Sitting of 10 April 1877

MINUTES.
NEW WRIT ISSUED—For Salford, v. Charles Edward Cawley, esquire, deceased.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Thames Floods Prevention, appointed; Lord Cochrane's Petition, appointed; Employers' Liability for Injuries to their Servants, Mr. Ripley added.
PUBLIC BILLS — Ordered — First Reading Election of Aldermen (Cumulative Vote)* [128].
Second Reading—Public Parks (Scotland) [111].
Committee—Town Councils and Local Boards [11]—R.P.
Third Reading—High Court of Justice (Costs)* [99], and passed.

QUESTIONS.

  FACTORY SYSTEM (INDIA) — REPORT OF THE COMMISSION.—QUESTION.
  MR. ANDERSONasked the Under Secretary of State for India, If no result is to come from the Government inquiry into the factory system in India; if he is aware that the abuses are as bad as ever, that some mills work from daylight to dusk the week through, with little interval for meals, and that children under eight years of age are thus sometimes worked from seventy-six to eighty hours in the week; and, if the Indian Government will not now introduce factory legislation?
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON,in reply, said, that the question was at present in this position—As he informed the hon. Member last year, the Government received a Report of a Commission appointed by the Bombay Government to inquire into the condition of the factories, as well as that of the operatives who worked in those factories. Of the Commission, four were against and two were in favour of legislation. The Report was forwarded by the Bombay Government to the Indian Government for their consideration, and as yet no definite reply had been received from the Supreme Government. But the Secretary of State had recently addressed them on the subject, asking them to inform him as quickly as possible of the decision at which they might arrive. As regarded the second part of the question of the hon. Member, no information had been received subsequent to the Report of the Commission, and therefore he was unable either to confirm or impugn the accuracy of the statement referred to by the hon. Member, and which had appeared in certain public papers. But the Secretary of State had addressed the Bombay Government on the subject, and requested them to inquire specially into the points referred to in the Question of the hon. Member.
  MR. ANDERSONasked if the Report of the Commission had been laid before the House?
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid, if hon. Gentlemen wished it, there would be no objection to lay the Report upon the Table.

  COAL MINES (SCOTLAND)—THE HOME FARM COLLIERY.—QUESTION.
  MR. MACDONALDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he has ordered or will order that efforts be made by the owners of the Home Farm Colliery, near Hamilton, to recover the bodies of the four persons that lost their lives there by an inundation of water some weeks ago; and, whether the leakage of the water was well known to the manager for several days before the men were shut up in the mine or drowned; and, if so, whether he has ordered proceedings to be taken against him for neglecting to protect the lives of the men employed in the Home Farm Colliery?
  MR. ASSHETON CROSS,in reply, said, that in the first place he had no power to make such an order as that referred to in the Question; and, in the second place, he thought the owners of the mine did not at the present time contemplate making a search, and ho was informed that the Inspector would object to any such search being made. The hon. Member had made inquiry as to the accident about the time of its occurrence, and he (Mr. Cross) had informed him that he had placed the whole matter in the hands of the Procurator Fiscal, in order that he might investigate the matter and report to the Home Office. He was glad to say that he had now received the Report, which said that the inquiry did not disclose any case of culpable neglect on the part of anyone connected with the management of the mine. Further inquiries had since been made, and the last Report was that no blame was to be attached to any person responsible for the proper working of the mine. Under these circumstances, no prosecution could take place. The owners objected to making search for the bodies, as it would expose others to needless danger.

  AGRICULTURAL CHILDREN ACT.

    QUESTION.
    MR. FAWCETTasked the Vice President of the Council, Whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce, during the present Session, a measure for securing the school attendance and regulating the hours of labour of children employed in agriculture?
    VISCOUNT SANDON: Sir, the Government having passed last Session a measure compelling the school attendance of all children, and forbidding the labour of all children up to the age of 10 years after the 1st January, 1877, during school time in all employments, including agriculture, it is not our intention to introduce another measure on this subject during the present Session.
    MR. FAWCETTgave Notice that he should move that it be an instruction to the Committee on the Factory and Workshops Bill to introduce into that Bill provisions which would secure for children employed in agriculture the same advantages of school attendance and hours of labour as are enjoyed by children employed in manufactories and other branches of industry.

  CATTLE PLAGUE.—QUESTIONS.
  SIR WALTER BARTTELOTasked the Vice President of the Council, Whether an outbreak of cattle plague has taken place at Willesden; and, if so, what steps have been taken by the local authority to stamp out the disease; and, whether he is able to trace in any way the source of this fresh outbreak? He also wished to ask his noble Friend, whether it is true that an outbreak of cattle plague has occurred at Kirtlington, in Oxfordshire, at a considerable distance from London?
  VISCOUNT SANDON: I regret to say that an outbreak of cattle plague at Willesden was reported to the Veterinary Department of the Council on Saturday, the 7th of April. The Chief Inspector was instructed to proceed to the place at once, and on his arrival he found 15 cows out of a herd of 157 affected with the disease. These animals were immediately slaughtered and buried. On the following day other cases occurred, and the Middlesex Local Authority, which appears to be acting with great promptitude on this occasion, held a meeting on Monday, and ordered the slaughter of the whole herd, and directed the adoption of other precautionary measures under the Act and Orders to prevent the spreading of the disease. I have just been informed that the Middlesex Local Authority has stopped all fairs and markets, and the removal of cattle in the county of Middlesex. With regard to the other part of the Question,
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  we suppose this outbreak was connected. with the outbreak at Shepherd's Bush; but at present we are unable to trace the connection between the two. In consequence of a report in some of the morning papers that cattle plague had appeared on a farm at Kirtlington, in Oxfordshire, the Clerk of the Council telegraphed to the clerk of the peace, and, I am glad to say, received the following reply—"The report is untrue. The case at Kirtlington is wholly unconnected with cattle plague or any contagious disease." I beg to give Notice that on Thursday next I shall move for a Select Committee to inquire into the causes of the recent outbreak of cattle plague and the measures taken for its suppression; into the effect which the importation of live foreign animals has upon the introduction of disease into this country: and how far such importation is essential to the food supply of the country.
  SIR WALTER BARTTELOTwished to know, whether instructions had been given that the manure of the infected cattle should be burnt or destroyed?
  VISCOUNT SANDONdid not know precisely what the local authorities had done in that matter; but instructions were given by the Inspectors that the manure should be either disinfected or burnt.
  COLONEL KINGSCOTEasked, if it were not the case that the cattle plague broke out at Willesden on the 3rd April, and that, though the owner knew or believed the disease to be cattle plague, information did not reach the Government till Saturday, the 7th April?
  VISCOUNT SANDONwas unable to enter into details at present, but was afraid that some delay had taken place in reporting the matter to the Department.

  TURKEY—OUTRAGES IN BOSNIA—DESPATCHES FROM CONSUL HOLMES.

    QUESTION.
    MR. W. E. FORSTERasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he will lay at once upon the Table of the House the two Despatches from Consul Holmes, the extracts from which he quoted yesterday, and also the third Despatch, the purport of which he stated at the same time?
    MR. BOURKE: There will be no objection whatever to lay these three despatches upon the Table; and as I understand it is the wish of some hon. Gentlemen that they should be presented without delay, I will lay them upon the Table this evening, and they will be in the hands of Members to-morrow.[P.P. Turkey, No. 11, 1877.]

    ARMY—DISTURBANCES IN LIMERICK.

      QUESTIONS.
      MR. BUTTasked the Secretary of State for War, If he has received any intelligence of a serious disturbance between the soldiers of the 90th Regiment, now stationed in Limerick, and the people of the town and, whether any steps have been taken by the Military authorities, by confining the soldiers in barracks or otherwise, to prevent the exasperation of the popular feeling?
      MR. GATHORNE HARDY: The hon. and learned Gentleman came to me yesterday evening and stated that he had heard that a disturbance had occurred at Limerick between the military and the population. I at once ordered a telegram to be sent requesting details of any such disturbance, and during the evening I received an answer, which I communicated to the Colleague of the hon. and learned Gentleman, and which, unfortunately, he did not return to me. I have, however, procured another copy, which will give the information as well as I have got it. The answer I received last night was from Lieutenant Colonel Palmer, commanding the 90th Regiment, who also commands the troops there. He says—
      "Disturbances have taken place between the soldiers and the roughs of the population here. All quiet now. No one seriously hurt. The regiment has been confined to barracks. Full particulars reported to the General Officer commanding the district."
      We telegraphed to the General Commanding-in-Chief the Forces in Ireland. He says—
      "Disturbances took place at Limerick last night (that is Sunday night) between some civilians and men of the 90th Regiment. Police reports received, but no military reports yet. Immediate report called for from the commanding officer. No report of any disturbance today."
      This morning we have received another communication from the Commander of the Forces, in which he says—
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      "The officer commanding the troops at Limerick reports last night no renewal of the disturbances between the troops and the civilians since the 8th instant. The regiment has been confined to barracks."
      MR. BUTT: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will direct an inquiry to be made into the causes which led to the bad feeling between the troops and the civilians.
      MR. GATHORNE HARDY: I have been promised full information by post. Of course, we shall receive an account of the whole transaction, and I shall be ready to answer any Question on Monday. What I have read was received by telegraph.

    THAMES CONSERVANCY ACTS— THAMES FLOODS PREVENTION.

      MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
      MR. COOPE,in moving that a Select Committee be appointed "on the Thames Conservancy Acts, to inquire and report what amendments, if any, are required in order to deal more effectually with the injuries inflicted by Floods," observed that floods in the Thames valley had been of frequent occurrence. About a century ago a great flood occurred, when the water covered Palace Yard to the depth of two feet, and access to the House of Commons was a matter of considerable difficulty. Again, in 1821 there was a most extraordinary flood, and since then the floods had been of much more frequent occurrence. That frequency was attributable, in his (Mr. Coupe's) opinion, to three causes. In the first place, the drainage of the surface water had prevented the land from acting as a sponge and retaining the water for a considerable time, for the surface water was now immediately carried away by means of drainage pipes, and in times of heavy rains floods were caused. The frequency of floods had also been increased by the removal of the old London, Blackfriars, and Westminster Bridges, which three bridges having but small openings impeded the upward flow of the tide. The tide now went much further up the river than it did when those three Bridges existed. The third cause to which he referred was the contraction of the channel of the river by that vast and splendid work the Embankment, and works in other parts of the Thames Valley, by which

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      some 50 or 60 acres had been taken away from the bed of the stream. The only public body that could control these floods was the Thames Conservancy Board, constituted by private Act in 1857, by which the jurisdiction of the river, which had been possessed by the Corporation of London, was handed over to a Board of 12 Commissioners, of whom seven were members of the Corporation. In 1864 the powers of the Board were enlarged, and then their jurisdiction extended all the distance from Yantlet Creek to Staines, while its Commissioners were at the same time increased in number to 18; and in 1866 the whole upper valley of the Thames as far as Cricklade, 40 miles above Oxford, came under their charge, with powers to prevent pollution of the river, six water companies being bound to contribute £1,000 per annum each towards the expense. The power to control the floods, was, he believed, admitted by engineers. The question was whether the Thames Conservancy Board had used due diligence in the matter. His object in moving for a Select Committee was to obtain a re-constitution of the Thames Conservancy. That body at present represented the Admiralty, the Trinity House, the Corporation of London, the shipowners of the port, the owners of lighters and steamers, and the Board of Trade, for whom two members sat. He desired that power should be given to the Board to take such steps as would prevent the repetition of these serious floods; and in order to carry out that efficiently it would be desirable that the riparian owners and also a number of local authorities along the Thames Valley should be represented on the Board. Oxford, Staines, and Windsor were at present altogether unrepresented; and it was most desirable that, as they would have to contribute to the funds which would be required, they should be represented on the Conservancy Board. The result of this Committee, if appointed, would, he trusted, be to control the floods in the river at a cost not at all equal to that contemplated by the Thames Conservancy, as shown in their Report made in February. If it were decided that amongst other modes of meeting this difficulty reservoirs should be constructed, they could be so placed as to meet, in some degree, the wants of villages to which attention
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      was drawn the other night by an hon. Member opposite (Mr. A. Brown), and also to aid in supplying the ever-growing wants of the Metropolis. It was true that at present the Thames River (Prevention of Floods) Committee was sitting; but it only affected the district contained within the area over which the Metropolitan Board of Works exercised jurisdiction. A Committee, appointed on the Motion of the Duke of Richmond, was also sitting in "another place" to consider the general question of drainage, sewerage, and the prevention of floods throughout the country. But he would appeal to the House whether it would not be right and proper to appoint a special Committee to consider the question of floods in the Thames? The Thames was an exceptional river; it flowed through this great metropolis, past the walls of the House in which they were then assembled; on its banks were to be found our grandest and greatest University; one of the largest and most celebrated of our public schools; and the majestic residence of the Sovereigns of England from time immemorial. Under these circumstances, he thought a Special Committee ought to be appointed to inquire into floods in the Thames, and he therefore begged to move the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
      MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he had no objection, on the part of the Government, to the appointment of the Committee, and he only rose to explain why when there was a Committee of the other House of Parliament sitting to consider the general question, it was considered desirable to refer this particular case to a separate Committee. The Committee "elsewhere" was charged with a general inquiry, would gather together an ample fund of facts, and would have quite as much work as it would be able to get through. Their business, however, would be to inquire into the flooding of rivers generally and the storage of water supply, and he looked upon the latter as quite as important a topic as the former, and the general result of their labours might be that certain points should be sifted out upon which it might be necessary to appoint a Royal Commission. They had been asked to grant a Royal Commission in the first instance; but he had objected to that course on the grounds that it might have wandered

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      from the special subject, and that it was, in his judgment, better that a preliminary inquiry before a Committee should be held. No doubt this Committee had to inquire into floods generally; but in the case of the Thames there was a Conservancy Board, and Acts of Parliament both for the Upper and Lower Thames; and the consideration of how these Acts might be improved, and how the funds of the Conservancy Board were expended, and other matters relating thereto, involved an inquiry of a totally different character from that involved in the general question with which the Duke of Richmond's Committee had to deal. He, therefore, assented to the Motion of the hon. Member for the appointment of a special Committee to inquire into the Thames Conservancy Acts.
      GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURsaid, he was glad that the Government had acceded to the request of his hon. Friend. He believed that the flooding in the Thames arose from the improvements that had been effected in the river during the last 50 years, and that the true remedy was to deepen the river higher up and widen its area so as to allow of a greater volume of water being stored.
      SIR ANDREW LUSKsaid, this was rather an important question, but he thought the composition of the Thames Conservancy Board had not been too generously dealt with. It very fairly represented the interests of the river, and there were representatives from the higher parts as well as from those more adjacent to town. The only real complaint that could be made against them, so far as he was aware, was that they did not prosecute with sufficient vigour those who higher up the river poisoned the water with their sewage; and it would be well for the Committee to have instructions to inquire into this matter at the time they were investigating the cause and cure of the floods. The inquiry, in fact, should cover the whole of the ground over which the authority of the Board extended.
      Select Committee appointed, "on the Thames Conservancy Acts, to inquire and report what amendments, if any, are required in order to deal more effectually with the injuries inflicted by Floods."—(Mr. Coope.)
      And, on April 30, Committee nominated as follows:—SIR TREVOR LAWRENCE, Mr. SAMUEL-
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      SON, Mr. RICHARDSON-GARDNER, Mr. WALTER, Sir CHARLES RUSSELL, Mr. WILLIAM CART-WRIGHT, Mr. HALL, Mr. WATNEY, Colonel CARINGTON, Mr. CHARLES PRAED, Mr. ALGERNON EGERTON, Mr. WILLIAM HENRY GLADSTONE, and Mr. COOPE:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.

    NAVY—(PUNISHMENT OF FLOGGING).

