Sitting of 15 February 1872

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—East India (Finance), appointed; Letters Patent, nominated; Kitchen and Refreshment Rooms (House of Commons), The Lord Advocate added.
First Report—Public Petitions.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Pacific Islanders Protection [45]; Criminal Trials (Ireland)* [47]; Wildfowl Protection* [46].
Second Reading—Parliamentary and Municipal Elections [21]; Corrupt Practices [22].
Committee—Royal Parks and Gardens [17]—R.P.

EDUCATION—SCHOOL BOARDS AND GRANTS TO DENOMINATIONAL SCHOOLS.

  QUESTIONS.
  MR. DIXONasked the Vice President of the Council, Whether he will inform the House of the number of Boroughs and Parishes in England and Wales respectively in which School Boards have been formed; and, of the number of School Districts in which there exists a deficiency of educational provision, exclusive of those where School

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  Boards have been formed, and in how many of these deficient districts the Department has taken steps to cause the formation of School Boards?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER: These two Questions of my hon. Friend go over so much ground that I fear I must ask the attention of the House while, as briefly as possible, I give a full answer to them. With regard to the first Question, I may state that school boards have been formed in 88 boroughs in England and in 11 boroughs in Wales; and as regards parishes not boroughs in 120 in England and 125 in Wales. The House may like to be informed what proportion these numbers bear to the total number of boroughs and parishes. There are 224 municipal boroughs and about 14,800 parishes not boroughs in the kingdom; so that, taking together England and Wales, there are 99 out of 224 boroughs and 245 out of 14,800 parishes in which the compulsory formation of school boards has been anticipated by local action. These figures would, however, by themselves give a very unfair impression, and merely mislead the House and the public. If, instead of the numbers of boroughs and parishes, we take the population, I find that the population of these 99 boroughs in which there are school boards is about 5,200,000, while the population of the 125 boroughs in which there are no school boards is only about 1,200,000. Again, while the total population of the 14,800 parishes not boroughs is about 13,000,000, the population of the 245 in which there are school boards is more than 1,100,000. The average population of the 245 parishes with school boards is about 4,550, while the average of the large number of others is only 820. The fact is, the larger the school district the larger in all probability the school deficiency, and therefore the greater the difficulty of its provision without the assistance of the rates. The inhabitants of a large town, or borough, or of a populous manufacturing village, seeing that a rate is inevitable, ask for it at once, while in a small rural parish there is a hope and an effort to avoid a rate by voluntary subscription. But in either case, there is a most praiseworthy desire to make the needful provision to meet the educational wants of the district without waiting for the central office to compel such provision; and I feel sure that the House will gratefully acknowledge the general and, I may say, the
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  wonderful response which has been made throughout the kingdom, not only in the towns, but also in the rural parishes, to the measure which we passed only a year and a-half ago. Adding the metropolis, which, as the House is aware, is under a school board by the Act, the total population in England and Wales already under school boards is 9,550,996, or about three-sevenths of the population of England, and about one-third of the population of Wales. This difference between England and Wales is not because school boards are less popular in Wales—the contrary is the fact; but because in Wales the agricultural districts bear a large proportion to the towns. I must take this opportunity to state another fact which will interest all those Members who are watching the experiment of compulsory attendance. When I had charge of the Education Bill I ventured to prophesy that such compulsion would be tried in several large towns, and I also ventured to state that the opinion in favour of compulsion would be found throughout the country to be much stronger than was generally supposed. My expectation has been more than confirmed by the experience of the last few months. The school boards of London, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, and of almost all the large towns, and of several of the smaller districts, have bravely grappled with this difficulty, and bylaws for compulsory attendance have been already passed by 119 school boards, having within their districts a population of about 8,000,000, more than one-third of the population of the kingdom. I come now to my hon. Friend's second Question. He asks me in how many school districts, where there are no school boards, there is educational deficiency? To this Question I can give him no definite answer to-day, although I hope to be able to do so in a few weeks. The reason is, that the educational survey of the country is not yet quite completed, and I think hon. Members will not be surprised at this statement when they remember that this survey has to be made over more than 15,000 districts, and that our officers have not only to ascertain the number of schools and children, but whether these schools are or are not efficient and suitable, and—a most difficult question—whether parishes should or should not be grouped together. Our Reports are, however, now quickly

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  coming in; and, though the Department is hard-worked in meeting the require-is already under school boards, we shall, I hope, very soon begin to compel the supply of that school accommodation which may be proved to be deficient in the other half. As yet we have issued no orders for school boards except under Section 12 of the Act; but before the end of next month we expect to begin to issue our notices of deficiency of school accommodation under Section 9.
  MR. DIXONasked the Vice President of the Council, If he can state,—The number of Denominational Schools to which Building Grants have been made since August 1st, 1870, and the amount of said grants; the number of applications for Building Grants still under consideration and the estimated amount of grants still to be made; and, the number of such applications which have been declined?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER: The number of schools to which building grants have been made since August 1, 1870, is 999, and the amount of such grants is £168,131. Of these, 948 are denominational schools, with an amount of £160,850. When I say that these grants have been made I do not mean that they have been paid, but that the proposals of the managers have been accepted, and that payment is promised on the buildings being completed. There are still 1,901 applications in progress. Of these, 1,287 have been approved by the Office, subject to the fulfilment of conditions as regards plans and other details. There remain 614 which have not reached the stage of approval or disapproval, chiefly because their promoters have not given the necessary information. The number of applications which have been refused is 243, and 194 have been withdrawn. My hon. Friend asks me the estimated amount of grants still to be made? To this Question I can give him no precise answer, as every one of the applications which is not passed is subject to such deductions as may result from inquiry by the Department. As, however, the building grant bill is a matter of much interest, I will endeavour to make a guess at its amount. No money, as I have stated, is actually paid until we have a certificate of the completion of the building. It is possible that of the 999 schools for which we have promised payment, on completion, some will not be actually built. It is
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  probable that this will be the case with a still larger proportion of the 1,287 which we have approved; and I expect to hear nothing more of a large number of the remaining 614. Taking into account all these probable deductions and estimates, the grants still to promise at £168 each, the average of the 999 already promised, I think I shall make an outside guess if I estimate the total building grants to be paid in respect of applications since the passing of the Act at about £400,000 to about 2,400 schools, and, taking a rough average, providing school accommodation for about 400,000 children. This £400,000 may appear a large sum out of the taxes; but it must be remembered that it will be a much larger saving to the rates. We find, taking the average of the last four years, that the Parliamentary grant is slightly less than one-fifth of the total cost of building a school. We shall therefore, if my estimate be correct, finish up our building grant system by a grant of £400,000, to which private individuals will have subscribed £1,600,000, and we shall have provided schools for 400,000 children, which, without this grant and this voluntary subscription, would have required an outlay of £2,000,000 out of the local rates.
  MR. OSBORNEasked whether questions of this nature and answers of this nature might not more properly be given in the shape of Returns?
  MR. SPEAKER: A Member is at liberty to seek information, either by a Question to a Minister, or by moving for a Return. The Question asked by the hon. Member covered a great deal of ground, and very naturally the right hon. Gentleman found it necessary, in his Answer, also to travel over a great deal of ground. But much of the information asked for might, perhaps, have been given by a Return, as the hon. Gentleman has suggested.
  LORD ROBERT MONTAGUinquired whether it would be possible to give the proportion of grants to denominations?
  MR. W. E. FORSTERreplied that the Return of last year, giving such information, could be carried out; and added that he was sorry he had been obliged to give such long Answers to the Questions of the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Dixon), but they referred to matters of great interest; and a mere statement of facts, without exments of that half of the kingdom which

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  planation, would have misled the House and the public.

WEST COAST OF AFRICA—DUTCH GUINEA.—QUESTION.
MR. MAGNIACasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether it is still intended, as stated by him last Session, to defray the Charge involved in the acquisition of the Dutch Colony on the Guinea Coast out of the Funds of the British Settlements in Africa, or whether it will not be necessary to have recourse to the Imperial Treasury?
VISCOUNT ENFIELD: There is no question of resorting to the Imperial Treasury to defray the expenses of the transfer referred to by my hon. Friend. A sum has been fixed by the Convention for the purchase of the stores and fixtures in the forts, which is probably in excess of what will eventually be paid after their valuation.

IRELAND—ROYAL RESIDENCE.

  QUESTION.
  MR. STACPOOLEasked the First Lord of the Treasury, If Her Majesty's Government have come to any determination in reference to the establishment of a Royal Residence in Ireland; and, if so, when will he be prepared to state their views on the subject?
  MR. GLADSTONE: When my hon. Friend put this Question to me at a late period of last Session I made a reply with the full expectation that at the opening or at the early part of the present Session I should be able to announce to him definitely the intentions of the Government. But circumstances during the winter with which he and the whole House and the public are acquainted, which were entirely beyond our control, have made it impossible for us to achieve that progress which we hoped for in the consideration of this matter. The subject, however, still occupies our attention, and we look forward to a period when we may be able to make known our conclusions with reference to it.

MERCHANT SHIPPING BILL.

  QUESTION.
  MR. GOURLEYasked the President of the Board of Trade, If it is his intention
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  this Session to re-introduce the Merchant Shipping Bill; and, if so, whether he purposes afterwards to refer it, or any portion thereof, to a Select Committee; and, if it is his intention to introduce a Bill for the abolition of Compulsory Pilotage?
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE, in reply, said, that he fully intended to introduce a Bill for the abolition of Compulsory Pilotage, with the hope of carrying it into law. In regard to the other part of the Question, there still remained an immense mass of legislation to be consolidated and amended relating to the various interests of the mercantile body, and he was quite willing that the subject should be referred to a Select Committee; but as he feared that, on account of other Committees sitting, it would be impossible for him, and also for other hon. Members whom it might be desirable to appoint, to take part at present in such a Committee, he refrained for the moment from giving a positive answer to the Question.

NAVY—CONDITION OF THE "PRINCE CONSORT," &c.—QUESTION.
SIR JOHN HAYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether the "Prince Consort," on her recent examination, has shown any serious symptoms of decay; and, whether there is any apprehension that the "Ocean," "Royal Oak," "Caledonia," "Royal Alfred," and "Zealous" may also be equally defective?
MR. GOSCHEN, in reply to "these very characteristic questions" of the hon. and gallant Member, stated that the Prince Consort was under survey at Devonport, but her exact condition had not been reported to him; it was known that her condition was not serious in the sense of being dangerous in any respect; but it was feared that the cost of the removal of her partially decayed timber would be heavy. As regards the other ships referred to, he must, for obvious reasons, decline to give any speculative opinion as to what their condition would be when they came into dock. He might mention, however, that the ships alluded to were wooden ships, which had been converted, about 10 or 11 years ago, into iron-clads. They had been built of wood and cased with iron, and such ships were more liable to decay than iron ships properly so-called.

DR. LIVINGSTONE.—QUESTION.
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Doctor Livingstone does not hold Consular rank under Her Majesty's Government; if so, what territory is included in his jurisdiction; and, whether his present expedition was undertaken with the concurrence and approval of Her Majesty's Government?
VISCOUNT ENFIELD: Dr. Livingstone was in March, 1865, appointed Her Majesty's Consul in the territories of the African Kings and Chiefs in the interior of Africa, embracing the district between the 5th degree of north and the 5th degree of south latitude, and the object of his appointment was, among other things, to inquire into the resources of that country.

THE BALLOT BILL AND CORRUPT PRACTICES BILL.—QUESTION.
MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEasked the Vice President of the Council, now that the Ballot Bill is divided into two parts, By what means he intends to provide that the Parliamentary and Municipal Elections Bill should not become Law without securing the passing of the Corrupt Practices Bill, which contains the clauses to prevent personation?
MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, it was difficult to answer that Question; but his answer would be the same as if the Question had referred to the Bill undivided. Of course, the Government was anxious to pass the two Bills, just as it would have been anxious to pass the one. They had placed them next one another on the Notice Paper for this purpose, and it remained for the House to say what should be done with them.

THANKS GIVING IN THE METROPOLITAN CATHEDRAL—HER MAJESTY'S RETURN ROUTE.—QUESTION.
MR. DENISONasked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether the Embankment has been definitely fixed on for the return route of Her Majesty; and, if so, what steps have been taken to protect life and property upon the occasion?
MR. AYRTON: I regret that I am not able to give an answer, because this subject properly belongs to the Secretary
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of State for the Home Department; and if he were here—as he is not—he would not be able to answer the Question immediately, for it is necessary in these matters to communicate both with the Lord Chamberlain as regards Her Majesty, and with the Chief Commissioner of Police with respect to any arrangements that may be made for the safety of the public.
MR. GLADSTONE: No definite decision has been yet come to as to the return route.

ROYAL PARKS AND GARDENS BILL.

  QUESTION.
  MR. VERNON HARCOURTasked the First Commissioner of Works, What would be the latest hour at which he would take this Bill?
  MR. AYRTON, in reply, said, after the expression of the opinion of the House on the Bill the other day, he had no doubt the House would be willing to proceed with it at any hour of the evening at which it might be reached.

PARLIAMENTARY AND MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS BILL.— [BILL 21.]
(Mr. William Edward Forster, Mr. Secretary Bruce, The Marquess of Hartington.)
PARLIAMENTARY AND MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS BILL.— [BILL 21.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. W. E. Forster.)
  MR. LIDDELL, in rising to move, as an Amendment, that the Bill be read a second time that day six months, said—Sir, I feel that in rising on this occasion to move the second reading of this Bill this day six months I owe an apology to the House for venturing to present myself in so prominent a position. But I must explain to the House in two or three words the reason why I have undertaken that task. At a late period of our proceedings yesterday afternoon, and on referring to the Notice Paper, I found to my great surprise that no Notice of Amendment of this kind had been given by any Member of the House; and it occurred to me that a departure from the ordinary constitutional mode of giving the House an opportunity of expressing its feelings on a question of this importance—and especially that section of the House which feels deeply and strongly on the question—was a proceeding so

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  unusual and preposterous that I ventured, as a very humble Member of the House, to undertake an act of public duty, and afford it the opportunity of expressing an opinion for or against "secret voting." So far I feel it due to the House to give it this personal explanation. In the discharge of this public duty, I should not consider myself justified in detaining the House at any great length, as I feel that this question has, in the course of 30 years' discussion, and particularly after the exhaustive debates of last year, been threshed and winnowed to an extent almost unequalled in any public question that I know of. But notwithstanding this process the sample of corn presented to us is a very bad sample, and I am compelled to look at this measure as an article which I am not prepared to purchase at any price, not even the price of tranquillity at elections, although I am not prepared to say, when you get a number of voters crowded together in a polling-booth with papers that they do not understand, and pencils they cannot use, in their hands—voters huddled into a corner and a hole—that they will preserve a very good temper. That is a matter for experience in the future. But now I make an admission, and make it freely. I admit that the Bill, whose second reading has been moved, is an improvement on the measure of last year. I think its general framework is considerably simplified. I think that its size in that respect is amended. I find it contains in place of the 54 clauses of the old Bill, 28 clauses; but the remarkable feature about this Bill is, it is a Bill of schedules. All the most important matters of detail contained in it are contained in the schedules, and schedules of a very large description. There are no fewer than 61 clauses in the first schedule. This is a novelty. I only allude to it in passing—I do not complain of it—but it is rather a new form of presenting Bills to this House. I may also observe that this Bill is called by its right name—at least partly by its right name. It is to be cited as "The Ballot Act." I should be content if that were a true description; but I contend that it is not a true description, because this is a secret Ballot Act, and that is the worm at the core of this measure. That is its worst feature; and it is on that ground I mean to resist it. I have said that the Bill is
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  presented to us in an improved form; and it would be strange indeed if, after the exhaustive debates of last year, and after the collective wisdom of this House had spent so many weeks upon the improvement of the measure, it had not assumed a new shape. But in saying this I must be permitted for a moment to cast one longing, lingering look behind, and I cannot but remember that the collective wisdom of this House was not concentrated upon this Bill. It was not half the collective wisdom of this House which brought about the great amendments of which I have spoken. I cannot forget that for the first time in history a strike took place within the walls of Parliament, and that, as is usually the case, at a time when employment was at its height. It is an extraordinary thing that the old workmen turned out in a body, and left the completion of the work on which they had been engaged for years to a parcel of new hands, foreign workmen, and men not naturally handy at the job. I cannot but think if the whole collective wisdom of the House had been employed on the Bill, it would have been a better Bill; but its defects are not the fault of this (the Conservative) side of the House. Now, Sir, I am in no sense reconciled to the Bill in consequence of the amended form in which it presents itself, and I object to it because it is a great fundamental change in the most important duty we have to perform in this country, and because that great and fundamental change is to my mind unnecessary, and I believe uncalled for. I have had some experience of public life, and I am sorry to say that I have observed that fundamental changes do not always involve a settlement of great questions. On the contrary, my observation leads me to say that they are apt to unsettle men's minds; that they are apt to induce men to make larger demands, increasing in proportion to the magnitude of the change; and this is one of the main reasons why I so strongly object to this Bill. I do not believe that the most prescient statesman in this country knows or can tell what the effect of secret voting in the transactions of public life will be. We will probably have large demands for reduction of the suffrage, for re-distribution of political power, and the re-arrangement of seats. This may be the inevitable and necessary

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  consequence of the passing of this Bill. I am the more strengthened in my dislike to the Bill because I do not think the country at this moment is in favour of great and fundamental changes. If we have learned anything from one of the most eventful Recesses which have ever passed, we have learned that this country is averse to such changes. We have heard a great deal during the Recess about Monarchy, and we have heard something about the House of Lords, and we have heard something from obscure places about Republics. But I believe that Monarchy was never so secure and never so much beloved as at this moment. I believe that the House of Lords will exercise for many years to come its constitutional privilege of revising or rejecting hasty and ill-considered measures. And as to Republics, this country watched anxiously, and has not forgotten, what occurred a year ago in a neighbouring country with which we are on terms of friendship; and looking to America, we cannot but have seen that a high standard of political morality is not an invariable accompaniment of Republican institutions. So that I think at the present time England is not favourable to great and fundamental changes. Well, I object to this Bill being forced down our throats, because a certain number of people—and they are very few indeed—have come from Australia and told us that in one part of that Continent secret voting has worked well. They do not deny that there are a great number of defects, either inherent to or encouraged by it, and I suppose they will by-and-bye devise some remedies. The suspicious circumstance attending the production of this Bill is that it is presented along with its antidote. I do not like a measure that requires an antidote as soon as it is passed. I object to it because Australia, and one community in Australia, is the only place from which a recommendation of the system of secret voting comes; I object to it because the example of America is wholly ignored; and I object to it because many of our leading statesmen show an anxiety, a haste, a rapidity, in changing their opinions on this great subject, which does wonderfully little credit to the long cherished and often reiterated opinions, and to all the convictions uttered from year to year of their political life. I venture to say
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  also that this Bill is unnecessary and uncalled for. Murmurs of disapprobation were not long ago expressed at the conduct of another branch of the Legislature refusing to pass a measure when they had not time to enter upon its consideration. But there was no violent expression of opinion, as far as we can judge from the tone of the Press. There is another source of information, what are called extra-Parliamentary utterances, and we have not heard this measure urged in many of these utterances. That, I think, justifies me in saying that the Bill is regarded with apathy by the country. We have seen elections in East Surrey and in North Yorkshire; but will any one pretend that if the Ballot had been in operation those elections would have been attended with different results? I have never heard anybody say anything of the kind; but if anyone is prepared to say so, I hope they are prepared to prove that the will of the electors was not expressed, and truly expressed, in those great communities. So much for England. And what are we to say of Ireland? Ireland has been the place where we have been always told that the Ballot is necessary. It has been recommended to us on the strength of the Irish argument; but we have seen three elections in Ireland; and three candidates presented themselves on the mysterious platform—which, I confess, I do not understand—of "Home Rule," and each of these candidates by a crushing and overwhelming majority, and in the last of these elections in spite of the expressed wishes of Bishop Moriarty, who enjoyed a large share of public respect, was returned. Can it be said, then, that the expression of the national will has been impeded or falsified by open voting? The result of these Irish elections is a warning to the Government, showing them that they are not able by their policy to conciliate the people of Ireland. I am very glad that this measure has been presented in two parts; but I would suggest that as these two Bills belong to each other they stand in the relation almost of horse and cart. To be useful they must be connected. I do not want to see the horse—that is, the Ballot Bill—cut loose, while the cart is left to take care of itself—the cart being the Corrupt Practices Bill. I hope the House will not listen to the third reading of the present measure until the

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  other has been brought to the same stage. I know that in America secret voting is allowed, and in practice that the Americans use the Ballot as a convenience but reject it as a restraint, and although I have not had time to acquaint myself with the working of the system in Canada, I am inclined to believe that the Canadians follow the example of their neighbours, using an open Ballot and not a secret Ballot. I ventured last year to say, and I repeat it now, that a law which is framed in opposition to the habits and in disregard to the feelings of the people is certain to fall into disrepute and then to become obsolete. The Government had only the other day abandoned their own convictions on another subject in deference to a public opinion based on sentiment rather than on reason, and had felt themselves compelled to take a course which I believe they did not in their hearts approve; and if good and salutary laws thus succumb to popular sentimentality, how much more will bad laws be compelled to yield to popular dislike? Recent experience shows us that men in high places find the means of shaking off the trammels of statutes in order to carry out their purpose, and I believe that if the principle of the secret Ballot is forced upon the country the people will trample upon a law that is foreign to their habits and repugnant to their instincts. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving his Amendment.
  COLONEL BARTTELOT, in seconding the Amendment, said, that his hon. Friend on the front Bench below him deserved the thanks of that side of the House for the ability with which he had brought under their notice this great question. The real question upon this subject had never been fairly put before the constituencies—that was, whether they, as Englishmen, preferred the present system of open voting to the vote by Ballot, a secret system, now proposed. No doubt there were many hon. Members who, influenced by political prejudice, were prepared to say that the Ballot would be a great boon to many classes of the community; but not a man would come forward to say that he personally was afraid to record his vote unless he was protected by the Ballot. Under these circumstances, he was justified in asking upon what grounds this measure had been introduced
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  last year? Was it because by extending the franchise they had gone backwards politically, that the Ballot had been rendered necessary? Were the classes who had obtained the franchise under the recent Reform Bill less independent than the class immediately above them? This Bill indirectly cast a great slur upon the working classes of the community by insinuating that they were unable to protect themselves in giving their votes; but he was prepared to contend that the working classes were as independent and able to protect themselves as any class of people in the country. The small shopkeepers were not nearly so able to protect themselves; but the Government during the time that this class had power never introduced any Ballot Bill. Had anything arisen in modern times to call for the Ballot? Had the elections that had taken place in England produced any necessity for the Ballot? It was perfectly true that the candidates that the Government wished to be returned had not been returned; but was that in consequence of open voting, or because of the unpopularity of the Ministry? East Surrey had returned a candidate opposed to the Government, not because the electors of that county had been afraid to express their political opinion, but because they repudiated and disliked the measures introduced into Parliament by the Government during the last Session. The 2d. income tax, that hasty Budget, the amendment to the match tax, were particularly disliked. It had been said that the electors of East Surrey had been influenced in their choice of a Member by the Licensing Bill; but, although that measure was undoubtedly a bad one, he did not believe that it was the introduction of that Bill that had led them to return a Conservative as their representative. There were other measures which had been introduced by the Government that had conduced to that result, and in addition to these were the two scandals arising from the acts of the Government, one of which was at that moment being discussed in "another place." But if the Ballot would not have much effect in this country, would it not have some political effect in Ireland? He saw the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Dowse) in his place, and doubtless he would make

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  a lively speech, in which he would cut him into ribbons; but he did not fear him, because he did everything in good part, and if he could find a weak point in his harness he was ready to stand up and to receive his charge. But he asked whether the result of the Irish elections would have been in any way altered had the Ballot been in operation? He regretted to be obliged to say that the elections in Ireland were a disgrace to our representative system, because men were not able, under the state of things that existed in that country, to go to the poll and to record their votes freely according to their consciences. He said, with pain and sorrow, that the inflammatory addresses which had been pronounced by gentlemen wearing sacred garbs, and who therefore ought to know right from wrong, had stimulated the passions which the Government had tried, but had signally failed, to smooth by their recent legislation. He trusted that when the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland got up, the House would hear from him that he, like the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright), repudiated all idea of Home Rule for Ireland, for nine-tenths of the House would hold firmly that the Imperial Parliament should legislate for the whole United Kingdom, and that nothing that could be said by any Home Ruler or demagogue on the other side of the water would turn them from their course. It was supposed that the Ballot would do two things—first, that it would prevent bribery and corruption; and, secondly, that it would protect the voter in voting according to his conscience. But had hon. Members never heard of such a thing as payment by results? Could not a candidate say to an elector—"If I am returned I will do such and such things for you and your family?" And would bribery of that description be as easy of detection as the more open bribery now practised? Then as to the question of intimidation. Could anyone say that intimidation had increased of late years, or that the landlords could compel their tenants to vote as they chose? He thought that the recent elections in Ireland would prove the opposite. He could not see, therefore, that the Ballot was required on these grounds. On the
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  other hand, the Ballot would afford great opportunity for personation by rendering the detection of the offence more difficult. If A, in the morning, personated B, what would be the result? When B came, they would mark his vote so that it should be known; but there would be the greatest difficulty in following the other man A, who had committed the offence. In his opinion, each man ought to honestly record his political conviction and to give his vote openly. Doubtless the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council, and perhaps one or two more of the Ministry, had been in favour of the Ballot ever since their first entrance into Parliament; but what had become of the opinions of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, and of several others who sat near him? Why, after maintaining the efficacy of the old system for upwards of 30 years, the Prime Minister and several of his Friends had suddenly changed their front and had come round to the opinion that political safety was to be found in secret voting alone. Was it improbable that certain hon. Members opposite, sitting below the gangway, had said to the Government—"We must have the Ballot, or else you cannot have our support?" He recollected well enough when one of the Ministry, in meek and mild terms enough, stated, to his would be constituents, that his opinions had undergone something of a change with respect to the Ballot, and that afterwards he had become bolder and bolder until now he said he had adopted the Ballot entirely. But let the Government beware; let them look below the gangway and ask themselves whether by the sacrifice of all their political convictions one by one they had gained over the party below the gangway. He warned them that before they carried the hon. Members below the gangway with them they must take even greater jumps than they had done already—that they must adopt the Church Bill of the hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Miall), the education scheme of the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Dixon), and the views of the Roman Catholics with regard to Irish Education. There was a little programme for the Government to swallow. He, however, trusted that they would remain firm, and that even if they temporarily supported the Ballot Bill, they, under the pressure of the women of

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  England, who were essentially Conservatives at heart, and who hated the Ballot, would, following the precedent set them the other night by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, come to that House in the course of a Session or two and bring in a Bill to repeal the Ballot Act on the ground that it had not had the effect they anticipated it would have had, and that they were prepared to revert to the old Constitutional custom of open voting.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Liddell)
  CAPTAIN NOLANsaid, that he should have wished to have made himself better acquainted with the forms of the House before he addressed them, especially upon a subject like this, which had been not only thoroughly winnowed and thrashed, but which was, indeed, as well ventilated as the Chamber in which they sat. However, the unmistakeable allusions to the recent Irish elections that had been made by the hon. Member who had just sat down left him absolutely without choice. He would not address the House in the character of a legislator or of a debater, because if he did he should probably be told that he cared no more for the Ballot than that! But he would speak to them as one of those Irish farmers who had so lately sent him here. He agreed in the remarks of the hon. Member to the extent that if the Ballot had been in force the Western farmers and peasants who had sent him as their representative to that House would not have made a different choice; but he could scarcely describe the trouble, anxiety, and terror that had been endured by those electors who had voted in his favour. The landlords in his county firmly believed that the votes of their tenants were as much their property as was their land, and the reason of his being in the House at that moment was that the electors who had returned him as their representative had preferred rather to discharge their duty than to follow the dictates of individual self-interest. He would not deny that the Catholic priests would not by the Ballot be deprived of their influence; but their power did not spring from their religious functions. Catholic priests often acted as notaries, reconcilers of
  480
  differences, and bankers, and these things gave rise to nine-tenths of their political influence. Intelligence would have its influence under the Ballot, and under any other system whatever, and he did not think that hon. Members would wish him to eliminate the due weight of intelligence. People were well aware that the Roman Catholic clergymen of Ireland never attempted to influence jurymen in the verdicts they gave, because they knew that the jurymen gave their verdicts fairly and honestly; but they had found it necessary to use their influence, not to induce the electors to vote for any particular candidate, but to give their votes fairly and honestly, according to their consciences and judgments. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Liddell) had asked for an explanation of Home Rule; but, new Member though he was, he knew that in attempting at the present moment to give such an explanation he should be out of order. He would, however, say that he believed the great majority in that House would prefer to receive 100 Home Rulers there, provided they were the true representatives of their constituencies, than that the same number of persons holding different views should be sent there through chicanery.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. DOWSE)said, that the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just spoken had given the House his views with great vigour and with great eloquence, and he had advanced some strong reasons in favour of the recent Irish elections. He had, however, to deal more particularly with the two preceding speeches, which put forward very succinctly the arguments against the Ballot. He was glad that the question had been discussed without any reference to first principles and without any allusion to "the social contract," or "the rights of man." They were content to take things as they found them. He should start with the proposition that the House of Commons governed this great Empire. He did not wish to detract from the position of the House of Lords, or from that of any other power in the realm; but it was an undoubted fact that all great questions were discussed and determined in that House, and Members who were elected to serve in that House should be elected by the

  481
  freely recorded votes of a free electoral body. The question was, how to enable the electors to record their votes freely, and it was the opinion of the Government, as also his own, that the Ballot was the only machinery adequate for the purpose. Cicero called the Ballot—and it was not a bad definition—vindex tacita libertatis. The hon. Member for Northumberland (Mr. Liddell) who was not usually pedantic, had said that the Ballot did not mean secret voting, which, of course, strictly speaking, it did not; but it was idle to quarrel about words when the meaning was unmistakeable. A Bill for establishing the Ballot, in the popular sense of the term, was before the House, and he hoped that when it was sent up to the other House, with the approval of a large majority of the representatives of the people, it would be received with a little more courtesy than it had met with on a previous occasion. The Ballot was, in fact, the only adequate remedy for the evils of which they were complaining. They had been told that it was antagonistic to the habits and repugnant to the character of the people. That was only another way of expressing that which they had been in the habit of hearing in former times—namely, that the Ballot was un-English. It was not English because it was not the law in England; but if the present Bill passed, it would in ten years be as eminently English as any institution we had, just as many things which at first were stigmatised as un-Constitutional had become Constitutional when passed into law. The House had already affirmed the principle of this Bill by large majorities, and no one would venture to say that that House was not the representative of the people of England. If what was wanted could be brought about by other means, he should be no advocate for the Ballot; but the existing evil must be remedied, and it could not be repugnant to the feelings and character of the people to secure to them the free exercise of the franchise. He was glad that nothing had been said about the trustee argument—a point on which great stress was formerly laid. In his opinion, there was nothing in such an argument. If the voter was a trustee for himself, secrecy was no great matter, and if for his co-voters, they might be supposed to divide the responsibility between them; while if he was a trustee for people not to be trusted
  482
  with the suffrage, they clearly had no right to control him. In the Court of Chancery, a cestui-que trust could force the trustee to do certain things, provided they were within the scheme of the trust. It was admitted that the non-electors had no right to dictate to the elector for whom he should vote, and for them to know how he voted was no security that he performed his trust, since they could not know what was passing within his mind nor the motives which actuated his conduct. When first brought in contact with electioneering matters, he saw a trustee walking to the poll between a file of soldiers and police, with a large mob of cestui-que trusts ready to break his head; and he (the Attorney General for Ireland) observed to a friend who was with him on the occasion—"There is a man charged with the responsibility of discharging a solemn trust, and he has to be guarded by a band of soldiers from the cestui-que trusts, who are seeking by threats and intimidation to prevent him from voting at all." That illustration convinced him of the fallacy of the trustee argument. The hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Colonel Barttelot) had twitted certain hon. and right hon. Gentlemen with having changed their opinions upon this question. Now, were the mummy-pits of Hansard explored, it might doubtless be found that some Members had changed their opinions since 30 years ago; but a man who had not changed an opinion on any subject during 30 years had no opinion worth changing at all. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, moreover, should remember the cries raised on the difference between a £7 rating and a £7 rental; that the country was in danger, that the Monarchy was imperilled, and that the Pope was about to make a voyage of discovery to these shores. These prophets of evil, their vision clarified by the spectacles of office, plunged the country within nine months into household suffrage, so that they should be the last persons to taunt others with inconsistency. He agreed, too, with the American writer Emerson, that consistency was the bugbear of little minds, and that if a man was satisfied of the truth of an opinion he had formed he was bound to enforce it when a fitting opportunity offered. If hon. and right hon. Gentlemen were satisfied that they had good reason for changing their

