Sitting of 18 March 1879

MINUTES.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—Resolutions [March 17] reported.
PRIVATE BILL (by Order)—Select Committee—Thames River (Prevention of Floods), Sir Trevor Lawrence, Mr. M. Brooks added, Lord Robert Montagu discharged.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—County Boards [105].
Second Reading—Referred to Select Committee—Wormwood Scrubs Regulation * [96].
Select Committee—Summary Jurisdiction * [69], nominated; Coroners * [67], nominated.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  THAMES RIVER (PREVENTION OF FLOODS) BILL.
  Committee on the Thames River (Prevention of Floods) Bill to consist of Twelve Members; Sir TREVOR LAWRENCE and Mr. MAURICE BROOKS added to the Committee; Lord ROBERT MONTAGU discharged from attendance; Five to be the quorum.—(The Chairman of Ways and Means.)
QUESTIONS.

  CRIMINAL LAW—CASE OF MICHAEL GILMORE.—QUESTION.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether it is true that Michael Gilmore, a young man twenty-four years of age, and in the last stage of illness from consumption, was, on the 6th of January last, taken out of his bed and marched through the town of Tuam, in deep snow, by six armed policemen and lodged in the prison there on the suspicion that he had written a threatening letter; whether all his papers were seized and sent to Dublin to be examined by an expert; whether bail was refused and he was not allowed to return home until the medical man certified that his death might take place at any moment; and, whether it is true that nothing was discovered to justify his arrest, and that he has since actually died; and what course under these circumstances the Government propose to take in reference to this case?
  MR. J. LOWTHER: Sir, the facts of the case I find are as follows:—Michael Gilmore was arrested in Tuam on the 5th of January of the present year on a charge of having written a threatening letter. The arrest was made under a magistrate's warrant, duly obtained, and took place at half-past 3 in the afternoon, the prisoner not being confined to bed at the time. It is the case that there was snow on the ground that day. On the 2nd of December, a month or more previous to the arrest, Gilmore's residence was searched under a warrant, and certain documents were seized and made the subject of examination by an expert, as indicated by the hon. Gentleman. Bail was, in the first instance, refused, but was accepted the day following the arrest, in accordance with the recommendation of the medical authorities. Meanwhile, during the few hours he was in confinement, every attention was paid to him, and especial care taken to avoid his being exposed to any risk from cold or other causes. On the 11th of January he was committed for trial at Galway Assizes, bail being again accepted, and on the 17th of February, previous to the Assizes being held, he
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  died, the cause of death being consumption. The documents seized, and other evidence, fully justified the arrest in the opinion of those whose duty it was to investigate the case, and I am unable to find that any blame is attributable to any of the persons connected with it.

  PATENTS FOR INVENTIONS (No 2) BILL.—QUESTION.
  MR. SAMUELSONasked Mr. Attorney General, Whether he will, before the Second Reading of the Patents for Inventions (No. 2) Bill, lay upon the Table a Statement showing, in respect of each year from 1870 to 1878 inclusive, the number of Patents then in their fourteenth year, the number of applications to the Privy Council for prolongation, and the number of prolongations actually granted?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir JOHN HOLKER), in reply, said, that he would lay on the Table, as soon as he obtained it, the statement referred to in the hon. Member's Question. He should not like to promise, however, that if he had an opportunity of taking the second reading of the Patents for Inventions (No. 2) Bill he would forego the advantage, merely because the statement was not ready.

  ARMY—THE INDIAN CONTINGENT— COST OF TRANSPORT.—QUESTION.
  MR. MUNDELLAasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he will cause to be laid upon the Table of the House a full detailed Statement of the cost of the transport of the Indian troops from and to India, together with the pay and allowances, cost of provisions, and all other expenses incidental thereto?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, in reply, said, that if the hon. Gentleman would move for it, he would cause the Statement in question to be laid upon the Table.

  PARLIAMENT—THE VACANT SEATS— DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT.

    QUESTION.
    MR. HIBBERTasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether it is the intention of the Government to take any

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    steps, in anticipation of the ensuing dissolution of Parliament, to provide for the filling up of the six vacancies created by the disfranchisement of Beverley, Bridgwater, Cashel, and Sligo, so as to complete the full number of the House of Commons?
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Yes, Sir, the Government think it will be right that the filling up of these vacancies should be provided for before the time comes for a Dissolution of Parliament. But there is no hurry, as the necessity is not likely to occur immediately.

  LAW AND JUSTICE—CASE OF "MARTIN v. MACKONOCHIE."—QUESTION.
  SIR UGHTRED KAY-SHUTTLEWORTHasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether it is the fact that, in the case of Martin v. Mackonochie, the judge against whose decision the appeal is made, but who has no personal interest in the action, has been permitted to appear by Counsel as a party in the suit; whether the Treasury has instructed the Solicitor General to appear accordingly; whether it is proposed to pay the costs out of the public purse; and, whether there is any precedent for such a course or for such an application of the public funds?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, in reply, said, it was true that the Judge in question (Lord Penzance) had been permitted to appear by counsel as a party in the suit. The permission, he presumed, was granted by the Court before which the proceedings took place; but, of course, that was a matter over which the Government had no control. The Treasury had instructed him (the Attorney General) to appear on Lord Penzance's behalf in accordance with the directions of the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary. It was proposed that the costs should be paid out of the public purse. He believed it was in accordance with usual practice that when there arose any question as to the jurisdiction of one Court over another, although the Judge, who had no personal interest in the matter, was expected to appear, the charge was borne by the Government. There was, of course, no direct precedent in the present case, because Lord Penzance's Court was of very recent creation.

  THE WAR OFFICE LOCKS.

    QUESTION.
    MR. MACDONALDasked the Secretary of State for War, If his attention has been directed to a Correspondence in respect to a contract for locks furnished to the War Office, in which it is stated that a person furnished locks at a very large per centage above purchase price; if he has taken any steps to find if these allegations are correct; whether there was any particular reason why that tradesman was selected to supply the locks; and, whether it be correct that cast-iron locks were not used in the Department till the contract was in the hands of the contractor in question?
    COLONEL LOYD LINDSAY, in reply, said, the attention of his right hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Stanley) had been called to the matter referred to. The locks, however, as a matter of fact, were purchased at the printed price, which was not in excess of the ordinary retail price. It had not been the practice to furnish locks of cast-iron; but English manufacturers were of opinion that if they were of good workmanship they were as good as others.
    MR. MACDONALDgave Notice that he would take the first opportunity of calling attention to this matter of locks. He could show that there had been great extravagance.

  THE KING OF BURMAH—REPORTED ULTIMATUM.—QUESTION.
  MR. RICHARDasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether it is true, as reported in the public journals, that an ultimatum has been sent to the King of Burmah; what is the nature of that ultimatum; and, whether it was sent with the knowledge and sanction of Her Majesty's Government?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, I have communicated with my noble Friend the Secretary of State for India (Viscount Cranbrook), and he informs me that he has no information, and we have no information of any ultimatum of any kind having been sent. I have also to say that, so far as is known, the Viceroy has no intention of sending one.

  PUBLIC HEALTH—DEATH-RATE OF THE METROPOLIS.—QUESTION.
  SIR UGHTRED KAY-SHUTTLEWORTHasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether it is true that the Registrar General has reported that the death-rate of the Metropolis, which was 22·3 in every thousand in 1876, and 21·9 in 1877, has risen in 1878 to 23·5in every thousand; whether this increase was almost entirely due to zymotic diseases; whether the death-rate has risen to a still higher figure in recent weeks (29·2 in that ending March 8th); whether Dr. Frankland has reported that during the past year the quality of water delivered by the Companies who derive their supply from the Thames was inferior even to the unsatisfactory water supply of recent years; and, whether the Local Government Board have taken any action in consequence of these reports?
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTH: It is true, Sir, as stated in the hon. Gentleman's Question, that the annual death-rate in London, which was 23·8, 22·3, and 21·9 per 1,000 in 1875, 1876, and 1877, rose again to 23·5 in 1878. It is also true that during the first 10 weeks of this year, influenced by the severe winter, the death-rate has averaged 26·3 per 1,000. The average annual death-rate in London, however, during the eight past years of the current decade—1871–78—has averaged but 22·8 per 1,000, against 23·6 and 24·3 in the two preceding decades—1861–70 and 1851–60 respectively—showing an actual recent decline. As to the increase in 1878, compared with the exceptionally low rate in 1877, less than one-third of it was due to the increased fatality of the principal zymotic diseases—namely, whooping cough and diarrhœa. The marked excess of mortality in the first 10 weeks of this year is in no way due to zymotic diseases. The annual zymotic death-rate in London in the eight years 1871–8 has averaged 4·0 per 1,000, against 4·5 and 4·9 in the two preceding decades, 1861–70 and 1851–60 respectively. In reply to the second part of the Question, Dr. Frankland has reported that with one exception—namely, 1872—the Thames water was last year more polluted than during recent years by organic matter, and that owing to the frequent heavy floods the water was
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  extremely difficult to filter. The efficiency of filtration, however, during 1878, as ascertained by the monthly analysis of the Local Government Board's examiner, shows that out of 60 samples of the water of the five Thames companies in that year, 48 were clear and transparent, whereas it appears that during the six preceding years the average result was that out of the 60 samples 42 only were clear and transparent. The Local Government Board have no power to enforce a supply of water from any fresh source, their powers being chiefly limited to seeing, through their officer, the water examiner, whether the water is, as far as practicable, properly filtered. They have not failed to impress upon the companies the necessity of adopting all necessary improvements, and during the last two years the five Thames companies have expended upwards of £400,000 in constructing improved reservoirs and filtering beds. Many of these new works are completed, or on the verge of completion.

  INDIA—THE EXCHANGES.

    QUESTIONS.
    MR. J. K. CROSSasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether his attention had been called to a paragraph which appeared in the "Times" telegraphic summary of the Indian Budget, dated Calcutta the 13th of March, and which states that—
    "No increase of taxation is proposed, because the change in the relative value of Gold and Silver, which alone has disturbed the satisfactory financial condition of India, is under the consideration of the Home Government upon the motion of the Indian Government;"
    and, whether Her Majesty's Government have at present under consideration any plan by which they hope to establish a monetary standard of value which shall be common alike to India and England?
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, the Government have received a despatch from India containing proposals bearing upon the condition of the exchange, which so seriously affects Indian finance, and, as the question does not affect India alone, have referred it to a small Departmental Committee. The time necessary for a careful examination of so large a subject

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    precluded the possibility of any action prior to the Indian Budget. Should any change of importance be proposed, the House has been informed before that it will have an opportunity of discussing it.
    MR. CHILDERSwished to know, with reference to the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the subject, Whether, if any proposal was made by the Departmental Committee, there would be an opportunity of discussing it before it came into operation?
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Yes. I hope, if any proposal is made, it will be long before the end of the Session; but, undoubtedly, the House will have an opportunity of considering any change that may be proposed before it comes into effect.
    MR. FAWCETTsaid, he wished to ask a Question on the same subject. Last April, when the subject was before the House, the right hon. Gentleman then said that Parliament should have the opportunity of considering any proposed change if it was introduced when Parliament was sitting; but he did not give any promise as to what should be done if Parliament was not sitting. He wished to know, If the answer now given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer would apply to a proposal made when Parliament was not sitting?
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I gave that answer deliberately, and it is not my intention to alter it now. What would be done if a proposal was made when Parliament was not sitting would have to be considered; but I hope that, if any proposal is made, it will be made before the end of the Session; and, in that case, it will undoubtedly be brought before the House in time for due consideration to be given to so important a matter before anything final is done.

  DISTRICT AUDITORS BILL.

    QUESTION.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKEasked the President of the Local Government Board, with reference to the District Auditors Bill, Whether he can state, for the information of the House, what local authorities in the Metropolis are intended to be included in the provisions of the Bill?
    MR. SCLATER-BOOTH: Sir, the District Auditors Bill does not affect any local authorities, whose accounts are not now required by law to be audited by an auditor of the Local Government Board. It makes no alteration whatever in the existing law in this respect, and in the Metropolis the accounts of the Vestries and District Boards will continue to be audited, as before, under the provisions of the Metropolis Management Act. The only authorities in the Metropolis whose accounts are audited under the provisions of the Bill are the several Boards of Guardians, the managers of the school and asylum districts, the London School Board, and the exceptional case of the Woolwich Local Board, which was constituted under the Public Health Act, 1848, and has consequently been always under the audit of the Poor Law auditor.

  CYPRUS—THE GREEK LANGUAGE.

    QUESTIONS.
    MR. H. SAMUELSONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Petitions in Greek are received and dealt with by the Government of Cyprus upon equal terms with those in English and Turkish; whether the Greek language is officially recognized and used in the law courts; and, whether Greek is the language of the majority of the islanders?
    MR. BOURKE, in reply, said, the Government were not aware of any restrictions having been placed upon the language used in Petitions to the Government of Cyprus. As to the official recognition of the Greek language, their information upon the subject was not very recent; but they were aware that shortly after Sir Garnet Wolseley arrived in the Island, he expressed himself averse to any change in the official language—it was the Turkish. With regard to the last part of the Question, he did not think there could be any doubt that Greek was the language of the great majority of the inhabitants.
    MR. H. SAMUELSONwished to know, Whether the Government would ascertain whether Petitions in Greek were officially recognized?
    MR. BOURKEsaid, now the subject had been mentioned, the Government would do so.

  ARMY—THE CONSOLIDATED RATION— ERBSWURST.—QUESTION.
  SIR HENRY HAVELOCKasked the Secretary of State of War, Whether his attention has been drawn to the great independence of transport, and consequent facilities for rapid movement, stated to be given to troops in the field by their being supplied with the portable and consolidated ration called "Erbswürst;" how many days' supply of this ration, calculated for the whole force now on the way to Lord Chelmsford and that already with him, has been sent to the Cape; and, whether the supply so sent has been re-packed in boxes suitable for conveyance in the field?
  COLONEL STANLEY: Sir, my attention has been drawn to the subject. There are many kinds of consolidated rations, this "erbswürst" being only one of them. The subject was investigated by a Committee last spring, and they recommended that a preparation of pea-soup, which, I believe, is what is meant by the term, employed by the hon. and gallant Member, should be issued to the troops on active service when they are carrying their own supplies for a day or more, being cut off from their supply waggons. It is not a substitute for the ordinary rations, but only for groceries and other articles of which they would be unavoidably deprived. There have been nine days' supplies sent out for the whole Force, and I believe there is more to be sent, or is on its way. The whole supply has been re-packed in field-services cases.

