Sitting of 21 February 1871

MINUTES.
NEW WRIT ISSUED—For Staleybridge, v. James Sidebottom, esquire, deceased.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Pawnbrokers, appointed and nominated; Public Accounts, nominated; Law of Rating (Ireland), appointed.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—Game Laws Abolition*.
Ordered—First Reading—Trial by Jury (Ireland)* [47]; Sale of Liquor on Sunday* [48]; Infant Life Protection* [49]; Bank Holidays* [50].

ANGLO-AMERICAN COMMISSION.

  QUESTION.
  MR. RATHBONEasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether the Anglo - American Commissioners have Instructions to discuss with the American Government the advisability of England and America, as the two great Maritime Powers, co-operating to effect such changes in Maritime International Law as may minimize the risk of collision between neutrals and belligerents?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, if this were a question relating exclusively to the Instructions of the Commissioners, and the subject were one that had never been opened before, I think I should ask my hon. Friend to excuse me from answering him, because I do not think it desirable that the topics of their Instructions should be brought out one by one before the public of this country. Whatever is done in that respect had better be done deliberately and of set purpose, and with the consent of the two countries by an understanding together. But, in truth, this was a subject that was mooted very long before the Commission sat, and that has been discussed between the Representatives of both countries at various periods during the last two years — indeed, during a considerable number of years, and ever since a certain stage of the great Civil War in America. And I may say to my hon. Friend that I shall be very much disappointed, as well as very much surprised, if any settlement that may be come to by the two countries does not include the consideration of those improvements which it may be found practicable to introduce into maritime international law.
  Afterwards—
  MR. MUNTZasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If Sir John Rose, who was reported to have been one of Her Majesty's Commissioners appointed to adjust all claims between Great Britain and the United States of America has resigned or been recalled; and, if so, why?
  VISCOUNT ENFIELD, in reply, said, it was the intention and wish of the Government that Sir John Rose should be one of the Commissioners; but for reasons, he believed, of an entirely private and personal nature, Sir John Rose felt himself unable to accept that position.

IRELAND—TRAMWAYS.—QUESTION.
MR. SYNANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If he intends bringing in a Bill this Session to amend the Irish Tramway Acts, or a Bill to extend to Ireland the Tramway Act of last Session, with the necessary modifications?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, in reply, that he thought there had not yet been sufficient time to test the working of the English Tramway Act passed last Session, and he did not propose to introduce any measure of that kind for Ireland this Session.

RATING OF MINES.—QUESTION.
MR. PERCY WYNDHAMasked the President of the Poor Law Board, Whether Mines would be made liable to the Poor or other Local Rates by the Government measure dealing with Rates?
MR. GOSCHEN, in reply, said, he hoped the hon. Gentleman would not think him wanting in courtesy if he asked him to allow him to defer answering that Question at present. The Government were anxious to submit their proposals on local rating as a whole to the House, and he hoped he should not be pressed to anticipate any part of his general statement.

ARMY—WAGES OF SOLDIERS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. DICKINSONasked the Secretary of State for War, What is the estimated equivalent weekly wage of a private soldier in the Royal Horse Artillery, the Life and Horse Guards, the Cavalry of the Line, the Royal Engineers,
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  the Foot Guards, and the Infantry, including provisions, clothing, &c.?
  MR. CARDWELLsaid, in reply, that a detailed statement in answer to his hon. Friend's Question was in preparation, and if he would be so good as to move for it it would be laid on the Table.

PRISON LABOUR.—QUESTION.
COLONEL BERESFORDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he intends to take any steps to mitigate the distress existing among the mat makers by reason of the employment of steam power in Wakefield Prison in such manufacture?
MR. BRUCEsaid, in reply, that he had no power to take any such steps as were indicated in the Question; but he presumed the object of the hon. and gallant Member was to obtain the opinion of the Government as to whether it was advisable to continue the use of steam power for that purpose in Wakefield Prison. The subject of prison labour was one not only of great interest, but great difficulty, and now excited much difference of opinion not in this country only, but in the United States of America. It was urged by some that prisoners ought not to be employed on work that came into competition with free labour. Now, the prison regulations were these—If a prisoner was sentenced to three months' imprisonment the hard labour he underwent was generally of an unremunerative kind, being confined to the treadwheel, shot drill, and the like; but if his term of punishment exceeded three months, the remainder over that period of it might be, and usually was, spent on remunerative labour, for the double purpose of relieving the rates and of accustoming the prisoner to employment by which he might when released obtain an honest living. Both of those objects were in themselves good, and unless all remunerative labour in goals were absolutely prohibited, he did not see how they could deal with the matter in the manner suggested by the hon. and gallant Gentleman. Whatever labour of a remunerative kind was performed in prisons must necessarily come into competition with free labour. It was said there were special reasons why these prisoners should not be employed in making mats, because the mat trade was now much depressed and the workpeople

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engaged in it were in great distress. The answer to that, however, was that the justices of Wakefield asserted that they could not supply the mats as fast as they were asked for, showing that there was considerable activity in the trade. He was not prepared to bring in a Bill on the part of the Government to provide that prisoners in gaols should not be employed in remunerative labour. But the subject was surrounded with difficulty, and if the hon. and gallant Gentleman desired to bring it under the notice of Parliament it would doubtless receive full and fair consideration.

SCOTLAND—GAME LAWS.—QUESTION.
MR. FORDYCEasked the Lord Advocate, If it is the intention of Government to propose any measure on the subject of the Game Laws in Scotland during the present Session?
THE LORD ADVOCATEreplied, that he was not enabled to speak with greater certainty than this—that his own views on that subject were unchanged, and that he should be glad to introduce a measure on it if, looking at the state of Public Business, there was any fair chance of carrying it this Session.

FRANCE AND GERMANY — THE SIEGE OF PARIS—ABSENCE OF THE ENGLISH CONSUL.—QUESTION.
SIR ROBERT PEELasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, in consequence of the statement made by him "that Lord Lyons, in leaving Paris on the 17th September, acted under the direct injunctions of the Government at home," and as the Despatch containing these injunctions does not appear in the Blue Book which has been laid before Parliament, the Government have any objection to lay upon the Table of the House the Despatch of Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to Lord Lyons containing these injunctions to quit Paris?
MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I rather think my right hon. Friend has put on my words a construction somewhat broader than they would naturally appear to carry, if he supposes that we had indicated to Lord Lyons the day on which he was to quit Paris. My intention was to convey to the House that Lord Lyons had acted principally on his
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own responsibility, but that we were strictly and entirely responsible for what he had done, and that we had supplied him with the rules and the considerations which were to govern him as to remaining in Paris. A reference to those rules is to be found in the Blue Book that has been laid on the Table, in Despatch No. 86, as well as in subsequent Despatches, Nos. 112, 113, and 150. In the first despatch I have mentioned — namely, No. 86, to be found, I think, at page 52, the instruction is given to Lord Lyons as follows:—
"Lord Granville approves of his having hesitated to leave Paris, as he stated in his despatch of the 7th of September, under the circumstances which then existed, and he instructs him in the name of Her Majesty's Government, to concert as much as possible with his Colleagues, but also to remain in Paris as long as possible with the French Government, except in the case of an immediate bombardment."
The case of an immediate bombardment did not arise, but Lord Lyons did concert with his Colleagues and with the French Government. His Colleagues, or the Representatives of the chief States of Europe, left Paris as he did, I think much about the same time. He was in full communication with M. Jules Favre, and I think he left Paris entirely in accordance with the consent of M. Jules Favre himself; and when he found that there would be a centre of communication with the French Government out of Paris he judged rightly in acting on the instructions of Lord Granville, that he had better repair thither, and there act on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, rather than remain in Paris subject to all the difficulties which an investment by a hostile army would cause. I do not know that I need enter into further detail; but if there be any other explanation that I can give the right hon. Baronet I shall be glad to do so.
SIR ROBERT PEEL: In consequence of the answer of the right hon. Gentleman, I shall bring before the House on an early opportunity the question of Lord Lyons leaving Paris.

METROPOLIS—CAB FARES.

  QUESTION.
  MR. BOWRINGasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the recent conflicting decisions given by various Police Magistrates as to the

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  present cab fares in the metropolis; and, whether he has considered the propriety of taking steps to remedy the inconvenience and uncertainty thus caused?
  MR. BRUCE: Sir, the regulations with respect to the Question of the hon. Gentleman are certainly in accordance with the intention of the Act 31 Vict., which provides that whenever the fare now payable by law in the case of any hackney carriage on a stand shall not amount to the sum of 1s. the driver shall be entitled to charge 1s. It certainly was the intention of the promoters of the Act, and of those who framed the regulations, that where a third person was carried an additional 6d. should be paid for any distance short of a mile. An amended, regulation removing the doubt as to the interpretation of the clause, and in accordance with this view, will shortly be issued.

IRELAND—QUALIFICATION FOR HIGH SHERIFFS.—QUESTION.
MR. MONKasked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, Whether any, and, if so, what qualification is required for the office of High Sheriff of an Irish County; and, whether he is of opinion that a gentleman possessing neither lands nor residence in Ireland is legally qualified and liable to serve that office?
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. DOWSE)said, in reply, if the hon. Member's Question had related to a mere abstract point of law, he should have been indisposed to enter upon it; but if it related, as he assumed it did, to the recent appointment of the High Sheriffs of Westmeath and Louth, he was in a position to state that the High Sheriffs of those counties had been selected by the Lord Lieutenant in the usual way from the list sent in to him by the Judges. He must assume that the Judges had done their duty, and had returned the names of gentlemen duly qualified and liable to serve as high sheriffs. Under these circumstances, he trusted the hon. Member would think that he was not justified in proceeding further in the matter.
MR. MONKsaid, in consequence of the hon. and learned Gentleman's Answer, he should proceed with the Motion of which he had given Notice for that evening.

RELIGIOUS RESTRICTIONS ON JEWISH LABOUR.—QUESTION.
MR. JACOB BRIGHTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the fact that several poor Jews have recently been subjected to heavy fines by Manchester magistrates, under the provisions of the Workshops' Regulation Act, for working on Sundays; and, whether it is his intention during this Session of Parliament to amend the Act so as to remove this injustice?
MR. BRUCEsaid, in reply, that his attention had not been specially called to the cases referred to; but he was aware that persons of the Jewish persuasion were subjected to hardships under the present law. Those hardships, however, arose, not so much from the operation of the Workshops' Regulation Act as from that of the general law of the country, which prohibited work being done upon the Christian Sunday. The Jews, by their own religion, were prevented from working on the Saturday, and thus their power of labour was limited to five days in the week. The subject had been considered by the Committee, which had sat upon the Workshops' Regulation Act, and everything had been done, without actually violating the law of the land, to relieve the grievances of the Jews upon this subject. He understood that it was the intention of the hon. Member for Greenwich (Sir David Salomons) to challenge the opinion of the House upon the matter.

PATRONAGE OF THE POST OFFICE.

  QUESTION.
  MR. HANBURY-TRACYasked the Postmaster General, Whether, in reference to the statement made by the Secretary of State for War that the patronage of the Post Office, as far as practicable, would be used for the purpose of giving employment to Pensioners and persons connected with the Army Reserve, it is the intention of the Government to extend that privilege, in a fair proportion, to persons in a similar position belonging to the Navy?
  MR. MONSELLsaid, in reply, that the plan for the employment of persons connected with the Army Reserve had been under consideration, but had not yet been matured; and, therefore, he

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  could not give a definite Answer to the Question. He had consulted with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War, who agreed with him that if there were any persons in the Navy holding analogous positions to those in the Army Reserve, it would be quite fair that every advantage offered to the latter should be offered to them also.

GRIEVANCES OF CUSTOM HOUSE OFFICERS.—QUESTION.
MR. GRAVESasked the Secretary to the Treasury, If the Committee appointed in 1869 to investigate certain complaints of the Officers of Her Majesty's Customs in London has completed the inquiry; and, if so, whether it is intended to submit the Report to the House; and, if the inquiry will be extended to the investigation of complaints submitted to the Treasury by the Officers of Her Majesty's Customs at Liverpool and other principal out-ports?
MR. STANSFELD, in reply, said, the inquiry to which the hon. Member's Question referred had, as he thought he was aware, resolved itself in the main into a question of the organization and the working of the Account and Statistical branches of the Customs in London. That inquiry was now complete, and the Papers would shortly be laid before the House. He hoped the result of the inquiry would be satisfactory in point of simplification and of the reduction of labour and of expense. With regard to the second part of the Question, the Board of Customs had given instructions to the large out-ports to deal with the subject in the same manner as it was dealt with in the port of London.

ELECTIONS BILL.—QUESTION.
MR. DISRAELI: Sir, I wish to ask a Question with reference to the Elections Bill, which has been set down for the second reading on Monday next. It is not yet in the hands of hon. Members, and it would be convenient that they should have further time to consider its details. There is a great deal of other business on the Paper for Monday, and therefore I hope Her Majesty's Government will not proceed with the second reading of the measure on that day?
MR. W. E. FORSTER: The Elections Bill will be delivered to-morrow. And I should hope, under those circumstances,
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that the House will not object to proceed with the second reading of the measure on the day already fixed for taking it.
Moved, "That the House, at rising, do adjourn till To-morrow at Two o'clock.—(Mr. Gladstone.)
Motion agreed to.

ARMY ADMINISTRATION.

  RESOLUTION.
  MR. TREVELYAN, who had given Notice of his intention to move the following Resolutions:—

  "1. That, in the opinion of this House, no scheme for Military reorganization can be regarded as complete which does not alter the tenure of the Command in Chief in such a manner as to enable the Secretary of State for War to avail himself freely of the best administrative talent and the most recent military experience from time to time existing in the British Army:

  "2. That the consideration of the cost involved in the abolition of the Purchase system urgently calls for the immediate removal of obsolete and antiquated sources of military expenditure,"

  said, the House would probably be at no loss to understand why the first of the original Resolutions he had intended to move was withdrawn; but he might remark, before proceeding to refer to the remaining ones, that the reason the former Resolution was withdrawn, consisted in the fact that the announcement made by the Secretary of State for War on Thursday night, that the system of purchase in the Army was to be abolished, had given great and unalloyed satisfaction to Army Reformers. ["No, no!"] He believed that to be the case, and also that the satisfaction was not confined to the mere followers of the Government, because he knew that several hon. Members opposite had approved the scheme of the Secretary of State for War, and that many military men who had formerly opposed the abolition of purchase, but who preferred to yield the point rather than subject the service to the disadvantage of the method of officering the Army becoming the subject of continual and acrimonious discussion, thought that if the non-purchase system was to be adopted the Government scheme was satisfactory, it being just to the individual, thorough in its scope, and economical to the public. He congratulated the Government upon having acknowledged the principle that officers were to be compensated not only for the sums they had actually paid out of

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  pocket, but for amounts to which they would have been entitled had the purchase system continued in force, with the exception, of course, of what might be termed "fancy prices." The principle of compensation propounded by the Government was the right one, because it placed the Government in the position towards the officer which would have been occupied by his brother officer had things continued as they were at present. No doubt a great expense would be involved; but he regarded it as a good omen that, when the expenditure was mentioned, the cheers indicating the feeling that the sum was large came from the Opposition Benches, the occupants of which never grudged money when the national honour was concerned, while those hon. Members who were generally supposed to be rather scrupulous guardians of the public purse remained in silent acquiescence. As was inevitable, a proposed change of this kind had created a certain amount of discontent, because it had injured certain interests and rudely shaken some old cherished beliefs. For this reason, he and those Army Reformers who acted with him would always look back with great pleasure upon the fact that by taking the present step they had relieved Her Majesty's Government of some share of the unpopularity attaching to the question. Before leaving this branch of the subject he wished to make a personal statement, and he hoped it would be received in the spirit in which it was offered. What he wished to say was that the peculiarity of purchase was such that those who objected to the educational and moral effect of the Army system of promotion and first appointments were obliged, in expressing their views, to say things annoying to officers who held their commissions under that system. During recent discussions he had no notion that there was any chance of purchase being abolished, and therefore in speaking of it he adopted the tone which men used in speaking of a position they believed to be impregnable; while if he had believed purchase was about to be abolished he should have adopted a different tone. With regard to the second Resolution, he had been told by a great many hon. Members that, having got to a part of what he wanted, and a most valuable part too, it was time to withdraw the rest, as he must not be exacting and impracticable.
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  In his opinion, however, a man need not have been many years in that House to know what was the precise point at which it was best to his individual interest to withdraw from a question in which he had gained a certain amount of success. But, in his opinion, and in the opinion of many others who had advocated the question in the country, he had no right to arrange away the object of a Motion on which he had been engaged with any considerable success. The cause was not theirs to bargain with or compromise; and although he adopted with unfeigned gratitude the concessions which had been made as generous and real, still as regarded what had not been conceded he felt bound to submit the issue to Parliament. This was the course he intended to pursue. He had no doubt he should be beaten. Four years ago he and those who thought with him were well beaten on the purchase system. Three years ago they brought forward exactly the scheme the Government was now proposing, except that Government had made certain alterations which he fully acknowledged to be ameliorations on his scheme. He should, therefore, state his case to the House in the firm belief that it would not require many more annual Tuesdays before the present exceptional tenure of the office of Commander-in-Chief should have gone where the purchase system had gone before.
  The Secretary of State had made several excellent and sweeping changes in relation to the War Office and Horse Guards, particularly as regarded the number of letters which had passed between the Departments; whereas nothing should have passed except Minutes. He strongly recommended hon. Gentlemen to read the evidence of Mr. Godley, the late Deputy Assistant Secretary for the War Office, before the Army Organization Committee of 1861, in reference to this subject. Mr. Godley there said that the feeling of the Army towards the War Office was quite different from that of the Navy towards the Admiralty, the former regarding with jealousy the civil departments which checked and controlled the heads of the Army. Now, how did the Secretary of State for War propose to remedy this? The first step was to alter the wording of the patent by which the Commander-in-Chief was appointed. The right hon. Gentleman soon found that this alteration

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  was not sufficient, and Lord Northbrook, Sir Edward Lugard, and Sir William Anderson concurred in that view. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War then proposed to amalgamate the two Departments by a change of locality. But this would not, in his (Mr. Trevelyan's) opinion, be sufficient. It was not by an alteration of the arrangement of any rooms and passages in a public Office that he could alter the relations between a Parliamentary temporary officer and a permanent public servant of the highest rank, who had held office for 14 years under a system of administration and in a position entirely different from that which now existed. If the Secretary of State were to sit at his desk at one end of the room, and the Commander-in-Chief at his desk at the other, the present relations would still exist so long as the military adviser of the Secretary of State was a permanent officer with the rank and title of Commander-in-Chief. It was idle to say that the the office was not permanent because it was held only during the pleasure of the Crown. In such a state of things the Commander-in-Chief could not be removed from his office without some stigma being inflicted, which no Government had a right to inflict, especially on an officer who had always done his very best — as the present Commander-in-Chief had done—to the Army and his country. So long as the Commander-in-Chief was a permanent officer, taking precedence in men's minds of every officer in the Army, the post must, of necessity, be conferred on a Royal personage, or upon a general of great age and classic reputation. In the great majority of cases the Commander-in-Chief would be drawn from the second of the two classes he had mentioned, and in that case he must almost necessarily be a man who had lived so long as to be past his work, with the further disadvantage that, once appointed, he could not be removed, although the older he grew the less efficient would he become. How could a Secretary of State—a young man perhaps, go to an officer, who at the period of the Secretary's birth was engaged in fighting and beating the French, the Affghans, or the Sikhs, and tell him that he was behind his time, and must give place to a younger man. And war having become more of an art, it was every year more necessary that there should be a rapid
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  succession of new ideas at head quarters, instead of a series of men who would stick to the experience of their youth until that experience had become obsolete. In addition to this consideration, it would, in his opinion, be a great advantage if the position of Commander-in-Chief could be offered as a reward to a great number of the ablest soldiers in succession, in which case officers would be stimulated to greater exertion by the prospect. Who had been the Commanders-in-Chief of the British Army within a recent period? First, he would mention Lord Amherst; then the Duke of York, who filled the office from 1794 to 1809; next Sir David Dundas, who merely occupied the place as a sort of warming-pan during the two years in which Lord Palmerston vindicated in his person the position of Secretary of State for War; and he, in turn, was followed by the Duke of York in 1811, after whom came Lord Hill, who filled the office for 14 years, and was succeeded by the Duke of Wellington. Hon. Gentlemen opposite would perhaps not care to hear anything that he might say of the Duke of Wellington. But what was said by Lord Grey, who was better acquainted with military affairs than any other civilian? Lord Grey stated that the Duke showed an indisposition to any change of system in the Army; that he objected, in the strongest manner, to giving up the old musket for the new rifle; and that he pertinaciously opposed any alleviation in the extreme severity of corporal punishment then in vogue, and the exemption of well-conducted men from that punishment. Now if the Duke of Wellington had been Commander-in-Chief only for a few years immediately after the Peninsular War, the country would have had the greatest administrator in the world filling that office; but as it was, the Duke remained at his post till he did more harm than good, because he was opposed to changes in the material of war essential to the defence of the country. This, however, must be said for him, that though he left the country undefended he was always a great economist, and though he left the country undefended it was undefended at a very little cost indeed. Lord Hardinge next filled the office, from 1852 to 1856, and of all Commanders-in-Chief he did most good; but, unfortunately, he died before he had filled the office four years. The reason why his career was looked upon

