Sitting of 23 February 1877

MINUTES.
NEW WRIT ISSUED—For Launceston, ?. James Henry Deakin, esquire, Manor of Northstead.
PUBLIC BILLS — Select Committee—Sale of Intoxicating Liquors on Sunday (Ireland) [50], Mr. Ion Hamilton and Mr. O'Shaughnessy added.
Committee—Beer Licences (Ireland) [57]—R.P.

COOLIE EMIGRATION TO SURINAM.

  QUESTION.
  DR. CAMERONasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether proposals have been received from the Dutch Government regarding the reopening of Coolie Emigration from Calcutta to the Dutch Colony of Surinam; and, whether there is any prospect of the embargo at present laid upon that Emigration being removed?
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: Sir, proposals for the emigration of 300 coolies from Calcutta to the Dutch colony of Surinam, as a temporary measure, have reached the Secretary of State in Council; and the Government of India have been requested by telegraph to allow the emigration to this extent. With regard to the removal of the prohibition ordered by the Indian Government of coolie emigration generally to Surinam, this matter has been and is still the subject of correspondence with the Netherlands Government, and the conditions on which the Government of India would allow the regular renewal of the emigration have been submitted to the Government of Holland.

MERCHANT SHIPPING ACT, 1876—THE "ROCK TERRACE."—QUESTION.
MR. MELDON (for Major O'GORMAN)asked the President of the Board of Trade, If his attention has been called to an affidavit made by Martin O'Brien, chief mate of the ship "Rock Terrace," at Tobes de Tierra, on the 29th July, 1876, to the effect that the captain of that ship (A. Kemay) was seen to alter the position of the load line by moving it two feet higher up the ship's side on the night of the 15th July, and which it is stated the captain admitted to be true at a naval court martial held at Callao on the 5th September, 1876; whether he is aware that the captain's charge of insubordination against Martin O'Brien then heard was dismissed; whether, although on the 25th September the ship was hauled into dock and discharged of 300 tons, the crew were imprisoned for three months for not sailing in her, in her original overloaded state, and the wages of the mate and seamen have not been paid; and, whether he will direct that steps be taken to inquire into the case, and to punish the captain, if guilty,
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and to obtain justice for the men by the payment of their wages?
SIR CHARLES ADDERLEY, in reply, said, the load-line which the captain of the Rock Terrace moved was a mark made by the Peruvian port authorities, who, by a customary imposition, nicknamed "buying drafts," place a low load-line, and take a bribe, in this case of $600, to let it be moved higher. The Naval Court, of course, expressed disapprobation of this common practice. The captain moved the line to the place specified in the terms of the charter-party. If the ship had loaded only to the Peruvian mark, she would have been short of about 350 tons of the cargo she could safely carry. By a survey held by a surveyor appointed by Lloyd's surveyor, on her arrival at Callao, her average draught of water, fore and aft, was 23 feet, 1½ inches, giving her a freeboard of 5 feet, 9½ inches; and Lloyd's surveyor, together with two shipmasters, pronounced her seaworthy and able to carry her cargo. The Court found Martin O'Brien, the mate, guilty of insubordination, with extenuating circumstances, and ordered him to pay 1–23rd of the survey expenses and one-half of the Court expenses, and to be discharged from the ship. The seamen, who pleaded that the ship was overloaded, were found guilty of refusing duty without reasonable cause, and combining to disobey lawful commands. The Court held that the ship was not overloaded when the offences of the crew were committed. Martin O'Brien's wages were paid over to the Consul, but returned to him, as no expenses were incurred on his behalf. The wages of five of the seamen were forfeited to the ship. These Courts were held on the 5th, 11th, and 14th of September. He had no information of anything done since, and was, therefore, not aware that any cargo was discharged on the 25th of September.

NAVY—THE ADMIRALTY AND THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT.—QUESTION.
MR. W. WHITWORTHasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, If he will lay upon the Table of the House a Copy of the Minute or Order authorising the construction or other department of the Admiralty to furnish to the Russian Government (previous to and up to the commencement of the late Crimean War)

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general and detailed working plans of any of our war ships building or about to be built, and also if information of this description can still be obtained by that Government?
MR. HUNT: Sir, I have caused search to be made as far back as 1848, and no trace of any such Minute or Order as that mentioned in the Question can be found at the Admiralty. With regard to the second part of the Question, I have to say there is no general rule or order as to giving detailed plans of ships building or about to be built to any foreign Governments. Whenever an application is made it is considered on its merits, and a decision given at the time.

INDIAN ORDNANCE CORPS—PENSIONERS, &c.—QUESTION.
MR. DUNBARasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether the Secretary of State has taken or will take into consideration "the conditions and rates of the retiring pensions of officers of the old Indian Ordnance Corps," as suggested by the Commissioners on Army Promotion and Retirement at page 32 of their Report; whether he proposes to take any and what steps to ensure "to these officers, as far as may be, an equality in this respect with those of the other branches of the service;" whether he will adopt, as far as may be the plan proposed to be adopted (subject to the sanction of the Treasury) by the Secretary of State for War, which that right honourable Gentleman has stated would proceed generally on the lines recommended by the Commissioners, or what other steps he proposes to take in the matter; and, if he has determined on any plan to secure that the flow of promotion in these Corps should be such as to ensure efficiency which the Commissioners had reported was essential?
LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: Sir, the subject to which the hon. Gentleman's Question refers is under the consideration of the Secretary of State for India. It is a question of some complexity, and before any decision is arrived at by the Secretary of State for India he must consult the War Office, and also be in possession of the views of the Indian Government. I am, therefore, at the present moment unable to give definite
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replies to the various parts of the Question of the hon. Member.

TREASURY SOLICITOR ACT, 1876—ESTATE OF THE LATE MR. W. PATERSON.—QUESTION.
MR. GRIEVEasked the Secretary to the Treasury, If he will state the reasons which have induced the Lords of Her Majesty's Treasury to refuse the claims of the nearest relations, on both father and mother's side, to a grant of the estate of the late William Paterson, of Paterson, who resided in Kilmarnock, and who died there in January, 1874, which estate has fallen to the Crown as "ultimus hæres," and amounts in value to upwards of £40,000; and if there will be any objection to lay upon the Table of the House a Return showing how such estates have hitherto been disposed of by the Crown when applications for grants have been made by relations of the deceased?
MR. W. H. SMITH, in reply, said, he was afraid that if he were to state the reasons which had induced the Treasury to refuse the claim which had been preferred at the Treasury, he should occupy too much of the time of the House upon a matter which was certainly not of special interest; but he should be glad to state the general principles on which the Treasury proceeded in dealing with cases of this sort. The Treasury, in considering first of all the claim of any individual, inquired,whether there was any evidence, either by an informal will or otherwise, of an intention to make provision for that individual. Then they considered further whether a strong claim existed on the part of individuals with regard to whom there was no such evidence. Then they proceeded to consider what would have been the disposal of the property supposing the deceased had been legitimate, and they followed the principles laid down by the law for the distribution of property in the case of legitimate persons who died intestate. But he must observe that the Treasury was simply the trustee of the Exchequer in this matter, and that, although no will had been produced, there was no evidence that a will did not exist. There was now a claim before the Treasury on behalf of persons entitled to an estate which, in the absence of a will, lapsed to the Crown in

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1823. In that case grants were made to a number of persons, and now individuals produced a will and claimed to be entitled to the estate. They claimed from the Treasury not only the property as it existed in 1823, but the interest also of the property from that time. It was, therefore, the duty of the Treasury not to make grants rashly out of property which for the time they held, and with regard to which they must probably give an account on a future day. If, however, the hon. Gentleman would call upon him at the Treasury, he would be most happy to state to him the circumstances of the particular case about which he enquired.

ARMY—SOLDIERS IN PROVOST PRISONS.—QUESTION.
MR. J. COWENasked the Secretary of State for War, If he would state to the House what number of soldiers were in confinement in provost prisons on the 1st January, 1876, and how many were in confinement in barrack cells on the same day?
MR. GATHORNE HARDY, in reply, said, that on December 31, 1875, there were 89 in the prison at Aldershot, the only provost prison there was, while at the same date in barrack cells there were 280.

THE MERCHANT SHIPPING ACT, 1876—THE EXPLOSIVE SUBSTANCES ACT—THE "GREAT QUEENSLAND."

  QUESTION.
  LORD ESLINGTONasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether any inquiry is about to be made into the supposed less of the "Great Queensland;" and, whether he still adheres to the answer he lately gave as to the sufficiency of the law in regard to the improper stowage of explosive merchandise on beard ship?
  SIR CHARLES ADDERLEY: An inquiry into the disappearance of the Great Queensland was decided on several weeks ago by the Board of Trade, though she has not yet been posted at Lloyd's as missing. I adhere to my expressed opinion that the law is as sufficient as it can be made at present to check improper stowage of explosives. The cases cited against such an opinion, so far as I can ascertain, occurred before the law I referred to came into operation.

POLICE SUPERANNUATION—LEGISLATION.—QUESTION.
GENERAL SHUTEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is the intention of Government to bring in a Bill this Session relating to police superannuation, or whether any measure is likely to result from the proceedings of the Select Committee which took a great deal of evidence on this subject during the Session of 1875?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS, in reply, said, the Committee in question took a great deal of evidence, but they adjourned because they were in want of certain financial statements which had to be made, and which it took a long time to complete. Those financial statements were, he believed, now completed. His hon. Friend the Under Secretary would in a few days move the re-appointment of the Committee, and as soon as their labours were concluded the Government would endeavour to see what could be done in the matter.

METROPOLIS—HYDE PARK CORNER.

  QUESTION.
  MR. E. B. DENISONasked the First Commissioners of Works, Whether any amended scheme opening up the approaches to Hyde Park Corner has been finally approved by the Office of Works?
  MR. GERARD NOEL: Sir, I have a scheme to open up the approaches to Hyde Park Corner. I have carefully considered all the different plans which have been proposed, all of them have considerable merit, especially the one shadowed forth by my right hon. Friend the Member for Clackmannan (Mr. Adam); but in my opinion they would not remedy the evil complained of, I mean the block to the traffic at Hyde Park Corner; the question must be dealt with in a more comprehensive manner. If you do the thing at all, you ought to do it well. This would require a considerable expenditure, and in present circumstances, with a Revenue not too flourishing, I fear I cannot ask Parliament for a Vote for this purpose. My hon. Friend must remember that a considerable sum has been spent in improving Rotten Row. I hope, therefore, he will not press me further this year; but if he will be good enough to repeat his Question in Feb-

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  ruary, 1878, I shall hope to give him a more satisfactory answer and to show him a plan which, if carried out, would effect the object he has in view, and, at at the same time, I am sanguine enough to believe would prove an ornament to the metropolis.

SUPPLY—COMMITTEE.
Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [16th February], "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
Question again proposed.

FOREIGN OFFICE AND DIPLOMATIC SERVICE—OPEN COMPETITION.

  RESOLUTION.
  MR. TREVELYAN, in rising to move—
  "That, in the opinion of this House, the principle of open competition for first appointments, which prevails in the Army and in most of the Public Departments, should be extended to the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service,"
  said: Sir, I cannot think that the House will consider this an inappropriate occasion to bring forward a question on which Parliament has never been definitely asked to pronounce itself. The very grandeur of the occurrences which now fill everybody's mind render this Motion the more opportune. Men are never so willing to apply themselves to the reform of any part of our administrative machinery as when their attention has been directed to its working by startling events. The greatest changes which were ever introduced into our military — changes the magnitude of which we all admit, though as to the necessity of some part of them we still differ—were due to the agitation of opinion caused by the Franco-German War of 1870; and therefore, if ever men are likely to turn themselves to a practical consideration of the constitution of our Diplomatic Service, it is at a moment like this, when we are still in the throes of one of the most prolonged and dubious diplomatic campaigns in which Europe ever found herself engaged. And in another respect I cannot but regard myself as singularly fortunate in the period at which this subject comes before the consideration of the House. There was a time—not so long
  900
  ago—when any proposal to make nomination to the public service depend upon success in an examination was met by the answer which is the most telling in the ears of an English House of Commons—that any such idea was the idea of a doctrinaire. It is not long since, men—with whom I should never venture to compare myself in ability—argued in vain in favour of open competition against adversaries who thought that they had said quite enough in reply when they had pronounced that Parliament had no time to listen to a crotchet. But the events of the last few years have done much—have done everything—to cut the ground from under our opponents, and to put us in the position of advantage which they formerly occupied. During those years there has taken place the greatest change in the personnel of our administration that has ever occurred in any great country in an equal space of time. As lately as 1860 a Select Committee of the House of Commons, while expressing a predilection for the new system, was so apprehensive of moving too fast ahead of public opinion, that they only ventured to recommend its adoption in a limited and guarded form. But when once the idea of appointment by open competition had been fairly presented to the consideration of the public, it grew so rapidly in favour and esteem that by the year 1875, with exceptions which were either very rare or very insignificant, it prevailed throughout the whole extent of our civil and military services;—in the Guards and the Line, in the Engineers, and the Artillery; in the Treasury, the India Office, the War Office, the Admiralty. Everyone who had intellectual, responsible, and highly-paid work to do was henceforward to enter by the gate of merit, and not by the gate of favour. Two or three important Departments—including those to which this Resolution refers—were excepted from this general regulation, and were told, by a strange inconsistency, to regard their exception as a privilege. But they purchased that privilege dearly; for, in order to obtain it they were henceforward classed, not among the most honoured and desirable, but among the least distinguished branches of our public service. The Secretaries of our Embassies and the clerks of the Foreign Office must be content to appear in the

  901
  same schedule, not with the gentlemen of the Privy Council Office, the Privy Seal Office, and the Treasury not with the officers of Her Majesty's Household Brigade, and the sub-lieutenants of our crack regiments or our scientific corps; but with such honest, though humble, employés as the boatmen and watermen in the Customs; the keepers and woodmen of the Parks; the firelighters, cleaners, and charwomen of the public offices the gasfitter and lamplighter of the Mint; and the stable-boy and laundrymaid in the criminal lunatic asylum at Broadmoor. And the almost universal adoption of open competition has dispensed me from the necessity of employing the most disagreeable line of argument which a Member of Parliament can be driven to use. In old days, those who endeavoured to effect a change in the method of appointing public servants were under the obligation of showing that the existing public servants were not all that they should be. And even if the advocate of such a change was prudent enough to refrain from any invidious reflections, yet the mere fact of his wishing to alter the method of appointing public servants was construed, and not unnaturally construed, into a censure upon the public servants who had been appointed under the old method. Often and often within these walls, and in the public Press, and in private society, I have been met with such remarks as these—"Why do you want to alter a system that has worked well? What do you find amiss with the class of men whom we are now getting? When have they failed in their duty? Are they not as industrious, as zealous, and as capable as the members of any service in the world?" Those were the sort of questions which we had to answer as long as patronage was the rule in the Civil Service, and as long as purchase was the rule in the Army; but now the tables are turned; now the burden of proof rests, not with us, but with our opponents. It is for them to show that the system of appointment which now prevails over nine-tenths of our services is faulty. It is for them to prove that the Indian civilians, the military officers, the departmental officials whom we get now are inferior to those whom we got 10 years ago. And if they fail in this; if, as I think, they repudiate the notion
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  of entertaining so unwelcome and unfounded an idea; then they will be under the necessity of pointing out what the special conditions in the Diplomatic Service are that should exempt it from a system which, for high reasons of public policy, has been introduced into almost every other Department of the State. And, unless it can be shown, with a clearness which I believe it to be impossible to attain, that there is something special in the nature of the case which should forbid us to apply to diplomacy a system which is working excellently everywhere else, I shall confidently ask the House to assent to this Resolution.
  Now, Sir, one main reason for moving in this matter is that the systems under which men enter into the Foreign Office and into the Diplomatic Service are now entirely different; and, until those systems are made uniform, it will be impossible to effect that amalgamation of the Two services which the interests of the country imperatively demand. It is of the highest moment that our representatives abroad should possess that general grasp of our National policy as a whole which can only be acquired by familiarity with the daily working of the Foreign Office; and, on the other hand, it is most desirable that the officials who direct our foreign policy at home should have had practical acquaintance at some time or another in their lives with foreign courts, foreign capitals, and foreign countries. In the words of Mr. Morier, our most able Representative at Lisbon, who, at such a crisis as this, I can only wish was employed at one of those courts where the fortunes of Europe are now at stake—
  "It is most important that the Diplomatic Service should be to a certain extent nationalised, and that the Foreign Office should be to a certain extent internationalised."
  Now, for the Foreign Office, the entrance examination is by what is usually called "limited competition." A certain number of candidates are nominated by the Secretary of State for every vacancy, and a competitive examination is held among those candidates. The number of nominations for each vacancy in old days was limited to three. Lord Granville raised it to seven; and Lord Derby, who knows the value of the competitive system as well as any

  903
  Member of the Ministry, except perhaps the Chancellor of the Exchequer, raised it to 10. But, meanwhile, the system of appointment to the Diplomatic Service remains one of pure favouritism, tempered by a pass examination. Now, before I proceed to describe that examination, I would beg to remind hon. Members that diplomacy is a profession which calls for certain special acquirement. A really able man, who has had an ordinary general training, may make an excellent official in our Departments at home. But to fulfil the duties of an Ambassador, a Chargé d'Affaires, or a Secretary of Legation, a man must possess certain definite accomplishments. My hon. Friend the Member for the Elgin Burghs has told the House before, and, I hope, will tell us again to-day, that no man can be considered a skilled diplomatist without a complete and well-digested knowledge of International Law, as studied and practised in the Continental Chancelleries. In addition to this, as the very minimum of linguistic proficiency, he should be able to read, to comprehend, and to write the French language as rapidly, and almost as accurately, as his mother tongue. But, Sir, the test examination, as at present constituted, offers no security for the possession by the candidate of even these elementary acquirements. "Most certainly" says Mr. Morier—
  "The amount of knowledge required as regards foreign languages was a limited one, and persons passed the examination who were very far from being able to write French, as I consider that every diplomatic agent should be able to write French; and of that which is certainly the most important portion of a diplomatist's education, International Law, the whole knowledge that was required was a knowledge of the elements of Wheatstone, which could be got up in a fortnight or three weeks. That we have got a body of men who are in the least acquainted with International Law, I am sorry to say, I do not believe."
  How comes it that we have a test examination which does, not insure in our diplomatists an adequate knowledge of French and International Law, which is as necessary to them as the ability to think on his legs and to distinguish denominational and undenominational education is to a candidate for Parliament? -Why, it comes from this—that the examination is not a competitive examination in which the standard of excellence is always rising, but a pass examination
  904
  in which, by a natural and inevitable process, the standard of excellence tends to fall. This test examination has gradually so deteriorated, as our very diplomatists candidly acknowledge, that it has almost become equivalent to no test at all.
  "I think," says Mr. Morier, "that it is unsatisfactory, because I think it is a very small and poor kind of examination, and yet it is big enough to make a man who has passed it think that he has an absolute claim on the public service for ever,"
  —an expression which, when put into unofficial language, means that the so-called qualifying examination for our Diplomatic Service is little better than a puerile, and, as far as the nation is concerned, a really disastrous farce. Now the principal objection to resorting to open competition which is ordinarily brought forward is, that there are certain personal qualities requisite in a diplomatist, and that a Secretary of State should have the power of selecting men whom he knows to possess those qualities, and should not be forced to take candidates, whether they happen to be adapted to the Profession or not, exactly in the order in which they come out of a competitive examination. There are various ways of obviating that objection, if objection it is. My hon. Friend the Member for the Elgin Burghs long ago proposed a scheme which attracted much favourable attention at the time. He proposed that a searching examination should be held in the branches of learning special to diplomacy; that the first 12 names should be submitted to the Secretary of State; and that from those names he should fill the vacancies. There is another scheme by which we may obtain the advantages of competition combined with the advantages of personal selection. Hon. Members are aware that, from time to time, the Civil Service Commissioners hold an examination known as Class 1—an examination which is expressly designed to attract men of high intellectual qualifications and good social standing, and the prizes in which are the best paid and most important careers in the public service. I would suggest that the list of successful candidates in this examination should be laid before the Secretary of State, and that he should pick out of it those young men who appear to him to be peculiarly well-qualified