      RESOLUTION.
      MR. P. A. TAYLORin rising to move—
      "That, in thee opinion of this House, the time has arrived when the punishment of flogging in the Navy should be altogether abolished,"
      said: Sir, when I last year, for the first time, brought forward a Motion for the prohibition of flogging in the Navy, and treated of the various steps, reducing the punishment from 500 lashes to 200 and 100, I remember telling the First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Hunt)—who I regret not to see in his place, and I regret also the reason—that there was still one chaplet to be gained by the man who should relieve the Navy of England from the stain of being the only Navy in the world which permitted this blot to remain, and I offered to place that chaplet on his brow. I repeat that offer to-night. The Motion I made had not been agitated throughout the country. I found the country did not know this practice remained in the Navy, and it was not known even to many in this House. I venture once more to make the offer I then made, and if the Government would undertake to reform the Naval Discipline Act with a view to remove flogging, which, however, is not the only abuse or inconsistency in the Act, I will not press for a division; but I will further venture to say that this is the last time I will make such an offer. If it be necessary for me to enter into the case again, should I now fail, the honour will not be with the Government; and I say this confidently, because I am perfectly certain that the people of this country, when this practice is made known to them, will not rest until it is abolished. When I first came into this House, I proposed for successive years the omission of the flogging clauses of the Mutiny Bill. The abolition of flogging in the Army was carried on the Motion of my Friend, Mr. Otway, and it is not really asking too much that it should be abolished in the Navy too. We are told it is

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      practically abolished, that there are two classes in the Navy, that the upper class are never flogged, and that if men get into the lower class and then offend, they would probably be dismissed without flogging. There is for this no foundation in fact. Under a court martial at this time a man may be flogged for any offence whatever. The terms of the Act are that he may be flogged for "any act, disorder, or neglect, to the prejudice of good order and naval discipline." It has been said that the power to flog by summary order of the commander is limited to mutiny. What does "mutiny" mean? Not to resist officers and gain possession of the vessel, for if you do gain possession, you cannot be flogged, because you will be in possession of the vessel. What, then, does mutiny mean? It means insubordination, rudeness, disobeying the commander, or striking a petty officer. In fact, it means that should any dispute arise, the commander as judge and executioner shall have power to decide what is insubordination, and punish it with the cat. There is a court martial now going on—I will mention no names, as the case is not yet concluded. I would not allude to it at all, except that it equally illustrates my position, whether the commander be acquitted or not. In that trial many officers have come forward and borne testimony to the long-continued ill-usage by the captain of an inferior officer, whose presence they declared appeared to irritate his commander as a red flag does a bull. The junior officer appears to have offered no resistance, but to have yielded almost abjectly to a galling and continuous oppression. Now, whether this is true or not, the fact remains that a number of British officers believe it not incredible that such a system of persecution could have been maintained. Now, what if a common seaman were placed in such circumstances? How easy for such a commander to goad the man into insubordination, and then order him to be flogged! The regulations affecting punishment appear to outsiders truly astonishing. Thus in Section 56 it is laid down—
      "Except in case of mutiny no man shall be sentenced to flogging until his offence has been inquired into by a sort of improvised court martial, appointed by the commander; and yet, should the man be reported as innocent to the commander, he may still flog him if he thinks fit."
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      The Regulations of 1875 are more restrictive in regard to summary corporal punishment, but are specially limited to a time of peace. Was ever such fatuity? Suppose the time should come when we should unhappily be again at war and should need the best men and their hearty patriotism —that is the time which we choose to wave anew the cat over their heads. You have 20,000 of the merchant service reserve—what think you world be their answer to your appeal? It is true the punishment of flogging has been nominally retained in the Army in time of war; but I do not believe any Army officer will ever exercise it. It is held to be necessary in order to prevent fire and rape in towns that may be occupied. Well, there are no towns on the deep, and therefore no excuse could be more untenable for the Navy. In fact, the excuse made for the retention of flogging in the Army applied ten-fold less to the Navy. There was no case in the world where a man was more absolutely subject to the will of another than on board a vessel on the broad waters of the sea. A hundred years ago, it was deemed necessary to inflict as much as 500 lashes. "Discipline must be maintained, Sir, you know." We are now the only Navy on the face of the world where discipline cannot be maintained without the cat. The Mercantile Marine can maintain their discipline without the cat. I have been able to get the opinion of a very intelligent man-of-war's-man. He says—
      "I believe that were the Service polled, it would be found that by far the great majority were in favour of its entire abolition, on the ground that it is inhuman, not deterrent, and disgraceful alike to both judge and culprit; also that our seamen are now sufficiently educated to admit of an appeal being made to their mental faculties, rather than to their brute feelings."
      Another case shows how you may raise a feeling more dangerous than any crime. One who gives me his address, writes—
      "Having served in Her Majesty's Navy, and been in action with the enemy, and also been tied up to the grating, I can give you the effect of such a disgrace—a longing for vengeance."
      The remainder of the letter, showing how that vengeance was carried out, I dare not read. It was said last year that although the American Navy had abolished flogging, they had found it

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      necessary to resort to other severe punishments. I have taken means to ascertain from the American Navy how that representation originated. My correspondent, writing from New York, August, 1876, says—
      "The Act of Congress, 1850, abolished flogging in the Navy and on board vessels of commerce. As nothing was substituted for flogging, this law left the commander of a vessel without legal means of maintaining discipline by punishment, and thus a system which gave our Navy for a time an unenviable reputation was forced upon the Service. By the Act of 1862, commonly known as the 'Articles of War,' this omission was corrected, and the punishments that may be inflicted were enumerated with much precision. There is no doubt that officers have at various times violated the law of 1862; but the Navy Department has invariably marked its disapprobation of such irregularities in the most emphatic manner, and in three notable cases of late years officers have been court-martialled for exceeding their authority in the punishment of seamen. The law in this respect is now rarely if ever violated. Officers prefer to govern their ships with as little punishment as possible, rather stimulating their men by hope of reward, &c., confinement in metal-boxes, tricing up by the thumbs, tricing up in the rigging, tying offenders near the boilers, &c., are practices now entirely unknown in the United States Navy."
      Unhappily such practices have not always been unknown in our own Navy. In The United Service Gazette of last Saturday I find—
      "There is an expression made use of by ethnologists to signify the obscure traces of some forgotten custom, and which is styled 'a survival.' In this sense the continuance of the custom of flogging in the Navy may be looked upon as a survival of the Draconian code of punishments formerly used at sea, and which include 'keel-hauling,' 'gagging,' 'kettling,' confinement in coal bunkers, the application of the stomach-pump in the case of drunken men, and other ingenious methods of punishment too numerous to mention."
      Up to 1847 there was no power of imprisonment, and therefore no means of punishing refractory seamen, except by some such rough-and-ready method as flogging. It was suggested last year that I should postpone my Motion until I could find three admirals and three captains to support me in the matter. It was certainly not by means of colonels or captains that flogging was abolished in the Army. It was certainly not by the action of the Judges as a body that the abuses of capital punishment were removed in this country, and it was not by the hands of the manufacturers that the Factory Acts were passed. Not that any of these very men, or the officers
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      of the Navy, were more cruel and coldhearted than other Englishmen, but because they were naturally steeped in the traditional superstitions of their profession. I am sure there is not a kinder-hearted man than the hon. and gallant Member for Stirlingshire (Sir William Edmonstone), who told us last year that the revolver and the cat were necessary to get the decks of a gun-brig properly cleaned. Sir Charles Napier said—
      "You may put the stripes on a corporal's arm and take them off again, but the stripes you put on the sailor's back with the cat you can never remove."
      If I am asked how I would dispose of these men, who are so bad, what I would do with them, I would venture to say with Dogberry—"Why then, take no note of him, but let him go, and presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave." There are, in fact, two classes of men in the Navy whom we cannot afford to retain there; the one is the man who will not do his work without the influence of the lash, and the other is the officer who cannot maintain discipline without the aid of flogging. But it may be said, that in the year 1874 there were only seven men flogged, and I may be asked why, if only so small a number of men out of so many are flogged, what is the use of making such a fuss about the matter. Now, this is just one of those arguments—cutting both ways, used to bolster up a foregone conclusion. If 700 men instead of seven had been flogged last year, it would then have been urged against me that flogging was an absolute matter of necessity. I contend, on the other hand, that as only seven men were flogged last year in the whole Navy, that the argument is irresistible in favour of my Motion for its abolition, for this very fact proves that flogging is utterly unnecessary. Among other communications I have received on this subject, is one from a naval officer of over 30 years' standing, from which I will venture to read an extract—
      "Flogging is a rare thing in the Navy—now it may be said, that there are not more than seven men out of 40,000 flogged in the course of a year; one special reason, I submit, why you should abolish it altogether rather than run counter to the sentiments—prejudices if you will—of the remaining 39,993 men. No man stays with you after you have flogged him; he takes the first opportunity afterwards of deserting. Wisely or unwisely, he makes up his mind not to run

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      the risk of a second application of the cat if he can help it. Every naval officer will tell you this. The enormous amount of corporal punishment among the boys (535) leads to the belief that they must be a very bad lot. No wonder. What decent parents would consign their sons to the one sole employment in the country in which they are liable to the cat. So long as you continue it you will be more and more dependent on the workhouses to supply the raw material; and. a Service which in other respects offers so many advantages to enterprising lads will become the monopoly of the waifs and strays of society."
      I greatly regret that the House should have refused the Return which I asked for recently, as to the extent of crime and punishment in every ship in the Navy. But as that was refused, it is ten times more essential that flogging should be abolished. It is an absolute abomination to maintain flogging in the Navy, and to refuse the fullest particulars to this House and to the country. It is contended that it is not a disgrace to the Navy to have a cat waved over its head when it is not inflicted. Why, then, are officers, by a specific clause in the Naval Discipline Act, exempted from this punishment? It may be admitted that there is a small danger of an officer being flogged. It might be said, also, that there is small danger of a gentleman committing murder or rape; but, at all events, he ought to be left to take his chance. Here is a class difference of the grossest character, giving a key to the whole position—that it is a matter of caste relations. Well, Sir, in conclusion, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hunt), if he were here, and his Representative as he is not, When do you mean to abolish flogging in the Navy? You do not mean to tell us that for all time England shall remain the only country in which the Navy is governed by the lash? If not, then when will you do it? If not this year, will you do it next year, or the year after? The time is long past when, by all logic and decency, it should have been abolished, and therefore I appeal to the House to say that now is the time to abolish it. Lord Clarence Paget, in 1860, in introducing the Naval Discipline Act, said—
      "And if any should think how Draconic they still appear I pray them to bear in mind that we have to deal with a great body of men of all classes, often drawn from the very dregs of society, who too frequently enter the Navy without religious or moral principles, and with tainted morals, and who are rarely improved
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      by being boxed up together, as it were, in a ship… I cannot resist the pleasure of reading to the House certain statistics with regard to corporal punishment which I have been at some trouble to procure, as they show that year by year this degrading punishment is decreasing in a steady ratio, and is gradually dying out of the Service. I am positive that the necessity for its continuance will even more rapidly diminish if the House will continue, as it has hitherto done, to support the Government in its efforts for the maintenance of discipline, and for the improvement of the Service by the training of a large number of boys, who, having entered at an early age, become attached to the Service, and in the great majority of instances turn out skilful and valuable seamen."—[3 Hansard, clx. 1651–1655.]
      But flogging is still going on, although that was 17 years ago. Instead of now sweeping the dregs of your ports, in order to get men for the Navy, you have now a body of seamen who enter the Navy as boys at 15 or 16, and gradually work their way through the training ships until they become full sailors. They cost you £300 or £400 each—they are, in fact, costly machines —there are not 2 per cent of the whole class now in the Navy who are not thus trained, and these are the men whom you now hold up to the scorn of the world as the only men who cannot be governed without the lash. The schoolmaster still has an antagonist in the irresponsible martinet, who still waves his lash over their backs. Educated men are now necessary in consequence of the change in naval affairs. We do not now want men who can merely reef a sail—our sailors are obliged to know something of machinery. These men are drawn from the respectable working classes of the country, and from the small shopkeepers, and I tell you they will not stand the continuation of this system. I have said that I believe the best authorities are against this system of flogging. Let me quote a few words from The Army and Navy Gazette:—
      "In truth we recognize the fact that our seamen have altogether grown beyond the lash. It is a punishment inconsistent with their superior education, habits and training—entirely opposed to the spirit of the age, and not even practised in foreign Navies, where its retention was more excusable, if possible, than in ours. We cannot see what possible good can arise from subjecting the sailor to a degrading punishment from which we shelter the soldier; it is enabling the soldier to point the finger of scorn and derision to his comrade the sailor."
      How do you obtain the men with which you fill the Army? You have been

      853
      obliged to lower your physical capacity, and to raise the age. You are now actually recruiting men of 25 and 30, of whose antecedents you know nothing. Yet you have not dared to maintain the cat over their heads, although these seamen whom you have educated, and whose education you have taken under your parental care from 15, are still subjected to this abominable degradation. I read in The Times the other day an incident to which I should wish for two reasons to direct the attention of the House—
      "The other day an order was issued forbidding seamen to wear plain clothes on shore, without special permission in each case from their captains. A meeting of the men was called, and delegates were appointed,"
      —enough, I should think, to frighten the hon. and gallant Member for Stirlingshire out of his head—
      "The Admiralty telegraphed that the men were to be told not to attend; if they did so, it would be at their peril."
      I narrate this fact for two purposes. First, I wish to ask why it is that the sailor feels it a degradation to be seen in his uniform on the shore in town; and, in the second place, I venture to mention it to show that the men, though they yielded to the Admiralty, have a power, and will use it, to protest against the continuance of such a degradation as the cat. I know there are very strict regulations to prevent the men from communicating with the newspapers, or from attending public meetings; but the Admiralty cannot prevent their communicating with their fellow-subjects and Members of Parliament. I have a communication from a number of sailors—I dare not mention the port where they are stationed, or anything connected with it—expressing their sympathy with my Motion, and their hope that it will succeed. They have sent me a model of a cat—not, as the hon. and gallant Member for Stirlingshire wished, to be applied to my shoulders, but to show what they have to put up with; and I declare I will never stay my agitation in this matter until I succeed. I appeal to the House, to the Government, to the country, I appeal to the Press, to save this country from the degradation of being marked out before all the world as the only country which cannot manage its Navy without the cat. John Milton
      854
      said it was England's high prerogative to teach the nations how to live—more modest in our ambition, we are content to show them how to flog. I beg, Sir, to move the Motion which stands in my name.
      MR. HOPWOODseconded the Motion.
      Motion made, and Question proposed,
      "That, in the opinion of this House, the time has arrived when the punishment of flogging in the Navy should be altogether abolished."—(Mr. P. A. Taylor.)
      MR. A. F. EGERTONsaid, the hon. Member had begun his speech by asking for a distinct expression of opinion from the Government with respect to the point under discussion. He had no objection to give that opinion. It was this—that the Admiralty, as at present advised, had no intention of altering the existing regulations in regard to the infliction of corporal punishment in the Navy. The Board regretted the necessity which existed for the maintenance of the rule; but they were unable to see how discipline was to be maintained unless the power to flog offending seamen was retained. The Board of Admiralty could not think that the time had arrived at which corporal punishment could safely be abolished. Admirable as it was in some respects, the speech of the hon. Gentleman displayed very considerable ignorance of the principles on which the question under debate rested. He had had no experience whatever of what took place either on board ship or in the case of an Army in time of war. He (Mr. Egerton) had had experience of both. The hon. Member seemed to think that under the existing regulations no officer would take the responsibility of flogging a soldier in time of war. That was a mistake. During the Abyssinian campaign soldiers were frequently flogged; and in his own experience there was an officer called a provost-marshal with every Army in the field, who had the power of inflicting summary corporal punishment without the preliminary of a court martial. To his knowledge the same thing was done daily at Balaclava. With regard to discipline at sea, there were officers on both sides of the House who who would, he believed, corroborate him when he said that from the information he had received, in some cases it would have been impossible to preserve discipline without having recourse to the

      855
      lash. He was, however, happy to say that the cases of flogging were becoming fewer every year. But it was in the interests of the Service found necessary to leave such a power in the hands of the commanding officer. In 1875 there were seven instances of inflicting corporal punishment, and there were seven courts martial held. Every single case of corporal punishment was reported to the Admiralty, and it was carefully watched by the Members of the Board. One of the seven instances referred to in 1875 might be quoted as a sample of the rest. A brig having on board a number of boys and ordinary seamen, commanded by a lieutenant, proceeded on a cruise to Lisbon. When at sea an ordinary seaman struck a petty officer and resisted the escort, and was guilty of an act of insubordination, fearing the spread of the spirit of insubordination, the consequence was that the officer in command of the ship ordered the man to receive corporal punishment, and the crew came back from the cruise in excellent order. The hon. Member might say that if the punishment had not been inflicted the ship would have returned in an equally satisfactory state; but what would have been the state of affairs? The man would have been put in irons, he would have been brought home, have been tried by court martial, and probably sent to prison for one or two years, and the country would have lost his services for that time. The hon. Gentleman had said that corporal punishment was degrading. No doubt it was; but the enormity of the crime ought also to be borne in mind. Had the man referred to been in the French or Italian Navy the probability was he would have been shot. As far as he knew, the discipline of the British Navy was as well preserved as any Navy in Europe, or on the other side of the Atlantic; and that was the reason why the Admiralty did not consider it right entirely to abolish this punishment. It was now inflicted only in cases of mutiny and insubordination. The hon. Member spoke lightly of acts of insubordination; but he seemed to have forgotten that that class of offence spread very rapidly. In another instance he would refer to, the commanding officer of a ship expressed his desire to abolish the use of the cat; but a spirit of insubordination broke out, and the crew were only brought to discipline by resort to
      856
      the cat. He might quote various instances where its use had been beneficial and necessary; and so long as the morale of the British Navy was such as at present, he thought that it was necessary that this punishment should be preserved.
      ADMIRAL EGERTONconsidered it was necessary to preserve corporal punishment in order to ensure discipline. He quoted the advantage of it by an instance in the war in the Malacca Straits, where a blue-jacket sentry was caught asleep, and was punished with the lash. Of course, the lives of a great number of men were dependent on his vigilance. In a foreign Navy that man would have been shot, but instead he received 36 lashes, and probably the next day he was again employed on duty. With reference to the punishment being degrading, that might be the case; but he would cite a case to show that in one instance at least a man who had been flogged bore no revengeful feeling. When he (Admiral Egerton) was in command of a small ship he was the prosecutor in a case where a man got four dozen lashes and was dismissed his ship. On the following day he met that man, who saluted him just as if he still belonged to the ship and had not been punished. Within three or four months of that time the same man was serving as a petty officer in the Navy, and probably he ought to have reported him; but he deemed it right in the interests of the Service to be blind on that occasion. That instance at least showed that the flogging had not had a demoralizing influence on that man. Last year an hon. and gallant Gentleman (Sir William Edmonstone) defended the punishment of flogging on the ground that the men rather liked it; but, without going that length, he himself thought that it was probable that 999 men out of 1,000 in the Navy who knew that they were not going to be flogged might not be entirely opposed to the thousandth man being liable to be flogged, inasmuch as it secured them from having to do his work. The Admiralty had announced that it was not their intention to abolish this punishment in the Navy, and he presumed that Her Majesty's Government were able to carry out their views. For the reasons he had stated, he was unable to support the Motion of the hon. Member for Leicester.
      Question put.
      The House divided:—Ayes 122; Noes 164: Majority 42.—(Div. List, No. 62.)

