Sitting of 11 June 1874

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Consular Chaplains, appointed.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Factories (Health of Women, &c.) [115].
Select Committee—Homicide Law Amendment * [44], Mr. Lowe added.
Committee—Report—Militia Law Amendment * [130]; Alkali Act (1863) Amendment * [99]; Canadian Stock (Stamp Duty on Transfers) * [133]; Apothecaries Act Amendment * [71]; Building Societies (re-comm.) * [132].
Considered as amended—Churches and Chapels Exemption (Scotland) * [108]; Courts (Colonial) Jurisdiction * [111].
Third Reading—Harbour of Colombo (Loan) * [66]; Land Tax Commissioners Names * [76]; Board of Trade Arbitrations, Inquiries, &c. * [86]; Herring Fishery Barrels * [107]; Bar Admission (Stamp) * [109]; Public Health (Scotland) Supplemental * [106]; Four Courts Marshalsea, Dublin * [116], and passed.
Withdrawn—Factory Acts Amendment * [5].

ARMY—CUNNINGHAM TRAINING GEAR FOR LARGE GUNS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. NAGHTENasked the Surveyor General of the Ordnance, Why the recommendation of the Ordnance Select Committee, January 29th 1868, and approved of by the Secretary of State for War, for the adoption of the Cunningham training gear for traversing all land service guns of 12 tons and upwards, has been only very partially carried into effect; and, whether any adverse report has been received as to the working of the Cunningham gear; and, if so, if he will lay a Copy of such Report upon the Table of the House?
  LORD EUSTACE CECIL, in reply, said, it was true that the Committee referred to reported in favour of the invention; but that Report was cancelled in consequence of sundry adverse Reports made by the Committee of 1871. There would be no objection to lay a Copy of the Reports upon the Table of the House if moved for in the regular way.

THE HIGHWAYS ACT.

  QUESTION.
  MR. WENTWORTH BEAUMONTasked the President of the Local Government Board, If he intends to give effect to the recommendations of the Select Committee on the Turnpike Continuance Acts and carry out the opinions he expressed to the House in March 1870, "that the Government should speedily introduce a short Act for the compulsory adoption of the Highway Act?"
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTH, in reply, said, it was not intended to introduce such a Bill during the present Session, inasmuch as it might prejudice the settlement of the question on a more com-

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  prehensive basis in another year. His own opinion, however, was that the repair of the roads should be a district and not a parish charge, and that the Highway District Act should be compulsory.

THE JUDICATURE ACT—THE RULES.

  QUESTION.
  SIR GEORGE BOWYERasked Mr. Attorney General, Whether the New Rules under the Judicature Act could be laid before Parliament previous to the middle of July, as three weeks are not sufficient for Parliament to consider them; and, if not, what course will be pursued for their due consideration by Parliament; and, whether the rules regarding pleading have been considered by the Judges?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL: Sir, in answering the first Question of the hon. and learned Member, I must not be understood as assenting to the affirmative proposition upon which it is founded—namely, that three weeks would not be sufficient for Parliament to consider the new Rules under the Judicature Act. As regards the Question itself, I have to state that, though every reasonable exertion has been, and will be made to lay the Rules before Parliament at as early a period as possible, I think that I should be misleading the House were I to suggest that it is probable that that could be done before the time named by me on Monday last, that is—the middle of July. I must remind my hon. and learned Friend that there is nothing in the Judicature Act of 1873 which requires the new Rules to be laid before Parliament during the present Session. The Act clearly contemplated the possibility of their coming into operation before they had been submitted to the House. And, in answer to the second Question of my hon. and learned Friend—namely, "what course will be pursued for the due consideration of the Rules by Parliament?" I can only state that the course pointed out by the Act of last Session will be adhered to. In reply to the third Question, "whether the Rules regarding pleading have been considered by the Judges?" I must refer my hon. and learned Friend to the very full explanation upon the subject which I gave on Monday last, and which I feel I should not be justified in occupying the time of the House by repeating.

GREECE—DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS—THE DEBT.—QUESTION.
MR. HANBURYasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the Government has received information, since a question was asked on this subject, of the intention of the Greek Government to re-establish diplomatic relations with various European Courts, including our own; and, whether the Greek Government has taken, or has intimated its intention of taking, any steps towards the repayment of the large amounts due by it to the British Government and other public creditors in this Country; and, if not, whether any representations have been made to the Greek Government on that subject?
MR. BOURKE: Sir, since this Question was put to me before, Her Majesty's Government have received information that the Greek Government has determined to re-appoint diplomatic representatives to the principal Courts of Europe. With regard to the Greek guaranteed loan, a full account of the present state of that loan is to be found in the Return laid upon the Table of the House within the last few weeks. No representations have been addressed to the Greek Government of late, either upon the subject of that loan, or of the other public debts of Greece.

NAVY—THE RESERVE SQUADRON.

  QUESTION.
  LORD ESLINGTONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether it is his intention to make the necessary arrangements for the summer training and evolutions of the Royal Naval Reserve Squadron; and, if so, what those arrangements are?
  MR. HUNT: There will, Sir, be no squadron of Reserve ships sent out for the practice of evolutions this summer. Several of those ships are under repair, and the vessels which have temporarily supplied their places are not fit for squadron cruising. The coast-guardmen will be embarked for exercise during this and the next two months in such ships as are fit for sea, and the ships will cruise singly. One ship is already at sea, and will return and change crews in July and make a second trip. By this means about 1,800 men will be exercised.

PRISONERS OF WAR—CONFERENCE AT BRUSSELS.—QUESTIONS.
MR. SERJEANT SIMONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether his attention has been called to a paragraph which has lately appeared in the daily papers, stating that a Congress of the European Powers is, at the instance of the Russian Government, about shortly to be held at Brussels; whether Her Majesty's Government have received any official notification on the subject; and, if so, what is to be the object of the Congress, and what the subjects to be considered thereat; and, whether Her Majesty's Government have been invited, and whether they intend to send representatives thereto?
MR. BOURKE: Sir, a proposal was made in April last by a French Society, called "The Society for the Amelioration of the Condition of Prisoners of War," for Her Majesty's Government to send a representative to a conference which the Society desired to hold at Brussels. Before Her Majesty's Government could come to any decision on this request an intimation was received that the Russian Government intended to bring before the Governments of other Powers a more comprehensive scheme for discussion. This project has since been received, and invites Her Majesty's Government to appoint a representative or delegate to attend an International Congress to be held at Brussels for the purpose of considering a Code which the Russian Government has prepared for the guidance of commanders in the conduct of military operations, and the relations between belligerents in the field. This project contains three sections and 18 chapters, deals with a variety of questions, among others, the exercise of military authority in the enemy's country, the distinction between combatants and non-combatants, the modes of warfare, reprisals, the treatment of prisoners of war, and other similar subjects. Her Majesty's Government have not yet determined whether it would be useful for them to take any part in this Conference, but are in communication with other Governments with the view of ascertaining what are their intentions in the matter.
In reply to Mr. Serjeant SIMON,
MR. BOURKEsaid, that there would be no objection to lay the proposal of the Russian Government on the Table of the House as soon as it became the property of the Government. At present, it was not the property of Her Majesty's Government.

ANNEXATION OF FIJI.—QUESTION.
MR. WILLIAM M'ARTHURasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether the Government has received Despatches from Commodore Goodenough and Mr. Layard relative to the annexation of Fiji; and if so, when they will be laid upon the Table of the House?
MR. J. LOWTHER: Sir, the Report arrived last night. As the document is a very voluminous one, there has been no opportunity in the interval of ascertaining whether it contains matters of a confidential character, which could not with propriety be laid upon the Table. The subject, however, will be immediately considered, and in the event of no objection arising from the cause indicated, the Papers will very shortly be presented to Parliament.

VALUATION ACTS (IRELAND).

  QUESTION.
  CAPTAIN NOLANasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, What sum has been paid in each of the three preceding years to the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury by the treasurers of the counties, cities, and towns in Ireland, under the several Valuation Acts (Ireland), 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, and 24 Vic?
  MR. W. H. SMITH, in reply, said, that the sum paid to the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury by the treasurers of the counties, cities, and towns in Ireland was, in 1871, £10,990, in 1872, £10,061, and in 1873, £10,832.

SCIENCE AND ART DEPARTMENT (IRELAND).—QUESTION.
SIR ARTHUR GUINNESSasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether Her Majesty's Government will take steps to give effect to the recommendations of the Commission on "The Science and Art Department in Ireland," which was issued in 1868 and reported in 1869, among other things—
"That, in order to afford advantages and facilities to students, artisans, and others in Dublin,

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in some respects similar to those which are yielded by the South Kensington Museum in London, and, in other respects, to those afforded by the Science and Art Museum in Edinburgh, it is very desirable that there should be a general Industrial and Fine Arts Museum in Dublin, that the people of Ireland might there obtain the fullest opportunity of improvement in the cultivation of the industrial and decorative arts by the study of approved models and objects."
SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, in reply, said, the Question related to a matter of very great importance to Dublin and to Ireland generally, and one which, if carried out, would entail a very considerable expenditure. The recommendation was made by a Commission which reported in 1869, and the fact of its having been for four years under the consideration of the late Government without any action having been taken upon it showed that the question involved was one of considerable difficulty. All he could say at present was, that his best attention should be given to the subject, and he hoped that, after sufficient time had elapsed for the purpose, he should be able to make some proposal to the House.

PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.—RESOLUTION.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, that in the unavoidable absence from this House of his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, he would move the Resolution which stood in his name. As his right hon. Friend had fully explained the reasons for his proposal, it would not be necessary to re-state them. The Motion was—
"That upon Tuesday next, and upon every succeeding Tuesday during the remainder of the Session, Orders of the Day have precedence of Notices of Motions, Government Orders of the Day having the priority."
SIR GEORGE JENKINSONsaid, he did not intend to offer any formal opposition to the Motion, but he wished to point out the hardship which was inflicted upon private Members by the course proposed to be taken. He had himself an important Notice upon the Paper, and other hon. Members were in a similar position. He therefore hoped the Government would extend to private Members all the facilities which the progress of Public Business rendered possible.
SIR WILFRID LAWSONsaid, that since the hon. Member for Whitehaven
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(Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) and the hon. Member for York (Mr. J. Lowther) had been absorbed into the Ministry, private Members had been left forlorn and without champions. He was not going to take upon himself the functions so ably fulfilled while in Opposition by either of the hon. Gentlemen he had named; because, in his humble opinion, private Members must be sacrificed when great objects of public interest stood in the way. In fact, he was not at all sure that at this time of the year private Members did not become public nuisances—especially in hot weather. This view was rather borne out by what generally occurred on Tuesday evenings at this period of the Session. If a private Member managed to get his Motion before the House it generally happened that the poor man was counted out at about half-past 8 o'clock. He did not wish to oppose the Motion brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman, as he was most anxious to facilitate the passing of the 17 important Bills mentioned by the Prime Minister a few evenings back. He thought those measures and the two spiritual Bills which had yet to come down from the House of Lords would occupy the whole remainder of the Session, and leave no time for the projects of private Members. The Prime Minister had classified the measures of which he had spoken, putting" them under the heads of first, second, and third class; but there was one matter which the right hon. Gentleman had not treated quite fairly, and that had reference to the new constitution of the Gold Coast—a question which would require to be well considered and fully discussed, but which had been adroitly got rid of by the adjournment of the recent discussion to the 31st of July, when Parliament might or might not still be sitting. The estimate of the amount required was £35,000, and he thought the House ought to have an early opportunity of judging whether the policy proposed was worth the money it would cost. If it were to be what was described in "another place" the country would be astounded, and there ought to be no unnecessary delay in discussing the subject in that House. They had had a war there, in which a great many lives were sacrificed, and he hoped on all accounts that the Government would bring on the question without

1409
delay. They wanted to know if this new constitution would produce peace and security, or violence and disorder.
MR. GOSCHENwished to know whether, in the event of the Motion before the House being agreed to, the Government intended to devote Tuesday evenings entirely to Government Bills, as it was rumoured that there were certain Bills not in the hands of the Government, but practically adopted by the Government, to which priority would be given.
MR. DILLWYNsaid, he did not intend to oppose the Motion of the Government, but to call attention to the "dead lock" to which the Business of the House was always exposed in the months of June and July. He believed a great deal of that was owing to a practice which had lately come into operation, of allowing Bills to be introduced and read a first time without any discussion whatever. Many of these measures might very well be discussed at that stage, and got rid of at once—the "innocents" being strangled at their birth instead of being slaughtered at a later stage. He wished to give Notice now that at the beginning of next Session he should propose that these "innocents" should be examined at the outset by having some discussion on them, to see whether they were likely to survive or not.
MR. PEASEsaid, he thought the Government should give facilities to private Members who had Notices on the Paper which would be displaced by the present Motion to have their subject-matter discussed. With respect to "Counts out," if a question was not deemed of sufficient importance to keep a House of 40 Members, he doubted whether such a question was worth bringing forward at all.
MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he thought there was a great deal in what the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) had said as to the necessity for exercising some discrimination as to the nature of the measures to be submitted to the House, and that the House ought to have a fuller statement as to the objects of those measures before deciding whether they should be admitted or rejected. Great inconvenience arose from the practice of introducing Bills at an early stage and deferring their second reading to a late period of the Session, some of
1410
them being introduced in March and the second reading put off into June or July. He considered it essential on introducing a Bill that a Member ought not to be allowed to put the second reading off longer than a month. But with respect to the rights of private Members, unless the Leaders of the Opposition resumed the function which their predecessors had always exercised of protecting and regulating the business introduced by unofficial Members, the House would soon become a mere instrument in the hands of the Government of the day, and all independence of action on the part of private Members in regard to legislation would be lost. He entirely dissented from the total-abstinence principle of the hon. Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), who, while professing great discontent, seemed to think that the whole time of the House should be placed at the disposal of Her Majesty's Ministers.
MR. BUTTsaid, that year after year the House was becoming more and more a mere Registering Chamber for the recording of the measures which the Government of the day proposed. Every year regulations were made restricting the right of free discussion on Motions made and Bills introduced by private Members. He did not think, however, that this Motion ought to pass without one observation. This Session did not begin until the 19th of March, and this Motion was made in the middle of June, and it thus had the same effect as if in an ordinary Session it had been made on the 1st of May. He submitted that private Members could not have expected that it would be made so early. He had, after much balloting, secured a day for the discussion of a subject which was regarded by the people of Ireland as of the utmost possible interest. He hoped that, under the circumstances, the Government would set apart a day for the Motion of which he had given Notice.
SIR COLMAN O'LOGHLENsaid, he stood in the same position as other hon. Members who had Motions on the Paper for next Tuesday, and would be one of the first victims of the new rule. His Motion was of a very important character in relation to the conduct of inquiries into Election Petitions, as to which the House ought to know the mind of the Government, but he supposed it would not be

1411
in his power to bring the matter before the House in the present Session. The Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. Butt) was one of the highest importance; one in which the feelings of the people of Ireland were deeply interested, and involved a question upon which many hon. Members had been returned to that House. He thought the hon. and learned Member for Limerick ought to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government to give a Government night for the discussion of this question.
SIR EDWARD WATKINcomplained that he would be prevented bringing forward the Workmen's Compensation Bill, which was a measure of great importance. He hoped the Government would give him an opportunity to do so before the end of the Session.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, he was very much obliged, on behalf of the Government, for the general assent given to the Motion. He was not surprised that several hon. Members had expressed their disappointment at not being in a position to bring forward Motions of which they had given Notice. It should, however, be borne in mind that at this time of year a Motion similar to that before the House had been almost invariably submitted by the Government of the day. Even when hon. Members had the Tuesdays, it did not at all follow that they would be able to bring their Motions on, especially if, like the Bill of the hon. Member for Hythe (Sir Edward Watkin), they were far down in the list. If the House did not wish to have any materially lengthened Session, they would take one of the best means of attaining their ends by giving the Government the Tuesdays. Without giving any absolute pledge on the subject, he thought that if they obtained the Tuesdays they ought to be entirely devoted to Government Business.
In reply to Sir RAINALD KNIGHTLEY,
MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, he considered that his right hon. Friend at the head of the Government had given an undertaking that there should be a day given for the discussion of affairs at the Gold Coast.
MR. J. MARTIN, as a Member of the House who had brought forward no Motion, who had introduced no Bill, and who had not troubled the House with any speeches this Session, thought he
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might fairly claim that no arrangements should be made which would destroy all chance of a debate upon the only question for which he came there. He was one of a majority of Irish Representatives of about 60 Members, who had been sent there respectfully, but firmly, to tell the House that the people of Ireland would not be content without the restoration of their own Parliament. Several of his Home Rule Colleagues—as he understood, in courteous deference to the wishes of certain Members on both sides of the House who clung to the belief that the House was capable of passing laws which might satisfy the Irish people—had brought in Bills or made Motions; yet not one of them had the least idea that it would be possible for the House to legislate in accordance with the wishes and interests of the people of Ireland. At length, after three adjournments, the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. Butt) had obtained a day for his Motion, and it stood first on the Paper for Tuesday, the 30th instant. That day ought still to be allowed to him, in order that Irish Home Rule Members might respectfully explain to the House the reasons why their country was not content, never had been content, and never would be content without the restoration of the Irish Parliament. [Laughter.] Hon. Members might laugh; but it was well known to every hon. Member who cared to inform himself of the fact, that he expressed simply and truly the feelings and determined resolution of the vast majority of the people of Ireland.
MR. RITCHIEsaid, he thought that, after what had just been said, the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. Butt) might dispense with his Motion. The Irish Members of the House had no reason to complain of not being heard during the present Session; and he thought that if time had not been taken up with Motions which could not have been expected to have any good result, there would have been no necessity for this Motion.
MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, he hoped that although the Prime Minister was not present, the right hon. Gentleman who had the management of the Government Business would give them some assurance that an evening or two would be given for this important debate. He spoke not so much on behalf of Irish

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Members as in the interest of the House of Commons and the country. There was no subject on which greater curiosity prevailed than on this; and people were anxious to know what it was that had all at once converted Irish Members into a compact body, and brought them there able to take an effective part in the legislation for Ireland. On this subject, above all others, the Government should desire having full explanations given to the House; and therefore he should be sorry if this Motion was passed without a promise having been given by the Secretary of State for War that he would bring the matter under the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, and request his favourable consideration of the appeal. He would not reply to the observations of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Ritchie), who had been such a very long time a Member of the House, having been elected three months ago, that he considered himself entitled to advise and lecture Irish Members as to the course they should pursue, but he would only add that it was as much for the interest of England as of Ireland that the question of Home Rule should be thoroughly argued out.
MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he hoped this discussion would not be carried further. He could not suppose that the Government would not feel that it was desirable that there should be no arrangement made on their part which would prevent this question from being discussed by Parliament during the present Session. "While, of course he would hear what was to be said, there were few Members who would approach the discussion with a greater conviction than he entertained that it was not advisable to make the change which was to be proposed. At the same time, he could not be blind to the fact that a contrary opinion was held by very many of their fellow-subjects in Ireland, and by many Irish Representatives; and it appeared to him that it would not be for the honour of Parliament or the advantage of our relations with Ireland, or even to the advantage of real union with Ireland, that the Imperial Parliament should not have an opportunity of discussing this question.
MR. SULLIVANasserted that there had not been a measure of importance passed since the Reform Act of 1832
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which had not originated with a private Member, and he therefore protested against further restricting the time devoted to private Members. He did not complain of any want of a fair hearing in that Assembly to Irish matters in his time, although he thought the Parliamentary machine was very unequal to the strain which was put upon it. The Irish Representatives had been anxious to show that they appreciated the reception which the House so far had given to the claims of their country; but if the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Limerick was to be got rid of by a side-wind, the fact would be viewed in Ireland in no friendly spirit, for that was the question of questions on which 60 Members had been sent from Ireland to Parliament.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, it was the practice of the House at an advanced period of the Session to consider in what way its time could best be economized; and the Motion of the Prime Minister, who was, unfortunately, now absent from indisposition, was one which, in substance, was usually made about that date. His right hon. Friend had thought it would probably be more convenient for the House, instead of taking Morning Sittings at present on Tuesdays—to give Tuesday evenings for Orders of the Day and Government business; but if there was any general feeling that another course would be more convenient, he was sure his right hon. Friend would be quite ready to reconsider the matter. He need hardly add that there was no intention whatever, in making the present proposal, to shunt or get rid by a side-wind of Motions which hon. Members deemed of importance. As to the Motion fixed for the 30th of June, which had been referred to, there was plenty of time before them to see what the course of business was; and he was sure that when his right hon. Friend at the head of the Government was able to consider the matter, he would be prepared to make some proposal with regard to that question.
SIR JOHN GRAYsaid, he thought, after the observations which had fallen from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, they might fairly expect the Tuesday for which the consideration of the question of Home Rule had been set down would be exempted from the rule about to be

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applied. Such a course would, he thought, give great satisfaction to Irish Members.
MR. DODSONreminded the Government that there was another mode introduced last Session of expediting their Business besides taking the Tuesdays or having Morning Sittings—namely, that the Government should have Monday evenings for Supply, uninterrupted by Motions upon going into Supply. He thought this might meet the difficulty, because, considering the time the House had met this year, it could not now be considered an advanced period of the Session.
Motion agreed to.
Resolved, That upon Tuesday next, and upon every succeeding Tuesday during the remainder of the Session, Orders of the Day have precedence of Notices of Motions, Government Orders of the Day having the priority.—(Mr. Disraeli.)

