Sitting of 3 July 1874

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Report—Registration of Parliamentary Voters (Ireland [No. 261]; Adulteration of Food Act (1872) [No. 262]; Public Departments (Purchases, &c.) [No. 263].
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—GREENWICH HOSPITAL AND SCHOOL.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Industrial and Reformatory Schools * [193].
First Reading—Elementary Education Provisional Order Confirmation (No. 2)* [192].
Second Reading—Slaughterhouses, &c. * [150].
Committee—Report—Intoxicating Liquors (Ireland) (No. 2) [114–191]; Hosiery Manufacture (Wages) * [124]; Hertford College, Oxford * [103].
Report—County of Hertford and Liberty of Saint Alban * [77–190].
Considered as amended—Rating * [180].
Third Reading—Statute Law Revision * [163], and passed.
Withdrawn—Poor Law Guardians (Ireland) * [95].
The House met at Two of the clock.

POST OFFICE—MAILS TO THE NORTH OF SCOTLAND.—QUESTION.
SIR TOLLEMACHE SINCLAIRasked the Postmaster General, Why the mail trains which are now run from London to Helmsdale, a distance of seven hundred miles, are not to be continued over the Sutherland and Caithness Line to Wick and Thurso, a distance of sixty miles, which forms the last link in the great line of through communication between England and Scotland; and, what security there will be for the regular conveyance of the mails to Caithness?
LORD JOHN MANNERS, in reply, said, that at the present time the railway referred to in the Question of the hon. Gentleman was not opened, nor was he
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aware of the time at which it was intended to open it. When the work was accomplished, and after the directors had arranged their trains, the necessary arrangements would be made for the conveyance of the mails over the line, if the trains were found suitable. With regard to the last part of the Question, he had to say that the mails were now regularly conveyed to Wick and Thurso, and he had no doubt they would continue to be conveyed with the same regularity after the railway had been opened.
SIR TOLLEMACHE SINCLAIRsaid, the Answer of the noble Lord was so extremely unsatisfactory, that he should take an early opportunity of calling the attention of the House to the subject.

THE CROWN COLONY ON THE GOLD COAST.—QUESTION.
MR. A. MILLSasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether the Crown Colony on the Gold Coast will be limited to the forts, or will include the towns and villages adjacent thereto; whether it is intended to garrison all the forts recently transferred by the Government of Holland to Great Britain; and, whether there will be any objection to lay upon the Table of the House, a Copy of the Commission and Instructions to be issued to the Governor to whom the administration of the combined Colony of the Gold Coast and Lagos is to be committed by Her Majesty's Government?
MR. J. LOWTHER: Sir, the precise extent of the area round the Ports which will be held and administered as British territory is not yet determined, and will depend upon the special sanitary and strategic requirements of each place, as to which very careful consideration is necessary. It is also not definitely settled which Ports—whether recently in Dutch occupation or previously British—will be held by an armed force; but a Report upon the present condition of the Forts has been called for, with a view to a decision being arrived at. The commission and instructions to be given to the new Governor have not yet been finally settled and submitted to the Queen, but there will be no objection to lay them on the Table at the proper time.

INTOXICATING LIQUORS (IRELAND) (No. 2) BILL. [BILL 114.]
(Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
INTOXICATING LIQUORS (IRELAND) (No. 2) BILL. [BILL 114.]

  COMMITTEE. [Progress 23rd June.]
  Order for Committee read.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 12 (Amendment of sects. 10. and 11. of 3 & 4 W. 4, c. 68.).
  MR. O'SULLIVAN, in moving as an Amendment, in page 7, line 26, after the word "eleven" to insert—
  "That from and after the passing of this Act it shall not he lawful for any clerk of the peace in any county, city, or town in Ireland to demand a fee from any retailer of beer or spirits on the annual renewal of a licence; but nothing herein contained shall deprive any clerk of the peace in Ireland of his right to receive a sum of two shilling's and sixpence for registering every new licence or transfer of an existing licence as provided by the Act of the third and fourth years of William the Fourth, chapter sixty-eight, section ten,"
  said, that the fee demanded by the clerk of the peace was simply for the issue of a certificate for a renewal of the publican's licence. The clerk of the peace did not issue the licence, neither did he give a certificate for its renewal, as this was done by the magistrates in petty sessions, and the publican took it to the proper department, paid his money, and received the renewal of his licence; yet, while that was the course of proceeding, the clerk of the peace demanded a fee of 2s. 6d. For what? Absolutely for doing nothing. The amount was small; but the principle was important to licensed victuallers in Ireland. He felt the matter was a grievance, and no matter how small that grievance might be, he deemed it his duty to bring it under the consideration of the House of Commons. The 12th section of the Act said that a fee of 10 s. should be paid every year for the renewal of a licence, in aid of the maintenance of the police within the Dublin district; but the clerks of the peace, who were not entitled to it, and who for many years never looked for it, now demanded and wanted to make it general. It was regarded as a grievance in all those counties in Ireland where it was enforced, it being looked upon as a species of black mail levied upon publicans, for which no service
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  was rendered. In some of the counties such a fee was never asked for, which was a fair inference that the clerks of the peace were not entitled to it. For his part, he regarded it as a grievance, and he was resolved to try and have it removed by appeal to Parliament.
  MR. MACARTNEYthought that as the law allowed the fee, the clerk of the peace should not be deprived of it without compensation.
  SIR COLMAN O'LOGHLEN, in supporting the Amendment, said, it was customary in some counties in Ireland to pay the fee of 2s. 6d. to the clerk of the peace, and in others not. In his opinion, the demand was clearly illegal. In some counties, the Chairmen of quarter sessions had recognized the claim, but in others not. It was, therefore, necessary, where doubt existed, to remove the doubt by amending the law.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he hoped the Committee would not agree to the Amendment. He objected to it on two grounds—first, it was payable both in England and Scotland, and was an insurance for the keeping of a correct register of licences. The fee was payable for taking out the certificate for a renewal of the licence. The question had been submitted to the consideration of a Court of Law, and the decision was that the fee was legal. If this House interfered, in the face of such an opinion, and decided that this fee should not be paid in future, compensation would be required by those who were deprived of it. It was only a small amount from each publican, but formed a considerable part of the emoluments of the clerks of the peace. In any measure for regulating the fees and salaries of clerks of the peace in Ireland such a question might properly be considered, but it should not be dealt with in that Bill.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGthought the right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary for Ireland did not take a correct view of the matter. He (Mr. M'Carthy Downing) could give the House some information on the question. For a long time after the Act was passed there was not any fee required. The renewal of a licence in Ireland was obtained, not from the clerk of the peace, but from the magistrates in petty sessions. The clerk of the peace had nothing to do with the granting of it, and for the

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  trouble he had in signing the certificate, he claimed 2s. 6d. In his own county—Cork—the case was brought on several, times in the Court of Petty Sessions, and the claim was dismissed. This was a claim not for the issue of a licence, but for the renewal of a licence. He, however, admitted that the matter came before a very able Judge—Mr. Justice Fitz Gerald—who decided in favour of the clerk of the peace.
  MR. C. E. LEWISsaid, he was quite willing to accept the issue on that ground. Supposing this was for the renewal of a licence, and that a fee was to be paid for it, it was improper to take the fee away. The object of the certificate was for seeing that the houses were kept in an orderly manner. He submitted that the clause in question was intended to put an end to a doubtful state of the law. The clerk of the peace performed services for which he received a fee. It should be borne in mind that a register was kept from time to time of the houses and the renewals of the licences, and if the House of Commons withdrew that requirement from the Bill, the result would prove most unsatisfactory, and the register would be kept in a slovenly and incorrect manner. He submitted that the clause ought to be maintained in its present state.
  MR. SYNANsaid, that the only work clone by the clerk of the peace was upon the original grant of the licence. Under the present Bill, the petty sessions' clerk would have to keep the register, and he, if any body, should have the fee.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Dr. BALL)said, he could not agree that clerks of the peace in Ireland took money to which they were not entitled. One of the most eminent Judges on the Irish Bench had decided that clerks of the peace were entitled to the fee in question. He (the Attorney General for Ireland), however, assumed that the clerk of the peace must do some work for the fee, or it would not be payable; but he was not aware of the grounds on which the judgment proceeded. The clerks of the peace had at present a right to the fee; and if the fee were abolished, it would involve a question of compensation. In the certificate given for the renewal of the licence, the task was imposed of describing the various duties required by the law, such as naming the house,
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  for whom the renewal was required, &c. He thought it would be unjust to take away the fee from the clerks of the peace without compensation, and particularly after the decision of an eminent Judge that it was legal.
  MR. O'SULLIVANsaid, it was really too bad to hear the right hon. Gentleman so express himself. The right hon. Gentleman said there should be no objection to the clerk of the peace receiving 2s. 6d. for doing work; but he (Mr. O'Sullivan) must say the clerk of the peace had no right to receive a fee of 2s. 6d. for doing nothing. The right hon. Gentleman had made an appeal to the House, and in doing so had mystified the question, for he had not shown that the clerk of the peace had done one particle of work for the 2s. 6d.
  MR. MACARTNEYsaid, the clerk of the peace was required to perform certain duties with regard to the certificate after it had been submitted to the justices at petty sessions, for which duties the fee was payable. A claim of the same nature made by the petty sessions clerks for entering in their books the decisions of the Bench with regard to publicans' certificates, had been resisted by the publicans, but unavailingly.
  MR. D. TAYLORsaid, it seemed to him that they were making a new Bill for the clerks of the peace in Ireland.
  MR. SERJEANT SHERLOCKsaid, the clerks of the peace had nothing to do with the justices in petty sessions. The law was in a state that required amendment.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Dr. BALL)said, the clerk of the peace must make some entry. He did not want him to be paid for doing nothing, but if he did something he ought to be paid. As that officer was about to have considerable further duties cast upon him by the Bill, it would be unfair to take away from him that small fee.
  MR. O'SULLIVANsaid, he knew from experience that the clerk of the peace did nothing. The magistrates at petty sessions gave the applicant a certificate, and he took it to the Excise Department. The clerks of the peace were levying "black mail" without any title in law to do so. He had been told that the House of Commons was always ready to redress grievances. Well, he hoped they would remove that grievance,

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  For his part, he should do his duty. He maintained that it was a grievance, and he would divide the House upon it.
  MR. BRUENsuggested to the hon. Member for Limerick County to withdraw his Amendment, and to the Government to give an assurance that they would look into the matter, with the view of taking away the fee if they found that no work was done for it.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, there appeared to him to be great weight in the remarks of his right hon. Friend the Attorney General for Ireland, and influenced by them, and in conformity with the suggestion of his hon. Friend behind him, he would make inquiry into the matter before the Report, with a view of seeing whether any real work was done for the money; if not, he should have no objection to accede to the view taken by the hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  MR. C. E. LEWIShoped the Amendment would be withdrawn. If, as the Attorney General for Ireland had stated, the fee had been pronounced by an eminent Judge to be legal, then it ought to be maintained. It appeared to him that the matter ought not to be decided upon the mere question whether the clerk of the peace did any work for the fee, but whether it was taken into account in the settlement of the amount of his general remuneration. If they took away that which had been recognized as remuneration for the performance of his general duty, they would take away that which was declared to be legal and in accordance with the Act.
  MR. O'SULLIVANsaid, the Act was passed 40 years since, and it was only within the last 15 or 16 years that the clerks of the peace began to claim the 2s. 6d. Upon the assurance given by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, he would withdraw his Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  On the Motion of Mr. C. E. LEWIS, Amendments made, in page 7, line 21, after "name," by inserting the word "address;" and in line 25, after "name," by inserting the word "address."
  MR. C. E. LEWIS, in moving as an Amendment, in page 7, line 28, after "shall," to insert—
  "between the tenth and twenty-fifth days of December in each year, print the list or register
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  of all notes in writing delivered to him after the preceding annual licensing petty sessions, and shall lay the same before the justices in every quarter sessions assembled, and transmit a copy thereof, signed by him, to the clerk of petty sessions of each petty sessions district within such county, city, or town, and in Dublin to the chief clerk of the Metropolitan Police Court, and shall also,"
  said, he did so with the view of making the register useful, and not with any intention of increasing the fees of the clerks of the peace.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHthought the insertion of the words unnecessary, as the wish of the hon. Gentleman was fully satisfied by the clause as it stood.
  MR. C. E. LEWISsaid, that the clause as it stood provided only for the transmission of the list to the clerk of petty sessions, and not to the bench of magistrates.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGthought the Amendment would occasion an expenditure which would not be compensated by the advantages to be derived from it.
  MR. SYNANalso thought the Amendment would lead to doubt and uncertainty.
  Amendment negatived.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 13 (Register of licences to be kept).
  On the Motion of Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, Amendment made in page 8, line 28, by leaving out "Inland Revenue," and inserting "Excise."
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 14 (Mitigation of penalties), agreed to.
  Clause 15 (Record of convictions on licences)
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHmoved as an Amendment, in page 9, line 18, to leave out "or," and insert—
  "which by such Act was to have been or might have been endorsed upon the licence or Excise licence, or of any Offence against this."
  MR. SULLIVANprotested against any change in the present law regarding the endorsement of convictions on licences, and asked the right hon. Gentleman if he could state to the Committee the number of public bodies in Ireland which had asked for the endorsement of the licences.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he had not received any such application; but his wish was in this respect to assimilate the law in Ireland to that in England.
  MR. SULLIVANthought the vintners in Ireland were somewhat in the position of the boy at school who was birched for the offence of another. They could not understand the justice of the thing.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 16 (Constable to enter on premises for enforcement of Act).
  MR. MELDON, in moving as an Amendment, in page 10, line 2, after "constable," to insert—
  "If he has reasonable ground for believing that any of the provisions of the principal Act or this Act, which it is his duty to enforce, are being, or recently have been, violated,"
  said, he did so for the reason that the magistrates could not issue a warrant for the entry of any premises without a sworn information, and that being so, it was too great a power to vest in a constable suo motu.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, that was the English law. The clause as it stood considerably limited the power given to the constable under the Act of 1872. He could not enter the premises, except to prevent a violation of the Act, and he must of course have reasonable grounds for doing so.
  MR. SYNANsaid, he preferred the clause as it stood. The constable had to prove a matter of fact, not a matter of opinion.
  Amendment negatived.
  CAPTAIN NOLANmoved as an Amendment, in page 10, line 6, after "licence is in force," to insert "except the sleeping apartments of females."
  Amendment proposed, in page 10, line 6, after the word "force," to add the words "except the sleeping apartments of females."—(Captain Nolan.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHobjected to the Amendment as liable to encourage an evasion of the law. Every room in a licensed house might be called the sleeping room of a female.
  MR. MACARTNEYsaid, that if an opening were given to females to defraud
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  the excise, he feared they would avail themselves of it. In former years when Customs duties were heavy, and levied on many articles, females, even of the upper classes, had been greatly addicted to smuggling, and generally took delight in cheating the Revenue.
  MR. SERJEANT SHERLOCKsaid, he had consulted the trade in Ireland, and they had not any objection to the clause as it stood, being sure that neither the Dublin police nor the Royal Irish constabulary would exercise their power unnecessarily or wantonly.
  MR. MELDONsaid, that if the hon. and gallant Member pressed his Amendment to a division, he should, though with regret, vote against him, as he had the authority of the licensed victuallers of Ireland for saying that they had no objection to the clause.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 26; Noes 179: Majority 152.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 17 (Search warrant for detection of liquors sold or kept contrary to law).
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGmoved as an Amendment, in line 37, after "shillings," to insert, "provided, however, that every such person shall be a competent witness on the hearing of the complaint."
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Dr. BALL)said, he agreed in the spirit of the Amendment, but objected to it being inserted in the clause which created the offence. He would not have any objection to introduce it into the clause regulating the procedure, and would do so on the Report.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 18 (Drunken person may be detained if incapable of taking care of himself).
  MR. R. SMYTHmoved the omission of the clause, by which a policeman was enabled to discharge from custody a person whom he had arrested without bringing him before a magistrate.
  MR. SULLIVANsupported the Amendment. He submitted that it would be throwing a strong temptation in the way of the police when they came into contact with the "young gentlemen" class, to exercise this power liberally

