Sitting of 9 June 1873

MINUTES.
NEW WRIT ISSUED—For Devon (Southern Division), v. Samuel Trehawke Kekewich, esquire, deceased.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Betting Houses* [185]; Municipal Corporation (Borough Funds)* [186].
Second Reading—Supreme Court of Judicature [154], debate adjourned.
Third Reading—Juries (Ireland)* [166]; Marriages Legalization, Saint John's Chapel, Eton* [179], and passed.

ENDOWED SCHOOLS COMMISSIONERS —DAVID HUGHES'S CHARITY.

  QUESTION.
  MR. DAVIESasked the Vice President of the Council, Whether it is intended to reintroduce the scheme of the Endowed School Commissioners for David Hughes's Charity at Beaumaris, presented to Parliament last year but withdrawn in consequence of an Address being presented to Her Majesty from the House of Lords objecting to the scheme, because the bishop of the diocese was not named an ex officio governor?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER,in reply, said, that the other House had agreed to a Motion for an Address to the Queen, objecting to the scheme of the Endowed Schools Commissioners for the school in question, on the ground that the Commissioners had found themselves obliged, in deference to the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown, not to name the Bishop of the diocese or the incumbent of the parish as an ex officio governor. The whole question was now being considered by the Select Committee upstairs, and would have to be considered by the House; and he did not, therefore, think it would be wise for the Commissioners to bring forward a scheme affecting it, until that consideration had been given.

  NAVY—THE "ROWENA"—SHIPPING AGENTS.—QUESTION.
  SIR JOHN HAYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, If he will lay upon the Table Copies of the Papers on the subject of Transport "Rowena;" and, of any Reports by the Director of Transports on the employment of Shipping Agents?
  MR. GOSCHEN,in reply, said, that the case to which the Question of the hon. and gallant Baronet referred was one of sea damage to a small cargo of naval stores, which were consigned to the Cape in October, 1870. On account of the length of time which had elapsed, and of certain questions of liability which were involved, he thought it would not be desirable to furnish the Papers asked for. In answer to the second part of the Question, no Reports had been made. The system had worked satisfactorily during the last two years, and no Government Stores had suffered damage, notwithstanding that many accidents of the nature had happened to the Mercantile Marine.

METROPOLIS WATER ACT (1871).

  QUESTION.
  MR. AGAR-ELLISasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, What steps he has taken, or is about to take, to remedy the defects of the Metropolis Water Act of 1871, as the constant supply Clause has proved to be altogether inoperative for ensuring a constant high-pressure service of water for fires in the metropolis?
  MR. STANSFELD,in reply, said, he had taken no steps in the matter. The state of the law was, that it rested with the Metropolitan Board of Works, in the first instance, to require a constant supply of water, and if they refused to make the request, or there was any unreasonable delay in making it, the Local Government Board might require the thing to be done. He was not aware that any action had been taken by the Metropolitan Board in the case referred to in the Question but if there were any unreasonable delay in the matter, the Local Government Board would have to consider what course it was desirable to pursue.

  THE INDIAN BUDGET.—QUESTION.
  MR. R. N. FOWLERasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he is in a position to fix a day for the consideration of the Indian Budget; and, whether he will be able to carry out the recommendation of the Committee on East Indian Finance that the Budget should be brought forward in future in February?
  MR. GLADSTONE,in reply, said, that he did not think the time had yet come for fixing a day for the consideration of the Indian Budget. He should, however, endeavour to secure the object which the hon. Gentleman, no doubt, had in view, by giving a day for it before the greater portion of hon. Members had dispersed. As to the second part of the Question, he had to state that as the recommendation of the Committee did not relate to the Budget, properly speaking, so much as to an audit of accounts up to the financial year ending the 31st of March preceding, he saw no good reason why it should not be acted on. The Government certainly would be very much disposed to give it effect.

  ARMY—THE AUXILIARY FORCES— VOLUNTEER BANDS.—QUESTION.
  LORD ELCHOasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether his attention has been drawn to the statement in the newspapers that a volunteer band appeared in uniform in the recent trades procession on Whit Monday; and, whether he approves of volunteers or volunteer bands taking part in political demonstrations; and, if not, whether he will cause an order to be issued forbidding it in future?
  MR. CARDWELL: Sir, by the existing Regulations no portion of the Auxiliary Forces is permitted to take part in any public procession or ceremony without the special authority of the General Officer commanding the district. I need scarcely say that no such authority was applied for in the present instance. By another Regulation, no band of Volunteers is permitted to appear in uniform without the authority of its commanding officer.

VISIT OF THE SHAH OF PERSIA.

  QUESTIONS.
  MR. DENISONasked the First Lord of the Treasury, If he will communicate to the House any detailed programme of the proposed reception and entertainment of the Shah of Persia and his Ministers? His Question, he might add, had reference only to those greater occasions in which the general public might be supposed to be more especially interested, and not to any Royal hospitalities within the precincts of the Palace.
  MR. GLADSTONE,in reply, said, that taking the Question as it stood on the Paper, it had been replied to on more than one previous occasion. He could, therefore, only repeat what had been said before, and what probably the hon. Member expected—namely, that it was impossible to give any detailed programme of the proceedings during the Shah's visit. Some discretion must be left to those who were responsible for those proceedings, and it was not even desirable that the Foreign Sovereign, in whose honour there was to be a manifestation of any kind, should be made to view everything as if he were being put on drill.
  MR. RYLANDS,referring to a recent statement of the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for India, to the effect that the hon. Member for Penryn (Mr. Eastwick) possessed great influence in the councils of Teheran, wished to know whether the hon. Gentleman would, by the desire of the Government, be one of the Gentlemen in attendance on the Shah?
  VISCOUNT ENFIELDsaid, as the hon. Gentleman had not given him Notice of the Question, he would, perhaps, be kind enough to repeat it to-morrow, when he should be happy to give him an answer.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSONsaid, a rumour had reached him that the House should adjourn over some day next week in honour of the festivities on the occasion of the Shah's visit; he wished to know whether the rumour was correct?
  MR. GLADSTONE: I have heard nothing of the rumour alluded to by the hon. Baronet.

  CRIMINAL LAW—CHIPPING NORTON MAGISTRATES.—EXPLANATION.
  MR. BRUCE: Sir, I have received a Report from the clerk to the visiting justices of the county gaol at Oxford on the complaints of Mary and Elizabeth Pratley as to the insufficiency of food for themselves and children, and general neglect and ill-treatment during their imprisonment, and the absence of inquiry by the visiting justices and other prison authorities as to the sufficiency of their food. I am informed that Mr. Hammersley, the Chairman of quarter sessions, and two other visiting justices visited the gaol on the 24th of May, two days after the admission of the prisoners, and they state that all the women were asked by the Chairman in the presence of the governor and the matron, whether they had any complaint to make, and that they answered they had not. Two surgeons who attended the prison saw these women, and state that they were healthy, received sufficient food, and although asked if they had any complaint to make, made none. The matron of the prison states—
  "Both the mothers and children were healthy on their admission, and also on their discharge. They were furnished with the same diet as all other prisoners with babies have been during the 12 years I have been in the prison, where I have had many such under my charge, and according to the rule and dietary table which has been always found to be sufficient, and has never occasioned any complaint. Each child was supplied every morning and every evening with a full half-pint of new milk, and also with six ounces of bread each day, usually allowed for babies. In addition to the above diet, I made some sop with sugar for Elizabeth Pratley's child each day, as she told me her child had been accustomed to have sugar. I asked each prisoner every night at supper, whether they had got all they required for the children, and they always answered in a satisfactory and contented manner that they had. The prisoners did not on arrival complain of any cold or damp, and during their imprisonment did not complain to me of anything, excepting that Mary Pratley, two days after admission, complained of rheumatism, when I asked her if she would see the doctor, but she did not think it was necessary to do so. Each prisoner slept on a wooden bedstead and straw mattress, and was supplied with a rug, a sheet, and two blankets. I was present when the three visiting justices saw the prisoners, and I heard the Chairman inquire whether they had any complaint to make, and they answered they had not. I never noticed that Mary Pratley's child had a cough, and I must have observed or heard it if it had been so; and certainly I never found or saw her child suffering on Sunday from a cough, as she has stated."

  METROPOLIS—HYDE PARK—THE REGULATIONS.—QUESTION.
  MR. COLLINS, (for Mr. J. LOWTHER,)asked, What are the Regulations relating to the admission of persons on horseback into the central enclosure of Hyde Park; and, whether such regulations were carried into effect on Monday, June 2nd?
  MR. BRUCEin reply, said, that the police on duty in the Park on the day mentioned by the hon. Member were not at first aware that the procession was headed by a certain number of mounted men, and that when they found that it was so headed, believing that if they interfered they would cause confusion, and exercising the best of their judgment at the moment, they allowed the mounted men to enter the enclosure. It was, however, against the rules that horsemen should be allowed to enter that enclosure, and strict orders had been given to prevent such an infraction of the rules in future.

  ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  Ordered, That the Orders of the Day subsequent to the Order for the Second Reading of the Supreme Court of Judicature Bill be postponed until after the Notice of Motion of Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer relative to the Mail Contracts for the Cape of Good Hope and Zanzibar Mails.—(Mr. Gladstone.)
  SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE BILL (Lords)— [BILL 154.]
  (Mr. Attorney General.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL,in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, it would be his duty to state as shortly and as clearly as possible the general principles of the measure to which he was about to ask the House to give its assent. So far as the drafting of the measure was concerned, his noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor—taking, in some degree, the Law Officers of the Crown into his counsel—was responsible; but the noble and learned Lord would, no doubt, admit that the Bill itself was, to a large extent, an embodiment of the recommendations of the Judicature Commissions,

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  which was itself the result of a considerable amount of Parliamentary discussion which had been had on the subject, and which had created an opinion out-of-doors on the question. No doubt, the matter had first taken tangible form in the memorable speech which had been delivered by the noble and learned Lord in that House in 1867, and the influence and authority of the noble and learned Lord had doubtless given to the question an impulse which it might otherwise have wanted. The subject was fortunately one entirely removed from the ordinary regions of party politics; but while labouring under that disadvantage, every candid person must admit, at the same time, that it was one on which it was necessary that a competent opinion should be created out-of-doors before the attention of Parliament could be successfully directed towards it. He hoped that by that time there had been sufficient discussion in and out of that House to enable them to deal with it once for all, and that the Bill would be found, he would not say so perfect as to shut out all future legislation, but a large and valuable contribution to that portion of law reform. Without entering into a lengthened history of the subject, or a defence of the law of England as at present administered, or of the tribunals which administered that law, he might say, as one who had passed a large portion of his life in its study, that he had formed a strong opinion that, whatever might be the defects in the law, they were to be attributed, not to the learned Judges who administered it, but to the fact that the system on which it was founded, having grown up during the Middle Ages, was incapable of being adapted to the requirements of modern times. While saying, on the whole, that whatever might be its defects, it was founded on substantial justice and common sense, yet it was beyond controversy, that in many instances our procedure was impracticable and inconvenient, for no one practically conversant with its details could deny that there were certain great defects in them which ought to be remedied. First of all, there was the broad distinction which had become inveterate between what was called in this country Law and Equity. In other countries, the distinction existed, and must always exist; but in this country alone, Law and
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  Equity were made the subject of separate and even conflicting jurisdiction. A second defect of their system had been a great waste of judicial power. Many questions which came before the Common Law Courts were questions rather for the determination of a single Judge than a Court of four persons, highly paid, and generally men of first-rate ability. It was no answer to the statement that there had been a great waste of judicial power, to say that as the business of the country had increased more Judges had been made, because so long as we went on making more Judges and occupied them in the same Courts, we really only intensified the mischief, and did not to any appreciable extent diminish the evil of a waste of judicial power. Another great defect of the present system had been the Terms and Vacations of the legal year. The Terms had been altered in some respects, that was to say the beginning and the end of Terms had been fixed by Act of Parliament, but, practically speaking, and without going into antiquarian discussion, the Terms and the Vacations remained what they were in the Middle Ages. Many things could be done in Term only, and the singular practical inconvenience which arose from that cause must have struck everyone having any knowledge of the subject. An example of that had occurred recently. His noble and learned Friend had stated in the other House, that a question arising on a summons which was issued by a magistrate in November last, with reference to an alleged breach of the Parks Regulation Act, could not be decided, owing to the present system of Vacations, by a Common Law Court before the latter part of January last, although many other similar cases were depending on the decision with reference to that summons. Another great defect of our present system had been the exceedingly imperfect constitution, and the still more imperfect working, at any rate, on the Common Law side, of our Courts of Appeal. The operation of their intermediate Court of Appeal was bad and intermittent; and no man, whatever might be his view of the constitutional position of the House of Lords, who had had any knowledge of its practical working, could deny, that a more indefensible institution as a judicial institution it was hardly possible to con-

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  ceive. Although lawyers had been able to maintain a poor sort of living, still everyone knew that the people who went into a Court of Law were greatly the exception. Very few persons, comparatively speaking, ever went to law, and very few who had gone once would ever go again; and those people who had enjoyed the luxury of an appeal to the House of Lords must be very few indeed. When they had got a great appeal decided by that august tribunal, and when they had the satisfaction of paying the highly deserving recipients whom they must pay for that luxury, both sides probably went away with a thankful feeling of relief, and with a hope that they would never hear of the House of Lords again in its judicial capacity. These were matters which lay upon the surface, and which he hoped it would be found this Bill satisfactorily dealt with. The subject of the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords was not among those referred by Lord Chelmsford when Lord Chancellor (in 1867) to the Judicature Commission. They reported during Lord Hatherley's Chancellorship, and on two occasions, Lord Hatherley attempted to deal with the question and put their Report in the shape of a Bill. But those Bills at the time, and now, appeared to him (the Attorney General) to carry the seed of their own want of success in two important respects. Those Bills proposed to relegate to an authority beyond the walls of Parliament the Appellate Jurisdiction exercised by the House of Lords, and laid down a principle upon which what was called a fusion of Law and Equity was to be effected. That Bill was never submitted to a vote of the House of Commons. It omitted to define the principles on which the Judges were to act in the carrying out of the Law Reform which it was introduced to establish. He thought Parliament could not properly decline to give its tacit or express assent to the principles on which the Judges should act in such a work. In both of these respects, this Bill was free from the objections to the Bill introduced by Lord Hatherley. This Bill broadly and intelligibly laid down the principles upon which the Courts should proceed in the carrying out of the Law Reform which it proposed. A most able analysis of this Bill had been published by a grandson of the late distinguished Lord Chief Baron Pollock. He would
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  now proceed as briefly as he could to describe the general proposals of the measure. The great defect in the system was the conflict of jurisdiction that existed between the Courts of Law and the Courts of Equity. Most descriptions which were epigrammatic and antithetical were sure to be incorrect; and it was not correct to say, as he had heard it stated, that they had established one set of Courts for correcting the intolerable injustice which another set of Courts had committed. At the same time, that description contained truth. No doubt, the Courts of Common Law, without the ameliorating and softening hand of Equity, would have administered a system under which this country, with its various complicated relations, would have found it impossible to live. There had been an inconvenient contest between the Courts of Law and the Courts of Equity, and that would be put an end to at once if the Bill passed. There were Courts of Law and Courts of Equity, each of them separate and distinct, with co-ordinate jurisdiction, unable to interfere with each other, except as the Court of Chancery interfered with suits at Common Law. These defects were known both to lawyers and suitors; but the public at large were not interested in them, and therefore let things go on as they were. The first and main principle of the Bill was that there should be one Queen's Court—the Queen's Court of Supreme Jurisdiction; and in that Court perfect Law and perfect Equity should be together administered. That Supreme Court, into which all the existing Courts would be merged, would itself be divided into a High Court of Justice and an Appellate Court, of which the various Courts of Appeal and of First Instance would respectively form part. The Bill was not one for the fusion of Law and Equity. Law and Equity would remain, and for this reason—they were not the creatures of statute; an inherent distinction existed between them, and the subject-matter of Law and of Equity was not the same, and could not be made the same by Act of Parliament. The defect of our legal system was, not that Law and Equity existed, but that if a man went for relief to a Court of Law, and an equitable claim or an equitable defence arose, he must go to some other Court and begin afresh. Law and Equity, therefore, would remain if the Bill passed, but they would be adminis-

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  tered concurrently, and no one would be sent to get in one Court the relief which another Court had refused to give. It seemed to him that that was the only intelligible way of dealing with the question. Great authorities had no doubt declared that Law and Equity might be fused by enactment; but in his opinion, to do so would be to decline to grapple with the real difficulty of the case. If an Act were passed doing no more than fuse Law and Equity, it would take 20 years of decisions and hecatombs of suitors to make out what Parliament meant and had not taken the trouble to define. It was more philosophical to admit the innate distinction between Law and Equity, which you could not get rid of by Act of Parliament, and to say, not that the distinction should not exist, but that the Courts should administer relief according to legal principles when these applied, or else according to equitable principles. That was what the Bill proposed, with the addition that, whenever the principles of Law and Equity conflicted, equitable principles should prevail. Few Common lawyers would deny that where the two principles differed Equity was right and Common Law wrong; and the Bill, therefore, did homage in such cases to the superior breadth and wisdom of Equity. Though the separate jurisdiction of the Courts would be merged in the one Supreme Court, it was more philosophical to recognize facts, and as for the general convenience, as it was impossible you could have 31 or 32 Judges all sitting together, there must be Divisions of the Court, the question arose—what shall they be called? Now, he thought it very important to preserve historical associations wherever you could do so. England was not the least great in its legal history and associations, and to destroy all those associations in the nomenclature of the Law Courts would be unwise. As the things remained it was well that the names also should remain. Instead, therefore, of calling these different Courts by names which were not only new but new-fangled, it was proposed to call them by the old names—the Chancery, Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, Exchequer, Bankruptcy Divisions, and so on. Further, as there must be a division of labour, and the Courts must consider criminal informations, election petitions, registration appeals, questions
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  of real property, specific performance, winding-up cases, questions between husband and wife, the enforcement of trusts, and so on, it was far more convenient, while getting rid of any conflict of jurisdiction, that the work which the Courts now did they should continue to do, at all events in the first instance. Every Division of a Court would have the jurisdiction to hear any class of business; but if it were found that some kinds of business could be better decided by one Division than another, this business might be transferred, without cost or inconvenience to the suitor. He hoped that we should thus get rid of the scandals of our present procedure, and that, while preserving necessary and inevitable distinctions, we should not allow them to obstruct the process of substantial relief to suitors. That brought him face to face with the Amendment of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Denbigh (Mr. Osborne Morgan), which ran thus—
  "That, in order to ensure the due administration of Law and Equity by the High Court of Justice as provided by this Bill, it is expedient that provision should be made for the appointment to each division of such Court of one or more Judge or Judges practically conversant with the principles and administration of Equity."
  That hon. and learned Gentleman, in this matter, might be regarded as the spokesman of a number of distinguished men who had addressed the Lord Chancellor on the subject, and it was not unnatural that men who had grown up under a system such as that administered in the Court of Chancery should be anxious respecting the tendency of a Bill dealing with it. Although his (the Attorney General's) knowledge of Equity procedure was naturally imperfect, he could assure his hon. and learned Friend he would give very little support to a measure which would prevent the full operation and development of that admirable and beneficent system, whatever faults might be incidental to its working. But if his hon. and learned Friend thought him prejudiced in favour of Common Law he would probably recollect that the Lord Chancellor, who originally introduced this Bill to the notice of Parliament, was for many years the ornament of the Courts of Equity, and that he of all men would be the last to injure a system to which he owed, and which owed him, so much. His hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General,

