Sitting of 19 March 1872

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—East India Finance, Sir Wilfrid Lawson discharged; Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice added.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Vaccination Acts Amendment* [91]; Local Government Board (Ireland)* [90].
Second Reading—(£5,411,099 3s. 3d.) Consolidated Fund *.
Second Reading—Referred to Select Committee—Municipal Corporations (Borough Funds) * [55].
Referred to Select Committee—Salmon Fisheries (No. 2)* [10].

INDIA—OFFICERS OF THE LATE INDIAN ARMY.—QUESTION.
SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEasked the Secretary of State for India, in reference to Clause 4, Regulations of the Forces Act, 1871, and to his reply to Colonel Sykes on the 13th of February, If he will state to the House the reason why Her Majesty's Government still withholds from Officers of the late Indian Army
"Compensation in retirement equal to the sum they would have received according to the custom of their Regiments, from the junior Officers of those Regiments had they retired therefrom prior to the day the Act comes or came into force?"
MR. GRANT DUFF: The claims, Sir, of the officers of the late Indian Army to bonus compensation were disposed of by a despatch of Lord Cranborne's, dated August 8, 1866, embodying and carrying into effect the concessions made by him as Secretary of State in Council, which concessions had been, immediately before the despatch was laid on the Table, announced by him in this House and extremely well received. That despatch of Lord Cranborne's was followed by more than one despatch from the next Secretary of State in Council, the right hon. Gentle-

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man the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), explaining portions of it to the Government of India, and ruling certain disputed points in the interest of the officers. Her Majesty's present advisers, in dealing with the bonus question, have followed in every particular the same course as their predecessors, and they see no reason why a settlement made by their predecessors so long ago should be now disturbed, because under different circumstances a different arrangement was made last year with the officers of a different Army.

EDUCATION—MUSIC IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.—QUESTION.
MR. REEDasked the Vice President of the Committee of Council, Whether any and what instructions have been given to Inspectors and Teachers as to the amount of musical knowledge required in each department of an Elementary School, and as to the manner in which "regular instruction" will have to be proved to the Inspector?
MR. W. E. FORSTER,in reply, said, Ms hon. Friend was doubtless aware that in the Revised Code of this year it was provided, as was proposed last year, that some time should be given in our elementary schools to instruction in vocal music. Directions had, therefore, been issued to the Inspectors to see that by the timetable such time was given. The Lord President of the Council and himself agreed that it would be desirable to have the assistance of a special musical Inspector for the guidance of the general Inspectors of schools, especially with reference to the education in training colleges; but arrangements for that purpose were not complete.

JUDICATURE COMMISSION—SECOND REPORT.—QUESTION.
MR. WESTasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether it is true, as reported to have been stated by the Lord Chancellor, that the Second Report of the Judicature Commissioners has been signed but not presented; and, if so, why it has not been and when it will be presented; and, further, whether it is the intention of the Lord Chancellor to appoint a new County Court Judge in the place of the Brentford County Court Judge, recently deceased?
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL,in reply, said, it was a mistake that the Lord Chancellor ever stated that the second Report of the Judicature Commissioners had been signed but not presented. It had not been signed, but was at present under discussion, and as the discussions were proceeding it was impossible to say when the Report would be signed, or when the discussions upon it would end. With regard to the second part of the Question, he had to say that Brentford was part of the Marylebone and Brompton district, and that in that district in 1870 there were 18,500 plaints heard and disposed of. The only other two districts to which Brentford could be attached were Clerkenwell and Bloomsbury, and in the former 15,400 plaints were heard and disposed of last year, and in the latter 11,400. It had been ascertained that to break up the Marylebone district, and attach it partly to Camberwell and partly to Bloomsbury, would involve the payment of considerable compensation to the officers of the district, so that no saving of expense would thereby be effected. It was, therefore, the intention of the Lord Chancellor to appoint a County Court Judge in place of the Judge lately deceased; but he would be appointed, as every other County Court Judge was now appointed, subject to whatever arrangements any future changes might render necessary. The Lord Chancellor was in communication with a gentleman of the highest possible standing at the Bar, whose appointment, if made, would give the greatest satisfaction.

THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY.

  QUESTIONS.
  MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEasked the First Lord of the Treasury, If he has recently received a Circular from the Spanish Government respecting the International Society; and, if so, whether he will lay it upon the Table? He also asked, Whether the right hon. Gentleman will object to lay on the Table a Despatch from the French Secretary for Foreign Affairs, received in the course of last year, in reference to the same subject?
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, in reply, that a circular had been received from the Spanish Secretary of State relating to the International Society, and a reply

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  had been returned to it. There would be no objection to produce this correspondence. He did not at the moment remember whether any despatch had been received from the French Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and could not, therefore, answer the Question without Notice.

ARMY—DEPOT CENTRES—BURY ST. EDMUNDS.—QUESTION.
MR. HARDCASTLEasked the Secretary of State for War, Why, in the Map of England delivered to Members of Parliament, Bury St. Edmunds is not marked as a Depôt Centre, although it is specified as a Depôt Centre in the War Office Memorandum?
MR. CARDWELLsaid, in reply, that it was through an error of the Press. A corrected map was now being prepared, and would be ready in a few days.

COLLECTION OF INCOME TAX.

  QUESTION.
  MR. HARVEY LEWISasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether it is his intention to propose any alteration in the mode of assessing and collecting the Income Tax, by substituting Excise Officers or other Government officials to perform that duty; and if so, whether he will give the country ample time to consider his plans; and, if his attention has been drawn to a Return made to this House, dated the 13th day of March 1871, by which it appears that the result of the applications made by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue for information upon this subject was (as stated in a letter set out in the Return and signed, Fred. B. Garnett, Assistant Secretary),
  "That not only is the majority of the Commissioners averse to any change, but that the terms in which that adverse opinion is conveyed are so strong and decided as to lead to the conclusion that any measure of the kind would encounter the most vehement opposition in Parliament?"
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER,in reply, said, he had no alteration to propose with regard to the collection of income tax. If he should ever have any he would take care that the hon. Member received ample information on the subject. His attention had been called to the letter of Mr. Garnett; but observing that it was dated as far back
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  as 1860, he concluded it would not form a very valuable contribution towards an estimate of what ought to be done in 1872.

ARMY—HEAVY GUNS.—QUESTION.
MAJOR ARBUTHNOTasked the Surveyor General of Ordnance, Whether it is true that it is intended to turn down or remove the exterior iron from the 6½-ton wrought-iron Guns now in service, in order to reduce their weight to 4½ tons; if so, whether the Guns so altered will fit their present wrought-iron Carriages, or whether the change will necessitate the manufacture of new wrought-iron Carriages; what number of 6½-tons have been manufactured, and what is the cost of each, with its wrought-iron Carriage and slide complete; and, whether, if already commenced, there is any objection to such conversion being suspended, to admit of further consideration as to its desirability?
SIR HENRY STORKS: Sir, one 6½-ton gun has been turned down for the purpose of experiment, and, if successful, orders will probably be given for about 30 more. The guns, so altered, will not fit their present carriages and slides, and will therefore require new ones. These guns are for sea service; 571 6½-ton guns have been manufactured. The cost of each, with its wrought-iron carriage and slide complete, is £775. So soon as the present trial of the experimental gun is complete, the subject will be further considered. There are many points connected with the subject of a purely professional and departmental character, with which I am unwilling to trouble the House, though I shall be happy to communicate them to the hon. and gallant Member personally.

ARMY RE-ORGANIZATION—TRANSFER OF OFFICERS.—QUESTION.
SIR JOHN PAKINGTON: I wish to put to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War a Question which he did not answer last evening as he required Notice of it. It is, Whether, under the new system of promotion by "seniority tempered by selection," officers will be liable to be transferred to other regiments without their previous knowledge or consent; and, if so, whether officers so transferred will receive any compensation for the cost of new

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uniforms and appointments, and from what fund?
MR. CARDWELL: Sir, the purchase system has left at the top of the several ranks a number of old and, in many cases, very deserving officers. His Royal Highness the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, in giving them the promotion they deserve, is sometimes obliged to promote them to regiments other than their own. It is generally assumed in the Army that promotion will be acceptable to the officers on whom it is conferred; but if in any case it is proved that the advancement is not agreeable, it may be cancelled.
SIR JOHN PAKINGTON: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the latter part of the Question.
MR. CARDWELL: As no injury will be done, no compensation will, of course, be given.

ARMY RE-ORGANIZATION—TRANSFER OF OFFICERS.

  PERSONAL EXPLANATION.
  LORD CLAUD JOHN HAMILTON: With your permission, Sir, I will make a personal explanation to the House in reference to the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) on the subject of the late promotion of three officers in regiments of light cavalry. I should have made the explanation yesterday evening had I been in my place when this matter was alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman. I am responsible for the statement made by my right hon. Friend on that occasion, and I was led to place the statement in his hands under the following circumstances:—On Saturday week Lieutenant Heaviside, a personal friend of my own, came to me to complain that he had been promoted out of his regiment without his knowledge and against his consent; and he stated that a friend of his, Lieutenant Bushman, of the 7th Hussars, had been promoted under similar circumstances. He also added that the first intimation which he and the colonel of his regiment had of his promotion came from The Times newspaper at the mess breakfast table, and that his colonel and he were both in the utmost perplexity with regard to this proceeding. Considering the promotions made under such circumstances were a breach of the understanding come to last year, I asked Lieutenant Heaviside
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  whether I had his permission to make the facts known in the House; but so anxious was I not to make any erroneous statement, or to bring any unfounded charge against the Secretary of State for War, that I asked my friend to return the next day to substantiate his statement. This he did; and again he gave me authority to make the statement. For certain reasons I felt disinclined to speak on the Army Estimates, and I therefore communicated the statements to my right hon. Friend (Sir John Pakington), who repeated them to the House. I have since received from Lieutenant Heaviside a letter, in which he states that, on reconsideration, and under the salutary influence of home advice, he is no longer adverse to his promotion, and I have reason to believe that the other officers whose cases I mentioned to my right hon. Friend do not now feel any dissatisfaction with their promotion. I am, therefore, sorry that, under circumstances which still seem to me involved in a certain amount of perplexity, I have led my right hon. Friend to place untrustworthy statements before the House, and I wish to state that if anyone in this House is to blame in the matter it is I, and not my right hon. Friend.

NAVY—H.M.S. "TENEDOS."

  QUESTION.
  MR. WINGFIELD BAKERasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether Her Majesty's Ship "Tenedos" is not now perfectly ready for sea, and has been so since May 1871; and, whether the First Lord, bearing in mind the promise as to the trial of the new anchor gear with which the "Tenedos" is fitted, will state whether he will have her put into Commission, and within what time?
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, in reply, that the Tenedos had been quite ready for some time past to go to sea. She was in what was called the "First Reserve." It was not the intention of the Admiralty to put her into commission at present. She would be put into commission as soon as she was required to relieve a ship of a similar class on some foreign station. He did not think it was advisable or necessary, in order to test a small portion of the machinery and appliances of a ship, to put her into commission for three years. Such machinery

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  would be tested as a matter of experiment.
  MR. WINGFIELD BAKERsaid, a promise had been given that this new anchor gear should be tried.

TREATY OF WASHINGTON.
  TRIBUNAL OF ARBITRATION (GENEVA). THE INDIRECT CLAIMS.

    CORRESPONDENCE. QUESTION.
    MR. HORSMAN: Sir, I gave Notice to the First Minister on Friday last that I would on an early day put a Question to him with reference to the answer of the British Government to the despatch of the Government of the United States. As the answer is to be sent on Thursday next, and this is the last opportunity I shall have of putting the Question, I beg to ask my right hon. Friend, Whether he is now prepared to give the House an assurance that in any fresh negotiations that may be carried on with the Government of the United States no proposal shall be submitted by the British Government to be finally accepted by the United States, and to be binding upon this country, until Parliament has had knowledge of the proposal and has had an opportunity of expressing an opinion upon it?
    MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, my right hon. Friend did state on a former day that he would at some future period, which he did not define, put a Question to me more or less corresponding in character with that which he has now put. But that Notice of my right hon. Friend did not appear on the Notice Paper of this House, and I have had no means of obtaining any authentic record of it, nor until I knew that the Question was to be put was it possible for me to refer to my Colleagues for the purpose of deliberation as to the answer which it might be my duty to give, inasmuch as the nature of that answer might under given circumstances have reference to the particular position of affairs at the moment. I am very sorry, therefore, that I have not been made aware of my right hon. Friend's intention to put this Question to-day. Not having had the power of referring to my Colleagues on a question of so much importance, I am not able to give any answer. At the same time, I beg my right hon. Friend not to draw the inference that my declining to give an answer has any reference whatever to the contents of the
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    despatch which will, I hope, be sent to the American Minister to-morrow, in order that it may be forwarded to the United States Government.

  PARLIAMENT—RULES AND PRACTICE—QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

    OBSERVATIONS.
    SIR JOHN PAKINGTON: Sir, before we proceed to the other business of the day, I have to request your opinion on a question of order connected with our Rules with regard to the system of answering Questions. The system of Questioning has grown now to so great an extent that I am sure every hon. Member of this House will agree with me that it is desirable that, whatever our Rules may be, they should be adhered to as strictly as possible. I now refer more particularly to the course which was adopted yesterday by the Secretary of State for War, when, in answering a Question by an hon. and gallant Member behind me (Major Arbuthnot), he combined with his Answer a statement in reply to a portion of a speech delivered by me in this House not more than a fortnight ago. I do not for a moment suspect my right hon. Friend of intending anything like unfairness; but I do think I have some reason to complain of the course adopted; and therefore, Sir, I beg to request your opinion as to whether it is consistent with the Rules and the Practice of this House with respect to asking and answering Questions, for a Minister of the Crown, after answering a Question put to him by an hon. Member, to proceed to add to his Answer a reply to a statement made some time before in a debate made by another hon. Member, and that in terms requiring an explanation which could not, consistently with the forms of the House, be given.
    MR. CARDWELL: Before you give an answer, Sir, perhaps I may be allowed to ask another Question for my future guidance. I wish to know, Whether when a statement has been made affecting me and those with whom I have the honour to serve in the War Department, in terms of which it was said that they were used in order to invite explanation on the subject—I wish to know whether, when remarks are made, without previous Notice to me, so that I cannot, on the spur of the moment, give an answer I shall be at liberty on a subsequent occasion to give an answer in vindication

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    of myself and those with whom I have the honour to serve? I am perfectly aware that I should not be entitled to refer to a former debate for the purpose of founding any argument on it; but I believe it is in conformity with the usages of this House that anybody against whom an imputation has been made without Notice, should have an opportunity, after inquiry, of answering that imputation, and vindicating also those with whom in his Department he has had the honour to serve? I apprehend that, in order to make such answer intelligible, it is necessary and right to refer to the charge itself, and that that reference cannot be more fairly made than by simply quoting, without comment, the words in which the imputation was conveyed.
    MR. SPEAKER: The right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) has put to me a Question with respect to a point of Order regarding the Rules and Practice of this House, in putting Questions and answering them. There can be no doubt that it is not in order for any hon. Member of this House, in putting a Question, or making an Answer, to advert to former debates. The question now before the House is, however, of another kind. It is true that yesterday the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War referred to a speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Droitwich. But the right hon. Gentleman was at the time answering a Question of the hon. and gallant Member for Hereford (Major Arbuthnot), and the matter of the Answer would have been perfectly in order, as a reply to the Question of that hon. and gallant Member. Had the right hon. Gentleman not referred at all to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Droitwich, no question of Order could have arisen. I am, at the same time, bound to say that, in order to make his Answer clear to the House, it was almost incumbent on the right hon. Gentleman, the Secretary of State for War, to advert to what had passed on a former occasion.

  CIVIL LIST.

    MOTION FOR RETURNS.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKErose, according to Notice, to move that there be
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    laid before the House certain Returns relating to the Civil List, when—
    VISCOUNT BURYrose and said: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to a Question of Privilege. I hold in my hand a copy of the oath to be taken by every hon. Member of this House. It is in the following terms:—
    "I do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, her heirs and successors according to law. So help me God."
    Now, on the 21st of November last the hon. Member for Chelsea is reported to have said that he would make no concealment of the fact that he was a Republican. He is reported as speaking exactly to the same effect in several newspapers. The Question that I have put to you, Mr. Speaker, as a point of Order, is whether these two statements are not irreconcilable; and whether, if the statement of the hon. Baronet is not explained and repudiated, he will not have been guilty of an infringement of the solemn declaration taken at the Table of the House? I am fortified in my reasons for asking the question by the fact that every item of the Returns which the hon. Baronet wishes to move for can be found in the Library of this House, and are within the reach of every hon. Member. The Motion of the hon. Baronet, therefore, as it seems to me, can only be regarded as a colourable method of repeating, under the authority of the House, the statements to which I have referred. [Loud cries of "Hear, hear!"]—
    MR. AUBERON HERBERT: Mr. Speaker, I rise to Order. [Cries of "Order!"]
    MR. SPEAKER: Viscount Bury is in possession of the House.
    MR. AUBERON HERBERTagain rose, but being met with loud cries of "Order!" sat down.
    VISCOUNT BURY: I therefore ask you, Sir, whether it would not be for the honour of the House, and within its power, before hearing the hon. Member for Chelsea, if you ask him whether he repudiates or acknowledges the accuracy of the statements which he is reported to have made on the 21st of November?
    MR. SPEAKER: The noble Lord has called my attention to the Oath of Allegiance taken by the Members of this House. I apprehend that it is no part of my duty to say what is consistent or what is not consistent with that oath.

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    Looking at the terms of the Motion of the hon. Baronet the Member for Chelsea, I see in them no violation of the Rules of this House.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE,who, on rising to address the House, was received with much confusion, said *: Sir, I fear that after the somewhat exciting episode of the last few minutes the observations which I am about to offer to the House in support of the Motion which I have placed on the Paper will appear somewhat tame and disappointing. The question which I have to submit to the consideration of the House is a large one, and one, in my opinion, of importance, or I should not have placed my Notice on the Paper. It is not a question which would, in accordance with the Rules of the House, enable me to discuss the oath of allegiance—which, however, I shall be prepared to discuss on a fitting opportunity, if that opportunity is afforded me by any hon. Member—I have on the present occasion to appeal to that consideration which the House is always willing to extend to those who, in the name of the taxpayers of this country, raise questions involving investigation into obscure branches of the national expenditure: and I appeal with the more confidence to that consideration because I believe the House never fails to extend it to those who happen to be the advocates of unpopular opinions.
    Sir, the first point that has to be established is the right of the House of Commons to inquire, whether by means of a Committee, or by presenting an Address for Papers, into the expenditure and savings on the Civil List account. Now, in April, 1780, Mr. Dunning, afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer, moved the following Resolution, which was agreed to by the House of Commons:—
    "That, in the opinion of this Committee, it is competent to this House to examine into and to correct abuses in the expenditure of the Civil List revenues, whenever it shall seem expedient to the wisdom of the House so to do."
    It may, of course, be contended that inasmuch as the salaries of the Judges and Ambassadors were at that time laid upon the Civil List, the House of Commons may fairly have claimed then over the Civil List a control which does not belong to it now. On the other hand, it must be remembered that Mr. Dunning's
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    first Resolution had been—"That the influence of the Crown ought to be diminished," and it is plain that the point at issue was not what might be called the public charges so much as that of the Crown charges proper. This view is confirmed by the fact that among the items upon which Mr. Burke, who was acting along with Mr. Dunning, divided the House, were those for the salaries of the Masters of the Buckhounds and of the Foxhounds, while another was the charge for the Yeomen of the Guard. Now, in the debate which occurred about the same time, on Mr. Burke's measure of economical reform, the main argument of those who spoke against him was one which has been heard often since that time—namely, that unless you first bring forward proof of some abuse, the House has no right—that is, no constitutional power—to meddle with the Civil List except at the beginning of a reign. But, on the other hand, whether I succeed or do not succeed in establishing precedents showing a general right to inquire into the Civil List expenditure during a reign, I at all events may assume, judging from what was said on both sides by both parties, during the debates on Mr. Burke's Bill, that we are justified in inquiring, if we can show that actual abuses do exist. Now, I know that the term "abuses" may mean many things, and it would not be hard to show that in the arguments which I have quoted, the word may fairly be used as popularly it would be used for those long-continued absurdities of extravagance in connection with the Civil List which have come down to us from all time. I shall, however, before I sit down, bring forward I believe cases of abuse connected with the Civil Listaccounts which should suffice, when taken along with the discontent that prevails at the existence of costly sinecures, to cause any patriotic Government to concur willingly and almost joyfully in that inquiry which we propose. I might quote some of the most illustrious men that have ever sat in this House in defence of the general right to inquire—for instance, Mr. Pox, who said that—
    "The pretence that the House was bound not to interfere in the expenditure of the King's Civil List was a new and damnable doctrine, and infamous to a degree."
    "Although," he added on another occasion—

