Sitting of 9 April 1872

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Bastardy Laws Amendment* [109].
Select Committee—Master and Servant (Wages) * [65], Mr. Magniac discharged, Sir John Trelawny added.
Committee—Report—Infant Life Protection * [6–108].

METROPOLITAN STREET IMPROVEMENTS BILL.—PETITIONS.
MR. HINDE PALMER, in moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice, said, that the latter part of the Resolution was not contained in the Notices. The Bill was a Bill promoted as a Private Bill by the Metropolitan Board of Works, and it would be in the recollection of the House that on the occasion of the Motion for the Second Reading, he (Mr. Hinde Palmer) moved to refer the Bill to a Select Committee as a Public Bill; but that he was not successful, the House having decided that the Bill was to be considered as a Private Bill only; and it was referred to an ordinary Private Bill Committee. His reason for moving the present Resolution was, that whereas in ordinary cases all those who were opposed to a Private Bill had to go through the process of establishing their locus standi before a Committee, in the present case the promoters of the Bill, the Metropolitan Board of Works, were a body elected by the vestrymen of the parishes and ratepayers, out of whom the opponents would come; and they would, therefore, be able to say—"We, who promote the Bill, are your representatives, and you have no right to be heard against us." But he contended that this was not a mere Private Bill in which the ordinary course was to be pursued. Last Session a Bill was passed as a Public Bill to enable the Board to raise £10,000,000, and there was an express provision restricting their powers of borrowing to the amount; but now the Board came there with another Bill to enable them to repeal that former Bill, and to extend their borrowing powers to the extent of £2,500,000 additional. If the former was a Public Bill, this Bill, he contended, was at least in effect a Public Bill also; and it was only by tacking on to it clauses
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for effecting local improvements, and so creating individual interests in the parties affected, that it was made a Private Bill at all. But the Bill was one to tax the whole of the metropolis to the extent of £2,500,000, in addition to the £10,000,000 which the Board had been authorized to raise by a public enactment, and on that ground he ventured to say that this was a peculiar and special case, and not similar to that of an ordinary Private Bill. His Motion, he would further remind the House, was in conformity with the precedent of last Session, when the House made a precisely similar Order for the same kind of Bill. The hon. and learned Member concluded by moving his Resolution.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That all Petitions presented against the Metropolitan Street Improvements Bill be referred to the Select Committee on the Bill; and such of the Petitioners as pray to be heard by themselves, their Counsel, or agents, be heard upon their Petitions, if they think fit, and Counsel heard in favour of the Bill against the said Petitions; but the Committee is to be at liberty to require any of such Petitioners to combine together in their opposition, so as to limit the number of separate appearances by Counsel or agents."—(Mr. Hinde Palmer.)
MR. AYRTONsaid, his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. H. Palmer) had fallen into an error which it was desirable to set right at once. The hon. and learned Gentleman had said, that whereas some time ago a Public Act was passed to regulate the finances of the Metropolitan Board of Works, the present Bill was of such a nature that it was, in fact, an attempt on the part of the Board to repeal that Public Act by means of a Private Bill. But he (Mr. Ayrton) said that so far from this Bill being an attempt to repeal any part of the former Act, it was entirely in accordance with it. The object of the Public Act was once for all to place the finances of the Metropolitan Board on a satisfactory footing, in order that the Board might carry out its transactions by means of a Private Bill like this without coming to the House on questions of finance; and the reason why that Act was a Public Act was, that it affected transactions into which, previous to that time, the National Exchequer had entered by way of guarantee; and that Act put an end to the system of guarantees, and placed the expenditure of the Board on such a footing that it might hereafter be able to

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proceed without the necessity of having further recurrence to public legislation. The Public Act applied not merely to the £10,000,000, but to any charge to be thereafter sanctioned by a Bill like that under discussion. Therefore, what was now being done was entirely in accordance with the intention and provisions of that Act. He thought that his hon. and learned Friend had fallen into another error, when he said that the course he now proposed was in accordance with the precedent set last Session. But the House had already discussed that question in the present Session, in a rather full House, and had decided by a considerable majority that the Bills of the Metropolitan Board of Works should be regarded as Private Bills. That being so, all the rules relating to Private Bills must necessarily apply. Nothing he conceived could be more inconvenient and more wasteful than the course proposed, nor less in accordance with the spirit of the improvements the House thought it had effected in the conduct of Private Business. Nothing could be more unjust, because it would enable one district which had already been benefited to oppose the expenditure in another district which had been neglected; whereas it was the duty of the Board of Works to deal justly in its proposals with all the different sections of the metropolis; and nothing more inconvenient, because it would in effect supersede the functions of the Committee instituted by this House, for the express purpose of deciding the locus standi of parties seeking to oppose Private Bill's. He, therefore, trusted the House would not consent to upset the decision it had already come to in a much larger House in the present Session.
COLONEL WILSON-PATTENsaid, that the House having decided, after much consideration, that this was a Private and not a Public Bill, it would be very inconvenient if it should now draw back from its decision, and say that it was a Public Bill. And even if it were a Private Bill, nothing could be more objectionable than the proposal of the hon. and learned Member (Mr. H. Palmer) for if carried, it would upset all the regulations made by the House for the better transaction of its Private Business. The House had appointed a tribunal specially to consider the locus standi of persons who desired to oppose
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Private Bills; it gave the greatest possible care and attention to the cases that came before it; and he had no doubt that in the case of those represented by the hon. and learned Member, all those who were entitled to appear before it would be allowed to appear. Nothing could be more injurious than that this House should take upon itself to admit parties without reference to the constituted rules for the conduct of Private Committees.
MR. SERJEANT SIMONsupported the Motion. He thought that when an additional burden of £2,500,000 was about to be laid by a Private Bill upon a body of taxpayers, that constituted an exceptional case. As to the argument that the Metropolitan Board of Works represented the interests of all the districts of the metropolis, he might observe that the Corporation of London was represented on the Board by three out of 47 members; but the City paid one-eighth of the entire rates. This was certainly no adequate representation. He thought there was a great difference between this and a Private Bill. The Metropolitan Board of Works were a public body, founded by a public Act for the execution of public works: for this purpose they had been authorized by a Public Act to raise the sum of £10,000,000. They now sought to take authority by a Private Bill to levy on the metropolis a further sum of £2,500,000, one-eighth of which would be paid by a particular district. It seemed to him childish to say that by calling this a Private Bill such a body as the Corporation of London were to be precluded by technical rules from appearing before a tribunal by which their large interests were to be decided.
LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, that although the propriety of the course taken by the Corporation of London in seeking to oppose this Bill had been vindicated in the course of this discussion, it would be of the utmost inconvenience that the House of Commons, having after a full debate and by a large majority, already decided the question, it should be called upon to re-consider its decision, on the ground that the Corporation of London was not adequately represented on another body—the Metropolitan Board of Works. If that were so, the Corporation ought to come to the House and get the injustice remedied;

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but he protested against the House being called upon to set aside its Rules to meet a supposed injustice with which it had no concern. The hon. and learned Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Serjeant Simon) argued that the Bill was to be regarded as a Public rather than a Private Bill by reason of the magnitude of the sum involved. But that would be a most inconvenient principle to set up. Was the House to establish a sliding scale by which to determine which was a Private Bill and which a Public Bill? The hon. and learned Member for Lincoln (Mr. H. Palmer) seemed to argue that because he had failed in his previous attempt to get this Bill regarded as a Public Bill, he was logically entitled to carry a Resolution, which would have been perfectly correct and consecutive if he had succeeded; but nothing could be more inconsistent than that the House, having come to a Resolution one way, should now accept a Resolution which could only have been proper if they had decided the other way.
MR. LOCKEsaid, that London consisted of many component parts, and, undoubtedly, the ratepayers were not altogether satisfied with the Metropolitan Board of Works. They were in the habit of saying that the Board did not represent them. He recollected that on a former occasion some years since, the right hon. Gentleman the present Chief Commissioner of Works joined with him in proposing clauses to be inserted in a Bill introduced by the Metropolitan Board of Works, the object of which was to give greater powers to the Board. His right hon. Friend was then a great Reformer, and his proposal was that the Board should be elected by the ratepayers, not by the Vestries. But what was the present position of the Board? It might be said that the Board was self-elected, as they were all vestrymen, and none but vestrymen were elected. The Chief Commissioner proposed that the ratepayers should elect their representatives at the Metropolitan Board directly; and if that alteration had been made, he did not think there would have been any complaint now. But, dealing with a self-elected body, it was very natural that the City of London and the different parishes of the metropolis should claim to be heard before the Committee, on the ground that they were not adequately represented on the
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Board which had introduced the Bill for taxing them to so vast an amount; and he hoped they would be allowed to appear by counsel, so that there might be a proper discussion and full information be supplied independently of that which would be given by the Metropolitan Board. As the Chief Commissioner had now told them, the Board could borrow money to any extent they pleased, without seeking powers from the Legislature, which went far beyond the question of levying rates—it came to this, that they might burden the metropolis with any amount of interest, until at last the debt of the Metropolitan Board of Works would become like another National Debt, and the ratepayers of the metropolis would have to raise the money to pay a vast annual burden in the way of interest. What was sought by the Resolution of his hon. and learned Friend was, that the ratepayers of the metropolis should be allowed a locus standi to state their objections to the Committee.
COLONEL HOGG: I hope that the discussion of this question will not degenerate into a mere squabble between the City of London and the Metropolitan Board of Works. I, for one, am hostile to such a course of proceeding, and after what has been said to-night by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Ayrton), and the noble Lord below me (Lord John Manners), I should not have obtruded any observations of my own had it not been for the numerous mistakes which have been made. My hon. and learned Friend who has just sat down (Mr. Locke) has talked of the Metropolitan Board of Works as a self-elected body, and as all being vestrymen. What on earth he meant I really do not know. All I can say is that one of the last representatives who came to us—a most able gentleman, and brother of two hon. Members of this House—was not a vestryman at all when elected. [Mr. LOCKE: He is the only one who is not, then.] All the remarks, therefore, that have been made about self-elected vestrymen are dissipated to the winds, and I think the hon. and learned Gentleman would have been much wiser if he had not made that speech at all. He talked of the borrowing powers of the Metropolitan Board of Works as if we were going to raise a vast National Debt. Does he not know

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that every farthing that has been laid out, or that is to be laid out, is allocated by Parliament to drainage operations, embankments, and the various other purposes of the Metropolitan Board? Does he not also know that the Board take care to reduce a certain portion of their debt year by year either by buying up a certain portion of their bonds or by paying off a sixtieth part? The hon. and learned Member for Lincoln (Mr. H. Palmer) wanted to persuade the House to accept this Motion, and he adopted the principle of concession. But I think that before he did that he ought to have looked at the 93rd clause of the Standing Orders of this House, and one of the reasons why I ask hon. Gentlemen to oppose this Motion is that it is directly in the teeth of that Standing Order, which says that the Referees shall decide. And the hon. and learned Gentleman will also find there in the Standing Orders that a Select Committee is able at any time to give locus standi to anyone they like notwithstanding what the Referees say. The hon. and learned Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Serjeant Simon) has also made several mistakes. A paper has been sent round by the City of London, and when the hon. and learned Gentleman read it he did not understand it; but I do not wonder at that, because he has not mixed in the affairs of the Metropolitan Board of Works. He told us that these improvements were sanctioned by 19 votes to 16, but he is entirely mistaken there. Of course, I cannot carry in my mind all the divisions that have taken place. I can only say that some of these improvements were agreed to almost without a dissentient voice, and that many were agreed to by a very large majority. What the hon. and learned Gentleman is referring to is this—that the other day at the Metropolitan Board of Works there was a Motion upon the Thames Embankment Bill, and some one wished that counsel should not appear against the locus standi of certain persons. That is the history of the 19 votes to 16—it had nothing whatever to do with this Bill. I hope the hon. and learned Gentleman will be glad to be corrected by me on this point. Another mistake he made, and which I hope he would also like to have corrected, was when he spoke of the heavy rates. He cannot look into his rate papers, or else
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he would find that the rates have been reduced to 2½d. I must ask the House to affirm the decision which they came to on the 4th of March last, and I would ask the hon. and learned Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Serjeant Simon) not to use the language that we, the Metropolitan Board of Works, sail under false colours, for I, as Chairman of that body, beg to protest against it. We do not sail under false colours; but we act as a body constituted by Parliament to do their duty to the metropolis faithfully and economically for all the ratepayers of London.
MR. CRAWFORDsaid, the hope expressed by the hon. and gallant Member for Truro (Colonel Hogg) that this debate would not degenerate into a mere squabble between the City of London and the other parts of the metropolis had been met by the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Southwark (Mr. Locke), who seldom said a word in favour of the City except when he went to dine there. The fact was this—that this Bill was promoted by the Metropolitan Board for the purpose of taking power to do certain important things, and to increase their pecuniary obligations by a very large sum. Now, as he understood, if this Bill went before a Private Bill Committee, no one would be competent to appear before that Committee but the Board of Works themselves, who would state their case without anyone being allowed to answer it. Now, on behalf of the ratepayers who did not concur in the views of the Metropolitan Board of Works, he objected to this, and should support the Resolution.
MR. DODSONsaid, that if the hon. and gallant Member for Truro hoped that this would not degenerate into a contest between the City of London and the Metropolitan Board of Works, still more did he (Mr. Dodson) hope it would not degenerate into a contest between the metropolitan Members and the Rules and Practice of the House of Commons. If the constitution of the Metropolitan Board of Works were defective, that was an argument for reforming it, but not for departing from the ordinary Rules and Practice of this House with regard to Private Bills. If an exception were made in this instance, it would be found very difficult to resist similar applications in analogous cases. The Rule and Practice

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of the House was that persons who were represented on local bodies were not to bring their local quarrels here, and claim to have their internal feuds settled by Committees; any more than the shareholders in a company could appear against a Bill promoted by the company, unless their interests as affected by the Bill were distinct from those of the company. They elected their own representatives and were bound by the acts of those representatives so far as the House was concerned. By Standing Order 158 the rule was laid down that where a Bill was promoted by an incorporated company, the shareholders of such company should not be entitled to be heard unless their interest as affected by the Bill should be distinct from the general interest of the company; and by analogy the same rule was applied to representative bodies and those whom they represented. This was no recent extension of the rule, but the established practice in regard to corporate bodies in general, and to the Metropolitan Board of Works itself. If, however, the persons referred to by the Resolution could show to the referees that their interests were distinct from the interests of the Board which promoted this Bill, they would be allowed a locus standi, and would be heard. He hoped the House would adhere to the decision it had already given. There were 22 Petitions against the Bill, and no doubt some of the Petitions would have a good locus standi.
MR. W. M. TORRENSregretted to dissent from the hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Dodson). Although he had the highest appreciation of the ability with which his hon. Friend had presided over the Committee of Ways and Means, he was surprised to find his hon. Friend, within 24 hours of his resigning his Chairmanship, again endeavouring to undertake to preside over private legislation. He was gratified notwithstanding that they were still to have the benefit of his guardianship and guidance; but, at the same time, when his hon. Friend said that the position of the metropolis was in respect to the Board of Works strictly analogous to that of shareholders in companies, and were represented in their corporate bodies, he must say he altogether dissented from the position. There was no such place having a corporate capacity as the metropolis. The metropolis consisted of 10 cities and boroughs
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grouped together under this Act, and there was, no analogy as regarded identity of interests as existed between Liverpool and other great cities and their respective corporations. The interest of the several districts of the metropolis with their 3,000,000 of inhabitants, with each other, and with those of the Metropolitan Board of Works were different, and always must be different. Then how was it possible if these bodies, having such divergent interests, were not permitted to be heard, that the Committee could have anything but an ex parte statement before it?
MR. GLADSTONEinterposed with some reluctance and diffidence, considering that the authorities to whom that House was accustomed to listen with deference had expressed a strong opinion on the subject. That opinion was, that the ordinary Rules of the House should be enforced in this case; and the ordinary Rule, though not expressed in words, appeared to be that where a representative body promoted a Private Bill, the persons represented by that body should not be allowed to come forward as opponents to that Bill except under special circumstances—they were not allowed to have a locus standi in the Committee; and that argument was completed by stating that the Metropolitan Board of Works was a representative body, and that therefore different bodies forming different parts of the metropolis ought not to have a locus standi in opposing their Bill. But the hon. Member for Finsbury had justly pointed out that there was a peculiarity in the composition of the metropolis which made the application of that Rule a matter of some difficulty—the great difference—the great divergence of interests presented by its different sections. And the hon. Gentleman the late Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Dodson) had drawn an analogy from the case of the shareholders of an incorporated company. But was the analogy complete? Parliament provided a constitution for an incorporated company, and the shareholders were placed under a representative body chosen by themselves. But though the Metropolitan Board of Works was in some sense a representative body, it was not chosen by the ratepayers themselves, but by members of subaltern bodies elected by the ratepayers for other purposes; so that by this process of double

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election all relation between the ratepayers and their supposed representatives was destroyed. The noble Lord (Lord John Manners) had said that that might be a good argument for altering the constitution of the Board of Works. But that was an observation in which he (Mr. Gladstone) did not concur. The question was not whether the constitution of the Board of Works was good or bad—the question was, whether the Board of Works was a representative body in the sense indicated by the late Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, so as to preclude the ratepayers from having a locus standi before the Committee. He (Mr. Gladstone) thought it was not. He could not help feeling, therefore, that this claim had much in equity to recommend it, and that these parties would be placed in a condition of hardship if they were not allowed to appear before the Committee.
MR. BONHAM-CARTERsaid, the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. W. M. Torrens) had taken exception to his hon. Friend the late Chairman of Ways and Means for taking part in this discussion. He (Mr. Bonham-Carter), however, felt obliged to his hon. Friend for having done so, as it would have been impossible for him to master all the details necessary to put this matter before the House in the manner his hon. Friend had done. However, so far as in the short time he had had at his disposal, he had been able to look into the subject, he must confess that notwithstanding the high respect he had for the judgment of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, he had been unable to arrive at the same conclusion. He felt that, in the application of a principle, they were bound to support the Rules and Practice of the House, however large or however small the matter. The hon. and learned Member for Lincoln (Mr. H. Palmer) had argued that because the former Bill was a Public Bill, this ought to be treated as a Public Bill too; but the former Bill repealed a Public Act, and had characteristics of a Public Bill which were wanting in this Bill. But he (Mr. Bonham-Carter) could find in the present Bill nothing which entitled it to any special exemption from the ordinary Rules and Practice of the House in regard to Private Bills.
MR. ALDERMAN W. LAWRENCEthought the present discussion, however it might terminate, was of great value,
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because it would have great influence on any Resolution to which the House might come relative to the future conduct of Private Business. There could be no longer a question whether this was a Private Bill or not—the House had decided that it was, and therefore the Petitioners could have no locus standi before the Committee. The question really was, whether a case had not been made out that these Petitioners should be specially permitted to appear before the Committee to state their case? The question of the expenditure of millions of money for the improvement of the metropolis was one which concerned a large body of individuals, who ought to have the opportunity of stating whether they considered those improvements to be beneficial or not. He thought that this was a matter which ought not to be treated on purely technical grounds, but that the House ought to allow the matter to be decided by the Committee on its merits for the benefit of the general community, and not drive the petitioners to present their case to the House on the third reading of the Bill.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes 108; Noes 150: Majority 42.