  483
  opinions, and that the time had come for the change, they should not be twitted with inconsistency. He would unhesitatingly say perish consistency, if consistency were to be an obstacle in the path of such reforms as that now called for. As to bribery, which it was said would not be prevented by the Ballot, he thought the Ballot would have a considerable effect in that direction, though he did not expect any legislation to put down bribery altogether. If the law was in advance of public sentiment and public morals, it would only have a partial operation; but he looked forward to a time, which he believed would be accelerated by this Bill, when it would be deemed as unjust and immoral for an English gentleman to bribe as it is now for him to tell an untruth, or to commit any other mean action. In a mercantile community men would not be so willing to pay for a vote, whether before or after an election, if they had no certainty of receiving that vote. Ingenious systems of bribery, such as that practised at the Dublin election of 1868, would certainly be put an end to by the Ballot. Moreover, the state of the poll would not be known while the election was going on. The political thermometer on the polling-day of a contested election began at zero, and gradually rose to fever heat; and in small constituencies, where 60 or 70 men turned the election on either side, the effect of the announcement at 3 o'clock that one was five ahead, and ten remained to be polled, might easily be imagined. He wondered what the value of those ten men would be. Such men looked forward with the greatest interest to party quarrels and disputes in Parliament, in the hope of a Ministerial crisis and a General Election; and so strong was this feeling, that in a borough in the West of Ireland the chairman whose duty it was to revise the list was appealed to by one voter in the name of all the Saints not to strike his name off, because if he did his bread would be gone. Much good had been effected by changing the venue of Election Petitions, and still further good would be done by the passage of this Bill. It would be very efficacious with regard to intimidation and undue influence—not the intimidation which could be dealt with on Petition, such as the intimidation of large mobs, whose employers could be
  484
  traced, but that which worked unseen. He referred to the intimidation exercised by landlords on tenants, a form of which existed in England and Scotland, as well as in Ireland, by employers on the employed, by customers on shopkeepers. He had known instances of intimidation by a shopkeeper on a customer, by a lawyer on a client, by a doctor on a patient, and on a patient by a doctor. He had known half a congregation leave their parson and set up another place of worship on account of his vote, thus depriving him of a considerable part of his income. It was important to guard against the intimidation exercised by one class on another, and also on that exercised by men in a particular class against their fellows. The proceedings of the International Society, and of trades unions, ought to be considered, and the suffrage having been conferred on the masses—a privilege alleged to have been unasked for, and, perhaps, not desired—Parliament was bound to protect them in its exercise. The intimidation supposed to be exercised by the Nationalists in Ireland had been referred to, and the hon. Member for Northumberland (Mr. Liddell) had cited the Kerry and Galway elections as proofs that the Irish people had no difficulty at present in expressing their opinions. This, however, was assuming that the results of those elections really expressed their opinions. He was not going to say they did not, and he should be very careful on this point, for, having regard to the recent date of the elections and to certain contingencies, it would not be fair for him to offer an opinion. The hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex had asked whether the Ballot would have altered those elections, evidently assuming that it would not; but if he himself had a lurking opinion to the contrary, who could say which opinion was correct? The only way would be to make trial of the Ballot, and see how the next elections went. He admitted to the full the advantages which had been conferred on Ireland by the Church Act and Land Act, but sufficient time had not passed for the fruition of the advantages they conferred; but he believed the Ballot was required in Ireland by the Irish people in order that they might be free to exercise a free franchise. [Mr. NEWDEGATE asked why Ireland was not in the Bill?] Ireland

  485
  was in the Bill. He hoped he understood the hon. Member. He was ready to answer any question of the hon. Gentleman; but there was what lawyers called a condition precedent, and that was that he understood him. At the last Meath election an hon. Gentleman (Mr. Martin), who boasted of his return as evidencing the desire of the people for Home Rule, polled only 1,040 votes, his opponent, Mr. Plunket, receiving 684, and 2,503 electors not voting at all; whereas, in 1868, Mr. Corbally polled more votes than Mr. Martin and Mr. Plunket put together. This seemed to show that the electors would not vote when they found an overwhelming power overawe them; but were they secured from landlord coercion on the one hand, and from intimidation on the other, they would exercise the franchise, and even if the result were the return of 60 or 80 Home Rulers this would be better than dissatisfaction, and, perhaps, insurrection. Though he should regret their return, some advantage might flow from it—they would mix with English and Scotch Members; they would see that there was no disinclination to listen to the voice of Ireland; they would see how business was conducted, and how conscientious opinions were formed on both sides of the House; and he believed that were Home Rule brought to the touchstone of discussion, Parliament would be benefited by their presence. He did not think a result of the Bill would be to bring those men into the House. He hoped it would not, for he firmly believed that the welfare and salvation of Ireland depended upon the Imperial connection. He believed this was a good measure for England, Scotland, and Ireland. They were all open to criticisms as well as the Bill. The time had now come for the passing of this measure; this was plain from what had been said that night, for if the allusion that the work last Session was done by foreign workmen applied to hon. Members below the gangway, it implied that the workers on the Front Opposition wished not to impede the passing of the measure. It was said that it was easy to criticize, and there was high authority for saying that critics were men who had failed in literature and art; but this, of course, he was bound to say, did not apply to politicians. Destruction was easy, but construction was difficult, and he agreed
  486
  with the words quoted by Lord Coke—"Blessed be not the complaining tongue, but the amending hand." That had been the principle of those who had brought forward this Bill—namely, a conscientious desire to reform the Constitution, not by introducing violent changes, but by giving to voters the power of freely exercising the power of voting which had been conferred upon them. He thought the result would be to strengthen the Constitution and to strengthen the Monarchy, to which we owed all the liberty we now enjoyed, and he hoped the time would never come when there would be in this country any institution like the Commune of Paris or the Tammany Ring of New York. If the House secured the well-being and happiness of the people, if they enabled voters to come forward and record freely their opinion on public affairs, they would increase their claims to be considered the representatives of the people of England.
  MR. STEPHEN CAVEsaid, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had, whilst attacking the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Colonel Barttelot) for having diverged from the direct question before the House, followed a similar course by referring to the Home Rule question the rights of the Monarchy and other subjects not connected with the Ballot. He had also, while deprecating the discussion of first principles, led them into Cicero and the Encyclopœdia Britannica. He concurred in the sentiment expressed by the right hon. Gentleman that destruction was easy and construction difficult, and it was on that ground that he preferred improving things that were in existence to making organic changes. He also concurred in the observation that it was desirable to prevent the bribery and corruption that take place on the day of polling; but he very much doubted if this Bill would effect that desirable object, whilst it might be easily attained by passing a short Act, without the Ballot, prohibiting any declaration of the poll until the end of the polling. It was the fashion to say that the arguments on this subject had been by frequent use worn so threadbare that one felt ashamed of repeating what had been so often said, and one despaired of adducing anything which should be at the same time both new and true. But he thought that at this period of these long controversies

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  the opponents of the Ballot might claim at least to have time on their side. The arguments that had been used by them year after year for so many years had gathered strength, and those which were employed on the opposite side—he admitted with great force a quarter of a century ago—had, from change of circumstances since those days, become more and more inapplicable. In those days, no doubt, corruption and intimidation were rife throughout the land; on both sides they were employed almost openly, certainly avowedly. The time came when they were acknowledged to be gross evils and abuses by the best men of the day, who differed only as to the means of suppression. Some were for the rough and ready way now proposed, others, fearing that the remedy might be worse than the disease, preferred trusting to the advancement of the lower classes of voters, to improvement in public opinion, and to greater strictness of law. Well, he thought it could not be denied that great improvement had been effected in these ways without the Ballot. The opinion of the Judges—under the Act passed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli), quoted last year by the hon. Member for Southwest Lancashire (Mr. A. Cross), to which he need, therefore, only refer—proved conclusively that, in comparison with what formerly was the case, these offences, against which the Ballot was levelled, could scarcely be said to exist. It was surely the duty of those who advocated so sweeping a change to prove that it was necessary, and this they attempted to do by adducing the few shreds and patches of the old system which we all acknowledged to remain as evidence of widespread evil. It was as if they were to attempt to prove that the best modern agriculture was a failure because here and there in a corner they found a few thistles in a field formerly covered with them. These things—these political weeds—did not die out in a day; their roots struck deep, their seeds were widely scattered. The Act to which he referred had only been in operation since one election. We had hardly yet felt the full results. We were too apt in this country to act like children, who dig up flowers to see why they do not grow, and to hurry on fresh enactments instead of giving time to those already passed. He admitted,
  488
  however, that this question, so often discussed, if it had not gained in argument, had undoubtedly obtained a great accession of adherents. From being the subject of the annual speech of a kindly genial Member now gone from among them—a speech which he was afraid usually cleared the House—it had now become a vital question—a question by which Cabinets stood or fell—a question the blind and instantaneous acceptance of which was to be made the condition of the continued existence of the upper branch of the Legislature. Could it be that men's opinions had changed in the meantime? He agreed with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that opinions might well change from time to time, but if so, they should have heard fresh arguments, but these were altogether wanting. The best they had heard said by those Members who follow the Vice President of the Council into the lobby opposite to that into which they formerly followed Lord Palmerston, was, "We acknowledge that bribery and intimidation are rapidly dying out, but there is a feeling out-of-doors in favour of the Ballot; it will not do much harm; we swallow it for the sake of the party." He quite admitted that there was a considerable section, though a minority, on the other side, who attached great value to the Ballot, as likely to break down what he believed, and what he was glad the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Captain Nolan) admitted, to be legitimate influence. Those who wanted school boards everywhere, not to improve education, but to thrust out the squire and parson—those politicians wished to destroy the natural influence which such men had over their poorer neighbours, who consulted them in the every day affairs of their humble life; but were to avoid them as a pestilence when they were about to perform the most important duty to which they were called. Politicians of that class detested, and would annihilate that neighbourly influence of education and station, because there was something feudel in it, and it offended against their notions of that absolute equality which had never been attained. Let them take warning by the fact that this excessive independence was beginning to show its results in want of respect to age as well as rank, and that the example of another country demonstrated that it was apt to weaken family as well as social ties.

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  We were to have no canvassing, no persuasion; the political education of the people was to be carried on by declamation and the Press—very powerful and very useful engines, no doubt, but apt to be somewhat despotic; and at any rate the result would be that no person would have a chance who had not either the gift of oratory or the assistance of the Press. And if this was so, he was afraid that many useful, sensible, unassuming men, whose value was appreciated highly in the House, would have little chance of getting there. Her Majesty's Government were, he thought, unduly pliant to every blast of popular agitation. He found in the country a general opinion that they could not be trusted to stand by their colours. The speech and Bill of the Home Secretary on Tuesday were a concession against his own convictions to a well-organized agitation. This pressing on of the Ballot Bill was another instance. Yet if ever a Government could afford to be firm the present Government could. They had a large majority; an Opposition which he was sure had not unduly pressed them, and he believed there was such a feeling in the country that we had had enough of organic changes at present, and a general desire to avoid them while the aspect of foreign affairs were so threatening, that if the Government could make up their mind to devote the Session to the many pressing social measures, about the principles of which there was general concurrence, they would meet with abundant support both in the House and in the country, and might let these limited, and, to a great extent, local agitations pass by, as he believed they would pass by, unheeded. Last year, in supporting the Motion of the hon. Member for Southwest Lancashire (Mr. A. Cross), he went so fully into the whole question that he would not presume to weary the House with a repetition of his arguments. More than once since then a parallel had been attempted to be drawn between the deliberations of a Cabinet or of a jury and the act of giving a vote for a member of the Legislature. It appeared to him that a greater mistake could hardly be committed. A Cabinet or a jury was, pro hâc vice, an individual. The deliberations of such a body were like the thoughts of an individual. People sometimes thought aloud, no
  490
  doubt, and discussed questions with themselves, and very remarkable dialogues he had known them hold with themselves; but it would be as absurd to found legislation on such a habit as to say that because Cabinets or juries discuss questions in secret, therefore voting should be secret too. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Leatham), he remembered drew a distinction between the jury and the Judge; the latter, he said, could never come to harm by an upright decision. Since then we had had a painful instance of an English Judge in India losing his life in consequence of a fearless and upright sentence. That sad catastrophe, he was sure, would not prevent English Judges from acting with the fearlessness that had always characterized them. And what was the value of that courage which dared only to do the duty to which no risk or inconvenience was attached? Since the debate last year the unparalleled frauds in New York had been brought prominently into notice, and had shocked and startled the world. In commenting on these occurrences, an American paper said—
  "It has been a struggle between fraud and corruption on one side and good government on the other, in the whole of which the Ballot has been an instrument in the hands of the worst instigators of political immorality."
  The opinion among educated politicians in America, in which he entirely concurred, and with which he would conclude his remarks, seemed to be this—that the Ballot was a convenience for saving time, not a guarantee for secrecy. No such thing as a secret vote was possible, save to a man who could resent and repel pressure and defy hostilities. To such a man he need hardly say the Ballot was entirely useless, and its protection would be scorned. He gave his entire support to the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Northumberland (Mr. Liddell).
  MR. WALTERsaid, he was quite aware that there were few things more unsatisfactory than to debate a foregone conclusion in a thin House. He regretted that the forms of the House compelled him, in taking a hostile attitude to the Bill, to go into the lobby in opposition to the Government, and as his hon. Friend (Mr. Liddell) had moved a direct negative to the measure, he had no alternative than to follow him into

  491
  the lobby. He would not enter into any of the stock arguments, of which the House was weary, on the intrinsic merits or demerits of secret as against open voting. He was not ashamed of being converted from any opinion he might have previously entertained on the subject. He admitted to the fullest extent that the arguments in favour of the Ballot, now that household suffrage had been lowered in boroughs, rested on a totally different footing from those which obtained when the suffrage was a £10 suffrage. At the same time, he must make one remark in answer to an observation of the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland, in which he disposed, as he thought, conclusively of the old-fashioned doctrine that the franchise was in the nature of a trust. He (Mr. Walter) thought nothing showed more clearly that the franchise was a species of trust than this—that when a public function was not shared by the entire community, but was committed to a certain class of persons, they were expected to discharge that function with a sense of the responsibility which was equivalent to that which in Courts of Law we called a trust. He fully believed that if the franchise had not been lowered to the extent to which it was now lowered, the advocates of the Ballot would have had no chance whatever of passing a Ballot Bill. There was one part of the Bill in which he entirely concurred, as he did last year. He entirely concurred in that part of the Bill which related to the municipal franchise. He thought there were strong arguments in favour of the Ballot as applied to municipal elections, which did not exist as applied to political elections. He believed that in municipal elections, where the personal character of the candidate was probably the main point under consideration, and where as little political feeling as possible ought to exist, secret voting would have a very salutary effect. But, with regard to the exercise of secret voting in political elections, he thought that hon. Gentlemen who imagined that the humbler classes of voters were the only classes that would make use of the Ballot were under a great mistake. He thought that if they were to have the Ballot at all they would find that persons in the upper classes would be quite as ready to avail themselves of it as the lower
  492
  classes. But that was not a matter which he was anxious at the present moment to press upon the attention of the House. He regarded the introduction of this measure at the present time not as the completion of the Reform Bill of 1868, but as the beginning of a new one. He thought that, admitting all the arguments which had been used in favour of the Ballot, these two conclusions inevitably followed—first, that the disfranchisement of all small boroughs became imperatively necessary; and, secondly, that the enfranchisement of all county householders became equally imperatively necessary. He thought that, without these two accompaniments, the Ballot would create a mischief, and would perpetuate an injustice. He wanted to know on what ground, when the Ballot was passed, when the right of secret voting, which they were told would effectually protect voters from all intimidation and corrupt influences was accorded, a county householder was not to be admitted to the franchise. If the House would allow him, he would call attention to curious anomalies which existed in the county and borough representation. They were apt to draw a distinction between county and borough representation. He thought that distinction to be purely theoretical. He would take the case of the borough of Cricklade. That was not an isolated case. It contained a population of 37,000 or 38,000; and anyone looking into Dod, or any other Parliamentary companion, would come to the conclusion that it was a borough in the ordinary sense as distinguished from a county. Cricklade was a fifth part of the county of Wiltshire. Every labourer who resided within the Parliamentary borough, and who was a householder, had a vote. Now, what he wanted was to consider bow the distinction between voters in counties and boroughs was to be maintained in future. As the householders of Cricklade were of precisely the same class and position in life as the other labourers in the remaining four-fifths of the county, he wished to know why it was that they should enjoy the franchise in perfect security while the remaining four-fifths went without it. The borough of East Retford was still a more remarkable instance. It contained 207,906 acres, was more than twice as large as the county of Rutland, was four-fifths the size of

  493
  Bedfordshire, and possessed upwards of 7,000 registered electors, of whom 6,000 occupied houses with rentals under £10. Upon what grounds were the remaining labouring men, who were householders in that part of Nottinghamshire in which East Retford was situated, to be debarred from the privilege of exercising the suffrage, as they could do under this Bill in perfect security? But while Cricklade and East Retford were the two most conspicuous instances of this curious anomaly, on the other hand Leamington, which contained a population of 25,000, was not a borough at all, but only part of the county of Warwickshire, though it ought, in his opinion, to be part of the borough of Warwick. How long were anomalies of this kind to be perpetuated? If the House was to go into the consideration of a new Reform Bill and to re-open the whole question he was prepared to accept all the consequences which justly flowed from this measure. There were 36 agricultural boroughs of England which contained more than 10,000 acres. Cricklade had 158,000 acres; East Retford, 207,000 acres; Shoreham, 112,000, or about a seventh part of the county of Sussex; Aylesbury, 61,181 acres; Wenlock, an extraordinary sort of archipelago of islands in the midst of a county, 51,000 acres; Droitwich, 27,000 acres; Midhurst, which had long enjoyed the honour of being represented by his right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Spencer Walpole), 26,000 acres. He noticed, in looking over the map, that in that 26,000 acres were comprised a park, a heath, a marsh, and about six miles of South Downs. The House ought to be prepared to go into this question, and to consider the consequences which must follow if the Ballot was to become law. They ought to be prepared to place all the other labouring householders in the country on as favourable a footing as the men of the same class in those electoral districts, for electoral districts they were. There was another point which must be considered in connection with this question. His belief was, and in that he perfectly agreed with his hon. Friend the Member for South Northumberland (Mr. Liddell), that the logical and inevitable consequence of this measure was the entire disfranchisement of the small boroughs and the sub-division of the
  494
  counties. If this Bill passed, it would follow inevitably that the counties which were far too large—he spoke as a county Member—ought to be divided, and the small boroughs disfranchised. In the county which he had the honour to represent (Berkshire) there were two small boroughs which any person looking at Dod would suppose to be in exactly the same position—the borough of Abingdon and the borough of Wallingford. Abingdon, the smaller borough, contained about 150 acres, and between 50 and 60 agricultural labourers who had votes, while Wallingford, which had about 18,000 acres, was in itself a large slice out of a county, and every labouring man in the borough had a vote. Would anyone tell him that with the Ballot it would not be perfectly easy for any wealthy and ambitious man desiring to get into that House to send an agent down and buy up such boroughs at once? The thing would be done—no one could prevent it—and no money need pass during the election. Everybody knew that where there was a large proportion of poor constituents to whom £20 now and then was a fortune, and where the number of electors was so limited as in these boroughs, a very small sum would buy these men straight off. There was no use in Government ignoring this fact. The thing must surely follow, and the reason why he objected to this Bill was that, if passed, we should not get the reforms to which he had referred. The Government would have kept their words to their supporters the Members for the great boroughs, and they would not trouble themselves during the rest of their term of office about redressing what he believed to be vastly greater grievances. How long did they think it possible that the distinction between the town and county franchise could be maintained? There was a time when people held that property was represented in counties and occupation in boroughs. How much longer could that doctrine be maintained? Could it be maintained gravely and seriously at the present moment? The time had long since passed for that. It could hardly have been maintained on any solid ground for the last 40 years. How did the principle work in boroughs? Boroughs were the spoiled children of our political constitution. A man might live in a borough and vote for the county.

  495
  Now, he objected to a borough conferring a county vote, and he would tell the House why. He would take the case of Smith and Jones, who occupied their own freehold houses, say contiguous houses, in a borough. By their occupation of them they would each have a vote for the borough and not for the county. Suppose these two men to be of different political opinions, they would thus neutralize one another, and there would be no object in their gaining votes for the county. But suppose they agreed in politics, what would follow? Smith might say to Jones—"Why not have two votes—one for the county as well as one for the borough?" Jones would ask—"How can that be managed?" "Oh, very easily," Smith would reply; "you can go into my house and I into yours, and by exchanging in that way we get a vote for the county by our freehold and a vote for the borough by our occupation." That was not a fanciful thing. He knew it could be easily done, and could anything be conceived more utterly absurd and indefensible? In his opinion, occupation and property should each qualify for a vote for the borough in which that property was situate, and a similar qualification should exist for the counties. But if the House were to sanction a measure so fertile in important consequences as this Ballot Bill, it was impossible to disguise from themselves the questions which must follow; they were bound to face those questions, and before the end of this Parliament to come to a final settlement of them. With these few remarks he would take leave of the subject. He would vote against the second reading, but would take no further steps in opposition to the measure.
  MR. GOLDNEYsaid, the Bill was in substance very much like the measure of last year. It had been amended in some respects, and altered in its shape by merely putting its principles in the body of the Bill and its details, or the mode in which it was to be carried out, in the schedules. It dealt with three main points—the nomination of candidates, voting by Ballot, and the powers and duties of the returning officer. As to the alterations which it proposed to make in the system of nomination, he did not think the Bill would be an adequate remedy for the evils which
  496
  were said to exist. If the Bill passed, the returning officer would be vested with larger powers than he ever possessed before, to such an extent that it would be in his power to turn an election. The time fixed for the nomination was to be limited to two hours, and the nomination itself was accompanied with these restrictions—that the candidate should be nominated in writing by ten registered electors—the proposer, seconder, and eight others; that the nomination paper must be handed to the returning officer by the candidate himself or his proposer or seconder; that each candidate should be nominated by a separate nomination paper; that the same electors might subscribe as many nomination papers as there were vacancies to be filled up, but no more; and that the returning officer should have power to decide on the validity of every objection made against a nomination paper. If those provisions were agreed to, it would be easy enough to get the nomination of a candidate altogether vitiated by persuading one of the signers of the nomination paper that the candidate had retired, and that he (the elector) must therefore sign another paper nominating someone else. As to voting by Ballot, the returning officer was to determine the mode in which a candidate should be nominated, and what sort of a description of him should be sufficient; and that, again, was a serious objection. The filling in of the voting paper, in the same way, would be so much within the control of the returning officer as to what would constitute a proper filling in that he would have immense power over the recording of votes. Another great objection was that the Bill, as at present framed, would give the returning officer power, if he chose to exercise it, of delaying an election very considerably. He could take nine clear days between the receipt of the writ and the nomination, six clear days before fixing the poll, a certain time for appointing his presiding officers, and so on; so that if he received a writ on the 11th of March, he could postpone the election till so late a period as the 20th of April. In the hands of a political partizan such a power might be taken very unfair advantage of. Another amendment which he thought might be made on the Bill was to give candidates the power of withdrawing if

  497
  they saw fit, after the nomination. The nomination paper might very often determine a man whether he should retire or not. Why should he be inflicted with all the expense of going to the poll when he was desirous of retiring? There was also too great discretion vested in the returning officer, which was more dangerous, he thought, than any he had referred to. Departing—and wisely departing, in his opinion—from the provisions of last year's Bill, the Bill provided that the electors who were required to sign the nomination paper were not to be ten qualified electors, as was required last year, but ten registered electors. But another great power came here into the hands of the returning officer, who was to have authority to decide whether the party was disqualified or not; not only whether the mark made on the polling papers was sufficient, whether it was such an identification that the person who had written it could be known, but whether the party was qualified or not. This gave the returning officer too great power over the votes in any election. A good many of the matters were matters of detail; but the opponents of the Bill had been challenged last year with having raised a great number of questions of detail without having mentioned them on the second reading. He thought it was possible to lick the Bill into shape; but if it was put on the Table in the state it was now in they were not to be taunted with criticizing the same too severely. He would endeavour, without offering any obstruction to the Bill, to get it put into a workable shape, and, if it was to become law, to make it a protection to the voter.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, although a uniform supporter of the Ballot from the time that he first had an opportunity of voting in its favour in the House, he had abstained from speaking on the subject last Session lest by so doing he might delay the passing of the measure by even five minutes. As far back as 1847, before the constituency of Aberdeen, he had advocated the Ballot in the interests of working men, with the view of protecting them against the coercion of their employers. In those days the working men were much more under the influence of their masters than they were now-a-days. The employer now was met by a very different
  498
  influence indeed. He maintained that there was now a greater necessity of protecting the working man against the trades union committees than there ever was of protecting him before. The influence of his employer was nothing to what that of the trades union committee would be. They knew how the men of the unions were governed and dictated to by a small committee of active persons, and it was because those persons had political ideas, political views, and political objects, and because the unionist members were subject to the dictation of those who ruled them, that he had been induced to pursue a course different from that which he had pursued last Session, and address the House. He wished those men to have entire liberty and a free conscience to resist the pressure which might be put on them to act contrary to their own feelings and their own views. They must look also to the fact that these committees, if actuated by political views, might be dictating to their fellow tradesmen in the union, and ultimately become a serious power in this country by controlling to a certain extent its representation. What, then, would become of our system of election? If, therefore, there were reasons why the working men should have had the Ballot for their protection in times past, the reasons were tenfold stronger now why they should be in possession of that protection. The hon. Member for South Northumberland (Mr. Liddell) had said that in America the Ballot was a mockery, that it professed one thing, and practically resulted in another. During the last Session of Parliament a gentleman travelling in Europe for his amusement was introduced to him, and he had the pleasure of providing a seat for him in the Speaker's Gallery, where he was present on two occasions when a debate was going on with regard to the Ballot, and he wrote to him (Colonel Sykes) a letter, from which he would extract a few words. The writer said—
  "Few things had pleased him more on his journey than having had the opportunity of hearing discussions on the Ballot in the British House of Commons. The Ballot, he said, was not so bad in reality as it was represented to be, and as he heard many Members indicate. It was not probably so good as it might be with regard to America; but still he was sure the United States of America would rather give up their glorious stars, stripes, and eagle, than give up the ballot-boxes."

