the provision that money lost in betting on horse racing could not be recovered in a Court of Law. It was stated at that time that the matter would be effectually dealt with if left to the direction of the Jockey Club. The next time that the House legislated on the subject was in 1853, when the Betting House Act was passed, which provided stringent remedies against the system which had sprung from the repeal of the old statutes—namely, the system of betting houses, advertising agents, and cards. The unfortunate omission of Scotland from the operation of that Act, he was happy to hear, was to be rectified in the present Session by a Government measure. No doubt matters improved considerably from 1853 to 1860; but in that year they had again become so bad that Lord Redesdale introduced in the other House the Light Weights Bill, which was to fix the minimum weight to be carried by any horse at seven stone. In opposition to that Bill the late Lord Derby represented, on behalf of the Jockey Club, that that body were prepared to deal with the evil of light weights and handicaps. Upon that representation the Bill was withdrawn. Nothing had been done since that time by the Jockey Club, or by any other racing body in the coun-
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try, nor had any further legislation taken place, and things had now become so bad that he submitted it was high time that the House should do something instead of relying any longer upon the Jockey Club. The House might, perhaps, remember the story of the Kentuckian who, boasting of his strength, offered to bet his walking companion—a small Englishman—that he could throw him over a pretty wide ditch. The Englishman accepted the wager, and the Kentuckian, taking him by the scruff of the neck and the waistband of his trousers, flung him into the middle of the water. Scrambling to the bank the Englishman demanded his 10 dollars, whereupon his companion answered—"No, stranger, I guess not. I did not say I could do it the first time or the second time; but lean do it." And if the House trusted to the Jockey Club to get them over the ditch, they would find, in the same way, that they would only be thrown, over and over again, deeper into the mire. There was no wish on the part of the Club to interfere. The question must be looked at from two points of view, and the first regarded horses. He believed that the very highest evidence had shown that the present system of horse racing must result in the deterioration of our breed of horses. [Mr. OSBORNE: No, no!] He was willing to confess that his hon. Friend behind him who cried "No, no!" was more conversant with the subject than he was [Mr. OSBORNE: Hear, hear!]; but to race horses under two years was simply using beasts before they had arrived, at maturity, and could only be likened to subjecting to competitive examinations and training for boat races boys of seven years of age. He held in his hand a letter signed by two of the highest authorities on this subject—Sir Joseph Hawley and the hon. Member for Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin). In that letter, the Gentlemen to whom he alluded said—
"We do not join in the cry so often raised now about degeneration; as yet we believe that our horses, properly used, have not materially suffered; but we are no less firmly convinced that, deterioration being shown by experience to be as clearly possible as improvement, the running of two-year-olds, and the consequent prevalence of short courses, will as surely effect it as the care and judgment of our ancestors turned the ponies of the last century into racehorses of to-day…The prescience of one whose experience