  QUARANTINE ACT—CARGO OF RAGS FROM RUSSIA.—QUESTION.
  MR. J. COWENasked the Vice President of the Council, If a Swedish vessel that arrived in the River Tyne on Saturday last from Libau with a cargo of rags, has been, by instructions from the Privy Council, ordered to undergo quarantine; and, if he is aware that the vessel left Libau in January last with a clean bill of health; that she has been stopped in the Baltic by ice over a month; that she has also clean bills of health from two Danish ports at which she called; and that there is no trace of disease or sickness amongst the crew?
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: Notice was received at the Privy Council Office
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  on Saturday that the Prima, a small Swedish vessel, laden with a cargo of rags from Russia, had been repelled from a Swedish port "on account of the dangerous nature of the cargo in respect to the propagation of the pest," and was, therefore, proceeding to an English port. Setting aside the possible risk of admitting such a cargo, which is absolutely prohibited by the other European nations, it is evident that if we were to allow free pratique to a vessel under such circumstances, foreign Governments would be likely, in order to carry out their own regulations, to levy quarantine against English vessels, at a loss to our trade which would be intolerable. The Lords of the Council, therefore, acting under the powers conferred on them by the Quarantine Act, have detained the vessel until the cargo and all on board have been fumigated and disinfected. There has been no sickness on board the Prima; but the danger, if any, arises from the cargo, and not from the persons on board. An Order of Council has been passed authorizing the release of the vessel as soon as she has been disinfected.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE ZULU WAR—THE DEFEAT AT ISANDULA.—QUESTION.
  SIR ROBERT PEELasked Her Majesty's Government, Whether it is true, as reported in the "Times" newspaper, that a message was transmitted by the Secretary of State for War, on the receipt in this country of the telegraphic intelligence of the grave military disaster at Isandula, and before Lord Chelmsford's Despatch upon that unfortunate affair had been received, and while the Court of Inquiry was still pending, expressing entire confidence in Lord Chelmsford as Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in South Africa; and, whether that message of confidence received the sanction of Her Majesty's Government and of the Field Marshal Commanding in Chief, His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge?
  COLONEL STANLEY: Sir, I did not see the report to which the hon. Baronet refers in The Times newspaper; but, as I have already stated, it is true that a message was transmitted by me on the receipt in this country of the telegraphic intelligence of the great disaster at

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  Isandula. That message was transmitted on the very day or the day following my receipt of Lord Chelmsford's telegraphic message; therefore, of course, it was before his Despatch was received and before the Court of Inquiry had framed their Report. That message was one, as I have already stated, of personal sympathy and of confidence, and I am not aware that it contained any reference to Lord Chelmsford in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces. I repeat that that message of confidence was forwarded by me. I did not think it necessary to consult my Colleagues on the matter, and I am responsible for having thought it consistent with my duty to transmit that message.

  INDIA—THE AFGHAN WAR—NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENTS.

    QUESTION.
    MR. ANDERSONasked the Under Secretary of State for India, If he is aware that General Roberts has sent the correspondent of the "Standard" away from the Kurum Force, and that the only newspaper correspondents left are members of General Roberts' own staff; whether it is in accordance with regulation that Staff Officers should be so employed; and, whether it is by order, or with the consent of the Indian Government, that General Roberts prevents any account of his proceedings coming to the public through independent channels?
    MR. E. STANHOPE: Sir, our only information on this subject is what has appeared in the newspapers, and we have no reason to doubt the accuracy of their statements; but we have heard nothing whatever from the Government of India on the subject.
    MR. ANDERSON: With reference to the answer of the hon. Gentleman, and his entire ignorance of everything I ask him, I wish to know if he will take steps to ascertain whether the Indian Government have consented to General Roberts's muzzling the Press?

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE ZULU WAR— DEPATCH OF SEPTEMBER 14, 1878.

    QUESTION.
    MR. SHAW LEFEVREasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Why
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    the Despatch of Lord Chelmsford, dated December 14th, 1878, including a Memorandum on the force required in the event of the invasion of Zululand being decided on, which was promised to the House on the first night of the Session, has not yet been laid upon the Table of the House?
    COLONEL STANLEYreplied to the Question, saying, that so far as the Correspondence connected with the War Office was concerned, the documents were in print and might be placed on the Table almost at any time, and he hoped they might be circulated in the course of to-morrow or the next day. But most of those which were of any importance had already appeared in the other series of Papers. The greater portion of the Documents were rather of a departmental, than of a public, character.

  DOMINION OF CANADA—THE NEW TARIFF.—NOTICE OF QUESTION.
  MR. JOHN BRIGHTgave Notice that, on Thursday next, he would ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, If he can lay upon the Table of the House a Copy of the new Tariff now before the Canadian Parliament; if any communication has taken place between Her Majesty's Government and the Governor General, or Government of Canada, on the subject of the proposed increased Customs and Protective Duties in Canada; whether it is intended to represent to the Canadian Government the impolicy of a war of Tariffs between different portions of the Empire; and, whether it is true that the "instructions" to Lord Lorne omitted, for the first time, the Clause requiring that Bills imposing differential Duties should be reserved for Her Majesty's approval?
  CENTRAL ASIA—REPORTED RUSSIAN OPERATIONS AGAINST MERV.

    QUESTION.
    LORD ROBERT MONTAGUasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the Government had any knowledge as to the truth of a statement in the "Standard" of that day to the effect that a Russian Force of nearly 20,000 men was being conveyed across the Caspian, with the view of operating against Merv?
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Perhaps the noble Lord will be kind enough to give Notice of his Question.

  PUBLIC PEACE (IRELAND)—RIOTS AT BELFAST AND OUTRAGE AT DERRY.

    QUESTIONS.
    THE O'DONOGHUE: Sir, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether there is any truth in the statements which appear in the papers to-day, that in Belfast there has been a collision between the police and some persons who took part in a procession yesterday?
    MR. SULLIVAN: At the same time, I may be allowed to ask the right hon. Gentleman, If there is any truth in a telegram posted up in the Library, to the effect that last night, at a soirée of Catholic inhabitants of Derry, there was thrown down through the glass skylight a cartridge box loaded with powder and fired with a fuse, which exploded among the persons assembled below?
    MR. J. LOWTHER, in reply, said, that with respect to the Question of the hon. Member for Tralee (the O'Donoghue), he was sorry to say that a collision had occurred in Belfast between persons engaged in riotous conduct and the constabulary. He had not heard the full particulars, but he was in hopes the collision was only slight. With regard to the other matter referred to by the hon. and learned Member for Louth (Mr. Sullivan), he had heard nothing of it. He did not know whether the statement was true or not.

  EGYPT—THE BRITISH CONSUL GENERAL.—QUESTION.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If he could say whether the approaching departure of Mr. Vivian, the British Consul General in Egypt, at the present time of the Egyptian crisis, was merely for the purpose of consulting him, and not for the purpose of withdrawing him from his post, and so strengthening the hands' of another Englishman in the service of the Egyptian Government.
  MR. BOURKE: That subject is still under discussion, and I cannot, therefore,
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  according to usual practice, undertake to make any statement of the views of the Government with reference to it.

MOTIONS.

  WINE DUTIES.—RESOLUTION.
  MR. W. CARTWRIGHT, in rising to call attention to the Report from Her Majesty's Representatives Abroad respecting the various modes and rates under which Duties are paid on Wines introduced into Foreign Countries, as also to the Correspondence respecting commercial relations between Great Britain and Spain; and to move—
  "That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the system under which Customs Duties are now levied in this country on Wine, and into its results, fiscal and commercial,"
  said, he had already twice called the attention of the House to the subject, and he had framed the Resolution with which he would conclude so as to meet some of the objections which h ad formerly been urged against it. When he first presented his Motion to the House, which he might say was an indictment of the system under which the Wine Duties were levied in this country, his object was that a Committee be appointed to investigate the mode of levying Duties. He then was obliged to go into many matters to make himself intelligible—matters which were technical details; but he was glad to be able to say that he should not now have to trouble the House with them. The question now had made some progress, in proof of which he could quote official testimony. When last he had the honour of submitting the question to the opinion of the House, they had the Despatch of Lord Derby in 1876 in relation to the Wine Duties as the last word of the Government on the subject. The Correspondence that had been going on for some time with the Portuguese Government terminated in this Despatch, which closed the door upon any further consideration of the question. In that Despatch, Lord Derby took up firmly his position upon the old lines of the official tradition, for he said he could not admit that any arguments that were drawn from the tariff system prevalent in other countries with reference to Wine Duties could have bearing

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  on the system in force in this country. He said that the system of other countries bore no relation to the system of this country; and he did more than that—he referred especially to the data furnished by experts in 1861, which he affirmed had subsequently been confirmed by other investigations, and which he declared to give sufficient warrant for saying that this country could not entertain the objections raised against the present system as being well-founded. That position, he was happy to say, the Government had now receded from. Since the last occasion when he (Mr. Cartwright) addressed the House on this subject, a Blue Book had been published, containing the Correspondence between this country and Spain as to existing commercial relations, and there was a closing Despatch in it, written by Lord Salisbury, which, although it ended the Correspondence, did not close the door upon inquiry and investigation, inasmuch as Lord Salisbury, though maintaining the principle of the alcoholic test, did not disavow a willingness for inquiry and investigation on the first opportunity with a view to a revision of the Wine Duties in detail. That was a new point of departure, which implied that the Government were prepared, on the first opportunity, to entertain the question of a revision of the Wine Duties. This Motion, accordingly, offered the Government the opportunity of which Lord Salishury held out the hope that they might avail themselves when it occurred. There were Reports on the duties on wine in other States from our Representatives in foreign countries presented since last Session, and they showed the great and striking anomaly of the system adopted by this country. In six of the 15 States named in the Reports, there existed no alcoholic test whatever, and the Duty was levied at a uniform rate. Five of the six—namely, Italy, Greece, Austria, (including Hungary), Germany, and Switzerland, were wine-producing countries, which might be supposed to have an interest in protecting themselves against the importation of foreign wines; yet in these countries there was no alcoholic test. The duties on wine were lower than here, while there were high Excise Duties upon spirits. Again, not one of the countries that had an alcoholic test had fixed the standard so low as 26
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  degrees. Five of them admitted wine as a merchantable article up to a strength of 37 degrees, and one of them as high as 42 degrees. This last was the United States, which might be considered to some extent a wine-producing country, and which certainly was not distinguished for a liberal tariff. That was not the only anomaly. England was singular in the amount of Duty levied. No other country levied as much as 2s. 6d. a-gallon. The highest Duty in any other country was in Russia, where it was four-fifths of ours—that was 2s., while the Excise Duty on spirits amounted to as much as 12 s. 4d. All countries, except England, had a uniform Duty, and the difference between our Duty and the lowest Duty abroad on wine was the enormous difference between 2s. 6d. and 1⅓d. per gallon. Such facts, at all events, afforded strong primâ facie grounds for his Motion in favour of inquiry. From the facts, the inference was deducible that our system differed from the system of any other country, and, therefore, might be regarded as an anomalous one. He was bound to touch upon some other points which he thought were essential. The present system dated from 1860, the time of the Anglo-French Commercial Treaty, and was framed with one particular object—to facilitate the introduction, at a low rate and to the greatest possible extent, of wines which were considered to be "natural" wines—that was, wines defined as containing only that admixture of brandy which was necessary to make them a merchantable article. The intention of the framers of the system was practically frustrated, through errors arising out of the want of knowledge in this country as to the nature of the article "wine," which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone) referred to in his speech on the occasion, and which he ascribed as due to the peculiar condition of the wine trade in this country under the system as it existed before 1860. So great was the ignorance regarding wine that the negotiators of the Treaty, when discussing the provisions concerning this article, used terms which bore different constructions in the two countries, so that, when the instrument they had sanctioned was put in force, it was found to be understood in a different sense by each party. The standard used by the French was not the same as used by us,

  1165
  so that the strength of wine which the French believed themselves entitled to introduce at the lower rate was in excess of the strength the Customs would pass. Accordingly, a Supplemental Convention was agreed to, in which 26 degrees of alcohol was fixed upon as the standard, not upon any scientific principle, but as a half-way figure between the divergent standards of the original arrangement. That settlement, however, had given rise to a great deal of remonstrance, and a controversy arose in which the Inland Revenue and the Customs and the Board of Trade fully discussed the matter. The evidence was to be found in the Parliamentary Papers. In the first place, it was alleged by the Excise, or Board of Inland Revenue, that by admitting wines of a higher alcoholic strength than 26 degrees, they would be acting in a manner highly prejudicial to the Revenue, as it held out an inducement to illicit distillation. In fact, illicit distillation was the head and front of the objection which the Excise urged against any change in the arrangement. The Customs, on the other hand, maintained that if the Duty was not put upon the wines in the present manner, they would be unable, at the ports of entry, to determine which were fictitious and which were natural wines. These views, however, had been utterly demolished by the result of the experiments made by the Board of Trade, which proved to demonstration that the protection of the Revenue from spirit was not in any way dependent on the present system, and that it was desirable to modify the existing method. The proof that the balance of argument was deemed by the Government of the day to lie with the Board of Trade was that a proposal was made for a modification of the Duty. He was perfectly aware that that offer had not been accepted; but he contended that the fact of its having been made afforded absolute demonstration that, on review of the subject, the system arrived at under this hap-hazard arrangement was not one which the Government deemed essential for safeguarding the Revenue. There was only one other fact to which he wished to refer in respect to this point, and that was that, although there were plenty of materials at hand from which it was possible to obtain illicit spirits with greater case than from wines of high alcoholic strength,
  1166
  yet they were not employed to the prejudice of the Revenue; and here he could refer to the experience of Prance, where the Customs Duty on wines was only 3d. per gallon, and on spirits 6s. 8d. per gallon; yet he was informed, on the best authority, that illicit distillation in Prance practically did not exist, notwithstanding the apparent temptation offered by the difference in Duty. He had no wish whatever to examine at length the official Reports on the nature of wines presented to the Government by its staff of experts, as they were of a purely technical character; but he would repeat what he had said on a former occasion, that he did not attach very much value to them, for, as as had been once remarked by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich, there was in this country a remarkable absence of knowledge in respect to the nature of wines, and the fact was beyond doubt that these gentlemen operated in many cases on wines not yet fully fermented. In 1869 a certain quantity of Portuguese wine was imported into this country, and was judged by the Customs to be just under 26 degrees of strength; but after being some time in bond, it was examined and found to be of 30 degrees of strength by the same authorities. One great evil of the present system was that it was practically prejudicial to the production of wines with a low alcoholic strength. This charge of 2s. 6d. per gallon upon all wines over 26 degrees gave no incentive to the wine grower to develop the manufacture and improvement of his highly-bodied wines; because, whatever expense and trouble he might be at to bring his wines down in strength, he would still have to pay the same duty as if they had been fortified up to 42 degrees. The manufacture of such strongly fortified wines was coarser, and was attended with less trouble and risk, and the large addition of spirits insured conservation; so that the present system held out no inducement for wine growers to make efforts for the production of a less fortified wine. The subject of the Wine Duties had an intimate bearing upon our commercial relations with Spain. He was not about to defend the fiscal system of Spain, and would allude only to facts which were well established. The facts to which he referred were recorded in the Blue Book, and showed that British

  1167
  goods entering Spain were subject to differential duties, in comparison with similar goods of other countries, amounting to from 13 to 58 per cent against British goods. He did not exaggerate when he said that, because of that fact, several branches of industry in this country were very materially affected. Hon. Members would find the reasons for and against the placing of our trade at that disadvantage stated in the Blue Book by the Spanish Minister and also by the British Agent, the reason stated in support of it being that Spanish wine exported to this country was so heavily handicapped that the trade could not be developed. Spain had frequently knocked at our doors in the hope of having this state of things altered, but was always met with a stern "Non possumus." He hoped, however, that that line of policy would for the future be abandoned, and that the country and the House would be told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the promise contained in Lord Salisbury's despatch would be speedily carried out, with a view that the Spanish Government might be moved to relieve our trade with Spain from the disadvantages under which it now laboured. The Resolution he was about to submit to the House would give Her Majesty's Government an opportunity of saying that the promise or declaration contained in the despatch of Lord Salisbury would be acted upon, and that on the first favourable opportunity that offered they did take into consideration the Duties at present assessed, with a view to their revision. Unless the matter were taken in hand in that spirit, they were not likely soon to arrive at a satisfactory revision of the Duties complained of. Meantime, he trusted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not reply as he did last time, when he objected, not that the matter was unworthy of inquiry, but that inquiry would be inconvenient and have a disturbing effect. To the deputation which waited on him the other day about our commercial relations with Spain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, with reference to the present Motion, that personally he was not disposed to grant an inquiry; but that he should be glad to hear from the Mover whether there was any special reason for it. Now, he (Mr. Cartwright) held that the case was precisely one which did demand inquiry; and in saying that, he
  1168
  did not ask for a one-sided inquiry, but for a full investigation of the subject, with a view especially to its bearing upon the general fiscal system of this country. There were many grounds for investigation, and the system at present existing was a hap-hazard and illogical one. To refuse the appointment of a Committee would be hardly to act up to the declaration made in Lord Salisbury's despatch. He asked whether it would not be right and fair to submit the question, which largely affected our trading relations with other countries, to an investigation which should not be a Departmental investigation? If the question were submitted, it should not be inquired into by men who, however competent, however conversant with what the public interest demanded, yet were still necessarily biassed with what he might call official superstition, but should be submitted to the fair and sifting inquiry of a Committee of the House of Commons. The hon. Member concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
  MR. COBBOLD, in seconding the Resolution, admitted that the greatest divergence of opinion had existed in the various Departments of the State, yet the question ought not to be neglected because different views were held by the Foreign Office, the Customs, the Board of Trade, and the Treasury. The Motion embodied a request which had been asked for not by those whose views might naturally be thought to be interested, but by foreign countries with whom it must be our object, and, he trusted, our desire, to be on the most friendly footing in all commercial matters. In The Times of Saturday there had appeared a leading article on the subject before the House, which the severest critic would allow was written very properly and carefully. He should be sorry if the House were led to believe that in the "battle of the tariffs" we were at the outset to be met by an unfriendly spirit on the part of other countries. No greater proof that this would not be the case could be given than by a speech delivered 10 days ago in the Chamber of Deputies at Lisbon by a supporter of the Government, and which was to the effect that they should not suspect the good intentions of England in respect of their African Colonies, but should co-operate with her in extending civilization. Parliament had