SUMPTUARY LAW—HIGH PRICE OF MEAT.—QUESTION.
MR. MUNTZasked the First Lord of the Treasury, If it be the intention of the Government, taking into consideration the extraordinary price of meat, and the serious reduction in the stocks of sheep and cattle, to advise Her Majesty to issue a Royal Proclamation (in accordance with former precedents) enjoining all loyal subjects to abstain from the use of veal and lamb until such time that the stocks of cattle and sheep shall have regained their former numbers?
MR. GLADSTONE: I am, Sir, obliged to give a decided answer to my hon. Friend in the negative, at the same time admitting that I have very considerable sympathy with the spirit of his Question. It is not possible, in my opinion, for Her Majesty with any advantage to attempt to issue a Royal Proclamation, which would be in the nature of a Sumptuary Law. It would not be obeyed, and it would tend to bring authority into discredit rather than serve the object in view. Con-

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sidering the object to be the suppression of gross and needless waste, and the contribution, as far as lies in our power, to an abundance of animal food for the increasing wants of the country, I heartily wish there were any legitimate means by which that purpose could be promoted; but I do not think that a Proclamation of the kind suggested would be either becoming or expedient.

EX-LORD CHANCELLORS—ARBITRATIONS.—QUESTION.
MR. EYKYNasked, Mr. Attorney General, Whether, having regard to the proposed constitution of a Supreme Court of Appeal, it is expedient that an Ex-Lord Chancellor of England should be appointed paid Arbitrator at a maximum fee of 3,500 guineas under the Bill now before this House to wind up the affairs of the European Assurance Society; whether there is not an implied contract or understanding between the State and the Ex-Lord Chancellors of England that, in return for the pension of £5,000 per annum granted on retirement, their time and services as Judges should be reserved for the Country, on the Judicial Tribunals of which they are members; and, whether it is consistent with the dignity of their position, if such understanding does exist, that in accepting the office of Arbitrator they should take reward for their services?
THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he felt obliged to preface his answer to the Question as he prefaced one which he gave yesterday—with a protest. He must say, with all possible respect for his hon. Friend, that this was a kind of Question which it was not proper for him to ask, and even if it were proper for him to ask, it would not be proper for the Attorney General, as such, to express any opinion on the subject. The Question was one of an extremely delicate and difficult nature, and if he entertained any strong opinion on the matter he should not desire to express it in a short and summary way, nor unless he could give the reasons at large for entertaining it. With regard to the first part of the Question, "whether it was expedient that an Ex-Lord Chancellor of England should be appointed paid Arbitrator at a maximum fee of 3,500 guineas under the Bill now before the House?"—that was a matter entirely for the House itself to settle.
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The Bill to wind up the affairs of the European Assurance Society was before the House, and as hon. Members would have a full opportunity of discussing its provisions, he must decline altogether to express any opinion upon the measure in the form in which the Question now arose. As to the second Question, he wished to point out to his hon. Friend that an understanding must reside in facts or circumstances, and there must be two parties to it; and what passed, if anything did pass, in the nature of an understanding at the appointment of Ex-Lord Chancellors to the office which they had filled, he (the Attorney General) had no means of knowing, nor did he think it his duty to inquire. He was not personally aware of any contract or understanding that they should perform certain services in return for their pensions—that must be a matter left absolutely to the honour, feeling, and judgment of those noble and learned persons themselves. He (the Attorney General) was not the arbiter of the honour, nor the director of the conduct, or of the judgment of those noble and learned persons; and those persons must be left to judge for themselves as to whether a particular course, under particular circumstances, was or was not the proper and the dignified course to take. It would have been more satisfactory to him, and probably it would have been more satisfactory to the House—he did not know whether it would have been more agreeable to his hon. Friend—if it had been possible for the noble and learned Lord referred to in the Question to have been present to answer the Question himself.

ARMY—INDIA—ROYAL HORSE ARTILLERY.—QUESTION.
SIR CHARLES WINGFIELDasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Why Officers of the Royal Horse Artillery have been refused compensation for the pecuniary loss sustained by them on account of horses, tents, and equipments (which they are compelled by regulation to keep up), in consequence of their being ordered to England in March 1871, at a few weeks' notice, on a reduction of the Indian establishment, compensation having been given to the Officers of the 7th and 19th Hussars ordered home in the previous year under circumstances which the late Governor

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General pronounced to be substantially the same?
MR. GRANT DUFF, in reply, said, the case of the Hussars was different from that of the Artillery. The former had to leave at unusually short notice; and the Government determined—first, that in their very exceptional case, the ordinary rules of the service might properly be set aside; and, secondly, that the indulgence accorded to them should not be allowed to form a precedent. Of the five batteries, none had less, some had more, than a fortnight to make their preparations, whereas the 7th Hussars had only about 48 hours.

INDIA—EMPLOYMENT OF NATIVES IN THE CIVIL SERVICE.—QUESTION.
SIR CHARLES WINGFIELDasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether any Rules have been submitted by the Government of India for the sanction of the Secretary of State for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of the Act 33 Vic. c. 3, relative to the increased employment of Natives of India in the Civil Service of India?
MR. GRANT DUFF, in reply, said, no such rules had been received from the Government of India; but it was the intention of the Secretary of State in Council to draw the attention of the Government of India to the fact that they had not been received.

INDIA—GRIEVANCES OF INDIAN OFFICERS.—QUESTIONS.
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether, at the time of his reply to a Question of the 19th of March, it had been brought under his consideration that the Address of the House of Commons to Her Majesty the Queen on the 28th of June 1870, besought Her Majesty to redress the grievances of the Bonus compensation claimants, consequent on Lord Cranborne's instructions of the 8th of August having been carried out, and did not pray Her Majesty to ascertain whether the instructions had been carried into effect; if he will state the reasons why he did not communicate to the House the replies of the Madras and Bombay Governments, to the effect that the instructions of Lord Cranborne had been carried out, but that in doing so "due regard had not been paid to the interests of the officers concerned;"
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and, whether Lord Napier of Magdala did not coincide with the opinions expressed by the Governments of Madras and Bombay?
MR. GRANT DUFF, in reply, said, the Address referred to by the hon. Baronet asked for the further consideration of the subject of that Address on the ground of certain orders of Her Majesty not having been properly carried out. To that Address Her Majesty replied as follows:—
"I have received your Address praying that, as the Orders I gave for the redress of the grievances of the Officers of the Indian Array, consequent upon an Address of the House of Commons, dated the 2d of May, 1865, have not been carried out in the sense of the Address, owing to deductions being made from the bonâ fide claims of Officers on the ground of accelerated promotion, and on the ground of increased retiring pensions, further consideration may be given of the subject, with a view to the redress of the still unsatisfied claims. The grievances referred to in the Address of the House of Commons, dated the 2d of May, 1865, were restricted under the terms of that Address to such grievances as had been admitted by the Commission on the Memorials of Indian Officers of 1863 to have arisen by a departure from the assurances given by Parliament by the Acts 21 and 22 Vic, c. 106, and 23 and 24 Vic, c. 100. I have every reason to believe that the grievances which were admitted by the Commission have been fully redressed. As regards the compensation for Bonus payments which my Government undertook to sanction in 1866, I shall direct further examination to be made whether the conditions upon which it was intimated to Parliament that such compensation would be granted have been fully observed."
In consequence of that reply a Despatch was sent to the Government of India, which, with the reply from the Government of India, had been laid before Parliament. In reply to the hon. Baronet's second Question, he had to say that he did communicate to the House many months ago the replies of the Madras and Bombay Governments. In reply to the hon. Baronet's third Question, he had to say that he did not at all know what view Lord Napier of Magdala took of the opinions of the Governments of Madras and Bombay. Lord Napier of Magdala was a Member of the Government of India, and he had not given the Imperial Government any reason to suppose that he dissented from the view of the Government to which he belonged.

SLAVE TRADE IN THE PERSIAN GULF.

  QUESTION.
  MR. EASTWICKasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether

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  any vessels carrying slaves have been captured in the Persian Gulf since the 1st of January 1864, as no such captures appear in the Return dated the 13th of June 1870; and, if not, whether that is owing to the suppression of the trade in the Gulf?
  VISCOUNT ENFIELD: Sir, only three slave vessels have been captured by our cruisers in the Persian Gulf since 1864, and those captures were made by Her Majesty's ship Magpie in the month of June last. The fact that so few captures have been made by our cruisers in the Persian Gulf is not, however, owing to the suppression of the traffic there, as a considerable number of slaves are annually landed on the shores of the Gulf, but rather to the circumstance that during the spring and autumn of the year, the periods when it is possible for the slave dhows to run their cargoes, the few cruisers disposable for the suppression of the slave trade are employed either in watching the African coast, whence the slavers start, or in cruising off the Island of Socotra, at a point where nearly all the slavers are compelled to pass on their way to the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf.

POST OFFICE—THE PACIFIC STATION.

  QUESTION.
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEasked the Postmaster General, If he is aware that Letters addressed to Naval Officers in ships of war on the Pacific station are charged at a uniform rate of 1s. 6d. for postage, while the general public have the privilege of sending Letters to the same locality, via Liverpool, for the payment of a shilling; what is the cause that letters for the Pacific station are so charged, since the rates to Australia, China, South America, Mexico, New Zealand, Japan, and even the Falkland Islands, are all lower; and, if he would consider of the best means to facilitate the despatch of Letters to Naval Officers engaged in the service of their Country upon these very distant stations?
  MR. MONSELL: Letters, Sir, addressed to naval officers serving on board ships of war on the Pacific station are, as a rule, sent by the route of Panama in a bag addressed to the senior naval officer. The postage charged upon them is the same as that charged on the letters for the general public sent by the same route—that is to say, 1s. 6d. per
  972
  half ounce. A letter for a naval officer can be sent to the Pacific by the direct route, viâ Liverpool and the Straits of Magellan, if so addressed. It is then charged just as the letters of the general public are charged when sent by that route—1s. per half ounce. Further, a letter for a naval officer posted prepaid only 1s. would be sent by the direct route, even if not specially addressed. The reason for the rate of 1s. 6d. the half ounce for letters to the Pacific viâ Panama is that two fines of mail packets have to be subsidized for the conveyance of such letters, one on this side and one on the other side of the Isthmus. There is no reason to believe that any facilities for the disposal of letters to naval officers on distant stations are wanting.

METROPOLITAN BOARD OF WORKS-STREET IMPROVEMENTS.

  QUESTION.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSasked the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works, Whether the attention of the Board had been drawn to the necessity for providing dwelling-houses for the industrial classes in place of those which it would be found necessary to destroy in order to carry out the street improvements projected by the Board?
  COLONEL HOGGsaid, he was glad to be able to state, in reply to the noble Lord, that the Board of Works were considering the question, and had referred it to the Parliamentary Committee of the Board. The Board's solicitor had been instructed to draft a clause to carry out what he admitted was a most important object.

WAKEFIELD PRISON (EMPLOYMENT OF CONVICT LABOUR).

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  COLONEL BERESFORDrose to call the attention of the House to the unfair and ruinous competition to which the mat and matting makers are subjected by the extensive employment of Convict Labour in that trade, by the application of steam power in Wakefield Prison to that manufacture, and to the prices at which the product of Convict Labour is sold by the Prison authorities, to the great prejudice of the mat and matting makers in the free labour market; and to move for a Select Committee to inves-

  973
  tigate and report upon the subject. The hon. Gentleman said that the manufacture of mats and matting formed an industry which had been in existence in the metropolis, in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, and in a very minor degree in many other towns and villages in the country for 50 years, and it employed 3,000 men, whose wages were from 16 s. to 18 s. per week, and 2,000 women and children, who received respectively half and a quarter of that remuneration. About 30 years ago convict labour was diverted in some of our prisons from the manufacture of woollen hearthrugs to the manufacture of coire mats and matting, and 10 years ago steam power was introduced into the Wakefield Prison, and applied to that manufacture. The product of prison labour was sold at a rate below its real value, and therefore an unfair competition was created with free labour, which had resulted in the reduction of the wages of honest operatives by at least one-third of the former earnings, whilst at the same time the decreased demand for free labour had deprived the bulk of the operatives of full employ. It was neither intended nor wished by those on whose behalf he was speaking, nor by himself, to deprecate remunerative labour in the prisons. He had read several opinions on the subject of prison labour lately, and they differed very widely. Some high authorities, gentlemen well versed in the question, were decidedly in favour of prisoners being confined to hard labour of the 1st class—that is, to the tread-wheel, the crank, shot drill, and the like. They dissented altogether from that view of the matter. They were of opinion that such labour tended to brutalize the prisoner, and they looked upon the introduction of industrial pursuits in the prisons of this country as a great step in the right direction. But they contended, at the same time, that the employment of their convicts in remunerative labour should not be concentrated on one trade, and especially on one of so limited a character as the mat trade, but that it should be fairly apportioned amongst many, and especially distributed amongst those greatly more productive, in reduction of the gaol rate, than confined to the comparatively unproductive trade of mat-making. The unfair competition was not only unjust in itself but had so deteriorated the free labour market that discharged convicts
  974
  could not, even if qualified, find employment after their discharge from prison, the market being overstocked with unconvicted labourers, at little more than half wages. Again, the gaol supply of mats and matting is in surplus of the legitimate demand for those articles, and being sold in the market under value was inevitably driving the free labourer towards the workhouse. The gaol manufacturers enjoyed a virtual monopoly. Honest labour was placed at a ruinous discount in this hopeless competition in the field of industry, and it must succumb to its unmerited fate, unless by the intervention of the Legislature the gaol market be restricted to Government supply, and the work of the convicts be equally distributed over a number of industrial employments. From the Prison Reports he gathered that in Manchester Prison, out of 491 prisoners 110 were chiefly employed in the mat trade; in Leeds Borough Gaol, the mat-makers were more numerous than those engaged in five other trades, 110 out of 297 being engaged in that trade; and in Wakefield, 800 prisoners out of 1,187, or eight-twelfths of the whole, were put to mat-making, and realized £6,373. Many of the prison authorities gave no detail of the occupation of the prisoners, but stated only the results. One of the reasons against making the return particularly was the alleged expense; but everyone knew that, if the accounts of the gaols were properly kept, making the return would involve no expense at all. The Wakefield authorities had evidently evaded the obligation to make returns. A correspondent informed him that the Wakefield authorities justified their course by saying they were the first to introduce cocoanut fibre matting into England; but his correspondent also assured him this was not the fact. In the year 1870 Wakefield Prison presented a thorough commercial organization—was, in fact, just like a large warehouse. The Governor of the prison used to go to Liverpool to buy the raw material for the mats; but his continued absence was found inconvenient, and he discontinued the practice. Now, however, Wakefield Prison had its buyers, its commercial travellers, and its salesmen—and while he did not complain of the gaol authorities embarking in such a trade, he did complain of their selling the goods produced at less than their real value; and he complained of

  975
  the introduction of steam power to aid them in the process. He did not deny that the prison price list was the same as that in London and other places; but mats of far superior quality were sold at the same price as inferior mats outside. At this prison they had one of the cleverest machinists in the country, and a great portion of the money made in the course of the year was devoted to the improvement of the machinery, so that they obtained machinery of a very superior character, and such as no manufacturer could venture to purchase with the hope of profit. He now wished to show that that this question was not limited to England. This subject had occupied the attention of the State of New York, and the Commissioners on Prison Labour had condemned the system of supplying contractors at a low price with shoes and other articles made by prisoners; but the witnesses whom they examined did not object to prison labour if the prices were the same as those outside. In Denmark 15 or 20 trades were imparted in the prisons, and in prisons in France 62 trades were carried on. Those whom he represented had no desire to interfere with industrial labour in prisons, and he might state that there was no more orderly or peaceful body of men in this country than the mat-makers. In the course of 50 years not one of them had been brought up at any police-court; and on behalf of those men he must express a hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department would grant the Committee for which he moved.
  MR. LOCKEseconded the Motion.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to investigate and report upon the alleged unfair competition by the employment of Convict Labour in Prisons, and the prices at which the product of such Labour is sold, especially with reference to Wakefield Prison."—(Colonel Beresford.)
  MR. KENNAWAY, in moving, as an Amendment—
  "That the Committee have power to inquire also into the character of the labour now enforced in the county, borough, and convict prisons of Great Britain, and the extent in which such labour is productive as well as reformatory,"
  said, the question which had just been raised was one which had been foreseen some years ago by one of the greatest advocates of industrial labour in prisons, Mr. Perry, who, in his evidence before
  976
  the Committee of the House of Lords in 1863, had said that if county or borough funds were to be used as capital to undersell the trader, a great clamour would be raised against labour in prisons. He (Mr. Kennaway) believed there was a growing feeling in the country in favour of industrial labour in prisons. It was felt that rogues should not live at the expense of honest men without being required to contribute towards the cost of their maintenance; and, further, that the influence of industrial labour had a very good reformatory effect. It was, therefore, desirable that the whole question should be inquired into, in order that the working classes might learn that it was to their interest that profitable labour should be carried on in prisons. Such an inquiry could not be confined to the operation of the system in a single prison, and with regard to one trade; but it would be necessary to ascertain the conditions under which there were confined in the 187 gaols of Great Britain an average number of 20,000 men, maintained at a cost, falling chiefly on the ratepayers, of £667,000. The present system, he thought it right to state, had been in vogue about eight years. Committees of that House had been appointed to investigate the subject in 1835 and 1850, and in 1863 Lord Carnarvon moved in the House of Lords for another Committee on the ground of the great anxiety which was felt as to the number of ticket-of-leave men then about the country, and more especially because the system of transportation had lately come to an end, and there was a strong desire to know what should be done with our criminal population. That Committee reported, and two years afterwards a Bill was brought in by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey), who was at the time Home Secretary, which was the Act by which our gaols were now regulated. Its principles were strict supervision, accompanied by penal labour at the beginning of the imprisonment; then permission to engage in industrial labour; and, lastly, promotion of deserving prisoners to employment in the services of the prison as a reward. What had been the results of that Act? There were various opinions on the subject. There were some men of great experience who did not hesitate to denounce it; but it was regarded by Sir Walter Crofton as a step in advance, and as needing only further