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has justly placed him at the head of turf authorities (Admiral Rous) long ago recognized the danger of present tendencies, and has more than once denounced the insatiable appetite for early racing as 'a crying iniquity which ought to be forbidden by Parliament.'"
Again, they add—
"Still, when we find that while for 10 years no English-bred aged horse has started for any of the three great cups, yet an enthusiastic supporter of the present system can nevertheless declare 'our four-year-olds to be unexampled specimens of perfection, and Belladrum and Wild Oats the two grandest specimens ever seen by man,' the time for action seems to have arrived."
There could be no doubt, if figures went to prove anything, that the breed of horses was suffering very much from the habit of premature racing. A return from the Racing Calendar showed, during 25 years—from 1843 to 1868—the number of two-year-olds run at races had increased four-fold, while the number of races of a mile and upwards had decreased. Then, again, with regard to betting, could they leave that matter in the hands of the Jockey Club? He was speaking under the correction of hon. Gentlemen; but he believed it to be a fact that the Jockey Club had advisedly declined to accept any jurisdiction in the matter of betting, and the time had come when the House should step in and deal with the subject by definite legislation, if they wished to check demoralization, and to rescue the old popular sport of this country from deterioration and degradation. Therefore, the question was what should the House do. After conferring with the best authorities, he had prepared a Bill, which he now asked the House to read for the first time. The provisions of the Bill were very simple. The principal provision of the Bill was the abolition of two-year-old races. The second was to return to the state of the law as it stood before 1833, when none but three-year-old horses could start for a Queen's Plate. The Queen's Plates were a very old institution, and there were now upwards of 30 of them. This clause, therefore, provided that no hors, eexcept he was four years old, could win a Queen's Plate. There were other matters connected with racing with which he did not feel competent to deal. There was, for instance, the very intricate system of handicapping, which he did not pretend to understand. Authorities differed very widely about it, and many thought that no Bill of this
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nature would be complete which left that question untouched. If, therefore, any hon. Gentleman who understood the matter would prepare a clause on the subject, he should be willing to add it to the Bill. As to "P.P. betting," he did not wish to deal with it in the first instance, his object being that the Bill should stand upon the simplest and broadest grounds. But as he was told that no real reform could be introduced unless that subject was grappled with, he would be ready to accept a clause imposing penalties on "P.P. betting." With respect to betting, Her Majesty's Government had expressed their intention to bring in a Bill to rectify the Act 8 & 9 Vict. c. 53, and to extend its operation to Scotland, and within the last few days they had shown a disposition to carry out the provisions of the present law more stringently. But that law only applied to the owners and occupiers of places where betting was carried on, and therefore he proposed to introduce a clause, providing that any person who took a deposit of money for the purpose of betting, on the understanding that another sum was to be returned in a certain event, should be amenable to the penalties of the Betting Act; or, in other words, should be liable to a fine of £30, one-third to go to the poor of the parish where the offence was committed and two-thirds to the person who should prosecute. By this means not only the owners and occupiers of particular houses or rooms, but all persons who made a trade of betting, and took deposits of money, would be brought under the Betting Act. He had heard the argument that if such a Bill were passed it would affect the amusements of the poor. He did not think there was anything in that argument; for the great beauty of the sport was, that a poor man could enjoy the sight of the horses running quite as much as the rich man who might be the owner of horses. He had explained the provisions of the Bill. The evil was great and pressing, and he hoped the House would give him leave to introduce the measure. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving for leave to bring in the Bill.
SIR HENRY HOARE, in seconding the Motion, said, that he had resided for many years in France and taken some share in the racing there, and he believed the time would come when we should go to that country for an example

