asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether the Government intend to take any steps, during the present Session, to protect the masters of National Schools in Ireland against arbitrary removal by the patrons or managers of those establishments?

said, in reply, that the National Schools were not the schools of the National Board, but of the managers; and from the very first the managers had had the power of dismissing teachers of whom they did not approve. It might be some satisfaction to the hon. Member if he informed him that a resolution was recently agreed to by the central committee of the Irish Teachers Association, to the effect that, in consequence of the opinion lately expressed in various quarters by persons eminently entitled to its respect and esteem, condemnatory of any agitation by the teachers of Ireland in regard to managerial rights, the executive committee of the central association earnestly and respectfully suggested to the provincial association to stay all further action on the question, and to work unitedly and determinedly for the redress of their grievances.

said, that on an early day he would call attention to the hardships now inflicted on the masters of National Schools in Ireland.

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If the Government intend to propose any plan for the improvement of the position of the National Teachers; and, if so, when he will be ready to explain it to the House?

, in reply, said, the Government were quite aware of the necessity of making some improvement in the position of National School teachers in Ireland. Since his accession to his present Office, he had been in communication with the Commissioners of National Education on the subject, and as soon as he was fully in possession of their views the matter would be duly considered. The proper time, he conceived, for explaining the intentions of the Government to the House would be on the discussion of the Education Estimates; but, possibly, he might be in a position to make some general announcement on the subject at an earlier date.

said, he had given Notice of a Question to the Secretary of State for War in reference to the course it was proposed to take with reference to the appointment to commissions in the Army of those candidates who passed their examination in the autumn of last year. As that Question was substantially answered by the reply to the noble Lord the Member for West Essex (Lord Eustace Cecil) last Monday, the Secretary of State had allowed him to ask him a Question on that answer. He said that candidates who passed their examination last autumn would be admitted to commissions "sub- ject to conditions for insuring competency." He wished to ask whether it was intended that they should undergo another examination?

No. These commissions will be issued without purchase; and I meant to say that, in consideration of that great advantage, certain conditions would be laid down for insuring the efficiency of officers during their progress in the service.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Why the Despatch of Sir Andrew Buchanan of the 9th day of September, reporting a Communication by the Emperor of Russia to General Fleury, and which Despatch is referred to at page 84, Despatch No. 137, of the Correspondence respecting the Franco-German War, is not given in the volume?

Sir, I am not surprised that my hon. Friend should have called the attention of the House to the omission in question, and Lord Granville regrets that, through an oversight, he should have referred in a public despatch to one of a confidential character; that despatch referred to a conversation between the Emperor of Russia and the French Ambassador, to which Sir Andrew Buchanan was not a party, but the substance of it was confidentially made known to him and reported in the same confidence to Her Majesty's Government. For this reason it would be impossible to publish the Paper in question, as the doing so would involve a breach of confidence.

asked Mr. Chanchellor of the Exchequer, If his attention has been called to a statement in the public Press that a recent test of sherry wines, described to be of superior quality, has shown that they were adulterated with an acid highly injurious to health; whether it be true that the adulteration took place in the Docks with the knowledge of the officers of Customs; and, whether the officers of Customs have received instructions to afford every facility for the adulteration of wines in bond provided the owners declare such adulteration to be for the purpose of fortifying the wines?

In answer, Sir, to the hon. Baronet I have to state, first, my attention has not been drawn to this subject otherwise than by the Question he has been good enough to address to me. In the second place, I have to state that I have made inquiry, and am informed that no adulteration has been carried on with the cognizance or permission of the officers of Customs; and, in the third place, that we do not give orders to the officers of Customs to tolerate any adulteration whatever, but their orders are of this nature—that they are to permit persons having wines in bond to fortify those wines—["Hear, hear!"]—which, as hon. Gentlemen are aware, is absolutely necessary for their preservation. And we also permit them in case of the wines becoming cloudy to use some means for refining them. But the officers are strictly forbidden from allowing any adulteration.

I give Notice, then, that I shall move for a Return of the quantity of Hamburg and other spirits used in the Docks for fortifying wines.

asked Mr. Solicitor General, Whether the Queen in Council has refused her assent to the Statutes framed by the Public Schools Commissioners for constituting the new governing bodies of certain Public Schools; and, if so, on what grounds; whether, in preparing new Statutes, the Commissioners will reconsider the question of requiring the Governors of Harrow and Winchester to be members of the Church of England; how long he thinks it will be before the new governing bodies will all be constituted; and, whether he intends to ask Parliament further to extend the time allowed to the new governing bodies for making Statutes, which time, by the Act now in force, will expire on the 31st July?

said, in reply, that it was quite true that by an Order in Council dated the 8th instant Her Majesty had signified her disapproval of the statutes made by the Commissioners in February and March, 1870. Her Majesty did not, however, disallow the statutes last sent to the Privy Council, because it turned out that by the operation of the Act the sending back of the first set of statutes to the Commissioners for re-consideration, upon the recommendation of that House, was an excess of power on the part of the Crown, which could only allow or disallow them. The second set of statutes of the Commissioners were, therefore, made without authority. The matter would now be forwarded with all possible despatch. It might be that, in consequence of the delay which had occurred through that misapprehension on the part both of the Commissioners and of those who wished for the alteration of the statutes, the time would be too short for the Governing Bodies of the schools to make the necessary arrangements. If so, it would be only fair and right that those Governing Bodies should have a reasonable time allowed them for taking the initiative, just as if no such mistake as he had described had occurred.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he has taken into consideration the urgency of forming a second Arsenal in a central position in England, such as Cannock Chase, abounding in coal; and, whether all Volunteers, with the exception of the Artillery corps should be clothed in scarlet?

said, in reply, that the subject of the formation of a second central arsenal had long been under the consideration of the Government, but that no proposal for the creation of such an establishment had yet been adopted, and, therefore, no sums on account of it appeared in the Estimates for the present year. With regard to the clothing of the Volunteers, as he had stated the other evening, that while he thought it desirable there should be uniformity in their dress, it was a matter which was left to be regulated by the Volunteers themselves.

asked the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, Why, in the New Code of Regulations laid upon the Table of the House, and based on the consideration of the various sections of "The Elementary Education Act, 1870," an alteration has been made in the syllabus of study in Training Schools in Scotland; and, whether he has considered the inconvenience that may arise inasmuch as that Act does not apply to Scotland, and the arrangements for teaching in such schools for the current year have been made according to the regulations now in force, and are already in course of being carried out?

said, in reply to the first part of the Question of his hon. Friend, that the alteration which had been made was not in the Code, but in the syllabus of training schools, and this had been laid on the Table. The Elementary Education Act of last year had no direct relation to training schools; but it became necessary for the Government to consider the position in which they were placed in regard to those schools, and especially they had to consider the question of religious instruction that might be given therein. Hitherto religious instruction in the training schools in Great Britain had been inspected by the Inspectors appointed and paid by the Government. The opinion of Parliament had, in the view of the Government, been clearly declared during the passing of the Education Act last year to be that while on the one hand opportunity should be given for religious instruction, on the other hand there should be no payments out of the taxes towards religious instruction in schools, and although there was no mention made of training schools in the Act, the Government felt it was their duty to carry out these principles in the mode of distributing the grants for training schools. Consequently, towards the end of the year information was sent to the training schools throughout England that, in future, there would be no attempt on the part of the Government to inspect religious instruction or to pay for that instruction in the future. They had then to consider how Scotland should be dealt with. Bearing in mind that up to the present time there had been no difference of opinion in Scotland with regard to the religious question, the Government had to choose between two courses—either to treat different parts of Great Britain differently, and ask Parliament for a grant for the inspection of religious instruction in Scotland while refusing it in England, or to apply to Scotland the same principle as that adopted for England, and strike religious instruction out of the syllabus. Although the Government were sorry to appear to anticipate legislation with regard to Scotland, yet they felt it would be anticipating legislation if they decided to make a difference; and they had in their best discretion come to the conclusion to strike religious instruction out of the Scotch syllabus. With reference to the second part of his hon. Friend's Question, the arrangements in England for religious teaching had been made under the sanction and instigation of the Bishops, by which the religious instruction would be conducted and inspected by gentlemen appointed by the promoters of the training schools, as well as by the clergy themselves: and probably the same course would be taken in Scotland. In conclusion, he might state that this step had been taken, not with any intention of applying an English Act to Scotland, but in consequence of the clear opinion of the Imperial Parliament on the general question, as expressed in the Elementary Education Act of last year.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, When the remaining portion of the China and Japan Consular Reports for the year 1869 will be issued; and if arrangements can be made for their earlier publication; and, when the Consular Reports from Saigon, Batavia, Sarawak, Bangkok, and Manilla will be issued?

The only China Returns for 1869 which have not yet been published are those from Shanghai and Taiwan, which were received after the close of the Session, in September and December. They are now in the printer's hands. (See "China," No. 12, 1870.) All the Japan Reports and Returns have been published. (See "Japan," No 4, 1870.) The Returns and Report from Bangkok—our only station in Siam—were also presented to Parliament last Session. (See "China," No. 7, 1870.) The reason of the delay in publishing some Reports is that it has been the custom to lay them before Parliament first, and to keep over those which arrive too late to be presented till the next Session. No Consular Reports for the last two years have been received either from Saigon or Batavia; the former is an unpaid post, and at the latter there is a trading Consul, and their communications with the Home Government are not quite so punctual as would be expected from salaried officers. The last Commercial Report from Sarawak was printed in September, 1869, and from Manilla in April, 1870. There has been hardly time to receive last year's Report from the Manilla Consulate.

said, that the presentments to the commission of the peace in Ireland were attracting considerable interest at the present time, and therefore he wished to draw the attention of the Chief Secretary for Ireland to a paragraph in an Irish newspaper stating that a person holding the position of a retail publican had been appointed to the magistracy of Drogheda. He begged to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether it is true, as stated in a Dublin newspaper, that Mr. Robert Bedford Daly, auctioneer and publican, has been appointed to the commission of the peace for the borough of Drogheda, and on whose recommendation; and, whether the rule so long in force preventing the appointment to the magistracy of dealers in spirits and beer is now set aside, and on what grounds, and by whose authority?

said, that as he happened to be responsible for the advice given to the Lord Lieutenant to appoint this gentleman on the commission of the peace, he begged to be permitted to answer the Question of the hon. and gallant Gentleman. He gave that advice upon his own knowledge of Mr. Daly, and of his high respectability, "fortified" by high authority. He had no reason to believe that Mr. Daly was a publican when he gave that advice, neither had he reason to believe it now. He had since ascertained that Mr. Daly, who had been for two years Mayor of Drogheda, was a member of a large grocery establishment, but which also held a wine licence. Mr. Daly was in no sense a publican more than Mr. Findlater, of Dublin, might be so described. And, indeed, Mr. Daly could not be said to hold a licence even in that sense at the present time, inasmuch as he had some time since transferred it to another member of his family. He had been further informed that this gentleman who, as he had stated, was in no sense a publican, was offered the commission of the peace for Drogheda by the Lord Lieutenant of the County of Louth three years ago, and he was not placed upon it on the sole ground that it was considered that the number of the magistrates was excessive, which was not the case at present. He might also inform the hon. and gallant Gentleman that this respectable gentleman had been honoured by the confidence of his fellow-citizens by being elected to fill a number of local offices; and although, being a member of the Established Church, he had taken the course of supporting the disestablishment of that Church, he had been elected a member of the select vestry for Drogheda under the new system. He understood that the newspaper paragraph which had filled the mind of his hon. and gallant Friend with consternation had been withdrawn, and had been followed by a highly complimentary article in the same journal.

asked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether the sale of the Government Dockyard to Mr. Austen has been completed; and, if so, whether he is aware if Mr. Austen still remains the owner of it; and, whether Her Majesty's Government have sanctioned the scheme of establishing a foreign cattle market on the site of the dockyard?

Sir, Mr. Austen's interest in that portion of Deptford Dockyard sold to him has been transferred to the Corporation of the City of London, in whose favour the title-deed is being prepared. The Admiralty has nothing to do with the proposal to establish a cattle market on the site; but I believe that such a scheme has been sanctioned by the proper authority.

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether the Irish Constabulary Force so particularly referred to in the wording of the enactment will be employed in carrying out the provisions of the Gun Licences Act, passed in the last Session of Parliament; and, whether he is aware that there is a strong opinion among the local magistracy in several districts of Ireland that without the co-operation of the police force the Act will remain ineffectual and useless both for the purposes of Revenue and of social protection?

said, in reply, that the provisions of the Gun Licences Act, as regarded the constabulary, were permissive and not obligatory. The action of the constabulary under that Act was confined to the power of arrest of a person using or carrying a gun without a licence who further refused to give his name and address. In the event of the person giving his name and address the constable could only give information of the fact to the Excise officer. There were serious objections to impose upon the constabulary fresh duties not immediately connected with the preservation of the public peace or the detection of crime, and still more to impose upon them duties calculated to cause them to be regarded as common informers in the estimation of the public. He was aware that in certain rural districts the local magistrates had requested the co-operation of the constabulary in enforcing the provisions of the Act.

asked the Postmaster General, Whether he will endeavour to procure from the Foreign Governments through whose territory the Mails for the East via Brindisi have to pass a reduction in the present heavy postal charges?

said, the transit rates referred to by the hon. Member were payable to the Governments of Belgium, North Germany, and Italy. Those payable to the North German Post Office were fixed by a Convention concluded as recently as last April, and those payable to the Italian Government were settled only the other day. None of the rates charged were considered excessive, and as they had been so recently fixed, he feared nothing would be gained by asking for a reduction at present.

asked the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, When those managers of schools who have memorialized the Committee of Council for assistance towards the cost of erecting school buildings, may expect to receive an answer to the application made by such managers?

I fear, Sir, that the only answer I can give is that all the applications will be taken in turn. There are two classes of applications—those for the enlargement of schools, and those for the building of new schools, and each class will be taken in turn, according to the date of the application. The Office is doing its very utmost to proceed with the utmost possible despatch; but it is impossible for us to state distinctly when they will all be disposed of. There is an enormous number of applications to be dealt with. In the year before last 236 of these applications were disposed of; last year we had 3,300 applications, of which 3,003 came in the last five months, and by far the largest proportion came within the last month, many even on the very last day or two of the year. As regards the general working of the Education Act, I may remark that an extraordinary amount of labour has been imposed on the Department. More than 14,000 school returns have been received since the passing of that Act, and though no head of a Department could be supported with greater ability and diligence by its officers than Lord De Grey and myself have been, yet even with a new and the old staff working for a greater number of hours than it is right for them to work, we find it difficult to keep pace with the activity of the country—an activity in which we greatly rejoice, though it has imposed upon us a large amount of extra labour.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether Her Majesty's Government have any intention of bringing in a Bill to extend the jurisdiction of Stipendiary Magistrates in districts where the increase of population demands such extension, and to charge the salaries and cost of Stipendiary Magistrates in the provinces, after deduction of fees and fines, upon the Consolidated Fund, as in the case of the London Police Courts, thus relieving the provincial ratepayer from burdens not borne by the ratepayers of the metropolis?

said, in reply, that he was aware of the great difficulty and expense the constituents of the hon. Member had encountered in endeavouring to extend the area of the stipendiary magistrates' jurisdiction, and in consequence he had paid special attention to the subject. He thought it would be possible to bring in a Bill enabling boundaries to be extended without exposing ratepayers to the expense now imposed upon them. He would, if time permitted, introduce such a Bill; but he could not promise to include in it a proposal to charge the expense of stipendiary magistrates in the country upon the Consolidated Fund.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is the intention of the Government to bring in a Bill, this Session, to enable the Trustees of the British Museum to give or lend duplicate specimens to the Royal Dublin Society and other similar institutions?

