Sitting of 21 March 1884

Preamble
The House met at Two of the clock.

MINUTES.
SUPPLY—Considered in Committee—Resolutions [March 20] reported.
WAYS AND MEANS—considered in committee—Resolution [March 20] reported.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Electric Lighting Provisional Order * [145]; Army (Annual) * [144]; Superannuation * [146].
Second Reading—Contagious Diseases (Animals) [120].
Committee—Revision of Jurors and Voters Lists (Dublin County) [124], debate adjourned.
Committee—Report—Consolidated Fund (No.1). *
Considered as amended—Freshwater Fisheries Act Amendment [129].
Third Reading—Dublin Museum of Science and Art* [59], and passed.

QUESTIONS.

  ACCIDENTS IN MINES—REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION.
  MR. ARNOLD MORLEYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he can inform the House when the Royal Commissioners on Accidents in Mines, who were appointed on the 12th of February, 1879, and who, in the year 1881, presented a preliminary Report, may be expected to present another and final Report on their investigations, which have now extended over a period of more than five years?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT, in reply, said, there had been a great deal of delay in the issue of the final Report referred to by the hon. Member, but for which good reason could be shown, it being due to the introduction, within the

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  last few months, of a large number of safety lamps possessing features of novelty. He was, however, informed by the Secretary to the Commission that a draft Report had been prepared, but that it, as well as many other matters, would require careful discussion and consideration; but he hoped the Report would be presented before the end of the Session.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—BELFAST WORKHOUSE—CASE OF—HIGGINS.
  MR. DEASYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If his attention has been called to the Reports of the Belfast Board of Guardians of the 11th and 4th. instant, in which was disclosed the heartless treatment of a woman named Higgins, who, though her son was in the infirmary on the point of death, was denied admission to the workhouse on two separate occasions, until he had become unconscious; whether, in pursuance of the Act of Parliament, which provides that the workhouse master shall send for the immediate relatives in cases of urgent necessity like this, the Belfast workhouse master did so act in this case; or, if it is true that he delegated his functions to a pauper to take charge of the gate, and did this pauper actually refer to the book in which the names of dangerous cases are recorded; whether there is a Resolution on the workhouse books in force, prohibiting the employment of pauper labour in all positions of trust; and, will any further steps be taken by the Local Government Board to prevent a recurrence of such gross mismanagement?
  MR. TREVELYAN, in reply, said, that the Local Government Board had inquired into this matter. It was true the person referred to was twice refused admission; but the Guardians stated that the pauper assistant of the gatekeeper, in refusing the application, did so on his own responsibility, and did not refer the matter to the gatekeeper, as he should have done. The Guardians had removed this pauper assistant, and had taken such steps, by cautioning him, as would make the gatekeeper in future discharge his own duty. The workhouse regulations required the Master, in a case of dangerous sickness, to send for any relation or friend of the sick person, residing within a reasonable distance,
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  whom the sick person might desire to see. In this case, the sick man did not ask that his mother should be sent for; and the father, who was in an adjoining ward, was allowed to visit his son every day, and was with him when he died. The Local Government Board were not aware that there was a resolution on the workhouse books prohibiting the employment of pauper labour in all positions of trust; in fact, the employment of the pauper assistant by the gatekeeper was recognized by the Guardians.

  THE MAGISTRACY (IRELAND)—ENNISCRONE (CO. SLIGO) MAGISTRATES— INEQUALITY OF SENTENCES.
  MR. SEXTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether, since the 30th of March last year, the Justices of the Enniscrone (county Sligo) Petty Sessions have had before them five summonses against Mr. Patrick Maughan, day-car proprietor, and the same number of complaints against Mr. H. R. Blakeney, day-car proprietor, for having more passengers on the cars than they were registered to carry; whether Mr. Maughan, on the five complaints against him, was fined £4 2s. 1d., whilst Mr. Blakeney, on the five complaints against him, was fined only 10s. 6d.; whether, on the first summons heard on the 31st March, 1883, Mr. Henn, R.M., fined the defendants one penny each, but, on a subsequent occasion, last year, fined Mr. Maughan a guinea, and, since then, on the 23rd of last month, fined Mr. Blakeney only half a crown; whether Mr. Blakeney is the deputy county surveyor: and, what is the explanation of the difference between the penalties inflicted on the two defendants by the same magistrates?
  MR. TREVELYAN, in reply, said, he was not able to go fully into this case; but he believed that the amounts of the fines referred to were correct, but the two persons had not committed a similar number of offences. Where the cases were similar, both defendants were fined in the same amount, except that, in one case, Maughan's fine was put at a guinea at his own request, in order that he might appeal. It was correctly stated in the Question that Mr. Blakeney was the deputy county surveyor.

  ARMY—THE ROYAL MILITARY ASYLUM, CHELSEA, AND THE ROYAL HIBERNIAN MILITARY SCHOOL— SALARIES Of HEAD MASTERS.
  MR. W. J. CORBETasked the Secretary of State for War, If he has inquired further into the matter of head schoolmasters' salaries as between Chelsea Royal Military Asylum and the Royal Hibernian Military School, with a view to their equalisation; and, whether he would also reconsider the inequalities existing between those of the junior masters?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, I have made further inquiries; and I intend to make such alterations as, I think, will be satisfactory to the hon. Member and to the persons referred to.

  PRIVATE LUNATIC ASYLUMS— "WELDON v. WINSLOW."
  MR. W. J. CORBETasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been called to the case of "Weldon v. Winslow," as reported in The Times of the 19th instant, as follows:—
  "Mr. Baron Huddleston in giving judgment after commenting upon what he said was the astonishing fact that with an order and a statement signed by paupers, and two certificates signed by men whoso only qualification need be the possession of diplomas and the fact that they were not related to the keeper of an asylum to which a patient was to be sent, anybody might be shut up in a private asylum.… He regretted to think that the Plaintiff could have, no redress for the serious inconveniences to which she had bean put, but being dearly of opinion that such was the case he must hold that she must be non-suited;"
  whether he is aware that it transpired at the trial that a sum of £550 a-year was to be paid to the proprietor as long as the patient remained in the asylum; and, whether, since numerous cases of a similar and even worse kind have from time to time been reported, he proposes to make any change in the Law under which asylums are kept for private gain?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, it is a question of great interest and importance. I see that the hon. Member, at the end of his Question, seems to suggest that there have been numerous cases of a similar, and even worse, kind from time to time. I do not believe that this is the case. The matter was very carefully investigated
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  by a Select Committee in 1878, and it was established beyond doubt or possibility. The inquiry was especially made as to the point whether there was any possibility existing by which a person could be unduly deprived of his liberty by means of false allegations of lunacy; and the Committee reported that, although the present system was not free from risks which might, perhaps, be lessened by amendments of the existing law, yet the cases which had been brought before them of alleged mala fides or serious abuses had not been substantiated. That was true of these asylums then, and it has been true of them since, so far as I know. But I am not prepared to say that the present system does not require amendment. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) has had a Bill before the House for this purpose; and that Bill contained a provision—which, although not very strongly supported, has always recommended itself to my mind—that there should be the authority of a magistrate before a committal is made to a private lunatic asylum, and that it should not depend solely or merely on certificates. The hon. Member (Mr. W. J. Corbet) concludes his Question by asking whether the Government propose to make any change in the law on the subject? All I can say is, I should be very glad to make a change on this and many other subjects; but I am sorry to say, and the House knows it as well as I do, that it is absolutely impossible for the Government—or, so far as I can see, for anybody else—to pass any Bill on any subject.
  MR. MAC IVER: Will the Government put aside some of their controversial measures in order to bring in a Bill dealing with this subject?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I have not yet been able to discover what is the subject which is not controversial.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—ELECTION OF GUARDIANS AT ANNAKISSY, MALLOW— INTIMIDATION BY A LANDLORD.
  MR. O'BRIENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been drawn to a notice in the following terms, served on Patrick Cotter and other tenants on the property of Mr. Hamilton, at

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  Annakissy, near Mallow, with respect to the pending election of Poor Law Guardian for that division:—
  "Ballyfree, Glenealy, county Wicklow, "11th March 1884.
  "Patrick Cotter,—Mr. Hamilton hopes and expects you will vote for John Buckley, as Poor Law Guardian. I will expect to hear that you will do so. Your friend, R. Smyth Dickson.
  "Mr. Hamilton and I have requested Mr. Roche to let us know you vote;"
  whether Mr. Dickson is the landlord's agent, and Mr. Roche the sub-agent; whether he is aware that some of the tenants so noticed owe arrears of rent, and are thus in the power of the landlord, and that Patrick Cotter has declared that, in consequence of the notice, he will be obliged, against his will, to vote for Mr. Buckley; whether steps will be taken to prosecute, under the Intimidation Clause of the Crimes Act, the persons responsible for suggesting, writing, serving, or enforcing the notice; whether the Mr. Roche who is charged with seeing that the tenants obey the direction of the landlord was a Sub-Commissioner under the Land Act, and, as a Justice of the Peace, signed a protest against the dismissal of Lord Rossmore; and, what notice will be taken of his conduct? In putting the Question I may say, with regard to the shortness of the Notice, that I put it on the Paper immediately that I got the letter, and on the last day on which it could have any effect.
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, I am sorry that I had not time to get information on this subject. Indeed, the hon. Member (Mr. O'Brien) himself recognizes the shortness of the Notice. It is impossible to get an answer by telegraph; and it would not be very satisfactory if I got it. However, I will do my best to take any retrospective action in the matter, if action should be required. I will answer the Question if he repeats it on a future occasion.
  MR. O'BRIEN: I will repeat the Question on Tuesday.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (SCOTLAND) BILL—A MINISTER FOR SCOTLAND
  MR. BUCHANANrose to put the following Question, which stood on the Paper in the name of the hon. Membe for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell):—
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  "To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, since the Scotch Members are generally agreed so far as to wish to see a Bill establishing a Minister for Scotland, he will give Notice of the introduction of such a Bill before Easter, in the hope that it may he read a first time unopposed, and printed?"
  SIR ALEXANDER GORDON: Sir, I rise to a point of Order. I wish to know whether it is competent for an hon. Member to convey, in a Question, the comparative collective opinion of a large body of Members with whom, so far as I know, he has had no consultation? Certainly, the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Buchanan) has not asked me for my opinion. I do not say that I am against the proposed Bill; but I object altogether to any hon. Member coming forward without authority, and putting a Question, and having the advantage that may accrue from its being supposed that he is conveying the opinion of all the Scotch Members.
  MR. BUCHANAN: Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman object to the Question which I propose to ask on behalf of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell)?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I think I can remove the difficulty.
  SIR ALEXANDER GORDON: I ask for the ruling of the Chair on a point of Order.
  MR. SPEAKER: On the point of Order, I am bound to say that Questions which involve matters of argument, or statements of opinion, are irregular. It was impossible to know, when this Question was put upon the Paper, whether it was an accurate version of the facts or not; but since my attention has been called by the hon. and gallant Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon) to the circumstance that the statement contained in the Question is not founded upon fact, I should say that, so far, the Question is irregular in point of form.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I think, Sir, the statement you have made is a confirmation of what I was saying.
  SIR HERBERT MAXWELL: I rise to Order. I understand you, Sir, to rule that the Question, in its present form, cannot be put.
  MR. SPEAKER: I rule that so far as this Question is based upon a statement of fact, that it is the general expression of the wishes of the Scotch Members, it

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  is irregular; the rest of the Question may be put.
  MR. BUCHANAN: I am quite ready, on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell), to withdraw that part of the Question which is objected to, and which you, Sir, have ruled to be irregular.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Learning, both behind me and in front of me, that part of the Question is objected to, and that there is the opposition of the hon. Baronet (Sir Herbert Maxwell) to be reckoned upon, I assume that a considerable difference of opinion prevails. Of course, that is a material element in the consideration of the course which the Government will take. I was going to give a much more favourable answer to the Question than I am afraid I now can give in view of the strong opposition to the Bill which I have witnessed. All I can say is, that the Bill is ready; the draft of it is in print; and I hope the Bill itself will be introduced before Easter, and that it will not be so strongly opposed, after all, as now seems likely to be the case.
  SIR ALEXANDER GORDON: After the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State, I wish, with the permission of the House, to make a personal explanation. I have not said that I am opposed to the measure at all. I only objected, as a question of Order, to a statement being made in a Question which involves an expression of opinion which, as far as I know, is contrary to the fact. My own Questions have been frequently objected to on that ground, and I claim that, the same course ought to be pursued in regard to all Members.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—ELECTION OF GUARDIANS—THE CLERK TO THE ROSCREA UNION.
  MR. MAYNEasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If he is aware that the clerk of the Roscrea Union, acting as returning officer, refuses to permit the National candidates to be present at the examination of the voting-papers at elections for Poor Law Guardians in his union, giving no reason to them for his so doing, but merely a point blank refusal; whether, in accordance with Article 20 of the Local Government Board's Circular, dated 16th January, 1863, which directs
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  that clerks of Unions, before excluding either candidates or their proposers from the examination of the voting papers, should be prepared to show some urgent reason for taking a step "which, generally speaking, would seem to be unnecessary and unreasonable," this gentleman has furnished the Local Government Board with any urgent or sufficient reason for his so excluding the National candidates; and, whether, in the absence of any such urgent reason for their exclusion, the Local Government Board will direct this returning officer to admit such of the candidates and their proposers as desire it to be present at the examination of the voting papers at the present and future elections?
  MR. TREYELYAN, in reply, said, that he had not yet been able to get in answer to his inquiries on this subject.
  MR. MAYNE: I will repeat the Question on Monday.

  ARTIZANS' AND LABOURERS' DWELLINGS— THE COMMISSIONERS OF WOODS, FORESTS, AND LAND REVENUE.
  MR. BRYCEasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether it is the fact that the land belonging to the Crown on the south side of Little Pulteney Street, Wardour Street, Soho, or a portion of it, has been recently leased by the Commissioners of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues, with a view to the erection of Artizans' and Labourers' Dwellings to a Mr. John Rues, of 24, Little Pulteney Street; and, whether Mr. Rees is the same person who was, in April and May last, twice summoned at the Marlborough Street Police Court for the unsanitary condition of some of his houses, and was on both occasions ordered to execute certain repairs, and to pay the costs of the summons, he being at the time a member of the Vestry of the parish of Saint James', Westminster, the parish in which the houses referred to were situate?
  MR. COURTNEY: Sir, the land in question has been leased as stated, the transaction having been practically completed some six weeks since. Conditions were, however, imposed, with a view to securing proper sanitary arrangements, requiring that the building should be properly erected and maintained, and

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  the observance of these covenants will be carefully enforced. I believe it is true that Mr. Rees was summoned as described; but the houses then in question are not the property of the Crown, and the officers of the Crown were not aware that any complaint had been made against Mr. Rees in respect of those, or any other houses. He has, indeed, been a Crown tenant for many years, and has helped the office in re-deeming the character of Crown property let on expiring leases. Mr. Rees has explained that he was summoned for the default of the tenants who were in possession, when he purchased the property, as yearly tenants, whom he could not evict. There was yet another summons this month in respect of these houses, of which my hon. Friend does not seem aware; but Mr. Rees says this was, in fact, obtained at his own instigation as a means of clearing the property, and that he was acting in relation to it in concert with the Sanitary Inspector and the Vestry Clerk.

  JAMAICA—THE FRANCHISE COMMISSION.
  CAPTAIN PRICEasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether the Report of the Commissioners on the Franchise in Jamaica has reached the Colonial Office; whether any protest against the Report has been made by any Member of the Commission; and, whether the Report and the protest will he laid upon the Table of the House?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY, in reply, said, that the Report of the Commission had reached the Colonial Office; that it had been accompanied by a protest against a portion of it—namely, the portion which recommended an educational test; and that both the Report and the protest would be laid upon the Table, but not immediately, in order to afford the Secretary of State an opportunity of considering them before coming to a decision upon the matter.

  ARMY (AUXILIARY FORCES)—THE EASTER VOLUNTEER REVIEW.
  LORD HENRY LENNOXasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether it is true that, at the last Volunteer Review which took place at Portsmouth, in 1882, the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers were refused permission to assist in manning Her Majesty's gunboats,
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  which were ordered to take part in that sham fight; and, whether a similar request, recently made by the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers with regard to the forthcoming Review at Portsmouth, has been refused; and, if so, if he will explain the reason?
  MR. CAMPBELL -BANNERMAN: Sir, in anticipation of the Volunteer Review in 1882, the London Brigade of the Naval Artillery Volunteers applied to be allowed to take part in any naval evolutions that might be carried out in conjunction with the Land Forces; but they were informed that it was not intended that there should be any naval evolutions. Subsequently, on the eve of the Review, the War Office asked for the assistance of the Navy, which was granted to a limited extent. The Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers have again this year made a request to be employed; but we have received no intimation from the War Office that the Navy will be invited to co-operate in the Review.

  TOWNS IMPROVEMENT (IRELAND) ACT— ELECTION OF TOWN COMMISSIONERS FOR ENNIS.
  MR. KENNYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Why the Local Government Board Order for an election of Town Commissioners for Ennis has not been sent down, although the local preliminary requirements have been completed?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the Local Government Board, in compliance with the application made to them for carrying out the Towns Improvement Act, made the usual Order on the subject, which was duly published in The Dublin Gazette of last Tuesday. I have no doubt that by this time it has reached Ennis.

  EGYPT (WAR IN THE SOUDAN)—THE BATTLE OF EL TEB—COLONEL BURNABY.
  MR. BUCHANANasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether his attention has been called to the following incident in the Battle of El Teb, as narrated by three separate witnesses—
  "Colonel Burnaby did good work with a double-barrelled gun and slugs, finishing ten men with twenty cartridges" (Times, March 3rd).
  "With the double-barrelled fowling piece he (Colonel Burnaby) carries, he knocks over the Arabs who assail him" (Standard, March 3rd).

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  "Colonel Burnaby's massive form was the first I saw over the parapet, firing with a double-barrelled gun into the little cluster of rebels" (Central News telegram in Observer, March 2nd):
  and, whether he will ascertain whether those statements are correct; and, if correct, if he will state to the House whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, I have not received any official information as to the circumstances of the employment of Colonel Burnaby with General Graham's Force; and, in the absence of such official information, I do not think that I am called upon to express any opinion as to the alleged acts of that officer. I may, however, add that, even assuming that the newspaper accounts of the matter are accurate. I am not aware that Colonel Burnaby did anything contrary to the usages of war. I do not, therefore, propose to take any further steps in the matter.
  MR. BUCHANAN: Will the noble Lord state what was the exact position which Colonel Burnaby held in General Graham's Force?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: I have very little doubt that when the official despatches from General Graham come home, the circumstances of the employment of Colonel Burnaby will be mentioned.

  PARLIAMENT—QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS—REPLIES OF THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND.
  MR. GRAY: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland a Question in relation to the report of a reply of his appearing in The Times of this morning to the Question asked by the hon. Member for Wicklow (Mr. W. J. Corbet). The Question was—
  "To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant for Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to the fact that while the Convent National schools are, according to Sir P. J. Keenan, the Resident Commissioner of National Education, 'remarkable fur their efficiency in secular teaching, and especially so for their moral and religious results,' the nuns who teach in them are deprived of the advantages of the increase accorded to classified teachers; and, whether he will inquire into the matter with a view to removing this irregularity?"
  In reply to that Question, the right hon. Gentleman was understood to say that he
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  would not give a definite answer without further communication with Sir Patrick Keenan. The report of the right hon. Gentleman's reply in The Times, however, is of a totally different character, and conveys the impression that there is no hope of redress for a grievance which is felt very strongly in Ireland. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman, Whether the answer in The Times was supplied by him or not; and, whether he can explain the difference in the reply as given in the House and the reply published in that newspaper?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, when the hon. Member spoke to me in the Lobby with regard to this matter, I was confused, as I did not remember the exact circumstances. The fact of the matter is, I mislaid the paper on which I had written my reply, which I intended to read to the hon. Member for Wicklow; but I remembered the gist of it, and the substance of the reply as given in the paper and the substance of what was said are practically the same. It is a fact that a week—a few days—ago I answered that this matter had been considered, and it had been decided that the nuns must accept the disadvantage of not being classified. That was the answer I gave a few days ago; but then the hon. Member (Mr. W. J. Corbet) asks another Question, in which he quotes a very strong passage from Sir Patrick Keenan, and upon it I answered that the Government were going to make further inquiries. I think he will find that is what appears in The Times. I mislaid the paper that I intended to read to the House, and, forgetting the exact words, I answered the substance of them, and said that the matter was answered a week ago; but that, in consequence of the quotation made in the Question of the hon. Member, I intended to refer to Dublin for a further Report, and that I intended to wait until I heard from Sir Patrick Keenan.
  MR. W. J. CORBET: I understood the right hon. Gentleman distinctly to say that he was waiting for a further Report from Sir Patrick Keenan, without any reference whatever to anything else.
  MR. TREVELYAN: I acknowledge that the reply in The Times is not verbatim of what I said; but it is the substance of it.
  MR. GEAY: Does the right hon. Gentleman say that the report ill The Times was supplied by him?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Yes; the hon. Gentleman drives me rather hard. In consequence of the very large number of Questions that I have to answer, I find it convenient to have the replies in manuscript, and I send them to The Times. In this case I mislaid the written answer, and I gave an extempore answer, which was in substance the same—namely, that I would defer coming to a final judgment in the matter until I had Sir Patrick Keenan's letter.

  EGYPT (EVENTS IN THE SOUDAN)— GENERAL GORDON.
  MR. BOURKE: I wish to ask the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War, "Whether he has received any further information with reference to the state of Berber, General Gordon, or to the position at Khartoum, which he can communicate to the House?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: No, Sir. As far as I am aware, no further official information has been received since my reply of yesterday, either as to the condition of things at Khartoum or at Berber, or on the road between them.
  LORD EUSTACE CECIL: Has telegraphic communication been restored between Khartoum and Cairo?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: No, Sir; not that I am aware of.

  EGYPT—POLICY OF HER MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT.
    NOTICE OF QUESTION.
    SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I beg to give Notice that I propose, on Monday next, to ask the noble Marquess when he will be prepared to make the statement with regard to the general policy of Her Majesty's Government in Egypt which some time ago he promised to make?

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—ORDER OF BUSINESS.
  MR. GIBSONsaid, he wished to put a Question to the noble Marquess with regard to the Order of Business for that evening. At the Sitting of the House last evening, it was arranged that the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Bill should stand the first Order of the Day,
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  and that the Elections (Hours of Poll) Bill should be the second Order of the Day, the third Order being the Revision of -Jurors' and Voters' Lists (Dublin County) Bill. That was the understood position of things when he left the House at half-past 2 o'clock. To his great surprise that morning, he found that the position of the second and third Orders of the Day had been transposed, and that now the Irish Bill had precedence of the Elections (Hours of Poll) Bill. A great number of those who were interested in the Irish measure, having relied on the arrangement entered into last night, were not present that evening, as they had been led to believe that there was no chance of its coming on for discussion. He wished to know how this alteration had come to be made?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON, in reply, said, that the alteration was the result of a fresh arrangement that had been entered into at a late hour of the night, or rather of that morning, when great difficulty was experienced with regard to obtaining the necessary Votes in Supply. He did not recollect the exact circumstances under which the alteration was made in the subsequent Orders of the Day; but he believed that the reason for the alteration was, that it was expected that the discussion on the Report of Supply would occupy so much time that it was regarded as useless to put down the Elections (Hours of Poll) Bill in a prominent place for that afternoon. He understood that the arrangement had been made with the assent of those occupying the Front Bench opposite.
  MR. GIBSONasked at what hour the arrangement was made? He had been in the House until half-past 2 that morning, when he understood that the Irish Bill would be the third Order of the Day. If the Bill came on for discussion that afternoon, would the noble Marquess support the Motion for the adjournment of the discussion on the Motion for going into Committee on the Bill?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)said, that the arrangement had been come to shortly before 3 o'clock in the morning, and no objection was made to it on the part of anyone.
  MR. GIBSON: The right hon. Gentleman waited until I had left the House

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  before proposing the now arrangement.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): With the very greatest respect for the right lion, and learned Member, he was not in our minds at all when we proposed the new arrangement.
  MR. ONSLOWasked, whether the; Government would not proceed that afternoon with the Elections (Hours of Poll) Bill under any circumstances?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, that, inasmuch as hon. Members had had notice by their Papers which they had received that morning that the Elections (Hours of Poll) Bill stood next after the Irish Bill for that afternoon, he could not undertake not to proceed with the former Bill if it were reached.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  CONTAGIOUS DISEASES (ANIMALS) BILL.— [BILL 120.]
  (Mr. Dodson.)
  CONTAGIOUS DISEASES (ANIMALS) BILL.— [BILL 120.]

    SECOND READING. [ADJOURNED DEBATE.]
    Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [18th March], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    Question again proposed.
    Debate resumed.
    MR. KENNYsaid, that he did not intend to detain the House for many minutes in renewing this debate. When he was interrupted by the closing of the debate on the previous occasion he was about to say that, in his opinion, foot-and-mouth disease was mainly, if not wholly, introduced into this country by foreign animals, and that, as they formed but a small percentage of the meat supply of this Kingdom, they were not worth the injury which they brought in the shape of disease. It was true that the number of live animals which were imported into England had increased by 240 per cent; but the quantity of dead meat imported had similarly increased; and, therefore, the country need not look with any apprehension to the restrictions of the importation of foreign live animals. He was in favour of the slaughter of all animals at the port of embarkation, as well as their exclusion from importation where disease existed.
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    He considered that, so long as live animals were imported from foreign countries affected by foot-and-mouth disease, so long would foot-and-mouth disease spread in England, and, spreading in England, it would be certain to spread to Ireland. But, however much he might be in favour of this Bill as regarded England, the Irish farmer had no guarantee that it would not be used against the exportation of Irish cattle to England. Already that trade had been arbitrarily interfered with. Now, it was admitted by the Members speaking on the Opposition side of the House that this foot-and-mouth disease was introduced into Ireland from England; but only the other day he saw a letter in The Pall Mall Gazette stating that it was introduced to the South of England through Irish cattle bought at the Bristol Cattle Market. Now, when they found such a statement coming from such a quarter, the Irish Members could not but have some reasonable apprehension on the subject, unless some guarantee were given that arbitrary and vexatious restrictions would not be placed on the shipment of Irish cattle. It was very well known that foot-and-mouth disease was introduced into Ireland on the last occasion by Lord Carbery's bull; but, when questioned on the matter, the Chief Secretary, with the ingenuity which was peculiarly his own, endeavoured to evade the point by stating that foot-and-mouth disease broke out simultaneously in two parts of Dublin. Now, there was no reason why this should not happen if the men who came into contact with Lord Carbery's bull at the North Wall also came into contact with other cattle. He would not depend in this matter on the Irish Privy Council. The Privy Council of Ireland was altogether under the influence of the Lord Lieutenant; and of course the Lord Lieutenant would do whatever the English Government, of which he was a Member, required of him. He was also opposed to the Bill because it gave a maximum of inconvenience with a minimum of protection and security. The importation of diseased animals from Europe and America to England, and its propagation in Ireland, was likely to continue, notwithstanding the present Bill, so long as the Privy Council acted in the manner it had previously done ou this question. He

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    hoped, before the debate closed, to have some assurance from the Government that provisions would be introduced into the Bill to secure fair and equal treatment to the farmers of Ireland, otherwise he should be compelled to oppose the Bill at every stage.
    SIR ALEXANDER GORDONsaid, that as he represented the largest cattle breeding district in Scotland, he wished to express, in a few words, his opinion on the Bill. He was in a position to say that there was a great difference between the breeding and feeding interest. The importance of the interests of the breeder he would illustrate by the prices obtained at a sale by one farmer in Aberdeenshire—Mr. Wilkin, of Waterside. This farmer's herd became so large that he had to draft from it 40 animals—not the prime cattle—of which 34 were sold at a price of £2,177, or an average of £64 a-piece. Seven heifers, two years old, brought £77 each; and 10 yearling heifers obtained no less than £11 14s. each, and four bulls £46 each. This showed how considerable was the breeding industry of the country and what a large amount of capital that one man must have invested, the whole of which might he injured, if not destroyed, by any careless admission of foot-and-mouth disease. On the same day there was another sale, at which 160 cattle realized £4,707. The farmers thought they were entitled to such legislation as would enable them to carry on their business with a certain amount of security. The Bill, as the Government brought it into the other House, gave very great satisfaction to the breeders he was speaking of. There was only one change that they asked for—that the two years' duration of the Bill should be changed into a five years' duration, the former being too short a period for the operation of the measure to be felt. Of course, they would be glad to accept some of the Amendments made by the Lords, if the Government chose to agree to them; but they did not regard them as necessary, and they considered the Bill as originally framed by the Government a fair answer to the demand made by the House last July, when the Government was beaten on this question. The difference between the Bill as originally introduced and as it stood now was one of opinion, and it could not be reduced to fact. It was so
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    slight that it was very little more than the difference between tweedledum and tweedledee. It depended entirely upon the mind that carried out the measure. It appeared to him that if one Government viewed the introduction of cattle From abroad with too great favour, no Bill would compel them to exercise their power to the full extent that the agricultural interest demanded. On the other hand, a Government which was opposed to the importation of foreign cattle at all would not improbably go to the opposite extreme. The difference, as he had said, was really one of opinion, and not one of fact; and it was not worth contending about. Therefore, rather than endanger the Bill, he should certainly give it his hearty support.
    SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he had listened with interest to the speeches made by Members from Ireland. He quite agreed that nothing should be done to prohibit the introduction of store cattle from that country. [Mr. KENNY: Any stock?] Yes; any stock; but he was speaking now especially on the subject of store cattle. If the Bill had contained any such prohibition he should have been very much disposed to agree with the objections which the hon. Member had raised to it, because he came from a part of the country where the importation of store stock from Ireland did operate for the benefit of the farmers, though, unfortunately, these cattle were often suffering from foot-and-mouth disease to a very great extent. This Bill referred only to the importation of stock from foreign countries, and Ireland was at least as much interested in securing freedom from disease imported from abroad as England or Scotland, he trusted, therefore, that if Irish Members received from the Government the assurances they sought, they would, at any rate, be satisfied that the cattle trade of their country would be in no danger from the provisions of the Bill. There was one point on which he should very much like to see the cattle trade between Ireland and England improved—namely, in the condition of the ships on which they were carried. He could very well remember, when he was connected with the Irish Administration, how very bad the condition of those vessels often became, and how difficult it was to insure the proper carrying cut of measures to keep them

