Sitting of 5 March 1885

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBER SWORN—John Kenelm Digby Wingfield Digby, esquire, for Somerset County (Mid-Division).
SELECT COMMITTEE—Telephone and Telegraph Wires, appointed and nominated.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—NAVY (SUPPLEMENTARY); CIVIL SERVICES (SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1884–5)—CLASS III—LAW AND JUSTICE; CLASS IV.—EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND ART.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—High Court of Justice (Provincial Sittings) * [82]; Trustees Relief* [83]; Copyright (Works of Fine Art) *[84].
Committee—Municipal Voters (Relief) [64]—R.P,

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  CORPORATION OF LONDON TOWER BRIDGE BILL.

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Sir Charles Forster.)
    MR. THOROLD ROGERSsaid, he had given Notice of his intention to move the rejection of the Bill; but he proposed to withdraw that Motion in favour of that of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ritchie) to refer the Bill to a Select Committee. He had a Petition to present against the Bill from the working men of London, who feared that the measure would diminish the quantity of shipping near London Bridge, and thereby cause a diminution of employment. He -was fully prepared to admit—and ho admired—the public spirit and generosity of the Corporation in the matter. They were undertaking to construct this bridge at their own expense; but he was afraid that it might be found necessary to pay a large amount of compensation to wharfingers and others, and that the traffic might be seriously impeded.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read a second time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That the Bill be committed to a Select Committee, Five to be nominated by the House, and Four by the Committee of Selection,"—(Mr. Ritchie.)
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill committed to a Select Committee, Five to be nominated by the House, and Four by the Committee of Selection.
    Ordered, That all Petitions against the Bill, presented not later than three clear days before the sitting of the Committee, be referred to the Committee; and that such of the Petitioners as pray to be heard by themselves, their Counsel, Agents, or Witnesses, be heard upon their Petitions, if they think fit, and Counsel heard in favour of the Bill against such Petitions.
    Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
    Ordered, That Five be the quorum.

POLICE AND SANITARY REGULATIONS.

  APPOINTMENT OF A COMMITTEE.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the Committee of Selection do appoint a Committee not exceeding Seven Members, to whom shall be referred all Private Bills promoted by Municipal and other Local Authorities by which it is proposed to create powers relating to Police or Sanitary Regulations which deviate from, or are in extension of, or repugnant to, the general Law."—(Mr. Henry H. Fowler.)
  MR. SEXTONsaid, he objected to the Motion, on the ground that it contained proposals of a novel character, and carried the principle of delegation too far. It was proposed that the Committee of Selection should usurp the functions of the House, which would lose all efficient control over its own Committees. He begged to move the adjournment of the debate, in order to afford time for the House to consider the question and deal with it.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Sexton.)
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, the hon. Member was not correct in stating that the proposals contained in the Resolution were of a novel character. A similar Committee was appointed last year in precisely the same manner. Nor was there any delegation in the matter whatever. Some difficulty arose a year or two ago, in consequence of Bills which contained provisions imposing police and sanitary regulations, at variance with the general law, being referred to different Committees. Great inconvenience was occasioned, owing to the

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  different decisions that were arrived at—for instance, annuities were allowed in one case to be spread over 40 years, and others over 50 years; and, in one case for so long a period as 100 years. It was most desirable that some uniform mode of dealing with the provisions of such Bills should be adopted, and that these applications to Parliament for special powers should not be varied in different cases. A Committee was appointed, which was presided over by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Hampshire (Mr. Sclater-Booth), who prepared a careful Report, which was discussed in the House, and a general approval given to it. Last year a Committee was again appointed, which was presided over by his hon. Friend the junior Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. J. G. Talbot), also with the full approval of the House. It was proposed this year that a similar Committee should be appointed to consider all the Private Bills promoted by Municipal and other Authorities containing provisions relating to police or sanitary regulations which were at variance with the general law, and more especially in reference to the financial position of the towns by which such Bills were promoted.
  MR. SEXTONasked who the Committee were last year?
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, that, if he recollected rightly, it consisted of his hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. J. G. Talbot), the hon. Member for Chippenham (Sir Gabriel Goldney), the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. C. S. Parker), the hon. Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Hastings), the hon. Member for South Devon (Mr. Carpenter Garnier), the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. West), himself, and one or two other Members whose names he could not recollect at the moment. Most of the Members of the Committee last year had sat upon the previous Committee in 1883. The general principle which guided the decisions of the Committee was that there should be some kind of uniformity adopted in regard to Bills of this character. It was certainly most undesirable to have one law in Liverpool, another in Manchester, and another in Leeds. The object of the appointment of the Committee was to prevent, as far as possible, Corporations and other public Bodies
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  from coming to Parliament and obtaining powers which deviated from, or were in extension of, the general law. The provisions of every Bill were carefully considered, and every proposition of that nature was rigidly excluded from the measure. He did not think that any advantage would be derived from an adjournment of the debate, and he hoped the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) would not press the Motion. He was not aware that there were many Irish Bills promoted this year which would be brought under the cognizance of the Committee. There were none in the two previous years; and he admitted that if there were Bills from Ireland which would go before the Committee, it would be desirable to have the services of some Irish Members upon it.
  MR. DAWSONsaid, he took it that his hon. Friend's objection was principally to the proposition that an important Committee should be appointed by another Committee, and that, however desirable it might be to nominate the Committee, it ought to be appointed by the House. The Committee might have done its duty very well in the past; but to provide that it should be appointed by the Committee of Selection was to delegate to the Committee of Selection, chosen by themselves, a duty which ought to be discharged by the House. If the seven Members of the Committee did their duty so well, and were so competent to discharge the important functions intrusted to them, why not appoint them directly by the House, and come down with a recommendation to the House to appoint a Committee of seven Members for that express purpose? The proposal made by the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Home Department (Mr. H. H. Fowler) was a usurpation of the distinct functions of the House, and amounted not to the regular appointment of a Committee, but to the appointment of a Sub-Committee by an existing Committee. His own opinion was that that was a breach of the Privileges of the House, and that it ought not to be carried further. He should have thought that the hon. Member the Under Secretary of State would have been one of the last men in the House to give his countenance to such a proposition. It must be clearly understood that those who were in favour of adjourning the debate

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  had no desire to impugn the importance of the duties to be discharged by the Committee. They did not impugn the disinterested character of the motives by which the Committee would be actuated, nor did they intend to imply that the tribunal would be otherwise than impartial; but their contention was that the House itself had certain duties to discharge, and that they were not justified in delegating those duties to the Committee of Selection.
  MR. JUSTIN HUNTLYM'CARTHYsaid, he had great pleasure in supporting the protest made by his hon. Friends in this matter. He was of opinion that the delegation, in important matters of this kind, of the functions of the House to the Committee of Selection involved a very serious principle. There had been two previous Committees of this kind appointed, and he understood that the name of no Irish member had appeared on either of them. It must be remembered that, in the case of a Committee of this nature, its decisions were practically final; because, whatever decision was laid down by such a tribunal, it was always accepted by the House. Important Irish Private Business might be within the scope of this arrangement, and the Irish people might find themselves placed at a disadvantage by the adoption of this system. The fact that for two previous years the plan had worked fairly well was hardly a sufficient justification for the continuance of the arrangement. He earnestly hoped that his hon. Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) would persist in his Motion for the adjournment of the debate.
  MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, that, as Chairman of the Committee of last year, he was anxious to say a word in support of the observations of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. H. H. Fowler). First of all, in regard to Ireland. As a matter of fact, only a single Irish Bill came before the Committee last year, and all the Bills taken into consideration by the Committee were Bills which contained provisions in excess of the general law, and which proposed to take powers which, in the opinion of a large majority of the House, ought not, without grave consideration, to be given to any Municipal Body. Perhaps the House would allow him to quote from a Report of the Select Committee adopted at the last of
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  a series of sittings last year. These were the principles the Committee laid down—
  "They have in every case amended the Bills, endeavouring to the best of their ability to limit the large powers sought by the Corporations and other Local Authorities upon two main principles, which they believe to be accepted by the Houso—namely, first, that no local powers should be given which are in excess of the general law, unless strong local reasons exist for such powers; and, secondly, that no statutory enactments should be permitted for purposes which can he effected by bye-laws."
  Those were the two principles laid down by the Committee, and upon those two principles they endeavoured to regulate all the Bills which came before them, and, he believed, to the satisfaction, if not of the promoters of the Bills themselves, at least of all those who took a reasonable interest in the matter. It was said that it was an unconstitutional proceeding for the House to delegate to the Committee of Selection the right of appointing a Committee for dealing with a number of Private Bills. Now, he failed to see any difference between appointing a Committee to deal with a single Bill and appointing a Committee to deal with a number of Bills. It must be borne in mind that the Bills referred to the Committee were all of the same character, and that they related to regulations in regard to police and sanitary matters. It was a special Committee to take into consideration a certain number of very important Bills, to which it was their duty to devote most careful consideration. They did not at all slur the work over, and he thought they sat as many as 30 times last Session, coming in each case to a deliberate conclusion. No doubt, the Committee was appointed by the Committee of Selection; but, as hon. members well knew, the House of Commons itself appointed the Committee of Selection, and gave them certain powers in regard to the appointment of other Committees.
  MR. SPEAKER: I must remind the hon. Member that the Question now before the House is the question of the adjournment of the debate, and he would not be in Order in discussing the Main Question.
  MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, he was sorry for having transgressed. He would only add that he trusted the matter would not be adjourned, because it was of the utmost importance to come to a conclu-

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  sion upon it as rapidly as possible. He should be quite prepared, when the question came up again, to state his reasons for supporting the Motion of the hon. Gentleman opposite the Under Secretary of State (Mr. H. H. Fowler).
  SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, the great object his hon. Friends had in view was to prevent what they considered to be a breach of the Privileges of the House. No doubt, a precedent had been established in other years; but the contention of himself and his hon. Friends was that those precedents constituted no valid reason whatever why the House should not, on this third occasion, take exception to the course which had been pursued. The Committee of Selection was constituted for the purpose of nominating the Members of Private Bill Committees; but he did not believe that, save and except by an Order of the House in regard to a Hybrid Committee, the power had ever been given to them to select at their own discretion a Committee to whom was intrusted the duty of dealing with an important class of Private Bills. Hitherto, he believed, their duties had been confined to the selection of Private Bill Committees, and they had never gone beyond that duty. The proposal of the Government, if adopted on the present occasion, would establish what would be analogous to an lmperium in Imperio. They would, at their own instance, have the power of constituting a new Body, with very large powers of interference with the provisions of important Private Bills. No doubt, it was the duty of the House to watch very closely every attempt made by a Corporation to secure the passing of special laws by Parliament for itself, and great vigilance ought to be exercised in order to see that there was no interference with the general law, unless some very good cause should be shown for it. But it appeared to him that the Committee of Selection were now seeking to do, in a great measure, what the House complained of in regard to these Municipal Corporations, because the proposal was to give them exceptional powers, which might involve an arbitrary interference with the ordinary legislation of the House, so far as it affected Private Bills. He supported the Motion for the adjournment of the debate, because he thought that the Government were
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  bound to show a better case than had yet been put forward for continuing a precedent which might involve very serious consequences. In the absence of explanation the adjournment of the debate was quite justified; and he hoped the hon. Gentleman opposite would not resist the Motion.
  MR. LEAMYsaid, he did not think that the adjournment of the debate would entail any inconvenience upon the persons who were engaged in the promotion of these Private Bills. In the event of the Resolution moved by the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department not being carried for the next three or four days no kind of difficulty would arise; and there was, therefore, no reason in the world why the hon. Gentleman should not consent to the adjournment. Of course, the question was one in which not only the Irish Members, but every other Member of the House was interested; and all they wanted was that a fair opportunity should be given for discussing a change which they believed to be one of very great importance. What harm would be done if two or three days were allowed to elapse before the House passed this Resolution? Under all the circumstances of the case, he thought the best course was to adjourn the debate.
  MR. HEALYsaid, he hoped that the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. H. H. Fowler) would not inaugurate his new Office by coming into unnecessary conflict with a large body of the Irish people. He thought the Irish people were indebted to his hon. Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) for the way in which he had watched these matters. His hon. Friend had already succeeded in obtaining large concessions with regard to other Committees. It was now proposed to rush this Resolution through the House, in order to defeat the intentions of his hon. Friend in another respect, and to prevent him from securing upon this particular Committee the appointment of an Irish Representative who would watch over the interests of the Irish people. He did not see why, in regard to this secondary Committee, the concession which his hon. Friend had already obtained in regard to the Committee of Selection itself should not be made. The noble Lord the Member for Flint (Lord

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  Richard Grosvenor), who had just entered the House, was responsible for the manner in which these Committees wore nominated; and he would remind the noble Lord that the Motion they wore now discussing appeared for the first time on the Paper that day. The debate, therefore, ought to be adjourned at once, if it were only for the purpose of giving the Government time to consider the proposals now made to them. He must say that it was a monstrously unfair thing that Motions of this kind should be sprung upon the House before hon. Members could have had the slightest opportunity of considering them. There was a general rule, which prevented the discussion of any Business of which due Notice had not been given upon the Paper; and whenever an objection was raised to a Private Bill itself it was necessary that the Bill should be put down, and due Notice given, so that a day might be fixed for the discussion of it. But what was the course pursued in this case? At the time of Private Business, at a quarter before 4, when lion. Members were not prepared for contentious matter, a Motion, involving very important interests, and placed on the Paper for the first time, was attempted to be rushed through the House, contrary to all the recognized Rules. He therefore trusted that, under these circumstances, the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State would now recognize that a case had been made out at least for the adjournment of the debate, so that he and the Government might take time to consider the advisability of placing one Irish Member, at any rate, upon the Committee. Sooner or later, it behaved the House to put its foot upon this loose way of transacting Business. The Irish Members represented a large body of opinion in that House—a body of opinion that was bound to grow and increase—and the Government must, sooner or later, face the fact that the representation the Irish Members desired in regard to every branch of the Business of the House must be conceded. It was, therefore, desirable that the Representatives of the Government should act in a more diplomatic manner towards the Irish Members. The noble Lord the Member for Flint (Lord Richard Grosvenor) had had a large experience in dealing with these matters, and he hoped the noble Lord would be prepared
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  to announce that the Government would consent to the adjournment of the debate, in order that they might have an opportunity of considering the representations now made to them. He would only point out to the Government that Irish Private Bills, of very great importance to the Irish people, must constantly come before this Committee. There was a Bill at the present moment, called the Rathmines Bill, which was of the utmost importance to the City of Dublin; and yet he believed that there would not be a single Irish Member upon the Committee who would have to deal with that Bill. It was most unfortunate that the Government should attempt to rush Business through the House in that way; and if they were not prepared to make the concession they were now asked for, he hoped they would, at least, consent to adjourn the debate, in order that the views of the Irish Members might be fully taken into consideration.
  MR. DEASY,in supporting the Motion for the adjournment of the debate, said, it was important, even from the Government point of view, that the House should resist the Motion now made. The hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. H. H. Fowler) had not long filled that Office; and he thought the hon. Gentleman was commencing his official career very badly, in endeavouring to shut out Irish Members from serving on this Committee.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERhoped that he might be allowed to explain. He was not proposing to exclude any Irish Member from serving on the Committee; but his proposal was simply that the Committee should be appointed by the Committee of Selection, upon which the Irish Members were already represented. It would be for the Committee of Selection to decide, one way or the other, what the composition of the Committee should be. Personally, ho did not propose, in-any way, to exclude the Irish Members.
  MR. DEASYsaid, that the proposal of the hon. Member was that the Committee should be nominated by a Committee that was already formed, and which was composed of nine Members, of whom only one Irish Member would have the right of assisting in the nomination of this Committee of seven. Judging from the performances of the

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  Government in regard to Irish measures generally, he thought the Representatives of that country were justified in coming to the conclusion that the one lrish Member of the Committee of Selection would have very little power of nominating and seouring a fair Irish representation upon the Committee. He would further point out that the hour at which this proposal was brought on was an hour at which hon. Members were very seldom in their places; and as the Motion had only appeared on the Paper that day, it must be fairly concluded that many persons who took a deep interest in the question could not have seen it at all, or otherwise they would have been in their places to support the remonstrances of the Irish Members. He did not think that a more reasonable proposition could be made than that which had been put forward by his hon. Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton). His hon. Friend merely asked that the House should not be forced into a decision on the question that evening, but should be allowed a couple of days to consider it. At the end of a couple of days, it was possible that it would not be necessary to offer any opposition to the Motion of the hon. Gentleman. The appointment of this Committee affected questions which concerned the Irish people very deeply, from the fact that questions dealing with police and sanitary regulations would have to come before it. It was, therefore, of the utmost importance that the Irish Members should be fairly represented upon the Committee. Judging from the action of Her Majesty's Government lately in regard to Irish Members, there would be no desire on their part to make proper provision for Irish representation; and, therefore, in order that the whole matter might be properly considered, he trusted that the Government would offer no further opposition to the action of the Irish Members, but that they would consent to the adjournment of the debate.
  MR. KENNYsaid, he thought it would be generally conceded that the action of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. H. H. Fowler) was somewhat extraordinary. He had come down to the House that day with a Motion which was likely to escape the attention of everyone whose attention was not specially drawn to it, and he had moved it
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  without a word of explanation. One thing was quite certain—that it would not only be advantageous to the House, but that it was extremely desirable that the hon. Gentleman should explain the object with which he had made the Motion. He had said already that he was not prepared to exclude the Irish Members from sitting on the Committee, That was all very well; but the effect of passing the Motion would be to place important measures connected with local legislation in Ireland in the hands of Members who could have no possible interest in, or knowledge of, the country. He, therefore, felt that it was essential the hon. Gentleman should explain the precise scope and object of his proposition; and the request made by his hon. Friends the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) and the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton), that he would postpone the Resolution until Monday, was only fair and reasonable. Was this intended to be a compromise in connection with the Bill affecting Private Bill legislation which was recently brought under the notice of the House? If it was, it was a very clumsy mode of discussing the question. If there was any desire to facilitate the passing of private measures through the House, the best course would be to convince every section of the House that the interests intrusted to their charge were in no respect disregarded. He should certainly offer the most strenuous opposition in his power to the proposition of the Government.
  MR. GRAYsaid, that, if his memory did not deceive him, at least one, if not two, important Irish Private Bills would have to go before the Committee this year. The hon. Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. J. G. Talbot) had mentioned that no Irish Bill was referred to the Committee last year, and he thought the hon. Member was correct; but he was under the impression that an exceedingly important Irish Bill, one that was promoted by the township of Rathmines, would come under the cognizance of this Committee if it was appointed. He also thought there was another measure promoted by the borough of Belfast; but of that he was not quite sure. He was certain, however, that there was a Bill introduced by the township of Rathmines, and that it contained provisions of a most important character which would require

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  the careful attention of the Committee. That being so, he thought that, as a matter of principle, they should press for the adjournment of the debate, so that arrangements might be made for nominating Irish Members upon the Committee, which would have to deal with measures in which their interests were so deeply involved. He objected altogether to this system of indirect representation sought to be established by the Motion. He had the greatest possible confidence in his hon. Friend the Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy), who would be one of the nine Members of the Committee of Selection; but, notwithstanding that confidence, he did not think that his hon. Friend should be the only Irish Member to decide the matter. He also objected to inquiries of so important a character being conducted in a private room, where the proceedings were not reported. They could not have the same force as an inquiry conducted in the regular way. He trusted that this controversy would not be prolonged, but that the Government would consent to what, after all, was a fair and reasonable proposition—namely, that the Motion, having been placed on the Paper only that day, should be postponed for a few days, and not rushed through the House with unnecessary haste. Hon. Members well knew that the course now proposed to be taken by the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department was in entire contravention of the ordinary Rules which regulated the proceedings of the House.
  SIR JOHN R. MOWBRAYsaid, he was most unwilling to take any part in the discussion; first of all, because the Committee of Selection, of which he was Chairman, had quite enough to do without having any extra duties imposed upon them. The Committee of Selection were perfectly ready to undertake any duties the House might intrust to to them; and he believed that they had hitherto discharged their duty to the satisfaction of the House. It certainly seemed to him that the Motion for the adjournment of the debate was most unreasonable; and as to the assertion that the Motion was brought on without Notice, he might say that his hon. Friend the Under Secretary for the Home Department (Mr. H. H. Fowler) had on Monday, three days ago, given
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  Notice, at the usual time, that he would make this Motion, which was simply for the re-appointment of the Committee, which had now been appointed for several successive years. He had never heard any complaint of the action of that Committee, nor had the Members of it been accused of dealing unfairly with Irish Bills. Hon. Members who had taken part in the present discussion were most of them new Members of the House; and they might really not be aware that the Committee of Selection was one which had long been appointed to discharge certain important functions, among them being the nomination of Committees upon Private Bills. "What was the ground of objection to the composition of that Committee in the present year? So far as he understood, it was that this year there was an Irish Bill, and that that Irish Bill would require particular attention on the part of the Irish Members. Then, what was the natural course to take? It was to secure that there should be some Irish Member upon the Committee of Selection who understood Irish questions. But the House must be aware that that wish on the part of the Irish Members had not been disregarded, and that this very year, at the instance of hon. Members below the Gangway, the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) had been added to the Committee of Selection in order to represent Ireland. There were, really, two Irish Members now upon the Committee—namely, the hon. and learned Member for Kildare (Mr. Meldon) and the hon. Member for Longford. Consequently, two out of the nine Members of the Committee, as now constituted, were Irish Members. If a debate of this kind was to be prolonged, and then to be adjourned for further discussion, what hope would there be of getting through the work of the House? He trusted that the House, by a large majority, would support the Motion of the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State (Mr. H. H. Fowler).
  MR. CALLANsaid, that, with all due deference to the right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken (Sir John R. Mow-bray), it would have been in much better taste if he, as Chairman of the Committee of Selection, had allowed the House to exercise an unbiased judgment rather than have made an ad misericordiam ap-

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  peal to it. The appeal made by the right hon. Gentleman to the Government -was that they should reject the Motion for the adjournment of the debate, and leave it to the right hon. Gentleman and the Committee of Selection to say what Rules should be laid down in regard to these Private Bills, and what Members should be appointed upon the Committee whose duty it would be to consider them. It might be in the recollection of the right hon. Gentleman, and of other hon. Members who sat in the last Parliament, that a Motion somewhat similar in its tendency to the present one was brought forward some years ago for regulating the proceedings of Parliamentary agents. That Motion was objected to, and the debate was adjourned for at least a week until the question could receive fair consideration, the result being that an Amendment was placed upon the Paper, upon which the original Motion was withdrawn, and the Amendment ultimately adopted. That occurred in the case of the Parliamentary agents either in the year 1878orl879. He would also ask the House to remember what the Rules were which were supposed to regulate the conduct of Private Business. The ordinary Notice of Motion for the nomination of a Select Committee would come under the Half-past Twelve o'Clock Rule; and any person who objected to the appointment of the Committee would have been able to place a Notice of Amendment on the Paper. Standing Order No. 207 said—
  "In cases where the second or third reading of a Private Bill, or the consideration of a Bill as amended by the Committee, or any proposed clause or Amendment is opposed, the same shall he postponed until the day on which the House shall next sit."
  According to that Rule, if an objection was raised merely in a Bill set down for consideration at the time of Private Business, it was necessary to adjourn the discussion until the next day upon which the House sat. If it were a matter of importance to adopt that Rule in such a trivial case as that which he had mentioned, how much more important was it to adopt the same principle in such a case as this, and to adjourn the discussion until hon. Members could have ample Notice of it. The adjournment of the debate, even until tomorrow, would enable the House to escape the difficulty in which they were
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  now placed, and would afford an opportunity for some amicable arrangement to be arrived at. If that course were not adopted, they might have a discussion which would extend over several hours, in addition to which a feeling would be engendered that the Irish Members, in regard to this question, had not had a spirit of fair play meted out to them.
  MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYsaid, he would venture to express a hope that the Government would consent to the adjournment of the debate, seeing that the appointment of this Committee was of a novel character, and that, although Notice of the Motion had probably been given, it had never been brought prominently under the attention of the House, and many hon. Members had known nothing of it until they came down to the House. It was quite evident, from the discussion that had taken place, that there was only one voice among the Irish Members with regard to the Motion; and therefore he hoped the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. H. H. Fowler) would consent to adjourn the debate.
  MR. HIBBERTsaid, that last year he was in the position of his hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. H. H. Fowler), and had to propose a similar Resolution. He gave Notice of the Motion, and it was before the House for several days before it was brought forward; but no complaint was made on the part of any Member from Ireland of the wording of the Resolution, or in regard to the course taken. He wished to point out to the House what their position would be supposing the Resolution had not been brought forward by his hon. Friend, and a Committee were not appointed to consider these Police and Sanitary Bills. The consequence would be that each of these Bills would be referred to a Committee appointed by the Committee of Selection, and the House would have no voice whatever in the appointment of such Committees. Therefore, hon. Members opposite would gain nothing if the Motion were rejected. The object of the present Motion was to refer all Bills, of a certain character, to a Committee to be specially appointed for the purpose of carefully considering the whole of them; and he felt quite sure that if the Bills so referred included any Irish measure, the Committee of Selection would

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  take care not only that an Irish Member should be placed upon the Committee, but that it should be left to the Irish Members to say who that Member should be.
  MR. SMALLsaid, the right hon. Baronet who spoke above the Gangway (Sir John R. Mow bray) seemed to think that it wag of some importance for the Committee of Selection to have the right of nominating this Committee; whereas the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Hibbert), who had just addressed the House, seemed to think that it made no difference whatever whether the Committee were appointed or not. What he complained of was the exclusion of Irish Members from Committees; and he thought it would be better to give the Committee of Selection the trouble of excluding them on every occasion, rather than that they should be cut off at one swoop. The right hon. Baronet told them that if any Irish Bill came before the Committee of Selection, he would take care that Irish Members were placed upon the Committee. It was a singular thing that English Members should be of opinion that the Irish Representatives were not to interfere at all with English Business, but that English Members had every right to interfere with Irish Business. That was the best proof which had been given for a long time of the self-satisfied way in which the English Members legislated for Ireland. He was surprised at the course which had taken by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler). He (Mr. Small) had certainly expected to find the hon. Member animated by that spirit of fair play for which he was so conspicuous when he occupied a seat below the Gangway. It might reasonably have been expected that the hon. Gentleman would have manifested the same spirit of fair play now that he had become an occupant of the Treasury Bench. After the unanimous opinion expressed by the lrish Members on that side of the House, he hoped the hon. Member would no longer resist their wishes. The Secretary to the Treasury had alluded to what occurred last year; but the hon. Member himself admitted that, on that occasion, there were no Irish Bills on the Paper. In this instance Irish Bills were affected for the first time, and that was certainly a strong
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  reason why the Government should consent to the adjournment of the debate.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, that he had been very much impressed with the point raised by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan), that by the ordinary practice of the House with regard to Private Bill legislation, when any objection was raised in regard to Private Business, the ordinary course was to defer the consideration of the objection until a succeeding day. That practice had not been followed in this case, and he was not all certain whether they had not a right to insist upon that Rule being brought into operation now. But he thought that, on the merits of the question, irrespective of those technicalities, a good case had been made out for adjourning the debate. The Rule of the House, in reference to Bills of this nature, was founded upon a strict sense of justice—namely, that Private Bill legislation was of so peculiar a nature that such a thing as a surprise must be guarded against. Therefore, whenever the merits of a particular Bill were called in question, whatever the feeling of the House was, and notwithstanding that a large majority might be in favour of another course, the practice was to postpone the discussion. For that reason he would suggest to the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. H. H. Fowler) that he should accede to the proposal now made to postpone the Motion. It was all very well to say that the Committee of Selection would act with impartiality with regard to the selection of the names of Members to serve upon the Committee; but, at the same time, the names of the Members proposed to be nominated upon the Committee were not down upon the Paper, and the Irish Members would not have an opportunity of expressing an opinion as to the merits or demerits of any hon. Member proposed to be placed on the Committee. For that reason he thought it would be well if the Government would give way, and save the House the trouble of dividing, which would be inevitable unless the proposal to adjourn the debate were acceded to. There would only be one day's delay, and no practical difference would be made in the time of the appointment of the Committee. He presumed that there was no Business ac-

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  tually awaiting the consideration of the Committee; and he was astonished that the Government should interpose a difficulty where there was really no controversy, and where no inconvenience would, as a matter of fact, take place. As to the argument of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Hibbert), who said that the course taken last year met with no objection, that was no reason whatever why there should be no objection now. Last year there was no Irish Bill which could have gone before the Committee; whereas, in the present year, there was certainly one important measure, if not more, which would come under the cognizance of the Committee.
  MR. P. J. POWERsaid, that no objection was raised to the nomination of this Committee either last year or the year before; but that was because there was no Irish Bill which could be dealt with by the Committee. But even if there had been, and no objection had been raised to the appointment of the Committee, that was no reason why no objection ought to be raised now. Because the Irish Members might not have done right in one case, that formed no justification for their continuing to follow the same course now. The circumstances were altogether different from those of any previous year, because this year most important private legislation was promoted upon questions of vital interest to the Irish people; and that legislation would, in the first instance, be brought under the consideration of the Committee it was now proposed to appoint. He maintained that, under those circumstances, the Irish Members themselves were the persons entitled to say what the legislation should be; and certainly no people could be more competent to judge of the wants and wishes of the Irish people than the Irish Representatives themselves. They had been informed that Notice had been given of the intention of the hon. Gentleman opposite to make this Motion; but, if so, it was given at a period when the general body of Members were not in their places, and had no means of knowing what actually took place. All he could say was that the Irish Members knew nothing of the Notice, and the Motion itself had quite taken them by surprise. As a matter of fact, it had been sprung
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  upon them, and, he could not help thinking, in a somewhat unfair manner. Therefore, he entirely concurred with the suggestion of his hon. Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) that the debate should be adjourned. His hon. Friend did not wish to have the question forced upon the attention of the House that day, but desired to postpone the discussion of it, in order to give the Irish Members a few days to consider the action they ought to take. Then, as to the nomination of one Committee by another, he was entirely of opinion that the principle was altogether wrong. He thought that the Committee, which was to be intrusted with most important Business, should be named directly by the House, and that the House should, not delegate its functions to the Committee of Selection, or to any other Committee. Taking in view all the circumstances of the case, he was sure that Her Majesty's Government would have no hesitation in acceding to a proposition so just and fair on the face of it as that which his hon. Friend had made; otherwise the Irish Members would be compelled to prolong the discussion.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, he only desired to say one or two words. Of course, he could not discuss the merits of the question on the Motion for the adjournment; and he did not know that he would personally object to the proposal itself, so far as it involved the principle of delegation. But the reason he did object to it was, that it might be made the beginning of a system of delegating the work of the House to something in the nature of Standing Committees. He certainly thought that that was a point worthy of careful consideration before it was carried out. He perceived that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir William Harcourt) had entered the House since the commencement of the discussion; and he (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) would submit to the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman whether it was an unreasonable request, when a proposal of this kind was made, and a suggestion was offered that a little more time for consideration should be allowed—whether it was unreasonable, on the part of hon. Members from Ireland, considering that the interests of their constituents might be

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  very much affected by the proposal, to ask for a short adjournment of the discussion? He thought that, seeing how much of principle was involved in the proposal, and how fertile it might be of further proposals in the same direction, it was only reasonable to ask for timely consideration before they subjected themselves to the disadvantages in which they might hereafter find themselves involved.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, that, as the hon. Member for the Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) had appealed to him, he felt bound to say a word, although he did not think he could add anything to the statements which had been already made. This was not a new question at all, but it was one with which the House was quite familiar; and therefore no object would be attained by giving further time for coming to a decision upon a question which was already well understood. The matter was all in a nutshell. The Bills affected were all Bills of a similar character, and it had been thought well to appoint a strong Committee to consider the important principles they contained, instead of having a number of separate Committees all dealing with the same questions, and, it might be, deciding in different ways and acting upon different principles. Such a course would be found to be highly inconvenient. The House had now had experience of the working of this principle of a single Committee for some years; and, on the whole, he thought everyone felt that it was the most desirable mode of dealing with the question. The right hon. Baronet the Chairman of the Committee of Selection (Sir John E. Mow bray) had already pointed out that, whether it was one Committee or a number of separate Committees, they would equally be appointed by the Committee of Selection. The only question to consider was, whether there should be one Committee to deal with all these matters upon uniform principles, instead of leaving them to be dealt with on divergent principles by separate Committees. He had no doubt whatever that the plan submitted to the House was the most advantageous plan; and he could not see how delay or adjournment would add anything to the materials they now possessed for forming a judgment upon the matter.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 26; Noes 238: Majority 212.—(Div. List, No. 40.)
  Original Question put, and agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Standing Order 173A shall be applicable to the said Committee."—(Mr. Henry H. Fowler.)
  MR. HEALYsaid, the Irish Members really could not allow this Resolution to pass without entering another protest. He wished to point out to the Government the very extraordinary nature of the course which was being pursued. What was proposed was this—that the House should abrogate its entire functions for the purpose of appointing a Select Committee and constituting it an Imperium in Imperio. In point of fact, the proposal was to vest a sort of Standing Committee with direct functions of the House in regard to the appointment of Select Committees. It appeared to him that such a proposal was a direct infringement upon the functions of the House, and that it took away from their control over the Private Business of the House. The question, therefore, assumed a very serious and important aspect. In the first place, he might point out that when an ordinary Select Committee was nominated, the names of all the Members of the Committee appeared on the Paper; and hon. Members had the power of challenging the name of every Member proposed to be appointed upon it.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. and learned Member is not in Order. We are now discussing the question whether Standing Order 173A shall be applicable to the said Committee; and the hon. and learned Member must confine himself to that specific Question.
  MR. HEALYsaid, his objection was that the powers proposed to be conferred by the Standing Order were of such a character that they ought not to be intrusted to a Committee appointed by another Committee. The Standing Order provided that, in case of any Bill promoted by, and conferring powers upon, a Municipal Corporation, or Local Board, or Town Commissioners, or other public authority', the Committee should consider the provisions of the Bill in regard to police, sanitary, and other regula-

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  tions. He objected to give to any Committee power to appoint another Committee, either from within or without itself, with the right of exercising the large powers. which the Standing Order conferred. In his view, a Committee which was to have the right of applying the powers given by the Standing Order should be a Committee which directly sprang from the House. But this Sub-Committee, if he might so call it, would be a Committee that would have power to create preliminary and technical objections to the provisions of a measure before the Bill could be referred to a Select Committee in the ordinary way, and before a single witness had been heard. In the ordinary course, a Select Committee would sit, in order to inquire into the merits of a Private Bill, and would hear all that both counsel and witnesses had to say. He denied altogether that such a right or discretionary power should be confided to a single Committee selected by another Committee. Some of the persons who would be appointed might be persons to whom hon. Members, or the promoters of these Bills, would naturally object; and, therefore, he thought it was a matter upon which the House should not proceed in haste. No doubt, it was said that the appointment of a similar Committee had been acceded to without opposition for the last two years; but, nevertheless, he thought the powers conferred by the Standing Order were much too large to delegate to a Sub-Committee, and he trusted that the discussion which had that day been originated by his hon. Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) on so important a subject would convince the House of the necessity for some change of the system of conducting Private Business. Indeed, the question had now assumed a position almost of scandal, and something ought to be done for the protection of the Private Bill legislation of the House. It was monstrous that municipal, sanitary, and police powers, affecting the health and welfare of the inhabitants of every large town in the Three Kingdoms, should be referred to a Sub-Committee in the manner now proposed. For his part, he thought they ought to go to the extent of taking another division against this extraordinary delegation of power. He sincerely
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  hoped that the House, without further discussion, would not consent to place important powers in the hands of a Committee over whose proceedings they would have no control.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, the House had now decided that this Committee should be appointed. So far the business was settled, and there was no earthly use in discussing, even if it would be in Order, the propriety of appointing a Committee. But this Standing Order No. 173A was already applicable to every Bill that came before the House which contained clauses relating to sanitary matters or to police regulations. He should have thought, therefore, that the mere existence of the Standing Order would have brought every Bill of that description under its terms, whether it was referred to the new Committee or not. It, therefore, appeared to him that this new Resolution was not necessary. Then, again, as to the wording of the Resolution itself, it appeared to him to be open to objection. It said—" That Standing Order 173A shall be applicable to the said Committee." Now, the Standing Order was applicable to a Bill; and, therefore, as a matter of phraseology, it was incorrect to apply it to the Committee itself, instead of to the Bills referred to the Committee. The Standing Order was certainly drawn up with reference, not to the Committee, but to Bills which contained provisions of a certain character. Consequently, in the matter of phraseology, it was desirable that the Resolution should be amended. It was also a matter for consideration whether it would not be advisable to introduce some modification of the Standing Order, so as to provide against any possible danger in the way indicated by the hon. and learned Member or Monaghan (Mr. Healy). Under these circumstances, he would ask the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. H. H. Fowler), who represented the Government on this question, whether, in regard to this Resolution at any rate, the Government would not agree to some postponement, in order to afford time for further consideration? If there was the danger which had been pointed out, surely it was not objectionable to ask for time to consider

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  the matter before the House was put to the trouble of a division.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, the Standing Order 173A was a Standing Order passed by the House in pursuance of a Report of the first Committee which sat upon the Bills which involved sanitary and police regulations. By that Standing Order Committees were required to inquire into clauses of a certain character which were inserted in Private Bills, and to report to the House how they had dealt with such clauses. The hon. Member for the Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) was quite right in assuming that, as a general principle, the Standing Order would apply to every Committee; and he thought that was the true construction to be placed upon it, and that there was no necessity for the insertion of these words. But last year, when the Special Committee was appointed, a doubt was raised whether the Standing Order applied to it; and in order to make assurance doubly sure, the House passed a Resolution directing that the Order should apply to the Committee, and that the Committee should make, under certain circumstances, a special Report to the House. Under these circumstances, it had been considered advisable to take the same course this year. There could be no doubt that, in the ordinary way, all of these matters would have to be inquired into by the Select Committee to which any Private Bill containing clauses affecting police and sanitary matters was referred. But it was most desirable that this Special Committee should inquire into and report upon them in the first instance.
  SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, he would suggest that the difficulty would be met by amending it so that it should read—"That Standing Order 173A shall be applicable to all Bills referred to the Committee." All that was necessary was to insert the words "all Bills referred to." after the word "to." He concurred with his hon. Friend the Member for the Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) that the Standing Order could not be applicable to the Committee, but simply to the Bills referred to it for consideration. It was only a verbal correction; but he thought it ought to be made, and he would, therefore, move it as an Amendment to the original proposal.
  Amendment proposed, after the word "to," to insert the words "all Bills referred to."—(Sir Joseph M'Kenna.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, that he had not the slightest objection to the words proposed to be inserted.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Main Question, as amended, proposed.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, he wished to put a question to the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the information of the House. As he understood the matter, at present, the Committee of Selection had power to refer individual Bills to Private Bill Committees, which Committees were bound to hear counsel and witnesses. But before the meeting of these Private Bill Committees, there was to be a Report from the Special Committee under the Standing Order. Was the Special Committee equally bound, before making their Report under the Standing Order, to hear counsel and witnesses?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: Certainly.
  Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.