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    "The money was given for the use of the Crown, the House was competent to see if it was properly expended."
    Also, Lord Chatham, who, on the 14th of March, 1770, said—
    "The minute and particular expenses of the Civil List are as open to Parliamentary examination and inquiry as any other grant of the people to any other purpose. The Preamble of the Civil List Acts proves this, and none but children, novices, or ignorants, will ever act without proper regard to it."
    Besides, however, the right of the House to inquire if abuse be proved, and besides the general right to inquire, as to which many precedents are to be shown, there is also the view, which I, for one am prepared to maintain, that looking to the steady progress which has been made by the principle of Parliamentary control over the various branches of the national expenditure, there would be no harm in creating a precedent upon this point. On the contrary, I believe that we can no longer afford, in face of the hostility of a large minority of the voters in all the boroughs in the country to fresh grants for those purposes, to ask for those grants, without at the same time stating the facts as to the disposition of the sums already granted in the clearest way to the country and the House. To show, however, the need that exists for our not resting content with Ministerial explanations of the precedents as they appear to Ministerial eyes, I must point out that even the inquiry which takes place at the beginning of each reign, and which is now relied upon as giving security for economy to the nation—that even this small measure of prudence was not yielded without a fight. The Duke of Wellington was beaten on this question, and resigned on it. It was a concession extorted by the Whigs from the Tories, at the beginning only of the last reign, but now both sides speak of it, as a sort of heaven-sent arrangement, sufficient for all time, and in the highest degree satisfactory to every individual in the land. For my part, I should be prepared to contend, that even had this inquiry been graciously yielded at the first, had it been conceded by the Crown on the advice of Ministers, acting by their own wish, and without pressure yet had it not even in that case been so perfect a method of securing economy in the public service, as other modes of inquiry that easily might be devised.
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    The beginning of a reign! Why of all bad times for inquiry, it is the worst. One good reason for not holding inquiry at the beginning of a reign, was that once pointed out by Lord Ellenborough, who rightly said, that there was no authority to compel the servants of a deceased King to produce accounts. Another reason for inquiring at any time except the beginning of a reign is, that the pensions cease at the beginning of a reign. Now the pensions are of doubtful expediency, and form a most fit object for inquiry. But, if you wait till the beginning of a reign you cannot couch them, because men very properly try out, that it would be cruel to rob the existing holders. The need for such inquiry is shown at once, by the fact, that in 1845 Sir Robert Peel granted £1,000 a-year to a lady, afterwards wife of a Lord Chancellor, and who at her death left a very considerable fortune, although the money is given to be granted in small sums for distinguished services in the country, or personal service to the Crown. There is, as to pensions, a general agreement that they are of questionable expediency. The Committee, at the beginning of the reign, were almost equally divided as to their retention. There is reason for us to decide beforehand, and we need inquiry before deciding. I said that the beginning of a reign is of all bad times for inquiry, the worst. When all the country is agog with the interest which always manifests itself at such a time, and which is a form of the delight with which people always count upon the goodness of great personages, whose true dispositions are yet unknown; this is the moment which the Minister selects to come down to the House, and with the inevitable praise of those inevitable virtues, which at the moment he ascends the Throne every monarch is reputed to possess—to obtain a Committee of partymen, with one or two economical Radicals of the most loyal type; a Committee, which sits for a few days, abolishes a Lord of the Bedchamber, in order to show its zeal for economy; inquires the price of oats, makes a note of the rise in hay, and ultimately fixes the total sum, very much where it had stood before, and at very much the same amount at which it would have stood had the Court been left to fix it for itself, and had the Committee never sat at all. The Coro-

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    nation takes place, the cannons fire, the hats fly up; but in a few months voices are heard, once more asking why it is that the administration of the Household should be exempt from the working of those modern principles of scientific administration, which have remorsely been applied to all other branches of the public service. As for the inquiry at the beginning of a reign, I cannot better show what it is worth, than by quoting the words of a Member of the Committee of 1837—
    "He was bound to say that in the Select Committee he was perfectly helpless. He had no means of ascertaining what were the proper sums required for the maintenance of the dignity of the Crown."
    Thus much for the desirability of a Parliamentary inquiry into this subject at times other than the beginning of a reign. But apart from the desirability of such inquiry, I spoke just now of precedents. There are precedents without number for Parliamentary inquiry into the Royal Household. They date from the earliest times; but not to weary the House by quoting early precedents, which are in this matter of no real importance, I will come at once to modern times. In 1780, during the debate on Mr. Burke's Bill, Field Marshal Conway—a man of great authority in the country at that time—said—
    "Even the propriety of interfering, not only in the selling of the private property of the Crown, but in the appropriation of the money arising from the sales of that property, is a principle admitted in this House, and approved by Lord North."
    I believe that there is no doubt that this statement expresses the constitutional view; but see how much it involves. It means, inquiry by the House of Commons, and more than inquiry, extending into the general savings, and the expenditure of the savings accumulated by the Royal Family out of public grants, and it rests upon that which is also, I think, a constitutional axiom, that in a limited, monarchy, for the reigning family to become possessed of a large private fortune, is a constitutional danger of the first magnitude. This view has been acted upon in late times by the House of Commons; and the Pavilion at Brighton, although bought with his private money by George IV., when Regent, was sold as Royal or Crown property, and was dealt with by an Act of Parliament. The fact that even the savings invested by the King in the funds are exempt
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    from taxation, would seem to show that they are subject to be dealt with by Parliament, as being the property of the Crown, and not the private property of the individual who happens to wear it. If these savings in the funds are wholly beyond our ken, if they are thoroughly and absolutely private in their nature, I fail to see upon what constitutional grounds they are to be exempted from taxation. I know that as to one tax, the income tax, we are informed that the Queen pays it; and in speaking some time ago at Chelsea, I expressed the deep regret I felt that I should have used, during the Recess, words which implied that she did not. But, at the same time, for the purposes of this argument, the matter would not even be covered by the fact of a payment being made, because the exemption exists—it is in an Act of Parliament—it is sweeping in its terms. Lord Monteagle, when Comptroller, refused in the plainest terms to pay the tax for the Queen. Any King could avail himself of it at any moment without coming to this House, and without any public statement of the fact. I repeat, that if Parliament hold these funds to be private in their nature, and beyond the reach of inquiry by us, there never would have been introduced into the Income Tax Act this clause—
    "Are exempted the stock or dividends belonging to Her Majesty, in whatever name the same may stand in the books of the Bank of England."
    I repeat that there are, at all events, good precedents for inquiry. On 14th April, 1815, Mr. Tierney obtained a Committee to inquire into the causes of excesses of the Civil List. But I prefer to rely upon the precedent of the Motion of Mr. Burke. Now, in the debate upon that Motion, the objection that those matters ought not to be meddled with except at the beginning of a reign, was repeatedly urged upon the House. It was said that Mr. Burke proposed "a resumption on the Crown." Mr. Townsend, answering that objection, used these words. He said—
    "Resumptions on the Crown are strictly conformable, not only to the inherent right and authority of the House, but also to the example of precedent and custom."
    Mr. Pitt, in the same debate, also took up this point, and said—
    "It had been attempted to show that it was improper to resume a Parliamentary grant, and it had often been said that they had not a right to do so. It would be needless to attempt an answer

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    to such a doctrine—it contained its refutation in its weakness."
    That was what Mr. Pitt said of "resumptions on the Crown;" but what we propose in the present case is, not resumption, but inquiry. Did we, however, propose a resumption, it would not be a resuption like that proposed in 1780—a resumption which would have, as that had, by the admission of its authors, the effect of pinching the Crown in its expenditure; but a resumption, which, while it would benefit the people, would hurt neither the King nor any single subject of the realm. We can show that there are sinecures connected with the Court; that there are unnecessary offices, not being sinecures; that a Committee has recommended their abolition; that some of them have been abolished, but that no information has been given as to which these are; and that some are, in spite of the recommendations, notoriously retained. From these sinecures, and from these burdensome and useless offices, the tenant of the Crown derives no advantage. Were the sinecures to be abolished, the Crown would not suffer, but would rather gain, and even the holders of the sinecures would not be harmed, for with the usual generosity of Parliament we should protect existing interests.
    On the other hand, in such a case there can be no reason for waiting for the beginning of a reign; and there is for immediate action this good reason, and we need no other, that in the interval between any given date and the beginning of another reign fresh interests will year by year be created. To abolish sinecure offices about the Court is to harm no man. It is not proposed to touch offices which affect the comfort of the King, and it is proposed, in abolishing those which are, even from a monarchical point of view unnecessary, to protect the present holders. All that would be done by inquiry would be to make it certain that no fresh interests in sinecures should be created. The real test as to the value to the country of an office is—Would it be created if it did not exist? Now, no one can maintain that in the present age we should create a Governor and Constable of Windsor Castle. The foreign nobleman who holds this appointment receives, I am informed, a salary of £1,200 a-year, and holds also another appointment, besides being a captain in the Navy. The
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    appointment was retained by a majority of 1 vote on the Committee of 1838, Mr. Grote and Mr. Hume being in the minority. If it has been abolished, which I believe is not the case, its abolition will be shown by the Return for which I move. I say that these sinecures should be abolished, because I hold with Mr. Burke—"That all offices which bring more charge than proportional advantage to the State ought to be taken away." With a view, then, to future inquiry as to whether sinecure offices about the Court do not exist which might advisably be abolished, one of the Papers for which I propose to move is a list of all offices of this kind which have been abolished since the Report of the Committee which sat at the beginning of the reign. By comparing this list with the Report of the Committee and the evidence which they took, we should be able to discover what are the sinecures and what the needless offices that are still continued. It is proposed that in the present instance preliminary inquiries should take the form of an Address for those Papers which are needed in order to bring out the existence of those alleged abuses which would justify further inquiry by a Committee of this House. If the Ministry should raise objections to the form of inquiry that I suggest, let them hold their own inquiry; let them follow the precedent of 1782, when a Ministry which had come into office sternly pledged to economy in all branches of the public service, and especially to a reform in the sinecure offices, put the suggestion into the mouth of the King himself, and made the King urge upon the House of Commons that the expenditure upon his Household should be reduced. Now, Ministers sometimes take exception to the form of an inquiry at its earliest, and apparently at a harmless, stage, for fear that possibly it should be drawn into a precedent, and the House must have observed last year that the Prime Minister seems to have acted upon this principle in an answer which he gave to my hon. Friend who sits for Birmingham (Mr. Dixon.) My hon. Friend referred in his Question to this recommendation of the Select Committee of 1837–8—
    "The Committee hope that, with the permission of Her Majesty, such inquiries may be instituted by the Treasury and the Household as that sinecures should be abolished on the termination of existing interests,"
    and he asked—

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    "Whether the Government would institute inquiries into the present appropriation of the charges on the Civil List, with the view of ascertaining if it be possible to effect more economical arrangements by the abolition or consolidation of superfluous ceremonial offices."—[3 Hansard, ccviii. 156.]
    Now, the Prime Minister, in answering that Question, said that offices had been abolished, but that the saving by their abolition did not come to the country during the reign; and he raised, in other words and in a fashion very indirect, the old cry that we were proposing a "resumption on the Crown!" He urged, in his answer, that if we were to make a resumption upon the Crown we should expose ourselves to resumptions by the Crown—if I may be permitted a convenient though inaccurate phrase. He said that—
    "Parliament would expose itself to a most dangerous counter-claim on the part of the Sovereign in case the Civil List should be found at any time to be less than sufficient."
    Now, this statement of the Premier forces me to go for a moment into the question of resumptions by the Crown and on the Crown.
    Again, on the 5th June, 1839, a sum of £79,000—taken from the accumulated funds derived from the sale of Crown lands, but which stood waiting to be reinvested—was applied to the building of stables at Windsor. This again was a most important precedent of a resumption, inasmuch as the Crown benefited temporarily at the expense of the public, while, if the Crown view of the Crown lands tenure be correct, the interest of the reversioner was wholly sacrificed. In any case, the so-called bargain was interfered with in the middle of a reign. During the present reign there have been frequent cases in which payments have been charged upon the ordinary Estimates, which in former reigns would have been met by the Civil List itself, or by the hereditary revenues. Sometimes the form of a resumption has been avoided by a dodge—for instance, on 9th August, 1867, a charge of £25,000 for the entertainment of the Sultan was laid upon the country, and it was shown by the right hon. Gentleman who is now First Commissioner of Works, that this was a resumption on an enormous scale in everything but the mere point of form. Considering the surrender that has taken place of the Crown lands at the beginning of the reign—a surrender which was "absolute and without reserve"—
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    I hold that the occupation by nominees of the Crown, without rent and without rates, of lodges, and of rights of pasture in the Parks, is in the nature of a resumption. I confess, indeed, Sir, that after the surrender, the unreserved, surrender, of the Crown lands made by the Civil List Act, I am at a loss to understand the nature of the tenure by which the lodges and residences in the Parks are occupied by great personages, holding "by grace and favour of the King." A Return, not printed, but now on the Table of the House, shows that the Due de Nemours occupies Bushy, that Prince Arthur occupies Greenwich, that Prince Teck occupies the White Lodge, and that there are a dozen similar occupations of lodges for which rent ought to be paid to the public—occupations for which no rent is paid—by persons some of whom pay no rates, and who are stated to occupy "by grace and favour." Now, I am aware that on the 7th July, 1851, it was stated in this House, on behalf of the Crown, that the right to bestow these lodges "as gifts for distinguished services was retained and vested in the Crown." I am at a loss to know where and when this right was retained, and if retained as to distinguished services, I ask whether Prince Teck, Prince Arthur, the Due de Nemours and the ladies, who hold the other lodges, can be said to have performed "distinguished services" towards the Crown? Of smaller instances of resumptions by the Crown there is no lack. Some of the costs of installations of members of the Royal Family, as Knights of various orders, were borne by the Civil List in the last reign. The whole of them now seem to be borne by the public at large. The cost of the passages of members of the Family at sea were borne by the Civil List in the last reign; they are borne by the public now, although I am aware it is contended that this comes of the recommendation of the Committee, that the Privy Purse should be reserved for "merely personal expenses," whatever those may be, just as if these were not expenses merely personal. The Royal yachts were formerly made more use of than they are at present, and although I am aware that it is cheaper to pay the sums we pay for passages than to use Royal yachts or men-of-war, still, on the other hand, I fail to see, if this be so, why four Royal yachts should be kept afloat, at vast expense, though Sir James

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    Graham could defend three, many years ago, when there was no regular packet service, only on the ground that William IV. was a Sailor King. I propose, accordingly, to move for a Return of the services of the Royal yachts during the last 10 years.
    The cost of the repair of palaces was charged on Estimates by the advice of a Committee, and is no resumption; but inasmuch as the Committee advised that St. James's Palace should be given up, the arrangements made have not been carried out, and I include the cost of the palaces in the Return for which I move. One reason for including the palaces in the Return is the magnitude of the sums spent upon them. It was stated in this House in 1856 that £165,000 had been expended on Hampton Court Palace since the accession of Her Majesty. A large portion of this expenditure has been upon the stud-houses, although the produce of the studs is sold, and the proceeds go to the department of the Master of the Horse or to the Privy Purse, and not to the public. This was admitted by Sir William Molesworth, in the debate of 16th April, 1855. Lord Monteagle, indeed, on December 15, 1837, had to confess that on the death of the late King, the stud at Hampton Court was sold by his executors as being private property. I notice in a Return now upon the Table of the House, that in reference to the taking of the grass of Hampton Court Park by the deputy of the Master of the Horse,—"the Treasury are considering the terms of this occupation." Well, I can only say that they have been considering it for a whole reign. As for Buckingham Palace, on 1st June, 1849, the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Osborne) said that up to that date it had cost the country £763,000.
    Year after year we vote sums in Supply for the Marshal of the Ceremonies; for attendances of the Chamberlain upon mysterious duties; for preparations for Royal marriages; for robes, collars, and badges; for visits of foreign Sovereigns to England; for presents; for missions to foreign Sovereigns; for clothing for the Royal trumpeters, and so forth. I may say that the allowances to the trumpeters are triennial and are supposed to be "in lieu of clothing;" but I find, on the one hand, that while the allowances are charged, the clothing is charged too; and on the other, that the
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    triennial periods appear, for the purposes of these trumpeters, to consist of one year only. The "trumpeters," and the "robes, collars, and badges," I admit are not resumptions, because they were charged in former reigns; but most, if not all of these other charges are in the nature of resumptions by the Crown. There is a singular meanness to be noticed in some of the charges upon the Estimates that are connected with the Court. It is a meanness for which not members of the Family, but indiscreet officials are responsible—men who care not whether they risk the popularity of the ruling family provided they can make their accounts look well. For instance, in 1843, £55 was charged in the Estimates for altering the arms of the Prince of Wales, although savings from the Duchy of Cornwall, which afterwards reached the amount of £743,000, were being hoarded at that time in the young Prince's name. Now, these fees for alteration of arms and for installations are not legal, as it would appear from the case of Admiral Codrington, who successfully resisted payment, and stated the fact in the House on 18th April, 1834. If this be so, the nation is made to pay charges which cannot be enforced against individuals if they resist them. [The hon. Baronet then went at length into the case of Claremont (April 9, 1866)—by far the strongest case of a resumption which has occurred during the present reign.]
    Having thus begun by justifying our right to inquire, the next point which presents itself for discussion is the consideration of the subjects into which we propose that inquiry should be made. First in importance stand Returns which have reference to the general expenditure upon, and the savings on account of, the Civil List. I propose to move for a statement of the duties of the Auditor, or Deputy-Auditor, of the Civil List, showing the office to which he makes his report, and for copies of his report for each year since the accession of Her Majesty. It is most important that we should have this Auditor's report, for, as was stated by a Member of the Committee in 1837, at the beginning of a reign matters are so hurried as to make a real inquiry impossible. This officer is clearly a public official, existing for public purposes, and his report should be as public as his office. I shall ask, also, for another Return of all directions or

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    warrants issued by the Treasury, under Section 9 of the Civil List Act, specifying the classes from which the savings arose, and the classes to which they were transferred; and for another Return in the nature of an account of the income and expenditure of the Civil List, from the accession of Her Majesty to the present time; and I will proceed to give my reasons for asking that those Returns should be laid before the House. Briefly stated, those reasons are two—first, the great complexity of the Returns we have, and the apparent existence of blunders, and of breaches of Acts of Parliament in connection with the Civil List; secondly, the desirability of our knowing, with the view to considering such further applications as may be made by the Crown to Parliament, whether a great amount in the shape of savings has not gone to swell the Privy Purse during the present reign. The Civil List Act directs that the issues shall be quarterly; that they shall be on Treasury warrants sent in within 30 days of the commencement of the quarter, for a sum not exceeding one-fourth of the estimated annual amount of each class, together with the savings of the preceding quarter. With respect to savings in any class, left beyond a quarter after the 31st December in each year, "it is lawful" for the Treasury to direct the savings to be applied in aid of the charges or expenses of any other class except the fifth, or of any other charge upon the Civil List. In practice, it appears that the quarterly warrants which ought to have been made, in conformity with Section 8 of the Civil List. Act, have never included the savings of the preceding quarter, but have regularly authorized the appropriation of £96,250—that is, one-fourth of £385,000, plus the amount of charge for pensions under Clause 5. We find, however, that up to March 1851, warrants were issued in every year against unappropriated moneys, or against the savings fund; and those appear to have been the directions under Section 9 of the Civil List Act. I find by a letter from Lord Monteagle, the Comptroller General, to Sir Alexander Spearman, of the Treasury, that he took my view, and suggested a change in the existing system, to bring it "more into accordance with the 9th section of the Civil List Act," the Comptroller of the Exchequer suggesting to the Treasury, not that it shall observe the Act, but that it shall
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    bring itself a little more into accordance with it. So far, then, as we can judge from the imperfect accounts which are laid before us, it would seem that the Treasury has steadily offended against Section 8 of the Act, by not stating the savings of each quarter; and that the Treasury have also neglected their duty, under the 9th section, inasmuch as, when the section says that "it shall be lawful" for them, after the 31st December, to direct the application of the savings, it imposes a statutory obligation to do so. Now this they seem not to have done. "Direct," in the case of the Treasury used to be taken to mean direct by warrant, and Lord Monteagle, when Comptroller General, proposed to the Treasury the following definition of a savings warrant:—
    "A savings warrant is that by which the Treasury, at the close of the year, declares certain sums to be savings, under the 9th section, and applicable in aid of deficiencies of other classes, or applicable to any charge on the Civil List."
    Now warrants for savings do appear in the Exchequer Return, but instead of those warrants appearing annually, they often did not appear for several years.
    I now come, with a view to show the irregularities that have occurred in connection with the Civil List, to the system pursued in issuing money on this account. The total of four Treasury warrants represents the limits of what may be charged in any one year. On this authority the Comptroller of the Exchequer used to authorise the Bank to set apart an Exchequer credit in favour of the Paymaster. When set apart the credit was drawn upon so far as was requisite by the Paymaster, who transferred it in lump sums to his "Drawing and Bill Account." From this account it passed by the Paymaster's cheques to the Lord Chamberlain, the Lord Steward, and others. Under this system it is difficult to see how the amount of credits could exceed the amount of warrants; but in the year ending the 31st March, 1843, the credits did exceed the warrants—an excess which would seem to have been illegal. The Act, by directing that the quarterly warrant should be for one quarter's allowance plus the savings of the preceding quarter, evidently meant that a quarterly warrant lost its force at the end of the quarter for which it was drawn, otherwise it would have been unnecessary to