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by which to regulate our sports. That House, based as it was upon a large franchise, was bound to deal with that which was injurious to public morality. He regretted that there was no clause in the Bill to meet the evils resulting from "P.P. betting" and handicaping, and he himself, if no other Member should do so, would introduce clauses on the subject. There was scarcely a Member in that House who did not know persons who had been led into immoralities by the present system, and something ought to be done to render racing what it once was—the sport of English gentlemen.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Laws relating to Horse Racing."—(Mr. Hughes.)
SIR HEDWORTH WILLIAMSONdid not offer any opposition to the introduction of the Bill; but he considered that neither the Mover or Seconder knew anything of the subject of which it dealt. The hon. Member (Mr. T. Hughes) had shown himself utterly wanting in the most elementary notions about racing, and the hon. Gentleman who had introduced the subject of the popular franchise knew just as little about it. He reserved any observations he might have to make on the measure for the second reading.
LORD GEORGE MANNERSsaid, he did not intend to offer any opposition to the introduction of the Bill. What he considered the real part of the measure should have his cordial support, and he might say also the cordial support of the body which had hitherto watched over racing in this country. When he said "the real part" of the Bill he meant that portion of it which dealt with the betting that had grown up among us to such an extent of late years. The Jockey Club felt that that was an evil with which they were not competent to deal, and, therefore, they would most cordially welcome the action of that House in correcting so great an evil. But when the hon. Gentleman proposed to legislate on other matters which more nearly affected the details of racing, these were things which he ventured to say the Jockey Club were more competent to deal with. It might not be within the knowledge of all the Members of that House that at this moment
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there was a committee of the Jockey Club appointed to consider these matters, and of that committee the two very high authorities which the hon. Gentleman had quoted—namely, the hon. Member for Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) and Sir Joseph Hawley—were members. That should be some guarantee that the various matters which formed the subject of inquiry would not be lightly passed over. The hon. Gentleman had been somewhat hard upon the members of the Jockey Club for a period of years, and had gone back half-a-century to show how they had deteriorated. The hon. Gentleman was not quite justified in what he had said on that point, inasmuch as there was no evidence to show that, if the same circumstances arose, they would be inclined to deal more leniently than the Jockey Club had done in the case referred to. Such circumstances had not arisen, and lie trusted would not arise; but he had no hesitation in saying that if any member of the Club were proved to be guilty of such practices as were shadowed forth by the hon. Gentleman he would be dealt with in like manner.
MR. M. J. GUESTsaid, he had great pleasure in supporting the Motion of the hon. Gentleman. The only thing he would suggest would be this, that a clause should be introduced in the Bill to suppress Tattersall's; and now that public lotteries were forbidden, it would be a great means to put a stop to betting if the publication of the odds in this kingdom were not allowed.
Mr. HAMBROsaid, he was opposed to the Bill, and he trusted that the House would not consent to its introduction. In almost every club there were Derby lotteries, in which were the names of Members of that House and some of the most distinguished names in the country. Those lotteries had nothing to do with horse racing. They had nothing to do with the evil effects of horse racing. Neither had Tattersall's. He was of opinion that the evils connected with the present condition of the turf had been greatly exaggerated, and that betting, when legitimately conducted, was a very fair business. He did not think the House was called upon to legislate for foolish young men and foolish old men who might choose to throw away their money. He did not know that the breed of horses had deterio-

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rated in consequence of horse racing. Only the other day a horse was sold for £5,000. If the House consented to read the Bill a first time, he hoped its rejection would be moved on a future stage.
Mr. W. H. GREGORYdesired to say a few words on this subject, because it was one on which he had had some experience. He entirely concurred in the judicious observations of the noble Lord the Member for Cambridgeshire (Lord George Manners). The Bill was intended to do away with great abuses. They had the avowal of the two great heads of the Turf on different sides—of Sir Joseph Hawley on the one side, and Admiral Rous on the other, that unlimited betting, and especially list betting, was a very great evil. One of these gentlemen said it was a gangrene in our moral system; the other said its effects were such that one could hardly judge of the amount of evil they produced. The 1st clause of the Bill met the question of very early racing; the next portion of it was to put a stop to three-year-olds running for Queen's Plates. The latter was a matter that fairly came under the consideration of the House, because there was a question of a grant of public money involved in it. The great object of those prizes was, no doubt, to induce persons to keep hardy horses to run at a more advanced age; but the most important portion of the Bill was that aimed at list houses. It was notorious that many men-servants, clerks, and other persons in responsible positions had been ruined by these houses. List betting had nothing whatever to do with good racing. In his opinion it was most injurious to good racing, because it encouraged robbery and rascality. Young men were induced to enter into it by the hope that they might at once become rich. He would not go into the question of the running of two-year-olds. He was not himself opposed to all "two-year-old running;" but when two such authorities as Mr. Chaplin and Sir Joseph Hawley thought it ought to be prohibited, he thought the point was not one which could be discussed at 10 minutes past 12 o'clock. It was one of the gravest possible subjects connected with racing. Certainly it was one on which there was very great difference of opinion. The Jockey Club was now considering it;
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and, therefore, he thought the better course would be to read the Bill a first time to-night, and postpone the second reading till after the Jockey Club had come to a decision.
VISCOUNT ROYSTONcould not help expressing his astonishment that a subject of this kind should have been brought forward in that House. Whatever might be the mischief arising from the wrongdoings of young men or of old men, or however bad the running of young horses or of old horses, he did not think the time had arrived when such subjects should become matters of argument in the House of Commons. The discussion of this question had been raised by letters which had appeared in a portion of the Press; but the matter was of such trivial import that he almost blushed at having to address the House on it. It was true that, at a time when gambling had become a great evil to society, Parliament did direct its attention to the suppression of gaminghouses; but no such necessity for legislation existed in the present instance. He contended that a horse was an animal—an animal like an ox or a cow, which when in the possession of a person became his property. If stakes were to be run for, and a man had a good horse which he thought would win, he ran him for profit. ["No!"] He thought he knew more about the matter than the hon. Gentleman who cried "No!" Men did run horses for profit, and he thought a man was entitled to exercise power over his own animal. Questions like the one raised by the hon. Member for Frome (Mr. T. Hughes), and which affected quadrupeds, were not interesting in a House which met to legislate for bipeds. He believed no gentleman in the House could speak with more touching feeling on this subject than the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. W. H. Gregory). The turf was a sport, and he admitted that anyone who speculated upon it encouraged gambling to a certain extent; for speculation had its losses as well as its gains, and, he believed, that the former much exceeded the latter. He, however, contended that the House had no right to interfere with the public in this matter. ["Oh, oh!"] He did not understand these demonstrations. He had lived—he was not ashamd to own it—with gentlemen, and it was not the habit of gentlemen to receive

