Sitting of 17 May 1878

MINUTES.
PRIVATE BILL (by Order)—Waterford, Dungarvan, and Lismore Railway (Extension), 2°.
The House met at Two of the clock.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  WATERFORD, DUNGARVAN, AND LISMORE RAILWAY (EXTENSION) BILL. [lords.] (By Order.)

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    MR. DELAHUNTY,in rising to move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months, said, the Bill related to a railway in the county of Waterford—a county bounded on the south by the sea, and on the north by the Commeragh and Knockmealdown chain of mountains. Attempts had been made, over and over again, to get this railway constructed, but all of them had failed, for the traffic was not looked upon as sufficient to invite private speculators to invest their capital. After the abandonment, in 1871, of an Act which had previously been obtained by a private Company, the local solicitor and engineer of the line which was abandoned got up a subscription of a few hundred pounds from certain individuals in Waterford, and lodged a Bill for consideration in the Session of 1872, which asked, among other things, for a guarantee from four out of the eight baronies in the county of 5 per cent for 20 years on £280,000 required to construct the line. A meeting of the ratepayers of the baronies was called in 1872, and at that meeting a committee was appointed to draw up a resolution for the general meeting outside. He (Mr. Delahunty) happened to be a member of that committee, which also included Lord Waterford, Sir Robert Paul, Mr. Carew, the Hon. Mr. Stuart, Mr. Power, and Mr. Edward Roberts—making seven altogether. At the meeting, Lord Waterford and others said, at once, that they would give no guarantee; and in the discussion which took place, the opinion was adopted that it would be well if the ratepayers themselves would supply the whole of the capital for making the line by pledging the rates of the eight baronies, and also the rates of the city, for a certain period, and raising a sufficient sum to cover both interest and sinking fund, so as to give the county and city the sole property in the railway at the end of 35 years. At that meeting the solicitor of the promoters of the Bill was present, and he suggested that the Bill then before Parliament should be adopted in the same light as a Parliamentary dummy Bill, for the purpose of avoiding the expense that was always incurred in lodging plans for a new measure. The committee agreed with that suggestion, and that the Bill, although at that time considered as merely so much waste paper, should be adopted in that way,
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    as a step towards getting a new Bill in the subsequent Session, in which the wishes of the ratepayers might be inserted and carried out. He could, if necessary, refer to the speeches which were made on the occasion, and particularly his own, to show what the intention at that time was with regard to the Bill. Undoubtedly, there was no intention of giving a guarantee for 20 years. That was distinctly refused; but the conclusion arrived at was to provide 5 per cent on an estimated capital of £280,000 for a period of five years, during the construction of the line, and for 35 years after the opening of the railway for traffic by charging the rates with 3½ per cent upon the capital, which was expected to be got from the Board of Works, and 1½ per cent for a sinking fund. That being so, it was estimated that these two payments of 3½ per cent and 1½ per cent would enable the county and city to acquire the entire property of the railway at the end of 35 years. It was not necessary that he should state all that was said at the meeting. He had brought the newspaper reports with him, and he might read the views expressed as to the intentions of the meeting, if the House thought necessary. The dummy Bill was assented to, and in August, 1872, a meeting of the ratepayers was held, at which both the county and the city agreed in effect to ratify the proceedings of the former meeting. Resolutions were, therefore, passed, one of which he would read, authorizing the construction of the railway, and making provision for raising the necessary capital. Not only were the four baronies of the county included in the liability of the original Bill, but the other four baronies and the city of Waterford were combined with them in carrying into effect the same object. The resolution would show exactly what was understood to be the nature of the liability. It was as follows:—
    "That, inasmuch as the ratepayers of the county and city of Waterford are to guarantee the payment of interest on the whole capital required for the construction of the Waterford, Dungarvan, and Lismore Railway, whether advanced by the Public Works Loan Commissioners or otherwise, it should be enacted, that the directors thereof be appointed and elected by the Grand Juries of the county and city in the proportion of eight for the county and four for the city, and that such directors, as trustees

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    of the ratepayers, have and enjoy full powers to construct and manage such railway."
    Nothing could be more explicit than that resolution, and no contrary resolution of ratepayers ever passed in regard to this railway. But the professional gentlemen to whom he had already referred, who assisted in getting up the meeting, and had the confidence of the directors, in place of carrying out the wishes of the ratepayers for the construction of the railway as a county and city railway, omitted altogether in the Parliamentary Notice published in November, 1872, any provision to authorize the ratepayer ownership and control, but merely conferred a subsidy—if it might so be called—of £14,000 a-year for 40 years to the parties who were the original promoters of the line, and leaving the county out altogether. It was not until 1873 that the ratepayers found out how they were being treated, and that this fraud, if he might call it so, perpetrated upon them. They petitioned Parliament, but it happened that they were too late, the Bill having passed the Commons, and the time for petitioning in the Lords having expired. Even at the eleventh hour the justice of their case was so strong and so apparent, that they succeeded in getting inserted a Proviso in the 10th clause of the Bill, by which the Grand Juries of the county and city at the next ensuing Assizes were authorized to appoint directors in the manner proposed by the resolution previously passed by the ratepayers. When that power was conferred upon the Grand Juries the city Grand Jury acted upon it, and appointed their four directors. The county Grand Jury, influenced by the promoters, however, did not appoint their number, and the consequence was, that the intentions of Parliament were frustrated. He held in his hand a letter, written at the time by Messrs. Holmes and Co., Parliamentary agents, who acted for the Petitioners, and it showed exactly what occurred in regard to the Proviso inserted in the Bill. The letter was as follows:—
    "7th July, 1873.
    "DEAR SIR,—I have duly received from you The Waterford News of the 4th inst., containing a letter from Mr. Edmond Power, dated the 1st of July, 1873. [Mr. Edmond Power was solicitor to the Company.] As regards the paragraph in that letter referring to the presentation of the Petition, Mr. Power's statement is entirely erroneous. In the first place, you were
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    not present, although he has stated that you were. Secondly, the object of the meeting with Lord Redesdale, referred to, was for the purpose of asking his Lordship to suspend the Standing Orders, so as to enable the ratepayers to present a Petition against the Bill, and to appear by counsel before a Select Committee of the House. On his Lordship being informed that the Bill had passed through the Commons unopposed, and was to come before his Lordship in Committee in a day or so after, as an unopposed Bill, he very properly, without hearing any argument on the subject, declined to suspend the Standing Order, but informed the promoters, who were represented by their Parliamentary agent, that he would require strict proof of the Preamble. When the Committee met, his Lordship heard your statement, and supported the correctness of it by declining to pass the Bill as it stood. He required the promoters to alter the 10th clause, so as to deal with the Bill in conformity with the resolutions passed by the ratepayers, which was all that you required."
    The Bill was then amended by Lord Redesdale, although there was no Parliamentary Notice given of any such Amendment, and the Bill went down to the Grand Juries in that shape. The provision was that the Grand Juries at the coming Assizes should appoint all the directors—eight by the county Grand Jury, and four by the city Grand Jury. The city and Grand Jury, as he had already stated, appointed their four; but the county, influenced by the directors of the Company, of whom there were several on the Grand Jury, refused to carry out the law; and the consequence was that the ratepayers found themselves bound to pay the whole price of the railway—£14,000 a-year for 40 years—without having any ownership or control whatever over the concern. It was a scandal that such a thing should have occurred, or that the ratepayers should be mulcted to such an extent by persons acting without their consent and against their wishes. He thought that the ratepayers of the county and city of Waterford, having thus been robbed and plundered, had a right to be heard. It was a scandal and disgrace to find that such a thing could have occurred without a remedy. If a private individual paid the interest upon the purchase money of an estate and provided a sinking fund to pay off the capital, and then an attorney, who had acted for him, stepped in and made the property his own, surely a Court of Equity would make such person give up the property so acquired. The county of Waterford had paid for this railway, and yet they found them-

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    selves without ownership or control. The Bill now before the House was a new Bill brought forward to give further powers to the Company, so that they might dip their hands still further into the pockets of the ratepayers. The ratepayers were almost to a man against it, and thousands of signatures could be obtained to a Petition against the Bill. He would read two letters which he had received from two of the principal landowners of the county. One was from Mr. More Smyth, of Ballinatray, who was very well known all over Ireland. Mr. Smyth wrote—
    "SIR,—I have just seen and read your Circular about the Waterford, Dungarvan, and Lismore Railway, which I most heartily approve of.
    [That was a Circular which he (Mr. Delahunty) had sent to every elector of the county. A meeting was held in the county, at which the gentleman who wrote the next letter he intended to read acted as chairman, and the meeting was unanimous in passing votes of approval, support, and co-operation with him and those who desired to restrain this attempt at the perpetration of further wrong.]
    I was on the Grand Jury of the county when this Bill was first introduced. It is as different now as day is from night. I regret much that my time is limited, and that I cannot more fully enter into the matter; but, perhaps, I may have an opportunity of doing so some other time. In the meantime, I will set the wires going, and get as many signatures as possible from the ratepayers. Wishing you every success in your efforts to relieve the ratepayers from an act of injustice and from the burden of ruinous taxation which has been thrust upon them,—I have the honour to be, &c.
    (Signed)
    C. U. MORE SMYTH."
    The second letter was from a gentleman—well known as a large landed proprietor in the county—Mr. R. Maxwell Gumbleton. He wrote—
    "March 27th, 1878.
    "DEAR MR. DELAHUNTY,—Thanks for your letter just received. I beg to say that it is out of my power to leave home just now, or I would have much pleasure in assisting in letting the Parliament know the feeling of the Waterford ratepayers concerning the guaranteed railway. Any way, you have done your duty like a man, and you may he sure all the landholders, and many of the landowners, feel grateful to you for the trouble you have taken in trying to stop more taxation being put on the people, who can hardly hold their heads over water.—Yours sincerely, &c.
    R. M. GUMBLETON."
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    In 1873, the Press of Waterford all commented upon what occurred. He mentioned the fact, because it had been said that the ratepayers never wanted to have this railway. He would read one short paragraph from one of the papers of that day to show that such was not the case. It was as follows:—
    "Nothing could be more gratifying than the fact—novel in this country—that the new railway will be the property, not of speculators (which it was now), but of the people who will find the money for it—namely, the ratepayers both of the city and county—to be used for their own benefit. It will be made by a loan from Government, to be repaid, both principal and interest, in 35 years,"
    That showed what the general feeling was as to the real intention of the ratepayers. It was fully in accordance with the statements made in the speeches, and showed the construction placed upon such statements by the newspapers. He had read this extract, because he regarded it as short, conclusive, and entirely to the point. It showed at once what was intended. Matters, however, had been so manipulated since, that the people of Waterford now found themselves in the position of having to pay a subsidy, equal, according to population, to that of the French after the German War. Nevertheless, this Company comes before Parliament, asking for further powers to enable them to mulct the people. Parliament fully intended that the ratepayers should have the control of this railway. The Proviso inserted in the Bill, and which was inserted upon the Petition of the ratepayers, was to the effect that the Grand Juries at the Assizes of 1873 should appoint the directors. Unfortunately, it was left optional with them. It was said at the time that it ought to be compulsory; but, unfortunately, the ratepayers had confidence in the Grand Juries that they would do what was right. He saw now that they ought to have made the exercise of the power compulsory; but, unfortunately, they did not, and the result was that the county was sold. The present Bill proposed to raise additional capital, and it said that the new capital was not to be charged upon the ratepayers. Supposing this were really the fact, the Company took powers in the Bill for making working traffic and running arrangements with other Companies, which