  1169
  not, but ought, to make some inquiry into this subject. All that the Motion really asked was that the experience gained since the passing of the French Treaty, 20 years ago, might be brought to bear, with a view to a settlement of the points complained of. The inhabitants of the Peninsula certainly cherished the belief that by that Treaty they had been left out in the cold. It should not be forgotten that as iron ore, coal, and lead, formed the staple of the products of this country, so was the vine the staple property of the Peninsula and the Southern countries of Europe. In conclusion, he hoped he had adduced sufficient reasons to induce the House to assent to the Motion. The appointment of a Committee could not fail to have an important influence on our commercial relations with other lands. A war of tariffs was impending in Europe. That being admitted, it would be a mistake for this country to enter into negotiations with any other country which had even a semblance of a grievance against us.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the system under which Customs Duties are now levied in this Country on Wine, and into its results, fiscal and commercial."—(Mr. Cartwright.)
  MR. BOURKEthought it would be convenient if he stated at that early stage of the debate what was the opinion of the Government on the Motion submitted to the House by the hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Cartwright). The question, though interesting, was not a very novel one, and had received the attention of various Governments and Parliaments; but he was willing to admit that there were circumstances connected with foreign tariffs existing at the present time which rendered the subject Well worthy of renewed consideration. The question of the Wine Duties was, no doubt, a complicated, and, at the same time, in some aspects a technical, one, and before giving an opinion upon it, one should have a clear idea of the principles upon which the duties were at present imposed. It should be, in the first place, recollected that an Excise Duty of 10 s. per gallon was levied upon spirits, and that a similar Import Duty was also levied.
  1170
  The revenue derived from these Duties amounted to £20,000,000, so that our fiscal system depended in a great measure upon their maintenance. When dealing with the Wine Duties, it ought to be borne in mind that, in justice to the home distiller, it would be both unfair and unjust to impose a much less duty on spirit when mixed in wine than when mixed with water. Moreover, it was to be remembered that the existing system could not very well be tampered with without disturbing the whole of that system. The hon. Member for Oxfordshire had not indicated any substitute for that system. To his (Mr. Bourke's) mind, there were only three ways in which Wine Duties could be levied. The first was by a specific duty; the second was by an ad valorem duty; and the third was by an alcoholic scale. Of the first, nothing need be said, as a high duty would be unfair upon cheap wine, and a low duty would inflict a great loss on the revenue, and be unfair to the Spirit Duties. Respecting ad valorem duties, he was aware that many commercial authorities, both within that House and out-of-doors, were enamoured of their attractions; but they had not been found to answer in the particular case under discussion. No doubt, in many branches of trade, where there was no difficulty in ascertaining the precise value of the goods on which a duty was to be raised, those duties worked excellently; but that was not the case in others, where the value of goods was governed by the fluctuations in trade, in the cost of production of the raw material, of labour, by supply and demand, by fashion, and by taste. In the latter cases, to attempt to impose ad valorem duties would lead to great inconvenience and injustice. It had been found, in fact, that ad valorem duties, as applied to wine, were unjust as well as inconvenient to the trade. Consequently, as far as this country was concerned, such duties had been practically abandoned. This difficulty of applying an ad valorem duty to wine chiefly arose from the difficulties of classification. The qualities were so various as to raise great trouble, and the distinct valuation was often not easy to be obtained. In many cases, no information could be obtained likely to lead to the real value of the wine imported. Whatever might be the opinion expressed by one tester, his judgment

  1171
  might be overthrown by another. Thus the price of claret ranged from £6 to £65, of port from £20 to £90, and of sherry from £14 to £180 per hogshead. In these circumstances, whatever value might be fixed upon a particular kind of wine by the Government officer, it would probably be immediately challenged by the trade. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone), before bringing in his Bill dealing with Wines and Spirits, in 1860, had been in favour of applying the principle of ad valorem duties to the former; but he found, from the evidence which was taken by the Committee which had sat to consider the subject, that it would be impracticable to apply it to them. But, apart from that, in looking at the subject, it must not be forgotten that these duties were to be imposed for Revenue purposes only; that one thing was certain—namely, that goods of the same kind, whether coming from the Colonies or from foreign nations, were to be subject to the same duties; that where an Excise Tax was levied at home, it was permitted by common consent to levy a corresponding duty upon similar goods coming from abroad; and it was further to be borne in mind that for many years we had adhered to the principle of taxing the necessaries of life on a low scale. It was in accordance with those principles that the right hon. Member for Greenwich had laid a high tax upon spirits, and had adopted a low one, measured by an alcoholic scale, with regard to wines, for the double purpose of maintaining the Revenue and of giving encouragement to the introduction of cheap wines. He (Mr. Bourke) could not concur with the hon. Member for Oxfordshire that the right hon. Member for Greenwich had acted without proper advice, or that he had adopted the principle of an alcoholic scale on the result of hap-hazard experiments, because experiments had been most carefully made at the Custom House in London, according to the same system of measurement, and, therefore, there was no reason to believe that they were untrustworthy. He was quite prepared to admit that the system based on four degrees of scale, fixed by the right hon. Gentleman, was altered two years afterwards to one based on two degrees of scale, which was found to be more convenient, although the experiments fixing it were
  1172
  made by the most trustworthy and skilful persons obtainable. From those experiments, which were conducted all over Europe, it had been ascertained that in the great majority of cases 26 degrees represented the natural alcoholic strength of the wine. Some 488 samples of wine were tested in all in 1874. Of these, 282 were found to have an alcoholic strength of under 24 degrees, while that of the remaining 206 fortified wines was over 22 degrees; and of 500 samples of Catalonian wines, it was found that the majority could be introduced into this country with an alcoholic strength of 26 degrees. It was upon that scale that the Wine Duties had been fixed. The hon. Member for Oxfordshire had asserted—and laid great stress upon the point—that other countries had not followed our example in this matter; but he did not proceed to show that the principle they adopted was the right one, or that they were wiser. Even if foreign countries were correct in the principle they had adopted, he (Mr. Bourke) contended that no analogy could be drawn between the principle that should govern the Wine Duties in this country, and that which governed those duties in other countries. The hon. Gentleman had mentioned certain countries where the alcoholic scale was totally disregarded; but he could not quite understand what deduction he drew from this. There could be no doubt that if they compared the Wine Duties of foreign countries relatively to the Spirit Duties of foreign countries, they would find that the Wine Duties in foreign countries were much higher than the Duties in this country. For instance, in Denmark the duty per gallon upon wine was 1s., and upon spirits 1s. 6d.; whereas our highest duty upon wine was 2s. 6d., and our duty upon spirit was 10 s. The country which, in this respect, most nearly nearly resembled our own was the United States, and there the duty upon wine was 1s. 8d., and upon spirit 9s. 6d. But in France the duty upon wine was 5d., and upon spirits 6s. 8d. This showed a very great difference as compared with England. He doubted the statement that the consumption would be increased by lowering the tariff. With regard to the low-priced wines this was no doubt true, for experience showed that since the right

  1173
  hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich had altered the scale, low-priced wines had come into this country in great quantities, and there had also been a great increase in the consumption of natural wines from Spain. But it was not clear that an alteration in the Duty of the highly-alcoholized wines would have the same effect, for these strong wines were not drunk as a beverage. He believed that even if the Duty were very much lowered, their consumption would not be greatly increased. Spain had put forward her case on many occasions with very great persistency; but she had been told again and again that it was wrong of her to say that we laid any differential duty on her wines as compared with other wines, and especially with those of France. What we said to her was this—"If you choose to send your natural wines into England, they are received exactly on the same scale as French wines." But if she chose to mix her wine with spirit, no reason he had ever seen would persuade him that he ought to tax the natural wine on the same scale as a mixture of wine and spirit. The import into this country of the natural wines of Spain had been increased very much within the last two months, and the increased quantity imported for the year had been 36,994 gallons under the degree of 26. This gave us ground to believe that if Spain made an effort to introduce natural wines into this country their consumption would largely increase. It was, no doubt, true that the export of certain commodities from England to Spain had fallen off; but it must be borne in mind that the exports to all foreign countries from this country had fallen off very much. There was no proof whatever that in the case of Spain the falling-off was altogether due to the unfair treatment we had received in the matter of the tariffs. Our exports to France had fallen off this year about £2,000,000; our exports to Germany about £500,000; to Italy about £1,000,000; and to Spain about £800,000. If we considered the condition of Spain in regard to the Wine Duties, we could not say that she had fared badly under the alteration made in 1860. Since that date, the amount of wine imported from Spain had been increased more than 80 per cent; and instead of paying £2,000,000 of Import
  1174
  Duty to this country, as she did in 1859, she now only paid about £800,000, for the amount of imports into this country. Besides, if any alteration in the Wine Duties were to be made the basis for future Commercial Treaties, it ought to be clearly understood that other countries as well as Spain had to be considered. France had claims upon this country, and those persons who would reduce the Duty upon French wines from 1s. a-gallon to 6d., should bear in mind what Spain would say to that. He did not think that those gentleman who would reduce the Duty on French wines would say that Spanish wines should be introduced at the same rate; and, therefore, what Spain called the differential rate would have to remain the same. Although we should lose a large amount of Revenue, he thought certain modifications in the Wine Duties might be made which would prove advantageous to British commerce; but it ought to be well understood that these should lead not only to a modification of foreign tariffs, but also to the removal of many other impediments to British commerce, such as delays and defective administration, which existed in foreign countries. Of these impediments they were hearing every day. If we looked favourably upon any change with respect to our Wine Duties, he thought we had a right to demand of Spain or other countries a great deal more than to be put upon the "most-favoured-nation" footing, for we had a claim to that already. We must remind them, at any rate, that our Revenue had to be considered, and that it would be very much endangered by any disturbance in the spirit trade. The House would naturally desire to know what the Government proposed to do with regard to the Resolution which was before it. He regretted that the hon. Gentleman had not told them what was the opinion of the trade upon this subject. But they had reason to believe that the granting of a Committee to consider the whole subject would have a good effect upon foreign Governments, as showing the general opinion of the House. In these circumstances, the Government were disposed to grant the Committee proposed by the hon. Member for Oxfordshire. With regard to the Motion, it would be more convenient if the hon. Member

  1175
  would withdraw it, and confer with his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in order to settle what the Order of Reference should be.
  MR. BAXTERexpressed his gratification that the Government had consented to grant the Committee asked for by the Motion, seeing that last year the opinion of the House had shown itself to be entirely in favour of an investigation of the subject. The evidence offered on behalf of his proposal by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Cartwright) was, in fact, simply overwhelming. If it were worth while, there were some points in the speech of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Bourke) on which he (Mr. Baxter) should like to touch; but as the Government had granted the Committee, he would not do so now, and would merely say that the hon. Gentleman would find some of his arguments would be very easily refuted by the evidence given before the Committee.
  MR. B. SAMUELSONsaid that, by the act of the French Government, in denouncing the Treaty of Commerce, we had for the first time since 19 years been placed in a position to deal with the Wine Duties in any mode that our financial and commercial policy might lead us to adopt. This was not the time nor the place for entering into a full discussion of that policy; but the Committee which the Government had decided on granting would be at liberty to consider whether an alteration of the scale might not be effected as well by levelling up as by levelling down. He hoped such a course as the former might not be necessary; but it should be borne in mind that the quantities of our exports of textile fabrics to France had within the last five years fallen off from 10 per cent in some cases to 25 per cent in others; and that the diminution was even greater, if values and not quantities were compared. In iron and manufactures of iron our exports, with the exception of pig-iron, were absolutely insignificant. They amounted to less than 8,000 tons per annum, as against 38,000 in the year before the Treaty of 1860. This was not surprising, inasmuch as the Duty, instead of the 15 per cent which was understood to be the basis of the French Treaty tariff, amounted to from 25 to over 60 per cent on the average prices of iron of the last four or
  1176
  five years; and now we were threatened with an increase of the imposts on our manufactures of all descriptions. Whether the Wine Duties were admitted or not to be differential duties, it could not be denied that the new wine tariff was introduced for the first time as part of the arrangements of the French Treaty, and that they had the same effect on the wine trade with Spain as if they had been specially intended to act as differential duties. It was not surprising, then, that the people of Spain should regard them in the light of differential duties. If irritation had arisen on this account, it was no doubt greatly aggravated by our allowing the Rock of Gibraltar to be used as a basis of smuggling operations into the Spanish Mediterranean ports. That grievance it was our duty, as a neighbouring and friendly people, to remove without delay. Nor did it lie with us to allege that Spain, by her fiscal system, held out a temptation to smuggling. In conclusion, he hoped that the words of the September Despatch of Lord Salisbury to our Minister at Madrid would not be allowed to remain mere empty words; but that, whatever might be the result of the proposed Committee, an effort would really be made, by a joint English and Spanish Commission, or in some other way, to remove the difficulties which at present stood in the way of mutually advantageous commercial relations between this country and Spain.
  MR. RITCHIEcommended the Government for assenting to the Motion, as the question was one that had for a long time demanded a settlement. The appointment of a Committee would be beneficial, though he was not sure that it was the simplest or most practical arrangement that might be arrived at. The hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had said that it was not necessary for Spain to export her natural wine at 26 per cent of spirit; but that was the very point the Spaniards denied, and they said distinctly that they could not export any large quantity below that strength. If further facilities were given for the export of the natural wines of Spain, he did not believe that their own distillers would be prejudiced. It was not necessary to make any arrangement by which wines of great alcoholic strength should come in at the low duty. There might be a slid-