  905
  for the Diplomatic Profession, and hon. Members need not be afraid that on such a list there will be any lack of men well-fitted for diplomacy. On that point we are not treading in the dark. When first the competition system was introduced into India, it was said that the new Civil Servants would no doubt be very excellent and industrious young men, very well-fitted for the hard routine work of the judicial line of the Service, but that they would be wanting in those more delicate qualities which were essential for success in the Foreign, or as it was called then, the Political Department. We were told—I am almost ashamed to repeat such talk over a period of 20 years—that the Natives of India had a quick eye for a gentleman, and would not pay respect or deference to an official who had gained his position, not by belonging to an old Anglo-Indian family, but by his proficiency in writing Latin hexameters and solving the differential calculus. Such a man, it was said, might make a very good district or Sudder Judge; but if competition wallahs were made residents at Native Courts, our hold on India would not be worth 10 years' purchase. How have those precious predictions been verified? If there is one Department more than another of the Indian Service in which the young men appointed under the new system have obtained brilliant success, it is in the Foreign Department. There is no more important diplomatic post in India than the position of Resident at the Court of Nepaul. It is no light matter to conduct our relations with the most formidable of our Oriental Allies; that nation of warriors who have over and over again proved their fighting qualities at our expense and for our benefit, and who are ruled over by that redoubtable soldier-Minister, who may without exaggeration be described as the Bismarck of the North of India. When our Government wished to lay its hand upon a diplomatist whom they could trust to hold his own with Jung Bahadoor, they selected a gentleman who had entered the Service by open competition. There are hon. Members present who will remember my valued Friend Mr. Wyllie, who, if he had lived, would no doubt have been an ornament to the House. Mr. Wyllie went out to Bombay among the first batch of competitioners, and within 10 years of his
  906
  entrance into the Service he had for some time the management of the Foreign Department of our Indian Empire, and he so conducted the high duties committed to his charge, that when he died, lie left as well-established a reputation for administrative ability as any man of recent years has acquired at the early age of 35. But he left those behind him who were worthy to succeed him, and the post of Foreign Secretary to the Government of India—a post as highly paid and involving duties almost as critical as those of the Foreign Secretary in our own Cabinet — is occupied at this very moment by a gentleman who only 20 years ago entered the Service by the gate of free competition—that gate which we are told we must not open for fear of having our European Diplomatic Service inundated with men unfit to perform functions exactly similar in kind to those which are performed to admiration by the competition civilians of India. But over and above the graver duties of the diplomatist reference will be made in this discussion to the social qualities which his Profession demands. We shall be told that he has other things to do besides sitting at a desk and penning able and exhaustive Reports; that he should have the manners and tastes of society; that he should be not only a man of the study but a man of the world, with the tact which will enable him to arrive at the secrets of others and the discretion to conceal his own. Those who have been fortunate enough, in India or elsewhere, to reside at a station where a detachment of the Royal Artillery is quartered have long been aware that there are no truer gentlemen and no better companions, in the highest sense of the word, than the members of a Service, appointment to which is the result of open competition. But, in spite of the experience which has long been afforded by our scientific corps, fears are frequently expressed in this House that the substitution of open competition for purchase will lower the social standard of the Guards and the Line. How have those fears been justified? Major General Sir Alfred Hors-ford, the Military Secretary of the Commander-in-Chief, tells us that he expected to find a difference between the officers of the past and the officers of the present, but that he found none whatever. Lieutenant General Sir Lintorn Simmons,

  907
  the Governor of the Military Academy at Woolwich, speaks quite as strongly on this point.
  "We get," he says, "men who are quite equal in social position to those whom we got before, and who are certainly quite as well, if not better, educated than those that we used to get in former days."
  And in another place he makes the interesting remark that "those who are higher intellectually are generally so in other respects physically." Among the objectors to open competition there is one class, I frankly own, who try my patience—those who, in defiance of the experience of the Bar, the Army, and of public life, in defiance of their recollections of their own school and College days, maintain that there is a certain incompatibility between bodily and mental vigour, and that young fellows who are quick in the class are slow in the playground. If that is the case in other countries it is not so among us. England is what she is, because in English. men intellectual and physical energy are admirably combined. We libel our countrymen if we divide them off-hand into bookworms and athletes. Mr. Bernard, himself an Indian Civil servant of the old system, speaks very strongly on this point. He says—
  "Every batch of competition men contains a fair proportion of capital cricketers and riders. When we last played 'The Civil Service against the World,' on the Calcutta cricket-ground, only four of us were Haileybury men. One competition-wallah carried out his bat for 130, while another scored over 90 runs."
  Anyone who knows the playing field—I appeal on this point to the youngest Member of the House (Mr. Sidney Herbert)—is aware that there is no form of athletic exercise which is a severer test of the more manly qualities than the game of football; and in this game, for many years together, the Royal Engineers have been pre-eminent. And who are the Royal Engineers? They are a body of young men, who have been selected by a series of competitive examinations out of a larger body of young men, who have themselves been previously selected by a competition open to the world at large. There are other qualities even more important to the diplomatist than the lighter social aptitudes. It is no small matter that young men who have to uphold the credit of our country among foreign
  908
  people in great capitals, exposed to serious temptations, and cut off from the protecting influences of home life, shall be men of high character and tried morality. A system of competition is at least as good a test of moral character as a system of patronage. And it is equally certain that a man who has his mind full of worthy interests, and his time occupied by worthy pursuits will have less leisure and less inclination than another for dissipation and frivolity. To quote the Report of the Indian Civil Service Commission of 1854—words in which hon. Members will recognize the hand of a master of the English language—
  "Early superiority in science and literature generally indicates the existence of some qualities which are securities against vice—industry, self-denial, a taste for pleasures not sensual, a laudable desire of honourable distinction, a still more laudable desire to obtain the approbation of friends and relations. We therefore believe that the intellectual test which is about to be established will be found in practice to be also the best moral test which can be devised."
  The experience of 20 years has amply borne out that fair and well-founded prophecy with regard to the junior members of our Indian Service. If the House affirm my Resolution, I confidently venture on a similar prophecy with regard to the junior members of our Diplomatic Corps. If we want a proof that industry and ability displayed in early life afford at least a rough test that a man possesses the qualities which will make him a useful and successful public servant, we do not need to look beyond these walls. To reach the Cabinet requires the exertion of an amount of tact, of enterprize, of sustained vigour and energy which will carry its possessor to the top of any Profession in the world, and nothing is more remarkable than the large proportion of Cabinet Ministers who distinguished themselves at their schools and their Universities. There has been a Cabinet in which six out of seven University men who had seats in the Lower House were either first-class or double-first-class men. If we turn to the Department of Foreign Affairs there certainly is no reason to make an exception. The present Foreign Secretary is a first-class man from Cambridge, and his most vigorous critic a double-first-class man from Oxford. The most eminent Foreign Ministers of the present century were Mr. Canning and

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  Lord Palmerston. Mr. Canning was probably the most famous schoolboy that ever existed in any country. Lord Palmerston took his privilege as a nobleman, and did not wait for the degree examination; but during the two years that he was at Cambridge, he came out head of St. John's College at the annual examination, and every Cambridge man knows how much that means. The experience of political life, a career the most analogous of all to the Diplomatic Profession, proves that we may confidently extend to that Profession a system of which we have made such wide use in the public Services with such excellent results; and if, as I feel satisfied, such a course enables us to stock the foreign legations with men as able as the Indian Civil Servants, as resolute as our Army officers, and as trustworthy and discreet as our home officials, we may be very sure that we shall never have occasion to regret that we acceded to the present proposition. The hon. Member concluded by moving his Resolution.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "in the opinion of this House, the principle of open competition for first appointments, which prevails in the Army and in most of the Public Departments, should be extended to the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service," — (Mr. Trevelyan,)
  —instead thereof.
  MR. BOURKEsaid, that although it was his duty to ask the House to negative the Resolution of the hon. Gentleman, he was fortunate enough to be able to concur in much that had fallen from him in the course of his speech. He agreed with him in the admiration which he had expressed for the Leaders of that House, whether they sat behind him or on the Bench opposite, and in the opinion that the present was not an inopportune moment to bring forward his Motion, seeing how much good work, honestly performed by its valuable public servants, the Foreign Office had recently produced. He also concurred with the hon. Gentleman in thinking that the question was one which ought not to be decided on grounds of privilege, but solely upon the consideration whether the course he proposed was calculated to contribute to the efficiency of the public service. He, moreover, entirely went
  910
  with him in the eulogium which he had passed on the Indian Civil Service, for he knew nothing more likely to induce a man to pay regard to public duty, or more likely to arouse the enthusiasm of those who took a high view of public duty, so much as the contemplation of the careers of those who had distinguished themselves in that great service, of the working of which he had been so fortunate as to have seen himself a good deal. He must, however, point out to the House that there was no analogy between the Diplomatic Service and the clerkships in the Foreign Office and the great Indian Service, for the reason that the Civil Service of India was in reality composed of an enormous body of men; but the point here was, whether there was or not sufficient reason to show that the special duties to be performed by the Diplomatic Service could be performed. only by persons possessing special qualifications for that office. With regard to the Indian Service, the selection must be made from an enormous number of persons, and when they wanted to get a special duty performed of a diplomatic character in India it was not easy to find in the Civil Service of India, a man for that particular class of duty that could be sent to perform it. The whole of the question raised by the hon. Gentleman had been, he might add, considered a few years ago by a Committee upstairs. They stated in their Report—
  "That the admission of members into the Diplomatic Service by nomination on a test examination was a plan of which the Committee approved, and, without expressing any opinion at all as to the merits of the system of open competitive examination, they think the present plan preferable to it for this class of public servants."
  That was the opinion arrived at by a very able Committee of that House after a very long inquiry. He wished, in the next place, to call attention to the fact that the Motion before the House resolved itself into two branches, one relating to the Diplomatic Service and the other to Foreign Office clerkships, and how, he would ask, were men admitted into the Diplomatic Service? They were a certain extent admitted by selection by the Secretary of State, but they were afterwards subjected to an examination which was well calculated, he thought, to test the elementary knowledge of persons at that time of life, and from what

  911
  he had read and seen of the Civil Service he thought it was very desirable that persons who entered the Civil Service should be well grounded in that elementary knowledge. They were, in the first place, tried in orthography, handwriting, and prècis writing. They must satisfy the examiners that they were well grounded in the Latin grammar, and that they could parse a portion of some good Latin author. They must show an acquaintance with the first four rules of arithmetic, the first book of Euclid, and have a general knowledge of geography as well as of French grammar, and be able to converse fluently in the French language, and translate correctly from French into English and from English into French. They were also tested as to their general knowledge of the constitutional history of England, acquired from Blackstone's Commentaries and Hallam's Constitutional History, and must have a general knowledge of the political history of Europe and of the United States, as well as of political economy, while they must further give evidence of general intelligence. Now, he was not going to say that that was a very severe examination, but it was one which he contended was well qualified to give an adequate test of the intellectual capacity of those who wished to enter the public service. He would also remind the House that there was another rule under which a man might, after a time, subject himself to an examination in public law, and that, as a matter of fact, a great number of those who had entered the Diplomatic Service had undergone that examination, and many of them had passed it very creditably. But, after all, the great question was, what was it which the country wanted in the Diplomatic Service? He did not suppose any hon. Member would deny that England ought to be represented at the Courts of Europe by persons who were entitled to the designation of gentleman, although lie was not, of course, so foolish as to contend that gentlemanlike conduct had much to do with either birth or wealth. He was at the same time of opinion that it would be generally admitted that those by whom the country was represented abroad ought to be persons of good manners and with cultivated minds. He also thought it would be granted that they ought to be fitted for the society of those among whom they were likely to
  912
  live and move. A diplomatic servant ought, besides, to be a man with whom the Minister under whom he happened to be placed could be on terms of friendship and confidence, and one whom he could introduce to those with whom he mixed in foreign capitals. It was, above all, in his opinion, necessary that our diplomatists, especially the young among the number, should be received at the Courts at which they resided with every mark of cordiality and respect, and he did not think any Minister could ask a foreigner to receive a person into his society unless he was a man with whom he himself could live on similar terms. Such were the qualifications which seemed to him to be necessary for our young diplomatists, and nobody, he thought, could have read the Report of the Civil Service Commission without being prepared to admit that these qualifications could not be guaranteed by means of a competitive examination. There was another qualification for the Diplomatic Service which was also of great importance, and that was that unless the House was prepared to add £31,000 or £32,000 a-year to the Estimates, it was absolutely necessary that a young diplomatist should have a private income of £400 or £500 a-year; because the pay they received for many years would not allow them to live in any capital without that private income. The hon. Gentleman had informed the House how much a young diplomatist was paid. In reality for the first two years he got nothing, after that he received £150 a-year; and he might consider himself very fortunate if at the end of five or six years he received £400, and very much more fortunate still if at the end of 16 or 17 years he received £700 a-year. That was a state of things which it was absolutely necessary, he maintained, to take into consideration when it was proposed to apply the competitive system to diplomacy. Now, as certain authorities had been alluded to by the hon. Gentleman, he would, if the House would allow him, quote one or Two on the subject of a change of system. The first authority to which he should refer was quoted by the hon. Member who had just sat down. Mr. Morier used these words with regard to the Diplomatic Service—
  "I think that if anybody took the trouble of looking at the Red Book, and of inquiring about

  913
  who the persons are, he would find that the Diplomatic Service was exceedingly fairly made up. You might call it a geological section of English society; you would find in it certain names of great families; you would find the names of families who have within recent years become connected with the House of Lords for public services; you would find the names of great mercantile houses; you would find old official names, I mean those of persons connected with the public service for a good many generations; you would find the names of eminent physicians; you would find the sons of solicitors and attorneys; you would find as complete a microcosm of English society as in any other profession whatever. I have not gone carefully through the list, but that is my own impression, certainly, and I think anyone could substantiate it by going through the list."
  In answer to the question whether it would be wise to lower the position of our Representatives if other countries did not do the same, Mr. Morier said—
  "Most decidedly it would not. There is no use denying that people are very much influenced by these external forms; and, as I said, social status and position are more necessary to an English agent than to any other, because they afford him the only means of acknowledging a great number of international courtesies which he is perpetually receiving, and of requiting the trouble of a great many persons, both official and non-official, to whose services the present system of reports forces him to have recourse."
  Again, Mr. Otway, who was a Member of that House, said—
  "I think that diplomacy is a profession requiring very peculiar qualities in its members, and that open competition would not enable you to arrive at the fact of the existence of those qualities in the individuals who might successfully compete at the examination."
  Mr. Otway added that he was aware of no test in the way of competition by which a man's manners could be ascertained. Lord Clarendon was examined by the Committee, and gave very strong evidence in the same direction. His Lordship said—
  "I think that the Diplomatic Service is a very peculiar one, and you must look to a little more than a man's mere knowledge of French or German; you must look to his complete respectability and to his fitness for forming a member of the Minister's family; that is what an Attaché ought, at all events, to be fit for. I do not see that there would be any more advantage in open competition than there is under the present system. There is not the least distinction now of classes or otherwise. Anybody that wishes his son to enter the diplomatic profession will not meet with any difficulties of that nature; but I think that if you had open competition you would be liable to lower the standard which you want in the Diplomatic Service."
  914
  Lord Clarendon had given a great deal of consideration to the matter, and he arrived at the conclusion that an alteration of the existing system would be injurious to the public service. Mr. Walrond, who was an advocate for open competition under certain circumstances, gave evidence of the same kind. Then there was another reason why this system should not be altered. If the Service were made a competitive one, it must necessarily be a close one, and although there was a general desire that persons in the Diplomatic Service should be promoted to higher posts, he did not think that anyone would deny that it was expedient that the door should not be absolutely closed against persons who were particularly fitted for certain posts on certain emergencies. He need only mention the name of one of the last persons who was appointed to a high diplomatic post and who had not previously been in the Service. Mr. Layard was appointed our Minister in Spain; he had been in that country for several years; and no one could say that any disadvantage had arisen from the appointment of that gentleman. With regard to the system which had been suggested by the hon. Member for the Border Burghs, he understood it to be very much the same as that proposed by the lion. Member for the Elgin Burghs. The great disadvantage of that system was that when 12 names were laid before the Secretary of State and one person was selected, the 11 others must be very dissatisfied. Their position was altogether different from that of persons who went up under the Foreign Office system, because when people had passed a public competitive examination without any selection, they did no doubt attain certain vested rights, and considered themselves to be in a position which other persons had not reached. This circumstance was pointed out in the Report of the Committee presided over by the right hon. Member opposite. With regard to the Foreign Office, the first question that presented itself was—What does the public want? The hon. Member who introduced this subject had very properly suggested that it was extremely desirable in the public interests that there should be an interchange of duties between the junior members of the Diplomatic Service and the clerks in

  915
  the Foreign Office. In making that suggestion the hon. Member was carrying out the recommendation of the Committee appointed by that House in 1851. If, however, there was to be such an interchange it was necessary that clerks in the Foreign Office should possess the same qualifications as young diplomatists. How were Foreign Office clerks admitted now? They were admitted in the first place to examination, and the usual number sent out to compete for one place was from 6 to 10. The Secretary of State took a certain number of candidates and sent them up to compete for the place. With regard to this system, Mr. Scoones said—
  "The system of nomination has not been abandoned for Foreign Office clerkships, but inasmuch as it is usual to call upon eight or nine candidates—I have known instances of as many as 14 being called—whose names are entered on the Foreign Secretary's patronage list to compete for each vacancy, all chance of jobbery has been removed, while the Minister himself becomes virtually responsible for the clerk he has indirectly appointed to his Department; and I still think that for some few Departments of the public service the system of extensive nomination combined, with competition, is eminently desirable."
  There was another reason why this system should not be altered. Persons who were anxious to enter the Foreign Office were now willing, in consideration of the position they held there, to go into it at a lower salary than they would receive in other offices. When a man entered the Foreign Office he received only £100 per annum, and on an average he was obliged to spend two years and a half before he got more than £120, and six or seven years before he got £250 a-year, and he must then be a very lucky man at the end of 20 years to get £700 a-year. If the system were made competitive it would certainly be necessary to raise the salaries. It was said, however, that the difficulty might be met by dividing the clerks at the Foreign Office into two classes, as was done in some other Offices, one for the intellectual work and another for the copying work. This system would not be suitable for the Foreign Office, where all the business was of the most confidential character. The deciphering of telegrams, and even the mechanical duty of copying despatches, were confidential. Now, it often happened in the Foreign Office that the whole strength of
  916
  the Department was employed when there was a pressure of business, but at other times, when there was no pressure, the clerks could give their time to mechanical duties, such as copying and registering. Therefore, if there were two kinds of clerks, many of them would be idle during a great portion of their time. It must be remembered that the Diplomatic Service and the Foreign Office were the depositaries not only of our own secrets, but of the secrets of other nations, who would not communicate with us freely, while our relations with them might be endangered, unless the men were regarded as trustworthy. Upon the whole, he thought that those who were best acquainted with the present system would be of opinion that it worked very well. In the preparation of the recent Blue Books many of the Foreign Office clerks had worked for 15 or 16 hours a-day with the utmost cheerfulness and alacrity. There was an esprit de corps among them which was extremely advantageous to the public service, and he believed that the public would be great losers if a different class of persons were introduced. As one proof of the way in which the work was done, he might mention that, of 65,000 letters received and sent last year, he did not believe there was one arrear. In fact, in the Foreign Office arrears were unknown, for all letters were answered within a few hours of their receipt. One word about expenses. He had compared the system existing in some offices where copying clerks were introduced, and the result of the comparison was much in favour of the Foreign Office. In the Colonial Office 15 junior clerks cost £2,900; in the Foreign Office 15 junior clerks cost £2,300 a-year, showing a saving of £600 a-year in the item of junior clerks. Even if a saving could be shown, it might be dearly bought by reduced efficiency in a system which now worked well. The House had an opportunity of judging of the way in which the work was performed by observing at the end of the despatches lately printed the compliment paid by Lord Salisbury to the Foreign Office clerks who accompanied him on his mission to Constantinople, and who performed, not ordinary duties, but diplomatic duties requiring great ability, tact, and assiduity. He doubted whether there were many offices in