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    they could exercise independent of all control by the ratepayers. They would virtually be allowed to do what they pleased, and they could enter into arrangements with other Railway Companies, particularly with a line belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, between Lismore and Fermoy, by which they would be able to sweep away any receipts that ought to go to the relief of the liabilities of the ratepayers, and give the benefit of them to the other lines. In effect, this Bill would hang an additional millstone round the neck of the ratepayers, and any railway man must know that a Railway Board could enter into arrangements with another Company, so that they could lose up to 75 per cent of the expenses incurred in the working of the line. He had himself been Chairman of a Company, which made an arrangement with another Company, by which that Company worked the line at a price which ensured a loss of near 75 per cent on the working. He was in a position to prove the truth of this statement, and in this particular case they were dealing with parties who had an interest in doing what was right. In the case he was acquainted with, the Company paid for their shares without a guarantee; but here was a Company whose dividends were paid by the ratepayers, and who had no interest in keeping down the working expenses. In fact, during the whole time of the construction of the line, the county had paid 5 per cent on all the money raised. They were paying £14,000 a-year now, although the line was not opened; and yet the Company, who had paid nothing towards their dividends, were coming to Parliament and seeking for further powers to enable them to enter into arrangements with some such line as the Fermoy and Lismore Railway, which, now paying nothing to its owners, would, under these arrangements, be sure to increase the working expenses of the guaranteed line, and prevent for ever any hope of lessening liabilities or repaying advances. All he would say, further, was that a contract had been deliberately entered into, which contract had not been fulfilled. Parliament had itself stepped in for the purpose of securing something like the performance of the contract; but from circumstances, over which the ratepayers had no control, unfortunately, the
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    intentions of Parliament had been frustrated and violated. He thought that, under these circumstances, the House of Commons ought not to allow any further powers to be granted to this Company until they had restored the ratepayers to a proper control over the line. That was one position that he took up. Another was, that the ratepayers had already been served with a notice by the Company that they had no locus standi to appear before a Parliamentary Committee against this Bill. If they had no such locus standi before a Select Committee, they would find themselves done. It was, therefore, imperative that they should oppose the second reading of the Bill, unless the promoters consented to restore to the ratepayers, by the insertion of clauses, the power they claimed of appointing the directors. The parties who contributed to the cost of the line were entitled, under the Act, to receive 5 per cent. The county and the city were the only parties who had paid anything, and they should be the only parties who ought to work the line. Unfortunately, the line was in the hands of parties who had no interest to work it cheaply. On the contrary, in the place of making the line for the estimates as they ought to have done, they added £200,000 to the cost. They had not only spent the £280,000, but £193,000 in addition, which had been raised by debenture bonds, and still they were £100,000 short of the means of making the line and providing the rolling stock. At the present moment they had no rolling stock, and to obtain it they wanted to dip their hands further into the pockets of the ratepayers. It was under these circumstances that the ratepayers objected to any further powers being granted to the Company. Let them, finish the line they had contracted for, and if there were to be a new speculation set on foot, let them carry it out independently. There was another speculation they had put forward, not in connection with the present line, but for the construction of another—a line from Fermoy to Cork. They had issued notices for a line between those towns, although they had not a penny, and were unable to find the funds to finish their present contract. Yet Parliament was asked to allow them the further powers asked for in the present Bill. He hoped that Parliament would do jus-

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    tice to the ratepayers; that they would reject the Bill; and that this fresh attempt at extortion would be defeated. Parliament ought to stand by their own declaration to the ratepayers of the county, and concede to them the right of appointing the directors of the Company. It was part of the Bill of 1873 that they were to appoint, through the Grand Juries, all the directors. The income of all landholders was, for Income Tax purposes, reckoned to be £1 per annum for every £3 of their land valuation. They would, therefore, on a 3d. Income Tax, have to pay 1d. on every £1 of their land valuation. This special tax was 1s. 4d. in the £1, so that they had to pay 16 times as much for this tax as they had to pay for the Income Tax. He asked, if that were not a direct scandal? And it must not be forgotten that, although they paid the money, they had no sort of ownership over the line. The Company ought to endeavour to act towards the ratepayers in an equitable spirit. The ratepayers would be perfectly ready to meet them; but they would not rest content to be for ever deprived of their property. If the Bill were not rejected on the second reading, the chances were that the Forms of Parliament would prevent the ratepayers from being heard before a Select Committee; but, whether or not, he did not see why the ratepayers, burdened as they were, should have to spend £700 or £800 to fight a battle before a Select Committee, in which their own money would be employed in fighting against them. That this was so was apparent from the Bill itself, which stated that the cost of the measure was to be paid for by the Company; so that the ratepayers would find their own money was being used for the purpose of cutting their throats. He trusted that the House would unanimously reject the Bill, and he begged now to move that it be read a second time on that day six months.
    THE O'CONOR DONsaid, he rose to second the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Waterford, and he did so without having any interest whatever in the locality affected by the Bill. Nor did he intend, in the remarks he intended to offer, to say anything at all in regard to the merits or details of the question. It seemed to him that in the Bill now before the House a very
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    great principle was involved. It would be recollected that on former occasions the question of localities guaranteeing a certain dividend on the money invested in railways had been before the House. It would also be remembered that that principle had never been adopted in England. In England the principle had never been assented to of allowing a Company to go down to any part of the country and construct a line with a guaranteed dividend to the shareholders. The principle had, however, been adopted in the case of Ireland, and the abuses which crept in in regard to this guaranteed system in Ireland became so great, that a few years ago it was found necessary to pass a Standing Order which required the approval of the local authorities, before the promoters of such a Bill were heard, or before the Bill was taken into consideration by Parliament. In the year 1874 a Standing Order, upon his Motion and at his suggestion, was passed by the House, to the effect that none of these guarantees should be sanctioned and none of these charges thrown upon the local rates, or even received or entertained by Parliament, unless the proposal was first approved by the Guardians, the Presentment Sessions, and by the Grand Juries. This particular Bill was passed before that Standing Order came into force, and consequently, in this particular case, the preliminary assents were never obtained, and the Bill passed through Parliament without the sanction of the local authorities in this respect having been obtained. But in addition to this fact, there was this circumstance connected with the existing Act, which he believed was quite exceptional—namely, that the whole of the capital had been guaranteed. As the hon. Member for Waterford had explained, the county having guaranteed the interest upon the capital, it was intended that the railway should really belong to the county. It was further intended by Parliament that the county, representing the only parties having an interest in the line, should have full control over it. As the hon. Member for Waterford had pointed out, as a matter of fact that understanding was not carried out. The railway, instead of belonging to the county, had been converted, like all other guaranteed railways, into a shareholders'

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    railway, under directors appointed by the shareholders. It was under these circumstances that the Company came now to ask for a further extension and for the privileges to which his hon. Friend had alluded. He (the O'Conor Don) contended that even if this further extension did not interfere with the guarantee or the charge already placed on the county, the Company would have no right to come to Parliament and ask for a further extension until, in the first instance, they had carried out the intentions of Parliament in passing the original Act—namely, that the line should belong to the county through whose money it was made. Another reason why he had risen to second the Motion of his hon. Friend was this—It seemed to him that in the Bill there was an endeavour to place an additional charge upon the ratepayers indirectly, which, if it were to be placed upon them directly, would come under the Standing Orders, and would consequently require the sanction of the Grand Jury. It would, he thought, be well for the House to consider whether it would allow a Standing Order, passed with the intention of securing the interests of the ratepayers in all these cases, to be evaded, as was done in this case. He asked the particular attention of the Chairman of Committees to this point. By the Bill, as he understood its provisions, certain powers were taken for entering into arrangements with other Railway Companies with regard to running powers and so on. Everyone connected with railway management knew perfectly well that under an arrangement entered into with another Company the running powers and arrangements made for carrying on the traffic might be of such a character as to absorb almost the entire amount of the receipts, or, at any rate, the greater portion of them. Under the existing Act the receipts were to go towards the relief of the burdens of the ratepayers, who were to provide any excess of expenditure and interest upon the capital invested over the receipts. By reducing the receipts, and taking away from the ratepayers anything not contemplated by the original Act, they interfered with the security given to the ratepayers. Therefore, in the present Bill, although there was no proposal to have a new guarantee, there was, in reality, a proposal to interfere with a sum
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    of money which, by the original Act, was to go to the ratepayers. He held that this was as much an attack upon the pockets of the ratepayers, as if the Company proposed in the Bill to have a new guarantee. If they proposed a new guarantee on their new capital, there could not be a question that they would have, under the Standing Order, to go, in the first instance, to the local authorities for their approval; and he was of opinion that Parliament ought not to permit them to do indirectly that which they could not do directly. This, he thought, was a good and sufficient reason for rejecting the Bill on the second reading. As a rule, he was indisposed to reject a Bill on the second reading, believing that it might be much better settled in a Committee upstairs. There was, however, a further reason why the House should go into this question upon the second reading—namely, that by the technical Rules of Parliament it was possible that the ratepayers might not be able to obtain a hearing before a Select Committee. An objection had already been lodged against their being heard; and, consequently, if the House did not discuss the question now, it might be the case that the ratepayers would never obtain a hearing at all, and the promoters of the Bill might technically, in the first place, defeat the Standing Order intended to protect the ratepayers; and, in the second place, might, upon another technical Rule, shut out this important question from the consideration of the Committee. Under these circumstances—having no interest in the Bill, knowing nothing about the country through which it passed, but feeling an interest in the question of taxing the people of Ireland for speculative Railway Companies—he felt he was justified in supporting his hon. Friend the Member for Waterford in the Motion he had made.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Delahunty.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
    MR. RODWELLdid not propose to follow his hon. Friend through the matters which he had brought forward in a somewhat more impassioned appeal

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    than was generally found provided in the materials of a Private Bill; but, if the House would permit him, he would supplement one or two facts, which he thought would satisfy the House that the proposal made by his hon. Friend was not only somewhat strong, but somewhat questionable. His hon. Friend asked the House, if not in entire ignorance, but with a partial knowledge of the facts, to reverse the decision come to after a three days' inquiry by the House of Lords, where all the facts were investigated, and where his hon. Friend appeared not only as a petitioner, but as a witness. He thought it was hardly expedient—and he spoke from some experience, both there and elsewhere, of these matters—that the House should take upon themselves, without further knowledge, to reverse the decision of the House of Lords. He thought it right that the Bill should be read a second time, and referred to a Committee, equally competent with that which had already considered it, to deal with all the questions which might be submitted to them, and before whom all the facts might be laid. He was satisfied of this—that if the justice of the case demanded it, a Committee of one House would never allow itself to be influenced by the decision of another House; and experience told him, that not unfrequently a decision already arrived at by one House had been reversed by the other, if a proper ground were presented, or if the case had been imperfectly heard by the first tribunal: therefore, he thought his hon. Friend would be perfectly safe in leaving the matter to be dealt with in the ordinary way. The hon. Member for Roscommon opposed the Bill, because it involved a question of principle. But the principle was recognized already in Irish Bills; and, although an attempt had been made to introduce the same principle into England, it had never succeeded. It had, however, prevailed in regard to Irish Bills; and the reason why it was introduced was, because railways had added so much to the wealth and prosperity of Ireland, and because they never would have been made or undertaken if there had not been some guarantee of this nature secured to the promoters of the original undertaking. No one could look at the success which had attended the construction of railways in Ireland, so far as the interests of the people were
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    concerned, without feeling that Parliament was right in giving these facilities. Certainly, without them, many of the railways of Ireland would never have existed. Therefore, if it was proposed to reject the present Bill because it introduced a new principle, he said that the principle was already acted upon. They were now asked to stop a great public work. It was upon public grounds alone that this Bill was introduced. He knew nothing of the parties or of the locality, but he had seen the Bill, and its object was to give additional station accommodation to the persons who would use the railway. He said, then, that there were no facts or circumstances in the case which an ordinary tribunal was not competent to deal with, and he hoped the House would be satisfied to allow it to be so dealt with. If there was one consideration which he might offer, it was this—that when the parties went before a Committee in either House, and their case was fairly heard, and, after having done their best to succeed, had been defeated, they would accept the decision without a murmur, although they might be dissatisfied with it. He did know this—that if a Bill was rejected on the second reading after a short discussion, which involved no new principle, parties would have little faith in Private Bill legislation. They would necessarily be greatly dissatisfied, and would have very little confidence in the judgment of the House. And he thought the general public outside would be of the same opinion. He therefore hoped that the House would not take the extreme course of rejecting a Private Bill on the second reading, unless there was something exceptional in its provisions, which he confessed he was unable to discover in the present case.
    SIR. JOSEPH M'KENNAremarked, that the hon. and learned Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Rodwell) had addressed the House on general principles, and was unacquainted with the special facts of this particular case. [Mr. RODWELL said, he had already stated that he had seen the Bill.] He did not mean to say that the hon. and learned Member had not seen the Bill; but he thought if the hon. and learned Member had read the Bill carefully, he would have seen much on the face of it which would have induced him to sug-

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    gest to the House considerable caution before they allowed the measure to be read a second time. He would not trouble the House by again going over the ground which had been so well covered by his hon. Friend the Member for the county of Waterford (Mr. Delahunty). His (Sir Joseph M'Kenna's) own locus standi was simply that of a proprietor and ratepayer in the county, and therefore he did know something about the matter. A railway had already been constructed, called the Waterford, Dungarvan, and Lismore Railway, and it had a capital of £280,000, with borrowing powers to the extent of £93,000. The mode in which the original Act had been carried out had already been described, and it was unnecessary that he should dwell upon it further. He would confine his remarks, therefore, to the present Bill. What was this supplementary Bill to do? He admitted, that on the face of it, it did not charge the county with any subsidy for the purpose of paying interest or dividend; but it authorized the Waterford, Dungarvan, and Lismore Railway Company to extend their line from their present terminus into a new terminal station at Waterford, and to carry out other objects. That was to say, that it was a Bill to constitute a new Company and a new set of proprietors, who would take possession of the terminus of the line which had already been carried out by the money of the ratepayers of the county, and without which the new stations, and other things proposed by the Bill, would be of little value. He regarded it as one of the cleverest feats of railway legislation that had ever been suggested. The Bill had already passed the Upper House; but he doubted whether the House of Lords or the Committee had heard the reasons which had been adduced that day for objecting to the Bill. It was virtually a Bill to create another and a separate and hostile interest to the general interest of the ratepayers of the county. It was, indeed, a Bill to give possession of the line to a new set of proprietors, and to give them rights with respect to charges over a particular portion of the line, no matter how far the general traffic. They could put on such terminus charges as would strangle all possibilities of the recovery of the main line. Such a principle as this had never been recog-
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    nized by he House. What would have been said to any projector who, having already got the money for the purpose of making a main line from one part of the Kingdom to another, who afterwards constituted a new Company to own the terminus, and which was under no terms whatever to the old Company, or which would have the command of a bridge like the Victoria Bridge, and which could strangle the traffic if it thought fit to do so? Never had there been brought forward a Bill which had so much upon the face of it to warn the House against granting these rights to the directors. They had constructed a great line, and had asked for a security and guarantee for the capital; but now, when they had to deal with a portion of the line which could scarcely pay a farthing if it stood alone, they said they did not want any security. No! what they wanted was power over the whole line. They wanted to possess the power to strangle and to mulct the traffic if necessary. This was a measure which ought to be rejected without a division. In conclusion, he might state that, as a ratepayer and proprietor, he had a perfect knowledge of the circumstances of the county, having devoted a great deal of attention to the subject.
    MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGentirely agreed with the hon. Gentlemen who thought that Ireland derived great benefits from the system of guarantees. He was one of those who had always advocated the principle; but it was a long time before they succeeded in passing a measure which enabled many parts of Ireland to obtain railways, which otherwise would not have been constructed. But the present was a very different question. It appeared to him that the ratepayers of the county of Waterford—with which, by-the-bye, he had no connection—had been deceived. Faith had not been kept by the promoters of the Bill; and, consequently, this House had now a right to interfere in order to insist that they should fulfil their contract with the ratepayers before the House would enable them to get further powers. He thought the statement made by his hon. Friend the Member for the county of Waterford (Mr. Delahunty) was true; and really some person who was interested in this question, and who knew something of the