  977
  development to become a great success. In the five years from 1860 to 1865 the average commitments were 138,441; for the first five years after the passing of the Act they were 156,330. The fact that there had been an increase must not be too much relied on as a guide in this matter. The number of commitments did not depend altogether upon prison discipline, but very much upon the state of the labour market, upon the activity of the police, emigration, and other circumstances. He feared he was putting the figures too low if he said that at least 75 per cent of the crime of the country went undetected and unpunished. It was not satisfactory to find that 35 per cent of the males and more than 45 per cent of the females had been committed more than once, and that no fewer than 5,649 had been committed 10 times and upwards. We had, therefore, no great reason to congratulate ourselves or suppose that our system was perfect. The value of the prisoners' labour was estimated at £41,271, half of which was cash, half work useful in the prisons. That amounted to about 1½ d. a-day for each prisoner. But 45 per cent of the committals was for short periods of 14 days. When we considered that fact, and also how unskilled the labour was, and how unwillingly it was rendered, we could hardly wonder that the results had been so small. But what he wanted to know was whether the Act was intelligently carried out—carried out not merely in the letter, but in the spirit of the instructions sent out from the Home Office in 1865. Were the prisoners carefully classified, as recommended by the Committee of 1863, was a good mark system in force, and was the intelligent co-operation of the prisoner sought, whereby he might raise himself, diminish his discomforts, and so advance in the path of reformation? In the opinion of many persons there was a great want of uniformity in our present mode of proceeding. One gaol was all that could be desired. There the prisoners commenced with penal labour, proceeded to industrial labour, and their condition became gradually improved. In another the system of penal labour was enforced throughout the whole term of a man's sentence, while that of industrial labour was neglected, and the prisoner had no encouragement. If we compared the Reports of the present year with
  978
  those of five or six years ago a lamentable falling-off was apparent, and the reason was that the Home Office had not appointed additional Inspectors. The two Inspectors could just manage to go round the prisons once in 18 months, perhaps; but, when called upon to visit them once a-year, it was impossible to do so in a satisfactory manner. Accordingly, instead of personal inspection, we found in the Reports that it was "stated" there were appliances for hard labour; and in some the hours for hard labour were given, in others not. It was a waste of money to employ Inspectors who did no more than was done at present; but it was not the fault of Parliament, because by 4 & 5 Will. IV. there was power to appoint five Inspectors; and if that was necessary some time ago it was still more necessary now. Now, was it desirable to extend the system of industrial labour as far as we could, and was the amount of penal labour, as represented by the treadwheel, which was enforced by the Prisons Act of 1865, really necessary? It was true the Committee of the House of Lords reported in its favour, on the ground that penal discipline was the most deterrent of all, and that industrial labour, however continuously enforced, could never amount to hard labour. To carry out that view the county ratepayers had been put to great expense in putting up tread wheels, and tread wheel labour for three months was exacted at the beginning of each sentence. But that Report was against the evidence of two men who might be supposed to know more about the matter than almost any others, and whose testimony was to the effect that the punishment of the tread wheel was most unequal, and that while the tramp and the sailor could bear it without suffering much, it pressed very severely on those who had been accustomed to sedentary pursuits. He did not want to abolish the wheel; but he thought less restriction should be placed in the way of engaging the men in industrial labour. Sir Joshua Jebb and Sir Walter Crofton recommended the labour of the treadwheel or something similar, but to a limited extent. Sir Joshua Jebb was in favour of a system of encouragement, and of early selection and promotion from the third class of labour to the first or second; and Sir Walter Crofton after one month would allow a man "to work himself off" the treadwheel by

  979
  industry at other occupations. It was clearly the opinion of the House and the country that productive labour in our prisons should be maintained; but we were very much at sea as to what kind the labour should be. At present a very large proportion of prison labour was employed in matting, and an inquiry was wanted to see how a more advantageous distribution might be effected. At Munich there was a self-supporting prison, where the whole of that blue cloth which was so well known in the uniforms of the Bavarian officers was made. Such an inquiry as he recommended was wanted for the convict prisons too, for we had the directors constantly suggesting new public works because they could not find satisfactory industrial employment for the men in the prisons. With the co-operation of the Government new branches of industrial employment might be easily opened. In Durham Prison articles were manufactured by the dozen; but everything depended on the heads of the prisons, and if they did not give encouragement the labour did not come to much. They were, however, working in the dark at present, for they did not find anything suggested from head-quarters, and they took up mat-making in despair. Some prisons were reported to be in a totally inefficient state as regarded the provisions of the Act; and it was necessary to adopt means for enforcing those provisions. The Prisons Act of 1865 had a schedule of condemned prisons which had since ceased to exist. It was found that the average number of prisoners at Oakham Prison was 5; Barnstaple and Tiverton, 7½; Lancaster, 16; Stamford, 5; and Appleby, 9. It was doubtful whether such places should be any longer maintained. One of the recommendations of the Committee appointed in 1850, on the Motion of Mr. Charles Pearson, was that there should be some central supervision over the local authorities. The local authorities were not encouraged or instructed as they ought to be from head-quarters. In Ireland 81 per cent was contributed by the Imperial Government for the repression of crime, and he could not understand why only 31 per cent should be contributed for a similar purpose in this country. He thought the question was one which ought to be further ventilated. Another point that deserved consideration was the sentences inflicted. One great prison
  980
  authority was of opinion that we ought to look rather to the sentences imposed than to the treatment in prison for a repression of crime. The Liverpool magistrates took the same view, and had memorialized the Government on the subject. They suggested that the inflicting of cumulative punishment should be extended to secondary offences in the cases of persons who had been frequently committed. The Prisons Act had been in operation for seven years. That was a great step in advance, but we must not suppose that it was a perfect measure, and that we had nothing to learn on that matter. He trusted it had been shown that there was cause for inquiry, and a necessity for fuller inspection, and the time had come for some decision on the subject. They ought to put an end to the uneasiness that existed in the minds of the working classes, who deemed that they were being unfairly dealt with. It was for the Home Secretary to decide the time when the inquiry should be made. He was ready to adopt the sentiment of the philanthropic Howard, that "If you wish a man to be honest you must make him industrious." He had no desire to press unduly for productive labour, or to ignore the fact that deterrent influences had a wider effect than reformatory; but it was because he believed steady, active, honourable labour to be the basis of all reformatory discipline, that he sought for a more extended recognition of its principle. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
  Amendment proposed,
  To add, at the end of the Question, the words "and that the Committee have power to inquire also into the character of the labour now enforced in the county, borough, and convict prisons of Great Britain, and the extent in which such labour is productive as well as reformatory."—(Mr. Kennaway.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
  MAJOR WATERHOUSEsaid, that his hon. and gallant Friend who had introduced this Motion had cast some severe reflections on the visiting justices of the Wakefield House of Correction, and it was needful that these should be refuted. Wakefield Prison had ceased to be a convict prison for the last five years; but of 1,096 prisoners, only 584 were employed in mat-making. Others were employed as

  981
  shoemakers, tailors, joiners, masons, &c. The time during which a large portion of the prisoners were thus employed was too short to teach them any sort of remunerative labour but mat-making, and he trusted the Legislature would not interfere with this. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had stated that the authorities of Wakefield Prison undersold other manufacturers with regard to mats. Such was not the case, for there were two firms in Wakefield at present who were driving a good trade in the same branch of industry. Another allegation was, that the prison authorities resorted to questionable means for the purpose of forcing their wares on the public. So far from that being the case, only one traveller was employed to conduct the whole of the business connected with the prison of Wakefield. They had no agent in London, or in any of the large towns. The competition was so great that it was no easy matter for the authorities of Wakefield Prison to deal with it, and the result was that more than half the product of the prison was exported to America and other countries. As to the machinery employed in the prison, this had not been provided out of the rates, but out of the prisoners' hard earnings, and it was only so employed in the manufacture of one particular kind of mat, which required two persons, while the prison rules precluded two men from being placed in one cell. Steam power was accordingly resorted to. The magistrates had no wish to "evade" inquiry, a rather discourteous term for his hon. and gallant Friend to use. Indeed, he himself invited him to inspect the prison, offering him the hospitality which distinguished the North of England; but his hon. and gallant Friend had not accepted the invitation, for reasons best known to himself, probably fearing that what he would then see would open his eyes too much to justify the Motion he had pressed upon the attention of the House. He thought that if similar regulations were adopted by this part of the country they would all get on much more harmoniously. It was high time this alleged grievance should be set at rest, and he could assure his hon. and gallant Friend that the magistrates were doing nothing to injure his constituents.
  MR. LOCKEcontended that in the mat manufacture free labour was being undersold by prison labour. In the
  982
  course of a discussion which occurred when he headed a deputation to the Secretary of State for the Home Department on the subject, it was shown that the prison authorities charged only half the price charged by other manufacturers, the effect of which system was to drive the honest artizan, not into prison—for he would not commit crime—but into the workhouse. Many, indeed, had been obliged to abandon the manufacture, and to emigrate, or go where they could. He did not object to the more extended inquiry proposed by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Kennaway); but attention must not be diverted from the question whether the labour of criminals, fed and housed at the public expense, prejudiced honest artizans. The hon. and gallant Member (Major Waterhouse) had not stated the prices charged at Wakefield.
  MAJOR WATERHOUSEexplained, that price lists were constantly exchanged between the Wakefield Prison authorities and other large manufacturers.
  MR. LOCKEhad not been aware of that, but the House was still in the dark as to what the prices were, and even if the manufacturers were not injured it was obvious that the artizans were, their wages having to be reduced in order to meet prison competition. A statement was made at the interview with the Secretary of State for the Home Department to show that the price charged—he believed at Pentonville—did not interfere with free labour, but that statement, he afterwards learnt, was quite inaccurate. So far from the price charged by the Pentonville Prison being on a par with that charged by the manufacturer, it was not above half that amount. It was absolutely necessary that an inquiry into this question should be instituted when the 3,000 mat-makers in London were scarcely able to drag out a miserable existence, owing to the' competition they met with from the prisons.
  MR. COLLINSsaid, he hoped the Government would not assent to the appointment of the Committee asked for. In the first place, he wished to know what such a Committee was to do when it was appointed? Was it supposed that the House would be willing to revert to the old principle that prisons were not to be made self-supporting, and were prisoners to be set to work at the crank instead of being employed in useful labour? Every shilling in the manufacture of

  983
  mats at Wakefield was a saving to the country. It would next be suggested that the casual tramp was not to be required to break a certain quantity of stones in return for the food and shelter he had received, because his doing so would interfere with the trade of the professional stonebreaker. It was bad enough that the country should be put to any cost in keeping such people, and if the cost could be reduced from £20 a head to £15 a head, that was a benefit to the country. As regarded the Wakefield House of Correction, they had a price-list from the other large manufacturers of mats, and no attempt was made to sell mats below the average prices of the ordinary manufacturers. All that the manufacture of mats in prison did was to tend to keep down a monopoly. Great danger was to be apprehended from a reckless appointment of Committees in these days. In most cases the Government assented to the appointment of Committees to inquire into questions which had been brought forward by their supporters, not because they really believed that it was necessary that such inquiries should be made, but because they did not like to be rude and harsh towards hon. Members sitting on their side of the House. The consequence was that hon. Members whose opinions were of weight in the House declined to serve on such Committees, whose labours, they were aware, would lead to no practical result; and when those Committees had made their inquiries their Reports were "pooh-poohed" by everybody. He was of opinion that the great object of our penal system was to reform our criminal classes and to imbue them with habits of industry; and on that ground he should oppose the appointment of the Committee which had been asked for by the hon. and gallant Member.
  MR. WHITWELLopposed the appointment of a Committee. He adduced, as a proof that the course adopted at the Wakefield House of Correction was not likely to interfere with the general mat trade, the fact that the late Governor of that prison had become so convinced of the pecuniary advantages to be derived from entering into that trade that he had on quitting his appointment set up a mat manufactory on his own account. It was quite possible that mats might be sold to the wholesale dealer; but he did not think that mats
  984
  came into the retail trade at a lower than the retail price. If the gaol honestly carried on the trade by legitimately and advantageously employing its convict inmates, it would be for the benefit of the country. But a gaol with fewer than 50 or 60 inmates at the least could not be supposed to keep its inmates at a reasonable rate. The question of punishment for short periods was one that could not be too seriously considered. If a person had been convicted eight or ten times the State should consider that such person was incapable of taking care of himself, and should look after him for two or three years at least.
  MR. AKROYDalso opposed the appointment of a Committee, and said, there was an Industrial Home in Wakefield for discharged male prisoners, in which mat-making formed part of the work done, but the private mat-makers in Wakefield did not complain of the competition either of the prison or the Industrial Home in that town. The other day he presided at a meeting held for the purpose of establishing an Industrial Home for discharged female prisoners at Wakefield. The object was to render the labour of prisoners, as far as possible, both remunerative and also reformatory. That female Industrial Home was intended to teach the inmates to do laundry work, and in doing that they would to some extent inevitably compete with free labour of the same kind; but so eager were the Yorkshire ladies to carry out the principle that not less than £6,000 was invested in support of that Industrial Home. If, therefore, the mat-making carried on in prisons competed to some limited degree with the trade carried on by the people of Southwark, it should be remembered that idleness was one of the most fruitful sources of crime, and that if every prisoner sent to gaol was compelled as far as possible to work while in confinement at some remunerative and deterrent employment, he would be less likely than would otherwise be the case to find his way there again after his liberation.
  MR. LIDDELLpointed out that there was another class of institution where that trade was carried on very largely, and, he hoped, remuneratively—namely, industrial and reformatory schools. With regard to the principles of political economy, he asked whether these principles were not favourable to the keeping down

  985
  of the rates by making prisoners work, and thus checking crime. He was not aware that any complaint had been made about the work done in reformatory schools. He was opposed to the granting of a Committee of that kind, as it might tend to discourage the exertions of those benevolent institutions.
  MR. MORLEYsaid, he would not have obtruded himself upon the attention of the House had he not been anxious to bring to its recollection the fact that this Motion had been made at the instance of 3,000 working men and women, who were in a state of semi-starvation at the present moment, from a cause which they said they could prove before a Committee—namely, that the article they manufactured was sold at a price scarcely above the value of the material used in the process. If that were true, he, as a manufacturer, said it ought not to be so. At any rate, the subject was one fit for investigation. He was not about to press for an immediate acceptance of the Motion by the Home Secretary; but he hoped his right hon. Friend would be able to give the House some assurance that either now or next Session there would be some general investigation of the nature suggested by the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Kennaway) with reference to labour in prisons. He (Mr. Morley) was a decided advocate of labour in prisons, and that productive labour. He believed that it was bad moral economy to keep prisoners unemployed, and bad political economy to make their labour unremunerative. To make their prisons self-supporting, if that were possible, was worth any attention that could be given to the subject by those who were interested in the condition of the prisons of the country. He was satisfied that the employment of prisoners in honest labour had a reformatory tendency; but he contended, upon every principle of political economy, that they had a right to demand, on behalf of the working classes of this country, that the labour of the criminal class should not be forced into the market at prices utterly ruinous to them in the form of competition. A large body of persons, to whose condition he could personally testify, were at this moment suffering very deeply in the City of London and elsewhere, from mats, made not only in the Wakefield gaol, but in the London prisons, being sold at the prices he had indicated.
  MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, he thought that if this had been a local grievance, affecting Southwark only, it might have been met by a deputation to the Home Office rather than by a Motion for a Select Committee. But mat-making by prisoners was not confined to Wakefield, nor was that kind of competition confined to Southwark alone. Mats were made in many large prisons, and in Kent, with which he was connected, that was certainly the case. The House was much indebted to the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Kennaway) for showing that that question ought to be looked at from a larger and broader point of view. The administration of prisons was one of the most important subjects that could occupy the attention of the House, affecting as it did not only the criminal class, but the interests of the whole community, and being also intimately connected with the pressure of local taxation, at present so onerous and oppressive. He did not know there was any subject, looking at it from the reformatory point of view, the deterrent point of view, and every point of view, which demanded more serious attention from the Parliament and Government than prison discipline. At present there was an extraordinary diversity in the treatment of discharged prisoners in different counties. In some counties scarcely any assistance was given to them, in others they were very liberally assisted; and in Kent the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society systematically dealt with every case of a discharged prisoner who was worthy of assistance, and dealt with it in a most satisfactory manner. It was worth while having a Committee to consider whether, by helping such societies more than was done at present, they could not diminish crime. Industrial Schools hardly came within the terms of that Motion; but the whole penal system of this country required close looking into. With respect to recommittals, as a chairman of quarter sessions, if they must have prisoners, he would rather have old prisoners than a crop of new ones coming into their place. Judges and courts of quarter sessions might be armed with larger power to deal with cases of recommittal; but, if that were done, care ought also to be taken that those powers were acted upon, and that a minimum sentence in such cases was laid down by law. He had observed with amusement the sentences

