Sitting of 18 May 1874

MINUTES.
NEW WHIT ISSUED—For Poole, v. Charles Waring, esquire, void Election.
NEW MEMBER SWORN—John Edward Dorington, esquire, for Stroud.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—NAVY ESTIMATES.
Resolutions [May 17] reported.
PUBLIC BILLS—Resolutions in Committee—Ordered—First—Reading—Magistrates (Ireland) and Commissioners of Dublin Police Salaries* [117].
Ordered—First Reading—Factories (Health of Women, &c.)* [115]; Four Courts Marshalsea Dublin* [116].
Second Reading—Marriages Legalization (St. John the Evangelist's Chapel in the parish of Shustock)* [101]; Local Government Provisional Orders* [112].
Committee—Report—Customs and Inland Revenue* [88]; Gas Orders Continuation* [94]; Bishop of Calcutta (Leave of Absence)* [93]; Board of Trade Arbitrations, Inquiries, &c.* [86]; Marriages Legalization (St. Paul's Church at Pooley Bridge)* [102]; Married Women's Property Act (1870) Amendment (re-comm.)* [96].

ARMY—THE 22ND (CHESHIRE) REGIMENT.—QUESTION.
SIR EDWARD WATKINasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether the rumour is correct that the depôt of the second battalion 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment, which arrived in Chester (its local centre) on the 10th October 1873, is to be removed into another county?
MR. GATHORNE HARDY: The Depôt, 2nd battalion 22nd, is attached to 1st battalion, now at home, and consequently moves with it. The 1st battalion has been in its county town for some time, and it is now necessary to move it, and the Depôt 2nd battalion goes with it until the Brigade Depôt Buildings at Chester are completed.

CIVIL ACTIONS (IRELAND)—ACTIONS FOR LIBEL.—QUESTION.
MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether it be the fact that the Irish Judges have decided that in actions for libel they have no discretion as to costs, under the Act 31 and 32 Vic. c. 69, and that they are bound to certify for full costs where there is a verdict for the plaintiff, even though the damages be one farthing; and, if so, whether it be his intention to bring in a Bill to amend the Law and remedy this anomaly?
MR. ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Dr. BALL): Sir, no decision of this character has been come to. There has been a decision of a single Judge—not of the Judges collectively. But the question is of less importance, because in the Judicature Bill there is a clause which leaves the question of costs
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in every action, whether legal or equitable, at the discretion of the Court.

THE GOLD COAST.—QUESTION.
MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSENasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether the Gold Coast policy of the Government will involve any increase of the Colonial Estimates for the present year; and, if so, whether he will take care that those Estimates shall come on at such an hour as will insure an opportunity of their full discussion?
MR. J. LOWTHER: Yes, Sir, it will be necessary to introduce a Supplementary Estimate in aid of the Revenues of the Gold Coast. I hope to be in a position to lay it before the House upon an early day after Whitsuntide, and will take the opportunity of making a statement regarding the policy of the Government upon this question. Full Notice will be given, and ample opportunity afforded for discussion.

IRELAND—DERRY CELEBRATIONS— COSTS OF COLONEL HILLIER.

  QUESTION.
  MAJOR O'GORMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If he would inform the House, whether Deputy Inspector General Hillier, referred to in "The Limerick Reporter" of the 13th March last as "English Inspector General," incurred damages and costs for illegal arrests as alleged; if so, what is the total amount of these damages and costs, and have they been paid by Her Majesty's Government or by Deputy Inspector General Hillier; and, whether the distinction of C.B. has been conferred on this officer; and, if so, whether before or after the actions for illegal arrests referred to?
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: Sir, damages and costs were given against Colonel Hillier in an action brought against him for conduct in the command of the constabulary some three or four years ago. I am unable to give any information in reply to the second part of the Question, because it relates to a point which already during this Session has been brought before the House by the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. Butt), when the House refused to grant the return then moved for. The distinction of C.B. was

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  conferred by the late Government on Colonel Hillier early in the present year, for his general services as a constabulary officer, and long after the matter referred to.

IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT—CASE OF DANIEL NORLEY.—QUESTION.
MR. M. T. BASSasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been drawn to the case of Daniel Norley, a labourer in the parish of Burham in Kent, who at the end of last year was summoned to the County Court at the suit of a tallyman, for a debt of 12 s. 6d.; and on the hearing of the judgment summons Norley's wife appeared and told the Court her husband was confined to his house by severe illness, and was then and had been for some time supported by the parish and attended by the parish doctor; that, nevertheless, an order was made for payment of the debt in two instalments; in default of payment whereof, Norley was in February last taken from his sick bed to Maidstone Gaol; that he only remained there two days, was sent home, and died a few days after; and, how far this statement is consistent with the declaration—"that no debtor is imprisoned unless he was then, or had been since the issue of the summons, able to pay the debt sued for?"
MR. ASSHETON CROSS: Sir, my hon. Friend was kind enough to put off this Question for a day or two, in order that I might make the necessary inquiries. The hon. Member did not read the Question exactly as it stands on the Paper. The circumstances, so far as I am informed, are these—Judgment was obtained against Norley on the 25th October, 1871. He was not sent to prison till the 1st February, 1874. Two days afterwards, the creditor himself, hearing that Norley was ill, paid the debt, and so procured his release. The man did not die till Easter. I want, however, to make some further inquiry into the matter, because I think there is some doubt how far it can be clearly proved that the man was in a fit state of health to be imprisoned; and if my hon. Friend will repeat his Question I will state to him the result.

SEWAGE MANURE.—QUESTION.
MR. HICKasked the President of the Local Government Board, If he has any information in his office showing the quantities and varieties of manure which have been made from sewage in this country through Municipal Corporations or Sanitary Boards, and the average prices each kind of manure has commanded in the market?
MR. SCLATER-BOOTH: Sir, there is no information at the Local Government Board upon the subject.

ORDNANCE SURVEY—SALARIES OF CIVIL SERVANTS.—QUESTION.
MR. ONSLOWasked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether a Memorial has been received by him from Civil Servants employed in the Ordnance Survey, praying for an increase in their salaries; and, if so, what course he proposes to take in reference to that Memorial?
LORD HENRY LENNOX: In answer, Sir, to the Question of my hon. Friend, I have to say that my attention has been called to a Memorial of some 700 Civil Employés of the Ordnance Survey. The complaint of these gentlemen appears to be based on the idea that they are employed in the Civil Service of the Crown; but the late Treasury Commissioners refused to admit such a position, in which they were supported by a Committee which sat upon and reported on the subject in 1871. I am afraid I cannot give any favourable consideration to the Memorial under those circumstances.

PARLIAMENT—BREACH OF PRIVILEGE —THE "MORNING POST."

  QUESTION.
  MR. HERBERTsaid, he wished to bring before the House a case of breach of privilege. He was only a young Member himself, but he was as jealous of the Privileges of the House as the oldest Member could be. The subject of his complaint was two articles in The Morning Post. The first, which was published in that paper on the 12th of May, was as follows:—
  "We have reason to believe that 'the highest authority' in the House of Commons has expressed himself in terms of disapprobation at the use, on more than one occasion in recent discussions, of words and illustrations not con-

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  sistent with the traditional usages of Parliament, and of a character calculated to lower the tone of the debates and lessen the dignity of a deliberative assembly. Possibly some allowance ought to be made for a new House of Commons elected by household suffrage through the instrumentality of the Ballot. In any case a hope may be expressed that, as attention is now called to the subject, no necessity may arise for further reference to it."
  Neither he nor any other hon. Member believed that Mr. Speaker had ever expressed such terms of disapprobation at all, and he, for one, objected, Member of that House, to being called in question and censured by any gentleman of the Press, from whatever paper it might come. The second article appeared in The Morning Post on Saturday, and it stated—
  "The Select Committees of the House of Commons will not meet on Monday, owing to the visit of the Emperor of Russia to the City."
  That statement caused great inconvenience to many hon. Members, and he would ask whether such a statement was not a breach of privilege of that House, and also whether means could not be taken to put a stop to this kind of thing in future?
  MR. SPEAKER: I must ask the hon. Member to conclude with a Motion, and also to bring up to the Table the paragraphs of which he complains.
  MR. HERBERT: I move, Sir, that the House do now adjourn.
  The paragraphs in question having been read by the Clerk at the Table.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has submitted two complaints to the House. With regard to the first question, my attention was drawn to the paragraph which he has quoted, and I did not think it my duty to take any notice of it, because I felt persuaded that no hon. Member of the House would believe that I had entertained any such opinion. With regard to the second complaint, I may say that it is highly to be regretted that an incorrect account should be published of the proceedings of this House; but I must remind hon. Members that we have an authorized record of our proceedings in the Votes and Proceedings of this House, and it is to that record that hon. Members should pay attention. The hon. Member has been somewhat out of Order in concluding with the Motion, "that this House do now adjourn." When the hon. Member had brought the matter
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  under the notice of the House he should have concluded with a Motion founded on the allegation that he brought forward.
  The honourable Member not being prepared to conclude his Complaint with a Motion, the House proceeded to the Orders of the Day.

LORD SANDHURST—MR. ANDERSON'S NOTICE OF MOTION.—OBSERVATION.
MR. DISRAELI: I wish to call the attention of the House to a matter affecting Public Business. I have observed a Notice of Motion given by the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson), which accuses a Peer of the Realm and a high functionary of corruption. I do not presume to give any opinion on the subject of the Motion; but I have observed that, after having appeared for some time on the Paper, it still remains without any day having been fixed for it. I think the House will agree with me that it is not for the welfare of the country, or the dignity of the House, that a Motion of such a character, addressed to a matter of such significance, should remain on the Paper without being brought to some decision. I beg, therefore, to state that I will give the hon. Member the earliest possible opportunity in my power of bringing the matter under the consideration of the House, and if the hon. Member will put it down as the first Motion for Thursday, I will take such steps as to enable the hon. Member to bring it on immediately on that day.
MR. ANDERSON: I beg to thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving me such an early opportunity for bringing forward the Motion. I shall put down the Motion for Thursday.

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

CRIMINAL LAW—ASSAULTS ON WOMEN.—RESOLUTION.
COLONEL LEIGH, in rising to call attention to the very insufficient punishment awarded to men for violent attacks on women, and to move "That an increased punishment should be employed

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in aggravated cases," said, a good deal was said about redressing women's rights, but he thought that the first duty of the Legislature was to redress women's wrongs. He had heard England called the Paradise of women, and it was in order to prevent it from becoming the Hell of women that he brought forward his Motion. He need not multiply instances, but they were continually hearing of outrageous and cowardly attacks upon women by men. Sometimes a woman who had only been married a fortnight appeared before a magistrate with two black eyes, inflicted in the first week of her marriage. Now, although it might have been the habit of Jezebel and of some modern women to blacken their own eyes, they were not likely to accept it as a proof of love on the part of their husband if he blacked their eyes for them. Sometimes men put their wives on the fire; sometimes they jumped upon them; at other times they were brought up for "purring" them, which meant "digging" the women with wooden clogs tipped and heeled with iron. Occasionally death ensued from these attacks, and sometimes a man got hanged. But it required a good deal of interest to be hanged now-a-days. The man might be punished by imprisonment, but the outrage often occasioned the death of the woman, for the broken rib penetrated the lung, or the violent blow sent the woman into the Cancer Hospital. It was a curious thing that the great difficulty in punishing these men came from the women themselves. Sometimes they pretended that they had injured themselves by falling down, and, generally speaking, there was no lie a woman was not ready to go through to save these rascals of men from punishment. In one case, where a woman's nose was much injured, she declared that she had bit it herself. There was usually no reason for these attacks, except that a woman had been "nagging" a little; but it should be remembered that a woman's only weapon of attack was her tongue. Besides, if a woman had been a little aggravating, that was no reason why, when she was within a few days of her confinement, perhaps, she should be knocked down, jumped upon, and treated worse than a dog in the streets. It was not the present generation only that was concerned; but
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the sons of a man who beat his wife treated it as a matter of course, and became women-beaters when they grew up, and what the children in some families saw was enough to infernalize a whole generation. There was no sufficient punishment inflicted for such offences. A man might be sentenced to six months' imprisonment or a fine; but the punishment, whatever it might be, was not sufficient to prevent these aggravated attacks upon women. Garotting had been stopped by means of the "cat" in gaols, and he did not see why it should not be used against men who were in the habit of beating their wives. Some hon. Members were opposed to the "cat," because they believed it degraded humanity; but how was it possible to degrade it lower than those who continually maltreated unfortunate women? He proposed to give the Court a power to order flogging when it deemed it necessary, of adding to the number of lashes on the repetition of the offence, and, finally, of penal servitude. It might not succeed; but if it did, it would be a great thing to have put an end to a practice which was a disgrace to this country in the eyes of all Continental nations, who believed that if the English people could not sell their wives, they could boat them to death almost while they were alive. He would not trouble the House at any further length, because he felt sure that every hon. Member desired, if possible, to shield our countrywomen from the attacks which were so continually made upon them. He hoped they would excuse the weakness of the pleader, and only think of the strength of the appeal he made; and he was sure the women of England would not appeal in vain to the House of Commons. The hon. and gallant Member concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
Amendment proposed,
To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "an increased punishment should be employed in aggravated cases of attacks upon women by men,"—(Colonel Egerton Leigh,)
—instead thereof.
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
MR. DISRAELI: I am sure, Sir, the House must have sympathized with the appeal of my hon. and gallant Friend, for it is a subject on which there cannot be any difference of opinion. Everyone must be disgusted with the accounts we frequently read of assaults committed upon women—upon the gentler—I will not say the feebler—sex. I hope my hon. and gallant Friend will feel that he has accomplished his object in directing the attention of the country to the subject, and that he will allow my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whose mind is now occupied with this and similar subjects, time to reflect as to the practical mode in which the feeling of the country upon this subject can be carried into effect. I trust, therefore, that he will not ask us at this moment to come to any decision upon this particular question, feeling satisfied that, after the address he has made, Her Majesty's Government will bear in mind what is evidently the opinion of the House.
COLONEL LEIGHsaid, he was perfectly satisfied with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, and would withdraw his Amendment. All he desired was fair play for the fairer sex.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

NAVY—CONSTRUCTION OF IRONCLADS.—RESOLUTION.
SIR EDWARD WATKIN: Mr. Speaker, in the terms of the Resolution of which I have given Notice, I now beg to move—
"That the mode of construction (assumed to have been introduced by the late Chief Constructor of the Navy) adopted in the 'Captain' and other iron-Clads—viz., deep empty spaces in the ships' bottoms, and high centres of gravity, demands reconsideration on the part of the Admiralty."
I have, Sir, postponed this question on two occasions—once at the request of the hon. Member for Pembroke, the late Chief Constructor of the Navy (Mr. E. J. Reed), who desired an opportunity to reply to my arguments, which he has not yet heard, and again at the demand of the Treasury Bench, to facilitate the discussion of the Intoxicating Liquors Bill. I now ask the indulgence and attention of the House while I, who am merely a man of business, accustomed for a good many years to the building
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and the management of ships and shipping—I, who am neither a naval architect nor an admiral—endeavour to show that national treasure has been wasted, invaluable life sacrificed, and our naval credit damaged, by an erroneous method of naval construction. Sir, the House will, at all events, confirm me in the proposition that our ships should be safe—that they should be built to swim and to fight, and not to capsize. And if I wanted special justification for appealing to the patience of the House on this vital question, that justification would be found in a grave declaration made in this House by the highest authority—no less an authority than the First Lord of the Admiralty—that, warned by the tragical fate of another ship of peculiar construction, he had taken the Devastation—described by the "Committee on Designs" as "the first-class fighting ship of the immediate future"—out of the list of sea-going iron-clads. In point of fact, the Devastation is "disrated" by the First Lord. Thus, Sir, we find the "first-class fighting ship of the immediate future," the most powerful war-engine of the whole iron-clad fleet, "disrated;" we know that the Captain capsized in no very heavy sea; and the House is familiar with the fact that many iron-clad ships have either been heavily ballasted, or have had their sails reduced, before accepted as safe to go to sea. Of course, it may be urged that this extra ballasting was always contemplated; for the usual official excuse for a miscalculation is, that what the House regards as an error was always contemplated. But I must stop that excuse before it is uttered here, as it may be. What authority can be more conclusive than that of the late First Lord? I will quote it—the right hon. Member for the City (Mr. Goschen) said last year in this House—
"An error was made in the construction of these ships"—specially alluding, I think, to the Vanguard, Iron Duke, and Invincible classes—"and to correct that error, it was necessary they should carry 300 tons of ballast."
"An error was made in the construction," says the late First Lord, and therefore it "was necessary" they should carry extra ballast to make them safe. The design produced an unsafe ship—the ballast tended to ameliorate the defect, and but for the ballast, any one of these ships, in which a capital of several