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    facts, ought to get up and give some explanation of the conduct of the Grand Jury of the county of Waterford. In the case of a railway in which he was formerly concerned, the baronies through which the line ran took the precaution to have the directors' names inserted in the Act of Parliament, with a view to protecting the ratepayers against unnecessary expenditure. It was to be regretted, he thought, that a similar step had not been taken in the present instance. In order to protect the ratepayers, a provision was inserted in the original Act of Parliament, to the effect that the city Grand Jury should appoint four directors of the Company, and that the county Grand Jury should appoint eight. The city Grand Jury appointed directors; but the county Grand Jury refused to do so. The ratepayers of the county had entered into the most foolish arrangement he ever heard of. The county was to pay the capital of the railway and the interest on it, while the makers of the railway were to become the owners of the railway. The capital being £280,000, they were allowed to raise £93,000 by debentures; and the county of Waterford agreed to pay £14,000 a-year for five years under the Act of Parliament. He never heard of such a thing before. He never heard of a guarantee line coming into operation before it was open to traffic. If the ratepayers of the county of Waterford had no locus standi before the Select Committee, there was no tribunal to which they could appeal except the House of Commons; and, in his judgment, it was the duty of that House to protect the ratepayers, who had not been able to protect themselves. They had done a most foolish thing in mortgaging the property of the county to the promoters of the railway, who might be mere speculators; and the House ought to protect the ratepayers against anything like a further mortgage of their property. If an arrangement were entered into for the working of the line by another Company, that other Company would be able to do what it liked; because there were manipulations of these matters among Railway Companies that most hon. Members did not understand. The question had been brought before that House because the Select Committee, perhaps, did not clearly see the bearing of what was now de-
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    manded and how the ratepayers had suffered. If ever there was a case in which the House ought to intervene between the act of a Select Committee and the parties interested, it was the present case.
    MR. RAIKESremarked, that in the course of this discussion a great deal had been said, which was very well worthy of consideration, as bearing upon the general question of Grand Jury guarantees in relation to Irish railways. No doubt that was a policy which called at all times for careful examination, and which was open to much question. The hon. Member for Roscommon (the O'Conor Don), in seconding the Motion for the rejection of the Bill, called attention to the share he had taken in dealing with this matter by the Standing Order which was enacted in 1874, and which required a popular assent in addition to the authority of the Grand Jury, before any subvention could be granted to any particular railway. But although there was, doubtless, a great deal to be said upon that subject which would always receive from the House the most respectful consideration, he wished to point out that that was rather a question beside that raised by the present Bill. The arguments advanced by the hon. Member for the county of Cork (Mr. M'Carthy Downing), and the hon. Member for Youghal (Sir Joseph M'Kenna), would have been more appropriate if they had been delivered in the year 1872, when the original Bill was before the House. He agreed with the hon. Member for the county of Cork, that for the county and city of Waterford to mortgage their rates to so large an amount was a somewhat extraordinary proceeding on their part; but, still, that was a matter which might have been more fitly debated when the House had before it the original Bill relating to the guarantees. The history of the legislation in regard to this railway was practically as follows:—In 1872 an Act of Parliament was passed, by which the railway was, in the first instance authorized, and this guarantee called into existence. The hon. Member for the county of Waterford (Mr. Delahunty) alleged that the consent of the Grand Juries of the city and county of Waterford to that measure was obtained by representations made to them that they would have a powerful voice in the administration of the railway, and

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    that those representations were not embodied in the Act of 1872. Well, in 1873, a further Bill was introduced into the House, and it also became law. Owing to the action of the Chairman of Committees in the other House of Parliament, this second measure contained a Proviso to the effect, that at the Assizes next after the passing of the Act, it should be lawful for the Grand Juries of the city and county of Waterford respectively to nominate, if they thought proper so to do, 12 persons to be duly qualified directors of the Company in the place of the then existing directors. Of these 12 new directors, eight were to be nominated by the county and four by the city of Waterford. The House would perceive that this Proviso made it lawful, but not obligatory, for the Grand Juries of the county and city to appoint these directors; and it also provided that they should only take that step if they thought proper to do so. It was, therefore, a doubly optional course on the part of each Grand Jury. Immediately after the Royal Assent had been given to the Bill, the Grand Jury of the city of Waterford nominated four directors. They likewise invited the co-operation of the county; but the county decided not to exercise their optional power, and not to nominate the eight directors whom they were entitled to appoint. The four directors nominated by the Grand Jury of the city were Mr. Bennett, Mr. White, Mr. Garth, and the hon. Gentleman who was now one of the Members for the county of Waterford. Three of them were still directors of the Company, and the only new director whom the city of Waterford proposed to appoint was the gentleman who now opposed this Bill. As he had already observed, the county Grand Jury refused to co-operate with that of the city. He thought, however, it would be clearly seen by the House that at the present moment the result was nearly arrived at which would have been attained if the Proviso had been acted upon. Seven members of the County Grand Jury were also directors of the Company; and almost the only difference would have been that the hon. Member for the county of Waterford would have been a director, whereas he was not one at the present time. The hon. Member was doubtless very popular in the county, and any matter he might bring before it was sure to be warmly taken up. In-
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    deed, he thought the representation of the ratepayers had been made, in a great measure, in consequence of the hon. Gentleman's popularity in the county. Well, the county having refused to nominate directors the Company still remained in the hands of the directors, who were orginally appointed by the shareholders. What was the share of the contribution to this railway as between the city and the county? Yesterday he was enabled to see the valuation rolls of the baronies affected by this Bill and by the Act of 1872, and also the valuation roll of the city of Waterford; and he found that the city would only be liable to some ninth or tenth part of the amount for which the Grand Jury of the county would be liable. The Grand Jury of the county of Waterford consisted of landowners, whose interests were bound up with those, he supposed, of the ratepayers.
    THE O'CONOR DONsaid, everyone who knew anything about Ireland was aware that the Grand Jurors, as Grand Jurors, did not pay a shilling of the rates.
    MR. RAIKESsaid, he wished to disentangle from the arguments which had been used in this discussion the point about the guarantees. The House would be carried away by a false impression if they thought that by passing this Bill they were dealing with the rights of the Company as regarded the guarantee. If the House should refuse to pass the present Bill the county would have to pay the subsidy of £14,000 just the same. The guarantee really had nothing to do with the matter. The directors asked for running powers, because they believed they would thus improve the value of the property. Never since he held his present position had he known an opposition which was more beside the mark in dealing with a particular question. He would now say a few words in regard to the locus standi. Of course, he could not anticipate the judgment of the Court of Referees in this matter; but it should be borne in mind that the question had been already argued before the Committee of the House of Lords. Each Committee of the House of Lords was its own authority as regarded locus standi. They had no Court of Referees; but the reports of the decisions of the Referees were constantly quoted before

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    Committees of the House of Lords, and he believed it was on the report of a case which occurred in the Commons that they decided to admit the locus standi of the parties in this particular case. It was fair to assume, therefore, that the Committee of the House of Commons would pay the same regard to the precedent. In conclusion, he expressed his opinion that this House would make a great mistake if it rejected the second reading of the Bill.
    MR. SYNANthought the question before the House was one of considerable difficulty. They had to select their course between the necessity of reading the Bill a second time, and relieving the ratepayers of the county of Waterford. If anything unpleasant had occurred it had been the result of the conduct of the Grand Jury of the county which, like all Grand Juries in Ireland, was not a representative body. Its members did not pay the rates on this guarantee; and when the opportunity was offered to them they would not even accept the proposal that they should become directors of the railway in order to protect the ratepayers. It had been stated that the profits arising from the extension line would be applied for the Company solely, and without any reference to the guarantee or any protection of the ratepayers of the county of Waterford. Even the promoters had denied the locus standi of the ratepayers before the Committee, although they wanted to get possession of the railway made by their money. If protection could not be afforded to the ratepayers, he thought, in the circumstances, that the second reading of the Bill ought not to pass, and that time ought to be given for the purpose of enabling the promoters to introduce such clauses as would protect the ratepayers under the guarantee formerly given, or that the locus standi of the ratepayers should be admitted for the purpose of introducing such clauses.
    MAJOR O'GORMANmaintained that the ratepayers were by this Bill fully protected. The 8th clause provided that no further demand was to be made on the ratepayers of the county of Waterford. The original capital of the old Company was £280,000. A guarantee was given for the payment of interest and dividend upon that sum at the rate of 5 per cent. More money was required for the purpose of finishing the railway
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    to Waterford. How was that money obtained? He could inform the House that it was obtained by the munificence of the Duke of Devonshire, who had advanced no less a sum than £80,000 to complete the railway. But the sum of £35,000 was required in order to finish the new extension. This £35,000 could be obtained in the usual manner; and he had the most perfect authority for stating that not a shilling should be demanded from the ratepayers any more. They would, of course, be liable to the 5 per cent on the £280,000, but not on the £35,000 which was now to be raised. He wished to draw the attention of the House to the argument which had been made use of in regard to guarantees on railways. It was true there were no guarantees on railways in England, but there were guarantees on tramways. There were no less than 20 miles of tramways in the City of Manchester, and if they did not pay the ratepayers would be saddled with the interest on them. Consequently, it was hardly competent for the hon. Member for Roscommon (the O'Conor Don) to say that there were no guarantees in England upon railways, for, after all, a tramway was neither more nor less than a railway. Again, he was in favour of this railway because it would open the resources of the country. They ought to take a broad view of the question, and he sincerely hoped this House would allow the Bill to be read a second time.
    MR. BIGGARwas disposed to think that a guarantee might, under certain conditions, be proper; but, at the same time, it should be carefully guarded, and the ratepayers ought to have an opportunity of expressing their opinion on the subject. In this particular case no expression of opinion had been given in favour of the scheme of 1873. Meetings were held, and the ratepayers were led to believe that they would have the full ownership of the railway if they guaranteed the expense of making it; but the promoters of the Acts of 1872 and 1873 manipulated the Bills so, that any surplus profits which might arise beyond the amount of the guarantee would go into their own pockets. The promoters did not, in the slightest degree, represent the ratepayers either of the city or the county of Waterford. They now made an application for fresh powers, which amounted to a power to manipulate the

