Sitting of 4 July 1871

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Euphrates Valley Railway, nominated.
PUBLIC BILLS—Resolution in Committee—Ordered—First Reading—University Tests (Dublin) [226].
Ordered—First Reading—Glebe Loan (Ireland) Act (1870) Amendment* [225]; Epping Forest* [224]; Salmon Fisheries (Ireland) (No. 2)* [227].
Report of Select Committee—New Mint Building Site* [No. 334].
Committee—Elections (Parliamentary and Municipal) (re-comm.) [103]—R.P.; Landrights and Deeds (Scotland)* [84], debate adjourned.
Report—New Mint Building Site* [176–223].
Considered as amended—Public Libraries (Scotland) Act (1867) Amendment* [209].
Withdrawn—Salmon Fisheries (Ireland)* [147]
The House met at Two of the clock.

NAVY—THE "AGINCOURT."

  QUESTIONS.
  LORD ROBERT MONTAGUasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether he has received any further intelligence with respect to this vessel?
  MR. GOSCHEN: Sir, we have received a telegram, dated 11 o'clock this morning, which is to the following effect:—
  "Agincourt lightening; no increase of damage. Wind east, but freshening; weather fine."
  I have also a telegram dated 91.0 a.m. in reply to one which we sent yesterday asking for information as to the cause of the grounding of the ship. It was as follows:—
  "The cause of the Agincourt's grounding appears to have been that the regular set of the stream through the gut changes its course near the Pearl, and runs violently towards it; and the ship after passing to westward of Verte Lighthouse was imperceptibly drawn astern, and drawn in towards the land, there being no guide by day after shutting in that mark, except a compass-bearing of Europa Lighthouse, and the estimated distance from the land by the eye. Agincourt was leading starboard or inshore column."
  That is the answer which the Admiralty have received; but I am bound to say that in the opinion of my naval Colleagues the telegram does not explain why the accident happened, as the dangers of the Pearl Rock are well known to every sailor.
  SIR JOHN HAYasked, whether the ship was under sail or steam at the time she grounded?
  MR. GOSCHEN: I have no information upon that point. It is remarkable that it should have been omitted; but the belief at the Admiralty is that she was under steam at the time.

ELECTIONS (PARLIAMENTARY AND MUNICIPAL) (re-committed) BILL— [BILL 103.]
(Mr. William Edward Forster, Mr. Secretary Bruce, The Marquess of Hartington.)
ELECTIONS (PARLIAMENTARY AND MUNICIPAL) (re-committed) BILL— [BILL 103.]

  COMMITTEE. [Progress 29th June.]
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Preamble be postponed."
  MR. J. FIELDENrose to move that the Chairman do now leave the Chair. He did so, he said, in order that the House might have a further opportunity of discussing what he must describe as a very important measure. It was quite true that, on Friday last, or rather at 2 o'clock on Saturday morning, the Prime Minister had urged him to address the House; but no one knew better than the right hon. Gentleman that a closely-packed House would not listen to a comparatively new Member at such a time.
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  He (Mr. Fielden) moved the adjournment of the House; but being defeated on that Motion, he had felt it his duty to take his present course in order to secure a full discussion of so important a subject. He had observed that throughout the whole of the discussions on the Bill no one except the hon. Member for Waterfowl (Mr. Osborne) had commented on the provisions it contained with respect to the abolition of public nominations and public declarations of the poll. Now, he attached more importance to those provisions than to the clauses which related to the Ballot. The Ballot was simply a mode of taking votes, and it involved no principle. There was, however, a great principle involved in the substitution of hole-and-corner meetings, as were proposed by the Bill, at the nomination of candidates for the open public meetings which were now held. It was said that the Ballot would do away with bribery and intimidation; but he took issue with those who used that argument on both points. So long as there were men who were rich and unscrupulous enough to give large sums of money for seats in that House, and needy men who had votes which they were willing to sell, those two classes would find means of communicating with each other. He had some knowledge of what went on in America, and there they had failed to put a stop to bribery. In the case of an election at New York, for instance, the constituency was divided into a number of sections, over each of which there was a committee. It was necessary to obtain the favour of this committee before a candidate had even a chance of being nominated. This was done by an arrangement that when the candidate got the nomination he should pay a certain sum of money to the committee, and a further sum on his being returned to Congress. It could not, therefore, fairly be maintained that bribery was unknown in the United States. But he was opposed to the present Bill on another ground, and that was that it was a libel on the great mass of the voters of this country. The great body of English electors were not corrupt, and the way to deal with those who were so was to take from them the privilege which they enjoyed. When he looked into the question of bribery he was, he must confess, astonished at the hypocrisy which existed with regard to it. Hon. Gentlemen preferred to be

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  shocked at the bribing of poor voters; but there was another sort of bribery which most of them were cognizant of. There were very few Members of that House who were not constantly pestered with letters for subscriptions from people connected with churches and chapels, and all sorts of charitable organizations. Hon. Gentlemen contributed to those objects, not because they thought them worthy of being supported, but because they hoped by so doing to retain their seats in Parliament. They did so because they hoped to gain the interest of the minister of the church, or chapel, or the committee of the charitable organization. Now, that was a contemptible mode of proceeding, and one to which he would never submit. It was far more honest, in his opinion, if a man determined to give money to gain and keep his seat in that House that he should do it openly rather than under the guise of charity. But was it to be pretended that bribery was confined to the election of Members of Parliament? What was seen in the formation of Ministries in this country? Could any man say that every Member of a Ministry was selected because he was the most fit and most capable man for the office for which he was chosen? Undoubtedly there were in this country men who took their positions in different Ministries from high patriotic motives. But there were other men who entered the House determined to work their way up, and have place. These men did not scruple to turn and turn according to the exigencies of the case, and not one of them could be a consistent and honest man in the sense of always following his conscientious opinion. There were other men who, after persecuting a Ministry, after denouncing it and obstructing its measures in every way, had disappeared from the independent benches and taken a humble, perhaps a very humble, seat on the Government bench. Could anyone believe that this was done from patriotism on one side or the other? He feared that such men were placed on the Treasury bench in order to silence the voices of disagreeable opponents. In short, this giving of office, with £1,000, £1,500, or £2,000 a-year, was, in plain English, nothing more than bribery. The poor voter got his £10—of which he was perhaps sorely in need—once, perhaps, in five years. He thought it made no difference
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  to him who was elected; while the office-seeker in this House got his £1,000 or £2,000 a-year. He maintained, then, that there was a great amount of hypocrisy in all this denunciation of bribery. He did not defend bribery; he never had been and never would be a party to it. But if Members were honest in denouncing it, let them begin in high places. When about to stop drinking let them begin at the clubs, and if they wanted to strike at corruption by money let them begin at high places, where men were selected, not because they were the most fit, but from other motives. So long as there were needy voters on one side, and on the other side rich and unscrupulous men ambitious of a seat in Parliament, they could not prevent bribery; and the effect of the Ballot would be to take away all power of detecting who had bribed. Cases had occurred before Committees, before Commissions, and before the Judges showing a great amount of bribery and corruption, but these cases could never have been detected under a system of secret voting. The Ballot would not prevent the offence; it would merely protect the offender, and effectually prevent his detection. As to intimidation, it was, no doubt, one of the meanest ways of coercing a voter. The man who was bribed got an equivalent for his vote, while if he were intimidated he was virtually disfranchised without obtaining any advantage for the loss of his vote. But what was the true remedy for intimidation? If a landlord or an employer were guilty of it, he was denounced in the newspapers all over the country, and public opinion was thus brought to bear upon the case. The Ballot would certainly not put a stop to intimidation. The man who had power over others would still exercise it to procure what he wanted; and if he were unscrupulous now, with the power of detection before his eyes, he would be still less scrupulous when the fear of detection was taken away. No law could deal with this improper exercise of power by the rich and powerful; the true correction for such an abuse was public opinion. The Bill, however, was not confined to the Ballot, or to dealing with bribery and intimidation; it had a much wider scope, and proposed for the first time in the history of this country to do away with public nominations. Now, a nomination was simply

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  the most important public meeting held in this country. It was a meeting held for the election of representatives in Parliament, and we must always bear in mind that, unless a poll were demanded, the declaration of the returning officer did seat the person there declared to be elected. It was, therefore, the most free and popular form of election that was possible. Were the Government going to supplement this Bill by others, taking away from the people of this country the right of public meeting altogether? That might sound a strange proposition; but when they destroyed by Act of Parliament the right of public meeting for the purpose of electing representatives to that House, what was there to stand in the way of the abolition of the right to hold all other public meetings, which were necessarily of less importance? It seemed to him that this was only part of the policy, which the Whigs had pursued ever since the Reform Bill of 1832, for they had little by little taken away all the old institutions of the country, and all power of local self-government. There used to be the old parish constable in country districts, and in country districts the old parish constable was now sufficient for the preservation of the peace; but for the parish constables a police force had been substituted, over which force the authority of the magistrates was restricted, the chief power being lodged in the Home Office. The Justices could appoint policemen, but so insignificant had their office become that they were not considered worthy of being allowed to reduce the number of policemen without, forsooth, the consent of the Home Secretary. He repeated that if public nominations were abolished, nothing would stand in the way of putting down public meetings altogether; and therefore the House ought to pause before passing a Bill of this kind. The reason alleged for abolishing public nominations was that on those occasions scenes of riot and tumult did occasionally occur. But did not scenes of tumult sometimes occur in that House? In the Session of 1869 the majority in that House was described by the Bishop of Peterborough, who occupied a seat in the Gallery, as howling Members down. But the fact was that if public meetings were to be abolished because they were noisy, the public meetings which were most in earnest would have to go. With regard
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  to nominations, it seemed to him that there was something noble and manly in a man who sought the suffrage of his brother electors doing so openly, and in the light of day on the hustings. There was also something honest and English in a man who had won the election going again before the electors and thanking them for the trust they had reposed in him. For this the Bill would substitute a hole-and-corner meeting. By that Bill a candidate would go with his mover and seconder and eight electors and one friend, and no more—save with the consent of the returning officer—into a room, and there the nomination would take place. It would be a hole-and-corner meeting to all intents and purposes, and, compared with such a meeting, the riot and the tumult which occasionally occurred at our public nominations and during the polling were infinitely preferable, for they were the result of the free expression of opinion where strong political convictions were held. At this meeting, from which the public were excluded, the candidates would be proposed, and if at the end of two hours there were only as many candidates as there were Members to be elected, these would be declared by the returning officer to be elected; and, so far as the Bill provided, the public outside, who were deeply interested in the result of the election, would know nothing of what had taken place. Now, what was to prevent a candidate who had no prospect of being elected for a small borough, sending down two men in his pay, nominally to oppose him, and who would, of course, during the two hours, retire. The unpopular candidate would thus be returned. In any case, the people outside would be sold. Looking at the details in regard to voting, he found that the voter had to go into a room to prove that he was on the register, a voting paper was to be handed to him; he was then to go into a compartment where nobody could see him, make his cross opposite the name or names of the candidates for whom he wished to vote, and then come back, and in the presence of the returning officer, deposit the vote in a box. But, he wished to know what was to become of the voter who could not read? Was he to be disfranchised? He (Mr. Fielden) had had much experience in election matters, together with his brother-in-law, Mr.

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  Cobbett, at Oldham, where there were a good many colliers, and others who might be termed illiterate men. Well, the collier, under the Bill, would come and prove his vote and receive the voting paper. His first difficulty would be to make out the name of the candidate, and if by hard spelling he succeeded, he had then to make his mark, which was almost a greater difficulty than finding the name. The probability was that he would put his cross opposite the wrong name, or between the names; and, at any rate, he would most likely not put his mark opposite the name of the candidate for whom he wished to vote. There was a still greater probability that, after puzzling over the voting paper, he would go back to the returning officer, and say—"I want to vote for Cobbett, where must I put my mark?" Nine-tenths of these men would fold up their papers so as to show how they had voted, and say to the returning officer—"I want to vote for so-and-so, is that right?" And yet if a voter exposed his voting paper so as to show how he had voted, he would be liable, if this Bill became law, to a penalty of £10. He had endeavoured to show that the Bill was opposed to all principles of honesty and manliness, and what used to be called English feeling; that it was crude in its details, and would be practically an utter failure. He therefore asked the House to pause before proceeding further with the measure. He did not understand why, because at some nominations and public meetings such occurrences took place, as must be expected when freedom of thought and speech was allowed, they were to abolish the right of public meeting altogether, and substitute for open nominations a closed court. If the Bill passed it would proclaim to the world that a candidate was ashamed to stand before those whose suffrages he solicited; that the voter was ashamed publicly to register his vote for one to whom, when elected, would be intrusted, along with others so elected, the lives and liberties of the subjects of this realm; and that the representative was ashamed to appear in public before those who had elected him to thank them for the honour they had done him, and to give them his pledge that he would act honestly and justly by them. Could anything be more contemptible? Such a measure as this ought to be
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  opposed at every stage, and by all lovers of honest, manly expression of opinion, and he therefore moved that the Chairman do now leave the Chair.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do now leave the Chair."—(Mr. Joshua Fielden.)
  MR. STAPLETONsaid, he could not see that the arguments of the hon. Member justified his Motion, unless he maintained that the House of Commons should not consider any Bill which did not remove every difficulty from the matter under consideration. He (Mr. Stapleton) thought the subject of nominations so important as to be worth a separate discussion when they came to the clause of the Bill referring to it; but from his experience of a moderately sized constituency he was inclined to agree with the hon. Member that nominations were a favourable opportunity for the expression of opinion. The objection with regard to a landlord's intimidation failed; for a promise to benefit a voter in the event of a certain candidate being returned would be bribery, which could be punished by law. As to the Ballot he had always supported it; but he had hitherto regarded it as an abstract question of no pressing importance. He thought Lord Palmerston quite right in not making it a Government question; but the condition of things had entirely changed, and the present Government had no choice but to make it a Cabinet question. After the large extension of the franchise which was made under the last Reform Act, the new electors were either under such influences as required the protection of the Ballot, or they were not. If they were, how could those who gave them the franchise refuse them protection in the exercise of it? In reply to the objection that the independent elector did not require protection, he maintained that the working man who was not a member of a union did need protection; while the working man who was a member of a union did not require it, and was rather a person against whom others had to protect themselves. The position in which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) had placed the country was, that we had a large body of artizans welded together and exercising the franchise according to what they deemed to be

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  their rights, regarding the good of their country as identical with the good of their class. Then there were the £10 householders who, as a class, were weak, and the £50 tenants, who needed protection. On the occasion of a former election in his county, when he travelled by the train to the voting place, he found in a first-class carriage a number of tenant-farmers—at those times, somehow, everybody travelled first-class. Naturally the company talked politics; but the tenant-farmers did not proclaim their opinions; they hung their heads and were ashamed; and in the market-place of the town he found a number of these men, occupying a respectable position, and paying £200 to £;300 a-year in rent, hanging about waiting for orders. The agent was there, but did not know how they were to vote, because the landlord, or rather the landlord's wife—the lady being the better politician—had not quite made up her mind which candidate she would support, ["Oh, oh!] He defied hon. Gentlemen to deny that these things were not of constant occurrence at county elections. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. G. Hardy) referred the other night to Rome, and he would now direct attention to Paris. What had caused the downfall of that city? While there was great political activity, independence, and audacity amongst the working classes, the middle classes were sinking into political abasement. Was that the condition to which the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire wished to reduce England by his Reform Act? Landlord intimidation was too subtle a thing to be reached by the Judges under the present law. If a landlord went round with a candidate to canvass the tenants he could not be accused of intimidation. This Bill, however, would deprive such intimidation of its influence. It would also prevent wholesale bribery; and the suggestion of "payment by results" was a bugbear, for if money were spent in corruption it would find its way either to the publichouses or to the drapers' shops, or else there would be a suspicion that the agent had pocketed more than he ought. It was no charge against this Bill to say that it would not do that which it was never intended to do—namely, that it would not prevent the priest and secret societies from influencing the voter. It would not prevent
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  the priest persuading the voter, nor the voter surrendering his opinion to that of others whom he believed to be better informed than himself; and it was not desirable to interfere with influence of that kind; but, with the Bill in operation, the priest and the secret society could not go beyond persuasion; they could not bring mob law to bear on the voter nor send him to Coventry; and so to this extent the Ballot would protect him from undue influence. With regard to the old question of the franchise being a trust, the argument might be put in two ways. It was said that the voter was guided by private interests, and by removing bribery and intimidation they would take away the most cogent of such influences. But he did not suppose that that was the manner in which the question presented itself to Lord Palmerston's mind. In those days there were small boroughs and contracted constituencies, and these small boroughs and contracted constituencies acted in a quasi-public spirit, and looked to the interests of their own localities and their own class. But all this had been done away with, and an argument, which was a strong argument when there were restricted constituencies and small boroughs, was no solid argument now. He admitted there were things the Ballot could not touch, particularly those which had been enumerated by the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote). For instance, it would not prevent a landlord from surrounding himself with tenants of his own way of thinking, or anyone from dealing with tradesmen of the same politics as himself. Again, it would be powerless to stop that kind of coercion which consisted in preventing a voter from going to the poll. These were evils that could not be obviated. However, if Parliament by passing this measure set its face against these evils, public opinion would do the rest; but if the Bill was thrown out, then he apprehended that public opinion would be crushed.
  MR. R. N. FOWLERdesired to state the reasons why he could not support this Bill. This question had always seemed to him to be a question of detail and not of principle; but that view had been somewhat modified. He sat there representing a constituency of working men who had given him a cordial and generous