  499
  This was the expression of a cultivated gentleman, well acquainted with America, and he might venture to say that the views which he expressed were those of a great majority in the States. In America, he told him (Colonel Sykes) if a suspected man came up to the ballot-box he was asked his name and address, and was immediately marched off to his residence, and in that way it was found out whether he was the individual he professed to be. If that were done in America, he saw no difficulty in dealing with a person in England in the same way, and in that way personation would be put down. With regard to bribery, there was no question that it had existed and would exist; but no man of common prudence and common sense would buy a "pig in a poke," or give £20 for a vote without knowing which way it would be given, and therefore bribery might be checked. Under these circumstances, it was that he gave his opinions on the Ballot for the first time in that House. He should vote for the second reading with very great satisfaction, and he trusted that the Bill would be carried through, not only with the majority of last year, but with an increased majority.
  MR. FIELDENsaid, that in the abolition of public nominations and public declarations of the poll we were declaring to the world that we were abolishing two of our most highly-prized advantages—the right of public meeting and the right of public discussion. With regard to the taking of votes in secret, the reasons given by those in favour of that process were, that it would stop or diminish bribery and intimidation. Bribery had a far deeper root than could be eradicated by any legislative enactment. If a rich man was corrupt enough to go to a poor man, and say—"If you will vote for me I will give you so much money," knowing that the poor man, from his very necessities, was open to the influence—so long as there were these two classes—the corrupt rich and the poor who were ready to receive the money the rich offered—so long, whatever the laws were, would these two parties come together. The only real check upon the unscrupulous use of wealth by the rich was publicity; but by the introduction of secret voting they shut the
  500
  door to all chance of discovery. He suggested that the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just sat down should write to his American friend, and ask if bribery did not take place in the United States. The thing was done in this way. The election was paid for by results. A candidate would go to one of the many political clubs which existed in that country. The agreement generally was that if he became what is called a "ticket"—that was, that if he was accepted as the candidate of the club, he paid so much money down to the club, and on his election he paid another sum to the club. Now, if the aim of the Government was to do away with bribery by this Bill, they were closing the door to its detection. Then, as to intimidation, it was a thing of so subtle a nature that it could not be prevented by any enactment. It resulted from the power which one man exercised over another, either from his wealth, his social position, or from any other inference, and that power could be used in a thousand ways. The thing which alone could control the exercise of this power was publicity. But the question of secret voting shrank into utter insignificance when they came to consider the question of the abolition of public nominations, which were simply the greatest of our public meetings. We had in this country various kinds of public meetings so called; but they were really private meetings under a public name. The greatest public meeting of all was the nomination meeting for the election of Members of the House of Commons; and he asked, after they had abolished this meeting, whether they could defend other public meetings. Would anybody assert that because there were sometimes disturbances, therefore public meetings should be abolished? If not, the whole argument for abolishing public nominations must fall to the ground. Where they had free open discussion, and that which must be the necessary accompaniment of free discussion, free action, there must of necessity be the liability to stormy meetings and even attempts of breaches of the peace. This was incidental to freedom in the expression of opinion; but if, in consequence, the right was to be abolished, then the days of England's freedom would be gone. It was a grand sight to see candidates nominated in open day, in view

  501
  of the people from whom the trust was asked, and it was something that the poorest could go to the hustings and ask the candidate questions. He felt sure that the framers of the Bill could not have contemplated what its effect would be. The countries of the world had endeavoured to copy our institutions, and in more than anything else to obtain that freedom of public meeting and of the Press which openly canvassed the acts of those who governed us. The Bill proposed that instead of an open nomination, the proposer, the seconder, and the returning officer should retire into a private room. This was to be the climax of the policy of the party that had ever since 1832 professed themselves so anxious to give the people more power. The people now had the power to see their candidate in the light of day, to put questions to him, and to hold up their hands upon the question whether he was fit to represent them. Instead of this it was now proposed that they should have a hole-and-corner meeting at which the number of persons to be present were to be restricted by statute. If this had been done by the Emperor of Russia, what would the English papers have said? They would have denounced the suspension of the right of public meeting and the free expression of opinion. He would ask, what was there in this Bill to prevent a candidate in a small borough sending down some one to contest the borough against him. This man whom the electors would have chosen, might in the hole-and-corner meeting from which the public were excluded, retire in favour of the candidate who had bribed him to go down to oppose him, and thus cause a man to be elected whom the public outside totally disapproved of. The Bill, to his mind, was calculated to promote bribery and to give the intimidator freedom to intimidate; and this Bill announced to the world that a Liberal Ministry, at least, believed that England, in spite of her progress, prosperity, and boasted freedom, had become unfit to have entrusted to her citizens the free expression of opinion in public meeting.
  MR. CADOGAN, while desiring in his own name and that of his constituents to give a cordial support to this Bill, demurred most emphatically to the expression of opinion that the Ballot Bill was a traditionary prejudice. He freely
  502
  admitted that any Bill for secret voting did clash with the abstract theory and sentiment of political freedom; but in the times in which they lived they had passed out of the realm of sentiment and theory, and the question presented itself as one of paramount importance and requirement, particularly on the part of the lower class of voters who had lately had the franchise given them. He held that secret voting fulfilled that requirement to the largest possible extent. His individual opinion was that the Bill would not have the slightest effect upon bribery. It must not be forgotten, however, that bribery was dying out fast through the influence of public opinion, and the relatively high tone of public opinion on the part of the lower orders which was brought to bear upon the upper classes. But where the Bill would tell most directly was as regarded coercion. It had come within his personal knowledge that the employers of labour brought a very galling and humiliating amount of coercion to bear upon the employed, and this Bill would strike at the root of that evil.
  MR. HUTTONsaid, he should vote with Her Majesty's Government on this question. Personally he entertained a dislike to anything secret in the mode of conducting elections, and prior to the passing of the Reform Bill of 1867 he should have been prepared to oppose anything in the shape of secret voting. But since the passing of that measure large numbers of voters had come so entirely under the influence of masters, landlords, and others about them, that it was absolutely necessary to pass a Ballot Bill for their protection. He did not think that the Ballot would stop bribery, though it was possible that it might stop intimidation. What he should prefer was that the Ballot should be first applied to boroughs as an experiment, because in the counties the franchise was not so low as it was in boroughs. A proposition of this kind would also, if adopted, form something like a compromise with the other House of Parliament.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEsaid, he did not agree with the hon. Member for Cricklade (Mr. Cadogan) that the Ballot would put an end to coercion—the favourite electioneering weapon of the purse-proud, half-educated, tyrannical employer of labour who had once been at the bottom of the sawpit, and who had,

  503
  with an unchanged nature, grown to be top sawyer. The real restraining power upon their intimidation was public opinion. At present, the man who desired to coerce was in a measure restrained by the publicity of the poll-book, which gave the clue to his sinister machinations, but with the Ballot in force he could do his worst. At present, the great safeguard of political purity against coercion or intimidation was the patent discrepancy between the vote which the poll-book bore on the face of it and the views which the voter may have been known to proclaim in public; but destroy the identity of each vote, as you would do by the secret Ballot, and there would remain no means of bringing home coercion to those who practised it. The machinery by which coercion and intimidation would in future be worked would be that a system of espionage would be established, under which dependent voters would be brought to the poll in gangs, watched up to the booth and away from it again, and put under the strongest moral pressure to vote in the sense of their escorts. The House had just been congratulated on the absence of the metaphysical argument. He would equally congratulate it on the absence of the antipodean one, of which they had heard so much last year that they might almost have thought themselves convicts. Britannia possessed in Australia a thriving nursery of which any mother might be proud; but were they to be told that she was to draw her lessons of political experience from her suckling progeny? Were they to revolutionize this old and settled country by initiating a system founded on the practice of embryonic communities, the best of which had enjoyed a dozen successive Governments in ten years? He had great respect for that noble energy of the British character which had founded our magnificent settlements in the Southern seas; but the progress of those settlements should not be made apparently ridiculous—really ridiculous it could not be made—by adducing the crude experiments of their tentative apprenticeship of a few years in Cabinet and Parliament-making as evidence of what ought to rule the oldest, most respectable, and most powerful Legislative Assembly in the world. If they were to be thus invited to try the dangerous experiment of unlimited precedent, where
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  might they not be landed? In the coming debate upon the Business of the House, where, upon the same principle, might not the argument from unlimited precedent be stretched? For example, why might they not be told that they ought to follow the example of foreign Assemblies by electing their Speaker every Session, or by placing Members of the House in the places of those who now so ably occupied the seats at the Table. The Ballot might be a necessity in Australia, so might also be the payment of Members which had gone hand-in-hand with it; but were the Members of the time-honoured British House of Commons to be degraded by having money forced upon them for the services which they rendered there? It was said that the Ballot was necessary because the voter must be protected in every way in the fullest discharge of his duty; but might it not be urged with equal cogency that this end could not be fully attained while the field for the selection of his representatives was narrowed by being confined to men who could dispense with remuneration for their services? He was almost surprised at the neatness and logical consistency of his own argument, for they must all instinctively feel that it would be a dangerous and a levelling thing to substitute paid delegates for unpaid English gentlemen. Yet they would see that there was a great deal to be said for that if they accepted, as a point of departure for their argument, the modern theory of the unlimited rights of uneducated men. The British Empire had achieved its present high and glorious position without the aid of that which, with a fine Irish sense of humour, the Attorney General for Ireland had termed the free recording of votes, because it succeeded in suppressing any record of how the votes were given. He warned them of the danger attending such a change as that proposed. They should remember and take warning by the epitaph of a man who had studied the hygienics of the human body as hon. Gentlemen opposite had studied the hygienics of the body politic, and who at last died a martyr to science. The epitaph was—"I was well: I tried to be better: here I am." Publicity was the general characteristic of all our public life, and why were Parliamentary elections to be made an exception to so salutary a rule? There was

  505
  no enthusiasm for the Ballot in the country; while the empty state of the Benches on the opposite side of the House, with their long rows of ghostly cards, at that moment reflected the apathy existing on the subject among the constituencies, and faithfully mirrored by the representatives. He was far from saying that considerable portions of the Liberal party might not have persuaded themselves that they behoved in the Ballot, for self-persuasion was a marvellous and mysterious thing. There was so much simplicity in the human heart that whenever any man or body of men found out that it was their interest to do or think something not in itself palpably wrong or absolutely forbidden by the Ten Commandments, or the Sermon on the Mount, they always discovered a ready way to persuade themselves that they really believed in it, and, if they had very strong imagination, even to persuade themselves that they had never thought otherwise in all their lives. He therefore gave the Liberal party in that House full credit for the present belief that they were now sincere friends of the Ballot; but the elections within the last few months had not shown that the country had gone through a similar process of conversion. In East Surrey, Mr. Buxton, one of the most promising, able, and honest supporters of advanced Liberalism, whose loss he could not speak of without sincere regret, had been replaced by a professed opponent of the Ballot; while at Plymouth and Truro the same result had occurred. It was said, indeed, that in the West Riding of Yorkshire both candidates were in favour of the Ballot, yet the election there did not at all turn upon the Ballot; but the Conservative candidate was returned because he was a supporter of his right hon. Friend's (Mr. Forster's) principles in regard to education, against the candidate on whose Committee, as the opponent of his own measure, the right hon. Vice President had placed himself. Therefore the advocates of the Ballot could take no change out of that West Riding contest. Again, at Glasgow, which was not only the second city of Great Britain, next to London itself, but the head-quarters of such advanced Liberalism, that its minority Member was as decided liberal as his two Colleagues put together. At the very beginning of the Recess a splendid ovation
  506
  was given to the noble Earl (the Earl of Shaftesbury) who had, only a few days before, moved the rejection of the Ballot Bill in the other House of Parliament. Surely that event did not look very much as if the whole country felt keenly the loss of that Bill. The most important three-fourths of this year's measure were relegated into schedules. It was like a lady's letter, in which all that was interesting was reserved for the postscript. While opposed to that feminine form of legislation, he was, however, in favour of the portion of the Bill which provided for the abolition of public nominations, which were now only a "sham." Formerly the nomination was the election itself; now it was only the saturnalia of those whose mission was to make a row, and who did not themselves possess the franchise Desiring to fight the Bill as a fair and not as a factious antagonist, he should support those of its provisions which would limit the licence of public nominations and make elections more orderly; but, for the rest, the experience of the Recess had only strengthened his sense of the futility of the arguments by which the measure was defended.
  MR. DENISONsaid, that it had always been a received axiom in political history that when great changes were proposed to be made in the electoral law great evils must be in existence which those changes were intended to remedy. Every hon. Member who had spoken on the subject had taken pains to point out to the House that the Ballot would not cure any single evil with reference to elections that was now in existence except the very moderate amount of coercion that prevailed in some of our larger towns. But if the evils to be cured should be patent, so should the measures propounded be equal to the occasion. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman who had charge of this Bill (Mr. W. E. Forster) would not think that he was casting any reflection upon him when he stated that he saw no probability of this measure being more calculated to remedy the evils attendant upon an election than was the one of last year. The House of Lords did a signal service to the country in the course they adopted last Session in stopping the course of a crude and imperfect measure, and in giving the country time to reflect and re-consider the course it

  507
  was asked to pursue. Nothing had occurred during the Recess to make the passing of this measure more urgent, desirable, or necessary than existed this time last year; but rather the isolated elections that had taken place during the Recess had supplied plenty of evidence to show that the House was asked to adopt a course not required for the protection of the electoral body. At the late election for the Northern Division of the West Riding both candidates were in favour of the Ballot; but he did not believe that it had the slightest influence upon the result of the election; and more than that, he was in a position to state positively that the successful candidate took pains to point out to the electors that it was quite possible that the Ballot might bring in its train greater evils than it was intended to cure, especially pointing out the enormous power proposed to be given to the returning officers to deal with the electoral return. Before this Bill was passed the right hon. Gentleman who had charge of it would doubtless find himself compelled to amend a great number of the provisions which, although placed in the schedule, really contained the very pith and marrow of the Bill. He would find that the substitute proposed for open nomination days would not bear criticism, and that it would not work in practice. He had himself dwelt in former days upon the evils which nomination days, as they were known in the North, brought in their train; but reflection had brought him to the conclusion that the system now proposed would be infinitely more pernicious in its effects than anything that had heretofore been experienced. It would be possible under the provisions of this Bill for ten electors, utterly unknown to the great body of voters, to put in nomination candidates without the electors having the slightest opportunity of putting a single question to them on the political subjects of the day. Could any system be more subversive or more utterly destructive of the power of the franchise? The crowd in front of the hustings on a nomination day was, no doubt, for the most part composed of non-electors; but in theory they were electors, and it was impossible for a candidate under the present system to seek the suffrages of the electoral body without giving every elector and non-elector an opportunity of putting
  508
  him through the sieve, and of finding out what he was worth both intellectually and politically. He was afraid that in their anxiety to throw a shield over electors in the exercise of the franchise, the Government had had in their minds the evils that had long since passed away rather than those that now existed. In asking Parliament to adopt this measure, the Government left out of sight some much greater evils than that of moderate and minimised coercion. In small boroughs the system of secret voting would only be a delusion and a snare, and would not put it in the power of the electors any more than they had the power at present to secure the man of their deliberate choice. If that were so did it not follow, as had been pointed out by the hon. Member for Berkshire (Mr. Walter), that before this change in the electoral system could be satisfactory to the country at large it must be supplemented by a great many other changes which would amount, to use his own words, to a re-opening of the Reform question, which, in his opinion, the country was not prepared for? The experience of all countries showed that there could be no perfect system of voting, and it was idle to tell the electors of England that by secret voting they would secure a purer and more perfect representation of their wishes. Before this Bill became law he hoped they would have an opportunity of reviewing their position and of collecting the experience of other countries possessing the Ballot, so that they might arrive at something more perfect, better digested, and more likely to produce the results which the Government anticipated from this measure. He knew it was vain to attempt to stop the second reading of the Bill, and therefore all their efforts must be directed to perfecting it as far as possible; but when he looked through the Bill he almost despaired of bringing order out of what seemed to him to be legislative chaos. He approached the question from no party view, because he could not conceive that either side of the House had anything to gain by having an imperfect electoral system; but holding the opinions he did, he could see no other course for him than to vote against the second reading, and afterwards to offer such criticisms upon the details of the Bill as might tend in any way to their improvement.
  MR. A. EGERTONsaid, he had listened attentively to the observations of the hon. Member for Berkshire (Mr. Walter), but he had failed to trace the connecting link, which was evidently present to the mind of the hon. Gentleman, between the question of the Ballot and the whole subject of the reform of the electoral system of the country. The hon. Gentleman had argued that the Ballot would inevitably lead to a re-distribution of seats and to the reduction of the county franchise; but he (Mr. Egerton) could not see that that would follow. But the objections to the Ballot did not depend so much upon its ultimate results as on the question of principle. He had always opposed the Ballot on the question of principle, for he believed that the publicity of the vote formed the whole groundwork for the exercise of the franchise; and the franchise itself, whether it was regarded as a trust or as a privilege, was so important a matter that it was only right that it should be exposed to all the checks which were placed upon it. He believed that if the Ballot became law we should have eventually to retrace our footsteps and reverse our decision by repealing the Act.
  MR. STAVELEY HILLsaid, though he supported the Bill brought forward in 1870 by the noble Lord the present Chief Secretary for Ireland (the Marquess of Hartington), he could not support the Bill of last year or the present measure. Speaking from long professional experience with regard to Election Petitions, and as a Royal Commissioner in the case of a delinquent borough, he had never feared the Ballot, and he had for many years thought it might be properly adopted. The three evils to be dealt with were undue influence, personation, and corrupt practices. As to personation, he was surprised to hear the Attorney General state the other evening that he proposed for the first time to make it a misdemeanour. It had always been a misdemeanour, and under the 6th Victoria it was punishable with two years' hard labour. As to undue influence, the evidence taken by the Select Committee a year or two ago led him, and, he believed, some of his Colleagues, to think that there was a certain case made out in favour of preventing it by the Ballot, especially undue influence exercised by customers on
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  small tradesmen; for the other forms of it appeared hardly worthy of consideration. Bribery, however, was by far the most serious election offence, and it would not be diminished by this Bill. It was only checked at present by the fear of detection and Petition. Now, in the case of Petitions, the persons who gave the information on which they were based, frequently, on being placed in the witness-box, recanted their original statements, either because they had come to their senses and resolved to tell the truth, or because they had been tampered with. Such persons could not be questioned as to their original statement, unless the Judge was satisfied that they were hostile witnesses, which was now done by its being shown that they voted for the sitting Member. The 12th clause of this Bill, however, provided that no witness should be required to state for whom he voted, so that a person could not be contradicted by his previous statement, and scrutinies and inquiries would be practically put an end to. He opposed the Bill on this ground, and also because it would impair the effect of that public opinion under which bribery was fast diminishing and almost passing away.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he thought the Bill had been much more carefully drawn than that which was discussed last year; but the really important part of the measure was contained in its schedules. In a Ballot Bill the most important thing was to settle the best regulations upon which the Ballot was to proceed; and as nearly every regulation was contained in the schedules, these regulations could not be so well discussed in Committee as they could have been if contained in the clauses. In the speech of the Attorney General for Ireland a great deal was said in praise of the Ballot in the abstract, but very little indeed of the particular mode in which the Government proposed to carry it out. He did not intend to trouble the House with any lengthened repetition of arguments against the principle of the Ballot; though he still believed that secrecy in the performance of a public duty was objectionable, and that in any case, this Bill could not cure the evils against which it was directed. In regard to bribery, it was admitted that secret voting could not put an end to this evil; but there were still some who

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  failed to see how easy it would be to pay by results. He was disposed to concur with the Attorney General for Ireland on this one point—that we must not look to the Ballot to put down bribery, but to the growing force of public opinion. All the Ballot would do would be to make bribery safer, and, very possibly, to extend it from the electors to the returning officers. With regard to intimidation, nothing in the present day was so much the subject of exaggeration as intimidation. He was convinced that labourers were rather ruling their employers now than employers ruling their labourers. Tenants were often far more powerful than landlords, and he did not believe there was a man in the United Kingdom who would be so foolish as to evict a tenant for having given a vote against him at an election. The Ballot would be no protection whatever to individual members of the International Society, or a trades union, or the Fenian Society, against their fellow members; for no men were less capable than the working classes of that constant and vigilant reserve which would be necessary to conceal their real opinions. The Attorney General for Ireland referred to the terrorism exercised at the Meath election; but he seemed to forget that the Ballot would not prevent voters from being kept away from the poll. Suppose open violence was out of the question, threatening letters and other machinery would be used to keep away those voters who were suspected of wishing to vote against the popular candidate. But it was now hardly pretended that the Ballot could, in practice, be really secret. He thought it was pretty generally admitted that the secrecy which the Ballot would bring about would be, at the most, optional, and would not be a secrecy which the vast majority of the electors of this country would avail themselves of. They would follow the universal practice of the English race, whether in our colonies or in the United States, and would declare their opinions as openly as at present. It appeared to him to be an unheard-of proposal that for the sake of enabling a miserable minority of cowardly electors to live a life of hypocrisy the vast majority of Englishmen should be deprived of their privilege of being able to satisfy themselves that their votes, when given, had been actually reckoned
  512
  in favour of the candidate of their choice, and that the real power of deciding elections should be taken from them and placed in the hands of the returning officer. There was no end to the evils which would be encouraged by this measure as it now stood, and perhaps the chief of these evils was personation. He was thankful for the admission of the Attorney General that personation would become a far more important matter under secret voting than under the present open system, and that it would need far more stringent enactments than at present to prevent that evil. It was very much to be regretted that in introducing this disease into the country the Government had not also at the same time introduced their remedy. He should have liked the present Bill and the Corrupt Practices Bill to be considered by the same Committee. It would not be in order for him now to fully enter into the remedies which the Government proposed for personation; but he might say this—that the provisions in the Corrupt Practices Bill would inflict serious hardships upon the voter who was personated. He would be the only person in the constituency who would be unable to avail himself of that secrecy which would be extended to every other voter. In a large constituency nothing would be easier than for any one who wished to coerce a voter, or to neutralize his vote, than to procure that the voter should be personated. Upon a scrutiny, a man thus personated would not be able to vote unless he voted openly. Then how futile would be their attempts to check this acknowledged danger. Though all who had really considered the matter agreed in the vast importance of a power of scrutiny, the Government had been unable to adopt any plan to identify the voter with the ballot paper. Yet, as they seemed to be more aware of the serious danger of personation than they were last Session, and had now learnt to look this evil fully in the face, he sincerely trusted that they might still see their way to adopt the form of scrutiny that was recommended by the Select Committee, and which they themselves proposed in their Bill two Sessions ago. But the present measure was not simply a Ballot Bill, because it contained very important provisions as to the increase of polling places in counties. He thanked the Government

  513
  for these provisions; but with regard to England he did not think the provisions were entirely satisfactory. A voter might still have to go four miles to a polling place, and besides that, there was to be no polling place unless there were 100 voters to poll at it; and, therefore, in his opinion, the provisions did not fully meet the evils that existed. If a polling place was beyond an easy walk from the voter, he was not likely to go to it unless he were conveyed, and the expense of conveyance, now so great in county elections, would not in that case be materially reduced. Besides, he understood that the hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Mr. James) was about to move that the conveyance of voters to poll should be made illegal in counties as well as in boroughs; and if that Motion were carried, without a larger increase of polling places than that proposed by the Bill, many poor county voters would be practically disfranchised. With regard to Ireland, the Bill of last year made it imperative on the magistrates to establish polling places in every petty sessional division, and as many more as might be requisite, subject to the approval of the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council. But by this Bill it would be optional for the Lord Lieutenant to order the magistrates to hold quarter sessions at which these alterations were to be made. But those who remembered how the proposal of a former Government to increase the polling places in Ireland was defeated, would not be inclined to leave to the Lord Lieutenant, who was only the representative of a party, the initiative in the matter. He must express his great surprise at the reluctance of the Government to extend the increase of polling places to Scotland. Last Session a proposal to increase the number of polling places in Scotland was carried against the Government, without a division; and yet in the present Bill the proposal so carried last year was not inserted. This was so, notwithstanding that the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill (Mr. W. E. Forster) said that he should have the greatest consideration for the decisions of the House last year. But after all, these were minor points. This was really a Ballot Bill. It was pressed upon the Government, and by them upon the House, because the question had become a party shibboleth; but was
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  there really any feeling in the country upon the subject? There had been times that evening when the House might with the greatest facility have been counted out, though it was upon the first night of the discussion of a measure which the Government affected to consider as one of the greatest importance. Nothing could exceed the indifference of the country upon this matter. Did anybody really regret the rejection of last year's Bill by the House of Lords? Then, again, was anybody satisfied with this Bill? They on that side were not. And could the old Whigs like a measure which they had opposed for so many years; or could hon. Gentlemen below the gangway be satisfied with it as it stood? Did they really want to pass a measure which, while nullifying, as far as it could, the influence of localized property and ancestral connection, did nothing to facilitate the entrance into Parliament of men with moderate means? With bribery undiscoverable, with irresponsible returning officers, the way to that House would be easy to one class—that of the newly-rich. He was not prepared to change that Assembly, representing every variety of classes and interests, into a mere Plutocracy, who would be much more disposed to consult their own private ends than the public good. He was not prepared to legalize hypocrisy, to facilitate fraud, to entrust the real power of returning Members to that House to a class of corruptible officials; and therefore he should continue to give his most strenuous opposition to the Bill.
  MR. STACPOOLEsupported the second reading, on the ground that the Bill, if passed, would enable the majority of the electors to exercise the franchise with freedom, uninfluenced by the terrorism of mobs, and the elections to be conducted quietly and in order. He believed that the Bill would be ultimately one of as Conservative as of a Liberal character, and that the landed interest instead of losing by it would be considerable gainers.
  MR. D. DALRYMPLEadmitted that, with the exception of one or two constituencies, there was last year no great agitation on the subject of the Bill, nor was any to be seen at present; but the reason was because the country regarded the passing of the measure as a foregone conclusion. He was in America during

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  the time when the elections were going on, and he was never more struck by anything than by the easy way in which personation could be prevented, provided the agents were reasonably honest. His experience of the Ballot in America convinced him that if a voter determined not to divulge the manner in which he had voted, his secret was absolutely inviolable. He had had considerable experience of election contests, and had known every species of trickery resorted to for the purpose of securing elections, and he was convinced that if the Ballot had been in operation 30 years ago, Norwich would not have acquired the bad name it had obtained from the corruption practised there a few years ago. He would not only support the Bill; but if it were necessary to convince hon. Gentlemen opposite of the opinion of the Liberals of the country on the subject, he would have no objection to go before his own constituents on the question of the Ballot.
  MR. HERMONprotested against the statement which had been made that evening, that hon. Members were influenced in their opinions by the probable effect of the measure upon their constituencies. He believed that hon. Members on both sides would give their votes according to their conviction as to its beneficial effect or otherwise upon the country at large. He trusted that the House would come to a decision as soon as possible, and endeavour to make the best of a bad measure, if the determination of the majority was that it should be read a second time.
  Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided:—Ayes, 109; Noes 51: Majority 58.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for Thursday 29th February.

CORRUPT PRACTICES BILL— [BILL 22.]
(Mr. Attorney General, Mr. Solicitor General.)
CORRUPT PRACTICES BILL— [BILL 22.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Attorney General.)
  COLONEL BARTTELOTsaid, he hoped the Government would not proceed with
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  the Bill that night, considering the lateness of the hour. The Government might congratulate themselves on the debate which was occurring in "another place" for the speedy result obtained in the case of the Bill just disposed of. The House ought to be allowed another evening for considering the Corrupt Practices Bill.
  MR. BENTINCKsaid, a great man once said there was only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and it appeared to him the House had just taken that step. After what had been said of the importance which the country attached to the measure, it was surprising that a division should have been taken at a quarter past 11, and when only 160 hon. Members were present. It was impossible to conceive a more complete reductio ad absurdum, or stronger proof of the perfect indifference of the House and the country to the measure. He hoped the House would not proceed with the discussion on the second reading of the Bill.
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, that as the House had been taken unawares in the division that had taken place, hon. Members were justified in making use of the forms of the House to stop further rash legislation, and he therefore moved that the debate be adjourned. The Government appeared to be about to pursue the same policy in reference to the Elections Bill that they adopted last Session with the Army Bill, trying, after having divided the Bill, to pass one part and drop the other. He protested against such a course of proceeding. The natural curiosity of hon. Members had induced them to congregate in "another place," to hear the interesting discussion that was going on there, instead of attending to their duties in this House, and the consequence was that the Government, by a dexterous manipulation of affairs, had forced a division, by which they made it appear they had a large majority in favour of the measure, whilst the country was perfectly and utterly indifferent to the subject. He asked how many Petitions had been produced this Session in favour of the Ballot Bill?
  MR. CARNEGIErose to Order. He asked whether it was in Order to discuss a measure upon which the House had pronounced an opinion?
  MR. SPEAKERsaid, the House having just voted the second reading of the Bill,

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  it was not competent for the hon. Baronet to revive a question which had been determined by the House.
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, the two measures reminded him of the Siamese Twins; if they pinched one the other felt the disagreeable sensation. He considered the Corrupt Practices Bill the most important part of what should have been one measure, and he protested against its being proceeded with then.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Sir James Elphinstone.)
  MR. HUNTsaid, he agreed that this Bill ought to be discussed pari passû with the Ballot Bill; but he thought that object would not be attained by their adjourning the debate. He hoped his hon. Friend would withdraw his Amendment, and if the Bill was read a second time, he trusted the two Bills would be referred to the same Committee.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, hon. Members on his side of the House were taken by surprise when the division was called. They could not cure the accident that had happened, and it would be better to let the two Bills go together. On the Motion for the House going into Committee on this Bill, if no other Member did it, he would move that the House resolve itself into a Committee on the Bill that day six months.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for Thursday 29th February.

ROYAL PARKS AND GARDENS BILL.

  [BILL 17.] COMMITTEE.
  (Mr. Ayrton, Mr. Baxter.)
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—(Mr. Ayrton.)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice.)
  MR. VERNON HARCOURTremarked that earlier in the evening the right hon. Member having charge of this Bill (Mr. Ayrton) had, with his usual courtesy, declined to do other than proceed with it, no matter at what hour it came on. The right hon. Gentleman
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  had met his request with that courtesy which made the general management of business so easy, and the personal attachment of the party to its Leaders so devoted; but in this the right hon. Gentleman had merely imitated, at a humble distance, the example set him by his betters. ["Oh!"] Well, all he could say was that those who had the misfortune to sit below the gangway never got a courteous answer from him. ["Oh, oh!"] Well, hon. Gentlemen might have their own opinion of courtesy—he was only expressing his own personal opinion on the subject. But this was not a personal matter; and it could not be denied that the present Bill, as a matter of fact, involved a very serious public question. The right hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) had described the Bill as a piece of Algerine legislation; and he (Mr. V. Harcourt) thought that to proceed with a piece of Algerine legislation at that time of night was not a wise or a prudent thing on the part of any Government, and, above all, on the part of a Liberal Government. Hon. Gentlemen had not had time to put Amendments on the Paper for altering the Bill, and the Amendments which had been put down by the Government did not alter the features of the measure in any material respect. Excessively large powers were given to the Ranger of the Parks to frame a code and to arrest people without warrant, and he supposed that that was a principle to which a Liberal Government adhered. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ayrton) would no doubt say—"But the Ranger of the Parks must have the consent of the Board of Works to the code, and I will see that everything is all right." But had it never occurred to the right hon. Gentleman that the present Administration might not be immortal, and that, though not probable, it was within the range of possibility that before the end of the present century they might cease to be the Executive? Supposing that unhappy contingency should occur—possibly the hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Beresford Hope) might hold the right hon. Gentleman's present office—and, in concert with the Ranger of the Parks, might have to make these provisions for restraining the liberty of the subject. The Ranger was to make the code which would enable people to

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  be arrested and imprisoned without warrant, and the Ranger's servants, appointed by him, were the persons who were to carry the code into execution. Would it not be a shorter and simpler method to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act in London at once, and treat the parties as though they were in a proclaimed district in Ireland? The people were now called "those roughs;" not very long ago they were spoken of as "flesh and blood," but that was when we were out of office. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No, in office.] Ah, well, we were just going out of office then. But now the "flesh and blood" were "roughs," and they were to be taken into custody without warrant, and all because we were so afraid of the roughs. That, he must say, seemed to him something like political ingratitude. Whence had arisen this terror of the "roughs," for whom this Algerine piece of legislation was needed? He had been going into the Parks for years, and he had never seen those roughs of which the Governmet was so much afraid. He could only come to the conclusion that this Bill was the result of a great compact for political life assurance. Lord Derby had recently said in Lancashire that the Liberals were in office, but that it was the Conservatives who were in power, and the noble Lord made this offer—that if the Liberal Government would consent to carry out a Conservative policy, they should not be disturbed in the situation they occupied—an offer that was most generous, handsome, and complimentary. That was the history, and only history, of such a Bill as this. They were asked to go into Committee upon the Bill; and, of course, they would go into Committee. That was a foregone conclusion. What could they do if Gentlemen opposite took the matter up and supported the Treasury Bench? There was not an Amendment proposed on this Bill, though it contained provisions that no Tory Government in the world would ever have dared to propose to a Liberal Opposition? but a Liberal Administration, supported by a Conservative Opposition, had brought forward a measure which violated every principle of the liberty of the subject for which the Liberal party had for hundreds of years contended. Well, it was true the Liberals were in office; but the Conservatives were in power, and this Bill proved
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  it. The Liberal party would cease to be a majority of that House; he did not know whether they had not ceased to be a majority in the country. That remained to be seen. The Bill had been forced into Committee before any Gentleman had had time to put down any Amendments upon it, and he could only come to the conclusion that a combination existed to prevent discussion of its provisions. If the Government were determined to insist upon that course, and force the Bill through, they must leave the judgment to the country.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, he did not know what reply to make to the charge of disrespect with which the hon. and learned Gentleman imagined he had been treated, as the answer he had given to the Question which had been put to him was, that be would proceed with the Bill if it suited the convenience of the House. He wished to know how his hon. and Learned Friend had been treated with disrespect in such an answer as that. He could only be treated with disrespect in the event of any attempt being made to set up his wish in opposition to the general convenience of the House. [Mr. VERNON HARCOURT said, he had not said he had been treated with disrespect.] He (Mr. Ayrton) might not have caught the exact word; but he had expressed the substance of the hon. and learned Gentleman's remark. He could not conceive a more civil and conciliatory answer than he had given to the hon. and learned Gentleman, nor could he discover one new observation which he had made to his speech of the other evening, except that he had called this an Algerine Bill. He was not aware what the principles of Legislation were which would make it an Algerine Bill; but looking at it as an English Bill and a Bill of the House of Commons, it was in accordance with the legislation carried on in this House from time immemorial. Every Session for years past there had been Bills introduced in the same form, and it had never been discovered that they had been pregnant with terrible consequences to the British Constitution. The Metropolitan Police Act contained provisions under which powers were given to make rules for regulating the traffic in the public streets; and although in theory and abstractedly those rules might be open to criticism, yet in practice they worked very beneficially for the public convenience,

  521
  and very harmlessly as regarded the liberty of the subject. Again, the hon. and learned Gentleman must be aware that according to the common course of law, a corporate body which had jurisdiction had powers to make bylaws to preserve good order in that place. Then there was the General Parks Act, giving to anybody wishing to set up a public park the power of making bylaws for the purpose of regulating the property under their control. There were similar provisions in Railway Acts, Harbour Acts, and Municipal Acts. All that the Government asked for by this Bill was such a power to regulate the Parks as was ordinarily given to municipal bodies. It was open to the hon. and learned Member to propose Amendments in Committee; but he had refused to avail himself of that power, and had preferred to move the rejection of the Bill. When the Bill was before the Select Committee last year it had received the approval of four of the metropolitan Members, and in its present form it was a mere reprint of the measure which obtained the unanimous approval of that Committee. If any hon. Member objected to any particular clause in the Bill he could move its rejection or its Amendment in Committee.
  MR. RYLANDSsuggested that the Amendment should be withdrawn, on the understanding that reasonable time were given to Members to give Notice of the Amendments they intended to propose.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he thought the suggestion of the hon. Member a fair and proper one. He did not see that the Bill required what might be called a heroic style, as it was of a most prosaic character. The hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Mr. V. Harcourt) must feel that it was necessary there should be some power to make regulations for the Parks analogous to those which were given to municipal corporations, to railway companies, and to the police. It would, of course, be the duty of the Government to meet the views of the hon. and learned Member as far as possible, and therefore he would consent to the House going into Committee upon the Bill pro formâ, with a view to time being given for giving Notice of such Amendments as hon. Members might desire to move.
  MR. ALDERMAN LAWRENCEsaid, he thought that there were one or two
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  points which the Chief Commissioner of Works might attend to with advantage.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill considered in Committee; Committee report Progress, to sit again upon Thursday next.