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    add over again a sum which could already have been drawn upon an existing authority. Not only, however, was there an excess in 1843, but also in the years between 1851 and 1856; and until further Returns and explanations are given to Parliament I cannot but believe that £103,000 were, in the years that I have named, illegally issued on the Civil List account. Up to 1843 the accounts showed the amounts of unappropriated moneys. After that year those moneys were merged in the savings fund, which, however, has long since ceased to appear. It would seem that the unappropriated moneys were moneys the issue of which had been authorized by quarterly warrants, but which it had not been found necessary to issue from the Exchequer within the quarter covered by the warrant, and which, consequently, accumulated as a debt to the Civil List. Strictly speaking, unappropriated moneys only went into the savings fund, by a direction under Section 9 of the Civil List Act, but in practice there used to be a laxity in distinguishing between unappropriated money and the savings fund. We possess a Return which shows the balance of Exchequer credits at the beginning of the year; we cannot trust to this as an indication of the savings in the year, for it is possible that the amounts appearing in it are moneys due to tradesmen and others in the last quarter, but not immediately applied for, and left lying at the Bank. When, however, we find that on the last day of the quarter they amounted to a larger sum than the whole allowance for the quarter in Classes II. and III., and when we know that a great deal of the expenditure in those classes is of a daily, weekly, or monthly character, it becomes clear that so enormous a reserve could only exist by virtue of accumulations or savings. Another remarkable irregularity occurs in the year 1838–9, when the warrants reached the enormous sum of £482,000, and exceeded the net expenditure of the Civil List by the sum of £96,249 15 s. 10 d. which differs by only 4s. 2d. from the sum of £96,250—that is exactly a quarter's allowance. This would appear to have formed the precedent upon which the Chancellor of the Exchequer must have acted when he obtained from us five quarter's of income tax in a single year.
    I have already stated that up to 1850–1, warrants were given for each
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    payment out of the accumulated savings; but in that year Lord Brougham brought forward the subject in the House of Lords, and from that moment the Returns have disappeared. In 1854, 1855, and 1866, we find every warrant wrong, in spite of Lord Monteagle. The Lords of the Treasury commenced then quietly to pay out the accumulated savings instead of paying them openly by warrant. They seem to have lost their heads over this operation, for in 1855–6 they made a Return of the Civil List £5,000 short of the proper amount. The Civil List in that year ought to have been £401,457 10 s. 0d., but it was returned as £396,457 10 s. 0d., the error being in the Return of £11,000 and odd pounds, instead of £11,000 and odd pounds on Class V. This error was carried through the accounts, and the balance struck without it having been detected.
    With a view to an argument to which I shall presently resort, I wish for a few moments to examine into the light thrown by the Exchequer Returns upon the subject of the Civil List savings. The credits given under savings warrants, or warrants against unappropriated moneys, are shown in a Return. A glance at their amounts shows that they are not documents declaring the sum added to the savings fund each year, but are warrants used in the drawing out of a portion of the fund. Now, the moneys, or part of the moneys drawn out by them, may have been applied in aid of other classes of the Civil List. But what other classes wanted aid? None. Moreover, in spite of the drawings under those warrants, the savings fund, year by year, as long as it were shown, continued steadily to grow. If other classes had wanted aid in any year, we should have found in that year that the yearly warrant had been first exhausted. But, excepting in 1843, it never was exhausted; and in the year in which the largest draught was made upon the savings fund—namely, 1847, when £71,000 was drawn—we find that in the ordinary allowance there was a saving of more than £20,000. Under these circumstances, I cannot conceive that the £71,000 would have been required in aid of any class except the Privy Purse.
    Now, between March, 1837, and March, 1851, £370,000 had remained as surpluses in the Exchequer, as sums which it had not been found necessary to draw in the ordinary course. Against this

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    fund £274,000 had been drawn out by special warrants, called unappropriated or savings fund warrants, and in one case without any warrant at all, so that in March, 1851, there ought to have remained over £96,000. The growth of the fund was noticeable. For the first few years of the reign the savings were small. In 1844 very considerable reductions of salaries in the Household were begun upon a regular plan, by pensioning off servants at small pensions and appointing others at lower salaries. In 1845 the savings were abnormally large, but in 1846 they stood at about £20,000, and then increased steadily to £33,000, £34,000, £35,000, and £42,000. Here, however, we come to a sudden stop. Lord Brougham called attention to the savings by a Motion in the House of Lords, and Ministers desiring to avoid attracting further attention, ceased to allow accumulations in the Exchequer. Instead of issuing only enough money to meet the requirements, from that time they always issued enough to cover the whole warrant, so that the accumulation of the savings fund, if any, would be in the hands of the Paymaster, and would not appear in the Exchequer Return. Not only did the Treasury from that time cover the warrant in full, but it issued extra credits, to enable the Crown to withdraw £91,000 out of the £96,000 which was in the Exchequer when Lord Brougham made his speech; and to avoid this withdrawal being noticed, they issued no more savings warrants—a proceeding, which, to judge by the terms of Section 9 of the Civil List Act, would seem to have been one of doubtful legality. Matters fast grew worse. The balances, which had all but disappeared immediately upon the withdrawal from publication of the amount of the savings fund, became enormous, rising from £72 and a few shillings, to £43,000 in a jump, and then to £76,000. Moreover, the proportion between the Treasury warrants received by the Bank, the Exchequer credits at the Bank, and the payments by the Bank, was at the same time lost, and all of them began to fluctuate, by jumps of £50,000 at a time. For instance, in 1854–5, the amount of the Treasury warrants was £392,000, while the amount of the Exchequer credits was £456,000. In 1855–6, the amount of the Treasury warrants was £411,000, and the amount of payments by the Bank was £453,000. In 1865–6,
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    the amount of the Exchequer credits and of Treasury warrants was the same—namely, £405,000, while the amount of payments by the Bank was £480,000. These irregularities, and the absolute cessation of Returns giving accurate information on this point, must be, on the one hand, my excuse for having pointed out irregularities in the early years, rather than in the later years of the reign; and, on the other, my ground for asking for Returns which will again place us in the same advantageous position as regards knowledge, in which Parliament stood before the singular withdrawal of information which took place in consequnce of Lord Brougham's Motion.
    I wish for a more accurate account of the net savings upon the Civil List account than any we possess at present. I do not think that such a Return can very well be refused to us; because when, in 1863, Mr. Augustus Smith opposed a Vote for travelling expenses of the Royal Family, and asked whether there had not been savings under two heads of the Civil List during the year, which might be applied to defraying those charges, the present Prime Minister, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, said it was quite practicable, upon inquiry, to state to the House the exact position of the different departments of the Civil List. I need hardly add, however, that, upon that occasion no such inquiry was held, and no such statement made. Returns of this kind have been moved for and have often been obtained on former occasions. Lord Brougham was not permitted to have his account in detail for which he moved in 1850; but in 1780 a Resolution was adopted by the House of Commons, that there be laid before that House, within seven days after the first day of every Session, exact accounts of every sum paid in the course of the preceding year, out of the Civil List, to any Member of either House of Parliament, by way of pension, salary, &c. Now, if the House could justly require such a Return as this, it is pretty clear that a more general right of inquiry cannot be denied to exist even during the continuance of the present reign. I have shown, moreover, that Section 9 of the Civil List Act directs the issue of certain documents, which, if issued, are now concealed; but if an Act of Parliament directs a certain course to be followed by officials in matters connected

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    with, public finance, how is the House to know whether the Act has been complied with if the Government refuse to produce the Return? For my part, I think that inquiry is also justified by the extraordinarily obscure character of the Civil List accounts to which I have already referred. Who can state at the present moment the exact expenditure upon the Civil List account itself? Yet it is not only generally desirable that we should know what the expenditure is; but there are special reasons existing in this case. The Civil List Act itself provides that whenever the total charge upon the Civil List on account of five out of the six classes, excluding pensions, shall amount to more than the sum of £400,000, an account, stating the particulars of the exceedings and the cause thereof, shall be submitted to Parliament within 30 days after the same shall have been ascertained. Now, what human being is there who can tell as a certainty whether there have not, in fact, been such excesses? In 1855–6, the payments by the Bank of England upon the Civil List account are shown to havebeen£453,000. In 1865–6, they amounted to £481,000, and if this item of payments by the Bank of England does not mean charges, but means something else, then, even in that case, it is of high importance that the exact meaning of those figures should be explained to the country through this House. It will be seen in what I have said, that by the words of my Return, I propose to ask to what purposes the savings that have been effected upon the Civil List account—savings which we know from the experience of those earlier years, in which they were stated to the House to be considerable, and to be increasing—have been applied? Now, I have been attacked of late for having said that there was reason to believe that the savings upon the Civil List had been added to the Privy Purse, and that such a use of them was an improper diversion of public funds. I have been attacked for having made this statement in the country instead of in the House, and I have been attacked for making it at all. Now, with reference to my having made it in the country, I have this alone to say—that it is a statement which has been made already in the House itself, not in great detail, not with reasons, but still a statement that has been made. On the other hand, it is a statement that was made with ample reasons, with
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    the greatest possible detail, with the utmost care, by Lord Brougham, in the House of Lords, in 1850. Lord Brougham obtained little or no support, and the reason was, that the country was not then interested in the subject. But there can be no subject in which the country is more easily, more naturally, and more justifiably to be interested, than in the disposition of that portion of the taxes which goes towards ceremonial objects. Last year, when the hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Miall) brought forward his Motion for the disestablishment of the Church, the answer with which he was met by the Prime Minister was, that the House of Commons was against him, and that "before he sought to convince a majority in the House, he would do well to convince a majority of his countrymen." If that be true of such a matter as the position of religious communities towards the State, surely it is ten times more true, if that be possible, with regard to points which arise in connection with the expenditure of the public taxes. This is not a charge against the present Ministers; because we all of us know that these matter are matters of custom and precedent, and that it would be a most ungracious task, or next door to the impossible, for a Minister to propose to take the Civil List savings to the nation, when previously they had gone to swell the Privy Purse. The way in which the present unfortunate custom has arisen, is one which makes it difficult for a Minister to act in the matter unless he is well backed up by the country and the House of Commons.
    The savings even at the beginning of the present reign were insignificant, and there was little danger and little impropriety in allowing them to be taken in this way. It is only now, when they have swollen to a large amount, that political danger in the future may be discerned, as our predecessors would have discerned it in the past. I say that our predecessors would have discerned it, and I may venture to remind the House that the reason why Pitt objected in 1759 to undertaking the conquest of Bengal in the name of the Crown was that the King might thus obtain a source of income independent of Parliament. Sir George Lewis, on 22nd May, 1857, said—
    "It has been deemed a matter of policy in this country wholly to strip and denude the Sovereign

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    of all hereditary property, and to render him during his life entirely dependent upon the bounty of Parliament."—[3 Hansard, cxlv. 724.]
    Now, as to the charge itself, it is simply this. I ask, as to the diversion of the Civil List savings of the Privy Purse—first, whether it is legal; and, secondly, whether it is politic? I hold that the fact that £8,000 a-year was granted to meet "unforeseen demands," shows that savings were not contemplated by Lord Melbourne in framing the Act. Now, on 16th December, 1837, Mr. Spring Rice, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, admitted that "grants to the Crown must be construed in favour of the grantor." I claim, too, the right to use the Title and Preamble of the Civil List Act to explain its ambiguities. It is an Act to provide "a certain and competent Revenue for defraying the expenses of your Majesty's Household, and supporting the honour and dignity of the Crown during your Majesty's life"—rather a singular Preamble when we find that under the Act it is contended that large savings may be effected and left to the King's relations by a secret will. Upon the point of legality, I want to know why, if the view of Lord Brougham that the practice is contrary to law, be pronounced a mistaken view—why, if you have, as the officials tell us, an absolute power, both in law, in custom, and in equity, to appropriate to the Privy Purse all savings—why did the House of Commons tie up that expenditure under classes by means of the most stringent provisions? Why did not the House vote the money in a lump, as it does in the case of other members of the Royal Family? When you have answered me this question, then and then only will I go on and ask, if legal, is it politic? Or, in other words, why should we allow for the future, even if legally we have allowed for the past, money voted for expenditure but not expended, to go to swell a Privy Purse already fixed, after full inquiry, at a due and fitting amount?
    The Civil List, as was shown by Mr. Goulburn in this House, greatly exceeds that voted during the last reign, although multitudes of charges were then borne by the Civil List which now are charged upon the ordinary Estimates, while the Privy Purse is supplemented by the Duchy of Lancaster—a property rising daily in value and swelling year by year into the production of a
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    most important Revenue. If legal, is it politic thus to run the risk of a great accumulation of wealth in the hands of the King? For reasons which I will proceed to give, I believe this disposition of the savings to be contrary to the spirit of the Act of Parliament. That it is most impolitic and unwise I am convinced, and I maintain that when the Civil List Act was passed no large surplus was expected to arise. Had any been expected, the Whigs of that day would have taken good care that it should not have gone to swell the Privy Purse. My contention, then, is, that money granted by the House of Commons for one purpose and with one view, has been applied to other purposes—and I will give my reasons for so thinking. But if there should prove to be, I do not say a clear ease, but even such a one as would leave room for doubt, then I argue that no subject can more justly become a matter of debate in the House of the elected representatives of the taxpayers of the nation. That in fixing the expenditure at the beginning of the reign, the House of Commons took nothing into consideration except the probable expenditure is clear from the wording of the Civil List Act itself. As a general rule it is better to give words of one's own that to quote those of others; but upon this subject—on which I speak only on account of the hesitation of those more learned in finance than I can pretend to be, to bring this matter before the House—I cannot resist the temptation that I feel to quote words, most accurate I think in their character, which were used by the Prime Minister last year. Speaking in the House of Commons at the time of a debate upon grants which were then proposed, the right hon. Gentleman said—
    "Gentlemen who study the structure of the Civil List Acts will perceive that Parliament studiously lays down the application of the moneys granted to the Sovereign, and confines them to the special services to which they are destined."—[3 Hansard, cciv. 176.]
    Again, in the course of last year, he said—
    "I refer to the terms of the Civil List Act. Look at the mode in which the annual income is bestowed upon the Sovereign; it is not bestowed upon the Sovereign in the gross, but it is bestowed after a careful investigation of details, and an exact appreciation of what, in the judgment of Parliament, each of the burdens to which the attention of Parliament is directed will re-

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    quire, in order to maintain the dignity of the Sovereign."—[3 Hansard, ccviii. 573.]
    I repeat, then, it is certain, that if the Committee which sat at the beginning of the reign had intended that the Treasury should allow money to accumulate, and the balances to go to swell the Privy Purse, they would have proposed that the money should be voted in alump sum. The language of the 8th clause of the Act is very stringent in its delimitation of the classes; and, after tying the money up in this careful way, it insists that even savings shall not be withdrawn at the end of each quarter, but only once a-year, and the language seems to contemplate no savings except savings of a most trifling kind. At the end of the year there is power given to the Commissioners of the Treasury to direct the savings to be applied in aid of the charges upon the Civil List revenues, but there is not one word in regard to allowing income to accumulate. I submit to the House that it is contrary to the spirit of the Civil List Act, even if it be not contrary to its letter, that the savings should be allowed to accumulate or should be handed over without inquiry to those persons through whom take place the disbursements of the Privy Purse. I should feel grave doubt of the wisdom of my attempting to set my humble opinion upon such a point against that of the skilled authorities. I should hesitate before I did so. But this is the opinion of other skilled authorities—it was the opinion of Lord Brougham. It seems to have been the opinion of Lord Russell, for in the debate on the provision for Prince Albert, which took place in 1840, Sir Robert Peel stated that Lord John Russell had, on a former occasion said—"that the Crown could not apply the surplus on one head of the Civil List to the Privy Purse;" and Lord Russell, who was present, took no objection to the words thus attributed to him. As to the opinion of Lord Brougham, it is, I think, of such importance that I will venture to read a few passages of it to the House. His protest against the negativing of his Motion for an inquiry into the subject is a document of the greatest value, and the House will find that if I am wrong upon the point of legality, I at least can claim to have erred in Lord Brougham's company. I quote from the Lords' Journals of the 5th of August, 1850; Lord Brougham dissents from the judg-
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    ment of the majority of the House of Lords upon 10 separate grounds. I had not, when I spoke at Newcastle, seen this protest—indeed, I read it for the first time about a month ago; but his argument is precisely the argument which I had used, and I own that it seems to me unanswerable. Lord Brougham dissents:—
    "1st. Because the Civil List arrangement is framed upon statements laid before Parliament, in the nature of Estimates upon which the grant of income is to be made.
    "2nd. Because those statements contain a minute detail of the expenses for which provision is made, including the salaries of officers, and even the wages of servants; and the grant is made on the supposition by all parties to the arrangement, that such salaries are to be always paid.
    "4th. Because no supposition ever entered the mind of Parliament in making the grant, that large savings were to be effected out of the income granted; and, on the contrary, that accumulation of wealth into the hands of the Sovereign is wholly alien to the spirit of our Constitution, which requires the Monarch to be wholly dependent upon Parliament for the revenue by which his dignity shall be supported.
    "6th. Because, for those reasons, it is the undoubted right of Parliament to obtain information, from time to time, touching the amount of the savings, under the several heads of the Civil List expenditure.
    "7th."—and this is the most important of all for our present circumstance, and to it I call the attention of all those who voted for reducing the grant to Prince Arthur last year—
    "Because the amount of such savings must form an important matter in considering the applications, from time to time made for Parliamentary aid in the establishment of the younger branches of the Royal Family."
    So much by way of justification, upon this large and grave side of the subject which I have brought before the consideration of the House. It now becomes my duty to go back to certain more general considerations than those with which I have been dealing within the last few minutes, and to inquire into the soundness of certain arguments which are adduced against the production to the House of information. We are often told that the Civil List income is smaller in the present reign than it ever has been in the past, which makes it an ungracious act to inquire into its expenditure; and, again, that the Crown lands are producing far more than they have ever produced before, which makes it still more ungracious to question the expediency of charges which are borne

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    by the public as part of the arrangement under which these lands have been surrendered by the Crown. Now, in the debate which took place on the 27th January, 1840, in this House, Mr. Goulbourn showed that the income of the Civil List during the present reign was in reality £20,000 a-year more than it was during the last. The Civil List under William IV. was £375,000 a-year. The Civil List now is £385,000 a-year, excluding on the one hand the allowance to the Queen Consort in the late reign, and on the other the allowance to the Prince Consort in the present. But then £10,000 a-year, as was shown by Lord Monteagle, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, was saved at the commencement of the present reign by the reduction of the salaries of certain of the great officers of the Household, making an excess of £20,000 a-year in what may be called the available sums. Moreover, in consequence of the report of the Civil List Committee, and the advice given by that Committee that public charges should, as far as possible, be borne on the Estimates, and only those Royal expenses which may be called personal should be borne by the Civil List, large sums have been saved. For instance, the King's Plates cost £2,000 a-year and more from the Civil List of William IV., and now are charged on the Estimates. Stud bills and hunt bills cost William IV. £5,000 a-year, and are now all but extinct, and the travelling expenses of the Court have been greatly reduced since the introduction of railways. I have already mentioned other large charges now borne on the Estimates, but formerly charged in part upon the Civil List. As for the much-talked-of surrender of the hereditary revenues—the droits of Admiralty were worth nothing in time of peace; and, as was shown by Mr. Harvey in a debate which occurred on 19th April, 1836, the 4½ per centum dues, of which a great deal was said, although worth £25,000 a-year, were saddled with pensions which, had they all been paid, would have amounted to £30,000 a-year. But I find also that these duties were described by Lord Shelburne in this House as unjustly raised—as merely laid on by virtue of the Prerogative—as "utterly illegal and unconstitutional." So much for two important branches of these hereditary revenues! But with regard to the whole of them, Lord Shelburne said—
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    "The hereditary duties at no time belonged to the Crown; they were at the disposition of Parliament; £4,000 a-week out of them was taken by the Parliament of William III. The grants of forfeited estates were resumed under Anne, and applied to the exigencies of State. It was preposterous and fallacious to suppose that the agreement made by his present Majesty was any act of concession in him."
    Moreover, if Mr. Fox may be quoted as an authority—and for certain it is not easy to refute his arguments—he said on the 29th March, 1802—
    "From the time that Parliament exonerated the Crown from the expenses of levying fleets and armies, from that moment the hereditary revenues became the property of the public. William III. was not even heir to the Crown when he succeeded."
    So much for the "hereditary revenues." To call attention to their character, I will ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to tell us how much the hereditary revenues, except Crown lands, produce at the present time? On the other hand, if it be true that there was a distinct arrangement with regard to the Crown lands, which can only be re-considered at the close of the reign, then, no doubt, it would be difficult to cause inquiry to be made into the whole subject, unless we were able to do that which I believe I also have done—namely, prove abuse. But is it the case that there is any such arrangement as to the Crown lands at all? My view of the position of the Crown lands is one which I can produce great authorities to support. It is the fact that for many reigns no King has enjoyed the Crown lands beneficially, and even the Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted last year that—
    "There was no chance that any Sovereign would ever again manage for his own benefit the estate of the Crown."
    The Crown claim to those lands is one which may be said with fairness to be like many others in this country—tolerated only so long as it is not enforced; and if these lands were to be surrendered they would be liable to charges far greater than their value in amount. At the accession of each King, the amount of the Civil List for the future is determined, not upon considerations of what the Crown lands may be expected to Produce, but wholly and solely upon consideration of what is necessary for the dignity of the Crown. There is, I know, a reference to the Crown lands in the Preamble of the Civil List Act, but I