    THE EARL OF DUNDONALD—LORD COCHRANE'S PETITION.

      MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
      SIR ROBERT ANSTRUTHER,in rising to move that a Select Committee be appointed
      "To inquire and report upon Lord Cochrane's Petition, laid upon the Table of the House upon the 8th instant, praying Her Majesty to be graciously pleased to complete the gracious act of Royal justice which restored the late Lord Dundonald to his rank and honours,"
      said, he felt sanguine that he should be able to carry the House and the Government with him in this matter. Hon. Gentlemen who had been kind enough to read the Petition of the noble Lord as laid on the Table of the House would probably have come to the conclusion that the case was one which might almost be left to speak for itself. It was the case of one of the most distinguished men who ever bore Her Majesty's commission in the Royal Navy. It was the case of one of the most distinguished sailors in the long list of distinguished men who had served the Crown in the British Navy —the case, it might almost be said, of the most distinguished servant the Crown had ever had in this country. That was saying a good deal; but anyone who looked at the exploits of the late Lord Dundonald would not be disinclined to admit that in the whole record of the glorious achievements of the British Navy there were to be found the names of few men who had done so much to cover the flag of England with glory as had the late Lord Dundonald. His achievements formed part of the noble records of that Service to which every British officer and sailor looked back with pride. It was not his intention to trouble the House with a detailed account of his many eminent services, but to deal with that part of his history which related to the Motion before the House. It was well known that after a very distinguished career, when ho had every hope and was rising high in the Service, the late Lord Dundonald, then Lord Cochrane, was charged with being mixed up in the matter of bringing false news to the Stock Ex-
      858
      change with the view of trying to raise the funds. He was tried for that offence before Lord Ellenborough, was found guilty, dismissed the Navy, fined £1,000, and condemned to the great humiliation of standing in the pillory; while, subsequently, by a vote of the House of Commons—a vote which, without disrespect, it might be said that it was not one which did much credit to the House of that day—was expelled from that House. It was a very delicate thing, even after a long interval, to bring a charge against a man whose reputation stood so high as that of Lord Ellen-borough; but it could be shown that the mind of the then Lord Chief Justice of England was, to say the least of it, biased against Lord Cochrane. That was the opinion entertained by the late Lord Campbell and other distinguished lawyers. In his work, Lord Campbell referred to the matter in the following terms:—
      "Of these (criminal cases) the most remarkable was Lord Cochrane's, as this drew upon the Chief Justice a considerable degree of public obloquy, and, causing very uneasy reflections in his own mind, was supposed to have hastened his end. In the whole of the proceedings connected with it he was, no doubt, actuated by an ardent desire to do what was right; but, in some stages of it, his zeal to punish one whom he regarded as a splendid delinquent, carried him beyond the limits of mercy and of justice. …. It so happened that Lord Cochrane was then in London, was living in his uncle's house, and was much in his company; but there is now reason to believe that he was not at all implicated in the nefarious scheme. However, when the fraud was detected, partly from a belief of his complicity, and partly from political spite, he was included in the indictment preferred for the conspiracy to defraud the Stock Exchange. The trial coming on before Lord Ellenborough, the noble and learned Judge, being himself persuaded of the guilt of all the defendants, used his best endeavours that they should all be convicted. He refused to adjourn the trial at the close of the prosecutors' case, about nine in the evening, when the trial had lasted 12 hours, and the jury as well as the defendants' counsel were all completely exhausted, and all prayed for an adjournment. The following day, in summing up—prompted, no doubt, by the conclusion of his own mind—he laid special emphasis on every circumstance that might raise a suspicion against Lord Cochrane, and elaborately explained away whatever at first sight appeared favourable to the gallant officer. In consequence, the jury found a verdict of Guilty against all the defendants."—[Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices—Ellenborough—vol. iii., pp. 218, 219.]
      A new trial was moved for, but was refused. Lord Ellenborough would not hear the motion, and speaking of the

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      decision against Lord Dundonald, Lord Campbell remarked that it was "palpably contrary to the first principles of justice, and ought immediately to have been reversed." That showed that the trial was conducted, as against Lord Cochrane, at least with a very strong bias adverse to him in the mind of the presiding Judge. After all these humiliations, the first step which the electors of Westminster took was to re-elect the noble Lord as their representative in the House of Commons. That showed the opinion of the electors of Westminster as to the merits of the case. With regard to the fine of £1,000, that was immediately paid by subscriptions throughout England of a penny a-piece; and the number of people who subscribed to the fund was 2,640,000. That at least showed that in the public mind of England there existed a very wide-spread opinion that Lord Cochrane had been unjustly convicted, and that the fine was not one that ought to have been inflicted. With regard to the third punishment, that of standing in the pillory, it was recorded of his Colleague in the representation of Westminster in Parliament (the late Sir Francis Burdett) that he had declared if such a disgraceful humiliation were inflicted on Lord Cochrane he would stand with him in the pillory himself. This last punishment, it was gratifying to think, never was inflicted on the noble Lord. With regard to the Petition, its object was set forth in the terms of the Motion—namely, to complete the act of justice which had been done towards the late Lord Dundonald by restoring him to honour; and the way in which that could be done was by refunding the half-pay of his rank which he had lost when dismissed, and which was due even by the very terms of the Memorandum under which the noble Lord was restored to honour. On May 2, 1832, an announcement appeared in The London Gazette, intimating that from that date, in pursuance of His Majesty's pleasure, Lord Dundonald was promoted to be Rear Admiral of the Blues, in the position on the List which he would have occupied if he had never been struck off the List. He was accordingly restored to all his honours, and, in the very nature of the case, he ought to have been restored at the time to his half-pay. Having been restored to his rank, which was the greater thing, it
      860
      followed that he ought also to have been restored to his half-pay, which was the lesser thing. The Government of the day had restored him, because they believed he was not guilty of the offence. Now, it was unworthy of the British nation that one of its most distinguished servants, in the person of his grandson, should come forward to claim full restitution and be refused, merely because it happened to be a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. It was conceivable that on the part of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer technical objections might be raised to the refunding of the half-pay on the ground of interference with the prerogative of the Crown—on the ground, possibly, that a Committee would have to deal with a question of the granting of money; and that it would be precluded by the Rules of the House from entertaining any such question as that involving the granting of money. Any possible reply of that kind was met by reference to the Select Committee which was appointed in 1858 to inquire into the case of Mr. William Henry Barber, who was tried in 1844, some 14 years before the Committee was moved for. If it was thought right to go back 14 years in that case, there was no reason why we should not go back 40 years in the present instance. Mr. Barber was tried for forgery on the Bank of England, was found guilty, condemned as a convict, and sent to Norfolk Island. The very first objection raised to the appointment of that Committee was that by a Standing Order of the House the Committee would have no power to recommend a grant of money in such a case, and would be precluded from entering into the question of compensation. The Commission was appointed, and reported to the effect that it found the statements of the Petition substantially proved—a conclusion which there would be no difficulty in arriving at in the present case—and that, though precluded by the Rules of the House from recommending a grant of money, yet, in view of the facts which had come under their notice with regard to the conviction of Mr. Barber, the sufferings he had endured in his confinement in Norfolk Island, and his subsequent exculpation, the Committee could not forbear saying that the case appeared to be a peculiar one, calling for exceptional treatment, and

      861
      having strong claims on the Crown. He relied very strongly on that case; and the more so because, as a matter of fact, Mr. Barber received a full pardon and £5,000 as compensation from the Crown for his unjust imprisonment. If compensation in the shape of an absolute money grant was awarded in this case, how much stronger was the case of a man who demanded only the half-pay to which he considered himself entitled, from the fact of his having been restored to that position in the Navy which he would have occupied if he had never left the Service? On that Committee sat many distinguished persons, including Mr. Brady, Mr. Crossley, Mr. Woodridge, Lord Hotham, Mr. Hardy, Mr. Massey, Mr. Cobbett, and Mr. Bright. The only conceivable objection to the appointment of the Committee was that it would interfere with the Prerogative of the Crown. Now, he admitted that the Royal Warrant replacing Lord Cochrane in the position he occupied before he was dismissed the Service also bore upon it that his half-pay was to date from 1832, the period of his restoration, and so far it was against him. But he contended that it was not a question of the power of the Crown to grant the half-pay. The Crown restored his honours and his rank, and it was for the Government of the day to say as to the half-pay; as was done in the case of Sir Robert Wilson. Therefore, the Committee would only supplement the powers of the Crown in the very point in which, so to speak, a supplementary power, flowing from the Treasury or from the House, was required. One thing was plain, that the services of Lord Cochrane were never in his lifetime rewarded as they ought to have been, considering the deeds ho performed, the fame he won, the scourge he was to the whole of the French coast, and that ho with one ship did more than other men with seven or eight ships. So far from his services being adequately rewarded, they were miserably ill-rewarded. Although it was a long time ago, surely the memory of their distinguished sailors could live in the mind of the House for 40 years; and it was not too much to ask that his services should not be forgotten in 1877, because they were performed in the early part of the century. So far from this being the case, they would live in the recollection
      862
      and be gloried in by all our sailors, and our sons who were sailors, so long as the records of the British Navy existed. If, therefore, the question was merely one of reward of services, he might, without going back to precedent, rely upon that as constituting, in the case of the petitioner, some claim for recognition of a competent and handsome kind at the hands of that House. But they had a precedent in the case of Sir Robert Wilson, who was dismissed from Her Majesty's Army for having disturbed the funeral of Queen Caroline in 1821. He was restored in 1830, and was ordered to rank as lieutenant-general next to Sir Herbert Taylor. In October of the same year he applied for his back pay from the date when he was appointed a lieutenant-general in the Army, and it was granted, upon the ground that he was restored to rank from a certain date, and from that date it was reasonable that he should receive his pay. Lord Cochrane was restored to the Service, so as to be in the same position as he would have hold if he had never left it. Therefore, if Sir Robert Wilson claimed it, much more could the representative of Lord Cochrane claim it. He therefore recommended this Motion to the favourable consideration of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, feeling sure that if he could he would grant the Committee asked for. It was a case in which the credit of the Government was concerned. It was not right—it was hardly decent—for a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence to stand between the representative of a distinguished man like Lord Cochrane, and full justice being done to his memory; and therefore he had every confidence in submitting this Motion to the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman, in order that the whole of the facts might be brought before the House.
      MR. WALPOLE,in seconding the Motion, said, he would not weaken the remarks which had just been made by his hon. Friend by dwelling at any length on the points on which he had touched. There was no doubt that there was something peculiar in the Motion, and in some respects it was almost unprecedented; but in answer to any objection being made to it on the latter ground, it seemed to him that the circumstances of the case wore also so

      863
      unprecedented as to entitle the hon. Baronet to bring the whole matter under the consideration of the House. For, if the facts contained in the Petition were substantiated, the justice of the case emphatically demanded that the grievous wrong that had been inflicted on Lord Dundonald should receive a fuller compensation and a completer redress than had hitherto been made to him. The question, no doubt, involved, to a certain extent, the Prerogative of the Crown and the proper functions of Parliament; but he hoped to deal as frankly as possible with all objections. It might, in the first place, be urged that the length of time which had elapsed since the circumstances to which the attention of the House had been called occurred, were, if not actually a bar to re-opening the case, at least a strong argument against it; and, secondly, that the reparation granted to Lord Dundonald in his lifetime might be taken as a sufficient satisfaction for the claims which were now attempted to be made upon Her Majesty's Government. But it appeared to him (Mr. Walpole) that neither the length of time that had elapsed nor the partial reparation that had been made to Lord Dundonald could be any answer to this case where so grievous a wrong had been committed, and unless they could be considered as an insuperable bar to anything further being done, it was only an act of justice to grant this Committee that the facts of the case might be accurately ascertained. Now, it was a wise principle of our Constitution that no time should run against the Crown in asserting rights which had been wrongfully withheld from it, and it seemed to him to be an equally wise principle in our Constitution—or, perhaps, it was only a part of the same principle — that no time should run against the Crown in confirming and recognizing those rights which had been unjustly withheld from any of its subjects. Could anyone say that much wrong had not been done to Lord Dundonald, and that the reparation had not been postponed from time to time until he was deprived of that which was due to him? The moment that he was restored to his rank what was now asked for should have followed. There was one point in the facts of the case which he admitted, as his hon. Friend had admitted, was a very delicate matter, but
      864
      he could not pass it by, for, in point of fact, the whole foundation of the case rested upon it. Since Notice was given of this Motion he had referred to the proceedings which took place at Guildhall on the occasion of the trial, and also to the proceedings which took place in Parliament, with reference to that matter. Well, what was the conclusion which anybody would draw from a fair reading and study of those proceedings? The only conclusion he, for his part, could possibly draw was that Lord Dundonald had not altogether been fairly treated at his trial; and that, in point of fact, it was in consequence of political rancour, or, as Lord Campbell called it, "political spite," that justice had not been done to him on that occasion. It was clear from those proceedings that a great prejudice had been raised against him. As Lord Campbell said, special emphasis was laid on every suspicion which could be urged against him, and everything which could be urged in his favour was elaborately explained away. That was the opinion deliberately given by Lord Campbell, after a long and careful review of the whole proceedings, in his Lives of the Lord Chief Justices of England. But the wrong done to Lord Dundonald did not end there. On the ground that the charge against him had been that of conspiracy, and that a new trial could not be granted in the absence of the other defendants, his application for that purpose was refused. On this point Lord Campbell remarked that the refusal of a new trial, under such circumstances, was palpably contrary to the first principles of justice. Well, if that was the case, was it not extraordinary to find that so many years should have passed away after that trial before any attempt was made by any Government or any person to do something like justice to Lord Dundonald? Until the year 1832 nothing was done—no attempt was made by anyone to do something like justice to Lord Dundonald, or to put him in a position by which he might have been relieved from the stigma that was cast upon him. In that year he was restored to the position he would have held in the Navy if he had never been deprived of his rank in the Service. But the pay to which he would have been entitled was not given to him, nor was the Order of the Bath restored to him. Twelve years passed