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millions was invested, might have capsized as the Captain did. Now, Sir, if the captain of one of Her Majesty's ships gets his ship ashore, he has to undergo a court-martial, and his honour and his professional life—nay, it may be his very life itself, has to be weighed in the balance. But if a Chief Constructor or naval architect miscalculates and produces a bad design, there appears to attach neither investigation nor censure, and he is permitted to escape in a cloud of plausibilities—"someone else" always being to blame. I desire, Sir, to prevent all misunderstanding as to what I specially object to in the construction of the Captain, the Devastation, and other iron-clads, which have probably cost the country not less than £5,000,000, and it may be £10,000,000. It is not necessary for me to criticize the system of buoyant-bottomed ships in any other service than that of the Royal Navy, nor even for some of the uses of war itself. The system, under modifications, may have its area of usefulness, or it may not. What I object to is the adoption of a buoyant-bottom in war ships built with heavy side armour a thousand of tons weight—or far more, perhaps—and with heavy turrets and other top weight. The objection is obviously founded upon the simple action of the laws of nature. The buoyancy and the weight are placed in unproportionate positions; the result is—a high centre of gravity, the lifting up of the ship out of the water, and a deficiency of "stability," or, to use plain language, the power of standing upright in the water. I will now, Sir, with the permission of the House, proceed to show why these buoyant bottoms were introduced in the iron-clad fleet by the hon. Member for Pembroke when he had charge of the "construction" department. I will, not to weary the House, only call one witness. That witness shall be the hon. Gentleman himself. The hon. Gentleman, in a lecture at the Royal Institution, in 1871, said—
"The distance between the double bottoms has been made great in recent iron-clads, expressly to facilitate the raising the engines, boilers, and other weights, because it has been ascertained that the tendency of ships to roll has been reduced by this means."
Now, Sir, here we have the whole object. The "engines, boilers, and other weights" were to be "raised," and the
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advantage to be gained was a reduction of the "tendency of ships to roll." "It had been ascertained," said the hon. Gentleman, that the "tendency of ships to roll" had been "reduced by these means" (the deep double bottoms). On the contrary, I shall show that in the ships in question, as designed by the hon. Member, the tendency to roll has not been reduced, but the contrary; and I entirely question that the truth of the principle involved, elucidated in its expected results, has ever been "ascertained" at all. On the contrary, when I come to speak of the proposed corrective for rolling in the case of the Devastation—namely, bilge-keels, I shall produce the evidence of the assumed author, Mr. Froude, to prove that his model of the Devastation, without the bilge-keel, actually capsized as the Captain did. Allow me, at this stage, to ask the House again gravely to consider all that is involved. It is said that the nation has invested £12,000,000 in 55 iron-clad ships. Were there any clear and reliable classified accounts at the Admiralty—which I was led to fear, by an answer of the First Lord to a Question of mine the other night, there are not—I have a strong opinion that they would prove that the real outlay has been a long way beyond £20,000,000 sterling. And assuming all the ships in commission, those ships would have a total complement of possibly 15,000 gallant men. What question could be more serious—honour, life, treasure to be saved or wasted by theories and calculations! The First Lord was good enough to direct my attention the other night—in giving me the usual official answer to the plain, practical Question of an independent Member—to the Report and recommendations of the Committee on Designs. Sir, I am aware there was such a Committee, and that it consisted of 11 civilians and six naval officers. A "Committee" or a "Commission," Sir, is a very convenient way of relieving an embarrassed First Lord of disagreeable responsibility. It is, unfortunately for the country, often adopted. The right hon. Gentleman himself has in this way availed himself of its shield and protection. Probably other First Lords will make use of it in future. But the right hon. Gentleman, in advising me to consult the Report of the "Committee on Designs," seemed to have forgotten that

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there were two Reports. There was a majority Report and a minority Report; and were this the occasion, I should ask why it was that no one of the recommendations of that minority Report, prepared by the gallant Admirals Elliot and Ryder, found a place in his Statement to the House on introducing his Estimates? It is more than two years since that Report was made. What did it recommend? First, that Government should pause; second, that the use of heavy side armour should be discontinued; third, that an armour-plated deck, to protect the vitals of the ships, should be placed five feet below, instead of three feet above, the water line, thereby obtaining real protection for the fighting properties of the ship in place of a sham protection, and obtaining greater stability at the same time; and fourth, that elaborate experiments should be made to elucidate and correct the errors of past calculation. I greatly fear that all this thoughtful advice has so far been thrown away, and that millions of money are being wasted in consequence. I am no advocate for any false economy; but here, I presume to think, we have enormous waste and excessive danger combined, which no petty reductions here and there can redress. In fact, if I am right in my contention, supported as I am by high naval authority, the national treasure is being wasted in the worst possible form—wasted to produce danger to the Fleet. And why, Sir, did these distinguished naval officers—men who have navigated ships at sea, in storm and calm, able mathematicians—not men who only know a ship from drawing one on paper—recommend the discontinuance of side armour? Because the power of the gun's penetration has overcome the thickness of iron side-plating that a ship can float with—and the days of side armour are gone; yet the First Lord is using it still, and the House is voting the money away to waste. The gallant Admirals quoted Sir William Armstrong and Sir Joseph Whitworth, names quite as eminent as that of the hon. Member for Pembroke. Sir William Armstrong said, that—
"No practical thickness of armour can be expected to secure perfect invulnerability for any considerable length of time. At present, it is only the most recent of our armour-clads which has any pretence to be considered invulnerable."
And he added—
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"Vertical side armour should be almost wholly abandoned, and water-tight compartments substituted."
And he says further, that—
"No thickness of iron of less than 20 inches, supported by backing corresponding to that of the Hercules, would have any chance of offering the required resistance."
Sir Joseph Whitworth says—
"It would be necessary, supposing the armour to be such as I have seen hitherto used, to have the plates not less than 20 inches thick; and for protection against a 13-inch gun, the armour would require to be not less than 24 inches thick."
And now, Sir, to return to the immediate subject of discussion, I must again call up the hon. Member for Pembroke, and ask what he admits and what he denies. The hon. Member often writes to The Times for the information of his countrymen and of foreign nations. He wrote last year as follows:—
"Everybody knows that a foolish architect might make the vacant spaces between the bottoms dangerously large for the size of the ship, and that the proper amount should be determined by calculation."
It seems to me, Sir, that the hon. Gentleman hero admits the whole question. "If a foolish architect" can make a ship to capsize by "making the vacant spaces dangerously large"—that is, by giving too great buoyancy below, under the circumstances of solid weights of dead iron at the sides and above the water-line, heavy turrets towering above the deck, and the leverage of masts and sails—and if we have the capsizing of the Captain in illustration, surely the obvious inference, primâ facie, is that that "dangerous largeness" was reached in the Captain if not in other ships. And this, Sir, brings me to the case of the Captain. I do not wish to cast blame. I do not profess to have any opinion to offer but that of a man of business, who has travelled much across the Atlantic and on other seas, and who is in the habit of making common calculations of every-day practice. It would appear from the evidence that everyone was to blame for sins of commission or omission except the builder, Mr. Laird, of Birkenhead, who simply obeyed orders in the construction of the ship, but who urged strongly that experiments as to her stability should be made before the ship went to sea—which experiments never were made. The hon. Member for Pembroke will, however, not forget that he

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not only approved the original design of the Captain—buoyant bottoms and all—but he all but took the whole credit for that design, and likened it in all respects to his own invention in the Bellerophon. Here are extracts from his official letter. The whole of the letter will be found at p. 8 of the melancholy and unsatisfactory volume on the loss of the Captain—
"Mr. Reed (Chief Constructor) to the
"Comptroller of the Navy.
"20th July, 1866."
"After due investigation, I am satisfied that the ship is well designed and proportioned, and that her dimensions are not unduly large for the weight to be carried and the speed to be attained. I do not think she differs materially in these respects from what would have been proposed in this department had their Lordships seen fit to sanction in our design an upper deck eight feet above the water. In fact, the tonnage of the new design is almost precisely the same as the Bellerophon, and it was upon the Bellerophon as a basis that I proposed to proceed, and strongly recommended Captain Coles to proceed nearly two years ago, as stated in my evidence before the Turret Ship Committee. The system of construction proposed for the ship is also the same as in the Bellerophon not only as regards the skin-plating and external stringers behind the armour, but also as regards the 'double bottom,' and the mode of putting it together with bracket-plates and short angle-irons. … In all these essential particulars, therefore, the proposed ship conforms exactly to the views which have been entertained for years past in this department."
Upon the general question of the absolute, essential requisite of stability (p. 8, Captain), Mr. Barnaby (the Assistant Constructor of the Navy), in his evidence before the Committee on Designs, says—
"Stability and a sufficient reserve of buoyancy are the main considerations." [104.]
Admirals Elliot and Ryder (p. 8, section 9.) state—
"That the stability of ships of war should be such as to ensure safety under all the varying condition of water and position of centre of gravity under all the exigencies of the service of the Fleet … 'not' sufficient rule of safety to be guided by an angle of vanishing stability calculated upon a normal condition of draught of water and position of centre of gravity (both of which are liable to great variation in the various requirements of the Fleet)."
It is true, Sir, that the hon. Members of the House are not naval architects, but in one sense we all have been naval architects. We had our little boats in childhood, and what was our experience? We cut out a piece of wood in the form of a boat, and we put in masts and sails.
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We launched it on the Serpentine, and it toppled over at the first puff of wind. Learning by experience, we then nailed a bit of lead upon its keel. It stood then valiantly upright and resisted its enemy, the wind. Here, Sir, we have the whole principle in illustration. Weight below and buoyancy above the water-line—and therefore stability. The modern life-boat is the same. There are members of the Humane Society in this House. I ask, would they build a life-boat on the principle of the Captain or the Devastation? In fact, excessive buoyancy below and excessive weight above is simply a reversal of the lifeboat principle. Now, I gather from the hon. Member for Pembroke that even he had compunctions; for in another letter of his to The Times, written after the loss of the Captain, he said—
"It would be quite proper in designing a new sea-going turret ship to replace the Captain, which I earnestly hope will be done, to go some distance in the direction of increasing the beam and of 'lowering the centre of gravity,' and the masting might also be decreased, although that may not be necessary." [Letter, 29th September. 1870.]
Let the House put together the "foolish naval architect" and this proposal to lower the centre of gravity, each and both in connection with the never-to-be-forgotten letter of approval of the 20th of July, 1866, and say whether the inference is not a fair one—namely, that the hon. Gentleman became conscious of a mistake and did not frankly admit it? No one can have a higher opinion of the varied talents of the hon. Gentleman than I have. I believe he desired patriotically to promote the progress of the Navy. But I humbly conceive that he made an error—that he adopted a mathematical fallacy. Why should any man be afraid to admit a mistake? On one side, the admission would be taken as a noble deference to truth—and, on the other, men would be reminded that the only people who make no mistakes are the men who do nothing which is original or striking; and that progress must of necessity mount over the barriers of experiment, and great successes be the consequent of brilliant failures. Now, Sir, four causes have been alleged for the loss of the Captain. First, that she had too low a free-board; second, that her turret wrenched itself out of its bearings, that the water rushed into the aperture, and that she went down

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vertically; third, that she had too little beam; and fourthly, that she was lost through rash seamanship. Sir, I will dismiss the last allegation without a word of argument, as an unjust stigma upon one of the most gallant men of Her Majesty's most gallant Navy. The ship might have been better for more beam, but that cause did not capsize her. As to the second cause, I know the work of Messrs. Laird too well not to be aware that the supposition of her turrets thus giving way is most groundless—even were it not, on the very face of things, absurd and impossible. Nay, we have the evidence of a living man that she did not go down vertically—that, on the contrary, she capsized. She heeled over 18 degrees. "I thought I had a good ship under me," said the gunner who was saved. She heeled again and went over, and the good ship, with her crew, sank never to appear again. Now, Sir, was it low free-board? I will here quote, if the House will bear with me, from the minority Report to which I have before alluded. Admirals Elliot and Ryder say (p. 3 of their report)—
"It is true that the faulty principle of want of stability became the more dangerous when co-existent with a considerable reduction of height of free-board; but the lowness of the free-board did not necessitate unavoidable danger, but only called for an increased provision of safety—namely, a 'much greater amount of statical stability' not only at small angles of inclination, but at all angles up to that of maximum stability."
And they go on to observe—
"We simply desire, therefore, to dissent here from any conclusion that this feature (low freeboard) necessitated the disaster."
Sir, I ask the very serious attention of all concerned as to what is the most probable cause. It is admitted that she had a buoyant bottom—very buoyant. Her guns and engines were to be "raised." It is admitted that she had an enormous weight above this lighter and far more buoyant portion of the ship. It is well known that she had turrets, heavy guns, unyielding "tripod" masts, and sail on. What is the most probable theory? I have the authority of Admiral Fishbourne for stating that the cubic contents of the empty spaces in the bottom of this unfortunate ship were equivalent to 770 tons. "I thought I had a good ship under me," said the gunner, as she heeled over never to go back. The sails were acting like a
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lever; the heavy turrets, and guns, and armour said, in the simple language of nature, as she inclined more and more—"We want to go down!" and then the buoyant spaces confined down below began to emerge towards the surface, and they said, in that same inevitable voice—"We want to go up!" At the critical instant of time, when buoyancy below and top-weight above had agreed to follow the laws of nature, a sea struck the ship and all was over. To my mind, Sir, and to my experience—and I feel most strongly how deficiently I have stated the case—there can be only one solution of this disaster. I repeat, therefore, with such a disaster before us—with ballasted ships—ballasted to "correct errors of design," and with the Devastation disrated—that the mode of construction to which I have asked the notice of the House demands re-consideration. The responsibility rests now with the First Lord. Will he take warning? Will he adopt and approve the principle, and say that he is personally convinced that it is sound and true, and that he intends to go on on the old line of what more than one eminent man regards as dangerous error, or will he not? It must rest with him, and I hope and trust that he will show the same caution and prudence in sifting the question which have influenced him in the case of the Devastation. I now come, Sir, to the Devastation, and the record of the opinions of both Commissions, Committees, and of scientific individuals is so conflicting and confusing, that if such doubtful and discordant views did not involve something of the tragic, they would be simply ridiculous. I do not hesitate to affirm that in private enterprise such a state of conflict would be impossible, and that as connected with a great national Department it is absolutely discreditable. What can the country think of the way in which millions are voted and spent and wasted, when what I am now going to read is collated and compared? The majority Report of the Designs Committee, dealing with the Thunderer, Devastation, and Fury class of iron-clads, says—
"It was necessary, therefore, to consider them capable of meeting bad weather in mid-ocean, and of fighting an action there, if necessary."
(That is, in European seas, the Channel, and the Atlantic), and they conclude—

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"We are unanimously of opinion that, subject to any improvements which further investigation in the direction we have pointed out may render possible, the Devastation class represents in its broad features, the first-class fighting ship of the immediate future."
The Devastation was, according to the Committee, a safe ship to fight an action in bad weather in the middle of the Atlantic. Sir Spencer Robinson, a distinguished authority (Appendix, page 17), says—
"She will be a perfectly safe sea-boat under all ordinary circumstances [3303], for instance, in a hurricane, or a first-class gale with a cross sea, and with a lee shore and lee current obliging her to be forced against head seas."
A most distinguished man of theoretical science (Sir William Thomson) reports—
"The Sub-Committee unanimously conclude that even without bilge keels or the 'superstructure,' the Devastation could not be capsized under any circumstances of the possibility of which there is any evidence."
Now, Sir, these are the printed and published speculations of 17 (less two) distinguished men, with Lord Dufferin and Clandeboye at their head, and the country might have expected that they were safe advisers. But, alas, Sir, for the fallibility of theoretic views, the Devastation is condemned as not safe to go to sea. The united voices of Admirals Elliot and Ryder must now be heard—they objected and protested at the time. They say (Report on Designs, March 11th, 1871)—
"The Scientific Sub-Committee has reported unanimously that the Devastation will be perfectly safe from capsizing under any conceivable circumstances; but it will be noticed that the curve of stability, as calculated by the Constructors, has been assumed to be accurate, 'and has not been re-calculated'—we are not aware that the theory involved in calculating curves of stability has been confirmed by any practical experiments on a sufficient scale."
Let me ask my practical fellow-countrymen what they think of this. The very vital principle—the sine quâ non of safety—upon which all the calculations of safety were based, had it appears been "assumed to be accurate," and had "not been re-calculated;" and at the same time the "theory involved," we are then told, "has not been confirmed by any practical experiments on a sufficient scale." Yet in this condition of things millions are wasted and thousands of lives are imperilled. I venture to think, Sir, that I have made out a primâ facie case for re-consideration. Nay, the question grows in gravity at every step.
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Doubt augments as more and more confusion and conflict appear all round; and it is impossible not to welcome the advice of 1871, to "pause," and to make adequate experiments on an adequate scale. A word more. Will the House listen to what Admiral Fishbourne—a man who has served Her Majesty in every quarter of the globe, and who knows the behaviour of ships at sea as well as how to design them, a mathematician of no mean order—says about the Devastation? He says, and he has put it, on his responsibility, in print—
"On one occasion the Devastation gave so deep a lurch that all hands rushed on deck thinking she was not going to rise again, and possibly had she been struck with sea at this critical moment, as the Captain was, we should have had another proof of the folly, to use a mild term, of giving ships small initial stability and deep empty spaces in their bottoms."
At the risk of pressing most unduly upon the kindness of the House, I must now allude to the history of these buoyant bottoms, intended to "lift the engines and heavy weights out of the water, in order to moderate rolling"—as if that was everything! The scientific author of the theory is understood to be Mr. Froude; the practical advocate of it Mr. Reed—I mean the hon. Member for Pembroke. Now, I think the first prominent discussion in scientific circles took place in 1863, and Mr. Froude was certainly not unwarned. An eminent and highly-experienced authority, Mr. Scott Russell, said in 1863—
"Mr. Froude has recommended that ships should be constructed so as to have the largest possible periodic time of roll, and has recommended, as the method of giving this long periodic time, the lessening of her stability under canvas. I have carefully examined the subject with reference to the safety of following out such a principle, and I have compared it with the results of a long course of practice of my own, and have come to the conclusion that, both in principle and in practice, it would be unwise and unsafe to follow his advice. … Mr. Froude recommends for 'insuring the safety of a ship, as a practical measure, that it should have given to it such a distribution of weight as shall insure to it a long period of oscillation;' and he adheres to this maxim under conditions and to an extent which to me appear dangerous and unsound. What I assert is, that such a cure is worse than the disease. I do not think that this synchronism of oscillation (which Mr. Froude fears) is a formidable fact, or is an ordinary source of danger to real ships on real sea waves, as distinguished from experimental models in a fishpond."
But, Sir, Mr. Scott Russell was not alone. A man at the head of naval science,

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the Rev. Dr. Woolley, said at the same period—
"I may safely say that, in the main, I agree with Mr. Scott Russell's remarks."
The Chairman, Canon Mozeley, in his concluding remarks, while allowing fully the merit of the investigations of Mr. Froude, says—
"In these words of caution I fully concur, and for this reason—that Mr. Froude, in pressing the conclusions of his own theory, which is entitled to all respect, seems to forget that, after all, his mode of viewing the question is but one among several."
Had these eminent objectors been told that anyone would be rash enough to add to other objections the dangerous combination of heavy armoured sides and immense turrets, I fancy the protests against the theory would have been even more energetic. Still the First Lord of 1863 must have known all this; and every First Lord ought to have had the good and the bad of the theory from time to time laid before him. But in the Report of the Committee on Designs, a Mr. Froude appears. He was one of the distinguished men whose conflicting views about the Devastation have been read. I presume he is the Mr. Froude of 1863. Now, if hon. Members will peruse that Report, they will find that Mr. Froude has, according to it, made some wonderful experiments "with bilge keels." He had made a large model of the Froude-bottomed Devastation, with bilge keels and without. The Devastation without the keels capsized; the Devastation with these keels—a thing, I believe, Sir, six feet wide, sticking out from the bilge of the ship—kept her legs. But I will read the evidence. Mr. Froude says—
"With 6 feet keels she made 4 and 3½ double rolls only, against 31½ and 29 without any keels. Tried without any bilge keels, the model rolled 21 degs. (weather-roll greatest), and happening to fall over towards an advancing wave, was overrun by it, and turned right over."
Fortunately, Sir, it was the model and not the ship which "turned right over;" but what do not the experiments show of the rottenness of the principle? Then, Sir, with the Captain gone, the Devastation capsized in model, and ballast used to cure "errors of design," it may but be fair to give the hon. Gentleman the credit of his views about the ballast. The late Chief Constructor of the Navy, in writing to The Times on the 7th of
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November last, and touching upon ships of the Vanguard class, said—
"It would probably be necessary to correct the centre of gravity by ballast, observing that 100 tons of cheap pig iron in that form would serve the same purpose as 200 tons of expensive iron distributed throughout the hull and wrought into the structure."
We have it in evidence that as much as 500 tons of extra iron-cement ballast has been put into one of the hon. Gentleman's ships. Now will he assert that that was his original intention? I think he will not. But will he tell the House, here in his place, that 1,000 tons were saved in the structure of the ship in consequence? On referring to the Report of the Designs Committee, I find all the practical shipbuilders objecting to the weakness of the bottoms of these ships. They say some of them would not take the ground without damage—damage which on an enemy's coast might disable them, and hand them over an easy prey to even a weaker enemy. It may be said that in extending the illustration of 100 tons of ballast saving 200 tons of expensive material worked into the structure, to the sequitur that 500 tons of ballast could save 1,000 tons in structure, I have indulged in the re-ductio ad absurdum. I know, Sir, in my own mercantile experience, we go in for making a strong and safe ship; and we should consider it absurd and uneconomical in the last degree—Lloyd's would pull us up for it—to save material at the cost of strength and safety, and then to trust to ballast to prevent capsizing. The hon. Gentleman's alteration reminds me of George Stephenson's remark to me about Mr. Brunei's atmospheric railways. He said, in good, round north-country dialect—"The man forgets that a pound will never weigh more than a pound." And now, Sir, I have said, and others—who have in every sense a right to say it—that calculation has been in error, and that practical proof of scientific speculation has not been adequately given. I quoted Admiral Fishbourne because he has spoken and written on the result of a life of practical experience. I may abstract his published views of the causes of error. He says—
"The position of the centre of gravity is determined in the usual way, while the position of the 'centre of pressure' has been erroneously assumed. … The next proposition, &c., supposes the water … to become solid.