  987
  passed by some Judges of Assize; and he had heard a learned Judge sometimes say that chairmen of quarter sessions knew the habits and occupations of those who were brought before them better than they did, and were more likely to apportion their sentences to their crimes than the Judges themselves were. If the Amendment should be pressed to a division he should cordially support it, because he considered the whole subject of penal discipline well worthy of the attention of Parliament.
  MR. BRUCEsaid, he thought that the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Kennaway) had been most justly complimented for the interesting statement he had made to the House; but the hon. and gallant Member for Southwark (Colonel Beresford) had, perhaps, some reason to complain of it, for the larger subject had completely eclipsed the smaller one which the hon. and gallant Member introduced to the notice of the House. The discussion afterwards deviated into the general question of prison discipline, and whether the sentences to be inflicted by the Judges should or not be further regulated by Parliament; but he would endeavour to restrict his observations to the two subjects which had been first brought before the House. He agreed with the hon. and gallant Member for Southwark that when complaints were made by 3,000 working people to the effect that they were injuriously affected by the system pursued in gaols, the subject was not unworthy of the attention of the House; but he was at a loss to know on what grounds the complaints could be justified. Prisons were divided into two classes. There were, on the one hand, convict prisons under the superintendence of the Government, and, on the other hand, the county and borough prisons. Of the ten convict prisons, it was only in two that the making of matting was carried on, a great variety of trades being conducted in the remainder. The number of trades taught amounted to no less than 38, and of 89 convicts dismissed from one gaol, no less than 75 had acquired some degree of skill in trades, of which they had previously known nothing. In Pentonville and Milbank, no doubt, the trade of mat-making was, among others, followed; but generally the object had been to find a multiplicity of employments, in which prisoners might, after their discharge,
  988
  earn an honest livelihood. It might be true, as had been said by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, that the matting trade had been overdone, and that the discharged prisoners were not likely to find employment in that trade; but the reason why the prisoners were trained to mat-making was because the majority of the prisoners in the country prisons were confined for a short time, and they could not, therefore, be trained to shoe-making or other trades, which it required some time to acquire. It must be recollected that the modern system of imprisonment was founded upon the separation of prisoners, and therefore it was necessary to find work that could be done by individuals separately. As to price, he had made inquiries, and found that the prison authorities got the best price that they could for their goods, and did not undersell the ordinary traders, though no doubt the very fact that they manufactured large quantities of articles would affect the interests of those engaged in the trade. As to Wakefield Prison, it had been remarkable as an extremely well-conducted prison, and he was informed that the application of cocoanut fibre for mat-making was first introduced there 30 years ago. He said this because it had been alleged that a manufacturer claimed to have introduced it 25 years ago. The steam engine was introduced in Wakefield in the year 1853, and it was employed for various purposes besides the making of matting. There was a difficulty found in disposing of the work unless the broader matting could be made, and as they could not employ two prisoners together to make broad matting, it became necessary to introduce the steam engine; but the prisoners working in the steam department only amounted in number to 61 out of upwards of 1,100, the rest being employed on mat-making generally. It was said that this matting was produced in such large quantities that the trade was undersold; but the answer to that statement was, that a great firm, the principal of which had been connected with Wakefield Prison, had set up at Wakefield a mat manufactory, which still existed, and employed people at good wages, and close to him there were two other similar manufactories. This was enough to demonstrate that mats were not sold by the prison authorities for less than the cost price. He did not think that

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  the subject, as regarded Wakefield Prison, deserved the attention of a Select Committee. The hon. and gallant Member particularly objected to the employment of steam machinery; but it appeared that there was only one prison in all England where steam machinery was employed in mat-making. He therefore thought it was hardly worth while to appoint a Committee to inquire into that subject, and thereby increase the labours of the Members of that House, many of whom were already engaged on Select Committees. He was, however, inclined to question the policy of employing in Wakefield Prison so very large a proportion of the prisoners in one branch of industry. He found that in some other gaols—such, for instance, as Salford, where there were 800 or 900 prisoners—there were more trades taught, and yet the earnings were considerably larger, and the cost to the ratepayers of course proportionately small. At Wakefield the average cost of a prisoner was £17 or £18; at Salford and Preston, only £10 17 s. 6d.; and at Durham, where there were more kinds of employment than anywhere else, the cost for each prisoner was £13. In 1869, the cost of the county and borough prisons was £498,000, whilst the labour of prisoners produced only £41,000. In prisons, however, where the prisoners were kept longer in confinement, the result was different, and therefore, while the cost of the convict prisoners in 1870 was £299,000, the value of their work amounted to £184,000, and at Portsmouth and Chatham the earnings of the prisoners actually exceeded the cost of their keep, though of course Woking and Dartmoor, which were invalid prisons, could not show so flourishing an account. That showed that very considerable results might be produced by the proper employment of prison labour, and it also showed the difficulty of applying that system generally. He would now advert to the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Kennaway), and it appeared to him that anyone who heard the speech of that hon. Member would come to the conclusion that the existing state of things was one of continually increasing crime, and that some new efforts were necessary to stop that increase of crime. About eight years ago this subject received the most earnest attention on the part of Government, transportation having ceased, and prison discipline having been shown
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  to be very imperfect. In 1865 the Prisons Act was passed by his right hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey). Now, let him call the attention of the House for a moment to the facts with respect to the supposed increase of crime. The idea was that the number of committals showed an increase of crime; but it should be remembered that there was now a better and more vigilant police; the streets were better kept, and there was a greater number of committals than formerly. But he would test the figures as to the more important crimes. In 1840, when the population of England and Wales was 15,730,000, no fewer than 3,105 prisoners were transported. Coming down to the year before transportation on a large scale ceased—in 1852, when the population was 18,200,000—the number of prisoners sentenced to penal servitude was 2,896. The year before the Prisons Act was passed, the population being 20,900,000, the number of prisoners sentenced to penal servitude was 2,445. In 1870, when the population had increased to 22,100,000, the number of prisoners sentenced to penal servitude was only 1,788. So that with respect to the graver class of crimes the number of prisoners had decreased 50 per cent, while the population had increased 30 per cent. The number of committals had diminished nearly one-half, while the population had increased one-third. But it might be said that modern practice had diminished the severity of punishment, and various Acts had been passed which enabled magistrates to deal summarily with offences. In 1860, when the population was 19,900,000, the number of persons sentenced to imprisonment was 11,799; in 1870, the number of such sentences was 11,150, while the population was 22,100,000; so that, while there was an increase in the population of more than 2,000,000, there was a considerable decrease in the number of convictions. This was very cheering. There was an improved system of punishment, a better system of prison discipline, industrial schools were established, education and every other good influence told in diminishing the criminal population. It did not, however, follow that there might not be further improvement; and it had been suggested that there should be more uniformity of prisons and more inspection. With re-

  991
  spect to uniformity, that subject had been most thoroughly considered by the House in 1865. Lord Carnarvon, who had earned the respect of the whole country by the ardour, zeal, and intelligence he had brought to bear on the question, was Chairman of the Committee of the other House which reported upon it, and he suggested that imprisonment during the first period of three months should be entirely penal, and limited to the treadwheel, cranks, and shot drill; that there should be no sort of remunerative labour, and that it should be made as disgusting and deterrent as possible. But Parliament did not accept that view. They drew the same distinction between penal and reformatory punishment. They laid down the principle that the earlier period of punishment should be penal, with the power of relaxing it; but they absolutely declined to lay down a new principle. Under the Act of 1865 a certain amount of unremunerative penal discipline was necessary. There must be in every prison a treadwheel or crank. There were a certain number of prisons at this moment where the treadwheel and crank were never used during the first three months of the sentence; but the 9th section of the Prisons Act defined the alternative in these words, "or such other description of hard bodily labour as may be appointed by the Justices in Sessions." The Justices had acted differently; some thinking it advantageous to have the treadwheel, while others dispensed with it altogether. The other point referred to by his hon. Friend was inspection; the present system, he said, was defective because the inspection was insufficient. The recommendation of the Committee was, that every prison should be inspected every year at least. That was done now, and the Inspector was enjoined to put himself in communication with the visiting justices, and call their attention to any defect he might observe in the discipline and management of prisons. He was assured by the Inspectors that they found every year greater interest exhibited by the justices in the, discipline and management of the prisons. No doubt, one or two blots had been hit; but they were mostly old and well known. There was the case of Cumberland, where, from a difference of opinion among the magistrates, there were two bad gaols instead of one good one. The attention of the
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  Home Office had also been drawn to Portsmouth, and it was hoped that what had been complained of would not much longer continue. Was there any case made out for the larger inquiry suggested? He had shown that, instead of an increase, there had been a great diminution of crime—he had shown that on the part of the prison authorities the tendency was to enforce labour, and to do what the public interest demanded, to fit prisoners to return to an honest life by teaching them some industry, and he had also shown that the inspection was such as the Act of Parliament contemplated. The necessity for increased inspection was obviated by the fact that stringent rules had been laid down in 1865 by which the management of prisons in future was to be guided, and Schedules were constructed to introduce a certain amount of uniformity. No case had been made out for further inquiry. In conclusion, he asked the House to support him in resisting not only the original Motion, but also the Amendment.
  COLONEL BERESFORD, in explanation, denied that he had ever charged the Wakefield Prison authorities with having appropriated the county rates to the purchase of steam machinery. He was satisfied with the ventilation the question had received, and would not press his Motion.
  Amendment and Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

ENTAILMENT OF LAND.—RESOLUTION.
MR. W. FOWLERrose to move—
"That, in the opinion of this House, the present state of the Law as to the entail and strict settlement of land discourages the investment of capital in the development of agriculture, to the great injury of all classes of the people, and increases the complication of titles, and the expense and delay incident to the transfer of real estate."
The hon. Member expressed regret at being compelled to address his remarks on this intricate question to so thin a House. The subject presented itself to his mind especially under two aspects, which arose out of what he might call the admitted defects in connection with the landed interest of this country. First of all, there was a defect in the production of the soil; and, secondly, there was a defect in the social condition of our people. A great deal was often said about the superiority of the agri-

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culture of England to that of the Continent; but it ought to be borne in mind that that superiority was only relative. The real question to be determined was whether our condition was satisfactory in itself, and not whether we occupied a better position as regarded agriculture than France, Portugal, or Italy. Within the last six months two important witnesses—Lord Leicester and Lord Derby—had given their testimony on this subject. Lord Leicester, speaking in Norfolk last October, said that, after careful consideration, he had come to the conclusion that the amount of the production of the soil of the country was not more than half what it ought to be. The same opinion was expressed by Lord Derby about six weeks previously. Calculations which he had carefully made led him to believe that the annual loss to the country was no less than £200,000,000—a sum equal to three times the whole of the taxation of the country. There was but one cure for the evil, and, as Lord Derby said—"You must in some way or other have more capital invested in the soil." This additional capital must, he maintained, be found both by the landlord and the tenant. Everybody was aware that the landlord had to find a great deal of capital in order that he might leave the tenant's capital free to produce its natural result.
Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted and 40 Members being found present,
MR. W. FOWLERaccordingly continued. His Motion had special reference to landlord's capital; but he wished to say there was a necessity for a change in the law affecting the relative positions of landlord and tenant. Only a few days ago he received a letter from a gentleman, a well-known agriculturist, describing how he had, without any apparent reason, been excluded from his farm without any compensation for the vast improvements he had made. There was a growing feeling in the country that when tenants had laid out large sums of money on their farms there ought to be something like a regular system of compensation, so that they might be encouraged to use their capital freely, and to cultivate the land well, up to the time of the expiration of their leases. The question he wished to submit to the House was
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what were the special hindrances to the application of the owners' capital to the cultivation of land. He held that there were three such hindrances. First of all, the law kept the land forcibly—if he might be allowed the expression—in the hands of embarrassed owners, so that if a man became embarrassed he could not sell and get rid of his embarrassment and his land at the same time; secondly, a large portion of the land in this country was held by limited owners, especially tenants for life; and, thirdly, the complication of titles and the tremendous cost of transferring estates offered direct discouragement to the purchase of real estates by moderate capitalists. No experienced person could doubt that a large area of the land was locked up by the system of strict settlement, and could not be sold. It was said that in all large estates which were carefully settled, power of sale was given to the trustees, with the consent of the tenant for life, but the proceeds of land so sold had to be re-invested in other land, and, further, a large portion of the land was tied up under imperfectly drawn wills. Mr. Arthur Hobhouse, the recently-appointed member of the Legal Council of India, in a paper which he read at Leeds last October, gave instances of parishes where one-third, one-half, and even two-thirds of the land was entirety immoveable and unsaleable, and there could be no doubt that a very large extent of land was in that way permanently locked up. Lord Derby had pointed out that there was always plenty of land in the market, and thought this was an answer to the statement that land was unduly locked up by the system of strict settlement. The price given for land, however, seemed to show that the demand had overtaken the supply. Land in this country was sought too much as a luxury and too little as an investment—too much as a source of political and social power, not enough as that from which the people were to get their food. The consequence was that land was bought and sold too much in great masses. The facts he had mentioned went to show that there was not in the market as much land as there ought to be. The great point of the argument seemed, however, to him to lie in the fact that the system of strict settlement caused the major part of the land in the country to be held from generation to generation by tenants for

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life. The person in possession of an estate was not, therefore, the real owner, but the owner for his life only, and that to the extent of only half the full value of the land, for everyone knew that a life estate was not worth more than half the fee-simple of a piece of landed property. A landowner situate in this wise could not be expected to spend money on his land in the way that he would do if he held the fee-simple, for he could not borrow the capital, except he insured his life—which was a costly process—or borrowed money under certain Acts of Parliament, and paid interest at the rate of £7 4s. per cent. per annum. Furthermore, tenants for life who had fallen into embarrassed circumstances were unable to dispose of their land, although by so doing they might rid themselves of embarrassment. The next heir to an estate held by a tenant for life might be the eldest son of a man with a large family; and if the father desired that his children's portion should be something like equal, his only course was to take as much as possible out of the land, and to refrain from expending his capital upon its improvement; or the next heir might be a bankrupt, or an idiot, or a lunatic, or a remote relation, not on good terms with the tenant for life. In all such cases, no one could expect him to lay out money on' the land. The want of power in a tenant for life sometimes led to disastrous consequences. He knew a case in which an estate was denuded of its timber and vastly decreased in value by a tenant for life, who, if he had owned the fee-simple, would have sold the estate entire, without diminishing its value. The result of the present law was, that landed estates were regarded by the wealthy classes as possessions to be held for the sake of power and position, rather than as means whereby wealth might be produced to the owner and for the benefit of the whole community. Another difficulty in which tenants for life were placed was, that in the majority of instances they held possession under instruments not made with a full knowledge of present family circumstances, but made, in fact, before the family came into existence. The result of this, as Mr. Hobhouse had well stated, was that endless family difficulties and complications arose out of the present state of the law. He would next refer to the effect of the existing law upon the com-
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munity at large. It might, and probably would be said, that as the present system was liked by those who lived under it, Parliament had no right to alter it; but he contended that if the community was injured by the law of entail now in operation, it was the duty and interest of Parliament to see if a beneficial alteration could not be effected. The effect of this discouragement of tenants for life to lay out their capital upon their holdings would be seen—firstly, in the condition of the cottages occupied by the agricultural labourers; and, secondly, in the social condition of the labourers themselves. No man could rise from a perusal of the Reports of the Commissioners now on the Table of the House, or of the descriptions which had recently appeared in the public prints, without admitting that the state of the homes of the agricultural poor in this country was a national disgrace. And he thought, further, that if this state of things could be shown to result from a defect in the law, no one would deny the right or duty of the House of Commons to deal with the question. The Solicitor General, in answering him last year, admitted that the condition of the labourers' cottages was very bad; but contended that this had nothing to do with the question of settlements, the fact being that the cottages did not pay. It was a fact that cottages did not pay directly; but there was abundant evidence to prove that they paid indirectly, because if there was a good supply of labour the landlord let his farms to better tenants, his land was more highly cultivated, and his whole estate was increased in value. But the fact that the cottages only paid indirectly explained the whole thing. A tenant for life had only a direct interest in his estate, and could scarcely be expected to expend money which would produce indirect benefits alone. The Reports of the Commissioners were very full and clear in their accounts of the condition of the labourers' cottages; but, in addition, there appeared in one of the public prints, a few days ago, a description of a labourer's cottage in the county of Buckinghamshire, to which he would call attention. The writer said, among other things, that there was no porch to this cottage, but the door opened directly into a little room, in which it was impossible to stand upright; the floor was all stained and dinted into oozy depressions; the walls were brown with

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smoke and clammy with damp; there was no oven, not even a range, in the building; the atmosphere was foul and close, and the water supply had to be drawn from an adjacent shallow and stagnant pond. These were some of the features ascribed by the writer to an agricultural labourer's cottage in Buckinghamshire, a tenement the rental of which was £5 a-year, and which was occupied by a labourer with 12 s. per week, his wife, and seven children. The sleeping apartments, the writer says, he designedly omitted to describe. He (Mr. Fowler) would refer, by way of contrast, to the cottages upon the estate of a distinguished Gentleman near at hand, which left little to be desired. But the evidence of the wretchedness of the agricultural labourers' cottages did not depend solely upon the statement of a newspaper correspondent. The Bishop of Manchester—a Member of the Royal Commission which reported upon the condition of the cottages in the important counties of Norfolk, Sussex, Essex, and Gloucester—stated that of 300 parishes which he had visited he found only two wherein the state of the cottages might be described as satisfactory. It was, the Bishop said, impossible to exaggerate the evil effect which the state of the cottages had upon the labourer. From a religious, moral, physical, and economical point of view, the aspect was deplorable. And the Bishop was not the only witness; but he would not take up the time of the House by further quotations. But there was one passage which he would quote from Mr. Culley, a practical agriculturalist, who knew what he was about, and had as a Commissioner travelled over England and Scotland. He said—
"In nine cases out of ten the owner has tried to do his duty, but he suffers absolutely as much as the ill-used labourer on his estate. The unhappy propensity to create limited interests in land tells heaviest against the small properties where there is no margin left for improvements, especially for cottage improvements."
The questions before the House were, what was the cause of the existence of these wretched cottages, and how was that cause to be removed? The Solicitor General said the cause was that cottage property did not pay; but why was that? The reason was, that the labourer could not afford to pay a sufficient rent because his wages were law, and his wages were low because the capital employed was in-
998
adequate, and the capital was inadequate mainly because the law discouraged the investment of money in the cultivation of the land. The position of the tenant for life was such that no man could expect him to lay out money in this direction, and Parliament had shown that it did not entertain the expectation, for it had passed Acts which permitted him to borrow money, but which at the same time required him to pay £7 10 s. for every £100 so borrowed, in order to repay principal and interest within a given time. It might be said that the evil was one that would adjust itself in the course of time; but it had now been in existence for a very long period, during which England had been lending her money to swindlers all over the world, and yet this evil had shown no sufficient sign of abatement. Again, it was maintained that, even if proper cottages were built for the agricultural labourers they would spoil and misuse them; but he replied that the degraded habits of a lifetime were not to be immediately removed, and that the first and most indispensable step towards the inculcation of better habits was the providing better homes. He had not said, nor did he mean to say, a word against the owners of large estates, because he knew very well that on some of the largest of them were to be found the best cottages. He only wanted to see some alteration in the law, which should adjust itself to small estates as well as to large estates, and create a condition of affairs in which they should not have to look to the estates of the Duke of Northumberland or the Duke of Bedford for decent cottages, but should find them all over the land. So long as the Legislature insisted upon the maintenance of existing regulations with respect to the tenure of land, that was a result not to be hoped for. The condition of the agricultural labourers' cottages was not the only question involved in the subject he had introduced to the House. There was the question of the condition of the labourer himself. He had seen it publicly stated by a distinguished gentleman that the condition of the agricultural labourer had improved with the improvement of the wealth of the nation. That was not the opinion of the Commissioners to whom he had referred, for they had arrived at the conclusion that the condition of the agricultural labourer had gone back