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  as a bright spot in the history of the Horse Guards was that nature did for him what the Army Reformers proposed to do for the Army by this five years' appointment. Suppose that, instead of a succession of old officers, they had had a succession of comparatively young men, ranging from 45 to 60, would the Army now be in the state in which the Secretary for War found it? He saw a noble Lord opposite (Lord E. Cecil) with whom he had not often agreed during the course of the last autumn, though he was quite sure they were still on very pleasant terms, and that noble Lord proposed, in a letter to The Times, that a colonel and major should hold an appointment for three or five years. Well, if it was important that the man at the head of a regiment should hold a limited appointment, he thought it was more important that the officer at the head of the Army should hold a limited appointment. In India the Commander-in-Chief, whose business was administration, held a five years' appointment, and the Military Secretary, whose business was promotion, held a five years' appointment. Why, then, should the Commander-in-Chief, who united in his own person the administration and promotion, have a permanent tenure? Another method of dealing with this question was to give the work of the bureau to a man of humbler title than that of the Commander-in-Chief. He might be called chief of the Staff, military secretary, or adjutant general, still having the command-in-chief at the head of the whole Army. If we looked at the example of Prussia, it was most important that the head of the whole Army should be relieved from all paper work, and that he should spend his days in going about from district to district, and seeing that the generals of those districts did their duty, and in seeing whether the arsenals were in a proper state—he (Mr. Trevelyan) hoped we should soon have local arsenals—and in seeing that the general Staff were thoroughly educated in military matters, and did what was required of them. On that point he had the very high authority of Lord Grey, who strongly recommended that we should have a board at the War Office, which board should have the advice of military officers, just as the Admiralty had a board who had the advice of naval officers. He did not venture to point out to the House what
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  remedy should be proposed for the present state of things; but he asked them to affirm by their vote that night that the permanent holding of the office of Commander-in-Chief was not to the advantage of the Army or the country. The Secretary of State for War, in his very interesting speech on Thursday evening, dwelt almost entirely on promotion with regard to the duties of the Commander-in-Chief. He said it was necessary that the person in whose hands those very large powers were vested should be appointed by the Commander-in-Chief, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State. Now, in the year 1869, out of 571 promotions only 116, or one-fifth of the whole, were without purchase. What an enormous responsibility, therefore, was left on the shoulders of the Commander-in-Chief! When the right hon. Gentleman remarked that the purchase system did away with favouritism, he was much cheered by hon. and learned Gentlemen; and no wonder, because so long as the present system was continued promotion would run very much in the same set of persons. It was curious to see how the five years' rule had been set aside. One single officer obtained a series of five years' appointments. He was for 10 years quartermaster general at the Horse Guards, after that he was Governor General of Gibraltar, then he became adjutant general, and he had no doubt that when his time was up he would become quartermaster general again. The result of this permanency of office was curiously shown in the ideas current at the Horse Guards. He now came to a point on which he was aware he was trenching on delicate ground. After he had said things on the platform in the country he was not the man to be afraid of saying them, he hoped in becoming terms, in his place in the House of Commons. The Secretary of State for War, on Thursday, said Her Majesty's Government thought that the position of the Commander-in-Chief must be looked upon as exceptional, and that time could not be taken into account with reference to his continuance in or removal from office. In case of invasion everything would depend upon who would lead our soldiers in battle. How would the commanders of our battalions be chosen? The Commission which sat in 1857 recommended that the Commander-in-Chief should be authorized to select

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  them from the heads of battalions. His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, being asked by the Commission whether he thought that what was applicable to colonels should not also be applicable to lieutenant colonels, said he thought not, because a colonel did not command a regiment; he was a mere nominal head; he was selected for services performed in former days, and his appointment was given to him as a reward for services. He was asked, if the Commander-in-Chief were backed by public opinion could he not go a step further than the rejection of bad officers and select the fittest men? His answer was—
  "I think not. My opinion is very decided that the power of selection is impossible, whether exercised by a military man or a civilian, and I do not think that any man having that power would hold his position for six months in the country."
  And, again, the Commander-in-Chief said—"I don't see how you can make a standard of selection." [Cheers.] Hon. Gentlemen seemed to think that in no country had the problem been solved. It had been solved in Prussia; it had been solved in France. [A laugh.] Hon. Gentlemen might smile when he mentioned the French Army as an illustration of the successful solution of the problem; but it was evident that when two nations, which officered their armies by selection, went to war one must win and the other lose, and the defects of the French troops were no argument against the wisdom of the principle of selection. But it was not in foreign countries only, but in England also that the question had been solved. Every service constituted on a proper basis had within it such a public opinion that promotion, to a great extent, could not be wrongly made against that public opinion. Let them look at the Indian Civil Service, in which though here and there a little favouritism might have crept in, yet no good man could be long kept back from the promotion which he merited. Again, take the case of the masters of our public schools. These posts were practically filled by the strictest open competition; and, whenever a bad appointment was made, the noise of it rang from one end of the country to the other. Of course, the public opinion of the Army could be brought to bear by calling for confidential reports from the officers in command of the various districts, and
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  one of the advantages of localizing the Army would be that these reports might be sent in, and the duty of making the appointment left to the Horse Guards. The Secretary of State for War, the other evening, said—
  "That you would do harm in the Army if, in abolishing purchase, you substituted seniority pure and simple. I believe the truth is that if you abolish purchase you must accept the principle of selection. … . You must not allow inefficient seniority or a system of pecuniary advantage to prevail."
  But the officer who was responsible had assured them beforehand that selection must end in seniority, for he had said, in order that the Commander-in-Chief might guard against the odium arising from promotion by selection, he must adopt the system of pure seniority. Now, it was a very formidable thing when the officer appointed to select not for the next five years, but for the term of his life, made such a statement. He now came to a most important point. The Secretary of State for War had said that there was one important consideration at the root of this part of the question—namely, that it was just possible, after spending the large sum of money estimated to be necessary for the abolition of purchase, they might be laying the foundation of a system of underhand purchase. And what said the Commander-in-Chief on that point?—
  "That with the large fortunes which gentlemen in this country possessed it would be very difficult to abolish the purchase system, and that if it were to be abolished to-morrow, you would have—in spite of all the care and attention that the authorities could give—an underhand system of purchase going on the next day."
  Now, the nation could not be placed in such a dilemma if they had a Commander-in-Chief with a strong hand, who was determined to make his selections so as that no one should know beforehand whether he was going to be promoted or not, and who was also resolved to punish severely any officer immoral enough to give money for promotion after the right of purchase had been abolished. But it was to a Department animated by such a spirit that they were going to commit what General Trochu called the "corner-stone" of our military defences. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had asked three questions the other night. First, he had asked—Were they prepared to deal with the question of retirement? He replied—Yes, they were prepared to

  599
  take a national and lively interest in it, when they were once assured that the retirement money would not go to sinecurists, but to officers who had spent their lives in the service of their country. The right hon. Gentleman next asked—Were they prepared to adopt the principle of selection? He (Mr. Trevelyan) replied—Yes, if the task of carrying out that principle were not to be committed to men who had over and over again declared themselves to be unequal to the burden. The third question of the right hon. Gentleman was—Are you prepared to sacrifice a large sum of public money for the purpose of extinguishing purchase? He answered—Yes, if it were not that they had been told by those who were responsible that all that money would be sacrificed in vain. He did not feel justified, after having spent four or five months in recommending the nation to abolish purchase—[Ironical cheers]—he did not feel justified, now that purchase was going to be abolished, at a cost of £7,000,000 or £8,000,000, in letting the occasion pass without solemnly warning them that, unless the tenure of the office of Commander-in-Chief was limited as he proposed, every penny of it would be spent in vain. He did not think anyone who considered the largeness of the sum, and the importance of the issues involved, would hold that a Member of Parliament who had put the opinion of the Commander-in-Chief on selection before the House had made a gratuitous personal attack, or had exceeded his right as a taxpayer or his duty as a Member of Parliament.
  The Secretary of State for War had dwelt very much on the question of promotion; but they must remember that the military advisers of the Crown had also other duties to perform. Military gentlemen had a very great distrust of the knowledge which civilians had of military matters. He could assure those gentlemen they had not a deeper sense of their deficiency than had civilians themselves, and there was no civilian who was more sensible of his deficiency than the man who from time to time was at the head of the War Office. Therefore, the more unable a civilian was to initiate a military policy the more necessary was it for him to have at hand military men who could give him the best advice. The right hon.
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  Gentleman the Secretary of State was the very last man behind the back of his responsible advisers to ask advice from other men. Nothing in official life created so many heart burnings as the adoption of such a course. But let the House consider for a moment how far the authorities of the Horse Guards were competent to give the Secretary for War sound and intelligent assistance in the solution of the great questions that would have to be solved in the course of the next two or three years. We should have to decide whether we should make a separation between the home and foreign battalions, because, until that was done, the Short Enlistment Act would be a nullity. We should also have to make up our minds whether we should localize our army by making a complete re-division of the country into military districts, and, when we had done that, whether we should have a system of local supply and local arsenals. He would go further, and place the supply in the hands of the generals of the districts. Then we should have to go into military education, which was almost an innovation in this country. On all these questions the latest information and the best advice would be required. He was aware the Government would say—"It is quite true we require good officers. We are responsible for our subordinates; it is not fair to attack them. If anything is wrong, attack us." His answer was—"It is quite true the Government are responsible for naming their executive; but the House of Commons is responsible, especially after the speech of the Secretary of State, for ordaining what the tenure of office is to be which those officers are to hold." Well, then, what was the policy of that Department on which they had conferred such high powers? The Horse Guards — and here he dropped any allusion to individuals—had invariably opposed every improvement in which the country, and he believed in which officers who best knew their business, had taken an interest. The Horse Guards had always opposed the abolition of excessive flogging. Two years ago flogging had been finally abolished, but the Horse Guards thought we ought to go on flogging still. The other night the Secretary of State spoke of "marking," that is branding, but he called it by the more pleasant name. The Horse Guards opposed the

  601
  abolition of that. When a Committee recommended to the Secretary of State, with a view to the improvement of the position of the soldier, that he should be excused from paying for barrack damages, amounting to about a penny a month, the recommendation was not received with favour by the Horse Guards; but when it was proposed to increase the self-respect of the private soldier by marking deserters with the letter D, they assented to that with shameful alacrity. As to the question of long and short service, it was notorious that the greatest obstacles were thrown in the way of the carrying out of the long and short service Act by what might be called military men of the old school and the Horse Guards generally. Then came a question which related to a matter which was absolutely essential to the well-being of the Army—the turning out of incorrigibly bad characters; and it was well known that with respect to it the colonels could hardly get that authority which they all frequently wished to exercise. Then, with regard to promotion in the ranks. While he was not one of those who thought that elderly soldiers ought to be promoted, he was of opinion that promotion should be had recourse to in the case of young men who showed military aptitude, so that the feeling of hope in the lower ranks of the service might be kept alive. The Horse Guards seemed to be of that opinion also, because he found that during the years 1854, 1855, 1856, 1857, and 1858, when they were engaged in deadly struggles in the Crimea and in India, no less than 483 privates were promoted from the ranks; but when peace returned the door was shut in their faces, and during the years 1861, 1862, and 1863, the promotions from the ranks were respectively three, four, and eight. In a Minute issued by Sir William Mansfield in India, he said that the discharge of bad characters from the Army raised the condition of the soldier, and that he would make the discharge from it looked upon as a punishment and the remaining in it a privilege. It was well known that in time of war commissions were almost of no value whatsoever. Then officers were not able to leave the Army except owing to invalidity or death, and the consequence was that at the end of the war the value of commissions fell almost to nothing. In the Crimean War the value of commissions fell
  602
  very low indeed, and the consequence was that men like Lord Clyde, Lord Strathnairn, and others would have abolished purchase at the moment when we might have got rid of it for a much smaller sum than at present. He recollected that at that time persons now in the Army would have thought it a good investment to get rid of purchase. Warning was given the Horse Guards at the time; but they refused to take advantage of the golden opportunity. On the contrary, the system had been extending ever since, and whatever might now be the cost to the nation of abolishing it—whether it should prove to be £7,000,000, or £8,000,000, or less, or, as some anticipated, as much as £11,000,000, the expense certainly would be some millions more than it would have been in 1856, and Army Reformers might fairly say that all that extra cost was attributable to the Horse Guards. Within the last 18 years £300,000,000 had been spent on the Army, and the yearly Estimates had gone up from £8,000,000 to £14,000,000, which were spent under the advice and auspices of that Department. Yet those very Gentlemen who were always praising the Horse Guards in Committee upstairs and at public dinners, did not hesitate to tell us that we were utterly defenceless, that we were a nation of shopkeepers, and that all the weakness of the country, in a military point of view, was owing to the parsimonious policy that had been pursued. The burden of proof ought, he thought, to be thrown on those Gentlemen and the Horse Guards, and they ought to be called upon to show why they wanted more money, seeing that so many millions had already been expended to render our Army efficient. They were told, however, that though the Horse Guards up to this time had been reactionary, they had now altered their tactics and were going to march with the times; that they had swallowed the abolition of purchase, and that therefore the new order of things might be safely initiated under their auspices. He begged to say, however, that what the nation wanted was not military advisers who, when no other course was open to them, could "swallow" this or that reform, but men who could themselves originate and devise the necessary innovations. The Secretary for War ought, he thought, scarcely to be called

  603
  upon to expend so much vital power in forcing reforms down the throats of men who should have initiated them, as had been the case with his right hon. Friend now at the head of the Department during the last few months. The truth was, he ought to surround himself with men such as those whose services the First Lord of the Admiralty had secured, whom it would be his duty rather to regulate and restrain than always to be urging on in the path of reform.
  He must add that the pleasure which he had derived from the statement of his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War the other evening was somewhat spoilt by the aspect of the Estimates. It was, no doubt, because his right hon. Friend had so much to say that he gave no explanation on points which were almost of as much interest as the purchase question. He alluded especially to the reappearance of certain antiquated and objectionable items in the Estimates which swallowed up a great deal of money. The right hon. Gentleman would, he hoped, seize the present opportunity to inform the House what was meant by those items. He had recently made a comparison of the cost of the English Army and that of the Army which it most resembled — or did two or three years ago — namely, the French. In 1868 the latter consisted of 400,000 men, and it cost something over £15,000,000, but a portion of that amount—perhaps a great deal—went to keeping up the Reserves. Still, he would argue as if the whole £15,000,000 were spent on the peace establishment, which would make the cost of each man £37 10 s. In 1871–2 our Army numbered 133,000, and the cost was £14,697,000. If you deduct for the pay, pensions, and equipments of the Reserve forces £2,348,000, and for the issue of warlike stores to the Navy, £263,000; the result is a sum of £12,086,000 for the Army, or an average of £89 per man. Now, they would be told, perhaps, that theirs was a colonial Army, which cost a large sum for transport. But £250,000 is taken for transport on the Navy Estimates. We are told that we have voluntary enlistment, while Continental armies are raised by conscription. But let them consider what difference that made. The private soldier received 6d. a day. In any case, however the ranks were recruited, the nation must feed and clothe its Army, so that
  604
  the daily 6d. was the whole additional charge, and that represented a total of £1,035,000. Deducting that sum from the Estimates, the cost of the British soldier was still £80, or more than twice that of the French soldier. What were the real causes of the difference? First, he would point out that we had 275 generals of cavalry, and 48 generals of artillery and engineers, 323 in all; whereas, in one year, only 42 of them were employed, and in the present year only 30 of them were employed at home. Of the whole number, 168 were over 65 years of age. It was evident that until they named exactly their working establishment of generals, and promoted only on it, there would be no end of jobbery. He must also say that 148 of those gentlemen were colonels of regiments, and that £162,500 was swallowed up in the payment of sinecure honorary Army colonelcies. He knew of one officer who, between the age of 32 and 52, had received £40,000 of pension in addition to his salary. The first condition of a pension was that it should not be taken at the same time as salary; but there was not a single officer, either at the War Office or the Horse Guards, who did not receive, or hope to be receiving, at some stage of his career from £1,000 to £2,000 a-year, in addition to a very adequate salary. The next condition of a pension was that it should be given upon fixed and impartial rules, and in certain proportion to the length of service and the amount of salary received. The fact, however, was that of two officers of equal service and merit, but unequal position and interest, one got a colonelcy with £1,800, £2,000, or £2,200 a-year, and the other languished in retirement on 25 s. a day. He would pass over the half-pay list, because it was a sort of antechamber or succedaneum to the purchase system. It was used, to a great extent, to assist the purchase system; but it ought to be reduced by every officer who was not a temporary invalid. That was the proper use of half-pay. Above all, you ought not to have able-bodied men who were on unattached pay and promotion. What would our Civil Service Estimates be if we had a supplementary list of Judges, unattached Commissioners in Bankruptcy and Lunacy, and Inspectors of Schools? The proper rule was that no man should receive pay for work that he was not doing, or a pension for work

  605
  that had not been done. An item which he (Mr. Trevelyan) was ashamed of seeing again in the Estimates was that of Army agents, to whom £37,231 had been paid this year. What were the duties of those agents? In the first place, they kept the banking accounts of the officers; but if the State paid men for being the bankers of officers, it might as well pay Messrs. Tod Heatley for being the wine merchants of the same officers' messes. Then they were credited with managing the purchase system, but that was only as bankers managed the transfer of balances, or as house agents managed the transfer of property; and you might as well, when a living was sold, pay out of the diocesan fund the agent who advertised that living. The Army agents handed over to the officers their pay after receiving it from the Paymaster General; but if the paymaster of a regiment could contrive to pay 800 or 1,000 men, surely he could pay some 30 officers besides? According to the most eminent of our living public servants (Sir William Anderson), it would be cheaper to pay that class £40,000 a year for doing nothing whatever. He next came to expenses generally allowed to be legitimate and normal, but which a household Parliament must certainly examine—the exceptional payments made to officers of the Brigade of Guards. These officers now paid highly for their commissions, and, having regard to the money thus sunk by them, it would be unjust to reduce the salaries of existing officers. But in future why should a lieutenant colonel of the Guards receive 26 s. 9d. a day and the lieutenant colonel of a Line regiment 17 s.? Why should a major in the Guards receive 6s., a captain 4s., and a lieutenant 1s. more than officers of the corresponding rank in ordinary regiments? The special allowances to officers in the Guards must also be reduced. Then came the greatest and most useless expenditure on the Household Cavalry. To begin with, the officers were much more highly paid; but he would not go into that just now. Let him, however, contrast the average expense of the Household Cavalry and the ordinary cavalry. Including the cost of clothing and the pay of officers, the cost of a private in the former was £87 as against £57; while with the purchase of horses it was £114 as against £83 in the cavalry, and £46 in the infantry.
  606
  The proportion of officers was as one to 13 men in the Household Brigade and in the cavalry of the Line as one to 16. Why was this Brigade wanted? The men were quite unsuited for modern warfare; they were too heavy for escort and they were not wanted as police. In the French Army, which was so much greater than ours, the Emperor's Cent Gardes consisted of only 221 men. In England the Royal escort consisted of 1,332 men, which was quite 1,000 too many. The nation would never believe the House of Commons was in earnest about economy as long as they paid £80,000 or £90,000 more than was necessary for the Royal escort. Next he came to Chelsea and Kilmainham Hospitals, which were of the same nature as Greenwich. Acting in the belief that old men might live far better in homes of their own, at a cost of £27 or £36, than pass a disagreeable and disreputable sort of monastic life at a cost of £90, Parliament wound up Greenwich Hospital, which might be said to be closed by the almost unanimous suffrages of the old men themselves. A Commission was appointed to consider the propriety of applying the same principles to Chelsea and Kilmainham; but the majority of the members had a stronger feeling in favour of retaining the good appointments held by brother officers than they had either for the welfare of the old men or the cost of Chelsea and Kilmainham to the State. Next came the largest of these items—£1,300,000 for men's pensions; and as bearing on it, Government should declare whether the short system was to be practically worked by the separation of the home and foreign battalions, and whether they would not say to a man—"We will take you for three years, and at the end of that time we will send you back to your business and your sweetheart." Till this is done—till you cease to reserve the right of keeping a man for six years, and sending him to Aden or Jubbulpore—you will never give a fair chance to short service, or diminish your pension fund. Another point was the expense of the Horse Guards. In 1794 Lord Amherst, who must have been a very economical administrator, left the expenses of the Horse Guards at £894. He got a War Office clerk, and paid him 10 s. a day extra for his services as secretary. The Duke of York appointed an Army colonel as secretary, and the expenses

  607
  increased; for, according to the Report of a Commission of Inquiry, they amounted in 1809 to £7,638. The expenses of the Horse Guards were now £49,311, of which sum £23,843 went to military men, in addition to their pay and their other emoluments. At the Admiralty the Senior Naval Lord had £1,500 a-year in addition to half-pay; the Junior Lord £1,000; and the Captain for the reserve business, £365; with a Private Secretary at £365—that was to say, that the Navy was well worked in that department of the business for £3,230, as opposed to £23,843. He spoke under correction; but if the pay of the present Military Secretary at the Horse Guards had not been lately docked, this officer alone received, including his honorary colonelcy, over £3,000 a-year. His successor would get £2,500 per annum, which was a very good salary for an amanuensis and a mouthpiece. The corresponding office at the Admiralty was filled by a captain on half-pay, who received £1 a-day in addition to his half-pay. He (Mr. Trevelyan) would be the first to own that the country was not in a condition for the Secretary at War beginning a great system of military re-organization two years ago. The Government had reduced the number of men by 20,000, and did so with the full approbation of the country; but it was to be regretted that the Government did not feel itself warranted at the same time to put an end to the rich sinecures of which he now complained. Every soldier under the administration at the War Office of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) cost £59; and every soldier at the present time cost exactly the same or a fraction more. There could be no doubt that the country was ripe for re-organization, as also for an immense and sweeping reduction in the expenditure. The practice hitherto had been to heap new expenditure on old; but in a place of business it was the custom to provide for new claims by the extinction of old, and, as had been well said by the First Lord of the Treasury, at Warrington, in 1868—
  "Who supposes that expenditure of £70,000,000 a-year goes down every year to the same purpose? You cannot stereotype the wants of a great Empire. New wants are always coming forward; but where there are new wants, and where provision has to be made for new wants, that provision ought to be counterbalanced by new economies."
  608
  The First Lord of the Treasury and the Secretary for War would have an opportunity at this early period of the Session to see where these new economies could be best made and what old abuses should be sacrificed. He was confident that the whole of these items, which had been so long subjected to hostile criticism, would disappear from the Estimates when the last vested interests had died out; and their disappearance would not only tend much to disarm opposition in that House, but also confer the greatest benefit on the country. There was at present a growing feeling that a vigorous re-organization, if accompanied by internal economy, would place the national defences on a good footing without adding a penny to the present Estimates. If the present Estimates were persisted in, it would be a cruel check to the interest the country was taking in its Army when they found that increased efficiency meant only increased expenditure on all the old items. The country had been imploring in certain dumb ways, but very earnestly, for a national Army, and it was cruel to answer it by giving another £3,000,000 to the Horse Guards, and by strengthening the hands of its officials by publicly endorsing their permanent tenure of office. Men judged the unseen by the seen, and when these objectionable items appeared every year it was thought tolerably certain that a reactionary military influence had power in matters removed from the world's notice. If the form of these Estimates was final, their passage through Committee would be one long protest. He and others would fight the Army agencies; they would fight the honorary colonelcies; they would fight every job and every sinecure from the first page of the Estimates to the last. But if the Government acted as their antecedents would lead men to expect, and their supporters had a right to ask, then—speaking not in name of any, but expressing the sense of many who sat around him, he would venture to say that, whatever abuse Ministers assailed, whatever expenditure they asked for not for the purpose of temporarily increasing, but of permanently consolidating the national forces, they would be met, from that part of the House, in a spirit of well-grounded confidence and gratified loyalty. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving his Resolution.
  MR. ANDERSON, in seconding the Motion, desired to compliment the hon. Member on his exhaustive speech; and to join with him in thanking the Government for the bold step they had taken in abolishing the purchase system. But while he thought that did entitle them to some consideration for shortcomings in other respects, it did not atone for the conspicuous absence for three years past in their Estimates of any propositions dealing with abuses in high places. The Government had exhibited great tenderness and timidity there, though it was notorious that it was in the highest ranks that the expenditure was most lavish. The Government might think little of this omission, but the tax-payers—especially those of the large constituencies—did not think lightly of it; the public would be inquiring why the Government had not dealt with the redundant list of general officers, with the large half-pay list, and with the sinecure colonelcies. The other evening the Secretary for War passed a high eulogium on the disinterestedness of officers: he was so impressed by the greatness of the subject that he could only express his sentiments by having recourse to poetry; but the quotation he made, though somewhat high-flown, was so pertinent to the subject of sinecure colonelcies and other highly paid offices that he desired permission to repeat it—
  "They are not covetous for gold. …
  Such outward things dwell not in their desires;
  But if it be a sin to covet honour
  They are the most offending souls alive."
  Had this passage not been used by the Secretary for War, whom he could not suspect of irony, he should have thought it was not free from a touch of sarcasm; but, as it was, he was left to wonder why the Secretary for War had omitted to put some of the honorary colonels and other highly paid officers under his control to the test. The question at issue was what should be substituted for purchase. The evils of promotion by seniority had been largely dwelt upon by the Secretary for War before announcing his preference for promotion by selection. Was it not almost certain that, under the system proposed by the Secretary of State—selection in the hands of the Horse Guards' Staff, in a very short time merit and private interest would become convertible terms, and that they would very soon have very
  610
  great developments of merit in quarters where hitherto it had been quite unexpected? Why, selection by merit, as it was called, had been the basis of those very sinecure colonelcies of which his hon. Friend (Mr. Trevelyan) had spoken. It was under selection by merit that the present Commander-in-Chief was appointed in 1856 at £4,500 a-year; and, as if that honour and gold were not enough, in 1861 the Commander-in-Chief became colonel of the Guards, for which he received an additional £2,200 a-year. Again, the present Military Secretary was appointed either in 1859 or 1860 at somewhere about £2,200 a-year; and, as if that honour and gold were not enough, in 1863 he became colonel of the 81st Regiment with an additional £1,000 a-year. These were the things which selection by merit had given them under the present Horse Guards. He might be told that these sinecure colonelcies were intended as rewards for long and distinguished service. Well, they found that the Prince of Wales, for long and distinguished service no doubt, became colonel of the 10th Hussars, receiving for that £1,350 a-year, being both honour and gold. He believed that officers of the Army were not much afraid of the abolition of purchase, but were much afraid of what would happen to them under selection by merit in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards, and still more in the hands of the Military Secretary. He could not ignore the circumstance that the present Commander-in-Chief was a Royal Duke, and that many hon. Members might consider it very profane indeed to criticize the acts of so great a personage; but he (Mr. Anderson) referred to the Commander-in-Chief not as a Royal Duke, but as a public officer, and considered his rank should neither exempt him from criticism, nor on the other hand cause that criticism to be unfair. But there were other objections to the Staff of the Horse Guards quite irrespective of the present personnel. The present Staff had never worked well. There had always been a jealousy and a jarring amounting to a contest between the Crown and Parliament for the control of the Army. That contest culminated in the Order of November, 1861, "given at our Royal Court of Balmoral," in which the Crown attempted to wrest from the Secretary of

