Sitting of 3 March 1892

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  WESTMINSTER (PARLIAMENT STREET, &c.) IMPROVEMENT BILL
  (by Order.)
  WESTMINSTER (PARLIAMENT STREET, &c.) IMPROVEMENT BILL

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    MR. DIXON-HARTLAND,I rise to oppose the Second Reading of this Bill. It is no new proposal; it is the prolongation for some three years more of exceptional powers granted to private individuals, with a proposal to withdraw the safeguards which the Act of 1887 possessed. By that Act it was arranged that a certain company should be formed with £500,000 capital, of which £100,000 was to be paid up as a safeguard for the carrying out of the work. Well, five years have elapsed and no company has been formed, and not a penny of the capital has been subscribed. I may say from my own knowledge that the promoters have been to almost every financial authority in the City of London to try and get their case taken up; and the financial authorities, having examined the question, have decided there is no chance of any profit being made; and one and all have utterly declined to have anything to do with the scheme. Why is this the case? Because when the Bill was before Parliament, to buy off opposition, an enormous number of agreements were recklessly made, regardless of results should the company ever be formed—the object simply was to buy off opposition. But now they find that, so long as these agreements exist, it is impossible for the company to be successful fn any possible way. We are told that the First Commissioner of Works is in favour of this scheme, and I do not wonder at it if that is so. If I were First Commissioner I should help on
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    the Bill, because the Board of Works is one of the parties bought off with an agreement. No doubt if the scheme could be carried out it would be a good thing for the Board of Works; but at the present moment it is really a short-sighted policy on the part of the Board of Works, because to continue the existing agreement would simply hamper the Department, and render it impossible to make terms with a bonâ fide company. Certainly this company will never be able to carry the scheme through. If any profit is to be made it certainly will not be made by the present promoters, and the scheme is not one that should be left to be carried out by private individuals. This is the finest site in the whole of the Metropolis. If the front part of a piece of Parliament Street were removed, and the Public Offices extended from the Local Government Board through the land which belongs to the Government up to George Street, I say it is one of the finest sites you can possibly have in this Metropolis, and if the work were taken up by a responsible body a very great improvement would be carried out. But I contend there is now no prospect of it being carried out, and to pass this Bill is simply to lock up the site for a still further period of time. I notice that the name of the Cadogan Estate Company has been imported into the case; but I do not see what that company has to do with it. That company is in no way bound by the Bill, and is merely introduced as a kind of stalking-horse to make the House of Commons believe that if the Bill passes this company will see their way to have something to do with it. But the mention of the company is deceptive, for the company are under no obligation. It is a company with no capital whatever. I believe the whole of that company's work was carried on by means of debentures, and the company have no capital to carry out the undertaking even if they wished to do so. The Cadogan Company have carried out improvements on the land they acquired from Lord Cadogan; but then that estate was vacant; but this ground is covered with buildings of a valuable description. We are told that

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    the company may raise money on debentures; but that will mean ground rents 50 per cent. above any other rents in the immediate neighbourhood. It is perfectly impossible that they can get any financial authority to take up the debentures saddled with the conditions they will be obliged to make—conditions which were entered into when the Bill was last before the House of Commons, and for the purpose of buying off opposition. If this Bill is passed in its present form it will do away with all the protection to public and private interests which Parliament has thought necessary. This is an attempt to do away with Clause 4, which is the only protection the public have that the scheme will ever be carried out. I believe all the owners of the property in the neighbourhood are opposed to the hanging up of this site for another three and a half years, for they are convinced that the body of gentlemen who are promoting this Bill, however well-intentioned, are unable to carry out the scheme. A Petition has been presented to this House by the Institute of Civil Engineers, in which they say they are owners of three of the largest houses in Great George Street, and that they are in treaty for the acquisition of another adjoining (No. 27), and they propose to pull the whole down and to erect a large building for their institute on the site. All this will be stopped for three years if this Bill is granted, and though they might not object to that if they had an assurance that the scheme would really be carried out, they protest that there is no chance of this being done. I hope the House will not read this Bill a second time, not because the House is opposed to the scheme proposed, but because the position of the promoters is such that the scheme can never be carried out.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Dixon-Hartland.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
    MR. GILESThis is called a Westminster Improvement Bill, and it would be a great
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    improvement to remove the block of houses between Parliament Street and King Street, but there is not the least necessity for the creation of a new street from the middle of the Foreign Office quadrangle to Westminster Abbey. In the carrying out of this design valuable properties would be destroyed, amongst others the building forming the Institute of Civil Engineers, which has existed for 75 years, and which has a frontage of over 120 feet. This Bill has been before the House in 1887 and in 1890, and the powers have lapsed. The promoters, who are simply in impecunious speculators, are now trying to renew these powers, to the prejudice of all the inhabitants dwelling in the neighbourhood. It has been decided by the Institute of Civil Engineers to rebuild their property, but are they to wait in a state of uncertainty for another three years, and with, as they think, no chance of the scheme being carried out?
    COLONEL MAKINSSo far as I gather, nothing has been said against the principle of the Bill, and that, I understand, is the subject of debate on a Second Reading. A great deal of what has been said by hon. Members may be perfectly true; but the question as to whether or not further safeguards are necessary for the protection of private interests is a question for the consideration of the Committee to whom the details of the Bill will be referred. Now the history of the Bill is not quite that given by the hon. Member for the Uxbridge Division (Mr. Dixon-Hartland). The object of the Bill now before the House is to bring back the position to what it was when the Bill left this House in 1887. The 4th clause, on which so much stress has been laid by the hon. Member, was inserted at the last moment in the House of Lords at the instance of Sir Richard Nicholson, clerk to the Middlesex County Council and an occupier in the district, who is also the leader of the present opposition. Sir Richard Nicholson's position is this: he made an agreement with the promoters of the Bill for the protection of his own interests, and at the last moment he got this clause put in. The promoters took it and have since honestly

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    endeavoured to carry it out, but now the object of the Bill is to get rid of the 4th clause, because the promoters find it is impossible to raise the money in the way provided—that is, by subscription of £500,000 in open Stock. Investors will not subscribe to an undertaking of this kind in open Stock, but they will take Debentures with a contingent claim on profits if hereafter made. The hon. Member has alluded to the Cadogan Land Company, and the connection of this company with the matter is simply this: they have succeeded in carrying out, I will not say a precisely similar, but in most respects a similar undertaking; they have made great improvements on the Cadogan Estate in Cadogan Square and Lennox Gardens, which they have converted into one of the handsomest quarters of London, and what has been done once can, in all probability, be done a second time, and if it should not be done, those whose interests are concerned are protected over and over again in most cases by agreements, and they have also the ample protection of the Lands Clauses Act incorporated into this Bill, which safeguards can, if the Committee think necessary, be increased and extended; and, lastly, they have this protection, that no property can be taken until the money is provided. The alarm expressed by my hon. Friend is, therefore, exaggerated. He says he does not want to have this matter hung up for the next three years. Nor do the company wish to have the scheme hung up for the next three years; but, unfortunately, through the action of the opposition, the scheme has been hanging since 1887, owing to the very clause it is now sought to remove. I do not wish to trifle with the House, and I therefore say that if the clause be re-enacted neither the promoters nor the Cadogan Company could possibly undertake the scheme. If, therefore, the House should be of opinion that the safeguards provided by the 4th clause are necessary and ought to be inserted, then the House had better throw out the Bill at once, for it will be absolutely impossible to carry out the improvements. It is not necessary to say a word in favour of the improvements. They are most desirable. That
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    is admitted. The only question is, who are to do them? In the Petition presented by the hon. Gentleman on behalf of those whom he represents, it is asserted that the improvements ought to be carried out by public authority. Well, the London County Council have been approached, and their opinion is that the work ought to be done by the Government. They decline to undertake the widening of Parliament Street; they say it is more an embellishment than a public improvement, and they say it should be undertaken by the Government; and I daresay the right hon. Gentleman will tell us that the Treasury are not prepared to find the money. So it follows that the only other resource is a private company which will act under the powers of the Bill if the House will grant them. The Government look with benevolence on the undertaking, because they have acquired considerable property, which now lies idle, which they cannot deal with, but which under this scheme they can make useful to the public service; but, in any case, before they allow a single step to be taken, they would have to be satisfied, and would be satisfied, that the promoters were able to carry out their intentions. The last day for petitioning has gone by, and two Petitions only have been presented. One of these is from the gentlemen who are represented by the hon. Member who has spoken, and the other is from the Middlesex County Council. The Chairman of the County Council informs me that they look with favour on the project, and that theirs is merely a watching Petition, so as to get a further safeguard, should it be found necessary, in Committee. This is really a matter of procedure. The nature of the improvements intended is well-known, and it is for the House to decide whether the Bill should pass this stage, whether the Bill of 1887 should be re-passed without the fatal clause introduced in the House of Lords, so as to enable the company to carry out this much-needed improvement. I do not know what the Chairman of Ways and Means may have to say on the subject, but it appears to me the question raised by my hon. Friends are wholly questions for Committee, and that they have not

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    at all attacked the principle of the measure, which is the question to be decided by the House now.
    MR. WOOTTON ISAACSONA short time since papers and plans in relation to this scheme were brought to me. I examined them, and I found that the ideas of various leaseholders were so capacious that I could see no chance of carrying out the scheme so beneficial to the neighbourhood. Any hon. Member who has examined the matter must come to the conclusion I have arrived at, that this locality is one of the grandest quarters in the whole of London. It might be made an embellishment to the Houses of Parliament, to Westminster Abbey, to the whole Metropolis. But I do object to the House of Commons being made the means of foisting a company on the public. Not a penny of capital has been subscribed, and when the project was put before me, and I found that the House was to be asked to assist in floating the company, I would have nothing to do with it. I hope the House will not pass the measure until perfectly convinced that the capital has been found. If there are gentlemen interested in these improvements, let them find the money and make their profit in the best way they can, and not come to the public to subscribe for a purpose out of which they will never get a penny.
    THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. PLUNKET,)As the Department I have the honour to represent has been referred to, perhaps the House will allow me to say a few words. As to the prospects of the scheme as a commercial undertaking I express no opinion whatever, and as to whether the Bill is a proper one in its details, that is a question, I think, for the decision of a Committee upstairs. So far as the Department of Works is concerned we are, speaking generally, satisfied with the proposals contained in the Bill. My hon. Friend who moved the rejection of the Bill spoke of our having been offered extravagant terms, but I think there was exaggeration in his remark. We have been offered what I consider are fair terms, but no more than fair
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    terms. Then as regards the proposition that a project of this kind should be taken up by the Government, I myself should be very glad could I foresee any chance of it, but I am afraid I cannot hold out any immediate hope of that. I will give the House the reasons that induce me to give my support to the Second Reading, but I do not wish to put any pressure upon any hon. Member who sits on this side of the House to vote with me. It seems to me that the proposals in this Bill having passed through Committees of both Houses within the last few years is a circumstance that should induce us to regard this Bill with favourable consideration, and if an alteration introduced, as we have been told, at the last moment in another place has made the success of the undertaking impossible, inasmuch as it was attaching to it an unworkable condition, then I do not think it is improbable that some other plan may be devised which would provide the security which I fully admit the persons interested are justified in asking for; therefore it seems to me the Bill should be allowed to go before a Committee. If the scheme can be carried out successfully, I certainly agree it will confer an enormous advantage on this part of the Metropolis, not only because the traffic at the point is fearfully congested to an extent that is a danger to the public, but looking at it from another point of view, I think the condition of Parliament Street is a scandal to the Metropolis. I never walk down that street without wondering how it is that it has been so long left in its present condition. Parliament Street does not unite, so much as it separates, two of the finest sites existing in any capital in Europe. At the one end you have Whitehall Place and Charing Cross, and at the other end the venerable Abbey of Westminster and the buildings of the Houses of Parliament, two magnificent public places separated, I say, at the present time by a narrow insignificant street. The Bill under other circumstances was considered a good one, and I see no reason why a Committee upstairs might not be able to put in such terms as, while allow-

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    ing this important public improvement to be carried out, would provide all security for the private interests concerned.
    MR. SHAW LEFEVREI have no intention of opposing the Bill, and if, as the result of passing the Bill, Parliament Street is widened, and handsome buildings erected, no doubt a great public improvement will be carried out. But I may remind the right hon. Gentleman and the House that it was originally intended, many years ago, that the widening of the street should be effected by the Government, and that the War Office should be built in the front street. That intention was abandoned when, later on, it was agreed that the War Office and the Admiralty should adjoin each other on the Admiralty site. Then, as the Government no longer wanted the site in Parliament Street, the plan of leaving the carrying out of the improvements to a company seemed to be a wise one. But since then, again, the scheme for uniting the Admiralty and the War Office has been abandoned, the Admiralty being in course of building on the site by itself. But it will be necessary hereafter to build a new War Office, and it seems to me there are only two possible sites—the one in question and the one opposite the Admiralty in Whitehall—and so it becomes matter for serious consideration whether it is wise for the Government to part with the property the site of which is, I believe, on the whole, about the best remaining site for a new War Office. It is a matter for the Board of Works to consider whether it is altogether wise to entrust the carrying out of this scheme to a private company. I merely throw out the suggestion to the right hon. Gentleman.
    MR. PLUNKETWith the permission of the House, I may be allowed to say that this very point has been carefully considered by the Office of Works; and if the scheme were successfully carried out, it would greatly facilitate the application of the site the right hon. Gentleman has referred to, to the erection of a new War Office or any other public building considered necessary.
    MR. SHAW LEFEVREThen I understand it is not intended abso-
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    lutely to part with the site—that the Government will retain some kind of lien upon it?
    THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Mr. COURTNEY, Cornwall, Bodmin)The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) has intervened with a special question, not, indeed, without warrant, and I thoroughly sympathise with him in regretting that the War Office and the Admiralty are not united upon one site in Spring Gardens. I still think that it would be well to have the new War Office near the Admiralty, so that the two arms of the Military Service of the Crown may be close together. But I do not think, in view of what has just been said, that any adequate reason has been advanced for not referring this Bill, in the ordinary course, to a Committee, arising from the course that may be adopted in regard to the new War Office. The question is now, Shall we send this Bill to a Committee or not? Those who have opposed the Bill have some ground for their opposition. The projectors of the scheme got their Bill in 1887, and their powers were renewed in 1890, but practically nothing has been done from that time to this. Those who are interested and concerned in this matter are the Institute of Civil Engineers and house owners in the neighbourhood, who not unreasonably may complain of being left for many years in an uncertain position. They do not know whether it is best to make alterations and improvements in their buildings, or whether or not they may be liable to be turned out at short notice. Of course, the whole question turns upon facts, and the promoters now propose to give a guarantee that they will within a short time carry out their plans. They say they are able to lay before the Committee an absolute guarantee that they will be able to proceed with the work subject to the preliminary Certificate of the Commissioners of Works; that in twelve months they will proceed with the work or abandon it altogether. On the other hand, the hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. Wootton Isaacson) assures us that he has private information, and his view is shared by the hon. Member for the Uxbridge Division (Mr. Dixon-Hartland) that the promoters are not

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    in a position to carry out their plans. But are we competent here, on the floor of this House, to determine the question? I have the greatest regard for the accuracy of the judgment of the hon. Member for Uxbridge, and I pay due deference to the opinion of the hon. Member for Stepney; but I do not think that what those hon. Members have said can be accepted as conclusive upon points of detail which can only be decided upon examination of financial facts and the evidence of financial experts. They will bring their data before the Select Committee, and the Committee will decide in the usual course. But the facts cannot be ascertained here; and if we are to proceed with reasonable caution, we must refer these matters of detail to a Committee upstairs. If the Committee are not satisfied from what is laid before them, that the future fortunes of the scheme will be different from what they have been in the last five years, the Committee will report against the Bill, but we cannot decide here and now whether the plan is hopeless or not. The merits of the plan as a public improvement are admitted, and the Board of Works, after full examination, are favourable to it. I hope the House will allow the Bill to follow the ordinary course, and that the Committee will be left to decide questions a Committee alone can decide.
    MR. WOOTTON ISAACSONWould the right hon. Gentleman favour a proposal that the scheme should be held up for less than three years?
    (3.46.) Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 228; Noes 14.—(Div. List, No. 16.)
    Bill read a second time, and committed.

MANCHESTER, SHEFFIELD, AND LINCOLNSHIRE RAILWAY (EXTENSION TO LONDON, &c.) BILL (by Order.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. BOULNOISIf, Sir, I do not oppose the Second Reading of the Bill now and wish to move the Reference of the Bill to a Hybrid Committee, should I be able to make that Motion now or at a later date? I mean supposing the Bill is unopposed.
  MR. SPEAKERThe Bill, if unopposed, will be read a second time and referred to an ordinary Select Committee. It will be open to the hon. Member to move the discharge of the Order for reference to a Select Committee, and to move that the Bill be referred to a Hybrid Committee.
  MR. BOULNOISShall I be able to do that now if the Second Reading is unopposed?
  MR. SPEAKERThe Question now is the Second Reading, and whether this is opposed or not a subsequent Motion may, as Opposed Business, be deferred to a later day.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill read a second time.
  MR. BOULNOISThen, Sir, I give. notice that to-morrow I shall make the Motion for the Reference of the Bill to a Hybrid Committee.
  MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member should in terms make his Motion now.
  MR. BOULNOISI beg to move the Motion which stands in my name.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the Bill be referred to a Select Committee of Seven Members, Four to be nominated by the House and Three by the Committee of Selection.
  That, subject to the Rules, Orders, and Proceedings of this House, all Petitions against the Bill presented on or before the 27th February last be referred to the Committee; 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 support of the Bill.
  That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
  That Four be the quorum."
  MR. HENEAGEI object. I would suggest that it be taken this day week.
  MR. SPEAKERIt would stand over till to-morrow in the usual way.
  Debate adjourned till To-morrow.
  MR. BOULNOISI beg to give notice that to-morrow I shall move—

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  "That it be an Instruction to the Committee to consider, if they think fit, whether, if the Railway is shown to be required, the proposed approach to London, and the district in which the terminus is to be placed, is the most suitable, regard being had to the character of the particular site and the neighbourhood, the means of access thereto, and the convenience of the Metropolis generally."

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1891–2 (SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES.)
    (In the Committee.)
    Considered in Committee.

    CLASS V.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £22,600, 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, 1892, for the Expenses of Her Majesty's Embassies and Missions Abroad."
    DR. CLARK ()I wish to call attention to the sum for the Boundary Commission between the Portuguese and the Chartered Company. I want to know why this money was not paid by the company instead of by the Imperial Government? I understand that those companies by their Charter would have to pay their own costs. These people have many powers; amongst others, the right to tax, and they are putting them on very severely. If that is so, why should this charge be upon the Imperial Exchequer? I should also like to know if the Commission has yet sat?
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. J. W. LOWTHER,)The Commission has sat: they met in the autumn of last year, and arrangements were made between the representatives to carry out the necessary preliminaries. Major Levison is at present in this country, but he is about to return almost immediately to the East Coast of Africa, and the matter will be at once proceeded with. I believe the work of delimitation was carried out in consequence of the Anglo-Portuguese Convention, and at the respective cost of the two Governments.
    DR. CLARKBut why should it not be paid by the Chartered Company? We have not control over it.
    MR. J. W. LOWTHERThey are only acting as our representatives.
    DR. CLARKAnother matter to which I would wish to call the attention of the House is the item of £5,600 for outfits in consequence of the deaths of Lord Lytton and Sir William White. I would like to know how much these diplomatic changes cost? I think we should also get details of the Vote. Bat why should we pay for the removal of the horses and carriages of these gentlemen and pay for the new furniture which they think well to select? When these gentlemen remove from one place to another and some new official takes the place what I ask becomes of the furniture, &c.? We pay these men large salaries, we give them houses, and we spend a great deal of money upon them; why then should we be called upon to pay such charges as these? What becomes of the furniture? Is it sold, or do the butlers take charge of it?
    *MR. J. W. LOWTHERI am afraid the hon. Member has got on the wrong line of rails in reference to this matter. Those outfits are granted to Ambassadors, Ministers, Secretaries of Embassy and of Legation upon their going to a new post, and I believe that they only barely cover the expenses. When a Minister has to break up his establishment, these outfit grants cover his travelling and removal expenses: the expense he is put to in having to break up his establishment, the cost of having to settle down in a new position, and various costs incurred iu many other ways. The hon. Member has asked for details as to the Vote which is due to the deaths which unfortunately took place in the last year in the ranks of the Diplomatic Service. Lord Dufferin on going to Paris will get £2,000 for outfit. These outfits have been fixed for a great number of years between the Treasury and the Foreign Office. They were inquired into by a Committee that sat some years ago on the Diplomatic Service Votes, and the Committee did not report otherwise than favourably.
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    Sir Clare Ford will get £1,250; Sir D. Wolff, £2,000; Lord Vivian, £2,500; Sir E. Monson, £650, and Mr. Egerton, £1,100. Last year the whole sum expended in outfits was £1,416, and the year before, although the sum down in the Estimates was £5,000, only £3,700 out of that was spent.
    MR. LABOUCHERE ()The hon. Gentleman says that Lord Dufferin received £2,000 to cover his expenses on going from Rome to Paris, and that the money was expended in travelling and for his personal impedimenta. But why this discrepancy in the allowance if they are made for personal expenses? If we take distance into account they seem to follow no intelligible principle, for whilst Lord Dufferin gets £2,000 for going from Rome to Paris, Lord Vivian gets £2,500 for going from Brussels to Rome, while Mr. Egerton gets £1,100 for going from Paris to Greece. Again, Mr. Monson only gets £650, and it is obvious that if he has been properly paid these other gentlemen have been improperly paid, and that they have received too much. We poor people have travelled somewhat on the Continent however, and we know something about the expense of it, and I should be inclined, if it costs these gentlemen so much for travelling expenses, to suggest that the Government should consider the advisability of going to Messrs. Cook. From what the hon. Member has stated it would appear that removal of furniture has nothing to do with the grants, and that this is a species of general allowance made to Ambassadors and Ministers for going from one place to another. Under these circumstances I beg to move the reduction of the Vote by £2,000.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item N, Outfits, be reduced by the sum of £2,000." —(Mr. Labouchere.)
    MR. LEVESON-GOWER ()I do not see upon what principle this money is given to Ambassadors and Ministers, and not extended to the junior members of the Diplomatic Service, who have to move about more frequently than the Ambassadors or Ministers, and who are paid a less salary.
    MR. WOOTTON ISAACSON ()I wish to ask the hon. Member whether Sir H. D. Wolff will receive an allowance for outfit on going from Bucharest to Madrid?
    MR. J. W. LOWTHERWith reference to the question asked by my hon. Friend, I have to say that I believe the usual course will be followed, and that on the transfer of Sir H. D. Wolff he would receive an outfit. I do not see anything extraordinary in it that hon. Members should laugh. I did not mean to say that the outfit was meant simply to cover the personal expenses of the Minister; it is also for the travelling expenses of his family, and the expense incurred in moving his own private furniture, and horses and carriages. The Minister's goods and chattels, the position he holds, and a great many other things are matters which the junior members of the Diplomatic Service do not have to deal with, entitle him to a larger sum. Therefore, it is perfectly obvious that the expenses to which an Ambassador or Minister is put in moving from one mission to another are relatively very much greater than those of the junior members. This scheme of outfits was settled upon after communication with the Treasury; it was investigated by a Committee of the House and approved, and the general principle upon which it is founded is about one-third of the salary attached to the post to which Her Majesty's Representatives are appointed.
    MR. P. STANHOPE ()I wish to ask whether any inquiry was made on the part of the Foreign Office as to the items of expenditure before these gentlemen got to their posts? I understand how it may be desirable to pay the expenses of Ambassadors moving from one place to another; but I think advantage should not be taken of that for granting them a lump sum that is more than what is actually expended. I hope that when further sums are applied for in regard to these outfits the Under Secretary will be able to lay before the House more details, for I think he should show to the House that the money was actually expended.
    MR. LEVESON-GOWERThe hon. Gentleman has not answered that part of my question which refers to junior members of the Service. I. should think some amount should be paid them, and I should like if the Under Secretary would give us some assurance upon the point.
    MR. LABOUCHEREI can explain how I myself was treated. I was Second Secretary of Legation once, and had to go from London to Constantinople. I put in a statement as to how much it cost me. Now, Mr. Courtney, I am an honest man, and I put in exactly what it cost me in trains; but Mr. Cunningham, who was then at the head of the Financial Department of the Foreign Office, told me that I was to supply vouchers. I told him that if he insisted on vouchers the railway companies might not give them; but it was of no avail, and I had to appeal to Lord Russell, and pledge myself that I had actually expended the money in railway travelling from one point to another. It is evident this amount has nothing to do with the money spent, as the Under Secretary says it is based upon one-third of the salary. I admit that these men have a right to be paid their expenses, but we know that this is absolutely in excess; we know, and it has been admitted, that it does not depend upon the actual amount spent, and therefore I must persist in my Motion.
    DR. CLARKWe have been told that this money was for outfit, and from the reply of the hon. Gentleman opposite it would appear that they did not get any outfit. In short, it is not for outfit at all.
    DR. TANNER ()It seems to me extraordinary the way in which these items are placed upon the Paper, and that more attention is not paid to details. More information should be given, and I, for one, think the House should ask for it before it votes away this extraordinary large sum without thoroughly understanding it.
    MR. OSBORNE MORGAN ()I wish to observe that we had no explanation from the Under Secretary as to the way in which the outfit is calculated; he has

