said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the Proceedings, or Selections from the Proceedings of the Mixed Commission on British Claims which sat in Carácas in 1868, of which Mr. Joel was a member?

said, in reply, that there would be no objection to present the Reports to which the hon. Member referred, if he thought the matter of sufficient importance; but it was only fair to inform him that the documents in question were very voluminous, extending over 647 pages, and the expense of printing them would cost about £40.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he has considered the great facility with which London has been provided with the requisite organization for the election of the School Board; and, whether he does not think it probable that he may be able to prepare a measure for the creation of a constitution for the Metropolis in the present year?

, in reply, said, his hon. Friend would, he trusted, excuse him if he failed to see the analogy between the creation of a school board and the carrying out of a scheme for the local government of London. The London school board was a mere addition to the existing powers—an addition that was hailed with satisfaction by all the existing authorities. Any system of local government for London that would be worthy of acceptance by the House must interfere with existing institutions, both ancient and modern; and no Government could exercise ordinary prudence which did not foresee that there would be to any such measure a considerable amount of opposition, involving, of course, a great consumption of time. It was after a full consideration of all these circumstances, and with the utmost reluctance, that the Government had decided that they would be unable in the present Session to introduce, in addition to the other measures they intended to propose, a measure of such great importance.

said, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, having regard to the desire generally expressed in Ireland that there should be a Royal residence in that Country, Her Majesty's Government will propose to Parliament this Session a grant to purchase such suitable residence?

That, Sir, is a question which has been for some time in the view of Her Majesty's Government; but I am not in a condition, at the present moment, to make a positive announcement respecting it to my hon. Friend.

said, he wished to ask the Lord Advocate, Whether he intends to introduce during this Session a general measure of Road Reform for Scotland?

replied that he quite recognized the importance of the subject; but he could not hold out any prospect of the introduction of a measure upon it that Session.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether Her Majesty's Government have it in contemplation to take steps for obtaining uniformity of colour and pattern in Volunteer uniforms and equipments?

said, in reply, that he would be very glad to see a greater uniformity in the Volunteer uniforms than existed at present; but these were matters which had always been under the regulation of the Volunteers themselves, and there was no present intention to put any coercion upon them in regard to them.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether he will lay upon the Table a pro formâ statement of the Divisions of the Country into Military Districts, showing by examples the numbers of the troops by ranks in each district, and the arrangements for drilling or training the recruits under the new system; and, a general table of the establishment of men and horses in the British Forces, distinguishing the numbers of the men by ranks, and including therein the officers, men, and horses belonging to the administrative and all other departments?

Sir, if the hon. Gentleman will move for a Return, I shall be happy to give it, showing the military divisions and sub-divisions and the number of regulars and auxiliary forces in each. The arrangements for drilling and training recruits are not yet completed, and, in consequence of the large number of troops at present in the country, some difficulty is experienced in finding the necessary barrack accommodation. As soon as the arrangements are completed I shall be happy, to give them. Nearly all that the hon. Gentleman asks in the second part of his Question is given in the Estimates; but if he wishes to have it in a more compendious form I shall be ready to give it.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce this Session any Bill to amend or vary the provisions of the Metropolitan Board of Works Loans Act, 1869; and, if so, whether such Bill would be introduced at an early period; and, if the Government is aware that the Metropolitan Board have introduced three Private Bills which, if passed, would extend their borrowing powers to the amount of £275,000 in excess of the ten millions fixed as the maximum in the said Act of 1869?

, in reply, said, he believed that a Bill was in course of pre- paration to explain and amend the Board of Works Loans Act, 1869; but it had not yet been finally settled or submitted to the judgment of the Government. As to the three Private Bills to which the hon. Member referred, it was quite true that it was proposed to create stock under the Loans Act to provide the funds necessary to complete the improvements contemplated by those three Bills. Of course, those proposals stood on their own merits; but there was nothing new in their principle, similar Bills having been introduced last Session.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether the scheme proposed for promoting Officers by selection above the rank of Captain, in the event of the abolition of purchase, is to be extended to the Ordnance Corps, the Indian Army, the Marines, and the non - purchase branches of the service generally; and, what will be the position of Candidates for direct Commissions who have passed their examinations but have not yet been appointed, and also of those gentlemen whose names are now down for a Commission, and are waiting their turn for examination?

Sir, the statement I made had no reference to the Native Indian Army, the Marines, or to the Ordnance Corps. The detailed regulations are, as I stated, under the consideration of eminent military officers, and it would be premature to make any statement as to their application or otherwise to the Ordnance Corps. The proposals will not affect the Indian Army or the Marines. There are now, I think, about 500 candidates who have already passed. They will receive commissions in their turn according to the prospect held out to them by the regulations published at the time. The commissions will be without purchase, and will be given subject to any conditions which it may be thought right to impose for insuring competency, of which full notice will be given. As regards those now waiting for examination, they will have to enter the Army through one or other of the modes which may be laid down. Variety seems to be desirable in this respect, and the modes to which I referred as probable were— 1. Sandhurst, by competitive examination. 2. Subalterns of the Militia. 3. The Universities, as recommended by the Royal Commission. 4. General public, by competitive examination.

said, he wished to ask the Lord Advocate, Whether, considering the delay which has taken place in the delivery of the Scotch Education Bill, he still intends to take the Second Reading on this day week? He would also beg to ask when the Bill would be delivered?

, in reply, said, he believed the Bill would be delivered that afternoon and circulated tomorrow. He feared it might not be in his power to take the second reading on the day mentioned; but, if it was, he should not willingly lose that opportunity.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether the Committee which he stated early last Session had been appointed by His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief to draw up Regulations for extending the system of "Military Labour to Military Works," and for enabling every man in the Army desirous of working at a trade to obtain employment, have made any Report; and, if so, if he has any objection to lay it upon the Table of the House?

replied that he would have no objection to lay the Report in question upon the Table.

said, he wished to ask the Lord Advocate, Whether it is his intention to introduce a Bill relating to the Titles to Land and other Heritable Rights in Scotland; and, if so, whether he will name an early day on which to introduce such Bill, so as to afford sufficient time for consideration of its provisions?

, in reply, said, it was his intention to introduce a Bill upon the subject referred to in the hon. Member's Question, and also one dealing with the law of entail; but he was not at present in a position to name a day for the introduction of those measures.

Sir, I wish to take this opportunity of putting a Question to the Secretary of State for War, of which I have given him private Notice, with reference to the course which he proposes to take in the future with respect to the measure he has submitted to this House on the subject of the organization of the Army. The second reading of the Army Organization Bill stands fixed for Thursday next; but, of course, I presume that the right hon. Gentleman does not intend to press the measure forward on that day, in face of the fact that hon. Members have not yet seen the Bill. The position in which we now stand is this—that after an elaborate and interesting statement from the right hon. Gentleman we are left in the middle of an adjourned debate upon the number of men to be granted. The point on which I am anxious for information is this, Whether the right hon. Gentleman intends to take a full discussion upon the whole of this large scheme upon going into Committee of Supply, or upon the second reading of the Army Organization Bill? I understand that copies of the Bill will be in the hands of hon. Members to-morrow; and, under those circumstances, I venture to express a hope that the Government will not unduly force on the discussion upon it. I should hope that the discussion would not be taken until next Thursday week.

Sir, it is most important that full time should be given to the House for consideration of the measure before they are called upon to express an opinion upon it. I hope that the Bill will be in the hands of hon. Members to-morrow. I also think that in a measure of this kind the second reading of the Bill affords the natural and legitimate opportunity for a full discussion of the proposal it contains. I am anxious to make all reasonable progress with the Bill; but still, I think, every hon. Member should have a fair opportunity of examining the provisions of the measure. I therefore do not propose to fix the second reading of the Bill earlier than Thursday week.

said, he wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman proposes to make the Army Estimates or the Army Organization Bill the first Order of the Day for Thursday week?

I propose, Sir, that the second reading of the Army Organization Bill should precede the Army Estimates.

said, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he has received information that statements have appeared in several of the New York journals that the Com- missioners had been empowered to take into consideration an offer by the United States for the purchase of all the British North-American Colonies; whether Her Majesty's Government had received any such proposal; and, whether the Government Instructions to the Commissioners do not entirely preclude them from taking into consideration such a proposal for the diminution of the Empire?

Sir, we have received no such proposal as that mentioned by my hon. Friend, and I am in a state of total and absolute ignorance upon the subject. But I may, perhaps, be permitted to say, further, that I hope that while the negotiations in America are in progress, the hon. Member will not think it necessary to ask questions in this House founded upon mere anonymous authorities.

said, he wished to draw the attention of the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the circumstance that it was erroneously stated in the Blue Book relating to the Treaty of 1856, that he had passed the Dardanelles in 1868, instead of 1864.

explained that it was a typographical error, which would be corrected in any subsequent issues of the Papers. He was obliged to his right hon. Friend for calling his attention to the matter. The correct date at which he had passed the Dardanelles was in September, 1862, and attention had been first called to this by the Russian Ambassador at Constantinople.

said, he trusted the House would accord him its favour while he withdrew a word which he had used in addressing the House on Thursday last. In referring to the case of the accounts of the Duchy of Lancaster, and in intending to say that those accounts might advantageously be submitted to considerable revision, he had made use of the word "corruption"—a word which he now wished to withdraw. Anyone accustomed to speak in that House would know how difficult it was to keep watch and ward over every word, and he had used the word "corruption" unadvisedly, and certainly not in the sense that had since been attributed to it by some persons. He should much regret giving pain to anyone, and therefore he wished most unreservedly to withdraw the expression.

rose to put a question to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government with reference to this measure. The foundation of this Bill was that it should apply to "Colleges and Universities now subsisting," not to such as might be created in the future. That was the case with the measure introduced last year, and it would be in the recollection of hon. Members that a discussion then ensued upon his Motion that the words "now subsisting" should be omitted, and that the right hon. Gentleman entered into a compromise with respect to the matter under which he undertook, in the event of the Amendment not being pressed, that the Government would introduce a separate Bill, with the view of providing that a charter should not be granted to any College or University for the future without the consent of Parliament. He now wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it was the intention of the Government to carry, pari passû with the present measure, a Bill such as the one he had referred to?

said, that subject to a certain reservation, he thought his hon. and learned Friend was accurate in the reference he had made to the circumstances of last year; but that reservation was this—that it was never intended on the part of the Government, nor was it ever stated, as far as he understood or remembered, that they did intend to make the power of granting charters hereafter subject to the consent of Parliament, or to impose any limitation which did not now exist in the prerogative. What was said, according to his recollection and that of the Solicitor General, was this—that provision should be made that the grant of charters to Colleges or Universities should be so regulated that Parliament should have an opportunity of objecting to it. He had to apologize to the House for having omitted to refer to the matter before, and he would take care that a provision was introduced with the view of carrying out the undertaking of last year.

said, the question whether Her Majesty's Government would sanction the establishment by charter of a Roman Catholic University had been strongly agitated, and he hoped the hon. Member who had recently addressed the House would have an opportunity, in the course of this discussion of stating whether his question had reference to the establishment of such an University, or to the founding of a new University in connection with the Church of England, which was about to be divorced from the existing Universities. The business before the House related to both these subjects; for the Bill under discussion was one step towards the disestablishment of the Church of England, and the Bill standing next upon the Paper (the Ecclesiastical Titles Act Repeal Bill) was one which would, if passed, make a long stride towards the establishment of the Church of Rome.

moved, in page 2, lines 8 and 9, to leave out "other than a degree in divinity," his object being to make the body of the Bill more consistent with the intention of the Bill as disclosed in the Preamble than it then was. He moved a similar Amendment last year, when he received the support of a majority of independent Liberal Members. He was met with the objection that if persons not members of the Church of England were allowed to take divinity degrees in the Universities it would be impossible to exclude them from the Professorial chairs in theology. He did not think this consequence would follow, as the Church must always have the power of appointing to its theological Professorships only such persons as were in its opinion theologically sound; and in addition there would be this other safeguard that, as a rule, the occupancy of and emoluments attached to professorial chairs in theology were attached to livings in the Church. All he desired was to remove the barrier which Parliament had imposed by passing the Act of Uniformity and which Parliament ought now to remove. In the University of Glasgow any person who had obtained the degree of M.A., and had passed through a theological course, either in England or Scotland, was entitled, after passing a satisfactory examination, to proceed to the degree of B.D., the subsequent degree of D.D. being simply matter for a further examination in proof of higher theological scholarship. There was no necessity for declaring adhesion to the Established Church of the country. In the other Scotch Universities the principle was substantially the same, though the details were different in some particulars. He dismissed as utterly improbable the fear that opening the divinity degrees in the Universities would be sought by the enemies of Christianity as a footing for attacking its truths. But, apart from that consideration, he moved his Amendment on the broad ground that all University degrees ought not to be confined to the members of one particular Church, but should be free to all.