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  State for War a large part of his powers. Very fortunately that Order was disregarded; but, nevertheless, they had had a sort of dual government in the Army ever since. And although the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cardwell) had told them that there was an end of that dual government, and that he was himself the real head of the Army, circumstances cropped up every now and then which showed that, even if dual government was at an end, a great deal of the old jealousy still existed. It was evident that the Army did not acknowledge the right hon. Gentleman as its real head, and that the Horse Guards did not attempt to put down that insubordination. A glaring instance of that occurred the other day, when a distinguished officer made a speech, at Manchester, denouncing the reductions in the Army that had been decided upon by his chief. If that gallant officer had acknowledged the Secretary of State as his chief he would no more have made that speech than he would have allowed any of his own men to stand up at a public meeting and denounce his acts; and if the Horse Guards had looked upon that speech with such disapproval as it ought to have done it would have called that officer to account. The simple remedy for the evil was to discontinue the office of Commander-in-Chief, and to have the duties performed by Military Under Secretaries of State for War, or Military Lords, as they might please to call them—thus assimilating the discharge of the duties of the Horse Guards to those discharged by the Admiralty. It was long since they abolished the office of Lord High Admiral, and he saw no necessity for perpetuating the office of Commander-in-Chief. He would recommend hon. Gentlemen to turn to the Estimates and compare the Votes for the Horse Guards with those for the Admiralty. The First Lord of the Admiralty had £4,500 a year, the First Naval Lord £1,500, and the Secretary £2,000, as compared with £5,000 paid to the Secretary for War, and £4,500 paid to the Military First Lord. But what was the reason for the great difference of scale in the remuneration of the two services? The Navy was their senior — their old, cherished, national service — yet the Army was in every way petted and pampered in the highly-paid offices. Whatever the
  612
  reason for it was, it could not be that the system of command in the Army was better than in the Navy, because in the Navy if the Senior Naval Lord happened to be ill or absent matters went on quite smoothly, whereas in the Army, as they found from Lord Northbook's Report, there was no arrangement whatever by which the duties of the Commander-in-Chief could be performed if he were ill or absent. The Military Secretary up to last year received about £2,230 per annum, and the sum was reduced last year to £1,500. At the same time, the salary of the Commander-in-Chief was reduced from £4,440 to £4,000. But those small reductions were actually to be replaced on the Estimates for this year; the pay of the Commander-in-Chief was again raised, and that of the Military Secretary went up again to £2,000 a year. The best course that could be adopted was to discontinue both those offices. The Government had been contented to apply the five years' rule to the Military Secretary, whom they agreed to make a Jonah, in order that by throwing him overboard they might preserve the larger abuse. But military reformers asked for more than this. They demanded that the whole military system should be put upon a sounder basis; that the responsibility should be better defined; that the Horse Guards should be more efficiently administered; that the Secretary for War should have more complete control over military affairs; and that the other offices should be held by Military Lords or by Military Secretaries. He had great pleasure in seconding the Resolution.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That, in the opinion of this House, no scheme for Military reorganization can be regarded as complete which does not alter the tenure of the Command in Chief in such a manner as to enable the Secretary of State for War to avail himself freely of the best administrative talent and the most recent military experience from time to time existing in the British Army."—(Mr. Trevelyan.)
  CAPTAIN VIVIANsaid, he had listened with great pleasure to the speech of the hon. Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan), although he differed in opinion from him on much that he had said to the House; and all who had heard him to-night must admit that he had treated a subject of great delicacy and difficulty with admirable

  613
  tact and ability. He must, however, confess that he was much disappointed to find that the hon. Member had thought it necessary to proceed with his Motion. He had hoped that after the speech which his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War made on Thursday night, his hon. Friend would have withdrawn his Notice. He was glad to hear his hon. Friend say tonight that he had entirely abandoned the view he had hitherto entertained, that there was a duality of government in military affairs. He (Captain Vivian) contended that there was no longer any dual government between the War Office and the Horse Guards. In referring to this point, his hon. Friend said he complained not of what the right hon. Gentleman had not done, but of what he had done. Before leaving this part of the subject he wished to correct an error into which his hon. Friend had fallen with respect to the steps that the Secretary for War had taken. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cardwell), when he came into Office, found that the power of the Secretary of State was limited to a certain extent by a Memorandum which had been drawn up in the time of Sir George Lewis, and which had been signed by Her Majesty. By that Memorandum certain restrictions upon the power of the Secretary of State were imposed; the substance of which was that the Secretary of State was not to interfere with the military control or with the patronage of the Army. When the right hon. Gentleman came into Office he appointed a Committee to inquire into the administration of the War Department and the Horse Guards—and he should be doing an injustice to the Commander-in-Chief if he did not say that in that inquiry every facility had been given by His Royal Highness to Lord Northbrook, who presided over the Committee. Her Majesty then issued an Order in Council which defined the duties of the Commander-in-Chief as well as those of two new officers—the Surveyor General and the Financial Secretary for War. In addition to that, his right hon. Friend put a stop to all correspondence by letter between the Departments, and established a central registry for both Departments, to the effect that all correspondence should be carried on by Minute between the Secretary of State and the Commander-in-Chief.
  614
  That change had effected a great economy both of time and labour. There was but one more step wanting to complete the union of the two Departments which had not yet been taken, and that was that both Departments should be under the same roof; and that was owing to the fact that there was not sufficient room in the War Office for the accommodation of the whole Office of the Horse Guards. By reason of the reductions that had been effected in the War Department, sufficient room had been now found, and both Offices would soon be under the same roof; so that everything that was needed to put an end to the dual government had now been done. But why, under these circumstances, did the hon. Member (Mr. Trevelyan) press his Motion? It was because he desired that the high officers should be subjected to the ordinary Staff regulation of five years' appointments. He (Captain Vivian) would, therefore, proceed to state some of the objections that had occurred to him against subjecting officers holding such high and important posts in the Army to the five years' tenure. In the first place, let them see how that rule would apply in the case of a most eminent individual holding such an appointment. They all knew how jealously and suspiciously both the House and the country regarded renewals of these appointments. But the Secretary for War and other Ministers had greater opportunities of judging of the fitness of an individual for a particular post than the public had; and, therefore, in the case of a man eminently fitted to discharge the duties of the post, they might possibly desire to retain him; but under the five years' rule they would be afraid to renew the appointment, lest the country should regard such re-appintment as a job. Then, how would the rule apply in the case of a man not quite so capable? Suppose there was a Commander-in-Chief who had done his duty without complaint, but there was another officer still better qualified; the Government would be afraid to dismiss the former before the expiration of his term, lest it should be said they were casting a slur upon his character. How did his right hon. Friend propose to meet that difficulty? He proposed that the continuance in office of the Commander-in-Chief and his removal should depend upon

  615
  considerations of public policy. The hon. Member thought it was proposed to continue the Commander-in-Chief in perpetuity; but, so far from that being the case, no Minister would dare to retain a person in so high a post if he were unfit to hold the place. The hon. Member said that if this proposal were adopted effete men would be retained in office, and by way of an illustration—which was much to be regretted—he had referred to the case of the Duke of Wellington. On this subject all he (Captain Vivian) would say was that the Duke of Wellington's career and character lived in the remembrance of a grateful country, and would continue to do so as long as England existed as a nation. The hon. Member had referred to the case of foreign countries. He himself (Captain Vivian) would refer to the case of Prussia. Had the question of age arisen in that country, such a man as Moltke might have been removed because he was upwards of 70. Again, in the case of Austria, Radetzky, when he fought his last campaign, was nearer 80 than 70. The question of age was not the consideration; what a Minister was bound to consider was, who was the most fit and efficient man for the office. Whoever he might be, as long as he performed his duty well, the longer he held his appointment, whether for five, ten, or twenty years, so much the better for the country which had the advantage of his services. If a Minister retained a man in office after he had ceased to be efficient, he would deserve to be impeached. The hon. Member (Mr. Trevelyan) did not charge the present Commander-in-Chief with being inefficient, but simply desired that the duration of his appointment should be limited to five years. Now he (Captain Vivian) took issue with his hon. Friend upon that point. The hon. Gentleman had referred to the question of selection, and stated that hereafter the duty of selection would be left to the Commander-in-Chief, who had stated that it would be impossible for him to exercise that duty. No one who had considered the question of selection in the Army could fail to admit that it was beset with the greatest possible difficulty. It was not at all surprising that everyone should say—"I cannot possibly see how you purpose to select your officers." But he would remind the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Trevelyan) that though the Commander-in-Chief
  616
  gave the evidence which had been quoted, he also said in the House of Lords that if the Government decided upon adopting a principle of selection for the future, he should do his best to carry it out well and conscientiously. When the language of the Commander-in-Chief before the Committee was quoted, his speech in the House of Lords ought not to be forgotten. It was no part of his (Captain Vivian's) duty, nor would it become him, to say anything in regard to the merits of the present Commander-in-Chief; but he might say that having been selected on several occasions, in the course of the many years he had had a seat in the House, to serve on Committees of Inquiry into military questions—some of them very complicated, and difficult ones—he had heard the Duke of Cambridge examined and cross-examined, but on no single occasion had he found His Royal Highness ignorant on any question put before him. He had come to the conclusion that so far as knowledge of the intricate details of our military administration was concerned, no man in England knew more than our present Commander-in-Chief, and he very much doubted whether there was any man who knew as much. He was not going to follow his hon. Friend through all the details of the Estimates; but he wished to refer to an error that he had made in instituting a comparison between the French and the English Estimates. Such a comparison was impossible, because a great many things—shakos, tunics, guns and barrack furniture — were entirely excluded from the French, but included in the English Estimates. Therefore, when his hon. Friend said the annual cost of a French soldier was £37 as compared with £80 for an English soldier, he was incorrect in both cases. A calculation had recently been made by the Government as to what the English soldier did really cost in pay, clothing, and beer money, and this showed that as nearly as possible each man cost £34 a year. Perhaps he might be permitted to say a word on the subject of agents, as his hon. Friend had referred to it, because it was to some extent his (Captain Vivian's) fault that the question was not nearer settlement. It was nearly a year ago since he was asked to report on the subject to the Chief Secretary for War in conjunction with the Accountant-General; and, though the Report was

  617
  now complete, it had not, from pressure of business, been presented. He must, however, say that his hon. Friend did the agents but scant justice in his very terse explanation of what they did for the Army. While he admitted that it would be possible to pay the officers through other means, he must say, as the result of experience, that it was impossible to exaggerate the advantages which English officers derived from the services of agents. As far as the mere handing over of pay was concerned, that could easily be accomplished without the intervention of agents; but it must be remembered that agents transacted every conceivable kind of business for the officers employing them, and if agencies were abolished to-morrow the extra expense thrown upon officers would be so great that the nation would inevitably have to increase their pay. As his hon. Friend was not accurately informed in regard to the cases of Chelsea and Kilmainham Hospitals, and had been very facetious in comparing them with Greenwich Hospital, he would briefly state the facts to the House. Greenwich Hospital was capable of holding 1,500 or 1,800 men, the total number of naval pensioners being about 14,000, and, as a consequence, there were in the Hospital a large number of young men who infinitely preferred going to their homes with an increased pension to remaining in the Hospital. The Government was able to meet the views of these men, because Greenwich Hospital was the richest endowed charity in England, and had large funds to fall back upon in order to give increased pensions. But the case of the other hospitals mentioned was entirely different. Both Hospitals were very small; Chelsea would accommodate 500 or thereabouts, and Kilmainham about 130; while the whole number of Army pensioners was over 60,000, and the men admitted to the two Hospitals were the oldest and most feeble—not to be compared for a moment with the occupants of Greenwich. He had visited the Hospitals of Chelsea and Kilmainham, and found that while in the former there were a few men who would have preferred to go out with an increased pension, the occupants of Kilmainham were unanimous in saying that no amount of added pension could compensate them for the comforts they found in the Hospital. Let his hon. Friend consider
  618
  what this question of increasing pensions would involve. If an additional 6d. per day were given to men as a premium to induce them to leave the Hospitals, the men receiving the same rate of pension who had not been in the Hospital would demand a similar amount as a reward for remaining out of it. He was glad to find that his hon. Friend approved the mode in which the Government proposed that the House should assent to the abolition of purchase. There could be no doubt there were but two ways of dealing with it. It was quite true that three years ago he submitted a scheme which was a modification of that now proposed by his right hon. Friend, and he believed that by the adoption of that plan at that time the question would have been settled; but he must frankly admit that when the purchase system again came under the consideration of the Government he saw no middle course between leaving it alone and abolishing it altogether. The plan of the Government was based upon the principle of doing ample justice to the officers, and he believed it would meet with the general approval of Parliament. His hon. Friend had been kind enough to express approval of the military reforms proposed by his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War, and, reminding him that Rome was not built in one day, he would ask his hon. Friend not to press his Motion to a Division. His hon. Friend had mentioned that there were circumstances with regard to the rewards to colonels in the Army which would have to be carefully weighed when the House came to consider the systems of promotion and retirement. In reference to this question, he could only say that it would be met and carefully grappled with by his right hon. Friend when the proper time arrived. In conclusion he would remark on the general subject-matter under discussion that he hoped his hon. Friend would be content with the success he had met with, and, taking hope for the future in what had occurred in the past, refrain from pressing his Motion to a Division.
  LORD EUSTACE CECILsaid, the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Trevelyan) in his speech that evening had boxed the whole compass of military grievances. He had dealt with 17 or 18 subjects, including the Duke of Cambridge, purchase, selection, flogging, promotion from the ranks, bad

  619
  characters, the Estimates, the Militia, the War Office, the defenceless state of the country, Army agents, Chelsea and Kilmainham Hospitals, men's pensions, the Horse Guards' Office, the Horse Guards' Secretary, and the rewards to colonels and retired generals. It would, perhaps, have been better if the hon. Gentleman had treated the House to only one or two of the items of that enormous list, because it would be impossible in one, or even in a dozen evenings, to do proper justice to them all. The hon. Member spoke at very great length in reference to the Duke of Cambridge. It was not his (Lord Eustace Cecil's) province to say anything in defence of His Royal Highness; but he must observe that the hon. Gentleman only expressed his own opinions and those of hon. Members sitting near him, and said no single word about the general feeling of the Army in reference to the Commander-in-Chief; but if the officers of the Army were polled, they would say, by an immense majority, that the Duke of Cambridge was the best man that could be found for the office of Commander-in-Chief. Until a more efficient man was discovered, looking to the duties of promotion by selection—an office which, as Lord Grey stated, required superhuman powers—he thought the hon. Gentleman had better cease to say anything about the merits or demerits of the present holder of the office of Commander-in-Chief. But the hon. Gentleman did not content himself with speaking of the Duke of Cambridge; he spoke of the difficulty, as stated by the Duke before a Commission, of selecting officers. Now, he (Lord Eustace Cecil) knew that on one or two occasions His Royal Highness had declined to select particular men, and had refused to appoint them. An officer in his own regiment—he would not mention his name, which had since appeared in the public papers—was reported by his general as not being fit to command his battalion; the Duke of Cambridge entirely endorsed that report, and the result was the officer was told he must retire on half-pay; and immediately he brought an action against the general who so reported him. That was one of the many difficulties they would have to deal with when they came to consider the difficulty of selection on the reports of officers. The hon. Gentleman went
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  on to speak about the Prussian Army, where selection was said to be the rule. Now, he (Lord Eustace Cecil) understood that in the Prussian Army seniority was the rule. There were very few cases of selection indeed; and in one or two branches of the Prussian Army no selection whatever was allowed. One of the schemes of the Government—should promotion by selection be agreed to—was that there should be competitive examinations. In the Prussian Army competition was almost unknown; officers were admitted on nomination by the Executive, and on approval of the officers of the regiment which they wished to join. With reference to the Army agents, the hon. Gentleman must be aware that in 1851 a Committee of that House had reported against their abolition. There could be no doubt that they were of great use. Bills were drawn very frequently at sight, and it would be impracticable for the Secretary at War to meet them; but the Army agents paid them over the counter. There would be no material saving by their abolition; indeed, the abolition of Army agents would be attended with an increase of expense to the amount of at least £9,000 a year. The hon. Member had made a remark about the great number of officers in the British Army in proportion to the number of men. Now, he had taken some trouble to compare the number of officers in the English Army and in the Prusssian Army with the number of men they command, and he found that in the Prussian Army there was one officer to 23 men, while in the English Army, according to the Estimates of this year, there was one officer to 22·1 men. In the Italian Army the proportion of officers was one officer to 16 men; and in the United States Army, which was supposed to be very economically managed, and always ready for service at the shortest notice, there was one officer to 15 men. These were facts, and if the hon. Member wished to have his authority for them, he would refer him to the Statesman's Year Book for 1871. The hon. Member had spoken with perfect reason of the large number of officers—one officer to something like 16 men—in the Life Guards, and in the cavalry generally, where it was one officer to 20 men. But when they took the whole service generally, and divided the whole number of men by the number

  621
  of officers, he held that the English Army stood remarkably well as compared with continental armies. The hon. Gentleman went on to speak of retired generals and sinecure colonels; but he (Lord Eustace Cecil) thought he might have spared himself the trouble of running down veteran officers who, having served their country at the expense both of purse and health, received a retiring pension of something like the magnificent sum of £400 a year. He could not agree with the hon. Member in calling colonels in command of regiments pensioners. Such appointments were not pensions, but rewards—and very small rewards compared with those offered by the Church, diplomacy, and law, after 30 or 40 years' service. It was not for him to go into details about the Horse Guards' Secretary, and other matters. Something, no doubt, might be done. There might be a better system of pensions and retirement; there might also be a certain amount of retrenchment in other items of the Estimates; but, on the whole, when they compared the difference of wages and prices of articles of all sorts in this country with those abroad, he did not think our Estimates compared unfavourably with those of other countries. At the same time, he thought it quite possible there might be fair ground of complaint arising from the extra £2,000,000 or £3,000,000 now added to the Estimates, and the comparatively small return we had for them. He would not now go into the very intricate questions of purchase and promotion, which would require immense consideration before a proper determination could be arrived at. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would withdraw his Motion.
  VISCOUNT BURYsaid, he was anxious not to give a silent vote on this occasion, because, although he would yield to no one in his claims to be considered an Army reformer, he could not flatter himself that he belonged to the number of those whom the hon. Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan) had classed under his plural "we." The question was, whether they should vote for the Resolution which had been placed on the Paper. That Resolution appeared to resolve itself into two parts, which were totally incompatible with each other. One was a Resolution—which the hon. Member had a perfect
  622
  right to bring forward if he chose, and to which he had devoted the greater part of his speech—that it was desirable to alter the tenure of the office of Commander-in-Chief—a proposition to which he (Viscount Bury) hoped the House would give a distinct negative. The next appeared to be a Resolution of a totally abstract nature, affirming that certain circumstances he detailed called for the immediate removal of obsolete and antiquated sources of military expenditure. He (Viscount Bury) quite agreed that if any such could be shown to exist they ought to be removed, and he was quite ready to vote for their removal. He thought it was hardly dealing fairly by the House to tack to such an important Motion as one dealing with the tenure of the office of Commander-in-Chief an abstract declaration with respect to another matter. It would be scarcely possible, if they devoted not only the present evening, but three or four succeeding evenings to the discussion, to deal with all the various topics touched on and mixed up together in a most extraordinary way by the hon. Member for the Border Burghs. The hon. Member had evidently some grudge—he would not say a personal grudge—but a grudge against the office of the Commander-in-Chief in respect to the mode of conducting the business, and he mixed up together the system of promotion from the ranks, the removal of bad characters from the Army, the enormous military expenditure, and a variety of other subjects, and making the Commander-in-Chief, of all persons, responsible for everything, he called upon the House to vote for an alteration of the tenure of the Commander-in-Chiefs office. The hon. Member's speech put him in mind of the lines—
  "Who makes the quartern loaf and Luddites rise? Who fills the butchers' shops with large blue flies?"
  In like manner the hon. Member put the question, who was responsible for the various matters he had adverted to? and replied that it was the Commander-in-Chief, and, therefore, he said, the office should be abolished. One reason given for the proposed abolition was because, as the hon. Gentleman stated, His Royal Highness had expressed himself adverse to the principle of selection in respect to promotion—a principle which must be resorted to on the abolition of the purchase