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    simply told us that it is about one third of the salary paid. According to the hon. Member for Northampton, it would appear that there is some doubt about that point. Now, I am also an honest man, and I wish to tell the House that when I was Judge Advocate General, I was called upon to state exactly what I spent, and I endeavoured to act as fairly as I could. There is no reason why the same course should not be taken in this case, and why Ambassadors and Ministers should not do the same.
    MR. ROBY ()I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman, what is the date of the Committee to which he referred as having carried out this arrangement?
    MR. J. W. LOWTHERThe Committee reported in 1870.
    MR. ROBYAre we to clearly understand that this money will not be used for the purchase of furniture? I confess I feel it would be much more satisfactory if the money were calculated upon some other scale than the amount of salary. This is a rough method of calculation, and not by any means so satisfactory as if the exact amount expended were recorded.
    MR. J. W. LOWTHERI think I can explain the discrepancy which the hon. Member for Northampton has discovered. On his first appointment as Ambassador a gentleman receives a full outfit, which is roughly calculated at one-third of the salary attached to the post. If he is only transferred from one Embassy to another then he does not receive a full outfit; I think he then only receives one-half of the outfit. In the same way, if a gentleman proceeds from a Legation to an Embassy, he then receives a full outfit. If he proceeds to a Legation for the first time, he then receives a full outfit; but if from a Legation to a Legation, he only receives half. Such is the explanation of the discrepancy. In the case of Lord Vivian, for instance, he received a full outfit, but Sir Clare Ford did not receive a full outfit. Outfits include furniture, that covers not merely the cost of travelling, but also the cost of moving the family, servants, horses, carriages, and such furniture as the Ambassador
    1830
    wishes to move from one Mission to another. It is perfectly true that at the Chief Embassies there is a certain quantity of furniture which belongs to these Embassies, but it is of a. very meagre character, and very much of the character which Government furniture is apt to be. And therefore the cost of the removal of old and the purchase of new furniture to make the new residence inhabitable is covered by the outfits which are given.
    MR. LABOUCHEREI think the hon. Gentleman has still failed to explain this matter. He says that when a gentleman is promoted from being a Minister to be an Ambassador, he receives one-half of the allowance that he would otherwise receive. The hon. Gentleman has said that Lord Dufferin received £2,000 on removal from Rome, where he had been an Ambassador, to Paris, where he is now an Ambassador; but that Sir Clare Ford had only received £1,200 on being transferred from Madrid, where he had been an Ambassador, to Constantinople, where he is also an Ambassador. But the explanation of the hon. Gentleman, I am bound to say, does not account for these discrepancies.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 103; Noes 152.—(Div. List, No. 19.)
    Original Question again proposed.
    Dr. CLARKI think we should have some explanation with respect to this item of £3,000 relating to the Government of India.
    MR. J. W. LOWTHERThe Government of India have hitherto been paying £10,000 a year towards the Mission to Persia; but lately they have represented to Her Majesty's Government that the Indian Government were paying the cost of the Agencies at Bushire and Meshed, which amounts to £16,000 a year, and they considered that the resources of India should not be taxed to a greater extent than £7,000 instead of £10,000 a year. And seeing that India pays on Agencies, etc., as much as £23,000 a year, and the Imperial Government only paid, roughly speaking, £12,000 a year, it was thought that it was only fair that that sum of £3,000 should be placed upon the Imperial Estimates.

    1831
    Original Question put, and agreed to.
    (2.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £1,610, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which Neill come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1892, for the Expenses of the High Commissioner for South Africa."
    DR. CLARKI should like to have some explanation about this item of £1,000 for telegrams. I do not know of any burning question in South Africa which would cause so much expenditure upon telegrams. Last year there was one, but this year there was no burning question in South Africa, and yet we have the Estimate increased by 50 per cent. when there was no trouble in the country. I should like to get some reply in reference to this matter.
    SIR JOHN GORSTI am not quite so familiar with this Vote as my right hon. Friend the Under Secretary, but I am informed that the excess is due to the action of certain burghers in the South African Republic, who made a trek into territory in the direction of British Bechuanaland, or rather Matabeleland. This movement threatened to be inimical to British interests, and necessitated this large expenditure upon telegrams; and I say that money has been well spent. Owing to the vigorous intervention of Sir Henry Loch, and to the friendly co-operation of the South African Republic, that movement of the burghers entirely failed.
    MR. MAC NEILL (Donegal, S.)I wish to know where is the Under Secretary? I think this is a discourtesy that he should not be here to give us the information we want. We want to know about these telegrams. We are not satisfied with the explanation given by the right hon. Gentleman, who, with great candour, says he knows nothing about them. [Sir JOHN GORST: No, no.] Yes, he got a paper from the Colonial Office, took it from his portfolio, and then read it with very great difficulty. That is not the way to do business when we are dealing with public money. I certainly will move a reduction of this Vote in order that it may be deferred
    1832
    until the Under Secretary for the Colonies is present. If I cannot do so, I shall move a Resolution. Am I in order in moving it?
    THE CHAIRMANYes.
    MR. MAC NEILLVery well. Then beg to move that the Vote be reduced by £2,000, to show my sense first of this reprehensible manner of spending public money, and, secondly, for the purpose of making the servants of the Crown do their duty instead of doing the work of the First Lord of the Treasury by electioneering in the country. In the late Mr. W. H. Smith's time such a thing would not have occurred. I would ask the First Lord of the Treasury to be good enough to give us some explanation, if he can, why the Under Secretary for the Colonies has not been in his place today or for the last week.
    SIR JOHN GORSTI hope the hon. Member will withdraw his Motion. I am the Minister of the Crown responsible for this Estimate. I gave a reply which has satisfied the hon. Member who asked the question. I did not say I did not know anything about it. I have said all I know about it, and I think I gave what the hon. Member who asked the question considers a full and clear explanation. I hope, therefore, the hon. Member will not persevere with his Motion, as it would be indirectly a Vote of Censure on myself, who, however inadequately, in the absence of the Under Secretary of State, have replied to the question. But if the Under Secretary of State had been in his place he would not have said more than I have said on the subject.
    DR. TANNERThe right hon. Gentleman, in a most extraordinary speech, tells us that the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies could not do the work half as well as t he right hon. Gentleman himself. [Sir John Gorst: No, no.] Accordingly I wish to point out to the House—what we have been trying to impress upon you from these Benches—that a great number of the right hon. Gentlemen opposite fill ornamental places, and that their services can be very easily dispensed with. I never saw a more amusing state of affairs in this Committee of Supply before. I

    1833
    hope, in view of what has taken place on the present occasion, that, in the first place, responsible Ministers will see their way when they have to come to this House to ask for public money so that they will be able to definitely tell us what are the things on which this money has been expended, without all this hugger-mugger on the Treasury Bench; and, again, I hope this Committee will see, what we have endeavoured frequently to point out, that a great many of these posts filled by Members of Her Majesty's Government and the supporters of Her Majesty's Government could be very easily dispensed with.
    MR. OSBORNE MORGAN ()There is a certain amount of force in what has been said about the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies being absent; but his place could not be better filled than by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. I hope, therefore, the hon. Gentleman will not go to a Division.
    MR. MAC NEILLI am not going to persevere with this Motion, and I do not wish to cast any blame upon the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury in any way. At the same time, I think it would have been more courteous if the First Lord were to answer a question asked in reference to an absent Under Minister, and state why the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies is not in his place. When this Vote comes on I wish to know are the Under Secretaries—especially the Under Secretary for the Colonies—appointed for the transaction of Public Business and to act in the public interest, or whether the Under Secretary for the Colonies is receiving a salary of £2,000 a year to stump for the Government out of doors? I wish to know which is his business—is his business to be here on the Treasury Bench to answer me, or is he to be down in the country electioneering?
    MR. A. J. BALFOURIf I did not answer the question before, it was because I thought an answer had been very amply given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury. No doubt I am responsible in this House for seeing that the Business of the House is fully, as well as pro
    1834
    perly, discharged. No doubt my right hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies would have been in his place had there been anything on the Paper to indicate that any question of importance would arise in reference to this Vote.
    MR. MAC NEILLOh, this is very important.
    MR. A. J. BALFOURIf the hon. Gentleman will allow me to proceed. A small Debate has arisen, not a Debate on the question of policy, and I think it will be admitted that no more able substitute than my right hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury could have been found. It would undoubtedly be a very unfortunate state of things if an important Debate on matters of policy arose in the absence of the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, or if the military question were raised in the absence of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War. But neither of these things has occurred, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will not press his point.
    DR. CLARKI am very well satisfied with the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman, though I should like to have an explanation of the appearance of the items of expenditure in February and March last year on this Vote. I should also like an explanation of the item of £160 to a gentleman who has a pension as a post-captain in the Navy as well as his salary as secretary.
    *SIR JOHN GORSTIn consequence of this gentleman receiving retired Naval pay, 10 per cent. is deducted from his salary. Sir Graham Bower is a gentleman of very great ability, who has held office for nearly eight years, and his salary is only £500, rising by increments of £20 to £700. We propose to grant him this personal allowance in consideration of his long service and high ability.
    MR. MAC NEILLIn the absence of the Under Secretary for the Colonies, I wish to bear testimony to what the right hon. Gentleman said as to the Secretary to the High Commissioner. His duties are great, his work is responsible, his intelligence is conspicuous, and he deserves any recognition that can be given him.
    DR. TANNERIt is advisable in the public interest that when gentle

    1835
    men draw large sums of money it should be put down in order that we may know the extent of these extraordinary grants. If the whole of these items paid to public servants were placed before the House, the House would be in a better position to judge, and be better able to modify and check extravagance. Again and again we have called attention to the slip-shod manner in which these Estimates are presented.
    MR. WALLACE ()I am not at all satisfied with the excuses that have been given for the absence from the House of the Under Secretary for the Colonies. I think he ought to have been here to attend to any questions on these Estimates. There has been no explanation given. We are told he has left a good substitute. I do not deny that. The Secretary to the Treasury is a substitute, and something more. If it is to be intended as a tribute to the abilities of the Secretary to the Treasury, I think he might—very profitably to this House—be the sole occupant of the Treasury Bench. But that is no answer. The Under Secretary ought to have been here; and if his absence is to be explained away in the manner suggested, why should we not abolish two or three of the number of Under Secretaries who sit on these Benches? It is no use telling us that we have a very versatile and able gentleman representing him. We knew that before; we have known it all along. I see that the Secretary to the Treasury has been re-inforced by the Junior Lord of the Admiralty. He becomes extremely strong with such supplement. I hope my hon. Friends will continue their opposition to this Vote, and I shall support them simply to mark my offended sense of the absence of the Under Secretary for the Colonies. Where is he? What is he doing? I am told he is in the Chertsey Division. Why is he not here to attend to the Estimates? His absence will cause much larger questions. If he can be in the Chertsey Division without detriment to the interests of his office, the office might very profitably be abolished, and we should leave the Secretary to the Treasury to attend to the whole work.
    1836
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 131; Noes 61.£(Div. List, No. 20.)
    Resolutions to be reported.

  THE IMPERIAL BRITISH EAST AFRICA COMPANY.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £20,000 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, 1892, as a Grant in Aid of the Cost of Preliminary Surveys for a Railway from the Coast to Lake Victoria Nyanza."
  *MR. J. W. LOWTHERAs this Vote appears for the first time in the Estimates, I think the Committee will probably expect some explanations of the reasons which have led the Government to propose it. I can give them in a sentence, if I say that this Vote is submitted to the House in continuation and amplification of the policy which for many years past has actuated Her Majesty's Governments and the country in dealing with the suppression of the Slave Trade in East and in Central Africa. This is not a new policy; it is a policy that has been carried out by successive Governments daring a long period of years, not spasmodically, but constantly. It has met with the general support not only of this House, but with the general support of the country. It is, I think I may fairly say, part of the traditional policy of this country. So far as public efforts are concerned, Her Majesty's ships have held the sea on the East Coast of Africa for many years, and have been engaged in suppressing the sea-borne Slave Trade. The Public Purse has supplied funds, to a large extent, to keep these ships on the sea—to keep them coaled and efficient, and that at a time w hen we had no stations from Aden to Natal, no Protectorates on the East Coast of Africa, and no responsibilities. And whilst the public has not been slow to find means for suppressing the Slave Trade, private exertions have ably seconded public effort. The missionaries sent out by private persons, and especially by the Scotch people, have penetrated into Equatorial Africa charged with the duty of christianising those vast populations, and of exhorting them to put an end to this inhuman

  1837
  traffic. And I think we may fairly claim that our public and private efforts have been attended with a large measure of success. Some twenty years ago the export of slaves from that sea coast was reckoned at about 20,000 per annum. That export or sea-borne trade in slaves has now almost ceased. At any rate, it has diminished so as to be now a very small quantity. But whilst the export trade has ceased, it is notorious that the home trade still continues. We have scotched the snake, but we have not yet killed it. And I think I may ask permission of the Committee to explain what I mean by the export trade and the home trade in slaves. What happens, as I understand, is this: that in order that goods should be brought to the coast from the central regions of Africa, the slaves are collected and raided, and are used as porters to bring down the goods. When they arrive at the coast the slaves are a marketable article. They can either be exported to the islands lying off the coast of Africa, to Arabia, or elsewhere; or if there is no demand for their export, they can be sold just as cattle or beasts of burden can be sold, or utilised for the return journey to Central Africa. This internal trade in slaves attracted the attention especially of the Government of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, the Member for Midlothian, as early as May, 1885, and I find that on the 25th May, 1885, Lord Granville wrote a very interesting and important Despatch to Sir Edward Malet, in which he said—
  "I have to request your Excellency to state that the supposition that Her Majesty's Government have no intention of opposing the German schemes of colonisation in the neighbourhood of Zanzibar is absolutely correct. Her majesty's Government, on the contrary, view with favour these schemes, the realisation of which will entail the civilisation of large tracts over which hitherto no European influence has been exercised; the co-operation of Germany with Great Britain in the work of the suppression of the slave gangs; and the encouragement of the efforts of the Sultan both in the extinction of the Slave Trade and in the commercial development of his dominions. I should wish your Excellency, while speaking in this sense to the Chancellor, to inform him that a scheme has been started in this country under which, if it is realised, the efforts of German enterprise may be supported indirectly by British enterprise. You will explain that s e prominent capitalists have originated a plan for a British settlement in
  1838
  the country between the coast and the lakes which are the sources of the White Nile, and for its connection with the coast by a railway. In order to obtain fair security for their outlay they propose to endeavour to procure concessions from the Sultan of a comprehensive character. Her Majesty's Government have the scheme under their consideration, but they would not support it unless they were fully satisfied that every precaution was taken to insure that it would in no way conflict with the interests of the territory that has been taken under a German protectorate, nor affect that part of the Sultan's dominions lying between that territory and the sea."
  Now, Sir, that shows that as early as May, 1885, Lord Granville and the Government over which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian presided had taken this important matter into their careful consideration. They were aware that it was proposed by a number of gentlemen to develop that portion of Eastern Africa, especially by the method of making a railway which would run from the coast to the Victoria Nyanza, and the only condition apparently, judging from this Despatch which Her Majesty's Government at that time attached to the proposal, was that the sphere of delimitation between the German Government and ourselves should be distinctly laid down. Now, Sir, I would ask permission of the Committee to make a brief review of the events that have occurred since that date. The agreement which Lord Granville had contemplated in 1885 became a fact in 1886. The German Government and our own Government arrived at an agreement as to the line of demarcation between their respective spheres of influence in East Africa, and the line was drawn from the mouth of the River Umba, passing in a north-westerly direction along the northern slopes of the Mount Kilima Njaro, and finally striking Lake Victoria Nyanza at latitude 2° south. In 1888 Her Majesty's present Government granted a Charter to the Imperial British East Africa Company, following the example which had been set them two years before by the Government of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who granted a Charter to the Niger Company for the development of the Niger district of Africa, and following, as to many of its clauses, the clauses of that Charter almost word for word. In the year 1890 the British East Africa Company

  1839
  pushed into the interior and sent Captain Lugard on a mission to Uganda. In 1890, after he had arrived at Uganda, a further agreement was arrived at between Her Majesty's Government and the German Government, which accepted the line already laid down, confirmed it, and delineated the spheres of influence further west and in other directions. In 1890, Her Majesty's Government also declared a protectorate over Zanzibar, and in 1891 the Sultan of Zanzibar decreed that the Slave Trade in his dominions should be gradually extinguished. I quote those events to show that in 1891 and in 1892 we stand in a very different position from what we did in 1885. We have acquired vast new interests in East Africa, and with these new interests we have also taken upon ourselves new responsibilities. In the meanwhile, in Europe this matter of the internal Slave Trade had attracted considerable attention. Cardinal Lavigerie, in a series of very powerful addresses delivered in Brussels, had arrested the attention of philanthropists to this matter. He proposed that it might be dealt with by the institution of a Volunteer Army and by the absolute prevention of the importation of arms. Those matters were submitted to Her Majesty's Government; and whilst they did not consider that either of those two plans was capable of adoption, or at all events of execution, it was chiefly at the instigation of Her Majesty's Government and the German Government that the Belgian King convoked the Brussels Conference, which led to the signature of the Brussels Act in 1890. Now, I must ask the attention of the Committee for a few moments to the first Article of the Brussels Act. The first Article reads thus:—
  "The Powers declare that the most effective means for counteracting the Slave Trade in the interior of Africa are the following:—

  Progressive organisation of the administrative, judicial, religious, and military services in the African territories, placed under the sovereignty or protectorate of civilized nations.

  The gradual establishment in the interior, by the responsible power in each territory, of strongly occupied stations in such a way as to make their protective or repressive action effectively felt in the territories devastated by man-hunters.

  1840

  The construction of roads, and in particular of railways connecting the advanced stations with the coast, and permitting easy access to the inland waters and to the upper reaches of streams and rivers which are broken by rapids and cataracts, so as to substitute economical and speedy means of transit for the present means of porterage by men.

  The establishment of steamboats on the inland navigable waters and on the lakes, supported by fortified posts established on the banks.

  The establishment of telegraphic lines assuring the communication of the posts and stations with the coast and with the administrative centres.

  Organisation of expeditions and flying columns to keep up the communication of the stations with each other and with the coast, and to assure the security of the roadways.

  Restriction of the importation of firearms, at least of modern pattern, and ammunition throughout the entire extent of the territories infected by the Slave Trade."

  That is the first and the leading Article of the Brussels Act. It does not appear, so far as I have been able to discover, that there has been much criticism, either in this House or outside this House, of the policy which Her Majesty's Government pursued in putting their signature to that Act. Such as it is, the criticism appears to be of a favourable character. I find that my hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Bryce) last year referred to it in these terms. He said—
  "I have listened with great interest to the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir James Fergusson, then Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs), and I hope this Convention (the Brussels Act) will be carried through, and the adhesion of the Foreign Powers obtained. I think we must all feel that there is no matter to which the combined action of the Powers ought to be more earnestly addressed than the suppression of the Slave Trade, and I am certain there is no part of the Government's policy which will receive more hearty and more unanimous support."
  That being the attitude of hon. Gentlemen opposite and of the country, we have, in laying this Vote on the Table, only carried out the principle which, in signing the Brussels Act, we accepted. The Brussels Act emphasises and particularises our policy, and not only our policy, but the policy of Europe in its method of dealing with the Slave Trade. The Brussels Act gives the imprimatur of

  1841
  the assent of Europe to certain methods of dealing with this trade. The countries which have signed this Act have not only put their hand to it, but they have undertaken, by so signing, new responsibilities and new duties. That being so, Her Majesty's Government had to consider in what method the Act is to be carried out, and hon. Gentlemen will observe that two alternatives are suggested. One is the establishment of fortified posts at different parts of Equatorial Africa, and the establishment of flying columns, starting from these fortified posts, to deal with the slave traders as they come down from the centre to the coast. The other is that specially laid down in the third paragraph of the first Article—namely, the construction of roads, and in particular of railways. To the former alternative there are many objections. In the first place, if we fix certain military posts, it is quite possible—nay, it is easy—for slave raiders and slave gangs to avoid these posts. The radius which can be covered from these posts is only of a limited character, and as soon as it is known what the radius is, the slave raiders will get the length of the radius, and they will avoid them. Again, the establishment of military posts is a matter which would involve enormous cost to this country, and further the establishment of posts of a military character would be very likely to tend to the irritation of the populations amongst whom those posts were established. Further, the benefits to be derived from the establishment of such posts would be only of a transitory character, because the probability would be that the moment the military posts were withdrawn the slave raiding would recommence and continue as hitherto. In favour of the latter course—namely, of opening up the country by means of a railway from the coast to Lake Victoria Nyanza—there are certain considerations to be looked at. In the first place it is a peaceful method of dealing with the difficulty. If the railway is a success the benefits of it will be of a lasting and not of a temporary character. The locomotive, in fact, by means of competition, will kill both the caravan and the kidnapper. I think I have already,
  1842
  at an earlier stage, sufficiently explained how it is that the Slave Trade exists. It meets a natural demand, the demand for porterage. The cost of porterage to the interior of Africa, to Uganda, and the coasts of the Lake Victoria Nyanza is enormous. I believe it is reckoned about £300 a ton. It is impossible to obtain animals to carry the burdens, because they are killed by the tsetse fly. By means of a railway we should find ourselves able to substitute the locomotive in the place of the caravan and the kidnapper. Whilst, on the one hand, we should open up the interior of the country to our own commerce, on the other hand, by the very competition of the railway, we produce a means which must kill—must effectually kill—any further continuance of the slave traffic, slave raiding, and slave porterage. The slave routes lie chiefly from the east side of the Lake Victoria Nyanza down to the coast in the neighbourhood of Mombasa and northward, and also from the north-west of the Lake Victoria Nyanza down the western side of the lake to the southern portion. Now, if a railway is built going from Mombasa to the Lake Victoria Nyanza you tap at once the former of these two localities, and at the same time enabling ourselves, at a comparatively moderate cost, to place steamers upon the Lake Victoria Nyanza—a lake, by the way, which ought rather to be called a sea, because it is in acreage, I believe, as large as Scotland—and these steamers, by trading round the lake and thus killing the slave porterage by their competition, would bring the commerce down not only from the district between the lake and the coast, but also from the district immediately round the Lake Victoria Nyanza and to the west and north of it. I do not know that I need refer at any great length to the characteristics of Uganda. Many travellers have explored the country, and we have the record of their travels. Uganda has been called "the pearl of Africa." It is the only Christian community in Central Africa. The King is a Christian King. It is surrounded by a large Mahomedan population. We have many missionary establishments situated in Uganda. The people of Uganda are described as a fine race of