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    total income of the present railway in such a manner, that it would find its way into their own pockets. In spite of what had been said, he maintained that this new project did amount to a guarantee. He thought the ratepayers of the county of Waterford ought to have an opportunity of expressing their opinion before the Bill was passed through this House. It was, he believed, an established rule, that no guarantee was ever given in a case where any material number of the ratepayers were opposed to it. In this case, however, there was the strongest evidence that the ratepayers did object to it. The hon. Member for the county of Waterford (Mr. Delahunty) had told the House distinctly that his constituents were strongly opposed to the present Bill. For this reason, he thought the House would do well to put a stop to this attempt to saddle the ratepayers with a further liability. They had been told that the Grand Jury represented the ratepayers of a county. This was not the fact. They really represented the sub-Sheriff of the county, who appointed whom he pleased. The hon. Member for the county of Waterford, and not the gentlemen who were gathered together as the nominees of the sub-Sheriff, really represented the feelings of the ratepayers. The Grand Jury did not even represent the largest ratepayers of the county, for many of its members, he was informed, were very small ratepayers. It had been urged that the persons who opposed this Bill might go before a Select Committee of this House, and state their objections there. This was equivalent to saying that these gentlemen ought to incur a heavy expense out of their own pockets in fighting persons who were spending, not their own money, but the money of the ratepayers.
    MR. PARNELLhad a proposal to make to the Government. He did not wish to go into the general question as to the desirability of allowing Grand Juries or other local authorities to burden the ratepayers with charges as they had done in the present case, although it would necessarily have some influence on the House, when they saw that this charge of £280,000 was placed on the four baronies in the county of Waterford under what, practically, amounted to false pretences. He wished to show, very
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    briefly, that the ratepayers of the county of Waterford were really entitled to every consideration from that House, entirely apart from the question as to whether the Grand Jury Laws were beneficial or the reverse. The hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees had argued as if this was not a question which in any way affected the ratepayers. It had been pointed out by the hon. Gentleman that the ratepayers were liable for this guarantee of £280,000 and the interest upon it at 5 per cent; and he argued from that, that the ratepayers had no further interest in the proceedings of the Company, and in the matter of the proposed extension, because no further guarantee was to be placed upon them. This line, 43 miles in length, from Dungarvan to Waterford, had been constructed with the money of the ratepayers, who would continue to pay interest on the money which was borrowed in the first instance. The line was still in an unfinished condition, and it was proposed by this Bill to add to it a short connecting link. The House would, therefore, see that the interest of the ratepayers remained unimpaired and undiminished as regarded the Bill. What had been the course adopted by the promoters? Foreseeing what would be the consequence if they gave the ratepayers any opportunity of obtaining a locus standi before a Select Committee of this House, they adopted the very unusual course of framing the Bill in such a way as to endeavour to prevent the ratepayers from having any locus standi in the proceedings before the Committee. Now, entirely apart from the question of the Grand Jury laws, he asked whether it was right or wrong originally to put a charge of £280,000 on these four baronies? And, apart from the consideration as to whether the ratepayers had obtained a benefit from the imposition of this charge, he would ask the House whether it was reasonable or just that the persons whose money had made this line should be shut out by technical objections from all the proceedings before the Committee appointed to consider the question of its extension? He submitted that no reasonable person could help saying that facilities ought to be given to the ratepayers, so as to enable them to appear before the Committee and state their objections to the scheme. The promoters, however, in-

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    stead of seeking to give to the ratepayers, whose property they had wrongfully taken away, an opportunity of appearing before the Committee, had taken advantage of technical objections, so as to exclude the ratepayers from a locus standi. In these circumstances, it would be very fair if the House were, by assenting to adjourn the debate, to signify its desire that this opposition to the locus standi of the ratepayers should cease. With that object he had risen, not to prolong the debate, but to move its adjournment, until the promoters of this extension could consider whether they would not agree to withdraw their technical objection to the locus standi of the ratepayers, who had spent £280,000 in making this line. In conclusion, the hon. Member begged to move the adjournment of the debate.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY,in seconding the Motion for adjournment, said, the difficulty in this case arose from the circumstance that the ratepayers of the county of Waterford felt themselves aggrieved by the conduct of these very men in dealing with another portion of the line now in existence. They sought to be heard before the Committee of this House, and to state their objections to the proposed extension; but they were met by a technical objection which was raised by the promoters. If the House would only remove those technical objections, this Bill would not be further opposed.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Parnell.)
    MR. STACPOOLEsupported the Motion for the adjournment of the debate, and took this opportunity of protesting against a statement made by the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), who said that the Grand Juries were summoned by the sub-Sheriff. Now, this was certainly not always the case. In his own county, for example, the High Sheriff was very jealous of the privilege, and always summoned the Grand Jury himself.
    MR. GRAYthought the proposal of the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell) was the real way of meeting this difficulty. He could say now, with responsibility, that if the hon. Member for the county of Waterford (Mr. Delahunty)
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    withdrew his Motion, all objection to the locus standi of those whom he represented would be withdrawn by the promoters of the Bill. The opponents of the measure would have a full opportunity of being heard before the Committee of the House of Commons, as they had been heard already before the Committee of the House of Lords.
    LORD CHARLES BERESFORDconsidered that the debate had been thoroughly thrashed out. The arguments used by the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. M'Carthy Downing) showed clearly what the popular feeling was. For his part, he objected strongly to the Bill; indeed, good reason had been shown why the Bill should not be passed. It had been said that the money was to be raised in the way of guarantee, and that was what the ratepayers were objecting to.
    MR. PARNELLexplained, that in moving the Motion for the adjournment of the debate he had done so merely that the promoters of the Bill might have an opportunity of saying whether they would give the ratepayers a locus standi. He had been informed that the promoters would give them the locus standi; and, therefore, he should withdraw his Motion.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    THE O'CONOR DONwished to say but one word. A strong appeal had been made on the ground that the question of guarantee would not be affected. He wished to point out that the guarantee question was affected; because the Bill, as introduced, proposed to give to the Company power to enter into an arrangement with other Companies for working the extension. Every director of a railway knew perfectly well that, under such powers, the receipts of a line under such an arrangement would go to the credit of the Company, and not to the relief of taxation. They might be, in fact, absorbed in the payment of the Company. That affected the guarantee in a substantial way; and if the Bill was passed, the ratepayers would be seriously injured.
    MR. MUNTZwas extremely sorry to stand in the way of a division. He wished to say that he had something to do with the Bill in 1872, and he considered it was not merely an Irish question after all. When the Bill was

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    first mooted it was brought in by a Company who had obtained the consent of the Grand Jury, virtually a self-appointed body. The Bill was really one of speculation. It was a question of—"Heads I win, tails you lose." What would be said if a Railway Company offered to make a line through any county in England, and then got the consent of a Grand Jury to guarantee 5 per cent, to be paid by the ratepayers? Why, the idea would be scouted; and he wanted to know why Parliament should force upon the Irish people a taxation which they would not think of imposing upon the people of this country?
    MR. DODSONthought the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz) had spoken under some misapprehension. The objection he had urged might be all very well against a system of guarantee, and against the Bill as it passed in 1873. Under the present Bill, it was expressly provided that no additional liability should fall upon the ratepayers. The locus standi of the ratepayers was accordingly opposed, and it was feared the ratepayers might be injured. He understood, however, that the promoters of the Bill had agreed to withdraw that opposition. Some of the opponents of the Bill were satisfied with the assurance thus given to the ratepayers, who would have an opportunity of offering any further objections they might have in Committee.
    SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, the objection urged was that there would be no locus standi for the ratepayers before the Committee. That, however, was not the only objection. He was by no means certain that, even if a locus standi were given, all the objections would be removed. The Bill was to enable the directors of a railway, who had broken their trust with the ratepayers of the county of Waterford, to get possession, by an outlay of £35,000, of the terminus of a railway which they had deluded the ratepayers to guarantee. They were trusting to the Bill to give them powers to enter into a new arrangement for the working of both lines; and everybody knew very well that would be the means of throwing over the main interest in favour of the terminal stock, and leaving in the cold those proprietors and ratepayers of the county who had guaranteed the dividends on the main line.
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    He hoped his hon. Friend would divide the House.
    MR. DELAHUNTYsaid, he could not understand why the ratepayers of Waterford should have this Bill thrust upon them, and he would, therefore, divide the House on his Motion. One thing he would say, and it was this—that the hon. and gallant Member for the city of Waterford (Major O'Gorman) was thoroughly mistaken in saying that the Bill would merely affect the paying of 5 per cent upon £35,000. That would be nothing to the injury which the ratepayers would sustain in the Company obtaining working traffic and running powers with other Companies, so as to make arrangements through which the net earnings of the line would be sure to be diverted from benefiting the ratepayers. It must be remembered that the Company were getting 5 per cent from the ratepayers on the estimated cost of construction, and it was the fault of the promoters that it required £100,000 to finish the line. The hon. and gallant Gentleman knew nothing about it. He (Mr. Delahunty) would fight the Bill stage by stage, and take a division whenever it was necessary.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 222; Noes 76: Majority 146.—(Div. List, No. 140.)
    Main Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read a second time, and committed.

  THE MILITARY FORCES OF THE CROWN—THE INDIAN CONTINGENT.

    NOTICE OF AMENDMENT TO MOTION.
    SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHgave Notice, that on Monday he would move, as an Amendment to the Motion of the noble Lord the Member for the Radnor Boroughs—
    "That this House, being of opinion that the Constitutional control of Parliament over the raising and employment of the Military Forces of the Crown is fully secured by the provisions of the Law, and by the undoubted power of this House to grant or refuse Supplies, considers it to be unnecessary and inexpedient to affirm any Resolution tending to weaken the hands of Her Majesty's Government in the present state of Foreign affairs."

  QUESTIONS.
    LAW AND JUSTICE—THE POLICE MAGISTRACY—MR. BENSON.

      QUESTION.
      DR. KENEALYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether Mr. R. A. Benson, who is reported in to-day's "Standard" as having addressed a Conservative meeting at, Reading yesterday, is the same person as the Metropoliton Police Magistrate of that name; and, whether it is consistent with the quasi-judicial office which Mr. Benson holds, that he should attend public meetings and take an active part in political discussions during an election contest?
      MR. ASSHETON CROSS: Sir, in reply to the Question of the hon. Member, I have to say that I have no means of knowing whether Mr. Benson, the magistrate, is the person who is supposed to have made the speech referred to, nor have I any information that such a speech was made. I communicated, however, with Mr. Benson, on seeing this Question on the Paper. Unfortunately he is not in town at the present moment, and, therefore, I have not yet received from him any reply. I may say, with regard to the other portion of the hon. Member's Question, that the only legal disabilities by statute imposed upon a police magistrate are, in the first place, that he cannot be a Member of Parliament; and, in the second place, under an old statute, that he could not vote within the Metropolitan Police District in which he was engaged. That restriction on his Parliamentary franchise was repealed in 1874. How far a person holding the position of a police magistrate is to consider himself disfranchised or disentitled to interfere in political affairs in any part of the country other than that in which he is acting is a matter of discretion. Everything must depend on the way in which he uses the liberty which the law allows him.

      CRIMINAL LAW—RELEASE OF GEORGE BROOMFIELD.—QUESTION.
      DR. KENEALYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he will state for what reason he has ad-
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      vised Her Majesty to set at large one George Broomfield, a prisoner convicted of murder at Winchester in 1865; and, if he would lay upon the Table of the House Copies of any Communications made to him, or to the Under Secretary of State, with reference to the said prisoner prior to his release?
      MR. ASSHETON CROSS,in reply, said, that he had followed, in dealing with the case, the ordinary course pursued by his Predecessors in similar instances. George Broomfield had been convicted of murder at Winchester in July, 1865, and was afterwards examined by an eminent medical man, who reported that he was of unsound mind, and the sentence was commuted to one of penal servitude for life. On the 9th of July, 1866, an application was made for the removal of the prisoner from Millbank Prison to Broadmoor Asylum, and on the 11th of November, 1877, his wife applied for his release. A special Report as to his condition was made to the Secretary of State, the general effect of which was that there was no risk in discharging him, provided some person would take the responsibility of taking care of him, and of reporting at once any tendency to relapse into his former state of mind which he might exhibit. A competent person was found to undertake this duty; and, following the usual course, he was allowed, on the recommendation of the authorities at Broad-moor that he was fit to be permitted to be at large, to take his discharge. All the communications made to the Secretary of State in the matter were, he might add, of a confidential character; therefore, he could not consent to produce them.

      REGISTRY OF DEEDS (IRELAND)—THE ROYAL COMMISSION.—QUESTION.
      MR. KING-HARMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If he is aware that the Royal Commission issued on the 22nd January last, for the purpose of inquiring into the present system of Registry of Deeds in Ireland and other matters connected therewith, has up to the present been inoperative, as the Commissioners have not yet held a meeting or taken any steps in pursuance of the directions contained in the Commission, although offices have been fitted up, a secretary appointed, and all necessary

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      preparations made by the Irish Treasury for their accommodation; and, whether it is the intention of the Irish Government to take any steps in reference thereto?
      THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON),in reply, said, that the Commissioners had been engaged in collecting information, and making arrangements for the due prosecution of their inquiries, and they would hold the next meeting on the 24th of the month, and would continue to sit regularly every week, and would, he hoped, be able to make their Report within the time assigned to them.

      COAL MINES—EDDLEWOOD COLLIERY EXPLOSION—QUESTION.
      MR. MACDONALDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he has had information that an explosion took place in the Eddlewood Colliery, near Hamilton, on Friday the 10th inst., by which two men were seriously injured, and that the explosion was caused by the use of naked lights; and, since the colliery in question is in the same coal field as that of the Blantyre Colliery, where the fearful loss of life took place in 1877, whether he will prohibit, if possible, the use of naked lights in all the collieries in that coal field?
      MR. ASSHETON CROSS,in reply, said, he had not as yet received full information on the subject, though inquiries had been made to which he hoped he would soon have an answer. Inspector Dickinson, and the lawyer who held the inquiry into the cause of the serious explosion at Blantyre, having made a recommendation as to the danger of that particular coalfield, he (Mr. Assheton Cross) thought it right that the Inspector should be instructed to call a meeting of the coal-owners together, and submit the Report to them, with that paragraph marked out for their special consideration. The matter would not be lost sight of; but at the present moment he was unable to say more.