  623
  system, and must be conducted by the officer commanding the Army for the time being. He was not going to prejudge the plan on which they would shortly have to decide; but the hon. Gentleman was so enamoured of his own scheme that he had prejudged the question, having quite taken it for granted that the alteration would take place, that selection would follow, and that His Royal Highness must be removed. He argued in a vicious circle. Undoubtedly the proposals for Army organization proceeded from one of the most powerful Ministries which had existed of late years, and though they probably would be carried substantially, yet no one knew what form they would assume before the Bill passed through the mill of a Committee of the Whole House. No doubt, many hon. Members would support the proposals of the hon. Member; but no one could say how far either the original proposals of the Government or those of the hon. Member might be modified by subsequent experience and debate. Therefore, when the hon. Member stated that the principle of selection could not, in the opinion of the Commander-in-Chief, be carried out in its entirety, it was quite obvious that the hon. Member thought that the Commander-in-Chief was unwilling to carry out many of the details proposed by the Secretary of State. That was not fair to the Commander-in-Chief. In the course of his remarks, the hon. Member said that he thought the office held by the Commander-in-Chief ought to be held for five years only, and he went through a list of the officers who had held the post in order to prove that, under the present system, only Royal Dukes or "officers of classical reputation" could be appointed. He (Viscount Bury) had been somewhat puzzled to conceive what was meant by the phrase, "officers of classical reputation"—more especially as the hon. Gentleman immediately afterwards said that if his system were adopted they would have the selection for the office the ablest officers of the Army. If that were so they would be officers of "classical reputation." He (Viscount Bury) failed to discover what distinction the hon. Gentleman could draw between his description of two of the ablest men in the Army—Lord Hardinge, whom he did praise, and the Duke of Wellington, whom he did not praise. The hon.
  624
  Member likewise observed that the Duke of Wellington retained the office until he became so rooted and grounded in his prejudices as to refuse to move forward. In illustration of that statement — and he thought a very unhappy illustration—the hon. Member gave as an instance a dispute between Lord Grey and the Duke of Wellington, respecting the abolition of corporal punishment, the result of which was in favour of the Secretary of State and not of the Duke of Wellington; so that the illustration proved that, instead of the Commander-in-Chief overriding the Secretary of State, the Commander-in-Chief showed himself subordinate to the Secretary of State. Was it not the case, too, that His Royal Highness the present Commander-in-Chief considered himself subordinate to the Secretary of State? His Royal Highness had taken every public opportunity to declare that he was directly subordinate to the Secretary of War. It could not, then, be on the ground of want of subordination that certain Army reformers wished to get rid of the present holder of the office of Commander-in-Chief. Was his removal desired on account of any alleged incapacity? Why, it was well known—as had been stated that evening by the Financial Secretary for War (Captain Vivian) — that the Commander-in-Chief, on every occasion when he had given his evidence before a Committee or a military Commission, or made a public speech on military matters, had shown himself most minutely acquainted with all the details of Army organization, and proved that he knew more about them than any other officer in the Army. But it was said that His Royal Highness was unwilling to march with the times, and that he was as much rooted and grounded in prejudices as the late Duke of Wellington. Why, only a short time ago, when His Royal Highness was addressing a public meeting, he expressed his astonishment that he should have been so freely designated as a person desirous of remaining in the old, antiquated grooves, and disinclined to go forward with the times, and His Royal Highness declared that he rather wished to head military officers in the path of progress than to drag them back. Indeed, during the time His Royal Highness had held his present office, everyone must have seen that he had always acted up to that profession. The difficulty of

  625
  regulating promotion by selection, if purchase should be abolished, whether the system were carried out by His Royal Highness or any other officer, must be great, and he did not believe that any officer would be able to stand for six months the odium which he would incur by conducting the system of selection. Indeed, he believed the system to be a vicious one, for this reason—that the Commander-in-Chief could not possibly select in every case from his own personal knowledge, and, therefore, the man most likely to get on under that system would be the man who had the best means for making his claims known. The House was told that that would be regulated by public opinion—that was to say, any officer who felt himself aggrieved or passed over would find no difficulty in getting his case brought before the House. Therefore, there would be a perpetual state of antagonism, more or less distinctly declared, between unofficial opinion in that House and officers at the head of the Army. That he regarded as one of the greatest difficulties with which they would have to deal when the principle of selection came into play. The hon. Member said in effect that an officer, remaining for years at the head of affairs of the Army, and being practically irremovable, acquired such an intimate knowledge of the details of the Army and of Army organization, that the Secretary of State could not cope with him. Now, if that argument meant anything it meant this—that because the Secretary of State was ignorant, therefore they were to select an officer who should be more ignorant than the Secretary of State. The hon. Gentleman's argument was that a civilian Secretary of State could not have the knowledge of Army affairs which was possessed by an officer who had been long at the head of the Army, and that, because the Secretary of State could not enforce due subordination on the part of the Commander-in-Chief, they must abolish the Commander-in-Chief altogether, and appoint an adjutant-general. The Secretary of State must surely say—"Defend me from my friends" when the hon. Member, in the interest of the Secretary of State, advocated that his ignorance should be protected by the abolition of an officer who knew more than he did. He would not deal with the latter half of the hon. Gentleman's
  626
  Resolution. He had dealt with that question, which was the practical issue—whether the tenure of the Commander-in-Chief should be abolished. On that question he was entirely against the hon. Gentleman. On obsolete and antiquated items of military expenditure, that was not the time to express any opinion. The Financial Secretary of the War Department had told them that many things had been maturely deliberated by Her Majesty's Government, and that in due season they would be brought under the consideration of the House. When they were brought forward, he (Viscount Bury) would be ready to discuss them; but he would not be dragged, if he could help it, into the consideration of a series of abstract questions which had nothing to do with the practical question before them, and which ought not to be placed in the same category. He could not help thinking, while he listened to the hon. Member and his Seconder, that this was a Resolution on which the hon. Gentleman did not intend to divide, but that he meant it to be regarded as a general programme or syllabus of Army reform which he intended in the course of the Session to submit in detail to the House. Be that as it might, he (Viscount Bury) thought the House ought not to be led away by it, and that they should confine their attention that night to the distinct issue which the hon. Gentleman had brought before them—whether the tenure of the Commander-in-Chief ought to be altered.
  COLONEL NORTHsaid, the misfortune of introducing and discussing such questions as this was that they became party questions, which they ought never to be made, for our Army was not a political institution, and he believed that there was no political party outside the House, and he was quite sure there was no political section in the House, who were not equally alive to the honour and the efficiency of our Army. He was happy to say that it had not hitherto been treated as a political and party question; but he could only say it would not be the fault of the hon. Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan) if it did not hereafter become one of the bitterest party feeling. Instead of going about the country delivering speeches and exciting the public mind, it would have been far better if the hon. Member had waited and calmly brought it

  627
  forward, and had it fairly discussed in that House. All would agree that a question of this importance ought to be discussed with the greatest calmness and the greatest fairness, and when the hon. Gentleman found it necessary to refer to evidence which had been taken before Royal Commissions, and before Committees of the House, the real and true sense of that evidence ought to have been given without collecting three or four sentences to suit a particular purpose. He was very much surprised on reading a good deal of what the hon. Gentleman stated in his speeches at Edinburgh, Brighton, and Birmingham. As they had been revised, corrected, printed, and distributed to his friends by himself, and the public could buy them, the House had a right to hold the hon. Gentleman responsible for all that he had stated in those speeches. At the beginning the hon. Gentleman made an attack upon Army agents. He said—
  "The Army agents alone received £40,000 a year from the public, not one halfpenny of which should be paid after the first of April next."
  The hon. Gentleman said—
  "It was a painful thing to think that that job should have lasted through the second year of a householders' Parliament, led by a Liberal Government."
  But the hon. Gentleman had forgotten that he was himself not only a Member of that householders' Parliament, but a Member of that very Government; and that it was not until he had ceased to be a Member of that Government that he had attempted anything towards getting rid of what he thought so very objectionable. The hon. Gentleman served upon a Committee which sat three or four months. Their recommendations, he (Colonel North) believed, were approved by officers both of the Engineers and the Artillery; but nothing was done to carry them out, because they were so expensive. With regard to the question of selection, that His Royal Highness was not singular in his opinion could be proved from the reasons given by three Members of the Royal Commission, one of whom was Mr. Edward Ellice, who had been Secretary at War, for not agreeing with the Report of the other Members. Lord Grey was also of the same opinion. So far from the Duke of Cambridge refusing to select, as stated by Mr. Trevelyan, His Royal Highness, referring to the opinions
  628
  laid before the Commission, said in a speech in the House of Lords on the Mutiny Bill, that, as far as he was personally concerned, it would be his earnest and anxious endeavour, difficult as it might be, and as he must consider it himself, to carry out whatever decisions might be come to in such a manner as to promote the best interests of the Army, and, if of the Army, the best interests of the country also. His Royal Highness asked what were to be the standards of merit; and they all recollected the speech of Lord Palmerston on the same subject. Lord Palmerston asked—"What is merit?" And he went on to say that merit was only the opinion which one man formed of another, and that it would be an Utopian idea to hope that under any system individuals could be selected for merit alone. But not only was Lord Palmerston, but General Peel, Lord Herbert of Lea, Sir George Lewis, Mr. E. Ellice, Lord Grey, Lord Raglan, and Sir Charles Yorke were all against selection. So eager, however, was the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Trevelyan) to get rid of His Royal Highness that he was not satisfied with removing him from the Horse Guards without removing him from the Army. ["No, no!"] In his speech at Liverpool, on the 6th of January, the hon. Gentleman said—"When they had abolished the purchase system, how would they keep it from reviving? It would immediately revive if they kept the Duke of Cambridge in the Army." [Mr. TREVELYAN: I meant the Horse Guards, not the Army.] It was not in the power of the Secretary of State to transfer an officer of the Line to the Militia, and he hoped under the new system neither Secretary of State nor Commander-in-Chief would be able to move an officer who might be senior of his rank in the regular Army to similar rank in the Militia. We could never require to use officers of the Army to officer the Militia. There were plenty of officers on half-pay who would be content to serve, provided their interests were properly considered. The hon. Gentleman had also referred to General Forster, the Military Secretary, and stated the evidence of Sir Edward Lugard relative to the duties that officer was called upon to perform; but his remarks by no means conveyed the true evidence given by that gallant officer. The Military Secretary was, in

  629
  truth, a most important officer, whose duty it was to lay before His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief statements as to different officers who stood on the list for promotion, it remaining for His Royal Highness to select those officers with the approval of the Secretary of State. He could not also help thinking that the cause which the hon. Gentleman had espoused required a good deal of bolstering up when he found it necessary to select whatever was useful to his own arguments, and put aside the rest. The hon. Gentleman was bound to give a fair and just summary of any evidence he thought to bear upon the subject, and not take merely as much as served his purpose; and when he attempted to cry up the Artillery and Engineers to the detriment of the rest of the Army he must tell the hon. Gentleman that if he thought it would be grateful to one branch of the service to be praised at the expense of another, he was labouring under a great mistake. The hon. Gentleman, too, had spoken in a most improper manner of His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief — ["No, no!"] — in a speech which he had made in 1869, and, recollecting the apology which he had to make in consequence of that speech, he was surprised that he should venture to repeat such statements again.
  MR. O'REILLYsaid, that while he agreed with his hon. Friend who had raised the present discussion (Mr. Trevelyan) that there were many sources of expenditure connected with the Army which were antiquated and useless, he did not think there was sufficient ground for recording on the Votes of the House such a general sweeping declaration with respect to them as that which was contained in his Resolution. Of the payments to Army agents, he saw the final extinction "looming in the distance." The extra payments, too, in certain branches of our establishments, such as the Guards and Household Cavalry, would have an entirely new light thrown upon them when the system of purchase was abolished. He was prepared to admit at once—and he thought his right hon. Friend at the head of the War Office would admit—that if there was to be a separate rate of pay in different portions of the Army, it must be based either on the score of higher service, or on a more careful selection of the recipients.
  630
  That, however, was a question which could not be considered abstractedly at the present moment. With regard to the third class of items, relating to the number of generals, sinecure colonelcies, and the whole of the half-pay list, it was essential, in his opinion, that his right hon. Friend should take them into his consideration hereafter. His (Mr. O'Reilly's) view was, that they must all be taken into account in connection with the scheme of retirement which must follow the abolition of the system of purchase. He now came to the more precise and definite part of his hon. Friend's Resolution—that which related to the tenure of office by the Commander-in-Chief, and the interpretation of which he must take to be that the five years' rule should be applied to the office of Commander-in-Chief, as well as to other posts in the Army. Now, he should state very briefly the reasons which led him to the conclusion that it was not desirable such a change should be made. The Secretary for War, in speaking the other night on the principle of promotion which should be adopted, said that one thing must be guarded against, and that was, that promotion should not be vested in the hands of a political chief—implying that the selection must be vested in the responsible head of the Army. That being so, would the affairs of the Army be best administered by such a head, removable every five years? There were, as far as he understood the matter, two patent objections to such a state of things. In the first place, an officer thus removable would not have a sufficiently long time to make himself acquainted with the records of the Army on which his selections must be based; and, secondly, if the military head of the Army was to be chosen by its political head every five years, was there no danger that political reasons might influence his choice? Was it not better, therefore, that there should be such permanency in the office as should free its holder from the suspicion of having been appointed on political grounds? Would not a Liberal Secretary of State be inclined to replace from his own party a chief of the Army for one who had been appointed by a Conservative Secretary five years before? He (Mr. O'Reilly) thought it would be well if the Commander-in-Chief were compelled to retire at a fixed age—that would, he thought,

  631
  be a far better remedy for the evil complained of than a compulsory retirement at the end of five years. As to the part of his hon. Friend's speech which was directed to the qualifications of the present Commander-in-Chief, he must say that, so far as he could see, he had made no observation which it was not perfectly competent to any Member of the House to make. But he must observe, without entering into any lengthened criticism of the high qualities which had been displayed in the office by His Royal Highness, that he believed he had given great satisfaction to the Army; and as to the allegation that he shirked the responsibility of the selection of officers, he would simply remark that he did not think he was the less qualified to discharge a difficult and honourable duty because he recognized its difficulties beforehand. His hon. Friend had gone on to observe that there was danger in abolishing the purchase system while we had at the head of the Army a Commander-in-Chief who had avowed that he held his high office in official ignorance of over-regulation prices, and who had stated that if it were abolished to-morrow a new system of purchase would be likely to spring up. Now, in making that statement, His Royal Highness spoke of a state of things which it was not proposed should continue to exist; while as to his official ignorance of over-regulation prices, his hon. Friend would seem to imagine that those prices had grown up under the administration of His Royal Highness, whereas he was in no sense of the word responsible for their existence; and if he was officially ignorant of them, so had been every Commander-in-Chief and Secretary of State who had preceded him in office. For the reasons which he had given he hoped his hon. Friend would not go to a Division; but if he should do so, he must, however reluctantly, vote against his Resolution.
  MAJOR DICKSONsaid, he wished to warn the House and the country against the danger of putting too great faith in the specious speech of the hon. Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan). Like many military reformers who had no practical knowledge, he had drawn many theoretical conclusions, advocating the abolition of systems of the working of which he had no experience, and the introduction of foreign systems
  632
  — entirely overlooking the difference in the character of English and foreign soldiers, as well as many minor matters which, to a civilian, appeared trivial and unimportant, but the importance of which was fully appreciated by soldiers. With a confidence which might easily impose upon civilians, the hon. Member had spoken in favour of abolishing two systems which had always worked well, and had never broken down—our regimental system and the Department of the Horse Guards. The Commander-in-Chief had always performed his duty to the satisfaction of the Army, and, as he believed, of the country generally. The hon. Member had not, however, made any distinct charge against the Horse Guards, though he had heaped up against it many vague charges, which were, in fact, the shortcomings of the War Office, and ought to lead him to advocate a reform of that Department, not of the Horse Guards. As a soldier he could not protest too strongly against any change which would impair the efficiency of the regimental system, or transfer the control of the Army from a high military officer to a political official or a Board of military officers. Were the Gentlemen who advocated such a change so enamoured of the Admiralty that they wished to see a similar organization to that of the Admiralty? At present the Army had confidence in the administration of military patronage; but if this patronage were once transferred to a political department, political jobbery and favouritism would creep into the administration, and would give rise to discontent and distrust throughout the Army. He contended that the system of selection would strike a fatal blow at that esprit de corps which had led to such happy results in the past, and he felt convinced that there could be no safe rule for promotion but seniority pure and simple. To that it was objected that it would lead to the appointment of incompetent men at the head of regiments and that a short time would witness the re-introduction of the purchase system in another form. He would, however, ask whether there was no possibility of framing penal regulations, and whether there was not a Government sufficiently strong to carry them out? Was it not possible to establish a system that if any officer was reported incompetent, and this should

  633
  be clearly established on investigation, he should be called upon to resign? He agreed in the remark made by the hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Colonel North) that military matters ought not to be made the subject of political agitation; but there could be no doubt that for some months past certain Gentlemen had been going up and down the country keeping up a political agitation, and he would put it to the good sense of the House, and of military reformers out-of-doors, whether it was not dangerous to carry on an agitation which might ultimately reach the Army itself, and utterly destroy that cheerful confidence which now existed in all ranks of Her Majesty's Service.
  MR. H. R. BRANDsaid, he did not agree with his hon. Friend the Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan) in his desire to limit the tenure of the officer Commanding-in-Chief. He believed that the removal of the Department from the Horse Guards to the War Office would give to the public that security that was desired, and would lead to increased economy. And it was his opinion that that economy was sorely needed in Pall Mall. He thought that the administration at the Horse Guards was anything but economical, for in addition to the figures enumerated by his hon. Friend who introduced the Motion, he might observe that whereas in 1853–4 the Estimate for the Horse Guards was £26,000, it had now increased to over £49,000. These figures would afford a convincing proof that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had little chance of effectually reducing the overburdened Estimates unless he commenced at the top. But he did not wish the present debate to anticipate the discussion on the Army Estimates. It was to be regretted that the debate partook somewhat of the nature of a personal attack upon His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief; but that was not the fault of the Mover of this Resolution, but rather the fault of the distinguished individual at present filling that office; for His Royal Highness had from time to time expressed himself adverse to the abolition of the purchase system, and had, before the Commission of 1857, over and over again declared himself unable to select officers for promotion. His Royal Highness prophesied, moreover, in the most solemn
  634
  terms, that promotion by selection would resolve itself into promotion by seniority. If His Royal Highness had since changed his opinion, as they were told he lately had, so much the better for the service in which he was so deservedly loved and liked; but if he had not, he did not see how he could undertake those duties which it was proposed should be incidental to his office. He ventured, however, to submit that this was not a question whether this or that man should be appointed to the office of Commander-in-Chief, but whether it was to the advantage of the Army or the nation that the appointment to the office should be by selection, and should be periodically in the hands of the Secretary for War. He had in his hands a paragraph of the Report of a Select Committee which inquired into the relations which existed between the War Office and Horse Guards—a Committee over which the late Sir James Graham presided. With respect to the advisability of placing the patronage of the Army in the hands of a high military officer, the Committee thus reported—
  "The Army is thus enabled to feel assured that the patronage of the Army as regards first commissions, and the ordinary promotions and appointments, other than those which are self-regulated by purchase or seniority, will not be distributed with a view to political objects, or to the necessities of successive Governments."
  But the case was stronger now, for the Government was about to give the officer Commanding-in-Chief new duties. He would have to select officers for promotion and for appointments, which would be no longer self-regulated by purchase or seniority. But, if the appointment of this high officer was to be placed every five years at the disposal of the Secretary of State for War, there would be some danger of running into the very danger which that House most wished to avoid. The appointment might be made for party purposes; at any rate you would never be able to eradicate from the minds of the officers of the Army the suspicion that the appointment might have been made for the purpose of serving the exigencies of party. Therefore, he contended that the office of the Commander-in-Chief should be a permanent appointment, but subject to the pleasure of the Queen and considerations affecting age. There was a great chance of effecting reductions in the Vote annually made for