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  also, was one of the most powerful among those who now practised in those Courts, and no one would suppose he would willingly impair a system he so thoroughly understood, and of which he was so great an ornament. Being himself a representative of what Lord Westbury had been pleased to describe as the degraded and baser parts of the law—a description which gave evidence of a not very accurate acquaintance with the subject with which the noble and learned Lord dealt—he could not hope that his professions of tenderness for Equity would have as much weight as the fact that the sympathies of the Lord Chancellor and the Solicitor General were distinctly in favour of it. The Judges, his hon. and learned Friend perhaps knew, had loudly called for help. In effect they had said—"If we are to be turned into Courts of Equity, for God's sake send us some men who understand Equity, and do not leave us a prey to distinguished Equity counsel" —such, perhaps, as my hon. and learned Friend. It was manifest, therefore, that in both the Equity and Common Law Courts there should be persons competent to give information on points respecting which the Judges, having been brought up under a different system, were naturally wanting. It would not do for the Bench to be inferior to the Bar. Of course, it must always be that some distinguished members of the Bar should be superior to some upon the Bench; but those were exceptional cases, and it could not be tolerated that the Bar as a body should be superior in knowledge to the Bench. It was, therefore, obvious that it would be impossible to work this Bill properly, unless some such thing as his hon. and learned Friend suggested was done. If the Fates were kind, and permitted the continuance of his noble and learned Friend in office, it was his intention that everything necessary and proper for the administration of the law under the Bill should be done. He was not authorized to speak in the name of hon. Gentlemen opposite, but be believed that what he had said of the Lord Chancellor could be said with equal truth of Lord Cairns, should he again fill the office he so worthily filled some years ago. In fact, it would be impossible to administer the Bill satisfactorily, except in the sense suggested by his hon. and learned Friend's Amendment. Still,
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  that was a very different thing from enacting that such a course should be pursued; because to enact what his hon. and learned Friend's Amendment pointed to would be to stereotype on the face of an Act of Parliament that distinction between Law and Equity which it was the object of the Bill to destroy. Henceforth, if this Bill came into operation, all men practising in the Courts would soon be sufficiently accomplished to deal with the law on either side. Of course, a period of transition would occur, during which some difficulty would be experienced, but the transitional period would not be of long duration. Under the circumstances, therefore, he thought his hon. and learned Friend would see that it was most inexpedient to press his Amendment, and that he would be content with an assurance that his object should be carried out. So much for the High Court of Justice, but the Bill would be imperfect without the creation also of a Court of Appeal. What could be more anomalous than the present state of the Courts of Appeal? As far as Common Law cases were concerned, there were two Courts of Appeal—first, the Exchequer Chamber, and then the House of Lords. In the Court of Chancery, speaking under correction, he would say there was not always a reference to an intermediate Court of Appeal; in certain cases there might be an appeal to the House of Lords, without the intermediate appeal to the Lords Justices. Then there was the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for appeals from the Colonies, Ecclesiastical and Admiralty cases. The Exchequer Chamber had almost every fault that a Court of Appeal could have. It was uncertain—he would speak tremblingly of the Judges in the presence of the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Dr. Ball); but they were men who had feelings, and he had known eases when a judgment of a particular Court, if there were any means of overruling it, was pretty sure to be overruled in the Exchequer Chamber. Then, there was no absolute necessity that the Exchequer Chamber should have a larger number of Judges than the Court which it overruled, and it had often happened that where the two Courts were divided, it was the opinion held by the minority of Judges which had prevailed. The Court sat, too, but for a very limited time, and that time was uncertain. The

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  Lords Justices formed a much better Court of Appeal, and for a very long time had given satisfaction. The Privy Council, too, for something like 25 or 26 years was about as good a Court as this Empire contained; but it became exceedingly difficult to maintain it in that high state of efficiency, because, as it was until lately an entirely unpaid Court, it was almost entirely dependent on the services of unpaid Judges. At last it became almost impossible for it to continue its sittings. The Judicial Committee still remained an absolutely good Court; but that had happened which some predicted when the Bill for its improvement was before Parliament. It would be said that if we were to have paid and unpaid Judges on the tribunal, in a short time it would be the paid Judges only that would attend. It had not quite come to that, but very nearly so, and he could not help thinking that the sort of august character which the Privy Council possessed was in peril of being lowered and the Court brought to the condition simply of a well-officered and well-filled tribunal. As for the House of Lords, it was his duty, whatever hon. Gentlemen opposite might think, to say what he thought of it as a judicial institution. For his part, he would say that if this Bill did nothing else but get rid of the House of Lords as a judicial tribunal it would be worth while to pass it. He could not believe that if suitors had any power of combination the House of Lords would have lasted as a judicial institution to the present time, such were the expenses and delays of it. He was himself in a case which had been pending in the House of Lords for six or seven years. The utter irresponsibility of the Judges who composed it made it a perfectly in-defensible institution. He did not know what would be said now of Chancery Appeals, but he did know that some time ago they used to be decided by a single Peer, and a caustic Lord Justice used to say that the way they were decided made him hold up his hands in respectful amazement. Practically, at present the Common Law Appeals were decided by a single Judge, for there was not a single Common Law Lord but one who attended the sittings of the House of Lords. Lord Penzance was too ill at present to attend, and before he generally was too busy. He recollected cases
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  in which the unanimous opinion of the Court of Common Pleas and of the Court of Exchequer was overruled by this single Common Law Lord, the Judges not being summoned. Besides, the House of Lords now was not what it used to be in former times. Everyone knew that it was to the House of Lords, as a co-ordinate branch of the Legislature, and to the whole Peerage that the Constitution wisely, or unwisely, in trusted the declaration upon appeal of what was the law of England; the Judges were in those days habitually summoned as their advisers, and the House of Lords, in 99 cases out of 100, or even in a still larger proportion, followed the advice given by the Judges. It was perfectly true that Lord Eldon said he had the right to overrule all the Judges in England, but that was a right which neither that noble and learned Lord nor the House of Lords itself had ever yet exercised. The House of Lords was at that time a convenient medium through which to ascertain the judgment of all the Judges; but that was not the case now. The whole character of the House of Lords was definitely changed in the famous cases of The Queen v. O'Connell. The lay Members of the House attended in large numbers on that occasion, as they had done in former days; but the Duke of Wellington earnestly advised them to take no part in the decision. They acted upon his advice and abstained from voting, and the Law Lords divided according to their political sentiments. He had no doubt that they were perfectly honest in what they did, but the fact was that the noble and learned Lords who were opposed in opinion to O'Connell voted against him, and those who were in favour of his views voted for him. From that day to this an appeal to the House of Lords had really been an appeal to two or three Law Lords who happened to attend, for the rule of the House now was, that the Judges were not summoned unless both parties desired it. [Dissent.] He might be wrong about the rule, but, at all events, the Judges were very seldom summoned. Practically the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords was in different hands from what it used to be, and from what the constitution intended it should be, and he saw no reason for maintaining the new state of things for which there

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  was no precedent, and which was found extremely inconvenient. That, indeed, might be said to be the opinion of the House of Lords itself, which had passed that Bill and sent it down to them with those provisions. Now, the Court of Appeal which it was proposed to create would consist of 12 or 14 persons. There would be five ex officio Members—the Lord Chancellor, the three Chief Judges of the Common Law Courts, the Master of the Rolls; the four paid Judges of the Privy Council—who took office with the understanding that they should be available for any reconstruction of the Court of Supreme Appeal—and three others—an ex-Lord Chancellor or Judge, and certain Scotch and Irish Judges, if they thought fit to come. The Court of Appeal would sit in two divisions all the year round, according to rules to be drawn up, and the present unintelligible and inconvenient distinction between Terms and Vacations would be abolished. Except an increase to the salary of the Judges of the Admiralty Court, as proposed by the House of Lords, and an increase of £1,000 a-year to the salaries of the paid Members of the Court of Appeal other than the ex officio Members, the Bill did not create any additional charge to the country—or, at least, certainly no permanent additional charge. Speaking on these matters on the second reading, it would be understood that he spoke with entire reserve; that the whole of those matters were absolutely open, and that he was merely describing the Bill as it came from the other House. The Judges of the High Court would be reduced to the old standard at which they stood before the House of Commons transferred the Election Petition business to them, and made that a reason for adding three members to the Judicial Bench. Experience had shown that the Election Judges—those at least who had been added—had not their time fully occupied, and it was desirable that highly-paid persons should be fully employed. To the new Court of Appeal it was proposed to transfer the whole of the English appeals to the House of Lords, and also the whole judicial business of the Privy Council, excepting the ecclesiastical appeals. The jurisdiction of the House of Lords would be kept alive for the hearing of Scotch and Irish appeals. If the Scotch and Irish people preferred that that should be so, they were en-
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  titled to have their preference, and as an Englishman he had no right to meddle with it. He had always thought the defect of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, if it had a defect, was in ecclesiastical matters, and that the presence of Bishops on that tribunal contributed nothing whatever to the weight of its decisions as legal decisions, while it affected to give them a sort of factitious spiritual influence which three Bishops who happened to be Privy Councillors could not possibly confer. He thought that questions of property and law, even as far as the interests of the Church herself were concerned, ought to be decided by lawyers. However, they had to deal with questions which were not strictly legal questions, and therefore the Judicial Committee would remain for the purpose of ecclesiastical appeals. As he had stated, there would be two Divisions of the Supreme Court, to one of which would be entrusted the cases now dealt with by the Judicial Committee. In that case, the whole jurisdiction and process being thus transferred to the Supreme Court, the decisions would still remain as the decisions of the Queen herself, Her Majesty being advised by the Judges of that Court, as she was now advised by the Judicial Committee. They would sit continuously all the year round, and as he had said before, the present inconvenient distinction between Terms and Vacations would be abolished. There would also be sittings in London and Middlesex. Another important provision in the Bill was the power of appointing official and regularly constituted referees. It was proposed that the Judge in Chambers or the Court should be able at any stage of the case, if it clearly appeared not to be a case fit for trial in Court or for adjudication by a Judge and jury, to refer it by an Order. There would be attached to the Courts certain official referees, who would take those references as part of their regular duty. He hoped that portion of the Bill would be found satisfactory, and get rid, in working, of one of the justest causes of complaint that existed, at all events, on the Common Law side of the question, He did not mean to go at length into the Schedule of Procedure, which would be found exceedingly important. That was matter rather of discussion clause by clause in Committee than one which could usefully occupy the attention of

  653
  the House at the present stage. In general, it was an attempt to initiate a more sensible and intelligible mode of procedure—to get rid, if possible, of the defects both of Chancery and Common Law procedure, and to produce something in the shape not of pleading, but procedure, that should be at once sensible and satisfactory. Such in outline was this measure which he had introduced—he knew how imperfectly—to the attention of the House. There were two subjects connected with the question of Law Reform—the Reform of the Law itself and the reform of the procedure by which the Law was administered; and they were very distinct. In some respects this Bill, in different portions of it, dealt with both these subjects; and he trusted it would be found to deal with them satisfactorily. At any rate, such as it was, he begged leave to recommend it to the attention of the House of Commons. So far as the Government were concerned, they did not aspire or pretend to any greater responsibility or merit in the question than having recognized the position of public opinion, and striven, as far as they could, to give effect to it. He asked the House to recollect that the Bill came to them with the sanction of the House of Lords—it came to them from the House of Lords, which had shown both great wisdom and patriotism in declining any longer to stand in the way of a great public advantage, for which there was a great public demand. The Government proposed to do no more than accept the will of Parliament, to become, in this respect, the ministers of its will and interpreters, as far as they understood them, of the wishes of the people—perfectly content, if they could conduct the Bill to a successful issue, to give credit when they found it was due to others for having by intelligent discussion brought about that state of public opinion and feeling which rendered that or any other measure possible. With regard to the Notice of the hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory) to send the Bill to a Select Committee, that was a Motion contingent on the second reading, and could not come before them unless the second reading was carried. He would, therefore, say no more than this—Here was a large, important, and valuable contribution to Law Reform; they had waited for it long enough, too long—
  654
  and he would be no party to any proceeding that had any tendency to imperil its success, or even, in any appreciable manner to delay its progress.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Attorney General.)
  MR. CHARLEY,in rising to propose the Amendment, of which he had given Notice, said, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General had pronounced a sweeping condemnation on the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords, and affirmed that it was utterly indefensible. He (Mr. Charley) begged to move—
  "That it is inexpedient to abolish the jurisdiction of the House of Lords as an English Court of Final Appeal."
  The Attorney General said that the present Bill was founded on the Report of the Judicature Commission. That Commission had recommended that there should be a new Court of Appeal created in substitution for the Court of Exchequer Chamber and the Court of Appeal in Chancery, and that there should be an appeal to the House of Lords both from the new Court of Appeal and also directly, subject to the consent of the respondent, from the High Court of Justice. By its 17th clause, the present measure swept away the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords in England altogether. The Commissioners were anxious that an opportunity should be afforded of testing the efficiency of the new Court of Appeal before touching the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords, and that in any case a second appeal should be retained. The Bill, therefore ignored the recommendations of the Judicature Commission. To the first Report were attached the names of the present Lord Chancellor and the Attorney General. The hon. and learned Gentleman further said, that the House of Lords had voluntarily abandoned their appellate jurisdiction; but, in 1856, a Select Committee of the House of Lords considered the question of their appellate jurisdiction; on that Committee sat, not merely distinguished laymen like Lords Derby and Lansdowne—but the greatest lawyers of the day—Lords Lyndhurst, Brougham, Cranworth, Campbell, and St. Leonards, and they unanimously recommended that the appellate jurisdiction should be re-

  655
  tained. Last year also a Select Committee sat on the same subject, and recommended not the abolition, but rather the extension of the appellate jurisdiction. The House of Lords itself, though it had passed the present Bill, had not been unanimous in its support. Lord Cairns had pointed out that it would be highly impolitic in their Lordships to abolish altogether a second Court of Appeal. Lord Redesdale—no mean authority—had stoutly opposed the Bill throughout. As to the new Court of Appeal created by the Bill itself, it was a great defect, he thought, that several of the Judges who were to be members of the Court of Appeal would have to sit in the High Court of Justice. He (Mr. Charley) mainly objected to the abolition of the appellate jurisdiction of the Lords on constitutional but also on legal grounds. A decision of the House of Lords had an air of authority about it which the decision of an ordinary Judge did not possess; it was severed off sharply from the decisions of the Courts below by a a barrier of prestige and traditional respect, and therefore the existence of the appellate jurisdiction of that House tended to give fixity to our law. The ordinary Judges cited it with a respect which they did not show to the decisions of one another. It was said, however, that the abolition of the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords was a very pressing law reform; but a Return obtained by his hon. Friend the Member for East Sussex (Mr. G. Gregory), showed that while in 1870–71, there were no fewer than 428 appeals from one Court of Chancery to another, there were, during the same period, only 35 appeals from the Court of Chancery to the House of Lords. That, he thought, furnished a conclusive answer to the argument that the abolition of the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords was a very pressing law reform. To begin the work of law reform with the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords seemed to him like commencing to build a house at the roof. Again the Bill did not touch Scotch or Irish appeals. A Peer of the realm only would do for Scotland and Ireland, a Commoner was quite good enough for England. The Scotch were proverbially a shrewd people, and not over given to sentimentality, and yet they were susceptible to the traditional influence and
  656
  authority of the House of Lords. Sir James Moncrieff had said that the dignity of the final Court of Appeal was the reason why the people of Scotland were reluctant to part with it. Mr. Hope, Lord Justice Clerk said, that if a single person, other than a Peer of the realm, were placed upon the final Court of Appeal, it would lose all its authority in Scotland. The Scotch law differed from the English, the English and Irish law were very similar. Under this Bill the similarity between the English and Irish law would exist no longer; it would, in consequence, introduce confusion where union now existed. They knew how admirably the Judges performed the duty of giving their advice on legal questions in the House of Lords, and it always had great weight; but if this Bill passed, the occupation of the Judges as the constitutional assistants of the House of Lords would be gone, and the new Court of Appeal would have no power whatever to summon them to give advice. But it was on constitutional grounds that he mainly objected to the measure. The balance of power between the two Houses of Parliament was essential to our liberties; but this Bill would rudely shake that balance, which had already been sufficiently disturbed. The leading distinction between the two Houses had always been the enjoyment by the House of Lords of judicial authority which was denied to the House of Commons. The exclusive right of the House of Lords to exercise the judicial powers of the High Court of Parliament was as well ascertained as the exclusive right of the House of Commons to originate money Bills. In the reign of Henry IV. the House of Commons solemnly affirmed that the right of judgments in Parliament appertained to the Lords and not to the Commons; and although, in 1675, the House of Commons denied that the Lords had the right to hear appeals from the Court of Chancery, that right had now for two centuries passed unchallenged. Addressing in 1675, the assembled Peers, the then Earl of Shaftesbury said—
  "This matter is no less than your whole judicature; and your judicature is the life and soul of the dignity of the peerage in England; you will quickly grow burthensome, if you grow useless; you have now the greatest and most useful end of Parliaments principally in you, which is not to make new laws, but to redress grievances, and to maintain the old land marks.

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  …it is not only your interest, but the interest of the nation, that you maintain your rights."—[Parliamentary History, 1675, 793.]
  He regretted, he might add, that Lord Westbury had not been able to be present at the debates on the Bill in "another place;" because no one could be more competent, from his experience while at the Bar, to speak on the subject of the appellate jurisdiction of the other House. That noble and learned Lord, when giving his evidence before the Select Committee in 1856, said he wished the House of Lords to be the great appellate tribunal for the whole Empire—the one final Court of Appeal, absorbing the jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Three main objections had been raised against the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords. It was said that it did not sit for the hearing of appeals during the Recess, and that there was, consequently, great inconvenience to suitors. That was so, no doubt, but then it was an inconvenience which was susceptible of a remedy, proposals had been made by eminent authorities, that the House should sit during the Recess for the hearing of appeals. In 1836 Lord Lang-dale proposed that the King should have power, on an address from the House of Lords to extend the time for the hearing of appeals, notwithstanding a Prorogation or even a Dissolution. In 1841 Lord St. Leonards carried a Resolution in that House to the same effect. In 1856 the Select Committee of the House of Lords reported that it was desirable that power should be given to the House to resume its sittings during the Recess for the purpose of hearing appeals, notwithstanding the Prorogation of Parliament, and in 1870 Lord Hatherley drew up a Bill under which the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords was to be permitted to sit for the hearing of appeals during the Recess. There was then a general concurrence of authorities in favour of this proposal. Secondly, it was said that there was an absence of judicial form in the manner in which the Lords conducted the hearing. Lord Selborne had himself made suggestions to remedy that objection; he had suggested that the Law Lords, when hearing appeals should sit in their robes, as Peers of the realm, which he said "were quite as good as wigs and gowns." But the most substantial objection was that
  658
  the number of the Law Lords was fluctuating and their attendance irregular. In 1856 the present Lord Chancellor and Lord Westbury were quite agreed as to the method that should be adopted for strengthening the legal power of the House of Lords. They thought that a minimum number of three, and a maximum number of five permanent Lords of Appeal should be created to assist the Lord Chancellor and the Law Lords in the exercise of the appellate jurisdiction of the House; such Lords to be selected from ex-Judges and invested with life peerages, and to receive an adequate salary, so as to induce men of eminence to serve in that capacity. It was proposed by the Select Committee of 1856 itself that two Deputy Speakers to the House of Lords should be appointed to sit permanently for the hearing of appeals, to be selected from ex-Judges who had filled some distinguished legal office for five years, and that a salary of £6,000 per annum should be given to each. A Bill founded on those recommendations passed through the House of Lords, and was approved on its second reading by a majority of the House of Commons. On the occasion of the second reading of that Bill, the present Lord Chancellor made a most remarkable speech. The noble Lord said—
  "He entertained strong objections against the project for removing the jurisdiction of the House of Lords to the Privy Council, or constituting a new tribunal, consolidating in fact, the two. But then he was tempted to ask, after all, was the traditional respect in which the jurisdiction of the House of Lords was held so utterly baseless that no advantage whatever was to be derived in the administration of justice from the high dignity with which it was associated by being united to one great branch of the Legislature Did the independence of the judicial system gain nothing by having its root and fountain-head in the House of Lords, where unquestionably it was unassailable by corruption, or by the influence of the Crown, and where it was brought into immediate and close contact with the legislative power, so that the same Judges who administer justice in the House of Lords, might also suggest acts of the Legislature to correct any defects and errors in the law? He confessed he could not divest himself of the notion that the administration of justice did gain something in dignity, independence, and stability, from its association with the House of Lords; and he believed, also, that the opinion, which had so long prevailed, was not unfounded which supposed that the House of Lords gained something of dignity honour, independence, and stability, from its association with the administration of justice."