      865
      away, and he again applied to have his case re-opened. He was then told by the Ministers of the day that a period of 30 years having elapsed, and a free pardon having been given to him, they could not advise the Crown to accede to his petition. Accordingly, in 1844, that Order which he had so gloriously won in some of the greatest actions in which their country had taken part was still withheld from him. Lord Brougham, in his Lives of British Statesmen, said—"The withholding of that honour was a stain, not upon him, but upon the Councils Of the country;" and afterwards he remarked—"It was as inconsistent and as incomprehensible as it was cruel and unjust." In 1847, however, by the grace of the Crown, the Order of the Bath was at length restored to him; but the back pay was never granted to him. In his remarkable Autobiography, Lord Dundonald said the reason for refusing the pay was the fear of creating a bad precedent — a bad precedent indeed ! Why, every precedent must have a beginning; and he (Mr. Walpole) considered that if the circumstances of a ease were just and right and required that a precedent should be made, it ought to have been established in order to do justice, instead of being withheld so as to inflict injustice. The answer to that observation was twofold—first, that if circumstances and justice demanded that a precedent should be made it could not be a bad one; and, secondly, there was a precedent in the case of Sir Robert Wilson. He was told that a distinction should here be taken—namely, the length of time during which Lord Dundonald had been deprived of all these rights and honours. If so, it was rather a distinction which ought to induce them to make good what was so long waited for, than to say that it was a bar to it. By establishing the facts of this case before a Committee the Government would be in a better position to recommend what should be done, and the House would be in a better position to determine whether it was reasonable or not to make any grant. He felt confident that this was not a case in which the Government could think that the partial reparation made, or any of those excuses hitherto offered, should be lightly allowed to interfere with that which the justice of the case, in his opinion, imperatively demanded. The Go-
      866
      vernment of 1832 had the honour and satisfaction of restoring Lord Dundonald to his rank. The Government of 1847 had the honour and satisfaction of restoring him to the Order of the Bath; and he hoped the present Government would feel, after a full consideration of all the facts, that they could advise the Crown to grant the prayer of Lord Cochrane's memorial. He hoped and believed that when his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer had satisfied himself of the justice of the case, there was no man in that House who would be more anxious that full justice should be done to the memory of one whose sufferings and services alike entitled him to the sympathies of the nation, and with that confidence in his right hon. Friend he left the case in his hands.
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I rise now—though observed that an hon. and gallant Gentleman was about to rise, and though, as I have no doubt, there are many who would desire to join in the expression of the feeling of the House, which has been so admirably stated by the Mover and Seconder of the Motion, with regard to the high character and great services of the late Lord Dundonald—still I rise at once, because I think it is right, feeling as I do, and feeling very strongly, the difficulties of this case—I feel it right at once, without waiting for further discussion, to state the views which I must submit on behalf of the Government. I approach this case with a most anxious desire to meet the wishes of those who are bringing forward this Motion. I am actuated by feelings, which, I think, everyone must share—feelings of admiration for the great man whose services have been now brought before the House. I am actuated also by another feeling, that of sympathy and respect for those motives of filial affection which have induced his representatives to come before this House, not so much, as I verily believe, for the sake of obtaining the grant of a more or less important sum of money, as for the object—the truly worthy object—of executing that duty which they rightly consider was laid upon them by the charge of their ancestor, in that most touching address which he left to his grandson, the duty of clearing his character completely and the putting forward of his claim. I think no one can, without a feeling of

      867
      deep sympathy and without emotion, enter upon a question which touches so very many chords in our nature. I therefore feel all the greater difficulty and embarrassment in addressing the House, because I think it to be my duty, as the representative of the Government —looking at the whole of the circumstances of this case—to call the attention of the House to circumstances and considerations which may possibly be considered to be hardly worthy of the question that has been raised, but which I think it my duty to impress on hon. Members. The points to which I wish to direct attention may be said to be of a merely technical character. The difficulties which suggest themselves to my mind, with reference to the Committee now moved for, may be said to be of a character which ought not to weigh with us when we have such motives brought before us for compliance with the Motion. Yet, if the House will calmly consider the matter, I think they will see there is reason to pause before we take the step which we are now invited to take. Both my hon. Friend the Member for Fife-shire (Sir Robert Anstruther), and my right hon. Friend behind me (Mr. Walpole), who have spoken, appeared to be embarrassed by the question they touched upon as to the possibility and propriety of this House, by any action of its own, interfering in a matter which is really one of Royal Prerogative, and in which it would be exceedingly difficult for the House to interfere with without setting an example and a precedent which might be found to be a very great inconvenience hereafter. Let us see what are the facts of the case. I wish to lay aside all reference whatever to the painful circumstances of the trial of Lord Dundonald, and to his removal from the Navy. Taking the facts as they appear in the official record, I see that in the Warrant by which Lord Dundonald, then Captain Cochrane, was removed, no reason is assigned, except that it was done at the pleasure of the Crown. Lord Dundonald was, however, subsequently restored to the Service with the rank of Rear Admiral; and I observe in the Warrant by which he was restored to the Service the statement that he was to be re-instated with the rank of Rear Admiral, and that his half-pay was to commence from the date of his restoration, in the year 1832. That was the
      868
      decision which the Government and Sovereign of the day arrived at, being cognizant of all the circumstances of the case, and no doubt being actuated by the warmest feelings of admiration and friendship for Lord Dundonald, and with every desire to do him justice. Now, Sir, the complaint made is that in merely replacing him in the rank he held in the Navy before he was removed from it an act of incomplete justice was done. It is very difficult at the present day to weigh the precise motives which may have actuated the Government of the day and the Crown in making the restoration in the terms in which they did make it; but there can be no doubt that they made it deliberately, and with the most perfect knowledge of the facts of the case, such seeming to them to be the proper course to pursue. I am told by those who are more cognizant with these matters than I am that there is a principle laid down both in the Army and in the Navy which may account for the step they took. The principle is this—that pay, military or naval, should not be given to those who were not actively or constructively in the service of the Crown; and the principle is one which it is important to maintain, because cases may arise, not like this, but of a very different character, in which claims may be put forward by persons out of the Service for pay which they think they ought to be granted for time when they were not actually in the employ of the Government. I may be met by a technical objection from the hon. Baronet opposite to this technical question. But what, I ask, was the case of Sir Robert Wilson? He was removed from the Army in the year 1821, he was restored in the year 1830, in the month of July, and when he was so restored it was the object of the Crown to do for him what they did afterwards in the case of Lord Dundonald—namely, to restore him to the same position in the Army which he would have occupied if he had never been removed from it. The mode in which Sir Robert Wilson's case was dealt with was this. He was replaced in the Army, with the rank of lieutenant-general; and, in order to re-instate him in the position he had previously held, which was next to a certain officer, he was gazetted as lieutenant-general from a certain date in the year 1825. In the

      869
      Army that, I understand, is the usual and necessary practice by which a proper rank can be given. But that is not the case in the Navy, for the commission, though dated from a subsequent period, places him in the position which is mentioned in the commission. After he had been actively and constructively replaced in the Service in 1825, Sir Robert Wilson claimed his pay from the day on which he was so constructively replaced. I very much doubt whether it was the intention of those who restored him that he should have any back pay; but undoubtedly, according to the terms of the restoration, he considered himself able to claim it—indeed, he did claim it, and after some difficulty the concession was made to him; but it was made to him as being an officer still in Her Majesty's Service. When the concession was made he distinctly stated that he did not, and could not, claim any pay for the years which had elapsed between 1821 and 1825. He did not claim pay for the whole time during which he had been out of the Service. That constituted the distinction between the two cases; and the fact that Sir Robert Wilson did not claim his pay during that time establishes and confirms the principle upon which I feel it my duty to demur to the proposal now made to the House. As this has been a case which has been before successive Governments, all of whom were well disposed towards those interested, but who were hampered by the difficulty of creating an injurious precedent, I feel that my course is not free in the matter. Shortly after Lord Dundonald's death his representatives made a claim, and Lord Palmerston declined to accede to it, on the ground that pay should not be given for the time during which Lord Dundonald was out of Her Majesty's Service; therefore, there is a very great difficulty in complying with the wishes expressed in the Petition. There is also a great difficulty in the matter being referred to a Committee of this House. What is such a Committee, if appointed, to do? Is the Committee to inquire into the facts —to re-try the case as it was tried in 1814? There would, I think, be the greatest possible objection to such a proceeding on the part of a Committee of this House. How is it possible when 60 years or more have elapsed, and probably everyone connected with the
      870
      case has long since died, that a Committee can pursue an inquiry in the nature of a re-trial of the whole case? Then, if it was assumed that there had been misconduct on the part of Lord Ellenborough at the time, and a failure of justice in consequence of transactions at the trial, there might be some feeling on the part of those interested, either in the memory of Lord Ellenborough or in any of those who were concerned in the trial, that their case also should be considered, and their answer to accusations such as those brought forward by the hon. Baronet should be heard. I must confess I was sorry to hear the hon. Baronet speak of the conduct of Lord Ellenborough in a way which seemed to me unnecessarily to prejudice the matter. This is a case in which there was a strong feeling, and everybody knows that charges were brought against Lord Ellenborough of a very grave character for having politically perverted justice—charges which no one looking calmly at the matter will think were well-founded. Whether, under the circumstances, Lord Dundonald had all the advantages which he ought to have had in the way of defending himself, and whether, if he had had them, the result would have been different, is quite another question. But when it is implied that there had been, if not conscious, at any rate serious misconduct on the part of Lord Ellenborough, that is a point with which it would be extremely difficult for a Committee to deal, and upon which they could not arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. If anything is to be done in the matter, it must be done on different grounds from those which have been urged. It might be a question whether it was possible for the Crown, by grace and favour, to propose any Vote of money for the purpose of recognizing the services of an illustrious man. That was a different idea. But that a Committee of this House should now undertake to look into a question of this sort seems to me to be a proposal of very grave consequence. My right hon. Friend says that is objected to because it might set a bad precedent, and he remarked that all precedents must have a beginning. But that is just the point; precedents generally do get a beginning in a hard case, and lead on in time to results which are very inconvenient. It will, I think, be inconvenient

      871
      to appoint a Committee to inquire into the question of recommending to the Crown a grant of money. Again, it would be a grave inconvenience to set aside the principle of not applying money in the nature of pay to an officer not in the Service; and there would be some inconvenience even in re-opening, after so long a time, a case of this kind, on the ground that the services of an eminent person who died a considerable number of years ago had not been adequately rewarded. It may be perfectly true that the services of Lord Dundonald have not been adequately rewarded. I am far from saying they have been. But, on the other hand, there may be many cases in which persons might put forward claims of their ancestors for services rendered 30, 50, or even a greater number of years ago, and might plead that precedent as a reason for doing so. For all these reasons I confess that I feel a great objection to the appointment of the Committee. The only thing the Committee could really do would be to establish more clearly perhaps the facts of the case as far as regards the exact steps that have been taken, and the time and the manner in which Lord Dundonald was removed from the Service and restored to it, and to compare these with the corresponding precedent of Sir Robert Wilson. But it would hardly be worth while to appoint a Committee of the House for such a purpose as that. If there is any desire on the part of the friends of the family to bring out more clearly the facts of the case, the Government have every disposition to give Returns and information which might establish them. But I feel—and I have not come to the conclusion without reluctance and hesitation—that we are not in a position to recommend the House to adopt the Motion. I should be sorry to meet a proposal of this kind with a direct negative. It would be entirely contrary to my feelings to do so. I prefer to appeal to the Mover and Seconder of the Resolution to consider whether it would not be better not to put us to the pain of a division on a question on which a division might seem to give a false impression. I am sure no hon. Member would wish that there should be even the appearance, however unfounded, of anything like unwillingness to recognize the claims of Lord Dundonald to the gratitude of the nation, or of any doubt
      872
      as to their sympathy with his long and undeserved sufferings. I, therefore, hope that the hon. Baronet will not press his Resolution to a division, but will allow it to rest on the discussion which we have had, and let us see whether, by bringing the facts of the case more completely together and putting them in a shape in which they have not yet been placed—for there seems to have been some misconception as to the precise steps which have been taken—we cannot arrive at some conclusion of a more satisfactory character.
      MR. LYON PLAYFAIR: The conciliatory speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as well as the general character of the debate, must prove satisfactory to the friends of the late Lord Dundonald. I may, without presumption, class myself among them, for the gallant Admiral selected me to be the depository of his secret plans for destroying an enemy, and his papers on this subject are in my keeping. I need not again refer to the circumstances which led to his judicial sentence, and to his expulsion from this House. When the late Earl solemnly stated in his Autobiography that, as a man standing on the brink of the grave, he declared himself innocent of all knowledge of the Stock Exchange transaction, this denial sufficed for his friends, and time has softened his enemies, if any be still alive. To the last moment of his life he bitterly felt the injustice which he had suffered. I hold in my hand a letter written within a few days of his death, perhaps the last letter that the brave old sailor ever wrote. In this letter he tells me that he is dying, but he still reverts with pained feelings to the life-long injustice which he had to endure. True, during his life, in 1832, the King gave him a free pardon for a crime which he never committed. Then the Admiralty restored to him his rank in the Navy, and authorized his half-pay to begin from that date. In this the Chancellor of the Exchequer sees a difference from the case of Sir Robert Wilson, upon which so much stress has been laid. So do I; but in completely an opposite view. The future half-pay of Admiral Dundonald was a necessity of his restoration, and was within the competence of the Admiralty: the retrospective pay was a question for the Treasury, just as in the case of

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      General Wilson it was given by the Treasury and not by the War Office. But it was not till the 3rd of February, 1848, or 34 years after the event, that the Treasury deal with the matter of back pay to Lord Dundonald, and then do not see that they can give it. On what grounds? Well, we will see this in the Papers promised to us. At present they are inconceivable. Sir Robert Wilson was dismissed in 1821, and was restored in 1830 to his proper position among generals, receiving from the Treasury his back pay as dating from 1825, when in ordinary course he would have become a general. Here, however, is only a case of partial restoration. His new commission dated four years after his dismissal. There was no such proviso or partial restoration in Lord Duudonald's case. To the honour of the King and Government of 1832 it was full and complete, at least as regards rank. When he was dismissed in 1814 he stood as post-captain under the Hon. G. Dundas. In 1832, on restoration to rank, he was put among the admirals immediately under the Hon. G. Dundas, also then an admiral. So there were no conditions attached to his rank by the abstraction of any period of service. It was full and complete so far as rank was concerned, its only failure being that retrospective pay did not follow as a matter of course. But that, as I have stated, was only considered in 1848, 16 years after the restoration. The Treasury, however, then had not been strengthened by a Parliamentary expression of opinion. Sir Robert Wilson's case was twice before this House. He himself moved for Papers in 1822, but was refused them on a division. Again, in 1825, Mr. Abercromby brought the case before this House, and was supported by Mr. Brougham, Lord William Bentinck, and other speakers. On that occasion, as to-day, the speaking was all in favour of justice being done, and yet the Treasury took five years longer to do it. But we may hope for a more favourable issue now. The Government of 1822 refused even to produce Papers relating to the dismissal of General Wilson, while the Government of 1877, through the Chancellor of the Exchequer, voluntarily offers us the Papers to let us get fully at the facts in the case of Lord Dundonald. The Chancellor of the Ex-
      874
      chequer, however, sees a difficulty in the case, because it is a rule of the Combatant Services only to pay officers who are actually in the service. I think he is mistaken in laying down this rule so rigidly. When prisoners of War are made by the enemy, they are certainly no longer in the service of this country; and yet, when they are liberated, if their capture was not due to cowardice or fault of negligence, their back pay is given to them as if they had continued in service. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer were somewhat more explicit I would urge upon the Mover and Seconder of the Motion for a Select Committee that it would be well to accept this offer on the part of the Government and not to press their Motion to a division. I have entire faith in the impartial spirit with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer will deal with the question. The Treasury is now quite in a different position from 1848. The public reparation was then still more partial than it is now. It is true that the Queen had just restored the Order of the Bath to the Naval hero; but the Government did not restore the banner to his stall at Westminster. That banner had been not figuratively, but physically kicked out of the Cathedral with every mark of ignominy, and it was only replaced when the gallant old seaman was dead. And yet he died in full confidence that a nation would repair his wrongs. Tardily, but steadily, all the acts of 1814 have been repaired except one, and that is that the nation still keeps the fine of £1,000 and the back pay of the officer unjustly deprived of his commission. There is no Statute of Limitation for a debt of national honour. That debt, in full reliance on public conscience, Lord Dundonald left to his grandson, the present Lord Cochrane, whose Petition lies before us. Let me read from his autograph will, which I hold in my hand, the touching terms in which it is bequeathed—
      "I leave exclusively to my grandson Douglas all the sums due to me by the British Government for my important services, as well as the sums of pay stopped (under perjured evidence) for the commission of a fraud on the Stock Exchange. Given under my trembling hand this 21st day of February, 1860, the anniversary of my ruin."
      Will we, who represent the public, refuse to the memory of an illustrious