  635
  out-pensioners—a Vote which had attained its present proportions—upwards of £1,300,000—in consequence of our plan of enlisting men for such long periods of service that at their discharge they were utterly unfitted for all civilian occupation. A charge was also imposed upon the country for the prospective services of the pensioners, which, in many cases, were altogether worthless. The short-service system, however, when thoroughly worked, would do away with this source of expenditure. He was quite prepared to support the Motion for reduction when brought forward by the hon. Gentleman who had introduced this Motion; but the Motion itself he regarded as too vague in its terms. He hoped it would not be pressed to a Division.
  SIR PATRICK O'BRIENsaid, he thought this subject would have been better brought forward in connection with the larger question of Army organization. That, unfortunately, was no new subject in Europe. The sad results had just shown themselves of a system of intendance worked not for the good of the service or of the country, but of the entourage surrounding the late Ruler of the French people. The Germans pursued a directly opposite system, for though the Princes of the blood took their full share of the dangers of the field, they avoided in their higher military appointments all considerations of aristocratic favour or Court influence, and the results showed themselves in the successes they had won. The hon. and gallant Member for Dover (Major Dickson) had taunted civilian Members with talking about military matters which they did not understand, and seemed to regard civilian interference in these debates somewhat as he, when a boy at school, regarded the efforts of a German professor to learn the art of swimming when in bed; but still the hon. and gallant Gentleman, though thus opposed to civilian interference, admitted that the Secretary of State for War, who was a civilian, under the existing system exercised controlling authority over the Commander-in-Chief and all the military men in the service. In the Army he (Sir Patrick O'Brien) believed this control was but nominal; but in the Navy, where it really existed, and where its Chief did not enjoy a perpetuity of tenure, they saw the results in their present Navy, which, he believed,
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  was efficient enough to maintain its supremacy against the fleets of Europe and of America. As to land forces, battles were no longer won with gros bataillons, but with improved ordnance and more skilful handling. A crisis had arrived in our Army organization, and he would ask hon. Gentlemen opposite could they candidly say that they believed the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief was the proper person at this moment to be at the head of the Army? ["Yes, yes!"] Hon. Gentlemen had favoured him with an affirmative answer. He thought they would hardly have done so if they had been acquainted with some facts he would now bring to their attention. In 1857, before the Indian Mutiny broke out, he (Sir Patrick O'Brien) ventured to call attention to the propriety of reviving two regiments of cavalry—the 5th Lancers and the 18th Hussars—whose names had long been omitted from the Army List. The Horse Guards insisted that this could not be done; but in three weeks' time it was done, nevertheless. Again, a Staff College had been created which was costing the country many thousands a year; yet not a man who passed through the Staff College was appointed from it, until he called attention to the subject in that House. How had the Horse Guards dealt with the regulation providing that no officer should hold a Staff appointment beyond five years? Why, it was disregarded by the Horse Guards. There were well-known cases of men who had been 18 and 22 years on the Staff. ["Oh, oh!"] Were not hon. Gentlemen familiar with the names of Gordon and Cunningham? How was all this done? and was His Royal Highness unaware of these facts? If so, he was unfit for his position; while if he did know of the circumstances he was setting the example of a breach of discipline. To say that the office of Commander-in-Chief was not a political appointment was to utter an absurdity. In former times a Royal Duke was at the head of the Army; and was the strong speech which was delivered by His Royal Highness the Duke of York against the Catholic claims forgotten — a speech so strong, and so partizan, that the Tory papers of that day said it ought to be printed in letters of gold? ["Oh !" and Question!"] This was the question; and if he were not heard inside the

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  House he would be heard outside the House. It was idle to say that a Peer of Parliament, taking his place in the other House, and expressing his opinions upon the questions of the day as they arose, had not political views of his own, and was a non-political officer. Now that a vast amount of patronage was about to be transferred to this distinguished personage, plenty of soothing speeches were delivered in that House, and those Members were laughed at who wished to state their honest opinions. Before introducing their plan for the reorganization of the Army the Government ought to have considered what would be their future policy were they to maintain only a system of insular defence? or were they to defend treaty obligations, and maintain the old tradition that we were to be prepared for every eventuality? It was very doubtful, in his opinion, whether the industry and wealth of the country would submit with a good grace to pay the increased taxes rendered necessary by the new Army Estimates. It seemed to him that too many persons in the present day—including some of those whom he was now addressing—were too like Punch's bumptious Englishman, who thought themselves the greatest and most influential people under the sun, until brought back to their senses when the Chancellor of the Exchequer stepped forward and said—"Mr. Giles, you will have to pay me 8d. in the pound income tax." Whatever might be said of the Irish people, they, at all events, often rose above considerations of material interest, and on a late memorable occasion would have given all they possessed to carry out an idea which was endeared to their country by old traditional associations. In conclusion, he said he could only support that portion of the Motion which related to the administration of the Army. [The hon. Member spoke amid much interruption.]
  MR. OSBORNE: Whatever epithet may be applied to the speech of my hon. Friend who had just preceded me in this debate (Sir Patrick O'Brien), I scarcely think it will be considered to be one of a soothing nature. Indeed, it occurs to me that the further we go into this debate, the more we are practising the figure the hon. Gentleman alluded to, and are endeavouring to learn to swim by swimming in bed. While listening
  638
  to the arguments brought forward in support of this floating Motion, I have been very much tempted to ask what has become of that band of bounding brothers of whom the hon. Gentleman who has introduced the present Motion is a type. One after another I see them rising in their places and saying that they perfectly agree with the hon. Gentleman, but begging him not to go to a Division. One only has been true to the cause. Faithful among the faithless, my hon. Friend (Sir Patrick O'Brien), who had roved from New York to Vienna, and back again to the streets of Dublin, is the only one who said he would support the Motion; but he does not give any reason for supporting it, except that the 5th Lancers and the 18th Royal Dragoons were disbanded on account of the Horse Guards refusing to re-raise them. I must say that having entered the House late, and not being fully aware of what was coming on, I thought there was some mistake. I was under the impression, until I saw you, Mr. Speaker, in the Chair, that you ought not to have been sitting there, but that the Chairman of Committees should have been presiding, and that the discussion was on the Army Estimates. I have heard very little—indeed nothing—about the dual government, but I have heard a flaming attack made upon His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge for reasons which I can neither understand nor approve. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Colonel North), and the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Dover (Major Dickson), have, I think, been rather hard upon, and have not made sufficient allowances for, the position of my hon. Friend the Member for the Border Burghs. He is a rising young man, of extraordinary ability, extraordinary energy, and extraordinary industry. He took up this question of Army Reform, the abrogation of purchase, and the abolition of the Horse Guards. While "starring" it in the provinces he made the same able speech he has delivered this evening. I am able to compliment him upon it, as I have read it on three previous occasions. ["No, no!"] My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Winterbotham), is not such a studier of the provincial papers as I am. I have even read his letters from abroad. If my hon. Friend

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  will get the Edinburgh Courant for December last I think he mil find that identical speech. He will also find it in the Manchester Guardian. I repeat that I have carefully studied the provincial papers, and seen all these charges going from Edinburgh to Manchester, from Manchester to Liverpool, and, finally, cropping up at Birmingham. I read his speech, too, at Nottingham; and I think, therefore, the hon. Gentleman has been hardly treated. Well, this industrious young man joins the Ministry. He found that the Secretary for War last year did not hold out any very great hope of reform in the Army; consequently, this industrious and able young man leaves the Government. This was very creditable to him; but it must naturally have been a great disappointment for him, after he had made this great sacrifice and "starred it" in the provinces, to find that his right hon. Friend the Secretary for War had, without any previous information, taken the wind out of his sails, by coming forward with a proposal to bring forward all these reforms to abrogate purchase and to destroy the dual government, besides promising a great many other reforms. What does the hon. Member for the Border Burghs want? It is very hard for him to find these questions settled by the Secretary for War. What is he to do? Just let me ask hon. Gentlemen one thing. While we are all gaping at and admiring this great scheme for the abolition of purchase — on which I shall have something to say when the proper time arrives—are we prepared for the enormous outlay that it will render necessary? The sum at present named is £8,000,000. Now, I do not want to prophesy, but if the House of Commons gets out of it under £12,000,000, and £500,000 by way of a retiring list, I am very much mistaken. I do not wish, however, to debate this subject on a Motion as to whether the Duke of Cambridge is to be turned out of the Horse Guards. We shall have time enough to take it up on another occasion. This has degenerated into nothing more than an Army Estimate debate. If I accuse my hon. Friend who initiated it of having made the same speech in four places before, assuredly I have heard the same speech from his Seconder, the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson); and certainly he had a much larger congregation
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  to-night than he had on the occasion I allude to. I have been always particularly anxious to hear what falls from that hon. Gentleman, because he is essentially a representative man; and I congratulate him upon having made exactly the same speech he did when he attempted last year to cut down the Vote for the Secretary to the Commander-in-Chief. However, I want to come to the question. My hon. Friend the Member for the King's County (Sir Patrick O'Brien), like a gallant and eloquent Irishman as he is, has taken the bull by the horns. He asks—"Is there a man in the House who will say that His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge is the proper man to be Commander-in-Chief?" I am the man who says that. I believe a more honest and conscientious man, and a man better fitted for the post, never presided at the Horse Guards. My hon. Friend (Mr. Trevelyan) brings forward trumpery instances of his having proposed Motions in a thin House. I dare say His Royal Highness was never aware that these Motions were made. What I complain of is that the hon. Member now, as then, proposes Resolutions which only nibble at the question—he does not go to the root of it. He endeavours to raise a cloud around the Horse Guards; he talks of purchase, Army agents, flogging, marking with the letter D, and contagious diseases. He puts all these together, and he endeavours to saddle the Duke of Cambridge with this olla podrida. What has the Duke to do with it? I protest against making the Commander-in-Chief the object of all this abuse. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War is the man who accepts all responsibility; if purchase has not been done away with before, it is not the Commander-in-Chief who is to blame—it is this House that is to blame for it; it is those new lights who have been made the victim of the petty larceny which has occurred, and whose pocket has been picked of their scheme. I heartily sympathize with the hon. Member, but as an old soldier who has seen something of the Army and its working, I say boldly that I believe there never was a man who was more conscientious in his appointments than the Royal Duke, and that he never condescended to a dirty thing or job. There is as much slavishness in abusing the Royal Duke as there

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  may be courage in praising him. I have been very much struck with some of the instances the hon. Member for the Border Burghs has been perpetually giving the natives in the provinces, where they have always been received with enormous cheers. He cut that joke about Lord Hardinge at Birmingham. [Mr. TREVELYAN: I did not.] Then it was at Edinburgh. I suppose he could not have selected a more unfortunate instance than that of Lord Hardinge, who succeeded to the Horse Guards when it was known that the supply of artillery in this country was disgracefully deficient, and by the exertions of Lord Hardinge the country was put in a better state of defence than it had ever been in before. What I complain of is this—that the hon. Member has not spoken to this House as he has spoken to assemblies at Birmingham and elsewhere. [Mr. TREVELYAN made a gesture of denial.] No, he has not. The hon. Gentleman selects one man from among many, and he says—"You have got into a groove. Here is Sir Richard Airey who is perpetually employed." And why is he? Because, I suppose, he is one of the ablest officers this country has possessed; and if anything awkward arose on the Continent I suppose it very probable there is no man we should sooner place at the head of an Army than Sir Richard Airey. I have been an Army reformer in my time, and I am still an Army reformer. I have turned the Serpentine through the Horse Guards with greater success than the hon. Gentleman below me (Mr. Rylands) has turned it through the Foreign Office—by one of my first essays in Parliament I reduced flogging in the Army, therefore I feel I have some right to speak on this subject. However Parliament may interfere with the Estimates, as it properly may, I hope we may not get a more expensive Army—though I fear we shall; but if there is one thing I should deprecate more than another—if there is one thing I hope Parliament will never do — it is the taking the command of the British Army from the Horse Guards.
  MR. CARDWELL: I shall be glad if any words of mine shall induce my hon. Friend not to press his Motion to a Division; for if he take a Division, he will do so on a point on which he does not carry the House with him. From the
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  tone of his speech, I think his Motion was intended not so much to be levelled personally against His Royal Highnes, the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief as to raise the question of the tenure of that office. I shall feel it my duty to say a few words on both these points. With regard to the tenure of the office, I wish to say that a few years ago there was an exceptional warrant of the Secretary of State for War which removed the discipline of the Army, the appointments, and the promotions from the control of the Commander-in-Chief. A few years ago that exceptional warrant was withdrawn, and the matter remained without any clear and satisfactory arrangement until last year, when, by an Order of the Queen in Council, it was placed beyond doubt. Dual government cannot be said to have had any existence since that Order was passed; and we are now moving the Horse Guards to the War Office in Pall Mall, in order to obtain that greater convenience of administration which all Secretaries of State, from General Peel to the present time, have pointed out to be necessary, which Sir James Graham's Committee so strongly recommended, and which the Duke of Cambridge agrees with me in recommending to this House. By the Motion before the House—to which I shall confine myself—my hon. Friend asks that the tenure of the Commander-in-Chief should be altered in such a manner as to enable the Secretary of State for War to avail himself of the best administrative talent; and he explains that by saying he wishes to have the five years' rule, which applies to all other Staff officers, applied to His Royal Highness the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief. There cannot be anything more deceptive than to pursue an analogy where the reason does not hold. In all other Staff appointments, as has been justly pointed out, the selection is made by a professional officer, by the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief — by a person who has no connection with politics. Now, if there is one thing which would be more mischievous than another, it would be to have the smallest suspicion of politics introduced into this office. You have a most difficult problem to solve, because you justly hold the political officer who sits here responsible to you for the approval of the appointments; and, at the same time, you

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  justly determine that these appointments shall not be made by a political officer. That is an extremely difficult problem to solve, and you solve it by taking care to hold high the just authority of the military officer who is at the head of the Army, while, on the other, you hold high the responsibility of the Secretary of State. But if you make the appointment of the Commander-in-Chief terminable at the end of a fixed period, you would, in my opinion, greatly impair and disparage the just authority which ought to belong to that office. Let us consider it in two ways. The appointment might be made either for too long a period or for too short a one. Suppose you had got, by misfortune or by accident, in that high place an officer who really was not competent for it—and the hon. Member for Truro (Captain Vivian) put this point in a thinner House with perfect clearness—would you, because he had a five years' appointment, desire to continue him in the office to the end of the five years? Quite the reverse; you would justly hold the Minister of the day responsible for bringing his appointment to a close. On the other hand, my hon. Friend spoke in disparagement of the Duke of Wellington as Commander-in-Chief; but if such a man as the Duke of Wellington were in the office, would anybody propose to substitute any other person for him? Suppose the eminent man who has so successfully commanded the German Armies were at the head of our Army, would anybody propose that, at the end of five years, he should terminate his office? Therefore, Sir, with regard to tenure, I hold that the office of the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief is distinguished from every other Staff appointment by essential differences, and that the continuance of anyone in it, or his removal from it, must depend upon considerations of public expediency and advantage. Therefore I hold my hon. Friend (Mr. Trevelyan) is mistaken in the Motion he makes, and I regret very much if, by persevering in it, he compels us to go into a different Lobby from him, as he is doing so much to support our general proposals. But I must also say a word or two on the ground he took for the proposals he makes with regard to the Commander-in-Chief, in the evidence of the Duke of Cambridge before the Committee of
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  1857. It would be very severe discipline to be applied to any of us if, in practical matters of this kind, we were to be bound by opinions we may have expressed some 14 years ago. Public opinion marches gradually, sometimes rapidly, and carries us along with it. The illustrious Duke was not the only person who, in 1857, entertained opinions adverse to the abolition of purchase; the Secretary of State of that day thought, under the circumstances, that abolition of purchase was not desirable; and why is the Duke of Cambridge to be held to the opinion he then entertained any more than the Secretary of State? It is admitted on all hands that he gave his evidence before the various Committees by whom he was examined with the utmost frankness. No doubt the opinions which were then placed on record were the opinions he then held; but he did not necessarily hold them for all subsequent time. I know perfectly well that what has recently passed on the subject of the abolition of purchase, and more especially the Report of the Commission over which my right hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey) presided, has had a material effect in influencing his judgment on the subject. At any rate the illustrious Duke has cordially assisted the Government in the preparation of their measures, and given us all the support and co-operation we could desire. Well, Sir, with regard to the constitution of the Horse Guards one important change is made. A great deal has been said about the Military Secretary—he has been spoken of as if he were the mere amanuensis of the Commander-in-Chief. But the office of Military Secretary is one of very great importance, because he has to record and tabulate the reports of the general officers inspecting, which are the foundation of promotions in the higher ranks of the Army; and the office will be one of far greater importance if the proposed arrangements are carried into effect. It is only justice to General Foster, the Military Secretary, to say that, in speaking of higher duties, no reflection whatever is intended or thought of with regard to the mode in which the former duties were discharged. Then, Sir, upon the second part of the Motion of my hon. Friend I do not think I need enter at any length to-night—that would

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  be only anticipation. Of course I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that, speaking generally, whatever is obsolete and antiquated ought to be the subject of criticism and removal. I understand the principal object of my hon. Friend is to change the tenure of the office of Commander-in-Chief. I do not understand him to desire at all to point observation against the individual who now happens to fill the high office, but only against the tenure of the office itself. I hope my hon. Friend will see that what I have said is true—that this is an office the duration of which ought not to be measured by mere lapse of time; questions of expediency must be taken into account, and the officer holding it should be in harmony with the Government, assisting and co-operating with them in carrying forward their measures; at the same time you ought to take every means in your power for preventing the patronage of the Army being mixed up with political questions, and holding up as high as possible the authority vested in him. I have listened with admiration to the ability my hon. Friend has displayed to-night. I trust that ability will never be exercised on merely personal matters; and I shall be glad if he will be satisfied with the success he has gained this evening, and will not press his Motion to a Division.
  MR. TREVELYANsaid, he would not, after the kind attention the House had given him in the early part of the evening, say more than a very few words in reply. He thought a little too much had been made of the five years' tenure of office; if the Governor General of India could be appointed for that period, and the arrangement could work so satisfactorily for so many years, he (Mr. Trevelyan) did not think that the Commandership-in-Chief was an office so very high that it should be regulated differently. He asked for no single remedy to night; he merely wished the House to pronounce that the present tenure was disadvantageous. As for the observations of the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Osborne), he did not attach much importance to them. It mattered very little what speeches he had delivered in various parts of the country; but this, at least, he could say, that what he had stated he was not afraid to repeat in that House. He should have been glad to accede to the suggestion
  646
  of his right hon. Friend who was doing so much for this question and for the Army; but having promised the country to divide the House, and conceiving that to be a more practical mode of giving effect to his opinions than to make jokes about them for 10 years, he should do so.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 83; Noes 201: Majority 118.

THE POPE—LETTER OF MR. GLADSTONE.—MOTION FOR PAPERS.
MR. W. JOHNSTONmoved an Address to Her Majesty for Copies of the Letter from the right hon. the First Lord of the Treasury to the hon. Member for Queen's County, dated the 30th day of November, 1870, and for other Papers. The hon. Member said, that the contest between France and Prussia, following hard on the declaration of Papal Infallibility, had produced a state of affairs in Italy which caused some correspondence between the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government and other persons who were anxious to ascertain the views of Government upon this important question. There was great anxiety felt in Ireland among the members of the Roman Catholic body on the subject. Meetings were held by them and addresses forwarded to the Prime Minister soliciting the Government on behalf of the Pope—and altogether the subject had assumed a character of sufficient importance to justify a demand for the Papers relating to it. The first portion of the Papers asked for comprised the correspondence between the First Lord of the Treasury and the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. Dease). Under ordinary circumstances he of course should not have moved for these letters; they were not, however, in the nature of private correspondence; they comprised a letter from the Prime Minister of a great Protestant country pledging not only himself, but the whole of the Government, to a policy inconsistent with Protestant principles. An important reference was made to this subject by The Times correspondent at Florence on the 21st of December last, when, in commenting on a recently issued Green Book, he wrote—

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"Another despatch of Signor Cadorna, dated the 27th of September, shows how well the chief of the English Foreign Office understood the situation of affairs in Italy, and how warmly he recommended the Italian Government to leave alone that unfortunate business of Roma Capital. Though his advice with regard to the transfer of the capital is not accepted, he tries to persuade the Pope not to leave Rome. Mr. Otway, in a conversation he had with Signor Cadorna on the same day, seems to have insisted once more upon the necessity of postponing the transfer, and points out the difficulties the question produces in Ireland."
But this matter produced difficulties in other places besides Ireland. The letter of the right hon. Gentleman excited great interest in Edinburgh, where it was keenly felt that if the spiritual functions of the Pope were officially recognized by the Prime Minister, this country would not be adhering to the principles of the Reformation—because it was well understood that the spiritual functions of the Pope had ever been opposed to civil and religious liberty. The feeling was so strong in Scotland that the letter of the Prime Minister was an emphatic condemnation of the Reformation, that the matter was discussed at a meeting of the Edinburgh Free Church Presbytery on the 28th of December last. In the course of the discussion Dr. Candlish remarked that—
"Mr. Gladstone stated in his letter to him that at one time he intended to publish that letter (one to Dr. C.'s friend); but that, influenced by the advice of his colleagues, he had thought it better to abstain from publishing it at this time, and to wait till the meeting of Parliament, when he would be prepared to offer any explanation which any parties in the House might seem to require."
In conformity with that declaration he now asked for the letter, in order that the required explanation might be given. After this meeting a number of anxious inquirers on the Liberal side of the House met to consider the matter in Pall Mall; the consultation resulted in a letter to the Prime Minister, signed by the hon. Members for Perth (Mr. Kinnaird) and Marylebone (Mr. T. Chambers), dated the 6th of January. This letter was not replied to until the 19th; and then came a correspondence commencing with "My dear Gladstone" and "My dear Kinnaird," and when it was remembered that these two letters were dated on the same day, one was anxious to know where the correspondence was concocted, who suggested the conclusion, and how it came to be published. But surely the House should be put in possession
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of the facts when a Free Church Presbytery had been told the matter was capable of explanation, and the public generally had been assured that a private conversation in a certain house was eminently satisfactory to the distinguished Protestants who took part in it. It seemed, however, that the letter to the Prime Minister was repeated in substance in a despatch by Lord Kimberley to the Governor of Gibraltar, dated the 16th of January, 1871, in which he had said—
"Her Majesty's Government have not interfered in the civil affairs of the Roman States on the occasion of former events which have occurred during the reign of the present Pope, nor can they now so interfere; but the deep interest which is felt by many millions of Her Majesty's subjects, in common with the petitioners, in the position of the Pope renders all that concerns his personal dignity and independence, and freedom to exercise his spiritual functions, fit subjects for the notice of her Government, and they have not failed to take such steps as are in their power to afford to the Pope the means of security in case of need. Her Majesty desires me to state that this subject will continue to receive the careful attention of her Government, and that she has seen with much satisfaction the declaration of the Italian Government that the Pope's freedom and independence will be fully maintained, and due provision made for the support of his dignity."
Possibly the explanation to be offered by the Government would be satisfactory to the Protestants of England; but, however that might be, it was eminently satisfactory to the Vicar Apostolic of Gibraltar, who writes as follows:—
"Her Majesty's Royal goodness, as well as the kind notice taken by Government of the Holy Father's cause, and the formal recognition set forth in Earl Kimberley's despatch of 'the deep interest felt by many millions of Her Majesty's subjects, in common with the petitioners, in the position of the Pope,' lead me to entertain every confidence that Ministers will never be satisfied that the liberty and independence of our supreme spiritual chief be left to rest on the sole security of the Italian Parliament and Government, whose policy does not offer sufficient guarantee for the future."
Thus Her Majesty's Government had at the same time satisfied the Vicar Apostolic of Gibraltar, and Dr. Candlish, of the Edinburgh Free Church Presbytery. Under those circumstances he trusted the Government would not refuse these Papers, nor the House be induced to treat the matter lightly; for the policy indicated in the letter of the Prime Minister was certainly "inconsistent" in the words of the Bill of Rights "with the safety and welfare of this Protestant