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  for the sake of a substantial consideration.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he thought that the objection to the clause would be removed if words were inserted making it compulsory on the police to bring the person arrested before a magistrate. He would propose the necessary Amendment on the Report.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 19 (Substitution of licensing justices for Commissioners of Inland Revenue as respects certain notices), agreed to.
  Clause 20 (Penalty on person found on premises during closing hours).
  MR. O'SULLIVANmoved, as an Amendment, inline 33, after "servant," to insert "bonâ fide guest entertained at the sole expense of the owner of the premises."
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he had no objection, on the Report, to insert a provision on the subject of the Amendment corresponding to the one inserted in the English Bill on the same subject.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 21 (Saving as to bonâ fide travellers and lodgers).
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNING, in moving as an Amendment, in line 28, after "Act," to leave out to end of clause, said he did so with the object of leaving it to the discretion of the magistrate to decide who was or was not a bonâ fide traveller, and quoted the decision of Chief Justice Erle, "that no rule can be laid clown for a definite distance, as what may be short for the vigorous may be long for the weakly."
  MR. SERJEANT SHERLOCKthought that the legal test of a bonâ fide traveller in Ireland should mean the same thing as in England. The laws of the two countries should be assimilated.
  MR. BRUENsaid, he thought they should have one general rule for the whole of the country.
  MR. SYNANbelieved the clause as it stood was a very safe one, providing that a man should walk at least three miles before he should be deemed a bonâ fide traveller. Beyond that, the magistrates should exercise a discretion.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, the limit proposed in the clause was really meant for the protection of
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  the publican, who was supposed to be likely to know a person who lived within a certain radius of his house. Moreover, when an alteration which he intended to propose had been made in it, it would be identical with the clause on the same subject in the English Act.
  MR. R. SMYTHsaid, the interpretation of bonâ fide traveller should be the same in both countries. In England there had been conflicting decisions on the subject; but the law should be made clear and definite, and applicable to both countries.
  MR. SULLIVANsaid, a traveller did not necessarily carry a geographical index on his countenance. He might travel many miles by railway in a few minutes, and be treated as a bonâ fide traveller; while the man who walked only a few miles might require rest and refreshment, but was denied it because he did not travel so far as the other. It was impossible for the publican to know which was the bonâ fide traveller of the two, and he thought, therefore, it would be better to leave the matter to the decision of the magistrates.
  MR. SYNANsaid, the magistrate should not be deprived of all discretion as to the definition of "traveller."
  MR. FORSYTHpointed out the inconsistency of the Irish Members who often complained that there was one law for England and another for Ireland, and yet were now wanting to have a different rule in this matter applied to their country from that which the House had lately adopted for England.
  MR. R. SMYTHsaid, he was an advocate of the doctrine of the assimilation of the laws of the two countries only so far as the English law which it was proposed to apply to Ireland was good; but objected altogether to take from England a bad law.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause amended, and agreed to.
  Clause 22 (Summons in police district of Dublin metropolis); Clause 23 (Licence to be produced in court); Clause 24 (Liability in respect of distinct licences); Clause 25 Evidence of licences, orders, and convictions); Clause 26 (Evidence of license); and Clause 27 (Definitions) severally agreed to.
  Clause 28 (Repeal).
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGmoved, as an Amendment, in line 7, after

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  "licences," to insert "and sub-section four in section fifty-two." The hon. Member said, he did so with the object of proposing a new clause, for the words as they stood would not only imperil the liberty of the accused, but, under any circumstances, subject him to serious inconvenience. He would be liable to fine and imprisonment, put to the inconvenience of finding heavy bail, and the magistrate had the power of exercising a discretion as to whether the accused should appeal or not.
  MR. SYNANsaid, in such matters no discretionary power should be given to the magistrates. The word "shall" should be imperative.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Dr. BALL)said, if the Amendment were withdrawn, he would consider the matter on the Report.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause agreed to.
  On the Motion of Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, the following New Clauses were agreed to, and added to the Bill:—New Clause (Certificates required previously to grant of wholesale beer-dealer's licence) to follow Clause 7; New Clause (Temporary continuance of licences, or Excise licences forfeited without disqualification of premises) to follow Clause 11; New Clause (Record of conviction for adulteration) to follow Clause 15; and New Clause (Saving as to Section 9 of the principal Act) to follow Clause 21.
  MR. SULLIVAN, in moving the following new clause:—
  (Power to close and refuse to sell liquor.)
  "A licensed person shall not be bound to keep the licensed premises open, nor to admit or allow persons to remain therein, nor to sell liquor to any person, but may lawfully close and keep closed the same, and refuse to sell liquor therein, whether closed or unclosed, during the hours during which the same may be lawfully open, or any part of such hours,"
  said, he failed to understand why they should put upon the dealer in intoxicating drinks a compulsion that they did not attempt to impose upon the vendor of any other article of food or drink. He could not see why the sale of intoxicating drink should be elevated into a Divine institution. On what reasonable ground should they compel a man to sell up to a certain hour? If his clause were adopted, the vendor would be at liberty to sell when he wished. Why should not tradesmen be at liberty to close their shops when they thought proper? What
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  they were about to do in this country was to elevate intoxicating drink into a sort of Divine institution, against which he must enter his strong protest. He affirmed that all the respectable vendors of these drinks in Ireland would be glad to have this power conceded to them.
  MR. FORSYTHobserved that the clause went a great deal too far, for this result might follow from its adoption—that all inns and hotels in Ireland might be closed at any hour of the day or night, resulting in great public inconvenience.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: said, there was yet another objection to the clause. The hon. Member had put it to the Committee that it was a great grievance to the publican that he should be compelled to keep open his house longer than he might wish. But the Bill provided that if a publican chose to close his house on Sundays, the cost of his licence, would be diminished in proportion, and a proportionate reduction would be made according to the diminished hours of business which the publican chose to adopt. The hardship on the publican should not be forgotten, but the hardship on the public must be remembered. When a man obtained a licence to keep his house open for certain hours for the accommodation of the public, there was an implied contract by which the publican was morally bound. He obtained his licence to keep his house open for certain hours for the accommodation of the public, and it was his duty to keep it open for that purpose.
  MR. SULLIVANsaid, he must again ask whether it was right to compel a publican to sell liquor when he did not wish to do so? Bread was a necessary article of human consumption, but they did not compel the baker to sell it if he did not think proper. He (Mr. Sullivan) must continue to protest against the superstition that drinking was a Divine thing, and that the sale of liquors should be invested with certain privileges not accorded to the sale of any other commodity.
  Clause negatived.
  MR. REDMOND, in moving the following new clause:—
  (Appropriation of fines and penalties.)
  From and after the passing of this Act all fines and penalties imposed and levied under section twelve of the principal Act, at petty sessions held in towns, which are under 'The Towns Improvement (Ireland) Act 1854,'

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  shall be paid to the treasurer of the Commissioners thereof, to he placed to the credit of the General Assessment Fund, as provided by the ninety-second section of the said last recited Act, any Act or Acts to the contrary notwithstanding."
  said, the object of the clause was to alter the destination of the fines inflicted for drunkenness, Those fines had been placed to the credit of the borough funds up to 1872, but by the Licensing Act of that year they reverted to the Crown, thus increasing the local burdens of the ratepayers. The mistake had been admitted by the late Government, who were about to bring in a Bill to remedy it, when the change took place. He thought there was no sufficient reason why the old system should not be re-established; and the circumstances were such that the Government might undertake to effect the object he had in view, either by supporting his clause or by some other Amendment.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, it was true that the Act of 1872 made a change in the application of these fines but they were never paid into the national Exchequer. They formed part of a fund administered for the benefit of the clerks of petty sessions, many of whom were very ill-requited for their services. It was desirable that the salaries paid to them should be enlarged if that could be done by legitimate means. They were given to the clerks of petty sessions by an Act passed in 1858; and an Act of 1854 gave to the towns commissioners, for the benefit of the ratepayers, the fines imposed in the Courts of the commissioners, for the purpose of providing police, and other duties which had not been discharged as they ought to have been. There seemed to be no reason why the petty sessions fines, because some town commissioners might sit at petty sessions as magistrates, should be applied to the public purposes of the townships, and to the relief of rates levied for sanitary and other purposes. He thought the present application of those funds was the best that could be devised. It was the wish of the Government to do something to improve the position of potty sessions clerks, by an increase of pay, but that would be difficult if the fines were to be diverted from the channel into which they now flowed.
  VISCOUNT CRICHTONsaw no reason why fines inflicted within the jurisdiction
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  of the towns commissioners should not be applied to the relief of the rates, but could not go the whole length proposed by the hon. Member who moved the Amendment.
  MR. SERJEANT SHERLOCKobserved that the Act of 1854 was a compromise. Drunkenness had its effect in increasing rates, and there was certainly some ground for the Motion of his hon. Friend. It was a mistake to say that the clause would take away from the petty sessions clerks the whole of their emoluments, for although their nominal salaries were small, the collateral advantages attached to the posts were so large as to make the appointments very strongly sought after.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGsaid, he could corroborate the statement of his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Serjeant Sherlock) for to his personal knowledge there were petty sessions clerks in Ireland who were in receipt of as much as £300 a-year. It was only discovered in 1873 that the Act of 1872 had an operation that was never intended, by depriving the towns commissioners of the benefit of fines imposed for drunkenness. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kildare county (Mr. Cogan) asked the then Chief Secretary for Ireland a Question on the subject, the noble Lord (the Marquess of Hartington), said that that effect had not been intended, and that the Government would give their attention to the matter with a view to remedying it. He thought under any view, that the ratepayers were entitled to the benefit of the fines imposed for drunkenness within the limits for which the commissioners were responsible.
  THE O'CONOR DONsaid, he quite agreed with the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. M'Carthy Downing) in the views he had expressed. He had received letters from several of his constituents, all approving of this proposal and not one against it. He hoped the Government would re-consider its view of this question.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Dr. BALL)said, there was great inconvenience in private Members bringing forward Motions of this kind, which tended to create financial deficiencies without showing how the Treasury would be recouped.
  MR. SULLIVANappealed to the Chief Secretary for Ireland to remedy a confessed error, and to place the country in the state it was in relative to this matter

  1011
  previous to the passing of the Act of 1872.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he had endeavoured to state to the Committee reasons which seemed to him valid objections to the proposal of the hon. Gentleman; but he confessed that the opinion which had been expressed on the subject on both sides of the House, and the strong feeling which it appeared to excite in Ireland, had made a great impression on him, and if by yielding to that desire he could satisfy public feeling in that country, it would give him great pleasure to do so. He therefore had a suggestion to make which he hoped the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Redmond) would think reasonable. It seemed to be a fair principle that fines inflicted in a Court should go to the support of that Court, but that if they were inflicted in towns, under towns commissioners, they should go to the towns; and if the hon. Member would limit his proposal to that, he would be prepared to consult with him about the matter on the Report.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGpointed out some technical difficulties which would render that arrangement insufficient. He would urge upon the right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary for Ireland to enable the Courts of Petty Sessions to award the fines for drunkenness occurring within their townships to the towns, and then he would do something towards making it easy to govern Ireland.
  MR. COGANsaid, that an error had been admitted, and that only the lateness of the period last Session at which attention was directed to the subject, prevented the late Government from carrying the Bill which it had prepared to remedy it. He hoped the Government would consent to restore the jurisdiction of the borough magistrates which the Act of 1872 had taken away, so that the fines accruing might be allocated to the towns in which these offences were committed.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, that a mistake had been committed of which no Government ought to seek to take advantage, and in this case there was the less excuse for doing so, that it was only by the accident of the lateness of the Session last year that the mistake had not been remedied.
  MR. VANCEthought the clause of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Redmond)
  1012
  ought to be enlarged, and have a wider operation than its terms implied.
  MR. REDMONDsaid, that the limitation proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would have the effect of excluding the greater number of these fines.
  MR. COGANsaid, he must again beg to urge on the right hon. Gentleman the restoration of the jurisdiction of the borough magistrates as it existed before the passing of the Licensing Act of 1872.
  MR. BRUENhoped these fines would be paid in alleviation of the rates.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he would look into the Act to see whether their jurisdiction had really been taken away, and he would bring up a clause on the Report by which he should endeavour to meet the objections which had been stated.
  Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. R. SMYTHin moving the following new clause—
  (Hours for sale of intoxicating liquors between Saturday evening and Monday morning.)
  "From and after the passing of this Act it shall not he lawful for any licensed person or spirit grocer, in towns the population of which does not exceed five thousand, to sell intoxicating liquors between the hour of ten o'clock on Saturday night and two o'clock in the afternoon of Sunday, or between the hour of seven o'clock on Sunday night and seven o'clock on Monday morning; and in towns the population of which exceeds five thousand, it shall not be lawful for such licensed person or spirit grocer to sell intoxicating liquors between the hour of 11 o'clock on Saturday night and two o'clock in the afternoon of Sunday, or between the hour of seven o'clock on Sunday night and seven o'clock on Monday morning; Provided always, That nothing herein contained shall prevent such sale of intoxicating liquors to bonâ fide travellers or lodgers."
  said, the question with which the clause dealt was not one of Sunday trading in intoxicating drinks. That question had already been decided by the House, and he had no intention of re-opening it, although he was convinced that no less than five-sixths of the drunkenness existing in Ireland, resulted from the opening of public-houses on Sundays. When he attempted to discuss the question some time ago, the only argument against Sunday closing was, that a person going out for a stroll should have opportunities of obtaining refreshment, and that persons on an excursion should have the same opportunities.

  1013
  But people did not go out for strolls on Sundays after 7 o'clock. He would call attention to the fact, that, while in England the hours for public-houses being open on Sundays were six, in Ireland they were seven. There was no reason why this difference should continue. The Irishman drank whiskey, and if he wanted to get drunk could do so quicker than the beer-drinker in England. He hoped the House, and the Committee, and the Government would agree to his proposal.
  Clause (Hours for sale of intoxicating liquors between Saturday evening and Monday morning,)—(Mr. Richard Smyth,)—brought up, and read the first time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he could not agree to the Motion. He was sorry that the hon. Member for Londonderry had thought fit to propose it after the exhaustive debate and decisive division at an earlier period of the Session on the question of closing public-houses in Ireland on Sunday. No doubt, the total number of hours of keeping public-houses open was greater in Ireland than in England; but the time of closing was earlier in the former than in the latter country, and great public inconvenience might ensue, if the time were further restricted. He believed it would cause discontent throughout Ireland if public-houses in large towns were closed at 7 o'clock in the evening of Sunday instead of 9, which was the hour fixed after very full consideration.
  MR. COGANhoped the Committee would adopt the proposal, though it might be possible to strike a compromise which would meet public convenience. He would suggest that the hour of 8 should be taken with that view.
  MR. SULLIVANsaid, that by comparison with England the people in Ireland would be much worse off. What was wanted was an assimilation to the hours of England.
  MR. C. E. LEWIS, as the Representative of a large constituency in the North of Ireland, supported the clause.
  MR. T. A. DICKSONsaid, the public-houses in large towns were kept open
  1014
  simply to enable drunkards to get drunk.
  MR. SYNANobserved that the hon. Gentleman wanted to "go the whole hog," and to shut up public-houses altogether. He, and he believed the House, wished to go by steps. The compromise which was proposed by the clause was one which was in accordance with the public opinion in Ireland. He believed that if they polled the Irish people, they would find 99 in every 100 in favour of the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he did not propose to alter the law with regard to the hours of closing, which were fixed after careful inquiry by the Committee which sat on the subject in 1872. That Committee was composed of Irish Members fully conversant with the wants and wishes of the Irish people. He hoped that the Motion would not be carried, because it might in the end delay the passing of the measure. He was certainly opposed to the re-opening of the question under present circumstances.
  MR. R. SMYTHsaid, he saw no reason why, when they had introduced a new Licensing Bill for Ireland in which alterations had been made, they should not take the opportunity of revising the Irish law also. He was willing to accept the suggested hour of 8 as a compromise.
  THE O'CONOR DONsupported the clause, which he hoped would be accepted by the Government as a fair and reasonable compromise of the question at issue.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 87; Noes 132: Majority 45.
  MR. R. SMYTH, in moving the following new clause—
  (Restriction on the grant of new licences.)
  "From and after the passing of this Act it shall not be lawful for the licensing authority or Inland Revenue Department to grant any new certificate for a licence for the sale of intoxicating liquors—First. In any town or populous place in which the number of licensed houses shall at any time exceed the proportion of one such house to 700 of the population. Second. In rural districts, in respect of any premises situated within one mile at least of any other premises in respect of which a certificate has been granted: Provided, that the licensing authorities may, if they think fit, grant new certificates for hotels, containing in towns and

  1015
  the suburbs thereof not less than six, and in rural districts not less than four, apartments set apart exclusively for the sleeping accommodation of travellers,"
  said, the object of the clause was to reduce the rapid growth of public-houses in Ireland, and he made the proposal in the interests of morality. The over-crowding of Irish towns with public-houses was shown by statistics, to which he referred. In the City of Dublin there were 2,000 such houses, in a population of 250,000, being about one public-house to 150 of the population; in Cork, 600 to a population of 80,000; in Limerick, 300 to 40,000; in Wexford, 87 to 11,000; in New Ross, 77 to 7,000; or one public-house to 90 persons; and in Tralee there was one to every 60 inhabitants, including women and children. Those figures showed that there was a serious disproportion of these houses to the real wants of the population. They could not shut their eyes to the fact that these houses were traps for drunkards, and he trusted that after the suspensory clauses had been granted to Scotland, the Government and the Committee would gratify the people of Ireland by allowing them to exercise this suspensory power. If not, it might be truly said that a majority of Scotchmen could get what they liked, but a majority of Irishmen could get nothing. He would further say that if the public opinion of the people of Ireland was to be overborne by the publicans of England, it must lead to results which would not be satisfactory to those who wished to see the union between the countries.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, in resisting the clause, he had in the first place to say that the hon. Gentleman was under a misunderstanding, for there was no intention to grant any suspensory clauses to Scotland; and in the next place, he had distinctly to state that the English publicans were in no way whatever interested in this question, and had taken no action upon it. What had been done in this case was what had been done in England and Scotland. In the Bill precautions were taken to render the licensing tribunal more certain and regular in its action, and to enable it to look more strictly than heretofore to the conduct of the persons holding the licences. Those provisions, he thought, would answer all necessary purposes. New licences could
  1016
  not be granted exactly in accordance with population. Each special case must be taken into consideration on its merits; and under the measures for improving the licensing authority, he was satisfied no more licences would be granted than was absolutely requisite.
  MR. SYNANsaid, the clause appeared to be based upon an entire misconception, even of the statistics which had been quoted, and he hoped the clause would not be agreed to, for in his opinion it would increase the evil it was intended to mitigate.
  House resumed.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again this day.
  And it being now five minutes to Seven of the clock, the House suspended its sitting.
  The House resumed its sitting at Nine of the clock.