  917
  other countries which could supply at a few days' notice men to perform duties of this kind without inconvenience to the public service. On all these grounds he hoped the House would not agree to the Motion. It was a proposal often before made in the House; and it had received the consideration of a Committee upstairs, and been rejected. The duties performed required diplomatic tact, linguistic accomplishments, social merit, and trustworthy qualities. Was it wise to disturb a system which had received the approbation of the high authorities he had quoted, of the Civil Service Commissioners, of the most distinguished of the gentlemen who prepared candidates for the Civil Service, and last, not least, the warmest approval of every Secretary of State who had been at the Foreign Office for the last 15 years.
  MR. GRANT DUFFsaid, he did not think that the arguments of his hon. Friend the Member for the Border Burghs had been fully answered by the hon. Gentleman opposite. It was not enough to say, or even to prove, that the Diplomatic Service as it now stood was good. What should be proved, if his hon. Friend was to be successfully answered, was that it was not probable it would be made better by following the course now recommended. In so small a service we could not afford to have any inefficient or half-efficient members. It should be treated as a corps d'élite, in which, while the greatest subordination prevailed, there should be, in the estimation of the world without, nothing but officers. It was desirable that every Embassy and every Mission should be a centre of the best possible English influence, and that every member of an Embassy or Mission should in consequence be as good a specimen of a man of his time of life as England could produce. Of course there were obvious difficulties in the way of throwing the Diplomatic Service open as the Indian Civil Service was thrown open, though such difficulties appeared stronger to others than they did to him; but if the Diplomatic were as 'open as the Indian Service the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bourke) might take comfort in the fact that a property qualification was necessary, as no young man in his senses would think of entering the Diplomatic Service unless he had an independent income of £400 or £500. His hon. Friend (Mr. Tre-
  918
  velyan) had said he would be satisfied with a proposal which he (Mr. Grant Duff) made to the Committee in 1861, and which was of a sufficiently guarded character. The proposal was that once a-year there should be held an examination at which any number of persons might present themselves, that out of these 12, or any smaller number, should be selected, and that their names should be certified to the Secretary of State, who would appoint, on his own responsibility, those whom he pleased. He was not, however, wedded to that plan; and he thought those who sat near him would be satisfied for the present if the Government were to assimilate the plan for entering the Diplomatic Service to that for the Foreign Office. The plan which he had proposed in 1861 would leave great power and great responsibility in the hands in which they should be left, those, namely, of the Foreign Secretary. It might be said that there would not be sufficient inducement for young men to go in for the examination if success in it were merely to put them in the position of being eligible for the Diplomatic Service. But if the examination were judiciously arranged so as to test not the mere ordinary acquirements of our schools and colleges, but all those acquirements which a wise head of an Embassy would wish to be possessed by his subordination; if, further, care were taken to associate with the Civil Service Commissioners for the purposes of this examination statesmen and diplomatists of high rank, the mere fact of being successful in it would be a very considerable help in life to many young men. In this wealthy country nothing could be more convenient to parents who did not require to send their eldest sons into professions, and who were at the same time unwilling that they should be idlers, than to have an examination like this. Then a father might say to his son—"You cannot do better than go in for this examination. If you succeed you may have a chance of entering the Diplomatic career, one of the best careers a young man of spirit and ability can enter; and even if you are not selected you will pass into the world having had your mind turned to subjects of the greatest importance, and stamped by the State as a man of vigour and ability." It was not possible to

  919
  exercise too much care in the filling up of the Diplomatic Service. There were some who said that the days of diplomacy were at an end, but he entertained a very different opinion. He believed the really great days of that great profession, whose business was to bring to every nation that which was best in every other, and whose noble mission was to preach "peace and good will to men," were only beginning.
  EARL PERCYsaid, that if there was one point more than another on which he differed from the hon. Gentleman who had introduced this subject, it was that contained in the concluding passage of his speech. The hon. Member said that the men who ruled in this country, and who occupied high positions in the Legislature, were men who would have been successful in competitive examinations of the kind to which his speech referred. This, however, was a mere assertion, and a very slight inquiry as to facts would show that the contrary was the case, and that many men who had taken prominent positions in Parliamentary life and in the government of the country would not have succeeded in competitive examinations on subjects such as were now made the basis of examination for candidates wishful to enter the service of the country. The hon. Member also referred to persons who, he said, divided the so-called educated classes among their fellow-countrymen into two sections, the one consisting of the athletes and the other of bookworms. For his part, he had never heard of anyone who thus divided their countrymen, but he had heard it stated that the system of cram as distinguished from learning was not a system calculated to secure the possession of that bodily vigour and those mental acquirements which were necessary to render a man efficient in the service of his country. He believed the system of open competition was one that crammed the mind with a certain number of facts which were retained for a brief period and then probably forgotten, and that it did often sacrifice the physical powers without leading to the mental development so much desired. It was all very well to insist upon a high qualifying examination for appointments in the public service; but he thought some attention should be paid to the effect upon the community at large of the education
  920
  which was held to be necessary in order to secure appointments, and upon those candidates who had not the good fortune to succeed. It was not an education likely to fit men for useful work in any direction other than that for which they had been cramming, and in cases of failure was calculated to create an increasing class of discontented men who had spent much time and money in acquiring a vast amount of learning, which had, by reason of their failure, been rendered practically valueless. He was no advocate of the old system of patronage; its days were gone, and it was as idle to talk of reviving that system as it was to talk of bringing back the system of purchase in the Army. But while they could not think of reverting to patronage, the question ought to be considered whether they had substituted a better system. What they were doing was this—they were training, daily and hourly, an enormous number of energetic men who, if they succeeded in acquiring a mass of knowledge which often was not that which qualified them best for the post they sought to occupy, would have presented to them a means of livelihood barely sufficient to enable them to retain their position. Their sole object would, therefore, be to try to supplement the income they received by incomes from other sources. The tendency of that state of things would be, in his opinion, to create a large discontented class of educated men, who, he feared, might constitute a dangerous element in any community.
  SIR GEORGE BOWYERrejoiced that the Government showed no disposition to extend the system of competitive examination. He thought, however, that the time had come at which it was important to revise the whole system of examination for entry into the public service, so as to secure such examinations as were best calculated to test the fitness of candidates to perform the duties of the posts to which they aspired. For instance, he saw no reason why a candidate for the position of under housemaid in a Government office should be compelled to pass a competitive examination in literary subjects, or why a young man wishing to obtain a commission in a Cavalry regiment should be expected to possess a critical knowledge of Chaucer's poems. What was the use in examining a man who was a candi-

  921
  date for a commission in the Army in the works of Scott, Dickens, and Tupper? Some men had a peculiar talent for examination. A man might be very learned in the subject of examination, and yet appear to be inferior to one who had only a smattering of knowledge of it. Lord Chesterfield mentioned in his "Letters" that a debate was held in the House of Lords on a subject connected with astronomy. Lord Burlington, who was a very learned astronomer, spoke, and his speech made a great impression, until Lord Chesterfield, who knew nothing of the subject, but had got up a few points, addressed the House, and his speech created such a sensation that nobody spoke of anything else. The subjects to be examined in ought to relate to the particular duties required to be performed, and he hoped the whole subject would be thoroughly re-considered before the system was extended.
  MR. LYON PLAYFAIRobserved, that the question was now brought within very narrow limits. The noble Lord the Member for North Northumberland admitted that it was now impossible that patronage could be restored, and that competition must rule admission to the public service. In that opinion he quite concurred. The public service ought, he maintained, to be the inheritance of the whole nation. Gradually, as had been stated, the Foreign Office was extending the system of open competition with respect to the appointment of clerks; but the question was whether the mode of appointment in that office might not be still further assimilated, as well as in the Diplomatic Service, to the practice prevailing in the other offices. His hon. Friend the Member for the Border Burghs recommended that there should be selection after competition, instead of before, and that was precisely what the Report of the Civil Service Enquiry Commission recommended for the whole Civil Service, although the suggestion did not meet the approval of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of London (Mr. Lowe). The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had, however, given effect well and bravely to many, but not yet to all, of the recommendations of the Commissioners. They recommended the combination of the principle of selection with that of open competition—the opening
  922
  of all the offices of the public service to competition, with a statement against the names of the successful competitors of their more special and higher qualifications, with a view to their selection for the discharge of particular duties. The hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs read out a list of the subjects of examination for entry into the Diplomatic Service, and one of these was general intelligence, and he added that it was important to consider the manners of the men to be appointed. But surely the objection urged by the hon. Gentleman was not very important, since, in his (Mr. Playfair's) opinion, it was much easier to ascertain whether a young man was possessed of well-bred manners than to ascertain whether he was possessed of general intelligence. He was glad to observe from the list read by the hon. Gentleman that more regard was had than was heretofore the case to modern languages—a fact which he thought could not fail to give a wholesome stimulus to education. The Foreign Office was in the matter of widening the area of competition making satisfactory progress, and if the hon. Gentleman had been in a position to state that the same principles would be applied to the Diplomatic Service, his hon. Friend would not, he thought, ask the House to express its opinion by dividing. What they desired was that all the offices of the public service should be thrown open, so that they might become the inheritance of all, and not of a few. The Under Secretary had stated that open competition would prevent such a man as Mr. Layard being secured for the public service, but ho must remind him that the Civil Service regulations abroad provided that, whenever outside the public service a man showed a particular aptitude for any particular branch of it, he could be introduced into it. The Act of Parliament itself provided for that, and therefore there need be no apprehension that by extending the system of competition to the Diplomatic Service they would shut out of it such men as Mr. Layard.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he had been an advocate from a very early date of the principle of open competition. He had never seen reason to doubt that the grounds on which the father of his hon. Friend opposite and himself (the Chancellor of

  923
  the Exchequer) had advocated that system were sound and firm grounds. At the same time, having for many years followed the working of the system, he felt it was a subject with which it was necessary to deal with care and caution, and in a manner which should be more or less tentative. They had seen a very great advance made in this matter. Many prejudices which had been entertained against the competitive system had been dispelled by its working and the light of experience; and although he did not say that all had been entirely removed, yet he believed that the feeling of the country had very much advanced, and that a great deal more was known upon the subject than was the case 15 or 16 years ago. He was bound to admit that to a very great extent the system advocated by his hon. Friend had worked well. At the same time, there could be no doubt that some inconvenience had been experienced in the carrying of it out, and in proof of that he need not go further than to refer to a Report of the Commission of which his right hon. Friend who had just spoken, and who had rendered such valuable service on the Commission the year before last, was Chairman. In that Report the Commission pointed out some of the drawbacks and disadvantages which attended a system of pure open competition for all classes of the service. The Commissioners recommended various changes in the organization of the service. Some of those changes, though simple in their character, were not of small magnitude. The Government had adopted some of the recommendations with regard to the second division of the Civil Service; but in reference to the upper division of the Service, they felt some difficulty in adopting the scheme precisely as proposed by his right hon. Friend. It was found exceedingly difficult to lay down a general rule once for all which would be applicable to all the divisions of the public service. It was easy to lay down a rule applicable to the great mass of the Civil Service represented by the Lower Divisions; but it was much more difficult to lay down a single rule for appointing Civil Servants to every kind of office in which the circumstances and the conditions might be entirely different. No general rule could be laid down for the whole of the Service, and if any of the public offices offered pecu-
  924
  liar difficulties in the way of an unbending rule it was the Foreign Office. He would set aside some of the arguments used, such as, for example, that competitive examinations were not to be trusted to produce the kind of men who were wanted for these higher offices. He believed that, as a general rule, if the examinations were conducted properly and under due safeguards, they were quite as likely to get a good class of men in that way as in any other. There were, however, peculiar difficulties in the way of getting the class of men whom they wanted for the Diplomatic Service. With respect to the clerkships in the Foreign Office, everyone was disposed to agree that they now stood in this matter of open competition in a very fair position. There was no man in the present Government, nor indeed in the public service, who was more ready to acknowledge the abstract merits of the system of open competition than his noble Friend Lord Derby. He had contended for that system under greater discouragements than existed at present, and he had done a great deal to develop it. Successive Governments in laying down a system of limited competition for Foreign Office clerkships, the successful candidates in which were selected, not from motives of favouritism, but with a sincere desire to get the men who were most suitable, had done well on the whole in the present state of things. But, then, it was asked why that which was good for the Foreign Office clerkships should not also be good for the Diplomatic Service, and the House was asked to begin with the unpaid Attachés. Now, he saw considerable special difficulties, one of which had been glanced at by the noble Earl (Earl Percy), and also by his hon. Friend the Under Secretary — namely, that they had to deal with young men who, during the earlier period of their service, were expected to maintain a good position and live a life of no little expense upon salaries inadequate to support it, and who were consequently expected to have some means of their own. But if this class of appointments were thrown open to competition, he doubted whether the proper class of men would be induced to come forward. They were not the class who would offer themselves in a competition in which they would be likely to be thrown aside, and they would proba-

  925
  My withdraw and devote themselves to other walks of life. In that case there would be a difficulty, which indeed beset the whole of the upper part of the Civil Service. If they determined to select the men by open competition, who were to carry on the upper part of the Civil Service, and if they made that competition severe, it would require considerable time for preparation, and a great number of the men they would like to attract, finding themselves uncertain of success and not being able to afford to wait, would throw up their chance and enter other professions. They had not yet had sufficient experience of the new system, which was inaugurated by the other side of the House in 1870, and in which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lowe) took an active part. For some time after the new system was introduced very few vacancies occurred in the higher departments of the Civil Service, because the offices in that class were being reduced, and it was only now that they were beginning to call for candidates for the highest class of clerkships. At the present moment there was going to be a competition in the Colonial Office for clerkships of the highest class, and it would be expedient, before they proceeded to deal with so delicate a matter, to see what the effect of that competition would be and what class of men it produced. This was a subject, he would not say of urgent, but still of great importance. They were all agreed on the principle that the best men ought to be obtained, and that the Civil Service ought not to be regarded as a mere field for patronage. Tile best means of providing these men was, however, a matter of great delicacy. His hon. Friend might take comfort from the assurance that the present Government were not insensible to the desirableness of doing all in their power to obtain the best class of men for the public service. It was, however, inexpedient to tie them by any Resolution of this kind. He believed that, on the whole, the Government had done a great deal to improve the upper part of the public service. It was in a good and healthy condition, and to show their desire to improve the service he would remind the House that one of their first acts was to appoint a Commission. He hoped that his hon. Friend would be satisfied with the discussion he had raised; but if he pressed
  926
  the matter to a division he should find it necessary to vote against him, not because he had any doubt of the general soundness of the principle of competition, but because the Government were not in a position to push it as far at the present moment as his hon. Friend desired.
  MR. LOWEbegged to remind the right hon. Gentleman that it was Lord Granville, and not Lord Derby, who inaugurated the system of open competition at the Foreign Office. He begged, moreover, to remark that the present Government had given rather an uncomfortable instance of their views on this subject by abolishing competition for the Royal Navy. He wished to say a word on the question raised by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Playfair), which was whether selection should precede or follow competition. His right hon. Friend was of opinion that selection should follow competition, that a number of persons should be invited to compete for a vacancy, that the best men should be selected, but that it should be carefully concealed which were the best men, and that then the heads of Departments should choose from the men who had succeeded. So that it might happen that those who had most distinguished themselves in the competition would never get any place at all in the Civil Service. Nothing would more deter the class of men they wished to attract than that their success should be concealed, and that they should see men who had failed to distinguish themselves in the examination selected by the officers of the Department in preference to themselves, so that it might well happen that the ablest men got no appointment after all. He trusted that there was no danger of so fatal an error being adopted by the Government. With regard to the vote he should give, if the Resolution were pressed to a division, he had no objection to see the clerkships of the Foreign Office placed on the same footing as the rest, and he very much regretted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not see his way to make any change in the direction indicated by the Resolution. He said he doubted whether young men of means would enter upon an open competition for the Diplomatic Service; but why a young man worth £400 or £500 a-year should not have the laudable ambition of entering a Service in

  927
  which he might better himself, and even make his £400 or £500 ten times that amount, he could not understand. He could not imagine anything more pernicious or more deadening to all noble ambition than to assume that these young men would not desire to obtain a position in which they could so greatly distinguish themselves. He believed that the present was an expensive plan of obtaining candidates for the Diplomatic Service, and that the public lost more than they gained by it. Such a system, if adopted in the Civil Service, would be most ruinous, and he believed that it was not a good thing for the Diplomatic Service to go begging for young men to enter it, instead of paying them properly. The real objection to the proposal was that a number of men might get appointments in virtue of their superior qualifications, and might be totally unable to defray the expenses inevitable in the position they would hold. That appeared to him to be a conclusive objection to the adoption of unlimited competition. What could be done with men who obtained such appointments and were unable to fulfil the conditions on which they were given? Therefore, although he should regret to do anything which would have the semblance of opposing the principle of competition, he should be most reluctantly compelled to abstain from voting for the Amendment, and he hoped it would be considered that the reasons which would induce him to take such a course must be very strong indeed. Why could not the proposal be accepted that the Secretary of State should select, out of the persons willing to enter the Diplomatic Service, those as to whom he could easily ascertain that they possessed the necessary pecuniary qualifications to enable them to discharge the duties of these positions. When he had done that there might be competition to determine who were the best men among those selected. Nothing could surely be more reasonable than that. A competition should not be followed by the Secretary of State selecting whoever he liked. No man who respected himself would ever enter into a competition, if he knew that, though he might prove himself superior to others, he was still liable to be set aside. That would be the way to eliminate from the Service the very men whom it was most desirable to secure. What he (Mr.
  928
  Lowe) suggested was done by the Foreign Office in the case of the Foreign Office clerkships; those who had the greatest ability being chosen by competition from those who had pecuniary and other qualifications. A good deal had been said with reference to the qualifications for these offices. It had been said the men ought to have good manners, and that they ought to have money, that they ought to be well-connected, and so on; but he heard nothing about their having any brains, and that, after all, was a matter of some importance. He sincerely hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to whom they were indebted for having done so much for this great question of competition would re-consider the question, and that he would either find some better argument in support of his position than the one he had just adduced, or see his way to doing an enormous benefit to the public service of this country, by placing the competition for Diplomatic Service on similar lines to those which had been laid down in connection with the Foreign Office clerkships.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he desired to point out that there were many persons whom, from their education, it would be most desirable to introduce into the Diplomatic Service, but who might not be able to hold their own against University men and others in public competition. Take, for example, the son of some Ambassador who might have resided with his father at every Court in Europe, and knew the whole history and traditions of diplomacy. Nevertheless he might not, perhaps, be able to succeed in a contest upon certain subjects to which special attention had been devoted by others, though able to pass a test examination. With regard to the Foreign Office itself, it was most desirable that the Secretary of State should be responsible for the appointments of those who were to serve in it. The Foreign Office was not like the Treasury, Colonial, or any other office of which the confidential work was an exception. Nearly all the work in it was of the most confidential character. An important despatch, for instance, might at that very moment have arrived on the Eastern Question. A copy of the document would have to be made without delay for every Ambassador; and nearly