I shall not attempt, on this occasion, to enter at large into the discussion of the Motion of my hon. Friend; but all that I would say bearing on the merits of the proposition is that, according to the account he has given of the Motion, it is perfectly plain it would not go far enough to effect the object he has in view, so far as the practice established in our ancient Universities in England is concerned. And it would not do this, because my hon. Friend says he would not take away the limitation upon the appointment of the Professors who constitute the theological faculty; but it is evident that if he left the Professors subject to the operation of an exclusive test the candidates for degrees who belong to other forms of religion would be in the very peculiar and anomalous position of being liable to be judged exclusively by persons of another faith; and it would be very difficult, indeed, for them to be certain that a perfect impartiality would be exercised in passing judgment upon them. There are many other difficulties in the Motion on which I will not detain the Committee at length; but I must observe that I do not quite understand where it is my hon. Friend wishes to stop. He wishes to have degrees in divinity thrown open; but what is divinity? He says he wishes that the Professors of different Churches should be allowed to obtain their certificates of proficiency in a particular form; but what, again, are Churches? For example, is there a Buddhist Church, and would not my hon. Friend require a test if he wished to prevent Buddhists obtaining divinity degrees in English Universities? By Churches, he probably means the various fragments of the Christian world. I do not know; but it is quite evident that if he means to admit all those who profess Christianity in some form or other to degrees in divinity, and to exclude all who do not, he must discover and provide by law some test in order to determine what is Christianity and what is not. My hon. Friend has not done this. The truth is—his proposal is not in a shape in which it can take practical effect. But I do not intend to do more than point out what appeared to me the defect of my hon. Friend's proposal; I do not intend at all to enter upon the merits of his proposal, because, so far as the Government are concerned, we should be wasting the time of the Committee if we did so. The Government has already ventured to acquaint the House—I use the term "venture" advisedly—that we regard this proceeding as a sequel to what took place last year. We propose to send to the House of Lords the Bill which we sent last year. So far, therefore, as the Government are concerned, it is a question of going forward with this Bill. We do not think it expedient to send to the House of Lords a Bill differing materially from the Bill we sent last year. Consequently, it is not in my power to accept the Amendment of my hon. Friend; and, that being so, it is better that I should waive any lengthened discussion upon its merits. The very same remark, I am bound to say, will apply to the other Amendments that are on the Paper. The Amendment of my hon. Friend opposite (Mr. C. Bentinck) it would not be in our power, under any consideration, to adopt; and with regard to the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett), my hon. Friend near me (the Solicitor General) will say a word on that subject. The plan now before the House is the only plan that we, as a Government, can go upon on the present occasion. We wish this matter to be brought to a speedy issue. If our plan fail, my hon. Friend, or anyone else, will have an opportunity of trying a different proposal. With these few words, I have only to say that I am sorry to be obliged to say "No" to the Amendment.

This Bill has reached its present condition from the strong desire of the nation that our great Universities should open up their means of culture and knowledge to all classes of the people. If the Bill be only partial in its operation, then the desire to render these institutions truly national has not been fully accomplished. The Preamble to the Bill is comprehensive in its aspirations, and the securities which it reserves for religious instruction are in no way affected by the Amendment of my hon. Friend (Mr. Stevenson). There are three superior Faculties in the Universities — those of Medicine, Law, and Divinity—all of them professing to teach their several kinds of knowledge, and to give degrees as evidence of an acquired culture in them. In two, as well as in the Faculty of Arts, the Bill proposes to dissever knowledge from belief; but, in one of them, it keeps knowledge and belief in the Episcopal Church firmly bound together. Is there any good reason for the exception? The answer made to us last year by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government is that a degree really means ability to teach the knowledge embraced in it, and that it would be anomalous to confer a degree in theology in a University unless the graduate were allowed to teach in that University. I do not deny that the right hon. Gentleman is correct as a question of ancient University history, and that the title of graduate did imply power to teach. So did the title of Esquire once mean that of shield-bearer to a knight; but its special mean- ing is now obsolete, and so is that of a degree. The title of B.A. certainly does not imply that its possessor is capable of acting as a University teacher, but simply that he possesses a certain amount of culture—generally, indeed, vastly inferior to that of a Tutor or Professor. So completely had degrees lost their original meaning that from the period of the Restoration to the year 1800 the degree of B.A. was given without examination, and simply indicated four years of pupilary residence, and therefore an unknown quantity of knowledge. Well, that is very nearly the position that the degree of B.D. is in at the present time. It has no significance either of high learning or of teaching power. The University of Oxford has cast off its legitimate duties of examination upon the Bishops of the Episcopal Church, for its only evidence of the learning and capacity of the candidate is that he shall be in Priest's Orders, the whole of the University duty being to hear three sermons on subjects contained in the Holy Scriptures. I would prefer to speak of the degrees as being those of theology rather than of divinity, for the former indicates the science of the subject with which we were dealing. Now, I think it will be of great value to these degrees if they are made subjects of knowledge, but not merely of a particular form of belief, for then the University would be forced to resume its proper functions of examination. The field of theological science is a wide one, and ought in national Universities to be open to the members of every Church. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government asks what subjects could be included in such degrees, and how are they to be defined? I will reply by reading an extract from the Edinburgh University Calendar—

"This degree shall be conferred only after the candidate has completed his theological curriculum with a view to the ministry in the Church or denomination to which he belongs, and after he has passed a satisfactory examination in the various branches of theology which are taught in the University—namely, the Evidences of Revealed Religion, Systematic Theology, Hebrew, Ecclesiastical History, Biblical Criticism, and Biblical Antiquities."

Surely, this curriculum is large enough to distinguish theology as a science. In this scheme there is no exclusion of any kind. A Unitarian or a Roman Catholic may take a degree, provided that, in addition to a knowledge of their own dogmas, they are able also to explain the answers which the Trinitarians would give to the former and the Protestants to the latter. The candidates are not asked to express any particular form of belief, far less a special form of it laid down by law, but only to exhibit what they know; and knowledge of dogmas is a part of systematic theology. The Scotch Universities even accept a theological curriculum outside of themselves; but the Amendment of my hon. Friend does not hope to achieve such an instance of liberality. In conclusion, I support his Amendment, because I believe that it will render our Universities wholly national, and because it will raise the standard of theological degrees by fixing upon the Universities their proper functions of examination, and restoring to such degrees those securities of culture and knowledge which their possession professes to imply.

said, he was much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for the very candid admission which he had just made. The hon. Gentleman said the scope of this Bill was to emancipate two out of the three great branches of knowledge from belief. The hon. Gentleman wanted to emancipate the third — theology. Therefore they had the admission plainly and roundly from his own mouth that there was such a thing as unbelieving theology—that theology or divinity might be consistent with unbelief. It was evident that it was his intention, and the intention of the hon. Member who moved this Amendment (Mr. Stevenson), and he supposed of that mysterious majority of independent Liberals who supported the Government, to separate theology from belief, and to set up a great standard of unbelief as the scope of the religious teaching in our English Universities. The hon. Member who had just spoken, notwithstanding his learning and acuteness, had, he regretted to say, committed two great blunders. The hon. Member said he used the word "theology" rather than "divinity," because he assumed it to be of some different colour. But the word "divinity" was simply derived from the Latin word for God, and the word "theology" from the Greek word for God. That was the only difference. But then the hon. Gen- tleman appealed to the old idea that a degree implied teaching, and he talked of emancipating degrees of divinity from the control of the Bishops. Was the hon. Gentleman aware that a person could not take the first degree in divinity till seven years after he had obtained a Master's degree? But, to come to the main question, how were they to work the plan of granting degrees in theology to unbelievers? Were the existing faculties to be the examiners, or was there to be a separate external Board? Or, in the third place, were they to duplicate, triplicate, or multiply twenty-fold the different degrees of divinity? Were all the different denominations to have their own degrees? He traversed the suggestion of the hon. Gentleman that there was any great feeling among the sects of the country for opening the divinity degrees. No doubt the movement for opening the Universities was generally popular, and this Bill was the legitimate expression of it; but there was no expression of a desire on the part of any Nonconformist body for opening the theological degrees, because they knew they could not do so without diminishing their power to enforce their own belief on their own ministers. They knew that to open the divinity degree would be to make a latitudinarian degree. He should certainly vote against the Amendment.

, in supporting the Amendment, said the principle of the Bill was that the Universities ought not to belong to the Church of England, but to the whole country. The desire to carry out that principle was the motive which actuated those who had supported the various Bills for the abolition of tests in the Universities. He could not understand why the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. B. Hope) should wish to retain the few miserable scraps remaining of the old system. Now, one of the tests which his hon. Friend (Mr. Stevenson) wished to remove had for its object to confine certain degrees in the University to members of the Church of England. His hon. Friend opposite (Mr. B. Hope) argued that the test must be retained because divinity was of a certain character. He (Mr. Buxton) altogether denied that. He ventured to think there was a science of theology which had no connection with one Church more than another, and it was that, and that alone, which Professors of Theology ought to be permitted to teach. He thought it was most desirable that a Bill like the present, which embodied so important a principle, should be a complete and consistent measure, should carry out that distinctive principle to the uttermost, and should make our Universities just as much the property and privilege of the Nonconformists as of the members of the Established Church.

rose to take notice of an expression of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, that the Bill was a sequel of the events of last Session. On the contrary, he believed that, in the opinion of those out-of-doors, and of a majority of those who supported the right hon. Gentleman in that House, this Bill was not regarded as the proper sequel of the events of last Session. The only fit and legitimate sequel to the dilatory action of the House of Lords would have been a Bill abolishing all religious distinctions whatever in reference to the degrees, honours, and privileges of our Universities; and it would be better that this Bill should not pass than that it should pass in its present shape, retaining any portions, no matter how small, of those distinctions. The hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. B. Hope) had spoken of dissociating belief from divinity, and he went on to speak of unbelief. Now, he begged to remark that certain persons were too fond of charging with unbelief those who did not hold the same belief as themselves; but he would remind the Committee that sincere and earnest belief might very well exist quite independently of belief in the theological dogmas of the Church of England. The time had certainly come to assert this principle, seeing that Convocation had recently ejected from the task of Biblical revision a most distinguished and competent scholar, simply because his religious opinions differed in some respects from those of the Episcopal Bench. There was a time when the theologians of this country ranked high among their brethren in the world; but he was afraid that that time had gone by, and if they were to put an end to criticism by a hard and fast line like that imposed by the Act of Uniformity, he did not believe the theology of this country would ever re-gain the position which he should like to see it hold as a science.

said, he had not intended to take any part in this discussion, and rose merely to notice a most extraordinary misrepresentation by the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. B. Hope) of a remark which had fallen from the hon. Member for the Edinburgh and St. Andrew's Universities (Dr. Lyon Playfair). The hon. Member opposite had said that his hon. Friend had advocated that theology should be emancipated from belief—that was, from any belief. But that was not the recommendation of his hon. Friend, for what he had said was that he wished theology to be emancipated from the belief imposed by law—in other words, from Church of England belief. Was that unreasonable or wrong? It seemed to him quite the contrary. It meant, in fact, the emancipation of men from the immorality of conforming with their lips to points of doctrine which many who took the test did not believe in their hearts. He had always been a strong opponent of tests for that very reason; and not only for what they excluded, but also for what they admitted. They were injurious to religion; they diminished the sanctity of oaths; and while they opened the door wide to infidels, they shut it in the face of many conscientious believers. No argument was necessary in these days to prove the uselessness of tests as means for securing uniformity of opinion in the Church. Was it not well known that every diversity of belief and unbelief was to be found in those Governing Bodies that had taken all those tests; aye, and even among the clergy of the Church of England itself? Hon. Gentlemen talked of unity of belief as the great duty and advantage. Did they attain it? Were not the diversities of belief in the Church of England a daily scandal, its weakness and its shame? How many tests had been taken from the day of his first degree to that of his consecration by Bishop Colenso? Had not the High Church and the Low Church parties censured the Prime Minister for having appointed to a bishopric a contributor to the Essays and Reviews? From the first day that he entered the House he had always been an enemy of tests. He had opposed them on every occasion, and he should therefore feel bound to support the Amendment.