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    as clean as they ought to be. If the Irish and English Privy Council, either together or separately, could insist upon the adequate enforcement of regulations dealing with this question, they would confer an unmitigated blessing both upon Ireland and upon England. With respect to the general provisions of this Bill, he believed that Members who represented agricultural constituencies ought to place on record their decided opinion that the Bill, as it was proposed to be amended by Her Majesty's Government, would not be satisfactory to the agricultural interest. It was very true, as had just been remarked, that a great deal depended upon the mind of the Ministry. He should very much like to get at the mind of the Government on the question. Last summer they laid down very distinctly and definitely their opinions against the Resolution which was then proposed by his hon. Friend (Mr. Chaplin); and later on the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, addressing his constituents at Scarborough, adopted the same tone. But at the very commencement of the Session they suddenly changed their opinions, and announced that they were about to introduce a Bill on the subject. That conversion was so very sudden that he confessed he had never been able to view it with the childlike confidence with which it was hailed by hon. Members who sat opposite. Its very suddenness justified a suspicion as to its depth and reality. Last year the Vice President of the Council told the House that the main principle of the Act of 1878 was compulsory slaughter at the port of landing, subject to two exceptions—first, that the Privy Council had power absolutely to prohibit importation from infected countries; and, secondly, to suspend compulsory slaughter in the case of countries exceptionally free from disease. Then the right hon. Gentleman had argued that it was impossible for the Government, consistently with the law, to carry out the Resolution of the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire, and that if it was possible to do so, it could not be done without seriously diminishing the meat supply of the country. But, in spite of these arguments, his hon. Friend's Resolution was carried. Hummer and autumn passed, and the Government did nothing. The Session began, and no notice of the subject was taken in the Queen's Speech,
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    and then his hon. Friend gave Notice of an Amendment to the Address, which, if carried, would have placed the Government in a very awkward position. Then, at last, the Government promised to introduce a Bill, of which the Prime Minister said that it would considerably enlarge the powers of the Privy Council, and that there would be no cause for complaint of those powers being too limited. His hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Gloucestershire (Colonel Kingscote), and his hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage), who had supported his hon. Friend's Resolution, expressed their conviction that the Government intended really to give effect to that Resolution. But what followed? The Bill was introduced in "another place," and was received with general dissatisfaction by the agricultural interest as quite insufficient to carry out the Resolution of the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin), of which the House of Commons had approved. In one respect, indeed, the Bill actually weakened the existing law. It was, however, amended in a manner which would render its main provisions satisfactory; but the Government had expressed their intention not to accept the Amendments, he was quite sure that, if that intention was adhered to, the hopes which had been entertained by the agricultural classes would be changed into bitter disappointment. He could not agree with the hon. and gallant Member opposite (Sir Alexander Gordon) as to the smallness of the difference between the Bill as introduced and as amended. They ought to have had some statement from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster of the reasons why the Bill should be restored to its original shape. What were the objections to the Bill as it now stood? They might be divided into three classes. First, there were those which proceeded from salesmen and butchers, especially those connected with Deptford Market, who were pecuniarily interested in the maintenance of the present order of things, as to which he would only say that Parliament ought not to allow their interests, important as they were, to weigh against considerations of general public good. Secondly, there were those which originated with a class of politicians so ardent in their support of

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    the theory of Free Trade, that anything which was proposed by the Representatives of agricultural interests was suspected by them as tending towards a return to Protection. The hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Arthur Arnold) and the right hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) might be said to represent this class of objectors. But it had had been admitted by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster that all the agricultural interest asked for was protection from disease. Thirdly, there were the objections of the inhabitants of London and other large towns, who had been taught to believe that the meat supply of the Kingdom would be materially lessened and its price enhanced by any such measure as this now before the House. These opinions had been expressed by the right hon. Member for Bradford, who had told the House how much meat would thus be prevented from coming into the Metropolis. But the right hon. Gentleman had forgotten what had been effectually proved by the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire—that the diminution of importation did not necessarily produce any such result. The hon. Member for Herefordshire (Mr. Duckham) had also, by elaborate statistics, conclusively shown bow little there was in that argument. During 1868 and the latter part of 1867 the country was comparatively free from cattle disease. In 1868 511,000 head of cattle, swine, and sheep, and 1,696,000 cwt. of dead meat were imported. During the three preceding and three subsequent years to 1868, the average annual importation of cattle, sheep, and swine was 1,070,000 head, and of dead meat 1,814,000 cwt. In 1868 the declared value of imported dead and live meat was £5,500,000. The average value during the six years to which he had referred was £8,800,000, or an excess over 1868 of £:3,300,000. Yet the price of meat in 1868 was lower than during those fix years. During the year 1883, when foot-and-mouth disease was rife in this country, there were 1,624,000 head of animals imported, the average for the previous four years having been 1,347,000. The total declared value of live animals and dead meat imported in 1883 was £28,181,000, the average for the preceding four years was £23,225,000; yet there was no reduction in 1883 in the price of meat as compared with its
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    price in the preceding four years. Thus it was clear that prices did not depend upon the amount of moat and cattle imported; and the reason was that this, in any case, formed a very small part of the total supply. Everybody know that the price of corn in this country was now settled by the harvests abroad, because so much more of our total corn supply came from abroad than was produced at home; and in the same way, the proportion of our total meat supply which came from abroad being very much less than that produced at home, any rise or fall in. The supply of meat from abroad in no way governed the price of meat in this country. If, by legislation or administration, or both combined, this country could be kept free from the ravages of foot-and-mouth disease, as it was in 1867–8, the increase of the home production would be so rapid as utterly to keep down any possibility of a large increase in the price of meat by a diminution of the supply from abroad. The figures he had quoted conclusively showed that there was no real foundation for depriving the country of the benefit of that Bill. There was a real difference between the Bill as it now stood and as it was originally introduced. The Government proposed that it should be necessary for the Privy Council to be satisfied by the actual landing of cattle that they were affected by foot-and-mouth disease before they would prohibit importation. In other words, they were prepared to run the gravest possible risk of postponing prohibition until after the disease had been introduced. The view on the other side was that the Government ought to be satisfied by inquiry that animals in foreign countries were healthy, and that proper regulations were enforced there to prevent the spread of disease, before allowing their importation. The latter was the only effective means of preventing the importation of disease. In point of fact, the original Bill was no real extension of the existing law. In the spring of last year the Government satisfied themselves, as they ought to have done before, that France was infected with disease, and they prohibited importation from that country. If the Government had a mind to be satisfied that disease existed in the United States, as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster had admitted that it did exist there, they might pursue precisely

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    the same course now with respect to the United States. It was the duty of the Government to explain to the House what use there was in submitting to stringent regulations at home if the Bill was to be restored to its original form. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Edinburgh (Sir Lyon Play-fair) had told them it was not fair to suggest the prohibition of importation from abroad, unless they were also prepared to submit to stringent restrictions at home; but what he was afraid of was that, unless such measures were taken as would go as far as possible to prevent the importation of disease from abroad, it would be impossible any longer to maintain those stringent regulations which had done so much, to stamp out disease in the country, he hoped that the Bill, in its present shape, would soon pass through its remaining stages, and that the House would take steps to secure that it should carry into effect the just and necessary demands of the great agricultural interest of this country, and should be a bond fide redemption of the pledge which, at the commencement of the Session, the Government gave, in spirit, if not in letter, to the House of Commons.
    MR. DUCKHAMsaid, he refrained from addressing the House last Tuesday in the hope that he might thus assist in the passing of the second reading that day. It was not now his intention to go into the clauses of the Bill—they must be considered in Committee; but he wished to destroy the effect of a good deal of misrepresentation which had been made to the public. He felt that the public were not aware how closely identified their interest, as consumers, was with the health of the flocks and herds of the country. As a farmer, he felt grateful to the present Parliament for the security which had been given to the capital of the farmers of the country by the Hares and Rabbits Act, and by the Agricultural Holdings Act; but he thought that now farmers had a right to ask Parliament to complete that security by giving them the most complete and pefect arrangement for the importation of live animals into this country, in order that the health of their flocks and herds might be maintained and guarded from that insidious and contagions disease from which they had so long suffered. They had to compete
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    with all the world in the produce of the soil; and it was felt by himself and other agriculturists to be a monstrous thing that they should be unnecessarily handicapped in that competition by disease. They felt they had a right to demand that they should be guarded from loss through the importation of diseased stock; and they felt that this could, to a very great extent, be done by wise, judicious, and sound legislation. When the Act of 1878 was put into operation it soon freed the country from foot-and-mouth, disease; pleuro-pneumonia, had lingered up to the present time; but it was now almost extinct. The provisions of that Act were felt to be sufficient for the purpose in view; but, as applied, they had not been sufficient to guard the flocks and herds from foot-and-mouth disease. Now, they had been asked repeatedly to prove how the disease had got out of the Deptford and other foreign live stock markets in the United Kingdom. When it was considered that there were some 2,000 men in connection with the Deptford Market passing to and fro—from Deptford to the Islington and other markets, surely it was no matter for surprise that the disease should be convoyed there from the foreign markets, and from thence to the outlying markets. Upon no less authority than that of Professor Brown, they had it that the disease was so conveyed to the different markets in 1850. In 1881, there were landed in Great Britain 143 cargoes of cattle suffering from foot-and-mouth disease; in 1882, there were 66 such cargoes lauded, and last year 97 similar cargoes were landed. At the same time, the farmers of the country were harassed by every kind of annoying restriction—fairs and markets closed, infected areas declared, the movement of stock prohibited. It was most disheartening to the farmers of the country to know that whilst they were abiding by such harassing regulations as those he had described, there was a flood of disease flowing into the country from abroad. He was sorry that when the Bill was introduced in "another place," the Lord President of the Council said it was curious that agriculturists should now raise this cry. But the cry had been a long one, and the suffering of agriculture had been long and severe. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Edin-

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    burgh (Sir Lyon Playfair) said the disease had become acclimatized, and the right hon. Gentleman appeared to think that the only possible way of getting rid of the disease was to slaughter all the animals in the Kingdom suffering from the disease, and to prohibit for four years all animals coming into the country. He (Mr. Duckham) felt that such a theory was wrong. The experience in the county—Herefordshire—which, he had the honour to represent showed that by stringent regulations, such as drawing a cordon round infected areas and preventing animals going out of, or passing through, the extension of the disease could be guarded against. Herefordshire suffered to a most serious extent in 1872. The numbers of animals infected were—35,000 cattle, 108,000 sheep, and about 8,000 pigs, imposing a loss on the county of upwards of £155,000. It suffered severely again in 1875. But the county had been free ever since, except when the disease had been brought in. It had then been clearly traceable; and by the regulations that he had mentioned—namely. by maintaining a stringent cordon round the infected area, they had prevented the spread of the disease in every instance. He felt that they could not ask for too stringent, too decided regulations, in order to prevent the re-introduction of the disease. In 1883, the disease was landed in London, Portsmouth, Southampton, Grimsby, Hartle-pool, Hull, Sunderland, and Liverpool. Under such a system it could be no mutter for surprise that the disease should have become so general. Surely, the most stringent regulations that possibly could be enforced ought to be enforced to prevent the introduction of the disease amongst our stock. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) had quoted his (Mr. Duckham's) figures as regarded the effects of the disease in England: but there was another country that was very deeply affected by the severity of the disease. In January, 1883, the bull that was sent across from Westmoreland to Dublin, in a perfectly healthy condition, contracted the disease, and in six weeks' 12 counties in Ireland were infected, and they were not perfectly healthy yet. A small lot of cattle was sent in February from Dublin to Scotland. On the 7th of February those cattle were sold in Edinburgh Market;
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    they were divided into two lots, and each lot was diseased. Such was the rapidity with which the disease spread that, by the 24th March, 16 counties in Scotland were affected by the disease. Now, these examples showed how the disease could be spread by one animal, yet animals suffering from the disease had been imported into the country by thousands. If such a system were to be continued, he was persuaded that the capital which ought to be invested in the cultivation and stocking of the land of the country, and which he had hoped to have seen increased, from the increased security now given for capital, would be driven to other countries, and much of the land of the nation would run waste and barren. He should certainly support the Bill as amended, and he hoped the Government would reconsider the decision which they arrived at when the Bill was introduced, and not think of rendering it less effective than it would be in its present form.
    SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, he thought that the answer of his hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) to the case for the consumer, which was carefully put by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), was complete and decisive. He would, therefore, not go over that ground again. He wished to say one word on the question of Ireland. The hon. Member for Ennis (Mr. Kenny) had stated that because there were no provisions in the Bill which would protect Ireland against the importation of disease from England, and which would prevent that country from being harassed, he should vote against the Bill. He would point out to the hon. Member that the Bill would protect the United Kingdom, including Ireland, against the importation of disease from abroad, and that it should on that account have the hearty and cordial support of Irish Members. There was, perhaps, no more important question than that Ireland should be free from disease, and that cattle from Ireland should be free to come into this country without restriction. In his own part of the country, and in many parts of the South of England, they had been compelled to take protective measures against animals which had come from Ireland and been lauded at the port of Bristol, and came from that country in a diseased condition. These animals had come to

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    the South of England, and had spread disease far and wide. He did not say that diseased cattle were sent from Ireland to this country; but the fact remained that when they were landed they were found to be diseased. The fact was, the vessels in which they were brought over were not fit for the work. He did not know whether any of the hon. Members from Ireland had travelled in them; but he had done so in former days, and was in a position to state, from personal experience, that then the condition of some of these vessels was perfectly disgraceful, and he believed it was just the same now. If hon. Members coining from Ireland would insist upon these vessels being properly cleaned whenever cattle were placed upon them, they would be doing good service. We should then have- a clean bill of health, and Irish cattle might come into this country, without let or hindrance. He was aware that in Ireland there had been no example of the disease for years before the present outbreak, a fact which afforded primâ facie evidence that it could not be a spontaneous disease in that country. It had been imported into Ireland on this occasion from England, no doubt; but it had been imported into England from abroad, and that was why they were anxious to prevent the recurrence of such a catastrophe. They could tell the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Dodson) that this Bill was one of those measures which, was creating far more excitement throughout the country than he was, perhaps, aware of. Let him give an instance of this. After the Resolution of the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire was passed last year, he (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) went down to his own part of the country, where he met some farmers returning from market, who told him that of all the work to be done during the Session, the carrying out of that Resolution was the most important. But what did the Government do? Did they take any steps in the matter? No, not one; but they absolutely spoke upon every occasion possible against the Motion of his hon. Friend. Now, in a half-hearted manner they had come down to the House with this Bill, because the pressure upon them was so great, and because they knew and felt that if the Motion of the hon. Member
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    for Mid Lincolnshire had been introduced into the House upon the discussion of the Queen's Speech, and as an Amendment to the Address, they would have been beaten. They took the matter to heart, therefore, and brought in this Bill. They, however, brought it in in "another place," and the Bill was amended in "another place." When the Bill came to this House, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster got up and stated—he (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) did not know whether it was to damage the House of Peers or to damage the country as to the importation of stock—that he preferred the Bill as originally introduced. Of one thing he was certain, and that was that if there was anything that would damage the Government more than another in the country it would be the suggested departure by the Government from the Bill as it was amended in the House of Lords. He ventured to appeal to all those who had the interests of agriculture at heart to insist upon the alteration in the Bill made in the House of Lords being retained.
    COLONEL KINGSCOTEsaid, he agreed with the hon. and gallant Baronet (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) that amongst the most important work done by the House last Session was the passing of the Resolution of his hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin). He (Colonel Kingscote) was extremely sorry to think that the Government could not now accept the Bill as it had come down from the House of Lords. In his opinion nothing short of that measure would give security to the British fanner. He thought the House ought not to leave it to the Privy Council to take measures to prevent the importation of diseased cattle from abroad. If they wished to do any good they must give the Department statutory powers. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Edinburgh (Sir Lyon Playfair) had pointed out that 75 per cent of the meat supply of the country was home grown; but he (Colonel Kingscote) would like to see the farmers obtaining facilities, by keeping the possibility of disease from their flocks and herds, for growing 100 per cent. He contended that it was better both for the farmer and the consumer that mutton and beef should be grown at home, than that the country

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    should look to a foreign supply. Without statutory powers for the prohibition of animals from infected countries there would be no stimulus to foreign countries to check disease, and that was a very important consideration in connection with the subject. He desired to impress on the Government that nothing short of the Bill as amended would accomplish the end which they had in view, and satisfy the farmers in any part of the United Kingdom.
    MR. ECROYD, representing as he did a large constituency of consumers, thought he could best fulfil his duty to them by supporting the Bill in the shape in which it came down from the House of Lords. It was in the interest of consumers to have a plentiful supply of wholesome and cheap food. Not only had the price of butchers' meat been raised by the disease which had been introduced and re-introduced into the country from abroad, but the price of milk and butter had been raised and the quality deteriorated. Towns consumed large quantities of milk, and he was afraid that the uncertainty both as to the regularity and quality of the supply threatened to make a considerable change in the habits of the people, which must be detrimental to their health and the health of future generations. It was easy to arouse the feeling of towns against precautionary measures by stating that if the importation of cattle were interfered with the consumers must pay more for animal food; but that was not the case. Let him for one moment direct attention to the changes in agriculture which had taken place during the last 14 or, 15 year. Since 1868 the decrease of acreage under corn cultivation amounted to 600,000 acres, while the acreage of potatoes remained the same. The increase of market gardens accounted for only one-fiftieth of this decrease; and it would have been thought that this decrease in corn acreage must have been accompanied by a corresponding increase of live stock; but it was not so the number of sheep had decreased by 6,390,000, there was a small increase in the number of cattle which might be estimated as equal to 3,447,000 sheep, and there was also a small increase in swine estimated to equal 500,000 sheep, so that on a balance there was a net decrease estimated in sheep of between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 head. It was
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    clear, therefore, that some great cause had been at work to decrease the moat supply. He believed it had arisen, in no small degree, from the ravages of disease, the difficulty which the farmers had had to encounter in the deterioration of their stock, the necessity of premature slaughter, and the difficulties in the way of free sale and movement through the country. Their losses had discouraged breeders of cattle from increasing their livestock, and hence the falling off. These considerations were very important in their bearing on the interest of the consumers, amongst whom there was a disposition to attach too much importance to the importation of cattle, and too little to the prosperity of those engaged in producing the home supply; but it was a remarkable circumstance that the importation of cattle had not lowered the price of animal food. On the contrary, the decrease in the supply of home-grown animals had altogether neutralized the effect of the foreign importations. It was to the interest of consumers in large towns to increase the supply of home animals and fresh milk, instead of depending on foreign supply so much as we did at present. He regretted that any attempt should have been made to arouse a cry of conflict of interests between town and country, because there was no such conflict. The true policy of the country was to watch with great care over the prosperity of internal productive industries, and to look more favourably upon an increase of internal exchange than upon one of external exchange.
    MR. HENEAGE, as an earnest supporter of the Bill as it stood, desired to appeal to Members on both sides of the House not to discuss it further, or its safety would be imperilled by being talked out. There was an understanding arrived at at an early hour that morning, by which ample time was assured for the discussion of the Report of Supply. If the present debate was not speedily brought to a close that understanding would be broken.
    MR. M'LAGANsaid, he had intended to make a few remarks on the second reading of the Bill; but after what had fallen from the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage), he thought it would be much better to defer what he had to say to the Committee stage. He was present at 3 o'clock this

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    morning, and heard the pledge given to hon. Members from Ireland that a question in which they were deeply interested would be taken up after this Bill was read a second time. If the second reading were now permitted, that would leave three hours to hon. Members from Ireland for the discussion of that question; and, while desirous of stating why he was anxious to support the Bill as it stood at the present time, still he thought he had better defer his remarks until it was in Committee. He joined in the appeal to read the Bill a second time now.
    MR. W. H. JAMES, as the Representative of a large consuming population, called upon the Government not to yield to the pressure brought upon them to induce them to support the Amendments introduced in "another place." He was sure if they did, they would only be sowing for themselves serious trouble in the future.
    MR. J. C. LAWRANCEassured the House that there was no intention on his part to talk out the Bill, and he did not see any reason for the appeal of the hon. Member for Grimsby. He wished to point out that the experience already gained oil this question was that the stoppage of importation did not increase prices to the consumer. If they stopped importation, their own stocks, at least, would be safe, and they would have to be disposed of, alive or dead. England was the best market in the world, and, no doubt, foreign countries would find it to their interest to send dead meat here, when they found they could not send their live stock. Those who had submitted to restrictions were entitled to come to the House and ask that an end should be put to the importation of disease.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

  SUPPLY.—REPORT.
  Resolutions [18th March] reported.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, had the Chancellor of the Exchequer been present, he should have asked him whether the question of providing the necessary funds for the defence of our Colonial harbours and coaling-stations would be dealt with in the Bud-
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  get, or whether, after the statement of the noble Marquess last night, any further announcements would be deferred until the consideration of the Vote for Fortifications in the Army Estimates?
  MR. COURTNEYsaid, his right hon. Friend could not have anticipated that this point would be raised, or he would have been in attendance; but it might be assumed that it would not be necessary to refer to the matter in the Budget.
  MR. GIBSONsaid, it had been generally stated in the newspapers that the Lord Lieutenant had recently decided not to reduce the present number of Sub-Commissioners until the arrears of cases had been disposed of. He desired to know what was the view of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary as to the duration of time for which these temporary Sub-Commissioners would be continued? He noticed a very substantial reduction in the Estimates for this year and last year. Last year's Estimate was £157,000; this year it was £88,000. The continuance of the temporary Sub-Commissioners would, however, necessarily cause a very substantial increase in the Estimates for this year. Another matter on which he wished an explanation from the right hon. Gentleman was the proposed Divisional Magistrates Bill. When would that Bill be brought in, and would it be similar to the one which was withdrawn last year for the re-organization of some of the branches of the Constabulary?
  MR. TREVELYANsaid, with regard to a matter of such immense importance as the constitution of the Land Courts, the Government did not hesitate to come before the House of Commons with the confession that the elapse of three or four months had made a great difference in their calculations. The Estimates were closed at the end of last year, and at that time the Land Commission had no adequate idea of the amount of work it would be called upon to accomplish. In the closing months of last year the number of originating notices had fallen; but in the few months that had elapsed since the number of such notices had very largely increased indeed, and now stood at a much higher estimate than, the Land Commission could have foreseen in December last. In December last, the Land Commission came to the

  483
  conclusion to recommend the Irish Government to largely reduce the number of Sub-Commissioners, and the Estimates were framed with the idea that that reduction would take plane, making a difference of about £70,000 less. In view of the great increase in the number of originating notices the Irish Government, in consultation with the Land Commission, had come to the conclusion to keep up the existing number of Sub-Commissioners until the arrears were worked up, and the business of the Land Commission reduced to its normal dimensions. The Irish Government had asked the Treasury to sanction the retention of all the Sub-Commissioners for four months longer, and after that time the number would be reduced to what might be considered a normal number. His Bill dealing with the subject of Divisional Magistrates was in an advanced state, and he renewed his promise that if hon. Members did not throw any absolute impediment in the way it would be introduced in the course of the present financial year. The pay of these officers would come out of the County Courts Vote, and though the title by which they were to be known had not been settled in absolute terms, they would be the same men and perform exactly the same functions as the present Divisional Magistrates.
  MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, that when he heard of the intention of the Government to dispense with the services of several of these Sub-Commissioners, he felt a sense of relief. They had managed to attach to themselves a greater amount of odium and less confidence than any other quasi-judicial tribunal ever before enjoyed. He withdrew his description "quasi-judicial," for as regarded the Sub-Commissioners and the Head-Commissioners, they were simply a conglomeration of partizans who appeared to cast all judicial instincts to the winds, and to consider that their sole duty was the carrying out of political objects. It was disappointing that the country could not he relieved from the discredit of being served by such personages.
  MR. TREVELYANadmitted that the figures in the Estimate were not accurate.
  MR. J. LOWTHERreplied, that we should be then, called upon to pay a much larger sum than appeared in the Estimate. The amount of property con-
  484
  fiscated, without any sort of compensation, was £400,000 per annum; and it would cost as much to confiscate that sum as had been abstracted from the owners' pockets. He failed to understand from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman what this country would be expected to pay during the coming financial year. No idea had been given by the Government as to the permanent arrangements which were to be made with reference to this most costly body of Commissioners and Sub-Commissioners; and he thought the House had a right to ask when the right hon. Gentleman hoped to be able to carry out the numerical reductions which had been referred to. The right hon. Gentleman, as he understood him, now proposed to continue for four months the services of gentlemen who had discredited the State, and whose employment involved a ruinous expenditure. He hoped the House would have some assurance that the Government would before long discontinue the expenditure of the public funds to which he referred. A great deal of the blame had been cast upon the Sub-Commissioners; but he thought the blame should be borne by the responsible Commissioners themselves, and that the British taxpayers should not be called upon to contribute indefinitely towards the payment of an expense of the kind, which was wholly disproportionate to the results, discreditable as such results were, which had been thereby obtained.
  MR. COURTNEY: That £400,000 is in perpetuity. The cost of the Court is not perpetual.
  MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, that that was so, no doubt, until it should be increased by political exigencies causing another scramble for the remainder of the property.
  MR. WARTONsaid, that, fortunately, the Government would not exist in perpetuity, and another Ministry might hold Office at the expiration of the 15 years' term, which would not give the same instructions to the Commission as this Government had done. He hoped the Government would give the House an assurance that the rate of taxation in Ireland would be reduced, and that the Attorney General would be able to tell the House, notwithstanding his speech of two days ago, that he was no longer an advocate of confiscation.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he did not expect that the Secretary to the Treasury would be able to announce any reduction in the taxation of Ireland; but it was to his mind clear that the actual expenditure in Ireland during the ensuing year for the purposes of the Land Commission, would exceed the Estimate which had been recently presented. He thought that some change was urgently called for in regard to the amount of this expenditure which would be recouped by suitors, and the amount which would be paid for initiatory fees by persons who invoked the action of the Land Court. It was unfair to the taxpayers that they should be called upon to bear so large a proportion of the costs of suits which were entered for the personal advantage of the individuals instituting them.
  MR. COURTNEYsaid, the question was, without doubt, one of great moment, and the matter of revising the scale of fees was one which might require to be dealt with, and he would examine it with great care. But they must remember that it would be a serious matter to so raise the fees as to bar the tenants from taking advantage of the benefits of the Courts. Strong reasons would be required to induce the Government to make any change in the scale.
  MR. GIBSONasked what was the gross amount received from suitors last year?
  MR. COURTNEYreplied, it was very small, something about £3,000.
  MR. LEWISsaid, that the Government did not seem to have any fixed intention with regard to the Sub-Commissioners. They alternately announced that the Sub-Commissioners were going to be dropped and re-appointed. It had been understood that some of these appointments were to be made for a temporary period, and they had evidently been made upon the condition of good behaviour in the judicial decisions. Directly he had discovered, during the progress of the Land Act through Committee, that by means of these posts the semi-legal and semi-farming classes were to be allowed to work their will on the property of the landowning class, he predicted that the result would be a kind of helter-skelter reduction of rents. On questions under the Land Act, the action taken by the Government was influenced by the attitude of hon. Members from
  486
  Ireland below the Gangway. He was bound to protest against the class of persons selected as Sub-Commissioners, the result of such selections being that the machinery had failed to produce anything like the fair and impartial results which were expected, and for which the taxpayers of the country had paid.
  Resolutions agreed to.
  Ordered, That the Resolutions which, upon the 18th day of this instant March, were reported from the Committee of Supply, and then agreed to by the House, be read as follows:—

  (1.) "That a number of Land Forces, not exceeding 140,314, all ranks, be maintained for the Service of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland at Home and Abroad, excluding Her Majesty's Indian Possessions, during the year ending; on the 31st day of March 1885."

  (2.) "That a sum, not exceeding.£4,230,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge of the Pay, Allowances, and other Charges of Her Majesty's Land Forces at Home and Abroad (exclusive of India), which will come in course of payment during the year eliding on the 31st day of March 1885."