      THE COTTON MANUFACTORIES—THE WAGES DISPUTE—THE LANCASHIRE RIOTS.—QUESTION.
      SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTasked the Secretary of State for the
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      Home Department, Whether he has received any further intelligence as to the disturbances in Lancashire; and, whether any arrests have been made?
      MR. ASSHETON CROSS: I have received a letter written last night by the Chairman of Quarter Sessions, a man of great competence, whose word is in every way to be trusted, in which he says—
      "From all I can learn this evening all is quiet. Some shots have no doubt been fired"
      —those, I think, must be the shots alluded to in the telegram which I read to the House last night—
      "by a gentleman and some police officers at Oswaldtwistle, in defence of his home, which was being attacked by a riotous mob. Any further intelligence which reaches me I will let you know."
      I have not heard anything further this morning; but I have heard from the Mayor of Blackburn, who informs me that several arrests have been made in that town for breaches of the peace and assaults on the police. Some have been dealt with summarily, some remanded, and one released. The house belonging to Colonel Jackson, which was unfortunately burned down, is not within the jurisdiction of the Mayor, but in the county; and I am informed that the reason why no arrests were made for complicity in that proceeding is, that all the county constabulary were on one side of the borough, expecting the mob would come that way, but ascertaining that gentlemen who lived on the other side were coming home by train, they immediately changed their purpose, and anticipating the action of the police they got there before them, and when the police did arrive the mob had been dispersed. The county officers, however, inform me that a description of the ringleaders is in their possession, and they entertain no doubt that the offenders will be brought to justice. It is quite true that last night a very large mob came out at Preston, and that the military were called out, but there was no disturbance, and it was not found necessary to read the Riot Act, or to put into requisition the services of the troops; and the telegrams I have received from that place to-day are much more satisfactory than those of last night. I observe there is a telegram down stairs which speaks of a mill having been

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      burned down this morning at Blackburn; but as in the communication I have received from the Mayor of the town, the subject is not mentioned, I cannot think the information is correct. I entirely agree with what fell from a noble Lord in "another place" last night. I cannot think those outrages have been committed by the better class of operatives. I know them too well to think that they would be guilty of offences of this kind. I have no doubt there are a great number of rough, idle people loafing about in the neighbourhood of these towns, and, taking advantage of the excited passions of the operatives, they instigate these disturbances.

      THE MILITARY FORCES OF THE CROWN —THE INDIAN CONTINGENT—MO- TION OF THE MARQUESS OF HART- INGTON.—QUESTION.
      MR. E. JENKINSsaid, he wished to put to the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition a Question, of which he had given him private Notice. The noble Lord had announced it to be his intention to bring forward a Motion with reference to the movement of certain Native Indian troops to Malta, and the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies had, to-night, given Notice of the terms of an Amendment which was to be proposed to the Motion from the other side of the House. What he desired to know from the noble Lord was, Whether it was his fixed intention to press his Motion to a division?
      THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, I think the Question of my hon. Friend, though perfectly regular in form, is somewhat unusual in character. I believe that the action which any Member of this House may take, either in pressing or refraining from pressing, a Motion to a division, must always be held to depend, to a certain extent, on what may occur during the debate to which it gives rise. I might, perhaps, say, that my course will be influenced by the support which I receive from my hon. Friend and others who act with him on the occasion to which he refers. I should imagine that it would be only regular, at all events, that we should all suppose that it is possible I may be converted by the arguments which may be used on the other side, or that hon. Members opposite might be converted by my argu-
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      ments. Under those circumstances, a division may not be necessary; but I can assure my hon. Friend that, as at present advised, it is my most undoubted intention to press the Motion, of which I have given Notice, to a division.

    ORDERS OF THE DAY.

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

    HARBOURS (SCOTLAND).

      QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
      VISCOUNT MACDUFF VISCOUNT MACDUFF rose to call attention to the unsatisfactory condition of the harbours on the north-east coast of Scotland; and to ask, If Her Majesty's Government, now that they are in possession of the Commissioners' Report, will consider the expediency of increasing the annual grant of £3,000 towards the harbours of Scotland, or otherwise providing for their improvement? The noble Viscount said, that he had originally intended to bring the subject forward on Vote 30, but that he had taken the present opportunity of bringing it under the Notice of the House and the Government lest that Vote should never be reached. He did not wish to detain the House for more than a few moments on this question; but as it touched a matter of great importance to the North of Scotland, he should like to ask the Government whether they now saw their way to take any action in accordance with the views expressed in the Report of the Commission which they appointed last year? He would not venture to take up the time of the House by going into that Report particularly, as he was quite sure it must be fresh in the memory of the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury. He might, however, merely state that the whole gist and substance of that very careful Report was that the state of the harbour accommodation on the exposed coasts of Scotland was most inadequate to secure the safe landing of the fish supply, which they declared to be as bountiful as ever. Those who urged upon the Government the

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      appointment of a Commission to investigate the vexed question of the falling-off in the herring trade had had considerable misgivings as to the different remedies that had been suggested by fishermen and others. But the Commissioners had again reported, as they had done in former years, against every restriction on the fishing—except some prohibitions as to trawling on the west coast—and they maintained that the herring fishery as a whole had increased and was increasing. Indeed, they asserted that enormous losses were yearly incurred by the impossibility of landing the fish in the present insecure and unprotected state of the coast, and yet he (Viscount Macduff) noticed that on the present Estimates was borne the stereotyped figure of £3,000, a sum which had been absorbed for a number of years by one series of works. He did not wish, for obvious reasons, to put forward the claims of any particular place, or advocate the granting of any particular sum, but when he found in the Report such a sweeping statement as the following:—
      "Aberdeen is the only harbour on the east coast of Scotland between the Firth of Forth and the Cromarty Firth, a distance of 220 miles, which possesses the requisites of a good harbour"
      —he felt some astonishment at seeing no signs of any alteration in this old figure. He was aware that at Fraserburgh and Peterhead considerable sums were being spent and works begun which, when completed, would provide what the Commissioners recommend; but these places were close together, and beyond them stretched, far away to the Orkneys, a rocky and dangerous coast, upon which every year a great loss of life and property occurred. The northeast winds were apt to blow in sudden hurricanes, and unless the fishing-boats could, at a few hours' notice, make a port both near and sure, they were exposed to the gravest perils. Only that morning he received a communication from the magistrates of one of the harbours on the Moray Firth, stating that after borrowing money to the full extent of their available security, they were in danger of seeing their works swept away, if some additional labour, which they were not able to provide, was not at once spent upon them. He would like, therefore, to know whether, con-
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      sidering the Report of their own Commissioners, the Government had any intention of increasing this sum of £3,000 for the harbours of Scotland, or otherwise, of providing for the improvement of those harbours which had been for many years the subject of repeated complaints from Scotch Members?
      MR. R. W. DUFFhoped that before the hon. Baronet answered his noble Friend, he would allow him to make a suggestion as to the funds to carry out the recommendation of the Commission. When this question had been brought before the House the invariable reply was—We quite admit that there should be better harbours on the east coast of Scotland, but we do not know where the money is to come from. For the purpose of answering that question, he would address a few observations to the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson). It would be in his recollection that about 20 years ago a herring brand was established for Scotland. This herring brand, when first established, was only sufficient to pay the expenses of the brand; but as the fishing had gone on from year to year, this brand had increased enormously. In 1875, he found the money paid into the Treasury for the brand amounted to £8,729. In 1874, it was £8,625. He had not got the Report of last year. The Report of 1876 could not be fairly quoted, because it was a bad season. This brand for the purpose of branding herrings was now a source of revenue, yet the House would scarcely credit the statement that since the brand had been established £98,902 had been paid into the Treasury from the Scotch fisheries, and not a sixpence had been got back. The expense of branding was estimated by the Government Commissioners, in 1856, at £3,280; so, for 19 years, the cost of the brand would amount to £62,320, leaving a clear balance of £36,000 to be paid to the Fishery Board. He trusted that when the hon. Baronet rose to reply, he would tell the House what had become of the money. Everyone would admit that the fishermen were a deserving class, and everyone would admit the utility of their occupation. The Commission had reported in favour of harbour improvements. He had shown where the revenue was, and asked the Government not to put this money into

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      the Treasury, which already benefited in a large degree from the industry of Scotland, but to keep it for the purpose of lending it out in small loans to the poor fishery people.
      SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, that the question which the noble Viscount had brought before the House was one to which the noble Viscount had on many occasions directed the attention of the Office to which he had the honour to belong. The noble Viscount had now called their attention to the Report of the Commission issued during the year. He would remind the noble Viscount that the Report had only recently been received, and that the Government had not had time to consider thoroughly the subject-matter put before it in that Report. No one questioned, and he certainly should not question on reading that Report, the importance of harbour accommodation for the Scotch coast; but the difficulties in the way of dealing with it were really very large. There had been difficulties that were already well-known in the attempts that had been made to deal with some of these harbours. He would point to a total sum that had been already spent of, he believed, nearly £140,000 in the attempted improvement of one of these harbours at the port of Wick. That had not resulted in anything so satisfactory as to encourage efforts of that kind, and he believed the noble Viscount would see in the Report that the Commissioners had stated that the expenditure on the harbour had been practically thrown away, and instead of resulting in the protection of the trade of that district, it had created fresh difficulties in the anchorage to which the fishermen resorted. There was a question which had to be considered on a broader principle, and that was the question whether these grants in aid of particular trades were advisable or not. There was evidence of local efforts having been made, and successfully made, on several of the harbours of Scotland. One of the most important of these harbours was Peterhead. He believed that efforts at that port had for some time been made to improve the harbour. They had gone so far as to apply for a loan to the Public Works Loan Commissioners for that purpose. Fraser-burgh was another of these northern ports which had been engaged in a simi-
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      lar way to that he had mentioned. In other places, also, local effort had been applied to get over the difficulty the noble Viscount had suggested, and it was hoped that in the course of three years these local efforts would be of immense service to the harbours of the North. That, he ventured to think, was the direction in which they ought to look in the future for the improvement of these ports. The Government would be quite prepared to encourage and assist local efforts in Scotland, as in England, as they had shown in the Acts which had been passed for that purpose. He believed that in one of these ports within the last two years the fishermen of the district and the people of the locality had raised a sum of something like £2,000, and £3,000 had been given in aid of that contribution. With such examples before them as to what local effort could do, surely that was a better form of effecting such a desirable object as the improvement of these harbours than the accepting of a large sum from the State, without any effort of the locality to assist the object. He did not say the Government would be averse to amending the Harbours' Tolls Act of 1861, so as to give further facilities to the Commissioners. He did not see his way to increase the £3,000 in the Estimates of the present year; but he was quite certain that any application supported by local effort, such as was made at Peter-head or Fraserburgh, would always meet with the favourable consideration of the Government. In answer to what was said as to the application of the particular fund received from the brand, he stated that that was a subject which had never been brought under the consideration of the Treasury. All he could say was that the Government would consider the matter; but he ventured to think that, productive as that brand might have been, it had never been so extremely productive that they could suppose that it would ever enable the Government to make grants from it to any extent. Considering the short time that had elapsed since the Report of the Commission had been made, and considering the local efforts that had been made, he ventured to think that that was a better way to deal with the subject than by increasing the sum that had been applied to this particular purpose in the Estimates.
      MR. J. W. BARCLAYsaid, he agreed with the exceedingly practical remarks which had fallen from the Secretary to the Treasury. The harbours in Scotland were of three kinds—namely, harbours of refuge, harbours belonging to Corporations, and harbours that were purely proprietary, belonging to the neighbouring landholder. He agreed that the expenditure on harbours of refuge had been exceedingly unfortunate. It was quite true that between £100,000 and 200,000 had been expended at Wick, involving a large burden on the neighbourhood, and that the harbour was now in a worse state than it was before the experiment took place. In some of the other harbours considerable improvements were going on. It only required that local efforts should be supplemented by loans from the Treasury. He was sorry to say that, in comparatively few cases, had much been done for proprietorial harbours. If the policy now proposed was adopted, the practical result would be that the property of the proprietors would be improved at the public expense. The local proprietors derived considerable benefit at the present time from the fishing boats, and it seemed to him that by Provisional Orders under the general Act, the localities might be able to carry out improvements in their harbours to a greater extent than they had hitherto done. With regard to the fees, he suspected that the House would have to consider very soon whether that system ought not to be abolished. He was not going to take up the question at that moment, because he intended to raise it on a later occasion; but he thought the great preponderance of opinion in regard to fees was, that instead of the system being an advantage to trade, it was quite the opposite.
      SIR ALEXANDER GORDONwished to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary to one means of improving the condition of the fishermen of Scotland, and that was by reducing the amount paid for branding herrings. He thought that the right hon. Gentleman might take into consideration the propriety of reducing the fees from 4d. per barrel to 2d. per barrel, which would be not only a very great relief, but would also be an act of justice; for the practice of levying a higher fee for branding than was necessary for covering the expense was, in
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      fact, a direct tax upon the producers of an important article of food.
      MR. C. S. PARKERhoped that in one way or other the Government would see their way to giving the advantage of these fees to the trade, either by reducing the price of branding herrings, as the hon. and gallant Baronet (Sir Alexander Gordon) had suggested, or, on the other hand, by applying the surplus collected from year to year to the improvement of the harbours. He hoped he was right in understanding the hon. Baronet (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) to say that it was not the wish of the Government to make a revenue for general purposes out of this branding of herrings; and, if the fees were not to be reduced, the surplus from them might be regarded as peculiarly available for promoting the improvement of harbours. It was true that efforts had been made, with some success, at Fraserburgh, Peterhead, and Buckie; but these were all near together, while, northwards, the long stretch of coast as far as the Orkneys was still without good harbours; and if he had to choose between the two, he thought he would rather see the present fee for branding herrings sustained, and the amount applied to the improvement of the harbours. As to putting an end to branding altogether, he hoped that would not be done without full consideration of the Report of a former Royal Commission in its favour.
      SIR GRAHAM MONTGOMERYsaid, that as a director of the British Fisheries Society, he wished to protest against the assumption made by the Secretary to the Treasury, that the breakwater at Wick was a total failure, or that the débris of the breakwater had injured the anchorage. He was informed that it was of very great service to the fishermen at some states of the wind and tide, and he wished it to be understood that before the breakwater was constructed all the plans were submitted to the Admiralty and the Board of Trade, and received the approval of their engineers. With regard to the other question—namely, as to the harbours, he thought that £3,000 a-year was a very small sum to be expended upon them, and he never could see why the balance of the sum obtained for branding herrings should not be employed in this service.
      SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, he wished to urge upon the Treasury that