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rather than advanced during the last 50 years. He thought it would be generally admitted that while the country had increased in wealth and luxury, and while the wages of the mechanic had rapidly advanced, the wages of the agricultural labourer bad not moved upwards in anything like a fair proportion. This state of things was very unfair to the farmers, who had been expected to pay high wages for bad work, and whose labourers were unable to do a good day's work. If the Reports of the Agricultural Commissioners were examined, it would be found that where the wages of agricultural labour was highest there were sure to be found the best work and the best farming. Northumberland even, with its inferior soil and climate, was a notable proof of this, as in no county was agriculture more flourishing, for in none was the labourer better educated, better fed, and better able to work. One of the Commissioners who compared the cost of labour in the South and North of England, found the average income of the labourers in the North to be considerably greater and their condition to be much better. The North-country labourer was generally well-fed and comparatively well educated, while the South-country labourer, as a rule, was the reverse. The cause of the difference was, that in the North agriculture was usually carried on with abundant capital and means, while in the South the fund available for the payment of wages was, as a rule deficient. Unless the farmers had sufficient capital, they could not afford to pay the labourer the wages he ought to have. The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Read) said, on a recent occasion, that an agricultural labourer with 16 s. a-week, living in a healthy atmosphere, with plain but sufficient food, was better off than the operatives with better wages who lived in the pestilent alleys of a town. In the South of England, however, there were districts and areas where the farm labourers had homes as bad as those who lived in pestilent alleys, and where they had also the most miserable wages. The hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Hibbert), in a speech made during the Easter Recess, said that he did not like strikes, believing that they were a waste of public money, but he did sympathize with the unfortunate agricultural labourer, for in his official capacity he was continually being asked to allow the Boards of Guardians
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to give relief to families where the wages were 9s. or 10 s. a-week, and he was compelled to refuse the applications, because if they were granted there would never be an increase of wages. Here, too, it appeared that where the wages were lowest the poor rates were highest, and vice versa. This question of the condition of the agricultural labourer had recently been ventilated by the graphic pen of the special correspondent of The Daily News—a newspaper of very very considerable weight and authority in this country. It was not necessary for him to go into the details of the remarkable meal where the correspondent spent the day with an agricultural family, and found himself very far from comfortable at the end of it; but in that case the wages of the father were 10 s., and the labour of the mother and children produced 5s. a-week, out of which the father spent 1s. in beer and tobacco, the living for 10 persons cost 8s. 6d., the rent 2s., and the remainder was spent in clothes and shoes. He did not wish to exaggerate, nor could he hope to rival, the graphic descriptions given by the newspaper correspondent; but apart from those statements the Report of the Commissioners proved conclusively that the wages of agricultural labourers in a large part of this country were so insufficient, that, for gentlemen brought up as the Members of that House had been, it was difficult to understand how they could live at all. These conclusions did not, of course, apply to those counties in which there was a great demand for labour for other purposes. He knew of no remedy for this state except that of the removal of all obstacles to the flow of capital to the business of cultivation. As a rule, where there was high farming, and where agriculturists were possessed of ample capital, wages were sufficient, because the farmer insisted on having a good day's work for his money, and was able to pay for it. Mr. Cobden was quite right when, basing his remarks on information received from Lord Ducie, he declared that there were abundant sources of employment for the whole of the people if our farmers only had sufficient capital. Lord Derby had fixed upon the insufficient security possessed by tenants as the chief cause which hindered capital from coming to the land. This was to some extent true; but the law also crippled the owner by making him, through a system of strict settlement,

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tenant for life. A recent newspaper article advised the labourers that the present system was the best, so far as they were concerned, and reminded them that they had a national benefit club in the poor rate, which was equivalent to wages, and the existence of which was the chief reason why their actual wages were low. No hon. Member, he presumed, would agree to that. The poor rate could never supply the place of thrift; its existence cultivated a feeling of dependence, and really amounted to a robbery of the thrifty by the careless. What, then, were the answers to his argument? It was said the tenant for life might borrow money for improvements; but this was a mockery when, for every cottage put up, the borrower would lose £6, a loss which would not be felt by a rich man, but would be a material consideration in the eyes of one having to retrieve his fortune. Then it was said the farmers might find more capital: but it was not probable farmers would find capital for permanent improvements if the landlord refrained from doing so. As for the argument that better education would improve the condition of the labourer, it was obvious that condition must be improved before the labourer would appreciate education. The Scotch and Northumberland labourers dispensed with the possible earnings of their children without regret, knowing the value of education; but they were able to do so because they were better paid than most of their class. The evils of the present state of the law were not confined to the labourers; the system of which he complained was most injurious even to the landowners themselves. No argument was needed to expose the mischief wrought by a system under which a young man knew that he would inevitably succeed to his family estates if he lived, no matter what his conduct was towards his parents. There had been too many illustrations of the miserable consequences of this. Even setting aside the moral aspect of the question, how was it to be expected that a man who had been tempted to extravagance by this knowledge in his youth would have spare capital in after-life to build cottages and improve his estates? His whole energies would be devoted to retrieving his position. Primogeniture, as usually understood—namely, the devolution of land in case of intestacy-was an unimportant matter as compared
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with the folly of pitching upon the eldest son as inheritor of an estate before he was born, and when it was impossible to divine what his character would be. Much of the evil of which he complained arose from the habit of looking at land as different from any other kind of property—as a source of luxury and power. The tendency of dealing with land as a source of political power was directly to discourage the granting of long leases, because a long lease made a tenant independent. It was a melancholy fact, too, that the present system tended to decrease the rural population 5,000,000 out of the 26,000,000 forming the population of Prussia were directly interested in the soil as small proprietors; while in Great Britain, out of a population of 26,000,000, there were not, it was believed, more than 400,000 proprietors, and only 2,000,000 persons really employed in agriculture; and he believed these numbers were decreasing. He looked with great anxiety to the piling up of vast populations in our towns, and with distrust and dislike to the fact that our rural population was dwindling away. He believed it would be a great Conservative proceeding if they could bring about a change in the law which would give a much larger number of persons a personal interest in the land. It was quite clear that by the prevention of the dispersion and division of land employment of persons on the land was prevented. It might be asked what he proposed to do to remedy the state of things of which he complained; if he objected to limited ownership so much, what was the ownership which he would recommend? He had no faith in the new-fangled schemes now in vogue for splitting up the land. All he asked was for freedom, and that we should not trammel the land by so many fantastical laws he would have such a law that each generation should take care of itself, and that there should be no settlements, and that an end should be put to tenancies for life—that each generation should take the land and deal with it and use it as might seem best. Was it not a strange thing that we should allow a man lying in his grave to determine how the land he had loft behind him should be disposed of for 70 years after his death? But it would be said—"If you had your way, the land would not be sought with the view of founding a family; a man in buying land would not be satisfied with 2 per cent for his

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money." He should not be sorry for that. He should be glad to see the land bought more by people who would treat it as a matter of business, and with a view to cultivation, and less by those who would regard it merely as a source of distinction. But then it would be asked—"How about the Peerage?" The Peers could take care of themselves, and if they could not—if they did not know how to bring up their families without the aid of such a system as this then they were not fit to review the decisions of this House. It had been said that his proposition was calculated to tear up the land, as in the case of France, and grind it to dust in the hands of small owners. But he did not propose to do anything of the kind. Again, the objection would be urged that his proposal would not apply to personal estate. Why, there was all the difference in the world between land and personal estate. Whether he, or the hon. Member for Cambridge University, or some one else, had a sum in Consols or railway stock, did not make the slightest difference to the community; but it made the most material difference whether a poor man or a rich man held the land. It was said that his plan would limit the power of the owner; but his answer was that instead of so doing it would increase that power. He would only limit the power of a man dying or dead, but not of a living man while living; and at his death he would allow him to leave his land as he pleased, and to whom he pleased, with this one condition, that whoever took it should take it as he left it—namely, as owner in fee. No doubt there was great difference of opinion with regard to what he had said; but as to the few words with which he should conclude, he did not think there would be much difference of opinion. He referred to the present system of titles to and transfers of estates. As long ago as 1857 a Royal Commission reported that the present state of the law was most objectionable, and could not be worse. An Act of Parliament was passed to remedy the evil; but another Commission in 1870 reported it to be absoluely useless, and the Solicitor General had this year promised that the matter should have his earnest consideration. They might leave the whole question of settlement as it was, and yet make a most marked improvement in the whole system of transfer. At the Bank of England stocks might be
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readily transferred, and why should not land be registered and be rendered easily transferable? Why should you not transfer land with the same facility that you transfer stock? As the Royal Commission of 1857 said, it was nothing but prejudice that kept us from doing so. This was a question affecting the poor man. A case had occurred to his own knowledge in which a gentleman sold a piece of land to a poor man on the understanding that the latter should pay the lawyer's bill; the land cost £20, and the lawyer's bill was £10. Then the present system was most injurious as regarded borrowing money on the land. But on the Exchange of Hamburg, mortgages were bought and sold just as bills of exchange on the Exchange of London. The question he had thus discussed was one which interested all classes. It interested the landlord because the proposed change would put him in a more natural position with reference to his property and to his family. It would improve the position of the occupier of the soil. It would also improve the position of those miserable men who tilled the soil, and who lived in houses in some of which they should not think of putting their cattle. Though the process might be slow, it would improve the condition of multitudes, and would, in the end, command general approval. Without saying a word offensive to any class whatever, without saying one word which seemed to sanction any of those, if he might be allowed so to call them, foolish schemes which had been supported in this country at other times, he did desire to see a more natural law prevail with regard to landed tenure in this country. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
MR. H. R. BRAND, in seconding the Resolution, said, he agreed with his hon. Friend who had just sat down, that the present state of the law as regarded strict settlements of land discouraged the investment of capital in agriculture. He thought that certain events which had lately taken place had made that question one of very great importance; he alluded, of course, to the exertions which had been made by the agricultural labourers of Warwickshire and other counties to improve their condition, and to bring before the minds of all those who were employed in the cultivation of

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the soil the necessity of doing their utmost to raise such increased produce from the soil as, while it enabled them to obtain for themselves ample profit, would secure better wages to the labourer. He did not think that anyone could say that the Motion of his hon. Friend was a revolutionary one; nor could it be said, as was erroneously said by an hon. Member last year, that his hon. Friend had uttered a diatribe against landlords. There might be differences of opinion as to the extent and nature of the evil which his hon. Friend proposed to remedy; there might also be differences of opinion as to the reforms which he had proposed in that House; but he (Mr. Brand) would venture to say that there was not a single Member in the House who, if he had read the evidence, or a considerable part of the evidence, taken by the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture, and had read the Report of the Commissioners, would say that there was not reason, and very good reason, why the whole of our landed system should be radically reformed. What was the evil of that system? In a few words, it was the discouragement which that system offered to the employment of capital in land both by the owner and by the occupier. The owner of land was so restricted by settlement that he had not sufficient capital for the improvement of his land; while the tenant-farmer, on the other hand, had not sufficient security for his capital. That state of things, of course, affected the position of the labourer, because it reduced the demand for labour in the market. It had been stated lately by the Earl of Leicester that the soil of this country was capable of producing a very much larger crop, and that all that was necessary to make it produce a much larger crop was to make the landlords more free agents, and to give to the tenants the security of a lease, or the equivalent of a lease. In many instances landlords were unable by want of capital to effect permanent improvements which they were willing enough to make apart entirely from improvements of the soil. It was his intention at the beginning of the Session to call the attention of the House to the Report of the Commissioners, and to move that it was the duty of the State to give further facilities to owners of limited estates to raise
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money by charging their land with the view of improving the dwellings of their labourers; but he came to the conclusion that as land laws were really at the bottom of the whole evil, we were beginning at the wrong end; and he saw no way out of the difficulty but by giving landlords further powers for settling their estates. They might be employed for several Sessions in sanitary legislation, and such legislation would depend very much for its success upon the manner in which Parliament might deal with this kindred subject, for as the law at present stood owners, when enjoined to improve their property, might excuse themselves on the ground that they were so restricted by settlements and limitations that they had not the power of doing so. As to the question of the agricultural labourers, it might be said that their condition was improving day by day; that their cottages were getting better; and that there was no occasion for the reform that had been proposed. There were none so blind as those who would not see. If hon. Gentlemen were not convinced by what they had seen lately transpiring in the country they would not be convinced by the facts stated in the Report of the recently-appointed Sanitary Commission; for that Report, speaking of the condition of the cottages of agricultural labourers in Norfolk, Essex, Sussex, and Gloucestershire, alleged that the cottages in one county were miserable, in another deplorable, in a third detestable, and in a fourth a disgrace to a Christian community. In other cases it was said that there was need of improvement. It was also stated that the cottages in Dorsetshire were worse than in any county that had been visited, except Shropshire. No doubt these were the worst cases, but they needed a remedy. Elsewhere, no doubt, the case was often different, and in many cases the landlords had provided proper abodes, but when cottages had been erected by mere speculators there was often very wide room for improvement. The Commissioners, while acknowledging the good service that had been done by many landlords, stated that in many dwellings the common decencies of life could not be observed. It was sometimes said that a great many of the agricultural labourers would rather live in dirty hovels than in decent houses. He denied that statement altogether. But

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even if it were the case, it would be our duty to endeavour to bring them into a better state of mind with regard to this question. But what was the fact? In many parts of this country agricultural labourers had been driven into towns because they could not get proper accommodation in rural districts. Many farmers in his neighbourhood were willing to pay their landlords 4 per cent for the erection of cottages where necessary. Among various erroneous statements which had been made in connection with this subject it had been said that all these improvements could be made under the present law, because the landlord or limited owner could give a lease to a rich and wealthy occupier who would make the necessary improvements. But from his acquaintance with farmers he did not think there would be many of them who would be such fools as to invest their capital in permanent improvements unless they got ample security for it, and if they got ample security for erecting the improvements they would in point of fact become the real owners themselves. Then it was said that the landlords, speaking generally, were not willing to give leases to their tenants, as they wished to keep the power and influence belonging to the property in their own hands; but it would be an absurd thing, even with leases, to expect the tenant to erect permanent improvements. It was also said that there was a power of sale and of settlement, and that was true; but everything depended on the form of the settlement, and if there were nothing in it to prohibit the owner from exercising the power of sale, he could exercise the power unquestionably, but then he had to reinvest the capital which he derived from the sale in land again, so that by exercising the power of sale he really would not get the command of any capital to employ in improvements. Another statement made was that a limited owner could borrow money under the provisions of an Act of Parliament; but on what terms would he get the money? He would have to pay 5 per cent interest under the Act to the company of whom he borrowed, and then he would have to pay back the principle in yearly instalments extending over 25 years. For every cottage costing £150 the landlord would have to pay over £7 a-year for 25 years, and as at the out-
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side he would only get back from the labourer £4 or £5 a-year, he would be at a dead loss of £2 or £3 a-year at Least. The only way of settling the question was to restrict settlements within proper bounds, making the owner practically a free agent in the disposition of his property. He thought it would be very unwise to continue the present system, which allowed people to live on land which they could not improve or do justice to—it was a system that had been endured so long because it tended to keep old properties intact, and to keep up old families. But the old families in this country did not require to be kept up by artificial means, and the members of those families had no desire to be dependent on anything else than their own exertions and the exercise of their own virtues, and he would therefore ask whether the well-being of the people was to be sacrificed merely from a fancied notion of keeping up the aristocracy of the country? The evil that existed at present was a very grievous one, and it was an evil which had been the growth of years. The landlords had tried remedies—they had done a great work, and were willing to do more, but they could not remedy the evil entirely, and the only way in which Parliament could assist them and extricate them from the difficulty in which they were placed was by restricting settlements, and making those landlords the real owners of their property. He thought the Resolution before the House should be supported, for he could not conceive how it was possible for the ingenuity of man to devise any system more calculated to bring ruin and misery upon families than the present system, under which a young man of 21 could, if he chose, get vast sums of money by selling his reversion, and which further discouraged the application of capital to land by the tenant for life who had several chileren, because he felt that every sixpence he spent upon the land was put into the pocket of his eldest son and taken away from the money which he would otherwise be able to leave to his younger children. He knew that there was a strong legal and a strong landed interest against the Resolution, and yet he believed that in a short time the reforms which were now advocated from pure justice and necessity would be carried out.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That, in the opinion of this House, the present state of the Law as to the entail and strict settlement of land discourages the investment of capital in the development of agriculture, to the great injury of all classes of the people, and increases the complication of titles, and the expense and delay incident to the transfer of real estate."—(Mr. William Fowler.)
MR. C. S. READsaid, he would leave to legal gentlemen the question of the expense of transfer, and would only deal with the allegation that entails discouraged the investment of capital in the development of agriculture. He was glad to hear that the hon. Gentleman had no objection to large estates. He himself objected to very large estates, for a nobleman with property in different parts of the three kingdoms could not reside everywhere, and the welfare of the country required resident gentry. He agreed with the hon. Gentleman that an increased number of landowners would be a Conservative measure, for though peasant proprietors were not adapted to this country, they had been Conservative enough to save France from utter destruction. The hon. Gentleman seemed to forget that the present system saved a very large number of small estates from being absorbed in large properties, for many of the yeomanry had land entailed as strictly as that of a Duke. In his own case a small plot of land was tied up in this way. The desire to increase the number of yeomen was all very well; but the truth was the system did not pay, and a man of limited means was much better off as a large tenant than as a small owner. As to tenants for life, they were able to grant leases, certainly with the consent of the heir; and in default of that, the Court of Chancery, on the affidavit of a competent valuer, would grant a good agricultural lease. With regard to cottages, an unfortunate regulation of the Inclosure Commissioners prevented money from being more generally borrowed for this purpose. They granted no loans for the repair or enlargement of cottages, and they insisted on every new cottage having three bedrooms, whereas it would be sufficient if half the cottages had that number. Much that had been said on the condition of the labourer had nothing to do with the question. He should like to know the name of the Commissioner who
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thought that labourers were better off 40 or 50 years ago, for though his own experience did not go quite so far back he was sure that during the last 30 years their condition had slowly and gradually improved. The hon. Gentleman had referred to the county of Northumberland, in which he stated the agricultural labourers were peculiarly well off; but it was a curious fact that in that county, and also in Scotland, the agricultural labourers were for the most part paid in kind. ["No, no!"] He was quite certain that that was the case in Northumberland, and he knew that it was the case in some districts in Scotland; and Her Majesty's Government had brought in a Bill which, if extended to agricultural labourers, would much militate against their interest in those parts of the country. The condition of the agricultural labourer in Northumberland had been held up as an example and a pattern to the rest of the kingdom; but was it not the fact that estates were as much tied up in that county as in any other part of the country? The hon. Member had given them a harrowing account of the state of agricultural labourers' cottages in many districts; but had he compared the condition of the agricultural labourers inhabiting them with that of the town labourer dwelling with his family in a single room for which he frequently paid 2s. a-week? He rejoiced to hear from the hon. Gentleman that many large estates were well farmed, and that a sufficient number of the best description of cottages had been built upon them. But when the hon. Member went on to say that there was not a sufficient quantity of land in the market, he could not endorse that opinion, because he agreed with the statement of Lord Derby that there was always plenty of land offered for sale. It might be true that the land so offered for sale was frequently in large estates; but owing to the beneficial operations of various land societies, who purchased such properties and afterwards divided them into small portions, the poor man could now purchase a small plot of ground whenever he could afford to buy it. Before the institution of such societies no such chance was offered to the man of humble means, whose only chance then was to squat on a piece of common land, and, after building his mud but upon it, to become a sort of copyholder at the