, in reply, said, the attention of the Government had not been specially called to this matter; but he should consider it to be his duty to make a communication to the Trustees of the British Museum, and ascertain what could be done in the direction pointed out in the Question of the hon. Baronet.

asked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether it is in contemplation to take any and what portion of Hyde Park on the south front of the Albert Memorial for improving the Kensington Road at that part; and, for what purpose the work in Hyde Park on the south front of the Albert Memorial is now being carried on?

, in reply, said, what was intended to be done was to make the short flight of steps in front of the Albert Memorial, in order to carry out so much of the design as was absolutely necessary to complete the arrangements for the Memorial on the original plan. With regard to improving the road an arrangement was come to with the District Board of Works of Westminster to prosecute a Bill for improving the road, and the Great Exhibition Commissioners, having in view the opening of the Exhibition this year, agreed to provide for the expense; but, subsequently, the district board wished to withdraw from the arrangement, and the Bill was not further prosecuted. As the Exchequer did not undertake the paving of metropolitan roads, it did not seem clear how anything could at present be done in the way of improvement unless some such arrangement as the one to which he had referred could be again arrived at and carried into effect. But if nothing was done either by the local or the Metropolitan Board within a reasonable time, the consideration of the subject could be resumed at a future period.

said, he had a Question to ask the Secretary of State for War, but he had been informed that it would be more convenient to ask the information he required at the hands of the Surveyor General of Ordnance. He would therefore ask the right hon. Baronet the Member for Ripon, If he will lay upon the Table of the House a Return continuing and completing the information contained in the Return (Rifled Guns), No. 415, August 1869, up to the 1st of January 1871?

replied, that the Return referred to in the Question should be laid upon the Table.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether it is the intention of the Government to bring in a Bill this Session to carry into effect the recommendation of the Select Committee of 1869, that provision should be made by Act of Parliament for conferring on the House of Commons the power of examining witnesses on oath?

, in reply, said, it was the intention of the Government to introduce, in the course of the present Session, a Bill founded upon the Report of the Committee referred to by the hon. Member.

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether it is the intention of the Government to extend the Volunteer system to Ireland; and, if not, why not?

Sir, my hon. Friend will probably remember, or if he does not remember, he will find by reference to the Parliamentary Debates, that, in the year 1863, the Government of Lord Palmerston declined to extend the Volunteer system to Ireland, not, as was explained by Lord Palmerston, because there was any reason to doubt the loyalty of the great majority of the Irish people, but on account of the unfortunate existence of strong religious dissensions in that country. There was a great danger that the Volunteers might assume a sectarian character, and that the formation of Volunteer corps might be productive of collisions and breaches of the public peace. I hope that those circumstances may not constitute a permanent obstacle to the raising of a Volunteer Force in Ireland; but I am unable to say that the times are so completely altered that those obstacles are already removed.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whe- ther Her Majesty's Government intend, during the present Session, to bring in a Bill to give effect to the Recommendations of the Select Committee of 1869–70 on Salmon Fisheries?

Sir, I am afraid my other engagements will render it impossible for me to bring in a Bill on this subject in the present year.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the Government intend to take any steps, during the present Session, to carry out the whole of the recommendations of the unanimous Report of the Royal Commission of 1866 on Capital Punishment; and, also if the Government contemplate dealing with the latter portion of that Report not included in their recommendation, and which involves the very important questions of—1. An appeal on matters of fact to a Court of Law in criminal cases; 2. The mode in which the Crown is advised to exercise the prerogative of mercy by the Home Secretary; and 3. The present state of the Law as to the nature and degree of insanity which is held to relieve the accused from penal responsibility in criminal cases?

; Sir, I fully admit the importance of the subject to which the attention of the House has been directed by the hon. Baronet; but, at the same time, I must say—as I have just said with regard to the Salmon Fisheries—that the time of the Government will not permit them to legislate on a question of so much importance and intricacy in the present Parliament.

I beg to give Notice that I will myself introduce a Bill on the subject after Easter.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is not the case that the special and extraordinary expenses of the Police employed at the International Exhibition held in London in 1862, amounting to £21,521, was charged to the Country and not debited to the account of that undertaking; and, whe- ther the special and extraordinary expenses of the Police to be incurred at the opening of, and during the forthcoming exhibition at, the Kensington Central Music Hall, will be at the charge of the Country or debited to the account of that speculation?

said, in reply, that it was not the case that the country was charged one single penny of the expenses of the police employed at the International Exhibition of 1862. The sum of £21,521 was the estimate taken for the special and extraordinary services of police at the Exhibition of 1862; but the sum actually spent was £19,435, of which five-sixths were paid by the Commissioners out of the proceeds of the Exhibition, and the remaining sixth was regarded as properly falling upon the resources of the Police Fund. In fact, the whole of the internal expenses of watching and keeping order in the building and two-thirds of the expenses of keeping order in the roads and approaches were paid by the Commissioners. With regard to the Exhibition of the present year, a similar arrangement had been made so far as the interior of the building was concerned; but no arrangement had yet been made with reference to the roads and approaches.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the charge against Mr. Frank Noel has been entirely dismissed; whether, seeing that Mr. Frank Noel's generous conduct in the affair of the Massacre at Marathon had been fully approved, Mr. Erskine was instructed to protest against it; and, whether the Papers will be laid upon the Table of the House?

, in reply, said, that Mr. Erskine telegraphed on the 18th instant that he had been informed on good authority that the Court of Appeal had ordered the provisional cessation of all further proceedings against Mr. Noel, and that a warrant for his discharge was issued that evening. It would, he thought, be seen from the Papers just published that all steps that could be properly adopted to insure Mr. Noel receiving protection and support were from the first taken by Mr. Erskine, either without or under instructions from home. He (Viscount Enfield) believed that the Papers relating to this subject were circulated that morning.

said, he had fully hoped that the Ballot Bill would have been delivered to hon. Members on Wednesday morning. A few copies only were delivered on Wednesday afternoon; but the Bill was not delivered to hon. Members generally till that (Thursday) morning. Under these circumstances, he would not propose the second reading of the Bill on Monday.

Sir, I beg to give Notice that on Monday next I shall move that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the state of Westmeath and certain parts adjoining Meath and King's County, the nature, extent, and effect of certain unlawful combinations and confederacies existing therein, and the best means of suppressing the same. I also beg to give Notice that on the nomination of the Committee I shall move that it be a Secret Committee.

expressed a hope that the Report of the Inspector General of Recruiting, and the Estimate for the compensation of Officers on the abolition of the purchase system, would be placed in the hands of Members before the second reading of the Army Re-organization Bill was taken.

replied that the Papers in question had been formally laid on the Table, and would soon be in the hands of hon. Members.

said, the Scotch Education Bill had been delivered to hon. Members, and he understood it was the general desire of the Scotch Members that the second reading should be proceeded with on Monday next, as originally fixed.

, in moving that a Select Committee be appointed "to inquire into the Finance and Financial Administration of India," said: As I have already stated, I will not enter upon the subject of the appointment of this Committee, on which I consider the House to be agreed; but I will state to the House what I conceive to be the exact bearings of the issue with regard to the propositions which the Government intend to make, and which would be carried into effect by steps subsequent to the adoption of this Committee by a joint Committee of the two Houses. The House, I hope, will clearly understand that that is a proposition which the Committee will deal with upon its merits entirely, without reference to any supposed engagement which would in any manner affect their liberty of action. Neither the House of Commons nor the House of Lords has taken any step or has in any manner considered the question whether it is expedient that the inquiry should be conducted by a joint Committee, or whether it should be conducted by a Committee of each House separately, or by this House alone, acting on its own responsibility, if the other House should not think fit to follow our example. I do not wish to magnify the question. It is one within a limited scope; and it will only require two or three minutes for me to state the ground of view which the Government take, and the reasons which have induced them to lay the proposal before the House. In the first place, I think the principle of the co-operation of the two Houses in the matters of inquiry conducted before Committees, or even in matters of legislation, at the stage in which measures go before Committees is a very great principle. In the mass of legislation that comes before the Legislature of this country, it is a very great object to discover the means of economizing time, and I think it is the duty of the Government, where there are any means of economizing the public time with reference to matters proper for inquiry by Committees of the two Houses, to take advantage of those means. The question is whether the present occasion is a suitable occasion for that purpose, because I do not suppose it will be thought by anyone that there is any anomaly or novelty per se in conducting an inquiry jointly by Members of this House and by Members of the House of Lords. The first reason for proposing a joint Committee on this subject is that the House of Lords happens to be what may be called particularly strong on the matter of East Indian experience. I need not refer to the names of the noble Lords, some of whom have been in the face of this country; but there is one in particular who has a most distinguished name in connection with Indian administration. No one, I think, would doubt that he would contribute greatly to the efficiency of an inquiry of this kind, and I need hardly say would promote the object we have in view. Another reason is this—that by a Committee of this kind it is always desirable that what may be called the official element of Parliament should be represented up to a certain point—should be represented in considerable strength, though not in such strength as in any way to interfere with the preponderance of independent opinion on the Committee. But in inquiries of this kind, where any administrative Department is concerned, I think we generally see a fourth, and sometimes as many as a third, not of Members in Office, but of Members who are in Office or have been some time in Office in connection with the particular subject; and the advantage of that is that they can render very considerable assistance to those who prosecute the inquiry from a certain point of view. It so happens that the official element, so to speak, with reference to this particular subject is numerically weak in the present House of Commons. Indeed, the judgment of the Government has been influenced to a considerable extent by a circumstance affecting a particular Member of this House. The right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), sitting on the other side of the House, having held, at an anxious period, the Office of Secretary of State for India, has, with very great public spirit—and I am very glad to have an opportunity of bearing testimony in my place here to the fact, as I have done before in private — that right hon. Baronet, I say, who would have been a proper and becoming, and, I may add, essential representative of this House in an inquiry of this kind, has given his services in the important Commission sent to the United States, and thereby weakened what I may call the official element in the ranks of the Committee. No doubt it is in the power of the House to appoint the Under Secretary of State for India, and I hope he will be a Member of the Committee; but I do not think it would be entirely satisfactory that the great party which, with those sitting on this side, makes up the House should remain unrepresented in the official class. It ap-appears to me that this is a very good reason, independent of any other, why we should resort to the plan of a joint Committee. Supposing we go forward, as I now propose, there is, I believe, but one Gentleman — namely, my hon. Friend near me (Mr. Grant Duff), who discharges his duty with so much ability—whom we could appoint as having official experience. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Lowe) did hold Office in connection with India, but it was a long time ago; and, besides, his occupation as a Cabinet Minister, and being Chancellor of the Exchequer, would make it impossible for him to give due attention to the inquiry. In the same manner my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Board of Trade, who was, I believe, Under Secretary for a very short time, is in the same predicament, and it would be quite impossible for him to give attention to Indian matters. Now, it may be that there is some jealousy among the independent Members of this House, lest what I may call the officialism of the other House should be too strong. But it will be in their own power to provide against that danger. It appears to me that this Committee, being chosen from the two Houses, should be larger than usual—that it should consist of 11 Members from each House; and if there be but one person connected with Office from the House of Commons, the independent element will start with 10 Gentlemen taken from the two sides of the House. If, then, the particular position of the House of Lords should make it desirable that three, four, or even five of its Members who have served in India should be appointed, it will be seen that independent Commoners would form three-fourths, or about three-fourths of the Committee. There is only one other point of importance which touches the question of a joint Committee. It is, I believe, a matter of usage and custom that, in the case of a joint Committee, the Chairman should be a Peer; but that Chairman would be chosen by the free choice of the joint Committee itself. First of all, I believe that the technical rules of the House of Lords have been very much relaxed, of late years, with regard to the choice of the Chairmen of Committees; but it is obvious that the application of those technical rules would never be enforced, in the case of a joint Committee. So far as the Chair is concerned, it would be the choice of the Committee that would determine the matter. I may add, that the only object of the Government is to bring to the consideration of this important subject the most efficient and strongest Committee that we can get. We are of opinion that object will be best attained by a joint Committee of the two Houses. We commend that proposition to the general approval of the House; but, at the same time, it must depend upon that general approval being obtained, because it would be an ill beginning for the Committee if there should be any great and serious difference of opinion at the outset respecting its constitution. I will conclude by proposing the Motion that stands in my name, and it is not necessary at present to move the question of the joint Committee.

was of opinion that the Government was doing a great injustice to itself in limiting the scope of the inquiry to the points, how money had been collected in India and how it had been spent. There was a vast number of other subjects which required to be investigated, and to be placed before the public for its judgment. In 1833 that House appointed a Committee of its own Members to take into consideration not only the financial condition of India, but its administration by the East India Company, and the East India Company, so far from objecting, invited the strictest scrutiny into their administration and accounts. They had then a monopoly of trade with India. The result of the inquiry was, that so thoroughly satisfied was the Committee with the administration of the affairs of India by the Company, that a new term of 20 years was granted to them. In 1852 another Committee was appointed. There was at the time a strong feeling growing up in this country against the administration of the Company, though it had been uniformly successful and had transferred to England an Empire larger than ever existed before. So well satisfied was the Committee with the management of the trust reposed in the East India Company that they recommended the Company should be granted a further term of 20 years from 1852, and nothing but the unhappy mutiny in Bengal, which arose not from any action of the Company, but from the invasion of caste prejudices in the Bengal Army, had prevented the administration of India from being still in the hands of the Company. He was a witness before both of the Committees, and he knew that many important facts had been elicited which would never have been known if their labours had been confined within the narrow range now proposed. He thought he would be able to show when the Under Secretary of State for India should make his annual statement that the administration of the affairs of India would with greater advantage to the people of India, have been in the hands of the Company than of the Crown. He would tell his right hon. Friend at the head of the Government that if the inquiry were limited to the question of money it would not give satisfaction to the Europeans in India, and most decidedly not to the Native population.