  929
  every clerk in the Foreign Office, however junior, would have more or less to do with the copying of it. From this it would be seen that every young man in the office must have the fullest confidence reposed in him from the very first; and any breach of that confidence must manifestly be very damaging to the public service. So far as he knew, however, no such breach had ever occurred. But it was clearly essential that every young man entering the Foreign Office should be known to the Secretary of State, who should be responsible for his fitness. He opposed the Motion, the adoption of which must be detrimental to the public interest.
  CAPTAIN NOLANsaid, that the Resolution of the hon. Member for the Border Burghs only affirmed the principle of open competition, but did not refer to any particular mode in which that principle might be applied. The introduction of the principle into the Artillery had not produced the anomalies that had been anticipated; at the same time precaution should be taken that the persons appointed should have sufficient means to support their position. It was generally found that the men who passed the highest examinations were the best men in all other respects.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  The House divided:—Ayes 159; Noes 112: Majority 47.
  Main Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

PARLIAMENT—SCOTCH BUSINESS.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLrose, according to Notice,
  "To call attention to the extreme neglect of Scotch Business in the Session of 1876; to suggest the necessity of relieving the pressure which is now felt in this House, and improving the arrangements for the conduct of business."
  The hon. Member said, that with regard to the Session of 1876, it was notorious that in that year Scotch business was neglected in that House in a manner which might almost be termed gross. Although many Bills relating to Scotland were brought forward, the Government failed to give Scotch Members a fair
  930
  opportunity of discussing them, and the House a fair opportunity of dealing with them—they had, in fact, about the half of one morning sitting—that being the only time which was really devoted to the discussion of Scotch Business. The feeling in Scotland in reference to this matter was very strong indeed—so strong that when Scotch Members went down to their constituents they found that the two great subjects of interest were the Eastern Question and the neglect of Scotch Business in that House. There was also another grievance—namely, that all the time which was usually given to Scotch Business was in the small hours of the morning. He feared many of his Colleagues had become so accustomed to that ill-usage that they did not fully appreciate it, or feel how ill-used they were; but he (Sir George Campbell), coming into that House as a new Member, had felt the grievance extremely. The Scotch Members were bound to sit up all hours of the night in order to watch Scotch Bills that did not come on. This he said was a real grievance, which ought to be redressed. He was himself a man who had done a great deal of work in his day, and was willing to do a great deal still; but his health would not permit that he should be kept sitting up night after night until all the hours of the morning waiting in vain for Bills in which he was interested to come on. If justice were not done to the Scotch Members in this respect, they were bound to take every constitutional means in their power to obtain it—they might follow the example of Gentlemen sitting on this side who came from the other side of the Channel. He had supposed this grievance was last year so notorious and so acknowledged that this Session they would have been treated a little better; but, in fact, the bad practice of former years had been repeated. For instance, the one Scotch measure before the House, the Scotch Prisons Bill, had been twice put on the Paper when there was not the least chance of its coming on before midnight; and it was only by the interposition of an Irish Member that prevented its being called on after midnight. To add insult to injury, not only was the English Bill twice put before the Scotch Bill, but an Irish Bill too. He said, then, that not only were they very ill-used last year, but that so far as the indications of the present year went,

  931
  there was every probability they would still be ill-used in this matter, and that Scotch Bills would be only brought in after midnight, a proceeding of which they had a just right to complain, and which they certainly would resist. They must treat Her Majesty's Government as they should treat the Turks—if they did not yield to moral coercion, they must try such physical coercion as the Forms of the House would enable them to apply. So much for the strong and pressing grievance of which Scotch Members had reason to complain, both as regarded the constituencies they represented and the treatment that they personally received. But he believed that there were deeper evils. He believed, in fact, the Business of the House was such that some of it must go to the wall, and the Scotch Business only went to the wall in preference because Scotch Members were more submissive and less obstructive and troublesome than others. To do justice to all, radical measures of reform were required. He would touch but briefly on those subjects, because there were other hon. Members who knew more of those things than he did who would follow him. As regarded the Scotch Business in particular, there was one remedy for the evil which he believed was approved by many Scotch Members, and by many persons out of the House, and that was that, distinct from the Lord Advocate, there should be a lay Minister of State, who should be charged with Scotch Business. There was a great deal in that suggestion. He was not himself prepared to offer a very decided opinion upon it; but he believed it would operate as a palliative of the evil. He believed that if a lay Minister were charged with the Scotch Business, a very considerable amount of good might be derived there-from, and that something might be done towards putting the Scotch in their proper position. At the same time, he felt that such a Minister might have to encounter many of the difficulties which prevented the Lord Advocate from doing that justice which he would desire to do. The Lord Advocate was a distinguished official in his own country, and here was a benevolent despot towards Scotch Members. He did the best he could for them; but he was not in a position to put sufficient pressure upon the Home Secretary or upon Ministers to obtain justice for Scotland. Moreover,
  932
  good as Lord Advocates generally had been, and willing as they had generally been to do justice to Scotland, he was inclined to think that Lawyer Government was not altogether good for any country. It was not good for any country to be placed permanently under lawyer rule, and that would be the case with regard to Scotland as long as the Lord Advocate had the conduct of Scotch Business. There was this objection—that, however willing the Lord Advocate might be to do justice to the country, however willing he might be to bring forward measures which he thought would be beneficial to the country, he was always more or less hampered in his efforts by influences at work out-of-doors. He was much afraid that too many Scotch measures were treated not solely in view of the benefit they would confer upon Scotland, but also from the view whether they would be acceptable to the lawyers of Scotland, and whether the effect would be to bring business or take away business from Edinburgh. That was a state of things very much to be avoided. He was not sure that the appointment of a lay Minister of the Government to take charge of the Scotch Business would necessarily get rid of that difficulty. He was inclined to think that in regard to Irish affairs also a good deal too much attention was paid to the wishes of the Irish lawyers. At the same time, it was very desirable that a fair trial should be made of the suggestion to entrust Scotch affairs to a lay Member of the Government. As he had said, such an arrangement might operate as a palliative; but ho believed that the business of the House, which was every day becoming larger, was really too much for the House to get through; and that was the real evil with which they had to contend. He believed that very radical measures were necessary in order to meet and obviate a very great and growing difficulty. In the shape in which he had first put his Motion on the Paper, it was supposed that there was something of a Home Rule flavour about it. He feared any suggestion of the kind would give rise to dissensions; but his own personal opinion was, that great and free countries were not likely to be permanently successful in any other way than with some sort of federation. He would not, however, dwell upon the

  933
  subject—especially for this reason, that though he thought they were eminently fit for Home Rule in Scotland, yet most people in Scotland did not want it, while, on the other hand, although Ireland might want it, it might be a question whether the people were fit for for it. He did not believe that Home Rule was immediately practicable in Ireland or in Scotland; but he thought much might be done in the way of local government which would be acceptable to Liberals and Conservatives alike. For this reason he viewed with the greatest alarm the course which the Government had lately taken in showing a disposition to centralize and to minimize local government as much as possible. So much had been said in the course of other debates about this subject that he need not now dwell upon it, but this he would say—that just as the Prisons Bill had been a centralizing measure, so they were induced last year to suppose that the Poor Law Bill would be a centralizing measure with regard to Scotland. He hoped that course would not be persevered in by the Government. He trusted that, instead of centralizing, they would consider it to be their duty to localize; and in that way Parliament might be relieved of a good deal of Business in that House. There was another way in which considerable relief might be obtained—he meant in regard to private local Business. He was quite sure that the expense and time which the passing of local Bills through Parliament involved was being more and more felt in all parts of the Kingdom. They felt that more especially in Scotland, because they were further off. There was now a great disposition to obtain measures which would enable local authorities to apply themselves to improving the water supply, and doing other things which were very much needed, and many places in Scotland had been deterred from the course of local improvement by the expense and difficulty of passing Private Bills through Parliament. It was a matter on which he was somewhat sensitive, for the borough he had the honour to represent (Kirkcaldy) had recently had to pay a bill of upwards of £1,600 for passing an unopposed Bill through Parliament. It would be a very great boon if some means could be devised by which some tribunal on the spot could deal with these legal local and
  934
  private matters. There was another view which he desired especially to press on the Lord Advocate. As he had said, it was most desirable that a great many affairs should be disposed of locally. But there was another class of affairs in which it was desirable to aim rather at uniformity than localization. He would ask why was it that on such subjects there should be separate Bills for Scotland and Ireland, instead of having one measure for the Three Kingdoms? Take the Prisons Bill. There it was quite possible to amalgamate the three Bills into one, and allow the Scotch Members to discuss that measure at the same hours at which English Members now discussed the English Bill. In that opinion he was supported by men of the utmost authority. Looking further ahead, he fully believed that great good might be effected by codification. Nothing would go so far to unite the Three Kingdoms as one system of codes which should apply to all. The suggestion he wished to make was, that if' they wished to get rid of those provincial difficulties, and make their system uniform, they must place their system of codification upon a broad basis, making it not a mere digest of the law of England, but a general system in which the best parts of the law of Scotland should have a place. He believed that if that were done a great deal of the time of Parliament might be saved, much friction avoided, and a very great good achieved for the country. Another suggestion had been made for expediting Business — namely, that there should be some kind of division of the House for the purpose of considering Scotch Business, and perhaps other Business. In former days there was the system known as "the tea-room system"—that was, the Scotch Members discussed Scotch Business with the Lord Advocate in the tea-room, and, as far as he could gather, there was a good deal to be said for and against that system. He did not venture to put forward an opinion of his own on that subject, as it was a matter which so much depended upon experience; but he understood that a very distinguished officer of the House (Sir Erskine May), before a Committee which sat to inquire into the Business of the House, expressed a strong opinion that much of the Business could be best considered by a system of Grand Commit-

  935
  tees. His own belief was that if they were not prepared to divide the work of the country they would have to come to some sort of Home Rule. They must divide the work of Parliament itself. They must have some kind of Grand Committees of Parliament, which might sit at the same time and dispose of different business. If they did not adopt some radical measure of that kind, the pressure upon Parliament would increase more and more, and Scotch Members would become more and more discontented, and it would become more and more difficult to dispose of the Business of the country. He had ventured to make suggestions on this subject; and he only wished again to mention two—first, that the Government should give up not only a fair share of the time of Parliament, but a fair precedence in regard to time, to Scotch Business. That was a practical suggestion, and he hoped it was one which Her Majesty's Government would accede to. The other suggestion was that on every possible occasion Bills affecting England, Scotland, and Ireland should be rolled into one — that where they had one uniform system they should have one and not three Bills for the Three Kingdoms. Those were suggestions which he thought the Government might immediately adopt.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSS: That, Sir, is what I call a good-natured grumble all round. I have not the slightest fault to find with the hon. Gentleman for having given expression to his views and feelings on the subject; but, looking at the discursive nature of his remarks, I hope he will pardon me if I do not follow him through all the many windings of his speech. I fully recognize the fact that many of the matters he has brought forward deserve attention, but to attempt a general discussion on the whole would not, I think, be saving the time of the House. I am very happy to be able to tell the hon. Member that in the two suggestions which he has made I most cordially and heartily concur—namely, that, so far as the Scotch Business which will come before the House on the part of the Government is concerned, it should be taken at a time of night when it can be reasonably argued out, and that it should have reasonable precedence in point of time. I also entirely agree with him that whenever Bills affecting England, Scotland,
  936
  and Ireland can be rolled into one, it ought to be done. I am glad that the hon. Member has at last discovered that there is a difference between localization and uniformity; that localization may be good in one case, and uniformity better in the other. That is a principle upon which I have had to argue a good deal during the last few days, and I am glad the hon. Gentleman has come to the same conclusion as I did myself. But in regard to those Bills, just see how the hon. Gentleman would treat them. The moment they are rolled into one, he would say they are not a Scotch measure; after we had taken trouble to satisfy him, he would say at the end of the Session—"Why, you have not passed a single Scotch measure." The real fact is that Scotland, as I have always thought, is an integral part of the United Kingdom, and Ireland too, and there are a vast number of measures relating to the welfare of Scotland which, by the wise anticipation—not only by this Government, but by former Governments—of the suggestion which has fallen from the hon. Member, have been rolled into one, and therefore in his category they do not come under the title of Scotch measures. What the hon. Member means, no doubt, is that there are certain things affecting the interests of Scotland, and Scotland only, and in the case of Scotland there are many matters where, in the present state of the law, it is absolutely impossible that one Bill will do. I never will consent, so far as I can help it, to separate Bills where one Bill will do; but in many cases separate Bills cannot be helped at present. I hope gradually the laws of Scotland and England will be much more assimilated. It would be a good thing if they were. But treating simply Scotch measures only, a good deal has been done since we came into power. We have passed a Summary Prosecution measure, a Bill for the Amendment of Entail, a Public Health Act, an Act, dealing with Artizans' and Labourers' Dwellings, a Church Patronage Act, and others in 1874 and 1875; and though last year it is quite true that, as far as the number of measures went, the business done was small, a considerable advance was made towards the settlement of the question of roads and bridges. Now, the hon. Member says that we have added insult to injury,

  937
  and in this case I am bound to say that the Scotch motto Nemo me impune lacesset has not suffered with the hon. Baronet. But we were in a difficulty here, as the complaint is that in putting the Prisons Bill on the Paper we put first the English, then the Irish, and then the Scotch. Now, as I came out of the House of Lords immediately after the Queen's Speech was delivered on the day Parliament opened, I was met by an Irish Gentleman of considerable ability and position in this House. He said to me, "What have you been doing?" I replied, "I really do not know;" and he rejoined, "You have put Scotland before Ireland in the Queen's Speech," and it is very hard indeed to say how we can please all parties. We put the one before the other in the Queen's Speech, and we arranged the Bills differently on the Paper, and no one is pleased. But so far as these Bills are concerned, it is the intention of the Government that they shall all pass into law one after the other:—at this early period of the Session there shall be no breaks, so far as the Government can help it, in the passing of the three Bills, and probably they will all leave this House on or about the same day. The hon. Member rather suggested that we ought to have read the Scotch Bill the other night. Here, I think, I am really bound to say it is not my fault, for but for two hon. Gentlemen from Scotland, it would have been put down for the second reading on Monday, and would perhaps have come on at 9 or 10 o'clock. But it was at the request of Scotch Members, and at their request only, that it was put off. Now, what have we done? We have placed in the Queen's Speech two Bills of considerable importance to Scotland. When we have done that, it is impossible that we should not do our best to pass them. It is the intention of the Government that they should pass, and that they should be brought forward at a reasonable hour, and have reasonable precedence. When you talk of 1876, you must remember that it was not Scotch Business alone that suffered, but English and Irish also. Debates were so prolonged on one or two measures—though I do not say unnecessarily prolonged — that one measure which I was myself extremely anxious to pass into law I was obliged to withdraw. If the hon. Member will be con-
  938
  tent with the assurance I can give him, I hope that when the end of this Session arrives he will be far more satisfied, and that without the Turkish coercion with which he threatens us. I will not enter at the present moment into questions of a code or a Grand Committee, or of matters of Private Legislation. All these matters have been considered by successive Governments, and the growing Business of Parliament will at some time or other demand serious attention. At present I believe a good deal of time might be saved if some Members would, in the course of debate, keep rather more strictly to the point under consideration. As to the best mode of dealing with Private Legislation, that is a matter on which persons of great experience have come to different conclusions. It is a matter which has been seriously thought of, and about which very different opinions are entertained. I do not know that I should be justified in taking up the time of the House any longer from the ordinary Business, but I will assure the hon. Member once more with regard to his two last suggestions—first, that particularly Scotch Business certainly shall have a fair share of the time of the House and fair precedence; and that, whenever three Bills can at any time be rolled into one, I shall, as far as I can, see that this is done.
  SIR ROBERT ANSTRUTHERsaid, he thought the remarks that had fallen from his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary had fully justified the hon. Member for the Kirkcaldy Burghs (Sir George Campbell) in bringing the matter before the House. He was prepared very nearly to endorse all that his hon. Friend had said; though, as to the suggestion of applying a little Turkish coercion to Her Majesty's Government, he must say that those hon. Gentlemen had not as yet applied any Turkish oppression to the subject-races that sat on those Benches, nor did he contemplate applying any Turkish coercion to them. The Home Secretary had practically admitted the grievances complained of by his lion. Friend—he admitted, at all events, that last year, and probably for some years back, Scotch Business had been in a very neglected state. They could not expect the right hon. Gentleman to admit more than that. He had made his admission frankly, and they would frankly accept

  939
  it. He had done more than that—he had promised amendment. Now, when you brought a distinguished functionary occupying the position of the Home Secretary down to that level, he thought his hon. Friend had done very well; and they might rely upon it that the Home Secretary was fully convinced of the necessity of putting Scotch Business upon a more satisfactory footing than it had hitherto occupied. He was convinced that his hon. and learned Friend who sat at his side (the Lord Advocate) would not for a moment suppose that in any remark that had been made, or might be yet made, about the office of Lord Advocate, the smallest personal reflection was intended to be cast upon himself. They had now had the pleasure of hearing the learned Lord addressing the House on two occasions, and he thought he only expressed the general sentiment of the House—as far as he was able to gather it—when he said that they would be very glad indeed to hear the learned Lord address the House again. No doubt it did appear to some of them—and certainly to himself — that something like a more thorough reform in the management of Scotch Business was needed than the Home Secretary had laid down in the hope of being able to carry out. It appeared to him the Home Office was not strong enough for the work it had to do. He was not going to say anything offensive to lawyers, but it was quite anomalous that the whole civil business of Scotland should be, as it was, conducted entirely by a Lawyer; and when he said that, he was not expressing an opinion confined to that side of the House, for, as the Home Secretary was well aware, this subject had been several times before Parliament in past years. It was brought under the notice of Parliament in 1858 by his right hon. Friend who now sat for the Montrose Burghs (Mr. Baxter), and it was again brought before Parliament in 1864 by Sir James Fergusson, who unfortunately had not at present a seat in the House; and again by the right hon. Member for Montrose in 1867. It was almost impossible that these repeated remarks made of the want of strength in the Home Office for the tranasction of Scotch Business could be made altogether without ground for complaint, and though he did not intend to go into any detail on
  940
  the subject just then, and although perfectly well satisfied as far as it went with the promise which the right hon. Gentleman had given, that Scotch Business should be presented to the House at convenient hours, and should be put in its own proper place on the Notice Paper, he would respectfully invite attention to the question whether it would not be possible, with considerable advantage, to strengthen the Home Office for the performance of civil business, more specifically Scotch.
  SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKEsaid, that the complaints of neglect of Scotch Business were unquestionably well-founded. For many years past the Scotch Members had complained of the manner in which Scotch Bills were brought forward, of the utter neglect to give opportunities for fair discussion of them, and of delaying Scotch measures till sometimes within an hour of the period at which their debates were usually brought to a close, so that those measures were forced upon them without that discussion which in justice to them they ought to have. But as far as last Session was concerned, he thought the Scotch Members were almost equally to blame for the failure of Scotch Business as Her Majesty's Government. He might refer particularly to the manner in which the opposition to the Poor Law Bill was developed. The number of speeches by hon. Members on that side of the House was enough to thwart any Government. Look at the Scotch Poor Law Bill and other Scotch measures—such was the multitude of speeches ready for delivery that the Lord Advocate was compelled to drop them. But without following his hon. Friend (Sir George Campbell) through all the stages of his speech, the matter rested in a very small compass. All they wanted was time, and, after the very fair assurance the Home Secretary had given them, that Scotch measures would be considered in a manner which would give them reason to be satisfied, he would only say one or two words. First, ho would say that while the main responsibility rested on the Government, he must appeal to his hon. Friends from Scotland to consider the responsibility which also rested upon them. He had heard a great many compliments paid to the Scotch Members in former years, both in and outside the House, on the