SUPPLY.
Order for Committee read.
Motion made and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

THE INCOME TAX.—RESOLUTION.
MR. C. E. LEWIS, in rising to move the following Resolution:—
"That, in the opinion of this House, the continued imposition of the Income Tax, except in time of war or some great national emergency, is unjust and impolitic, and it is advisable that such Tax should be still further reduced and ultimately altogether repealed at the earliest possible moment,"
said, that he did not think any special apology was necessary for such a Motion, except it might be in mitigation of his presumption in bringing it forward in the face of so many hon. Members who were better fitted for the task. It was a question affecting the interests of some hundreds of thousands of persons with small incomes, and therefore it was one which ought to receive the deliberate and anxious consideration of the House, and on which it was high time some decision was come to. He would not enter into the history of the present Income Tax, but they all knew that in the year 1842 it was imposed by Sir Robert Peel for three years only, but it had lasted 32 years. The amount intended

1017
to be raised for the three years the tax was to last was about £10,500,000, and, as a matter of fact, during the 32 years of its existence a sum of £300,000,000 had been raised by it. It was, in his opinion, a further justification for bringing the subject under consideration, that the House had never come to a decision whether the tax should or should not form a permanent part of our financial system. Up to 1866 the tax was from time to time levied for a period of two, three, four, and even six years by one Act of Parliament; but since 1866, it had been granted by the wisdom of the Legislature only for a year at a time, and as a matter of course had varied in amount. In answer to various inquiries, he must say there were three or four different reasons for bringing forward the subject at the present time. In the first place, we were at the commencement of a new Parliament, elected under very remarkable circumstances. First, the manifesto of the right hon. Gentleman who was head of the late Government specially placed before the country as a portion of his intended programme, the entire abolition of the tax; it, however, did not stop there, for the head of Her Majesty's present Government immediately followed suit, by declaring that the abolition of the income tax had ever been the policy of the Conservative Party. Under those circumstances the abolition of the income tax naturally occupied a prominent place in the Election addresses of hon. Members on both sides of the House, and of most of the candidates, successful or unsuccessful. Again, it was only during the last few years that any Minister had been bold enough to suggest that it should be a permanent tax. For the first 20 years of its existence, every Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the contrary, invariably presented it as a temporary measure to meet some special emergency, or to promote certain special financial plans. In 1853, so anxious was the late Prime Minister to abolish it, that he brought forward a scheme of finance extending over six or seven years, entirely for the purpose of getting rid of the tax at the end of that period. Circumstances, however, had very much changed during the last 10 years; and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of London (Mr. Lowe) when Chancellor of the Exchequer, was the first to
1018
make a statement in the House that it ought to be made a permanent tax. That was a startling announcement, if good faith was to be kept between Parliament and the taxpayers; but the same right hon. Gentleman only two years ago openly proclaimed as his deliberate opinion, that it ought to be made a substantial and permanent part of our financial system.
Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
MR. C. E. LEWISresumed: Another remarkable feature in the matter was that in the course of the last Session the hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing) argued on the broadest and most extensive grounds, in favour of the maintenance of the income tax as a permanent portion of the financial system of the country; but the challenge thrown down was not taken up by any person in authority, and a still more ominous circumstance was found in the fact that only recently the present Chancellor of the Exchequer had spoken deprecatingly of getting rid of this mighty structure of finance. That was, of course, only an indication of the difficulty which the right hon. Gentleman felt on the subject of dealing with the tax in such a way as to lead to its entire abolition. It had been said that the proper occasion on which to challenge the tax was on the introduction of a Budget. He could not, however, agree in that view. It would avail little for any hon. Member, when a Budget proposing an income tax of 2d. in the pound was laid before the House to ask, as a matter of principle, that the tax should be abolished altogether. Such a proposal would be rendered abortive by the fidelity of those who supported the Ministry, and of hon. Members generally who desired to preserve the public credit. Another reason he had for thinking the present a fitting time to discuss the question was, that the tax was now at the lowest rate it had touched since it was imposed, and it became important to consider whether it was possible to keep up the tax, with all its acknowledged evils, annoyances, and injustice, merely for the purpose of obtaining so small a sum as £3,500,000 sterling, involving the same enormous cost of collection for the smaller as for the larger amount, a cost moreover

1019
which had never been revealed to the House. On that very point the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich, speaking on the Budget of the present year, said it became important to consider whether, if the income tax was to be maintained in connection with the permanent operations of the finances of the country, it ought to be a tax of only 2d. in the pound, and he pointed out that, as the amount of the tax diminished, the proportion borne by the cost of collection to the net proceeds became rather serious. For that, among other reasons, the right hon. Gentleman hailed the introduction of the last Budget as evidently tending to the ultimate abolition of the tax. The same right hon. Gentleman, as far back as 1864 said, the public had a right to know whether the tax was to be permanent or not, and that it was not desirable that the tax should creep unawares into perpetuity; and the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the course of last year, said, that, in his view, Parliament ought to consider whether the tax was to be regarded only as a means of providing money for the conduct of a war, or meeting an emergency, or whether it was to be regarded as permanent. That was all he now asked the House to do. He should never have thought of calling upon the House to do anything so Utopian, as to declare that the tax was to be abolished next year, or the year after that. There was no ambiguity about his Motion; all he asked the House to do was to declare that the tax should be only imposed in the case of war or some great national emergency, and that its retention under other circumstances was alike unjust and impolitic. Without going into any abstract questions as to the relative advantages of direct and indirect taxation, he ventured to think that the history of the original imposition of the tax, and its subsequent re-imposition, proved, to some extent, the terms of his Motion. The tax was imposed, in the first place, in order to make good serious deficiencies which Pitt found in our Revenue in the midst of a war; and under very similar circumstances it was re-imposed by Sir Robert Peel in 1842. He (Mr. Lewis) did not mean to say it was simply a war tax; but he thought it should be reserved for war, or some equally pressing emergency, as was the case when it was
1020
first imposed; and he would ask, whether anyone doubted that, but for the new life given to it by the occurrence of the Crimean War, the tax would, in all probability, have ceased in 1860? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire, in the year 1858, declared his opinion that the tax ought not to be allowed to constitute a permanent feature in the financial system of the country; and, in the preceding year, the late Lord Derby urged that thenceforward the tax should be considered, as heretofore, a most efficient and useful engine in time of war, and struck out altogether in time of peace. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich, when introducing his scheme for seven years' taxation, in 1853, said—
"Our principles with regard to the income tax require three things—in the first place, to marl; it effectually as a temporary tax."
Reason and good sense coincided with those declarations, for it was important that this tax should be kept in reserve, and it would be most imprudent to use up in time of peace a resource which would be so valuable in the dire strain of war, and a resource which would enable us to surmount any financial difficulties in which we might find ourselves placed. Passing from that branch of the subject, he would proceed to show that the tax was an unjust one. It was unjust because in the main it taxed permanent and precarious incomes equally. Thus, an income derived from Consols, on which there were no deductions; an income derived from a farm, on which there were but slight deductions; an income derived from small house property, on which there were annual deductions amounting to 20 per cent; an income derived from an annuity, where the capital was being returned as income year by year; an income derived from a mine, the capital of which was being continually eaten into; and an income derived from some precarious employment, dependent upon health or fashion, were all taxed on the same scale. It was also unjust as regarded trades and professions, because of its inquisitorial character, for it was not a pleasant thing to ask a man to tax himself, and it was certainly not an agreeable thing to require a struggling tradesman to make a return showing what his income was, when perhaps it might afford information to a creditor who wished to ascertain

1021
what his position was. The tax was, in fact, inquisitorial upon the very class who were most likely to be injured by an inquisitorial operation; because, in the case of men who derived their incomes from house property, or from interest on stocks, the tax was deducted before the various amounts derived from different sources were paid, and, consequently, the exact income could not be ascertained; but it was otherwise with the tradesman, whose income could, if necessary, be obtained from his books. Then, there was the practice of surcharges, which, as at present carried out by the Inland Revenue authorities, were particularly harassing. Hon. Members were, doubtless, not aware that the Inland Revenue Department were in the habit of sending round to income tax collectors and assessors, circulars laying down a scale of income for all wholesale and retail tradesmen. Acting upon the statements in these circulars, the income tax assessors continually surcharged those liable to pay the tax, and the result was that sooner than undergo the trouble and exposure attendant on appealing from those surcharges, most men were content to pay the additional sum improperly demanded from them. It appeared from a Return made in 1872 that there had been 135,882 surcharges made in the previous 12 months—that in 110,000 cases the surcharge was submitted to; that there were appeals in 24,000 cases, and that in 17,000 instances the surcharge was reduced. He was by no means prepared to admit that the 110,000 surcharges submitted to were just, for the reasons he had already given; but, assuming that they were, was it not a shocking incident of the tax that 110,000 men in a year had attempted to defraud the Revenue with respect to it? One of the grounds on which he maintained that the income tax was unjust had reference especially to Schedule E. They frequently heard of the injustice of Schedule D, but Schedule D did not contain one half of the evils and oppression to be found in Schedule E. The latter was composed of persons who received fixed salaries—such as clerks in public offices, ministers of religion, and small pensioners—who, whatever might be the rise in the price of commodities, had no increase of income. The income tax, with regard to this Schedule E, was specially unjust
1022
and unequal in its operation. With reference to the income tax generally, he would ask, what could be the justice of a system of taxation which exempted one-half of the income of the country?—for he believed he was justified in saying that there was that amount of exemption, because the wage-earning classes, whose incomes amounted to one-half the aggregate income of the country, were altogether exempted from the impost. It was obvious that the producing power of the tax grew less as it increased in amount, as was the case in the middle of the Crimean War, for then all sorts of attempts were made to escape it. Another point, which showed the impolicy of retaining the tax in the time of peace was, that it was a direct encouragement to the Government to waste the public money. The right hon. Gentleman the late Prime Minister had, in a speech made in that House in 1864, said, he could not conceive how principles of public economy could prevail together with an abnegation of the principle that the income tax should not be retained in times of peace, and 12 months ago the right hon. Gentleman who now deservedly occupied the distinguished position of Chancellor of the Exchequer had said that if the income tax were always ready to hand, economy would not be studied as it otherwise would; for if any Government found themselves in a strait, they could always fall back upon it as a resource, and get out of the difficulty by putting on an extra penny. Again, he objected to the continuance of the income tax on the ground that it tended to promote fraud, and in that respect also he could cite in his favour the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich. Men were placed in the position of taxing themselves, and it was notorious that under this system incomes were often largely understated, and the tax was to a great extent evaded. He would ask the House to consider whether, with an income tax of 1s. 6d. in the pound, a man would sit down with his ledger and make a correct return. Would a person, even of good sound moral fibre, always make out a return that would satisfy his own conscience? Was not this the true explanation of the notices which so frequently appeared in The Times, that a gentleman had sent the Chancellor of the Exchequer £2 3s. 4½d. as arrears of

1023
income tax? He would maintain it would be impossible to keep to an income tax of 2d. in the pound, producing £3,500,000, and that if it were to be a permanent tax it must be larger or otherwise must be taken off altogether. It had been truly said that this system of the income tax was a positive penalty on honesty, and it was a positive premium on dishonesty. There was frequently a very remarkable fact cropping up. There were such things as "claims for compensation" in the ease of demolished buildings, which might afford an opportunity of gauging the dishonest returns that were sent in. Professor Levi had stated the case of a large block of buildings being pulled down, in which the Income Tax Commissioners had discovered from the claims sent in for compensation, that they were greatly in excess of what they should have been according to the Income Tax Returns, and this they believed was far from an exceptional case. In this instance, the documents showed that the returns were made at £73,642, while they ought to have been £171,307, showing a deficiency of £97,000, or 130 per cent. It was impossible that professional men could safely calculate what they had made, unless they went on the simple ground of what they received. Then let them consider the very heavy expense of assessing and collecting the tax, which, although the House had no precise information on the subject, must be very great in proportion to the amount of revenue raised. Was it necessary for him further to urge the injustice and the impolicy of retaining the income tax, except in times of emergency, when it had been repudiated by every Chancellor of the Exchequer since it was proposed by Sir Robert Peel, and had also been condemned by two most laborious Select Committees of the House, one of which—Mr. Hume's—had sat three years? All manner of expedients also had been suggested to make the tax fair, just, and equitable, but without success. It was suggested that Schedule D should be abolished, and the other Schedules retained; but would it be fair to charge income tax to a man having £20,000 in the Funds, on which he received only 3 per cent. and allow a man who had £20,000 invested in his business, which might be returning 20 per cent. to escape altogether? A
1024
vast amount of capital was invested in trade, in shops, and in manufactures, and to allow it to go untaxed was out of the question. Again, what was to be done in the case of the parson who was charged with income tax under Schedule A? He was only a life tenant, and his income ceased on his death. To abolish Schedule D, and leave the clergyman and the owner of short leases to pay under Schedule A would clearly be only to substitute one set of evils for another. Some authorities advised that the minimum upon which the tax was paid should be increased. He did not think it a wise suggestion, nor, in his opinion, were those who advocated it, or the House, aware of the effect upon the revenue of exempting incomes under £300 a year. The taxable income under Schedule D, in 1872, including mines and quarries, was £153,000,000. If all incomes under £300 a year in Schedules D and E were exempt, the taxable amount of income would be reduced by £50,000,000, or one-third. The same proportion would hold good in regard to Schedule A, which contained a large number of persons having a small income from fixed property. The consequence would be that an exemption at the line of £300 would reduce the taxable income by £100,000,000. Such an operation would positively aggravate three of the evils of the income tax. It would offer a direct tendency to fraud to the 67,000 persons in Schedules D and E, whoso incomes were between £300 and £600, and whose interest it would be so to manipulate their incomes as to bring themselves below the £300 line. Secondly, this temptation being known in the Inland Revenue Office, it would be met by additional surcharges and assessments. And thirdly, the inquisitorial character of the tax in consequence of these surcharges would be increased and intensified. The effect upon the Inland Revenue Office itself would be to overwhelm it with claims of exemption. Another suggestion was to graduate the tax, and the Committee over which the hon. Member for the City of London had presided, had recommended that incomes should be divided into spontaneous and industrial incomes—the latter contributing two-thirds, whilst the former would be assessed at the full charge; but that suggestion had to be abandoned. If any one doubted that the income tax

1025
pressed very hardly upon the community at large, he might be referred to the remarkable speech delivered by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lowe) in 1872. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer then told the House that there was no class of the community so severely pinched by taxation as the lower class of income tax payers. The right hon. Gentleman, who was not a man likely to give way unduly to sentiment, added that he was really shocked by the letters he received from persons in the position of gentlemen mating piteous appeals to give them time, or excuse them on the ground that they did not know where to lay their hands on the money they were called upon to pay. In Schedules D and E there were not less than 510,000 persons who returned their incomes as under £300 a year. Let the House remember the difficulty which many persons of fixed means had in keeping up a respectable position, in paying house rent, and educating their children on such sums. It might be asked, why this tax had existed so long, and had been so patiently borne. The reason was because it had been held out by successive Ministers and statesmen that it ought not to be made a permanent tax. In 1873, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the income tax had remained, like Mahomet's coffin, suspended between the idea of a permanent and a temporary tax. People were, he added, beginning to say that it was not such a wild idea to get rid of the income tax altogether; and the House had a right to know what was the view taken by the Government on this subject. There was not the slightest ground for delay in speaking upon the subject, and the country ought to be dealt with fairly and openly. He did not, as he had said before, ask the House to commit itself to abolish the tax next year or the year after, but only to come to a clear and deliberate decision on this subject, and to determine whether the income tax should be a permanent impost, or whether it should not be at the earliest possible moment erased from the Statute Book. The hon. Member concluded by moving the Resolution.
DR. LUSHseconded the Motion.
Amendment proposed,
To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words
1026
"in the opinion of this House, the continued imposition of the Income Tax, except in time of war or some great national emergency, is unjust and impolitic, and it is advisable that such Tax should be still further redueed and ultimately altogether repealed at the earliest possible period,"—(Mr. Charles Lewis,)
—instead thereof.
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
MR. GRANT DUFFwho had given Notice of an Amendment to the Resolution, to leave out all the words after "Tax" in order to add the words "is alike just and politic, unless and until some other direct tax can be substituted for it against which-fewer valid objections can be stated," and which the Forms of the House prevented his moving, said: No part, Sir, of the remarks which I wish to submit to the House with reference to the Motion of the hon. Member for Londonderry will consist of a panegyric on the income tax. I am quite aware that many and serious objections can be made to that impost, and ready to allow that the way to make it perfectly fair in its incidence has not, as yet, been discovered by any financier. All that I would wish the House to affirm, if it were possible to divide on my Amendment is, that bad as the income tax may be, it would be very unjust and inexpedient to abolish it, without substituting for it some other direct tax less objectionable in its character. It is clear, Sir, that if we abolish the income tax and have not a succession of quite extraordinary surpluses, we must do one of four things—we must diminish our expenditure to the extent of our loss of Revenue; or we must add to our indirect taxation to that extent; or we must devise a new direct tax or taxes as lucrative as, and less inconvenient than, the income tax; or else we must have recourse to a composite scheme formed out of at least two of these expedients. As to the first of these possible plans, I do not think the House is prepared for so large a reduction in the Army and Navy, or in one of them, as would be necessary if we were to sacrifice the income tax without some equivalent; and even if it were, the classes not affected by the income tax would surely insist on having their share of the relief arising from our diminished expenditure. As to the second plan, it is entirely contrary to all recent policy, notably to that