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… This is to introduce a change of law. … Thus it is manifest that the present metacentric method of calculation is erroneous."
The House will remember that reduced rolling was the object of the buoyant bottoms. I have here evidence showing conclusively that, while ballast here and there corrected the evil, the only advantage proposed has been utterly illusory; therefore I ash where, when, and by whom has it been "ascertained" that the "tendency to roll" has been "reduced" by "raising the engines, boilers, and other weights?" Now, Sir, what will be urged in reply? It will be said that in the Merchant Navy there are ships even less stable. One error, however, cannot excuse another, and the merchant ship has no armour and no turret. But I doubt the fact. Then it will be said, again, that there are, or were, ships in the Navy itself, less stable than the Captain, and quotations may be made of cases where the distance or depth of the spaces has been greater than in the hon. Member's ships. But that, if so, is only part of the truth. What is the relative total buoyancy in the comparative cases? and what is the comparative relation between the quantity of misplaced buoyancy and its distribution, and the weighting above the water-line? We never can forget, Sir, that unsafe ships make timid sailors. A brave tar said to Admiral Fishbourne, speaking of the iron-clad in which he had served—"They allowed us, Sir, to travel the world over for three years, and 'then' heeled the ship and found her unsafe, and put ballast into her." And further—naval failures in England are an assault upon our naval reputation—a bulwark of strength hitherto even better and stronger than a fleet. Who is responsible? Hitherto responsibility, like assessment, has been a mere "shifting of burdens." We have been warned of "old-fashioned admirals"—maythere not be rash and adventurous naval architects? Which is the best, where life, treasure, and reputation are at stake—over-prudence or temerity? I trust the First Lord will not accept the latter line of conduct. I fear, Sir, much of the fault must ever attach to our system of Parliamentary or party government itself. The exigencies of party in the reward of party service lead to the appointment as First Lord (for example) of some distinguished man from the antipodes,
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or some great merchant of exchange from the City, or some popular country gentleman quite up to corn and cattle. Usually these appointments are made somewhat late in life; and all the associations and experience of such Gentlemen, great as their talents naturally may be, are in opposite directions to the technical knowledge and power of governing bodies of men in the intricate business of a vast naval Department. Well, when such a First Lord enters upon his duties he must be a nonentity—I mean, that he must be guided and governed by the permanent officials about him. In a while he emerges, and feels his feet somewhat. He becomes an entity. He may at last gather strength enough to discharge some useful officer, whose will may be stronger than his own; and just as he is to become useful, independent, and the owner of a naval policy, the Government to which he belongs is split by a feud, killed by a hostile majority, or commits felo de se through an unexpected Dissolution. The only hope, Sir, that I see for improvement is derived from the belief that this House will give more attention to practical questions, and will be, as I hope in this case, disposed to support a policy of prudence in dealing with the safety and progress of our Navy. The hon. Member concluded by moving his Resolution.
Amendment proposed,
To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the mode of construction (assumed to have been introduced by the late Chief Constructor of the Navy) adopted in the 'Captain' and other ironclads, viz. deep empty spaces in the ships bottoms, and high centres of gravity, demands reconsideration on the part of the Admiralty,"—(Sir Edward Watkin,)
—instead thereof.
MR. E. J. REEDsaid, his hon. Friend the Member for Hythe (Sir Edward Watkin) had arrived at a somewhat lame and impotent conclusion. He had complained of City men and country Gentlemen being made First Lords, and yet thought it would be an improvement to make the whole of the House of Commons, in its corporate capacity, the head of the Admiralty. That, instead of being an improvement on the present system, would be one of the most unfortunate things which could happen. It would be utterly impossible for the

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House to give instructions upon minute points of shipbuilding, respecting which most of its Members knew little or nothing. He objected to such a thing; but he also objected to the hon. Gentleman having linked his (Mr. Reed's) name with the name of the only iron-clad of the British Navy which had been lost, whereas not one single iron-clad ship which he had constructed had been lost or endangered. Whatever might have been his shortcomings when he was Chief Constructor, they had not in any way been associated with the designing of the Captain. That was the one single ship which had been designed outside the Admiralty during his term of office, and that was not even an imitation of anything in the designs which he constructed at the Admiralty. It was intimated in the Motion that he introduced unusually high centres of gravity; that he introduced unusually deep double bottoms; that the designer of the Captain imitated his vicious example in these respects; and that the ship was lost in consequence. The hon. and gallant Member for Chatham (Admiral Elliot) had made many of those brief speeches which were embodied in the words "Hear, hear," but he challenged the hon. and gallant Member to invalidate any of the facts and figures he would now adduce. With regard to the first proposition: before his period of office there were three classes of ships—the Minotaur, representing the Northumberland and Agincourt; the Achilles, representing the Warrior class; and the Valiant representing ships of the Sector class. To estimate the height of the centre of gravity you must have a basis of measurement, and he took the surface of the sea. In the Achilles the centre of gravity was 1½ feet below the water surface; in the Valiant it was 1¾ feet; and in the Minotaur it was very nearly 2 feet In the first iron-clad he had constructed, the Bellerophon, it was a little more than 2 feet. So, instead of producing a high centre of gravity, he introduced a lower one than that which characterized the three classes of vessels introduced by his predecessor. Then with respect to double bottoms: when the building of the Minotaur was committed to the Thames Iron Shipbuilding Company, the managers and architect proposed that a double bottom should be introduced; the Admiralty concurred in the proposition; it was accordingly introduced;
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and the distance from the inner bottom to the outer one was 6 feet; and yet he never heard that she exhibited any unsafe qualities or any tendency to capsize. In his ship—the Bellerophon—the distance was only 4½ feet. These facts swept away the first two affirmations as to the centre of gravity and double bottoms, which, apart from other considerations, had nothing to do with the safety or unsafety of the ship, and the assertion that they had, would only be made by a person who was dabbling in a subject he did not understand. Next, with respect to the Captain—which he repeated, he did not design—her centre of gravity was placed as low as 2 feet 11 inches below the water, and the space between her bottoms was only 2 feet 7 inches. His hon. Friend was, therefore, entirely wrong in supposing either that he raised the centre of gravity or increased the depth of the double bottoms, or that the designers of the Captain gave her a high centre of gravity and a deep double bottom; indeed he did not know in what respect both in his speech and Resolution, the hon. Member was not wrong. He did not know how far it was right for an hon. Member on such an occasion as that to make a speech travelling over so many important subjects, and so much ground that required special notice and due consideration, nor did he know whether it would be competent for so young a Member of the House as he himself was to take advantage of the indiscretion of another hon. Member, and to go into all the questions which had been raised as to the construction of the Captain and the Devastation. In the letters in The Times, with which the hon. Gentleman had reproached him, he had communicated what he thought due to his position as to both those vessels, but he would now state, however, what it was important the House should know, that the Captain was not lost, and the Devastation was not suspected, from the causes assigned by the hon. Member, and if they had been, his hon. Friend had not exhibited proofs of sufficient knowledge of the subject to enable him to discuss them to the satisfaction of the House. The hon. Gentleman actually attempted to cast derision upon him (Mr. Reed) for having imagined that a ton of ballast placed low would have the same effect as two tons placed high, but probably no other hon. Member was so

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deficient in nautical knowledge as not to be aware that such was the case.
SIR EDWARD WATKINsaid, it appeared from a statement of the hon. Member that 100 tons in ballast would save 200 tons of material in structure; and from that he had argued that 500 tons would in like manner, save 1,000.
MR. E. J. REEDsaid, he had no doubt his hon. Friend meant something he thought was correct, but not understanding the subject on which he spoke, he was not correct. The House would remember that a few years ago it became a matter of importance to check the tendency to enormous rolling which many iron-clad ships displayed; and that was done, not by raising the centre of gravity or deepening double bottoms in the abstract, but by making these changes in relation to the meta-centric, and other changes of great importance. They gradually diminished the metacentric height of various ships as they were successively built, until at length, in designing the Audacious class, they believed they had got to the limit, having also saved weight in the bottom from the waterline downwards. They, consequently, had a little less stability than was required, and restored it by placing about half the weight saved in the form of ballast in the bottom. Singular and unnatural as this might appear to the hon. Member, he could assure him that that could be done in exact conformity with natural laws, and he was sure the House would not wish to repeal, or cast doubt upon a law of nature. That they had succeeded in the Audacious class of ships was, he believed, well known. He had a letter from an eminent officer and high authority on the subject, which only reached him yesterday, and he refrained from giving the name of the writer, simply because the envelope in which it was enclosed was marked "private." The Invincible, which belonged to the Audacious class, sailed from Malta and arrived at Barcelona on the 8th March. She encountered very heavy seas and high gales, but her great guns were worked in the worst weather, the practice made being extremely good, three targets being shot away. The gale lasted 30 hours, and the ship rose as buoyantly as if she had been a wooden frigate, and she inspired the utmost confidence not only in her sailing, but her fighting qualities in the minds of everyone
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on board. That was a sufficient answer to the statements which had been made by the hon. Member on the authority to which he had referred. He (Mr. Reed) did not complain of criticism, but he should be pained if the House were led astray by views derived from the writings of a half-crazy Admiral whether enunciated at first or second hand. ["Oh, oh!"] He hoped he was not out of order in saying that, for he esteemed Admiral Fishbourne's writings as proofs of a half-crazy condition of mind. They were not accepted by any man of science, and he was accustomed to consider gentlemen who imagined themselves wiser than all the world as being in a state of half-craziness. He was satisfied that the ships with which he had been associated had been successful; but he must advert for a moment to the Captain, and if he were asked the cause of her loss, he would explain that, while more stable than ordinary ships in an upright or nearly upright position, she was without sides to continue that stability under other circumstances. Comparing her with the Monarch, which he designed by order of the Admiralty to embody Captain Coles' principle, her righting power at 5 degrees from the perpendicular was represented by 2,330 foot-tons—in other words, a force equivalent to one ton acting at the end of a lever of 2,330 feet, or 2,330 tons at the end of a lever of one foot in length, while the stability of the Monarch, a somewhat larger ship, was 1,990. At 10 degrees the Captain's stability was 4,200 foot-tons, the Monarch's only 3,820. At 15 degrees the stability of the two ships became equal, because the Captain had begun to immerse her deck, while the Monarch went on immersing her side. At 20 degrees the Captain had only 7,000 foot-tons stability, whereas the Monarch had risen to 8,140; and at 25 degrees the Captain was in the fatal position of having a diminishing stability, because of her want of sides. Her stability had fallen to 6,850 foot-tons, while the Monarch's had risen to 10,630. At 35 degrees the Captain's had dropped to 5,000; and the Monarch's had risen to 15,000; at 45 degrees the Captain's was 2,700, while the Monarch's remained at 15,000; and at 55 degrees of inclination the Captain's stability had wholly gone, but the Monarch had 10,600 foot-tons, or double the amount she had at 15 degrees.

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With figures like those it was idle to close their eyes to them, or to look in any other direction for explanations of a most obvious fact. His hon. Friend said that it appeared from something he (Mr. Reed) was supposed to have said or written, he did not know when, that he had advised, if another Captain was to be built, she should have greater beam and a lower centre of gravity, and he seemed to think that was inconsistent with his present view. In fact, however, it was in exact conformity with all he had ever said or thought about the matter. They might have a ship with as low a free-board as the Captain, but they must give her an enormous initial stability. He thought he had said enough to satisfy the House that the Captain was not built according to his instructions, but in violation of them, and was not lost from the causes the hon. Gentleman supposed; and if the House did decide on dictating to the Admiralty how centres of gravity were to be placed—which he might inform his hon. Friend, were not like stores, which could be drawn out and placed half way up the mast, or half way down the hold—they would be going back to the infantile experience of his hon. Friend. In conclusion, he begged to assure the House that he had very unwillingly taken part in preventing it from proceeding with the actual business before it.
ADMIRAL ELLIOTsaid, he stood there in defence of his oldest friend, who was not in this world to defend himself—he stood there to defend the character and reputation of Captain Coles. The hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. E. J. Reed) did not think it unbecoming to bring the name of Captain Coles before his constituents at Hull, and charge that officer with the loss of the Captain. The hon. Member had thereby sought to damage the reputation of Captain Coles; but he (Admiral Elliot) maintained that Captain Coles was no more responsible for the loss of the Captain than the Speaker whom he was then addressing. That able officer was considered one of the brightest ornaments of the profession.
MR. E. J. REEDrose to Order. He was not aware that he had even mentioned Captain Coles, or made any attack upon him. It was of course impossible to refer to the Captain, which was built according to his designs, without his name being involved, but that was no attack.
ADMIRAL ELLIOTsaid, that he held in his hand an extract from a speech of Mr. Reed's, taken from The Hull News, October 18th, 1873, wherein he distinctly sought to saddle Captain Coles with the responsibility for the loss of the Captain, and the hon. Gentleman had stated to-night that the Captain was lost owing to one main feature in her construction—namely, the low freeboard which was introduced by Captain Coles. It was not surprising, then, that his widow should ask whether no friend would stand up in his vindication. He (Admiral Elliot) had known Captain Coles for 45 years; he was a man of genius, and commanded the confidence of all who knew him. If he had been in that House, he would have been able to answer fully those who assailed him and who were really responsible for that feature in the construction of the Captain, which was the cause of her loss—namely, insufficient beam. He contended that the Correspondence which had been laid upon the Table proved the real responsibility for the loss of the Captain rested with the hon. Member for Pembroke and the Controller of the Navy, who had approved and carried out the plans submitted to the Admiralty, which plans contained a gross error in naval architecture, for which Captain Coles was in no way responsible. He considered that the hon. Member for Hythe had introduced with great ability a subject of the highest importance to the Navy. He agreed with the hon. Member for Pembroke that a double bottom, per se, was not a criterion of the unsafety of a ship, also that a high centre of gravity, per se, was not a criterion of the unsafety of a ship, and he would go further and say that a high centre of gravity and a double bottom combined were no criterion of the unsafety of a ship; but if they took those two elements in connection with a want of beam, they did get a criterion of the unsafety of the ship; and he considered the Captain was lost on account of not having sufficient stability, and that, he contended, was an error in construction. The design of that ship, when worked out, was submitted to the Construction Department of the Navy, and they reported on those calculations that she had sufficient stability; and if they had not done so, she never would have been built. He thought the hon.