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  "If it be possible," he added, "to establish a satisfactory Court of final appeal in the House of Lords, consistently with constitutional principle and the interests of the country, would it not be as well—would it not be better—to do so, rather than to annihilate all the prestige of centuries and all the traditional respect which the country had been accustomed to feel for the jurisdiction so exercised, for the sake of attempting some new experiment, the success of which no one could foretell "—[3 Hansard, cxlii. 458–9.]
  The present Bill swarmed with provisoes, that, after all this grand agglomeration of Courts of Justice had taken place, powers should be exercised and rights enforced just as if the Bill had not passed. One was almost tempted to quote the saying of the witty and hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Osborne), and say that after all this fuss and confusion it was to be a case of "as you were!" But however inoperative the Bill might be in other respects, it would cause a great change in the position of the House of Lords as an integral part of the Constitution. The House of Lords would cease to exercise the judicial powers of the High Court of Parliament. Parliament would no doubt continue to be as hitherto a deliberative and legislative assembly, but it would cease to be what our ancestors intended it to be—the last resort of the suitor who complained that the law had been misinterpreted by the Judges, who wield the equitable jurisdiction or by the Judges of the land.
  MR. BOURKE,in seconding the Amendment, complained that the Bill had received as bare an amount of discussion as had ever been accorded to a Bill, and the high authority by which it had been recommended to the House had not only been sufficient to bear down all opposition, however well founded it might be, but it had had the effect of stifling all discussion. If the object to be obtained was the fusion of Law and Equity, the first step must be the joining together of all the Courts of Law into one great Court of Judicature. He could not help regretting that there was no immediate prospect of the new Law Courts being completed, because that fact would be the greatest obstacle to the carrying out of the measure. The distance between the present Courts of Equity and Law would act as an antagonistic power to the fusion of Law and Equity; and although, in theory, the Bill did abolish the different Courts, yet
  660
  when they came to look at the details of it, they would find that it re-established the old Courts. That being so, he very much feared the state of matters would revert to what it was at present. Modern efforts had been made to bring what was good in Courts of Equity into the Common Law Courts, and to transport what was good in the Common Law Courts into the Courts of Equity, and these efforts had been conspicuous failures. The reason had been that the Legislature had not perceived the difficulties which arose in practice, and from endeavouring to give power to the Courts of Law and Equity to administer both systems, when these Courts respectively had power to administer only one. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General, however, in reference to the subject, had given so correct a definition of the phrase "Fusion of Law and Equity" that it would be impossible hereafter to mistake what was meant by that phrase. He believed there could be no doubt that when the House came to examine the Bill it would be found to be a mere skeleton. If they looked into it they would find it altogether vague in most of the essential provisions with regard to procedure, and the truth was that it left to be decided by Rules hereafter nearly the whole of the procedure with which it dealt. The 20th clause laid down that the jurisdiction was to be exercised in the manner defined in the Act, that was one way; 2nd, by Rules and Orders named in the Act; and 3rd, by Rules and Orders which were to be made from time to time hereafter. The Rules and Orders really related to the most important subjects which procedure could deal with, such as the Courts of Justice and Appeal, and the regulations of the circuits, so that it would be possible for the Judges to make any rules they pleased with regard, for example, to circuits, though these were arranged at present by Act of Parliament. The Judges were also to have power to determine all matters not named in the Schedule. As those matters were of a most important character, he thought the Bill ought to contain specific provisions with regard to them. There was also a clause in the Bill on which he thought a great deal more information ought to be given to the House before they passed it, and that was the clause relating to the appointment of a referee.

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  That clause provided that any matter which should require any preliminary investigation, and any matter of accounts that should require a scientific or local inquiry, should be referred to a referee. Now, there were a vast number of cases on every circuit and at every Assize which might be classed under those heads, and there was nothing to be found in the Bill as to the position or qualifications of these referees; they might be barristers, or attorneys, or gentlemen at large. Under those circumstances, he hoped that they would have the fullest possible information with regard to the business qualifications and the remuneration of these referees. The Bill certainly made important changes in the law which required the greatest possible consideration. With regard to the district registries, that was a part of the Bill about which he had great doubt. These district registries looked very convenient things; but when they came to see how they worked they would prove the reverse. The Bill also made important changes in law, especially with regard to the administration of the assets of insolvent estates, and those changes would require the greatest possible consideration. With regard to the abolition of the right of appeal to the House of Lords, it was asked how it happened that the House of Lords seemed to have so easily abandoned a jurisdiction which they had held for many centuries? It was urged that as that House had itself consented to abandon its jurisdiction, it was not for the House of Commons to object. But when they remembered the way in which the case had been put to the House of Lords, it was no wonder they had consented to part with their jurisdiction. The case was put before them as if the House of Lords were endeavouring to retain a jurisdiction prejudicial to the public, and only retained by them to support their own dignity and importance. Under those circumstances, it was not surprising that the House of Lords did not for a moment allow any consideration connected with their order to obstruct a reform recommended to them on high authority. The jurisdiction in cases of appeal was not, however, within the sole control of the House of Lords. It had been conferred upon the House by the Constitution, sanctioned by many Acts of Parliament, and it concerned that House as much as the
  662
  House of Lords, nay, even more, carefully to examine whether the appellate jurisdiction which the Upper House had so long exercised on behalf of the people of England could be so advantageously exercised by any other body of men existing or to be constituted hereafter. The opinion of the Lord Chief Justice had been quoted in justification of this proposal. He would yield to none in admiration of the Lord Chief Justice, who, in addition to the high qualifications which he daily exhibited in the administration of justice, had earned the lasting gratitude of his fellow-countrymen in the part he sustained in the Arbitration of Geneva. He (Mr. Bourke) was, however, obliged to dissent from the opinion that the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords was a "shadowy authority." He believed it was the most popular Court in the kingdom, and that though the Appellate Court consisted of a limited number of Law Lords, yet the tribunal possessed from its peculiar construction an authority which could not be conferred upon any other Court of Appeal. When authority was cited on one side it was only to be met by citing authority on the other side, and Sir Richard Bethell (now Lord Westbury), told a Committee of the House of Lords in 1856, on the constitution of the Court of Appeal, that he by no means desired that this jurisdiction should be taken away from the House of Lords. Sir Fitzroy Kelly, Sir Roundell Palmer, Mr. Rolt, Mr. Napier, Mr. Inglis, and the right hon. John Hope, the Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland, also expressed opinions in favour of retaining the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords, with certain improvements and alterations. The present measure moreover proposed to do away with that jurisdiction as far as English cases were concerned, but to retain it with regard to Irish and Scotch cases. Now, if the House of Lords were as strong a Court as the Scotch and Irish had a right to demand, it was certainly good enough for the English people. If, on the other hand, it were a weak Court, the grossest scandal would be brought on the administration in this country of Scotch and Irish business, and we should be putting an affront on that portion of Her Majesty's subjects which we ought for political reasons least to offend in these days of Horne Rule. Indeed, he knew

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  of nothing more likely to encourage the Home Rulers than by doing away with the appellate jurisdiction to degrade that House in the opinion of this country. Again, he knew of nothing more likely to weaken the legislative authority of the Second Chamber than to take out of it all judicial power, and the authority of all those who had devoted their lives to the study of the law, for he thought it unlikely that any Law Lord would be appointed except the Lord Chancellor. Further, he objected to the proposed scheme, because it broke up the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, inasmuch as the salaried Judges of the Judicial Committee would be taken away and put into the new Appeal Court. The Judicial Committee, as at present constituted, thoroughly possessed the confidence of the suitors, and the House should be very careful not to transfer the jurisdiction from a Court which they approved to one which they knew nothing about. The great bulk of the business transacted by the Privy Council came to it from India and the Colonies. Moreover, it was substantially sui generis, and different from that which would come before an Appeal Court. Now, as the Privy Council was regarded with respect and confidence by our various colonists, he thought it highly inexpedient, impolitic, and dangerous to transfer its jurisdiction to another tribunal, the bulk of whose business would be totally different from that which occupied its attention. Another objection to the new Court of Appeal was that many of the Judges were connected with a Court of First Instance, and this was a condition which had been condemned over and over again by competent authorities, including Lord Campbell and Lord Westbury. In conclusion, he hoped the House would seriously consider the operation of the Bill before they consented to give it a second reading, because he was sure the result of such consideration would be that they would entertain favourably the proposition of the hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory) to refer it to a Select Committee, which was the only practical way of dealing with the subject.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "it is inexpedient to abolish the jurisdiction of
  664
  the House of Lords as an English Court of Final Appeal,"—(Mr. Charley,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. OSBORNE MORGANcontended that the hon. and learned Member for Salford (Mr. Charley), and those who opposed the Bill on the ground that the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords was an integral part of the Constitution were bound to go further and to insist not only that it was not competent to abolish it, but that it was not competent to remodel it. It was a strange thing that the constitutional objection had not occurred to the noble and learned Lords who voted for the Bill, and it was a conclusive answer to that objection that the Bill had come from the other House. In the case of the hon. and learned Member, who he suspected had not had much experience of the House of Lords as a Court of Appeal, it must have been that "distance lent enchantment to the view." The Court consisted entirely of volunteers; there was no obligation on any noble and learned Lord, except the Lord Chancellor, to attend; and many of the appeals were from judgments of the Lord Chancellor, so that it was questionable whether he ought to sit in such appeals. The Court was available only four months of the year; and many of the Law Lords had attained to such an age in the public service that we had no right to expect much more work out of them. When Solicitor General, Lord Westbury described the tribunal as one, the members of which, except the Lord Chancellor, felt at liberty to attend or not, as they pleased, and the judicial sittings of which they attended as they did a debate, so that its decisions, instead of being, as they ought to be, as unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, were unsatisfactory in character, and the Court was inferior to the lowest tribunals in what ought to be the accompaniments of a Court of Justice. Another objection to this tribunal was that men were raised to it on principles different from those on which they were raised to the Judicial Bench. The House of Lords was primarily a political body. He did not mean to insinuate

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  for a moment that the noble and learned Lords were actuated in their judgments by political considerations; still no one could deny that the road to the House of Lords lay through a political gate. Besides, the House of Lords was an hereditary body; and a large family or a limited private means therefore frequently proved an insuperable bar to entering it. In this way many of the most distinguished Judges on the Bench were excluded from the House by personal or political considerations; and as a matter of fact, of 18 Common Law Judges and six Equity Judges, not one was in the House of Lords. In fact, the only Judge at present in the Upper House was the Lord Chancellor himself. However, the re-constitution of the appellate jurisdiction was not the main feature of this Bill. The main object of the Bill was that it should effect a fusion of Law and Equity; and if it did that it would be worth all the judicial reforms ever introduced into this country put together. But the question was, did it effect that fusion? From the 17th century to the present day they had had to witness the monstrous spectacle of Law in Westminster and Equity in Lincoln's-Inn, in a chronic state of opposition; or to use Lord Westbury's words, "we set up two Courts, one Court to do an injustice and the other to redress it when done." But while as anxious as the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General to promote the main object of the Bill, he believed that object was only to be attained in one way—namely, by attaching at least one Equity Judge to each of the Common Law Divisions of the High Court of Justice, and, to elicit a discussion, on the subject, had put an Amendment on the Paper. He felt inclined to withdraw it on hearing the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman, than which nothing could be more charming; but the speech was one thing and the Bill another, and he preferred to have the assurances given in the speech embodied in the Bill, for neither the hon. and learned Gentleman nor the Government was immortal. He was sorry there was a disposition on the part of the public to regard this as a lawyer's and not as a suitor's question because the public had a great stake in it. The mode in which suitors were now driven from pillar to
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  post—from Law to Equity, or from Equity to Law—was perfectly monstrous, and all lawyers were agreed as to the necessity of abolishing the existing line of demarcation between the two jurisdictions. There was a certain confusion in the minds of those who discussed the questions of Law and Equity. It should be borne in mind that there were two distinctions between Courts of Law and Equity—the one substantial and the other accidental; a difference of principle and a difference of process. The Courts of Law not only administered different kinds of justice, but they administered it in different modes, and it was necessary to keep both distinctions in view. It would be impossible effectually to fuse Law and Equity until all the Courts were provided with the same machinery. The attempts that had been already made in that direction had failed for this reason. Now, this Bill, though it gave equitable jurisdiction to Common Law Courts, provided them with no equitable machinery. It provided that where the rules of Equity and Law conflicted the rules of Equity should prevail; but it did little more. The Act providing for trial by jury in the Chancery Court had become almost a dead letter, scarcely more than half a-dozen such cases had been tried, and the Vice Chancellor's Court had at length been relieved from the incumbrance of a jury box. Another Act giving to the Courts of Common Law jurisdiction in cases of Equity, had become absolutely a dead letter, the reason in each case being that the Judges in each ease felt unequal to the novel task imposed on them. The hon. and learned Gentleman, having referred to the letters addressed to the Lord Chancellor by the whole of the Outer Equity Bar, and by the Inner Equity Bar with one distinguished exception—the Solicitor General, who was not, however, a free agent—proceeded to say, that the Bill proposed to effect that fusion of Law and Equity which was so much to be desired, by providing that Law and Equity should be concurrently administered. But the sections which dealt with the subject, standing alone, really did nothing; they effected nothing but a paper fusion, faultless no doubt in theory, but utterly unworkable in practice. He looked at the subsequent sections of the Bill, and the first thing he

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  saw was that the old Courts were to be perpetuated under different names. The Vice Chancellors were to be called Her Majesty's Judges; but they were to sit by themselves in a Division which was to be called the First or Chancery Division. All the Judges of the Common Law Courts were to sit by themselves. The Court of Queen's Bench was to become the Division of Queen's Bench of the High Court of Justice. The Court of Exchequer was to become the Exchequer Division, and the Court of Common Pleas the Common Pleas Division of the High Court of Justice. The Common Law Judges admitted, and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General himself also admitted, that they would sit to administer a kind of justice to which they had not been trained. They would sit by themselves, and would not be able to deal with the various equitable questions which would constantly arise. The 31st section, indeed, said that it should be lawful to transfer a Judge from one Division to another, with this proviso, however, that no existing Judge should be transferred unless with his own consent. That being so, it would be impossible to work the Act as it stood unless they could find Chancery Judges willing to be transferred to Common Law Courts. But the arrears in Chancery already had become so great that the Judges, though working night and day, could not keep them down. He held in his hand an extract from the judicial statistics of the years 1860–1 and 1870–1 published last year by Order of the House, and he found that the proceedings in Chambers had risen from 28,083 in 1861, to 42,726 in 1870–71, showing an increase of 14,643 in 10 years, and that the total number of proceedings of all kinds in Equity had risen from 69,008 in 1861 to 84,730 in 1870, showing an increase of 15,722. It would be a long time, therefore, before the Judges in Chancery could find leisure to assist the Common Law Judges even if they were willing to do so. Under the Bill, moreover, they might have an Appeal Court composed exclusively of three Common Law Judges reversing the decision of the whole Chancery Division put together. But then it was said, there would always be a strong Bar to keep the Judges right—that was, incompetent Judges were to be set right by competent
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  Counsel. For his own part he held it to be a first principle that the Bench should be stronger than the Bar. He might be asked what remedy he would propose. It always seemed to him that the true method of fusion would be to make every Court competent to deal with every case which could come before it. The scheme, however, would involve a complete remodelling of the Bill, for which he was not prepared. Perhaps the best course would be to transfer to each Common Law Division one of the present Equity Judges; but that could not be done without the sanction of the Equity Judges themselves. The alternative was the creation of new Judges; and to that the only real objection was a financial one. The Government had actually thrown away £300,000 by allowing the space purchased for the Law Courts nine years ago to remain vacant all that time, and yet they grudged the small sum necessary for the creation of a sufficient number of Judges to administer Equity properly, and that only for a limited time. If ever there was a case of "spoiling the ship for a ha' penny's worth of tar" it was the present. What with concessions to sentiment and concessions to economy, they were throwing away one of the grandest opportunities of reconstructing the whole of our judicial system. They felt themselves bound to build up their edifice with the old materials; them take care they did not build it up on the old lines. If the Bill was left as it now stood the result would be that the Courts of Equity would be Courts of Equity still in everything but the name; the Courts of Law would be Courts of Law still in everything but name, with this distinction, that the old remedy by injunction—awkward, clumsy, and unsatisfactory, no doubt but which yet in the end secured justice—would be done away, so that their last state would be worse than the first, and this boasted fusion of Law and Equity which was to inaugurate a new era in the history of our jurisprudence would turn out to be a mere hocus-pocus transformation scene effected by a vague section in an Act of Parliament.
  MR. GREGORY,who had on the Notice Paper a Motion for referring the Bill to a Select Committee, in the event of its being read a second time, said, he concurred in the main principles of the measure, and was anxious that it should

  669
  receive the assent of Parliament; but, at the same time, he wished its objects properly carried out, and particularly that the Bill should contain nothing to militate against them. He looked at the Bill under three aspects—first, as establishing a great tribunal of First Instance; secondly, as establishing a Court of Appeal for that tribunal; and, thirdly, as laying down a code of procedure. With respect to the constitution of the Higher Court, he regretted that the author of the Bill had not taken somewhat higher ground in constituting that Court, and that he had not broken up the Court into more Divisions, allotting a smaller number of Judges to each, and mixing Equity and Common Law Judges together. It had been said that each of the Courts would have the power of administering the principles of Law and Equity; but a distinction was drawn between the business assigned to these Courts, and there would be three Divisions of the Court of First Instance sitting almost entirely distinct from the other, and without any communication between them. With respect to the procedure of these Courts, he thought some explanation was required of the Law Officers of the Crown. A Common Law Judge sitting at Nisi Prius was in the habit of postponing, to a certain extent, his decisions on questions of law and referring them to the decision of the full Court, and thus practically rendering two trials necessary; while the Equity Judges had been accustomed single-handed to determine satisfactorily questions both of law and fact as they arose. Now, he saw nothing in the Bill to alter the former practice, while it contained a provision calculated to extend it to the Court of Chancery, which had hitherto performed its functions in a satisfactory manner, for the Bill gave an invitation to the Judges to call for the assistance of a Divisional Court in the decision of cases, instead of relying on their own judgment. The effect would be to perpetuate a practice which now prevailed at law and to extend it to the Court of Chancery. That was a part of the Bill which would require much consideration. Another matter which, he hoped, would not be hastily adopted, was the power given by the Bill to the Judges to refer cases to referees without the assent of the parties. The terms of reference were of the widest character, and would apply to some of
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  the heaviest and most important cases which were now decided by the Courts of Law. They were not told who the referees were to be, how they were to be paid, or whether the appointment was to be temporary or permanent. These were matters as to which the House ought to have further information. It was a very large power, and in many cases it would materially increase the expenses of the suitors; and beyond that, there was no more general complaint at present in the Courts of Common Law than the sending of cases to reference. It was often a very great hardship to parties, as after they had gone to all the expense of preparing for trial they found themselves compelled to incur all the expense over again. No doubt much of the business of the Court of Chancery was conducted in Chambers, and with regard to these proceedings it appeared that during the last year no less than 75,000 appointments were made; but without meaning to cast any imputation upon the officials who sat there, and who performed their duties in an admirable manner, he must say that it was the feeling of the profession that the Judges should exercise more superintendence over the business at Chambers than they did at present. This was a totally different matter, however, from the references now proposed, as under the Bill as it stood, the Courts were to have power to refer cases to the functionaries to be appointed, and whether temporarily or permanently did not appear, upon what terms they thought fit, with or without the consent of the parties. [The ATTORNEY GENERAL: Such a power exists at present.] No doubt, that was so; but only in matters of account, and the reference was to officers of the Court. If the parties were aggrieved by the decision of the Masters of the Court or the clerks of the Judges, there was an instant resort to the Judges themselves for a revision of the order. One other provision of the Bill was of such importance that it ought not to be passed over without notice —namely, that which would enact that where two vessels were in collision and each was found to be in fault, the Common Law rule, and not the rule of the Court of Admiralty, should prevail. The Common Law rule was, that no damages could be recovered by either vessel in such a case; whereas, in the