  1177
  ing scale, so that wine might come in at a Duty somewhere between 1s. and 2s. 6d., according to its strength. The hon. Gentleman had said that Spain had no cause of complaint, because she received the same treatment as other countries; but, as a matter of fact, if she could not send her natural wines at a strength below 26 per cent, while other countries could do so, she was nominally on an equality but actually at a disadvantage. The hon. Gentleman who had introduced the Motion had argued that Spain, in putting on English goods a differential duty, had done an unjustifiable thing; but, for his own part, he thought that the course taken by the Spanish Government might be defended on many grounds. Spain saw that she was placed at a great disadvantage as compared with other wine-growing countries, and she therefore felt justified in imposing heavier duties on English commodities. He trusted the inquiry would result in placing the importation of Spanish wines on a more satisfactory footing than it was at present, and he hoped the Government would take a leaf out of Spain's book; and if they modified the Duties on Spanish wines, that they would insist upon Spain, as an equivalent, taking off the differential Duties she had placed upon English goods. If Spain would not do that, then he hoped that England would double the Duties upon the wines coming here from Spain, rather than take anything off.
  SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsuggested that the Reference to the Committee should be made sufficiently wide to enable them to take into consideration the whole question of the relative Duties upon all alcoholic beverages whether manufactured at home or coming from other countries. He thought that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was fully alive to the great importance of this question. It was not so much a question between one wine-producing country and another, as a question between the producers of alcoholic beverages in this country and the producers of other countries.
  MR. MAC IVERthought that, as regarded the Reference to the Committee, one of two courses should be adopted. The inquiry should either be of the narrowest description, limited to the Wine Duties, and to that alone, or else it ought to be some such inquiry as he
  1178
  (Mr. Mac Iver) had already indicated in the Notice of Motion standing in his name. He felt very strongly that, if the Committee travelled at all beyond technical matters affecting the wine trade, the inquiry should take a wide scope, and embrace the whole of the questions affecting our commercial interests generally, our trade system with foreign nations, as well as the fiscal relations between the Mother Country and other portions of the Empire. The Reference should either be restrained to the narrowest possible limits, or else it should be a complete inquiry into the causes and the remedies for the existing commercial depression. There could be no more delightful reductio ad absurdum in regard to what some people called Free Trade principles than the debate which was now taking place. Here was poor, Spain—poor benighted Spain, as the free-trading gentlemen would call her—and a country certainly where the manifest abuses of a protective system existed in their worst form—a country whose fiscal policy he (Mr. Mac Iver) would not for a moment defend—and yet, Spain, with all her faults, was likely to get what she wanted, while we could not. What could be more contemptible in regard to the results of the fiscal system in which some of our British political economists delighted, than that we should really require to take "a leaf out of the book of Spain," not because Spain was right, but because we were further wrong even than she. The abuses of our system of Free Trade, without reciprocity, had landed us in disasters worse than Protection could ever have done. Our present commercial relations with France were costing us £20,000,000 annually—for in our free-trading innocence Mr. Cobden had been allowed to make a Treaty, under which the French were able to sent us goods of the value of £45,000,000 annually, while they would only take our goods to the extent of £25,000,000 in return. Worse than that, they sent us, duty free, about £25,000,000 worth of things that we could equally well make for ourselves; and, owing to their restrictive tariffs, £8,000,000, or thereabouts, was all we could send them in return. They had also put on a surtaxe d'entrepôt specially against British shipping, and what had been the result? The vessels now required to go to France direct, which was

  1179
  precisely what our French friends intended. They had thus improved the valuable foreign trade of their great ports, like Havre and Marseilles, which was all to our disadvantage; and had, as nearly as possible, killed the former trade in raw materials from Great Britain to France. The French encouraged manufactures in their own country, and introduced direct those raw materials of which they stood in need. He had heard with great satisfaction the speech of the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Bourke). It seemed to him to show that they were about to reverse the policy of the last 33 years; and that, in negotiating future Commercial Treaties, we would again come back to the business-like view of "What can we get? What shall we give?"
  MR. W. E. FORSTERwas very glad that the Committee was about to be granted, but could not regard the concession as meaning a reversal of the commercial policy which we had of late years pursued. As to the terms of Reference, he hoped they would be sufficiently wide to include all questions which could be fairly raised in connection with the Wine Duties; but they ought not, in his opinion, to embrace any other subject, for he could not suppose that the Government would listen to the suggestion of turning this into a Committee to inquire into the general question of the commercial arrangements of the country. Such an inquiry he looked upon as being entirely consistent with Free Trade measures, and not at all in accordance with those principles which were in some quarters advocated under the name of reciprocity. The claim of the Spanish Government practically was that we had set up a differential duty as against them, and it would be for the Committee to examine into the grounds on which that statement was made. For his own part, although he did not mean to enter into the question on the present occasion, there was, he thought, much ground for it; and if we established a differential duty against Spain, or any other country, we adopted that course in opposition to our avowed policy. The hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Mac Iver) had said that nothing would have been done if Spain had not levied these heavy duties on English goods. He (Mr. W. E. Forster) was very sorry that was the opinion of
  1180
  the hon. Gentleman of the action of his own Government. He thought the Government, if convinced of the wrong done, would have granted the inquiry in just the same way, even though these duties were not exacted; although, no doubt, the inconvenience the country had suffered had had its effect in forcing forward this question. With regard to the remarks about France, he certainly most ardently wished that she would lower her tariffs; but he did not believe that the same charge would be made against France that Spain made against England—and that England made, with perfect justice, against Spain—that she levied a differential duty.
  MR. MAC IVERsaid, there was a differential duty at present levied by France against England, for the surtaxe d'entrepôt was practically a tax of 24 s. per ton against everything landed from shipping that had touched at an English port.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, no doubt, if the hon. Gentleman could show that that was so, and would bring a Notice on the subject before the House, hon. Members on both sides, and the Government, would give the matter their fullest consideration. He was not surprised that the Government would not pledge themselves to the exact terms of the Reference; but when they came to look at the terms of the Motion, he thought the Government would not be able to improve upon that moved by his hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Cartwright). He was very anxious that the last few words especially should be included, and that a Select Committee should not only inquire into the system under which Customs Duties were now levied in this country on wine, but into its results, fiscal and commercial, so that the point raised by his hon. Friend the Member for Youghal (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) might be covered, and they might ascertain the effect of any changes on the spirit revenue and the spirit trade, and also ascertain their effects on our commercial relations with Spain and other countries.
  MR. WHITWELLsubmitted that the rates levied upon Spanish wines were of a most anomalous character, as they were not uniform in any particular whatever. They affected the wines of other countries beside Spain. It was well known that Spanish wines came to this country

  1181
  through France, in the form of Bordeaux; but, of course, we got them at an increased price, and, consequently, while we thought we were drinking French wines we were drinking Spanish. He was glad that the Government had granted the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the subject, in the hope that any injustice which existed would be swept away. He believed that the results of the inquiry would not prove prejudical to the Revenue, but would, on the other hand, be a benefit to trade.
  MR. NORWOODsaid, he would not have taken any part in this discussion but for the observations of the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Mac Iver), whose taunt as to the protectional tendency of some of the speeches was not without justification. He would be sorry if the investigation took the form of an inquiry into our trading relations with Spain and other countries, and their respective tariffs. Though Spain had not acted fairly in levying differential duties upon our goods, he trusted that there would be nothing in the shape of bartering with Spain about the duties she imposed upon us. One of them—that levied on export of coals by the Spanish consular authorities at our ports—was monstrous; but still he hoped the whole matter would be dealt with in a straightforward and equitable manner, and not give rise to the belief that we were forced into concessions contrary to the spirit of our Free Trade policy. The only ground on which a Committee should be appointed was to investigate whether the mode in which we had assessed the Wine Duties was fair to all countries, irrespective of any country that might propose alterations in them for their special purposes.
  MR. SAMPSON LLOYDexpressed his satisfaction that the Government had granted the inquiry. In reference to the doubt expressed by the right hon. Member for Bradford, as to the levying of differential duties against this country, he begged to remind him that the French Government levied a differential duty on shipping in the form of a surtaxe d'entrepôt, which was exceedingly injurious to the interests of the port which he represented. That was a proceeding inconsistent with the spirit which ought to exist between France and England; and he hoped that it would receive the attention of the Government when they
  1182
  negotiated the next Treaty of Commerce with our neighbours across the Channel.
  MR. JACOB BRIGHTsaid, the only drawback to the satisfaction with the proposal of the Government was the speech in which it was made. The hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Bourke) made an elaborate speech to show that that should not be done which the hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Cartwright) wished should be done; but he (Mr. Jacob Bright) hoped that that speech did not represent the feeling of the Government in the question; and he was quite sure that the Government had it in its power to promote much larger intercourse between England and various Continental countries. He desired to point out that if we could establish a lower rate of duty upon French wines, we should obtain them from more Departments than we did at present. There were some 60 Departments in France that produced wines, but we obtained them from only three or four, and the reason was that a very large proportion of those wines—some 90 per cent of the whole—were of too poor a quality to allow of the duty of 1s. per gallon to be paid. They were, indeed, usually sold at 1s. a-gallon. If they were introduced at 4d. a-gallon there might be a considerable trade in them. This question should be considered broadly and in reference to all wines, and it might have an influence upon France in regard to her tariff. At any rate, every means should be taken to bring about a better state of things, in the hope of improving the trade of this country, which the Government had done nothing to assist during the time they had been in Office. On the contrary, they had added to taxation, and had thereby embarrassed the trade and commerce of the country. He hoped, however, they would now take up the question in earnest.
  MR. YEAMANpointed out that the question had been agitated in all the Chambers of Commerce in the country for a number of years, and he was glad that the Government had assented to the appointment of a Select Committee to consider it more fully. After the Committee had completed its inquiry, it would really devolve upon the Government to settle the question with the

  1183
  Governments interested. This country could not expect the relaxation of foreign tariffs on their manufacturers, if an unequal duty on their wines was adhered to.
  MR. BIGGARthought that the hon. Gentleman the Mover of the Resolution, had made out a wonderfully weak case, for, in his (Mr. Biggar's) opinion, the result of the inquiry would be to raise the Duty. There ought to be only two principles on which they should go—either take the alcoholic test, or the test of value; and, in his opinion, the former was the best test that could be applied in the circumstances.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he was gratified to find that the course which the Government had taken, in assenting to the appointment of the Committee, had commanded such general assent on the part of the House. He wished, at the same time, to say that, agreeing with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), he entirely repudiated any idea that they were about, in taking this step, to initiate anything in the nature of a reversal of the established commercial policy of the country. It was said just now that they were going to take a leaf out of the book of Spain. If they were, he hoped it was only for the purpose of tearing that leaf up, because there could be nothing more unwise or disadvantageous than for this country to undertake a reversal of that policy. But he thought there were some reasons, both fiscal and commercial, why they might expect benefit from an inquiry of this kind; and he wished to say, specially with regard to the commercial reasons, that while he disclaimed the purpose of using the Wine Duties as retaliatory duties on Spain or any other country, he thought it was desirable that they should get rid of the difficulties which they found, in their way when attempts were made to enter into commercial negotiations with any of those countries. We go to Spain, Portugal, and other countries, and we begin to discuss commercial questions and preach Free Trade, and we meet with this argument—"Oh, you have established a differential rate of duty against us in the matter of wine." fie denied that, and we proved in a conclusive manner that this Duty was not put on for differential purposes, and could not fairly
  1184
  be so described. However well that doctrine might be put forward, there could be no doubt that practically it was the impression in many countries that the scale of duty was of a differential character; and not only was that the impression in some foreign countries, but it was an impression which derived strength from its being entertained by a great many persons at home. But they must search the whole question to the bottom and have it, not only on the authority of the Revenue Department, who were supposed to be always more or less prejudiced in the matter, but after fair discussion by a Committee, before which persons holding different views might be able to put forward the views they held, and let the House see what amount of truth there was in this allegation. One thing was perfectly clear, the Duty was not originally introduced with any such purpose—the quarter from which it came (Mr. Gladstone) was sufficient proof of that. He did not say it might not be proved in its working to have had an effect not contemplated at the time it was framed. There was another point adverted to in the course of that discussion—with regard to French wines and the Duties upon them. It had been truly said, and suggestions had been made in the course of communications between the persons who had taken an interest in extending our commercial relations with France, that there were large quantities of French wines which could not come in at the 1s. Duty. He did not express any opinion on the merits of the proposals made with reference to that point; but they were utterly precluded from considering the question as long as there was this grievance on the part of Spain and Portugal, which would, of course, be greatly increased by anything of that sort. It was said, on the part of Spain and Portugal, that wines of much less value coming from the Peninsula were charged a higher duty than wines coming from certain districts of France because they were of different alcoholic strength. All these points were matters which it was desirable to clear up. Then there was another class of questions which it was also useful to consider. If any change was to be made in details, they might usefully consider whether any alterations of rates could be made without interfering with

  1185
  the principle of the alcoholic test, or the rates applied to prevent the introduction of raw spirit, without excluding the wines which had generated a natural spirit by fermentation. He only instanced that as a sort of question which might possibly come before the Committee. He should be glad to consult with the hon. Gentleman, and have the advantage of the views of one or two persons outside who took very great interest in all these questions, before absolutely settling the terms of Reference; but he was not disposed to quarrel very much with the terms the hon. Gentleman had suggested. He quite agreed they ought to be terms which should involve the questions which might fairly be brought up by the Wine Duties, but not questions of a wider character—such as their commercial relations in general.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  SPECIE AND PAPER CURRENCY.

    RESOLUTION.
    MR. DELAHUNTYrose to move—
    "That, in the opinion of this House, a free circulation of specie currency, together with a full and adequate circulation of paper currency, convertible into specie on demand, is essential and necessary for the promotion and development of manufactures, commerce, and trade."
    Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
    MR. DELAHUNTY, resuming, said, he wished to determine the lines upon which the circulation of paper currency should exist throughout the country. In his opinion, trading operations would be impossible without a free exchange of money, and that exchange, to have the desired effect, should be an exchange based upon a metallic and not upon a paper currency. If they looked into history, they would see that all great statesmen and Parties that had given the matter consideration had come to the conclusion that it was essential and necessary that there should be a stated standard by which exchanges between man and man should be regulated. Let the House go through the whole list of political economists—from Adam Smith down to John Stuart Mill, or others later—and they would find that there
    1186
    was a unanimous opinion upon the question. Indeed, one went the length of expressing the opinion that with a free circulation of specie a country might have a paper circulation mountains high. This view was probably somewhat of an exaggeration; but it contained in it a great deal of truth. In order to have paper money they must have gold. He did not want to enter into the question as to how a free currency of gold could be obtained—that was a question of detail, to be discussed hereafter; but what he wished the House to affirm was the true principle that specie currency should be allowed to flow free, without any restriction whatever. He argued that the contraction and expansion of the currency frequently led to panics, and that to this cause was attributable the distress which at present existed throughout the different manufacturing and commercial centres of the Kingdom. It did more to destroy trade and commerce than almost any other thing of which he could think. It had the effect, too, of depreciating property to' an enormous extent. For instance, it was recorded by a correspondent in The Globe newspaper that, owing to the contraction of the circulation, four railways in the State of Pennsylvania, which in the spring of 1876 were worth $112,000,000, had been reduced in value to something like half that amount in 1877. That contraction was still going on in America, because she had sought to resume cash payments without allowing the gold to circulate; and he said emphatically that this would be the destruction of America. From 1874 to the 1st of January last, the currency of America had been reduced to the extent of over $100,000,000 in trying to resume cash payments. It was being further reduced, and the effect of that reduction would be not only to injure America, but to re-act most injuriously upon Ireland. If, owing to this cause, manufactures, trade, and commerce were injured, and even destroyed, in America, the result would be that the whole labour of the country would be thrown upon the land, which there was limitless, with a view to the production of food to be sent to this country and sold for whatever price could be obtained. Under such a condition of things, it would be impossible for the small