QUESTIONS.

  LAW AND JUSTICE (SCOTLAND)—ARREST OF JOHN MACDONALD FOR POACHING.
  MR. FRASER-MACKINTOSHasked the Lord Advocate, Whether his attention had been directed to the case of John Macdonald, postal runner or messenger betwixt Carr Bridge and Ariemore, in the county of Inverness, who, in the month of November 1883, in the presence of several persons on the Railway platform at Ariemore, while in charge of the mail bag3, was arrested by two policemen, and conveyed a prisoner to Inverness, on a charge of being concerned in a poaching affray on the River Dulnan; whether, notwithstanding his judicial denial of the alleged offence, he was detained iii strict confinement for ten days; and, whether compensation can be made to him for

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  his wrongous imprisonment and for the expense he was put to in many ways, particularly in providing a substitute while in prison, and thereafter while the matter was under investigation by the Postal authorities?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR): I have inquired into this case. Macdonald, although he is a post-runner, was not apprehended while in charge of the mail bags; and the occurrence referred in the Question was an assault by night of a very serious description, by eight men upon two water bailiffs in the employment of the Spey Fishery Board. Macdonald was incarcerated for nine days. He was apprehended on the 13th of November, and liberated on bail on the 22nd. The evidence which led to Macdonald's apprehension was his own statement to another person that he was one of the gang of eight men, and the statement of one of the water bailiffs assaulted, that he was almost sure that Macdonald was one of the party. The evidence, however, did not appear to the Crown counsel sufficient, and, therefore, Macdonald was not tried; but the evidence seems to have been such as to warrant his apprehension and his detention for further examination. That a man should be detained in prison for several days on suspicion, and afterwards liberated without trial, is always a matter of regret; but such cases are occasionally unavoidable in the administration of criminal justice. There is no ground or precedent for awarding compensation to Macdonald, and I know of no fund from which compensation could be paid. Further, with reference to this part of the Question, I must repeat that the chief cause of Macdonald's apprehension was his own statement already mentioned.

  PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS—REGISTRATION OF VOTERS (IRELAND).
  MR. T. A. DICKSONasked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, Whether in any Registration Bill to be brought in for the purpose of placing on the registries the great numbers of additional voters entitled to the franchise, provision will be made for the remuneration of clerks of unions, rate collectors, and other officials, for their greatly increased duties, and if the Bill will provide that
  90
  the expense shall not fall upon the ratepayers?
  MR. CALLANsaid, he wished, at the same time, to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman, Whether he will make arrangements in the Bill for utilizing and continuing the services of the Town Clerks of the eighteen "liberated" boroughs of Ireland, or compensate the clerks for the loss of their emoluments in connection with the registration?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER),in reply, said, he would refer to the Question on the Paper—that of the hon. Member (Mr. Dickson). The matter was at present under the consideration of the Government, and he would ask his hon. Friend to postpone his Question.

PIER AND HARBOUR WORKS (ENGLAND AND WALES)—HOLYHEAD MAIL JETTY.
MR. MORGAN LLOYDasked the President of the Board of Trade, respecting the Mail Jetty, made of timber, at Holyhead, What was the cost of the Mail Jetty erected in the year 1858; what amount has been spent in the alteration and repairing of the same up to the present time; what is the estimate for the alterations and repairs of the same now going on; is the condition of the Jetty such as would justify the Government in spending a large sum in alterations and repairs; and, taking into consideration the present condition of the Jetty, and the large amount spent annually in repairs, would it not be better economy to erect a stone pier in place of the present Jetty?
MR. GRAY: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers the Question, I would ask, Whether it is not a fact that the original scheme submitted to the Government twenty years ago provided for a stone pier?
MR. CHAMBERLAIN: I cannot answer the Question of the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) positively; but if he will put it on the Paper I will endeavour to do so. As to the first Question, the first cost of the timber mail jetty at Holyhead and its extension was, from 1858 to 1864, £48,226; since that time £26,985 has been spent in repair and renewal. The estimate of the work for raising the platform, required by the Post Office in connection with the recent mail contract, is £7,000;

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this is special and not ordinary work. The annual expenditure for renewals for some years past has been about £2,000, and appears, so far, to be maintaining the work in fair condition. As to a stone pier being more economical, I have no proposal for a stone pier before me, and the question of comparative expense would be for the consideration of the Treasury. I may, however, mention that Sir John Hawk-shaw tells me that such a work could not cost less than £150,000.

MERCHANT SHIPPING—THE TROOPSHIP "POONAH."
MR. TATTON EGERTONasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, Whether, at the time that Admiral Lethbridge considered it safe to send off the transport Poonah from Queenstown to Portsmouth, he was aware of the warning in The Times of 18th instant giving notice of a severe cyclone travelling east northeast, and expected on the French and English coasts about the 22nd?
MR. CAINE,in reply, said, that when the Poonah left Queenstown, they were not aware of the storm warning that appeared. The Poonah left Queenstown at 10 A.M. on the 20th February, and the telegram giving notice of the storm did not reach Queenstown from the Meteorological Office until after the departure of the ship.

LAW AND JUSTICE (IRELAND)—THE IRISH CIRCUITS.
MR. GIBSONasked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, Is there any objection to laying upon the Table a Copy of the Report of the Committee of the Irish Judges on the subject of the Irish Circuits?
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER),in reply, said, that it would be unusual to make a Report of that kind public.
MR. GIBSONsaid, that he would repeat the Question that day week, when he would also ask whether such Reports were not laid before Parliament in the time of the late Government; and, whether any of the Judges objected to the production of this particular Report?

POOR LAW (IRELAND)—MR. ROBERT GRAHAM, CLERK OF COOTEHILL UNION.
MR. BIGGARasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ire-
92
land, If it has come under his notice that Robert Graham, clerk of Cootehill Union, has been called on by the Registrar General to resign the office of Superintendent Registrar, in consequence of repeated improper conduct, and very insulting language towards the medical officer of the Tullavire Dispensary District; if it has come under his notice that said clerk was censured by the Local Government Board, September 6th 1884, for—
"Very improper language towards Mr. Owen M'Cabe and Rev. Mr. M'ICenna, P.P. during the sworn inquiry held by Mr. Armstrong, Local Government Board Inspector, July 8th 1884," and "cautioned against a repetition of such conduct in future;"
that said clerk swore, at inquiry held by Mr. Matheson, B.L. January 28th 1885, he was never before censured; and, if the Local Government Board, in view of the correspondence before them relative to the last March Election of Poor Law Guardian for the Corween Division of Cootehill Union, and the minutes of sworn inquiry, July 8th, relative to same, will continue Robert Graham in the office of clerk and returning officer?
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The facts are substantially as stated in the Question. It does not appear that Mr. Graham was sworn when he gave evidence before Mr. Matheson at the inquiry referred to; but the Local Government Board will call upon him for an explanation in regard to his alleged untruthfulness on that occasion.

LIGHTHOUSE ILLUMINANTS COMMITTEE.
MR. GRAYasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether it is the fact that the illuminant experiments at the South Foreland are to be discontinued next month, and how soon the Report of the Elder Brethren of Trinity House may be expected; and, whether, before the termination of these experiments, a trial will be made of the double "triform" plan of lighting, the refusal to test which by the Illuminants Committee caused the resignation of Dr. Ball, E.R.S., and other representatives of the Commissioners of Irish Lights?
MR. CHAMBERLAIN: I have communicated with the Elder Brethren on this subject, and I have received the following reply:—

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The experiments as a whole, as at present arranged, are to he discontinued at the end of the present month; hut the Report "being dependent on the receipt of intelligence from many observers, will occupy some time in completion. As regards the double 'triform' gas apparatus the Elder Brethren understand that, at least, six burners were to be used; hut as with only four burners a temperature of 350 Fahrenheit was sustained at South Foreland, and several valuable lenses were cracked with the heat, it is not considered desirable to try six burners. The Elder Brethren have recently had a visit from Dr. Ball and his colleagues of the Irish Lights, and they have reason to believe that these gentlemen are satisfied with the experiments."
MR. GRAY: I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman, whether he is aware that the advocates of gas illumination for lighthouses claim that the double triform is the best for gas-lighting; and is it a fixed arrangement now that what the advocates of gas illumination consider to be the best system is not to be tested in experiments which it is assumed will test the value of the various lights? This is a very serious matter.
MR. CHAMBERLAIN: The further Question of the hon. Gentleman invites an argumentative reply; but I will answer it in this way. The experiments are intended to show the comparative value of gas and oil; and if they satisfactorily agree upon a point with regard, say, to three burners, then, inasmuch as the multiplication of burners would equally apply to gas and oil, there would be no necessity for continuing the experiments further. There are other and special reasons against such an experiment as has been suggested in the letter from the Elder Brethren from which I have quoted.
MR. GRAY: In consequence of the extremely unsatisfactory answer which the right hon. Gentleman has given, I beg to give Notice that I will call further attention to this matter.

SOUTH AMERICA-THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC—CLAIMS OF PATRICK CANTLON.
MR. GRAYasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the Foreign Office has received from Patrick Cantlon, of Chirilcoy, Buenos Ayres, a communication dated December 8th 1884, and addressed to Earl Granville, detailing outrages which were committed upon him by soldiers of the National Government during the Revolution in the Argentine Republic
94
in 1880; whether Mr. Egerton, the English Chargé d'Affaires at Buenos Ayres, has taken any action upon the representations made to him by Mr. Cantlon; and if not, would he state on what grounds; and, whether the Secretary of State has investigated the complaints set forth in Mr. Cantlon's memorial to him of December; and, if so, with what result?
LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: The letter referred to by the hon. Member has been received at the Foreign Office. Patrick Caution's claim for compensation has been officially supported by Mr. Egerton, by Sir Horace Rumbold, and his successors in charge of Her Majesty's Legation at Buenos Ayres; and on the 19th of January last an instruction was sent to Mr. Monson, Her Majesty's Minister to the Argentine Republic, directing him to urge the settlement of this claim upon the Argentine Government.

INLAND REVENUE STAMP OFFICE, DUBLIN.
MR. GRAYasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he is aware that the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, having opened an office at the Four Courts, Dublin, for the sale of stamps and collection of Duty, are now, in addition, selling all kinds of unstamped forms and papers at greatly reduced rates, some at half-price; whether he is aware that this latter proceeding, in regard to unstamped papers, inflicts considerable loss upon the law stationers; and, whether the Treasury will restrict the Commissioners to the sale of stamps and the collection of Duties?
MR. HIBBERT (for Mr. CHILDERS): The Inland Revenue Stamp Office at the Four Courts replaces the former licensed vendors; and, like them, it sells unstamped forms for the convenience of the Legal Profession and the public. These forms are sold at a rate which yields a reasonable profit to the State, besides being a convenience to the purchaser of stamps.
MR. GRAYasked, whether the hon. Gentleman was aware that the Office issued a Circular, stating that they were selling unstamped papers at half the price charged by traders; and, whether the Office would be permitted to enter into an unfair competition with traders?
MR. HIBBERTsaid, that the fact might be so; but a fair profit was realized.
MR. CALLAN: Does a similar practice prevail in England?
MR. HIBBERT: I have 110 doubt it does.
MR. GEAYgave Notice that he would put another Question on the subject.

THE QUEEN'S COLLEGE, GALWAY—PROFESSOR D'ARCY THOMPSON.
MR. GIBSONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, How long has Mr. D'Arcy Thompson been a Professor in the Queen's Colleges, Ireland; how long has he acted as Librarian in Galway College; who is Librarian in Belfast Queen's College, and when was he appointed; who is Librarian in Cork Queen's College, and when was ho appointed; and, why is Mr. D'Arcy Thompson not given an appointment of a similar tenure to that enjoyed by his colleagues in the other Colleges?
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Mr. D'Arcy Thompson was appointed Professor of Greek in Queen's College, Galway, in 1861. In January, 1877, he was selected for the post of acting librarian, at a time when the Government had under consideration the question of appointing librarians to the Queen's Colleges. He continued so to act until 1883, when an application was received from him that his appointment might be made permanent: but the Government did not consider it advisable to alter the then existing arrangement, and they certainly are not disposed at the present moment to create a new vested interest in connection with the Queen's Colleges. The present librarian at Belfast is Professor Meissner. He was appointed in July, 1882. The librarian at Cork is Mr. Caulfeild. He was appointed in January, 1876.

SOUTH AERICA—TROOPS FOR THE SOUDAN.
LORD EUSTACE CECILasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether any reply has been sent by Lord Wolse-ley to the offers made by Colonel Methuen and Sir 0. Warren of the services of 600 Cavalry and 1,000 Colonial and Boer sharpshooters in the Soudan; whether there is any foundation for the statement that has appeared in The
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Times of the 28th ult. that a proposal has been made to organise a force of 5,000 Zulus; and, whether, in view of the strain upon our very small Army at homo, that or any similar proposal for the employment of Native African troops in the Soudan is likely to meet with the favourable consideration of Her Majesty's Government?
THE MAEQUESS OF HARINGTON: I am not aware whether any answer has been sent by Lord Wolseley to the offer of services made by Colonel Methuen and Sir Charles Warren. I do not think there is any foundation for the statement that a proposal has been made to organize a force of 5,000 Zulus for the Soudan; but a proposition has been received from the Lieutenant Governor of Natal for the organization of a corps of Natives of that Colony. It would not be possible, until we have further information as to the progress of affairs in South Africa, to say whether we could take advantage of any of these offers. Of course, the subject will be kept under consideration. Lord Wolseley has expressed himself favourably with regard to the acceptance, with some modifications, of the proposal of Colonel Methuen and Sir Charles Warren.
LORD EUSTACE CECIL: Has Lord Wolseloy given an answer?
THE MAEQUESS OF HARTINGTON: I do not know whether he has sent any answer. I said that he transmitted the offers home. Neither do I know whether the offer has been made direct to Lord Wolseley.
MR. HEALYasked, whether Great Britain had ever employed any savages against white men since the American War.
[No reply.]

COMMISSIONERS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION (IRELAND)—RESULT OF SCHOOL EXAMINATIONS—SUPPLY TO SCHOOL MANAGERS.
MR. SEXTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with reference to his recent statement that the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland give to managers of schools on application particulars of the results obtained by teachers under their management in examinations for class promotion, Whether he is aware that the Commissioners have lately re-

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fused to give such information to managers, as being against the practice of the Department; and, whether the Commissioners still continue to allege any, and if so what, reason for refusing to inform a teacher, who applies to them directly, what marks in each subject and what total per-centage he had obtained in any examination?
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I understand that, through a mistake in the Education Office, an erroneous answer was, unfortunately, recently given to the manager of a school who applied on this subject; but the mistake has since been rectified, and is not likely to occur again. I should add to the answer I have already given the hon. Member on this subject, that the Commissioners invariably communicate to the managers the occurrence of success, as well as of failure at an examination; and that they are prohibited by their published rules from communicating directly with a teacher.
MR. SEXTONasked, whether any reason could be alleged why the Commissioners should refuse to give a teacher, who failed in an examination for promotion, such information as might enable him to remedy his deficiencies before the next examination?
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I understand that they will give such information on being applied to by the managers of schools.
MR. SEXTONsaid, that he would again call attention to the matter.

CRIME AND OUTRAGE (IRELAND)— FIGHT FOR A DRUM-FIVEMILE-TOWN PETTY SESSIONS.
MR. SEXTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the Irish Government have noticed that, in a case heard at the Five-miletown (Tyrone) Petty Sessions, on the 5th ultimo, by J. A. Pomeroy and Major E. Brown, justices, it was proved that a man named Sherry had gone, disguised, with others, into the dwelling-house of one Thomas Little, and, while his associates decoyed Mr. Little out of the house, had assaulted Mrs. Little, set fire to the house, and attempted to carry away a drum, but being prevented by the return of Mr. Little, made a dangerous assault upon him with a weapon known as a hook; whether Sergeant
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Green, the member of the Constabulary force in charge of the prosecution, applied to the justices named to send the case to a higher Court for trial, and whether the justices refused the application, inflicted on Sherry no heavier punishment than a fine of £3, and refused to award Thomas Little any compensation, either out of the fine or otherwise, for furniture broken and damaged by Sherry; whether Thomas Little and Mr. Pomeroy, one of the justices, were some time since opposing litigants; and, what action the Government will take in reference to the case?
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: This case arose out of the disputed possession of a drum, which had been purchased by subscription by an Orange Lodge, and which Thomas Little, who had it in his keeping, had declined to give up. On the evening of the occurrence, Sherry, with another man, entered Little's house; and while his companion induced Little to leave the house, Sherry attempted to abstract the drum, but was prevented by Little's wife, whose shouts brought her husband to her assistance, and he, seeing what was going on, struck Sherry with a shovel, and attempted to stab him with a pitchfork, but was prevented by his wife. Sherry then succeeded in making his escape, but without the drum. There was no satisfactory evidence given as to Sherry being disguised, and it was not shown that he violently assaulted Little or his wife, or, in fact, did anything beyond struggling to carry off the drum. The allegation as to his setting fire to the house is based on the fact that, in trying to get at the drum, he upset a lamp; and the weapon "known as a hook" was an instrument apparently intended to cut down the drum which was hanging from the rafters of the house. The police did apply to have the case returned for trial; but the magistrates considered the requirements of the case would be met by fining Sherry £3 and 5. 6d. costs. I am informed that there had been litigation between Little and Mr. Pomeroy, one of the magistrates; but having regard to what I have stated, I think justice was done in the present case, and that there is no reason for interference.
MR. SEXTONasked, whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that the police were so dissatisfied with the

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decision of the magistrates that they gave notice of appeal?
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Yes; I am aware of it.

THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES— QUEENSLAND—MOVEMENT FOR SEPARATION.
SIR H. DEUMMOND WOLFFasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether any movement has taken place in Queensland for a division of that Colony; and, whether Her Majesty's Government have taken any decision thereon?
MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: No doubt, there is somewhat of such a movement in Northern Queensland, chiefly in consequence of the inability of employers in the Northern district to obtain Indian and other coloured labour which they require. Her Majesty's Government have not yet found themselves called upon to take any decision thereon. But, in consequence of communications they have received, they have asked the Colonial Ministry for any expression of their views on the subject which they may be disposed to give. Her Majesty's Government has, at the same time, intimated that they would be very reluctant to advise a separation of part of the Colony, if the wishes and requirements of the residents in that part can be otherwise fairly met, in so far as, after due inquiry, they may be found to be just and reasonable.

EGYPT (FINANCE, &c).
SIR H. DEUMMOND WOLFFasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he will give a tabular Return of the Revenue and Expenditure of Egypt, together with a list of the Loans, with the annual charges thereon, whether for interest or sinking fund, and the amount received from the sources of revenue respectively hypothecated to them?
LORD EDMOND FITZMAUEICE: There will be no objection to prepare the Return for presentation to Parliament.

PIER AND HARBOUR WORKS (ENGLAND AND WALES).
MR. W. J. COEBETasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, If he will lay upon the Table of the House a
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Return showing the Pier and Harbour Works commenced since the Act 46 and 47 Vic. c. 26, became Law; the amount of the contract in each case; when no contract has been taken the amount sanctioned for each work; the amount expended up to the present time; the works sanctioned but not yet commenced; the amount of the contract in such cases; and the dates when the work is likely to be commenced?
MR. HIBBERT: I think a Return to the general effect suggested would be useful, and that the 31st of this month would be a convenient date up to which to complete it. I will cause such a Return to be prepared accordingly.

EGYPT (MILITARY EXPEDITION)— THE SUPPLIES.
DR. CAMERONasked the Secretary of State for War, with reference to the statement of the War Correspondent of The Morning Post that a quantity of supplies sent up the Nile for the use of our troops in the Soudan had been rendered useless in consequence of having been packed in trade cases, Whether, in addition to the 25 per cent, loss reported on articles comprised as grocery rations and packed in the Government Establishment at Woolwich, any loss has been reported in articles of supply sent out in trade cases; and, if so, what loss, and in what articles; and, if he would state by whom these articles were bought, and whether they were inspected; and, if so, by whom, previous to their despatch from this Country?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: No Nile supplies were packed in what are technically known as "trade cases;" but special packages were provided by contractors in accordance with samples decided on by the Committee on Nile Boat Service. As I stated on the 27th of February, these were designedly made lighter than ordinary field cases. Losses are reported in the following articles:—Bacon, cheese, biscuits, pickles, soap, and matches. The exact loss will not be known until the supplies are all opened for use; but the average loss on these articles is estimated at about 12 tier cent from all causes, including total loss by wreckage and upsetting of boats, theft, climate, and damage to packages. The proportion of loss due to defective packing alone cannot be stated until the detailed accounts are received. The

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articles were purchased in the usual way by the Director of Army Contracts. The quality was determined by the Special Committee on Nile Boat Service; and the contractors' deliveries were tested by Commissariat and medical officers at Woolwich. It is reported from Korti that the quality of every article was found, without exception, to be excellent.

THE EXTRA POLICE TAX, LIMERICK.
MR. LEWISasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, What steps the Government intend to take to realise the amount due from the Corporation of Limerick in respect of extra police duty, which has been recovered against the Corporation by verdict of a competent court in Ireland?
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I can only refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply which I gave, on the 4th of December last, to a Question of the noble Viscount the Member for County Fermanagh (Viscount Crichton) on this subject, and add that a Bill which will include this among other matters, is now being prepared.

MUNICIPAL FRANCHISE (IRELAND)— ASSIMILATION TO ENGLISH FRANCHISE.
MR. HEALYasked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, When the Government propose to assimilate the Irish Municipal Franchise to that of England?
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN(who replied): The Government are fully alive to the defects in the existing municipal franchise in Ireland and to the desirableness of legislating on the subject; which, however, is one of those which must be included in the general statement already made, that no announcement of the Government's programme of legislation for the Session can be looked for until further progress has been made with the Parliamentary Elections (Redistribution) Bill.
MR. HEALYsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman, in replying to a previous Question, said a Bill was being prepared. Was that being done in this case?
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, that a Bill was being prepared; but that they could not make any fur-
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ther statement until some progress was made with the Parliamentary Elections (Redistribution) Bill.
MR. HEALY: Will this Bill have precedence of the coercion measure referred to?
[No reply.]

SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE ACT AMENDMENT BILL—REDUCTION OF THE IRISH BENCH.
MR. HEALYasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, To what purpose it is proposed to apply the £25,000 per annum to be saved by the Irish Judicature Act Amendment Bill?
MR. T. A. DICKSON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, Whether the Government are really serious about pressing forward this Bill this Session?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): Yes, Sir. In reply to the Question of the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), I have to say that there will be little or no immediate saving effected by the Bill; but, ultimately, when all the Judges whose places are not to be filled have retired, and their pensions have lapsed by death, the saving will be about £17,000 a-year. There will be no special application of the saving; but the charge on the Consolidated Fund will be diminished by that amount. The hon. and learned Gentleman should remember that the salary list of the Irish Judicial Bench is now more than one-half that of the English, although the population is only a little over one-sixth, and it is nearly twice that of the Scotch, although Ireland has less than one-third additional population.
MR. GIBSON: I rise to Order. The right hon. Gentleman has been asked a Question, and he has answered it. He is now making a speech, going into matters of a debatable nature?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): No, Sir; I am giving to the House and the hon. and learned Gentleman who has asked me a certain Question as to the saving of expense in the Irish Courts, some figures to show what that expense is. I think that is entirely relevant to the Question. In England the Court fees received cover the cost of the administrative department; but in Ireland there is a deficit charged to the taxpayer.
MR. GIBSON: I must again rise to Order. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, if the right hon. Gentleman is in Order, having answered the Question, to go into these matters, which are subjects of debate and discussion?
MR. SPEAKEE: I understand the right hon. Gentleman is only stating facts in answer to the Question.
THE OH ANOELLOE OF THE EXCHEQUEE (Mr. CHILDERS): I will repeat what I was stating when the right hon. and learned Gentleman interrupted me—that in England the Court fees cover the cost of the administrative department, whereas in Ireland there is a deficit charged on the taxpayers of £70,000 a-year MR. HEALY: I beg to give Notice that unless the saving of £17,000 a-year effected by this Bill be applied to some useful Irish object, I will give the Bill my most determined opposition.
MR. AETHUE O'CONNOEasked, whether it was intended to apply any of the saving to the purpose of the Judicial Bench in England?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUEE (Mr. CHILDERS): Certainly not.

COURT OF BANKRUPTCY (IRELAND)— RETURNS FOR 1883 AND 1884.
MR. ARTHUE O'CONNOEasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether he would furnish a Return showing the number of petitions filed in the Court of Bankruptcy in Ireland in the years 1883 and 1884 respectively, distinguishing the petitions from the districts of Cork, Belfast, Derry, Gal-way, and Limerick on which it is proposed by the Local Court of Bankruptcy (Ireland) Bill to confer a local jurisdiction; and showing the estimated assets available for dividend in each district?
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN(who replied) said: There is no objection to this Return being given.

ISLANDS OF THE WESTERN PACIFIC-SAMOA AND TONGA.
MR. GORSTasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Sir Edward Malet has given the assurances referred to in a Foreign Office Telegram of 4th December 1884, that Great Britain will respect the independence of Samoa and Tonga; whether reciprocal assurances have been received
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from the German Government; and, whether there is any objection to lay upon the Table the Documents in which these reciprocal assurances are recorded?
LORD EDMOND FITZMAUEICE: Sir Edward Malet did give the assurances referred to in accordance with his Instructions, and reciprocal assurances were received from the German Government. The documents recording those assurances have already been laid in the Parliamentary Papers on New Guinea presented last month (C. 4,273), and are numbered 73,136, and 181.
MR. GORST: May I ask whether the German Government considers itself bound by the statements made in the despatch of Lord Granville to Sir Edward Malet?
LORD EDMOND FITZMAUEIOE: I must ask for Notice of the Question.

NORTH BORNEO.
MR. GOESTasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether any Protocol has been drawn up at Madrid, to which Her Majesty's Government is to be a party, recognising British sovereignty over North Borneo; and, if so, when and in what manner such sovereignty was acquired?
LORD EDMOND FITZMAUEIOE: No Protocol has been drawn up at Madrid recognizing British Sovereignty over North Borneo.

THE MAGISTRACY (IRELAND)—BALLY-MENA BENCH OF MAGISTRATES.
MR. MOOREasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the Government have taken, or propose to take, any steps to modify the constitution of the Ballymeny bench of magistrates; and, whether it is a fact that there is still not a single Roman Catholic magistrate on the bench, whilst seven of the justices in the one district are closely related to one another by ties of blood relationship or marriage?
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No well-grounded complaint as to the Ballymena Bench of Magistrates has ever been brought under the notice of the Lord Chancellor, who informs me that, whatever ties of relationship may subsist between some of the magistrates, they appear to discharge their duties in a proper manner. I understand there is no Roman Catholic on this Bench. The

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name of one gentleman of that persuasion was submitted to the Lord Chancellor, but the Lieutenant of the county-declined to recommend him for the Commission; and the Lord Chancellor, after some correspondence, came to the conclusion that he would not be warranted in overruling Lord Waveney's decision.
MR. CALLAN: In reference to the answer just given by the right hon. Gentleman with reference to the Lord Lieutenant of the County Antrim, May I ask, is it a fact that Lord Waveney, the present Lord Lieutenant of the county, is the first name to a recommendation in favour of the same person made in the year 1882; also, whether it is a fact that a recommendation was made of this gentleman, signed by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Down and Connor, the then Lord Lieutenant of the county, Sir Edward MacNaghten; and, also, whether the present Lord Lieutenant of the county has not, in this case, refused his own recommendation?
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I will ask the hon. Member to put down this Question on the Paper. I cannot answer without Notice.
MR. CALLAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware whether that is a fact?
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I am not.
MR. SEXTON: I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman, who has given his admission to the fact that there is no Catholic on this Bench, whether the Lord Chancellor, when any complaint is made, refers to the Lord Lieutenant of the county, who is generally a fossilized Tory?
[No reply.]

THE ORDNANCE SURVEY—HUNDRED OF CHIPPENHAM.
SIR GABRIEL GOLDNEYasked the Junior Lord of the Treasury, When the Ordnance maps, on the scale of 25 inches to the mile, for the Hundred of Chippenham, in the county of Wilts, the survey of which was completed last summer, will be issued?
MR. HERBERT GLADSTONE: The map in question will be published towards the end of this year. A portion only of the work was completed last summer; the final out-of-doors operations are being completed now.

LABOURERS' (IRELAND) ACT, 1883— RATES OF INTEREST.
MR. O'SULLIVANasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Whether an order has been issued for reducing the rate of interest charged to Boards of Guardians in Ireland for loans under the Labourers' (Ireland) Act; and, if not, if the Treasury intend charging a higher rate of interest for loans under "The Labourers' Act, 1883," than they charge for loans under the Land Act of 1881?
MR. HIBBERT: The rate of interest for these loans has been reconsidered; and as soon as the Bill introduced by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland has become law, the Treasury will fix the rates of interest at 3¼ per cent for loans repayable in 35 years, 3½ per cent for loans repayable in 40 years, and 3¾ per cent for a longer term, subject always to the sufficiency of the security. This is a reduction of ¼ per cent or more on the present rates of interest.

POST OFFICE (IRELAND)—THE SUB-POSTMASTER AT CRAANFORD, CO. WEXFORD.
MR. WILLIAM REDMONDasked the Postmaster General, Whether it is a fact that Mr. Edward Byrne, Sub-Postmaster of Craanford, in the county of Wexford, was threatened with dismissal by the Post Office authorities in Dublin because meetings of a branch of the National League were held at Craanford, in the same house as the Post Office; whether, if this be so, there is any rule prohibiting the meetings of political Constitutional Committees in a house, part of which is used as a Post Office; and, whether this rule is in force in England as well as Ireland?
MR. SHAW LEFEVRE,in reply, said, that it was not the case that the threat of dismissal had been made. The man had applied to the Postal Authorities for advice, and was informed that the Department always discouraged its officials from connecting themselves with political agitations.
MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: In connection with the answer to the Question, I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman, Whether or not it is a fact that Mr. Edward Byrne, sub-postmaster of Craanford, as a matter of fact, was not taking any active part in the Na-

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tional League movement; and, whether he had no further connection with the movement, except that in one of the rooms of the post-office meetings of the National League were held?
MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: I can only repeat my answer. I am not aware whether rooms in the post-office were let for that purpose.
MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: The right hon. Gentleman has stated that no threat of dismissal was held out to the sub-postmaster of Craanford. I would like to know whether it is not actually a fact that the Post Office Authorities compelled Mr. Byrne to give a written undertaking or agreement that he would not allow National League meetings to be held in the house where the post-office was, and that the alternative to signing this agreement was that he should be dismissed? I believe I have a copy of this undertaking that is denied in my possession.
MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: The answer I have given is the only one I can give.
MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman—[Cries of "Oh!" and "Order!"] Very well; I beg to give Notice that on to-morrow afternoon I shall ask Whether it is a fact that the Post Office Authorities compelled Mr. Byrne to give a written undertaking, with the alternative of dismissal, that he would not allow National League meetings to be held in the house?

EGYPT (MILITARY EXPEDITION)— CHAPLAINS IN THE SOUDAN.
MR. J. G. TALBOTasked the Secretary of State for War, How many chaplains are attached to the expeditionary force under Lord Wolseley, and how they are distributed; whether any chaplains were attached to the advanced force under Sir Herbert Stewart; how many chaplains are attached to the troops now7 on their way to Suakin from England and India; and, whether it is intended that any chaplains should be attached to the advanced forces in the field, to minister to the sick and wounded?
MR. BUCHANAN: May I ask the noble Marquess in his answer to give the number of Presbyterian chaplains with the various forces in Egypt?
THE MAEQUESS OF HARTINGTON: According to the latest Returns received,
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which are for the 1st of January, the chaplains with Lord Wolseley's Expedition were distributed as follows:—Church of England, one at Dongola, two at Wady Haifa; Roman Catholic, one eaeh at Dongola, Wady Haifa, and Assouan; Presbyterian, one at Wady Haifa, and one at Assouan; Wesleyan, one at Assouan. Probably at the present date this distribution has changed by the move of several chaplains more to the front. So far as I am aware, there was not a chaplain with the Force under the late Sir Herbert Stewart. The chaplains attached to Sir Gerald Graham's Force are two Church of England, two Roman Catholic, one Presbyterian, and one Wesleyan. The question of sending chaplains with an advanced Force is for the General in immediate command to decide. With reference to the Question of which the hon. Member for Edinburgh City (Mr. Buchanan) has given me private Notice, there are two Presbyterian chaplains in Lower Egypt, of whom one is at Cairo and the other at Alexandria.
MR. BUCHANAN: Is there any Presbyterian chaplain with Lord Wolseley's Force at Korti?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: I have stated that the Presbyterian chaplains are—one at Wady Haifa, and one at Assouan.