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Member for Hythe (Sir Edward Watkin) had done good service in calling the attention of the Admiralty to this matter. In the Captain they had a double bottom, a centre of gravity which was not a low one, a freeboard of only 6 feet, and she had 5 feet less beam than the competitive ship, the Monarch. If everything had been done to try and make a ship that would upset, these conditions were found in the Captain. She carried more weights than were necessary; but he believed that with 7 feet additional breadth of beam she would have been a perfectly safe ship, and would have been now afloat, and the most powerful fighting sea-going ship in the Navy. Captain Coles never presumed to be a naval architect, but merely designed a ship, leaving it to the scientific men to work out that design. And there was no reason why they should not have worked it out safety. With regard to the 8 feet freeboard which Captain Coles suggested, it was not proof of itself that the Captain was unsafe, or how did it happen that merchant ships with less freeboard as compared to draught of water, were able to go to all parts of the world in safety, the usual scale for merchant ships being 3 inches of freeboard per foot of draught? It was on record in a public Report that the Construction Department of the Admiralty, at that time, held the opinion that an 8 feet freeboard did not, per se, represent an unsafe ship. It further appeared that while the Captain was in good repute, five shipbuilders were invited to send in to the Admiralty designs for ships-of-war of the same class. The Construction Department reported on these designs, and gave the preference to that of the Messrs. Laird, the height of freeboard of their ship being the same as that of the Captain, as submitted by Captain Coles—namely, 8 feet. That was the hon. Member for Pembroke's own Report. How, then, could it be pretended that the hon. Member had it in his mind at that time that the Captain was an unsafe ship on account of her low freeboard, he having approved of an 8 feet freeboard. Moreover, the late Chief Constructor and the late Controller of the Navy had themselves sent in a design of a ship with only 8 feet freeboard amidships, to compete with the designs of the shipbuilders; so that neither in the mind of one nor the other was
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the 8 feet freeboard regarded as an element of danger, and in all these competitive designs there was no restriction as to the height of freeboard which might be selected by the designers. Some of the designs sent in had a very high freeboard, yet Mr. Reed gave the preference to a freeboard of 8 feet. He (Admiral Elliot) was one of those who believed that an 8 feet of freeboard would have made a perfectly safe ship if she had sufficient beam, and Mr. Reed must have thought the same, or he would not have selected that height of freeboard for his own design. He considered that, most unjustly, this question of 8 feet of freeboard had been made use of to cover a scientific blunder, and he asserted that giving more beam to the Captain would not necessarily have reduced her speed. After that ship was constructed it was found that she went down 18 inches deeper in the water than had been intended, and yet she was actually allowed to go into the Bay of Biscay, when it ought to have been known that if she heeled over by pressure of canvas in the long swell of the Bay of Biscay, 6½ degrees, she would inevitably go down. This information was afterwards afforded by the Scientific Committee of the Committee on Designs for ships of war, and it ought to have been ascertained by the Chief Constructor before the Captain put to sea. With regard to the question of responsibility for the disaster, he maintained that Captain Coles was perfectly justified in recommending an 8 feet freeboard, for that freeboard was approved and adopted by the Construction Department of the Admiralty. To bring forward, therefore, her low freeboard as the cause of her loss was quite unjustifiable; and he held also that the First Lord or the Board of Admiralty could not be held responsible for a scientific error in construction. They must look elsewhere for the responsibility. The Messrs. Laird, when it was found that the vessel went down 18 inches to 2 feet deeper than was intended, demanded that an inquiry and experiments should be made. A very long delay, which had never been explained, ensued before these experimental tests were made, and after they were made, all concerned were left in perfect ignorance of the result. The Captain was allowed to go to the Bay

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of Biscay after those tests were made, and remain there after the result of those tests were known to the Construction Department, and neither the Admiralty nor Captain Burgoyne were informed of the real state of the danger which those tests had disclosed, although a telegraphic message to Vigo would have conveyed the information, which would have saved the ship from the inevitable danger which was impending. Was it likely that Captain Coles and Captain Burgoyne would have endangered not only their own lives but the lives of so gallant a crew if they had been correctly informed as to the danger which existed? He held that the paid officers of the Crown ought to have known every feature of the ship when she was constructed, and more especially when it was found that the ship floated deeper by 18 inches in the water than was intended, thereby intensifying the blunder originally inherent in her construction. He held that great neglect was displayed in the delay of making the experiments asked for by Messrs. Laird, and still further in allowing 17 days to elapse before the calculations were made for ascertaining the result; and that the concealment of the danger, disclosed by the result of those calculations, was inexplicable. These gentlemen had written strong letters in their day; but could they show a single letter to the authorities stating that the ship was dangerous and would go over if she heeled 6½ degrees in an Atlantic swell under pressure of canvas? The strong point of evidence in favour of Captain Coles was that although every effort was made to induce him to sign a certificate that the Captain, as built, represented his opinions, yet he would not do so. The hon. Member for Pembroke had referred to the Bellerophon proof that he was not an advocate of a high centre of gravity. But that ship was a notoriously uneasy one, and this fact might have had something to do with the building of ships of less stability. A number of curious scientific notions had existed in regard to the construction of vessels of war. It did not seem to be thoroughly understood that the days had gone by for putting ballast in any ship, much less in a steamship. Then there were vessels like the Cyclops, which were only fit to go from port to port in favourable weather, and others, like the Bellerophon, which
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drew 5 feet or 6 feet more water aft than forward, and being built with a plough bow, carried tons of water before her as an impediment to her speed. He would call the attention of his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty to the fact that a large sum of money was to be voted that night for the purpose of building ships to be plated with 8 inches and 10 inches of iron; and it was alleged that this was a sufficient protection against guns now in existence on foreign stations, but he protested against such a dangerous decision. His great principle was to protect a ship in such a manner, by an armoured deck 5 or 6 feet below water, that her boiler and magazine should be safe; but a ship plated only with 8 or 10 inches of side armour could not by any possibility resist heavy guns, and in an engagement, therefore, her boiler and her magazine were liable to be blown up by the first shell of the enemy. The whole story of armour versus guns was this. In 1861, and again in 1872, both Sir William Armstrong and Sir Joseph Whitworth said there was no limit to the power of the gun, and that 24 inches of iron on a ship's side was insufficient to resist the gun that could be produced and carried on shipboard, and could not, therefore, be considered a permanent defence. Beginning with 4 inches we had gone on gradually, as guns increased in power, till now, in the case of the Inflexible, we had reached 24 inches of iron. There was no guarantee that even this thickness would be impenetrable; and he contended that, looking to the enormous sacrifices made of other valuable warlike properties, in order to obtain this thickness of iron over so small a portion of the hull, the continued use of side armour of any lesser thickness could not be supported on the principle of armour protection. On the whole, he did not object to the Inflexible as a last attempt at side armour protection, although he objected to mastless ships. In her there was partially an armoured deck below water, and this was a step in the right direction. He ventured to say, moreover, that she would have more stability than the Devastation, and would live and fight when the Devastation might be expected to founder. As to her side armour, it was to be confined to the centre of the vessel. But to build iron-clads with 8 inches to 10 inches of armour, and to count upon

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this as a sufficient defence, was neither scientific nor judicious; it was simply inviting an immediate and total destruction of a ship by the exposure of magazines and boilers. Before proceeding further in this course, it was most desirable that the opinions of authorities outside the Admiralty should be ascertained and considered. He wished distinctly to disclaim any intention of casting reflection on the ability of the present Board of Construction of the Navy. Those gentlemen had now obtained great experience—no matter how—but it was nevertheless a pity, he thought, that the old system—under which such men as Mr. Watts and Mr. Large, and Mr. Abethell, who, after long practical experience, had reached the Board of Construction—should have been interfered with. The result had been a greater amount of scientific eccentricities than had ever previously been witnessed—arising out of the appointment of young and inexperienced men in the place of old officers, who, as master shipwrights of Her Majesty's Dockyards, had possessed not only the scientific acquirements obtained from the School of Naval Architecture, but that most valuable feature of efficiency—namely, practical experience. He held that the practical knowledge acquired by master shipwrights, from long and constant interchange of ideas—as regarded the warlike and sea-going requirements of ships-of-war—with captains and Admirals, and, in fact, all the executive officers of the Fleet was most valuable, and that it was most desirable, for the interests of the service that the Construction Department of the Navy should, as in all former days of our naval supremacy, be recruited from the ranks of the master shipwrights of Her Majesty's Dockyards. That system had produced that combination of science and practical efficiency so conspicuously displayed in the perfection of naval architecture during the Controllership of Sir Baldwin Walker. With regard to the Captain, he thought it was a scandal that the loss of that ship had never been brought to bear on those who were really responsible; and he believed that if a full investigation took place, his lamented friend, Captain Coles, would be entirely released from blame, whilst those who had been seeking to sully his reputation would find themselves condemned at the bar of
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public opinion, if they were not so already.
Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.

NAVY—ADMIRALTY ADMINISTRATION.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  MR. BENTINCK, in rising to call attention to the want of harmony which seems to have existed at the late Board of Admiralty; and to move for a Copy of the submission of the Comptroller of the Navy of last year and the present year preparatory to forming the Navy Estimates, said, that great apprehension existed in the minds of many persons as to the position of our Navy, and that it was clear, from statements made in the House and in the public journals, the impression prevailed that there had been hitherto in the conduct of our naval administration a want of harmony at the Board of Admiralty which had been productive of the most disastrous consequences. Assuming that proper harmony did not exist—assuming the impression which existed to be correct, that there had been a divergence of opinion between the naval authorities and the civilians—he came to the conclusion that the naval opinions had been overridden by those of the civilians. If that were the case, the management of our naval affairs was not what it ought to be. He believed the country to be of opinion that the system which now existed was an erroneous system, and that under such a system mismanagement must naturally be the result. He would ask, was it reasonable that the House should be called upon to vote Supplies for the Navy, and yet be utterly in the dark as to how the affairs of the Navy were administered, and on whom the responsibility rested? He believed that information could be obtained in the manner which he had suggested in his Motion, which he would now submit to the House.
  MR. SPEAKERobserved that such an Amendment could not now be moved.
  MR. BENTINCKwanted to know if it was not competent for him to move an Amendment.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid, the House had affirmed the Motion that the words "That I do leave the Chair" should

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  stand part of the Question, and any Amendment must be consistent with that Question. The words proposed by the hon. Member were not consistent with that Question.
  MR. BENTINCK, while submitting to the decision of the Chair, said, he regretted that his Amendment was not in Order, but expressed a hope that he should receive sufficient support to induce the Government to furnish the country with the information which he desired to obtain, so that it might be known who were really the responsible parties at the Board of Admiralty. His object in bringing forward the question was to obtain an expression of the opinion of the House.
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, the hon. Member for Norfolk had asked certain questions on subjects concerning which, he said, the country was in the dark. But he gathered from what had passed in the House before, that the hon. Member was sometimes in the dark when other people knew perfectly well what was going on, and that when explanations were given to him it was perfectly impossible to make them reach his mind. Therefore, he feared that very little that fell from him would be satisfactory to that hon. Member. Even if his explanations did to any slight extent reach the hon. Member's mind, they were only sufficient to make the hon. Member misunderstand him, and become incredulous as to what had been stated. Therefore, the hon. Member could not be surprised if no long answer were given to his question. Perhaps, however, he might make the hon. Member understand what he meant better than he had done on a previous occasion if he now told him that no want of harmony had existed at the late Board of Admiralty. The submissions made for a certain number of men by the Comptroller last year and in the present year had been granted by the Board of Admiralty. Those were, he thought, clear statements, and he hoped they would satisfy the hon. Member, or would at all events satisfy those hon. Members who believed what was told them. It was perfectly well known to the House that the First Lord of the Admiralty was responsible for the Estimates which were laid on the Table, and the hon. Member might as well ask how the Home Secretary or the Secretary of State for War was advised with regard to his
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  Department as to call for the departmental statements on which a Ministerial decision must be founded. Of course, there would be differences of opinion, even when men acted together with the greatest harmony; and he could only state in the strongest terms that it was incorrect for the hon. Member to place on the Paper the allegation that a want of harmony appeared to have existed in the late Board, of Admiralty. The hon. Member believed that as long as the First Lord of the Admiralty was a civilian, there was no chance of the Navy being in an efficient state. In 1872, in Committee of Supply on Navy Estimates, the hon. Member moved the omission of the First Lord's salary from the Estimates, to test the feeling of the House on the question. And what support did he receive? The hon. Member was afraid to divide, and his Motion was negatived without a division. The debates on the Navy Estimates from year to year—and not less this year than in any previous one—would convince the House that the post of First Lord of the Admiralty was one of considerable difficulty, and as long as Parliament continued the system of placing a civilian in that position, he trusted that Parliament would support him when he tried to do his duty. He put it to the good feeling of both sides of the House whether, while it was thought absolutely necessary in a constitutional sense to retain a civilian as First Lord of the Admiralty, they should in every debate assert that he must be incompetent to do his duty. Let them make up their minds either that there should be a professional man at the head of the Board of Admiralty, or that there should not; but if they thought a civilian ought to have those difficult and arduous duties cast upon him, he hoped the House would support him when he endeavoured to perform them.
  Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.

SUPPLY—NAVY ESTIMATES.
SUPPLY considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
(1.) £ 1,235,326, Dockyards and Naval Yards at Home and Abroad.
MR. HUNTstated, in answer to a Question, that the Vote included a Supplementary Sum with the Original Estimates.
MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, that the Committee would perceive that the Supplementary Estimates which the right hon. Gentleman had proposed to take under this head as compared with last year was £150,000, but that only £95,000 of that sum was to be devoted towards increasing the fighting force of the Navy—namely, to hasten the building of the Shannon, the Superb, and the Inflexible, and to commence two new iron-clads, each of which was ultimately to cost £250,000. It was proposed, however, only to advance these two vessels by about one-tenth. The result, as the difference between the estimates of the late and those of the present First Lord, was represented by about 1,850 tons of addition to the effective strength of the Navy, or about one-third the quantity contained in a ship of the size of the Superb. The right hon. Gentleman had stated the other night that that sum was not the measure of our deficiencies, and that in all probability next year an additional sum would be required to place our Navy on a satisfactory footing. Next year would probably take care of itself, and the right hon. Gentleman would very likely then find good reason for not increasing the Navy Estimates. The right hon. Gentleman had said he could not spend any more money on the Navy this year if he had it. Now, the right hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Guilders) had been able to spend £550,000 in 1871, after the month of August, and therefore the right hon. Gentleman opposite, having 10 months of the financial year before him, could spend 20 times the sum he had asked for upon the Navy, if he chose to adopt such a course. Thus he might have spent more in hastening the Superb and the Téméraire, and in completing the new works at Chatham. His main object in rising, however, was to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the sum of £6,000 which he proposed to spend on a depôt ship for Hong Kong was the total sum that would be required for that purpose, because he knew that the fitting out of depot ships was generally a very expensive matter, the fitting out of the Victor Emmanuel for the Gold Coast having required about £35,000;
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while the purpose for which they were sent out could be more satisfactorily and economically attained by erecting hospitals on shore. The late Government had established a hospital on the shore Hong Kong, and he believed that it was a wise policy to have shore depôts instead of ships wherever that was possible.
MR. HUNTreplied that the sum of £6,000 referred to would not be the total sum required for fitting up the depôt ship for Hong Kong, and that at present it was impossible for him to state exactly what the total sum required would be. He thought, however, that the sum of £10,000 would cover the expense. The depot ship at Hong Kong which this ship was to replace was reported to him to be unfit for human habitation, and the Victor Emmanuel had accordingly been ordered out to replace her. She had been fitted out with a great many special appliances when sent to the Gold Coast, which would account for the great cost; but on this occasion it would be materially less.
MR. GOSCHENwished to impress upon the right hon. Gentleman the expediency of a suggestion he offered on a former evening—namely, that he would consider the advisability as far as possible of replacing receiving ships on foreign stations by iron-clads, which would add to the strength of the defences, and, so to speak, kill two birds with one stone.
MR. CHILDERS, seeing his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his place, wished to put a Question to him of which he had given him private Notice. The Naval Supplementary Estimates amounted to £150,000, and they contained provision to the extent of £40,000 for the year, to be expended on two vessels of the Shannon class. As far as could be at present ascertained, the expenditure of that sum on these vessels during the present year would mortgage the Estimates next year to the extent of £400,000. It was now some little time since the commencement of the financial year, and two months' since his right hon. Friend must have framed his Budget, and the Question he wished to put to him was, whether at the present time, with the experience he had had since the commencement of the financial year, he was so satisfied as to the prospects of

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the Revenue as to feel that Supplementary Estimates could be passed without additional Ways and Means? He admitted that it was difficult to forecast the prospects of the financial year in the middle of May; but still many pregnant facts were known, and it was not unreasonable that he should call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to them, and elicit from him a statement with respect to the finances which could not fail to be of considerable importance. The great heads of the Revenue were the Customs, the Excise, and Stamps. The right hon. Gentleman, in making his Financial Statement, had announced that he anticipated an augmentation under the head of the Excise of £918,000, and under the head of Stamps of £330,000, making a total augmentation under these two heads of £1,248,000. It was true that under the head of Excise there would be a considerable falling off in the last quarter of the year, when the horse duty came to an end.
SIR JOHN HAYrose to ask, whether the right hon. Gentleman was in Order in raising that discussion on a question of general policy at a moment when the Speaker had left the Chair?
THE CHAIRMANsaid, that as far as the right hon. Gentleman's remarks applied to the Supplementary Estimates he was in Order; but that he would not be so, if he proceeded to discuss the financial policy of the ensuing year.
MR. CHILDERSsaid, he had not the slightest intention of raising any question of general financial policy; the figures he was referring to bore upon the question, whether they could vote the Supplementary Estimate without making provision for it by taxation or other means? What he was showing was that, according to the Treasury Returns up to the 8th or 9th of May—if the portion of the year which had just passed was a fair criterion—instead of there being £138,000 in excess of the receipts of last year, under the heads of Excise and Stamps, there had been a falling off to the extent of £187,000—equal to a deficiency of £325,000, or £2,900,000 upon the year. The Customs were more difficult to compare; but here, again, he doubted whether the Budget Estimate would be fulfilled. He wished to know if there were any disturbing causes in action, which would prevent the present receipts from being a fair criterion by which to judge
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what they might expect for the financial year? He trusted his right hon. Friend was in a position to satisfy the Committee and the country that the Revenue was in such a satisfactory condition as to warrant the voting of the Supplementary Estimates now before the Committee, and the others which, it was known, were to come without explanation as to Ways and Means.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that in reference to the mortgaging of the Revenue of next year, he should leave that question to be answered by his right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty; but with regard to the actual position of financial affairs, he thought the Question addressed to him was one which it was perfectly natural and proper to ask on the Vote for a Supplementary Estimate. His right hon. Friend spoke from the information which he deduced from the weekly statements issued from the Treasury, and which were made public. Those statements were, to a certain extent, useful; but, unless they were viewed with very great caution indeed, they were apt to be misleading. He confessed that, although he looked at them with the advantage of being able to consult the officers of the Treasury with regard to them, he had more than once found himself going astray in the conclusions he had drawn from them. His right hon. Friend said that, up to the 9th of May, the Revenue was lower than it was for the corresponding period of last year. Well, at first sight, that appeared to be a very alarming fact; but, in the first place, the period was short of that of last year by one day. That did not seem to be much, but it was as well to take it into account in estimating and ascertaining where the difference lay. In spirits alone, for instance, the difference of a single day amounted to about £40,000. There was another point to which no attention could possibly have been drawn, and which would to a great extent explain the falling off referred to by his right hon. Friend. He still confined himself to spirits—a very important part of the Excise revenue. The greater proportion of the receipts from the spirit duties came by the hands of the officers of the Inland Revenue; but a system of bonding was carried on partly in Inland Revenue and partly in Customs' warehouses, and, by