    1187
    farmers in Ireland to exist. Unless, therefore, the Americans acted on some such principles as those embodied in the Resolution which he was now asking the House to affirm, they must go down themselves and bring down Ireland with them. Already they had sent down the price of cereals very low in England, and they were sending meat here also, to compete with the home producer. What was wanted at the present crisis was not reciprocity, but Free Trade. A great many people who professed Free Trade were not entitled to the designation at all unless they were for free money. He maintained that wherever there was a free, sound, honest circulation, trade, manufactures, and commerce were developed, and the people always prospered. That was illustrated by the case of Ireland itself 100 years ago, when Arthur Young, in describing the industrial progress of England, Ireland, and France, placed Ireland before England and immeasurably before France, which everyone now said was so prosperous, while Ireland was in a hole. No country was in a sound financial condition unless it had a specie circulation. England, France, and Germany had no notes under £5, and their credit was undoubted; but in those countries where small paper existed—such as Spain, Italy, Austria, and Eussia—the public credit was not good. There ought to be a specie circulation, with plenty of paper to supplement and economize it. His object in bringing forward his Resolution was to obtain the assent of the House to a proposition which no one could gainsay, and to lay the foundation for future legislation by which the interests of every part of the United Kingdom would be promoted. In conclusion, the hon. Gentleman moved the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
    MR. HOPWOODseconded the Motion.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That, in the opinion of this House, a free circulation of specie currency, together with a full and adequate circulation of paper currency, convertible into specie on demand, is essential and necessary for the promotion and development of manufactures, commerce, and trade."—(Mr. Delahunty.)
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the hon. Member for
    1188
    Waterford (Mr. Delahunty), as the House knew, had now for a great number of years turned his attention very particularly to the subject of currency and other questions connected with it, and he thought the respect they all felt for the hon. Gentleman would render it incumbent on the Government to take some notice of the proposition which he had now asked the House to affirm. Therefore, he gladly rose in order to say that, as far as the terms of the Motion were concerned, he was prepared entirely to accept and to agree with the expression of the opinion of the hon. Gentleman. The only difficulty he felt was that in some parts of his speech the hon. Gentleman intimated very plainly that he was now asking the House to affirm a general principle from which he intended at some future time to deduce consequences, and upon which he intended to found propositions for legislation. But the hon. Gentleman did not tell them at all distinctly—in fact, did not tell them at all—what the nature of those proposals might be; and, therefore, while he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) was prepared entirely to assent to the proposition the hon. Gentleman now asked them to affirm, he must guard himself and his Colleagues, and the House also, from being supposed, by any assent they now gave to the proposition, to assent to propositions which the hon. Gentleman might hereafter make. The hon. Gentleman was, in fact, issuing a note which was to be convertible at some future time. And they did not know what was the specie in which the note was to be paid. There were in the hon. Gentleman's speech one or two passages which would lead him to infer that the hon. Member had in his mind a proposition he had made on former occasions for the curtailment, if not the absolute suppression, of small notes. Now, whether small notes were a convenient medium of circulation or not, he did not see that they, any more than large notes, would be excluded by the principle which the House was now asked to affirm. They were asked to affirm that there should be "a free circulation of specie currency"—that, everybody, he should think, in England entirely agreed with—"together with a full and adequate circulation of paper currency." Well, that was now so convenient that

    1189
    it had become a necessary, he might say; from having been at one time convenient, it had become a necessary; and that you should have it considerable, full, and adequate, but not excessive, because the word adequate implied that it was not to be more than adequate. It was not to be an inflated paper currency, but an adequate paper currency, and that the currency should be secure by being convertible into specie on demand. That, as the hon. Gentleman truly said, and as all the great authorities whom he had quoted, and whom they all honoured for their teaching on these subjects, they always had regarded as the keystone to a proper system of currency—that if you had a paper currency, it should be convertible into specie on demand. They all entirely agreed with that; but they might have small notes as well as large notes, which would be convertible into specie on demand, and he thought they wanted some other principle than that stated for rejecting small ones. In fact, they would have by small notes a larger currency than if they excluded them. There could be no doubt that in. any country which used small notes there would be naturally the larger amount of paper currency in proportion than in the country which excluded them, because small notes were a great convenience, and they were used in those parts of the country whore they were legal, and they were used very freely, and were found to be exceedingly convenient. He should be exceedingly sorry to say anything to prejudice the country against the use of small notes if they were properly secured and properly convertible. At the same time, he perceived the danger of an abuse of the system, and that was a matter which ought to be carefully guarded. It was quite possible that unless proper regulations were made for securing the convertibility of the notes there might be a great inflation. He took the key of the hon. Gentleman's argument to be this—the hon. Gentleman wished to guard us against the consequences of inflation and contraction, as a large inflation followed by contraction must necessarily bring about confusion, suffering, and a great deal of mischief. The hon. Gentleman instanced the case of America, in which there was a large inflation of currency owing to the extensive circulation of greenbacks; and when
    1190
    these were called in, the effect of the contraction of that inflated circulation was that a great deal of trouble was occasioned. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the case of a large circulation of Bank of England notes, and when circumstances caused them to be called in confusion was the result. He quite agreed with the hon. Gentleman that anything which led to unnatural inflation was sure to be followed by contraction, which formed a set-off to it, for nature would assert itself. In this country in 1819, because of the inflation which existed before, there was much suffering. But where the inflation and contraction arose from natural causes the case was different; and any attempt, by artificial means, to prevent the contraction which must, in the course of trade, follow inflation, or to keep the circulation at a uniform level, would fail, and fail disastrously. Having said so much, he could only express what he was sure was the feeling of all who had listened to the hon. Gentleman, or had seen the pains he had bestowed on this subject, that they held in respect the principles which he had enunciated. At the same time, they must guard themselves carefully against the consequences which might be some day deduced from the Resolution until they knew what those consequences were.
    SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAexpressed satisfaction that the hon. Member for Waterford had introduced his proposition in terms in which they could all agree. He wished, however, to guard himself against being supposed inferentially to favour any theory for the suppression of £1 notes. Since the Acts of Sir Robert Peel, in 1844 and 1845, £1 notes stood on precisely the same basis, with regard to circulation and specie, that £5 notes and £1,000 notes did. No doubt before those Acts were passed there were grave objections to small notes, and they were suppressed in this country, but not in Ireland. As Cobbett said, £1 notes were the legs on which the £5 notes walked. Sir Robert Peel, in 1844 and 1845, removed the objection which might be urged against the circulation of small notes. His Acts laid down this principle—that the Irish banks might issue as many notes for the future as the public would take, provided that anything issued in excess of the previous average circulation of the banks in Ire-

    1191
    land should be represented by specie. The special objection to £1 notes in Ireland and Scotland had therefore been removed. He guarded himself, however, against being supposed to agree to a scheme of the hon. Member for Waterford which was foreshadowed, but was not now before the House. At the same time, he cordially welcomed the Resolution in its present form.
    MR. BIGGARalso approved the proposition of the hon. Member—in fact, he took it very much to represent the present system of circulation, consisting of bank notes based on specie. At the same time, he did not see that the adoption of the Resolution would effect any improvement in the present state of things. He was also at a loss to know what sort of legislation, that would extend the principle already recognized, the hon. Member for Waterford proposed to found upon the proposal. What had happened in America lately went entirely in favour of the views he (Mr. Biggar) held on the subject.
    MR. DELAHUNTY, in reply, said, he was satisfied with the result of the discussion, but not with the speech of the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), who had been up in the moon with regard to America, where contraction had been produced by the passing of the Act to provide for specie payments.
    Motion agreed to.

  POST OFFICE (WEST INDIA MAIL CONTRACT).—RESOLUTION.
  SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON, in rising to move—
  "That the Contract entered into with the Royal Steam Packet Company for the conveyance of Mails to and from the West Indies Too approved,"

  said, that the existing contract would terminate in 1880. In the middle of last year the Government invited applications for new tenders for that particular service. Six tenders only were received, of which four were for a portion of the route only, while two were for the whole service. One of the latter was made by the Atlas Company, which proposed to convey mails from Queenstown to New York by the ordinary mail steamers, and from New York, for delivery at the different ports, by the steamers of the Atlas Company; and
  1192
  the Company offered to do this for £59,500 a-year. The second tender for the whole route was sent in by the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, which had the present unexpired contract, which was for £86,750 a-year. For the same sum the Company offered to continue the service, with the option to the Post Office of an addition of one knot to the speed. Besides comparing the proposed subsidies, the Government had to consider the routes and the methods of delivery, and these involved, not only the times of delivery, but also the Imperial question of direct or indirect communication with our own Colonies. The Secretary of State for the Colonies was strongly in favour of direct communication, both on commercial and on political grounds, which greatly influenced the decision of the Treasury. As to times of delivery, while the figures before the House showed a certain gain on the part of the Atlas Company in delivering the mails at Jamaica, there was a loss in respect of almost every other Colony as compared with the times named by the Royal Mail Company, whose tender he asked the House to accept. The delay varied from a certain number of hours to six and seven days at some of the more distant ports; and it was felt, both by the Treasury and the Colonial Office, that this was a most important consideration in deciding which of the two contracts should be accepted. Moreover, it was stated by one of the Governors of the Colonies that the service of the Atlas Company was "anything but satisfactory." It was further found, from evidence of the Board of Trade, that not one of the six vessels of the Atlas Company carried a Board of Trade certificate. They were very good vessels for the purposes for which they were employed; but they could not compare, in speed or in accommodation, with the vessels belonging to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company. The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Mac Iver) had proposed to ask the House to postpone the consideration of this contract for a month, and thereby he would keep in suspense the operations of the Company, which, so far as he (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) understood, that hon. Gentleman considered was a good Company, and one perfectly qualified for this particular service. It had been said it was unfair that the

  1193
  contract should have been re-submitted to the Royal Mail Company for re-consideration, seeing that another Company had made its offer. There had really been no unfairness. The Royal Mail Company had not been compelled to reduce their original contract in consequence of any offer submitted by any other Company. The contract was simply reduced on a representation made by the Treasury and Colonial Office that it was too high. He did not wish to detain the House upon other points of detail; and, having endeavoured to state the reasons which he thought justified the Government in what they had done, he would now ask the House to confirm the contract which they had entered into with the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company for the conveyance of mails to and from the West Indies.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the Contract entered into with the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company for the conveyance of Mails to and from the West Indies be approved."—(Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson.)
  MR. MAC IVERsaid, this was, to some extent, a question between the Royal Mail Company, of Southampton, and the Atlas Steamship Company, of Liverpool, and there was no doubt whatever that the Atlas Company had been somewhat hardly dealt with. The West India Postal service was not one for which there had been any rush of competitors, nor was there any reasonable ground for supposing that the Southampton Company had, in the first instance, demanded any excessive remuneration for the work that was expected of them. That Company was one which, during many long years, had done excellent service, and although thoroughly well managed, it was a Company that did not yield any very large return to the shareholders; and it was no secret that, at the present moment, the stock was quoted at a considerable discount. The Atlas Company, conducted by Messrs. Leech, Harrison, and Forwood, of Liverpool, was also a well-managed concern, but not too remunerative, trading between the United States and the West Indies. They had never, so far as he knew, done any work for the Government; and the fact of their trading between America and the West Indies was the simple explanation of why their steamers did not carry Board
  1194
  of Trade certificates. It was not fair to the Royal Mail Company, and it certainly was not fair to the Atlas Company, merely to use their tender as a means of bringing down the price of those to whom the work had been given. The Royal Mail Company had an opportunity of amending their tender; and by having the Atlas Company played oft' against them had been, as he thought, squeezed down to an unremunerative figure, while the Atlas Company, who were still the cheapest, were left out in the cold. The Post Office had, perhaps, done a sharp thing; but he thought it could not permanently be for the national advantage to have contracts undertaken on terms which did not afford a reasonable remuneration. In the present case, if the question before the Government had simply been in regard to carrying letters, then he thought the Southampton offer should have been put aside and the Atlas Company's offer should have been accepted. The question, at all events, was partially one of letter-carrying; and he urged now that the Post Office should, even in the face of the revenue that might be lost thereby, avail themselves of the proposal of the Atlas Company, in addition to that of the Royal Mail Company. What he (Mr. Mac Iver) wanted was the double service. The facilities to British and Colonial trade, which would be afforded by doubling the existing number of mails, and sending some portion of the correspondence viâ the United States at the cost of the ocean postage, would be worth all the money. He did not ask the House to reject the Southampton contract, but only to postpone its approval, in order that the Post Office might have an opportunity, in the meantime, of making arrangements with the Atlas Company to afford additional postal facilities. It was in order to allow time for the consideration of this question that he had placed on the Paper the Amendment which stood in his name. As regarded the mere conveyance of the mails, he insisted that the Atlas Company's route was the best, especially with respect to the interests of the Islands which were the furthest from England. He could not conclude what he desired to say without pointing out that this contract with the Royal Mail Company of Southampton, which the House was asked to sanction, and which he (Mr.

  1195
  Mac Iver), notwithstanding the Amendment which appeared in his name, was really desirous of supporting, was altogether contrary to the principles of what was called free trade. It was not unworthy of remark that the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Childers), the Chairman of the Royal Mail Company, who was a very ardent free-trader, ceased to become so the instant a practical application of what were called free trade principles was brought home to himself and his friends. If it was to the interests of the nation that everybody should always go to the cheapest market for everything, then surely the House of Commons ought not to ratify this contract with the Royal Mail Company. It was neither the best nor the cheapest way of carrying the letters; but, on the other hand, the principle involved in this contract had his (Mr. Mac Iver's) complete and hearty approval; and, notwithstanding the inconsistency of free-trading Gentlemen opposite, he hoped that not merely this contract in itself, but also the principle involved, would be equally acceptable to the House of Commons. The service proposed was, in one sense, not a mercantile service at all. The question involved was, whether in years to come our West India Colonies were to remain part of the British Empire or to be handed over to their neighbours across the Atlantic. The ties between the Mother Country and the Colonies generally were worth preserving, and no question could possibly be of more importance than this one at the present time. This, however, was not free trade in the sense in which the right hon. Gentleman on the other side of the House understood it. Free trade—or that which some hon. Gentlemen opposite called free trade—would, if continued long enough, lose us our Colonies. Look at Canada. How long would their loyalty be proof against a fiscal union with the United States, unless we at home could find some means of putting our Canadian fellow-subjects on a more favourable footing as regarded their exports to Great Britain than their competitors in the United States of America? The trade of some of the West India Islands with the United States was already larger than with Great Britain; and so much was that the case that, in the Petition which his hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool (Mr. Rathbone) had
  1196
  presented, it was urged as a reason why we should contract with the Atlas Company rather than with the Royal Mail Company. But if it ever came to be a question as between these two Companies, it would, he believed, be to the interest both of Great Britain and of her Colonies to maintain the communication direct. For the reasons he had stated, he believed that the contract with the Royal Mail Company, which the Secretary to the Treasury asked the House of Commons to approve, was, so far as the policy and principle of it was concerned, a wise one, and ought to receive their sanction. It could not, however, be denied that our West Indian Colonists deserved more consideration in the way of postal facilities than they had received; and he hoped his noble Friend the Postmaster General would be able to see his way to making arrangements with the Atlas Company in addition to those for which approval was now asked in respect of the Royal Mail Company.
  MR. RATHBONEdid not think that his right hon. Friend (Mr. Childers) was open to the charge of deviating from his free trade principles, when, as Chairman, he made the best bargain he could for his Company. The policy of the Government, however, he could not help thinking, was wasteful and unwise. The parties immediately concerned—the Treasury and the Post Office—were the representatives of the taxpayers of the country, and they had accepted a tender which, in the first instance, was £26,000, and even when reduced was £20,000 in excess of the offer made by another Company. Who was benefited thereby except the Royal Mail Steamship Company? The service required was the carriage of certain mails sent by the inhabitants of this country, and to facilitate the postal communication was the object of the subsidy; yet six-sevenths of the whole amount of the mails would have been carried more rapidly by the Company making the lower offer, because there were not only the Jamaica mails, there were the New Grenada and other islands mails, and not only this, but the cheaper tender included 26 instead of 24 mails during the year, so that by two mails in the year would the convenience of the senders of letters be diminished. Certain Colonies, it had been said, would gain by more rapid