  1843
  men ready to work, and in Uganda traces of former civilisation have been discovered, which may possibly again bring forth good fruit if opportunity is offered to open up the country. The question then resolves itself into this: Are we prepared to go on with the traditional policy of this country, or are we prepared to reverse it? Are we content to sign a document like the Brussels Act, which reads very well and for which we obtained considerable credit, and are we not prepared to follow it up? The Governments of other countries have already taken steps in the direction in which Her Majesty's Government now ask the House to proceed. The Government of Belgium contributes no less than £80,000 a-year towards the administration of the Congo State.
  MR. LABOUCHEREThe King of the Belgians.
  MR. J. W. LOWTHERWell, the King contributes no less than £80,000. The German Imperial Government have spent large sums in developing that portion of their sphere of influence, and hitherto Great Britain has done nothing. That being the case, last summer Her Majesty's Government and the Imperial British East Africa Company entered into communications with reference to the making of a railway from Mombasa to the Victoria Nyanza. Proposals were made that Her Majesty's Government should grant a subsidy; that they should give a guarantee for the railway. The communications proceeded for some little time, but eventually the Chancellor of the Exchequer thought it was better to proceed with great caution, and that it would be better to have a survey—an ample and full survey—made of the district that it was intended the ra!lway should go through. A Vote, therefore, was placed on the Paper at the end of last Session; but, as the Committee will no doubt remember, a pledge was given by the right hon. Gentleman the then Leader of the House that no contentious measures should be taken after a certain date, but as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby held that this was a contentious measure, Her Majesty's Government withdrew it. At the same time the then Leader of the House
  1844
  said that the Government would bring it before the House at the earliest opportunity this Session. In the meanwhile, Her Majesty's Government, in order that the valuable winter months should not be lost during which the work in the lower regions near the coast could be carried on, arranged with the British East Africa Company that a survey should be at once commenced. Her Majesty's Government appointed, as the Papers will show, two surveyors, who are now engaged in that task. The British East Africa Company undertook to pay the expenses. Her Majesty's Government at the same time undertook that they would bring this Vote before the House at the earliest opportunity, and use their best endeavours to get the House to accept it. The survey has proceeded. It has already covered, from the last reports we have had, 150 miles. It has reached a place called Tsavo. Out of the 150 miles between the coast and Tsavo, along the Teita route, it appears that only 15 are of a difficult character. The rest are comparatively easy. No doubt there are difficulties in the way. There is one part of the territory which goes by the name of the Mau Escarpment, which is near the lake, in which there will be considerable difficulty. There is, primâ facie, no reason to suppose that the railway cannot be carried the whole distance. At all events, I think it will be recognised that Her Majesty's Government have proceeded tentatively and cautiously in this matter; and when the survey is complete, and when the report of the survey reaches this country, Her Majesty's Government and the public will then be in a better position to ascertain whether the railway can be completed and carried through, and, if so, at what cost this work can be carried out. The question lies in a nutshell. We stand at the parting of the ways. If we do nothing now we go backwards, because it is perfectly obvious that in consequence of the great cost of maintaining Captain Lugard and those who are with him in Uganda, it is impossible for the British East Africa Company or any Company, or for Her Majesty's Government, to keep Captain Lugard there. He would therefore be with

  1845
  drawn. If he were withdrawn it requires no great amount of prophecy to see that the Mahommedans and those who are on the outskirts of this Christian community of Uganda will at once attack it. The missionaries who are now settled in Uganda will probably be the first to be sacrificed. At all events it will give a spurt to the Slave Trade which the establishment at Uganda is already, in some measure, stopping. It will give a fresh spurt to the trade which it will be very difficult—nay impossible—to put an end to by simply dealing with it on the coast. If we desire to go forward in what I have called the traditional policy of this country the way is clear before us. The means have been pointed out by the unanimous voice of Europe, as expressed in the Brussels Act. The cost, compared with the vast cost we have been put to in maintaining ships off the East Coast of Africa, is comparatively cheap. And, by adopting the alternative which Her Majesty's Government propose, we shall show that our vaunted philanthropy is not a sham, and that our professions of humanitarianism are not the merest hypocrisy.
  MR. BUCHANAN ()Mr. Courtney, I rise to say a few words on this which I consider a most important Vote, and one which, if agreed to, will carry very important consequences indeed. I have generally been a supporter of the policy of Her Majesty's Government in regard to East Africa; but I have always understood that there were two principles laid down by the Government with regard to which I have always been in agreement with them. They are that this country cannot take part in any armed interference in those countries which are brought within her sphere of influence; and, secondly, that they would not attempt to develop and open up these countries by expenditure from the British Exchequer. Suggestions have been made in both these directions during the negociations during the last five years with respect to Nyassaland and other parts of Africa. The Government, so far as I know, absolutely negatived proposals placed before them in ei her direction, and I entirely agree with them. To-night we have
  1846
  had a most important statement by the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs in explanation of this Vote. I think, if I may say so, that the first part of his speech was devoted to showing that the policy which Her Majesty's Government had adopted in this Vote is merely a continuation of their previous policy, and the policy of past Governments. But towards the conclusion of his speech he stated what appeared to me to be a much more accurate description of the policy now being pursued, when he described the introduction and passing of this Vote as a "parting of the ways." He assumed completely the responsibility of Her Majesty's Government in this matter, and did not attempt to lay it on the East Africa Company; and, probably, never was so important a departure submitted to the judgment of the House, without any such adequate information as would enable hon. Members of the House to judge of it being afforded. I think we are entitled to ask for more details for the proper consideration of the question. At first we were asked not to look upon the Company as a purely commercial body; but it really stands in the same position as other Chartered Companies in Africa, and exactly in the same position as the Chartered Company in Borneo; substantially all the chartered companies are identical. The question then arises, was this Company specially charged with the repression of the Slave Trade? Like the other companies it has to discourage to the best of its power, and as far as practicable abolish by degrees, any system of slavery or domestic servitude that exists. The clause dealing with this says that the Company "shall to the best of its power discourage, and so far as practicable abolish slavery;" but that is practically the same clause as appears in other Charters. I am not one of those who object to giving these Charters; I never attempted to describe the work of Chartered Companies as "filibustering by proxy," to quote a phrase once used by a Member of the Government. An attack on the Borneo Company with regard to this very clause was led by the Secretary to the Treasury and supported by the speech and vote of the First Lord of the Treasury; yet here is the East Africa

  1847
  Company with a similar clause, certainly not stronger, but possibly somewhat weaker in regard to its application, and, therefore, I think we may take it that this Company is in no way specially charged with duties in regard to the repression of the Slave Trade. If it be alleged that that object would be specially served by the construction of a railway through this district, the reply must be that there is really and absolutely no information to support that view. One hon. Member said that there were several slave routes through this district; but so far as our information goes there is really nothing to bear out that statement. I believe the condition of things is all the other way, and that the slave routes, instead of going through the district of the railway goes to the south of it. There is absolutely no slave traffic from Nyanza to Mombasa. Mr. Jackson, who was a surveyor to the British East Africa Company, read a paper at the Royal Geographical Society—and he was followed by a missionary from Uganda—and he stated that the slave routes and trade routes ran all through the German territory round the southern side of Kilima-Njaro. He also said that it was a good route for a railway; but that a railway was impossible because it was through German territory. But this is quite a case in which we are absolutely devoid of information. With regard to the first article of the Brussels Conference I think the hon. Gentleman stretches it to its utmost limits. If everything in that first article could be carried out Africa would be civilised, and the Slave Trade would be done entirely away with. But what I say is that it has not yet been shown that the first work obligatory upon this country is the construction of this railway; nor has it been shown that the alternative, as the hon. Member put it, which we are to adopt was the construction of military posts or the construction of a railway. In fact, if we build the railway we must be prepared to protect it. As I understand, the country is one which presents great physical difficulties, and that it is depopulated by some of the most savage people of Africa. I got a letter only yesterday upon the subject from an engineer who
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  was in favour of these railways; but he said at the same time the Government must be prepared to fortify their railway, which might be done
  "by making the stations fortresses, and that the signal boxes should be constructed on the model of the Martello towers with guns raking the railway up and down."
  Another argument that is used is the commercial argument. We are, of course, all anxious for new markets for British goods. Uganda is ate most prosperous part of the district, but the trade routes with rich and prosperous Uganda are not in the direction of this railway, but are either northward through the Nile or southward through the territory which is now under the German sphere of influence. The Government has laid no information upon this subject before us. We should have Captain Lugard's Report on Uganda before us so that we might actually test the value not only of the commercial aspect of the question, and as to the Slave Trade aspect, but also the important political aspect. The Government are endeavouring to take possession of the territory of Uganda and to commit the British Exchequer to a large expenditure of money for the construction of a railway from the coast up to Uganda, in order to hold permanently the political position of that country. But the question of holding Uganda must be decided long before the four or five years in which the railway could be constructed. The Committee ought therefore to have information to enable it to judge—first, in reference to the Slave Trade, whether the new policy and the construction of this railway would really diminish it to any appreciable extent; next, whether the Government intend, if this Vote passes, or when the railway is constructed, to withdraw the cruisers that watch the slavers on the East Coast of Africa. Further, we should have a clear statement as to what the Government, and the Government that succeeds it, are really committed to by this Vote. Substantially the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave us more or less an answer, through a question put last week, that we were only committed to a preliminary survey; but I think we should get a very clear statement, as that one

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  is rather divergent from the statement by Lord Salisbury in the Blue Book, which states that the money asked for and now to be granted, was not for the survey merely, but for the construction of the railway.
  MR. GEORGE WYNDHAM ()The hon. Gentleman who has just concluded his speech is quite correct in saying that we are now at the parting of the ways. That opinion is held upon both sides of the House; and, that being so, it is surely a matter of curiosity that hon. Members sitting upon this side should be still in the dark as to whether we are to be accompanied in the way we propose to follow, or whether we are to be allowed to pursue it alone. It is quite true that last July a most bellicose attitude was assumed towards this proposal by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby. He described it as matter in the highest degree contentious in its nature; but if the hon. Member who has just sat down may be taken as expressing the views upon that side of the House, it would appear that, abandoning the attitude of absolute hostility, they have adopted one that may be called the attitude of qualified assent or qualified dissent, and that they hope to shunt this question from the position which it now holds in the mind of the people, so that, in the event of obtaining office, they may be able to snap their fingers at the obligations which we believe this country is under in regard to the Slave Trade. The last speaker said that he hoped, whatever the result, neither this Government nor its successor would be absolutely committed to the policy of combating the Slave Trade.
  MR. BUCHANANI said nothing of the sort; I said that neither this Parliament nor its successor would be committed to the policy of constructing this railway.
  MR.WYNDHAMThen are we now to understand that hon. Members opposite do acknowledge that a new and fresh responsibility and a heavy obligation has been laid upon the Government in consequence of the train of events, beginning with the Despatch of Lord Granville in May,
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  1885, and culminating in what was practically the ratification of the Act of the Brussels Treaty which was announced at the beginning of the Session? If these obligations are admitted, then this country is in a very different position to any we have hitherto occupied. If it were true that that Conference at Brussels, in which, for the first time, Mahomedan Powers joined hands with European Powers, undertook obligations towards the Slave Trade, then surely we should stand for ever in the pillory as the most Picksniffian of political hypocrites, if we were to disregard all that has taken place, and proceed exactly as we have hitherto proceeded. If the Brussels Act has any meaning, new obligations have been imposed, and it is our duty to take some action in the British sphere of influence now occupied by the British Imperial East Africa Company. The hon. Member who last spoke drew a comparison between that Company and others, and said that they practically stood upon all-fours, and that if it was the duty of the Government to assist or countenance the East Africa Company in combating the Slave Trade, it might equally be their duty to assist and countenance by grant the South African Company, and, I suppose, also the Niger Company. The hon. Member said the obligation could be no greater. But surely the obligation to fight was greater in face of the enemy than where no enemy was apparent. I think it can hardly be controverted that the Slave Trade exists in East Africa in a greater degree than in any other district over which Great Britain is paramount. In South Africa a large white population renders exceptional measures less obligatory. In West Africa the seaborne traffic is extinct. In East Africa Great Britain is paramount, and apparently it is the only place in which she can fulfil the new obligations placed upon her by the Berlin Conference. It is in this part of the country that the Government must act, and the reason for our acting is further enforced by the fact that if we do not act nobody else can. There Great Britain is supreme, and there, apparently, we can alone carry out our obligations. Last Ses

  1851
  sion questions were addressed to the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs in order that a clear distinction might be arrived at between a sphere of influence and a Protectorate. But, setting on one side the fact that over a strip of 10 miles we hold a Protectorate, it is improbable that the electors of this country, or the taxpayers of other countries who have followed our lead, will seize a distinction which hon. Members opposite found difficult to seize, and it is inevitable that the Germans, who paid large sums of money to do their duty, will not hold this country quit of its obligations if we endeavour to ride off on so shallow a plea. It is in East Africa or nowhere this Government must act; and the reason for acting is further enforced by reason of the fact that if we do not act nobody else can. We have assumed responsibilities for the whole of that territory, and neither Germany, nor Italy, nor any other Power can make good our laches in this matter. The Germans have expended large sums of money to aid their Company north of the Juba River; the Italians are assisting the Royal Italian Company; and, therefore, we are between two countries that are assisting their companies, and our territory, if we neglect our obligations, will become a sort of cesspool, if I may say so, for all the refuse that is cleared off the surrounding territories. We have also to consider that in this part of Africa the Slave Trade is at its worst; in one of the letters addressed to the Foreign Office and the Treasury, it is stated that the seaboard, to which the Italian, British, and German spheres of influence extend, is practically now the only outlet for slavery, and that in the interior is the source from which that evil springs. If we have a duty to do we must do it there. It is really a curious fact that we are not aware whether the regular Opposition in this House accept that obligation or repudiate it. If they accept it—I will proceed on that hypothesis—it is for them now to decide what instrument or method should be adopted by this Government, along with other Governments, in order to give effect to the policy initiated by Lord Granville, carried on by Lord Salisbury, and now, it seems,
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  assented to by the Opposition in this House. It is not necessary for me to point out that the alternative is really between the construction of a railway and the employment of a military post and flying columns. The hon. Member who has last spoken, drew a gloomy picture of this part of Africa, and stated that the difficulty of constructing a railway there would be very great; but a study of the map does not endorse that view. I have studied the map, and made myself acquainted with the views of those who have been in that country; and they tell me that the the first 150 miles is a fair sample of the first 360 miles; and that out of the first 150 miles only 15 miles present any engineering difficulties. A railway will be more cheap and peaceful than any military occupation of the country; and, naturally, this House should pause before it contemplates placing soldiers in East Africa, because they must be black soldiers, and it may be considered a somewhat doubtful blessing for that land to place such a body of men upon it. A railway, therefore, as I have pointed out, would not only combat the Slave Trade more effectually than any occupation of the country at the present time, but it would also give some promise of a final cure of this evil. Having taken the trouble to visit the offices of this Company, I have been informed that according to their calculation they would be able to convey a ton of goods for a maximum rate of £3 by railway, and that the same quantity now costs £300 as carried by porters. No caravan could compete on these terms; and human porters could no longer be used in order to encourage the Slave Trade. The Slave Trade could no more exist under these circumstances than could piracy when letters of marque ceased to be given to legitimate privateers on the cessation of war. It appears to me that no question of employing or not employing this Company need be considered by the House. If it is our duty to carry out the provisions of the Brussels Conference, and if the construction of a railway after this survey should prove to be the best method of carrying out those provisions, then I say we should

  1853
  not hesitate to combat the Slave Trade by making a railway through this territory. The Party represented by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are extremely fond of posing as more strenuous friends of humanity than the Party to which I belong on this side of the House. I hold in my hand a document entitled "Twenty-five Reasons for Supporting the Liberal Party," and in the very front of this document I see it stated that this country is to support the Liberal Party "because they abolished negro labour in the British dominions." Surely they could appeal to the country on more practical and less antiquated grounds if they were to say they were prepared to support the policy which affords the only chance of combating the Slave Trade where it is worst, where it can be most easily suppressed by the measure before the House, and where we are most directly responsible for its suppression. I say the measure before the House, because, although we are only called upon to sanction a survey, I hope, in common, I believe, with many who support the Government, that in the event of a survey proving a railway to be practicable and effective a railway will be begun and completed. Everybody must remember that it was the Government of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian who sent out some 10,000 or 12,000 Englishmen in order to construct a railway from Suakin to Berber, and after they constructed 40 miles of the line abandoned it to the tribes inhabiting that district. Now, I believe it is less extravagant to complete a railway, if money were spent on the survey, than to construct 40 miles of it and then leave the work as a monument of irresolution. If this duty of taking new measures to combat the Slave Trade is laid upon us, and if this railway is the best instrument for discharging it, we have only to consider what agent we shall employ. Many hon. Gentlemen object to employing a company under any circumstances. They object to setting-up such a precedent. But, in the first place, there is no probability that a precedent will be set. Survey the map of the world, and nowhere else will you find a spot in which slavery is rife, in which we are
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  responsible, in which a railway is the, obvious weapon for combating slavery, and in which a company is prepared to construct that railway. But, in the second place, should such a combination again occur, then I trust that by our action to-day we shall set a precedent, and that that precedent will be followed. From the remarks of the hon. Gentleman who has last spoken, it would seem that he can only view this question of obligation with reference to the commercial prospect of the undertaking. Surely when we bind ourselves to combat slavery we cannot do so only when we get a chance of realising a good dividend upon our investment. If that be the view of hon. Gentlemen opposite, they should have taken exception to the method laid down in the Brussels Act when it was first mooted; surely the argument based upon the effect this undertaking may have upon the prospects of commerce ought not to weigh with us in this matter, whether we hold that it will pay, or fail to pay, interest on our money. I say pay or fail to pay, for whereas some seem to fear that money will be lost, others are alarmed at the idea that the Company will profit. But, if it does, who will be a penny the worse? Assuming, for the sake of argument, that British commerce is an evil to native populations—but only for the sake of argument, for from Captain Lugard's Report it is clear that trade as conducted by this Company can only prove beneficial—still, assuming Christian commerce to be an evil, is it the only one which disturbs the Golden Age existing in the imagination of some persons around the shores of the Equatorial Lakes? No, Sir; these remnants of the Saturnian reign are disturbed not only by the Christian trader, but by the Mahomedan slave-driver; and, admitting both to be evils, the second must be held to be by far the graver of the two. The presence of Christian commerce there would only be an evil as vaccination is an evil; preventing a more virulent disease. But, turning from the point of view of the natives to that of the electors of this country, the proposal of the Government is no evil at all. Those who returned us to power are in favour

  1855
  of the African policy which has been so successfully administered by Lord Salisbury; and my recent experience, in the constituencies that hon. Members opposite are apt to quote as types and models for all constituencies, has led me to believe that even the electors that returned them to power are not averse to a forward policy in Africa. This was shown down at Rossendale. I hold in my hand a bill which was widely distributed there, asking the electors to
  "Vote for Maden, because the Unionist Government, by its default, has allowed France to outstrip us in the race on the West Coast of Africa."
  In Rossendale the electors were asked to vote against the Government candidate, because France had been allowed to outstrip us on the West Coast of Africa; it is, therefore, from the Opposition point of view, their interests to see that we are not outstripped in the East of Africa. The policy of non-extension originated in a Resolution of this House, passed in 1865, I believe when Lord John Russell was Secretary for Foreign Affairs; and it was laid down then that this policy of non-extension admitted of no exception as regards new settlements, but cannot amount to absolute prohibition of measures which in peculiar cases it may be necessary that the settlement should possess. Is that the present policy of the Liberal Party? If we knew that it is their policy then we should know where we are. I should be very glad to hear in the course of this evening whether they do advise us that we should avoid all risk and responsibility. If that is their advice, it is one which it will be very difficult to follow or attend to in this country, for risk must be incurred by this Empire until the last trace of our enterprise has disappeared, and from responsibility in connection with slavery we cannot hope for release until the last spark of compassion has been extinguished in the breast of the last Englishman.
  MR. BRYCE ()The statement of the Under Secretary for State in introducing his Estimate was, I thought, as far as it went, a fair statement, and did not, like the speech of the hon.
  1856
  Gentleman who has just sat down, endeavour to give a Party colour to the question. It stated perfectly fairly what the view of the Government is. I must also thank the hon. Member for his candour in the account which he gave of Uganda, at least in one respect, because he told us that the cost of maintaining British influence there would be enormous. But the hon. Gentleman, to my disappointment, did not address himself particularly to the task of giving particulars. He did not give us the particulars of the Slave Trade in that country, the cost of the railroad or the ideas which the Government were going to follow after the railroad is constructed—all matters which seem to me of great interest. And the hon. Member for Dover, who has just sat down, did not seem anxious to supply these particulars; but he rather preferred to discuss the question of the Suakin and Berber Railway, and of the West Coast of Africa. There is one point which was not overstated by my right hon. Friend the Under Secretary when he spoke about the parting of the ways: and what I should like to invite the Government to give us is—not the view they take as to where the road will lead to, but to give us some more particular information than their Papers give us with regard to the obligations they meant to contract, and the best means of discharging these obligations. Certainly the production of these Papers and the speech of the Under Secretary furnish the best justification that could be desired for the course taken by my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, when he insisted that this Estimate should not pass last July as a non-contentious matter, sub silentio; but that in a matter of this very great gravity we ought to have much fuller information than the Government has now given us. The correspondence laid before us in thfs short Paper tells us what the view, upon the general question of policy, of the Foreign Office and the Treasury is, what progress has been made with the survey for some short distance; but it does not deal with the issues involved. I shall endeavour to state what the issues are. I begin by assuming, and I think I may from the correspondence assume, that this is

  1857
  really not a question of a grant for a survey, but it is a question of subsidy or guarantee to the East Africa Railway Company. I say that with confidence, and for two reasons. In the first place, the Chancellor of the Exchequer delivered a speech in Scotland which was addressed to this question of subsidy or guarantee, and in which he endeavoured to charge the Opposition with the unpatriotic conduct of endeavouring to oppose a forward policy in Africa. And in the second place, if hon. Members will look at these Parliamentary Papers, Nos. 1, 2, and 3, they will see that the argument has been entirely addressed to the question of subsidy or guarantee. The argument in Paper No. 2 is substantially an argument to prove that the Slave Trade is not to be suppressed by the Brussels Act unless by a railroad; that that railroad could not be made without a subsidy or guarantee, and that, therefore, we are bound to vote money for the purpose. It is quite true that we are only asked at the present moment for a grant of £20,000; but if we allowed this Vote for £20,000 to pass unchallenged, it would be but the naturally obvious course to say that this Vote was supported and demanded upon the arguments stated in this paper, and by assenting to it, we must be deemed to be assenting to the policy which the Government have declared. I should like to put to the Chancellor of the Exchequer a few questions which these Papers do not answer. One of them—the most obvious—is the question what the probable expenditure upon the railway will be. It appears from the Papers we have that Sir John Fowler has made an approximate estimate of what the expenditure upon the railway will be; but we have only heard rumours of this estimate. We should like to know what foundation there is for these rumours. We should be glad to be told what this Government has been informed is likely to be the cost—even the minimum cost—of the contemplated railway. We should like also, I think, to be furnished with a map, which would enable Members of the House more conveniently to understand the situation of this country through which the proposed railroad is to pass, and to
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  perceive what these regions are; and I think that would be much more perceivable if such a map had been appended to them. And more than that, we should like to have a copy of the Report of Captain Lugard. It is a Report of the utmost interest and value. A brief extract of the Report was contained in the Times newspaper on the 23rd of February. This Report of Captain Lugard was made at the beginning of 1891, and has been in the hands of the East Africa Company for a year or more, and might, I think with advantage, be presented to the House. The right hon. Gentleman perhaps may ask me why I think so; and my answer would be, because the Government are proposing that this country should virtually become a partner with the East Africa Company in this undertaking, and that under these circumstances they ought to give us what information they have in their possession.
  *MR. GOSCHENThis Report of Captain Lugard is a Report which was addressed to the East Africa Company, and over which, therefore, so far the Government have no control. ("Oh oh!") I do not know why my hon. Friend objects to that. Of course the House may say, "We will not vote the money unless we see the Report"; but, on the other hand, I say that, as a Government, the Report does not belong to us. This Report is of a distinctly confidential character, relating to the actions of certain persons and Governments, and is certainly not a Report which was written or intended for publication. Every Government has agents who make confidential Reports in reference to matters in the negotiation of which they are engaged. If a Government were to be called upon to give publicity to a confidential Report which their agent had made, explaining his negotiation and the attitude he has taken, it might very seriously compromise these negotiations if it were to go back to the parties with whom he was negotiating. I think the House will clearly understand, therefore, that this Report cannot be laid upon the Table of the House.
  MR. BRYCEI am much obliged to my right hon. Friend for the statement which he has just made. But I should like to remind him that, having had an opportunity of reading the Report, I could find nothing on the face of the Report which indicated that it was of a confidential character. It has, I believe, come into the hands of a good many Members. I should like to point out further to my right hon. Friend that the East Africa Company are coming to us as suppliants, that they are coming to us to help them out of their difficulties, because it is admitted that they are not able to protect themselves. When we are asked to embark in an enterprise of this kind we are entitled to a full disclosure of the material facts, and the disposition to avoid that is calculated to arouse suspicion. I must say that a great deal which is contained in this Report is material, and it has suggested to me a number of questions which I hope the Government will endeavour to answer, because on their answer will depend the attitude we shall assume and the judgment the country will form. Now, Sir, I find that no information has been given by the Government as regards the existence of slavery in this particular part of the country. The Under Secretary lightly assumed that the horrors we heard of occurred within the sphere of influence. I believe there has been little or no information of any slavery in the territories of the British East Africa Company. In the Asiatic Quarterly Review there is an article which bears marks of having proceeded from a competent and experienced hand, a man who was obviously well informed, and who asserted that so far from the proposed railway destroying the Slave Trade, it would have little or no effect. But I am going to call a better witness—namely, Captain Lugard himself. At page 29 of his Report he says, describing his proceedings in Uganda—
  "The abolition of the Slave Trade was readily agreed to being practically non-existent now."
  I do not know whether that is one of the facts it is intended to be treated as confidential. And, in fact, the state of
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  things is substantially admitted in the letter of the Foreign Office to the Treasury. The Under Secretary has spoken of the expense of the cruisers. We spend more than any other country in the suppression of the Slave Trade, the cost of cruisers alone amounting to £100,000 a year. It is said that this money will be saved if the railway is made; but the Slave Trade in East Africa now exists along three main routes. The first from the region of the Upper Nile down to the Red Sea, the second down to the German port of Bagamoyo, and the third line is Nyassaland, where it comes up to the Mozambique. As the Slave Trade goes to the coast, the cruisers would have to be kept there, and the Slave Trade will not be appreciably diminished by this strip of railway. I will not say much on the question of trade, although Captain Lugard's Report contains some instructive remarks on that point. He describes a considerable portion of the country that the railway is to traverse between Mombasa and the Lakes as being practically uninhabited, and for the rest inhabited by very savage tribes who are not likely to furnish what is called remunerative local traffic. Anything more discouraging than his Report I cannot imagine; and if the Government propose to raise any money for this railway, they would do well not to publish this Report. Then, Sir, the Government have not told us anything about the condition of the Company, although the country is practically asked to go into partnership with it. We are entitled to know something about the solvency of our partners, their capacity to bear their share of the burden, their management and prospects, and their capital. No information has been supplied to us on these points, and when we ask for it we are told to call at the office in Pall Mall. One important fact mentioned by Captain Lugard is that the tsetse fly does not exist in the territories, and that animals can be employed there. Now, Sir, I feel the ditty we have as a great nation that has borne an honourable part in putting down the Slave Trade. There is no dispute about that. Livingstone said, "The Slave Trade is the open sore of the world"; and it is admitted