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an arrangement between the two Departments, the Customs officers were willing to bond spirits or other articles for the Inland Revenue, and the Inland Revenue officers were willing to bond spirits and other articles for the Customs. When the articles were taken out of bond the money was received by the one Department and handed over to the other. He had seen the Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, in consequence of the Notice received from his right hon. Friend; and had learnt from him that, comparing the two periods referred to, a sum of £100,000 had been received last year by the Inland Revenue from the officers of the Customs in respect of duties received by the Inland Revenue and Customs from spirits, and due to the Inland Revenue, and that no such sum was received this year. It would look, therefore, as if the Inland Revenue had fallen off by £100,000; but, in point of fact, he was informed that £90,000 had been so received, but was not yet brought into account. There were one or two other points to which he might refer, but they were quite alien to the Navy Estimates. As a general answer to his right hon. Friend, he would say that, although the Revenue was not as brilliant as he could wish, there was nothing whatever about it to cause him any uneasiness at present in view of his Estimate. The receipts from the Customs were very satisfactory; those from the Inland Revenue were in some respects less satisfactory. The great falling off was in licences, amounting in one week to about £120,000; but licences were an article on which the receipts might come in one week or another, and it so happened that a larger sum was received under that head in the corresponding period of last year. There was nothing to make him feel uneasy at present, and at the end of the quarter he would be in a position to give further information, as he would then be in full possession of the details necessary for the purpose.
MR. HUNTremarked that although future Revenue was mortgaged to the extent of £440,000, it did not follow that the entire amount would fall upon the receipts of next year. That would entirely depend upon the proposals he or his successor might make with regard to the building of ships.
GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURpointed out that this charge was yearly on the increase, and required to be carefully looked after. He referred to an item in the Vote for police expenditure, and expressed a hope that instead of being scattered broadcast over several grants of the whole Estimate, the whole of the expenditure for that Force would be shown in one sum, so that one might be able to understand distinctly what it was, and also what were the number of the Force. He complained of the inconsistent manner in which charges were dealt with. The cost of the police connected with the watching of Dockyards was debited in the Naval Estimates, whereas the heavy outlay for naval guns and projectiles, and all the other charges relating thereto was charged on the War Office Estimates. The accounts of the Metropolitan Police should, to be consistent, show the whole expenditure for police; but then Parliamentary responsibility would cease to belong to the First Lord of the Admiralty: and in the way the cost of the naval armaments was presented to Parliament, the responsibility for the outlay was thrown on the War Minister, and taken off the shoulders of the Admiralty.
MR. E. J. REEDthought that, instead of expending £25,000 each on two now ships, it would be better to expend £50,000 upon one. The Committee ought to have further information with respect to the vessels which were in course of construction.
SIR JOHN HAYhoped that the First Lord of the Admiralty would not accede to the suggestion, as he thought that it would be more advisable to begin two ships, than to begin only one. He would like to see the £45,000 intended for the Orontes applied to the completion of those iron-clads.
MR. A. F. EGERTONstated that the question of having an iron-clad as the depôt ship had been carefully considered, and had been unanimously objected to by the advisers of the Admiralty. It would be more expensive to build a depot on land than to use a ship. As to the police, the expense had increased in common with that of all other labour. He would, however, consider whether the form of the Vote could be improved. With re-regard to building two iron-clads by contract, some wished for only one ship and others for four, and as the opinion of

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various high authorities on both sides of the House differed so much with reference to this subject, he trusted that the Committee would accept the proposal of the First Lord of the Admiralty, which he believed would meet the exigencies of the case.
ADMIRAL ELLIOT: I would desire to take this opportunity, which is the first which the Rules of the House have afforded me, of replying to the various comments which have been made by hon. Members on the opinions which I expressed in a speech of some length on the 20th April last, on the House going into Committee of Supply on Navy Estimates. I trust that I shall not weary the House by continuing this discussion, but I would venture to observe that although the debate has been considerably prolonged, it cannot be said that the time of the House has been occupied with considerations of professional or practical subjects, but rather with lengthened Ministerial explanations, and, I might almost say, apologies for the state in which the Navy and Dockyards of this country have been handed over by the Liberal Government to their successors. I refer to the very long speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers), the several speeches from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Goschen), the several speeches from the late Secretary to the Admiralty, the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Shaw Lefevre), and lastly, a very lengthy legal exposition on Naval affairs from the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the City of Oxford (Sir William Harcourt)—who, by-the-bye, frankly confessed that he did not know very much about Naval matters. At the commencement of this debate, I called the attention of the House to the condition and management of Her Majesty's Dockyards. I expressed the opinion that the system which had grown up of late had very much impaired that state of preparation for war in which these Naval establishments should be at all times maintained—also that the monies voted for the maintenance of these establishments were misappropriated and were practically expended to a largo extent in maintaining the private dockyards of the country, and that this system considerably increased the burden of taxation, because these
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monies were not utilized in the most profitable manner for the advantage of the properties of the Crown. I expressed the opinion that our national Dockyards in time of peace should be to the utmost extent self-producing, and that the labour of those establishments should be of a permanent character, and not on the hired system, in order that the Crown might be independent of those evils which might arise from disturbances in the labour market. In fact, I pointed out that the principal features of mismanagement were—the contract system of production, the hired system of labour, and the redundant accounts and returns. I pointed out the origin of this system, and the object held in view by its supporters, and I called upon the Government and this new House of Parliament to redress the abuses I complained of, as trustees and stewards of this valuable national property. Having listened attentively to the comments which have been made upon my speech, I claim that the main features of my complaint have received no satisfactory reply—in fact, that the very important question of how far the system which prevails does impair a state of preparation for war has never been referred to by any one hon. Member who has spoken on this subject. I also consider that the question of unprofitable expenditure remains unanswered; and I claim that the arguments of the other side of the House could only be regarded in the light of confessions and avoidance. I would first deal with those comments which present the most pleasing aspect of affairs. I noticed with pleasure the words which fell from the First Lord of the Admiralty—that it was his intention to employ additional men in the Devonport Dockyard in the construction of boilers—the cost being, as he said, 25 per cent cheaper than work given to private firms. I highly commend this decision, and especially an expression which fell from the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hunt), that he did not see why monies should be spent outside the Dockyards which could be more profitably expended within. I consider this to be the first step in the right direction. I was glad to hear from the Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. A. F. Egerton), that he agreed with me to the extent that he thought "experience showed, on the whole, that large ships could be built in the Dockyards better and cheaper than

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outside;" and I trust that, as regards the hired system, he will, after further consideration, be able to agree with me that the normal requirements of labour in the Dockyards should be on the system of permanent employment. The hon. Member will, I trust, see force in the argument that private capitalists who, like himself, are large employers of labour, would gladly enter into a contract for permanent employment at fixed wages, but that they cannot do so, because they are never certain of the amount of work they may have to perform; but that the Crown being the only employer of labour that can enter into a permanent contract, it is immensely to its advantage to do so, so as to obtain freedom from disturbance and from high prices, and secure other valuable considerations connected with the discipline, contentment, and superior skill of the artizans. The hon. Member (Mr. A. F. Egerton) did remark upon the increase in the pension list which would be caused by the increase of the numbers on the establishments; but I trust he will be able to satisfy himself that there is a considerable set-off against these expenses in the improved and increased amount of work obtained, and in the increased productive power of the Dockyards at the outbreak of war; for it cannot be denied that there is considerable loss at present incurred from unskilled labour, impaired discipline, constant changes, and discontent. I was glad to hear from the hon. Member that he was prepared to reconsider his opinions when better informed as regards the question of increased expenditure involved. The hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) approved of the hired system on the grounds that it excited emulation, and enabled us to compare one class of work with another, and said that he did not think it would be wise to extend the system of establishment to the factories. He also expressed an opinion in favour of the contract system, on the grounds that there was not sufficient room in the Dockyards for building and repairing all Her Majesty's ships in peace time. Now, as regards these opinions, I will only say that I consider them to be so unsound that I think if the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) will take the trouble to inquire more fully into the matter he will see good reasons for altering his judgment. I now
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come to the more unpleasant feature of the hostile comments made on my speech on Dockyards. The speech of the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Reed) was certainly strongly opposed to the views which I had expressed, and was therefore opposed to the views and aspirations of the Dockyard men themselves as expressed in their Memorials which are in the possession of this House. I find some difficulty in replying to the arguments of Mr. Reed, inasmuch as his opinions conveyed to his constituents since he addressed the House, are at variance with the opinions recorded by the Press as having been expressed within the House in reply to my speech. I will, however, select the opinions expressed within this House, as recorded by the Press, as being most likely to have conveyed his real sentiments, because they were uttered in the presence of those Members interested in the private trade, and were in support of a policy for which Mr. Reed himself is to a great extent responsible, and because these sentiments are only natural coming from the manager of a great building establishment, and a contractor for the construction of foreign men-of-war. Well, then, Mr. Reed recommended the continuance of the hired system of labour on the ground that it taught the Admiralty to become accustomed to higher rates of pay! I leave it to the House to decide whether this is a statesmanlike speech on the part of a Member of Parliament who may be considered in the light of a trustee of the monies of the Crown and responsible for their most economical and profitable expenditure. Then as regards the diverting of the monies voted for the maintenance of the Royal Dockyards, to the purpose of maintaining the private yards of the country and enabling them, by building foreign war ships, to increase the maritime strength of foreign nations, I can only reply to such an opinion by saying that it is wanting in patriotism and sound judgment; and I would ask whether the country is also to rejoice that the experience gained by Mr. Reed as Chief Constructor of the Navy, after a wasteful expenditure of twelve millions of money in experiments resulting in an obsolete Fleet, should now be utilized for developing foreign Navies? In reply to my remarks on the employment of hired labour, Mr. Reed has charged me with having attacked the character of the

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hired men of Her Majesty's Dockyards. I consider this to have been an unwarrantable misconstruction of my words as reported by the Press, and that the inference drawn from what fell from me on the subject of hired labour was so unfair that I can only consider it as an attempt to damage me in the eyes of my constituents—a great portion of whom, as is well known to Mr. Reed, are hired artificers. Is it likely that as I owe my seat in Parliament to a great extent to these voters, that I should have sought to reflect upon their behaviour or character, more especially when by so doing I must have equally cast an imputation on the character of the established men, seeing that they have all sprung from the hired list? I can only in self defence throw back the imputation on those who made it. I said that these men were trade unionists, and if Mr. Peed considers trade unionism and bad conduct to be synonymous terms, the inference is his own, not mine. I also said that they might strike for wages. Again I say, that if that remark is synonymous with bad conduct the inference is Mr. Reed's, not mine. I said that inferior workmen enter the yards, and when they become more skilled, they leave. I said that the discipline was relaxed owing to the independence of their position. I said that the constant changes were subversive of efficiency. In all this, the inference that their conduct is bad comes from Mr. Reed, and not from me. I conclude by observing that I said nothing of these men which they have not said for themselves in their Memorials. I have the pleasure to inform Mr. Reed that the shaft has missed its aim, as I have received letters from all quarters—from the workmen themselves—expressive of their satisfaction at the manner in which I advocated their interests. In conclusion, I will now leave it to the common sense of this House, and of the country at large, to decide whether Imperial interests are to be sacrificed in order that one branch of industry may flourish, and that we may assist to develop the naval power of foreign nations, and whether it is sound policy that the efficiency of the Dockyards for war service should be impaired, and that additional burdens should be imposed on the taxpayers for the benefit of one class of the people. I would observe that I have never denied that the existing system was beneficial
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to the private ship-builders; but I consider it a monstrous proposition to make to this House that monies voted for one purpose are to be turned aside to another. I am perfectly aware of the great power, both inside and outside this House, which has hitherto been exercised in support of those great vested interests connected with the private shipbuilding trade of this country; but I am hopeful that this discussion has not fallen altogether idly upon the ears of those hon. Members who re-represent in this House the industry to which I have referred, and that if it can be shown them, as I believe it can, that the national interests suffer, and that the power of our Navy is impaired, I feel assured that their sense of duty, as Members of this House, and their patriotism, will induce them to support the First Lord of the Admiralty in reforming those abuses in the management of Her Majesty's Dockyards which have grown up of late years, and which it has been my duty, to the best of my ability, to expose.
Vote agreed to.
(2.) £1,143,159, Naval Stores.
MR. SHAW LEFEVREwished to offer an explanation to the Committee with regard to this Vote, so far as it affected the late Admiralty. The First Lord had stated that he was able now to effect an economy on the Vote of £55,000, and to apply that amount towards the material of building the vessels for which he had taken an increased number of men under Vote 6. The right hon. Gentleman attributed that economy to the fall which had taken place in the price of coal, and to the effect of contract arrangements, neither of which results could possibly have boon foreseen when he (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) originally framed the Estimates. It must at any rate be some satisfaction to hon. and gallant Gentlemen opposite, who had for the past five years been complaining of the deplorable state of the stores, to know that all their statements had been proved to be unfounded, and that the first thing that a Conservative Government did on coming into power was to economize from the Store Vote to the extent of £55,000. As the right hon. Gentleman had not stated what the improved contract arrangements wore, the Committee might perhaps wish to know them. The

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contract arrangements were only entered into last year, and they were as followed:—It was found advisable in the first place to break off a number of old existing contracts for a large amount of stores of uncertain quantities, which were to be supplied on demand from the Dockyards, and to invite tenders for specific articles of smaller amount; and, secondly, the Superintendent of Contracts, at his own suggestion, went down to Birmingham, Leeds, and other places, and had communication with leading manufacturers who had contracted for the Admiralty; and, strange to say, he found that they were under the impression that the old objectionable system of contracts still existed, under which it was necessary to "tip" some of the Admiralty officials, in order to get contracts, and to be relieved of harassing penalties, and were quite unaware of all the changes made by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Baxter). After the explanations of the Superintendent of Contracts, those leading manufacturers promised to tender for the next Government contracts. The new contracts were not out when he (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) left office, but he believed that the result of the new arrangements had been that very much improved tenders had been sent in at very much lower rates than had been expected, and that the leading manufacturers now tendered for the Government contracts. It was due to the Superintendent of Contracts to say that he had rendered a public service by his exertions in this matter.
LORD ESLINGTONdesired to call attention to a case which he thought painfully illustrative of the manner in which money went in the Dockyards. The Undaunted had been launched in January, 1861, at Chatham, and had never been commissioned, having always since that time been lying in the Dockyard. It was roughly estimated that a further expenditure of £16,000 was necessary in order to render her fit to go to sea, and, including that sum, her total first cost would be £121,142—that was to say, £71,350 spent upon her hull, £33,792 upon her machinery, and the additional sum of £16,000 already mentioned. But the further expenditure actually proposed on the vessel was not merely £16,000; it was no less than £41,748—namely, over £26,000 for material, and over £14,000 for labour.
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These figures related, as he had shown, to a vessel that was launched more than 13 years ago, and had never been sent to sea. He thought it was a matter that required explanation.
GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURdecidedly objected to the present practice of making the War Office Estimates bear the heavy burden of the outlay for naval armaments. During the past 12 years the Army expenditure had been swelled to the extent of several millions by the costly, and many changes in the armament of the Navy. Every description of gun and carriage had been tried at the expense of the Army, and often charged forward with a recklessness which could only be the result of knowing that the expense would not be borne by the Admiralty Estimates, and with the knowledge that the defence before Parliament would devolve on the War Minister, and not on the First Lord of the Admiralty. He complained, so far from this liability being lessened, he now found that various items, such as torpedoes, had been transferred to the Army Estimates, whereas they ought properly to be included in the Vote for naval Stores.
MR. E. J. REEDexplained, in regard to the Undaunted, that he did not take exception to the sum proposed; but he objected to its being placed under the head of repairs, when, in fact, it was really to be applied in supplying her with a finishing equipment and with a poop, in order to adapt her for the service for which she was required.
MR. A. F. EGERTONsaid, he could confirm the remarks of the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) in regard to the satisfactory condition of the Stores Department, and had great pleasure in bearing testimony to the salutary reforms which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose (Mr. Baxter) had been instrumental in effecting in the department. Why the Undaunted had not previously been put in commission he could not say. He did not think the expense of repairs excessive, as it included the practical finishing of the ship, and even while in harbour a certain sum was required for repairs, for it was quite certain that in the course of time ships deteriorated and required new machinery and repairs if they were to be kept fit for service. As to the armament being provided by the Admiralty instead of by the War Office,

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as proposed by the hon. and gallant Member for Kincardineshire (General Sir George Balfour), the present system was preferred by those most conversant with the subject, both in the Admiralty and out of it; but if the change could be shown to promote economy and efficiency, the subject deserved fuller consideration than it would receive in Committee.
Vote agreed to.
(3.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That a sum, not exceeding £802,904, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expense of Steam Machinery and Ships building by Contract, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1875."
MR. PALMER, in moving that the Vote be reduced by the sum of £45,000, said, that before entering into his reason for objecting to the Vote, he wished to bring before the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty the suggestion that had been thrown out by the hon. Member for Pembroke, that when those Estimates were laid before the House full information should be afforded the hon. Members, so that they might know, when a Vote was first taken, to what extent the Estimate was intended to be carried. This Vote would only be an instalment on account, and when the first Vote was taken, it should be added on to the following Votes, until the whole was completed, that the House might then know whether the Estimate had been exceeded or not. The information that he had received upon this Vote naturally was not derived from Papers emanating from the Government, but from information he had received elsewhere. He therefore thought it right to make this Motion, and he wished to assure the right hon. Gentleman that he was not actuated by any hostile feeling; but he simply thought the First Lord of the Admiralty had been badly advised in the spending of a large sum of money upon a ship which, when completed at a large cost, would not prove so satisfactory as a new ship would have done. Although a practical question, he would state it very briefly to the House, so that every hon. Member would be able to take a common-sense view of the whole matter. The Orontes was a steamer built above 12 years ago for the transport
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service. He had no doubt that at the time she was built she was in every way a credit to our naval architects as well as to the most approved marine engineers. The vessel was 2,812 tons measurement, and was of 500 horse power. Her original cost was about £70,000 for the hull, and £25,000 for the engines, to which must be added some extras for enlarging the poops—amounting to £6,000—making in all about £100,000 as the total cost of the ship. Now, the vessel, he believed, had done satisfactory work, and had proved herself most efficient as a transport. But the House would scarcely credit that it was now intended to put 50 feet in the steamer amidships in order to lengthen her. [Mr. HUNT: We are only going to put 30 feet.] If 30 feet, it did not alter very materially the question. He could also inform the House that the old engines were quite unfit for further work, and that new compound engines on the most improved principle were to be substituted. This work, as he was informed, would, in all, amount to £103,000, a sum which exceeded, in fact, the original cost of the ship. And to that amount must be added considerable sums for further outfit; so that this vessel, when completed, would cost more than would build a new ship with all the modern appliances that had resulted from the progress naval architecture had made within the last 12 years. The ship in itself, when lengthened, could not, of course, possess the same symmetry of lines as a new ship, because 50 or 30 feet put into a vessel amidships could not be worked in so as to be in entire harmony with the old lines; and for a vessel which was intended to attain speed, and to transport troops, he certainly thought the proposed expenditure, on the part of the Government, would prove very unsatisfactory. Some large companies and steamship owners, when they had an old vessel, such as the Orontes, usually sold her for what she would bring, and replaced her by a new one. Surely, if large companies could take such a course, it ought to be adopted by Her Majesty's Government. Observing the hon. and gallant Member for Chatham (Admiral Elliot) in his place, he wished to state, with reference to some remarks the hon. and gallant Admiral had made in a former speech upon the question of the