NATIONAL DEBT (CONVERSION OF STOCK) ACT—CONVERSION OF CONSOLS —THE COINAGE BILL.
MR. COLERIDGE KENNARDasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether, during the present Session of Parliament, Her Majesty's Government intend to develop the scheme for the conversion of 3 per cent. Consols into a 2¾ per cent, and 2½ per cent. Stock by the exercise of compulsory powers; and, whether he can relieve the uncertainty in the minds of the recipients of weekly wages as to the real value of the half-sovereign, by announcing his determination not to re-introduce the Coinage Bill, which converted the gold ten shilling piece into a token of the intrinsic value of nine shillings?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDBES): In reply to the first part of the Question, I have to say that the National Debt (Conversion of Stock) Act, passed on the 3rd of July last, gave to Her Majesty's Government two

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years in which to offer optional conversions of Debt. I have no communication on the subject to make to Parliament at this moment. As to the second part of the Question, I have to remind the hon. Member that the intrinsic value of the silver coins which the recipient of weekly wages is bound to accept for a payment of 10s. is not quite 7s. 5d. I do not think that, under such circumstances, any sensible recipient of weekly wages requires his mind to be relieved on that subject.
LORD JOHN MANNERS: Is it intended to re-introduce the Coinage Bill?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDEES): As the noble Lord is well aware, I am not in a position at this moment to state whether or not the Bill will be re-introduced this year.

ARMY (INDIA)—BOUNTIES TO SOLDIERS.
GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURasked the Under Secretary of State for India, To state the nature and extent of information which the India Office Records can supply in regard to the amount paid in bounties to induce men of the European garrison of India to volunteer to remain in India, and the rates of bounty paid, the annual cost and number of men who have volunteered from the different branches of the service in each year from 1869–70 to latest year?
MR. J. K. CROSS: The India Office Records do not afford any means of giving the information required; but I shall be glad to furnish my hon. and gallant Friend with Papers showing the cost and effect of the special grant of bounty during the last 18 months.

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT—LOANS TO SCHOOL BOARDS.
MR. JAMESasked the Vice President of the Committee of Council, Whether he has received any communication from the Treasury with respect to the Memorial presented to the Education Department in July 1884, on the terms of the rate of interest and annual instalments made to the Public Works Loan Commissioners by School Boards, for the purposes of school buildings in poor and populous localities.
MR. MUNDELLA: I have received a reply from the Treasury to the Memorial presented in July last. It has already been laid on the Table of this House, and, I understand, will be issued to-morrow. The Treasury have agreed to reduce their rate for loans, and to charge 3½ per cent up to 35 years, the period for the currency of loans, which, should, in their opinion, be normal. In loans up to 40 years the rate will be 3¾ and up to 50 4 per cent. They are also prepared to accept repayment of loans up to 30 years in the form of a fixed annuity, instead of by equal annual instalments as heretofore.

PUBLIC MEETINGS-THE RIOTS AT ASTON HALL, BIRMINGHAM.
SIR FREDERICK MILNER,who had given Notice of a Question relating to the Aston riots, said, he thought he might save some time and anxiety to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade if he were to state that he put the Question with no animus whatever. ["Oh, oh!"] He had not been instigated by, nor been in communication with, any members of the Conservative Party at Birmingham, and he unearthed the hatchet, if it could be so called, entirely on his own responsibility.
MR. SPEAKERinterposing, said, the hon. Member must confine himself to putting the Question.
SIR FREDERICK MILNERthen asked the President of the Board of Trade, If his attention has been called to the trial and conviction of Peter Joyce, alias Larry Mack, at Birmingham, on March 2nd, for uttering a false, scandalous, and malicious libel against Mr. R. C. Jarvis, a gentleman of Birmingham; whether his attention has further been called to the summing up of the learned Judge, who stated that—
"They had heard Mr. Jarvis was a very respectable gentleman in Birmingham, and he had no doubt that he was; hut, if he had been guilty of the conduct charged upon him, all his respectability of character would not avail against truth;"
and, again—
"He also thought they would have no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the libel was as false as it was wicked, scandalous, and malicious;"
and, whether he is now prepared to retract and apologise for an allegation put forward by him concerning

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the character of an honourable gentleman, which has been proved before Judge and Jury to have been a scandalous and malicious libel? He also wished to ask a Question of which he had given the right hon. Gentleman private Notice—namely, Whether the right hon. Gentleman's attention had been further called to the expression of opinion on the part of the learned Judge that the affidavits of these roughs had been taken by the solicitors to the Liberal Association without due caution such as should have been shown by
"Officers of this High Court, and persons in whom the country reposed great confidence;"
and, further—
"that unless there was some responsible person, who had not been produced at the trial, who vouched for all these people who had made affidavits, then Messrs. Norton and Redfern's conduct was deserving of great blame?"
MR. CHAMBERLAIN: I can well believe the statement of the hon. Baronet, that he has not put the Question at the request of the Conservative Party at Birmingham; for I believe the local leaders of that Party much regret that this matter should have been again raised. The addition which the hon. Baronet has made to it was only communicated to me after I came to the House. It consists, as far as I can gather, of an additional extract from the summing up of the learned Judge. I have had no opportunity of comparing it with the reports in the newspapers, and I cannot say whether it is correct or not. In any case, however, I should not think it my duty to make any comment on the remarks of the learned Judge in his summing up. The hon. Baronet appears to be incompletely informed as to the circumstances referred to in his Question. It appears that the defence in the case of Peter Joyce was that he was not the person who made the declaration which was the subject of the prosecution; and, under these circumstances, no evidence whatever was tendered on his behalf as to the truth or otherwise of the alleged libel. I do not know how the learned Judge arrived at his conclusion; but I assume that, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, he accepted the denial of Mr. Jarvis, the person referred to in the declaration. As the hon. Baronet has thought fit to revive this matter, I have to point out that the
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truth of the declaration was made the subject of another inquiry held before the stipendiary magistrate, when a man named Reed was prosecuted by Mr. Jarvis for libel. On that occasion, Mr. Jarvis denied the truth of the statements contained in the statutory declaration, but he admitted, in cross-examination, that he had given tickets to roughs to go to Aston, and that numbers of these roughs had come to his shop the day after the demonstration, declaring that he had engaged them, and claiming payment for their services to the Conservative Party. He also admitted that in the case of one man ho had sent him to Mr. Barton, the secretary of the Conservative Association, with his private card. After hearing that and other evidence for the prosecution, the stipendiary dismissed the charge without calling for evidence for the defence. Under these circumstances, I have nothing to add to an answer which I gave to a similar Question by the hon. Baronet on 23rd of February last.

RUSSIA AND AFGHANISTAN—SIR PETER LUMSDEN, CHIEF BOUNDARY COMMISSIONER.
SIR HENRY TYLERasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether Sir Peter Lumsden, feeling aggrieved at the position in which he was placed, tendered his resignation to Her Majesty's Government; whether he has since received such assurances of support as have induced him cordially to consent to continue his duties; and, whether the Ameer of Affghanistan, after having expressed alarm, has been reassured as to the intentions of Her Majesty's Government to maintain and support the integrity of his territories?
LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: I stated on Tuesday the instructions which had been given to Sir Peter Lumsden and the advice by him tendered to the Afghan authorities; but I must decline to answer the Question which the hon. Member, under a misapprehension as to what has passed, has asked as to the alleged resignation of Sir Peter Lumsden. There is no reason to doubt that the Ameer, after the assurances he has received, reposes perfect confidence in Her Majesty's Government, and his approaching visit to India is the best evidence of it.

GENERAL GORDON'S DIARY.
MR. STEWART MACLIVERasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If the Diary of General Gordon, which is now on its way to the Foreign Office, will be laid upon the Table of the House, after it has been received?
MR. W. H. JAMESasked the following Question, of which he had given private Notice:—Whether,in view of the publication of these Diaries, the Government would put themselves in possession of the views of General Gordon's nearest.
THE MARRQUESS OF HAETINGTON: Perhaps I may be allowed to answer these Questions. I think I have already stated that, until General Gordon's diaries are received, it will be impossible for us to give any absolute pledge as to what will be done with them. I may add, in explanation, that we really do not know what will be the character of those diaries. If they were, as was the diary of General Stewart, which was prepared under General Gordon's direction, a sort of substitute for despatches, they will, of course, be treated in the same way as other public documents, and the Government will be responsible for the disposal of them. If, on the other hand, it appears that they are of a private character, of course the relatives of General Gordon will be consulted. But, as I have said, until the documents have been received, it will be impossible to state in what manner they will be disposed of.

EGYPT (WAR IN THE SOUDAN)—MILITARY CO-OPERATION OF THE COLONIES.
MR. A. M ARTHURasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, If he will lay upon the Table of the House a Copy of the answer sent to the Australian Colonies, in reply to their offer of Troops for the Soudan?
MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: I hope that in a few days all the Papers connected with this matter will be in the hands of hon. Members. "With reference to what has fallen from my hon. Friend behind me, I will not anticipate what these Papers will show beyond saying that, nowhere will it be found that at any time, or on any occasion, were the offers of Canada or of any of the Australian Colonies declined.
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The only doubt ever entertained or expressed was as to the date at which, from a military point of view, the offers could best be availed of. As an epitome of how the matter stands, I will read an extract from a telegram, the last of a series, which has, a few days ago, been sent to Victoria, South Australia, and Queensland—
"Her Majesty's Government are carefully considering the patriotic offer of troops. While the disposal of further contingents during the summer heat in the Soudan would he most difficult to arrange, if Colony, either independently, or acting jointly with others, can despatch force in August to arrive in Egypt in Septemher, Her Majesty's Government will most gladly receive it."
SIR H. DEUMMOND WOLFF: Will my hon. Friend lay on the Table that despatch, with the date on which it was sent?
MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: Yes, certainly.

EGYPT (MILITARY EXPEDITION)— LORD WOLSELEY'S ADDRESS TO THE TROOPS.
SIR HENEY TYLERasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he would telegraph to Lord Wolseley, asking him to forward the text of the speech recently addressed by him to the troops of General Gordon at Korti?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: In reference to this subject, I stated, the other day, that we had no official Report as to the observations said to have been made by Lord Wolseley in addressing the Native troops at Korti. I do not propose to telegraph to Lord Wolseley, asking him to forward the text of his speech, or otherwise to call his attention to the matter. He is, as I said before, in receipt of the Instructions of Her Majesty's Government, and we have full confidence in the manner in which he has carried out and will continue to carry out those Instructions. I do not think it would be desirable to indicate any want of confidence in Lord Wolseley by calling upon him for constant explanations of statements made by newspaper correspondents.

EGYPT (EVENTS IN THE SOUDAN).
SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether there is truth in the following items of recent news from the seat of war in the Soudan:—

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"The so-called friendly tribes are rapidly becoming very unfriendly since they do not see immediate prospect of farther gain by friendliness."—(Several Papers.)
"The destruction of property by British troops has caused a feeling of intense hostility on the part of the tribes between Korti and Abu Hamad."—[Times, March 2nd.)
"The weather at Korti is becoming hotter and hotter, and several cases of typhoid have already occurred."
"Lord Wolseley's eyes have been affected by the climate of the Soudan."—[Standard, March 3rd);
and, whether, in view of the great losses which must necessarily occur when the real hot weather shortly sets in, Her Majesty's Government will consider the expediency of bringing the troops back by water in comparative comfort without delay, and dealing with the Mahdi by peace or by war at a more convenient season?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: We have no information to the effect that the so-called friendly tribes are rapidly becoming very unfriendly, although. Lord Wolseley has intimated that there is some doubt as to the disposition of the tribe of which Hussein Pasha Kalifa was Chief. Lord Wolseley said that Chief was in the Mahdi's camp; and it would be unwise, in those circumstances, to rely upon them. We have no confirmation of the report that the destruction of property by British troops has excited a feeling of intense hostility on the part of the tribes between Korti and Abu Hamad. As to the statement that the weather at Korti is becoming hotter and hotter, and several cases of typhoid have already occurred, we have received no report to that effect. In fact, almost all the sickness that has taken place for a considerable time past has consisted of cases of enteric fever; but we have not heard that the prevalence of that complaint has recently increased. We have received no report as to the alleged statement as to Lord Wolseley's eyes being affected by the climate of the Soudan; and, in regard to the last part of the Question, for reasons stated more fully in the recent debate, Her Majesty's Government do not think it would be expedient to bring back the troops by water from the positions they now occupy.
MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked whether it was the case that the British Authorities had furnished the tribe spe-
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cifically alluded to by the noble Marquess with 1,000 rifles?
THE MARQUESS OE HAETINGTON: That may have been done some time ago. I have no recollection of the matter having occurred recently.

PARLIAMENT—PRIVATE BUSINESS— RAILWAY RATES AND CHARGES BILLS.
MR. R. H. PAGETasked the Chairman of Ways and Means, Whether he has had under his consideration the Bills promoted by nine of the principal Railway Companies, proposing important changes in the incidence of Railway Bates, which are exciting public attention throughout the Country; and, whether he will, in concert with the promoters and opponents of these Bills, fix a day, as soon as practicable, when these important Bills may be fully discussed on Second Reading?
SIR ARTHUR OTWAY: The Bills to which the hon. Gentleman refers have been brought to my notice here, and I have received several communications relating to them which show the great interest and importance attached to them elsewhere. The practice of the House with regard to such Bills is as follows:—When Bills promoted by a Company already constituted by Act of Parliament have been read a first time they are referred to the Examiners, under Standing Order 62, who report to the House that the requirements of the Standing Order relating to the Wharncliffe meeting have been complied with or otherwise. In the event of non-compliance, the question is referred to the Committee on Standing Orders. Under Standing Order 204, the Bill must be read a second time not later than seven clear days after the Report of the Examiner or of the Committee on Standing Orders, as the case may be. There is, however, no rule fixing the time for the Examiner to hold his inquiry, and, in fact, it depends entirely on the notice he receives from the promoters requesting him to hold it. Under these circumstances, it is not in my power to suggest any day for the second reading of these Bills; but I am of opinion that it is very desirable they should all be discussed together, in order to save the time of the House. The same principle, practically, is involved, and the judgment of the House would, I apprehend, govern the

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others. There is no doubt that the importance of these Bills requires that ample Notice should be given of the time fixed or their discussion, and I will communicate with the agents for the Bills with a view to insure this being done.

EGYPT (WAR IN THE SOUDAN)— THE SUAKIN-BERBER EXPEDITION.
SIR GEOEGE CAMPBELLasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether, since the advance of British Troops by the Nile towards Berber is now stopped, he will also stop any infructuous advance on the Bed Sea side, except such as may be possible before the greatest heat, and without undue risk, to facilitate the retirement of the garrison of Kassala; and, if that garrison cannot be relieved on such conditions, whether they will be immediately informed that they had better come to terms with their co-religionists and countrymen?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON,in reply, said, he had no reason to think that General Graham or Lord Wolseley, under whose general orders General Graham was placed, would be disposed to make any advance during the hot weather. The campaign under Sir Gerald Graham would, no doubt, be governed by the conditions of climate and by other considerations referred to in the Question.
In reply to a further Question by Sir GEORGE CAMPBELL,
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he had no doubt that if General Graham found it was possible for him to do anything to facilitate the relief of the garrison of Kassala he would do so; but he did not imagine that it would be possible for General Graham on his arrival to make any movement in that direction.
MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTasked, whether the Government adhered to the statement, which was practically a death warrant, that Kassala was outside the sphere of British operations, or whether they would make some statement to counteract the impression which had been created?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON,in reply, said, that Kassala was the subject of the next Question to which his noble Friend the Under Secretary of State for Foreign, Affairs would reply.

EGYPT (WAR IN THE SOUDAN;- KASSALA.
SIR FREDERICK MILNERasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If it is a fact that the operations of Major Chermside for procuring relief for the garrison of Kassala are seriously impeded by the occupation of Massowah by Italian troops; and, whether Her Majesty's Government will take any steps to persuade the Italian Government themselves to undertake the relief of that beleaguered town?
LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: Her Majesty's Government have received no information of the nature suggested in the first portion of the hon. Baronet's Question. The Italian Government are in possession of all the particulars known with regard to the condition of the garrison of Kassala, and Her Majesty's Government must leave to them the decision as to the steps which they may consider it advisable to take.
MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTgave Notice that, on the first opportunity, he should call attention to the abandonment of the garrison of Kassala.
MR. O'KELLYsaid, he would suggest that the Government should learn whether it was possible to send information to the Commander of the troops at Kassala to surrender when he could get terms from the Mahdi.
MR. MACFARLANEasked as to the possibility of the garrison retiring to the Abyssinian frontier?
LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICEsaid, he must refer the hon. Member to his statement on the subject made in the recent debate.

LAW AND JUSTICE (IRELAND)—"THE QUEEN v. RYAN "—KILRUSH QUARTER SESSIONS.
MR. KENNYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If the attention of the Irish Government has been called to an incident at the Kilrush, county Clare, Quarter Sessions, on the 2nd January last, as follows: In the case of The Queen v. Ryan (for larceny) the Defendant pleaded "not guilty" The long panel was called and a jury empanelled, case tried, and jury discharged on disagreement. Immediately after, the County Court Judge resumed the cases of action in Civil Bill

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Court, when a litigated case of O'Brien v. M'Grath was called on. One of the witnesses for Defendant was John Griffin, of Querrin, a farmer, and one of the jurors who served in the case of The Queen v. Ryan. Immediately after he gave his evidence in the civil case the County Court Judge, addressing him, said "Come now, tell me, were you not a juror in Ryan's case, just tried?"—Answer: "I was, Sir;" Judge: "Were you for convicting or acquitting him?"—Answer: "I was for letting him free;" if, in questioning a juror with regard to what transpired in the jury room, Mr. Kelly did not exceed his right; if it is not a fact that, upon at least one previous occasion, the Lords Justices have called upon Mr. Kelly for an explanation of his conduct as Judge; and, if in this instance similar inquiry will be made, in order to stop a dangerous and unconstitutional proceeding?
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: This Question has been referred to the County Court Judge for his observations, and he writes as follows:—
"Sir,—In reply to your letter of yesterday, I beg to state that I did substantially ask the question referred to in the Parliamentary Notice of which you enclosed me a copy. I did so not seriously, nor with the view of requiring any answer. The witness, to the amusement of the crowd in Court, immediately replied that ho did not know the meaning of the words 'acquittal' or 'conviction,' but that 'he was for setting the man free.'
"The question and answer had no bearing or effect upon the result of either the criminal case in which Griffin was a juror or of the civil case in which he was a witness."
It would have been better if this incident had not occurred; but I think it may not unreasonably be regarded as a jocular interlude, in an unguarded moment, between the Judge and the witness, and that it is not a matter in which the Executive can further interfere.

PIERS AND HARBOURS (IRELAND)— ARKLOW HARBOUR.
MR. W. J. CORBETasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, What is the amount of the contract for the construction of the Arklow Harbour works; what will be the extra cost of repairing the foundations of the breakwater that have given way; will such extra cost fall either in whole or in part on the local rates, or will it be met by Treasury disbursements; and, will the Treasury
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send some independent engineer, not connected with the Board of "Works, to examine the condition of the breakwater, and Report upon the extent and nature of the injury?
MR. HIBBERT: The amount of the contract is £27,891, towards which a free grant of £15,000 will be made. It is not possible yet, owing to the weather, to say what extra cost there will be, but it is expected to be small. Any excess over the estimate will be met by loan, in accordance with the Act. The Treasury are not prepared to send another engineer to the spot, as it would involve extra expenses; but I will call for a special Report as to the state of the foundations.

CUSTOMS ANNUITY AND BENEVOLENT FUND.
MR. DAWSONasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the Customs Annuity and Benevolent Fund was established for the benefit of the widows and children of Her Majesty's Customs; whether the directors of the Customs Fund, with the consent of the Treasury, purchased the patent of an office called the Clerkship of the Bills of Entry; whether the patent was renewed on certain conditions in 1846; whether the profits applicable to the charity had not then reached from £8,000 to £10,000 per annum; whether the Lords of the Treasury, in 1881, took away the entire business without giving any compensation to the Benevolent Fund, on which depends the welfare of the future widows and officers of fifteen hundred insurers; and, whether the Government proposes to compensate the charity for this great loss?
THE CHANCELLOEOF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDBES): In reply to the hon. Member, I have to state that the facts of the case are as follows:—In 1817, the Directors of the Customs Annuity and Benevolent Fund purchased, for an annual payment of £2,000, the interest of the Lewis family in the Patent under which they held the office of the "Clerk of the Bills of the Customs," or "Bill of Entry," as it afterwards came to be called, the Patent being renewed to them for 31 years. In 1848, the Patent was again renewed on certain conditions—for instance, a reduction in the price at which the publication was sold—for a further period of 31 years. In 1879, the renewed

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Patent lapsed, and all rights under it were extinguished. Her Majesty's then Government had meanwhile appointed a Committee to inquire into the whole matter, and they refused to renew the Patent, not considering it right that their servants should make a profit out of the sale of Government information. The clerks employed on the "Bill of Entry" work were offered the option of continuing their employment on behalf of the Government, who henceforth intended themselves to issue the "Bill of Entry," and they accepted the terms offered to them. I cannot admit that the participators in the funds have any claim whatever to compensation. They purchased the remainder of the Patent, as they might have purchased the remainder of a lease; and the figures quoted by the hon. Member, which I have no reason to question, show how good a bargain they made for themselves. I see no object in going back on the work of former years with the object of renewing objectionable monopolies of this character, which, however consonant with former ideas, are altogether opposed to our present financial practice.
MR. DAWSON: I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman, is it a fact that the Government not only did not renew the right, but allowed it to lapse? Whether the Government, after taking advantage of all the time this Company worked, had followed this up by getting all their books and papers when it was a going concern of considerable property?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)said, he had no further information on the subject.

IRELAND—THE VICEREGAL COURT— THE GENTLEMAN USHER TO THE LORD LIEUTENANT.
MR. JUSTIN HUNTLY M'CARTHYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If it is a fact that the Hon. Gaston W. Monsoll, Gentleman Usher to the Lord Lieutenant, refused to fulfil his official functions at the State Ball held in Dublin Castle on the day of the death of the late Cardinal M'Cabe?
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No, Sir; it is not a fact.
MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: In connection with this Question, I would
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ask the right hon. Gentleman, if he will be good enough to state what are the particular functions of a Gentleman Usher?
MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

MERCHANT SHIPPING—THE TRANSPORT SERVICE.
MR. DEASYasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether he has received offers of steamers from Irish Shipowners for transport purposes on as favourable terms as from English Shipowners; and, whether any Irish ships have been engaged; and, if not, on what grounds?
MR. CAINE (for Sir THOMAS BRASSEY): Offers have been received within the last few days from the owners of upwards of 900 steamers, with, for the most part, nothing to indicate the nationality of the owners, that not being a point to which the attention of the Board is directed. The only stipulation required is, that the owner of the ship used in transport shall be a British subject. Of the ships taken, two—the Dunluce and the Camel—belong to the Port of Belfast. Two others belonging to the Port of Sunderland, and one belonging to the Port of Liverpool, are, I think, the property of Irish owners.
MR. DEASY: I will ask the hon. Gentleman, if he will draw their attention to the point?
MR. CAINE: The Admiralty will consider which are the fittest ships for the purpose for which they intend them.

ARMY—THE MARINE ARTILLERY AND INFANTRY.
VISCOUNT LEWISHAMasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he can state the reason why not a single Officer of the Marine Artillery or Infantry has been appointed to the general staff of the force under General Graham, although that force has held Suakin for more than a year?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: The Military Authorities are not agreed as to what are the qualifications necessary in an officer of the Royal Marines; but General Graham will be authorized to select such officers at present serving at Suakin as he may think right.

BOARD OF WORKS (IRELAND)—MONOLITHIC PIERS AND BREAKWATERS.
MR. W. J. CORBETasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, In what in-

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stances the Board of Works (Ireland) have used the monolithic system in the construction of piers and breakwaters; have they refused to do so for the proposed pier at Tramore, county Waterford, though suggested by an eminent local engineer; was the engineer in chief of the Board of Works examined as to the merits of the monolithic system, and is he in favour of it; and, is it a fact that, in the case of the works proceeding at Kinsale Harbour, it is intended to use concrete blocks, laying them down on their narrow sides or ends on mud of from 15 to 20 feet in depth?
MR. HIBBERT: The Board of Works use the monolithic system in all cases where it is applicable, being themselves in favour of it, as is also their engineer. The Board have not refused to use that system at Tramore; and as regards Kinsale, the use of concrete blocks is an improvement on the original design, which was for a dry rubble work. The foundation there is believed to be quite secure.
MR. DEASY: Would the hon. Gentleman state, if it is a fact that the Government Inspector stated before a Select Committee that the harbour was not worth anything on account of the bad foundation?
MR. HIBBERT: I must ask the hon. Member to put down his Question on the Paper.

CUSTOMS PROMOTION AT LIVERPOOL.
LORD CLAUD HAMILTONasked the Secretary to the Treasury, How it is that no promotion has been made in Liverpool, during the past fifteen months, from the ranks of the Acting Examining Officers, to the situation of Examining Officer of Customs; and, whether there is a Treasury Minute in force providing that promotions to the higher rank should be equally divided between the Acting Examining Officers and candidates by competition?
MR. HIBBERT: Three outdoor officers at Liverpool, approved to act as examining officers, have been promoted to be examining officers during the last 15 months, two by competition and one by selection. The rule is that vacancies in this rank are to be filled up from the grades of assistant examining officer, principal coast officer, outdoor officer, and boatman, equally by selection and
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by competition, and this rule is duly observed.

CORPORATION OF LONDON TOWER BRIDGE BILL.
MR. BRODRICKasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether his attention has been drawn to the Corporation of London Tower Bridge Bill, and to the fact that the centre line of the proposed bridge, as shown by the deposited plan and sections, intersects the precincts of the Tower of London; and, whether the promoters of the Bill have yet applied for and obtained any sanction for such interference, or for the erection of the bridge, in such close proximity to the fortress?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: My attention has been drawn to the interference by the proposed bridge with the Tower precincts, and I have called upon the promoters to submit revised plans.

EGYPT (MILITARY EXPEDITION)— THE SUAKIN-BERBER RAILWAY.
SIR HENRY TYLERasked the Secretary of State for War, in reference to the construction of the proposed railway from Suakin to Berber, Whether he will consider the advisability of furnishing special instructions to the officers deputed to superintend the construction, and to the contractors engaged on the work, to the effect that the tribesmen and natives should, as far as practicable, be employed in making the railway, and that pains be taken to circulate amongst them liberal offers, and to afford to them good treatment and acceptable remuneration for their services, so as to convert them, under British protection, from fanatical enemies to interested friends and allies?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: During the past year every effort has been made to induce the Natives and tribesmen of the territories adjoining Suakin to take employment under the British authorities. The same policy will, I have no doubt, be pursued in the construction of the railway.

NAVY—PENSIONS—PETTY OFFICERS.
SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFEasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether it is intended to give to the executive Chief Petty Officers of the Royal Navy a pension based on the rank they hold,

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their present pension being that of a rank one grade lower in the service?
SIR THOMAS BRASSEY: The chief petty officers are a most valuable class; but the Admiralty do not feel justified in increasing the present scale of pension.

ISLANDS OF THE WESTERN PACIFIC— THE NEW HEBRIDES, SAMOA, AND TONGA—SURRENDER OF BRITISH RIGHTS.
MR. GORSTasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, having regard to the diplomatic engagement formerly made with France not to occupy the New Hebrides, to Mr. Meade's suggestion at Berlin that France should be allowed to take the New Hebrides, and to the diplomatic engagements recently made with Germany not to assume sovereignty over the North Coast of New Guinea, and not to occupy Samoa or Tonga, he will give a pledge that Her Majesty's Government will not surrender any more British rights in the Pacific Ocean until the Colonial governments interested and the British Parliament have had the opportunity of fully considering the interests of the British Empire in the Pacific?
MR. GLADSTONE: The Question of the hon. and learned Gentleman rests upon certain assumptions which are set forth in the Preamble, and to which we are not able to accede. For example, with respect to the New Hebrides, our statement is this—that the engagement with France to maintain the neutrality of the New Hebrides continues in force, and that there has been no proposal that France should assume the Sovereignty of the New Hebrides, unless on terms satisfactory to the Australian Colonies. So far for the New Hebrides. As regards New Guinea, again, we think that the hon. and learned Gentleman has been inaccurately informed. There has been no such diplomatic engagements with Germany as to New Guinea as he supposes, and a telegram shows that the German annexation of New Guinea has not been made in any way by concert with the Government of this country, and not, therefore, by any surrender of any right on the part of this country. Then, again, with regard to Samoa and Tonga, I believe the fact is this—that Germany has fully maintained its engagement not to occupy Samoa or Tonga, and the German Government itself has
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expressly disowned the course taken by the German Consul in Samoa in hoisting the German flag there. There are statements to which references to Papers could be supplied to the hon. and learned Gentleman if he desires it; but that being so, we cannot allow that any British rights have been surrendered, and the Question of the hon. and learned Gentleman falls to the ground.

EGYPT-PRINCE BISMARCK'S SPEECH IN THE REICHSTAG.
SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether his attention has been called to the report of a speech delivered in the Reichstag by Prince Bismarck, as reported in The Times of the 4th March, in which he says, in reference to Egypt—
"I therefore did not advise England 'to take it,' but, on the contrary, dissuaded her from annexing it as urgently as was possible in my disinterested position;"
and, how far Her Majesty's Government can reconcile this declaration with a statement made elsewhere by Lord Granville, to the effect that—
"The policy of the Government has never yet been in accord with the advice with regard to Egypt which he (Prince Bismarck) gave to the late Government and ourselves, namely to take it?"
MR. GLADSTONE: The hon. Gentleman asks me to reconcile a statement made by Earl Granville with a speech of Prince Bismarck reported yesterday, they appearing not to be in harmony one with the other. My impressions upon the matter had been the same as those of my noble Friend; but I think my hon. Friend will agree with me I had better not enter upon the subject at present, as I do not think any public advantage will arise from it, and I have reason to believe that my noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will, in his place in the other House, make a statement upon the subject shortly.

CENTRAL ASIA—THE RUSSO-AFGHAN FRONTIER.
MR. ONSLOWasked the First Lord of the Treasury, If he could state to the House the precise determination arrived at by Her Majesty's Government regarding the Afghan frontier; what is the present position of Sir P. Lumsden's Mission, and how long it is proposed to

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keep him on the borders of Afghanistan, I and for what purpose; and, if he can now state the purport of the visit of the Amir to His Excellency the Viceroy; on what basis any understanding respecting the relative positions of England, Russia, I and Afghanistan on the Afghan frontier is to be framed?
MR. HENEAGEasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether it may not he highly prejudicial to the maintenance of a good understanding between England and Russia for questions to be asked in this House in relation to Afghanistan at a time when the diplomatic relations between the two Countries are exceeding strained, and when answers to questions are likely to be misinterpreted either as a sign of weakness or a sign of menace?
MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether his attention has been called to the important letter from The Times Correspondent with Sir Peter Lumsden's Mission in Afghanistan, which appeared in that paper on the 3rd March, and especially to the following extracts:—
"I have pointed out the great strategical importance of Pul-i-Khatum, a place which has always been considered Afghan, and beyond the pale of discussion. Another important position is Penjdeh, in the valley of the Murghab. Its inhabitants have always been subject to Afghanistan, and it is occupied by an Afghan garrison. Russia docs not desire the definition of the Afghan frontier, for it will put an end to her successful system of stealthy encroachment. Three years ago the nearest Russian outposts on the road from the Caspian were at Krasnovodsk and Chikishlar, 700 miles from Herat; now they are at Pul-i-Khatum, only 150 miles from Herat. Three years ago the nearest Russian outposts on the road from the Oxus and Mery were at Katra Kurghan, say 500 miles from Herat; now they are at Zotatan, 140 miles from Herat. Nearly all this progress has been made by unopposed encroachments since we evacuated Kandahar;"
whether it is true that the Russian troops have just occupied Zulfagar, 40 miles south of Pul-i-Khatun, and Penjdeh (all three places being on Afghan territory); and, whether Her Majesty's Ministers intend to protect the absolute integrity of all Afghan territory, including these important positions, from Russian occupation and influence, in accordance with their own pledges and those of the Czar's Government?
MR. GLADSTONE: What I have to say upon these Questions is this—I will first take the Question of my hon. Friend
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(Mr. Heneage), and I wish to speak explicity to the House. On the part of Her Majesty's Government I am bound to say that, at the present moment, Questions relating to policy or to future contingencies on the subject of the Afghan Frontier cannot, in our judgment, be answered without prejudice to the public interest. I will state certain reasons why I think that to be plainly the case. The policy to be pursued in relation to the Afghan Frontier has long, in my opinion, been known to be a policy strictly national, having the assent of the country at largo, well known to Parliament, stated in Parliamentary Papers and documents which are before it, and known also to be a policy upon which there is a general—I may say, perhaps, an unanimous—accord. The putting of any Question in relation to this policy and to contingencies in connection with it is, I think, to be deprecated, and I may, perhaps, add that the manner in which answers to these Questions are frequently received in some parts of the House, tends to break down the conviction that this country in regard to the Afghan Frontier is a perfectly united country, and to propagate and foster an opposite and very injurious feeling that there are differences of opinion about it, and that the matter is one of Party contention. Without going into other reasons, I think the House will appreciate that which I have mentioned. I do hope that reserve will be exercised by hon. Gentlemen upon this subject, and that they will not put Questions except as to matters of fact. I may almost venture to say once for all—I do not say with absolutely no exception—that it will be the duty of the Government to confine themselves to matters of fact in dealing with the matter. This is my general answer to my hon. Friend behind me (Mr. Heneage). With reference to the expression he has used, implying that there are strained relations between this country and Russia, it is one which I do not at all desire or think it necessary to adopt. Upen the general grounds of which I have spoken, having regard to the nature of the ease—which is evidently one of the utmost importance—and at the same time considering the circumstances of distance and of doubt as to particular points of detail, and the fact that this is a matter of great delicacy, in which it

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is much more easy to do mischief than good, I do hope that hon. Members will not press upon me Questions which relate strictly and entirely to matters of policy. That applies to the two Questions of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Onslow), and also to the Question of the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett) as regards the latter part of it. "With regard to the former part, which relates to matters of fact, I believe they are matters upon which full information has already been given in this House. If the hon. Member desires that it should be enlarged as to matters of fact, the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will be ready to give him any information he desires.
MR. ONSLOWsaid, he thought it would be desirable that the House and the country should know what was the national policy to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, and whether it was the determination of the Government to abide by it.
MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTsaid, he did not propose to press his Question; but he would remind the House that when the other day he put the last part of the Question, the right hon. Gentleman had asked him to put it on the Paper.
MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, it would be interesting to know whether the Ameer and the majority of the people of Afghanistan cordially endorsed our policy; or, might he ask the right hon. Gentleman, in regard to the policy which he had described as a national policy, "Whether Her Majesty's Government has any good ground for supposing that the views of the Ameer of Afghanistan are cordially shared by the majority of the inhabitants of Afghanistan; and, whether it is the fact that many Afghans have expressed themselves as only too willing to become brethren in arms with the Cossacks?
[No reply.]