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  support, and it grieved him when a man came to him and told him that since he had voted for him he could not get any work. He believed working men very often attributed their dismissal to political reasons, when the real reason of their dismissal was entirely different, but nevertheless the feeling existed, and they were bound to consider it. With that feeling, if Her Majesty's Government had brought in a Bill, making due provision for a scrutiny, such as was done by the Bill of last year, and if the Ballot had been confined to England, and not applied to Ireland, he could not have found it in his heart to say "No" to the second reading of the Bill. The reasons why he could not support this Bill were—first, that no proper provision was made for a scrutiny; second, that this Bill applied to Ireland; and thirdly, there were certain other provisions in the Bill to which he had very great objections. To pass the Ballot without any provision for a scrutiny would, as had been pointed out by the hon. Baronet the Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), in his able and exhaustive speech, be to place unlimited power in the hands of the returning officers. Now, he was by no means disposed to say that they would not execute their trust in a strictly honourable manner; he believed that they would, but still it should be borne in mind that the mayor of a borough was often the head of one of the political parties in the borough, and if he took a deep interest in the success of the blue party, for instance, and the blue candidate was successful, the defeated yellow party would be apt to suspect unfair play, although the returning officer might have acted with the utmost impartiality. It was a very serious thing to shake the confidence of the people in the result of the election. As to Ireland, the hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket), had stated that if this Bill passed there would be between 60 and 90 Nationalist Members returned for Ireland. That assertion had been sneered at by the noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland, but had been in the main confirmed by his hon. Friend the Member for Cork (Mr. Maguire.) Now, could any man contemplate with equanimity the fact of having 60 Nationalist Members in that House holding the balance
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  between parties? This would be an evil which would be fraught with great danger to the nation. They might be told that that statement was exaggerated; but whether it was exaggerated or not he would not reproach himself with being a party to producing such a result, and on that ground he would not support the application of this Bill to Ireland. As to bribery, it seemed to him to be hardly wise at present to mix up that question with a Ballot Bill; they were going to make a great change, and the result of that change nobody knew. It had been said that the party on this side of the House would be annihilated by the Ballot; but he hoped it would be just as strong after the Ballot as before it. The fact that hon. Gentlemen opposite entertained that view—["No, no!]—well, if they said "No," there was still great difference of opinion as to the result that this Bill would produce, and he believed it would be admitted no one knew exactly what the effect would be. The Bill of 1868 worked well, and the same amount of bribery did not prevail at the last General Election as had prevailed on previous occasions, so that they ought to wait and see the result of the Ballot before legislating on the subject of bribery. In proof of this statement he would refer to the results of the Election Commissions. In Norwich, formerly a very corrupt constituency, the Commission failed to find bribery, except that which had been proved before the Judge; in Bridgewater, the worst case of all, the corruption was confined to a comparatively small portion of the constituency; while in Beverley, while there was ample evidence of corruption in former times, the borough was disfranchised after the only pure election which ever took place there. He was therefore justified in saying that the Act of 1868 was producing the desired results. As to nominations, regarding which he had an Amendment on the Paper, the question had never been discussed in the House, and it had never been discussed out of the House until the last General Election. On that occasion The Times had said that nominations were disorderly, and since then various Liberal candidates on the hustings had said that they hoped nominations would be abolished. Considering that the point had never been discussed by the House, and that until

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  three years ago it had never been discussed by the country, and considering the late period of the Session, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not press that part of his Bill, but leave it over for more mature investigation. He thought there were great advantages about open nominations. They brought candidates face to face, and made them acquainted with each other, and gave them an opportunity of meeting their constituents, thus tending to soften the asperities of a contest He also supported, on the same grounds, the declaration of the poll. He himself had been twice defeated, notably in the City of London, in 1865, and it had been a satisfaction to him to meet and congratulate the successful candidate on his success. Hon. Members wished to abolish nominations because they called them disorderly public meetings; but he wished to remind the House that public meetings during the Recess were on the increase, as it had become much more the habit of hon. Members to go to the country and give their constituents a history of the Session and their view of public affairs, and he was very glad to see this increase. Such meetings could not be prohibited by legislation, but he wished to remind the House that they were sometimes disorderly. The Vice President of the Council had gone down to his constituents at Bradford, and his constituents had the folly to pass a vote of want of confidence, against the right hon. Gentleman. He did not attach much importance to this vote because he could not conceive that any constituency would dismiss from their service a gentleman who had reflected such honour upon them. He believed that every Liberal would vote with great satisfaction for his right hon. Friend, and that every Conservative, though he might feel himself compelled by a stern sense of duty to vote against him, would do so with great reluctance. The First Commissioner of Works had also gone to his constituents in the Tower Hamlets, and the meeting refused to hear him, and passed a resolution declaring that the right hon. Gentleman had brought discredit on the constituency of the Tower Hamlets. But that vote had brought more discredit on the constituency of the Tower Hamlets than anything his right hon. Friend had done, because however much they might differ from him
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  it must be admitted that he was one of the ablest Members of that House. Then, because the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Surveyor General had been assailed with rotten eggs at the declaration of the poll that was no reason for abolishing nomination days, which were useful in bringing together the opposing condidates to discuss public questions in the presence of the public; or for abolishing declarations of the poll, which in the interests of the defeated as much as of the successful candidate he should regret to see prohibited. The right hon. Gentleman represented Ripon, and in these days when nomination boroughs were sneered at, he could well conceive that the electors of Ripon were unfavourably disposed towards the nominee of a great Whig nobleman. As it was impossible to abolish unofficial public meetings he saw no reason for abolishing public meetings which happened to be official. Then, if the expenses were thrown on the rates, that would only encourage mushroom candidates, without a chance of success, to spring up in order to bring their names before the public. Take the case of a talented young Radical contending a seat for that purpose, wishing to bring his name before the public. Why, the best thing for him to do would be to go to Greenwich or Bradford, and oppose the Premier or his right hon. Friend. He would not, of course, succeed, but he would acquire a reflected reputation, and would soon be returned for some other place. On these grounds he had given his vote with his hon. Friend the Member for South Lancashire.
  MR. WALTERsaid, he did not rise to trouble the House with any remarks on the general features of the Bill, but for the purpose of making an appeal to the Committee on both sides. The hon. Member who had just sat down had made a speech which would more properly have been delivered on the second reading of the Bill, although, as he had informed the Committee, he had voted in the division on Thursday night. He (Mr. Walter) was unfortunately prevented from addressing the House on that occasion, and, as he had not had an opportunity of explaining what his opinions were, he had abstained from voting in the division. But now that the House had decided to go into Committee he had put on the Paper an

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  Amendment to the 3rd clause which would enable him to say what he desired without troubling the Committee on this occasion. He would humbly appeal to hon. Gentlemen who might be anxious to address the House to postpone their remarks until the several clauses should come up in Committee. There was not a single point which could now form the subject of debate which might not be much better discussed on each clause as it arose than it could now. He had sat for two hours listening to this discussion, in which the whole of the details of the Bill had been debated seriatim, as if it were a discussion on the second reading. However regular such a proceeding might be in form, it was in substance quite irregular, and he should be ashamed to trouble the House with any remarks on that occasion. Any one of those questions as to the municipal franchise, the abolition of nomination days, and of declarations of the poll, the throwing of the expenses of candidates on the borough or county rates, as well as the vote by Ballot itself, could be much more properly discussed as the clauses arose in Committee, when every Member would have an opportunity of making a speech. Therefore, although he strongly objected to the 3rd clause as it stood unaccompanied by conditions which were not provided in the Bill, he felt unable to go into the lobby with the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Fielden).
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he should have been disposed to think that there was some force in the appeal of the hon. Member for Berkshire (Mr. Walter, if the Bill had been conducted in accordance with ordinary Parliamentary practice. But he must remind the hon. Gentleman that there was no opportunity of delivering the speeches which had been addressed to the Committee that morning on the second reading, and that the Government thought it convenient to take the usual discussion on that stage of a measure on the Motion for going into Committee. He for one, although he had not the pleasure of hearing the earlier portion of the speech of his hon. Friend (Mr. Fielden) who opened the present debate, was clearly of opinion that he had shown satisfactory reasons why it should be continued. He had been struck, as the Bill proceeded, with the remarkable admissions
  1112
  which had been made by those who were in favour of it. The hon. and learned Member for the county of Denbigh (Mr. Osborne Morgan) began by admitting that it was not intended to cope with bribery and corruption, but rather to put down intimidation in Welsh counties. Again, the hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Mr. James) in his able speech did not support the Bill on the ground that it would operate as a cure for bribery or treating, for those offences he admitted were passing away. He would vote for the Bill, he said, not without some feeling of humiliation, because it would put an end to undue influence. But let him for a moment advert to the most common form of undue influence or intimidation. At what time was it exercised? Not after the vote was given, but as the elector was on his way to the poll, with the view to prevent him from giving his vote as he intended. In his own constituency, for instance, at the last election a violent mob attacked a gentleman who had gone down from London to record his vote, on his way to the poll, because his political opinions were well-known. Again, in Ireland, those electors on whom violence was brought to bear were men who did not conceal their political sentiments, and, as in the well-known case of Drogheda, the intimidation was practised on voters before they polled. What, he should like to know, could secret voting do to prevent intimidation which was thus exercised? There was another form of undue influence which had been referred to by the Prime Minister the other evening—that which was brought to bear by working men upon those who worked with them in mills and other large establishments. How would the Ballot prevent that sort of influence? The minority of those men would, according to the right hon. Gentleman, be persons who would not conceal their political views, and what would be their position, subjected as they would be to perpetual pressure from their comrades, who would be aware that they would slink into a polling-booth and deposit their votes there in support of candidates whose principles the majority hated and abhorred? Could anyone doubt that their position would be worse than it now was under the system of free and open voting? Well, but it was said by

  1113
  another hon. Member that the Ballot was required, not so much to protect the new class of voters, as the £10 householders and the shopkeeping class. It was somewhat strange, however, that it should so suddenly be deemed to be necessary in the case of men for whom previous to 1867 it was not thought to be essential. He would, in the next place, touch on the subject of treating, with respect to which, when Mr. Justice Willes was asked a question by the Committee upstairs, his reply was—
  "I think there is a great deal of eating and drinking which falls under several heads, because I believe there is a great deal of eating and drinking by people on the same side of politics in the way of feasting people. The northern races have always feasted one another over any work that they have in hand, and they always will do so; that, of course, you do not call treating. It is a rejoicing over a common pursuit, in which people sitting down to supper or whatever it is, may be engaged. It does not alter their opinions; it puts them, as it is supposed, on better terms with one another, but it has no effect upon their political opinions that I can conceive of."
  Now, as no contradiction had been given to that statement, he would assume that that class of treating was not intended to be touched by the Bill. If so, what effect would it have in diminishing the offence of treating? As to intimidation, you could not hope to cope successfully with the forms of it he had mentioned so long as you persisted in dragging the voter to the poll, instead of bringing the poll to the voter. This was the great merit of the system of voting papers, to which, he believed, the country would come when it was sufficiently educated in the true theory of elections to dismiss as unworthy of consideration the fears of undue influence arising out of this mode of voting. Now, he asked the Committee to consider at what cost were they going to purchase this minimum of good contained in the Ballot Bill? The hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Mr. James), whilst supporting the measure, described it as a humiliation. That, then, according to its supporters, was the price they had to pay. But he would add that the Bill would sacrifice an old immemorial system of voting, which had endeared itself to the minds and habits of the great body of the people of this country. There was the smallest imaginable minority of the people in favour of it if they were to judge from the Petitions presented to that House. Now, as
  1114
  to authority and experience, take France. When at the recent Paris elections they found that the great body of voters had declined to vote, that was a fact which proved that the Ballot was not such a system of voting as commended itself to the wishes, feelings, or even prejudices of the French people. And as to Australia, to which reference had been frequently made by the advocates of this measure, it was proved that in Tasmania, and another important districts in those colonies, the electors did not care to vote, and there was little or no desire on the part of any individuals there to be elected. At the last elections there, it appeared that not 60 per cent of the electors came to the poll, so that whether they looked to France or to Australia they witnessed the same feeling of indifference as to going to the poll following upon this system of secret voting. References had been made to the late school board elections for London. Now, he had voted at Marylebone, which had 58,000 registered voters. Great and novel issues were at stake on that occasion. They had lady voters and lady candidates, and every influence possible was brought to bear upon the electors, but only 24,000 voted; and if such was the result in town districts, where the polling-booths were numerous, what result might be expected at our great county elections? How could they hope to overcome the natural indifference that many voters would feel to register their votes under this secret system, particularly when they would, perhaps, be required to walk 10 or 12 miles in order to record them on the day of polling? Such a Bill as this would be a virtual disfranchisement of tens of thousands of honest Englishmen in the counties, while it bristled with pains and penalties against them if they signed their names, or in any way identified their votes. Again, there was the risk that, after all, the vote would be rejected through a scratch of the pen in the wrong place, a signature, or an informality. Out of the 21,000 who voted in Marylebone at the school board election, 600 were disfranchised in the polling-booths from this cause. Such a possibility of disfranchisement, after a man had journeyed 10 or 12 miles to give his vote, would act as a still further discouragement to voting in the

  1115
  counties, and would tend to concentrate electoral power in the large towns situated within the county where polling was easier. Then, on what authority did this measure come to us? The Prime Minister had pointed to the colonies. Now, Canada was one of our greatest colonies; yet there, last year, an attempt to substitute secret for open voting was rejected by a majority of 2 to 1. Greece was also cited as an example; but, with every respect for the institutions of that little country, he did not think they were such as England should follow. Belgium had been referred to; but he could not shut his eyes to the fact that the Constitution of Belgium, compared with that of England, was of extremely recent growth, and could not be taken as a definitive authority for the adoption of any particular course of action in respect to proceedings in this country. As to the Australian colonies, the fact was that in two of them there was great indifference; and as to New South Wales, they were told that personation was there so frequent that the Prime Minister was considering what steps he should take in order to put down that offence. In Victoria they had not secret voting at all, so that the Australian precedent crumbled into dust. Turning to Europe, he asked what happened in 1849? In that year a new electoral law was promulgated for Prussia, and part of the declaration appended to that law was that the Ballot
  "Stood in contradiction to every other branch of the system of Government, in which publicity was with justice demanded; it concealed the important act of election under a veil, under which all proceedings that would not stand the light of day might be hidden, while the public mode of voting had this result, that the vote given could be considered as the result of an independent conviction."
  That was the deliberate opinion of the great Prussian statesmen in 1849. There was then, he submitted, no sufficient reason to justify the House of Commons in subverting the immemorial system of open voting. In his opinion the Bill ought to have been limited to the object of perfecting the system of open voting, and of putting an end, especially in Ireland, to every overt act of undue influence and intimidation. As the Bill stood, it was a retrograde measure, removing the exercise of the franchise from the wholesome and bracing atmosphere of publicity, and rendering it the
  1116
  torpid and inanimate act of a skulking and timid man, instead of the conscientious and fearless discharge of a public duty by a free and intelligent citizen.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he did not intend to reply at length to the speech of the noble Lord (Lord Joint Manners), but he wished rather to appeal to both sides of the House to remember that they were now in Committee upon the Bill. They were now upon a stage of the Bill when it was not customary to debate the principle, but only the details of the measure. He knew that the noble Lord had said that their position upon this Bill was different to what it was upon Bills generally; but he (Mr. Forster) could not acknowledge that. It was not usual to have two long debates upon the second reading and upon going into Committee, and in the present instance it was acquiesced in that the debate should be taken upon going into Committee. On this last occasion they had a debate of three nights' duration, and although some hon. Members might not have had an opportunity of addressing the House, still that was almost always the case on such occasions. There was a general feeling upon both sides of the House that it was not necessary to prolong the discussion indefinitely. They were now in Committee to discuss the different clauses, and he would ask why they should not adhere to the general rule, and discuss the clauses rather than the principle of the Bill. This would be far the most, convenient course; and there was really no object to be gained in debating on this occasion, because it was understood that it was not intended to press the Motion to a division.
  LORD CLAUD HAMILTONsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman must be aware that it was owing to himself that the usual custom had been departed from. They had consented to waive their right of discussing the Bill on the second reading upon an arrangement that had not been fairly carried out, and hence arose their present unpleasant position. The discussion upon such a great constitutional change as this could not be compressed within three nights' debate, and he, for his part, protested against the conclusion of the debate the other night. He must remind the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government that on the Maynooth Bill eight consecutive nights had been consumed in discussing

  1117
  the second reading, independent of lengthy discussions on the question of the Speaker leaving the Chair. He had waived the right of speaking on the second reading, finding it impossible to catch the Speaker's eye, although he had been in the House during the whole of Thursday night; and on one occasion no fewer than nine hon. Gentlemen rose anxious to address the House, only two of whom had yet been able to speak. He could not, therefore, in justice to his constituents, forego his legitimate right of publicly discussing this subject by accepting the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman, for whom he entertained the most unfeigned respect. He entirely disapproved the whole system of secret voting. During the last 36 years, while he had a seat in that House, he had always felt the strongest objection to Ballot. How was it that for 36 years this question had always been known by the name of the Ballot, whilst now the subject was wrapped up in the title of a Bill that tended entirely to conceal it. The title should have been "A Bill for the better protection of Bribery and Corruption." He disapproved of the Ballot principle, because it had a tendency to destroy the feeling of self-respect in the voter. It would tend to deprive a voter of the feeling that he was responsible for his actions; for how could a man connect the idea of responsibility with being bound to hide his vote. It would also destroy the sense of responsibility to others, and thus tend to prevent the formation of a healthy public opinion in the country. The whole of the argument derived from the corruption in boroughs was wholly foreign to county elections. The advocates of the Ballot pointed to America; but did they not know that owing to the system of secret voting there was a total want of sound public opinion in that country; that venality was notorious even among the Judges; that "lobbying," or buying the votes of members of Congress was extensively carried on; and that "wire-pulling," a clever arrangement by which, through means of money influence, a certain result was obtained at elections, largely prevailed? Did they wish to introduce into this country a system which had induced the great bulk of the moral, religious, and highly educated community in America to abstain from taking part in public life, and to acknowledge that
  1118
  the tone of the public Press was degrading? Then France had been constantly quoted; but did anyone wish to see the political life of France enacted in this country? During the last 80 years the course of things in that country had been one long series of revolutions, wars, and changes of Government. During that time three Sovereigns had been dethroned, three Republics had been established, a third Emperor had reigned, and three times Paris had been occupied by foreign armies. They in that country enjoyed universal suffrage and vote by Ballot; but surely it would not be desirable by similar measures to bring about the same system as existed in Paris? In Australia, where the Ballot was said to have succeeded, few electors eared to register and fewer to vote; for many a man's object was to make a fortune and to return to this country and purchase a seat in that House. If they were to establish to-morrow at the bidding of the Government the exact Australian system, they would not find the same materials to work upon here as in Australia. They would fail to get rid of those ingenious gentlemen who lived on boroughs, and felt so much interest in their elections and all the old organization, and the spirit of bribery and corruption would revive, to be protected and fostered under the Ballot. Indeed, it was intended to secure immunity for those who resorted to those means of obtaining seats in the House; for the tendency of the Ballot would be not to repress crime, but to hide it. He had watched the growth of the question, and he was sorry to say the real cause of bribery and corruption was a want of sincerity in those who sought the suffrage. Those who talked most about purity of elections cut a very sorry figure when they appeared before election inquiries, and in many instances boroughs had been disfranchised on account of the Ballot candidates having been guilty of bribery and corruption either by themselves or their agents, notable instances of which were to be found in Cashel and Wakefield. He was old enough to remember many boroughs that had been disfranchised through the detection of plans hatched in the Reform Club, and brought out under Mr. Coppock, the archangel of corruption. They all remembered the annual Ballot farce of Mr. H. Berkeley, of Bristol, and probably in