said, he regretted to find himself in antagonism with the Prime Minister on this subject of a Joint Committee of both Houses; but it would be admitted that, when an unusual and unprecedented course was advocated by the Leader of the House, he was bound to give some special extraordinary and cogent reasons for the proposal. He took exception to the course proposed for several reasons. In the first place, it was unnecessary. Secondly, it involved an aspersion on the intelligence, competence, and discretion of that House. Thirdly, the inquiry into the finance and financial administration of India involved indirectly, if not directly, questions of finance which concerned the taxpayers of this country. And lastly, the composi- tion of the Committee—half of Peers, half of Members of that House—would, of necessity, involve a larger proportion of the official element than was desirable in such an inquiry. He might observe, in passing, that he entirely disagreed with the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Sykes) in wishing that the scope of the inquiry should be enlarged. It would be utterly impossible, in the course of one Session, to extend the scope of the inquiry with any practical result. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had given as the first reason for departing from the usual course, that the House of Commons was particularly deficient in Members possessing official knowledge of Indian subjects. Now, he had taken the trouble to refer back to the previous Committees of that House upon Indian affairs. He held in his hand the nominal roll of the Committee appointed in 1852, and he found it was composed of 31 Members drawn from all sides of the House, from men of all shades of opinion and all degrees of experience, and of the whole 31 there were not more than four or five who had any local or official knowledge of India. Indeed, if the argument of the right hon. Gentleman was worth anything, it would go a great deal farther than he seemed to think. Who were the men who had been most frequently appointed Secretaries of State for India or Governors General? Were they men who had any personal knowledge of India? Had Lord Dalhousie, Lord Canning, or Lord Mayo, or most of those who had been most distinguished on the roll of Governors General? To come nearer home, had the four or five men in the House of Lords who had filled the Office of Secretary of State for India, or President of the Board of Control, any personal knowledge of India? Well, then, of what force was the argument that official knowledge was required? He did not hesitate to say that it would be most undesirable to have on this joint Committee four ex-Secretaries and one ex-Governor General, if not sitting in judgment, at least inquiring into official acts with which they had been more or less connected. Since the Government of India had changed hands the interest of the Debt had more than doubled; we had year by year a chaotic mass of accounts both in that country and this, and he, and those who held similar views, wished to know the causes which had led to increased taxation year by year, while the revenues of India were at the game time increasing. He wished, he might add, that the right hon. Gentleman had furnished the House with some precedent for the course which he asked it to adopt, for he had failed to find any case analogous to the present. It was quite true that within the last few years Joint Committees of both Houses had been appointed; but they had been appointed with the object of deciding what would be a suitable mode of proceeding in certain technical matters. As to the Joint Committee which had been nominated in the reign of William III., it was one which had been appointed under a special Act of Parliament, to make a judicial inquiry into the corrupt distribution of large sums of money by the then Chairman of the East India Company, alleged to have been paid to Members of both Houses to obtain a renewal of the Company's charter, and the inquiry ended in the impeachment of a noble Duke (the Duke of Leeds). When, therefore, on a future occasion, a discussion was held on the composition of the proposed Committee, he hoped some hon. Members of greater experience than himself would give their opinions as to whether it was expedient to change the long-established and recognized course of inquiry without due deliberation, and, as it were, by a side-wind. For, he could not admit that the fortuitous absence of any individual Member of the House, however able or experienced, and he did not deny that the hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon was both able and experienced, was a sufficiently cogent reason for suddenly changing the constitution of the proposed Committee. He must further observe that the financial affairs of India were intimately allied with taxation, and were of great interest as bearing upon the taxpayers of this country. Of the £200,000,000 of public debt in India, including the railway debt, less than 10 per cent was held by the natives of India, the whole of the rest being held by our fellow-countrymen. What was the security for it? A first charge on the revenues of India, which was worth only as much as the continuance of English dominion; and he should like to know whether the high-handed way in which taxation had been imposed on the natives was conducive or not to the prolongation of that dominion? Another objection he had to the Committee was, that it would be composed to too great an extent of official Members of the other House of Parliament. He was aware that those official Members were very distinguished men, who had held the office of Secretary of State for India, and he was opposed to their appointment not in their capacity as individuals, but because they would have, from the very nature of the inquiry, to pass under review their own official conduct, while what was wanted was a free unfettered investigation of Indian financial administration. The right hon. Gentleman had, indeed, observed that there was no fear the official element would override their colleagues in the Committee, inasmuch as they would be only in the proportion of 5 in 22; but he would ask anyone who knew the calibre of those five noble Lords whether they would not, in the nature of things, have a far greater power than was represented merely by their numbers? For his own part, he very much feared that the Committee would be overridden by that select band of brothers. He appealed with confidence, therefore, to the independent Members of the House, to use their influence to secure that the inquiry should be free, for otherwise it would fail to give satisfaction. He could not believe that the present reformed House of Commons was less competent to inquire impartially and effectively into Indian affairs than any of its predecessors, and he therefore hoped that the proposal for a Joint Committee would not be pressed.

said, he fully agreed in the opinion that the range of inquiry assigned to the proposed Committee was sufficiently extended; but he felt certain that if a Joint Committee were appointed the official element would be most unduly predominant. The financial mismanagement of India—or, if that phrase were considered too strong, he would say the disordered state of the Indian finances—was the subject of inquiry; it would range over the administration of the last eight or nine years, which embraced the tenures of Office of four Indian Secretaries of State, and of one Governor General, who were now Members of the other House. They could scarcely fail to feel that their own administration was called in question, and that they were put upon their defence; but surely it would be inconsistent to place the conduct of the inquiry into the hands of the very officials whose administration was to be inquired into. No doubt, the opinions of so many distinguished men who had held the office of Secretary of State would be most valuable; but those opinions might be given to the Committee as evidence, and he should think that those noble Lords would themselves prefer to take the part of witnesses rather than serve as members of the Committee. He should be sorry to see it composed mainly of men who had been in the service of the State in India. What he desired was that a broad, independent, English view should be brought to bear on Indian affairs, and he was sure nothing could give the people of that country greater satisfaction than to find that the House of Commons manifested an interest in their well-being. A Committee, having upon it a large number of officials, would certainly fail to inspire the same confidence.

said, he thought that there should be some inquiry into our relations with the Hill Tribes, against whom 21 expeditions had been sent within the period between 1850 and 1868. He should not press this question now, but he begged to give Notice that when the Committee had concluded its labours he should bring it before the House. He was also of opinion that if the Government persisted in their determination to appoint a Joint Committee it should consist of 34 Members, 17 from each House. If official experience were deemed of so much value there were several right hon. Gentlemen—such, for instance, as his right hon. Friend the Member for North Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt) on the Bench below him—whose services might with great advantage be secured. In a letter, he might add, which he had received that morning from a very intelligent Indian gentleman residing in this country, views similar to those which had just been stated by the hon. Member for Gravesend (Sir Charles Wingfield), as to the composition of the Committee, were put forward, and as they had not the advantage of the presence of any native of India he should venture to read it. He said—

"A Joint Committee is proposed. I have no objection to it; but I think, in fairness to the Committee and to the ex-officials themselves, they should not be on the Committee. I mean the ex-Secretaries of State and Governor Generals since 1860, for it is their own administration that is to be the subject of inquiry; and it would not be satisfactory, I am afraid, to the public that these ex-officials themselves should sit in judgment upon their own conduct. Their true place is in the witness-box, not on the Bench."

For his part, he was glad to see that the Government had acceded to the wish of the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) for a Committee of Inquiry; and though that inquiry might not be so extensive or in such a form as some persons might desire, he hoped, nevertheless, that great good would result from it.

said, if the Speaker ruled he was in Order, he should move "that there be added to the words of the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman the following words:—'and that such Committee be solely composed of Members of the House of Commons.'" He had sat in that House for 14 or 15 years, and the greatest dissatisfaction was always expressed about the East India accounts. They had been brought in at the fag-end of the Session to nearly empty Benches, when there were not more than a score of Members present; and the feelings of dissatisfaction—quite justifiable in the circumstances, had spread to the millions of our great Eastern dependency, who were naturally indignant at having been so treated. If they desired that this inquiry should be more than a "sham," if it was really to suggest remedies for some of the evils connected with the finances of India, experts might be called upon with advantage to give evidence; but they should not be judges of a system in the administration of which they had been concerned. The subject of the inquiry was the financial conduct of the Government of India. The Committee would have to discuss all matters connected with the taxation of India, including the extent and pressure of the income tax; and he thought that such questions would be best discussed not by those who had spent the best part of their lives in India or in the India Office, but by Gentlemen acquainted with the principles of sound finance.

observed that this inquiry was demanded by the people of India, but such a Committee as the Government proposed would not have their confidence. They had petitioned again and again for inquiry; there had been none since the government of India came into the hands of that House, and neither they nor the people of this country would be satisfied unless the Committee was composed entirely of Members of that House.

I give every credit to Her Majesty's Government for the motives which have induced them to make this proposition, and I feel sure they have only made it from a conviction that it was for the public advantage. But there are difficulties in the way which they ought to consider before asking the House to decide upon this course. The right hon. Gentleman regrets the absence of my right hon. Friend Sir Stafford Northcote. I also regret his absence on an occasion like the present, and I have no doubt I shall, in the course of the Session, have to regret it on other occasions. But, like the right hon. Gentleman, I am partially responsible for this absence, because my right hon. Friend would not have quitted the country at such a period without my assent, but there are occasions on which, when high political questions of Imperial importance arise, a public man, whatever his political party, owes his service to his country. In the course he has taken my right hon. Friend was influenced by motives of the highest character, and his political friends who will suffer by his absence were conscious of the sacrifice he was making and of the loss they would sustain. But they felt that, under the circumstances of the case, it was his duty to accede to the suggestion of the Government, and give his talents and his experience to the solution of difficulties which I trust will be removed by the Commission which Her Majesty's Government have resolved to appoint. With regard to the question before the House, there is no doubt that to ask for the appointment of a Joint Committee of the two Houses is a very unusual course. There have been Joint Committees of the two Houses. There was one last year, of which I was a Member. But wherever we have had Joint Committees of the two Houses they have been generally on technical points, issues of a limited character, such as arrangements about deposits for railways, and the subject considered by the last Joint Committee—namely, to expedite, if possible, the procedure of business between the two Houses. There the object in view was very intelligible, and it was not on the cards that the course taken by the Joint Committee would at all interfere with the privileges or the general conduct of business of either House. Even with this limitation, however, the instances of the appointment of a Joint Committee are rare. Now, in the present case, it must strike us at once that the proposal for a Joint Committee is not only on a large subject, but must deal with questions hitherto considered within the peculiar jurisdiction—if I may use the term—of this House—I mean the management of finance. We have all been for many years impressed with the conviction that the management of the finances of India much interests those who live in England. Otherwise, there would be no reason for the statement of those finances made to us every year. The ill-management of Indian finance must recoil ultimately upon the financial resources of this country. Therefore, it seems to me difficult for a Joint Committee to enter upon questions as to the present state of Indian finance without the Members of the other House being drawn into the consideration of matters in which it has always been one of the principal aims of this House to prevent them from interfering. This alone is, I think, a serious objection to the course proposed. The recommendation of the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman has been that it is the only one that would insure the presence of adequate official experience. I would not depreciate the value of the presence of those who possess official experience in the government, and especially in the finances, of India. But the first question we have to decide is, whether it is worth while, in order to obtain the presence of this official experience, to take a course so unusual as the appointment of a Joint Committee of the two Houses, especially on a subject as to which, of all others, according to the traditions and principles of this House, concerted action by the two Houses should be avoided. Then, again, great as is the advantage of official experience, it is an advantage not without drawbacks. You may have too much official experience upon any Committee of this character, and therefore I think we should consider whether, out of our own resources, we may not be able to appoint a Committee which shall effectually inquire into this important subject, and furnish the House with the information and conclusions it requires. The right hon. Gentleman has referred particularly to this side of the House as being denuded of official experience by the absence of my right hon. Friend (Sir Stafford Northcote). I will not make any remark upon hon. Members opposite, and I have no doubt the right hon. Gentleman is so well acquainted with them that he will be able to select many Members there whose assistance will be very valuable. But even on this side of the House, without the advantage of my right hon. Friend, or the presence of any who have been officially connected with the government and administration of India at home or abroad, there are several Gentlemen, I think, whose presence on this Committee would be highly valuable and beneficial, and who, in my opinion, would contribute to results which even Members with official experience might be unable to produce. There is my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Baring), who was Chairman of the Indian Committee which sat in 1852, and from the experience he acquired in carrying on and controlling that large investigation, as well as from his financial experience, I should say he would be most competent to sit on a Committee for considering Indian finance. I know well that my right hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen Cave) has given great attention to Indian finance, and though he has not had official experience in Indian finance, he would form another competent member of the Committee. If such men as these were appointed, I am sure their labours would not be a source of shame to us. On the whole, although I fully appreciate the motives which have influenced the Government in making this suggestion—a fair suggestion for the consideration of the House—I cannot help feeling that the objections to the course proposed are weighty, and as upon a matter of this kind I should be sorry to see anything like a Division, I should be glad if the Government were to re-consider the proposition they have brought forward. It is a proposition which I do not think ought to be acceded to unless there were something approaching unanimity, and I hope the Government will find it consistent with their duty not to press its adoption upon the House.

rose to Order, and inquired whether the Amendment suggested by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Gilpin) could be put from the Chair?

The only thing this House can do is to appoint a Committee of this House: it cannot appoint or prevent the appointment of a Committee of the other House; therefore, the Amendment could not properly be put.

said, he had risen with the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Kinnaird) to shorten the discussion, but knowing the inflexible character of that hon. Gentleman, he had not persevered. The debate had proceeded quite far enough to satisfy, at least negatively, the condition he laid down in his own speech—that it being a proposal in some degree novel in character, he should not be justified in pressing it unless it met with the general approval of the House. He could not honestly say he was convinced by the arguments used against it. He hoped he should not be deemed disrespectful if he said that some of them partook of the nature of superstition; and as regarded the speech of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli), though he (Mr. Gladstone) must acknowledge it to have been conceived in the fairest possible spirit, he must express his decided dissent from one important point of principle which the right hon. Gentleman raised as regarded the competency of the House of Lords to deal with Indian finance. He (Mr. Gladstone) had been as ready as any man to defend the privileges of that House in matters of finance in critical and difficult circumstances; but so far as he was capable of forming an opinion, their exclusive rights with respect to finance arose solely out of the circumstance that they represented the people of England, and consequently their rights in no way extended to Indian finance. He believed the Acts of Parliament for regulating the government of India with reference to the presentation of accounts, &c, concerned the two Houses equally. He did not think it desirable, except on grounds of broad constitutional principle, that they should attempt to narrow the deliberative functions of the House of Lords. He would not, however, argue the point now, and would simply enter his protest against the acceptance of the principle laid down. He was satisfied that his proposal did not meet with that kind of approval which he thought desirable; he quite agreed that it should not be upon the vote of a mere majority that such a step should be taken; and therefore he should not press those subsequent measures which would have been necessary to give effect to the intention of the Government in case it had been thought fit to go forward with it. He assured the hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeen (Colonel Sykes) that the Motion had been framed to make out as large a province of inquiry as under present circumstances it was possible for any Committee to occupy in an efficient manner.

said, that in consequence of the question of clerical Fellowships not having been raised on the bringing up of the Report, the only means of re-opening the question now would be to re-commit the Bill for new clauses to be inserted; but, after consideration, he, and those who thought with him, came to the conclusion that it would not be wise on their part to resort to a course so unusual, because Her Majesty's Government having stated that their decision upon this point was irrevocable, a majority against them would be tantamount to throwing out the Bill for this Session. But, in listening to the Government on this point for the present, he by no means admitted the distinction drawn by the Solicitor Gene- ral between the abuses the Bill corrected and the abuses connected with clerical Fellowships; and he had no doubt that when these and other matters connected with the Universities came to be dealt with in the future, with the object of bringing the Universities as far as possible within the reach of the greatest possible number of the population, the majority of the House would have occasion once more to condemn the piecemeal legislation of its predecessors.

said, he would not stop to inquire whether the hon. Member (Mr. Fawcett) was right in his calculation, that if he had reproduced his proposition it would have been supported by a majority; but he was bound to say that all the rumours he had heard led to a very different conclusion. But whether the hon. Member would have been supported by a majority or a minority, on either supposition he had exercised, a wise discretion. He wished to remove two misapprehensions under which the hon. Gentleman laboured. He appeared to think he (Mr. Gladstone) had laid down a doctrine that the House of Commons was bound, when the House of Lords in one Session referred a Bill to a Select Committee, to send up to their Lordships the same Bill again in another Session. Now, in discussing that measure, he had invariably said that every independent Member of the House was perfectly free to take whatever course he thought politic and right, and that the restriction which he held to apply to their action applied to the Executive Government alone. Then the hon. Gentleman said that by the rejection of his Amendment they retained clerical Fellowships. That, he thought, was not an accurate description of the matter. When he placed that subject on the comparatively narrow ground of the position they stood in with reference to the House of Lords and to the parties promoting the Bill, he forewent a very great advantage. Without meaning to be disrespectful, he said that, as far as the University of Oxford was concerned, if the first Amendment had been adopted, it would have been entirely nugatory. He did not believe that upon the statutes of the University it would have had the smallest effect, good, bad, or indifferent. As to the second Amendment, he did not hesitate to congratulate the House upon its escape from it. It would have confirmed and aggravated the greatest abuse in the two Universities—namely, the existence of sinecure Fellowships, permanently held—a great stain, unquestionably, upon those institutions. Now, the obligation of taking Orders, whatever else might be said of it, as a practical measure, had the effect of making many Fellowships terminate at an early period, thereby preventing the multiplication and extension of those sinecure Fellowships held without limit of time. The hon. Gentleman might urge that it was not a satisfactory mode of restraining that evil to impose the obligation of taking Orders, nor did he himself say it was; but he said the second Amendment would have aggravated one of the greatest abuses in the Universities, and earnest academical reformers, chiefly resident members of the Universities, abstained from recommending that proposition because they knew it would not improve, but worsen, their system in regard to the tenure of Fellowships. As to religious instruction and worship, the effect of that Amendment, though probably not its intention, would have been to remove all certain provision whatever for the maintenance even of divine worship in the college chapels of the two Universities. Both he and his learned Friend the Solicitor General thought the question of Fellowships ought not to be allowed to sleep. The tenure of Fellowships was not a thing to be dealt with by a stroke of the pen. It was an old system, fortified by a number of conditions, which must be studied as a whole. Let them detach, if they could, the question of religious tests from that of general legislation upon Fellowships. But, first of all, they would watch the fate of that measure in "another place." If it met with the success they hoped for, they would then apply themselves to considering what practical measures they could best take—whether by the authority of the Executive, or by invoking the aid of Parliament—for placing the Legislature and the Government in a position to deal effectively with the subject of Fellowships, and make the great and noble endowments of the colleges in their Universities as efficient as possible for the purposes for which they were intended. That promise that the subject should not be overlooked he freely gave to all who took an interest in it.

desired that the part he took on the measure might not be misunderstood. He much regretted that his right hon. Friend (Mr. S. Walpole), who had intended to be there that evening, was prevented from being present by another loss sustained by his family, in addition to the one that previously occurred. For himself, he did not assent to the doctrines of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, who proposed that the same Bill as was sent up last year should now be submitted to the House of Lords; and if he did not now oppose that proceeding, he must hold himself quite free to take any course he might think fit as to any Bill on that subject which might be introduced in a future Session. He should be very glad, indeed, if the question could be settled in such a way as to provide proper securities for religious teaching and discipline in the Universities, which the right hon. Gentleman himself admitted in principle to be desirable. As the Bill now stood, however, it did not provide those securities; and if it came before the House again in the same shape as it now stood, or near it, he should be prepared to resist it.

explained that if he had carried his Amendment on Monday, he would have followed it up by a clause providing that no one, because he was in Holy Orders, should hold a Fellowship longer than if he were a layman.

, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, he would give a short explanation of the purport and objects of the measure. It would be recollected that the Pope, in September, 1850, issued a Bull, conferring, or professing to confer, certain ecclesiastical and territorial titles upon the Roman Catholic Prelates in England, and that this proceeding caused great excitement in this country. Indeed, the public feeling on the matter was so strong that the Government of the day had scarcely a choice but to introduce an Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. It was important that they should thoroughly understand the effect of that Act before they considered the question of repealing it. The state of the law previous to the passing of that Act was this—He held it to be undoubted that by the common law of this country, declared from time to time by statute, and more particularly by the 28th Henry VIII., which was repealed by an Act passed in the reign of Philip and Mary, but re-enacted again by the 1st of Elizabeth, any jurisdiction, any title conferred by the Pope or any foreign authority was absolutely without legal effect, or, in the words of the statutes, "null and void." Such was the state of the law before the Ecclesiastical Titles Act was passed; such is now the state of the law, and such would remain the state of the law after the present Bill was passed. He wished that to be distinctly understood. But the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act of 10 Geo. IV. went beyond the Acts to which he had referred, and inflicted a penalty of £100 upon any Roman Catholic Bishop or other person who should assume any ecclesiastical title which was possessed by any member of the Established Church in England or Ireland. The Bull of the Pope, to which he had referred, of September, 1850, did not contravene the provisions of the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act, or, at all events, it was the opinion of the majority of the lawyers that it did not do so, for this reason, that the Bull did not authorize the assumption of any title actually held by Prelates of the Established Church, but the assumption of territorial titles other than those held by members of the Established Church; and it was to meet this aggression, as it was termed, that the Act which he now sought to repeal was introduced. By the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, persons were prohibited, under a penalty of £100, from assuming any ecclesiastical title in Great Britain and Ireland without proper authority. It was, however, at once seen that that Act would affect the Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Scotland, and, therefore, an express exception was introduced into the Act to meet their case. Having stated the effect of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, he would proceed to give the reasons which had induced Her Majesty's Government to seek to repeal that statute. It was not to be disputed that the Act was practically a dead letter; but he regretted to say that it had not been altogether inoperative, inasmuch as it had given rise to considerable irritation on the part of our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, and of alienating the Roman Catholic Prelates from the Government in Ireland. The present Lord Chancellor of Ireland, when giving evidence before a Committee of this House on the subject, had stated that he saw no reason, as the law now stood, to expect cordial personal intercourse between the Irish secular authorities and those who ruled the Roman Catholic Church—a circumstance which was to be regarded as a deep calamity in a country like Ireland. The question of the repeal of this statute had been considered by a Select Committee of that House which sat in 1867, and that Committee had reported in favour of the repeal of the Act, although he was bound at the same time to say that a Committee of the other House had reported in an opposite sense. It was a great evil to retain on the statute book penalties which were not enforced. But the case for the repeal of the Act did not rest here. The disestablishment of the Irish Church by the Act of last year made the passing of the present Bill a matter of absolute necessity, because, as the law now stood, every Bishop of the disestablished Church appointed after the 1st of January, 1871, who should assume an ecclesiastical title, would be subjected to a penalty of £100 under it; and, therefore, if it were allowed to remain on the statute book, it would altogether prevent the working of that Church. An hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Charley) intended to propose the rejection of the Bill. Now, he presumed that the hon. Gentleman did not think that the Bishops of the Established Church ought to be subject to a penalty for assuming ecclesiastical titles. This point could only be dealt with in two ways. Either the statute must be repealed altogether, or Parliament must pass a measure exempting Protestant Bishops from its operation whilst Roman Catholic Bishops would still be liable—a course that would scarcely be consistent with the sacrifice they had submitted to in order to establish religious equality in Ireland. In endeavouring to repeal the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, the Government had been careful not to go further than was absolutely necessary, and, therefore, they had not attempted to touch the provisions of the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act, which would remain in force, and under which Roman Catholic Bishops would be prohibited from assuming titles held by Prelates of the Church of England. It would certainly be most inconvenient if there were two Archbishops of Canterbury; but he presumed that it was not the intention of the Prelates of the Roman Catholic Church to assume such titles. Feeling the importance that would attach to the wording of this Bill, he proposed, in the event of the House permitting it to be read a second time, to refer it to a Select Committee, in order that the precise words in which the measure should be drawn should be deliberately determined upon. He trusted that the majority of the House would feel that the repeal of the statute in question was necessary not merely in the interest of the Protestant Church of Ireland, but of religious liberty. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by moving that the Bill be now read a second time.

, in moving, as an Amendment, that the Bill be read a second time upon that day six months, observed that when the Earl of Kimberley introduced the Bill, he stated that he did so on account of the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland. That view had been taken by the Attorney General. The Solicitor General for Ireland, in the debate on the second reading of a similar measure which had been introduced last year, stated his belief that the existing Prelates of the disestablished Church, in Ireland would not be affected by the provisions of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, although those appointed subsequently to January, 1871, would be affected by them. He much admired the modesty of the Solicitor General for Ireland, and he only wished he could say the same of the Attorney General for England. He was prepared to show that it was impossible to escape from the dilemma propounded by Lord Cairns, that the Bill, if intended merely for the relief of the Irish Protestant Bishops, either did too much or too little. It did too much, because it extended to Great Britain, where it was not wanted. It did too little, because it did not repeal the 24th section of the Catholic Emancipation Act. This last-named Act was sanctioned by the great names of the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel; but it was necessary to pass the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, because His Holiness the Pope adroitly shielded his nominees from the penalties imposed by appointing them to sees bearing names differing from those of the sees in the Established Church. The Earl of Kimberley last year, in endeavouring to meet the objection that the repeal of the 24th section of the Catholic Emancipation Act was necessary to relieve perfectly the Protestant Bishops in Ireland, said—

"Next January the clause will not apply to any Irish Bishop; for as there will be no bishoprics established by law in Ireland there will be no titles which the Bishops of any Church will be prohibited from assuming."—[3 Hansard, cci. 1472.]

And the Lord Chancellor of England, speaking subsequently in the same debate, said—

"After the Church in Ireland has ceased to be established, there is no longer any objection in that country to any person assuming the title of his see from any town, the name of which had formerly been appropriated to a see of the Established Church."—[Ibid. 1486.]

The language of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act and that of the Catholic Emancipation Act showed that the former was merely an Act for the extension of the latter by the use of the words, "be or be not the province, or co-extensive with the province, of any Archbishop, &c.," of the Established Church, and as that took in any new sees the Parliament was even with the Pope. According to the opinion of the Lord Chancellor, any person might assume the title formerly held by the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of Ireland; but those dignitaries never had assumed the title of any see, and they never would assume any other than those formerly held by them under the sanction of the law; and, therefore, if they were to be sued it must be under the 24th section of the Catholic Emancipation Act, and they could cite the Lord Chancellor as an authority that they were liable to no penalties under that Act, and, à fortiori, they were not under the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, and, therefore, that apprehended danger was purely imaginary. The Roman Catholic Bishops of Ireland had no grievance to complain of, because if they were sued they also could plead the opinion of the Lord Chancellor in their favour. The law with regard to Bulls was, no doubt, as the learned Attorney General had stated it; any person introducing Papal Bulls into this country was liable to the law of prœmunire. In Earl Russell's time Lord Romilly, the then Attorney General, and Sir Alexander Cockburn, the present Lord Chief Justice, who was at that time Solicitor General, went into the question of penalties. They found they were somewhat rusty and antiquated, and suggested that a simple remedy ought to be substituted, and that of £100 was substituted. The Bulls spoken of in the Ecclesiastical Titles Act were not Bulls at all, but such as were mentioned in the Preamble of the Act—namely, Bulls creating pretended sees similar to those the Pope created in England in 1850. The Irish Roman Catholic Bishops had no more a grievance than had the Irish Protestant Bishops of that country, being placed on perfect equality for the future. He agreed with the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren), in the law with regard to Scotland which he laid down last Session. The Act of 1829 did not mention Scotland in its enacting part, but the Act of 1851 did extend to that country, and, therefore, if they repealed that Act they would sweep away all the obstacles to the establishment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in that country taking territorial titles from places within its boundary; not that he supposed the souls of Scotch Presbyterians would be much troubled by the Pope treating them as heretics. The 3rd clause of the Act, as it related to Scotland, was not, as the Attorney General had said, a violation of religious equality. It did not in the least change the condition of the Episcopal Church in Scotland. It left it where it found it; but it exempted the Church of Scotland from the penalties under the Act. In 1851 Sir George Grey, in reply to a Question from a Roman Catholic Member, said that the Scotch Bishops stood on a totally different footing to the Roman Catholic Bishops, inasmuch as they did not hold their office through the appointment of a foreign Power. There was nothing he said in the law that gave them power to assume those titles, but it left them just where they were before. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) said he agreed with the right hon. Baronet that there was a distinction between Bishops holding office by foreign appointment and authority, and those who did not so hold them, and the clause was read a third time without a Division. The Roman Catholic Bishops of Scotland had never assumed territorial titles taken from places in that country, and therefore they had never been subjected to the penalty of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act. They laboured under no grievance, and the only object for sweeping away the Ecclesiastical Titles Act could be to entitle them to assume in Scotland territorial titles derived from places there. He did not envy any Scotch Member who voted for the second reading of the Bill, and if he did, he hoped the vote of want of confidence adopted in Glasgow would not be thrown away. In England there was an Established Church the form of which was Episcopal, and, as the Attorney General had said, it was thought inexpedient that there should be two Archbishops of Canterbury or two Bishops of London, and, therefore, the Government did not propose to repeal the 24th section of the Catholic Emancipation Act; but that it was very expedient to have an Archbishop of Westminster whose jurisdiction, though derived from a foreign source, did not conflict with theirs. The Ecclesiastical Titles Act was, however, passed with special reference to England. As Lord Russell said, we had no remedy against the Pope, who appointed Bishops in this country, to whom he assigned English territorial titles; but we had a remedy against Dr. Manning, and now the Government proposed to deprive us of that remedy against Dr. Manning. It was not true that Dr. Manning's jurisdiction as Archbishop of Westminster did not conflict with that of the Bishop of London, because Westminster formed a part of the diocese of the Bishop of London. This was not the time to exalt the Church of Rome when all the civilized nations of the Continent of Europe found it indispensable to curb her exorbitant pretensions; and when they considered the magnificent cathedral the Church of Rome intended to build in the neighbourhood of that House, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London might well hide their diminished heads as the representatives of the Protestant Constitution. The Attorney General had said that, in fact, the penalties imposed by the Ecclesiastical Titles Act had never been enforced, and that in consequence it was inexpedient to get rid of them. He would remind the House that the Catholic Emancipation Act provided that the penalties should be enforced by the Attorney General himself; but Lord Chelmsford introduced a clause into the Ecclesiastical Titles Act which provided that they might be enforced by any person with the consent of the Attorney General. If, then, the penalties were not enforced, whose fault was it? Why the Attorney General, who would not give his consent to their being recovered. It was, therefore, idle to talk of their not being enforced. How long, he asked, would the people of this country endure this sort of thing. He could not say; but this he knew, that when the Prime Minister of England began to notice the Pope it was high time for the House of Commons to notice the Prime Minister. In official documents issued that morning it would be found that the right hon. Gentleman sent a powerful man-of-war to await the wishes of the Holy Father, and he thought it was inconsistent in a statesman, after recommending Her Majesty to sanction the confiscation of the property of the Irish Church, that he should be afterwards found taking steps to protect the property of the Irish College at Rome. He saw by that morning's paper that the Roman Catholic ladies of England had presented an address to His Holiness, in which they said they must congratulate him on the triumph in store for him, and he should like to know if the Prime Minister intended to adorn that triumph. An opinion was gaining ground out-of-doors that in his efforts to subdue and subjugate and break down the will of the people Archbishop Manning had a willing ally in the Prime Minister of England. When a question was put to the right hon. Gentleman whether he had lately become reconciled to the Church of Rome, why did he shuffle with the question, instead of giving it a straightforward denial like an honest Englishman, if it were not true? Of this he (Mr. Charley) was quite certain that the Protestant establishments of this country would never be destroyed except by the false friends of Protestantism. Would to God the right hon. Gentleman were a member of the Church of Rome, for then he could not do half the evil he had done to Pro- testantism as a member of the Protestant Church. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by moving his Amendment.