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      Scotland had a very strong claim to justice in the matter of these local improvements. Scotland, unlike Ireland, not only paid its full share of all the general taxation of the country, but paid much more than its share of the taxes upon alcoholic liquors. It was also the case that there were several subjects of local Revenue in Scotland which were not wholly devoted to local purposes, but to Imperial Revenue. There was the matter of registration in Scotland, which should not be made a source of Imperial profit, as in fact it was, and there was also the branding of fish, which was a source of income to the Imperial Exchequer. He contended that Scotland had a claim to simple justice in the matter.

      DIPLOMATIC APPOINTMENTS—AP- POINTMENT OF THE HON. COLONEL WELLESLEY, MILITARY ATTACHE AT VIENNA.—RESOLUTION.
      MR. BENETT-STANFORD,in rising to move—
      ''That this House disapproves of the appointment of Colonel Wellesley, of the Coldstream Guards, to the post of First Secretary of Embassy at Vienna, over the heads of a large number of old and competent diplomatic servants,"
      said, it was with considerable reluctance that he brought this subject before the House, because it was exceedingly disagreeable for one who was generally a warm supporter of the Government to expose what he regarded as a great piece of favouritism and jobbery. He had been asked not to bring the matter forward, as it might seem that he was attacking the Government; but he disclaimed all intention of attacking anything more than the principles which had been acted opon. Whether a job was a Conservative or a Liberal job, it was a job not with standing. If the supporters of a Government were never to make complaints, they might just as well be mere mutes or Lobby loungers at the beck and call of the Whips. He also wished to guard against its being supposed that he was attacking an individual, inasmuch as he had never, to his knowledge, seen Colonel Wellesley, and certainly had no personal feeling against him. He had heard it said on all sides that Colonel Wellesley was a smart young officer, an accomplished gentleman, highly connected, and a mo-
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      derate linguist. But, in spite of all those qualifications, he considered him totally unfit to carry out the duties of the post to which the Foreign Secretary had appointed him. No less than four different debates had taken place in the two Houses of Parliament with reference to Colonel Wellesley. In 1871, he was selected to fill the post of Military Attaché at St. Petersburg, and there was immediately a debate on the appointment. It was explained by Lord Enfield, then Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that it was a military staff appointment, and would only last five years, and that the great reason why he had been appointed was that he had been adjutant of his regiment, and that there were no other officers who were fit for the appointment. The fact was, that there were no less than five most competent officers who applied for that post, but were refused; while Colonel Wellesley, at 26 years of age, a subaltern in the Guards, never having seen a shot fired in his life, except, perhaps, at Hurlingham, was appointed. Among the officers refused were Captain Burnaby, Captain Hozier, Captain Gould—an officer in the Guards at the time—all excellent Turkish and Russian scholars, and Captain Vincent, also an excellent officer and linguist. When Colonel Wellesley obtained that appointment, he did not leave the Army; on the contrary, his diplomatic pay of £600 was continued, in addition to his regimental pay, and his promotion also went on. The principal reason assigned for giving him that appointment was because he had been adjutant to his regiment; but there was a large number of senior adjutants over whose heads he was placed, and, therefore, the fact that he had held that office was no criterion for his qualifications. In 1875, he was made a lieutenant-colonel without purchase, being promoted over the heads of 900 majors, he never having done any duty with his regiment for over four years, the whole of his work having been performed by another officer of the Guards. In 1876, his time was up, and he ought, in due course, to have returned to his regiment, and some other deserving officer appointed; but he did not blame Lord Derby for retaining him in his position, because at that time our relations with Russia were rather strained, and it was as well, there-

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      fore, not to make any change in our diplomatic staff at St. Petersburg. In 1878, Colonel Wellesley, being then 33 years of age, and never having done a single day's duty with his regiment in the Guards for seven years, and having drawn pay for both his appointments, was made full colonel over the heads of 300 lieutenant-colonels, and of 1,200 field officers in the Army, many of whom were in active service when Colonel Wellesley was a mere child. He now came to the appointment of which he more particularly complained—namely, that of Secretary to the Embassy at Vienna, which carried with it a salary of £1,000 per annum. Colonel Wellesley obtained that appointment over the heads of 90 well-tried servants of the Crown, whose claims were superior. The Foreign Secretary was responsible for filling that post, and it would be for Parliament to say whether he had exercised a just and wise discretion in appointing one who had never been in the Diplomatic Service, and who was, in fact, a mere outsider, over the heads of a number of gentlemen of experience, and who were well qualified to fill the post. In reply to a Question put by him (Mr. Benett-Stanford), the Chancellor of the Exchequer had referred to Rule 18, under which the Secretary of State reserved to himself the right of recommending military officers to the higher and more responsible posts without previous diplomatic service, and had quoted as cases, in which the Secretary of State had exercised that discretion, Lord Strathnairn, Colonel Stanton, and Colonel Mansfield; but he found, upon reference, that each of those gallant officers had held diplomatic appointments before being preferred to the higher posts in the service. To give the House some idea of the officers whom Colonel Wellesley had superseded, he might mention that he had passed over the head of one officer who had seen 62 years' service, one who had served 38 years, another who had served 34 years, several who had served from 30 to 26 years, four 23 years, seven 22 years, four 20 years, nine 19 years, four 18 years, and twenty-four 9 years. One of the officers to whom he had referred—a Mr. Gerard Gould—had been employed for not less than 34 years on special and other diplomatic services in 17 different countries, including Hanover, Berne, Vienna, Venice, Mexico,
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      Vera Cruz, Washington, Constantinople, Cyprus, St. Petersburg, Buenos Ayres, Paraguay, Athens, Berne (second time), Copenhagen, Stockholm, and lastly at Lisbon; while, of Colonel Wellesley's service, he found it stated that he "entered the Coldstream Guards, 1863; was ensign, 1863; lieutenant and captain, 1866; captain and lieutenant-colonel, 1875; Military Attaché at St. Petersburg, 1871." That was the whole of his service; and he thought if the printer had added—"Nephew of the Duke of Wellington, son of Lord Cowley, and son-in-law of Lord Augustus Loftus, Ambassador at St. Petersburg," he would have added some important information. It must be remembered that the gentlemen who entered the Diplomatic Service had to pass a severe examination, and then to serve for two years without any remuneration; that, at the expiration of that time, they obtained a salary of £150 per annum, which was increased to £300 per annum on their passing another examination. This was the first instance in which an outsider had been brought into the middle of the service. The main question, however, was whether Colonel Wellesley was competent to fill the office to which he had been appointed? The Chancellor of the Exchequer had said, the other evening, that Colonel Wellesley had held several diplomatic positions; but, on that point, the right hon. Gentleman was mistaken, inasmuch as he had merely been Military Attaché, which in no way qualified him for a diplomatic post. The Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to think that diplomacy was a thing to be caught, like small-pox or measles, merely by attending a foreign Court. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman that it could not be caught in that way. It was said that Colonel Wellesley, since he had been in St. Petersburg, had proved himself to be an efficient officer. He had certainly learnt Russian; and if there was one thing in which he had been unwise, it was in expressing rather too freely his opinion of the officers of the Staff in Russia. The officers of the Staff at St. Petersburg had, it appeared, all quarrelled with Colonel Wellesley. He did not say who was in the right, but the fact was as he had stated it, and the quarrel between the Grand Duke Nicholas and Colonel Wellesley was connected with

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      the indiscreet way in which, the latter expressed his opinions about the officers of the Staff. Therefore, Colonel Wellesley was hardly the person to be placed in the post of First Secretary of the Embassy at Vienna, where, if anything happened to the Ambassador, the First Secretary would have charge of that important Embassy. They might just as well put him. (Mr. Benett-Stanford), because he was an officer of the Volunteers, and knew a little about drill, in command of a brigade of the Guards. In 1858, Lord Malmesbury, then Foreign Secretary, appointed a gentleman who had nothing to do with diplomacy—Lord Chelsea—as First Secretary to the Embassy at Paris; and what was the result? When Lord Palmerston's Government afterwards came into power, Lord Russell, then Foreign Secretary, finding that Lord Chelsea had been placed over the heads of many old diplomatic servants, removed the noble Lord from the service altogether. If a change of Ministry occurred—a thing he hoped would not take place for some time yet—what was there to prevent another Foreign Secretary from acting on the precedent of 1858, and dismissing Colonel Wellesley? Diplomacy had been spoken of as if it were not a special art and science, whereas it was really the science or art of conducting negotiations between nations, particularly in securing treaties; and he doubted if Colonel Wellesley had any such knowledge. Every member of the Diplomatic Service, before he received a place or any pay, must possess, among other things, a knowledge of Constitutional History, Blackstone's Commentaries, Hallam's Constitutional History of England, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Mill's Political Economy, the Political History of Europe, and Political Economy generally, and must also be acquainted with Latin, as well as with two foreign languages. But had Colonel Wellesley these qualifications? The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in defending Colonel Wellesley's appointment, had said they must have a competent person to put in the post of First Secretary of the Embassy at Vienna. That was a slur on the whole Diplomatic Service. There was an abundance of excellent public servants who could fill the post, and who had looked forward to filling it, instead of which a member of an entirely different profession had been
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      put over all their heads. In conclusion, he might say that in bringing that Motion forward he did not mean to attack the Government, but to attack the principle on which they had acted; because, when they saw a gross piece of injustice, and, he might add, of nepotism, the House ought to express its disapproval of it, and to defend well-tried servants of the Crown, who had no one in the House to represent them or protect their interests. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
      Amendment proposed,
      To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House disapproves of the appointment of Colonel Wellesley, of the Coldstream Guards, to the post of First Secretary of Embassy at Vienna, over the heads of a large number of old and competent diplomatic servants,—(Mr. Benett-Stanford.)
      —instead thereof.
      Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
      COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he felt that he ought not to allow a single moment to pass before he replied to the hon. Gentleman who had brought for ward that Motion. He had been prepared from the first to accept—and he was bound, in a Parliamentary sense, still to accept—the hon. Member's very general disclaimer of being actuated by any personal motives on that occasion; but he could not help thinking that, in view of some of the terms of his Resolution, some of the matters on which the hon. Gentleman had touched in his speech were, to say the least, slightly out of place. The hon. Gentleman disapproved the appointment of Colonel Wellesley, as First Secretary to the Embassy at Vienna, over the heads of a large number of diplomatic servants. Now, he would concede that that was not the first time Colonel Wellesley's name had been brought before the House. And on the present occasion, as on the former one, he had no doubt that the same answer which could be given about Colonel Wellesley would be as fully satisfactory as it was before. But when the hon. Member thought it necessary to revert to previous debates, to criticize as minutely as he could do, and to comment, in terms which very barely avoided being ironical, on