trusted that when the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Horsman) again read him a lecture he would inform himself of the point at issue and of the general course of the debate. No one was talking of tests. The question under discussion was divinity degrees, for which no one could be a candidate who was not in Orders in the Church of England. All who had addressed the Committee before the right hon. Gentleman had spoken to the point, though on different sides.

rose to propose an Amendment, the object of which, he said, was to render the Bill more complete, logical, and satisfactory. If it were carried the result would be that clerical as well as lay tests would be abolished, and those restrictions done away with which were imposed in favour of clerical Fellowships and. Headships. No proposal, he ventured to state, would meet with a more unanimous support from the Liberals throughout the country than that which he was about to make, and there was not one of them, he felt assured, who would not concur in the opinion that a measure which should continue clerical Fellowships and Headships would not provide a solution of the question at issue even for a single hour. The Committee were well aware of the injustice and the wrong which were inflicted on distinguished students at the Universities, who, after an illustrious career there, were, at the last moment, because they did not happen to belong to the Church of England, deprived of honours which were much coveted and prized. He would not take up the time of hon. Members by entering into the history of such exclusiveness; the country had condemned it, and it was now maintained only by the vote of an irresponsible branch of the Legislature. Mischievous and unjust as were lay tests, clerical tests were not less so in their influence. Anyone who was acquainted with the Universities must be aware of the baneful effect which was produced on young men of 22 or 23 by prizes of £300 a year and a valuable position, tempting them to enter into Holy Orders at a time when their characters and tastes were still unformed, and thus to take an ill-considered step, which afterwards they found it impossible to retrace. Many hon. Members would, no doubt, be surprised to hear that if the Bill were to pass in its present shape one-third of the Fellowships and three-fourths of the Headships at Oxford would be left untouched by its provisions. At Cambridge nearly three-fourths of the Headships and the most valuable of the Fellowships could only be held by persons in Holy Orders. It was a mockery, therefore, to say that this measure would make the Universities great national institutions to which all Her Majesty's subjects, of whatever religious opinions, would be admitted on fair and equitable terms. The Prime Minister did not dispute that the principle advocated by the Amendment was a sound one, nor that clerical Fellowships were indefensible, but gave the extraordinary reason for supporting it that it was necessary to the success of the Bill to send it up to the other House in the same form in which it had been presented last Session. Suppose, being anxious in the same way to consult the feelings of the Peers, the right hon. Gentleman had introduced last year only a partial measure for the disendowment and disestablishment of the Irish Church, and the Peers had practically rejected it by referring the Bill to a Select Committee! He (Mr. Fawcett) did not wish to be disrespectful to the House of Lords; but he thought the best way to treat that Assembly, as well as political opponents in this House, was to be perfectly fair and candid with them. It was not well to send up a measure to the other House with a reservation behind it that a larger proposal should supplement it by-and-by. The fairest plan was to say at once what measure would satisfy the country and the Liberal party in this House. He was sure the Upper House would much more appreciate such a policy. Without pretending to speak in the name of either, he believed he was echoing an opinion shared by many when he said that a settlement of the question would not be obtained and that no solution would be satisfactory until they abolished not only lay tests, but also clerical tests, from our Universities. The hon. Member for Bristol (Mr. Morley), on the opening day of the Session, had stated that it was the wish of the great majority of the nation to settle the question for ever. It was with that view he (Mr. Fawcett) proposed the Amendment. After an agitation which had lasted ten years the Universities required peace and repose. Many men there who were originally in favour of maintaining these tests would say—"Do not let this question he treated piecemeal; if tests are to be abolished, let them be abolished once for all." With such a majority as they had in that House, it was not creditable to the Liberal party to toy and retain what he could not abstain from calling these miserable snips and remnants of ecclesiastical ascendency. With their abolition, and not till then, the Universities would become great national institutions, all classes being equally entitled to the advantages which those ancient seats of learning afforded. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving to leave out Proviso 1.

said, he had voted against the Amendment last year, but he intended to support it on the present occasion. The principle involved in it was really the principle of the Bill. The question was whether you were entitled to look to a man's theological opinions in considering whether he was entitled to obtain a Fellowship. To his mind the present system was putting a premium upon hypocrisy, and he doubted whether the men got by that bait were worth the having. The whole of the conditions on which Fellowships were held wanted revision. Celibacy, for example, was an absurd condition. So was the condition that a man who had land worth £300 a year must not hold a Fellowship; whereas if he made £5,000 a year at the Bar or £50,000 by commerce it did not matter. He once knew a former Member of that House, a Queen's Counsel, who was a Fellow of Cambridge for 52 years, and who never entered the doors of his College except for the purpose of punishing its wines. He thought the question of Fellowships should be dealt with as a whole.

said, that the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had taken the conduct of the Bill, which had last Session been introduced by the Solicitor General, not because the First Minister believed that he or anyone else could conduct it more ably than the Solicitor General had conducted it, but in order to mark, in the most emphatic way, that it was to be considered as a Government measure. In return for the greater chance which this would afford of the Bill passing, was it unfair that even those who were strongly in favour of the Amendment should be expected to yield to the wish of the Minister that the Bill should be left in its present shape; that they should be expected to say—"As men looking to the practical result of our actions, we cannot vote for the Amendment because Ministers inform us that thereby the Bill will be imperilled, and, indeed, intimate that it will be impossible for them to carry it up to the House of Lords if this Amendment is adopted?" He (Sir Francis Goldsmid) heard Gentlemen cheer just now, because the minority in favour of the former Amendment was larger than had been expected; but if the minority had been converted into a majority, would they have cheered then? If they would, that cheer would have been the knell of the measure. ["No!"] Under this impression, as he would never vote in a minority simply because it was a minority, and as he was convinced that the success of the Amendment would be fatal to the Bill, he thought that, though abstractedly favourable to the Amendment, he was acting quite consistently, as a practical man, in voting against it.

said, the Amendment had been declared to be alien from the character of the Bill. Now, what was the object and character of the Bill? The object of the Bill was to completely overthrow religious inequality at the Universities; but how could anyone admit this object would be carried out as long as the holding of certain Fellowships was confined not only to the members of, but actually to the clergy of, a particular sect? The Amendment of the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) had been objected to last year on the ground that serious practical difficulties would prevent its being carried out; but those practical difficulties really amounted to next to nothing, and the Amendment of this year, which, had been drawn by gentlemen of great experience in such matters, completely avoided them. It had been said, too, that the Amendment would destroy the prospect of the Bill passing the House of Lords; he, however, thought it would be a material aid to that end. It might be argued that, considering how ready the House of Lords had been to throw out moderate Bills, a violent measure might stand as good a chance with them; in any case they would have the opportunity of sending the Bill back without the Amendment, and passing the rest of it on the basis of the surrender of the clerical Fellowships by this House. That was the really practical view of the matter. He had been in the habit of dividing clerical Fellows into two classes, clerical Fellows with white ties and clerical Fellows without white ties. The first class opposed almost every proposal to liberalize the Colleges; and though they acted from the purest motives, their actions had been by no means beneficial. The other class comprised those gentlemen who took Holy Orders for no other purpose but to enable them to hold Fellowships; for immediately they acquired the position they put aside all the outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace, which they knew they did not possess, and became, to all appearance, non-clerical. It was hard to say which of these two classes it was most desirable to get rid of—the first, which obstructed all progress, or the other, which poisoned it at its source. On a full consideration of the matter he could come to no other conclusion than that those on the Ministerial side of the House should unhesitatingly vote with the hon. Member for Brighton.

presumed it would be no surprise to the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) to hear that the Government could not possibly accept the Amendment he had proposed; and, although it was no doubt true of the majority of those who sat on that side of the House, as the hon. Member had stated, that they owed their seats mainly to the Nonconformist body—certainly it was his own case as the representative of the city of Exeter—yet the Government did not think that by rejecting this Amendment they did anything to disentitle them to the future support of any fair judging Nonconformist. First of all, whatever might be the opinion of academical reformers within the walls of the Universities, there had been no external action taken by them in any such direction. A deputation, representing a number of the most important Nonconforming Bodies in the country, had an interview with the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, and they deliberately desired that the measure should go up in its present shape with whatever aid the influence of the Government could lend it. Nor did he think that the Government were doing anything inconsistent with the desires of non-academical reformers, being moved by the hope that it would thus speedily become law. The object of the Bill was simply to render the Universities and the Colleges within them, in matters of academical degrees and offices, just as they would have been if no Act of Parliament had been passed in an opposite direction; it repealed all restrictions placed on the Universities by Acts of Parliament; it left untouched all such restrictions as were imposed by their own statutes. To do more than to deal with Parliamentary restriction would be to go beyond the province of the Bill, and in this the Government assumed an intelligent position, which they were entitled to maintain in the face of the House of Commons. Personally, however, he freely admitted, he believed, in common with any fair-minded man on the other side of the House, that the present condition of the Fellowship question was not satisfactory or could be maintained. In fact, it needed speedy amendment. In 1854 the Government of the day endeavoured, in vain, to induce the House of Commons to legislate upon it; but legislation was refused. So far as he knew about his own University, those who were most in earnest for the reform of Oxford were of opinion that there was not at present sufficient information to enable them to legislate satisfactorily or finally on a question which required such great care. It would be understood that he was not speaking to bind anyone but himself; yet, certainly, for his own part, he should be glad to see a proper inquiry ordered into the state of the Colleges and the funds of the Colleges—a thoroughly searching inquiry to ascertain what were the academical resources of the Colleges, and how they could be best applied for fulfilling the objects for which they were designed. By this Amendment it was proposed to deal with only one fragment of the very complicated questions arising out of the statutes. It was proposed to repeal a test which was no test at all—a College statute indicating that certain persons, members of Colleges, should be put to an academical test. The Government dealt with the word test in this Bill in the ordinary acceptation of the word, and left perfectly untouched the anomalies pointed out, because they were connected with another branch of the Bill. Of course, if the anomaly existed of a man with an income of £5,000 holding a Fellowship of £300, it should be at once remedied. The objection to requiring Fellows to be celibates was not so sound, because some difficulty would be found in governing the Colleges of Oxford by a set of married Fellows. He hoped that the great party on which the Government had to lean for support would see that this was a practical question, and not merely one upon which they ought to vote for the sake of giving a vote. The measure had been brought in bonâ fide for the purpose of passing it, and they had every hope that if it were allowed to be pressed forward this year it would be passed into law. It would be a great and beneficial change, both in the Universities and the Colleges as it stood, and he trusted the Committee would do nothing to prevent its passing in its present shape, which was the only form in which it could pass with the approval of the Government.

said, the reasoning of his hon. and learned Friend (the Solicitor General) had failed to convince him. His hon. and learned Friend had said that the Amendment proposed was part of a great question which would have to be dealt with separately; but it was just that part with which the present Bill purported to deal. The preamble of the Bill recited that it was a "Bill for the Abolition of Tests." Now, he could see no distinction in principle between imposing tests at the outset of a man's University career, and telling him ultimately that he would be deprived of the fruits of his learning and intellectual superiority if, within a given time, he did not enter into Holy Orders. In fact, unless this Amendment were adopted, the Bill would be inconsistent. His hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Sir Francis Goldsmid) seemed to imply that hon. Members who were going to support this Amendment would do so because they knew they would be voting in a minority. He voted on the last occasion, as he should do in the coming Division, with no expectation of being in a minority; and he could only regret that the minority was composed of men who were among the most earnest supporters of Her Majesty's Government. He gave full credit to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government for his desire to give effect to the claims of the Nonconformists; but the Government were mistaken in the course which they had adopted. He, for one, could not understand why more respect had been shown to the House of Lords, who had rejected the Bill, than to the great bulk of the Liberal party, who had voted for it. Nor could he understand how respect would be shown to the House of Lords by sending them back the Bill in the same form in which it had been before them on the last occasion. He regretted to find himself at variance with the right hon. Gentleman; but he felt bound to vote for the Amendment.