said^*: Sir, I am aware that it would be convenient to Roman Catholic Members to allow this debate to drop. I saw an hon. Member rise on this side of the House, a Roman Catholic Member (Mr. H. Matthews), with whom I had the honour of serving on the Committee appointed last Session to inquire into the conventual and monastic institutions which are so rapidly increasing in this country, and I can answer for it that, subject to the directions which that hon. Member, no doubt, receives, he is prompt on every occasion to lend his legal acumen to the defence of the interests which are seeking shelter from the purview of the law. When I saw that hon. Member rise to address the House, I own I was rather surprised to observe how suddenly he sat down again. The hon. Member had evidently received a signal which purported that it is now half-past 7 o'clock, and that a Division "snapped" at this particular moment would not have represented the real opinion of the House: so, seeking to avoid a fair decision of the House, down sat the hon. Member. Sir, this is but one instance of the tactics which have prevailed among the Roman Catholic party, and in the Committee to which I have referred; and it is by such devices that the rapid progress—the rapid political progress—of the Papacy in this country has been promoted. It is, moreover, through the extreme ignorance that prevails with regard to the real nature of the aggression that the Act of 1851, which it is now sought to repeal, was intended to counteract. Sir, it is the pleasure of some hon. Members to assume that England, in 1851, was mad; and that this House, although the debates continued during the whole Session, was pursuing a chimera in enacting a law upon no novel principle, but enacting a law which though something more, still is clearly declaratory of the ancient law of this kingdom which existed from before the Conquest, because the Sovereigns of England, whoever held the sovereign power in this country, had always found it necessary to restrain the pretensions of the Papacy. And why? Because, while pretending to "spiritual" authority only, the Papacy has ever given to that term such an extensive interpretation that "spiritual," according to that interpretation, includes all temporal interests. Now, Sir, in order to show that this doctrine is not abandoned, I will, with the permission of the House, quote a passage from a very remarkable work which has recently been published. This work is the sequel to another work entitled Janus, in which the views of educated Germans—I mean Roman Catholic Germans—as to the probable purpose and effect of the Council then about to be held at Rome, were given. That work was followed by the production of the work to which I am referring, and which is entitled Quirinus. These Roman Catholics, being, I believe, distinguished ecclesiastics, understand the persecuting power of Rome's jurisdiction so well that they dare not publish their own names; at the same time, the authority of those works is well known and is indisputable. Quirinus consists of a number of letters which were written by three persons of different nations, who were resident at Rome during the Session of the Council, and they conveyed to a centre in Germany—a Roman Catholic centre in Germany—from week to week what their respective writers were enabled to gather from the members of the Council, until at last his Holiness the Pope became so alarmed at the publication of the proceedings of the Council, that, on the 14th of January last, he pronounced it to be a deadly sin to publish anything connected with those proceedings, or relating to the Council, except by way of laudation. After that declaration, or rather condemnation, by the Chief of the Roman Catholic Church, who was then also Sovereign of the Roman States and of the city of Rome, it is not likely that we should obtain any more direct evidence of what passed in the Council than what was thus furnished us from Germany in the pages of the work entitled Quirinus. Let me, in passing, recommend every hon. Member in this House to procure copies of this work, and of the companion volume Janus, for the sake of preserving the history of this remarkable Council. They are published by Rivington and Co., and there is little probability of any other history of these transactions appearing more distinctly in our lifetime. In the Appendix to this work, Quirinus, the speech, of M. Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, is given. He is a most remarkable, a most distinguished, and a most exemplary Prelate. I would recall to the recollection of the House that it was this Archbishop of Paris who remonstrated, five or six years since, against the intrusion of the Pope's power into his diocese to the supersession of his own lawful jurisdiction—lawful, that is, under the canon law, as exercised over the regular religious monastic and conventual Orders in Paris; and that the Pope censured this Archbishop because, as Archbishop, he had represented to His Holiness that, by the canon law, by the Concordat, and by the fundamental laws of France, he was only performing his duty as a Bishop in exercising visitatorial power over the regular Orders and their houses; and yet the Pope, acting upon the principle which has now found its full development in the decrees of the Council, threatened to supersede the Archbishop. The Pope set at nought the canon law, and defied the law of France then, as he is now defying the law of England. And it is in deference to this defiance that the House of Commons is asked to repeal this statute of 1851, which is declaratory of the ancient law that our forefathers had, for 800 years at least, found to be necessary for the preservation of their independence as citizens of this free country. Sir, the Archbishop of Paris was bold enough to oppose the dogma of Papal infallibility and the Schema for the re-organization of the Roman Catholic Church not upon the principle of a Church at all, but upon the principle of political conspiracy, whereby all rights under the canon law of Rome—that canon law which constitutes her as a Church—may at any moment, by the sole dictum of the Pope, pronounced ex cathedrâ by some secret conclave held at Rome, be superseded; and the arbitrary will of the Pope may thus be enforced upon the Roman Catholics of any district, of any province, or of any country, to the supersession of their known and ancient rights under the canon law. What says the Archbishop of Paris? In a speech delivered on the 20th of May last, on the Con-stitutio dogmatica de Ecclesiâ, the Archbishop says—

"The compilers of the Schema, whether they desire it or not, are introducing a new era of mischief, if the subject-matter of Papal infallibility is not accurately defined, or if it can be supposed that under the head of morals the Pope will give decisions on the civil and political acts of Sovereigns and nations, laws and rights, to which a public authority will be attributed. Everyone of any political cultivation knows what seeds of discord are contained in our Schema, and to what perils it exposes even the temporal power of the Holy See."

The Archbishop of Paris thus warned the Council, and has thus fortunately warned the world, that the proceedings of that Council have invested the Pope with the power of pronouncing, as necessary to salvation, what shall be or what shall not be the political acts of Roman Catholic Prelates, and of Catholics generally throughout the world. Well, Sir, the Bill before the House is clearly intended for the encouragement of Archbishop Manning; intended for the promotion of Archbishop Manning, and intended for the promotion of Cardinal Cullen. Cardinal Cullen condemned the Archbishop of Paris at a meeting which was held immediately after the Council separated, and said he hoped that all such opinions as his—that all opinions which represented the ancient Constitution, the ancient Gallican liberties of the Roman Catholic Church of France, would be swept into oblivion. To the speech of the Archbishop of Paris, which I have quoted to the House, there is a note appended by the author of Quirinus, which refers to a passage in a well-known sermon, preached in 1869 at Kensington by Archbishop Manning. Archbishop Manning announced that the Pope will give decisions on the civil and political acts of Sovereigns and nations, laws and rights, to which a public authority will be attributed. In this note the writer affirms so; that the acts of the Pope, as infallible, when pronounced ex cathedrâ, will be political.

"This is emphatically asserted," says the author, "in a sermon preached last year at Kensington by Archbishop Manning, where he says, speaking in the Pope's name—'I claim to be the supreme judge and director of the consciences of men; of the peasant that tills the field and the prince that sits on the throne; of the household that lives in the shade of privacy, and the Legislature that makes laws for kingdoms—I am the sole last supreme judge of what is right and wrong.'"

Now, the House is asked by this Bill to pass a statute to legalize a title in Dr. Manning which the law has condemned, and to relieve him from penalties, in order that he may in this metropolis carry out this doctrine as to the Pope's supremacy in all matters, whether private, public, or political; yet I find the House scarcely deigning to give any attention to the subject, as if it could afford to treat with contemptuous indifference the purposes and designs of a person like Dr. Manning, who, as thus authorized by the Pope, is known already to have had an enormous influence in moulding the Members of this House to effect the subversion of the Church of Ireland. I myself have witnessed the exertions of Dr. Manning in the Lobbies of this House, and when I know that they were intended to promote that which has been described and condemned as an idolatrous tyranny by an Archbishop of Paris, the murdered predecessor of the present Archbishop, and by the Count de Montalembert, as I showed the House last year when I read to the House the letter of the late Count de Montalembert, in which he quoted Archbishop Sibour, the predecessor of the present Archbishop of Paris, whose eloquent words of remonstrance in the Council I have now quoted; I ask, is it not lamentable that this House of Commons should be either so ignorant or indifferent as to the action of these influences, that most of the Benches are empty, and that the representatives of the Opposition are all absent? Can this be regarded as a true representation of the feeling of the country? You pretend that this House has been elected by household suffrage. Do you represent the ignorance or the intelligence of the country? [Laughter.] Hon. Members laugh; and yet this very evening a large section, if not the majority, of this House will do the bidding of this very power for which they affect contempt. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General says that, after all we have done for the safe establishment of religious liberty, would it not be fitting to do this one thing more, and extend to the Roman Catholic Bishops an equal right to assume territorial titles with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the Archbishop of York? Why, says he, can we not take this other little step in the direction of establishing religious equality? Has the hon. and learned Gentleman ever asked Dr. Manning whether he is willing to accept now, henceforth, and for ever, on the part of the see of Rome, the doctrine of religious equality? It happens—and I referred to this question last year—that in the Committee on Conventual and Monastic Institutions, Lord Clifford was examined as a witness; and I rejoiced to see a nobleman appear as a witness, of whose private character I had heard so much that I knew I might have perfect confidence in his honour. He said, in effect—"All that we ask is that the law should take no notice of those monastic and conventual institutions. Leave us alone. Take no notice of us: leave us free to establish these institutions. We desire that the law of England should not interfere in ecclesiastical or religious matters. We wish the law to regard as equal the Church of England, the establishment of the Protestant Nonconformists and Dissenters, and these establishments of the Church of Rome, and should meddle with none of them." I then put several times this question to Lord Clifford—"Suppose the law either treats as equals the institutions of all denominations and ignores all their institutions, will the Church of Rome be satisfied to remain on terms of equality with the Wesleyans, Independents, Baptists, Church of England, and other denominationalists?" I pressed that question home, and Lord Clifford, as an honourable man, at length appealed to the Chairman not to permit what he described as so extreme a question to be pressed, and I ceased to urge it, because I knew perfectly well that, if Lord Clifford should speak the truth, judging from the speeches he himself had made at certain meetings, he must have declared that the demand for religious equality is merely regarded by the advocates of Rome as a step towards the establishment of her supremacy. Do you desire to encourage this ambition? Does this House condemn the Italians because they have found the temporal jurisdiction of the Pope intolerable? Are you prepared to authorize the Prime Minister to do the only thing he could do consistently with the Diplomatic Relations Act; not to send the forces of England to restore the spiritual authority of the Pope—for that the law forbids—but do you urge that he should send the forces of England to restore the temporal authority of the Pope as temporal sovereign of the quondam Pontifical States and of Rome? And, if you are not prepared to inflict that injury upon the Italian people, how can you be so little considerate for the interests of the people of England as to further the progress of the Papal power in this country, and permit the establishment here of a power and jurisdiction which the Italians, who have known it most fully, utterly repudiate? Remember this, that except in the exaggerated sense which the Pope has now distinctly affixed to the term "religion," and therefore to the word "spiritual," this is not by any means merely a religious question, because prior to the Brief of 1850 the Roman Catholics in this country enjoyed as much religious freedom as any other denomination in it. There are certain things to which no denomination has a right; because such right, if permitted, would trench upon the rights and liberty of others; those things only were forbidden to the Roman Catholics which are encroachments upon the rights of others. We know that for every function of their religion, in the sense in which we understand the term "religion," the Vicars Apostolic were sufficient; we know this also, that it was with the view of establishing the jurisdiction of the canon law in this country that the well-known Brief of Aggression was issued in 1850. It is a question of jurisdiction, therefore, and of temporals, not a question of religion properly understood, that we are considering. Why, I have here beside me the appeal which Cardinal Wiseman issued with the object of soothing the irritation, in 1851, which this intrusion of a foreign Power and jurisdiction had created. And how did he justify the Brief; for it was this Brief which has caused all the irritation; the act of the Pope, and not the Act of Parliament, which condemned it. He then stated in the Brief the intervention of his authority was necessary in order to constitute a hierarchy which, being convened in Synod, would have jurisdiction according to the canon law of Rome. That is the purport of the declaration then made by the highest Roman Catholic authority; and it was in answer to that declaration that the Act of 1851 was passed. That Act of Parliament de- clared, in answer to the Pope's agression—"You shall not exercise this jurisdiction as of right. We claim, as the representatives of the English nation, that supremacy for our chief and head, the Queen, in conjunction with the two Houses of Parliament, which has existed from time immemorial, and we will not allow this intrusion upon our freedom. We will guard the liberties of our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, which have grown up under the previous organization of their Church in England, and you shall not thrust them down. You shall not use your power to collect into the hands of the Bishops, your nominees, the property which the Roman Catholic laity of England, intend shall be vested in their priests or in lay trustees. You shall not monopolize this property in the hands of your Bishops under the direction of a Cardinal." That was the answer of Parliament under the state of things existing in 1851. Now there has been a great change in the Roman Church; the rights of the Bishops have, by the acts of this Council, been rendered liable to supersession at any moment by the mere dictum of the Pope, and the case support of the statute of 1851; the case is still stronger, because it is not with the Bishop of a diocese, or the Archbishop of a province, that the priest or layman who would retain his property will have to contend, but he will have to contend directly with the Pope himself, against whom, as Lord Russell wisely said, there is, in fact, no remedy. The House will forgive the earnestness with which I speak; but it really seems to me that hon. Members overlook the gravity of the subject with which they are now dealing. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General asked why should we not soothe the irritation which exists, and which has been created, as he wrongly said, in consequence of this law, which you are asked to repeal. In answer to that, I declare that the irritation among Roman Catholics has not been created by this law, but that it has been created by the Brief—the document from Rome—which rendered the passing of this law necessary; and I will prove it. I will give hon. Members an idea of the terms of brotherly love and desire for equality which actuate those who so ardently urge the repeal of this Act. When the Committee of this House, appointed to consider the statute of 1851, in 1867, was sitting, Mr. Hope Scott was examined as a witness—and let me remind hon. Members that the Protestant Church of Ireland then existed as a national establishment. It happened that in that Committee there was an almost equal division of opinion, and that my right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. S. Walpole) proposed a draft Report, whilst the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. MacEvoy), who was in the Chair, and is a Roman Catholic, prepared another. The Report of my right hon. Friend was rejected by a majority of 1. In the draft Report proposed by my right hon. Friend, this passage occurs—

"Nor is it altogether unimportant to remark that this claim to a territorial hierarchy 'as morally necessary to the Roman Catholic Church in England,' could only be recognized according to the opinion of the Roman Catholics themselves, by a negation or denial (practically speaking) of the existing Establishment, and the authority of its Bishops."

Now, this had reference to Ireland, and the House has since gratified this desire of the Papacy for territorial authority, by disestablishing the Church of Ireland. In that Committee, Mr. Hope Scott was asked this question—

"Then, if any Bishop were to intrude into the see of another Bishop in this country, it would be in the eye at least of that portion of the Church which was in this country, a schismatical act?"

His answer was—

"There is no doubt at all about it; the fact is that the Roman Catholic Church would not be justified in placing Bishops anywhere in England or in Ireland, if it did not deny the authority, practically speaking, of the Bishops of the Establishment—it is, of course, an issue between the two religions, which it is of no use blinking."

Therefore, according to the authority of one of the most accomplished lawyers in this country, the reason—the chief reason—which has actuated Parliament in disestablishing the Church in Ireland must have been to gratify the demand of the Roman Catholic hierarchy for its extinction. But let me go on. Mr. Hope Scott was further asked—

"But the Roman Catholic Church assumes that the English Episcopate has no existence?"

and he replied—

"Most undoubtedly. The appointment of any ecclesiastical officer whatever of the Roman Catholic religion, and the appointment of any priest exercising cure of souls, is a negation of the Es- tablished Church, and that is, of course, a part of the religion which is supposed to be freed by the Act of 1829."