TOWN TENANCIES (IRELAND)— TENANTS' IMPROVEMENTS.
COLONEL NOLANasked the First Lord of the Treasury, If his attention has been called to the fact that on Tuesday thirty-two out of the thirty-four Irish Members present voted for a Parliamentary inquiry into the system under which the improvements of tenants
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in town houses are dealt with in Ireland; and, if he cannot permit a Parliamentary inquiry, will he appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into this question?
MR. GLADSTONE,in reply, said, he was aware that a very large majority of the Irish Members present in the House voted for the inquiry into house tenure in towns. He was one of those desirous of giving every possible weight to the authority of Irish Members, if the question were one sufficiently and exclusively Irish; but it was proposed to appoint a Select Committee—with out the alternative of a Royal Commission—to inquire into the system under which the improvements of tenants in town houses were dealt with in Ireland. That was a very different question from the town parks question, which, at the time of the discussion on the Irish Land Bill, they' were disposed to admit was a fair matter for consideration, as to which his right hon. Friend behind him (Mr. W. E. Forster) did say that the Government might assent to inquiry. The town parks question could be considered an Irish question in some degree; and his hon. Friend the Member for Tyrone had made a suggestion which the Government were perfectly willing to agree to—namely, that, so far as town parks were concerned, an inquiry might be made. The question of the tenure of houses in towns was not alone an Irish question. Town houses existed in England and Scotland in exactly the same manner as in Ireland; and he was really not aware of anything distinct in the law of Ireland relating to town houses. It was quite evident that the question was not an Irish, but an Imperial question. He was therefore not able to agree with the desire of the Irish Members to have an inquiry into the tenure of town houses, on the ground on which it was asked for.

THE ESTIMATES—INCREASE OF THE ARMY.
SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT: I wish to ask the Secretary of State for War a Question with regard to the proposed increase of the Army. I see in The Times today that the Army is to be increased by 15,000 men. I should like to know, whether that statement in regard to an addition of 15,000 men is a correct statement; and, whether that is in addition to the proposed

131
increase of 3,000 men, which, is the figure stated in the Estimates?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON,in reply, said, that when he laid on the Table the Vote of Credit for the operations in progress in Egypt and the Soudan, it would be necessary to ask for a number of men in addition to those asked for in the Supplementary Estimates. He was not, however, now prepared to say what that additional number of men would be.
SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEasked the noble Marquess when the Supplementary Estimates and the Vote of Credit would be brought forward?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he could not state with certainty. He believed it would be necessary to go on with Supply on Monday and Thursday; but it would depend upon the progress that was made. The Army Estimate would be taken after the Navy Estimate was disposed of. The Vote of Credit had not been prepared yet.
SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEasked the Prime Minister, whether the Vote of Credit would be taken before the end of the financial year?
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that it was not the intention to take the Vote in the present financial year.

ARMY—THE FORCE IN IRELAND.
MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Might I ask the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to reduce the garrison now in Ireland, by sending from it troops to the war in the Soudan? If so, how many troops is it intended to take; and, when is it intended to take them?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: There is no such intention. The number of troops in Ireland was slightly reduced some time ago, and it is not the intention of Her Majesty's Government to reduce it further.

ARMY ESTIMATES—THE SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES.
LORD GEORGE HAMILTONasked, Whether any Supplementary Army Estimate for the present year would be presented in addition to that already on the Table of the House? He did not see any Vote for the extra 3,000 men for the present year.
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON,in reply, said, there would be none.
COLONEL STANLEYasked, whether a portion of the charge for the 3,000 men asked for since the Supplementary Estimates were laid on the Table would be included in those Estimates?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, there would be no further demand for money, as the 3,000 men would be included in the Supplementary Estimates.

PUBLIC MEETINGS—THE RIOT AT ASTON HALL, BIRMINGHAM.
SIR FREDERICK MILNER: I wish to ask your ruling, Sir, upon a point of Order arising out of an answer given by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General. The point is, Whether a Member of the House is not, by the understood Rules of the House, compelled to withdraw any statement made in the House, when that statement has been proved in a Court of Justice to be a scandalous and malicious libel?
MR. SPEAKER: No case has arisen on the faots stated by the hon. Baronet for any interference of the Chair.

REGISTRATION (OCCUPATION VOTERS) BILLS.
MR. HEALYasked the President of the Local Government Board, If he will consider the expediency of not making the Irish Registration Bill a separate measure from that for England; but, as in the case of the Franchise and Redistribution Bills, will introduce one measure for the Three Kingdoms?
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES),in reply, said, it would not be necessary to have a Bill of the same character for England as for Ireland. It was thought advisable that there should be three separate Bills for the three countries. He could assure the hon. and learned Member that the Government felt the obligation of carrying the measures for Ireland and Scotland quite as much as for England.
MR. HEALY: The hon. and learned Gentleman is aware that the House of Lords has three times in succession rejected the Registration of Voters (Ireland) Bill; and, of course, if it is brought in now in a separate form, they will reject it a fourth time, and the only protection is to bring it in as a part of the English Bill.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, the Bill that was thrown out was a Bill proposing to alter the law. There was no intention in the present Bill to alter the law with respect to the general rules of registration. Its only object was to apply the rules of borough registration to the county registration.
MR. DAWSON: Did the hon. and learned Gentleman say that the Registration Bill for Ireland is not intended to alter the law?
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES): To alter it in one sense. What we are seeking to do is to apply the rules of borough registration to the county registration, and that is the only object. So far as that alteration is needed, we undertake that it shall be applied to Ireland as well as to England and Scotland.
MR. DAWSON: Might I ask the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland, are we to understand that he is not going to introduce now a separate Bill for the reformation of the registration in Ireland?
MR. CALLAN: Might I ask if the law as it at present exists with regard to borough and county representation is not precisely similar?
[No replies.]
MR. CRAIG-SELLARasked when the Government would introduce the Scotch Registration Bill?
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR),in reply, said, it was their intention in this Bill to take some opportunity of improving the form of the Valuation Roll, and he was in communication with some of the leading assessors on this subject.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY—NAVY (SUPPLEMENTARY) ESTIMATE.
  SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEY,in moving—
  "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £330,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray additional Expenditure for certain Navy Services arising out of the Military Operations in Egypt, and connected with Shipbuilding in Her Majesty's Dockyards, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885,"
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  said: Sir Arthur Otway, before this Vote is put, it may, perhaps, be for the convenience of,, the Committee that I should offer a few words of explanation. The first two items included in this Supplementary Estimate provide for the pay and victuals and the number of officers and men which are now overborne. There has been an increase in the number of officers on full pay of about 120. That increase has been necessary, partly on account of the military operations in Egypt, and partly in consequence of the increase in the Naval Force in the Red Sea. The number of seamen overborne, partly owing to the same causes, is 330. We have also to provide for a larger force of Marines, the number overborne being 170. Recruiting has been going on briskly and most satisfactorily for the battalions now serving in Egypt, and there is an excess of 920 boys over the number voted. In recent years it has been found that the number of boys in training has been insufficient to maintain the necessary strength in the blue jacket classes, and we shall be obliged to propose a considerable increase in the number of boys in the Estimate for next year. When the House, in December, sanctioned an increased expenditure, it was understood that in the Dockyards we should do all that was in our power to hasten shipbuilding, without materially increasing the number of men. A scheme of profitable overtime has been recommended by the officers of the Dockyards, which scheme has been approved by the Admiralty. It will involve an extra sum for wages of about £38,000 for the Home Yards, and £9,000 for the Foreign Yards, chiefly in respect of the valuable Yard at Malta. It is not necessary to ask Parliament for the full sum involved in this increased expenditure, for the reason that we have been unable to expend, under Vote 10, Section 2, the entire sum voted last year for gunnery in consequence of the delay in the delivery of the gun-mountings. A less sum has also been required than was estimated for repairs and alterations of ships. I regret extremely the delay in the delivery of the gun mountings. We have pressed Messrs. Armstrong to use all possible despatch; but in consequence of the difficulties inseparable from the introduction of new patterns, some portion of the payments anticipated this year will be necessarily post-

  135
  poned until the next financial year. The Vote of £30,000 for Stores is the necessary consequence of the increased amount of shipbuilding. We have devoted the increased expenditure in stores and shipbuilding and wages more particularly to pushing forward those iron clads which are now in the most advanced stage; and we hope in the present financial year to complete the Colossus, and in the next financial year the Collingwood, the Edinburgh, the Warspite, and the Imperieuse. The larger portion of this Supplementary Vote may be described as being entirely in connection with the Egyptian Expedition. A sum of £250,000 for transport is an addition to a sum of £ I 70,000 which has been provided in previous Supplementary Estimates, and it is exclusive of the repayment to the Indian Revenue for the transport of the Indian Contingent. That payment cannot be made in the present financial year. The list of ships which have been engaged for the transport of the Egyptian Expedition is distributed as follows:—Troops and horses, 13 ships, one hospital ship, five condensing ships, five tank ships, seven for camels and mules, 25 for railway material, including the employe's on the railway, nine for stores, one ice ship, two colliers, and two tugs. The approximate cost averages 17s.6d. per ton per month for the troop-ships, and from 11s. to 12s. for the cargo vessels. I believe that these rates are quite unprecedented in the experience of the Admiralty. At the time of the Crimean War, the rate was 45s. to 50s. for vessels affording very inferior accommodation; and for the ships taken for the last Expedition to Egypt we paid 30 per cent higher rates than those which we are paying at the present time. I am sure the Committee will be glad to be assured that every care has been taken to provide for the requirements of the gallant men we have despatched on the Expedition to Egypt. The (ranges, one of the finest vessels in the Peninsular and Oriental Company's Service has been taken as a hospital I ship, and has been most carefully fitted up. The condensing arrangements at Suakin will be capable of furnishing 1,200 tons of fresh water per day. We have now at Suakin two or three ships with ice-making machinery. In addition, we are despatching one small refrigerating vessel with a cargo of
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  400 tons of ice to be kept frozen. By these arrangements we propose to keep up a supply of ice, not only to those for whom it is so essential—namely, the sick; but we hope also that there may be some to spare for the troops generally. With these observations, I beg to move the Vote for the additional Expenditure for Navy Services arising out of the Military Operations in connection with the Egyptian Campaign, and for Ship building in Her Majesty's Dockyards.
  (1.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a Supplementary Sum, not exceeding £330,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray additional Expenditure for certain Navy Services arising out of the Military Operations in Egypt, and connected with Shipbuilding in Her Majesty's Dockyards, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885."—(Sir Thomas Brassey.)
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I do not propose, Sir Arthur Otway, to find any fault whatever with the provision which the hon. Gentleman seeks to make for seamen and Marines, for the victualling and clothing of the seamen and Marines, for the transport expenses, and for the other services included in the Vote; but I cannot help expressing my very great sorrow that my hon. Friend has had again to announce the further postponement of the completion of those ships which the House so earnestly desires. The hon. Gentleman has been obliged to toll us that while a larger sum has been expended in wages in the Dockyards and in stores for building ships, there is a delay in the furnishing of the gun-mountings, which places in the hands of the Department something like £40,000. Hon. Members who are acquainted with the working of the Department will know what that means. A delay in the delivery of gun-mountings to the extent of £40,000 means that the ships for which the gun-mountings are required are incomplete, and are not able to take the sea until they are provided. Therefore, there is to be a further unexpected delay, which certainly comes upon the House by surprise.
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEY: The saving upon gun-mountings does not cover the whole sum of £40,000. The actual saving on gun-mountings alone is £19,000.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: My impression was that the gun-mountings covered the

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  whole saving. I presume that the statement of the hon. Gentleman relates to Sub-Section 2 of Vote 10—the Vote under the head of Machinery.
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEY: There is also a saving of £18,000 on the repairs and alterations of ships; and the two items together come to about £40,000.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: At all events, we have an intimation conveyed to the House that the gun-mountings necessary for the guns in order to enable the ships to take the sea have not been supplied; and, therefore, the ships on which the country was entitled to rely, and on which it thought it could rely, cannot be available for the service of the country. These ships were promised to be in readiness and efficient at a certain date; and as they are not, it shows that sufficient foresight has not been exercised, and sufficient care taken to secure that, as far as the Admiralty were concerned, the promise made to the House should be fulfilled. The hon. Gentleman has stated that the Collingwood, the Edinburgh, the Warspite, the Imperieuse, and the Colossus, will be delivered in the course of the coming financial year. I am sure that the House will receive that statement with satisfaction. But I would ask my hon. Friend if he is quite certain that the guns and mountings will be ready for them in time? From the information which has been furnished to the House I very much doubt whether the guns and mountings will be ready in the coming financial year. I hold that there is no security whatever that the guns and gun-mountings will be in the possession of the Admiralty when required. And now I cannot help referring to what is not in the Estimate as well as what is. On the 23rd of October, Parliament was informed that the Admiralty had carefully considered the whole position of the naval defences of the country, and that the Government would make a statement to the House in the course of the month of November. I think the inference to be drawn from that was that the Government had fully considered the whole subject, and had made up their minds as to the course it was necessary to take, and the additions that were necessary to be made to the Navy in order to provide additional strength. If they did not contemplate an addition to the strength of the Navy, at all events they had made up their
  138
  minds as to what they did intend to do. Well, November passed, and on the 2nd of December a statement was made in this House which led us to believe that a large addition would be made to the strength of the Navy. But up to the present moment not a single ship has been ordered. Four months of the financial year have elapsed, and nothing of the kind has been done.
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEY: Six Scouts have been ordered.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: Well, I am very glad to hear that. I was only, however, repeating the information given by my hon. Friend to the House in answer to a Question. I understood him to say that the tenders would not be dealt with until the 6th of March.
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEY: Six have already been ordered.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: The answer which I obtained to a Question the other day was that no one ship had been ordered. At all events, there is no provision in these Estimates, nor has any been made in the course of this financial year, for payment to any contractor of a single farthing for the building of a single ton. The position I wish to take is this—that the Government ought to realize the necessity for this provision, and the sooner it is made the better, in every sense of the word. It does not cost more to build a ship as rapidly as it can be built consistently with good work than to spread the building of it over a long period of years. On the contrary, we have evidence before the House, given before a Committee appointed by the House, including that of Mr. Barnaby, the Chief Constructor of the Navy, that it costs less to build a ship rapidly. Rapid shipbuilding is conducive to greater economy than slow shipbuilding, which involves an unnecessary expenditure of time. Then, again, there is the question of torpedo boats. We were promised that a certain number of torpedo boats should be built within the year. If there is one thing in which this country is more deficient than another at the present moment, as compared with the Navies of other Powers, it is in torpedo boats; and, from what we all know, great reliance in future naval wars will be placed on torpedo boats for the defence of harbours and strong places. But though four months have elapsed since the statement was

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  made to the House, not one single step appears to have been taken, as far as I can see, to supply this deficiency. I say that good faith has not been kept with the House by the delay which has taken place. For four months no torpedo boat has been ordered, so that there has been the delay of one-third of a year, the information before the House being that a torpedo boat could be built within a year. Yet not one has as yet been commenced.
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEY: Ten torpedo boats have been ordered.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: No doubt they have now been ordered; but why has such delay occurred? I have only mentioned the matter for the purpose of this discussion; but I take it that five or six Scouts and 10 torpedo boats have just been ordered. The impression left on the House by the statements of Ministers in December last was that they were going to deal with this matter promptly, and that their promises would be forthwith fulfilled; but they have not done so. The engagement into which they entered with the House ought to have been carried out forthwith. I make no complaint of the extra ironclads not having been commenced, for we know that the plans and specifications with regard to iron-clads require very careful consideration and take some time to prepare; but this class—namely, the belted cruisers and the torpedo boats, are all vessels, the types of which have been studied and decided upon, as has already been explained to the House, and I cannot see why there should have been any delay whatever in forthwith giving orders to the contractors to proceed with them as rapidly as possible. We were told by the Admiralty that one of the principal merits of their programme was that, by the nature of the steps they were taking, there would be no delay; that when once a contract was entered into it must go on. With regard to the torpedo rams, the belted cruisers, the vessels of the Scout class, and torpedo boats, they were to be built by contract, and would consequently be completed rapidly. I must say that the only interpretation which could be placed on language of this character was that the Government intended to proceed with them rapidly. And they obtained the confidence and approval of the House because the programme was one that
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  could be carried out rapidly, and, therefore, one that would give satisfaction to the House and to the county. On another occasion we were told that the Government intended to ask for tenders from the shipbuilding firms as soon as possible, as every one of the ships, except the torpedoes, would take more than a year to build. Now, would the Peninsular and Oriental Company, or the Royal Mail Packet Company, or any other great shipping concern, after realizing the fact that it was necessary to make an addition to their fleet, consider that an engagement by their Chairman to build certain ships as soon as possible had been complied with by postponing the issue of a tender for four months? Yet that is exactly what Her Majesty' s Government have done on the present occasion. After the statement made to the House on the 23rd of October the Government ought to have known they intended to do; and it was not unreasonable to expect that all the drawings and specifications and necessary arrangements would have been made before their statement on the 2nd of December. The day after that approval of the House had been obtained the tenders should have gone out with a request that contractors should state in what time they would be able to complete their contracts. If the Government really realized that these boats were necessary it would have been both economical and sound policy, as well as their duty, to have them completed for sea as soon as possible consistently with good work. I wish again to refer to the information we possess so far as the future is concerned. I should be out of Order if I were now to go into the Estimates for the coming year; but I may say that I notice that no provision is made for several of the ships that were undertaken to be put in hand on the 2nd of last December. I notice also that, as far as the House is aware, no provision is made in the Estimates for the coming year for three out of the 10 Scouts that were undertaken in December last to be completed in the course of the year. Instead of building 10 Scouts as rapidly as possible, it is now proposed to postpone the building of three of them until after next year. I hope that some explanation will be given to the House of this extraordinary departure from the solemn engagement made with the House, if not now, at all events in

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  moving the Navy Estimates for the year.
  MR. CARBUTTsaid, he was glad that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) had endeavoured to impress upon the Government the necessity of proceeding with the ships with more vigour, and more especially of going on with the torpedo boats, to which they were pledged. He was inclined to believe that in future wars torpedo boats would be quite as useful as line-of-battle ships. He desired, however, in the few words he proposed to say, to refer, not so much to shipbuilding, as to the deplorable condition in which they were in respect of guns. He might state, without fear of contradiction, that they had not one single breech-loading steel gun of large calibre at the present time which bad been fired and tested. He, therefore, thought he was justified in saying that they were in a deplorable condition; and if the country were not in the remarkable condition in which it was placed at the present moment, he thought the House ought to insist upon the Government having some proper system upon which the manufacture of guns could be carried on. Recently there had been several instances in which guns had exploded, and they were still going on manufacturing guns, although they could never tell whether the guns, when turned out, would explode or not. Notwithstanding several inquiries no explanation had been forthcoming.
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! There is no reference to guns in this Vote, and the hon. Gentleman is out of Order in discussing a subject which will come on for discussion upon a future occasion.
  MR. CARBUTTsaid, he bowed to the ruling of the hon. Gentleman; but he must remind the hon. Gentleman that he had allowed the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) to enter into the question of guns.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Member for Westminster was in Order in discussing the question of gun-mountings, because there is an item of £30,000 for gun-mountings.
  MR. CARBUTTsaid, that as the Estimate covered a sum for gun-mountings, if not for the guns themselves, he
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  would be in Order in calling attention to the Question.
  THE CHAIRMAN: There is nothing whatever in the Vote which touches the question of guns, although there is an item relating to gun-mountings. The hon. Gentleman, therefore, must confine himself to the gun-mountings if ho enters on the subject now.
  MR. CARBUTTsaid, that, in deference to the ruling of the Chairman, he would confine himself to the question of gun-mountings. What he wished to called the attention of the Committee to was the system upon which all these manufactures were carried on. There was not a single responsible head to whom they could go and ask why such a thing had happened, or to give a reason for anything that occurred. If an hon. Member put a Question in the House he only got an evasive answer. He had repeatedly put Questions to the Government, and generally the answer given did not convey the slightest information. For instance, if the Government were asked how far a gun would fire they always gave the estimated, and not the real distance. His objection to the Manufacturing Department was that the gentleman who had charge of it knew nothing whatever of the subject. As a matter of fact, at the present time, the Department intrusted with the manufacture of gun-mountings, and things of that description, were presided over by an Artillery officer, who had no special knowledge of the subject. He had to depend upon some other officer, or foreman, or manager, under him; and he (Mr. Carbutt) maintained that, under such circumstances, the country could not be served with that efficiency which it was entitled to demand. If they were not at the end of the present Parliament—for he presumed that it would end this year—he, for one, would move for the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry into the whole subject. He thought it was a national disaster not to have a Manufacturing Department at the head of which was a man who knew something about guns and the material for making them. As the Chairman had already called him to Order, he did not know that he need go into the question further; but when it came up again on the Vote for guns on another Estimate, he would take the opportunity of returning

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  to the subject, and entering into it more fully.
  SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he quite agreed with the hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the Committee that there was great inconvenience in disoussing' gun-mountings now, and having to wait for the Army Estimates before they were able to discuss the guns. He understood that the Army Supplementary Estimates would give au opportunity to the hon. Gentleman to raise the question of the guns on Monday; and he hoped that the hon. Gentleman would bring it forward with all the ability and knowledge he possessed. Various questions were involved in the present Vote, and first of all he would refer to the increase of Marines. His hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty informed the Committee that the Marines were 170 over the proper number, and that an additional sum of money was required in order to make provision for them. He did not see, however, any additional sum of money in the Estimates on the Table for the increase of Marines; and, considering the onerous duties now thrown upon the Corps, he had hoped to find in the Estimates submitted to Parliament some provision for the permanent increase of the Force. He was sorry that the Marines had not been further strengthened, for it was quite certain that the 12,400 men now voted were not sufficient for the purposes to which the Marines were continually applied in South Africa, in North Africa, and in various other parts of the world. They were seasoned and gallant soldiers, who were employed, not only in their own duties at home and on board ship, but in assisting the Army in the discharge of military duties abroad. He was quite certain that everyone who was acquainted with the nature of the duties performed by the Force would agree with him in opinion that it ought to be materially strengthened. He thought he understood his hon. Friend to say that the boys in training were to be increased by 920.
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEYsaid, his statement was that the boys were now overborne by 920.
  SIR JOHN HAYpresumed that the Vote about to be taken in the Navy Estimates proper would provide for the overborne boys; but he was not certain whether that was so or not, and he was
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  afraid that the number was not quite sufficient for the purpose. A noble Lord in "another place," a Colleague of the present Civil Lord, was reported to have said that the reason why there were so few boys in training was that, although there was an insufficient number, it was in consequence of the deplorable loss of two of their training vessels which occurred some years ago. He was quite sure that it was impossible for the Admiralty to justify the small number of boys now in training by the fact that, four or five years ago, some two vessels were lost. There was an ample number of boys to be obtained, and this was not an adequate defence for the Admiralty for neglecting to increase the number, so that they might be able to keep up a proper supply of men for the Fleet. With regard to the £10,000 to be voted for stores for shipbuilding purposes, he really was astonished to see such a sum proposed by the Admiralty three or four months after their promise that the sum of £5,000,000 or upwards should be expended for increasing the efficiency of the Navy. It was said by the Secretary to the Admiralty, in the Autumn Session, that at least a sum of £5,000,000 was necessary for the proper increase of the Fleet; and he certainly understood the hon. Gentleman to intimate that immediate steps would be taken to apply that money, which the House was quite ready to grant, and to do all in the power of the Admiralty to increase the number of ships, both armour-clad and of all other descriptions. Until this moment they had had no information as to whether anything had been done to carry out that promise; and in the Return which had been laid upon the Table of the House, and delivered that morning, they found that the condition of the armour-clad ships was one that must be extremely unsatisfactory to the country. He found, from the Return which was before the House and in the hands of hon. Members, that the Collingwood was not to be completed at Portsmouth until this time next year. The time for the completion of the Rodney was "uncertain" The Impérieuse would not be finished until January, 1886; the Warspite was "uncertain;" and with regard to the ships laid down in 1882, the Benbow was not to be put out of the hands of the contractors until July, 1886, and they knew that it was probable that

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  two years would elapse before she was efficient for the public service. The completion of the Camperdown, building at Portsmouth, was "uncertain," and the Howe, building at Pembroke, was also "uncertain" Those vessels were laid down in 1881 and 1882. The completion of the only ships laid in 1883—the Anson and the Hero—was also "uncertain." Those two ships represented ships laid down in 1882ߝ and 1883–But the Return did not allude to the condition of ships which were in hand in the years 1880 and 1881; and it was worth while for the Committee to consider what chance there was of these ships being completed when it was found that other vessels laid down years before were not yet out of hand, as in the case of the Ajax, the Conqueror, the Edinburgh, and the Colossus. Among the new ships which were indicated in the Return, and which were promised in December at Portsmouth and Pembroke, were two new armour-clads whose type was not yet decided; and in regard to new armour-clads which were to have been built by contract, the statement was that they had not yet been ordered. Thus it would appear that the ships that were to have been built in the Royal Yards had not yet had their type decided; while others which were to have been built in private Yards had not yet been ordered. That was certainly not what the House of Commons expected when the promise of the Government was made in December last. It seemed to him that the country was being trifled with in regard to its naval affairs; and he must say that though he had the greatest respect for the gallant Admirals who sat at the Admiralty Board, some of whom were his own personal friends, yet he could not conceive how they could consent to sit at that Board, and allow the country to be trifled with, when they knew the defenceless state they were in both in regard to ships and guns, especially when compared with foreign nations. Other countries were increasing their Fleets with the greatest possible rapidity. He did not forget that the Admiralty, on the 11th of July last, put forward a statement, by the mouth of the First Lord of the Admiralty—that if they were granted £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 tomorrow, for the purpose of increasing the efficiency of the Navy, the great
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  difficulty would be how they would be I able to spend the money. That statement was made on the 11th of July, and in October they awoke to the fact that a sum of £5,000,000 was absolutely necessary for our naval defences. In the month of December they promised to spend that sum; but, having made that announcement, they had not, up to the present moment, taken the slightest step to expend the money which Parliament was ready and willing to grant. They came down now with a Supplementary Estimate in advance of the ordinary Estimates of the year, which was totally inadequate for the purposes for which it was required. He had no wish to delay the Business of the Committee, and he thought that the £330,000 now asked for had better be granted, in order that the Admiralty might wake up again from the slumber into which they had fallen since December last. At the same time, he was bound to say that the country ought to know how the Admiralty had neglected the public interests, and if the money were voted care should be taken to see that it was properly spent.
  GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURwas understood to express an opinion that, whenever Supplementary Estimates were given to the House, the original Estimates should be combined with them, so that the total amount might be shown for each item. He hoped that the Secretary to the Treasury would see that done in the future. Then the mixing up of various items relating to different matters in one amount was very inconvenient. For instance, the sum required for the construction and completion of the railway in Egypt should have been kept entirely separate and distinct from every other item.
  MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTsaid, he was not surprised at the protest which the right hon. and gallant Member for the Wigtown Burghs (Sir John Hay) had made in regard to the delay in spending the money which was necessary to maintain the Fleet in a proper state of efficiency. It was quite evident that the country were now paying the cost of the desertion of General Gordon, for it was obvious that the money which would otherwise have been spent on the Navy was now required for other purposes, and that a good deal of it would be wanted for the Soudan Expedition. He

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  had risen now for the purpose of calling the attention of the Secretary to the Admiralty to certain serious mishaps which had happened in Africa in regard to the working of the Gardner gun at the last serious battle which occurred in the Soudan.
  MR. CARBUTTwish to know whether the hon. Member was in Order, seeing that he (Mr. Carbutt) had been ruled out of Order for introducing the question of guns?
  MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTsaid, the point he wished to raise had reference to gun-making, which he thought would come in under at least three heads of the present Votes. He might add that his remarks on the subject would be very brief.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member will be quite out of Order in referring to the Gardner gun.
  MR. GORST,on the point of Order, wished to say that his hon. Friend was complaining that a Vote of money would be entirely useless, and that the men and boys, who appeared on the Estimates, were being destroyed by ineffective guns.
  THE CHAIRMAN: I do not see any connection between the remarks of the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) and the point of Order. I still retain my opinion, that any discussion of the Gardner gun, on a Vote in which there is no mention of guns whatever, would be entirely out of Order.
  MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTdesired to call the attention of the Chairman to the fact that the Vote was to defray additional expenditure for certain Naval Services arising out of the military operations in Egypt; and Vote 10 referred to naval stores for building and repairs in connection with the Meet. The gun he wished to call attention to was strictly a naval gun in charge of the Naval Brigade.
  THE CHAIRMAN: I have already ruled that the hon. Member is out of Order. This Vote has no connection whatever with guns.
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, that hon. Gentlemen opposite had complained, as they generally did, that the Estimates were not sufficiently high. He had not risen with any object of that kind. Since his earliest childhood England had had no Navy; but, somehow or other, she seemed to have got on uncommonly well
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  with the ships she had. When right hon. Gentlemen opposite were last in power they obtained a sum of £6,000,000 for the purpose of increasing the efficiency of the Navy; and he believed that what they really did was to provide three ships. He was sorry that the Vote was taken upon two distinct items—namely, the Naval Services arising out of the military operations in Egypt, and the shipbuilding in Her Majesty's Dockyards. He thought it would have been a great deal more convenient if the two items had been kept separate. He must, however, accept the fact that they were not kept separate, but were included in the same Vote. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty had gone through all the different items; and he gathered from the hon. Gentleman's statement that the first and second were really rendered necessary in consequence of the Expedition to Egypt. As the military operations there had necessitated assistance from the Naval Brigade, and the employment of a number of officers and Marines, he would not contest that Vote; but he did contest the sum of £250,000 for conveying troops from this country to Egypt. He gathered from the Secretary to the Admiralty that that was exclusive of any charge for Indian troops; so that this sum of £250,000 was really a charge for the troops which had been conveyed from this country. Probably the Chairman would rule him out of Order if upon this Vote he were to raise the whole of the Egyptian Question; but he would assume that this country was perfectly right in going to Egypt; perfectly right in maintaining troops, and in maintaining order there. That was, the country was told, the reason why they were there; and they were further told that they had the right of adjusting the Southern Frontier of Egypt. But why was this country called upon to defend Egypt, or to adjust the Southern Frontier? The reason was that the Egyptians could not do it themselves. It was all very well for a country to say—"I cannot fight;" but when they asked other nations to come in and fight for them, the least they could do was to pay for the fighting. The House had had many Votes and discussions on this subject, and he had heard very different statements from the Treasury Bench; but he had never yet discovered, ever since these Votes were

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  first brought forward, why in the name of goodness, admitting that they ought to go to Egypt, when the Egyptians themselves could not maintain their position, and govern their own country, the Egyptians ought not themselves to pay for it. They were told, it was true, that Egypt could not pay the money that was required. But, of course, that was sheer nonsense. So long as they were able to pay their Bonded Debt, and to pay extortionate interest to usurers who called themselves bondholders, so long would they find their Exchequer empty. What would have happened in Egypt, if this country had not come forward? Where would the bondholders have been? They would have disappeared entirely.
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! The financial policy of Egypt is not a subject for discussion under this Vote. The hon. Member is introducing a matter which is not in any way involved in the present Vote.
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, the point he desired to raise was that this money ought not to be in the Estimates at all, because it ought to be charged upon the Egyptian Government. The issue he desired to discuss was, whether the Egyptians were not perfectly able to pay the money themselves. He had no wish to go into the whole of the Egyptian Question, and this was the sole point he wished to bring forward. As he thought the Egyptians were able to pay the money, and as we were not bound to pay it, he begged to move that the Vote be reduced by the sum of £250,000.
  Motion made, and Question proposed
  "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £80,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray additional Expenditure for certain Navy Services arising out of the Military Operations in Egypt, and connected with Shipbuilding in Her Majesty's Dockyards, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885."—(Mr. Labouchere.)
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, the Committee were very much indebted to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) for having called attention to the discreditable neglect on the part of Her Majesty's Government to fulfil their promises in regard to increasing the efficiency of the Navy. The way in which the Committee was treated by the Government was exemplified by the state of the Treasury Bench at that
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  moment. There was not a single responsible Minister of the Crown upon it—an any rate, no Minister who had a right to advise the Crown in reference to this question. The same delay and the same neglect animated the Government in every respect. When the First Lord of the Admiralty was imperatively called upon to look into the state of the Fleet, he was sent by the Government upon a fruitless mission to Egypt. He (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) wished to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, who always did his best, according to the power given to him, one or two questions in regard to these facts. He wanted to know what had been done in reference to the leading stokers of the Navy, the pensions to wives and orphans of seamen and Marines; and also what steps had been taken to satisfy the representations which had been made from different classes in the Dockyards as to the position they occupied and the treatment they received? More than two years ago the right hon. Gentleman who was now Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) promised that the grievances of different classes of Dockyard employés should be carefully looked into. In 1883, certain representations were made which, since then, in almost every instance, had been entirely neglected. The regulations which were recommended in regard to the examinations had been altogether set aside by the Government; and he understood that persons in the Dockyards, who had been compelled to pass a severe examination, found themselves superseded by persons who had passed no examination at all. He certainly felt himself unable to support the Motion of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). His regret was, not that it was a Vote of £330,000, but that the sum proposed was not a great deal larger. He hoped before the debate closed that the Secretary to the Admiralty would give a full explanation to his right hon. Friend the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) and the right hon. and gallant Member for the Wigtown Burghs (Sir John Hay), and would enable the Committee to go away with the belief that, notwithstanding the absence of these lazy Cabinet Ministers—["Order!"] The hon. Gentleman opposite who called him to Order was not the Chairman, and if he was out of Order he presumed that

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  the Chairman would correct him. Notwithstanding the absence of all these—he would call them active—Cabinet Ministers, who had brought the Navy of the country into such an inefficient state, he hoped to be assured by the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty that the interests of the Navy would be properly regarded in future by Her Majesty's Government.
  MR. PULESTONsaid, he had listened with much pleasure to the excellent speech of the right hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith), and he hoped that the Secretary to the Admiralty and other Members of the Government would give some explanation of the present extraordinary position of affairs in reference to the pledges they had given to the House last Autumn. He hoped that explanation would be given now, and that they would not have to wait for it until they reached the ordinary Navy Estimates of the year. It was a matter of congratulation that the Prime Minister himself was present at the early part of the discussion. The right hon. Gentleman must have been startled by the disclosures which had been made by the right hon. Member for Westminster. It must, indeed, have very much surprised the Prime Minister, as it surprised everybody else, to find that, after all that had been said by the Government last Autumn, after months had elapsed since the discussion which took place in the Autumn Session in December, when they had supposed that the Admiralty would come forward with plans ready cut and dried, and after the utter reversal by the authorities of the Admiralty of all the statements they had previously made in that House and in "another place" as to the requirements of the Navy—it must have surprised everyone to find that nothing had been done to give good effect to the pledges of Her Majesty's Ministers. They were told in the middle of last year by the First Lord of the Admiralty that their Navy was much superior to that of Prance, and superior, indeed, to any other Navy in the world, and that there was no sort of foundation for what he termed the exaggerated statements which had been made in regard to the inefficiency of the Navy. All of a sudden, under the influence of an agitation raised in the country when the country had become alive to the danger which existed in
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  consequence of the weakness of the Navy, the same noble Lord at once reversed his statement, and acquiesced in the opinion that was forced upon him by the unanimous verdict of the country. They were then told in the House of Commons that a sum of £5,000,000 or £6,000,000 would have to be spent upon the Navy. They came there that night in order to consider the Supplementary Naval Estimates, and they naturally looked to those Supplementary Estimates to find the commencement of the important expenditure which had been promised. They were certainly unprepared for the condition of things which had been brought before them that night in the statement of the Secretary to the Admiralty. He had not the least idea of casting any imputation upon the hon. Gentleman, or of saying one word that was disrespectful of him. The hon. Gentleman could only do that which it was in his power to do; but certainly nothing had ever occurred in that House of a more startling character than the answer which the hon. Gentleman had given to the right hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith)—that actually nothing but a few tenders had been issued for Scouts. No tenders whatever appeared to have been issued either for belted cruisers or torpedo boats, and this was four months after the first promise in regard to the matter was given by Her Majesty's Government. Every hon. Member in that House, upon whatever side he sat, whether he liked the increased expenditure or not, whether he was of the same opinion as the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) or not, wont away from that Committee in December last fully impressed with the one idea that some millions of money were to be carefully and wisely expended upon the Navy. It did not occur to any Member of the House that he would be allowed to come back again in the month of March and listen to such an answer as that which had been given by the Secretary to the Admiralty to the right hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith). He did not think there was a parallel for such a startling circumstance to be found in the history of the country. First there was the extraordinary reversal of policy on the part of the First Lord of the Admiralty from a condition of boasted safety, in which nothing ought