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opinions contrary to their own with demonstrations such as these, and which he had heard hon. Members of more experience than himself notice and condemn. He did not mean to oppose the introduction of this Bill. It might do good; he did not think it would do any. The evils of betting in "list-houses" had, he believed, been much exaggerated, yet he admitted that they encouraged men-servants, and even maidservants, to embark in matters with I which they ought not to have anything to do. But there was no more immorality in such transactions on the part of house-maids or kitchen-maids than on the part of hon. Members. If it was wrong for A. to speculate 6d., it was equally wrong for B. to bet £1,000. If the House attempted to legislate on betting, hon. Members would enter upon a difficult subject, and one with which they could not deal effectually, although, if the House would declare that no betting should be permitted in this country he would applaud the resolution, but he defied hon. Members to carry it out. A bet was a contract—it was an obligation, upon honourable people which law could not enforce. The Jockey Club were willing to do all they could to put an end to what were called "turf abuses." He had, however, opposed Sir Joseph; Hawley's propositions, on the ground that betting was a matter not for legislation, but for settlement between man and man. [Laughter.] No doubt many hon. Gentlemen who laughed had had bet now and then; but they had probably never considered that if they made a bet and lost it they would probably have to pay. There was no law or Act of Parliament about it; but there was no question that a man was more fidgety about paying a bet of £10 than a grocer's bill of £5. The House of Commons had never hitherto interfered with questions of public sport. The hon. Gentleman might get excited about the turf—to which he believed he should not attend; and people who wrote for the public Press excited the public mind upon the subject; but he did not believe their legislation would produce any effect. He would not oppose the Motion; but he would oppose the Bill on its second reading, when he would make some comments, and would probably move its rejection.
MR. OSBORNE: Sir, I had hoped
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that a question which has been represented as one not only appertaining to the dignity of this House, but also to the morality of the country would not have been left simply to the advocacy of members of the Jockey Club, of which I believe the noble Lord who spoke last is a distinguished representative. He is, at any rate, an esteemed Friend of mine. I had hoped that some Member of Her Majesty's Government, one or two of whom I see on the Treasury Bench, representing the racing interest as well as that of public morality, would have given us their opinion upon this Bill. Now, Sir, whatever may be the sentiment of this House upon this Bill—and some ridicule has been thrown upon it by the way in which it has been treated—I think it is only duo to this House that some observation should have been made as to the course that Her Majesty's Government intend to pursue with regard to it. I do not feel that anxiety with respect to the female portion of the community that has been manifested by the noble Lord the Member for Cambridgeshire (Viscount Royston). He has made a noble speech, at all events, and has told us about his housemaids and his ladies'-maids. But there is another view to be taken of this subject—is the time of this House to be wasted in discussing questions with which we are totally incompetent to deal? It is said that this Bill contemplates legislating with reference to the racing of two-year-olds. This is a very respectable House of Commons, and the majority of its Members, as far as I can make out, keep gigs; but, as far as legislating upon the racing of this country is concerned, we all are pretty well aware that if we were to pass a Bill to put a stop to two-year-old races, we should simply be wiping out racing altogether. It has been said by the hon. Member before me (Mr. W. H. Gregory)—a retired member of the Jockey Club—that Sir Joseph Hawley and the hon. Member for Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) contemplate abolishing two-year-old races altogether. Now, that is an entire mistake. All that those gentlemen propose is to delay those races. Well, we are asked to give leave for the introduction of this Bill, and the Government sits silent. I do not mean to refer to the Home Secretary, because I do not see him here [A laugh.] Oh, is he there? Well, I did