Those who passed the Act of 1851 deemed it necessary to restrain this desire on the part of a foreign Power, and the representatives of a foreign Power, for the disestablishment of the Church of England and of Ireland. Therefore, they passed this enactment, the penalties of which you are now asked to repeal, and thereby give full scope for the exercise of this foreign jurisdiction. I see that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister is preparing to speak. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No, no!] I would ask the right hon. Gentleman, or one of his learned Colleagues, to answer me this question—When you speak of the spiritual authority of the Church of Rome, and say that its jurisdiction is spiritual, can you deny, after what has passed in the late Council at Rome, that the term "spiritual," according to the understanding of Rome, includes also temporal jurisdiction? Is it not a mere pretence to say that it is sufficient to restrain Rome in what she considers temporal, when you know that it has always been held by her that temporals are included in and are subordinate to spirituals? Is there not a want of candour in thus dealing with the subject? But the question really extends beyond this. The hon. and learned Gentleman told me, when he introduced this Bill, that he was merely going to present to the House a Bill for the repeal of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act as it was presented to the House of Lords. [The ATTORNEY GENERAL: As it passed through the Committee of the House of Lords.] And he spoke as if there was very little opposition on the second reading. Certainly there was not a Division, because the House came to a distinct understanding that the Bill was to be altered in Committee. Alterations were made in it in the Committee of the House of Lords; but every one of those alterations you last Session rejected. The hon. and learned Gentleman says that the Bill stands as it was introduced into the House of Lords. Well, here is what Lord Russell then said of it. Lord Russell was speaking on the 27th of May on the second reading of the Bill, as then introduced, and he said he did not suppose that the Government would persist in their adherence to the exact form in which it was drawn, and he trusted that, when it went into Committee, they would amend it and make it more consonant with reason. This is the Bill, then, which the Liberal Government ask us to pass the second reading of. The House of Lords passed it through a second reading, and amended it in Committee; and the Amendments were rejected in this House. Those Amendments were drawn by Lord Cairns, and what was the substance of them? In the Bill of last Session you described Her Majesty by a novel title—as "the Sovereign of this country." That was quite a new definition to introduce into an Act of Parliament. We have hitherto been accustomed, when we legislate, to legislate not with reference to the Sovereign only, but with reference to the Constitution, of which Her Majesty is the chief Officer and hereditary Head; and Lord Cairns introduced into the former Bill clauses reserving the rights not of the Sovereign of these realms, but of Her Majesty and her successors, thus recognizing the Act of Settlement, thus recognizing the Constitution, thus preventing it from appearing that it is a contest between Queen Victoria and Pope Pius; but recognizing it as a contest which is continued between the independent Crown of England and the chief of a great political confederacy. The Home Secretary was, however, so determined that there should be no recognition of the Act of Settlement, or of the succession to the Throne, or of the Constitution of this country, that, although my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Marylebone (Mr. T. Chambers) proposed to insert the words which are current in every Act of Parliament touching the Constitution, the right hon. Gentleman divided the House twice against the hon. and learned Gentleman, and succeeded in casting the words out, although my hon. and learned Friend was merely asking the House to accept the decision of the House of Lords with reference to the proper terms and purport of a Bill which dealt with matters of jurisdiction of this grave kind. And then the hon. and learned Gentleman (the Attorney General) comes down and says—"Oh! this is a very small matter. I am merely proposing to the House that they should carry out the doctrine of religious equality. In 1851, when the Act was passed, the nation was mad, and the House of Commons was obliged to give way to its madness." But what, Sir, did that madness come to? Why, the affirmation of the independence of this country against the pretensions of a foreign Prelate and Potentate. I say, then, that whether we consider the unnecessary encouragement the Bill would give to an agitation which it is the policy of the Court of Rome to keep up through its agents the Bishops in Ireland, to the detriment of the public peace; or, whether we consider this subject with reference to the peace and contentment of the subjects of Her Majesty, not being Roman Catholics, with whose confidence and comfort, and even loyalty, it is essential that there should be no wanton hand-tampering with the law, I say, that this Bill, whether we consider it in principle or in substance, is inappropriate and anomalous. What a flimsy plea it is to advance in support of the Bill, that it is necessary because of the possibility—for I believe that it is not at all certain—that the successors to the Bishops of the disestablished Church of Ireland may become liable to the penalties of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act! Your case, as against the Act, is, that its penalties are never enforced and yet suspicious; and because of this possiblity of the penalties being enforced against the Bishops of the disestablished Church of Ireland, a danger in which I do not believe—for, as my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Charley) said, in Ireland there is no Established Church, and therefore no competition, for the terms of the statute of 1829 do not apply—yet you would repeat the statute of 1851. But, supposing it to be possible that the successors of the Bishops of the disestablished Protestant Church in Ireland should become liable to those penalties, which you say have never been exacted, is it for this that you are about to lame and incapacitate the great protest of this country against foreign aggression? Supposing, however, that your doubts are well-founded. I remember that the present Prime Minister, in the year 1851, earnestly and anxiously supported the 3rd clause of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act to exempt from these penalties the Bishops of the Episcopal Church of Scotland. [Mr. GLADSTONE was understood to signify dissent.] Well, if he did not, I can answer for it that he did not oppose it; and I certainly un- derstood that he highly approved of the clause: at all events, I have never known him seek to repeal it. So far from that, I have known him to be an anxious supporter of another statute that gives the clergy of the Scotch Episcopal Church privileges across the Border in England. Surely he will not allude to that as treating the Scotch Episcopal Church with disfavour; and I would take the liberty of suggesting, if there is a doubt, whether the successors to the present Bishops of the disestablished Church of Ireland come under the prohibition and penalties as a consequence of the Irish Church Act of 1869, why not bring in a Bill of one clause to include them under the provision contained in the 3rd section of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act? Will the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General tell us what are his objections to that proposal? But, no! We understand perfectly well the motive. The more formidable an agitation among the Roman Catholics in Ireland becomes, the greater is the necessity imposed upon Her Majesty's Ministers to meet the demands of the Roman Prelates; and the more dubious the influence of the Government in this House, the more necessary to their safety is the influence of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. I do not believe that for any other reasons we should ever have found the Government in the House of Lords acting in direct contravention of the Report of a Committee, to the appointment of which they themselves were parties. This is the final clause of the Report of that Committee—

"It has been suggested that the object of the Act of 1851 would have been sufficiently attained by a simple declaration of the invalidity of any assumption of ecclesiastical titles of honour, or of any attempt to confer coercive jurisdiction otherwise than under the authority of Her Majesty, and according to the laws of the realm, unaccompanied by the enactment of any penalties. But the Committee are of opinion that, while a mere repeal of the section of the Act of 1829, and of the Act of 1851 would be open to misconstruction and therefore inexpedient, any advantage to be gained by a modification of those enactments in the manner above indicated would be more than counterbalanced by the evil of re-opening, without any sufficient reason, the discussion of a question always calculated to occasion much irritation of feeling."

Now, according to the judgment of the Committee of the House of Lords, the Government who have introduced this Bill are the real disturbers of the public feeling on this subject; and yet we are treated as if we, supporters of the existing law, were the disturbers—we, who seek to preserve the existing state of things which has given contentment to the great majority of the nation for more than 20 years. Sir, were there ever such flimsy pretences propounded upon seemingly, but not really, public grounds as those which have been put forth in support of this Bill? No, Sir! I am sorry to say that there is great disingenuousness in all this proceeding. So far as guarding against the effects of a supposed omission in the Irish Church Act of 1869 is concerned, the Bill is utterly unnecessary. The only true reason that can be assigned for the measure is, that Her Majesty's Government think it expedient and necessary to do obeisance to the Roman Catholic hierarchy; while at this moment, while the statute of 1851 is still in existence, the feeling in Ireland has become so strong against the habit of governing Ireland through those ecclesiastics, appointed, as they are, by a foreign authority, as unwholesome, that at a recent election we have seen a Roman Catholic rejected and a Presbyterian candidate elected by Roman Catholics in his stead. God grant that that feeling may continue to grow in Ireland; and in order to foster that wholesome, tolerant, and national feeling, I, for one, heartily vote in favour of the maintenance—and the effective maintenance, of this law, which is not merely declaratory of the ancient status of this country, not only passed for the purpose of maintaining the family of the reigning Sovereign upon the Throne as Protestants, but for the clear purpose of defending the nation from foreign aggression.

said, he would not follow the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) into the various grounds he had taken in opposing that Bill. He thought the measure, which aimed to repeal the Act of 1851, might be sustained upon this plain principle—An enactment was then introduced, imposing large penalties for the assumption of certain titles. It was said that that enactment was introduced at a period of considerable excitement; but, whether the Act was necessary or not at the time, this fact was undeniable, that never had there been a single prosecution instituted under it, notwithstanding the various Governments which had been in power since the Act was passed. The fact of this Act never having been acted upon, and thus remaining a dead letter for the last 20 years, justified the effort that was now being made to erase the Act from the statute book, if it contained elements of discord and animosity or was calculated to irritate a large class of Her Majesty's subjects. What institution of the country had been the better for the existence of that Act? Had the now disestablished Church of Ireland in any way benefited from it? The illegality by the ancient common law of the assumption of ecclesiastical titles derived from the Pope was not altogether so clear as the Attorney General seemed to think. The title of "Defender of the Faith" given to Henry VIII. was derived from the Pope and adopted by the Sovereign of Great Britain. True, that was not a territorial title; still, it was a legal title, and a recognition of the power of the Holy See to confer titles. He questioned whether the words of the declaration, that nobody but the Sovereign could confer any jurisdiction or authority whatsoever in this country, were not too wide; but that, and other points of detail could be better dealt with in Committee.

said, that in the year 1851, when the Act was carried, he had not the honour of a seat in that House, but he was a member of the Common Council of the City of London, and stood alone in his protest against a Petition in favour of the Act from his brother councillors. He voted heartily with the Government on this question, but on different grounds from any stated tonight. He voted for the abolition of the Act because he believed it never was necessary. There was no danger in the assumption of any titles whatever by any individual. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) might take to himself the title of the Cham of Tartary, and he (Mr. Gilpin) would not utter a word of objection any more than he would to the assumption of titles by dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church. The Act which they were now very properly asked to repeal was passed under the influence of Lord Russell, who excited the public mind by his "Durham Letter;" and when they remembered how egregiously that noble Lord had led them astray 20 years ago in that matter, and wasted nearly an entire Session upon it, it was to be hoped they would estimate at their proper worth his recent attempts to encourage the war spirit and increase the armaments of this country. He (Mr. Gilpin) stood there as an advocate of equality both for Roman Catholics—or rather Catholics, for he believed the word "Roman" was by some considered offensive—and Protestants. He would act side by side with his Catholic fellow-countrymen in obtaining equality; he would join with hon. Members opposite in opposing supremacy—equality for all, supremacy for none.

said, he quite agreed with the hon. Member who had just spoken with regard to the advocacy of equality. But if the Constitution of the country was to be evaded, the evasion must not be confined to one party. He thought that if ever there was an Act passed as the result of an enthusiastic and almost universal feeling it was the Ecclesiastical Titles Act of 1851. It was, in fact, passed with the universal assent of the country, excepting only the former member of the Common Council of London. Why, then, were they asked to repeal it? It was admitted that nobody had had his liberty infringed by it, or had any fines imposed on him under its provisions. Where, then, was the grievance, and why was that question now stirred? He denied that in the Act of 1851, rightly understood, there was anything insulting to any member of the community. The very first Roman Catholic Member who had got up to speak in favour of the repeal of this statute at once proceeded to deny that the assumption of the titles which had led to its enactment was an infringement of the common law of the land. The very moment that Her Majesty's Government thought fit to raise this question—and they had raised it most unnecessarily—the Roman Catholics laughed at them and scouted the notion that common law forbade the assumption of these titles by the Bishops of their Church. It was inexpedient that this Bill should be passed for the purpose of repealing an Act under which no Roman Catholic had suffered, but which simply remained on the statute book as a protest against the right of the Pope to grant territorial and ecclesiastical titles in this country. Had hon. Members forgotten the celebrated Bull that had led to the passing of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, and the assumptions it contained? That Bull was an incident in the history of the contest between the Church of Rome and the Constitution of this country. The issue presented by the Roman Catholic Members of that House was that there was no common law which prohibited the Pope from parcelling out this country into districts, and giving territorial and ecclesiastical titles to the Prelates of the Roman Catholic Church. What were the reasons assigned by the Government for disturbing the present state of things? He had heard of no irritation on the part of the Roman Catholics occasioned by this statute, and certainly no just grounds for such irritation existed. The Attorney General had asked the House to remove the last rag of religious intolerance; but there was nothing religious in the question. Before the promulgation of the Bull of 1850 the Roman Catholics in this country enjoyed complete religious freedom, and it was owing to a flagrant aggression on the part of the Pope that the Ecclesiastical Titles Act was passed; and it would be a gratuitous insult to the people of this country were that statute to be repealed, in defiance of the enthusiastic feeling on their part which had occasioned its being passed.

contended that the proposal to repeal this statute in no way attempted to alter the common law of the land. It had been argued that the attempt to divide England into Roman Catholic archbishoprics and bishoprics was an aggression on the part of the Pope, and the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) had said that the Ecclesiastical Titles Act was intended to repel that aggression. In that case he was bound to say that to repel an international aggression by a municipal enactment was something altogether new in the history of international policy. If the Pope had violated international law, by illegally granting territorial titles in this country, that was a casus belli, but not a ground for passing an Ecclesiastical Titles Act. The sooner that Act was repealed the better for the honour of this country. He perfectly concurred in the view of the law which had been taken by the Attorney General, and thought the present Bill formed a necessary corollary to the statute which disestablished the Irish Church.

took objection to the view of the Common Serjeant (Mr. T. Chambers) that the Ecclesiastical Titles Act ought to remain on the statute book, as a protest against assumption by the Roman Catholic Church, and pointed to the fact, that though the statute was enacted 20 years ago it had been frequently infringed and never enforced, as one of the strongest reasons for its repeal. There was yet another reason which would, he hoped, weigh with the House—that, though utterly useless, the Act remained unrepealed, notwithstanding the fact that many thousands of their fellow-countrymen regarded it as an insult to themselves and to the religion they professed.

confessed to some surprise in hearing eminent legal authorities contradict each other so flatly. One hon. Gentleman said the law was not enforced, because the Government dare not enforce it, while another had contended that the law was a dead letter. The Committee of the House of Lords who inquired into this subject were not of opinion that the Act which it was now proposed to repeal had been ineffectual, because since it was enacted there had not been any ostentatious assumption of territorial titles by Roman Catholic Bishops in this country. Lord Palmerston, in supporting the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, contended that it was not inconsistent with the Act of 1829, and that it should not be regarded as a measure of a penal character. But the Attorney General now said that the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, although it had not been enforced, was distasteful to the Roman Catholic Prelates in Ireland. He (Mr. Greene) would ask whether the people of England were to be governed in accordance with English sentiment, or in accordance with the sentiment of Roman Catholics in Ireland? He deeply respected the Members of the Roman Catholic Church in that House for their consistency of conduct, and only wished the Protestants were as earnest. But why should we admit a power not religious only but temporal, which might bring about a state of things that would make another Reformation in England? The electors of this country should seriously consider whether it was not the policy of the present Government to favour the Roman Catholic hierarchy as against the Protestant Church of this country. Dissenters would find out their mistake in relaxing protective legal provisions on the ground of religious quality. The Act sought to be repealed was of great importance; it had had a very wholesome effect, and if it remained it would prevent a very serious collision. If anybody in that House were so sanguine as to believe that such men as Drs. Manning and Cullen could be easily defeated in their schemes, it was a great delusion. He was surprised that the representatives of Scotland, so renowned for its Protestantism, should go, one and all almost, into the Lobby with the Government, and he hoped that the bit of their mind which the constituency of Glasgow gave their Members would have some salutary effect. At all events, he could not allow the subject to pass without a protest against the introduction of a power which our forefathers had made such noble sacrifices in resisting.

said, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) had occupied much more time than he should in proving that the spiritual supremacy governed all temporal matters, and, having searched history through down to our own times, the only illustration of his argument the hon. Gentleman was able to adduce was that within the last few weeks a Catholic constituency had returned a Presbyterian in preference to a Catholic. It had been said there was no grievance in this matter; but the same argument was applied to both the Irish Church and the Irish Land Bills. It was not the men who inflicted a grievance who could best judge of that grievance, and sometimes the worst grievance of all was a sentimental grievance. The Irish people, with all their faults, were a high-spirited people. They would feel a material injury less than an insult, and he perfectly concurred in what the Lord Chancellor of Ireland had said, that as long as this Bill remained on the statute book there was an incessant feeling of wrong, insult, and grievance which would never disappear until the Bill was repealed. He had always wished that we should be a United Kingdom; but if it was asked—"Was Ireland to dare to differ from England; or was England to govern Ireland as she chose;" that was not the way to keep us united. It had been alleged by an hon. Member that there was no grievance, because the law had not been enforced. There were two reasons for not enforcing a law, and one of them was that the law was so bad that no one dared to enforce it. One of the greatest writers on this subject had said that laws, in order to be obeyed, must be the exposition of a nation's feeling and a nation's reason. Was the present law an exposition of a people's feeling? It was not, and that was the reason why it was not enforced. The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Greene) had argued that the law had not been violated. Was there a day or an hour in which it was not? There was no lesson that could be taught a people worse than this—that there were laws which it was no crime to disobey, If the poor man, however well taught, saw those above him in the highest offices of State, aye, up to the Throne itself, break one of the solemn laws of Queen, Lords, and Commons, how was he to be expected to obey other laws? Now, this law was not only broken by the people and by the Bishops, but by one of the most important Departments in this country. The Legislature had declared that the soldier of every religion should have the spiritual consolations of his faith; but no priest could act as chaplain in any portion of the British Army unless under the sign manual of his Bishop, and there was not a day that a sign manual was not issued, and went to the Horse Guards. If the law was a bad one—so bad that it could not be changed—it was useless to discuss it or enter into religious dogmas. He would only appeal to the spirit which ought to animate all hon. Members, and say—let us have no laws but those which are worthy of being obeyed.