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Dockyards—which remarks had caused some irritation out of the House, inasmuch as he had accused the working men in private yards of not being to be relied upon in a pressure of work during the time of war, because of their trades' unions and other combinations—that he had from his own experience knowledge to directly contradict such a statement. During the late Russian War a large amount of work was thrown upon private yards by the Government, and the men engaged on them worked most loyally and satisfactorily, without a murmur and without raising any difficulty, until the whole of that work was completed. This was certainly a very great contrast to what the hon. Member had stated with reference to what had taken place in the Chatham yard. [Admiral ELLIOT said, he had been misunderstood.] He (Mr. Palmer) was glad to find that there might have been some misunderstanding; but the hon. Member had been so reported in The Times. He would not detain the House longer with reference to the Orontes, but he really did hope either that the explanation to be given by the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty, would be of such a character as to induce him to withdraw his Amendment, or that he should be supported by the House in not permitting this piece of extravagance to be carried through by the Admiralty.
GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURseconded the Amendment.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That a sum, not exceeding £757,904, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Expense of Steam Machinery and Ships building by Contract, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st clay of March 1875."—(Mr. Palmer)
MR. HUNTsaid, he had stated the other night that they were deficient of one troop-ship. They required four troop-ships for the normal service of the Army, and in order to have four efficient ships, they ought really to have five; so that he might put it that they were now in want of two troop-ships. It was admitted on all hands that it was the worst economy to hire ships for the normal service. The question was this—Should they make serviceable a ship they had got, or sell her and build a new one? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Goschen)
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favoured the plan of selling the ship they had, and providing a new one; but the right hon. Gentleman had not taken any money for providing a new ship. The highest price they could get for that ship, if they sold her, was £30,000; and the calculations which he had been able to make from the officers of his Department, under advice, of the cost of lengthening the Orontes in the way proposed, as against purchasing a ship giving the same accommodation, showed that by lengthening her there would be a saving effected for the country of from £30,000 to £40,000. They were now negotiating for tenders for lengthening the ship, and, therefore, at present it was impossible for him to name the sum in the Estimates. Though built 12 years ago, the Orontes was an exceedingly well-built ship and very strong, and when she had been lengthened and had new bulk-heads put into her, and new boilers and compound engines, she was likely to be serviceable for 20 years to come. Under those circumstances, he had arrived at the conclusion that the course which his advisers had recommended to him was the best and also the most economical. When lengthened and improved, as suggested, the Orontes would have accommodation for a whole battalion, and would be a really useful and efficient troop-ship. The right hon. and gallant Member for Stamford (Sir John Hay) wanted the money to be spent, not on the Orontes, but on iron-clads; but if they negatived that proposition, the money would not be expended on iron-clads.
MR. MACGERGORcomplained that the manner in which the Estimates were made out left the Committee in the dark on many important points. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the First, Lord of the Admiralty that they should have the means of doing their own regular transport service; but he did not think they should go further, because in cases of emergency the Mercantile Marine could be relied on. A pressure was no doubt felt at the time of the Crimean War, but it could not be taken as a criterion, for matters were very much improved since then; ships which at that time cost £3 5s. a ton, being now to be had for £1 5s. He thought, with the alterations that were to be made on the Orontes, she would be a very cheap and efficient troop-ship. The Admiralty,

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however, should be careful about the tender, and see that they did not pay too much for the work, for if they took the value of the vessel at £30,000, and added £70,000 for the lengthening and new machinery, that would be equal to £100,000, for which, he believed, they could build a new, strong ship, with all the modern improvements.
MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, the late Admiralty had considered and determined not to undertake the repair of the Orontes. Four firms had tendered for the work, the lowest tender being £103,000, and they had rejected it, believing they could get a better ship for the money. He thought that for our normal troop-ship service four ships were more than sufficient. The present year was provided for, but one would be required for next year, and the late Admiralty had proposed to purchase one, believing that they would get a suitable one for about £130,000.
MR. SAMUDAcomplained that on that and on other matters the Committee had not that amount of information which it was entitled to expect from the Government. With respect to the Orontes, he admitted that she was a good ship, but pointed out that her age would be greatly against her if it should ever be found necessary to sell her. So far from wishing the First Lord of the Admiralty to build one instead of two vessels, he wished the right hon. Gentleman had proposed to build four instead of two. The Shannon, however, was not in one sense an iron-clad at all; he had been informed she was constructed with an iron-clad bulkhead near the bows, and wings from this extending only a short distance aft, and such a class of vessel would be of no practical use in these days, as she would be obliged to keep her head to the foe, unless the speed was sufficiently great to compensate for the want of armour. In the case of the Inflexible, there would be a vessel 300 feet long, 100 feet of which was to be covered with plate-armour, the other two-thirds having not a particle of armour; so that it seemed that we were coming back to the errors which were committed when the vessels of the Warrior class were built.
ADMIRAL EGERTONthought it would be wise if the Vote was deferred for a little while, for, as to the Shannon, they were told that she could only fight in
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a particular way, and it might be worth while to consider the question of speed. If it was proceeded with, he would vote for the Amendment. He hoped that the First Lord of the Admiralty would not build more iron-clads than he could possibly help, as he felt sure that the days of that kind of vessel were numbered.
MR. A. F. EGERTONsaid, it was believed that the repairs of the Orontes, would not cost the whole amount asked for that purpose. The question of the speed of the Shannon was now under consideration, and the Admiralty was quite disposed to add to her speed, if it should be thought necessary.
MR. E. J. REEDintimated that he should support the Government, as he thought that when a Vote had been carefully prepared and proposed for a specific purpose, the Committee would do well not to refuse it. He might explain that many large steamship companies had done, and were doing, exactly what the Government proposed—namely, lengthen their ships and compound their engines. If the Government sold the Orontes for £30,000, the House might be prepared to hear some very unpleasant comments on the subject next year, and the Admiralty might expect to experience more opposition than they did that night. They ought not to condemn the ships of the Government simply because hon. Members did not agree about them. There could be no doubt that the Navy was now very strong, and whatever faults might be found with the Shannon and the Inflexible, they constituted a very important addition to the power of the Navy.
MR. HUNTsaid, it appeared from a Report of Mr. Barnaby, the chief architect of the Navy, that the Shannon was efficiently armoured.
MR. GOSCHENsaid, he trusted his hon. Friend would not press the Motion to a division, because it would be trenching upon that responsibility which they were bound to delegate to the Ministry.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Original Question put, and agreed to.
House resumed.
Resolutions to be reported To-morrow;
Committee to sit again upon Wednesday.

SUPPLY.—REPORT.
The first Seven Resolutions, being read a second time, were agreed to.
The Eighth Resolution (£20,000 Secret Service), being read a second time.
MR. BUTT, in moving the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £3,000, said, he took exception to the Item for law expenses arising out of prosecutions in Ireland. The subject was one of great importance in the opinion of the people of Ireland, and in reference to illegal prosecutions which had been instituted in that country, his impression was that the law costs, which were not mentioned in the Estimates, had been paid out of the "Secret Service" money. He believed if there was any case in which objection ought to be taken more than in another, it was that in which Colonel Hillier, a Government official, had acted illegally in arresting and imprisoning several persons. It appeared that there had been an Orange demonstration in Ireland, and that Colonel Hillier was sent down by the Government. He was sent down with an army of occupation, and even to control the local magistracy. He made several arrests, and threw the parties into prison. Those arrests were illegal, and four or five actions were brought against him. In one of those actions a verdict for £500 was given against him; and the law costs amounted to £342, and thus a sum exceeding £1,000 was paid for Colonel Hillier's proceedings. The Government, when an action was brought against their officials, left them to defend themselves; but when the verdict went against them they (the Government) paid the damages out of the public money. In the case of Colonel Hillier, he did not see the Item in the Estimates; but there could be no doubt it was paid out of the Secret Service fund. The system was a most vicious one, and ought to be discountenanced. The result was that the official looked, not to the law as his guide, but to the Government; and if he was certain to be indemnified, should damages be given againt him in respect of illegal proceedings, all protection would be practically taken away from the public. He might state to the House that some time ago a young lady, the daughter of a most respectable gentleman in Ireland,
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was going to post a letter for her father, and meeting a policeman in the neighbourhood, she asked him to oblige her by posting it. He looked at the letter, and thinking there was something in it of which he might not approve, and that the young lady might have written it at another's dictation, he kept possession of it; and in the course of that night a party of police entered the young lady's father's house, ransacked every part of it, and were guilty of most illegal proceedings. An action was brought, and the jury gave a verdict for the plaintiff, with damages £150. He believed the jury would have given much more had they known who the party was that was to pay the damages. He assumed that those damages were paid out of the public funds by the Government as Secret Service money. The Secret Service money should never be given for any such purpose, and when voted by Parliament it was not thought by Parliament that it was to be applied to any such object as that to which he deemed it his duty to call the attention of the House. Such an application of it was most vicious, and he was sure the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government would never say that the Government ought to pass Bills of Indemnity to cover the illegal acts of their officials. The hon. and learned Member concluded by moving the reduction of the Vote.
Amendment proposed, to leave out "£20,000," in order to insert "£17,000,"—(Mr. Butt,)—instead thereof.
Question proposed, "That '£20,000' stand part of the Resolution."
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Dr. BALL)submitted that the simple question for the House to consider was whether it would allow Government a certain sum as Secret Service money, leaving the disposal of it solely to the discretion of Government. If the Government violated the law or acted wrongly, the House could censure them; but he must set his face firmly against indirect attacks upon previous Governments in Ireland, who had done their best with the means given them by Parliament to cope with unparalleled difficulties; those attacks being made under colour of questions and appeals addressed to the present Government

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which were never brought forward when the late Government were in office. The honesty of such proceedings might at least be doubted, seeing that some of those who now adopted them were Members of the last Parliament.
MR. BUTT, after what had fallen from the right hon. and learned Gentleman, in hardly Parliamentary language, doubting the honesty of Members of that House, wished to state that he made that Motion last year, when the late Government was in office.
MR. LAWbelieved that in 1872, some damages or costs were paid in the case of the gentleman whose name was mentioned by the hon. Member for Limerick, and who, being, as stated by that hon. Member, uninstructed in the law, had innocently committed some irregularity. If the Government employed an official, and if, the conduct of that official having been examined in a public Court of Justice, it was found there was nothing objectionable in the course he had pursued, further than that he had been betrayed into an irregularity through ignorance of the law, he would ask whether it was not the duty of the Government to support that officer and pay the damages and costs? It was so in the case referred to, and the Government of the day having inquired into the matter, he had no doubt the House would think they acted rightly in the course they had taken. No other case but this had been specifically brought forward by the hon. and learned Member for Limerick, and therefore it was impossible to answer him as to any other. He was, however, disposed to agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman that where the Government on its own responsibility came to the conclusion that an official deserved to be supported, the money necessary to indemnify him should be, as it latterly had been, put upon the Estimates. But that was no reason for reducing the present Vote.
Question put.
The House divided:—Ayes 215;Noes 31: Majority 184.
Resolution agreed to.
The Ninth Resolution, being read a second time, was agreed to.
The Tenth Resolution, being read a second time.
MR. COLLINSbegged to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, when he proposed to give effect to the Motion carried a few nights ago with respect to the Irish Fisheries? That was no party question, for during the debate, hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House endeavoured to impress on the Government the necessity of doing something to encourage fisheries in Ireland. He himself suggested the construction of piers to protect the boats, and the propriety of advancing small sums of money as loans to the fishermen to procure nets, and clothing for themselves; and the right hon. Gentleman expressed a wish, that a fund called the Reproductive Loan Fund should be made available.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, his right hon. Friend (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) had devoted his attention to the subject, and expressed his desire to meet the views of Irishmen on that subject. The difficulty was as to what source the money was to come from, and how it was to be administered? He then made an offer, which was not accepted. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) was surprised at that. In the name of the Government, he was prepared to renew the offer which was made by the Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, to place the Irish Reproductive Loan Fund at the disposal of a Fishery Board, properly constituted, through whom the object sought might be attained. If that offer were not accepted, there would be considerable difficulty in ascertaining in what other manner the money could be obtained, and the matter would stand over for further consideration.
MR. BUTTsaid, he was glad to hear that an Irish Board of Fisheries was to be established, and would in that view support the Bill which would be necessary to give effect to the offer of the Government. He, however, did not represent in any way, the opinions of any counties interested in the Fund in question.
Resolution agreed to.
Subsequent Resolutions agreed to.

BOARD OF TRADE ARBITRATIONS, INQUIRIES, &c., BILL— [BILL 86.]
(Sir Charles Adderley, Mr. Cavendish Bentinck.)
BOARD OF TRADE ARBITRATIONS, INQUIRIES, &c., BILL— [BILL 86.]

  COMMITTEE.
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clauses 1 to 7, inclusive, agreed to.
  MR. WAIT, in moving to insert, after Clause 7, the following clause:—
  "Whereas by section eleven of 'The Regulation of Railways Act, 1873,' it is enacted that the facilities therein mentioned shall include the due and reasonable receiving, forwarding, and delivering by every Railway Company and Canal Company, and Railway and Canal Company, at the request of any such other Company, of through traffic to or from the Railway or Canal of any other such Company at through rates: And whereas it is expedient to amend and enlarge the said enactment: Be it therefore Enacted, That from and after the passing of this Act, the said facilities shall include the due and reasonable receiving, forwarding, and delivering by every Railway Company, and Canal Company, and Railway and Canal Company, at the request of any other such Company, or on the application of any number of not less than ten persons interested or aggrieved, of through traffic at through rates: And the sub-sections from one to nine inclusive of the eleventh section, so far as they are applicable and mutatis mutandis, shall apply to the said persons making such application,"
  said, he was not without hopes that he should obtain the support of the Government in endeavouring to remove an ambiguity in the Act of last Session, especially as the question was one, the expediency of which was undoubted, and which, moreover, had been frequently under the notice of the House.
  New Clause (Extension and amendment of section eleven of the Regulation of Railways Act, 1873,)—(Mr. Wait,)—brought up, and read the first time.
  MR. RATHBONEurged the Government to accept the clause.
  MR. STAVELEY HILLthought no case of hardship had been made out which would necessitate the insertion of the clause. Moreover, it did not come within the scope of the Act of 1873.
  MR. MONKtrusted the Government would accept the clause, which was foreshadowed in the Report of the Commissioners who sat in 1872. Any public body was able to obtain through rates. The Act of 1873 was passed not for the benefit of railways, but for that of the public.
  MR. BECKETT-DENISONobjected
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  to the clause, which was but the resuscitation of a proposition brought forward last Session by the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) and negatived by the House. He hoped the House would confirm the course adopted in 1873.
  MR. MUNDELLAconsidered such a clause necessary for the interests of trade.
  MR. HEYGATEthought there was nothing to justify the Committee in adopting such a proposal.
  SIR CHARLES ADDERLEYsaid, it was absolutely necessary in the interest of the public that there should be some tribunals for deciding cases where companies made arrangements barring through traffic. The Railway Commissioners were made arbitrators by Act of Parliament, which gave them power in such cases; but he thought the Committee would see that the sort of arbitration now under consideration was totally different from the oases referred to. It was, in his opinion, opposed to the condition of past legislation, which authorized maximum rates to every company. The object of existing arbitration was to prevent a railway company owning part of a continuous line from barring a company owning another part of the same continuous line. It would expose companies to constant demands, which they would be unable to meet if any person were allowed to claim through rates subject to arbitration. It might be matter for consideration whether, under due restrictions and securities, persons might not, as companies now, refer to the Commissioners any refusal of through traffic.
  MR. WHITWELLsaid, the Courts should be open to individuals to get a fair judgment in matters of this kind, and for this reason—some railway companies received goods, and instead of sending them as wished, sent them by another line, and by that means got a larger return for their transit. There were many bodies of men who were not corporations, and simply because they were not corporations, they could not in such cases come before the Courts. He contended that the Government ought to grant the same rights to individuals as corporations were entitled to under the Act of last Session, and regretted that the Government would not support the clause. Sooner or later the question was sure to come on again.
  MR. WAITsaid, it appeared to have been overlooked that the 10 persons must be 10 persons really aggrieved; and he had made the proposition to show that the grievance was one of a bonâ fide character, and in order that parties might have a locus standi before the Commissioners.
  Question put, "That the Clause be read a second, time."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 51;Noes 130: Majority 79.
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he had voted with the Government in the last division; but he hoped that before the third reading, a clause would be inserted which would carry further the provisions of the Act of last Session.
  SIR CHARLES ADDERLEYsuggested that the right hon. Gentleman might propose such a clause as he thought needful, and then it might come under consideration in a definite form.
  Remaining clause agreed to.
  Bill reported, as amended, to be considered upon Thursday.

  MAGISTRATES (IRELAND) AND COMMISSIONERS OF DUBLIN POLICE SALARIES BILL.
  Resolutions [May 1] reported;
  1. "That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of increased (Salaries to Resident Magistrates in Ireland, and to the Chief Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner of Police of the Police District of Dublin Metropolis."
  2. "That it is expedient to amend the Acts regulating such Salaries."
  Resolutions agreed to:—Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH and Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 117.]

  FACTORIES (HEALTH OF WOMEN, &c.) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Secretary CROSS, Bill to make better provision for improving the Health of Women, Young Persons, and Children employed in Factories, and affording better means for the Education of such Children, and otherwise to amend the Factory Acts, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Secretary CROSS, Sir HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON, and Viscount SANDON.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 115.]

  FOUR COURTS MARSHALSEA, DUBLIN, BILL.
  On Motion of Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH, Bill for the discontinuance of the Four Courts Marshalsea, Dublin, and the removal of prisoners therefrom, ordered to be brought in by Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH and Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 116.]
  House adjourned at One o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Church Patronage (Scotland) (72).
Second Reading—Tramways Provisional Orders Confirmation* (50); East India Annuity Funds (51).
Third Reading—Betting * (47), and passed.

CHURCH PATRONAGE (SCOTLAND).