  1119
  honour of that gentleman a test Ballot took place at the election after his death, when it was shown that the Ballot supporters bribed so largely that the whole thing exploded. The cause of the sudden change that had taken place in the opinion of the right hon. and hon. Members on the Government side of the House was the stringent measure passed by the Conservatives for the prevention of bribery and corruption. The Liberal party had been scared at the searching inquiries made by the Judges, and fearing that, like some of the agents, they would find their way inside of the walls of a prison instead of the walls of that House, they called for the Ballot for their protection. And the Government, seeing the alarm that prevailed amongst their supporters and the want of a rallying cry, thought it best to change their opinions, to give up their convictions, and adopt the Billot. For three years the Licensing question had been before the House, and a Bill had been introduced to endeavour to raise the morality of the people. It had since been withdrawn, on the ground that there was not time to discuss it this Session; but there was to be ample time found for discussing this Bill, which would have the effect of degrading the people. It used to be said a public prosecutor would stop bribery; but the advocates of the Ballot did not want one; on the contrary, they wanted to avoid prosecution, and, therefore, they asked for the Ballot, the real object of which was to give security to bribery at elections. He had seen many persons who spoke of their purity come to grief. The right hon. Gentleman who was deputed to be the mouthpiece of the Government with respect to this Bill, alluded in his opening speech to the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Leatham), "whose name," he said, "I cannot refrain from mentioning with honour in reference to the Ballot." When the hon. Member's brother stood for Wakefield the result was a rather peculiar exposure. A Commission was issued with regard to the election and reported that it had been conducted in a corrupt and illegal manner, and that Mr. William H. Leatham paid his agents £3,500, only £487 of which passed through the hand of the auditor. The Commissioners further reported that the residue had been disbursed in illegal payments, £1,800 or £1,900 having been paid by agents
  1120
  brought from London, and this was done with the full assent and knowledge of Mr. William H. Leatham. That gentleman stated on oath that, to the best of his knowledge and belief, the only sums expended on his behalf were two sums of £400 and £70 respectively, and some small items. It subsequently transpired, however, that he wrote a letter to his relative, Mr. Gurney, the banker, to the effect that he was obliged to find money for "Ways and Means," and that instead of drawing money out of the bank, where there might be some clerks who would talk, he would ask the favour of a loan of £1,000. Afterwards Mr. Leatham sent for £500 more, and then for another £1,000, and it was eventually elicited from him that this sum of £2,500 was spent by his agents for election purposes. The hon. Member for Huddersfield, who was an active member of his brother's committee at that election, admitted that he could not fail to perceive that bribery was going on. Certain disagreeable prosecutions would, no doubt, have followed these disclosures but for the influence exerted by a distinguished relative of the hon. Member. If hon. Members opposite approved of bribery and corruption let them say so boldly, and he, for one, would rather have seats in that House put up to auction than the degrading hypocrisy that was now practiced. Such doings as occurred at Wakefield were what the Ballot was intended to hide. Under a system of secret voting illegal practices might be carried on with perfect impunity. He asked the House not to take so retrograde a step as the establishment of the Ballot. They had a right to know how it was the sudden conversion on the Ministerial benches had taken place; but they preserved a silent and judicious reticence upon the point. The noble Lord who last year had charge of the Bill (the Marquess of Hartington) produced some curious arguments, which showed that he had very little experience with regard to bribery. To the objection that money would be paid after the election, the noble Lord thought it a triumphant answer to say—"If people don't do that now, why should they do it then?" But the reason was that bribery now was applied to the individual voter who did not pledge himself to the success of the election, but then the case would be very different, and he had the authority of Mr. Coppock

  1121
  against that of the noble Lord to the effect that persons then would give a much larger sum on condition that the seat was secured. The noble Marquess had said that even if 60 or 80 Nationalists were returned from Ireland, let them come, for then the House would show the unalterable determination of this country to maintain the integrity of the Empire. But when that time should come, a certain distinguished individual would no doubt arise, who would inform the House that the Act of Union was an upastree, which threw its baneful shadow over the prosperity of Ireland, a sudden conversion would ensue, and the Union would be abolished. Now, though he exceedingly depreciated the National movement, which, if successful, would be pregnant with mischief to Ireland, he must do the Nationalists the justice to say that they had argument on their side. For had not the present Government struck at the Act of Union by the subversion of the Established Church in Ireland, the maintenance of which, as stated by Mr. Pitt, and as agreed on by two independent Legislatures, was a fundamental article upon which the whole thing rested? His firm belief was, that if Ireland was governed, as it bad been of late, for party purposes, instead of for the welfare of the country, this House would soon have to choose between civil war and separation, and if that should be the case the responsibility would rest with those who had destroyed the Act of Union. He was 36 years in the House, and he had never spoken on the question of the Ballot but once before. He would ask any man of common sense whether if the system of secrecy was adopted the Roman Catholic clergy would be likely to give up the influence which they obtained and renounce all political action. That was not likely. It was not the case in Belgium, where the political machinery had been brought to a deadlock on several occasions in consequence of the violent action of the clerical party. Hon. Gentlemen pretended that if they got the Ballot they would have a cure for bribery at once. But did they really desire a cure? No, impunity was the object, and persistency in evil practices the desire. He represented a great constituency which had never been supposed to have been swayed by bribery, and where such a thing had never been suggested, and how could he have done his
  1122
  duty if he were silently to have listened to a debate which would have fixed on that constituency a stigma and a brand?
  MR. GLADSTONE: If the noble Lord has had the misfortune, which has happened to others, perhaps as good men as him, to be denied an opportunity of speaking on the second reading, at least upon this occasion he has had his revenge. In former times he has achieved a great reputation in this House as a speaker when the object was that our proceedings here should be delayed, and to-day he has not fallen short of, nor in any respect sunk below, the high level he has heretofore obtained. That, however, is not the reason which induces me to rise after the noble Lord. The art of speaking against time is an art which is generally best met by silence; but on this occasion the noble Lord has assumed a liberty and a licence of such a character that, although his speech has been listened to in exemplary silence, and with inexhaustible patience, it absolutely requires some remark. A large portion of that speech has been a direct, wilful, and constant infraction of the rule that governs the debates of this House—that motives are not to be ascribed to its Members. One of those words I will withdraw. I will not say the infraction of our rule was "wilful," for I am confident that if the noble Lord had not, in the eagerness and vehemence of his arguments, lost sight of the character of his language and his reasoning, it was impossible for him to have persevered in the strain of argument he adopted. For what was the argument running through a large portion of that speech? It was this—defined and pointed by gesticulation at different quarters of the House—"You gentlemen who profess to be enemies of bribery, only support the Ballot because you are the friends of bribery. Your object is to pursue bribery in security." Those expressions exceed in their licence everything I have ever heard in this House, and proceeding, as they do, from a noble Lord who, as he tells us, has for 36 years possessed a seat in this House, I think he ought by this time to have learned to set a better example. This extraordinary statement the noble Lord summed up again at the close of his speech in words not to be mistaken. "Impunity," said the noble Lord, "is the object, and persistence in evil practices

  1123
  is the desire" of hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House. These propositions without the slightest hesitation or qualification, have been applied by the noble Lord perhaps to the entire majority of this House—at all events, to a very large proportion of its Members. Sir, I presume that, as yon did not interfere, the noble Lord has kept within the rules that govern our debates. I do not presume to raise the smallest question on the subject; but I must record the fact that such a speech has been delivered, in order that it may serve as a warning in other cases. [Cheers.] I see an hon. Gentleman opposite apparently give—what I am sure on reflection he will not give—his sanction to such a course of proceeding. I appeal to the innermost convictions of Gentlemen opposite, as much as to Gentlemen on this side of the House, though a limited number of hon. Gentlemen opposite followed the speech of the noble Lord with cheers, and I ask them whether the debates of this House are really to assume such a character, that on occasions when we differ in opinion we are advisedly to impute and ascribe to one another the vilest, the most corrupt, the most degrading motives, and these are not only occasional—not only unconsciously or accidentally, but as the deliberate basis of conduct upon which large numbers of Members of Parliament systematically act. If that course is to be followed, the character of the British House of Commons would be on the eve of undergoing a fatal change, and we could not be consoled in the slightest degree for the ruinous consequences that would follow by the fact that the person who had chiefly contributed to this change was a supporter of the highest principles known to our history and Constitution. After the protest I have thus thought it my duty to record, what I have next to say will seem absolutely tame; but the noble Lord has shown us that the practice of the House allows him, in Committee upon the Ballot Bill, to treat us to a lengthened dissertation upon the Irish Church Act and the Union with Ireland. Sir, I am aware that freedom of discussion is a good thing, and it has been stretched on many occasions to great lengths; but the noble Lord to-day has out-stripped all his predecessors, and if it was open to him to have discussed the Irish
  1124
  Church Act and the Act of Union, I should like to know what there is in the wide universe which the noble Lord or any other Gentleman might not have just as well discussed as relevant to the Motion that the Chairman do leave the Chair upon the Electoral Procedure Bill. I hope I shall not appear extravagant in saying that there are subjects brought into view by the speech and the conduct of the noble Lord quite as important even as the Ballot itself. They comprise everything which relates to the liberties, to the laws, and to the duties of this House. The liberties of this House are practically gone, its laws are trampled under foot, and its duties never can be performed, unless Members observe in their own practice some limits of moderation. In this case, it appears that it is not in the power of the Chair to give us the the securities which we might desire. The noble Lord has made this speech on a proposal that the Chairman do leave the Chair; and we have now for a good many hours debated the subject. I do not mean to enter into the debate upon the Bill; but I wish to point out this—that we appear to be arriving here at the state of things which I shall now in a few words describe The House of Commons, before we get into Committee, carefully limits the number of occasions on which the principle of a Bill may be discussed at large, and will not permit any Member to speak more than once on each of those occasions. When, however, we have got into Committee upon a Bill the old supposition was that the principles of the Bill were not to be discussed, but the House was to address itself to details. According, however, to the new code, which appears to receive countenance from the hon. Member for the West Riding (Mr. Fielden) the noble Lord, and some others, the case is the direct reverse, and the intention of the House is to give a far greater latitude for the discussion of the principles of a Bill in Committee than when the Speaker is in the Chair. The Motion that the Chairman do leave the Chair, may, I believe, be made at any time; it may be made any number of times. On that Motion, as we have seen, the Act of Union and the future of the Church of Ireland may be discussed; and not only so, but for ought I know, when I sit down, which I shall do very soon, the noble Lord in the

  1125
  exercise of his privilege may rise again, may deliver another speech a couple of hours long, and may state, what is undoubtedly true, that by the speech he has just made he has not in the slightest degree lost his privilege or his right to resume his activity in debate. These things to me are very serious, because I plainly see in the first instance that the privileges and powers of this House have been strained during the present Session to a degree altogether without example, and that if the same conduct is persevered in, either the House must renounce its duties or it will be compelled to do that which I should consider a serious though a lesser evil—namely, re-consider its rules. Let me now say a word as regards the particular grounds alleged by the noble Lord for the course he has pursued. He says he admits these proceedings to be of an exceptional character; but he justifies himself because the Government suggested that there should be no debate upon the second reading and because, when we came to the debate upon the Speaker leaving the Chair, we did not allow a fair opportunity for discussion. Now, I wish to test these allegations. The noble Lord says the Government suggested there should be no debate upon the second reading. Sir, the Government suggested nothing of the kind. The Government named for the second reading the Monday in Passion Week, and if you look to the records of the House of Commons you will see that, until within a limited number of years, it was the practice of the House of Commons to sit until the Thursday in Passion Week. The Government made no suggestion that there should be no debate on the second reading; but the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli)—acting, I must say, in a considerate spirit—rose in his place and said that, on account of the Quarter Sessions, many hon. Gentlemen might find it convenient to be elsewhere, and, in the name of the party he leads, he said it would be better there should be no debate upon the second reading, but that the debate should be taken on the Speaker's leaving the Chair. The Government, therefore, are not responsible for there being no debate on the second reading. What happened when the Motion was made that the Speaker should leave the Chair? That Motion was made on a Thursday, and
  1126
  the debate lasted over the following Monday and Thursday. The noble Lord said that there we broke into the spirit of our engagement, and he refers as his authority to the Maynooth debate, in which he says there were eight nights of discussion. The noble Lord seems to be under an unhappy fatality as to points of fact, for there were not eight nights of that debate, but only six. That debate, too, rather illustrates the change of circumstances that has taken place. There were six nights of discussion on the Maynooth debate, but they occupied less of the time of the Session, as far as the business of the Government is concerned, than has been occupied by the three nights' debate on the Ballot Bill, for the Maynooth debate began on the 11th of April and ended on the 18th. The noble Lord, in referring to those times, ought to have reminded us of the fact that when there was a desire then for a number of adjourned debates, the regular and established practice was for private Members to give way. In the present Session that has not been done, for not a single night has been given in order to enable an adjourned debate to be continued, if my memory serves me rightly. The noble Lord will, therefore, observe that we were compelled to give for this debate at this period of the Session a longer time than was given by the Government of Sir Robert Peel for the Maynooth debate in 1845. And what was the state of the case at the end of the debate on the Ballot Bill? Certainly the noble Lord, and two or three other hon. Members, had failed to speak, and without doubt that was a great calamity to the House; but it was an inconvenience that happens at the end of almost every considerable debate in which a lively interest is felt. If ever there was a subject which three nights afforded ample time for debate that subject was the subject of election procedure which everyone has regarded as a matter in which, compared with almost anything else, the argument has been exhausted long ago by the persistent discussions that have taken place from year to year. I can only say I hope that, though it may not be in our power to control the procedure of the noble Lord, or of anyone minded like him, we at least who are desirous to make progress with this Bill shall avoid assisting the

  1127
  noble Lord by consenting to a stage so inconveniently, irregularly, and unusually chosen as the present, by consenting to debate the merits of the Bill. One remark only I must make before I sit down, still upon the speech of the noble Lord. The noble Lord thought it his duty, and he expressed—I know not whether ironically or not—the pain it had cost him, though certainly he bore about him no signs of that pain—the noble Lord thought it his duty to refer to the conduct of one formerly a Member of this House, whose name has been connected with irregular transactions and practices at an election, though I never examined the circumstances so as to enable the House to pass a judgment upon them. That was a most elaborate attack. I conclude, of course, that the noble Lord gave full notice of his intention to make that attack to a near relative of that gentleman who sits in this House, and who would be his natural champion. I have not a doubt that a person of the high chivalrous tone and temper of the noble Lord would be the last to take an advantage by drawing into a debate, on grounds so delicate and painful, the name of one who does not now sit among us, and whose case, I will venture to say, had no connection whatever with this discussion. I cannot doubt that at the very least the noble Lord took care that the discussion should be a fair one, and gave notice to the hon. Gentleman related to the gentleman be referred to, in order that he might be in a condition to meet any statements that the noble Lord was going to make. Sir, I protest against his personalities as much as against his irregularities. In the argument he made upon the Bill—such as it was—I entirely decline to follow him, and I hope that those weapons which are in our hands, and to which I have referred before, and which are our only weapons—namely, patience and perseverence in meeting unusual opposition, will take the legitimate form after adequate discussion, which alone they can properly and prudently assume—namely, the form of a determined silence.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEsaid, he did not draw the same inferences from the right hon. Gentleman's statements as the right hon. Gentleman himself had done. The right hon. Gentleman had said truly that the second reading of this
  1128
  Bill was fixed by the Government for the Monday in Passion Week, which was also Quarter Sessions week, and that in former times the House sometimes sat till Thursday in Passion Week. No doubt the House used to sit a long time ago, and used also to sit on Wednesday evenings, and do a great many other things which common sense had led them since to believe they could do better without. But certainly for a great many years past the Passion Week had been considered a holiday, or at all events, the Monday in that week was regarded as one of those bye-nights on which the Government might pass the more obscure portions of Supply and do other business that must be got through in the course of the Session, but which did not require more than a moderate quorum. But when the right hon. Gentleman proposed to take the second reading of one of the principal Bills of the Session on the night when there was no great gathering of the House, it was not surprising that hon. Members should not think that a fair offer, or one which the House could be expected to accept. The right hon. Gentleman had said truly that a conciliatory proposal was made from those who, on the Opposition side of the House, took the lead in debates. Well, for his own part, he (Mr. B. Hope) was sorry that their Leaders should be so conciliatory, and he took the opportunity, in a little discussion which took place when that arrangement was made, of saying so. He said then that such arrangements between the front benches on both sides were never satisfactory, and that though he would not break through an arrangement which had been made, he protested against it, and merely accepted it with an expressed discontentment. After that first mistake it was not to be wondered at that there should be many other mistakes and blunders. The House having been deprived of its second reading, and the discussion having been postponed to a later stage, independent Members found they were the victims of another act of conciliation, for the Leaders on both sides decided that the debate, when it did come off, should only take three nights. He protested against a system of arrangements made on the two front benches. Such arrangements might be very convenient for the Leaders on both sides, but they did not conduce to the

  1129
  freedom, dignity, or, indeed, to the brevity of debate. When people found an arrangement of that kind made behind their backs they were apt to stand upon their dignity, and he did not blame them for it. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to the old forms of the House. He (Mr. B. Hope) would be glad to return to them, and always debate a great question on the second reading of the Bill which dealt with it. The wisdom of Parliament had settled that method of procedure for good reasons; but such an arrangement had been broken through several times this Session, and the result had always borne out the old proverb—"The more haste the less speed," as was usually the case with such irregularities. But the true reason of the dead-lock which had arisen was that the Government had tried to force too much business through the House. Parliament met in February, and was provided with work enough for three Sessions. If the work of the Session had been arranged within proper limits it would have been carried on with dignity and satisfaction. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had said that private Members gave up their own days for the prosecution of the Maynooth debate, but that they had not given up a single day this Session. But what was the reason of that? Simply this. That the Maynooth discussion was carried on under the Constitution of 1832, while the present discussion was carried on under the Constitution of 1867. ["Oh, oh!] He did not say which of those Constitutions was the the better—all he wished to say was that if the first Reformed Parliament after the change of 1867 had stronger views of the rights of private Members as against the Government, those who helped to pass the Reform Act of 1867 were bound to suppose that those private Members were right. If the popular element were stronger, those who endeavoured to make it so should rejoice at the result.
  MR. DISRAELI: The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has made one or two mistakes in his statement, and, as I am personally interested in the question which has been raised, the Committee will, perhaps, allow me to make one or two remarks. The hon. Gentleman is in error in stating that it was as an act of "conciliation" on our part
  1130
  that the agreement was come to not to have a division on the second reading. The expression used by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House was a correct one. He said I had acted in a considerate, not in a conciliatory spirit; and therefore the somewhat elaborate jokes which were extracted by the hon. Gentleman from the supposed phrase of the Prime Minister at once fall to the ground. We have just heard a complaint, often made, though made by a limited number of Members, as to the deleterious influence exercised over this House by the two front benches. There are certain Members who do not sit upon the front benches to whom the mention of those benches is like holding a piece of red cloth before a bull. At all events, it exercises a most strange and startling effect upon them. Now, my desire is to lead as quiet a life as I can. Allow me to state, therefore, though it can hardly be necessary, that I do not, and no one who sits on this bench pretends in any way to dictate to any individual or to exercise any arbitrary power over the course of proceedings in this House. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman holds a different position. He is the Prime Minister. He is the acknowledged Leader of this House, and is the head of a party with a great majority. He has a right to make, and we expect from him that he should take upon himself the responsibility of making, those arrangements for the conduct of Public Business which he thinks most conducive to the public welfare. On the other hand, I am the Leader of the minority; I am only a private Member in this House; and if I am the organ of a party occasionally in the matter of the arrangement of business, that is only for the public convenience. Even on matters of much more trifling importance than the second reading of a Bill like this I come to no agreement with the right hon. Gentleman without having first taken the obvious and sufficient means at my command for obtaining the general opinion of those with whom I act. It is quite impossible for me at every stage of a Bill, and on every subject, to make myself acquainted with the opinions of every individual Member who sits on this side of the House. But there are means by which the opinions of influential Members, of representative Members, and even of crotchety Members, can be ascertained