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    contend that this is a reference purely conventional in its nature, and made by way of form. In the really valuable collections of authority—namely, the proceedings of the Committee, and the debates in this House—the granting of the Civil List was never rested on the surrender of the Crown Lands. My contention is, that these lands have long since become, in fact, a purely National estate. Only last Session a Committee which sat upon the question of the Thames Embankment, seems to have taken, by a large majority, this view. Even were my opinion a modern one, I should be prepared to contend that it would be none the less defensible for being comparatively new. But so far back even as the reign of Anne, I find in the Preamble of a statute, 1 Anne, c. 7, these words—
    "Whereas, the necessary expenses of supporting the Crown were formerly defrayed by a land revenue, which hath from time to time been impaired by the grants of former Kings, so that Her Majesty's land revenues at present can afford very little towards the support of her government, nevertheless the land revenues of the Crown may hereafter be increased, and consequently the burden upon the estates of the subjects of this realm may be lessened, in all future provisions to be made for the expenses of the civil government. To the end, therefore, that the land revenues of the Crown may be preserved and increased, be it enacted that every grant or lease which shall be made by Her Majesty, her heirs, or successors, Kings or Queens of this realm, shall be utterly void and of none effect."
    And then follow the exceptions of short leases, where full rent is taken. I ask, then, who are the heretics—Mr. Howard and Mr. Gore, or, on the other hand, Mr. Hallam, Lord Brougham, and Mr. Allen, the author of the great work on the Royal Prerogative, who take what may be called the modern view? I confess that, for my part, I prefer the opinion of the latter, when I find it backed by the practice of Parliament for years past. I deal only with this subject at this moment because I am forced to do so. There is no necessity for moving for any Returns upon the point, because we have already in our possession ample information in respect to the Crown lands; but in any future inquiry which may be held on the whole subject, it would be necessary to ask whether waste and inconvenience are not caused by the present plan for the management of them, and whether it be not time that we should put an end to the inconvenient fiction of their being now in any special
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    sense the property of the Crown. The disputes which have arisen in reference to the New Forest and to the Thames Embankment, and the enormous percentage of the revenues which is spent in management, are by themselves sufficient justification for urging that inquiry should be directed to this point. Another case for inquiry might well be founded on the fact that Windsor Forest is under the Commissioners of Woods, and that they appeal to us in their reports not to look at it as a property which can be dealt with upon commercial principles at all. If this be so, why not treat it as a great park or garden, and place it under the Commissioner of Works? At this moment the expenditure at Windsor Forest is £22,000 and odd pounds a-year, and the receipts are £4,000 only; and yet this is part of the "hereditary land revenues" of the Crown, "surrendered" by the Crown to the public in consideration of the granting of the Civil List.
    We are often told that during the present reign we have never been applied to for payments in respect of debts, and that this fact again makes inquiry ungraceful. Now, what were these debts? The payment of them begun in 1713. This case was one which, although it is the precedent, may be described, and has been described in this House, as a precedent of trickery and fraud. In the reign of George I. provision was twice made for payment of the debts, but they were paid by deductions from the salaries, and without any charge upon the public. In George II.'s reign no payment of debts took place. In 1769 the debt on the Civil List was paid, but the expenses of the King's marriage had been charged upon the Civil List, and were put forward as the cause of debt. Now, this 1769 payment was made on a distinct pledge given that no such demand should be made in future. In spite of this promise, an application was made in 1777, and led to riots. Ultimately, in consequence of this application, the whole Civil List was re-modelled in 1781. In 1784 a few debts were paid, but only in consequence of the loss of certain hereditary revenues through the American War. The precedents of George IV. are not worth much to us happily now, and in the reign of William IV. there was a saving on the Civil List. There are no precedents which would apply in the

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    case of any debts which might now be incurred. The House of Commons paid Civil List debts—when they did pay them—not because they recognized their obligation to meet the extravagance of the Court, but because if the money had not been voted many public servants would have been deprived of their incomes. As was said in Parliament in 1804, "the Judges of the land and the foreign Ministers were in arrear." At that time, as the House will remember, the Civil List was charged with a great number of salaries and public expenses, which is now no longer the case. The House of Commons never paid debts by Votes until it had exhausted every other expedient. In 1782, when George III. applied for aid to extricate the Civil List from debt, he desired, by Message—
    "The advice of the Commons as to the mode of discharging the debt, without laying any new burden on his people,"
    and for this purpose, he proposed a plan of reform and reduction in his establishment. Even in 1786 a promise was made as to the future, and Fox vehemently opposed the payment. In 1795, the Prince of Wales being in debt, the Commons refused to vote a sum to pay the debt. What they did was to increase his income, and to appropriate a portion of it to the payment of his past debts, declaring future debts to be irrecoverable; and in this case there was this special reason for payment—that the Prince had not been permitted to receive the accumulations of the income of the Duchy of Cornwall. In 1802 a debt was paid, after violent opposition from Fox; but even this was a debt wholly incurred under the head of occasional payments, which may be said not now to exist, and there had been a large saving on the other classes of the Civil List. As to the debt of 1814, it was explained by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that it arose not in the Household, on which there was a saving, but on political expenses. In the case of 1816, on the 3rd of May, Lord Castlereagh explained—
    "That the accumulation of debt was occasioned, not by the excesses of the Household Department, but by the increased charges on those branches of the Civil List which were connected with the public expenditure."—[1 Hansard, xxxiv. 187.]
    Without going into every case, I may say that Parliament has never admitted its liability to bear debts on the Civil
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    List, and has never paid such debts without special grounds for so doing, and that they were in general no more than Civil Service Supplementary Estimates.
    Now, it is true, that no applications for the payment of debts have been made during the present reign; but repeated applications have been made for dowries to Princesses, and for annuities, under circumstances wholly different from those under which such applications were made in former times. When I find that these annuities have often been voted unanimously by the House, I cannot but regret the extinction of the old Whig traditions, which, while they were kept alive, would have prevented the creation of such evil precedents for the future. In all the older Royal Messages asking for annuities, the King used to be made to say that his application was based upon the consideration—
    "That he was restrained by the laws now in being from making provision for his younger children, and hoped that Parliament will grant an annuity to take effect after his demise."
    These were the words made use of throughout the reign of George II.; for instance, on 6th July, 1727, on the 8th April, 1734, and on the 3rd May, 1739. I find the very same words made use of by George III., for instance, in his Message of 8th April, 1778. He says—
    "His Majesty being restrained by the laws now in being, from making provision for his younger children out of the hereditary revenues of the Crown."
    Now, this refers to the Restraining Act, 1 Anne, c. 7, which is practically put an end to by the 39 & 40 Geo. III., c. 88, and the 25 & 26 Vict., c. 37, enabling the Crown to hold private property, and which prevented the making of any permanent provision by the King. It is a remarkable confirmation of this view, that the annuities under the Bill, passed in consequence of the Message which I have quoted, were to take effect only on the King's death. Even the Princess Royal—daughter of George III.—obtained no English annuity upon her marriage, and in the case of the marriage of the daughter of George II. to the Prince of Orange, the settlement made by the King was a purely political payment to a Protestant Prince, as was stated by Ministers, and was never made use of as a precedent. The annuity that was granted to the Princess Royal,

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    daughter of George III., by the Irish Parliament is not a case in point, because the Restraining Acts did not apply to Ireland. The Princesses Mary and Louisa, daughters of George II., obtained no annuities at all, and the younger daughters of George III., so far from having annuities granted them in consideration of their marriage, were bound by Act of Parliament to accept a portion of £40,000 in lieu of annuities, which, if they had remained unmarried, they would have received on their father's demise. Now, as late as the 12th June, 1843, this sound doctrine had not been forgotten by the Ministers of the Crown. Sir Robert Peel on that day spoke as follows:—
    "I find that the general rule adopted and sanctioned by the House of Commons, in respect to provisions made for Princesses of the Royal Family, has been to assume that the parent of the Princess, whether the reigning Sovereign, or any member of the reigning Family, would undertake, during the lifetime of that parent, out of the provision made for him, either from the Civil List granted to the Sovereign, or from the Consolidated Fund granted to any member of the Royal Family by Parliament, to make provision for their daughters."—[3 Hansard, lxix. 1333.]
    He went on to say that—
    "The principle was to assume that the parent, during his lifetime, would make provision for his daughter, and that Parliament would grant an allowance, its payment being contingent upon the death of such parent."—[Ibid.]
    The late annuities have sinned against this principle, and entitle us to re-open the whole subject of the arrangement between Parliament and the Crown. Indeed, I should be justified, I think, in saying that there is no precedent whatever for the provisions which have been made for the daughters of the present Queen. The Crown now possesses the power to hold private properties from which provision for daughters can be made. The secrecy of the Royal will, most unwisely granted by the 25 & 26 Vict., c. 37, will, however, prevent our knowing whether the properties so held are sufficient for the charges which might thus be thrown upon them.
    Quoting Mr. Goulburn, a few minutes back, I showed that the disposable income of the Civil List was larger in the present than it had been in the last reign. But I did not add, as I might have done, that the receipts from the Duchy of Lancaster, which go straight to the Privy Purse, have enormously
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    increased. The net payment now, after great reductions for management, is never less than £30,000 a-year, and comes sometimes nearly to £35,000 a-year. At the beginning of the reign it yielded only £8,000. One of the Returns for which I propose to move will show the gross income of the Duchy of Lancaster for each year since Her Majesty's accession, and also for each year the amount paid over to the keeper of the Privy Purse. In the debates which occurred on the subject of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1847 and 1850, and again on the 11th June, 1857, it was admitted by the Ministers that Parliament has an absolute right to inquire into this subject. I think that—considering that Sir Robert Peel admitted in this case the right to inquire—I may assume that the separate character of the Crown interest in this Duchy is as absolute a fiction as is the theory of the private interest of the Crown in the Crown lands. The late Lord Derby took a similar view; he said, in the debate of the 26th February, 1847, that there was an annual account presented to Parliament of the management of the Duchy, and that the presentation of this account—
    "Did imply that Parliament exercised some control over the matter—nay, more, the administration of the affairs of the Duchy, including the administration of its financial affairs, was vested in one of the responsible advisers of the Crown, who was generally a Cabinet Minister, and in that capacity responsible to Parliament for the management or mismanagement of the duties confided to him; if there had been any extravagant expenditure upon the establishment—if there had been any waste—if there had been improvidence—that was a subject into which Parliament had a right to inquire, and ought to inquire."—[3 Hansard, xc. 515.]
    Now, with regard to mismanagement and waste, the accounts themselves presented this year to Parliament show £15,000 a-year to have been spent upon the management of an estate the net revenue of which is £31,000—figures which of themselves seem to justify the general charge, and certainly to justify inquiry. But last year, the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Sir Robert Peel), speaking in this House in opposition to the dowry of the Princess Louise, used words so strong as to make me marvel that the officers themselves who are responsible for the management of the Duchy of Lancaster, should not of their own motion have proposed an inquiry. The right hon. Baronet said—

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    "I do not suppose that there is in this country such gross mismanagement as is to be found in the case of the Duchy of Lancaster. Will the House believe that while the revenues of the Duchy amount to £50,000 a-year, only about £25,000 is paid to Her Majesty, while the other £25,000 is expended in the grossest mismanagement."—[3 Hansard, cciv. 368.]
    Adding a still harder word, which word, but not the statement, he afterwards withdrew. Now, Sir, I speak that which all hon. Members who are connected with Staffordshire well know, when I say that by the imperfect management of the Duchy estates vast fortunes are being made by individuals at the cost of the Crown, and indirectly, as I contend, at the cost of the country. In a debate which took place in 1849, it was shown that there were many sinecure officers connected with the Duchy—for instance, one gentleman who received £1,600 a-year for duties wholly performed by deputy; and many of these offices still remain. I may add that at the time when the Civil List Act for the last reign was introduced, it was generally supposed in the House of Commons that the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster would be given up by the Crown to the State, in the same way as the revenues of the other Crown lands; but at the last moment a different course seems to have been resolved upon. I frankly admit that inquiry in this case ought, in my opinion, to be a preliminary step towards the merging of this estate in the other property of the Crown, and the House will remember that even in the last century a Bill was brought in by Mr. Burke and Mr. Fox for this purpose. Mr. Burke then said that which is still true, namely—that the accounts of the Duchy of Lancaster "exhibited the apparatus of a kingdom in the management of a mere private estate." It has often been said in this House, by great sticklers for the rights of the Crown, that the interest of the Crown in the Duchy of Lancaster is as private as the interest in their properties of the Dukes of Portland or of Bedford. But there is this one great difference—that the Duke of Portland, if he wastes his property, cannot come to this House to make good the deficiency, but the Duke of Lancaster can, and Parliament is therefore directly interested in seeing that his revenues are economically administered. But a better answer is this—If the Duchy of Lancaster be a private estate, why should the Crown retain Crown privi-
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    leges in dealing with it? The Crown ought not to claim Royal privileges when it proceeds against an individual, and then, when Parliament asks for a control over the estates, turn round and say that they are private property. Moreover, the 1 Anne, c. 7, s. 1, enacts that grants of lands from the Crown are void, even grants under the seals of the Duchy and County Palatine of Lancaster, thus putting the Duchy in exactly the same position as the rest of the Crown lands. Moreover, the very fact that Acts had to be passed to enable the Crown to hold private property shows that Lancaster is not the private property of the Crown. My last point is that, by the Civil List Act of George III., the Duchy of Lancaster seems to have been classed with the rest of the land revenues of the Crown.
    The Duchy of Cornwall is more immediately and directly under the control of this House than is the Duchy of Lancaster. I propose with regard to it, to move for a similar Return to that which I move for in the case of the Duchy of Lancaster—namely, a Return of the gross amount of its income for each year since the beginning of the reign, and also of the amount paid over in each year for the use of the Prince of Wales. If it needed argument, I might point out that the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock showed, in a debate which took place on the 25th March, 1850, that the original title to the Duchy was Parliamentary, that Returns of its management were annually laid before Parliament, and that the office of the Duchy was a public office, for which at that time no rent was paid. I may add, that the present office was built at a cost of £17,000, charged not upon the revenues of the Duchy, but upon the taxes.
    I said just now that Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke introduced a Bill for the merger of the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall in the Crown; but Mr. Fox returned to the subject 15 years later, and on the 27th April, 1795, in advocating the immediate sale of the Crown interest in the Duchy of Cornwall, he said—"It had ever been his opinion that a landed estate was the least proper of any for the Crown." And I repeat with regard to it that which I said of the Duchy of Lancaster—namely, that if inquiry be held it ought to be held, I think, with a view at least to merger in the Crown or public lands. I again repeat that

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    the separation is but a mere fiction, for the 1 & 2 Will. IV., continued in this respect by an Act of the present reign, restrains the King and the Prince of Wales from granting leases, other than such as are grantable in the case of the Crown lands. Still more startling, and still more important, is the fact that the Duchy was surrendered along with the Crown lands, by William III. The first claim of the Crown to its peculiar rights in Cornwall seems to have arisen thus: Cornwall is full of tin—silver and gold are Royal metals, tin mines contain silver, and therefore are Royal too. But the extreme antiquity of the rights of the Crown in Cornwall of itself makes them singularly burdensome in their character, and an enormous waste of money may be said to occur in mere contention. The Crown is continually bringing law suits against itself, owing to the twofold, or, I might say, tenfold, nature of the shapes in which it appears. The Crown and the Duchy of Cornwall, for instance, have had frequent disputes; and inasmuch as when there is no Prince of Wales the King himself is Duke of Cornwall, he then has his disputes with himself. There have been lawsuits brought by the King, as King, against the King as Duke of Cornwall, and vice versâ; and large sums of money have been expended in these disputes: Even now it has never been finally settled whether the gold found in Cornwall belongs to the King or to the Duke, and whenever gold mines are opened there, as they have been in Wales, we may expect fresh litigations between these Royal personages. The most amusing reminder of the double character of the Crown interests with which I have met, is in a Parliamentary Return of 1866, in which it says of some treasure trove, that—
    "The treasure being the property of Her Majesty in right of Her Duchy of Lancaster, has been by Her Majesty's command forwarded to the Queen, by whom it has been retained."
    There is not likely to be made to-day any attempt to contend that the Duchy of Cornwall is the private property of the Prince of Wales; but as it may possibly be even now contended that the Duchy of Lancaster is in some sense the private property of the Crown, I will venture to quote Lord Brougham's words upon the subject, used by him in 1837—words in which even Lord Althorp expressed his concurrence. He said—
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    "I should like to see the man, whether on the Ministerial or Opposition benches, gifted with the confidence which must be exhibited by him who would affirm that Cornwall and Lancaster are private and personal property, and not public funds rested in the Sovereign only as such; enjoyed by him as Sovereign, and in right of the Crown alone; held as public property for the benefit of the State, and as a parcel of the National possessions."
    Having said this much of the Crown lands and of the Duchies, I may go on to state that I forbear, from feelings of delicacy, to touch the subject of the private estates of the Crown. I do so because I am unwilling, following, as I am, precedent on this occasion, to go beyond my precedents, and to move for the first time for Returns of a character which have never been moved for in earlier years. I shall not, therefore, touch this branch of the subject further than to say that I contend that we have a right to inquire both into the management and tenure of the private landed estates of the Crown, and also into the investments of the Crown in the funds; and for two reasons—the one is, that their amount ought to be taken into account by Parliament, on each occasion when it is called upon to vote money for the support of the dignity of the Crown, in order that we may avoid those constitutional dangers which would be caused were a large private fortune to be accumulated by the tenants of the Crown. This is a reason of expediency, but the other is a reason of law. I contend that, with regard to the property in the funds, whether the clause in the Income Tax Act exempting it from taxation be acted upon, or whether it be not, the insertion of that clause in the Act concedes with regard to these properties the principle that they are quasi-public. I may add, that according to Mr. Allen, in his valuable book upon The Royal Prerogative—
    "It has become a maxim of English law, that all lands and tenements possessed by the King belong to him in right of the Crown, and descend with it to his successors, though he had been seized of them in his private capacity before he was King, or had inherited them from ancestors who were never invested with the attributes of Royalty."
    Those principles, thus laid down by Mr. Allen, and also, I may add, in Coke upon Lyttelton, were acted upon by Parliament in the case of the Pavilion at Brighton. Again, the public interest in the so-called private property of the Crown was admitted by 39 & 40 Geo. III.,

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    c. 88. s. 10, which made the King's personal property, so far as it came from the Privy Purse or unappropriated moneys, liable for Civil List debts. The same view was acted upon when George II. compelled Sir Robert Walpole to refund £20,000, which had been entrusted to him by George I. for the benefit of the Countess of Kendal.
    Before I sit down, I wish to go for a few minutes into the reasons which exist, in addition to those which I have already given, for raising these subjects both in the country and the House. No hon. Gentleman who reads the papers most read by the least wealthy members of our community—no hon. Gentleman who ever attends a public meeting—can fail to know that there is a wide-spread belief that under cover of the Crown much waste of public moneys still goes on. If hon. Gentlemen go further and inquire for themselves into the truth of these beliefs, they cannot but discover that there is ground for the popular opinion. They will find that great political officials obtain the benefit of the sums appropriated for the maintenance of the Crown. They will learn, for instance—and I quote but one case out of many—that one official, whose duties are performed by deputy, has four Royal carriages, 14 Royal horses, four Royal footmen, five grooms, and some messengers, maintained for his exclusive use, from the Civil List, which the public has supplied. Now, this money, thus absorbed by certain great personages, the country has hitherto paid willingly, supposing it to go to the Queen; but when the public discovers, as it has now begun to discover, that the money voted is thus mis-spent, I doubt whether we shall not have to cope with an almost unanswerable demand for a revision of the expenditure of the Civil List.
    It now becomes my duty to apologize to the House for the length to which my observations have almost unavoidably extended. The heads of my case are these—That the House of Commons possesses a right to inquire into the Civil List, even during the continuance of the reign. That inquiry at the beginning of a reign cannot but be unsatisfactory. That public advantage would arise from inquiry now. That abuses exist in connection with the Civil List accounts. That the savings, published until 1850, and concealed after Lord
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    Brougham's Motion, should be made known now with greater reason, inasmuch as the secresy of Royal testaments has unwisely been conferred by an Act passed since that date. That it is impolitic to allow large savings to go to swell the Privy Purse. That while there is reason to believe that a private fortune is being built up about the Crown, on the other hand, unprecedented applications to Parliamentary bounty have been made during the present reign, through Ministers who seem to have misapprehended the altered state of the law. That for these reasons, inquiry is specially desirable. That Returns for which I am about to move are a necessary first step in this inquiry.
    I have but one thing left to say, and that is this—that I regret deeply that the subject has not been brought before the House both by a Member more competent to deal with it completely, and also by a Member favourable to the Monarchical form of government. I know that the Motion cannot but suffer prejudice on account of my opinions; and I should not have ventured to have submitted it to the House had the engagements of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, who gave Notice of it last Session, allowed him to persevere in the course he then intended to have taken. I can only beg the House not to allow the Motion to suffer by any unworthiness in the individual who proposes it for their consideration. The hon. Baronet concluded by moving for the Returns of which he had given Notice.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That there be laid before this House, Returns showing the duties of the auditor (or deputy auditor) of the Civil List, to whom he makes his Reports, and a Copy of such Reports for each year since the accession of Her Majesty:
    Of the Directions or Warrants issued by the Treasury under section 9 of the Civil List Act, specifying the classes from which the savings arose, and the classes to which they were transferred, for each year since the accession of Her Majesty:
    Showing the income and expenditure of the Civil List from the accession of Her Majesty to the present time:
    Of all offices held in connection with the Court which have been abolished since the date of the Report of the Committee of 1837–8:
    List of all charges formerly borne by the Civil List or hereditary Revenues which have been transferred to the Consolidated Fund or yearly Estimates since the accession of Her Majesty:
    Returns showing the amounts charged on Estimates since the commencement of the present