1027
abolition of the sugar duties which I congratulate my right hon. Friend opposite on having had the good fortune to effect. As to the third plan, I am quite prepared to agree to that solution of our problem when we have it solved. I have every hope that some direct tax, or combination of direct taxes, better than the income tax will some day be laid before us; but no one has yet, in this matter at least, spoken, le mot de l'enigme. But if there are objections to each of these three plans, there are not less grave objections to a composite measure made up of some reduction of expenditure, some increase to indirect taxation, some new direct taxation, or any two of them. Supposing then, for want of something better, we determined to keep the income tax, whose defects are known, instead of trying some new financial expedient which may have far greater inconveniences, what could we do with it? What compensation might we have for its admitted evils? I reply, that we could do with it in the future as we have done in the past, that is, by no means resolve to keep it to all time as a part of our ordinary taxation, but retain it, at least, until we have made the rest of our fiscal system accord with right reason, and expediency. Is our fiscal system now what it ought to be? Can it be defended as theoretically correct even by those who think best of it? It is clear that it cannot, and I make haste to admit that there is not the most distant chance of our arriving, in any time to which the politician as distinguished from the political philosopher can look forward, at a thoroughly defensible system, by which I mean such a system as any committee of men of business acquainted with finance would propose to adopt if they were not hampered by historical accidents. But although we cannot expect to arrive, perhaps for ages, at a perfect system, we may be continually though slowly approaching it, and in order that we may do so, it seems to me absolutely necessary to keep the income tax, or forthwith to put in its place, some direct tax which will be as efficient and as easily increased. The three great requisites of a perfect system seem to me to be that it should provide easily and amply for the ordinary annual outgoings of the State, and be capable of rapid expansion in emergencies; that it should in no way hamper the trade of the country;
1028
and thirdly, that it should be consistent with perfect security to the pub-lie creditor. Now, the first of these objects is quite attained by our present system, and might, I should think, be equally attained by even more imperfect systems than ours. The much-abused income tax is the very portion of it, be it observed, which makes it so readily expansive. The second is not attained, and cannot be attained as long as our indirect taxation is anything like as great as it is now. It would be wasting the time of the House to point out at any length the inconveniences of the Customs and Excise duties; but although these inconveniences are acknowledged, very little has been said about them in this place for a long time, and what is said in this place gets so much more rapidly, so to speak, into the circulation of the body politic, than what is said anywhere else, that I may be excused if I recall them in a few sentences. We are in danger of forgetting that although we have done much to reform both Customs and Excise, and although both Customs and Excise are necessary evils at present, and probably for a long time to come, yet they are, still, evils, and great evils. We are in danger of forgetting that Customs and Excise duties are exceptionally costly to collect; that they give an advantage to the large over the small capitalist; that they prevent the opening of new sources of supply; that they have prevented, and perhaps still prevent, the creation of new outlets and inlets for commerce round our shores; that they have closed, and still to some extent close to us, foreign markets by provoking retaliatory duties. I wish every hon. Member of this House would read an admirable paper on this subject by Mr. Cliffe Leslie, which must be in the hands of many of us, for it was largely circulated by the Cobden Club. From it, with the permission of the House, I shall read a short summing up of the evils of the Customs duties—
"An inevitable consequence of Customs duties is to involve the State in a series of dilemmas, with only a choice of great evils. It must either grant unrestricted liberty of importation and exportation to every spot on the coast, and along the rivers of the kingdom, thereby entailing an enormous army of tax collectors and intolerable cost of collection, or it must limit direct foreign trade to selected places, thereby disturbing the natural order of things and obstructing the development of numerous localities. It must either exact immediate payment

1029
of the duties on importation, thereby wasting capital, harassing merchants, and mulcting consumers, or it must establish the system of bonding, and encounter a fresh dilemma, between covering the kingdom with warehouses and Customs officials, or confining the advantages of bonding unfairly to particular places. It must extend the duty on any particular import to all its possible substitutes, thereby incurring heavy cost in collecting unproductive imposts, on articles of which the main uses, moreover, may not be those which it was intended to tax; or else the tax must be confined to the principal import, in which case it may be evaded by substitutes, thereby depriving the public of the best article without profit to the State."
And now with regard to Excise—
"You impose an Excise duty on British spirits, meant to tax only the drinkers of spirits, and to balance the duty, you must tax foreign spirits, thereby shutting your manufactures out of Continental markets, and impeding the progress of free trade throughout Europe. To collect your Excise duties you stop invention and improvement, not only in the production of the articles taxed, but in all the arts and applications in which the products are used or to which analogous improvements might be transferred. As with the tangled web we weave, when once we practise to deceive, the ramifications of loss and mischief following from one false stop in finance are endless. The loss in many instances may be slight, but all the wealth of England is an accumulation of small savings and small gains.…. About 42 millions sterling are annually advanced by producers and traders in payment of Customs and Excise duties, which otherwise would be productively employed and reproduced, yielding wages as well as profit at each turn of the capital. What is lost, therefore, by the bare advance of the duty is not merely profit, but the entire revenue that would otherwise be reproduced."
It will not, I presume, Sir, be disputed that at this moment, under what is popularly described as a system of perfect Free Trade, we are raising more money off our trade than we ever did in the days of Protection. People say, however, that our indirect taxation is raised in a far less inconvenient and oppressive way than it once was, and that it now falls only upon things which are more or less in the nature of luxuries. The first of these statements is quite correct, and no reservation has to be made with regard to it. The second is in a sense, correct, but a reservation has to be made with regard to it, and the reservation is this. True it is that our present indirect taxation falls only upon things which are to their consumers more or less, in the nature of luxuries, but how much does it affect the labour of the country? Can there be a doubt, for instance, that even the taxation on
1030
an article of luxury like high-priced claret is more or less an injury to the unskilled labourer, if only by diminishing to some extent the demand for his labour, in helping to convey the claret to the persons by whom it is consumed. I think, then, that the greatest compensation for keeping on the income tax is the diminution in our indirect taxation which we may make thereby; and, first, the getting rid of as much of our Customs duties as we can without injustice to our own producers. So far as is possible, I think we should do this by falling back, as soon as circumstances permit, upon the policy which was so brilliantly inaugurated by the Commercial Treaty with France in 1860. That policy, as I understand it, was this. Mr. Cobden said, ever since the repeal of the Corn Laws, and the other tariff reforms of Sir Robert Peel's Government, I have been waiting to see whether foreign nations would not follow the example of England. I have seen one foreign statesman converted after another; but still fiscal legislation on the Continent does not improve. The interests hostile to Free Trade are too strong. Let me see what is to be done by a system of commercial treaties absolutely antithetic to the old commercial treaties, the type of which was the Methuen Treaty. Let me see whether all Europe cannot be entangled in the meshes of Free Trade. He set to work, and the result can be stated in a sentence. I quote from a well-known pamphlet on commercial treaties, published by the Cobden Club—
"By means of this network, of which few Englishmen seem aware, while fewer still know to whom they owe it, all the great trading and industrial communities of Europe—namely, England, France, the Zollverein, Austria, and Italy—constitute a compact international body from which the principle of monopoly and exclusive privilege has been once for all eliminated, and not one member of which can take off a single duty without all the other members at once participating in the increased trading-facilities thereby created."
Now, Sir, that is the policy I want to see carried forward. If my right hon. Friend opposite sees his way to diminishing or abolishing next year any of the existing Customs' duties, without any communication with foreign countries—and the smaller Customs' duties, those on chicory, coffee, figs, ginger, plums, prunes, together with the trifles which make up the head of "miscellaneous"

1031
seem ripe to be swept away—I should be too glad to see them go; but with regard to the larger Customs' duties, there are arrangements which other nations are, or were recently, eager to make, which, while benefiting them, would make our own tariff more consistent with principle, and would further open to us the markets of the Continent. Take, for instance, the case of spirits. It is asserted by German Free Traders that we still keep up, without knowing it, a protectionist duty in favour of the English as against the German distiller, owing to the method in which we countervail, and only as we suppose countervail, a portion of our Excise duty. They ask for an inquiry, and promise if, on inquiry, it turns out that their complaints are well founded, to give us in return for a rectification of procedure, in strict conformity with our own principles, very considerably increased facilities for exchanging our produce with theirs, by the abandonment of certain of their import and export duties, especially their import duties on raw iron, flaxen yarn, and soda, and their export duty on rags. Then, to take the case of wine. It is notorious that a very moderate sacrifice of Revenue under this head, would a short time ago have opened to us the markets of the Peninsula, as they never were opened before, and I have no reason to believe that the situation is in any way altered. Very recently, I believe, the Portuguese Lower Chamber rejected some proposals of their Government which would have been advantageous to our industry, simply because we were so obdurate about their wines. Then, take the case of tea. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and my hon. Friend who represents the Foreign Office in this House, know well that our diplomatic position with reference to the Tea duty is very difficult, and not indefinitely tenable. We prohibit the Chinese by treaty from levying more than 5 per cent export duty on tea, while we levy a very much heavier import duty on it. Sooner or later that arrangement will have to be revised, and such is the growth of the Indian tea industry that very soon we shall have a demand to diminish or abolish our Tea duty, on the plea of justice to India, and be able, perhaps, in yielding wholly or partially to the demand, to make stipulations for the advantage
1032
of Manchester. It is unnecessary to multiply examples, but I think I may assume that there is still a considerable field for the development of the great and beneficent policy of commercial treaties, and that until all has been done in that direction which remains to do, the question whether we should keep the income tax, or some tax like it, as a part of an ordinary taxation, can hardly be said to arise. Some object to this policy as fettering our fiscal liberty, but no great harm can come of fetters which only compel to the doing of what is in itself advantageous. A German economist has well said—
"That both contracting parties become tied, for a given time, to the respective tariff reforms on which they have agreed, is an advantage into the bargain. It helps over the danger of a reflux of public opinion arising from the trials of the first years. There is no law of political economy that does not want some time before its beneficial action can take place in full swing. In particular, division of labour wants time for supplanting competition. Whoever resolves upon free trade instead of exclusion, must resolve at once upon extending the experiment over some time. He therefore sacrifices no liberty of action if he binds himself to do so in the face of another."
The development of that policy, and the acquirement of the free breakfast table, or something very like it, which will be one of its results, will obviously confer immense benefits on the poorer part of our population, both in diminishing their outgoings and in increasing the demand for their labour.
Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
MR. GRANT DUFFresumed: If, however, we retain the income tax for the purpose of taking off taxes which press more heavily upon the lower than the upper portions of society, the time will soon come when we shall have to reconsider our exemptions, and, above all, to face the question whether there is any insuperable objection to taxing weekly wages. The experiment has been tried for us in Prussia, where it is said perfectly to succeed, and that although, as has been well pointed out, the Prussian lower classes have at the same time to bear a tax which we have not—and thanks to our very different geographical position, I trust never will have—the tax of blood, that compulsory service which sends a large portion of their youth

1033
into the ranks every year, and subordinates all the arrangements of social and family life to military considerations. The right hon. Gentleman, who was lately at the head of Her Majesty's Government, said, in 1853, when Chancellor of the Exchequer—
"To my view, it is a right and Expedient principle—taking it in connection with all the circumstances of the case—that we should not trench upon what I would call the territory of labour,"—[3 Hansard, cxxv. 1390.]
and he defined the territory of labour by the figure of £100 a-year. That was perfectly sound doctrine 21 years ago; but it would be doubtful doctrine now, when so many millions of annual taxation have been removed from the shoulders of those who have less than £100 a-year; and it will be still more doubtful doctrine when we come to that "free breakfast table" of which I have just spoken, and towards which the Budget of this year has made another long stride. Doubtless, there are inconveniences to be faced, and prejudices to be got over, in taxing weekly wages. Some people even imagine that it would be dangerous to do so. I do not believe that, but even if I did, I should think that it was just one of those cases in which we should say with Napoleon—"We have reason on our side, and when reason is on our side, it is right to run some risk." Nothing can be less wise, either for States or for individuals, than to base their conduct upon two wholly antagonistic principles. If our electoral legislation is to be based on the principle that our working classes are saints and sages, and our fiscal legislation on the principle that they are so foolish and ignorant that they must be cheated into paying a fair share of the current expenses of the State, it seems to me that we are in a very perilous condition. I utterly disbelieve, however, in the impossibility of making the working man contribute directly to the immediate and obvious necessities of the year which is passing over his head, when those necessities have been recognized as immediate and obvious by his own Representatives, though I can quite understand his grumbling if he had to pay, in the shape of a direct tax, the interest of that National Debt which was run up in past times by the general madness of all classes, but which false teachers will always be ready to tell him was run up
1034
in days when he and his had no influence and no responsibility. It is the existence of this great National Debt which is the only valid argument to my mind for keeping up any indirect taxes at all. If we had only to provide for our ordinary expenditure, I would say that we should sweep away all our Customs and Excise establishments, thereby saving largely, and developing our trade in geometrical ratio. As we have, however, this enormous debt, I should like to see our indirect taxation gradually reduced by the methods I have alluded to, and others, until it falls exclusively upon those luxuries, such as spirits and tobacco, which may easily become hurtful. But out of these, and especially out of spirits and tobacco, we should get as much as we possibly can, consistently with not increasing smuggling and illicit distillation. When, by making our indirect taxation fall entirely upon these, and, though less heavily, upon beer and wine, we have set free—if I may use the expression—the elbows of our trade, so far as our great debt will allow, we should begin to think of devoting a larger portion of what we raise each year to bringing our Debt within manageable compass; but I think that as long as this country goes on steadily getting richer, and seeming likely to continue to do so for a long time, it would be doubtful economy to do more than we now do towards diminishing our Debt, if we at all risk by that process making these Islands a less desirable place for the skilled artizan, and for the capitalist to live in. On these two classes, and on the high and general education of our people, depends our national future. We must remain or become great as the workshop of the world, as the emporium of the world, as the reservoir of the capital of the world, and as the university of the world, if we are to remain great at all in comparison with other nations, which in point of climate, and in many other respects, are more highly favoured. Our destiny, if we are to remain great, is to be an infinitely grander Holland combined with an infinitely grander Venice, and to that end we must walk warily now, and keep the four great advantages we have got. Those advantages are—first, the start given us by our having adopted, comparatively early, a comparatively wise fiscal legislation; secondly, the start

1035
given us by our mineral resources, which one day, no doubt, but not yet awhile, will be exhausted; thirdly, the start given us, and which we never ought to lose, by our geographical position—incomparably the best suited for a commercial emporium in the whole world; and fourthly, the start given us by our unique, but still pitiably misused, educational foundations. To give up the income tax at this moment, without imposing a less objectionable and as easily increased direct tax, would, in my opinion, be most unwary walking, and would injure, more than any change in our fiscal legislation which I ever remember hearing proposed in this House, the present and future prosperity of the country.
MR. HUBBARDheartily agreed with the hon. Gentleman who had introduced the subject (Mr. C. E. Lewis) in all the anathemas he had launched against the inequality of the operation of the tax. Upon that point no two persons would be found to disagree; and the hon. Member might almost have spared himself the trouble of appealing at considerable length to the promises of Ministers of finance and Statesmen who during the last 30 years had promised from time to time that the tax should be taken off. What we should consider was not whether such promises had been made, but whether it was for the interest of the country that the tax should be wholly abolished. He could not admit the fact of its special utility as a war tax as a reason for not attempting to remove some of its defects.
Notice taken that 40 Members were not present. House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
MR. HUBBARDcontinued: There was no doubt that the tax was inquisitorial, but if it carried with it large national advantages, they should consider how far the objection on the score of its inquisitorial character might not be in other respects compensated. From the remarks made by the hon. Member for Elgin (Mr. Grant Duff) upon indirect taxation, it might have been thought that he was speaking, not in the year 1874, but in 1844, before Sir Robert Peel effected the vast change which had been made in our fiscal system. No argument was needed to prove the im-policy of taxing the necessaries of life;
1036
but if, instead of taxing grain, butter, and cheese, they taxed gin, brandy, wine, and tobacco, the consequences in a national point of view were very different, and Governments all the world over had found it expedient to tax such articles for the sake of morality as well as of the revenue. It could not be said that our indirect taxation now pressed with undue severity on the working classes, because the taxes paid by those classes on the spirits, beer, and tobacco they consumed was of a voluntary character, and need not be borne by them unless they chose. He was not prepared, therefore, to sweep away taxation in the manner proposed. The charge on the working classes was by no means onerous, and he could not, for the purpose of obtaining what was called a "free breakfast-table," consent to sweep away taxes that he considered necessary for the Revenue. The cost of collection might be greater in the case of Customs than in that of the Income Tax, but still it was not onerous. The Customs and Excise raised no less than £35,000,000 sterling, including the licences required for the sale of articles charged. It was often said that they ought to lighten the springs of industry and to grease the wheels of progress, but there were instances in which our fiscal system imposed weights upon the springs, and poured sand into the wheels instead of oil. Some of the Stamp duties were of a most oppressive character, as, for example, those on foreign bills, those on all securities which were transferred, whether on the mortgage or sale of land, or on the sale of other investments and stocks. No assistance was rendered by the Government to those financial or industrial movements, and the Government ought not to levy a tax upon them. Those duties were vicious in their character, and he invited the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to them, with a view, at least, to their modification. But if those imposts were to be scrutinized and reduced, could they ask the Government to bind itself to remove the income tax? It was important at that period of the Session, and with the Recess approaching, that there should be no false expectation in the mind of the country in regard to what was to be done with the income tax? He was of opinion that the Government would not act wisely in