  1131
  through the kindness of those who attempt to assist me in conducting the business of this House; and before I rose to make that "considerate" suggestion, as the Prime Minister called it—and I think it was considerate—I had received communications from a large majority of Members on this side of the House, and expressed their wish in what I said to the right hon. Gentleman. Some Gentlemen found it most inconvenient to be present at that time in consequence of the impending Sessions. Others shrank rather from a discussion of such a nature in Passion Week. There was a very general concurrence that they should feel generally and individually obliged to me if I could make some arrangement which would substantially secure a discussion upon the principle of the Ballot Bill, and not at that moment. I therefore made the "considerate" suggestion which was accepted by the right hon. Gentleman, and which, afterwards, as I believe, gave very general satisfaction. Now, I must come to the second error into which the hon. Member for the University of Cambridge has fallen, and his second "conciliatory" mis-statement. He protests against the arrangement by which the discussion on the Ballot Bill was limited to three days, through a supposed understanding between the Leader of the House and myself. Now, such an understanding is purely imaginary on the part of the hon. Gentleman. On the contrary, not the slightest communication, either direct or indirect, ever passed between us, as I believe, about the arrangement of the debate. It very often does happen that when debates have proceeded for a considerable time communications are made, with a view to the general convenience of the House, between those who from their position may be supposed to be best acquainted with the general wish, and some understanding is come to as to the conduct of the debate. Both sides have felt the convenience of such an arrangement; but in the instance alluded to by the hon. Member nothing of the kind was done. I did not want the debate to be concluded if it could be legitimately prolonged. A Member of the Cabinet rose late. Who replied to him? One of my late Colleagues and intimate friends. The debate had then readied an hour of the clock when the House might have adjourned; but the First Minister
  1132
  thought the adjournment unnecessary, and he was the best judge of the necessity for rising and speaking. Both he and the Member of the Cabinet who had preceded him founded their main arguments in favour of the measure on the assumption that it was a corollary of the legislation which I had myself introduced for the better representation of the people in Parliament. It was impossible for me to forego my legitimate claim of answering such arguments. If I had not answered, I should have been open to the reproach that I had shrunk from the challenge so openly made, which ought to have been answered with readiness. Afterwards there was nothing to prevent the House from continuing the debate; but I repeat that not the slightest arrangement was made for the conclusion of the debate. That conclusion was unexpected by me, and personally I did not desire it, for I had reasons for not wishing to address the House at that time. Now, we hear those complaints occasionally, though from a very few persons, and it is as well the House should understand the spirit in which, for the mutual convenience of the House, business here is conducted. Having spoken, I hope without heat, upon this subject, I may say that I do not think the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government is altogether justified in the observations he has made as to the conduct of the House generally, because the opposition he has received on the Army Bill has arisen as much from his own side as from ours. I do not think he was justified in the declaration of his opinion that an unprecedented strain had been placed on the privilege of individual Members in the opportunities which they have taken for expression of their opinions. A few evenings ago we had a lecture from a high authority on the same subject. The hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer), who always speaks with authority and is listened to with respect, delivered a very solemn address to the House at a period of the evening when it could not be noticed. He contrasted the conduct of the House of Commons this Session with its conduct in the two preceding Sessions, when measures of equal or of greater importance were brought forward. It appeared to me that, while the hon. and learned Member praised the conduct of both sides of

  1133
  the House in preceding years, he destroyed the whole argument he was building up as to the present year. Why should there be a difference between the behaviour of the House this year with respect to Government measures, and their behaviour upon the Bills for the abolition of the Irish Church, and the change in the land laws of Ireland? We are not to suppose that the House of Commons is a body of capricious men who during two years give themselves up to the consideration of Public Business and the passing of two important measures, and then all of a sudden go out of their way to inconvenience and embarrass the Government, to procrastinate and postpone Public Business. The hon. and learned Member for Richmond proved too much. The Irish Church and the Irish Land Bills excited as much hostile feeling as any Bills you have produced this year. We opposed them upon their principles, and when their principles were approved by a majority, we gave ourselves up to considering, maturing, and improving the details of them. Why did we not pursue the same course in the present year? Cannot the hon. and learned Member for Richmond and the right hon. Gentleman supply the reason? We on this side of the House objected to the abolition of the Protestant Establishment, and viewed with suspicion and fear the alteration in the land laws of Ireland; but at least the proposals of the Government were in both instances set forth in measures which were well-considered and adequate to the occasion; and when we found that our objections to the principle of those measures had been encountered and vanquished legitimately and constitutionally, we then gave ourselves to the consideration of the measures that were matured and adequate to the occasion. But does not the right hon. Gentleman feel that his Army Regulation Bill—for I will not be degraded into a discussion of the Ballot Bill now — was not adequately considered, has been subjected to many changes even at the hands of the Government themselves, and was not of the complete and mature character possessed by his two other measures passed in previous years? Therefore the right hon. Gentleman is not justified in the attack he has made on the House generally for embarrassment offered to the
  1134
  Government in the conduct of public affairs. The right hon. Gentleman refers to the good old times, when Ministers, carrying on great public measures with adjourned debates, made with confidence an appeal to private Members, and states that though the debates were adjourned there was not really any great waste of time in consequence of the noble and generous sacrifice by private Members of their rights. But the right hon. Gentleman forgets that he has in this Session adopted a course of Morning Sittings, and if private Members were now to give way and make an offer of their nights for the discussion of Government measures the right hon. Gentleman would thank them for nothing. He would say—"I do not want to begin Business at 9 o'clock. I have got the mornings." [Mr. GLADSTONE made an observation.] The right hon. Gentleman is repentant too late. If he had only been conciliatory—to use the phrase of the hon. Member for Cambridge University—a little earlier, it might have been well for the conduct of Public Business. If the right hon. Gentleman had told us that he would be thankful to private Members for relinquishing their privileges, he would have found himself met in a corresponding spirit; but the right hon. Gentleman is too much given to showing the rod; and in the conduct of Public Business he manages us with a species of Parliamentary terrorism, which generally does not in the beginning of July produce such advantageous results as a course of conciliation. Sir, I could not help making these few remarks, first of all in reference to those allegations, entirely unfounded, which are sometimes made in respect to my repeated interference in the conduct of Public Business; whereas I never interfere unless when I have reason to believe I know the feelings of the majority on this side of the House, and when I think it would be for the general advancement of Public Business, and for the advantage of both sides of the House; and, secondly, because I could not help vindicating the House of Commons from an attack on the part of the Prime Minister which I think unfair and unfounded.
  MR. NEWDEGATE: If I correctly understand the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, one thing is quite clear, and it is this—the right hon. Gentleman proposed to read

  1135
  this Bill a second time at an unusual time, contrary to the ordinary practice of the House, and by the arrangement to which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire pledged himself the opportunity for debate on that stage of the Bill was lost. And I beg to say that, upon a measure of such magnitude as this Bill, which is to alter and decide the form of elections, and indeed the future character of this House, I cannot conceive that there is anything irregular, and I am glad to find from your silence, Sir, that you see nothing that is irregular in the course which has been adopted by my hon. Friend, with the view of repairing the loss of opportunity which occurred through the misunderstanding, or as it has been termed the understanding, between the two right hon. Gentlemen, the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition. The last night that this subject was before the House, I took the opportunity of calling the attention of the House to the circumstance that we were only endeavouring to recover the loss of fair opportunity; and, further, I directed attention to the fact that the Rules of the House have been practically altered, and that, by a recent decision of the Speaker, the House has the opportunity given it, of enforcing that which, in the French Chambers, is known as the clóture, upon any hon. Members who move or speak upon the Motion for Adjournment; because the Speaker has held that, if the majority should decide against the Motion for Adjournment of the debate, that hon. Member who moved the Adjournment, and those who spoke upon his Motion, are precluded from speaking again upon the Original Question. I have called attention to this, because it is a great change in the procedure of the House.
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! I beg to remind the hon. Member for North Warwickshire that he cannot, in Committee on this Bill, discuss the order of procedure of the House.
  MR. NEWDEGATE: I am much obliged to you, Sir, and will avoid testing your decision by moving that you do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again, which I was at first inclined to do; because you might hold that the same rule, which I have adverted to respecting the discussions in the House, would apply to the notion that the Chairman
  1136
  should report Progress; yet, Sir, this is an hour which scarcely offers a fair opportunity for entering fully into this great subject, and for dealing with the points which have not yet been duly handled in debate. Sir, I could not feel the justice of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister upon the speech of the noble Lord the Member for Tyrone (Lord Claud Hamilton). I have been long a Member of this House, and I do not think that the noble Lord exceeded the freedom of debate which is constantly used in this House by referring to documents, which have been laid upon the Table or are to be found in the Library of the House, to the subject-matter of Reports of Commissions authorized by Act of Parliament, and laid before this House, with respect to elections. I hold that the noble Lord the Member for Tyrone has a perfect right to advert to such documents, and I am glad to observe, Sir, that he has your consent to his doing so, by your not rising in your place to stop him. The speech of the noble Lord may be overlooked, in consequence of the discussion on the order of procedure which has supervened in this debate; but there was more of substantial fact bearing on this measure in that speech than in any speech I have yet heard addressed to the House on the subject. Sir, it is asking too much to expect us to forget the long discussions which have preceded the measures which we have adopted from time to time with the view of securing purity of election. It is too much to ask us to forget the revelations of corrupt practices on which those measures were founded; and I say, that it is too much now to expect us virtually to emasculate, if not to abandon, the whole of the legislation, in favour of a plan of secret voting which it is perfectly well known has been fraught with corruption in other countries. The Report of the Committee of the Senate of the United States, which was produced by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool (Mr. Graves) confirms the statements often made as to the amount of corruption which exists in that country under the Ballot. Thirty years ago I myself was in the United States. I happened to be there during a Presidential election. I know very well that corrupt practices were rife at the time, and I find them referred to in this very Report. The Report goes on to prove that these

  1137
  corrupt practices have been aggravated owing to the experience gained by artful managers of elections during the last 30 years; and when hon. Members ask us to accept the dicta of Mr. Grote, I do not forget that those speeches of Mr. Grote, in favour of the Ballot were made 30 years ago. Am I then to shut my eyes to the experience which we have gained in those 30 years with regard, to the experiment of the Ballot, which at that time was a novelty, but since has been amply tried in the constitution of the United States? I can well understand the feelings of hon. Gentlemen being excited by the recent death of Mr. Grote. They would, no doubt, be happy to raise a monument to his memory as the champion of the Ballot; but do they desire that the monument they would raise to Mr. Grote should overshadow the monument of their former Leader, Lord Palmerston, who had heard all that Mr. Grote could urge from the earliest period of his Parliamentary career in support of the Ballot, and who, with that keen perception and accurate knowledge of his countrymen which characterized him, always proclaimed that the scheme which Mr. Grote introduced for the conduct of elections was not adapted to the character of Englishmen? In the course of these debates, the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister said that Lord Palmerston was ever opposed to the Ballot, and spoke very ably on the subject; but I have not heard the opinion of Lord Palmerston quoted with reference to various points, and particularly to this point, the applicability of the vote by Ballot to the present enlarged constituency, upon which he answered by anticipation the aguments of the Prime Minister. The right hon. Gentleman said that, because it has been the pleasure of the Legislature to establish household suffrage, therefore there was a necessity for the Ballot; and further, that the character of the franchise having been thus wholly changed, it is no longer the "trust" which Lord Palmerston always described it to be. With the permission of the Committee, I will quote the language used by Lord Palmerston, and I know that it conveyed his sincere opinion, because in his day the Ballot party were active, and twice, when on the Ballot, Lord Palmerston was in danger of being overborne by the exertions I made in recalling Members to the House,
  1138
  I was enabled to prevent him from being placed in a minority, and after that Lord Palmerston conversed with me twice on the subject. I wish I could convey to the House the full explanation which he gave me of the passage from his speech which I am about to quote. I prefer, however, asking the House to listen to his own words, spoken in the debate on the Ballot in the Session of 1864, and which words formed the foundation of the conversation with which he honoured me. Lord Palmerston said—
  "I object to the Motion [that is, the Motion made by the late Mr. Berkeley] because it is founded on an erroneous assumption. The hon. Member deals with the right of voting as if it were a personal right, which an individual was entitled to exercise free from any responsibility, whereas I contend that the vote is a trust to be exercised on behalf of the community at large. Even if the franchise were ever so extended—even if we had a manhood franchise, if every man arrived at the age of discretion were entitled to vote, it would be only a trust, because there would still be a large portion of the community—women and minors—affected by the laws, by taxation, and so on, whose interests would be committed to those who had votes. Indeed, our legislation is based on the understanding that a vote is a trust, and not a right. If a vote were a purely personal right, would not a voter be entitled to ask on what principle of justice you should punish him for exercising it in the manner which he thinks most for his own individual advantage? But you attach a penalty to the man who employs that right of voting in a way at variance, as you deem, with the public interest, for bribery, or any other such consideration. I say, then, that a vote is a trust, and I maintain that every public trust ought to be exercised subject to the responsibility of public opinion."
  The House will excuse me for quoting this at length; but I think it important that this opinion should not be lost sight of. Let the House mark what follows—
  "The whole political framework of civilized nations rests on the principle of trust. The interests of the community are in various degrees, more or less important, committed to a select few who are charged with duties, in regard to particular things, on behalf of the people at large; and their action in fulfilling that trust ought to be subject to responsibility towards those on whose account they exercise it. But I contend that the Ballot as proposed is intended to withdraw the voter from that responsibility which the public exercise of the trust confided to him would impose; and in that respect I think it would be a political evil. We have been told about the system in other countries—in America, for instance. But in America, as everybody knows, Ballot voting is not secret—"
  In the majority of the States, in fact, no attempt is made to secure that it shall be secret.

  1139
  "it is ticket voting. A man votes for a great number of officers at a time, and he sticks his ticket in his hat, and is proud of the party and the cause he espouses; he does not think of concealing the members, judges, governor, or other officers appointed by public election in the United States for whom he gives his voice. The Ballot, then, I hold, is founded on a mistake in principle, and is at variance with the fundamental assumption on which all our political institutions are based.—[3 Hansard, clxxvi. 44–5.]
  Sir, I have read this opinion of Lord Palmerston to the House, and I hope that it will go forth to the public; for I hold that it covers the whole ground, which has been very partially as yet occupied by the speakers in this debate.
  And it being ten minutes before Seven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair, to report Progress.
  Committee to sit again this day.

EAST INDIA (NAWAB NAZIM).

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  MR. HAVILAND-BURKE, in rising to move—
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into all Treaties and Agreements entered into between the East India Company, or any person on their behalf, with the Nawab Nazim of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, or his predecessors, and to ascertain whether such Treaties and Agreements have been faithfully observed by the said Company and by the Indian Government, and to what claims, if any, the present Nawab Nazim and his family may be entitled under and by virtue of such Treaties and Agreements,"
  said, if this matter had resolved itself into a mere question of money, he should have been extremely unwilling to draw the attention of the House to it; but as it involved a much higher question—namely, the rights and position of the Nawab and the good faith of this Empire, he felt no hesitation in asking the House to give him the Select Committee. He was not seeking, as had been alleged, to take several millions out of the pockets of the British taxpayer, for the latter was not concerned in the matter at all, the subject relating solely to the Indian Government, who had obtained possession of the lands which formerly belonged to the Nawab Nazim under certain treaties which he was about to show had not been kept by it, and by means of which they had replenished an exhausted exchequer. The Nawab had thus had the misfortune of seeing his territories exhausted in order that a policy of annexation, with its useless
  1140
  and wicked wars, might be carried out. It might be alleged, in opposition to his Motion, that the Nawab Nazim was the descendant of a creature of our bounty, who had been a mere puppet of British power: but this was not the fact. The Nawab Nazim was an hereditary Prince, and his ancestors were, if not absolutely independent, at all events entirely independent of the English Government. The principle of arbitration might be applied to this case, the same as had been adopted between England and the United States. The hon. and learned Member proceeded to give a history of the connection of the Nazim with the East India Company. When in 1756 the Soubhadar or Nawab of Bengal (Surajee Dowlah) attacked Calcutta, and perpetrated all the horrors of "the Black Hole," Meer Jaffier occupied the important post of Nizam, or Superintendent of the Finances. In consequence of these dreadful events, and because the Nabob had entered into alliance with the French for the purpose of driving the English out of India, Clive, who then directed the affairs of India for the Company, entered into a confederacy with this great officer for the deposition of his chief. Meer Jaffier accordingly joined his forces with the English. The Armies of Surajee were defeated at the great Battle of Plassey, the Nabob tied, and was soon after wounded. The English immediately entered into a treaty with Meer Jaffier, by which he was acknowledged Soubhadar of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa; and as a Sovereign Prince he granted to the English Company the right to fortify Calcutta, together with certain lands lying around Calcutta, and the territory lying south of Calcutta as far as Culpee. These lands were to be under the "zemindary" of the English Company, and—
  "The revenues received by the Company from these territories were to be paid by the Company to the soubhadar in the same manner with other zemindars."
  Such was the treaty concluded by the Company with Meer Jaffier in 1757. The Company acknowledged Meer Jaffier to be the Sovereign of those countries, and in return he granted to them, of his Sovereign authority, certain territories for which they were to pay revenues the same as any other persons holding territories of the Soubhadar; and by this treaty and under these conditions the