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will of the lord of the manor. It was extraordinary that in these debates no mention had been made of the building societies which, in an unobtrusive manner, were doing an immense deal of good. He had been asked, how could labourers become possessed of their cottages? Belonging, as he did, to a building society in Norwich, he thought he could answer that question. If a labourer in that city desired to purchase his cottage for which he was paying a rent of 2s. a-week, and which was valued at £75, the building society would advance him £70 upon the property to enable him to effect a purchase of it, and he paying them 3s. 9d. per week for 10 years, at the end of that time the property became his own. He wished to know what the hon. Member who seconded the Resolution meant when he said that the agricultural counties did not produce half as much as they could. The only question was whether it would pay to grow as much again as was produced at present even if they could. It was very easy to bring up the cultivation of land to a certain point; but it was often very difficult to go beyond it. Mr. Caird, the Commissioner for The Times, who wrote the telling articles that appeared in that journal on English agriculture, having visited the farm of Mr. Hudson, of Castleacre—a gentleman of great experience in agricultural matters—in 1848, just after the date of the establishment of Free Trade, and again in 1868, was informed by Mr. Hudson in the latter year that he grew rather less barley and only just a little more wheat than he had done 20 years before. Therefore, he maintained that when land was fairly farmed it was very difficult to increase its productive powers to any great extent. Turning to another point, he thought that there were many objectionable tenures which ought to be got rid of altogether. Nothing could be more detrimental to good farming than that the lands of Corporations, the Church, and Universities should be held by 21 years' leases, renewable every seven years upon the payment of a fine, because under them a good tenant was sure to pay upon his own improvements. Another tenure under which lands in East Anglia were extensively held was that of copyhold. Copyhold with fine certain was a very easy-going sort of a tenure; but it was quite different when
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the fine was arbitrary. It was a common practice in his part of the world for manors to be bought up by very wide-awake lawyers, who forced the tenants to enfranchise their estates at great cost. The law relating to copyholds was such as could be understood only by lawyers. In a case he knew of personally, where the owner of an estate of 300 acres, 50 of which were copyhold, was unable to point out the exact portion of the land he so held, the lord of the manor seized the best 50 acres on his property, and by worrying him whenever he cut down a tree, or dug any gravel, or made any bricks, forced him to enfranchise his copyhold estate at a heavy sacrifice. It might be asked, what had that to do with the question? It had a deal to do with it, because it affected the transfer of small plots of copyhold land. In 1843, there was an inclosure of land on a certain common in Norfolk, and a small plot of a third of an acre was allotted to a relative of his. It was all hills and holes, and covered with furze bushes, the value of it being about 1s. a-year. It was grubbed, levelled, and well cultivated, and became good garden ground. About 1866 the land came to him as heir at law, and as the occupier wished to buy it, so as to join it to his own little garden, he offered it to him, when, to his astonishment, the lord of the manor came down and said it was copyhold, though he had never exercised any right whatever. He took the opinion of two lawyers on the point, and was told that the copyhold rights of the lord of the manor were not barred by the lapse of time. The upshot of the affair was that he sold the land as copyhold. It was valued at £18, and the whole cost of the enfranchisement was £28 6s.—of which sum he had to pay for admission £5 11 s. 6d., and the compensation to the steward, who had no vested interest whatever in his fees, and could have been turned out of office by the lord of the manor, amounted to £5 18 s. 6d.. So much for copyholds. There should be, he thought, a general Act passed to provide that all copyhold tenure should be done away with, and in case a tenant could not pay for the enfranchisement of the land, it should be commuted into a rent-charge. He also wished to direct the attention of the House to the question of rates. In the case of the value of an estate

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being improved by the expenditure of capital upon it, the rates on the land were often doubled in amount. He quite agreed that something ought to be done to simplify the transfer of land. The multitude of deeds and nonsense connected with the matter was enough to frighten any sane man. They might reform their laws; but could they reform their lawyers? They could not alter their lawyers' charges. Since he had been in that House they had passed a Bankruptcy Bill, which was to do great good; but they could not prevent the lawyers from eating the oyster and dividing the shells to the litigants. The man of whom he was most of all afraid was the family lawyer. What with settlements, mortgages, and entails, he was a most formidable person. He was the man who drew all their leases, and he put such old-fashioned restrictions and conditions into them that the majority of the farmers did not read the leases, and if they did they would not know what they meant. The family lawyer very frequently had the entire management of the estate. He might live in London, or in the county town, and then he had, perhaps, some superannuated butler or old gamekeeper to act as his sub-agent, instead of employing some good and thoroughly practical farmer in that capacity. They wanted a reform in that respect. But the greatest drawback was that referred to by the hon. Gentleman when he talked of the insecurity of the tenant's capital. He did not wish to go into the question of leases; but he was confident that the simple floating capital of the tenant in this country in the ordinary occupation of his farm was something like £1 an acre—he meant something that he would be dispossessed of at a year's notice. He was not now speaking of draining, ditching, road-making, or any other permanent improvements, but simply of the good cultivation of the land. There were about 16,000,000 of acres of ploughed land in England and Wales, and he ventured to say that not one-half of that was protected either by lease or by the custom of the country. So that they had there a sum of no less than £8,000,000 of capital employed only in the cultivation of arable land which was entirely at the mercy of the landlord and subject to six months' notice to quit. The hon. Member, in introducing that
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question, alluded to a case in Scotland—that of Mr. Hope, of Fenton Barns, one of the very best farmers in that country, or in the world; but that was very different from the case of the farmer in England. Mr. Hope farmed under a lease; and at the expiration of a 20 years' lease it was only right that the landlord, if he liked, should possess his own. They must not, as far as regarded England, think of fixity of tenure. All they wanted was compensation for unexhausted improvements. There were other matters, such as the game laws and the malt tax—at least in East Anglia. There was also the minor point that he had brought before the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other night—the heavy stamp duty on agricultural leases. All those were discouragements to the investment of capital in agriculture. In conclusion, without wishing to express any opinion further on the subject of entail, he thought there was a great number of other agencies which were more destructive to the interest of the tenant, and which prevented capital from being employed more generally in agriculture.
MR. WREN-HOSKYNSsaid, he was always glad to agree with the hon. Member who had just spoken on agricultural topics; but he could not concur with his remarks on the question now more immediately under discussion. He regretted that the hon. Gentleman had gone so far from that immediate subject, because it was one of most pressing interest in this country. He had said on a former occasion, and now repeated, that he did not regard that as a party question; because, if it were brought before the attention of the landowners of this country as it deserved to be, he was sure they would see that no class was more interested than they were in its settlement. The remark made by Lord Derby that there was plenty of land on sale in this country, had caused him much pain when he read it while he was abroad; because, although there was much that was true and excellent in that noble Lord's observations, yet he spoke from a certain position which almost disabled him from seeing the effects of the entail of land from the point of view of those who were virtually divorced from the soil in England. It was quite true that in every newspaper plenty of land was offered for sale; but let any man

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who had £500 or £1,000 to invest go and bid for a portion of land which that sum would command, and he would find what a life he would have for the next six or twelve months, all on account of the simple nod of the head in an auction room. Great practical difficulty was experienced in the attainment of land by a purchaser on a small scale in this country, and the evils arising from that would hardly be believed by those who had not carefully studied its indirect as well as its direct results. It had been said that four-fifths of the Government stocks were held in sums under £2,000, and he believed that in four years an amount equal to the whole National Debt passed from hand to hand by transactions in the Funds. But if in the transfer of those sums under £2,000 in the Funds from seller to buyer, difficulties and obstructions were encountered analogous to those experienced in regard to the transfer of land, the consequence would be that the whole of the small fundholders would be extinguished, and all the funded property of the country must go into the hands of the large fundholders. The difficulty and expense of making a title to a small piece of land deprived this country of the most valuable class of small owners of land. He did not desire to see any forcible intrusion of peasant proprietors; but the yeoman cultivators of former times, had they continued to the present day, would have corresponded in point of advancement to the large farmers spoken of by the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Read) as most valuable employers of labour. The man who cultivated his own land, which he could leave to his children, went into the investment as nobody else would think of doing if he only held from another person, or from year to year. Therefore, they would have greater investments in land if there were a greater number of landholders. Again, nothing could be more advantageous to the holders of land than that their number should be increased, and not be so limited as that the public could make them the subject of special remark. In regard to commercial transactions, the simplicity and skill of this country were quoted in all the markets of the world; but in reference to the transfer of land we were behind the whole of the rest of Europe. It was wonderful that conveyancers, with all their skill, could not devise some
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other mode of passing the land from hand to hand than the expensive and cumbrous one of deeds, which recited all the births, deaths, and marriages, mortgages, dowers, and other charges which had occurred or been made from the time the property was first acquired. It was natural that a man should settle his property upon his son or grandson; but it was unjustifiable to extend settlements to unborn offspring. He knew that this system was supported by the legal profession; but it rested on no statute, and simply on the practice of conveyancers and the decisions of Judges. It produced great moral and social mischief, and if landowners, who often manifested a desire to do all the good they could, were aware of the effects of the power of extended entails and settlements, they would be anxious for a modification of them. He agreed with the proposal so ably advocated by Mr. Arthur Hobhouse, that the power should be retained as to lives in being, and the term of 21 years beyond should be abolished. He could see no reasonable objection to settlements for lives in being, and as long as the fee-simple could be dealt with within the existing generation the object of the proposed reform would be met. As to the efforts to facilitate the transfer of land, they were necessarily fruitless as long as land was rendered an untransferable article by 60, 70, or possibly 90 years' old charges, which had to be thoroughly examined prior to a transfer. Lawyers seemed to regard land as if its only use was for settlements and entails, just as Mr. Robert Sawyer, in Pickwick, never saw a well-turned arm or handsome leg but he looked on it in the light of a subject for amputation. In framing marriage settlements they went the utmost length, as if it was the aim to be kept in view, just as a tailor made a coat as fashionable as he could; so that almost every marriage among the upper classes was attended with a settlement of land on lives in being and on children who might or might not be born within 21 years afterwards. In many cases there was no issue of the marriage; so that a long, wasteful, and expensive settlement merely prevented the sale of the property and the application of any capital to its improvement. The present law operated practically to create perpetuities throughout the country. That was a thing which the old law of England

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and the old lawyers would not allow. A life owner now had no interest in registering the fee-simple: he was merely an annuitant. Let him have absolute power over the land, and be trusted as the commercial community were trusted, and they would see a very different investment of capital in the soil, and they would no longer hear complaints of landlords for not doing that which under the present system they could not be expected to do. Other countries had within recent years abolished entails, which interfered, especially in Prussia, with the advancement of agriculture. It was said that we were nevertheless the best farmers in Europe—which he should be sorry to deny—but our system tended to the "flogging up" crops, whereas a system of shorter entails would lead to a greater number of moderate properties, the absolute possession of owners anxious to benefit those around them. There was a close connection, remote as it might seem at first sight, between the tenure of land and the condition of the labourer, and the reforms which he advocated would tend to remedy the absence of improvements and the outcries of the labourers in Warwickshire and elsewhere. There was a feeling out-of-doors hostile to the landowners, and he would urge them to prevent this question from becoming a dangerous one by accepting reforms which would benefit the community, and which, according to Mr. Caird, would add five or ten years' purchase to the value of their property.
MR. GREGORYinvited the House to bring back their minds to the wording of the Motion, and to abstain from discussing so much that was irrelevant to it. He admitted that too much complication, delay, and expense, at present existed in the transfer of land, and he had made an effort to remedy it by the introduction of a Bill which he hoped would receive the favourable consideration of the House on its second reading. He did not think that the complications, delays, and expenses complained of arose from the entail of land, but from other causes, and he could assert from his own practice that it was equally as great in estates in fee-simple as in estates subject to entail. He was at a loss to understand how the law of entail was a discouragement of agriculture by the occupiers, and how they were affected by it, and the Mover and Seconder of
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the Resolution had felt this difficulty, because they had wandered from the real point of the Resolution to the state of agriculture and labourers' cottages. The law of entail was a subject well worthy of consideration; but how had those hon. Gentlemen treated it? They had quoted from Reports, newspapers, and agricultural writers, the bad state of cottage accommodation, and which, he admitted, existed; but unless it could be shown that it existed in a greater degree on entailed estates than on others, it had nothing to do with the question; and, indeed, it was said the evil did not exist on large estates, but on small properties that were bought up by speculative builders, and which, of course, were held in fee-simple. He was not prepared to admit that the labourers in Northumberland and Scotland were superior to those of the Southern counties; but if it were so it had nothing to do with the subject, because the law of entail was quite as stringent in the former as in the latter case. He could not help thinking that a great deal of misapprehension existed as to the nature of the law of entail. It was, generally speaking, a settlement made on a man for his own life with remainder to his first and other sons successively in tail; but, on the first son coming of age, the father and the son could deal with the property as they thought proper; or, if the tenant for life died, the son had that power; and in nearly all cases the entail was cut off and the estate was re-settled. He maintained, from personal experience, that cottages were not in better condition, that tenure was not more secure, or the labourers better cared for than on entailed estates during the minority of the owner; for this reason—that in the hands of trustees with large incomes to deal with, great improvements could be effected in drainage, buildings, and other matters. It had been argued that the tenant for life had no interest in the maintenance of the estate; but was it to be credited that a man would be so careless of the welfare of those around him as to do no-thing for the maintenance of the property? The Legislature had provided ample powers, by which a life tenant would be enabled to improve the property, and upon easy terms. Again, it was said that the land was tied up and rendered unmarketable; but the Court of Chancery, on the application of the tenant for life, had the

1019
power of ordering a sale, or of offering leases up to a term of 99 years. In most settlements a power of sale was contained, and that power was constantly acted upon. Instead of the statement being true that it was difficult to purchase land, there was always more land in the market than purchasers could be found for. He held in his hand a list of properties for sale, principally in the Southern counties, and he found that those properties of different kinds and in various lots amounted in the aggregate to 100,000 acres. He had no doubt that, if the land to be sold in the Northern counties and in Scotland and Ireland were added, the amount of land on sale would be at least double. Moreover, it appeared from the same document that during the three months of the present year—and they were months not favourable for the sale of land—the sum of £1,000,000 had been invested in the purchase of land; and if the whole of the kingdom were included in the calculation, the sum might be put at £2,000,000. He thought that statement would convince the House that there was not such difficulty as had been described in purchasing land. It should also be remembered that land was to a certain extent bought for residential purposes and for enjoyment; it therefore commanded a fancy price. The purchase of land also involved a considerable outlay upon it. The purchaser must have capital to improve and cultivate it—to maintain the buildings and fences upon it. Some rich men might covet works of art which were national property in many instances; but however anxious they might be to lay out money on them, they could not be bought. So it was with land. Parties held it who did not wish to sell it, whatever power they might have over it. But there was plenty of other land that could always be purchased, whether for the purpose of enjoyment or investment. There was another difficulty in dealing with this matter as it was now proposed to do—a difficulty which the Mover himself seemed to feel. It was this—that if they abolished the law of entail as regarded land they would put it on a different footing from personalty. He entirely gave up all provisions for accumulation; but they formed no part of the law of entail, and applied as much to personality as to realty. As regarded the
1020
settlement of land, there was no reason why it should be put on any other basis than personalty. If it was put on any other footing they would commit a gross injustice. They admitted that the settlement of personalty was desirable to provide for a daughter against an improvident husband, and for children against an improvident father, and was it reasonable that because the settler happened to hold land he should not have the same control over it? It would be manifestly wrong and unjust to say so. To put land on an inferior footing to personalty was an injustice they dare not commit.
MR. DENTrather regretted that his hon. Friend who introduced this Motion had mixed it up so much with the cottages and the condition of labourers; but he cordially went along with him in the Motion itself, because he believed that the present state of the law did very much to interfere with the investment of property and the due development of agriculture. He also agreed with what had been said by the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Read), that the tenant of land had no satisfactory security for the investment of his capital, and that if the land was cultivated as it might be the produce would be nearly doubled. The present state of the law very much cramped the outlay of capital on the land. Even where relief was given by the Court of Chancery there was always an order made for re-investment in land. The sum realized by partial sale was not allowed to be laid out in the improvement of the estate. No doubt money might be borrowed from companies, but that was always attended with serious expenses; and the tenant for life had to pay 6 or 7 per cent when he could only get 4 per cent from his tenants. The hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory) had spoken as if all the entails that existed arose merely from marriage settlements, and for the interest of the tenant in tail till he had obtained the age of 21; but there were many cases where property had been left by will. His own impression was that in many cases property having been left for two generations remained in entail till the grandson became of age. Cases were in his knowledge where property had come down to father and to son with charges upon it, where the father would have been a better man