PACIFIC ISLANDERS PROTECTION BILL.

  LEAVE. FIRST READING.
  MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill for the prevention and punishment of Criminal Outrages upon Natives of the Islands of the Pacific Ocean, said, the atrocities of the trade to which this measure had reference, and which had excited the interest of this country, had culminated in the murder of Bishop Patteson, whose loss was a subject of the most sincere regret. Those who, like himself, remembered that Prelate in old Eton days, would perhaps join him in the wish that they could each look back upon so self-denying, God-fearing, man-helping a life as that which had just been sacrificed in so good a cause. The Bishop had devoted his time, his labour, and his fortune, to the good work, and now at last had lost his life in the performance of his duty. The death of that good man, however, would not be without effect if it should lead to an amelioration of the condition of those persons to whom the present Bill referred. There was a large party of honourable and enthusiastic gentlemen in this country who were anxious to repress the trade which had led to these nefarious practices; but, on the other hand, it was impossible to deny that the importation of South Sea Islanders into our Australasian colonies would be most advantageous if properly managed. Bishop Patteson himself wrote—"I advocate the regulation and not the suppression of this traffic," and if it was attempted to put an end to the traffic it would be necessary to consult foreign Powers, which would be attended with considerable delay. What the Government proposed was to render the offence of kidnapping natives felony, and to give to the different Australasian Courts power to try these offences. The Bill would also provide for the attendance of native witnesses, and would facilitate the taking of evidence. This was not

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  the only measure which the Government had taken for the purpose of preventing that which was so justly the subject of complaint. The First Lord of the Admiralty had strengthened the Australian squadron, and orders had been given to take further steps with the view of putting down, if possible, the atrocities of the trade. It was not to be tolerated that the British name should be dishonoured by such practices. England, which had incurred so much trouble and cost in putting down the Slave Trade, would not permit under any guise a slave trade to be carried on wherever its power was sufficient to interfere. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving for leave to bring in the Bill.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill for the prevention and punishment of Criminal Outrages upon Natives of the Islands in the Pacific Ocean, ordered to be brought in by Mr. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN and Mr. WILLIAM EDWARD FORSTER.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 45.]

  CRIMINAL TRIALS (IRELAND) BILL.
  On Motion of Sir COLMAN O'LOGHLEN, Bill to provide that Jurors in Criminal Trials in Ireland shall henceforth be chosen as in Civil Trials by ballot, and to abolish the power of the Crown in such Trials to set aside Jurors without cause, ordered to be brought in by Sir COLMAN O'LOGHLEN, Sir JOHN GRAY, Mr. PIM, and Mr. SYNAN.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 47.]

  WILDFOWL PROTECTION BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. ANDREW JOHNSTON, Bill for the Protection of Wildfowl during the Breeding Season, ordered to be brought in by Mr. ANDREW JOHNSTON, Colonel TOMLINE, and Mr. BROWN.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 46.]

  EAST INDIA (FINANCE).
  Select Committee appointed, "to inquire into the Finance and Financial Administration of India."—(Mr. Ayrton.)
  And, on February 16, Committee nominated as follows:—Mr. AYRTON, Mr. STEPHEN CAVE, Mr. CRAWFORD, Mr. BARING, Mr. FAWCETT, Mr. BECKETT DENISON, Sir CHARLES WINGFIELD, Mr. EASTWICK, Mr. DICKINSON, Mr. BOURKE, Mr. CANDLISH, Sir JAMES ELPHINSTONE, Mr. LTTTELTON, Mr. BIRLEY, Sir DAVID WEDDERBURN, Mr. BEACH, Sir THOMAS BAZLEY, Mr. HERMON, Mr. M'CLURE, Mr. CROSS, Mr. JOHN BENJAMIN SMITH, Mr. GRANT DUFF, Sir WILFRID LAWSON, Mr. ROBERT FOWLER, Mr. HAVILAND BURKE, Mr. CHARLES DALRYMPLE, and Sir STAFFORD NORTHCOTE:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Seven to be the quorum.
  House adjourned at Twelve o'clock.

MINUTES.
Sat First in Parliament—The Lord Foley, after the death of his father.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Justices of the Peace Qualification* (19); Church Discipline Act Amendment* (20).

NEW PEERS.
The Right Honourable John Arthur Douglas Baron Bloomfield in that part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called Ireland, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, Her Majesty's Ambassador to the Emperor of Austria, having been created Baron Bloomfield of the United Kingdom—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
The Right Honourable Sir Frederic Rogers, Baronet, Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, having been created Baron Blachford—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

JUDICIAL COMMITTEE OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL.

  APPOINTMENT OF SIR ROBERT COLLIER.—RESOLUTION.
  EARL STANHOPErose to move the Resolution of which he had given Notice—
  "That this House has seen with regret the Bourse taken by Her Majesty's Government in carrying out the provisions of the Act of last Session relative to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and is of opinion that the elevation of Sir Robert Collier to the Bench of the Court of Common Pleas for the purpose only of giving him a colourable qualification to be a paid Member of the Judicial Committee, and his immediate transfer to the Judicial Committee accordingly, were acts at variance with the spirit and intention of the statute, and of evil example in the exercise of judicial patronage,"
  and said:—My Lords, often as I have addressed your Lordships—often as I have addressed the House of Commons while still a Member of that Assembly—I never rose to speak with so grave a sense of responsibility as now. I feel that this is no common occasion. I stand here to charge the head of the law in this country with having counselled a deliberate evasion of that law. I stand here to charge the Prime Minister of England with this—that at a period when unhappily the popular mind is so

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  much unsettled, and obedience to the law is so often called in question, he has set an evil example to all below him—that he has twisted and turned to his own purpose the express words of an Act of Parliament passed by his own Administration. I stand here to make this charge—that the powers of the Crown have been unduly stretched, and the intentions of the Legislature as unduly set aside. These are the charges I make—it will be for your Lordships to decide whether or not I am able to maintain them.
  I must, my Lords, in the first place call your attention to the words of the statute—the 34th and 35th of the Queen, cap. 91—an Act passed last Session, and intituled, "An Act to make further provision for the despatch of business by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council." Now, in the first section of this Act there is the following provision:—
  "Any persons appointed to act under the provisions of this Act as members of the said Judicial Committee must be specially qualified as follows—that is to say, must at the date of their appointment be or have been Judges of one of Her Majesty's Superior Courts at Westminster, or a Chief Justice of the High Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, or Madras, or Bombay, or of the late Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal."
  Your Lordships will observe that the persons qualified for appointment under the Act are those, and those only, who are included among the persons whose qualifications are set out in that portion of the first section of the Act. This Act was brought before the House by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack on the 29th of June in last year. There was some discussion on the matter, but no opposition to the Bill. In the House of Commons the charge of it was undertaken by Sir Robert Collier, who was at that time Attorney General. I shall presently have occasion to refer in more detail to the course of legislation on this subject; but what I desire to point out to your Lordships at this moment is, that in the whole of the discussions on the present Act, you will not find the shadow of an indication on the part of anyone that there was any intention that there should be any qualification for office under it, save those set out in the portion of the Act which I have already read. At no point, whether in this or the other House of
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  Parliament, or by any of the Members of the Government, or anyone representing the views of the Government, was there any intimation of an intention to dispense with the qualifications enumerated in the Act. Under these circumstances the Bill was passed. In the course of the autumn, however, rumours began to prevail, notwithstanding this general understanding, that it was the intention of the Government to appoint Sir Robert Collier a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for a period of only a few days, so as to qualify him to be a paid Member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. At first these rumours were heard with complete incredulity—the thing was thought to be impossible; but, when they assumed an authoritative form, there arose a feeling not merely of astonishment, but I will say of indignation. Remonstrances were addressed to the Government, first by the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, and next by the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. But I think the feeling which existed at the time cannot be described better than in the words of Lord Chief Justice Cockburn which, with your permission, I will read to your Lordships. He says in his first letter, dated the 10th of November—
  "Here the Legislature having settled the qualification for the newly-created office, momentarily to invest a party, otherwise not qualified, with a qualifying office, not that he shall hold the latter, but shall be transferred to the former, appears to me, I am bound to say, to be nothing less than the manufacture of a qualification, not very dissimilar in character from the manufacture of qualifications such as we have known practised in other instances in order to evade the law. Forgive me, I pray you, if I ask you to consider whether such a proceeding should be resorted to in a matter intimately connected with the administration of justice in its highest departments?"
  On that occasion the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack did not deign to give any answer to the Lord Chief Justice—he reserved his reply; but now that we are here, face to face, I venture to repeat his question and ask—Whether such a proceeding should be resorted to in a matter intimately connected with the administration of justice in its highest departments?
  And, my Lords, this brings me to what I consider a peculiar aggravation of this affair. It has been applied to the Court of Appellate Jurisdiction. Perhaps all

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  your Lordships may not have realized the importance of this view of the case? It is not too much to say that this Court of Appellate Jurisdiction is the main link of connection between England and the Colonies; it is not too much to say that it is the main link of connection between England and our Indian Empire. Whenever in any of those distant dependencies the Natives have felt aggrieved by the decision of a local Court, they have also felt confidence in the thought that there was a Court of Appellate Jurisdiction in this country to stand between them and the tribunal with whose decision they were dissatisfied, and to do them right. They believed that this Court of Appeal was free from all prejudice and above all suspicion, and that at its hands they were sure to receive justice. But, if once you shake that confidence—if once you convey to the minds of the Natives the idea that in the constitution of this Court you are straining a point to evade the spirit of one of your own Acts of Parliament—you will have dealt a blow at the loyalty of your colonial dependencies, heavier perhaps than any that could be struck at it by any foreign foe.
  But, my Lords, there are other circumstances which add greatly to the gravity of the case. To illustrate this position, I ask your Lordships to consider not only the course taken with the Bill last Session which was passed, but also that taken with respect to the Bill introduced in 1870, which was not passed. Now, under the Bill of 1870, the Attorney General would have been eligible—the qualification was wide enough to admit any barrister of 15 years' standing, and the Attorney General would have come in under that clause. When Mr. Secretary Bruce spoke in defence of this Bill, upon its going into Committee on the 8th of August, 1870, he especially adverted to the clause giving power to appoint as members of the Judicial Committee, barristers of not lesss than 15 years' standing; and, he added—
  "To this clause he was aware that very general objection was taken among members of the legal profession."
  That objection was strongly urged in the debate which ensued. Mr. Watkin Williams, who took the lead in it, said—
  "He entirely objected, as a rule, to appointing men to the highest Court of Appeal who had not proved by service on the Bench"—on the Bench
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  observe—"that they possessed temper, judgment, discretion, patience, and those judicial qualities"—judicial qualities observe—"which could only be tested by actual experience."
  After these and other such objections a division was taken on one of the clauses, when there appeared for it 38, and against it 36—a majority for the Government, therefore, of only 2; and upon this, at that late period of the Session, the Government at once withdrew the Bill. Now, my Lords, in the next Session, on introducing the new Bill to the House of Commons, Sir Robert Collier, then Attorney General, speaking on August 5, 1871, took credit to the Government for having omitted the opening to barristers of 15 years standing—
  "The provisions of this new Bill," he said, "are very much what had been indicated by some Members of the House last Session as the description of a measure which would satisfy the exigencies of the case—the appointment being limited to persons who might be assumed to be of high judicial authority."
  The Bill was passed on the assurance thus given. That being so, it might seem absolutely beyond belief that Sir Robert Collier should be the man in whose favour the principle then laid down should have been violated. And, my Lords, referring to this limitation of the persons eligible for the appointments under the Act, I think there may be very good reasons why the Attorney General of the day should not be appointed. In selecting men for high judicial posts all Governments naturally choose men of the highest judicial qualities; but in the case of an Attorney General it is not to judicial qualities or high legal attainments alone that a Government has to look. It must ask itself whether this man or that, if appointed, will be able to secure or retain a seat in the House of Commons; and if the answer be in the negative the best man for the post may be passed over. Therefore, my Lords, I can see very good reason why, in the discussion of the Bill of 1870, exception should have been taken to the clause making all barristers of not less than 15 years' standing eligible for these appointments, and, consequently, I can see reason also for the Government having taken credit to itself last year for restricting these appointments to persons of judicial standing.
  But there is another point which carries the case still further against the Government. It is that the Act of last

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  year was an Act of the Government itself—framed by its own Administration, and passed at its own instance. Now, I confess, that appears to me greatly to aggravate the case. If the Act had been passed by a former Administration I could not have held the Government free of blame, but still Ministers might have to some extent explained and set forth their motives. They might have said—"This Act was passed by our adversaries; we did not approve it, and therefore we felt that we were not bound by the spirit in which it was framed." But here I say emphatically—"It is your own Act which you are evading." Let me put the case to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, with this dilemma—If the Act is defective, what excuse have you, the framers of it, for your negligence in framing it? If the Act is not defective, what excuse have you for your presumption in seeking to evade it?
  Well, now, my Lords, the Act having passed in this manner, it was open to the Government to select one of the Judges to fill one of the places created by it. There were several Judges who might have been selected with great advantage to the public. I will take the liberty of saying that if the first choice had fallen on Mr. Justice Keating, you would have had a Judge for the Appellate Jurisdiction of the highest integrity and distinguished for his legal acquirements. Again, I will say that if the choice had fallen on Baron Martin, he would have adorned that station as he would any other legal one to which he might have been appointed. But, as far as I have heard, no application was made to either of those learned Judges. In naming these two your Lordships must not understand me to convey that there are not others who are present to my mind, and who are highly qualified for the office. I should like to know what was done in respect of making applications to the Judges. I have heard that there was some difficulty arising from that restrictive economy which disregarded the prescriptive system in regard to the Judges' clerks, who would have suffered in their interests had any of those learned Judges been transferred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; but be that as it may, when the Government had to make this appointment it wanted only three months to the usual period of
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  the meeting of Parliament, and if any difficulty had arisen in respect of the due execution of the Act, I ask whether it would not have been a thousand times better for the Government to wait and submit the difficulty to Parliament, rather than adopt a course in direct violation of the spirit and intentions of the statute? Well, then, my Lords, if there was no lack of persons legally qualified for the office, I ask myself what possible excuse can be made for the conduct of the Government in passing these persons over? Perhaps it may be alleged that the merits of Sir Robert Collier especially qualified him for the office, despite the restrictions in the Act of Parliament. Now, my Lords, I entirely refuse to discuss the merits of Sir Robert Collier. They may be great—I do not deny them, and I have nothing to say against them; but they have nothing to do with the question. When you have to debate the fairness or the unfairness of the mode of appointment, it is quite beside the purpose to allege the merit of the person appointed. Let me give an instance, to make my meaning more clear. Your Lordships will remember that under the old system in France, and under the old Parliaments of Paris and of other great French cities, magistrates purchased their offices, and that men of such high eminence as D'Aguesseau and Malesherbes were magistrates when that system prevailed. But supposing, for the sake of argument, that anyone desired to introduce into England the system of obtaining magistrates, as we lately did obtain commissions in the Army, by a system of purchase, would it not be necessary to defend that system on its own merits, real or supposed, and would it be held sufficient to say that under it France had such magistrates as D'Aguesseau and Malesherbes? But why need I go beyond our own country, or even beyond the walls of this House for an illustration of the distinction I am urging? Let me take from this House an illustration of the principle of not considering the merits of the individual when discussing a course of legislation, or the merits or demerits of a system. Let me remind your Lordships of what occurred 16 years ago. When the Crown was advised to exercise its questionable power and create Peers for life, Lord Wensleydale was selected as the person on whom the experiment should be tried. Did

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  anyone doubt that he was an accomplished gentleman, and one on whom the Crown might confer any distinction? The system of life Peerages was opposed; but did anyone who supported it venture to allege as an argument in its favour the merits of Lord Wensleydale? He was a good lawyer, and a most competent judge, and we were all much pleased to see him amongst us; but his qualifications had nothing to do with the question of life Peerages; it therefore never occurred to any of us to inquire into the merits of Lord Wensleydale, but only to determine whether the action of the Crown was legal or not. Therefore, my Lords, if the question of the merits of Sir Robert Collier is put forward in this debate I, for one, shall refuse to discuss it. I do not deny his merits. That I wish to be distinctly understood; but I do deny that they have anything to do with the question before your Lordships.
  I come now to another point, and, as I think, a material one. It may be asked, what has been the opinion of the Bar and of the legal profession on this appointment? I was much struck many years ago when I first read a remark of an eminent French statesman of the reign of Louis XIV. He said that no man ever really or permanently loses his reputation in the world, provided he keeps it in his own profession, in his own assembly, and in his own walk of life; and that, on the other hand, no man keeps his reputation long in the world if he loses it in his own profession, in his own assembly, and in his own walk of life. Now, if that remark be just, let us see what is the opinion of the legal profession on the appointment of Sir Robert Collier. On this point, again, I will take the liberty of citing the words of the Lord Chief Justice Cockburn in his first letter to Mr. Gladstone. He says—
  "I ought to add that from every member of the legal profession with whom I have been brought into contact in the course of the last few days I have met with but one expression of opinion as to the proposed step—an opinion, to use the mildest term I can select, of strong and unqualified condemnation. Such I can take upon myself to say is the unanimous opinion of the profession. I have never in my time known of so strong or universal an expression—I had almost said explosion of opinion."
  My Lords, as far as my observation goes, I can confirm the remarks of My Lord Chief Justice. I have the honour
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  to be acquainted with many members of that distinguished profession, and I have found—I will not say a unanimity, but a very great preponderance of opinion against the propriety and the justice of the appointment. I know there is a letter on the other side from Mr. Justice Willes, in reference to which I will only say that even in the opinion of the warmest friends of that distinguished man, that hasty letter is not likely to add to his well-earned reputation. Beyond all question the opinion of the Bar as a whole is against the course taken by the Government.
  Then, my Lords, I think there is another light in which this question may be regarded, and especially in this House. I allude to the honourable understanding and the reliance on each other's word which have always existed between the Leaders on opposite sides, and by which, I venture to say, the conduct of business in your Lordships' House has been much facilitated. Among the many qualities which distinguish my noble Friend the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and which qualify him for the Leadership on his side of the House, there is this one—that we have always felt we might place the most implicit reliance on any statement of his—that whatever he said would be performed, and that there was no danger that his promises would not be carried out to the very letter. Now, that has been of the utmost service to him in carrying measures through the House. And I think I shall not be saying too much if I venture to claim credit for the same quality in my noble Friend (the Duke of Richmond), who leads the Opposition. Even his opponents admit that he is the very soul of honour. Anything he says, even in the most general terms, you may as implicitly rely on as though his words were a deed with his seal and signature. That, in my opinion, has facilitated the conduct of business in this House. But how long, I venture to ask, would a feeling of mutual confidence as between parties continue if this sort of Nisi Prius practice, these legal pretences, these colourable qualifications, were to become the rule?
  It was under the circumstances I have brought before your Lordships that the Lord Chief Justice, on the 10th of November last, addressed a letter to Mr. Gladstone on the subject. It is very extraordinary, but Mr. Gladstone does

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  not seem to have read the letter. He answered it on the same day it was written; but he scarcely could have read it, because he entirely mistakes its contents. He says—
  "As the transaction to which your letter of this day refers is a joint one, and as the completed part of it to which you have taken objection is the official act of the Lord Chancellor, I have transmitted the letter for his consideration."
  But in fact, "the completed part of the transaction" was one to which the Lord Chief Justice had made no objection at all. It was the nomination of Sir Robert Collier to a Judgeship of the Common Pleas; and the Lord Chief Justice found it necessary, in a second letter, to explain to Mr. Gladstone that he hailed that nomination with pleasure, and would most gladly welcome Sir Robert Collier as a colleague on the Bench. It was only the uncompleted part of the arrangement—namely, the immediate transfer in contemplation of Sir Robert Collier to the Court of Appellate Jurisdiction, that the Chief Justice had felt himself bound to reprobate. Now, when Mr. Gladstone replies on such an erroneous basis, am I not justified in saying that he cannot have read the letter at all, or else must have adopted the very unusual plan of answering it first and reading it afterwards. Mr. Gladstone, having disposed of the Lord Chief Justice in this way, by sending the correspondence to the Lord Chancellor, I will take the liberty of finding one or two faults with the course taken by the noble and learned Lord. I think, in the first place, that his conduct was marked by great discourtesy, and that the objections taken by the Lord Chief Justice ought not to have been dismissed in so summary a way. Why, he is the Lord Chief Justice of England—one who is entitled to speak in the name of the Bar, who fills his high office with universal approbation, who, by choice of the Government of the country, was appointed to one of the highest and most responsible legal offices that any man can hold, who had just been named to represent this country at the Court of Arbitrators which it is proposed to hold at Geneva. There can be no more responsible position than this—no question in which the country is more deeply interested—yet when the Lord Chief Justice applies to the head of the law for an explanation of what he considers to be an evasion of the law, the Lord Chancellor,
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  in the plentitude of his own wisdom, treats him with what appears to be a marked want of courtesy, and will not give him the explanation he seeks. That when this charge of evading an Act of Parliament was brought against the head of the law he should not be willing to explain his conduct without delay is of course a matter for his own consideration; but, speaking for myself, I must say that if a charge of malversation were brought against me in respect of any of the societies or public institutions with which I am connected, I should not be disposed to say to my accuser, like the Roman governor, "At a more convenient season will I speak to thee." But he noble and learned Lord deferred his explanation till he could make it in his House, and now I hope he will give your Lordships a full account of this strange affair. I have already told your Lordships what several other persons thought of the Lord Chancellor's conduct; but what will your Lordships say if I am able to give, in the noble and learned Lord's own words, his own opinion that it merits the highest condemnation? Fortunately, I need not leave your Lordships in the dark on this joint, because I can supply you with the opinion to which I have just referred, from a Paper laid before the House of Commons and ordered to be printed by an Order of the 15th of April in last year. It is the Third Report of the Committee on Public Accounts. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack was requested to attend and give evidence before that Committee, and he courteously did so. The Right Hon. George Ward Hunt was the Chairman, and when the noble and learned Lord was under examination, Mr. Hunt referred to a statement as to the so-called clerks of report. The right hon. Gentleman thus alluded to it—
  "It says:—'In the Report Office, by the provisions of the 18 and 19 Vic., cap. 134, sec. 12, the clerks of reports are to receive for salaries only the sum which, if equally divided among all such clerks, would admit of a salary of £250 for each of them. The clerks actually receive an average of £305 per annum, but by giving to the messengers of this office the title of assistant clerks, the exact letter of the Act as regards the aggregate drawn for the clerks is observed.' It was stated that the title of these gentlemen was altered about two months subsequent to the examination of the account by the inspector acting for the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and the suggestion was that the alteration was made in

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  the title in order to enable the provisions of the Act to be observed to the letter."
  What reply does the Lord Chancellor give to that?—
  "The suggestion is an imputation of a very gross abuse, for which I should deserve to be impeached—namely, observing the letter of an Act of Parliament, and breaking in every way the spirit of it."
  Would it have been believed, if this were not on record, that the noble and learned Lord who uttered those words would have been one of the first to break the spirit and intention of an Act of Parliament while adhering to its words? After this I am sure he cannot complain of the proceedings of to-night. He must think a Vote of Censure a very tame affair, since, according to his own account, he would deserve to be impeached.
  Such, my Lords, is the case that I have desired to lay before you. I have done so only from a sense of duty—mistaken, perhaps, but certainly sincere; and I have done so not without some feelings of pain. I cannot, indeed, claim the honour of personal friendship with the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, yet in society we have always met on amicable terms. He has shown me sentiments of good-will, and I, on my part, have endeavoured to evince towards him the respect and esteem which his character justly demands, but this is a case which rises far above the level of personal considerations, and, I will add, also, far above the level of party ties. Amid the merits of an hereditary Chamber, such as that which I am now addressing, there is one that has not always been sufficiently urged. We are most of us free to vote as we think right. We have not been elected to our seats amid huzzas for Mr. Gladstone, nor compelled to give a promise that we would on all occasions vote with that great man. Hence it has often happened that, while a party decision might be confidently relied on in "another place," we in this House have been able to vote, and have voted, with entire independence. Such, I hope, will be your course to-night. Such, I am sure, is the course expected from you by that public, which will think not only three times, as Mr. Gladstone said, but much more than three times three, before it consents to divest you of those privileges which, thus far, and on the whole, I venture to think, you have worthily exerted and maintained.
  Moved to resolve, "That this House has seen with regret the course taken by Her Majesty's Government in carrying out the provisions of the Act of last Session relative to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and is of opinion that the elevation of Sir Robert Collier to the Bench of the Court of Common Pleas for the purpose only of giving him a colourable qualification to be a paid member of the Judicial Committee, and his immediate transfer to the Judicial Committee accordingly, were acts at variance with the spirit and intention of the statute, and of evil example in the exercise of judicial patronage."—(The Earl Stanhope.)
  LORD PORTMAN, who had given Notice to move an Amendment—
  "That this House finds no just cause for passing Parliamentary censure on the conduct of the Government in the recent appointment of Sir Robert Porrett Collier to a Judgeship of the Common Pleas and to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council,"
  said:—My Lords, during the fifty years I have been in Parliament I have experienced the greatest kindness from both sides, and therefore I know that I need not ask your Lordships to extend to me on this occasion that same indulgence which you have been good enough to show me on all others. But I stand here in a peculiar position, having for a considerable time ceased to take any active part in political contests. During a long period of my Parliamentary life—during the times of Lord Althorp, Lord Melbourne, and Lord Palmerston, I was a strong party man; but since the death of Lord Palmerston I have ceased to be a party man at all. While the system of proxies existed, the withdrawal or withholding a proxy from a party proclaimed to the House the cessation of party ties; but now I can only thus make known to your Lordships, which is known to my private friends, since the death of the last lamented noble Lord I have withdrawn from party strife, and I may truly say that since that time I have simply voted for such measures as I believed to be good for the public interest, or calculated to advance the common welfare. If I had been a party man at this moment, bound to allegiance to the present Government, I could not have undertaken to move this Amendment; but I believe that in the neutral position I now occupy my motives in moving it cannot be liable to misconstruction, because I move only on behalf of those who desire to appeal to the justice of your Lordships. My Lords, the noble Earl who

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  has moved this Resolution has told you that in this House we are all free to vote as we think right, and he has told you how, in his opinion, you ought to exercise that freedom. My Lords, if you are to regard this question as a party one, and to regulate your judgment in accordance with party ties, he may be right; but if you are about to give judgment in accordance with the principles which guide judicial tribunals you will hear the man whose conduct is arraigned before you decide on condemning him. At present the noble Earl is the only man in this House who is pledged to give his judgment against the Government, whether they are guilty or not; every one else is free to give his opinion as he shall think fit after hearing both sides of the case; and I need not say that the first rule of conduct which ought to guide those who are engaged, even in the humblest way, in the administration of justice, is to hear both sides. That has been the rule with the small tribunal to which, as a country gentleman, I have been accustomed. I remember the time when common sense rather than excessive talent regulated human affairs. It seems to me that we are now living in days when we are guided by professors in all sorts of things, and when excessive talent is to be found everywhere predominant—in Parliament and out of it; but that common sense is now obliged to hide her diminished head. It may, therefore, have been only an old-fashioned notion of mine to think that before giving judgment we ought to hear both sides. Evidently that is not the idea of the noble Earl (Earl Stanhope), because he has pronounced his judgment upon a Lord Chancellor without having heard anything but what he was able to gather from newspapers and letters. I admit that in acting thus he has followed a great example, because the Lord Chief Justice of England pronounced a condemnatory opinion on this case before he had heard both sides. It is not for me to speak ill of the Lord Chief Justice, though I lament his writing the opinion of the whole Bench and Bar, when I know the fact is not correctly stated by him. I have not done anything like that, at all events. Before I was asked to move this Amendment I was invited to hear a statement from the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack,
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  in order that I might make up my mind as to whether I could put upon the Paper such an Amendment as that of which Notice has been given to the other House of Parliament by Sir Roundell Palmer. I went to the Lord Chancellor's room wholly impartial in the matter—I went fully impressed with the determination that, if the case was such as it had been represented to be, I would have said what I have sometimes heard counsel recommend—"The facts are against you, the law is against you; cry 'Peccavi;' throw yourself on the mercy of the court." But I am prepared to say that, after I had heard all the circumstances of the case, my opinion was that it was not one for a grave sentence by this House condemnatory of the Lord Chancellor in the terms of the Motion of the noble Earl opposite, but was a case in which your Lordships ought to have put before you an alternative proposition. Such a proposition I place before you, confident that you will consider it carefully, and that if, on hearing the whole of the circumstances, you feel the course I ask you to adopt to be the preferable one, you will refuse to vote for the Resolution moved by the noble Earl. My Lords, perhaps I may be allowed to say a few words more in explanation of the confidence I feel in asking your Lordships to adopt the Amendment. If rumour on this occasion be true, and if this is to be a great party vote, then, indeed, I fill something like the position of the leader of a forlorn hope. If, on the other hand, it is to be, as I hope it is, a judicial proceeding, I feel great confidence in the honour and justice of the House. But I must say this—that I cannot but feel the noble Earl ought to have taken a different course from that he has pursued, and have placed your Lordships in a much better situation before he moved such a Resolution as that which is now before the House. It would seem that nothing is to be heard from one side before it is condemned; but formerly, when moving for Papers, it was usual to put questions to the party whose conduct was impeached, and so give him an opportunity of stating his case if he thought fit to do so. If the case so stated by him was not deemed satisfactory, the person moving for the Paper said—"I am not satisfied with the case you put before me, and I shall proceed to move a Vote of Censure." It seems