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      the performance of Colonel Wellesley's military duties, he could not but think that that went rather beyond the terms of the Motion, and partook somewhat of the character of a personal attack on a gentleman who was not there to defend himself. ["No!"] He was glad to hear that disavowal, and hoped it would be fully understood. With regard to Colonel Wellesley's services, they had already been pretty well recited to the House. But it was not right to pass by that which had been said about his previous appointment as Military Attaché at St. Petersburg without giving in some slight detail, the reasons why he had been selected for the very important post that he had so lately vacated. It would be recollected that, in a recent discussion in that House, his noble Friend Lord Cranbrook stated that Colonel Wellesley's appointment was made in 1871; that he was appointed, although an officer of very junior rank, very much owing to the special qualifications he possessed for the particular post to which he was sent as Military Attaché, and that no fewer than eight officers to whom the post of Military Attaché, had been offered had declined it, partly on the ground of that which was very notorious—the expense of living at St. Petersburg—and partly for other reasons, into which it was unnecessary to enter. Colonel Wellesley, although a junior officer, was selected for the appointment; he had held it since 1871, and he thought it was, indirectly, no slight praise to him that, although there was no term, in the strict sense of the word, yet, when the ordinary period of five years expired, it was deemed for the benefit of the public service that he should be continued in the important post which he occupied. His noble Friend also stated that Colonel Wellesley was well fitted for the post, that he was not only an able officer, but an accomplished linguist, able to speak Russian, and that it was agreed on all hands that, although he had been appointed in 1871, it would have been injudicious to remove him last year, when events in the East of Europe took so important a turn. He had thought it right to bring to the notice of hon. Members, who were not present on a previous occasion, the fact that so far as concerned Colonel Wellesley's special fitness for the post of Military Attaché, it had been accepted by the House. As to the
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      question of supersession, the hon. Gentleman said he did not mean to make any attack on the Government, but only attacked the principles on which they had acted; and if it could be shown that those principles were contrary to those which had been deliberately affirmed on more than one occasion, undoubtedly the hon. Gentleman's facts might have some force. But, so far from that being the case, the appointment which had been made—although, undoubtedly, somewhat out of the usual course—was one of a nature which had been foreseen and expressly provided for. If he turned to the 18th Rule of the Foreign Office, he did not find, nor had he heard, that there was any reservation in that clause. The Secretary of State preserved to himself the power of naming any person, even though he might not be a member of the Diplomatic Service, for the higher and more responsible posts in it; and with regard to any promotion, he would not be restricted by claims founded on seniority from making such appointments as he might deem right. The hon. Member had spoken as if that Rule had been inserted in the Regulations without any intention that practical effect should be given to it, and he would recount the circumstances under which it had been made. A Committee, which had been moved for by the then Member for Warrington (Mr. Rylands), had conducted a very laborious and exhaustive inquiry for two years, and in their recommendations with regard to the Diplomatic Service, there was a paragraph in which they expressly said that, having considered the question whether outsiders should be brought into the profession of diplomacy, they thought that, under certain circumstances, the power of appointing them should be left to the Secretary of State, and they gave it as their opinion that he should not be confined to the service alone in filling up vacant appointments. It could not be said, then, that that power was so novel that it was inexpedient to exercise it. Under ordinary circumstances, there might have been something to say about this appointment; but, considering the present position of affairs, he contended it was justified by the facts of the case. The hon. Member seemed to think that no one had been taken into the Diplomatic Service from the outside; but there was the noble Lord (Lord Strathnairn) who,

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      as Sir Hugh Rose, was appointed Secretary to the Embassy at Constantinople, and there were many other instances he could mention in which military men had received similar appointments. He observed that the hon. Member attached great importance to the regulations as to promotions in the Diplomatic Service; but these were only meant to apply to minor posts, and it seemed to him that he did not draw a distinction between those and appointments of a higher rank—
      MR. BENETT-STANFORD: I rise to explain. It has always been considered in the service that gentlemen from the outside—Members of Parliament and such like—might be placed in the upper posts, but that minor appointments should always be conferred on gentlemen of the Diplomatic Profession only.
      COLONEL STANLEYsaid, he would give the hon. Gentleman the benefit of his contention, for Lord Strathnairn formerly filled an appointment of some importance before he was promoted—namely, that of Consul General, and, unless he was very much mistaken, had been appointed to that very important place directly from the Army and while serving in it. He need not point out that there had been other cases, and notably that of Mr. Layard, where gentlemen had been taken from the outside to fill important places in the Diplomatic Service, and he would not weary the House by recounting the numerous instances in which transfers from the Consular to the Diplomatic Service had been of much public advantage. He drew from the fact of those transfers the argument that the Diplomatic Service was not a close profession; and it had always been understood that, on the authority and responsibility of the Secretary of State, it should be open to him to appoint those who would, in his judgment, best serve the required purpose. The hon. Gentleman had said that in the duties of Military Attaché there was nothing of a diplomatic character, and that he only had to collect details about arms, ammunition, and troops, which were in no way concerned with diplomatic matters. To that statement he was obliged to demur. In the first place, the information which it was the duty of a Military Attaché to procure was of very great importance, and
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      it was no inconsiderable advantage to him to have facilities, from his position as an officer, for procuring proper information. In almost every country there was a very large number of questions connected with the military service which intimately concerned diplomacy, and the Military Attaché went through a course of training which would thoroughly fit him for duties more strictly of a civil nature. It was not to be lost sight of that in these days and in certain countries military rank had distinctly its advantages; and, particularly in relation to the Court to which Colonel Wellesley was about to be accredited, his military rank and his position as a personal aide-de-camp of the Sovereign gave him considerable advantages, and also enabled him better to discharge the duties to his country which he was sent to perform. ["No!"] Hon. Members might dissent from that view, but it was a matter of fact and not of opinion, and he felt sure that Colonel Wellesley would justify his prophecy rather than their interpretation of it. However, Colonel Wellesley had discharged other than military duties; and hon. Members, if they looked at last year's Parliamentary Paper, No. 9 on Turkey, would find records to show that Colonel Wellesley had the highest authority abroad, and a memorandum of the communications which passed between him, as the Representative of Her Majesty's Government, and the Emperor of Russia. It was only necessary to refer to those Papers to prove that Colonel Wellesley had already been trained to negotiations of extreme delicacy and importance. There was one point on which he would only touch very lightly. It would be difficult for him, acquainted though he was with many members of the Diplomatic Service, to take a series of names and point out the particular qualification which this or that man could show in competition with Colonel Wellesley. One gentleman had served for 62 years—perhaps that was no special qualification, nor was it necessary that a man should have experience of every clime in the world. He had rather not discuss the merits of those gentlemen; but, when he found that there were rules laid down upon principles which had been accepted by a Committee of the House and acted upon by successive Ministers, and that,

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      according to those rules, Colonel Wellesley had been appointed as the fittest person, he was content to set the opinion of Lord Salisbury and Lord Granville against that of the hon. Member, and to leave the hon. Gentleman to draw his own conclusions. He had endeavoured, as far as possible, to avoid giving offence to anyone, and if he had spoken with warmth he must apologize for having been betrayed beyond his duty. He did not think he had said anything which could not be justified, and he believed he had sufficiently proved to the House that this appointment was consistent with the rules of the service, that it could be fully justified by the circumstances of the case, and that it did not fall under those terms of condemnation which the hon. Member sought to impose upon it.
      MR. GRANT DUFFsaid, it was impossible to discuss a personal matter without personal allusions, and he claimed the right of saying everything with regard to Colonel Wellesley which he should have said if Colonel Wellesley were sitting opposite to him. In the first place, he admitted the contention of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just sat down, that it was right and proper that the Secretary of State should have the power of making these appointments in the Diplomatic Service; but to that high power attached a grave responsibility, and he did not think that any Secretary of State should put a man in any position in the Diplomatic Service unless he was prepared to meet, in the most distinct and categorical manner, any challenge in that House as to the merits of the person appointed. Two cases had been referred to in the course of this discussion. When the present Viceroy of India was appointed, the diplomatic post he vacated at Lisbon was conferred upon a gentleman whose preferment caused a certain amount of dissatisfaction among the friends of persons who thought they had a better claim to the position. But the reason why the gentleman in question was sent there was so obvious that no one on either side of politics in that House challenged the appointment. The other case was that of Mr. Layard, who was appointed to a very high position—to the Legation at Madrid; but his appointment, also, was not challenged in Parliament, although Mr. Layard had
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      been a militant politician for many years, and had, as such, a fair share of enemies. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer would show that, in the present instance, there were thoroughly good reasons for the appointment of Colonel Wellesley, he should have nothing more to say on the subject. But, in looking at the case of Colonel Wellesley, the first thing that struck him was the fact—it was rare for any man to develop ability entitling him to exceptional promotion in two totally distinct lines of life; but this fortunate person had developed not only great diplomatic, but also great military ability. Although he was a comparatively young soldier, being only 33 years old, and having had only 15 years' service, he was put over the heads of hundreds of officers, many of whom had seen a great deal of service, and was made aide-de-camp to the Queen, thereby attaining the rank of full colonel in the Army. This happened in the month of January. Then it was a remarkable circumstance that, immediately after a connection of this fortunate young gentleman became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, it was discovered that Colonel Wellesley possessed extraordinary diplomatic ability, as it had previously been discovered that he had extraordinary military ability. Accordingly, he was put into a high position in the Diplomatic Service, and was put over the heads of some 95 men, many of whom had done good service to the Crown. It ought not to be forgotten that the military position of this fortunate gentleman was an exceedingly irregular one—for either he would now draw his full military pay, in addition to his pay from the Diplomatic Service, or else he would draw his half-pay after only 15 years' service; whereas the usual period after which half-pay was drawn was 25 years. It was said that Colonel Wellesley had peculiar qualifications for the office—that he had acquired a certain knowledge of Russia and of the Russian language. The fact was that he had been in Russia for something over six years. Well, if he had not learned Russian, and had not obtained some knowledge of Russia in that time, he would have been an idiot, and would have been perfectly unworthy of any position in Her Majesty's service. If Colonel Wellesley's appointment was

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      to be justified by his exceptional military ability, either the gentlemen over whose heads he had been appointed had grossly neglected their duty, and thus disqualified themselves for this post, which should have fallen to them by seniority, or else they lacked ability in a remarkable degree. But the fact was that a good many had been passed over who were much more competent to fill this position than Colonel Wellesley. If he had been sent as Military Attaché to Vienna, that would have been a natural course of promotion; but why was he advanced to a position for which he had evinced no aptitude? It had been alleged that the fact of Colonel Wellesley being a military man would give him some special advantage at Vienna. This, however, he wholly denied. It was well known that, although the policy of Austria might, on various occasions, be divergent from that of Russia, yet the alliance of a personal kind between the two Empires was very close, and the circumstance that Colonel Wellesley had had an unpleasant quarrel with a Russian Grand Duke was not likely to commend him to the Court of Vienna. He knew there were some persons in this country whose passion at present was hatred to Russia, and that the mere fact of a man having rendered himself peculiarly distasteful to Russia and having seen the seamy side of Russian society, was likely to make him very popular indeed. He, however, took a totally different view of the matter. Such experiences were not a qualification for a man becoming a member of a profession, whose honourable motto ought to be—"Peace on earth and good will towards men." It had been stated in the course of the discussion that the Earl of Malmesbury, when Foreign Secretary, appointed a defeated Conservative candidate to the post of First Secretary to the Embassy at Paris—the Ambassador at the time being Earl Cowley, the father of the gentleman to whose appointment attention was now called. But no mention was made of the fact that the position of the gentleman appointed was made most disagreeable to him, and that he was removed as soon as the Government of Earl Russell came into Office. Colonel Wellesley might be very well received by the Embassy at Vienna; but, if he were, the members of the Embassy were
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      not possessed with the usual passions of human nature. Of this the Government might be perfectly certain, that the appointment would be criticized most bitterly in every capital of the world. It would be criticized not only by persons who thought that a grievous wrong had been done to the public service, but by men smarting under a sense of personal wrong, and they would be members of a society which had no superior in point of honour, and they would, on that account, be listened to. He would say no more on this subject. There were two kinds of truths. There were truths which it was wise to speak, and there were others on which it was better to keep silent. He trusted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be able to make a reasonable defence of this appointment, and to justify it on the ground of peculiar qualifications.
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, I must begin the few observations I have to make by saying that it is wholly out of my power to answer accusations which are not fit to be made, and I can only regret that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Elgin (Mr. Grant Duff), after having made a tolerably severe attack upon Colonel Wellesley, and upon this appointment, based on grounds which I think I shall be able to show have been perfectly untenable, has thought fit to wind up his remarks with a vague kind of charge which he does not choose to define. It may be that he took this course because he thought he had not made out a sufficiently strong case against Colonel Wellesley, or because he desires to throw a little discredit in a way it is utterly impossible to measure, and which we can only deal with on the principle of omne ignotum pro magnifico—or, in other words, on the suggestion implied in his observations that there was a good deal more behind to say, but that it was so bad he would not bring it before the House. I must say that I think this a most unfair way of dealing with the question before us. It is true, as has been said, that Colonel Wellesley is not present among us in person, but he is represented by his official superiors, and I think it was peculiarly desirable that no attack of the kind should have been made without full Notice having been given of the intention to