1037
giving up the income tax altogether, and, so far as he had understood the speech made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer when introducing the Budget, he did not believe they had any intention of doing so.
Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
MR. HUBBARDresumed his argument by pointing out if taxes were not to be paid indirectly on consumable articles they must be paid directly in the form of an income tax. The legacy, probate, and succession duties being accidental in their character could not be relied upon for an equable contribution to the public Revenue. The income tax, although it was objectionable as it was now levied, had, he considered, many advantages. The total income taxed was about £350,000,000, and of this a very large portion was assessed upon from money invested in the public funds, under Schedule C, and upon rents assessed under Schedule A. Under both those Schedules income was taxed at its source, before it reached the hands of the owners. The principal difficulty that presented itself to his mind had reference to Schedule D, and he thought that difficulty might be much diminished by assessing the profits of public companies in their dividends, just as dividends were assessed under Schedule C, a course of proceeding which would tend so far to minimize the objections felt to the Schedule. He admitted that the power of self-assessment would always be a very delicate one to exercise, but in his opinion the greater part of the dishonesty in making returns to the income tax was due not so much to immorality and a desire to defraud, as to the fault of the tax itself and the desire of the people to do themselves justice, as they believed, even at the expense of truth. The number of fraudulent and evasive returns was very small when compared with the total number of returns made. Thus out of 490,000 persons liable to the tax, 362,000 made returns, and only about 135,000 were surcharged. Of that latter number 25,000 persons appealed, and 7,000 of the appeals were dismissed, principally on the ground that the regulations of the Inland Revenue Department had not been complied with. The fact of the payment of "conscience
1038
money" was a striking, and, as he thought, a most creditable feature in the English character; indeed, it was only in a country where a high state of civilization and a great regard for morality prevailed, that an income tax on the present system could be collected at all. Nine-tenths of the dishonesty to which reference had been made was owing to the essential vice and injustice of the tax; and if the Government could present the country with a system which imposed the tax equitably it would dispose of the difficulties in which the question was involved. The hon. Member for Londonderry had urged that the income tax should be kept in reserve as a resource in time of war, which was so far an argument in its favour, as meaning it was worth keeping: but he (Mr. Hubbard) maintained that if an income tax founded on more just principles than the present one could not be devised, the sooner the tax was abolished altogether the better. He objected strongly to a scheme for graduating the tax, by which larger incomes should be taxed on a higher scale than smaller incomes. The great thing in a measure of this kind was to adopt a course that would satisfy the country that justice was intended and did prevail. It was impossible that any individual Member could carry a question of the kind against a strong and determined Government, but if Ministers would themselves introduce an improved system, they would not have the slightest difficulty in carrying it out. He would tell the hon. Member for Londonderry that he did not think it fair, under the circumstances, to call on the Government to give any decision on the subject now. The principal objection to the tax was really directed against a portion of Schedule D, and with regard to the point, he believed it would be perfectly possible to construct a system which would carry out a satisfactory adjustment. He would ask the House not to support the Motion of the hon. Gentleman, or rather he would appeal to the hon. Gentleman himself not to press it to a division. He admitted that the existing system was unjust, and, therefore, he did not wish to see it maintained indefinitely, but he would rather leave the question in the hands of the Government during the Recess, in the hope that they might be able to devise a plan which would

1039
be satisfactory to the House and the country.
SIR JOHN LUBBOCKsaid, he thought the evident desire to count out the House, and the fact that when the late Prime Minister appealed to the country on this question, he was defeated by a large majority, did not bear out the statements made of the unpopularity of the income tax. It was urged that the tax should be abolished, because it was a war tax; but it would be as logical to abolish the impost in a time of peace because it was a war tax, as it would be to abolish the Army and Navy; and if the tax was to be relied upon in time of war, its machinery should be kept going in time of peace. Though he could not accept the Resolution proposed by the hon. Member for Londonderry, he had never disguised from himself the strong arguments which could be brought against the income tax. The tax was said to be inquisitorial, unpopular, and unjust. But there was no tax against which grave accusations could not be brought. The objections to indirect taxation were also very great, and before the House was really in a position to condemn the income tax, they ought to be satisfied that the other taxes were not even greater offenders. He did not, then, deny that the income tax had many disadvantages, and, indeed, he might almost be said, using Voltaire's expression, to support it only as the cord supported the criminal. Still, some taxes must remain, and before they abolished the income tax on account of its demerits, they must satisfy themselves that they could replace it by a better. They were told that the income tax was unjust for two principal reasons; firstly, because it fell equally on temporary and permanent incomes; and, secondly, because the same rate was imposed on income derived from individual exertion as on that from real property. But the first objection held good only as long as the tax was temporary, and manifestly did not apply to it if permanent. As regarded the second objection—namely, that the income tax fell more heavily upon professional and mercantile incomes than on wages or on real property, that in itself was no doubt unfair. But, on the other hand, if other taxes fell especially on consumers, and our rates on real property, the very inequality in the income tax might be an
1040
advantage, as tending to counteract corresponding inequalities in other taxes. No single tax, indeed, was just in itself and in its primary incidence; our whole system was based on compensating inequalities. The income tax had now been in operation for more than 30 years, and salaries, payments, annuities, &c, had been adjusted with reference to it. But though it was true that the incidence of taxes in the long run regulated itself, it was not the less true that it was a work of time, and that any sudden alteration of system might be most unfair as between class and class. It would be unjust to repeal a tax which fell on the rich, while leaving untouched others which, like the duty on tea, pressed more heavily on the poor. Again, the burden of our local taxation fell mainly on real property. Now, in the last Parliament, the hon. Baronet the Member for South Devon (Sir Massey Lopes) brought forward, and carried by a large majority, a Motion in favour of relieving the rates, and, consequently, real property, from a portion of the burdens which at present fell upon them. Those proposals had been partially acted on by the present Government, and accepted by the majority of the House. But those who took that view could not consistently support a proposition for the simple abolition of the income tax, which was mainly attacked on the very ground that it pressed most severely on that description of property which could not be reached by rates. Those general considerations must not be overlooked, and, moreover, as it was never desirable to over-state a case, it must be admitted that there were some compensating provisions in the law as it now stood to which sufficient consideration had not, he thought, been given. The attacks on the income tax derived much of their force from the fact that incomes derived from trades and professions paid the same nominal amount as those from lands and houses; but it must be remembered that in the case of professional and industrial incomes, the amount was taken, either on an average of three years, or on the actual amount, at the option of the payer. This was a great advantage, estimated by the Inland Revenue Office as equivalent to about 30 per cent deduction. Any system, on the contrary, which recognized a general remission to all incomes derived

1041
from trades and professions would grant the same boon to the sleeping partner in a great firm as to a tradesman whose income was dependent on his health, and must, therefore, be more or less precarious; but the option to which he had referred was a concession just where a concession was most needed. The case of land and houses was the very reverse. Here the tax was charged on the gross income, without any deduction on account of the out-goings for repairs, insurance, &c, which had been estimated by high authorities at over 10 per cent for land, and from 15 to 25 per cent for houses. Taking Schedule A all round, they could not be estimated at less than 15 per cent. But that was not all. Under the present system, while real property and professional incomes nominally paid the same rate, the former in reality paid on 20 per cent more than the not income, professions on considerably less. The whole system of taxation must be considered in reference to the question. The Customs and Excise duties fell with the greatest severity upon the labourer and artizan classes, who were exempt from income tax; and with reference to local rates, the House and the Government had acted upon the policy that real property was unduly taxed in proportion to other descriptions of property. There had been a great many suggestions made with a view of meeting the injustice of the income tax, but it appeared to him that none of them showed a satisfactory solution. On the contrary, he thought it was more than probable that if they began to touch the system of the income tax, they would be compelled to do the very opposite of that which they desired to effect. Again, while the assessment of an income tax on stocks and shares was very simple under the present system, it would be difficult to devise any other direct mode of levying a tax on them which would not be very difficult, if not impossible. The experience of America had brought out in a striking manner the difficulty of enforcing any direct tax on personal property. The Committee recently appointed by the Legislature of New York, under the presidency of Mr. Wells, had issued a very able Report, in which, after carefully detailing the results of their own experience, and examining that of other countries, they expressed their conviction
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that to levy a direct tax on personal property was a financial impossibility. Indeed, the more it was attempted to secure completeness of assessment by declarations and oaths the more injurious did the system become. Those who advocated a modification of the income tax generally did so, on the ground that industrial incomes were charged too heavily in proportion to those derived from land. But it must be remembered that an immense amount of landed property was in settlement or under entail. Under the system proposed, all such property, instead of paying on the income, as it did now, would be taxed only on the life interest, and would, therefore, pay less than at present; besides which, such an arrangement would give a stimulus to settlements, which was in itself far from desirable. It was, moreover, generally the large estates which were entailed—this plan, therefore, would encourage entails and discourage small investments in land. Again, if any such changes were made, it would be impossible to continue to levy the tax, as at present, upon holders of the public funds. As a matter of public faith and national engagements, they must be placed in the most favourable position, and must be permitted the full advantage of any reductions and remissions. In fact, while the attacks on the income tax arose mainly from an idea that landowners and stockholders paid too little in proportion to industrial incomes, if they valued at all they must value life interests in land, and if they exempted at all they must exempt fund-holders. In considering these questions, they must not overlook the fact that as between class and class all inequalities of taxation had a great tendency to right themselves. The income tax was no new tax; all those engaged in trades or professions had entered into them under this tax; and, in fact, the greater the inequality the more necessary it was to consider whether they would not produce a new wound in order to remove an old scar. If an old inequality had been removed by time, to allow for it again was to create a new one. The hon. Member for Londonderry had told them that in his opinion, in spite of the injustice and inequality of the income tax, there were times when it was necessary for the well-being of the country. If that were the case, it appeared to

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him (Sir John Lubbock) the proper course was to keep the tax as low as possible in times of peace, but to keep the machinery going, so that we should have something to fall back upon in time of necessity. He had listened with great interest to the able speech of the hon. Member for Elgin (Mr. Grant Duff), who showed how much remained to be done to complete that system of free trade to which this country was so much indebted. With reference to it, he would not now enlarge on the advantages which might ensue from the removal of some of the smaller Customs' duties, nor would he dwell on the great importance of reducing our Debt during the present period of prosperity. These considerations, however, ought not to be altogether overlooked. Moreover, there was great inconvenience in committing themselves to such a decision at this period of the year. They were, still nine months from the close of their financial year, and he would be a bold man who would venture to predict what might occur in the meantime. Under these circumstances, then, glad as he should individually be if the income tax could be abolished, it was impossible for him to support the Resolution now before the House. He therefore hoped the hon. Member would be satisfied with the discussion that had taken place, and that the Motion would not be pressed to a division.
MR. FAWCETTsaid, that the hon. Member for Londonderry in his able speech had truly said that the question of the repeal of the income tax occupied altogether a different position from what it had formerly done in consequence of the recent Elections; and considering the prominent position which the subject held before the public at the time of those Elections he (Mr. Fawcett) was afraid the people of this country would not put a very favourable interpretation upon the attempt of the Government to get rid of the Motion by a side-wind, as evidenced by the four attempts just made to count the House. The people might say that each party, in bidding for support, made promises which they could not fulfil. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich promised that if he were returned to power at the head of a majority, he would repeal the income tax, while the right hon. Gentleman now at the head of the Government, who might have objected to
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dispose of the tax by a preliminary ple-biscitum, but instead of that he out-Heroded Herod, and declared that the total and unconditional repeal of the income tax had always been a settled point of the policy of the Conservative Party. Only one interpretation could be put upon those Election addresses, and the country thought that the two great parties were equally pledged to repeal the income tax. When the hon. Member for Elgin (Mr. Grant Duff) came forward with his Amendment, he (Mr. Fawcett) thought that the House was on the eve of a great financial disclosure, and he could by no means understand how the hon. Gentleman had remained a passive Member of an Administration which had promised if the country gave them a majority to repeal the income tax. He was quite aware of the objections urged to the income tax. It was in some respects inquisitorial; its collection was vexatious; in point of political economy it was unsound, because it was a tax upon prudence. These objections did not, however, apply to the entire tax, but only to one form of it. What the House had to consider was this important issue—would the abolition of a particular tax make our financial system on the whole more just and equitable in the burden it imposed upon the people? The House seldom heard anything, for instance, of the inequalities of the duty on tea. Yet, as it was not an ad valorem duty, it pressed with undue weight upon the descriptions of tea consumed by the poorer classes. Moreover, every man did not contribute to the tax in proportion to his means, the married man with a family contributing more to it than the single man, and so on. Would, then, the total and unconditional repeal of the income tax leave our fiscal system more just and equitable? When it was proposed unduly to increase the income tax he (Mr. Fawcett) protested against it; and when the late Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to meet exceptional expenditure entirely by the income tax, he took every opportunity of protesting against that proposal as one which was grossly unjust and one which would fatally weaken the best guarantees for economy. But if he saw a tendency to go to the other extreme, he should be wanting in duty if he did not protest against such a proposal with equal earnestness. If the wish of the hon.

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Member for Londonderry were gratified, almost the whole revenue of the country would be raised from the commodities of of ordinary consumption. The Excise produced £28,000,000 and the Customs £20,000,000, and if the income tax were abolished, with the exception of stamps, nearly the entire revenue of the country would be, as he had said, raised from house-keeping expenditure—or in other words, from commodities of ordinary consumption. Let the House consider for a moment the onerousness of some of the duties affecting articles of ordinary consumption by the poorer classes, as compared with the value of the articles consumed by the richer classes. On tobacco there was a duty of 400 per cent. while the duty on foreign cigars was only about 10 per cent. With regard to wine, cheap claret paid a duty of 15 per cent. while the high-priced claret drunk by the rich was only taxed at the rate of 1½ per cent. With regard to beer, the malt duty, with reference to the value of the article, was not less than 50 per cent; and the spirit duty was equal to 100 per cent. The tea duty was 23 per cent on the poorest qualities, while it was only 10 per cent on the finer qualities consumed by the rich. Could anyone pretend to say that the taxation of the country would be rendered more just if the income tax were entirely repealed? He entreated those hon. Members who were joining this agitation to demand the entire and unconditional repeal of the income tax, seriously, to consider what they were doing. If they once convinced the people of this country that the wealthy classes were anxious to shift from their shoulders any burdens they ought to bear—if they once entered on that path of financial injustice, their footsteps would soon be followed by those who would demand a tax on realized property. In that case they might depend upon it the least numerous class would go to the wall. They might gain a victory, but it would be dearly bought and would inflict great injury on the future of the country. The question became all the more important when viewed in connection with the subject of local taxation and the grants from Imperial funds in aid of local expenditure. The hon. Member for Londonderry had said with great truth, that it was almost impossible to keep the income tax at the present point—it must
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either be abolished, or placed at an amount where it would be worth collection. He (Mr. Fawcett) thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer never made a greater mistake than when he reduced the tax this year from 3d. to 2d., and he fancied that the Revenue Returns had already taught the right hon. Gentleman a lesson on that subject. No doubt it might be said that if the matter had been in other hands, they would have had no income tax at all at the present moment. But what said the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself? He said that mighty structure of the income tax, which had raised £250,000,000, which had enabled great fiscal reforms to be carried out and conferred great benefits on the country, was not to be lightly destroyed on six weeks' notice; but the right hon. Gentleman must see that after six weeks' notice, having reduced the tax from 3d. to 2d., although he did not destroy the structure, he gave its foundation a very rude and serious shaking. It was obvious, for every penny they took off the income tax they left all the disadvantages of its collection untouched, and left it as inquisitorial as before; therefore in proportion as they reduced it, they added to the arguments for its total repeal. He would be the last to maintain it could not be made more just in incidence and equitable in collection; but there was no reason why temporary income should be taxed at a lower rate than permanent income. An investment of £10,000 in an annuity of £600 for 20 years, and one of £10,000 in a permanent annuity of £800 a-year represented exactly the same amount of property; and why should the £600 be taxed at a lower rate than the £300? There was no arithmetical argument for distinction between permanent and temporary incomes derived from the same source. The question, however, was different if they supposed the temporary income to be uncertain, and do-rived from professional labours, and it was worth considering whether inequality could not be reduced by a rough deduction. If it was proved that there was a real desire to make the tax more equitable and its collection less annoying, much of the supposed opposition to it would cease. What was required was to raise the limit of exemption. He was astonished to hear the hon. Member for Elgin—a Member of the Government