explained that he had not intended to express any opinion about the expectations with which hon. Members had voted for the Amendment.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dews-bury (Mr. Serjeant Simon) has referred, in very kind terms, to the feelings by which we have been influenced in introducing this Bill, and has shown every disposition to appreciate the position in which we find ourselves placed. I will not go over the general argument of the Solicitor General, because I subscribe to everything which he has stated. Everyone conversant with the state of the Universities will admit that the whole subject of Fellowships requires to be dealt with in a comprehensive manner. This is no new opinion of mine. When the Bill relating to the Universities was introduced in 1854 it was framed very carefully with this object in view; but we found that the difficulties of the time and the circumstances were so great, and the House was so unwilling to entertain the subject, and to deal extensively with the conditions attaching to the tenure of Fellowships, that we were compelled to recede from our undertaking. I wish to grapple with the leading proposition of my hon. and learned Friend who has just sat down. My hon. and learned Friend has made an appeal to me, and I will in turn make one to him. He says it is not respectful to the House of Lords to send back to them a measure which they have rejected. Now, the House of Lords, in the exercise of its discretion—I refer to this as a matter of history—thought fit not to pass this Bill; but they did not reject it. It may be said by those who are disposed to take a strict view of the proceedings of the House of Lords, that they adopted an indirect method of getting rid of it. Any hon. Member who chooses is freely at liberty to entertain and urge that opinion. Her Majesty's Government are not free to urge it; it would not be fair or just, in our view, to say that the House of Lords had taken an oblique course for the purpose of getting rid, indirectly, of what they did not choose to get rid of directly. Consider the facts. It was on the 14th of July that the Bill was presented to the House of Lords last year, and it was the first time that it had been presented to them as a positively enacting measure, and as a measure introduced upon the responsibility of the Government. At that moment we had just sent to the House of Lords the Irish Land Bill and the English Education Bill, in addition to all the other measures of the Session. There were also circumstances connected with the University of Oxford in particular to which I might refer; but I think it would be a harsh and uncharitable judgment to pass upon the House of Lords—much as I regret their proceedings—if we were to assume that their Lordships had definitively rejected this very measure. The Bill is one which has been taken into the hands of the Government, in compliance with the wishes of the great bulk of its supporters; and we, as a Government, are bound to deal with it in accordance with those principles of respect which should regulate the conduct of the Government in dealing with the other branch of the Legislature. We were met last year by the House of Lords with a request for information which we considered totally unnecessary. But remembering that the House of Lords arrived at a different conclusion, and that the search for information made it impossible for them to proceed with the Bill last year, we should have failed in our duty to that House if we had not taken the opportunity of allowing them again to consider the very same measure which they had not rejected, but laid aside. And we should equally have failed in our duty to the supporters of the measure in the House of Commons if we had not used our best diligence and exertion to introduce the Bill at the commencement of the Session, and to pass it with all the expedition and despatch in our power. I was rather surprised at the speech of the hon. Member for Reading (Sir Francis Goldsmid), in which he laid such stress upon the supposed relations between the Government and the House of Lords; but the hon. Gentleman is quite right in supposing that we are desirous that the measure should go to the House of Lords under circumstances giving it the best chance of passing into law. I do not presume to find fault with those who take a different course; but in undertaking the conduct of this Bill, we did not conceal what we thought to be right and possible in the position in which we then stood. Those who are interested in this measure, after learning the decision of the Government, still persist in the request that we should undertake the conduct of the measure, and urge it forward as we best could. It is under these circumstances that we ask the Committee to vote against the Amendment.

reminded the Committee that those hon. Gentlemen who intended to vote for the Amendment would not be adopting any new course in consequence of the rejection of the Bill by the House of Lords last year. The course of the Government was quite consistent. They introduced the Bill last year, and adhered to it in the shape in which it was introduced and proposed to the House of Lords. The course of those who agreed with the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) was quite as consistent, because they proposed and voted last year for the Amendments for which they were now going to vote. Consequently, whatever had been done by the House of Lords had no effect upon their proceedings. He voted this year as he voted last year; he voted on the same Resolution, and upon the same principles, and he would not be a party to per- Petuating any religious tests in the Universities.

said, it was not his intention to move the additional clauses of which he had given Notice, as they all had reference to the question raised by the Amendment which had just been rejected. But he thought it right to say this—that the answer was a very remarkable one, for probably a Liberal Government, on a question involving Liberal principles, had never found so few of their supporters voting with them, and been opposed by so many of their strongest and best supporters. He ventured to express a hope that the Government would ponder well upon this matter, and that the constituencies would also look to it. He would not now move the new clauses of which he had given Notice, but he would raise the point again upon the Report.

said, the hon. Member having stated that he hoped the Government would ponder upon this subject, his answer was that they had done so; that their decision was taken, and that it was irrevocable. Of course, the hon. Gentleman could take whatever course he pleased.

moved, so that he might be in order in addressing the Committee, that the Chairman be directed to report Progress. He had not meant to say that the right hon. Gentleman had not pondered upon this question; but it was impossible for the right hon. Gentleman, or for anyone else, to have known beforehand that the question which was rejected by a large majority last Session would have been carried by the narrow majority of 22, made up almost entirely by Conservative votes, this Session. What he asked the right hon. Gentleman to do was to consider not the question itself, but the strong and almost unanimous wish expressed on this subject by his strongest and his best supporters.

assured his hon. Friend, when he said they had pondered this question, he did not mean that he was not sensible of the sentiments so strongly expressed, under such circumstances, by so large a proportion of those who sat on that (the Ministerial) side of the House. He did not undervalue the vote in the slightest degree; but if a Government had stated its decision, and if that decision had been taken in consequence of what it felt to be due from itself as the Executive of the country to one branch of the Legislature, his hon. Friend's candour would show him that it was impossible to uproot that decision in deference to any state of parties represented by a minority in the House of Commons. He did not speak in the slightest degree under the influence of impatience or disappointment; but he simply meant to convey to the hon. Member, in order that he might not be deceived, their settled purpose not to deviate from a perfectly clear and indisputable position of the constitutional duty of the Government in their relations to another branch of the Legislature.

said, he would withdraw his Motion for reporting Progress.

, in moving, in page 2, line 44, after subsection 2 insert the following:—

"3. Nothing in this Act shall open any office to any person who is not a member of the Church of England where such office is by the intention of the founder or donor confined to a member of the said Church, and where the income of such office is payable out of the produce of property or moneys given by private persons out of their own resources since the year one thousand five hundred and sixty-two,"

said, that last year the House had not the advantage of the presence of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government when they were discussing this question, and, indeed, he had observed that until quite recently the right hon. Gentleman had never been able to look it in the face. Very probably the right hon. Gentleman recollected the number of years during which he was a consistent opponent of the Bill, and it was only since he had been compelled by the pressure of his supporters to introduce the measure as one belonging to the Government that he had been good enough to give the House the benefit of his presence on these discussions. The right hon. Gentleman, in introducing the measure, said the controversy was almost exhausted, and he defied human ingenuity to introduce any novelty into it; but to-night he had had the advantage of seeing that a vast deal of novelty might be introduced into it, and that many of his own supporters would be satisfied with nothing less than the total disestablishment of the Church of England and the abolition of religious education. The speeches which had been made by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway on the Ministerial side of the House, showed clearly that concession to those hon. Gentlemen was of no use whatever, but would only lead to further demands, and that their Nonconformist supporters would be satisfied with neither more nor less than the utter destruction of the rights of property. The principle of the Amendment which he (Mr. C. Bentinck) now offered to the House was, that when a private person out of his own private resources contributed to or created an endowment for any particular purpose, that endowment ought to stand. That principle was consistent with justice, with equity, and with a due regard to the rights of property, and it had always been acknowledged by the laws of that country. The antecedents of the right hon. Gentleman on this subject were somewhat peculiar. While he was Member for the University of Oxford he always opposed this Bill, and even for two years subsequent to his defeat in 1856 he either abstained from voting or voted against the Bill of the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Bouverie) to abolish the Act of Uniformity. But on the 16th of March, 1868, the right hon. Gentleman rose in his place and denounced all Establishments by declaring against that of the Church of Ireland; and in the following month of July he went into the same Lobby with the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock and the hon. and learned Solicitor General on the University Tests Bill, without offering one word of apology or one word in defence of his conduct. The following year—1869—the right hon. Gentleman brought in his Irish Church Bill; and in that Bill the Government incorporated a proposal exactly similar to that which was embodied in the Amendment, the words of which were taken from the clause in the measure referred to. The ground taken then was that gifts of the property of private persons from private sources should be respected, going back as far as 1660—a date which neither the right hon. Gentleman himself nor anyone else could give any logical reason for choosing. The right hon. Gentleman stated the conditions that ought to attach to such gifts—first, that each ought to be a contribution or endowment from the private resources of a private person; second, that it ought to be devoted to the maintenance of some particular religion; and, third, that it ought to be clear what the religion was. In the other House it was arranged that a lump sum should be taken by the Church in respect of these private endowments. He desired to know what reason there was why the same principle should not be applied to the private endowments of the English Universities. It was impossible to say that the former case, being that of a Church, constituted a difference, for many of the foundations in the Colleges within the Universities were designed to educate men for the ministry of the Church. A great confusion existed in the minds of some with reference to the term "University." It was said that the Universities should be thrown open to all men—and so they were to a very great extent. It was competent for any religious body to create an endowment in one of our Universities, and employ it for the education of members of their particular community. Very few restrictions remained to be removed to throw the Universities open to all Her Majesty's subjects; and he did not apprehend that any considerable number of Members on his own side of the House would object to a measure having that effect only. This measure, however, effected more, for it took property which, according to law, and according to the intentions of the founder, was devoted to the Church of England, from that Church. The grievance alleged by hon. Members opposite, below the Gangway, was that a non-member of the Church of England could not enjoy the privilege of a Fellowship. Could he enjoy the benefit of any other endowment founded by a private person under similar restrictions? Certainly not. Mr. Aldis, a Baptist, who took a high degree at Cambridge a few years ago, and who did not take a Fellowship, had published a pamphlet on the subject of the University Tests, which contained some great misrepresentations. Among other things he stated, in answer to the objection that the Fellowships were private foundations derived from the bequests of members of the Church of England, and that therefore it would be an infraction of the laws of property to throw them open to Nonconformists, that the objection was untrue, for all the Colleges at Cambridge, except three, were founded before the Reformation, and that therefore if they were founded for the benefit of any particular religion it must have been the Roman Catholic one. But Dr. Guest, a most distinguished member of the University of Cambridge, had shown that that statement was far removed from the truth, and that in his own College—King's College—£6,000 a year was derived from endowments given since the Reformation, while 22 Fellowships out of 32, and most of the Scholarships, had been founded since 1658. Dr. Guest went on to say that the Solicitor General proposed to sweep away all those benefactions, and that it would be just as fair for him to lay his hands on Mr. Spurgeon's Tabernacle, and convert it to national uses. If the principle of this Bill were adopted where were we to stop? Last year the Roman Catholics protested against any investigation being made into their property, and it was well known that both in this country and in Ireland they possessed a large amount of private property applied to religious uses; and why should their property be untouched if the property of the Church of England were dealt with in this way? The present Bill had neither logic nor sense to support it—it was a measure of simple confiscation, which might ultimately hit the Nonconformists and the Roman Catholics as hard as it hit the Church of England at the present moment. He quite agreed with his hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General that the Fellowships were not in a satisfactory state. It was never intended that they should be what they had become—a kind of speculation for undergraduates who went up at a comparatively late period of life, well crammed. Their object was to encourage learning in the university and the better instruction of the Undergraduates at less cost to themselves. The hon. and junior Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) was a Fellow of a College himself—not an honorary Fellow, but a Fellow receiving dividends. He was also a Professor, in receipt of a considerable salary from the University Chest. He was a pluralist, and not only a pluralist, but an abuse. He hoped, therefore, the hon. and junior Member for Brighton would repent, and either immediately resign his Fellowship or his Professorship. ["Divide!"] Considering that hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway on the other side of the House had occupied two hours in badgering the Government, he thought they ought to allow him a quarter of an hour in which to state an intelligible principle. They always wished to stop discussion unless the discussion came from their own part of the House. With regard to the Roman Catholic Members of the House, they were bound by those who sent them to defend every scrap of property belonging to their Church; but seeing that their own endowments at Maynooth had been respected by Parliament, he did not see how they could possibly vote for the confiscation of the private property of the Church of England. He believed that the majority of the Nonconformists of this country did not desire to see the Church of England disestablished, or its University property confiscated; and so far as the Government were concerned, he called upon the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, if he had any particle of political principle left, to abide by his own decision, never yet revoked, and his own principle, never yet denied but used in support of the Irish Church Bill.