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  to be done and nothing would be done, to a conviction forced upon him by the voice of the country that not only something, but a great deal, would have to be done. In the next place, they were led to believe that plans and arrangements would be laid down during the Recess with the view of expending some £5,000,000 or £6,000,000 upon the Navy; and now hon. Members came back to the House, three or four months after the promise was given, to be told that absolutely nothing had been done except an order issued for a few Scouts. He was sorry that the representations which had been made in the House of Commons had not only been treated with disrespect, but with apparently utter and supreme contempt. That would not matter very much if it were not for the condition of the country, which rendered it essential that this increased expenditure upon the Navy should be undertaken. Her Majesty's Government well knew that it was essential, and events which had since transpired showed the folly of delay. Let them only look at the state of Africa, and the feeling of insecurity in our Colonies. It was impossible to conceive anything more serious. He was sorry that the First Lord of the Admiralty had not a seat in that House. It was always a source of trouble to the House of Commons when the First Lord had a seat in "another place." It was impossible for the Admiralty to be represented by Gentlemen who possessed the entire respect of the House more than the Secretary to the Admiralty, and the Civil Lord, whom he was glad to congratulate on the first occasion of his appearance in his official capacity; but they knew that the power was vested in others and not in them, and he concurred with his hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) that it was a scandal that none of the chief Ministers of the Crown should have been present on the Treasury Bench upon an occasion like this. He was glad to see that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had returned to his place. He had not risen now to discuss matters connected with the Dockyard expenditure. He thought he might fairly assume that all questions connected with that expenditure would come on in regular order in the discussion of the Navy Estimates proper; but he was entitled to have a full explanation of the conduct of the
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  Board of Admiralty, who appeared to him to have done nothing but utterly neglect the duties imposed on them by Parliament, the responsibilities of which had been fully accepted by them.
  MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTsaid, he rose to a point of Order. He wished to know from the Chairman, if the hon. Gentleman would be good enough to inform him, when he would be in Order in referring to the jam of the Gardner gun? On what Vote could he raise that question?
  THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Gentleman will be perfectly in Order in raising that question on the Vote which refers to the guns in the Army Estimates. I presume that those Estimates will not come on to-night. When the Army Estimates are proposed they will include a Vote for guns.
  MR. SEXTONwished to ask a question with reference to the operations of the gunboat Wasp, which had been wrecked upon the West Coast of Ireland, and which, at the time of its last cruise, was in charge of a navigating officer who had only been recently appointed, and who was entirely unacquainted with the coast? It was said that the gunboat had been employed in assisting certain landlords in serving notices of eviction. He should like to know if the Secretary to the Admiralty approved of the use of Her Majesty's ships, and the services of the officers and seamen of the Royal Nary, in turning out of their homes a number of wretched persons who were obtaining a precarious livelihood on that part of the Irish Coast? He did not think that the people of England would approve of the employment of the seamen and officers of the Royal Navy for any such purpose; and he would ask upon what conditions the ships of Her Majesty were placed at the service of the landlords in Ireland for the purpose of serving civil processes? He would be glad to receive any indication of what the Government proposed to do in the matter. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had on a former occasion asked a Question in that House, to which the reply on the part of the Admiralty was that with regard to transports every invitation would be given to Irish shipowners to send in tenders. But he had read in an Irish newspaper of the 2nd instant a statement to the effect that the Admiralty having invited

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  tenders for contracts, they were duly-forwarded by the shipowners; but that none of the work had been allotted to then. He begged to assure the hon. Gentleman that unless the undertaking given to the hon. Member for the City of Cork was carried out—the Belfast firms, for instance, being as competent as any in the Kingdom—it would provoke considerable comment from Irish Members from the point of view that the promise given had turned out to be nothing more than a delusion.
  MR. CAINEsaid, with regard to the question asked by the hon. Member for Sligo, that the shipowners of Ireland would have the right of tendering as a matter of course, and that the Admiralty accepted the lowest tender that was most suitable, no matter from what part of the country the tender might come. He would now refer for a moment or two to the complaints made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) with regard to vessels of the Scout class and torpedoes. It was only on the 2nd of December that the House sanctioned the building of those six Scouts; the plans were got out within a month after; and if the right hon. Gentleman remembered the difficulty there was in getting out plans, he believed he would say that to get the plans ready by the 2nd of January was very quick work indeed. The Admiralty having the wish that the orders should be spread throughout the country, 37 shipbuilders were invited to send in tenders for the construction of ships of the Scout class; it took over a month to get all the information required for tendering; a week was then given to the manufacturing firms to consider, and to get out their tenders. That was a short time; and a week for the Admiralty to consider the plans was, in his opinion, also a short time, and yet the 27th of February was the date on which the purchase of the ships of the Scout class was finally settled. He regarded this as one of the smartest things ever done by the constructive staff of the Admiralty. He did not think it would be unreasonable to give shipbuilders seven or eight weeks for sending in their plans. It should be remembered that in the case of an ordinary firm purchasing a merchant ship, three weeks was the period given to the buil-
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  ders to take out their quantities and send in estimates; and he did not think that the time named was too long with regard to vessels to be constructed for the Admiralty. "With regard to the torpedo plans, a Committee had been appointed, to conduct important experiments before coming to a decision, and the delay had been simply in consequence of the desire of the Board of Admiralty to secure the best type under the circumstances. With regard to gun-mountings, in consequence of new and better guns having been invented, new machinery had become necessary which would greatly facilitate the getting out of the gun-mountings in future. The delay that had taken place was attributable solely to the necessity of having new machinery.
  SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he hoped it was not to be understood from the statement of the hon. Gentleman that the lowest tender was always accepted, because the Admiralty had never proceeded on that principle before. He had understood the hon. Gentleman to say that.
  MR. CAINE: No; the lowest tender consistent with sound shipbuilding.
  SIR JOHN HAYunderstood that the Black Prince had been at one time stated to be not worth repairing, and that the Bellerophon had been in process of repair for five years. As far as he was aware, there was no immediate prospect of those repairs being completed. He would ask the hon. Gentleman in what state of repairedness those ships might be.
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEYsaid, it was desirable to bring forward a ship to complete the number of ships which were now maintained in the Channel Fleet. As the right hon. and gallant Admiral would agree, it was extremely desirable to bring forward a ship well adapted to the training of seamen. A large number of their young seamen were sent to the Channel Fleet. The Back Prince was very suitable for that purpose, and she would be so employed.
  SIR JOHN HAY: What is the condition of the Black Prince?
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEYsaid, she had been surveyed with regard to fitness, and it had been found that her boilers were in good condition.
  SIR JOHN HAYasked why the Bellerophon had been so long under repair?
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEYsaid, he could only speak with regard to the Black Prince. He believed that the repairs of the Belleroplion would be completed very shortly. It was at one time thought that she might be used as a gunnery vessel; but he believed it was now intended that she should relieve one of the iron-clads stationed abroad.
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he believed that the Belleroplion had been more or less under repair, in the Dockyard, for five years. She had gone to Devonport towards the close of 1879; she was intended first to be used as a gunnery vessel; but at last, he believed, there was some question as to whether the guns it was intended she should carry could be had or not. His right hon. and gallant Friend (Sir John Hay) had referred to the Black Prince and the Warrior. Now, the Black Prince had been put aside some years ago because of the expense that it was estimated would be incurred in repairing her. It was estimated that the cost of making her an efficient ship would be £120,000, for she would require to have new boilers and alterations made in her armour. He understood that the Admiralty had spent £40,000 upon her, which would make her less inefficient for 18 months only, at the end of which time the result would be that the whole of the money would be found to have been thrown away—that was to say, that the money would disappear in the time mentioned. Again, the Warrior was in almost the same condition. It was obvious that she could not remain serviceable for more than two years; and he doubted whether, in case of war, she could serve out another year, even with the money that had been spent on her. The result of this was that they had two ships on which they could not rely in case of war. It was impossible to rely on them; they were not capable of steaming at full speed even with the alterations which had been made, and the repairs which had been executed, and the whole of the money now being spent upon them would be practically wasted.
  MR. ONSLOWsaid, that, observing a charge of £250,000 for conveyance of troops from this country to Egypt, he wished to know whether the ships employed were those paid for by the Indian Government, and in which troops were
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  sent out to India? He was not aware that these hired ships were usually employed to bring troops home; on the contrary, he was inclined to the opinion that the Government of India used only the ordinary troop-ships for this purpose. Now, it seemed to him that if these troop-ships, which were paid for by the Government of India, were being used for the conveyance of troops to Egypt, the Indian Government would pay indirectly for the conveyance of those troops. If his view of the case were correct, he should like to know whether any extra expense would be placed upon the Indian Government in consequence of the troops leaving the country in the troop-ships referred to? He wished to make it clear that no expense was put upon India on account of this Vote.
  MR. CAINEsaid, that the intention of the Government on the point raised by the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Onslow) was that no expense at all should fall upon India with regard to the Egyptian Expedition.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, the answer of the hon. Gentleman the Civil Lord of the Admiralty was, in his opinion, most unsatisfactory. He was glad to find, although the hon. Gentleman contradicted himself twice in saying so, that the contracts referred to by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) were given out altogether irrespective of nationality; but he went on to say that the Government were bound to have due regard to the requirements of different parts of the country with respect to the disposal of these contracts.
  MR. CAINE: I said it was the wish that every part of the country should have an opportunity of tendering for these ships.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he had thought that the meaning of the hon. Gentleman was that, while due regard was to be had to economy, regard was also to be had to the dispersal of work in the parts of the country which most required it. But it appeared that he had misunderstood the hon. Gentleman. If no regard was to be had to nationality, it was a remarkable circumstance that none of the contracts had reached Irish hands. Now, that was a matter upon which Irish Members felt very strongly indeed. In Belfast, certainly, there were some of the most eminent and successful shipbuilders in

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  the world, and they were selected to construct ships for which he believed was the most go-ahead and successful of American Lines—namely, the White Star Line. It seemed to him a most extraordinary thing that in Belfast, where work was so sadly wanted, and where encouragement was so much required, there should not be a single Government contract being executed. According to a statement in the public Press, it appeared that there was reason to believe that the work that was expected to go to a large Irish shipbuilding firm would go to the Clyde, although no official intimation had been given. If that were the case, ho thought that Irish Members would be justified in contrasting the amount of work given to Glasgow in times of prosperity and withheld from Belfast in times of need. The hon. Gentleman had given the same answer with regard to transports as with regard to shipbuilding; he said that these were employed irrespective of nationality; and he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) repeated that, while it was said that nationality was not considered, Irish nationality was excluded in the matter of transports.
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEYsaid, he might assure the hon. Member who had just sat down that there was no question whatever of nationality in this matter. Anyone could obtain the terms of the contracts on application at the Admiralty. In case the Inspector sent on behalf of the Admiralty reported that the execution of the work could be fittingly done by them, the applicants were placed upon the list. Irish firms were treated in the same manner as English and Scotch firms. One Irish firm had been put on the list, and had been invited to tender for some of the ships that were to be constructed.
  MR. SEXTON: What is the difference between the prices?
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEY: I do not know what the figures were; I cannot give any information upon that subject.
  MR. DAWSONcomplained that in the case of contracts with regard to other branches of the Service which were given to Irish firms, the firms in question had not been fairly treated. He knew of a firm that obtained a large supply of material, a short time ago, for the purpose of executing a contract; but although they were told, when they
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  tendered, that it would be a very large contract, they only received a very small order. Ho hoped that Irish firms would in this matter have the same chance as English and Scotch firms.
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEY: Certainly. An Irish firm is now building a vessel for the Admiralty.
  MR. DEASYsaid, that the vessel referred to was only a tank-ship, which would cost only a few thousand pounds, and he did not think they had much to thank the Government for on that account. The Dock Company applied to the Admiralty to be placed on the list, and the Admiralty sent down an Inspector, who went through the Lock-yard, and expressed himself highly pleased with the plant there, and reported favourably to the effect that the Dock Company were capable of turning out a ship of 1,500 tons displacement. Improvements had taken place in the Docks since that time, and there was little doubt that they could turn out a ship of 2,000 tons. But the Government took credit for having given them this little ship to build; and, although they were placed on the list in April, it was not until the autumn that they were asked to tender, and it was not until the senior Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) threatened to make this matter unpleasant for the Government that they obtained even the order in question. Now, this Dock Company built steamers for some of the largest ship owners in the world; and he did not think that there was a shipbuilding firm in Ireland which could turn out a vessel in a more satisfactory manner than the Royal Victoria Dock Company. Of course, the Belfast firms could build larger ships; but he believed, for the size of the ships, that no shipyard in the Kingdom could give more satisfaction than Passage Dock. One very important question raised in the course of the debate, by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton), had not been dealt with by hon. Gentlemen who spoke from the Government Bench. The hon. Member referred to the loss of a gun-boat conveying troops for the purpose of evicting some unfortunate persons in Ireland, and he thought the matter was one which demanded some explanation at the hands of the Admiralty. It seemed to him strange that the Government should employ the ships of the Navy

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  for the purpose of carrying out evictions, and he thought that the landlords should have been required to transport the troops from the mainland at their own expense, if troops were necessary, seeing that they had the police of the district at their command. Before the debate closed he trusted that some answer to his hon. Friend's inquiry would be forthcoming. They were told that there was no prejudice at the Admiralty against Irish firms; but he doubted that very much. He had himself asked the hon. Gentleman representing the Admiralty last autumn a Question with respect to the supply of meat for the Navy; but he could get no reply whatever on the subject. He had now to complain that, although the tenders of the Irish houses were at a lower price than those of the Danish firms, the contract was given to a Danish firm at a higher price. He had asked the hon. Gentleman to compare the prices of the Irish house with those of the Danish house, and he declined to do so. If the hon. Gentleman wished to show that there was no prejudice at the Admiralty against Irish firms, he thought he should have no hesitation in placing a statement of the prices on the Table of the House, so that they might see that no injustice had been done to Irish firms. When the Estimates were presented he should feel it his duty to go more fully into this matter. He had also asked another Question of the Secretary to the Admiralty that evening, and the answer to it had been very unsatisfactory. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had also made reference to it. He (Mr. Deasy) had asked whether any Irish, firms had tendered for the supply of transport vessels to Her Majesty's Government; whether their tenders had been accepted; and whether those tenders were as low as those of English and Scotch firms'? The hon. Gentleman had replied that the matter was still under investigation; and that when the Admiralty considered the tenders they would ignore nationality altogether, and that they would give a fair chance to tho3e Irish firms who tendered. He trusted the Admiralty would bear that in mind when they came to decide on the matter; and he would point out that if the Government wished to convince Irish Members that there
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  was no partiality in the case, and no prejudice against Irish firms, they need only place the prices on the Table of the House when the contracts were accepted. He hoped that before the ordinary Estimates came forward the Government would be able to assure them that they had accepted contracts for shipbuilding in Ireland. It was all very well for them to say that they accepted the lowest tender; but they asked nothing more from the Government than that they should give Irish firms fair play. They were entitled, however, to say that a due proportion of the money to be expended on shipbuilding should go to Ireland, and that Irish firms should be allowed to compete amongst themselves for work to the amount of that sum. It was not fair to place a ship-building yard which had never had an opportunity of constructing ships for the Government on the same footing as a shipbuilding yard which was in the habit of doing Government work. In common justice the Government ought to allocate a fair portion of the Navy Expenditure amongst Irish firms.
  MR. GILESwished to explain to the House what was the practice in commercial circles as to issuing tenders. He, of course, assumed that the Government had followed the usual practice. If work was to be given out, and the principal firms—say 10 in number—of the particular business—take shipbuilding, for instance—were selected, the persons making the selection would feel that any one of the firms would be quite competent to carry out their views, and, therefore, when the tenders were sent in, they would accept the lowest. If, however, the person having work to give out advertised publicly for tenders, he was by no means bound to take the lowest, because it very often happened that the lowest tender was received from a firm whom he knew to be incompetent. He (Mr. Giles) had had occasion to send out tenders for shipbuilding; and amongst the firms from whom he invited tenders were Messrs. Harland and Wolff, of Belfast. He should have been quite prepared to give them the work if their tender had been as low as that of others; but it was not. With all their eminence as shipbuilders, they could not work as cheaply as the people of the Clyde or the Wear, or even as cheaply as the people at Southampton. He only men-

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  tioned this that Irish Members might not have any feeling that Ireland had been lost sight of in matters of this kind. As he was upon his feet, he could not help alluding to the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Devon-port (Mr. Puleston). He was very sorry, indeed, to hear from the hon. Member that the preparation of the designs for the new iron-clads were out of the hands of the designers within a month, and that the other preliminaries to the construction of the new war vessels were completed with equal rapidity. He could excuse the anxiety of the country to see their Navy considerably strengthened; but there was an old adage it was well to remember—namely, "Sometimes the most haste is the worst speed." He was persuaded that it was not always wise to hurry too much in the preparation of the designs of their fighting ships.
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEYsaid, he must ask permission of the Committee to refer, in the first place, to the question put by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) with reference to the employment of gun-boats on the coast of Ireland. With regard to the question of policy which was raised by the inquiry of the hon. Gentleman, lie (Sir Thomas Brassey) had no opinion to offer; it was not competent for him to discuss that point. He might, however, explain to the hon. Member that it was the duty of the Admiralty to furnish vessels to the various Departments of Government when required for the execution of public duty. He was asked by the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Deasy) with reference to the tenders for provisions. He feared he could not comply with the request of the hon. Gentleman by laying on the Table a Return showing the prices at which the various competing firms tendered for the supply of provisions for the Navy; indeed, it would be a breach of confidence to make a revelation of that nature. He assured hon. Members from Ireland that the Admiralty wished to deal with the country they represented in a spirit of fair play; and that if tenders should come from Ireland for the building of ships or the supply of provisions at prices which enabled the Admiralty to allocate contracts to that country, it would be a great satisfaction to the Admiralty to do so. He was glad to hear from his
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  hon. Friend the Member for Southampton (Mr. Giles) that he appreciated the necessity of giving great care and consideration to the designs of ships they were putting out to contract. He reminded the Committee that Lord Ravens-worth's Committee, after most careful inquiry into this particular subject, recommended, in a very able Report to the Admiralty, that the greatest care and deliberation should be exercised in maturing the designs of ships before inviting tenders from private firms for the construction of the vessels. It was very properly urged by Lord Ravensworth's Committee that much public money could be saved by greater care being taken in the preparation of the designs. The Admiralty had been anxious to follow the recommendation of Lord Eavensworth's Committee on the first occasion which had arisen since the Report was made; and, therefore, special pains had been taken to make the designs for the cruisers, and the Scouts, and other vessels which they were putting out to contract, as perfect as possible before the commencement of the work. He was persuaded that, although there might be some delay in putting out the vessels to contract, by exercising due care and deliberation in completing the designs a gain in time and economy would in the end accrue. Having, he believed, answered all the questions which had been raised by hon. Members, he need not detain the Committee longer.
  MR. DAWSONsaid, there was one other matter to which it was well attention should be called. In the matter of shipbuilding and the supply of provisions, the particulars of the requirements were well known to the English firms who tendered for the work; but it was not so in Ireland. By what means could Irish shipbuilders and merchants ascertain clearly and accurately what was to be tendered for? Were advertisements issued in the papers? In the absence of information on the point, it appeared to him that the contracts were so vast, and the amount of money involved so great, that Irish firms were not acquainted with all the details. Besides, to permit of many Irish firms tendering for the large and immense requirements of the Navy, it was necessary that a change should be effected in the banking system of Ireland. Sup-

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  posing that a firm of Irish shipbuilders possessed the knowledge of the amount of money required to comply with some of the tenders, it was of the greatest importance to them that they should be able to go to one or other of the banking concerns in Ireland, and to say—"We want to tender for such and such contract, and on condition that we get the work we shall require so much money; will you advance it to us? You will, of course, be sure to obtain the repayment of the money, because you will practically have the security of Her Majesty's Government." He should like to know what were the means of information at the command of Irish firms who were rather new to contracts of such magnitude? Were advertisements published in the newspapers?
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEYsaid, that when any shipbuilding was to be given out, it was the practice of the Department to communicate with all the firms on the Admiralty List.
  MR. DAWSONinquired if the hon. Gentleman was acquainted with all the shipbuilding firms of Ireland who were competent to tender for Government work? If tenders were invited by advertisements, probably a firm of whom the hon. Gentleman was not aware might see their way to make an offer. What he desired to know was, how Irish firms were to enter into the competition; how they were to become possessed of knowledge of the conditions with which they were to comply?
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEYsaid, that if any of the Irish shipbuilders would communicate with the Admiralty, Inspectors would be sent to their yards to see if they were capable of doing Government work; and if they were found to be capable, he would take care they were placed on the Admiralty List.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, that in reference to the claim set up to have a portion of the Admiralty work allocated to Ireland, the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty (Sir Thomas Brassey) had said it would be a breach of trust to disclose the prices given for the various articles supplied to the Navy. He (Mr. Biggar) was not acquainted with shipbuilding; but, as an old trader, he was persuaded that if the Government wished to get the best and, indeed, proper value for their money, they must not stick at disclosing the contract prices. It must
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  be well known to all persons that there was great variation in the quality of work done by shipbuilders, just as there was a great difference in the quality of the other articles supplied to the Navy. It was, therefore, of the greatest importance in the interest of the public, as represented by the Admiralty, that prices at which articles were supplied should be known. Under the present secret system, it was quite possible for shipbuilders to get a sum from the Admiralty altogether disproportionate with the class of work done. Such a state of things, however, would soon cease if it were possible for criticism, to appear in the newspapers and through the voices of Members of Parliament with regard to the mismanagement of the Department in this particular. He knew that Harland and Wolff, of Belfast, were eminently competent to do the work of the Admiralty, for they were as good shipbuilders as it was possible to find. Harland and Wolff might ask higher prices than some other shipbuilders; but, at the same time, they did immensely better work, and therefore it was to the interest of the public that the Admiralty should give the preference to that firm. The same principle applied to all the other articles supplied to the Navy. Take the case of pressed beef. No doubt, the American pressed beef could be obtained at a cheaper rate; but, as regarded quality, it was not to be compared with the Irish beef. Instead of perpetuating the antiquated and stupid system of keeping the prices paid secret, the Admiralty ought in every case to publish them. If people then found that higher prices were being paid for particular articles than those at which they could afford to supply, they would, no doubt, tender. It stood to reason that the result of disclosing the prices would be that a much larger number of people would enter the competition. The great temptation in regard to contracting was the hope of large profit. He remembered that at the time of the American War the Government had to give for pressed beef a far higher price than the trade value of the article. The occasion was an emergency, and the supply was wanted in a hurry. The number of people who, up to that time, had been tendering for this particular article had been very limited, and they had been paid such extravagant prices, and had made such

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  enormous profits, that others rushed in and contracted at prices even lower than they could afford to take. The result was that the Government recouped themselves for all the extravagant prices they had previously paid. The observance of secrecy led to no good whatever, and therefore he hoped that, after consultation with the Admiralty Authorities, the hon. Gentleman (Sir Thomas Brassey) would be able to see his way to introduce an entirely different system.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, he could say, of his own knowledge, that the system of secrecy with regard to Government contracts was attended with very great danger of corruption, if not peculation. He recollected a case which came under his observance some years ago. A contractor had sent in to a large Public Department tenders at a certain price for an article which was not very extensively used. He tendered at such a figure as involved loss. He tendered three times over, and each time his tender was disregarded; and another contractor, whom he knew personally, informed him that his tender, which was something like 50 per cent higher, had been accepted. Well, now, the contractor whose tender was disregarded was a sensible man, and, instead of troubling himself to still further lower his price, met an official of the Department, and explained to him his grievance. "Oh," said the official, "if you will dine with me to-morrow, I will introduce you to Mr. So-and-so." The contractor accepted the invitation; and the consequence was, that the next time he tendered, his tender was accepted, and for aught he (Mr. A. O'Connor) knew, the tender of the gentleman had been accepted by the Department ever since. Such was one of the results of the secrecy observed in regard to Government contracts. So much for the contract system. Now, it had been said that the Admiralty was perfectly free from all prejudice as regarded Ireland. He wished he could think so. Five years ago he was at some trouble to point out to the House the practical "Boycotting" which Ireland experienced at the hands of the Admiralty. Every single thing which the Admiralty could do to deprive Ireland of a fair share in the funds which the Admiralty had to distribute, was done. If there was any possibility of curtailing expen-
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  diture in Ireland, it was taken advantage of; no opportunity was seized of making something like a fair distribution of the National Expenditure. Let them take the case of the Dockyards, which was only one branch of the Services included in this Supplementary Estimate. Under that head there was always something like £1,750,000 expended at home and abroad; at home about £1,600,000 was expended. One Dockyard in England received £330,000; another got £270,000; and another got £200,000. What did Ireland get? The large sum of £900, not 1–1,600th part of the total sum expended. If the Committee turned to the Victualling Vote, they would find a similar state of things—Ireland obtained a sum equal to l–72nd part of the whole Vote. These were the most important Votes taken by the Admiralty, and this was the way in which Ireland was treated. When he referred five years ago to this system, it was not contested by the then Secretary to the Admiralty and the present Postmaster General (Mr. Shaw Lefevre). All the right hon. Gentleman said was—"Oh, we are doing something at Haulbowline, and we intend to spend £25,000 a-year there."As a matter of fact, the Admiralty had not spent that amount of money. The Government had not spent as much money at Haul-bowline as they said they intended to spend, and the reason assigned was that they were obliged to employ convict labour on that kind of work, and Ireland was so free from crime that they could not get enough convicts. Now that the convicts had been removed from Haulbowline, the difficulty attending the mixing of free and convict labour had been removed. All the contracts came to England; all the money for victualling was expended in England; all the money for Admiralty services of every kind and description was spent in England and for the benefit of England. In Ireland there was spent nothing except £193 under one Vote, and a somewhat similar sum under another Vote. There had been ample opportunities of testing the sincerity of the Government in this respect; and, after the experience he had had in connection with the distribution of Naval Expenditure, he should be very chary of accepting any assurances from the Government.
  MR. P. J. POWERsaid, he was glad to hear the Representative of Her Majesty's Government who had charge of these Votes say that the Admiralty were actuated by feelings of fair play towards Ireland. He was sure that personally the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty (Sir Thomas Brassey) was actuated by no other feeling. At the same time, he thought that the figures which his hon. Friend the Member for Queen's County (Mr. A. O'Connor) had given showed that in their dealings to wards Ireland, the Admiralty did not act up to their professions. According to the statement of his hon. Friend, who was regarded as an authority upon such subjects, Ireland received a mere bagatelle in proportion to the enormous sums expended on Dockyards in other parts of the United Kingdom. No one could contend that the people of Ireland did not contribute their fair share of taxation; indeed, most people acknowledged that now-a-days the taxation paid by the Irish people was altogether out of proportion to their means—altogether out of proportion to what the richer parts of England paid. He, therefore, thought that a certain amount of restitution was due to the people of Ireland. He spoke on this subject with some difficulty, because he knew he addressed a Government who believed implicitly in the principles of Free Trade. He was, however, prompted to say that, inasmuch as the English Government had in times past destroyed the industries of Ireland, it was only due to the people that they should receive something now by way of restitution. According to an authority—Mr. Froude—who could not be said to be particularly favourable to Ireland, England had destroyed Irish industries and——
  THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Gentleman is now travelling beyond the limits of the Question. It is not competent for him to discuss the general policy of the Government towards Ireland when the items of certain Supplementary Votes are under consideration.
  MR. P. J. POWERsaid, he had no doubt strayed away from the Question, owing to the fact that he was not yet conversant with the Rules of Debate. This, however, was a time when Her Majesty's Government could mend their ways by giving to Ireland a little more
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  of the money the Irish people paid to them in the form of taxation. He did not know whether he should be out of Order in alluding to the question of chaplains. If so, he should like to ask the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty (Sir Thomas Brassey) a question concerning the employment of chaplains. Within the last few days he had received letters from boys in his own part of Ireland desiring that he should give them notes of recommendation with which to endeavour to enter the Navy. Before complying with the desire of his correspondents, he wished to ask the hon. Gentleman what provisions were made in the Navy for providing chaplains for Catholic boys?
  MR. KENNYsaid, that as he observed that one of the items of the Vote was for the conveyance of troops, he would like to ask the Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Caine) if he would explain to the Committee the circumstances under which the Poonah was recently disabled?
  MR. DEASYsaid, he thought the Irish Members were entitled to an answer to the statements made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor). With regard to the works at Haulbowline, he might say that he had visited them recently, and he was astonished to find that they were in a more advanced state than he expected. At the same time, he was bound to say that, at the present rate of progress, it would be a long time still before the works would be in proper working order. The floating dock would be finished shortly, and the dry dock could soon be completed; in fact, if the Government exerted themselves, they could within six or eight months launch a vessel from the dry dock. Instead, however, of employing a large number of men on the work, they employed a very limited number. He believed that not more than 400 men were employed at the present time, and the weekly sum paid to these men did not exceed £350. It would, of course, be of great consequence to the people of Queenstown, and indeed to the people of Ireland generally, if the Government were to lay down a vessel in the dry dock immediately. But, owing to the fact that no provision whatever had been made for the accommodation, in Haul-bowline Island, of the workmen, it

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  would be useless to commence work for some time to come. He would like to know from the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty (Sir Thomas Brassey) if any steps had been taken for the erection of the necessary buildings on the Island when the docks were completed? It would be a very unfortunate thing if, after expending £500,000 on this work, the docks should lie idle for three or four years more, simply because there was no accommodation for workmen on the Island, and no plant set up for the building or repairing of ships. Could the Government give the Committee any idea as to the time in which the docks would be completed; and would they state further if they intended to take steps to have houses and all the necessary accommodation for workmen, and the appliances required by those workmen for the carrying on of their trade, provided by the time of the completion of the docks? He had heard it was intended that the docks should be finished in the course of three years.
  MR. CAINEsaid, that some of the subjects alluded to by hon. Members did not rightly come under the present Vote. If they looked at the Estimates relating to the Dockyards they would see that the sum of £82,000 had been expended altogether, and that of that amount Ireland had received £36,000. That had been, or was going to be, spent at Haulbowline. With regard to the transport Poonah, she had been bringing troops home in the regular course, and was not one of those transports included within this Supplementary Vote. The accident which had happened to her was entirely unforeseen, and the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, to whom she belonged, could not be held responsible for what had occurred; much less could any blame be attached to the Admiralty.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, he should like to ask the hon. Gentleman who represented the Admiralty, whether or not he was disposed to make a reply to the point raised by himself (Mr. Biggar) and another hon. Member as to the desirability of publishing the prices paid by the Government for provisions, and as to the desirability of giving the public some idea of the contracts entered into for supplying necessaries to the Navy? This appeared to him to be a matter of great importance, and one deserving the attention of
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  the Government and the Committee, seeing that the present practice was perfectly contrary to the public interest. Some reply should be given by one or other of the hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench representing the Admiralty. What argument was there to be urged in favour of the present system?
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEYsaid, that, in reply to the hon. Member, he was obliged to state that, under the present arrangement, to publish the details asked for would be a breach of confidence on the part of the Government, to which exception might properly be taken by the firms supplying the Admiralty. He should be happy to comply with the suggestion which had come from hon. Gentlemen opposite and consult with the officers responsible for the administration of the Department in relation to contracts; and if more publicity could be given to these transactions without a breach of confidence, he should be happy to consider what steps the Government could take in the matter.
  MR. DEASYsaid, the hon. Gentleman had not answered one of the questions put to him—namely, that with regard to the works in progress at Haulbowline Docks. Had provision been made for the erection of houses at Haulbowline Island for the workmen to be employed when the docks were finished?
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEYsaid, the Admiralty could not at present pledge themselves as to the decision to which they would arrive at with regard to the completion of buildings and the equipment of the buildings at Haulbowline. All the Government could say for themselves was that they had added considerably to the annual expenditure for the prosecution of the works at Haulbowline. Free labour had been substituted for convict labour, and 400 persons were now employed. When the Navy Estimates for the year were proposed, he should probably be able to give fuller information upon this matter.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, that the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Caino), in reply to an observation he (Mr. A. Connor) had made some time ago—and a reply which he was sorry to say he had not heard—had stated that the Government were spending some £36,000 a-year out of £82,000 in Ireland for Government

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  purposes, without including shipbuilding. This amount, he believed, was spent on Dockyards. Probably the hon. Member would have the Committee and the country to believe that that represented something like the ratio of expenditure in Ireland compared with that in Great Britain.
  MR. CAINE: Only as far as one matter is concerned—namely, Dockyards.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: Very well. If the hon. Gentleman would allow him, he would state to the Committee the facts with regard to the expenditure under Dockyard Vote, No. 6.
  MR. CAINEsaid, that his statement had reference to the expenditure under Vote 11, on page 19 of the Estimates. He had pointed out that the Government were spending £36,000 on Dockyards in Ireland out of a total sum of £82,000.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, that, no doubt, the hon. Gentleman's statement was correct as to 1884–5 in regard to this particular Vote. This was a year in which the Vote for England was exceptionally low, and the Vote for Ireland exceptionally high; but it was only one out of a large number of Votes. He (Mr. A. O'Connor) had not been complaining of this item at all. What he tad complained of was that, under Vote 6, out of a total expenditure of £1,500,000 Ireland obtained only £965. There was a very great difference in proportion between £965 and £1,500,000, and £36,000 and £82,000. Well, he came to the next Vote for the Victualling Service at home. Here, again, out of a total of £72,000 Ireland only received £1,000. It was altogether misleading for the hon. Gentleman to take one particular item out of one particular Vote which happened this year to be more than usually favourable for his purpose. It was unfair for the hon. Member to bring forward these two items to endeavour to lead the Committee to believe that they represented something like the proportion spent on the Navy in Ireland as compared with the expenditure in England. He (Mr. A. O'Connor) still complaimed that the expenditure on the Navy in Ireland was something like 1–400th part of what was expended in England. If the hon. Gentleman would take the trouble to ascertain, by means of the furnished Returns, what the Ad-
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  miralty had done year after year, he would see that the sum voted for expenditure in England was nearly always exceeded, and that it was never, or hardly ever—not once in 50 times—exceeded in Ireland. He argued, therefore, that the conduct of the Admiralty, so far as Ireland was concerned, was exceedingly unfair. He did not see how the Government could expect to find Irish Members consenting to a Vote of this kind, until they got a trustworthy assurance that, in the future, something like fairness would be adopted in regard to this Vote.
  MR. PULESTONsaid, he was sorry to interpose between the Committee and the division which hon. Members wished to take; but he desired to urge for an answer on the subject of the tenders asked for for the construction of ships. He took it that not many would support the hon. Member who had moved the reduction of the Vote; but he should like to know whether or not they were to have an explicit statement from the Admiralty as to what was to be done under the practical Resolution adopted last autumn, before the Vote was taken that evening? If such a statement were not made that night, when would it be made? As he had said, he was sorry to interpose; but he was under the impression, and others besides himself in the House were under the impression, that the Budget had something to do with this reticence on the part of the Government. He was glad to see the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his place. If there was to be a Vote of Credit, would the extra amount to be spent on the Navy come on later, so as to be put into the account of another year?
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEYsaid, the information the hon. Member asked for had been laid before the Committee when the Navy Estimates were moved.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 22; Noes 66: Majority 44.—(Div. List, No. 41.)
  Original Question again proposed.
  MR. PARNELLsaid, he desired to say a few words upon the shipbuilding contracts, or rather the contracts which had been given in Ireland for the construction of ships of the Royal Navy. He was glad to say, and he wished to