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      hero the completion of justice which he asks at our hands? Whatever may be the decision of the Government, or of this House, on a review of the whole case with the Papers fully before us, we may be certain that the old Party bitterness which led to so much persecution will not influence the decision now. The question will be resolved on the single issue—is it or is it not for our national honour that full reparation should be made to the memory of one of its most gallant sailors?
      ADMIRAL EGERTONsaid, he would occupy the attention of the House only a few minutes; but he could not help saying how much he felt that the country would to-morrow regret the observations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon this question. There was an intense feeling of satisfaction throughout the whole of the Profession many years ago when it was known that the flag of this gallant officer was once more afloat at the masthead, and he was sure that the feeling of the Profession was the same now as then. He could not help feeling that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be glad if he were to receive gentle compulsion, and he hoped that if they went to a division such compulsion would be applied.
      MR. BUTTcontended that they were bound to consider that the conviction of Lord Dundonald was wrong. If the House went to a division they ought to clearly understand the issue which was before them. The Chancellor of the Exchequer appeared to think that the object of the Committee which was asked for would be to inquire what took place in 1810; but that was not so. They now proceeded upon the ground that the conviction of Lord Dundonald was erroneous, and that his having been restored to his honours the conviction was unjust. The question now was, whether, having been wrongfully convicted—and no one who had studied the case could come to any other conclusion than that the conviction was unjust and wrong—and partial reparation having been made to him, they ought not to complete that reparation by the very small act which was now asked? It was said that this might possibly be an interference with the prerogative of the Crown; but an instance had been referred to in which, after inquiry by a Committee into a case of improper con-
      876
      viction, large compensation was voted by Parliament; and he remembered the case of a magistrate in the North of England where compensation was given under similar circumstances. No pecuniary grant could compensate Lord Dundonald if he were alive for the injury suffered by him in his conviction at a time when he stood as the equal of Nelson in the eyes and in the affections of the British nation; and the intensity of his feelings on the subject was painfully illustrated by the touching words written shortly before his death, and dated on the "Anniversary of my ruin." Perhaps he felt more strongly upon the matter from the circumstance that among the memories of his life it had been his privilege to meet Lord Dundonald on more than one occasion at the house of a mutual friend, and he could never forget the manner in which that great and noble man spoke, almost in the agony of a broken heart, of the injustice that had been done to him. Lord Dundonald only sought the payment of the amount which he considered to be due to him, because the fact of its being withheld conveyed something like an imputation, and seemed to indicate that his country had not fully recognized the injustice of his conviction. It was in the same spirit that the claim was now made by his grandson, who brought the case forward, not for the sake of the money, but in order that full and complete justice might at last be done to the memory of Lord Dundonald. He (Mr. Butt) looked back to his conversation with Lord Dundonald on the subject with some satisfaction that after an interval of 40 years he was able to give his vote for the removal of the stigma that must rest upon the memory of that gallant officer till full and complete reparation was made for the great injury he had sustained.
      SIR GEORGE BOWYERgathered from the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that Her Majesty's Government were of opinion that it might be desirable to vote a sum of money as a recognition of the claims of Lord Dundonald, and that that would meet the difficulty. He wished to know whether the Government would perform the graceful, generous, and just act of proposing such a Vote. They often heard it said that the House must not interfere with the Royal Prerogative; but there

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      was nothing unconstitutional in the House advising the Crown as to the exercise of its Prerogative. In fact, the Royal Prerogative had always, according to the Constitution, been exercised upon the advice of the Ministry or of the Great Council of the nation.
      SIR ROBERT ANSTRUTHER,in reply, said, he thought that from the temper of the House he was justified in concluding that if they went to a division he would carry his Motion; but he did not wish to do that in the face of the observations made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. [" Oh, oh "] The Chancellor of the Exchequer had not expressed himself hostilely to the Motion, but to the form of it; and after those expressions he felt warranted in believing that, so far as the substance was concerned, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was favourable to the Motion. The right hon. Gentleman had said he would produce the Papers; but would he also give him this further understanding—that when the Papers had been produced he would, with the consent of his Colleagues, take action upon them?
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I will just say that my objection to the Motion is that I think the Committee, if appointed, would not be sufficiently authoritative for any other purpose than that of ascertaining facts which might be equally well put on record by the production of Papers. The Papers I shall be ready to produce, and then my hon. Friend can take any course he pleases. Further than that I cannot go.
      SIR ROBERT ANSTRUTHER: In that case I see no choice but to take a division.
      Question put, and agreed to.
      Select Committee appointed, "to inquire and report upon Lord Cochrane's Petition, laid upon the Table of the House upon the 8th day of March last, praying Her Majesty to be graciously pleased to complete the gracious act of Royal justice which restored the late Lord Dundonald to his rank and honours."—(Sir Robert Anstruther.)
      And, on May 14, Committee nominated as follows:—Mr. SOLICITOR GENERAL, Mr. WALPOLE, Admiral EGERTON' Mr. WHITBREAD, Mr. RUSSELL GURNEY, Mr. WILLIAM HOLMS, Mr. ALLSOPP, Mr. BUTT, Mr. ALFRED MARTEN, Mr. BAXTER, Mr. SACKVILLE, Mr. GREENE, Mr. O'BYRNE, Mr. TREMAYNE, and Sir ROBERT ANSTRUTHER: — Power to send for persons, papers, and. records; Five to be the quorum.

    THE CITY COMPANIES.

      RESOLUTION.
      MR. JAMES,in moving—
      "That, in the opinion of this House, it is the duty of Her Majesty's Government to introduce some legislative measure empowering the Crown to make full investigation into the present condition and revenues of the eighty-nine Companies mentioned in the Second Report of the Municipal Commissioners, 1837,"
      said, he had adopted a somewhat different course from that which he had taken a year since, when the House would recollect that he moved for a Return of the property possessed by the City Companies; but, as the accredited representatives of those bodies were unwilling to give this information, it was thought undesirable to ask the Crown to assent to what he asked. He regretted that since that time the information should not have been voluntarily produced, so that this question might have been discussed and set at rest. However much the Government might object to the conclusions on which this Motion rested, they would not object to it on constitutional grounds. In former times —those of the Plantagenet, Lancastrian, and Tudor—these Guilds had been overhauled. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth all charities were inquired into all over the Kingdom; and in recent years Commissions had inquired into the endowed schools, ecclesiastical property and charities. He had been frequently told that this Motion was inquisitorial and unjust; but he submitted that it was a justifiable one, and that he had a perfect right to ask how, on public grounds, it could be refused? He was told that this question could only be considered together with the much larger subject of the municipal government of London; but he thought it would be almost impossible to place the conflicting jurisdictions of the metropolis under that one direct and complete administration some desired for it, and if it was desired to extend to the suburbs some of the advantages monopolized exclusively now by the City, this could only be done after some inquiry as to how the City had become entitled to them. As the inquiry could not be long delayed, he urged the Government to assent to it at once. It was not the case, as was sometimes said, that his Motion aimed specially at those twelve great Companies described by Herbert, and which, though

      879
      identified with objects of an educational and philanthropic kind, were associated chiefly with those gorgeous banquets and elaborate festivities of which they frequently heard. That was not so—he, however, certainly maintained that an enormous amount of money was annually spent in this way that ought to be put to a much better use. One reason for inquiry was that the powers and duties of many of the Companies had been entirely abrogated by modern Acts of Parliament. Thus the Grocers' Company's duties were discharged by officials under the Adulteration Acts, the Fishmongers' duties were discharged by the Court of Sewers, under whose jurisdiction unsound fish was seized, and the Vintners' duties were fulfilled by the officers of Excise and Inland Revenue. Many of the trades with which· the Companies were identified no longer existed. If there were nothing worse than the powers of granting votes which these Companies possessed, there ought to be a full inquiry. Nothing could be worse than the powers of voting these bodies possessed—in 1876 it appeared by a Return that no fewer than 1,932 liverymen had bought their votes. Was that a system which the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary would be prepared to support? In one Company the duties of the Master, Assistant, and Clerk were all consolidated in one person, and he increased the members of the Company by his own choice. Of the Lorinors' Company 273 members had purchased their votes, in the Coach-makers' 79, in the Curriers' 43, the Butchers' 69, the Founders' 75. The only argument in favour of the present state of things was that the usages were immemorial, and that they worked well for the good of the City of London; but such an argument was more adapted to the time of Lord Eldon than to the present day. If these things happened in any other Corporation they would be resented—why should they be allowed in the Corporation of the City of London? The House had recently granted a Commission to inquire into the doings of the Stock Exchange, and could they allow these close Corporations to go on without some inquiry into them being made? It was all very well for parties to say that the Fishmongers' Company were Liberals, and that the Merchant Taylors' Company were Con-
      880
      servatives; but he asked the right hon. Gentleman whether these distinctions were necessary? He felt that if this Committee were not granted great injury would be done to the Companies, the public, and the Corporation. He believed that 15 times during the last 40 years this question had been brought before the House; and while, on the one hand, the desire for reform had become more pressing without, it had within become gradually more fainthearted and languishing. While in some parts of the country the machinery of local government was quite inadequate to the requirements which had to be met, the reverse was found to be the case in the City, where there was at present going on a waste of power upon a population diminishing both in number and quality. The Guilds were, no doubt, intended originally to promote that sort of family feeling and relationship upon which the whole of modern society might be said to hinge; but hon. Members knew perfectly well that throughout the country great changes had taken place in the conditions of industry—that mechanical appliances had, to a large extent, superseded manual skill; that in other directions handwork had in a considerable measure taken the place of labour of the head; and that the Guilds, instead of being useful for the purposes for which they were originally formed, were now very largely devoting their funds to those magnificent entertainments which had been so frequently described, and in consequence of which many unpleasant and even discreditable things had been said. Lord Macaulay said that the Fishmongers' were the greatest Company for gourmandise in the world, and that he was perfectly astounded on hearing that they gave dinners yearly at 10 guineas a-head. Thackeray, in his Book of Snobs, described them as "a flare of candles, a ceaseless clinking of glass and steel, the knives all darting down the assembly's throats," and he asked—"Are there no poor? Is there no reason? Is this monstrous belly-worship to exist for ever?" In an extract from a London paper he found the City described as one of the most fœtid cess-pools of corruption in the world; and it further stated the income of the City Companies at £700,000 a-year, adding that not one-half of that sum was devoted to its proper purposes, while those who controlled it set aside the

      881
      original income and spent the surplus in all sorts of guzzling and jobbery. Why did not the City Companies so reform their institutions that it should be impossible for such things to be said of them? It was most desirable and important that the manner in which the Guilds exercised their trusts should be distinctly known. He had been informed that since this agitation had commenced the City Companies had combined together and determined by a few munificent gifts to do something by which adverse feelings might be allayed and praise be bestowed upon them for their liberality. Some few days since he saw in The Times a scheme with regard to a Technical College. He did not know whether that scheme partook of the character of a paper constitution or not; but he hoped that if there were anything really intended by it, the Guilds would vote towards that object a good round sum of hard cash. At the same time, before such a vote were made, it should be made distinctly clear what were the powers and trusts which the Companies possessed; and those powers and trusts could not be known as they ought to be known until such a Committee were appointed as that for which he moved, and the appointment of which could not, he submitted, in the interests of the public, be long delayed. Since the last inquiry was held, 40 years ago, great changes had taken place, and whilst the property of some of the City Companies had increased 200 and 300 per cent, that of others had actually decreased. For instance, in the Bakers' Company, the Snow's Charity, which formerly brought in £89, now yielded only £56. In the case of the Goldsmiths, a charity formerly £1,057 was at present £988. In the Mercers' Company, property in St. Martin's Lane by which 30s. was paid to the poor was now rated at £27,575. Another property had risen from £47 8s. 4d. to £5,000 per annum. The original value in 1615 of John Vernon's property, which was in the hands of the Merchant Taylors, was £83; it was now between £6,000 and £7,000. Then the property of Sir William Craven, which was in the hands of the same Company, and the total value of which in 1616 was £116, had a present rateable value of nearly £3,700. The Kebyll property, devised to the Grocers to pay 6d. weekly to poor members of the Company now
      882
      yielded annually close upon £10,000, and the accounts of 1868 showed a rent-charge of £9 2s. spent in support of the poor. He was convinced that many members of the different Companies would be glad that the secret manner in which the funds were administered and the affairs of the Companies were conducted should be subjected to inquiry; and, therefore, he hoped that Her Majesty's Government would accede to the Motion he intended to move. Last year the Government assented to a request preferred by the hon. Member for Chelsea (Sir Charles Dilke) for a Commission to inquire as to certain Corporations not included in the Act of 1835, on the ground that those Corporations exercised judicial functions. On the same ground he thought his Motion should be agreed to, in that the City Guilds, members of which could purchase their right to vote, elected the Lord Mayor and the Recorder, who were among the greatest judicial officers in England. Another ground on which he sought an inquiry was the vast amount of the charitable funds entrusted to these bodies. According to a Return moved for by the noble Lord (Lord Robert Montagu), in 1868, the amount of trust property belonging to these Companies under the control of the Charity Commissioners was £98,000. Was that always expended in a way which the country would approve? Was it given to those who could help themselves, or to encourage some small, miserable and petty job? It was said it was given in accordance with the intentions of the founders' wills. It was difficult to say what those intentions might have been. To say that a man who bequeathed property wished it to be bestowed in the same way for 300 or 400 years after his decease was simply absurd. They heard of confiscation. He would like to know what confiscation meant. They must have somewhere a regulating power. If no regulating power existed in the State, it was in the governing body of the charity itself. Why was the Ecclesiastical Commission appointed 40 years ago? Something in the nature of a small executive Commission for these bodies should be appointed now. They had dealt with endless charities and endowed schools; their great difficulty was the patronage they so dearly loved.

      883
      Why, except to promote particular trades, should the Companies have adopted particular names? the very fact that some of these trades no longer existed supported the plea he urged. Another ground upon which he based his demand for inquiry was that, with the exception of one or two Companies, they had done nothing either for education generally, or for the trades with which they were nominally identified; and it was not difficult to imagine that with the large and increasing incomes of which many of them had been in possession abuses had existed. In the case of the Goldsmiths' Company, it had been asserted that £30,000 was spent in dining, and that the Skinners' and other Companies were not far behind that amount. That statement had been contradicted, and the amount placed at £7,000; but, if even that moderate estimate were correct, some inquiry was surely needed. If the Goldsmiths provided a home for the poor of Clerkenwell some good might be done. Then there were salaried wardens of Companies, salaried assistants, salaried clerks, whose pay amounted, not to hundreds, but sometimes to thousands a-year, agents, surveyors, and a host of subordinate retainers, of whose duties the public were entirely ignorant. In the Inn-holders' Company, upon the average of 10 years, out of an income of £852, a sum of £808 went in fees, feasting, and salaries. The Court of this Company constituted quite a "family party," there being no fewer than eight salaried officers of one family name. Of a striking instance of the relinquishment by a Guild of the members of a craft, he would appeal to the departure of the Merchant Taylors, in the management of the Merchant Taylors' School, from the terms of the charter under which it was first incorporated. Efforts had been made to prove that the title was one to which they were not fairly entitled, and that they were not Merchant Taylors, but merchant princes. Of the Merchant Taylors' School in 1801, Dr. Wilson in his history said with pride that not 10 pupils could be found whose parents could be identified with the trade. Herbert, in his History of the Twelve City Livery Companies, said—
      "The Taylors' and Drapers' Company went hand in hand, not as members of the same fraternity, but as equally contributing to furnish
      884
      the necessary articles of clothing; and notwithstanding the attempts to exalt them above their seemingly servile origin, and to make their change of name from Taylors to Merchant Taylors a result of their being merchants in cloth, it is certain that the Company itself was a working one."
      Machyn, in his Diary, 1555, speaking of the Company in that year, stated that all the Wardens of the Company were not only tailors, but tailors' sons; and when it was recollected that the great City historian Stowe was a tailor of London, and his contemporary Speed, the general historian, as well as Antony Munday, Thomas Middleton, and others, besides a fair proportion of the distinguished civic senators and benefactors of former days, there could be no reason to despise the brethren of that very necessary craft at any stage of its history. The objections to granting the inquiry he asked could not be very different from those which were in 1837 placed on record by the Court of Merchant Taylors. They contended that while a power for inquiry was vested in the Crown by virtue of its prerogative, and that the enforcement of such a power also was in the hands of Parliamentary Committees, it was only possible in the administration of justice to compel any subject to make disclosures. They alleged that a Court of law was the only proper tribunal for the enforcement of grievances. That was a doctrine quite at variance with the principles which for the last 40 years that House had propounded, and as an illustration he needed nothing stronger than the fact that one inquiry into these Companies had already been granted. In the resolution passed at the Court of Merchant Taylors, the freedom of the Universities, of the Colleges in the Universities, of the Deans and Chapters of all Cathedral Bodies, the Bank of England, the College of Physicians, were all severally quoted as being beyond all legislative control or inquiry, both on the part of the Crown or either of the two Houses. They alleged that they were protected by their oaths and declarations, and that in no sense could they be considered municipal corporations. He (Mr. James) could only say that black was white and white was black, and that such words had long since ceased to have their meaning to anyone who could deny that they were strictly and distinctly corporations, with municipal privileges and responsibilities. They