  BILL PRESENTED. FIRST READING.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMOND: My Lords, in accordance with the Notice which I placed on the Paper some days back, I rise to call the attention of your Lordships to a matter of very great importance—the state of Church patronage in Scotland. I do so with a sense of the very great responsibility which attaches to moving in this matter—especially as I intend to ask your Lordships to deal substantially with it by giving a first reading to the Bill which I shall lay upon the Table. Of one thing, however, I can assure your Lordships, and it is that I approach the subject with an entire absence of any political motive whatever, because I am of opinion that a question of the appointment of ministers to attend to the spiritual wants of a large portion of our fellow countrymen is not one for party warfare, nor one to be made even a subject of political discussion. My Lords, I believe I am acting in the interests of the Established Church of Scotland—because I am satisfied that if you assent to the measure which I am about to lay before you, and to ask you to read the first time, it will extend and perpetuate that Church. I am anxious to contribute to such a result, as I am of opinion that no blessing is so great to any country as that of an Established Church, whereby the nation and its Government make public profession of the religion to which they are attached. My Lords, I cannot see any objection to the measure I intend to

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  propose, unless it be one which may be felt by those who, being hostile to all Establishments, may think that this measure will tend to give the Established Church of Scotland additional vigour and increased vitality. My Lords, this subject has been constantly before the Scotch people for the last 300 years. During that period presentation by individuals had been twice taken away, and twice has that patronage been restored. It was finally established in its present form in 1712; and in that form I now come to deal with it. I have been told—and I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of my information—that the question of its abolition, or even of its modification, has excited the greatest possible interest among Scotch constituencies, not only during the time to which I have referred, but up to the time of the recent General Election. My Lords, the reasons which I shall now attempt to adduce for the position which I, on the part of Her Majesty's Government, take in reference to this question may be divided into two classes. They are founded, first, on the strong feelings which have been manifested against the continuance of the present system of Church patronage during recent years; and, secondly, on the condition of Scotland, going back to a comparatively ancient date. Dealing with the first part of the question at once, I find that in 1866 and 1867, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland approached this question with great earnestness; but the first time of late years in which it assumed anything like a tangible form in the deliberations of that body was in 1868. In that year a committee of the General Assembly was appointed to consider the subject, and, if possible, to devise some mode in which it might be satisfactorily dealt with. My Lords, I think I ought to state in the outset that the mode in which the General Assembly have always looked on this question in attempting to deal with it has been to give the appointment of ministers in the Church of Scotland to the heritors in conjunction with other parties in the Church. I state that in the outset, because when I come to deal with that part of the question, the proposals which I shall have to make will not be in strict accordance with that principle; but I quote the proceedings of the General Assembly to show that they are dissatisfied
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  with the existing state of things, and think that the law of patronage as at present exercised ought to be altered, and, in fact, ought to be entirely abolished. Well, my Lords, in 1868 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland appointed a committee to inquire into the subject. In the following year they they made a report to the Assembly, on the reading of which the following Resolution was moved and agreed to—
  "That the General Assembly, having heard the Report of the Committee on Patronage appointed last year, approve the diligence of the Committee, and adopt the said Report in so far as it indicates the evils which have arisen from the existing Law of Patronage, the advantages that would arise from the abolition thereof, with such compensation to patrons as may appear just and expedient, and generally in so far as it recommends that the nomination of ministers should be vested in heritors, elders, and communicants, leaving the details, both as to the constitution of the nominating body and as to the respective powers of the nominating body and the congregation at large, to be arranged so that there should be conferred on the permanent male communicants of each parish the greatest amount of influence in the election of ministers which may be found consistent with the preservation of order and regularity in the proceedings."
  In 1870 an almost identical Resolution was adopted, and a new Committee was appointed. The Resolution was in these terms—
  "That the General Assembly having heard the Report, express their gratification at the amount of support received from Members of Parliament and others; re-appoint the Committee, with instructions to use all prudent and constitutional means to obtain, as speedily as possible, a measure for the alteration of the Law of Patronage, in accordance generally with the principles embodied in the resolution of the last General Assembly; and authorize the Committee, if they see it expedient, to prepare the outline of a Bill in harmony with these principles, and submit it for the approval of the Commission, at a meeting, specially called for the purpose, if necessary."
  In 1871, again, a very nearly similar Resolution was come to, though it did not express entire approval of the recommendations of the Committee. It stated—
  "That, without expressing entire approval of the Committee's Report, or the suggestions therein proposed, the Assembly re-appoint the Committee, with power to add to their number, instructing them to use every endeavour to carry out the views of the last General Assembly, and to use all their influence with the Government to induce it to introduce, during the next Session of Parliament, a Bill for the abolition of patronage

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  in the Church, with compensation to patrons, and to see that in any future scheme for the election of ministers there shall he a due representation of the heritors of the parish paying stipend as well as of the members of the Church."
  In 1872, a Resolution in almost identical terms was passed, and, in 1873, this Motion was agreed to—
  "Approve the Report, continue the Committee, and instruct them to avail themselves of any opportunity which may occur of getting the subject satisfactorily dealt with by the Legislature in the spirit of previous resolutions of the Assembly; further instruct the Committee to give every assistance to Sir Robert Anstruther in carrying his Motion before the House of Commons to a successful issue."
  This brings me to the close of the last Parliament. But I may mention that in 1869 a deputation—I believe a very large and influential deputation—waited on Mr. Gladstone, the Prime Minister at that time, and urged very strongly upon him the views entertained by those whom it represented, that Church patronage ought to be abolished. My Lords, in the last Session of Parliament a noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Airlie) brought the subject under the attention of your Lordships. It was discussed by several noble Lords who take an interest in the subject, especially my noble Friend the late Secretary for India (the Duke of Argyll), who expressed his views upon the subject at length. I likewise had the honour of addressing your Lordships on that occasion, and I stated my opinion that it would be a great advantage to the Church of Scotland if Church patronage were abolished, but that I thought the proposal for its abolition ought to be the act of Her Majesty's Government, and that it was the duty of the Government to take up the question if they saw a prospect of bringing it to a successful issue. [See 3 Hansard, ccxvi. 1032.] To what I then stated, I still adhere. And, perhaps, I ought now to mention that I have been in communication with my noble Friend (the Duke of Argyll) on the subject, and that my noble Friend has authorized me to say he cordially approves and sanctions the principles of the measure which I shall ask your Lordships to read a first time this evening. Of course, he gives no opinion as to its details, which he cannot do till he reads the Bill, and I only quote the approval of my noble Friend so far as the principles of the
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  Bill are concerned. I may also mention, my Lords, that at the last General Election there was scarcely a constituency in Scotland by which this question was not discussed, and that the candidates—both those who were returned, and those who failed to be elected, were subjected to a severe examination as to the views they entertained with respect to Church patronage. I think, therefore, I am entitled to say that the great majority of the constituencies in Scotland impressed on those who sought to gain their votes that the question was one with which it was absolutely necessary to deal as soon as possible; and since I have had the honour of presiding over the Department of which I am now the head, I have received large deputations composed of persons of all shades of political opinion, but agreeing in one common view—namely, that it was the duty of the Her Majesty's Government to take up the question. My Lords, concurring as I do in that view, and having expressed myself as I did last year—that it was the duty of Her Majesty's Government to take up the subject if they saw a reasonable hope of bringing it to a successful issue—I now appear before you as the organ of Her Majesty's Government in your Lordships' House, to invite your Lordships to deal with the subject, upon which, I hope, there will be satisfactory legislation during the present Session; for it will be my endeavour to use all the means which I have both in this and the other House of Parliament, that this Session shall not close without this measure passing into law. I say this because I am extremely anxious that it shall not be imagined that I merely put this Bill forward to ask for the second reading, and then allow it to stand over, under the pretence of giving time for its being discussed. I think it would be contrary to the interests of the Church, and contrary to the interests of Scotland, to allow this matter to be delayed, if we can possibly avoid it; because it would be far from desirable to keep it open as a subject of discussion and of heart-burnings for a longer period than is absolutely necessary.
  My Lords, having now stated the immediate reasons for dealing with this question, I am anxious to show your Lordships for how long a period it has been agitating Scotland. The people

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  of that country have from time to time expressed extreme dissatisfaction with the state of things in which they were placed. So long ago as 1560 the "First Book of Discipline," which though never ratified by Parliament was subscribed by a majority of the members of the Privy Council, and approved by the earlier General Assemblies, thus lays down the principle on which the appointment of ministers should proceed—
  "This liberty with all care must he reserved to every several church, to have their votes and suffrages in the election of their ministers."
  The "Second Book of Discipline" which was agreed to by the General Assembly of 1578 also protested against lay patronage. But these protests were unavailing, and in the Act of 1592, cap. 116, which gave the sanction of the Civil power to the Presbyterian form of Church government it was provided that the Presbytery "be bound and astricted to receive and admit quhatsumever qualified minister presented be His Majestie or uther laie patrones." This was the first enactment on the subject,—and such was the state of things down to 1649, when patronage was abolished, and the right of election vested in the people and the Presbytery; the patrons being compensated by certain advantages that were then given to them. In 1660 patronage was restored with episcopacy; but in 1690 it was again abolished. So the matter remained till the Union of Scotland with this country. Now, my Lords, I wish to call your Lordships' attention to what occurred at that time—because I think it important to show that Scotland has, at all events, a right to complain of the manner in which she has been treated in this matter. Before the Act of Union an Act of Security was passed in the Scotch Parliament, and in that Act, which was ratified by the Act of Union, it was laid down that the Presbyterian form of Church government was to continue as then established by law. But although it was made an Article of the Union that the Presbyterian form of Church government should continue, yet five years afterwards—in 1712—an Act was passed—before the meeting of the General Assembly, or without giving to that body the smallest opportunity of expressing its views upon the subject—an Act was passed by the British
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  Parliament, in what in these days would, perhaps, be termed "indecent haste"—I think in the whole the discussion lasted 10 days—I am not quite certain whether it was more or less, but when the measure came into this House, I believe it went through all its stages in one day, and that day a Saturday. I doubt if my noble Friend the Chairman of Committees, marvellous as are his powers in getting a Bill through, could pass one with greater rapidity than that. The effect of that measure was to enforce lay patronage upon the whole of the people of Scotland. My Lords, that proceeding was protested against by the General Assembly; but it was perfectly useless to protest, because the Act had been passed, and it has remained the law up to this time. In 1713 an unsuccessful attempt was made for its removal; and from that date down to 1788 the Assembly of the Church gave an annual instruction to their Commission to avail themselves of any opportunity of obtaining a repeal of the Act. Matters continued in this way down to 1831, when there was a strong agitation. This having failed, the Veto Act was proposed. This was defeated in 1833, but was passed by the full Assembly in 1834. This was not an Act of Parliament, but one of the General Assembly, passed after the opinion of the Law Officers of Scotland had been taken that it was quite within the power of the Church. It enacted that the dissent of the majority of the male heads of famines in a parish, being communicants, should be sufficient to set aside a presentee. Then came the disputes as to the legality of the Veto, and those proceedings with which your Lordships are perfectly familiar—I think I need not go into them. Then came the great secession of 1843. This brings me to what I may call the last legislation on that subject. In that year Lord Aberdeen succeeded in passing the 6th & 7th Vic. cap. 61, commonly called "Lord Aberdeen's Act." This was an Act to modify the law of patronage.
  My Lords, I have now called your Lordships' attention to the law as it at present stands, and I have endeavoured to show you, in the first place, that the agitation in the General Assembly upon this question has been constant, and that from 1690 down to the present day Scotland

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  has been constantly agitating with respect to it. An objection may possibly be made by some of your Lordships who are not intimately acquainted with Scotland, and especially by noble Lords who may reside in England. It may possibly be said that if we deal with the question of Church patronage in Scotland, it will only be a stepping-stone to some proposition to deal with Church patronage in England, and that we must take care that we are not establishing a precedent which will some day be brought forward here in justification of a similar measure in this country. In answer to that I may say that there is not the slightest similitude whatever in the position of the law of patronage in the two countries. It is perfectly and entirely distinct and separate, and you must deal with it not from an English point of view, but from a Scotch point of view. If you deal with it from an English point of view, you will find yourselves thoroughly mistaken, and in order to prove the accuracy of what I am saying, I will read to you the opinion of the late Sir James Graham, who in 1843, speaking on the Motion of the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Dalhousie) said—
  "I think therefore that in discussing this question in the British Parliament, we are bound to regard it with peculiar care; we must look at it not with English feeling's nor with the prejudices of Englishmen, but we are hound to regard it upon the principles of the Union, and to try and settle the question upon Presbyterian principles, as established by the Act of 1690—the Act of Union—and subsequent statutes."—[3 Hansard, lxvii. 379.]
  That, my Lords, is the view in which I shall endeavour to regard it. In the first place I may observe that the value and importance of an article is often tested by the price which it fetches; and you will find that by some recent returns which have taken place in regard to Church patronage in Scotand, the price at which a next presentation has been estimated is only one year's purchase. It is admitted that there is some marketable value to be attached to a next presentation in Scotland; but whereas in England its value is somewhere about 16 years' purchase, in Scotland, it is only estimated at one. I may also remark, as showing the difference between patronage in the two countries, that while the Church government harmonizes in England with Church patronage, it does not harmonize in the least degree
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  with the Presbyterian form of Church government or the Presbyterian form of worship. In the one case we have a liturgy, in the other there is no liturgy at all. Therefore, in the case of an English church, you may appoint a clergyman who may perform his duties admirably with respect to the liturgy, but that is not in the least degree dependent upon the eloquence and talents of the minister who conducts the service, whereas in the Scotch Church you must depend on his talents and eloquence. Therefore, my Lords, you cannot draw any analogy whatever from the mode of conducting the service in the two countries; and I say that the patronage with respect to England and the patronage with respect to Scotland in Church matters are entirely different.
  My Lords, there is another reason in favour of the Bill I am about to introduce which I think not unimportant—and that is that the right of Church patronage in Scotland is at the present moment practically abolished by the action of the patrons themselves. I do not mean to say that it is abolished in all cases, for I know that there are some honourable gentlemen who exercise the right—and I may say they exercise it with advantage to the country—but practically it is abolished, and has been for some time, and therefore I may say that it is obsolete, except in some few cases. We are told that in Scotland there are some 1,100 livings, of which the Crown holds the patronage of about 330. Taking the number in the hands of other patrons who do not exercise the patronage at present, and will not care to do so in the future, you will find that one-half of the Church patronage of Scotland is in the hands of patrons who do not care to exercise the privilege. It follows, therefore, that you are really dealing with a very small portion of those who desire to exercise patronage. At the time of the passing of Lord Aberdeen's Act in 1843, it was thought that it would be a remedy for the grievances which then existed; but I am afraid that the proceedings which have been taken under the Act have not been very satisfactory, and have not led to any healing of the differences that divided the Church at that time. Under that Act the ministers who are appointed are subject—I was going to say to a species of torture; at all events they are subject

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  to an examination of their opinions and abilities in open Court; and not only that, but their personal appearance, their manner, their voice, and their temperament—anything that is "personal"—are subject to a rigid investigation. At all events, they may or may not, by virtue of that Act, be subjected to such criticism. I say that that is a species of torture which is extremely painful, and which certainly does not lead to any beneficial results, and being altogether unnecessary, it ought, in my opinion, to be abolished. I propose, therefore, by the present Bill to repeal the Act of 1843, which is called Lord Aberdeen's Act. I have endeavoured to explain why it is that Government have thought it right to deal with this important question. They are quite well aware of the responsibility they incur, and I hope we shall be able to induce your Lordships to dispose of it during the present Session.
  My Lords, I will now, because I do not want to detain your Lordships any longer than I can help, state very shortly the provisions of the Bill which I propose to bring in. It is a very short one, consisting only of nine clauses—and the third clause is perhaps the first of any importance. That clause in the first place repeals the Act of Queen Anne, which was passed in 1712; and then goes on to repeal Lord Aberdeen's Act. It then provides for a constituent body who are to nominate the minister. In doing this I have avoided any franchise that might be denominated a "fancy franchise." I have taken the qualification which exists in other Presbyterian bodies, and which has already received the sanction of Parliament in this case. I propose, therefore, that therefore, that the Church patronage in future should be vested in the communicants of the parishes under regulations which are to be framed from time to time by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The mode of election is that which is provided in the 33 & 34 Vict. c. 87 s. 20, and which also prevails in other bodies in Scotland. The next two clauses deal with the matter of compensation to be paid to the patrons. In this I have followed as closely as possible the course taken by the Heritors Act passed in the reign of George III., which dealt with the question of the patronage of the heritors. It enacts
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  that the patrons shall be entitled to compensation to an amount not exceeding one year's stipend. The stipend is to be made up by the subscriptions of the heritors generally. I have no doubt that in many cases the patrons will not require any compensation whatever; because they will not consider the money value, but rather the duty imposed upon them of the presentation to the person who is most fitted to perform the office of a minister, which is a duty which cannot be represented by any money value. This is the Bill which I shall ask your Lordships to consider, and it is a very short one. In the first place, the patron is to receive one year's compensation for the right of which he is to be deprived—and I have no doubt whatever that most of the parishes will be only too happy to enfranchise themselves at such a cost. I was very much struck by the view which was entertained by the Committee which sat in 1834 upon the condition of the patronage of the Church of Scotland at that time; and with your Lordships' permission I will read a portion of their Report.
  "No sentiment has been so deeply impressed upon the minds of your Committee, in the course of their long and laborious investigation, as that of veneration and respect for the Established Church of Scotland. They believe that no institution has ever existed which, at so little cost, has accomplished so much good. The eminent place which Scotland holds in the scale of nations is mainly owing to the purity of the standards and the zeal of the ministers of its Church, as well as to the wisdom with which its internal institutions have been adapted to the habits and the interests of the people."
  What was true of the Established Church of Scotland then is true of her now. That Committee came to no definite resolution on the subject of patronage, but it well described the Established Church of Scotland, and it is with the view of extending the sphere of her usefulness and increasing her claims to the affection of the people, I ask your Lordships to give a first reading to the Bill which I have now the honour of laying upon your Lordships' Table.
  Bill to alter and amend the laws relating to the appointment of Ministers to Parishes in Scotland—presented by the Lord President.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read the first time.
  THE EARL OF AIRLIEsaid, that although it was not customary to discuss a Bill which had not yet been laid before their Lordships, yet as he had himself brought this subject under the consideration of their Lordships last year, he thought it would not be out of place if he offered his congratulations to the noble Duke on the fact that Her Majesty's Government had taken up the subject. He congratulated the noble Duke the President of the Council on the spirit in which he had approached it. Although presentations to livings in the Church of Scotland had never been made a matter of sale and barter—although they had never seen in the Church of Scotland such transactions as had been so eloquently described a few evenings since by the right rev. Prelate (the Bishop of Peterborough) as existing in this country, yet there could be no doubt that, from the conflicts which arose with respect to the right of the patron to appoint and the right of the parishioners to reject, a condition of things existed which was not very desirable either in the interests of the Church of Scotland or of the people. The noble Duke had stated with perfect accuracy the feeling which existed upon this question, both in the Church Assembly and among the congregations, so far as they could gather from the usual sources of information. If he might be permitted to make any comment on the statement of the noble Duke, he should say the only objection to the Bill now proposed to be introduced was that it did not go far enough, and that he should be in favour of enlarging the electoral body. The proposition of the noble Duke, as he understood it, was that the election of ministers should be confined to the communicants. There were not those restrictions in the Church of Scotland that existed with respect to the Church of England. In Scotland any person, to whatever communion he might belong, who possessed the right of patronage, might present. But the noble Duke's proposition was in some degree a measure of disfranchisement, inasmuch as it imposed restrictions which did not now exist. He thought it unwise to restrict the patronage merely to the communicants of a parish, and it would be better if they dealt with the question in a more liberal spirit. The Church of Scotland was really a national institution. Every Scotchman
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  felt an interest in his Church, and he should like to see the right of election extended to every person whose name was upon the rates of the parish. However, that was a matter which he need not at present go into. He would therefore content himself with simply declaring that, in his opinion, the Government had done well to take up the question; and his noble Friend who had succeeded him as Her Majesty's Commissioner to the General Assembly could not take to Scotland a more welcome message to that venerable Assembly, than that Her Majesty's Government had taken up the question in the sense that the existence of the present system of Church patronage should terminate; and he hoped that Her Majesty's Government, with the assent of Parliament, would be able to bring about a satisfactory solution of this long-vexed question.
  THE EARL OF ROSSLYNsaid, that he should not have ventured to address their Lordships, but, having had the high honour of being appointed to the office of Her Majesty's Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, he felt that it would not be becoming in him if he did not address some few remarks to their Lordships upon this subject. It gave him great satisfaction to be able to say that he cordially agreed in the principle of the measure indicated by the noble Duke the President of the Council. He thought the noble Duke was particularly fortunate in the introduction of the measure at a time when there appeared to be a tendency to union in the Church itself. He thought it a matter of great congratulation that the present Bill had been brought in by the Government, and he should feel that his duty to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland would be more welcome from the fact that he had to convey to them that one of the chief difficulties that had stood in the way of religion in Scotland was in a fair way of being removed. The question of Church patronage had been a stumbling block for more than 170 years. The Scotch people had always shown themselves intolerant of any religious interference or control, while, on the other hand, their loyalty and fidelity to the Crown in temporal matters were unbounded; and he had no doubt the same loyalty would be evinced