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  express his obligations to the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty (Sir Thomas Brassey), that in reference to a particular vessel—namely, the tank vessel—which was under consideration when this subject was last before the House, a Cork firm of shipbuilders had been successful in obtaining the contract. But he had since learnt that this tank vessel was the only ship the building of which had been given to any shipbuilder in Ireland. Now, the cost of building this vessel was not excessive; it only amounted to a sum of about £8,000. He congratulated the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty upon having seen his way to give that contract to the Passage Docks Company; but, at the same time, he was bound to take this opportunity of saying that he considered the total result as regarded the number of contracts which had been given most unsatisfactory so far as Ireland was concerned. The particular firm in Ireland to which he referred had never throughout its existence received any contract until now from the Admiralty for the building of a vessel. It had done some odd jobs in the nature of repairs and so forth, but it had never before received a contract for the building of a complete vessel; and the position of Ireland with regard to the proportion of work which was given out to shipbuilding firms was most unfavourable. Now, he did not know from what cause this might arise—whether it was that the Irish firms had been lost sight of or not by the Admiralty, that they were not invited so often as the English and Scotch firms to tender for the construction of vessels; nor did he know whether it arose, on the other hand, from some favouritism on the part of those who had the acceptance of the tenders—but this he did know, that the result was that Ireland did not get her fair proportion, or anything like her fair proportion, of the Admiralty work. While Ireland contributed her full, and more than her full, proportion to the Imperial Exchequer for work of this kind, she got little or nothing in return. He was sure it must strike the Committee, and the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty, that the sum of £8,000 spent on building ships in Ireland was not a fair proportion to be spent in that country of the millions which had been voted for this purpose; and he
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  would ask the hon. Member whether some different system to that which at present obtained could not be adopted? The Belfast shipbuilders were noted amongst the famous shipbuilders of the world. It was known that Messrs. Harland and Wolff were the first to invent the new system by which the length of vessels was very greatly increased in proportion to their width, and that, in consequence of this invention, America had been brought several days nearer this country. How was it, then, that Messrs. Harland and Wolff had not yet obtained any contract from the Admiralty connected with the large sum of money which had been already voted for increased shipbuilding, and which they were asked to supplement that night? When Irish Members applied to Her Majesty's Government to see the tenders they were told that they could not be produced. Why could not the Admiralty, following the rule which was adopted by all private firms when contracts were given out, and when they invited contracts, publish all the tenders, whether successful or unsuccessful? Such a plan might conduce to the lowering of prices in the future. Those who had tendered in the past and been unsuccessful, would see how and why they had been unsuccessful; they would be encouraged by the knowledge of the difference there was between them and the successful competitors to cut in at a still lower price in the future. All Railway Companies, all contractors, and all private firms who had occasion to call for tenders for particular work, were in the habit of publishing the replies they received to their request for tenders; and if in the commercial and manufacturing and building world the adoption of such a custom had been found of advantage, why should it not be found of advantage in relation to the Admiralty also? Why should not the House have before it a list of the replies and of the tenders received with reference to the building of particular ships? Why should not these be laid on the Table of the House, so that hon. Members might be absolutely sure that fair play had been observed, and so that the unsuccessful competitors might be in a position to make still lower tenders hereafter, to the great advantage of the Public Service, and also to the advantage of the public purse? He supposed he should be told

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  that in the present case it was a case of accepting the lowest tenders. Well, if it was a question of accepting the lowest tenders, there surely could be no objection to laying the highest as well as the lowest upon the Table of the House, so that hon. Members might see exactly how matters stood, or that they might be able to ascertain how far short Irish contractors were from the English standard, and that it might be possible for the Irish shipbuilders to correct their prices for the future, and to enter successfully into competition with the Tyne, the Clyde, and other great shipbuilding centres in England and Scotland. He did not know what the present rules at the Admiralty were in this matter, and how far they might be precluded by the conditions under which the tenders were asked for from publishing these Returns; but it would be perfectly possible for them to change their rule for the future, and to give the House all the information required. Of course, the breach of confidence that the hon. Gentleman had pleaded that night could not prevail in the future. He (Mr. Parnell) wished to take this opportunity of bearing testimony—testimony which he was enabled to bear in consequence of having paid personal visit to the works—to the great facilities which could be obtained for the construction of war vessels in the yards of the Passage Docks Company. This Company was capable of constructing ships of a very large class indeed. Their machinery was admirably adapted for the work; and he earnestly hoped that the result of the attention which had been directed to this matter would be that in the future they would not see the magnificent shipbuilding establishments in Cork and Belfast entirely neglected by the Admiralty as they had been in the past, but that they would be given a fair share of the Imperial Expenditure on ships of war.
  SIR THOMAS BRASSEYsaid, the hon. Member who had just sat down had not been present during the somewhat lengthy discussion which had taken place upon these subjects. If he had been present he would have heard the assurance he (Sir Thomas Brassey) had endeavoured to give to hon. Members from Ireland. The firms he had recommended were well known to the Admiralty, who shared the hon. Mem-
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  ber's high opinion of their capabilities. They had been invited to tender for the more important ships which were about to be put out to contract, and for his own part he should be glad to hear that they had been successful.
  MR. DEASYwished to put a question to the hon. Gentleman with regard to the departure of the troops from Ireland for the Colonies and elsewhere. They embarked at Queenstown, but not on their way directly to their destination. They were taken to England, whence they were provisioned and sent on their journey, and the result was that the people of Cork, who might naturally have expected to be called upon to supply provisions for the outward voyage, had nothing to do with these contracts. This seemed to him a monstrous thing. Of course, the system he complained of had to do with the Army, and did not properly come under the Navy Estimates. He would be out of Order in going into it at any length, and also in referring to an evil for which he thought a remedy should be found—namely, the co-operative system, whereby officers prevented their men from making any purchases outside the barracks. This latter subject did not come under the Vote at all, and he would not further deal with it. All he would ask at the present moment was what, in future, the Government intended to do with regard to embarking troops for service abroad, and the victualling of such troops?
  MR. CAINEreplied, that the business of the Admiralty was to charter ships to the War Office, arm they had nothing to do with the embarkation of the men, or of leave or permission given to the men to go on shore.
  SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAwished to say a word or two, having had charge of a deputation which had waited upon His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, on a subject which had an important bearing on this question. His Royal Highness had assured the deputation that in future, so far as possible, troops would be embarked direct from Cork or Queenstown, and not brought over to England in the first instance. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) had no doubt that His Royal Highness intended to carry out that pledge faithfully.
  Original Question put, and agreed to.

  SUPPLY—NAVY (SUPPLEMENTARY) ESTIMATE.
    CIVIL SERVICES (SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 18S4–5).

      CLASS III.—LAW AND JUSTICE.
      (2.) £3,000, Police—Counties and Boroughs, Great Britain.
      (3.) £4,700, Reformatory and Industrial Schools, Great Britain.
      MR. SEXTONsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury a question connected with this subject. He found, from the last Report of the Inspector General of Reformatory and Industrial Schools in Ireland, certain allowances made in respect of children who had left reformatories in Great Britain. The Inspector General mentioned an allowance of 2s. per week for the first 13 weeks, and 1s. per week for the next 26 weeks, after the liberation of the young persons from the reformatories—money laid out in the interest of the children to facilitate their being placed out in workshops.
      THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Gentleman will observe that this is a Vote for the Reformatory and Industrial Schools of Great Britain.
      MR. SEXTONsaid, he was quite aware of that, and he had no intention whatever of debating the propriety of applying this rule to Ireland. He simply mentioned the subject in order that the Committee might receive information to prepare them for the discussion which might take place on the ordinary Estimates. In that view he would ask whether the grant of this money to children released from reformatories in Great Britain had been attended with salutary results?
      MR. HIBBERTsaid, he had no doubt that the granting of this money for the benefit of children after their release from reformatories had been beneficial. He was not aware that no similar law applied to Ireland. He would suggest to the hon. Member that it would be more convenient to raise the question of so applying it in connection with the Bill to carry out the recommendations of the Reformatory and Industrial Schools Commission, which was in course of preparation. Upon that Bill ample opportunity would be afforded for ventilating this question as it affected Ireland, because he believed the measure would apply to all parts of the United Kingdom.
      MR. SEXTONsaid, he thanked the hon. Gentleman for his suggestion, I which was a very practical one; and he I hoped that when they came to take the debate on the introduction of the Bill, the hon. Gentleman would be able to give them the information now asked for.
      Vote agreed to.
      (4.) £96, Court of Bankruptcy, Ireland.
      MR. BIGGARsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, or the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland, whether they had any cause to find fault, generally speaking, with the administration of the Bankruptcy Law in Ireland? It appeared to him (Mr. Biggar), so far as he was able to form an opinion on the subject, that it was very doubtful whether the business of the Irish Bankruptcy Court was carried on economically, or in a satisfactory manner or not. He did not wish to debate the question as to whether or not it was desirable to take the greater part of the labour and business of the present Bankruptcy Court in Dublin from the parties who now performed the duties in that place, and intrust the Bankruptcy jurisdiction to Courts established in other parts of the country; but he would like to know whether the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland had any cause to find fault with the way in which the Bankruptcy Law had been heretofore administered, and whether or not he saw any substantial reason for the extension of the expenses and the increasing of the staff of the Court in Dublin? The total amount of the Vote was only £10,000; and so far as he could form an opinion upon the matter, it seemed that the business must be extremely limited—so small was the sum, and so small must the amount of business be, that he doubted very much whether there could be any sound excuse for extending the staff and increasing the expenses.
      MR. KENNYsaid, before the hon. and learned Gentleman answered, he wished to put a question to the Secretary to the Treasury. There were so many items in these Estimates for compensation and for making good losses incurred, either individually or owing to some fresh fault attached to the Irish Government, that it was well to seek

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      some explanation when the Vote was before the Committee. He saw in connection with the Court of Bankruptcy an item called "An excess of £205 damages caused by loss in the matter of the case of A. M. Richardson," and he wished to know why the officers should be allowed to safeguard themselves in the case of serious mistakes of this kind at the public expense? He (Mr. Kenny) should be obliged if the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury could explain how this item of £205 had come to be included in this Supplementary Estimate.
      THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, he should be far from saying that the Bankruptcy Court of Dublin was not a valuable one. His opinion was that the Bankruptcy Law was very well administered in Ireland, and that its administration would contrast very favourably with that of the English Bankruptcy Law. But, at the same time, there had been great demands from Belfast, Cork, and Limerick, for local Bankruptcy Courts, and it had been considered that it would be an advantage to start local Courts in order to bring the transaction of Bankruptcy business home to the doors of the suitors. This subject could be discussed when the Local Bankruptcy Bill—in the passing of which the assistance of the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) would no doubt be given to the promoters—-was before the House.
      MR. BIGGARwished to know how many cases were tried daily in the Dublin Bankruptcy Court? Was it not a fact that the business of the Court did not average more than two or three cases a-week, and was it not a fact that the Court was idle half its time?
      THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, there was a Return before the House from which the hon. Gentleman would see the number of bankruptcy cases which had occurred in Dublin, Belfast, and Limerick. The Return was laid on the Table on the Motion of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Findlater).
      MR. SEXTONsaid, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland appeared to be very shy of approaching the case of A. M. Richard-Bon. Who was A. M. Richardson—
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      where was he, and what were these damages?
      MR. HIBBERTpointed out that similar sums had been paid in previous years. In the matter of Mr. Richardson, although he knew nothing about that particular case, the sum was put down in the Estimates with the object of bringing it under the notice of the House. Previously, these sums had been paid without any notice of them being laid before the House.
      MR. WARTONunderstood that the official assignees had a claim to be recouped for their costs and their expenses; but it appeared to him that this was not a case of costs or expenses, but one of damages. It was possible that these official assignees might have exceeded their duty and have been guilty of some negligence, and that somebody had been sharp enough to bring an action against them, and had secured damages. He wanted to know if this was a case in which persons had obtained damages through the incapacity or negligence of the official assignees? He did not know if it was so; but it might happen that the official assignees had done wrong in something.
      MR. HIBBERTsaid, the official assignees might have exceeded their duty, and in that case the Judge of the Bankruptcy Court would give damages in respect of their having done so. He did not know if that was so, but that might possibly be the explanation.
      MR. KENNYasked whether the Solicitor General for Ireland could not give some information upon the subject? The Act of 1874 was passed in order to prevent possible frauds of this kind in Ireland.
      MR. HIBBERTcontended that it was for the protection of the public that the matter was brought before Parliament.
      MR. SMALLsaid, he understood the official assignees were not paid by salaries, but by fees; and he should like to be informed how much these gentlemen received last year?
      MR. HIBBERTsaid, he could not possibly have a knowledge of all these points. He knew very little of the details of the question as far as Ireland was concerned, and did not know what those gentleman received.
      MR. SMALLasked what Mr. Richardson received last year?
      THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)stated that no sufficiently exhaustive Return had been issued to show what these sums were, and it was impossible for him to carry all these small items in his mind.
      MR. KENNYcomplained that the Committee was asked to vote this sum of money, but the two hon. Gentlemen who were responsible for it were unable to give them any satisfactory explanation as to what it was for.
      MR. HIBBERTsaid, he would be glad to make inquiries and furnish the hon. Member with the information.
      MR. BIGGARbelieved that if the Committee had the true explanation of this Vote they would find that there was something which would enable them to form a definite opinion as to whether this money ought to be granted or not.
      Vote agreed to.
      (5.) £2,050, Prisons, Ireland.
      MR. DEASYsaid, he desired to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland one or two questions in regard to this Vote. It would be within the recollection of the hon. and learned Gentleman that he had been good enough last year to bring in a Bill to assimilate the Law of Ireland to that of England, upon its having been discovered that the two Acts of 1877 were not exactly similar, although Parliament at the time had been led to believe they were. The Irish counties went on paying about £15,000 a-year for the conveyance of prisoners since the passing of the present Prisons Act. This Act vested the control of prisons in the hands of the Government. Up to its passing the cost of transferring prisoners, tried and untried, was borne By the counties where those prisoners were arrested; and it was not discovered until three years after that in England the counties were not liable for this cost, and that it should be paid out of moneys voted by Parliament. A gentleman in the county of Surrey protested against the charge as illegal, and brought the case before the Court of Queen's Bench. On appeal, the matter was brought before the House of Lords, and it was then decided that the Government was responsible for this money themselves, and that the amount was illegally levied in England. Accordingly, the Prime Minister brought in a Bill to
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      refund to the English counties all the money they had thus illegally paid up to the year 1882, amounting to £ 100,000. But when the Irish Members made an application to have a similar course pursued in regard to Ireland, it was discovered that there was something dissimiliar in the Irish Act to the wording of the English Act, and that the Irish counties were legally liable to pay these enormous sums. In 1882, however, the Cork Grand Jury refused to pay the charge, and the case was laid before the Judge of Assize, Mr. Justice Barry, who was on the Bench at the time. He did not give his decision outright, but had the matter argued before the Court of Queen's Bench in Dublin. After hearing the arguments, the Court of Queen's Bench decided that all the charge, with the exception of a very small portion, was a legal charge on the county. This small sum, which was not so chargeable, was a matter of only £200 a-year, and although the Grand Juries ought to have had that small sum returned to them, they were unable to getit. If there were any national representation on the Irish Grand Juries, no doubt the matter would have been pressed; but the Grand Juries in Ireland were almost entirely composed of landlords, who had a very small interest in these subjects, because they paid little rates themselves, and therefore they did not trouble themselves much about the county cess.
      THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKEE)said, the hon. Member had himself explained the reason for the difference which existed between the case of the Irish counties and the English counties. The difference was an obvious one. The charge which had been made was an illegal one in England, and, therefore, the Government were equitably bound to refund the amount which had been illegally collected; but under the Irish Act, the charges were always legally made, and would have been so until now if a new Act had not been passed to alter the law. An amending Act having been passed, however, the Irish counties were put on exactly the same footing as the English counties.
      MR. SEXTONremarked, that the hon. and learned Gentleman had talked about equity; but it appeared to him that from the point of view of equity the two cases were precisely the same.

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      It was originally intended that the two Acts should operate precisely in the same way, and it appeared that when the Act was altered in England equity compelled them to refund the amount illegally charged to the English counties. In the case of the Irish counties the equity was precisely the same; but, probably through the action of some cunning lawyer, a few words had been incorporated into the Irish Act, and these were used to cheat the Irish counties out of the same rights which were alllowed to the English counties. They did not desire to have a prolonged debate on this question, and, for his part, he would be very glad to withdraw the claim they had made if any lawyer could tell the Committee what was the difference between the equity of the two cases. He thought that the argument which had been used by the Solicitor General for Ireland was not one which the hon. and learned Gentleman should couple with the name of equity.
      MR. P. J. POWERdesired to draw attention to the circumstances attending the conveyance of prisoners in Ireland under the Prevention of Crime Act.
      THE CHAIRMANpointed out that the hon. Gentleman would be out of Order in discussing the Prevention of Crime Act on this Vote.
      MR. SEXTON,on the point of Order, wished to ask the Chairman whether the remands of prisoners and their conveyance to and from the prison and the Court under the Prevention of Crime Act would not come under this Vote? There were prisoners in Ireland arrested under the Prevention of Crime Act who were remanded time after time for upwards of a year, and he submitted that the conveyance of these prisoners from one place to another could be discussed on this Vote.
      THE CHAIRMANsaid, the conveyance of such prisoners would be in Order; but it would not be in Order to enter into a discussion upon the policy of the Prevention of Crime Act.
      MR. P. J. POWERsaid, he was merely attempting to point out the circumstances connected with the conveyance of prisoners under the Prevention of Crime Act, which certainly came under this Vote. They had had prisoners conveyed from Galway and other places to Dublin for investigation and trial under the Prevention of Crime Act,
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      and on this ground alone it was their duty to prevent, as far as they could, this Vote passing. They regarded it as one of the greatest scandals in Ireland that these prisoners should be conveyed about from place to place.
      MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, he did not think that cases of this sort, under the Prevention of Crime Act, did come under the Vote at present before the Committee. As the hon. Member would see from the particulars, this Vote was for the expenses incurred in the conveyance of prisoners from the period when the order for their committal to prison was made.
      MR. SEXTONwished to ask a question in regard to the prisoners who had been conveyed backwards and forwards between Sligo and Dublin. One of these prisoners was being conveyed from one place to another, and the constable who was in charge of him put a pair of handcuffs on him which were very much too small for his wrists. In the process of handcuffing the man, therefore, the constable cut the wrists of the man, who complained of what had taken place, and was seen by the prison doctor at Sligo. The only reply the unfortunate man received from the doctor, however, was—"Oh, Paddy, they did not know that your wrists were so large." What he wished to know was, whether this brutal conduct was to continue; whether the right hon. Gentleman would make inquiries into the case, and ascertain if the expression he had quoted was made use of; if he discovered that the circumstances were as he (Mr. Sexton) had stated, whether he would reprove the persons who were responsible for such conduct?
      MR. CAMPBELL-BANNEEMANsaid, he was not aware of the circumstances of the case to which the hon. Member had referred; but if the hon. Member would send him the facts, he would inquire into the matter.
      MR. SEXTONsaid, he would send the right hon. Gentleman a letter in the man's own handwriting.
      MR. WARTONdesired to know if there had been, in respect of this matter, a recent change in the law which had given rise to this supplementary amount becoming necessary? If not, it showed a gross error in the original Estimate.
      THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)remarked,

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      that there had been a change in the law last Session which made this Supplementary Estimate necessary.
      Vote agreed to.

      CLASS IV.—EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND ART.
      (6.) £165,708, Public Education.
      (7.) £7,000, Science and Art Department.
      MR. DAWSONasked, what was the position of the New Science and Art Department in Dublin?
      MR. MUNDELLAsaid, that question did not arise on the present Vote. The matter would be brought forward on the ordinary Estimates.
      MR. SEXTONasked, whether the Report of the Commission and the scheme laid down for the development of Art Education in Ireland by Professor Sullivan had been taken into consideration?
      MR. MUNDELLAsaid, he would prefer not to make any statement on that matter at present. The Report of the Commission had nothing to do with this Vote. The grant was one in which Ireland shared in precisely the same degree as England and Scotland.
      MR. SEXTONsaid, it was evident that the right hon. Gentleman had not seen the document referred to, as it referred especially to grants.
      Vote agreed to.
      (8.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
      "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £83,620, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for the Salaries and Expenses of the National Gallery."
      MR. CUBITTsaid, the amount of this grant was so exceptional that he thought it unnecessary to make any excuse for addressing the Committee on the subject. Whatever opinion there might be on the question involved, he thought that it was a Vote which ought not to be passed over silently. The Government proposed to give £87,500 for two pictures—that was to say, dividing the amount, £70,000 for one picture, and £17,500 for the other. This was an enormous price to pay for two pictures; and the sum was so large that it required some little consideration to realize its
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      magnitude. He had seen, a short time since, an ingenious calculation, which turned the amount of £70,000 into halfpence, and showed that it represented a half-penny from every man, woman, and child in the United Kingdom. In other words, it represented a perpetual annuity of £2,000 a-year on the finances of the country, or £5 or £6 a-day for ever, and that simply for the purchase of one work of Art, without taking into account other expenses connected with it. It was also interesting to compare the cost of these pictures with some of the amounts derived from taxation at the present time. He found that it came very nearly to the amount which the Chancellor of the Exchequer obtained from Auctioneers' Licences; that it exceeded the sum he received from the Gun Tax, as well as that received from Armorial Bearings; it was more than two-thirds of the sum produced by the Tax for Male Servants, and was equal to that of the interest paid on the Two and a-Half per Cent Annuities before the recent transaction of the right hon. Gentleman. Finally, it was nearly half of the sum squeezed out of the Government for the repairs of the highways. These comparisons were, ho thought, sufficient to show to the Committee that the amount in question was a very large one. There was another question which arose on the Vote. Was this the time when a large sum of this kind ought to be voted? It was a time of great and increasing depression in trade—not only in agriculture, but in all branches of trade; it was a time of heavy war expenses, and it was a time of rumours of war. They had been told, even that evening, of the great calls made on account of the Navy, not only for the purpose of war, but for the purpose of the defence of the country. They knew that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer was preparing his Budget, and that the expenditure was so great that people must shudder when they thought of the consequences. Putting aside the exceptional state of things at the present moment, he asked whether it was wise for a Government to pay extreme prices for works of Art? The National Gallery had been formed by bequests and donations partly, and partly by purchases. But if Her Majesty's Government paid extreme prices for works of Art, would they not thereby discourage donations,

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      and would not persons be eager to obtain those vast sums instead of leaving their pictures to the nation? This purchase was one of the first results of the new law allowing the sale of heirlooms. The possessors of the picture might be right in saying that they had one of the best works of Art in the country; but to say there would never be another work of Art in the country equal to it was saying rather too much. Again, he believed that the Trustees of the National Gallery were entitled to a grant of £10,000 a-year, which was subject to their own discretion and the control of the Treasury as to the way in which they spent it; but he thought he was right in saying that no further grant was to be made to the National Gallery Trustees until the annual ordinary grants amounted to the sum paid for these pictures, the consequence of which would be that if constant sales of pictures, as was in the present state of the country likely to happen, were to continue, it would be impossible for the Trustees of the National Gallery to have its share of them owing to the want of money. The case was the same with regard to the National Portrait Gallery, which from having made a costly purchase was prevented from buying for some time. He thought that this condition ought to be removed. The National Gallery had not purchased since 1859 any single picture at a cost of more than £10,000. Two of the largest purchases ever made by the Trustees of the National Gallery for single pictures were when it gave, in 1857, £13,650 for a Paul Yeronese—The Family of Darius—and £9,000 for a Madonna by Raphael. During the time of Sir Charles Eastlake, pictures for the National Gallery were bought at an average cost of under £700, and he need not, therefore, trouble the Committee with any comparison in respect of those works of Art. He would only give two examples of the largest prices ever paid for pictures, and then he thought the subject would have been placed pretty fully before the Committee. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in conversation with a deputation which waited on him, had mentioned that he believed a Prince of Orange once bought a Rubens for £24,000. And in the extravagant times of the Second Empire, when Marshal Soult's Collection was brought to the hammer, there was an
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      extraordinary contest between three great nations for his celebrated Murillo, and it brought 615,300 francs, or about £24,000. He thought these examples showed that there was reason for the Committee to pause before giving such a price for these pictures as was now asked. Now, with regard to the correspondence that had taken place. First of all he would refer to the requisition in favour of these purchases, signed by members of the Royal Academy, and forwarded to the Prime Minister by Sir Frederick Leighton. He did not wish to criticize minutely the verbiage of this Memorial, because artists were not disposed to take the same view of these matters as was taken by Members of Parliament, and it would be sufficient for him to say that on the occasion referred to the members of the Royal Academy avowed that they addressed the Prime Minister under "strong emotion." But he should like to say a word or two with reference to the letter addressed to the right hon. Gentleman by Sir Frederick Leighton, who said it would be impossible to overstate the anxiety felt by the whole artistic community—
      "Partly because the occasion is one of an absolutely unique and unprecedented kind."
      And he went on to say—
      "We are accustomed to look to you as to one absolutely fearless in the carrying out of an elevated idea, and we believe that your championship will not be wanting to us on an occasion of which the like cannot recur, and in a cause which must on so many grounds commend itself to your inmost sympathies."
      Now, the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister was not in the House at the moment; if he were, he believed he would say that there were financial and other reasons which should make him a little cautious in carrying out this elevated idea. However, he would pass from that; they were accustomed to emotional language when artists took to the pen. He came now to the second Memorial to the Prime Minister, from persons who he supposed were called the Art-supporters of the country, amongst whose names he saw that of the hon. Baronet the Member for Lisburn (Sir Richard Wallace). The Memorial did not recommend any sum to be given, but only asked the Government to keep in view the approaching disposal of this great Collection—

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      "The Directors of every Continental Museum," they said, "are on the alert, and all hope that some of the treasures of the Marlborough Collection will be added to their own walls."
      On this he would say, had any foreign Government bought any of these pictures? Now, he was quite aware that the Government in this matter was under a very great difficulty, because it was quite impossible that the negotiations could be kept secret; but he thought he could 3how that persons inside and outside the House had increased the difficulties of the Government in making a bargain. He came now to another point—the proposal which the Trustees of the National Gallery sent to the Prime Minister. He believed that the Trustees had no part in the finances, and that the valuation of pictures entirely depended on the Director, and it was to a letter of that Director that he now asked the attention of the Committee. Sir Frederick Burton, Director and Financial Adviser, wrote to the Prime Minister, and his letter contained the following paragraph:—
      "The value of any great production of genius in money is a thing not easily to be determined. It resolves itself simply into a question of what the vendor will take and the purchaser give for an article combining the highest qualities with extreme rarity. Considering that these conditions are fulfilled in those pictures which are now placed at the disposal of Her Majesty's Government, I cannot feel any hesitation in expressing my opinion that even the large sum of 400,000 guineas would not exceed their value; and that in accepting them at that price the nation would in the end be the gainer."
      Those were the words of a gentleman who had the control of the financial arrangements of the National Gallery, and he could not but regret that such a letter was ever published, because, however valuable the opinion of Sir Frederick Burton might be, it would be impossible for him ever to obtain a picture in future at a moderate price. He now came to three letters which had passed between the National Gallery and the late Secretary to the Treasury and Mr. Barrington. It appeared from the letter that the Treasury seemed to have had the idea that the Trustees were supporting Sir Frederick Burton in the valuation of the pictures; but the letter of Mr. Eastlake, dated the 10th of June, showed that the Trustees very firmly declined any responsibility, and left the
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      matter in the hands of Sir Frederick Burton. He passed to the second letter of Sir Frederick Burton, who professed to give an opinion as to the value of the pictures in the Collection if they were exposed to public competition. He valued 11 of the pictures at 263,500 guineas, and added—
      "These prices united fall considerably short of the amount which the Duke of Marlborough demands for the whole. But it will be for Her Majesty's Government to consider whether this discrepancy, notwithstanding the associations connected with most of the works named in the list, and, far more, the fact that they are in this country, and that a feeling strong and universal prevails that they should, if at all possible, be retained in it, would not justify the acceptance of the terms offered by the Duke of Marlborough rather than that these invaluable works of Art should be lost to the present and future generations in England."
      Therefore, it was clear that Sir Frederick Burton was quite ready to close, regardless of cost, the bargain for the pictures. As one versed in Art, his opinion was that these pictures were worth anything to the nation, though the vendor or his agent appeared to put forward no plea that they were considering the nation, or going to make the nation a donation. The whole thing was done simply in the hard-and-fast way of a bargain; the 11 pictures must be bought together, the Duke of Marlborough having declined to sell a smaller number at a proportionately lower price. On page 11 of the correspondence a very important stage of the negotiations was reached. There was the letter of the Prime Minister to the hon. Member for East Cumberland (Mr. G. Howard), one of the Trustees. But there was, of course, some former correspondence left out, because the letter began—
      "I revert to the question of the Blenheim Pictures;"
      it referred, probably, to correspondence which, like that of Sir Frederick Burton, was not adapted for publication. In that letter the Prime Minister said—
      "We are, however, prepared to stretch a point to secure, if possible, the Raphael, and, perhaps, the Vandyke, together with the first on the list of the Rubens' (The Garden of I he Hesperides); and I am in a position to authorize the Trustees to make an offer of £70,000 for the Raphael, or of £100,000 for the three pictures, subject, of course, to the sanction of Parliament."
      Now, he would ask the attention of the Committee for a moment to the Memo-

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      randum of the proceedings of a deputation which waited on the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the 2nd of July last—that was to say, nearly a week after the Prime Minister had made up his mind. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did not seem to be acquainted with what had taken place between the National Gallery and the Prime Minister; he received the deputation, accordingly, in a cautious and guarded way; he reminded them that the largest price ever paid for a picture was £24,000. And, although he said that he would inform the Government of the views of the deputation, he did not give them any hope that the purchase would be made; but on the 4th of July Mr. Eastlake wrote to the agent of the Duke of Marlborough, in accordance with the Prime Minister's decision, offering £70,000 for the one picture or £ 100,000 for the three. The Prime Minister, however, having made up his mind to stretch a point, did not stretch it further; but remained firm at the offer of £70,000. A sort of round-robin was signed, on the 4th of July, by several Members of that House, which, strange to say, was headed by the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot), and for which he believed the hon. Member for Cricklade (Mr. Story-Maskelyne) was answerable. [Mr. STORY-MA SKELYJSTB dissented.] Well, it was a most extraordinary document, and the words of one of its paragraphs were—
      "The price that we ask the Government to be prepared to offer for these real masterpieces, even if limited to that at which they are valued by the Director of the National Gallery, is in either case unprecedented. But so is the occasion; and it is because the occasion is quite unprecedented, and so unlikely ever to recur, that we urge the Government to step outside the hard line of a severe economy in order, at one stroke, to raise to a higher level the collection of pictures of which the whole nation is proud, and which is a source of widespread and refined enjoyment to the poor as to the rich."
      He could hardly believe that, when this Memorial was passed round the Lobby, many of his hon. Friends knew what they were signing—they were willing to pay £100,000 for two pictures for which the Prime Minister had offered a much lower sum; and he believed that the moral of this was that round-robins in the Lobby were rather to be avoided, because hon. Members were not likely
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      to be always quite satisfied when the result of their recommendation appeared in the Estimates. The result of the deputation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the account of the round-robin being sent to the Prime Minister, of course, got to the knowledge of Mr. Davis, the agent managing the sale for the Duke of Marlborough; and the effect of this was a letter from Mr. Davis, dated 147, New Bond Street, the 5th of July, to Mr. Eastlake, mentioning that he was instructed by His Grace to say that—
      "He has reason to believe that there are other purchasers for these pictures."
      In short, the bargain was entirely repudiated. Therefore, he thought he was justified in saying that the round-robin did not assist the Prime Minister in obtaining the pictures at a more moderate price. Then he came nearly to the end of the negotiation. On the 12th of July the Secretary to the Treasury again wrote to the Trustees and Director of the National Gallery, stating that the Treasury were prepared to submit a Vote to Parliament for £85,000 for the purchase of the two paintings. The offer was then repeated by Mr. Eastlake to Mr. Davis, who, finding that the Prime Minister was firm at the offer of £70,000 for the Raphael, and that he could get no more money, on August 9 closed with the offer, and the purchase was settled. There then remained only the Vandyke, and he was sorry to say that all this grandiloquent correspondence had a very shabby ending. The Government offered£l5,000 for it, and the agent wanted more, and the result of that was that they did what other vendors and purchasers generally did under similar circumstances—they split the difference, and the picture was bought for £17,500. He believed he had shown that this was a question which the Committee ought to consider; and having thought very carefully whether he ought to propose to diminish the Vote, he was afraid that his only course would be to divide the Committee on the question whether this purchase ought to be completed or not. If, in taking that course, he carried the Committee with him, he should have the satisfaction of having saved the country a large expenditure; and if he did not succeed in doing so, he should have made his protest against the Vote, which protest might have some effect in

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      deterring other Governments from paying these large sums under similar circumstances on future occasions. He believed that a Vote of this kind could always be obtained if the subject could be considered sufficient to attract public attention; but he would remind the Committee that if they inquired at the public Institutions, they would be frequently told that the money at the disposal of the managers was insufficient to enable them to take proper measures for the display of their Collections. He believed that if one-tenth of the sum now asked for were spent on the arrangements of their National Collections, more benefit would accrue to Science and Art than would result from the possession of the objects for which this sensational Vote was demanded. Finally, there was one observation which he wished to make. Mr. Frederick Harrison, one of the deputation which waited on the Chancellor of the Exchequer on that occasion, was reported to have spoken warmly of the interest shown by the working classes, especially in the North of England, in the Collections at Nottingham, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and other towns, and to have expressed the opinion that they were invariably in favour of the purchase of great works of Art, even at very high prices, when recommended by those who were conversant with such matters; and Lord Aberdare also pointed out that no act of Mr. Lowe's, while Chancellor of the Exchequer, was more popular than the purchase of the Peel Collection. It seemed to him (Mr. Cubitt) that there was an advantage to the classes referred to in the arrangement recently made to distribute works of Art over the country under certain conditions, and that this would be more prized by the working classes than extravagant purchases of this kind.
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)said, the right hon. Gentleman had concluded with the remark that the Government should, as far as possible, carry out a system of lending works of Art from the Metropolis to the Provinces. In certain cases that had been done, and he was sure that his noble Friend the President of the Committee of Council on Education would do all that lay in his power to extend the application of that principle. The right hon. Gentleman had remarked
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      that this was an extravagant purchase; but he also combined with that remark a very curious suggestion on the point of economy. He said in effect—"If you do carry out this purchase, by all means do not stop any future Vote for the purchase of pictures."
      MR. CUBITT: I referred to pictures that could be bought for an ordinary sum.
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUEE (Mr. CHILDERS)said, he did not see any difference between an ordinary sum and a large sum; but, as a matter of fact, the right hon. Gentleman did suggest what was the reverse of economy. The simple narrative of the whole transaction was that the National Gallery was avowedly deficient in the highest examples of Art. The unfortunate dispersal of the Gallery of Charles I., which scattered some of the most important works of the great Masters all over Europe, had been a great misfortune to this country; and the result was that while at the Louvre, at Madrid, at Dresden, at Florence, at the Hermitage, and elsewhere, there were great and worthy examples of Raphael, there was in the National Gallery nothing approaching to what this country ought to possess of this Master, if it desired to have a Gallery of the great Masters fairly emulating the Galleries abroad. When this proposal, therefore, for the sale of the Blenheim Collection was made to them, he confessed that the sympathies of the Government were strongly in favour of purchasing one or two great works, provided they could make this purchase on terms which should appear to them reasonable, having regard to the price of pictures at the present time. The Ansidei Madonna was certainly a picture of a most remarkable character in connection with the life of Raphael and the three different manners through which his painting passed; and he thought those who had seen his pictures, especially in Italy and other foreign capitals, would agree with him in saying that this picture was an example of extreme value, and one which, if it could be bought at a reasonable price, should not be lost to the country. He believed the Government were asked, in the first instance, £160,000 for this picture; it was valued then by Sir Frederick Burton at 110,000 guineas, and, whatever the right hon. Gentleman might say, Sir Frederick Burton was a