  1141
  English, obtained their first hold upon Bengal. By subsequent events Meer Jaffier had been driven from the throne, and in 1763 the Company entered into another treaty with him, by which they agreed to re-instate him in the Soubhadarship; and in consideration of this assistance, Meer Jaffier, still acting as a Sovereign Prince, granted further territories to the Company, the right to purchase one-half the saltpetre produced in his dominions, to maintain a considerable Army, and not to allow the French to come into the country to build forts, but only to pay tribute and to trade as in former times. When Meer Jaffier died in 1765, the Company acknowledged his son, the Nawab Nuzim-ood-Dowlah, his successor. The new Nawab concluded a third treaty, confirming the previous grants to the Company, giving them half the saltpetre of the country as before, and entering into the same stipulation in regard to the French as his father had done; and it might be remarked that in their dealings with the Nawab the Company were at that time strongly influenced by their fear of the French. In 1765 Lord Clive, with the consent of the then Nawab Nazim of Bengal, made a proposal to the Emperor of Delhi for transferring the dewanny or collectorship to the Company, and the transfer was effected under an Imperial firman. In those three treaties already mentioned there was no reference to any money stipend to be paid to the Nawab; but after the Company obtained the dewanny it became necessary that a money payment should be made to him. The Company accordingly agreed to give him £530,000 a-year—£170,000 for personal expenses, and £360,000 for the support of his state. This Nawab's successor had allowed him £410,000—£170,000 for personal expenses and £240,000 for the support of his state, the reduction having been occasioned by the discharge of some unnecessary sepoys. It had been alleged as a proof that the Nawabs never had any independent rights, that each successive treaty had made his position worse and worse; but the sole reason for the diminution of his allowance was the diminution in the number of troops, the allowance for his personal expenses always remaining about the same. The Nawabs were found to be most useful allies, and by assisting in
  1142
  keeping the provinces quiet repaid to the Company a hundredfold any emoluments that might be received from them. On the death of this Nawab, his son, a boy of 10, succeeded, and under a treaty dated 1770 he was to be allowed £150,000 for his personal expenditure and £160,000 for state expenses; but it was afterwards agreed between the Company and Warren Hastings that during his minority £160,000 a-year would be sufficient for all his expenditure; but although the Company designed to pay him the full amount on his arriving at his majority, Warren Hastings did not, and it was to this conclusion that the India Office was not ashamed now to refer to. Subsequently Lord Cornwallis imposed on the Nawab the condition that £21,000 should be set apart for 18 years in order to form a fund out of which his debts and liabilities might be paid. In 1802, however, those debts still remained unpaid, and a Committee was then appointed to investigate the matter. One of the grievances of the present Nawab was that he could get no account of these funds, and it required the regulating hand of a Select Committee of that House to settle all the questions in dispute between the Nawab and the Indian Government. With the decision of such a tribunal the Nawab was quite content to abide. At the present moment the Government withheld a large portion of the nominal stipend of £160,000, and no account had been rendered of the various sums paid into the Nawab Deposit Fund. The Nawab asserted that he was entitled to £160,000 per annum, minus the sums paid by his predecessors into the reserve fund, and the amount necessary to maintain those members of the family who were unprovided for by that fund. The terms of the proclamation issued in 1838, on the present Nawab succeeding to his father's honours and dignities, plainly showed that the Indian Government recognized his hereditary status, and the same remark applied to a proclamation issued by Lord Canning as late as 1856. That declaration contained express passages concerning the hereditary rights of the Nawab, and was very different indeed from the mere empty assertions of other Secretaries of State. At the time the Nawab came of age the fund to which he had alluded might amount to about £700,000; but with all the pains

  1143
  which he had taken to obtain accurate information on this point he had been unable to do so. The Nawab at that period was absolutely in the hands of Mr. Torrens, an agent of the Governor General, who acted as a kind of official trustee; and, without casting a reproach upon anybody, in the course of a few months the whole of the fund had disappeared, It was whispered that the Government of that day were not wholly ignorant of the transaction. Certain proceedings were taken by the Nawab, and the Government put in a political plea that required the Nawab to cease his litigation, as very inconvenient disclosures might result. A Mr. Elphinstone, who was a senior Judge of India, and the official protector of the Nawab, wrote that if the question to be decided was, whether the Government were bound to apply the sum of £160,000 a-year for the support of the Nawab, he should consider the case one of delicacy and difficulty, and that it required caution and deliberation in dealing with it; but the question practically slumbered until 1853, when, unfortunately for the Nawab, Lord Dalhousie became Governor General, and mercilessly carried out his polity of annexation. Advantage was taken of the occurrence of a murder in the hunting camp of the Nawab Nazim to pick a quarrel with this Prince; and though the Nawab's servants, when put upon their trial, were acquitted, the Crown Prosecutor actually wrote to Sir C. Beaton to say that he was not satisfied with the verdict. The result was that, in spite of solemn declarations by successive Governors General, Lord Dalhousie held the sum which had been deposited to be a mere book debt, not bearing interest; and thus the Nawab was punished for a crime which neither he nor his servants had ever committed. The Nawab complained in a Memorial addressed to Lord Halifax, then Secretary of State, for India; and the latter, setting up his own opinion above the plain wording of the most solemn instruments, held that the intention of the parties to these documents was merely to provide for certain living persons, and that the benefit was not to extend to their successors and descendants. Lord Halifax also talked of the "full consent" of a boy 10 years of age, a plea which would hardly be admitted in any court of law. In another paragraph relating
  1144
  to Mr. Torrens the noble Lord said he was not satisfied that the Nawab had not good ground of complaint against the agent, by whose proceedings a large sum of money had been lost; but that, the decease of Mr. Torrens having precluded an inquiry, he came reluctantly to the conclusion that no good could arise from re-opening the subject. In 1859 the Nawab Nazim came to this country, and was received with great honour. A distinguished officer of the Indian service went to Dover, and accompanied him to London. He believed that if he waited patiently justice would be done to him, and he did not present his Memorial to the Duke of Argyll, who was then Secretary of State, until the 28th of July, 1869. That Memorial was sent out to India; but it was not until more than one Question had been asked in this House concerning it that the Governor General was aware of the fact of its having been presented, and then Lord Mayo went into the subject with so much deliberation that his reply was not given until the 29th of July, 1870. The Nawab had obtained the opinions of several English jurists respecting his claims, including those of Mr. Vernon Harcourt and Sir Roundell Palmer, and those documents would be read with great interest by the Select Committee for which he asked. In this statement he thought he had shown a case for inquiry, and proved that the Nawab Nazim had been actuated only by a loyal feeling to this country. It had been shown that in the sepoy war he rendered cordial assistance to the English Government; he did everything that could be done by a loyal and powerful subject, and when asked what loss he had suffered he said he had only done his duty, and declined to receive any recompense. Not long ago the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire, speaking of Indian affairs, said there ought to be a Royal Proclamation to the people of India, declaring that the Queen of England was not a Sovereign who would countenance any violation of treaties, but one who would respect the laws, customs, and usages, and, above all, the religion of her Indian subjects; and in 1858 Mr. Bright had pointed out that the House ought to be careful as to the administration of justice in India, and ought to provide for the security of life and property.

  1145
  He had desired to appeal to some tribunal other than this House; but to what could he appeal? The Nawab could not go into a court of law, and he had many times petitioned the Indian Government but always received the same answer—that one Government was of exactly the same opinion as its predecessors. He should probably be told that the mere consideration of this subject by the House of Commons would be injurious to British interests in India; but he entertained a higher opinion of the people of that country than to suppose that any damaging effect could be so produced upon them. The one thing that would give them confidence in England was to be impressed with the belief that there was no wrong which might not be redressed, and no act of injustice that could not be brought before this House. To grant a Committee would be to consolidate our interests in India, and he hoped the House would pause before refusing to accede to his Motion, for a wrong was alleged, as to which there had hitherto been no fair or legal inquiry. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
  MR. GILPIN, in seconding the Motion, said, he would only detain the House a few minutes. He regretted that his hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for India would be obliged by his official position to uphold the policy followed by the Indian Government, whatever his own convictions on the subject might be. It was in the highest degree desirable that the matters referred to by his hon. Friend (Mr. Haviland-Burke) should be investigated by a Select Committee of that House.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into all Treaties and Agreements entered into between the East India Company, or any person on their behalf, with the Nawab Nazim of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, or his predecessors, and to ascertain whether such Treaties and Agreements have been faithfully observed by the said Company and by the Indian Government, and to what claims, if any, the present Nawab Nazim and his family may be entitled under and by virtue of such Treaties and Agreements."—(Mr. Haviland-Burke.)
  MR. GRANT DUFF: The case of the Nawab Nazim of Bengal against the British Government has been laid before the House by the hon. Member for
  1146
  Christchurch (Mr. Haviland-Burke) with great clearness, and, if I may be permitted to say so, with much ability; and I trust that the House will pardon me if I am obliged to follow my hon. Friend at somewhat tedious length. With reference to the remarks that fell from my hon. Friend who seconded the Motion (Mr. Gilpin), he may rest assured of two things—first, that he will not hear from me the hateful word "prestige;" and, secondly, that I shall say nothing on this subject as an official, which I could not conscientiously say as an independent Member. Standing out from the mass of Indian society are three sets of persons whom it is important carefully to distinguish. First you have Native Princes and chiefs—the heads of famous houses possessing to this day more or less political power; secondly, you have great proprietors—noblemen of high position, but without any princely prerogatives; and, thirdly, you have a very small class of titled stipendiaries, privileged dependants of the British Government. It is to the third of these classes that the Nawab Nazim really belongs. Towards these three sets of persons, the people of these islands, as represented by the great officers of the Queen in India, have various and well defined duties to fulfil. The Native Princes and chiefs have their rights, the great proprietors have their rights, and the titled stipendiaries have their rights also. The advocates of the highly placed and highly privileged personage whose affairs we are discussing to-night are fond of representing him as an injured Indian Prince. I will not beg the question as to whether he is injured or not, the House will have to decide that at a later hour, after it has heard both sides; but I must take leave to explain at the outset that whether injured or no he is not that interesting character—an injured Indian Prince "sprung of a race noble and gentle for ages appealing to the justice of the British Parliament." He is not an Indian Prince. His father was not an Indian Prince. His grandfather was not an Indian Prince. Who or what is he then? He is the ninth successor of Moor Jaffier, in the favour of the British Government—the ninth successor of Meer Jaffier, who was himself no Prince, but an officer in the service of Surajah Dowlah, who was the Governor of Bengal under the Mogul Empire,

  1147
  when we won our first great success in north-eastern India.
  Let me recall in two or three sentences to the House the history of that time—I will not say the true history, because that might seem to reflect on my hon. Friend's narrative; but I will say the history as it has been told by all historians without exception up to this evening. Everyone who has heard anything of India at all has heard of the Black Hole of Calcutta. Weil, Surajah Dowlah was the personage whose malignity or carelessness brought about that horrible catastrophe, and against Surajah Dowlah the British in India, who survived it, immediately vowed vengeance. This vengeance they carried into effect by two weapons—force and intrigue—both weapons being wielded by one who was a master of both—the great, but far from stainless, Clive. That remarkable man found a useful tool in one Meer Jaffier, who was a trusted servant of Surajah Dowlah, and after much playing fast and loose with both sides, this man drew off a large body of troops under his command on the field of Plassey, and materially contributed to the disgraceful panic which enabled us to win so easily that decisive day. The Battle of Plassey made us the virtual rulers of Bengal; but the motto of the Company in those days, and indeed in all days, was Festina lente; and Clive, after some deliberation, was content to exercise real without pretending to nominal power. So Meer Jaffier, who had been his tool, was made his puppet, and was installed as Nawab Nazim, which is, being interpreted, Nawab Administrator—Nawab "exercising police and criminal justice." In this position he remained for some time. My hon. Friend has denied that he was a puppet; but, alas, so thoroughly was he a puppet that when he gave umbrage to his British masters he was brushed aside, and one Meer Cossim was put in his stead. This man, however, showed himself as untrustworthy and more able than Meer Jaffier, so he, too, was brushed aside, and Meer Jaffier replaced in the enjoyment of his dignity, such as it was. In the enjoyment of his dignity, such as it was, he died, and was succeeded by one of his sons, Nuzim-ood-Dowlah. With Nuzim-ood-Dowlah, in the year 1765, the representatives of British authority made an agreement, by which a
  1148
  sum of about £530,000 a-year was assigned to him for his life. Almost immediately, he likewise died, and was in his turn succeeded by a brother, with whom the British concluded another arrangement, by which they assigned to him, in all, about £410,000 a-year for his life. In three years he died also, and in 1770 the representatives of British authority in Bengal made an arrangement with his successor, Mubarick-ood-Dowlah, by which they agreed to give him about £320,000 a-year for his life. Thirteen years, however, had now passed since the Battle of Plassey, and the Directors, cautious as they were, had begun to think that their subordinates in Bengal were testifying their respect for the fiction of the Nazim's power in rather too practical away. So they told Mr. Cartier, then their chief officer in Bengal, that during the minority of the Nawab they would only allow him £160,000 a-year. Now, however, there came upon the scene a ruler who saw more clearly than either Mr. Cartier, or the Court of Directors, what had to be done if we meant to stay in India, and who, in addition, was not the man to allow himself to be bribed, as his predecessors were violently suspected to have been. And in the years from 1771 to 1782 Bengal was conquered by Warren Hastings—peacefully conquered, but still more thoroughly conquered as ever Delhi was by Tamerlane. Mubarick-ood-Dowlah, like a man of sense, accepted accomplished facts without even a protest, and was very glad to keep his £160,000 a-year for his life. He lived till 1796. The original treaty with Meer Jaffier, and the three agreements to which I have alluded—the last of them dated, it will be observed, in the year 1770—are the treaties, if we can call them so, into which the House would inquire if the Committee, for which my hon. Friend asks, was granted; for those are the only treaties, or arrangements in the nature of treaties, that ever have been made with the descendants of Meer Jaffier.
  And now, I ask, what possible bearing can even the last three of the so-called treaties have upon the circumstances of the present day. The Treaty of 1765, which was only for the life of the then Nawab, as was proved not only by the tenour of the document itself, but still more clearly by the fact that a totally different and much less favourable

  1149
  arrangement was accepted by the next Nawab—the Treaty of 1767, which was only for the life of the then Nawab, and which was again succeeded by the arrangement of 1770, which, though less favourable, was accepted by the Moorshedabad family, but which was never ratified by the proper authority, and never acted on during the whole of the life of the person to whose life it exclusively applied.
  But to resume my narrative. After the death of Mubarick-ood-Dowlah, in 1796, five heads of the Moorshedabad family successively attained to the shadowy honours of the Nizamut, and became, one after another, the recipients of the bounty of the British Government. But it never occurred to any of them to prosecute a hostile suit against that Government, as if the stipend they received was paid under the provisions of a treaty, and not out of free grace and favour. From 1770 downwards nothing in the nature of a treaty is even alleged to have been concluded between the British Government and the Moorshedabad family; but certain phrases used by successive Governors General have been appealed to as constituting—when taken together with the course of dealing pursued by the Government down to the days of Lord Dalhousie—a legal claim on their part, to be kept in precisely the same position in which they were during that time. We deny this utterly. We say that not one word can be shown to have been uttered, or written, which can constitue any legal claim whatever against the Indian Government; but we most fully admit that the phrases of successive Governors General, and the whole course of action of the Government during these and previous years, did constitute a moral claim which it would be grossly inequitable to disregard; but the moral claim is not a claim to be kept in precisely the same position that was occupied by the family at any particular moment of time. It is a claim to be kept as long as they conduct themselves as loyal subjects in a great and honourable position in Bengal. That moral claim the Indian Government most fully and distinctly recognizes. Former Nawabs were, as I have said, satisfied to live on as pensioners on the bounty of Government, accepting the situation which events had made for them. The present Nawab put forward, I believe, no
  1150
  grievances for the first few years after his accession to his dignities; but now he puts forward certain grievances about which I would say a word.
  First, I come to the alleged hereditary nature of the treaties. Of that I have spoken; and I will do nothing more now than quote a few sentences from the opinion of the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer), and another counsel who was consulted along with him by the Nawab's own friends, which, I think, effectually dispose of any argument from the treaties—
  "We look in vain for any words of inheritance or succession in any of those several treaties, or, in fact, for any expression to show an intention on the part of either of the contracting parties to include the heirs or successors of any such several individuals. Our attention has been specially directed to the concluding lines in the last of those treaties—viz., that of 1770—in which the words 'for ever' occur; but upon reference to their context, it clearly appears that the intention in using them was that the 'agreement' (whatever it was) contained in that Treaty should be inviolably observed for ever; and we have above stated what, in our opinion, is the nature and extent of that agreement. We are further of opinion, therefore, that the above words 'for ever' cannot alter or extend the meaning and force of the express agreement in the body of the Treaty."
  I ought, perhaps, to say a word about the arrangements with the King of Delhi, of which my hon. Friend has made a good deal; bat, in the first place, circumstances have so utterly changed that I really can hardly understand his referring to those agreements with a grave face; and, further, anyone who reads the document will see that its true intent and meaning was, that as the King had nominally handed over to the English Company the dewanny, or financial administration of Bengal, to be exercised by them directly, and had also nominally handed over—nominally, I say, for, of course, we took both by our good swords—the Nizamut—that is the administration of police and criminal justice—to be exercised indirectly through a puppet ruler, the King, not unnaturally, took order that, as we were to collect the revenue of the Provinces, so we should also pay for the government of the Provinces, and should keep our puppet, as long as we used him, in a position creditable to the King of Delhi—his nominal liege-lord and master. The moment the Nizamut ceased to be exercised through a

  1151
  puppet ruler, the reason of the, in itself, quite reasonable arrangement with the King of Delhi disappeared; and now Nizamut agreement, King of Delhi, and all else connected with the transaction have vanished away—gone on the wind's wings, like the title of Her Majesty's ancestors to the throne of France, or equally unsubstantial claims, of which we have heard, to the thrones of Cyprus and Jerusalem.
  I come, then, to the second point put forward by the Nawab—to the alleged unjustifiable attitude assumed towards him by Lord Dalhousie, on account of a misconception as to the Nawab's participation in a very atrocious murder which was committed by some of his servants. But the Nawab altogether overstates the amount of guilt that was imputed to him in connection with the shocking transaction which occurred in his hunting camp, in the year 1853. The Court of Directors never accused the Nawab Nazim of having been actually an accomplice in the murder. What they accused him of was only of having falsely stated to the Governor General's agent that he had dismissed from his service the persons who had committed the murder, and having afterwards extended marked and especial favour to one, at least, of those persons—acts which might, of course, raise some suspicion as to his actual complicity, but acts on which the Government put the most lenient construction possible, giving him, in the despatch from the India House of 1854, in so many words, the benefit of the doubt. It would have been wiser, I think, for the Nawab not to have raised the ghost of this story; more especially seeing that the Government remitted all the penalties which it imposed upon him, which it could remit, without injury to his fellow subjects.
  And that brings me to the third point—the immunities which are no longer accorded to him. The Government took advantage of the misconduct of which I have been speaking, to suppress the privilege which had been accorded to his predecessors of not being liable to the ordinary process of courts of law. The Nawab complains that we did not restore this along with the guns which were restored to his salute, and other similar things. But he forgets that since 1853, India, like most other places, has been advancing in civilization, and that
  1152
  civilization abhors extra legal and privileged sanctuaries. A Government which should give back such an immunity to the Nawab Nazim, or any similar person, living in the midst of a society which was daily growing in civilization, would not, I venture to say, be supported in this year, 1871, by the people of England.
  And now I come to the fourth and fifth grievance put forward by him—the grievance relating to the Nizamut Deposit Fund; or to use his own words in his Memorial—
  "The Nizamut Deposit Fund, arbitrarily converted into a book debt bearing no interest, and general misapplication of the fund to purposes altogether foreign to its true intent and object."
  I can best explain to the House the real state of the case by reading an extract from a despatch of the Government of India. I must apologize to hon. Members for the horrible dulness of the subject, but it was not I who invited this discussion—
  "The Nawab Nazim states that Lord Dalhousie wrongfully converted the deposit fund into a book debt bearing no interest; that the several funds were created by his ancestors for special purposes, and ought to bear, and have borne, interest; that the orders of the Government were that interest should be re-invested as received; that, in reality, the funds have been created (1) from lapsed stipends arbitrarily diverted for that purpose; (2) from family property to which the Nawab Nazim would have fallen heir; and (3) from a sum of two lacs a-year paid by the Nazim.
  "Now, the facts are, that the fund consists of two parts: (1) invested, and (2) uninvested. The invested funds, to which the Nawab Nazim never contributed anything, but which, with exception of a portion of Munnee Begum's treasure, invested with the consent of the Nazim of the day, consists entirely of lapsed Stipends, over which the Nawab Nazim had no control whatever, have always borne interest, and bear interest to this day. Part of the interest is devoted to the purpose for which the corresponding portion of the investment was originally made—viz., the agency establishments, although it is insufficient to meet the expenditure, and has had to be supplemented with grants from the other portions of the fund; and the remainder goes for Nizamut purposes over and above the payments made front the Government Treasury. If the interest of the Begum's fund has not been re-invested, as directed in 1823, it is because that fund never really came into existence, and the Nawab Nazim himself failed to carry out the arrangement by which be was to credit Rs. 50,000 a-year to the fund. He himself wrongfully appropriated the lapses, and so far from his having any claim. Government had actually to forgive him a debt of Rs. 2,70,137 on account of misappropriated lapses, and for this the Government of India incurred the censure of the Court of Directors.