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which pledged itself to abolish the tax—proposing to extend it to the wages of artizans; but its collection would be impossible, and such extension would mate the tax more unjust. It was a cardinal principle of taxation that every man should be taxed in proportion to his ability to pay, but in opposition to that principle, those with incomes between £100 and £400 were taxed far more in proportion to their ability than those with higher incomes; and if the tax were extended to smaller incomes, the inequality would be increased. He would therefore raise the limit of exemption to £200, so that a man with £250 would pay on £50. The proposal to tax the wages of artizans, moreover, was if not unjust, at least impracticable, although many artizans and skilled mechanics by the aid of their families earned more than curates, half-pay officers, and others who paid income tax. Any circumstance which tended to promote the wealth and prosperity of the country tended to bring additional wages to the artizan, but it did nothing to raise the income of the clerk, the annuitant, the half-pay officer, the widow, and the curate, which every year, as the prosperity of the country increased, became less valuable. That, he thought, was a strong reason for relief in the way of deduction. It was not popular to say anything in favour of the maintenance of the tax, but he could not resist the conclusion, that if the income tax were repealed a heavier burden of taxation would be thrown on classes already unduly burdened, and that many whose wealth was the greatest and could best afford to contribute to the revenue of the country would escape taxation altogether. He trusted, in conclusion, that what took place in reference to this tax at the General Election would be buried in oblivion. It was then a moment of excitement; and because in a moment of excitement, one great party Leader promised abolition, and his great rival opposite endorsed that promise, let them not abandon a tax which, in the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had conferred so many advantages on the country, and enabled great reforms to be carried out. If the tax were abolished, it would be impossible to say that our system of taxation would remain as satisfactory as it was now, and as he had before observed, there would spread far
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and wide the notion that the wealthy were anxious to shift the burdens from themselves, and they would see those who had the majority of political power retaliating with certain financial proposals which it would be extremely difficult to resist. He did not wish to press the House or the Government to a hasty decision, but he hoped that the subject would be taken into consideration during the autumn, and that the Government would not carelessly surrender this part of the revenue, but, on the contrary, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would devote the abilities, which all recognized, in order to see whether the income tax could not be rendered less worrying in its collection, and more equitable in its incidence, and whether, instead of abolishing the tax, some further fiscal reform could not be carried out which would be more beneficial.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he would not attempt to challenge the discretion of the hon. Member for Londonderry in having brought forward his Motion at the present period of the Session, or the terms he had thought fit to select for it. It could not have been in better hands; but, at the same time, while recognizing the great importance of the subject, as well as the value of the debate which had taken place upon it, he claimed on behalf of the Government that they should not be fettered in their discretion by any premature pledge on that subject. He would make that claim not only on behalf of the Government, but he might venture to ask the House to make the claim for itself; because if the House should now, at the end of the Session, when nothing practical could be done, commit itself to an abstract Resolution of this character, they would find themselves hampered when they came to consider the financial proposals of next year. He had no complaint to make as to the language which had been used during the debate; but he could not help remarking that there had been throughout the debate almost an unusual amount of reference to speeches previously made, and declarations said, to have been made by different Members belonging to both sides of the House; and the Government were asked now to take, or not to take, certain steps with reference to those declarations. The language both of the late Prime Minister

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and the present Prime Minister had been quoted, and also his (the Chancellor of the Exchequer's) own; and whilst he was not prepared to speak for others, he could say for himself that he was prepared to abide by any declaration he had made on the subject; but, whatever might have been the language that was used during the elections on the one side or on the other, either by the late or by the present Prime Minister, he was not prepared, either for the one right hon. Gentleman or for the other, to admit entirely the accuracy of the construction which had been put upon their language, and whatever may have been the language used on the occasion, he denied that the verdict delivered by the country was either of the character which had been supposed, or of a precipitate character. He believed that when Her Majesty's Government came forward in the beginning of the Session to make their proposals, they fairly reflected the opinion of the country in saying that the moment was one at which it was desirable they should pause; that they should commit themselves as little as possible to any embarrassing principles; and that they should leave the full and careful consideration of the whole system of the taxation of the country to be brought forward deliberately, and, after full reflection, next year. He was not at all prepared to admit that, in reducing the income tax to 2d., the Government, as had been stated that night, had shaken the tax to its foundations, or shaken it at all. On the contrary, the Government reserved to themselves, in the most entire manner, their liberty to deal with that and other taxes in such a manner as upon full consideration and a comparison of the different parts of our fiscal system they might think to be expedient and desirable. That was the only way in which a Government would be justified in dealing with financial questions. It was impossible for the Government, at any time, however hon. Members might press their particular views, to deal with any particular tax imposed only for fiscal reasons, without taking into consideration the whole system of taxation of the country. Therefore, when the whole question was how the Government were to deal with our fiscal system, the matter could not be argued piecemeal. Even the proposal of the late Prime Minister was not simply
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one to abolish the income tax; it was a proposal to re-cast, to a great extent, the system of taxation, to re-adjust it, not only for the purpose of getting rid of the income tax, but of dealing with local taxation and certain portions of indirect taxation also. So with respect to their fiscal system that year, the Government reminded the House that one of the great questions was the question of local taxation. The hon. Member for Londonderry referred to something he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had said last year, to the effect that the Government ought to declare its intention with respect to the income tax. It was true, he said, that they ought to declare their intention with respect to the whole subject of direct taxation, including local taxation, as well as the income tax: and he would say now, it would be the duty of the present Government when they came forward, as he hoped they would be able to do next year, with proposals for a general scheme of taxation, to take these two subjects into consideration together, and make their proposals with regard to them. All they had done that year was to leave themselves free to deal with these questions as they might think fit, and as the House might think fit; and they had asked the House to abstain from pledging itself to any particular course for the future. He did not accept the condolences of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) on the state of the Re-venue, and, at the same time, he was very sorry circumstances did not permit the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) to put his Question that evening. But whenever the Question was put, he hoped he should be able to give it a satisfactory answer. It had been said that the Government was doing a great deal of mischief by cutting down the income tax to so low a figure. He was not now prepared to express an opinion whether 2d. was a proper figure to keep the income tax at in time of peace, and when there was no special call in other respects on them; but he would remark, the lower the figure of the income tax, the more profitable in proportion was the yield; and hon. Members would be struck by that fact, if they looked at the Return of this quarter's Revenue, and remarked how much greater in proportion was the yield of the first quarter, which was a rema-

1051
net of the 3d. income tax, than that of the first quarter of last year, when it was a remanet of a 4d. tax. There was a good deal more to be said for a low rate of income tax than might at first sight appear. In the first place, there was less temptation to evasion; and, secondly, as the income tax was spoken of as an unjust tax, or as pressing more heavily on some than on others, the inequality was very much diminished when they raised only a small proportion of the revenue from it, because that inequality might be very much mitigated by the mode in which they raised our Revenue in other directions. He hoped the House would pursue the same wise policy now towards the end of the Session as it had done in the beginning, and not ask the Government to place itself in an inconvenient position. He had expressed on this subject the settled convictions of the Government from the time they had taken office; and they were entirely in accordance with those which he had himself, for some time past, put forward.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes 139; Noes 38: Majority 101.

COAL MINES—THE COLLIERY ACCIDENT AT DUKLNFIELD.
MR. ASSHETON CROSS, referring to a Notice placed on the Paper by the hon. Member for Staleybridge (Mr. Sidebottom), stated that in accordance with the provisions of the Act of Parliament he had called upon the Inspector of Mines to make a special Report, which would, in due course, be made public by being laid upon the Table of the House.

ARMY—A CENTRAL INLAND ARSENAL.
MAJOR BEAUMONTsaid, he would not at so late an hour move the Amendment which he had placed on the Paper; but he gave Notice that at an early period next Session he would move for a Select Committee to inquire into the expediency of establishing a central inland arsenal, and to report whether the outlay caused by removal from Woolwich would not be counterbalanced by general economy in manufacture?
Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
£139,041, Greenwich Hospital and School.
House resumed.
Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next;
Committee to sit again upon Monday next.

INTOXICATING LIQUORS (IRELAND) (No. 2) BILL— [BILL 114.]
(Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
INTOXICATING LIQUORS (IRELAND) (No. 2) BILL— [BILL 114.]

  COMMITTEE.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  MR. R. SMYTHhoped the Government were not in earnest in asking the House to go again into Committee on this Bill at that late hour—past 1 in the morning. It was not fair to Irish Members, and such a course would not be taken on the English Licensing Bill. He should move to report Progress.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Richard Smyth.)
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHhoped the hon. Member for Londonderry would not persevere in his Motion. If he would allow the Bill to proceed, it could be considered again on the Report.
  CAPTAIN NOLANsaid, there had been four attempts to "count-out" in the course of that night, and Irish Members were faint, and most of them had gone away. They did not think the Bill would be proceeded with again that evening.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Several new clauses agreed to, and added to the Bill.
  House resumed.
  Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Tuesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 191.]

HERTFORD COLLEGE, OXFORD BILL.

  [Lords]— [BILL, 103.]—COMMITTEE.
  [Progress 1st July.]
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  MR. GOSCHENasked for an explanation of the Bill.
  MR. MOWBRAYstated its object.
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, Amendments had been withdrawn on an understanding that they had been accepted by the promoters, and it now appeared they had not been.
  MR. DILLWYNmoved that Progress be reported.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Dillwyn.)
  MR. GATHORNE HARDYhoped the Motion would not be pressed.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 29; Noes 84: Majority 55.
  Clause 5 (Power to make statutes).
  MR. GOSCHEN, in moving an Amendment to the effect that the statutes should be laid before Parliament, instead of being confirmed by the Chancellor of the University as Visitor of the College, said, reforms had in several instances been prevented at Oxford by interference of the Visitor, and it certainly was not right that one person should have the power of over-riding the opinion of the Governing Body.
  Amendment proposed, in page 4, line 20, to leave out from the word "confirmed," to the end of the Clause, in order to insert the words "laid before Parliament."—(Mr. Goschen.)
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 78; Noes 27: Majority 51.
  Remaining clauses agreed to.
  House resumed.
  Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.

  INDUSTRIAL AND REFORMATORY SCHOOLS BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Secretary CROSS, Bill to extend the powers of Prison Authorities in relation to Industrial and Reformatory Schools; and for other purposes, ordered to he brought in by Mr. Secretary CROSS and Sir HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 193.]
  House adjourned at a quarter after Two o'clock till Monday next.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Working Men's Dwellings (135); Apothecaries Act Amendment * (116).
Committee—Conjugal Eights (Scotland) Act Amendment * (126).
Committee—Report—Drainage and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Provisional Order * (125).
Report—Alkali Act (1863) Amendment * (115).
Third Reading—Drainage and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Act (1863) Amendment * (133), and passed.

IRISH NATIONAL EDUCATION—SCHOOLMASTERS AND SCHOOLMISTRESSES.

  MOTION FOR A RETURN.
  LORD EMLY, in drawing attention to the number of untrained teachers employed under the Irish National Board of Education, said—I trust that your Lordships will consider the deep interest I have taken for many years in the Irish National system of education as a justification for my venturing now to call attention to the qualification of its teachers. That system has conferred greater good on Ireland than any other institution founded there by the Imperial Parliament. It has overcome religious difficulties which appeared to be insuperable. Through the elasticity of its rules it has accommodated itself to the different parts of Ireland; and after many years of conflict, its principles have received the approved and even warm support of almost every one of its opponents. Yet, no one who impartially investigates the quality of the education it gives can doubt its inferiority to the quality of the education given in the English and Scotch primary schools. A momentous consideration; in these days inferiority in education means inferiority in wages, in lodgings, in food. It means that Irishmen are to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to their fellow-countrymen; it means the absence of that peace without which the resources of Ireland cannot be developed—for ignorance is the soil in which agitation flourishes; and those who in the battle of life are unsuccessful, those upon whom, perhaps, no ray of hope shines from their cradles to their graves, are not likely to be contented. The Report of the Royal Commission, over which

  971
  the noble Earl who usually sits opposite (the Earl of Powis) so ably presided, described the progress of the children in the Irish national schools as much less than it ought to be. That decided, though gently expressed, condemnation is more than borne out by the Reports of almost all the Sub-Commissioners—gentlemen of great intelligence, with a thorough knowledge of English and Scotch schools, who inspected the Irish schools, and reported on them to the Royal Comissioners. Mr. Richmond regretted that the system should permit so many inferior schools. Mr. Laurie described their marked inferiority to kindred schools in England; Mr. Cummins says that Irish schools are inferior to British schools; Mr. Jack describes them as unsatisfactory; Mr. Balmer laments that intelligence in them is but little developed; but I invite your Lordships special attention to a letter I have received from one of these Sub-Commissioners—Mr. Le Page Renouf. He is, and has long been, one of the Privy Council Inspectors here. I need not tell your Lordships that he is a man of distinguished ability. He describes clearly both the evil and its cause—
  "While examining schools in the counties of Waterford, Wexford, Tipperary, and Kilkenny, I was careful to bear in mind the very different circumstances under which I was accustomed to examine and report upon the whole of my own district in England; but every allowance being made for the difference of circumstances, it was altogether impossible to avoid perceiving that the efficiency of the Irish schools was not only inferior in degree but even in kind. The teachers and children were everywhere fully as intelligent as the teachers and children in England, yet not only did the children break down in the examinations of the mildest character, but their teachers seem to be totally ignorant of the amount, and still more of the quality, of instruction which might fairly be expected from those under their care, especially from the lowest classes of these schools. The first school which I inspected on my return to England (the St. Patrick's, at Walsall) was almost as thoroughly Irish a school as any I had seen in Ireland—the priest, the teachers, and the children being all Irish Catholics. But the amount of work done by the first standard children, and the accuracy of the style of it, were such as perhaps not one of the teachers I had seen at the other side of the water had a conception of. How could it be otherwise? The teacher in Ireland had—in general at least—not been taught how to teach."
  These, my Lords, are painful facts. I now must ask your Lordships' attention to the last Report of the National Board, from which it appears that out of 9,802
  972
  national teachers only 3,518 were trained. This is sufficiently startling, but not one even of these 3,518 have been trained in the sense in which the word is used in England and Scotland. Parliament, with ungrudging liberality, has provided funds for Irish education. During the 27 years I passed in the House of Commons, the Irish Education Votes were constantly on the increase. They now amount to.£550,000. Yet when I look to the Estimates of the present year, I find that while in England £95,200 is voted for 39 normal schools with 2,894 students, and in Scotland £20,500 for five normal schools with 707 students, in Ireland there is only one normal school with 200 students, and only £7,646 is taken for it; and recently the Chief Secretary for Ireland alleged the imperfect training of the Irish teachers as a reason, not for having them better trained, but for giving them small salaries. My Lords, "as is the school so is the schoolmaster," and I need not waste your Lordships' time by proving that without sufficient training you cannot produce good schoolmasters. Every authority on education in every part of the world agrees that the art of teaching—imparting as distinguished from acquiring knowledge—must be acquired like every other art—like medicine, law, and music. If it were necessary, I could cite the testimony of every English Inspector of schools—some of them now distinguished Members of your Lordships' House—to prove the absolute necessity of efficient training for teachers; but I will trouble your Lordships only with one or two of them. Mr. Harvey, Assistant Commissioner to the Commission on Primary Scotch Education, puts the whole case vividly—
  "Those only," he says, "can appreciate fully between trained and untrained teachers who have seen and suffered much from visiting schools taught by untrained masters of hitherto little experience. It is impossible to imagine how great a contrast two schools may and do present. Precision and definiteness result from normal school training. Training is of more importance for female even than for main teachers, and, in point of fact, I need not remind your Lordships that these opinions have been acted on in England and Scotland, and that the normal schools in Great Britain supply annual demand for teachers. When the schools in England were multiplied by recent legislation, there was a difficulty in getting a sufficient number of trained teachers; but efforts were made to meet this new demand, and these efforts have, I believe, been adequate to the occasion."

  973
  Mr. Renouf writes to me his experience of the Irish National teachers—
  "The only kind of training some of them ever received consisted in listening to the remarks made by the Inspector during the short evenings of their schooling, as evidenced by the results of the examination. These remarks are, no doubt, always of the most judicious, instructive kind. But it would be ludicrous to say that they can in any way compensate for the absence from regular systematic training, beginning as it does here, with an apprenticeship of four or five years, and completed by one or two years' instruction in a training-school; nor, again, can any number of examinations compensate for the want of it. The possession of knowledge is certainly one important qualification of a teacher, but it is not the only one. The amount of knowledge which has been taught in our elementary schools is hardly greater than that which is possessed by every man and woman of the middle and upper classes of society. But it is a most fatal mistake to imagine that those who are possessed of it are thereby qualified to be teachers. Teaching is an art, the theory and practice of which have to be learned, like those of every other art, from competent masters. The best of the 'adventure' schools in this country, though sometimes conducted by persons who have had a very good education, cannot stand a moment's comparison with those taught by our certificated teachers. The teachers of ragged schools are sometimes almost as well informed as the certificated teachers, but their schools break down whenever examined even according to a low standard. There is a very noticeable difference, too, between two classes of the certificated teachers themselves. All our certificated teachers have not been trained. The English Code allows teachers who have obtained a favourable Report from an Inspector, or served as assistants for at least six months under a certificated teacher, to present themselves at the Christmas examination for certificates. Now, although some highly gifted teachers have in this way come into the profession, I do not for an instant hesitate in saying that it would be most disastrous if the great supply of teachers ceased to be derived from the training schools. The result of my experience is that school managers who find themselves tied by their engagements to teachers who have not been systematically trained, are perpetually in danger of seeing the efficiency of their schools dwindled down to the lowest degree. I could mention some very striking instances in proof of this. It was part of my duty while reporting to the Royal Commission, to discuss the question of training schools. That question, if I rightly remember, was reserved for two very competent members of the Commission; but I had no more doubt in 1868 than I have now in 1874, that the schools in Ireland will never attain the efficiency of English schools in connection with the Education Department, until they are conducted by masters and mistresses who have gone through as completely systematical a course of training as the immense majority of the certified teachers of Great Britain."
  If I were to stop here I might ask your Lordships, how can the Irish, two-thirds
  974
  of whose teachers are untrained, compete in the battle of life with their Scotch and English fellow-countrymen? But, my Lords, we have not yet sounded the depth of the inferiority of Irish teaching power. What does training mean in England and Scotland, in Europe, in America, everywhere except in Ireland? With hardly an exception, in every country except Ireland, two years in a normal school is required; in many countries three, and sometimes even four years' residence is insisted upon. I will not weary your Lordships by describing the training of foreign countries; I will confine myself to Great Britain. Here the future teacher has to pass five years as a pupil teacher, and two years in a normal school. Can any part of that training be dispensed with? I might cite here the opinion of the Privy Council, as expressed in its minutes of the heads of the normal schools, of the Inspectors. It is sufficient for me to appeal to the high authority of the right rev. Prelate who presides over the diocese of Manchester. Listen, my Lords, I beg of you, to the weighty words of so competent an authority—
  "The value," his Lordship says, "of a second years' training, morally and intellectually, is indisputable. It is the one fact in the entire range of educational questions, upon which there is an entire consensus of witnesses."
  Scotland, as my right hon. Friend Mr. Playfair informs me, not content with two years' training in a normal school for her schoolmasters, is about to recommend to the noble Duke the Lord President that the Scotch schoolmasters should be required to take out University degrees, and Professors of the Art of Teaching are about to be appointed in the Scotch Universities. Turn now, my Lords, I beg of you, to Ireland. The English and Scotch, with their minerals and their commerce, have many advantages over us. We require good education—not less, but more than they do. Forty-four years after the establishment of the national system, only 3,518 of our teachers, out of 9,802, have received any training. The 3,518 so-called trained teachers have been trained, not two years as in Great Britain, not even one year, but only four and a-half months; and this training they received, not before they became teachers, but afterwards. They have been taken from the schools they were teaching, and