      885
      claimed rights by virtue of their charters; but their privileges, monopolies, and lands were given in consideration of duties which they no longer discharged. There was a theory held by some that the charters of these Companies placed them beyond the reach of reforming adventurers and sacrilegious innovators; but the Municipal Act dispelled all that, for Sir Robert Peel said that it suspended Prerogatives and superseded charters. The Companies flew for refuge to immemorial usage; but that was self-assertion and very little else. They held land in mortmain, and in respect of which succession a duty had not been paid. He objected to absent, non-resident, and never-resident landlords, because in such cases the property was neglected and handed over to the mercies of clerks, surveyors, and subordinate retainers. Maintaining the full right of the House to investigate the affairs of these Companies, he disclaimed the idle curiosity imputed to him last year, when it was said he moved for a fishing Return; and he based his claim for investigation distinctly on public grounds. Much public assistance had been offered him. There had been a series of meetings at which the Resolution he submitted had been approved. It had been endorsed by the London Trades Council, which spoke in the name of trades that received no benefit from these Guilds. The Report of the Committee of the London School Board suggested the useful purposes to which the surplus funds of these Guilds could be applied, and showed that the amounts applicable to education would, if devoted to elementary, instead of upper and middle class instruction, almost supersede the necessity for a school-board rate. There was no complaint of the expenditure of the Metropolitan Board, although it was three times that of the London School Board; and, in spite of the complaints made of that, it was evident from the School Board elections that there was a strong feeling in the metropolis against allowing the question of education to be settled by an appeal to bare economy and nothing else. The reason for that was, that so many candidates were ready to do what they could to restore' these endowments to their original purpose. The metropolitan ratepayers would not be content with a few munificent donations from individual Companies. He
      886
      intended to take a division upon his Motion, and the issue would be a very simple one. Did they wish that this property should be frittered away, and squandered and wasted in small sums, or would they shrink from granting an inquiry to show that that allegation was not true? He thought such an argument as that should appeal at least to those who called themselves Liberals, and should induce hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side to grant an investigation in order to ascertain the justice of the case.
      MR. PEASE,in seconding the Motion, said, he would offer no apology for the part he took in this discussion, as the matter had been so much before the public that the House and the country must be fully prepared to discuss it. He did not wish to cast any reflection upon the managers of these Companies; but he would confine himself to the origin of the Companies, their present character, and the manner in which they fulfilled their trust. There were great difficulties in procuring such an investigation as was asked for, as the veil of secrecy had so long enveloped the affairs of these Companies that anyone who attempted to scrutinize their character and doings was to some extent groping in the dark. However, both he and the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. James) resided so far from the scene of the Companies' labours that they were able to take an impartial view of the subject; but he (Mr. Pease) had carefully endeavoured to obtain what information he could, and he would submit the result to the House. In a paper issued by the City Guilds Reform Association it was said that the subject was one that nearly affected the tradesmen and artizans of the metropolis, whose rights were entirely disregarded. Most of the Companies wore incorporated for the benefit of specific trades, to train artizans, and to discourage bad workmanship, and every tradesman had a right of admission to his own Guild; but the Companies had now become close Corporations, and the funds given originally for trade purposes were appropriated by persons who had nothing to do with the trades for which those funds were intended. The same paper also said that the increasing local burdens of the householders rendered it necessary to ascertain whether the money left for the benefit of London past should

      887
      not be applied for the benefit of London present. The City Company system had been frequently attacked, and on each occasion fewer reasons were shown against the demand for investigation. In 1833 many of the Companies refused to give evidence before the Commission that was then appointed, and in cases where evidence was taken the Commission so far recognized the unwillingness of the civic officers to be examined that they exonerated them from taking the oath. A Bill on the subject had been brought in in 1856 by Sir George Grey, the then Home Secretary, which aroused an almost tumultuous feeling in the City; and the hon. Member for Lambeth (Sir James Lawrence) had referred to that measure, moderate as it was, by likening it to the action of a Border plunderer, who only took away what he could carry, leaving the remainder for a future foray. In 1870 Mr. Morrison, then Member for Plymouth, moved for a Return, but was answered with the statement that a full Return was made in 1837, and that there was no now information to give. That was certainly a statement in advance of the truth. The fact was, there had never been any disposition on the part of the City Companies to allow an inspection of their affairs, although their functions were so public that they ought to be publicly inspected. It was the boast of the Companies that they were the descendants of the old trades Guilds, the objects of which were to regulate employment, aid improvements, educate children, bind apprentices, and care for the needy and the aged. He admitted that the country owed much to the part these Guilds had taken in the past history of England; but with these, as often with Guilds, there had come a time when those who once were lovers of freedom became lovers of monopoly and almost tyrants in themselves. He thought that any reasonable man would be convinced that these Guilds were of a class so public in their whole character as to come under the cognizance of the House. Their possessions, both in and out of the City, were enormous, a vast amount was held in mortmain, and that amount was constantly increasing; it had passed from generation to generation without paying the succession duty imposed on other property. Their income from property within the City was stated to be between £400,000 and
      888
      £500,000 a-year, and their expenditure might be divided into three classes—namely, that which was known, that which was partially known, and that which was totally unknown. That which was known seemed to be but a very small part of the whole, and appeared from the Returns of the Charity Commissioners to be as follows:—Education, £19,000; apprentices, -£5,600; £17,000, parish schools; £5,300, almshouses. The partly known was expended in dinners, in grants to schools, and various charities. The unknown seemed to him to be the vast remainder, and he could find out but little traces of how it was spent. The functions of the Companies were at one time exercised under the Crown, then under the control of the City Corporation, and finally their charters were restored. Henry VIII. had made them pay £20,000; Edward VI., £18,000; Queen Mary, £65,000; Queen Elizabeth, £10,000; and King Charles, £100,000; while Charles II. forfeited their charters and William III. restored them. Some of the bequests to the Guilds were very curious. Thus £20,000 had been left to the Clothworkers "to make themselves comfortable." The Goldsmiths spent £12,000 in building an almshouse that only accommodated 20 people. The Drapers acknowledged in 1837 that they had an income of £24,000. It was now probably £50,000. How was it spent? They acknowledged £5,000 for dinners and entertainments, £4,000 for salaries, and £5,000 for pensions. The functions of these powerful bodies were once exercised under the control of the Common Council, but that had now passed away, because the Court of Common Council and the Guilds were essentially the same individuals. Some short time ago he found that out of 232 members of the Common Council only 20 were not members of the Guilds. In fact, this vast amount of accumulating wealth, which ought to be expended for the public benefit, was now managed by private Companies unanswerable to any person and uncontrolled either by King or Parliament. Many of the Companies had jurisdiction beyond the City—one of them as much as 20 miles; and he believed there could be no doubt that these Guilds had power to compel all the tradesmen of London to become members of them. [Sir JAMES LAWRENCE remarked that they had not the least

      889
      power.] He (Mr. Pease) understood that the contrary was the case, and he held in his hand an order from the Court of Common Council that all trades should enter into the Guilds. In 1657 the Common Council passed an order giving the wardens of the Dyers' Company control over the trade. As late as 1754 the Common Council made an order that all butchers were to become free of the Butchers' Company. In 1763 an order of Common Council inflicted a fine of £5 on all sale of poultry made by anyone not a poulterer. In 1765 another order decreed that all watch and clock makers must become free of the Company. Very few of these Guilds were taking any active part in assisting apprentices, or assisting the poor or aged members of their craft. The Spectaclemakers were no longer doing anything to assist defective vision. The Tallowchandlers had ceased to light our rooms. The Clothworkers knew nothing about cloth. The Broiderers had declined business, and the only place where the art of embroidering was now taught was at South Kensington. Nearly all the Companies had ceased to develop the trades they were originally intended to help. There was no doubt that some of them did so, but they were under special Acts of Parliament, and were not guided by the terms of the ancient charters. Then a man who was a freeman of these Companies was also an elector for the City of London. [Sir JAMES LAWRENCE: Not one.] At all events, a freeman was a liveryman, and had a vote in the election of Lord Mayor. Surely that would take the Guilds away from the class of private bodies managing private funds. It seemed to him to be the worst argument that could be invented that as the monopolies had ceased, there was no longer any further profit in the monopolies. It was obvious that the moneys were intended for the promotion of certain trades, or, in the words of the old Charters, for the common benefit of the people, and that many of them were no longer used for the purposes of those trades; that the money was used for purposes entirely different from those for which it was intended, and therefore they could not be looked upon as private Companies. It was quite true that small sums were given in charities, but very large sums were spent in dinners. He could not for the life of him see why
      890
      inquiry should not go forward. If these Companies were really carrying out in spirit the duties cast upon them by their charters, they would come out of the inquiry, and stand before the world free from all suspicion, and under any circumstances they would not be prevented doing anything they were entitled to do. He trusted the Government would go into this inquiry, for it was quite plain that these City Companies were the only unreformed Corporations which now existed.
      Motion made, and Question proposed,
      "That, in the opinion of this House, it is the duty of Her Majesty's Government to introduce some legislative measure empowering the Crown to make full investigation into the present condition and revenues of the eighty-nine Companies mentioned in the Second Report of the Municipal Commissioners, l837."—(Mr. James.)
      MR. ISAACconfessed when he placed on the Paper his Notice of Amendment to the Motion of his hon. Friend he little knew the task he had undertaken. He expected that his hon. Friend would give him the opportunity of replying to some startling disclosures as regarded the City Companies; but no such disclosures had been made either by the hon. Member for Gateshead, or his Seconder. They had both so mixed up the Corporation of the City of London with the Livery Companies, and so misstated the facts, that he had great difficulty in replying to them. The time which his hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead had devoted to get up this case might certainly have been applied more beneficially than in endeavouring to revive what was called last Session a fishing inquiry into the private property of the City Companies. The hon. Member had certainly failed to convince him —and he believed he had failed to convince a large majority of the House—that he was correct in his facts, or even right in his principle. He thought he could show that these Companies had performed, and were now performing, the duties pertaining to their body with firmness and fidelity; and although, as had been stated, they had some years ago refused to give evidence before the Royal Commission, it was not from fear that anything would be discovered in the shape of delinquency, but on the broad principle which he hoped would always be maintained by Englishmen, that there should be no inquiry into the

      891
      private funds of these bodies. Although the hon. Member had mixed up the Corporation with the Livery Companies in the hope of making the House believe there was some ground for considering that the latter were municipal bodies, he had failed in the attempt, and left it evident that they were no more corporate bodies than any private establishment in the City of London. If the speeches of the hon. Members were compared with those they delivered on a similar Motion last year, it would be found that in the interval, so far from discovering any great crimes and misdemeanours, they had toned down their complaints and reduced most materially their charges. The hon. Member for Gateshead last year quoted from speeches made by Sir John Bennett, from pamphlets written by Mr. Phillips, and copious extracts from Mr. Firth's book. This year he had, no doubt, favoured the House with quotations from the book of a Mr. Gilbert. Hon. Members would readily understand how much more pleasing it was to read works of fiction than listen to matters of fact. He himself did not intend to trouble the House by reading extracts from the public papers, from Lord Macaulay, or any of the gentlemen named, but would endeavour to deal with the facts of the case as they presented themselves. He thought it useless to compare the action and operation of those Companies now with what it had been. The hon. Member for Gateshead said—
      "An idea prevails generally out-of-doors, and is increasing, that the funds are applied to purposes very different from those which they were originally intended to subserve, and the charities are very often frittered away and given to those who least deserve them, and that nothing is done to promote the industries upon which their success ought in a great measure to depend,"
      but he had in no way proved this statement, nor had he by any evidence or argument justified his statement. He said—
      "What I complain of is, that they in no way keep up the purposes for which they were originally established."
      What the hon. Gentleman had said on the subject fell to the ground, because the hon. Member contemplated nothing less than the destruction of the Livery Companies. The hon. Member who had seconded the Motion (Mr.
      892
      Pease) had spoken of the opinions which had been expressed by the Municipal Corporations Reform League; but as those who united for a particular object generally spoke in favour of their particular views, it was unnecessary for him to endeavour to combat their assertions. The only charges the hon. Member (Mr. James) had brought against these 89 Companies were that in 1812 a set of almshouses was built by the Grocers at a cost of £600 for each inmate. In one case where an apprentice fee of £10 was to be charged, the Court made it an excuse for a dinner which cost £100, and that the Fishmongers' Company had on one occasion given a dinner which had cost 10 guineas a head; but even if these possibly exaggerated statement were true, he wished to know what the House of Commons had to do with the manner in which the Companies expended their private funds? The hon. Member had also asserted that the Livery Companies were not carrying out the intention of their founders, and that the trades unions had consequently sprung up in their places. Trades unions, however, were essentially different from the Livery Companies, and connected as the hon. Member was with the North, his experience of trades unions must be much more fortunate than theirs was in other parts of the country. The hon. Member for Gateshead had shown from his own papers and documents what a large stock of information with reference to these City Companies he had accumulated, and he could not understand, therefore, what good could possibly result from further inquiry with regard to them. The hon. Member promised that if his Motion were granted, many persons would come forward and prove how wrongly the Companies acted. But the hon. Member forgot to tell them who the persons were who would prove that. He ventured to say the hon. Member would have a difficulty in finding one who would come forward and say, much less prove, that these Companies were not fulfilling the functions set forth in the charters under which they were instituted. The hon. Member spoke of the great voting power which, by means of these Companies, was acquired by purchase; but he (Mr. Isaac) would ask in what way voting could be acquired other than by purchase? If a man purchased a house

      893
      he obtained a vote for such house—did he not obtain it by purchase? He had gathered his facts, not from works of fiction, but by inquiry; and he could prove that the harsh remarks the hon. Member had made, to the effect that the Companies had frittered away and squandered their property, were uncalled for and unnecessary, and much that had been said with regard to the Corporation and the Guilds might just as well have been left unsaid. He (Mr. Isaac) contended that neither in his address last year nor in his address this had the hon. Member substantiated his charges against the Companies. No cause had been shown for making this inquiry. The property held by the City Companies was of two classes—the one charity-trust property, the other corporate, which was also private property. The two classes to which he referred were altogether separate and distinct. With respect to the charity-trust property, it was well known that Parliament had provided means of dealing with such funds. The Livery Companies of London presented their accounts to the Charity Commissioners every year, and no accounts could be more satisfactory. Then as to the second class, it consisted of contributions and gifts from members, and of purchases from the Crown. It was private property, and ought no more to be the subject of inquiry than should be the possessions of any Member of that House. For example, William Thwaytes' bequest of £20,000 to the Clothworkers (1835), "to be laid out in the way that may tend to make the said Society comfortable," together with other £20,000 for Pensions to the Poor Blind. His hon. Friend had referred to this bequest of £20,000 to the Cloth-workers Company, but he (Mr. Isaac) asked whether all the powers of Parliament could do away with a gift which was left to a Company to enable its Members to enjoy themselves? But as to the main question, he could show that not only were all the charity-trust funds disposed of for their proper purpose, but that, in addition, a large amount of the private funds was expended to promote the same ends. One Company he could name which not only had a charity-trust fund amounting to £16,500 a-year, but in addition to that sum spent of its corporate funds for educational purposes no less than £12,900 a-year. Another Company
      894
      to its charitable trust fund of £12,000 a-year added from its corporate funds £15,000 a-year. Yet the hon. Member for Gateshead complained that these Companies neglected their functions. Ho had also referred to education. He (Mr. Isaac) could, however, name a case where a bequest having been made for the purpose of educating 20 children, the Company, as trustees, were now educating 1,556 children. Then the hon. Member referred to the Goldsmiths' Company, and he rather taunted them with the large sums which Mr. Firth said they expended in conviviality. He did not tell the House, however, what the Goldsmiths' Company did besides banqueting. The charity fund of that Company amounted to £9,000 a-year. Out of the general corporate fund they expended in charities alone £10,500 a-year, and £6,500 beyond that from their private funds for educational purposes. Yet the hon. Member wanted an inquiry into the application of these funds. He found, moreover, that the Company had founded 76 open competitions of £50 each a-year at Cambridge and Oxford, and gave £500 a-year for the encouragement of technical education, besides establishing a school of instruction for modelling and designing. More than that, they were about to build and endow a great church at East Acton at a very considerable cost. The cost of management of the Company's property did not exceed £1,500 a-year, and though Mr. Firth stated they spent £30,000 a-year in dining, he was told they had never, in any one year, spent more than £6,000. He thought, then, that those gentlemen should not be subjected to that annual Parliamentary Motion. With respect to the encouragement of technical education he thought he need only refer to the fact that last year when this subject was under discussion in the House of Commons, the noble Lord the Member for the West Riding of Yorkshire (Lord Frederick Cavendish), addressing a meeting at Leeds on the occasion of the opening of an educational institution there, spoke of the liberal assistance which had been rendered to it by the Clothworkers' Company, in the following terms:—
      "They had that day seen the College in full and successful operation, but he would venture to say that it was extremely doubtful whether that institution would yet have begun its useful