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not see him. Well, then, I should prefer to leave the legislation upon the subject of this Bill to him. We shall probably give leave to bring in the Bill, and we shall read it a first time out of compliment to the hon. Member who introduces it; but would it not be more sensible of us not to allow him to bring it in? He has got up his speech very carefully as far as the history of racing goes, although, were it not so late an hour, I might be able to point out one or two points in which he was in error; but is it not a work of supererogation for us to read the Bill a first time, in order that it may be printed at the expense of the country, after which we shall hear no more about it? The Jockey Club, in whom I have the greatest confidence, in spite of the speech of the noble Lord (Viscount Royston), held a meeting on Saturday last, and are about to legislate upon this matter. We had better leave the subject in their hands, and if they do not deal with it efficiently it will then be time enough for us to take up the question. The hon. Member (Mr. T. Hughes) has made an excellent speech—he has given us a synopsis of Buff's Guide to the Turf, and he ought to be satisfied with his achievement. I say, therefore, let him withdraw his Bill, which is a sample of amateur legislation, and is full of moral crudities. If no one else does so, I shall move that we do not give the hon. Member leave to introduce the Bill. I should like, however, to hear the opinion of the Government upon the matter.
Mr. BRUCE: In answer to the appeal of the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Osborne), I must say that I do not profess to possess much knowledge upon the subject of this Bill. I think that the hon. Member has given the hon. Gentleman who asks leave to introduce this Bill (Mr. T. Hughes) some excellent advice, although I myself would not be guilty of the discourtesy of moving the rejection of the first reading of the Bill. There is a great deal in what the hon. Member who spoke last has said about leaving the question of two-year-old races in the hands of the Jockey Club. With reference to the betting question, I shall be happy to give every assistance in my power to put down what I believe to be a great source of evil.
SIR LAWRENCE PALK, while acknowledging the right of the House to interfere where gambling became an evil from which society suffered, thought the hon. Member for Frome (Mr. T. Hughes) should be content with the promise of Her Majesty's Government to do their best to put down betting, and with the assurance of the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Osborne) that the question was now before the Jockey Club.
MR. T. HUGHESsaid, he could not consent to withdraw his Bill without some assurance being given by the Home Secretary that the principle of his Bill would be incorporated in the Bill the right hon. Gentleman intended to introduce in the course of the Session. The Jockey Club had had opportunities of legislating; but since 1853 matters had been getting worse rather than better, and they had over and over again pledged themselves in 1860 to do something, but in vain. He was quite ready to accept the proposal of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. W. H. Gregory) to postpone the matter until the Jockey Club had had an opportunity of dealing with it.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes 132; Noes 44: Majority 88.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. HUGHES, Lord ELCHO, Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN, and Sir HENRY HOARE.

HORSE RACING.—LEAVE.

  RAILWAY ACCIDENTS (COMPENSATION).
  Committee nominated as follows:—Mr. MOWBRAY, Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE, Mr. SCLATER-BOOTH, Mr. HEADLAM, Sir HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON, Mr. DAVISON, Mr. LOPES, Mr. SHERRIFF, Mr. JAMES LOWTHER, Mr. CHARLES REED, Mr. PLUNKET, Mr. PRICE, Mr. DALGLISH, Mr. HINDE PALMER, and Mr. DENISON:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.
  House adjourned at Two o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Pier and Harbour Orders Confirmation* (110); Gas and Water Facilities* (111).
Second Reading—Railways (Powers and Construction)* (96); Norwich Voters Disfranchisement (88).
Third Reading—Poor Relief (Metropolis)* (97), and passed.
Withdrawn—Irish Church Act (1869) Amendment (23).

CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ACT—THE PETITIONS.—QUESTION.
The Earl of MINTO presented 30 Petitions, praying for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act.
VISCOUNT LIFFORDsaid, he desired to put a Question, to the noble Earl (the Earl of Minto) in reference to the Petitions he had just presented. Numerous Petitions relative to this subject had been presented to their Lordships, one of which, from Glasgow, presented by the Duke of Argyll, purported to bear 21,000 signatures. Now he (Viscount Lifford) had taken an opportunity of looking at some of those Petitions, and he found that of the signatures appended to them, many were written in the same handwriting. Many of the signatures were apparently those of children, and many were those of women: and when he considered the nature of the subject to which those Petitions referred, he thought it very doubtful whether women were thoroughly instructed as to what they were petitioning against, and he was quite sure that children knew no-tiling at all about it. There had been a great amount of misrepresentation on this subject. He would not enter into the question as to how successful the Contagious Diseases Act had proved in the Army and Navy; but in the printed form from which these Petitions were copied it was alleged—rather illogically—that these Act were immoral because they were successful, and that they were unsuccessful because they were immoral. There were other extraordinary statements in a paper which had been issued by an organization called the Ladies' National Association. It was stated, for instance, that the houses where the women who were subject to the Act congregated had the same protection as was

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afforded to private houses, and even to schools and churches. But that was quite untrue. The common law against houses of that description was in force as heretofore, and it rested with the magistrates to suppress such houses and punish the offenders. It was then stated that the Act deprived these women of every guarantee for personal freedom, which the law had asserted for all, and that it put the reputation and even the person of anyone suspected absolutely in the power of the police. But in this country everybody was to a certain extent in the power of the police. A policeman or anyone else could make any charge against any other person, whether Peer or peasant, but he would make the charge at his peril. Since this Act had been passed there had been only one case in which a respectable woman had been brought under its operation, and in that case there were certain extraordinary circumstances which led to the arrest. The Act was so guarded in that respect that any woman who gave security that she would give up her unfortunate avocation, or leave the district, was immediately released from surveillance. The third statement was even more extraordinary than the others. It described the Act as cruel to women, as violating the feelings of those whose sense of shame was not wholly lost, and as further brutalizing those who were already very much degraded. Those of their Lordships who had read the evidence of the Select Committee would know how entirely untrue that was, and to how great an extent the Act had exercised a reforming influence. At Devonport, for example, the number of prostitutes had diminished from 2,000 to 770, and at Plymouth 40 per cent had been reformed. One of the chaplains, moreover, had testified to the striking improvement in the behaviour of the women after being for a short time under his charge. The kindness they received, the time given them for reflection, and. the attention bestowed on them by the chaplains in the hospitals to which they were consigned, had exercised a most salutary effect. Ladies were, nevertheless, found to organize an opposition to a measure which was thus benefiting the most unfortunate of the sex, as well as conferring great advantage on the Army and Navy. The Act was, in point of fact, a law to prevent murder—to
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prevent the murder of the unfortunate children who died through the most horrible malady every week, and to prevent the murder of those who died later in life from a thousand other diseases all springing from that one. He wished to ask his noble Friend, Whether, in the Petitions he had presented, there were I not the names of persons who were I utterly incapable of forming a judgment on the matter, including the names of I children who were so young as to be unable to write at all, their names being subscribed to a mark under those of other members of their families?
THE EARL OF MINTOreplied that he had little information about the Petitions. He had simply discharged his duty in presenting the Petitions. As far as he knew, judging from the names of well-known persons who headed the list, he believed the Petitions to be of a bonâ fide character. Many of the signatures might be in the same handwriting; but he had heard no complaint of their being appended without authority. He did not know whether the head of a family might not in some cases have signed for all of her children. He did not say that he had made up his mind on the subject; but he was informed by persons in whom he had the greatest confidence that considerable feeling against the Act existed.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLL, in presenting some further Petitions against the Act from Belfast, said he could not express an opinion as to the nature of the signatures to the various Petitions he had presented; but he agreed with the noble Earl that there was a considerable degree of feeling on the subject in the country. He had no reason to believe that the signatures to the Petitions he had presented were otherwise than genuine.