  1153
  "In regard to the uninvested portion, not only was it never intended that it should bear interest, but it would be contrary to all the Government rules regarding deposits, if interest were granted upon it. Deposits in the Government Treasuries do not bear interest except under specific arrangements made with the depositors. Since the first day of its formation the deposit has borne no interest. It was not Lord Dalhousie who made it a book debt; the uninvested portion of the deposit fund has never been anything else than a book debt ever since its formation in 1836. What Lord Dalhousie wanted to do was to abolish the fund altogether, and to re-credit the uninvested balance to Government; but to this the Court of Directors objected. If the fund had been invested it would at one time have been bankrupt. The demands upon it are heavy and fluctuating. A reference to the Report on the fund, which is enclosed in our separate despatch, No. 149 of this date, will show show that it has not always been able to meet its liabilities. Between 1842 and 1851, for instance, there was a cumulative deficit varying from a quarter of a lac to nearly two lacs. Much confusion has, indeed, arisen from styling the balance of the 16 lacs a fund. The uninvested portion of the so-called fund is a mere account of certain liabilities which the Government of India may, at some indefinite time in the future, be called upon to meet. There is no obligation expressed or implied to give interest on this account; and on two occasions on which the present Nawab Nazim has brought forward his grievances, although apparently assisted by persons fully acquainted with all the facts of the case, he has not been able to adduce anything which implies a promise on the part of Government that interest should be allowed. This appears to have been the view of Her Majesty's Government in 1864. At that time interest had never been paid on the uninvested part of the fund. The Nawab Nazim complains that the fund was converted into a book debt by Lord Dalhousie in 1854. The despatch of June, 1864, however, says not a word about interest, but merely decides that the 'unappropriated portions from year to year of the 16 lacs stipend unquestionably belong to the Nazim and his family, and can properly be expended only for their benefit.' This is precisely the principle upon which the fund has been administered. The Nazim's interest in it consists in his right to have certain expenses defrayed out of it (subject to the approval of Government) which would otherwise have to be paid by himself out of his personal allowance. His family's interest in it consists in their right to have a provision out of it at his death, as Government may then consider proper. It is true that the balance is now large; but there can be no doubt that at the death of the present Nazim, which may, of course, occur at any time, very heavy claims will come upon it."
  With regard to the case of Mr. Torrens, the transactions between that gentleman and the Nawab were transactions which could only be properly investigated by Courts of Law. They were investigated by Courts of Law, and the Nawab wholly failed to make out any claim against the parties against, whom alone he could
  1154
  possibly have had a claim, and against whom he proceeded. If he now thinks that he can make out a claim against the Government, which had nothing whatever to do with the transactions referred to, I suppose it is within the resources of his legal advisers to devise means for urging his supposed claim in some way or other, if, that is, it has any foundation in the law to which Governments and subjects must alike bow. But after the House has heard the document which I am going to read, it will not think much, I imagine, of the Nawab's claims against Government, or anybody else, in relation to the Torrens affair—
  "Mr. Peterson, chief counsel for His Highness the Nawab Nazim, in the suit against Messrs. Mackenzie, Lyall, & Co., having been requested to give an opinion whether His Highness should accept the compromise offered by the defendants, thus replied—
  "'The defendants in this suit have offered to pay to the plaintiff the sum of Company's rupees, 70,000, by certain instalments, within twelve months, in satisfaction of all claims against them in this suit.'
  "Mr. Peterson is fully acquainted with the origin and particulars of the defendants liability, the merits of the plaintiff's claim, and the rank and position of the several parties, and with reference thereto his opinion is requested as to the propriety, or otherwise, of accepting the offer that has been made.
  "It is an offer I should recommend the acceptance of, although I think that probably the plaintiff would have recovered more had he proceeded with his suit; but as the law is, at the best, uncertain, and as the plaintiff would have been compelled to submit to a great deal of annoyance and expense had the commission contemplated gone up to Moorshedabad, I think it better to accept the terms."
  So much for the Nawab's counsel. Now for himself. The Nawab Nazim thus ends a letter to the address of the Agent Governor General Moorshedabad, dated 24th March, 1857—
  "I have accepted the offer, and have thus at last brought the matter to a satisfactory close and successful termination."
  No talk about the "political plea" can, I think, get over this. The short and the long of the business is this—that Mr. Torrens thought, and probably wisely thought, that it would be better for the Nawab if his money was invested in estates and other property, rather than invested in the pockets of the swindlers who surround Asiatic Courts. But the speculations turned out unsuccessful; and the swindlers in question were a great deal too much both for Mr. Torrens and the Nawab. Mr. Torrens was anything

  1155
  but a satisfactory servant to Government, or a wise friend to the Nawab; but I have seen no evidence that he was corrupt, and he died soon after those transactions a very poor man. I have now gone through the principal points in this case, as stated by the Nawab and his advocates; but there is a good deal of collateral matter into which my hon. Friend and others have gone, about which I must say something.
  First, they tell us that the Nawab Nazim is an extremely popular person, and that Bengal looks on his cause as on its own. It would be very odd if a Hindoo population loved so well a Mahometan family, which was put over them by Christian conquerors from the other end of the earth, and who no one pretends to have ever done any particular good to Bengal. But where is the evidence. All the evidence I have ever seen leads to an opposite conclusion. Here, for example, is a passage from a recent work by a Hindoo written in English, and describing a tour in India. In his account of Moorshedabad occurs this passage. If the English is a little strange, the House will remember that the book is not a translation, but written in English by the author, Mr. Bholanauth Chunder—
  "There can be no doubt that the same end awaits the close of the title of the Nawab Nazim of Bengal, which, without any exceptional reason in its favour, has so long been permitted to survive its congener, the Nawabate of the Carnatic. The endeavour to maintain a stilted position on the strength of ancestral offices is a pretension which under a Mahometan rule would long since have collapsed; attendance at the Royal levees in refulgent kinkhaub, and a discreet use of shawl presents, will not long stave off the inevitable oblivion; and it has been due to the ignorance, as much as to the pscudo-tenderness of British sentiment, that the vitality of such empty phantoms of departed greatness has been somewhat unreasonably protracted. The error was a venial one, though if anything similar had been attempted in behalf of those whose names had been prominent in England's history, ridicule and mockery would have trampled such pretensions to the dust. The time has, however, arrived when the descendants of the families of the Nawab of the Carnatic, of the Nawab Nazim, of Tippoo, and of the King of Oude, cannot too early realize the necessity of accepting a position in Native society analagous to that occupied by the noblemen of England with respect to its commoners. They cannot hope for a higher or more honourable one; the framework of society and of our administration does not allow of their holding any other; and it will, when fairly accepted, enable them to train and educate their sons in a manner which would fit them for employment,
  1156
  and render them useful instead of useless and isolated members of society. There is small hope of so desirable a change as long as baseless pretensions are nourished."
  Next it is said that the Nawab Nazim behaved well in the Mutiny. He did behave well in the Mutiny, and was well rewarded for it. First, his salute, which had been reduced on account of his misconduct in 1853, was replaced on its old footing. A small matter, it will be said—only a little more powder burnt. True enough; but after all, from the high philosophic point of view, the Garter and the Golden Fleece are only baubles, and the adding to, or taking from, the salute is quite as mighty a matter in India as the giving or withholding of these honours in Europe. Then the Government undertook to give him £40,000 to clear off certain debts, if that sum was found necessary. It turned out not to be necessary; a clever subordinate having got him out of his troubles without requiring it. Nevertheless, however, the Government has given him, or is going to give him, the money—£25,000 it has given him, and £15,000 it is going to give him. I wonder where the money has gone? I observe there are suspicions abroad. It was, for example, observed by The Pall Mall Gazette—
  "If there be anyone among our contemporaries whose circulation may be supposed to be not on a par with its undoubted merits, if there be one which addresses itself to a small professional or social class, if there be one which is published in a part of the British dominions, not unjustly described as remote or obscure, this particular journal seems strongly impressed with the gravity of the wrong which has been done to the Nawab. Nothing, of course, except the force of argument can have produced these effects; but it is a remarkable illustration of the varying and capricious susceptibility of the human mind to the influence of reasoning that the effects should have shown themselves in such unexpected quarters."
  I need not go through all the rewards the Nawab received for the Mutiny. He was re-instated, in one word, in every privilege which he had enjoyed before his misconduct which he could possibly enjoy without harm to his fellow subjects; he was formally thanked by the Governor General, and the whole story of his misconduct would have been utterly forgotten if he had not gone out of his way to revive it. These, one would think, were tolerably sufficient rewards, but the incessant talk about the good deeds of this personage during the

  1157
  Mutiny which his advocates keep up, make one think of the lines—
  "To John I owed some obligation,
  But John unhappily thought fit
  To publish it to all the nation.
  Sure John and I are more than quit."
  He did behave well in the Mutiny, but if he had not behaved well what would have happened? Either his bad behaviour would have given our enemies a temporary success, or it would not. If it had done so, does any mortal who has studied India, believe that it would have turned, even for a brief hour, to the advantage of the Nawab Nazim? Is he the kind of man who floats on the crest of the wave in revolutions? I think not. Take the other alternative; and what would have been the result? Well, we will not pursue that subject. The English in Bengal were not exactly in a humour to be trifled with in the year 1857; but, at least, he would not have been enjoying, in the year 1870, a splendid income out of the taxes of India, and living at the Alexandra Hotel. My hon. Friend ought to remember that while he would urge the Government in one direction, there are others who would urge it in a diametrically opposite direction, and between him and them the Government find it hard enough to listen to the still small voice of moderation. We have heard the views of my hon. Friend, but what do these others say. They address the Government in language of this kind—"Your only moral right to rule in India at all is derived from your presumed intention to bring to India the ideas of the civilized West, and to consult the greatest happiness of the greatest possible number. Now, what do you do in the case of this Nawab. In the first place by mere laches and incuria—laches and incuria for which you are answerable to the people of India—you have continued to him and his predecessors the misleading title of Nazim, or Administrator, for a whole century after he and they have ceased to be in any sense Administrators. You have done their work, and they have borne your title. That, perhaps, is of little importance, but you have also taken from the population of India—a very poor population—at least £160,000 a-year, and have devoted it to keeping up the State of this Nawab; to keeping up, in other words, a thoroughly bad and corrupting
  1158
  influence in the midst of your own subjects. We call upon you, in the name of the people of India, to put an end, and that immediately, to so great a scandal." We decline to give any countenance to the views of my hon. Friend; but we, at the same time, decline to go anything like so far as these persons, whose views I have just sketched to the House, insist upon our going. We do not propose to continue the Moorshedabad family to all time coming as an old man of the sea round the neck of the people of India; but we do propose to continue to it a very considerable position, and to form for it out of this Nizamut fund—for mismanaging which we are taken so much to task—and otherwise if needs be, a splendid inheritance. Read the history of Meer Jaffier in any history that ever was written. Then imagine the character of that personage to have been exactly the opposite of what it was; imagine him not weak, but strong; not faithless, but honest; not worthless, but eminently worthy; and would his ghost have anything to complain of if he know that his remote successor was going to be put in a position about as good as the English nobleman who represents that Colonel Clive whom he looked upon as a sort of demigod; for, when all is said and done, the position of an English noble is that to which the cruel, the rapacious, the faithless Government of India proposes to condemn the ninth descendant of Meer Jaffier—no Prince, but the officer of an officer of the Emperor of Delhi. And, now I trust I have said enough to show that there is not even a primâ facie case for a Select Committee to inquire into this matter; but even if there were a prmiâ facie case, I think it is more than doubtful whether the House, having regard to its old traditions, would think of sanctioning anything of the kind. The House, even if a primâ facie case had been made out, would, I am sure, pause before it struck a great blow, not only at the authority of Lord Mayo, but of all future Viceroys; for such a blow the grant of this Committee would be, and as such it would be regarded in India.
  MR. BOURKEsaid, that the historical part of that question had been so accurately described by the Under Secretary of State that it was unnecessary further to enter upon it; but he maintained that Meer Jaffier had for himself

  1159
  no sovereign rights, and therefore no person claiming as his successor could pretend to have them. Lord Macaulay, in his Essay on Lord Clive, held that the heir of Meer Jaffier had not the smallest share of political power, but was in fact only a noble and wealthy subject of the British Government, and nobody could doubt that that, and nothing else, was the true position of his present representative, with regard to the character of the treaties which had been referred to, they had always been treated as personal and not as hereditary treaties, not only by the East India Company, but also by the descendants of Meer Jaffier themselves, who had from time to time consented to their modification. It was a most calumnious and utterly untrue charge against a lamented and honoured statesman to allege that the late Lord Dalhouise had looked out for an excuse to depose a titular Prince. It had been said that Lord Dalhousie wrote his despatch without consideration or investigation; but the truth was that the despatch itself showed that it was written only after mature inquiry. If Lord Dalhousie had not shown his abhorrence of the horrible crime which had been committed, he would have betrayed the interests of the people of India, which he was bound to protect. No good could come from re-opening the discussion, and the best friends of the Nazim would be those who recommended him to return to his country and discharge those important duties devolving upon one holding so high a social position.
  SIR CHARLES WINGFIELDstated that when the Government assumed the office of Nazim it should have made it distinctly understood that the title was not to be held by any successor of the then existing Nazim, and should have made new arrangements for the altered position of the family. Presuming that an injustice had been done to the Nawab's ancestors 100 years ago, he could not see how that could be constituted a grievance of the Nawab. No doubt the correspondence which had passed between Mr. Torrens and other parties betrayed dark suspicions of criminality on the part of Mr. Torrens, yet as the Nawab was of age, and made no complaint till after the death of Mr. Torrens, it was difficult to show how the Indian Government could be held responsible.
  1160
  Those who urged that what they called a fair and generous policy should be pursued might have some justice on their side if the money they suggested should be given could be handed over without calling upon anyone to pay it; but to burden the people of India with the payment of money, in strict justice not due, was simply to be generous at the expense of the taxpayers. There were many people who appeared to suppose that all the Indian Government had to do was to dip their hands into some strong box and take what money they wanted, forgetting, too, that the Nawabs of Bengal had always borne an evil reputation, and had been regarded by the people of India with but little respect and attachment. He admitted that the Nawab showed loyalty to the British authorities in India; but it was quite absurd to suppose that the claim now set up for him was well founded. The conduct of the Government had been fair throughout. They did not intend to interfere with that allowance during the Nazim's lifetime; but they did intend to do so after his death, so as to make a provision more suitable to the family by giving the son £36,000 a-year, which would be a very ample allowance, and the rest of the family would be supported out of the accumulations of the funds, which amounted to £700,000 a-year.
  MR. SERJEANT SHERLOCK, in supporting the Motion, said, the objection put forward was that this was not the Nawab Nazim, but the officer of an officer—an official who had been raised to his position by the representatives of the East India Company. On the death of each succeeding Nawab the allowance had been reduced; until it had finally been reduced to one-half. The construction of the agreements or treaties did not depend upon their words only, but upon the relative position of the parties. If the original treaty was entered into for the purpose of securing the revenues of the country to the British Government it was idle to contend that the province was handed over in perpetuity for the payment of a specific sum, when it was clear that the agreement was only for the life of the first Nawab. As the only object was inquiry into what was the justice of the case, he should support the Motion for a Select Committee.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, the discussion would be much shortened, and a decision upon the Motion facilitated, if hon. Members would bear in mind the particular proposition submitted to them—namely, whether certain treaties and agreements have been faithfully observed by the Indian Government, and to what claims, if any, the present Nawab Nazim may be entitled under them. If treaties had been entered into with this family and not fulfilled, that was a question which touched the honour of a great country like England; but if the allowances given were merely given as customary donations and as a matter of grace and favour, then the controversy assumed a very different aspect. The whole question was, what were the relations of those high personages who hold the title of Nazim 100 years ago to the Indian Government. Were they powerful Princes or not, and did we enter into treaties with them as Sovereign Powers or not? What was conceded to us was the collection of the revenues, and the Emperor of Delhi cared little about anything but that we should pay his tribute, and provide for the expenses of the Nizamut. That bargain having been made 100 years ago between competent authorities, it was useless to go into the motives which led to the arrangement. What was given to us was the collection of the revenues, and we had nothing to do with the administration but to see that it was provided for. Fresh bargains were afterwards made with the different succeeding Nazims. The Commissioners afterwards took the administration into their own hands and performed the duties themselves. If the House would endeavour to avoid mixing up questions as to the treaties with other questions, they would perceive, he thought, that the matter was hardly one to be referred to a Select Committee. He considered that the East India Company first and the Government afterwards had, on the whole, behaved with great liberality. This was not a question upon which a Committee could throw any light, for the matter rested not upon treaty, but upon the liberal arrangements of the Indian Government, and if this House were to undertake to revise the daily administration of the affairs of India it would be found unable to do so. In his opinion, therefore, the House ought not to interfere.
  MR. EASTWICKsaid, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, he hoped the House would listen to him while he made a few remarks on this subject as he had paid great attention to it. The case divided itself under four heads—the treaties, the funds, the sums accumulated during the Nawab's minority, and the censures passed on the Nawab on account of the deaths of Madhu and Hingan. As the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Haviland-Burke) had rested his appeal entirely on the treaties, it would be unnecessary for him (Mr. Eastwick) to take any notice of the other points. As to the treaties, then, he would say that he could imagine no more flattering compliment to the nation than an appeal to them. In these times, when European nations repudiated as obsolete treaties, since the signature of which little more than a decade had passed, to ask Englishmen to be bound by what in comparison were antediluvian engagements, entered into more than a century ago, was a signal proof of the national reputation for good faith. But, however flattering the appeal might be it was impossible to accede to it, so completely had circumstances changed. There were three parties to the treaties, or he should rather call them agreements—the Emperor, the Nawab Nazim, and the English stranger—and it would really seem as if all three had been subjected to the metempsychosis in which the Indians believe. The Emperor, after sinking into the position of a Nawab, had attained the supreme beatitude of Hindoos—that was, Nirvánah or extinction. The Englishman had taken the place of the Emperor, and, strangest of all, the Nawab Nazim had become an English gentleman, who lived at the Alexandra Hotel, and went to balls! So much for the treaties; now a word as to the Nizamut allowances. He could assure the House that Nizamut meant simply "government," and that those allowances were for the expense of carrying on the administration. They bound themselves, therefore, to nothing but to pay the expenses of government. Of course, when they took the government out of the hands of the Nawab, which was in 1765, the time was come to withdraw from him the allowances for the expense of governing. He (Mr. Eastwick) could show, in many ways, that there was nothing permanent in their engagements with the