      895
      career if it had not been for the encouragement given by the Clothworkers Company.… They were met in a most friendly spirit by the Endowed Schools Commissioners, who gave important aid, but above all, they were met by the Clothworkers' Company, who offered to hand over funds to a considerable amount, if the Council of the College would take charge of them, to provide technical instruction in connection with the textile industries … Although the College was not yet two years old, there were now 80 day students on the books, and, in addition, well-nigh 150 evening students … He must now congratulate the Cloth-workers' Company upon the success of that part of the experiment which they had mainly initiated with respect to technical instruction … He must, therefore, congratulate the Clothworkers' Company upon the success in its earlier stages of an experiment which he believed would not have been tried here, nor probably elsewhere, had it not been for the munificent and long-sighted generosity of that honourable Guild.… Great had been the part played by these honourable City Companies in the past. In times of lawlessness and anarchy they nurtured and protected the industries of our country. When the freedom of this country was imperilled they did their part well, as would be found recorded in our constitutional history. Whether their public spirit would ever be called forth in these fields again he could not say, but he would venture to say that these Companies would have a wider field in the future for the display of their liberality and public spirit than they had ever had in the past."
      The Companies having large funds had joined for the purpose of founding a technical school. Nearly the whole of them had stepped to the front for the purpose of promoting the technical education so much spoken of, their object being to found a sound system of technical education, to raise the tone of industrial life and intelligence throughout the country, by establishing high standards of excellence in masters, managers, and foremen, by means of selected youths educated on the most approved models, whose example should percolate down to the lowest stratum of the working population. He thought he had shown enough to induce Her Majesty's Government to say that it was inexpedient to grant an inquiry into their constitution. Lord Hatherley, Lord Selborne, Baron Bramwell, and many other distinguished men had been Masters of these Companies. Would they lend themselves to anything like wrong-doing? As to the voting power of the Livery Companies, he had made an inquiry for the purpose of ascertaining how many liverymen of London would have votes, provided they had no other qualification than their livery. In the Haberdashers'
      896
      Company there were 321 liverymen who would be entitled under their livery to vote, but of that number 257 were qualified as householders of the City of London to vote, and those who were qualified to vote simply by their livery numbered only 64. Nearly all of those 64 had been presented with the livery on account of their good works. In the Stationers' Company there were 259 liverymen, 141 of whom could vote in respect of their livery. Coming to smaller Companies, he found that the Fanmakers had eight liverymen, but six of them could vote without being liverymen; and the Framemakers had 11 liverymen, of whom eight could vote without being liverymen. The Motion of his hon. Friend asserted a right to deal with the property of private persons. He trusted his right hon. Friend (Mr. Cross) would find he was able to refuse a Motion of that kind, and that the House would show by their vote that they were disinclined to deal with private property. There were two courses open to his hon. Friend. One was to bring forward a Bill that would deal with the property of these Companies openly and candidly. Let that Bill be fought out fairly and freely, instead of bringing forward annually a Motion of this kind. The other cousre was this—if his hon. Friend could find any charge against one or more of these Companies, he could appeal to the Law Courts, and get the greatest amount of justice. His hon. Friend had, no doubt, been misinformed as to the facts and figures which he had given the House; and he (Mr. Isaac) would conclude by moving the Amendment of which he had given Notice—namely, that all the words after "is" be omitted, in order to insert the words
      "inexpedient and unnecessary for Her Majesty's Government to introduce any legislative measure affecting the Livery Companies of the City of London."
      MR. ALDERMAN COTTONseconded the Amendment, and said he felt certain that the Motion would be rejected, as it had been rejected last year. No Member of the House could be in a position to bring forward facts of the kind mentioned by the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. James) with good ground, for secrecy was imposed upon all members of the Companies. It was true these Guilds had property the accumulation of centuries; but it was as much

      897
      private property as was the property of any Member of that House. If Motions of this kind were to be continually brought before the House, the House would be transformed into an inquiry office to look after private property, which when found would not be returned to the owners. These Companies were carrying out the purposes for which they were created, attending not only to technical education, but looking after the widow, the orphan, and the distressed. They did not object to fair comment; but they did object to these continued assaults. With regard to the outlay on hospitalities, he did not think that in the case of the more important Guilds it exceeded 30 per cent of the total expenditure. No one could accuse the Companies of a grudging hospitality. It was bestowed freely and wisely, and gave citizens and others almost their only opportunity of meeting together. At many of the court dinners the guests far exceeded their hosts in number; and the members might say, in the spirit of the old song—"Though the rich we entertain, we don't forget the poor." The estimates of £500,000 and £750,000 which he had heard quoted were quite imaginary. The Guilds were very large institutions, and many thousands were interested in them. They were well administered, and an annual influx of new blood strengthened the Courts. It would be too great an iniquity for the House to grant this inquiry, as it would be an undue interference with the rights of private property, and would shake the very foundation upon which private property was held.
      Amendment proposed,
      To leave out from the word "is" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "inexpedient and unnecessary for Her Majesty's Government to introduce any legislative measure affecting the Livery Companies of the City of London,"—(Mr. Isaac,)
      —instead thereof.
      SIR GEORGE BOWYERsaid, the speeches of the Mover and Seconder of the original Resolution were founded on the fallacious assumption that all property which belonged not to an individual but to a corporate body must be regarded as something different from private property. A corporate body stood in point of law—whether under the English law or under the law of any
      898
      other country—in perfectly the same position as an individual. It was a persona, and might hold both private property and trust property. These Guilds—these personæ—possessed property of both kinds. They held property in trust for the public, and with regard to it they were amenable to the Charity Commissioners or to a Court of Law. They also held private property, which had not come to them for any purpose in which the public had an interest, and which they possessed in precisely the same manner and with the same rights as would be the case if they were individuals. In respect to that property they were, in fact, treated by the law as private persons; and an outsider had no more right to object to what they spent out of it on dinners, than to object to what the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. James) spent in entertaining his friends. If there was any question as to the rights of property, the Courts of Law ought to be got to decide upon it. A more unconstitutional course than that recommended by the hon. Member for Gateshead had never been suggested, nor had a proposal ever been supported by a weaker case, and therefore the Motion ought to be refused.
      MR. FORSYTHsaid, that the hon. Member (Mr. James) last year asked for a Commission to inquire into the City Companies; and now he asked the House to affirm a proposition that the Government ought to introduce a Bill for the purpose of making an inquiry into the revenues of these Companies. He fully admitted the distinction between corporate and private property, and had no doubt that if it were shown that any abuse existed in regard to trust property held by these Companies, Parliament might order an investigation into the administration of it; but before Parliament was asked to take such a serious step it ought to be shown that an abuse existed. There was no property held by a higher or better title than that which belonged to these Companies. Their charters were, in the time of Charles II., surrendered in a fright, owing to the Quo warranto which was issued against the Corporation of London; but the proceedings on that Quo warranto were found to be so iniquitous that an Act of Parliament was passed in the reign of William and Mary reversing the judgment, and granting to

      899
      the several City Companies the right to hold and enjoy their property under their old titles. His objection to the Motion was that it was for a fishing inquiry. The hon. Member had given no good reason for any inquiry. Ho had shown no malfeasance. There had been no argument except the question of dinners. Every item of the property held by the Companies was known and published in books accessible to all. There were the Reports of 1837, which gave all the information required. Of course, property had increased in value since that time. It was true that the original objects of some of these Guilds had become obsolete; but it was a mistake to suppose that they existed for the purpose only of the old foundations. These Companies possessed almshouses, schools, and charities, numerous and valuable, and could any hon. Member say that they were not properly administered? There had been no malversation during the last 25 years at least; and why, therefore, should the House of Commons be asked to condemn these Companies? If no charge could be made against them, why should Parliament ask the Government to introduce a Bill to enable the Crown to issue a Commission of Inquiry into supposed abuses? He was inclined to agree that their expenditure upon dinners was too lavish; but was the House going to lay down a sumptuary law? Was there to be no whitebait, no hock, no turtle? Was the House to extend its legislation to the quantity of provisions the guests ate at the Lord Mayor's table? No doubt the aggregate expenditure of all the Companies upon entertainments was large; but in individual cases it was by no means so large as was supposed. One great reason of the jealousy felt towards the City Companies was the opinion that existed that they were part of the Corporation of London; but that was not so. With the exception of the Lord Mayor, the members of the Corporation were elected by the same persons who returned Members to that House. One reason why he wished to see these Companies continue to exist and flourish was that the great secret of the freedom of this country was local self-government, and in these bodies we had models of local self-government. If some real ground could be shown for inquiry, he would himself
      900
      vote for it; but in the absence of such ground he did not believe the House would grant an inquiry; and the Motion, under such circumstances, seemed very like a gratuitous attack upon the Companies, which would confer no benefit on the public at large.
      SIR JAMES LAWRENCEsaid, he had listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. James) with the feeling that he was listening to a romance and not to a history of facts. He failed to recognize in it the truth connected with a single Company with but one small exception. Throughout the speeches of both the Mover and Seconder of the Motion one fallacy was evident—namely, an utter confusion as to the true meaning of municipal institutions as distinguished from bodies which from their very foundation down to the present time had really been benefit societies. The first charge upon these City Companies was the benefit of the members composing them, and that the managers were obliged to carry out. In all the great Companies a large number of the humbler members were receiving pensions and benefactions in conformity with the rules and charters upon which those Companies were founded. No portion of that money was to be expended for a public object, and the Companies were, in fact, trades' union societies, the members of which banded themselves together and provided their own funds. No public funds were given them; there had been no founders in the sense in which the founder had been spoken of in the discussion; and the only funds left for specific purposes were those which were now in the hands of the Charity Commissioners, to whom every year each Company was bound to make a return. Almost all the Livery Companies supplemented from their own funds the sums they were required to expend for particular objects. No public object was ever entrusted to a Company except such as it had itself desired for special trade purposes. There were surplus funds as a Company grew wealthier and the wants of its members were satisfied. [Ironical cheers.] Those cheers showed that hon. Gentlemen did not understand the matter; because in their minds there was an utter confusion of thought between a municipal institution and a private body. The property of these Companies was as much the private

      901
      and personal property of each member of the Company as the property of any Member of that House was his own. Every examination which had been made into the subject had attested the soundness of that view; and hence this Resolution was brought forward with the idea that the threat of an inquiry would put some kind of pressure upon the Companies, and induce them to devote their funds to objects which they were under no legal obligation to support. It was not true, as had been suggested, that the Companies, alarmed by the threatened inquiry, had taken up the subject of technical education. On the contrary, that subject had been continuously before them for the last eight years, and year after year they had voted larger sums for its promotion. The more this question was examined the more it would be seen that the Livery Companies consisted of individuals banded together for their mutual benefit, and there was nothing to hinder them from dividing every shilling of the property which they held between them. They had heard much lately about the sale of the property of Serjeants' Inn; and he thought it would be far more difficult to justify that act than to justify any similar measure on the part of the City Companies. He had heard with regret a remark about absentee landlords. If that referred to Ireland he thought many Irish Members would be ready to acknowledge that the Livery Companies were the landlords who had shown the most desire to benefit the people, and had spent the largest proportion of their rents for the improvement of their estates. True, a few years ago some of them had become alarmed, and the Clothworkers' Company in particular had sold its estates to a private owner. The tenants would tell whether they had benefited by that change. He hoped that in future hon. Gentlemen, when they tried to make out a case against the Livery Companies, would verify their information, and not lay before the House statements which, from his own personal knowledge, he knew to be highly exaggerated.
      MR. E. JENKINSsaid, his hon. Friend had based his Motion on the fact that these institutions were incorporated by Royal charter, and were entrusted with public objects and charitable trusts. These were so intimately connected that
      902
      it was impossible to divide them; but, as a matter of fact, the Guilds had almost totally ceased to exist for the purposes for which they were originally constituted. It was impossible for them to know much in regard to the actual facts owing to the secresy in which the affairs of the Companies were shrouded; but they contended that these bodies misapplied the money entrusted to them for charitable purposes, and applied it to private purpose. His hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. Alderman Cotton), the late Lord Mayor, speaking on behalf of the Guilds, said that though they entertained the rich they never forgot the poor. By a singular hazard there appeared in the newspapers of the 7th of April a little incident illustrating the manner in which the Companies of the City of London treated their poor. Mr. Humphrey, the coroner, held an inquest at the Whittington and Cat Tavern, Bethnal Green, on the body of Mary Ann Nash, aged 71. It appeared from the evidence that the deceased and her husband were in receipt of £5 per annum each from the Cordwainers' Company; but in the event of their receiving parish or other relief that money would be forfeited, and therefore they did not apply to the parish. Out of the 4s. a-week they paid 2s. 6d. rent, leaving only 1s. 6d. per week for food, clothes, and firing. The doctor stated that he had never seen a worse case, and that the woman had been starved to death. The jury found that the regulations of the Cordwainers' Company with respect to their charities had contributed to the death of the deceased, and requested the coroner to write to the Company on the subject. The hon. Member commented on the peculiar privileges of the Companies, such as their right of holding land, and others. It might be admitted that we no longer wanted loriners or armourers, and in the case of those still existing Companies whose objects had died out, might it not be argued that their money should be applied to other purposes? The late Lord Mayor challenged the statement that the income of the Companies was £750,000 a-year. But the property of the Livery Companies in the City was rated at £500,000 a-year, and they had estates in Ireland yielding £88,500 a-year, which would shortly be increased by 20 per cent. Would anyone contend that the value of their property was not far

      903
      greater than the amount at which it was rated? Thus there was a property of between £600,000 and £700,000 a-year in the hands of Companies who kept their affairs so secret that every member was bound to take an oath not to reveal them; so that not only the general public, but the commonalty of the Companies were not permitted to know how their revenues were expended. That was an anomalous state of things which fully justified the demand for an inquiry. The greater number of the members of the largest Companies were laymen. Lord Selborne, for instance, was no more a mercer than the man in the moon; but what was still more absurd was the fact that the charities of the Companies were not now administered in the interests of those for whom they were originally intended. Hardly any part of them was applied for the benefit of the trades which the Companies were supposed to promote. Again, the rating of all the Halls of the Liveries of the City of London was in the gross sum less than £58,000. There could be no doubt that this was much less than it should be, and that the sum should be £75,000 or £80,000. Hon. Gentlemen asked for one or two facts. Now, if he could not produce one or two facts, he could ask one or two questions. In 1837 the Drapers' Company returned their income at £24,000 per annum. Their Hall was assessed at £8,000; it was built for £70,000. Their garden had been let at £15,000 per annum. They were, therefore, worth more than the £24,000 of 1837. What were they doing with the rest of the money? Their dinners and entertainments were set down at £5,000; salaries, £4,000; pensions and gratuities, £5,000. The Haberdashers' Company had 24 houses; eight were in Haberdashers' Square, returned as producing £170 a-year, six in St. Giles's. Who was the lucky person who had the eight houses in Haberdashers' Square for £170 a-year? If statements had been made about the Companies in the course of the debate which were wrong why should not those bodies at once open their books, produce their facts, and disprove the statements to which he referred? So long as they declined to do so the public would continue to believe that there were points and transactions in connection with them which they dared not bring into the
      904
      light of day; and those who had to do with the Guilds would lay themselves open to the imputation of being dishonest men.
      THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid, he had listened for a considerable time, in order to find out what were the facts upon which this inquiry, as it was called, was sought for. Allegations had been made, fragments and extracts from newspapers had been quoted, which those who brought them forward disavowed their belief in—but no facts had been suggested against the City Companies until the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. E. Jenkins) rose; and he (the Solicitor General) was bound to say that what had been rather suggested than positively stated had in his case found definite expression. The hon. Member said that what the allegation really meant was this—that the City Companies had misapplied the money which they had received for charitable purposes. Now, that raised a definite issue, and one which required careful treatment. In the first place, it was obvious that, if the money had been received for charitable purposes, every person receiving it was under the supervision of the law. The hon. Member must be aware that, in the first place, an account must be rendered, which, if withheld, those withholding it could be sent to prison; and if it was mis-stated, those who made the mis-statement would be subject to penalties, and also could be sent to prison. If there was any foundation for the statement that those gentlemen were misapplying the money entrusted to them for charitable purposes, they would be liable to indictment. What had been said, therefore, was in truth a suggestion that a new tribunal should be erected, in order, forsooth, to find out whether some persons had been guilty of dishonest conduct, and whether they should not be indicted and punished.
      MR. E. JENKINSrose to Order. Hon. Members, he said, knew that the charity funds of the Companies, as charity funds, were under the control of the Charity Commissioners to a certain extent; but his argument was that it was impossible to separate the original purpose of those Companies as trade societies and their charitable purpose from each other, and he contended that the money not now under the control of