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kingdom." The hon. Member then moved the Address for Papers.
MR. MILLER, in seconding the Motion, said, that the question had excited great interest in the constituency he represented, and he thanked the hon. Member for Belfast for having brought it forward. He attached the greatest importance to the production of the correspondence between the Foreign Secretary and the British Diplomatic Agent at Rome.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House, Copies of the Letter from the Right honourable the First Lord of the Treasury to the honourable Member for Queen's County, dated the 30th day of November 1870, in which reference is made to 'the Sovereign Pontiff;' and it is declared that 'Her Majesty's Government consider all that relates to the adequate support of the dignity of the Pope, and to his personal freedom and independence in the discharge of his spiritual functions to be legitimate matter for their notice:'
Of the Correspondence between the First Lord of the Treasury and the honourable Members for Perth and Marylebone, on the same subject:
Of Despatches of the Foreign Secretary to Foreign Governments, and of the Colonial Secretary to the Governors of Malta and Gibraltar, on the same subject:
And, of all Despatches from the British Diplomatic Agent resident in Rome since the 1st day of August 1870."—(Mr. William Johnston.)
MR. GLADSTONE: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Belfast (Mr. Johnston) has framed his Motion in such a manner as makes it impossible for the Government to agree to it as it stands. The hon. Member has combined a great many matters in his Motion, to some of which I do not object, but to others of them I cannot agree. But before dealing with it I will state the position the Government assumes with regard to the question. With respect to the letter to Mr. Dease, the Government adhere to the proposition it contains. The Government do not, as the hon. Member has stated, wish to have the spiritual functions of the Pope recognized or meddled with by us in any way; but the Government believe that the liberty of the head of the religion of many millions of our fellow-subjects—his liberty and personal independence—is a legitimate matter for the notice of this Government. That is the proposition we maintain and that we mean to adhere to; if the hon. Member thinks that a proposition dangerous to
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the principle of the Reformation, all I can say is that the principles of the Reformation must be more limited than most Protestants commonly believe them to be. If my language, through its looseness, has scandalized the conscience of the hon. Gentleman or any other hon. Member, I should be glad to remove that difficulty. The Motion consists of no fewer than five branches. First, it asks for the production of the letter from the First Lord of the Treasury to Mr. Dease; then for the correspondence between the First Lord of the Treasury and the hon. Members for Perth and Marylebone; thirdly, for the Despatches of the Foreign Secretary to foreign Governments; fourthly, for the Despatches of the Colonial Secretary to the Governors of Malta and Gibraltar, on the same subject; and, fifthly, for all Despatches from the British Diplomatic Agent resident in Rome since the 1st of August, 1870. Now, the Government have prepared and directed to be laid on the Table of the House Papers on the Italian question; and I think the hon. Gentleman would have exercised a sound discretion, these Papers being actually on the Table, or, certainly, on the very point of being laid on the Table, if he had waited a little to see what they contained. We could not accede to a Motion for the production "of all Despatches from the British Diplomatic Agent resident in Rome" since the 1st of August, 1870. That is not the manner in which, the House usually deals with a Motion for such Papers. It has been the custom of the House to leave to the Government a discretion as to those despatches which it may be advisable to lay before Parliament, and as to those other despatches, or portions of them, which it may be advisable to withhold. If the object of the hon. Gentleman is—as I daresay it is—to question the matter of this correspondence, I think he can obtain that object in a very simple manner by moving a portion of his Motion to which I know of no objection—namely, for the production of the Despatches of the Colonial Secretary to the Governors of Malta and Gibraltar. These are regular official documents, and if he likes to move for them he is perfectly welcome to them as far as I am concerned, and they will give him the language of the Government in an authentic form. With regard to producing "all Despatches

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from the British Diplomatic Agent resident at Rome," as we have laid the Italian Papers on the Table, I do not think the hon. Gentleman should endeavour to force on the House such a sweeping Motion at the present moment. Let him exercise his discretion as to that point afterwards. With respect to the first part of the Motion, I think, in the first place, it is unnecessary; the hon. Gentleman is in possession of those Papers, inasmuch as he recites a portion of them in his Motion. On the other hand, I feel considerable difficulty in acceding to a proposal which I think would form a bad precedent. The hon. Member proposes to convert into official documents, to be produced in this House, a correspondence between a Minister and certain Members of this House. This is not a proceeding which the House would do well to establish as a precedent without very careful consideration. It often happens that a Member of this House may write to a public Office on a matter of public interest and may receive an answer that is afterwards published in the newspapers. That sometimes occurs. But I doubt whether it is desirable, without laying down any rule for its limitation, to establish a practice of converting such letters into official Papers. The hon. Gentleman should not suppose it is necessary that everything should be made an official Paper of and laid on the Table in order that it may be animadverted upon in the House. In this case there is no difficulty whatever in his making such animadversions, because the Papers are on the Table, which he regards as the corpus delicti. But on account of my objection to laying down a precedent for calling for the production, as official documents, of all correspondence that may pass between Members of this House and a Minister, and which may subsequently be published in the newspapers, I am very sorry that I cannot agree to this Motion as it stands.
MR. GREENEsaid, he thought the House had a right to the production of the Papers referred to in that Motion; but he confessed he did not lay much stress on the correspondence between the Member for Perth (Mr. Kinnaird) and the Prime Minister. They could all see that the hon. Gentleman had come to the rescue of his right hon. Friend; for when he first read the Prime Minister's
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letter he could not have thought that a man of his acuteness could ever have committed such words to paper; nor was he singular in that opinion, for the matter had caused the greatest sensation in Scotland. The Prime Minister declared that—
"Her Majesty's Government consider all that relates to the adequate support of the dignity of the Pope, and to his personal freedom and independence in the discharge of his spiritual functions to be legitimate matter for their notice."
He would ask the right hon. Gentleman how far he thought that interference might be legitimately carried? If they were to interfere at all in a matter that did not concern this country—supposing the independence of the Pope to be affected, was their interference to be backed up by nothing more than moral force? The people of this country stood in doubt as to the intentions of the Government on this matter, and felt they ought to have a direct answer as to whether we had anything to do with the Pope or no. Surely they could leave the Pope very well to take care of himself. He trusted there were still some Members of the Liberal party left who would adhere to the Protestant feeling of the country. This country did not interfere with the liberty of the Pope, nor ought it to be called upon to defend that liberty, if it should be in danger, from any foreign Power. He regretted that the subject had not been brought forward in a more definite form; but let the Government tell them plainly how far they meant to protect the Pope if his liberty or independency was in jeopardy.
MR. NEWDEGATE: I take a somewhat different view of this subject from that in which it has been treated; because, having been a Member of this House in 1848, I remember well the long discussions which took place at that time with regard to the proposal made for establishing relations with his Holiness the Pope. After lengthened debates in both Houses, it was decided that it would be impolitic and utterly inconsistent with the character of the Government of this country, that any relations whatever should be established between the Government of Her Majesty and the Pope in his spiritual capacity. This was decided after several Divisions. Objections to the Diplomatic Relations Bill, which was then introduced by the Government, were taken by the Duke of Wellington,

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one of the Ministers who promoted the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829. I advert to this fact in order to show that the noble Duke could not be actuated by a spirit of intolerance; but that, on grounds of a recognized policy, as one of the Ministers who passed the Relief Act of 1829, he objected to the Bill introduced by the Liberal Government of that day, because it would have established relations between the Government of Her Majesty, whose only title to the Throne rested on the fact that she was the representative of a Protestant family, and the Pope in his capacity of Sovereign Pontiff. Lord Eglinton also moved and carried a clause in the House of Lords, to the effect that the future relations of the Government of Her Majesty with the Government of the Roman States should by law be limited to communication with the Pope in his temporal character only as Sovereign of the Pontifical States. That is now the law of the United Kingdom, and that law was passed for the express purpose of excluding the legalization of any relations between the Government of Her Majesty, as the Protestant Sovereign of these realms, and the Pope, as Sovereign Pontiff, by which description it was fully explained in debate, the Pope in his spiritual capacity was described. Now, Sir, we have had a pretty plain avowal from the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government that he considers it to be his duty to violate the intention of the law—because, according to that law, the ancient restrictions upon the action of the Government are clearly retained. I will not trouble the House with the quotation; but it is expressly recited in that Act that nothing therein contained shall be taken to justify any Prime Minister of this country in entering into any relations with the Pope in his spiritual capacity. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Hear, hear!] The right hon. Gentleman cheers what I say. Let me ask him what business it is of his to support this spiritual authority at all?
MR. GLADSTONE: I said that we had no relations whatever with the spiritual functions of the Pope; that our business was, so far as it is declared here to be legitimate matter for our notice, with his freedom and independence in the exercise of them, but as nothing whatever to do with those spiritual functions.
MR. NEWDEGATE: The right hon. Gentleman's definition is so fine that really my blunt vision cannot perceive it. He says that he does nothing to violate the intentions of the Act of Parliament, because he does not enter into relations with the Pope in his spiritual capacity, and, at the same time, in answer to a Roman Catholic Member of this House, he writes that he considers it his duty to maintain the independence of the Pope in the exercise of those very spiritual functions. This was in answer to an application made to him, founded upon the fear that the Pope may be coerced in the exercise of his spiritual authority. Now, supposing that that fear were to be realized, which is the anticipation upon which all this proceeds, the right hon. Gentleman has engaged, he tells us, and intends to use the power of England in removing the hindrances to the free exercise of the spiritual authority of the Pope. [Mr. GLADSTONE: "No."] Well, Sir, had he not better give us the correspondence which will explain to us what he really means? Since, I can answer for it, that, at this moment, throughout the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, it is believed and understood that the engagement of the right hon. Gentleman extends to this—that, without the Pope's having sought the hospitality of England by going to Malta—a contingency which was contemplated by the late Lord Palmerston; for I put the question twice myself to him, and his reply will be found in The Standard, and that answer I commend to the study of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department, who cheers me—the Prime Minister has pledged the honour of this country to maintain the independence of the Pope in his spiritual functions. I should be very glad if the replies given by the present Prime Minister were in the sense of Lord Palmerston; but the right hon. Gentleman says, and I will read his words to the House—
"That Her Majesty's Government consider all that relates to the adequate support of the dignity of the Pope, and to his personal freedom and independence in the discharge of his spiritual functions to be legitimate matter for their notice."
Well, Sir, that has been announced to all Europe, and the right hon. Gentleman is held now to stand in the position of having almost, if not quite, pledged the honour of this country to the maintenance

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of the Pope's independence in the exercise of his spiritual functions—those very functions with which the right hon. Gentleman is forbidden by law to interfere. I think that the hon. Member for Belfast (Mr. Johnston) has rendered a public service by asking for these Papers. I am confident of this—that no one who, like myself, remembers what took place in Parliament in 1847 and 1848, or who has carefully read the Diplomatic Relations Act as it stands in the statute book, can fail to see that, instead of limiting his interference to the offer of protection to the Sovereign Pontiff of the Roman States, in his temporal capacity and as a temporal Sovereign, the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister has distinctly transgressed the limits of the statute by undertaking to maintain the independence and the spiritual functions of the Pope. And, Sir, if the right hon. Gentleman is about to frame some new statute to authorize his conduct, I trust that he will not fail to define the limits between the temporal and spiritual functions of the Pope; a task which, hitherto, has been too much for all the sagacity of the statesmen of Europe for centuries. The intention of the right hon. Gentleman is clearly this—to maintain the authority—the spiritual authority—of the Pope. Yes; that is the construction which plain Englishmen put upon this letter; and it is also the construction put upon it in another part of the United Kingdom—in Ireland. Sir, I am not surprised at the deep and earnest feeling which pervades the country on this subject, and I hope that the hon. Member for Belfast will press his Motion to a Division.
MR. W. H. GREGORYreminded the House that the question before them was not the spiritual power of the Pope, but simply whether certain Papers ought to be laid upon the Table. The House ought to bear in mind that the whole question would be brought under its consideration on Friday next, when the Motion of the hon. and gallant Member for Longford (Mr. O'Reilly) was brought forward. It was most unfair that, on an occasion like the present, when Ministers had no power to explain their language, statements should be made which would go before the country without explanation.
SIR JOHN PAKINGTON: I cannot agree with the statement of the hon. Member who has just sat down (Mr. W. H. Gregory), that the Motion to be brought on on Friday next has anything to do with the question now before the House. The two questions are entirely distinct. The Motion of the hon. and gallant Member for Longford (Mr. O'Reilly), which will be brought before the House on Friday next, involves the Italian question — that is to say, the manner in which Rome has been taken possession of by the King of Italy, and it has nothing to do with the one now before us, which is whether certain particular correspondence should be produced or not. We have heard the answer of the right hon. Gentleman; he takes an exception to certain portions of the Motion, which I think are well founded. The objection, however, that he makes to the production of a copy of his letter to the hon. Member for the Queen's County (Mr. Dease), on the ground that to produce it would be to make official correspondence between a Minister and a Member of this House, cannot, I think, be sustained. I can see no objection in principle to the production of this correspondence. The right hon. Gentleman has written a letter which has attracted great public notice, and which is of a nature that very much touches the feelings of a large portion of the population of this country and of a large section of the Members of this House; and it having merely been seen copied in a newspaper, a perfectly natural and fair desire has been expressed that this House should be put in possession of an official copy of that document, in order that they may be satisfied as to the actual character of a communication made by the Prime Minister to a Member of this House upon a subject of thorough importance and interest to the country. Under these circumstances, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will re-consider his decision in this matter. I cannot, however, help thinking that the hon. Member who brought this subject forward would do well, after the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, to limit his Motion to that part which relates to the production of the right hon. Gentleman's letter.
MR. W. JOHNSTONsaid, he would assent to the suggestion of the right hon. Baronet, and would merely press for the

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production of an official copy of the right hon. Gentleman's letter to Mr. Dease.
MR. GLADSTONE: The hon. Member has called for certain Papers, to the production of which I do not think I should be justified in assenting; but, at the same time, I am desirous of concurring with him in an arrangement by which the substantial object of the Motion will be attained. I do not wish to be responsible for the establishment of a new precedent for the production of correspondence between a Minister and Members of this House; but if the hon. Member wishes merely to obtain an official copy of my letter, he can attain that object by providing himself with a copy of the letter—if he cannot do so, I dare say I can supply him—and asking me whether it is a genuine document, and he can then take any proceedings with respect to it that he thinks fit.
MR. SPEAKER: There seems to me to be a difficulty as to the form of the Motion of the hon. Member for Belfast. He has moved an Address to the Crown for Copies of certain Papers; but, in effect, his Motion is merely the expression of a desire that a certain letter written by the Prime Minister to a Member of this House should be produced. I do not think the form of an Address to the Crown for a letter that is not in the possession of any Public Department is a proper one.
Mr. W. JOHNSTON,After a brief consultation with Mr. W. JOHNSTON,
MR. SPEAKERsaid, the hon. Member for Belfast desires to withdraw his Motion for an Address, and to be permitted to move simply for the production of the letter to the hon. Member for the Queen's County.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Moved, "That there be laid before this House, a Copy of the Letter from the Right honourable the First Lord of the Treasury to the honourable Member for Queen's County, dated the 30th day of November 1870, in which reference is made to 'the Sovereign Pontiff;' and it is declared that 'Her Majesty's Government consider all that relates to the adequate support of the dignity of the Pope, and to his personal freedom and independence in the discharge of his spiritual functions to be legitimate matter for their notice.'"—(Mr. William Johnston.)
MR. GLADSTONE: The First Lord of the Treasury is one of the Commissioners of the Treasury, and is also a Member of this House. In the double
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capacity, therefore, of First Lord of the Treasury and Member of the House I am not willing to accede to a Motion of this kind, which I believe to be wholly without precedent, and which, if carried, would result in no practical convenience. I have pointed out to the hon. Member a simple and easy method by which he can place the letter on the records of the House; and if he does not choose to avail himself of that method I have no course open but to oppose his Motion.
MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, the right hon. Gentleman was mistaken. The only effect of the method suggested by the right hon. Gentleman would be to place the letter in Hansard's Debates, and not upon the records of the House. If the right hon. Gentleman could suggest a mode by which the letter would appear upon the Journals of that House, he, for one, would be willing to accede to it.
MR. CARDWELL: I should like, Sir, to ask you a question on this subject. If the letter is to be produced, I presume it must be produced by some person, and I should like to know upon whom the order to produce is to be made.
MR. SPEAKER: Upon the Gentleman to whom the letter was addressed, and in whose custody it remains.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes 90; Noes 153: Majority 63.

IRELAND—HIGH SHERIFFS OF WESTMEATH AND LOUTH.

  MOTION FOR PAPERS.
  MR. MONKrose to call attention to the recent nomination of High Sheriffs for the counties of Westmeath and Louth. A short time ago the appointments of High Sheriff for the counties in Ireland were made, and among those appointments were those of two or three gentlemen who had no property of any description in Ireland, and, so far as he was advised, no qualification to serve in the office of Sheriff for any county in Ireland. It had, for some time past, been the practice for the Government of Ireland to appoint gentlemen to the office of High Sheriff of a county without any reference to their possessing any land or other qualification in Ireland. A relative of his own, who did not possess

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  an acre of land in Ireland, and who had no residence in that county, and who, in fact, had never resided in Ireland, was recently nominated to the office of High Sheriff for the county of Westmeath. His relative requested to be excused from serving; but he was informed by an officer of the Irish Government that it was necessary he should take upon himself that office. Believing that it was his duty to serve his Sovereign in that capacity, he had taken the oaths as Sheriff; but before undertaking the responsibilities of High Sheriff of Westmeath, which was not altogether in a satisfactory state, and in which it was not improbable that there might be a capital conviction during his term of office, he was anxious to ascertain whether the acts he might perform as High Sheriff of Westmeath would be legal. The 14 Charles II., c. 21, contained the following section:—
  "And it is hereby further provided and ordained that no person shall be assigned to be Sheriff of any county within this realm except such as have land within the said county sufficient to answer the King and his people."
  He (Mr. Monk) had the authority of a learned Queen's Counsel for saying that his hon. relative was not duly qualified to hold the office of High Sheriff, and that all his acts done in that capacity would be illegal. Since he had entered the House he was informed by his hon. Friend the Member for East Kent (Mr. Milles) that having been pricked for the office of High Sheriff of that county, as the eldest son of a Peer, though possessing no land or property of any description in the county, he had instructed his legal advisers to protest against his nomination to the office, and it was ruled by the Judges that the appointment was invalid, and it was consequently cancelled.
  CAPTAIN BRINCKMAN, in seconding the Motion, said, that a relative of his had been pricked for the office of High Sheriff of Donegal, who resided in a house lent him by his father, and neither the house nor the land which surrounded it ever would be his own.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That there be laid before this House, a Copy of the Correspondence that has taken place between the gentlemen nominated to be High Sheriffs for the counties of Westmeath and Louth and Her Majesty's Government."—(Mr. Monk.)
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk) had been very impatient and somewhat unreasonable in bringing the matter before the House. He had only that evening received from Ireland the correspondence alluded to, expressing a doubt as to the legality of the appointment, and requesting that he would submit the point to the Law Officers of the Crown for their opinion. That he had already done, and it was quite impossible that he could obtain their opinion in two or three hours. Everything had been done that the gentlemen in question asked to be done, and he was perfectly satisfied with the course the Government proposed to adopt. He believed the practice in Ireland was very different from that in England, and that gentlemen there who had no property in the county had been called upon to serve, and had done so. At all events, the initiative was not taken by the Executive, but by the Judges. The Judges prepared a list, which they submitted to the Executive, and all the Executive did was to take the first names on the list and nominate them. Now, if the practice was illegal, it was one that had been initiated and sanctioned by the Judges of the land; but if it were found to be wrong, the practice would be discontinued, and means would be taken to relieve those who had this year been so appointed. As to the production of the correspondence, he begged to call attention to the fact that the Motion was made entirely without Notice. He would look into the correspondence, and see whether the whole or any part of it could be produced; but, on the part of the Government, he must decline to produce a correspondence which he had not had an opportunity of considering.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. DOWSE)said, as he had been so pointedly alluded to he should say a word in explanation. He thought when the question was put to him—and he still thought—that it would be an improper thing for him, in answer to a Question in this House, to review the decision of the Judges; if the Law Officers of the Crown, when the question had been considered by them, were of opinion that the gentlemen in question had been improperly appointed, the Government would take means to remedy whatever had been wrongly done, and to appoint

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  others to the offices. He did not, however, anticipate that any such conclusion would be come to.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  GAME LAWS ABOLITION BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. TAYLOR, Bill for the Abolition of the Game Laws, ordered to be brought in by Mr. TAYLOR, Mr. DICKINSON, Mr. JACOB BRIGHT, and Mr. M'COMBIE.

  TRIAL BY JURY (IRELAND) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. LAMBERT, Bill to assimilate the Law of Trial by Jury in Ireland to that of Scotland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. LAMBERT, Mr. M'LAGAN, and Mr. M'COMBIE.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 47.]

  SALE OF LIQUOR ON SUNDAY BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. RYLANDS, Bill to extend to the whole of Sunday the present restrictions on the sale of Beer and other fermented or distilled Liquors, ordered to be brought in by Mr. RYLANDS, Mr. CANDLISH, Mr. BIRLEY, and Mr. OSBORNE MORGAN.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 48.]

  INFANT LIFE PROTECTION BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. CHARLEY, Bill for the better protection of Infant Life, ordered to be brought in by Mr. CHARLEY, Dr. BREWER, and Dr. LYON PLAYFAIR.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 49.]

  PAWNBROKERS.
  Select Committee appointed, "to inquire into the state of the Law affecting the Pawnbroking Trades, with a view to its consolidation and amendment:"—Mr. AYRTON, Mr. RICHARD ARKWRIGHT, Mr. Alderman CARTER, Mr. HAMBRO, Mr. THOMAS HUGHES, Mr. CHARLES MILLS, Mr. WHITWELL, Mr. RIDLEY, Colonel BERESFORD, Mr. MORLEY, Mr. MONTAGUE GUEST, Mr. CHARLEY, Mr. PLIMSOLL, Mr. CRUM-EWING, and Mr. ORR-EWING:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.—(Mr. Ayrton.)
  PUBLIC ACCOUNTS.
  Committee of Public Accounts nominated:—Mr. STANSFELD, Mr. POLLARD-URQUHART, Mr. SCLATER-BOOTH, Lord FREDERICK CAVENDISH, Mr. SEELY, Mr. LIDDELL, Mr. ALGERNON EGERTON, Mr. GOLDNEY, Mr. CANDLISH, Mr. WARD HUNT, and Mr. CRAWFORD.

  BANK HOLIDAYS BILL.
  On Motion of Sir JOHN LUBBOOK, Bill to make provision for Bank Holidays, and respecting Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes payable on Bank Holidays, ordered to be brought in by Sir
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  JOHN LUBBOCK, Sir DAVID SALMONS, Mr. BARNETT, and Mr. RATHBONE.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 50.]