NORWICH VOTERS DISFRANCHISEMENT BILL.—(No. 88.)
(The Lord Chancellor.)
NORWICH VOTERS DISFRANCHISEMENT BILL.—(No. 88.)

  SECOND READING. PETITION OF A. BIGNOLD.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  LORD CAIRNS presented a Petition from Arthur Bignold, praying that his name may be omitted from the list of scheduled voters, and gave Notice that when they got into Committee upon the measure he should call attention to the

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  facts of Mr. Bignold's case, and propose a clause on the subject. Mr. Bignold stated that he was not, and never had been, a voter for the city of Norwich; but his name was included in the Schedule, and that he would then be prevented from, ever becoming a voter for the city. Mr. Bignold admitted that he was engaged in the transaction mentioned in the Report of the Commissioners, and which led to his name being put in the Schedule, together with those of Mr. Stracey and Mr. Allen. But when it became the duty of the Attorney General to institute prosecutions there was no evidence sufficient to proceed upon against Mr. Bignold. There was evidence against Mr. Stracey; he was put upon his trial and acquitted. In consequence of the acquittal a clause had been introduced into the Bill exempting Mr. Stracey from its operation; and Mr. Bignold felt that it was hard that Mr. Stracey, against whom there was a certain amount of evidence, should be exempted from the operation of the Bill, whereas, his (Mr. Bignold's) name was retained in the Schedule.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, the facts on which the Bill was founded were simply these—In February, 1869, Mr. Baron Martin, after trying an Election Petition, reported pursuant to the Act, that bribery had extensively prevailed among certain persons at the Norwich election, though he acquitted the candidates of all complicity in it. A Commission was subsequently issued, which reported, last February, and they added to the Report a Schedule of three distinct classes of offenders—46 persons were reported as bribers, 119 as bribed, and 50 as guilty of treating. The Bill provided that these persons should not hereafter have a right to vote at any future election for Norwich; but a second clause enacted that any person against whom criminal proceedings had been instituted by the Attorney General should not be so disqualified, unless and until he were adjudged guilty. He would not, at present, enter into the question raised by his noble and learned Friend.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Tuesday next.

IRISH CHURCH ACT (1869) AMENDMENT BILL. (No. 23.)
(The Lord Redesdale).
IRISH CHURCH ACT (1869) AMENDMENT BILL. (No. 23.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  LORD REDESDALE, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that this measure had been some time before their Lordships, and that, being simple, reasonable, and just, he could see no possible objection to it. Under the Act of last Session the Irish Church continued an Establishment until the 1st of January next, and it was provided that the proceeds of any preferment which might in the interim become vacant should be left in the hands of the Commissioners, and that those proceeds should be paid up to that date to any person who might be appointed to such benefice. No provision, however, was made for the case of a vacancy which might not be filled up, and the proceeds of such a preferment would, therefore, remain in the hands of the Commissioners, and swell the General Fund. Now, the provision securing payment of the income to any person appointed before disestablishment was a manifest admission that the income during that period belonged to the Church; and it was only just that if a benefice was kept open it should be paid to the Church Body, constituted for the purpose of taking charge of the temporalities of the Church. To correct this no doubt unintentional oversight was the object of his Bill, and the correction to be of any good must be made this year. It did not disturb the principle of the Act; and the Church Convention, while declining to recommend the proceeding with other suggested amendments of the Act, deeming it expedient to moot the subject of a general Amending Bill, had resolved that it would be for the benefit of the Church if this measure were carried.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a"—(The Lord Redesdale.)
  EARL GRANVILLEhoped the noble Lord would not press his Motion. It was somewhat difficult, even in answering the noble Lord to avoid saying things which, in all probability, would provoke the expression of a different opinion from other quarters. It was most un-