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    reign for fees on installation, robes, collars, and badges, royal presents, passages or conveyance of 'distinguished personages,' funerals of members of the Royal Family, the coronation, journeys of Her Majesty, building, draining, repairing, furnishing, and fitting up of Palaces, ceremonials connected with the Court, allowances and clothing for trumpeters, fees to watermen, payments to the Marshal of the Ceremonies and to the Lord Chamberlain:
    Of the services of the Royal Yachts during the last ten years:
    Showing, for each year since the accession of Her Majesty, the gross amount of the income arising from the Duchy of Lancaster, and also the amount in each year paid over to the Keeper of Her Majesty's Privy Purse:
    And, showing, for each year since the accession of Her Majesty, the gross amount of the income arising from the Duchy of Cornwall, and also the amount in each year paid over for the use of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales."—(Sir Charles Dilke.)
    MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I am very desirous, without delay, to state the view which Her Majesty's Government take of the Motion of my hon. Friend. But, before I proceed to discuss that Motion, I must notice some of the statements which have fallen from him, and which appear in some degree not to be embraced in its terms. He complains of insufficient inquiry into the Civil List at the commencement of the present reign, and states that Member after Member of the Committee on that inquiry, rose in his place to find fault with the inadequate means which they possessed for conducting their investigations in a proper manner. Now, Sir, we have made some reference to Parliamentary records, and we have not been able to discover who those Members were who made those complaints. The Report of the Committee makes no such complaints. It speaks of the assistance which the Committee received, in a much greater degree than on former occasions, for the investigation of the subject; and the Committee, on their responsibility, recommended to Parliament an arrangement which should endure for the whole of the life of the Sovereign. But, says the hon. Baronet—"What do these Committees do? They simply fix the Civil List where it was fixed before." The minute inquiries which my hon. Friend made, and of which he has just given us the result in his elaborate speech, make it difficult to suppose that any material facts have escaped his notice. I must, however, say I hope there has been a good deal of carelessness in his investi-
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    gation; because, if the care which he appears to have taken had been uniform, I do not think he would have made the statement to which I have just referred, or some other statements which we have heard from him to-night. At first, the hon. Baronet compared the Civil List of Her Majesty with that of the previous reign, and tells us it has been increased by £10,000. Now, I have not before me any Return to which to refer, except that which was laid before the Committee at the commencement of the present reign, and which states the expenditure of the Civil List during the reign of William IV. The average in the late reign was £435,000.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Including pensions?
    MR. GLADSTONE: No, not including pensions. £70,000 more, if you add the pensions.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Does it include the allowance to the Queen?
    MR. GLADSTONE: Certainly.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: And also to the Prince Consort?
    MR. GLADSTONE: I will take the allowance to the Prince Consort, and then test the statement that there has been an increase of £10,000. £385,000, as far as I can make out, was the allowance to the Queen at the commencement of the present reign, and £30,000 was added on the marriage of the Prince Consort, making £415,000, compared with £435,000—and that the hon. Baronet contends is an augmentation of £10,000 a-year. He says the Civil List Committees do nothing but fix the Civil List very much where it was before. I have gone back from the present to the last reign, and I will now go back from the last to the previous one. The Civil List of William IV., without an allowance for his Queen, appears to have been £385,000. What was the Civil List of George IV.? It was mixed up with a variety of public charges; but, these were separated in the account from that portion which was applied to the maintenance of the Royal Person, Household, and dignity. Now, I find that, while the total Civil List of George IV. amounted to £845,000, the public charges now separated from it were £315,000, leaving £530,000 for those purposes for which the Queen now receives £385,000 a-year. The hon. Baronet relied, doubtless, on the character to which he lays claim as

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    an instructor of the people, and he was bound, in the highest degree, to be strict and accurate in the statements which he made, and not to augment any errors that may be prevalent; yet he did not, during the whole of his speech, advert to the fact which I have just mentioned; but, on the contrary, by implication, denied it, when he told us that the Committees did nothing but fix the Civil List where they found it. The hon. Baronet then went on to refer to sinecure offices; but, as the name is odious, I will point out how irrelevant those matters are to the present subject. He does not pretend that any new sinecure offices have been created in the present reign. He says there were such offices at the commencement of it. So there were; and they came under the review of the Committee, who stated that inquiries should be made by the Treasury into the great departments of the Household, with the view to the gradual reduction and abolition of those offices by means of the savings which were left to accrue out of the profits of the Sovereign. The hon. Baronet had therefore no right to refer to them as matters relevant to his Motion, as if they could be made available, consistently with the honourable adhesion to the contract between the nation and the Crown, for the benefit of the taxpayers of the country. The hon. Gentleman went on to say, in the latter portion of his speech, that the applications for annuities for Princes and Princesses during the present reign, as compared with earlier Sovereigns, were altogether unprecedented, and he makes this and another assertion as to the enormous amount of saving which he said had accrued to the Sovereign as the principal foundations for his Motion. Now, I deny that those applications are unprecedented. My hon. Friend was not very distinct in his allegations on this subject; and here again he was, I think, somewhat careless in the conduct of his inquiries. Does the hon. Baronet mean to contend that the annuities which were granted to Princes and Princesses in the present reign are larger than those granted in the reign of George III? [Sir CHARLES W. DILKE: I did not name any amount, nor did I refer to the annuities of Princes.] The charge was a general charge about annuities, and he repeated it in the form that the applications in the shape of annuities in
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    the present reign were unprecedented. It now appears that his observations did not apply at all to the annuities to Princes—so that we have got rid of much the heavier part of the charge. But let me go further, and see whether the annuities to Princesses in the reign of George III. were not larger than those granted in the present reign. My hon. Friend appears to have followed this mode of investigation—that when he found a portion of the case which told against him—though this is not an argument between pleaders, but a solemn inquiry—he quietly passes over that part of the case. Does he mean, I would ask him, to say that the annuities to Princesses now are higher than in the reign of George III.?
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: I never alluded to the amount, but said they were unprecedented.
    MR. GLADSTONE: But does the hon. Gentleman mean to say that the Princesses in the reign of George III. did not receive provision on their marriage?
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Provision was made by a dower of £40,000.
    MR. GLADSTONE: And no other?
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: An annuity from the father.
    MR. GLADSTONE: An annuity from the father! That was an annuity from the Civil List. Then one of the main props and pillars of his speech—the unprecedented character of the amounts—resolves itself simply into the annuities given to the Princesses on their marriages being given by Parliament instead of being charged on the Civil List. I will show what is the value of the statement of my hon. Friend, and what sort of thing the Civil List of George III. was. My hon. Friend, in a large portion of his speech, led us into the labyrinth of Exchequer accounts, and I am afraid left rather a confused impression upon the mind of the House. He told us the object of his Motion was to procure a renewal of the information given in 1850 previous to the speech of Lord Brougham; but if that information was not capable of leading an intelligent Member to any more fruitful results than those with which he has presented us in his disquisition upon Exchequer balances, I can only say—unless I and my hon. Friend are wofully behind the general intelligence of the House—I am afraid it is utterly worthless for the purposes of

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    practical discussion. But what I wish to say with regard to this and other parts of the speech of my hon. Friend is this—viewing this Motion as being one of a very high character, not as a Motion merely making an attack on the Government, or as a Motion between parties, but as a Motion by the necessity of inevitable association touching the highest personages in the State—I could not but believe that it was my hon. Friend's object and desire that there should be a thorough investigation of the facts of the case. I wrote to him, therefore, a week ago, requesting him to give some indication of the points he intended to raise, in order that we might be prepared with the necessary information to lay before him and the House. But I am extremely sorry to say that no indication whatever was given by my hon. Friend. No answer was given, except in the terms of the Motion on the Paper; and whether that could at all prepare the Government to follow him through his disquisition on Exchequer balances I must leave the House to determine. Here I come again to one of the main props of his proposition—what he calls "resumptions." Why did he not tell us what "resumptions" he meant—Lodges, Court Stables at Windsor, Passages of Royal Princes, and I know not how many more items? Why did he not give us an opportunity of obtaining the necessary information and giving the necessary explanations? It is impossible to follow him into the details of this case; but I will deal with them generally, and I will tell him they are wholly and absolutely irrelevant. What is the great case he presented? That there was an accumulation of £80,000 of the balance from Crown Lands, and that this was applied for the erection of stables at Windsor. Very likely that is so; but does he mean to say that if that balance had not been so applied it would have been the duty of the State to apply it to any other purpose? No provision was made by the Civil List for that purpose, and if the State applied that £80,000 to the erection of stables, it merely discharged its own duty, and if it had not taken that money for that purpose it might have resorted to some other public fund. The question of Lodges is a matter with respect to which I wish to know whether there is any case to show that the public rights have been
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    invaded by aggression on the part of the Sovereign during the present reign. My hon. Friend did not favour us with any statement to that effect; but he assumed that this charge was not without foundation with respect to Palaces—Claremont, for instance, a residence of the Sovereign, and having no connection with the Civil List—he brought all these things to do duty in the absence of more legitimate materials for the purpose of sustaining an argument with which they had nothing whatever to do. I should wish to say a word as to another point. My hon. Friend appeared in one part of his speech to charge great neglect and disobedience of the law on the part of the Treasury with regard to the provisions of the Civil List Act. Do not let me be supposed to be shielding the Treasury in the case of the present or any former Government. If my hon. Friend thinks fit to bring a distinct charge of disobedience of that statute against the Government, I shall be prepared/on the part of the Government, to give to a Motion of that kind an entirely different reception from that I wish to give to the Motion now before us; because I think any charge of that sort involving a breach of the law on the part of the Government is a matter demanding investigation by the House. But that is not the construction I attach to the Motion of my hon. Friend as it now stands before us. I do not think that was the main bearing of his speech, or the construction to be put upon the Motion before us. Let me then consider what is the bearing of that Motion and of the speech of my hon. Friend. I divide the numerous heads of information contemplated by the Motion of my hon. Friend into two classes. Part of them refer to matters already within the knowledge and possession of Parliament; and the Motion of my hon. Friend has no other effect, except to set official persons to collect and re-produce them in the particular form he has suggested. On these portions of the Motion I wish to give no opinion. If he chooses to ask for these things in the usual and ordinary way in which Members of this House apply for ordinary information, and not involving any novel or high considerations, there will be no indisposition to grant that information. But as I read the Motion, that is not the main portion of the case; and he has not at all disclosed what his

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    main object is. I apprehend it is the second part of the Motion which is the main one—namely, that in which he seeks for information, which is new in substance, by an inquiry into particulars of the Civil List—an inquiry of that kind which we are invited to make with a view to revising the arrangements of the Civil List. His speech cannot be mistaken in that view. In particular, he holds that in consequence of the enormous accretions of the personal wealth of the Sovereign during the present reign, the applications on the behalf of Princes and Princesses are unsuitable to be made to Parliament, and Parliament may exercise its discretion in refusing them. That being the object of my hon. Friend, two questions arise; and the first of them is one to which my hon. Friend has slightly adverted, and although I feel it necessary to touch on it, I shall hope to do so with all practical respect to him and consideration towards him. But, viewing this Motion of my hon. Friend, it is impossible not to bear in mind the mode and circumstances under which the movement of my hon. Friend took its origin. This Motion is inseparably connected with what has preceded it. Now, what did precede it? A speech of my hon. Friend, of which I know nothing except as reported in the newspapers; but I must say, with respect to that speech, it was particularly unfortunate in one respect above all; that it cast aside the dictates—I do not say of loyalty and respect—but of the commonest prudence on this point. I say that if any man, be he. Member of this House or not—any man of education and sense—thinks it his duty to descant on the Civil List before a miscellaneous audience, the very first obligation incumbent on him—an obligation which he should never forget from the beginning to the end of what he says—is this, to produce on the minds of his hearers the recollection that with respect to the arrangements of the Civil List, there is no responsibility whatever, and there can be no discredit whatever, attaching to the Sovereign:—the Government and Parliament alone are responsible for it. I am quite sure that was the intention of my hon. Friend; I am also sure—especially after the mode in which he has spoken of a particular error into which he considers he fell—he will himself admit that he did not on
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    that occasion give a full and sufficient effect to that intention as might be wished. At any rate, his address was so framed as to make the impression on those who—heardand many of those who read it—that the intention of the speech was to bear more directly on the personal economy and character of the Sovereign than is compatible with our Parliamentary Constitution; and if that impression was once formed on the public mind in a matter that makes a direct appeal to details, because it is impossible by any subsequent explanation to correct the evil, my hon. Friend has created this association between that speech and the present Motion which we cannot overlook in dealing with the question now before us. I am bound to touch another subject. In that very same speech in which he appeared to represent the Crown as needlessly and wastefully consuming the earnings of the people, he thought it necessary to liberate his conscience by delivering his opinions in favour of a change—an essential change—in the form of the Government of this country—[Loud cries of "Hear, hear!"]—and thereby, I think with most unhappy imprudence, pointing to a change most repugnant to the minds and views of a great majority of his countrymen, he has contrived to place an ill-omened association with the Motion now before us. And when we come to consider this Motion, we were bound—and the Government were bound—not merely to look at what the Motion contains, but at the whole circumstances of the case, and at the construction which warrantably and naturally would be put on it; and I must confess, after considering these circumstances—taking into view the origin of this movement—I could not but consider—and my Colleagues could not but consider—that if we were to accede to the Motion and grant the inquiry into the particulars of the Civil List, with or without reference to the speech made to-night, we should do much to propagate and sustain a belief in the country that the Motion was granted by the House of Commons with direct reference to the apparent tendency of the speech at Newcastle, and the enunciation of the constitutional changes which he does not disavow. Such an effect on the public mind we are not prepared to take any share in producing, and on that ground alone we could

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    not agree to the Motion of my hon. Friend otherwise than with a negative. But I wish also to refer to another part of the subject. I allude to the policy of granting a Motion of this kind. I am able to travel with my hon. Friend thus far—that I do not question the title of the House of Commons to make an inquiry of this sort. The rights of the House of Commons are so large, that it is very difficult indeed to assign a bound to them in theory; but the House of Commons has accustomed itself to assign bounds to the exercise of its own rights, and the suggestion I wish now to make is—that if it possesses a right such as is assumed by the hon. Baronet, it should not put it into exercise on the present occasion; and I suggest this, not only in consequence of the considerations to which I have already referred, but likewise in consequence of considerations of sound public policy. Of course, I, like my hon. Friend, appear before the House of Commons as the tribunal to which I have to plead. The question is, not what he wishes, and not what I wish, but what the House of Commons ought to do in the exercise of its great and high functions of State. My hon. Friend admits that Lord Brougham, who supported the views he himself now holds with great energy and ability in the year 1850, was not supported by anybody else, although the subject was one upon which the country ought not to be ignorant; but my hon. Friend should draw a distinction between being indifferent to a subject, and holding the opinion that it is one into which it is not expedient to make minutely particular inquiries. I think the principle I mentioned last was the explanation of the reception which Lord Brougham's Motion received; and I believe also that it must be taken as explaining the reception with which the Motion of my hon. Friend is very likely to meet to-night. My hon. Friend has strongly denounced the fact that the Civil List is an arrangement made for the life of the Sovereign; but I contend that we can never rightly deal with this subject, unless that fact is accepted as a fundamental proposition. My hon. Friend has laboured to destroy the clearness and breadth of the distinction that remains between the Civil List as it now stands and as it stood before the last, and especially before the
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    last two reigns. He has referred to the grants made in aid of the Civil List in the time of George III., and says that the grants in question were in the nature of Supplementary Estimates. I shall refer particularly to those grants, because I wish to challenge my hon. Friend's statement as being one of the most wanton errors into which a Member of Parliament ever fell; because, if it means anything, it means that there were two classes of expenses provided for by the Civil List of George III., the one being the salaries of Judges, diplomatists, and so forth, and the other the expenses of Members of the Royal Family. The Civil List was continually in arrear, repeated applications were made to Parliament to pay off the arrears; and my hon. Friend wishes the House to believe that the arrears grew up in consequence of the enormous salaries paid to Judges, diplomatists, &c., and not in consequence of the expenses of the Royal Family. My hon. Friend must know exactly the reverse—["Hear!"]—or at leat he must have known it, but has forgotten it for the moment. ["Hear, hear!"] The Judges and diplomatists were far from being paid with greater profusion than they are now, and the arrears into which the Civil List fell were due to the constant and unmeasured growth of the expenses which pertained to the Person, the Household, and the dignity of the Sovereign—expenses which are now included in the Civil List. It was, I repeat, upon what now constitutes the Civil List that these arrears arose, and not upon public charges, which remained, generally speaking, within limits which were well understood and very little likely to be transgressed. That being so, let us see the bargain which the country had to make. George III. was a Sovereign with many fine points of character, although he was not, perhaps, the most enlightened Monarch who ever sat upon the throne of this Kingdom. At any rate, he had this great quality to recommend him—he endeared himself to the hearts of his people. George III. came to the Throne in the year 1760. In 1769 Parliament granted to him a sum of £513,000 to discharge the debts of the Civil List; in 1777 he had a further grant for a similar purpose amounting to £618,000; between the 23rd and 26th years of his reign still further similar grants to the

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    amount of £145,000 were made; in the 42nd year of George III. £990,000 was granted to pay arrears of the Civil List; in the 44th year of the reign the annuity under the Civil List was increased to £960,000, and a grant of £391,000 was made to pay arrears; in the 52nd year of George III. the annuity was again increased to £1,030,000; in the 52nd year of the reign £100,000 was granted on the assumption of the Royal authority by the Regent; and in the same year an annuity of £100,000 was made to the King during his indisposition; in the 54th year of the reign £118,000 was granted for the payment of arrears, and a further sum of £100,000 for extraordinary expenses; and in the 55th year of George III. a grant to make good deficiencies amounting to £534,000 was made. That, Sir, is a specimen of the old footing of the Civil List. That was a time, no doubt, when Mr. Dunning and Mr. Burke were well entitled to come down to Parliament and assert not only the right, but the expediency of exercising the right of supervising and controlling expenses such as I have just described. What a contrast to that dismal recital is presented by the experience of this country during the 35 years of the reign of Queen Victoria! I want to know when an engagement was more honourably and loyally fulfilled than was the engagement made by the Crown in the year 1837? Never was the dignity of the Court better maintained than it has been in this country while that arrangement has been in force, and yet no demand has been made by the Sovereign in order that that dignity might be sustained. We have to-night heard from my hon. Friend an unequivocal and undeniable complaint, that with all this splendour and dignity, something like economy has been practised. This bugbear of Royal economy has been set up, and we are to believe that the comparatively trifling sums of £20,000 or £15,000 in a year may have been saved to the Sovereign by the exercise of judicious management; but those sums have swelled up to the height of mountains in the distempered view of my hon. Friend, who seems to think that a few sums of, say, £20,000 each, would constitute the basis of such an independence in the Sovereign as might threaten the authority of Parliament and the institutions of the country. I must say that if
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    we ever have on the throne of this country a Sovereign who unhappily may have a disposition to extravagance, I trust his evil genius will never lead him to read the speech of my hon. Friend. Sir, the whole notions entertained by my hon. Friend about the enormous accumulations by the Crown—whether from the Civil List or from any other source—are utterly visionary and groundless. I do not possess, I am not authorized to give, and I am sure the House of Commons does not wish to receive—I believe that if offered it would indignantly repel it—any minute information on the subject; but I say, and I know the truth of my words—that nothing could be more visionary than the opinions entertained on this point by my hon. Friend. He seems to have a notion that the Privy Purse, somewhat improved by ordinary savings, constitutes so vast an income, that it is quite impossible to make away with it, but that it must inevitably roll up in huge masses of wealth from year to year. But we are little aware of the numerous and varied modes in which it is almost absolutely necessary for Royalty to incur an expenditure which, on the one hand, it cannot deny, and for which, on the other hand, it cannot ask the nation to provide, although it obtains on its account very little credit in the sight of the public. Putting aside public pensions, which form a very large item in the Civil List, what does the House suppose is the amount that has been paid by the Sovereign during the present reign, in what I may call "personal pensions" paid out of the Privy Purse? The total amount of those pensions has been, in round numbers £590,000, of which very large sum no less a proportion than three-fifths consisted of pensions with respect to the granting of which Her Majesty had no voice, for they were granted before her accession to the Throne. If my hon. Friend is alarmed by seeing £15,000 in one year, or £20,000 in another carried to the Privy Purse on account of savings, let him take comfort to his soul in recollecting that about £20,000 a-year, or very near that sum, is just what would have met this one item of special private charge to the Sovereign, for which she receives nothing whatever, and can claim no credit whatever except from the private recipients, it being impossible that the public should be called upon to bear any portion of the burden.