  1197
  communication; but even these Colonies would have gained had the other route been chosen, because there was a large and increasing trade with the United States, and until recently they had paid a considerable subsidy to have letters carried that way. Here, then, those Colonies would gain. If time had been given the Company they could have arranged to amend this contract, and secure that very direct service which had been made the reason for withholding the contract from them. What could be the real reason why the Government had taken the dear contract? The Reports on the subject, which were before the House, showed that the Post Office at once, on the grounds of pecuniary advantage, were prepared to take the Atlas Company's offer; but before accepting it communications were made to the Colonial Office, and then arose the objections, and finally the other offer was accepted on the ground that more direct communication would tend to increase social intercourse with the Colonies. He could not help saying that the Government seemed to have acted upon information as antique as were their commercial principles. They had acted in the spirit of Protection; and they seemed to suppose that if they had given the contract to the Atlas Company instead of to the Royal Mail Company there would have been no direct communication with the West India Islands. They did not seem to be aware that certain Companies had monthly communication with the West Indies, and the mail question, one way or the other, would not prevent there being this direct communication. They seemed to think they lived in a period when there was no steam communication except when subsidized by the Post Office, instead of, as now, having Companies who carried on a large regular trade, independent of the Post Office service. He could not understand how the Government policy could be defended as being in the interests of the Colonies, or even of the idea of keeping up social intercourse between them and this country; and certainly it was no advantage to make a payment out of the not too rich Exchequer of £20,000 more than was necessary. The policy pursued was unwise on another point. If, although they invited tenders, the Post Office practically gave the preference to a certain Company at a higher rate than they
  1198
  could get the work done elsewhere, the end would be that no other Companies would tender at all, and the Post Office would be left bound hand and foot in the hands of this large Company. This was the inevitable consequence of the course the Post Office was adopting in the matter, and of a policy neither economical or wise.
  MR. YEAMANpointed out that the steamers of the Royal Mail Company were more rapid and powerful than those of any rival Company, and that the speed of vessels was a matter of the greatest consequence. As had been stated, to some of the more distant ports of call a saving of seven days was effected by the most powerful boats. This, where large amounts of commercial bills of exchange were carried, was of great advantage to commerce.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he did not hesitate to say that the Government, in deciding upon the rival tenders, were mainly actuated by Colonial and Imperial considerations, and not by the mere questions of expense. The present contract was for a less sum, by £6,500 a-year, than the last. Anyone who read the official Papers would see that the Post Office had simply sent on the tenders to the Treasury, with the suggestion that the Treasury should take the opinion of the Secretary of State for the Colonies before they came to a decision. The Treasury naturally adopted that course; and the Colonial Office authorities, after a careful consideration of the whole question, had, in the interest of the Colonies, come to a conclusion favourable to the Royal Mail Company, and the Government then accepted that tender. He thought the Government were more than justified in taking the opinion of the Colonial Office, which was a course suggested in the Report of a Committee presided over, in the first instance, by Mr. Cobden, and, secondly, by Mr. Dunlop.
  MR. ANDERSONsaid, the complaint was that the tender of one Company was used as a lever to pull down that of another Company, without giving that other Company a similar chance of lowering its tender. The result of the policy of the Government would be, he thought, to prevent independent Companies from tendering in future, as they would not submit to having their tenders treated in that unfair way.
  MR. SAMPSON LLOYDsaid, that the Government had exercised a wise discretion in accepting this contract, because the work would be done better by the Royal Mail Company than by any other; and, as it was, the sum of £6,700 a-year was saved by the present contract. As they had saved this sum, he hoped they would favourably consider the propriety of embarking the outward mails at Plymouth, which the Company would undertake for £2,000 extra. Replies to letters arriving from the West Indies could thus be despatched one day later; and that often meant the saving of 14 days or more as compared with present facilities.
  Motion agreed to.

  COUNTY BOARDS BILL.

    LEAVE. FIRST READING.
    MR. SCLATER-BOOTH, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to establish County Boards in England, said, that though, as a general rule, remarks upon a proposed measure which was familiar to the House might be dispensed with, yet there were occasions when it was convenient for some observations to be made. He would, therefore, take the opportunity of stating very shortly the reasons which had actuated the Government in framing the measure on somewhat different lines from those of last year. His hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read), not many days ago, inquired upon what day it was proposed to bring forward the Bill, and stated that he would move the postponement of the next stage of the Valuation Bill, on the ground that a certain clause in that Bill was inconsistent with pledges already given by the Government in reference to a County Bill. There was a relation between the two Bills, and it was, of course, necessary to provide for the contingency of one or the other of them not receiving the sanction of Parliament; but there was not—and there never had been—on the part of the Government, any intention that one Bill should pass, and that the other should not. The Government had only this to say, as between one Bill and the other—that they had always laid down the principle, to which he himself adhered, that the Valuation Bill was a measure which lay
    1200
    at the very root of all attempts of reform in local government. He was obliged to detain the House for a few moments by referring to some features of the measure of last year. That measure proceeded upon the principle of a complete fusion between the existing Courts of Quarter Sessions and the County Boards, which were to administer the county business for the future. There were some advantages—many obvious advantages—in the unity which would be arrived at by grafting the County Boards on the Courts of Quarter Sessions. But, with these advantages, there were certain disadvantages, to which he would presently draw attention. Proceeding, however, upon the principle of this complete fusion, it was obvious that the Government could not disregard the claims which the Justices, who had for so many years—he might say centuries—administered county government, might not unreasonably put forward. Accordingly, it was considered necessary that the Justices should have one-half of the representation on the County Board, and that the elective members should constitute the other half of the representation. The great extent to which the Justices were required by the Bill to abdicate their functions made this concession a reasonable one. But what happened in the conduct of that measure before Parliament? The Bill was read a second time by a very considerable majority. Hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House were in favour of the principle of the Bill, and the second reading was carried by a large majority. On going into Committee, a two nights' debate ensued; and he, on the part of the Government, replied to the speeches which had been delivered. At the last moment, an hon. Gentleman below the Gangway on the other side of the House proposed that Progress should be reported, in order that a similar measure with regard to Ireland might be considered at the same time. The House acquiesced in that adjournment, and no time was found for the resumption of the debate before the Easter Recess. After the holidays, it was ascertained that those hon. Gentlemen who were supposed to be the most eager for the passing of a measure of this kind were strongly infavour of proceeding with another measure—the Cattle Diseases

    1201
    Prevention Act—in which they took a greater interest; and it could not be said that the county Members generally, who were supposed to represent the magistrates on this subject, showed any particular desire to accept the proposed fusion of the two bodies, which was the main feature of the measure of last year. Since the end of last Session, he had received communications from Courts of Quarter Sessions, and also informal communications from magistrates, which led him to suppose that the magistrates, as a body, were not disposed to accept this fusion, and that, on the whole, they would desire to continue to discharge separately their duties connected with the police and the administration of justice. Again, hon. Members on both sides of the House, who had been consistent supporters of a plan of county government, showed a considerable indisposition to accept the plan of equal numbers of Justices, and of representative members. There was, likewise, evinced a considerable jealousy of the magisterial divisions on which the electoral machinery of the County Board was based. Although a very mild form of election was set out in the Bill, there was evinced in debate, and still more in the opinions which reached him, a feeling that the proposed open meeting for the purpose of the election to the Boards would have been unpopular, and that it was not desired by the ratepayers or by the Guardians to whom the election was assigned. All these points had been carefully considered during the Recess; and the measure which he now sought to introduce, though entirely consistent with the plan of last year, had been constructed with regard to the considerations he had just described. The Government had given up the proposal to identify the existing Courts of Quarter Sessions with the new County Boards. It was proposed that the magistrates should continue to exercise separately their functions under the Police Acts, and also those connected with the administration of justice; and that for the purpose of obtaining money for the payment of officers and the other things they were required to do as Justices of the Peace, they should become what was technically called a "precept authority," and should issue their precept to the County Board, which would have the exclusive privilege of levying, ad-
    1202

    ministrating, and accounting for the county rate. In making this change, the Government gave up the advantage of having one central County Board for all purposes. On the other hand, they gained in simplicity, in the workable character of the measure, and also, according to his judgment, in having proposed a plan which would be more readily passed into law. When they considered the great future that might be in store for a representative and independent county authority, he felt the plan on which they now proposed to construct it would effectually secure the accession to it of all new business of great importance. Having premised this much, he would now say a few words on the functions to be assigned to the new County Board. Among the functions they proposed to assign to the county governing body last year was one relating to river conservancy; but he might remind hon. Members that a measure already introduced into the House of Lords by his noble Friend the President of the Council took over that subject, and dealt with it in a complete and comprehensive manner. The election of coroners was also dealt with in the measure of last year; but this year he had left it untouched, because there was a Committee of the House already dealing with that question. There was also in the Bill of last year a provision with regard to the power of the county authority to make recommendations as to the local areas of the county. This provision he had not thought it necessary to repeat. The attention of the County Boards would, of necessity, be so directed to the subject of the local areas, that they might safely be trusted to represent to Parliament, or the Government, or the Local Government Board, the changes required in regard to the local areas of the county. It would scarcely be candid if he held out the expectation that any very rapid or important changes could reasonably be expected through the agency of such a Board, or, indeed, by any other means. The main features of this year's measure were the following:—In the first place, they proposed to transfer to the County Board the administration of the Highway Act of last year. Secondly, they proposed to hand over, likewise, the management of the bridges and approaches, which had, from time immemorial, been vested in the magistrates of the different

    1203
    counties. In the third place, the County Boards would have the very important power of reviewing the workhouse accommodation of each county, and of providing accommodation in the workhouses for imbecile and idiot paupers, whether children or adults, who were not fit inmates for lunatic asylums. He regretted that such a provision had not been made for this class long ago. He did not provide in the Bill for direct control of the lunatic asylums; but the Boards would be empowered to inquire into the lunatic asylums, and to exercise such influence as would keep their future enlargement in check. It was proposed last year to give the County Boards a considerable share of the management of the lunatic asylums; and he had no doubt that before long some plan would be devised by which a large share in their management would be given to the County Boards. But long familiarity with the Pauper Lunatic Acts had convinced him of the very great difficulty of dealing with those Acts by means of a few clauses in a Bill of this kind. It would be unsatisfactory, without an exhaustive review of those Acts, to transfer the administration of the lunatic asylums to the County Boards; for the whole policy of the Acts affecting pauper lunatic asylums proceeded on the assumption that they were quasi-prisons, and that the responsibility with regard to their management should be vested in the Visiting Justices. The last and most important feature of the present Bill was that it placed the levying of the county rates, whatever charges might be put upon them, in the hands of the County Boards. He would now pass on to what would, perhaps, be regarded as the most interesting feature of the Bill—namely, the constitution of the Boards; and he could not refrain from noticing the obvious leaning manifested on both sides of the House last year towards the selection of the Union area as a basis for constituting the County Board. But to represent the Unions as such was both objectionable and impracticable. It was their desire to develop and create a new and real interest in the county on the part of the ratepayers; but to make the Union area the basis of election would introduce antagonistic interests of rival rating areas which would militate against this aim. There was—and had been for many years past—a forgetfulness as to
    1204
    what the demands of the county really consisted of, owing to the constant and rapid development of the Union as the more important administrative area. The Union authorities spent as much as 2s. 6d. or 3s. 6d. in the pound of the ratepayers' money; whilst on the part of the county very little indeed—in many cases not more than 2d. or 4d. in the pound—had been spent. There was thus a great difference in the practical interest. He was therefore of opinion that in electing the County Board they ought to look to the parishes as the element common to the county, and to all subordinate areas—although they might arrange the parishes in groups according to existing areas—if they wished the members who represented those areas to regard themselves as representing the county as a whole. Another objection to taking Unions, as such, would be the incontestable claim which would then be raised, on the part of highway districts, local boards, and other authorities, to separate representation. But, further, to make the Union area the basis of election was impracticable, even if it had not been objectionable. No one had been more anxious than himself to reduce the Union areas within the areas of the counties; but the local interests, and the rights of the ratepayers, were very strong indeed. Difficulties stood in the way of his wishes, such as hon. Gentlemen had no notion of, unless they had had experience in the administration of Poor Law. There was also another difficulty—namety, that the registration of the country was intimately connected with the Union system, and that to break it up would be to introduce a very inconvenient change. Besides, as he had pointed out on a previous occasion, not only did Unions overlap the county boundaries, but conflicted with the boundaries of many large towns also, from which circumstance much difficulty would be experienced. He should like, moreover, to remind the House that if the ex officio element was taken away from the Boards of Guardians, when engaged in voting for the County Board, they would not, in fact, be exercising that function as a Board at all. He believed that it was most important that the ex officio element should always be recognized in any common action by Boards of Guardians. He had objected to the representation of Unions, as such, on the

    1205
    County Board; but had never been at all opposed to the use of the Union area when convenient for the purposes of election. In that respect it would be found useful in the Southern and Western counties, and as much less convenient in the Northern and Midland districts. They proposed, therefore, that the county Justices should, in the exercise of their discretion at the Epiphany Sessions of the coming year, divide their counties into wards, for the special purpose of electing representatives for the County Boards. In order to construct these wards, they might take any existing area—such as Unions, or broken Unions, divisions, or polling districts—and the Justices were to assign to the wards some distinguishing name or number by which they should be known. The Guardians of the parishes contained within the ward were to elect the member for the County Board; and as the Guardians were already more or less numerous in proportion to the population of the various parishes, consequently the voting power of the different parishes would be likewise in proportion to their population and value. It was proposed that the qualification for the elected members of the County Board should be the same qualification as was now required for a Guardian within the county. The number of members for each county was set out in the Schedule, and it had been so fixed as to be divisible by three, so that the Justices in Quarter Sessions would elect one-third of the members, and the Guardians of the parishes the remaining two-thirds. The Guardians, elected by the ratepayers at the beginning of April in the next year, would proceed to the election of members for the County Boards. Those elections would be held in June, and the new Board would come into existence in the middle of July. All the members of the Board, whether elective or non-elective, would hold office for three years. As for the mode of election, he thought that the system of voting papers was the best. He knew that it was not popular among politicians; but it was useful for such purposes as the one he had in view. Indeed, it was peculiarly suitable to elections when the number of the electors was small, and where the distances were great. In an average county, for instance, there would be only about 400
    1206
    voters; but it would be easy enough to collect their papers. He hoped it would not be supposed that the Government wished to shrink from the plain and open voting in separate areas; but he believed that the plan of voting by means of papers would be effective, and would be more convenient than any other. The Clerk of the Peace would be the returning officer, and the mode of election would be found set out in the Schedule to the Bill. Now, it might be said, perhaps, that the functions of the County Boards, as laid down in the Bill, were too few and too unimportant. Last year, however, he thought he recognized in the discussions a general opinion that at the outset the number of the functions to be undertaken should not be too great, and was a matter of secondary importance. The Boards, however, would be charged with the administration of the county rate, and the exclusive enjoyment of this privilege would give them a weight, importance, and standing in the county which would establish them on a firm and satisfactory basis. Besides, their work would gradually grow upon them, and nothing would be able to prevent the development of their growing importance. He should have had no objection to adding to their specific functions if he had not felt that by the provisions of the Bill the new body would have work enough for some time to come. With regard to the Schedule of the Bill and the number of representatives from each county, he could only hope that the House would not be inclined to go into detail on the case of each county, but would assent to the numbers of members specified. They had proceeded by ascertaining the number of Unions, of divisions, and of polling places in each county, had compared these with population, and had on that basis determined how many members should sit on each County Board. It would be seen that the County Boards would consist variously of from 24 to 90 members; but the House would remember that last year it had been proposed to give as many as 130 members to Lancashire—the largest Board. By the present Bill, Lancashire would be on an equality with Middlesex and Surrey, and would have 90 members. That was the outline of the measure, which lay in the very small compass of 36 clauses; and there was no reason why, if the House