  941
  manner in which they conducted their Business, because they did not make long speeches in either House. Now, his hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) was an example, in making a speech an hour long that might have been compressed into a few words. He thought they ought to give an honest assurance to Her Majesty's Government that they would make short speeches and stick to the point. Next as to the manner of conducting Scotch Business out of the House. There had been many compliments paid to the Lord Advocate, and he (Sir Edward Colebrooke) might speak as an old man who had had some experience of Scotch legislation. His hon. and learned Friend's Predecessor, Lord Moncreiff, was very successful in passing Scotch measures of late years, and he thought that was much due to inviting Scotch Members to meet him at his office and talk the matter out. Now, he could assure his hon. and learned Friend that they were not a very formidable body to meet. He did not think he need be afraid to give them opportunities to let him know what their most important objections were, so that he might take them into consideration in shaping any measure he might be framing. He had to say that he entirely differed from the hon. Member for Fife (Sir Robert Anstruther) as to his opinion on the appointment of a Secretary of State for Scotland by way of strengthening the Home Office. No doubt the Office might be strengthened by the introduction of some Scotch element, but not in the position of Secretary of State. There might be an Under Secretary, who had some knowledge of Scotch affairs, and who could assist him in Scotch Business. In that way, he thought material aid might be given.
  COLONEL ALEXANDERsaid, there were one or two passages in the speech of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) to which he desired to advert. As they all knew, this complaint of the delay of Scotch Business was as old as the hills. The delay they knew was not due to this Ministry or to that, nor to this Party or to that, but was rather traceable to the antiquated manner in which Scotch Business was conducted in the counties. In each county a standing committee was appointed to report on Scotch Bills
  942
  introduced either in that or in the other House of Parliament. Up to lately these committees had been in the habit of proceeding in the most leisurely manner possible. It took them two months to consider the Parliamentary Bills submitted to this House; it was then put to the county as to what Bill or Bills should be petitioned for or against. In that way about three months were lest. Was that the fault of the Minister of that House? Was it not the fault of the antiquated system that had prevailed in Scotch counties which wasted three precious months of the Session before they decided what action was to be taken. On the other hand, they should not fly into the opposite extreme—they must not proceed too fast. Parliamentary committees, in order to deal with the subject, must have the Bills before them in sufficient time to enable them to give their opinions to the county. The mode in which the Bills were presented by the Government to the House was everything that could be desired. The Scotch Prisons Bill being substantially the same as the English Bill, would meet with little obstruction from the Members for Scotland. He was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman promise reasonable time to discuss measures for Scotland. One thing he desired to say — that they ought not to follow the custom of last Session and allow a Bill to pass the second reading, pro formâ, on the understanding that the principle would be discussed on the Motion that the Speaker leave the Chair. That was the course pursued last year on the Poor Law Bill, and hon. Gentlemen would bear him out in the opinion that that course was not attended with success. Precious hours were wasted; and, after all, the Bill never got into Committee. So long as that course was pursued they would never succeed in advancing Scotch legislation.
  MR. M'LAREN: I shall not go into all the matters referred to by the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell), but shall endeavour to keep strictly to the question of Scotch Business before Parliament; and I hope I may be indulged a few minutes, as representing the capital of Scotland, where this question has been more discussed than in any town in Scotland; and, secondly, because I have not taken up any time this Session on any Business whatever. In whatever the Home

  943
  Secretary has said as to Scotch Business I place implicit credit. There is no Member of the House on whom I would more completely rely in a matter of this kind. But he only promised that any measures introduced into the House on Scotch Business should have fair play as to time for its proper discussion. There is a question beyond that. There are Bills that ought to be brought in to enable the legislation of Scotland to keep pace with that of England. What is the remedy? As to the longest part of the speech which the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy devoted to this point, not one word was said by the Home Secretary. The hon. Member for Fifeshire (Sir Robert Anstruther) has also dwelt on it, and on that point I would like to say a few words. Those who contend for anything that is ancient will, I hope, be conciliated by the remarks I am about to make. It is no new thing for Scotland to ask for a Secretary of State for that country, the same as Ireland has. After the Union there was a Secretary of State for Scotland as there was a Secretary of State for England. The office was continued for 36 years. It was dropped about 1740; but it was not dropped by legislative enactment. It gradually fell into abeyance. It may be argued that it was not in accordance with the feeling of Scotland or it would have lived. But there was no public opinion in Scotland at that time. Scotland was governed by a despotism. It had no public opinion whatever. Even up to the passing of Lord Grey's Reform Act there were only 2,800 electors in all the cities, boroughs, and counties put together, and the qualifications of many of these were fictitious, arising from lands to which the voters had no real title. Upon that I will not dwell. As soon as public opinion arose in Scotland, this question began to be understood. There was one family which had ruled Scotland for about half a century as if they were its sovereigns—the Dundas family. That was continued until 1828, when a number of Scotch Members arranged with Canning that if he would extinguish the Dundas sovereignty they would give him their support; and from that time there has been an active public opinion in Scotland. In 1832 a Scotch Lord of the Treasury was first appointed, in the hope of improving matters, by getting
  944
  attention paid by the Legislature to the Business of Scotland; but he was far too small an officer to influence the Legislature or the Cabinet. The agitation still continued. In 1853 there was one of the largest and most influential meetings ever held in Scotland, on this subject, and a Resolution was passed declaring that Scotland was entitled to have a Secretary of State. The Resolution was that—
  "This meeting considers it necessary for the better administration of the Public Business of this part of the United Kingdom to have a Secretary for Scotland, and that it would be for the practical benefit of the united Legislature if the office of Secretary of State for Scotland were restored, with all the rights and privileges formerly appertaining thereto, and this meeting invites the burghs and cities of Scotland to petition Her Majesty on the subject."
  I have said this meeting was, perhaps, the most influential ever held in Scotland. I may inform hon. Gentlemen opposite that it was mainly composed of Members of the Conservative Party on the platform. Lord Eglinton was in the chair, and there were present Lord Grey, Sir David Dundas, Sir Archibald Alison, Sir J. W. Drummond, Sir Charles Napier, Sir H. H. Campbell, Professor Aytoun, Sheriff Skene, the Hon. G. Sinclair, Captain Hamilton, and a large number of others, including the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight, who made an excellent speech on the subject, and who was described as "Alexander Baillie Cochrane, of Laming-ton." That meeting passed the Resolution to which I have referred. A number of Petitions were sent up to Parliament; and from that time, although the question has been allowed to smoulder, it has never been buried, and I believe it never will be buried. One of the bodies with which I am connected—the Chamber of Commerce—sent a Memorial to the Secretary of State, and he answered that he was the Secretary of State for Scotland. Well, that was literally true, but it did not improve the state of affairs. A few years ago—in 1869—Mr. Gladstone's Government took up the question, and appointed a Treasury Commission to enquire into these matters in Scotland, and that Commission reported that there were difficulties, and that they were opposed to any great changes, but various recommendations were made, none of which were ever carried into effect. I men-

  945
  tion these things to show that the question of a Secretary of State for Scotland had been brought down to the present time. I may repeat what has been said by other Members—but I hope no one will suppose I mean any disrespect to, or reflection on the Lord Advocate who now holds office. I have never spoken of him but with the greatest respect, either in public or private; but it is quite enough that he should attend to the legal Business of Scotland, as the Solicitor General for Ireland attends to the legal Business of Ireland; and we should have a Secretary to attend to the lay Business of Scotland, as a Secretary attends to the lay Business of Ireland. There are other more practical grounds of complaint. In our taxation we suffer injustice. In the income tax, under Schedule A, on the city which I represent (Edinburgh), the rents have risen about 5 per cent yearly during the last three years. In England an assessment for the income tax is made once in three years on the rental, and not on the rental for each year; and there is a Bill before the House for extending this period to five years; while there is a new assessment for Scotland every year. That is a practical tangible money grievance. Then again, the sum of £10,000 granted under the Poor Laws to Scotland has no reference whatever to the equitable demands of Scotland, as compared with the grants to England and Ireland. Again, it appears by the present Estimates that the total sum allotted by Government to Public Buildings in Scotland is £8,400, while for Ireland the sum of £177,000 is allowed. Twenty years ago an Industrial Museum was established in Edinburgh, which is largely visited by the working classes, the returns showing that a greater number visited it in proportion to the population than have visited the South Kensington Museum. What have the present Government done? Till it came into office certain grants were annually made. But during its first year of office an excuse was made; then another excuse the following year; and this year also there has not been a shilling granted, while £177,000 have been given to Ireland and large sums to England. Is it a right thing, I would ask, that the Government, for the purposes of economy and saving expenditure, should cut off the necessary payments that ought to be
  946
  made in Scotland? I say that this is a very wrong state of things, and ought not to receive the sanction of the country. In stating these things I wish it to be distinctly understood that I am not in favour of a lavish expenditure—I have always advocated economy; and, although last year I obtained a Return which showed that the expenditure for the judicial system in Scotland was less than half that for the judicial system in Ireland, yet the hon. Member for Aberdeen (Mr. Barclay) had my entire concurrence when he proposed to reduce the number of Judges in Scotland. I mention that to show that it is not money for Scotland that I want. Irish Members clamour for money for Ireland for the creation of places, and the keeping up of the judicial system, but I would just as soon vote for the extinguishing of offices in my own town as for the extinguishing of offices in England or Ireland. I was glad to hear the Home Secretary refer to the Roads and Bridges Bill, although I think the Bill itself contains another Scottish grievance. I know the Rules of the House too well to discuss that Bill now, but I will say—as I said a few days ago—you appoint a Committee of this House to take into consideration Petitions for the abolition of expiring English turnpike trusts, and they are abolished whenever the Committee think they are no longer necessary. That Committee refuses to receive any Petitions respecting Scotch trusts; and the consequence is that in the county in which Edinburgh is, its Act of Parliament expired 10 years ago, and although it had a most improper constitution when it was passed, that trust has been continued from year to year, by the Annual Continuance Bill, and the public has no power whatever over it. There is an enormous expenditure going on for keeping roads and bridges in repair, but we cannot approach this Committee with our county roads grievances. What has the Home Secretary done? He has brought in a most excellent Bill for repairing the roads and bridges of Scotland; but it is a Bill not for to-day, but to come into operation, compulsorily, only 10 years hence. Why not leave it to his successors to bring in such a Bill. No doubt it is a permissive Bill up to the 10 years; but I think it is not desirable that a county, where the Act

  947
  expired 10 years ago, should remain in the same state for another 10 years through the sovereign will and pleasure of the county authorities alone. If the powers of Parliament are to be given to a local body to determine when the Bill shall come into operation, it should be a body imbued with public spirit, representing the county and burgh authorities in proportion to their several interests. Under these circumstances, I hope the Government will seriously consider the proposal, first made by the hon. Baronet the Member for Peeblesshire (Sir Graham Montgomery) to extinguish the office of the Scotch Lord of the Treasury and to have in his place a Secretary who shall act for Scotland as the Chief Secretary does for Ireland; and leave the Lord Advocate to conduct the legal business before Parliament.
  MR. MARK STEWARTsaid, he desired to record his satisfaction at the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary. He could not conceive any statement with regard to Scotland more forcible, or that would give greater satisfaction to that country. That country had been generally dissatisfied on the ground that Scotch Business had been apparently neglected; and although they in that House were well conversant with the facts of the case, and though they knew that it was not the fault of the Government that Scotch Business had been neglected, yet there had been no assurance this Session that there would be any Scotch Business, except the Two Bills mentioned in the Queen's Speech. He did not propose to follow the hon. Member who had just sat down into the question of Scotch roads and bridges. The question was rather how they ought to meet the difficulties which confronted them in dealing with Scotch legislation and Scotch Business in that House. Now, however, when they were assured by the right hon. Gentleman that he would give Scotch Business due precedence, and that he would ensure its coming on at a reasonable hour, he was satisfied that that statement would be accepted generally by the country and by all in the House. One point there was that he desired to mention, and that was that it was a great matter to get Government Bills for Scotland out as early as possible. There was, for instance, the Poor Law
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  Bill which occasioned great interest last year, and was likely to occasion more this—it would be a great satisfaction if it were in the hands of Members, so that it could be thoroughly discussed by them throughout the Easter Recess. With regard to the suggestion of the hon. Member for Ayrshire (Colonel Alexander), that it would be desirable for Scotch counties to organize their Parliamentary Committees at an earlier period of the year, he thought that if the Government were prepared to pay greater attention to the representations made by those committees they would certainly know a great deal earlier what their views of the Bills were than they did at present. The hon. Baronet who introduced the Motion talked as if the only business of Scotch Members was to sit there till past 12 at night to hear Scotch Business discussed, and then go home disappointed because Scotch Business had not been brought forward. He (Mr. Stewart) took a different view of his duty; he considered that he sat there not merely to consider those matters which affected Scotland as apart from the rest of the Kingdom, but rather to consider those which affected the interests of the whole Kingdom. He need not enumerate the difficulties the Government encountered in the long and dreary debates of last Session on the Royal Titles Bill, the English Amending Education Act, and other existing measures, nor would it be very easy to ascertain how the course pursued by the Opposition benefited Scotch legislation; and let the House recollect when it was desired to push forward a Scotch Bill—the Poor Law Bill—he believed it was the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) himself, who was most anxious that the Bill should not pass and who used all the Forms of the House to oppose it.
  GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURsaid, that if there was one thing more than another that had characterised that debate, it was the desire to abstain from attacking the Government in any form, or throwing blame upon them. It was true that the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) did refer to the last Parliament, in connection with the promises of the present, to show the way in which Scotch Business had been neglected in that House. Now, there was nothing that struck him

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  (Sir George Balfour) so much, when he entered Parliament before the change of Government, as the way in which Scotch Business was neglected; and when he inquired the cause, was informed that it was a practice that had existed for many years:—therefore, in that respect they had no reason to impute blame to the present Home Secretary. No one was more ready than he to listen to representations made by the Members from Scotland. Therefore, it must be understood that in any remarks he might make he did not mean to impute personal blame to any of the Ministers, seeing that they were only carrying out a bad practice handed down from their Predecessors. He had heard with great satisfaction the promises the Home Secretary had made that night with regard to devoting his personal attention to Scotch Business in the future; but he did not think it possible for him to fulfil the promises he had made. He well knew that there was no suitable machinery within the office of the Secretary of State for dealing with the details of Scotch affairs, and he fully believed that the close attention the right hon. Gentleman was obliged to give to the Business of England and Wales occupied the whole of his time, and that it was impossible for an English Secretary of State to attend to Scotch Business in the way Scotchmen had a right to expect. The recent mode of bringing the Prisons Bills of England, of Ireland, and of Scotland before the House supplied a good illustration of the relative importance of the three divisions of the Kingdom. He found a Cabinet Minister bringing forward the Bill for England and Wales, and a Cabinet Minister bringing forward the Bill for Ireland; but he found the Lord Advocate, who was not only not a Cabinet Minister, but not even a Minister, bringing forward the Bill for Scotland. That, he thought, was a circumstance which showed in a marked manner the way in which Scotch Business was being neglected. Only that morning he was struck by the demand made by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Sullivan) in regard to Ireland, and which was at once acceded to. He demanded that the Irish Prisons Bill should be brought forward at as early a period of the evening as the English Bill had been; and the Irish Secretary, being a Member of
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  the Cabinet, at once promised to use his best endeavours to see that that was done. When he contrasted the patient endurance of Scotch Members with that persistent energy in demanding of the Irish Members to have their affairs discussed at early hours of the evening, he was afraid that those for Scotland might be led to follow the same course pursued by hon. Members from Ireland in order to get that fair and proper attention paid to their affairs which was now forced to be given to those of Ireland. The conclusion that he had come to was that, unless they had a Cabinet Minister for Scotland, he did not think they would ever get Scotch Business brought forward so promptly and so well as had always been the case in regard to English, and, of late, as in the case of Irish affairs. The influence of a Cabinet Minister was shown in the case of other Departments. They saw Business connected with the Board of Trade, the Local Government Board, and India, equally thrown aside whenever the Business in the hands of a Cabinet Minister required priority. It was on that account that he cordially supported the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) in asking the Government to give them a Minister having all the requisite influence, and who would become responsible for the Scotch Business. The hon. Member had shown that they had in former days a Scotch Secretary of State. That appointment was taken away in order to meet the exigencies of the unwieldiness of a large Cabinet Council; and yet, knowing how inadvisable it was to have too many Members in the Cabinet, at least, Scotland ought to have a real Minister of State, if not in the Cabinet, at all events in. some position of responsibility. In regard to the Lord Advocate, he would point out that his whole time was not devoted to public duties, and that his remuneration was not commensurate with that sacrifice, and must, therefore, ask if the Scotch Members could not have the time of their Lord Advocate entirely to themselves. Hon. Members knew well that the Lord Advocate was obliged to attend to legal business in Edinburgh; and, indeed, any lawyer of standing at the Scotch Bar who accepted the position had necessarily to sacrifice much of the private business which was so important to him. Still, Scotland ought

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  to be able to pay an officer for managing its affairs, and to pay him so well that he could afford to give up the whole of his time to the work. At all events, if they could not obtain a Minister of State for Scotland, he thought that they should have a separate and distinct Scotch Department within the Home Office formed of permanent Civil servants of the State, to which Members of Scotland could apply, quite distinct from the small temporary office of the Lord Advocate, and where the Home Secretary could collect information and always have it thoroughly at his own command, without being dependent on the Lord Advocate. With regard to the remarks that had been made as to the Bills which had been brought forward by the Government in former Sessions, it had been said that the Scotch Members themselves were to blame for their defeat or failure; but he thought this to be an unjust accusation, for he knew of no occasion in which the late Lord Advocate appealed to them in vain to assist him in passing his measures, and on more than one occasion Scotch Members accepted imperfect measures to avoid discussions.
  THE LORD ADVOCATE: Sir, I am painfully aware that I am probably less qualified than any of my Predecessors to take part in the present discussion, because having been hardly ten days in the House, it would be bad taste for me to take on myself to criticize any observations which concern either my own office, or the conduct of Business in past years in this House, or the best method of expediting Scotch Business in the future. But one or two statements have fallen from Scotch Members in the course of this debate of which it is necessary I should briefly take notice—particularly in regard to what fell from the hon. senior Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren). He stated—not by implication merely, but in very plain set terms—that England in regard to legislation stood in advance of our realm of Scotland. Having a tolerably intimate acquaintance with the Statute Book, I am totally unable to give assent to that proposition. Imperial legislation in all questions of importance has been equally considered in regard to both countries, and if hon. Members would study the various statutes on our books which affect the social welfare of the people, and which relate to what I may call the
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  more important parts of useful social legislation, they will find that Scotland is certainly not one whit behind the sister country of England. I challenge those hon. Members who take a different view from me on this point to state what special legislation they say has been passed for England in which Scotland has not had her own share of legislation. Why, in the matter, for instance, of the Public Health Act, we had our consolidation statute passed by the Legislature in 1867; whereas that for England was not passed in this House till 1875. The General Prisons Act for Scotland passed in 1860, which a Bill is now being introduced to amend; and a measure somewhat similar, and differing only in its applicability to England, did not become law until five years afterwards—namely, in 1865. The hon. Member for Edinburgh referred to certain grievances under which Scotland labours in respect to the imposition of Imperial taxation upon two different bases of valuation in the two countries. I would have asked the hon. Member, had he now been in his place, whether that arises from England being in advance of Scotland in valuation legislation? I take it I would not have received a negative answer from the hon. Member had I asked him if he did not sincerely approve of the Valuation Acts which have been passed by the Legislature for Scotland, as following a much more simple and comprehensive plan than the statutory rules of England on the subject. I think the logical conclusion, according to his own views of valuation legislation, would be that England is in the wake, and ought to follow rapidly the legislation which has already passed for Scotland. I think that the hon. Member's observations, when carefully examined, really tend to illustrate and establish this fact—that although certain grievances in the conduct of Scotch Bills may have been justly complained of—and I trust my experience in this House, after the assurances which hon. Members have received from the Home Secretary, will not make me acquainted with those grievances—the result has not been to impede the passing by the Legislature of useful measures for Scotland—and that England has not, apart from Imperial measures, succeeded in obtaining an undue share of the legislative attention of the House. It may be exceedingly unpatriotic of me to