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      great authority; and the Government came to the conclusion, after carefully considering what had been paid, not in former, but of late years, for great works of Art, and the continuing increase in their value—knowing something of what was going on with respect to offers for these pictures contemplated by other persons, that they might offer £70,000, and having decided to make that offer they never departed from it. They made the offer, in the first instance, on the 6th of June. The Duke of Marlborough persisted in his demand until early in August, and, when he found the Government were firm, accepted the offer. They could not have got the picture for less; and the question, therefore, was whether they should offer £70,000 for this remarkable example of Raphael, or allow it to go to one of the great Collections on the Continent. They believed that the House would support them under the circumstances in making the offer of £70,000, subject to their sanction. The Duke of Marlborough knew that the offer was made subject to the approval of the House, and would have no ground for complaint if that approval was withheld; but Her Majesty's Government, knowing that the offer was a fair one, had no hesitation in asking the House for the amount of the Vote.
      SIR GABRIEL GOLDNEYsaid, he had very few remarks to make upon this subject. He thought the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Surrey (Mr. Cubitt) had done a very good service in drawing attention to this matter. Hon. Members ought to recollect that there were two sides to questions of this sort—people were apt to be carried away into a large expenditure, and next year, perhaps, something equally valuable and attractive cropped up, and equally likely to go abroad if it was not bought; and unless there was some control over these matters, it was very likely that they would be led away into further expense, and placed in a difficult position. Now, the Committee should consider the position of the National Gallery. It was of very great advantage to the country, no doubt, associated as it was with South Kensington. The National Gallery was established in 1824 for the purpose of forming a receptacle for public gifts. It was formed with the Angerstein Collection, which was for some time exhibited in Pall
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      Mall. Mr. Thomas Baring, in 1871—when the Peel Collection was brought before the public with a view to purchase—moved for a Return of the money which the nation had spent, and what they had acquired by purchase and gift since the formation of the Institution. That Return showed that, from 1824 to 1870, a period of 45 years, the House of Commons had voted as the largest amount in any one Vote £75,000 for one of the most valuable and beautiful Collections that had ever been acquired—a Collection of 70 pictures, called the Peel Collection—to which amount was to be added the annual cost of other purchases, amounting to about£7,800, which brought up the total expenditure to£337,000 for the time named. The Return further showed that, during the 45 years which had elapsed since the National Gallery was established, there had been presented to the nation 284 pictures; that 256 had been bequeathed and 313 purchased. The cost of the 313 pictures purchased amounted, at that date, to£254,527, or an average price of£800 each for the whole of those valuable works. It was delightful to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer speaking with such freedom from the considerations which usually restrained the right hon. Gentleman; but he (Sir Gabriel Goldney) said that the history of the National Gallery showed that they ought to limit their expenditure upon it to a certain amount every year, or they would be carried away too far by the fear of losing some valuable work of Art, which it would be said the country ought to secure at any price. The House should, in his opinion, determine that expenditure on these matters should be limited to a certain sum per annum.
      MR. STORY-MASKELYNEsaid, that, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Surrey had imported his name into the debate, he would ask the attention of the Committee for a few minutes. He did not shrink from owning that his hand was in the document quoted by the right hon. Gentleman; that he drew it up with the advice of some friends; and he was happy to say it received the signatures of influential Members on both sides of the House, including hon. Friends of his own, who represented the working classes in an especial manner. He thought the

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      last observations of the hon. Member? who had just sat down were very well worthy the attention of the Committee; and he might add that the desirability of taking some steps in the direction indicated had been present to his mind for some little time past. That, however, he did not think had anything to do with the question before the Committee. That question was whether, with regard to the two pictures, the hon. Members who had memorialized the Treasury had been acting in an extravagant spirit, carried away by emotion, or whether the proposal to purchase them was the result of long and careful consideration—whether, in short, those who urged the Government to take action were not actuated by a proper and just idea of what they owed at once to Art and to the principles of economy? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Surrey (Mr. Cubitt) had been kind enough to read some of the clauses of the document which had been signed by hon. Members with regard to those pictures; but he had omitted to read the last clause, which was the most important one of all, in which they said—
      "We assure the Government that, to the best of our belief, our constituents and the whole nation will approve and applaud an expenditure, even though so large, for the special object in view; because it will be known that whatever price is paid will have been the result of much negotiation at the hands of the responsible Advisers of the Government."
      For his own part, he had been perfectly willing to leave the matter in the hands of the Government, and that they should decide what was the fair price that should be paid for these unique pictures. The Raphael was a unique picture, and the occasion of such a picture coining into the market was also unique; and they had, therefore, advised the Government to step out of the economical position which they usually occupied, and purchase the picture. He and his hon. Friends were not ashamed of that advice. He knew the picture, and had seen it illuminated with a powerful light in the splendid palace of Blenheim; and he could only say that if there were a Raphael in the world which illustrated the pictorial art in its highest form in the age of Raphael it was the picture in question. He need not go into the reasons which gave this picture
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      its special value in the history of the development of painting as exhibited in Raphael's work; he would only say that for wealth of colour it was, perhaps, the finest Raphael in the world. Such a picture placed on the walls of the National Gallery would be not for to-day or to-morrow, but for all days. In that Gallery it would be seen not only by the wealthy, who had pictures of their own, but by those who had not the opportunity of seeing such supreme works of Art elsewhere. During the 20 years that he was at the head of a department at the British Museum, he had observed what had been the effect from year to year of the increase in the number of works of high type, representing the noble Arts of Greece and Rome. He knew that its effect had been to increase the number of visitors of the artizan class, as well as of other classes; and they showed, by their scrutiny, the highest appreciation of them. Such scrutiny and the cultivation of taste which was born of it was one of the factors, and no small one, in the culture of a nation, and in a kind of culture which our nation greatly needs. But the question must be looked at from the point of view of the effect it was to have upon the England, not of to-day only, but of the future. In one of the Natural History Departments of the British Museum, the collection belonging to which lie largely formed, the most gratifying result was that he found that by degrees students came from Germany, America, France, and Italy to study and explore it, because, as they said, they were not educated in their science until they had studied that Collection. It was the same with the Art Collections in the Museums and National Gallery. The National Gallery had one unique advantage; the Collection had not been made by Kings and wealthy nobles, but, in a large degree, by men who were themselves artists, who knew Art in its highest form and in all its characters. It was made by men who meant it to be a History of Art, who intended it to be a Collection to which the student of Art could go to find an education; and where, no less, the wayfarer outside the profession of the artist could find a historical sequence in the Schools of Art and illustrations of the great Masters' work in each, whereby he might be led on step by step to a real enjoyment of the

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      highest and noblest works of Art. He hoped every Member of the House appreciated this aspect of the National Collection; he was persuaded that none appreciated it more than some of those who represented the artizan constituencies in the country. Those hon. Gentlemen were always ready to acknowledge the good they derived from a visit to the National Gallery. He was sorry for having detained the Committee be long; but he hoped he had given some reasons for having drawn up the Memorial which had been referred to, in not very complimentary terms, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Surrey (Mr. Cubitt).
      MR. GEORGE HOWARDsaid, the opinions of the Trustees of the National Gallery had been expressed very much in the Correspondence which had been published; but he should like to say a few words in justification of those opinions, and to explain away a few inferences which had been drawn from them by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cubitt). Of course, he could not say that the price proposed to be paid for the pictures was not a very large one indeed; but the real question was not whether the price was large, but whether the pictures were worth the money—whether they were paying for them now a price which they would not be able to get them for in a few years. He thought that this might be illustrated by -what had been already alluded to. The largest price ever paid for a Collection of pictures for the National Gallery was that paid for Sir Robert Peel's Collection. £75,000 was given for that Collection 15 years ago. At the time that sum was considered enormous, and, as had been said by an hon. Gentleman opposite, the Government, in giving it, were considered to be acting very generously in the interest of Art and Education. He, however, had the very highest authority for stating that the present market value of that Collection was not £75,000, but £200,000. Now, if they could look for a rise in the value of their National pictures at all equivalent to that in the case of Sir Robert Peel's pictures, it was almost impossible to calculate what the value of these particular pictures would be in a few years time, because, although the pictures of Sir Robert Peel were masterpieces in themselves, they were pictures
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      by Masters whose works were from time to time in the market in considerable numbers, whereas these pictures were absolutely unique. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cubitt) talked as if pictures turned up like products of Nature; but the Trustees of the National Gallery knew with absolute exactitude what pictures of these Masters there were in the world, and they could confidently say that the pictures in question were absolutely unique. The great picture by Raphael could, in the opinion of the best authorities, rank second only to one in Europe; he did not think there was another picture by Raphael that could be put above it in value, unless it were that at Dresden. The state of a picture was a matter which greatly affected its value; and the state of this picture was more perfect than that of any other easel picture by Raphael. The purchase of the great Vandyke had, perhaps, been more criticized than the purchase of Raphael; but he thought that the purchase recommended itself to the artistic world. It was a great equestrian picture, ranking with those by Titian or Velasquez at Madrid. Although Vandyke was a foreigner, he was said to be the father of English painting. An hon. Friend of his said, the other day—"We do not care for any more Vandykes, because we can see Vandykes in any English manor house."But, as his hon. Friend the Member for Cricklade (Mr. Story-Mas-kelyne) had said, it was not everybody who had access to manor houses. Beyond that, he (Mr. G. Howard) would say it was just because there were so many imitations of Vandyke in England that it was eminently desirable to have the masterpieces of that painter in their National Gallery. He remembered that people used to say—"If you want to know what Vandyke could paint you should go to Genoa." Again, it was not possible for everyone to go to Genoa, and even if it were they would not see such a picture as the Government proposed to purchase. The unrivalled excellence of these pictures was generally admitted; but it was thought that an extravagant price was being paid for them. Great as the price was, in his opinion, it was not at all an extravagant one; indeed, he had reason to believe that one of the greatest foreign authorities on painting had expressed the opinion that the Raphael would probably

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      sell at the present moment for £100,000. It was certainly a curious thing that many years ago, when one of the former Directors of the National Gallery entered into communication with the late Duke of Marlborough on the subject of the Raphael, that he expressed the opinion that, from what he had heard, he believed the value of the picture was £100,000. That was a good many years ago, when the value of pictures was not so high as it was at present. He (Mr. G. Howard) would not go into the Correspondence in detail, because the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Cubitt) had dealt with it at sufficient length. He would just allude to one or two points in it. The right hon. Gentleman had said that Sir Frederick Burton was an extravagant valuer of pictures, and he founded the statement upon a list of prices which Sir Frederick had sent in to the Prime Minister. He (Mr. G. Howard) would point out, in the first place, that it was a very difficult thing—in fact, Sir Frederick himself said that it was almost an impossible thing—to price a picture of this character. Before an exact price could be fixed, it would be necessary for them to know more about the probable competitors, if the picture were put up to auction, than it was possible to know when the sale was a private one. Sir Frederick Burton had given what he believed to be the amount that the picture would fetch if exposed to general competition. A certain number of the pictures priced by Sir Frederick had since that time been sold. There was a list of nine pictures, which Sir Frederick Burton had valued at £83,000, and of these seven had been sold—he said seven, but, as a matter of fact, one—an inferior picture—was not on the list. However, six of that list had been sold, and the seven disposed of in the open market had fetched, not £83,000, but £98,350. That was the sum actually paid for them—a far larger figure than had been estimated by Sir Frederick Burton. It was a regrettable circumstance that these masterpieces had gone abroad. Perhaps it was inevitable, but, at all events, it proved that there were foreign competitors ready to give large sums, much larger than we ourselves were ready to give, for the pictures. It must not be forgotten that in some respects the present
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      moment was an unfortunate one for the Duke of Marlborough to have selected for the sale of his pictures. The Berlin Government had—he did not know whether last year or the year before, but at any rate quite recently—given something like£90,000 for a collection of manuscripts, one of which was a sketchbook of Botticelli, containing illustrations of Dante. Germany was a great country, but was supposed to be managed most economically, yet it did not consider £90,000 an extravagant sum for a sketch-book. We ought to be thankful to the German Government for the use they had made of the sketchbook, for they had published reproductions of the sketches; but if these pictures of the Duke of Marlborough had gone abroad, it would not have been possible for us to have obtained reproductions, and no idea of them could have been obtained by ourselves or future generations without going abroad to see them. It was unfortunate for the Duke of Marlborough that Germany had made a large investment, because, no doubt, it had crippled them in regard to other purchases, and had rendered them unable to compete for the purchase of the Blenheim pictures. It was not unreasonable to suppose, also, that there might have been some feeling on the part of purchasers that the English Government had a certain priority in the purchase of these pictures. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cubitt) had been good enough to take the National Gallery under his protection, and to say that they ought not to be cut off from their annual grant. He (Mr. G. Howard) hoped that attention would be paid to what the right hon. Gentleman had said in that respect. He should like to point out that, on the one hand, the right hon. Gentleman had represented the managers of the National Gallery as anxious at any price, totally disregarding economy, to obtain this grant of money for the purchase of the pictures; but that, on the other hand, he forgot that, in making that recommendation, the Trustees of the National Gallery had this fully before their eyes, and yet preferred to run the risk of losing the grant rather than lose what they believed to be a unique opportunity. He thought that their willingness to obtain the pictures at that sacrifice, however reluctant they might have been to lose their an-

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      nual grant, showed that their opinion had not been formed recklessly and impulsively, as had been suggested, but had been a deliberate one. The right hon. Gentleman had also detailed the measures which he thought would be useful for educational purposes in the way of the circulation of works of Art and in the management of their Galleries, in order to make works of Art more valuable to the public. For his own part, ho agreed with much that the right hon. Gentleman had said about what should be done for the purpose of education. Much had been done, and much more could still be done; but he thought that people were rather to undervalue the great educational effect of the best works of Art being available to the Art students. In that respect, he believed that the National Gallery stood very high. It was a remarkably complete historical Collection; but what was wanted, above all, as the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had pointed out, was a few great masterpieces. Year by year the managers of the National Gallery had made their Collection of pictures more complete in an historical and educational sense; but, to perfect it, it had rather wanted some great masterpieces in order to have a full representation of what was absolutely the best in Art. Although opinions and fashions were fluctuating things, they did not at all fluctuate in regard to the highest names in Art; and he believed that, by becoming possessors of these pictures, the Government would be putting their National Collection in an absolutely unassailable position. The number of Art students at the National Gallery was increasing year by year, and this year rather more than 100 students were engaged in copying the pictures in the National Gallery over and above the number so engaged last year. Then there was one personal matter upon which he begged permission to say a few words. It had been suggested, because the Prime Minister's letter to him in regard to the Blenheim pictures began rather abruptly, that some communication had passed which the managers of the National Gallery did not wish to have published. Nothing could be a greater mistake. As the communications had been going on from day to day, and as the Trustees of the National
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      Gallery only met from time to time, he (Mr. G. Howard) had very naturally, as the only Trustee at that time in the House of Commons, communicated the information received to Members of the Government whom he had seen in the House. He believed that the Prime Minister's letter to himself was in answer to a letter from him (Mr. G. Howard), in which he had stated that he believed there was then a chance of purchasing the two pictures separately, the Duke of Marlborough having before that refused to treat for them except in one collection. It, however, appeared that the noble Duke had changed his mind, and he (Mr. G. Howard) communicated that fact to the Prime Minister, and this letter was the right hon. Gentleman's answer. There was nothing which could not have been fully published to the House in the matter. He had nothing more to say; and in conclusion he would merely observe that he felt absolutely convinced that if this opportunity had been lost they would not have had another of getting a picture or pictures of that class again.
      MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, he did not suppose the Committee desired this debate to be prolonged; and he certainly had no wish to detain it for more than a few moments. He felt, however, that he must, for one, express his thanks to his right hon. Friend near him (Mr. Cubitt) for bringing this question before the Committee. It was quite reasonable and proper that such a question should be debated there; and he was sure the Government itself would not have desired a Vote of that kind to pass without comment. There were two or three things to be deprecated in connection with this purchase. In the first place the country, no doubt, through its great wealth, by its action in this matter, had tended to raise the value of pictures in the market. It had done this by giving a price higher than could be given by any private purchaser. It was evident that the price originally asked for these pictures was something exorbitant. It had been brought down by the firmness of the Prime Minister to a comparatively moderate amount, although lie thought it was still excessive—so that he could not help thinking that if the Treasury had been left alone a still smaller price would have been agreed upon. But the economical instincts of

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      the Treasury could not be trusted, and a deputation of distinguished persons had waited upon the Government in order to stimulate them to make the purchase, and they had besides a round-robin signed by Members in the Lobby of that House for the same object—a practice which he thought was to be more honoured in the breach than in the observance. The round-robin was intended to strengthen the hands of the Government; but who could doubt that when great pictures were in the market, the artistic world would be more inclined to stimulate than depreciate their value? Who could doubt that, under the circumstances, the prices would be enormously raised? He remembered that a considerable sensation was caused at the enormous amount of £23,000 being given by the French Government for Marshal Soult's Murillo. From that time to this no such sum had ever been given for a single picture. The value of the Duke of Marlborough's Raphael was not fixed by any consideration as to what it was worth, but in view simply of what the Treasury could be persuaded to give. That was a matter of precedent. So far as the intrinsic value of the picture was concerned, he could not, of course, pretend to offer an opinion; but he would say, with regard to the National Gallery, that probably no one frequented it more often than he did himself, or had taken a greater interest in it for a long period of time; and he must admit that pictures of this class were the one thing needed to make it complete. The Collection was an extremely interesting one, and an extremely valuable one, and he thought more valuable from not being too large. It was valuable to the English people because it had been built up, not by extravagant purchases at one time, but generally by purchases made from year to year out of an annual Vote. If the Committee were willing to pass the present Vote, he thought it ought not to be done at the cost of the annual grant of £10,000. It did not follow that because that sum was voted annually it was necessary always to spend it; but he considered that their National Collection of pictures, such as it was, owed its chief merit and distinctive character to purchases made in the market from time to time in the natural way. With regard to the Vandyke, the price at which it
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      was to be obtained was, he must own, a large sum to give for a picture, which, however fine, was not unique, there being many similar to it in the country. There was one in Burlington House—a portrait of Charles I. on horseback. There was one at Windsor and one at Highclere. In conclusion, he wished to express his obligations to his right hon. Friend for having drawn attention to this Vote, and to say that, if he went to a division, he should support him.
      MR. MARJORIBANKSsaid, he did not rise to say one word as to whether it was expedient or not for the nation to purchase these pictures; but as he was one of the Trustees for the Blenheim estate, and guardian of the Marquess of Blandford, he thought he might be permitted to say what his views were upon the subject. In 1883 a large sum was offered for 12 of the Blenheim pictures, and in 1884 application was made to the Court of Chancery, under Lord Cairns's Act, for permission to negotiate their sale. There was a reasonable expectation of obtaining a sum of certainly £400,000 for the 12 pictures. This application was granted by the Court of Chancery; but when, under the terms of the order, the Duke of Marlborough applied to the Court to sanction the sale of the Ansidei Raphael and the Vandyke portrait of Charles I to the Government for £70,000 and £17,500 respectively, he (Mr. Marjoribanks) and his co-Trustee thought it their duty to oppose the application to the utmost, on the ground of the entire inadequacy of the price offered by the Government. He wished to express his decided opinion that if the Duke of Marlborough had been more firm in the matter he might have obtained a much larger sum for the Baphael and Vandyke than he had agreed to accept. He (Mr. Marjoribanks) did not mean to say that the noble Duke would necessarily have obtained it from the Government. He believed—and he wished to express the opinion—that the country, in obtaining these two pictures at the price they were giving for them, were obtaining them at much below what would have been given for them elsewhere.
      MR. BUSTONsaid, he would not trouble the Committee for any length of time; but he wished to express the satisfaction with which he had heard the eloquent vindication of the Vote which had fallen from the hon. Member for

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      Cricklade (Mr. Story-Maskelyne). He did not want to depreciate the bargain the Government had made, and was sorry that the Committee was to be divided on the subject. He trusted that the hon. Gentleman's remarks would have the effect of removing the impression that existed in some quarters amongst Gentlemen who were disposed to question the wisdom of this Vote. He did not regard this as a question as to whether one more picture or two should be added to their National Collection. That was a small matter, though he was not, of course, disposed to undervalue it. The study of such noble works as the Blenheim Raphael was distinctly elevating, no doubt; but he wished to regard this proposal in the light of that great educational movement which was going on in this country, and more particularly in connection with Art. Hon. Members would be able to carry their minds back 35 years, to the time of the Exhibition of 1851. That Exhibition convinced the people and Government of this country that we were very much behind not only in Art matters, but especially in those manufactures in which artistic treatment entered at all; and he believed that it was on account of the enlightenment that Exhibition gave them that the Government inaugurated, he might say, a new era in regard to Art in this country. They established the Schools of Art, under that distinguished man, Sir Henry Cole. These schools had become established in almost every important town in the country; and hon. Gentlemen knew as well as he did what were the wonderful results they had accomplished. The manufactures of this country, in which the element of solidity mainly entered, had always held their own, because of the peculiar advantages which they as a nation enjoyed; but in those manufactures in which Art treatment was required they were deficient, and behind their foreign competitors. It was therefore precisely in those branches of manufacture, in which Art treatment was essential, that this great revival of Art had brought their manufactures to a level with those of other countries. What had been the consequence of all this? Let Gentlemen look at their own houses. ["Order, order!"] He did not wish to transgress—he simply desired to show what was the influence of Art-
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      teaching on the country, and how necessary it was that high ideals should be placed before those who had to study Art in the country. But he would pass from that, and would say that if the country was to maintain its place in the competition with foreign nations, they must, as far as they could, place before their workers the highest Art ideals that could be obtained. This Raphael, which had been so much spoken of, was, he believed, although he had not seen it, a wonderful picture. Certainly the price to be given for it was enormous; but whether or not it was an extravagant one depended upon what it was possible to get the picture for. If someone else was prepared to give £70,000 for it, £70,000 was the price the British Government could purchase it for on preference. Considering, therefore, that this was a unique occasion, and considering the wonderful stimulus this kind of purchase gave to the study of Art in the country, and looking upon its effects on the manufactures of Great Britain, he thought the occasion was one of which they ought to avail themselves. If they did not avail themselves of it, it would pass irretrievably away. As their manufactures increased and flourished, so did their artizans by the millions flourish; and it was on their behalf more than on behalf of the wealthy, who could go to the Picture Galleries when they chose, and who had the advantage of having pictures in their own homes, that he heartily supported the Vote.
      MR. AGNEWconfessed that it was with much surprise and regret he saw the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Surrey (Mr. Cubitt) placing himself in front of the opposition to this Vote. Many in the House must know that the right hon. Gentleman was a distinguished connoisseur in matters of Art, that he was in possession of artistic heirlooms, and that he was himself a collector of works of Art of no mean distinction. He did not, however, gather from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman that he objected to the purchase of this picture under any circumstances, but rather—though not expressed in words, and judging from the tone of his remarks—that he objected to the price to be paid. It appeared to him (Mr. Agnew) that there were two points before the Committee—first, was the Go-

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      vernment justified in seeking to acquire these precious examples of Raphael and Vandyke? If so, was the price which the Government contracted to pay more than the value of the pictures? He believed that no Government, in any civilized country, would have done other than depart from its true and proper functions if it had permitted, without making an effort to acquire them, such works to be deported. He confessed that since he had had the honour of a seat in that House he had never given a vote with greater pleasure and satisfaction than the vote he should give in favour of this purchase. And why was that? It was because he believed that the country was getting more than value for its money. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Hampshire (Mr. Sclater-Booth), in his remarks, had said—"Where is the person who has offered to give £70,000, or more than£70,000, for the Raphael, and why does he not come forward?" Well, he (Mr. Agnew) asked the House—this House of Commons, composed of English Gentlemen—whether there was a Member in it, or one of their countrymen out of it, who would have ventured to enter into negotiations with the Duke of Marlborough for the purchase of these pictures until it was certain that all negotiations between His Grace and the Government were at an end? In reference to what had been said about private individuals buying the pictures, he knew, as a matter of fact, that many persons were prepared to negotiate. He might tell the Committee without any breach, of confidence, that, on behalf of a distinguished American, the firm of which he was a member had been invited to enter into negotiations for the purchase of this Raphael; and he took no credit to himself for having, to use a vulgar commonplace, shown the "cold shoulder" to his American client. He believed the picture to be worth a larger sum than £70,000; and that if it were offered for sale in any auction room in Europe it would command a much larger price than the Government proposed to give for it. A great deal of stress had been laid upon the fact that 30 years ago, Soult's Murillo was sold for £24,000. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cubitt) was not correct in his facts when he said that the competition for that picture rested
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      between the French and Spanish Governments. That was not so. It was a fact that an English nobleman was one of the competitors for the picture, and the penultimate bidder for it. The right hon. Gentleman knew well enough that during the last 30 years the value of works of Art had quadrupled—nay, quintupled. Twenty-five or 30 years ago high-class pictures could be obtained with comparative ease; but what was the state of things now? Important cities like Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, established public Galleries, and others devoted annually large sums of money for the acquisition of pictures. They found in the Colonies Melbourne and Sydney National Galleries established, and they saw these Galleries in Boston, St. Louis, New York, and other places in the United States; and did hon. Members suppose for a moment that those who were interested in the formation of those Galleries were indifferent to the acquisition of pictures of the highest class? He repeated that the value of works of this class had more than quintupled within the last 25 years. There could be no comparison whatever between the two pictures in point of Art or educational value, there being a great gulf between the Art of Raphael and that of Murillo. He did not desire to detain the Committee a moment longer. He regretted very much, that the tone of the speech made by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Cubitt) had been to disparage the Director of the National Gallery; and he would take this opportunity of expressing his opinion that the administration of the National Gallery had been an immense success. Of course, the Director and Trustees of that Institution had no greater claim to being immaculate than any other set of men, and there could be no doubt that they had made mistakes; but, at the same time, he did believe that there was no Department of the Government, and no public matters connected with the National interest, that had been better safeguarded than had the interests of the English people in the National Gallery. Sir Frederick Burton was a very distinguished man; and although he was not supposed to be what might be termed an appraiser—for it was not expected of the Director of the National Gallery that he should know to a hair the value of

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      any particular work of Art which the Trustees might desire to possess—he felt bound to say that the nation had every right to be satisfied with the administration of the National Gallery. He trusted, therefore, that the Committee generally, or, at least, a considerable number of hon. Members, would agree with him in saying that when the two pictures they were then discussing were placed in the National Gallery, in point of general excellence and distinctive character, there was no Gallery in any city in Europe that would be in a prouder position than their own. The Committee should understand that the Raphael was not a small picture. As a good many hon. Members had probably never seen it, he would tell them that it was not a picture that could be put under Mr. Speaker's Chair; but a large composition of a quality unsurpassed by anything in the Kingdom. Indeed, he had no hesitation in saying it was a more valuable picture, twice told, than any other picture in the United Kingdom, and that there was no picture in Europe by the great Master that was in the same state of perfection; while there was not one, with the single exception of that which an hon. Member below him had already referred to—the Ma-donnadi di San Sislo at Dresden—that could compare with it for a moment in point either of quality or value. He regretted very much that there should be any division of opinion on this Vote; but he had little doubt that the Committee would, by a substantial majority, give its assent to the Motion of the Government.
      MR. COOPEsaid, he was of opinion that that House and the country generally were under a deep debt of gratitude to the Government for having availed themselves of the unique and unexampled opportunity which had been offered them of securing for the nation the two most magnificent works of Art to which the Vote under discussion related. The Madonna was, he believed, one of the finest that had been produced by Raphael. At any rate, there was only one other work in the world by that great Master that could be compared with it; and with regard to the Vandyke, it was the finest equestrian painting that Master had ever painted. It was true that the National Gallery already possessed one of the finest por-
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      traits Vandyke had ever produced; but the picture it was proposed to purchase would prove a very valuable adjunct. In his opinion, the purchase of the Peel Collection was one on which the nation might congratulate itself; and when the country had obtained the addition of these two magnificent paintings it would possess a National Gallery of which it might well be proud. He had listened with considerable interest to the hon. Member opposite (Mr. G. Howard), who was one of the Trustees of the National Gallery, for any remarks from him on such a subject must necessarily receive great attention in that House. He might say that they were very much indebted to the management of the National Gallery on other accounts. They had lately arranged the pictures in that building in schools, and they had also placed servants in uniform in the rooms, so that the public could know them, and address to them any inquiries they might wish to make; whereas, before this was done, the visitors did not know who they were to put questions to when they desired information. He regretted that the Trustees of the National Gallery had not taken the same course as had been followed by the Trustees of the South Kensington Museum, as well as by the Trustees of the British Museum, but which he was glad to find was now being tentatively undertaken; and he trusted that when the National Gallery had acquired the two magnificent works for which the present Vote was asked they would constitute another inducement to the Trustees to offer the public every opportunity of viewing those great artistic creations which belonged to the nation, and which the people ought not to be debarred from seeing on all available occasions. If the Committee went to a division on this Vote, he had no doubt there would be a large majority in favour of the proposed acquisition. He regarded the proposal as one of those which the Prime Minister would, on reflection, regard as one of his last and best acts.
      MR. MONTAGUE GUESTdesired to say a few words before the Committee went to a division on this Vote. He did not think that this was a time when the country should be asked to spend £70,000 on a picture, however much it might be worth the money. It was proposed to increase the Army by 16,000

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      men, and it was also intended to expend large sums on a considerable addition to the Navy. There was a war at present going on in the Soudan, and, perhaps, there might soon be another in Afghanistan; and he certainly did not think that this was a moment when the nation should be called upon to spend £83,000 on pictures. He had no doubt that the pictures it was proposed to purchase were works of very great value; but, at the same time, he could not overlook the fact that they had had those pictures in the country for a great many years, and, as far as he was aware, the public had not shown so much interest in them as should induce the Committee to spend so large a sum of money upon them. Besides, there was no reason to suppose they would otherwise leave the country. He was strongly opposed to this Vote. Moreover, there was another point that had struck him with regard to this matter, and which, he thought, would demonstrate most plainly the inadvisability of making the proposed expenditure. In this country they were occasionally subjected to fearful outrages by the use of dynamite; and if pictures of so costly a description were to be purchased, and put into the National Gallery, some ruffian might walk in and blow to nothing in a moment those valuable works. He would advise the Committee not to spend the money asked for, and, for his own part, he should oppose the Vote.
      MR. STUART-WORTLEYregretted that the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken should have said what might be taken as furnishing hints to the enemies of this country to go and destroy a really inestimable piece of property, on which the nation was about to spend the large sum of £70,000. But, passing away from this point, he rose with a feeling of astonishment at its being possible for anyone to hold that hon. Gentlemen on that (the Opposition) side of the House were going to such lengths as to oppose the present Vote. He hoped that hon. Members who thought so would find themselves greatly disappointed. His own reasons for supporting the Vote were that, according to the information he possessed, the picture for which it was proposed to give £70,000 was a work, not merely of the greatest Master that ever lived, but one belonging to a class of that Master's of which there were
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      no other examples that had not found their way into public Galleries. The natural consequence was that the picture was one that could not be expected to come into the market—he would not say, in 10 or in 100 years—but at any future period. In his opinion, it would even be good policy, were it not rendered impossible by what had happened of late years, to borrow the money to buy the pictures rather than refuse to pass the Vote. He hoped the Committee would not regard with any feeling of impatience the further development of this discussion, because for once it happened to be engaged in discussing a pleasant subject.
      MR. MAGNIACsaid, an hon. Member had made use of an exceedingly curious argument in relation to this Vote; because he seemed to think that it was too much to spend £70,000 on a picture for the National Gallery in comparison with the sum that had to be expended on an iron-clad which would only last a few years. The fact was that the National Gallery had only cost £300,000 altogether, and ought to be regarded as worth much more than an iron-clad. For his own part, he could not conceive of a greater loss, in an artistic sense, than to allow the Raphael picture to go out of the country, which he believed would have been the case had not an agreement been come to with Her Majesty's Government that it should be purchased for the nation. In his opinion, the Government were entitled to great credit for the negotiation, which they had conducted with a boldness that he must confess had rather astonished him. He thought that, in not refusing to purchase the picture at a price which he believed others would have given for it, they were deserving of the greatest praise. He believed he knew what would have happened had they refrained from seizing the opportunity thus afforded. There would have been a perfect howl of indignation if the Government had taken such a course. This country had an Art future before it; but it had a great deal to learn. It was undoubtedly, at the present time, a good deal behind many parts of the Continent in this respect. It had, however, learnt much, and he hoped it would learn a great deal more. Whereas only 20 years ago they had to go abroad for artists and designers for their manu-

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      factories, they were now furnishing designers to foreign manufacturers. Were they to let their national glory stand still? For his part, he looked forward to the time when they would see this country on a level with the glories of Dresden and Paris, which, however, was not the case now. They had, unfortunately, lost a great opportunity of making additions to their National Collection that were now at St. Petersburg. Still they had made a great advance, and he had no hesitation in saying that the South Kensington Museum would, at the present time, fetch five times what it had already cost, and that if put up to auction its contents would realize 400 per cent on the amount that had been expended upon them. Referring to what had been said about iron-clads, he wished to point out that while £800,000 was not grudged for one of those vessels, which could last but for a few years, the £300,000 that had been spent on the National Gallery would last for all time. He hoped pains would be taken to show the country the great advantage it would derive from this Vote; and he felt confident that the Government would receive the support of the Committee in the division about to be taken.
      MR. BIGGARsaid, he had listened to the discussion that had taken place on this Vote with a considerable amount of interest. He had heard hon. Members pronounce very decided opinions in regard to this £70,000 picture, as being one of very great value. For his part, he was very much disposed to doubt whether the picture was worth such a sum of money; and he would venture to suggest that the Vote should be withdrawn or postponed for the present, and that in the meantime the picture should be brought into the Tea Room for the inspection of hon. Members, and thus give them an opportunity of seeing for themselves what the picture was, and of saying whether or not they would agree with one or other of the two Parties in that House, who said, on the one side, that the picture was one of great value, and, on the other, that it was not at all worth the money. This course would give them the opportunity of seeing the article, and would enable them to judge of its merits for themselves. He might suggest, at the same time, that the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Agnew), who
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      had given so very decided an opinion in favour of the purchase of this highly-priced article, might also put alongside the picture a few other heirlooms, so as to give the House an opportunity of comparing them, and assist hon. Gentlemen in arriving at a satisfactory result. The House could, upon a subsequent day, vote for or against the confirmation of the purchase which had been made, as he understood, in a provisional way by the Government.
      MR. WILLISsaid, he fully concurred with the right hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Cubitt) in the objection he had raised to this Vote—an objection which was all the stronger if that right hon. Gentleman possessed, as he (Mr. Willis) was told he did, a true taste in Art. He would state very shortly his objections to this Vote. In the first place, he objected to deal with a man for the purchase of a picture for the sum of £70,000, when that person had asked £160,000 for it at the beginning of the negotiation. Again, he objected to buy a picture for £70,000 in a case where his own agent had valued it at £110,000, especially when he was told that the £70,000 offered for it was not regarded by the person selling as a fair price. He should say, let those buy it who would give a fair price; and if it were true that there were Foreign Governments who were prepared to purchase the picture for the large price that had been named, let them have it. ["No, no!"] Hon. Members said "No, no;" but that, at any rate, was his opinion. Having had the advantage of visiting the Louvre, he could say to the French people, they might very well take away a great many of their worthless pictures and acquire this one for their Gallery, where it would aid the Art education of their people, who, perhaps, needed that education quite as much as, if not more than, the English people. He did not think there was any occasion to keep the picture to themselves. We had in the country a sufficient number of Raphael's productions, for the cultivation of taste and the knowledge of the great painter's work. The fact was that, in cases of this kind, the price fixed for a particular work of Art was reckoned according to the known wealth of the competitors, and not in accordance with the actual value of the work, and he ob-

