asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been drawn to the late fatal catastrophe in the private lunatic asylum of Doctors Finch and Lush, near Salisbury, whereby the life of Mr. Robert Skeffington Lutwidge, Her Majesty's Commissioner of Lunacy, an old and valuable public servant, has been sacrificed; whether he has read the recent charge of the learned Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer to the grand jury of the county of Wilts, in which his Lordship is reported to have said as follows:—

"He meant to throw no imputation upon anybody, but that a great misfortune appeared to have arisen in consequence of a lunatic in an asylum not being sufficiently watched and guarded, and of sufficient means not having been taken to prevent him obtaining possession of anything by which bodily injury could be inflicted. The case was too familiar to all of them. It was matter of notoriety not only in the county, but throughout the Kingdom, that a lunatic possessed himself of a nail of sufficient length and strength, by which he was enabled to inflict a wound, which resulted in the death a few days afterwards of a Commissioner in Lunacy, a gentleman who was respected and esteemed by all who knew him:"

and, whether the Secretary of State has taken means to prevent such an occurrence happening again in a private lunatic asylum; and, also, if he can explain to the House how it was that a criminal lunatic, for whom ample provision is now made in the Government Criminal Lunatic Asylum at Broadmoor, where additional precautions are supposed to be taken, was allowed to be an inmate of a private lunatic asylum for a period of upwards of twenty years, the owners of which failed to discover that he was a dangerous lunatic, though it is admitted in evidence that he constantly threatened everybody?

in reply, said, the attention of the Home Secretary had boon drawn to the subject contained in the Question of the noble Lord, and the right hon. Gentleman had been in communication with the Commissioners of Lunacy on the subject. The asylum in question was, it appeared, one of the best conducted lunatic asylums in England, and the lunatic who killed Mr. Lutwidge was not a criminal lunatic, his sentence having expired. After the termination of his sentence he could be no longer kept in confinement in the Government Criminal Lunatic Asylum at Broadmoor, and he was therefore transferred to the private asylum near Salisbury. The Commissioners had visited the latter asylum annually, and on each occasion they had seen that particular lunatic; but they had not found this man to be a dangerous lunatic, nor recommended special precautions to be taken with regard to him. It was, doubtless, to be regretted that his real character was not previously ascertained; but, of course, accidents of this kind must sometimes occur in lunatic asylums.

asked the Postmaster General, If the following extract is not a correct statement of a Post Office Rule:—

"Every person whose employment in the service is recognized by the Postmaster General is an officer of the Department. No person under sixteen years of age can be permitted to hold any situation in the Post Office, or to have access to the letters:"

if he has made further inquiry as to the Glasgow Post Office, and if-the result of that inquiry has been to show that the above Rule had been violated by the employment of boys from fourteen to sixteen years old in the delivery of letters; if it be the fact that last Tuesday a boy who has not completed his thirteenth year was sent out to deliver an important section of the London Mail; and, if he will give the new Postmaster positive instructions and fuller power to make his staff efficient?

in reply, said, the Rule referred to was not invariably acted upon. In London and other places, where there were boy sorters and telegraph boys under 16 years of age, when pressure came upon the Department they were used for the purpose of distributing letters; and he was informed that when they were so used there were fewer complaints against them than there were on the average against the regular men. He had made inquiries with regard to the Glasgow post office, and found that the Regulation referred to had not been acted upon, because a large number of additional letter carriers, whose appointment had been authorized, had not all been appointed, and therefore boy sorters and telegraph boys had been employed in distributing letters. With regard to the third Question, he was informed that it had no foundation in fact; and, with reference to the last one, the fullest power had been given to the postmaster to make his staff efficient. If the hon. Gentleman represented the feeling of Glasgow, that city must be very ungrateful, for there was no town in the United Kingdom for whose postal arrangements more had been done than Glasgow.

asked the Surveyor General of the Ordnance, Whether, looking at the large economy as regards establishments effected by the amalgamation in 1870 under the Control Department of the various Supply Departments of the Army, and to the fact that the duties formerly performed by each Department separately are now interchanged between the several cadres forming the Sub-supply and Transport Branch of the Control Department, he will place all the Officers employed in that branch of the Service on the same footing as regards relative rank, pay, and numbers in each grade as that enjoyed by the Officers of the Commissariat cadre?