    1207
    gave its attention to the subject, it should not pass into law during the present Session. There was, he believed, nothing to prevent it, as well as the Valuation Bill, from passing into law, if hon. Members would only show a little forbearance towards measures which had been drawn up with great care. If, however, every hon. Member thought he could devise a policy of election, or a variation from the plan proposed, which was, perhaps, suited to his own views and to his own locality, but which might not be suited to the country generally, then, of course, great obstacles might be thrown in the way of the success of those measures, as would also be the case if extraneous matter, not contained within the four corners of the Bills, should be introduced. But let them be only considered as they stood as bonâ fide attempts on the part of the Government to give effect to a wish which had been long entertained and frequently expressed, although never very urgently pressed forward by the country at large, but which every statesman interested in the subject saw must inevitably be carried into execution, and a great step in the direction of the improvement of local government would soon be attained. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving for leave to introduce the Bill.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish County Boards in England."—(Mr. Sclater-Booth.)
    MR. STANSFELDsaid, he would not attempt to follow the right hon. Gentleman in the details of the statement just submitted to the House. He was bound, however, to say that he had heard that statement with very considerable apprehension and disappointment. The right hon. Gentleman had altered the Bill in consequence of the criticisms to which the scheme of the Government had been subjected last year; but, as far as it had been changed, it appeared to him to have been altered for the worse. The right hon. Gentleman had disappointed the hopes of those who had criticized the former measure in the proposed constitution of the new County Board, which would not take over the whole of the business of the county, but would retain one-third of the Justices on that Board with diminished functions. It was now proposed to retain for the Justices the
    1208
    administration of police, justice, reformatories, industrial schools, and, if he had followed the right hon. Gentleman accurately, lunatic asylums. There were other functions, proposed to be given in the Bill of last year, which would be taken away from the county authorities under this measure. The conservancy of rivers was a matter to be disposed of under another Bill; the election of coroners had been put on one side; the power of altering local areas, proposed to be given to county authorities, was now to be taken away. This last alteration obliterated one of the most useful and promising features of the former measure, considered from the point of view of those hon. Members who were interested in the administration of the county. But what was it that the right hon. Gentleman proposed to give the new County Board? The administration of highways, a partial control of workhouses, and, lastly, what the right hon. Gentleman seemed to look upon as the extremely important function of levying the county rates. Now he, for one, failed to see how the mere duty of having to levy a county rate could lead to a great expansion of the power and functions of these Boards in the future. With regard to the constitution of the Board, they could adopt no other course than to take issue with the right hon. Gentleman even more determinedly than they did last Session. Their view distinctly was, that it was most essential for the constitution of a County Board that it should be built upon administrative areas. He did not agree with the right hon. Gentleman, that a county feeling was to be created or fostered by constituting a poverty-stricken County Board with nothing to do but levying rates as the most important part of its business. County feeling, he was ready to admit, was a thing which it was most desirable to create and to foster; but he could not see how a well-considered system of county government could be initiated by such measures as the Bill proposed. The great object of local government reformers had always been the simplification of areas; but the right hon. Gentleman proposed the institution, at the arbitrary discretion of the Justices of each county, of entirely new areas for the purposes of election. The building up of a County Board on administrative areas, he believed, would not lead

    1209
    to jealousy and rivalry, but, on the contrary, would tend to federate a county feeling which it was desirable to promote. With regard to direct elections, no doubt there was an objection to multiplying them, on account of the cost and trouble; but if members of the Local as well as of the County Boards were to sit for three years instead of one, and their election took place on the same day, there would scarcely be any addition to the trouble and expense, while the power, and consciousness of power, of the bodies concerned would be augmented. We should never succeed in constituting a satisfactory County Board unless we built it up on the administrative area. While desiring to consider this measure from a purely administrative and constructive point of view, he regretted that his first impressions of it compelled him to say that he regarded it as being decidedly inferior to that of last year.
    MR. GREGORYconsidered that the Bill was deserving of support, as a fair and reasonable attempt to deal with a question of a very complicated and difficult nature. He could not agree with the right hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) in taking exception to the measure, because it did not throw enough burden on the County Boards. On the contrary, it appeared to him to be one of its great recommendations, that it would not overweight these Boards with too many duties at first, as such a course, and requiring attendance of distant members at a considerable sacrifice of time and means, would have a tendency to keep some of the best men away, and allow the management of the Boards and county business to fall into the hands of a few persons resident in the localities where the Boards met. The Bill, as it stood, gave the Board considerable functions. The constitution of the Board appeared to him, as far as he could see at present, a fair and reasonable one; and he thought the measure, as a whole, ought to give general satisfaction, and become law.
    MR. RATHBONEsaid, that without entering into the details of the measure, he must express his regret at its general character. He had always felt that this question could be more effectively dealt with by the Party opposite than by a Liberal Government; but he must say
    1210
    that the first measure was a most unsatisfactory one. They had begun to build the pyramid from the top instead of from the base. It seemed to him that the only motive for beginning at the County Board instead of with the primary administrative area would be to make the County Board useful in bringing into order the inferior parts of our present confused administrative county system. But the right hon. Gentleman had struck out of his Bill the power of the County Boards to bring the lower administrative county bodies into order. Under these circumstances, it did not seem to him that the new County Boards could accomplish the great and main object which it was so desirable that they should effect. It seemed to him that the Bill must be vitally defective, inasmuch as it did nothing to attain the great end of bringing into order the primary areas of local administration as well as the general government of counties. On these grounds, he must own that it did seem to him to be a hopelessly inefficient Bill, and one not worthy the serious attention of the House.
    MR. FLOYERobserved, that the principle of the Bill, which appeared to him to be a right one, was to make the County Board a county institution. Having been a member of the Committee which sat last year, he could assure the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Rathbone) that the attempt to readjust the Poor Law Unions had met with the greatest difficulty. He agreed with the hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory) that in constituting County Boards it was desirable, in the first instance, that these County Boards should not be over-weighted with business. The difficulty of getting members to attend from remote parts of the county would be very great, and care should be taken to prevent the business from falling into the hands of a few who happened to live near the place where the Board would meet. At present the magistrates managed the county business. They came from all parts of the county; but only four times a year to the Quarter Sessions. It would be a serious tax upon the time of the tenant farmers, the mercantile men, and the tradesmen who were elected to serve on these Boards, to ask them to come frequently from, distant parts of the county to take part in their proceedings. He did not

    1211
    see that the business proposed to be allotted to the County Boards was much less now than it was last year. He did not quite follow the proposed arrangement for placing chronic imbeciles in the charge of the County Board; and he objected to drawing a broad line of demarcation between different classes of lunatics, such as curables and incurables, because he did not see on what principle one class was to be treated differently from another. Taking the whole of the Bill together, he rather liked it, for the reason that others disliked it. He liked the Bill, because it did not do too much. There was nothing sensational about it, that was quite clear; still it aimed at carrying out the wish of a good many people that the ratepayers, directly or indirectly, should have a voice in the administration of the county funds, which, after all, were of very moderate dimensions. The county rates were 1½d. or 2d. in the pound yearly, while the poor rates were 2s. or 3s. He was glad that the old divisions of the counties and the parishes were to be respected. It was not necessary to upset existing institutions for the sake of attaining the end desired; and therefore it was well to abide by the parochial divisions which had answered well for centuries. No doubt the Bill would require some amendment in Committee; but, so far as he was concerned, he would be happy to give his assistance in passing it through the House.
    LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICEremarked, that the hon. Member for Dorsetshire (Mr. Floyer) had spoken of curable and incurable cases. His own opinion of that Bill was that it was an incurable case. He could not have imagined that he should ever have felt any regret at having moved the rejection of the County Government Bill of last year; but when he heard the description given of the County Government Bill of this year, he confessed that he shed an inward tear over the former measure. He could not have conceived it possible that the fertile resources of the Local Government Board could produce a Bill so bad as the one now being brought in; and, so far as he could gather from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Sclater-Booth), he saw nothing to induce him to refrain from pursuing the same course as he took last Session. The principle of this Bill, so far as it
    1212
    contained any, and also its details, offended against all those views on the reform of local and county government which were popular on that (the Opposition) side of the House generally. The Bill of last year made only a nominal attempt to meet all the evils of those confused and overlapping areas which were a pest and a nuisance to every person having to do with the details of local government; while, moreover, the principle of direct election, which had worked so well in the municipal corporations of the great towns, was not in any degree applied to the body which the Bill proposed to create. Those great evils remained absolutely unredressed in the present Bill, and were in some measure even increased. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Sclater-Booth) proposed to break up that unity of county government which had been one of its most admirable features—covering, in fact, not a few of its defects—because he would leave the police, the reformatories, the industrial schools, and the lunatic asylums to the magistrates; while he would hand over the roads, the bridges, and the financial business to the new County Board—that was to say, two authorities were to be set up where there was one before. In the next place, it was proposed to add to the large and confused number of existing areas a new one, to be called into existence at the discretion of the present Court of Quarter Sessions. One of the most important functions of the great municipal bodies was the control of the police arrangements of their several towns and cities. Why were they to extend to the smallest municipality in England a confidence which they denied to the great representative and elective body in a county? The hon. Member for Dorsetshire (Mr. Floyer) praised the measure, because it adhered to the ancient county division which had existed for centuries; but it really abandoned that ancient division, and what hon. Gentlemen on his side had always contended for was that the old county boundary should be preserved, and that the administrative area should be brought within it and consolidated. This Bill, however, set up a County Board with duties so absurdly small that he believed it would meet with one loud peal of laughter, which was all that it deserved. Almost everyone on his side of the

    1213
    House would give it the most strenuous opposition, and their disapproval of it would, he thought, he shared by the magistrates as well as by the ratepayers of the country. Under these circumstances, he was persuaded the Bill would never become law.
    SIR GEORGE BOWYERsaid, it was a common fallacy to argue that because towns elected bodies in a popular manner to govern the police and exercise other functions of administration, the same privilege should be allowed to counties. The institutions of all European countries made distinctions between municipalities and agrarian provinces, and for an obvious reason. In towns people were close together, they were neighbours, communicated daily with one another, and could easily elect a body to represent their wants and wishes. But in rural areas the business of the people did not bring them into contact with any but their immediate neighbours; they lived at a distance from one another, and popular election became difficult. Hon. Gentlemen opposite might, perhaps, like to see a body influenced by political passions constituted in each county, one that would take part in the election of Members of Parliament and in political struggles. He did not wish for any such thing. He thought the present Bill a great improvement on the Bill of last year, which took a large step towards the abolition of the Quarter Sessions, against which no valid complaint of having administered the county in a wasteful or extravagant manner had been made. On the contrary, the administration of the Quarter Sessions had been highly satisfactory. The members of Quarter Sessions were the largest ratepayers, they lived in the county, and if anything went wrong there they would feel it more than anyone else. The changes proposed in this Bill were less mischievous than those which the Bill of last year contained, and would probably work well. He would support the Bill.
    MR. WHITBREADsaid, this question of local self-government had been for a quarter of a century at different times under the consideration of Parliament, and the outcome of it all was a Bill which would create a new County Board, and assign to it one duty—namely, the care of pauper imbeciles. The direction of the views of those who supported this Bill seemed to be this—
    1214
    "Don't give these county gentlemen too much to do, because, if you do, they won't do it." What relation would the new Board have to Poor Law or sanitary expenditure? Yet these were the very matters upon which county expenditure turned. This measure might, perhaps, be passed by the Government if they devoted the whole of their strength to the task for the remainder of the Session, and if we did not have more than one or two additional wars to distract our attention in the meantime; but it would not settle any one of the demands which local government reformers were making. It was a tinkering measure, and would only add one more stumbling block in the way of sanitary reform.
    MR. J. COWENsaid, he was disposed to think that this proposal was one of the feeblest and least liberal of the attempts to solve the question of county government that had been submitted to Parliament during the last quarter of a century. The Bill of last year had been too liberal for hon. Gentlemen opposite; but this Bill would not settle anything at all. Any attempt to peddle with the question, instead of mending matters, would only make matters worse. The question should be dealt with in a broad and comprehensive spirit. The cardinal defect of the Bill was this. All the efforts of county government reformers were to lessen the number of Boards, to simplify the rating, and to bring the administration of the county into a more compact and simple form. This Bill, however, did exactly the reverse. Moreover, the principle of the Bill was unsound and unsatisfactory, and it must be met with the steady resistance of hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Opposition side of the House.
    MR. HICKsaid, he thought the Bill was entitled to the support of the House. In his opinion, the measure of last year was too ambitious. It was open to objection on account of its provisions as to the proposed new Board, and also because it would have taken from the magistrates their functions with regard to the police and the management of county buildings connected with the administration of justice. Those evils were avoided in this Bill. The duties which really belonged to the magistrates were retained to them, and duties which belonged to the Guardians, as representatives of the ratepayers, were continued

    1215
    to them. Those duties, it was said, were I not very large; but this was a tentative I measure, and by degrees they might be capable of doing a greater amount of work. At present the amount of a county rate rarely exceeded 2d. in the pound, while the new duties of this Board would cover at least 1s in the pound. He gave his cordial support to the Bill.
    MR. HIBBERTsaid, that having spoken very strongly against the proposal of the Bill of last year, to make the administrative area a part of the sessional area, he could not help expressing his great regret, in addition to what had been explained by his hon. and right hon. Friends near him, at the proposal made that night. While they had heard such strong opinions expressed against the Bill, he could not help thinking the support given to the measure had been very poor. He would have been better pleased if they could have heard the opinion of the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read), who brought on a Motion upon this subject last Session, and carried the whole House with him. He should have liked to have heard also the opinion of the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell), and to have known whether he was satisfied with the propositions of the Government. He thought that the propositions made by his hon. Friend as to the area were even worse than the propositions of last year—for the reason that they might have the magistrates for the different counties acting in different ways as to the kind of wards they proposed to make. This Bill did not declare what those wards were to contain as to population or rateable value, but left the whole matter to the magistrates to decide. Why could not his right hon. Friend at once agree to take the Union as the basis, and let the Quarter Sessions deal with the overlapping parishes? He did not hear his right hon. Friend's speech; but still he had heard from hon. Friends near him what the propositions were; and he thought it would be far better to defer the whole question than to let it be dealt with in this way. He could not understand why, if such duties as the management of the rates were to be thrown upon the administrators of the new County Bill, other duties at present left to the magistrates might not be added to them? If they were to have the care of the im-
    1216

    becile poor, why could not they give them the care of the lunatic asylums? The Guardians were already entrusted with the lunatics in the workhouses; and to him it seemed that the representatives at the County Boards would be just as able to manage the lunatics of the county as a new establishment built for the imbeciles of the various counties. He could not understand why a difference should be made between the two. If it was desirable to give the County Board the care of the imbeciles, it might be desirable to give them the care of the lunatics also. As to to the question of transferring the police, that was not a proposition in the Bill of last year; and he must add that it was a great question whether it would be desirable, at first, to transfer so important a matter as the control of the police into the hands of County Boards. But he could not help saying that if the matter was worth doing at all, it was worth doing in a much better and more extensive manner than that proposed by the right hon. Gentleman. If he expected to get gentlemen to undertake the duty of representing the districts on County Boards, he must give them more work to do. The less important their work, and the more they curtailed it and made it appear to be of no importance, the less likely were they to get the really important men in the counties to undertake it. There was one improvement in the Bill, certainly—the reduction in the number of the magistrates who were to sit at the Board, and the increase in the number of the representatives, making the proposition two-thirds to one-third; but generally, with respect to the Bill, he did not think it was a measure with which the House would be satisfied.
    MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, he must congratulate his hon. and right hon. Friends opposite upon the unanimity and alacrity with which they had arrived at the conclusion that they could give no support to the Bill; and he must compliment his hon. Friend (Mr. Hibbert) on the precision with which he had criticized the measure without having heard his own speech in introducing it to the House. Had his hon. Friend heard the speech he would have avoided falling into many grievous mistakes which he would discover he had made when he read it. The hon. Member for