  1861
  that we must take all reasonable and proper means to work against it. I do not recede from what I said on this subject a year and a half ago. But I must review the ground of obligation now put before us. We are told that we are bound, in respect of the proceedings of the Brussels General Act, to do all we can to suppress the Slave Traffic. The Powers declared that the most effective means of counteracting the Slave Trade were—first, the progressive organisation of the Services; next, the establishment of occupying stations; thirdly, the construction of roads, and particularly of railroads, and so on. But all these provisions are expressly stated to be applicable in what district? In the African territories placed under the Sovereignty or Protectorate of civilised nations. I call attention to these particular words, which are repeated in Article 4, to which the hon. Member alluded. Now, this is not a case of Sovereignty or of Protectorate, but of a sphere of influence, which is a totally different thing. Sovereignty we know and Protectorate we know, but what is a sphere of influence? Fortunately, on this point we have a definition from Lord Salisbury, who, speaking at the Mansion House in August, 1890, descanted with commendable frankness on the proceedings for the delimitation of the sphere of influence in Africa. He said he had been engaged in what the satirist would call the task of drawing lines upon maps on which no human foot had ever trod, and dividing territories which did not belong to them, but which, indeed, belonged to other people; and he told his hearers to read between the lines in order to see that what the Government was doing was contributing their quota to the glorious work of the peace of the world. Now, that simply means that Germany, Italy, and ourselves agree that between certain lines we would not interfere with one another. It has been admitted by the Postmaster General that in this sphere of influence Her Majesty has no Sovereignty, and that we have no Protectorate, and that there is nothing beyond this that Germany and Italy have no particular right. This does not come within the Brussels Act, because it is neither a Sovereignty nor
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  a Protectorate. The Brussels Conference wisely refrained from expressing any opinion upon a sphere of influence, because the diplomatists who then assembled knew very well that a sphere of influence where no legal authority existed, and where the natives were left to themselves, could not be made subject to these stipulations. Now, shall we, by making this railway, actually repress the Slave Trade? I ask the Government to say whether the construction of the railway will have any effect in that direction. There is another question. How is this railway to be made? Captain Lugard says his men were always deserting. The standing difficulty is to get soldiers and porters and others to carry you through the hostile tribes. There are no means of obtaining indigenous free labour to make this railway. The only means will be to bring coolies from India, or Chinese, or resort to the expedient of African explorers and use slave labour. That is another point on which we are entitled to information. Now, Sir, the Committee will notice that the Government have put their case as an alternative to the establishment of garrisons and flying columns. But it is clear that when you have made the railway your first difficulty will be to guard it. Captain Lugard says the common article of currency in Maisailand is iron wire, and he speaks of the difficulty of maintaining the line against the Maisais. A railway through the land of the Maisais will be more valuable to them than a gold mine, and nothing less than a line of forts and garrisons will be sufficient to protect the railway, and we shall have all that expense in addition to the expense of construction. Another point I should like to have dwelt upon, had time permitted, is this—that we have no jurisdiction in the territory except over British subjects. It seems to me that the Government present their case thus: A survey involves a, guarantee, a guarantee necessarily involves defence, defence involves annexation; and so what we are substantially asked to do is to take the first step towards annexation. I do not believe there is any escape from that fatal descent, and, therefore, the Committee and the country should pause to consider the position in which they stand.

  1863
  In Equatorial Africa we have a country that is neither fit for European centres, nor, like India, a country of ancient civilisation which can be governed with comparative ease. Moreover, it is a country which has no defined frontier. In these circumstances, I put it to the Committee that we ought, at this moment, to require a far fuller statement of facts than we have yet had; and we ought seriously to consider, when asked to take such a step, what that step means, and what are the ultimate consequences that it may involve.
  *MR. GOSCHENI frankly admit that many of the questions put to me by the hon. and learned Gentleman are questions which ought fairly to be put to the Government, and require an answer. I will deal with some of the minor points in the first instance. A question was asked as to our relations with the Imperial British East Africa Company, and whether it is solvent. That is a matter as to which we must satisfy ourselves. We must know whether they are able to carry out the railway, but there is no obligation of any kind upon us until the survey is completed. We are waiting for that information before undertaking any liability of any kind, and the very object of the survey is to get an answer to many of those questions which the hon. Gentleman wishes us to answer before the survey is completed. The Government are anxious to proceed with caution in this matter; and it would be the duty of the Government, supposing the survey were thoroughly satisfactory, before they undertook to give a guarantee to any company, to see that the powers of that company were adequate to carrying out the operations. In the first negotiations that took place I pointed out to the representatives of the Company, and I laid it down as an absolute condition, that care would have to be taken to see that there was such financial support—such financial power behind any company to whom we should give a guarantee—as would secure that that company should have power to carry out the railway, whatever it might cost. We should not give a guarantee without satisfying ourselves on that point. I do not for
  1864
  a moment say that the East Africa Company would in itself have that sufficient power. We have to see whether this railway can be built, and whether it can be built within such limits of the guarantee as the House would sanction and the country would approve. That, I hope, is a full answer to the hon. Gentleman's questions respecting the guarantees. We shall ask for and insist upon those guarantees, with the necessary financial strength, when the proper time arrives. Now, the hon. Gentleman raised one very important point towards the end of his speech, and that was whether we were free from all obligations to the Brussels Conference, because this is a sphere of influence and not a Protectorate.
  MR. BRYCEI said we were under no obligation as respects the sphere of influence. I did not say anything about a Protectorate.
  *MR. GOSCHENVery well. Then, according to the hon. and learned Gentleman, this was our position when we went into the Brussels Conference—that we were to induce all other countries who had Protectorates to the South and Protectorates to the North that they were to take all means for putting down the Slave Trade, while we in the middle were to ride off on the ground that we had not a Protectorate. And, therefore, in the eloquent words of my hon. Friend behind me, we were to have this sphere of influence without taking any action, whilst at the same time encouraging others to go forward both to the North and to the South. In that case I confess that I think we should have cut only a sorry figure if we were to encourage Belgium, Italy, Germany, and Portugal to take those measures, whilst we held our hands and would do nothing.
  MR. BRYCEI do not think the right hon. Gentleman appreciates my argument. I said that the Brussels Conference expressly extended to Protectorates and Sovereignties.
  *MR. GOSCHENBut Germany is operating in her sphere of influence.
  MR. BRYCEWhat evidence have you of that?
  *MR. GOSCHENIf the hon. Gentleman follows the course of events, he will see that the Germans are very active indeed in their sphere of influence,

  1865
  and the sum of money she has spent is something that would alarm the House of Commons. Where is this railway intended to operate unless in the sphere of influence? That is my answer to the hon. and learned Gentleman so far as the sphere of influence is concerned. Then towards the conclusion of his speech, the hon. Gentleman said that we were entering on a certain chain of undertakings which would lead to annexation. In this way—first, the survey, then the railway, then the fortified posts, and in the end the annexation. Well, I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that with regard to the whole state of the country he seems to me not really to have studied the Reports which have evidently been at his command. He thinks that there is nothing to be done; that there is no slavery as I understood the hon. Gentleman—
  MR. BRYCENo, I said it was not one of the slave routes, and I quoted Captain Lugard to prove it.
  *MR. GOSCHENBut the hon. Gentleman did not quote all Captain Lugard said on this point, for Captain Lugard stated that he himself met a slave caravan on his road up, and that he himself liberated the slaves attached to it. Now, is it quite fair of the hon. Gentleman to state that Captain Lugard made this observation with regard to slave caravans, and at the same time not to inform the House that Captain Lugard had met a caravan and liberated the slaves?
  MR. BRYCEThe only reason I did not refer to that was, because it was obviously a slave caravan that was engaged in what is called the local traffic, which is a totally different thing from caravans of slaves coming down to the coast, and when Captain Lugard's Report is produced hon. Members will see what that difference is.
  *MR. GOSCHENWell, then, have we no duties with regard to the local traffic in slaves? We have never drawn a distinction between the local traffic and the traffic down to the Coast. No, Sir; we wish to put down the traffic where it exists, and the atrocities which accompany one of these caravans will not be less than in the other cases. We have it from the hon. Gentleman
  1866
  now himself that there is local traffic in slaves and local traffic on the lines through which the railway is to pass. That observation breaks down the argument of the hon. Gentleman that there is no slave traffic on this route at all events, and no caravan of slaves to be found. The hon. Gentleman says he thinks that Captain Lugard's Report has been kept back because it is considered likely to damage the case for the railway. I must say that such an idea never entered into my mind. I had no idea that hon. Members would read Captain Lugard's Report in the sense of its being contrary to the general policy which we recommend. I should think that it was just the opposite. The Reports which Captain Lugard gives are graphic Reports. But what we want is this. We want a Report made to ourselves, by an engineer whom we have appointed, so that we may be able not to count simply on the views of others who are employed by parties who may be considered to be interested. We wish to have an independent Report, and for that purpose we appointed an independent engineer. That, I think at any rate, whatever hon. Gentlemen think of the wisdom of the course, will be considered as a fair and proper step to take—to endeavour to get an independent Report on the whole of this line. The hon. Gentleman has pressed me for a good deal of information which I trust will be in the hands of the Committee or of the House when we ask them to assent to a guarantee for the railway. But that is the time when many of the questions as to the value of the railway, as to the prospects of the railway, as to the possibility of the railway, will be able to be answered. We did not come to the House and ask them to vote a guarantee for the railway until we were able to put the information into their hands which would justify us in making this demand; but we do think that the information is sufficient to authorise us to ask the House to commit themselves to the expenditure of —20,000, which would put us in a position to judge of the steps which ought to be taken. The hon. Gentleman spoke of having to fortify this railway, or rather to establish posts along the railway—for it was another hon. Member

  1867
  who used the actual words to "fortify this railway," and the hon. Gentleman also asked by what means the labour could be found for the railway. He asked if it was to be by hired slaves. Well, I am glad to have this opportunity of reminding the House that the Imperial British East Africa Company has already liberated 4,000 slaves, There is a sample of the work which can be done. They have already liberated 4,000 slaves, and they trust, under the proclamations that have been issued and the progress that is being made, that free labour will from month to month and from year to year become infinitely more abundant. The hon. Member will further see, with regard to the difficulties of constructing the railway through the territories which he describes, that the very fact of a railway being built enables you to concentrate a number of men in a given spot in a way in which you could never concentrate men if they have to go on foot, and consequently 100 men who are able to pass rapidly from post to post would be able to do the work which 1,000 men would not be able to do if they had to traverse the roads. The railway will open up the country; and already I believe there are very satisfactory symptoms of the country becoming more settled. As a result of what has already been done, I hear that savage tribes are less in evidence; and 750 porters have gone from the lake to the coast without an armed escort, a thing which was quite impossible before, and thus from both points—both from the lake itself and from Mombasa, it will be possible to concentrate the labour necessary to construct the railways. But if it is impossible, what will happen? Captain Macdonald will report that the labour cannot be found. He will report on the density of the population along the road. The hon. Member was not correct in his summary of Captain Lugard's Report. There are portions of the road which are densely populated, portions where grain can be grown and where there is every prospect of a large trade; and everyone will see that if it be possible to have a railway it will be a first step taken towards the civilising of Equatorial Africa in a nner that has never been possible hitherto. You have
  1868
  had several bodies of pioneers who have carried their lives in their hands and have established themselves there; but if you can once get a railway through I think you would find results produced towards civilisation that would astonish and gratify the House. Our obligations under the Brussels Conference I think are such that we are compelled to take some step; but independently of that I think the interest shown by the commercial world and in our manufacturing towns proves that they wish, through a survey, at least to understand whether markets cannot be opened up in that region. What we ask the House for is simply an experimental survey. That experiment, I am sure, must commend itself to the great majority of the country. Even if it should prove that it is impossible to construct a railway, at all events we shall have done something, and we shall not only have shown—if it is to be shown—that the physical difficulties are such that they cannot be overcome, but we shall also have obtained valuable information which we believe will be of great advantage in many respects to many classes in the country.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONEI cannot complain of the tone of the right hon. Gentleman, but he knows the respect I have for his abilities, and he will forgive me for saying that in his speech he failed to cover the whole field of the discussion, or to bring out points that are really in the minds of hon. Members, so far as my knowledge of opinion goes on this side of the House—that he did little or nothing towards promoting a settlement of this matter.
  MR. GOSCHENI did not wish to be too long.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONEI am in the same predicament. I do not think it is possible to take a perfectly full discussion of this subject. I wish to limit myself to a great degree to noticing the points dealt with by the right hon. Gentleman, instead of doing what I could have wished to do—namely, to survey the whole of the arguments in this most important question. Well, now, Sir, I wish to begin with two admissions which are agreeable, for the whole subject, I confess, is not

  1869
  agreeable, since I shall find it my duty very seriously to complain of the conduct of the Government with regard to the subject. With all due respect to the hon. Member for Dover, I am aware of no reason whatever why this should be made a Party question. The hon. Member for Dover did what little was in his power to envenom the discussion by introducing into this question invidious contrasts with what he alleged had been done by other Governments. I shall not follow the hon. Gentleman in his contention. My opinion that this is no Party question is shared, I know, by many Gentlemen on this side of the House. All the pleas I shall urge will be pleas urged by me as a Member of the House of Commons, having no relation to the principles or opinions of this Party or of that. There is another important admission. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen in the course of his able speech, made most important and very large statements with regard to the obligations incumbent on this country with reference to the Slave Trade. I wish to say that although those statements were large I will go the whole length with him. I know that wherever it can be shown by rational and ascertained evidence that there is a reasonable prospect of contributing by effort of our own to the abolition or even the great restriction of the African Slave Trade, the memory of what has taken place in former generations from the date of the Assiento Treaty downwards, ought to bring to our mind the conviction that we should take a large and liberal view of any proposition of that kind, provided it fulfil those first conditions which it is our absolute and inexorable duty to ascertain—that is to say, showing to us that the case has been examined, that with the evidence before us it is reasonable and sufficient, and that by entering upon a given course of action we may hope to do something in the view of that capital and most important object. So far, therefore, Sir, I believe there is no question in dispute between us. But the hon. Member for Dover has argued this case entirely as if the importance of the object in view exempted us from any duty in ascertaining that the means proposed were likely to attain
  1870
  that object. There was not a syllable in his speech, I think, which appeared to admit or to imply that any inquiry whatever in regard to the sufficiency of these means, and the reasonableness of this undertaking, was itself compatible with general notions of what was right. There was not a single sentiment in his speech which in any way recognised any of the difficulties. Sir, the difficulties exist for us, whatever be the value of the purpose we have in view. It is our duty to ascertain the tendency of what is proposed to us to attain that purpose, and it is our duty also to ascertain that in the endeavour to attain that purpose we shall not commit other errors, and perhaps even give countenance to crimes such as, if they were presented to us, we should recoil from with horror. I am here to complain of the conduct of Her Majesty's Government. We have before us no information whatever. It is an entire mistake to call these Parliamentary Papers information. Inter-departmental correspondence upon the question of a scheme in Africa and the opinions of Lord Salisbury and the opinions of the right hon. Gentleman are matters very proper to be stated in Debate for our cognizance, for us to deal with as well as we can—to accept, to criticise, or to refuse. But they are not information for the case. There is not a scrap of information in these Papers upon the subject. There is, indeed, one statement of what ought to be information, and unfortunately it is a statement totally, though unintentionally, untrue, and that is a statement on which Lord Salisbury relies, and on which the right hon. Gentleman relies—that we are called upon to proceed in fulfilment of these obligations. The Brussels Conference includes no reference to the subject whatever. The Brussels Conference by necessary inference excludes this subject, and shows that it has nothing whatever to do with the proposal of Her Majesty's Government. My hon. Friend has read the words, and those words the right hon. Gentleman has not thought proper to notice.
  "The Brussels Conference declare that they are to act by progressive organisation of the administrative, judicial, religious, and military

  1871
  services in the African territories placed under the sovereignty or protectorate of civilised nations"—
  with the evident and studied exclusion of what are termed "the spheres of influence." Without the smallest qualification this Brussels Conference—which is made the basis of the argument of Lord Salisbury—has no concern whatever with the proposal that is now made. That is an important point on which the Government cannot be too broadly challenged. I think they have been challenged broadly enough by my hon. Friend near me; but as the right hon. Gentleman has, to borrow a phrase that is used in these Papers, "made a detour" in his speech, and gone round the point, I am obliged to return to it and to impress this important matter upon the House. We have no information on that point—none whatever. Is it proper that we should be called upon to take steps of this kind without that information? But we are not altogether excluded from information. There is the Report of Captain Lugard—a Report addressed not to the Government, but to the Company with whom the Government are going to enter into partnership. The Government are not only going to enter into partnership with the East Africa Company, but they are going to commit to the Company the execution of this railway and the construction of the railroad, should it go forward. How, then, is it possible for you to separate yourselves from the knowledge that has been acquired by the officers of the East Africa Company. The right hon. Gentleman can have no evil motive for withholding Captain Lugard's Report, because he frankly says—and I have no doubt he implicitly believes—that the Report of Captain Lugard is a Report altogether favourable to the proposal that he now makes. Well, that is another argument for the production of this Report. The Report is full of the most important information; but we think it contains information showing that in the present state of things we ought not to entertain the proposal of the Government. Why not produce the Report that the public and the House may be able to judge? It is really necessary that we should
  1872
  have these Reports produced. This is authentic information—important information, in the absence of all other information. Captain Lugard's Report makes upon me—and I have no doubt it made on the right hon. Gentleman—the impression that whether these proceedings towards the natives may be juridically justifiable or not, yet, that he is a frank man, a brave man, an able man, and an upright man, and he has had admirable opportunities of forming a judgment on the matter. His Report bristles with propositions, and throws a most important light on the subject before us; and that Report ought to be in the hands of the House. Instead of that, we are given these Papers—in which there is only the letter of Sir Guildford Molesworth—that contain anything approaching information at all. And this is rather ludicrous as showing the manner in which the Government have thought proper to bring forward the matter, that in this Report of Sir Guildford Molesworth, reference is made to "the accompanying map." There is no "accompanying map." And why is there no accompanying map? Is it because we are all so familiar with the country? I refer to the words of Lord Salisbury, who tells us that we know nothing about the details of the country. Why is some information not given us to prevent us wandering and stumbling in the dark when we are discussing this matter? I wish to state, in the most expressive terms that I can command, that I am determined for one to exempt myself, by the declaration of to-night, from every jot and tittle of responsibility connected with this undertaking; and yet, at the same time, I do not go so far as to deliver a final judgment. (Ministerial cries of "Oh, oh!" and laughter.) Hon. Members opposite who laugh seem to think that such a thing as suspense of judgment, in the absence of information, is highly irrational. I leave those gentlemen to the full enjoyment of that comfortable state of mind in which they alone can entertain such a proposition. But what I have said already is this that we have no information whatever upon this subject supplied to us by the Government—none for which the Government makes itself responsible.