FACTORIES (HEALTH OF WOMEN, &c.,) BILL.— [BILL 115.]
(Mr. Assheton Cross, Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson, Viscount Sandon.)
FACTORIES (HEALTH OF WOMEN, &c.,) BILL.— [BILL 115.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSS, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, he should not go much into details as regarded the principle on which the measure had been framed. He had recently made a statement which, so far as he had been able to ascertain, had been received with favour by both sides of the House. The Bill affected a great number of employers and employed, and must therefore be dealt with with great care and caution. Whilst the men had gained something by having their hours of labour reduced, he hoped that they would never forget that their interests were bound up with those of their employers, and that if the latter suffered, that suffering would also fall upon the employed. He believed both sides were fully sensible of this fact. He found that the measure had been most seriously considered both by the employers and employed, and that something like an understanding had been come to as to what would be best for the interests of both. The settlement of this question must be based upon some sound and intelligible principle, and as the Factory Law had been so treated from the be-
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  ginning, so it should be now, in order that any amendment they might make would be a continuing development of the principle they had already adopted. It was upon that footing that this Bill was based, and it was drawn up after full consideration of the condition of those who laboured in the particular works affected by the Bill. It proposed that the number of hours which children and young persons and women should be allowed to work should be 56½ a week; that they should in their particular factories work 56 hours, the remaining half-hour to be employed in cleaning at the end of the week. The Bill was not framed in any way to limit the hours during which persons might work either at the commencement or at the end of the day. The ordinary work of 12 hours a day might begin at six in the morning and end at six in the evening, or, if more convenient to either the employer or the employed, they might begin at seven and end at seven, provided that ample notice was given of such change in the working hours. Out of those 12 hours, two were to be set aside for refreshment and recreation, but the clause on that subject was drawn so as to give as much elasticity as possible. It had been supposed that, under the clause, an hour must in all cases be given for breakfast and an hour for dinner, and it was thought by some that an hour was too long for breakfast. That was not, however, the real meaning of the clause. Under its terms it would be competent for the employer to commence working at half-past six in the morning, then to give half-an-hour for breakfast, an hour for dinner, and then at six in the evening the employer would have had their 10 hours' work. Again, the employer might take another course. He might begin at six, give half-an-hour for breakfast, an hour for dinner, and then at half-past five the day's work would be completed. In that way the varying convenience of the employers and the employed would be met from one end of the country to the other. A great safeguard for the health of women and young persons which the Bill provided was that they should not be employed longer than four and a half hours without a meal. This would be a great relief to those who were compelled to use the same mechanical operation of the hands and feet which was so wearying, and from which they required relaxa-

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  tion. They could not be without a meal for more than four and a half hours at one time, nor could they work more than 10 hours for the first five days of the week, nor more than six hours on Saturday. The total quantity of work which the employer would get would be 56 hours. There remained the question whether the persons so employed were to go through the process of cleaning during their working hours, or whether the employer should be allowed to stipulate for half an hours' cleaning at the end of the week. The latter was an arrangement which all the employers were willing to accept, and which he had put into the Bill. He now passed to the case of the children and half-timers. There were two modes in which the half-timers might be employed—either every alternate day—namely, three days a week for the full time that the others worked, or, in all, the half of 56 hours, or they might be employed in alternate shifts on the same day, some in the morning and others in the afternoon. One shift was, however, always a longer time at work than the other, and it would be necessary to put the children into alternate shifts in order to equalize the number of hours. They had given the greatest elasticity, so that there would be no difficulty between employers and employed upon this point. He would not detain the House by going into the details of the various clauses, but he must make a short explanation of the operation of Clause 8. That clause strictly prohibited any employment in the factory during meal times. It had been proposed that the persons employed should not be allowed to remain during meal times in the same room in which they worked. That, however, would be a hardship. Numbers had nowhere else to go to, and many of them liked to sit and talk during meals until work time came round again. The clause followed the existing law, and only prevented the hands from remaining in the room while the machinery was being turned. The engine must stop, or there would be no certainty that the work might not go on during meal hours. It was necessary to allow the recovery of lost time in the case of water-power, although there were not many persons who used water-power, and many of them would be glad to give up the practice of making up for lost time. The next point was as to the edu-
  1418
  cation of the children, and the Bill contained clauses which, in his opinion, would be valuable in the working of the Education Act. He thought the House would agree with him as to the necessity of children being allowed education in their youth, so that the country would get the benefit of having educated persons when they grew up. Therefore, he thought the time had come when they might fairly extend the age of children before they could be employed in the manufactories touched by the Bill. It was for that purpose, therefore, that the age had been extended from 13 to 14, unless a child could produce a certificate showing that he had the benefit of a certain kind of education. He had not stated in the Bill the actual Standard the child must pass before being employed, and for this reason—that it would not be wise to fix a Standard if that Standard had to be changed from time to time, according to the views of those in charge of the Education Department, and it would be somewhat different if it was allowed to remain an open question in different localities. The House would not, he thought, do wisely in allowing any change to be made with regard to those engaged in manufactures by which the ordinary run of children should be in danger of being at once turned out of employment. During 1875 the age of the children might be taken at nine years, and afterwards they might safely raise by one year the age at which a child might first go to work. He proposed to fix the 1st of January, 1875, as the day for the Act to come into operation. It was necessary to enact that no children now employed should be turned out into the streets, but that the children should, so to speak, work themselves up to the conditions prescribed. The enactments of the Bill would therefore only apply to future children who might enter these factories. So far as the silk manufactures were concerned, the Government had every wish to meet any difficulty that might arise in that particular manufacture, and he had therefore taken care that the age should be raised so gradually that it would be a long time before the Act would come practically into operation. By the time this Act, so far as the silk children were concerned, came into operation, he believed it would be found that all the children would be

  1419
  able to pass the Standard of education at the age required. He would not enter further into the details of the measure, but simply state that the provisions related, first, to the hours of work; secondly, to the age at which children should enter employment; and, thirdly, to the age at which they should change from the rank of children to that of young persons. He trusted that the Bill would be found to have the merit of simplicity and also of usefulness. It would be unnecessary for him at present to advert to the question about to be raised by the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett). If it were true, as he believed, that Factory Acts were to be based on sanitary and educational grounds, Parliament would not invade any law of political economy by legislating for women as well as young persons and children who worked in factories. Had not the legislation, he would ask, to which Parliament had already given its assent, done the greatest possible good, not only to the children employed at the time, but to the generations of children who had since been born? He believed that the women who worked in these factories—and anyone who looked at the records of what had taken place in former years would come to the same conclusion—had materially suffered in health by going on year after year and generation after generation working in the factories, and that in the long run if it had not been for the Factory Acts the women and children of this generation would have materially deteriorated. If that were so, how could they distinguish legislation now from legislation then—he meant on principle? It was entirely a question of degree, and that point he was perfectly willing to argue with the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) or any other hon. Member. But the House had given up the principle of not legislating for this particular class, and he repeated what he had already said, that a great number of these women were not free agents in this matter. They were to a great extent under the moral compulsion to support their families, and under the natural compulsion which was exercised by their husbands to go to work in the factories. He knew it was suggested that the law should be made to apply to married women only, and not to others, because
  1420
  those others were practically free agents. He did not think, however, that that was a distinction which would commend itself to the majority of Englishmen, and he himself could not imagine a more dangerous distinction to make. Now, as to the extent of the trades to which the Bill should apply, he might state that he had received a great number of communications from those employed as book printers and in paper mills and iron and glass works as to whether they should come under the operation of the Act. The House, however, would see that the Bill as drawn was strictly confined to textile trades and those with which they were intimately connected. Those engaged in the bleaching and dyeing trades, who represented that the proposal for legislation had come upon them suddenly, who were not included in the Bill of the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella), and who asked for a little delay, had, he thought, made out a case for exemption for the present. But nothing would give him greater satisfaction than to be able to place before the House a measure to consolidate the whole of the Factory Acts, which were in such a state of confusion. Although the bleach and dye works were to be exempted from the immediate operation of the Act, he trusted the House would not delay in legislating on the main bulk of the trades included in it. The employers and employed had been expecting legislation on this question, and they were at the present moment able to look at the matter in a calm and liberal way. In fact, he did not think that there was a time when they were on better terms among themselves. He found at the outset that there was a very great divergence of opinion, which had existed for years, between them, with reference to the subject; but in the course of the long discussions he had had with them he had never met with so much fairness of argument as was shown on both sides, or a greater desire to arrive at a fair and sound conclusion. He was happy to say that both parties were now willing to settle the matter on terms equitable to both, just and advantageous to the country, and which would, infringe no principles of political economy further than they had already been infringed by the operation of the Factory Acts which had received the assent of the Legislature.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Assheton Cross.)
  MR. FAWCETT, in rising to move, as an Amendment—
  "That, in the opinion of this House, it would be inexpedient to pass those portions of the Bill which impose new legislative restrictions on the number of hours during which adults are to be permitted to work,"
  said, it was evident from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman that he wished the House to believe that the Bill of which he had just moved the second reading was simply a measure designed to improve the health and education of our factory population. Now, if that were its real object, and if such were likely to be its ulterior consequences, it was hardly necessary to observe that no one in that House would be likely to wish to offer to it the slightest opposition. But although the title of the Bill would lead one to suppose that its objects might properly be described as educational and sanitary, he thought he should be able to show that there was a wide divergence between its title and its true scope. Why, he should like to know, were the great textile manufacturers of the country singled out by the right hon. Gentleman as so peculiarly deficient in independence and wanting in capacity to manage their own affairs that they must be taken under the special patronage of a Government whose peculiar mission it was to harass no industry and worry no trade? He knew it would be said that the provisions of the Bill applied to women and not to men. Nothing could be more pacific than the speeches of the Home Secretary and the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) on that point; but although the Bill nominally applied to women only, its real effect would be to place a Parliamentary limit on the length of the day's work, and its general application would be precisely the same, in a great majority of cases, as if in every clause after the word "woman" they had inserted the word "man." To say women should leave a factory at 5 o'clock, and that their labour should be dispensed with for a certain time, while the men should continue at work, was to proceed upon a supposition just as unreasonable as that a steam-engine should go on working without fuel, for the labour of the men and women in our factories was inseparably intertwined. It might
  1422
  be urged, however, that of which he was speaking would simply be an accidental and collateral consequence of the Bill; but in the innumerable speeches which had been made on the question at the late General Election, was not the question constantly put, he would ask, whether a candidate would vote for a Nine Hours Bill? And unless the House was prepared to stand by the principle that the people of this country should be treated as capable of forming a judgment as to how many hours a day they should work, and not as children, the cry for eight hours or seven hours would be raised at the next General Election—a result which would be due to Departmental meddling and official interference. Of late years the social and industrial condition of the people had greatly changed, and no one could deny the fact that the working classes had shown that they knew very well how to take care of themselves. Before proceeding to deal with the facts which the Home Secretary alleged in justification of this Bill, the House might not unnaturally expect that some reply should be made to by far the most effective argument that would be brought against those who were prepared to contend for the principle that no new legislative restrictions should be imposed upon the number of hours that adults should be permitted to work. It had been said—If they were logical they should be prepared to repeal all existing Factory Acts. The Home Secretary laid great stress on this plea about logic. He seemed to forget that one of the most distinguished Members of his own Government had lately thanked God that in this country they were not governed by logic. But the Home Secretary had far too much practical shrewdness and common sense not to know that it was one thing to repeal Acts of Parliament that had been in operation for many years, and altogether a different thing to give a new sanction to the principles that those Acts might contain. In the first place, many who were now Members of the House were not Members of it when those Acts were passed, and, therefore, were not in any way responsible for them; secondly, the condition of the country and of the people might have materially changed since they were passed. Since that time the working classes had been enfranchised, and they had proved in a hundred hard-

  1423
  fought industrial contests that they were perfectly competent to protect their own interests; thirdly, some who might not object in principle to those Acts might think that legislative interference had already gone far enough, and that it was neither wise nor expedient to extend it. The Home Secretary must see that, after all, it was not so much a question of logical consistency as it was a question of expediency. The right hon. Gentleman himself thought it would be neither wise nor prudent to support a 54 hours' Bill; why, then, were those who thought it neither wise nor prudent to support a 56½ hours' Bill any more bound than the right hon. Gentleman was by logical consistency to repeal all existing Factory Acts? Whatever might be his (Mr. Fawcett's) own individual opinion, he did not ask those who would vote with him that evening to assert that their predecessors were in error because in past years they had imposed certain legislative restrictions on the labour of adults. The Resolution he was about to move made no reference to the past; it simply affirmed that the time had come when it was inexpedient to sanction any further extension of this system of legislative interference with adults. Some short time ago the Home Secretary said that this Bill ought to be passed because it was recommended by the Factory Inspectors, and because it would settle the agitation upon the question; because the Bill was based upon the Report of the Special Commissioners; because it would be safe, wise, and expedient to limit the hours of labour to 56½ hours per week in trades affected by the Bill; and because interference on behalf of women would be justifiable, because they really were not free agents. No doubt Mr. Baker, a Factory Inspector, had said that a Bill limiting the hours of labour to 56½ would stop agitation; but he desired to show how the statement had been received by the working men themselves. One of the leading men in this movement was Mr. Middleton, who was Chairman of the Nine Hours Factory Association in Dundee. Mr. Middleton's reply to Mr. Baker was—" Oh, Mr. Baker, how very little you know of the subject on which you write! How can you suppose that 56½ hours will satisfy us, when our brethren have 51 hours and our fellows in the colonies have 48 hours? "But that was not all;
  1424
  Mr. Middleton asserted that Mr. Baker had no authority whatever for stating that 56½ hours would satisfy them, and he went on to say that when the proposal was made to Mr. Mundella the offer was treated by him with contempt, and that he would be content with nothing short of 54 hours. And they would probably hear his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, in the course of the evening, denouncing the small concession contained in the present measure, and if it were accepted at all, it would be accepted as an instalment, and not as a settlement. How was it possible by such means to stop agitation, in the face of the great labour movements going on throughout the world? Each concession made to the demands for legislative interference only added new strength to the movement, and gave additional encouragement to further demands. What were the great labour movements going on in the United States at this moment? Why, in America there was no social or economical question which excited so much interest as the Eight Hours Bill. It was only a little while since that 5,000 workmen at Chicago demanded from the municipal authorities that the day's work should consist of eight hours, and that remunerative work at that rate should be found for all who desired to labour. Instead of dealing with the matter boldly, the municipal authorities did much as the Home Secretary had done—they promised to take the subject into their most serious consideration. In fact, it was this paltering with error, and this failure to make a determined stand against such demands, which formed a source of considerable danger. They might depend upon it that it was a great mistake to suppose that this Bill would put a stop to agitation. If they once encouraged the principle that the length of the day's work was to be regulated by the House, they would be adopting a course which would be disastrous to the future of the industry of this country, and be destructive of the best qualities which had characterized a self-reliant and independent race. Again, the Home Secretary urged that this Bill was justified by the Report of the Commissioners; but out of 163 medical men examined by that Commission, 131 stated distinctly that the hours during which the women were employed were not too long. More than that, 173 were asked if there

  1425
  was anything specially injurious in the labour which they engaged in; of these 99 gave a distinct negative, and 52 of the remainder pointed out sanitary and other defects, such as want of proper ventilation, which as seriously affected the men as they did the women, and which were not touched by this Bill. He was not going to bring forward a single complaint against the Report which had been presented; but he put it to the candour of the House whether the case of the Home Secretary had not hopelessly broken down so far as the medical testimony was concerned. The Commissioners themselves made an admission which threw an instructive light upon the medical testimony, for they stated that three-fourths of the women employed in textile manufactories were engaged in those branches of the work which were not prejudicial to health. It was all very well for Lord Shaftesbury to go with a deputation to the Home Office and state that he knew some manufacturer who preferred to employ married women because he could oppress them. This was a serious charge to make; but the noble Lord seemed always to have some anonymous bogey or undivulged monster at hand wherewith to terrify and alarm the timid and the prejudiced. The hon. Member for Sheffield, again, did not intend his Nine Hours Bill to apply to the borough which he represented, although the mortality in 15 of the principal towns carrying on textile manufactures was from 15 to 20 per cent less than in Sheffield. As an illustration of the sensational and fallacious statistics used when discussing questions such as this, he might say that, although only 7 per cent of the population of Manchester were employed in the textile factories, the city was 24 per cent more unhealthy than such purely textile towns as Oldham, Blackburn, and Preston. Further, it was a fact that Manchester was always included when estimating the average mortality in the textile districts. The facts he had mentioned with regard to Manchester showed that there were causes far more efficient in producing a high death-rate than anything connected with employment in factories. Almost the whole number of operatives employed by Mr. Hugh Mason, an extensive manufacturer of textile fabrics, lived in properly-constructed cottages
  1426
  which he had caused to be built for them, and the result was a lower death-rate among these people than was to be found in the healthiest rural districts in England. What, then, was the remedy which ought to be proposed? Clearly, one of the first things to be done was to amend the sanitary arrangements of the factories, for it was clear that the passing of a 56 hours Bill would neither empty nor purify cesspools. He should not think either of opposing the educational clauses of the Bill, although on this question he wished to see a much more comprehensive measure passed than the present one, which fixed different ages at which children might commence work in manufactures carried on side by side, although young persons might be employed with equal advantage and no less risk in either. It might, perhaps, be said that the opponents of this Bill were cold-blooded political economists, caring nothing for the lives of those by whom wealth was produced; but he would only say, with regard to questions like the present, that the more the people relied upon State intervention the less would their prosperity be promoted, while the more they were taught to depend upon their own efforts the more certainly would their prosperity be secured. He had no interest in any of the trades affected by this Bill; but when it was said that manufacturers were hardhearted he felt it to be his duty to say he could point out many throughout the Kingdom known for their care and generous efforts on behalf of the people. It had been advanced by the Home Secretary that the state of our English industry was such that it was safe, wise, and prudent to reduce in textile factories the week's work to 56½ hours; but he (Mr. Fawcett) protested with earnestness that it was altogether beyond the province of that House to decide what should be the length of a day's work in any particular branch of industry, because it depended upon a great variety of complicated details, which could only be determined by the employer and the employed. The nine hours movement had succeeded because it was based upon this principle, and resulted from the spontaneous action of the workmen and their masters. Further, in every single instance in which the employed had insisted upon the nine hours movement, they had

  1427
  taken the most ample precautions to provide for overtime. This Bill made no provision whatever for overtime. He expected to find from the Home Secretary's speech that the right hon. Gentleman based his opinion in favour of reducing the week's work to 56½ hours upon the opinions of business men, but he found that he rested his proposal solely on the Reports of the Factory Inspectors. The opinions of the Inspectors, who were very excellent persons, were exceedingly valuable as to the sanitary condition of a factory or the educational condition of the persons employed in it; but what qualification had they for deciding how long a Yorkshire or Lancashire manufacturer should continue his week's work? He (Mr. Fawcett) protested against the idea of making these gentlemen the arbiters of the question. If he had been charged with legislation upon this subject he would not have consulted the Factory Inspectors, but the manufacturers and the men of business in that House, who could speak with a practical knowledge and a life-long experience. In the case of Ireland there was a considerable difference between the circumstances of industries in that country and in this. The flax manufacturers of Ireland declared that it was inexpedient to impose the same legislative limit upon the two countries, and they showed that if the productive power of their machinery was decreased 6 per cent. as it would be by this Bill, they would no longer be able to compete with foreign countries, employment would decline, and consequently there would be a decrease of wages and thousands would be thrown out of work. The great objection he had to this Bill was that it touched all industries alike, whether they were active or dull. In some branches the condition of prosperity was such that the provisions of the Bill could be carried out without risk being incurred in any direction; but, taking a wider view, would it not be just and expedient to place confidence in the two parties interested, the employer and the employed, to reduce the hours of labour whenever the state of trade enabled them to do so? Considering the intelligence, the independence, and the social power of the working classes, were they not, he asked, better judges than the House could possibly be as to what the length
  1428
  of their week's work should be and when the hours of their labour could with safety and propriety be reduced? Many of the industries affected by this Bill were in a very critical position. The hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Crossley), who was a high authority upon this matter, stated that the industries of the West Riding, were in a critical position, and that wool could now be taken from Bradford, manufactured abroad, re-imported, and sold for 3d. or 4d. per pound cheaper than if it had been made in the neighbourhood of Bradford. In that town there were cousequently 20,000 looms idle. The 6,000 men whom the hon. Member employed did not want this legislation; but they were only too thankful to be employed full time when so many others were working only half time. It was a noteworthy fact that no responsible Minister had ever sought to place restrictions upon the employment of married women. He admitted that married women were better at home with their children than they could be working in factories; but ought not the decision of that point in each particular case to be left to the good sense and increasing intelligence of the people themselves? One Factory Inspector had proposed that all married women should be treated as half-timers; but the fact only illustrated the foolish things which very sensible men proposed when they gave way to the mania of legislative meddling. If that proposal were carried out they would see many unmarried women who had children working as full-timers, whilst many married women who had no children would be reduced to the position of half-timers. If the hours of labour were reduced by three and a half hours a week, the productive out-turn of the machinery would be diminished by 5 per cent. unless greater speed were resorted to. The latter was not probable, because it was safe to assume that if greater speed were advantageous it would have been already adopted, and Mr. Robinson, a medical man of Dukinfield, had warned the workers not to exchange less speed and long hours for greater speed and fewer hours. The deputation, moreover, which waited on the Prime Minister at Glasgow last autumn represented that their condition was worse than before the Factory Acts were passed, on account of the greater number of spin-

  1429
  dles to be attended to and the much greater speed. The workmen had apparently been persuaded by the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Callender) that they would receive the same wages for less work; but if Parliament could effect this they would soon demand the same wages for 54 or 50 hours' work. It was absurd to suppose that legislation could control the immutable laws regulating wages. If, however, wages were not reduced, the loss would fall either on the employer or the consumer, and in the latter case it would be tantamount to a tax on the general body of consumers, including the workmen themselves. In these days of competition price was regulated by the cost of production in foreign countries sending goods to us, as well as by the cost in England, and an increase of 6 per cent in price would lessen the demand for our goods in the foreign market, but increase the import of foreign goods into our own, a heavy blow at English trade resulting in the decline of profits and the diminution of wages. An increasing tendency to invest capital abroad was commented on in commercial papers; energetic manufacturers like the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) establishing manufacturing concerns on the Continent, where adult labour was unrestricted. In Germany and Switzerland, where the condition of the factory population was confessedly satisfactory, restrictions were imposed only on the labour of children. If by legislation impediments were placed in the way of any industry, the relative advantage of investing capital abroad would be increased, and the magnitude of the sum of English capital which went to the other countries of the world, being taken away from our own industries, would be enhanced. They might depend upon it that it was not so much the employer as the employed who would inevitably suffer. He was as anxious as any one could be to see the hours of labour reduced; but the best way of doing it was not by legislation, but by leaving the question to the people themselves. There was this significant fact—that in those trades which were affected by this Bill the hours of labour were 10 per day; in the workshops which had been legislated for they were still longer; whilst in hundreds of trades where the working classes had taken the subject into their
  1430
  own hands they were working a much shorter time. The Home Secretary justified this legislation on the ground that women were not free agents; but if in Lancashire and Yorkshire they were not free agents, then in Dorsetshire, Cambridgeshire, and Suffolk they could not be; and the logical result would be a Bill regulating agricultural labour, especially as women were more likely to be "bedraggled in mud and wet up to their middles" when weeding a turnip-field than when working in a well-ventilated factory. Again, how could the women in London houses and shops be free agents either? Parliament would have to say at what hour domestic servants should retire to rest. Only last week the Home Secretary enabled barmaids, who were not free agents, to be employed three and a half hours per week longer, and now, in his enthusiasm for logic, he wished to reduce the hours of labour of women in manufactories by exactly the same amount. This question suggested an important inquiry—namely, why women were not free agents, and he found the answer in the answer of the Home Secretary. It told that there was something infinitely worse than work, and that was want. Those who took the course which he was advocating were sometimes told that they were pursuing an unpopular course and would be punished at the polling booths; but when the Home Secretary told the people of the manufacturing districts that employers were so avaricious and men were so selfish as to force their wives, sisters, and daughters to work against their will, the plea that they were not free agents would be hurled back with contempt and indignation, unless the people of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Glasgow were deprived of every feeling of self-respect. He would now, in conclusion, appeal to hon. Members who might agree with him in principle not to hesitate to express their convictions, because their motives might be misunderstood. The Governor of California lately, in considering a Bill on a similar subject said—
  "Hard work and underpay are the evils of our imperfect legislation; but I veto this Bill because I think those evils will not be cured, but intensified, by legislation. Blessed indeed would be the law if it could cure them, but it cannot."
  He and others were not anxious for