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      bring the matter forward. It is true that the Foreign Secretary makes these appointments on his own responsibility, and it is also true that the hon. Member for Elgin has expressed his opinion that the Secretary of State ought to defend his appointments; but it is also a fact, as the hon. Member knows, that the Foreign Secretary has no voice in this House, and that he can only be defended by his Colleagues in this House after they have been made fully acquainted with the nature of the charges to be brought against him. The hon. Gentleman has implied that there are some personal and family reasons for this appointment, and he also spoke of Colonel Wellesley as a connection of Lord Salisbury. "Connection" is a word of wide meaning, and personally I know nothing of the matter as far as the present question is concerned; but I have the authority of my noble Friend the Marquess of Salisbury for saying that his connection with Colonel Wellesley, as far as his recent appointment is concerned, has been purely official, and therefore only dates as far back as the time at which my noble Friend became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. I am further authorized by my noble Friend to say that the appointment was made entirely apart from any pressure from without, and solely because he thought, on public grounds, that Colonel Wellesley was eminently fitted for the office to which he has been appointed. Colonel Wellesley, as the House must know, has great personal experience of the peculiar circumstances existing at the present time, as far as foreign politics is concerned. The hon. Gentleman has suggested that Colonel Wellesley's peculiar qualification was that he talked Russian, that that was all he had done during the last six years, and that he must have been a great fool if he had not learned to talk Russian in that time. That is not the point. Nobody ever said a word about it. Colonel Wellesley was, I believe, able to talk Russian before he was appointed Military Attaché. ["No, no!"] It was one of the grounds given.
      MR. BENETT-STANFORD: It was a wrong ground, then. Lord Enfield said so, but he was mistaken.
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I am informed that the Report made upon Colonel Wellesley, before
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      his appointment, or at the time he was appointed Military Attaché, was to the effect that he had served in the first battalion of the Coldstream Guards, that he was much above the average ability, and in capacity was an exceedingly smart, zealous, and intelligent officer, and that he was acquainted with the French, German, and Russian languages; also that his knowledge of the world particularly adapted him for the position of Military Attaché. But that is not the point upon which we go. The point is the peculiar position that he has occupied during the last year or two, and the peculiar nature of the appointment which he has accepted. If the hon. Member for the Elgin Burghs had only looked at the Papers which have been laid on the Table of the House, he would have seen that within the last year Colonel Wellesley has been the medium of important diplomatic communications at times when the Emperor of Russia was far removed from St. Petersburg, and when, therefore, it would not have been possible for Her Majesty's Ambassador at the Court of the Czar to have been in personal communication with him. In these transactions Colonel Wellesley showed that he was something more than a Military Attaché, and that he was capable of dealing with delicate questions of diplomacy. Under all these circumstances, my noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs came to the conclusion, in which all his Colleagues agreed, that Colonel Wellesley was eminently fitted for the post, and accordingly appointed him to it. This my noble Friend did on his own responsibility, believing the appointment to be the best that could be made for the public service. It therefore comes to be a question of opinion between my noble Friend and the hon. Member for the Elgin Burghs as to the eligibility of the appointment, and I must leave it to the House to decide the point between them; but I can confidently assert that the grounds on which the appointment was made were those which I have stated, and no other. I shall not go into the general question of the mode in which appointments of this kind are made. The names of the late Lord Lyons and of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe might be mentioned as eminent instances of the fact that in former times the Diplomatic Service was by no means a close service in the sense of

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      being one confined entirely, or almost entirely, to men who had been brought up in it; but I admit that in more recent times—since 1861—it has had more the character of a close service. Still, I agree with the opinion expressed by a Committee which sat some seven years ago, namely—
      "That it is undesirable in the interests of the public that promotion in the diplomatic service, especially for the higher and more responsible posts in it, should be by way of seniority; and the Committee are of opinion that the Secretary of State should be distinctly understood to make his appointments to such posts on his own responsibility by way of selection, and not by way of seniority; and that, while paying proper regard to the due claims of those in the service, he should not be confined in his freedom of choice in filling up such appointments."
      Upon that was founded the Rule observed in the present case. I admit that, as a general principle, the Foreign Secretary ought to be very careful—as he is—not to disappoint the proper hopes and expectations of men serving in the lower ranks of the service; and I admit that such an appointment as this is not one for which there is frequently reason and justification, except for the special circumstances under which it was made. Those special circumstances I have stated, and I can assure the House that the appointment was made by Lord Salisbury for no other reason than because he believed it was the best appointment under the circumstances.
      MR. KNATCHBULL- HUGESSENsaid, he should vote against the Motion. He was personally acquainted with Colonel Wellesley, and he had formed a high opinion of his ability. That fact alone, however, would not have been sufficient to induce him to vote against the Amendment before the House, but he took a broad constitutional ground. When Ministers took an unconstitutional course and slighted the House of Commons, no one was more ready than he to oppose them. But, on the other hand, he thought it most dangerous for the House of Commons to interfere between these appointments and the responsible Ministers of the Crown, unless there was marked incapacity shown—and especially at such a time as this. The responsibility of the Government was great in choosing proper officers, and it was impossible that the House could form so good an estimate of the capacity of the men that were appointed
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      as those whose special duty it was to appoint them. Here there was no proof of incapacity, nor even any allegation that such existed. If there was any matter in which a Minister ought to be left to act upon his responsibility, it was in the case of an appointment such as that of Colonel Wellesley, and, happily, no question of Party politics arose to complicate the matter. The late Government was attacked because they placed Sir Robert Collier in his present position, but the result had shown that they were justified in doing so; and their main defence had been that, whatever technical doubts there might be as to the meaning of an Act of Parliament, they had, upon their responsibility, selected one whom they believed to be the best man for the place. Such, no doubt, would be the case in the present instance, and he should therefore support the appointment, because he believed it to be a good one.
      MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEsaid, he had been a Member of every Committee that had sat on the Diplomatic Service, and he could state that the general opinion of those Committees was that the Diplomatic Service should be thrown open as far as possible. Some five or six of the English Ministers abroad had never been attaché or secretary to an Embassy; and, as the First Secretary of Embassy had, in the absence of the Ambassador, to perform his duty, it was desirable that such appointments should be open. He believed Colonel Wellesley was fitted for the post to which he had been appointed, and he had no doubt the appointment would be attended with advantage to the public service.
      MR. W. LOWTHERsaid, that it was with great regret that he had heard the answer given the other day by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He said the other day that nobody was so well qualified to fill the post as Colonel Wellesley, and he (Mr. W. Lowther) regretted that the right hon. Gentleman had gone out of his way to give a slap in the face to the whole of the junior members of the profession. He had not the honour of Colonel Wellesley's acquaintance, but he could not but regret his appointment as a departure from the invariable practice in such cases, and one which the Diplomatic Profession would very much deplore. The position of Military Attaché was quite different

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      from that of other Attachés; and his firm opinion was that Colonel Wellesley would be equally useful at Vienna as Military Attaché, and he would have more ready access to the Court than if he were a Diplomatic Attaché. The action of Lord Salisbury might be legally right, but he (Mr. W. Lowther) could not help thinking that it was morally wrong.
      Question put.
      The House divided:—Ayes 250; Noes 83: Majority 167.—(Div. List, No. 141.)
      Main Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
      Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
      Committee deferred till this day.
      The House suspended its Sitting at Seven of the clock.
      The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.
      Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present,
      House adjourned at five minutes after Nine o'clock till Monday next.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Acknowledgment of Deeds by Married Women (Ireland)* (87).
Second Reading—Adulteration of Seeds Act (1869) Amendment * (79).
Committee—Report—Customs and Inland Revenue*.
Third Reading—Matrimonial Causes Acts Amendment (60), and passed.

NOXIOUS VAPOURS COMMISSION— THE REPORT.—QUESTION.
LORD WINMARLEIGHasked the noble Lord the Chairman of the Commission appointed the year before last to inquire into the operation of the Noxious Vapours Act, when it was likely the Commission would report? The subject into which the Commission had been inquiring was one of great interest to his county and other parts of the country.
LORD ABERDAREsaid, he regretted the delay that had occurred. The Commission had taken a great deal of evidence in various parts of the country. He had been so occupied with other duties and cares, that he had not been able to give as much time as he could have wished to the preparation of the Report; but no time would now be lost in preparing it and presenting it to Parliament.

CONTAGIOUS DISEASES (ANIMALS) BILL.—OBSERVATIONS.
THE DUKE OF SOMERSETsaid, that the Amendments in this Bill proposed to be moved in Committee by the Lord President occupied six pages of the Notice Paper. It was true that a number of those Amendments were merely verbal; but he thought it would be well to reprint the Bill, and give their Lordships time to look into them before the House was called upon to go into Committee on the Bill.
THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONsaid, that, while anxious to have the Bill sent down to the other House in good time, he was also desirous of consulting the convenience of the noble Duke and the rest of their Lordships. He would postpone the Committee from Tuesday to Thursday if that would suit the noble Duke, and, in the meantime, would have printed Amendments relating to the Irish part of the case. Most of the Amendments already printed were merely verbal.
THE EARL OF REDESDALEsuggested that their Lordships should go into Committee pro formâ on Tuesday, in order that the Bill, with Amendments, might be reprinted by Thursday.
THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONsaid, he would adopt that arrangement if it would meet the views of he noble Duke.
THE DUKE OF SOMERSETsaid, he was satisfied with that arrangement.
THE MARQUESS OF RIPONasked, whether, before Thursday, his noble Friend the Lord President would be able to produce the Correspondence with foreign countries on the subject of the Bill.
THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONsaid, there would be no unnecessary delay in producing the Correspondence, but there had been very
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little time to obtain the consent of the foreign Governments since the request for its production was made by his noble Friend.

MATRIMONIAL CAUSES ACTS AMEND- MENT BILL—(No. 60.)
(The Lord Sudeley.)

THIRD READING. BILL PASSED.
Bill read 3a (according to Order) with the Amendments.
LORD PENZANCEsaid, he had given notice of an Amendment to meet the views of those who thought there was some objection to the mode in which, by his clause, it was proposed to recover maintenance money from husbands against whom magistrates pronounced judicial separation in consequence of their having assaulted their wives.
Amendment moved, in Clause 4, line 3, leave out from ("the board") to ("conviction") in line 5, both inclusive, and insert ("his wife"); line 7, leave out from ("the support") to ("her") in line 14, both inclusive, and insert—
("Her support, and the payment of any sum of money so ordered shall be enforcible and enforced against the husband in the same manner as the payment of money is enforced under an order of affiliation.")—(The Lord Penzance.)
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, that the Amendment proposed by his noble and learned Friend was a great improvement, and met the difficulty which he pointed out when his noble and learned Friend introduced the clause.
Amendment agreed to; further Amendments made.
Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND—THE PREACHERS IN ST. PAUL'S.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  THE EARL OF HARROWBYinquired, Whether it was the fact that the Reverend Mr. Edwards, Vicar of Prestbury, who has been suspended from his ministrations by the Provincial Court of Canterbury, has been selected to preach in the Metropolitan Church of St. Paul's, London; and, if so, by whom so selected? It had been stated, in plain words, that a certain gentleman notorious for his

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  contempt of the law of this country had been invited to preach in the Metropolitan Church of St. Paul's. At the present time, that gentleman refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the highest Tribunal of the Church in the Province of Canterbury, and was under suspension for contumacy. Whatever might be the difficulty of getting certain gentlemen to submit to the judgment of the legally constituted authorities, it did seem strange that a clergyman under sentence for contumacy by the highest Tribunal in the Church should be selected to preach in the Cathedral of the Metropolis. Surely, the Church was not reduced so low, as to be obliged to invite such clergymen to preach in the cathedrals? Whether or not it was a fact that Mr. Edwards had been selected to preach at St. Paul's, he could not say. The statement had been circulated in the newspapers for some days, and, as he believed that St. Paul's was under the control of the Dean and Chapter, who enjoyed their high position by the laws of this country, he thought it strange they should have selected to preach in the Church under their charge a clergyman who had earnt his distinction by wilfully breaking and setting at nought those laws. Therefore, he thought it right to ask the right rev. Prelate, who presided over the Diocese of London, whether there was any truth in the report?
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONsaid, he would give their Lordships the best explanation he could; but it must be borne in mind that it was only that morning that he saw the notice of this Question in the newspapers. In the middle of the day he received a note from the noble Earl; but it was quite impossible since to make such inquiries as to give him a definite answer. The appointment of preachers in St. Paul's stood thus. The morning preachers were appointed by the Bishop, and the afternoon preachers were the Canons in residence, who took the duty in turn. The evening preaching was a comparatively late institution. It commenced 11 or 12 years ago. For a few years, evening sermons were preached only in the first three months of the year. The preachers for those three months were appointed by the Bishop; but the evening preachers for the nine other months were now appointed by the Canons on some arrangement among themselves. The appointment
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  was supposed theoretically to be made by the whole Chapter. As soon as he saw in the newspapers the announcement referred to by the noble Earl, he wrote to Canon Lightfoot, the Canon in residence, to know if there was any truth in the statement? In reply, he stated that he had no knowledge at all of such a selection, nor could he obtain any information on the subject from any other member of the Chapter. Canon Light-foot added, that neither the Dean nor Canon Gregory was at home. Since the receipt of Canon Lightfoot's letter he had seen Bishop Claughton, the Archdeacon of London, and the Archdeacon had stated to him that neither he nor Canon Gregory knew anything about the matter, and that the Dean and Canon Liddon were absent. The letter of Canon Lightfoot went on to say that he had heard the rumour a few days ago, but attached no importance to it, and that a large proportion of the rumours relating to St. Paul's were without foundation. He could assure their Lordships that if he took the trouble of contradicting the rumours which he saw in the newspapers respecting himself, he would have very little time left for the work of his Diocese.
  House adjourned at half past Five o'clock, to Monday next, Eleven o'clock.