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  to me that is the only fair and courteous plan, but it used also to be the Parliamentary mode of procedure. But the noble Earl has adopted a different line. He gave simultaneous Notice of his intention to move for Papers and to move a Vote of Censure, although he knew nothing of the possible answer. He is strong in history; he is of great fame as an historian; but he seems to me to be singularly inexperienced in the first principles of fair play, and in the commonest rules of administrative justice. I trust that I shall never be a culprit brought before him. It would not be agreeable to find yourself condemned before you had even been asked to offer your defence. In truth, the tendency of the noble Earl's mind is to condemn everybody—a course that saves the trouble of discrimination. He not only condemns the Lord Chancellor and Mr. Gladstone on the ipse dixit of the Lord Chief Justice, but he has also undertaken to assure us that Mr. Gladstone never read the letter of the Lord Chief Justice. How does he know that? He is without the slightest shadow of evidence to support the assertion; and I think that, after such a specimen of his readiness to arrive at conclusions on no solid ground, your Lordships will be inclined to view his other conclusions with considerable distrust. I must say that this Motion of the noble Earl is most ill-timed. If he had been prepared to impeach the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack; if he were prepared to carry to its natural conclusion the language he has used when he accuses the noble and learned Lord of malversation of office and of corrupt motives——
  EARL STANHOPE: I beg to say that I never imputed corrupt motives.
  LORD PORTMAN: Your Lordships will remember the language of the noble Earl, and it will be for you to say whether my description of it is correct or not. He said that the act of the Lord Chancellor and the Government was an evasion of the intentions of Parliament. What was that but imputing corrupt motives? [Earl STANHOPE: No, no!] Well, if the noble Earl says "No," I have no desire to misinterpret him; but this I will say, that if the Lord Chancellor and the Government are guilty of what he alleges no time can be out of season for bringing the case under the notice of Parliament. But when he
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  shrinks—as it is natural that he should do—from that step; when his accusation dwindles down into a censure, grave enough, indeed, and heavy to be borne, but still no way comparable to impeachment, then I say that the time is very ill chosen. He has spurned the wise Fabian policy of a noble Earl near him (the Earl of Derby) and has rushed eagerly to the battle. The charge is made at a very bad time if the noble Earl is a patriot, but at a very good one if he is only a party man. If the Motion is moved in the interest of party, I repeat that I am leading a forlorn hope; but I would venture to put a few considerations before your Lordships before you agree to it. First, I would ask the noble Earl a question which it may be presumed he has already turned over in his mind. If this is a party movement, is he content to pursue it to its natural consequences? Is he prepared to form a Government, or to take a leading place in a new Government, in the event of the movement being successful? Because in my time, when a man came forward in the way the noble Earl has come forward, it was supposed to imply that if he took upon himself to remove the existing Government, he was prepared to take upon himself the formation of a new Administration, or to be ready to accept a prominent post in a fresh Cabinet. I must say it seems to me that a mind constituted as the noble Earl's is can scarcely be thought to be adapted to a Prime Minister of England. The noble Earl evinced a great anxiety on behalf of India—he laid a great stress on the importance of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as a main link of our connection with India, and argued that the appointment of Sir Robert Collier was a serious injustice to that country. But, so far from that being the case, the greatest regard has been paid to Indian interests. Does he know that Sir John Colville, a man of great knowledge of India, is on that Committee, and that there is Sir Barnes Peacock to be appointed when his day comes—delayed only until the appeals from his judgments in India are disposed of? India, therefore, seems in little need of the consideration of the noble Earl; and in regard to the Colonies, I think your Lordships are satisfied that there is no ground for complaint. The pith of the clause to which the noble Earl alluded

  393
  was that barristers of 17 years' standing were not to be appointed, the objection being that men who might be unfit ought not, by virtue of mere standing, to be taken from the Bar, and appointed Judges. But that is not an objection which applies to an Attorney General. It is said that the Bill was passed upon some assurance given by Sir Robert Collier. That assurance, however, whatever it may have been, was given with reference to the Bill which came down from this House—a very different Bill from that which ultimately passed into law. The noble Earl says that the office of Attorney General confers no legal qualification for promotion to the Bench. Does the noble Earl forget that if either of the Chief Justiceships become vacant, the Attorney General steps into the office? And if, quâ Attorney General, he is fit to be Lord Chief Justice, how is it that his office of Attorney General becomes a disqualification for judicial duties elsewhere? I maintain that the Chief Justiceship of the Queen's Bench, or of the Common Pleas, is a place as important to fill as a seat upon the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. And if the Attorney General is qualified by his legal attainments to occupy one of these high legal positions, it seems to me that his diversified experience, the difficult matters to which from day to day he is called on to give his attention, the communications which he must necessarily hold with all sorts of men on all sorts of topics, render him much more likely to be a fit occupant of a seat at the Judicial Committee than a puisne Judge, however eminent he may be in his own Court; but the noble Earl says he declines to admit any question of fitness in this case—that may suit his present view, because all admit that Sir Robert Collier is fit; but what would he have said if he had been unfit? I am entitled to take credit for the good selection of a fit man. The noble Earl went on to say that the evasion of the statute by the Government was peculiarly aggravated by the fact that the statute thus evaded had been passed by the very Government who had set it aside. If it had been an Act passed by the noble Lords opposite, the noble Earl, I suppose, would have held them excused.
  EARL STANHOPE: I said that the conduct of the Government was inexcusable; but that if this Act had not
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  been passed by themselves it might have been explainable.
  LORD PORTMAN: Well, I am glad to hear that the noble Earl concedes that under any circumstances such an appointment could have been capable of explanation. Whether in the present case it is excusable or not your Lordships will decide, but at all events the noble Earl admits that there could have been a loophole of escape if the appointment had been made by the Conservative party. The noble Earl spoke of Mr. Gladstone in a manner that was a little remarkable. I think he called him a great man; but he seemed to think him something more—as if there was something abnormal, irregular, or unnatural in his greatness. I dare say some of your Lordships recollect, as children, to have been frightened when you were naughty at the threat of the nurse that "Bony" was coming. The conqueror of Europe was a veritable bugbear to the children of that generation. It rather seems to me sometimes as if Mr. Gladstone is to be the bugbear of the next one, and that he is already haunting the mind and oppressing the imagination of the noble Earl. He appears to regard him, like the personage we read of in Hookham Frere's "Anecdotes," as a terrible fellow, caring for nobody, capable of taking the most distinguished persons by the nose, and the noble Earl seems to think that such an experience might befall him at the hands of the Prime Minister. I must say I think it unwise to hold up any man in this country as being above the rest of mankind. We are all but men, and must use such lights as we have, and make the best of them; but we are free men, and should speak our minds and not be alarmed by anyone. Mr. Gladstone acted under the advice of the Lord Chancellor, and he interposed only when he thought the Privy Council appointment should not be "hawked about."
  My Lords, the motion of the noble Earl invites your Lordships to declare that you have seen with regret the course taken by Her Majesty's Government in carrying out the provisions of the Act of last Session. Well, but three appointments have been made under it; and at any rate two out of the three are admitted to be not only unobjectionable, but praiseworthy. It is only respecting the selection of Sir Robert Collier that everybody

  395
  appears to have his doubts. Sir Montague Smith made known to the Lord Chancellor that he was willing to accept the office. [Lord CAIRNS dissented.] Well, the Lord Chancellor notified it to the Prime Minister. [Lord CAIRNS again dissented.] I confess, my Lords, that I am not at all well up in these small matters of form; but at all events Sir Montague Smith was appointed, and Sir Montague Smith is an eminent Judge. When in Parliament he was opposed in politics to the noble and learned Lord; but that made no difference. He took the best man who was willing to accept the office, and appointed him. As to Sir John Colville's appointment, nobody seems to have a doubt. I hope your Lordships will have as little doubt with regard to Sir Robert Collier when you hear the case. The noble Earl's Motion goes on to speak of his elevation to the Common Pleas as a thing done with the object of giving him a colourable qualification. Well, if we admit that the Lord Chief Justice and the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas hold that belief, on the other hand Mr. Justice Willes—a Judge of great experience, in spite of what the noble Earl says about him—holds a different view; he maintains that the appointment was not colourable. ["Hear!"] At least, he says that "no lawyer upon an impartial construction of the Act could presume the appointment to be otherwise than lawful." ["Hear, hear!"] The Lord Chancellor, therefore, is fortified in his opinion that this is not an illegal act or an evasion of the law. It is perfectly possible that he and Mr. Justice Willes may be mistaken, and that the two Chief Justices may be quite right; but obviously it is a matter of doubt. Moreover, I believe I am right in saying that others of the judges coincide in the view of the Lord Chancellor and Mr. Justice Willes; and I am told, upon perfectly good authority, that there are many other eminent men in the legal profession who do not hold the same opinion as the noble Earl. It is not for me to set off one body of lawyers against another, but it is plain that it is a matter which cannot be settled otherwise than by a judicial tribunal. But suppose even that there has been a misinterpretation of the law, or an error of judgment, is the case one for grave Parliamentary censure? I am old enough to remember the time when Lord
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  Brougham became Lord Chancellor, and made up his mind to clear off the list of arrears. Comments were freely made in public upon the haste with which he did so; but it was said in reply, that "it was better to have speedy decisions than no decisions at all." I remember on that occasion to have spoken to a very eminent man, and asked him what he thought of it. He said—"There are 50 on one side, and 50 on the other; the 50 who have won rejoice, and the 50 who have lost complain." Your Lordships may decide with those who condemn the Lord Chancellor; we shall feel with those who hold the contrary opinion. We may not have 50 against 50, because you will overpower us by perhaps double the number; but if you ever come to give your opinions judicially, I believe you will feel that you are not able to vote a Parliamentary censure for a mere error in judgment. As to the "colourable qualification," I believe you will find that some very similar practices exist without objection in reference to qualification for other offices. Before a Judge is appointed and takes his seat, there is a custom which requires him to be made a Serjeant, which involves a number of years as a barrister, although that properly is a degree of honour among barristers. The object is to secure for Judges lawyers of considerable experience; but it is now well known that the practice of this operation is only a matter of form. Again, there are other customary evasions to which no objection is ever taken. Let me remind your Lordships that when a Member of the House of Commons desires to resign his seat, he can only vacate it by accepting an office under the Crown; and he accordingly applies for and accepts the nominal office of the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds. I held the office myself once, when my health failed. Is this anything else but an evasion of an Act of Parliament? Yet it is never followed by Parliamentary censure. With regard to the right reverend Bench, again, a legal fiction of a similar kind—the congé d'élire—exists, and accompanies their election. These are all so many evasions, though they have become mere forms; but they exist and are maintained because in practice they are found to be useful, and enable good men to find their way into situations for which they are fit. If, then, in the present

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  case an evasion has operated beneficially, in giving a good Judge of Appeal in the new Appellate Court, I do not see that it should be viewed in the serious light in which it has been presented to your Lordships by the noble Earl. In old days it used to be said, if you come to a clause full of ambiguity which could not be construed satisfactorily—"Look at the Preamble and see if that will help." But in modern days the Preamble consists only of one or two lines, and so Courts of Law have got into the habit of saying, with regard to ambiguous clauses, that you must look to the spirit and intention of the statute. But how are these to be discovered except from the words of the statute? You cannot go and read over all the speeches which have been delivered with regard to it. "Intention" is a dangerous guide, for it leads to constructive felony, constructive treason, and other things which your Lordships' House will hardly approve. A thing, I say, may be blameable, and still not a subject for Parliamentary censure. We come to the word "paid." In this House it will not be supposed for a moment that the noble and learned Lord, in making this appointment, was capable of jobbery; but the terms of the Motion may mislead persons out-of-doors. I am old enough to know what used to be called a "job." It consisted in appointing to an office, not because a man was fit for it, but because he was nearly related to some influential person. Jobs of that description, however, are nearly at an end in the present day. Nobody will for a moment say that the Lord Chancellor ever appointed any person connected with himself who was unfit for office, or selected a soldier for an office in a Court of Law. There is another kind of job which consists in giving a larger official income to a man than he could get in any other way. But here you take the Attorney General, and you offer him a place of £5,000 a-year; whereas, if he had sat in the Court of Common Pleas he would have been entitled to £5,500 a-year, and a provision for his clerk. Moreover, as a puisne Judge, he would have held office by a fixed and permanent tenure; whereas now he is bound to submit to any regulations that may be made by a future Act of Parliament. If my noble and learned Friend had wished
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  at any time to commit a job, he might have done so by filling up the vacancy in the Court of Queen's Bench; but this he would not do—three new Election Judges having been appointed—until it was decided that Parliament should be asked to continue the system of Election Judges. One word about the Judges. It has been said—"They combined against the Act." I do not believe it; but they had a right to do so if they pleased, as all men may now combine with impunity. I had intended to examine the remainder of the Motion, but I have already detained your Lordships at too great length, and will only add a few words with regard to the Amendment. It simply affirms that there is no case for censure; it says nothing to commit you to any opinion on the appointment. No one, I believe, will venture to assert that there has been a selection of an unfit man to fill the office, or that the Act was an illegal one. All that is alleged is that the appointment was against the spirit of the statute—in regard to which lawyers themselves differ. The Lord Chancellor, a good, Christian man, is above suspicion of wilful wrong, and before I suspect such a man of wilfully doing wrong I must have very strong evidence indeed of the fact. All that he did was openly done. No concealment that could imply wilful wrong doing can be alleged against him. The Bill, as originally framed, contemplated the appointment of old Judges; but the House of Commons altered the measure, and the Lord Chancellor, of course, had to carry out its provisions. I am not at liberty to mention names, but I may remark he did try to get three Judges to accept the appointment, but they declined to do so. He sought for others, and ascertained that they would refuse any offer. The Prime Minister then interposed, and said it was not right to hawk the office about. Was it intended to be said that the noble and learned Lord should have offered the office to everyone of the Judges before he offered it to the present holder? Was he to try to remove from any Court a Judge who was invaluable in that special Court, but might not be valuable in the Court of Appeal, simply because he must have a Judge? Your Lordships should remember that the Act is a temporary one, passed chiefly for the purpose of getting

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  rid of the arrears before the Judicial Committee, and therefore delay was specially to be avoided. Neither should it be forgotten that the Attorney General was entitled to succeed to a Chief Justiceship should one fall vacant during his tenor of office. Surely if an Attorney General, quâ Attorney General, was held qualified for that high office, he may be considered qualified to be one of the temporary Judges appointed under this Act. According to the words of the Act, then, new Judges were to be Judges of the Superior Courts; but it was not specified how long they should have occupied that position. Was it to be two, three, or six months; or how long? Vice Chancellor Wickens was eligible, but he had sat on the Bench only six months. Sir Robert Collier is perfectly qualified to be the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. If he had occupied a seat on the Judicial Bench for six months he would not have been a bit better qualified to be a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. If your Lordships are satisfied, as I am, that no law has been wrongfully, and with evil motive perverted, that the Judge appointed is fit for the office, that the best was done under all the circumstances of the case, that no unworthy job has been done, that if the proceeding cannot be wholly justified, yet that it is excusable, and therefore not a subject for grave Parliamentary censure, that such censure would be an evil example in the exercise of your party political power, then you will vote with me for the Amendment I place before you.
  An Amendment moved to leave out from ("That") to the end of the motion, and insert—
  "This House finds no just cause for passing Parliamentary censure on the conduct of the Government in the recent appointment of Sir Robert Porrett Collier to a Judgeship of the Common Pleas and to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council."—(The Lord Portman.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Motion."
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, the main burden of the, perhaps, somewhat disproportionate proœmium with which the noble Lord who has just sat down prefaced his speech was to the effect that my noble Friend (Earl Stanhope), and we who support
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  him, are condemning the Lord Chancellor without waiting to hear him. I cannot, however, imagine any charge more wholly unfounded; because if there is one thing which we have all desired more than another, it was to hear the Lord Chancellor speak on the subject. The Lord Chief Justice of England made a desperate attempt to induce the Lord Chancellor to give to the wondering public some reason for an act which nobody could explain. But the Lord Chief Justice of England entirely failed. The Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas followed suit, but he was not more successful. My noble Friend (Earl Stanhope), acting, I presume, upon some hint given at a public dinner by the Lord Chancellor that he was prepared to make his defence in this House, tried by formally bringing the matter before the House, to elicit the defence of the Lord Chancellor. But he has been as signally unsuccessful; for, instead of the Lord Chancellor defending himself, he puts up the Warden of the Stannaries to answer in his place. Now, my Lords, it is not that the Lord Chancellor has not an answer—we know that he has one, and we know that he has made a speech on the subject—but he has delivered the speech to the noble Lord in a private room. Why, instead of taking a cautious old man into his private room, does he not come and make his speech in this House? However, he prefers that the pure rays which issue from the intellect of the Lord Chancellor should not fall straight and unbroken on this House, but that they should be refracted from the brain of the noble Lord at the Table. We have been favoured by the noble Lord with a somewhat lengthened, and I have no doubt a faithful, account of all the Lord Chancellor told him in his private room. I am anxious to know exactly what that speech in the private room was, for from the account we have had of it, it was clearly a most curious production. It contained something about Bonaparte, something about Hookham Frere, and something about the late Lord Ellenborough, but very little indeed in defence of the act which the House has called into question. As far as I can understand there was a good deal of repentance in it; because we are not asked by the noble Lord who brings these tidings from the private room to say that the Lord Chancellor is blameless, but we are only asked to say

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  that in consideration of his general good character he is not deserving of censure by this House. I think, however, that if the Lord Chancellor were prepared to make his penitential submission to the House and plead his general virtues, public and private, in extenuation of his sentence he ought to appear in a white sheet at the bar, and not send us this penitential message by the Warden of the Stannaries. Then there was a curious shifting of Ministerial responsibility, which I confess I was wholly unable to understand, because the matter seems to have stood thus:—That the Lord Chancellor went on unchecked in his careeer till the Prime Minister interposed; and then the noble Lord proceeds to inform us that the Prime Minister acted under the advice of the Lord Chancellor. Now, are we to infer that as the Lord Chancellor was proceeding in his career he suddenly advised the Prime Minister to interpose and stop himself? It is quite evident that one of these distinguished men is supposed by the noble Lord to throw the responsibility on the other. But I desire to know which it is. Was it the Prime Minister who was advised by the Lord Chancellor, or the Lord Chancellor who was checked by the Prime Minister? Under the haze of this indistinct defence I gather that the burden of the case which was laid before the noble Lord—no doubt in very eloquent terms—in the Lord Chancellor's private room, was to the effect that, in the first place, there were other fictions in the English law; that, for instance, Bishops were appointed by a congé d'élire, that Judges were made nominally serjeants before they were made Judges, and that, therefore, it was perfectly open for the Prime Minister to treat this limitation of the statute of last year as a constitutional fiction. Well, my Lords, we must extend considerably our notions of constitutional fictions if it is to be an admitted principle that the statutes of every year become constitutional fictions the year after. We shall have considerable difficulty in keeping pace with the progress of time. Our legislation, if it grow effete in six months, will have to be renewed very often and very stringently. Arguments of that kind I feel convinced will never have any influence on your Lordships or on the public. I know perfectly well that in this country we often maintain in practice processes and conditions which are obsolete and
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  effete from the mere dislike of disturbing ancient associations; but these conditions have no similarity whatever with the conditions solemnly imposed by Acts of Parliament in recent times. The only other defence I could gather from the speech of the noble Lord was that Sir Robert Collier was fit for the post, and that he could not be more fit if he had been appointed prior to the passing of the Act than he was when appointed after the passing of the Act. To arguments of that kind I simply reply that we have to look at the understanding on which the Act of Parliament was passed. The understanding and the object of the Act was that men of judicial experience should sit on the Committee of the Privy Council. If, acting upon that understanding, the Government had appointed a man who had only just succeeded to the Judicial Bench, we should have said, not that it was a scandal equal to this, as there had not been merely a colourable appointment of a Judge, but that there had been an evasion of the spirit of the Act of Parliament. The object of the Act of last Session was that experienced Judges should be appointed. The whole question we have got to consider is whether the understanding which prevailed on both sides of this House when the Bill was passed, which prevailed when it was introduced into the other House by the Attorney General, and which was entertained on all sides, has been honestly kept or not. There is really no doubt as to the history of the case; and there appears to be, as far as the Lord Chancellor is concerned, no difficulty in explaining the conduct he has pursued. He desired, and that not prematurely, to reinforce the ranks of the Privy Council, for the business of that Court had become overwhelming, and it was absolutely necessary that some Judges should be appointed to it. When the noble and learned Lord came to provide the machinery for the extension of the Court, that same spirit of precipitate and thoughtless parsimony which sent the Megœra to sea in an un-seaworthy condition, which has rendered the Admiralty a perfect chaos, and which has carried confusion into all other branches of the public service, had to be encountered; and salaries were offered to the Judges which were insufficient to provide for the expenses they now have to incur, and which were therefore insufficient to tempt them to desert the

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  positions they occupy. The noble Lord speaks indefinitely of the number of Judges to whom the appointment was offered; I think I am speaking on pretty sure authority when I say it was offered to only two Judges.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Three.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Three out of all the Judges, by the confession of the Lord Chancellor himself, were all who were invited to take a position which, according to the Act of Parliament, was to be given to Judges alone. This is the admission of the Lord Chancellor himself. The truth was, it was unnecessary to go further. It was obvious that, by the salaries put into the Bill, you could not hope to tempt any of the Judges to accept it. It is a great mistake on the part of Her Majesty's Ministers, when in a spirit of ill-advised parsimony, they have passed an objectionable Act, to think they are to atone for that Act by breaking it. The truth was, it was a blunder to have passed that Act at all, and it was painful to meet Parliament, and ask them to repair the blunder, and instead of doing that they preferred to commit what has justly been called a colourable evasion of the law. That is what appears to me to be the explanation of the conduct of the Lord Chancellor. We are not impugning the conduct of the Lord Chancellor only; we are only speaking of him as a Member of the Government. When I come to consider the conduct of the Government with respect to Acts of Parliament, I am a little doubtful whether it is only a spirit of parsimony which has induced them so ostentatiously to trifle with the provisions of statutes of the realm. I happen to be connected with the University of Oxford, and in regard to that institution we have had another curious instance of the view which the Government takes of the obligations of an Act of Parliament. Last Session an Act was passed for separating the rectory of Ewelme from the Professorship of Divinity at the University of Oxford. In the course of discussion here the Lord Chancellor spontaneously offered to introduce words the effect of which was to provide that members of the Convocation of the University of Oxford should permanently enjoy the rectory, hitherto always given to the holder of a professorship, on that rectory being severed from the professorship
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  in conjunction with which it had been held for many centuries. That was the offer which the Lord Chancellor made; I thought it a fair one, and I accepted it; and I was rejoiced to see it embodied in an Act. Well, what did the Prime Minister do the moment he saw this alteration made by the Lord Chancellor providing that a member of the Convocation of Oxford should always enjoy this rectory? He walked straight off and offered the appointment to a member of the University of Cambridge. But he said, quietly and privately, "You know the Act of Parliament says the holder of the rectory must be a member of the University of Oxford; and you must somehow become one before you hold the office." This case seems to me to throw considerable light on the appointment of Sir Robert Collier; the cases are not isolated; the facts of each indicate the continuance of one state of mind; the two operations are brought together, not by their similarity of subject, for they are in subject dissimilar, but by the similarity of idiosyncrasy in the person who performed them. Any critic of a future age reading of these two operations would at once say that both must have been conceived by the same brain—no ordinary brain; only the great brain of the Prime Minister, which the noble Lord so justly eulogized, could have conceived the idea that when Parliament said a certain officer was to be a Judge Parliament thereby meant he was to be a barrister, and when Parliament said a certain clergyman was to be a member of the Convocation of the University of Oxford that meant he was to be a member of the University of Cambridge. These are idiosyncrasies which you can possibly explain; but, at all events, you are bound to guard against them. I have no wish to impose upon the Lord Chancellor the penalties the noble Lord (Lord Portman) referred to, and to banish him to the suburbs to which he so pathetically alluded; I should be sorry to see the noble and learned Lord driving the plough, like Cincinnatus, in consequence of a vote of this House; but I do think it is necessary to mark by our disapprobation a proceeding which destroys the confidence that has hitherto existed between Parliament and the Executive Government. There are two ways of doing business. You may do it as between friends and

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  honourable men; and you may do it as if you were brought into contact with the lower class of attorneys. In the first case you trust to honourable understanding with the person you deal with that the contract will be performed in the spirit in which it was concluded. In the other case you watch for every quirk to see what advantage can be taken—you stop every gap, you fill up every hole his ingenuity can possibly discover. Hitherto, dealings with the Executive Government and Parliament have been of the first order and not of the second. Now, my Lords, it would be a matter of profound regret if every time a Bill came before the House, proposing to invest the Executive Government with power, it was necessary for us to exercise ingenuity to discover by what possible contrivance the Ministry might be able to evade the provisions of the Act they were placing before us. Not only would Public Business be seriously impeded, but the honour and estimation of statesmen in this country would be seriously damaged if ever it came to pass that that was the spirit in which either House of Parliament regarded the proposals that were laid before them by the representatives of the Queen. That, my Lords, is the danger which it seems to me we run if we pass without censure the acts of the Government in this case. The noble Lord (Lord Portman) talked of resignation. It may be a disadvantage to this House that its censures are not followed by the resignation of Government; but in other respects it is an advantage, for there would be some difficulty in determining the resignation of the Government at this moment. President Lincoln used to say you ought not to change horses when you were crossing a stream. My Lords, I would add that you ought not to do so when your horses have dragged you into a bog, and when you look to them to get you out of it. It would be a serious matter if a censure of this kind were to be followed by the resignation of Government at this juncture, and I cannot but look upon it as an advantage that in the working of our Constitution proceedings of this kind can be visited with heavy censure, and yet it shall not be necessary to take the whole machinery of Government to pieces in order that it should be recorded. My Lords, the Resolution speaks of "evil example in the exercise of judicial patronage."
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  I do not intend to set up any Puritan standard for the exercise of patronage in this country. If you chose to have party Government, you must have partizan appointments; and it would be far worse than foolish—it would be dishonest—to blame men because they appoint officers who are of their own opinions in matters of politics. Such is the working of our system; we may blame the system if we like; we cannot throw blame on the men who work it; but it is a system which requires in all things to be worked with the utmost judgment, and especially in the appointment of Judges. The judicial office is different from all others in this respect—that its efficiency depends very much on the estimation in which the holder of it is held by those among whom his duties are performed. The appointment of a Governor or an Ambassador may be one of the veriest jobs you please, but if when appointed he does his work well no bad results follow; but if the appointment under that influence be to the judicial Bench, the mere fact of there being a flaw in his appointment is associated with that Judge throughout his whole career; it enfeebles the whole of his judicial acts, degrades him in the eyes of those upon whom his actions are expected to produce a beneficial influence, and does away with one-half the beneficial results which ought to flow from his judicial duties. Whatever you may say of the general exercise of patronage by the Government, its legal patronage has been, on more than one occasion, open to serious censure. I am far from wishing to impute any improper motive to the Lord Chancellor; I am ready to subscribe to all the tributes to his public and private character which the noble Lord repeated at all the pauses of his speech; but I cannot agree with the noble Lord that it is necessary to look back 50 years to find instances of jobbery;—in recent times there have been more appointments than one incompatible with that view. We have had one or two instances in which the legal patronage of the Government has been exercised—I do not say with impure motive, but with very little regard to the sentiments of the people and the appearance of an honest appointment. For instance, we have had the appointment of a County Court Judge, of whom the public knew

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  nothing except that, at an important crisis of party politics, he was the ringleader of a successful riot in Hyde Park. He may be, and he probably is, the most virtuous of men—I do not doubt he is a most learned lawyer—but that is the only event of his life which has brought him into public notice. Another appointment I may refer to is that of Mr. Homersham Cox, who is, I dare say, a most able man. In that case a very earnest protest came from the community among whom he was appointed to act, that he was wholly ignorant of the language spoken by a large majority of the population among whom he was to administer justice. The only distinction for which this learned gentleman was generally known was that he had written very effective controversial books in defence of the Liberal party. Then, at the top of all these, you have the last appointment to the highest judicial tribunal of the realm—an old partizan and faithful friend appointed by the Ministry at a time when its fortunes were thought to be somewhat precarious, and when it might be reasonably said—"If you do not take this chance, you are not likely to get another." I say that, however pure may have been the motives by which these appointments were dictated, there was something else beside upright motive to be considered. We have a right to ask the dispensers of patronage to look at the opinion likely to be entertained of patronage exercised in such a manner and in such a spirit. I say appointments of this kind are not likely to increase the reverence which the people feel for the administration of law in this day. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is not only a Court of enormous importance, whose judgments not only affect the interests of millions of people in India and the Colonies, but affect also, in this country, the spiritual interests of the nation, of which many persons think more than they do of other interests; and what will be the effect upon their minds when they see that a Judge has been appointed to that Court by what they cannot but regard as a party move. My Lords, I feel that such things do not reflect honour upon the constitution of the highest judicial tribunal of this realm, and that if they are allowed to be repeated our tribunals will fall in the estimation of the people. Therefore, my Lords, I think it becomes you, the
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  highest court of judicature in the realm, to interfere and to prevent these things happening again, either in our time or the time of generations to come, by branding them with your displeasure.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: My Lords, I feel all the responsibility of being the first Member of the Government who is called upon to state the case of the Government on the questions which have arisen out of the appointment of Sir Robert Collier. For more than three months the public has been wholly possessed against us through one side of the question having been stated with great ability, but, in my opinion, with great want of candour, by a high authority of the law. We have been absolutely silent under these attacks. My noble friend who has brought forward this Motion (Earl Stanhope) has made the statement of that fact an additional ground of blame. He appears to think that we ought to have entered into the arena of conflict in the public Press, and that there ought to have been bandied between the highest authorities of the State, and the highest authorities of the law, angry appeals to passion and to party feeling. I think we took a more dignified and more proper course when we determined that we would wait until attack was made on our conduct in Parliament, which is the great Council of the nation. So far from admitting that my noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack is to blame for not having entered upon his defence in reply to Sir Alexander Cockburn, I think he only showed a due appreciation of what was due to the great office which he holds and which he adorns, and to the Government of which he is a distinguished Member, by declining to do so. I heard with amazement from my noble Friend the position of the Lord Chief Justice quoted as demanding from the Lord Chancellor an answer to his letter. True it is the Lord Chief Justice is a great dignitary of the law; but the Lord Chancellor is a still greater dignitary of the law; and when the noble and learned Lord at the head of the law was addressed by a subordinate upon the Bench in language in the highest degree disrespectful, both to him personally and to the Government of which he was a Member, I say the noble and learned Lord was right in refusing to condescend