said, the Attorney General had maintained that it was proper to repeal this Act because it was antagonistic to the feelings of a certain portion of the Irish people. Since he had the honour of a seat in that House he had often heard that kind of argument. It had been used in the case of Catholic Emancipation, in that of the disestablishment of the Irish Church, and that of the Irish Land Bill, and he thought they had had enough of this policy of conciliation. Had it been justified by the event? They had had one or two elections lately in Ireland, and he did not know that the Prime Minister could congratulate himself on the result. The At- torney General also based this Bill on the ground of necessity drawn from the passing of the Act for the disestablishment of the Irish Church. He doubted whether there was any such necessity, or if there was, it might be met by a very simple clause, as had been done in the original Act with respect to the Episcopal Church in Scotland. Feeling that there was no ground of complaint against the law as it stood, he should certainly vote against the second reading of the Bill.

protested against the Bill being proceeded with until hon. Members had been afforded a sufficient opportunity of consulting with respect to it the opinions of their constituents. Last year, when a similar measure was before the House, it was utterly impossible to procure any information from the Government as to how or when it was to be proceeded with. The difficulties which the right hon. Gentleman then experienced were, no doubt, very serious; but he believed they were very much of his own making. As to the measure of last year, it was received in Cornwall with the utmost dissatisfaction; and although, in regard to that Bill, page after page of the Amendments appeared on the Votes, none of those Amendments had been embodied, so far as he could see, in the proposal of this year. At all events, so far as time had admitted of a cursory examination, none of the Amendments proposed by the Cornish Members appeared to have found any place in it; and it was, at any rate, desirable that those who were interested in its provisions should know what it really contained. As, however, he had been fortunate enough to obtain an assurance from the Secretary of State for the Home Department that a, sufficient amount of time for properly considering the Bill would be given before going into Committee, he did not propose to press his Amendment.

said, that he was glad to find the progress of the Bill at that stage was not to be delayed; but that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department would endeavour to carry out the wish expressed last Session—that the Bill should be introduced this Session at a time that would allow of its going into Committee before Easter. All were agreed as to the principle of the Bill, and if those who represented the miners of Cornwall could not bring themselves to assent to the provisions of the measure as regards Cornwall they could easily except Cornwall in Committee. He had been requested by a deputation of miners to thank the right hon. Gentleman for his extension of the operation of the Bill to metalliferous mines as well as to coal mines. There had been several improvements introduced into this Bill. A most judicious compromise had been made with regard to the age at which children should be allowed to work in mines. Boys were to be allowed to work in mines at 10 years of age, but with restrictions with regard to the time of employment and provisions for their attending school—a change advantageous to the boy and for the interest of the mining population generally. The change in the provisions with reference to ventilation and the onus probandi clause did not appear to be advantageous. It would be necessary also to carefully consider the regulations with regard to penalties. He reminded the House that nothing but the excessive pressure of business last Session prevented the measure being passed then, and he expressed his thanks to the Home Secretary for having reintroduced it at the earliest possible period.

said, the feeling against the Bill was very strong in South Wales, and he viewed with alarm the reading of the Bill the second time, before the people of South Wales had had an opportunity of expressing an opinion upon its provisions. He thought the removal of the onus probandi a very valuable change, and he had to thank the Secretary of State for the Home Depart- ment for giving those who were affected by the Bill the Power to appeal. He objected to the payment of the men by measure or weight, and would have preferred its being confined to weight only. He hoped the second reading would not be pressed on.

said, great disappointment would be felt in Wales if longer time were not given before the second reading of the Bill. That was the proper stage on which to take a discussion on its merits, and they would be unable fairly to do this unless time were allowed them to hear from their constituents. He was much disappointed at the omissions of the Bill, and also its general tenor. They had been legislating on a wrong principle hitherto. They adopted resolutions, but they made no provisions for carrying them out. He recommended that, to insure the proper fulfilment of the intentions of the Legislature, the appointment of properly-qualified underground overmen should be insisted on as of the first importance.

, as one who was largely interested in coal mines, declared himself most anxious for the passing of that Bill, as far as its principle was concerned, and also that it might pass as soon as possible. There were a few points, however, on which Amendments might be introduced into the measure at the proper time. For example, he would suggest that it was very desirable that some encouragement should be given to night schools for the instruction of collier lads—a point omitted from the Bill as it stood. Again, Clause 47 enabled a Court of summary jurisdiction to award imprisonment for three months, with or without hard labour—a power too great, he thought, to place in the hands of one stipendiary magistrate, or two justices of the peace, ignorant of the peculiar characteristics of coal mines. Such a power ought to be given only to a Court of quarter sessions. Clause 49 was also a curious one, as under it proceedings might be taken in an inferior Court and at the same time in a superior Court, and while the proceedings in the latter tribunal were pending those in the former might be stayed. The effect of that would be that a man might be tried in a superior Court and acquitted, and then find himself liable to have proceedings against him gone on with in a Court below. True, he could not be punished twice for the same offence, but he might be tried twice, or something very analogous to it. These were matters of detail that would require attention in Committee.

said, he could not regard the Bill as a piece of hasty legislation, as its subject had been for the last five years before the House, and his constituents interested in mining, both employers and employed, were quite tired of the agitation that had been carried on during that period. He hoped, however, before going into Committee, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department would give them time to master the new features of his measure, and to place before the House and the country such Amendments in it as might be necessary. He thought a child of 10 years of age ought not to be allowed to work in a mine. He also disapproved of women and female children being allowed to work on the pit-bank, for nothing, in his opinion, was more discreditable to our civilization than the sights that were daily witnessed at the collieries, especially of Lancashire, where women, dressed in the garb of men, worked with the banksmen, smoking short pipes with them, except, perhaps, when their babies were brought to the pit-bank and nursed there by mothers in men's attire and with blackened faces. This practice of employing women outside coal pits, as they were formerly employed down the mine itself, prevailed also in some parts of Scotland and Wales. He besought the Government to put an end to so degrading a practice. There ought also to be a provision in the Bill for weekly payments, for the truck system lived by long payments; and in order that the framers of the measure might more fully apprehend the evils of the system, and see the necessity of insisting upon weekly payments in opposition to those evils, he suggested that they should have the Report of the Truck Commission before them, and have the advantage of the important evidence it had obtained. He also strongly advocated weighing the quantities raised from the pits by the workmen as a means of preventing disputes. With regard to inspection, he reminded the House that of the 330,000 miners in Great Britain, 1,100 were killed annually, 10,000 injured; and of this last number 5,000 were permanently lamed. Were the system of inspection thorough, experienced men in these matters estimated that half the number of these casualties would be spared. He thought this country might learn a profitable lesson from Saxony, where no man was allowed to act as superintendent or overseer of mines who had not passed through a scientific education at the mining school. The Bill should be passed in a complete form, and an end put to the agitation of that question.

said, he was sorry that more time had not been given them to consult their constituents on the subject of that measure. The inspection at present was a mere farce, and if the number of Inspectors were not increased, inspection had better be done away with altogether. He agreed with other hon. Members that 10 years of age was too early for a child to work hard underground in a constrained and unhealthy position. The employment of women and female children on pit-banks ought to be abolished, as degrading and unsexing in its tendency. He also urged the introduction of a clause providing for the payment of wages weekly, which he believed would put an end to the evils of the truck system. He trusted that the Committee on the Bill would be put off till such time as would enable Amendments to be framed which would effect a final settlement of the question.

said, this was not the Bill of last year, for the present Bill was considerably altered from the previous measure. He did not object to the second reading; but some interval should be allowed to elapse before the Committee was taken, in order to allow hon. Members to communicate with their constituents.

said, he could not agree with the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) with respect to the clauses regulating the age of boys working in mines, and he thought that the provision in last year's Bill was calculated in districts where collieries were close to factories to turn the whole labour of those districts into certain occupations. So far from regarding the Bill as a retrograde one, he thought it a Bill in the right direction.

said, he thought the Bill of the Secretary of State for the Home Department dealt rather too ten- derly with the evils it was intended to prevent. He thought it permitted children of too young an age to be sent down into mines, and that it failed to require efficient inspection. In North Germany no child under 16 was permitted to be employed underground. The overmen could not at present be expected to pass a theoretical examination, but there could be no hardship in requiring that all men appointed after a given distant day, say 1st January 1876, should be required to produce certificates showing their competency to discharge their peculiar duties. As regarded inspection, the Secretary of State for the Home Department would admit that if it could be had, it was worth paying for; and when they were going to vote £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 to repay the over-regulation prices to those whose only claim was founded on their own violation of the law, they ought certainly not to grudge an extra sum of £10,000 or £15,000 per annum for the efficient inspection of mines. He did not think it could be possible to inspect every mine once in three months, but the difficulties of inspection, and even the number of mines actually in operation had been greatly exaggerated. Many, particularly in South Staffordshire, were returned as at work, which has been closed for years. The Secretary of State for the Home Department ought to be in possession of the state of discipline in every mine in the United Kingdom, and this could only be ascertained by the personal examination of Inspectors. It had been urged that by appointing Inspectors, all responsibility would be taken away from the owners of mines; but he could not see the force of the argument, because, in his opinion, the owners of mines were anxious that their mines should be worked on sound principles. The system of propping by the contractors or butties still prevailing in South Staffordshire, was the cause of twice the number of deaths, by fall of roof occurring there, than took place in the North of England. He trusted the Secretary of State for the Home Department would show a little more courage in dealing with the matter, and that he would make the provisions of the Bill far more stringent than they were at present.

expressed his opinion that the clauses of the Bill dealing with the safety of the miners could not be much improved, as they showed that the framers of the measure were acquainted with mining affairs to the utmost minutiœ of detail. Upon the question of the age at which children should be permitted to be employed in mines, he thought the matter might be left to the discretion of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, where the mineowners and parents were agreed, because, whereas in some districts it would not be right to permit children under 12 years of age to descend the mines, in others no harm would result from permitting children of 10 years of age to be so employed. In regard to the penal clauses, he hoped that it would be found practicable to impose fines—up to £100, if they liked—on the owner, and up to £10 on the miner, and only to resort to imprisonment if those fines were not paid. No man had taken a deeper interest in the safety of mines than himself, and if he thought that sub-inspection would result in the saving of lives he would gladly approve of its adoption. But he remembered his own experience as manager of a colliery, and he knew how natural it was for a man in that position to feel that when the Government Inspector had been over the workings all responsibility on his part was at an end, at least for a time. Such a feeling ought never to be encouraged; and any legislation that tended to encourage it would create a greater evil than it remedied. On the whole he felt sure that the Bill would prove acceptable both to the owners of mines and to the men employed in them, and would be the means of effecting many useful reforms, and therefore he hoped it would be allowed to go into Committee.

said, he did not consider the Secretary of State for the Home Department at all chargeable with undue delay in this kind of legislation, the present Bill, in substance, having been long before Parliament. He approved of the limitation of the age as pointed out by the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella), but regretted that the Bill embraced not only coal mines, but metalliferous mines also, the conditions of which were in many respects entirely different. Before the last-named class of mines was introduced into the Bill, time should have been allowed for an expression of opinion to be received from those most closely interested in the ques- tion. When the proper time arrived—in Committee—he should invite the attention of hon. Gentlemen to this point.

complimented his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department on the discussion which had arisen, although he thought every objection that had been taken could have been more satisfactorily taken in Committee than in a debate on the second reading of the Bill. He could not quite understand the view taken by some hon. Members, who began by making sweeping objections to the measure, and ended by saying that, as their constituents disapproved it, they ought to have an opportunity of seeing the Bill. It reminded him of the captain who bound a man with two chains, and then asked who he was and what he had done. The hon. Members first prejudged the Bill and then wanted time to look into its provisions. This was one of those measures which, when introduced two or more years ago, it seemed desirable to pass in the first instance, but which a subsequent acquaintance with the facts had been shown to need modification in some particulars; and he had no doubt that when it had passed through and been further amended in Committee, and was brought to its final stage, it would be found to be a measure deserving a satisfactory reception in all parts of the country which would be affected by its provisions. The districts of England in which the Bill would operate were dissimilar in many respects. In some parts of the country it did not matter whether the restriction as to the age at which children were to be allowed to go into the mines was fixed at 10 or 16 years, for they would find their way there in the end; but in districts where there were not only mines but manufactories, it would be found that they would be sent to the factories at an early age, and then the mine owners would altogether lose the advantage of youthful labour. He did not see why children should not be allowed to labour in the mines, where, as a rule, they would be engaged in work with their own fathers—under the same or similar "half-time" regulations that obtained in factories. If this were not so, the colliery owners in certain districts would have a right to complain that a law was being meted out to them different from that under which manufacturers conducted their business. With respect to another branch of the subject, he felt sure that a system of minute inspection, such as was suggested by the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. B. Samuelson), would result in enormous expenditure, with but small corresponding benefit, and would, at the same time, afford little or no additional protection to the workmen, because it would decrease the responsibility of colliery owners and managers. He felt confidence in the course proposed by the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill, because, in his opinion, the measure hit the mean between rendering managers almost entirely irresponsible, through excess of Government inspection, and allowing them to conduct their business in a reckless manner, because the Government inspection was either insufficient or inefficient. He believed that it would be impossible to inspect thoroughly one of the larger mines in Northumberland in less than a fortnight. Such an inspection would be costly, and it would be of no benefit to the miners themselves. He was quite sure that the miners would regard this measure as a well-considered compromise, and he trusted that it would be passed in a shape that would be satisfactory to the workmen and the mineowners, and also to the Houses of Parliament.

said, he was far from complaining of the remarks that had been made, whether as to the time at which this Bill was proposed, or as to the details of the Bill. With respect to the objection as to the time at which the Bill was proposed, the answer had been already sufficiently given that the Bill had been before the country for a long time. Last year the Bill was read a second time without any opposition. The changes that had been introduced were few, and as a general desire had been manifested that the Bill should be proceeded with with all diligence, and the Bill was essentially one of detail, he thought the best course was to get it read a second time as early as possible, with the full understanding that ample opportunity should be given to consider its details before going into Committee, and with that view he proposed that the House should not go into Committee until the expiration of three weeks. If there was one exception to the general tone of the discussion, it was the speech of the hon. Gentleman who commenced the discussion (Mr. Magniac), and whose complaints were unfounded. That hon. Gentleman said that certain Amendments with respect to the inspection of mines had been introduced for the first time without the wish of the Cornish miners. Now, so far from that being the case, every single Amendment affecting mines in Cornwall was introduced after discussion with, and with the approval of, the Members for Cornwall themselves, the only difference being that the clauses were arranged more systematically. The children employed above ground in connection with coal mines were not included in the Workshops' Regulation Act, and therefore the Select Committee suggested that the Workshops' Regulation Act should be applied to such children. But the character of the work done by the children in Cornwall and elsewhere in cleaning the produce of copper and tin mines already subjected them to the operation of that Act. He would proceed to notice very shortly a few of the objections to the Bill. He thought the best answer that could be given to the objection of the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. B. Samuelson) was that given by the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Elliot). Hon. Members must know that as to framing rules on a subject of this kind, anyone occupying the position of Secretary of State for the Home Department must take the advice of the most competent advisers—namely, the Inspectors of Mines, and with them he had consulted, and had largely availed himself of their advice in preparing the general rules contained in the Bill. Since the measure was before the House last Session, he had received suggestions from various parts of the country against an absolute exclusion of children under 12, who, it was said, earned very considerable wages. He had so far altered the Bill of last year that children of 10 years of age would be permitted to work underground but only for three days a week, and with provision for their education up to the age of 13 years. With regard to the employment of women above ground—no women were employed under ground—he agreed very much with what was said by the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) that that question must be left to the general feeling of the population, and to the spread of general enlightenment. As to the complaint of the hon. Member for Wenlock (Mr. Brown) that masters and workmen were differently treated with respect to appeals, he denied its justice; the appeal was given to both parties whenever the magistrates imposed a sentence of imprisonment without the alternative of a fine. As to the remarks of the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Elliot), he thought that for ordinary offences, which might cause some injury to machinery, fines would be an amply sufficient punishment; but that as to greater offences whereby the safety of people engaged in mines was endangered, there ought to be the power of inflicting severe and summary punishment; but in these cases an appeal to a higher Court had been provided. As to short payments, the whole of that question would be brought under the consideration of the House when the Report of the Commissioners on the Truck System was presented. The evidence was now completed; but it was voluminous, and the Report could hardly be expected in less than about five weeks from the present time. It was of the utmost importance that the means of obtaining a complete education should be afforded to mining agents. But no mining schools existed in this country, or at least to an extent altogether insufficient for the education of so numerous a class. Let schools and means of education be provided, and then we should have a right to insist upon a strict preliminary examination. The case of shipmasters was not analogous, because the shipmaster went to sea for perhaps five or six months, and during all that time the lives of the crew were in his hands. But an agent who committed a mistake might be taken before a magistrate and immediately removed by his employer. All these things, however, were matters for Committee, and, in order that ample time might be given for the consideration of the Bill by the country, and for putting Amendments on the Paper, he should name the Committee for that day three weeks.