  1431
  overwork or under pay; but they cherished the principle of self-reliance and independence, which was the only sure basis of national well-being.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "in the opinion of this House, it would be inexpedient to pass those portions of the Bill which impose new legislative restrictions on the number of hours during which adults are to be permitted to work,"—(Mr. Fawcett.)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. E. STANHOPE: Although, Sir, I am not specially connected with the factory districts, yet having taken a great interest for some time in the success of our factory legislation, which, I believe, to reflect great credit upon this country, I venture to ask the House—even at this hour—to permit me to offer a few observations upon this Bill. The hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) has put before the House a Resolution in somewhat general terms; but his speech has made it quite clear that he limits his opposition to this Bill to those portions of it which impose restrictions upon the hours of work of women. But, as the main ground of his opposition is that to impose restrictions upon the hours of work of women must necessarily interfere with the labour of men, I venture to point out to him that to impose restrictions upon the hours of work of children must have a precisely similar effect. Indeed, it is upon this very ground that some of the petitioners to this House, as hon. Members will find if they take the trouble to refer to the Petitions, objected to the Bill of the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella). I know, Sir, that I may be told that restrictions upon the hours of work of children will not interfere nearly so much with the labour of men as restrictions upon the hours of work of women. But the question which the hon. Member is raising in this House is one of principle, and not of degree; and therefore I say that if the hon. Member carried out his principle to its logical conclusion, he would now be opposing the second reading of this Bill, or, at any rate, those portions of it which relate to the hours of labour. Now, Sir, I differ fundamen-
  1432
  tally from the hon. Member in regarding this question as not only one of principle, but also as one of degree. We set before ourselves certain great national objects which are likely to be promoted by the passing of the present Bill, and what we have to ask ourselves is, are these objects so essential as to justify any amount of interference? The hon. Member for Hackney says "none," and I suppose that every hon. Member of this House would be disposed to agree with his general principle, which is, that when people can do things for themselves better, or as well as the State can do them for them, it is most unwise for the State to attempt to do them for them. But the practical question for us is—can these poor women do these things for themselves as well as we can do them for them? Let me ask the House, in the first place, to consider if a woman can actually decide for herself whether she will work or not work, or if she is not really under certain influences which prevent her from being placed in the class of free agents. First of all, there is the pressure which was alluded to by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary the other day. I mean the pressure of the employer, which is often exerted to take women and children also to work. I do not for a moment mean to speak of this pressure in terms of condemnation; because it appears to me very natural that an employer, who has only a limited supply of house accommodation, should wish to draw from that house accommodation as much labour as he possibly can, and what is more, to obtain a class of labour over which he will have more control from employing several members of one family. And again, there is that other form of pressure, which, as every one knows, is very often exerted to the injury of these women, by forcing those out to work who ought not to work, or at times when they certainly ought not to do so. I mean the pressure of the husband. Well, Sir, if this is the case as to working or not working, it is much stronger when we come to the hours during which a woman is to work. Does the hon. Member really suggest that any individual woman is capable of settling this point for herself? Suppose a woman to go to her employer and to say that she found 10 hours' labour injurious to her health, and that she wished to work nine hours; the employer would

  1433
  reply—"I have no doubt you are right in thinking so; but I want a woman who can work 10 hours." And therefore it is idle to expect that unless there is to be an extensive system of combination amongst women, that any reduction of hours can be effected by them. I know that we are told of certain towns where women, either by themselves, or assisted by the men, have combined, with success, to reduce the number of hours of work; but that only strengthens my argument in asking for legislation on behalf of the women who have failed in obtaining, and who can never within any reasonable time obtain it. The hon. Member for Hackney has raised the question why legislation should be demanded for factory workers when it was not asked for on behalf of women engaged in other occupations, and he somewhat uncandidly called in question women employed in agriculture in Dorsetshire and Cambridgeshire. I say uncandidly, because nobody knows better than the hon. Member, who has taken great pains to inform himself on these subjects, that the reason that legislation is not demanded on behalf of women employed in agriculture is because there has been an inquiry into the subject by a Royal Commission, and the Commissioners have unanimously reported that there is no case on sanitary grounds for interfering with women in the agricultural districts. Nor would I plead for interference on behalf of the women engaged in manufactures if no case could be made out for doing so. Now, what is the case? I believe that I can, in a very few words, put before the House some conclusions, drawn from the evidence in its possession, which will afford great assistance in legislating on this subject. Well, Sir, there is very strong ground for believing that the strain upon each operative, and especially upon each female operative, has very much increased during the last few years. But whether the strain has actually increased or not, there is an enormous preponderance of opinion amongst all the medical men qualified to speak upon the subject that it has an important influence in producing the high rate of mortality which prevails in the factory districts. And lastly, there is a complete unanimity of opinion, shared even by the employers, that it would be a very good thing if restrictions could be imposed on the labour of married women.
  1434
  And no doubt the case of the married women is much the strongest. I suppose that we should deal with them on the same principle as in compulsory education, when we compel a parent to send his child to school; we do not leave it to the parent to send it to any school, but we say that it must be an efficient one. And we do this because we believe that the poor parent is unable to form an opinion upon what is a good education and what is not. And so in this case, the women themselves are hardly aware perhaps of the injury that they are inflicting, not upon themselves, but upon their families. What is the result of the prolonged absence of a woman from home at work? It means possible injury to herself; it means pecuniary loss and discomfort, making the house no longer a real home to the husband; it means possible injury to the children left at home; a denial to them of any chance of obtaining domestic training; or of becoming fit, physically or morally, for their future duties in life. I hope that the House will not suppose that I mean that all these things can be set right by the present Bill; but we shall be doing something towards this object. But, Sir, I entirely agree with two hon. Members who spoke the other day, that it is impossible to legislate for married women only. And not only for the reasons which have been given, but also because we should be met with the difficulty that we ought to make a distinction between women that have children and those that have not; and we should run the risk of setting a premium upon not marrying, which there are plenty of unscrupulous men ready to take advantage of. But I think that the grounds which I have mentioned give ample reason for including all women. So long as men are men, and women are women, the lot of the vast majority of women will be to marry, and however much we may permit them to injure their own health if they like, we are bound to look after the generation that is to follow them, and to see that their health is not prejudiced. And I think we can take comfort in reflecting that it is exactly these single women who can best afford to dispense with the earnings of which this legislation may deprive them. Anybody who knows the factory districts is aware that one of the greatest evils which attends the high rate of wages is that females,

  1435
  before they have ceased to be girls, are able to emancipate themselves from parental control. So that it comes to this—that the married women, who can least afford some loss of earnings, require these restrictions the most; and the single women, about whom as strong a case cannot be made out, can most easily afford it. The hon. Member for Hackney suggests that we are going to throw a number of women out of employment; but the House should remember that the whole tendency of recent legislation with regard to children—aye, the clauses in this very Bill raising the age for their employment from eight to ten—must necessarily create a larger demand for the labour of women. The actual amount of earnings which they might lose cannot possibly exceed 5 per cent. and though I do not want to depreciate the loss of the little comforts which it may entail upon them, yet, looking to the high rate of wages, I cannot think it of very great importance. And if we desire some further comfort in this matter, we shall find it in the remarks of the hon. Member for Manchester (Six-Thomas Bazley), which have been denounced as "socialistic," when he told us that if we imposed twice as much restriction upon the labour of women and children they would still receive the same wages. And now, if we are to give these women and children an extra half-hour in the day, it is a very important question at what part of the day it shall be given them. After what I have said, I need scarcely express my own opinion that the greatest boon to the operatives themselves would be to give them the half-hour either at the commencement or end of their work, so that they may have more time at home. But I admit that there may be factories in which the work is especially hard, or in which for other reasons it would be desirable to rest from work for an extra half-hour during the day, and therefore on the whole it may be the best plan to follow the provision in this Bill, and leave it to each employer to determine according to the peculiar circumstances of his factory. Having said so much as regards the women, I shall not trouble the House with any remarks upon those portions of the Bill which relate to children, because I believe they command the almost unanimous approval of this House. I venture to offer my thanks to the Home Se-
  1436
  cretary for having boldly and promptly grappled with this important question. The Bill is in the nature of a compromise, but I hope of a compromise which is made to last. Nothing can be more disastrous than a constant re-opening of this question, because it produces agitation in the country, and is most unfair to to the manufacturers; and, therefore, I trust that in voting for this Bill we shall be expressing an intention to settle this question, if possible, for a long time to come. And now, with many thanks to the House for the kindness with which it has heard my remarks, I would earnestly urge it, looking to the important national results which are likely to be promoted by the passing of this Bill, and to the very small pecuniary loss which we are likely to inflict upon those who are brought within its provisions—I would urge the House to disregard a philosophical crotchet which seeks to make all things subservient to its own selfish theories, and to consider the true interests of these poor women, and still more of their children, upon whose moral and physical well-being the future prosperity of this country so much depends. Let us disregard these considerations, as we have disregarded them before, and we shall find that the good results which have followed our past factory legislation will be amplified and extended by our legislation of 1874.
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY, in apologizing for addressing the House after being a Member of it only one week, said, the great body of the employed felt grateful for, and contented with, what the Legislature had done for them hitherto, and the House no longer approached this question in the region of humanity, but was discussing it in the less distressing, though equally important, region of educational and sanitary advancement. No one could fail to admire the well-known abilities of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett); but in such a matter as this an ounce of experience was worth any number of arguments, and the best testimony to the efficient working of the past Factory Acts was to be found in the fact referred to by the hon. Gentleman, that nothing startling or harrowing was to be found in the medical evidence brought before the Commission. The hon. Member for Hackney said that it was contrary to all true principles to encourage legislative

  1437
  interference in disputes between employers and employed; but Mr. John Stuart Mill, for whose opinions, no doubt, the hon. Gentleman entertained respect, held a different view. In the end of his book on Political Economy John Stuart Mill discussed the question as to what should be the limits of Government interference, and singularly enough he took as an illustration this very question of the limitation of the hours of labour, justifying Government interference with the view not of overruling but of giving effect to the judgment of individuals, by giving to their deliberate resolves the sanction and validity of law, and enabling them to do what they could not do except by concert. It was one of the merits of these legislative enactments that they gave a sanction to the deliberate resolves of the workmen, and tended to remove the necessity for combinations and strikes. The hon. Member for Hackney had spoken of women combining to form trades' unions; but if they could be protected by law without such combinations, there would be no need for resorting to that alternative. He wished to point out to the House that in matters respecting manual labour the wives and daughters of the operative classes were not free agents; for there could be no doubt that, generally speaking, liberty of contract with them meant liberty of coercion. Women were, undoubtedly, goaded on by influences which men did not and could not feel; and, whether they were married or single, they were affected to an almost similar extent. He had received a letter from a constituent of his—a mill owner—asking him to vote against the second reading of the present Bill, on the ground that if the leisure of the women was increased, they would not employ the additional time to good account. He should regret it if some of the women operatives took this course; but he saw no justification for refusing the additional leisure to a majority who would employ it well, because of the existence of a minority who would waste the time placed at their disposal. A woman would work 12 or more hours a day to support the children of a drunken husband, and if she did not do so the children might starve; but did they ever hear of a husband working 12 hours a day to support the children of a drunken wife? No; simply because the charac-
  1438
  ter of the woman was in this respect entirely different from that of the man. There were cases in which the protection of the law was extended to certain classes of adults who were not considered to be able to take care of themselves. There was an instance of this in the Merchant Shipping Act, which forbade sailors entering into certain kinds of contracts, and Mr. Justice Maule had explained that the law considered persons of that class to be in a state of perpetual pupilage. Those who had watched the working of the Factory Acts, were of opinion that the female operative would for some time to come be in the same sense in a state of perpetual pupilage. Without feeling the slightest anger at the statement of the hon. Member for Hackney, that his (Mr. Ashley's) father raised up anonymous bogies, he would assure the hon. Gentleman that many things were thought to be bogies by statesmen who did not go to the places for which they were legislating, but they ceased to be bogies to the philanthropist who examined for himself. If the hon. Member for Hackney had a little more personal acquaintance with the daily life of the operative class in our great manufacturing towns, he would not have used a word which implied disbelief of the descriptions given of the condition of the working people. It was a curious and interesting fact that during the cotton famine of 1862 and 1863 the mortality among children was considerably lower, notwithstanding the want of food—and, in many cases, starvation—to which they were subjected; and this could only be accounted for by the fact that the mothers, not being engaged in the mills, were able to give more attention to their offspring, the result being that maternal care was more efficacious than good living. This Bill would take away the exemption under which silk mills were now worked. He thought the provision a good one; because, in his opinion, the exemption ought never to have been granted. As to any injury which the silk trade might experience in this respect, he would simply refer to the testimony of Mr. Lister, given before the Bradford Chamber of Commerce last week, in which Mr. Lister, who was one of the largest manufacturers in the world, said that the measure was a wise one, and was a compromise which would settle the ques-

  1439
  tion for many years to come. In conclusion, he (Mr. Ashley) wished to thank the House for the attention with which they had listened to him. Having carefully read and considered this subject, he had come to the conclusion that the Factory Acts had done an enormous amount of good in the country; and he believed that this measure, if carried, would be of the greatest possible advantage, inasmuch as it would afford the wives and daughters of factory operatives a better opportunity of learning and fulfilling the duties of domestic life.
  MR BAXTER: I rise, Sir, to give a very cordial and earnest support to the Bill of Her Majesty's Government, believing it to be a measure that is wise, safe, and well considered, which will confer incalculable benefits on the operative class in this country, and which, notwithstanding anything that has been said to-night, I believe will have the effect of settling this vexed question for a long time. I like this Bill because of the elasticity which it gives. It lays down no hard-and-fast line for all parts of the country, but under the Bill, as it at present stands, various arrangements suitable to the wants of the people and of the masters will be able to be carried into effect. I should have been very well contented to have given a silent vote in favour of the second reading of this Bill, but for the very powerful oration of my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett); and in consequence of the opposition that is gathering up in various quarters to this measure, I desire to say a few words simply from a practical point of view. Now, we all know that there are those—I am happy to say they are fewer in number than formerly—who are theoretically opposed to all legislation of this kind. Surely my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney is one of them; at all events, his speech to-night has been from a theoretical point of view. They tell us that the Legislature has no right to interfere between master and servant. I am free to admit that primâ facie there is a good deal to be said in favour of that position; but the fact is, that neither that particular point nor the doctrines laid down by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney to-night, are questions with which we have at present to do. Rightly or wrongly, the Legislature of Great Britain has decided long
  1440
  ago to interfere not only with the labour of children and young persons, but with the labour of female adults; and therefore I must ask the House to descend for a moment from those lofty regions of political economy in which my hon. Friend finds himself so completely at home, and consider the actual position of affairs. Now, Sir, my hon. Friend, the Member for Hackney, began his speech by stating the objection to the Bill from the women's point of view. He said he had no objection to legislate for children and young persons, but he totally objects to the Legislature interfering with the labour of women; because, he said, the labour of women was so inextricably involved with the labour of men that if you restricted the hours of labour for the former, you were as a necessary consequence restricting them for the latter, and he termed it a covert attempt to restrict the hours of labour for adult men. But the labour of young persons and children in factories, as every manufacturer who is now listening to me knows very well, is just as inextricably involved with the labour of men as that of women with men. Therefore, if there is any force in the argument of my hon. Friend, it is just as cogent against that part of the Bill which he says he is prepared to support as against that part of it which he opposes. But he tells us—and all his school of politics tell us the same thing—that if we indulge in legislation of this kind, the tendency will be to discourage and lessen the demand for the labour of women. My opinion is that it has had, and will have, a diametrically opposite effect. That, too, is the opinion of the female operatives of this country themselves—at least, if we may judge from the Petitions which they have sent to this House. They know very well that the labour of women was not discouraged by the operation of the Ten Hours Bill, and I believe that a vast majority of the working women of this country are in favour of legislation of this kind. I know that in our part of the country—and I think I speak with a good deal more practical knowledge of the factory system than my hon. Friend—the female operatives are unanimously in favour of further restricting the hours of labour. Why, I presented a Petition the other day from the town of Arbroath, one of the burghs I have the honour to

  1441
  represent, containing 20,000 inhabitants, which was signed by 2,700 female operatives in favour, not of the Bill of the Government, but of the Nine Hours Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella); and I am happy to say that not only are the operatives, male and female, unanimously in favour of that Bill, but nearly all the manufacturers in the burghs I represent are cordially willing to support the Bill of Her Majesty's Government. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) presented to-night a memorial from the Chamber of Commerce of that great manufacturing city, praying that this Bill may be passed into law. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney has animadverted very much upon sensational speeches. I have never made what might be called a sensational speech in my life. I do not think that this cause is advanced at all by attacks upon manufacturers, or by highly-coloured accounts of the misery and wretchedness of the operatives. For my part, I think the manufacturers of this country, as a rule, are very noble men, who are anxious to do their duty; and I do not think there is anything in the present state of the operatives which would warrant us in thinking otherwise; nor do I think that this House should on any account be guided in a matter of this sort merely upon the opinions of Inspectors. But from my own personal knowledge, I believe that at present in the textile factories the hours are too long. The House knows very well that of late years there have been great improvements in machinery—improvements which have added immensely to the productive power of the country, and which have done a very great deal to compensate for any loss that may have been incurred by the diminishing of hours. But do not let us forget that these very improvements require much greater care and attention on the part of the operatives; and I am satisfied from my personal observation that the strain upon both their mental and their bodily energies at the present moment is much greater than it was 25 years ago. That in itself is to my mind a sufficient reason, not for a jump—not even for such a measure as was passed at the period to which I refer—but for a cautious step in the direction of still further lessening the hours of toil. My hon.
  1442
  Friend talked so much about caution that one would imagine that this was a Bill going further than that of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield. I maintain that if there ever was a cautious measure laid on the Table of this House, it is the measure which we are now discussing. Surely, when we view the result of past legislation, we may derive some encouragement on taking another step in the direction of shortening the hours. I am ashamed to say I am old enough to recollect the dismal forebodings of those Gentlemen who were opposed altogether to the legislation which ended in the passing of the Ten Hours Factory Bill. They told us that foreign competition would ruin our trade; that Great Britain would lose its manufacturing pre-eminence; and that thousands of deluded artizans who were clamouring for shorter hours would be thrown out of employment. Now, my hon. Friend used very much the same sort of argument to-night. I have read all that has been said and written against this Bill, and I find that every one of the old arguments of 25 years ago has been reproduced in almost the same language that was then used. But instead of those dreadful calamities having overtaken this country, what has happened? We have had a series of years of manufacturing prosperity almost unexampled, and wealth has flowed into this country in a manner unparalleled in its history. I see no reason why what happened after the passing of the Ten Hours Bill should not happen again after the passing of the Nine and a-Half Hours Bill. Now, Sir, I myself am a foreign merchant, acquainted with the commerce and manufactures of those countries that are likely to compete with us, and notwithstanding the alarming vaticinations which every now and then are hurled at our heads, I have no fear of trade in this matter whatever. I believe we have the lead, and that we shall keep it, and we shall best do that by reducing the hours of labour for our population, and thus securing the confidence and good feeling of the workpeople. One of the main arguments used against Bills of this sort is that we have already lost from foreign competition part of our trade, and that we are losing it day by day. Well, that I admit at once; but I say that was inevitable in the nature of things. Surely Gentlemen did not expect

  1443
  that we should go on for ever enjoying the absolute monopoly of manufactures. We have lost part of our trade, but we have kept the lead. We have added enormously to our wealth, and very sure am I of this—that we shall not retain our manufacturing pre-eminence by working long hours. My hon. Friend referred at considerable length to the memorial of the manufacturers in the North of Ireland, and to the interesting speech delivered by the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Crossley) on the occasion of the second reading of the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield; and he said there were men in the trade who would tell you that their profits were so small that trade was in a very ticklish condition, and that if you reduced the hours of labour they would all be ruined. Precisely the same language was used before. All our manufacturers in all parts of the world believed that they were to be ruined by the Ten Hours Factory Act. Now, I am happy to say, they have changed their mind, and see that those fears were absolutely baseless. Then my hon. Friend has told us that circumstances have very much changed—that legislation is not now required, because the working classes have been enfranchised, have combinations, and can take care of themselves; and that we should not teach them to hang upon the skirts of legislation, but to make voluntary arrangements. I am just as much in favour of voluntary arrangements as my hon. Friend, and where they can be made it is far better they should be made without the assistance of Parliament; but I appeal to any hon. Gentlemen present who are connected with factories whether it is not a fact that the great majority of those voluntary arrangements have proved signal and total failures. It was because of the impossibility, almost, of bringing about anything like uniformity that legislation was called for. I gladly admit that there have been voluntary arrangements which have been successful, and I do so because I wish to call the particular attention of the House and of the alarmist party to the result of an experiment that was tried. I hold in my hand a memorandum from the flax-spinners and manufacturers in the town of Arbroath, the second paragraph of which is to the following effect—
  "Between two and three years ago—in October 1871—the factory owners in Arbroath, at
  1444
  the request of their workers, unanimously granted them a full hour for breakfast and dinner, thereby reducing the working hours of their mills and manufactories from 60 to 57 per week."
  Now, what has been the result? I state it, not on the authority of the operatives, but of the masters themselves: the result has been that the production has hardly been diminished at all. That greatly strengthens the opinion I have long entertained, that if you reduce the hours, as proposed by this Bill, you by no means reduce the productive power of the works in the same proportion, and therefore all the statistics which have been quoted on this point I have always regarded as absolutely unreliable. In my opinion, the hours fixed in this Bill are quite sufficient for any man, woman, or child to work in a textile manufactory. I was going to say that it seems sometimes as if the machinery itself got tired. At all events, the workpeople at the end of a certain period—and I have observed it often—will get sleepy, indifferent, and callous; and notwithstanding what has been said by my hon. Friend, I believe that the amount of production is not at all proportioned to the number of hours during which the labourers work. My hon. Friend has also referred to the question of overtime, and I desire to say a word on the subject. One of the main arguments of those who have supported in the country the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield is, that outside legislation there has been a remarkable unanimity on the part of the trade for working nine hours a-day, and it is said,—"Why, surely, if the men find nine hours are enough for them, it is only right that women and children should not work any longer." Aye, but say the political economists, led by my hon. Friend—" In all these arrangements by the men, outside legislation, provision is made for overtime," and he has complained of the Bill to-night, and of similar measures, because there is no provision for overtime. Now, I am here to state that I am against overtime altogether. I do not believe that in any case it is profitable to the master, and I am very sure that in all cases it is prejudicial to the servants. I will give a practical proof of this—in a small way I admit—but still a very remarkable instance. I own a small work in Scotland for calendering and finishing linen