      905
      the Commissioners was not devoted to charitable purposes.
      THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid, then, it was important that the House should ascertain what funds were within the control of the Charity Commissioners. The statute of Elizabeth gave the number of heads to which money and lands devoted to charitable objects could be applied. The first was for the relief of the aged, then to maintain poor people, sick and aged soldiers, and schools of learning. Among those objects were, also, "the marriage of poor maidens," the support and aid of young tradesmen, the relief and redemption of prisoners, aid in payment of rates, &c. These were heads sufficiently wide in themselves; but the hon. Gentleman was himself aware that the Courts had put a still wider construction on them. There was nothing which came within these heads that the Courts would not administer on what lawyers called the cy près doctrine; by which was meant that in defect of the more specific objects of a testator's bounty, the Court would apply the fund to the next cognate object. To take a leading case. A gentleman left to one of the Companies a large estate, charged with the redemption of Christian slaves in Turkey and Barbary. It was reported to the Court of Chancery that the object for which the bequest was intended no longer existed; whereupon, under the direction of the Court, the fund in question was applied to the foundation of certain scholarships at one of the Universities in which it was ascertained the testator took a considerable interest. It was said to be impossible to disentangle the charity from the other funds of these Guilds. But where there was any part of the property, personal or real, clothed with the character of charity it immediately came within the supervision of the law. It was said by the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. James) that these Corporations—and he described them as municipal Corporations—were instituted for public purposes. Now, these Corporations were not Municipal Corporations, except in a very wide sense indeed; and they were not instituted for public purposes. At all events, it was enough for him to say that none of those Gentlemen who had addressed the House on the subject had brought forward any charter or fact
      906
      proving that these Corporations, which were in the nature of private societies, were ever instituted by the Crown, in the sense which the argument implied, for any public purposes whatever. They were apparently in their origin mere voluntary associations, instituted by persons who were interested in one particular subject or matter. We had in our midst in these days voluntary agencies for almost every conceivable subject which interested mankind. They differed from those ancient associations in this—that they conveyed their property to trustees, charging it with a private trust to give effect to the original wishes of those who contrived these associations. He did not know whether the hon. Member for Gateshead belonged to any of the societies which owned those magnificent buildings they saw in Pall Mall, which were devoted to political objects, and which did not, he believed, publish their accounts or give any account of what their property was. What was the distinction between those clubs and these City Guilds? The simple distinction was, that the former had settled their property on trustees, who held it in trust for them. If they were to ask the House to inquire into the administration of the funds, and what were the objects, of the Reform Club or the Carlton Club, he thought it probable that there would be considerable resistance to any such inquiry. The origin of these City Companies was precisely analogous. It was assumed that they received the money of the Crown, and were instituted by the Crown for this or that public purpose. That was entirely a mistake. He could not help thinking that those hon. Members who had more than once referred to the Commission ought to have thought it within the scope of their inquiry to find out what the Commission said upon the subject. They had had numerous extracts from newspapers, but no one had brought the Report of the Commission before the House. That Report contained the following passages, which he would, with the leave of the House, read:—
      "Considered as distinct or special communities, the Companies were probably, in their original conformation, not so much trading societies as trade societies, instituted for the purpose of protecting the consumer or the employers against the incompetency or fraud of the dealer or the artizan; and equally with the intent of securing a maintenance to the work-

      907
      man trained to the art, according to the notion of early times, by preventing his being undersold in a labour market filled by an unlimited number of competitors."
      In fact, the hon. Baronet the Member for Lambeth (Sir James Lawrence) was not far wrong when he described them as neither more nor less than trades' unions—
      "Furthermore, the Companies acted as domestic tribunals, adjudicating, or rather arbitrating, between master and man, and settling disputes; thus diminishing hostile litigation and promoting amity and good will. They were also in the nature of benefit societies, in which the workman, in return for the contributions he had made, when in health and vigour, to the common stock of the Guild, might be relieved in sickness, or when disabled by the infirmities of age. This character speedily attracted donations for other charitable purposes from benevolent persons who could not find any better trustees than the ruling members of these communities; and hence arose the numerous charitable gifts and foundations now entrusted to their care.—[2nd R. M. C., p. 19, 1837.]
      "They also possessed the character of modern clubs. They were institutions in which individuals of the same class and their families assembled in social intercourse. So important was this object deemed, that several of the Companies now actually hold their banquets under Royal Charters. The annual feasts of the Skinners, Haberdashers, Clothworkers, &c., for instance, are legal and corporate franchises."
      He thought it would be observed from that Report that it was quite possible to separate the funds which they had for charitable uses from those which they enjoyed as the owners of private property. They had obtained their position, not from any supposed grant from the Crown, but by the payment of money to be allowed to do that which he asserted every modern club was in the habit of doing, by appointing trustees. It should also be remembered that the Crown in many cases parted with its privileges for money considerations. Then it was said they had ceased to perform their functions. What functions? If it was meant that they did not any longer visit the different tradesmen in or about the Metropolis, that must not be attributed to any neglect of duty, but rather to the fact that modern commerce had emancipated itself from the trammels by which in early times trade was surrounded; and because that sort of supervision would at this moment be considered an intolerable invasion of the privileges of free trading. It must be remembered that these things wore not imposed as duties, but granted
      908
      as privileges, which from time to time were surrendered in compliance with the demands of modern thought. Then, again, it was sought to make them public bodies, because it was said they were engaged in some such way as gave them the franchise; but that was a mistake. It was true that a liveryman was, under certain circumstances, en- titled to the franchise; but if it was said that as a member of a Company he was improperly qualified, and that he ought not to have the franchise because of his being a member of a Livery Company, surely that would be a reason for altering the franchise, and not for inquiring into what money the Companies possessed. In a county every 40 s. freeholder was entitled to exercise the franchise; but that did not give Parliament any reason for inquiring into the manner in which each man became possessed of, or what he did with his 40 s. He ventured to think that the Livery Companies, in so far as they were possessed of private funds—and it was quite possible to distinguish between their private funds and their charitable funds—were in no different position from any other private society or private individual. They had a right to use those funds as they pleased, and it was very much to their credit—though he did not urge it as justifying them— that being in the possession of those private funds, instead of squandering them as they might have done, or dividing them amongst themselves as they might also have done, they had preserved them with the object apparently of carrying on their ancient Guilds upon the ancient principles upon which they were founded, just as the political clubs carried on their establishments and distributed their funds upon the principles upon which they were originally founded. It was said that some of the Companies had behaved well and some ill; that some were rich and some poor; and it was asked that they should all be lumped in a sort of general indictment, and that a new tribunal should be elected to inquire, not into the mode in which they used their funds, or to suggest how they should dispense them for the future, but simply to inquire what they had got. The hon. Member who spoke last uttered a sentiment against which he, for one, emphatically pro-I tested. He said—"A great many people

      909
      have been talking against you. True, there is no evidence; but a great many people have been saying things, and unless you choose to come forward and disclose all your affairs, the inference will be drawn that you are dishonest men." That was a startling proposition, and if applied to private property it would only be necessary for the accusers to make their statements as reckless and as offensive as possible, and, having made the most infamous accusations, to call upon the proprietors to show that they were not true. The City Companies rightly regarded these Motions for inquiry as accusations, made by those who had no right to inquire what the Companies did with their private property. Some people said that it was not private property, and that there was a distinction to be drawn between what they did with this money and what they did with that. For his part, he preferred the bold outspoken way in which the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down made his attack. If they searched a man's pockets, the act conveyed something like an imputation that the searcher thought he had something that he ought not to have, and those who had authority to command a search did not generally exercise that authority unless they had reasonable ground for believing that the man had unlawfully got some property which he ought not to have. He hoped the House would reject the Motion, because it appeared to him to be of most mischievous example—a sort of general Communistic inquiry—all inquiry the request for which appeared to be principally founded upon the suggestion that the Companies had very large funds. One hon. Gentleman opposite spoke almost with a degree of rapture of the great wealth which he (the Solicitor General) supposed was to be distributed among some objects that the hon. Member thought worthy. He (the Solicitor General) hoped it would be rejected, not only because one naturally felt interested in those Companies, which had done good service in the past, and were doing good service now—Companies which for years had been bringing all sorts of ranks together: and if this were a luxurious age, and we spent more than we ought, the observation hit a great many besides the City Companies. These gatherings were among
      910
      the objects contemplated in the foundation of the Companies; and if there was nothing unlawful in them, on which the Charity Commissioners could lay hold as involving misappropriation, upon what ground, except the growth of the funds, was the proposed tribunal to be justified? Sanctioning such an inquiry would be a most mischievous example; it would establish the principle that you had only to point out the existence of a large quantity of property, and that that would be a sufficient justification for the interference of a reformer in search of a victim. It appeared to him that the effect of Motions of this sort would be to create an uneasy feeling, and to unsettle the idea that private property was sacred in this country. If there was no misapplication of public funds or charities, and if no public function such as the exercise of the franchise was concerned, then this was simply a Motion to find out what the property of these City Companies was, with the ill-concealed object behind that if that property were found to be very large, then there should be an inquiry on the part of the public—which public meant each particular man's crotchet—as to what should be done with this property. The example would be set of an inquiry into a person's property, and he did not believe that in the heat of the discussion the distinction between private and public property would long be observed. The principle of instituting such an inquiry for no public reason and when no misconduct had been suggested was, in his opinion, most mischievous, and he trusted it would never be affirmed by that House.
      MR. JAMESsaid, he thought he had some reason to complain of the hon. and learned Gentleman having applied such a term as "communistic" to his remarks. The speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman would have done honour to the days of Lord Eldon and Lord Lyndhurst—it was a piece of special pleading. No doctrine could be more monstrous than that corporate property could be private property. In 1833 the Attorney General of the day, on the debate on this very question, had said that some inquiry must shortly be held into the state of these Companies, seeing that the functions they exercised were distinctly municipal, and there-

      911
      fore made them municipal corporations.
      COLONEL MAKINSsaid, that 16 years ago, long before the agitation had been raised, the Clothworkers' Company subscribed £500 a-year to the teaching of textile fabric making in Leeds and other centres of textile industry. They had also contributed very largely to the Yorkshire College of Science at Leeds. He opposed the Motion, contending there was no evidence whatever to justify the proposed inquiry.
      Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
      The House divided:—Ayes 72; Noes 168: Majority 96.—(Div. List, No. 63.)
      Main Question, as amended, put.
      Resolved, That, in the opinion of this House, it is inexpedient and unnecessary for Her Majesty's Government to introduce any legislative measure affecting the Livery Companies of the City of London.

    TOWN COUNCILS AND LOCAL BOARDS BILL— [BILL 11.]
    (Mr. Mundella, Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Burt, Mr. Morley,)
    TOWN COUNCILS AND LOCAL BOARDS BILL— [BILL 11.]

      COMMITTEE.
      Bill considered in Committee.
      (In the Committee.)
      Clauses 1 to 5 inclusive, agreed to.
      MR. BIGGARmoved to insert a new clause after Clause 5 extending the provisions of the Bill to Ireland. He could not see any reason why the property qualification should exist in Ireland with regard to Town Councils when it had been abolished in England.
      SIR MICHAEL HICKS - BEACHsaid, the municipal laws of Ireland were different from those of England, and that there was now a Committee sitting to inquire into the former. He hoped the hon. Member would not press his Motion now, but would bring it up on the Report, when he would consider the question.
      MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, the property qualification had been abolished in England; but in Ireland no one was qualified to sit in the Town Councils, unless he had a property qualification, and resided in a house with a rental of £25. What the hon. Member for Cavan
      912
      (Mr. Biggar) sought to do was to abolish this unjust state of things in Ireland as it had been abolished in England.
      MR. MELDONthought that before Bills of this kind were introduced, the question of how Irish as well as English law would be affected should be considered. Some legal authority ought to consider how far any measure introduced for the benefit of England could be applied to Ireland. He should support the clause moved by the hon. Member for Cavan. He would oppose the progress of this Bill at every stage, unless the same advantages were to be extended to Ireland that were proposed for England.
      MR. P. W. MARTINsaid, he saw no good reason why Irish Members should offer opposition to a useful measure for England which English Members would be quite ready to support for Ireland if another Bill were introduced for that country.
      MR. MUNDELLAsaid, ho could not complain that Irish Members should wish to share in the benefits of the measure. In Scotland no qualification was exacted, and England and Ireland ought not to exact a qualification. But he deprecated such opposition as that threatened by the hon. Member for Kildare (Mr. Meldon).
      MR. HIBBERTsaid, there was more in this matter than some hon. Members seemed to think, and if they were to legislate for England, Scotland, and Ireland as one country, they should hear less of Home Rule. At the same time, he thought the remark of the right hon. Baronet (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) was reasonable, and he would suggest that the Amendment should be withdrawn and brought forward on the Report.
      MR. PARNELLsupported the new clause.
      SIR MICHAEL HICKS - BEACHsaid, if it was desirable to insert the clause, it could be very well inserted on the Report. A Select Committee was now inquiring for the second Session into this very subject, and it was not desirable to propose any legislation until the Report of that Committee had been presented to the House. The Bill would also require very considerable alteration in order to adapt it so as to meet the views of the hon. Member for Cavan. The 4th clause referred solely to Acts regulating municipal government in

      913
      England and Wales, and that would have to be altered if the proposed new clause was adopted.
      MR. DELAHUNTYsupported the clause, and said the Chief Secretary for Ireland seemed to forget that the Irish and English Municipal Acts were both framed alike. That being so, he did not see why, if an alteration had to be made in the English Act, the same should not apply to Ireland. He should support the hon. Member for Cavan if he went to a division, and he thought the hon. Gentleman ought to press the question to a division.
      MR. M. BROOKSsaid, that private Members had always found a difficulty upon introducing Bills on this or any other subject, and he thought if the present Bill were passed, the hands of Irish Members would be strengthened in their efforts to extend the municipal privileges in Ireland. When the Committee now sitting upon the subject of Local Taxation in Ireland had presented their Report, Irish Members would be able to refer to the Bill, and claim the same benefit for Ireland.
      MR. BIGGARsaw in the fact just mentioned, that Irish Members had always met with difficulty in legislating on their municipal law, a reason why advantage should be taken of the present opportunity.
      MR. PEASEmoved that Progress be reported. If the Committee went to a division then they would do so on a false issue. He had always supported the view that legislation for Ireland, Scotland, and England should proceed together; but a question of that importance could not be decided by a division, after a short discussion, at half-past 12.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again,"— (Mr. Pease.)
      MR. HERSCHELLhoped that the Motion would be withdrawn, and the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cavan considered on the Report.
      CAPTAIN NOLANsaid, he was one of those who had been accused of obstructing the Business of the House. He had never denied or affirmed the accusation, but who were obstructing in the present instance? He did not think the Irish
      914
      Members ought to be deserted by the Liberals below the Gangway. To bring up the Amendment on the Report would embarrass the Bill; and, probably, there would not be such a fair opportunity of discussing the clause in a businesslike way. He hoped the House would be allowed to take a division on the clause.
      MR. PARNELLrose to address the Committee; but the cries for "Progress" and "Division" prevented any part of the hon. Member's speech being heard.
      MR. MUNDELLAsaid, he did not think that the spirit of retaliation manifested that night would conduce to the dignity of the House. He would propose to omit the recital of the Bill, so as to allow the Irish Members to propose any Amendments they pleased on Report if the hon. Members for Durham (Mr. Pease) and Cavan (Mr. Biggar) would withdraw their Motions.
      MR. PEASEsaid, he would withdraw his Motion.
      MR. BIGGARsaid, he would withdraw his Motion on the understanding that he should be at liberty to bring his new clause forward on Report.
      SIR CHARLES W. DILKEthought the case of London ought also to be considered.
      Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

    PUBLIC PARKS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
    (Mr. Fortescue Harrison, Sir Windham Anstruther, Sir George Balfour, Dr. Cameron, Mr. William Holms.)
    PUBLIC PARKS (SCOTLAND) BILL.

      [BILL 111.] SECOND READING.
      Order for Second Reading read.
      MR. FORTESCUE HARRISON,in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, it would not be necessary for him at that late hour to trespass on the time of the House with regard to the measure. Its object was to assimilate the laws of England and Scotland as concerned the acquisition by local authorities of land for the purposes of Public Parks and pleasure grounds. The whole of the contents of the Bill would be found in existing Acts, and he had merely brought those together in a convenient and workable form. There was not, he believed, any objection on the part of the Govern-

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      ment to the second reading of the Bill; and he had therefore only to ask that the House would allow that to be done.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Fortescue Harrison.)
      MR. BIGGARmoved the adjournment of the debate, on the ground that at a quarter past 1 o'clock it was too late to proceed with it.
      Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned,"—(Mr. Biggar,)—put, and negatived.
      Original Question put, and agreed to.
      Bill read a second time, and committed for Tuesday next.

  ELECTION OF ALDERMEN (CUMULATIVE VOTE) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. WHEELHOUSE, Bill to amend the Law relating to the Election of Aldermen in Municipal Boroughs by the application thereto of the Cumulative Vote, ordered to be brought in by Mr. WHEELHOUSE and Mr. ISAAC.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 128.]
  House adjourned at a quarter after One o'clock.