  1873
  How, then, are we to form a final judgment on the question? We have not got absolute knowledge. We have presumptions and indications, and all these presumptions and indications are most adverse to the plan of Her Majesty's Government. And now I come distinctly and directly to what has been stated by the right hon. Gentleman. He first of all treated of the solvency of the East Africa Company. I will not pursue that question very far. All that we know at present is that this great company, which is undertaking such enormous obligations, is not able to command a sum of £20,000 for the purpose of making this preliminary survey. I think that is the ground upon which the present proposal is made. Then, again, I do not say that the company is not solvent. All I say is, we have not got information as to the solvency of the company. The only fact that we have to go upon, and from which presumption may arise, is that the company cannot produce £20,000, and that, therefore, the Government is called in. Then, what says the right hon. Gentleman—and I think this was the heart and centre of his speech. He says—
  "Your time for opposition is not yet come. You are not now going to commit yourselves to making the railway."
  I certainly, in these circumstances, would not hold myself committed to anything of the kind; but, so far, I am very glad to have the admission so distinctly made. "But," says the right hon. Gentleman, "your time for objecting is not yet come," because admitting, as apparently he did admit, that we do not possess a great deal of the necessary information, he says—
  "We are going to institute this survey for the very purpose of getting that information."
  And the right hon. Gentleman makes this argument: that it is irrational in us to interfere with this laudable and beneficent object of getting information through the medium of a survey. If this were a question of a survey in the County of Middlesex for the railway we are going to discuss to-morrow, or a survey in any even uncivilised, if peaceful, land, I could understand the argument of the right hon. Gentleman.
  1874
  But what security can the right hon. Gentleman give me that the operation of making this survey is to be a bloodless operation? No doubt he intends it to be pacific; no doubt he has excellent objects in view; but I say that the making of this survey is, according to such information as is before us, attended with the same dangers as the making of the railway. The right hon. Gentleman says that the Masai tribe are not so strong as they were; but what do we know from one source or from another as to the influences and powers that will confront us when we set foot in East Africa? We know this, that the greatest jealousy prevails in that country and must, naturally, among the natives with regard to any attempts to dispossess them of their lands. Is not that exactly the thing we are going to do? Well, then, there is no doubt about the jealousy. Is there no tendency in our survey for a railway, and our establishing a road into the country which we are there permanently to maintain, which road itself requires the assumption of property in land when it comes to be made—is there no tendency there to stir that jealousy on the part of the natives? What does Captain Lugard say? He says that he is about to be attacked; and why is he about to be attacked? Because he has been endeavouring to make a stockade to defend himself from the attacks of others, and even that is an act so serious and formidable in the present, state of that country, that he says he understands he is to be attacked on that account. But this is not a question of presumption only. We have plenty of evidence on that subject. What are the indications that you have offered of friendliness, or of neutrality, in the country where you are going to make your survey? Is it a survey in the view of Sir Guildford Molesworth, whose letter inspires one, as far as such a letter can, with every confidence in his judgment and integrity, which is in itself essentially peaceful, and will excite no jealousy or hostility on the part of the natives? No. It is a survey which cannot be made without the presence of many hundreds of armed men. Is it expected that there will be employment for those men?
  MR. GOSCHENPerhaps my right hon. Friend will permit me to answer. As a matter of fact there are 40 armed men who have gone with the party. They are taken from India, and are at the same time assistant surveyors, who have been accustomed to surveying in India. They will afford protection, and at the same time assist in the survey.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONEI can quite understand that at the present moment and close to the coast the necessity is less, but I am surprised that in a country which is entirely peaceful, and close to the coast, 40 armed men should be needed. What does Sir Guildford Molesworth say on this subject? The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer says the Masai have become very weak. Does he derive that from Sir Guildford Molesworth? But I am going to show that even the scanty Parliamentary Papers he has placed before us contradict what he has said. Sir Guildford Molesworth says that the expedition conducted by Dr. Carl Peters, which eventually led to the fruitless slaughter of a large number of the Masai, has excited such strong hostility against Europeans that any expedition that may be organised must have an escort sufficiently strong to resist any attack made upon it. That is the peaceful survey which the right hon. Gentleman says he is undertaking as a preliminary operation in order that, being at present wholly destitute of all information, he may put himself in a position to give us some portion of such information after he has completed the survey. Are you better off when you get into Uganda? Can you count upon friendship there? Is the King of that country friendly to you? (Some cries of "Yes" from the Ministerial Benches.) What? (Renewed cries of "Yes.") Does anyone venture to say that he is friendly? (Renewed cries of "Yes.") Very well. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Dover is responsible, but I say that, at any rate, his responsibility will not enable him to stand against the evidence of Captain Lugard. What says Captain Lugard? He has framed a Treaty with King Mwanga. From that Sovereign he has extorted a Treaty. He tells you how he obtained
  1876
  it. He obtained it by threats and by compulsion. He says that he obtained it with the greatest difficulty, and that with every effort to escape it this wretched Sovereign signed the Treaty. He states, not admits merely, that the Sovereign will make every effort to escape from it, and in that Treaty Captain Lugard, as far as we can judge from the terms of the Treaty, which he gives, has not ventured to include the slightest reference to the acquisition of land. He is going to survey, he is going to make a railway, he is going to meet all the responsibilities that that will entail, and yet he does not venture to make in the terms of his Treaty the slightest reference to the acquisition of land. Then where is the friendliness of this King Mwanga? Captain Lugard says he effected his point by going into the country with extreme rapidity, and that it was by the extreme rapidity of his movements that he prevented the natives from getting out their troops to oppose him, because they had not time to do it. That is the country where a peaceful survey is to be made. Captain Lugard says that at a certain point upon his journey he understood that King Mwanga had put to death two of his subjects for not preventing his passage. He says—
  "I have thought it prudent to postpone all inquiry as to whether that account of the killing of these two men is true or not."
  On whose friendship then do you rely? The bulk of the country is inhabited by tribes absolutely savage, but not incapable, I believe, of being stirred up by alarm with respect to the lands upon which they depend for subsistence, and all of them are armed to a large extent. The case of the Masai you have recorded for you by your own officer, Sir Guildford Molesworth. The case of Uganda and its King is fully set out in the Reports of Captain Lugard, and from him you have nothing to expect, according to Captain Lugard, except determined opposition. On the north also, says Captain Lugard, there is a wave of onward Mahommedan progress. Another great tribe, called, I think, the Umyoro, lying next to it and hostile to Uganda, yet agrees with Uganda in its hostility to the English;

  1877
  and it is a most singular thing that according to the Report of Captain Lugard, almost without exception, all these people who are at variance with one another are agreed in being hostile to the admission of the English. There is an exception, and I am going to mention it. There are strong religious influences at work—French Roman Catholic influences—and it appears that in this sphere of influence the East Africa Company takes upon itself to inform the French missionaries where they may go and where they may not go, and assumes over them a Governmental control. But they happen to be a very powerful body. There are two influences—Protestant and Roman Catholic—the Roman Catholic very large and the Protestant very small. Sharp rivalry between them. Protestants very willing to welcome the influence of the right hon. Gentleman, and hoping, doubtless, that it will be backed by arms; the Roman Catholics, who are the large majority, being very averse to it. This is the case: that while we are obliged to go upon presumptions, as information has not been placed in our hands, all these presumptions converge to show that what you have to expect from the mass of the population in this region of Africa is bitter, and, generally speaking, united hostility. But worse still: there is a greater danger even than that. What is this sphere of influence? This sphere of influence was carefully exclueded from the purview of the Brussels Conference. What is this sphere of influence? What right does this sphere of influence invest you with? Does it invest the right hon. Gentleman with a juridical title to go into the country with several hundreds of men, including either 40 or any larger number of armed men, and to take all measures that may be requisite for taking a survey? On what title does he put that?
  MR. GOSCHENAlong the whole of the routes there are Treaties which have been made with the Chiefs which give us these rights.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONEShow us these Treaties. If the forms of the Committee allowed it, there ought upon that simple admission to be a Motion
  1878
  for the postponement of this Debate. Show me these Treaties. It is not so stated in your Papers. Are there Treaties with Masai?
  MR. GOSCHENI cannot give you the names—I have not got them.
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONEI have so far got the names, that I know these Masai are upon the route, and I know that Captain Lugard in his Report has expressly stated that it is totally useless to attempt any Treaty whatever with the Masai, and that you must put them down. In my opinion—I do not say voluntarily—but it is an act of real disrespect to the House to call upon them to enter upon this discussion without supplying them with this information, and it is aggravated, and very greatly aggravated, by a proceeding which I believe to be quite without precedent—namely, in a case of this kind, entirely novel, and foreign to our practice, and without the smallest sanction of Parliament, to take steps, as the Government have taken to direct the commencement of this survey, and incur responsibility connected with it before they submit a Motion to Parliament for granting the money. This is a most important question. You admit by the character of the messenger you sent into the country to make the survey that there is a risk of violence and military operations. Under what law are these military operations to be conducted? To whom is the honour of this country to be committed? What right have you to cast upon the East Africa Company the responsibility of conducting such proceedings? Why you see from the Report of Sir Guildford Molesworth that hostilities are to be looked upon as certain, and the only reply is that you must take sufficient force. If there is to be war, are there to be laws of war? Is this war to be conducted by arrangement? If there is to be excess on the part of British agents you have no power to punish it. If gross outrages are committed—and when passion is heated and strong you cannot assure they will not fall into serious errors—who is to punish them? If crime is committed in the course of the operations, as anticipated by Sir Guildford Molesworth, by British agents,

  1879
  how are you to punish that crime, committed in the name of the Government, committed on behalf of the Government, and committed under the authority of a Vote of the House of Commons? How are you to punish that crime? I have a right to an answer to that question. If crime is committed by the natives under what law are they to be punished? They are to be punished by no law at all. They are to be punished in the name of philanthropy and benevolence by carrying anarchy into their country, by setting them, from this great centre of civilisation, the example of what must be illegality and probably will be cruelty, and this in a sphere of influence where you have expressly and absolutely disclaimed all authority over the natives. A speaker on the other side of the House said this sphere of influence must, by hook or crook, be converted into a real and effectual dependency of the British people, and made available for their enjoyment. Is the hon. Member aware it is an absolute breach of faith if any such thing be attempted? You are going to attempt it on the authority of this Vote. You are going to assume authority which, at the time the German Agreement was made, in the face of this House you expressly and solemnly disclaimed. Is that disputed? At the time that Agreement was produced I addressed the House upon it, and I attached to it a signification which my hon. Friend near me has given it to-night—namely, that it was an Agreement between certain European Powers, absolutely excluding each of them from any attempt to exercise authority within certain limits. I asked "Is it well and thoroughly understood that by this Agreement there is no disparagement whatever conveyed to any of the rights now enjoyed by the natives? These natives were masters of the country as much as we are masters of this country," and I was assured by the Government of the day—I daresay the record is to be found—and others received similar assurances, that the rights of the natives were to remain absolutely unimpaired. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Goschen) has not stated that the Treaties which he says have been made, but which he has not been able to produce,
  1880
  authorise us to send armed forces into the country. I have shown that, as regards Masai, it could not be so, and, in fact, that we must act in the name of something still higher than law—namely humanity—going to trample law under our feet, and to introduce into that country what may be a plague and a curse, and what we have no right to send into that country at all, because as a civilised Power we are bound by the general principles of justice and humanity, and we have no right to act otherwise in dealing with uncivilised countries. My hon. Friend near me has gone through many of the points of the case upon which I will not endeavour to dwell. With regard to the Slave Trade; with regard to the cost of the railway—a very secondary matter, important in itself, but secondary in comparison with the other subjects before us; with regard to the nature of the labour by which the railway would have to be made—and there again Captain Lugard tells us there is no obtaining labour in Uganda except from the Chiefs and the Kings, and that there is no such thing as getting contracts with the natives themselves; with regard to the cruisers, as to which a vague and void hope has been held out without the smallest atom of proof—with regard to all these things the case of the Government is a perfect blank. I do not say it is impossible. I cannot tell. I do not pretend to possess the necessary knowledge for forming a final judgment upon this subject; but I say it is, in my opinion, the very height of rashness and of recklessness, in the absence of such knowledge, to incur such practical risks, and to perpetrate such violations of right as are necessarily involved in the assumptions of the right hon. Gentleman without any proper information to guide us, and for my part, in the present state of things, and without attempting to say what judgment would be arrived at had this matter been inquired into, as it ought to have been inquired into, by a Committee of this House, or by some competent authority responsible to us, I will wash my hands of all responsibility for such proceedings, which I believe to be probably without any parallel in the history of this or perhaps any other Administration.
  MR. LABOUCHERE ()Are we not going to have an answer from some hon. Gentleman opposite? In regard to one matter I can give an answer. I received an intimation the other day from the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs that if I applied at No. 2, Pall Mall East, I should receive an answer to certain questions. The next day I did receive a letter from the secretary of this company. Now, the right hon. Gentleman has asked respecting the financial position of the company at the present moment, and I have here a statement about it. The subscribed capital is £552,140, in shares of £20 each, of which £12 are paid. Two-tenths have been expended in making treaties and securing the territory for the British sphere of influence. One-tenth has been expended in administration charges; three-tenths uncalled; capital in hand four-tenths, represented by assets. The company was at its outset engaged in assuring the footing in the interior which enabled the British Government to secure a favourable settlement with Germany and Italy as to the sphere of influence, and they have since been occupied in explorations and in negotiations with chiefs, which have placed Uganda under the sphere of British influence and control. These operations had prevented its entering on any trade whatever. Mark, it has not traded at all, and the earnings of the company have in great part been confined to customs receipts, which, however, showed very considerable vitality and power of increase. The gross income in excess of customs during 1891 had reached £6,000 over the agreed yearly payment for the whole concession. Now, Sir, when a charter is given a very remarkable process takes place. Any gentleman can ask for a charter. They apply to a Committee of the Council, I think it is called. [An hon. MEMBER: Divide!] If hon. Gentlemen think they are going to get the Vote, I would point out that the First Lord of the Treasury told us this evening that he is taking private Members' days because he anticipated considerable discussion on the Supplementary Estimates, and so far as I am
  1882
  concerned I am not going to do anything that would prevent the prophecy of the right hon. Gentleman coming true. We want details. We are sick and tired of right hon. Gentlemen opposite giving us no sort of information, and depending on the inarticulate cries of their supporters to put an end to the Debates. We consider this a most important question. We have had one speech from the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs introducing this matter, and we have had another from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader on this side of the House has asked a series of questions. They are addressed to Her Majesty's Government, but I also think they are as fairly addressed to the directors of this very remarkable company. Those directors I think have acted with gross unfairness to Her Majesty's Government if they did not give them the Report of Captain Lugard, or if in giving that Report to the Chancellor of the Exchequer they put "private and confidential" upon it. I understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer said it was on his copy, and therefore he was unable to submit that Report to the House. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian has asked specifically whether we are going to have that Report. Sir, I tell right hon. Gentlemen opposite that they will not evade that Report getting to the public. It is in the hands of Gentlemen on this side of the House, and there are in this country Liberal newspapers, and therefore I strongly recommend some director of the company to get up in his place and allow the right hon. Gentleman to submit it to the House of Commons, and let us distinctly know what Captain Lugard did report. Captain Lugard was an officer, as I understand it, in Her Majesty's Service. He was not on half-pay. He is receiving pay from the Government, and he was sent out by this company. He is therefore responsible not only to this company, but to this House and to the Government; yet, although they had a Report from him a year ago—privately and confidentially communicated to the Chancellor of the Exchequer—they now come forward and want to slip this Vote

  1883
  through the House, and it is only thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby that this was prevented.
  It being Midnight, the Chairman left the Chair to make his report to the House.
  Resolutions to be reported tomorrow, at Two of the clock.
  Committee also report Progress; to sit again to-morrow, at Two of the clock.

  FEE GRANT (SCOTLAND).

    EDUCATION AND LOCAL TAXATION RELIEF (SCOTLAND).
    Resolution [29th February] (see page 1575) reported, and agreed to.
    Bill ordered to be brought in by The Lord Advocate, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Solicitor General for Scotland.
    Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 208.]

  MILITARY LANDS CONSOLIDATION BILL.—(No. 184.)

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. E. STANHOPE,)I hope the House will allow the Second Reading to be taken now. It is a purely consolidation Bill, and we propose that it should be sent to a Committee upstairs to examine it and see that the object is carried out by the details.
    MR. SHAW LEFEVRE ()I ask the right hon. Gentleman to postpone the Bill until he can give me an answer to the communication I have made to him.
    Second Reading deferred till Monday next.

  PLUMBERS' REGISTRATION BILL. (No. 95.)

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    MR. KNOWLES ()I hope the House will take the Second Reading on the understanding that the Bill shall be sent to a Select Committee. The object of the Bill will be found clearly stated on the back.
    Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee.

  LABOURERS' (IRELAND) ALLOTMENTS BILL. (No. 94.)

    COMMITTEE.
    Considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    DR. TANNER ()It is with the assent of the Government, and I think most of the Conservative Members now present—many of whom I have spoken to—that I ask that the Committee stage may now be taken. I understood no objection would be taken.
    COLONEL WARING ()I hope this small measure will be allowed to go forward.
    Clause 1 agreed to, without Amendment.
    Clauses 2 and 3 agreed to, with Amendments.
    New Clause—

    COMMITTEE.

      (Power of Sanitary Authority to increase Plot.)
      The Sanitary Authority may, subject to the same provisions and with the same powers as apply to the provision of the plot in the first instance, increase the plot attached to any existing cottage provided under the said Acts, but so, nevertheless, that the whole plot shall not exceed an acre,—(Mr. Knox.)
      Clause read a second time.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be added to the Bill."—(Dr. Tanner.)
      MR. SEXTON ()I hope the Government will not object to giving the Sanitary Authorities the same power in relation to cottages already in existence as is by this Bill conferred for erections in the future, where a Board of Guardians may see fit to exercise it. I think it is not advisable to set up such a distinction between labourers as, without this clause, must exist.
      THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. JACKSON,)I am afraid it is quite impossible to agree to the proposal to apply this to the cottages already erected. There would be great difficulty in acquiring the land even if it were desirable to do so. So far as the Bill goes, I do not see there is any objection to the Sanitary Authority having the power to extend

      1885
      the quantity of land to an acre in future, but I am not prepared to extend that power.
      MR. SEXTONWill the right hon. Gentleman consider whether it would be possible to allow the half acre to be added, even though it may not adjoin the existing plot? Would it not be possible for the Guardians to allow a division of the acre, half an acre being elsewhere but in the vicinity?
      MR. JACKSONI cannot give any pledge of the kind. I can see it would be extremely difficult to work a plan under which half the land might be at a considerable distance from the cottage.
      DR. TANNERI saw many instances last year to which this clause might, with great assistance to labourers, be applied. I hope it may be possible for the right hon. Gentleman on Report to agree to such clause in some form.
      MR. CONYBEARE ()It is no uncommon thing in England to have allotment grounds at a considerable distance from the cottages, and I cannot see where the difficulty would arise in the present case. I quite admit it would be difficult to get possession of ground immediately adjoining a cottage, but it might be obtained within a reasonable distance. If the right hon. Gentleman can see nothing beyond a technical objection, I think it would be more gracious to undertake to consider the point.
      MR. SEXTON: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will re-consider it, and whether it is wise to create two classes of allotments in this way.
      Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
      Bill reported, as amended; to be considered to-morrow.

  MOTION.

    TRUST INVESTMENT ACT (1889) AMEND- MENT BILL.
    On Motion of Mr. Oldroyd, Bill to amend "The Trust Investment Act, 1889," ordered to be brought in by Mr. Oldroyd, Lord Brooke, Mr. Gully, Sir Matthew White Ridley, and Mr. Rowntree.
    Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 207.]

  TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANKS.
  Return ordered—
  In the following form, from each Trustee Savings Bank in the United Kingdom, showing the whole of the transactions which took place in the year ended the 20th day of November, 1891, as far as regards moneys placed in the hands of the Trustees of such Savings Banks for investment other than with the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt, pursuant to the 16th section of the Act 26 and 27 Vie. c. 87; also showing, at the 20th day of November, 1891, the liability of the Trustees of such Savings Banks to Depositors in respect of moneys received for investment pursuant to the said 16th section of the Act 26 and 27 Vic. c. 87, and the nature and amount, in detail, of all assets, including the reserve fund (if any) held to meet the same.
  Return of Transactions pursuant to the 16th section of the Act 26 and 27 Vict. c. 87, and the Rule of the Savings Bank.

  TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANKS.
    DEBTOR.
    Uninvested Balance in hands of the Treasurer at 20th November, 1890. Sums received from Depositors for investment in the year ended 20th November, 1891. Interest received from Investments in the year ended 20th November, 1891. Sums received for Securities Sold or Paid off in the year ended 20th November, 1891, viz:—Amount—Nature of Securities—Sums Received—Other Receipts (in detail).

  CREDITOR.
  Sums paid to Depositors in respect of Investments in year ended 20th November, 1891. Sums paid to Depositors for Interest on Investments in year ended 20th November, 1891. Sums paid for Management. Sums paid for Commission on Purchases and Sales of Securities, year ended 20th November, 1891. Sums paid for Securities bought in the year ended 20th November, 1891, viz.: —Amount—Nature of Securities—Sums Paid—Uninvested Balance in the hands of the Treasurer at the 20th November, 1891.
  Liability to Depositors at the 20th day of November, 1891, in respect of Moneys received for Investment pursuant to the 16th section of the Act 26 and 27 Vic. c. 87.
  Nature and Amount, in detail, of all Assets, including the Reserve Fund (if any) held to meet above Liability to Depositors, pursuant to the 16th section of the Act 26 and 27 Vic. c. 87:—Nature of Assets—Amount of Assets—Uninvested Balance in Treasurer's Hands.
  We do hereby certify that the aforegoing is a true account.
  Witness our hand this day of
  189
  Two Trustees (or) Two Managers (or) a Trustee and a Manager of the said Savings Bank. Witness—Secretary or Actuary.
  (In continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 94, of Session 1890–91.)"—(Sir John Gorst.)
  Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 97.]
  House adjourned at a quarter after Twelve o'clock.

CLERGY DISCIPLINE (IMMORALITY) BILL.— [H.L.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYMy Lords, I feel myself to be in a rather unusual position in moving a Bill which has been, to my great satisfaction and thankfulness, included and mentioned in Her Majesty's Gracious Speech; but my only desire is that this Bill should be passed, and therefore I am ready to take any part which I possibly can towards that end. I only wish that it had the benefit of one advocacy. Archbishop Magee, whose position here for so many years was so high, whose eloquence, wit, and common sense so recommended any measure which he advocated, and who commanded such influence everywhere outside this House, among the laity of the country as well as among the clergy, was not among the actual framers of this Bill, but he was a very enthusiastic advocate of it; his last great speech was devoted to explaining to the Bishops and clergy of his province the provisions of this Bill and to advocating them. My Lords, it is the same Bill as he then advocated, except in one point to which I shall call attention. Although it is much reduced in bulk, it is only compressed, and compressed in a very simple manner; the wording here and there has been abbreviated; but the large clauses, which, for the sake of fulness, were printed in the Bill as it came before your Lordships on the last occasion, taken out of previous Acts of Parliament, have been placed together in a Schedule at the end. My Lords, the one point which is added to the Bill I shall dwell on at length, and I will say, in the first instance, that it was not advocated but disliked by Archbishop Magee. He objected to it on the ground that it made too little of the office of a Bishop. Another high authority objects to it
  1714
  on the ground that it makes too much of the office of a Bishop. It is not for me to decide which of the authorities is the higher; but to me it causes a certain amount of satisfaction that the objections mutually destroy each other; and I do not think there is much fault to be found with the provision, as a just mean between the two. Indeed, my Lords, though Archbishop Magee's advocacy would have been so powerful and so impressive, I cannot believe that this Bill really needs any advocacy. It has been prepared through some years by a Committee on which were good enough to sit some of the strongest, wisest, and most experienced Members of this House, both in the Church and the State. It passed through the Standing Committee, where it received a careful examination; it passed your Lordships' House; and Mr. Smith, that wise and sound statesman, whom we lost so immediately after the Archbishop, had undertaken to pass it through the House of Commons; and, indeed, it only perished on one of the very last days of the Session with other victims, and unexpectedly. I would remind your Lordships that this Bill deals with morals only; that it has no relation to doctrine or to ritual; it is simply confined to cases of clerical immorality. The necessity of such a Bill lies in small compass. If a layman of influence in a parish is a licentious man, his influence of course is extremely mischievous; his example is followed by the young and foolish over whom he has influence—he discredits his position. But, if the offender is the one man in the place who is commissioned, and supported by law, to be the guide and the teacher and the comforter of the young, the sick, the dying and the poor; if he is the counsellor of many; if he is placed there to be the expounder of Divine Revelation and the minister of Holy Sacraments and there is no other man who can be recognised by the Church there; then how fares it with the people if he is drunken, if he is profligate or a seducer? We know the visible signs—there is the empty Church; but there are worse invisible signs,—the lack of his influence in regions which are not before the public eye is almost more terrible than the

  1715
  emptiness of the Church in which men ought to be worshipping God and learning His ways; the sick are unwilling to send for him; the parsonage house, which ought to be the centre of so much that is good, is suspected, is shunned, is pointed at; the man himself is conscious that he has no message to deliver but what would reproach his own actions: that he has no mission because he is the parishioner who most of all needs to be reclaimed. But, my Lords, the law, which surrounds the good pastor and keeps him in his place, and so supports him and confers on the country such vast benefits by that support,—this law virtually offers no means by which a traitor can be got rid of. And the reason why it offers no means is a singular reason. It is a long sad history. It begins in an old wrong theory. It began in the theory that the man, as priest, was an essential intermediary between God and man; that good morals were a most desirable and necessary addition but not essential to his office among his people. Consequently the first processes instituted, in order to put an end if possible to scandals, were instituted upon what we cannot but in this day call a most wrong basis. Processes instituted against such a man were held to be pro salute animœ; it was not the parish or the people that were in view; it was the improvement of the priest that was intended. And when legislation started from so wrong and so mistaken a base, then there came in a steady constant accumulation of precedents of leniency, and even favour, which have landed us in this position: namely, that really and truly there is no means certainly available of getting rid of an evil pastor. Consequently, you have certain scandals not arising frequently, but from time to time, and echoed all round the sky until it seems as if the air was full of them. Such a case as that which occurred in a diocese a little north of this, last year or the year before, when a man, guilty of repeated acts of drunkenness, has at last evidence produced against him, is brought into the Arches Court and receives a sentence of three months' suspension. At the end of three months he comes back, and the first sermon that he preaches is a lively
  1716
  description of the holiday that he has enjoyed abroad. And there is the case well known to your Lordships and to all England, that infamous case which cost two successive Bishops of Exeter £14,000 and £1,400 respectively. Now, my Lords, so much has been said on this subject before that I will not amplify this part of the matter, but will call your Lordships' attention at once to the change that has been made in the Bill. In the last Bill the conviction of certain crimes and misdemeanours enumerated in Clause 1, as well as conviction of treason or felony, vacated the living ipso facto. The law before was that cases of treason and felony brought home should vacate the living ipso facto, and there were added to these certain new offences which should ipso facto vacate a living. Well, my Lords, we have found that very wide objections indeed have been entertained to these additions to the ipso facto principle of vacating among people of all sorts of opinions. There is this to be said obviously at once: that it is a strange thing that a property, and still more a spiritual function, should be vacated by the sentence of a Magistrate, who has no relation whatever to a benefice, and who in his sentence can take no notice at all of the effect which it will have in the deprivation of the benefice. It is not well that there should be no notice taken of the sentence; it is well that it should be made known as widely as possible. A clergyman, we must remember, is necessarily in his position as a beneficed man in two capacities. He is the holder of property by the authority of the law, and he has a spiritual work and duty—what is called the cure of souls of the parishioners—committed to him by his Bishop. Now when the patron has presented a man to a benefice, so that the property will come to him, the Bishop is then required by law to institute him to the spiritual care of the benefice, upon the presentation of the patron; and it does seem reasonable that he should also be similarly required to declare that the living is vacated, before he proceeds to institute another man into the same place. It is different, of course, in the case of death; there is no necessity for a declaration upon that occasion—the