  1445
  goods for exportation to various parts of the world. We employ only men and lads, and consequently we are under no restrictions. Twenty years ago it was the universal practice—and it is still the practice in many instances—to work 12 hours, and when the trade was good, to work 14 or 15 hours a day for part of the week. Now, I was so convinced that this could not be a good system, that 12 years ago I issued a peremptory order that no man in my employ should, under any pretext whatever, be permitted to work in these premises for more than 10 hours a-day. And what was the consequence? The very first year—and it has continued ever since—we turned out more bales in the 10 hours than ever we had done in 12 or 15 hours. I was a financial gainer by the result, and I am perfectly certain that when we are driven into a state of alarm about these deductions in our hours, we are under a total delusion. I am prepared to accept the Government Bill very much as it stands. There are only two points to which I would invite the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department. In the first place, with regard to the extra half-hour on Saturday for cleaning out the mill, the operatives in every part of the country are very strongly opposed to it, while several masters have said they do not care about it, and I should be glad to see it omitted from the Bill. The other is a minor point. There is a strong desire on the part of the operatives all over Scotland that they should have a full hour for their meal on Saturdays. It is the practice for operatives in Scotland to go home to their meals. With these two small exceptions I am prepared, as I have said, to accept the Bill of the Government; and notwithstanding the powerful speech of the hon. Member for Hackney, I hope the House will have no hesitation in passing it, for I am persuaded that it is a measure which will tend to bind the various classes of the community more to each other, and make this country stronger and happier than it has ever been before.
  MR. HERMONsaid, the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) had said the Home Secretary had founded this Bill merely upon the Report of the Royal Commission, and without taking the counsel of practical men. But as the
  1446
  right hon. Gentleman had stated he had heard the opinions of both sides, and of both employers and employed, it was clear that the measure had not been framed in the absence of counsel from practical men. When the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) introduced his Bill, there was a considerable amount of feeling in the borough he (Mr. Hermon) represented (Preston) in favour of legislation in that direction. This was the Bill which affected an industry that had materially contributed to the national prosperity as well as to the comfort and well-being of the community at large, and as it affected interests both of capital and labour, it required to be treated with greater consideration and calmness than could well be given it by a private Member. He therefore congratulated the Government on having taken this measure into their hands. He should give his unfeigned support to the Bill, and he trusted it would soon become law. The employed, without resorting to threatened strikes or undue agitation, had asked the House in a constitutional manner to grant them what was right on that subject. He was not, however, surprised to find that the Government had felt considerable apprehension in taking up the subject; but still the House should bear in mind that the principle of the Bill was not a new one, and, indeed, it was only proposed to extend the operation of a principle which was itself adopted long ago. There was a very strong opposition to the Sixty Hours Bill; but it might now be safely said that there was no manufacturer who wished to repeal it. He entirely disagreed with the Commissioners when they said that by giving more time in the evening to the operatives, there would be an increase in debauchery. No such effect had followed from the Ten Hours Bill; but, on the contrary, since it passed the operatives had improved their position socially, mentally, and educationally, while it had advanced a most important branch of national industry. The present Bill was desirable because the boon conferred on the operative classes had, to a considerable extent, been done away with, not through the fault either of the employers or the employed, but through the exigencies of both—the former naturally wishing to secure as large a return as they could for their capital and machinery, and the

  1447
  latter to obtain as much wages as they could for their labour. That which had been prolonged labour was now intensified labour, and the increased speed at which the machinery was driven had nearly deprived the hands of the benefit of the Sixty Hours Bill. He believed this measure would be productive of essential good to the working classes, and having in his early life advocated shorter hours of labour, he would only be consistent in supporting it. Taken, as a whole, the Bill would, in his opinion, be satisfactory to both the employers and the employed, and might safely be adopted by the Legislature. There were two or three points which would require consideration in Committee, and he trusted that the Home Secretary would alter the clause giving half an hour's extra cleaning time, so as to make the Bill a purely 56 hours Bill, and not a Bill of 56½ hours. It was said that if this Bill passed we were likely to lose our ground in the field of foreign competition. Past experience certainly did not warrant any fears of that description, and small manufacturers were, perhaps, better judges on this point than the very large manufacturers, because they were personally acquainted with every detail of their business. Take the exports from Belgium for two or three years previous to the Franco-German War. In 1866 the exports of cotton goods from Belgium were 44,000,000 francs; in 1867, 31,500,000 francs; in 1868, 28,500,000 francs. This was a falling off in three successive years. On the other hand, our exports of cotton yarn goods were, in 1850, 1,000,000,000yds;in 1860, 2,000,000,000 yards; in 1870, 3,000,000,000 yards; and, in 1872, 3,500,000,000 yards. Yet this considerable increase of our trade occurred under the restrictions of the Sixty Hours Bill. He believed that this Bill had conferred indescribable benefits upon the country, and that now every manufacturer was thankful for it. It was well known in the trade that more bad work accumulated during the last half hour or hour than during the whole of the day. During this time a drowsiness crept over the factory hands, so that they became themselves like machines, and almost all the disputes and unpleasantness that occurred during the day had their source in the present prolonged hours of labour. He believed that this Bill would increase the stamina and the
  1448
  health of the people, and that it would benefit the country commercially, socially, and politically. For these reasons, he implored the House to pass this measure as speedily as possible.
  MR. MACDONALDsaid, I will trouble the House for a very few minutes, and I ask its indulgence for that period. In the first place, I beg to thank Her Majesty's Government, and particularly the Home Secretary, for having introduced this Bill. I think it is one well calculated to meet the wants of a great body of the people, and set at rest for a very long time any question of future agitation on the subject. The House must have been delighted to listen to the eloquent speech of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett.) It was in itself a model speech, if it had only been on a right subject. During the course of that speech he stated that the Earl of Shaftesbury had produced one of those anonymous bogies he always had ready to frighten the Home Secretary to take up this question. In no speech that I ever heard have so many bogies been presented as in the speech of the hon. Member himself. What was his first bogey? The first was a description of a scene, not in England, but in Chicago, in the United States of America. He attempted to frighten the House by stating that the workmen appeared before the Magistrates, or Council, or Government of the town, and made certain demands. I happen to know something of the United States of America, and of American workmen. I happen to know very well the State in which is situated the very city to which he refers. When he made his statement he forgot to tell the House the extraordinary circumstances in which these workmen were placed, and the character of the men who were leading them at the time. A great body of working people of Chicago were out of employment. Want was travelling towards or had already taken up its abode in nearly every home. A number of persons had gone amongst the workmen and had circulated opinions which I personally repudiate in the very strongest way. These men not only demanded eight hours a day but demanded bread; and some even went the length of demanding bread without work, and a redistribution of property. We are not to take the conduct of a few men in Chicago as an index of the opi-

  1449
  nions of American workmen. There is more individualism, more true sense, amongst American workmen than will permit such views to weigh with them. The hon. Member presented another bogey—namely, the limitation of production. That has been already mentioned by hon. Gentlemen who have preceded mo, and it is no new one. It is 40 years old and more. It was known in the earliest stage of the advocacy of the short-time movement. It was first attacked by Richard Oastler, and by the noble Earl of whom the hon. Member spoke; and I will venture to affirm that for the good work done by him 40 years ago, and for his continued watchfulness in regard to this matter, both in his place in Parliament and in the country, his name is a household word, and, indeed, is with many a family idol. Another bogey was the loss of independence. The hon. Member for Hackney wanted the House to leave workmen and workwomen to make their own contracts. Now, having passed my life in the ranks of working men, and knowing their views well, I can say there is no wish on the part of adult men that the Government should legislate for them. They have shown, and are showing, that they are perfectly capable of legislating for themselves as to wages and hours of labour, and they only ask that this measure be passed for the protection of those who are not sufficiently independent in themselves—namely, women and children. The next great "scare" is that a limitation of the hours of labour would lead to increase of wages, and the hon. Member implored the House not to pass it on that account. But what does he tell the House before he closes his address? He says he is perfectly agreed with the 10 hours system; nay, more, that he would like to see the nine hours system adopted. While he is willing that the workmen should receive the benefit, he is willing to hand them over to the tender mercies of combinations to establish nine or six hours if they liked. I do not see why that should have the slightest effect upon the House. Another "scare" intended for the working men, was contradictory to the one just alluded to. He said if the hours were reduced the rate of wages would be diminished. I happen to know that the very reverse of this has been the universal rule all over the country, Take
  1450
  the stonemasons. Their wages, with shorter hours, are nearly doubled. The wages of miners, again, with shorter hours, are greatly increased. But take the factory workers. I appeal to the hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter) and the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Hermon) whether, with a limitation of hours, the wages have not increased, and, I have no doubt, will increase. That increase has not in any way led to a loss to this country, for while it has given more comfort to the working men and made their homes happier, it has actually added to the national prosperity. The hon. Member, in order to deter the the House from legislating on this question, said the demand would not stop here, but would positively go further. He quoted a statement from a speech delivered by some isolated individual in the town of Dundee. I happen to have met many men connected with the factory agitation, and they desired strongly that the hours should be reduced to 54 for children in factories. I believe that is their lingering desire still; but I feel perfectly satisfied that the House need not be scared from legislating on this question from any fear of the future. One word upon foreign competition. As has been stated, this is an old cry. I venture to say, having watched carefully, and having taken part in some degree with bodies of workmen belonging to other countries, that we have nothing to fear—that the British workman, well eared for—and he is able to care for himself—will be capable of standing against all comers in the industry of the world. I thank the House for its indulgence, and I cordially thank the Home Secretary on behalf of the miners, who are deeply interested in this question, and are anxious to see it settled.
  MR. TENNANTdesired to thank the right hon. Gentleman not only for the measure which he had brought forward, but for taking upon himself the responsility of attempting to settle a question of so much importance. He was glad to notice the favourable reception it had met with at the hands of the House—a reception which induced him to believe that it would pass through its various stages without undergoing that wonderful transformation which they had occasionally witnessed. So far as he had been able to learn, the feeling of both

  1451
  employers and employed was in favour of the Bill. It had been arrived at after many consultations between them, and it was considered by both to be a not unfair compromise. To the operatives it would be a decided been; whilst amongst the employers of labour, as represented by the Aggregate Association of Employers of Factory Labour, employing between 300,000 and 400,000 hands, there was a general feeling in its favour. The great objection to it was the bugbear of foreign competition; and though he could not take the alarmist view of some hon. Gentlemen upon this point, he nevertheless thought that we were very heavily weighted in comparison with other manufacturing countries. He had, however, great faith in the energy and manufacturing enterprize of this country, and he regarded the Bill before the House as providing for the educational and sanitary requirements of the working classes without exceeding the limits beyond which it was not safe to go. There were many matters of detail which would have to be discussed in Committee; but to two points he wished to call the attention of the House. He thought it rather hard that the textile trades should have been singled out for legislation, and he should hardly have supported the Bill, but for the assurance of the Home Secretary that next year some legislation would be proposed to extend its operation. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would also take that opportunity of consolidating into one Act all the various Factory and Workshops Acts, which were now so complicated and confused as to be almost unintelligible. He hoped, also, that the right hon. Gentleman would bring forward some clause for insertion in this Bill to prohibit the employment of women within a certain period after their confinement—a subject upon which the Commissioners appointed by the late Government displayed a remarkable unanimity of opinion. "With regard to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett), there was great difference of opinion as to whether women should be excluded from the operation of the Factory Acts; but, for his own part, he certainly thought it would be unwise to exempt them. There could not be the slightest doubt that it was for the advantage of married women that they should be included within the scope
  1452
  of this measure; and as it would be a difficult thing to draw a distinction between the married and the unmarried, he would include them all. That, he believed, was the general feeling of the women themselves. He should certainly give his vote against the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hackney, and his best support to the Bill of the Home Secretary, which could be considerably improved in Committee, and which would pave the way for a comprehensive measure, dealing with all trades alike and impartially.
  COLONEL MUREsaid, he had some hesitation in addressing the House after so many hon. Members who had such a concise knowledge of the question before the House. One of the principal questions—the main question, it appeared to him—before the House was, whether the State was justified in interfering with the labour of adult women? Now, he thought there were certain conditions under which the State was justified in doing so, and if these conditions could be proved to exist, then they could support the Bill which the right hon. Gentleman had brought before the House. The conditions he referred to were that if it could be shown that a certain number of adult women employed in the textile fabric manufacture were under subjection, and that that subjection resulted in oppression or abuse, then interference was necessary. He supposed they were justified in taking the Reports of the Inspectors of factories for the last two years, since this question had been brought before the country. Well, according to these, a certain number of women employed in certain textile trades were under subjection. He alluded to those named as "child-bearing women." It appeared it was the custom in the textile fabric trade, partly owing to women at an early age earning high wages, for them to marry at an early age, and unfortunately it was not easy to trace all the evils which, if these reports were to be believed, arose from that practice. It was the custom, it was stated, for men employed in the textile fabric trade, not as others did, to provide means to support their wives, but very often they looked to their wives to support them. The result of this was very melancholy—that a vast number of them went to work when far advanced in pregnancy, and

  1453
  returned to their labours soon after their delivery. They placed their children out under the care of inefficient and sometimes cruel nurses, and the result was there was an amount of degradation brought about which was appalling. The system paralyzed maternal feeling, and as an eloquent writer had said, effected the degeneration of the generation which was to come. He did not wish to trouble the House with quotations, but there were two lines which had been written by one of the Inspectors of factories which would give the House some idea of the matter—namely, "I regard the mother's return to the mill as a sentence of death upon the child." Was not that a melancholy fact? He assumed that they were justified in accepting the Reports of the Inspectors as material upon which they were to form their opinion upon the matter. Well, he could quote line after line, and, if he had time, page after page, detailing the deplorable condition in which these women and children were placed through the evil system referred to, but he would only quote one line—namely, from a statement made by an eminent surgeon—" Nine-tenths of the evils that arise in the textile trade result from these habits of the women." He (Colonel Mure) should like to know why it was that the hon. Member for Sheffield and the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Home Department had not tried at least to introduce some provision in the Bill dealing with this the only evil distinctly spoken of in the Reports. He was inclined to believe the reason was this—that it was thought if the hon. Member for Sheffield and the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had gone to the textile operatives and said—"We are willing to introduce a Bill in Parliament which shall shorten the hours of labour, on condition that we may interfere with your domestic arrangements to meet these evils;" they would have said, "No, we don't want that; we want a Bill which will shorten the hours of labour for purposes of our own." Now, when the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield introduced his Bill, it was naturally discussed throughout the country by factory operatives. Well, there was one provision in that Bill, and there was one in that of the right hon. Gentleman, which postponed the hour of commencing
  1454
  labour from six to seven in the morning. This would no doubt be considerably discussed by the operatives. It would leave the mothers of whom he had spoken another hour with their children; but this was the only provision in the Bill objected to by the operatives in the North. They agreed to all the other provisions of the Bill, but distinctly set their faces against this one. In other parts of the country, also, the only objection to the Bill was in respect of this provision—namely, that the shortening of the hours was to be in the morning, and not, as they wished it, in the evening. But everyone who had studied the question with an impartial mind, and with a real desire to get at the truth of the case, must come to the conclusion that the originators of the present movement were men who were in the textile fabric trade, who looked with jealousy at the remission of the hours of labour in the case of other workmen in the country, and desired that they also, not merely by the weak regulations of trade unions, but by Parliamentary statute, should have a remission of their hours of work. The real originators of this measure were not the women, but those self-acting operatives, as he had said, who looked with jealousy at the leisure that their brethren in other trades had through the trade unions. This House was asked, in fact, to adopt the dictum of trade unions. Well, he complained that this Bill would make the evils of which he had spoken worse. When the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) introduced his Bill, and set forth that its principal provision was to shorten the hours of labour, he was met by the argument of the hon. Member for Hackney—then the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett)—that in shortening the hours of women's labour they would, by the results which would follow that, do them an injury. The hon. Member for Sheffield met that argument out of the store of political knowledge which he possessed, by saying if they shortened the hours of women's labour they would increase the demand for it, and no ultimate evil would accrue to the women. What would the result of the increased demand be, seeing that the right hon. Gentleman ignored these evils mentioned, and did not intend to interfere with

  1455
  them? More mothers would be employed in the textile trade, and more children would be placed under the protection of cruel nurses, and the death-rate amongst infants would be increased; and what was more important to statesmen, there would be an increase in the number of those who, neglected in their childhood, would grow up with feeble constitutions, and become a burden to themselves and to the State. There was not one line in the Reports to which reference had been made which showed that the women the Bill proposed to relieve, were overworked—not one single line. It was logical, he thought, to agree with the evidence and disagree with the verdict as to subjection and want of free-will amongst the women. There were none who were so free as those employed in the textile fabric trade. They earned high wages at an early age, and because of that they were so free that they felt uncomfortable in the homes of their parents, and had establishments of their own. And more than this, they worked where and when they pleased. If they did not like one factory they could go to another, and they could abstain from work when they liked; but as to their oppression and their labour being too much for them, as the hon. Member for Hackney had said, four to one of the medical men who knew anything about factories declared that the work of the women was not excessive. The factory, no doubt, was far removed from a paradise. There were much more pleasant places, but he maintained that these women were in a good position—far better than their sisters in other phases of life; and he maintained that the State had no right to pick out a certain class of women and say—"We find you in a fair position, and we, the State, will raise you to a higher position." The paupers—that miserable body of beings, the paupers who hung like an incubus on the State—had been recognized as a class whom the State was justified in legislating for, but not these women. He would show in another way how this legislation would do harm. Independent of the evil habits of the mothers, many of the factories were in a bad sanitary condition. Numbers had been improved of late, but, speaking generally, there was considerable room for improvement. Well, he wanted to know, whether the
  1456
  small employers of labour would by this measure be encouraged to spend money in the improvement of the sanitary condition of their factories? Would they do this when they found the State nibbling at their capital? And he would ask the House whether, with the knowledge that most men must have that this was the small end of the wedge which might be driven home, these employers, seeing the State candle burning at one end, would be justified in spending capital improvements on their factories, thereby burning the candle at the other end? The Bill would not meet the spirit of the Reports of the Inspectors of Factories, but would tend to increase the number of female operatives, and do a vast amount of harm. The right hon. Gentleman had once said that Lancashire and Yorkshire were crawling with cripples, and that the State was justified in legislating; and now, because these counties were not crawling with cripples, he said they ought to legislate again. That was not a very logical position. They were all agreed on one point, he thought—that it would be more satisfactory if no legislation was necessary. The right hon. Gentleman would say that the employers desired one hour's more work than the labourers. Well, so little under water was the rock upon which they split, that the difference between employer and employed was only 10 minutes a-day. They had had something to do with a Ten Minutes Reform Bill, and now they were to have a Ten Minutes Factory Bill. He called this, not legislation, but arbitration on a point of difference between employer and employed. One word on the question of wages. The hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Macdonald), he thought, would on the whole agree with him, when he said that restricted production was a means of obtaining higher wages. Now, when he spoke of higher wages, he would have to speak of trade unions. They would remember, in 1867, a Commission sat upon trade unions in order to ascertain the effect which this great combination of labour had upon trade. The Secretary of the Amalgamated Engineers, when asked what effect the restricted hours had upon wages, said the effect was to increase the wages, and that was a very delicate subject to speak upon. There were many men in the House, he knew, and many people out-

  1457
  side, who looked upon the great combinations of labour with dislike and contempt. He could understand men whose property had suffered feeling a dislike to the system, but he thought that contempt was simply puerile. It would be as fair to form an opinion of the French nation from the terrible effects of the Reign of Terror, or from the deeds of the Commune in 1871, as it was to form an opinion of the combination of labour from the melancholy revelation which was made to the country with reference to it some few years ago. He had no hesitation in saying that it was by degrees laying the foundation for a system of arbitration between employers and employed which would some day prove most beneficial. All the witnesses examined said that shortened hours meant restricted production, and consequent enhanced wages. One witness not only said that restricted hours meant increased wages, but that the men would prefer shorter hours and lower wages than longer hours and increased wages, because it gave them more power over the employers. He believed that that evidence was, in the main, true. He believed that when trade was good, and when wages were high, then the power rested in the hands of the trades' unions, and that when trade was bad and wages were low, then the sceptre fell from the hands of the trades' unions and was eagerly grasped by the employers. If by the power of trades' unions, wages were raised and even trade was crippled; as long as these trades' unions did not break the law, and any hon. Member, or any Member of the Government, brought a Bill into the House which had for its object the curtailing of the power of trades' unions, he would give that measure his strongest opposition; and when he saw a Bill to raise wages and give unnecessary power to those trades' unions, he gave that his most determined opposition.
  MR. ASSHETONsaid, he represented a constituency (Clitheroe) in which factory hands and factory masters abounded, and while the opinion of the former was unanimous in approving of the Bill, the opinion of the latter was divided upon the question. The only ground on which he could support such an interference with freedom of contract was that in the factory districts the population were deteriorating. The
  1458
  Bill provided against the deterioration of the race arising from the overworking of children and young persons; but he did not think it went far enough as regarded the hours which mothers of families worked. The hon. and gallant Gentleman who spoke last said there was no evidence to show that women were overworked; but surely 10 or 12 hours were too much, and must have a most injurious effect upon mothers of families. It would be very desirable, in his opinion, if they could include as half-timers all women who had children under five years of age. A woman's labour at home in looking after her children and managing her household was worth more than what she could earn in the factory. He hoped that the Home Secretary would kindly turn his attention to that important aspect of the question and see whether he could not embrace it in his proposed legislation. He would give his hearty support to the Bill.
  MR. ANDERSONsaid, that having been connected with factories most of his life, he should support the Bill in spite of the able speech of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett), and in spite also of the able speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Renfrewshire (Colonel Mure). The leading argument of the hon. Member for Hackney was that though they professed to interfere only with women and children, the necessary result was to interfere with the labour of adult men. That was quite true, but it was only incidental. Moreover, it was only to a small and limited extent; because the number of men employed in textile manufactories was very small, while the number of women and children was very great. Now, it was not possible for them to have any system perfect in this world. All they could hope to do was to adopt that course in which there was the least evil, and it appeared to him that there was less evil in interfering with a small amount of adult men's labour than to allow the overworking of great numbers of women and children. He remembered all the arguments of the hon. Member for Hackney being used a great many years ago at the beginning of the factory legislation, which he (Mr. Anderson) was sorry to say he opposed at the time, because he considered it a gross interference with the principles of political

  1459
  economy; but after experience of its working for a number of years he had come to the conclusion that the principles of political economy were not always the best that they could follow, and that in some things it was best to make an exception. There were different classes of factory-owners. Some of them were always willing to do their utmost to secure the well-being of their workpeople, while others had a disposition to grind them down as much as they could; and the result of factory legislation was to compel the bad factory owner to do what the good factory owner would do readily of his own accord. Where formerly the grinding factory owner was able to place his goods in the market on somewhat more advantageous terms than the other, factory legislation had placed them both on the same level. Their machinery now worked at an immensely increased speed—at double the speed, in fact, at which it had worked before—thus producing a very great strain on the employed He thought the time had come when they were entitled to move a little further in the direction that had been found so beneficial before. He remembered in 1847 and 1848, when a much more serious reduction of hours was made, in a few years the mills were producing as much in the reduced hours as they had formerly done in the long ones, and he had no doubt this would also follow the present small reduction. There were just two points in the Bill he would like to refer to. One was the exemption of water-power mills. Now, he disapproved of exemptions. He did not think that the owners of water-power mills had a right to recover time more than the owners of steam mills. Nearly all the water-power mills had assistance from steam, or could have it; and, in point of fact, there were not more stoppages from drought than there were from various causes in steam mills, for which the owner was not responsible, and he knew that when he was engaged in factories it was notorious that under this system of power to recover lost time in water-power mills in country districts that were out of sight of the Inspector, a great deal more work was done than was right. Another point was as to the mode in which certificates as to age were at present given in factories; it was wholly unsatisfactory. A surgeon had to certify
  1460
  that a child had the appearance of not being under 13 years of age. A few months ago a poor child was killed in a pottery at Glasgow. He had been working there for some time, and, in spite of the surgeon's certificate, the boy was actually found to be only 10 years of age. He knew that that happened often, and he thought when they had, at least in Scotland, a universal system of birth registration, and had had it for 16 years, it would be possible to adopt some better system for ascertaining the age of young persons than at present. The hon. Gentleman who spoke last expressed great sympathy with the mothers of children. He (Mr. Anderson) was sure that the House would agree with the hon. Gentleman, and he was sure that the right hon. Gentleman who had charge of the Bill would be most happy if he saw any means of introducing a clause to deal with that great evil. But it was one of those evils that legislation could not reach. He should support the Bill to the utmost of his power.
  MR. STARKEYsaid, that in addressing the House for the first time he had ventured to speak as having had some practical experience of the working of the Factory Act. During the course of his life he had been associated with all branches of manufacture to which the Factory Act was applicable. There were one or two considerations which had been brought before the House during the evening in a very forcible manner, and in which he concurred. One of these was the effect which the Bill might have on property in the country, and this did not apply solely to owners, but also to occupiers of property. If a Bill was passed by Parliament reducing the working hours in factories from 60 to 56, that would to some extent tend to reduce the value of property. And as regarded machinery, if in consequence of the reduction of hours machinery did not run the full time for which it was intended, that would decrease the productive power of machinery, and limit the profits of those investing money in it. Looking at the subject in a general way, it might be asked whether further restrictions were required from a sanitary point of view, and whether the manufacturers could bear curtailment of the present hours of labour. His remarks would be based chiefly on what he knew