  Ordered, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide, during Twelve Months, for the Discipline and Regulation of the Army, and that the Marquess of HARTINGTON, The JUDGE ADVOCATE, and Mr. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, do prepare and bring it in.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 144.]
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid, he wished to draw attention to the arrangement under which this country made an advance of £5,000,000 to India to meet the expenses of the Afghan War. In 1881 the Prime Minister admitted that it was necessary to make this grant to India, and he suggested that it might be a sort of punishment to this country for Parliament having given its sanction to the war. In order to make it penal in its operations the right hon. Gentleman deliberately departed from every financial principle he had previously laid down. He made the payments in the following way:—£2,000,000 was given back to India as being a loan due from England to India, and the remaining £3,000,000 was spread over six years in six equal payments of £500,000. The arrangement was so obviously open to objection that a number of Gentlemen on both sides objected to it. However, this annual payment of £500,000 had been made in each of the financial years since 1881; but to his amazement the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other day issued a note from the Treasury asking

  487
  for an additional grant of £500,000, or; in other words making the payment for this financial year £1,000,000 in place of £500,000. "The Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had not given a shadow of a reason for departing from the under-standing, was going on his own authority to alter an arrangement entered into by the House. The proceeding was certainly of a rather remarkable character, and he did not think the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have brought it forward in the way he had but for the fact that in view of an impending General Election he wished to be able to go before the country with the probability of a surplus next year. In the circumstances he thought they ought to have some explanation from Her Majesty's Government. Were the Government going to relieve the ensuing financial year from this charge of £5,000,000, or did they intend to relieve the next financial year 1885–6? The transaction to which he had called attention was not only peculiar in itself, but it would establish a principle which had never before been sanctioned by the House, and he therefore hoped the Secretary to the Treasury would be able to give some explanation of the reasons for adopting this very remarkable course.
  GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURsaid, he thought the noble Lord had done good service by calling attention to this subject. This payment of one of the £500,000 promised to India in aid of the expenses of the Afghan War, in anticipation of the time fixed for its issue, was a misappropriation of funds, and no other words could properly express the fact. By diverting this sum from the payment next year to its payment in the current year, the result was that the surplus of this year would be lessened, and the amount thereby required to be appropriated diminution of the National Debt would be largely cut down. All money charges dealing with the funds so as to vary the accounts of the Kingdom should be resisted. They might well remember the way Lord Sherbrooke dealt with the Income Tax. Every year ought to support its own burden, and he was surprised that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not in his place to explain this matter.
  MR. M'COANsaid, that, with reference to the Diplomatic Vote, he de-
  488
  sired to interpose a few remarks between the present discussion and the Irish grievances which were to follow. He wished to justify the pertinacity with which he had persisted in bringing before the House the question of the suppression of the Bosphore Egyptien, an Egyptian newspaper, published at Cairo.
  MR. SPEAKER: It is not in Order to bring forward the question of an Egyptian newspaper on the Motion that I leave the Chair.
  MR. M'COANremarked, that he proposed to bring it forward undercover of the Diplomatic Vote. [Cries of "Order!"] This was the only opportunity he should have for bringing a grave scandal under the notice of the House.
  MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, he supposed the hon. Member must confine his remarks to the action of some official whose salary was included in the Vote.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member will not be in Order in bringing the subject forward.
  MR. COURTNEYsaid, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have, doubtless, been in his place if he had had the slightest suspicion that the noble Lord intended to call attention to his conduct. He had sent for his right hon. Friend, who would probably make his appearance presently. That the noble Lord was a little unreasonable appeared from the fact that he complained of the Chancellor of the Exchequer doing what he had himself recommended in former years. His right hon. Friend did not act on his own authority, and he had no power over the action of Parliament. He was not coming to that House for an Act of Indemnity; but he was proposing to vary an Act of Parliament, and the very Bill now before the House was one of the steps taken to carry out that proposal. His hon. and gallant Friend (General Sir George Balfour) said that every year should support its own burden. That was true; but the burden to be supported every year was the burden for the Service of the year—the burden of defraying the Administration of the year. This, however, was a special arrangement in respect of a grant made to the Indian Government in alleviation of the cost of the Afghan War. It was thought convenient that the payment should be

  489
  made in six annual instalments; but he denied that this sum of £500,000 formed part of the Service of the year. In reality, the noble Lord had made a mountain of a molehill. There was no attempt to steal a march on Parliament. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had done nothing on his own authority. His right hon. Friend had simply submitted a proposal to the House for altering an arrangement which was made some years ago, and without the consent of the House that alteration could not be carried into effect.
  MR. ONSLOWsaid, that he had asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the meaning of that Bill, and the right, hon. Gentleman had said that it was a mere formal matter, and was the same as was done last year. If the expression was Parliamentary, he should say that the Government were juggling with the Bill. They were playing ducks and drakes with an arrangement which the House of Commons had made in former years, that the money should be paid in equal instalments. He should like to know whether India had asked for this £500,000 to meet expected difficulties in the coming year? The noble Lord had done good service in bringing the matter before the House.
  MR. E. STANHOPEsaid, that the explanation of the Secretary to the Treasury was not satisfactory. The hon. Gentleman had complained that his noble Friend had given no Notice of his intention to raise the question; but the fact was that Orders on the Paper had been so continually changed that Members never knew what was going to be put down. His noble Friend was anxious to get information from the Government as soon as he could, and there had been no opportunity of doing so till the present time. Whenever explanations were given it was at an hour of the morning when there was no one present to hear them. The arrangement was a most inconvenient one, both for England and for India, because if Parliament in a particular year refused to vote the annual amount India would be placed in a ridiculous position, because she had already credited the amount in her accounts. It would appear, if the Government insisted on this proposal, as if they intended to punish those who had supported the Afghan War.
  490
  A deliberate arrangement had been made which, ought not to set be aside. If that system had to be carried further, it would be possible for a Government just before a General Election to take advantage of an accidental majority, and refuse the Vote in order to serve their own purposes. He strongly objected to a proposal to relieve the finances next year by an operation of that kind, and his noble Friend had done good service by calling attention to the question.
  MR. WARTONsaid, the Government were flying in the face of an Act of Parliament. He had detected them on Sunday morning at 5.30 in a similar attempt, and he should never lose an opportunity of exposing such conduct. Every year since he had been in the House he had called attention to another matter, which was a public scandal. He meant the Vote for the Public Prosecutor and his Office. The hon. Member for Wolver-hampton had used oven stronger terms than himself on that question. The Public Prosecutor received £2,000 a-year, and his assistant £1,000, and there was £800 or £900 additional voted for the Office. Nothing was done for the money, and all their remonstrances had been treated with contempt. As at present conducted, the office of Public Prosecutor was a sham and a disgrace to the Profession, the country, and the Government; and the Government ought to say whether it was their intention that the present unsatisfactory condition of things should be continued.
  SIR HENRY HOLLANDsaid, it might relieve the mind of the hon. and learned Member to be informed that a Departmental Committee was sitting on this subject, and that it included the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), himself, and others who had both felt and spoken strongly on the present working of the Office, and upon the necessity of reconsidering the conditions upon which it was constituted.
  MR. THOMAS COLLINSregarded the £500,000 payable to India as so much diverted from the reduction of the National Debt, to which it ought to have been applied, even if the sum had had to be raised by extra taxation.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)said, he believed that the Departmental Committee on the Office of Public Prosecutor was approach-

  491
  ing the conclusion of its labours. With I regard to the £500,000, he regretted the hour at which he had been compelled to make an explanatory statement, of which, however, a report did appear in The Times. The House had determined to pay £5,000,000 to India by remitting £2,000,000 that had been lent, and making six annual Votes of £500,000 each. Pour had been made. The year 1884–5, which they were just approaching, would be, from a financial point of view, a very much worse year than the year 1883–4 or the year 1885–6. There would be no windfall next year, while this year included in its Revenue the remnant of the 1½d. additional Income Tax and of the Railway Tax, amounting to between £800,000 and £1,000,000. The Government thought that, in as much as there would be a surplus this year, they should adopt the hint given to them by the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton), and take the fifth £500,000 from the year that would most easily bear it. Having the money, this was a more prudent course than levying additional taxation. Nothing was concealed; it was a thoroughly open financial transaction; and he trusted the House would not think that the Government had acted unwisely.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he was not at all prepared to say that the course taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was an unwise one; still, the matter was one that ought to be brought distinctly under the notice of the House. For, if there was a point more than another on which the Prime Minister used to dwell strongly when he was attacking the conduct of financial affairs by the late Government, it was that there should be only one Budget a-year; indeed, the Prime Minister would hardly admit that circumstances could arise to justify a second Budget, and in Opposition he would have been likely to have said that the course proposed was a violation of the very first canons of finance. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer made his Financial Statement last year, it was within his knowledge that next year would be an unfavourable one as compared with this, and it would have been right and proper for him to have said that this year might bear a burden which belonged to the next. If he had done so, the House would have had before it the arrange-
  492
  ments for the year, and would probably have confirmed his views. Instead of that, he waited until the end of the year, and then altered the arrangements. The amount involved was of less importance than the principle, for if the Chancellor of the Exchequer could in this way anticipate a burden, it would be equally open to him, if he found it more convenient, not to impose upon himself, but to get rid of a burden of this kind until the succeeding year. He (Sir Stafford Northcote) thought it was necessary, in the interests of financial accuracy and correctness, that the House should take notice of this matter. The change which had been made at the close of the financial year might have been carried out at the beginning of the year. It might be that this arrangement was intended to avert a deficit in the coming year, and he should watch the Budget with more interest on that account. He considered that his noble Friend had done quite right in calling attention to the matter, as it might otherwise have escaped the attention of a large number of Members.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHthought it right to say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his speech a few nights ago, made the statement which the House had just listened to. He objected to the system of prospective Budgets, which seemed to find favour with the Government, and thought that every year should bear its own burdens. The transaction to which attention had been called was an illustration of a financial policy precisely the reverse of that which had distinguished the Administration of the present Prime Minister in former days, and marked a new departure in finance.
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, he wished to point out to the House and to the public, not the extravagance of the Government, for that did not need illustration, but the extremely fallacious and, if he might use the word in a strictly political sense, the extremely dishonest character of the financial policy of the Government. Under their financial arrangements the Supplementary Estimates had grown to an extent never before known; and he desired to point out what effect that had had upon Public Business. In the first place, the policy of the Government in submitting large Supplementary Estimates

  493
  had deprived the House of the slightest control over the finances of the year. Certain Estimates were presented on the faith of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the House voted them; whereas if the real Estimates were presented they would be seriously criticized and possibly opposed. In the second place, the Chancellor of the Exchequer regularly and habitually under-estimated the finances. It was a perfectly understood maxim with Liberal financiers that it was right and proper and legitimate in politics to under-estimate the year's Expenditure, so as to pet the country to believe for the moment that they were pursuing an economical course of action. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer was in the habit of producing reliable Estimates of the Expenditure of the year, he would be relieved from the duty of coming down to the House in the early part of the Session with a supplementary demand for money. Hours and hours before Easter, which ought to have been devoted to the consideration of the legislative proposals of the Government, had been taken up with discussions on Supplementary Estimates; and when all lands of accusations were thrown out against the Opposition as to the inability of the Government to make progress with their Legislative Business, the fault in reality lay with Her Majesty's Government. This scandal was also created, that, Supply having to be put down before Easter for several nights, the Government gave opportunities to Members to raise discussions on various matters, and the consequence was, they had the scandalous spectacle presented of the House of Commons voting millions and millions of money in the small hours of the morning. Clearly, it was no use for them to look to the Radical Party for any check to be placed upon the Government with respect to their financial policy or this waste of public time; but it was within the province and duty of Members of the Opposition to lose no opportunity of pointing out to the public, not only the extravagance of the Government, but also the waste of time which was caused by the unreliable and unsatisfactory Estimates which the Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer year after year laid upon the Table of the House of Commons.
  SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he entirely agreed with the noble Lord that
  494
  it was a bad practice to put pressure upon the Departments for the purpose of getting them to make the Estimates as small as possible. Not only was the practice bad, but it caused no saving whatever. With reference to the question of the Public Prosecutor, he might say that under the Act of 1879 great power was left in the hands of the Attorney General; and he could not help thinking that if the country had not been unfortunately deprived of the great services of the late Lord Justice Holker, a great deal of assistance would have been afforded by him as regarded the carrying out of that Act. He did not wish to impute too much blame to the Attorney General for not having worked that Act as he thought it should have been worked; but he was bound to say that no single action seemed to have been taken by the Law Officers of the Crown in order to put it properly in force. The operation of the Act had been left entirely without the guidance of the Attorney General. He was very glad to find that they were shortly to have the Report of the Departmental Committee before them; but he hoped it was not too late to state that he felt convinced that it would be a great mistake to join together the civil and criminal business which had hitherto been conducted by the Secretary to the Treasury. Whatever recommendation the Government might adopt, he trusted they would not combine the civil and criminal business. It was very important that they should be kept separate, for he was convinced no single person could manage the two satisfactorily. He would also suggest that some permanent office should be established for successive Attorneys and Solicitors General. At present they remained in their own chambers and had no permanent staff; a small permanent staff as well as permanent offices should be provided.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEYsaid, that the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Assheton Cross) who had preceded him as to the necessity of special offices for the Attorney General, raised also the question of the advisableness of such offices for the principal Secretary of the Lord Chancellor, who was becoming more than ever the executive head of a Department of Public Justice. The correspondence, precedents, and experience accumulated

  495
  under the principal Secretary would be scattered to the winds and rendered of no avail to his successor, unless some such change were made. There was a marked difference in the case of the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney General and the Solicitor General, because the latter could be seconded in their duties by professional gentlemen who need not be withdrawn from active practice at the Bar; but the Lord Chancellor was unable to have the assistance of gentlemen in active practice. He (Mr. Stuart-Wortley) wished also to mention one remark which suggested itself in reference to this extra Vote of £500,000 to the Indian Treasury. He supposed that there was no principle more strongly laid down than that of the Prime Minister at Mid Lothian that the charges of the year should be met by the income of the year. These payments, however, were not only in defiance of the Prime Minister's own doctrine in Mid Lothian, but were also in total disregard and defiance of the wishes of the Indian Government; as anyone might see who cared to read the correspondence on the subject of the Indian contribution to the Egyptian War. The form in which the proposal now came before the House was of particular value. It constituted a partial departure from the Government's own departure from their own original principle. It seemed to him (Mr. Stuart-Wortley) that it required no very great power of discernment or acumen to see that the Government seemed to think it eminently desirable, in the face of the probability of a Dissolution, that there should be a prospective estimate of a surplus.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, that this was the most interesting discussion which he had ever heard. It was not only interesting, but unprecedented. He was not aware that ever before noble Lords and hon. Gentlemen had at that stage of a Report introduced a Resolution affecting a Committee of Ways and Means. They had not only discussed the Consolidated Fund Bill, but had also ransacked the finances of Ireland and England and India in order to find materials for an afternoon's debate. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had ingenuously remarked that he had no idea that this debate would come on that day; but he (Mr. Sexton) would wish to know who had any idea that it would
  496
  come on that day but the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex? He ventured to say that at 3 o'clock that afternoon the mind of the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) was as empty of the subject for his speech as was that of the babe born yesterday. He had already said that this debate had been unprecedented, and he had never known that stage of a Committee of Ways and Means to be used for the purpose of raising a debate of that kind in all his previous experience of legislation. The debate that afternoon had been the most remarkable piece of "mental gymnastics" to which they had been recently treated in that House. The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) had proved himself to be a mental gymnast of the first order; and altogether it had been most instructive for himself and his hon. Friends to watch the mental agility of the Tory Party. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) had mainly contributed to the success of this device. He confessed that he was surprised at the mature political acumen of the right hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) and those associated with him upon the Front Opposition Bench during their performance that afternoon. He strongly suspected that, whilst their tongues were on Orders 3 and 4 their eyes were upon the clock, and their minds upon Orders Nos. 5 and 6—Revision of Jurors and Voters Lists (Dublin) Bill. They had that afternoon a new experience of the fact that their progress had been hindered by an Englishman, one of the leaders of politics, and that such a course of procedure was not confined to Irishmen. It was also interesting to find the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin take part with others in the device by which two hours of useless talk had been launched upon the House, and which prevented the Bill by which the electors of Dublin were to obtain their elective franchise being brought before the House.
  MR. R. N. FOWLER (LORD MAYOR)said, he rose to protest against the ridiculous suggestion of the hon. Member who had just spoken, that the debate was a useless one. He appealed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to whether the remarks of the noble Lord the

  497
  Member for Middlesex were not of great importance?
  MR. GORSTsaid, he also rose to protest against the speech of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton). It was too much to expect the whole time of the House of Commons to be devoted to Irish subjects. He wished to remind the House that enormous sums of money had been voted for the three Services at an hour of the morning when ample discussion upon them, was impossible, and for that reason it was necessary to take the existing opportunity of asking questions upon the subject. He himself had no idea what Bills were on the Paper; but it was simply monstrous to endeavour to prevent hon. Members, who had some regard for the interests of the nation, raising a discussion upon items of importance. Why had not the remarks of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) been answered? The Secretary to the Treasury admitted that there was no answer.
  MR. COURTNEY: I have not said so.
  MR. GORSTsaid, that he understood from the Secretary to the Treasury that the Government could not answer those remarks. There was, however, another Cabinet Minister in the House who had not spoken—the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The charge against the Government was one which certainly ought to be answered. It was, why did they habitually under-estimate the Expenditure of the year, and so necessitate the bringing in of Supplementary Estimates at a time which was inconvenient to the House? He supposed that Ministers had made up their minds not to answer the questions which had been put, and so it must go forth to the country that the Liberal Government pleaded guilty to the charges which were preferred against them.
  MR. TOMLINSONmaintained that the course adopted by the Opposition was perfectly justifiable in the circumstances of the case. He thought the most extraordinary event of the afternoon had been, not the debate, but the speech of the hon. Member for Sligo.
  COLONEL KING-HARMANsaid, the hon. Member for Sligo had attacked indiscriminately every Bench above and below the Gangway on both sides of the House, and had charged them with Ob-
  498
  struction. He would remind the House that the Morning Sitting would not have been held at all but for the conduct of certain Irish Members in deliberately talking out the debate on the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Bill. The conduct of the hon. Gentleman reminded him very much of a scene he witnessed the other day in a Town Council in the West of Ireland.
  MR. SEXTON: I rise to Order. Have the reminiscences of the hon. and gallant Member anything to do with the Consolidated Fund Bill?
  MR. SPEAKER: I do not think the remarks that have been made for some little time past at all relevant to the question. I have allowed a good deal of latitude; but I must say that, in my opinion, these matters have obtained a length that they ought not to have done.
  COLONEL KING-HARMANsaid, he begged to apologize for having spoken contrary to what the Speaker considered was in Order. He would not have risen but for the remark of the hon. Member for Sligo that the discussion had been kept up in order to prevent the Dublin Jurors and Voters Revision Bill coming on. He would only add that, in his opinion, hon. Members were justified in complaining of the conduct of Ministers in not replying to the questions which had been raised in the course of the discussion.
  Resolution agreed to.
  Instruction to the Committee on the Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Bill, That they have power to make provision therein pursuant to the said Resolution.

  REVISION OF JURORS AND VOTERS LISTS (DUBLIN COUNTY) BILL.
  (Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, Mr. Trevelyan.)
  REVISION OF JURORS AND VOTERS LISTS (DUBLIN COUNTY) BILL.

    [BILL 124.] COMMITTEE.
    Order for Committee read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—(Mr. Trevelyan.)
    MR. PLUNKETsaid, that he could not help expressing surprise at the course which had been taken with regard to this measure by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who had not uttered one word with regard to the objects to be attained by it. The Bill simply pro-

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    posed to transfer the powers of dealing with the registration of voters in the County of Dublin from the Recorder, who now discharged those powers, to some other person who was to be a barrister of 10 years' standing. So far as he had heard, there had not been the smallest objection taken to the fairness and efficiency with which these duties were at present discharged by his old friend the Recorder of Dublin. ["Oh!"] he would ask was there any allegation that sufficient time had not been given by the Recorder, or that he had ever shown any partiality? If there were any such grounds as those, why did not the Chief Secretary state them to the House? He could understand the Bill if it had been brought forward by hon. Members below the Gangway. The hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had said it was a Bill to enable voters to exercise their rights by being placed on the Register. If it could be shown that voters had been deprived of their rights, and that the appointment of this officer would give them their rights, he (Mr. Plunket) might be prepared to entertain the Bill; but, as a matter of fact, the second reading was carried by a remarkable stratagem. The hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), acting as a decoy, had blocked the Bill, and other hon. Members who were real opponents of the Bill were deluded to withdraw their "blocks," and then the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), having silently taken off his Notice of opposition, the previous stages were got through without an opportunity for debate. Under those circumstances they ought to have some explanation of a Bill which created a fresh charge and proposed a new office; and with the view to enabling the Government fully to give that explanation, and the hon. Member for Cavan an opportunity of stating his objections to the Bill, he would move the adjournment of the debate.
    COLONEL KING-HARMANseconded the Motion. He read in the morning papers that the Orders had been changed since last night; and they now found that by some extraordinary hocus-pocus, some legerdemain shifting of the cards, this Bill had taken precedence of the Hours of Polling Bill. Why was not the Solicitor General for Ireland present to give the reason which led to the bringing forward of this Bill? He did not believe this Bill was brought for-
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    ward owing to any want being felt for the appointment of another officer for the County Dublin.
    MR. HEALYrose to Order, and asked whether the hon. and gallant Member was in Order in discussing the merits of the Bill?
    MR. SPEAKERsaid, the hon. and gallant Member must confine himself to the Question of Adjournment.
    COLONEL KING-HARMAN, speaking to the Question of Adjournment, said, they could hardly be expected to discuss the merits of a Bill at that late hour (half-past 6), especially as no one had given them the least explanation of what the Bill was or intended to do.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Plunket.)
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dublin University (Mr. Plunket) had spoken for some minutes in support of a complaint that no explanation had been given of the reasons for this Bill being placed among the Orders of the Day, and had concluded with a Motion which prevented those reasons being given.
    MR. GIBSON: There was not time.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, if he had been allowed the time occupied by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, he should have been able to amply satisfy the House as to the reason for the course adopted by the Government with regard to this Bill. In reply to the hon. and gallant Member for the County of Dublin (Colonel King-Harman), he might say that Notice of the Bill was given on the previous evening.
    COLONEL KING-HARMAN: I quote from the newspapers, Sir. ["Order, order!"]
    MR. GIBSONsaid, it was preposterous to continue the discussion on the Bill at that time of the evening. It was idle to suppose that the Chief Secretary could possibly condense the explanation demanded into the brief space of 10 minutes, and he hoped the Government would not put the House to the trouble of a Division.
    MR. HICKS, in supporting the Motion for Adjournment, objected, as an independent Member, to the practice which, he said, had recently grown of pressing Bills through Parliament without such explanation of their provisions

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    as the House had a right to expect. Without such an explanation from those in charge of a Bill, it was impossible for Members of that House to form any sound opinion on the merits or demerits of the measure. Unless, therefore, an explanation was made he should object to further progress.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 67; Noes 127: Majority 60.—(Div. List, No. 49.)
    It being ten minutes before Seven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned till To-morrow.
    The House suspended its Sitting at five minutes to Seven of the clock.
    The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

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

  BISHOPS (HOUSE OF PEERS).

    RESOLUTION.
    MR. WILLIS, in rising to more a Resolution to the effect—
    "That the legislative power of Bishops in the House of peers in Parliament is a great hindrance to the discharge of their spiritual function, prejudicial to the Commonwealth, and fit to be taken away by Bill,"
    said, he hoped no Member would suppose that in moving this Resolution it was his intention to holdup the Bishops of the Church of England to either ridicule or contempt, or to cast any discredit on the office which they held. He might, perhaps, be permitted to say that he had not been induced to bring this subject forward by the course which the Bishops had pursued with respect to a great social question, although he altogether disapproved their conduct in that matter. Nor did he move the Resolution with a view to improve the character and efficiency of the House of Lords. That was a task which could be better accomplished by the Peers themselves who, by taking thought, could easily add a cubit to their stature. He had made the Motion from a conviction he had long entertained that as the Church
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    of England was founded on compromise, that as obedience to her Articles, Formularies, and Prayer Books never had been, and never would be, procured by any Courts, however skilfully devised, and as there was little chance of Parliament ever revising these books so as to secure a general assent to them, there was no hope of healing the divisions from which the Church of England suffered, or of procuring a substantial unity on the part of its members except by combining the Bishops and the clergy in the bonds of Christian love and sympathy, and securing, if possible, accord and unity between Bishops and clergy and the laity of the Church itself. But in order to get that sympathy and union, Bishops must cease to be nominated by the Prime Minister of the day, and must be placed on a footing of brotherly equality with those whose conduct they overlooked. In his judgment the Bishops ought to be elected bonâ fide either by the clergy or by the clergy and laity. He believed that his Motion was the only practicable proposal at the present time, and that he was asking the House to resolve upon nothing which was injurious to the interests of religion, or which would in any way impair the influence of the Bishops themselves. He was only asking the Bishops to surrender an authority which they had never exercised for the good of the Church, but which had been a source of positive injury to it. He sought the removal from the House of Lords of those who were present there as the representatives of a small portion of the community endowed and established by law. Their removal would render the Established Church less offensive to those religious communities which, in ever-increasing numbers, existed outside its pale. What was the present condition of the Church of England? He did not consider it to be his duty to leave the evils of the Church of England untouched and un-remedied until by their severity and pressure Disestablishment could be hastened. If the English people had time to attend to their own affairs, no measure would be more fruitful in public good than one for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church; but he valued too highly the influence of the Church on the religious and national life of the community to prevent; the adoption of a system of reformation

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    that might lead to its development and increase. The present condition of the Established Church was a scandal and an offence to the nation. We had a Church in which none governed and none obeyed. The Bishops were estranged from their clergy; as far as regarded their truly ministerial and spiritual influence they were well-nigh extinct. They "had a name to live and were dead." Instead of uniformity, there were three great divisions within the Church, actuated oftentimes by the bitterest feelings towards one another. How could a conscientious clergyman sock admission into the Church by an acceptance of the Articles with the intention to immediately forget them? There was a body of men whose object seemed to be the introduction into the Established Church of a system that was absolutely Roman Catholic. They hated the Reformation, and yet they were ministers in the Established Church. There were other men who used language expressive of solemn mysteries in which they did not believe; and there was yet another class who, holding generally the doctrines of the Reformation, kept them in abeyance or subordinated thorn lest they should lose all their popularity and influence. Again, there were others who sought to prevent anything like a fixity of opinion and of practice, with a view to allow people of all descriptions to find their place in the Established Church. At the end of three centuries where did the Church of England find itself? After having expelled the Puritan clergy from their pulpits, after losing at the Restoration 2,000 illustrious confessors and martyrs, together with the thousands who loved and followed them, and after having allowed Wesley to create outside the Establishment a Church which rivalled it in every town and village, the Church of England was without Articles, except on paper, without settled order of worship, and without discipline. The Courts pronounced decisions which everybody regarded as waste paper, and the energy of the Church seemed to be exercised in bringing to the front two great litigating societies. The Bishop of Liverpool, writing this very year, said—
    "Our present state is one of utter anarchy and lawlessness. Every Bishop has a sorrowful tale of fatherly admonitions set at nought and despised. In plain truth, if there is any one point on which multitudes of people
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    seemed agreed, it is the incompetence of the episcopal order."
    He (Mr. Willis) would not have used those words himself; but the Bishop was better acquainted with the conditions of his Church than he was. The same condition of things was described 10 years ago by the Bishops and Archbishops in the debates on the Public Worship Regulation Act. The Bishop of Peterborough, in speaking of the claim for greater fatherliness on the part of the Bishops which had been made by some of the clergy, said there was something one-sided about it, and that the Bishops might reasonably look for greater filialness" on the part of the clergy; he would like some reciprocity. The Bishop said a clergyman had spoken of him as neither a gentleman nor a divine. Then one of the Church papers said that the Bishops had failed to secure the confidence of the clergy over whom they were placed. High Church, Low Church, and Erastians were alike agreed in this—that the Bishops had lost their influence with those who were immediately in subordination to them. There was an almost impassable gulf separating the clergy from their Bishops. All that even Archbishop Tait, whose last act of peace was to remove a recalcitrant clergyman from one part of London to another; and all the Bishops could devise was a recourse to the coarse and un-Christian like machinery of the law. But the weapon had broken in their hands, the lawlessness and anarchy continued, and the Bishops had, he hoped, learnt the lesson that, within the range of the Christian Church at least, force was no remedy. The Bishop of Peterborough had well said that a great scandal was itself a great evil, and no Institution could continue with safety to offend the moral sense of the community. The cry was still for reform and peace and quiet. The condition of the Church absorbed the whole "passion of pity." Three centuries ago, almost to the day, a paper was presented by the clergy to Archbishop Whitgift, entitled "Means how to settle a godly and charitable quietness in the Church;" and after three centuries the means of settling a godly and charitable quietness in the Church was its great need. The heads of the Church were still looking to Courts for relief. In his view they would look in vain. There had been a

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    Royal Commission, and a mass of historical and antiquarian lore had been placed before the country, and the suggestion was still for Courts, which the country would not accept. The right hon. Member for the University of Cambridge had suggested a revival of the study of the Canon Law, forsooth, and a learned body of practitioners, with, the Bishops as Judges, before whom clerks in Holy Orders were to plead as counsel. But no relief could be anticipated from that quarter. If his proposal were accepted the Bishops would themselves be able to remove all the difficulties which existed, and the clergy and laity might come to a common agreement as to the documents of the Church. It would require no compensation, and involve no great trouble, and the Bishops would receive a great reward in the reverence and sympathy of their clergy. It was not for him to detail the events of the three or four great crises in the history of the Church, but it would be easy to show that the Bishops had on all great crises sacrificed its interests. There had been nothing hitherto but force, and no resource had been had to the method of simple affection. ["No, no!"] He could only express his own opinions. He would not deal with the great Oxford movement of 1833, when, as always, anything which was enthusiastic and vigorous was suppressed. He was not expressing approval of the High Church clergy, but he recognized that they were men of exemplary lives, who had a lofty conception of life and of the headship of Christ over His Church. The Public Worship Regulation Act was passed for no noble purpose, but with the view of suppressing Ritualism, whilst the deficiencies of the Low Church clergy and the principles of the Essays and Reviews should be connived at. A Resolution similar to that which he proposed had already passed that House, in which none but Churchmen had seats. In March, 1641. a like Resolution was accepted, and the men who passed it included the names of such illustrious men as Hyde, who was a devoted partizan of Charles I., Falkland, Selden, Hampden, Pym, and Vane, and last, but not least, the name of a man whose name would ever be associated with the cause of civil and religious freedom, Oliver Cromwell. The next branch of his subject related to the question whe-
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    ther the Bishops had exercised their political power for the good of the community, or for the advantage of a single body in the State. He affirmed that they had not. If they had been servile to Kings, they had been enemies to Parliament. They had maintained abuses of the most shameful kind, both political and legal. He would give them some instances. Archbishop Bancroft went down on his knees to tell James I. that he was the greatest King since Christ; Whitgift said that this great King spoke by special inspiration of the Holy Ghost; and when that man of unclean life died, a third Archbishop, a man hateful to true English sentiment, of intolerable bigotry, Laud, declared that such was his purity that there was no doubt the King had been translated to Abraham's bosom. Laud and the Bishops tried to establish despotism in Church and State, and so hateful did their whole order become, that in 1641 it was rooted up. In Charles II.'s time, the most slavish doctrines of unlimited Kingly power and passive obedience were propagated by the Bishops and clergy, and the best men were put in prison. In 1688 the Seven Bishops were popular leaders, and were put in prison by accident; for they never intended things to go so far. They presented a Memorial of the mildest kind, and Archbishop Sancroft, when questioned as to his handwriting, claimed, as if he were a witness in Court, the privilege of not answering any question tending to criminate himself. But as the King determined to prosecute, the Bishops could not help taking their trial, and, by a week's imprisonment, gained the cheap and easy honours of martyrdom. But the Bishops were not true friends of liberty. In the last century, when persons in this country were thinking that they should lose their slaves if they had them baptized, the Bishops, headed by Gibson, Bishop of London, hastened to assure them that, they might baptize their slaves, for Christianity was not inconsistent with property in men and women. Bishop Horsley told the people that they had nothing to do with the laws but to obey them. The Bishops opposed village preaching and Sunday schools. When it was proposed to put an end to the law under which a man was hanged for stealing to the value of 40-s. in a shop,