said, he did not think the Motion of the hon. Gentleman should be entertained. The hon. Member said that in the case of the Irish Church Bill the Government proposed to reserve to the Church — a religious body about to be disestablished — such of its possessions as might fairly be considered to be in the nature, upon the whole, of donations for the support of a particular religion. If they were able to disestablish the religious education of the Universities at one stroke by this Bill, as they disestablished the Irish Church, he would not say that there might not be a very fair argument to be made in support of some proposition of this kind for the purpose of saving the special character of special foundations. But such was not the effect of this Bill. When it was first introduced many of its supporters were in the habit of urging that it left behind ample securities for religious education in the Universities and Colleges. That was his opinion, and without entertaining a conviction of that kind he could not have brought himself to give his support to the measure; and he thought that the House would be of opinion that in connection with a Bill which did not prohibit the religion of the Church of England, and which did not detach absolutely all the emoluments of the Universities from the offices and professions connected with the Church of England, it would be entirely premature and out of place to except from its operation any of those endowments of the Universities or Colleges which were not in the nature of private bequests.

said, he was unable to see the distinction drawn by the right hon. Gentleman. This Bill, to a certain extent, did disestablish—or, at all events, it diverted—property from one object and applied it to another, different from that intended by the founders. These being trusts under the wills of the founders, the Bill was not dealing with matters under an Act of Parliament, but with private wills and deeds. The acceptance of the Amendment would have the effect of promoting further consideration of the subject of Fellowships, in regard to which there were many questions deserving of discussion. For instance, there was some doubt as to whether life Fellowships were advantageous, and whether the holders of such offices were not deprived of a healthy stimulus to cultivate their intellectual powers, and were not diverted from pursuits which would be honourable to themselves, and useful to society. He could assure the Committee that recent legislation had had the effect of making men think very carefully about the application of these properties to purposes of this kind, for they felt at present that they had no guarantee that their bequests would not be appropriated to uses which they had never contemplated.

said, he had been on a Committee which had inquired respecting a great mass of property provided by Roman Catholics for establishing convents and monasteries. The Roman Catholics professed that they were obliged to keep their trusts secret in order to save their property, as the purposes to which it was appropriated were contrary to law. Now, some of the supporters of the present Bill voted against the appointment of that Committee, with the view of preserving that property thus illegally held, and would have the House divert from its purposes property which was legally held. Such a tendency in legislation showed that Liberalism inclined towards Communism, and he, for one, objected to transferring to other objects property which was now legally and beneficially applied to specified purposes.

said, that after what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman, and having regard to the hour of the night, he thought he should be doing better service by allowing the Bill to go in its integrity than by pressing his Motion. He would, therefore, withdraw his Motion.

, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the Laws relating to procedure at Parliamentary and Municipal Elections, and for other purposes connected therewith, said: Sir, I feel that an apology is due from me to the House for bringing forward this Bill, when it would naturally expect it to be done by my noble Friend (the Marquess of Hartington), who brought forward a similar Bill last year with so much ability, and who also acted as Chairman of the Select Committee appointed by the House to inquire into this subject. The reason why I have charge of the measure is that it requires not only to be introduced, but if its principle is—as I trust it will be on the second reading — accepted by the House, it will then have to be carried through Committee; and it is doubtful whether my noble Friend, with the duties of the Office that he now has to fulfil, would be able to give his time to this matter. The same remark applies also to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department. With regard to myself, although I have a good deal of administrative work to do, as I have no legislative work at present in hand, it fell to me to take charge of this Bill. I shall not, however, take advantage of that fact to trespass on the attention of the House with arguments on the abstract question of the Ballot. The question has been debated so frequently in the House, and the opinion of the House has been pronounced upon it so clearly, that I do not think it necessary to occupy its time with the arguments for and against the abstract principle of the Ballot. I may just briefly state that almost from the very first moment when I took part in politics I have been in favour of the Ballot, on the ground that bribery and intimidation are two of the greatest evils we have to contend with in connection with our Parliamentary and representative system—and that the best way to prevent an evil is to stop the cause of it. The best way to prevent a crime is to stop the motives of that crime; and I conceive that the Ballot is by far the most likely mode of removing from men the temptation either to bribe or intimidate. On that ground I have always thought we should be more successful by the Ballot than by Corrupt Practices Acts, or by penalties, however stringent, in averting the evils so often complained of at our elections. Another ground for the adoption of the Ballot is, I think, that we have no right, in imposing on any man the duty of returning a representative, to expose him to great danger, especially when we can guard him against that danger, and protect him by so simple a mode. Even our opponents will acknowledge that the Ballot will have the advantage of enabling us to conduct our elections in an easier, quieter, and more orderly manner. I think, indeed, nobody disputes that, comparing the elections in other parts of the world where the Ballot prevails with our own elections, where it does not prevail, the advantages of peace, order, and quietness in voting are much in favour of the Ballot, and this is an argument that applies with greater force as we increase the number of the electors. I just make these few remarks to show why I myself have long felt a great interest in this question, and, as I have said, I will not detain the House with arguments on the abstract question of the Ballot, although if it should hereafter be debated, I shall do my best to defend it. I, therefore, at once proceed to that part of the statement which hon. Members will expect me to make—namely, that which refers to any changes which have been made in this Bill as compared with the one brought in last year by my noble Friend (the Marquess of Hartington). I do not think I need dwell on those parts of the Bill which are the same as in the former Bill, because they were explained with such great clearness by my noble Friend—I mean the provisions as to the manner in which the Ballot was to be taken and in which the nominations were to be conducted. I may here state that one change which has been mentioned is not made in the Bill. I have seen it stated that possibly a permissive Ballot would be introduced; but I cannot conceive any question to which the permissive principle of legislation would be applied with less advantage than to the Ballot. The result of having a permissive Ballot would be that we should make the Ballot the subject of a reform agitation in every constituency in the kingdom—a most undesirable result; and if there be one matter on which it is more important that the House should give a clear opinion than another it is the mode in which its Members should be elected—a mode which ought to be the same throughout the country. Well, the first great change made from the Bill of last year is that we now include municipal voting along with Parliamentary voting. The grounds on which we have made that change are these — In the first place, the Report of the Committee stated that there was reason for adopting the Ballot in municipal elections almost, if not quite, as much as in Parliamentary elections. My own impression is, that there is perhaps not so much intimidation at municipal elections, although they are not without it; there is a great deal of influence on the part of men of property and employers, but not perhaps that gross form of intimidation that we have to complain of at Parliamentary elections. But there is a great deal of treating and bribery, though not perhaps with such large sums; and, at any rate, the municipal elections stand in this position—that they are so frequently made use of as a preparation for the Parliamentary elections that it is clear that any attempt to stop the evils of the one ought to be extended also to the other. In addition to that, it almost seems to me there is a particular evil connected with the mode of voting at municipal elections, and that is voting by voting papers, which the voter takes in, and which he may have signed before taking them in. Undoubtedly the plan of getting the voting papers filled up by the voters in the case of the election of guardians seems more especially to open the door to influence. The voting paper is delivered at a man's house and left with him for two or three days, and at any moment during that time any person may go to his house and either bribe or influence him to give his vote. The vote at municipal elections can, of course, be given only at a certain time; but it is open to the kind of influence I have mentioned. We have thought that if the Ballot should be established for the one class of elections, it ought to be also for the other; and I believe I may state that my noble Friend would have included a municipal Ballot in his Bill for instituting a Parliamentary Ballot if it had been thought at the time that precisely the same sort of Ballot would be applicable to the two kinds of elections. It was always intended that, after the establishment of a Parliamentary Ballot, there should be a municipal Ballot; but with the information they possessed last year the Government thought it might be necessary to take steps for the identification of Parliamentary votes after they had been given which would not have been requisite for municipal votes; and, therefore, it was deemed better to keep the two Bills distinct. This year we do not think that that necessity exists. And that brings me to the second change in our Bill, which is one of considerable importance, though one of detail, referring to the mode of taking votes by Ballot. In any Bill providing for vote by Ballot two conditions are necessary as to the machinery and manner of taking it. In the first place, I think all hon. Members will admit that the mode of taking the vote must be as simple as possible. I have had charge of this question but a very short time; but in that time the number of complicated machines for taking the Ballot that have been brought before me has quite astonished me at the wonderful ingenuity of those who take an interest in this matter. I dare say, if it had been a matter connected with my factory, I should have looked upon these contrivances with a great deal of interest and attention, as modes of manufacturing an article; but, in this particular case, we want them to be as simple as possible. It is not merely a machine that is very good if always skilfully handled and kept in good order that you require, but one that may be very badly handled, because the number of officials and people with whom you have to deal in the whole range of your voting are, many of them, so unacquainted with any complicated details that you must expect mistakes will be made wherever they can be made. The voters themselves will often be persons well qualified to say whom they prefer as their representatives, and yet unable to enter into the details of any complicated arrangement that would be successful if they did precisely as they were told, and did it also at the right time. I was quite surprised, at the late elections for the London school board, to find in how many cases men of great intelligence—although I gave them as few directions as possible—were unable to understand how they were bound to record their votes. I was afterwards told of two or three instances where it was signed, and in one case by a member of an electioneering firm, who had taken part in a great many elections throughout the country. We must therefore keep the machinery as simple as possible. The next condition that we have to fulfil is a very important one, because the very essence of the Ballot is that it should be completely secret. By that expression I mean that a voter should not be able to prove to anyone how he has voted, because were he able to do so the object of the Ballot would be defeated, inasmuch as the person who tried to bribe or to intimidate him can demand from him, as the condition of his receiving the bribe or avoiding the danger he puts over his head, that he should prove to him how he has voted. You are, therefore, paltering with the question unless you make up your mind that if you have the Ballot it shall be such a Ballot that the voter shall be prevented from proving how he has voted. In the Bill brought forward by my noble Friend (the Marquess of Hartington) last year, these conditions were almost entirely fulfilled, and the provisions relating to them have been repeated in the present measure. We require that no paper except the official paper shall be used—that is to say, that the object of the Ballot shall not be defeated by the use of a somewhat similar paper, which would enable it to be ascertained how the vote had been given. Another condition contained in the Bill of last year has also been adopted in the present measure, and that is, that the voting paper shall not be given to the voter until he enters the voting booth. This is a most important point, because in reviewing the results of the French elections under the Ballot system I have found that almost all the evils that have followed in their train have been occasioned by the fact that the Governments of the day, whether Republican or Imperial, have been accustomed to give the voting paper to the voter before he enters the booth. The third condition of the Bill of last year is also contained in the present measure—namely, that the voter shall not be permitted, to put any mark on his voting paper except that which is sufficient for him to show for whom he has voted. The vote will, therefore, be cancelled and void if the voter signs his name or takes any steps in respect of his voting to prove that he is the person who has given that vote. Having stated what are the objects of the Ballot and the stipulations necessary to secure them, I must now mention that there are three dangers for which I at once admit the Ballot system is obnoxious, and against which we have to guard. The first of those dangers is that the voting papers may be tampered with by the officials having charge of the election, or by persons of influence who might by some means get hold of them; the second is the possibility of the voting papers being forged; and the third is the danger—which I do not myself apprehend, but which I know is feared by some hon. Members, and which we must guard against as much as possible—of the possible increase in personation, arising from the supposition that personation may be easier under the Ballot than under the present system. The first two of these dangers are peculiar to the Ballot, but the third does not apply to it specially. I will deal with the last of these dangers first, because I regard it as being the most important of them. It would be very unjust to charge the Ballot with giving rise to personation. Personation exists under the present system. Many hon. Members know that personation votes have been recorded against them, and there may be others who, in the inward recesses of their own consciences, suspect that personation votes have been recorded in their favour. If we had the most secret of all possible systems of Ballot, without any possibility of identifying the votes afterwards, there would still be nothing to prevent the voter from being followed, if he votes, although it may be impossible to follow the vote. I heard it stated in the course of the election for the London school board that it was quite possible for a man to "vote early and vote often;" but I only wish that any hon. Members who agree with that remark had tried the experiment, because nothing is easier than that the name of each voter as he comes to the poll should be ticked off, by which means an attempt on his part to vote a second time would be at once discovered, when the man would be arrested and punished. Therefore, under the Ballot there is about as much danger of a man voting a second time as there is under the present system, but no more. I suppose that under the present system a reckless man may go from one polling-booth to another and so record his vote twice; but that such a thing should be possible is due to the manner in which the register is kept, and not to the method in which the vote is recorded. Now, let us take the case of a man voting in place of somebody else. I do not think it will be asserted that the Ballot would invent that form of improper voting, which is not unknown under the present system. If the perpetrator of such a fraud is discovered under the Ballot, he can, as under the present system, be arrested and punished. The probability of such a fraud being successful is just as likely under the existing plan as it would be under the Ballot. It has been argued that under the present system the vote could be followed and struck out; whereas under the Ballot the vote must stand, however illegally it may have been given. In order to meet this danger many plans have been devised for having a possible scrutiny. My noble Friend (the Marquess of Hartington) in his Bill of last year sought to achieve this object by adopting a system of counterfoils, and I believe that to be the best plan that could be devised for the purpose. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Leatham), whose name I cannot refrain from mentioning with honour in connection with the Ballot, suggested that some mark should be made upon the voting paper with invisible ink, which might be rendered visible by chemical means, and thus, as by a recording angel, the iniquity of the voter should be brought before the court. But although I myself prefer the plan of my noble Friend we came to the conclusion that it was not necessary to adopt either of the propositions. In the first place, by adopting either of them we should be taking away very much from the simplicity of the mode of voting; and, secondly, however careful we might be in devising regulations for conducting the arrangements according to the principles of the Ballot, it was felt that if we are to have the Ballot at all we ought to have it complete, so that the voter shall have perfect confidence that his vote will be secret. I have argued the question hitherto upon the assump- tion that it is desirable we should follow the vote, but I may now ask why we should attempt to follow the vote at all. No advocate of the Ballot proposes to enable this scrutiny to be made or the secresy of the vote to be violated, except in the case of the voter being found guilty of bribery and the vote being condemned as invalid in due course of law. In neither the Bill of the noble Lord nor in that of the hon. Member for Huddersfield was it proposed that a vote should be struck out until it had been proved to be invalid in a Court of Law—in fact, until the personation had been found out. Therefore, the inducement to detect the particular vote disappears, because the vote must have been detected already before it would be possible to attack it. It would have been necessary that some person should have had a strong suspicion that A had personated B, and that, having that suspicion, he should have brought the matter before a Court of Law, and that the Court of Law should have declared that he had proved his case before any scrutiny could, have been made. Thus the motive to follow up and to attack the vote would have been reduced to the very slightest possible. The man who would be inclined to put this machinery in motion would do so in order to unseat his opponent. The object hitherto in presenting an election petition has been to unseat the sitting Member for bribery, or other illegal practice, rather than to obtain a seat by a scrutiny. The cases in which scrutinies have been demanded have been very few indeed. We all know that in a very bad case the expense is so enormous that the parties almost always stop short before they reach the point of a scrutiny. I am, however, very desirous that the result of this Bill should be to diminish rather than to increase personation, and in framing the measure I found an omission in the last Corrupt Practices Act the remedy for which would give a defence against personation much stronger than any possible scrutiny could give. I found, that although a man loses his seat for bribing or treating, or attempting to bribe or treat, either personally or by his agents, he does not lose his seat for procuring or attempting to procure personation, but is simply guilty of a misdemeanour. We propose, therefore, to insert a clause placing the attempt at personation on the same ground as treating, and that a candidate who has had recourse to it shall be liable to be unseated. Another argument in favour of following the vote is that, if in a Court of Law it has been proved that a candidate has received a personated vote, it would be unfair for him—especially if the numbers ran close—to have the credit of the vote in the final result. We acknowledge this, and have provided that, where in a case of re-opening the question of the number of votes it is found that a personated vote has been given, a vote shall then be struck off from the total votes of the candidate who, through himself or his agents, has been proved to instigate personation, and at the same time we provide that where an elector tendering his vote finds some one else has voted for him the vote shall be kept aside and under certain circumstances counted for the candidate in whose favour he had intended to vote. This is a legal question somewhat difficult of explanation; but I think hon. Members will find on examination that we have succeeded in framing a measure which will, if passed, render personation much less likely to occur than it is at the present moment. I now come to one or two dangers which are peculiar to the Ballot. The first is that of tampering with the voting papers, and in regard to that we do not propose to make much difference between our measure and that introduced by my noble Friend last year. We propose that when a voting paper has once been put into the ballot-box the box shall not be opened except under such precautions as shall secure the inviolability of the vote. The second danger is much greater, and requires to be more carefully guarded against than that of personation — I allude to the possibility of forged voting papers being used. My noble Friend's Bill guarded against that by his system of counterfoils, and my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Leatham) also proposed a plan with the same object; but, as we had decided to do without either counterfoils or invisible ink, it remained for us to consider how we should guard against the danger. I think we have entirely met the case by adopting this simple precaution—the returning officer, as he gives out his paper to each voter, shall impress it with a stamp, the character of which he shall be bound to keep secret, and which shall not be used again until a certain fixed time shall have expired. Then, when the boxes come to be opened, each unstamped voting paper shall be rejected as void. This is a course which will, I think, do away entirely with the danger of forged papers being used. I now come to a change in the second part of the Bill of last year for the prevention of corrupt practices. That, again, is a matter for very few words, the object being rather to supply an unintentional omission in that Bill than to introduce anything new. It was there provided that any candidate who did not include all his election expenses in the returns should be considered to have committed an offence bearing the same consequences as bribery. At the present moment any candidate who pays himself, instead of through his agent, any expense except such as the candidate is allowed to pay by law, or who does not include all the expenses in his return, is adjudged guilty of a misdemeanour; but he does not consequently lose his seat. The Bill of last year provided that this should place him in the same position as if he had committed bribery. On re-consideration of the matter, we thought that it was rather too much to say that because he had made such an omission he should be in the same position as if he had bribed or attempted to bribe; and we now propose that the penalty should be the same as if he had been guilty of treating only—that is, that he should lose his seat. I believe that was the real intention of the clause in the Bill of last year. But while we have weakened the clause in one direction we have strengthened it in another. Last year it was proposed that the clause should apply merely to the omission from the return of expenses it ought to have included, and not to the case of a candidate who with his own hands paid expenses which ought to have passed through the hands of his agent. The clause as now proposed would provide for the case I have just stated, and in that particular it is more stringent than the clause in the Bill introduced by my noble Friend last year. Some few other clauses we have left exactly as they stood last year. One of these is the proposal to prohibit the use of public-houses as committee-rooms during the progress of elections. I should personally have been very glad if we could have gone further and shut public- houses altogether on the day of election; but upon full consideration we felt that in our proposal to the House we could not go beyond the recommendation of the Committee on this point. We, therefore, think the question may be fairly left to the consideration of the House when it shall have gone into Committee on the Bill. I may add we shall be glad to hear the arguments on both sides of this question, as also on that other point of the employment of paid canvassers. Many hon. Members would like to see the employment of paid canvassers done away with altogether, but the question is one beset with difficulties. An election cannot be conducted without the employment of some paid servants, and as you cannot prevent such servants asking votes for the candidates employing them, they at once become paid canvassers. But, on the other hand, the system of paid canvassing is a bad one; and I have merely made these remarks in order to throw the question before the House, and open it for consideration and discussion when we get into Committee on the Bill. Another part of the Bill that we leave as it was last year with very little alteration—except that we have applied it to municipal as well as to Parliamentary elections—relates to the getting rid of the old plan of nominating candidates and making the final declaration of the poll. I confess that I had for some time a feeling in favour of keeping up the old system of nomination; but I have now come to the conclusion that such a system is not in accordance with the necessities of the present time. Those old nominations were a great advantage when voting was very limited, and when candidates in populous places who fancied themselves to be on the side of the people liked to appeal from the electors to the non-electors; but the Reform Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) has removed that ground for maintaining the ancient system of nomination. We have now very large and extensive constituencies which really represent the feeling of the country, and the time has gone by when in the large towns candidates had to commence their addresses—"Electors and Non-electors." I own I am sometimes at a loss whether I shall or shall not say "Ladies and Gentlemen;" but I have entirely dropped the old formula, and commence my speeches with the simple word "Electors." Our aim ought certainly to be to make an election as simple a proceeding as possible, and to enable every elector desiring to do his duty to do so; but I cannot help thinking that the old noisy open-air nominations had a tendency to frighten quiet people away rather than to attract them to the hustings. If my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ripon (Sir Henry Storks) were in his place he would be able to show to the House what is, I hope, the last stone thrown in the course of a contested election. The missile was aimed at my right hon. Friend on the hustings at Ripon on the occasion of the recent declaration of the poll there, and he, with that extraordinary adroitness which he has shown on more fields than one, caught the stone, and has preserved it as a memento of the occasion. It is a somewhat curious fact that although nominations and declarations of polls in Yorkshire have always been very noisy, there is no part of the kingdom in which public meetings are more orderly. This fact seems to me to prove clearly that it is unnecessary to maintain the old system in order that candidates may have opportunities of stating their political views. Few hon. Gentlemen, probably, have had greater experience of election meetings than I have. When I stood for the borough of Leeds, and was defeated, I held 30 public meetings, and when I stood with my present Colleague for Bradford (Mr. Miall) at the last election, I held a similar number, but though some of the meetings I have attended have been favourable and others unfavourable to me, in no case have I found any difficulty in obtaining an orderly and attentive hearing while I have argued political questions on which there existed much difference of opinion. I have never found that argument was possible at a nomination. We propose that the nomination shall be perfectly public, and that there shall be ample opportunity given for bringing forward the candidates in public. But I need not say that on this matter, and on all other matters, the Government will be very glad to have the assistance of the Committee, when we get into Committee. I come now to one other change, which is a matter of some importance, and that is the question of the expenses of an election. I mean the legal expenses, and, when I speak of legal expenses, I draw a line between absolute compulsory expenses, if I may so call them, and expenses that are permitted. When I talk of legal expenses, I mean the expenses which the law imposes, not what the law permits—the expenses of the returning officer. When we turn to that question we find rather a curious fact, and that is that the election for Members of Parliament is the only election in the country in which the expenses of the returning officer are not paid by the constituency. I believe I may safely go further, and say that it is the only election for any representative body in the world to which that exception is applied. I have not been able to find any other case in our Colonies or in any other nation where the expenses of the returning officer are not borne by the constituency. The Government have come to the conclusion that these expenses ought no longer to be imposed upon the candidate; and we have come to that determination upon two grounds—first, that it is wrong in principle that they should be imposed; and, secondly, that the system works badly in practice. I think we shall almost all acknowledge that it is wrong in principle. Surely if there be any expense connected with the election of a Member of Parliament, that expense ought to be borne by a constituency or a district. What right has the State to pick out individuals and say they should bear the expense rather than the district which it is absolutely necessary to represent in Parliament? The present system, in my opinion, puts the Member and those he represents in a false position from the very beginning. You have no right to say that the beginning of the relations between himself and his constituency should be a pecuniary favour which he bestows upon them by taking upon himself the expenses of performing their duty. It may be said that in England we are not generally guided by the consideration of purely logical principles, though we shall find that, if there be a decided logical fault in any arrangement it will show itself, more or less, first or last. I do not dwell much on this question as one of principle, although I think it is of importance in that respect, but because I think it works very badly in practice, and especially badly under the present circumstances, when we have so largely increased the area of the constituencies. The very term "returning officer" seems to show that you mean by that an officer appointed by a district; otherwise, if you meant it to be the candidate's servant, appointed by the candidate, you would call him the candidate's officer. However, leaving that question, we will see how the matter works. At this moment we find a great number of persons throughout the country complaining against the working of the system. Many of them are men who call themselves the working-men candidates. I say they call themselves so, because I very much object to the term. I think it is a term that we have rather persuaded men to use. I think that in this House and throughout the country we have talked too much of working men being a special political class. The great argument in favour of the Reform Bill was that we took from them all ground of calling themselves a special political class by admitting all householders throughout the kingdom to a share of the franchise. I say it is unwise in us to call them a special class, and no individuals among them have any right to step forward and say that they specially represent the working classes, or that they are specially the working-man's candidates. On account of the enormous numbers of the working men this is more absurd than it would be for a few individuals in the middle classes to step forward and say they are the representatives of the middle classes. Any man would be thought purely ridiculous if he did so. But still the persons who choose to call themselves working-men's candidates, and who are entitled to a good deal of influence, find the present regulation standing in the way of their representing their fellow working men. There are many men throughout the country who wish to get into Parliament, whom their friends wish to get into Parliament, and whom we wish to see in Parliament, but who, on account of their circumstances, find this regulation a great difficulty in the way of their attaining their object. It is none the less important because many of them do not represent, any more than persons in other classes, those of the working classes who have taken a special part in politics; and I think it is highly important that we should throw no obstacle in their way, nor in the way of any persons stepping forward to take their part in the deliberations of the House. The present faulty system applies to these persons now; it might apply to other persons at a different time. It applies to persons who represent the opinions or the wishes of persons who have not property themselves, but who would desire that their representative should be one of themselves, and who could not naturally be expected to pay the expenses of their election. Take the Trades Union Bill, brought forward by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department. It is a Bill which the Government have framed with the greatest desire that it should be a fair Bill, and meet the just claims of the artizans throughout the country; but we should very much prefer that there should be some active member of trades unions to help us in legislation on the subject of the measure. It would be a great advantage to us if we had such help. I say, without fear of contradiction, that the hustings expenses stand between such men and a seat in this House. These expenses are very heavy in the case of elections for large towns. Looking over the Return of the last election, I find that in England the whole amounted in the year 1868 to £82,812. These are purely hustings expenses. In Scotland the amount was £7,320. But as one or two Returns are incomplete, we may say that in England the expenses were £92,000, being about double the amount for 1865, in consequence, I suppose, of the Reform Bill having largely increased the constituency. The hustings expenses at Manchester were £1,335. Well, a sixth of that is a heavy sum for a man to be obliged to pay to be returned to this House. The hustings expenses in the Tower Hamlets were £1,162. At Bradford, I find my Colleague, myself, and the other gentlemen who were candidates had to pay £811. [An hon. MEMBER: That includes polling-booths.] Polling-booths are part of the necessary expenses of an election. I mean the actual legal expenses without which an election could not be conducted. Well, suppose I had had to run in competition with a working man, I should have felt that he would have been heavily weighted in the contest, and that it would have been a great difficulty for him, in his position, to provide his legal share of the expenses. If, then, we are to act fairly and impartially, we should alter this practice. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) said the rule should be that the ultimate political power should rest with the householders throughout the country, and that there should be no attempt bylaw to guide the direction of that power; but this practice imposes on all candidates a burden which, although apparently equal, is really most unequal, and, therefore, it is an attempt by law to direct the representation of one class rather than another. I cannot help thinking that when we fully consider what is the principle behind this exception, and how it really works, the House will be of an unanimous opinion with the Government, that the proposed arrangement ought to be carried, into effect. I have now gone over the different changes contemplated in the Bill, and I do not know that I need detain the House any longer. But I will make one or two remarks before I sit down. It has been my good fortune, for the short time I have had a seat on this Bench, to have had the conduct of two or three measures which have not excited any party feeling, and on which I have received the support of both sides of the House. I do not hope that I shall be equally fortunate this time; and yet, if seriously considered, hon. Gentlemen opposite may see reason not to treat this as a party measure. I am quite aware that objections may be raised on both sides of the House upon the principle of it, as being contrary to their feeling that an election should be performed with publicity and in accordance with established English practice. That is, no doubt, a primâ facie objection. The more, however, hon. Members look into the principle of the measure I feel persuaded they will the sooner come to the conclusion that we have no right to impose a duty upon a man and not give him every protection in the fulfilment of that duty. I merely make allusion to the argument, because, in appealing to hon. Gentlemen opposite, I am quite sure that to some extent they have a feeling which is quite independent of party. If they had not this feeling, which is disappearing every day, I should really challenge their support on Conservative principles. I believe the time has gone past when this Bill can be considered a measure against the Conservative interest. I honestly believe that, at this moment, Conservative policy and Conservative interests may as much claim the protection of the Ballot as any other; and that in fact—it is only human nature that it should be so—we have to guard as much against mob tyranny as against landlord intimidation. That is a matter which I have no doubt will be taken into account on both sides of the House, and it evidently weighed with the able men who constituted the Parliamentary Committee on the subject. But there is another ground on which I would hope for support from the great Conservative party, and, especially, from my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) and the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli), for it really is merely carrying out the principle of that measure which they passed, and for which we all know we are so much indebted to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire. Well, what was the principle of that measure? It was that we should increase the extent of the constituency, and that for the future government of the country we should rely on the people of the country. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henley) stated, in that concise form which is true eloquence, that he had faith in the feelings and instincts of the people; he had a belief, looking back to the past history of England, that the English were a people not prone to useless change; and he felt—and he had history behind him, more than perhaps many of us like to believe to be the case—that the English people are really a very Conservative people; that they have great attachment to the associations of the past, and a great want of confidence in the promises of the future, and, therefore, a great respect for the powers that be at the moment. I believe the right hon. Gentleman was perfectly right in having that reliance on the mass of the population. I should be doing him the greatest possible injustice if I supposed for a moment, in relying upon that Conservative feeling and that respect for the institutions and authorities of the country, he put his trust in any illegitimate influence possessed by those of high social position. I do not for a moment believe it. I know the right hon. Gentleman relied on legitimate influence, and let us just see what is the difference between the two. That is illegitimate influence on the part of the landlord when he turns his tenant out for not voting as he desires, or threatens that he will do so. That is illegitimate influence on the part of the customer when he says he will deal no longer with the tradesman who refuses to vote on his side. And that is illegitimate influence when the rich man tries to bribe the poor man. All these are influences which would be enormously increased under the present extended suffrage. No one, I think, will deny it, and my reason for supporting the Ballot is because I believe it the best means of sapping every illegitimate influence. But there are legitimate influences which I hope never to see diminished—the influence of education; the influence of experience; the influence of the right fulfilment of the duties of property; the influence of the man who claims consideration, who asks to be trusted as a servant of his country because his forefathers have deserved well of the State. I refuse to look forward to the time when such influences would be lost. Well, I support the Ballot because I believe it would destroy the illegitimate influences of bribery and intimidation, which are those besetting sins of our Parliamentary system, to remove which we have been vainly struggling for years. I believe the present measure will do what we want, because it will touch the motive that prompts to the commission of these crimes. I ask the support of all sides of the House, because I feel sure all are anxious to destroy illegitimate influence; and also, for the reason that the more you destroy that influence the more you will increase the legitimate influence, because any attempt to use illegitimate influence produces needless irritation and prejudices people against persons who may have the power to intimidate them, though they may rarely or never have practised intimidation. Why is the Ballot so eagerly desired by vast numbers of voters? I have sometimes seen it said by writers in the public Press that the cry of the Ballot is a factitious cry. That is a great mistake. There is no question which has been more seriously considered or more eagerly desired by a large class. And why? Because they believe that the Ballot would be a blow to bribery and intimi- dation; because it would take away the motive to bribe and intimidate, and even the power to do so. You may depend upon it that it is not by keeping the power to bribe a man to vote against his opinions, or the power to force him to do so, but rather by relying upon his free will to give them his support, that men of property, intelligence, and social distinction can hope to keep that political influence which they now possess. I beg to move for leave to bring in the Bill.