  1461
  of the woollen trade, with which he was more particularly acquainted, and in that trade he was sure that the working hours were not injurious to the health of young people. Allusion had been made in the course of the debate as to the effect of the agitation on this subject carried on in the manufacturing districts by those interested in the matter during the recent elections throughout the country. He had the honour to represent one of the largest constituencies in the country, and a constituency where there was a great variety of trades and industries, embracing the mining, the iron and steel trades of Sheffield, and which extended to the town of Huddersfield, where textile manufactures were carried on. It was in his opinion a notable fact that although the people in a portion of that district might have been supposed to share in the agitation, they had not exhibited any strong interest in it. They usually showed a wonderful pertinacity in wishing to be informed on the general policy approved of by those desiring to represent them, and they put questions on every conceivable subject. But it was a strange fact that in these districts where textile manufactures were carried on there was a great amount of apathy, if not a total indifference to this question—which was then called the nine hours movement—being then associated with the proposals of the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella). He would not say that his hon. Colleague and himself had not been asked their opinions with regard to that question, but their constituency had been satisfied with qualified answers, which would not have been the case had there been any great agitation. But when they went to the mining districts—to the neighbourhood of Sheffield, where no doubt the people had become persuaded by the arguments of the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) in reference to the Nine Hours Bill, and where the Factory Acts were not in force—there it was they were asked more particularly as to their opinions on the Factory Acts. This was a significant fact, suggesting that the agitation throughout the country had been commenced through the instrumentality of these large combinations, the trades' unions. He did not stand up to say one word against the trades' unions, or the mode in which they carried on their business. They had shown them-
  1462
  selves well able to conduct their own affairs, and if their business was carried out in a legitimate manner, they might effect some good between employer and employed. But in a matter of this kind, affecting more especially textile manufacturers, it would have been well if the wants, wishes, and interests had been ascertained, both of employers and employed among the textile manufacturers before the serious step was taken of agitating this question. In the woollen trade there was no strong feeling on this question, but he was not prepared to say that in many other branches of industry touched by this Bill a fair case had not been made out in its favour. He was disposed to take a broader view of the subject than had been expressed by some hon. Members. He would not support the suggestion that there should be several Acts applying to different trades—an Act applicable to the woollen trade, one to the silk trade, and so on. If any one trade seemed thus to obtain an advantage over another it would be but a short time before that trade asked to be placed on the same legal footing. He therefore felt the force of the plea which the Home Secretary had used in asking their favourable consideration for the Bill—that he had taken up the matter in a spirit of compromise. Although he did not agree with all the provisions introduced into the Bill by the Home Secretary, still he looked at it in the light of a compromise, and as being a measure which would, he thought, settle the matter for some time to come, both as regarded the operatives, and also as regarded manufacturers. Though the trade with which he was connected—the woollen trade—might not want the Bill, still, after due consideration, he would give it his qualified approval. On matters of detail on which he might differ from the present provisions of the Bill, he might defer observation till they went into Committee.
  MR. WHITWELL, as a manufacturer, felt that the laws by which he was at present governed might be improved, and that a Minister of State was justified in legislating for the health of the people at large. He believed there was occasion for the interference of the House on this subject, for children were admitted to employment in factories at too early an age, and he should also support the measure on the ground con-

  1463
  tended for by the hon. Member for Leeds (Mr. Tennant), that all factories should be placed on the same footing. He should therefore vote for the second reading of the Bill, although he admitted it would require amendment in Committee.
  MR. MUNDELLAsaid, that a measure introduced by the Government would have a much better chance of passing both Houses of Parliament than one introduced by a private Member, and so far from viewing the Bill introduced by the right hon. Gentleman with contempt, as the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) had said he did, the difference was so small between that measure and his own that he accepted it with thankfulness and would give it his most cordial and loyal support. Notwithstanding the transcendent ability with which the hon. Member had addressed the House to-night on one side of the question, he had heard the hon. Gentleman speak with, at least, equal ability and greater success on the other side, and possibly in a few years he would say what he had said when sitting on the other side of the House—that it was to the immortal honour of the Conservative party that they had passed the Factory Acts. In the Bill of the Government there were two hours more working than in the Bill which he introduced, and there was also half-an-hour's cleaning. He would oppose the half-hour of cleaning, because it would be better gone, and took away from the grace of the boon. The Government made better arrangements for education than were contained in his Bill. A great deal had been said about adult males. Well, 1,000,000 of persons were employed in those factories, 74 per cent of whom were women and children, and the remaining 26 per cent were not men, but included everyone who minded an engine, every porter, and every lad of 18 in the establishment. Practically, the factories in England were more and more being worked by women and children, and children were being employed every year more and more. We had passed an Education Act of which, on both sides, we were proud, and the hon. Member for Hackney was one of the great advocates for education. That Act was practically a dead lettter as long as our Labour Laws remained as they were. He defied any employer to say that it
  1464
  was possible for any children to get a decent education while the Factory Acts remained as they were. If school boards were once introduced into the agricultural districts, education there would be better than in the factory towns. The Reports of our School Inspectors said that half-timers were the despair of the schools. The hon. Member said he did not propose to extend the Bill to Sheffield. When personal allusions were to be made it would be only courteous to have personal communication with the individual. But if Sheffield was the most rotten place on the face of the earth that would not justify the rottenness of factory legislation; and if he had taken every shilling of capital that he had abroad that would not justify the state of things at home. But the fact was, more than 19–20ths of the whole of his savings were invested in English industry and would be affected by this Bill, and it was the purest accident in the world that he ever had a shilling invested abroad. That was his answer to the imputation conveyed by the hon. Member's remarks. He maintained that the Bill which the Government had introduced was a noble measure. It was the necessary complement of the Education Act of his right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster). One great advantage of the measure was that it provided for alterations in the standard of education without the necessity of bringing in fresh Bills year by year. The objection of the hon. Member for Hackney to the measure of last year was that it would thrust women out of the factories and leave them no alternative but prostitution or starvation. The hon. Member had not said anything of that kind now, for he had been told better. The absurd project of the equality of the sexes lay at the bottom of his former argument, and that project died with the eminent John Stuart Mill. Then his hon. Friend said the Bill was owing to the jealousy on the part of trades-unionists of female competition. Why, the fact was that the women employed were the wives, the daughters, or the sisters of the very few men who were in the mills. The hon. and gallant Member for Renfrew (Colonel Mure) said that this Bill was the Bill of the trades-unionists. He emphatically denied that statement; employers of labour who were also Mem-

  1465
  bers of that House were among the principal originators of the measure, and one of them was a partner of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster). They had given not only their time, but money to promote the movement. They were ashamed of the overwork of children, young persons, and women, and felt that something must be done. Sixty per cent of the subscriptions for the expenses of the movement came from the women, and nearly the whole of the rest from employers of labour. The case of the young persons had passed almost unnoticed in that debate. They were boys and girls who passed from half time to full time at the age of 13, and the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) said that 00 hours was a right amount of labour for these boys and girls. Only two hon. Gentlemen had spoken directly against this Bill, and neither of them knew anything at all about factories. As for the hon. Member for Hackney, he knew nothing about the internal economy of a cotton mill. He himself had worked in one, and he confessed he should not like to do more than 60 hours a-week. If the hon. Member for Hackney only performed one month's labour in a cotton mill, he would come back to the House an ardent advocate for restricting the hours of labour. The hon. Member had talked about Lord Shaftesbury in a tone of great disrespect, and spoke of his anonymous "bogies;" but he knew of no one who possessed so large a stock of bogies as the hon. Member for Hackney himself. Whatever subject he dealt with he was sure to conjure up a number of terrorisms to frighten people with; he seemed to have a vocabulary of terrorisms on every question he touched. For example, the hon. Member described free education as the first plank of the International, and now he spoke of the present movement as being Socialistic in its nature. Did Socialism reign in Lancashire or Yorkshire, or did it not rather prevail in those countries where there was no legislation of this character? When in Baris, during the Whitsuntide Recess, he conversed on this subject with several eminent members of the French Legislature who had been supporting a Factory Bill on the ground that because of our factory legislation there was less Socialism in England than anywhere
  1466
  else. The hon. Member for Hackney objected that they were going to derange the uniformity of the industries of the country; but he knew that they could only proceed step by step in these matters, and that it was impossible in one Bill to grasp the whole question. The business men to whom the hon. Member referred had all changed their minds within the last few days. Mr. Hugh Mason was a strong advocate of the Bill minus another half-hour taken off it; and the gentlemen who came from the Huddersfield Chamber of Commerce said—"We were sent to curse, and we do not like to bless, but we do not want to oppose the Bill." He (Mr. Mundella) had never met a single factory proprietor who employed women and children who wished to exclude women and children from the operation of the Act. It was nothing but that vague, senseless crotchet of the hon. Member which was at the bottom of all this opposition to the Bill. His hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Dr. Lush) had put on the Paper a Notice to the effect that women should not return to the mills until six weeks after their confinement. He should support the proposition. That rule had been adopted in Alsace, and in the following year the death-rate of children fell more than 80 per cent. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Fawcett) contended that if the working hours were reduced 6 per cent. the outcome would be reduced in the same proportion unless the machinery or its rate of speed were increased. That was, however, an argument which was answered by Mr. Hugh Mason, who, after he had reduced the hours of labour without adding a single revolution to the speed of his motive power, declared that he had not turned out a breadth less in the year after he had made the change as compared with that which preceded it. It was a mistake, therefore, for the hon. Member for Hackney to say that the proposition which he had laid down on the point was as clear as a proposition of Euclid. The fact was that there was a certain amount of tension which the human frame could bear and beyond which it could not support, and to maintain that view was not Socialism, but plain common sense and the result of every-day experience. In Austria and Bavaria children and women were not allowed to work at night, while the

  1467
  latter were prohibited from labour for six weeks after their confinement. Six weeks ago an Act was passed in France prohibiting the employment of women in quarries and mines, which was admitting at all events the principle for which he was contending. Belgium had no legislation on the subject, and the result was that while the women in that country were working in mines the men were drinking in the cabarets. A great deal had been made of the bugbear of foreign competition; but the way to meet that was with an intelligent and robust, not a feeble population. Dr. Hübner, of Berlin, had recently made a calculation of the gross total of all the exports of the various nations of the world, from which it appeared that they amounted to £700,000,000, and of these £700,000,000 England exported £250,000,000, while she imported £300,000,000 of the balance. He hoped, therefore, the House would not be led away by theories, however eloquently urged by men who had no practical acquaintance with the subject. Having spoken to his hon. and learned Colleague of the excellent speech which had been made by the hon. Member for Hackney, the reply was that he had heard the same arguments 40 years ago, and indeed Hansard was full of them. It appeared, he might add, from a statement of Mr. Newmarch, that we had within the last five years saved £1,500,000,000, and a country which had done that could, he maintained, afford to educate its children and not to overwork its young persons and women.
  MR. ASSHETON GROSSsaid, that in rising to close the debate he really had very little to say, because nearly every objection that had been raised to the Bill had been answered ably, practically, and conclusively by the speeches which had been delivered on both sides of the House. The hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) stated that he only objected to that portion of the Bill which imposed new legislative restrictions on the labour of adults; but if women and young persons were to be taken out of a factory for a certain time, nothing would remain for the men to do, and, therefore, his Resolution in that respect practically fell to the ground. The hon. Member had stated several reasons for objecting to the Bill—that it would lead to a diminution of produce,
  1468
  a diminution of wages, a rise of price, and foreign competition; but the Blue Books printed in 1866, and written long before that date, answered all these objections. As to the argument which had been used by the hon. and gallant Member for Renfrew (Colonel Mure), that the House ought to rest satisfied with the result of previous legislation on the subject, he could only say that it was one in which he could not for a moment concur. Those who knew what the state of things was in Lancashire and Yorkshire before that legislation was made, and the difference in their position which was now observable, could not feel otherwise than grateful to those by whose exertions the change had been brought about, seeing that it had effected the regeneration of the race. The hon. Member for Hackney, he might add, had found fault with him for having introduced a Bill based on the Report which he held in his hand; but he had done nothing of the kind. The facts stated there were not sufficient to legislate upon, but were sufficient to call the serious attention of the Minister of the day to the subject of which they treated, and to induce him to make the most anxious and careful inquiries, with a view, if possible, to legislation. In that work he had been engaged for some months past, and the result was that, in concert with his Colleagues, he had felt bound to lay the present Bill before the House. He had himself some knowledge of the trade in question, for he had during many years represented one of the largest of the towns in Lancashire that were celebrated for the industry, and he had also had opportunities of witnessing, in the town close to which he was born, the working of the factory legislation. He had had interviews with men from Yorkshire and Lancashire connected with the trade, and though, at first, when they came to consult with him, they held strong opinions against the Bill, yet, after many and lengthened conferences, they one by one changed their views, and, to their honour be it said, came at last to give a cordial assent to the Bill. In defending the measure it was unnecessary for him to go further than the speeches they had heard that evening. Manufacturers from Yorkshire, Lancashire, and other parts had in the course of the debate given unanimous testimony to the fact

  1469
  that the strain upon women was at present too great. It was the lengthened strain in the same monotonous work that were them, and it was notorious that their work during the last hour of the day was not to be compared with what they did in the earlier hours, when they were fresh. On this account he had put in a clause requiring that the persons to whom the Bill related should not be employed at the same work for more than four and a half hours continuously, the object being that they might, at all events, have the refreshment of a meal for half-an-hour. He had been accused of having said that women were not free agents in this matter, and he would now repeat that statement. Although the class for whom they were legislating was as independent as any other industrial class in the land, still the actual condition of the mother of a family when the father was working in a factory, and of the children also, was such that as soon as they were able to go to the factory to work they were expected to go. The children might to a certain extent be independent and free; but it was also true that to a certain extent they were under the control of the father, of the employer, and of the habits of the place. With regard to women, however independent they might be, there was that in their character which gave them more endurance under pain, more fortitude under suffering, than men had, and which made them willing to undergo far more than men for the sake of those who were near and dear to them. They would wear themselves down by fatigue, quite reckless of the future consequences to themselves or to their offspring. It was for these reasons that he said they could not deal with women as absolutely free agents. Something had been said about women who had just had children. No doubt, on this point it would be quite out of the question to legislate only for the case of married women. The social evils which would result from such a course would be very serious. It was hard to tell how a knowledge of the fact that the woman had been with child could be brought home to the employer—that was to say, to the person on whom the punishment would fall. He did not say it was impossible; but he should be glad to receive communications from any Members on the subject. He had not been
  1470
  able to draw a clause to meet the case. [Mr. LYON PLAYFAIR: Registration.] No, that would not do. There were insuperable difficulties in getting Returns of that nature made at the time. It had been suggested that he should undertake the consolidation of the Acts of Parliament with regard to factories. This was a large subject, to which he hoped to give a great deal more attention than he had yet done, and it might be in his power at a future time to propose to the House, at all events, some further legislation which would tend to put Acts which were at present in an almost inextricable confusion into an intelligible form. He hoped the House would read the Bill a second time that night, and that it would be proceeded with in Committee at an early day.
  MR. D. DAVIESsaid, he was not going to say a word against the Bill, for which he was going to vote, although he did not intend to do so when he entered the House. He should not have said a word; but he wished to point out that it was a mistake to say the women were not free agents. The Legislature last year passed the Mines Regulation Act, which provided that women should work some two hours less than the men. He had in one of his mines some 30 or 40 nice girls—intelligent and independent girls—their work was very light, and their pay very good under the old hours, and they were satisfied; but when the new rules came into operation, he asked his manager—"Where are all the girls?" The answer was, that they had gone because they could not get what they wanted. Well, he would have liked to let the girls have what they wanted; but the Act was there to prevent it. What was the consequence? These girls went to the farmers to make butter and cheese. They had to work 17 hours a-day instead of nine, and they were paid 50 per cent less. Some went to the publicans, where their hours were twice as long, and their pay little better, so that the Act of last Session, which was meant for their good, had done nothing but harm to these girls. Might not that be the case also in this instance? The late Government, no doubt, had the best intentions for those girls; but to say they were not free agents was a mistake. He should be sorry for any Member of the late Government who went amongst those 30 or 40 girls—he

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  would hear what they had to say. He should like to know how this Bill was to be followed up? His own opinion was that the Government ought to have included a clause to shorten the hours of agricultural labour, and had they done that they would have received his support.
  MR. MACARTNEYwished to say a few words on behalf of the manufacturers in the North of Ireland. The one staple manufacture in that part of the country was the linen trade, which was at present in an extremely critical condition, and if a measure of this kind passed, it might deal a blow from which the trade of the North of Ireland would never recover. Not only those engaged in manufactures, but also the farmers, who were great producers of flax, would be seriously affected by such legislation. He trusted the Government would take this matter into their consideration, and exclude Ireland from the operation of this Bill.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 295; Noes 79: Majority 216.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for Tuesday 23rd June.

  CONSULAR CHAPLAINS.
  Select Committee appointed, " to inquire into the circumstances attending the withdrawal of the allowances granted to Consular Chaplains under the provisions of the Act 6 Geo. 4, c. 87."—(Sir Henry Wolff.)
  And, on June 2, Committee nominated as follows:—Mr. BOURKE, Mr. ONSLOW, Mr. WILBRAHAM EGERTON, Colonel ALEXANDER, Mr. WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT, Mr. RAMSAY, Mr. ASHLEY, Mr. KINNAIRD, and Sir HENRY WOLFF:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Three to be the quorum.
  House adjourned at a quarter after Two o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Heading—Local Government Board's Provisional Order Confirmation (No. 4) * (97).
Second Reading—Magistrates (Ireland) and Commissioners of Dublin Police Salaries * (86); Holyhead Old Harbour Road * (83); Parochial Records (Ireland) * ().
Committee—Supreme Court of Judicature Act (1873) Amendment (56); Gas and Water Orders Confirmation * (52); Court of Judicature (Ireland) * (57–98).

SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE ACT (1873) AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 56.)
(The Lord Chancellor.)
SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE ACT (1873) AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 56.)

  COMMITTEE.
  Order of the day for the House to be put into Committee read.
  LORD REDESDALE, having presented Petitions from the Incorporated Society of Solicitors in the Supreme Court of Scotland, and the Incorporated Society of Writers or Clerks to the Signet for the Amendment of the Bill as far as regards appeals from the Scotch Courts, moved the following Resolution—
  "That as it is admitted that this House is preferred by Scotland and Ireland as their Court of Final Appeal to any other which has been proposed, and as a satisfactory Court of Final Appeal has not yet been established for England, it will be expedient, instead of proceeding to create a new Court for all the three Kingdoms, that the provisions of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act of last Session which prohibit appeal to this House be repealed, and that time be thereby allowed for the adoption of such improvements in the constitution and practice of this House in the discharge of its judicial functions as may remove the objections which have been taken to it as a Court of Judicature, and that the Committee on the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, 1873, Amendment Bill be hereby instructed to amend the same in accordance with this Resolution."
  He conceived that he was quite in Order in moving this Resolution, because if the House went into Committee without some such Resolution, the question of the appellate jurisdiction of their Lordships could not be fully debated He wanted the House to decide in a formal manner, and after full consideration, whether it should give up a jurisdiction with which it had been invested from time immemorial Why should it be given up? Who had asked for its abolition? The legal profession in this
  1360
  country were not in favour of such a step, and in Ireland and Scotland resolutions strongly in favour of the retention of the appellate jurisdiction of their Lordships' House in respect of the appeals from those Kingdoms, had been adopted by all branches of the profession. The only reason assigned for the present measure was what had already been done in the case of England by the Bill of last year But it was now proposed that a new Court of Final Appeal should be constituted for England. Against the constitution of that Court he had already urged objections on constitutional and other grounds. One of the provisions of the Act was that six out of the nine Judges were removable at the pleasure of the Crown after three years, one of the remaining three being removable at will, which was an entirely new principle in their jurisprudence. He objected to try a new experiment at such a cost, and to tread such dangerous ground. What would be gained practically by the proposed alteration? The present Court had given satisfaction:—why had they superseded it by another and untried tribunal? The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack had well said that the prestige enjoyed by the House of Lords could not be obtained by any new Court. That prestige had been found eminently useful in securing the satisfaction of the country at the manner in which the House had discharged the legal duties intrusted to it. Scotland had spoken with no uncertain sound against the abolition of the jurisdiction of the House of Lords—a jurisdiction which had existed and worked well and usefully for two centuries. And as to Ireland, where the opinion of the legal profession was equally decided, they ought to take especially care at the present moment. If the scheme proposed by this Bill were carried into effect, the decisions of the Irish Courts would be brought under a purely English tribunal. Now, as the feeling in Ireland was against undue interference by England with Irish affairs, and as the Bar and the people of Ireland had been well contented with the jurisdiction of the House of Lords, was it not inexpedient to run the risk of making a change which was not likely to give satisfaction? He was in favour of allowing a second appeal, because he thought that on the second appeal everything of importance was