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    the Bishops opposed the measure. So with Catholic Emancipation. If Dissenters wanted relief, the Bishops would not give their assistance; and Archbishop Howley, in opposing a Bill for the removal of Jewish Disabilities, said the Jews were intellectually and morally unfit for political power. It was so with the abolition of Church rates, and with anything that was intended to remove differences. They opposed the abolition of slavery, until Lord Eldon said there could not be anything so bad in slavery, seeing that the Bishops were always supporting it. Time would fail to tell of their opposition to the best measures. The Prime Minister (Mr. Gladstone) had to confess that though the Liberal Party had made Bishops for 40 years, the latter were such lovers of abuses, that the Party had never received the slightest assistance from them. At last they came to this, that when a man had lived 50 years with his wife, and a gross act of cruelty had been committed towards him. The only thing that a Bishop could see was the Table of Affinity; and when the present Archbishop of Canterbury was installed, he could select no other name as inspiring him with awe on entering upon his sacred office than the name of Laud. [Cheers] Let those cheer who would; but for his part he said, as a citizen of this country desiring to have great measures move faster than they did, that it was time the Bishops were removed from the House of Lords. At least his Motion would have this advantage, that it would give the Bishop of Manchester the time he said he had not now got for prayer. [Laughter, and "Oh !"] Well, those were the Bishop's words. It would enable Bishop Wordsworth to visit a little more those villages in his diocese of which he said that if he were to visit one every Sunday, he should not complete the visitation in 15 years. It would give time to the Archbishop of York, who it was said had not held a Visitation for 10 years. The late Bishop Hamilton, of Salisbury, a name to be mentioned with respect, always felt the difficulty of leaving his diocese to attend the House of Lords. What he was proposing would enable Bishop Selwyn, who was fit to be the leader of men in any Church, and at any time, to attend to the duties of his diocese; and who was actually pending to his
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    diocese to say that his work was suspended. [An hon. MEMBER: He is dead.] He (Mr. Willis) was very sorry if he had erred; he had only praised a dead man whom he was entitled to praise. He supposed the present Bishop (the Bishop of Lichfield) was equally qualified for his office, and he had said that he was obliged to give up the whole of the engagements he had made with regard to the work of his diocese, because, as junior Bishop, he was Chaplain to the House of Lords. Whether they looked at the matter politically or in the interests of the Church, had not the time come when at least this first step should be taken in reform? He did not even present his proposal as his own. He had culled it from a good time, and had received instructions from men of an earlier date. Some of the best men who had been connected with the Church of England had then approved of the proposal he now made. They desired that a change should be made, both in the appointment of Bishops and in the mode of their election. While there was a most democratic system in the State providing for the best men managing public affairs, they had in the Church almost an Imperial system of election; and until that was altered he submitted that no good could come. Let them change it, as it was proposed 240 or 250 years ago to change it by some of the most eminent men who ever spoke in that House, and who said that—
    "Nothing would be so good for the Church as to mould a modern to a primitive Bishop, unrevenued, unlorded, of matchless temperance, constant labour, frequent fasting, and incessant prayer."
    These were the words of men who were still entitled to their esteem; and as he believed they were wise words, and that they should do best to act in the spirit of them, he moved his Resolution as a first step towards procuring such an Episcopate as would be a blessing to the Church of England.
    MR. AGNEW, in seconding the Resolution, observed that he had rarely risen in that House. He was one of those who thought there was far too much speech in the House. It would be better if hon. Members would regard the fact that the House was constituted for work rather than speech. He would himself not detain the House more than a moment or two; and would not attempt

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    to go over the arguments of his hon. and learned Friend, or even to advance any that he bad omitted. Having regard to the requirements of the country and its national life, he failed to see that there was any necessity whatever for the Bishops of the Church to which he himself belonged having seats in the House of Lords, when seats in that venerable Assembly were denied to the Chief Rabbi, to the President of the Wesleyan Conference, to the Moderator of the General Assembly, or the heads of any of the other great religious organizations which existed in this country; and he should content himself on this occasion with seconding the Motion, in the hope that the House would assent to it.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the legislative power of Bishops in the House of Peers in Parliament is a great hindrance to the discharge of their spiritual function, pre-judicial to the Commonwealth, and fit to be taken away by Bill,"—(Mr. Willis,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, if I agreed more entirely than I do with the Motion of my hon. and learned Friend, I should still deem it incumbent on the Government always to defend its own Motion of Supply; and certainly we have always regarded, and must always regard, an intercepting Motion of this kind as one to be met by a Motion of Supply, which, as has been often stated, is really the Previous Question. But I should not be dealing frankly with my hon. and learned Friend, or with the House, if I put the matter solely, upon that ground. The fact is, I do not agree with the Motion of my hon. and learned Friend, and I hope I shall be able to state my reasons in a manner which will not be offensive to him. The House will fully appreciate the very able and earnest manner in which he has presented his view to us. He has drawn a Motion in a fine old English style, which he has told us be has derived from memorable times and from famous men. I must remind my hon. and learned Friend that some of those great names only co-operated for a very short time. The Motion which, I take
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    it, he has placed on the Paper was followed by other Motions and other actions on the part of at least one of those great men which probably my hon. and learned Friend does not contemplate. It is a rather remarkable fact that he has had to go back to the year 1641, about two centuries and a-half ago, for successful Motion of this character. That evil which he abhors, and which was then abolished, very soon revived, and it has survived for two centuries since that time. I was inquiring this afternoon into the history of Motions on this subject. Now, the position of Bishops in the House of Lords and their conduct in that Assembly did not commend itself, and I think very naturally, to the opinion of the English people about half-a-century ago, at the time of the Reform Bill, and there was a very celebrated warning given to them Lord Grey to set their house in order. They set themselves, I think very unwisely, against the sentiments and interests of the great body of the nation, and they were consequently extremely unpopular. But shortly after that the first Motion resembling that of my hon. and learned Friend was made, about the year 1836, and Lord Althorp, who then represented the Party in the House of Commons, made a speech upon a Motion of that character shortly after the Reform Bill. It was a very short speech, but it was a very conclusive speech. He said—
    "If I thought that anybody else except the Mover and the Seconder of this Motion was going to vote for it, I would state the reasons for which I oppose it."
    The Motion was renewed in the year 1837. From that time this great grievance slept until 1870. There was a Motion then; but I think there has been none since until 1884. So that the "periodicity" of this Motion has been rather a lengthened period. My hon. and learned Friend has put a, Motion, down which the House ought to examine in its terms. It touches, or hardly touches, two very great questions. Ono is the question of the Established Church, and the other is the question of the existence of the House of Lords. But it does not deal with either. It assumes the existence of both. If you look at this Motion, it is not a Motion for Disestablishment, though the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman was

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    a speech for it. It is not a Motion for the abolition of the House of Lords; but it is a Motion to say that, suppose the Established Church to remain an Established Church, and suppose the House of Lords to remain, it is not expedient that the Bishops should sit there. Now, first of all, my hon. and learned Friend said a great deal about the principles of the Reformation. Nobody agrees more profoundly with him than I do upon that subject. I have deeply deplored the tendency of a certain portion of the clergy of the Established Church of England to depart from the principles of the Reformation. But if my hon. and learned Friend thinks that by emancipating the clergy of the Church of England from the control of the State he is going to secure or advance the principles of the Reformation, I am entirely at issue with him. How was the Reformation of religion in this country carried out? Was it carried out by a free Church or by free clergy? Why, everybody knows that the clergy, as a body, were banded against the Reformation—that they were against the Reformation in the time of Henry VIII, that they were against it in the time of Elizabeth, that the Act of Uniformity was carried against the unanimous votes of the Bishops. The principles of the Reformation were established by the wholesome and necessary control which the State exercised over the clergy of this country; and in my opinion the principles of the Reformation in the Church of England, as they have been, so alone can be maintained and secured by the control of the State over the clergy. What has been the principle upon which the establishment of the Church of England has rested? It has rested upon this principle, that the head of the Church is the same person who is the head of the State. It has rested upon the principle that the patronage of the clergy—of the higher orders of the clergy, at all events—is in the Crown; that the discipline of the Church is in the Courts of Law. [Cries of "No !"] Hon. Gentlemen may disapprove; but that it is so is an unquestionable fact. We fought that battle out on the floor of this House on the Act which has been so often referred to to-night. I say that the patronage of the Church is in the Crown; that the discipline of the Church is in the Courts of Law; and that the Ritual
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    and Formularies of the Church are established by Act of Parliament; and I, for one, entirely differ from my hon. and learned Friend if he thinks he is going to find security for the principles of the Reformation by emancipating the clergy from those restrictions. My hon. and learned Friend thinks it would be a good thing to take the Bishops from the House of Lords. Well, now, there are two aspects in which we must regard that question—first of all, as respects the Church in its ecclesiastical character, and, on the other side, as it respects the State in its political character. As it affects the Church in its ecclesiastical character, he wishes to take the Bishops out of the House of Lords—out, as I understand, of the political atmosphere altogether. That is not my view of the wholesome position of the clergy in this country or in any other country. The view, at all events—I speak with all respect of those who entertain other ideas in another Church—the view that has always been taken by the Protestant Church, whether it be in securing to its clergy the institution of marriage as against that of celibacy, is that they should mix with society and the community upon the same terms as all other members of the community; that they should not be a separate caste; that they should be ministers of the congregation, citizens of the State, and not cloistered priests. Well, if that be so, why are the Bishops not, like anybody else, to have their share in any political institution of this country? That is precisely what I think ought to be the case. Do you say that a Bishop ought to have nothing to do with politics? ["No!"] I am very glad to think, at all events, that the leaders of the Nonconformists do not take that view. Therefore, there is nothing wrong in these men, because they are the spiritual leaders of their own congregations, taking the part that other people might take in political life. I think it is a very great advantage that they should do so. It gives them far greater knowledge of and sympathy with the society with which they have to deal. Well, you have lawyers, you have Law Lords, in the House of Lords; you have for their distinguished services Admirals and Generals in the House of Lords; and why in the world are you not to have Bishops? I have always thought that if the House of Lords has

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    any defect—it is not for me to say it has—it is the want of variety in the interests which it represents, and I cannot understand why it is that Gentlemen—especially those who desire a reform in the House of Lords—should desire to diminish the variety of interests which that House possesses. We sometimes hear from Gentlemen of advanced opinions denunciations of a hereditary aristocracy; but the aristocracy that you are attacking is not a hereditary aristocracy. We are sometimes told that what you want in the House of Lords is a body of men who have reached their eminent positions by merit—who have worked their way from humble positions in life, who have not acquired their political authority simply from the accident of birth. That, I have always understood, is the Radical doctrine upon which, if the House of Lords exists, it ought to be reformed. Well, but it is a singular thing that the first reform proposed in the House of Lords should be to get rid of the only class sitting there which, as a, class, is selected for eminence and merit of its own. ["No!"] I say that is quite as true of the Bishops as of the Law Lords. [Renewed interruption]. These statements, surely, are not so extravagant that they should be met by clamour. I say that the men who are nominated as Bishops are generally eminent in their profession. I was extremely sorry to hear my hon. and learned Friend speak with disparagement of one of the most distinguished and learned men of this country, and, I venture to say, of Europe—Professor Stubbs. There does not exist a more learned or more accomplished man, or a greater ornament of the profession to which he belongs, than Professor Stubbs. Then, that is the one class which you wish to remove from the House of Lords. My hon. and learned Friend candidly admits that this is a question entirely apart from the question of Church Establishment—that he has not raised the issue of Establishment; you cannot raise the question of the Establishment of the Church on a Motion for going into Committee of Supply. But we are, for the purpose of this argument, assuming the Establishment of the Church and the propriety of that Establishment. Then, assuming that, what is asserted is that it is peculiarly improper that this class of men should be in
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    the House of Lords. Now, I ask why? First of all, my hon. and learned Friend says they had much better be in their dioceses. Well, but I thought my hon. and learned Friend, or some of those who think with him, were against dioceses and diocesans altogether; and why these Gentlemen should be so extremely anxious that diocesans should be always in their dioceses I cannot understand. I should have thought that, from their point of view, the more diocesans were away from their dioceses the nearer they would be of attaining their object. If my hon. and learned Friend desires that diocesans should always be in their dioceses, then he is one of the most enthusiastic friends of the Church of England. Now, no doubt, in old times, when it took three or four days to come from the North, and a visit to London was a great affair, if a Bishop remained in London a great part of the year that was a serious interference with his episcopal functions. But is that true now? I can speak from a knowledge of a. good many of the Bishops; and I do not think that his attendance in the House of Lords does interfere, or need interfere, at all with his duty in his diocese. It is absurd to suppose that it should be so. The House of Lords is a very respectable Assembly. It is not in the habit of sitting up till 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning; but it behaves like a reasonable Institution. It meets about once a fortnight for the transaction of serious Business. ["No!"] Perhaps once in three weeks; at all events, it does not make large demands on the time of its Members. No doubt the Bishops take an interest in certain questions, and do not vote as some of us might wish; but that is not a consideration on which we should act in a discussion of this description. But to suppose that a Bishop cannot find time to give such attendance as is required in the House of Lords, and at the same time to attend to the business of his diocese, is not a practical proposition that bears argument. Why, there are Members of the House who attend to business that requires quite as constant attention as the business of a diocese does. There are a great many persons engaged in professions and in business who find time to attend the House of Commons, and do not neglect that business or their professions, although the demands upon them are very much greater. Then I

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    cannot see that attendance in the House of Lords is injurious to the Church by taking the Bishops away from their dioceses. Then, as regards the House of Lords, I cannot see that that Assembly suffers disadvantage from the presence of the Bishops. I should say, on the whole, that it derives advantage from their presence. I say they are a class of men who, from the very nature of their appointment and occupation, are extremely different from the great majority of the House of Lords. They are most of them men of humble origin; they have risen by labour, by talent, by devotion to work. They are professional men in a very honourable profession, who have won their way to the House of Lords as the great lawyers have won their way, us the great generals, the great admirals, as a few men—I wish there were more—of commerce have won their way there, and as I should hope to see men from other departments and walks of life win their way there also. And those who are not prepared to abolish the House of Lords altogether—those who wish to see it made more various in its character, more liberal and enlightened in its views, I think should rather welcome than repulse a class of this kind from among them. What is their number? It is 26 out of upwards of 500 Members of the House of Lords. Well, that is only a small leaven in the lump; and if I were looking to reform the House of Lords, as some Gentlemen have proposed to reform it, I should not think the best reform was to remove that element from among its Members. The fact is, people will not sufficiently clear their ideas and distinguish between the two things. What you really want to do is to get rid of the Bishops in order that you may get rid of the Church. ["Hear, hear!" and "No!"] Well, if that is not what you mean, you are perfectly illogical. If what you wish is to get rid of the Church—if you regard the Bishops as an outwork—a powerful outwork—of the Church, I can quite understand your position. That is quite reasonable. It will bear argument, and there is much to be said from the point of view of those who desire it. But if you assume that the Church is to be kept, then it seems to me that the argument has nothing whatever in it. For if you accept the Church as established, it seems to me that the argument
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    for the Bishops to be in the House of Lords is much stronger than the argument against it. You talk of the Bishops being a dangerous political power. I do not regard them in that light at all. In former days the Bishops generally hold anti-popular views; but now they move along with the spirit of the times, and they mix with other people a great deal more than they used to do. I do not, agree with my hon. and learned Friend, and. perhaps, I know as many Bishops as he does. The picture he draws of a Bishop as a sort of distant tyrant, far removed from his clergy and his flock, is not a correct picture. The Bishops are extremely hard-working men, who live among their clergy and the people of their dioceses; and my hon. and learned Friend has, I am sure unconsciously and unwillingly, done injustice to a very deserving body of men. And, therefore, from this personal point of view, I do not think there is anything whatever to be said against them; and so far from their being a bad element in the House of Lords, and if you are to have a House of Lords, and if you are to have an Established Church, as the hon. and learned Gentleman admits, then I think variety in the House of Lords is a good thing. The Bishops are mostly men of learning; they are all well conducted; and I do not think that is a bad element. Therefore, if you have a House of Lords and an Established Church, I cannot see that my hon. and learned Friend has made very much out of the argument against the presence of the Bishops. Now, Sir, I quite agree that there remain behind this Motion and this discussion to-night two great questions—namely, the question of the Established Church and the existence of the House of Lords. I am happy to think that we are not, at a quarter past 10 o'clock on an Evening Sitting of the House of Commons, and on the Motion for going into Committee of Supply, going to dispose of either of those large questions on such an occasion and in such a discussion. The Motion before the House is of a much narrower tendency. It is whether 25 individuals who, as Bishops, are Members of the House of Lords, ought to be removed from that Assembly. I do not think that their removal would be an advantage to the Church, nor do I think it would be an advantage to the House of Lords; and,

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    therefore, in these circumstances, and bound, above all, by the overpowering consideration referred to at the beginning of my remarks—namely, that the Government must defend their own Motion of Supply—I must oppose the Motion of my hon, and learned Friend.
    MR. WADDYsaid, the House had the advantage of hearing the very best that could be said by anyone in the House, except the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton), upon that side of the question. The House had listened with the respect due, not only to the experience and talent of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but they remembered also that he had hereditary claims to speak as the champion of the Bishops and Archbishops of the country. He did not wonder that in 1834, when Lord Althorp tried to find some arguments against a similar Motion, all he could say was that "he should like to be excused from entering into any discussion of the merits of the question;" and he observed, in looking carefully at the discussion which took place on that occasion, that with one exception—such was the feeling existing at the time in the House—all the Members who spoke were in favour of the exclusion of the Bishops. They were told that the Bishops were to be continued in the House of Lords because it was a place to which they had been raised by their eminent talents, and by their having lived lives of studious and careful education. It was also asked, why should not Bishops as well as lawyers be admitted to the House of Lords? But did his right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary propose that all the Judges should become Members of the House of Lords, or would the right hon. and learned Gentleman be satisfied that the Bishops should be represented by the Archbishops of York and Canterbury, and the Bishops of Winchester, Durham, and London? He (Mr. Waddy) spoke as a Nonconformist, and not in any hostility whatever to the Church of England. ["Oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen opposite did not believe in his conscientiousness. He should be surprised, knowing what he did, if they believed in anybody's. If they were anxious to disestablish the Church, he thoroughly and honestly believed the Motion they were seeking to make was one which was far more likely to delay that, event
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    than to hasten it. The presence of Bishops in the House of Lords was, rightly or wrongly, supposed by some persons to be a kind of grievance. He did not himself consider it to be much of a grievance. But to get rid of that grievance would be far more likely to help the view taken by some hon. Gentlemen, and far more likely to delay the success of others, because, postpone as they would, the exclusion of the Bishops would happen. He declined to consider this as a question for banter. To his mind, it was a matter of great seriousness and great importance. He looked with the profoundest admiration on Churchmen such as Hooker, Tillotson, Tait, and scores and hundreds of others; and he should be unworthy to belong to any Church whatever if he attempted to ignore obligations to such men as those. He did not wish to do any damage to the House of Lords; but he and those who thought with him believed the presence of Bishops in the House of Lords was an anomaly. The historical reason had failed. They had gone so far that they had destroyed anything like a logical ground for their existence in the House of Lords. At one time there were 55 Ecclesiastical Members in the House of Lords; but more than one-half of them had been turned out. The Premier of this or any other Government might at any time flood the House of Lords with new Peers; but he could not add to the House of Lords a single new Bishop. By what right did these very learned and very excellent men sit there now? Was it because they were Barons? No; it could not be, because there were men who were sitting in the House of Lords now who were not Barons. Some of them derived their incomes solely from subscriptions. They had no baronies in any sense or form. Was it because they were Bishops? No; because they only admitted a certain number of Bishops; there were some Bishops who did not sit in the House of Lords. If they sat there because they were Bishops, then he would ask why the Bishops of the Irish Church did not retain their seats after the Disestablishment of the Church? Was it because they were leading Representatives of the Established Church? The House of Peers was not a Representative Assembly. The religious Census of 1851, which was the only Census they had—

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    and which was held by Churchmen to be a good one until its results were-known—showed that of the accommodation provided in churches for the population of this country, 29·6 was provided by the Church of England, and 27·4 was provided by the Dissenting Churches of this country. That Census also showed that seats were provided for 5,317,915 persons in the Church of England, while the three sections of Nonconformists—namely, the Baptists, Wesleyans, and Independents—provided accommodation for 4,114,401. [An hon. Member: Absurd.] It might be absurd, but it was a fact. He did not say they ought to have Representatives of other Churches in the House of Lords; but what he wished to point out was that they had an anomaly to deal with, and if it was to be said that the Bishops were in the House of Lords as the Representatives of the Church of England, then he wanted to know why there were not to be found in the House of Lords Representatives of other Churches, which amounted to nearly, if not quite, as large a number of people, in something like a reasonable proportion? The Bishops had not always been ready to come forward in the other House even in connection with matters which certainly called for their support. On every occasion when there had been any proposition to increase the Episcopate in the House of Lords, it had been on the ground that the work to be done by the Bishops was already more than they could do. Some short time ago it was said to be necessary to create a now Bishopric to relieve the labours of the Bishop of Exeter, and accordingly a new See was created at Truro. But it would be found that the Bishop of Exeter was the person who attended most assiduously to his Parliamentary duties, and by so doing was precluded from discharging his local work in the diocese. All they wanted to do by the Motion of his hon. and learned Friend was to relieve these eminent, learned, and godly men from work for which. They were not entirely fitted, and from the turmoil of political controversy. Let them attend to their own spiritual work in their own dioceses, and not mix themselves up in work of a purely temporal kind. He utterly denied that in making this proposition a foundation was being laid for Disestablishment. On
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    the contrary, he maintained that so soon as they took these Bishops away from work for which they were not fitted, and confined thorn to work for which they were fitted, they strengthened the Church of England far beyond anything that had been known in modern times. Although he was a Nonconformist, he desired to see the Church of England stronger than it had been for the great work which it was called upon to do.
    MR. BERESFORD HOPEsaid, the affection for the Church manifested by the two hon. and learned Members who had brought forward and supported the Motion was almost overwhelming, though he could not say that the method they adopted in showing their love was that which a logical and well-ordered mind would have adopted. He was reminded of the lines—
    "Perhaps you were right to dissemble your love,
    But prithee why kick me downstairs?"
    The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Waddy) asserted for himself a monopoly of gravity and of conscientiousness; while, in his opinion, there was no conscience, no sense of propriety, on the other side of the House; so he (Mr. Beresford Hope) would gladly leave the hon. and learned Member to his own opinion of himself. As his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary had pointed out, those who advocated this Motion had impinged themselves on the horns of a dilemma; either they wished well to the Church of England, and in that respect posed as external reformers, or else they were the sharpshooters of the Liberation Society. He was sure that the hon. and learned Members, both from their high personal character and from the ingenuousness which was a part of the distinguished Profession to which they belonged, had no second thoughts in the pure and simple desire to do good to the Church and to the Bishops, who, of course, could not know what their own professional duties were, or what were his, for their interests. So much for pretexts; but he repudiated the imputations thrown upon the Church of England in the speeches of the hon. and learned Members, and he would not accept compromises which were really surrenders in disguise. What were the arguments of the hon. and learned Member for Colchester (Mr. Willis)? He lamented that there was

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    no discipline in the Church of England, and he blamed its division into three parties, as if, in his Liberal eyes, it was a reproach to be elastic, and to be able to approach the same formularies from various sides and with resources of modern research. He wished the Church to shrink into a sect, narrow and unprogressive, and the expulsion of its heads from the great Council of the nation was a ready way to that end. The object of the Motion really was to make the Church a little less popular and a little less influential for good; but they could not do all that in a Motion on going into Supply; and so the assailants took up this one point of turning the Bishops out of the House of Lords. It stood self-confessed of not being a sincere Motion, and it went too far, simply because it did not go far enough. Then the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh waxed eloquent, and, in thrilling and pathetic phrases, dwelt on somebody's great wrong and grievance, because there had not been a religious Census taken since the year 1851. Whose fault was that? He appealed to every Minister on both sides of the House to know if his life had not been made absolutely miserable by the leaders of Nonconformist opinion, and by their blatant protests, whenever, at each successive Census period, an attempt had really been made to ascertain what the true proportions of religious belief were? That religious Census of 1851 was only a Census of the attendance at public worship on a particular Sunday. Of course, it was not for him to suspect that some persons might have treated religious worship as a serious thing, and not have whipped up an attendance upon that day, while others of a political turn had been more alive to the opportunity. But, granted that that form of religious Census was the best, as he did not believe, why had no Member on the Liberal side of the House come forward himself and asked to have a similar Census on a similar basis taken in successive periods? He would not have thought it the best basis; but rather than have none at all he would have closed with it. But no; the stale cry was always raised that religion was a question between man and his Maker, as if the relations of man and his Maker were different in Ireland, where there always had been a religious Census.
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    The Church of England, with all its difficulties, had meanwhile been growing and waxing strong in a remarkable and continuous manner—growing and waxing strong in its edifices, and the zeal of its ministers, and the devotion of its flock, and growing also in power and in variety in its pious institutions, its charitable enterprizes, and in the schools under its administration since the year 1851. Its opponents knew all that far too well; they feared and they avoided any official recognition of this growth, and they fell back, over and over again, upon the stale cud of 1861; and so that venerable spectre of the collusive Census was brought up as a reason for expelling the Bishops from the House of Lords. One point had not been referred to in the debate, and that was the historic origin and Constitutional character of the House of Lords as the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, two Estates of the Realm. If they expelled the Bishops from the House of Lords, it might still be an Upper Chamber; but it would no longer be the Chamber of the ancient Constitution. It would then be a totally different Assembly—an Assembly of the Lords Temporal only—so this project would be an absolute change in the Constitution of the country. This was, in effect, a Motion for pulling down, the Established Church of this country, and for putting it in a position of less respect in the eyes of the people, and in a lower social position, and then trusting to the drift of events for complete Disestablishment. For the Church itself he had no fear—established or disestablished; she would go on in her beneficent course; but her doing her duty was a very bad reason for wronging her. Before he sat down he must answer one question of the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh. The hon. and learned Member asked why the Bishops of the Irish Church did not retain their seats in the House of Lords. The reason was that, out of a very fine feeling, and in a most self-denying spirit, they had refused to do so. The Act of Disestablishment retained for the actual occupants their right to sit in the House of Lords; but they declined to accept that privilege. So much, therefore, for that argument, and so much for the professed zeal for the Church of England, and the desire to promote its interests and develop its good points so loudly proclaimed by the

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    hon. and learned Members for Colchester and Edinburgh. The Church of England was an Institution to be trusted with its own internal organization; and he objected to allowing it to be dealt with by men who in the House professed great zeal for it, and on the next day would go to the liberation Society and join in the conspiracy to pull it down.
    MR. H. H. FOWLER: Sir, I always consider the eloquence of the Secretary of State for the Home Department to resemble one of the most powerful and wonderful machines of modern times—I mean the Nasmyth hammer. He can bring all the force of his eloquence to bear on a solid argument and shiver it to pieces, and he can crack the shell of an egg without disturbing the yolk. I am not going this evening to reply to his argument with respect to the position of the Government on the Motion for going into Committee of Supply, as, if my recollection is correct, on many occasions during the present Parliament the Government have accepted Motions on a Friday evening which were Amendments to going into Committee of Supply. Nor will I stop to discuss his extraordinary theory with respect to the Re-formation, nor his new scheme of competitive examination for admission to the House of Lords. I wish to approach the question from a serious point of view. In my humble judgment, the present Motion is not antagonistic to the House of Lords, it is not antagonistic to the Church of England, and it does not raise the controversy as to the Disestablishment of that Church. A man may be as enthusiastic an admirer of the House of Lords as the Home Secretary is; he may be as devoted a member of the Church of England as the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down; he may entertain the most decided opinions as to the desirability of the State endowing the Church; and yet he may be as much opposed to 26 of its Bishops being ex officio Members of the House of Lords as the Home Secretary would be, and as every Member of this House would be, to 26 of the Archdeacons being ex officio Members of the House of Commons. The question before the House is, whether it is in the interest of the State or in the interests of the Church that 75 per cent of the English Episcopate should be Peers of Parliament? I answer that question in
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    the negative, because I contend that the possession of such a privilege is a political anomaly, a sectarian injustice, and a religious calamity. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Beresford Hope) has alluded to the historic position of the Bishops as Lords Spiritual. May I remind him that the presence of ex officio legislators in the Parliament of to-day, who are neither hereditary nor representative, is a very feeble fragment of the original principle by virtue of which the Lords Spiritual, mitred Abbots as well as Bishops, took their places side by side with the feudal nobility? They were the owners of enormous tracts of the country, and as such they were emphatically an Estate of the Realm. But, whatever the Constitutional history of the case may be, we have to-day 26 clergymen nominated by the Prime Minister—always because they are the fittest men for the post, and sometimes, I suppose, under the circumstances described in the Life of Bishop Wilberforce—representing no one, and responsible to no one, claiming to form part of one of the branches of the Legislature. Looking at this claim from the political side, I ask, is it a political advantage or a political security? Has the course of legislation or administration gained by the presence of the Bishops in the House of Lords? Has it not, on the other hand, produced—as all political anomalies produce—irritation, disproportionate and exaggerated, against the Institution of which it forms a part? And when the Home Secretary speaks of the advantages of the presence of the Bishops in the House of Lords, I would ask him to put his finger on any one of those great measures of social, moral, or Constitutional progress which are the greatest achievements of the English Legislature and say that measure was the off-spring of the Episcopal Bench. I am not speaking of individuals. I would speak of the Bishops personally with the highest respect. I am speaking of them as a class, and as a class I allege that they afford all the disadvantages without any of the advantages of life Peers. The very conditions which are essential to their successful discharge of their highest and truest functions disable them from acting with the freedom and the courage which are the great advantage of life Peers. And their absolute irresponsibility—save so