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  Court of Admiralty, when two vessels were in collision, and both were found to be in fault, the damages were divided, the owners of one ship paying to the owners of the other one-half the amount of the damages sustained. The rule of the Admiralty Court was the common law of Europe, and was also the rule of the Admiralty Court of America; but that would be set aside by the Bill, and that was a matter which deserved the serious consideration of all persons connected with the shipping interest, for the effect of the alteration would be to tempt the stronger ship to run any risk of avoiding injury to itself, even to the extent of sending the weaker vessel to the bottom. He now came to the Court of Appeal. He should be glad if the jurisdiction of the House of Lords as the highest Court of Appeal could be preserved; but inasmuch as the House of Lords themselves had given that point up, he did not see how it could be maintained. And even if that jurisdiction were to be maintained, great alterations would be required in the tribunal itself. It was necessary for the formation of an efficient Court of Appeal not only that it should consist of a number of the most eminent Judges, but that those Judges should be always available. He had some doubts, however, as to the operation of the Court of Appeal which the Bill would provide. The tendency of the ex officio Judges would be, he was afraid, not to sit upon it. Now, a final Court of Appeal had not only to decide the cases which came before it, but to lay down great principles, and establish landmarks, and he was of opinion that there should be one such great Court, to which everybody might ultimately resort. It might be contended that it would be overwhelmed by business; but that would not be so if there were an intermediate Court of Appeal, and he did not think that a final Court of Appeal should have the power of subdividing itself. A short time ago he had moved for a Return of the appeals which had gone to the House of Lords, and out of 425 appeals to the Lord Justices and Lord Chancellor only 35 went ultimately to the House of Lords, showing that a very small number of cases would go to the ultimate tribunal if there was an intermediate Court of Appeal. If provision could be made for the establishment of such an intermediate
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  Court of Appeal—though, as the Bill was drawn, that would be a matter of some difficulty—it should be introduced before proceeding further with the measure. Again, the objection might be urged that a system of that kind was likely to result in great hardship, by leading people to prolong their resistance; but from his experience in the matter of appeals, he could say that it was not the wealthy who had good professional advice, and who had a reputation to lose, who carried their cases to the ultimate Court without sufficient cause, but rather those desperate litigants who had nothing to lose. Coming next to the proposed code of procedure, he thought it would require very considerable attention before it was passed. He could not help thinking that the trace of the Common Law hand was too plainly written in the Schedule of procedure, because the tendency was to substitute that which prevailed in the Common Law Courts for that which prevailed in the Court of Chancery. The Chancery procedure gave great satisfaction to suitors and practitioners, the statements being eminently precise and clear; and he could not understand whether the pleadings in the new Court were to be such as were required in Common Law, or such as were required in the Court of Chancery. Nothing could be more unsatisfactory than the pleadings in the Courts of Common Law, and it would be a most unfortunate thing if this Bill were to extend them to the Court of Chancery. He next came to the question of referring the Bill to a Select Committee, and in advocating that course he could assure the House he was not at all anxious to delay its passing. He maintained that it was not a Bill for a Committee of the Whole House, but for a Select Committee. Many Amendments would no doubt appear on the Paper, but others might be proposed without notice or due consideration; and if they were adopted hastily great injury would be done to the promoters of the Bill, and an irreparable injury might be inflicted upon the suitors. A Committee upstairs, on the other hand, might have the assistance of the Government draftsman, in carrying out its views and in framing the Amendments required to ccarry out their views, and the Amendments could be submitted for the revision and consideration of the Lord Chancellor himself.
  MR. JAMESsaid, that those who had to frame and introduce a measure of legal reform had sometimes to contend with the personal jealousy of Law Reformers, and sometimes with members of the legal profession, who might think that their interests would be affected by any change in the existing system; but the public, which often wanted Law Reform, seldom demanded it, and it was the duty of the House to see what the public would require, if they had the knowledge and the means of expressing an opinion. The first ground of complaint which the Bill was designed to remedy was the uncertainty of the law. The next was the delay which existed in obtaining justice from the tribunals. The third, which resulted from the joint operation of the former, was the expense to which the suitor was subjected. The present Bill did little to cure the first of these evils, and, with the exception of the legislation contained in the 22nd clause, the countless precedents with which the law abounded would remain, until the day arrived when they might hope to see the work of codification accomplished. With regard, however, to the second and third causes of complaint, the Bill went straight to the principal sources of delay and expense, and provided a remedy. In deciding whether the Bill ought not to be read a second time, let the House see what it proposed to do. It proposed that they should diminish the number of appellate tribunals, and that, instead of having two bad appellate Courts, they should unite the strength of both to make a good one. With regard to the retention of its appellate jurisdiction the House of Lords had judged itself. With men in that House who were naturally prone to defend its privileges and ancient traditions, the House of Lords had decided, almost without any difference of opinion, that the time had come when it had ceased adequately to discharge the duty of an appellate tribunal in the last resort. Nor was it surprising that such should be the case, when they considered how the tribunal was constituted during the hearing of appeals. When English appeals from the Common Law Judges came before it, the Law Lords had the assistance of only one English Peer, who had practised at Common Law, yet who had never himself been a Common Law Judge. The consequence was, that
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  the Peers had to summon to their assistance the very Judges from whom the appeal was brought. These Judges had already expressed their opinions, and counsel calculated how they would decide, just as the hon. Member for Shaftesbury (Mr. Glyn) reckoned up the numbers on each side when a Select Committee was appointed. The present Bill, however, declared that every Judge who sat in an appellate tribunal should be free from bias of this kind. At present it rested with the Members of the appellate tribunal in the House of Lords to attend or not at their pleasure or convenience. One Peer might wish to spend the winter abroad, and another might prefer yachting to sitting en appeals in the House of Lords. The Bill had, therefore, passed without much discussion on the part of those who did not wish to retain their present power. The Bill was formed so as to secure a saving in point of time to suitors. There would not be three steps, but two, to be taken before arriving at a decision. One of the causes of delay and expense was the want of judicial strength. It would be found, however, that, by economizing the existing strength, the object could be obtained without adding to the number of the Judicial Bench. There could be no doubt that the delay was caused by the want of judicial power. A merchant in the City of London might have a cause which in a month would be ready for trial. The probability was that 12 months would elapse before it was reached, another year before the appeal to the Exchequer Chamber could be disposed of, and one, two, or three years before a decision could be obtained in the House of Lords. An interval of four or five years might thus elapse before a cause was determined in the Final Court of Appeal. Contrast this delay with the proceedings in the Admiralty Court. A collision between two vessels occurred either in the river or the Channel on the 19th of February last. There was an appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and before the end of April—namely, in less than three months—the cause had been heard and finally determined. The contrast was owing to the fact that the cause had to go before one appellate Court instead of two, that there was sufficient judicial strength in both Courts, and that the Judges were not overworked. The

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  object of the Bill was to economize the judicial power, so that the suitor could at once proceed to obtain a decision. One objection might be made—that this would involve extra judicial power. Inasmuch, however, as "thrift was great revenue," so an economy of judicial power really meant an increase of judicial strength. Therefore, while he gave his hearty support to the Bill, he thought that by a stroke of the pen they could add to the judicial power by a better economy of it. The 15 Common Law Judges were now divided into three sections—the Queen's Bench, the Common Pleas, and the Exchequer—the existence of which Courts was an anomaly except in their very origin. Instead of putting these 15 Judges into one Court, the Bill proposed to maintain the three Divisions, and a loss of judicial power would be the result. At present a motion for a new trial was argued, and being unfinished it was put off to allow of the intervention of other business; and in that way delay and expense were unnecessarily caused. The maintenance of the existing three Courts was a concession to sentiment only, so as to preserve the dignity of the Chief Justices and the Chief Baron—an object which he should be perfectly ready to attain in some other way; but still in re-arranging the Temple of Justice he thought some regard ought to be paid to the convenience and interests of the worshippers as well as of the priests. If the divisions between these Courts were done away with, they could have one Court sitting for new trials, another for the Crown Paper, and so on, so that there would be no break in the hearing of individual cases. In that way, he believed that without having additional Judges, they would obtain an increase by one-third of their judicial strength. The Bill had also, in his opinion, a tendency to go a little too far in the way of abolishing trial by jury, for under the 30th rule in the Schedule it depended solely on the will of the Judge whether he would remit a case to a jury or try it himself. Of course, that was only a point of detail; but he hoped it would hereafter receive the careful consideration it deserved. Although, at first, he had thought the better course would be to refer this measure to a Select Committee, he had since altered that opinion. At that time of the year some legal
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  Members of the House would, perhaps, be unwilling to give up their time and relinquish professional engagements in order to sit on the Committee; and even if they did, the Bill would be sent back to the House at a period when every Member of the Common Law Bar would be absent on circuit. Under the circumstances, therefore, he thought the House ought now to make an attempt to carry the measure in its entirety, subject to alterations in Committee. Without regarding the Bill as a complete one, he accepted it, because it went in the right direction. Any omissions in the Bill might be to a great extent supplied by the rules and regulations to be framed by the Judges, who would be subject to the vigilant criticism of the profession, the Press, and the public; moreover, these rules would not come into effect until they had been sanctioned by Parliament. He should support the Bill, not because it entirely remedied the defects in our judicial system, but because it marked out a path that would lead us eventually to the fountain of justice, which, when the impurities were removed from it, would allow the pure stream of justice to flow for the benefit of all classes in the community.
  MR. MATTHEWSsaid, the fact of the debate having been carried on in a very thin House was not encouraging to the friends of Law Reform, for though the Bill was one which vitally affected the interest of every subject of the Queen who had to go into a Court of Law, the debate upon it had been addressed to only 12 or 20 hon. Members. They were, however, all agreed that the Bill should be read a second time, and the only question was, what Amendments should be introduced into it, and whether its provisions should be referred to the consideration of a Select Committee. His own impression was, that such a measure could be much better discussed and amended in a Select Committee of lawyers, than in a mixed Assembly like the House itself, for it wanted that minute and acute criticism which members of the legal profession alone could give, and which, however eminent the noble and learned Lords (the Lord Chancellor and Lord Cairns) might be, neither of them unaided could possibly supply. In point of fact, the Bill ought to be submitted to the criticism of the whole profession, both barristers and

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  solicitors, for months before it came to be finally dealt with by Parliament. From such examination as he had been able to give to the Bill, he could not gather that any essential change was made in the Court of Chancery. The principles and jurisdiction of that Court appeared to be left untouched. Why, in the world, then, did the Bill deal with the Court of Chancery at all? What he feared it would do, would be to make Courts of Common Law bad Courts of Equity. No doubt, if you were to have the principles of Law and Equity concurrently and jointly administered by all our Courts, as everybody desired, there must for a time be bad Courts of Equity. He was prepared to face that danger; but could not the object desired be attained by striking the Court of Chancery out of the Bill? It would then have been a less ambitious, but a more prudent and a safer measure. The advantage of throwing all the Courts into one crucible might be to obtain an easy interchange of judicial force. But you might secure that advantage equally by a single clause in the Bill, providing where necessary for the presence of an Equity Judge as Assessor. There was one great disadvantage in the arrangement proposed—that the whole body of Judges would be placed in one Court under the presidency of a Member of the Executive Government and a Minister, the Lord Chancellor for the time being, instead of under the Lord Chief Justice. He had not attempted to follow out the consequences of that step, but feared it might seriously compromise the independence of our Judges. As to the proposed abolition of the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords, he had never heard a great constitutional change proposed with such extraordinary levity. No responsible Commission or Committee had recommended the abolition of those functions, and in his opinion it was unwise to commit the whole appellate jurisdiction of the country to a new tribunal of the working of which we had no experience, doing away with an old landmark of the Constitution. No doubt, theoretical objections might be made to the appellate jurisdiction of the other House, and some practical objections on the score of delay and expense might also be urged; but some of these objections might be removed by a Standing Order. Not only had there been
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  no recommendation that the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords should be abolished, but the very last Committee which sat on the subject in 1872 had reported that the present state of its appellate business was satisfactory. Scotch Law Officers from both sides gave evidence before that very Committee, that in Scotland the suitors were perfectly satisfied with the justice administered by the House of Lords, and preferred that appeal to any other, while similar testimony came from Ireland. Any attempt, therefore, to send appeals from Ireland to a Court in Westminster Hall would, he thought, supply fresh fuel to the Home Rule agitation. Were they going to have three different and equally irresponsible Courts of Ultimate Appeal in the United Kingdom—the House of Lords laying down one law for Scotland and Ireland; the new Court laying down a second law for England; and the Privy Council, in ecclesiastical causes, laying down a third law? Besides, the constitution of the new Final Court of Appeal, as contained in the Bill, was otherwise mischievous. It constituted a Court of Final Appeal from the ex officio Judges, ordinary Judges, and additional Judges, and as the ex officio Judges would receive no additional pay for the extra work thrown upon them, it would follow that they would be driven away by the paid Judges, for the Bill did not compel their attendance. In that Court of Appeal, they were putting ex officio unpaid Members alongside paid Members. [The SOLICITOR GENERAL: The ex officio Judges are to be paid.] Where, in the Bill, was it stated that the Lord Chief Justice of England was to be paid extra for attending the Court of Appeal? [The SOLICITOR GENERAL: Not extra.] But the work was extra. The Lord Chief Justice presiding over his own Court at a certain salary would still be continued at the head of his own Court or Division at that salary, and he might if he liked—there were no compulsory words—and when he had leisure, attend the Court of Appeal. Therefore, he was an unpaid Judge as far as related to the Court of Appeal. The Solicitor General, therefore, did not appear to have devoted any special attention to the provisions of the Bill. Those who had been, as he thought, disparagingly described by the hon. Member for Denbighshire, as in-

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  mates of the Greenwich Hospital of the law, were the additional Members, and they were also to go without salaries. For his part, he had always thought the House of Lords, in the persons of Lord Selborne, Lord Hatherley, Lord Cairns, and Lord Westbury, had not represented the invalids of the profession, but rather the most eminent members of it. But such as they were, these "invalids" were put into the Court of Appeal. Now, it was proposed that any three might form a quorum. The inevitable effect of that would be that they would have three distinct Courts of Appeal, an Equity Court of Appeal, a Common Law Court of Appeal, and a Colonial Court of Appeal. They would not get an united Court of Appeal, but three coordinate systems of law would ultimately be decided in the last resort each by a Court of three. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General had made merry over the House of Lords, where there happened to be only one Common Law Lord; but that might be easily remedied by the Prime Minister removing that hon. and learned Gentleman from those (the Ministerial) benches to a position where he could render even greater services to the country than he did now. Let the ready critics tell them, if they could, into what quagmire the House of Lords, with its so-called "Greenwich Hospital Judges," had carried the law, and point out where it had led the law astray. The House of Lords appeared to him to bring to the decision of those questions just what was wanted to correct the technicalities of the law; a statesmanlike wisdom and the larger-mindedness of men of the world. Then they had been able to lead the law into a direction in which it was beneficial and desirable it should go, and before they cut away its judicial power, they should see their way clearly to establish a more satisfactory tribunal. The proposed system of official referees he looked upon with the greatest dread and dislike. That system came in effect to this—that they were creating a subordinate order of Judges, to be paid by salary, to be part of the patronage of the Lord Chancellor—a matter of grave consideration—whose number and qualifications were left absolutely open by the Bill, against whose decision there was to be no appeal, who were to be judges of both law and fact, to whom there was hardly any case
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  which might not be referred by a Judge, whether from indolence or some of the many other motives that actuated even serene judicial minds, and who were to have power to sit in town or country; so that an official referee might take a journey in the hot weather to Brighton, whither the witnesses would have to follow him. They took no security except appointment by the Lord Chancellor that they would be fit for the discharge of their functions. Thus, too, by a side wind they were sweeping away the whole system of arbitrations by order at Nisi Prius, and substituting that fresh class of officials at great cost to the country—an arrangement which, he believed, would not be satisfactory to the public. The Bill would also give the control of all the interlocutory steps up to notice of trial to 50 or 60 district registrars, some of whom were not lawyers. That was as bad a scheme as could be devised, for it was localizing that which was best done in London by agents who conducted the business in the cheapest and promptest way, and the remission of nice questions of law to the registrars would lead to diversity of judgment and failure of justice. From them, moreover, as far as he could understand the sketchy drawing of the Bill—for it was a skeleton with clothes on—there would be no appeal. He was sure the Lord Chancellor, though he had drawn the Bill, had not drawn the Schedule, for it made the most momentous changes in a flighty way without saying what statutes it repealed. It laid down, for instance, that costs should in all cases be in the discretion of the Court—a bungling way of setting aside a dozen statutes which deprived the Court of discretion over costs, and awarded or withheld costs according to the issue of the case, and the amount of the verdict—and that all existing rules as to pleading should be superseded by the not very intelligible ones contained in the Bill. On another point, moreover, as to the question of costs, which, though an unromantic one, was of vital interest to suitors, the clauses and the Schedule were in actual conflict, for the former provided that a section of the County Courts Act of 1867 as to costs in certain cases should apply to all proceedings, whereas the latter laid down the absolute rule he had mentioned. It was impossible for the House at that time to

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  give the Bill the careful revision it required. One course would be to take the Bill on the responsibility of Lord Selborne and Lord Cairns, but unless the House were thus to abdicate its functions, the best plan would be to let the Bill lie fallow for the winter, so that the opinions of the profession might be collected. The solicitors, for instance, might throw more light on the measure than a Chancellor, ox-Chancellor, or Greenwich pensioner could do, and if that course were adopted, they might, next Session, be in a position to pass a Bill which would do credit to the House and be of advantage to the country.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid, he would not take the trouble to contradict the assertion of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dungarvan (Mr. Matthews)—who always showed such confidence in addressing either the House or the Courts—that he had not made himself acquainted with the provisions of the Bill. He must, however, correct the hon. and learned Gentleman's statement that the Judicature Commission recommended the continuance of the House of Lords as an appellate tribunal. [Mr. MATTHEWS: Pro tempore.] The reason why the Commission did not recommend the abolition of the House of Lords [Laughter]—he meant its abolition as a judicial tribunal, for the subject under discussion was limited to this—was that they regarded the question as beyond the scope of their reference, and they therefore simply mentioned that the efficiency of the Court of Chancery was impaired by the withdrawal therefrom of the Lord Chancellor for appeals in the House of Lords. They were told that, if they withdrew from the House of Lords the judicial appeals they would injure its dignity and standing. Was the House of Lords so weak that it could not stand as a Legislative Assembly, if they did not allow three respectable retired Lord Chancellors to adjudicate on appeals? Was not the House of Lords the best judge of its own dignity, and had it not sent down the Bill to that House? Were his hon. and learned Friends opposite the conservators and protectors of the dignity of the House of Lords? Then it was said that the House of Lords was wonderfully efficient as a Court of Appeal. It was true that some persons whose opinions were entitled to considerable
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  weight had said so in 1856, but that was a very long time ago. We had grown wiser since then, and some of those who had held that opinion then had come to look at the matter in a different light now. Since that time we had discovered that the main object of a legal tribunal was to do justice, not by fits and starts, and by means of Judges who were continually changing, but by Judges sitting regularly, who were paid for their services by the State, and who would attend the whole year round with the exception of during the needful vacations. At the present moment, we had no absolute claim upon the attendance of any Law Lord except the Lord Chancellor. It had happened of late years that there had been a fair attendance of Law Lords; but within the present century no Law Lords whatever had attended, and appeals had been heard and decided by three lay Lords, assisted by a subordinate Judge acting in the capacity of Assessor, while for a considerable time only one Law Lord had attended on such occasions. Although, for the present, such a state of things no longer existed, it might recur to-morrow. Most of our present Law Lords were very aged men—one was over 80 years of age, and two were in their 80th year. It was impossible to calculate upon the continued attendance of octogenarians. They had done good service to their country, but there was no reason for our counting upon their continued attendance; and when these Law Lords were cleared away—when these aged individuals retired, what guarantee had we that fresh Judges would take their place, and that there would be more than one or two Law Lords to assist the Lord Chancellor. People talked of the House of Lords as if it were a permanent legal tribunal; but the fact was, that it was not a law tribunal at all, and it was a mere accident that it had a sufficient number of Peers competent to act as Judges in it at the present moment. It was also quite possible that some of the Law Lords might receive offers from Insurance Companies in course of liquidation to act as private arbitrators, and that they might think it consistent with their dignity to accept the office and not to attend any more as Judges in the High Court of Appeal. Such things had occurred and might occur again, and then what would become of the