  975
  sent up by the Inspectors to the one model school in Dublin. Only 70 per cent of the Irish teachers have been pupil teachers, or even monitors; and they have been so, not five years as in England, but for about four years on the average. The Royal Commission justly remarks that to spend 20 weeks in incessant occupation, wandering from one subject to another, is hardly the most promising method of training an inefficient teacher into an efficient one. The able men at the head of the Marlborough Training School deplore it. Mr. Keenan, the resident Commissioner, has in the strongest language recognized the absolute necessity of efficient training. With untiring energy training here is from year to year being improved and raised. Why are we drifting backward, instead of pushing forward? The effects, as I have shown, are lamentable. One of the most distinguished of our colonial statesmen told me within the week that the education of the Irish emigrants to Australia was inferior to that of the emigrants from other portions of the United Kingdom. I now, with your Lordships' permission, will state in a very few words the causes which have produced these most unhappy results. The Board was from the first fully alive to the importance of training their teachers. In 1835 they appointed two years as the period of residence in their training school, and required previous training in a model school as a condition for admission. They established no now training school, but they proceeded to establish model schools where pupil teachers were to be trained for normal schools, but most unfortunately they took these schools into their own immediate management. Lord Derby's letter had proscribed that all schools except the Marlborough Street schools were to be under the control of local managers. This was in accordance with the principle recognized very generally in this country, and laid down emphatically by Lord Brougham, in words which I will quote to your Lordships—
  "I think that no Government should appoint masters, for if anyone were to give me the right of naming the teacher, I should not trouble myself to obtain the power of prescribing the course of instruction."
  In England, as many of your Lordships will recollect, the Privy Council attempted to establish normal schools
  976
  under their own immediate control. The only one founded was Kneller Hall. It failed. Public opinion pronounced emphatically in favour of local management, and governmental management was abandoned. Governmental management in Ireland was also protested against, but it was persevered in. Consequently, a great number of the model schools are empty, so far as the class they were intended for is concerned. They are frequented, as the Royal Commission informs us, by children who go to them in cars and carriages, and no new normal school has been founded. English public opinion is attended to, and. England is provided with first-rate normal schools. The wishes of Ireland, not surely unreasonable—for on the principle England and Ireland agreed—were set at nought, and in Ireland we have not at this instant one single teacher trained according to the English standard—a lesson and a warning to those who apply different weights and measures in questions of principle between the two countries. What, then, is the remedy for this scandal, which dooms the Irish, as long as it lasts, to hopeless inferiority to their fellow-countrymen at this side of the Channel? If your Lordships look for it with a single desire, as I am sure you will, to train the largest number of teachers in the best manner, there can be no difficulty in finding it. This simple remedy was proposed by my noble Friend near me (Lord Carlingford) in 1866. It was approved of unanimously by the National Board. He went out of office; the Royal Commission was appointed; they also approved of his proposals. More exciting topics occupied the public mind when their Report was printed, and his scheme sleeps in the pigeon holes of Marlborough Street. It was not proposed to change the Marlborough Street training school. It is, I believe, admirably managed, and has a most efficient staff; but it was proposed that boarding houses should be attached to it, where the students, during the two years' residence, should have the advantage of domestic training under the guidance of masters and matrons of their own faith. This school could supply 300 teachers for Ireland; 700 annually would be required. Allow private individuals to establish normal schools on the same conditions as ordinary schools

  977
  are established; bind the patrons of those schools to observe strictly the rules of the Board; let the secular instruction be mixed, the religious separate; let the normal schools be conducted in Ireland as they are in England—on the same principles the schools are conducted on for which they are to supply masters and mistresses. As to the model schools, you would increase three times or even four times the number of their pupils if you placed them under the management of committees to be chosen by the patrons of the National schools in their respective districts; but I do not wish to mix up the totally distinct questions of normal and model schools. Let the latter be made as good as possible, still the teachers in training in them could not become efficient masters without passing two years in a normal school. And now, my Lords, I commend this question to your most serious consideration. The condition of education in each of the Three Kingdoms is a matter of paramount importance. Upon it mainly de-ponds our industrial supremacy; but I venture to think that Irish primary education has a special claim on your Lordships' attention. The rejection by the other House of the University Bill last year was, in my opinion, the greatest misfortune to Ireland that has happened in my time. It has left the higher education of the majority of Ireland scandalously bad. As regards the intermediate education of Roman Catholics, the State has absolutely abdicated its functions. There is hardly one Roman Catholic in an Irish endowed intermediate school. On the other hand, with exuberant liberality, primary education has been endowed. It surely then is the duty—as I am sure it will be the pleasure—of your Lordships; it is the duty of Government and of Parliament at once to insist on the Irish teacher being properly trained, and to compensate in some degree for the neglect of higher and intermediate education, by making the primary education you so liberally provide for as perfect as possible.
  Moved that there he laid before this House, Return showing the number of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses employed under the Privy Council in England and Scotland, and under the National Board in Ireland, who have been trained for two years in a normal school, and the proportion the teachers so trained hear to the whole number employed in each country.—
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDsaid, that the Notice of the noble Lord who had just addressed the House (Lord Emly) had not led him to imagine that he intended to go so deeply as he had done into the whole system of National Education in Ireland. The comparison which the noble Lord had drawn between the education in the Irish national schools and primary education in the schools of England and Scotland was lamentably to the disadvantage of the former. The picture which the noble Lord had drawn was one, the fidelity of which, he was not in a position to either affirm or deny, because he had not the necessary documents before him; but might not the deficiencies as regarded trained teachers in Ireland be attributed to those circumstances which in Ireland had rendered the training of teachers by the mixed system difficult, if not impossible? The Normal School was started in Dublin under the Letter of the late Lord Derby 40 years ago, and teachers to the number of 3,000 or 4,000 had been sent out through all parts of Ireland. It could not be denied that four or five months was not sufficient for the training of a school teacher; but the monitorial system, by means of which inducements were given to masters and mistresses to bring forward teachers, had grown up in Ireland, and that system had, no doubt, in some respects made up for the want of sufficient training in normal schools. As for what the noble Lord had said about degrees and a professorship of teaching in the Scotch Universities, he believed there was a proposal to establish in the Scotch Universities an Educational "Chair"—he did not know that this proposal had been carried into effect, but he know it was in contemplation, and that when established all Scotch schoolmasters would be required to have gone through some description of University education. It must, however, be remembered that the arrangements in the Universities of that country were very different from those in connection with the Universities of this country, and a system which might be feasible in one country might be altogether impracticable in another. The promotion and elevation of education in all parts of the United Kingdom was what they must all have at heart, and the present Government were as anxious in the cause of education as any

  979
  Government which had preceded them. No man was better acquainted with the working of the national system in Ireland than the noble Lord. He had listened with the greatest respect to all the noble Lord had said; and he could assure him that the subject would receive the attention of the Government.
  LORD CARLINGFORDsaid, that though the noble Duke had expressed himself in general terms only, his observations must be satisfactory, as far as they went, to the friends of education in Ireland. He by no means blamed Her Majesty's Government or the party opposite, in regard to the subject which his noble Friend had brought before the House, except in this one respect. When, eight years ago, it became his duty, on the part of Lord Russell's Government, to propose a plan to remedy the state of things in respect of the training of teachers which had then become serious, and when that plan had been accepted unanimously by the Commissioners of National Education, then, unfortunately, the incoming Government of Lord Derby refused to give their consent to it, and instead of doing so appointed a Royal Commission. That Commission collected some very valuable evidence, but, owing to the delay at a favourable moment, nothing had since been done in the direction of the plan. For this no blame was attributable either to the late Government or to the present one. Certainly no one could accuse the late Government of having done too little in Irish affairs; and in the matter of education they did much. They had introduced the system of payment by results into the schools of the Irish Board, and they had added considerably to the scanty and still inadequate salaries of the teachers. But the question of training teachers remained unsolved, and as to it the state of things was even worse than in 1866. There could be no doubt that in Lord Derby's Letter a bonâ fide system of training teachers for the national schools was contemplated—and, indeed, such a system had been suggested by a Commision as far back as 1812. It was remarkable that whereas in England and Scotland, with denominational difficulties far less serious than those of Ireland, the Government had found themselves compelled to leave the organization and management of those training
  980
  schools to private enterprise in connection with denominations, and in aid of this private enterprise large grants were paid. In Ireland, on the contrary, with a mixed population of Roman Catholics and Protestants, the exclusive system was maintained in the single Normal School. If it had not been for the pupil teachers and the monitors, which was so valuable a part of the system, he did not know how the national system could have gone on in Ireland. There were pupil teachers in this country also, but they did not supersede the system of training schools. They ought not to supersede it in Ireland. In 1866 there were 7,472 schoolmasters in the service of the Irish Board, of whom 4,309 had received no training. Three years later on, in 1869, the Royal Commissioners reported that 58 per cent of the national teachers in Ireland were untrained. The Report of the Board for the year 1872, recently presented to Parliament, stated that of a large number of new teachers who came into office in that year, only a few had received training in the Normal training school at Dublin. The room in the school was so scanty, and the term for training so short, that the inconvenience was felt in every school in Ireland; but those who felt it most were the Roman Catholics, for though of the students in the Marlborough Street Normal School one-half were Roman Catholics, of the total number of teachers in the national schools about 80 per cent were Roman Catholics. An assistant commissioner who made an inspection of the schools in the county of Londonderry, where the schools were nearly all Protestant, found that nearly all the teachers were trained; while on an inspection of the schools in the county of Limerick, where they were nearly all Catholic, it was found that special training was all but extinct. His friend, Sir Alexander M'Donnell, the late Resident Commissioner, who had rendered the greatest service to the cause of national education in Ireland, asserted that the present system of providing trained teachers had failed to the root. His own proposal in 1866 was that grants be made to training schools established by private efforts, such grants to be made without regard to religious denomination, provided that the school submitted to all the educational requirements of the

  981
  Board, and was open to inspection. In this case the State must be liberal in Ireland as it was in England. Local support unaided could not be expected to maintain training schools. The question was one of great interest, and he hoped that no party feeling would be allowed to interfere with its satisfactory solution.
  LORD O'HAGANsaid, that as a Member of the National Board, he should not be doing his duty if he did not say that his views were in entire accordance with those of the noble Lord who had preceded him. He would assert that though the present system had been assailed from all sides, it had been most successful. From the centre of Ireland to the sea, everywhere the anxiety of the people to obtain a good education was demonstrated. No one would assert that the Irish children were inferior in intelligence to those of England and Scotland; but there could be no good teaching without good teachers, and the want of proper training would nullify, to a large extent, the benefits of the noblest institution which Ireland ever owed to the Imperial Government. There were difficulties in connection with the denominational principle, as affecting family life. It had not the same relation to the clay scholar and the boarders, or to the teacher residing in community with his brethren and the scholar resident in his home. The distinction had been recognized by the Legislature in the cases of reformatories and industrial schools, and it would justify such a solution as had been proposed by his noble Friend, of which he entirely approved.
  LORD LISGARconsidered that the salaries given to teachers were too small—so small were they that teachers were tempted to leave the public schools for the purpose of giving instruction in private schools, and of going to the Colonies. The salary of a teacher was £20 less than many gentlemen gave to some of the servants in their household. Unless the Government should be prepared to give an increase to the salaries of the female teachers, he thought that all efforts to improve the training system would go for nothing.
  Motion agreed to.

WORKING MEN'S DWELLINGS BILL—(No. 135.)
(The Earl of Shaftesbury.)
WORKING MEN'S DWELLINGS BILL—(No. 135.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, its object was to encourage the erection of dwelling-houses suitable for persons employed in manual labour, to afford facilities for the acquisition of sites for such dwelling-houses, and for their cheap and easy transfer. Their Lordships were well aware of the great hardships inflicted on the labouring classes—particularly in largo towns—by the difficulty of obtaining healthy and decent habitations. It seemed impossible to expect that this great evil could be remedied by any amount of individual exertion—it must be encountered by operations on a large scale. This had been done successfully at Edinburgh, and Glasgow, and other places. There were two classes of artizans—those who had fixed employments, and fixed places and hours of work—the others were without these advantages. Now, it would undoubtedly be an advantage to the better class if they could be provided with, or provide for themselves, an improved class of dwellings in country districts, where, in addition to the advantages of a better dwelling at a cheaper rate, they could also have the benefit of fresh air. This the Bill was intended to promote—and it should be remembered, further, that if this could be done, and the working classes of the large towns could be removed to country districts, the closely packed dwellings of the towns could be improved and turned to the advantage of that other and less fortunate class of workmen. The Bill provided, in the first place, to authorize the town council of any borough to direct that lands vested in them should be laid out in sites for dwelling-houses suitable for the occupation of persons employed in manual labour, in accordance with plans to be approved at a public meeting of the burgesses of such borough and by the Secretary of State for the Home Department. It provided a Register Book, in which was to be entered a concise description of each separate parcel

  983
  of land delineated in the plan of sites. It authorized such corporations to make the necessary roads, walls, drains, and other works, to fit the property for use as building lands; and to put the land when so improved up for sale by auction in separate parcels to be conveyed to the purchasers by a simple form of conveyance under the corporate seals; such sales to be subject to the condition that a dwelling-house should be erected on each plot within the term of three years from the date of the purchase on pain of forfeiture. On the completion of a dwelling-house in compliance with the plans the registered owner would receive a certificate, after which the site could not be forfeited. The Bill, while it registered the site, and gave to the owner a registered title, proposed also a simple form of conveyance, on the execution of which the transfer of ownership would be recorded on the register. In like manner, all leases or agreements respecting any site were to be produced to the proper officer, and placed upon the register. The site could not be subdivided, but several persons might become joint owners. He thought this measure would meet an urgent and daily-increasing want, by increasing the number of dwellings for the poorer classes, and would afford the working classes a means of investing their savings profitably and securely, which they did not at present possess. Under these circumstances, he trusted their Lordships would read the Bill a second time.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Earl of Shaftesbury.)
  THE DUKE OF SOMERSETpointed out that the Bill gave the freehold of the sites to those who became possessed of them. How would it be possible to prevent those parties from dealing with them in any way they might think proper? There would be no security that the dwellings would be continued as those of the working classes. The Bill was very well-intended, but it was very defective, and, in his opinion, would prove impracticable.
  LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICKsaid, the noble Duke had, he thought, pointed out a weak place in the Bill, and he thought some security should be required that the powers given by the Bill should not be diverted to purposes alien from the principle of the measure. According
  984
  to the Bill the plan of the houses to be built must be approved by the Municipal Council; and, no doubt, under their supervision, only those would be built which were essentially working men's houses. But, in his opinion, it would be necessary that the builder or purchaser of the houses should not be able to dispose of them, or make any change in their construction, without the consent of the Council that had sanctioned their construction, so that a control might be exercised in the future in this respect. It was provided by the Bill that after the land had been once marked out and appropriated, the "sites" could never again be divided. That seemed to him unreasonable, and he thought a clause might be introduced permitting, with the consent of the Municipal Council, the division of the sites, should it appear advisable. He thought there were imperfections in the Bill; but they were imperfections which could be remedied in Committee, and the Bill might be made a very useful measure.
  THE MARQUESS OF BATHsaid, the object of the Bill was a very good one—namely, to allow municipal corporations to dispose of land in their possession for the purpose of erecting dwellings suited for the artizan and labouring classes. He did not, however, see that a Bill of 46 clauses was required to effect that object; a short Act simply giving power to corporations to sell the land for a term of years, with a reservation of a certain rent—a nominal rent if they pleased—and with the condition attached that houses built on it should be of a character suitable to working men, and, further, that those conditions should not be departed from without the consent of the corporation, would effect all the noble Earl desired.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, he thought that the objection raised by the noble Duke (the Duke of Somerset) required some answer. He did not very well see how the difficulties suggested in the course of the discussion were to be removed.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, the object sought to be attained was of so desirable a character that he was unwilling to say a word that would throw a doubt on the possibility of the working of the Bill. He confessed he was surprised to hear that there were corporations which had got any amount of land

  985
  they would be enabled to dispose of in this way. No doubt, there might be some corporations in such a position; but, as a rule, they generally sold their land, or applied it to other purposes. But, assuming there were a number of places in which the Bill could be brought into operation, no doubt the size and description of the dwellings to be built upon the sites might be determined in the manner provided by the Bill; but then there would arise the question of title. How could they dispose of land in fee-simple without giving to the owner all the rights incident to ownership in fee-simple? There was a provision in the Bill which made the town clerk an agent for registering these properties, and which placed him in the position of a Land Registrar. Now, the provisions of the Land Registry Bill would be seriously interfered with, if the town clerks throughout the country were made Land Registrars. If it were desirable that corporations should be allowed to parcel out their land for dwellings for the labouring classes, the only way was to give them the power to grant leases. A building lease for 99 years was in London thought to be almost as good as a freehold, and the corporations might insert covenants as to the way in which the land should be used. He did not wish to offer any objections to the second reading, but the Bill would require considerable revision in Committee.
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, that the Bill only allowed a single house to be built upon each parcel of land, and it might thus be unfavourable to the ulterior improvement of those dwellings. There might be a difficulty in dealing with the land for the very purposes contemplated by the Act. He would not oppose the second reading, but he doubted whether the details would be found practicable.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYdesired to point out that a site which might in the first instance be convenient for working men's dwellings, might not be so at a subsequent period. A few years might change the whole character of a neighbourhood, and the land thus divided and appropriated might be required for other purposes. But, as the sites were devoted in perpetuity to the purpose of working men's dwellings, they would possibly create impediments to great improvements; or the particular industry
  986
  which had made those dwellings desirable might depart from the neighbourhood, and they would thus become useless for the purpose for which they were intended, and would not be applicable to any other.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.