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    far as they are the advocates of a limited class who have no special right to distinctive representation—is in itself a disqualification for political power of the gravest significance. No one would propose to create such a political anomaly if it did not exist; and, although it is more difficult to discontinue wrongdoing than it is to commence wrong-doing, we have a right to protest against any privilege which is devoid of public advantage, and is a source of weakness, and, therefore, of danger, to the institutions of the country. There is another ground of objection of equal weight, and that is the presence and perpetuation of sectarian injustice. The raison d'étre of the presence of the Bishops in the House of Lords is that they are clergymen of the Church of England. When, as in centuries gone by the Church and the State were convertible terms, and when all the subjects of the Crown were members of the Church, the Rulers of the Church sustained a relation to the people as a whole which has long since ceased to exist. I am not going to discuss the disputed figures as to the relative numbers of those who belong to, or dissent from, the Anglican Communion. It is immaterial for my argument to which side the majority belongs. We know from a Return laid on the Table of this House, defective and inaccurate as it is, that there are, at least, in England and Wales 21,000 churches and chapels belonging to the Nonconformists and the Roman Catholics. In Scotland and in Ireland an overwhelming proportion of the people are outside the Anglican Church. If, therefore, it be right that ministers of religion, because they are ministers of religion, should be entitled to a place in the Legislature, why are they to be taken exclusively from one Church to which a large number of the people of England do not belong, and why are the Churches of Scotland and Ireland to be excluded? If this selection is defended on the ground that the presence of the clergy of the Church of England is one of the consequences of the connection between the Church and State, why does not that consequence follow from the connection of the Church and State in Scotland? The Church of Scotland is historically and constitutionally as legally established as the Church of England. But the injustice is not confined to the
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    conflicting aims of the rival Churches—it affects the religious feelings of the whole community. The voice which the Bishops claim to utter in the House of Lords is the Christian voice of the nation, proclaiming, as Edmund Burke did a hundred years ago, that politics are but an enlarged morality, and that whatever is morally wrong can never be politically right. When the voice of the Bishops is not in harmony with the convictions of a large section of the religious community it would be better that that voice should be silent. I am not going to trouble the House with details of the Divisions in which Bishops have taken part according to their consciences and political convictions, which I have no right to challenge; but I must say that when questions have arisen which have aroused the deepest feelings of those who believe that politics are something higher than Party intrigues, those feelings have rarely found expression from the Episcopal Bench. ["No!"] the Lord Mayor says "No." I ask him to take a review of the last 50 years, totally irrespective of Party politics, of the grave question of peace or war; and I ask him whether the Christian voice on that question has been heard from, the Episcopate in the House of Lords? I ask him to look to the very question which, perhaps, has suggested this Motion—the reform of the Marriage Laws—[Cries of "Oh !"] Hon. Members say "Oh !" I am not expressing any opinion as to whether the Bishops are right or wrong; but, as a matter of fact, there are two strong currents of opinion running through all the Churches of Christendom. As a matter of fact, an overwhelming majority of the Members of this House—Liberals and Conservatives—are prepared to alter that law. As a matter of fact, a majority of the Temporal Peers are prepared to alter that law; and when the Bishops, assuming the right to act on behalf of the religious voice of the nation, interpose their veto, they are assuming a function which does not belong to them, and are promoting a great injustice. In making these remarks I do not for a moment contend that any Church or denomination, as such, should be represented either in this or in the other House; but when all the Members of the House of Lords, with the exception of the Roman Catholics, belong to the Church of

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    England, and when an overwhelming majority of the Members of this House also belong to that Church, her position is perfectly safe. No legislation affecting her rights can be passed without the support of a large number of her lay members. I, therefore, object to her having imposed on her the disadvantage of a political privilege of no real service, and which aggravates and intensifies an antagonism which is already far too severe. Notwithstanding what the right hon. Gentleman has said with reference to the effect of this question on the Church itself, I would presume to utter a word or two on that point. We have been told, and shall be told again, that this Motion is one of the weapons of the political Dissenters, and that the "be all" and the "end all" of their principles and policy is hatred to the Church. I repudiate the title "political Dissenter," and I repudiate the motives and the objects which hon. Gentlemen associate with that nick-name. I should like to hear a definition of "political Dissent" which will bear five minutes' criticism. If I understand anything of the past history or the present attitude of English Nonconformity, it rests on a far wider and more lasting foundation than political partisanship or political aims. We object, as you do, to many of the evils against which ardent Churchmen are crying out with a daily increasing voice, and in respect to which they are coming to this House to be relieved by legislation. And although we may believe that political privileges and political power are fetters none the less galling because they are golden, and although we smart under sectarian intolerance and social wrong—we, nevertheless, recognize and appreciate the priceless services which the Church of England has rendered to the Christianity of England and to the Christianity of the world. In my opinion, it would be as idle to dream, as it would be wicked to desire, that the real influence of the Church should be either weakened or destroyed; but I ask, in the interests of the Church, what does it lose and what does it gain by the possession of this privilege? It loses the presence and the work of its great officers in their own dioceses at a period when that work has an importance and a reality which had no existence a generation ago. It loses that sympathy with
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    the masses of the people which political privilege, especially when tinged with political partisanship, invariably destroys. Dr. Arnold deplored that the Church of England, during its history, had, on the whole, belonged to one political Party. That political bias has been most strongly evinced by the Parliamentary action of the Bishops; and the strength and extent of the political alliance is the measure of the loss of national influence and moral power. The Church loses not only the services of her most distinguished sons in the sphere of their highest work; but she sustains the deeper loss of the inevitable, though perhaps unconscious, deterioration of tone which an official and professional advocacy of property, privilege, and power induce. One of the saddest of modern biographies is that of a Prelate whoso rare genius, almost unsurpassed talents, and lofty aims were dwarfed by the atmosphere of episcopo-political intrigue, in which, as Leader of the Ecclesiastical Parliamentary Party, he was compelled to live. And what does the Church gain? Rank? Yes—Dignity? Yes—The shadow of power, not its substance. There are Bishops and Bishops. The Church of England has had her Prince Bishops, who have exercised sovereign sway and received regal revenues. She has had her Poor Bishops, great nobles, successful courtiers, and keen politicians. She has had her Missionary Bishops—men devoid of wealth and rank, who have consecrated their Episcopate by the splendour of their self-denial, and the simplicity and sanctity of their lives. I would ask the strongest Churchman in this House—I would ask the Members for the two Universities, whether they can point to any Prelate of the English Church during the 18th century, or during the 19th century, who has rendered such a service, or reflected such a glory on that Church, as was rendered by the life and work and death of the martyred Bishop of Melanesia? I remember the Sunday after the imposing pageant with which the Primate was conducted to his archiepiscopal throne in the Cathedral of Canterbury, the rector of the parish to which this House belongs described, with all the pictorial eloquence of which he is such a pre-eminent master, the deserted canoe drifting over the coral reefs of the South Pacific, bearing the body of the

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    murdered Bishop; and when Archdeacon Farrar bad completed his picture, he added, with a tone which was as significant as it was impressive, "that a scene like that was worth to the Church of England a dozen enthronizations." That distinguished dignitary discerned the true secret of the Church's weakness and the Church's strength. I venture to submit to hon. Gentlemen opposite that pomp is not power; that the greatest, and the truest, and the most indestructible strength of the Church of England lies beyond the range of Peerages and Parliaments. The State novel-gave it, and the State can never take it away. In the interests of the Church, therefore, using that term in its broadest and most catholic sense, as well as in the interests of the State, I protest against the continuance of a privilege which is an anachronism, an injustice, and a wrong.
    SIR JOHN R. MOWBRAYsaid, that, whatever their opinions might he, he was sure they had all listened with the greatest admiration to the eloquent speech of the hon. Member for Wolver-hampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler). He could assure the hon. Member for himself (Sir John R. Mowbray), and for many of those around him, that they all felt indebted to him for the way in which he had raised the tone of the debate. They were the last persons to wish to expose themselves to the taunt unjustly thrown out by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Waddy) that they were inclined to treat the matter with banter as a joke. On the contrary, he approached it as one of the most serious and important questions that could possibly he brought before the House; not that he thought for one moment that the Church, as a Divine Institution, was likely to have its existence affected by any action the House might take on this Motion, or upon a still larger question. But he thought that the Motion raised a very grave Constitutional question, which had been so regarded by all who had treated it before. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) had passed lightly over the Constitutional question, and seemed inclined to draw a distinction between the Abbots and Prelates of olden times and the Lords Spiritual of the present day. He would, however, remind the hon.
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    Member that when the matter was before the House some years ago a great Constitutional authority like Lord John Russell pointed out that from time immemorial the Lords Spiritual and Temporal had been associated with the Crown and the Commons in making the laws of the Kingdom; and any proposal to strike out the Lords Spiritual from the House of Lords would really be building up a new Constitution on now principles. That was the way in which so great a Constitutional authority as Lord John Russell approached the question 40 years ago. The right hon. Gentleman the present Prime Minister, in dealing with the same question in 1870. said the proposal involved a change of one of the most important and principal features of the British Constitution. It was very wrong that so grave and important a question should be raised in the incidental way in which it had been raised that evening, upon the Motion for going into Committee of Supply; and, indeed, it would be altogether impossible, by an abstract Resolution, to make so great a Constitutional change as would be involved in excluding the Lords Spiritual from the House of Lords. When it was attempted to be done 40 years ago, Sir Robert Peel said that if the question was to be raised at all it ought to be raised by a Bill; and the hon. and learned Member for Colchester (Mr. Willis) admitted that the right ought to be taken away by Bill; but the hon. Member did not proceed in the usual way, by proposing to take it away by Bill. The hon. Member for Wolver-hampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) had made a very eloquent speech; but he also supported a Motion by which it was admitted that nothing could be gained. He (Sir John R. Mowbray) joined with the hon. Member in the tribute he had paid to the martyred Bishop of Melanesia; but it should be remembered that the Bishop of Melanesia was a pupil of the Bishop of New Zealand, and the latter Prelate died a Peer of Parliament after holding for 11 years a seat in the House of Lords. Bishop Patteson, as everybody knew, was a disciple of Bishop Selwyn. It was said that the time of the Bishops ought to be devoted to the discharge of their duties in their dioceses; but times were so changed that Bishops were well able

    531
    to leave their dioceses in order to give occasional attendance in the House of Lords when it was found necessary to discuss questions which affected the interests of the Church, and, at the same time, to discharge all the duties required of them in connection with their dioceses. The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Waddy) had made some at-tack upon the Bishop of Exeter because he had been enabled to devote some time to his spiritual duties in the House of Lords last Session. He gathered from the hon. and learned Member that the attack was not against the Bishops for being in their places in the House of Lords, but for having mainly contributed towards bringing about a result which they themselves conscientiously believed to be necessary. On the Marriage Law question they had simply taken the course which they believed to be right. They had defended the law of the Church, and had stood up for that which they believed to be true; and unless the Bishops had taken the part which they did take on that occasion they would have lost the respect of the people. Did anyone seriously think that the presence of these 26 Bishops in the House of Lords was prejudicial to the Commonwealth? [Mr. WADDY: Hear, hear!] the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Waddy) said "Hear, hear!" but he did not know that the hon. and learned Member had urged that view of the question. He certainly did not recollect that the hon. and learned Member had shown the House in what way their presence was injurious to the Commonwealth. The hon. and learned Gentleman would admit that their presence added weight to the deliberations of the House of Lords, and that they were men possessing the highest talent, the greatest force of character, variety of learning, and attainments of every kind. Every quality that was desirable was contributed by the Bench of Bishops. He would ask the hon. and learned Gentleman if he did not think that in the last 30 or 40 years the Bishops had been very important Members of that Assembly? Did he not think that the clear, convincing, and argumentative speeches of Bishop Blomfield, the learning of Bishop Philpotts, the eloquence of Bishop Wilberforce, and the dignified bearing and statesmanlike utterances of
    532
    Archbishop Tait, had added to the deliberative power of the House of Lords to a very remarkable degree? He might go through the Prelates of the present day in order to give further proof; but he would refrain from doing so. He maintained that the hon. and learned Member for Colchester (Mr. Willis) had completely failed to prove either of his points. Instead of the Bishops having been taken away from their duties, they had been fully able to perform them; and the House of Lords, instead of having been weakened by their presence, had been materially strengthened. No ground, therefore, had been proved for the great Constitutional change the House was now asked to make, and he hoped the Motion would be rejected.
    MR. R. B. MARTINsaid, that investigation had shown that no weight at all could be given to the Returns of the religious Census. They were absolutely untrustworthy, and utterly devoid of value as showing the relative position of the Church of England and of other religious Bodies within the Realm. The religious Census, therefore, could not be alluded to by anybody who understood the subject with any degree of satisfaction, he had had occasion once himself to estimate the proportion of members of the Church of England; and as far as he could form an opinion of those who were in the habit of attending any place of worship—including all sects—within the Metropolitan area, the members of the Church of England—and he gave the figures to the House for what they were worth—amounted to nearly 70 per cent of the number who were accustomed to go to any place of worship. He asked the House to remember, then, that if the Church of England was the Church of the State, it was because it was the Church of that large mass of the people, who might claim to have provision made for their spiritual wants, however negligent they might be to use those advantages that were provided for them, and might be regarded in that sense as a political element. At the same time, although a member of the Church of England, he intended to vote for the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Colchester (Mr. Willis). He would not trouble the House with entering into matters which had been far more elo-

    533
    quently put by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) than he could possibly put them, and with whose statement of facts he entirely agreed.
    COLONEL MAKINSsaid, that no one could for a moment complain of the tone of the remarks which had been made to the House a short time ago by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton. Whenever that hon. Member spoke in that House upon questions affecting the Church, he not only spoke with eloquence, but with generosity. He was afraid, however, that the same remark could not be applied to all the speeches which had been delivered in the course of the debate. The hon. and learned Member for Colchester, who moved the Resolution, began by stating that he would not enter into the question of Disestablishment; and then, for 40 minutes by the clock, the hon. and learned Member continued to pour out the vials of his wrath against the continuance of the connection between Church and State. In point of fact, the debate was nothing less than a demonstration in force of the Liberation Society, and the raison d'étre of that Society was to stamp out the political existence of the Church of England. They thought the best thing they could do was to begin by trying to stamp out the Bishops in the House of Lords. He had listened carefully to the debate, in the endeavour to hear some argument in favour of the abstract Resolution which had been moved. He had heard it stated that the Bishops, by reason of their attendance in the House of Lords, were prevented from attending to the more immediate duties of their dioceses. If that was an argument worth anything, it was an argument in favour of an increase of the Episcopate; but whenever a Bill for that purpose was brought forward, it always met with most uncompromising opposition from hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway. He, therefore, could not think they were altogether sincere in what they said. Then, in regard to the duties of the Bishops in the House of Lords, they were confined, as a general rule, to very few occasions. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary, who had spoken very eloquently, very logically, but he (Colonel Makins) must say, somewhat flippantly, said that the attendance of the Bishops
    534
    in the House of Lords was confined to once a fortnight, or, perhaps, once in three weeks. Now, it was not a question of whether their attendance was confined to once a fortnight or once in three weeks; but whenever there was a question for the consideration of the House of Lords which affected the moral or the physical well-being of the community, he ventured to say that the Bishops would be found in their places. No doubt, whenever the question for discussion was one of a Party and political character, the Bishops were generally conspicuous by their absence. He would make the right hon. and learned Gentleman a present of one concession in regard to his arguments. He himself (Colonel Makins) certainly did think it was a pity that one of the Bishops should always be withdrawn from his duties in his diocese for the mere purpose of acting as Chaplain to the House of Lords. He thought that a much more satisfactory arrangement might be made, such, for instance, as attaching to the Deanery of Westminster the ex officio duties of Chaplain to the House of Lords. He believed that the duties of the Dean of Westminster were not of an arduous nature, and the Dean would be able to give the necessary attendance without its being necessary to withdraw a Bishop from the discharge of important duties in his diocese. In the next place, he (Colonel Makins) wished to find fault with the form of the Motion moved by the hon. and learned Member for Colchester (Mr. Willis). The hon. and learned Member said—
    "That the legislative power of Bishops in the House of Peers in Parliament is a great hindrance to the discharge of their spiritual function, prejudicial to the Commonwealth, and fit to be taken away by Bill."
    The use of the word "Commonwealth" he took to be simply technical, seeing that in the present day there was no Commonwealth in this country, but a Monarchy. Indeed, he thought the hon. and learned Member had better begin by abolishing the Monarchy altogether. The fact was, that the only time a Resolution was passed excluding the Bishops from Parliament was when there was no Monarchy. [Cries of "No!"]
    MR. WILLIS: It was in 1641.
    COLONEL MAKINSsaid, that, at any rate, it was passed at a time when revo-

    535
    lutionary notions were very prevalent. He deprecated any attempt in these days to upset the Constitution by a Resolution of this kind. If the hon. and learned Member desired to deal with the question, let him do so in a regular way by bringing in a Bill, which would enable the Bishops themselves to have their say in the matter. In regard to the representation of the clergy of the Church of England, it must not be forgotten that if they took away the Bishops from the House of Lords, they would leave the clergy the only body in the community who would be altogether unrepresented. The clergy of the Church of England could not sit in the House of Commons, although the same disability did not apply to the Nonconformists; and there were reverend Gentlemen, Presbyterians and others, at the present moment, who were very able Members of the House. There was nothing to prevent them from sitting as Members of Parliament; but with regard to the clergy of the Church of England, their only representation was in the House of Lords, by means of the Episcopal Bench. If the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Colchester (Mr. Willis) were carried, and the object he desired were passed into law, it would then become necessary to give the clergy of the Church of England some compensation; but he had not been able to gather, from the speech of the Mover of the Resolution or of those who supported it, that it was proposed to offer any compensation whatever. Of course, he did not speak of compensation in money; but if Parliament were to take away the only representation the clergy of the Church of England now possessed, in common fairness they must be prepared to give them some other means of representation. There was only one other point which he wished to bring before the House, and it was this—that he believed one strong reason which induced hon. Members opposite to make this attack upon the Bishops was the part they had taken in the House of Lords in opposing a certain measure which had been described as one of great social importance—the Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Bill. Surely those who blamed the Bishops for the action they had taken could not be aware of the obligation which rested upon them. Every one of the Bishops had sworn to
    536
    uphold the Canon Law, and that law distinctly declared that such marriages were incestuous and unlawful. Therefore they would be guilty of a gross breach of duty if they were to give a vote which would have the effect of breaking their Oath upon any canonical matter. The hour was too late to justify him in entering into many of the questions which had been brought before the House in the course of the debate; but he ventured to say that, except as a demonstration of the Liberation Society, the Resolution, even if carried, would be worthless.
    MR. MELLORsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Beresford Hope) had told the House that this Motion was brought forward at the instance of the Liberation Society, and that it was, in reality, a veiled attack upon the Church of England. That assertion had been repeated by the hon. and gallant Member for South Essex (Colonel Makins), who had just addressed the House; and, therefore, he (Mr. Mellor) begged to say that, for his part, he was not a member of the Liberation Society; that he had had no communication with that Society; but that he was a Member of the Church of England, and intended to vote for the Motion. He might add that he was a constituent of the right hon. Gentleman; and he would inform him that a great number of his constituents, quite as anxious for the spiritual well-being of the Church as the right hon. Gentleman or any other person could be, agreed with him (Mr. Mellor) in thinking that the Motion of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Colchester ought to be carried, and that the presence of the Bishops in the House of Lords was calculated to injure the interests of the Church, and to work mischief. They had been told by various speakers that they ought to deal with the subject by Bill instead of by Resolution; while others said that his hon. and learned Friend ought to have put down some other form of Motion; but when it came to be considered how very few opportunities any private Member of the House had of bringing forward any Motion at all, he thought his hon. and learned Friend might be congratulated in having secured a place on the Order Book which had allowed him

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    to bring this Motion before the House that night. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge, among other things, had called attention to the Constitutional question. At that hour of the night he (Mr. Mellor) was not going to trouble or weary the House with many remarks so far as the Constitutional question was concerned; but he should like to say a word or two in regard to that matter. Although the right hon. Gentleman, had treated the Bishops as Peers, in point of law they never were Peers. They were Lords Spiritual only, and had never, in the whole history of England, been summoned to the High Court of the Lord Steward. They had no right to sit there, and had never been called upon to sit in judgment. [Mr. WARTON: No, no !] The hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton) said "No !" but he would beg the hon. and learned Member to turn his attention to the authorities upon the subject. If he did, he would find that he (Mr. Mellor) was quite right; and if his hon. and learned Friend would go a little further, he would find that the Act of Uniformity, in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, was passed in defiance of the opinions of the Bishops, who were all against it, and that when the Act of Uniformity was drawn up, the words "with the consent of the Lords Spiritual" were omitted from it. His hon. and learned Friend would also find that in the Reign of Henry VIII. the Judges were of opinion that Parliament might be lawfully summoned without the Bishops at all; and it was a remarkable fact that in the Reign of Charles II. two Parliaments were composed of Temporal Peers, and the House of Commons without any of the Spiritual Lords being summoned. If any hon. Member would take the trouble to look at the Act of Charles I., which succeeded the Motion to which reference had been made by the hon. and learned Member for Colchester (Mr. Willis), and which took away the right of the Bishops to sit in the House of Lords, he would find that that Act recited that the presence of Bishops in the House of Lords was found to be prejudicial to the State, and that, beyond all things, their spiritual duties in their dioceses required their whole attention. That was what the Act itself recited. Someone—he thought it was his hon. and learned Friend—had
    538
    quoted Lord Falkland. Now, Lord Falkland made a remarkable speech in favour of that Bill which still survived; and, although Lord Falkland afterwards changed his views as to this, it must not be forgotten that he changed his opinions, not because he had arrived at a different conclusion, but because he became frightened at the state of things which was then existing. In that speech of Lord Falkland he called attention to this very question—the continual absence of the Bishops from their Sees—and it was not till the Reign of Charles II. that the Bishops were restored to their place in Parliament by the repeal of that Act. What he and his hon. Friend thought as to other mischiefs caused by the presence of the Bishops in the House of Lords, as far as the State was concerned, was this—that they sat there as Bishops to judge and vote upon questions, not only affecting the people of this country, but the people of Ireland and Scotland. The Irish Bishops had been excluded from sitting in the House of Lords. The Bill which disestablished the Irish Church took away the right of the Irish Bishops to sit and vote in the House of Lords. The consequence was that the Bishops who retained scats in the House of Lords were placed in this anomalous position—they had power to sit and vote upon Irish questions, while the Irish Bishops could not do so, and it might happen that by their vote some important Irish measure might be thrown out. If that were done, he would ask the House what would be the result in that as well as this country? He was satisfied that a most serious blow would be struck, not only against the Bishops, but against the Church. They could not reproach the Bishops for the votes they gave if they allowed thorn to sit there. The fault laid in the system. It would be unfair to say that the Bishops voted either in this way or in that way, because if they allowed them to remain in the House of Lords, they ought to assume that they would act conscientiously. What he contended was this—if such a crisis were to be brought about, a serious blow would be struck not only against the Bishops, but against the Church, for they could not strike at the Bishops without the blow recoiling upon the Church. As a member of the Church, he should deeply deplore that such a state of things should

    539
    exist. Another part of the question, and one of the most serious aspects of the question, was this—the Bishops, at the present time, in order that they might do their duty as Members of the House of Lords, were bound to be in attendance there, in order that they might serve the State; but while they were serving the State they could not be in their dioceses, and he thought every Member of the House, whether he agreed with him in the view he took of the Motion or not, would admit that, throughout the country at the present time, in various country parishes a most lamentable state of things existed. He did not propose to enter into the question as to which Party was wrong in any of the disputes which prevailed; but he could not help thinking that, if the Bishops were able to devote the whole of their time to the duties of their dioceses, they would soon make themselves acquainted with the wishes and views of many persons with whom, under the existing state of things, they never came into contact at all. In that case, they would be able to act as mediators in many of the unfortunate disputes which had arisen, and remove a considerable amount of heartburning and bickering. Instead of seeing the Bishops occupying the position of great Lords, and coming down to the House of Peers to attend the debates, he should like to see them occupying their time with their spiritual duties, endeavouring to ascertain for themselves the feelings of the clergy and laity in their various parishes. By going about amongst the farmers, and even the labourers in the country, and listening to their complaints and their views, they might learn a good deal more about them than they could ever hope to do under the present system. If they were able to do that, they would soon do a vast amount of good. It had been pointed out that night, as it had been pointed out in early times, that it was most desirable the Bishops should be accessible at all times; and the only conclusion he could arrive at was that, if the Bishops were allowed to remain ill the House of Lords—even if they were only called upon to be in attendance occasionally to discharge duties of the kind which had been described—they could not, at the same time, perform the legitimate duties of their dioceses, and devote to their various
    540
    parishes the time that was desirable. At present they must either neglect their duties to the State or their duties in their dioceses. Their duty, as Members of the House of Lords, required them to spend far more time in political matters than merely the actual spent in the House itself. He had no desire to prolong the debate; but he hoped hon. Members would agree that a great number of Churchmen, who were all deeply attached to the Church, were most anxious to secure the greater efficiency of the Bishops. And he thought that, by passing this Resolution, a stop would be taken towards directing the attention of the whole country to the matter.
    SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, the question was one which could not be decided by a debate of an hour or two, but which really required very serious consideration and discussion. A great number of hon. Members of that House, who wished to see the Bishops no longer having seats in the House of Lords, had two objects in view. One was, that there should be no House of Lords at all. [Cries of "No!"] It was the fact all the same; and he would repeat that there were a great number of Gentlemen, among whom he did not include the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Mellor), who last addressed the House, but a great number of those hon. Members who had spoken in favour of, and who were ready to vote for, the Motion would desire that there should be no House of Lords. [Cries of "No!"] Their other object was, that there should be no Bishops of the Established Church—["No, no !"]—and, therefore, when they said they wanted to withdraw the Bishops of the Established Church from the House of Lords they were practically putting forward, in the first place, that there should be no House of Lords at all; and, in the second, that there should be no Bishops of the Established Church. ["No, no!"] hon. Members opposite might shout "No!" but it was true. He would undertake to say that one-half of those hon. Members who intended to vote for the Motion would vote for the Disestablishment of the Church, while an equal number would vote for the abolition of the House of Lords. Therefore, his proposition was quite true. A considerable number of hon. Members now

    541
    present were not Members of the House of Commons in the year 1870, and, therefore, had not the opportunity of listening to the advice then given to the House by the present Prime Minister. Nobody regretted more than he (Sir R. Assheton Cross) did the absence of the right hon. Gentleman on the present occasion. He had no wish to speak disparagingly of one word that had fallen from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary, who had addressed the House against the Motion; but the greater weight and authority of the Prime Minister had generally exercised a considerable amount of influence over the votes of hon. Members on the opposite side of the House. He, therefore, begged to remind them that in 1870—not very many years ago—no one spoke in more eloquent terms against the proposition at present before the House than the Prime Minister then did. The right hon. Gentleman opposed the proposal from both points of view. He said—" I do not care whether you consider it in regard to the benefit of the State, or whether you regard it from the interests of the Church.—in whichever way you take it, I am entirely against the proposal to take away from the Bishops the seats they have in the House of Lords." He (Sir R. Assheton Cross) did not quite understand how it should have happened that the eloquence of the Prime Minister, which was always listened to with the greatest respect by hon. Members opposite, should have one effect in one case and not in another. For this reason he regretted most deeply that the Prime Minister was not able to be in his place to repeat, with all the eloquence and force he had employed in 1870, his arguments against the Motion which it was now the wish of hon. Members opposite to pass. ["Divide !"] No; hon. Members might take it from him that they were not going to divide until the question, had been properly discussed. He had no doubt, if the Prime Minister were now in his place, he would state again what he had said so well in 1870, whatever hon. Members opposite might think. He did not dispute that when the right hon. Gentleman brought forward his Land Bill originally, he announced opinions which he totally changed in 1881, and probably hon. Members opposite indulged in the
    542
    hope that the Prime Minister had also changed his opinion as to the exclusion of the Bishops from the House of Lords. Perhaps hon. Members opposite thought that the Prime Minister was continually going to change his opinions on all subjects, and that in regard to the Bishops in the House of Lords his views had undergone as much alteration as they had upon the Land Question. [Interruption, and cries of "Move the Adjournment."] No; he would not move the adjournment of the debate; but he must persist in reminding hon. Members sitting on the opposite side of the House of one or two of the arguments used by the Prime Minister in 1870, because he thought that the words of the right hon. Gentleman would have greater weight with them than any he (Sir E. Assheton Cross) could use. Hon. Members opposite voted in accordance with the advice and opinions of the right hon. Gentleman then, and he did not see why they should not take the same course now. What the right hon. Gentleman said in 1870 was this. [Cries of "Agreed!"] he (Sir R. Assheton Cross) did not propose to read any opinion of his own, but simply those of the Prime Minister, if hon. Members opposite cared to listen to them. [Interruption.]
    MR. SPEAKER: the right hon. Gentleman is in possession of the House, and is entitled to be allowed to proceed without interruption.
    SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he was merely going to quote what the Prime Minister had stated; and, notwithstanding the interruption of Members on the other side, he meant to say what he intended to say. He had certainly thought that they would have listened with more respect than they had manifested to any words that had fallen from the Prime Minister, and his only regret was that the right hon. Gentleman was unable to repeat thorn in person. [A laugh] He did not see why hon. Members should laugh at the words of the Prime Minister before they had heard them. What the right hon. Gentleman said was this—that the question might be regarded in two ways—first, as it affected the Church, and next in regard to the State; and that, in his opinion, neither the Church nor the State would derive any advantage from the Bishops being excluded from the House of Lords.