  1361
  brought before the Court in a solemn form, while unimportant points were left out; but he held that appeals from England, Scotland, and Ireland, ought all to be conducted in the same manner Why should Ireland and Scotland have a more expensive system of appeal than that which was devised for England? It had been said that the jurisdiction of their Lordships' House in matters of law had not been a reality. But he submitted that that House was Her Majesty's Supreme Court—in the exercise of its appellate jurisdiction the House discharged its duties in the name of the Sovereign. All the Courts did the same. No doubt it would have been impossible to retain that jurisdiction if the lay Lords continued to take part in hearing appeals; but they did not do so now, and the proposal he would make was in accordance with the ancient custom of appointing "Triers," who as legal Members of the House would act for the House and in Her Majesty's name. In the reign of Charles II., when the jurisdiction of the House was disputed, the great Lord Shaftesbury said—" Your judicature is the life and soul of the dignity of the Peerage in England."——[See Parl. History, iv. 793.] And he might state to their Lordships that the late Lord Lyndhurst strongly recommended him to oppose the abolition of that jurisdiction as a measure most dangerous to the dignity of the House. The noble and learned Lord opposite (Lord Selborne) had changed the opinions he entertained when he was Member of the other House, and he thought it would only have been right if he had stated to their Lordships the reasons he had for having changed his opinion. In 1856, at a time when it was thought the legal element in their Lordships' House was not sufficiently strong to carry on its judicial business, a Bill was sent down to the other House proposing to strengthen their jurisdiction by the appointment of two Deputy Speakers On the second reading of that Bill the noble and learned Lord made use of these words:—
  "He entertained strong objections against the project for removing the jurisdiction of the House of Lords to the Privy Council, or constituting a new tribunal consolidating, in fact, the two. But then he was tempted to ask, after all, was the traditional respect in which the jurisdiction of the House of Lords was held so utterly baseless that no advantage whatever was to be
  1362
  derived in the administration of justice from the high dignity with which it was associated by being united to one great branch of the Legislature? Did the independence of the judicial system gain nothing by having its root and fountain-head in the House of Lords, where, unquestionably it was unassailable by corruption or by the influence of the Crown, and where it was brought into immediate and close contact with the legislative power, so that the same Judges who administered justice in the House of Lords, might also suggest acts of the Legislature to correct any defects or errors in the law? He confessed he could not divest himself of the notion that the administration of justice did gain something in dignity, independence, and stability from its association with the House of Lords; and he believed also that the opinion which had so long prevailed was not unfounded—which supposed that the House of Lords gained something of dignity, honour, independence, and stability from its association with the administration of justice. … If it be possible to establish a satisfactory Court of Final Appeal in the House of Lords consistently with constitutional principle and the interests of the country, would it not be as well—would it not be better—to do so rather than to annihilate all the prestige of centuries, and all the traditional respect which the country had been accustomed to feel for the jurisdiction so exercised, for the sake of attempting some new experiment the success of which no one could foretell?"—[3 Hansard, cxliii. 458–9.]
  These were the very grounds on which he (Lord Redesdale) now asked their Lordships not to part with their jurisdiction. He could not conceive what good reasons could be put forward against the question at that time so well taken up by the noble and learned Lord He believed that their Lordships' decisions as ascertaining the law were more frequently referred to than those of any other tribunal; and he believed there was no theoretical objection to their Lordships' jurisdiction which could not without difficulty be removed. It was said that lay Lords might vote on appeals. The last time any suggestion was made for their doing so was in the case of O'Connell; but at that time the Law Lords who heard the case were only five in number, and there were three on one side and two on the other: seven out of the nine English Judges consulted by the House were in favour of upholding the ruling of the Court in Ireland, and as the case was a political one there were, under such circumstances, some reasons for the proposition; but he was glad to say it was not acted upon, and the decision of their Lordships' House was pronounced by the Law Lords only. The judicial strength of the House might be increased by the means which

  1363
  he suggested last Session; and as he had shown on a former occasion, there was no constitutional objection to the Triers appointed by the House sitting for the discharge of judicial business during the Parliamentary Recess. He thought his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack had been a little severe in his remarks on the fact that the late Lord Chancellor for Ireland (Lord O'Hagan) did not oppose the Bill of last year. It must be remembered that that noble and learned Lord was a Member of the Government by which that Bill was introduced; besides which, when that Bill was under discussion last year, there had not been such an expression of opinion from Ireland as was now before their Lordships—now, both Ireland and Scotland had agreed in objecting to the establishment of any new Court. The Resolution which he now proposed would not have the effect, as had been stated, of destroying the Judicature Act—its only effect would be to repeal that portion of it which constituted the new Court of Appeal—it would not in any way interfere with any of the other provisions of the Bill, which could without any difficulty be so altered as to refer to the House of Lords instead of to the new tribunal it constituted. This was no party question, neither was the proposal to abolish the jurisdiction of that House a Conservative measure; and, therefore, party allegiance did not require that the Conservative Peers should support it.
  Then it was moved to resolve,
  That as it is admitted that this House is preferred by Scotland and Ireland as their Court of final Appeal to any other which has been proposed, and as a satisfactory Court of final Appeal has not yet been established for England, it will be expedient, instead of proceeding to create a new Court for all the three Kingdoms, that the provisions of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act of last session which prohibit Appeal to this House be repealed, and that time be thereby allowed for the adoption of such improvements in the constitution and practice of this House in the discharge of its judicial functions as may remove the objections which have been taken to it as a Court of Judicature, and that the Committee on the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, 1873, Amendment Bill be hereby instructed to amend the same in accordance with this resolution.—(The Lord Redesdale.)
  LORD PENZANCErose to second the proposition of his noble Friend the Chairman of Committees. The Resolu-
  1364
  tion of his noble Friend was one asking for time before the abolition of the appellate jurisdiction of their Lordships' House, and the transfer of that jurisdiction to a new tribunal. When introducing the Judicature Bill last year, his noble and learned Friend (Lord Selborne) said—
  "I do not propose to deal by this Bill with the appeals from Scotland or Ireland. Those countries have each their own system of jurisprudence and judicature, with which, so far as their original jurisdiction is concerned, this Bill does not in any way deal. Furthermore, the evidence given before your Lordships' Committee last year by gentlemen conversant with the practice of appeals from Scotland was to the effect that no change was desired in that country. I think the views entertained by the people of Scotland on this subject are entitled to very great respect; it would be an unwise and unnecessary thing to propose changes applicable to that country which the public opinion of that country does not require. As to Ireland, there was also no evidence that any change was wanted. I do not, of course, conceal from myself that if you establish in England a thoroughly good appellate jurisdiction, and find that it works as we hope it will work, opinion both in Scotland and Ireland may probably hereafter tend to the application and adoption of the same system in those countries."—[3 Hansard, cexiv., 318, 319.]
  If it worked well! Why, it was not in existence yet, nor would it be until November next; and yet after those observations of his noble and learned Friend, made only last Session, it was proposed to extend to Scotland and Ireland this Court which was still in embryo! It could not be said there was any demand for it from either country, because the contrary was the fact. He knew, therefore, of no existing necessity for the removal of the Final Appellate Jurisdiction from their Lordships' House. And here he might remind their Lordships that the change now proposed to be made had never been approved by any Commission or Committee that had inquired into the subject. It was not, so far as he was aware, approved by the Judicature Commission now sitting, nor had he ever heard that any Committee of that or the other House of Parliament had recommended it. The legal jurisdiction of their Lordships' House had recently been working quite as well as at any former period; the legal profession was now largely represented in the House, its decisions commanded, as they always had commanded, the confidence of the country; there were no arrears of business, and yet this was the moment

  1365
  selected for so great a change. Their Lordships' House carried with it traditions and a moral force which it was impossible for any new Court to obtain. His noble Friend on the Woolsack had described in powerful, clear, and unmistakable language the value of their Lordships' jurisdiction; and his noble and learned Friend (Lord Selborne) in 1856 did so in language equally forcible; but when, on a former evening, his noble Friend the Chairman of Committees quoted that language, he (Lord Selborne), with all the dexterity of one of the celebrated Davenport Brothers, extricated himself by saying that—
  "He did not claim any authority for Ms opinion, but if it had any authority he thought his present opinion was better than his opinion some years ago, and his present opinion was most deliberately his opinion of last year."
  When a man of his noble and learned Friend's eminence gave such contrary opinions, the question appeared to be, not which of them was of the greater value, but whether either of them was worth anything, seeing that one neutralized the other. He must repeat that what the House was called on to consider last year was not whether their Lordships' House should continue to be the tribunal for hearing the second appeal, but whether there should be a second appeal at all. His noble and learned Friend had been the consistent advocate of having only one appeal. He proposed that to the House last year; and the House having adopted his proposition, it was impossible the House of Lords could be the Court to entertain it; but as the second appeal was now to be restored, the question of the appellate jurisdiction of this House was still an open one. He would not detain their Lordships by reading the recommendations of the Committee of 1856; but as that Committee was in favour of the maintenance of the appellate jurisdiction of that House, he would remind their Lordships that among the Law Lords who were members of it were Lord St. Leonards, Lord Brougham, Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Cranworth, and Lord Campbell, and that several distinguished lay Peers, including Lord Lansdowne and Lord Ellenborough, were also members of that Committee. Another important consideration was this—For England, Ireland, and Scotland an Imperial tribunal was required. Their Lordships' House pos-
  1366
  sessed that character, for it was a House in which all the Three Kingdoms were represented—and not only theoretically, but practically, for the two sister countries had been of late years represented among the Judicial Members of the House. Now, what had been done in the constitution of the new Court of Appeal to retain this Imperial character? Absolutely nothing. All that was done by this Bill was to amend the Bill of last year, and instead of calling it "the Supreme Court" it was now to be called "the Imperial Court" of Judicature. The name "Imperial" did not carry with it any substance, and the mere fact of giving it such a name showed a consciousness on the part of his noble and learned Friend than an Imperial character was necessary. What good reason, then, had been shown for going forward with this legislation rather than being content to let things remain as they were? The question arose, why was this legislation brought forward? It was on account of the legislation of last year. And what did they do last year? Under the guidance of his noble and learned Friend behind him (Lord Selborne), they proposed to do away altogether with the second appeal, and give only one appeal. It was impossible for the House of Lords to deal with primary appeals, which were between 400 and 500 in the year, and on that footing the jurisdiction of the House could not be retained; but this was an Amendment Bill, and the question now was what was to be done with Ireland and Scotland? The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack thought it necessary and desirable this year that the case of Ireland and Scotland should be considered. This re-opened the whole question—Why were they to be bound by the legislation of last year? Even if the legislation of last year had taken away the appeal from that House and given it to some other Court, they might properly consider what course they should take in this Imperial matter. The legislation of last year restricted the suitors to one appeal; but the Bill now under their consideration not only brought Ireland and Scotland under its provisions, but repealed the Bill of last year as regarded the single appeal—for if this Bill passed, that restriction to one appeal would be done away with as regarded England.

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  Therefore, a fortiori, the question was still open to be considered. He was aware that in asserting that this was the effect of the present Bill, he should not have the assent of his noble and learned Friend the late Lord Chancellor (Lord Selborne), for on a former occasion he had been taken to task by him for saying so. But he was prepared to justify and maintain the proposition that the Bill now before the House did create a second appeal for England, and in that important respect repealed the Act of last Session. What was done by the Bill was this—stripping it of all technical language—it dealt with the Appeal Court whose decisions under the Act of last year were to be final in this way. If they were not unanimous the case might be "re-heard," if either party desired it, before another set of Judges who might reverse what the first set of Judges had decided. Now, the noble and learned Lord called this a "rehearing only," and urged that such a proceeding did involve a Second Court of Appeal; but he (Lord Penzance) called it an "appeal," because it involved two things—it involved the decision of one Court and the decision of a second Court, which might overrule the first. He had paid the greatest attention to the statement of his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack in introducing this Bill on the 7th of May. He said—
  "It appeared to me and to many others, that the arrangements with regard to the Ultimate Court of Appeal were anomalous in this respect, that they abolished any Intermediate Appeal for England, while an Intermediate Appeal would remain for Scotland and Ireland …. We propose, that whenever in any cases heard before the other Divisions of the Court of Appeal the Judges are not unanimous in their decision, the case may, if the parties desire it, be heard before the First Division. In that way there would be virtually a second appeal whenever the Judges on the hearing of the first appeal were not unanimous."—[3 Hansard, ccxviii. 1821–23.]
  He called this, then, a second appeal. But his noble and learned Friend behind (Lord Selborne) said it was only a rehearing. Well, it was a re-hearing by a different set of Judges after the case had been decided by a former set of Judges. That was an appeal; but if his noble and learned Friend still insisted that it was only a re-hearing, he was welcome to call it by that name, it was plain that under whatever name, it was in substance a second appeal. So much as to the question whether they
  1368
  were concluded by what was done last year. Now, one word in conclusion with reference to the Court which his noble and learned Friend proposed to substitute for the jurisdiction of that House. He did not think that a Court constructed on the plan of this Bill could be satisfactory. It certainly was a new idea that a Court was to be cut into two halves and that one half was to have the power of undoing what had been done by the other;—it would be better to establish a properly-constituted Court of Appeal. He could see no benefit in the course proposed, except that of following up the legislation of last year; but as this was an Amendment Bill they ought to consider not only what was done last year, but also what was best to be done. This House had a jurisdiction which it had exercised for centuries, and of which their Lordships were guardians. If they gave it up now and afterwards wished to revive it, the answer of the other House would be, "No; the Peers gave it up." Let their Lordships determine, then, whether they had not better revert to the state of things which existed anterior to the Act of last year before they handed over Scotland and Ireland to what was called an Imperial, but what would in reality be an English, Court.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he rose at once to follow his noble Friends because he must at once say the Resolution was one which the Government must entirely oppose, and because it involved consequences which apparently had not been anticipated. There was great and urgent expediency that this question should now be settled once for all, and that it should not be left any longer hanging up before the public mind as a question still open and undetermined. He was sorry to commence by making a grave objection on a point of Form to the proceedings of one to whom they were accustomed to look up as the guardian and champion of form and regularity. The noble Lord (Lord Redesdale) did not propose any Amendment on the Motion to go into Committee on the Bill, but he moved an Instruction to the Committee in reference to the Bill. He always understood there were two invariable Rules with regard to an Instruction—one, that its object must be to enable the Committee to do something which without the Instruction it

  1369
  would not be in their power to do; and, second, that the Instruction must in form be of a permissive and not of an imperative character. These were rules which did not depend upon the practice or caprice of either House—they were inevitable in the nature of the case and the absolute necessity of leaving the Committee free and without fetter. The Resolution, however, asked the House to resolve that the Committee should make a particular Amendment in the Bill; it was already in the power of the Committee to make that Amendment; and if the House now dealt with a question which was already within the power of the Committee every Member who wished to propose an Amendment in this or any Bill might ask the House to decide the point involved by moving an Instruction. If this course had been pursued with the Regulation of Worship Bill, the whole 40 pages of Amendments might have been placed before their Lordships in the shape of Instructions. Again, in Committee the Chairman was obliged to assume that the Committee was free to obey or disobey an Instruction. These were matters which were discussed half a century ago—as might be found in the papers of Speaker Abbot—and the rule had been rigidly adhered to up to a late period. He hoped, therefore, if they were to go to a division that it would be altered in its terms so that it might not appear that the Chairman of Committees moved a Resolution violating the principle of Parliamentary Order with regard to Instructions to Committees. The Resolution asked the Committee to repeal, not the Judicature Act of last year, but that particular clause of it which prohibited appeals being made to this House. What would be the result of such a Resolution, if agreed to? Why, it would be in direct opposition to the decision come to by the Commons when the Bill went down to them last year. Their Lordships originated the Bill and invited the House of Commons to make provision for the salaries and expenses of the new Court. The other House accordingly laid upon the Consolidated Fund a charge of £40,000 or £50,000 a-year, in consequence of their Lordships intimating their willingness to consent that appeals should no longer come to this House. With that charge still remaining on the public Exchequer, their Lord-
  1370
  ships were now asked to repeal—not, indeed, the whole Act, but that part of it which affected the appellate jurisdiction of their Lordships' House. Was, then, this House now to break faith with the other, and to abandon the proposal on which the other House acted? Could any cause be devised more calculated to bring the two Houses into collision? The Resolution laid down two propositions—first, that no satisfactory Court of Final Appeal had been established; and, second, that it was admitted that this House was preferred by Scotland and Ireland as their Court of Final Appeal before any Court which had been proposed. That the Court of Final Appeal established by the Act of last year was satisfactory to the people of England was shown by the fact that there was not even a division on its provisions in the other House; the opinion of the Representatives of the people this year would be collected at the proper time; but he had not heard of any expression of dissatisfaction out-of-doors on the part of either the people, of the legal profession, or of the Judges, with whom he was in close communication. He knew that the Lord Chief Justice had expressed himself in the strongest possible way in a Paper which was on the Table. But what of the Bar, which was always perfectly ready when it entertained a strong opinion to express it? Last year the Equity Bar differed—and differed rightly—from a provision in the Bill then before Parliament. They held a meeting and expressed an almost unanimous opinion on that point; but no notice whatever was taken of the appellate jurisdiction. A few days ago he received a paper—which was at the service of his noble and learned Friend—signed by some of the most eminent members of the Bar, in which they stated in substance that they wished to express no opinion as to the appellate jurisdiction of this House, but argued in favour of some form of a second hearing of appeals. Therefore, his noble Friend had utterly failed to make out his proposition with regard to England. And now he came to Ireland and Scotland. He (the Lord Chancellor) said last year that it was extremely desirable, before making any change with regard to Ireland and Scotland, that those countries should have ample time to consider these proposals, and he objected

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  to include Ireland and Scotland in the legislation of last year, because they had not sufficient time to consider how it would affect them. But when they did get time, as they had got now, Scotland and Ireland were perfectly entitled to say, "We prefer that your Lordships should continue to hear our appeals; we do not desire that they should go before any other tribunal;" and if they said so, their representations would be worthy of respectful attention. But if, on the other hand, they said, "We understand you have adopted a new tribunal for England. You may be satisfied with that tribunal for yourselves; but we call upon you to repeal the provisions you have made on the subject, in order that your appeals may go back to the same tribunal as before—the same tribunal as the people of Ireland and Scotland prefer for themselves." If they required that, then they required more than they had a right to ask at their Lordships hands. But, let their Lordships examine what was the opinion of Ireland and Scotland on the subject. He would take Scotland first. He wished to speak with all respect of the Bench, the Bar, and the Solicitors, but he begged leave to say that they did not constitute public opinion, but only an element of public opinion entitled to very respectful consideration. He demurred to the statement that if any number of gentlemen, however respectable, met and passed a Resolution, that was to be taken as an expression of public opinion. Public opinion was to be collected in the ordinary mode in Parliament, or from manifestations throughout the country. As to Scotland, the only opinion expressed was professional opinion, and what did it say? His noble Friend had to-night presented a Petition from the Writers to the Signet—a very respectable body—stating their desire that Scotch Appeals should continue to come to this House. What did the Society of Solicitors practising in the Supreme Court of Scotland say? That Society, by their counsel, sent this statement of opinion—
  "Whatever might have been said in favour of preserving the House of Lords as a Supreme Court of Appeal, which has been deservedly acknowledged by the Profession and the public to have been of great service to the Law of Scotland, it appears to the Council, now that the Judicature Act has been passed, that it is no longer expedient to preserve its appellate jurisdiction in regard to Scotch cases, and that there
  1372
  ought to be but one Court of Appeal for the United Kingdom. The Council are, therefore, in favour of the principle of the Bill."
  Then what did they say of the Court provided by this Bill, which, as his noble Friend believed, stunk in the nostrils of the people of Scotland?—
  "The Imperial Court is proposed to be divided into two or more Divisional Courts. To this First Division is appointed the duty of disposing of Scotch Appeals, and in making arrangements under the Act, it is provided that the said First Divisional Court shall sit throughout the year, except during vacation. These provisions seem to the Council to be satisfactory, as affording a strong Appeal Court for Scotch cases."
  His noble Friend read this Resolution, passed by the Faculty of Advocates no later than yesterday—
  "The Faculty resolves that, having regard to the interests of Scotland, the Bill now before Parliament does not provide a satisfactory Imperial Court of Appeal, and trusts that steps will be taken to retain and continue unimpaired the ultimate Imperial jurisdiction of the House of Lords as hitherto and still existing in that House, until an Imperial Court so constituted as to meet the just requirements of the Empire shall be devised, and of which at least one member shall be a Scottish lawyer."
  He had great respect for the opinion of the Faculty of Advocates; but it appeared in order to have the new tribunal acceptable to them and satisfactory to all parts of the Empire, it must have a Scotch lawyer upon it. But what was the opinion of the Faculty of Advocates last year, when exactly the same proposals were made? They met on the 4th of July, when they passed the following Resolution:—
  "That in the opinion of the Faculty, it is essential to the due administration of the law that the supreme appellate jurisdiction should be vested, as it hitherto has been, in one Imperial Court, comprising Judges conversant with the laws of the different parts of the United Kingdom; and the Faculty therefore approves of the proposal that Her Majesty's High Court of Appeal should also have jurisdiction in Scotch Appeals, provided that the Scotch element is duly represented in the persons of its Judges, and that the Scotch Bar have the right of practising before it in all cases."
  He would present his noble Friend, as he was making a collection of Scotch opinion on the subject, with the Resolution passed by the Faculty of Advocates last year, to treasure it up side by side with the Resolution they had passed this year. And now as to Ireland? Only two or three days ago a deputation from the most important commercial and manufacturing town in Ireland (Belfast)

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  had an interview with the Attorney General—he himself, owing to business in their Lordships' House, not being able to see them—and they expressed their opinion that the change of the appellate jurisdiction was a very good change. But it was said the Bar of Ireland was opposed to the change. Well, no Resolution had been communicated to him this year on the subject, but he had some Resolutions which were passed last year—he presumed, however, that the opinion of the Irish Bar this year was that which had been expressed a few nights ago by his noble and learned Friend the late Lord Chancellor of Ireland. But these were their views in June, 1873. Serjeant Armstrong moved—
  "That to maintain uniformity of decision in the Courts of Law and Equity in England and Ireland, as well as to ensure an efficient Tribunal, it is essential that there he the same Final Court of Appeal for Irish and English cases."
  Mr. May. Q.C., moved—
  "That as the amount of property involved in many Irish cases did not admit of an appeal to a Court sitting in England, it was desirable that the Local Courts of Appeal should be preserved."
  Mr. Andrews, Q.C., moved—
  "That a Committee be appointed to report to the Bar in what manner the Court of Appeal in England could be best adapted to be a Court of Appeal for both countries."
  He had shown reasons not only for doubting but disputing, that this was a question on which public opinion had been advisedly expressed or on which professional opinion was unanimous. Public opinion was silent or acquiesced; professional opinion was divided. His noble Friend had quoted a passage from a speech delivered by the ancestor of the noble Earl near him—the first Lord Shaftesbury, in which he styled their Lordships' judicial jurisdiction the life and soul of the Peerage. This was a strong and striking expression; but his noble friend had omitted to mention on what occasion it was used. About 200 years ago there was passing through Parliament a measure called the Test Bill, the object of which was that a declaration of passive and implicit obedience to the Crown should be made. Lord Shaftesbury was strongly, and rightly opposed to that measure; but he had a very small following among their Lordships and a still smaller following in the House of Commons, and he, accordingly, adopted a course which was re-
  1374
  garded as one of the greatest strategic operations ever performed in Parliament. There happened to be three or four appeals in this House to which Members of the House of Commons were the respondents, and Lord Shaftesbury induced the small party who agreed with him in the House of Commons to suggest to that House that it was a Breach of their Privileges to implead any Member of the Lower House at the Bar of the House of Lords. Lord Shaftesbury despaired of defeating the Test Bill, but he thought he could embroil the two Houses in a quarrel and that the obnoxious measure would disappear. In this his Lordship succeeded admirably. When Parliament re-assembled, the Test Bill was renewed, and then Lord Shaftesbury made the speech from which his noble Friend had read an extract. In that speech Lord Shaftesbury told the Lords that the marrow and pith of the Peerage was their judicial power. But could they imagine that Lord Shaftesbury really cared anything about the judicial business or the judicial character of the House—or, indeed, about judicial proceedings anywhere? He hoped his noble descendant would excuse him from saying that he entertained the strongest doubt on the subject, and if his noble Friend (the Chairman of Committees) read the whole of the speech, he would perceive that it contained much that was wild and inflammatory, in addition to the sentence quoted this evening. His noble Friend was opposed to everything which could dissociate the Peers from the Monarchy and the grandeur of their monarchical institutions; but the effect of the change made by the Judicature Bill would be that for the first time the great Court of Appeal for the Empire would be the Queen's Court; whereas, if there were anything in names, it had never been the Queen's Court before. His noble Friend had not submitted an alternative proposal for adoption in the event of the Act of last year being repealed. Neverthless, his noble Friend appreciated some of the objections which had been made to the exercise of the appellate jurisdiction of that House. While agreeing with his noble Friend that there was a considerable anomaly in the way that jurisdiction was exercised by a small number of Peers, he contended that nothing was so calculated to fix public attention on the anomaly as