, though he had no intention of opposing the second reading of the Bill, wished at once to offer some observations upon it, both because the remarks he desired to make were of too general a character to be suitable for Committee, and because it might be convenient to give the Government time for considering the Amendments which he should have to suggest. He would, in the first instance, remind the House of what had been stated with great clearness by his hon. Friend and Colleague the Under Secretary of State on the introduction of the Bill, but had not unfrequently been left out of sight in discussions on similar matters, that to abstain from passing Inclosure Bills could not possibly be any interference with the rights of property, since it left lords of manors and commoners to exercise those rights as they pleased. Although, therefore, Parliament had for a long series of years given great facilities to the passage of Inclosure Bills, because it believed that by bringing waste land into cultivation they promoted the public advantage; still, if the circumstances of the country had changed, if the views of what was politic were modified, the Legislature was perfectly free to alter its course. It was perfectly free, without any possible imputation of violating proprietory rights, to refuse to pass Inclosure Bills, or to attach to the passing of them any conditions which, on behalf of the public, it might consider advisable. That this was the opinion of the Legislature, was shown by the Metropolitan Commons Act of 1866. Now, in determining how far it was conducive to the public interests that they should afford facilities to the passing of Inclosure Bills, the first question to be answered was, whether they were desirous that legislation should take such a course as should tend to as rapid an increase as possible of the population, or whether they would prefer that their legislation should tend to a somewhat less rapid increase of population, pro- vided that the people were likely to be in a better position with regard to morality, and to enjoy a larger amount of happiness. He thought the House would have no difficulty in deciding in favour of the latter alternative; and the necessary corollary of that was that stringent conditions, on behalf of the public, should be imposed on the passing of these Bills. Among the most important matters to which these conditions ought to relate were—reservations of recreation grounds, and of foot and bridleways. To footpaths and bridle-roads, which were provided for—but he thought not sufficiently—by the 9th section of the Bill, he was, perhaps, led to attach greater value from his living in a district where their unusual number had afforded him an opportunity of appreciating their advantages. It appeared to him that existence in such a district, where you might walk or ride in almost any direction that you chose, and might visit nearly all the prettiest positions, was worth twice as much as in a neighbourhood where, in walking or riding, you were confined to narrow lanes and muddy or dusty roads, and where, as a consequence of that confinement, you were excluded from many of the most beautiful points of view. Nor let it be said that this was the mere fancy of men of leisure. You had only to look at the places which the better class of workmen selected for their jaunts, in order to be satisfied that they were not insensible to the beauties of nature. Nor, again, did it require much foresight to perceive that, with the improvement of education, such tastes were likely to extend among the working classes. Let it be remembered that the love for scenery was, even among the educated, of comparatively recent growth. Passages cited by Lord Macaulay in the second volume of his History of England, showed that less than 200 years ago, the Highland hills and heaths of Scotland were subjects of horror rather than of admiration, and that even cultivated men preferred the flat and fertile pastures that surrounded Leyden. To encourage tastes, such as that for natural beauty, was, in his (Sir Francis Goldsmid's) opinion, among the best means of promoting moral improvement, and checking drunkenness and other degrading habits. To such means he looked with much more hope than to the prohibitions and penalties which were in favour with the hon. Member for Carlisle, or even to the no doubt useful Bill, about to be introduced by the Home Secretary, for subjecting to stricter regulations the sale of fermented liquors. Men must have amusements. If you wish to get rid of the low and hurtful, then encourage the elevating and innocent. In comparing the importance of increasing the home-growth of food with that of preserving recreation grounds, and walks and rides, we should remember the growing facility of importing provisions. Already we brought from the other side of the world a not inconsiderable proportion of our cereals, or—to use the American phrase—bread-stuffs. The same thing had been tried as to meat, and had, to a certain extent, succeeded. It might reasonably be hoped that this success would increase with improving means of transport, and with the advance of chemical science and mechanical ingenuity. But it was scarcely necessary to point out that no improvement in the facilities of conveyance, or in cooking, packing, or chemistry was at all likely to enable us to import footpaths or rides. The considerations which he (Sir Francis Goldsmid) had mentioned, led him to the general conclusion that, although the original purpose of Inclosure Bills—the bringing of more land into cultivation—had not lost its importance, yet in the altered and altering circumstances of the country, that purpose ought only to be pursued so far as it was consistent with, and in subjection and subordination to, the more important object of securing for our increasing population amply sufficient spaces for recreation and exercise. Nor should it be forgotten that if we, in one year, went somewhat too slowly in passing Inclosure Bills, we might, in a succeeding year, make up the deficiency. But if we went—as in some instances he believed we had already gone — too far, we could not re-trace our steps. We could not do so wasteful a thing as to throw out of cultivation land in tilling which we had, by sanctioning its inclosure, encouraged the outlay of capital. The present Bill seemed to him to be, in a great measure, framed in accordance with the principles he had ventured to indicate; but two of its clauses required, he thought, important amendments—the 3rd and 9th. The 3rd clause directed the appropriation, for the purpose of recreation grounds or field-gardens, of one-tenth of the land to be inclosed, unless such tenth should exceed 50 acres, and in that case of 50 acres only. Now it appeared to him most unreasonable that although, if the land inclosed comprised 500 acres, 50 would be appropriated to the purposes mentioned, 50 acres, and no more, should still be the quantity if the inclosure extended over 1,000, 2,000, or 3,000 acres. It would, he suggested, be much more rational that the appropriation for recreation grounds or field-gardens should include one-tenth of the first 500 acres to be inclosed, one-twentieth of the second 500, one-thirtieth of the third, and so on for any greater quantity. His objection to the 9th clause—which related to the highly important subject of the setting-out of paths, rides, and drives—was, that it gave to the Inclosure Commissioners a permission only instead of a direction. The existing enactments as to recreation grounds and field-gardens had been of comparatively little use, because they were merely permissive; and accordingly the framers of the present Bill proposed to substitute for these the compulsory provisions of the 3rd clause. A similar reason existed for making the 9th clause also compulsory. There was one other point to which he wished to refer; and that was, that when land was extremely valuable there were continual instances of lords of manors doing illegal acts under pretence of legal rights, and the result was that many illegal inclosures has been made. It was a difficult matter, of course, to frame a clause to check such proceedings; but the matter was one which, in his opinion, well deserved the consideration of the Government.

said, that if the Bill had been founded on the recommendations of the Committee which sat on the subject two years ago, he should not dissent from its provisions. It, however, went far beyond those recommendations, and incorporated the proposals entertained in the Bill of the right hon. Member for South Hampshire (Mr. Cowper-Temple) which ought, he thought, to be dealt with in a different manner. Under those circumstances, although he should not oppose the Motion for the second reading, he hoped the Bill would be referred to a Select Com- mittee not for the purpose of delaying, but rather of facilitating its progress. He thought it was desirable the Commissioners should be allowed to judge of the requirements of a particular locality, for they were perfectly competent to decide what allotments should be given to labourers, and what land should be set aside for the purposes of recreation. How much better, too, he would ask, would it not be that where ground was of a swampy and bad nature it should be drained and properly cultivated than left as it was, paying nothing in alleviation of those local rates which pressed so heavily on particular districts? He was, of course, far from saying that allotments should not be given to the labouring poor, and as to the commons, of which the hon. Baronet who had just spoken seemed to think the great landowners and lords of the manors got the lion's share, he might instance the case of one inclosure in his own immediate neighbourhood in which the lord of the manor got only a sixteenth part. Under all the circumstances, the proper course, in his opinion, to pursue, was to send the Bill to a Select Committee.

said, he hoped the House would not accede to the hon. and gallant Gentleman's proposal. He felt very grateful for the introduction of the Bill, because it recognized the principle that the people had a real interest in the public lands of this country. Before the year 1845 the rights of the poor in connection with waste lands were systematically and absolutely ignored. No less than 4,000 private Acts had up to that time been passed for making inclosures—2,000 in the last century, and 2,000 in the first half of the present century. The Bill of 1845 directed the Commissioners to authorize inclosures only when expedient, and contained provisions with respect to recreation grounds and allotment gardens. Under it, about 500,000 acres had been inclosed, yet only an infinitesimal portion had been set aside for recreation grounds and allotments; nor did it appear that the Commissioners had ever stopped any inclosure on the ground of the interest of the public generally. The Act of 1866 provided that, within a certain distance of the metropolis, commons should not be inclosed under the Inclosure Acts at all, thus recognizing the interests of the general public as against those of the lords and the commoners. The present measure extended this provision to all large towns. It also improved the earlier provisions as to allotments and recreation grounds. The Bill did not go quite far enough, however, for it only considered the interests of the public in the particular locality in which, the waste lands were situated. We were only beginning to open our eyes to the sanitary conditions under which our immense population was living, and perhaps hon. Members were scarcely aware of the growing extent in which our increasing population was pent up in towns. Those growing masses of the people had an immense interest in the little that was left of the waste lands of the country; and the Legislature would be recklessly improvident if it did not consider the interests not only of the present population, but also of the very much larger population which would follow them. It was not enough to provide for the interests of the locality, around, for instance, the Malvern Hills, Helvellyn, or Snowdon; such places were frequented by the public from a far wider range, whose interests were entirely unprotected by the Bill. He did not think the interests of the landed proprietors of the country were more adverse to the public interest than were those of any other class; perhaps they were less so. But he asked them to recollect that their number in this country was constantly diminishing; that estates were growing in size, and getting into fewer hands; that the occupation of land was also getting into fewer hands, and that as farms became consolidated and the use of machinery increased, fewer labourers would be employed on the land. He did not complain of this; but what would be the result if the number of persons brought into direct contact with the land as owners, occupiers, and cultivators diminished in number while the population increased? Those persons who favoured the present system should, therefore, consider how it might be made most tolerable to such as had no land. If all land were inclosed, and the rights of property strictly exercised over it, the people being kept to the public roads, living in England would become intolerable. At present, the liberal use of their parks and of private waste land allowed by certain landed proprietors was a miti- gating circumstance. As a landless man and an habitual trespasser he gratefully acknowledged this. But the public had an interest in the use of the public waste lands of the country; and if you allowed no vent to the indescribable longing for a country life among the town masses of the population, there would be a growing feeling of discontent which would operate much more seriously than the advocates of inclosure were aware of. One point he wished to bring under the notice of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, who praised the liberal administration of the Crown lands. There was no private proprietor who used the rights over waste lands in so grudging and so niggardly a manner as the Crown and the Duchy of Cornwall. The Crown lands were coined into the last farthing; and what might give enjoyment to thousands would be sold for a halfpenny if no more could be got for it. He would, therefore, make these practical suggestions—First, the Crown and the Duchy of Cornwall should be expressly restricted from inclosure. Next, no inclosure should be allowed anywhere except under the Inclosure Acts, so that under no circumstances could the lord and the commoners, acting together, or the lord alone under the Statute of Merton, evade the intentions of the Legislature. Again, no inclosure ought to be made until the Secretary of State, or some other responsible person, was satisfied that not only were local interests satisfied, but that the interests of the public at large were not injuriously affected. Parliament was asked to legislate very much in the dark on this question. In 1844, Mr. Blamire's estimate of the extent of waste lands in England was 8,000,000 acres. Another estimate was 6,000,000; but we now really had no accurate knowledge on this point, and the extent of land available for the public use was probably much smaller than was supposed. He suggested, then, that there should be a survey of the waste lands of the country, and under the direction of the Ordnance Department such a survey could be made with very little difficulty or expense. Until a survey had been made they ought to hold their hands, and he therefore trusted that his hon. Friend (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) would consider favourably the Amendments which he should place upon the Paper for pro- posal in Committee, with a view to prevent inclosures without the sanction of the Secretary of State, and to provide for the survey of the waste lands of the country.

said, he had no great fault to find with the Bill. In the county which he represented (Radnorshire), where there were a great many waste lands, they were regarded as unmitigated nuisances. Not only did they give rise to a great deal of local crime, but they especially afforded facilities for sheep stealing and harbouring of vagrants. They were also a fruitful cause of bad blood and feuds, in consequence of disputed rights of pasture. So much was this the case, that shepherds were frequently selected not because they were well skilled in the management of sheep, but because they were proficients in pugilism. It would, therefore, be a source of congratulation if those lands were inclosed on fair terms. Nearly every class in Wales was in favour of their inclosure; but that the lord of the manor should not have the right of veto different to that enjoyed by the Commissioners. Although not entertaining that view, he considered it was one that might be advantageously submitted to a Select Committee. He believed, however, with the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Winterbotham) that no lord of the manor was so hard a taskmaster as the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Indeed, the encroachments made by the Commissioners were constantly increasing, and but little, if any, attention was ever paid to the rights of the commoners. He should not vote against the second reading, but he should support, at a later stage, the proposal of his hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Barttelot) to refer the Bill to a Select Committee.

moved the adjournment of the debate.

said, he hoped that his hon. Friend would not press the Motion. Looking at the business before the House, he feared it would be many a long day before so good an opportunity could be found for the discussion of the question, and it was still early.

supported the Amendment for the adjournment of the debate. The hon. and learned Member for Stroud (Mr. Winterbotham) had propounded a most extraordinary doctrine —namely, that the waste lands of the country were to be reserved for the enjoyment of tourists, or rather gentlemen excursionists, rather than for those who had a pecuniary interest in them. The whole matter might become a question of compensation, and if the Malvern Hills and similar lands were to be reserved for the public it might, perhaps, be worth consideration whether a demand in respect of them might not be made upon the Consolidated Fund.

said, he thought these commons ought not to be treated as if the lords of the manor and the other persons possessing particular rights in them were the only interested parties, as it should be borne in mind that the public in general had a right to pass over them. He objected to the Bill being referred to a Select Committee, thinking it would be better to consider its provisions in the ordinary way in Committee of the Whole House.

said, he would not resist the Motion for adjournment.