  1717
  fact is notorious that the late rector is dead. Well, then, Clause 1 enumerates two kinds of gross offences. It first of all mentions those which already ipso facto vacate the living, and then the other class which at present do not ipso facto vacate the living, but ought to be made to do so. We have in this Bill made no change whatever as to the first class. Treason and felony will still, according to this Bill, vacate a living exactly in the same manner as they do now, and the benefice can be immediately re-filled. We do not repeal the Treason and Felony Act, or any clause or any wore of it. But the Bill does lay upon the Bishop the further duty then of declaring that it is vacant, before he proceeds to institute another man. The declaration of the Bishop in this case has nothing whatever to do with vacating the living—it is vacant, and, if it is so wished, a man can be instituted to it; but the Bishop is to be called upon to declare it vacant before he proceeds to put another man into the place. And the man by this Bill is also rendered incapable of receiving further preferment, which seems the most just of measures, until he is either pardoned by the Crown, or until he is otherwise declared once more capable of receiving preferment. That is the first class of offences. The second class of misdemeanours is recited in the first clause, and I will venture to say that the world at large, reasonable sensible people being judges—nay, vicious men themselves being judges, there can be no doubt that everyone would agree that the man who commits such offences is disqualified from being the pastor of a flock, disqualified from exercising this cure of souls, and there ought to be no difficulty in removing him from that pastorate and that cure. But, my Lords, as the law stands now the offence may be proved, the man may be convicted, the man may be sentenced, and yet he is safe in this position to all intents and purposes; he has to be again tried from beginning to end before he can be displaced; and he has to be tried by processes which are expensive and complicated, technical and uncertain, in the very highest degree; he can appeal, and appeal again, until the expense, protrac-
  1718
  tion, and uncertainty of the suits into which he may bring the authority who tries to do his duty by him and the Church, may absolutely win the day. Now the effect of this Bill then is to make civil conviction for these offences conclusive as to the fact of their having been committed; and the Bill then provides that the Ecclesiastical Authorities should accept the verdict as a fact, and that they should declare the vacancy of the living. Now this, my Lords, is the point upon which there is difference of opinion; but, as I said, the difference of opinion is this: it is not simply one difference of opinion with the Bill, but on one side it is thought that the office of the Bishop is made too little of, by requiring him simply to declare that the living is vacant when vacated in this manner; and, on the other hand, it is thought that it is making too much of the office of the Bishop by bringing him in at all. I do not really think that, those being the two poles of difference, your Lordships will differ from the Bill. I believe your Lordships will consider that the Bishop is in his proper place and too much by no means made of his office. If once this Bill passes into law, the first effect of it will be that there will be no longer this wearisome and most uncertain process to go through. Those are the two classes of offences proposed to be dealt with: those which already vacate livings, and those which ought to vacate livings; and this the simple step which is to be taken. At present, my Lords, it is the authorities who attempt to do their duty who are punished and not the offender—the offender is pretty secure What with time, with expensiveness, with technicality, men are, as well as have been, secure in their place. There they stay, safe, to old age; and in that old age the hoary head is not only a crown of shame to that man, but it is a crown of shame to that Church which cannot help keeping him in his place. I repeat once more, what I have said emphatically in this place before, my Lords, that these cases are very few. I doubt if you could find anywhere a body of 26,000 men among whom there are so few offenders of this kind—I think that is quite certain. The cases are few, but there ought to

  1719
  be none. The cases are few, but every single case counteracts. I do not know what amount of labour of excellent, virtuous, and devoted pastors. And, my Lords, how unfair such administration and how unfair such a state of things upon a great profession which we ought to render attractive! What would be said, my Lords, if in any other profession—if in the Army or the Navy, superior officers had not only to defray the cost of every inquiry, but to find themselves baffled and defeated by technicalities at the close? What would be said if the Judges (many Judges are noble Lords in this House at the present moment) what would be said by all the world if the Judges had to bear all the costs of both sides whenever an attempt was made to remove a criminal from office? The rest of the Bill, my Lords, after the 1st clause is occupied simply by procedure; no principles are changed, but it is a simplification of the procedure for the trial of a man accused of moral offences who has not been in the Civil Court. The case of a man who has been in a Civil Court is already disposed of; but then there are other cases where a man has not been in the Civil Court. The improvements or simplification of procedure are these: The Diocesan Court remains, and the improvements are in three obvious points. First, the Diocesan Court is strengthened by five Assessors who are to act as a kind of jury on matters of fact—not a jury, which might make difficulties in the way of appeal—five Assessors; the Chancellor, the head of the Court, is a layman; two of his Assessors are to be Judges or Justices of the Peace, holders of judicial appointments, laymen; and three are to be clergymen. They are to decide upon matters of fact only; not to deal with matters of law. That is the first improvement. The second improvement is that there should be only one appeal; these are not cases which need more than one appeal, if any; but it is desirable, as error is always possible, that the man should have power to appeal, and, with the proper permission, one appeal is allowed, but only one. At present, as I have said, the number bf appeals is one of the worst causes of
  1720
  the defeat of justice. The third improvement introduced is this—and your Lordships will agree with me I am sure that it is the greatest possible improvement. I have pointed out how fatal the old precedents of punishment are and in what evil condition they have landed us, and the 5th clause of the Bill provides that henceforth the decisions are to be made in the interests of the place and people, and not to rest upon precedents of punishment. In the process of abbreviation the words "rather than on the precedents of punishment" have been dropped out, simply for the purposes of abbreviation; and I shall ask your Lordships' leave to introduce them again by way of amendment. But that is what the clause means as it stands—that regard is to be had to the interests of the people. There is another point to which I desire to call your Lordships' attention. In order that it might be thoroughly intelligible to all, even the most obviously essential steps of the processes were described in separate clauses in the Bill as it was before your Lordships' House last year; but, by very wise instructions, as it seems to me, from Her Majesty's Government, such steps as those are to be committed to the Rule Committee. All these steps that have been placed under the ordering of the Rule Committee are so placed for reasons which have commended themselves to the Legal Advisers of the Government; but I need scarcely say that, if there are any such steps which it is thought, in the wisdom of this House, should be replaced as clauses in the Bill, that can easily be done in Committee, and we shall be only very thankful for suggestions of that kind. I would remind your Lordships that when the rules are made they have to lie 40 days on the Table of both Houses, and that any Rule is capable of being annulled by an Address to Her Majesty praying that it should be so annulled. Well, my Lords, the Bill seems then, in the light in which I am able to view it,—its necessity and its provisions—so just, so reasonable, to answer so necessary an end by such simple means, that one asks oneself who are the opponents of the Bill. My Lords, there are enemies and enemies. I shall.

  1721
  speak with the utmost moderation, I hope, of any opposition to the Bill; but there are honourable adversaries of the Church, very decided adversaries but fair and honourable men, who, in the other House, and in other places, have declared emphatically that the Bill ought to pass. If there are any others who have different motives; if there are any who would keep abuses in the Church to forward their own views of what ought to be done with the Church; what a serious position they stand in! They cry out one moment "Souls are perishing because of neglect"; and the next moment they cry out "Let them perish until we can carry destructive measures of our own." If there be any such opponents, we can but trust that they will pause. At any rate, the very existence of such a reason puts an end to the influence that any other reasons which they might allege could produce. And I trust that no professed Churchmen will swell their number on grounds which are not much more than matters of etiquette. I do not then believe, my Lords, that any Legislature would withhold legislation upon such a subject for such a purpose,—still less these two great Houses: legislation recommended, as this is, by some of our very wisest both in Church and State: simple legislation I must call it, for the removal of vicious men from positions which have been created for one purpose and one purpose only: to be the very strongholds and vantage grounds of virtue.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Archbishop of Canterbury.)
  LORD GRIMTHORPEMy Lords, I certainly am not one of the enemies of the Bill, though it is not the Bill which your Lordships passed last year, and I cannot say that I am at all convinced by the reasons given by the most rev. Prelate for altering that Bill, by the Government, and not by the Bishops. Perhaps your Lordships will allow me to remind you of the course that these Clergy Discipline Bills have taken during the last four years. This Bill, in a very important respect which I shall mention presently, is put back very much to the condition of the Bill of 1888; of which it is not too much to say that the late Arch-
  1722
  bishop of York, I mean Archbishop Thomson, destroyed it by his speech on Third Reading. Complaint was made of his not intervening earlier. He answered that complaint by saying that he had not intervened for the very good reason that he had not received the altered copy of the Bill at York until the very day when it was to be discussed here. Everybody felt, I think, that his speech on Third Reading, although neither he nor I divided the House against it, was fatal to the Bill. What happened next after that is not altogether immaterial. The most rev. Prelate has rightly mentioned Archbishop Magee as having taken an active part in this matter from the beginning. In the course of the winter of 1888, he and a Member of the Government, knowing I had begun the opposition to the Bill of 1888, asked me to draw a fresh one. I said, "It is no use my drawing a fresh Bill if you are going to insist upon its being upon what is commonly called the lines of the late Bill, if it is to contain what I and other people call clerical aggression." I was assured by both of them, and by the most rev. Prelate who has now spoken, afterwards, that they had no such wish or intention, and that, if the Bill of 1888 did do what I said, it was not by their desire. Of course I was satisfied with that, and I did draw another Bill. I took counsel with two most competent persons, namely, the gentleman who then sealed with seven seals (I mean Mr. Justice Jeune, who was Chancellor of seven dioceses) and with Archbishop Magee himself; we spent a considerable time in settling that Bill; and without repeating the compliments the most rev. Prelate has paid to Archbishop Magee, I will pay another: I was greatly struck not merely with his acuteness (because everybody knew that) but with his readiness to apprehend legal principles, and being able to discuss a Bill with two lawyers on quite equal terms. It was too late, I suppose, in the winter to proceed with it in the following year; at any rate it was not proceeded with; but I know this: Archbishop Thomson expressed the opinion that the Bill of 1888, or anything like it, would not do, and that something like the Bill which

  1723
  had been settled by the three persons I have mentioned was the basis to go upon. Early in the following year, as the most rev. Prelate told your Lordships last year, he convened a sort of Lambeth Congress, or Conference, or Conclave (or whatever is the proper term) consisting of the two Archbishops, the Bishop of London, my noble and learned Friend opposite, Lord Selborne, another of my noble and learned Friends, Lord Herschell, Lord Thring, Lord Cross, who had taken an active part in 1888, Mr. Justice Jeune, and myself. And this singular thing happened: although several of those persons had taken very different views in 1888, when we came to discuss the Bill in 1890 there was absolutely no division, except upon one comparatively trifling point, as the most rev. Prelate mentioned last year, and the one dissentient, Archbishop Thomson, did not think it worth while to express any further opinion about it; and, what is more, Archbishop Magee, who had succeeded him before the Bill came into Parliament in the following year, was perfectly satisfied with the Bill as it had been drawn, and vindicated it in the way the most rev. Prelate has mentioned, and indeed more strongly than he has stated, on what I and others think the most important deviation now. My Lords, the most rev. Prelate has said that he will move an Amendment to restore certain words in the section which we all thought of great value at Lambeth. I am very glad that he will, and I need not say more about it. The other point, about procedure, is a more serious thing than the most rev. Prelate seems to take it to be. To put it shortly, I may say that the Bill of this year gives very much larger powers to what is called the Rule Committee than the Bill of last year did. It enables the Rule Committee, which is to consist of the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice, the Dean of Arches, and the three Privy Councillor Bishops, to make any rules they please relating to "procedure"—a very large word which was not in the Bill of last year. Then come some other points in that clause which I need not dwell upon, as they are not very material, except that it
  1724
  includes, quite unnecessarily, the appointment of a Deputy Chancellor, which was provided for completely by a very simple clause last year. Then comes a thing which I know is thought of much consequence by more learned people than I am, and that is that the Rule Committee may make rules "concerning the enforcing of sentences, whether by civil or ecclesiastical officers." It seems to me perfectly clear that under those terms together, "procedure" and "enforcing of sentences," any kind of jurisdiction may be invented. No doubt it is a good thing to save both Houses of Parliament the trouble of discussing details which are of no public consequence or interest, and which can be quite well done by a small Committee; but, surely, such matters as procedure, and enforcing of sentences by certain officers, which were the great questions in 1888, do seem a great deal too large to leave to a mere general clause, protected by nothing but the subsection which follows, that the rules are to be laid on the Table of the Houses of Parliament, and take their chance of somebody being able to get a night in this House or the other to discuss them if he has any objection to them. Moreover, the result will be that nobody can learn from the Act what it really enacts, or what influences are being used to get particular things enacted by that Secret Committee. My Lords, I am toll that, tempting as it is to remove from discussion in both Houses of Parliament details which some people may think immaterial, there is another view of it—that certain people resent very much that mode of withdrawing things from their discussion and decision which they think of great consequence; and I cannot help thinking that, in avoiding Charybdis, the Government (who, I suppose, are the promoters of this Bill) have run into a Scylla which may perhaps bring them to ruin if other things do not. That is all I halve to remark upon the minor details of the Bill; I mention them first merely to get them out of the way. Now, my Lords, I come to that which the most rev. Prelate rightly treated as a material alteration, and there I must first dissent

  1725
  from the view that he takes of the 1st clause. He said—and no doubt he intended that it should be so—that the present law was left alone, and that—
  "If a clergyman is convicted of treason or felony"—
  I stop there—his conviction ipso facto deprives him. But, I think, if the most rev. Prelate will read carefully a little lower down, he will see that it is not so. I will read it to your Lordships, leaving out the immaterial things—
  "If a clergyman is convicted of treason or felony … then, after the date at which conviction, order, or finding becomes conclusive, the preferment (if any) held by shall without further trial be"—
  what? "Shall be vacant"? Nothing of the kind—
  "shall be declared by the Bishop to be vacant."
  That is a total alteration of the law of England. Whether it is the intention of anyone I cannot tell, but if it is, it is, at anyrate, very badly expressed, and certainly will in future years be demanded to involve an alteration of a great deal of the existing law. Because I can tell your Lordships, to put it shortly, that there have been at different times since the Reformation more than a dozen enactments (I do not say Acts of Parliament, because one or two of them comprise several distinct enactments), all of which, as Archbishop Magee pointed out to his Convocation—and I am surprised that the most rev. Prelate has not paid more attention to that speech—ipso facto do vacate livings for all kinds of things—some of thorn doctrinal things; and, surely, if a doctrinal or ritualistic error may vacate a living ipso facto, immorality ought to do so. I will just run through them as shortly as possible. First, the earliest Reformation Acts of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth expressly "restored" all spiritual jurisdiction to the Crown. All the four Acts of Uniformity enabled clergymen to be deprived, without the intervention of the Bishop, either by a Judge at Assizes, or by the Chancellor of the diocese; and it is expressly stated in the Act of Elizabeth that the law to be observed is not the
  1726
  canon law, which I shall have to mention presently, but "the Queen's ecclesiastical law"—a well-known old phrase used by the greatest lawyers of all times since the Reformation. Then comes perhaps one still more remarkable—what is called the Great Heresy Act of the 13th of Elizabeth, which expressly leaves to the Ordinary, who is the Chancellor of the diocese generally, the power to deprive, which he always had and always exercised. Besides that, the same Act, without any relation to heresy, ipso facto vacates a living if the clergyman does not read himself in in proper time,—that is, publicly declare his assent to the Prayer Book and the Articles. No Bishop intervenes there; no Court intervenes; simply if he does not do it in the proper time anybody may take note (it has been so decided) and the living is ipso facto vacant. All that will soon be demanded to be repealed if this Bill passes. Then there is the very important Act of 1870, which the first clause of this extends in the confused way I noticed just now. As the most rev. Prelate mentioned last year, the old law before 1870 was that treason and felony ipso facto forfeited a living. The word "forfeiture" was used, not "vacation;" but the result is exactly the same. Then to come to later things, take the 1st and 2nd of Victoria c. 106—a very long Act which provides for many different things. If a clergyman engages in trade or takes a farm above 100 acres he may be prosecuted in the Chancellor's Court by the Bishop—the Bishop being not the judge, but the prosecutor; and the Chancellor is to suspend him first and deprive him afterwards. I know very well that the word "Chancellor" is not put before "deprive" in the latter case; but that cannot matter the least, because, as I say, the Bishop is the prosecutor and not the judge. The same Act deals with pluralities. If a clergyman happens to have two livings or benefices of any kind, and takes another without declaring which of the former ones he vacates, he ipso facto vacates both. If he is instituted to a living without any right to hold two, the institution ipso facto vacates the former. Non-residence after a certain time, after two years' segues-

  1727
  tration, under the same Act ipso facto vacates the living. Surely that is a thing in which you might expect to find the Bishop having this jurisdiction, if anywhere. But no, the law has not entrusted it to him: this modern theory had not been invented then, or in fact until four years ago. Then comes the Act with which it is now the fashion I see with all parties to find fault—the Clergy Discipline Act of 1840. That was Bishop Philpott's Act; he imposed it upon the Bishops and upon Parliament after having been thoroughly beaten in the previous Session. The only precedent for Episcopal Judges was the Court of High Commission, which your Lordships know was twice abolished by Parliament. Under a clause in that Act of 1840 the Bishop may indeed sit and try, but he cannot declare without trying; and that clause was described in the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Courts as being thoroughly obsolete; it was found, for reasons which I need not go into, unworkable or unsuitable; and it was said, I do not know with what correctness, by some of the witnesses before that Commission, that it has only been acted on twice; except of course by consent, for anybody may consent to the Bishop trying, depriving, or anything else. Then comes in the order of date the Act of 1870, which Archbishop Magee naturally dwelt on much in his speech to his Convocation. And, my Lords, what has been the excuse made by the agitators against this Bill, who, in spite of what the most rev. Prelate has said, are mainly of one party in the Church, for the Act of 1870 being passed without objection or complaint till now? That it was not understood. I have taken the trouble to look at Hansard to see what evidence there was that it was not understood; and I find that it was fully and clearly explained on that point by perhaps the clearest explainer of an Act of Parliament that there has ever been. I mean Lord Westbury. Whatever may have been his defects, certainly want of clearness of explanation was not one of them; so that excuse is a mere ex post facto invention without the least historical foundation. And the real history is
  1728
  that in all the three and a half centuries since the Reformation began the personal intervention of a Bishop has never once been recognised as necessary for complete deprivation. It is just possible somebody may say that I have forgotten one declaration (I cannot call it an enactment, for it is not one) that the Bishop is to declare sentences of deprivation only in the 122nd Canon of 1603. To which I give this simple answer: that that Canon was illegal: it was first ultra vires. Convocation has no power whatever, as great authorities have said, to do anything relating to judicature; and, further than that, it is expressly illegal, because the great Act of Henry VIII., for the "Submission of the Clergy," under which any power was left to Convocation to make Canons, expressly says that if a Canon is contrary in any respect to the law of England, either present or future, it shall be void. It was also historically wrong. It is a doctrine that has been laid down in the Courts that, if a Canon is only declaratory of ancient law, it may stand as a recognition of the Queen's Ecclesiastical Law. That Canon could not be so, because it was contrary to all the previous Acts I have mentioned; and, moreover, a Canon had been made in 1571, saying exactly the contrary, though that code was never ratified by the Queen. Moreover, let me tell your Lordships that a person who is more a layman than a great many Diocesan Chancellors have been, has been held to have a complete right to deprive—I mean the Dean of Arches. So far as I can make out from the books that tell of such things, there has been no clerical Dean of Arches since 1559, but there have been many clerical Chancellors until recently. Then à fortiori, if the Dean of Arches has been decided—as he has been by the Privy Council—to have the right to deprive, that Canon, professing to take away the power of the Chancellors to deprive, was invalid and good for nothing. Let me call your Lordships' attention a little more to Archbishop Magee's great speech, as the most rev. Prelate rightly called it, which was mainly directed to this very question of deprivation. It is true, as the most rev. Prelate says, that he

  1729
  gave both reasons: both that it was making too much of the Bishop, and also too little. But that is not a dilemma, as the most rev. Prelate imagines, but a cumulation. Archbishop Magee said, in substance, "I resent the idea of being ordered to come into Court (and I remember that he used these words) as the executioner or crier of a Court to proclaim a judgment which I may differ from. 1 shall have read the proceedings in whatever Court has ordered the man to be deprived. The Chancellor, who may have proceeded under the rules of procedure which are to be made, or the Civil Court, may have decreed the deprivation; but I may think that the man ought not to be deprived. Am I to come in, thinking all that, and, as a mere machine, a mere crier of the Court, to declare him deprived when I think he ought not to be? That was Archbishop Magee's argument, not mine, though I had helped him with the legal history; and it seems to me a very good one. But I will carry it a little further. Supposing any Bishop says, on high spiritual grounds, "I do not choose to be ordered by the State to do this and that, which is no part of my regular spiritual duty," he would be doing a thing which would be most popular with the High Church Party, who have got up all this opposition. They are fond of saying, "Oh, we would obey the Bishops if they were free, but they are bound to act under the State law; and we decline to recognise that." It is easy enough to say that no Bishop would dare to retain a convicted clergyman. But he may think it a case for suspension and not deprivation, and then what are you to do? Are we to have Bishops mandamused and sent to prison if they will not obey? Everybody knows that will be impracticable. Then there was another point that Archbishop Magee took, which I confess had not occurred to me, though I see no answer to it. He said, "How is deprivation more of an episcopal or spiritual act than suspension? A man can be suspended by the Chancellor for five or ten years, or any time. What is the spiritual difference between that and deprivation?" Nobody in his lower House of Convocation, which voted against
  1730
  him, could answer that question. The fact is, my Lords, that this demand is only made as a first step towards getting more; and the sort of things that are wanted more we have the means of knowing; because a body of great importance, called the English Church Union, which seems to me to play very much the part of another very important Body at Rome.—namely, the Jesuits,—I do not mean to call Church Unionists Jesuits in the popular sense; but it is said that the Jesuits are more powerful than the Pope; and it is quite plain that the English Church Union are more powerful than the Bishops and can frighten them—yes, can frighten them into accepting things which they would never have done voluntarily, and which they never thought of a year ago, or rather which they all agreed against. Just let me tell your Lordships one or two of the things that this important Body, which, by-the-bye, I see boasts of having 25 members of the Episcopate, not all English, I suppose, but still I believe some.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: There is not one.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEI am glad to hear that; I know there was one.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYHe went out of it.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEIt is a very powerful Body nevertheless. What have they proclaimed to mankind lately?" "The power to govern the Church," they say, in a published series of 18 resolutions,
  "resides by succession in the Episcopate acting synodically, and in other canonical manner, and in the Episcopate alone."
  What is the power that they say belongs to the Bishops and to them alone?
  "This power is not limited to doctrine, but embraces positive discipline." "The Church, by its own inherent authority, has power to make laws, to administer laws, and to enforce the observance of its laws in the spiritual domain: in other words, it possesses legislative, executive, and judicial powers."
  Then they say—
  "The law administered is the Canon Law."
  Canon Law is Roman Law, composed of the decrees of Popes, which have been declared over and over again not