    1217
    South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read) might find this Bill much on all fours with what he wanted than that of last year; because, according to his view, the magistrates ought to have reserved to them the control of the police and the administration of justice. The debate had been really a long one, considering that hon. Gentlemen had not had an opportunity of reading the Bill; and therefore he would not say more than he could help in reply to the various remarks which had been made. At the same time, he must notice some observations which had fallen from hon. Members. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Stansfeld), and others also on that side of the House, had spoken of the powers of the magistrates to create wards. What he had done was to provide that the Union areas might become areas for the election of County Boards where they were convenient for the purpose; but he did object to the Union, as such, being supposed to be the constituent area of the County Board in future. The right hon. Gentleman, in speaking of putting broken portions of Unions into another Union, had entirely lost sight of the supposed advantage of constituting County Boards out of the Union area. He had already gone into this point, but he must say again that it was far more easy to destroy the county boundaries than Union boundaries; and if a Royal Commission were to be appointed to make administrative areas, it would certainly be the county boundaries and not the Union boundaries which would have to give way. The Union areas had so long been used for local government, and so many administrative duties had been placed on them, that he would defy any Government to break them up. The hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) asked what these County Boards were to do? Well, they were to have the control of all the county money. They would see that the Poor Law expenses also were properly administered. The sanitary work was not given into their control, and why? Because the people would not be governed for such purposes by a County Board, but would have their own local self-government. When they grew to want self-government, they would have self-government, and no community would have its roads, drainage, and streets governed by a
    1218
    Union authority, much less by a County Body. The hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Rathbone) complained because he had struck out the power of making recommendations as to areas; but these powers were already inherent in County Boards, and he withdrew the mention of them because he thought that the authority would be able to do all that was necessary in this respect without taking from Parliament power to deal with these matters. The hon. Member for Dorsetshire (Mr. Floyer) seemed to be doubtful as to the more important portions of the Bill—the power to make use of workhouse accommodation for a certain class of imbecile poor. His hon. Friend did not understand how he proposed to discriminate between one and another class of lunatics. But he would find that it was not only easy to do so, but that it had been done with very great success in the neighbourhood of London. The definition of imbeciles, who were to be dealt with under this Bill, was "persons who might be lawfully detained in workhouses;" and they knew that in the Metropolis 5,000 people already had been cared for, much to their own benefit, at a cost of one-third less in this way than if they had been detained as lunatics in asylums—not because they were worse treated or worse fed, but because they could be maintained at a far less cost for management and with a far less proportion of attendants than was required for lunatics. His hon. Friend opposite had been very severe on him for not having given the lunatic asylums to the County Boards; but he had stated his reasons at very great length in introducing the Bill why he felt it Was not convenient to hand over by a clause or two to the County Boards the powers and duties which were spread over a number of complicated Acts of Parliament. He hoped also to see the in-door poor treated in a more satisfactory way by-and-bye, so as eventually to reduce the burden of the pauper on the ratepayers. He was asked why the police were not to be handed over to the County Board; but that had never been suggested before as a part of county government, so far as he was aware. No doubt, the towns managed their own police, but it was very doubtful whether that was a desirable power for them to possess; and he believed that when small munici-

    1219
    palities once surrendered their police, they were never able to get the management of them again. Besides, when the State paid one-half of the cost of the police, he thought it was very doubtful whether the control of the force ought to be placed under the County Board. He could only say that he had studied this question of local administration for a great many years, and he hoped the Bill that he had now introduced would turn out to be satisfactory to the House. It was constantly said that local administration was in a most chaotic condition. It was only chaotic to lookers on. The people themselves generally knew who governed them, how they were governed, and what money was spent on their behalf. The Bill aimed at obtaining uniformity of management and administration, and the very power it gave to magistrates to select Union areas if they pleased really left the option in a competent local authority to divide the county in the way they might find was most convenient. In that way every county would regulate the election to the County Board in the way it found best; and he believed that the Bill would in this respect be found both practicable and desirable. He believed that Union areas would be tried in his own county, and also in that of his hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk. The question was one the practicability of which might fairly be left to the discretion and experience of magistrates; and, in his opinion, it would be a great detriment to the Bill, if they endeavoured accurately to settle the areas of each county separately.
    MR. GOSCHENsaid, he would not follow the right hon. Gentleman in charge of this Bill (Mr. Sclater-Booth) into criticism of its details, nor would he dwell upon the somewhat extraordinary speech to which they had just listened, in which the right hon. Gentleman had put forward some of the views which underlaid his own opinions on the reform of local government. He said he had left these matters to the counties to be dealt with, whether practicable or not. He did not think it was any great compliment to the magistrates to leave the matter in their hands in this way, with the doubt existing as to whether the reforms he was introducing were practicable or not.
    MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, he was misunderstood.
    MR. GOSCHENsaid, not two minutes ago, the right hon. Gentleman stated he would not say whether these arrangements were practicable or not; but he would leave them to the discretion and experience of the magistrates in each county. Those were the very words he used.
    MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, what he did contend for was that the magisstrates should settle the areas, and should deal with the Unions and broken parts of Unions, so as to make practicable arrangements.
    MR. GOSCHENsaid, the right hon. Gentleman threw doubt on the practicability of his own scheme.
    MR. SCLATER-BOOTH, in reply, said, that in his own county, and in Norfolk, he had no doubt this plan would be adopted by the magistrates; while he thought that in others the magistrates might or might not adopt it.
    MR. GOSCHENsaid, he would not follow the right hon. Gentleman further into the discussion on that point, nor would he follow him into a discussion as to the objects which he seemed to be aiming at, nor into the points which were not merely matters mentioned in the Bill, but which were matters which were to follow the passing of the Bill, such as the classification of Poor Law relief, and various other matters. These subjects were not dealt with in the Bill. He presumed the right hon. Gentleman, seeing the reception which his measure had met with, was anxious to point out the results which might follow from its passing, in order to make it appear a little more important than it was at present. The right hon. Gentleman had, indeed, tried to rise two or three times before he did; and, seeing that hon. Member after hon. Member get up to express his great disappointment at the most impracticable character of the Bill, he was not surprised at the right hon. Gentleman's anxiety to terminate the discussion. The point, however, to which he wished particularly to call attention was that the support which this Bill had received had been derived almost exclusively from magisterial sources, and there was an extraordinary silence on the Conservative side of the House amongst those able Representatives of the tenant-farmers, who took so great an interest in this subject. His hon. Friend who sat

    1221
    beside him (Mr. Hibbert) had challenged the ton. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell), and the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read), upon this matter. Yet they had preserved a most ominous and significant silence. The House, indeed, was consoled for the silence of those hon. Gentlemen by the assurance of the right hon. Gentleman that the hon. Member for Norfolk would be more contented with this Bill than with that introduced last year, because it ran on all fours with the opinion which he himself had expressed two years previously. It would be more satisfactory, however, to have that assurance from the lips of the hon. Member himself. He did not know whether these hon. Gentlemen intended, even now, to favour the House with their opinions; but, at all events, he trusted it would be noted by the public outside, who watched with much attention for the introduction of this Bill, that the Representatives of the tenant-farmers on the other side of the House had no single word to say in defence of this Bill—notwithstanding the manner in which it had been received on the Liberal side. Perhaps these hon. Gentlemen were reserving themselves for the second reading. He hoped they had a conviction that the Bill would reach a second reading, because the manner in which it had been generally received was not very encouraging in regard to its prospects in that respect. It was for that reason that he so sincerely regretted the silence that those Gentlemen had thought it right and proper to observe on this occasion. He entirely agreed with the disappointment and the general regret which had been expressed as to the provisions of this Bill. It was really not a measure to reform local government at all. It fell short even of the modicum which they were offered last year. Unless those hon. Gentlemen opposite repudiated the idea, he thought that the House and the country would be entitled to assume that the silence with which they had treated the introduction of this measure was significant of the indifference with which it would be viewed by everyone interested in local government.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. SCLATER-BOOTH, Mr. Secretary Cross, and Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 105.]

    CORONERS BILL.
    Select Committee on the Coroners Bill to consist of Seventeen Members:—MR. ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND, MR. ASHLEY, LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE, Mr. GOLDNEY, Mr. HERSCHELL, LORD FRANCIS HERYEY, Mr. HICKS, Mr. LAW, Sir TREVOR LAWRENCE, Mr. MITCHELL HENRY, Sir JULIAN GOLDSMID, Sir PATRICK O'BRIEN, Mr. PELL, Sir MATTHEW RIDLEY, Mr. SOLICITOR GENERAL. Mr. BENJAMIN WILLIAMS, and Mr. YORKE:—Five to be the quorum.
    House adjourned at a quarter before One o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Oyster and Mussel Fisheries Order (Blackwater, Essex) * [29].
Second Reading—Committee negatived—Marine Mutiny Act (Temporary) Continuance *.
Committee—Report—Mutiny Act (Temporary) Continuance) *.

SOUTH AFRICA—THE ZULU WAR— THE QUEEN'S MESSAGE.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD TRUROrose to ask Her Majesty's Government, Whether it is true that a Message has been transmitted by the Secretary of State for War expressing Her Majesty's sympathy with Her troops in South Africa and Her entire confidence in the Commander-in-Chief, when a Court of Inquiry was still pending; and, whether this Message was duly considered by, and met with the entire concurrence of, Her Majesty's Government? The Question, he said, had been asked in somewhat similar terms in "another place," and had been replied to with an alacrity and an acceptance of responsibility not usual with a Cabinet Minister. It would not be supposed that any subject of Her Majesty would feel otherwise than grateful for the expression of sympathy which was at all times accorded towards the subjects of the Sovereign when cases of distress or suffering occurred. Therefore, it was not to the first part of the Message that his Question was specially directed—it was directed rather to that expression of entire confidence in the Commander-in-Chief, and at a time when a Court of Inquiry was still pending. He could not but question whether that expression of entire confidence could have been made without the direct

  1145
  sanction of Her Majesty's Ministers, who were responsible for all the acts of the authority to whom the Message was addressed. He would therefore inquire whether that Message ever had been sent, and, if it had been, whether it had been sent without the knowledge of Her Majesty's Ministers? It might have been sent, he presumed, by order of the Commander-in-Chief through the Minister for War; but it would be new to him to learn that such a Message—affecting, he might say, the command of Her Majesty's Forces—had been sent without being submitted for the approval of the Cabinet, or without having met with its sanction. The object, he presumed, of the Court of Inquiry was to obtain such an account of the circumstances attending the disaster as might furnish a light to guide Her Majesty's Government in the steps which should be taken. When an expression of entire confidence was accorded by one man to another it was founded universally on success, and it was new to him to find it accorded in a state of danger. If, as he was led to believe, it had been sent without any direct sanction on the part of Her Majesty's Government, then such a step was certainly unusual; but the knowledge which they all had that no Sovereign who had ever sat on the Throne of this Realm had a more profound acquaintance with Constitutional usages than was possessed by Her Majesty induced him to think that there could not have been in this instance such a departure from what was usual. He wished to ask Her Majesty's Government, Whether it was true that a Message was transmitted by the Secretary of State for War expressing Her Majesty's sympathy with Her troops in South Africa and Her entire confidence in the Commander-in-Chief, when a Court of Inquiry was still pending; and, whether this Message was duly considered by, and met with the entire concurrence of, Her Majesty's Government? He would be the last man to say anything whatever to reflect on the professional capacity of an absent man, or on the capacity of a distinguished officer who had been always regarded by his compeers as a man remarkable for his military talents and as being singularly prudent in all military measures; but he believed he was not wrong in saying that the great mass of military opinion in this country did not
  1146
  lead to the belief that in this unhappy disaster every means had been taken to prevent the unfortunate massacre which had occurred. On the contrary, it inclined to the belief that there were certain omissions, if not commissions, which military men did not approve. He was not for a moment complaining that any other course had not been pursued; but he said that this expression of entire confidence where there had not been complete success was a departure—in his judgment, an unhappy and unfortunate departure—from the ordinary rule, and would not give satisfaction to military minds in the country. He would have been perfectly satisfied if the matter had been allowed to rest without any such expression of confidence. He hoped to receive a full and candid reply to his inquiry.
  THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD: My Lords, I need not assure your Lordships, who are acquainted with the Constitution of this Realm, that no public act on the part of the Sovereign is ever done except on the responsibility of Her Ministers. Therefore, I shall not dwell on that point, except to make the remark that I think the manner in which the noble Lord has made his inquiry is not one consistent with the Constitutional usages which are generally observed. At the same time, I would observe that there is one great peculiarity in the Question. The noble Lord makes an inquiry respecting a certain Message, the purport of which he criticizes in general language, but totally avoids placing before your Lordships what that Message, which is the subject of his controversy, really is. If the noble Lord had only alluded to it, I might, perhaps, have passed it over slightly, or even unnoticed; but the noble Lord, in asking his Question, has entirely misrepresented the question. The noble Lord referred to a Message which was sent by Her Majesty, on the responsibility of Her Government, to the Commander-in-Chief and the troops in South Africa. Now, my Lords, what was that Message? Her Majesty, on learning what had occurred, unhappily, in that part of the world, immediately expressed her sympathy with Her Army in the great disaster and loss which they had incurred and suffered, and, at the same time—to use, I believe, the exact language—expressed still Her confidence

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  in the Commander-in-Chief and Her troops to maintain the honour of Her name. Now, my Lords, such a Message was most becoming in one occupying the exalted station of Sovereign of this Realm, and that Message was transmitted under the responsibility of Her Advisers. The custom thus adhered to was one which has been pursued in innumerable instances; and to hold that such an expression of feeling on the part of the Sovereign, thus constitutionally expressed, should be submitted to the Cabinet, and even to the discussion of Parliament before it is transmitted to the troops, in whose sufferings it sympathizes, and in whose future exploits it expresses confidence, would be to destroy all that spontaneous grace of consolation which such Messages to our brave troops, in circumstances of disaster, are so eminently calculated to convey. My Lords, there is nothing in what has occurred but what is regular and Constitutional, and the interpretation which the noble Lord—of course, unintentionally—has placed on this Message—the language of which, I may repeat, he never quoted—conveys to my mind, and I should think to the minds of your Lordships, a completely erroneous impression of the meaning which it was intended to express. In the circumstances which existed, an expression of confidence by Her Majesty, after an expression of sympathy with their misfortunes and disasters, in the Commander-in-Chief and Her troops to maintain the honour of Her name was, to my mind, most becoming and proper, and is not to be tortured into a formal expression of unlimited confidence in the Commander-in-Chief, in the manner which it has been by the noble Lord. The noble Lord says that no expression of this kind on the part of the Sovereign, even with the approbation of Her Ministers, should have been made in consequence of the Court of Inquiry at that time sitting. My Lords, that Court was not holding an Inquiry into the conduct of the Commander-in-Chief. It was a Court of Inquiry instituted by the Commander-in-Chief himself, in order to obtain facts which might enable him to form an accurate opinion as to the causes of the disaster, and which he might transmit to Her Majesty's Government. Was it to be supposed that in such circumstances an
  1148
  expression of the feeling of the highest Personage in the Realm, calculated to sustain our troops in trials of no common character—an expression of feeling which is looked forward to by Her Majesty's troops either in triumph, or discomfiture with the greatest interest—was it to be supposed that it should be delayed till the Court of Inquiry had come to some conclusion as to facts, in order that the Commander-in-Chief should convey an accurate report to the Government? I am sure your Lordships would never tolerate or sanction such a course as that. Nothing occurred but what was regular and Constitutional. It has been in accordance with regal custom, and it has been done on the full responsibility of the Ministry, as is every public act of the Sovereign. My Lords, I therefore think that the inquiry of the noble Lord might have been avoided on this occasion.
  Lord TRUROsaid, he had been completely answered. He was satisfied, because he had succeeded in eliciting a clear and full explanation.
  House adjourned at half past Five o'clock, to Thursday next, half past Ten o'clock.