Mr. Speaker—Sir, I must congratulate the Government upon their improved attitude with regard to this question. I accept the early introduction of this measure and the fact that it has been placed in the hands of my right hon. Friend as evidences that we are at last about to proceed to a legislative issue. And, Sir, this improvement in the attitude of the Government is attended by an improvement equally marked in the character of their Bill. When the noble Marquess introduced his Bill last year, I ventured to point out what appeared to me two very serious defects. Although that measure purported to be the ripe fruit of the wisdom of a Committee appointed at the instance of the Government—

"To inquire into the present modes of conducting Parliamentary and Municipal Elections, in order to provide further guarantees for their tranquillity, purity, and freedom,"

yet, so far as municipal elections were concerned, that Bill provided no further guarantees whatever. And because it failed to provide those guarantees, it robbed the Parliamentary Ballot which it did provide of nearly half its value; for the only true way of looking at Parliamentary and municipal elections is that they are both merely incidents in the same prolonged and interminable political contest; and the only true view to take of the Parliamentary in relation to the municipal body is that they are Siamese twins, with a common life and a common liability to disease. If, therefore, you check bribery at the Parliamentary election, but leave it unchecked at the municipal election, you may be quite sure that corruption will flow back from the municipal into every vein and artery of the Parliamentary body. But the Bill of my right hon. Friend excels that of the noble Marquess in another respect. The Bill of last year contained provisions for a scrutiny, and the identi- fication of votes was secured by a system of numbers and counterfoils, together with a code of rules, upon the minute observance of which the secresy of the whole plan depended; but the minute observance of which nobody expected to see. That Bill, therefore, left quite a loop-hole for the discovery of the votes by candidates' agents; and, so far as candidates' agents are concerned, the Ballot should have none, for we may be quite sure that these unscrupulous and ingenious gentlemen will leave no stone unturned before they surrender the hold which they at present possess over the votes and consciences of so many of their fellow-subjects. And with what confidence will men, awed by intimidation, exercise the franchise, when they know that among a hundred chances there is one, at least, that their votes may be discovered and their ruin follow? Indeed, I was so deeply impressed by this consideration, that I should never have ventured to have introduced provisions for a scrutiny into the Bill which I had myself the honour to bring in, if I had not felt sure that I was in a position to recommend machinery which would render every valid vote impenetrable. And in combining an absolutely close Ballot, so far as every valid vote was concerned, with the power of scrutiny in the case of every invalid one, I flattered myself that I had really solved what has always been regarded as the knot of the Ballot question. My right hon. Friend has approached that knot like a conqueror in quite another field. He has cut, he has not solved it. His Bill is not merely a Bill for the introduction of vote by Ballot, but for the abolition of scrutiny; and I congratulate my right hon. Friend upon the courage with which he thus confronts, in place of evading, the stringent arguments which can be brought against the Ballot itself. Of course, in dealing with a question of this character, the Government possesses advantages over a private Member. A private Member would feel, as I felt, that he was bound, if possible, to cover the whole ground; to attempt nothing more than appeared upon the face of the Bill; to leave all existing guarantees for purity of election untouched; but my right hon. Friend, with a strong Government at his back, is able by the same Bill not only to make changes in the mode of taking votes, but a great and sweeping change in the law of elections. I sincerely hope that my right hon. Friend by following this course has not endangered his measure, either here or "elsewhere;" but it would be idle to ignore the fact that there are hon. Members in this House who sat upon the Committee on Elections, and who are therefore able, from their knowledge of the evidence, to bring to bear upon my right hon. Friend's advance in this particular direction a very formidable artillery. Be this as it may, in any such attack they will receive no support from me; and on my own behalf and that of those who have acted with me in the advocacy of the Ballot I must offer my right hon. Friend our sincere thanks for having brought in so complete a measure, and the assurance of our cordial and unreserved support.