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  House of Lords as the highest Court of Appeal in the country? In his opinion, that was not the proper appellate tribunal for a great country like this. The question before the House, then, was how were they to create a good fixed appeal tribunal in place of the chance tribunal that at present existed? If the Bill did no more than create such a tribunal the country ought to be grateful to Parliament for passing it into law, and it would prove to be a very large measure of reform indeed. The Bill proposed to establish such a tribunal and to get rid of the Court of intermediate appeal. Moreover, the strongest proof of the desirability, necessity, and utility of the abolition of the House of Lords as a Court of Appeal consisted in the simple fact, that every lawyer in that House had assented to that provision in the Bill; and that the only noble Lord who opposed it, though he inherited a legal name, whatever his other titles to distinction, was not distinguished by legal eminence. In reference to the portion of the Bill which dealt with the fusion of Law and Equity, it provided that wherever the mode in which justice was administered substantially differed as between the Courts of Law and the Courts of Equity, the principles which governed the Courts of Equity should prevail. The hon. and learned Member opposite (Mr. Matthews) had pointed to the 63rd section of the Bill relating to the County Courts as being inconsistent with the provisions in the schedule as to costs, and as an instance of bungling legislation; but if he had carefully studied the details of the measure, he would have found that the provisions in the 63rd section relating to those Courts were not inconsistent, but according to the general rules of interpretation would be read as exceptions to the general provision as to costs in the schedule. The next thing to which his hon. and learned Friend referred was the official referees. He was entirely mistaken on the subject. He said there was no appeal against their report. If he had referred to the Bill he would have found that the referee was to report to the Judge, who would thereupon make any order he might think fit, and that until the Court adopted the report the report was nothing. The present Bill required that matters requiring special knowledge should be specially referred;
  684
  accounts, for instance, to accountants; matters of science to scientific men, so that the Judge might obtain the assistance of the referees, and the Court could then adopt the report or any part of it. Another objection was, that it would create a judicial tribunal to be presided over by the Lord Chancellor, who was a Cabinet Minister; but the Lord Chancellor presided over a judicial tribunal already, and no objection had ever been made to his doing so on account of his holding a Cabinet office. They were also told that the Court of Chancery was not in the Bill at all, and that all the Bill did, was to make the Common Law Courts bad Chancery Courts. Did the hon. and learned Gentleman know that appeals to the Lord Chancellor were taken away by this Bill? Besides, the Bill made important alterations in the whole course of legal proceedings. A certain portion of the substantive law was altered by the Bill, and, amongst others, the case referred to by the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Bourke)—namely, the case of insolvent estates. As to that matter, it was thought, after the best consideration, that the Rules which were acted upon in the Court of Bankruptcy with reference to the administration of insolvents' estates should be acted upon in the Court of Chancery. With regard to the district registrars, it had been found by experience gained in Lancashire, that a very large quantity of work might be done cheaply and quickly on the spot in the country by persons who understood the subject, instead of having it inquired into in London at great expense and with great delay. Many of the points that had been mentioned could be better discussed in Committee, and as to the expediency of referring the Bill to a Select Committee, he doubted whether anything would be gained by such a course. His own opinion was that if it were so referred, the minority would not acquiesce in the opinion of the majority, and would fight over again in a Committee of the Whole House, all the points on which they had been at issue. Beyond that, every lawyer who had not been put on the Committee would feel himself almost personally insulted, and would feel it to be his duty to give Notice of a great number of Amendments, and to make a great number of speeches on the Bill, and in that way the Bill would be thrown over for the Session. It was also

  685
  doubtful whether the Report of the Committee would come down in time for any effectual legislation that Session; but even if it came down at the middle of July, it would be said that all the Common Law Members were on Circuit, and that in their absence the Bill could not be discussed. He did not pretend that the measure was perfect; but if it even presented a fair basis for our future legal procedure and judicial organization, it was a great pity that the Session should pass without this great legal reform. If a very much longer time could be given to elaborate the details, the Bill might have been made more perfect and workable to a greater extent without the aid of general rules to be hereafter made; but he hoped the House would take it with such modifications as might be made in Committee, and pass it into law without further loss of time.
  DR. BALLrose to address the House, but
  MR. GLADSTONE,interposing, said, that as it would be impossible to finish the discussion that night (it being half-past 11 o'clock), he would move the adjournment of the debate, to enable the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to bring forward his Motion relative to the Cape of Good Hope and Zanzibar Mail Contracts.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Gladstone.)
  MR. DISRAELIasked when the debate would be resumed.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, to-morrow, at 2 o'clock.
  MR. DISRAELIsaid, he asked the question for the convenience of hon. Members of the Bar, whose opinions it was desirable they should hear on the subject.
  MR. WATKIN WILLIAMSsaid, that two o'clock to-morrow would suit the convenience of hon. Members of the Bar.
  SIR RICHARD BAGGALLAYcomplained of the short Notice of adjournment. It would materially interfere with the arrangements of hon. and learned Gentlemen.
  MR. HINDE PALMERsaid, that if the debate was resumed at two o'clock, it would of necessity continue till five or six o'clock, which would give ample op-
  686
  portunity to legal Members of the House to discuss the measure.
  MR. HOLKERsaid, it would prevent many hon. Members of the Common Law Bar speaking on the Bill if the debate was resumed so early. It would be impossible to discuss the Bill so fully and so satisfactorily if legal gentlemen had not an opportunity of hearing the discussion.
  MR. LOPESalso urged that the discussion should not be resumed tomorrow.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, that all hon. Members of the House who were members of the legal profession would not necessarily be absent till four o'clock, or be engaged up to that hour elsewhere.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he thought the Rating Bills were fixed for to-morrow.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Yes, so they are.
  MR. SPENCER WALPOLEsaid, that was the most important Bill of the Session. The Bill proposed to make great changes, which he was disposed, as at present advised, to support. It was necessary it should be thoroughly discussed, and he ventured to submit that time would not be lost by adjourning the debate till Thursday next.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Debate adjourned till Thursday next.

  POST OFFICE—MAIL CONTRACTS—CAPE OF GOOD HOPE AND ZANZIBAR.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER,in moving—
  "That the Contract for the Conveyance of Mails between the Cape of Good. Hope and. Zanzibar with the Union Steam Ship Company be approved,"
  said, that on the part of the Government, he having taken upon himself the responsibility of the proposed step, he found himself in a difficulty, for he thought the proper course would have been that those who objected to the contract should first be heard, and that the Government should not be put upon its defence without being apprised of the grounds of the objection. He could not help feeling also that it was most desirable that the responsibility of these matters should rest with the Government, who made the contracts, and not

  687
  with the House of Commons, who had power to reject them. The effect of the matter coming into the hands of the House, instead of those of the Government, would raise a tendency to produce that which was condemned in other countries—the personal solicitation of Members in the lobbies, which he should be sorry to see adopted in this country; and, further, the fact of the Government not having power to make a binding contract would tend to increase very much the expense, because persons who entered into contracts with the Government, not knowing whether the House of Commons would accept them or not, would naturally exact higher terms than if left in the hands of the Government. The House were, therefore, now asked to come to an important decision. Of course, if the Government were guilty of misconduct, or acted with unfairness, or from a sinister motive, a contract should be set aside; but the House should not stop there, but should set aside the Government as well as the contract. Having made these prefatory remarks, he would now pass to the facts of the case. During 1870–1 the attention of the Government was much drawn to the question of the East African Slave Trade, which was then in a flourishing and not decreasing condition, and the Government came to the conclusion, that the best way to put down that traffic was not by armed force, but by more pacific means. Accordingly, they had been at considerable expense in putting it down, and had spent within five years upwards of £250,000 in the attempt to do so. As cruisers were the only available means of putting it down, a Committee of the House had recommended a large increase of our armed force; but the Government were of opinion that it would be better to adopt more simple measures; that the great antidote to the slave trade was to let in light upon the transaction, and that a still more effectual rival to the slave trade was the introduction of trade and commerce. With that view, the Government considered it desirable to establish a line of steamers from Aden to Zanzibar, and another from Zanzibar to the Cape of Good Hope. In the latter part of 1871, he made inquiries as to the terms on which that could be done, and was informed that two Companies would be willing to undertake the service. The enterprise was one of con-
  688
  siderable hazard, the route having been badly surveyed; and he thought the survey of this line was likely to give more benefit than that by any expedition to the North Pole. The Government took time to consider the matter, and to ascertain what contributions could be obtained from India and other parts interested in the matter. They eventually received proposals from the British India Steam Packet Company and the Union Steam Packet Company, which offered to reduce the number of days' passage from 37 to 30, on consideration of their contract being extended by the term of three and a half years. Eventually, the Government agreed to give the British India Steam Company £10,000 for the service from Aden to Zanzibar, instead of their original proposal of £11,000; while, with regard to the Union Company it was agreed that if they reduced the length of the journey between England and the Cape from 37 to 30 days they would have an extension of their contract for three and a-half years in addition to the four and a-half years it had to run at £26,000 a-year instead of £29,000 and £15,000, for carrying the mails between Zanzibar and the Cape. The request that the service should be fortnightly and only 30 days in length had been complied with, and the wishes of the Cape Colony had been so far satisfied. But the Government had been charged with favouring monopolies and refusing to put the contract up to open competition. That, however, could not be done, because the Cape Company's contract was unexpired, and he held in his hand a letter from Mr. Hamilton, one of the directors of the Company, detailing an interview with Mr. Donald Currie, representing the competing line, in the course of which he proposed a combination to raise the freights and fares on the plea of the rise in the price of coal, and divide the traffic. Failing in that endeavour, an agitation was commenced against the Cape Line. The House had been deluged with letters from the agent of Mr. Currie, a Mr. Soper, and he held in his hand one, dated the 7th of June, to which he wished to call particular attention, as it showed the kind of statements which were made on this subject. That gentleman stated, among other things, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had extended the contract for

  689
  eight years, although it had three and a-half years to run; but the fact was, as he had shown, the contract was extended only for three and a-half years, and it had been made professedly and avowedly to put clown the slave trade. Well, in the beginning of the year, in accordance with that contract, the Union Steamship Company had gone to considerable expense in laying down several large ships, and they actually commenced running on the Line between Aden and Zanzibar. It was urged that that Line should not have been brought into operation until the opinion of the House had been taken on the subject. As to the Cape line, no harm had been done, because the House would not be asked to confirm the contract; but as to the line between the Cape and Zanzibar, it appeared very desirable for the suppression of the slave trade, judging from the disclosures made on the subject, by Dr. Livingstone, Mr. Stanley, and the expedition of Sir Bartle Frere, to bring the contract into operation at once; and he had no doubt that the House would agree with the view which the Government took of this matter. Though the Government felt obliged to abandon the line to the Cape they had not the least intention of abandoning the Zanzibar contract. The Company had acted with a great deal of public spirit in undertaking an enterprise exceedingly difficult and perfectly novel, in which nothing was certain except that their loss must be heavy in consequence of the absence of passengers and commerce. The House would not have approved the action of the Government, if it fell back on the technical defence, and said that these two contracts were contained in two different pieces of paper; and, therefore, though they did not choose to ask the House to confirm the contract between England and the Cape, they require still the Company to adhere to the very low terms they had accepted for the contract between the Cape and Zanzibar. No Government could do such a thing, and they re-opened the contract with the full consent of the Post Office. On the 22nd of November, 1871, before any proposal was made of the service between England and the Cape, the Company offered to perform the service between the Cape and Zanzibar for £29,000. The Government obtained a reduction to £26,000, which was about
  690
  8s. a-mile, or nearly the same rate as the Peninsular and Oriental ran at where there was a large commerce and many passengers. If the Government pressed the matter, they might perhaps have got the Company to accept lower terms; but the House would see that in acting as they had done, the Government were only supporting the honour and good faith of the country. The question remained for the House whether they would confirm the contract or not, and he could not allow himself to doubt, after the full statement which he had made, that every consideration of justice and policy would lead them to do it. In conclusion, he would beg to move that the contract be approved.
  Motion made and Question proposed,
  "That the Contract for the conveyance of Mails between the Cape of Good Hope and Zanzibar with the Union Steam Ship Company be approved."—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
  MR. HOLMS*: I should have been glad, Sir, if it had not fallen to my lot to oppose the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman. I have done all that lay in my power to warn the right hon. Gentleman against the presentation to this House of the contract now under discussion in its present form. There are occasions, Sir, in the life of every right thinking man when a great conflict arises within him between charity and duty, and this to me is one of those occasions. I have had such a conflict with respect to the course which I should pursue as to this Motion, and I have decided that it is my duty, not only to the public, but also to this House and to myself, knowing the facts of this case as I do, unhesitatingly to place them before you. I may perhaps require to ask some indulgence from the House, because apart from the remarkable circumstances connected with the negotiations which have taken place in relation to this contract, it involves two important principles. Should the House of Commons affirm this contract, then it will sanction the principle that such contracts may be concluded by private arrangement, and without being submitted to public competition. It will also approve this other principle—namely, that such contracts may be made without consultation with our Colonies, who are even more immediately and directly interested in such a bargain than the Home Government. I

  691
  wish here to say that, as I must, when relating in detail the facts connected with this contract, refer frequently to the Union Steamship Company, which for a long series of years has carried the mails between Southampton and the Cape of Good Hope, I desire at once to state that that Company, I believe has fulfilled its duties in relation to past and existing contracts in a most satisfactory manner, and I believe also that it is a Company which is very much respected in the Cape Colony; and for myself I would add that having carefully investigated their various transactions with the Government, I can come to no other conclusion than that its directors are worthy of great praise for their businesslike capacity. Indeed, I only wish that something more of this quality had been exhibited on the part of those who have negotiated these several bargains with them on the part of the State. I also desire at this point to say that I cannot, and do not, regard the blunder of a Department in a matter of this kind as an error to be charged against Her Majesty's Government generally, nor do I think that when one undertakes to make statements such as I shall have to make before I sit down, they should be made otherwise than in the most frank and direct manner, so that those who ought really to bear the blame may have it fairly brought home to them, and have an opportunity of pointing out any errors—should any such appear in these statements.
  Now, Sir, the reason I have for opposing this contract, apart from the fact that it has been entered into by private arrangement and not by public competition, is that it proposes to increase the subsidy by £11,000 a-year beyond the sum agreed upon to be paid for the same services under the contract, dated the 19th of December last, which it has displaced, and by which the Union Steamship Company were to have had £15,000 a-year for carrying the mails between Zanzibar and the Cape of Good Hope. By the one now under discussion, it is proposed to give them a subsidy of £26,000. The reason assigned for this addition is that owing to the dissatisfaction expressed by the Cape merchants and Cape colonists against the proposed extension of the existing contract with the Union Steamship Company, for conveying the mails between the United
  692
  Kingdom and the Cape—a proposed extension from 1876 to 1881, which was embodied in a contract also dated the 19th of December last, and which was withdrawn from the Table of the House on the 5th of May. Now, Sir, the negotiation of that contract, the life and death of which is urged as a plea for this increased payment of £11,000 a-year, was a great blunder—a blunder for which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer was directly responsible—and the plain question now before us is this, is the House of Commons prepared to consent to the payment of £11,000 a-year for eight years, that is to say, of a gross sum of £88,000 sterling, in order to cover the retreat of the right hon. Gentleman from a bargain which he ought never to have made? Having made this strong statement, I feel I am bound to show that this proposed payment of £88,000 is to be given for this object, and for this object alone. To establish this assertion, the House may very reasonably ask me to prove that the payment of £15,000, as proposed by the first contract agreed upon for conveying the mails between Zanzibar and the Cape was in itself sufficient. I propose to do this in several ways. First, I would point out to the House that these mail contracts have all had their origin in the proposed establishment of a mail service for the purpose of aiding in suppressing the slave trade on the east coast of Africa. To this end it was thought wise to arrange that steamers should be run from Aden to Zanzibar, and from Zanzibar to the Cape of Good Hope. Some time before the suppression of the slave trade was spoken of, Her Majesty's Government had had applications from two Companies in relation to the conveyance of these mails. One dated the 22nd of November, 1871, from the Union Steamship Company—and here I would beg the close attention of the House for a few minutes, as the facts I am now about to state have an important bearing on the case—offering to carry mails from Zanzibar to the Cape, once each alternate month, for the sum of £18,000 a-year, or once a month for £29,000 a-year for a period of seven years. The other offer was from the British Indian Steam Navigation Company, who proposed to carry the mails from Zanzibar to the Cape, not for £29,000 a-year, but

  693
  for £16,315, or a little more than half the sum proposed by the Union Steamship Company. But, besides, the British Indian Company offered to carry the mails from Zanzibar and Aden for £11,050, and their combined offer was evidently in the opinion of the Government the only one at that time worthy of consideration, for on the 10th of January, 1872, Lord Kimberley wrote a despatch to the Governor of the Cape, giving the particulars of this offer of the British Indian Company, and asking the colony if it was inclined to give a subsidy of £4,500 in aid of the contract. How brought about the House will judge now from the following extract from a letter to me from the British Indian Steam Navigation Company, June 2, 1873:—
  "We put our proposal before the Post Office authorities in London prior to December, 1871; and we also had a favourable reply before December, 1871. The Post Office, London, no doubt sent on the proposal to Lord Kimberley, and thereupon he sent his despatch to the Cape. The conditions of this service as to speed, size of vessel, &c., were the same as have been arranged under contracts now made, and our offer was based on a rate of 5s. per nautical mile. It was subsequent to tins that a director of the Union Steamship Company came to us and said that he had beard of our correspondence, and. that they would be glad to meet us at the Cape or Natal—indifferent which. We agreed. Subsequently he suggested that they might do the part between the Cape, and either Delagoa Bay or Mozambique or Zanzibar. Finally we agreed on Zanzibar, and on hearing that another firm had sent in an offer to do the service from Aden to the Cape for £25,000, we agreed to modify our joint tender to that amount, he at £10,000 from Aden to Zanzibar, the Union Company thence to the Cape at£15,000."
  Then, subsequently to this, on the 25th of June, 1872, these two Companies, the British Indian and the Union, entered into an arrangement for a joint contract for carrying the mails from Aden to the Cape for £25,000 per annum. The British Indian made some slight reduction from their original proposal of £11,500 for the voyage between Aden and Zanzibar, and proposed to take instead £10,000. The Union Steamship Company also made a slight reduction from the offer of the British Indian Company for carrying the mails from Zanzibar to the Cape, and agreed to take £15,000 instead of £16,315. This joint tender was offered to Her Majesty's Government, as will be seen from the printed Papers which I moved for, and
  694
  which are now in the hands of hon. Members. There was no stipulation in it whatever in relation to an extension of the contract held by the Union Steamship Company, for carrying the mails between the United Kingdom and the Cape. To the surprise of the British Indian Steam Navigation Company, they were asked, however, in the month of August, to have their contract drawn up separately, which was done, and for a period of 10 years. These discussions have revealed to them and to the public that the object of this was to enable the Union Steamship Company to go and have some private bargaining on their own account, which they did, by giving off two years from the 10 proposed under the Zanzibar and Cape contract—a new and untried service—to obtain the extension of their Cape and Southampton contract for three years and a-half. If the statement which I have thus made has been followed and understood by hon. Members, they will at once perceive that £15,000 was an ample payment to the Union Steamship Company for the services which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes to give them—£26,000 a-year. But I go further. The distance between Zanzibar and the Cape is 2,500 miles; from Zanzibar to Natal is 1,660 miles, and from Natal to the Cape 840 miles. The British Indian Company offered to carry the mails from Zanzibar to Natal for £10,800, and from Natal to the Cape for £5,400. Now, inasmuch as the Union Steamship Company not only run steamships every month regularly between the Cape and Natal without any Post Office subsidy from Her Majesty's Treasury whatever, and as the trade between these places is growing so rapidly, that they propose to put on an additional steamer a month, they could clearly afford to perform this service at a lower rate than the British Indian Company, who have no steamers running on any portion of the line. To put this beyond a doubt, I will read to the House a short extract from the last report of the Directors of the Union Steamship Company, dated 8th October, 1872. They say—
  "The Commercial prosperity of the Cape and Natal colonies continues to increase. To accommodate the growing commerce of Natal, the Directors have decided on placing a second steamer on the Coast station, which will give