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  refer to these things; but when it is broadly stated that we are so much behind, I feel as a Scotchman bound to rise and state, according to my own knowledge as far as it goes, that that statement in its broad terms can scarcely be accepted.
  MR. ANDERSONsaid he regretted exceedingly the speech he had just heard from the Lord Advocate. He should have had more hope for Scotch Business in the future if he bad not made it. The speech of the Secretary for the Home Department was very encouraging, for he admitted a neglect of Scotch Business in the past, and promised to do his best in the future; on the contrary that of the Lord Advocate, rather justified the past and said they had nothing to complain of. To prove that these complaints were well-founded, they had only to look at the amount of time given to Irish measures and Bills in the last few Sessions, and compare it with the time given to Scotch questions, and the way in which they were systematically shelved. He had great doubts whether the Lord Advocate really had time to give the necessary attention to Scotch Business—whether, in fact, he or any Lord Advocate could do it. Ireland had two Law Officers as the Scotch had; but over and above that, Ireland had a Secretary of State, who was a Cabinet Minister, and who attended to the business in a way in which it could not be done if it had to depend only on its Law Officers. As had been admirably pointed out by his hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren), it was not only the neglect of legislative Business that they complained of, but that it was partly fiscal differences between Scotland and England which required to be redressed, and would have to be sooner or later. The Home Secretary had spoken of three Scotch measures, two of which he said were included in the Queen's Speech, and would therefore certainly pass. The other was one which was mutilated last year, and partially passed. Now, the right hon. Gentleman and the Government were under no special pledge to the House or the country with regard to the two Bills which had been put into the Queen's Speech; but the right hon. Gentleman was under the most specific pledge with regard to the Sheriffs Courts Bill. That Bill was not put into the Queen's
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  Speech, they had not yet heard a word about it as to its being brought in this year. [Mr. ASSHETON CROSS: It has been already stated in the House that it would be brought in this Session.] He was very glad to hear that statement and hoped it meant that the right hon. Gentleman really intended to fulfil his pledge to the House and to the country, not only to bring in the Bill, but to pass it.
  MR. J. W. BARCLAYsaid, he had no desire to prolong this debate, but he hoped the House would not begrudge Scotch Members a few hours to allow the question to be fully discussed. He thought that the right hon. Gentleman and the Lord Advocate, instead of attempting to bring the debate to an abrupt conclusion, would have done better had they listened to all that the Scotch Members desired to say. He thought that the statement the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had made in regard to Scotch Bills was in every respect satisfactory, and he had not the slightest doubt that the right hon. Gentleman intended to carry out the promises he had made; but he thought they had heard something of this kind before, and, notwithstanding, Session after Session had passed over with the same complaints and the same results in regard to Scotch Bills. They were put on the Paper of the House without the slightest chance of their coming on for discussion; and the Scotch Members had to remain here to look after these Bills, or be driven to the extreme course initiated by the Members from Ireland to prevent the measures from coming on after half-past 12 o'clock; other Scotch Bills were left over, and hon. Members were told that they must accept them as they are or forfeit them altogether. He thought that a very fair cause of grievance on the part of Scotch Members. There was beyond doubt a very strong feeling in Scotland on the subject. He had no sympathy with any of the suggestions which the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) had made as to Home Rule—he had no desire whatever to see a home Parliament sitting in Edinburgh, instead of the Public Business of Scotland being attended to by the Imperial Government. So far as centralization was concerned, various Boards had been established in Edinburgh which were in no way respon-

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  sible to that House, but had far more autocratic and despotic powers than the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary himself. As regarded the expense of passing private legislation, he had had some experience in passing private legislation in this House for a Scotch municipality, and he could therefore say that the expense was very serious indeed, but he had been unable to discover how the business could be conducted more cheaply in Scotland than in London. He thought the system of Provisional Orders might be extended very largely, to the great advantage of the public, both as conducing to efficiency and economy. But besides the matter of the conduct of Scotch Bills in that House, there were other questions in regard to the general conduct of Scotch Business as to which he very much sympathized with the views stated by the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy. He like him, had no very great confidence in lawyers' legislation for the general affairs of the country. It was admitted that not legal matters only, but general social questions with regard to Scotland, were entrusted to the Lord Advocate. He was unable from his experience to say who else they had to look to but the Lord Advocate with reference to all affairs affecting Scotland. [Mr. ASSHETON CROSS: I have charge of those matters.] He understood, then, that it was to the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary they had to apply on questions relating to Scotch Business. They had advanced a stage in this matter then, and they now knew that they had not to trouble the Lord Advocate in regard to Scotch affairs, but had to apply to the Home Secretary. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman that if he had known this before it would have saved him a great deal of trouble. During the last Session of Parliament, and also during previous Sessions, he always understood that it was the Lord Advocate in Scotland who looked after Scotch affairs in the first instance. He (Mr. Barclay) now understood that the Lord Advocate was not in charge of Scotch Business except so far as being the Legal Adviser of the Crown on Scotch affairs. He could understand his occupying the same position in regard to Scotland that the Attorney General did to England. But he would point out in how unfair a position Scotland was in regard to Ministers to look after her
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  interest. England had her Home Secretary, her Under Secretary of State, her Attorney General, and her Solicitor General. Ireland, in the same way, had three representatives—her Chief Secretary, her Attorney General, and the Solicitor General. But Scotland had no representatives whatever exclusively for herself; for the Home Secretary said he was going to take Scotch affairs
  MR. ASSHETON CROSS: I beg your pardon; I never said so. I said I was responsible Minister for Scotland.
  MR. J. W. BARCLAYsaid, he quite understood the right hon. Gentleman to be responsible for the general business of the country, but he understood, from what had previously fallen from the right hon. Gentleman, Scotch Members, in their intercourse with the Government on Scotch affairs, were to apply to him and not to the Lord Advocate as heretofore. He did hope the Government would consider the propriety of appointing a special Scotch official. He had no desire to ask for a Cabinet Minister, although Ireland had one; but he should like to have an Under Secretary for the Home Department especially charged with the care of Scotch Business.
  MR. W. HOLMSsaid, that the best justification of the course taken by his hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy was to be found in the speech of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire. The complaint of the neglect of Scotch Business was not only a very ancient grievance, but it was one about which Scotch Members on both sides of the House were nearly unanimous. The only Scotch Member who apparently did not agree in the justice of this complaint was the Lord Advocate, and he deeply regretted that he should have made such a speech as he had made that night. The learned Lord had challenged Scotch Members to find a single instance in which Scotland was not in as good a position as England. He (Mr. Holms) would venture to quote several. First of all, until last year they could not borrow money in Scotland for sanitary purposes under 5 per cent; whereas in England it could be borrowed at 3½. Again, as to medical officers in connection with the sanitary beards, last year while England had £160,000 for that purpose, the Scotch had to put up with a beggarly £10,000.

  957
  Again, there was a complaint as to the income tax assessors, who were paid less than in England. Those were some of the evils of which they complained, arising he believed from the want of adequate representation of Scotch interests on the front Bench in that House. He ventured to say that under the present system it was impossible that Scotch Business could be efficiently attended to. On the one hand, there was the Home Secretary overburdened with work; on the other, the Lord Advocate with a threefold duty to perform. First, he was Law Adviser of the Crown; secondly, he had to bring in and take charge of all measures affecting Scotland; and, lastly, to look after his own private practice, which was generally a very large one. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told them in a good-humoured way—he believed it was at Edinburgh—that the Scotch were too modest in pushing their claims. He did not think the Government were wise to encourage the idea that they would get more by grumbling. Scotch-men did not forget that their interests were the interests of the Empire, and though in some respects they asked for special legislation, they wished to have no more than their fair share. It appeared to him that what was wanted was to have, as suggested by his hon. Friend the Member for Forfar (Mr. Barclay), an Under Secretary for Scotland, who would have, and be responsible for, the general management of the affairs of Scotland.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, in explanation, it must be borne in mind that the Secretary of State for the Home Department was Secretary of State not for England alone, but for the United Kingdom. Therefore he desired it to be understood that he was the Minister answerable for Scotch Business. Unfortunately, hitherto the office of the Lord Advocate had been in a different building from the Home Office; and the result had been that many applications in respect of Scotch Business had been made to the Lord Advocate which ought to have been made to the Home Office, and had not been brought to his (Mr. Cross's) cognizance. He could assure hon. Members that any application relative to Scotch Business made to him at the Home Office would receive his prompt attention.

THE WAR DEPARTMENT—PLUMSTEAD COMMON.—OBSERVATIONS.
MR. BOORDsaid, if the Forms of the House had admitted of it, he would have moved an Amendment to the effect—
"That the action of the War Department in taking a lease of Plumstead Common from the Lords of the Manor has hindered its preservation by means of a scheme under 'The Metropolitan Commons Act, 1866,' as a much needed place of recreation for the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, and that therefore the proposed renewal or continuation of such lease is undesirable and inexpedient;"
but, being unable to do so, he must content himself with calling attention to the subject. The War Department had the option of determining the lease of which he complained on the 25th of March next, hence it was necessary to take the earliest opportunity of bringing the subject under the notice of the House, in order to prevent, if possible, its continuation. Plumstead Common was part of the waste of the manor of Plumstead, which had been in the possession of Queen's College, Oxford, since the year 1685. There bad always been a considerable number of freehold tenants of the manor exercising common rights of the usual description, as was shown by the Court rolls and by the list of commoners which had been made out from time to time since 1691. The last of these lists bore date so recently as December, 1847. No dispute had occurred between the commoners and the lords of the manor until 1859, when the latter engaged the services of a new steward—a Mr. White—who set about improving the property of his employers without reference to the rights of the commoners or the interests of the inhabitants. His object seemed to have been to dispossess the commoners of their rights by any and every means, and so to acquire for the lords the unencumbered freehold of the land. To prevent those and other encroachments, a suit was instituted in 1866 by four commoners, on behalf of themselves and all other freehold tenants of the manor, against the lords. This was heard by the Master of the Rolls in 1870, and decided against the College; and that decision was confirmed, on appeal, by Lord Chancellor Hatherley in 1871. The Metropolitan Commons Act was passed five years previously, in 1866, but nothing could be done in the in-

959
terval between that date and the appeal, owing to the litigation which was pending. After the appeal was decided, however, the Metropolitan Board of Works made three attempts to procure the preservation of the Common by means of a scheme under the Metropolitan Commons Act, but these attempts were frustrated by the claims set up by the War Office and the lords of the manor. On the last occasion this lease was discovered to have been taken by the then Secretary of State for War, Lord Cardwell; and on that discovery being made, all hope of success had been given up, in consequence of the antagonistic attitude of the Government. The lease conveyed manorial rights over 77 acres for 99 years, at an annual rent of £315, with the option of purchase for £10,000; and the objection to it was that it placed an entirely fictitious value on the rights of the lords of the manor—a value calculated to frustrate any scheme for the preservation of the Common. Besides that, it involved an extravagant expenditure of public money, as he would presently show. Questions had been put to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War in previous Sessions, as to the nature of the right by which he claimed to exercise troops on the Common, in reply to which he had declined to disclose his title, leaving it to be implied that he relied on the lease, but he (Mr. Boord) understood that that claim, if it had been made, was now given up, and a prescriptive right asserted in its place. If, then, the Secretary of State had such a prescriptive right, what, he would ask, was the value of the lease? It was a demise subject to all existing rights, including those of the commoners. His right hon. Friend might tell him that there were no commoners, but there was at least one in that House the hon. Member for Rochester (Mr. Goldsmid) and, for the purpose of asserting their rights, it had been decided that one was as good as a hundred. He presumed he should be told that the object of this lease was to enable the War Office, by acquiring the rights of the lords to the minerals, to maintain the surface of the ground unbroken; but the commoners had a right to take gravel, and if they desired to do so—though he would be sorry to recommend such a course—they could dig it in places most inconvenient to his right hon.
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Friend. He would no doubt also say that it was his duty to provide for the military requirements of the country; that he (Mr. Boord) readily admitted, but it was quite possible to do so without injuriously affecting the interests of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood—a crowded locality, occupied chiefly by the workers in the Royal Arsenal, who greatly needed recreation after their hours of toil. Of the 77 acres in question, not more than 50 could be used with any advantage by the troops, on account of the irregular shape of the Common, the roads, and other obstructions; but there was plenty of land close by, of the same quality of soil as the Common, and of no great value either for building or agricultural purposes, which he believed might be purchased for something like £200 per acre. If the right hon. Gentleman were to lay out £10,000 in that way, he would be able to acquire an unencumbered freehold for something like the price he was now paying for mere manorial rights which were practically valueless. He understood that negotiations were proceeding, and that an arrangement was likely to be made between the War Office and the Metropolitan Board of Works. It was high time that something was done, and he would be very glad to hear that a basis for agreement had been found. In the meantime he would ask his right hon. Friend to explain of what value this lease really was, and what were his expectations of a speedy settlement of the difficulty.
MR. GATHORNE HARDYsaid, it was very natural that the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Boord) should wish Plumstead Common to be a place of recreation for his constituents, and he might tell the hon. Member that he (Mr. G. Hardy) had no personal interest in the question. He must decline to enter into the details with the hon. Member; he was only a trustee for the public, but he had the greatest possible interest as such trustee in providing that the Artillery at Woolwich should have a proper place of exercise, and on the ground in question they had exercised for a century or nearly so. Therefore it was not likely he should disclose his title in that House while all sorts of litigation were going on and when attempts were made to deprive the Government of the use of the ground. The hon. Member had

961
asked why was the lease taken? Anyone acquainted with the circumstances belonging to Commons would not be surprised that his (Mr. G. Hardy's) Predecessor, Lord Cardwell, finding that litigation was threatened, leased the rights of the lords of the manor so that he should not have them against him. Whatever those rights might confer the War Office now possessed. Those rights had been valued by competent valuers, and he thought that the sum paid for them—£315 per annum for the use of 77 acres—was not excessive, especially when it was remembered that it was in the immediate neighbourhood of large places like Woolwich and Greenwich. His hon. Friend was so obliging as to say that the Government might purchase all the land in the neighbourhood they wanted at £200 an acre. He had had a good deal of experience under the Loan Act of Lord Cardwell, which authorized an expenditure of £3,500,000 for brigade depôts in various parts of the country. He wished his hon. Friend were the valuer on whom they had to rely in such cases. But when his hon. Friend said that land in such a neighbourhood could be bought by the Government at such a price, he offered a most delusive bait, at which he (Mr. G. Hardy) was not likely to rise. If his hon. Friend thought that the outlay of £315 a-year was extravagant, he could raise the question on the Estimates. He was not prepared to dispute—and that was not the place for disputing—whether there were commoners or not, neither would he admit there were any; but as far as the proceedings had gone, it was notorious that only a few days ago an attempt was made in the Court of the Master of the Rolls to obtain an injunction against the Secretary of State for War for using the Common for the exercise of the Artillery. The Master of the Rolls would not hear of it. He was clearly of opinion that no title had been set up, and even if there had been, he said he would not grant an injunction against the Crown for using the Common for that purpose upon an interlocutory motion. Then what was the position of things? Last year he (Mr. G. Hardy) said, he was as anxious as anyone else that the privileges which the people enjoyed—although they had no right—should not be taken away from them, and that as far as possible the War Department
962
would not interfere with them. With regard to Wormholt Scrubs, he took the same position there when litigation was carried on, and he made concessions to the Metropolitan Board of Works as the representatives of the public, which had been declared to be satisfactory. With regard to Woolwich Common, it was a fair place for exercising artillery at certain times of the year; but, owing to its being swampy in winter, it would be ruinous to use it. Plumstead Common, however, was practically hard gravel, where Artillery could be exercised without anything like the damage that would occur at Woolwich. Only the other day he received a deputation from the Metropolitan Board of Works to see if any arrangement could be come to with regard to Plumstead Common. He did not think it advisable on the present occasion to go into the nature of that proposal or the conditions offered by him, and ho would only say that the rights of the lords of the manor did not affect the question. They only made it easier for the War Office to negotiate with the Metropolitan Board of Works than if the lords of the manor stood separate from the War Office. The fact was, as he had said, the War Office held those rights, and consequently were in a better position to negotiate with the Metropolitan Board of Works, and therefore he might say that he had authorized the legal secretary of the War Department to enter into a correspondence with the solicitor of the Board, which might lead to the War Department giving the public a right over part of the Common without interfering with the exercise of the Artillery, though he did not think that the public had any right to it. It was a great advantage to have this Common for the purposes of Artillery exercise, and it would be absurd to maintain a great Artillery depot at Woolwich without having due opportunities of exercising the men and horses. He declined to go into the question of title, which had been brought rather more frequently before the Courts than he liked. In the Courts, however, it might possibly be discussed before long. He would do all in his power to secure the privileges and enjoyment of the people without giving up the rights he held both for the War Department and the country. As long as attempts were made by litigation to deprive the State of the use of the Common for

963
Artillery purposes he would resist them, but in his negotiations with the Metropolitan Board of Works he would do all that was consistent with his duty to secure the Common for the recreation of the public.
MR. GOLDSMIDunderstood that the right hon. Gentleman opposite had disputed the fact whether there were any commoners of Plumstead Common.
MR. GATHORNE HARDY: No. I declined to enter into the question whether there are any or not.
MR. GOLDSMIDsaid, that he stood there as a Commoner of Plumstead Common, not by his own assertion, but by the decision of the late Master of the Rolls, and he would explain the position. In 1867 the suit now celebrated as the case of Warrick against Queen's College, Oxford (who were lords of the manor), was begun in reference to inclosures made by some persons of portions of the Common, under licence given by the steward of the College. Being a commoner, and feeling it his duty to support those who opposed the improper action of the steward, he (Mr. Goldsmid) had joined the other plaintiffs, and undertaken considerable responsibility in the matter. The case was fought before the late Master of the Rolls, and a decree was obtained against the College preventing any further inclosures, and enabling himself and his fellow-commoners to exercise the rights of Common which had been proved to exist. The College appealed to the Lords Justices, but the appeal was dismissed, it being decreed that the commoners had made out their rights. It was under those circumstances that the lords — they having no particular rights in the Common—granted a lease to the War Department and received £315 a-year. It was all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to say it was a cheap arrangement. It appeared to him to involve this—that the lords, finding they could do nothing with the Common, transferred their useless rights to the War Department by this lease. There was not only Plumstead Common but also Bostall Heath; and though the Metropolitan Board of Works had taken steps in regard to the Heath under the Commons Act to place Conservators over it, they had done nothing for Plumstead Common, which was exactly in the same position, except that as the Government forsooth had stepped in in the way de-
964
scribed. A scheme for the preservation of the Common might involve action against the Government. It might be an expensive litigation; but he could not help thinking that the Board had acted in a pusillanimous manner in not looking after this property for the public, especially as the Master of the Rolls had so clearly laid down the respective rights of the parties to the suit. As to the allegation that the Common was only a bed of gravel, he would say that it was anything but that, until the Government cut up and destroyed the turf with their heavy artillery. Mr. De Morgan had interfered; but though a spirited, he was a misguided individual, and the persons who had acted with him were not commoners at all, and had no legal right in the matter. The Chairman of the Commons Preservation Society said the difficulty had been created by the action of the Government; and if they wished to retreat in a proper manner, the best thing to do would be to follow the course suggested by the hon. Member for Greenwich. He would like to ask the Attorney General whether, under the decree affirmed by the Lords Justices, the Crown had any power to interfere with the rights of the commoners?—and, if the Crown had not, it was not fair to say that the matter was in litigation, as it only remained for the Government to show their obedience to the law, and not to invade the rights of the commoners. Certainly, a more satisfactory statement ought to be made on the part of the Government than had been made by the Secretary of State for War.