1021
if he had been able to sell. He did not think that landlords would get up to support the existing system. He cordially supported the Motion.
LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, he hoped the settlement of this question would be pressed strongly on the Government as one of the most important which could engage their attention. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) had told them in his great Manchester speech, that sanitary legislation was the question of the hour; but how were landowners to deal with the question when they had only a life-interest in their estates? The House had been told by the hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory) that there was no connection between the law of settlement and the miserable cottages of which so much had been said. But a few years ago a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the condition of women and children employed in agriculture, and their Report was not based on anonymous statements. They founded it on the Reports of their Assistant Commissioners, who were gentlemen thoroughly acquainted with the condition of our agricultural districts, such as the son of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley), a leading agriculturist of Northumberland, and others; and they all, as with one consent, called attention to the subject now before the House. Mr. Tremenheere said it had been shown that the miserable housing of the peasantry was to a large extent traceable to the system of strict settlement. If the hon. Member for East Sussex had not demurred to this view he should not have thought it would have been doubted; for how could a man who succeeded to a heavily encumbered estate, which must go to his eldest son, who had to maintain a position which was greater in appearance than in reality, and who had to provide for younger sons, go into an "expenditure such as would be required for the building of cottages." The average number of cottages built by the associations which had been alluded to was 127 a-year, and it was idle to suppose that they could supply the great want which existed. One cause which made a speedy attention to this subject requisite was the strike in Warwickshire and the general rise of wages in the country. They
1022
all rejoiced to see the rise in wages, and hoped it might be permanent; some, however, feared it might not be permanent. A farmer was in a different position from any other employer of labour in this respect—that he could with little detriment to himself diminish the amount of labour he employed. The high price of meat was inducing farmers to lay down land in grass, and if wages rose it was probable more land would be so laid down; thus less labour would be required and wages would fall. Some said this might be prevented by a fall in rents. He should not wish to maintain rents at the cost of fallen wages; but if his hope of a permanent rise in wages depended on a fall in rents he should feel that his hope was very small. If rents fell, the land least worthy of cultivation would go uncultivated, and that would diminish the amount of agricultural employment. Neither did he think, as he had seen suggested, that by abolition of the tenant means might be obtained for the rise in wages; for the best cultivation was obtained through the tenant farmer giving his own time to it, and working hard. The rich would not do it, and small cultivators could not employ good machinery. The tenant farmer was practically in the same position as if he borrowed money for the purchase of the land he cultivated at the lowest rate of interest and employed all his own capital in the cultivation of land. We could not, then, raise wages either by diminishing rents or by abolishing the farmer, but we might do it by the increased application of skill and capital to the land; and because he believed that was interfered with by the law of settlement he should heartily support the Motion.
SIR FRANCIS GOLDSMIDsaid, he agreed in a great degree with what had been said by the hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory). He thought the injurious effect of the settlement of land was extremely exaggerated by most of the Gentlemen who had spoken on the question, and they had attributed the evils which existed to the wrong cause. For instance, they had been told that the want of good cottages arose from the entail of land; but the obvious and immediate reason was that good cottages produced no adequate or immediate return for the capital invested. If they had fee-simple owners, these would not

1023
provide good cottages unless they were influenced by benevolence or a wish to improve the condition of their labourers. He had occupied a hired house in one part of the country, and there was an untidy village near. On inquiring to whom it belonged he found it belonged to a number of small owners, who did not feel the same responsibility as the owner of a large estate. There would not have been an owner of a large estate who would not have been ashamed to own such an untidy village. There was not one settlement in a hundred which did not contain a provision enabling the tenant for life to grant leases, and therefore the small number of leases must be attributed to the unwillingness of persons to take them. Those who denounced the law of settlement should remember that the attachment of an old family to their estate led them to do more for it than would an owner who bought an estate simply as an investment. He was rather favourable to simplification of titles by making the law with respect to land similar to what it was with respect to personalty, so that estates might be disposed of like stocks.
MR. DISRAELI: I will not trespass on the House more than a few minutes. I rise for one purpose only—namely, to correct a statement which has been made by the hon. Gentleman who introduced this subject, and which, from the great importance he attributed to the circumstances and the frequent occasions on which it has been referred to during the course of this debate, has exercised a considerable influence on the opinion of hon. Gentlemen. The hon. Member for Cambridge has proposed a Resolution in which he asks the House to pronounce an opinion unfavourable to the present laws of settlement of land, and he seemed to found his argument in favour of this Resolution on the condition of the agricultural labourer generally, which appeared to me to be introduced somewhat unnecessarily with respect to the main subject. The condition of the agricultural labourers was deplored mainly on account of the disgraceful and insufficient residences they in habited, which was attributed to the settlement of land; and, in order to make out his case completely, the hon. Member was furnished with what I suppose was considered the worst instance of the
1024
habitations of the peasantry of England—it was in the county of Buckingham. The hon. Member entered into a full detail of this instance—described with picturesque language and with great minuteness a row of cottages in a part of a district of Buckinghamshire, and I think all who listened to his description must have agreed that they were habitations fit for no order of the Queen's subjects. But I was, perhaps, more aware of the circumstances than some who listened to him, because I thought I had read that description in a newspaper yesterday. In pointing out the authority of the hon. Gentleman I do not wish to impugn in any way the accuracy of that statement. The statement was perfectly correct. I happen to have some knowledge of that district, and I think no language could do justice to the disgraceful and deplorable condition of those residences. An hon. Gentleman behind me, who was extremely indignant at what he probably considered an exaggerated statement, and who wished to relieve the landed interest from having any unjust imputation charged against them demanded the name of the landlord; but the hon. Gentleman did not satisfy his curiosity. Now, I can say from my own experience that there is no landlord of that property. And in answer to those who want to know on what estate these disgraceful dwellings are to be found, I beg to state that there is no estate on which they are situate. About 50 years ago this row of miserable dwellings was erected on a waste by a tradesman of a neighbouring town, a gentleman, I believe, of highly Liberal opinions, who has since arrived at even municipal honours, and who is, I doubt not, one of the strongest opponents of the land laws. I think that when an hon. Member comes forward and proposes a Resolution of this sweeping character upon a subject of such importance, and when he founds his Resolution upon a general view of the condition of the agricultural labourers of the country, particularly with regard to their residences, and brings forward as his illustrative case the one to which I have referred, it would have been just as well if the hon. Gentleman had previously ascertained whether these miserable dwellings were really the consequence of the laws of settlement of land, that they really

1025
did belong to a landlord, and that they really had been built on an estate. I believe the landlords in that particular district of Buckinghamshire have done their duty to their tenantry, and that it is a part of England rather remarkable for the excellence of the dwellings of the labouring classes. Therefore, I must take this opportunity of repelling the unjust imputation, and of expressing my regret that the hon. Gentleman should have taken a case which did not fit in any single particular as the foundation of his argument in behalf of the policy he wishes us to adopt. I will not now enter into the general question of the condition of the peasantry. It is a question well deserving the attention of Parliament; but it ought not to be brought on in this by-way, with which it is not intimately or completely connected; nor am I disposed at this moment at all to enter into a subject which requires a very full investigation. It is the fashion now to find a solution of some of the anomalies or difficulties of our agricultural life by proposing that some particular classes should be abolished. Some say it is the landlords who ought to be abolished. To-night we have heard it suggested that we might get rid of the farmers; and some have said that there may be such revolutions in the cultivation of land that even agricultural labourers may be superseded. For my own part, I think this subject ought not to be considered merely in a financial point of view, for there are social considerations connected with it of great importance; and I do not despair, with prudence and temper on the part of Parliament, of being able to retain all these classes. I have always understood that the middle class is the boast of our civilization and the bulwark of progress in the country, and I look upon the farmers of England as not the least valuable portion of the middle class. I must repeat my opinion—and I shall be ready whenever the opportunity occurs, without, I trust, wearying the House too much, of maintaining the opinion I have elsewhere expressed—that, viewing the question largely, and going fully into it, it can be shown that the condition of the agricultural labourer in this country generally has been one, if not of rapid, yet of sure progress; and, if that be the case, I do not think we ought to despair of their future being improved. I agree
1026
with the noble Lord who has just spoken, I do not think the rent of land is in such danger as some suppose. This should be a subject of general congratulation, for we have not yet, I suppose, arrived at the conclusion that rent is a public evil; and if we should destroy it, we should much diminish the resources of the country. I hope the House will not agree to the Resolution of the hon. Gentleman. It has been introduced to our notice to-night on a plea which is not very germane to the question we are asked to give an opinion upon; and, in particular, I again object to the hon. Gentleman having brought forward a Resolution of this general and sweeping character, founded upon a very partial view of the condition of the agricultural world, and that view mainly based upon what he deemed to be a triumphant illustration, but which I think I have shown was altogether a deceptive one.
MR. GLADSTONE: It appears to me that my hon. Friends the Proposer and Seconder of the Motion may be defended against any censure for the part they have taken in referring to the condition of the agricultural labourer, not as the sole topic, but as one of the topics which has to be considered in connection with the subject. Without going the whole length of the arguments adduced in those able speeches, and agreeing very much indeed with my noble Friend behind me (Lord Frederick Cavendish), I think it is impossible not to admit some degree of connection between the two subjects. I do not, however, wish to enter on the question at the present time in a controversial point of view, and I am very glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli) state that he thinks the matter of this Resolution deserves serious consideration. My hon. Friend has, I hope, proposed his Motion with an intention rather of eliciting the opinions of hon. Members upon it, than of soliciting the House for a judgment on a subject of so much importance. [Mr. KINNAIRD: No, no!] My hon. Friend the Member for Perth is of an opposite opinion; but I do not think that four hours' discussion is sufficient to dispose of a question which involves so much complication and so many large and difficult considerations, and with respect to which there is nothing easier than to arrive at an expression of

1027
opinion, but there is nothing more difficult than to carry to a successful issue the result of that conclusion. It is not in a hostile spirit to the general view of my hon. Friend that I desire that whatever we do may be worthily and fitly done, and that I think the matter requires further consideration. Let me remind the House of the manner in which the question stands at this time in respect to the entire subject of the land law. That question divides itself in the main into three branches—first of all, that which relates to the transfer of land; secondly, that which relates to the succession to the land in cases where the succession follows the course of law, and is not determined by the will of the testator; and, thirdly, that which relates to entail, settlement, and limited ownership in general. I venture to submit with some confidence to the House that on the first two of these subjects we are already in arrear, and that it is most expedient to hasten forward our deliberations upon them. We ought not to express abstract opinions in regard to the third branch of the question until we have done something towards the redemption of our pledges upon the first and second. There is the question of the transfer of land, on which, as far as principle is concerned, unanimity of opinion prevails in this House, and yet even with regard to that question we have not practically made the progress so much to be desired. Then there is the question of intestate successions to land. Upon that important matter the Government are under specific pledges to the House to deal with the subject, and they greatly regret that they have not been able to fulfil the expectations which were raised in reference to it. This is due, however, to the pressure of Public Business; but I think it is almost necessary for the credit of the Government and of the House that we should proceed with a Bill on these subjects, and make some progress with them before we proceed to open other subjects, not in a practical way, but in the shape of a mere enunciation of an abstract opinion. Still, I think my hon. Friend may fairly wish to know what is the general view of the Government on the subject of his Motion. For my own part I will say, in the first place, that I heartily concur in the opinion given by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, that the entire subject
1028
of the laws of entail, settlement, and limited ownership, does demand the early and serious consideration of Parliament. I do not think this is the proper time at which to deliver an opinion upon this subject in the most definite form, because I do not think those who hold office under the Crown ought to be called upon to state their opinions definitely upon any subject until the time has arrived when practical effect can be given to the views which they pronounce. I am not one of those who think that the adoption of the views of my hon. Friend would produce a great or fundamental effect upon the general distribution of landed property in this country. We have at present a system under which land is held generally in large properties, and the tendency towards such properties is increasing. No doubt there are certain counteracting causes at work; but, as an hon. Gentleman opposite justly remarked, it is difficult to believe that it will be possible for the valuable class known as the yeomanry of this country to hold their ground as proprietors of the soil. It would appear that there are causes in operation which must gradually and gently, but with considerable certainty, transform them into tenants and occupiers, instead of owners of the land. It is not the custom of primogeniture, or the law of entail or of settlement that determines the holding of the land in the manner to which I have referred; but it is an economical law far more powerful than any statute or any custom, which, taken in connection with the constitution of English society and the limited area of English soil, places it beyond the power of man—at least within those safe and wise limits which usually bound the legislation of this country—to make any fundamental alteration in the state of things under which land is generally held in large quantities. There is another fundamental portion of the system under which land is cultivated in this country which is likewise independent of law and custom, and is determined by economical considerations, and by the operation of which the land is chiefly cultivated not by owners who are occupiers, but by occupiers who are not owners. This is a state of things which may or may not be desirable, but which seems to me to be, at present at any rate, impossible to change. This is a question of very great importance and

1029
one upon which opinions which I deeply regret are reported to be held in some quarters. There are those who say that not only will the land he held in large properties, and be cultivated by occupiers rather than owners, but add to this expression of opinion a prophecy that the small tenancies in this country will be rapidly and generally extinguished. The authority to which I refer is a report that has doubtless been extensively read of a speech delivered by Lord Derby some few months ago, with reference to which I venture to entertain the hope that the noble Earl may have been misunderstood. The report conveyed an expression of opinion something to this effect—that, as the introduction and improvement of machinery in manufactures had led nearly to the extinction of handloom weaving, so, the introduction of machinery into agriculture would lead to the extinction of the small tenancies, and the division of the surface of the country into so many large farms. I do not share that opinion, and if I did I should regret the extinction of small tenancies, as a great public calamity. If there were any danger of such an issue, I should contemplate it with a degree of regret which no words can express. Those hon. Members who support the question of my hon. Friend have spoken upon a variety of subjects. They have spoken of the difficulties they think are imposed in the way of the application of capital to the soil generally, and for the purposes of cultivation; they have spoken of the difficulties with the erection of cottages as bearing upon the condition of the agricultural labourers; of the arguments in favour of the law of entail with reference to ancient families; and they have given opinions to the effect that the maintenance of ancient families ought to depend upon the conduct of their members, and not upon statutory arrangements addressed to that end. They have spoken also of the operation of the law of entail in creating an independence of young men in regard to their parents, with reference to which a very great deal may be said; and as to all these arguments, I go so far with my hon. Friend as to admit that there is much to be said in favour of the views he supports, although I will not presume to say that they ought to be adopted without qualification. But I am sure he will not think I am taking a captious
1030
course when I plead, in view of the position in which we stand, that it is not expedient to ask of the Government, nor of the House, any declaration upon a subject of this kind, so large and so complicated, unless it be at a time when we are prepared to come forward with the steps necessary to give practical effect to such declaration. We ought, I think, as a Government, when we find—or our successors ought to be allowed when they find—an opportunity of proposing plans to Parliament upon this important question, to approach it without being fettered and trammelled by previous Resolutions of the House of Commons. It is a great mistake to suppose that progress is practically achieved in questions of this class by the passing of what are called abstract Resolutions. Those who are before the public with a certain number of unredeemed pledges ought, in my opinion, to show a reluctance to add to the largeness of the stock of such pledges. I trust, therefore, that my hon. Friend, satisfied with the discussion he has provoked, and with the considerable amount of support he has obtained, will be content to leave us at liberty for a free, unprejudiced, and impartial discussion of this question on the first favourable opportunity that may offer. I therefore beg respectfully to recommend him not to press his Resolution to a division.
MR. W. FOWLERsaid, he wished to explain in reference to what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli), that the illustration he mentioned on the subject of labourers' cottages was not by any means the only one to which he had referred; and to remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Reports of the Commissioners, especially that of the Bishop of Manchester, wore full of similar instances. If the case he had quoted was in error in any particular he deeply regretted the fact. He had admitted that in the neighbourhood of the cottages to which he had referred there were estates on which suitable labourers' cottages were to be found; but there were also places where wretched hovels were run up by speculators, in consequence of the landlords failing in their duty. Such miserable dwellings would not have been put up had landlords done their duty, and had an ample supply of cottages on their own estates.

1031
He was sorry not to be able to accede to the appeal which had been made to him. He wished to obtain the opinion of the House upon the question, and, if any hon. or right hon. Gentleman felt it impossible to give an opinion, it would be very easy for him to walk out of the House.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes 81; Noes 103: Majority 22.

STATUTORY DECLARATIONS.

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  MR. STAPLETONmoved for a Select Committee to inquire into the subject of Statutory Declarations and the abuses to which they are liable. These declarations commenced with the statute of the 5th Will. IV. That statute substituted declarations for affidavits in a great many cases there enumerated. But he contended the statute had this further object—namely, to restrict the cases in which declarations could be made to certain definite classes. He relied on the words of the 13th and 18th sections of the Act, also on a decision of Mr. Justice Byles, Rex v. Cox—9 Cox, C. C. 301—which was the last decision on the point. The Attorney General, however, had in answer to a Question of Viscount Bury, given an opinion in the teeth of this decision. It was not for him to say who was right; but he must admit that the practice had not conformed to Mr. Justice Byles's decision. Declarations were received on subjects not within the categories mentioned in the statute. But although the practice conformed to the Attorney General's opinion on this point, there was another point on which it was entirely at variance with his opinion. It was the practice for the magistrates' clerk to read the declarations, and decline to lay any he might consider objectionable before the magistrate, subject to an appeal to the magistrate himself. It was to this practice that the authorities at the Mansion House, at Liverpool, and at the metropolitan police courts, attributed the rareness of the abuse of these declarations which they supposed to exist. The Attorney General did not approve of this practice, for he had said that—
  "The magistrate was bound to receive these declarations, not to inquire into the circumstances under which they were made; if he did so, he
  1032
  would be trying cases under very unsatisfactory conditions. The magistrates must trust the attorney who brings the declarations."
  And in reply to a second Question, given after a letter from the chief clerk at the Mansion House had appeared, he stated that the magistrates who examined into these cases "did it on their own responsibility." He (Mr. Stapleton) feared that the effect of the Attorney General's utterances would be to deter magistrates from continuing to take those precautions which they had hitherto taken. Whether these precautions had been as effectual as the magistrates supposed he could not say. In an article of the 14th March, The Times had stated that the practice of making declarations for improper purposes did prevail extensively. He thought he had made out a case for inquiry.
  The Motion not being seconded—

  BASTARDY LAWS AMENDMENT BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. CHARLEY, Bill to amend the Bastardy Laws, and for the better protection of girls, ordered to be brought in by Mr. CHARLEY, Mr. THOMAS HUGHES, Mr. EYKYN, and Mr. WHITWELL.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 109.]
  House adjourned at One o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Mutiny*; County Buildings (Loans)* (65); Oyster and Mussel Fisheries Supplemental* (66).
FRANCE—PASSPORTS—DEPORTATION OF FRENCH SUBJECTS TO ENGLAND.