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    The right hon. Gentleman gave his reasons as far as the Church was concerned. He said it had been stated that the Bishops had now ceased to reside habitually in London during the Session; that there were a certain number of them who were always necessarily here—namely, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the Bishop of Winchester, who might be called the Metropolitan Bishops; that no one could find fault with their being constantly in London; and that their duties in Parliament were not now allowed to interfere with the performance of their duties in their respective dioceses. The hon. Member for Grant-ham (Mr. Mellor) said he wished that the Bishops should confine themselves entirely to the discharge of the duties connected with their dioceses; but the Prime Minister was of a different opinion, and stated so in 1870. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out that the old practice whereby the Bishops were constantly in London had practically ceased; that they were only in London now and then; and that their duties in their dioceses were in no way interfered with by the performance of their duties in the House of Lords. The right hon. Gentleman stated further that their occasional presence in London for purposes of union and communion was absolutely necessary for the complete discharge of their duties in their different dioceses; and he added that they could perform the duties required of them, at the present moment, in Parliament perfectly consistently with the duties they were called upon to discharge in their dioceses. He left the Prime Minister and hon. Members opposite to settle the matter among themselves; but no one could have spoken with greater force and reason, and more conclusively, than the right hon. Gentleman did in 1870. But the Prime Minister went on to declare that the exclusion of the Bishops from the House of Lords was intimately connected with the question of the relation between Church and State, and ought not to be considered apart from that subject. He thought the proposal then brought forward would materially weaken the influence of the State upon the Church; and that was one reason which, in his opinion, rendered it necessary that the Bishops should retain their seats. The right
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    hon. Gentleman said it was most desirable that the influence of the State, exercised through the House of Lords on the Bishops who were there representing the Church, should be continued, not only in the interest of the Church, but in the interest of the people. Lastly, the Prime Minister stated that, in his opinion, the matter was so intimately connected with the Disestablishment and disendowment of the Church of England that it could not be considered solely on the mere question of the presence of the Bishops in the House of Lords; but that, whenever such a serious subject did come before Parliament at all, it must be discussed in connection with the question of total Disestablishment and the relations now existing between Church and State; that it ought not to be discussed upon any bye issue, but must be fought ought straight. [Cries of "Hear, hear!"] Hon. Members opposite said "Hear, hear;" but it was clearly the opinion of the Prime Minister that the question was so vitally connected with the relations between Church and State that it could not possibly be discussed in any other form or shape, but must be met by a direct proposal, and not brought forward as a bye question. The Prime Minister even went on to point out what would be the disadvantages to the State. He declared that the charges which had been made against the Bishops were altogether inconsistent—on the one hand that they were too subservient to the State, and on the other that they were too ostentatious. Such charges, said the Prime Minister, were inconsistent with each other, and ought not to weigh with the House in discussing the matter. As to the removal of the Bishops from the House of Lords, the Prime Minister gave it as his opinion that their removal would not strengthen that Chamber. The House of Lords, as everyone knew, was a hereditary Legislature, and the effect which the Bishops, who were persons most of whom had raised themselves from inferior positions in life, and many of them from even the lowest stations, by their high character, intelligence, knowledge, and learning—the effect which their presence produced afforded material strength to the House of Lords. [Interruption] Hon. Members were impatient; but they must remember that he was not speaking his own words, but

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    those of the Prime Minister. They were discussing the question whether these Prelates were to be dismissed from the House of Lords or not, and he presumed they were agreed that there ought to be two Chambers. He supposed there could be no doubt whatever about that. ["No !"] If they were not agreed upon that point, he would ask any hon. Member to get up in his place and state whether he could put his finger upon a single epoch in the history of any country, ancient or modern, in which, with a single Chamber, the liberties of the people were over preserved for a longer period than 50 years. He defied any hon. Member to get tip and disprove that assertion. Therefore, upon that point there could be no question, and there must be a Second Chamber. Then, if there was to be a Second Chamber—[Cries of "Divide!" and interruption] Hon. Members opposite seemed lo imagine that they were in a majority, and that he was occupying the time of the House solely in order to enable Members to come down. He certainly intended to conclude the remarks he had risen to make; and he would say this. If there was to be a Second Chamber, it was of vital importance to that Chamber that there should be persons introduced there on account of their special ability, special knowledge, and special power. If they really wished to reform that Chamber, instead of excluding the Bishops from the House of Lords, a far better course would be to place more life Peers in it. All these questions which he had put before the House were questions which were stated in 1870 in far more eloquent language by the Prime Minister. [Interruption] He was very sorry to find that there were hon. Members opposite who were not disposed to accept the arguments of the Prime Minister; and the only conclusion he (Sir R. Assheton Cross) could draw from that fact was either that the right hon. Gentleman himself had changed his views, which he could scarcely imagine to be the case, seeing that the Home Secretary had spoken in precisely the same sense, or that many Members opposite were so much in difference with him that they intended to vote against the Government. He (Sir R. Assheton Cross) could only say that if the Motion were passed it would only be taken for what it was worth, for they
    546
    might depend upon it that the country would be of a different opinion, [Cries of "Oh !"] He certainly believed that the country were upon this point, and probably it was the only point on which they were at one with the Prime Minister—that was to say, supposing the right hon. Gentleman still entertained the opinions he had expressed in 1870. He (Sir R. Assheton Cross) cared little about the Liberal majority, because he felt satisfied that before the question came to a practical solution it would have to be deliberately discussed on its merits, which it certainly had not been that night, and when it had been so discussed it would be found that, whatever majority there might be then in favour of the Motion, when the question was thoroughly and practically considered, the feeling of the country would be strongly against the proposal.
    MR. FRANCIS BUXTONsaid, that it had been urged in the course of the debate that the object of bringing forward this Motion was to advance the cause of Disestablishment, and, if possible, to damage the Church of England. He believed that was not the case. Although he was of opinion that if the Motion before the House were passed, and the Bishops were expelled from the House of Lords, it would be for the benefit of the Church of England, yet, as a member of that Church, he should give his opposition to that Motion. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross) had said that many Gentlemen on that side of the House desired to see the abolition of the House of Lords. He (Mr. Buxton) believed that the time for that had not yet come; but undoubtedly there was a large majority of Members on those Benches who desired to see a reform of the House of Lords. His own desire was not to see it reformed in the direction indicated by the Motion, but by the admission of life Peers, and as the principle of life Peers was as yet only admitted in the case of Bishops, he felt bound to oppose the Motion now before the House.
    SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: Sir, I promise not to detain the House many minutes. I am anxious to make one observation—namely, that before we go to a Division we should understand that we neither over-estimate nor under-estimate the effect of this Motion.

    547
    It has been remarked in the course of the discussion that the real moaning and intention of the proposed Resolution is to lay the foundation of, or to take a stop towards, the Disestablishment of the Church. That has been denied by many speakers, and I have no doubt that in the denials they have given hon. Members have been perfectly sincere; nor do I for a moment doubt that many who will give the Motion their support to-night will say that it does not pledge them to go any further, and will wish it to be clearly understood that if the Motion is carried it shall not be taken as moaning anything beyond that which it really states. But, on the other hand, I must point out that if such a vote should be passed—even in this very informal shape, and in a House so little, qualified for want of time to discuss, or by the form in which it has been brought before it, as a Legislative Body, to consider the proposal—it must not be thought that such a vote carries with it any assent to the principle of Disestablishment; nor, on the other hand, must we shrink from the conviction that such a vote will give a considerable impetus to the feeling, and will impress it strongly on the minds of persons outside this House, that a step in that direction has been taken. It is not a, little remarkable that the arguments which have been adduced in support of the Motion, if they are arguments that are worth anything, are such as ought to have proceeded from friends of the Church, and within the Church, rather than from those who wish to attack it, or who are jealous of its position; because the best argument brought forward is that the attendance of the Bishops in the House of Lords militates against and prevents their properly discharging the functions of, their dioceses. Now, if that were a serious objection, it would be felt by the Bishops themselves, and by the friends and members of the Church, who would be the first to put it forward. But it is to be observed that it is not from that source that the objection proceeds. I listened with admiration to much of the speech of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler). There is no doubt that great eloquence and good feeling was manifested throughout the whole of that speech, and it was impossible not to be influenced by the very touching manner
    548
    in which the hon. Gentleman spoke of the great services of the Missionary Bishops. But I venture to say, however great may be the devotion and services of Bishop Paterson, of whom, no one can speak more highly than I do, that amongst the Bishops labouring in their several districts in England, there is quite as much resolute devotion, quite as much keenness to take their part in the proper solution of those great social questions which affect the religious and moral as well as the political character of the country, as there is to be found in the exertions of one who went out to the heathen in Melanesia. Sir, it is not fair to bring forward any Motion or any proposition of this kind in a spirit which seems to imply that the Bishops of the Church of England are not doing their duty as a body. I say there are no men who are making greater exertions, and greater sacrifices of time and health, and all that they can command for the good of those committed to their charge, than the Bishops of the Church of England. With regard to the form in which the Motion is presented to us, I will only say that it is of a kind which naturally renders this discussion a very cursory one, and that if it had been seriously contemplated it ought to have been presented in the form of a Bill, which could be discussed upon the lines of a practical proposal rather than as a Motion of an abstract character. We have had two or three hours only for the discussion of this great question, which leads into other questions greater still, and which cannot properly be separated from it; and I venture to say that the vote taken upon it to-night will be far indeed from expressing the real conviction of the House.
    MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he had not had the advantage of hearing the whole of the eloquent introduction of this Motion by the hon. and learned Member for Colchester (Mr. Willis), and he therefore asked, for the information of the House, whether it was his intention, should the Motion be carried, to introduce a Bill? He had another question to put. Was the House to understand that, in the event of the Motion being carried and a Bill being introduced, the latter would receive the support of Her Majesty's Government? He put these questions for this reason, that if the House were to pass such a Resolution as

    549
    the present without a promise on the part of the Mover that he would introduce a Bill, and without a promise on the part of Her Majesty's Government that they would support it. The House would, in his opinion, be trifling with the country.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 148; Noes 137: Majority 11.

    AYES.

    Alexander. Major-Gen.

    Fremantle, hon. T. F.

    Amherst, W. A. T.

    French-Brewster, R. A. B.

    Archdale. W. H.

    Ashley, hon. E. M.

    Gabbett, D F.

    Barttelot, Sir W. B.

    Garnier, J. C.

    Beach, right hon. Sir M. E. Hicks-

    Gibson, right hon. E.

    Giles. A.

    Beach, W. W. B.

    Gladstone. W. H.

    Bective, Earl of

    Goldney, Sir G.

    Bellingham, A. H.

    Grantham, W.

    Bentinck, rt. Hn. G. C.

    Gregory, G. B.

    Birkbeck. E.

    Hamilton, right hon. Lord G.

    Blackburue, Col. J. J.

    Blennerhassett, R. P.

    Hamilton, I. T.

    Bourke, right hon. R.

    Harcourt. rt. hn. Sir W. G. V. V.

    Brodrick, hon. W. St. J. F.

    Hartington. Marq. Of

    Bruce, rt. hon. Lord C.

    Harvey, Sir R. B.

    Burghley, Lord

    Herbert, hon. S.

    Buxton, Sir R. J.

    Herschell, Sir F.

    Buxton, F. W.

    Hicks, E.

    Cameron, D.

    Hill. Lord A. W.

    Campbell. J. A.

    Holland, Sir H. T.

    Castlereagh, Viscount

    Hope, right hon. A. J. B. B.

    Cecil, Lord E. H. B. G.

    Chaplin, H.

    Houldsworth, W. H.

    Christie. W. L.

    Kennard, C. J.

    Clarke, E.

    Kennaway. Sir J. H.

    Clive, Col. hon. G. W.

    King-Harman, Colonel E; R.

    Collins, T.

    Compton. F.

    Lawrance, J. C.

    Corry, J. P.

    Lawrence, Sir T.

    Courtauld. G.

    Lechmere, Sir E. A. H.

    Crichton, Viscount

    Legh, W. J.

    Cropper, J.

    Leighton, S.

    Cross, rt. hon. Sir R. A.

    Lennox, right hn. Lord H. G. C. G.

    Curzon, Major hon. M.

    Dalrymple, C.

    Lever. J. O.

    Davenport, W. B.

    Levett, T. J.

    Dawnay, Col. hon. L. P.

    Lewisham, Viscount

    Dawnay, hon. G. C.

    Lopes, Sir M.

    Digby, Colonel hon. E.

    Lowther, rt. hon. J.

    Dixon-Hartland, F. D.

    Lowther, hon. W.

    Dodson, rt. hon. J. G.

    Lowther, J. W.

    Douglas. A. Akers-

    Mac Iver, D.

    Dyke, rt. hn. Sir W. H.

    M'Garel-Hogg, Sir J.

    Ecroyd, W. F.

    Makins, Colonel W. T.

    Egerton, hon. A. de T.

    Manners, rt. hon. Lord J. J. R.

    Elcho, Lord

    Elton, C. I.

    Master, T. W. C.

    Fellowes, W. H.

    Maxwell, Sir H. E.

    Finch, G. H.

    Mills, Sir C. H.

    Finch-Hatton, hon. M. E. G.

    Morgan, hon. F.

    Moss, R.

    Forester, C. T. W.

    Mowbray, rt. hon. Sir J. R.

    Foster, W. H.

    Fowler, rt. hon. R. N.

    Newdegate, C. N.

    550

    Newport, Viscount

    Severne, J. E.

    Nicholson, W. N.

    Smith, rt. hon. W. H.

    Northcote, rt. hon. Sir S. H.

    Smith, A.

    Stanhope, hon. E.

    Northcote, H. S.

    Stanley, E. J.

    O'Donnell, F. H.

    Stanton, W. J.

    Onslow, D. R.

    Strutt. hon. C. H.

    Paget, R. H.

    Sykes, C.

    Pemberton, E. L.

    Talbot, J. G.

    Percy, right hon. Earl

    Tavistock, Marquess of

    Percy, Lord A.

    Thornhill, T.

    Phipps, P.

    Tollemache, H. J.

    Plunket, rt. Hon. D. R.

    Tomlinson, W. E. M.

    Puleston, J. H.

    Torrens, W. T. M.

    Raikes, rt. hon. H. C.

    Tottenham, A. L.

    Rankin, J.

    Walrond, Col. W. H.

    Ritchie, C. T.

    Warton, C. N.

    Rolls, J. A.

    Whitley, E.

    Ross, A. H.

    Wilmot, Sir. H.

    Ross, C. C.

    Winn, R.

    Round, J.

    Wortley, C. B. Stuart-

    Salt, T.

    Scott, Lord H.

    TELLERS.

    Scott, M. D.

    Cotes, C. C.

    Selwin-Ibbetson. Sir H. J.

    Grosvenor, right hon. Lord R.

    NOES.

    Ainsworth, D.

    Fry, L.

    Anderson, G.

    Fry, T.

    Armitage, B.

    Gower, hon. E. F. L.

    Armitstead, G.

    Grant, A.

    Arnold, A.

    Grant, D.

    Barclay, J. W.

    Hamilton, J. G. C.

    Baring, Viscouut

    Healy, T. M.

    Barran, J.

    Henderson, F.

    Bass, Sir A.

    Heneage, E.

    Baxter, rt. hon. W. E.

    Holden, I.

    Beaumont, W. B.

    Holland, S.

    Biddulph, M.

    Hopwood, C. H.

    Bolton, J. C.

    Howard, G. J.

    Borlase, W. C.

    Howard, J.

    Bright, right hon. J.

    Illingworth, A.

    Bright, J.

    James, C.

    Brogden, A.

    James, W. H.

    Brown, A. H.

    Jenkins, Sir J. J.

    Bruce, hon. R. P.

    Jenkins, D. J.

    Bryce, J.

    Johnson, E.

    Buchanan, T. R.

    Kenny, M. J.

    Burt, T.

    Kingscote, Col. R. N. F.

    Buszard, M. C.

    Labouchere, H.

    Campbell, Sir G.

    Lawson, Sir W.

    Campbell, R. F. F.

    Leake, R.

    Carington, hon. R.

    Leamy, E.

    Causton, R. K.

    Leatham, E. A

    Cheetham, J. F.

    Lloyd, M.

    Clark, S.

    Mackie, R. B.

    Clarke, J. C.

    Macliver, P. S.

    Clifford, C. C.

    M'Arthur, Sir W.

    Collings, J.

    M'Arthur, A.

    Colman, J. J.

    M'Carthy, J.

    Cowen, J.

    M'Lagan, P.

    Cowper, hon. H. F.

    M'Laren, C. B. B.

    Davies, D.

    Marjoribanks, E.

    Earp. T.

    Martin, R. B.

    Edwards, H.

    Mason, H.

    Elliot, hon. A. R. D.

    Mellor, J. W.

    Fairbairn, Sir A.

    Molloy, B. C.

    Firth. J. F. B.

    Moreton, Lord

    Forster, Sir C.

    Morley, A.

    Fowler, H. H.

    Morley, J.

    Fowler, W.

    Noel, E.

    551

    O'Brien, W.

    Shaw, T.

    O'Connor, T. P.

    Sheil E.

    O'Gorman Mahon, Col. The

    Sheridan, H. B.

    Simon, Serjeant J.

    O'Shea, W. H.

    Slagg, J.

    Paget, T. T.

    Stanley, hon. E. L.

    Palmer, C. M.

    Stevenson, J. C.

    Palmer, G.

    Sullivan, T. D.

    Palmer, J. H.

    Summers, W.

    Pease, A.

    Tennant, C.

    Peddie, J. D.

    Thomasson, J. P.

    Potter, T. B.

    Tillelt, J. H.

    Powell, W. R. H.

    Vivian, Sir H. H.

    Pulley, J.

    Vivian, A. P.

    Ramsay, J.

    Waddy, S. D.

    Rathbone, W.

    Webster, J.

    Rendel, S.

    Whitworth, B.

    Richard, H.

    Williams, S. C. E.

    Roe, T.

    Williamson, S.

    Rogers, J. E. T.

    Wills, W. H.

    Roundell, C. S.

    Willyams, E. W. B.

    Russell, Lord A.

    Wodehouse, E. R.

    Russell, C.

    Woodall, W.

    Samuelson, H.

    Seely, C. (Nottingham)

    TELLERS.

    Sellar, A. C.

    Agnew, W.

    Sexton, T.

    Willis, W.

    Main Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    SUPPLY.—Committee upon Monday next.

  FRESHWATER FISHERIES ACT AMENDMENT BILL.— [BILL. 129.]
  (Mr. Hibbert, secretary Sir William Harcourt.)
  FRESHWATER FISHERIES ACT AMENDMENT BILL.— [BILL. 129.]

    CONSIDERATION.
    Order for Consideration, as amended, read.
    Bill, as amended, considered.
    On Motion of Mr. HIBBERT, the following Amendment made:—In page 2, after Clause 3, insert the following Clause:—
    (Explanation of 41 and 42 Vic. c. 39, s. 5.)
    "In the application of section sixty-four of The Salmon Fishery Act, 1865,' to trout and char in waters within the limits of 'The Freshwater Fisheries Act, 1878.' the words 'salmon river situate in a fishery district which is subject to a Board of Conservators appointed under this Act.' shall be construed to mean 'waters frequented by trout or char.'"
    SIR ROBERT BUXTONsaid, he wished to move the insertion of a new clause after Clause 5, prohibiting the use of poison and noxious substances for the destruction of fish. The provision would have the effect of putting a stop to fish taking by dynamite.
    New Clause—
    (Prohibition of the use of poison and noxious substances for destruction of fish.)
    "Any person who unlawfully and maliciously puts any poison, lime, or noxious material in
    552
    any water frequented by freshwater fish with intent thereby to destroy any of the fish that may then be or may thereafter be put therein shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding live pounds or to imprisonment with or without hard labour for a term not exceeding two months.
    "Nothing in this section shall prevent a person being punished under any other Act, so that he be not punished twice for the same offence,"—(Sir Robert Buxton,)
    —brought up, and read the first time.
    Motion made, and Question, "That the Clause be now read a second time," put, and agreed to.
    Clause added to the Bill.
    Further Amendments made.
    MR. HEALYsaid, he wished to move, as an Amendment to Clause 6, the addition of the following words:—
    "Except that as regards Ireland it is hereby enacted that the weekly close season for all fish shall not begin until 9 p.m. on Saturdays."
    By the Act of 1863, it was provided that as to Ireland there should be a close time on Saturdays as well as on Sundays. This restriction was caused by a compromise arrived at some years ago, at the time that the standing engines were abolished in all the great rivers of Ireland. All owners of standing engines had been obliged to take those engines out of the rivers, and the result of this was the infliction of great money loss on such owners. In order to afford them some compensation, it was provided that the net fishermen—who had profited considerably by the abolition of the standing engines—should only have leave to fish five days in the week. The fishermen had found this restriction operate very hardly upon then, and they complained very bitterly that they were only allowed to work five days out of the seven, whilst all other classes had leave to work six days in the week. No doubt, it would be alleged against a clause of this kind that it was necessary for the protection of salmon that there should be this close season; but those who were best qualified to, speak on the subject—for not being an authority upon it himself he had consulted those who were best entitled to give an opinion—declared that it would not do any mischief whatever to salmon if the not fishermen were allowed to ply their calling the whole six days. These gentlemen held that the close season of half-a-year was sufficient to provide for breeding and to give the fish

    553
    the necessary protection and preservation. As a matter of fact, the Saturday close time was not strictly observed, as, under it, there was always a great temptation to poaching. The fishermen, many of whom were in very poor circumstances and found it a matter of no small difficulty to provide for their families, were very often tempted to poach on the Saturday. Their contention was that it was not a proper legislative restriction, and that there was no moral obligation on them to keep it, and, therefore, they were inclined to break in on the close time. The only people who were likely to object to a provision such as he wished to insert in the Bill were the anglers. Well, he had no objection to salmon fishing as a sport; but, at the same time, it should be borne in mind that the class of people who angled were of a different social position from those who fished in cots with nets; these were of the poorer class. Some of the fisheries belonged to great landowners, and they let them out to people, and, thereby profited by the labour and amusement of others. They did not suffer from the Saturday close time; but those who did suffer were the class who had to live by their own labour—who had to work for their daily bread. Even were it correct that the rod fishermen—the aristocrats—would suffer by this additional day being given to the fishermen, it would be a small matter compared with the great benefit which would be conferred upon a large number of working men. But those who really understood the question said that the anglers would be in no worse position even if the net fishermen got the Saturday. They alleged that the fish would be all the better for the little thinning they would undergo, and that the half-yearly close time and Sunday close time would be quite sufficient for breeding and protective purposes. He had this on the authority of a gentleman well qualified to speak on the subject. He did not know why this restriction should continue, seeing that it was imposed a quarter of a century ago, that it had not been productive of good, and was decided upon when the Irish fishermen were not represented in Parliament as they were now. It was decided upon as a kind of salve or compensation to the owners who had had standing engines in the rivers, and had so many of them that he was informed that, in 1863, on
    554
    many navigable rivers they prevented boats from being run up. The nuisance was so great that even if it had not been for the sake of the salmon fishing the standing engines would have had to go in many places. The owners of some fisheries claimed their rights from the time of Magna Charta. He did not know how they could do that, seeing that King John never had any more power over Ireland than he had over China. But it was owing merely to an extraordinary construction put upon the law, backed up by a decision of the House of Lords, that these owners succeeded in holding what they claimed. He would not go into these questions at the present moment, however. His contention was that it would only be a fair thing to allow the poor fishermen of Ireland to enjoy the same privilege of working six days in the week as was allowed to other classes of the community. He might be told by the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Home Department (Mr. Hibbert) that this was a thoroughly English Bill, and that, therefore, the present was not the time to raise a question of this sort; but he maintained that any time was a good time—whenever he got the chance. Opportunities of raising questions in the interests of the Irish fishermen were not so numerous that he could afford to allow an English Fisheries Bill to pass without endeavouring to engraft upon it some provision affecting Ireland. It might be said that the Bill did not affect salmon fisheries; but that was no answer to him—they should make it affect them. But the contentions to which he referred, by way of opposing such an Amendment as his, were merely technical, and he trusted they would not be put forward by a Gentleman of the breadth of view of the Under Secretary for the Home Department. If the hon. Gentleman opposed the Amendment, it was to be hoped he would do it on intelligible and justifiable grounds—not on any technical ground. He could assure the Committee that there was a great deal of soreness felt by the Seine net fishermen on this subject. It was a hard thing to say to men, with families to provide for, that they must stop work for the week on Friday night, and not do anything on Saturday morning like every other class of men—to say to them that they must rest on their oars, be to speak, and stand by while the

    555
    anglers on the upper reaches of the rivers used the rod and line as much as they liked. The rod men did not pay as heavy a sum for their licences as the net men, therefore the restriction on the latter was additionally objectionable. He trusted that, after what he had said in defence of the net fishermen, the Committee would be induced to accept his Amendment.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 3, line 8, to add, at the end of the Clause, the words "except that as regards Ireland it is hereby enacted that the weekly close season for all fish shall not begin until 9 p.m. on Saturdays."—(Mr. Healy.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
    MR. HIBBERTsaid, he was sorry to have to oppose the addition of those words to the clause. In doing so, however, he wished to explain to the hon. Member that he did not do it because he did not sympathize with the object the hon. Member had in view, he was obliged to take the objection which the hon. Gentleman appeared to think a technical one, and to his (Mr. Hibbert's) mind it was a very strong objection. In the first place, the Bill only applied to England, and the Act with which it would be incorporated—the Freshwater Fisheries Act—was an exclusively English one. This Act, indeed, contained a clause expressly exempting from its operation Ireland and Scotland. If the words now proposed, therefore, were added to Clause 6, they could not affect the operation of the Act. Then, again, as the hon. Member himself said, the Bill did not apply at all to salmon—salmon were not in any way dealt with in it. It merely applied to freshwater fish, and that, though it might be merely a technical reason, was, at any rate, a strong reason why the words in question should not be inserted. At the same time, he would draw the attention of the hon. Member to the fact that there were two Irish Bills already before the House dealing with this subject, one of them standing in a very good position on the Paper. The first Bill was not in such a good position on the Paper as the other, which would be the second Order of the Day on Wednesday, April 2nd. There was not much chance of the first Bill coming on. The English Bill would probably occupy the greater part of the day; but, no doubt, an opportunity
    556
    would be given to the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Blake) to have his Bill considered. This was a Bill which dealt entirely with the question which the hon. Member had brought forward—namely, the close time; but he thought what the hon. Member had said as to Saturday fishing deserved consideration, and he hoped it would be considered when the Bill came before the House. Then there was another Bill which was fixed as the first Order of the Day for the 9th April—the Fisheries (Ireland) Bill, Second Reading. He did not know what the object of the Bill was; but it would apparently give the hon. Member an opportunity of bringing forward this question upon a Bill which affected Ireland and Ireland alone. He was sorry to have to refuse what the hon. Member proposed; but he hoped the hon. Member would not press his Amendment on this English Bill.
    MR. SEXTONsaid, he was very sensible of the courtesy of the hon. Gentleman, and he had no doubt of the hon. Gentleman's sincerity. The case put forward by his hon. Friend was a very strong case, because it affected interests which were familiar to all men coming from Ireland. It was very hard that a needy body of men should be deprived of one day's labour and one day's profits in the week by a practice which excluded one class and conferred no benefit on anyone. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would be able to give a more favourable opportunity for considering the point than upon the Bill of a private Member, even though that Bill was the first Order of the Day. To depend upon such an opportunity as that would be to lean upon a broken reed, for, as everyone knew, the chances of a Bill which held the first place on a Wednesday going through Committee and passing into law were infinitesimal.
    MR. HEALYsaid, he did not wish to put the House to the trouble of a Division; but he trusted that, as the hon. Gentleman had shown a certain amount of sympathy upon this matter, he would, before the other Bill came on, consider whether he could do something in the direction indicated. He would now ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Bill to be read the third time upon Monday next.

MOTIONS.

  ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. JOHN HOLMS, Bill to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Board of Trade, under "The Electric Lighting Act. 1882," transferring certain rights, powers, and obligations under certain Provisional Orders to the Edison and Swan United Electric Light Company (Limited); and for other purposes. ordered to be brought in by Mr. JOHN HOLMS and Mr. CHAMBERLAIN.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 145.]

  SUPERANNUATION BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. HERBERT GLADSTONE, Bill to extend certain powers given by The Superannuation Amendment Act, 1873," ordered to be brought in by Mr. HERBERT GLADSTONE and Mr. COURTNEY.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 146.]
  House adjourned at a quarter after One o'clock till Monday next.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—City of Norwich (Mousehold Heath) Provisional Order* (35): Metropolitan Commons Provisional Order* (36).
Select Committee—Greek Marriages* (26), nominated.

PRIVATE BILLS.
Ordered, That no Private Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after Friday the 20 th day of June next:
That no Bill originating in this House authorizing any inclosure of lands under special report of the Land Commissioners for England, or confirming any scheme of the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales, shall be read

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a first time after Friday the 25 th day of April next:
That no Bill originating in this House confirming any provisional order or provisional certificate shall be read a first time after Friday the 25 th day of April next:
That no Bill brought from the House of Commons authorizing any inclosure of lands under special report of the Land Commissioners for England, or confirming; any scheme of the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales, shall be read a second time after Friday the 27 th day of June next:
That no Bill brought from the House of Commons confirming any provisional order or provisional certificate shall be read a second time after Friday the 27 th day of June next:
That when a Bill shall have passed this House with Amendments these orders shall not apply to any new Bill sent up from the House of Commons which the Chairman of Committees shall report to the House is substantially the same as the Bill so amended:
Ordered, That the said orders be printed and published, and affixed on the doors of this House and Westminster Hall. (No. 37.)