THE JUDICATURE ACTS — INCREASE OF THE JUDICIAL STAFF.

  ORSERVATIONS.
  MR. OSBORNE MORGAN, on rising to call attention to the great and increasing delays which have arisen in the administration of justice under the recent Judicature Acts; and to move
  "That, in the opinion of this House, the evil can only be adequately remedied by an increase in the strength and of the judicial and administrative departments of the High Court of Justice proportioned to the increase in the work imposed upon them,"
  said, that whatever differences might exist as to the Resolution which he had placed upon the Paper, no one could doubt that the time had arrived when

  965
  we might fairly and usefully review the operation of the Judicature Acts. These Acts had been in operation nearly a year and a-half, as legal years went, and it was not therefore too soon to take stock of their operation, and see how far the predictions which had been indulged in when they were under discussion had or had not been realized. Now he was bound to say that in one respect the working of the Acts had very agreeably disappointed public expectation. It was said that the Judges could not safely be trusted to administer the new system until they had been educated up to its level. As far as his experience went no prediction could have been more unfounded. The Judges had set to work honestly and loyally to carry out the new Acts, both in the letter and in the spirit—both in the rules which they had framed, and in the mode in which they construed the rules and the Acts themselves; and the consequence was that the new system had worked far better and more smoothly than anyone could have anticipated. How then, it might be asked, was it that everyone was complaining already of "the breakdown of the Judicature Acts?" That was a question which he would endeavour to answer before he sat down. Now, some of his hon. Friends might remember that, when the Acts were under discussion, he had pointed out that the result of improving their judicial system in the way they proposed to do, would be to attract to the Courts business which had never found its way there before; and, in that event, was it not to be expected that our existing machinery, which had been found barely sufficient for our existing wants, would break down under the additional strain thus imposed upon it? That apprehension was founded upon an assumption no doubt paradoxical in itself, but which was abundantly justified by experience—namely, that, up to a certain point, the result of every improvement in the administration of justice was not to diminish but increase litigation. The fact was—humiliating as it was to admit it—that there were until very lately in England thousands of persons who deliberately consented to have their pockets picked, simply because they were more afraid of the law than of the law breaker. And, really, when he looked back at the reports of cases decided some 20 or 30 years ago, and saw how the ingenuity
  966
  of Judges and counsel was strained to muddle away the merits of a case—how every importance was attributed to technicalities of pleading and practice, and none whatever to the right and justice of the case, he could scarcely wonder that a man having to choose between injustice and that sort of justice, should deliberately come to the conclusion that upon the whole injustice was the lesser evil of the two. Well, but they had changed all that. It was scarcely too much to say that recent reforms had made our judicial system, once the most technical and artificial in the world, one of the most simple and certain. For the first time in its history a suitor might feel confident that ho would not be turned out of the Temple of Justice, because he had got in by the wrong door; and that, if his case had any "merits," those merits would not be overlooked, and the result might be seen in the increase of business to which he had called attention. Now he was far from thinking that such an increase was matter for unmixed regret. On the contrary, he thought that, so far as it showed that the public were beginning to put more confidence in the administration of justice, it was matter for congratulation. But before coming to figures, he wished to advert to another circumstance which had helped to aggravate the existing block of business in one important branch of the High Court. Before the passing of the Judicature Acts, cases in the Court of Chancery were usually decided on affidavit evidence. Now he knew of no more ingenious process for not getting at the truth of a case than this system of affidavit evidence. But it had one great advantage. It materially shortened the hearing of a case. For a practised eye could easily separate the relevant from the irrelevant parts of an affidavit, whereas such a process of elimination became much more difficult when the truth had to be extracted, bit by bit, from a stupid, or unwilling, or dishonest witness. Now the Judicature Acts had provided that the evidence should be taken, as a rule, vivâ voce in all the Courts. But this change, which in the interests of truth was much to be commended, had been purchased at a considerable sacrifice of time, and the result had been that in the Chancery Division they had not only more cases to try, but they occupied a

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  longer time in trying them. Now, he and other hon. Members had pointed out this at the time the Acts were debated, and had also called attention to the fact that the number of the Judges of the Chancery Division had been fixed in the year 1841, at a time when railway companies and joint-stock enterprizes generally were in their infancy, and when the wealth of the country and the materials for litigation were not a third as great as they were now. But they were arguing against the master of many legions, and if they had not the worst of the argument they were sure to have the worst of the division. The fiat had gone forth that they might build their house as they pleased, but they must build it out of the old materials, and the result was to be seen in the figures to which he would now call attention. He wished to premise, however, that in his observations he would confine himself to the Division in which he himself practised — the Chancery Division of the High Court; not but that delays equally scandalous would be found to exist in Westminster Hall; and he hoped that before he sat down some hon. Friend of his would be found to throw light upon that part of the question. But he desired to dwell upon the state of things in the Chancery Division for two reasons—first, because he knew much more about it; and, secondly, because it was sometimes suggested that by some re-adjustment or re-distribution of Business they might get more work out of a Common Law Judge. He believed that these suggestions were for the most part illusory. It was the old story of two persons trying to cover themselves with a blanket only large enough for one. If the one pulled it on to himself, the other was necessarily left out in the cold. But, be that as it might, no such suggestion could be made as to the Chancery Judges. They worked as hard as men could work; they tried every question, whether of fact or law, as it came before them; their Courts were open practically all the year, and Parliament had lately shown its appreciation of their mode of conducting business by requiring the other Judges to adopt it. Now, what was the state of things in the Chancery Division? Before the Judicature Act came into operation the average number of cases waiting for hearing in the four Courts of the
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  Master of the Rolls and the three Vice-Chancellors at the beginning of each term was 300. At the beginning of the year 1875 it was 301; at the beginning of this year, when the Acts had been in operation a year and a-quarter, the number had risen to 566, and the day before yesterday it was 698. But what was most significant was the gradual and progressive increase in these numbers. At the beginning of last year it was only 332, at Easter it had risen to 457, in June to 502, at Christmas to 566, and now it was 698! Well, but were these cases lighter? On the contrary, from a cause to which he had already referred, they were much heavier. And the strength of the Judges, instead of being increased, was actually lessened, for under the old system the Lord Chancellor and Lords Justices were members of the Court of Chancery, and one of those learned Judges could, and very often did, sit with great effect to hear cases set down before Judges of the First Instance. But this was no longer possible, for now the Appeal Court formed a distinct tribunal. Indeed, the case was reversed, for one of the four Chancery Judges, the Master of the Rolls, was now a Member of the Appeal Court, and was actually sitting in that Court at this moment, his own Court being of course shut up. So that, instead of as before borrowing a Judge from the Appeal Court, the Chancery Division might be required to lend a Judge to that Court. Now let him ask this question—For 10 years before the Judicature Acts the average number of causes and matters yearly originating in the Court of Chancery had been 2,500; last year it was 5,111. Now, if four Judges and their Staffs were barely equal to dispose of 2,500 cases, how could less than four Judges and their Staffs be expected satisfactorily to dispose of 5,111? So that what they were attempting to do, in fact, was to put a quart of water into a pint pot, and that was a process which could not be satisfactorily accomplished even by Act of Parliament. They had all heard of the unfortunate damsels who, for sins done in the flesh, were condemned in another world to fill a tub which leaked as fast as it was filled; but he thought the task imposed upon their judicial Danaidæ was at least as cruel, for they were required to empty a tub which

  969
  filled twice as quickly as they could empty it. But how did all this work in practice? for that was what the House would wish to hear. Why, simply thus—the Vice Chancellors were at that moment hearing cases which were set down for hearing 8, 10, and 12 months ago. Here was a letter written to him by a friend, in whose testimony he could confide, which gave a picture by no means exaggerated of a state of things which must be seen to be believed—
  "I have a case in your own Court which has been waiting for hearing ever since March or April last, and it is still quite impossible to say when it will be reached. It only involves a short point of construction, and will not take half-an-hour when it comes on; but the parties will have had to wait almost or quite a year for this half hour of judicial time. In the meantime, it is impossible to administer real and personal property of considerable amount, to the very great inconvenience of all concerned. Law taxes may be as bad in principle as Bentham contended; but most suitors would find them a lesser evil than the present delay."
  Well, but suppose this "half-hour of judicial time" secured at last, and a decision pronounced, there was still the Registrar's office to be passed, where a further delay of a month or six weeks took place, and then, if accounts had to be taken, came the most trying delay of all, that in the Judges' Chambers. He was told that it took at least a fortnight to get an appointment before the chief clerk, even for the most ordinary purpose. Let him read a letter received by an eminent firm of solicitors practising in the county represented by his hon. Friend opposite, the Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory), from their London agents, respecting a case in their office. It was dated the 14th January, 1877—
  "The order on further consideration made in May last has only within the last three weeks been obtained from the registrar. The share in which Mrs. S. is interested is directed to be carried over to a separate account, with liberty to any party interested to apply. But before this can be done the costs must be taxed, the whole fund arranged, and the inquiry No. 2 answered. The contest with Mr. S.'s assignee will then have to be gone through. At the present time it certainly appears to us that at least a year must elapse before Mrs. S. can touch a single penny of the fund."
  And this in a country in which time was supposed to be money. Why, half the rascals in England would soon be presuming on this state of things to resist any just claim that might be made against them. Only that morning a
  970
  man had told him that he had been compelled to abate £500 of a claim to which he was as justly entitled as he (Mr. Morgan) was to his seat in that House, simply because he would have had to have waited two or three years before he could have established it, and the delay would have been ruin to him and his family. Everyone admitted the scandal—Judges, counsel, solicitors, and suitors. He ought, perhaps, not to have said every one, for there was one most distinguished exception, the present Master of the Rolls. Sir George Jessel was, perhaps, the most rapid, acute, and clear-headed man who had ever sat upon the English Bench; but the value of his testimony in the present instance was a little impaired by one prominent trait in his character. He was a man who, as he himself had said, never entertained a doubt and never changed an opinion. Now those who remembered how strenuously Sir George Jessel, when Solicitor General, had opposed any increase in the judicial staff, would be prepared to hear that he had not altered his views on the subject. But even he could not deny that there was a block in the Chancery Division; in fact, if his information was correct, there were at this moment 134 causes standing for hearing at the Rolls. But what Sir George Jessel was reported to have said was, that if it had not been for the Common Law actions which were brought into the Chancery Division, and if suitors would only take those causes elsewhere there would be no block in the Chancery Division. That was to say, if the Judicature Acts had never been passed, if suitors had not acquired the invaluable privilege of taking their causes to any Court which they preferred, and if, too, the other Courts were not themselves so crowded as to repel rather than attract them, then there would be no block in the Chancery Division. Was riot that very much like saying, that if Napoleon Bonaparte's father had never happened to come across Napoleon Bonaparte's mother there would have been no battle of Waterloo. They must deal with things not as they might have been, but as they were, and as they themselves had made them. Well, then, the grievance being admitted, what was the remedy? Could they spare a couple of Judges from Westminster Hall? ["No, no!"] There were the suggestions

  971
  embodied in the Amendment of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Marten). But to say nothing of the fact that some of them would not hold water in practice, they seemed to him too elaborate and specific to be dealt with on such an occasion as the present. Then there was the suggestion of his hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle (Mr. Cowen), to increase the jurisdiction of the County Courts. His hon. Friend might be sure that when that proposal came before the House it would receive from it the consideration which every proposal emanating from him both merited and obtained. It would perhaps be said that as they had given unlimited jurisdiction to the County Courts in Bankruptcy, there was no reason why they should not give them unlimited jurisdiction in other matters. Having read, however, very carefully the reports of the numerous Bankruptcy cases decided by County Court Judges, and brought on appeal to London, he felt bound to say that he thought the less that argument was pressed the better. Besides, he would throw out a hint for the consideration of his hon. Friend. The County Court Judges were at present doing excellent work as juges de la paix; but if you once threw upon them the enormous work which such an extension of jurisdiction would imply, you would paralyze their action at once. In fact, if you gave unlimited jurisdiction to the County Courts, one of Two things must follow; either the business which at present overwhelmed the Superior Courts would, or it would not, gravitate to the County Courts. If it did not, the evils of which he complained would remain untouched. If it did, he would wager anything that in a year there would be twice as great a block of business in the County Courts as they now found in the Superior Courts, simply because those Courts, unless their whole character was altered, would be utterly unprepared to cope with the influx of business coming to them. Besides, was it quite fair, when they had just made an experiment on a vast scale in one direction, and had found that that experiment was only prevented from working admirably, because they had not given it fair play by increasing their judicial staff, suddenly to reverse their steps and start off in an entirely different direction. There remained, therefore,
  972
  only the very simple remedy which he had suggested. Now, what was that remedy? He was addressing several men, who were the proprietors or managers of large commercial undertakings. He would ask them this question—If any of them found that he was short of hands what would he do? Why, of course he would take steps to get more hands, and that was all he asked of the Government to do. Against such a proposal two arguments, and Two only, had been urged. It had been said, first, that, if they had more Judges, they would have to put up with inferior men on the Bench; and, secondly, that the country would not stand the expense. As to the first argument, he felt it very difficult to treat it seriously. He had hitherto understood that when a vacancy arose in the judicial Bench the difficulty in filling it up arose rather from the number, than from the paucity of the competitors for it, and he had even heard it whispered occasionally that there were times when the Bar was showing itself too strong for the Bench. As for the other argument it no doubt was entitled to some consideration, particularly from a Member of the Party which had made retrenchment one of its watchwords. The salary of a Judge was £5,000 a-year, and, looking to the value of the article, he could hardly say it was dear at the price. At any rate, he much questioned whether it would be politic to reduce it. Now it was said that each new Vice Chancellor, with his Staff of chief clerks and registrars, would involve the country in an outlay of twice or perhaps thrice that amount. Granting for a moment that the argument was a sound one in itself, he had an answer to it. It was founded on a mistake of fact. Astonishing as it might seem, it was the fact that the Judges in the Chancery Division were to a great extent, if not entirely, self-supporting. For, on adding up the fees taken in the offices of the Chancery Court for the year ending October 1875, he found that they came to the enormous sum of £119,639. Making a liberal deduction for the fees earned by the Appeal Court, which were not distinguished in the Estimates, he might safely assume that at least £90,000 was in 1875 earned by the four Judges of First Instance and their attendant Staffs. Now, the Estimates for 1876 had not yet been published, but, looking to the large

  973
  increase in the orders made (1,600 in one year) it was only fair to assume that these figures would now be raised to at least £100,000. Dividing this sum between the Master of the Rolls and the three Vice Chancellors, it would give £25,000 as the amount earned by each Judge and his Staff. But the most exaggerated estimate of the cost of a new Judge which he had yet seen put it at £20,000 only, so that, as it was only fair to assume—looking to the enormous amount of work waiting to be done—that a new Vice Chancellor would have at least as much to do as his Colleagues, an additional Chancery Judge would not only pay his way, but would be a source of revenue to the country. He really was ashamed to urge such an argument. He thoroughly agreed with old Jeremy Bentham, that the administration of justice, civil as well as criminal, was the business of the whole Commonwealth, and that they had no more right to make a suitor, except as a member of the community, pay for the Judge who was to hear his case than they had a right to put a special tax on a householder in order to pay for the policeman who guarded his street. And ho would not have urged such a consideration at all, if it had not been from a very remarkable, and as he thought a very unfortunate, speech made by no less a man than his right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone) Two years ago, in which he had charged the members of the Legal Profession, who were agitating for additional Judges, with making "an assault upon the public purse." It might be some consolation to the right hon. Gentleman to know that, so far from proposing to make an assault upon the public purse, he (Mr. Osborne Morgan) was actually trying to put money into the pockets of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Unfortunately the right hon. Gentleman had no practical experience of such matters. He had never been a suitor himself, and it was astonishing to see the equanimity with which we bore the misfortunes of others. "He jests at scars who never felt a wound." Sydney Smith once said that railways would never be made safe until they had killed a Bishop; and, on the same principle, it might be difficult to get the House to give to this question of the "law's delay," the attention it deserved until some prominent Member of the front
  974
  benches had learnt by practical experience what it meant. He knew that the subject was not altogether a popular one; indeed, the moment a lawyer got up to propose any addition to the Judicial Staff, he was always credited with having some personal end in view. He appealed, however, to his hon. and learned Friends around him riot to be deterred by the fear of any such imputations from speaking their minds. He appealed still more to the lay Members of the House, particularly to those who were engaged in trade or commerce, to make the subject their own. For it was not a lawyer's question; it was a suitor's question, a merchant's question, a banker's question; in fact, it was a national question. Let them look the evil in the face. To deny it was impossible. To remedy it was, in his opinion, both easy and simple. If they approved of the remedy which he suggested, let them second his efforts; if they disapproved of it, in Heaven's name let them at least propose something better.
  MR. MARTEN, who had given Notice of his intention to move an Amendment on the Resolution of the hon. and learned Member who had just sat down (Mr. Osborne Morgan), pointed out that in the course of the discussions on the different Judicature Bills the Government had at first consented to increase the number of the Judges, but that afterwards they yielded to the great pressure that had been brought to bear upon them, and had decided against any increase in their number being made. The number of Judges of First Instance in the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice was only four, whereas there was business enough for seven. The increase in the number of causes in that Division since the Judicature Act came into operation had amounted to about 75 per cent, there being now an average of about 140 causes before each of the four Judges, where as before that Act was passed the average number was only 84. He admitted that while under the new judicial system there had been a sudden and a necessary increase of business, yet it would likely happen that the congestion would be got rid of as soon as the Act settled down into proper operation. He thought, therefore, that existing institutions should not be dislocated to a great extent unless it could be shown that substantial improvement