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    I will not go further into this matter, having stated enough to show how it rightly stands. I have very little more to say. I ask the House whether it is well—and I ask it on more grounds than one—that we should re-open, under existing circumstances, the life-bargain with the Sovereign? Is it a becoming acknowledgment for the faithful observance of the contract to which I have referred? Is it, on the other hand, a prudent course to take with respect to the interests of the nation? Who can fail to see, that if in your impatience to lodge a questionable title—indeed, amore than questionable title—to small sums of money; if in your impatience to obtain this boon for the public, you are prepared to break up and set aside our arrangement with the Sovereign—you enable the Sovereign—not this Sovereign, not a coming Sovereign, but the Sovereign at any period and of any century—to plead your own example against you, and to solicit your attention from time to time to representations? Those representations, we know, have led within the last 20 years to constant and incessant applications for the augmentation of almost every other public annuity in the shape of salary. You authorize them and provide them with a plausible plea for coming before you from time to time to urge whatever circumstances they can—special circumstances are never wanting for such a purpose—to show that the annuity provided by the Civil List ought to be augmented. What happens then? You not only have, in my opinion, great risk of waste of public money; but you raise an apprehension of opening a multitude of controversies between the Sovereign and Parliament of the most painful character, and I must say of no good omen to the institutions of the country. It is not merely the benefit of economy—though that is a great benefit—which has been arranged by the admirable change which was made in 1820, 1830, and again in 1837, in putting the Civil List on a better footing. I believe it has saved the nation very large sums of money; but it has also saved the Monarchy, and the nation through the Monarch—the association of interest between the two is so close that it is impossible to separate them—it has saved the country through the Monarchy, the opening of serious sources not only of inconvenience, but of danger. Upon
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    every ground, therefore, without attempting to enter further into details—many of which, after all, have little bearing on and cannot affect the main issue—upon every ground, both of the unhappy circumstances under which this Motion is presented to us and likewise of sound general policy—I may almost venture to add of grateful duty towards a Sovereign who reigns in the hearts of her people, I earnestly trust the House will be disposed, after a discussion which has, perhaps, already been sufficient for the purpose, to meet with a negative voice the Motion of the hon. Gentleman.
    MR. AUBERON HERBERTrose to address the House, but was received with overpowering shouts of "Divide! Divide!" cries of "Oh! oh!" and other marks of determination to prevent further discussion of the Motion. Amid great confusion—
    LORD GEORGE HAMILTONrose to Order, and asked Mr. Speaker, whether the hon. Member for Nottingham was in Order in addressing the House? The hon. Member had seconded the Motion, according to the usual practice, by lifting his hat.
    MR. SPEAKERsaid, the hon. Member had the right of speaking to the Question, having seconded the Motion without addressing the House.
    MR. AUBERON HERBERTaccordingly attempted to proceed; but his address was again overpowered by shouts of "Divide!" and other cries. It would be vain to attempt to record a speech of which no one sentence could be completed or heard. The hon. Member having uttered a few words, his voice was drowned in shouts of disapprobation; upon which the hon. Gentleman paused, and when the storm had somewhat abated, resumed his unfinished sentence—to be again overpowered. Mr. SPEAKER interposed to obtain the hon. Member a hearing; and succeeded in obtaining a temporary abatement of the confusion. Mr. AUBERON HERBERT was then understood to refer to the remarks of the Prime Minister on the speech of Sir Charles Dilke at Newcastle, and expressed his regret that his hon. Friend in delivering that speech had not guarded his language with greater care, and thereby avoided suspicion that he was making any personal reflection on Her Majesty. He knew, indeed, that his hon. Friend had no

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    such intention; and when those persons who raised this supposition reflected how the whole theory and practice of our Constitution separated the Sovereign from all responsibility, they must perceive there was no real ground for such an imputation.
    At this point the Members on the Opposition benches, with the exception of a few of the more elderly who usually occupy the front benches, rose and left the House; followed immediately by a considerable number of those on the back benches on the Government side. The Members below the gangway in general retained their seats.
    MR. AUBERON HERBERT,in comparative silence, proceeded. In any case, he wished to state in the clearest language, that he deeply regretted it should be supposed that in seconding the Motion he for a moment believed that Her Majesty had not, throughout the whole period of her reign, acted in the manner which had so justly endeared her to all her subjects. [Renewed interruptions.] But while he said this, he wished to state, with distinctness and frankness, that he made no secret of his opinions as regarded the form of government which he thought best for this country. He had no hesitation in saying in this House, as he had said out of it, that he considered the Republican form of government a better and a more reasonable form of government than the Monarchical. [Interruptions.] He would return to the remarks which the Prime Minister had made on the speech of the hon. Baronet the Member for Chelsea. As he listened to the Prime Minister's speech he felt the truth of the saying that threatened men live long. When the right hon. Gentleman commenced his speech by denouncing the statements of the hon. Member for Chelsea, he fully expected that he was about to destroy the whole fabric of the hon. Baronet's arguments; but it appeared to him, as the right hon. Gentleman left the great bulk of his hon. Friend's arguments untouched, there was no ground for the complaint of the Prime Minister that the hon. Baronet did not furnish the information desired; the Motion put upon the Paper was full enough and spoke for itself; it was not necessary to supplement that by any further information.
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    Notice taken that 40 Members were not present. Many hon. Members thereon rose and left the House; but the House being counted, and 40 Members being found present—
    MR. AUBERON HERBERTproceeded to contend that the position of the hon. Baronet had not been shaken and that it was matter of great doubt whether the savings on the Civil List account were legal. The Civil List was divided into classes; in the second class there was a very large sum of money, £60,000 a-year, under the name of the Privy Purse, besides the Duchy of Lancaster, which yielded £30,000, which was specially assigned to the private expenses of the Crown.
    Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present—
    MR. AUBERON HERBERT,resuming, adverted to the savings, repeating his doubt as to their legality; and then cited the clause of the Civil List Act, which said that savings were to be applied in aid of the charges or expenses of any other class, except the fifth class, or of any charge or charges upon Her Majesty's Civil List Revenue, in such manner as may, under the circumstances, appear most expedient. It seemed to him that you could scarcely talk of charge or charges on the Privy Purse.
    Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present—
    MR. AUBERON HERBERTagain resumed; but the cries of "Divide! Divide!" re-commenced with increased determination. He thought that considerable doubt existed as to the legality of those savings. But the Prime Minister gave them no argument or reason upon that point, but simply passed it by. So much for the first point. Then, secondly, his hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea had called attention to the action of the Treasury as regarded that savings fund.
    At this point—
    LORD GEORGE HAMILTONrose, and said: Mr. Speaker, I espy Strangers present.
    MR. SPEAKER: Strangers must withdraw.

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    Those parts of the House to which Strangers are admitted were accordingly cleared by the officers of the House—
    It is understood that during the remainder of Mr. AUBERON HERBERT'S speech, delivered during the exclusion of Strangers, the cries and interruptions were resumed with increased vehemence. These cries proceeded chiefly from Members in the more remote and obscure parts of the House. Amid the general confusion were heard imitations of the crowing of cocks, whereat—
    MR. DODSONrose to Order. He said he would not ask whether the state of the House and the scene they were witnessing were for the credit and dignity of the House of Commons; he would merely, as a point of Order, ask whether the sounds that proceeded from near the Chair were not un-Parliamentary and disorderly?
    MR. SPEAKERsaid, that the sounds he had heard—and especially those which had proceeded from Members behind the Chair—were, undoubtedly, gross violations of the Order of the House; and he could not refrain from expressing the pain with which he had witnessed the scene that had just taken place.
    MR. AUBERON HERBERTproceeded to make some observations on what had occurred; but was himself repeatedly called to Order. Mr. HERBERT said he had nearly finished his observations, and that if the House would listen to him five minutes longer, he would undertake to complete what he had to say. The hon. Member was allowed to proceed, with some interruptions, for that space; but, appearing to intend to continue his address, he was stopped by determined cries. The hon. Member said, that these interruptions had cost him a minute and a-half of his stipulated time, and asked the House to allow him that space; whereupon Mr. SPEAKER warmly reproved the hon. Member for his irregular and improper appeal to the House—he ought to address himself to the Chair. Mr. HERBERT, after momentary hesitation, resumed his seat, amid great excitement and confusion.
    It is understood that during the exclusion of Strangers (after Mr. AUBERON HERBERT had concluded his address), Mr. MUNDELLA, Mr. NEWDEGATE, and Mr. DILLWYN addressed the House.
    After some time—
    Question put, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Dillwyn.)
    The House divided:—Ayes 23; Noes 261: Majority 238.
    The division having been taken, the doors of the House were thrown open as usual, and Strangers were re-admitted without objection.
    The following report of the conclusion of Mr. AUBERON HERBERT'S speech was communicated to The Times—as believed, on sufficient authority:
    MR. AUBERON HERBERT* went on to say that, according to the Civil List Act, savings could be applied to the charges or expenses of any other class, except Class 5; but were charges or expenses words which applied to the Privy Purse? They did not seem to apply to that class. Moreover, Lord Brougham's opinion, and the Preamble cited by his hon. Friend, and the fact that private expenses were provided for by the Privy Purse and the Duchy of Lancaster—affording together a sum of about £90,000—raised much doubt whether any savings from the other classes were intended to go into the Privy Purse, or to be applied to the private expenditure of the Sovereign, Next as regarded the action of the Treasury. His right hon. Friend had made no answer to the statement of his hon. Friend. His hon. Friend had complained that under the Civil List Act the Lords of the Treasury were to direct the application of the savings arising from any class, and that since 1851 no record whatever had been made of their having done so. Again, as regarded the annuities voted to Princesses, his right hon. Friend had given no answer to the statements made. The statement made referred not to Princes, but to the Princesses, who were younger daughters. There was no annuity voted on their marriage, which took effect during their father's life. The annuity took effect after the Sovereign's death. It was not so with the eldest daughter. That was to say, that when the eldest daughter of George II. married an annuity was granted, partly, as he believed, because she stood next at that time to the succession, partly because it was desired to maintain the Protestantinterestin Europe through the means of Holland. When the eldest daughter of George III. mar-

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    ried, she, as he believed, received her annuity from the Irish Parliament, not from the English. For that there were manifest reasons—the King's power to raise money from the Irish Parliament being greater than it was in the case of the English Parliament. Such, then, being the ease, as he believed, there being no precedent for voting an annuity to take effect before the death of the Sovereign, on the marriage of a younger daughter, and doubtful precedents in the case of an eldest daughter, they could not but feel that, however much sympathy they had with the marriage of Princess Louise, and however much goodwill they bore to her, it would have been impossible for them to have voted as they did, if they had had last year full knowledge of the precedents. He would now give his reasons for seconding the Motion of his hon. Friend. He had already stated his adherence to the Republican form of government, believing that it was better suited to the modern form of society than the Monarchical; but it was not on those grounds that he acted. He was sorry that the two things—the question of Republicanism and the question of reductions in the Civil List—had ever got mixed up together. That was not the true ground on which to rest Republicanism. His motives for supporting his hon. Friend were, first of all, that, in his opinion, there should be no obscurity, no uncertainty, no shadow of a doubt about anything connected with the expenditure of the Civil List or other sums spent for Royal purposes. It should all be as clear as daylight. There should be no place for any suspicions, no room for doubts. Not only did such doubts become a root of bitterness between different parts of the people, but they relaxed the strict moral sense and responsibility of those in all parts of the country who had to administer funds for the public benefit. He also thought that an attempt had been made by appealing to vulgar passions to stifle his hon. Friend's voice. It was said that he was the wrong person to pursue such a course, as his family had received Court favours. A thing to be a favour, must, in his opinion, be asked for, desired, valued. He thought he spoke his hon. Friend's mind as well as his own when he said that this favour was an absurdity and affectation. But whenever a Motion
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    was introduced into the House to do away with the giving of titles, he should recollect those arguments and call them as evidence to show that—in the belief that a title, great or small, ought to influence a man's mind; that, having once accepted it, his opinions were bound and pledged—in this belief lay one of the strong reasons for taking away from Government the power of creating titles, and so attempting to enslave men's minds. But, coming next to a wider consideration—the effect of a large Civil List and a large Court expenditure—he believed that these were hurtful to society. Let them look at London. They had there a greater herd of rich men and women than they had ever had collected at any one time on any one place. Unlike other societies of times past, they had no great interest, no care for art, for literature, or for science. Speaking generally, their one great interest was to live up to a certain standard of display. Now, a Court established on such a scale as that of ours gave a national sanction to such display and expenditure. What was there in a Sovereign different from other people? Why should not her state and position be such as that occupied by a Minister or other private person? If display and expenditure were not good things in themselves, why were they good in the case of a Sovereign? It might be said, that although the President of America was not raised above the ordinary standard of living, as the Sovereign now was with us, yet there was no greater simplicity of life in that country than here. He denied that statement. With the exception of New York, which did not represent the States, life was in every way simpler. However that might be, those who objected to expenditure and display were right in objecting to allow an example to be given by a Court, and people's minds being influenced in what they deemed to be a wrong direction. He would only add that he much regretted the decision of the Government in withholding the Papers asked for. The question was not ended, and would not be; they would foster, instead of allaying suspicions; the result would be the opposite of what they desired, just as the conduct of hon. Members opposite in attempting to stop discussion would do more than any other thing that could have happened to give an impulse to the Republican movement.

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    The following report of Mr. MUNDELLA'S speech was communicated to The Daily News—as believed, on sufficient authority:
    MR. MUNDELLA* then rose, and said, that he had witnessed with feelings of the profoundest sorrow the extraordinary scene which during the past hour had been enacted in that House. He had always felt the greatest pride in the deportment of the British House of Commons, inasmuch as it had always been ready to listen patiently to all arguments, however unpalatable they might be to a majority of its Members. Up to this time its proceedings had been characterized by a total absence of such scenes as those which prevailed on the other side of the Channel, and which in France tended to bring representative institutions into discredit. After what had taken place that night he could not speak with the same confidence as before of the impartiality and dignity of the House. His Radicalism was, he hoped, above suspicion, and he had always supported every measure of economical reform; but while dissenting from the Motion of his two hon. Friends who had addressed the House, he could not but feel indignant at the way in which the hon. Member for Nottingham had been treated. The scene which had taken place would make a most unhappy impression on the country. It could not fail to give rise to the suspicion that the House dared not listen to arguments in favour of the Motion of the hon. Baronet the Member for Chelsea. The system of persecution, and suppression of the right of free discussion, which had been adopted that evening would tend to raise the Mover and Seconder of the Resolutions before the House to the rank of heroes and martyrs, and give a factitious importance to their propositions. If the speech which they had just heard had been listened to with the calmness and dignity shown towards the hon. Member for Chelsea it would have conveyed its own antidote. The country would have formed the opinion which prevailed in that House as to the feebleness of the arguments adduced in support of the Motion. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, in taking the part they had done that night, were unconsciously making themselves the most formidable allies of Republicanism, and were setting a vicious example to the country as to
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    the mode of conducting public discussions. He was a young Member of the House, and it was with great diffidence that he ventured to remonstrate with the party opposite on the course they had adopted; but he must protest against a practice which he had little thought to witness in the House, and which was opposed to the freedom of debate, the dignity of the House of Commons, and the interests of free discussion throughout the country. As to the main question raised by the Resolutions, he should vote against them not because the subject was not fit to be investigated, nor because any change in the character of our Government, however great or organic, was not a proper subject of discussion, but because he feared that if the hon. Baronet the Member for Chelsea had never made a speech at Newcastle he would never have moved these Resolutions in the House of Commons. Having made a mistake there, he wished to justify it here. His speech in that House was in tame contrast with his speech at Newcastle. Had the question been raised with a view to economy, then the paltry £10,000 or £20,000 a-year, and the inquiries suggested into the cost of Royal hospitalities, Royal funerals, and Royal trumpeters, would have been seen to be altogether trumpery as compared with the vast schemes of expenditure which had recently been submitted to the House. At 2 o'clock that morning they had been discussing a Bill on a subject affecting hundreds of thousands of the working classes, and inflicting upon them a great moral and pecuniary loss. The mere deductions made from their wages under the truck system were estimated at not less than a £1,000,000 a-year; yet instead of assisting in redressing such grievances as these, hon. Gentlemen had tilted at windmills, and were quarrelling with the petty expenditure connected with the honour and dignity of the Crown. But if economy was not their real object, and if their true aim was to produce great organic changes in the constitution and government of the country, let them frankly say so, and raise a discussion on the direct issue. He, for one, was prepared to follow Democratic principles to their logical result; but what true Radicals aimed at was the freedom, happiness, and good government of the

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    country, and not any mere change of external forms. They found in Republics the abuses, the extravagances, and the curtailment of liberty which were to be deprecated whether they took place under a Monarchical or any other form of government. It could not be denied that while our government was Monarchical in form, it was was freer in fact, and more Republican in essence than that of any other country in the world. [The hon. Member, whose speech had been loudly cheered by the Liberal Benches, and listened to in perfect silence by the Opposition, concluded by entering his protest against a curtailment of the right of free discussion, of which the House had that night afforded an unhappy example.] He believed that the worst enemies of the Monarchy could not have so effectually served the cause of Republicanism as the Conservatives had done by their conduct on that occasion.
    The Motion for the Adjournment of the House having been negatived—
    MR. FAWCETTsaid, that his hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir Charles Dilke) and himself, ever since they were at college together, had been such intimate friends, and had since acted together so intimately in political life, that he thought it would be scarcely fair for him not to say a few sentences in explanation of the course that he intended to adopt in regard to the Motion before the House. He fully agreed in all that had been said as to the right of the House to discuss the Civil List, and if his hon. Friend had brought forward this Motion last year, he would have found no more cordial supporter of it than he (Mr. Fawcett). But to his mind it was utterly impossible to dissociate this Motion from the speeches which his hon. Friend had delivered in the autumn. He knew perfectly well that his hon. Friend had said—and he was sure in all sincerity—that the Motion and the speech were not necessarily connected together; but for his own part, he (Mr. Fawcett) felt convinced that the Motion had arisen out of the speech, and he was still more certain that the two would be inseparably connected together in the mind of the public. Now, he (Mr. Fawcett) claimed as much as his hon. Friend could do the right of free discussion, not only on the Civil List, but even upon the best form
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    of government; and he ventured to tell the Conservative party opposite that if they attempted to stifle free discussion as they had attempted to do that evening—(Loud cries of "Hear hear!" "No, no!")—the Republicans and the extreme Democratic party would at once feel that in those who called themselves Conservatives they had their most effective allies. Having said that, he was bound to add that he disapproved of a great deal of the matter, and that he also disapproved of the spirit, of the speech delivered by his hon. Friend at Newcastle in the course of last autumn. He was quite aware that his hon. Friend was sincere when he said that he did not intend that speech to be a personal attack upon the Queen; but he (Mr. Fawcett) could not conceal from himself this fact—that 99 out of every 100 persons who heard or read it must have felt that the words there made use of—it might be in the heat of the moment—did convey a personal attack upon Her Majesty. All he could say was this—and he had told his hon. Friend so—that if anyone holding a public position had said the same things of him as his hon. Friend had said about the Queen, he should have felt that until he had cleared himself of the implied reproach contained in them, he could scarcely have ventured to meet his fellow-men or to walk about with the feeling that everything was completely honest and straightforward. He accepted completely, of course, the disavowal of his hon. Friend. He was willing to believe that he had only done what they all of them sometimes did—made a mistake, and said some injudicious things. But above all, he felt—when his hon. Friend now laid down the doctrine that it was impossible to attack the Queen, and that you could only attack her through her Ministers—that the Newcastle speech ought to have been delivered in the House of Commons, and not upon a public platform. And he had a still further objection to the tone and spirit of the speech of his hon. Friend. His hon. Friend, and the hon. Member who had seconded his Motion (Mr. A. Herbert), had avowed themselves to be Republicans. Now he thought that the day might come when the republican form of government might be the best for this country; but feeling this, he wished in the most emphatic way possible to protest against

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    the question of Republicanism being raised upon a miserable haggle over a few pounds. If they were going to raise the question, let them properly estimate the great issues involved in a change of the form of government—let it be treated as a great moral and social question—let it be regarded as involving questions of the highest import, and not be degraded to a huckstering and quibbling over the cost of the Queen's Household. He felt, therefore, that the speech of his hon. Friend had done even the cause of Republicanism harm, and that it had misled and would mislead the working classes by making them believe that their poverty was due to what might be called a certain amount of extravagance in the Court. Nothing had more convinced him of the mischief it had done, than the circumstance that a few nights after the speech was delivered a public meeting of the working men of Bristol passed a resolution, setting forth that after the discovery that had been made respecting the expenses of the Court, it was no wonder that there was so much pauperism in the country. Of course, pauperism had nothing, or scarcely anything, to do with such a question as this. He was as anxious about economy as his hon. Friend could be, and would be as glad to see all sinecures abolished; but why? Not because he thought—nor would he tell the people anything to the contrary—that the saving of £100,000 would have any perceptible effect in diminishing pauperism; but because of the political, moral, and social disadvantages attaching to them—because they did harm to those who received and to those who bestowed them. It would be impossible for him to vote for the Motion of his hon. Friend. Had it been brought forward 12 months ago he would have given it his cordial and hearty support; but if he voted for it now he knew the interpretation that would be placed on such a vote; it would be thought that he had joined in the agitation of his hon. Friend. He disapproved of that agitation; he felt that if he voted with his hon. Friend to-night, he would give that agitation some sanction and encouragement; and therefore he could not vote with him, although on some future occasion, and under different circumstances and auspices, he might be as anxious to see the Civil List inquired into as his hon. Friend was.
    MR. LIDDELLdenied that, as the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Fawcett) had asserted in the opening of his speech, the Conservative party had tried to stifle discussion that evening. The speech of the hon. Baronet had been listened to with perfect attention; and it was not until an hon. Friend of his own opposite—who was not, so far as he was aware, specially connected with the question—rose, that the interruption referred to by the hon. Member for Brighton began. One word more. He thought that in this as in other cases, the hon. Baronet (Sir Charles Dilke) had been led from one error into another. He committed—as he probably felt by this time—the first great error at Newcastle, and the second in following up that speech by the Motion tonight, as the events of the evening must have taught him. The Seconder had also erred in attempting to brave the House. The fourth and latest error was that of the noble Lord who had called attention to the presence of Strangers in the House. When history looked back upon the proceedings of that evening, it would probably be all regarded as a "Comedy of Errors," and nothing more nor less. He hoped that the whole of them would be soon forgotten, and he had some confidence that the good sense of the country would estimate them at their real value and significance. He believed, at the same time, that the general feeling of the House which they indicated, was also an accurate representation of the state of feeling in the country.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, he would not attempt to detain the House by any reply on this occasion; but he desired to refer to one point which had been mentioned by the Prime Minister. He said that his (Sir Charles Dilke's) statement as to the payment of debts during the reigns of George III. and George IV. was a wanton statement, and he characterized it also in other severe terms. Now, he (Sir Charles Dilke) had looked through every precedent in those reigns. He found that, in 1782, when George III. applied for aid to extricate the Civil List from debt, he assured the House by a Message that he desired their advice as to the mode of paying the debt without laying any new burden upon the people, and for that purpose he proposed a plan for a reduction in his own Household establishment. That was the form used also on several other occa-

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    sions under George III. Under the Regency, he found that the debts that had to be discharged were said to have arisen under the head of "Occasional Expenses;" and a similar statement was given on subsequent occasions. In 1802, it was stated that the debt was wholly incurred under the head of "Occasional Payments." Again, in 1814, the Chancellor of the Exchequer explained in the House that the debt rose not upon the Household expenses, in reference to which there was a saving, but upon the political expenses; and he (Sir Charles Dilke) believed that there was no doubt the money voted for the Civil List occasional payments was spent in electoral corruption. In 1818 the debt was occasioned not by expenditure in the Household department, but it rose upon the amount voted occasionally for public expenditure; and so on in all the precedents. Having referred to this one point, he wished also to say upon the whole case, that no portion of the statement upon which he had rested his case had been disproved by the right hon. Gentleman. He begged to re-affirm the whole of the statements that he had made, and he proposed to go to a division upon the Question, however few Members might support him; and he hoped that when his statements should be properly challenged, he should be able to furnish himself with evidence to support them. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had also said that sufficient Notice upon this subject had not been given to the Government; and all he (Sir Charles Dilke) could say in answer was, that he had his Motion for these Returns upon the Paper for a week. They were definite and express Returns, and he thought that that might have been a sufficient direction to the mind of the right hon. Gentleman to cause him to be prepared to reply upon the question.
    Original Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 2; Noes 276: Majority 274.