LONDON, REIGATE, AND BRIGHTON RAILWAY BILL.—MOTION.
EARL CADOGAN, in moving that the Examiners' Certificate on this Bill be referred back to the Standing Orders Committee, said, that he might mention that a large number of Petitions had been presented asking their Lordships to suspend the Standing Orders with reference to this Bill. For his own part, he wished to say that he would not have been a party to any such Motion. He felt very strongly that it was their duty to uphold the authority of the Standing Orders Committee; and he had, therefore, limited his Motion to requesting the House to refer the Examiners' Certificate back to the Committee. He was not speaking on the merits of the Bill, nor on the fact that the Bill was of some importance and interest to a very large community. It was a Bill, as their Lordships were aware, for the connection by an independent railway of the important termini of Northern lines between London, Reigate, and Brighton. He did not think, however, that the mere fact of the Bill being of great importance would excuse any Member of that House in coming forward to request that the Standing Orders should be displaced; but in this case he thought that there had been some misunderstanding on the point raised by the Standing Orders Committee, and on that-ground only he would ask that the certificate be referred back. The Bill
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had failed to satisfy the Committee on six points; but the first four might be omitted, as they were not insisted upon by the Committee; the chief point was the definition of two children under 12 years as equivalent to one statute adult being used. This had led to the number of persons who would be displaced being stated at 111 less than the actual number. It had, undoubtedly, been an error to use this expression in a Bill of this sort to which it did not apply. The Bill had, however, been amended in that respect, and the amendment had been made before Parliament assembled. The Bill, after having passed the Standing Orders Committee of the House of Commons, had been rejected by the Standing Orders Committee of their Lordships' House on what appeared to him the very insufficient ground that a technical error appeared to have been committed by the Referencer. He now only asked their Lordships to refer the Bill back to be considered by the same Standing Orders Committee as had considered it before. A similar Motion to that which he now made had been adopted in the case of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Bill of 1866, and also in that of the South London Tramways Bill of 1881.
Moved, "That the Examiners' Certificate be referred back to the Standing Orders Committee."—(The Earl Cadogan.)
THE EARL OF REDESDALE (CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES)said, he regretted that the noble Earl had thought fit to bring that case again under the consideration of the House. Nothing could be more important than that proper attention should be paid to the proceedings of the Standing Orders Committee, consisting, as it did, of 40 Peers. The decision of the Committee on that matter was unanimously come to, after two considerations, by all the Members who were present. It was worthy of notice that the Bill had passed the Standing Orders Committee of the House of Commons, and the error had been discovered by their Lordships' Committee. The point was of considerable importance. They had had a discussion in the House, the other day, in regard to the dwellings of the poor, and as to the number of persons who were displaced by railway and other works, and it was essential that accurate

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Returns should be furnished by the promoters of Private Bills. In this instance an erroneous Return of the persons to be displaced had been made; and although it was said that it had been corrected, it was necessary, if the evils of over-crowding were to be guarded against, that the Standing Orders of the House should be properly upheld.
THE EARL OF MORLEYsaid, he attached as much importance as any of their Lordships to the necessity of adhering to the Rules regulating Private Business; but, as he understood, one of the functions of the Standing Orders Committee was to allow Bills, where errors had been made of a technical character, and which were not injurious to public or private interests, to be heard on their merits in spite of those technical errors. Though himself a Member of the Committee, he was not able to be present on the day when the decision was given; but he believed that the error which had been made was not of sufficient importance to prevent the Bill being heard on its merits, and that no charge of mala fides could be substantiated against the Referencers. No doubt, the promoters were to blame for the manner in which they had scheduled the persons who would be displaced under the provisions of the Bill, and there was no excuse for the mistake; but the mistake had been corrected before the Session opened, and the difference of the numbers in the original and in the amended Schedule was not great. It was stated that all persons within the limits of deviation should have been scheduled as persons to be displaced; but this was not in accordance with precedent, and he cited a number of Bills promoted in the present Session, with the object of showing that although in two cases three houses were taken within the limits of deviation, no persons were returned as displaced, while in a third case 19 houses were taken, but only 26 persons were displaced. He, therefore, ventured to say that the error that had been committed was not a material one, and was of no great public or private interest. If the error was corrected at the time no mala fides existed, and he thought the promoters had acted entirely according to all precedent. The Committee, therefore, might reconsider their decision.
THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONsaid, he could not support
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the Motion. He did not see how the proposal which had been made could be carried out, because its object was to refer the Bill back to the Standing Orders Committee. If their Lordships referred the Bill back to the Standing Orders Committee no new evidence could be adduced. All that could be done was to produce the evidence that had already been taken. As the Committee had heard all the evidence of those persons whose conduct was impugned in the matter, he could not understand why they were to be expected to alter the decision which they had come to on a previous occasion. This circumstance might happen. If the Bill were again referred back to the Standing Orders Committee, all the Members of the Committee who were not present on the first occasion might attend and outvote those who had attended at the first hearing, and who had listened to the whole of the evidence. There were numbers of people opposed to this measure who had abstained from taking further steps because they understood that by the decision of the Standing Orders Committee the scheme was at an end. It would be unfair and unjust to them to refer the matter back. He thought it would be very unwise to alter the decision of the Standing Orders Committee unless very strong grounds existed for doing so.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN, as one of the Members of the Standing Orders Committee on the occasion referred to, said, he would like to say a few words. He had no doubt the Bill was rejected mainly because the promoters of the Bill failed to comply with the Standing Order No. 38. He might say for himself that he could not leave out of his mind the fact that their Lordships had attached in the present Session very great importance to this Standing Order. Commissions had been appointed to inquire into the houses of the poor, and the point that had been specially brought forward in connection with this matter was the character of the Returns under discussion. The noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury) the other evening moved that in every case of a Private Bill these Returns should be presented to the House. As to the non-compliance of the promoters of this Bill with the Standing Order, he had no doubt whatever. Would the

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House consider for a moment what it was the promoters actually did? They were directed in the Standing Order of the House to make a Return of the number of persons whom they would probably displace. Nothing could be more simple or more clear. It was perfectly well known to Parliamentary agents. What had been the course taken in this case? The person referred to was the Parliamentary agent, whose name was on the back of the Bill. Instead of complying with their Lordships' Standing Order he went to another Statute, which they found was the Passenger Statute, and he picked out of that a definition of the character described as "statute adults." When the agent was asked to return the number of the persons displaced, he replied that he would displace a certain number of "statute adults." If the examiner had not been sufficiently careful to look at the term "statute adult," and to point out to the Parliamentary agent that the Return was incorrect, it would have come before their Lordships' House. The case, he thought, was perfectly clear, and no one could dispute that it was an infringement of a Standing Order of importance. What had been the course taken by the noble Earl? The Committee heard all the evidence fully, and the noble Earl asked which of the noble Lords present would move that this Standing Order be suspended. No one responded, although there were seven or eight noble Lords present, and the whole matter fell to the ground. The noble Lord opposite was a Member of the Committee, but was not present, and, having failed to hear the evidence, now sought to reverse the unanimous decision of the Committee.
EARL CADOGANsaid, his information was obtained from the shorthand-writer's notes.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid, their Lordships would be creating a most inconvenient precedent.
VISCOUNT BURYsaid, he was convinced, from his experience with railway matters, that they would be creating a very inconvenient precedent if they adopted the suggestion of his noble Friend (Earl Cadogan). Unquestionably the Standing Order had been infringed. It was said that the mistake that had been made did not justify the Standing Orders Committee in rejecting the Bill.
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The Committee had come to a unanimous decision on that point; and the House was now asked, upon necessarily incomplete information, to reverse that decision. If such a course were adopted, Railway Companies and others would never be certain as to when their opposition and their vigilance could be relaxed. He hoped the Motion would not be pressed.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he could not agree that this was a case in which they were asked to act on imperfect information. He thought the information in the possession of the House was of such a nature as not only to afford them no justification for overruling the decision of the Committee, but to show that the decision of the Committee was perfectly right, and that it would be entirely wrong to reverse it.
EARL CADOGANsaid, he did not ask the House to overrule the decision of the Committee. He asked that the House should refer back this Report to the same Standing Orders Committee.
On Question? Resolved in the negative.
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he thought that sending back the Report was a reversal, if not in form, yet in substance. It seemed to him that what was done by the promoters of this Bill was absolutely inexcusable. The Standing Order was explicit; it required that the Return should state the number of houses to be pulled down, and the number of persons, so far as ascertainable, to be displaced. The person who sent in the Return either wilfully or accidentally looked up some other Act of Parliament, and based his Return according to an imaginary definition in that Act. This was a wilful and perverse departure from the Standing Order. But he also thought that the spirit and intention of the Order had been departed from in another point, not less important. That Standing Order required that in the case of a Bill by which power was sought to take 15 houses or more occupied by persons of the labouring class, the promoters should deposit a statement of the number, description, and situation of such houses—that was to say, of all the houses to take which power was sought—and also the number of persons to be displaced. He did not see how the object of such an Order could be satisfied, without stating the number of

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persons who might be displaced by any possible exercise of the powers sought to be obtained by the Bill. What had been done was not to give, or pretend to give, the number of persons inhabiting the 902 houses, but to give the number of persons inhabiting some indefinite part of those houses, which, according to the present ideas of the engineer or promoters of the Bill, they at present contemplated taking. But they asked for power to take all the houses; and they would not be bound, if they obtained that power, to adhere to the present ideas of the engineer, which rested in probable intention only, and did not depend on any matter of fact, capable of being ascertained at the present time. The information given in the Return was, therefore, nugatory. He hoped that the Standing Orders Committee would never be satisfied with anything less than a Return showing the whole number of persons occupying all the houses which a Bill sought power to take.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY, with some diffidence, ventured to take a different view of the meaning of the Standing Order from the Lord Chancellor. He (the Earl of Kimberley) contended that what the Order contemplated was that there should be a statement of the number of persons which the Railway Company promoting the Bill thought would probably be displaced. It was extremely improbable that all the houses within the limits of deviation would be taken. In submitting a Return of the number of "statute adults"—a phrase perfectly well understood—instead of the persons to be displaced, he did not think there could have been any intention to deceive, otherwise they would have gone a step farther; and it seemed to him, therefore, that it would not be very unreasonable to allow a project of considerable magnitude from being heard upon the merits. The other House had, in this case, dispensed with compliance with this Standing Order, and he thought it would be well if they did the same.

SUNDAY OPENING OF NATIONAL MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES.

  RESOLUTION.
  LORD THURLOW, in rising to move—
  "That in the opinion of this House, the time has now come to afford to the working
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  classes of London the opportunity of visiting, on Sunday afternoons, such of the national collections of books, natural history objects, and of works of art of an elevating character, as may from time to time be sanctioned for Sunday opening by the President in Council, and thus give to the working classes of London opportunities for recreation and instruction equal to those enjoyed by the working classes of Birmingham, Manchester, Middlesboro', New-castle-on-Tyne, Wigan, Stoke-on-Trent, Dublin, &c.,"
  said, he had been induced by two considerations to again bring this matter before the House—first, because he felt that at a moment when the question of the improvement of the condition of the poor of London filled so large a place in their Lordships' minds they might not be unwilling to consider one way, at any rate, by which it was possible to do something to render life more enjoyable to them, and to take one step in the direction of their ennoblement and happiness; secondly, because he was not satisfied with the side issue which had been allowed to intervene, and on which the vote of last year had been in reality taken. It would be remembered that this question was last year laid before the House by the noble Earl on the Cross Benches (the Earl of Dunraven), and that it was met by an Amendment from the noble and philanthropic Earl opposite (the Earl of Shaftesbury), whose whole life had been spent in endeavours to ameliorate the condition of the working classes, and whose name was never mentioned without honour either inside or outside the House. That Amendment was practically an entirely different proposal. The noble Earl proposed to the House a Resolution that the National Institutions referred to should be kept open later on week-day evenings instead of being opened on Sunday afternoons. He did not suppose that any noble Lord would be found to vote against such a Resolution taken by itself. It was, therefore, very natural that, urged as it was with all the energy, all the eloquence, all the weight and authority of the noble Lord, that Resolution was accepted and the original Resolution displaced; but he repeated that that so-called Amendment raised in reality a false issue upon which the vote was taken. Last year there was a reason, which now no longer existed, why their Lordships were not unwilling to be led away from the original Resolution. In the other House of

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  Parliament, the year before, the question was brought forward by a well-known representative Member of Parliament (Mr. George Howard), and was supported by a Member hardly less generally recognized as representing the feelings and the views of the working classes (Mr. Burt). Unfortunately, however, it was opposed by another Member of the same class (Mr. Broadhurst), who produced and pinned his faith to certain fallacious statistics, compiled, or rather concocted, by a well-known sectarian society. These statistics were accepted as authentic, and guided Members' votes. But no sooner was the result of the Division known than special meetings were held, he believed, in every working men's club and trade society in London to protest against and repudiate Mr. Broadhurst and his figures. A mass meeting of delegates was held in St. James's Hall; but it was too late, as the harm was done. One trade society in London, the Amalgamated Millers, was returned as still faithful to Mr. Broadhurst's cause, but they now wrote to repudiate such a ridiculous position. He would not dwell on these circumstances—those who wished to know the whole facts of the incident would find them recorded by the noble Earl on the Cross Benches in the pages of The Nineteenth Century for this month—but it was of the utmost importance that he should explain in very few words how those statistics were compiled in order that noble Lords might be able to place a proper value upon them. It would only be necessary for him to explain the first line of the statistics with its formidable total of 28,000 votes. It took credit for 28,000 votes on behalf of the Amalgamated Society of Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders. What that really represented was the votes of the chairman and the secretary, for they had canvassed the various branches of the Society. Some declared that they were never consulted at all, and those that were consulted reported that they were consulted on the week-day evening question, and especially on the Sunday labour question, and very indirectly, if at all, on the Sunday afternoon question. Not content, however, with counting those 28,000 votes in a mass, later on they counted about two-thirds of them once and even twice over again as members of other workmen's clubs, Odd
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  Fellows or temperance societies. But the National Sunday League had adopted a different mode of arriving at the views of these societies and their branches. The National Sunday League was a Society entirely composed of working men, and supported by their contributions for the purpose of advocating this cause by all Constitutional means. They had addressed every working men's club and trade society in England individually, requesting them to hold special meetings to consider the subject, and to inform them in reply—first, how many members their branch had; secondly, how many attended the meeting; and thirdly, how many voted for and how many against Sunday opening, with the following results:—The Barrow-in-Furness branch No. 1 of the Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders consisted of 300 members, and they unanimously voted for Sunday opening. Of the South Shields branch of the same Society 180 were for and 13 against. Of the Newhaven branch, of only 12 members, 10 were present, and they were all for. Newark branch counted 27 members, all for. Greenwich, 165 members, all for. And so on, with little or no variation. As a gross result hey had of the Boilermakers' Society 2,739 for and only 25 against, and as regarded the workmen's clubs in London, 80 pronounced for Sunday opening and only one against. And of trade societies, 163 were for and 15 against it. Having thus satisfied himself of the views of the working men themselves on this point, he had nest endeavoured to arrive at he prevailing opinion hold generally on he subject, and it so happened that in, the newspapers a remarkable unanimity of opinion prevailed. Excepting one or two Sabbatarian newspapers, every newspaper in London was on his side, and, so far as he could gather, the same might be said of the country newspapers throughout England. He had not, however, been satisfied with this. It had occurred to him that the police magistrates of London might be good judges of whether his proposal was likely to benefit the masses or not, and to conduce to their morality and sobriety. The magistrates were the men who tried the Monday morning cases—the results of Sunday drinking—in the London Police Courts. There were 25 police magistrates in London. He had consulted them all, and only three pronounced

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  against Sunday opening. One London magistrate wrote to him as follows:—
  "I am, and always have been, in favour of opening Museums on Sundays. I am satisfied that religion, instead of being injured, would be benefited by the reform, and that public morality and sobriety would be greatly enhanced."
  Another London magistrate wrote—
  "A working man once put it to me in this way—'If we could go to the Picture Galleries on Sundays we should like to take our wives and children, and in that case we should like to see them better dressed, and to do that we should have to give up drink; it would do us good all round.' "
  Next he consulted the clergy of London as to whether they considered Sunday opening inimical to true religion. He knew that he had many supporters among the clergy, but he was not prepared for so much enthusiasm from them in this cause. Many, of course, who had not very specially considered the subject, opposed it almost instinctively; but he had received from the London clergy nearly 400 replies in favour of Sunday opening, and he had on his side a very large majority of those working in the poorest and most congested districts. Some gave the most extraordinary reasons for opposing. One wrote—
  "Public Libraries are of no use to the poor, who, when they want to read a book, prefer to buy it."
  On the other hand, a high, dignitary of the Church wrote—
  "Sunday opening would be a great been to the working classes, and would tend decidedly to refine and elevate them, and predispose them to the higher influences of religion."
  These were the words of one of the ornaments of the Church of England, and they did him honour. Another clergyman wrote that he was in charge of a parish containing 10,000 artizans, who all wished for the change, and many clergymen urged it "on purely religious grounds." He had received the last figures published by those opposing Sunday opening, showing, according to them, the numbers of the London clergy for and against. Those figures might be correct, and there might be no "overlapping." It was natural that those of the clergy who approved Sunday opening should by preference address him, and that those against it should address his opponents. But the figures proved conclusively what he had
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  merely suspected before—namely, that the London clergy were very equally divided on the subject. Considering that many who had not specially considered the matter might not unreasonably instinctively vote against the change, and bearing in mind the undoubted influence and opposition of the Bishops, he could not but regard the fact that the clergy of London were equally divided on this question as a highly favourable sign. He had consulted the custodians of the wealth of London—the bankers—who were assuredly not likely to embrace rashly any innovation of a revolutionary character likely to unhinge society or sap the foundations of Church and State. Well, 70 per cent of the bankers declared for the change as conducive to law and order and the best interests of society. Last of all, he had consulted the large employers of labour in London, a body many thousand strong, to whom it was all-important to keep their workmen happy and contented. He had endeavoured to consult every employer of 100 hands and upwards, and he found that they were in favour of Sunday opening in the proportion of four to one. He had received communications from employers representing over 90,000 workmen. A large proportion of his correspondents consulted their hands before replying. One, for example, wrote as follows:—
  "We have taken the opportunity of ascertaining the views of our men, with the following result:—Out of 107 men paid in our factory 97 were in favour of opening the Museums on Sundays, two objected on religious grounds, and eight objected without stating any reason."
  The noble Earl last year rested his cause on the demand of an intelligent minority at any rate. He was not content to do so. He demanded the change in the name of an overwhelming majority of 90 per cent. Nearly all the evidence which he had accumulated pointed in one direction. He had consulted every representative class, and always with the same result. He would not fall back upon former arguments, which were as yet unanswered and were unanswerable. He preferred to rest his proposal on the wants of the poor and working classes themselves. There was not much their Lordships could do for them, but this thing they could do and easily. There certainly never was a time when it was more necessary to ele-

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  vate the masses, and there never was a time when that fact was more appreciated by both sides of the House. Their Lordships proved that by sinking all Party feelings the other evening in considering the Resolution of the noble Marquess opposite for a Royal Commission to inquire into the dwellings of the poor. This was a kindred subject, and he appealed to the noble Marquess to treat it in the same manner. This had to do with the minds of working men, and if their minds were improved their feelings of self-respect would be raised. The noble Marquess admitted in his writings and speeches that not the least difficulty was to raise the standard of their minds above callousness to squalor, He knew of no better way of doing that than by opening wide the doors of our great National Institutions on Sunday afternoons, and by increasing their number, even as the number of public-houses in London was annually increased. He asked their Lordships to look at the composition of the newly appointed Royal Commission, appointed at the instance of the noble Marquess. On it, very properly, their Lordships would find many names familiar to all as veterans in the cause of the improvement of the poor, and among them many of the staunchest and oldest advocates of Sunday opening—Cardinal Manning, Mr. Jesse Collings, Mr. Lyulph Stanley, and others He appealed to the noble Earl opposite to remember the high authority on which we had the instruction that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. He asked the noble Earl whether he had not seen, as he had himself seen, every Sunday afternoon in London, groups of working men loitering about the dismal streets in the rain and chilling fog peculiar to our climate waiting till the well-warmed and brilliantly lighted-up palaces opened their doors by Act of Parliament after Church hours to receive them, and to intercept their wages, paid the night before, from providing for the wants of their wives and children? The contemplation of such things going on year after year in London, as he had seen it, and tried to bring it home to their Lordships now for seven years, was enough to make one almost despair of the future in this evergrowing City; and this was not all, for it was only here in London, where, for many reasons, it was most required,
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  that nothing was done and no remedy applied. Other great towns had taken the lead—Manchester, Birmingham, Dublin, &c.—and London only sat with folded hands. He would tell them the result at Manchester, for it was typical. The last, the 21st, Report of the Council of the City of Manchester on the working of the Public Free Libraries, stated—
  "There has again been an increased use made of the Libraries on Sundays, in the reference libraries the average of books consulted being 267 a-day, against 251 last year. In the branches 9,428 volumes have been used by 9,214 readers, and 51,815 volumes have been issued to boys in the four boys' rooms. The total number of persons who have entered the Libraries on Sundays has been 215,000, or 4,200 on each Sunday."
  These figures showed an increase of 14,400 on 1882, and of 63,537 on 1881. The Returns from Birmingham were equally satisfactory. Would anyone tell him this had done harm, or that this bore out the profound remark to which he had adverted, that "Libraries are of no use to the poor, who always prefer to buy their books?" He would tell them what the Chief Constable of Manchester wrote to him on the subject, with permission to use it in their Lordships' House—
  "There can be no doubt, to my mind, of the beneficial effect of the opening of such places on Sunday afternoons. Our figures show that the number of visitors steadily increase. The Sundays of December 30 and January 6 were wet, and I do not hesitate to say that a very large proportion of the 6,625 persons who visited the Art Gallery on those two days would have found their way to the public-house. Shut up your public-houses on Sundays, save for one hour in the middle of the day, to enable the working man to obtain his dinner beer, and open every class of elevating Exhibition, and you will do more to increase morality and so-briety and prevent misery than by any other agency. The poor people have nowhere to go to, and must either remain, in too many cases, in a most depressing home, or frequent the comfortable public-houses. Provide the necessary counter attraction, and yon will see that the longer it is open and the more widely it becomes known, the greater will be the attendance, and the work of the police, as regards Sunday drinking, will diminish accordingly."
  The experience at Manchester dated from 1878, and the official statistics of crime in that place showed that it had decreased since the date of Sunday opening by about one-third—from 4,625 offences in 1878 to 3,218 in 1883. What questions, then, remained for consideration? None that he knew, of ex-

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  cept the modus operandi and its effect on the increase of Sunday labour. Various suggestions had been made, practical and otherwise—among others, that Jews, who keep their Sabbath on Saturday, should be engaged for Sunday labour. His own opinion was that no real difficulty would occur. In the case of Stoke-on-Trent, volunteers had done the work satisfactorily for two years, headed by the Mayor and Town Council, taking the task of supervision in rotation. It was the old story—where there was a will there was a way. Manchester, Birmingham, &c., had found out the way, and so should London. Then, as to encouragement of Sunday labour. The noble Earl on the Cross Benches (the Earl of Dunraven) had pointed out, in his execellent Nineteenth Century article, that there were no signs to show that the working classes could not take care of themselves in these matters. On page 75 of the little primrose-coloured book which he held in his hand, and which he would commend to noble Lords opposite, written by one of the best known of the hard-working London clergy, their Lordships would find the case very clearly put—
  "As for compulsory labour, there need be no such thing in England. Men who dictate to their masters, not only the wages they will have, but the number of hours a-day they will work, are quite equal to deciding the number of days in a week and the exact extent to which they will consent to work for the good of others on Sunday or on any other day."
  And he would give their Lordships the opinion of another London clergyman on this point, the greatest authority in London—he meant the Rev. Septimus Hansard, Rector of Bethnal Green. He wrote to him, with leave to quote his words, as follows:—
  "When the working classes could not take care of themselves, I was a determined opponent of opening Museums on Sundays or of any relaxations of Sunday strictness by law. I am speaking of 35 years ago, when I first came to be a clergyman among the poor of London. I feared the greed of employers and the weakness of the working class. Between the two I feared the Day of Rest might be lost. But I have lived to see, thank God, the working classes assert their own. By trade societies and trades unions they can well protect themselves from any attempt of employers to trespass on Sunday rest. The working classes have the whole thing in their own hands, and they can crush any attempt made by anyone to go beyond the programme of the Sunday League and the Sunday Society."
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  He would not take up their Lordships' time by quoting more opinions on this point, though it was for no lack of materials. He thought he had said enough to prove his case. As regarded the wording of his Resolution, he had inserted the President in Council as the sanctioning authority as being the one most able and likely to influence such Governing Bodies as the Trustees of the British Museum and National Gallery, who could not long resist the popular pressure that would be put upon them, and also because the Lord President had charge of education, and he considered this an educational question; but he was quite willing, if desired, to substitute the Home Secretary or any other preferred authority of equal rank and weight and responsibility to Parliament and to the country. Then he earnestly desired to assure the right rev. Bench that he moved that Resolution in no feeling of hostility towards religion or themselves or their high calling. In doing so, he was supported, he knew, by hundreds—he believed by many thousands—of their clergy, and was only acting as their mouthpiece. That the subject he ventured once more to bring forward before their Lordships would receive careful consideration he felt sure; it was not a Party one, it appealed to the individual conscience of all men. Finally, he would protest against the Amendment of the noble Earl opposite. He appealed to him to allow the Division to be taken on the merits of the case, and not on a side issue. There was a practical inconvenience in the course the noble Earl proposed to those who, like himself, favoured week-day evening opening as well as Sunday afternoon opening. If the noble Earl would not allow the question to stand on its merits, they must, of course, vote against his Amendment and their consciences; but a Vote thus taken on a side issue could not be regarded as conclusive or satisfactory. Besides, the Amendment of the noble Earl did not meet the case. Working men rose at 5 or 6 in the morning and worked till 5, 6, and sometimes 7 in the evening. They had then to walk home, probably a mile or more, clean themselves a little, and have their supper, which was their only domestic meal. Rest was what they required after that. Would any of their Lordships, after such a day, take the trouble

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  to change their clothes and start again on a weary walk some two or more miles, say, to the British Museum, which they could not reach before 9 o'clock at the earliest?" Would not the body and the brain be too fatigued to take a pleasure in beautiful things then, at all events to the same extent as on an otherwise idle Sunday afternoon? And how about the wives and children who were to benefit so much by Sunday opening? How would they benefit by week-day evening opening? There were the additional difficulties to overcome of extra night labour, expense and danger of lighting, and the like. In conclusion, he must express the hope that the noble Earl would give him his lists of supporters as he had given him his, chapter and verse. He claimed the support of an overwhelming majority of working men themselves, of their employers, of the magistrates of London, of nearly 400 of the London clergy, and of the custodians of the wealth of London. What could the noble Earl set against that great body of public opinion? He asked the noble Earl to let them hear it, and he asked the House to decide between them. He begged to move the Resolution that stood in his name.
  Moved, "That in the opinion of this House, the lime has now come to afford to the working classes of London the opportunity of visiting, on Sunday afternoons, such of the national collections of books, natural history objects, and of works of art of an elevating; character, as may from time to time be sanctioned for Sunday opening by the President, in Council, and thus give to the working classes of London opportunities for recreation and instruction equal to those enjoyed by the working classes of Birmingham, Manchester, Middlesboro', New-castle-on-Tyne, Wigan, Stoke-on-Trent, Dublin, &c"—(The Lord Thurlow.)
  VISCOUNT POWERSCOURTsaid, that in Dublin for many years past the Botanical Gardens had been open on Sundays, and the result had been that, while on week-days the visitors were counted by the hundred, on Sundays they were counted by the thousand. It was the same with the National Gallery. There were one or two objections in the way of the Amendment of the noble Earl. He had been talking the other day with the Director of the National Gallery on the subject, who had given his reasons, which presumably were shared by the Trustees, against the opening of the Gallery in the evening as proposed.
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  There was the risk of fire and the great injury caused to pictures by gas. A third objection was that if the gas were by any accident to be suddenly extinguished when the Galleries were crowded, the scene of confusion among the people would be terrible, and the pictures would be certain to be injured in the attempt of the people to get out. In the present state of electric lighting the risk would be even greater. He would, therefore, support the Motion of the noble Lord.
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY, in rising to move, as an Amendment—
  "That, inasmuch as a Select Committee of the House of Commons on Public Institutions have reported, on the 27th of March 1860, that such institutions as the British Museum and the National Gallery should be opened on week-day evenings to the public between the hours of seven and ten in the evening at least three days in the week, this House is of opinion that the time has arrived when this recommendation should be carried out,"
  said, that the noble Lord who had moved the Resolution had told them that its great object was the elevation of the working classes. If he believed the proposal of the noble Lord would have that effect he would not merely go so far, but much further. He did not believe. however, that the opening of Museums on Sundays would tend to the moral elevation of the working classes, but rather the reverse, and he was, therefore, opposed to the proposition. It was very difficult to find any new arguments whatever on either side of this question, which had been altogether ex-hausted, and all that could be done was to adduce facts and figures; and he would now confine himself to showing, by facts and figures, that the great mass of the working people, instead of being in favour of Sunday opening, as proposed, were opposed to it. He would first state that no trouble had been taken that year to obtain Petitions; they rested on the numerous and largely signed Petitions of former years. Some had been volunteered, and especially one from Glasgow, presented the day before, which stated—he would quote the exact words—" That the Petitioners represented 40 trade societies in Glasgow and the neighbourhood." He must, however, repeat the evidence of last year, which showed that 2,412 trade unions, friendly societies, working men's clubs, institutes, and other organizations,

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  With 501,075 members, heartily approved the Amendment proposed by Mr. Broadhurst in the House of Commons in 1882, and by himself in the House of Lords in 1883. Now, on this point a word must be said. An objection had been taken, and had been again repeated in an article by a noble Lord in The Nineteenth Century, that the true issue was not fairly put before the societies; that they were simply asked whether they would approve an increase of Sunday labour generally, and that no reference was made to the fact that the increase would be only in the case of Galleries and Museums. That statement was the reverse of accurate. The very form of the Circular gave a contradiction to the assertion. The Amendment was as follows:—
  "That in the opinion of this House it is undesirable that Parliament should further promote the employment of Sunday labour by authorizing the opening of the national museums and galleries which are now closed on that day, but that such museums and galleries should be opened between the hours of 6 and 10 P.M. on at least three evenings in each week."
  And on the very same paper beneath it was printed the form in which the assent or dissent should be given. Three copies were sent to every association, and every one who signed knew the Amendment as clearly as their Lordships knew that the Lord Chancellor was then sitting on the Woolsack. Again, it had been urged that the secretaries had signed the papers in their individual and not in their official capacities. Now on this head there had been great care taken. The secretaries representing the 501,705 all signed in their official capacity. Those who signed in their individual capacity represented 175,408 members, but had not been included because they said that although they had no doubt of the feelings of the members, it was a rule of their associations not to discuss political subjects. The greatest care had been taken to ascertain whether there was any change of opinion; the highest authorities had been consulted; and he could not do better than read the statement at the head of the new edition—
  "In order to make this list as accurate as possible, the compilers several months ago went to the very heavy expense of sending a marked copy to each of the 2,335 organizations in the first edition, calling attention to the particulars
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  of each society, and requesting to be informed of any inaccuracies. The great care taken is proved by the fact that only about 28 corrections were made, several only of which related to the figures, the other corrections relating to the names. These corrections, with the addition of 77 more societies, are made in the present edition, and the document is the most conclusive proof ever issued of the views of the working classes on this question."
  He had received reports, and he believed that the noble Lord had referred to them, from 34 firms and societies in London, which had expressed an opinion in favour of the noble Lord's Motion. To some of the lists the numbers of the workpeople were appended, to others not so. The total numbers, as stated, were 2,348; possibly, had all the numbers been given they might have reached double that amount. Now he received, with the greatest respect, any expression of opinion from such bodies of the working classes; but he must on that occasion be allowed to read a portion of a letter received from Mr. Chubb, the distinguished manufacturer of locks and safes. That gentleman had been asked to obtain the sentiments of his people. This was the course he took—
  "It was suggested to me (so he wrote) that I should obtain the opinion of the workpeople and Staff in the employ of my firm on the question of the Sunday opening of Museums. &C. I have done this to-day by ballot; and as it is a test case and records the perfectly free opinion of a number of intelligent, hardworking, London workpeople, I thought it would not be uninteresting to your Lordship to know the result. A few men being ill or absent in the country could not vote, but all who could vote did so with the following result:—In favour of opening, 47; against, 181."
  Now, it was his own firm belief that had the same course been taken in all the workshops the issue would have been the same; and noble Lords on the Government side of the House could not object to the ballot, which they had so often asserted to be the only means whereby a man would have the opportunity and the courage to speak the truth. Here he would observe that the noble Lord, speaking at a meeting in Piccadilly on the subject, said that if everything else failed an appeal must be made, sooner or later, to the constituencies. Well, he could assure the noble Lord that that was the very thing that he desired. A plébiscite on that subject he was satisfied would give such an overwhelming majority against the noble Lord's Motion as would settle the