  1163
  Nawab's ancestors. But at that late hour he would only add—"Let the Nawab be contented with his magnificent stipend of £160,000 a-year, and with his hereditary title of Nawab, which would, in all probability, descend to his children."
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 64; Noes 122: Majority 58.

UNIVERSITY TESTS (DUBLIN).

  LEAVE. FIRST READING.
  MR. FAWCETT MR. FAWCETT moved that the Speaker leave the Chair in order that he might, in Committee of the Whole House, move that leave be given to bring in a Bill to abolish Tests and to alter the constitution of the Governing Body in Trinity College and the University, Dublin.
  Resolved, That this House will immediately resolve itself into a Committee to consider the abolition of Tests and the alteration of the constitution of the Governing Body in Trinity College and the University, Uublin.—(Mr. Fawcett.)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  MR. HERONopposed the Motion, on the ground that as the measure vitally affected Ireland, it ought to have been introduced by the Government and not by a private Member. He opposed the Motion because it was not altogether sincere, and because the Bill was one that ought to be introduced by the Government. If Trinity College were made a national college as was proposed the result would be that no Catholic College or University would be established in Ireland, and, much as he respected the senior and junior Member for Trinity College, he objected to having the Catholic education of that country unrepresented in that House.
  MR. FAWCETTsaid, he thought it would have been better if the hon. and learned Member had reserved the observations on the Bill until its provisions had been explained to the House. What it proposed to do was simply to abolish all tests in Trinity College. It was similar in that respect to the Bill which had passed the House with reference to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, only that it was more liberal, inasmuch as, in the case of Trinity College, there
  1164
  were no clerical fellowships to be dealt with. He proposed to give free and immediate representation in the governing body to the Roman Catholics. The Bill had obtained the support of the leading members of the University of Dublin, and, if not passed in this Session, it would, should it obtain the approval of the House, facilitate legislation in next year.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he had always stated that the higher education of Ireland required the attention of Parliament, so as to apply to it those principles of religions equality that had been applied to the Church of Ireland. He did not, therefore, take any objection to the action now taken by the hon. Member for Brighton, though he reserved full liberty to deal with the plan as seemed best when it was before them.
  MR. PLUNKETsaid, that the proposed Bill received the perfect acquiescence of the authorities of the University of Dublin. He would say on their behalf that they were most sincerely anxious to remove the last trace of religious tests in the University. Their intention was faithfully and fully to carry out the policy of opening the University to all comers, but they could not do this without an Act of Parliament, and that was the reason why this Bill should be introduced. As to the other part of the Bill—the additions to be made to the Governing Body—if Roman Catholics and other Dissenters were to be admitted into the Governing Body they must either win their way like those who at present enjoyed that honour by open competition and through the college course, or be nominated by the Government of the country; and against such nomination he most distinctly protested.
  SIR DOMINIC CORRIGAN, as Vice Chancellor of the Queen's University, said, he should oppose the introduction of the Bill without giving any opinion on the principle involved in it.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Brady.)
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 14; Noes 102: Majority 88.
  Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.
  Matter considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee)
  Resolved, That the Chairman be directed to move the House, that leave be given to bring in a Bill to abolish Tests and to alter the constitution of the Governing Body in Trinity College and the University, Dublin.
  Resolution reported:—Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. FAWCETT, Mr. PLUNKET, Dr. LYON PLAYFAIR, and Viscount CRICHTON.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 226.]

GLEBE LOAN (IRELAND) ACT (1870) AMENDMENT BILL.
On Motion of The Marquess of HARTINGTON Bill to amend "The Glebe Loan (Ireland) Act, 1870," ordered to be brought in by The Marquess of HARTINGTON, Mr. SOLICITOR GENERAL for IRELAND, and Mr. BAXTER.
Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 225.]

EPPING FOREST BILL.
On Motion of Mr. AYRTON, Bill to amend the Act 12 and 13 Vic. c. 81, and to extend the provisions of that Act and "The Metropolitan Commons Act, 1866," so far as regards that part of Waltham Forest known as Epping Forest, ordered to be brought in by Mr. AYRTON and Mr. WILLIAM HENRY GLADSTONE.
Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 224.]

SALMON FISHERIES (IRELAND) (NO. 2) BILL.
Bill to consolidate and amend the Laws relating to the Salmon and Inland Fisheries of Ireland, presented, and read the first time. [Bill 227.]
House adjourned at half after Two o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Army Regulation (237); Factories and Workshops Act Amendment* (239).
Second Reading—Prevention of Crime (207); Bath City Prison* (80); Owens College* (211); Metropolitan Board of Works (Loans)* (201).
Committee—Petroleum* (189–238).
Report — Judicial Committee of Privy Council (233).
Third Reading—Pier and Harbour Orders Confirmation (No. 2)* (176); Juries (Ireland)* (221), and passed.
Withdrawn—Justices of the Peace Qualification (188).

ARMY REGULATION BILL—(No. 237.)

  FIRST READING.
  Bill brought from Commons.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 1a."
  EARL GREYsaid, that hitherto only two or three Bills of any importance had come up from the other House, and whereas during the early part of the
  1078
  Session their Lordships had comparatively little business, there was now a prospect of their being so overloaded with a variety of important measures that it would be impossible to give them proper consideration. Were this the only Bill of importance to come before their Lordships he would say nothing; but it was understood that the Government hoped to send up at least two other measures of very great importance, the details of which would require careful consideration, and which would occupy considerable time. He understood, however, that these measures were not likely to come up to their Lordships for another fortnight or three weeks. Now, his noble Friend (Earl Granville) had more than once urged that the complaint on this point was unreasonable, it being the duty of the Members of the House to attend as long as their services were required. He believed that all of their Lordships were prepared to sacrifice their private convenience for the sake of the public advantage; but the evil was that at a late period of the Session important measures could not receive such consideration as to guard against hasty and imperfect legislation. Not only was it difficult to obtain the attendance of their Lordships when the Session had lasted six or seven months, but in the other House it was still more difficult to obtain a proper attendance, so that their Lordships' Amendments might have justice done them. Within the last three or four years important measures had been lost through the impossibility of their Lordships' Amendments being properly considered. To remedy this crying evil some had proposed that a larger number of measures should be initiated in their Lordships' House; but from its constitution that House, with the exception of particular classes of Bills which might usefully begin here, was more suitable for reconsidering and revising than for originating legislation, and he feared no great amount of time would be saved by the introduction of important measures here in the first instance. If, then, measures for the most part were not to originate in their Lordships' House, there was only one other mode of remedying the compulsory idleness of their Lordships early in the Session, followed by the exaggerated demand on their time and attention at the end of

  1079
  the Session. It should be provided that Bills which passed through the other House at too late a period for them to be properly considered here should be reserved for a subsequent Session. The late Lord Derby introduced a Bill providing for the revival in another Session of Bills which had begun in either House, but had not been considered by the other. This Bill passed through this House, but was not assented to by the other; and he (Earl Grey) admitted that the objections to it were by no means groundless. The forms of procedure in both Houses now rested on usage and Standing Orders, and there was a strong feeling against any statutory regulation of the forms of legislation. If, however, the House of Commons was inclined to show their Lordships due consideration in this matter, they might provide that whenever a Bill passed through that House too late, in their judgment, for its due consideration here, it might be suspended till the following Session. In the event of such a decision, the Bill might be re-introduced in the same shape and might by a single vote be re-affirmed and sent up to their Lordships. By this simple expedient the evil now complained of might to some extent be removed. There were reasons for considering the propriety of such a course this year. The Bills to which he had referred were, as he had said, of such a nature as to require great consideration. One of them related to the mode of conducting municipal and Parliamentary elections. It was not confined to the Ballot, but raised a large number of important questions, which required mature consideration. Nobody could doubt that legislation was called for and that abuses existed which should be removed; but the matter was as difficult as it was important. Were such a Bill to come up to their Lordships at the end of this month or the beginning of next, he should hold it their duty—even were he favourable to its provisions, which he confessed he was not—not to consider it at so late a period. He should, however, much regret the failure of such a measure not on its merits, but on account of want of time, and it would be very desirable, were the Bill sanctioned by the House of Commons, that its consideration by their Lordships should be suspended till next year. There was no reason to think a General
  1080
  Election was impending, and a few months of delay would be of no importance. Were it simply rejected here the whole thing would have to be done over again in the House of Commons; whereas, were its consideration suspended, it might be sent up by a single vote, allowing the other House to attend to finance and other matters which always came before them at the beginning of the Session, and giving their Lordships important business to the relief of the end of the Session. The same remark applied to the Scotch Education Bill, to the object of which all were favourable, while there were great differences of opinion as to how it could best be attained. It would raise many important questions, which could not be considered without a fair command of time. He believed that by the course he had suggested legislation would be more satisfactorily accomplished. He asked for no immediate opinion from the Government; but he entreated them to consider whether by such a course a laborious Session might not be prevented from becoming less productive than it ought to be, whereas these subjects would otherwise stand in the way of other useful legislation by the other House in another and, perhaps, several Sessions.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 1a, and to be printed. (No. 237.)

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE QUALIFICATION BILL—(No. 188.)
(The Earl of Albemarle.)
JUSTICES OF THE PEACE QUALIFICATION BILL—(No. 188.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, its object was to repeal so much of the 18th Geo. II., c. 20, as required a certain qualification in land in respect of property for Justices of the Peace. That qualification was contemporaneous with another Act which imposed a like qualification on Members of Parliament, and dated from the reign of Henry VI., when our forefathers were burning the Maid of Orleans as a witch. Other effete enactments of this kind had been repealed, and this ought to be likewise swept away—more especially as the increasing burdens of magistrates had

  1081
  induced a reluctance among the landed gentry to accept the office, and it was sometimes difficult to obtain a sufficient number of unexceptionable persons to discharge the duties of a Petty Sessional Court. It appeared, by a Return which had been laid before Parliament, that a very large number of clergymen held the office of Justice of the Peace:—and this seemed to him (the Earl of Albemarle) quite incompatible with their duties and their sacred office. On the Other hand, the landed property qualification excluded the brothers and younger sons of Peers, officers in the Army and Navy, professional and scientific men, wealthy merchants, and even men who had made the law the study of their lives. The property qualifications of Members of Parliament had been abolished, and he could not see why that of Justices of the Peace should not be removed. Even a retired Judge, if he had not saved money and invested it in land, would be ineligible for the office of Justice of the Peace.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Earl of Albemarle.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that he regretted that he must oppose the second reading of the noble Earl's Bill. There was no analogy between Justices of the Peace and Members of Parliament. The latter were elected, and it was right that the choice of the electors should be unfettered and should be decisive as to their qualifications; whereas magistrates were nominated by the Crown, and should give some guarantee of fitness. It had been deemed the best security for a county magistrate that he should have a certain landed property qualification; and he thought it might be taken as a pretty clear indication of indisposition to hold the office of Justice of the Peace if a man did not take the trouble to obtain the requisite qualification. So far as he was aware no one, except the noble Earl, had shown any anxiety for the repeal of the Statute of George II. It might be reasonable to consider whether landed property should be the only qualification; but the Bill would repeal it without substituting any other. The object of the qualification was to guard against the appointment of unfit persons and to protect Lords Lieutenant from undue pressure. He would recommend the noble Earl to
  1082
  direct his efforts towards an amendment of the Act, instead of to its simple abolition. He thought that the noble Earl's remarks as to the disqualification of officers of the Army and Navy deserved consideration. With regard to clerical magistrates, the noble Earl's remark had probably been influenced by the circumstance that in the two counties best known to him they were more numerous than elsewhere; but it had been the rule for many years not to appoint clergymen as magistrates unless it was difficult to obtain other qualified persons.
  LORD LYTTELTONsaid, that unpaid magistrates should have a substantial stake in the country; but he could testify, as a Lord Lieutenant of long standing, to the inconvenient and embarrassing nature of the present qualification. He should advise the noble Earl to withdraw the present Bill, and introduce another, relaxing some of the present restrictions, and perhaps providing other qualifications.
  THE EARL OF ALBEMARLEsaid, that in deference to the advice of the noble and learned Lord and of his noble Friend, he would withdraw the Bill.
  Motion and Bill (by Leave of the House) withdrawn.

PREVENTION OF CRIME BILL—(No. 207.)
(The Earl of Morley.)
PREVENTION OF CRIME BILL—(No. 207.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE EARL OF MORLEY, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that this Bill was "an old friend under a new name;" for, in fact, instead of simply amending the Habitual Criminals Act, it had been thought better to re-enact almost all its provisions, remedying any defects in it, and making several changes recommended by experience. As the remarks of the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Carnarvon) on a previous occasion might have produced an impression that the Act had been nearly inoperative, he felt bound to show that, in spite of verbal and other inaccuracies, it had effected a great amount of good. A register had been carefully kept at the central office in Whitehall of criminals convicted summarily or on indictment of any offence

  1083
  mentioned in the schedule; every convicted criminal was photographed, and copies of the photographs sent up to the central office, and thence distributed over the country. The numbers were certainly appalling. Between the 11th of December, 1869, when registration commenced, and the 31st of December, 1870, no less than 35,633 persons were registered. As to supervision, between the 11th of December, 1869, and the 15th of June, 1871, 2,080 prisoners had been released and were under supervision, while many sentences passed on persons who would hereafter be subject to supervision were, of course, still unexpired. As to those who were convicted, and who would at the expiration of their sentence be subject to police supervision, the numbers amounted to 3,511 last year. The clauses of the Habitual Criminals Act with reference to houses that harboured thieves had proved extremely beneficial. In 1869 the number of such houses was 1,962, and in the following year it was reduced to 1,753. The publichouses of bad character in 1870 were 21 per cent less than in 1869, and the beerhouses of bad character were in 1870 51 per cent less than in 1869. These results were attributable to the joint operation of the Habitual Criminals Act and the Beerhouses Act of 1869. In the year before the Habitual Criminals Act was passed the number of persons who received stolen goods was 1,037, in the year after it came into operation the number was reduced to 960. Taking an average of five years before 1869 he found that in 1870 there was a decrease of 55 per cent in that class. He trusted that these figures to a certain extent proved that the Habitual Criminals Act had been really beneficial to the country, and that the provisions which it contained had been honestly and successfully carried out. But it might be asked why if the Act had been so successful should they be now asked to amend it? The fact was that owing to the Amendments which had been inserted in that measure during its progress through the Legislature many inaccuracies crept into it, which rendered it extremely difficult to work some clauses, and impossible to carry others into effect. It was with the view of remedying these defects that this Bill was introduced. The Returns of the Inspectors of Prisons showed that in 1843, when the population of England was
  1084
  16,300,000, the criminals sentenced to penal servitude or transportation amounted to 4,488; that in 1852, when the population was 18,000,000, those so sentenced were 2,896; whereas in 1869, when transportation was at an end, and when the population was 22,000,000, the criminals sentenced to penal servitude amounted to 2,006 only. That certainly must be re-assuring to those who had an idea that crime was increasing in this country. He believed that the facilities for the detection of crime, increased education, and the charitable institutions in which the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Shaftesbury) took so much interest had, to an immense extent, repressed crime in this country. The main alteration in the provisions of the first part of the Bill had reference to holders of licenses. One of them would oblige the holders of tickets-of-leave or convicts who had been released on license to report themselves monthly to the police, and also to report their changes of residence. The subject of this monthly reporting had been most carefully considered; evidence had been taken from all those who were capable of giving the most valuable evidence on the subject, including several agents of Prisoners' Aid Societies (13 out of 16 of whom were in favour of the change), and the result was that the Government had determined to insert in this Bill a clause for the revival of this monthly reporting. It was objected that a person who employed a released convict would find out that he was known to the police if he had to report himself monthly to the police, and the result would be the discharge of the released convict from employment. But the opinion of persons competent to pronounce an opinion on that subject was almost unanimously on the opposite side of the question. He had the opinion of a police officer of experience in favour of criminals being compelled to report themselves to the police once a month, and to give information when they changed their residence. Not only would these provisions enable the police to keep a more efficient supervision over the criminal class, but from the very fact of the report being made once a month a very slight investigation would be sufficient to show to the police whether the convict was getting his living honestly or not. Moreover, it was intended that the report