I have, Sir, to state that the Regulation as regards relative rank and pay of the several cadres of the Supply and Transport sub-departments are already identical. The only difference occurs as regards the numbers in the different grades—a difference which has arisen in consequence of there having been in the Commissariat department, as formerly organized, no officers of the relative rank of lieutenant, while officers of that grade were the most numerous in the other large de- partments. After all reductions and retirements had been effected, there remained in the Commissariat cadre a considerable number of officers surplus to the normal establishment of the new department, and it was settled in order to avoid the hardship and expense of placing them all on half-pay, that they should remain on the Active List and be reduced gradually, a process which is being carried out. The same reasoning did not apply to the other large departments. So far from there being in them supernumerary officers, it became necessary to make numerous promotions to bring them up to the normal establishment, and there appears consequently no reason to comply with the proposal made by my hon. Friend.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he is yet prepared to inform the House if the Trustees of the British Museum have been consulted as to taking charge of the South Kensington Museum and its affiliated institutions at Bethnal Green, at Dublin, and at Edinburgh; whether it is arranged that such transfer of the direction and control shall take place; if so, whether the Sheepshanks, the Dyce, and other valuable bequests will thereby cease to form part of the National Collections; and, whether he will give Parliament an opportunity of expressing au opinion of the policy of this change before it is carried Out?

The subject, Sir, is not so susceptible of an easy and speedy determination as my hon. Friend seems to imagine. The Trustees of the British Museum have been consulted on subject of a proposal for the transfer to their control of the South Kensington and Bethnal Green Museums; but the Museums at Dublin and Edinburgh are not included in the proposal. Such consultation was a necessary preliminary to any such proceedings, and my hon. Friend may depend upon it that nothing will be clone which is calculated to endanger the Sheepshanks' and other bequests. Moreover, considering the amount of popular interest in the subject, we shall endeavour so to arrange that before any final and definitive step is taken, there shall be an opportunity for Parliament to express an opinion upon it.

asked the Vice President of the Council, Whether he contemplates issuing any order to facilitate stamping out pleuro-pneumonia in cattle, or for carrying out any of the other recommendations of the Report of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Committee?

in reply, said, that the Report of the Committee on the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act had just been delivered to hon. Members. That Committee sat nearly through the Session; they had taken much evidence, and had carefully considered the subject. Several suggestions had been offered by the Committee which required the careful consideration of the Government generally; but there were two suggestions which his noble Friend (Lord Ripon) and himself were of opinion ought to be acted upon at once. One was, the recommendation of the Committee, that animals affected with pleuro-pneumonia should be slaughtered. The Committee, on the other hand, did not recommend that animals which came in contact with those which had been affected should be slaughtered. The Privy Council had, consequently, replaced the permissive Order to local authorities, by a General Order, that animals affected by pleuro-pneumonia should be slaughtered, and that compensation for such slaughter should be given to the owners. It was thought that a General Order should be substituted for permissive regulations, in order that the rules as to the diseases of animals should be the same throughout the country. The Privy Council, however, came to the conclusion after close consideration of the question, that it was unadvisable to do anything towards stopping the foot-and-mouth disease, except by the regulations existing in the Act, and that no Order should be issued by the Privy Council, either permissive or general, beyond the regulations of the Act. Lord Ripon and himself had consequently issued an Order to that effect, and both these Orders would appear in The Gazette. Another recommendation was, that a different principle of compensation should be adopted, and that compensation should be given for the amount of loss to the owner of the animals, instead of a fixed sum. The Government would carefully consider that suggestion; but they felt that they could not make the regulation with regard to pleuro-pneumonia without taking the opinion of Parliament, as compensation in cases of cattle plague was fixed by the Act.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the sum of £430,000, taken from Post Office Revenue to repay moneys taken from Savings' Bank balances would not form part of the general balances and increase the Revenue by that amount; whether, if he still considered himself justified in anticipating that the Post Office Revenue would be nearly equal to that of last year, the Post Office Revenue would not be £430,000 in excess of his Estimate; whether the effect would not be that next April the right honourable gentleman would have the sum of £860,000 to deal with, in addition to his estimated working surplus of £291,000; and, whether the probability of any increase in the Unfunded Debt being necessary at the end of the year was not thereby greatly diminished?