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  towards the Church should the present form of Church patronage be abolished. He hoped that this measure would—as he believed it would—lead to a great advancement in the Established Church of Scotland. He could not anticipate that there would be any opposition to the measure from any quarter. If there were any, it would not be from the patrons, for, as a body—if he might venture to say so—they had always shown themselves most anxious to consolidate and conserve the best interests of the Church of Scotland, and he believed that they had its best interests at heart. If he was right in his estimate of their character, they would willingly, without any idea of compensation, give up their patronage. If there was any objection to the measure, it could, in his opinion, only come from those who, like his noble Friend who had just spoken, thought it did not go far enough. He was quite convinced of the necessity of repealing Lord Aberdeen's Act. That description of legislation had brought its own warning. He quite agreed that if they were to have any legislation at all upon this subject, it must be through the action of the Government. In his opinion, those who wished it to go further, and that the election of the ministers should include the whole of the parishioners, were simply wishing for a measure of disestablishment. He clung to the union of Church and State, and hoped that the bonds of love which existed between Church and State in Scotland would long continue. He was convinced that the objections which were felt by those professing principles of Voluntaryism to such a Bill as this were grounded upon the fact that they were themselves convinced that the measure would prolong the existence of an Establishment which they detested. He believed that the measure was one which would be accepted by moderate men of both parties.
  THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCHsaid, he quite agreed with the noble Duke the President of the Council that the question was one which created immense interest in Scotland. It was a very large question, not only in a Scotch point of view, but in an English point of view; because, although the form of Church government might not be the same, yet the religion of both countries was alike. It was no doubt perfectly
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  true that the subject, as the Lord President had stated, had been agitated upwards of 300 years. There had been many complaints of congregations having had ministers put upon them not of their own choice. He thought his noble Friend was quite right in proposing that the communicants should be the persons to elect the ministers of the congregations. He did not call this a Bill for the abolition of Church patronage, but simply a Bill for the transfer of patronage from individuals to the congregations. In every case, persons who were nominated must be examined upon Church matters, and he did not at all think that it was likely that those who had to institute the examination would reject proper persons for ministers. With respect to the question of compensation, he did not believe that the patrons would put a mere question of pounds, shillings, and pence against the serious and solemn considerations that must prevail with them. On the other hand, he looked upon the patronage of a living, and the presentation of a person to it, not as a mere valuable consideration, but as a serious and solemn trust imposed upon the holders of Church patronage—a trust the most serious and solemn that could be imposed upon any man. If this Bill should pass, in his opinion it would settle a large number of questions that were now harassing the minds of people, and creating heart-burnings among them. He would not have himself proposed any such measure, preferring to leave matters as they now were; but as the Bill had been introduced on the authority of the Government, he should not oppose, but would support it. In his opinion, it could have been taken up by no one but the Government of the day. With the principle he was perfectly well satisfied, but as regarded the details it was unnecessary for him to enter upon them until the Bill had been printed and laid before their Lordships.
  THE EARL OF DALHOUSIEsaid, he wished to make one or two remarks on the observations which had fallen from the noble Duke the President of the Council. He quite agreed that the subject of Church patronage in Scotland could only be dealt with by the authority of the Executive Government—no private individual could deal with such a question. But there was one portion of

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  the noble Duke's speech in which he referred to what had taken place in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland during the last six or seven years, and so far as he (the Earl of Dalhousie) could understand, the noble Duke would lead their Lordships to suppose that the proceedings of that venerable Assembly had been unanimous in respect to the question of the patronage of the Church.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDsaid, he had not meant to do that.
  THE EARL OF DALHOUSIEbelieved the noble Duke had not meant that; but at the same time he did not state that in fact in the discussions that had taken place in the Assembly there had been divisions, and that the Church itself was by no means unanimous in the proposal to make an alteration in the present law of patronage. That there was a considerable majority in favour of alteration he did not deny; but he hoped that their Lordships would not be carried away with the idea that the Church of Scotland itself was unanimous on this question. The noble Duke had referred to the condition of the Church of Scotland in the year 1834; but the condition of things was very different then from its condition now. Then the Church of Scotland was the majority of the people of Scotland, but it was not so now. The Church of Scotland only now represented one-third of the people of Scotland, and the other communities which differed from it were in the aggregate a vast majority. In touching this question, of course it was necessary to lay a Bill upon the Table of their Lordships' House; but he reminded the noble Duke that in doing so he had stirred up a question that was gradually dying out, and had raised a discussion on this subject which he doubted would not end in the direction he wished—namely, the consolidation of the Church of Scotland. The noble Duke had stated that the principle he proposed was one which was adopted by the Free Church of Scotland, to which he himself belonged, but he doubted whether that principle would be acceptable to an Established Church, and especially the Established Church of Scotland. When the Bill came to be discussed in Scotland a little more light would be thrown upon this point. Then, again, with reference to the Compensation Clauses, it was quite true that many
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  of the patrons in Scotland were willing to give up their patronage; but there were others who were not, and they must approach this question in a spirit of justice. The right of presentation was a right of property, and they must deal with it as a right of property. It might be no great matter to the patron, but it must be considered as a question of principle, and they would have to consider what effect a proposition to give a compensation to the amount of only one year's purchase might have where rights of purely temporal property were in question. He believed that the right of presentation had not always been valued at so low a rate. These, however, were questions of detail, which they might discuss on the second reading. In the meantime he hoped their Lordships would keep their minds clear as to the real points at issue. It was quite certain that this question of abolition of Church patronage would raise a warm discussion all throughout Scotland, and create considerable feeling. He took leave to doubt whether the question was one which had been discussed very much at the hustings on the occasion of the last General Election. On the contrary, so far as appeared from the reports in the newspapers, his experience was that questions relating to the game laws stood first, and the subject of Church patronage was scarcely ever mentioned. As the noble Duke had told them, the exercise of Church patronage was practically almost abolished at present, and if they let the Church patrons go on for a year or two longer as they had been doing, they would find that it would have died out altogether. He was happy to say that the Churches of Scotland had been drawn into greater harmony year by year, and also that the ministers of various Churches had exchanged courtesies which within the last 30 years would have been deemed almost impossible. If this question were not now stirred up, he believed that in the course of two or three years there would be a most amicable agreement between Church patrons and the parishes, and that there would be no necessity whatever for such a measure as this.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYdrew the attention of the noble Duke to the consequences of the introduction of universal suffrage into religious affairs by the Genevese Government; and he

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  trusted the noble Duke would restrict rather than extend the suffrage for the election of Scotch ministers. The City of Geneva had been made one electoral district or parish, instead of being divided into several electoral districts, and the consequence was that the free-thinkers would form the majority. By this system of election the Genevese Government had thoroughly disorganized the Catholics, and now they were about to ruin the Protestants. The rural districts of Scotland might be safe under election, but in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other large towns, the free-thinkers might come forward and get the elections into their own hands. He thought this system of popular election was not likely to result in the selection of proper persons, and that there should be some system of nomination in the first instance. He had in his hand a letter from Geneva, from a Scotchman and a Presbyterian, which said that the Protestant Church there had been destroyed.
  LORD ABERDARE, having for some time represented a Scotch constituency, and having for several years been intrusted with the responsibility of administering the Crown patronage in the Church of Scotland, wished to be allowed to say a few words. He did not know whether the measure of the noble Duke would be for the good of the Church of Scotland; it was enough for him to know that that Church, as represented in the General Assembly, wished for the change. It was notorious that, on the part of the people of Scotland, there had been for years but one desire on the subject—to get rid of the law of patronage; he would, therefore, be glad to co-operate with the noble Duke in his efforts, and to assist him in bringing the law more into harmony with the feelings of the people and the wants of the present time. There was, however, one point upon which he desired to ask a question. Home 50 years ago it was made known to the Government that there were certain livings in Scotland so vast in extent and so poor that it was expedient that they should be divided, and provision made for religious worship—accordingly, under the 5 Geo. IV, c. 90, £50,000 was provided for building churches and manses, and £120 a-year for the payment of each minister. These districts were 40 in number. They were generally situated in the north-western
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  parts of Scotland, where the population was most sparse and the parishes most extensive. Unfortunately, they were in parts of Scotland where the Established Church was weakest; and when he was Secretary for the Home Department it was his duty to appoint clergymen to some of these livings, in one case where there was not a single communicant, and in others where there were not above two or three members of the Church of Scotland. The noble Duke appeared to propose to put an end to all patronage in Scotland, but it did not appear from his statement how he proposed to deal with these livings, the presentation to which had always been an embarrassment to Secretaries of State. These livings were a scandal in themselves, and he did not see how they could be left in their present position.
  THE EARL OF ABERDEENapproved the principle of the Bill. Their Lordships would agree with him when he said that much credit was due to the members of the Established Church of Scotland for the manner in which they had, if not co-operated, yet acquiesced in the existing system of patronage. That, however, was partly due to the great pains and care which, especially for the last 20 years, had been taken by the patrons in selecting ministers. With regard to the opposition that might be expected to this measure, he had been informed that a great deal of opposition had come from other religious bodies in Scotland. That opposition appeared rather strange—especially if it were true that it was mainly attributable to a fear lest the Church of Scotland should, as the noble Duke said, increase its hold on the affections of the people. He could not help thinking that a more dignified course would be to attack the Esstablished Church on the distinct ground of its being an Establishment. He was sorry to hear the noble Earl (the Earl of Dalhousie) express great apprehensions as to the result of this measure, because, considering the noble Earl's experience, his opinions were entitled to great weight. He hoped, however, though in the first instance angry discussions might arise on the part of those who, from whatever reason, might be opposed to the measure, the effect of it after a short time would be not only to strengthen the hold of the Church of Scotland on the affections of the people,

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  but also at some future period to tend towards the union of the various religious bodies which now existed in Scotland.
  THE EARL OF ROSEBERY, on the part of all whom he knew in Scotland, tendered his most earnest thanks to the noble Duke for having taken up this question. It was a matter of regret to him, as a supporter of the late Government, that during their long tenure of office, and though they had in their body a Minister whose authority on the subject was so high, they had never attempted to handle it. It was the more gratifying, therefore, that the noble Duke, in the first year of power, should have come forward to redress a longstanding and most serious grievance of the Church of Scotland—a grievance which had been notorious for a century and a half. The noble Earl had stated that the question was not agitated at the late General Election; but this was a matter of fact on which he must decline to offer an opinion, although certainly his impression was the other way. It was also alleged by the noble Earl that the noble Duke, by touching this question, would raise a feeling and an animus among the people of Scotland which it would be difficult to control; but he failed to perceive how such could be the result if, as the noble Earl himself had alleged a feeling of indifference existed on the subject amongst the great body of the people, and that the question of Church patronage was really dying out. Having only just now heard of the Bill of the noble Duke he would not discuss its provisions; but, as a matter of curiosity, he would ask the noble Duke who had brought in this measure, what provision was to be made in those parishes where there were no communicants at all? As far as he understood, the noble Duke would have to import a new constituency. He wished to know, whether the term "communicants" included females?—because he doubted if women in Scotland were, by any means, the worst judges of theological questions. He also wished to know, whether the noble Duke was warranted in giving compensation to heritors for a right which the Church of Scotland had never admitted, and which the noble Duke seemed to assume had been the creation of a Tory job? He would reserve until the second reading any further remarks on the details of the Bill, but he could not now conclude
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  without congratulating the noble Duke on having initiated legislation on this important question.
  LORD BLANTYRE: My Lords, the patrons were the founders of the churches, for their predecessors, the barons, in the 11th century, at the suggestion of the preachers of the gospel—that it was a proper thing to give tithes to the Church—built churches in, and endowed them with the tithes of their baronies—reserving the patronage. These baronies came then to be called parishes. Some have come down to our time unchanged. The patron holds still the barony or parish, maintains the church and manse, and pays the minister, unassisted by any individual in the parish, and exercises his patronage. In the case of the larger baronies, lands have been sold off subject to the payment of a portion of the burdens pertaining to the whole. These heritors have the burden without the privilege, the patron has a similar burden, but continues to exercise the privilege reserved—namely, that of presenting the minister, unless he has sold the patronage. We have thus an institution which has come down to us unchanged for 800 years, the burden borne, and the reserved privilege exercised by the successors of the first founders. The Reformation left private patrons untouched—but where the piety of patrons had induced them to make over their churches and monasteries, when these last were confiscated, the patronage came into the hands of the Crown, where it still remains. The resistance of Scotland appears to have been directed more against Episcopacy than against patronage.
  LORD WHARNCLIFFEwas glad this question had been brought forward by the Government, as he regarded the present system of patronage in Scotland as "a delusion and a snare."
  LORD DYNEVORsaid, he trusted the noble Duke would be able to carry a measure which would be so beneficial to the Established Church of Scotland; but he did not think the people would be content if the power of the election of the minister was confined to the communicants. If communicants only were allowed to vote it might induce persons to join a Church for the purpose of having the franchise. In England the people, as they knew, were quiet and passive, and had not asked for a vote in the appointment of their ministers;

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  but he thought there was a growing opinion that this was not right—that they ought to have some voice—such as the right of veto, on the nomination by the patron, or to be in some way consulted in the selection of their minister. They knew the feeling of indifference which existed in England; while, on the contrary, in Scotland there was a strong feeling for the Church, and he believed that this Bill would be the means of strengthening the Church there.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMOND: My Lords, I will briefly reply to some of the objections which have been raised against my proposition in debate. The noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Dalhousie) complained of the clause which provides that the compensation to be given to patrons shall not be more than one year's stipend, and he referred to cases in which a much larger sum had been given for the right of patronage. Well, my Lords, in fixing one year's stipend as the maximum amount of compensation, I followed the precedent afforded by the Act passed in 1860. I will not enter into a discussion with the noble Earl as to the number of members of the Established Church, of the United Presbyterian Church, and of the Free Church. Indeed, I am not quite sure whether there is any possibility of getting at the exact statistics of the various denominations in Scotland.
  THE EARL OF DALHOUSIE: From the Census.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMOND: I fancy, however, that a large proportion of the Presbyterians in Scotland do not belong to the Established Church. At all events, that does not affect the question I am dealing with, because, if they are satisfied with their position, they are not affected by my Bill. My point is that there is a grievance now affecting the Established Church of Scotland, and that such grievance ought to be dealt with; I have carefully avoided meddling with any other denomination. The present Bill is wanted by a very large clsss of the people of Scotland; and if other religious bodies are satisfied with the position in which they find themselves, I do not quarrel with them, for, in my speech, I carefully refrained from referring to Presbyterian bodies outside the Established Church. With regard to the point raised by the noble Lord opposite, who preceded me as Lord President
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  of the Council (Lord Aberdare), I may say the intention of the Bill is that there shall be no exceptions whatever, and that all patronage shall be abolished from the Crown downwards. It may be, however, that there are cases which have escaped my notice, and I will look into the matter, but the intention of the Bill certainly is that there shall be no exceptions whatever in regard to Church patronage in Scotland. With regard to the Question put to me by the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Rosebery) as to what I meant by "communicants," I may state that as the Bill is drawn it will mean "male communicants," that being the recommendation of the General Assembly. I ought to apologize to the House if I have led them to think that the opinion of the General Assembly was unanimous on the subject of patronage. I had no intention to convey such an idea, as the Papers I cited showed that divisions have occurred; but my point was that the conclusion the General Assembly came to by a majority of votes was that the subject of patronage ought to be dealt with. There was one statement made by the noble Earl which I cannot pass by in silence. I cannot think it possible that such a thing could be perpetrated as what he called a "Tory job," and certainly I never made use of such an expression.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 1a accordingly: to be printed; and to be read 2a on Tuesday the 2nd June next (No. 72).
  House adjourned at a quarter before Seven o'clock, 'till to-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.