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  desirable, unless urgent necessity existed, to enter on the delicate questions connected with, the Irish Church. Considering how infinitesimal the advantage to the Church would be from this proposal, he was sure their Lordships would not think it desirable to send it down to the House of Commons with the chance of exciting all kinds of angry feeling. The patrons had power to fill up vacancies if they thought proper, and in a matter of a very few hundred pounds it was unadvisable to re-open the question. If some great flaw or serious hardship had existed the Government would have fairly considered it.
  THE EARL OF LONGFORDsaid, the speech of the noble Earl reminded him of the virtuous indignation of the man who cut off his eldest son with 1s. and desired that his name should never be mentioned to him again. He would rather the noble Lord had introduced a Bill for the entire repeal of the Act which unfortunately passed last year; but he was willing to support this measure, such as it was, having been a member of the Convention which approved it.
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, he was not disposed to withdraw the Bill, for he thought it was important to show who were prepared to deal fairly with the Irish Church and who were not. No doubt it was a small matter; but with regard to the endowments of the Church very small matters were of great importance. Where any living fell vacant before 1871 the gain from commutation was lost, and therefore the only way of commencing an endowment was that the income should go to the Church.
  LORD CAIRNSsaid, he would be glad to support anything which would add to the resources of a Church which would not be very largely endowed; but he could not quite understand what the practical evil was which called for this Bill. He was not aware that any vacancy had occurred which had not been filled up—so that the matter was one affecting less than eight months. A bishopric had become vacant and had been filled up; and if a person were appointed to any vacant preferment he would be paid by the Commissioners. He agreed with the noble Earl opposite (Earl Granville) that unless some crying evil could be shown, it was undesirable to re-open the question in order to pro-
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  vide for a contingency which, after all, might not occur. The arrangement, moreover, was not that Parliament set aside these particular benefices and left them untouched till the 1st of January; but that as soon as any vacancy arose the income merged into the general fund, the Commissioners being directed to provide adequate payment for any person appointed to fill it up to that date. The intention evidently was that vacancies should be filled up. He hoped his noble Friend (Lord Redesdale) would not call on the House to divide on such a question, for votes might be greatly misunderstood, and those unable to support the Bill might be unfairly represented as hostile to the Church.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORremarked that the provision as to paying incumbents up to the 1st of January was inserted with a view to respecting vested interests, even down to the last moment. Compensation was fully intended; but there was a strong feeling among many supporters of the Bill against anything in the shape of future endowment. In endeavouring to convert compensation into endowment the noble Lord would be departing from the principle of the Act.
  LORD REDESDALEinsisted that he was not disturbing the principle of the Act. It would, of course, be useless for him to divide if he had not the support of noble Lords behind him; but he regretted the reception the Bill had met with.
  Motion and Bill (by Leave of the House) withdrawn.

APPOINTMENT OF LANCASHIRE MAGISTRATES.—QUESTION.
THE EARL OF DEVONasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Whether any change has recently taken place in the mode of appointment to the Commission of the Peace in the County of Lancaster; and, if so, the nature of such change? He understood that an alteration had been made, by which, in future, appointments to the Commission of the Peace would emanate, as in other counties, from the Lord Lieutenant, instead of, as hitherto, from the Chancellor of the Duchy. He hoped that such a change had been made, for the Lord Lieutenant was the best judge of the qualifications of persons for the magis-

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tracy, while the Chancellor frequently possessed no local knowledge.
LORD DUFFERINstated that from the 1st of May the appointments had been, and would continue to be, made by the Chancellor of the Duchy on the nomination of the Lord Lieutenant, instead of directly by the Chancellor. This was but reverting to the old practice; which, he believed, was altered on account of some misunderstanding between the Lord Lieutenant and Chancellor of the day. He was glad the measure had the approval of the noble Earl, whose experience of the Duchy rendered his opinion of double value. The Lord Lieutenant did not change with every change of Government; he was superior to party influences, and, from his local knowledge, was a much better judge than the Chancellor as to what persons were qualified for the Commission of the Peace.
House adjourned at a quarter before Six o'clock, to Friday next, half past Ten o'clock.