  1731
  to be the Ecclesiastical Law of England. Then they go on to say—
  "Procedure, legislative and judicial, is expressly provided for by the Canon Law;"
  that is to say, not by Parliament, but by the Canon Law, which is nothing at all. Then your Lordships will be interested to know perhaps how much rights you have as the State—
  "The State being jure divino the guardian of civil rights is by consequence bound, upon complaint made, to ascertain."
  What?
  "Whether justice has been done to an incriminated clerk."
  That is, if the clerk is not satisfied with the decree of the Chancellor, or the Bishop it may be, he may go to the Civil Court; but if it is the other way the party on the other side may not appeal; which is flatly contrary to one of the fundamental Acts of the Reformation. Then further they say—
  "The Statute Law touching ecclesiastical matters is 'mere temporal'"
  (a piece of bad English that they have copied from some ecclesiastical source)
  "and consists only of rules laid down by the State for the conduct of the civil power in dealing with such temporal rights as come in contact with spiritual duties. Any so-called Ecclesiastical Court"
  (that is to say, the Diocesan Court which this Bill, like former Acts, purposes to authorise to do certain things)
  "consituted by Act of Parliament only, possesses no spiritual jurisdiction, and, consequently, all its proceedings are spiritually null and void."
  Your Lordships will remember that everything the Ecclesiastical Court may do under this Bill will be done under the State; and therefore it is expressly denounced by this English Church Union. Then there is a paragraph dealing with the particular thing in this Bill that they have been raving at, I may say, ever since your Lordships passed the Bill last year.
  "None but a Bishop has power to suspend, deprive, or depose a clerk"—
  that is to say, all the laws of England that I have been reading to you are wrong and impudent aggressions on the Spiritualty, as they call themselves. Then they say—
  "No provision for ipso facto voidance of an office or benefice can operate without the declaratory sentence of the Bishop in the Spiritual Court."
  1732
  That is to say, that all that multitude of enactments that I have read to you are ultra vires and good for nothing. And then finally—
  "Any scheme for the alteration or regulation of procedure in the matter of discipline must be embodied in Canons enacted by Convocation, and such action of Convocation should precede any Parliamentary action needed to give civil sanction to the Canons."
  Now it is very easy, my Lords, to say that such things as those are only ridiculous, and that everybody laughs at them. What do they care about their being ridiculous if they get their way? It reminds one of the famous saying in one of Thackeray's books: "What does it matter being called obtrusive provided only you obtrude?" That is what these people want. They do not care what they are called, if they can get their own way. But, if anybody is inclined to treat the English Church Union with ridicule—which I quite agree it deserves, while it deserves something more—there is something else that can hardly be ridiculed. I have had a publication sent to me—issued and signed by himself—a declaration by one of the oldest Bishops, a man who has hitherto passed for a man of sense, but who has got frightened; he has been making a sort of manifesto or declaration to his diocese, from which I must read your Lordships a few words, to show that it is not only the English Church Union that says things of this kind, but some of the Bishops an; frightened into adopting them:
  "Nor do I hesitate to agree with the principle that Resolutions of Convocation, expressive of approval of a Bill in Parliament on the subject of Church Discipline, cannot give real spiritual authority to such a Bill if it becomes law. If we are to adhere to real Church lines, Canons prescribing the due course of procedure must be enacted by Convocation, and Parliamentary sanction to such Canons subsequently obtained";
  in other words, he has exactly adopted one of the resolutions that I read to you of the English Church Union. What comes next is worth attending to for another reason; it shows that all the Bishops, at any rate, do not feel so strongly the immediate necessity for this Bill as the most rev. Prelate does—
  "That this will involve delay, and probably some difficulty and friction, must certainly be admitted."

  1733
  I read as far as that, and wanted to know how he was going to answer that point. This is the way—
  "Still principles are principles"—
  with which I thoroughly agree, and it is a principle of the Constitution of England, and has been ever since the Reformation, that neither the Convocations nor any clerical body whatever have any power to meddle with these things. Then he ends by saying—
  "I hope then in this matter we shall keep to the old highway."
  My Lords, I venture to ask this question: Is a Bishop justified in telling more ignorant people than himself—I mean his clergy, who naturally take the law from him—that such and such things are principles of the law of England, and that those things are the old highway, when he could not walk three inches along the old highway in company with any lawyer, or law book, without seeing that every word he had been saying was wrong? He might just as well say that he had been into the street and performed a miracle. One statement would be no more true and no less true than the other. Yet this is the way in which, as I said, the English Church Union frightens even Bishops into saying exactly what they want them to say. They know it will be applauded by the dominant party of the clergy, and take their chance of its veracity being questioned. My Lords, I will not trouble you with anything more of that kind, though I could. But the most rev. Prelate, and a great many other people, he says, on both sides in the Church, are impressed with this: that, inasmuch as the institution to a living must be done by the Bishop, it is at any rate logical, though it is not the law of England, that deprivation must be done by the Bishop. But does the most rev. Prelate really think it is the law of England that institution must be done by the Bishop? I do not know whether he has altered the practice in the diocese of Canterbury—I have not looked at it lately;—but I have often read in the papers that the Vicar General of Canterbury had been admitting persons to their benefices; and he is the very person who, in most dioceses, would deprive them if the Bill were carried
  1734
  as it was passed last year. In Canterbury alone, I think, the Chancellor is not the Vicar General. Your Lordships may think that that is peculiar to Canterbury diocese; but I can show you in five minutes that it is not. First of all I look—and, surely, any Bishop might look—at such common books as Phillimore's Ecclesiastical Law, or Stephens's; and there they will find that it is part of the duty of the Vicar General to grant institutions; they will find a decision as long ago as the reign of Charles I that an institution by the Chancellor of St. David's, even with the wrong seal, was good: no Bishop invoked; and, what is more, no complaint made, by a man who clearly wanted to get rid of the institution, that the whole proceeding was irregular because the Bishop himself had not done it. But I can tell you something more; because, by good luck, the patents of all the Chancellors and Vicars General were printed by the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission; and I find that in no less than six dioceses, and, as it happens, three in each province, Canterbury, London, Durham, Carlisle, Worcester, Chester, the patents of the Vicars General expressly recognise—I say "expressly" for a reason that I will give presently—the duty of the Vicar General to grant institutions if the Bishop does not want to do it himself. But the notion now is that the Vicar General is incompetent to do it! I say that every law book you can read says he is competent to do it; and I say further that in the diocese of Canterbury the Archbishop generally does not do it, and in the other dioceses it is entirely optional with the Bishop whether he will do it or not. In some of the other patents it is left open; that is to say, the powers and duties of the Vicar General are declared to be what they have been in the time of their predecessors; and, inasmuch as you cannot have two laws about the same ancient office, you must look and find what the old law was, and then, whatever the Bishop may do or say in a particular place, the Vicar General has the old power; he is the judicial officer; he conies under the Acts which transferred all spiritual jurisdiction to the Crown; and the Bishop has no more power to

  1735
  diminish his duties or his rights than he has to increase them. Therefore, although some of the patents, in evidently modern words, except the power of institution, I say that the whole of this allegation is founded upon a mistake. It is an entire mistake to suppose that institution to a living cannot be given by anybody but a Bishop. In the case of a donative (and nobody knows how many they are) the Bishop does nothing. Moreover, my Lords, I can tell you a fact that will astonish many of you-Your Lordships probably, most of you, are under the impression that a man is made a Bishop of a See by the Archbishop of the Province. He is not. I ought to know, because I have had to read the Queen's mandate at a good many consecrations. The Archbishop is not ordered to consecrate him Bishop of any See; he is ordered to consecrate him a Bishop. If he is translated from one See to another, or from no See at all to a Diocesan See in England, that is done entirely by the Crown: either by letters patent in the case of the new Bishoprics where there are no Deans and Chapters; or, if there is an election by the Dean and Chapter, it is done, as you know, under Congé d'élire; but further (which perhaps everybody does not know) if there is any mistake, or neglect, in obeying the Conyé d'éire, the Crown can do it at once by letters patent. It is only the Crown therefore that gives any episcopal jurisdiction at all. If that is the case in regard to Bishops, it is surely asking us to swallow a good deal to ask us to believe that the personal intervention of the Bishop is necessary for institution. And so ends the whole of this claim, which is notoriously and obviously put forward by the High Church party, and is totally unfounded. I alluded a little time ago to a much higher authority than myself upon the question of the rights of the two Convocations to interfere in matters of this kind, except by petitions to Parliament, like anybody else. I find that my noble and learned Friend opposite me (the Earl of Selborne) in 1874, and I think again in 1881, said (confirming Archbishop Tait):—
  "I am not aware of any single occasion on which any Statute of the Realm has been passed
  1736
  on Ecclesiastical Courts or their procedure, when there has been any concurrent action of Convocation."
  My noble and learned Friend also used lately, in an important, though not exactly legal, body called the House of Laymen, of which he is Vice-Chairman, some very strong language about that very thing that I have been speaking of a little time ago—the English Church Union resolutions—however, I will not at this time of day stop to quote it. My noble and learned Friend is here, and he will recognise that I am correct. My Lords, not only he, but on more than one occasion Lord Cairns expressed very strong views against any recognition of Convocation, except in the one case in which I agree that they ought to be recognised—namely, the alteration of the services. When the Shortened Services Act, as it is popularly called, was passed, it was expressly referred by Her Majesty to Convocation—not to vote upon as a legislative body, but to report, as had been previously done by a Royal Commission. I do not question in the least the right of Convocation to petition either House of Parliament, or to report to Her Majesty when she desires them to do so. But I do entirely protest (to use my noble and learned Friends' language in substance) against their claiming any right to intervene in legislation. But, my Lords, I must also mention another person—not perhaps of so great legal weight as my noble and learned Friend, but of greater weight from other points of view—I mean the noble Marquess below me (the Marquess of Salisbury). In 1874, on the Public Worship Act, Convocation and the clergy generally protested against any interference by Parliament in far larger numbers than they have done at present. So they did on the Burials Bill of 1880—16,000 of them, besides the Convocations, protested, and you may see some of the. threatening letters, as I may call them, which Archbishop Tait received, in his Life, which I supposed many of us have been reading lately. What said the noble Marquess in 1874?—and this is specially noticed, I see, in Archbishop Tait's Life. He said: "The

  1737
  claim of Convocation "(to interfere with a Bill of that kind) "is entirely new"; and either then, or on another occasion (for I cannot quite make out from the book which it was) he said, "I protest against the competency of Parliament to deal with Clergy Discipline being denied." How could you have a stronger declaration against the interference of Convocation than those of Lord Cairns, of my noble and learned Friend opposite, and I must add, of the noble Marquess? Yet the strange thing is that, after all that, it is Her Majesty's Government who have taken upon them to alter your Lordships' decision of last year, in which they concurred, and some of them actively, and to say, practically, to the laity of England, "You shall not have a Clergy Discipline Act unless you will consent to alter the law of England, and let the Bishop be the person to declare, or refuse to declare, a living vacant after the incumbent has been convicted and sentenced." My Lords, I shall not trouble myself to move Amendments to this Bill. If Her Majesty's Government choose to go to the country with this declaration that the Protestant Church laity of England shall not get rid of bad clergymen without consenting to this first step in clerical aggression, that is their look-out, and not mine.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNEMy Lords, my noble and learned Friend, in the speech which he has just addressed to your Lordships, has gone into topics of very wide range, of which I should be the last to deny the importance. He has said many things with which I agree, and some things with which perhaps I may not agree; but I do not think it necessary on this occasion to define either the limits of my agreement with him or the points upon which I may not agree; because it really does seem to me that nearly the whole of my noble and learned Friend's speech was not strictly relevant to the Bill which is now before your Lordships. (Hear, hear.) Certainly, if your Lordships ever had occasion to consider the pretensions advanced by the body, which has no public authority, to which my noble and learned Friend has referred, and whose recent manifesto he went
  1738
  into in some detail, I am afraid that with all the respect which I feel for some members of that body, I should be found very much in agreement with my noble and learned Friend as to those pretensions. (Hear, hear.) But I do not think there is anything in this Bill which gives encouragement to those pretensions, or which those who advance them could claim as originating with them—I am totally unable to find anything of that kind. The words of this Bill, upon which my noble and learned Friend has thought it necessary to make the interesting and large comments which your Lordships have heard, are simply these:—That when a temporal Court has pronounced a certain sentence in cases which the Act defines, the preferment, if any, held by the clergyman should, without further trial, be declared by the Bishop to be vacant, as from the date at which the conviction becomes conclusive. Now there are two classes of cases dealt with uno flatu by these words. One, as my noble and learned Friend has said, has been the subject of legislation already by the Treason and Felony Act of 1870, which Act declares the benefice of a clergyman convicted of treason or felony to be actually void; and, notwithstanding what has fallen from the noble and learned Lord, I must declare my agreement with the most rev. Prelate, who said that there is nothing in this Bill which, if it passes into law, will repeal a syllable which is in that Act; if this Bill should pass into law, in the exact form in which it is now before the House, the effect of the Act of 1870 will continue to be what it is now,—namely, to make the benefice ipso facto vacant upon conviction of treason or felony; and that being so, I am unable to see what there is inconsistent with that Act in saying that upon that state of things arising the Bishop shall declare the benefice to be vacant. The law says it is vacated, and what inconsistency with that law there can be in saying that the Bishop shall declare it to be vacant, I am at a loss to understand; and I can well believe that, not merely upon those somewhat imaginative grounds to which my noble and

  1739
  learned Friend has referred, and which may open, as it seems to me, a very unnecessary field of controversy, but independently of those grounds, and for very plain, simple, and practical reasons, it may be a proper, and in some cases a very desirable thing, that the Bishop should declare a living to be vacant which the law has already made vacant in a certain state of circumstances. In cases of treason or felony, in all probability the matter may have some notoriety; in the other class of cases with which this Act proposes for the first time to deal, namely, misdemeanours, it may, or may not be so; but anyhow, it seems desirable that the vacancy should be formally and officially declared and recorded. Whether the importance of this, from any point of view, is greater or less, if anyone thinks it, for practical or even for sentimental reasons, to be desirable that the Bishop should make a declaration in conformity with the law and with the policy of the law, what there can be in that to rouse a storm of speculative objections I cannot conceive. If it pleases anyone I am content to do it for the sake of removing a difficulty, for the sake of removing opposition, for the sake, it may be, of satisfying even scruples with which I do not agree. If that in any quarter will tend to conciliate men's minds and remove opposition to a measure, which all agree to be in substance necessary and desirable, for my part I sincerely hope that such degree of consideration, even for men's weaknesses, will not appear to Parliament to be a compromise of any principle.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORKMy Lords, there is at least one satisfaction to be found in the speech of the noble and learned Lord (Lord Grimthorpe)—that he has certainly found out in the Bill every little weakness that it can possible have, and that you have before you the whole indictment that can be possibly brought against it. I cannot help feeling that it was very unfortunate that the noble and learned Lord was not consulted about this particular clause, or that he had no share in framing it. Those who had that responsibility would have been able then to deal with and weigh his objections before
  1740
  the matter came into Parliament. But, after what has been said by the noble and learned Lord who has just spoken, I do not think that any of us who are not lawyers, at least, can attach very grave importance to the tremendous difficulties which the noble and learned Lord has found in this Bill. For in the greater part of the noble and learned Lord's speech he was not discussing the Bill at all; he was discussing the utterances of an utterly irresponsible body, and not dealing with the provisions contained in the words of the Bill itself; and, in so doing, I think he has obscured the real points at issue, and made difficulties to arise from the utterances of that society, which have not their origin in the Bill itself. My Lords, it is not my part to follow the noble and learned Lord in a discussion of all the enactments of past times which have dealt with this subject or with cognate subjects; but yet I could not help being struck by the fact, when he made a complaint against the powers given to this Rule Committee in matters of procedure, that he at least ought to have remembered that in the Act of the 38th & 39th Vict., which constituted the Supreme Court of Judicature, the very word "procedure" is used in connection with the rules which were to be drawn up by that Committee, and they were not enacted in the Act itself. Further than this, the noble and learned Lord spoke of institution as a matter belonging really to the Vicar General, and he went into very learned arguments to prove that it is so; but I should like the noble and learned Lord to tell us whether any Vicar General could institute where there was no Bishop, or where there was nobody holding the position of the Bishop during the vacancy of the See. Is not the Vicar General in every case ting for the Bishop, and is it not the Bishop who institutes? Qui facit per alium facit per se. As regards the matter of the intervention of the Bishop, with which the noble and learned Lord finds so much objection, he must remember that from our point of view, whatever it may be from the point of view from which he regards it, the preferment of a parochial clergyman consists of two

  1741
  parts: it involves the freehold that he possesses during the time he holds his office, but it involves also a spiritual element, which we call the cure of souls. Now, I hold that no Civil Court either does or would wish or profess to affect the spiritual cure of souls, but it claims, and rightly claims, the power to deprive of the preferment. As the noble and learned Lord has pointed out, the preferment is vacant whether the Bishop declares it or not; but the Bishop desires to have the privilege, which belongs to his office, of declaring the cure of souls to be vacant, and of relieving the clergyman of that tremendous spiritual responsibility which the Bishop committed to him on the day of his institution. As regards this institution, I do not know into what dioceses or what histories the noble and learned Lord has looked, or what acquaintance he has with the practice of the present day—
  LORD GRIMTHORPEI said I had looked into the report of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORKI can only say that during the 14 years of my own episcopate I have, in every instance, excepting when I have been absolutely prevented by circumstances, instituted the clergyman myself, and have never once asked the Vicar General to do it; and I propose to carry on that practice to the end of my episcopate, unless the noble and learned Lord can convince me, which he has not yet done, that I am wrong in so doing. What then the Bishop desires, and what in the Bill we are very thankful to find he is permitted to do, is to pronounce a clergyman incapable of handling a cure of souls if the Civil Court has deprived him of his preferment, and the freehold involved in it. And is there nothing similar to this, my Lords, in other professions, if I may so speak of my own calling? Does the noble and learned Lord not know anything of disbarring? Is it not the case that for certain offences, for which a lawyer is convicted by a Civil Court, after such conviction the legal authorities proceed to disbar that lawyer or to strike him off the rolls?
  LORD GRIMTHORPEIt is mere surplusage.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORKIt may be mere surplusage, but it is what takes place; and, if it takes place in the profession to which the noble and learned Lord belongs, surely it is not a very unreasonable desire upon the part of a Bishop? The noble and learned Lord suggests that possibly the Bishop might refuse to do this. What would be the circumstances? The living is vacant, whether he refuses or agrees.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEThat is a mistake; the living would not be vacant under the Bill.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORKI will not argue that point of law with the noble and learned Lord; I think that other lawyers of authority differ from him on that point; but in any case, supposing the Bishop refused, all that he could do would be to deprive himself of one of the privileges and prerogatives of his office; for it would be impossible for him to retain in his living a clergy man who had been found guilty of any of these crimes, and the guilty would become actually vacant, although the words do not remain as in the Bill of last year, "ipso facto vacated" by the sentence of the Court." My Lords, I would say one word in conclusion—not that there is much to say after the exhaustive speech of my most rev. Brother,—but on behalf of the northern province I do most earnestly implore your Lordships to pass this Bill, and to pass it as it now stands before you. I do not mean without some modifications of detail—I am sure my most rev. Brother and myself are quite willing to accept such modifications if they are likely to make the Bill more practicable; for what we want is not an ideal Bill,—we want something now, and we do not get ideals just at the moment when we want them; we want something that will work and help us to get rid of these few, these very few unworthy clergymen who are found in our body, without being led into that interminable delay and incalculable expense which has attended the operations of the law in such things in the days that are past.
  LORD HERSCHELLMy Lords, I desire, in saying a few words in support of this Bill, to express my conviction that this measure rests upon a broad basis, and appeals widely for support in

  1743
  that it deals with a matter in which not alone the Church of England is interested—because that ministers of religion should be enabled, under the existing law, to remain in charge of a parish or a living when they have been guilty of notorious misconduct and ill living, is an injury to religion itself, no matter what the sect or denomination. (Hear, hear.) Supposing that you have a man of this sort living in a parish, in charge of the parish, as representing the Church of England there, can anybody doubt that his very existence there will be a stumbling block in the way of every minister of religion in the place? The Nonconformist minister, who is endeavouring to bring men to a belief in the truths of religion, or to enforce upon them the morality of religion, finds the existence of such a person living in the midst of those whom he is addressing a serious hindrance to his work. Therefore, it seems to me that it is a mischievous and evil thing, far beyond the bounds of the Church itself, that such a state of things should exist, and that there should be no speedy and simple means of removing it. And, my Lords, I would go further, and I would say that, apart even from questions of religion, it is a mischievous thing as regards the interests of morality itself, because a minister of religion is teaching religious truths intimately connected and associated with moral obligations; and can any one suppose, for a moment, that, even as regards mere moral influence, that moral influence will not be diminished, and the young very likely be freed from restraints which otherwise they might be led to regard, on account of a scandal of this sort existing in a particular part of the country? Therefore, my Lords, it appears to me that there are grounds, quite apart from any grounds of the interest of the Church or the advantage to the Episcopate, in the reduction of the expenses of prosecutions, upon which support may be claimed for this Bill. No doubt, my Lords, there are those who are opposed to a measure of this description, because they are opposed to the existence of a Church establishment, and think that there should be a separation between the Church and the State; but I would
  1744
  venture to suggest, even to them, that is worthy of consideration whether it is not paying too high a price for any advantage that might be gained to the cause which they have at heart, to put an obstacle in the way of removing a scandal of this description, which is injurious to religion and morality. I am quite certain that if the time comes for the Church to be disestablished, its disestablishment will not rest upon a certain number of scandals existing in different parts of the country, arising from an immoral or a criminal clergyman; if the day should come, it will rest upon a much broader basis, and much wider considerations than these; and they themselves would be the first to rest it, and they do rest it upon such broad considerations. Therefore I trust that there may be a disposition to regard this measure upon its merits, as one in which all who have the interests of religion and morality at heart may find a common ground for the purpose of removing an evil which is injurious and mischievous to all. Now, my Lords, with regard to the criticisms of my noble and learned Friend opposite, I should like to say just a word or two. I am certainly not deeply impressed with the views which have found expression in the document to which he has alluded; but, on the other hand, I must frankly confess that I am not deeply convinced either by the arguments which my noble and learned Friend has produced as to the evil which would be done by yielding, if there be a yielding, to the extent contained in this Bill. I look at the thing from a practical point of view. I cannot see myself that there is any danger in giving, if it be an additional power, such additional power to the Bishop as is given by this Bill. What is it? It is only to say that, under certain circumstances, in the case of particular convictions, the Bishop shall declare the living vacant. Well, my Lords, I do not think that a duty of that sort, arising under the provision of an Act of the Legislature, is a recognition at all, certainly not of any serious kind, of any such principles as my noble and learned Friend suggested are involved in it. But, my Lords, I think there may be really a distinct advantage in requiring this

  1745
  declaration, and for this reason: This Bill extends the findings of temporal Courts, which are in effect to render the living vacant, because they are to lead to the Bishop declaring it so. At present that exists only in the case of treason and felony. The Bill extends it to certain serious misdemeanours. But the more you extend provisions of that description, the more possible it is that the conviction may not be a matter of notoriety to everybody; and there does seem to be a distinct advantage in requiring of some one a public declaration which shall make it, in each case, a matter of notoriety to those concerned and interested—amongst others to the patrons of livings—that the living has become vacant; because, of course, the living becomes vacant from a particular time; and If it becomes so merely by reason of the conviction, the right of the patron would accrue at that time, and his right might lapse, possibly, without the matter being brought to his notice. Therefore I think there is an advantage in the provision that some official should make a public declaration of the avoidance of the preferment; and I cannot see any more appropriate person than the Bishop of the diocese. Therefore there seems to me a practical advantage in it; and I do not feel myself that, whatever view one may take upon the question, that has been a good deal discussed, there is any admission of which anyone need be afraid. I would only suggest to the most rev. Prelate whether it might not be desirable to provide that, in case the Bishop failed, within a certain time to be limited (it must be a short time) to do it, it should be done by the Archbishop or the Vicar General—for this reason: that it is certainly a thing which should be speedily done. You might have a case, where the Bishop was ill, and not in a condition at the time to make the declaration; and, therefore, I think there is a reason for making a provision of that sort, which would probably be an additional safeguard gratifying to the noble and learned Lord opposite, and would, I think, be an improvement upon the Measure as it stands. And, my Lords, I would only say this, with regard to the apprehension that the
  1746
  Bishops might refuse, and be liable to mandamus: that Bishops are liable to mandamus now for many acts that they have to do. In fact, cases of mandamus to a Bishop are within one's own experience. If a Bishop refuses to institute, when he is bound to, he may be made the subject of, and is liable to mandamus; and, as my noble and learned Friend will know, there have been instances of mandamus to a Bishop for refusal to do an act which, by the law, he is bound to do.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEIf my noble and learned Friend appeals to me, he probably alludes to the Gorham case—
  LORD HERSCHELLI was thinking of Marshall v The Bishop of Exeter at the moment; that was a case of mandamus.
  LORD GRIMTHORPEIn the Gorham case you know the Bishop did not do it.
  LORD HERSCHELLStill with a provision of this sort I am not afraid of the Bishop not doing it. I do not think we shall be driven to a mandamus; but, after all, if a mandamus has to be applied for, and is applied for, when a man has been convicted of a grave offence, and the statute has said that the Bishop should declare the living vacant, if the Bishop refuses to declare it vacant and goes to the extent of defying the law, I do not think there is any party who will have any great sympathy with him, or any great regret if he is made to obey the law. My Lords, I will not trouble you with any further observations upon the details of the Bill; but I desired to state the grounds on which I give it my hearty support.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a (according to Order), and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Thursday next.