  695
  two sailings a month to that port instead of one."
  This Company, moreover, receives a subsidy from the Government of Natal of £2,000 a-year, with the prospect of its being increased. Under these circumstances it is perfectly obvious that, without any subsidy whatever, the Union Steamship Company could carry the mails between these two ports, and it follows that they could easily have accepted the £10, 800—the sum fixed upon by the British Indian Company for carrying the mails from Zanzibar to Natal—for the service for the whole distance between Zanzibar and the Cape of Good Hope. I am of opinion, therefore, that even by private arrangement the Union Steamship Company might have been induced to accept of the £10,800, instead even of the £15,000. In truth, Sir, this is the position—if we wished to see a line of omnibuses from the Mansion House to Hammersmith, surely that company which already had a successful line established from the Mansion House to Charing Cross would be able to undertake to run the whole distance for a lower subsidy than the company which had no connection with the line whatever. But, Sir, the Union Steamship Company profess themselves to be satisfied with the subsidy of £15,000 a-year, for in a letter dated the 20th of February last just one day after the contracts load been placed upon the Table of this House—that is, the contracts which have both been withdrawn —the Chairman of the Company, addressing the shareholders and friends of the Company, in the manner of an impartial father, desires that both contracts should receive their support, and thus speaks of the Zanzibar contract—
  "It is not disputed that the Zanzibar service has been undertaken on very moderate terms—namely, £15,000 per annum. The Company is prepared to face a loss at the commencement, but this contract is based on the expectation that the facilities afforded would develop trade on the Eastern Coast of Africa, and render the latter part of the term remunerative. Moreover, it is expected that it will act as a feeder to the main line, and each tender was approved on its own merits."
  Surely, Sir, this establishes beyond the shadow of a doubt the position I have assumed; that under this contract a subsidy of £15,000 a-year was an ample and sufficient payment. I claim that I
  696
  have already proved my case; but I go further, and I say we cannot tell what the market price is for the service proposed from Zanzibar to the Cape, as until we have submitted the contract to public competition we have no idea at what price we can get it done. I hold in my hand at the present moment a letter from one leading shipping firm in the City, who are in every way capable of carrying out what they undertake, and in this letter they state that they are willing if invited by public advertisement, to tender to carry not only the Zanzibar mails for a less sum, but also that they are prepared to accept of a contract for a much shorter period, and this is a matter of even greater importance to the public than the saving of a few hundreds a-year on the first price. I ask the House to resist the proposed extra payment of £11,000 a-year, making in all £36,000 a-year for the same services which two companies have already most willingly offered to undertake for a payment of £25,000 a-year; because the £88,000 we have been asked to vote by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it must be distinctly understood, is to be paid away in instalments of £11,000 a-year in order to cover his own blunder.
  But I have more to charge against the right hon. Gentleman. Along with the contract now being discussed hon. Members will find a printed letter, dated the 7th May last—a letter which, if I were not speaking in this House, I would characterize by very strong language indeed; but while in my place here I will simply say of it that it appears to me to be a most disgraceful production. It cannot be excused on the plea of having been written in haste, because the right hon. Gentleman knows more, or ought to know more, than any other man about this question. Now, if hon. Members will look at this letter they will find that towards the end of it the Post Office authorities are instructed by the right hon. Gentleman to conclude a contract, with as little delay as pos-sible—
  "For a mail service similar to that already agreed upon, for a sum not exceeding £26,000 a-year, which my Lords understand the directors will be willing to accept, and which is £3,000 a-year less than the original offer to the Secretary of the Post Office for this service, which was for a sum of £29,000 for twelve trips a-year each way, whilst the Company now under-

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  took for a less sum to make thirteen trips each way."
  Now, if this statement means anything it means this, that the Company was going to get by the contract now on the Table of the House £3,000 less than it was likely to have before accepted, and to give 13 in place of 12 sailings in the 12 months. Now, this old offer had been dug up and trotted out for the purpose of giving some colour to the extraordinary proposal to pay £26,000 a-year, although I think I have made it clear to the House that when this offer was made by the Union Steamship Company it was at once dismissed and laid aside, and the tender made by the British Indian Steamship Company negotiated upon because it was so much lower. I ask, in the name of common honesty, if it is fair to the House of Commons—is it fair to the taxpayers of this country—to have a statement so calculated to mislead us stuck at the end of a letter dated from Her Majesty's Treasury Chambers, and issued under the sanction of the right hon. Gentleman himself, who must know so thoroughly the whole facts of the case, having studied them since 1870. The right hon. Gentleman has used a word which I hope never again to hear within these walls, and he has set a very bad example in introducing such a word, the word "lobbying." This would give the public to understand that hon. Members of this House had a personal interest in matters of this kind. For myself I know no companies; I only know the public. I throw back to the right hon. Gentleman, then, the word "lobbying," and I hope he will carry it out of the House, never to re-appear here again. But I have something more to say about this letter. At the beginning of the last paragraph the right hon. Gentleman seeks to make the House believe that these contracts were entered upon on the 1st of January last, because there was no reason to believe that the House of Commons would disapprove of them, for he says that this additional sum of £11,000 a-year is to be given because of the Company—
  "Having commenced both services from the 1st of January last, in anticipation that both would receive the approval of Parliament."
  I do not think it is possible to make a statement more likely to mislead the House than this. Upon what grounds
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  the right hon. Gentleman based this confidence and self-complacency in respect to the approval of this contract I cannot understand. Let the House judge for itself. Immediately the Cape merchants in the City heard some rumours with respect to the proposed extension of the Cape Mail Contract, they at once called a public meeting. They were extremely anxious that the contract expiring in 1876 should not be extended, for they were in hopes that the rate of postage for letters, which had been raised in 1863 from sixpence to one shilling, would be again reduced at the end of the present contract. They held a meeting on the 19th of November; they prepared a memorial, which was signed by over 100 of the leading firms connected with the trade of the Cape colony, protesting against the proposed new arrangement, and which I will read:—
  "Copy of the Memorial of the Cape Merchants to the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury.
  "London, November 23, 1872.
  "To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury.
  "The Memorial of the undersigned Merchants and Others interested in the trade between the United Kingdom and the South African Colonies,
  "Sheweth that your Memorialists have learnt with surprise that a new Contract with the Union Steamship Company, for the conveyance of Her Majesty's Mails between the United Kingdom and the South African Colonies has been authorised by your Lordships.
  "Wherefore your Memorialists, believing that the said Contract is opposed to the interests of the Colony, appointed a Deputation, who sought an interview with the Postmaster General, for the purpose of ascertaining the facts of the case, and of representing the views and feelings of the meeting held in the City on the 19th instant; and your Memorialists being unable to obtain the interview they desired, in consequence of the absence from town of the Postmaster General, and having been informed that the proposed Contract had originated in your Lordships' recommendations, feel themselves compelled, by the urgency of the case, to appeal to your Lordships to withhold your sanction to the completion of the same.
  "That your Memorialists have reason to believe that the extension of the Ocean Contract with the Union Steamship Company has been made in connection with a service between the Cape of Good Hope and Zanzibar; and, while sympathizing in the efforts of Her Majesty's Government in taking measures for the suppression of the Slave Trade, they cannot recognize the justice of carrying out an Imperial policy at the expense of the interests of the South African Colonies, and this the more especially seeing that, so far as your Memorialists

  699
  have been able to learn, no steps were taken, by public advertisements or otherwise, to invite competing offers for this new line between the Cape and Zanzibar.
  "That, considering the recent and probable future improvements in steam navigation, it is undesirable to anticipate the termination, in due course, of the existing Contract.
  "That, looking at the largely-increased correspondence between the United Kingdom and South Africa since the date at which the existing postage rates were instituted, the present state of charges is unduly high.
  "That, in view of the growing importance of the South African Colonies, and the necessity for increased communication with Great Britain, it is in the interest of the Colonies that capital and enterprise should be attracted in that direction; and your Memorialists are satisfied that the proposed extension of the existing Contract with the Union Steamship Company, by giving them a virtual monopoly, will have the effect of repressing private enterprise, which, even under the disadvantages of the present system of postage charges, has supplied the Colonies for the past eleven months with an independent line of steamers, making an average passage to and from the Cape seven to eight days under the Mail Contract time of the Union Steamship Company.
  "That the Cape Colonies having recently obtained responsible Government, it is deeply to be regretted that they should have had no voice in the consideration of the terms of a Contract in which the Colonial interests are so vitally involved.
  "That, for the foregoing and other reasons, your Memorialists respectfully protest against the proposed extension and modifications of the existing postal Contract with the Union Steamship Company, and earnestly pray your Lordships may be pleased to postpone the ratification of the same until an opportunity has been afforded to the South African Colonies of making their opinions known.
  "And your Memorialists will ever pray, &c."
  They sought an interview with the Postmaster General, and, failing him, they applied to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself. That interview took place on the 5th of December, just a fortnight before the contract I am now speaking of was concluded. Now, Sir, this deputation I must confess—for I had the honour of introducing it—did approach the right hon. Gentleman in a most confiding and hopeful spirit, at which I was myself in some measure surprised, but I attributed it to two causes: the first was, that perhaps they felt they were approaching a Gentleman who—whatever he may have been in other walks of life—was, at least in their eyes, a most successful colonist, and therefore inclined to show some brotherly feeling towards them; and, in the second place, they recognized
  700
  in the right hon. Gentleman the very apostle of open and public competition. They recollected, without doubt, that he was a warm friend of the system of competitive examination, and his replies to deputations seeking Government aid, say for a scientific expedition, must have been fresh in their minds. Public competition and private enterprise they knew the right hon. Gentleman relied upon as the plea for sending all such deputations away empty; and were they not there to urge and encourage him on this path in which he so heartily delights to travel? They concluded, doubtless, that the private bargaining and arrangements which they came to protest against would only require to be named to the right hon. Gentleman to induce him to disapprove and to condemn them; and they were animated with the feeling that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been imperfectly informed upon the facts of the case, and that once he was really made acquainted with them he would cordially accept of the opportunity which their visit afforded him of getting out of the dilemma in which the Treasury had placed itself, without loss either of time or of dignity. But every bridge over which the right hon. Gentleman might have thus escaped he recklessly kicked down, and he ended the interview by saying that whatever had been done in the matter had been done for the public good; that if the Cape Colonists had paid any portion of the postal subsidy they would have had a better title to be heard; and that as to the question of offering the contract to public competition, that was a fair question to raise, and one he would be prepared to discuss in the House of Commons. Now, after all these efforts of the most public character, and in spite of the most earnest protests against the conclusion of the contract made weeks before it was signed, what defence, I ask, has the right hon. Gentleman to make for sanctioning the extraordinary statement made in this Treasury letter to which I have referred, and which is to the effect that they assumed that both contracts would receive the approval of Parliament. But, Sir, apart from all this agitation against these contracts by those who were so directly interested in them, it appears to me to be a most dangerous and mischievous practice for a Public Department to enter upon contracts on

  701
  the assumption that Parliament will subsequently approve of them. The case now under discussion affords conclusive evidence of the danger of taking such things for granted, and the sooner that Public Departments are disabused of the idea that they can enter upon such irregular transactions with impunity the better. I will give the House two instances of this—one in relation to each of these contracts. The first refers to the contract for conveying the mails between the United. Kingdom and the Cape. In that proposed extended contract it was stipulated that there were to be three sailings a month. Now, that contract, which was signed on the 19th of December, only received the sanction of the Treasury on the 19th of February, and yet on the 23rd of December these three sailings were announced by the Postmaster General as to commence at the beginning of the year. A copy of this official announcement I now hold in my hand. Now, that contract has never even been submitted for the approval of this House, and never will, for it has been unconditionally withdrawn. I come to the second—to the Zanzibar and Cape contract, also dated the 19th of December. The right hon. Gentleman stated to this House on the 5th of May, when speaking of this contract, that not only had it been entered upon, but a payment had been made out of Her Majesty's Treasury on account of it. Let the House weigh the position. A payment has been made in relation to this new contract which Parliament has never sanctioned, and which it cannot now sanction, because it also has been withdrawn, and if the House to-night should accept of my Motion, as I am persuaded that it will, the Union Steamship Company will have had a payment made on account of a contract which has never even been submitted to this House for approval. The House, I am confident, will join with me in asking from the right hon. Gentleman a full explanation of these irregularities, and also in seeking from him a statement of the authority by which those extraordinary payments have been made which have never been sanctioned by this House. The question, indeed, comes simply to be this; Is the House of Commons prepared to admit that the control which it is supposed to exercise over the expenditure
  702
  of the public money is a mere sham and not a reality? I have spoken of a great principle that will be sanctioned by this House if this contract be approved—namely, that of making such contracts by private arrangement instead of by open competition, grave evils are sure to ensue, and no better instance can I give than the arrangements with this Company. The Company first undertook to carry the mails from Southampton to the Cape in the year 1857, which contract they obtained by tender in open competition. This contract was for a period of five years; and the second they also obtained by tender, and it was for a period of seven years from 1863; the terms of this last were that they should convey the mails once a month in 38 days, and for this they were to receive a diminishing subsidy, beginning with £25,000 and ending at £15,000; and this latter sum, I understand, is that which was indicated as the amount to be paid for future years. Now began the series of objectionable private arrangements. The first was made 10 months after the last named contract was entered upon, when the Company sought and obtained a commutation of £19,700 a-year, instead of the diminishing sums from £25,000 to £15,000. This £19,700, I take it, was simply the average of the seven years with interest added for the larger amounts, and the advantages of such an arrangement to the Company and to the Government of the day are at once apparent; but its disadvantages, so far as the public interests are concerned, are equally obvious. As regards the Government of the day, it was by this new arrangement called upon to pay on entering upon the contract £19,700 a-year instead of £25,000 and proportionately less to the end. On the other hand, the Company had the advantage of ending with an annual payment of £19,700 instead of £15,000; and as this would extend to the year of notice, which is a year beyond the exact term of contract, they would obtain a payment of £4,700 more than if they had ended with the £15,000. The result of this has been to throw into the coffers of the Union Steamship Company many thousands of pounds which ought to have been saved to the public. The taxpayers of the United Kingdom paid these subsidies when the contract was a losing concern in the expectation that the days

  703
  would come when it would be recouped to them; but these days, as I will by-and-by show, have been through mismanagement greatly postponed. The next private arrangement proposed by the Union Steamship Company was in the year 1868, just two years before their previous contract was to expire. They then suggested to the Government that as the exigences of the Cape trade demanded it, they would be willing to send two mails a month if the Government would agree privately to give them a new contract for eight years based not upon the payment of a subsidy of £19,700 a-year, but upon the revenue derived from the Ocean and British inland postage — a steadily growing revenue. The Government of that day found that in the year preceding — that is, 1866–7—the amount received for the Cape letters was £16,600, and that if they accepted this offer of the Union Steamship Company they would effect an apparent and immediate saving of £3,100. They altogether failed, however, to look at the question from a business point of view, as the Union Steamship Company had done, and altogether ignored the rapid growth and extension of the Cape trade. They accepted this proposal of the Company in the year 1868, and it will be interesting to the House to know that for the three succeeding years the average receipts of the Union Steamship Company from the Ocean and British inland postage was£21,500; and this result indicates, I take it, that the Company at all events had a very shrewd conception of the nature of the bargain they were making.
  Now we come to another private arrangement, which, however, has luckily been knocked on the head. This was the arrangement proposed to be carried out by the contract so wisely withdrawn by the right hon. Gentleman on the 5th of May. On the 10th of January, 1872, the Union Steamship Company made overtures to the Government for a private arrangement, by which their contract was to be again extended to the 1st of January, 1881; and they made this proposal—that the contract should be extended for the period I have named, and that the Company in return would give the following advantages:—First, that they would forego the British inland postage, which was equivalent to a sum of £1,900 per annum, or £6,650 for the
  704
  unexpired period of three and a-half years which their contract had to run; second, that they would give three sailings a-month, and increase the speed of their ships so as to convey the mails in 30 days instead of 38. Let the House look at these three points—the money, the number of sailings, and the time. In the year 1872, at the beginning of which this proposal was made, the ocean and inland postage which the Company received amounted to £25,482, and showed an increase of £4,000 over the previous year. A revenue like this was certainly well worth keeping hold of for four years and a-half longer in itself by a private bargain; but it was also an important consideration for the Union Steamship Company to have the power of running three steamers a-month in place of two; for let the House note this fact—it was not the Union Steamship Company that was to give three sailings a-month to the Postmaster General, but it was the Postmaster General that was to give the Company power to run three steamers a-month or two as they thought proper. In a word, they were to be allowed three thongs instead of two to their whip, by which they might thrash off their competitors on this line; and the terms of the bargain were such that this Company would have been at liberty after they had succeeded in this in reducing their sailings to two in the month. The effect to the public of such an arrangement as this would have been that whereas now they enjoy four sailings a-month to the Cape, they would probably have had them reduced to two. Now, as to time, 30 days is put forward as a concession on the part of the Union Steamship Company, when the fact is their steamers have run and are now running in 30 days, simply because the ships of a competing line do it in the same time. I think I have made it clear to the House that in these negotiations the interests of the public and of the colonists have invariably been made subservient to the interests of private companies and of individuals, and I would earnestly beseech the House to condemn in an emphatic manner the practice of arranging such important public undertakings in a private manner. Here is a Company which undertakes in the year 1863 to do a certain service to the State by contract; but the conditions of that contract would

  705
  not have been publicly revised or corrected by the wholesome influence of competition and enterprise until the year 1881 at the earliest, had it not been for the energy and determination of the Cape colonists and Cape merchants in London in opposing the proposed and one-sided private arrangement. Now, Sir, I cannot sit down without alluding shortly to the other principle which I spoke of as being involved in these transactions for the extension of this contract—that they ignore in the most flagrant manner the opinions of our fellow-subjects in the colonies. The people at the Cape of Good Hope throughout these negotiations were never consulted upon the terms of a bargain in which they are obviously so directly interested. We profess to administer the affairs of our colonies with a single eye to the promotion of their best interests, and in the face of this profession there is something positively ludicrous about the contents of a despatch from the Government House at Cape Town dated the 3rd of January, 1873, and which I will take the liberty of reading to this House—
  "(Cape of Good Hope, No. 3.)
  "Governor Sir H. Barkly to Lord Kimberley.
  "Government House, Cape Town, "3rd January, 1873.
  "My Lord,—At the instance of my advisers I have the honour to transmit, for the consideration of Her Majesty's Government, a memorandum representing strongly the injustice which it is considered will be done to the colony by the extension of the contract for carrying the English mails with the Union Steamship Company, at the present heavy rate of 1s. per half-ounce postage without tenders being called for in the usual way.
  "2. It will be seen from the enclosures to this memorandum, that the action of the Cabinet is founded upon resolutions unanimously passed at special meetings of the Chambers of Commerce of Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, which in turn took their origin in a meeting held in London by merchants and others interested in the Cape trade.
  "3. At that meeting it was stated that if the contract were thrown open to competition, there was good reason to believe that another company would be prepared to perform the service on the basis of a rate of only 6d., so that your lordship will not be surprised to learn that the rumour that the matter has been already settled by the Postmaster General has been received with universal dissatisfaction out here, for I have not been in a position either to confirm or deny the authenticity of this rumour; having as yet been favoured with no communication on the subject of the new contract.
  "5. It is true that among the enclosures to your Lordship's despatch of the 19th August,
  706
  No. 240, respecting the proposed establishment of a line of mail steamers between Aden and the Cape of Good Hope, there is an allusion in a letter from Mr. Stronge of the Treasury to a proposal from the Union Steamship Company, to make certain improvements upon condition of obtaining an extension of their contract by three and a-half years; but the nature of these improvements is not specified, and as no opinion from the Secretary of State for the Colonies was invited either by the Lords of the Treasury or by the Postmaster General, the late Executive Council, before whom that despatch and its enclosures was laid, considered with myself, that it was better to await some more formal notification upon the subject.
  "6. Trusting that it may not even now be too late to pay attention to the reasonable wishes of Her Majesty's subjects in this colony in the matter.—I have, &c.,
  "(Signed) HENRY DARKLY,
  "Governor.
  "The Right Honourable the Earl of Kimberley."
  Surely this is a most extraordinary position for the Governor of an important colony to be placed in. He is kept in the most absolute ignorance of a matter of vital importance to the welfare of the people over whose affairs he presides. A contract has not only been negotiated and concluded, but actually entered upon, in which the Cape colonists are more immediatly interested than all the world besides, and yet the Governor of that colony, as he himself expresses, has, "as yet been favoured with no communication on the subject of the new contract." And this treatment of the Cape colonists is all the more extraordinary and unaccountable when we recall the circumstance that in Her Majesty's most gracious Speech from the Throne in August, 1872, when proroguing Parliament, the following sentence occurs:— "I have cheerfully given my assent to an Act of the Legislature of the Cape Colony for the establishment in that Colony of what is now generally known as responsible Government." On the 28th of November last, a responsible Government was proclaimed and established at the Cape, and the inhabitants naturally looked forward to more freedom of action, not only with respect to affairs that were peculiarly colonial, but also with regard to interests affecting their relationship with the mother country. Little did they suppose that at that very time when they flattered themselves upon having so far thrown off the trammels of Downing Street, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer was doing his best to bind them