  975
  could be effected. There was an indisposition on the part of Government to increase the number of Judges, and therefore the solution of the difficulty would be to separate the duties of Chief Judge in Bankruptcy from those of the third Vice Chancellor, leaving the latter free to attend to Chancery business only. A Chief Judge in Bankruptcy, assisted by a competent number of registrars, would be able to get through all the business there, even when, as he proposed it should be, the whole of the winding-up jurisdiction got transferred to that Court. The annual cost of a Vice Chancellor with a full staff of officers would not be less than £16,000 per annum; and, therefore, to avoid such expense, although ho would appoint an additional Chancery Judge, he would make him as assistant to the Master of the Rolls, which was the more necessary, as the Master of the Rolls, being a Judge of the Court of Appeal, was occasionally taken from his own Court to sit in the Court of Appeal. He also suggested that a moderate fee for hearing before the official referees should be substituted for the present high rate of fees, so as to allow of full advantage being obtained by the public on the institution, under recent legislation, of official referees; and that the jurisdiction of the County Courts should be extended, so that the limit of pecuniary amount might be the same in Common Law as in Equity. With regard to criminal business he would suggest that the principle of the constitution of the Central Criminal Court should be applied throughout England and Wales, and that criminal business requiring the presence of a Judge of the High Court of Justice should be taken in connection with the local quarter sessions, and that a revision should be made of the classes of cases proper to be tried before Judges of the High Court of Justice and before the court of quarter sessions respectively, so that only the gravest cases might be reserved for trial before the Judges of the High Court. Then, with respect to the civil business on circuit, he would suggest that there should be one list of cases for the circuit, each case entered being marked on the list for the place where the trial was desired, and the Judge of the High Court proceeding from place to place as the amount of the business at each place permitted, and
  976
  that commission days for civil business should be abolished. Such a system could be easily and conveniently worked out in these days of railway and telegraphic communication. Then his concluding suggestion was that, as far as practicable, and in order to obviate the objections raised by the hon. Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood) to the existing state of affairs, arrangements should be made for the holding of simultaneous sittings at Guildhall and at Westminster for the trial of civil cases—a course by which great advantage would be secured to the suitors and to the public.
  Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
  MR. COLEregretted that the question should have come on at such a time, when all the Common Law barristers were on circuit. He did not personally know much about Chamber business, but understood that it was sometimes impossible for counsel to be heard until two or three days after a cause was put down for hearing. And what was the reason? Why, the great tendency now to try causes in London. Under the Judicature Act all local venues had been abolished, and hence causes were removed to London which should properly be tried in the country. He was sorry at the course the Government had taken in reducing the number of Judges at a time that the number of cases set down for trial at Westminster Hall and at Guildhall had enormously increased. The consequences were most serious to suitors. Formerly there were three, and more commonly four, Judges sitting in Banco; but that was altered by the new Judicature Act; and now, while the sittings in Banco were reduced to two Judges, and even to one Judge, so great was the increase of the business of the Courts at Nisi Prius that the number of Judges was wholly insufficient, and the authority that had the arrangement of the circuits was obliged to take Judges from the Court of Appeal and send them on circuit, and so the Court of Appeal had to cease its sittings. What would be the consequence of such a state of things? Why, that in a short time they would have such a crop of appeals that the Court of Appeal would become overwhelmed with business from every Court in the country,

  977
  for it was now practically a Court in Banco for all cases tried. Among the various defects in the administration of the law was a very serious one affecting the interests of suitors in the City of London, where all the great mercantile causes were tried, where only two Judges were now sitting. The cause list had vastly increased, and suitors, wearied out by delay and uncertainty as to when their cases would come on for trial, made up their minds to withdraw from the prosecution of their suits and to submit to great loss. The real fact was that the Judicial Bench was short-handed. He might mention the case of the Lord Chief Justice of England who was so ill, while in the discharge of his judicial duty, as to be unable to join his circuit for several days; but seeing the great inconvenience that must ensue to suitors, juries, and witnesses, the learned Judge, though very ill, went down to Winchester and joined the circuit, although quite unfit to travel. Parties were put to the greatest inconvenience, expense, and loss of time, by the scarcity of Judges to deal with the vastly increased number of causes. The question was, how were they to get over the present state of things? The only way that he could possibly see to meet the difficulty was to increase the number of Judges. As to the expense, it seemed to him they would pay themselves. A distinguished Chancery Judge—Vice Chancellor Hall—had said to him—"Talk of the expense of Judges! Why, I am earning at the present moment double my salary by the fees that are paid to my Court." But even if it was otherwise, was the judicial business of the country to be stopped in order to save a few thousand pounds? With regard to the trial of prisoners on circuit, the winter arrangements had been exceedingly inconvenient, and on the Western Circuit prisoners had been brought from Bodmin, and had to remain at Exeter a week, being obliged to be there at the commencement of the assizes, in order that bills might be sent before the grand jury. He did not think the plan of the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge would work satisfactorily, and believed that the best plan would be to restore the number of Common Law Judges.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, while acknowledging that the discussion which had arisen was one of a very interesting
  978
  nature, was doubtful whether it would be useful to prolong it, for it was a subject on which it seemed to him there was likely to be a very general agreement. Beyond doubt there was a great block of business, and the question was how to deal with it. His hon. and learned Friend who had introduced the subject (Mr. Osborne Morgan) had spoken with much earnestness and ability, but probably without exaggeration, and his statement as to the block of business in the department of the High Court with which he had more particularly to do was entirely borne out by the testimony of a very temperate memorial which had been laid before the Lord Chancellor by the Incorporated Law Society. Taking the statements of that memorial there was certainly a much greater arrear of business in the Chancery Division than formerly, and the causes had risen from an average of 2,500 during the 10 years from 1864 to 1874, to 5,111 at the present time. Various causes had contributed to that increase of business. People having rights were more eager to embark in litigation than formerly. Since the Judicature Act suitors were aware that they could have their causes tried before a single Judge, with the great advantage of having the evidence taken vivâ voce. There appeared to be an opinion that a great many civil causes could be better tried by a single Judge, the evidence being taken vivâ voce than before a jury. A great many causes were now taken to the Chancery Division, where the evidence could be taken vivâ voce, as in the Common Law Division. The Master of the Rolls, in dealing with this matter, had called these Common Law cases and treated them somewhat as intruders. They might be Common Law cases, but they came to the Chancery Division, and those who brought them had the right to have them tried there, and it must be borne in mind that if the business of the Chancery Division had thereby increased, the business of the Common Law Division had proportionately decreased. They had to be dealt with by the Tribunal before which they were brought. He was sorry to confess that there was a very considerable block in the Chancery Division, and it was difficult to know how to deal with it. The block arose, in the first place, from the want of judicial strength; and, secondly, it arose

  979
  from the want of strength in the subordinate offices. He thought the suggestion made by the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge (Mr. Marten), to appoint an additional Vice Chancellor, was sensible and reasonable. That would give some increase of strength, and if an additional Judge were appointed, he might deal with those causes which had come to the Chancery Division, as assistant to the Judges of that Division. It was under the consideration of the Government to increase the judicial strength in the Chancery Division. They were also earnestly considering whether some measures could not be taken to relieve the pressure of business existing in the Judges' Chambers in that Division. It had been expected that a very considerable amount of relief would be afforded by the appointment of referees. Four gentlemen were appointed referees and cases might go to them. It had happened, however, that they had not had much work to do, and the reason might be that which was indicated by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Cambridge—namely, that they were authorized to charge a certain fee per hour before sitting, and that this had been distasteful, and perhaps unjust, to suitors. He had come to the conclusion that if the fees were diminished or abolished, recourse would be more frequently had to the referees, and if they were not otherwise fully engaged, they might be employed in getting rid of the surplus business at Judges' Chambers. In regard to the vacant Registrarship, no doubt it would be necessary for the Lord Chancellor to fill up the appointment. The Government desired to remove the block of legal business by an increase of judicial strength, if the object could not be attained otherwise; but it must be borne in mind that the system of trying cases by one Judge had hardly as yet had a fair trial. He was not sure, indeed, that that system would not ultimately result in a great saving of time and of official strength. The block chiefly arose from the large arrears of Nisi Prius business. The Court of Appeal had turned out remarkably satisfactory, the cases being dealt with speedily and without delay; but there were great arrears of Nisi Prius business, and that was a problem which no doubt it was very difficult to solve. Latterly there had been cases that had
  980
  occupied a very considerable time, such as the trial of the Franconia, in which 13 Judges were engaged, and a case before the Privy Council lately, in which 10 Judges had been employed. It was hoped that when the system came into full operation a sufficient number of Judges would be at liberty to deal with Nisi Prius business and then they might expect to see the arrears disappear. He threw it out as a suggestion that Judges would save a great deal of valuable time if they would trust more to the shorthand writers' notes, instead of writing out their own notes, in every case wherein they were required. He also thought it would cause a great improvement and additional saving of time to have shorthand writers employed in the Nisi Prius Courts throughout the country to the same extent as they were in Parliamentary Committees, and that opinion had been confirmed in a conversation he had had on the subject with an eminent Nisi Prius Judge. He did not say that the Government were considering the proposal to increase the number of the Judges in the Common Law Divisions, though, of course, if, after a fair trial, the arrears were found to be still increasing, there would be nothing for it but such an addition to the number of Judges. Referring to the further suggestions of the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge, he confessed he did not like these constant alterations. The system had been put upon a fresh basis by the Judicature Acts of 1873 and 1875, and it would be better to see the working of those Acts before making further changes. He did not approve of the proposal for a separate Judge in Bankruptcy, thinking it undesirable that a Judge should be kept to one class of business. The jurisdiction of the County Courts could not be extended without a great deal of trouble and many complications; and as to the suggestion in regard to the criminal business, he had a great dislike to making the criminal business subordinate to the civil. It was of immense importance that the criminal business of the country should be taken before the Superior Judges. As to the commission days, it was not a fact that they were wasted, and as to the last suggestion for continuous sittings at Guildhall and Westminster, he considered they would be of great inconvenience to the Bar, in making coun-

  981
  sel run backward and forward between the Courts. It might be possible to make some arrangements of that kind when all the Courts were brought under one roof, or even before, when they had ascertained fully the working of the new system. He trusted his explanation would be satisfactory. He acknowledged, on behalf of the Government, the existence of the evil, and promised that they would do all in their power to remedy it.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Sir George Bowyer.)
  The House proceeded to divide:—
  Mr. Parnellwas appointed one of the Tellers for the Ayes, but no Member appearing to be a second Teller for the Ayes, Mr. Speaker declared the Noes had it.
  Main Question again proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.Committee deferred till Monday next.

SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY (IRELAND) BILL.

  INCREASE OF COMMITTEE.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS - BEACHmoved that the Select Committee on the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors on Sunday (Ireland) Bill do consist of 17 Members, and that Mr. Ion Trant Hamilton and Mr. O'Shaughnessy be added to the Committee.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSONasked why the Committee was to be increased?
  CAPTAIN NOLANthought it desirable that the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) should be added, as he was the Representative of a large constituency. It was quite possible what might suit the city of Dublin might not suit the smaller towns of Limerick and Waterford, and therefore it was absolutely necessary that one of those two towns should be represented on the Committee.
  Motion agreed to.
  Select Committee on the Sale of Intoxicating Liquors on Sunday (Ireland) Bill to consist of Seventeen Members:—Mr. ION HAMILTON and Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY added to the Committee.
  House adjourned at a quarter before One o'clock till Monday next.

EMPLOYERS AND SERVANTS—"COMMON EMPLOYMENT."

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  EARL DE LA WARRsaid, he was about to ask the attention of their Lordships to the state of the law as existing between employers and servants in connection with the subject of what was termed "common employment;" and to move for a Select Committee to inquire into the present operation of the law, and whether any alteration or amendment of the same is desirable. He did so under a sense of the importance of the subject, which had been recently forced upon his notice as one of Her Majesty's Commissioners to inquire into the causes of Railway Accidents. It seemed to him to be one which required

  887
  immediate attention. He was aware it was a question which was not free from difficulties; and the law, as it now stood in relation to it, was uncertain both in its interpretation and its operation; and therefore, perhaps, he should best clear the way for any consideration which their Lordships might think fit to give the question if he first stated what appeared to be the law to which he was about to refer. The general law was that masters were liable to pay compensation for injuries done or caused by their servants in the ordinary course of their employment — of course, he confined his observations to civil liabilities only. Admitting, then, that there was a general liability of masters to pay compensation for injuries done or caused by their servants, he wished to point out some of the difficulties which arose, as it appeared to him, in a just and equal administration of the law. He believed it was the case that actions for compensation for injuries had become more frequent. That might partly be accounted for by the fact that there were now more companies who jointly carried on works in the place of individual masters—such as colliery companies, mining companies, railway companies, building companies, and other like companies. The company in those cases was the master, but they exercised little or no personal superintendence of the works which they carried on. The consequence was that these company employers bad become to a great degree not liable, in the eyes of the law, for the acts of their servants. Out of this had arisen the question of "common employment." There was no question of the liability of individual masters and companies to compensate strangers for injuries, but it had become a disputed question of law whether servants could obtain compensation for injuries caused by one to the other. There was introduced into the question the doctrine of what was termed "common employment," by which was understood that if two or more persons were engaged in the same occupation the master would not be liable for the injury caused by one servant to the other. And in that view of it, in the case of companies, it was still more against the interests of the servants than in the case of individual employers, inasmuch as the officers of the company—it might be the manager or foreman in mining
  888
  or colliery works, the superintendent or stationmaster of a railway, the engine-driver or other person in authority—were considered fellow - servants, and in common employment with those under them. Suppose, for instance, the foreman of mining works were to order a man to do some dangerous work. If the man disobeyed, he might be discharged; if he received an injury he could not recover compensation, because the foreman was in "common employment" with him; or again, if a railway servant was ordered by his superior officer to do some work, in doing which he was injured, he could not claim compensation for the same reason, because he was in "common employment" with the person who was over him. It appeared to him there was some hardship in that—he ventured to say some injustice. He did not think it was contemplated by the law. He knew it was said that when a man engaged himself in such or such work knowing the risks and dangers of it, he took the engagement with all the consequences; and perhaps that might be so. But that was a different matter from accepting risks that he could not know of when he made the engagement; because he did so supposing that all reasonable care and precaution would be taken to protect him against injury. But if he was injured through the negligence of the person in authority over him, or through defects of machinery or want of proper appliances which ought to have been provided by the master or company, it was surely a hard case that he should not be able to obtain compensation. If the accident arose from his own negligence it was, of course, another thing; but it could hardly be said of such a man that he had knowingly subjected himself to these unforeseen risks. Their Lordships must know how large a number of persons lost their lives by accidents in collieries, in mines, on railways, in building and in other ways. He was not able to give now any general statistics, but he could refer to the Returns of railway accidents, by which it appeared that in the year 1875 upwards of 4,000 railway servants were either killed or injured in connection with railways, and few, if any, of these could obtain compensation for themselves or their families. He did not propose to enter into a legal discussion; but it might be desirable to

  889
  remind their Lordships that a considerable difference of opinion did exist among legal authorities. He ventured to think their Lordships would agree that the interests—and they were very important interests — of a large number of the working classes in this respect should not be left under an uncertain state of law, resting as it did only upon the decisions of Courts, which were far from being unanimous. Judges, such as Baron Alderson, Chief Baron Pollock, Chief Justice Cockburn, and others had delivered judgments in cases of this kind; but they differed in important points; and Lord Justice Brett had recently declined to lay down any rule as to the principle on which the immunity of the masters rested, but that he was bound by the law and by the authority of decided eases to say that it did exist. Thus conflicting opinions of Courts of Law had in a great degree complicated the question; but, nevertheless, there was a simple and ancient maxim of the law—Qui facit per alium facit per se—which would seem to clear the way very much if it could be acted upon. If colliery or mining companies delegated their authority to a foreman or manager or any other person, it was surely only reasonable and fair that the company should be responsible and liable for the acts of those who were acting in their name and with their authority. It was clearly their duty to appoint competent and trustworthy persons over those whom they employed. In like manner, in the case of railways, superintendents, station masters, engine drivers, or any other officer, when acting with the authority of the company, should render the company liable in cases of accidents not only to the public, of which there was no question, but also to their own servants, unless negligence or want of due precaution could be proved on the part of those who were employed.
  Moved that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the present operation of the law existing between employers and servants in connection with the subject of "common employment," and whether any alteration or I amendment of the same is desirable.—(The Earl De La Warr.)
  LORD HOUGHTONobserved that questions of the individual cases were much mixed up with questions of law in this matter; and the real difficulty in dealing with the question was to place a
  890
  responsibility on the masters without affecting the sense of responsibility of the workman. Last Session a Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider this subject. He wished to ask whether it was the intention of the Government to propose the re-appointment of that Committee. If so, the adoption of the noble Earl's Motion for a Select Committee of their Lordships' House might lead to the waste of time of taking the same evidence a second time. The Committee had taken a great deal of evidence, and he thought it preferable that the inquiry should be continued by that Committee rather than that the subject should be taken up afresh by a Committee of their Lordships.
  EARL BEAUCHAMPsaid, the noble Baron who had just sat down had anticipated the answer he was about to give to the Question of the noble Earl. It was not his intention to follow the noble Earl through all the various legal questions on which he had touched, or to endeavour to persuade their Lordships that the law as it now stood was either wrong or right. Their Lordships ought to be reminded that last year a Bill was introduced into the House of Commons by Mr. Macdonald, the Member for Stafford, which dealt with this question. A short discussion took place upon the second reading of that Bill, during which his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department expressed an opinion that there were defects in the existing law, and the Bill was withdrawn on the understanding that the whole question should be referred to a Select Committee. That Select Committee was immediately appointed, and it contained representatives of the servants' as well as of the masters' interests; and was presided over by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of London (Mr. Lowe). A good deal of valuable evidence was taken; but the Committee did not arrive at any conclusions. In its Report at the close of the Session it recommended its own re-appointment; and it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to support that proposition. Therefore he thought, should that be the case, it would be inexpedient for their Lordships to embark on an inquiry which must either go over the same ground as that travelled over by the Committee of the

  891
  House of Commons or pursue a different line of inquiry. He need not point out that if their Lordships' Committee were to merely travel over the same ground as the House of Commons' Committee had been over, it would be a mere waste of time; and, on the other hand, suppose their Lordships diverged into "fresh fields and pastures new" there would be great inconvenience in the whole subject being divided between two Blue Books instead of being brought together in a Report of the House of Commons. He did not think it was alleged generally that the law was uncertain. He would not go into all the legal questions which had been raised by the noble Earl; but he believed he might say that by the law as it at present existed a master was bound to provide proper machinery and appliances, and that he was liable for injury done to his servants for the want of this proper machinery and appliances if it could be shown that he knew it was ineffective. Mr. Broadhurst, the secretary of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, stated before the Select Committee last year that the number of accidents annually occurring were very few when compared with the number of men employed. He thought that showed that the employers of labour had recognized the obligations placed upon them, and that they had endeavoured to supply proper machinery and appliances. As he understood it, it was not so much the uncertainty of the law which was complained of as its hardness on servants who carried out the orders of those placed over them. He hoped his noble Friend would not think it necessary to press his Motion.
  EARL COWPERregretted that the Committee had not been conceded by the Government. He thought that a Select Committee of their Lordships' House might be trusted not to ask over again questions which had been answered to the Committee of the House of Commons, and as many of their Lordships had not very much to do at this period of the year, he thought that the House might very well agree to the Motion of the noble Earl. He hoped that the question would not be shelved. Seeing that in four years 9,000 of the class known to the law as "servants" had been injured, and no fewer than 3,000 had lost their lives, it must be admitted that a very serious case had been made out. There
  892
  was a widespread feeling that the existing law was unfair in respect of that class. He admitted that much of the proposed legislation with regard to railway accidents would have the mischievous tendency of destroying responsibility in those in whom it ought to be vested; but legislation to amend the law referred to by the noble Earl who proposed the Committee would have exactly the contrary tendency. He was only sorry that legislation could not be undertaken without further inquiry.
  LORD DUNSANYsaid, that in some quarters there was an idea that masters should be made responsible for all accidents sustained by those in their employment, if those accidents occurred while the employed were at work. This would be manifestly unwise. He thought there was a tendency to shift responsibility to the wrong persons. The workmen should be restrained by a sense of responsibility from those acts of' carelessness which in nine cases out of ten were the cause of the most serious accidents—especially in collieries. No employer could prevent his men from pulling out a lucifer match in the gaseous portions of his mine. He hoped, therefore, that there would be no legislation in a one-sided direction.
  EARL DE LA WARRsaid, that after the statement made on the part of the Government, he was willing to withdraw his Motion.
  Motion (by leave of the House) withdrawn.
  House adjourned at Six o'clock, to Monday next, a quarter before Five o'clock.