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  the proposal of his noble Friend to single out three, four, or five Peers, and to say that the decision of cases should belong to a clique of the Members of the House, and not to the House itself. As to the proposal to create certain high judicial offices into peerages, it should be remembered that the Common Law Judges were at present hardly worked, and that they could not possibly undertake to perform fresh duties. Besides, was it likely that the House of Commons would vote £30,000 or £40,000 a-year for the salaries of Judges who were Members of the House of Lords? Nor did he see how the difficulty about the Vacations was to be got over—for it was of the essence of any perfect system of judicature that the Final Court of Appeal should sit throughout the whole of the legal year. His noble Friend might say that the select body he had referred to might sit in the Long Vacation—but that body would not be the House of Lords. How could that be said to be a perfect Court of Judicature which was shut up for six months of the year? The noble Lord asked their Lordships, absolutely in the dark, to reverse clear, definite, and intelligible arrangements which they had already passed into law, not upon any alternative suggested, but upon a vague promise that something might be discovered if only they would undo what had been already done. He thought, and he knew, that Members of their Lordships' House thought deep and long before they assented to the legislation of last year—he believed the legislation of last year would be productive of beneficial results, and that their Lordships would not undo that which they had already done.
  LORD MONCREIFFsaid, that the Bill of last year constituted a Supreme Court of Appeal for England only; the present Bill proposed to abolish that Court, and to institute an Imperial Court of Appeal, and to transfer to it not only the English Appeals, but the appellant jurisdiction of Scotland and Ireland. The Instruction now moved by the noble Lord, the Chairman of Committees would retain the appeal jurisdiction of their Lordship's House. As the Resolution was for the purpose of upsetting the Act of last year, he doubted whether the subject ought not to have been raised on the second reading. This, he agreed, was not only not a party
  1376
  matter, but one of great interest, because it touched the tribunals of the country; and the first question he asked himself was, what was the best Court of Appeal, and the next was whether the new Court would meet the wishes of the people of Scotland? This was a most interesting question in Scotland; because its jurisprudence differed from that of England. That raised a most important question—namely, were they to change their jurisdiction and convey over to a new Court the jurisdiction hitherto exercised on the principles of Scottish jurisprudence? He did not know how far the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack had ascertained the opinion of the profession in Scotland. He did not suppose, unless their Lordships had full information of the opinion of Scottish lawyers, they could ascertain their views, and in 1856 they took the proper way to ascertain it by appointing a Commission. He did not think the professional opinion could be neglected by any one in dealing with this question. The other night he observed that the opinion of the Scotch Judges was in favour of retaining their Lordships' jurisdiction. The Writers to the Signet, it appeared, wished the jurisdiction to be maintained; and he also said that the Solicitors were in its favour. He had, he believed, misrepresented their opinion. The fact was that they expressed regret at the giving up the jurisdiction of the House, but they stated that if the Supreme Court was formed for England it would be a farce to retain the present appellate jurisdiction for Scotland. But what was the fact? They had already excluded Scotland and Ireland from the Act of last year, and there might be those who desired to retain the appellate jurisdiction of their Lordships, even though there was a Supreme Court established in England. No distinct proposition as regarded Scotland had then been made in their Lordships' House, and therefore the profession of Scotland could not be charged with inconsistency in reference to this matter. He now repeated his statement that the appellate jurisdiction of their Lordships' House was made an express stipulation by the Act of Union, and in 1869 it was declared to be the plain right of the people of Scotland to appeal to their Lordships against the decision of the Lords of Session. The Treaty of Union

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  expressly provided that the Courts of Scotland should remain as there constituted—that causes in Scotland should not be cognizable by the Court of Chancery or by the Courts of Westminster, and that no Court in England save only the House of Lords, should have jurisdiction in Scotch causes. That had continued to be the constitution up to the present time. Now, they proposed to do away with it all. He was surely entitled to say that the opinion and feeling of Scotland were entitled to consideration, and that the cases that came up from Scotland were not to be handed over to the ordinary Courts of the Realm. He should certainly never have taken the course the noble Lord had done on the grounds he had taken, but if he were asked his opinion he should say from his long experience of the manner in which the Scotch appeals had been dealt with, he should prefer to retain a jurisdiction which was of the most august character, and which had existed for centuries, rather than resort to the new tribunal. He thought the Scotch people would indeed be ungrateful if they did not wish for the continuance of such a tribunal. But if the law here was wholly changed, his fear was that no Court could be established which would be so advantageous as a Court of final appeal as this House. On that ground he was in favour of the noble Lord's Resolution; but he doubted whether the plan sketched out in it would be sufficient to maintain the jurisdiction of their Lordships' House in its full dignity. At all events, if the Bill should pass, it was to be hoped that care would be taken to make the new Final Court of Appeal in reality an Imperial tribunal. There was, however, no guarantee at present that the Judges who would preside in it would be conversant with the law which they would be called upon to administer.
  LORD DENMAN, for whom Lord O'Hagan—though called for—gave way, said, that probably his arguments might be so weak that those who wished to hear the noble Lord (Lord O'Hagan) first speak, might find that he (Lord Denman) said more in favour of, than against, the measure which he opposed. He had, since 1856, constantly resisted attempts to destroy the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords. Though he would have preferred living in the country, he had come up to
  1378
  oppose unconstitutional measures. The large sums voted for the Bill of 1873 were voted by a different Parliament from that now sitting, and he believed that attachment to the House of Lords had influenced many constituencies to vote against the late Government. That Government was responsible for the expenses of the Tichborne cause—which, he thought, ought to have been stopped at an early stage. He (Lord Denman) had been on the Bench when Sir William Codrington and General Peel were there, and the Claimant had forgotten the names of those who had (he alleged) been rescued with him from the wreck of the Bella, and said "he would enquire," and this was explained by him to mean looking at night into papers; but, if he had had memoranda in his hand, he would have been obliged to explain, and probably been prevented from using them, and the rate at which that case proceeded was disgraceful. Their Lordships' House now possessed noble Lords—one from the Bench of Scotland, another an ex-Chancellor of Ireland—and each nation was anxious for appeals to be heard by a jurist from their own country. He had already, in 1856, and on the Motion for the second reading of this Bill, refuted the error, that by not voting, any noble Lords had forfeited their right to vote. He believed that the people of Ireland wished to retain the jurisdiction in their Lordships' House, and that the people of Scotland could never have the same confidence in any new Court that they had in the House of Lords.
  LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, no one can fail to see that the task undertaken by the noble Lord whose Motion occupies the House is full of difficulty. He seeks to reverse a recent decision of your Lordships, which was affirmed by the House of Commons, chiefly because it was before affirmed by you, relating to a question on which you are far more likely to be made adverse to him because it touches your own ancient privileges, and is calculated to rouse amongst you a spirit of generous self-negation, and induce a decision too unfavourable to yourselves. You have already abandoned your position as the High Court of Parliament, and I doubt not you are predisposed to ratify the abandonment. But the question does not regard you only. The loss or gain is not merely

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  personal to you. You have had a trust committed to you for the good of the Realm, and that great trust you are not at liberty to abandon without coercive reason. For myself, like my noble Friend the Lord Justice Clerk, I did not imagine that this controversy would ever be re-agitated. I thought the ruling of last year on the English Judicature Act had probably closed it for ever. But it has been revived. Public opinion has largely declared itself in various districts of the Empire. The discussion is raised again, in new circumstances and under new conditions, by an English Member of your Lordships' House who possesses the highest personal and hereditary claims to your most respectful consideration; and I have felt bound to give the matter again my best attention, and to reach, upon its merits, the soundest conclusion I can form. I have said so much, perhaps unnecessarily, because my noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack seemed to think, when I last addressed your Lordships on this topic, that there was something in the nature of a personal estoppel against my statement of opinion, because, having been Lord Chancellor of Ireland under the late Government, and not having seceded from it, I had given, as he alleged, the weight of my authority to the opposite view. But the Bill now before the House is not the Bill of 1873. It is essentially different, as has been shown by my noble Friend who seconded the Motion, and raises completely now issues as to the Final Court of Appeal. The Act which passed last Session was passed for England only. I took no part in the discussion of its provisions. I was not present at the passing of it; and, if I had been, my interference would have been an intrusion, if it had not been an impossibility. But now Ireland and Scotland urge their common claim, not to have a Court of Ultimate Appeal distinct from that of England, but to induce England to retain her own time-honoured tribunal, which they both prefer to any new invention. The Bill is changed, I think essentially, as to the double appeal, and on a measure so altered—on a case so urged by those whom it aims to affect for the first time—on a Motion made by an English Peer, and sustained, as I am told, by a mass of judicial and professional sentiment in England, I feel
  1380
  not only at liberty, but bound, with a free and open mind, to form and to express my honest judgment. My Lords, the jurisdiction which the noble Lord asks you to preserve is as old as the Constitution, and has ever been held an essential part of it. It has been maintained for many ages, through all the changes of dynasties and all the revolutions of opinion, and, so far as we have any trustworthy evidence, it is at this moment as respected and as popular as at any period, since it grew into being with the very foundations of the Common Law. The description of its characteristics by Lord Coke, is as true now as it was three centuries ago. He says—
  "Si antiquitatem spectes, est vetustissima; si dignitatem, est honoratissima: si jurisdictionem, est capacissima."
  And if this be so, may we not fairly ask what is the justification for its overthrow? By what authority has it been denounced? On what inquiry has it been found unworthy of existence? What trial has been made to correct its errors and supply its shortcoming, before its condemnation to extinction? The burden of proof is surely on those who assail an institution so venerable in its antiquity and so great in its traditions; and that proof should be strong and clear to overbear the presumption in its favour which those things create. But I venture to say that no change so momentous was ever proposed on lighter grounds or accomplished with less deliberation. Various inquiries have boon instituted by your Lordships as to your Appellate Jurisdiction, and not one of them all has issued in a recommendation to abolish it. There were such inquiries in 1813 and 1823, on which I need not now bestow attention; but the inquiry of 1856, before a Select Committee of this House, conducted as it was by Peers of the highest ability and distinction, beyond all others qualified to pronounce on such a question, and aided by the testimony of men of remarkable professional experience and attainments, may surely claim the greatest consideration. A Committee composed of such persons as Lord Lyndhurst, Lord St. Leonards, Lord Brougham, Lord Cranworth, Lord Campbell, and Lord Aberdeen, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Ellenborough, and Lord Elgin, has rarely been matched in either House of Parliament, The wit-

  1381
  nesses were of the highest and most instructed class, such as Lord Westbury, and my friend Sir Joseph Napier, afterwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland; and that Committee unanimously expressed their entire concurrence with the general opinion of those witnesses as to the expediency of retaining the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House. It is impossible to imagine a pronouncement of greater conclusiveness. Statesmen and Judges, amongst the greatest and the wisest whom England has produced, united in declaring that there was no need of the change which has been wrought; and you are merely asked to affirm their judgment—which no subsequent circumstances have affected, which no subsequent decision has overruled, which, if it was correct in 1856, is equally correct in 1874. The Judicature Commissioners bad not the question of your Lordships' jurisdiction referred to them; and the Committee of this House in 1872, on which I had the honour to serve, did not advise extinction of the tribunal, but that it should be supplemented and strengthened by extraneous aid. This was the last inquiry on the subject, and this the last authoritative counsel given to your Lordships before you were asked to vote for the change of 1873. So that, if I am not mistaken, the judgment of 1856 remains undisturbed; and there is absolutely nothing to bring it into question. And is it too much to ask that that solemn judgment should not lightly be set at nought? Why should it be? Opinion sometimes unduly compels change. It is sometimes too strong for argument,—too masterful for rational resistance. It has its gusts of passion, which obliterate old landmarks, sweep down cherished institutions, and compel reluctant observance of its imperious mandates. But in this case opinion and authority go together. There has been much criticism of the House of Lords as an Appellate Court. Its actual deficiencies have been frequently exposed, and there have been very many and very useful suggestions for its reformation. But I am not aware that England has uttered any outcry against its continuance. I have heard of no popular or professional demand that it should be done away. My noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack has read the Resolutions of 1873 as indicating the opinion of Ireland; but I must
  1382
  remind him that, in 1874, the Irish Bar have unanimously and repeatedly declared their preference for this House as the Final Court of Appeal, and that the representatives of the Irish solicitors have petitioned your Lordships, affirming, for themselves, that preference. They all recognize the necessity of having the same Final Court for the Three Kingdoms, whatever it may be; but they all desire that it may be what it is, and nothing else. In 1873 they did not meddle with the provisions of a measure not immediately affecting them. In 1874 their declarations are strong and unequivocal. Scotland is of the same opinion. The Judges are unanimous—the writers to the signet are unanimous; and, though there appear to be differences elsewhere, my noble and learned Friend behind me has demonstrated that the feeling of Scotland is effectively with this Motion. Is, then, the pronounced opinion of two Kingdoms to go for nothing? Ought it to receive no respect and command no attention? My noble and learned Friend has said that the opinion of the professions is not the opinion of the people, and that this can only be known through their legitimate representatives. But on a question of this description who are to determine? By whose judgment should the general sentiment be guided? Surely the men who alone have opportunity of observing, and have at once a duty and an interest to observe the conduct of a tribunal, are the true exponents of opinion about it? The masses know nothing, and can know nothing, save through their report; and when they combine for praise or blame on such a subject the multitude must follow them. If the working of any judicial institution has their approval, must it not be held of the highest value? The administration of the law is often as important as the law itself, and when those who administer it command the confidence of the advocate and the suitor, the tribunals they control are beyond impeachment. As to the matter before us, the informed opinion of Ireland and Scotland—and of England also, as I am informed, to a very large extent—whilst it desires reform, protests against destruction, and, if the abolition of the judicial functions of this House be permanently achieved, it will occur, not in response to any public complaint or in obedience to

  1383
  any public condemnation, or in satisfaction of any public desire, but against the remonstrance and in spite of the opposition of the classes in, at least, two of the Three Kingdoms, who are most qualified to speak, and best entitled to be heard, on a proposal vitally affecting their profession, their country, and themselves. Well, then, my Lords, if the retention of your jurisdiction be approved by the highest authorities in the Law and in the State; if there be no adverse finding by Committee or Commission; if public opinion be in its favour, why should you cast away a privilege which you hold, not so much for your own honour, as for the benefit of the nations which beg you to retain it? What assurance have you that the thing to be substituted will be bettor than the thing to be destroyed? How has it been demonstrated that you cannot combine continuous judicial action, powerful intellect, deep learning, and wide experience, with the prestige and the dignity incommunicably attached to a tribunal, so venerable in age and so imposing in authority? What are the conclusive reasons which should compel you to abandon your position in the judicial system of the Empire? Consider for a moment the objections which have been raised against the existing arrangements, and whether, even if they be tenable, they he also irremovable? Those objections, as stated by the Committee of 1856, and since repeatedly urged in discussion, were that the attendance of Judges here is uncertain and fluctuating, the adequate number difficult of maintenance, and the period of the sittings limited by the duration of Parliament. Beyond doubt the interest of the suitor is primarily to be regarded, and it is the first duty of Parliament to obtain for him the best available tribunal. To this object must be subordinated all considerations of political convenience and class privilege; and if these things cannot be made plainly to concur with the effective administration of justice, they must be entirely disregarded. But the objections seem to me removable, and by the simplest means. The attendance of the Law Lords is, to some extent, occasional and uncertain, although I believe it was never less so than it has been for a long time past. But the Committee of 1856, and the Committee of 1872 suggested a simple remedy, which should, at least,
  1384
  have been tried before the evil was pronounced incurable. The Committee of 1856 proposed the appointment of Deputy Speakers of the House, who might have been, of course, judicial persons of the highest class; and who would always, with the Lord Chancellor, constitute a permanent Court, deriving aid and counsel from the ordinary Law Lords. The Committee of 1872 made a somewhat similar suggestion as to the association of salaried Judges with the legal Members of the House, and either of these suggestions, if successfully carried out, would have met the main difficulty, not existing, but possible to arise in the actual state of things. Then, as to the cessation of Sittings prematurely, the Committee of 1856 recommended that the House should be authorized by statute to have its Judicial Committees continued in Vacation, and for this recommendation they had the countenance of Lord Hale in his book on the Appellate Jurisdiction. No one can doubt the power of Parliament to adopt such a course, and so that difficulty might have been removed. But further, we have been told—and this is the most common and popular argument against your Lordships' jurisdiction—that it is a "sham" and an unreality, because the Appellate Tribunal is composed only of legal Peers, and not of the majority of your Lordships. Precisely the same objection would have applied at any period of your long history. Your Predecessors always acted according to the judgment of those who were learned in the law. Lord Hale's treatise demonstrates this in many conclusive passages. He says—
  "The Judges have been always consulted withal, and their opinions held so sacred, that the Lords have ever conformed their judgments thereunto, unless in cases where all the Judges were parties to the former judgment, as in the case of ship money."
  And, again, of the Judges, he says—
  "Their opinions have always been the rules whereby the Lords do, and should, proceed in matters of law, especially between party and party."
  And he seems to show the way out of the present difficulty by ancient precedent, when he speaks of the Writs—
  "By which a certain select number of the Lords with the Judges were commissioned by the King to examine, hear, and determine errors in judgments and decisions."
  The rules of action indicated in these

  1385
  passages have ever governed the judicial conduct of this House, and it seems to me a mistake to suppose, as was suggested by my noble and learned Friend (Lord Hatherley), that the O'Connell case established any new practice, or involved any novel abandonment of jurisdiction. The Appellate Tribunal is as substantial a reality at this moment as it has been at any time since it came into existence, and the suggestions to which I have referred, and which have been repeatedly made without effect, would, if adopted, in my judgment give it vigour, constancy, and permanence, while preserving the peculiar attributes which have so largely won for it the attachment and trust of the community. The objections we have heard, though formidable in seeming, are not fatal in fact. They may be encountered whilst we stand within the historical lines of the Constitution, adapting ancient principles to modern needs, and they do not warrant the ruin of an institution which, by their removal, we shall be enabled to reform. If it be possible at once to save and to amend, are we not bound to do so? Can any one doubt the value of uniting the legislative and the judicial functions of your Lordships' House? Does not their exercise work a reciprocity of advantages which should not be wantonly relinquished? May not your legislation derive clearness and precision from the trained action of legal minds? Will not those minds be enlarged and enlightened, for the purpose of decision by contact with the work of statesmanship, and familiarity with the great social and political questions which occupy the intelligence of the world? And why should the final judgment in the court of last resort be deprived, if it be not clearly necessary, of the impressiveness and the respect with which it has been clothed from connection with the exalted position and the proud memories of this great Assembly? My Lords, you may not be convinced by the arguments which I and those who think with me deem it our duty to submit to you. You may answer—" jacta est alea," and your decision may be irreversible. If it be so, I shall strive to hope the best; but I shall lament that decision, alike in the interest of justice and legislation.
  LORD COLERIDGEsaid, he did not think it would be quite manly, having
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  had some very small share in the preparation of the Bill of last year, and a good deal in passing it into an Act in the House of Commons, if he abstained from saying a very few words in support of some of the statements of his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack, and pointing out that some of the assumptions of noble and learned Friends on the other side were not well founded. It was perfectly true that the Bill had been passed in the House of Commons without a single division upon the point, whether the jurisdiction of the House of Lords should be abandoned. Even in their Lordships' House the only Peer who took a division upon it was the noble Lord the Chairman of Committees. Therefore his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack was entitled to say that, so far as the Legislature was concerned, it had pronounced in the clearest manner in favour of the transfer of the jurisdiction of their Lordships' House to the tribunal created by the Judicature Act of last year. He was surprised to to hear that this transference had been made without notice to Scotland and Ireland; but if Parliament took away, with the consent of both Houses, the jurisdiction of their Lordships in respect to English tribunals—if that were transferred to a now tribunal—could any man of sense have doubted that before long the rest of the jurisdiction would inevitably follow? Could anybody have doubted that if the judicial strength of the House of Lords was to pass to the now Court of Appeal, Scotland and Ireland would not be content to have a Court of Appeal separate from that which was set up for England? Although, technically, Scotland and Ireland were not affected by the Act of last year, it was in vain to say that Scotch and Irish Representatives did not foresee the inevitable result of what was being done; and, if they had objections, then was the time to have stated them. He could understand the noble Lord who moved the Resolution desiring to retain the jurisdiction of the House on Constitutional grounds, if it were not that no one knew better than the noble Lord what attempts had been made to fortify it failing jurisdiction. For many years past appeals had been heard, not by the full House, but by a few selected Members—by two or three, and sometimes by one, at whose judgments a distin-

  1387
  guished Judge used to hold up his hands in "respectful amazement." This was a state of things it was impossible to defend. With the object of retaining the jurisdiction of the House, repeated efforts had been made to strengthen it, and the result of the consideration of the matter by a Select Committee in 1872, was that it asked for the appointment of a Judicial Committee, to be composed, not necessarily of Peers, but of men of legal eminence, who were to do the legal business of the House. This was, in plain terms, a proposal to transfer the jurisdiction of the House, and the scheme was substantially undistinguishable from that embodied in the Act of last year and the Bill of this.
  LORD SELBORNEsaid, he would have been content to leave the matter where it was if he did not feel called upon to take his own share of responsibility. It was difficult to comprehend and appreciate the arguments based on the alleged state of Scotch and Irish opinion; but it seemed to come to this—that unless their Lordships thought that, under the influence of Scotch and Irish opinion, they ought to undo what they did for England last year, and to remodel the Final Court of Appeal for England, the voice of Scotland and Ireland had pronounced in favour of the principle of the present measure. The Lord Justice Clerk had certainly failed to show that the Imperial Court of Appeal would be a Court of Queen's Bench, or of Common Pleas, or any other purely English Court, or anything but a truly Imperial Court, hearing appeals from all parts of the British Empire. Why did not Scotland and Ireland object last year when English appeals were taken from the House of Lords? The Bill was introduced early—it was delayed that it might be fully considered; and the Government were reproached for not pushing it forward with sufficient rapidity. It was then open to Scotland and Ireland to have said—"We object to English appeals being taken from the House of Lords, because the interests of Scotland and Ireland cannot be separated from those of England, and because we prefer that our appeals should go to the House of Lords." What was the explanation of the silence last year of the then Lord Chancellor of Ireland, of the Lord Justice Clerk, of the Scotch and. Irish Judges, and of both branches of
  1388
  the Profession? They should have protested against the transfer of English appeals before it was made by Act of Parliament, instead of waiting a year, and then asking that what had been done should be undone. Nor did the matter pass without warning, for he (Lord Selborne) stated in his speech introducing the measure that his reason for not proposing to include appeals from Scotland and Ireland was, that he was not at the time informed of the existence of a state of opinion in those countries which would justify him in making the proposal. He added that he would not conceal his opinion that if the Bill were to pass, and the new Court to be successful, a not remote consequence would be that the Scotch and Irish appeals would also be attracted to it. The matter, however, did not rest there; for an expression of opinion did proceed from Scotland and Ireland with much greater rapidity than he expected, and when this House had decided on the question of English appeals, and the Bill had passed into the House of Commons, there came from the profession in Scotland and Ireland a pressure to introduce into the Bill such provisions as might be necessary to give Scotland and Ireland the benefit of the new Court of Appeal, expressly on the ground—for that was the language in Scotland—that it was essential that the same Court of Ultimate Appeal should decide appeals from both countries. And as regarded Ireland, assuredly he was not to understand that the late Lord Chancellor of Ireland held the opinion then which he held now, and thought it right to remain silent. He must say, after the total absence of any expression of dissent, direct or indirect, while the Bill of last year was pending, and after their declaration in favour of participating in the benefits of the new Court, that their Lordships should now be told that Ireland and Scotland wished all that had been done to be undone—not that those countries might remain as they were, but that English, Scotch, and Irish appeals should be inseparably united—was what he could not understand. If, however, their Lordships would not conclude to undo what they had done as to England, they would pass this Bill in order that Scotland and Ireland might have the alternative which they deemed