  LAW OF RATING (IRELAND).
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the operation of the Law relating to the area of Rating in Ireland, and to consider whether such area may be beneficially extended."—(The Marquess of Hartington.)
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Select Committee appointed, "to inquire into the operation of the Law relating to the area of Rating in Ireland, and to consider whether such Law may be beneficially amended."—The Marquess of Hartington.)
  House adjourned at Twelve o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Provisional Order Bills (Committees)* (25).
Second Reading — Princess Louise's Annuity* (20); Ecclesiastical Dilapidations (2); Juries Act (1870) Amendment (21).
Committee—West African Settlements* (1).

RIVATE BILLS.
Ordered, That this House will not receive any petition for a Private Bill after Monday the 20 th of March next, unless such Private Bill shall have been approved by the Court of Chancery; nor any petition for a Private Bill approved by the Court of Chancery after Monday the 8th of May next:
Ordered, That this House will not receive any report from the judges upon petitions presented to this House for Private Bills after Monday the 8th of May next:
Ordered, That the said Orders be printed and published, and affixed on the doors of this House and Westminster Hall. (No. 23.)

ECCLESIASTICAL DILAPIDATIONS BILL.
(The Lord Archbishop of York.)
ECCLESIASTICAL DILAPIDATIONS BILL.

  (NO. 2.) SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORKsaid, he would not have troubled the House with any observations on this Bill, but for some remarks made by a noble and learned Lord (Lord Romilly) last night, calculated to produce an impression which it was very desirable to remove. The noble and learned Lord complained of the haste with which this measure and two other Bills were hurried through the House last Session, and apprehended great peril to the Church and to the Episcopal element in the House from their being so hastily dealt with. He (the Archbishop of York), however, wished to remark that the subject had been long under public attention. As long ago as 1862, a Bill on this subject was introduced into their Lordships' House at the instance of the Convocation of Canterbury, and was referred to a Select Committee, composed of eminent Members of that House, including Lord St. Leonards. On review of the labours of the Session, the Committee thought it was too late then to proceed with the Bill, and they recommended that it should be printed with a view to
  558
  excite the attention of those concerned, in the hope of legislation in the following year. Their able Report, however, for reasons unknown to him, remained on the shelves of the Library till 1868, when he (the Archbishop of York) introduced, late in the Session, a Bill prepared by a Committee of Convocation, substantially the same as the present. In 1869, he re-introduced it; but, after passing through the stage of Committee, it was withdrawn; and last year he brought it in precisely the same as the present, which passed through all its stages in their Lordships' House, was sent down to the Commons, was there read the second time on the 19th July, but was withdrawn on the 25th on account of the lateness of the Session. He was therefore surprised to hear it said this matter had been dealt with hastily and inconsiderately. This was not a Bishop's Bill. Prepared by the Lower Houses of Convocation of both Provinces, the Bill emanated from the clergy themselves, and was not a measure which the Bishops sought to impose on them. It introduced, moreover, no novelty in point of law, for the theory at present was, that every clergyman dwelling in a house which was his freehold was bound to leave it to his successor in as good a condition as that in which he received it. This principle it was not proposed to change—the mode of assessing the waste which had occurred between one incumbency and another would be retained; but it would be made more equal, certain, and complete. The chief object which this Bill sought to secure was to obtain as surveyors men eminent in their profession, acting on settled rules, and deciding in an uniform manner. The Select Committee had proposed that they should be appointed by the Bishops; but this was open to objection, and the clergy, being most deeply concerned in the matter, might reasonably claim a voice in it. Election by the whole body of the clergy would lead to canvassing and agitation, and it was thought best to entrust the election to the archdeacons and rural deans, subject to the approval of the Bishop, who, on complaint, would have power to remove the surveyor. If any plan, however, could be suggested more likely to secure the confidence of the clergy, he was not prepared to say that it would not be accepted. The surveyor would act whenever

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  a benefice was sequestrated—for the person who took the profits of the living out of the hands of the clergyman was clearly bound to keep the parsonage in repair — and whenever a benefice was vacant, at which time nobody's rights could be said to be infringed by his having the house put in sufficient repair. Clause 12—which he admitted was, to some extent, an alteration of the existing law, and would probably, therefore, evoke most objection—gave the Bishop no right to interfere in the first instance, but enabled him, on the requisition in writing of the archdeacon, rural dean, or patron, to order a survey. It was surely but right that the patron should be able to interpose if a waste of the freehold was going on, and the archdeacons were entitled to see that the parsonage, as well as the church, was kept in repair. The fees and the expenses of repairs could be borrowed by the clergyman from Queen Anne's Bounty; and any clergyman calling for a survey, and obtaining a certificate, would be free for five years from any liability for dilapidations, to which, latter provision great value was attached by the clergy. He should be the last man to promote the measure if it threw any fresh burdens on the parochial clergy; but they themselves, or at least the more prudent among them, were anxious for it, and since 1862 there had hardly been a single Petition against its principle.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Archbishop of York.)
  LORD ROMILLYsaid, he did not intend, after what occurred last night, to move the rejection of the Bill, though he thought it was insufficiently considered last year, and was a measure as objectionable as that discussed yesterday. The Episcopal Bench were departing from their original functions—those relating to doctrine and discipline—by meddling with the financial arrangements of the parochial clergy. They had nothing to do with them. Dilapidations were a matter resting between the incoming and outgoing incumbent; and though they were occasionally irrecoverable, through the insolvent position of the latter, such cases were rare, and it was best to leave the question to the parties concerned. He was of opinion that the same evils might arise in this case as he thought would
  560
  arise in the case of the Benefices Resignation Bill, and even more strongly; the evil was to place the parochial clergy under the control of the Bishop. A surveyor was to be sent every five years to examine the state of the parish. Under the Bill, the surveyor, though not appointed by the Bishop directly, was appointed at a meeting over which he might preside if he thought proper, or failing him, the archdeacon; and the sanction of the Bishop must be obtained. Now surveyors, as his judicial experience had shown him, were a very expensive class of men. The whole expense of their employment would fall upon the clergyman. It would be necessary to have an inspection by the surveyor from time to time in order to ascertain what repairs were required; the incumbent might then carry them out himself if he pleased; but then a second survey would be required to certify that the repairs had been properly carried out. The whole of this must be borne by the incumbent, and in the aggregate a very heavy burden would be thrown on the parochial clergy. Then not only might the archdeacon complain to the Bishop, but the latter might, under Clause 26, order an inspection of any parsonage of his own accord. [The Archbishop of YORK explained that that clause applied only to episcopal residences.] In that case, his objection, in that respect, fell to the ground; but he observed, that if the repairs thought necessary were resisted by the incumbent, the matter was to be determined as in the nature of a lawsuit by the Bishop, and the expense would certainly be serious. There was, moreover, he thought, a technical objection to the Bill. The Bill would tax a large body of persons, and he did not remember any measure the whole scope of which was the raising of money for certain purposes from a particular class having originated in that House. What view the House of Commons would take of it he did not know, and if their privileges were guarded by the money clauses being struck out when it was sent down to them the very essence of the Bill would disappear.
  THE BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOLsaid, the noble and learned Lord seemed to have derived his views of the Bill from a pamphlet which had probably reached many of their Lordships, for his noble and learned Friend had used almost in the same order the

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  arguments of the ingenious writer. The author's name had been communicated to him, and he was happy to recognize in him a Gloucestershire incumbent and a very intelligent and sensible man; but he did not believe his arguments would meet with general acceptance among his brother clergymen. It was apparently feared that the Bishops wanted to violate the proper independence of the parochial clergy; but he joined in his most rev. Friend's disclaimer of any desire to interfere with their privacy or welfare, and he did not believe for one moment that in any diocese any sinister design was imputed to the Bill by any of those for whose benefit it was framed. It might, indeed, be objected that though it raised the difficult question as to what dilapidations were, it did not attempt to answer it; but though it confessedly left this difficulty as it found it, the Bill notwithstanding removed the real and practical difficulties connected with the question, by providing an uniform course of proceeding and a consistent treatment of all cases that came under its purview. It was based on the recommendations of the clergy themselves, as expressed in the Convocation of both Provinces, and could hardly be supposed as threatening any injustice to to those whom the noble and learned Lord seemed so desirous to protect. The writer of the pamphlet referred to ruri-decanal meetings and to Convocation as packed assemblies, for which he had neither respect nor reverence, and he emphatically stated that he preferred the opinion of laymen. While joining in the writer's respect for the opinion of laymen, he supported the Bill, as one likely to be beneficial to the clergy and to the Church at large.
  On Question? agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly.

JURIES ACT (1870) AMENDMENT BILL.
(The Lord Chancellor.)
JURIES ACT (1870) AMENDMENT BILL.

  (NO. 21.) SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR, in moving the second reading of this Bill, explained that its object was to repeal the 22nd section of an Act of last Session, which directed that special jurors should be allowed 21 s. and common jurors 10 s.
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  a day for their attendance, to be paid by the parties, and a deposit to be made by them, as mght be determined by the rules of Court. This had proved a serious burden to the suitor, rendering it difficult for persons in humble circumstances to obtain justice without first of all paying a heavy fine; for the Judges had found it necessary to require 12 guineas to be deposited on notice of trial being given, and in some cases as much as £25. The deposit in common jury cases, though smaller, was a serious burden. Nor was this the worst of the matter; for this sum had to be deposited whether the case came on for trial or not; and if the cause was not tried, it was found there were no means of refunding the money, so that a fine had been paid from which the parties had derived no advantage. It was therefore thought desirable to repeal the section, and to avoid any ambiguity he should propose in Committee a proviso that payments made anterior to the passing of the Act should not be interfered with.
  EARL GREYsaid, that this was an illustration of that imperfect system of legislation to which he had more than once called attention, and which was daily becoming a more crying evil. That Bills which had passed both Houses should require amendment as soon as Parliament re-assembled was not creditable to either House, and proved the necessity of subjecting measures before they became law to some closer scrutiny than at present. Some machinery ought to be devised by which the practical working of legislation might be more satisfactorily secured.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.

OCCUPATION OF ROME BY THE SOVEREIGN PONTIFF.

  ADDRESS FOR A PAPER.
  LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNErose, according to Notice, to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for an explanation with regard to a letter from the right hon. W. E. Gladstone, dated Downing Street, 30th November 1870, addressed to F. Dease, Esq., M.P., in reference to the Sovereign Pontiff; also to inquire as to the accuracy of certain despatches said to be addressed by

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  the noble Earl and the late Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs to Foreign Governments on the same subject; also a despatch addressed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, dated 16th January 1871, to the Governor of Gibraltar on the same subject; and to move for copies of these documents. The noble Lord said that the absorbing topics of the war abroad and our defences at home had diverted the public interest from all other subjects; but, were this subject passed over, it would be said that the remarkable utterances of the Premier touching the Pope, and the conduct of Her Majesty's Government regarding Italy, had attracted no attention. As he knew that this was far from being the case, and that it was only owing to very clever political manœuvring that the public voice on the matter had been stifled, he felt it his duty—though he feared the subject was not very attractive to their Lordships—to bring it under their notice, especially as the public voice had only been hushed pending an explanation, promised by the right hon. Gentleman at the meeting of Parliament, but which had not yet been given. Independently of the special difficulties of bringing forward the question on the present occasion, arising from the pre-occupation of the public mind, he had to encounter the ordinary difficulties attaching to the case. Neither of the great parties in Parliament desired to touch it, because, they said, it involved a religious discussion; the real fact being that neither would risk offending the Irish Members, who held the key of the situation. Party interests, in fact, were supreme. Believing this to be the great misfortune of the day, he must proceed regardless of it; but he would specially guard himself from wishing, directly or indirectly, to enter on any religious discussion. Claiming freedom for his own views, he wished every other man to enjoy the same freedom, save when, under the name of religion, he endeavoured to establish an "imperium in imperio." The first protest he ever made was against this system, and his object was now to renew it. The greater part of his life had been spent among a Roman Catholic people; but religion had never interfered between them, except when interested persons had roused religious animosity in order to gain political power. A more
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  amiable and excellent people than his countrymen in the West did not live on the face of the earth till, by the measures of Her Majesty's Government in the last two Sessions, the premium on disaffection and disturbance became too high to be resisted. He would now call their Lordships' attention to three paragraphs in the Premier's letter to Mr. Dease. They ran thus—
  "In reply, I have to state that Her Majesty's Government have not during the various changes which have marked the reign of the present Pope interfered, nor have they now proposed to interfere, with the civil government of the city of Rome or the surrounding country. But Her Majesty's Government consider all that relates to the adequate support of the dignity of the Pope and to his personal freedom and independence in the discharge of his spiritual functions to be legitimate matter for their notice. Indeed, without waiting for the occurrence of an actual necessity, they have, during the uncertainties of the last few months, taken upon themselves to make provision which would tend to afford any necessary protection to the person of the Sovereign Pontiff."
  The noble Earl the Secretary for the Colonies (Earl Granville) would probably acknowledge, without his troubling their Lordships by quotations, that despatches to the Governors of Gibraltar and, he believed, Malta, in reply to addresses from Roman Catholics in those islands, had been forwarded nearly identical in terms with this letter—which proved that Mr. Gladstone's letter conveyed the deliberate policy intended to be pursued by the Government, and was not one of those impulsive statements on the part of the Premier which often caused his Colleagues so much inconvenience. In connection with the declaration that the Government had not interfered, and would not interfere, in the civil government of Rome, he must call attention to a letter published in The Times, and dated Florence, December 21, 1870, purporting to contain a summary of despatches published in the Italian Green Book. This letter remarked—
  "Another despatch of Senor Cadorna, dated September 27, shows how well the chief of the English Foreign Office understood the situation of affairs in Italy, and how warmly he recommended to the Italian Government to leave alone that unfortunate business of the 'Roma capitale.' The important question being solved by the taking of Rome, though his advice with regard to the transfer of the capital is not accepted, he tries to persuade the Pope not to leave Rome. Mr. Otway, in a conversation he had with Senor Cadorna on the same day, seems to have insisted once more upon the necessity of postponing the transfer, and points out the difficulties the question produces in Ireland."

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  The correspondent went on to state that the despatches from all the other great Powers showed that they did not wish to interfere with Italy on the subject, and that she was quite free to act as she thought fit. Now, it seemed to him impossible for one Government to have shown more impertinent interference in the affairs of another country than for our Government to press the Italian Government not to allow the people of Italy to realize their long cherished desire of making Rome the seat of their Government, because it was displeasing to the Irish. It was certainly astonishing to what lengths party influences would lead experienced statesmen. Though not reported in the Green Book, he (Lord Oranmore and Browne) doubted not that Senor Cadorna informed the English Government that the Italians, reciprocating the kind interest taken by the Irish in their affairs, strongly advised the Government to transfer the seat of government from London to Dublin—a suggestion which the Irish people would like to see carried out. The next two paragraphs said that Her Majesty's Government, without waiting for an actual necessity, had taken upon themselves to afford any necessary protection to the Sovereign Pontiff. It was commonly stated that a ship of war had been waiting at Civita Vecchia to take the Pope to Malta, or perhaps to Ireland. He hoped His Holiness would choose the latter, for, perchance, as St. Patrick drove out reptiles, so Pius IX. might drive out assassins; but it seemed curious that a country, of which at least four-fifths were Protestants, should be so assiduous in its care of the Pope, when Austria, Spain, Portugal, and Belgium, all Roman Catholic countries, stood by quite indifferent. It showed, he feared, that party interests acted more powerfully than religious influences; or was it that Roman Catholic countries had enough Churchmen already, without undertaking to provide an asylum for their Infallible Head? He had not been surprised to read that Archbishop Manning felt hurt at such conduct. Perhaps the Government would tell their Lordships and the public what palace they had prepared, and what provision it was proposed to make "for the adequate support of the dignity" of His Holiness, for assuredly it would be a strange hospitality
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  that landed him penniless on the burning rock of Malta or on the damp shores of Ireland. It was still more important to know what provision the Government had made or were making to secure his "independence in the discharge of his spiritual functions," for this was a difficult undertaking. Englishmen were more ready to give their money than to surrender their liberties, yet he feared that independence in the discharge of the Pope's spiritual functions would involve a slight sacrifice of our national liberty. It was no easy matter to define what such independence meant; but he would endeavour to afford an explanation from well-authenticated documents emanating from His Holiness. Liberty of worship, liberty of the Press, liberty of speech, aye, and of conscience must be all repressed. God had conferred on the Pope not only to direct by persuasion but by force those who turned aside; by a canon of the Church the Pope was bound to put such persons to death; no civil law was binding if it differed from the law of the Church. Such were the laws under which the Romans had suffered for centuries. Such were a few of the many blessings involved in that spiritual independence of His Holiness which the Government had undertaken to protect. It did not require any very narrow-minded bigotry to conclude that it was hardly consistent with the Liberal institutions of this country for the Government to guarantee the spiritual independence of the Pope. It must be remembered, too, that the language of the meetings that occurred at the time the letter was written was anything but temperate. The head of the Roman Catholic Church in this country, supported by some members of their Lordships' House, at a meeting at St. James's Hall, stated—
  "It was a figment and an illusion to distinguish between politics and religion. Polities were a part of morals; morals were part of religion; the two were indissoluble."
  This statement coincided entirely with the Premier's policy. It was commonly stated that the Ultramontane system was effete; yet we saw it actively influencing every important act of the Legislature, for the great measures of the last two Sessions were certainly framed far more to secure power and income to the Roman Catholic clergy than to

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  benefit the people of Ireland. That most exceptional and novel clause in the English Education Bill, giving the cumulative vote, was introduced, moreover, solely to give Roman Catholics an undue influence in the education of this country. That it was undue was best shown by the fact that no Roman Catholics were chosen under the Parliamentary franchise. It was the carrying out of the system recommended some years back by M. de Montalembert to the Roman Catholics—namely, that by taking advantage of party divisions they could gain an undue influence in the State. He would next refer to a very short letter from Mr. Kinnaird to Mr. Gladstone, and a still shorter letter from Mr. Gladstone himself. The first letter was dated January 6—more than a month after the Premier's letter to Mr. Dease, and therefore could not have been written without full time for "accurately understanding the expressions" in Mr. Gladstone's letter. After stating that there was every wish that due consideration should be shown for the religious feelings of the Roman Catholic subjects of Her Majesty, and that every courteous consideration should be shown to the Pope if in distress, Mr. Kinnaird, remarking on the Premier's letter, said it became all British subjects to inquire whether the Papal jurisdiction, the essence of all spiritual tyranny, the deadly foe of all religious and political freedom, was to be made the object of the watchful and fostering care of Her Majesty's Government? and added that such a policy would be the natural and necessary conclusion to be drawn from Mr. Gladstone's expressions. The Premier, by his silence, accepted this as the policy which the Government intended to pursue; but Mr. Kinnaird, getting no reply to his letter for a fortnight, and supposing that the right hon. Gentleman, fearing that the policy thus imputed to his Government might not be acceptable to his constituents, was struggling between his honest convictions and his political interests, took the somewhat peculiar course of replying to his own letter. Accordingly on the 19th January he wrote a reply, in which he interpreted the Premier's expressions as in no wise intended to pledge the Government to do anything to mix itself up in any way with the Pope's spiritual power. The hand was the hand of Esau, but the
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  voice was surely that of Jacob. This was telling the Roman Catholic voters the Government were not "pledged" to interfere for the Pope, but that they were free to do so, and telling the Presbyterian—"We are not likely to have anything to say to the Pope"—a very convenient position, variable as the political situation might require. The correspondence closed with a note from the Premier to Mr. Kinnaird, dated the 19th of January, short, characteristic, and grateful, saying—
  "You have accurately understood those expressions in my letter to Mr. Dease to which you refer. With many thanks," &c.
  The Premier did not say whether it was in the letter of the 6th or the letter of the 19th that Mr. Kinnaird had accurately understood him. Another important fact proved that the Government intended to carry out the policy indicated in the letter to Mr. Dease. In the Speech from the Throne an event of such world-wide interest as the annexation of Rome was passed over in silence. The Italian antecedents of the Premier made this the more remarkable. The disappointment of the Italians at seeing that the liberal and generous sympathies of so distinguished a statesman must yield and be smothered to meet the exigencies of party would not give them or the other peoples of Europe a high estimate of the working of our constitutional Government. It was also another instance of the wishes of the large majority of the inhabitants of these islands being subordinated to those of the small minority; for at most the Roman Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland did not exceed one-fifth of the population, the vast majority of the remainder entirely sympathizing with the overthrow of the Papal Government and the completion of Italian nationality. Our home and foreign policy was thus regulated principally by the Irish Members returned by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, who held the balance between the two great parties in the State—a result both unfortunate and contrary to the intention of our Constitution. When the evils arising there from were seen by the British people, he believed that if Parliament did not find the remedy they would. He would ask his Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen to remember that the occupation of Rome was only a part of a great movement which had been, successfully