  QUESTION.
  EARL STANHOPEgave Notice, that on Friday next he would move for Copies of any Communications which may have passed between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of France on the subject of re-imposition of Passports.
  THE EARL OF MALMESBURYsaid, he wished to put the Secretary for Foreign Affairs a Question of which he had given his noble Friend Notice. It was, Whether he would lay on the Table of their Lordships' House Papers which

  943
  one of his Colleagues had already promised in the other House of Parliament—namely, the Correspondence between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of France, on the subject of the passports now demanded of British subjects on their entry into France? During the Empire, when this country and France were on the best possible terms, and all old jealousies seemed to have passed away, nothing had tended so much to the good feeling at that time existing, as the abolition of passports so far as British subjects were concerned. That might appear somewhat extraordinary, regard being had to the very important questions on which there was a complete agreement between the Government of Her Majesty and that of Napoleon III.; but still the fact remained, that the abolition by the French Government of passports in the case of British subjects had been attended with the best effects in the establishment of friendly feelings between the two nations. He should not be going beyond the mark when he asserted that after the abolition of passports had been accomplished not fewer than 600,000 visitors from this country entered Paris. Now, supposing they expended only £10 a-head, the aggregate was a large gain to the French capital received not in regular trade, but in the spendings of pocket money. He certainly was surprised at a moment like the present, when the French Government was in such great difficulties in regard to money, it should re-establish a system which must have the effect of preventing foreigners from going to France and spending their money there. It was not, however, this alone that made Englishmen wonder that this policy of erecting a kind of Chinese wall round France, should be reverted to after it had once been abolished, and the advantages of its abolition once perceived. There was the further fact that the passport system was utterly useless as a means of keeping out of a country the evil-disposed, and those whose presence might be dangerous to its institutions. Those were the very persons who were always duly provided with passports. It was harmless people—those who were bent on no plots—who omitted to provide themselves with a passport, or who neglected to obtain the requisite visa. He hoped his noble Friend would be able to give to their Lordships some
  944
  hope of this vexatious policy being abandoned. He also wished to ask his noble Friend, whether there was any objection to the production of the Correspondence—if any such communications had passed—between the two Governments with reference to the landing of destitute French persons on the shores of this country? If the accounts which had reached him were true, as many as 50 or 60 of those persons had been shipped off in one packet to this country—from the port of Dieppe especially. He did not, of course, vouch for the statements made on this subject; but it was alleged that persons of this class had been put on board in a state of utter destitution. They stated that their last franc had been taken from them on the plea that it was to be applied in payment of the expenses of sending them out of France. Now, he remembered that similar deportations had been made after the coup d'etat in 1852, and again after the Orsini conspiracy in 1858. On both those occasions the Government of the Empire took the opportunity of getting rid of persons who were of bad character, and who had opposed the Empire, by sending them over to this country in batches. The Government of this country remonstrated with the French Government on both occasions, and he must do the French Government the justice to say that it listened to the remonstrances and put an end to this disreputable practice. He should therefore like to know whether there had been any Correspondence on the subject of its renewal, and whether his noble Friend would have any objection to produce the Papers, if communications had been exchanged?
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that, in reply to the first Question of his noble Friend (the Earl of Malmesbury), he had to say that there would be no objection to the production of the Correspondence on the subject of passports. Indeed, he might observe that he made it a rule to lay on their Lordships' Table all Papers relating to Foreign Affairs which were produced in the other House of Parliament. With regard to the landing of destitute Frenchmen on the shores of this country, there had been a correspondence between the two Governments. He was not aware that there would be any objection to his producing it; and he hoped it would be found as satisfactory

  945
  as that to which his noble Friend had referred, as having passed between the Government of this country and the French Government on former occasions.
  EARL STANHOPEsaid, that in consequence of the statement just made by his noble Friend the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, he withdrew the Notice which he had given for Friday evening. He most fully concurred in what had been said by his noble Friend (the Earl of Malmesbury) on the passport system; and to illustrate the inutility of the system, he would mention what had come within his own experience last September. Travelling from Strasburg to Paris, he never was asked for his passport—not even when passing the frontier, nor on Ms arriving in Paris, nor during his stay in that city; but all that time the passport system was strictly enforced on the direct line between Calais and Paris and Boulogne and Paris. Now, then, if there were any conspirator or other dangerous person desiring to proceed from England to France, he had only to travel through Belgium to Strasburg and thence go to Paris without a passport. This showed the utter inutility of the passport system. There was another point—one to which his noble Friend who had asked the Question had not alluded—he meant the exorbitant amount demanded for the French visa to an English passport. It had always been supposed that the sum charged for a visa was intended only to repay the expenses of the establishment; but it could hardly be supposed that 10 francs on each visa were necessary to defray those expenses.
  THE EARL OF MALMESBURY: Ten francs for every name in the passport.
  EARL STANHOPEbelieved his noble Friend was quite correct as to the demand first made, though not since insisted on—10 francs for every name. He should be very sorry to see retaliation resorted to; but he must say that such a system, if persevered in, would justify a retaliatory measure. He made these remarks without any disrespect, but, on the contrary, with the most cordial feeling of respect towards France. No one could see without admiration the gallant efforts made by that country to pay her contributions and recover from the effects of the late war; but the passport system was vexatious to Englishmen and injurious to
  946
  France. There was already, independent of the passport system, a disadvantage to travellers who desired to take the route through France to Germany, and they had rather an inducement to adopt the Belgian route, in the fact that there were second-class carriages to all the Belgian trains; while the express trains from Paris to Strasburg had only first-class carriages; so that if a gentleman brought his footman with him the latter must travel in a first-class carriage side by side with his own or somebody else's master, and first-class fare must be paid for him. He hoped that all those obstacles to free communication between the two countries would receive due consideration, and that the Correspondence which his noble Friend the Foreign Secretary had promised to produce would show that our Government had done their best to have them removed.

ARMY RE-ORGANIZATION—THE BRIGADE OF GUARDS.—QUESTIONS.
THE DUKE OF RICHMOND: My Lords, it will be in the recollection of your Lordships that on a former occasion, when the case of certain gentlemen, ensigns and lieutenants in the Guards, was brought under the consideration of this House, the noble Marquess opposite, the President of the Council, was unable to clear up some of the points on which information was asked of Her Majesty's Government. That arose, no doubt, from the fact that the noble Marquess has no connection with the War Department; but, my Lords, the subject having at the time appeared to me to be one of considerable importance, I gave Notice that I would take another opportunity of bringing it again under the notice of your Lordships, with the view of our obtaining fuller information. Since then I have very carefully reconsidered the subject, and I must still express my opinion that very great injustice will be done to the officers in question if the intention of the Secretary for War is carried out in their case. In order to make the Questions of which I have given Notice perfectly clear to the noble Marquess and the House, I think it well to revert to the circumstances under which those officers obtained their commissions. Either in September or the first week of October last a certain num-

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ber of young gentlemen, whose names had been down for commissions in the Brigade of Guards, received a letter from his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, offering them, on certain conditions, commissions in the regiments of Guards for which respectively their names had been set down. This letter was so much commented on when the case was under consideration before, that it will not be necessary for me to dwell very much upon it to-night, though I shall have to make some further allusion to it. There can, I think, be no doubt that the commission then offered to these young gentlemen was that given to all gentlemen who entered the Guards—namely, the commission of ensign and lieutenant. That was what the Commander-in-Chief offered them—that was what they accepted—and that was the commission to which they were gazetted. As I think the words of the commission have an important bearing on the question, I shall quote them to your Lordships. After reciting that it is the will and pleasure of Her Majesty to grant the commission, the document itself goes on to state—
"You are therefore carefully and diligently to discharge your duty as such in the rank of ensign and lieutenant, or in such higher rank as we may at any time hereinafter promote you to," and so on.
Now, my Lords, as the alternative words in the commission are "or in such higher rank," I ask, whether it does not by implication assure the recipient of the commission that he will not be degraded to any lower rank than that of ensign and lieutenant? My Lords, it must also be in your recollection that those gentlemen were gazetted, some on the 28th, some on the 29th, and some on the 31st of October. I think this is important, because it follows from these dates, that on the 31st of October these gentlemen were ensigns and lieutenants according to law. On the 1st of November Her Majesty issued a Royal Warrant regulating "first appointments, regimental promotion, exchanges, &c." After a reference to articles of a former Warrant, dated December 27, 1870, there comes this exercise of the Royal Prerogative—
"Our will and pleasure is, that this Warrant be established and obeyed from the 1st day of November in this present year, in respect of all matters herein contained, and that it be construed, administered, and interpreted with our said Warrant of the 27th of November, 1870."
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Your Lordships will observe that this Warrant is to have effect from the day after that on which the last of the commissions to those officers was gazetted as ensigns and lieutenants; and you will further bear in mind that the only alternative rank mentioned in the commission itself is a "higher rank" than that of ensign and lieutenant. It is perfectly true that, subsequently to the issue of the Royal Warrant itself, the Secretary for War issued what is called an Explanatory Memorandum; but it appears to me that, when the Sovereign declares a certain thing to be Her Royal "will and pleasure," it is scarcely competent to the Secretary of State to say—"It is my will and pleasure that there shall be certain exceptions to the Royal Warrant—it is to be subject to the interpretation which I shall give it." If that be the line which the noble Marquess intends to take, I, for one, enter my protest against it. On the 22nd of February in the present year the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War made a long speech in "another place," which almost entirely referred to the changes which were to be introduced in the Army. I have read that speech more than once, and I venture to say that when he speaks of those changes he invariably speaks in the future tense. Speaking of certain appointments, he says they will not come into operation for two years, owing to the glut of officers, and throughout the whole of his speech he deals with the future. I cannot but think that, if on the 22nd of February Mr. Cardwell had resolved on the change which has since been announced in the case of those officers, he would, in some part of that long speech, have announced that the position of officers who had obtained commissions in the Guards had been entirely altered. As he did not do so, I think we are entitled to assume that so recently as the 22nd of last February, those young gentlemen were still ensigns and lieutenants in the Guards. If the change subsequently announced should be carried out, just see the injustice that will be done to those young gentlemen. At this moment they are senior to upwards of 800 lieutenants in the Army. If Mr. Cardwell's scheme be carried out, when they leave Sandhurst—say in November, 1873—having passed the necessary examination, they will not only be placed below the 800 to whom they are now

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senior, but, in addition they will have over them every lieutenant who may be appointed between the present time and that date. I must now just touch on the Letter upon which such stress was laid the other night. It was then said that the officers who responded in the affirmative to that Letter are out of Court—that they have no right to say anything in defence of the position which is now taken up on their behalf. The words so much relied on are these—
"I am also directed to explain that, in the event of your accepting the commission now offered, you must clearly understand that you will enter the Army subject to any changes or alterations which may hereafter be made in the regulations of the service with respect to pay or otherwise, &c."
I ask, whether the two words, "pay" and "otherwise" must not be taken as ejusdem generis? I have no doubt that if the noble and learned Lord the Master of the Rolls were called upon in a Chancery case—as I dare say he has before now been frequently called upon—to give an interpretation to such a word as the "otherwise" in that letter, he would rule that it must be construed as ejusdem generis with the word which stood in relation to it, as "pay" does to "otherwise" in that Letter. Could it have entered the head of any young gentleman called upon to subscribe to the terms of that Letter, that within the expressions included a probable or possible de- "in respect to pay or otherwise" was gradation in rank? If the previous words, "the regulations of the service" be relied on, I reply that those words refer to the regulations of the whole service—all its branches included—and cannot be taken to refer to regulations made by the Secretary of State to deprive 24 young officers of the rank to which they had been gazetted. I know that theoretically Her Majesty may dispense with the services of any officer in the Army at any time she pleases, without giving any reason whatever for so doing; and no doubt this might be done without the officer having the right to claim a trial by court-martial. But we know that this power of the Sovereign is never exercised, and that an officer may always claim a court-martial as a matter of grace, though not of right; and the practice of the service has always been, that any officer complaining of unjustice is heard, in order that he may show
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cause why he should not be deprived of the rank he holds. Now, if this is the course in the case of an officer charged with an offence, a fortiori, you cannot deprive those 24 young officers of the rank they have held without bringing them to a trial of some kind. There is no "regulation of the service" to enable the Secretary for War to do what he proposes to do. We have heard a great deal about this Army organization scheme; we have heard much about the way in which the present Secretary for War deals with the Army; we have heard it asserted that he is the only man of the present day who could put the Army in a proper state; but, my Lords, I take the liberty of saying that if all this is to be effected by such means as those to which I have been referring, it will be brought about by acts of the grossest injustice ever perpetrated by a Secretary of State against British officers. I beg to ask the noble Marquess, Whether the officers of the Brigade of Guards who were gazetted as ensigns and lieutenants on the 31st of October, 1871, and who are now senior to all the cornets and ensigns who were promoted to the rank of lieutenant on the 1st of November, 1871, are to be sent to Sandhurst for a year, and, if so, what will be the date of their commissions as lieutenants in the Army on their rejoining their regiments as qualified lieutenants; and whether it is in accordance with the regulations of the service that an officer can be reduced in rank or deprived of his commission without being tried by a court-martial?
THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: My Lords, I think it is impossible to regard the speech of the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond) as merely an attack on the arrangement to which he has more particularly referred—it is impossible to treat his objections otherwise than as objections to all the arrangements respecting these officers. In the latter part of his speech he appealed to the terms of the Letter written to those young gentlemen at the time they were offered their commissions. Now, it cannot be supposed that the Letter in question would have been written by order of the illustrious Duke without it was intended that some special meaning was to be attached to it. No one can suppose that those gentlemen were asked to consent to certain conditions in the acceptance of

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their commission, unless changes were contemplated in the minds of those who asked their consent to those conditions. My noble Friend says that "otherwise" must be interpreted as ejusdem generis with "pay." I suppose, then, my noble Friend would confine its meaning to "allowances," and so make the words read "pay or allowances." I do not know that any change in pay or allowances was contemplated; but it was notorious to everyone that changes of a different kind were in contemplation. The words must have been intended to apply to changes which were actually in contemplation, and which had been for some time sketched out to the public. The noble Duke must permit me to say that some meaning must be attached to this Letter, and it would be impossible to attach to it the narrow meaning that he would give it. Those who admit, as he has admitted, that those young gentlemen did accept their commissions subject to changes must go further, and admit that they accepted them subject to the changes then in contemplation. I believe, as a matter of fact, that no commissions have as yet been actually issued to those gentlemen; but I do not want to fall back upon a technical objection of that kind, because I admit that the fact of an officer having been gazetted has always been accepted as equivalent to the issue of his commission; but my answer is this—that those officers accepted the commissions, after having agreed to the terms on which those commissions were granted—and also with this great advantage, that they received them on the system of non-purchase, and have had nothing to pay for them. What my right hon. Friend the Secretary for War says is, that those young gentlemen have accepted their commissions subject to any alterations which may hereafter may be made in the regulations of the service; and to allow them to remain under the old system would be inconsistent with regulations made in the case of the service generally. He says—"You will be treated in exactly the same manner as every other officer entering the Army since the introduction of the new system is to be treated." It is considered desirable that all officers should go to Sandhurst for a certain period; and in the judgment of my right hon. Friend, it is as essential that these young gentlemen should re-
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ceive the military education given at Sandhurst as that any other officers should have the advantage of the instruction given there. It is also intended that their final commission should depend upon the examination which will follow the course of instruction there, as will be the case with all other officers. But the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond) speaks of the "degrading" of these officers from the rank of ensign and lieutenant. When the question as to the rank of these officers was asked on a former occasion, I was not able to give an answer as to what was the intention of my right hon. Friend on that point. I am now, however, in a position to do so. My right hon. Friend, having carefully considered the matter, has determined to allow the commissions of those gentlemen as ensigns and lieutenants to stand, until the date at which they receive in lieu of them final commissions as lieutenants, which latter commissions will be issued to them when they have passed their examination; so that there will be no period of their military career at which they will not be in possession of the substantive rank of lieutenant. It will not be suspended in the interim—their position will remain as it now is, till they receive their commission as lieutenant; but that commission will be issued to them on the same footing with that of other officers. The effect of this will be that any one of those officers who passes a satisfactory examination at Sandhurst—who turns out in the first division, as it is called—will receive a final commission in two years from the time of his first admission to the Army; but this commission will date from a year after his admission to the Army. They will go through such training at Sandhurst as is provided for all officers before they receive final commissions; but the commissions they now hold will not be touched until after their examination, and, therefore, they will retain throughout the substantive rank of lieutenant.
LORD ABINGERsaid, he did not quite understand the position these 24 young gentlemen would hold in relation to the 800 other lieutenants who were now their juniors. As a matter of principle their exact position should be distinctly stated. In his (Lord Abinger's) opinion the commissions in question were substantive ones—at any rate, so far as

953
an act of grace could make them so. But he could not understand what was the ground the Government took up upon the subject. They were placing these young gentlemen in a position of great hardship, and, as Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, he could vouch for the fact that officers were wanted for the regiments of Guards when those young gentlemen were gazetted. The illustrious Duke (the Duke of Cambridge) bore testimony to that fact on a former occasion, when this question was under discussion. Those young officers had been doing their duty regularly, and learning the practical work which officers were called upon to perform; but if they were sent to Sandhurst their regiments would lose them for a year. How was their place to be supplied? If other young gentlemen received commissions, they would have to learn their drill and other duties before they could do what was now done by those ensigns and lieutenants. There were always a number of officers of the Guards absent from their regiments, because they were serving on the Staff of the Army, and the scarcity of officers made it very hard work for those who remained with the regiments. It was said there was a considerable amount of leave in the Guards; but if the officers of these regiments were obliged to remain with their regiments throughout the whole of the 12 months, men of the position of the gentlemen now in the Guards would not be got to accept commissions. A system of allowing gentlemen to join the Guards as volunteers, and after they had served with the regiment for a year sending them to Sandhurst for a year, would have his warm support; but he trusted that in the case of those young gentlemen who had been gazetted as ensigns and lieutenants, and who had been serving for so many months with their regiments, the Secretary for War would see his way to a more satisfactory decision.
LORD COLVILLE OF CULROSSsaid, that when these officers went to Sandhurst they would have to remain there a year, and when they left they would find themselves juniors to more than 800 to whom they now were senior. The fact was, that these officers by the 1st of next November would have completed one year's service, during which they would have performed every duty required of
954
them; nevertheless, he understood that that year's service was to count for nothing. He wanted to know why the Secretary for War should deal with officers in a way he would not dare to deal with private soldiers? When these unfortunate young officers signed the letter to abide by whatever alterations might be made in the regulations and pay, they little thought it would have led to such an avalanche of degradation.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALEsaid, it appeared to him that these letters were stereotyped, and were common both to the Admiralty and the Horse Guards. He had seen innumerable such letters. They merely, in giving appointments, stated that the officers should be subject to such and such rules and regulations; but such letters had never been interpreted to interfere with the officers' commissions in any way, or to alter their standing in the services.
THE MARQUESS OF RIPONexplained that officers who received probationary commissions after the present date could not be senior to the officers whose case was under consideration. The former would have to go through the same course as the latter.
THE DUKE OF RICHMONDsaid, that those young gentlemen would not like to see themselves on their return from Sandhurst lower down on The Army List than the 800 lieutenants to whom they were at present senior. The second paragraph of his Question had been over-passed entirely; and as to the third paragraph, he regarded the answer of the noble Marquess as so unsatisfactory that he must take another opportunity of bringing the subject under the consideration of the House.
THE MARQUESS OF RIPON, in reference to the latter part of the noble Duke's Question wished to say that his right hon. Friend the Secretary for War had taken legal opinion, and was advised that the course he proposed to adopt was perfectly legal.
House adjourned at Six o'clock, to Thursday next, half past Ten o'clock.