  409
  to enter the lists with him in the public Press. My Lords, this proposed Vote of Censure was preceded by a Motion for certain Papers. Now, it is not usual that appointments in the law are preceded by any correspondence whatever. But the object of the noble Earl in moving for the correspondence which in this case was known to exist is perfectly apparent. He wanted a platform for his guns. He wished, by placing a document, purporting to be a document of great authority before the House, to prejudice the question. I have a right, then, to ask, is the letter which is the principal feature in this correspondence, and which the noble Earl has made the sole text of his speech—has it the authority which it claims? From whom does this letter proceed? Is it a letter from the Lord Chief Justice of England or is it a letter from Sir Alexander Cockburn? This is a delicate investigation; but I am bound to enter into it on behalf of the Government. What does the writer of the letter say of himself? In two separate paragraphs of the letter he tells us distinctly that he writes both as the head of the Common Law of England, and as a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It is in this capacity, he says, that he addresses first the Prime Minister, and then the Lord Chancellor. And I may here assure the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Salisbury) that he is mistaken if he supposes the Government desire to put the responsibility of this appointment personally on the Lord Chancellor. I believe my noble Friends opposite do not intend this as a personal attack upon him. His noble character, which makes it an honour and a happiness to be associated with him, is appreciated by noble Lords opposite. We take this as an attack upon the Government; we defend the course pursued as that of the Government; and it is a matter of indifference whether the letter of the Lord Chief Justice was nominally addressed to the Lord Chancellor or the Prime Minister. But to return to the character in which the letter assumes to be written, there is another part of the letter which I shall quote—
  "Under these circumstances I feel my self justified, as Chief Justice of England, in conveying to you what I know to be the opinion of the profession at large."
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  Here, therefore, we have it distinctly affirmed that this letter comes from the Lord Chief Justice of England, and what is the character of it? How far is this assumption of judicial authority justified by the general tenour and character of this most extraordinary document? First, I have to observe that this is a letter of accusation. Judges are not generally accusers. Secondly, I have to observe that it is not only a letter of accusation, but it is one of railing accusation; and when Judges take upon themselves to make accusations, as, possibly, in extreme cases they may be called upon to do, we have a right to expect something of judicial calmness and fairness, something of common temper in the language which is used by them as great dignitaries of the law. But, I repeat, this letter is not only an accusation, but a railing accusation, against the Government. I wish, therefore, to examine the judicial authority of the document. I find it deals chiefly with what he calls a "violation of the spirit, meaning, and intention of the statute." Now, I do not for a moment deny that "the spirit" of the law may, to a certain extent, be a different thing from its "letter;" and, what is more, this spirit of a statute may be, and indeed must be, a most important element in the judicial interpretation of a statute. The spirit and meaning of a statute is part of its judicial interpretation, and the question I ask myself therefore is this—Is it for the Lord Chief Justice of England to come forward and give the judicial interpretation of the spirit and meaning of a statute in language such as this? I do not believe he could seriously pretend that, in the language of this letter, he was speaking in a judicial capacity. When, therefore, he speaks of the "meaning," "intention," and "spirit of the statute," he speaks of some spirit, meaning, and intention outside of the strictly judicial interpretation of the Act. Then, I maintain, that what Sir Alexander Cockburn says, extra-judicially, of the spirit, meaning, and intention of the law is of no more authority than the opinion of any other man. Unless the matter has been judicially brought before him and argued he has no right to impose on us any judgment or obiter dictum of his own, as to the meaning and intention of a statute. I say the spirit of the statute in that vague

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  general sense, in which alone he can be using the words here, is a matter with which the Government is quite as competent to deal, having ourselves been the authors of the statute, as the Lord Chief Justice of England. The next thing I find in the letter, beyond these violent assertions as to our violation of the spirit of the statute, is this—he speaks of the appointment as "seriously compromising the dignity of the judicial office." Now, here again, the degradation of the judicial office is not a matter on which the Lord Chief Justice has any judicial authority. He has a right to have his own opinion as to what does or does not constitute a degradation of the judicial office; but there can be no better proof than this letter that there may be two opinions as to what does or does not maintain the dignity of the judicial office, or tend to its degradation. The next accusation I find against us in this marvellous document produced and paraded as the authority of the Lord Chief Justice of England is the accusation of "impropriety." The vocabulary is so rich and spicy—or as another high judicial authority has termed it in this correspondence—so "sensational," which is another word for clap-trap—that I hardly know how to select; but we are next accused of "impropriety," which is said to be "painfully apparent." Now, I decline to take Sir Alexander Cockburn as a judge of "impropriety" in any matter of the administration of public patronage. It is a matter within the responsibility of the Advisers of the Crown on which he has no right to speak judicially. We take his opinion for what it is worth, and for nothing more. Well, then, the last accusation I find in this extraordinary letter is that we have been guilty of a "subterfuge." That is pretty strong language for a Judge to address to the head of the law and to the Prime Minister; but I am happy to think that after this we are at liberty to deal with considerable freedom with the extra-judicial authority of the Lord Chief Justice—to use a memorable expression of my right hon. Friend at the head of the Government—we are "unmuzzled," and we decline to accept the authority of the Lord Chief Justice as to what is, and what is not "subterfuge." I come, then, to the conclusion that this is not a letter from the Lord Chief Justice of England; it is a letter purely
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  and simply from Sir Alexander Cockburn; and what is more, it is a letter from Sir Alexander Cockburn in a state of considerable irritation, and, if I may venture to use the word, of effervescence. I do not know what is the cause of that irritation which appears in every fine and syllable of this letter; but I happen to observe that Sir Alexander Cockburn mentions one cause of irritation at the very beginning of the letter. The noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Salisbury) has not hesitated in his speech to-night to accuse the Government of jobbery and abuse of patronage, giving to their friends places under the idea that they are going out of office, and the noble Marquess has, with his characteristic plainness, given this as his explanation of Sir Robert Collier's appointment. Now, what does the Lord Chief Justice say? What is his grievance against the Lord Chancellor? He says that the Lord Chancellor has for a long period—something like two years—refused to fill up a vacant judgeship on his Bench. That is the accusation of the Lord Chief Justice against this jobbing Government, which has been accused by the noble Marquess of hastening to give all its friends places, and saying "make haste, lest to-morrow we be out of office, and you may not get what we would otherwise give you." He says he had for two years been bitterly complaining of the Lord Chancellor for not filling up this judgeship. I really know nothing, my Lords, of the merits of this matter or the value of Sir Alexander Cockburn's complaints about this judgeship; but I point out to your Lordships that the Lord Chief Justice admits that he has a grievance against the Lord Chancellor, and so far this accounts for the irritation which is so apparent in the tone of this letter. My Lords, I think I have now sufficiently established that this letter cannot be admitted as possessing any judicial authority. But I have now to point out to the House that there is one passage in it in which this is at last—almost inadvertently—admitted and confessed. I am very happy to find that, although this letter is one long torrent of abuse against the Government, there is now and then a little spot of clear water amongst the foam and bubbles of wrath and indignation. In one of these lucid intervals, Sir Alexander Cockburn confesses

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  that, after all, he is not speaking in his judicial capacity, for he says—
  "I feel it to be a duty, not only to the profession, but to the Government itself, to protest, I hope before it is too late, against a step as to the legality of which I abstain from expressing any opinion, lest I should be called upon to pronounce upon it in my judicial capacity."
  So that here, at last, we have a confession that it is not the Lord Chief Justice that is railing at us in this way, but only Sir Alexander Cockburn; and the judicial interpretation of the statute is a matter entirely separate from his letter, and which he reserves lest he should be called upon to pronounce upon it in his judicial capacity. No one, my Lords, can have a greater respect than I have for the profession of the law, and the great dignitaries of that profession who occupy the principal seats on the English, Scotch, and Irish Bench; and I fully admit we ought not to drag their names into political discussions, if we can possibly avoid it. But I say this, that when a Judge descends from the Bench—when he enters on the arena of personal or political debate, and when he addresses to the Government such language as that which Sir Alexander Cockburn has ventured to address to us, he has no right to claim the sanctity of the ermine and the immunities of the Bench. My noble Friend who spoke first (Earl Stanhope) seemed to be so entirely possessed by the prejudice that has existed in this matter against the Government, founded on this letter—and I believe that a large portion of the public have been in the same position—that he seemed to conclude that we had confessedly no answer at all to this accusation of having violated the meaning, spirit, and intention of the Act. He quoted my noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack as laying down the doctrine that such a violation would be disgraceful to the Government, and concluded that under this doctrine he was self-condemned. But, my Lords, although we refrained from answering the attacks made upon us, I venture to say we have an answer. What is the substantial accusation against the Government? Is it not this—that we have appointed to judicial office a man who had not the substantial qualification required by law, and that we gave him a formal qualification for the purpose of making him qualified who was otherwise
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  not so? Now, in replying to this accusation, the first question is, what are the substantial qualifications which you say are required by the Act of Parliament? I will read the statement of Sir Alexander Cockburn. He says—
  "The meaning of the Legislature in passing this enactment is plain and unmistakable. It was intended to secure in the constitution of the high appellate tribunal by which appeals, many of them in cases of vast importance, from our Indian possessions as well as from the rest of our Colonial Empire, are to be finally decided, the appointment of persons who have already held judicial office as Judges of the land."
  Here is a passage which puts the matter in the clearest terms—
  "It was to be confined to those who were already Judges, and who, in the actual and practical exercise of judicial functions, had acquired and given proof, of learning, knowledge, experience, and the other qualifications which constitute judicial excellence."
  Now, I want to know where Sir Alexander Cockburn finds this in the statute. I deny the existence of these limitations, or that they were intended by the Act to exist. As the Bill was drawn up by my noble and learned Friend, it was so drawn that the office could not practically be given to any Judge who had not had long experience on the Bench. It was altered in its passage through Parliament. All the provisions which looked to providing for long judicial experience were struck out, and the mere qualification of the status of a Judge was inserted in their stead. And when was this done? It was done at a moment when one of the Judges, at least, had only been six months on the Bench. Was he excluded? Would any other Judge who had sat one-half the time have been excluded? Certainly not. And did not Parliament know this? Did it not know that there were new as well as old Judges? And did it not make them all equally eligible? I ask, then, what right had Sir Alexander Cockburn to tell us that men of long judicial experience were alone to be appointed? That is not to be found in the words of the statute. It is not in the Parliamentary history of the enactment. On the contrary, so far as the Parliamentary history throws light on the subject, it distinctly shows that Parliament refused to require long judicial experience as a qualification for office, and made the mere formal fact of having a seat on the Bench—it might be for a week, or a

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  month, or six months—sufficient. And here, my Lords, I must ask, what is the great canon of interpretation which ought to be applied to statutes? Let us hear Sir Alexander Cockburn himself. He is sharp enough in quoting it when it tells in his own favour. There is one passage in his letter in which he assumes—I cannot conceive why—that we hold the office of Attorney General to be a qualification under the Act. We held no such thing; but, in combating this supposed opinion, what is the canon of interpretation which Sir Alexander Cockburn lays down as fatal to it? He says—"You have no right to impute to an Act of Parliament any intention which is not covered by the words—more especially when it would have been perfectly easy to express such intention in words, if it had been really entertained." My Lords, I accept this canon; it is as obviously just and reasonable to the lay mind as I believe it to be accepted in the legal profession. Well, then, let us apply it to this case. If it had been the intention of Parliament to insist on a certain amount of judicial experience on the Bench, nothing would have been easier than to provide that three or five or six or ten years should be the necessary qualification. I say, my Lords, this Act of Parliament has no such meaning or intention, and the Government did not intend it should. I think I have answered fairly that part of the accusation—that we have violated the meaning and intention of the Act of Parliament. But there is another point to which I wish to draw your Lordships attention. The noble Earl who has moved this Vote of Censure declined to go into the fitness of Sir Robert Collier for the appointment. That is, no doubt, a very easy way of getting over a difficult part of his case. The fitness of a man for any office depends on his substantial qualifications, and if you admit his fitness, you admit that he has the substantial qualifications. It would be a great point to make out that although Sir Robert Collier had a formal qualification he had not a substantial qualification, because in this case I admit the condemnation of the Government would be complete. But we say, on the contrary, that we have appointed a man eminently fitted for the office, and that we did nothing but give a formal qualification to one who had already the substantial qualifications for
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  the office. You cannot deny this, and therefore naturally you seek to evade the point. To give a mere formal qualification to a man who had not the substantial qualifications would be disgraceful. To give it to one who has those qualifications is, on the contrary, quite legitimate. The Attorney General is an officer who has always the confidence of the Government, and is consulted by them on questions of great constitutional principle of a higher scope and bearing than those which generally come before the Judges of Common Law, and such an officer, who has served the Government for a number of years with usefulness and distinction, must be presumed to have substantial qualifications which fit him for the judicial office. Accordingly, it is well known that by the etiquette of the profession, he would be entitled to either the Chief Justiceship of the Queen's Bench or the Common Pleas in case of a vacancy. That has been the habitual rule and practice of all Governments. I repeat that we have appointed to the office a man who had all the substantial qualifications required for it—that among these judicial experience neither was, nor was intended to be, included—and that we gave him the status that was required by the statute, and I therefore contend that the accusation brought against us falls to the ground—that we have violated the meaning and intentions of the statute.
  My Lords, the noble Marquess has imported into this debate other matters connected with the Ewelme rectory and the promotion of Mr. Beales and Mr. Homersham Cox, which I contend have nothing to do with the matter. These arguments show the temper, the animus of this Motion. It is a party Motion, and nothing else, which it is hoped may be concurred in by some of our candid friends on this side. This Motion was drawn up, concocted, decided upon, without the case of the Government having been heard, and I do not believe there is a man on the Opposition side of the House who will change his vote however clear the Government may be of the accusation brought against it. There is one other point to which I wish to direct the attention of your Lordships. Among the rash assertions in the letter of Sir Alexander Cockburn, none is more rash than the statement that the whole of the Bench and the

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  Bar are unanimous in condemning this appointment. I believe that nothing can be more mistaken than that assertion. The noble Earl who moved the Resolution (Earl Stanhope) spoke highly of the opinion of the Lord Chief Justice, because it was in his favour; but when he came to speak of the opinion of Mr. Justice Willes, who differed from him, he said that such opinion would not add to his reputation. Now, I believe there are many of the Judges who would support the course taken by the Government. I do not deny that there has been a strong professional opinion against the appointment. No one has greater respect than myself for the legal profession, which is so jealous of its honours and privileges; but all purely professional feelings are apt to run into excess, and there exists a strong esprit de corps against any proceeding which touches in any way the emoluments of the profession. The noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury) gave expression to this feeling in its political aspect and application to-night, when he traced the difficulty to a niggardly and parsimonious spirit on the part of the Government. Now, it is all very well to talk of the Act as the Act of the Government; but it is now at least an Act of Parliament. There is, then, a professional feeling in favour of the failure of the Act of last Session; and there was a feeling in the profession that a certain degree of combination should be established not to submit to this lowering of its emoluments—and this, I believe, has a good deal to do with the professional feeling against the appointment. The noble Marquess had alluded to the number of Judges to whom the offer was made by the Government, and he said that in the whole number of Judges the offer was made to only three. There are, however, means of knowing whether an offer is likely to be accepted, and the noble Marquess can hardly suppose that the Lord Chancellor did not know the feeling of the Judges. Does the noble Marques think that an offer made to one, two, or three Judges would not afford a good test of the accuracy of the rumours which had reached the Lord Chancellor, and show that the Judges would not accept the office on the terms sanctioned by Parliament? Then, I ask who was it that disclosed a desire to frustrate the Act of Parliament? Was it the Government
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  or the profession? It certainly was not the Government, for, on the contrary, the course we took showed a desire to carry into effect the intentions of Parliament, and when any noble Lord denounced the niggardly conduct of the Treasury, what he meant was the niggardly conduct of Parliament. That, therefore, is not a legitimate ground, in my opinion, for censuring the Government, and we cannot accept any Vote on that ground in any other sense than that of a political Vote. I know that the Tory party in this House may, if it chooses to exercise its power, put the Members of the Government in a minority; but if we are censured for this transaction, in which we believe we have acted not only legally but properly, not to frustrate, but to frustrate the frustration of the Act of Parliament, we shall appeal to the House of Commons, and also to that public opinion, which, though as in this case sometimes prejudiced by passionate and unscrupulous statements, is seldom permanently unjust to the conduct of public men.
  LORD WESTBURY: My Lords, I have listened with pain to the attack of the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) on the Lord Chief Justice, and I must say that anything more unjust and indecent I never heard and I trust I never shall hear again. It was most painful to hear, and I little envy the taste and feeling of a man who thinks he can support a bad cause by such declamation. But the statement of the noble Duke is not founded in fact. The noble Duke says that the letter of the Lord Chief Justice was written in his official character; and I, therefore, am sorry to infer that the noble Duke has not read the letter, or, having read it, not understood it. The letter was a private letter addressed to the Prime Minister, and dictated by the kindest feeling and regard for that right hon. Gentleman; it was written when the first appointment of Sir Robert Collier had been made, and it was publicly rumoured that another step was about to be taken. It was written by the Lord Chief Justice, who had for years been the friend of the Prime Minister, entreating him not to take a step which would be visited with general reprobation. When that step was taken, I appeal even to the noble Duke himself whether the prophecy proved untrue—

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  whether the appointment was not received with a general shout of reprobation? Was it not a right and kind thing, then, to call the attention of the Prime Minister to the odium to which he would be subject if this unwise and illegal step were taken? The letter was addressed to Mr. Gladstone for his own especial warning. There is no charge against the Ministry, there is no complaint of the appointment of Sir Robert Collier as Judge of the Common Pleas, but there was a warning given of the result likely to ensue if the other transaction were completed. The letter is addressed to Mr. Gladstone for his own consideration; and what does he do? He says he will forward it to the Lord Chancellor, by whom the first part of the transaction had been completed. But there was no complaint of the first part of the transaction; the only complaint being as to what would be said and done if the other part of the transaction were completed. Let me pass, however, to consider what is proper for your Lordships' determination. I do not desire a greater amount of censure to be passed than would be passed if one of the decrees of the Lord Chancellor pronounced in Chancery were brought up here and reversed on appeal. I entirely differ from the Lord Chancellor, and, therefore, I ask your Lordships to reverse his judgment in toto. There has been an error in judgment committed, but no more than an error in judgment. I will not enter into a controversy as to the merits of Sir Robert Collier, for if he were an angel that would have nothing to do with the question now before your Lordships. No one has attempted to insinuate that the Government were influenced by unworthy motives in selecting Sir Robert Collier to fill this post. But the evil part of the case lies in the fact that what I should have thought no lawyer would have justified, has been maintained with a persistency—if it were not deemed rude, I might have said with an audacity—which gives to the original offence a worse character, because it unfortunately leads us to believe that similar transactions may occur again. These things, as the Motion says, are "of evil example." I remember that there was an outrage on constitutional law only last Session. My Lords, if there is a wrong judgment in Chancery, you can set it right by an appeal to this House; but when there is
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  an error in judgment in the exercise of judicial patronage the evil is done, and all the remedy we can apply is to bring the case up to receive your Lordships' consideration, whether it should be condemned or approved. We thought it only fair to appeal to your Lordships, because we felt very much for the situation of the noble and learned Lord. His conduct had been severely criticized and condemned, and I am glad that he has now the coveted opportunity of vindicating himself on the floor of this House. Indeed, the Motion has been framed in a manner to convey exactly the meaning of that part of the case which he is desirous to meet. The complaint is this—that if in a matter of civil right the noble and learned Lord had done that which he has done here in the bestowal of a great judicial office, the act would have been impeached as a fraudulent exercise of power. I would have your Lordships understand that this is not to be regarded technically as an evasion of the statute. There is a power given in the statute, but if you misuse the power you commit a fraud on the Act. The manner in which the fraud was perpetrated seems to have been this—The Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor appear to have met, and said, it is desirable to make Sir Robert Collier a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; but how is it to be done seeing he does not come within the terms of the statute? The Lord Chancellor says—"I will appoint him to the Common Pleas, and you shall go into the Common Pleas, and finding him there, you can transfer him to the Privy Council." The transaction is divided into two parts. The Chancellor in effect said to Mr. Gladstone—"we have both agreed that he shall be appointed to the Judicial Committee, and I will put him into the Common Pleas, not that he may be a bonâ fide Judge or a permanent Judge, but that he may be qualified for the Committee." Thus he is appointed first and qualified afterwards. A sham Judge is put on the Judicial Committee. It is quite odd to see how the two agents in this joint transaction proceed. The Lord Chancellor says—"I have made him a Judge of the Common Pleas, which is quite right and within my power;" and the Prime Minister says—"I have made him a Member of the Judicial Committee, which is

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  quite right and within my power." But—and I put it as a problem for the dialectic subtlety of the Prime Minister—these two right acts make an insufferable wrong. There lies the fraud and misuse of the statute. It is taking the Act and using it fraudulently—a thing with which we are quite familiar in the Courts. The Lord Chancellor knows that most thoroughly, and he would in pointed language have told anybody who came before him in his judicial capacity under such circumstances, that he was a party to a fraudulent transaction. He would have said that the appointment could not stand, and that if it were revocable, he must undo it to the fullest extent possible, in order to prevent the gross abuse of a power which was created for one purpose but employed for another. Such is the familiar doctrine in Courts of Equity; and I appeal to those noble and learned Lords who are in the habit of sitting here to administer justice, whether it is not applicable to the transaction with which we are now dealing. The noble Lord who moved the Amendment (Lord Portman) has introduced Mr. Justice Willes into this discussion. It is somewhat unfortunate that he should have done so, for I think the Lord Chancellor has good grounds of complaint against Mr. Justice Willes, while he on his part has good reasons for complaining of the Lord Chancellor. Mr. Justice Willes came voluntarily to the aid of the noble and learned Lord in a letter which unhappily shows that, though his experience as a Judge in Courts of Common Law may be great, he is standing on a plain below the level of the higher regions of justice, and knows nothing at all of those higher maxims of equity by which the common law is controlled, and by which such a transaction as this ought to be judged. I do not make it matter of grave complaint against Mr. Justice Willes that such is the case. It seems, however, to illustrate the infirmity of our institutions, which admit of our having two kinds of justice—the one in the Courts of Law of a lower and more degraded order, and the other in the Courts of Equity of a more exalted and sublimer character. I must express my regret that the Lord Chancellor should have received this letter, but as he has received it, I would advise him whenever he brings in a Bill I long for, which shall have my most sincere attention,
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  for the establishment of a great Court of Appeal and the fusion of Law and Equity, he should cite as an illustration of the need of the fusion, Mr. Justice Willes. I would also suggest to my hon. and learned Friend (Sir Roundell Palmer) that he might quote this letter as proof of the necessity of instituting a better system of legal education. That part of the subject I will now leave without any more serious comment, and return to the point more immediately under our consideration. I do not by any means regard the Motion which we are discussing as amounting to a Vote of Censure on the Government. The Government have been led into the matter by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, and they are generous enough to take their share of the responsibility. The noble and learned Lord has, however, in my opinion, and I think in the opinion of the public, committed a grave error of judgment. I regret extremely that the noble and learned Lord received the letter of the Chief Justice of England in the temper in which he met it. It was not addressed to him, it was addressed to the Prime Minister. I think it would have been well if the noble and learned Lord, on receiving such a communication from a great dignitary of the law, had stated to him such reasons as he had to offer for the appointment which he had made. Again, the letter of the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas might, in my opinion, have been treated with somewhat greater courtesy. The noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) told us that the appointment was not offered to more than three of the Common Law Judges, because the Lord Chancellor was of opinion that there would be no use in doing so; but there I think the noble and learned Lord was in error, for more than one Judge would have accepted it without making any difficulty about the salary of the clerk. The noble and learned Lord did not, therefore, in my opinion, go so far as he ought to have gone in the matter. It is somewhat extraordinary that in the debate on the Bill the noble and learned Lord opposite (Lord Chelmsford) told us that the learned Judges would decline the appointments under it on the ground of the insufficiency of the salary; but if that be now the plea of the Government, is this to be the result, that the parsimony of the

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  Chancellor of the Exchequer is to be held a sufficient justification for the Lord Chancellor's breaking the law? That is the sum total of the defence—and was such a defence ever heard of before? Time was when the Lord Chancellor would have vindicated his right of determining what was required for the due administration of justice; and if he had knocked in vain at the door of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he would have gone to the Cabinet and said to them—"This must be done! It is my duty to see that justice is properly administered, and I require the Cabinet to open the purse-strings of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I will not be driven, even with the approbation of the Prime Minister, into the evasion of a statute and the fraudulent use of an enactment, in order that I may get by a by-way that which I ought to do openly, directly, and in full conformity with the ordinary course of justice." I have only this further to say—that if, after the appointment had been made, the Lord Chancellor had taken the earliest opportunity of offering his explanation, this discussion might have been avoided; or if the Government had brought in a Bill to rectify the error that had been committed as to the insufficiency of salary, this matter might also have been amended. In the course of the debates on the Bill the Government were informed that unless provision were made for a clerk many of the Judges would, in all probability, refuse these appointments.
  EARL GRANVILLE: I think the noble and learned Lord himself said that any such provision was unnecessary.
  LORD WESTBURY: I said that many of the Judges might look upon the relief which they would have from going circuit as a sufficient inducement. But the noble Duke entirely misleads you as to the language of that Act. He told you, with his usual air of triumph, that the Bill, as it left this House, provided for the appointment of experienced Judges, and that that provision was struck out in the House of Commons, and therefore he argues that the Act left the Government at liberty to manufacture a Judge pro hâc vice, in order that they might then be in a position to promote him to the Judicial Committee. That is another mistake on the part of the noble Duke. The Bill left the House, in this particular, in the same shape as that in which it returned
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  and passed. All the noble Duke's observations upon the supposed omission of the word "experienced" are simply an illusion of the noble Duke's perturbed imagination. If your Lordships will read the section of the Act, you will find this to be so. I have but one other remark. It has been represented that this is a party and personal move. As far as I am concerned, and as far as those who act with me are concerned, we should deprecate this Motion being attended by any party or personal consequences whatever, either as far as the Government or the Lord Chancellor is concerned. For my own part, though I fear I may have been betrayed by the language of the noble Duke into the use of stronger words than I intended, yet I will add my own personal feeling and earnest hope that the Lord Chancellor will succeed in satisfying your Lordships that we are in error in condemning this proceeding, for nothing would please me more than that his great reputation should not be tarnished by any act which you may regard as open to censure.
  LORD ROMILLYsaid, he should indulge in no strong expressions, neither should he attempt to turn into ridicule any letter written by a learned Judge. He was not, and he never had been, a party man, and had never acted in that House in any party spirit: and if, therefore, he expressed his opinion—which was his sincere, earnest, and solemn conviction—that the Government had acted properly in the appointment of Sir Robert Collier, he trusted he should obtain credit for speaking in the present instance in a perfectly judicial spirit. When the appointment of Sir Robert Collier was first brought under his notice, it appeared to him, after due consideration, that to condemn it as being in contravention of the Act of Parliament, would be to sacrifice the real meaning and scope of the Act to a mere technicality. Long since, his old friend Sir William Erle said to him—"When you are made a Judge, you will find that your most important function, and the chief value of technical knowledge, is to prevent technicalities from defeating justice." He had now been for more than 20 years a Judge of the Court of Chancery, and during that time his great object had been to prevent technical objections from defeating justice. Now, the object of the Act with which their

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  Lordships were in the present instance dealing was to provide a fit and proper person to be a Member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It was not its scope that every Member so selected must have had experience as a Judge in the Courts of Common Law, because if that were so it might fail in its real object, which was the securing the services of fit and proper persons, and if such had been its meaning, it would have so expressed it. He therefore entirely dissented from those who contended that the fitness of Sir Robert Collier for the appointment had nothing to do with the question at issue. He, on the contrary, believed it to be the most essential part of the question, for if an unfit or inexperienced member of the Bar had been made a Judge, and then transferred to the Privy Council, he (Lord Romilly) should certainly have condemned such a proceeding as a culpable evasion of the Act. Having stated what was the scope of the Act, he had to observe that its technicality was that the person appointed should be a Judge of one of the Superior Courts of Common Law. The reason for that lay in this—that in that case there would be a double test of fitness, the appointment to the Court of Law in the first instance by the Lord Chancellor, totally independent of the Prime Minister, and then the appointment as a Member of the Privy Council by the Prime Minister—two great Ministers of State being in that way connected with the transaction. The same remark applied to the Vice Chancellor, who was appointed by the Prime Minister, on the recommendation of the Lord Chancellor. That was just, as a great many appointments made by the Master of the Rolls must be sanctioned by the Lord Chancellor. Such was, in his opinion, the meaning of the Act, in discussing which he had taken part as it passed through the House, and with respect to which he had unreservedly expressed his opinion at the time. He thought that though the salary was small, it would be possible to obtain the services of proper persons; but he had never supposed that the scope and object of the Act was to take care that the Members of the Privy Council should have had a long judicial experience as Common Law Judges. If he had thought so he should have opposed the Bill, because it would have introduced a new
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  test, which, in his opinion, was not necessary, and might be prejudicial to the public interest. For example, Sir Roundell Palmer probably had more experience and knowledge of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council than any man living. Suppose he agreed to accept a seat in the Judicial Committee, could it be thought necessary that he should first serve as a Judge? "No," he might say, "I will not be a Judge;" and so, if prolonged judicial experience were necessary, a man would be excluded from a post for which he was undoubtedly the person most highly qualified. Yet if you happened to have on the Bench an inferior Judge who had served for several years, but who had disappointed his friends, you could appoint him. Was not that a case in which technicality defeated substantial justice? Suppose, again, a practising, barrister, in the course of his practice for many years in the Supreme Court of Calcutta, but obliged to leave that country from ill-health, and who had since, in his practice in Indian appeals before the Judicial Committee, shown that he possessed the most consummate knowledge of Indian law, and on that ground was notoriously the most competent person to place on the Committee. His health does not allow him to go out to India, if it had, he would long since have been appointed Chief Justice there; I say that the meaning and true object of the Act would be fulfilled by appointing him Chief Justice of Calcutta for the purpose of appointing him to the Privy Council? The only practical question would be—was he a fit person, and were those who appointed him acting conscientiously in choosing him for the post? The Lord Chief Justice said the appointment of Sir Robert Collier had been universally condemned. But he (Lord Romilly) had conversed with several persons on this subject, and he found the preponderance of opinion to be that Her Majesty's Government had done quite right. No doubt, they were principally lawyers practising in Courts of Equity; but his experience was opposed to that expressed by the Lord Chief Justice. It seemed to him that the remarks of his noble and learned Friend (Lord Westbury), as to powers in the Court of Chancery, had nothing to do with the subject. A fraud on a power was a case in which, where money