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  carried out by their co-religionists all through Europe—namely, an assertion that while they adhered to their religious faith they would also be freemen, and would not live under an absolute Government, whether carried on by laymen or ecclesiastics. It was principally owing to Roman Catholics abroad having shown this determination that the British people had given up all jealousy as to Roman Catholics in Great Britain having the fullest political privileges; but, if Englishmen saw that the enlightened Roman Catholics united with the ignorant in the endeavour to establish that very Ultramontane system which their co-religionists had thrown off all through Europe, they would be justly regarded not only as enemies to all civil and religious liberty, but as refusing to live on terms of equality and goodwill with the rest of Her Majesty's subjects. With every feeling of goodwill to his Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, he would say—"Accept equality; by attempting to gain superiority you will create a revulsion of feeling which will be as much to be regretted as it will be disastrous to your own cause." Apologizing for having so long occupied their Lordships' time, and thanking them for their kind indulgence, he had now to ask the noble Earl (Earl Granville) for an explanation of Mr. Gladstone's letter to Mr. Dease, and for the production of the despatches issued from the Foreign and Colonial Offices to which he had referred.
  Moved, "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will be pleased to direct that there be laid before the House, Copy of a Despatch addressed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, dated 16th January 1871, to the Governor of Gibraltar, on the subject of the occupation of Rome by the Sovereign Pontiff."—(The Lord Oranmore and Browne.)
  EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, I do not think the noble Lord has taken a very convenient mode of bringing this question forward. Mr. Gladstone's letter, although an important letter, is not a Parliamentary document: moreover, as your Lordships are probably aware, Mr. Gladstone will be questioned respecting that letter in the House of Commons, and he will, I have no doubt, be able to give an answer satisfactory to all fair and reasonable men. I think, too, the mode pursued by the noble Lord is the less convenient, inasmuch as my
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  noble Friend the Secretary for the Colonies (the Earl of Kimberley) has no objection to the production of the despatches relating to the subject, and when those despatches are before your Lordships they will form fit subjects of criticism. For myself, as long as I unworthily hold the Office of Foreign Secretary, I shall consider any subject—whether religious, commercial, or political—worthy the notice of Her Majesty's Government, if it be a subject of legitimate interest to any considerable number of the Queen's subjects. With respect to the second part of the noble Lord's Notice, I believe your Lordships will agree with me that nothing could well be more vague, and less calculated to afford a clue to what the noble Lord was about to say; for the noble Lord asks for "certain despatches," without specifying the date, or stating by whom or to whom they were written: and then he asks whether they are accurate or not. My hon. Friend Mr. Otway, though up to the time of his retirement from Office he took a great interest in Foreign Affairs, would certainly never imagine it to be his duty to address despatches to foreign Governments on any occasion whatever. It turns out, however, that what the noble Lord referred to related to a despatch of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, published in the Green Book of that country. These Papers have been presented to your Lordships, and are being printed, and in the course of this week they will be in your Lordships' hands. The following is the correspondence upon the subject:—
  "No. 4. Foreign Office, Jan. 3, 1871.
  "Sir,—I have received your despatch, No. 278, of the 19th ultimo, enclosing a copy of the Italian Green Book; and I have read the despatch of the Chevalier Cadorna to M. Visconti-Venosta of the 27th of September, 1870, which is published at page 50 in this collection of documents. In that despatch the Italian Minister reports some casual remarks on the question of the transfer of the Italian capital to Rome, which fell from myself and from Mr. Otway on the occasion of two conversations which he had respectively with us. I took occasion yesterday to inform the Chevalier Cadorna that he had attached a greater importance to these observations than had been intended by me or by Mr. Otway. I remember the conversation perfectly which I had the honour of holding with the Chevalier Cadorna, in which I asked him whether he believed the transfer of the capital to Rome would take place, and added that I had been convinced by the arguments of Massimo d'Azeglio, in a pamphlet published a few years ago, that it would be more prudent to continue the seat of government at Florence. I

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  made no allusion to Ireland, or to the effects which the removal of the capital might have upon public opinion in that country, and neither Mr. Otway nor I gave any official opinion on the matter. G.
  "To Sir Augustus Paget."
  "No. 25. Florence, Jan. 18,1871.
  "My Lord,—I have read to the Chevalier Visconti-Venosta your Lordship's despatch No. 4 of the 3rd inst., in reference to a despatch of Chevalier Cadorna, published in the Italian Green Book, reporting a conversation with your Lordship and Mr. Otway, in which some reference was made to the transfer of the Italian capital to Rome, and when I had concluded, his Excellency said that he had never considered your Lordship's remarks upon this subject as having an official or a formal character, but had understood them as having been uttered in the course of confidential conversation in the sense which you now attribute to them. If he had given the despatch a place among the diplomatic documents laid before the Italian Parliament, it was because he had thought it desirable that it should be seen that even in the mind of a statesman of recognized friendly sentiments towards Italy some doubts existed as to the expediency of the removal of the seat of government from where it was now established to Rome. Monsieur Visconti-Venosta added that the Chevalier Cadorna had informed him of the observations which your Lordship had recently made to him upon his report of the 27th of September. I have the honour to be, with the highest respect, my Lord, your Lordship's most obedient humble servant, A. PAGET.
  "The Earl Granville, K.G., &c."
  With regard to the third part of the Question, I have only to add that my noble Friend the Secretary for the Colonies will immediately produce the despatches on the question.
  THE EARL OF DENBIGHsaid, he rose to enter his protest against the manner in which the noble Lord (Lord Oranmore and Browne) had brought this question forward. He had commenced his speech by protesting that he wished to avoid the question of religious differences, and yet, notwithstanding this disclaimer, the whole of his arguments were based upon these religious differences. The occupation of Rome was no question as to whether the Roman Catholic or the Protestant religion was the right one, but one which depended on international law and justice, and involved the social rights of millions of her Majesty's subjects. That this was the right view, and as the noble Lord appeared to think that the opinion expressed by Mr. Gladstone and by the Secretary for the Colonies was very unusual, he (the Earl of Denbigh) would quote the opinion of Lord Ellenborough, as expressed on the 12th of June, 1849.
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  On that occasion Lord Ellenborough said—
  "It was quite true that England was not a Catholic State, and might not, therefore, feel that personal interest in the position of the Pope which was felt by Catholic Powers; but we had 8,000,000 of Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, and it was as much an object of interest to us as it could be to any one of the Catholic Powers of Europe that the Pope should be in a position of independence; that he should not be so situated as to be dependent upon the bounty or upon the power of any one, or of any combination of the Powers of Europe."—[3 Hansard, cvi. 10.]
  That was a statesmanlike view of the subject; and it was shared by Lord Brougham, who, speaking on the 20th of July, said—
  "My opinion is that it will not do to say that the Pope is all very well as a spiritual Prince, but we ought not to restore his temporal Power. That is a shortsighted, and I think a somewhat superficial view of the case. I do not believe it possible that the Pope could exercise beneficially his spiritual functions if he had no temporal power. For what would be the consequence? He would be stripped of all his authority. We are not now in the eighth century, when the Pope contrived to exist without much secular authority, or when, as Bishop of Rome, he exercised very extensive spiritual power without corresponding temporal power. The progress of the one, however, went along with that of the other. … His temporal force increased his spiritual authority, because it made him more independent. Stripped of that secular dominion he would become the slave now of one Power, then of another. … His temporal power is an European question, not a local or religious one, and the Pope's authority should be maintained for the sake of the peace and the interest of Europe."—[3 Hansard, cvii. 627.]
  Those extracts were sufficient to show that the great statesmen who uttered them had taken a different view of the subject from that adopted by the noble Lord. The noble Lord had ventured to point out what he believed to be the great dangers in the opinion expressed by the Archbishop of Westminster—that politics and morals could not be separated. He (the Earl of Denbigh) believed that he could explain the meaning of the Archbishop, as he himself shared the same view of the true meaning of politics. Politics were only the social and moral law of individuals applied to communities; and if the noble Lord would accept that definition, he believed he would not see in the statement of the Archbishop the dangers which he now anticipated.
  Motion agreed to.

FRANCE AND GERMANY—THE SIEGE OF PARIS—ABSENCE OF THE ENGLISH CONSUL.—QUESTION.
THE EARL OF MALMESBURY: My Lords, I wish to ask my noble Friend the Secretary for Foreign Affairs a Question upon a subject that has excited a great deal of comment not only in the Press, but in private circles in this country, and which has elicited, I am afraid, some very unfavourable expressions, both in England and abroad, as to the Department of which my noble Friend is the head, and has led to unpleasant reflections upon our national character. The Question I wish to ask him is this—Why the English Consul was absent from his post at Paris during the greatest part of the siege; and if, for a considerable period, the English population were not left there without any British official protection? That Question has been asked in "another place," and the reply returned by my noble Friend's subordinate (Viscount Enfield) was an eminently unsatisfactory one. He said that Lord Lyons was intrusted with discretionary powers, and that he told the Consul to leave Paris, but not to quit France, and to remain within reach. What he meant by remaining within reach when Paris was closely beleaguered I do not understand; as a matter of fact he held no communication with Paris during the siege. He also said that Lord Lyons warned his countrymen of the risk and danger that they incurred by remaining. Mr. Wodehouse remained for a time and then left also. But before I proceed with the case of the Consul, I wish to state openly, as Lord Lyons has been attacked by a right hon. Friend of mine (Sir Robert Peel) in "another place" for having quitted Paris and going to Tours with the French Government, my opinion that he could not have done otherwise, and that he would have acted wrongly if he had remained. His post was one requiring great freedom of action, and it would have been impossible for him to have fulfilled his duties towards his own country if he had remained shut up in Paris during a close siege. Recollect, however, that during all the unparalleled misery of this great siege, lasting four and a half months—for it began in the middle of September and did not close till the end of January—there were no
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less than 2,000 British subjects starving in Paris; and if ever British subjects required the consolations and assistance of their Government, it was under such awful circumstances. And yet the man whose peculiar duty it was to remain in Paris in the absence of the Ambassador—I express the opinion formed from my own experience at the Foreign Office—and to look after our countrymen, had, as stated by Lord Enfield in "another place," permission to leave Paris during that time. Other persons attached to the Embassy were also allowed to leave; so that no one remained except Mr. Wodehouse, whose business was to take care of the archives of the Embassy. The siege went on, and the miseries increased. I do not wish to harrow the feelings of your Lordships by describing what the sufferings of our countrymen, as well as of the French, have been; but I may say that I received a letter from an old servant of mine in Paris, in which it was stated that she and her husband, upon the 14th of January, had left off eating cats, and dogs, and rats, and were actually reduced for sustenance to eat sausages made out of the entrails of dogs. Tallow candles had long disappeared, having been eaten, and oil also had been consumed for purposes of food; so that light in the houses during the long winter nights was impossible. This was the state of the poorer English in Paris, who found it impossible to follow Lord Lyons' advice, inasmuch as they had not the means of coming over to this country. Perhaps my noble Friend opposite will tell me whether the Government sent out any assistance in the shape of money to those persons to enable them to leave Paris, and whether those who remained did so out of sheer obstinacy or from a false feeling of courage. Quite at the end of December the bombardment began. And I must say, in passing, that, in my opinion, the bombardment of Paris will remain a blot and a stain on the escutcheon of Prussia; for, although, according to the rules of war, Prussia had a complete right to bombard Paris, as a first-class fortified town, yet it is necessity alone which supports the exercise of such rights. The city would have submitted to the moment as soon if there had been no bombardment; and from those in the city we learn that the bombardment rather roused the temper of the French and lengthened

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the resistance. In the bombardment I believe not more than three military men were killed; but women and children suffered in great numbers, and it is a fact that one shell killed seven children at once. And so deep was the feeling which the event excited when it was proclaimed in Paris that M. Jules Favre actually followed their remains to the grave. When that event occurred, was there any Englishman in Paris to represent this country? Why, not even the military and naval Attachés of the Embassy were there. I suppose they did not leave without the orders to that effect of the noble Earl himself or of Lord Lyons. And what could possibly induce the giving of such orders? To be there at such a time was to be at their proper place and post; it was their raison d'être. Such men are sent out, as I have always understood, to learn everything that relates to foreign armaments, to become acquainted with every new invention, and to watch the performance of every new weapon. Why, it was a God-send to these men and the Government who appointed them to have a bombardment going on—they never had such a chance of learning before—and to recall those gentlemen at such a time seems to me a very doubtful proceeding—for I cannot believe that they would have left unless recalled. There can be no more gallant officer, for instance, than Colonel Claremont, who was all through the Crimean War; and I want to know the grounds upon which these two officers were called away from Paris at the very moment when valuable experience could have been obtained, when their services upon the spot could have been of great advantage to this country, and of incalculable value to the miserable English who were suffering in Paris. Thank God! the English were not totally deserted. They were taken care of by three men, whose names will be considered noble as long as the history of the siege is recorded—Mr. Wallace, Mr. Herbert—Lord Carnarvon's brother—and Mr. Blunt, whom my noble Friend afterwards very properly made Consul—and by their means, probably, hundreds were saved from misery and death. The case, however, is one which has led to very severe reflections upon this country. During this great war the acts of this country have been very narrowly watched, and I do not know anything which has
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made a deeper impression upon the public mind than the belief that something like 1,500 or 2,000 poor English were left without any official assistance in Paris. I beg to ask my noble Friend opposite the Question of which I have given Notice—namely, Why the English Consul was absent from his post at Paris during the greatest part of the siege; and if, for a considerable period, the English population were not left there without any British official protection; and, further, whether Mr. Blunt has been permanently appointed Consul?
EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, I am compelled to answer the noble Earl's Question at some length in order to explain to your Lordships what has happened in Paris during this war. In the first place, let me say I cannot go quite so far as the noble Earl in asserting that diplomatic and consular agents are bound to be kept in a besieged city to protect the interests of their fellow-subjects after those fellow-subjects have had every possible warning of the danger of remaining there, and of the difficulty which might attend any attempt to come away at a later period. I feel it right to say this, though it was not the guiding principle of our action as your Lordships will see on referring to the Blue Book. The French demanded that all non-combatants should retire as impeding the defence. On the 14th of September Lord Lyons wrote from Paris—
"In my despatch of the 29th ult. I reported to your Lordship the steps I had taken to call the attention of British subjects to the notice issued by the Acting Prefect of Police recommending all persons not capable of facing the enemy to leave Paris, and in your despatch of the 1st inst. your Lordship informed me that Her Majesty's Government approved of the steps I had thus taken. Further notices of the same kind have been issued by the French authorities, and I have on my part done all in my power to warn British subjects of the dangers to which they expose themselves by remaining in a town threatened with an immediate siege. Large numbers have departed, those who were unable to provide from their own means the expense of the journey having been aided by the British Charitable Fund, to which most liberal contributions have been made by the public in England."—[France-German War, No. 1 (1871) No. 130.]
I am happy to say that during the whole of that period we have been able to advance money to be disbursed in one way or other by that charitable committee for the relief of British subjects. Lord Lyons goes on to say—

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"Finding, however, that notwithstanding the near approach of the invading army, many still linger, I have thought it right to insert in Galignani's Messenger a notice, in my own name, reminding British subjects that if, after the warnings given them, they remain at Paris, they do so at their own risk and peril, and that if they delay their departure any longer they may not hereafter be able to get away. I have also had copies of the notice printed separately for distribution among British subjects, and I have the honour to transmit some herewith to your Lordship."
I have felt it right to say this much to show the business-like steps which Lord Lyons took to warn British subjects that it was better they should withdraw. With regard to Lord Lyons himself—though my noble Friend entirely refuses to endorse the accusations which had been made against him—I beg to say that those accusations, which have been repeated in many quarters, are absolutely without foundation. At the same time that Lord Lyons is charged with cowardice in having deserted his post, I have received letters complaining of our want of sympathy as a Government in withdrawing the British Ambassador at such a time; whereas the exact contrary was the case. Let me place your Lordships in possession of what really occurred. In a letter written on the 7th of September Lord Lyons relates a conversation which he had had with Prince Metternich, referring to the representations made by Count Beust, in which the great inconvenience, and indeed impropriety, was pointed out of allowing the diplomatic body to be shut up in Paris during the siege and thus deprived of the means of communicating with their respective Governments. Prince Metternich, in consequence, spoke to M. Jules Favre, and represented to him that it was incumbent on the Foreign Minister to give notice to the diplomatic body in time to enable them to leave Paris without undue haste or inconvenience. M. Jules Favre appeared to take the same view. And what was the reply of Lord Lyons?—
"I have said to all, that, in principle, Count Beust's view appears to me just and reasonable; but that, for my own part, I do not desire to hasten my departure from Paris without very good cause. I shall, I have said, be disposed to act in concert with my colleagues in the matter, and shall feel no difficulty about leaving Paris if I am requested or advised to so by the French Government; but I shall be content to leave the matter as it stands, without making any special representation to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I should add that it is thought to be probable that some of the Government functionaries, and among
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them the Minister for Foreign Affairs, may determine upon removing from Paris. In this case, the diplomatic body would naturally follow the Minister through whom they communicate with the Government."—[No. 84.]
I am sure my noble Friend will see that, in cases of very exceptional difficulty, it is wise for a Government not to fetter a man too much, but to leave him with considerable discretion as to the course he should pursue. On the 19th of September, Lord Lyons wrote to me as follows:—
"Prince Metternich, the Austrian Ambassador, came to me at Paris on the 17th inst., and told me that the Comte de Chaudordy, the head of the Cabinet of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, had brought him a message from M. Jules Favre which made him think that it would be desirable that the Representatives of the principal European Powers should leave Paris at once, in order not to be cut off from communication with their Governments. M. de Chaudordy had, the Prince said, informed him that the French Government expected from one moment to another to hear that the enemy had rendered the only railroad still open (the Western) impassable; and that, this being the case, M. Jules Favre, knowing that Prince Metternich was particularly anxious not to have his communication with his Government interrupted, had thought it courteous to warn him that the danger of this occurring appeared to be imminent, and that, in fact, it would be prudent for him to leave Paris the following day at latest. I told Prince Metternich that I had, personally, a great disinclination to leave Paris just then; but that, nevertheless, I should, of course, do so if it appeared that I should be more useful elsewhere; and I added that I should certainly be unwilling to act in the matter in a different way from my principal colleagues. I must, however (I said in conclusion), see M. Jules Favre before I come to any decision."—[No. 147.]
Lord Lyons accordingly went to M. Jules Favre, and related to him what had passed between Prince Metternich and himself. His Lordship said—
"M. Jules Favre answered that his message to Prince Metternich was specially intended for the Prince himself, who had expressed to him a very marked dislike to the prospect of being hemmed in by the Prussian troops. Nevertheless he thought it only right that other Representatives of foreign Powers should know that the French Government was no longer in a position to secure their communications with the world outside Paris."
M. Jules Favre then suggested that his Lordship should go to Tours. Lord Lyons replied as follows:—
"I said that I still disliked the idea of leaving Paris just yet, but that, of course, I should not hesitate to proceed to any place in which I could have a better prospect of being useful; and that after what he had said, if I found that my principal colleagues thought it advisable that we should go off to Tours in the evening, I would no longer

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be an obstacle to their departure. The result has been, as your Lordship is already aware, that the Austrian Ambassador, Prince Metternich; the Ottoman Ambassador, Djemil Pacha; the Italian Minister, Chevalier Nigra; the Russian Chargé d'Affaires, M. Okouneff; and I, left Paris the night before last, and arrived here yesterday. Colonel Claremont considered that, in a military point of view, Paris was the point of most interest accessible to him; and, as I concurred with him in this view, I sanctioned his remaining there. At the time I left Paris Captain Hore was too unwell to move. I left a memorandum recommending that, if able to do so, he should leave Paris as soon as he should be well enough to travel; and that if his health should not be quite re-established, he should go to England to recruit it; otherwise, that he should join me here, where he would find the Minister of Marine, and would consequently be at the main source of naval information. Finding that a not inconsiderable number of British subjects still remained in Paris, notwithstanding my repeated warnings of the risk they might incur by so doing, and of the probability that when the danger was actually present they might not be able to get away. I have left Mr. Wodehouse at the Embassy to give them advice, and, if possible, protection. I have, moreover, placed the Embassy-house, and the Government property belonging to it, in Mr. Wodehouse's charge; and I have desired him to take advantage of any opportunities he may have of sending direct to your Lordship, as well as to me, information of public interest. A few hours before I left Paris, I presented him to M. Jules Favre, who readily agreed to send and receive communications through him. Lastly, I have ordered Mr. Wodehouse to come away from Paris if the place should be threatened with immediate bombardment or other imminent danger, and have directed him, in this contingency, to do his utmost to obtain a safe passage out of Paris for all British subjects."
Now, it appears to me that, as these instructions were given, I was quite right in approving what Lord Lyons had done. I am exceedingly glad that he did leave Paris, and that he, as the holder of the dignified rank of Ambassador, went not only to Tours but also to Bordeaux; thus enabling us to say that although we could not officially recognize the existing Government, yet for all practical and business purposes our relations with it were close and intimate. I have no doubt, too, that Lord Lyons outside Paris has accomplished many things he could not have done inside the city. Lord Lyons left in Paris Mr. Wodehouse and Colonel Claremont, as he thought it would be advantageous for them to remain there with his sanction and that of the Foreign Office. Afterwards, in view of Count Bismarck's declaration, that military considerations would compel him to put a stop to all-further communication with persons inside
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the city, Lord Lyons sent me word that he felt some anxiety with respect to the servants of the Embassy and the other British subjects who had not quitted Paris. Upon this I wrote to Count Bernstorff to obtain permission for those persons to pass through the German lines; and this leave was granted by Count Bismarck, on condition, however, that a nominal list should be furnished of the persons who desired to come out. On the other hand, the French authorities were exceedingly unwilling to let a large number of persons pass out. A month elapsed before Mr. Wodehouse left Paris, and when he did he had not quite completed his list, although he had taken every means in his power to give the requisite notice to all British subjects. He was continuing to make up the list till 12 o'clock of the day when he went away. About 126 persons accompanied him, and the hardships they had to undergo were so severe that it is doubtful whether they had not better have remained in Paris. At that time we were not aware that such a large number had remained, although we had always supposed that there were some English domestic servants, workmen, and others, who did not wish to leave Paris because they had formed connections there, while some had great difficulty in getting away on account of their poverty. With regard to the latter, I may remark that very great assistance was rendered to them by the Charitable Commission to which the Government and many charitable persons had contributed. When Mr. Wodehouse left, the Consul's clerk came away. Mr. Wodehouse was at first unwilling to allow him to come away; but on that gentleman representing that for a considerable time no application had been made to him in respect of Consular duties and the legal advisers of the Embassy having given their opinion that he would not, under the circumstances have any power there, Mr. Wodehouse included his name in the list. Colonel Claremont, however, for the reasons which had actuated him in the first instance, acting in accordance with instructions received from Lord Lyons, remained in Paris; but about the second week in December the Colonel, finding that the only other military attaché in Paris was about to leave, came away with that gentleman in obedience to orders received. The

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noble Earl seems to think that it was a happy circumstance for Colonel Claremont to have an opportunity of being bombarded and shelled in a town undergoing that process; but the fact is, that Colonel Claremont would not have acquired much military information if he had remained longer in Paris, because there was great jealousy shown in regard to letting strangers go to the front lines, and, consequently, military information was more difficult to procure during the bombardment than it would have been at the head quarters of the army in an open campaign. I cannot therefore regret the course taken by Colonel Claremont. When Colonel Claremont came out, the French authorities had resolved not to let any other person leave the city. We afterwards ascertained, however, by indirect means, that a great many Englishmen and women were suffering very much indeed, as has been described by the noble Earl, and I have already acknowledged in my despatches the aid which was given by Messrs. Wallace, Herbert, and Blount to their poor fellow-countrymen. About £42,000 was expended in giving this relief. I may add that Mr. Clark, a clergyman, also devoted himself to the work in a most remarkable way. Immediately upon hearing this we endeavoured to get our Consul in; but at that time matters had gone so far that permission to enter Paris was positively refused to everybody. We did our best to meet the difficulty by communicating with Mr. Odo Russell. From the statement of facts I have made I hope your Lordships will conclude that there has not been any neglect, but that some of the inconveniences experienced have arisen from unparalleled, circumstances, against which it was impossible to provide at the beginning.
House adjourned at Seven o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter past Eleven o'clock.