SMOKE NUISANCE (METROPOLIS) BILL— [H.L.]—(No. 9).

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELLMy Lords, last year when I

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  rose upon this subject, having upon four previous occasions discussed it at considerable length, I moved the Second Reading in a very perfunctory manner. The result was so much controversy that although the Bill was read a second time I acknowledge the necessity of going to-day into the question with greater accuracy and precision. At the same time I will not detain your Lordships longer than is necessary, especially after the serious debate which has taken place and from which it may seem an undue descent to pass to any lighter topic. In consequence of the black fogs which occurred consecutively for five days about Christmas there has been lately a good deal of popular attention drawn to the subject. At that time the hunting world,—for frost occurred simultaneously,—being driven up to London might well have murmured at the darkness that awaited them; at the same time the skating world was under great impediments as it was scarcely possible to move to the ice in the vicinity of London. Now as these two worlds contain men of every class from the highest to the humblest, there can be no wonder at the feeling which existed and still continues to exist. The noble Marquess, the First Minister, and the noble Viscount sitting usually behind him (Viscount Midleton), who questioned him not long ago, appear on this important subject to have opposite opinions. According to the noble Marquess it is useless to correct fogs as you would only change the colour. According to the noble Viscount it would be possible to eliminate the essence of fog altogether as well as to remove the dark and solid particles which are now unfortunately added to it. My Lords, I hold a middle view between these two, as it appears to me, extreme opinions. I hold that it is possible to remove the black and solid particles but that it is beyond, at least the present grasp of science to deal entirely with fogs that spring not only from the exhalations of the river but also from the exhalations of the ocean. But in order to convince Her Majesty's Government that it is worth while at least to eliminate the peculiar blackness which smoke must add to fogs, I would refer for a moment to some other cities. It is notorious
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  that fogs exist in other cities, but that the blackness and malignity of which we complain is entirely peculiar to our metropolis. I happened to witness a fog quite recently at Hamburg, which is in some degree analogous to London. It is the second city and the great port of the German Empire; it is on a tidal river, not far from the mouth of it; it is exceedingly commercial, but not exclusively commercial. The fog there set in and lasted two or three days, and may be going on still; but as a witness of it I could mention that in consequence of its being confined to mere unblackened vapour, it had in it nothing at all to interrupt the traffic of the place, and nothing which could be injurious to health if due precautions were adopted. However that may be, my Lords, I think all men must admit that a campaign against the artificial must precede the campaign against the natural ingredients, that you must first direct your legislation against the peculiar element which we superadd to fogs existing here alone, and then aspire, perhaps, either by further drainage or by undiscovered agencies to combat the element itself in which fog originates. But there is something else to be remembered. The attention of the public has been drawn to fogs of late, and very justly; but fogs are not at all the only evil which this kind of legislation is intended to control or to diminish. If by the efforts of the noble Viscount who alluded to the subject fogs were entirely removed, you would still have the smoke of London; you would still have its effect on flowers, on furniture, on constructions, on health, and on the human system. But that topic I leave to the noble Viscount to consider, hoping that he will bring to bear upon it the impressive eloquence which a few days ago drew down the admiration, if not the envy, of his leader. It has been powerfully treated by Mr. Rollo Russell, whose pamphlets on the subject have entitled him to just and great celebrity. He agrees, I think, with me in a rough estimate that for 20 days of actual fog you have, perhaps, 100 days in which our light and sunshine is obstructed. I will now go on and touch in a few words upon the details of the measure. As framed this year, the Bill adheres, as

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  far as possible, to the form in which it quitted a Select Committee in the year 1887, comprising the Duke of Westminster, the Earl of Harrowby, Lord Mount Temple, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, the Earl Brownlow, Lord De Vesci, Lord Monkswell, and Lord Dundonald. In compliance with the Public Health Act, which passed only last Session, it is necessary that certain functions should be transferred to the Local Government Board which were originally entrusted to the Home Office. It is also requisite to refer to certain Acts of Parliament which exist instead of others which are abrogated. The executive authority of the Bill will as before reside entirely in the Vestries. The Local Government Board, if the Vestries are inert, will have admonitory powers to impel them, but it will not be able to keep their bye-laws beyond a certain limit in abeyance. There is a special clause, although it was not needed except for clearness, to prohibit all entry into the interior of houses. The Bill dictates nothing to householders, but leaves them to avert objectionable smoke by any method they think proper. It is less disturbing and less drastic than the law as it now exists at Dresden. The law of Dresden, of which I have a copy, gives the authorities control over interior arrangements instead of merely laying down that the householder should do anything he chooses except to permit black smoke to flow out of his chimneys. The Bill, as always, rests on the fundamental principle that the householder is entitled to burn whatever he desires in any mode he fancies, but is not entitled to send into the public air elements which vitiate it. It is a principle which came into existence so long ago as the time of Charles II. who directed Mr. Evelyn, the well-known proprietor of Wootton, the author of the Diary, to frame a measure to support it. It is only by the use of coal in its bituminous and uncorrected forms during two centuries that we have become gradually demoralised and have lost sight of the principle, while at the same time our habitations and our thoroughfares have been gradually thrown into an obscurity from which it is now desirable
  1750
  to rescue them. My Lords, I wish with a view to the satisfaction of noble Lords to answer a question which is nearly certain to suggest itself, although I am not bound to do so by the provisions of the Bill. It is a question as to how the new law would be carried out in practice. I can only give my personal impression that it would be carried out in practice with the greatest ease and with the minimum of outlay, by mixing anthracite and coke rather than by changing and modifying fire-places. Having been much in Germany last autumn, and having opportunities of entering into the subject with the first mechanical inventor, and also in consequence of other observations, and looking also to the movement of the public mind, I learn that anthracite is there regarded as the true and practical solution of the problem. I have convinced myself by some inquiry not only that anthracite may be drawn from Germany and from America but that in the Principality of Wales large stores of it exist which have not been exhausted. But supposing that no effect immediately arises, I should still contend that the Bill will be salutary. It will embody in the Statute Book the principle that domestic as well as industrial smoke requires to be combated. No doubt some further legislation may very possibly be requisite. Amended statutes may be frequent before an absolute solution is arrived at, but that has often been the case on other subjects. I happen to remember the late Sir Robert Peel remarking in the House of Commons that although he had been over thirty years in Parliament he never knew a Session in which there had not been a new Bill for regulating salmon. But he did not therefore draw an inference that legislation upon salmon had been useless. If he had, I am inclined to think that no one who knows the Tweed or any Scottish river would have been able to agree with him. I will now, my Lords, briefly answer an objection of the noble Viscount, to the effect that no Bill upon this subject can be carried unless a Government initiates it. Glad indeed should I have been if Her Majesty's Government

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  had resolved upon that conduct, But I am bound to point out, as it appears to escape the recollection of some who may exert an influence upon the measure, that the Bill as it left the Select Committee was on the point of being adopted by this House, and there is no proof that it would not have gained the sanction of the other. Her Majesty's Government intended to support it with one or two minute Amendments, which would have been easily accepted. It was then destined to a smooth and unresisted course, so far at least as the Third Reading in this House, when at an unusual stage and in an unexpected manner a noble Earl on the Cross Benches—I think he is absent to-day, I mean the Earl of Wemyss—came forward to oppose it. His oratorical ability was such—and I refer to it without the slightest acrimony—that he carried round the Government, who were induced to swerve from their original design, and resolved upon outvoting it. I recall it merely to show your Lordships that had it not been for something wholly unforeseen, wholly unexpected, and, to a great extent, unprecedented, the labours of that Committee would not have been thrown away, and it is probable, at least, that the law would now be in existence. What tends strongly to urge it upon both Houses is the grave consideration, that unless something is done to improve the air and light of the Metropolis it may not be easy to maintain it as the capital much longer; but that topic is much too large for me to handle it this evening. My Lords, if your Lordships have the goodness, as I scarcely doubt, to read the Bill a second time, I am glad to understand that by the arrangement now in force it will naturally go before a Committee of the whole House. That is my object. I desire that its clauses shall there be freely canvassed and impartially decided on. If a question had arisen as to whether it should go before a Committee of the whole House or before the Standing Committee, I should have had some further observations to address to you, which I am glad that I can properly avoid; and I will now, therefore, merely move that the Bill be read a second time.
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  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."— (The Lord Stratheden and Campbell.)
  THE DUKE OF WESTMINSTERMy Lords, I desire to make one or two remarks, and they shall be very short, in the hope that you will be induced to read this Bill a second time. The principle has been accepted on previous occasions by your Lordships, and its objects are twofold—namely, to enable the Sanitary Authorities of London to make bye-laws for abating, or regulating, the emission of smoke of houses and buildings, and those that are not included in the Public Health Act of last Session. The machinery of the present Bill is identical with that of the Public Health Act of 1891, and will apply to the same extended area. Therein, of course, London becomes very much enlarged. The old Acts affect only the inside ring, it may be so called, of London; and there is a very great deal of smoke beyond that ring; and that area is proposed to be included in the present Bill. It affects, as you will observe, the emission of smoke, not only from factories, but from private houses and those very great offenders in the matter of smoke, the hotels and clubs of London. Your Lordships may very often have observed that about luncheon time, at 2 o'clock, Pall Mall is very often over shadowed with a dense pall of smoke coming out from those clubs at that interesting time of day. The second part of the Bill is to enable the County Council to make byelaws, in all cases of new houses, for the construction of fire-places so that they may consume the smoke which arises from them. I hold this to be a very moderate and almost permissive Bill, because it gives powers to Local Authorities for the execution of the Act. As your Lordships are well aware, the evil is increasing, and must increase, owing to the number of additional fire-places that are built every year. It has been computed that the amount of coal consumed in one year amounts to the enormous total of 8,000,000 tons—that is the bituminous coal full of smoke. It is easy to see that that enormous

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  amount is being increased every year by the increase of population, and the increase in the number of houses in all parts of London. There is also the melancholy consideration, in connection with the case, that there are fogs and fogs—of course country fogs are not so deleterious as London fogs, because the London fogs are thickened and deepened by the amount of smoke that adheres to the globules in the air; but I am sorry to say that by the register the foggy days in 1887 were 93; in 1888, 119; in 1889, 151; and in the year 1890 they amounted to the larger number of 156. All that shows a very increasing state of the evil, and one which this Bill may affect. We cannot expect very much from it; but we hope it may tend to affect it in some slight degree. In regard to the state of the law of prosecutions for offences against the Act, the law at present affects only the industrial chimneys; and it has been considered that there is a spirit of some unfairness when other chimneys, also emitting a great deal of smoke, are let off, arid are not subject to the provisions of the law. This question no doubt affects the decision in some cases of the Bench; at all events, the law would be more efficiently carried out if all the chimneys in London were placed so far upon an equality. It is also held that, if this Bill were passed, inventions for the consumption and getting rid of smoke will be very considerably stimulated. Those inventions are being arrived at every day, and I have a line here from Mr. Brunner, M.P., of the large firm of Brunner Mond and Co., Northwich, the great alkali works, where he tells me that 125 tons of slack at 7s. a ton produce in his case four tons of sulphide of ammonium worth £12 a ton. At that rate, 7s. a ton for 25 tons of slack, he makes a total of £43 7s., and by the sale of four tons of ammonia, produced by that consumption of slack, he makes £10 10s. a ton, or £42 10s. That is so far satisfactory and encouraging as showing that, by the production of this very valuable ammonia, no very considerable loss, in fact hardly any loss at all is entailed by the consumption of smoke. At the same time that would not apply, or very slightly, to the question of smoke
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  consumption in London; but it may fairly be considered to apply to industrial factories. Then there is an increasing consumption of oil in the heating of London, and of gas and coke; and facilities are given by low prices for numbers of poor people to avail themselves of gas and coke. Then again anthracite coal can be obtained in any quantity in the world, both from South Wales and America, where the supply is practically inexhaustible; and I understand that in Paris anthracite coal is used to a very considerable and large extent; and there are restrictions there as to the consumption of smoke; I am not sure what they are, but there are considerable restrictions; with the result that a great deal of smokeless coal, anthracite, and coke (I do not know about gas) is used. The question of the consumption of smoke, my Lords, does not affect us in our position as much as it does the poorer classes of the community; we can get away to purer and fresher air, at all events, occasionally; but the poor cannot, many of them,—the great bulk of them,—are in London day after day, and week after week, through sunshine and through fog; and I think in their interests my noble Friend the promoter of this Bill, and those who wish to see something, however slight (and I do not believe in any very great result from this Bill, certainly not so far as the private grates are concerned), may do some good, and we should be very glad if your Lordships would, under the circumstances of the case, consent to pass the Second Reading of this Bill.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY)My Lords, I will not resist the appeal to pass the Second Reading of this Bill; but the noble Lord who introduced the Bill spoke of indirect pledges of approval. I beg to say beforehand that, by assenting to the Second Reading of the Bill, I give no pledges as to what we may think it right to do at any further stage of it. I cannot help feeling that the noble Lord who has just sat down is indulging in sanguine anticipation, and that the results will not be very large, even if it were possible to carry out

  1755
  the measures which he suggests; and, if the results are not large, I do not think we shall be paid for losing the comfort of a flaming fire. I was a little alarmed at the proposal of the noble Lord that we should recoup ourselves, for the expense of a new installation, by the manufacture of sulphide of ammonium in our own houses. I do not know whether the noble Lord is familiar with that drug.
  THE DUKE OF WESTMINSTERNo.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYIt smells more exactly like a drain than any drug I know; and I am afraid we shall hardly thank the reform that the noble Lord has brought in if we are compelled to have much of it about us. However, what I would suggest to the noble Lord is that if we read the Bill a second time he should allow us to refer it to Lord Midleton's Committee, so soon as that Committee is appointed.
  Motion agreed to: Bill read 2a (according to Order), and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

EAST INDIA OFFICERS BILL [H.L.] (No. 10.)
Amendments reported (according to order); and Bill to be read 3a on Monday next.
CONVEYANCING AND LAW OF PROPERTY ACT, 1881, AMENDMENT BILL (No. 17.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read
  LORD HERSCHELLMy Lords, this is a Bill to effect certain amendments in the Conveyancing and Law of Property Act, 1881. The Bill is similar to, and, I believe, identical with a Bill which passed through the other House last Session, and was read a second time in your Lordships' House; but at a very late period of the Session—in fact at the very close; and, on the Motion to go into Committee, the noble Marquess opposite suggested that the Bill was one of some importance, and that it was too late to deal with it during the Session. My Lords, it has come up early
  1756
  enough this Session for us to be able to deal with it. The Bill contains a variety of provisions—each of them entirely independent; and, therefore, there is no principle involved in the Bill; it is a question simply of the expediency and propriety of each of the several provisions. The first of those provisions relates to cases of forfeiture by bankruptcy or execution; if the property is conveyed to another, within the time limited in the Bill, it avoids the result of bankruptcy or execution, the effect of which will be to preserve to the creditors of the bankrupt, very often, property that is very valuable; because, in some cases, there have been failures in building operations, and the result has been very disastrous to the creditors, owing to the impossibility of dealing with the property in this way. The next provision relates to conditions against assigning or under-letting; it enables the Court to relieve from a forfeiture, by assigning or under-letting, where the permission to assign has been unreasonably withheld, and to prevent money being insisted upon by way of payment for the licence to assign. As your Lordships are aware, the Act of 1881 contains provisions enabling the Court to relieve against certain forfeitures, but excepts the particular cause of forfeiture with which I am now dealing. My Lords, it would not be right to pass a measure of that sort without considerable safeguards. The Bill excludes from this section all agricultural or pastoral land; it excludes mines or minerals; it excludes a house used, or intended to be used, as a public-house; it excludes what I may briefly describe as a furnished house; and it excludes property with respect to which the personal qualifications of the tenant are of Importance for the preservation of it. To all I those cases the Act does not apply. It only applies, in short, where the personal qualification or position of the tenant is a matter of indifference; and in those cases it provides that the Court may relieve against forfeiture, if the permission to assign is unreasonably withheld. Then there are certain powers inserted for the protection of under-lessees, enabling the Court to give certain

  1757
  relief, that I need not trouble your Lordships with in detail. The only other provision is to remove doubt as to whether in the Act of 1881 "lease" includes also "an agreement to let"; there has been judicial doubt on that point, and that is removed by that last section. My Lords, as I said before, I believe there are some amendments which it is desirable to propose to the Bill, which my noble and learned Friend (Lord Selborne), who is not here now, has indicated to me, which may have to be considered. I ask your Lordships now only to give a Second Reading to the Bill, which, as I have said, involves no question of principle, but is simply a question of expediency.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORMy Lords, my noble and learned Friend has truly said, I think, that there is no particular principle involved in the Bill; but I am rather anxious to guard myself against the qualified approval that I once gave to the Bill by saying that, upon a more mature and careful consideration of it, I cannot help thinking that there are one or two objections to the form in which it is cast. I will tell my noble and learned Friend at once that I am only referring to that part of the Bill which has reference to conditions or covenants to assign. With respect to the rest of the Bill I entirely concur in its provisions. In the first place, I want to point out that I think the Bill is improperly cast, and ought to be amended in that respect. Instead of making a general proposition, from which you afterwards exclude almost everything (which seems to me a very awkward mode of drafting), the more natural course would be to say that which you intend to be the subject of enactment. But I have a still more serious objection to the form in which the third Clause is conceived; that is, by giving a non-natural and unreal meaning to words which in themselves have a very common and reasonable meaning. It is to be enacted there that "in all leases" and so on—
  "Containing a covenant against assigning or underletting"—
  I omit any unnecessary repetition of words meaning the same thing—
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  "Such covenant, condition or agreement shall be deemed to be subject to a proviso to the effect that such licence or consent shall not be unreasonably withheld."
  It seems to me that the more natural thing would be, if you mean to prohibit the landlord from entering into such a contract, to prohibit it, and it would be plainly manifest upon the face of the instrument. But to say that people are to contract in words of ordinary common sense, and that the Legislature should put upon it, in a Statute which very few people but lawyers would see, another and entirely different meaning and additional condition, seems to me very unreasonable. I think a more reasonable and rational way of doing it would be to say that in such cases as you want to exclude, it shall not be lawful to enter into any such contract. And, my Lords, one word as to the fourth exception—
  "Any property with respect to which the personal qualifications of the tenant are of importance for the preservation of the value or character of the property."
  My Lords, I am not quite certain that I am able to comprehend what are the "personal qualifications of the tenant," and I do not quite know whether I am able to define beforehand what is "the value or character of the property." In a hunting county, for instance, would it be a personal qualification of the tenant that he can shoot foxes or anything of that sort? That is one illustration of what I mean. But the things are so wide that the difficulty I have is whether that is not a trap for a lawsuit, and whether, although it looks very innocent in itself, and you would say that it was very unreasonable of a landlord to refuse except where the character or value of the property is affected by the personal qualifications of the tenant, yet, when one comes to analyse it (and I admit that I did not myself at first consider the full effect and value of those words), I confess it looks to me very much as if it would be a very interesting Debate, possibly in a great number of Courts, as to what it meant; and, although that might be very interesting to the learned profession, it might not be so interesting either to the tenant or the landlord. My Lords, I have thought it only right to call attention to this matter. I

  1759
  agree with my noble and learned Friend that there is a good deal that is of value in this Bill which I should be sorry to see lost; but I think that in the Standing Committee it would be very desirable to see whether some construction cannot be put upon those words to prevent their being made really a trap for people getting into lawsuits without really knowing that they were in dispute at all.
  LORD HERSCHELLMy Lords, I shall, of course, be glad to consider the points to which my noble and learned Friend has called attention, and I quite agree with him that there may be improvements made in the drafting of the Bill. It arises, as my noble and learned Friend knows, I daresay, from this: that the Bill is introduced in a certain form, and various proposals are accepted from opponents of the Bill, so as to satisfy them; and then the result is that it comes up with everybody satisfied, but not always, consequently, in the best possible form.
  Motion agreed to: Bill read 2a (according to Order), and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

NEW PEER.
Sir Arthur William Acland Hood, G.C.B.,Retired Admiral of Her Majesty's Fleet, having been created Baron Hood of Avalon in the county of Somerset—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

ELECTRIC AND CABLE RAILWAY BILLS.
Message from the Commons, That they have come to the following Resolution, namely—
That a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons be appointed to consider the best method of dealing with the Electric and Cable Railway Schemes proposed to be sanctioned within the limits of the Metropolis by Bills introduced, or to be introduced, in the present Session, and to report their opinion as to whether underground Railways worked by electricity or cable traction are calculated to afford sufficient accommodation for the present and probable future traffic; as to whether any, and which, of the schemes propose satisfactory lines of route; as to the terms and conditions under which the subsoil should be appropriated; whether any, and, if any, what schemes should not be proceeded with during the present Session; and to desire their Lordships' concurrence thereto.
The said Message to be taken into consideration to-morrow.

STATUTE LAW REVISION BILL [H.L.], (No. 29).
A Bill for further promoting the revision of the Statute Law by repealing enactments which have ceased to be in force or have become unnecessary.
MARRIAGES ABROAD BILL [H.L.] (No. 30).
A Bill to consolidate enactments relating to the marriage of British subjects outside the United Kingdom: And

PUBLIC AUTHORITIES PROTECTION BILL [H.L.] (No. 31).
A Bill to generalise and amend certain statutory provisions for the protection of persons acting in the execution of statutory and other public duties.
Were presented to the Lord Chancellor; read 1a; and to be printed.

ARCHDEACONRY OF CORNWALL BILL [H.L.] —(No. 5.)
House in Committee (according to order); Bill reported without amendment; Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read 3a to-morrow.
EVIDENCE IN CRIMINAL CASES BILL [H.L.]—(No. 4.)
Moved, That the Order of the 22nd of February last negativing the Standing Committee be rescinded.—(The Lord Chancellor); agreed to; and Bill recommitted to the Standing Committee.
SHORT TITLES BILL [H.L.]—(No. 12.)
House in Committee (according to order); Bill reported without amendment; and re-committed to the Standing Committee.

PRESENTATION TO BENEFICES BILL [H.L.]—(No. 24.)
House in Committee (according to order); Bill reported without amendment; Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read 3a to-morrow.
House adjourned at Seven o'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter past Ten o'clock.

PRESENTATION TO BENEFICES BILL [H.L.]—(No. 24.)
  SALE OF GOODS BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill for codifying the Law relating to the sale of goods—Was presented by the Lord Herschell; read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 32.)
  SALE OF GOODS BILL [H.L.]
    ROADS AND BRIDGES (SCOTLAND) ACTS AMENDMENT BILL [H.L.]
    A Bill intituled "An Act to amend the Law in regard to bridges in Scotland"—Was presented by the Lord Ker (M. Lothian); read 1a; and to be printed (No. 33.)