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  had to be divided amongst certain specified persons, it was given to them under a condition that they held it in trust for another not an object of the power. Who could possibly say that Sir Robert Collier was not an object of this Act? Would he have become more so if he continued to act as Judge for a year? Supposing the mere appointment of a Judge were not sufficient, what length of service would give a qualification? Would the hearing of one case be sufficient, or must he have served one or two years? You must apply the test of common sense—not the technical test of how many cases he had tried as a Judge, but whether you were satisfied that the two responsible Officers of the Crown, who concurred in saying that he was fit to be appointed to the Judgeship and to the Judicial Committee, were justified in coming to that conclusion. The outcry which had arisen on this subject was much to be regretted, and it was a pity that the letter of the Lord Chief Justice had remained so long without any answer. Unfortunately the number of persons who thought for themselves in this country was not very great, and so when one opinion, or one view of a case was put prominently forward with authority, and remained long uncontradicted, it became generally accepted, for those who held the contrary opinion were not in the habit of sending letters to the newspapers. He held the strongest opinions with reference to the appointment of Judges, and should think it a great crime to tamper with such appointments. He owed too much to the profession of the law, both personally and hereditarily, to allow him to shrink from expressing his opinion, if he thought any impropriety had been committed by the Government, or anything done to lower the standard of the judicial appointments. But, in his opinion, the spirit of the Act of Parliament had been observed, and he therefore thought it right to stand up and defend the Government against a Resolution which declared that they ought to have been guided by technicalities, rather than by the spirit of the statute.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, it is with much satisfaction that I have at length the opportunity of answering a question put by one of your Lordships, and therefore by one who has a right to ask it. I should have been glad if that question had been put
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  simpliciter, without being coupled with a judgment pronounced before the question was answered. But the noble Earl who introduced this subject (Earl Stanhope) has, in this respect, only followed the brief he holds—namely, the letter of Sir Alexander Cockburn. That letter adopted the same course. It arrived at conclusions before any inquiry had been made as to facts; and, in the absence of facts of material importance to enable that learned Judge to arrive at any conclusion at all, he did arrive at a clear, decisive condemnation of the conduct of the Prime Minister, expressing that opinion in language certainly not of the mildest character, not only once, but four separate times in his letter. I say I am glad that the question has been asked where it ought to be asked, and where it should be answered. In declining to answer the judgment of a self-constituted Censor, the Government were actuated by motives which I am sure, when I explain them a little fully, will meet with the approbation of all your Lordships. Excuse me if I detain your Lordships longer than I am in the habit of detaining you; but it is a matter which cannot be hurried over, for facts have hitherto been unknown, and therefore ignored—I should be sorry to use a stronger word, and say they were suppressed—and thus a conclusion has been come to which had no basis of fact or of law. Why, then, did we not answer this letter? My noble and learned Friend (Lord Westbury) tells the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) that it is an entire mistake to suppose the letter was a public letter. It was a letter written to the Prime Minister as a matter of public remonstrance and protest. But my noble and learned Friend says it was a mere private, friendly letter of warning, couched, probably, in much the same style as that sometimes used by my noble and learned Friend when he gives advice, and prompted by the same tender and genial feeling. It is true the letter does begin "Dear Mr. Gladstone," and ends with "Yours faithfully." There are first the lamb's head and tail; but the claws of the wolf are found to be uncommonly strong in the centre; and anybody who, reading that letter, can say that it was intended as a private communication, and not with a view to enter a public protest as a Judge and a Privy Councillor, must be labouring under a strange hallucination. This

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  I do say, that we thought the letter was on every account a public letter; and we thought the letter ought not to be answered, not because we could not answer it, nor yet because the Lord Chief Justice had taken upon himself to censure and judge the Prime Minister of England, without any inquiry and without any attempt to inform himself of the facts or of the reasons which had actuated the Prime Minister or myself, but had proceeded at once to indict and convict, with the simple omission that he forgot to cite us—us, the accused. That is the course which the Lord Chief Justice took, and that alone, I apprehend, would have justified any person in saying—"I do not submit to your arbitrament, you having already decided without hearing me." It is extremely easy to say, as the Lord Chief Justice does, that the meaning of the Act is indisputable—in other words, assuming the law, assuming that he alone was the proper person to expound the law, and that there was an end of the legal part of the case. I shall take the liberty of differing entirely from his view of the law, and saying that, in my opinion, it is wholly and clearly erroneous. But the Lord Chief Justice assumes the law, and then proceeds to assume the facts, declaring that there has been an evasion, if not an infraction of the law; that there are grave doubts whether there has not been such an infraction, but that there are no doubts of the impropriety which has been committed—I think "subterfuge" is the happy phrase which he uses—and, having so settled the law and the facts, he says that the whole profession, Bench and Bar alike, join in condemning this appointment. Well, any case, even the great Tichborne Case, may soon be settled in that way, if the Judge assumes the law and the facts and determines the matter off-hand. That, however, was not our reason for declining to answer the letter. We proceeded on a high constitutional ground. The Lord Chief Justice of England is not the Censor of the Prime Minister of England. He is not the person entitled to call in question the acts of the Prime Minister. He was aware of the extreme impropriety of such a letter, if he had expressed any direct opinion upon the law in any matter which might come before him judicially. But when he said that it was an evasion of the law, and that the qualification was colourable, he was
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  really deciding a point of law which went straight to the question of the appointment; and nothing could be more improper. But the matter does not rest here. Ever since Lord Ellen borough ceased to hold a seat in the Cabinet, I believe it has been universally admitted that the Chief Justices of England had better not interfere with politics at all. But the letter of Sir Alexander Cockburn has placed him in this position—that it is the foundation and origin of this party attack. Everything is traced to him. The whole indictment is founded upon his letter, and there is to be a party Vote of Want of Confidence founded entirely upon the stone thus set a rolling by the Lord Chief Justice. There was, therefore, a high constitutional ground for declining to answer the letter. And there was another and more personal ground on which I acted. The Lord Chief Justice expresses himself in this letter—as he always expresses himself—with a force, fluency, and eloquence which have often excited my admiration, and which I am far from being able to equal. But when I found what a learned Judge has called "sensational" expressions—such as a general burst of indignant condemnation, the general assent of Bench and Bar, and other like phrases—I think I was not uncharitable in surmising that the letter was meant at some time or other to reach the Press. Now, I think nothing could be more detrimental to the dignity and honour of the Bench than a controversy in the newspapers between the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice. I have remained silent under three months of abuse; but had I embarked in such a controversy, whatever might be the state of our tempers at the beginning, I am by no means so sure that it would have been as calm and equable at the close. No doubt the public would have been amused with such a correspondence, and some of the newspapers are very angry because we have not afforded their readers this diversion. But I do not think the honour and dignity of either the Bar or Bench would have been served had such a correspondence been carried on. I have always thought that honour and dignity were best studied, not by talking about them, but by mutual courtesy of language, and by never allowing any outbreak of temper between any members of the Bar or the Bench. The dignity of the Bench is

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  best maintained by bearing first all that persons have to say—by keeping yourself on your guard, and forming a covenant with yourself, as it were, to let every matter be fully placed before you, ere you allow yourself even to form an opinion, much less pronounce a decision upon the subject. And certainly you ought not to disqualify yourself from the office of a Judge, by expressing strong opinions when only one side has been beard, or still less when nobody whatever has been beard—opinions which have been formed by yourself in your own breast, and which possibly are so completely satisfactory to yourself that you think they must necessarily be right. That is not my opinion of judicial dignity. I will only say that during the 44 years I have been at the Bar and the 19 I have been on the Bench I have studied to act on these principles. It is impossible for any man to say of himself that he has carried them out successfully; but at least I have never lost sight of them. At the Bar, or on the Bench, I never had an altercation with any human being, and I certainly shall not begin with the Lord Chief Justice in the public newspapers. I therefore did not think it right to answer the letter, and I think in that course I shall be entitled to your Lordships' general approval. I claim it, and I think I am entitled to it. It is supposed that there is something curt and discourteous in my reply. It is not very long, I admit; it would have been contrary to my own principle to have made it so, but I cannot find that it contains a single harsh expression. An hon. Gentleman—of whom I recollect that in old times in the House of Commons be used rather strong expressions—has, I think, unjustly characterized that letter as "insolent." If it was insolent, I humbly apologize to the Lord Chief Justice and to anyone else who may think it so. I assure your Lordships that its whole intention was to intimate distinctly and firmly, but courteously, that I would not enter into a controversy with him on a question of this character. Having said this, the Government had to bear the disadvantage of having come to the decision of remaining silent. What was the next step? One, I think, which tested whether I was right or wrong in refusing to enter into the controversy. Up to that time only one or two of the papers had taken up the subject at all
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  warmly; the facts were not all before them, as they were not brought out by the Lord Chief Justice, but there had been only a few observations here, and a passing comment there—there had been no "forcible language," as Lord Chief Justice Bovill calls it, and the matter, to all appearance, was going to die away, when the Lord Chief Justice published the letters in the newspapers. He gave a reason for doing so. Let me remind your Lordships of the most statesmanlike advice which was given by a noble Lord, on one of the first nights of this Session, when cautioning the English Press on another subject, be said—"Do not use hard words; hard words prove a weak case." I will endeavour to bear that advice in mind in what I have yet to say; but I must say that it appeared to me altogether unnecessary for the Lord Chief Justice to publish these letters, when I had already told him that I should be prepared at the proper time to give an explanation, and also, until that time arrived, I was tied hand and foot by my own declaration. The Lord Chief Justice assigned a reason for their publication. I will make no comment upon it, but will simply place it before your Lordships. He said, it being known that a correspondence had passed between himself and Mr. Gladstone and the Lord Chancellor, in which he was supposed to have uttered expressions which were detrimental to the position of Sir Robert Collier, he thought it right to avoid all mistakes which persons might otherwise make, to publish the correspondence. I do not like to bring in the general opinion of the profession upon the step of the Lord Chief Justice, and the reasons, which I will not call "colourable," assigned for it, but the Lord Chief Justice does claim to have the general opinion on his side. In his first letter he does qualify the statement a little; but in his second, when my mouth had been sealed, there is no qualification whatever; and he says that from all those with whom he had conversed upon this subject there had come to his ears a storm of disapprobation. I do not know with whom the Lord Chief Justice associated, or who conversed with him upon the subject, but I may say that from all the persons whom I have met, there has been but one opinion, and never more than one, as to the publication of these letters; and that opinion I have heard expressed

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  by some who agreed with the purport of the letter of the Lord Chief Justice, as well as by all who disagreed with its contents. I think it strange, too, that this letter of the Lord Chief Justice should have been taken by the noble Earl (Earl Stanhope) as his brief in opening his case to-day, and, like the Lord Chief Justice, that he should have followed the same course of attacking before hearing any explanation. I put it to all your Lordships whether in common fairness, after an explanation had been distinctly promised—and I hope you will not think that I am a man to shrink from a promise once made—the proper course would not have been for the noble Earl, in the first instance, to have moved for Papers. He did move for Papers, as it happened, for they were necessary to his case; but he ought, I think, at the same time, to have given notice that, in moving for Papers, he should ask a Question of the noble Lord upon the Woolsack with reference to this appointment, and that according to the answer which should then be given he should shape his future course. That would have given me an opportunity of making all the statements that were necessary—the very statement which the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury) says they have been asking for. But your Lordships all know that, according to the forms of the House, if I had been led on this occasion to make any statement in immediate answer to the noble Earl, my mouth would have been closed. Whatever attacks might have been made, or whatever misrepresentations might have been conveyed to the minds of your Lordships, I should have found it impossible to answer them. But if I had been allowed to make any explanation upon a Motion for Papers, I should have been prepared—as it was known I should have been prepared—to enter fully into the matter. I complain gravely of the course that was taken. For months there has been one continual process of commenting upon what were supposed, without inquiry, to be the facts, or, if the facts were known, then suppressing them and continuing the comments; and it is now only after a great deal of vituperation that I approach the case itself. ["Hear, hear!"] A noble Lord says "Hear, hear." He will excuse me for saying that I cannot take it on myself to say that I have wasted one moment of your
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  Lordships' time. I think your Lordships, or some of your Lordships, at least, will say that if a man has been attacked, he ought to have ample opportunities of answering. In the first place, then, the great strength of our case, and that which makes it difficult for us to understand the point of the attack, is this—We had an Act of Parliament, the purport and object of which was to procure a speedy hearing for those appeals coming from India, which had run greatly into arrear; and to secure that object we were to appoint Judges. A Judge was appointed. Nobody had yet ventured to say that the appointment was invalid or illegal; it was in perfect compliance, at least, with the terms of the Act, and we will consider its spirit by-and-by. I will not stop now to read the passage; but by the confession both of Lord Chief Justice Cockburn and of Lord Chief Justice Bovill, the Judge whom we appointed is a man admirably fitted and in every way qualified for the position. As the Lord Chief Justice admitted, he had filled the high office of Attorney General with dignity and honour. Chief Justice Bovill used, I think, even stronger expressions as to his capacity, but was not so emphatic on the other points. When, therefore, we have appointed to the Judicial Bench a man legally qualified for the post, and in every way fitted for the performance of his duties, it does seem a strange thing that at this time of night, and three months after the transaction occurred, we should have to give explanations of our conduct. My Lords, let me now take up the letter of the Lord Chief Justice, because it is the foundation of all the arguments we have heard here to-night. He says we have violated the spirit of the Act. In other words, confessing that the Act is against him, he says we have violated something which he calls the spirit of the Act. Lord Cranworth used to say—the case in which he laid it down is well known to all my noble and learned Friends—that he did not know what was meant by evading the spirit of an Act. We either obey the actual words and plain meaning of an Act, or we do not; if we do not obey it, then we break it, but we do not evade it. And that is the meaning of the letter of Mr. Justice Willes, which says that the talk of evasion, when you have legally appointed a fit man is somewhat "sensational." In days long gone by, persons were often brought in guilty

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  of treason from a construction which was placed upon the "spirit" of an Act of Parliament; but if you talk of the spirit of an Act of Parliament in this sense, you at once arrive at a state of the law in which the property and the lives of all Her Majesty's subjects must speedily become endangered. Then, again, there is the language of Lord Chief Justice Tyndall, in the Sussex Peerage Case, who says of a statute that when the intent and purport is expressed in clear and unambiguous language you have nothing to do but to follow the words; if it is expressed ambiguously, then you may loot at the intent of the framers and see what it was they wished to achieve, and you may look at the preamble, if preamble there be. The object of this Act was to provide a Court to perform special duties. It was of the highest importance that a Court should be speedily provided—by the 2nd of November, if possible—for the trial of these appeal cases. The Court was provided accordingly; it set itself at once to perform its duties, and I am happy to tell you that, with the assistance of the Lords Justices in the earlier part of the year, and of the new Judges in the latter part of the year, the number of appeals disposed of is exactly double what it was in the year before. Having achieved these results, and done this within the terms of the Act of Parliament, we get a long way on. For my own part, I thought we did not deserve censure, but some commendation for what we had done. It is said—which I utterly deny—that the spirit of this Act was to provide Judges of experience to decide these cases. I undertake to prove to demonstration, that when the Bill came back from the Commons the very element of experience which the Bill contained originally was struck out. My intention was—not wholly with a view to economy, I admit, but also with a view to economy, for which I have been reproached—to give only £1,500 a year to each new Judge who was to sit in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. As your Lordships will see, that must have had the effect of securing experienced Judges, because only those would be likely to take the new appointments who were entitled to retire after 15 years' service on the bench. This £1,500, added to the retiring pension of £3,500, would give them what they had been receiving before. The arrangement would have acted in a
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  similar way with regard to Chief Justices from India, who have retiring pensions of about £1,200 a-year. Just at the last moment, I admit, a clause was put in giving £5,000 a-year to all the Judges. But I am speaking of the shape in which it was originally brought in; it came back from the Commons a totally different measure. That was done purposely and in strict correspondence with the intention. The House of Commons said—"We will not be obliged to take retired Indian Judges at all. We will mix up all the Judges together in a body, and that body shall be three Indian Judges and all the Judges of the Superior Courts of Law and Equity, including the Judges of the Divorce and Admiralty Courts." Each Judge, according to the Commons, was to have £5,000 a-year. Not a word was said about any standing being necessary. Vice Chancellor Wickens, a most excellent Judge, was only of six months' standing, and yet the alterations introduced into the Commons would not have prevented his appointment. The Act has been supposed to say that the selection must be from the Judges existing at the time of the passing of the Act; but the qualification really is that the person appointed should be a Judge at the time of his appointment. It was originally provided that the person appointed should be a Privy Councillor; but would anyone on that account have supposed that he was to be a Privy Councillor at the time of the passing of the Act, or that a disturbance like this would have been made if, after the passing of such an enactment, we had appointed some one to be a Privy Councillor in order to place him on the Judicial Committee? Such an objection would be an absurdity, considering that most of us on coming into office have to be made Privy Councillors. Yet this absurd reason has been adopted in a legal journal, which ought to know better than to make such an observation. If Parliament had intended that no one should be appointed unless he were a Judge at the time of the passing of the Act, it ought to have said so distinctly; but, in point of fact, the statute expressly said that he should be a Judge at the time of his appointment as a Member of the Judicial Committee. Again, no particular standing is mentioned. A period of 10 years at the Bar is specified for a County Court Judge, of 15 years for a

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  Lord Justice, or a Vice Chancellor; and whenever it is intended that there should be a particular length of service it is always expressed. Your Lordships are doubtless all aware that one of the ablest Members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the late Lord Kingsdown, was never a Judge at any period of his life. Again, Lord Justice Mellish never had the experience of a Judge before his appointment to the high office of Appellate Judge in Chancery. Then it must be borne in mind that the Act was to be carried into effect as quickly as possible, and I will now proceed to state what we did. I wished to carry out the principle of economy in all departments, including the department of justice. An attempt was made in the House of Commons to fasten on the country—which means the taxpayers—£500 a-year more by way of allowance, in order to include the Judges' clerks, for whom, it was thought, the Judges would wish to provide—and I may add that I entirely concur in that view. My argument, however, was that as the Members of the Judicial Committee would be relieved from the expense of circuits, which was equivalent to an additional salary of £600 a-year, and have their same salary of £5,000, they might themselves provide for their clerks. So that they would be pecuniarily gainers, besides having honourable work and the distinguished position of Privy Councillor; and I thought such inducements ought to be sufficient. I was warned, while the Bill was in progress, that if several clauses in the Bill were not made more satisfactory to the Judges removable to the Privy Council, no Judge would accept an appointment. How, then, could the Government, after being told of the possibility of every Judge refusing, stultify the whole measure by introducing a clause to the effect that no one should be appointed except persons who were Judges at the time of the passing of the Act? Take this case. Suppose that shortly after Sir Robert Collier's elevation to the Judicial Bench, Lord Chief Justice Bovill's place had become vacant, and suppose that Sir Robert Collier had desired to succeed him, I should not have had the slightest objection to his appointment. The Lord Chief Justice of England makes a very ingenious ad captandum suggestion. "Would you," he says, "have sent Sir Robert Collier as Chief Justice to India?" The answer
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  is, that that would be out of the common course of events. But take this case. Suppose the assassin who struck down Mr. Justice Norman had murdered Sir Richard Couch, and that Mr. Justice Norman had succeeded to the Chief Justiceship—do your Lordships think that if he asked us a week afterwards to be placed on the Judicial Committee, he would not be eligible? Does it really come to this, that we might have had a Judge of six months' standing, or of a fortnight's standing, but because we had beforehand contemplated this appointment, that, therefore, it is illegal? That lands you in the purest technicality. I now propose to tell you what we did. I thought I would adhere to my old view of appointing pensioned Judges; but I will not mention names, although I have no objection to give them privately to any noble Lord who may feel interested in the matter. We applied first to one noble and learned Lord, who declined the offer. We also applied to Sir James Colville; and we should have applied to Sir Barnes Peacock, but for the clause enacting that no Judge should hear an appeal who had heard the original case. His appointment was therefore reserved. Then we applied to two other Judges, whose names would carry satisfaction to the House were I to name them, but they declined, each of them on account of the question of clerks, which was a serious question with them. We heard that another Judge, Mr. Justice Montague Smith, was willing to accept the office. But here I come to a little break. Three Judges had been applied to—two appointed, and one placed in reserve. I then mentioned to Mr. Gladstone the name of another distinguished Judge. But Mr. Gladstone said—"Do you think he will accept it?—for I do not think it right to hawk about an office of this dignity merely for the purpose of its being refused." Accordingly I made inquiries, and found that the Judge in question had openly stated that he should not accept the post in the event of it being offered to him. After the first refusal, Sir Robert Collier had said that if it were refused in this way, he was himself willing to accept the appointment. With regard to the charge of jobbery, it is too ridiculous when you examine into the case—I had kept open an appointment in the Queen's Bench for two years, of which the Lord Chief

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  Justice in his letter complains, because I would not incur needless expense by appointing a new Judge where it was not necessary. I utterly deny that we gave a colourable qualification to Sir Robert Collier. He might, if he had so pleased, have remained in the Court of Common Pleas all his life, and on his appointment, he became ipso facto a Member of the Judicial Committee under the former Acts in virtue of being a Privy Councillor. He would have received the same salary as he now receives—namely, £5,000 a-year, and being thus in as good a position in every respect as any of the other Judges, he consented to take their leavings, and to accept what they had rejected. And yet that is termed jobbery. I cannot look upon this as a serious charge; it seems to be reduced to the merest technicality. I will tell you what I thought was the honest meaning of the Act as it came back to us. It rejected the securities which would have kept the appointment for old Judges, and its effect was to tell our Indian and Colonial Empire that their cases would be tried by Judges of the same status as those who heard ours. Status, and not experience, was the qualification required. The Act provided that we should have a man qualified by a proper status. He was to be in the "College," or as the Lord Chief Justice calls it, the "order" of Judges, and that was all. Now, there never was a greater mistake than to call this qualification a colourable qualification. A colourable qualification is one not really intended to be given. But this was a real one, and intended to be given. We intended to make Sir Robert Collier a Judge for the purpose of giving him a proper qualification. When it is said that the whole Bench agrees with the Lord Chief Justice, you overlook the fact that Mr. Justice Willes, one of the most eminent Judges that ever adorned the Bench, differs from the rest, and from also the Court of Equity, where four out of seven Judges take our view. In the face of these facts, it is rather a strong measure for this House, by a party vote, to censure a judgment, honestly exercised, as a colourable evasion. I grapple at once with the suggestion that on the passing of the Act we said anything to mislead the House. What I stated was that we intended, by the offer originally made of £1,500 salary, to secure Judges who were willing to retire
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  on a certain pension. Sir Robert Collier, in the House of Commons, said it was intended to secure men with the authority of Judges. When Mr. Mellish was appointed he had the experience, but he acquired the authority of a Judge, and he was immediately made a Member of the Judicial Committee, not because he had experience as a Judge, but because he had authority. I did not say I would agree to limit the appointments under the Act to the then existing Judges, because I might so have frustrated the object of the Act altogether. As to inquiring of all the Judges what their opinions were, I have never asked a single man's opinion upon the subject, until the fact of Mr. Justice Willes having written in the sense he had was conveyed to me; when I asked him if he had any objection to write me a letter to the same effect. I did not know until two days ago that the noble and learned Lord who spoke last (Lord Romilly) entertained the same opinion as myself. In matters of patronage I never asked any opinion; I took the sole responsibility on myself. The noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury) has introduced two new cases of supposed delinquency on my part. That of Mr. Beales occurred two and a-half years ago. At that time, no complaint of his appointment was made in this or the other House, or in the Press, except anonymously; but I admit that in private one illustrious person did take exception to the appointment. I am now glad of the opportunity of saying that if there is one thing in my career I rejoice in and recollect with happiness and pleasure, it is that I did justice to an honest and excellent man. ["Oh, oh!" "No!"] I have known him from the time he was at College. He was deprived of an income of £700 or £800 a-year because he attended that meeting to which reference has been made, and deprived of it on the ground that, being a revising barrister, he might be suspected of partiality. He had held that office six years, and nobody had ever complained of his conduct; only one of his decisions had been reversed, and that upon a technical point. Being dismissed from the post of revising barrister he lost other business in the Court of Chancery, which he always had discharged well; the deprivation of office reduced him to ruin; and I thought it only right and just, as he had been so reduced to ruin for

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  an expression of political opinion, that he should be restored to competence. ["Oh, oh!"] When I am doing justice to myself I insist on being heard, and still more shall I insist on being heard when I am doing justice to another. Mr. Beales had been called upon by Mr. Walpole to assist him in removing difficulties which had arisen from steps that he (Mr. Beales) advised. I have heard from a strongly Conservative clergyman near Wisbeach that two strongly Conservative solicitors at Wisbeach told him a month or two ago that they had been prejudiced against the appointment when it was made, but they now declared that they had never had a better informed, or more assidious, or more honest a County Court Judge. The Government were in no way responsible for that particular appointment. From the first moment I held the Seals I resolved that I would do that man justice, and I have done it. The other case fished up by the noble Marquess shows what a party move this is. If notice had been given me, I could have brought letters congratulating me on the appointment of Mr. Homersham Cox, and a long memorial, most influentially signed, against the appointment to the office of anyone merely as speaking the Welsh language.
  My Lords, I cannot accept the interpretation of this Motion which has been offered me in such mellifluous tones by one of my noble and learned Friends (Lord Westbury). The noble Earl (Earl Stanhope) opened his case by saying he accused the Lord High Chancellor of distorting an Act of Parliament for his own purposes. What conceivable purpose could I have to serve in the appointment of Sir Robert Collier? Mr. Gladstone had no wish to part with him as a Member of the Government. Good nature often leads to a job on behalf of an acquaintance; but I really had not the honour of Sir Robert Collier's personal acquaintance until I took my present office. Since that time I have learned to respect and regard him as all others do; but before that I did not know him, for he did not practise in the Equity Courts. The noble and learned Lord (Lord Westbury) spoke of this in the same light as a motion to reverse a decree, but it is not usual on reversing a decree to add a Vote of Censure. The dispensing of patronage is a grave and
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  serious matter; I have at all times looked to the honour of the Bar, and in making appointments I have, on public grounds, but not without personal pain, in order to secure the fittest, passed over those to whom I was bound by the ties of friendship. And, now, in this case, wherein four out of seven Equity Judges differ from the Lord Chief Justice, it is hard to be told you are to be censured as having distorted an Act of Parliament for your own purposes. This is as clearly a party manœuvre as ever came before Parliament. The public, having before them the eloquent speech of the prosecutor in the letter of the Lord Chief Justice, have arrived at a wrong conclusion. The Bar are very far from unanimous in their construction of the Act. I do not think any member of the Bench—or even any Member of the Opposition in this House—believes that I have distorted an Act of Parliament for my own purposes. I do not want to take any benefit of character, but I have been 44 years in the legal profession and 19 years on the Judicial Bench. I do not believe that, face to face, either the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench or the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas would say that I had been guilty of a dishonest act; but this is a dishonest act with which I am charged—having distorted an Act of Parliament for my own purposes. If I had done that I should have been culpable indeed. But, my Lords, I tell you plainly, I will hold my ground, I will not quail till my profession tell me I ought, or, at all events, till the House of Commons shall censure me for what I have done. Tour Lordships may, no doubt, pass this Resolution of the noble Earl; but you will find your censures wax very feeble if they are frequently pronounced. Your Lordships cannot inspect the Journals of this House without coming to the conviction that party Votes of Censure are becoming utterly powerless, and I am one of those who do not feel the oppression of their weight. If I felt that I had been guilty of what I am accused—of anything degrading—I should leave my country and hide myself in Australia, or some other distant place. ["Oh!"] How preposterous all this is. I am accused of a gross offence—of what my noble and learned Friend (Lord Westbury), with his usual blandness, says is a fraud, and what a noble Earl called

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  a distorting of a statute for my own purposes. No one believes that. Let me tell you that I had to meet all the Judges for the purpose of pricking the Sheriffs, and I did not find that their usual courtesy had been dispensed with. If Sir Robert Collier takes advantage of a fraud by the Government, he is as bad as themselves, and yet a few days ago his compeers of the law—80 honourable men—gave him a public dinner in honour of his elevation. Let me present one consideration to your Lordships. The Vote does not affect me in the least, but it may be one deeply affecting the administration of justice. Is it fair, is it right to stigmatize one who is to sit as a Judge, unless he be removed by the joint action of both Houses? Is it right to the great Empire of India, and to all the vast interests involved in the proceedings before the Judicial Committee, to cast a slur upon one who is in a great measure responsible for the integrity and the purity of your judgments, merely because there have been summoned from the country for a party Vote a number of noble Lords who have never before heard a statement of the case? If you do so, you will make it difficult to accept office when Judges find that, instead of being liable to be displaced only by a Vote of both Houses one branch of the Legislature brands them by its Vote as having been the medium of a fraud in distorting an Act of Parliament for their own purposes.
  LORD CAIRNS: My Lords, there was one part of the speech of the noble Lord who moved the Amendment (Lord Portman) to which I listened with much sympathy; I mean the part in which he referred to the inexpediency of passing a Vote of this House in the present conjuncture of public affairs. I myself was disposed to attribute great weight to that opinion. When I think of the complications into which our relations with the West appear to have drifted, and of the gloom which has been cast over many of your Lordships by the disastrous news from the East, I must say, speaking for myself, that the proportions of the present question, important as it is, have dwarfed considerably in my estimation, and I should have been well pleased if it had been possible to avoid passing an opinion on it at the present time. But there
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  are at least three public men who have made that course, as it seems to me, perfectly impossible. The first of them is the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has stated that he cannot admit that any error has been committed by the Government, and that he is prepared to maintain that the construction which they have placed on this Act of Parliament, is the only construction to which it is open, and he has requested that this issue should be raised and publicly decided in the most solemn form. The second public man is my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor. My noble and learned Friend likewise deferring, as he was entitled to do, his defence till the present time, has expressed his desire that these appointments should be publicly challenged; he has stated that it was made advisedly, and that he was prepared to maintain—as he has maintained to-night—not only their legality, but their propriety in a Parliamentary sense, and, going somewhat farther, he has stated that he almost expected the Government would have received a Vote of Thanks for the manner in which they had acted. The third public man who has made this impossible is the noble Duke the Secretary for India. In that wild and tempestuous speech we heard to-night the noble Duke—rising in an incredibly short space of time to the boiling point, said that no one who knew the history of the case, or who was competent to form an opinion, could entertain the slightest doubt that the course pursued by the Government was the correct one; and then rising to a still higher flight of fancy, he told you he would appeal from your Lordships' decision, which he said was about to be given simply in a party sense and by a party Vote, to the verdict of the House of Commons—a pure and serene atmosphere, I presume, where party considerations are never felt, and where all questions are approached in a calm and judicial spirit, which your Lordships unfortunately cannot imitate. I, for one, then, cannot refuse to accept these challenges. The position thus taken up by these three Members of the Government appears to leave us no option, viewing the case as we view it, but to place on record the opinion we have formed. I will, in the outset, take note of some admissions and omissions which have been made on the other side. The noble Lord who moved the