  707
  with the stoutest of red tape in respect to a matter which was of the very first importance in regard to their future welfare and advancement. This feeling, moreover, could not fail to be intensified by the fact that the very newspapers which announced the establishment of responsible government at the Cape also made this satisfactory statement with respect to the revenue of the colony—that the revenue for the year had reached over a million sterling, while the expenditure fell short of £700,000. How the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the facts before him of the rapid progress of the Cape Colony and of its growing commerce and trade, could ever have dreamed of sanctioning the proposed extension of the Cape mail contract I cannot possibly conceive. When the deputation to which I have already referred waited upon him, one of the Cape merchants present offered to furnish the right hon. Gentleman with some information on this point; but he was at once curtly silenced by the remark from the right hon. Gentleman that he already knew all about it. It may be well, however, that the House should know it also, so that hon. Members may judge for themselves what kind of a bargain the Treasury has sanctioned on behalf of the public. It is for the loss of this bargain, let it also be clearly understood, that we are asked to give as compensation this additional £11,000 a-year under the contract now under discussion. The value of the exports and imports of the Cape Colony in the year 1868 was £4,099,000. That was the year when the contract with the Union Steamship Company was entered upon. In 1871 the total value had increased to £5,933,000; and last year—that is, 1872—of all our foreign customers the Cape had increased their purchases from us in a larger ratio than any of the rest. Moreover, the Customs' dues collected in the colony in 1868 were roundly £282,000; last year they amounted to £550,000. With such facts as these in our possession, it is our duty I think, most earnestly to protest against this contemptuous ignoring of the rights and opinions of our colonists as has been manifested in these transactions—transactions in which they have clearly the most direct and immediate interest. There is another point on which I would have liked to
  708
  say something, and that is the mischief which arises from long contracts; but as this is a question which to discuss fully would occupy much of your time—and I feel that I have trespassed freely upon it—I do not now propose to enter upon it. I will only venture to make this remark, that the frequent alterations made in the Cape mail contracts by private arrangement go to prove the necessity of all such contracts being made for a brief term, if we desire to give the public full advantage of the rapid improvements which take place in steam conveyance, and the growing and extending influence of trade and commerce. I cannot conclude without adding this—that if the sum of £88,000 is to be paid for the blunder committed by the right hon. Gentleman in making this foolish bargain, the Cape colonists and Cape merchants repudiate most earnestly the idea that any of the blame or responsibility rests with them. They protested against the proposed contract as soon as they heard of it, and they protested so loudly and steadily, that they shouted it out of existence. Now I have stated my whole case—imperfectly, I fear—but I will leave the House to judge and decide upon the plain statement I have submitted. I am persuaded the House will feel that I have had to discharge an uncongenial duty. I have, nevertheless, felt it incumbent upon myself to discharge it as a Member of this House. As a Liberal I repudiate these private bargains and arrangements of the right hon. Gentleman when dealing with the money of the public, and I am persuaded also that the Liberals will for themselves repudiate any share in such discreditable doings.
  MR. R. N. FOWLER,in supporting the Amendment, said he would strongly urge the House not to agree to the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  MR. SAMUDAsaid, the House would commit a grave error if it adopted the course urged by the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Holms), and got rid of contractors who had served the Government faithfully, and at no exorbitant profit to themselves, in order to negotiate with other parties of whom they had no knowledge whatever.
  MR. EASTWICKtook exception to some of the statements of the Chancellor of the Exchequer respecting Mr. Soper

  709
  and Mr. Currie, and observed that a much more important question than the carrying of the mails was the want of candour and straightforwardness on the part of one of the leading Members of the Government. The question at issue was whether contracts should be thrown open to public competition, or dealt with by private arrangement.
  MR. RATHBONEtrusted the House would retain in its hands the power of reviewing mail contracts, by which, according to a Return presented in 1871, no less than £474,000 a-year was unnecessarily lost. This particular contract would, he hoped, not be confirmed. These costly contracts, instead of promoting, tended to cripple commerce.
  SIR JOHN LUBBOCKsaid, it might be inferred from the statement of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Holms) that the community of Cape merchants were opposed to the contract, whereas some of the principal Cape merchants had expressed to him their entire approval of it. It should be remembered that there was hardly any commerce as yet between the Cape and Zanzibar. It was certainly desirable as a general rule that these contracts should be open to competition, and also that they should be submitted to the House. This however should be done before they were brought into operation; in the present case the Company had been working the contract since January, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had explained the reasons which induced him to depart from the usual course. To cancel the contract now would, he thought, be unfair to the Company, and would place the country at a disadvantage in future negotiations. Under the circumstances of the case therefore he should vote for the right hon. Gentleman's Resolution.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, the two contracts stood on a different footing, and the question was why the Government were entering upon this Eastern contract upon which they might have had competition. He wished to point out that the Government had withdrawn from the contract for the west coast service, and had given this contract for the east coast as part of the price for the rescinding of the first contract. In doing that, they had annulled the original contract, which was supposed to be a good one. It was, therefore, fallacious to say that the contract
  710
  now in dispute had been in operation for some time.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Helms) produced a printed paper, which stated that an offer had been made by certain parties to perform this service, which had been described in a despatch from Lord Kimberley to the Governor of the Cape. The Postmaster General knew nothing about that offer, and the statement about Lord Kimberley's despatch had come upon the Treasury bench as a surprise. Under those circumstances, the proper course was to lay the despatch upon the Table, to make inquiry into any offer of this kind that might have been made, and to state the result of that inquiry to the House. If the hon. Member made out his case, he would be entitled to the benefit of it; and if not, then he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) would be entitled to claim the vote of the House. He begged, therefore, to move the Adjournment of the Debate.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned." (Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
  MR. HOLMSsaid, he had quoted nothing without being sure that it was authoritative. He had quoted Lord Kimberley's despatch from a colonial newspaper, and lie did not see what the House had to ask for more.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that his hon. Friend the Member for Hackney (Mr. Holms) had somewhat overstated the information given to the House. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had admitted that it would be his duty to produce an official document which had been referred to, and to ascertain all the circumstances connected with it. There was, however, an important gap waiting to be filled up. This despatch of Lord Kimberley's purported to state that a proposition had been made, but not from whom, or whether it was from a responsible party. There was therefore much which it was necessary for the House to understand, and the proper course was to adjourn the debate.
  MR. DISRAELIsaid, it did seem most extraordinary that the Government should interfere to adjourn a debate, the paramount importance of which was acknowledged, because they were not provided with a necessary official docu-

  711
  ment which they ought to have been prepared to produce. During his experience in the House he hardly remembered a case in which flimsier reasons had been alleged in favour of an Adjournment. The House was in possession of all the information which would justify a decision; and if not, the fault lay with the Government, who had chosen their own time and opportunity. There had been a full discussion of the whole subject; but because the Government could not give a satisfactory answer to the charge, they wanted to waste the time of the House; and arrest the Business of the country by adjourning the debate. He should take the opinion of the House against the adjournment of the debate.
  MR. BOUVERIEsaid, he wished to remind the House that they had no evidence as to the existence of Lord Kimberley's despatch, except an extract from a colonial newspaper. The Government having declared that they had been taken by surprise by a despatch of which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had no knowledge, but which altered the view he took of the case, the House ought not to refuse to adjourn the debate, or to insist upon pronouncing an opinion on this contract. The despatch must be laid on the Table, and to go to a division without it would not only be contrary to the practices and the rules of the House, but a most dangerous precedent. He should, therefore, vote for the adjournment.
  MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, there was one Member of the Government on the Treasury bench—the Under Secretary for the Colonies—who could if he thought fit, give the House some information about that despatch. He saw that right hon. Gentleman in his place; perhaps he would inform them whether the quotation of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Holms) was authentic.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 205; Noes 121: Majority 84.
  Debate adjourned till Thursday.

  BETTING HOUSES BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. THOMAS HUGHES, Bill to amend an Act passed in the sixteenth and seventeenth years of Her present Majesty, chapter one hundred and nineteen, intituled "An Act for the suppression of Betting Houses," ordered to be brought in by Mr. THOMAS HUGHES, Dr. LYON PLAYFAIR, Mr. MILLER, Mr. ANDERSON, and Mr. BOWRING.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 185.]

  MUNICIPAL CORPORATION (BOROUGH FUNDS) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Secretary BRUCE, Bill to amend an Act of the Session of the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth years of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter ninety-one, intituled "An Act to authorise the application of Funds of Municipal Corporations and other governing bodies in certain cases," ordered to be brought in by Mr. Secretary BRUCE and Mr. WINTERBOTHAM.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 186.]
  House adjourned at a quarter before Two o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Game Birds (Ireland)* (127); Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 4)* (135); Thames Embankment (Land)* (137); Registration (Ireland)* (138); Metropolitan Tramways Provisional Orders* (139); Shrewsbury and Harrow Schools Property* (140); Conveyancing (Scotland)* (141); Local Government Provisional Orders (Nos. 2 and 3)* (142 and 143); Government of Ireland (147).
Second Reading—Gas and Water Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 2)* (125); Matrimonial Causes Acts Amendment* (105).
Report—Metropolitan Tramways Provisional Orders (No. 2)* (114).
Third Reading—(£12,000,000) Consolidated Fund*; Tramways Provisional Orders Confirmation* (92), and passed.

IRELAND—RIOT IN DUBLIN.

  QUESTION.
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEasked the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary what information Her Majesty's Government had received relative to the disturbance that had occurred at the fire at Dublin last evening?
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, the latest news received by the Government relative to the recent riot in Dublin was contained in the following telegram from the Under Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant, which was received by the Marquess of Hartington this afternoon—
  "Riot caused by mob of worst roughs taking advantage of fire to break through roof of large whisky stores next to fire. They entered roof
  618
  and were expelled by the police. They pelted police and military with stones from corners of adjoining streets, and endeavoured to obstruct Fire Brigade. Troops and police had to clear space to get room to work, and had to charge several times; mob retiring and returning throwing stones. About 30 soldiers hurt, most of them slightly. Eighteen police hurt, also slightly. Thirty-six prisoners taken; young roughs of the worst class."

  GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.
  (The Earl Russell.)

  [NO. 147.] PRESENTED. FIRST READING,
  EARL RUSSELL,who was imperfectly heard, in rising according to Notice to lay on the Table a Bill for the better government of Ireland said, he thought that both their Lordships and the other House of Parliament must participate in the interest with which he viewed the subject which he was about to bring before the House, and the anxiety with which he viewed the existing state of things in Ireland. He regarded the state of that country as anything but satisfactory. He had no wish to cast any blame on the present Government for the measures which they induced Parliament to adopt four or five years ago on the subject of the Church and on the subject of the land tenure in Ireland. In his opinion those measures were wise and beneficial enactments. Experience had, it appeared to him, shewn that the time had arrived when it was absolutely impossible to carry on the Government of that country in conformity with the rules and maxims which were observed in England and Scotland. But before he entered further into this subject, he thought it right to endeavour to show that with respect to the causes of the condition of Ireland there had been mistakes both in this country and in Ireland, the result of which was to present facts from different points of view. From the English point of view, it was alleged that Ireland was so steeped in barbarism that it was impossible to expect improvement on the part of her people. The other view, which he might call the completely Irish view, was that England, by her laws and her system of government, had always prevented the improvement and welfare of Ireland. He believed that both these were entirely mistaken views. With regard to the first, we must admit that owing to the cruelty and injustice of the penal laws passed by this country in

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  former times, and systematically put in force, it had been made impossible for the Irish people to advance in material improvement. Remarkable testimony was borne to this by a writer in all of whose opinions he (Earl Russell) did not share, but whose statement on this historical point might be accepted by their Lordships. They were told on the authority of Mr. Froude that—
  "The price of fleece wool in Ireland in 1730 was 5d. a pound; of combed wool 12 d. a pound. In France Irish fleece wool was sold for 2s. 6d. a pound, combed wool from 4s. 6d. to 6s. The profits of the contraband trade were thus so enormous that the temptations to embark in it were irresistible."
  How did England behave under such circumstances? Instead of encouraging the people of Ireland to develope a trade in this commodity and increase it to the utmost, she showed the greatest jealousy, and forbad the Irish to sell their wool to any people but the English. They were prohibited from exporting it to France, and heavy penalties were imposed for disobedience to the prohibition. How unjust, then, was it to charge the Irish with not having endeavoured to promote their own commercial prosperity, when at the time to which he referred it was the policy of England to prevent them from doing so and to inflict penalties upon them if they did it—how absurd to allege that the Irish people were so barbarous and so given to discontent that they were incapable of improving themselves or of being amenable to the effects of good government! Mr. Burke, who as Member for Bristol, did great honour to that constituency, was displaced from the representation owing to the jealousy which prevailed in this country with respect to the trade of Ireland. And now for the Irish point of view. Notwithstanding the statement of a gentleman who was formerly an Irish agitator, but who had recently received the honour of Knighthood (Sir Charles Gavan Duffy) that the misery and poverty of Ireland were entirely owing to the policy which England had so long persisted in adopting towards Ireland, they had the authority of all persons who had practical acquaintance with Ireland, that they had not only shown a disposition to turn to good account the improved laws under which they lived, but that they had done it in the most effectual manner. Among the best evidences of the advance Ireland
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  had made and was making in material prosperity, let them look at the greatly increased value of land property, and the large employment of labour at largely increased wages. In 1868 the late Lord Mayo—a man who conferred much honour on his country—pointed out in the House of Commons the contrast between the Ireland of 1779 as described by Arthur Young and the Ireland of the present time. He showed that while in 1779 the rental of the county of Cork was estimated by Arthur Young at £256,000; in 1818 it was £808,698; in 1848£1,284,140; and in 1867£1,351,208. In 1860 the deposits in the Irish Joint-Stock Banks were £15,609,000; in 1865 £17,000,000; and in 1867, £19,200,000. In 1841 the rate of wages in the agricultural districts of Kildare, Armagh, and Kerry was, in the first-named county, from 4s. to 5s. a week, for the second 6s., and for the third 5s. In 1868 it was for Kildare 8s., for Armagh from 9s. to 10 s., and for Kerry from 7s. to 10 s., In 1811 the value of the live stock in Ireland was £21,000,000, in 1866 it was £50,500,000. In his speech to the House of Commons, Lord Mayo said—
  "Let the House now consider what has taken place since the commencement of the new policy which this country has pursued towards Ireland since 1824–5, the date of the first educational inquiry. In 1829 the Roman Catholic Relief Bill was passed. A short time afterwards a system of national education was adopted. A system of police which had been found excellent and useful was created. The constitution of juries was altered and greatly improved. The fiscal powers of grand juries were regulated. Municipalities were reformed and placed upon a different footing. The Poor-Law was established. The Landed Estates Court was created for the sale of incumbered properties. In fine, it is beyond a doubt that a greater number of beneficial measures were never carried in any country within so short a period of time. Professor Ingram has truly remarked that changes so great, and made within so short a period, constitute the largest peaceful revolution in the history of the world."—[3 Hansard, cxc. 1368.]
  He trusted, then, their Lordships would agree with him in thinking that both the extreme views to which he had referred were equally unfounded, and that those interested in the advancement of Ireland ought to look for some other reasons for her present condition. This brought him to what had been going on in Ireland within the last year. He found one of the ablest of the Irish Judges (Mr. Justice Lawson) while presiding over the Criminal Court at Belfast, at the

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  last Assizes, stating that an illegal and riotous meeting had taken place in that city a short time before, and that the authorities suffered that meeting to go on; and what was the consequence? It resulted in the excitement of the most violent passions—houses were wrecked, lives were lost, and many were threatened:—and such was the rioting in that flourishing place during four days that the town was described as having all the appearance of one taken by storm in which one party were acting as the assailants and the other as the defenders —and all this was allowed to go on without interference by the authorities. Complaints had been made of the course taken by Mr. Justice Lawson in reference to these riots; but he concurred with the learned Judge in thinking it most improper that the local authorities should have acted in such away as to expose them to the suspicion of favouring these disorders; and he entirely approved the promptness and vigour of that learned Judge in repressing the attempt to interrupt the course of justice by clamour and riotous behaviour. The Judge who endeavoured to put an end to such scenes deserved the thanks of the country. It would appear impossible that such scenes of tumult and disorder could occur in any other part of the United Kingdom. Let him ask their Lordships what would have been done if similar disorder had occurred in Renfrewshire, which was now represented by a right hon. Friend of his the Secretary for the Home Department? It would have been quite impossible that such disorders could have prevailed in the town of Paisley without the attention of the Home Secretary being called to it. On the contrary, the Secretary would have consulted the Law Officers and have taken the most decisive measures to restore peace and order. But in Belfast the affair was apparently unnoticed at the time by the Executive Government, and it was only at the ordinary Assizes that an explanation of the law was given by the Judge presiding in the Criminal Court. Another of the evils of Ireland was one which instead of diminishing seemed to become more aggravated from time to time—he meant the organized system of murder and assassination that existed in the rural districts, these were generally in connection with the possession of land.
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  For instance, if a man ventured to take land from which the previous tenant had been ejected, he was denounced by a secret society, and his life taken by some of its members; and if the assassin was discovered—which was seldom the case —no jury dared to convict him. Thus this description of crime was committed with impunity. That was an evil which had existed for a long time, and which seemed to him to be as great a danger now as ever it had been, and surely it was full time that, within the limits of law and justice, some remedy should be devised for putting down such a system. Another question which had disturbed the people of Ireland was that of education. For many years grants to the amount of over £400,000 a-year had been made from the Consolidated Fund for national education in Ireland. It so happened that in the parish of Callan there was a parish priest to whom the Irish Board of National Education had intrusted the management of the schools in that parish. The parish priest conducted the schools exceedingly well, devoting much time to them, and attending personally for some hours every day during the giving of instruction. In fact, no one appeared to have had any reason to complain of the priest's conduct as manager of the schools. But suddenly he was deprived of the management of the schools, which was given to another clergyman in whom the parishioners of Callan had no confidence. Mr. O'Keeffe was removed, in the first instance, by his Bishop and Cardinal Cullen—he appealed to the Commissioners of the Board of National Education—but they confirmed the authority of the Bishop and the Cardinal. Why was it that this clergyman had been allowed to be thus summarily dismissed, when the evidence was clear that he had managed his schools admirably and enjoyed the trust and confidence of his parishioners? Their Lordships knew that in foreign countries where the great mass of the population professed the Roman Catholic religion the State had reserved to itself the direction of the education of the people. On the subjects of education and marriage these Roman Catholic States did not allow their secular ministers to be put out by any ecclesiastical or sacerdotal influence. This was the case in Austria, in Germany, and in Italy; and not long ago, when a