  1085
  might, according to the direction of the chief officer of police of the district, be made either personally or by letter, and to the chief officer himself or to any person whom he might name—thus avoiding any personal interference with those whom the police knew to be obtaining their living honestly. He could not pass from this part of the subject without paying a well deserved tribute of praise to the various Prisoners' Aid Societies, which were doing a large amount of good. Thus out of 800 male prisoners discharged in the past year 312 were assisted by these societies, of which there were 38 altogether actively engaged; and out of 250 female prisoners discharged during the same period 191 were assisted by them. It was only due to these truly charitable associations that the good work they were doing should be made known to the public at large. The other provisions of the Bill might be disposed of in a few words. It was provided that a register of all persons convicted of crime in England and Ireland should be kept in London and Dublin under the management of the respective Chief Commissioners of Police; that Returns should be made by every Governor of a gaol of the persons convicted of crime who should come into his custody, and by every chief officer of police of the persons convicted of crime within his district; that all prisoners convicted of crime confined in any prison in England and Ireland should be photographed, under proper regulations as to dress, &c. This process of photographing prisoners had proved very useful for the prevention and detection of crime. At present it was not done in all gaols: this Bill would make the practice uniform, and would regulate the distribution of the portraits. Another important provision of the Bill was this—any person who had been twice convicted of crime on indictment was declared guilty of an offence against this Act and made liable to a year's imprisonment, with or without hard labour, who should within seven years of the expiring of his last sentence be convicted before a court of summary jurisdiction of certain offences named in the section—such as that he was getting his livelihood by dishonest means, giving a false name and address—being found in any place under circumstances to justify the suspicion that he was about to commit an offence, or
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  being found in any dwelling-house or premises under circumstances to justify suspicion. By another clause any persons who should be twice convicted might, in addition to any other penalty, be placed under the supervision of the police for seven years, or any shorter period, during which he would be under precisely the same regulations as persons at large on license. The Bill also provided penalties for harbouring thieves, for assaults on the police. By another the children of convict women, being under 14 years of age were placed under the provisions of the Industrial Schools Act. On almost all other points the Bill was a mere transcript of the existing Act, with the exception of certain matters of procedure. He proposed that their Lordships should go into the Bill pro formâ on Thursday next in order that it might be printed as amended, and then that some future day should be fixed for considering it in Committee.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Earl of Morley.)
  THE EARL OF CARNARVONsaid, he regarded the Bill as one of considerable importance, and he was glad to be able to offer his congratulations to the noble Earl opposite on his having at length introduced such a measure:—although it was to be regretted that it had not been introduced at an earlier period of the Session, when there might have been a greater chance of its passing through the other House of Parliament before the end of the Session. He had also to make his acknowledgments to the noble Earl for the handsome manner in which he had recognized the fact that the Amendments upon the Habitual Criminals Act contained in this Bill, which he had brought before Her Majesty's Government, had been at last accepted by them. He was afraid, however, that he could scarcely join in the praise the noble Earl had bestowed upon the working of the Habitual Criminals Act. The noble Earl had quoted statistics to show that a number of publichouses frequented by thieves had been shut up, and that the number of receivers of stolen goods had diminished; but he had failed to show any connection between these results and the operation of the Habitual Criminals Act—upon which point he himself entertained some doubt, inasmuch as the noble Earl himself had acknowledged

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  earlier in the Session that parts of that measure were unworkable;—the Judges having declared certain of its clauses inoperative, and because the system of supervision which really formed the essence of the Act could not be carried out. He approved the restoration of the clause requiring monthly reports, and he did not condemn the division of criminals into two classes for the purpose of supervision. By requiring the discharged prisoners to make these periodical reports the system of supervision would be changed from being a sham into a reality. On a former occasion he had urged that power should be taken by the Secretary of State to intrust the registration of discharged criminals, not only to the Chief Commissioner of Police, but to any other person whom he might select, and that there should be an officer specially told off for that particular purpose. That suggestion was not attended to at the time; but he now saw that a clause of the Bill would enable any person appointed by the Chief Commissioner of Police to take the register. Hitherto we had allowed the valuable services of the Prisoners' Aid Societies and of the clergyman of the parish to remain unused, and he thought the present provision would be found very valuable in many cases. He also approved the provisions as to registration; but he must remind them that it was not enough to establish a registration of that kind unless the Government saw that it was worked satisfactorily, and the responsibility would rest on them to make it such as it should be. Some parts of that measure would require consideration when they got into Committee; but he hailed the Bill, as a whole, with extreme satisfaction, and trusted that it would not be allowed to miscarry through having been introduced so late in the Session.
  LORD HOUGHTONsaid, that so far from thinking that the Habitual Criminals Act had been a success, he had come to the conclusion that it; had rather proved a failure; and that it was not by extending its principle or by making its provisions more severe that they could hope to arrive at a satisfactory result. It had been supposed that by the operation of that measure they were to get hold of all the habitual criminals of the country, and to concentrate them into a condensed criminal class whom they could
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  effectually control and restrain; but he believed that, although there never was a time when the police were more energetic or more admirably organized than at present, still there never was a time when our habitual criminals seemed to be more difficult to catch, or their operations to be more completely shrouded in mystery. It might have been thought that under the provisions of the Habitual Criminals Act such robberies as those recently committed at the house of Mr. Wentworth Beaumont and other places would have been prevented; but, so far from that measure enabling them to apprehend such very ingenious criminals, he believed there was hardly a single instance in which they had been found out. He feared that by concentrating their habitual criminals into a seething mass, and allowing them no means of mixing themselves up with the honest population, they had rendered the criminal class more powerful for evil than they were before. It was now proposed to require everyone of those persons who held a license under the Penal Servitude Acts to report himself to the police 84 times before he was allowed to return to the normal condition of society. He should move the rejection of that provision in Committee, believing it to involve an infringement of the liberty of the subject, and that it would render it impossible for a criminal to return to an honest course of life. He approved of those parts of the Bill which were intended to make the agency of the police more effective. He should have liked to see the penalties for assaults on the police made much more heavy. The police were at present placed in a most difficult and painful position. They were liable to be attacked under circumstances of great brutality, and no adequate provision existed for their proper protection. Yet even under this Bill a young man of fortune might knock down and ill-use a policeman and get off by paying a fine of £20. He thought the fine inflicted in such cases should be heavier, and the period of imprisonment increased. He regretted, however, that he could not agree with his noble Friend on the principle of the Bill, for he was of opinion that considering the increase of population in this country there had been no correlative increase of crime.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYconfessed himself exceedingly puzzled as to which

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  of the two opposite theories broached by the two noble Lords who had spoken last in regard to the Habitual Criminals Act was the true one—namely, the theory that the Act had been entirely inoperative, or the theory that it had been so frightfully operative that it had concentrated the whole criminal population of the country into one seething mass. His noble Friend behind him (Lord Houghton) had another objoetion—he said the Bill would infringe the liberty of the subject. But surely to confound the liberty of the criminal with the liberty of the subject was a very extraordinary argument. Surely the Legislature was not required to treat the criminal and the law-abiding subject alike, and it could not be maintained that regulations for controlling the criminal population should not be made for fear of interfering with the liberty of the subject?
  LORD HOUGHTONsaid, he objected to the supervision after the expiring of the sentence.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, the supervision was part of the sentence. The Act, no doubt, had not been as successful as it might have been if there had not been some mistakes in it which prevented it from working as well as it might otherwise have done. He did not, on the other hand, admit that it had no effect at all; nothing was more difficult than to trace the operation of a law upon particular classes of people, and it did not follow because there had been some remarkable robberies in London that the police were inefficient. Their Lordships must bear in mind that the circumstances of the country were different with regard to criminals from what they formerly were when criminals were sent beyond the sea. Now, a large number of them were sentenced to remain in the country, and were afterwards released in it. The existence of this criminal class was a new fact arising within these few years; and new evils had to be met by new remedies. The Bill was distinct and intelligible, and he trusted it would meet with the approbation of the House.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.

JUDICIAL COMMITTEE OF PRIVY COUNCIL BILL—(Nos. 212–233.)
(The Lord Chancellor.)
JUDICIAL COMMITTEE OF PRIVY COUNCIL BILL—(Nos. 212–233.)

  REPORT OF AMENDMENTS.
  Amendments reported (according to Order).
  LORD CAIRNS, who had given Notice of an Amendment to insert at end of the clause the words following:—
  ("It shall be the duty of every person appointed to act as a paid member of the Judicial Committee under this Act to attend the sittings of the said Committee when summoned thereto unless he shall be prevented by reasonable cause; and every such person shall have the same title to continue to receive the salary hereby provided for him as if he were a judge of one of the Superior Courts holding office during good behaviour but removable by Her Majesty upon an Address of both Houses of Parliament; provided that nothing herein contained shall give to any such person any title to hold or continue in the office of Privy Councillor other than the title which he would have had if this Act had not passed,")
  said, that though he approved of the principle of the Bill, he thought there were some objections which might impede its coming into practical operation. In the first place, the Judges of the Superior Courts, both of law and equity, were provided with a staff of officers and clerks who were necessary to the performance of their duties. Some of these Judges were now to be transferred to a Court where no such assistance was provided. In the next place, it was proposed to offer to Judges whose tenure of office was thoroughly well defined a position which would be held by them only during the pleasure of the Crown; because as it was required that any persons who should be appointed members of the Judicial Committee should be Privy Councillors, and the Crown could at pleasure remove their names from the Privy Council, they did in effect hold their appointment at the pleasure of the Crown. In addition to this, the cause of the Judges' punctual attendance in their own Courts had been entirely overlooked; but the fact was Judges held office during good behaviour, and it was not good behaviour to be absent during the sitting of their Court. They first of all, as it appeared to him, fell into the serious error of saying nothing about the tenure of office of the Judges; and, having said nothing about that subject, they then inserted an offensive condition by which the Lord President of the

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  Privy Council was to determine whether if one of these appointed members omitted to attend the sittings of the Committee after having been duly summoned, the excuse he might offer for his non-attendance was a reasonable one or not; and if he thought not he might certify such omission to Her Majesty, and thereupon the salary of the member would cease, and a new member might be appointed: in other words, the Lord President of the Council had the power of removing a paid member of the Judicial Committee if, under certain circumstances, he should deem it expedient—a condition which was utterly unconstitutional, and one to which no Judge of the Superior Courts would, he believed, be willing to submit. Again, assuming that the Crown appointed to this tribunal one of the Lord Justices, a Puisne Judge, and two Indian Chief Justices, they would have sitting side by side, and determining the same causes, men in receipt of £6,000, £5,000, and £3,500. Nor was that the worst feature of the disparity, for the Indian assessors would actually have a salary of only £400 a-year. Though these discrepancies in salary were extraordinary enough, the matter was essentially one for the consideration of the Government; but with reference to the office of the Judges, he should ask their Lordships to insert words which would insure our present judicial system being adhered to. The noble and learned Lord then moved, in page 1, line 28, to leave out from ("salary") to ("and") in page 2, line 1.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that the suggestions made by his noble and learned Friend (Lord Cairns) had not been overlooked in framing this Bill—indeed, everyone of them had been carefully considered. The Bill itself was a Bill drawn for the purpose of meeting an emergency, correctly described on a former occasion by his noble and learned Friend opposite (Lord Westbury) as one of a very pressing character, and it was not to be regarded as a Bill to provide permanently for the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The first objection raised by his noble and learned Friend that evening was, that the learned Judges who were to perform the important duties of sitting on the Judicial Committee would not be provided with clerks. He was somewhat surprised at hearing such an objection
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  from his noble and learned Friend, because his noble and learned Friends sitting around him, who rendered their Lordships such valuable assistance in determining the appeals which came up to the Bar of their Lordships' House, performed their duties without the assistance of clerks or officers; yet he had never found that they shrank from their duties, or were subjected to any inconvenience from the want of such assistance. Moreover, a common law Judge transferred to the Judicial Committee would be relieved from the expense of going circuit, and, from the £500 or £600 thus saved, could afford to employ a clerk if he required one. None of the members of the Committee of Privy Council was provided with a clerk except the Lord Justice, and he did not enjoy that advantage in his capacity of being a member of the Judicial Committee. The fact was, that when the Judicial Committee was constituted it was formed with the idea of having the assistance of the Judges of the Superior Courts, who had retired upon pensions, who it was supposed would be willing to take upon themselves the duties of Judges in so high a Court in consideration of the pensions already awarded to them, and of the high rank of Privy Councillors. That arrangement worked very well until age and infirmity prevented some of the learned Judges from any longer discharging the duties which they had hitherto willingly performed; and from the pressure of circumstances, a different arrangement had become necessary. It was not his view that because the Judges of the Judicial Committee had not clerks there would be any real difficulty in getting Judges to accept the appointment. The next objection was as to the tenure of the Judges. The great difficulty in the way of assenting to the Amendment of the noble and learned Lord lay here. The Judges of the existing courts could not be removed except by an Address from both Houses of Parliament to the Crown; but the Crown was entitled to remove anybody from the Privy Council. To say that the learned Judges proposed by the Bill should have the same tenure as the Judges of the higher Courts was to say that they would not be removable except by an Address of both Houses of Parliament—in other words, that the Crown should not have the power of

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  removing them except on such an Address. The effect of that was to take away from the Crown its right of removing anyone from the Privy Council, which was a sufficient reason for not acceding to the Amendment of the noble and learned Lord. But as since 1834 the High Court of Appeal had been subject to removal, and the qualification of holding during good behaviour had not existed, the provision in the Bill was not likely to be attended with any evil result, or practically to interfere with its working. The next point was that there were no mode of terminating the duties of those learned Judges prescribed in the Bill, in the event of their not attending to the duties of their offices. But surely there could be nothing undignified in a Judge requesting, if he thought proper, to be relieved of the arduous duties which he was unable to perform; in which case, of course, he would retire and cease to receive the salary attaching to the office. He must confess that he heard with some regret the remarks made by his noble and learned Friend on the subject of the payment of the Judges. He must say that he preferred the old system, under which a Judge receiving his pension was content, as many of their Lordships were, to attend, without stipulations, and perform constant and arduous duties. As regarded the pay which the Judges would receive, it was not proposed to interfere in any way with the pensions to which they had become entitled by their previous services, but simply to add an uniform sum of £1,500 a-year to the amount of which they were already in receipt. He hoped that Amendments would not be persisted in, which, while they might interfere with the privileges of the Crown, could not fail to throw practical difficulties in the way of the Bill as it stood.
  LORD WESTBURYhoped his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack would accept the Amendment which had been suggested as the easiest way out of the difficulty, remembering the criticism which the Bill would have to undergo in "another place." As regarded the clerics to the Judges, there was this distinction to be observed—that clerks were assigned to Judges ordinarily because they had a large amount of chamber practice; whereas at the Judicial Committee the duties to be discharged were purely official, and the attendance
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  of clerks became unnecessary. He hoped his noble and learned Friend (Lord Cairns) would not lay any stress upon the difference of salaries between the Judges, this being admitted a temporary expedient intended to meet the present overwhelming necessity, and to be followed hereafter by a measure which it was to be hoped would put the tribunal upon a more fitting basis, both as to position and emoluments. As to the constitution of the Court, it was plain that the limitation of the choice of members to Judges of Westminster Hall, either existing or retired, and to Judges who had held office in the Supreme Court in India, must ultimately be enlarged so as to include within the range of choice Judges of the Superior Courts in Ireland and also in Scotland. At the present moment, the chief pressure existed with regard to the Indian appeals; but hereafter there would obviously be a mass of colonial business for consideration, and it was with regard to these appeals especially that the habits of thought, early training, and practice of the Scotch Judges would enable them to render eminent services. This was not the time for entering into more extensive questions; but his noble and learned Friend who had charge of the Bill would no doubt see the propriety of replacing it as soon as possible with a large and comprehensive measure. It would then be only a matter of common justice that the officers of the Judicial Committee should receive emoluments corresponding to the increased labours they would be called upon to discharge.
  LORD ROMILLYsaid, that nobody thought that the position of any member of the Judicial Committee was in any way affected by the power of the Crown to remove. No doubt in former times the power of the Crown in such matters was of very serious importance when Judges were kept subordinate to the Crown and induced to do unjust and unrighteous things at the bidding of the Crown in order to preserve their offices; but he did not believe that as society was at present constituted, there was the slightest risk that any Judge, whether of the Judicial Committee or of any other Court, would be removed for the exercise of their judicial functions from mere caprice. It was only fit and proper that Judges should be permanent, and that they should not be removed except when

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  they had been guilty of misconduct that could be ascertained by Parliament; but no person in Westminster Hall would entertain the slightest fear that there was any trenching upon principle if to the Judges who were appointed members of the Judicial Committee nothing was said respecting the time during which they should hold their offices. He desired to point out to the Lord Chancellor the necessity for establishing a rota of Judges now that the number of ecclesiastical cases was small. The old practice, if followed, would very much facilitate the constant sitting of the Court.
  LORD CHELMSFORDsaid, there was nothing in this Bill to show that it was of that temporary character described by the Lord Chancellor; but, on the contrary, there was a provision for the appointment of members of the Judicial Committee from time to time. If this Bill was intended to be temporary, it was unlikely that any of the present Judges in the superior Courts would take office as members of the Committee—especially under the circumstances of their very precarious existence. The scheme now before their Lordships would rather lead the Judges not to take office. It was also extraordinary to anticipate that the Judges would be likely to neglect their duty, so that provision had to be made in the most offensive manner for entailing upon them the consequences of such neglect. The new members of the Committee were to be entirely at the discretion of the Lord President, who, if he thought that reasonable excuse for absence was not given, might certify to Her Majesty, and thereupon such member was to lose his salary; and, although it was not said he should be deprived of his office, it was provided that another person should be appointed in his place. That was a most unusual position in which to place the Judge of a High Court. He should also like to know what, when a new system was introduced, was to become of these four members of the Committee? Were they to continue in office, or to retire on a pension? He believed that the greatest difficulty would be experienced in inducing any of the present Judges to accept the appointments.
  EARL GRANVILLEthought the noble and learned Lord (Lord Chelmsford) had exaggerated the difficulties that were
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  likely to be experienced in obtaining those who would have to take these important duties upon them. He did not think it unreasonable to provide that if a member of the Judicial Committee ceased to attend the sittings his salary should cease and another member be appointed. The Amendment which had been brought forward without Notice was a decided innovation on the existing condition of affairs. He trusted that the noble and learned Lord would not persevere with this Amendment.
  After some further remarks,
  Further debate adjourned to Thursday next.

  FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS ACT AMENDMENT BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to amend the Acts relating to Factories and Workshops—Was presented by The Earl of MORLEY; read 1a. (No. 239.)
  House adjourned at a quarter past Eight o'clock, to Thursday next, Eleven o'clock.