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  question for at least 50 years to come. But to state evidence from another class—the ministers of religion, Church of England, Methodists, Congregation-alists, Baptists, and Presbyterians—the returns were not all of them come in, but this was the result. In the Metropolitan district, within the four mile circle, the total number of votes was 533, of which there were—for opening on Sunday, 56; and against it, 477. In other towns such as Manchester, Birmingham, &c., the total vote was 147, of which there were—for opening on Sunday, 22; against it, 125. Thus the grand total was 732 votes, of which there were—for opening on the Lord's Day, 83; and against it, 649. That was the case so far as related to facts and figures. There were, however, other considerations arising out of the consequences of such a vote as that before them. Were the proposition good in itself, he should feel that his argument derived from evil results would be somewhat weakened. But he and his Friends maintained that the proposition was far otherwise, and that thus they might insist oil these evil results. That was not the place for theological discussion. He would simply state as a motive of his action and that of most of his Friends, that they believed and maintained the Divine and perpetual obligation of the Lord's Day. They might consider, then, the enormous amount of increased labour, were the vote carried into effect, that would be thrown on the officers of the Museums and Galleries, for whom substitutes could not be provided, and on the already overworked drivers of omnibuses, cabs, and tramcars. That multitudes would throng to these Exhibitions was possible, but then they would consist of easy, comfortable people, who could go to them on any other day. But would they attract any of the frequenters of the gin-palace and the pot-house, for whose amelioration the Motion of the noble Lord was proposed? He believed not one. The noble Lord said his great object was to elevate the working classes, and no one would doubt that that was his motive; but if the noble Lord would take a walk with him through some of the slums of London either on a weekday or on a Sunday he would show him a sight of the sort of men and women to be seen there, and he would ask him whether he really believed that the
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  opening of Museums and Galleries on Sunday would transform those persons into lovers of science and art, and would induce them to leave the joys of the gin-palace in order to spend their time in looking at statues and pictures? For himself, he did not believe that one of them would do so; and even if they did, the result might not be exactly what was desired. The evidence, indeed, given by a former secretary of the Sunday League before a Committee of the House of Commons was very remarkable on that head. In stating his reasons why public-houses should not be closed on the Lord's Day, he observed that the people going to hear the bands—in Battersea Park, for instance—would require refreshment after their labours; the same would occur, no doubt, with pictures and statues. In that way visitors would be decanted simply from one gin-palace into another. The noble Lord had gone through a number of cases in which the opening of Museums and Galleries on Sunday had been successful; but he had carefully abstained from stating the number of cases in which it had failed, and in which those Institutions had been shut up. He did not mention the strongest instance, perhaps, of all—the town of Nottingham. How was it that that town, having one of the finest Galleries and everything that could attract the people's attention, contained a population more resolute than that of any other part of the Kingdom against the opening of Museums and Art Galleries on Sunday? Only last year, many thousands of working men of Nottingham petitioned the Town Council on no account whatever to allow those places to be opened on the Lord's Day. But supposing the noble Lord's Motion were carried, he asked, would matters stop there? Why should not, on the same principle, every place of public amusement be open? Why not the theatre? The theatre had often been urged as a noble vehicle of public instruction, and it would be urged again, and probably; with effect. It was no answer to reply, that the theatre was for profit, but the Museums gratis. If the benefit of such opening were sound and extensive, it was not the worse or the less legitimate because it was paid for. Here, too, what a fearful increase of Sunday toil of the actors and servants of the play-

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  house, who were worked almost beyond endurence during six days of the week. But he wished to call particular attention to the special dangers that would follow the public sanction of additional labour on the Lord's Day. He had in that House, and elsewhere, often said, that even those who were skilled workmen could not always protect themselves. Let there come a time when there were thousands wanting employment, and when only hundreds could be employed, then, depend upon it, if employers were to say—"You must work on Sundays as on other days, or else turn out," they would find thousands of people who would succumb to that condition. In September, 1882, the following statements appeared in the newspapers, confirming his statement in a most remarkable manner; he had not seen them himself until a few days ago:—
  "The manager of Landore Steel Works has offered an advance of 2½ per cent on their present wages, provided they consent to keep the furnaces on Sunday. This arrangement the men have refused to accede to."—[Cambria Daily Leader, September 2, 1882.]
  "The men employed at Dr. Siemens's Steel Works are out on strike, in order to resist Sunday labour, which the employers contend is necessary to enable them to compete with Continental manufacturers."—[Evening Standard, September 14, 1882.]
  "About 1,000 men employed at the Landore Steel Works stopped out on Monday pending the settlement of the difference between themselves and the Company, who have offered the men an advance of 2½ per cent in the melting department, provided the men keep tip the lights on Sunday."—[Cambria Daily Leader, September 5, 1882.]
  "The Directors are said to be firm as to the introduction of Sunday work, which they regarded as very desirable in the interests of the men themselves, and would lead to cheapening the production, so that the Company would be able to compete with other producers."—[Swansea paper, September 5, 1882.]
  "The melters on strike at Siemens's Steel Works, Landore, decided at a large meeting yesterday to resume work at the employers' terms—namely, an advance of 2½ per cent to keep the furnaces going on Sundays."—[Daily News, September 16, 1882.]
  This advance, their Lordships would observe, did not exceed 6d. a-week on wages of 20s.; but the inducement was not there. It lay in the fact that the men were locked out, that they were threatened with dismissal from their labour altogether unless they complied with the orders of their employers; and they obeyed rather than submit to
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  famine and starvation. Such would ever be the case, he affirmed, in times of very keen competition, extending even to working on the seventh day for no additional wages at all. This was the true and just fear of all the working men, and much would that fear and that danger be intensified were the sanction of public authority given by a vote that night to increase labour on the day specially assigned to repose and cessation from toil. The noble Lord who had moved the Resolution had stated in a meeting held on Tuesday night in Princes's Hall, Piccadilly, that they had to fight an insidious and inaccessible foe, the prejudice which put on the garb of religion. The words were strong; nevertheless he was not ashamed to own that, having a very solemn and deep religious feeling on the question himself, he was desirous that every one should possess the day for public and private worship and for all the endearments and enjoyments of domestic life. And considering the special interests of the working men, he did not hesitate to say that, so long as God gave him breath, he would never cease to exhort them to hold fast to this Day of Rest as the great charter of their physical and moral rights, and the great safeguard of their private and social liberty.
  Amendment moved,
  To leave out all the words after ("That") and insert ("inasmuch as a Select Committee of the House of Commons on Public Institutions have reported, on the 27th of March, 1860, that such institutions as the British Museum and the National Gallery should be opened on week-day evenings to the public between the hours of seven and ten in the evening at least three days in the week, this House is of opinion that the time has arrived when this recommendation should be carried out.")—(The Earl of Shaftesbury.)
  THE DUKE OF WESTMINSTERsaid, the difficulty in which the supporters of the Motion found themselves was due to the form which the opposition to the Motion had taken. Those who supported the Motion yielded to no one in their desire to preserve Sunday as a day of rest. If he thought the sanctity or the proper religious or due observance of the Lord's Day would be tampered with, or in any way affected by such a movement as that with which he was connected, he would have nothing whatever to do with it, or with the Sunday Society of which he had the honour to be

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  President for the coming year. The noble Earl (the Earl of Shaftesbury) and the supporters of the movement differed with regard to the definition of the word "rest" in this question. He and his Friends maintained that it was quite compatible with the character of the Lord's Day that the people should be provided with intellectual recreation and amusement on that day. They did not consider such recreation to be incompatible with "rest," or that it interfered in any way with the Lord's Day. The supporters of this movement were consistent in this, that they wished to extend the benefits which were conferred by the opening of Hampton Court and Kew Gardens, still further, by the opening of the British Museum, the National History Museum, Kensington, the National Gallery, and other similar Institutions. They were also consistent in thinking that such recreation and amusement was perfectly innocent in its character, and as it was productive of a considerable amount of intellectual enjoyment and advantage to those who participated in it, they could not see how such a movement could do harm to anyone. The noble Earl would be perfectly consistent, and those who were acting with him would be consistent, in objecting to the opening of Kew Gardens and Hampton Court; but he ventured to say that if they did so, opinion out-of-doors would become so strong as to make a movement of the kind, which, on their part, was perfectly consistent, impossible. But it might be said,—" How could a line be drawn between the opening of places of lower description, such as music-halls, to say nothing of theatres? "But they were not such fools as to suppose that public opinion would for a moment support this. The supporters of the movement for the opening of Museums and other places of amusement on Sundays, were in favour of providing the working classes with a high-class intellectual recreation; but, surely no one in his senses could agree to the opening on the same day of dancing saloons and music-halls. He had been lately connected with a Committee, instituted a short time ago to make inquiries with regard to the occupation and the manner of life of young men employed in the London warehouses. According to the numbers of the last Census, there were 200,000
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  persons between the ages of 15 and 25; many of these men were married, but there was no classification with regard to that number. But at all events there was, and must be, a very large class who were clerks and shop-assistants. He did not for a moment believe that the lowest class of persons referred to by the noble Earl—those who went to the gin-palaces and other low public-houses—would think of going to such places of amusement as the British Museum. There was a large class of young men, shop-assistants and clerks, whose lodgings were exceedingly uncomfortable, and when a Sunday afternoon was wet they had no resource for any recreation. Some people said they ought to sit still and read their Bibles. But they all knew how impossible that was. A person could not go on reading his Bible all day; and after going to church in the morning some sort of recreation was required in the afternoon. If our streets on Sundays, were like those of Paris and some other Continental cities, the case would be different; but when they considered the gloom of London streets on Sundays they could not re-commend a walk through them on that day as a very charming recreation. As to the Parks, those were in many cases too distant to be reached by the women of a family. The higher class of work-people, who would not go to the public house, had no club. All that remained to them were the temptations on the pavements—and those, alas! were too many in the streets of the Metropolis. By opening Museums for innocent amusement and recreation the need of those classes to whom he had referred would be met, at least to a certain extent. He saw the Episcopal Bench largely represented on that occasion; but there was an eminent divine, Dean Stanley, whoso name was always received with respect, who was a former President of the Sun-day Society. Dean Stanley, in one of his addresses, said—
  "The English Sunday, therefore, as I define it, is, on the one hand, a day of rest from ordinary work, is a day of disengagement from ordinary dissipations; and, on the other hand, is a day devoted to the opportunities of improving our hearts and minds, whether by direct religious worship, or by those occupations and recreations which., though not directly religious, have a tendency to raise and strengthen our general tone, and do not tend to overburden the already heavily-tasked energies of the working population of this country. These

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  are the aspects in which the Christian Sunday in England as an institution is worth preserving."
  He was convinced that the opening of Museums would do no possible harm, might do much good, and must do some good, and he, therefore, had much pleasure in supporting the Motion.
  THE DUKE OF SOMERSETsaid, that his views were opposed both to the Motion and the Amendment. With regard to the latter, an experiment tried on the Saturday evening had not been successful. Naturally enough the working men, after working all day, would not feel inclined to wash and dress themselves and start off at 8 o'clock in the evening to the Museum. As to the proposal contained in the Motion, he had come to the conclusion that the working people themselves were against the opening of Museums on Sundays. He was also influenced by the fact that it would entail a great deal of labour on the staffs of the various establishments which it was proposed to open, while facilities would be given for the introduction of explosives or any dangerous matter, leading. perhaps, to very serious consequences. He would, therefore, vote against the Motion.
  LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL)said, that, although he did not, of course, speak on behalf of the Government, he spoke, after inquiry, as one acting for, and for the time connected with, some of the Institutions which were affected by the Motion before the House; and, being responsible in that way, he could assure the noble Duke that the difficulties which he apprehended were utterly insignificant. There was, indeed, no difficulty of the kind whatever. He found, after inquiry, that there was in the Institutions referred to, and among their staffs, no feeling whatever against the proposition. On the contrary, their feeling was quite the other way. He spoke of those Institutions for which he was responsible; and he could answer for it that there would be absolutely no difficulty in throwing open the South Kensington and Bethnal Green Museums and the Edinburgh and Dublin Museums on Sunday afternoons from 2 to 6 o'clock.; He thought the only feeling of the staffs, which he entirely shared himself, was a feeling that the proposed change would make these Institutions of greater advantage to large classes of their fellow-
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  countrymen. He took an estimate which had been given to him as to the amount of labour required, and he found that the number of employés of all kinds that would be required, including police, was at South Kensington 22, and at Bethnal Given about 13, and that was the amount of labour they were told was to stand in their way when they desired to make these Institutions available for the good of hundreds and thousands of people in London. What was to be seen on a Sunday afternoon in the neighbourhood of Bethual Green? A vast population lounging about at their doors. They were, of course, enjoying a cessation from labour, and that, he admitted, was the first want of the labouring man. But they suffered under a terrible want of the means of passing those hours free from labour in the absence of any source of innocent and improving amusement; and all the while there was a Museum supported by the State, and paid for out of the taxes, shut up in the midst of that idle, dull population, passing their Sunday afternoon in the way he had indicated. As to the few people who would be, as he had said, detailed to look after those Institutions on Sunday afternoon for a small remuneration, he could not imagine many better ways for them to spend Sunday afternoon. He thought there could hardly be a more unselfish and Christian way of doing so than in providing for the amusement and happiness of an enormous number of their fellow - countrymen. These would not be the only Institutions in which Sunday labour was permitted. He believed, for instance, that the Sunday labour in Sunday schools was enormous. It was all very well to say that it was done from an excellent motive; but he could not draw any distinction in point of motive between those who were required to labour in Sunday schools and those who would give their time in Bethnal Green Museum if their Lordships and the other House of Parliament would only allow them to give it. A great deal had been said in the House and outside it as to the amount of the demand on the part of the working classes for this Sunday opening. He confessed that he agreed with his noble Friend on the Cross Benches, when he said in his article in The Nineteenth Century, that that question had been put by the over zeal of the Lord's Day Rest Association

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  in the most unfair and misleading way to the working men of the City of London. But, irrespective of that, what right had they to expect a very ardent demand on the part of the working men for these means of higher intellectual amusement and cultivation? Remarks had been made upon the degradation of the working classes, and the idea of many of them availing themselves of this opportunity had been ridiculed. He denied that they were degraded; but if they were, he wished to know when they were to have a chance given them of elevating themselves and acquiring a taste in this direction? The very absence of that taste was a strong reason for giving them the opportunity that was now asked. It had been said that a plébiscite had been taken, and that the result was unfavourable to this proposition. If that were so, which he much questioned, they must wait patiently until the popular judgment grew more enlightened. But that House, at all events, was independent of plébiscites; and he hoped such an opinion would be given on the Resolution of his noble Friend to-night as would help the coming of that day, which he would hail with the greatest pleasure, when they would be able to make the Sunday rest and freedom far more valuable to great classes of their fellow-countrymen by the opening of these Institutions during a part of the day.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYsaid, he had no idea of placing religion and the social good of the people in opposition to one another; he protested that it was an entire mistake to imagine that the clergy were ready to sacrifice the social good of the people to religion. It was in no such spirit that he and those who now sat on the same Bench with him became clergymen. They had become so with the hope of labouring for the good of the people in every possible way, and in the best manner they were capable of. This question ought not to be considered as a small concession oil the part of religion. It was no small question, at any rate; and he fully admitted that those against whom he should vote that night were as anxious for the highest good of the people as it was possible to be. It was said that these Galleries belonged to the people, and that they paid for them; and, if so, it was surely a matter of some importance
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  to consider what the majority wished. They were all joint partners in these Galleries, and they must certainly have the highest consideration for those who had the least time at their disposal. But surely it was, nevertheless, a question for the majority. He believed that the opinion of working men was ascertained, and he did not believe they were so desirous to see their Lordships open those doors. Mr. Broadhurst, whose speech was the occasion of that demonstration to which the noble Lord had referred, spoke, as he said, entirely in the interests of the working men. He had most feelingly painted the one holiday the working man had in the year, and entreated them not to take it away. Then, again, ought they not to take into consideration the fact that since the year 1881 there had been 783 Petitions addressed to their Lordships' House against the proposition now before the House, and that those 783 Petitions had contained no less than 161,000 names; that, too, in last year alone, there were 208 Petitions, representing 70,000 names; whereas, on the other side, there were but 528 names contained in 12 Petitions since 1881, and last year but 522 names against 70,000? Surely, these were very important figures, and were of value here. Then, again, between the years 1872–82 there were 388 Petitions to the other House, representing 524,000 names, against the proposition, and only 158 Petitions, with 80,000 names, in favour of it. Surely those figures were overwhelming; or, if they were not to count heads in that manner, surely it was a very important matter that the House of Representatives had so very strongly declared itself against the proposition. An appeal had been made to Casar Operarius, and he had decided on the other side. An appeal had also been made to the clergy of London. He knew there were 1,300 clergy in London, and if 400 represented the number of those in favour of this proposition, then two-thirds of the clergy in London were against it; and he found that if they took the clergyman of the Church of England alone within the four mile radius of London, they would get 251 clergymen against the Sunday opening for 50 in favour of it. But they must not only take the clergy of the Church of England in a question like this; they must take the ministers in the Metho-

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  dist, Congregational, and other denominations. They there found 226 ministers of four denominations who were against this Sunday opening to only six in favour of it, and that was a very small proportion indeed. Similarly, in the six towns named in support of the Motion, it proved that there was, as nearly as possible, seven-eighths of the clergy against it. It was said that the proposal was only of a permissive character, and that no one would be compelled to visit Museums and Galleries on Sundays if they were open. It was true that no one would be compelled to enter them; but the fact that they were open would compel great numbers to convey others there. In the British Museum and others, containing the treasures of the world and of time, skilled guardians would have to attend. The work could not be done by volunteers. Then it must be remembered that refreshments would have to be supplied. The visitors to Galleries on Sundays would either be a great multitude or not. If they would not be many in number, it was of no use making the change; if they would be a great multitude, boná fide travellers in the streets would be created, and this implied large traffic and trade. With these would come the chief, the only, compulsion known in England—the necessity of living, and of competing in order to live. It was said that the proposed change would promote temperance; if it should do so, it would be a moral miracle, for all other crowds who assembled in places of amusement emulated the army of Xerxes, and drank up rivers of intoxicating fluids. A Lincoln working man had told him that he was himself in favour of Sunday opening, but that if the working men were polled, there would be a great majority against the proposal. In the opinion of the same informant, the people who chiefly required elevating were the very last of all who would seek or could be raised by Museums and Picture Galleries. Much more powerful agencies would scarcely save them. The supporters of the proposal asked why Galleries should not be opened, when Kew Gardens and the grounds of Hampton Court Palace were open to the public on Sundays? In his opinion, the cases were not parallel. Gardens, trees, flowers, covered walks among them, were the very things which indoor people needed to see on
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  Sunday afternoons, and every increase of their opportunities of outdoor recreation was desirable.
  VISCOUNT POWERSCOURT: I beg to point out that the Picture Galleries at Hampton Court are open on Sunday.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: Well, to his mind, the Gardens were the preferable recreation grounds for the people. What he wished to see was the general opening of Galleries in the evening on week-days. He believed that if by opening Galleries on Sunday they caused the labour and traffic and trade which would certainly be required to produce this indoor recreation, they would soon see an end to all, both outdoor and indoor, recreation on Sunday. The working classes held that the Christianity of this land alone upheld the principle of six days' work and one day's rest, and they revered Sunday accordingly. They were convinced that the system prevailing on the Continent would gain a footing here were it not for the religion of England. The little that would be gained by the acceptance of the proposed change would be far outweighed by the loss of rest that it would entail. He believed, therefore, that it would be an unwise piece of legislation. Sunday rest, said Von Humboldt, was at the basis of national greatness. If the change were made we should still keep Sunday, but in a very partial and uneven manner. Part of the population would be merry—too merry, he feared, on Sunday—but the condition of many would be very hard. By giving approval to this proposal their Lordships would declare that the past history of England in regard to the observance of Sunday had been a mistake. That was a declaration which he was not prepared to make. He would always strongly support schemes for the improvement of the homes of the people, for providing them with evening Galleries and Parks, and for the diminution of their hours of labour; but he must oppose a proposal which would immediately take away from many their rest on Sunday afternoons, and shortly result in taking it away from all.
  THE EARL OF HARDWICKEobserved that the noble Earl who had moved the Amendment represented a large section of the Church of England, who had always been opposed to the harmless change now contemplated. He

  445
  regretted exceedingly that the Bench of Bishops did not take a more enlightened view of so rational and useful a measure. But for the influence exercised by them on the clergy the change would have been agreed to long ago. It should be borne in mind that the proposal was not a new one; it was already carried out in many towns where these Institutions were not under the control of the Government, and no proof had been adduced from the experience in those places which would justify them in having any apprehension as to what would follow on the adoption of the principle in London. With reference to the point made by the noble Earl, who said that the Amendment moved by Mr. Broad-hurst in "another place" had the support of 500,000 people, he would only say that it was always very difficult to refute statements based on statistics which, one had not thoroughly investigated. After the Motion in the House of Commons in 1882, a proposition was laid before delegates from all parts of London us to the desirability of opening the Museums, and it was requested that those against it should vote also, and the result was that the large majority were found to be in favour of the change. At that meeting, which was held in December of that year, 23 working men's clubs, having 8,439 members; 28 trade societies, containing 19,537 members; the London Trades' Council, representing 15,480 persons; and 10 miscellaneous labour organizations, having 1,976 members; making a total of 61 societies, comprising 45,482 members, had sent delegates to vote in favour of Sunday opening; whereas only one working men's club, having 210 members, and one trades society, having 326 members, making a total of two societies, containing 536 members, had authorized their delegates to vote against the question, he did not deny that a large portion of the English people were opposed to the Resolution of the noble Lord. But, on the other hand, there was a large number of rational persons who desired to have an opportunity of visiting Museums and Picture Galleries on Sunday. Was it right to deny them that opportunity, because a large number were opposed to it? There was something ungenerous on their Lordships' part in opposing the Resolution. Their Lordships could enjoy their amusements and recreations on
  446
  Sundays, and do without restriction a great deal which the lower classes of the population could not do. There had been great stretches of opinion among the higher classes of late years with regard to Sunday observance, and the sentiment would extend in the course of time to the lower classes. He regretted that the noble Duke (the Duke of Somerset)—a Trustee of the British Museum—should have resisted a Resolution which on two former occasions he had supported, saying that it was ridiculous to prevent people from visiting Museums on Sunday when they were at liberty to visit not only Kew, but Hampton Court, where they could see the beauties of the Reign of Charles II. He hoped their Lordships would consider seriously what the question was before they divided. It was whether they should give a higher class of recreation to large classes of the people.
  THE BISHOP OF OXFORDsaid, that the noble Earl had told their Lordships that the Bishops had influenced the clergy against this proposal. He could assure the noble Earl that no such attempts had been made by the Bishops. No doubt, the Bishops had, from time to time, endeavoured to ascertain the opinion of the clergy and laity in their dioceses on a matter which had been, much discussed, not only by the clergy, but by the laity also. But the statement which the noble Earl had made was, if he might be permitted to say so, absolutely without foundation. There was one point of view which had not been taken in the course of the debate to which he wished to refer. There were many of their Lordships who, whatever course might be taken with regard to the question, would still deprecate the expression of an opinion on the part of that House. No expression of opinion, no legislation, was wanted. A Museum might be opened on Sunday by the Trustees without any Resolution on the part of their Lordships. It appeared to him that the object in proposing the Resolution was not limited to a desire to open those Institutions; it was rather to produce a strong feeling in favour of altering the character of Sunday itself. What was wished was that it might be said that the House of Lords was in favour of altering the character of our English Sunday. Since the last generation very much more of the Continental

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  Sunday had become known among us than was formerly the case. It was said that the English Sunday was dull. Men who went to Paris saw Galleries and Museums open on the Sunday, shops displaying their goods, theatres open, and now and then a political election, a military review, or a horse race. There was on Sunday every form of amusement in a country which made amusement the chief object of life. Men said that those things were bright and pleasant, and that Sunday in London had no brightness and was dull. But in Paris and those cities which were said to be so bright there was much labour on the Sunday too. In England there had been from generation to generation a feeling about the Sunday which did not exist in any other country in Europe, and that feeling he wished to continue. It was wonderful to see on six days of the week the tide of business which flowed through our streets; but it was still more wonderful on one day of the week to see the hush which came upon all that business. It was much for men on one day of the week to be able to know something of a higher life and to rise, if they would, above the week's toil and labour. He wished to keep that privilege intact. It had not been created by Act of Parliament; it could not be enforced—though it might be protected—by law; it had its root in the traditional feeling of the nation; it was set in the heart of the people; he would venture to say it was to them the gift of God. Because he believed that the effect of this Resolution would be to weaken that feeling, he prayed their Lordships to reject it.
  LORD WALSINGHAMsaid, that he had listened with the utmost attention to the arguments which had been adduced in favour of the two alternative propositions before their Lordships; but no less to the objections which had been urged against them. It seemed to him that that class of objections which related to the increased hours of labour which would be imposed upon the employés at Museums applied with almost equal force to both propositions. When the Lord Privy Seal spoke of the satisfaction which those who had to undergo the additional labour imposed by the opening of Museums and Galleries on Sundays would derive from the consciousness that they were performing
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  an unselfish duty, he appeared to assume more than the facts of the case would warrant. He would certainly vote against the original proposition; and, thinking it almost impossible to exaggerate the danger that would be incurred by admitting crowds of people into a building containing valuable collections in glass cases with the present system of electric lighting, he hoped also to have an opportunity of voting against the Amendment.
  LORD BRAYEsaid, he thought the proposition was one which, if once sanctioned, might develop itself into the complete effacement of the English Sunday. Europe presented three methods of keeping Sunday. In the first place, they had their own method, based on Catholic law and in accordance with Catholic principles; secondly, they had the Scotch method, wholly Protestant or Sabbatarian; and, lastly, the Revolutionary method, which had penetrated more or less since the great Revolution into every Continental nation. He would ask them to consider whether it was wise to take any steps which might introduce the latter state of things into our own country?
  On Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Motion?"
  Their Lordships divided:—Contents 38; Not-Contents 46: Majority 8.

  CONTENTS

  Bedford, D.

  Clifford of Chudleigh L.

  Somerset, D.

  Westminster, D. [Teller.]

  Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.)

  Elphinstone, L.

  Ailesbury, M.

  Harris, L.

  Hartismere, L. (L. Henniker.)

  Brownlow, E.

  Derby, E.

  Hawke, L.

  Granville, E.

  Kenmare, L. (E. Kenmare.)

  Hardwicke, E.

  Ilchester, E.

  Lovat, L.

  Innes, E. (D. Roxburghe.)

  Monson, L.

  Monteagle of Brandon, L.

  Kimberley, E.

  Milltown, E.

  Ramsay, L. (E. Dalhousie.)

  Morley, E.

  Onslow, E.

  Ribblesdale, L.

  Romilly, L.

  Powerscourt, V.

  Sandhurst, L.

  Sherbrooke, V.

  Strafford, L. (V. Enfield.)

  Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery)

  Stratheden and Campbell, L.

  Bramwell. L.

  Thurlow, L. [Teller.]

  Camoys, L.

  Truro, L.

  Carlingford, L.

  449

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Canterbury, L. Archp.

  Rochester, L. Bp.

  Selborne, E. (L. Chancellor.)

  St. Albans, L. Bp.

  Winchester, L. Bp.

  Buckingham and Chandos, D.

  Braye, L.

  Norfolk, D.

  Brodrick, L. (V. Middleton.)

  Richmond, D.

  Byron, L.

  Salisbury, M.

  Chelmsford, L.

  Clanbrassill, L. (E. Roden.)

  De La Warr, E.

  Feversham, E.

  Colville of Culross, L. [Teller.)

  Harewood, E.

  Leven and Melville, E.

  Cottesloe, L.

  Manvers, E.

  Crewe, L.

  Morton, E.

  Delamere, L.

  Redesdale, E.

  Denman, L.

  Shaftesbury, E. [Teller,.]

  de Ros, L.

  Dunning, L.(L. Rollo.)

  Ellenborough, L.

  Melville, V.

  Hylton, L.

  Strathallan, V.

  Kinnaird, L.

  Lyveden, L.

  Chichester, L. Bp.

  Shute. L. (V. Barrington.)

  Hereford, L. Bp.

  Lichfield, L. Bp.

  Templemore, L.

  London, L. Bp.

  Teynham, L.

  Norwich, L. Bp.

  Tollemache, L.

  Oxford. L Bp.

  Walsingham, L.

  Resolved in the negative,
  Moved, to resolve—
  "That in as much as a Select Committee of the House of Commons on Public Institutions have reported, on the 27th of March 1860, that such institutions as the British Museum and the National Gallery should be opened on week-day evenings to the public between the hours of seven and ten in the evening at least three days in the week, this House is of opinion that the time has arrived when this recommendation should be carried out."—(The Earl of Shaftesbury.)
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYwished, before the next Question was put, to appeal to his noble Friend (the Earl of Shaftesbury), under the peculiar circumstances of the time, not to press his Amendment, which had now become the Main Question. The authorities of the British Museum were, he believed, very anxious that this particular measure should not at this time be taken. There were reasons which were very obvious, but which it was not necessary nor desirable to dwell upon; but he felt sure that almost everyone in their Lordships' House would support what he said.
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, that in response to the appeal he would not press his Amendment.
  On Question? Resolved in the negative.

  GREEK MARRIAGES BILL.
  Select Committee on: The Lords following were named of the Committee:

  E. Milltown.

  L. Penzance.

  L. Balfour.

  L. Sandhurst.

  L. Strafford.

  The Committee to meet on Monday next at Twelve o'clock, and to appoint their own Chairman.
  House adjourned at Eight o'clock, to Monday next, a quarter before Eleven o'clock.