    AYES.

    Anderson, G.

    Lawson, Sir W.

    TELLERS.

    Dilke, Sir C. W.

    Herbert, H. A.

    Bill read a second time.

  MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS (BOROUGH FUNDS) BILL.— [BILL 55.]
  (Mr. Leeman, Mr. Mundella, Mr. Goldney, Mr. Candlish, Mr. Dodds.)
  MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS (BOROUGH FUNDS) BILL.— [BILL 55.]

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    MR. LEEMAN,in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that the present measure was substantially the same as the Bill introduced last Session, and then referred to a Select Committee. He understood there was a desire that the clauses of the present measures should undergo consideration in the same way, and he had not the slightest objection to refer the Bill to a Select Committee. The object of the measure was to enable corporate bodies to promote or oppose Bills to Parliament affecting the locality, paying the expenses out of the corporate funds.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Leeman.)
    MR. CAWLEYsaid, he did not oppose the second reading; but he believed the mischief arising from the present system was of the minutest character indeed. He knew of no case in which any municipality had experienced any difficulty whatever. The Bill, however, involved some most important principles; and, if it was to be passed at all, it must be passed after full consideration in Committee—especially as to Clause 5, which was a retrospective one. Proper precautions ought to be taken against lavish expenditure, and the retrospective clause, empowering the Home Secretary to sanction the repayment of costs illegally incurred in years gone by, ought not to be agreed to except on the strongest evidence, and with a knowledge of the cases to which it would apply. Were it applied to Sheffield, it would be a reversal of the decision of a Committee on a private Bill introduced this Session and rejected.
    VISCOUNT MAHONsaid, he was glad that the hon. Member for York (Mr. Leeman) had accepted his proposal of referring this Bill to a Select Committee. The Bill involved such immense changes in the powers of municipal corporations, that he had felt it his duty to place the Motion on the Paper that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee. It was true that

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    the Bill of last year was referred to a Select Committee; but it sat two days, and examined no witnesses. He thought that the interests of the ratepayers required to be protected against the interests of the corporation. In small boroughs the corporations were composed of persons who were sometimes not totally above a little jobbery, and who might be unwisely lavish in expending the ratepayers' money in promoting or opposing Bills. There was another point. He thought the ratepayers might reasonably feel aggrieved by the 2nd clause of the Bill, because by its provisions any measure might be promoted or retarded by an absolute majority of the governing body. That, he thought, was too small a number; he was not prepared to say that it should be a majority consisting of two-thirds; but, as the clause stood, it might happen that some day one or more of the members of the corporation might not be able to attend, and thus a bare majority might carry out schemes hateful to the chief body of the ratepayers. The Quarterly Review for October, in an article attributed to a leading member of the Board of Trade, had pointed out that private persons were the best promoters of undertakings like gas and waterworks. It remarked—
    "Capital will find its own way and do what is wanted, and government, whether general or local, will not. This is principally due to the activity which individuals display in seeking their own profit, as compared with the sluggishness of public governing bodies."
    He could not say what would be the effect of the retrospective clause which had been adverted to; but he would point out that the case of the Sheffield Waterworks would come under it. It was said that the question had been fought by the corporation of Sheffield for the last eight years, and that they had spent about £18,000 in opposing the Waterworks Company. Of this sum £10,000 remained unpaid, and this was a debt incurred since 1870. Well, if the retrospective clause was retained, the Sheffield Corporation would be able to recover this remaining £10,000 from the unfortunate ratepayers.
    MR. MACFIEsaid, he was glad that the Bill was to be read a second time without opposition. He had formed one of a numerous deputation from various parts of England, who waited on the
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    Home Secretary to request that the Government would give their support to the Bill. He had been requested to do so by two Scotch burghs, who sent up their Provosts to that deputation, they being of opinion that the Bill might be extended to Scotland with great advantage, and the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) had given notice of a clause for that purpose. The Bill was really to restore the old state of things, which had been recently disturbed by an unexpected decision of the Court of Session in Edinburgh. According to that decision, even if a Corporation were unanimous in going to Parliament for a Bill or to oppose one, if a single person in the community opposed spending money for that purpose he had a right to prevent it. The best part of the Bill, he considered, was that which had a retrospective action.
    MR. STANLEYsaid, he would not make any remarks at length on the subject of the Bill, as it was to be referred to a Select Committee; but he desired to state that the Select Committee which considered the Bill of last year would have been willing to take evidence, but they had to act under great pressure, owing to the late period of the Session, when any delay would have rendered the loss of the Bill inevitable, and it had been found in the end necessary to withdraw it.
    MR. BRUCEsaid, that though the promoters of the Bill had been good enough to insert the Amendments which had been introduced on the part of the Home Office last year, yet he was very much relieved by the determination to refer the Bill to a Select Committee. In large boroughs, where there was a vigorous public opinion, and wherever the Press was active and vigilant, the powers proposed to be conferred by the Bill might be entrusted to the corporations with safety. But with regard to small boroughs some check was necessary, and it was of the greatest importance that proper checks should be devised. The general policy of late years had been to encourage procedure by Provisional Orders, rather than by Private Acts of Parliament. The difficult question which arose was, to decide in what matters the procedure should be by Provisional Order, or in what by Private Bill. Another point to which the attention of the Select Committee should be directed

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    was to determine which body should have power to make or oppose application to Parliament when there was more than one local authority which might seem concerned in the matter. All these would require great consideration.
    MR. MUNDELLAsupported the Bill. He hoped in the Select Committee to which it would be referred no attempt would be made to postpone its operation by taking voluminous evidence, but that the Government, knowing the position in which corporations were placed, would give the measure their active support.
    MR. M'LARENsaid, he was glad that the Bill was to be referred to a Select Committee. The 5th clause, which had a retrospective effect, he considered to be an essential part of the Bill. In the case which had been referred to by his hon. Friend the Member for Leith (Mr. Macfie) a corporation had promoted a Bill, which, having passed that House, had been thrown out by the Lords. The opponents of the Bill sought to throw the expenses on the promoters, and they accordingly applied for an injunction. The case was recently heard, when three out of four Judges decided that it was not lawful to pay these expenses out of public money. As the expenses were £19,000, and there were 22 trustees, each of these parties would have to pay from £300 to £500 out of his own pocket. Now, unless something was done to alter that law—which never was law in Scotland till last week—very great hardship would be inflicted on corporations. It was quite enough that they gave their time to the public interest, without also running the risk of having to pay such expenses as these out of their own pockets. He gave his hearty support to the Bill.
    MR. DELAHUNTYsaid, he so much approved of the Bill, that he had given Notice to extend its operation to Ireland.
    MR. CRAUFURDsaid, he would not have it supposed that the hon. Members for Edinburgh and Leith represented all Scotland. No doubt the hon. Members were very faithful representatives of their own constituents and town councils, but other parts of Scotland might have different views. Now, so far as he knew, there was no demand in Scotland for this Bill. For his own part, he thought the measure was one of a most objectionable nature, and he was surprised that
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    the Government, who had before the House their own Bill for regulating local administation, should have assented to this Bill being read a second time. He thought some of the provisions of the most extraordinary character. The promoters of the Bill came to the House and said that because certain parties chose to interpret the law in their own way, and to incur unauthorized expenses, and were prevented from paying them out of public money by the decision of a court of law, they were entitled to have inserted in a general Bill a clause which would enable them to recoup themselves by means of rates for the liabilities they had incurred by their own wilful act. He trusted this retrospective power would be struck out. He objected also to that part of the Bill which gave to corporations power to oppose measures in that House which might affect the ratepayers of their particular locality. There might be some reason in this; but they had done without the power for 40 years. But corporations ought not to be allowed to promote Bills competing with private enterprise at the cost of the ratepayers. The members of those bodies ought not to be relieved from their personal liability in case they did not pass their Bills; if they succeeded in passing them, they had in that very success the means of protecting themselves. Even at present a corporation who could show itself interested in opposing a Bill could obtain leave from Parliament to do so. He was therefore glad that his hon. Friend (Mr. Leeman) had consented that this Bill should be sent to a Select Committee where it would undergo the most searching investigation before such legislation could be permitted.
    MR. GREGORYsaid, he hoped the Committee would pay special attention to the interests of the ratepayers. In general he approved the Bill and hoped it would pass.
    Motion agreed to.
    MR. CAWLEYsaid, he thought that the retrospective clause, if it were passed, would apply to Sheffield equally with any other corporation; because there was nothing to prevent the promoters from bringing forward their Bill again. He thought there would be no necessity for this Bill if municipal bodies were placed

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    under the same power of obtaining Provisional Orders as was now given to corporate bodies or individuals.
    MR. LEEMANsaid, he could not allow the Bill to go before a Committee with the idea that the 5th clause was against the feeling of the House, and ought to be negatived. That clause was as just a clause as could possibly be agreed to under the circumstances of the case. He contended that Sheffield had as much right as any other place to claim to be brought under the provisions of the Bill; but there were many other places in the same position as Sheffield. The Corporation of Leeds, having been restrained by an injunction from putting the sewage into the Aire, were promoting a Bill this Session to extricate themselves from that position, and, as the law stood, its members would have to pay the expense of that measure. Birmingham and other places were in the same position.
    MR. CRAUFURDhoped the Committee would be nominated by the Committee of Selection.
    Bill committed to a Select Committee.

    VACCINATION ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
    On Motion of Mr. PEASE, Bill to amend the Vaccination Acts, ordered to be brought in by Mr. PEASE, Mr. LEEMAN, and Sir THOMAS CHAMBERS.
    Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 91.]

    LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (IRELAND) BILL.
    On Motion of The Marquess of HARTINGTON, Bill for constituting a Local Government Board in Ireland, and vesting therein certain functions of the Lord Lieutenant, the Privy Council, and the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, concerning the Public Health and Local Government, together with the powers and duties of the Commissioners for administering the Laws for the Relief of the Poor in Ireland, ordered to be brought in by The Marquess of HARTINGTON and Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND.
    Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 90.]
    House adjourned at Eleven o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Acts of Uniformity Amendment* (43); Bishops Resignation Continuance* (44); Deans and Canons Resignation * (48); Marriages (Society of Friends)* (29).
HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE BILL, SUPREME COURT OF APPEAL BILL.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD CAIRNSsaid, that in order to prevent any misunderstanding as to what had been said by his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack last night, and also on a former occasion, he wished to make one or two observations. Out-of-doors there was an impression that his noble and learned Friend had submitted his Bill for a new Court of Appellate Jurisdiction and other Law Bills to the Judicature Commission, and that they had been considered by a Committee of that Commission. Now, as a Member of the Commission, he (Lord Cairns) knew that no Bill had been submitted to it by his noble and learned Friend, and, consequently, no Bill of his noble and learned Friend

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  could have been referred by the Commission to a Committee of its Members. What private communication his noble and learned Friend might have had with Members of the Commission he had no means of knowing; but beyond the Report of the Commission, made now two years ago, there was no responsibility on the part of the Commission in respect of any Bills introduced by his noble and learned Friend. He wished to call attention to another error into which he believed his noble and learned Friend had fallen. It had reference to the appellate business of their Lordships' House. His noble and learned Friend was reported to have said some time ago, that when he first took his seat in that House the appeals were two Sessions and a-half in arrear. He (Lord Cairns) was surprised when he read that statement, because it did not at all accord with his recollection. He now held in his hand a Return, which showed how the apppeal business stood at the beginning and at the end of the Session of 1868, when he had himself the honour to occupy the place now filled by his noble and learned Friend. From that Return he found that at the beginning of the Session of 1868—the Session immediately preceding the advent of his noble and learned Friend to the Woolsack—the number of appeals set down for hearing was 42, and the number heard during the Session was 38—leaving 4. He did not like to state positively the reason why those four stood over, but he believed it was because the parties objected to their being taken up at a late period of the Session. He thought, therefore, that that Return showed that the information obtained by his noble and learned Friend must have been erroneous.
  LORD WESTBURYwished to ask his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack, whether he was correctly reported this morning as having said last night that—
  "On Thursday next he would make a statement on the subject of the Bill for the establishment of a new Court of Appellate Jurisdiction"—
  Did not his noble Friend state that he would bring in the Bill on Thursday evening?
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he would have been glad if his noble and learned Friend (Lord Cairns) had given Notice of that part of his Question
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  which related to arrears of appeals in their Lordships' House. Not having had such Notice, he had not been in a position to make the necessary inquiries; he would, however, do so, and state the result, if necessary, on a future occasion. He thought there must be some fallacy lurking in the figures. Certainly there must be some difference in the way by which the Return quoted by his noble and learned Friend had been arrived at, and that by which the arrears to which he had referred on a former occasion had been calculated. But, as there had been no Notice, he was not prepared at the moment to explain the discrepancy, and must reserve his answer on this point. As to the other part of his noble and learned Friend's Question, he had to reply that on the first occasion of his reference to his Bill and to the Judicature Commission, he did not say that the Judicature Commission had been engaged in preparing Bills which he intended to introduce. On that occasion he said nothing of the kind. What he did say was, that during the Recess a number of gentlemen, Members of the Commission, had voluntarily formed themselves into a Committee, and had most kindly gone through the Bills to which he was referring. These gentlemen were Lord Justice James, Baron Bramwell, Mr. Justice Quain, and Mr. Hollams. They were members of the Commission, and though they were a self-appointed Committee for the purpose of going through the Bills, he did not think he had fallen into any great errors in his statement. They went most carefully through the whole of the Bills, and made a great number of useful alterations and suggestions and improvements in them. In reply to his noble and learned Friend (Lord Westbury), as to the words attributed to him in the report published that morning, he had to say that the report was perfectly correct. The report most correctly made him say that he would make a statement on Thursday, and not that he would bring in the Bill on that day. He could not have made the latter promise last night, because he had discovered that previously to bringing in the Bill he must move a Resolution, and this he intended to do immediately after the Recess. On a former occasion he stated that he would bring in a Bill, and he had hoped and believed that he

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  would be able to bring it in before Easter. But, on a full consideration of the matter, be found that a previous Resolution would be necessary. He hoped their Lordships would not be of opinion that any apparent delay arose from negligence on his part in the performance of his promises. Both his noble and learned Friends were aware from experience of the amount of business which the Lord Chancellor had to get through, in addition to the duties which he had to perform in that House.
  LORD CAIRNSsaid, his noble and learned Friend's explanation was, as he expected it to be, perfectly satisfactory. His noble and learned Friend was quite entitled to ask any of the members of the Commission to give him such assistance as that which had been rendered by the learned Gentleman he had referred to. The misunderstanding had been that the Bill had been submitted to the Commission, which had referred it to a Committee.

ACTS OF UNIFORMITY AMENDMENT BILL—(No. 43.)
(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)
ACTS OF UNIFORMITY AMENDMENT BILL—(No. 43.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY,in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that in 1869, owing to the growth of certain ritual practices in the Church, Commissioners were appointed to inquire into the differences of practice which had arisen from varying interpretations put upon the rubrics, and directions for regulating the course and conduct of public worship, with a view to secure general uniformity of practice in such matters as might be deemed essential. The Commission had made four Reports. The two first had not yet led to any legislative action. They had reference principally to certain matters connected with the ritual which by the time the Reports were published had become the subject of discussion in the courts of law. Since then the courts of law had pronounced decisions on almost all the questions that were treated of in the first two Reports, and that was perhaps sufficient to accomplish the objects in view. Last year a Bill was passed by both Houses of Parliament for the amendment of the Lectionary, the sub-
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  ject to which the third Report referred. The fourth Report, on which the present Bill was founded, had a wider range, and embraced almost the whole of the rubrics of the Prayer Book, and suggested such alterations as the Commissioners thought desirable in order to effect the object for which the Commission was issued. The subjects treated of in this Report naturally divided themselves into two heads; but the Bill dealt with only one of them, and proposed to carry into effect certain alterations proposed by the Commission by means of a few simple alterations in the Act of Uniformity. The Bill, therefore, was very simple in character, and had obtained the consent of almost every person interested in the Church of England. The greatest care had been taken that all persons and opinions should be represented upon the Commission. Farther than this, the Commission sat for a very long time, and lengthened discussions took place; and the conclusions which they arrived at were the more entitled to consideration because of the great care that had been taken to arrive at them, and because of the unanimity displayed at last among the members of the Commission, after there had been the greatest diversity of opinion at first. The Commission having reported, the constitutional practice was followed by the Crown authorizing the representative bodies of the clergy of the Provinces of Canterbury and York to consider the Report, and further to report to Her Majesty thereon. In Convocation, also, it might be anticipated that considerable diversity of opinion would exist; but the Report had received the approval of members of both Houses of Convocation, with very rare exceptions. This was the only constitutional mode in which the voice of the clergy could be heard upon such a matter; and Convocation did, perhaps, fairly enough represent the clergy. He might say also that this Bill had the approbation of the laity, as represented on the Commission. It appeared to the members of the Commission that the first thing that they had to do was to give greater liberty where it was right that liberty should be enjoyed, and that there should be required greater uniformity in matters where it was desirable; and these two things were represented in the provisions of the Bill. There were five

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  provisions in the measure. The first had reference to the ordinary daily services of the Church. It was the conviction of all who had carefully considered the subject that in this busy age there would be great difficulty in securing the presence of anything like a congregation on week days for the ordinary services of the Church. At all events, the conviction of the members of the Commission was that there were many persons who would desire to avail themselves of the benefit of the daily service of the Church if they could do so at a less sacrifice of time, such as would not interfere with their ordinary avocations—if, in fact, they could have an abridged service, and so be able to accommodate their ordinary avocations in life to a daily attendance at church. The first provision in the Bill, therefore, was that a shortened form of Morning and Evening Prayer might be used in churches on any day except Sunday, and the usual great Church festivals. The second provision had reference to special occasions which might arise in any parish—such as a great deliverance from sickness, or a thanksgiving at the close of the harvest season—and it was provided that there might on such occasions be such a special form of service in the church as might be approved by the Ordinary. The third provision had reference to Sunday services. It was provided by law that in all churches there should be certain morning and evening services; but the zeal of the clergy had led them, in populous places, to establish a third service; and for the sake of the clergy and the laity also it had been held to be desirable that there should be power legally of holding a third service, without repetition of the same words. The third provision, therefore, settled that there might be an extra service upon the Sunday differing from the ordinary morning and evening services; but it was also provided that there should be no variation from mere caprice, and therefore that, with the exception of anthems or hymns, the additional service should be taken from the Prayer Book or Bible—and that the whole shall have been approved by the Ordinary. This enactment, it was believed, would be a great advantage to large towns; it seemed to confer a power of setting apart for persons of but little advancement in education a religious
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  service that should have somewhat of a missionary character, and which service it was trusted might greatly add to the influence of the Church among the ignorant and the poor in certain neglected parishes, and greatly conduce to their spiritual and, through their spiritual, to their temporal welfare. The fourth provision had to do with the removal of doubts as to the legality of using the several services of the Church as separate services. He had himself no doubt on the subject; but as doubts did exist, it was desirable to remove them. The fifth provision of the Bill was also one for removing a doubt. There seemed to be question whether a sermon might be preached without the ordinary service having been previously read:—the clause therefore provided that it should be sufficient if the sermon were preceded by any service authorized by this Act, or by the Bidding Prayer, or by one prayer taken from the Prayer Book. It was thought that a sermon without the usual service might, in some instances, attract many auditors who, from various causes, were not otherwise likely to attend. Their Lordships were aware that by a special clause in the Act of Uniformity there might be a sermon in the Universities without a service preceding it—it was thought desirable that the same liberty should be extended to our parish churches. Sermons delivered in cathedrals under such circumstances might be attended with very beneficial results. Those were the provisions of the Bill. He regarded it as no slight matter that, amid the differences of opinion which must always arise in a thoughtful and active age, this measure had received the hearty approval of the clergy and laity of almost every shade of opinion. He believed there were not those serious differences of opinion which some persons represented as existing in the Church of England. On the contrary, he thought that the reception of this Bill showed that there existed a hearty unity among Churchmen in the desire to make the Church of England more useful to all classes of the people. There were differences of opinion among Churchmen; but he, for one, did not desire to see that leaden uniformity which was to be found among a people who had no ardent zeal for religious matters. He would rather see differences of opinion among men who thought for themselves, and who,

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  thinking for themselves, were earnest in the work they had in hand. He believed that nothing would tend more to heal differences among Churchmen than such helps as this Bill provided to enable the clergy to perform their duty.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, he did not intend to place any obstruction in the way of the measure, for he thought that the amendments proposed by the Bill were called for by the opinion of the country, and the most rev. Primate had done well in responding to that opinion. He admitted that some of the changes proposed to be effected would be very beneficial; but he must point out that the course of reform must be deeper and more searching, if they wished to call back into the folds of the Church the hundreds and thousands of people who had wandered from her, and to induce those who had never been within her bosom to avail themselves of her teaching. He thought it possible that, under this Bill, there might at first arise a diversity of service in different dioceses and parishes. Now, if the right rev. Bench desired to conform to the wishes of the people, it might be desirable that he should call attention to the 4th and 5th clauses of the Bill, which he thought were at present extremely ambiguous. If the 4th and 5th clauses were read together, there would be a doubt as to whether it would not be in the power of the Ordinary to prevent evening Communion. The practice of having evening Communion had grown up of late years, and great value was everywhere attached to it. For one working man or woman in these localities who went to noon-day Communion, there would be four, five, or even ten, who went in the evening. If our Church, then, was to be the Church of the people, it was necessary to consider and respect the habits and modes of life of the working population. He should regard such a prohibition as a great evil. There had sprung up, especially in London, a habit among working women of attending the evening services of the Church. From personal observation, he knew that in districts where an attendance at an afternoon service could scarcely be secured, the church was filled to overflowing at the evening services, and working women, who could not at-
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  tend at other times, came carrying their infants at their breasts. He knew that the most rev. Primate was as anxious for the temporal and spiritual welfare of the people as any man in this country, and, therefore, he had every confidence that his Grace would introduce an Amendment to remove the doubt to which he had referred.
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONbelieved be might answer for the most rev. Primate. It was intended to lay before their Lordships an Amendment to clear up any ambiguity on the point referred to by the noble Earl. He was not about to enter on the question of legality or illegality of evening Communion. There was a great difference of opinion as to its legality, and also as to its advisability; but the Bill would leave these questions as they now stood.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.