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      jected to this country being called upon to pay prices like this, that were not estimated in regard to the inherent value of the works offered for sale, but rather in relation to the great wealth of this country. He objected on all these grounds to this Vote.
      MR. HEALYsaid, if it were necessary, he should move that the Committee approve of the purchase. He certainly intended to support the Vote; but, at the same time, he was of opinion that works of Art of such a character ought not to be confined to this country. The taxpayers of the Kingdom generally had to provide the money expended on these purchases; and he thought, therefore, that the people in Ireland, as well as those in Scotland, should occasionally have the opportunity of seeing them. He would give his support to the Vote on the distinct understanding that the opportunity of seeing the pictures was not to be simply confined to London, but that people elsewhere might also be able to see them.
      MR. WILLIAM REDMONDsaid, he desired to explain very briefly why it was he intended to oppose this Vote. He thought it was simply a monstrous piece of absurdity to spend a sum of £83,000 in the purchase of two pictures which only a few privileged persons would ever have the pleasure of seeing. He could assure the Committee that there were very few people in Ireland—certainly among those in his own constituency, who, nevertheless, would have to contribute their portion of the cost—who would ever have the advantage of seeing these works of Art. No doubt the people in London would have that advantage; but the great majority of those who would have to pay for them would never have the opportunity of seeing them. But it was not on that ground alone that he wished to oppose the Vote. The hon. Member the Secretary to the Treasury would remember that he (Mr. Redmond) was one of a deputation who waited on him the other day for the purpose of asking the Government to give an additional grant of £40,000 or £50,000 for the completion of a harbour which was now in a very disgraceful condition on the South-East Coast of Wexford. As it was, for the want of a few thousand pounds to complete the harbour a great many lives were constantly being lost, and a large amount
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      of valuable property destroyed. As he had pointed out to the hon. Gentleman on the occasion referred to, there was no part of Ireland, and, perhaps, no part of the United Kingdom, where there existed a greater necessity for the construction of a good harbour of refuge than at the particular portion of the Wexford Coast to which he alluded—namely, Rosslare. ["Question!"] Hon. Members cried "Question;" but he was about to render his remarks â propos to the Question. The harbour for which the Government were only asked the miserable contribution of a few thousand pounds would not only greatly benefit the Irish people, but, if completed, as it ought to be, would prove of service to the British mercantile classes generally. Ships were constantly passing to and fro off this part of the Irish Coast. ["Question!"] The question was this—and he was going to put it very plainly—that he thought it a disgraceful procedure on the part of that Committee to vote largo sums of money like £83,000 for the purchase of pictures at a time when, as the Committee was well aware, the Government refused to give a few thousand pounds for the completion of a necessary work like the harbour to which he had referred. It appeared to him that the Government were very much in the position of Nero, who played his fiddle while Rome was burning. They were engaged in the very pleasant task of discussing the value of pictures and considering proposals to buy costly paintings at a moment when they were wasting the National treasure and pouring out the best blood of the country in a war against a considerable foe. He believed, however, that the Government were acting wisely, from one point of view, in spending vast sums of money in the purchase of pictures, because, when the news reached the Mahdi that they were thus engaged, what would the Mahdi say? He would probably say—"It is useless for me and my followers to maintain a contest with a nation which is so wealthy that it can, at the same time, equip armies and purchase pictures that are offered at enormous prices." If the English Government wished to impress the Mahdi with a strong sense of the vastness of their wealth, they had better go on buying pictures while they continued their fighting. But he did think

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      that, while the streets of London were filled with people who were starving and did not know where they were to obtain the means of sustenance, while the trade interests of this country were in a state of great depression, and hundreds and thousands of unemployed workmen and artizans were clamouring outside the Government Offices in the neighbourhood of Parliament Street for work, it was a disgraceful thing for the Government to be proposing the expenditure of vast sums of money on the purchase of pictures. It would be within the recollection of the Committee that, not many days ago, thousands of unemployed workmen, who wanted the means of support for their families, had met in London; and he imagined that when those thousands of men who had clamoured for work outside the Government Offices only a few days ago, and who were denied the employment they asked for, came to hear that, though they were refused the means of living, the Government could purchase costly pictures in which those persons had no interest, they would be very likely to go back to the Government Offices and raise a clamour which he hoped would be louder than before, accompanied by knocks at the door which he trusted would be still stronger and more emphatic. He should oppose this Vote, as he thought there were a hundred and one things in Ireland which needed the attention of the Government far more than the purchase of a couple of pictures at the enormous price of £83,000. As long as people were starving for want of employment, or being shipwrecked for lack of proper harbours in which they could find safety, he would, with all the power given to him, raise his voice against proposals such as this.
      MR. CUBITTsaid, he did not wish to put the Committee, at that late hour, to the trouble of a division, especially as he believed there was a tremendous majority of Members in favour of the Vote. He trusted, however, that the discussion in which they had been engaged would not be without its effect, and that, while the majority of the Committee would remain satisfied with the purchase of the pictures, those who had agreed with him and had supported him in the protest he had offered would be allowed to retain their conviction that that House preferred Art to economy.
      Question put.
      The Committee divided:—Ayes 131; Noes 30: Majority 101.—(Div. List, No. 42.)
      Vote agreed to.
      (9.) £30, London University.
      (10.) £9,703, Public Education, Scotland.
      Resolutions to be reported To-morrow.
      Committee to sit again To-morrow.

  MUNICIPAL VOTERS (RELIEF) BILL.
  (Mr. Attorney General, Sir Charles Dilke, Mr. Hibbert, Mr. H. H. Fowler.)
  MUNICIPAL VOTERS (RELIEF) BILL.

    [BILL 64.] COMMITTEE.
    Order for Committee read.
    Instruction to the Committee "that they have power to insert a Clause reducing the qualifying period for a municipal vote in Ireland to one year, as in England and Scotland."—(Mr. Dawson.)
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, that whilst he agreed that the long period of municipal qualification existing in Dublin was unnecessary, he did not think the last words of the Instruction should be adopted.
    MR. SEXTONsaid, that if the objection had any force it could easily be met by arranging that the qualifying period in Ireland should be one year, and the reference to England and Scotland could be omitted.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, he had no objection to the Instruction being given in that form; but he would reserve any observations he might have to make on the subject until it came to be dealt with in Committee.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Preamble postponed.
    Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
    Clause 3 (Definitions).
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, he thought it would be better to report Progress now, in order to see in what way this clause could be amended.
    Motion made, and Question, proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Attorney General.)
    Motion agreed to.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

MOTIONS.
  EAST INDIA EXPENSES (MILITARY EXPEDITION TO THE SOUDAN).

    RESOLUTION.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That, Her Majesty having directed a Military Expedition of Her Native forces charged upon the Revenues of India to be despatched for service in the Soudan and Nubia, this House consents that the ordinary pay of such troops, as well as the ordinary charges of any vessels belonging to the Government of India that may be employed in the Expedition, which would have been charged upon the revenues of India if such troops or vessels had remained in that country or seas adjacent, shall continue to be so chargeable; Provided, that if it shall become necessary to replace the troops or vessels so withdrawn by other vessels or Native forces, the expense of raising, maintaining, and providing such vessels or forces shall be repaid out of any moneys which may he provided by Parliament for the purposes of the said Expedition."—(Mr. J. K. Cross.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—[Mr. J. K. Cross.)
    MR. ONSLOWsaid, he would like to put a quest ion on this subject to the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for India; but he would first like to know from the Chair whether, if he asked a question now, he should imperil his right to speak in the debate when it came on?
    MR. SPEAKERsaid, that by putting a question now the hon. Member would not be barred from taking part in the debate.
    MR. ONSLOWsaid, he only wished to know whether the hon. Gentleman could state when it was likely that the Motion could come on for discussion. It was understood that the Civil Service and Army Estimates would come on tomorrow. Was there any chance that the Motion now before the House would be brought on as first Order of the Day to-morrow?
    MR. J. K. CROSSsaid, he hoped the adjourned debate upon the Motion might be taken either as first or second Order of the Day on Monday.
    Motion agreed to.
    Debate adjourned till Monday next.

TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH WIRES.

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  MR. GEORGE RUSSELL MR. GEORGE RUSSELL moved—
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the Law relating to the control over Telephone, Telegraph, and other Wires, and that the Committee do consist of Sir ALEXANDER GORDON, Sir JAMES M'GAREL-HOGG, Mr. TORRENS, Sir HENRY TYLER, Mr. GRAY, Mr. FIRTH, Mr. THOMAS DICKSON, Mr. TOTTENHAM, and Mr. GEORGE RUSSELL, with power to send for persons, papers, and records; Three to be the quorum."
  MR. GRAYsaid, he did not object at all to the appointment of the Committee; but he would like to understand what it was that the wording of the Order of Reference exactly covered. The words were—
  "To consider the Law relating to the control over Telephone, Telegraph, and other Wires."
  And it might be presumed that they referred to the existence of overhead wires. He hoped, however, that they were sufficiently wide to enable the Committee to investigate the whole subject in a complete manner. He would suggest that after the word "over" the words "way leaves" should be in serted.
  MR. R. N. FOWLERsaid, he was very glad that the Government were proposing the appointment of this Committee, for the matter was one which was of very great interest to his constituents.
  MR. GEORGE RUSSELLsaid, it had been especially desired to make the Order of Reference as wide as possible, and the word "overhead" had not been used in order that there might be no risk of excluding underground wires from consideration. He was inclined to think that the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gray) need not press any Amendment, for the whole question of telephone and telegraph wires would be considered by the Committee.
  MR. GRAYsaid, he was quite content with, that assurance.
  Motion agreed to.

  HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE (PROVINCIAL SITTINGS) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. WHITLEY, Bill to provide for Provincial Sittings of the High Court of Justice in certain populous places, ordered to be brought in by Mr. WHITLEY, Mr. JACOB BRIGHT, Mr. PHILIP H. MUNTZ, Mr. LEWIS FRY, Lord CLAUD JOHN HAMILTON, Mr. SLAGG, Mr. SAMUEL SMITH, Mr. HOULDSWORTH, Mr. ARMITAGE, and Mr. AGNEW.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 82.]

  TRUSTEES RELIEF BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. INCH, Bill to amend the Law relating to the liabilities and duties of Trustees, ordered to be brought in by Mr. INCE and Mr. WHITLEY.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 83.]

  COPYRIGHT (WORKS OF FINE ART) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. HASTINGS, Bill to amend and consolidate the Law of Copyright in Works of Fine Art and in Photographs, and for repressing the commission of fraud in the production and sale of such works, ordered to be brought in by Mr. HASTINGS, Mr. HANBURY-TRACY, Sir GABRIEL GOLDNEY, Mr. AGNEW, and Mr. GREGORY.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 84.]
  House adjourned at One o'clock.

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Standing Orders, The Earl of Milltown, The Lord de Ros, and The Lord Sandhurst added.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Ecclesiastical Commissioners * (17).
Committee—Marriages Legalization* (19.30).
Committee—>Report—Prevention of Crimes Amendment* (20).

TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN (PERPETUITY GRANTS) BILL.

  SECOND READING.
  This Bill was on the list of Private Bills, but the Chairman of Committees having failed to refer to it.
  THE EARL OF LEITRIMrose to Order. As the Bill was on the Paper for second reading, he objected to its being passed over without any Notice of its postponement having been given to its promoters.
  THE EARL OF REDESDALE (CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES)said, that he had examined the Bill, and thinking that it was one which should not pass without further consideration he had thought it well to defer the second reading.
  THE EARL OF LEITRIMsaid, he thought the question as to whether or not the Bill was one which should not be read a second time was for the judgment of their Lordships. The measure had been before the noble Earl (the Earl of Redesdale), and the noble Earl had admitted in the most candid manner that he believed the Bill was promoted by Trinity College. He did not think that a greater compliment could be paid to the promoters of a Bill than to say that it was one framed by the
  48
  Corporation at which it might be supposed to strike. This matter had been brought under the notice of Parliament on previous occasions, four years ago and last year; and the promoters were told that a Royal Commission would not be granted to inquire into the subject, but that some other means of ventilating it would be taken.
  THE EARL OF REDESDALE (CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES)pointed out that the measure—which, it was true, he had at first supposed to be promoted by Trinity College—proposed to make alterations in the law between landlord and tenant in behalf of some tenants of Trinity College. It would, in its present form, open the doors to the introduction of most dangerous interference with the public law by private legislation. Time, he thought, should be taken for further consideration before reading the Bill a second time.
  THE EARL OF LEITRIMcontended that the faults the Chairman of Committees conceived to exist in the Bill were questions for consideration in Committee. The Bill had been promoted because an inquiry by that House, whether by a Royal Commission or a Select Committee, had been refused on more than one occasion. They now sought to get the subject of the Bill inquired into with a view to legislation, or to have it shown to them that they had no case for legislation. They had no option but to endeavour to obtain what they desired by promoting this Bill. He was afraid that the action taken that afternoon was a gagging process, resulting from Trinity College getting hold of his noble Friend the Chairman of Committees. The Chairman of Committees had reported in favour of this Bill.
  THE EARL OF EEDESDALE (CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES): No, no!
  THE EARL OF LEITRIMsaid, that Trinity College had pushed matters to an extreme, and there was such a thing even as an Irish tenant becoming exasperated. They had been agitating this matter for four years, and it was now for their Lordships to terminate a very unseemly wrangle between Trinity College and its tenants. Trinity College had divisions in its own camp. Only recently a tenant had gone before the Board, and the majority had agreed to reduce the rents. The Provost, however, had put his veto on the matter, and

  49
  stopped the reduction. He did not wish to weary their Lordships with these details; but if they did not come before a Committee of the House how were they to be settled? He would move that the Bill be read a second time.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a":—(The Earl of Leitrim.)
  LORD FITZGERALDsaid, he thought it would be well to postpone the second reading, so as to see whether that which was objectionable in the Bill could not be removed.
  THE EARL OF LEITRIM: I will agree to that course.
  Motion (by leave of the House) withdrawn.
  Second Reading postponed till Thursday next.

EGYPT (MILITARY EXPEDITION)-THE SUAKIN-BERBER RAILWAY.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIANrose, in pursuance of Notice, to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, Whether the Government have in their possession any accurate survey of the proposed line of railway from Suakin to Berber; whether there is any contract with the constructors of the said proposed railway; and, if so, whether they would lay such contract upon the Table of the House; whether the Government have reason to believe that it will be possible to complete the said line of railway before the autumn; and if there be no reasonable prospect of the line being so completed, what steps the Government propose to take in order to secure the efficiency and safety of the forces now under the command of General Lord Wolseley in the Soudan; also to ask whether the Government had information of the report that Lord Wolseley had publicly announced his intention to advance on and to take Khartoum? The noble Lord said, that, in putting these Questions, he had no idea of doing anything which would embarrass the Government, or be disadvantageous to the public interests. What he wanted to know by his first Question was, whether Her Majesty's Government had any survey of sufficient accuracy to enable them to tell the House whether by any reasonable means the railway could be completed in time to relieve the Forces now acting under
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  Lord Wolseley? It was clear, for two reasons, that Her Majesty's Government must be in possession of a considerable amount of information as to the line over which it was proposed to take the railway. The first was that, for a long time past, they had been publicly and privately warned that, in the event of any misfortune happening to Lord Wolseley's Force, it would be absolutely necessary to open the Suakin-Berber route; and he could not but think, therefore that they had obtained every possible information as to the practicability of that route; and, secondly, because when the question was before the Government as to which route should be taken by the Relief Force under Lord Wolseley, it was not possible to believe that they had come to a decision without definite and reliable knowledge as to both routes. His second Question, as to the existence of a contract for the railway in question, had been answered in "another place," and the Secretary of State for War had promised to lay it on the Table. Probably the noble Earl would also consent to lay it on the Table of their Lordships' House. He should be glad if the noble Earl would now state the terms of the contract, and whether the contractors were bound to make the railway as a whole? What he wished to say to the Government as to the construction of this railway was this. Are you in earnest? He did not ask impossibilities of the Government; but, if possible, were the Government determined to carry the railway through to Berber, or would they only make a beginning, go, perhaps, as far as Sinkat, and then wait to see what would happen next? Under ordinary circumstances he might have scarcely felt justified in asking them such a Question; but all that was happening now had happened before—only a year ago. Last year, as now, there were soldiers and garrisons in the Soudan, whom we were bound to support and relieve, and besides many thousands of helpless women and children. Last year we sent out troops to crush Osman Digna, as we hope to crush him now. Last year, as now, we sent out plant for the construction of a railway; but the railway was begun, and nothing more came of it. History was repeating itself very fast. He was entitled to ask whether the Government were going to do

  51
  the same thing now? There was no result from the operations of last year except the shedding of much blood and the lavishing of treasure. The Government said that those battles saved Suakin; but would anybody in this country believe that Suakin would not have been safe except for the battles of Teb and Tamanieb? He would repeat, were the Government in earnest in making the railway from Suakin to Berber? With reference to the third Question, he hoped that the Government would say that it would be made in time to be of service to Lord Wolseley. He should like to know whether this railway would not take two years in construction; for Lord Wolseley himself stated that two years was the time this would be needed for the work. If that were so, it became a question why the railway was to be constructed, or if it should be constructed at all. The matter was of great consequence, because of the position which it seemed intended that Lord Wolseley's Forces should occupy during the hot months. He spoke as one who had had experience of such climates, and he knew how depressing and dangerous enforced inactivity was. He, moreover, was at a loss to know how Lord Wolseley was to get supplies, and how reliefs were to be sent if it became necessary, if the railway were not completed by the autumn. What he wanted to know was, whether the Government had any other string to their bow? He asked the Government to give one some hope—some certainty—that this country would be in a position to relieve Lord Wolseley's Force if necessary. He felt sure that the noble Earl would do both the Government and the country a great service if he would let them know for certain what the Government intended to do. As to the last portion of his Question, as to Lord Wolseley's announcement, he would ask further, if the Government had received this information, whether it was their intention to abide by it? He had himself lived among Orientals, and he knew well that if there was one thing more disastrous than another it was to say anything which they were not prepared to carry out. Were the Government prepared to carry out this intention? He would be very sorry to put any limit to what could be done by British troops under any circumstances, and no doubt
  52
  it was possible to go to Khartoum and take it; but what would be the advantage of that alone? Her Majesty's Government had announced their intention of destroying the power of the Mahdi at Khartoum. As a Member of their Lordships' House, he entered his protest against this policy of going to Khartoum with the avowed object of retiring from it. There was no more 'fatal policy than this—to fight, and, though victorious, to act as if the battle had been lost. If they went to Khartoum they must stay there; but the Government had no such intention; they proposed to fight their way there through a sea of blood, with no other intention or object than to wade out again, with this additional evil result—that those Arabs, who might have been our friends, would, and must, become our deadly and implacable enemies. He did not wish to criticize the conduct of the Expedition in any way; but he could not help thinking that General Brackenbury had made a mistake in destroying the villages up the Nile, instead of doing all in his power to conciliate the Arabs of the districts through which he passed. Berber, which was the key of the whole position, should be made the military centre of the Soudan; and under a Government such as might be instituted either by, or under the authority of England, it would now become a centre of civilization and commerce. That was, supposing always that it were possible to construct the railway from Suakin. If the Mahdi were determined to continue his hostile attitude and to drive us out of Egypt, we should be infinitely better able to check and defeat him should he advance to attack us at Berber, thereby following him into his own wild and desert country. The last words from General Gordon were striking and characteristic, and he would recommend them to the consideration of Her Majesty's Government. In answer to a message from the Mahdi that Colonel Stewart was killed, and that he had full information as to the state of Khartoum, General Gordon said—"I do not care what you know or what you do. I am made of iron. I shall stop here." If the Government would only act on such a principle, give the country the information they desired, and to which they were entitled, and, having fixed upon a definite policy, stand firmly by it, he

  53
  felt sure that they would have the approval and support of the country. He asked the noble Earl for a reply to the Question of which he had given Notice.
  THE EARL OF MOELEYsaid, that he entirely acquitted the noble Marquess opposite of any intention to impede the military operations by putting this Question on the Paper. But he thought the noble Marquess had travelled a little beyond the confines of the Question. During the course of the noble Marquess's speech, he had more than once been tempted to regret that he had not had an opportunity on a former occasion of hearing the noble Marquess. He trusted, however, that their Lordships would excuse him if he abstained from following his noble Friend into the somewhat extraneous matter contained in his speech. As to the Question on the Paper, they had no actual survey for the construction of the Suakin-Ber-ber line; but they had endeavoured to collect all the information that was available both in Egypt and in this country; and he believed that they had acquired sufficient information to enable them to state that there would be no insuperable difficulties in its construction. There might be one or two points of difficulty in connection with the engineering of it; but he did not believe that these were such as could not be overcome. With regard to the second point, there was no contract with the constructors of the proposed railway; but there was an arrangement made with them by which they were to act as agents of the Government. The Government proposed to lay the document which embodied the terms of this arrangement before their Lordships; and it would not be wise or prudent, meanwhile, to enter into a detailed statement of what those terms were. As to the third point, the period when the line was likely to be finished, he should be extremely glad to give an answer if he could; but, as their Lordships must be aware, its construction depended upon military as well as engineering considerations. They trusted that the military difficulties would be overcome without any long delay; but it would be extremely hazardous to venture upon any forecast on that point. Those difficulties overcome, they were assured by the constructors that there would be no difficulty in constructing it, or at least a great
  54
  part of it, by the time autumn set in, in a form which would be sufficient for military purposes. There might be difficulties which they could not foresee, which might impede their progress with the line; but as far as they were aware, and as their information led them to believe, the railway would, if not completed, be made for a considerable way by the autumn, and the making of even a portion of it would be of great assistance in any movement of troops or stores that might be necessary. As to the steps which the Government proposed to take for securing the efficiency and safety of the Forces under Lord Wolseley, it seemed to him that the noble Marquess had been a little confusing two things in his own mind. The question of the actual relief and security of the Forces under Lord Wolseley at present in the Soudan could not be affected, in the slightest degree, by any considerations connected with the making of that line. It would be quite as difficult to convey stores and supplies from Suakin as from Wady Halfa. With regard to the supplies for Lord Wolseley's troops in the Soudan, which were above the Cataracts, between the first and second series, these troops were at present being supplied from Egyptian sources entirely, while large supplies were being sent out from home. Although there were difficulties on the line of communication and transport, all he could say was that every effort had been made locally and at home to facilitate the communications with Lord Wolseley's troops, and to provide them with all necessary supplies of stores, clothing, and food, and everything else that they required. He could assure the noble Lord, if it was necessary to assure him, that every effort was being made locally to provide for the needs of the troops, and that there was no reason to suppose at present that those efforts would not be sufficient and effective. With regard to the last Question put by the noble Marquess, he could only give the simple answer that they had no information whatever as to the announcement which Lord Wolseley was reported to have made at Korti of his intention to advance on and to take Khartoum at once.
  VISCOUNT BURYsaid, he thought that their Lordships could not but take into consideration the tone in which the

  55
  Government had always hitherto treated that question, and that they must examine rather critically such a statement as that which had been just made by the Under Secretary for "War. The House was in very great doubt as to what the policy of Her Majesty's Government really was. The whole of the debate which took place the other night failed to elicit from them any distinct expression of opinion; and all that could be discovered was that noble Lords on the Treasury Bench did not agree among themselves as to what the real object of the war was. The noble Lord at the head of the Admiralty entirely differed from the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack; and their Colleagues in the other House differed from both of them. Some Members of the Government said they were going to Khartoum, and then immediately to leave, and some said they were to establish a stable Government at Khartoum. Towards the end of the debate it seemed that the Government had wished to convey the impression that they were going to establish some sort of a Government in the Soudan before they left. But what had happened since? He did not wonder that the noble Lord opposite was rather annoyed at the noble Marquess who had put the Question to-night having travelled somewhat far afield. He supposed that noble Lords on the Treasury Bench thought that, the Vote of Censure once fairly over, their Lordships were not to recur to the subject, but were to take the goods the gods provided them, and say nothing. They could not but remember that when the Motion was coming on a state of feverish anxiety to do something strong and positive animated noble Lords on the other side. They sent out that Expedition of our choicest troops which was now on the sea to Suakin, and complete plans for a railway from Suakin to Berber accompanied them. But now it seemed that the cold fit had succeeded to the hot fit, and the noble Lord the Under Secretary for War would not positively state that the railway was to be made. The noble Lord had said, as had been said on several occasions, that a railway could be made; but their Lordships did not know that a railway could be made, although that was the Question which was put by the noble Marquess, and which was not answered by
  56
  the noble Lord the Under Secretary. If anything like a stable Government was to be established in the Soudan, was it not somewhat extraordinary that the troops that were on the march to Abu Hamad, and going to Berber, should have been ordered away from the forward position they occupied; and if the Expedition to Suakin was to proceed to Berber by railway, there was no cooperation now in contemplation between Lord Wolseley's Forces on the Nile and such an Expedition? Since the Expedition had started from Suakin, a concentration of our troops was taking place on the Nile near Korti, and not in the direction of Berber. The Expedition which left our shores the other day would be enormously costly, not only in money, but in the lives of our best soldiers; and therefore their Lordships had a right to receive some definite expression of the intention of the Government.
  LORD ELLENBOROUGHobserved, that their Lordships were not called upon to give an opinion on military matters now; but he wished to say, on his own behalf—what he was sure would be corroborated by General Officers of great experience—that the health of the Army was likely to suffer more from inactivity than in advancing even under the most difficult circumstances. He pointed out, also, that a retreat, under whatever conditions, must always have a powerful moral effect upon an Oriental population, as well as upon the spirits of our own troops, and he thought no retreat should be made, unless it were obviously necessary. In reference to the allusion made to Brigadier General Brackenbury, he (Lord Ellenborough) felt bound to say that that officer was free from any kind of blame; and if any blame could be attributed, it was to the General Officer who placed the Force in its position previously, and had the Brigadier advanced, or hesitated for the moment to retreat, he would have had the sympathy, one and all, of his fellow-countrymen.
  EARL STANHOPEsaid, he thought they were entitled to demand some fuller explanation. He had heard on good authority that the officer commanding at Suakin ascertained a short time ago that Osman Digna's Forces were nearly starved out, and that he had applied to the Home Authorities for more men to enable him to take advantage of

  57
  the opportunity thus afforded for dealing a decisive blow at Osman Digna. That request was, however, refused. The time for doing it had now gone by, and Osman's Force had increased, and he had regained his power. If the Government would only put forward a clear and definite statement of what they intended to do, he felt sure they would receive the unanimous support of that House and of the country; while he was equally convinced that it would strengthen Lord Wolseley's position if the Government would state that they were determined to establish a firm Government at Khartoum or at Berber.
  THE EARL OF GALLOWAYsaid, he had understood, from the answer given by the noble Lord the Under Secretary for "War, that it was the intention of the Government to try to construct a railway running the whole way from Suakin to Berber, and that they had every hope that there would be no engineering difficulty that would prevent that from being done. He had been a little disappointed at hearing from the noble Lord that no contract had been entered into for laying down that line, although the noble Lord had added that there had been an arrangement made, and that its terms would be laid before their Lordships in a short time. The House could, no doubt, discuss the matter more conveniently when they had the terms of that arrangement in their hands; and he would, therefore, now ask the noble Lord how soon they were likely to be laid on the Table?
  THE EARL OF MORLEYsaid, he could not name the day; but the arrangement would be placed on the Table at an early a date as possible.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I trust that the noble Lord will not allow any unnecessary delay to occur in producing the arrangement, because a good deal of anxiety prevails on this subject; and such documentary evidence would be very grateful to the public mind, to show it what is going on. I confess that this matter has to me rather an Arabian Nights air about it. We used always to be taught that one of the greatest triumphs of Roman courage was the case of the man who bought land that was at the time occupied by Hannibal's Army. He would be a bolder man still who pledged himself to build a railway on land that was occupied by
  58
  a hostile Army. But that is not the whole extent of boldness shown by Her Majesty's Government. They have not only pledged themselves, as I understand, to make a railway in the teeth of a hostile Army, but to make it on land of which they have not anything approaching to a survey. The idea of making a promise to make a railway merely on what I may call hearsay—on what this or that traveller has told you he has observed in the country—is, I venture to say, an entirely new achievement in the course of railway construction, and would alarm very much my noble Friend the Chairman of the Great Northern Railway, and some of the most distinguished, railway authorities in this country; and I think it is a matter of common notoriety that one of the greatest authorities has expressed very considerable doubt of the possibility of making a railway in the proposed time. I wish to have some test that it is really a bonâ fide railway that is contemplated, whether the Government have taken any measures to supply materials, and how far they have taken those measures. It is a railway of 280 miles, and if there are no bridges on this railway it is the most singular railway in the world.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: There are no bridges.
  THE MARCHESS OF SALISBUEY: None whatever?
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: There are no rivers to be crossed.
  THE MARRQUESS OF SALISBURY: Well, it is a difficult and mountainous country, and there must be gullies that will have to be crossed by means of bridges. Iron girders must, at all events, be made to order; and. I want to know what orders have been given in that respect, and whether there is anything in the nature of a specification? Then as to the time. The time which is mentioned for construction is certainly very striking to those who have paid any attention to railway business. I suppose that what the noble Lord euphemistically called the military difficulties will not be removed before the end of this month. Before the autumn comes—say the 1st of October—there will be but five months to make 280 miles; and to do this is something like two miles a-day, and this, too, in an enemy's country. I believe that to

  59
  make a railway, even at the rate of one mile a-day, where an accurate survey has been made, and where beforehand every kind of railway material has been provided, where the country is in perfect peace, and the best organization is at command, is a very considerable achievement. I think it was clone by Sir Richard Temple in the case of the Dacken Railway, and everybody was much surprised at it; but when the Government undertake to make a railway in an enemy's country without any survey, when, apparently, they have not ordered a single bit of railway plant beforehand—when they undertake to make this railway at the rate of two miles a-day, it really suggests that the Government have somehow or other found Aladdin's lamp, and that they intend to make use of it. It is impossible, considering the past history of this question, and considering what the influence of Parliamentary events has been upon our military preparations, not to feel some anxiety for more abundant information, that shall assure us that the intention to make those 280 miles before the autumn is serious, and that some adequate preparation for so gigantic a task is being made. I wish to press upon the noble Lord that, if he cannot give this information to-morrow, he will give us it without delay, and that he will let us have the contract, or something in the nature of a specification, to assure us that we are dealing with a serious matter.
  EARL GEANVILLE: The remarks of the noble Marquess are somewhat discouraging. Her Majesty's Government have been frequently urged to make this railway, and the moment they undertake it the noble Marquess comes forward to represent the enormous difficulty of accomplishing the undertaking.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Of doing it in the time.
  EARL GEANVILLE: I am unable to speak from technical knowledge. The noble Marquess has far greater knowledge of railways than I have. The noble Viscount sitting near the noble Marquess speaks of this railway as if it were a perfect myth, as if no preparations had been made, as if no plant was ready, and as if it were a matter of extraordinary chance that one of the most eminent firms of contractors in the country would be able to carry out the
  60
  work. But the fact is that all the plant was perfectly ready when the arrangements were made. The noble Marquess does not expect that it is to be made like the Great Northern Railway. It is to be what is called a contractor's railway, its primary object being of a military character; but it may be used in order to be converted into a permanent railway. It will, however, be much more easily managed, and will be constructed much faster than the substantial and expensive railways to which the noble Marquess has referred.
  LORD NAPIER OF MAGDALA: I believe it will be convenient to your Lordships if I explain that the railway, for military purposes, may be of a very temporary character, which could be rapidly constructed. In the invasion of a hostile country, where animal transport is deficient, it is necessary to supplement it by a railway, however temporary, as soon as the advanced posts are sufficiently established. Such a railway will greatly facilitate a more permanent structure, if such should be desired. I have had much communication with engineers connected with railways in Egypt and other Eastern countries, who were quite confident of the possibility of making the railway from Suakin to Berber without any extraordinary difficulty. They are men of experience in the construction of railways in Eastern countries, and their judgment may be relied upon. Another point which I consider it desirable to advert to is an opinion expressed in the Press and elsewhere of the desirability of entering into negotiations with the Mahdi. From first to last, the Mahdi has not shown the least disposition to treat with anyone. General Gordon's overture was met with the message—
  "Put on my uniform, also "become a Mussulman, and I will spare you; otherwise I will sweep you off the face of the earth."
  I think that evinced the spirit of an irreconcilable fanatic, and as such he ought to be treated. To talk of negotiating with such a man was absurd. We had either to beat him or let him alone; and I hope we shall beat him.

  SOUTH AFRICA (EAST COAST)—ST. LUCIA BAY.—QUESTION.
  THE EARL OF HARROWBYasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether St. Lucia Bay is British terri-

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  tory, and whether he can state what extent of the coast to the north of Natal is under British protection? The noble Earl said, he did not wish to discuss the Colonial policy of the Government; but as there had been so much misunderstanding on the subject, he thought it would be a great relief to have some information on the point.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: I have to say that St. Lucia Bay was ceded to the British Crown a little more than 40 years ago by Panda, the then King of Zululand, who undoubtedly exercised Sovereign powers over the territory in question. No steps were taken at the time in consequence of that cession, and nothing has been done in the long interval which has occurred until the close of last year, when it seemed to us desirable to re-assert or keep alive what was assumed to be our right to the ceded territory by hoisting the British Flag. It was not a new annexation, but simply intended to remind those whom it might concern that we had rights over that coast which were undoubtedly ours, and which we had never given up. The flag was accordingly hoisted, and it remains there. I do not think it would be quite fair to the House if I did not add that we have received communications from the German Government expressing unwillingness to recognize the validity of our title upon various grounds, one of which was the long time during which the claim has lain in abeyance. The matter is still under discussion between the two Governments; and while that is the case I cannot, in the interest of the Public Service, give any further details. With regard to the latter part of the Question, I have already stated what is the present position in regard to St. Lucia Bay; but as to the rest of the coast to the north of Natal, that part only which forms part of the Reserve is under British protection.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVON: I do not propose to comment on the rather serious statement which my noble Friend has made with regard to the intervention of foreign policy or difference in this question; but I wish to clear up one point which seems to me of very great consequence, and which arises out of the last words which he used with regard to Natal. I understand from my noble Friend that the state of the case is
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  this—that we have asserted, or that we have re-asserted, a Sovereignty to St. Lucia Bay; but the territory at the back of St. Lucia Bay is Zululand. At the time when I had the honour of holding the Seals of Office Zululand was not English territory. I should like to understand this distinctly, assuming our claim to St. Lucia Bay is made, whether or not we have a continuous territory from the interior down to St. Lucia Bay, or whether, as I rather gather from the reply of the noble Earl, there is an intervening tract of land at the back of St. Lucia Bay cutting St. Lucia Bay off from the rest of our Possessions in South Africa? That is an extremely important Question, for the absence of this continuity of territory may give rise, and possibly will give rise, to serious complications hereafter.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: Behind St. Lucia Bay and that part of the coast that belongs to Zululand, to the southward, is the Reserve, and over that we have assumed protection. What our claim to St. Lucia Bay is I have already stated; but the territory immediately behind that is the territory of Zululand, not forming part of the Reserve.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVON: I understand, then, that our territories are continuous from the Reserve down to the sea coast.
  THE EARL OF DERBY: No; I understand the noble Earl to ask me with regard to the territory, not on the sea coast, but at the back, and I answered accordingly. That has not been ceded to England, and we have no other rights over it than over the whole of Zulu-land.
  VISCOUNT SIDMOUTHsaid, he hoped that the Government would fully realize the value of St. Lucia Bay. The claim of England to that Bay was laid down many years ago, and though it had fallen into abeyance that was no reason why it should be abandoned.
  House adjourned at a quarter before Six o'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter past Ten o'clock.