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  complaint was made that the German Government were retaining in an educational office a Catholic priest who had not accepted the decree of the Vatican Council on the Infallibility of the Pope; the great majority of the German Parliament approved the explanation given by the Minister when he said that as the office was not one of public worship but one of education the priest could not be displaced. In like manner, he held that Mr. O'Keeffe had conducted the Callan Schools well, and if he had possessed the confidence of the people of that parish he ought to have been maintained in his post of manager. But he had not been maintained in it. His case had been brought under the notice of the National Board, and one would have supposed that the first inquiry of the Board would be as to whether he had conducted the schools properly and whether he was unfit for the place. But nothing of that kind was done. In his (Earl Russell's) opinion, the question for the Board of Education was whether this priest had discharged his duty as manager of the schools. That, however, was not the question the Board went into. They acted upon Cardinal Cullen's sentence suspending him as parish priest of Callan. Against that not a word of argument was heard from the priest. He did not wish to interfere with the particular questions of religion between Mr. O'Keeffe and Cardinal Cullen and the Church of Rome—it might be that he had been properly discharging his duty as a priest of that Church, and was a victim of slander; or it might be that he was not fit to remain the Roman Catholic parish priest of Callan—these were questions into which he did not want to enter:—but it was for the Courts of Law and the Imperial Parliament to decide whether the Pope's rescripts were in force in this country. In his opinion the only thing the Board of Education had had to consider was whether Mr. O'Keeffe had conducted himself properly as the manager of the schools, and they should have considered all the facts before them and decided irrespective of the religious element or the Papal authority. In his opinion it was a gross abuse of power and a violation of the principles of truth and justice to dismiss Mr. O'Keeffe if the propriety of his conduct in the management of the schools was answered in the affirmative. He was aware that
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  precedents were alleged for the course adopted by the Board in this instance; nor did he deny that there were occasions on which a body exercising control might justly deprive a clergyman of office. Recently in Scotland the General Assembly had deprived of office a clergyman against whom there had been a charge of continual drunkenness; but nothing of this kind had been alleged—nor he believed could be alleged—in the case of Mr. O'Keeffe. Precedents were valuable as guides, but that species of knowledge was subject to close limitation. Of the knowledge acquired in office he would read to their Lordships a passage from Mr. Burke's speech on American Taxation. Mr. Burke said—
  "Much knowledge is to be had undoubtedly in that line, and there is no knowledge which is not valuable. But it may be truly said that men too much conversant in office are rarely minds of remarkable enlargement. Their habits of office are apt to give them a turn to think the substance of business not to be much more important than the forms in which it is conducted. These forms are adapted to ordinary occasions, and therefore persons who are nurtured in office do admirably well as long as things go on in their common order; but when the high roads are broken up and the waters out, when a new and troubled scene is opened, and the file affords no precedent, then it is that a greater knowledge of mankind, and a far more extensive comprehension of things, is requisite than ever office gave or than office can ever give."
  He thought that extract was applicable to the course adopted by the Irish Board of Education. There was at the present moment a great conflict going on between the Pope and the priestly power on one side, and the Governments on the other. In Ireland the question was, whether Ireland was to be governed by Pius IX. and Cardinal Cullen, his viceroy, or by Queen Victoria and the Lord Lieutenant, her viceroy. He remembered that at one time he felt it his duty to allude to the Protestant party in Ireland as "a miserable monopolizing minority;" but he now asked were they going to exchange that for "an arrogant monopolizing majority." They must make a stand against such a power as that. The Pope had lost his temporal power in Rome; he had lost much of his influence in Germany, France, and Italy; but his spiritual power was still very great, because many millions of people still followed the dictates of the Pope and his Cardinals. The power of the

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  Pope might, therefore, become dangerous to the peace of Ireland, and it was the duty of the Crown and Parliament of this country to make a stand against it. He had now placed before their Lordships under three heads the evils which in his opinion were hostile to the peace and progress of Ireland. There were, in the first place, unlawful meetings, by which lives and property were placed in jeopardy, and no immediate authority seemed to exist capable of dealing with an emergency. In the next place, the existence in Ireland of secret and unlawful societies, which organized plans for the assassination of obnoxious individuals. And in the third place, by the policy pursued by the Pope's Legate and the Roman Catholic Prelates, the confidence of the people in the administration of national education was destroyed. Their Lordships would now naturally expect to hear what were the remedies he proposed to apply to these evils. It seemed to him that there was great wisdom in the declaration made by Lord Somers in the early part of the last century, when, the year after the union between Scotland and this country, he proposed that the Privy Council of Scotland should be deprived of all power. Lord Somers said that he was prompted to that proposition by a true concern for preserving the public peace; and that while he was heartily desirous of the Union, and no less desirous to make it entire and complete, he considered that it could not be at all perfect while two political administrations subsisted; and that Scotland would be in a worse state after the Union if a distinct administration continued, because while there would be no Parliament to resort to in Scotland, the marks of distinction would continue. The same argument he (Earl Russell) contended, was applicable to Ireland. What had been our mistake in regard to that country? We effected a Union with Ireland, but preserved two distinct administrations. The consequence was that a marked distinction still remained. What he had to propose was what he proposed so long ago as 1850 in the House of Commons, when he introduced a Bill for the abolition of the Lord Lieutenancy and the appointment of a Secretary of State for Ireland. He had no better remedy to propose now. When his Bill came on for second reading on the 17th of June,
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  1850, he was followed into the division lobby by 295 Members against 70. In the majority were Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Goulbourn, Sir George Grey, Mr. Sidney Herbert, the Marquess of Kildare, Mr. Monsell, Mr. Morgan John O'Connell, Lord Naas, Mr. Ricardo, Mr. Sheil, Mr. Walpole, and Sir Charles Wood, and other distinguished statesmen; while the only eminent politician in the minority was Mr. Disraeli. When in this country serious disturbances occurred anywhere, the Home Secretary brought it under the notice of the Cabinet, and proposed measures: the Cabinet listened to his reasons, considered the matter, and came to a decision. Suppose the First Lord of the Admiralty wished to build a vessel of the tonnage and form of the Devastation, he stated directly to the Cabinet what he proposed, and what was the expense to be incurred; the matter was then and there considered and settled. But what was the course with regard to Ireland? When the Lord Lieutenant received a deputation with some important propositions, his only answer to their representations—and a very proper one it was under the circumstances—was that he would represent to the Government in England the proposals which had been made to him. After this the Cabinet might or might not take the matter into consideration; but the Lord Lieutenant had no power to bring it personally before the Cabinet. Now, that was not a satisfactory mode of conducting Irish business, and he believed that it would be much better to have Irish affairs brought directly under the notice of the Cabinet by a Secretary of State for Ireland who should be a Cabinet Minister. His next proposal was that, in the case of criminal trials, except where conviction might be followed by sentence of death, the verdict of 8 out of 12 of the jury should be sufficient. Then with regard to education he would give an appeal to the Committee of Council in England, which Committee if wrong were committed or alleged, should have power to investigate and to redress any proved grievance. There were a great number of details which he had re-introduced in his present Bill from his Bill of 1850. The question was whether in Ireland, in accordance with our prayer, our councils were so ordered that truth and justice could be established among us for all

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  generations. In his opinion, under our present system of dealing with Ireland this could not be: neither did he think they could be attained by allowing Cardinal Cullen unrestricted and complete control over the education of the people of that country. Having thus stated his views to their Lordships, he begged to lay his Bill on the Table, and to move that it be read a first time.
  Bill for the better government of Ireland presented (The Earl Russell.)
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 1a." —(The Earl Russell.)
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, that when he first saw the Notice of the noble Earl, that he proposed to lay on their Lordships' Table a measure for the better government of Ireland, he had awaited with anxiety and interest the proposal which his noble Friend was about to bring forward. His noble Friend's great experience, and his knowledge of Irish matters especially, must enforce attention to any opinion he might express, and he had accordingly listened with great interest and attention to the address of his noble Friend. As to the scheme for the administration of the Government of Ireland by means of a Secretary of State having a seat in the Cabinet, instead of by a Lord Lieutenant residing in Dublin, it was quite impossible that he should express an opinion on a plan he had not yet seen; and it would be equally out of place for him to express, or attempt to express, the opinion of the Cabinet on a scheme which they had not had an opportunity of considering. As to the topics referred to by his noble Friend, he (the Earl of Kimberley) agreed in the main with the historical view with which his noble Friend commenced his address. No doubt the laws which formerly prevented the progress and prosperity of Ireland no longer existed, and it was universally admitted that since 1847—the close of the famine—there had been a general revival. As regarded the condition of the country, no doubt there was still much to be desired; but unquestionably since the time to which he had referred there had been a very considerable advance in the general prosperity of the country. As to the riots at Belfast, to which his noble Friend had alluded, and as to which he complained that the Government had not acted with sufficient
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  vigour—there was no doubt that those disturbances were very serious; and he regretted to say the occasion alluded to by his noble Friend was not the first one on which there had been riots at Belfast. Just before he had the honour of going over to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant there were riots there, and during the period of his Vice-royalty attempts were made to renew them. He knew therefore from experience the exceeding difficulty the Executive had to encounter in dealing with such outbreaks, where parties were so strongly opposed to each other as was the case in Belfast. He was afraid that it was too much the case that the local authorities did not act with the vigour that was desirable at the commencement of these riots; but unless the Executive resolved on taking the administration into their own hands and allowing the local authorities to have no voice in the management of their own town, it was difficult to see how the Government could be held responsible for not having taken the initiative in repressing the rioters. He was far from complaining of the course taken by Mr. Justice Lawson in dealing with the rioters, or with the persons guilty of contempt of Court. On the contrary, he believed that the determination shown by the learned Judge must be matter of satisfaction to all who were interested in the peace and the welfare of Ireland. As regarded agrarian crime—a malady under which Ireland had long suffered—he concurred with his noble Friend in lamenting its existence; but he thought it was a subject that need hardly have been brought forward, because at the present time there was a considerable decrease in the number of agrarian crimes as compared with what it had been of late years. For the last year it had been, as far as he could remember, about 250, as against more than 1,000 two years back. It was not so low as in 1867 and 1868; but it was not much higher. He attributed the cessation of agrarian crime in a great measure to the Act enabling the Lord Lieutenant to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, which had recently been renewed, and however painful the resort to such a measure was, it was satisfactory to find that, unlike many former attempts at the repression of crime, it had been efficient. That Act had enabled the Government to seize

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  the men who were the mainspring of these crimes, and had given time to the Church and Land Acts to operate calmly, free from the constant recurrence of serious crimes. His noble Friend, therefore, had no ground for dissatisfaction with the action of the Government and Parliament on this head. As to the Callan Schools, the matter having been referred to a Select Committee of the House of Commons, before which the Education Commissioners were allowed to state the facts, he did not think he ought to enter upon any discussion of the subject;—he would only say that he fully agreed with his noble Friend, that nothing could be more disastrous than that having freed Ireland from the domination of the minority they should allow it to pass under the domination of the majority. The abolition of an unjust ascendancy on the part of Parliament was no reason for allowing the Roman Catholic population more than their just rights as subjects of the Crown. This would be contrary to the interests both of England and Ireland, and to the policy which this country had steadily pursued. It must not be forgotten, however, that, a very large part of the population belonging to the Roman Catholic Church, the heads of that Church necessarily possessed great influence over the different communities. In deciding upon the O'Keeffe case, it seemed to him necessary to consider two things—whether the Board had acted in accordance with precedents, and what was the proper policy to be pursued by the Government and Parliament as regarded national education in Ireland. The question was, whether the present system should be maintained, or whether—which he was far from admitting—it was so defective that, as his noble Friend thought, it was practically in the hands of Cardinal Cullen? The Government and Parliament would certainly not place Irish education in the hands of Cardinal Cullen or of any hierarchy, Protestant or Roman Catholic; but they would proceed with great caution in interfering with a system which, whatever its defects, had been, on the whole, one of the most successful institutions in Ireland, and had conferred great benefits. There had been extreme difficulty in establishing and carrying on a sound system of education in Ireland; while, therefore, maintaining fair play among all classes, and seeing
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  that the lay element had its full weight, he hoped Parliament would not lightly destroy a structure erected with great care, and which had now existed so many years. The abolition of the Lord Lieutenancy had often been considered; but the Government would await the noble Earl's Bill before expressing any opinion upon it; and admitting, as all must do, that improvements in the Government of Ireland bad never hitherto succeeded to the full satisfaction of their authors, any remedies suggested by so high an authority were sure to deserve and to receive patient consideration at the hands of the Cabinet and of Parliament.
  LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNEremarked that the noble Earl who had just sat down had given no answer to Mr. Justice Lawson's charge against the Government of neglect of duty in connection with the Belfast riots. It was seldom that such an indictment for neglect of duty had ever been uttered by a Judge against the Government of the country, it was this the noble Earl (Earl Russell) called attention to, and as no answer could be given, it showed at least prudence not to attempt, but left Her Majesty's Government under a serious imputation. He also complained that though the Irish Secretary had in "another place" acknowledged the prevalence of crime in Mayo, yet Government refused the peaceable people of Mayo the same protection that the Peace Preservation Act extended to West-meath.
  VISCOUNT MONCKsaid, it was a very strong thing to state that Irish education had been handed over to Cardinal Cullen and the priests, and as a Member of the Board of National Education in Ireland, he challenged the noble Earl for proof of his assertion. The system founded in 1832 by the late Lord Derby of united secular and separate religious instruction had not been departed from; and though in a country where Roman Catholics were in a vast majority—forming in some districts almost the entire population—many schools were necessarily under the management of Roman Catholic clergy and laity, every school receiving grants was bound to admit every child to the benefit of secular instruction without any interference with its religious opinions; and so long as this system was maintained he did not see

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  how it could be said that education in Ireland had been handed over to Cardinal Cullen. Many schools were very naturally under the management of Roman Catholic priests; but the question was whether they were or were not managed according to the principles originally laid down by the Board. The Callan case had been looked at too much from the manager's point of view, and too little with regard to its effect on the education of the country. It seemed to be thought that Mr. O'Keeffe had been deprived of a position of great honour and emolument, and the noble Earl had stated in his recent book that the Board had deprived Mr. O'Keeffe of £300 a-year; but he himself (Viscount Monck) having for some years been manager of schools, had found the office a source of expenditure, and never of emolument, managers being simply the agents of the Board for the administration of the system and for paying the salaries of the masters. By the rules of the Board the idea of such a thing as an ex officio right of appointment was expressly negatived. Rule No. 9 was to the effect that in all cases the Commissioners reserved to themselves power to determine whether the person nominated by the patron as local manager could be recognized by them as a fit person to be manager. Every one who had had any connection with popular education knew that one of the great obstacles to be overcome was the difficulty of securing the regular attendance of children at the schools. One, therefore, of the principal elements for consideration in the selection of a manager was the necessity of obtaining a person who from his local connection with the people and his moral influence was most likely to bring the children to school and to keep them there. No one, he thought, fulfilled those conditions so completely as the clergyman, no matter to what persuasion those belonged, of whom he had pastoral charge. On that ground, and on that ground only—not ex officio as clergyman, but because his position as a clergyman gave him the sort of influence which the Commissioners were desirous of seeing exercised—he was, as a general rule, selected as manager of the school in his district. But if his moral influence with the people was the principal ground of his selection, it followed that the loss of that moral influence would be a sufficient and a
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  proper ground for his removal; and he could not help saying that the clergyman, who from whatever cause had incurred the displeasure of his ecclesiastical superiors to such an extent as to induce them to suspend him from the exercise of his clerical functions, came within the rule to which he had referred; because it was inconceivable that such a state of things could exist in any parish without dividing the district into two parties and so depriving the suspended clergyman of his influence with one portion of the people. This subject had been treated as if Cardinal Cullen and the Roman Catholics were the only parties treated in that way. The fact was that the same rule was applied indiscriminately to Protestants of the lately Disestablished Church, to Presbyterians, and to Roman Catholics and all other Communions with which the Board had to deal. He conceived that what he had stated was incontrovertible —namely, that a dispute having arisen between his ecclesiastical superiors and a clergyman must divide the district into two parties, one of which would take part with and the other against the clergyman, and that that pro tanto deprived him of the influence which the Commissioners desired he should bring to bear upon the school. He went further perhaps than his Colleagues in the matter, for he held that if a clergyman of any persuasion quarrelled, not with his ecclesiastical superiors, but even with ally member of his flock, he would be equally deprived of that moral influence of which the Board wished to avail themselves, and ought to be deprived of the management of the schools of his district. These were the grounds on which he had acted. He might be egotistical on the subject, but he confessed that until some good reason was given to the contrary he would remain of opinion that the majority of the Board had acted rightly in removing Mr. O'Keeffe from the management of the Callan Schools, not because he was deprived of his office as a priest—just as he was not appointed ex officio as a priest —but because he had lost that influence which the Commissioners considered it indispensable that a manager of schools should possess, his suspension from sacerdotal functions having divided his flock into two parties, by one of which he was opposed.
  EARL RUSSELLobserved that what he had contended was, that had the Commissioners confined themselves to their proper duty they would have inquired whether Mr. O'Keeffe was fit to be manager of the schools, and not whether he was fit to be a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
  THE MARQUESS OF KILDAREwas understood to say that the noble Earl (Earl Russell) was wrong in supposing that the Commissioners had appointed the manager of the Callan Schools. What they had done was to confirm the appointment of the School Committee. The noble Earl had also made a mistake in stating, as he had done in his recent pamphlet, that gross superstition was taught in many of the national schools in Ireland; that could not be, because no religious education was given to the children during school hours.
  LORD CAIRNSsaid, he did not rise to enter into a discussion of the case of Mr. O'Keeffe, as he had not anticipated that it would on that occasion be made the subject of conversation or comment; but after what had fallen from the noble Viscount (Viscount Monck) he desired to make one remark. He understood the noble Viscount to say that, so far as he was concerned, the decision of the Board of Education removing Mr. O'Keeffe from the management of the schools was founded on the principle, not that Mr. O'Keeffe had ceased ex officio to be a priest of the parish, but that he had by his conduct divided his flock into two parties, and had thereby lessened his ecclesiastical influence.
  VISCOUNT MONCKexplained—What he desired to convey was, that the removal had occurred, not because of the suspension of the priest by ecclesiastical authority, but because he had divided his flock into two parties, and had thereby diminished his moral influence in the parish.
  LORD CAIRNSsaid, he felt a difficulty in knowing what the ground really was on which the noble Viscount had acted. He understood him to repudiate the idea of an ex officio removal. It was not, therefore, the ground of removal that he had been deprived of his office of parish priest—there must have been something more—something in the conduct of the manager—which justified the action of the Board. If that were so, he thought their Lordships would be
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  of opinion with him, that the first principle of justice required that, in that view of the case, the Commissioners ought at least to have heard what Mr. O'Keeffe had to say for himself.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, it was obvious that the subject was one in the discussion of which on that occasion no Member of the Government ought to take a part. It was sufficient to say that a Select Committee of the other House was considering the whole matter. It was quite natural, however, that his two noble Friends who were members of the Board of National Education should think it necessary to make the statements they had done. He could not help, in common fairness to his noble Friend (Viscount Monck), saying that he entirely differed from the noble and learned Lord opposite (Lord Cairns) in the construction which he had put upon what his noble Friend had said. He did not understand his noble Friend to make any attack whatever upon the personal character of Mr. O'Keeffe. His argument—whether good or bad—was this—that they thought it desirable to have as manager one who had influence in bringing the children to his school, and that they thought that influence was more likely to be possessed by the clergy of the different denominations than by other persons. His noble Friend added that where a clergyman was incapacitated from acting as a clergyman, his usefulness was diminished for the purposes for which the Commissioners had appointed him. He was not saying whether that argument of his noble Friend was good or bad, but he thought it would be very injurious to him if the impression were to go to Ireland that he had made any attack upon the character of Mr. O'Keeffe.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 1a accordingly; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Monday, the 30 th instant (No. 147).

  GAME BIRDS (IRELAND) BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill for altering the shooting seasons for Grouse and certain other game birds in Ireland—Was presented by The Viscount POWERS-COURT; read 1a (No. 127.)

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (NO. 4) BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to the districts of Buxton, Carnarvon, Ealing, Ponty-

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  pridd, Ravensthorpe, Reading (2), Shipley, Teignmouth, Wheathamstead and Wisbech, and Walsoken (2)—Was presented by The Earl of MORLEY; read 1a. (No. 135.)
  House adjourned at a quarter before Seven o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.