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  Amendment (Lord Portman) made one important admission. He said the Government was not altogether free from blame, but he thought it inexpedient as a Parliamentary question to express any opinion on the point. I must protest against the view thus taken. If the Government are free from the charge of having strained an Act of Parliament in a way in which it should not have been strained, by all means let them have the benefit of a complete and perfect acquittal; but if, on the other hand, we are right—as I think I shall be able to satisfy your Lordships that we are—that the spirit and essence of this Act of Parliament have been palpably and clearly violated, then I maintain the last doctrine you should promulgate is this—that public men may with impunity tamper with Acts of Parliament. It is vain that our legislative Acts are guarded by provisions, qualifications, and conditions, if we are to be told afterwards—as we have been told by the Master of the Rolls—that all these things are technicalities—that you are to look at the substance and not at forms, and provided in the main the thing done is good and expedient you need not mind the technicalities of the Act. But then we have heard a great deal of the unfairness of condemning the Government unheard. The Lord Chancellor censures my noble Friend for moving this Resolution of Censure without having had first, in sportsman phrase, a preliminary canter over the course, so that he might have heard what the Government intended to say in their own justification. Now, I have had some experience of Parliament, but I never heard the doctrine promulgated before in either House, that where a public act has been performed by a Government—an act which has been publicly challenged, which has been before the public for months, which has been discussed by the Press on all sides of politics—that when Parliament meets, and when of necessity the minds of men have been made up on the materials before them, the Government are not to be called to account, unless forsooth they have been supplicated to state beforehand what their answer is to the charge. But as to my noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack, is it the case that his tongue has been tied up to the present moment, and that he never had
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  an opportunity until this Notice was given of stating what his defence was? He must forget what is the position of things. I do not wish to find fault with him for not entering into correspondence with the Lord Chief Justice on the subject—that was a matter for his own judgment and discretion—it was for him to come to the conclusion whether he would open up the question by correspondence with the other Judges or not. I find not the slightest fault with him for refusing as he did to continue the correspondence. But he says that my noble Friend (Earl Stanhope) in giving the Notice for Papers, ought to have asked questions, and thereby elicited the views of the Government. But if my noble and learned Friend had any explanation to give, he could have given it on the Motion for Papers—especially as he had promised to the public to do so, before any Motion of censure was introduced. But I want to know what are the facts which have been held in retirement, and which have not been mown to the country? I have not heard a single fact to-night which has not been publicly stated again and again before. Nothing new has been elicited. My noble and learned Friend has thought it necessary, I am sorry to say, to defend his character from the imputation of having been guilty of jobbery. Really that was quite unnecessary. No man could ever suppose that my noble and learned friend could be open to such a charge. I am sure he is as incapable of it as—I had almost said more incapable than—any man living. But, as I have used he term jobbery, I must express my regret that the noble Lord at the Table (Lord Portman) should have said, in reference to a late noble Earl (the Earl of Ellenborough), who was one of the chief ornaments of this House, and whose voice is even now ringing in our ears, that that noble Earl though a later of jobbery, yet held an office which was itself a job. That was a wholly unfounded statement, and the memory of the noble Earl requires that some observations should be made upon it. It is true that he held a position connected with an office which was an abuse of former times, and of which we are now happily rid; but it was held openly and in the light of day, and with the allowance of the law and of public opinion, and there was nothing of jobbery

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  in the manner of his receiving, or in the manner of his holding it.
  My Lords, I will now pass on to say that I must protest against this discussion turning on the fitness of Sir Robert Collier. The fitness of Sir Robert Collier is entirely irrelevant, and I decline to enter on a question which is irrelevant to the real issue. If Parliament had desired to make fitness the sole test of qualification for the office, nothing would have been easier than to have done it: all that was required was that the Act should provide that the Government might appoint any fit and proper person to hold the office. In reality every statute authorizing an appointment implies that the person appointed shall be a fit and proper person. But this Act named another and a special qualification as necessary to the holder of the office. I am very sorry, on Sir Robert Collier's account, that his personal fitness should have been drawn into the discussion; for my own part I should say that even if he had been admittedly the most able lawyer at the English Bar, the argument against the appointment would have been just as strong. The proof of personal fitness does not and cannot, if we are right, countervail or justify the disregard of the special qualification required by the Act. But it was suggested by my noble and learned Friend the Master of the Rolls, and the suggestion was sanctioned by my noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack, that the only reason for requiring the person appointed to be a Judge was this:—that inasmuch as the Common Law Judges are appointed by the Lord Chancellor, and the Members of the Judicial Committee by the Prime Minister, there would be, in the co-operation of two Ministers of State, the double security for the fitness of the person so nominated. That is the grave, sober view of the Master of the Polls. It is certainly a singular one, and I must say that I never heard of a more roundabout course of effecting an object; because, observe that it puts the unfortunate person to the trouble of paying £400 or £500 for being made a Judge, whereas the whole object could have been properly answered by providing in the Act that any person whom the Lord Chancellor and the Prime Minister should agree in considering fit for the office should be capable of being
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  appointed a Member of the Judicial Committee. But unfortunately the noble and learned Lord forgot one fact which entirely invalidates his argument—namely, that half of the persons filling the specified judicial appointments—namely, the Vice Chancellors, all the Lords Justices, and the Chiefs of the various Courts—are not appointed by the Lord Chancellor at all, but by the Prime Minister alone; so that in all these cases this admirable and wonderful double check would be no check at all. My noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack said that it would be an undesirable thing to bring about any limitation in the choice of persons capable of holding a seat in the Judicial Committee, and he instanced the case of Lord Kingsdown to prove—what we all admit—that it is possible for a man to be perhaps the most able Member of the Judicial Committee, and yet to have held no previous judicial office. But, in the first place, that is an argument which proves too much. It goes to prove that the Act should have required no special qualification whatever. Moreover, everyone knows that Lord Kingdown's was an exceptional case, and I well remember hearing my noble and learned Friend in 1870, over and over again urging that instance as a reason why the Act should be made more extensive as to the area of selection, and again and again we answered on our side that it was an exceptional case, and that it would never do on the strength of it to found a general rule. Another point of my noble and learned Friend was the refusal of certain Judges to accept the appointment. What does that come to? It appears that three of the Judges—no doubt for good and sufficient reasons—declined to accept the office; but it has not been suggested that there were not perfectly competent men among the other Judges; and, further, I should maintain that though the whole Bench had been applied to and had refused, that could not have been an excuse for appointing a man who was not a Judge, though it would have been good ground for the Government to come to Parliament for further powers. Now, what is the history of this Act of Parliament? In 1870 a Bill was brought in providing for paid Judges to be appointed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and it provided among

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  other qualifications that barristers of a certain number of years standing should be eligible. The Bill passed through this House, with some objections, and went down to the House of Commons in that shape; but in that House the Home Secretary, referring to that provision, said that he was aware that exception had been taken to it elsewhere, and as exception might also be taken to it in the House of Commons, the Government did not intend to insist on that provision. Owing to the pressure of other business, the Bill was not pressed through the House of Commons—it went into Committee, but the Committee made no Report. In 1871 the Bill was again introduced in this House. The provision respecting the eligibility of barristers was omitted, and the qualifications were enacted with which we are all now so familiar. It went down to the House of Commons in that shape, and came back to us in that respect unaltered, and so passed. We approved the proposition because, in the first place, it appeared to us that the persons to be appointed paid Members of the Judicial Committee should be persons possessed of judicial experience. What the length of that experience should be was a point which was left, and I believe rightly left, to the Executive Government. It was deemed unwise to lay down the rule that a Judge having one year's experience should not be qualified, while a Judge having two should be eligible for the office. That being so, what was the next object of the Act? It was, in my opinion, this—that when you hand over judicial appointments to the Sovereign advised by the Executive Government, you cannot, from the necessity of the case, prescribe a particular standard up to which the persons appointed should come—you cannot have a competitive examination, by means of which you will arrive at the knowledge of who is the best man, but you can take a limited number of persons at the time exercising their offices in the face of the public with regard to whom the public are well aware of their relative merits, and you can say to the Executive Government—"choose out of that limited class, and we shall trust to the force of public opinion criticizing your choice to insure that you select the most competent persons." I fearlessly challenge anyone to show any other possible motive which Parliament could have had in requiring that
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  the person appointed should be a Judge. And then I ask, has either of these objects been attained in the appointment of Sir Robert Collier? Clearly not. And this is what I maintain is a violation of the spirit of the Act. And here, I would refer shortly to the letter of Mr. Justice Willes, which has been so frequently alluded to in the course of this discussion. Now, I entirely concur with Mr. Justice Willes, who is, I believe, perfectly accurate in the proposition which he laid down. But what is that proposition? Why, simply that the appointment of Sir Robert Collier was legal. Of course, it was legal—if it were not, there would be no necessity for this Motion. Had it not been in accordance with the letter of the law it would have been invalid, and Sir Robert Collier could never have taken his seat as a Member of the Judicial Committee, and the matter would not now have been before Parliament. When, therefore, my noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack tells us that three or four other Judges concurred in opinion with Mr. Justice Willes, I do not care to dispute the point, because, probably, every lawyer would concur in a proposition which is so perfectly well founded. But when I have said that, I must remark that the admission does not touch the point which we are now discussing. We have heard some expressions used to-night with which your Lordships generally are not familiar, such as the "fraudulent execution of a power," which simply means the exercise of a power according to the letter, but in a manner not warranted by its spirit. The law books are full of instances of "the fraudulent execution of a power," with respect to everyone of which Mr. Justice Willes might unhesitatingly express it to be his opinion that it was a legal exercise of the letter of the power. But then that legality might be entirely consistent with the violation of the spirit and intention. My noble and learned Friend says it is a mistake of words to say that the qualification of Sir Robert Collier for a seat on the Judicial Committee was a colourable qualification. He put the case of some person to whom an estate is given, though the person was never meant to have the estate. Well, that is just what was done with Sir Robert Collier. He was made a Judge, and it was never intended that he should exercise the functions of a Judge. [Earl GRANVILLE: He did for

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  a fortnight.] The letter of the Lord Chancellor says he was transferred to the Privy Council ten days after he was sworn in as a Judge. But suppose we say a fortnight—was it, let me ask, ever meant that Sir Robert Collier should be a Judge of the Common Pleas? Why, it was all a mere delusion; there never was any such intention. Indeed, I saw it stated in some of the papers—I do not know with what truth—that he never became the proprietor of the judicial ermine; but whether that is so or not, it is clear it was never intended that he should be a Judge of the Common Pleas, and, what is more, that he never intended it himself. The noble Lord who moved the Amendment to-night (Lord Portman) acts in a judicial capacity as Chairman of Quarter Sessions, and I would ask him—not in order to gain a party triumph—indeed, I never felt less inclined for a party encounter than at this moment—but as a matter of judicial substance, whether he agrees with me in what I am about to say or not? I contend that the sense and spirit of the Act of Parliament is this—that the Minister who is going to choose a paid Member of the Judicial Committee must make his choice among those who are the Judges of the land at the time the choice is made. Does the noble Lord agree to the proposition? [Lord PORTMAN made no reply.] I hope the noble Lord will address his mind to this question, for I should be glad to know whether he differs from me with respect to it. I will not condescend to any technicalities as to whether a man may have been a day or a year a Judge; but I maintain that the spirit and sense of the Act of Parliament are that a Minister who chooses a paid Member of the Privy Council must make his choice from among those who are Judges of the land at the time he makes his choice. I do not forget the letter of the Act, which says, "at the date of the appointment." That is sealing-wax, and parchment, and red tape. I do not want technicalities; I want substance. The time meant is when the Minister exercises the mental act of making his choice from among those who then are Judges of the land. That is a short, simple proposition, and I should like to hear from any noble Lord in what respect he thinks it is wrong. [Lord PORTMAN said a few words in answer, which were inaudible.] That is a very safe and discreet answer to
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  give; but I am sure no Member of your Lordships' House will venture to impugn the proposition I have just laid down. I believe it to contain the very pith and marrow of the Act of Parliament on this point. Now, I will ask this further question. I wish to know whether Sir Robert Collier was made a Member of the Privy Council because he was already a Judge, or whether he was made a Judge because he had been already chosen by the Prime Minister as a Member of the Judicial Committee? The Government maintain that he was selected to be a paid Member of the Judicial Committee because he was a Judge at the time he was chosen. Now, upon this point we have the concurrent testimony of the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor, and The London Gazette. Speaking of the appointment, the Prime Minister says it was a joint transaction, and that when Sir Robert Collier was made a Judge, only a part of this joint transaction was completed. He must, therefore, previously have been selected by the Prime Minister to be a paid Member of the Judicial Committee, and must have been made a puisne Judge with a view to such a selection. What does the Lord Chancellor say? He says—"I appointed Sir Robert Collier to be a Judge, knowing that Mr. Gladstone intended to recommend him for transfer to the Judicial Committee;" that is to say, knowing that Mr. Gladstone had already performed the mental operation of selecting him for that office. But the evidence of The London Gazette is the most extraordinary of all, because it appears that whereas the appointment of Sir Robert Collier is dated November 7, on November 3 Sir Robert Collier was at Balmoral, and was made a Privy Councillor. Now, since puisne Judges were invented, nobody has heard of a puisne Judge being made a Privy Councillor at the time of his being made a Judge. Therefore, if Sir Robert Collier was made a Privy Councillor before he was made a Judge, it must have been because he was selected to be a paid Member of the Judicial Committee. I admit that the letter of the statute—what I have called the sealing-wax, the parchment, and the red tape—was complied with; but if there are such things as spirit, substance, and essence, as distinguished from letter—and the Lord Chancellor admits that there are, and that the letter may be regarded while the spirit is violated

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  —and if the person here was to be chosen from the Judges, I say that the selection here made was of one who was not a Judge at the time of his selection. I have shown you that the promises made at the passing of the Act were disregarded. I have shown you also why the qualifications of a Judge were required. I have given the pith and essence of the statute, and have shown that its spirit has been palpably violated. Now, let us for a moment notice what are the consequences of the doctrine propounded by the Lord Chancellor as to the operation of this statute. Loot at the case suggested by the Lord Chief Justice. It is not for me to settle the quarrel between the Lord Chief Justice and Mr. Gladstone as to whether the correspondence is in the most agreeable form; but there is no ground for saying that in this correspondence propositions were dogmatically put forward by the Lord Chief Justice without argument. It appears to me that throughout this letter Sir Alexander Cockburn lays down nothing as Lord Chief Justice. What he says in effect is—"My reason for addressing you while this matter is incomplete is because as Lord Chief Justice I am at the head of the Common Law Bench, and also a Member of the Judicial Committee." I think a great deal has been said of Sir Alexander Cockburn to-night both by the Lord Chancellor and by the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) which besides being indecorous has been entirely undeserved. He performed a most invidious, and most irksome duty, and I honour him for the courage with which he undertook a task from which many men would have shrunk. It is impossible to suppose that he had any political, underhand, or sinister motive in addressing the Prime Minister. He gave his reasons for so addressing him, because, being at the head of the Common Law Bench, and on the Judicial Committee, he heard of a transaction which, rightly or wrongly, he thought would be improper, which was not yet complete, and upon which he did not pronounce dogmatically, but assigned the grounds for his conclusions. Well, then, take the case which the Lord Chief Justice suggests of a member of the Bar who is perfectly fit for appointment to the Judicial Committee—for do not let the question of fitness come in to disturb our judgment—but who is not qualified
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  under the Act. The Minister appoints him to a vacant Chief Justiceship in India without the slightest intention of sending him out to India, but merely intending to make him a paid Member of the Judicial Committee. The Master of the Rolls says that, in his opinion, such an appointment would be perfectly proper and would be within the spirit of the Act of Parliament, and the Lord Chancellor takes substantially the same view.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he had never mentioned India; but he had said that fitness was always the question, and that you could not properly so appoint an unfit person.
  LORD ROMILLYsaid, he had argued that where a person was fully acquainted with Indian law, obtained by practice at the Bar in India or in Indian appeals at home, it would be pure technicality to prevent him from holding an office in the Judicial Committee because he had not had experience as a Chief Justice in India.
  LORD CAIRNS: It is just as I supposed. Both my noble and learned Friends overthrow and deride the special qualification required by the statute, and substitute for it the one simple term, fitness. But, as I have said, every power to appoint implies fitness in the person appointed. And thus the Lord Chancellor and the Master of the Rolls cut out of the Act the express qualification inserted by Parliament. If these are the opinions of the Government upon the construction of Acts of Parliament, let us at all events record our protest and show that such is not our opinion. I confess that since I have been in this House I have never been more astonished than by hearing such opinions. The Lord Chancellor is prepared to maintain that where you have a fit man you may appoint him to be a Lord Chief Justice in India without any intention of sending him to India, in order to give him a qualification under this statute. To me such a doctrine is perfectly astounding, and I shall lose no time in recording my protest against it. But let us go a little further. I saw this case suggested the other day. Any person who has been a Lord Chancellor is qualified to act as a paid Member of the Judicial Committee. Any person by the pleasure of the Sovereign may be made Lord Chancellor. Now, the noble and learned Lord says he does not know

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  what the degradation of an office is. Suppose, then, a man is made Lord Chancellor not with the intention that he should remain Lord Chancellor, but that he may afterwards be made a paid Member of the Judicial Committee. He is a fit man. But is not this a degradation of the office of Lord Chancellor? If it be, why was it not equally a degradation of the office of Judge of the Common Pleas to place a man in that position with the sole view of afterwards placing him on the Judicial Committee? I will put another case. The first appointment made to the Judicial Committee was that of Sir Montague Smith—as excellent an appointment as could be made. In his place Sir Robert Collier was made Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and after being kept there a certain number of days, he vacated his office and was placed on the Judicial Committee. In the view of the Government they might have set another practising barrister in the place at the Common Pleas vacated by Sir Robert Collier, kept him there for a week, and then have made him too a Member of the Judicial Committee. There were to be four paid Members of the Committee, and so the Government might have appointed another practising barrister in the place of No. 3, and then have passed him on to be the fourth paid Member of the Judicial Committee. This is the absurdity to which the Government have reduced themselves in the face of the world. They might have taken this important Judgeship of the Court of Common Pleas, and for the special purpose first have emptied it of Sir Montague Smith, and then have filled it again three times in succession, each man remaining in it perhaps for 24 hours, and then being passed on to the Judicial Committee. These are the doctrines which have been advanced here to-night; these are the propositions which the Government have maintained. I do not know what your Lordships may think of the matter; but, if I stood alone, I should record my protest against it.
  EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, I imagine that your attention must have been pretty well exhausted by a debate as remarkable for ability as any which I have heard. The impression on my mind is this—that there never was a case in which so much intellectual ability has been shown, not only this evening, but during the three months of the
  456
  winter upon a matter which lies so completely within a nutshell. I doubt whether so great an elephant has ever been employed to pick up so small a pin. I must say of the admirable speech of my noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack—though he is a Colleague of my own, and though I am speaking of a matter in which every one of us is equally responsible with him to the House and to the country—that his speech was such as to carry conviction to the minds of all persons really wishing to inform themselves upon the merits of the case: and I am bound to add that the speech of the noble and learned Lord who has last sat down does not appear to me to have shaken in the slightest degree the statement made by my noble and learned Friend. If I recollect rightly, when the appointment was first made, judging from the Press, it was received with considerable approval. Then the letters of the Lord Chief Justice appeared. It is not for me to discuss these; they have been sufficiently considered to-night—but appearing as they did, at a time of year when the papers ordinarily are at a loss for interesting topics, they attracted great attention. Many grave, many very able, and some sensational articles were written with regard to them. The Lord Chancellor—with a due regard, I think, for his own dignity, and certainly showing great respect for this House—declared that he would not make any defence of his conduct except in his place in Parliament. The noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby) addressed a large audience in Lancashire about a month before Parliament met, and made a speech to them—abler even than most of the speeches which he has made—with a strong party ring about it. In the course of that speech the noble Earl said that a Minister of the Crown had violated an Act of Parliament only six months old by an evasion of its provisions for the purpose of finding place for one of his Law Officers. Having heard what passed to-night, I think the noble Earl must feel some regret for the statement which he then made, which has now been withdrawn, but which undoubtedly produced a great effect upon the public mind. It has been clearly and fully acknowledged on both sides of the House that the appointment of Sir Robert Collier is legal and valid. The noble and learned Lord

  457
  who has just spoken (Lord Cairns) went further, and told us he had read Mr. Justice Willes' letter, and that he agreed with every word of it. The first proposition contained in that letter is that the appointment was legal and within the terms of the statute. That, certainly, appears to be the most important point in dispute. The second proposition is that there had been no evasion, and that evasion applied to an Act of Parliament is a sensational expression. The fact that the noble and learned Lord agreed with the letter made a great deal of his argument which followed appear both illogical and inconsistent. I am no lawyer; but I cannot quite understand the meaning of the phrase, which is so constantly used—"the spirit of the Act." I cannot understand what advantage the House proposes to itself in discussions of this sort, which must have a political and party character, and which amount, in fact, to a Vote of Censure or Want of Confidence in Her Majesty's Government—from discussing points as to the spirit and meaning of an Act upon which lawyers in the House and out of the House hold directly contrary opinions. Two noble and learned Lords have argued one way, and two noble and learned Lords the other, with great ability, no doubt; and we have, if necessary, another noble and learned Lord who will agree entirely with the view expressed by the Lord Chancellor. I cannot conceive anything more dangerous than that this House, not sitting in its judicial, but in its political, capacity, should decide, apart from the question of legality, upon the spirit of an Act. I really believe that if you adopt this course it will be, in the words of the Motion, "of evil example" in our future proceedings. The noble and learned Lord laid down repeatedly what I dare say is very good law, but to a plain mind appeared like a bit of casuistry—that, in order to make the appointment to the Judicial Committee a proper appointment, it should only be mentally resolved at the time when the Law Officer became a Judge. It is one of the most difficult things in the world to tell—a man hardly knows himself—when the first mental operation occurs; and yet the noble and learned Lord was very confident about this—he defied us to give an answer. I will not give any answer; but I will ask a question which
  458
  occurred to me. In the Act relating to the Vice Presidents of the Education Committee the Queen is only enabled to select a person who is a Member of the Privy Council. Now, I should like to know whether Lord Derby when he appointed Lord Robert Montagu to that post reserved the mental operation to which the noble and learned Lord alluded till after Lord Robert Montagu had become a Privy Councillor? I do not see the slightest difference between the two cases. It is admitted—though the test of mere opinion is a dangerous one—that as regards personal fitness for this post there is not a word to be said against Sir Robert Collier, who, merely by virtue of the office which he held, was fitted for the very highest judicial post in this country. The noble Earl (Earl Stanhope) said it would be a dreadful thing for the Colonies to believe that their cases should be adjudged by men who were not competent: but surely that is a consideration which applies equally to the people of the country and to the three Courts at Westminster? At this moment they are all three presided over by very eminent men: but not one of them had any absolute judicial experience until he was appointed. But they had the invaluable training which comes from having for a certain number of years advised the Government judicially on all legal matters—not merely on points of common law, but upon matters connected with cases before the Judicial Committee. That tribunal, I believe, has cognizance of Ecclesiastical, Admiralty, Colonial, and Indian cases; whereas, I believe, a puisne Judge may have served for 20 years without having any one of such cases brought before him. By his mere professional experience, therefore, the Attorney General is much the fittest person to be appointed to the Judicial Committee. I really feel that it would be trespassing on your Lordships' attention if I were to go on mixing in these questions which have been reduced by to-night's debate to an intellectual struggle between lawyers of different opinions. We know the Common Law Judges by a large majority are against the view which the Lord Chancellor has taken. The noble and learned Lord (Lord Westbury) has told us that they administer a low and degrading form of law. We also know that the majority of the Judges who, according to the same

  459
  noble and learned Lord, administer a higher and more refined system of law, are with us. And now, is it possible, with opinions held variously in this way, that this House, acting in its injudicial character, and with the feeling, whether deserved or not, that this must partake of a party character, will proceed to pass upon the Government a solemn Vote of Censure for the construction which they have put on this particular Act of Parliament? If you really intend this Motion as a means of turning out Her Majesty's Government by the concurrent action of both Houses of Parliament, I have not a single word—I might almost say I have not a single wish—to throw in the way of an obstacle to such a proceeding. Anything is fair for party objects. Any stick, as we know, is good enough to beat a dog. But if you hold the language you have done on former occasions—if you say "There are difficulties existing, and we wish, at this moment, to support the Government"—then I say this is hardly the way to do it. The noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury), putting things in the pleasant way which he generally does, speaks of extricating horses that are floundering in a bog. But the way to extricate them is not to pelt them with mud from the bank upon which you happen to be standing. If you wish to co-operate with them in carrying social measures of the highest importance I say this is not the way to do so. I do not think it is Conservative for your Lordships to be constantly at the close of one Session and the beginning of another trying to damage the Government which is carrying on the affairs of the country, while you profess a desire not to displace it. You blunt by frequent use the instrument in your hands without obtaining any practical results. I have said what I honestly feel about this question. I trust your Lordships will not condemn the action of the Government on a Bill introduced at the end of last Session for one great object—namely, to produce a fit tribunal in which the public and the suitors would have confidence, as a tentative measure for the purpose of getting rid of a vast amount of arrears, one half of which, I believe, have been already swept away. With regard to Sir Robert Collier, I may mention that Sir John Coleridge and Sir William Erie wrote to compliment and congratulate him on his appointment,
  460
  and this those distinguished lawyers would certainly not have done had they bought any stain attached to him on account of the manner in which the appointment was made. If this Vote of Censure should be passed I shall regret it on account of this House, and also on account of the evil which will arise if we are to decide what is the spirit of laws of which the letter has been obeyed.
  THE EARL OF LONGFORDsaid, he had been charged with having laughed at the arguments adduced on the other side; certainly he had done so. He began to doubt whether there were such things as facts—whether there were such conditions as right and wrong—when he heard noble Lords, learned lawyers, and hon. Gentlemen defending such a crooked transaction as that under notice. It had once been imputed to the Lord Chancellor that he might fail in vigour in debate. He had quite cleared himself of that charge; but he had not cleared the Government of the charge of irregularity in connection with this appointment. In his judgment, this was a case for grave Parliamentary censure, and he should give his vote accordingly.
  On Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Motion? their Lordships divided:—(Leave being given to the Earl GRANVILLE, the Lord STEWART of GARLIES, and the Lord RIVERS to vote in the House):—Contents 87; Not-Contents 88: Majority 1:—Resolved in the negative.
  Resolution, as amended, agreed to.

  CONTENTS.

  Beaufort, D.

  Dartmouth, E.

  Manchester, D.

  Derby, E.

  Marlborough, D.

  Devon, E.

  Richmond, D.

  Ellesmere, E.

  Wellington, D.

  Erne, E.

  Feversham, E.

  Abercorn, M. (D. Abercorn.)

  Graham, E. (D. Montrose.)

  Bristol, M.

  Grey, E.

  Exeter, M.

  Harrington, E.

  Salisbury, M.

  Howe, E.

  Winchester, M.

  Lanesborough, E.

  Lauderdale, E.

  Abergavenny, E.

  Lucan, E.

  Amherst, E.

  Malmesbury, E.

  Annesley, E.

  Manvers, E.

  Beauchamp, E.

  Mount Edgcumbe, E.

  Bradford, E.

  Powis, E.

  Brooke and Warwick, E.

  Stanhope, E. [Teller]

  Brownlow, E.

  Verulam, E.

  Cadogan, E.

  Wilton, E.

  Cawdor, E.

  461

  Hardinge, V.

  Kesteven, L.

  Hawarden, V.

  Lovel and Holland, L. (E. Egmont.)

  Melville, V.

  Oranmore and Browne, L.

  Lichfield, Bp.

  Rochester, Bp.

  Ormathwaite, L.

  Raglan, L.

  Abinger, L.

  Ravensworth, L.

  Bateman, L.

  Redesdale, L.

  Boston, L.

  Rivers, L.

  Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

  Ross, L. (E. Glasgow.)

  Scarsdale, L.

  Buckhurst, L.

  Sheffield, L. (E. Sheffield.)

  Cairns, L.

  Silchester, L. (E. Longford.)

  Clifton, L. (E. Darnley.)

  Clinton, L.

  Skelmersdale, L. [Teller]

  Colchester, L.

  Colville of Culross, L.

  Sondes, L.

  Delamere, L.

  Southampton, L.

  De L'Isle and Dudley, L.

  Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.)

  Denman, L.

  Ellenborough, L.

  Strathnairn, L.

  Fitzwalter, L.

  Thurlow, L.

  Grantley, L.

  Vivian, L.

  Hartismere, L. (L. Henniker.)

  Westbury, L.

  Wharncliffe, L.

  Hawke, L.

  Wigan, L. (E. Crawford and Balcarras.)

  Heytesbury, L.

  Hylton, L.

  Willoughby de Broke, L

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Hatherley, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Barrogill, L. (E. Caithness.)

  Cleveland, D.

  Belper, L.

  Somerset, D.

  Blachford, L.

  Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery.) [Teller.]

  Ailesbury, M.

  Anglesey, M.

  Calthorpe, L.

  Lansdowne, M.

  Camoys, L.

  Ripon, M.

  Carew, L.

  Abingdon, E.

  Carrington, L.

  Airlie, E.

  Castletown, L.

  Camperdown, E.

  Chesham, L.

  Chichester, E.

  Churchill, L.

  Cowper, E.

  Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

  Dartrey, E.

  Crewe, L.

  De La Warr, E.

  Dunning, L. (L. Rollo.)

  Ducie, E.

  Ebury, L.

  Dufferin, E.

  Eliot, L.

  Durham, E.

  Erskine, L.

  Essex, E.

  Foley, L.

  Granville, E.

  Gwydir, L.

  Innes, E. (D. Roxburghe.)

  Hatherton, L.

  Howard of Glossop, L.

  Kimberley, E.

  Lawrence, L.

  Morley, E.

  Leigh, L.

  Lismore, L. (V. Lismore.)

  Suffolk and Berkshire, E.

  Londesborough, L.

  Lyveden, L.

  Eversley, V.

  Meldrum, L. (M. Huntly.)

  Halifax, V.

  Methuen, L.

  Ossington, V.

  Monson, L.

  Sydney, V.

  Mostyn, L.

  Torrington, V.

  Northbrook, L.

  Chester, Bp.

  O'Hagan, L.

  Chichester, Bp.

  Poltimore, L.

  Durham, Bp.

  Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)

  London, Bp.

  Ripon, Bp.

  Portman, L. [Teller.]

  Winchester, Bp.

  Robartes, L.

  Romilly, L.

  Abercromby, L.

  Rosebery, L. (E. Rosebery.)

  Acton, L.

  Auckland, L.

  Sandys, L.

  462

  Saye and Sele, L.

  Sudeley, L.

  Seaton, L.

  Suffield, L.

  Sefton, L. (E. Sefton.)

  Sundridage, L. (D. Argyll.)

  Skene, L. (E. Fife.)

  Truro, L.

  Stafford, L.

  Vernon, L.

  Stanley of Alderley, L.

  Wrottesley, L.

TREATY OF WASHINGTON—ALABAMA CLAIMS.
Moved that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty for, Production of the Case prepared on the part of this country in the matter of the arbitration of the Alabama Claims.—(The Lord Oranmore and Browne.)
Motion agreed to.

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE QUALIFICATION BILL [H.L.]
A Bill to amend the Act eighteen George the Second, chapter twenty, with respect to the qualification required for the office of Justice of the Peace—Was presented by The Earl of ALBEMARLE; read 1a. (No. 19.)

CHURCH DISCIPLINE ACT AMENDMENT BILL [H.L.]
A Bill to amend the Church Discipline Act, 1840—Was presented by The Lord Bishop of WINCHESTER; read 1a. (No. 20.)
House adjourned at a quarter past Twelve o'clock, A.M., till Eleven o'clock.