DEANS AND CANONS RESIGNATION BILL.
(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)
(NO. 48.) SECOND READING.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY,in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that the Bill, which had come up from the Commons, might, perhaps, occasion some surprise; but he hoped the time had passed when the offices of Dean and Canon could be regarded as sinecures of the Church. He believed they were offices to which grave responsibility attached, and which were of very considerable importance to the Church of England. He did not think the Bill went to the whole root of the matter. Earnest as was the desire on the part of the members of the various bodies to perform their functions in the Church, they continually found themselves thwarted by the existence of old statutes and old regulations which it would be very desirable that their Lordships should take into consideration; but that would be a matter for future deliberation. Within the last two or three weeks more than one meeting of the Cathedral Chapters had been held at Lambeth, and but one spirit had animated all those who were present at

231
those meetings as to the necessity of making our cathedrals more general and useful to the whole community than they had been during the age which had just passed. The anxious desire of all persons connected with cathedrals was to make them thoroughly useful as integral and important parts of the Church of England system. The wish now was to make our cathedrals not only the homes of learned men, and temples in which large congregations gathered together to hear the Word of God, but to make them the centres, in all senses, of the dioceses. At the last meeting, though there was a great difference of opinion as to whether it would be desirable to make any appeal to Parliament for an alteration in the statutes, there was only one opinion as to the Cathedral Bodies having a great duty to perform. Such being the case, the offices of Canons and Deans could not be regarded as sinecures, and it was desirable that they should have the power of resigning in the same manner as the Bishops had by the Act, a Bill for the continuance of which their Lordships had just read a second time.
Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a "—(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYhoped that the anticipations of the most rev. Primate with regard to the cathedrals and the Cathedral Bodies would be realized. He rose to express his gratitude to the most rev. Primate for the several Bills of which he had moved the second reading that evening, which had been introduced not only, he thought, with the best intention, but with wise judgment. He desired, however, to offer a few criticisms. The 6th and 7th clauses of this Bill would affect certain members of the Universities who, in addition to other offices, held that of Canon. He thought there were two Heads of Colleges at Oxford and one at Cambridge in that position, and those Colleges viewed with apprehension the power which the Bill would give the Bishops to deprive them of their Heads—that was to say, to declare them lunatics, and remove them out of the way.
THE BISHOP OF OXFORDthought that the fears which the noble Marquess had expressed on behalf of the Heads of certain Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge were altogether groundless. It would not be in his power under this
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Bill, or in that of his right rev. Brother (the Bishop of Ely), to declare those eminent persons lunatics in the off-hand way the noble Marquess seemed to suppose. This point affected himself more nearly than any other of his reverend Brethren. By the 8th clause, both the collegiate churches in the diocese of Oxford were taken out of his jurisdiction. The case of the Chapel of St. George, Windsor, was intelligible enough; but he was at a loss to imagine why Christ's Church should be withdrawn. If both the Queen's Chapel of St. George at Windsor and Christ Church were to be taken out of the diocese of Oxford, it might be said that that diocese was without a cathedral, and the further question might then arise in some minds whether any other diocese would not do as well without a cathedral.
THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGHregarded this Bill as the commencement of a series of measures of importance and usefulness to the Church to be introduced into the House; but, at the same time, thought that it would require amendment on one or two points.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYpointed out that the Dean of Christ Church stood in so peculiar a position, from the fact of his being the Head of a College, that the jurisdiction over him ought to be, not in the Bishop of Oxford, but in the Archbishop.
After a few observations from Lord LYTTELTON,
Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.

MARRIAGES (SOCIETY OF FRIENDS) BILL.—(No. 30.) (The Lord Romilly.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  LORD ROMILLY,in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, stated that it had already passed the other House of Parliament. The object of the measure was to amend the law with regard to the marriages of those who professed to belong to the Society of Friends. Quakers' marriages were omitted from the 26th George II.; but they were sanctioned by the Act 6 & 7 Will. IV., c. 85, in cases where both parties were members of the Society of Friends. By

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  the 23rd & 24th of Her present Majesty, c. 81, this restriction was removed, and marriages might be solemnized according to the usages of the Society, not only in the previous cases, but in cases where one only, or where neither of the parties to the marriage should be members of the Society; but with the proviso that the party or parties who should not be a member or members of the Society, should profess with or be of the persuasion of the Society. As this proviso, however, limited the relief proposed to be given by the Act, in order that it might be made fully effective this Bill proposed to repeal it. The Society of Friends had religious ceremonies of their own, according to which they desired their members to be married, and they objected to marriages before the Registrar. But a considerable class of persons, who approved of the ceremonies of the Society of Friends as regarded marriage and some other matters, but who did not entirely profess with the Society, were excluded by the law as it now stood from being married according to their ceremonies. As, however, it was obvious that evils might arise from the Bill as it stood without any safeguards from abuse, he would not have consented to introduce this measure unless it had been agreed that it should be amended in Committee, by requiring that, in addition to the particulars already required by law, the registering officer of the Society should add a certificate under his hand that the parties to such marriage were persons duly authorized under the rules of the Society to solemnize their marriage according to the usages of the Society, and this certificate should form part of the register of such marriages; and that without such registration the marriage should not be valid.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Romilly.)
  LORD CAIRNSsaid, he was afraid this Bill would still further widen the gap that at present existed in our marriage law. This was a proposal to permit persons who, up to the day of their marriage, had no connection whatever with the Society of Friends to get married according to the forms of that Society. Although the Bill appeared to be a small one, and to concern a body which was not numerous, still he asked their Lordships to consider whether by passing
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  it they would not be opening the door to an alteration of the whole marriage law as relating to all persons who were not members of the Church of England.
  LORD ROMILLYexplained that marriages according to the forms of the Society of Friends were celebrated only in solemn assembly, according to express form, after careful inquiry. The Society of Friends had their own registrar, who registered the marriage; and, if the clause which he proposed to introduce was adopted, the entry of the marriage made by the registrar of the Society of Friends must afterwards be sent to the regular registrar of the parish.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDasked whether parties who were not members of the Society of Friends could not be married in those solemn assemblies? The Bill would seem to give no guarantee that the parties contracting the marriage must be members of the Society of Friends, and if such a measure were passed other Nonconformist bodies might come forward and claim to have the same privilege extended to them.
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONasked what security there was that those who were not members of the Society of Friends might not avail themselves of the privilege?
  THE LORD CHANCELLORwas prepared to support the second reading of the Bill, subject to the alteration which the noble and learned Lord (Lord Romilly) had described, and also to any other alteration which might be necessary. There appeared to be a desire on the part of some people holding peculiar religious opinions to superinduce a religious service upon the civil ceremony of marriage.
  In answer to The Marquess of SALISBURY,
  LORD ROMILLYwas understood to say that at present he believed those marriages were registered only by the registrar of the Society of Friends.
  LORD CAIRNSsuggested that the debate should be adjourned, to enable the noble and learned Lord who had charge of the Bill to frame safeguards that would obviate objections.
  LORD ROMILLYpressed his Motion for the second reading of the Bill in the form in which it came from the other House; but promised not to go into Committee upon it until it contained all the proper clauses.
  LORD CHELMSFORDrecommended the adjournment of the debate.
  On Question, That ("now") stand part of the Motion? their Lordships divided:—Contents 14; Not-Contents 13: Majority 1.
  Resolved in the Affirmative.
  Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on the first sitting day after the Recess at Easter.

MARRIAGE LAW COMMISSION (1865.)

  OBSERVATIONS. QUESTION.
  LORD CHELMSFORDcalled attention to the Report of the Marriage Law Commission presented to the House in the year 1868, and asked, Whether the Government have any intention of taking steps to carry out the recommendations of the Commissioners for the Amendment of the law? His reason for doing so at the present time was that since 1868 the subject appeared to have been utterly forgotten. Their Lordships doubtless recollected the remarkable case of a lady who claimed to be the wife of a major either by a marriage in Scotland or a marriage in Ireland. The question was tried in the Courts in Scotland and in Ireland, and ultimately came before their Lordships, who decided that neither the Scotch nor Irish marriage was good. The case excited much attention, and much discussion arose upon it; and the result gave rise to a desire that the state of the marriage law should be inquired into, and a Question was asked in the House of Commons upon the subject by an hon. Member, who expressed the opinion that Scotland, as far as its marriage laws were concerned, was not a civilized country. Lord Palmerston replied that the question was a large one, and declined to promise off-hand that the Government would take the matter into consideration; but on the Question being repeated in the following Session, Sir George Grey said that the Government had advised Her Majesty to issue a Royal Commission. Accordingly in 1865, a Commission was appointed to inquire into and report upon the various laws now in force in the United Kingdom with respect to marriage. He (Lord Chelmsford) was himself appointed head of the Commission, and of the body of
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  the Commission he could say that a better selection of men could not have been made. It included the present Lord Chancellor, Lord Cairns, the late Lord Mayo, Lord Penzance, the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Mr. Monsell, the present Lord Justice General, the present Lord Advocate, Mr. Dunlop, Mr. Walpole, Sir Roundell Palmer, and the Queen's Advocate. The Commission began their labours by examining persons of experience from different parts of the kingdom who were acquainted with the marriage law, and he must express his regret that the concise statements which were made were not printed in the Appendix with the Report; and at the request of the Commissioners he issued a Circular, which was sent to every authority in the kingdom, including the heads of the Nonconformist Body and the Chief Rabbi of the Jews, asking for information, which was furnished, and proved to be most valuable. This information was printed in the Appendix of the Report. The Commissioners then examined witnesses selected from various religious bodies, and if any of the Commissioners were absent at any time attending to their ordinary official duties a copy of the evidence taken during their absence was sent to them. The Report of the Commissioners was signed by the whole body; but the Lord Chancellor of Ireland and Mr. Monsell dissented from part of the Report on religious grounds; and the Lord Justice General differed entirely from all the references to Scotland, and, with pardonable partiality for the institution of his country, declared his conviction that the marriage law of Scotland was preferable in theory and principle to the marriage law of England, and that in practice it had been very beneficial in its influence upon the social condition of the country. He was afraid, however, the Lord Justice General had not considered the evidence as to the moral effect of the law in certain cases. The primary object of the Commission was to bring the marriage law in the several parts of the United Kingdom into unison, and with this object in view the Commissioners laid down what they deemed to be the principles of a sound marriage law. They made most important recommendations as to the inquiries preliminary to marriage, and expressed their opinion that the publication of banns

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  ought not to be required by law as a condition either of legality or of regularity in a marriage. The Commissioners also recommended the total abolition of fees on marriage; and said that if their recommendations were adopted the enactments necessary to give effect to them should be embodied in a single statute, and that all the existing statutes on the subject should be repealed. He ought to mention that all the recommendations made by the Commissioners had received the sanction of the different religious bodies, with some few exceptions. In concluding their Report the Commissioners said that if their recommendations became law the great object of uniformity would be accomplished, the law of marriage would be simplified and consolidated, guarantees for the certainty of marriage would be obtained without any infringement of religious liberty, without causing any antagonism between the Church and the State, and without sensible interference with the methods in which marriages have been hitherto solemnized in England, Scotland, and Ireland. It would surely be a great reproach to the country if a Report of this kind, made by such distinguished Commissioners, was allowed to fall to the ground and produce no fruits. In the year 1869 he asked his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack whether the Government intended to give effect to the Commissioners' Report. The noble and learned Lord in his reply said a number of things were occupying the attention of the Government, and mentioned in particular the patent law, the bankruptcy law, charitable trusts, and the review of our system of judicature. The subject, his noble and learned Friend added, was one which affected every family in the kingdom; that sufficient time had certainly not been given to the public to consider what might result from the alterations recommended by the Commissioners; and that although to proceed with immediate legislation on the subject might present the appearance of vigour and alacrity, still the Government might bring on itself a charge of hasty and inconsiderate legislation. These words were uttered very nearly three years ago, and if the Government were now to legislate on the subject they could hardly suffer from any imputation of undue haste. Whether Government could legislate without consideration
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  must depend on the answer which his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack was about to give, for if the subject had not been considered by the Government they would hardly be prepared to bring in a Bill. He trusted, however, that the noble and learned Lord would be able to assure the House that a measure on this important subject, which, as he had himslf remarked, affected every family in the kingdom, would be presented to Parliament.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, it was impossible to find fault with his noble and learned Friend for having brought this matter to their Lordships attention; and the public must be greatly indebted to him both for his earnest efforts to promote the inquiry and for his constant attendance at the sittings of the Commission. There was, however, one circumstance which would in some degree explain what appeared to his noble and learned Friend to be the unreasonable delay of the Government in introducing a measure founded on their Report. Three years were occupied in making the inquiry, and this was owing not only to the number of persons examined, but also to the fact that most of the Commissioners had other important duties to perform. His noble and learned Friend, for instance, held the office of Lord Chancellor during a considerable portion of that time.
  LORD CHELMSFORD: But I attended all the meetings.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: No doubt his noble and learned Friend attended all the meetings; but the delay was occasioned by the intervals between the meetings. But it should also be remembered that this Report referred to one only of many important legal reforms affecting large classes of the community. When any Government took office it was the duty of each officer in his particular Department to see what were the subjects on which legislation was most necessary. The present Government had been reproached—and perhaps justly so in some degree—for having been over-laborious in preparing so many measures for the approbation of Parliament that it became almost hopeless to expect they could all be carried through the Legislature. He might assert with safety, however, that in the history of our country there could hardly be found in any three successive

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  years such a large number of important measures passed through the Legislature as had been carried since the present Government came into office. It was only necessary to specify the Irish Church Act, the Irish Land Act, and the Education Act—to say nothing of the important measures which were under consideration this Session, and which he hoped would pass into law. As regarded his own Department, he thought it sufficient if one large measure were undertaken at a time. The first and most important question was, in his opinion, the law of bankruptcy, which had already occupied the attention of three Chancellors and of two very able Attorneys General. Another pressing subject was our system of judicature. He had succeeded last Session in passing the High Court of Justice Bill through their Lordships' House, although from pressure of business in the other House it did not become law. That Bill, and the Bill on Appellate Jurisdiction, still occupied attention, and would, he hoped, be brought before their Lordships immediately after the Easter Recess. Under these circumstances, it did not seem wise to undertake a measure for the alteration of the law of marriage. Other subjects had been mentioned, as, for instance, the patent law and the state of the law respecting the title and registration of land. On the latter a Commission had reported several years ago; but their recommendation had not yet been carried into effect. With regard to the marriage law, it was undoubtedly a very important measure; but it was for the Government to consider whether there was any chance of its passing in the present state of public business, and whether it was wise to bring forward five or six measures at once with a certainty of succeeding in none. They had next to consider what measures it was best to postpone, and what sort of hope there was that a given measure would secure that general approbation of the public which was so conducive to its success. His noble and learned Friend (Lord Chelmsford) laid great stress on the fact that the House had the valuable Report drawn up by the Royal Commission, and recommending the introduction of the Bill. That there were difficulties to be met was evident on the face of the Report. It must be remembered, in the first place, that the Lord Justice General dissented from
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  the Report, because, while concurring in other respects with the Report, he held to views of his own with respect to the marriage law of Scotland; and, in fact, several Scotch witnesses recommended the adoption of their own law, in order to promote uniformity. Irish witnesses would probably have similar preference for their own law. Dr. Moriarty, on the part of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, pointed out that a measure based upon the Report of the Royal Commission was not likely to obtain any degree of concurrenc eon the part of the priesthood, who would be opposed to anything which would appear to connect them with the civil registrars, although they would be ready to send in certificates of marriage if required. A third difficulty arose in presence of the very large number of persons who thought that the proper mode of dealing with the marriage question was that the civil contract should be the only one recognized by the State, leaving it to the persons concerned to superimpose upon that process whatever other ceremony they might please to select. Still another difficulty was presented by the divergence between the divorce law of Scotland and the divorce law of England. Scotch lawyers, and possibly a majority of the Scotch nation, thought that their law, which permitted divorce upon proof of adultery, was the best and most moral law that could be enacted; while English lawyers and a majority of the English nation held that their own law was the better of the two. The mere mention of these difficulties was sufficient to show that the Bill was not one which could be passed through Parliament without a considerable amount of discussion and opposition. He was not stating that nothing was to be done, nor was he making any excuse for any amount of laziness which might be laid to his personal charge. But it was incumbent upon him to weigh the amount of time at his disposal against the number of pressing measures claiming his attention, and to make a selection of what he thought it best for the interests of the country to give precedence to. He had made his selection, and he must decline to alter it in favour of a marriage law, unless he saw some better prospect than at present existed of carrying it through the House this Session.
  LORD LYVEDENfelt bound to say that, having been one of the Commission, he had rarely met with a subject that had received a greater amount of attention. He thought that in the present state of Business before their Lordships it would have been possible, during the sort of half-holiday they had kept, to have introduced a measure relating to the marriage law, and to have brought the Report of the Commission before the public, who knew little of its existence. The only difficulty in passing such a Bill would lie with the Scotch and Irish Members of the House of Commons. All Scotchmen affirmed that the Scotch marriage law was the most religious and moral ever passed, and infinitely more so than the law of England; whereas most Englishmen had the opposite opinion. He did not reproach the noble and learned Lord for not taking action in this matter. It was not so much his fault as the fault of the present system, under which nothing could be done until some sensational case arose, and then the necessity for legislation was admitted, and efforts made to meet it. No measures for the advancement of the happiness and welfare of mankind could be passed unless there was some party interest to support them. It was the same throughout every part of the law. They had recently had two monstrous cases, from one of which it appeared that an impostor could put persons to an expense of £100,000 to retain their estates; and from the other that a scoundrel could place people in even a worse position by means of affidavits, made under a system which he understood was sanctioned by the Attorney General.
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPONrebutted the allegation of the noble Lord (Lord Lyveden) that at the present day no measures were passed that were not of a sensational character, by pointing to many useful and practical measures which had been passed of late years which did not come within that description. It would be useless for the Government to attempt to carry any measure on this subject during the present Session, having regard to the present state of Public Business; but he saw no reason why the noble and learned Lord opposite (Lord Chelmsford) should not himself undertake to bring forward a Bill which would embody his views on the subject.
  LORD CHELMSFORDsaid, he should deprecate such a measure as the one he suggested being brought forward by a non-official Member of their Lordships' House.
  House adjourned at a quarter before Eight o'clock, to Thursday next, half past Ten o'clock.