CONFERENCE AT BRUSSELS—RULES OF MILITARY WARFARE.

  QUESTION.
  THE EARL OF DENBIGH, in rising to inquire whether Her Majesty's Government have decided on sending a Commissioner to the Conference at Brussels, and to present Petitions on the subject, said, he desired to elicit information on the subject, so that their Lordships might clearly understand what was proposed to be done. Very shortly after the Franco-German War he received, in common with many others who had devoted their attention to the care of the wounded during its continuance, a written communication from a German nobleman, whom it was not necessary to name, requesting support to a scheme having reference to the conduct of hostilities by nations engaged in war, and in especial with reference to the treatment of the wounded and prisoners of war. This scheme it was proposed to carry out by means of an International Society, to be called the "Universal Alliance," and to be worked by means of diplomatic action. This had a very philanthropic sound, and at first sight seemed very desirable. He accordingly gave a general, though qualified, approval. For months he heard nothing more; until he received one or two letters from an English gentleman, who said that, seeing his name, with that of many others, figuring as supporting the action of this German nobleman, he thought it his duty to warn him to be on his guard. The writer gave his reasons for the warning; and he (the Earl of Denbigh) accordingly wrote to desire that his name might not appear any more in connection with the plan. Soon after he received a communication from another correspondent—this time a French nobleman. He wrote to paris to make inquiries as to this person's character and antecedents, but failed to obtain any information that could be considered satisfactory,

  987
  and he took no notice of the communication. He next heard of a deputation of the Universal Alliance being received by the Emperor of Russia at Buckingham Palace, and His Majesty's adoption of the project. But their Lordships ought to know the difference between the original programme of the Universal Alliance and the sheet which he now held in his hand. Originally this Society had been instituted for ameliorating the treatment of prisoners of war, under diplomatic action; but it had now developed itself into a large scheme for the "promotion of international works of humanity," and was contained in 147 Articles—a broad sheet of which he held in his hands—which, it was added—
  "Will be submitted to a Conference of delegates from the various Governments. These will constitute a Convention analogous to that of Geneva in favour of the wounded in war, and will eventually add another page to the Code of International War."
  A Vienna journal gave the programme of the forthcoming Congress at Brussels, and a résumé of the principal Articles which Prince Gortchakoff was said to have proposed for the consideration of the future Congress. By the 3rd Article the very point of maritime seizure would be seen to be barred without the subject being even mentioned—
  "3.—Establishment of the principle that, in case of war, the armed force of one State only fights against the armed force of the other, but does not consider as an enemy the peaceable citizen who is not equipped as a soldier."
  This applied generally would debar our naval force from capturing merchantmen. Article 4 was as follows:—
  "Establishment of the principle of public law that in territories occupied by the enemy the army of occupation alone is to be considered as possessing legal authority."
  By this it would appear that if a foreign force landed in Kent, that county would cease to belong to the Queen, and would belong to the invader. Hitherto the safeguard of a country had been thought to be the breast and arm of every citizen. However powerful the attacking force, it was at least in an enemy's country; the object now was to deprive the country attacked of that advantage. When once a pitched battle was lost the attacking force was to cease to be in an enemy's country, and all resistance to it would be considered a crime. All hostilities not commanded by Government were to be
  988
  treated as piracies or brigandage; therefore, if any part of a country should be separated from the seat of Government it could no longer resist. Then the question might arise—Who were the Government? The whole country would follow the fate of the seat of Government—for the enemy might refuse to acknowledge a Provisional Government. By these laws, Osborne must be allowed to be an inviolate marine residence for Her Majesty; otherwise, if an enemy's fleet obtained possession of Her Majesty's sacred person we should have no right to continue the contest. All this was to be worked out on the pretext of insuring the good treatment of prisoners of war. But had we any such doubt of our own humanity that we needed a Congress to compel us to treat prisoners of war humanely? He would also ask, who was to enforce these regulations? Were the neutral States to have an armed force and commissioners for this purpose? In order fully to appreciate the importance of the whole question, and the reasons which would naturally impel Russia to use every endeavour to impede the maritime action of England, he would bog their Lordships to consider briefly the respective geographical position and configuration of England and Russia. England might be likened to one of those marine monsters of which we had heard, which had a small head but enormous limbs, and long and powerful tentacula. Through her maritime power she was able to scour every sea and seize her enemy's goods and annihilate their commerce at the ends of the earth. Let this power once be taken from her, let her be shorn of her tentacula, she then would become an inert and helpless mass, incapable of aggression, and an easy prey to any superior military power. Russia, on the other hand, was like a huge giant with a slender throat, which could be compressed by three fingers. Her commerce consisted, for the most part, of raw and bulky materials, which necessitated sea transit—timber, hides, tallow, and minerals. Her mercantile navy had but three outlets—the Black Sea, the Baltic, and the White Sea. A small squadron sent to the Dardanelles and the Sound, would command the two first, and the British cruisers thus securing every outlet, Russia would in a short time die, as it were, of asphyxia, and be at the complete mercy

  989
  of England. Two of the most able men in their several spheres—Sir John McNeill and the late Mr. Richard Cobden—had said of Russia, the first that—
  "The Right of Search and Seizure, which constitutes the Maritime Power of England, is a providential weapon placed in the hand of England for the coercion of Russia."
  The second that—
  "It is clear that Nature itself has doomed Russia to a condition of abject and prostrate subjection to the will of the Maritime Powers."
  So sensible was Russia of her dependent position as regarded England, that she had most consistently used every opportunity of enforcing as an international rule that the goods of an enemy not contraband of war should be inviolate in neutral ships. For this, the league called the Armed Neutrality was formed in 1796, and firmly and successfully resisted by England. At the commencement of the Crimean War, England and France were inveigled into conceding it, and after that war in 1856 we were foolish enough to agree to the Declaration of Paris, which professed to establish that fatal principle. What had been the result to France? In the late Franco-German War, the German fleet shut itself up in the harbour of Kiel, surrounded by torpedoes, and the French fleet, estopped from touching her enemy's commerce at sea, was useless. This rumoured Congress was, doubtless, proposed to give an additional sanction to these principles, and it had created great alarm in some parts of the country, and public meetings had been held at Newcastle, Sunderland, Birmingham, Keighley, and other places, when Petitions to both Houses of Parliament were agreed to, praying that an Address might be presented to Her Majesty against sending a representative to the Conference, which he would now present to their Lordships. He had also an important Petition which he wished to read to them in extenso. It was from a gentleman well known to the leading statesmen and diplomatists of his day, and admired for his genius by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. He was as remarkable for his untiring industry in unravelling the tortuous mazes of diplomatic action as he was for his wonderful forecasts of their result: while he, as a second Cassandra,
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  stood warning from time to time his countrymen of the dangers which were coming upon them. The Petition was as follows:—
  "To the Honourable the Commons of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled.
  "The Petition of the Undersigned sheweth,—
  "That your Petitioner, at the moment of the despatch of British troops to the Ottoman Empire, under colour of a pretended Declaration of War against the Emperor of Russia, did address to the Honourable House of Commons a Petition representing that such forces were not required to support the Sultan, and that their presence on the field of War and the use that would then be made of them would only have for effect to aid that ambition of the Czar against which it was proposed to protect the Sultan and the world.
  "That the events of the twenty years which have elapsed have confirmed the allegations of the said Petition.
  "That, further, your Petitioner had represented that it was in the design of this most needless but fatal War to bring upon the British Empire by means of it, the gravest injury and peril by the surrender of its strength, so that it should be deprived of the use of its natural arm for its own just defence.
  "That this anticipation was in like manner confirmed by the so-termed 'Declaration respecting Maritime Law,' secretly signed at Paris for the suppression of the use of Privateers and of the capture of the produce and property of belligerents embarked on the vessels of neutrals.
  "That from April, 1856, to the present day, no reason has been assigned by any public man for this surrender, and that no such man, either in your Honourable House or elsewhere, has spoken thereon without condemning it, and designating it as a ruinous, fatal, or suicidal measure.
  "That, nevertheless, no measure has been taken and no act proposed for its reversal.
  "That through its operation Great Britain has, during these eighteen years, been shown to be powerless as a great State, and is acknowledged to be incapable of exercising either power or influence over foreign events arising out of the ambition of the Governments whose power is exclusively territorial and military.
  "That France, who joined in the same Declaration, although a Military as well as a Maritime Power, has, in consequence thereof, been struck down by a Government inferior to herself in the aggregate, being absolutely destitute of naval means.
  "That Maritime Power consists entirely in the capture and confiscation of the goods of the enemy.
  "That this power as applied to Russia, becomes, in consequence of the nature of her products and the configuration of her territory, an absolute supremacy, against which she cannot struggle and to which she must submit.
  "That by causing the sentiment to prevail throughout Europe, and to be acted upon, that it is not proper to capture the goods of an enemy

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  if these goods be afloat and not on land, the control actually possessed by the Maritime Powers over the Military Powers will be changed into a control of the Military Powers over the Maritime Powers.
  "That these truths have been severally perceived and announced by the two men of most authority in their several branches, the late Envoy to Persia, Sir John McNeill, and Mr. Richard Cobden, the first declaring that it is the Right of Search and Seizure which constitutes the Maritime Power of England, which power he designated as a providential weapon placed in the hand of England for the coercion of Russia.' The second said—'It is clear that Nature itself has doomed Russia to a condition of abject and prostrate subjection to the will of the Maritime Powers.'
  "That this position has not been apprehended, by the reason that the Maritime Powers (with the sole exception formerly of the surrender of the Right of Search) have had no other will than that of Russia, seeing that the Ministers of the Crown of Russia are abler ministers than those of the other Crowns of Europe.
  "That in 1780 the Government of St. Petersburg first put forward the maxims contained in the Declaration of Paris, with the avowed purpose of destroying, through their general acceptance, the power of England.
  "That the advantage for which an able Government has toiled for a hundred years, must be for itself very great, as also the difficulties that it has had to encounter. So proportionately great must be the injury which it expects will be thereby inflicted on the other Governments, to circumvent whom its care has been given. At that period it succeeded in obtaining the adhesion of all the Powers to a measure without advantage to them, but nevertheless ultimately failed, through the opposition of the British Government, acting under a duo sense of its duties and its rights.
  "That this same Government of St. Petersburg, in 1856, abstained from appearing to suggest or enforce their adoption, but really did obtain them through indirect means.
  "That in 1870 France might have resumed the exercise of her Maritime means; in view of such a contingency the English Minister for Foreign Affairs addressed a despatch to Paris, calling on the French Government not to depart from the rules laid down in the Declaration of Paris 1856. A similar despatch was addressed to Berlin which was without meaning, Prussia not having any maritime power to exert.
  "That France, if again attacked and now enlightened as to the effects of such surrender, might resume those rights.
  "That England might do the same. That to bar such contingency it must be and is the design of the Government of St. Petersburg to obtain such sanction for the Declaration of Paris, as shall prevent, in future contingencies, the Naval Powers from putting forth their naval strength.
  "That having failed, during eighteen years, to obtain such sanction through the Crowns or Parliaments of either of these countries, other means will be employed for the attainment of this end.
  "That this end can be attained through what is called 'Public Opinion.'
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  "That 'Public Opinion' is to be made to believe that it is desirable, for the common good of humanity, that the property of belligerents shall enjoy immunity when coming within reach of maritime belligerents, in other words, 'sparing private property at sea.'
  "That this design has been brought so far towards maturity that a mixed Congress of anomalous nature has been summoned at Brussels, under the personal influence of the Emperor of Russia, to determine the new laws that shall regulate the action of belligerents.
  "That Representatives, not only of the different Sovereigns, but also of the various departments of the separate Governments, are to constitute this new extra National Legislative Assembly.
  "That your Honourable House, together with the other House of Parliament, and the Queen, can alone alter the laws of England.
  "That all three cannot alter the Law of Nations in its fundamental parts, such as that of forbidding a nation to use its natural means of defence.
  "That the measures proposed are contrary to, and subversive of, the laws of England, as well as of those of Nations and of Nature.
  "That the object in view is to deprive England of the power of resisting any and every unjust demand, and to repeat with impunity a further partition of France, and the infliction on her of a further ransom.
  "Tour Petitioner therefore prays your Honourable House in your wisdom to perform the service of advice due on your allegiance to the Queen, by presenting a humble address warning Her Majesty of the danger of affording, by the presence of Her Representatives, any colour to such an anomalous assemblage, but instead thereof to declare null and void the Declaration of Paris of 1856.
  "And your Petitioner will ever pray,
  "DAVID URQUHART.
  "Carstairs House, Lanark."
  He (the Earl of Denbigh) would now invite his noble Friend, who would perhaps toll him that naval questions were not to be imported into the discussions, to give some such answer as the following to the invitation to join the Congress:—"We have already become aware of our error in consenting to the conditions laid down in the Declaration of Paris. So far, therefore, from consenting to take any fresh obligations of a similar nature upon ourselves, we here declare that we withdraw from those conditions. We desire to remain at peace, but should we ever again be engaged in war, we intend to employ our full powers as a Maritime Power to which we are entitled by a natural right, and England shall be herself again." He begged to ask his noble Friend the Question of which he had given Notice—whether Her Majesty's Government have decided on sending a Commissioner to the Conference

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  at Brussels? The noble Earl presented Petitions from Keighley and other places praying that no representative might be sent from this country to the Congress at Brussels; and also for the abrogation of the Declaration of Paris.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: My Lords, I am not sorry that my noble Friend has taken this opportunity of putting to me the Question of which he put a Notice on the Paper, because the subject of his inquiry is one which has attracted, and very properly attracted, a considerable share of public attention; and I cannot doubt, from various communications which I have received, and what has appeared in the public journals, that some uneasiness and some apprehension is felt in regard to it. Now, I do not think that feeling of uneasiness is, under the circumstances at all unnatural or unfounded, and I am glad that my noble Friend gives me the opportunity of doing something to dispel it. I do not think I need follow my noble Friend through his inquiry as to the origin of the Conference which is now proposed. I am not aware that I ever heard of the body calling itself the "Universal Alliance," and I suspect very few have done so. Nor do I understand how any of the Governments who are to send representatives to the Conference about to be held at Brussels can be considered responsible for the Articles to which my noble Friend has referred. All I know about the matter is that one gentleman whose name appears in the paper which my noble Friend has placed in my hands, wrote some months ago to the Foreign Office, suggesting some plan for universal agreement among European Governments as to the treatment of prisoners of war, &c.; but I did not take any particular notice of that communication, because it came with no authority. But the Conference to which we are now invited has been set on foot, as everybody knows, by the Emperor of Russia, and though in many quarters great doubts are entertained as to the possibility of its accomplishing its purpose and leading to any practical results, still all the Governments of the great European Powers, and, I believe, all the Governments of Europe, great or small, have accepted the invitation to send representatives to it. We thought it better, on the part of Her Majesty's Government, to wait to the last before giving our reply
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  to the invitation we received. We have not given any particular encouragement to the proposal, nor have we assumed an attitude of confident expectation or belief that any great result would come from the Conference; but, considering that the object put forward is the mitigation of the suffering caused by war, and considering that all the great military Powers, without exception, have acquiesced in this Conference being held, it seemed to us that absolutely and unconditionally to stand aloof from the discussion which is about to be held would be a proceeding liable to misinterpretation, both upon grounds of humanity and upon grounds of international courtesy. We have therefore decided, not, on the one hand, to refuse that invitation, but, on the other hand, not to accept it unconditionally. We propose to accept it only under certain important reservations and conditions, and these reservations and conditions will be fully stated in the reply which I am now sending. In the first place, we shall state that we are firmly determined not to enter into any discussion of the rules of International Law by which the relations of belligerents are guided, or to undertake any new obligations or engagements of any kind in regard to general principles. We further propose to protest against any extension of the scope of the Congress which should include matters relative to maritime operations or tonaval warfare; and we have announced that unless we receive distinct and positive assurance that no such extension is contemplated, we shall decline to send a representative to the Conference. Lastly, if a representative should be sent, he will not be invested with plenipotentiary authority; he will not be empowered to consent, on the part of Her Majesty's Government, to any concession, or to the adoption of any new rule; he will be simply present to assist in the discussions which may be held, and report the proceedings to us. But Her Majesty's Government will reserve to itself entire freedom of action in regard to any proposals which may emanate from the Conference. I think that, under these conditions, even my noble Friend will consider that he has sufficient security against our being hurried into precipitate conclusions or into concessions of which we might not see the consequences. I hope to be able to lay the Papers on the Table in the

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  course of the next three or four days. I should have done so already, but that it would hardly be courteous to the other parties concerned that they should see my Answer in the form of a Parliamentary Paper before it had reached them in any other shape.
  House adjourned at half-past Seven o'clock, till Monday next, eleven o'clock.