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  so essential—namely, the benefit of the same jurisdiction for Scotch and Irish as for English appeals. As to the opinion of the Irish Solicitors, if the public organs of information which he had seen were not erroneous, the Irish Solicitors expressed their opinion by a majority of 15 to 12—a very narrow majority of three in a body composed of 27. The late Lord Derby, Lord Granville, and almost all who took part in the debate of 1856, were agreed that in this matter it was the interest of justice, not the supposed dignity of this House, which ought to be consulted. Well, he (Lord Selborne) would ask their Lordships, in the name of common sense, if they were to create an appellate jurisdiction—and if they passed this Resolution they must do so, because they would destroy that which was now established by Act of Parliament—if they were to create de novo an appellate jurisdiction from all the Courts of this Realm, was it possible—was it conceivable by any human being, that they would think it right, wise, rational, or politic to establish a tribunal which should sit at most only six months of the year, and during those six months should be liable to be interrupted by every Prorogation, Adjournment, and Dissolution of Parliament, and which, during those six months, should sit only four days in the week, because the House did not sit the other two? That was a thing which nobody in his senses would think of recommending as conducive to the due administration of justice. Would their Lordships select for a Court of Justice a place remote, or which would soon be remote, from all other Courts, with no better accommodation for the profession than was provided at their Lordships' Bar? Would they think it right to establish a Court in which there would be no certainty of a continual supply of a sufficient number of fit and proper persons for the administration of justice, a supply which it would be impossible to obtain and keep up unless men were made hereditary Peers whether they had fortunes and inclinations suitable or not? To put these questions appeared almost to reduce the thing to an absurdity. No doubt the antiquity of the institution, the dignity of this House, and the manner in which, on the whole, it had satisfied the requirements of
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  public opinion, might be pleaded for the continuance of the jurisdiction while it existed. But no one in his senses would have thought of establishing a jurisdiction subject to such embarrassments and inconveniences, or of re-establishing it after its removal. It had been said that the country had been taken by surprise. But the fact was, the subject had been under consideration almost without interruption for the last 50 or 60 years. Lord St. Leonards, before he was a Peer of Parliament, and at a time when it was more easy for him to take an unprejudiced view of the question, reviewed in a book universally known, the mode in which the jurisdiction of the House of Lords was exercised, and he was by no means so complimentary as some of their Lordships might expect. The jurisdiction had been in constant process of change, and had at no time been satisfactory, during the last 200 years. Originally, the Judges were required to attend the House during the whole time of all its sittings, and were reproved by Lord Somers for their laxity in the performance of that duty; and the only period at which no complaint was made, was when the House merely registered, and gave effect to, the opinions of the Judges. In the time of Charles IL, when Lord Shaftesbury described the jurisdiction (which, as to appeals from the Court of Chancery, had been for the first time assumed—he might truly say usurped—in the preceding reign), as so precious a privilege of their Lordships, the same noble Lord, in the very same speech, referred to the practice of canvassing for the votes of Peers on appeals, and to the exercise of Royal and female influence to obtain those votes, as scandalously notorious. During the interval between that time and the present century, there were not a few instances of lay Peers voting, and altering by their votes the decision of appeals; and during many years the appeals to this House were generally heard by a single Law Lord, sitting-alone. No doubt Lord Hardwicke and Lord Eldon were very great men, and did much for the improvement of the law; but, even in their times, this state of things did not commend itself to the general intelligence of mankind. In the last days of Lord Eldon, and in the time of Lord Lyndhurst, who succeeded him, Lord Gifford,

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  who had never known anything of Scotch law, and but little of English equity, often sat alone to decide both Scotch and English cases; and Sir John Leach, who was not a Peer at all, was brought in, and also sat alone, without being able to open his lip's in the House, being obliged to adjourn to a Committee Room to tell the counsel and parties the reasons for his decisions. Sir John Lefevre, in his evidence before the Committee of 1872, stated that between 1833 and 1856 there were no less than 200 appeals decided by the Lord Chancellor alone, or by a single Law Lord (Lord Brougham), who frequently sat alone; and that about the same number, 200, were decided by only two Law Lords. Nobody could suppose that all the decisions, given under such circumstances, were satisfactory to the suitors, or to the profession; in some cases they were very much the reverse indeed. Lord St. Leonards, in the book to which he had referred, found very great fault with the manner in which the jurisdiction had been exercised before 1849. He criticized not less than 21 decisions as unsatisfactory, and others might easily be added to that number. No doubt there had been, of late years, a considerable improvement, owing chiefly to the greater legal strength which their Lordships' House had obtained, through the unusually frequent changes in the office of Chancellor; but many of those changes had been due to accidental circumstances, which were not likely so often to occur hereafter, and no one could reckon upon the continuance for any long time of such a state of things. He wished as shortly as he could to remind their Lordships of the various inquiries and attempts to improve their jurisdiction which had been made during the present century, always without any result. Before 1830 there were two inquiries, ending in nothing but the introduction of Lord Gilford and Sir John Leach, to which he had already referred. In 1830 Sir Edward Sugden proposed legislation on the subject; in 1833, Lord Brougham again proposed legislation; in 1834, Lord Melbourne again proposed legislation,—all which schemes contemplated essential changes, and all proved abortive. In 1835, Sir Edward Sugden addressed a letter, in the form of a pamphlet, to Lord Melbourne, in which he said—
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  "An effective Court of Appeal is a necessity; it can no longer be dispensed with."
  And this opinion he repeated as late as 1849. In 1836, and again in 1839, Lord Cottenham and Lord Langdale proposed elaborate schemes of legislation on the subject, differing from each other, which also failed. In 1841 Sir Edward Sugden, then in the House of Commons, introduced a Bill of his own, of which the leading proposals were that two salaried Judges should be appointed to assist the House of Lords, and also the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in hearing appeals, who were to be at liberty to give reasons for their judgments, but to have no votes, unless they were Peers; and that the Equity Judges might be summoned to attend the House. In introducing this Bill, he said—
  "The general feeling of the country with reference to the system now in force is such that it cannot continue much longer, but must inevitably be reformed; and so strongly is the necessity for this reform felt, that no professional man will conscientiously recommend an appeal to the House of Lords if it appears probable that the same individual will preside in the House of Lords upon the appeal. Such a mode of hearing appeals, in my opinion, amounts to a denial of justice."
  This Bill, like all its predecessors, failed. Then came the O'Connell case, in 1844, when the lay Peers finally relinquished the right of taking part in the decision of appeals, admitting, practically, that it was not the House of Lords, but a small number of Judges sitting in the House of Lords, in whom the jurisdiction exercised in the name of the House was really vested. In 1851 the noble Lord, the Chairman of Committees, came forward with the same remedy, which he again suggested last year. He moved an Address to the Crown, praying that—
  "For the advantage of the House, and the suitors thereof, and for the honour of the legal profession, Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to sanction the erection of the offices of Lord Chancellor, Chief Justices of the Queen's Bench and Common Bench, and Chief Baron of the Exchequer, into Baronies, which shall entitle the holders of the said offices to writs of summons to Parliament, by tenure of the said offices."
  The noble Lord did not succeed in persuading the House to agree to that Motion. In 1856 the attempt was made, in the person of Lord Wensleydale, to meet the difficulty by the creation of Peers for life; but the right of the Crown to confer

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  seats in this House upon Peers so created was denied; and an inquiry by a Select Committee of this House, moved for by the late Lord Derby, followed. In moving for that Committee, Lord Derby treated one of those changes, which the most experienced witnesses afterwards examined, and indeed all persons who had given their minds to the subject, thought indispensable, as inconsistent with the very nature and substance of the jurisdiction of this House.
  "With regard," he said, "to the fact, that for one half the year the Tribunal of the highest Court of Appeal is closed to the public; this is an objection (if it be an objection) which is inseparable from the primary consideration of whether the jurisdiction should be vested in the House of Lords or not. If vested in the House of Lords, it follows, as of necessity, that that Tribunal can only sit while the House of Lords is sitting, and can only in that way pretend to exercise its functions."
  Lord Campbell, on the same occasion, advocated the establishment of a Judicial Committee, nominally of the House of Lords, but which should include a certain number of Scotch and Irish Judges, who might not be Peers. Lord St. Leonards and Lord Cranworth warned the House of the difficulties in the way of any such attempts to remove the objections to the jurisdiction. Lord St. Leonards, whose mind had been exercised upon it for above 30 years, said—
  "It is one of the greatest problems that over came before this House, what shall be the alterations made; bearing in mind that you have to preserve your own right, as regards the actual Noting, and, on the other hand, that you want legal assistance, and constant legal assistance. Depend upon it, that the remedy has not yet been hit upon by any human being; for I have examined every one of those suggested."
  Lord Cranworth said—
  "I am afraid we are instituting an inquiry into a problem which it will be extremely difficult to solve."
  The Committee, then appointed, examined many witnesses, of great experience in the law; and almost all of them advocated extensive changes, incapable of being carried into effect without legislation. Among them, the present Lord Chief Baron, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, said—
  "I cannot but think, speaking with all the respect which I unfeignedly feel for this Judicial Tribunal of the House of Lords, its days are numbered, unless some great change takes place in its constitution."
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  In May 1856, that Select Committee made its report. It stated, that there was—
  "a great preponderance of opinion in favour of some change in the manner in which the appellate business of the House is at present conducted."
  and it recommended, that there should be two salaried Law Lords, who should be deputy-speakers, qualified by having held high Judicial office in the United Kingdom for not less than five years—that they should have power to sit during the Prorogation of Parliament—and that Life Peerages, not exceeding four in number, should be created. A Bill was consequently introduced by the then Government, which was allowed to drop in the House of Commons, not because there was not time to proceed with it, but because it was manifestly unacceptable to the House. It was strongly opposed, among others, by the late Sir James Graham; whose tone held out no prospect of any consent, by the House of Commons, to arrangements not devised for the purpose of establishing the best possible system of appeal, but for that of enabling the House of Lords to retain the name of a jurisdiction, which, in substance, it could not satisfactorily exercise. The noble Lord at the Table had referred to some words, which he, (Lord Selborne), had himself used in the House of Commons, when supporting that Bill. These words were very sincerely spoken; but they were spoken in the hope, that something would really be done, to remove the objections to a jurisdiction, which a sentiment, of which he had no reason to be ashamed, made him, like so many others, then unwilling to part with. But nothing was done; and nearly 20 years more passed away, and still nothing was done. The subject was necessarily revived, when the rest of the judicial system of the country came under revision, and when the Judicature Commission made its first Report. In 1871, and 1872, his noble and learned Friend (Lord Hatherley), then Lord Chancellor, introduced two successive measures upon the subject, both in vain. The last of them was referred to a Select Committee of this House; before which Lord Hatherley himself proposed to substitute, for the scheme of his Bill, another plan, by which the House would, even in form, have relinquished its jurisdiction; and,

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  though that plan was not adopted, the Select Committee reported in favour of another plan, proposed by his noble and learned Friend now on the Woolsack, (Lord Cairns), which would have retained the jurisdiction in name only, while really relinquishing it in substance. According to that plan, a number of Judicial Lords were to have been created, with power to vote upon Appeals only, and not upon political questions. Those recommendations received no support, either from the House or from the country; and what was then left to fall back upon? What, but the opinion, which had been deliberately expressed by so great an authority as Lord Chief Justice Cockburn in 1871, when criticizing, in a published pamphlet, the Bill then before this House? He (Lord Selborne) had quoted that passage last year; but the House would excuse him for now quoting it again—
  "The scheme for the creation of a new Appellate Jurisdiction appears to me," said the Chief Justice, "to labour under the radical defect, that it is founded on the basis of retaining the jurisdiction of the House of Lords. Surely the time has come, when the House of Lords may be asked to give up a jurisdiction, which it has only in name, which the House itself does not and cannot exercise, and which, although exercised in its name, is, in reality, committed to three or four Law Lords. It may be hoped that in furtherance of the public interest the House would without any great difficulty, he induced to part with so shadowy an authority."
  In one way or other, it was absolutely impossible, last year, to avoid dealing with the subject. The Judicial system could not in other respects be re-modelled without at least some attempt to place the Supreme Appellate Jurisdiction of this country upon a footing, which might satisfactorily and permanently accomplish those objects, for which such a jurisdiction ought to exist. Never was any proposition made after a longer course of preparation, a more prolonged series of inquiries and tentative measures, all resulting in a practical demonstration, that the jurisdiction of the House of Lords could not be substantially retained, and at the same time substantially changed. When he brought forward the measure of last year, he consulted all the Judges: not one of them, that he could remember, so much as suggested, that the jurisdiction of the House ought to be preserved; more than one of them, certainly, expressed a very
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  decided approval of the proposal, that it should cease. That proposal was supported by public opinion out-of-doors; and it was assented to, in a manner which did their patriotism and public spirit great honour, by their Lordships themselves. Their Lordships recognized the fact, that their true dignity, and real political power, would not be increased, either by maintaining an imperfect Tribunal of Final Appeal for political rather than Judicial reasons, or by creating—if that had been possible—a new constitutional fiction, for the sake of retaining an old one. His noble and learned Friend (Lord Penzance) said that this subject had never been inquired into by any Commission. It was not a subject which any Ministry could have appointed a Commission to inquire into, unless at the express instance of their Lordships, without forgetting what was due to the honour and dignity of this House. Last year, even the initiation in the House of Commons of any legislation on such a subject, not already assented to by their Lordships, was resented—though on grounds with which he did not himself agree—as a violation of their Lordships' Privileges. Nor was there any need for such an inquiry. The greater part of this century, as he had already shown, had been occupied with inquiries and attempts at legislation, which really exhausted the subject. And now, what was the practical meaning of the noble Lord's proposal? Were we to undo what was done last year, and to do nothing else? Or, if something else was to be done, what was it, and by what authority was it to be clone? The noble Lord seemed to think that we might revert to the original system of Triers of Petitions, such as he supposed it to have been in the infancy of this jurisdiction. But he could hardly intend that this House should, by its own sole authority, take upon itself to revise institutions practically obsolete since the days of the Plantagenets, and introduce new modes of exercising the Supreme Appellate Jurisdiction, without the authority of an Act of Parliament. A jurisdiction, resting on a new Statute, would not be the present jurisdiction of this House. What greater reason was there now for supposing that Parliament would create such a now jurisdiction, and make this House the seat of it, more than there

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  was at any other time within these last 50 years? And what possible ground could there be for supposing that any such system would work for the purposes of justice better than, or as well as, that which was agreed to last year, and which the Bill now before the House proposed in some details only to modify? Had those, who thought it would be possible for this House to delegate to the Law Lords the duty of hearing appeals throughout the year, considered how that would work? In the first place, it would withdraw the Lord Chancellor entirely from the Court of Chancery. The other Law Lords, whose services must be relied on, were Ex-Chancellors, not bound to that duty by any strict legal obligation; some of them were men far advanced in years, and a perpetual succession of such wonderful octogenarians as we had lately seen could not be expected. Such men had been found willing and able to take part in the hearing of appeals for four days a week during the six months, or less, in every year, that the House now sat. But did it follow that they would be equally ready and equally able to meet the demand which would be made upon their physical strength and public spirit if they were required to sit daily throughout the year, except during the legal vacations? It might be suggested, as it had been so often before, that some of the Judges, though not Peers, might be called in for the assistance of the House. Had those, who made that suggestion, really considered the extent of the interference which it must involve with the other, not less urgent and important, duties of the Judges, if they were to give the House a real and effective, and not only a nominal assistance? There were already, and there had been often in past times, very eminent Judges, who were Peers; but it had not been found compatible with their other duties for them to give any substantial aid to this House in the hearing of appeals. The House already, once or twice in every Session, had the benefit of the attendance on certain appeals of many of the learned Judges; but it could only be given for a few days at a time, at rare intervals, and then not without inconvenience. In the new Court of Ultimate Appeal would sit the very same men who would otherwise have administered justice in their Lord-
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  ships' House, and they would be reinforced by many others. The present measure was nothing but the complement of the Act of last Session, which everybody saw must come. Would it really be for the interests of their Lordships' House, after this question had been so often debated and considered, after every attempt for so many years to apply a remedy for the better hearing of appeals had turned out fruitless, and after their Lordships, in a manner which reflected the highest honour upon them, had voluntarily made a concession of one of their ancient privileges in the interest, as they believed, of justice, to endeavour to grasp back what they had voluntarily relinquished, and thus throw their powers and privileges into the political arena as matters of party contention? Nothing, in his opinion, could be more unwise or disastrous. He was convinced their Lordships would be influenced only by what they considered best for the interests of justice; and, in his judgment, that consideration should lead them to adopt the proposition of his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack.
  On Question? Their Lordships divided:—Contents 23; Not-Contents 52: Majority, 29.
  Resolved in the Negative.
  Then it was moved that the House do now resolve itself into Committee; Motion agreed to; House in Committee accordingly: House resumed: House to be again in Committee on Tuesday next.

PAROCHIAL RECORDS (IRELAND) BILL—(No. 68.)
(The Earl of Belmore.)
PAROCHIAL RECORDS (IRELAND) BILL—(No. 68.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Heading, read.
  THE EARL OF BELMORE, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, explained the object to be to provide for the safe custody of the records and registries which at the time of its disestablishment were, or ought to have been, in the care and control of the officers of the Established Church of Ireland, but which were now under the care of several persons, and many of them kept in unfit and unsafe buildings. It was proposed that the officers who were at present in lawful custody of

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  these documents should receive compensation for the loss of their fees and emoluments. It was proposed that the records should be in the custody of the Registrar General until they should be finally deposited in the Record Office. It was further proposed that duplicate certified copies of each record should be made—one to be retained in the local registry from which it might have been removed; the other by the Registrar General to be kept with the registers of births, marriages, and deaths provided by statute.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a"—(The Earl of Belmore.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, it was very doubtful whether any staff of clerks sufficiently numerous could be established to make two copies, as was proposed of the 75,000 volumes of records to which the Bill related. But a more important matter was that the Bill dealt with the surplus of the Irish Church Fund, with the object of giving compensation out of it for the fees in connection with the records which certain clergymen in Ireland had up to the present been in the habit of receiving. He was not at present prepared to say that it would be right that those clergymen should suffer any loss under the circumstances; but a proposal of the kind was one which ought to be introduced by the Government. He could assure his noble Friend that he would take up the subject with as little delay as possible, and he hoped therefore that he would rest satisfied with having the Bill read a second time and not proceed any further with it.
  THE EARL OF BELMOREconsented.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly.

COURT OF JUDICATURE (IRELAND) BILL—(No. 57.)
(The Lord Chancellor.)
COURT OF JUDICATURE (IRELAND) BILL—(No. 57.)

  COMMITTEE.
  House in Committee (according to Order.)
  Clauses 1 to 5 agreed to.
  Clause 6 (Constitution of High Court of Justice in Ireland.)
  THE EARL OF BELMOREmoved to omit the word "seven," and to substi-"eight"—his object being, he said, to secure for the Landed Estates Court the
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  services of a second Judge, who, however, might also be made available for one or other of the Departments of the High Court. When the Common Law Judges were reduced from 12 to 10, he proposed that an additional Judge should be appointed to assist the Judge of the Landed Estates Court.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, the question of appointing an additional Judge of the Landed Estates Court had been considered by Her Majesty's Government. He had had the pleasure of receiving a deputation from the body to which the noble Earl had referred upon the subject. He asked them whether there was any arrear in that Court, or whether there had been any delay in the administration of justice. Their reply was, No. He had also received a copy of a note sent to the Chief Secretary for Ireland by the learned Judge who presided over the Court, which stated that there were no arrears whatever, nor was the regular business of the Court beyond the power of the Judge and his officers to dispose of. In such a state of things the noble Earl would judge whether it was the duty of Her Majesty's Government to appoint another Judge.
  Amendment negatived.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clauses 7 to 33 agreed to.
  Clause 34 (Divisions of the High Court of Justice.)
  THE EARL OF BELMOREproposed to reduce the number of Divisions from "five" to "four," and to place the Judge of the Court of Probate and for Matrimonial Causes and the Court of Admiralty under the Common Pleas Division.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he thought there was much to be said in favour of the proposal of his noble Friend. He would consider the matter carefully before the Report.
  Clause agreed to.
  Other clauses agreed to.
  The Report of the Amendments to be received on Thursday next, and Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 98.)

THE CONFERENCE AT BRUSSELS.

  QUESTION.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign

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  Affairs, What subjects were to be considered at the Congress announced as about to meet at Brussels, and whether a British Representative was to attend at the Congress?
  THE EARL OF DERBY: A few weeks ago Her Majesty's Government received an intimation that the Russian Government intended to propose an International Conference to be held at Brussels for the purpose of considering and discussing the laws and usages of war as carried on by armies in the field; with a view, as I presume, to introduce something like a more uniform system in such matters. Among the subjects proposed to be treated were mentioned the exercise of military authority in an enemy's country, the distinction to be drawn between combatants and non-combatants, the treatment of prisoners of war, the lawfulness of reprisals, and various other matters of similar character. We have not, as yet, sent any reply as to taking part in that Conference. We have placed ourselves in communication with other Governments with a view to ascertain their intentions on the subject, and when we hear their intentions we shall be able to say whether we shall take part in the Conference or not.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD'S PROVISIONAL ORDERS CONFIRMATION (NO. 4) BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to the districts of Brecon (two), Canterbury, East Barnet Valley, East Stonehouse, Gorleston, Hardingstone, Kingston-upon-Hull, Liverpool, Lytham, Merthyr Tydvil, Portsmouth, Road, Shipley, and Willesden—Was presented by The Lord WALSINGHAM; read 1a; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 97.)
  House adjourned at Ton o'clock till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.