said, he could assure the right hon. Gentleman who had introduced the measure that any remark which he might make he should make in no party spirit. After a long Parliamentary career he was one of the unfortunate persons who belonged to no party; and he must add that the reason why he occupied that position was that there had been on both sides of the House a total want of principle in their proceedings. He must venture to compliment the right hon. Gentleman who introduced the measure for the candour and clearness with which he had performed his task. But he could not compliment him upon his humanity, for a more unkind remark than that which he had made and directed to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) he (Mr. Bentinck) had never heard during the whole course of his career in that House. The right hon. Gentleman began by talking of "the principle" of the Reform Bill introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire. Now, that was the first time he (Mr. Bentinck) had ever heard the word "principle" applied in connection with that measure. But the right hon. Gentleman went further—he, a distinguished member of the great Liberal party, had actually thanked the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire for the enormous boon he had given in his Reform Bill to the Liberal party. He (Mr. Bentinck) had ever entertained but one opinion of that measure— namely, that it was one of the most Radical measures that had ever been brought before the House. He did not expect, however, to hear publicly so gracious a recognition of its character from so distinguished a Member as the right hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the House. With all the candour of the right hon. Gentleman in introducing the Bill, he had not been quite fair on one point. Hon. Members opposite were fond of harping on what they called landlord influence, and the right hon. Gentleman said one of the advantages of the Bill would be to destroy landlord influence. He did not mean for a moment to deny that in some places the influence of landlords had made itself felt; but he would venture to say that an undue influence had been quite as liberally applied by the political friends of those on the one side of the House as upon the other. In the next place, though the effect of the measure of the right hon. Gentleman might be to do away with mob influence—a result at which he would rejoice—he appealed to hon. Gentlemen opposite to say whether there was not also too often exercised at elections the influence of the great employers of labour. If they were rightly informed no class of men exercised greater influence at Parliamentary elections than the great employers of labour. ["Hear, hear!"] Then, why were they to be told publicly that no persons exercised undue influence at elections except landlords? Let all stand on the same footing. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of three dangers he wished to provide against — namely, tampering with the voters, bribery, and personation; but he failed to show how those dangers would be averted by his Bill. The right hon. Gentleman flattered himself that he would secure complete secresy of voting by his measure. Now, if he had taken the trouble to study the history of this question of Ballot voting on the other side of the Atlantic or in any other country where it was adopted he would find that it had utterly failed in securing any secresy whatever. And it was impossible by any exercise of human ingenuity or human legislation, to arrive at a system of complete secresy in respect to voting. It was an impossibility for two reasons—first, it was impossible to prevent those persons who were anxious to have their mode of voting known making it public; next, he would undertake to say that by far the larger portion of the population, in spite of this Bill, were determined at all times to make their votes public. In reference to bribery, he (Mr. Bentinck) would remind the House of a statement made on one occasion, when the late lamented Mr. H. Berkeley brought forward his annual Ballot Bill—that boroughs would be put up at a price, like articles in a shop-window. He quoted that statement in the House, and in the Division he went into the "No" Lobby with a noble Earl, then one of the chief leaders of the Liberal party, and now no longer a Member of that House. The noble Earl acknowledged that what he had said was perfectly correct, and that under the Ballot the buying of boroughs would be perfectly easy to carry out. He, for one, believed it to be impossible to deal with bribery under the Ballot, and the best description which could be given to any such measure as that now introduced would therefore be "a Bill to render impossible the detection of bribery." He demurred to the assertion that the Ballot was ardently desired throughout the country, and he undertook to say that if they would put this question of the Ballot to this honourable House by means of the Ballot it would be rejected by a large majority. The Ballot might be desired in large towns, where there was a dread of intimidation, and where intimidation was practised with impunity; but he believed that it was disliked in small towns, and was detested by the larger proportion of the population in the country. He would venture to say that if they were to test the question whether the people of England were or were not in favour of the Ballot by means of the Ballot itself there would be found a large majority against it. How did they mean to treat this question so far as regarded the unrepresented portion of the people—namely, the rural population? He was convinced that the Ballot was most unpopular with those large classes. They would reject the principle, and would not condescend to adopt it. He should like to know how the right hon. Gentleman proposed to deal with it in reference to constituencies where the majorities rejected the Ballot. He believed that the right hon. Gentleman was introducing a measure that was most unpopular to the great masses of the country and to those residing in the rural districts, and that the only effect of it would be to prevent the discovery of bribery.

begged to offer to the right hon. Gentleman his warmest support in the progress of his measure through the House. The hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Bentinck) had stated that such a measure was against the wish of the country. That might be a matter of fact or of opinion. As far as his (Sir Dominic Corrigan's) experience went, he should confidently assert that the majority of the people was in favour of the Ballot. In regard to the question put by the hon. Gentleman as to how far the right hon. Gentleman proposed to deal with the unrepresented portion of the population, it appeared to him (Sir Dominic Corrigan) time enough to deal with their opinions upon the Ballot when they possessed votes. It had been said that the Ballot ought not to have been introduced because the vote was a public trust and the country should know how that trust was exercised. That objection raised the question, what was the tribunal that was to determine whether the voter had given his vote honestly or dishonestly? They should have two tribunals to decide this point so long as they had two great political parties in the State. And he hoped that they should never see the country without those two parties, because otherwise there would be a monopoly in polities, which he thought would be as injurious to the general interests of the country as was a monopoly in trade injurious to the commercial world. Well, then, to which tribunal was a person to be made amenable as to the proper exercise of his trust? Was it to be the tribunal established by the minority or the majority in that House? He had had the gratification of being in both positions. He had joined the minority because he thought with them, and he had been found with the majority because they thought with him. It was obvious under such circumstances that no tribunal was competent to decide such a question but that of a man's own reason, conviction, and conscience. The next argument adduced against this measure was that phrase which they had heard so often—namely, that the Ballot was un-English. When the meaning of the phrase "un-Eng- lish" was asked, it would be found that no definite signification was attached to the term. There was a time when it was considered un-English to smoke, and the occupier of the Throne condescended to reproach those who approached him with the smell of smoke. Not long since it was considered very un-English—and, for the matter of that, un-Irish, too—to have an election unaccompanied by a shower of paving-stones and brickbats. He hoped the last hustings reminiscences of this kind would be deposited in the British Museum—he believed it was a piece of limestone, which had been adroitly seized by an hon. and gallant Member (Sir Henry Storks) who had not long since come into that House. It was not very long since a number of gentlemen had united in a well-known borough to form themselves into a joint-stock company for the purpose of returning certain Members. It was not very long since an election would have been considered un-English which had not been characterized by bribery. And he trusted that before long the practice of promoting men in the Army by purchase, instead of by merit, would be un-English too. The abolition of the nomination was a feature in the Bill which he cordially approved. In the charges for his election was a heavy item, which, without breach of confidence, he might, perhaps, inform the House he had paid. That item was "to obtain a hearing;" but the men who attended for that purpose believed they would best attain that object by preventing his opponent from being heard. His opponent's friends did exactly the same thing, and the natural result was that neither could procure a hearing. He contended that the nomination was a curse to the town in which the election was held; and that it led to drunkenness, idleness, violence, and immorality. The question was one that ought to be dealt with irrespective of party considerations. He, at all events, in advocating it, did so without pretending to any knowledge of the result. Some urged that it would lead to the increase of sectarian, and others that it would lead to the increase of democratic influence. That might be the case or it might not. In his own country he believed the tendency of the Ballot might be as much to aid the landlords as in any other direction. In many of the agricultural districts there was a strong tendency to almost feudal attachment, and with the political views which he himself entertained, if he were to consult merely his own selfish interests, these might lead him to oppose the Ballot. But if the result to the country at large were that the people, consulting their own minds and balancing the pros and cons, thought it the wisest course to support a manufacturer in one place, a landlord in another, and their guide in religion in a third, he said let it be so; let their action be the result of reason guided by good sense, and he should be satisfied with the result.

said, he was very anxious that this question should not be debated as a party measure He remembered this question being debated many years ago, and in a speech which was delivered by Lord Moncreiff, who held the office of Lord Advocate, he used words to the effect that he did not concur in the opinion that if vote by Ballot were adopted it would prevent intimidation; and he stated that he maintained that a vote at an election was as sacred a trust as a vote in that House, and ought to be exercised for the public; and, further, he did not think that secret voting would prevent bribery. He (Mr. Scour-field) was inclined to think that those observations were not without force.

congratulated the Government upon the measure they had introduced, which was a decided advance on the Bill of last year. He regretted, however, that a provision had not been introduced for the abolition of paid canvassers, and said he should propose a clause on the subject in Committee. He wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman said that, though he could not abolish the opening of public-houses, he would abolish the holding of committee-rooms in public-houses. He approved of the measure, and believed it would not only meet with the acceptance of the Liberal side of the House, but would obtain considerable support from the opposite Benches.

congratulated his right hon. Friend upon the courteous and considerate manner in which he had introduced this Bill. But he regretted that his right hon. Friend had rolled two Bills into one; and protested against the vexed question of secret voting being mixed up with the question of public-houses and committee-rooms. He had always been an opponent of the Ballot, and he did not like the Ballot now. At the same time, he had taken part in every reasonable proposal from both sides of the House to get rid of the good old English electioneering, with all its concomitants of drunkenness, broken heads, and other amenities of which most of them had some recollection. For scenes such as he himself had witnessed—a large space, for instance, in a manufacturing town crowded with some 10,000 operatives hooting, shouting, and disturbing the tranquillity and good order of the town not only for the day, but with consequences visible for days afterwards—there was nothing in extenuation to be offered, save the existence of some old creeping tradition. But among the arguments which the right hon. Gentleman had advanced in favour of the Ballot he seemed totally to have lost sight of the element of human nature; until he could cut out of the human frame that unruly member the tongue he never would succeed in making voting secret. Nor could he hope to get rid of intimidation. All the accounts received from the United States, where probably the most gigantic system of secret voting in the world existed, concurred in saying that a man was hustled, mobbed, and buffeted if he did not go to the poll with his ticket in his hat. There were persons who believed that the same thing could not happen in this country; but the attorney mind in England, he believed, was clever enough to devise means of bringing influence to bear wherever the occasion arose. The severe punishment threatened against personation might very possibly defeat the object which the right hon. Gentleman had in view. In any case it would be impossible to expose and punish personation without breaking in upon the principle of absolute secresy—the very proposal for striking off a vote for each man convicted of personating involved its being proved on which side the man had personated, and where would then be the secresy? While admitting that the Bill had many excellent points, he regretted that the subject of secret voting had not been submitted to the House for separate discussion on its own merits.

hoped that he might be allowed to say a few words in welcome of the Bill, and congratulated the Government that they had introduced a complete and perfect measure on the subject. Last year the Committee that had sat on the subject had felt it necessary to introduce the proviso of the scrutiny; but he rejoiced that the Government had had the courage to throw over that point, and they now were to have the Ballot without the scrutiny. In 1867 the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) had suggested that when a candidate was proved to have received votes through bribery the election should be held to have passed to the other candidate, however few votes he might have polled. That principle was, however, one capable of dangerous extension, and he thought that the present proposal, which only struck off the number of votes actually obtained by illicit means, was much preferable.

, in reply, said, if the Committee should decide that cards were preferable to voting papers he should have no objection to give effect to their decision. The Bill contained sufficient safeguards against the "Tasmanian dodge," and likewise provided against forged voting papers and tampering with the votes. The opportunities of personation would be less frequent than at present. As regards public-houses, he thought he had already stated that electioneering meetings would not in future be allowed to be held in them, unless the candidate was present. There was great cogency in the argument against paid canvassers; but, at the same time, there was great difficulty in framing an enactment against them. It was a question, however, which he should be glad to have fully discussed in Committee. With respect to personation, he might remark that the Bill made no attempt to keep secret the fact of a man having voted; but its object was to prevent anyone from being able to prove how he had voted.