Sir, the first Question of the hon. Gentleman I answer in the affirmative. The sum of £430,000 taken from Post Office revenue to repay moneys taken from Savings Bank balances would form part of the general balances, and increase the Revenue by that amount. The hon. Gentleman's second Question I answer in the negative. The Post Office Estimate for the year 1873–4 was £5,012,000. Had this Estimate been made by the Treasury, ignorant as they were of the fact that a large part of the Post Office revenue had been directed to another purpose, no doubt the observation of the hon. Gentleman would be correct, and we might reasonably expect an increase in the Revenue of the year in proportion to the sum named. Inasmuch, however, as the Estimate was made by persons in the Post Office who were aware of what had been done with the money, I am afraid that it was allowed for, and that no such increase can be expected. But that is only a small part of the Question. Putting aside this matter of Post Office revenue, diverted for the purpose of repaying money taken from Savings Bank balances, a large sum belonging to the year 1872–3 has been withhold from the Exchequer. That sum in a Bill just passed is estimated at £812,000. The larger part of this is due to Post Office revenue, and the remainder to Miscellaneous Estimates. That sum will, under the Bill, be paid into the Exchequer, and come into the excess of Revenue as estimated by the Budget, and will therefore tend to swell the estimated surplus of £291,000. On the other hand, that estimated surplus is diminished by Supplementary Estimates—among which heavy expenses for the Metropolitan Police and the Irish Constabulary figure largely—to the extent of from £400,000 to £500,000. The House is aware also that advances for Public Works are made out of balances in the Public Exchequer, and the Estimates which are given us of the loans required for schools and for sanitary purposes under the respective Acts of Parliament are so large that we shall be obliged to ask Parliament for borrowing powers; but, of course, we shall not use them until our balances are exhausted, and this large sum of money to be paid in will interpose an obstacle between us and the necessity for borrowing.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he is aware of the nature of the interview between the Captains of the "Pigeon" and the war ship of the German Government "Friedrich Karl;" and, what instructions have been issued to the commanders of British vessels in relation to insurgent vessels? ["Oh, oh!" and "Order!"] The hon. Member, to put himself in order, said he would move the Adjournment of the House, and thereupon proceeded to detail the circumstances of the arrest of the Spanish vessel as reported in the newspapers. He thought the part taken by the officer of the British ship in assisting the officer of the German ship in the arrest of the Spanish vessel, if the accounts which had been published are true, were of a nature to endanger the relations between this Country and Spain.

said, that before the noble Lord the Tinder Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs replied, he would take advantage of the Motion for. Adjournment, and put the Question which he had placed on the Paper with reference to the same subject, though in a somewhat different form. He was extremely surprised at the impatience shown by the House to the hon. Member for Colchester while asking the Question, for it referred to a matter of the greatest importance, and it was due to the House and to the country that before Parliament separated it should be known what policy the Government had resolved upon with reference to a very complicated state of affairs, and what instructions had been given to the commanders of Her Majesty's ships of war in Spanish waters. He desired as much as possible to avoid anything which might tend to reflect upon any party in Spain, for in its present circumstances the insurgents of to-day might be the Government tomorrow. From a statement in The Times, which he read with great surprise, it appeared that an officer of the British Navy had joined with an officer commanding a Prussian ship of war cruising off the Spanish coast in imposing a Convention on the Government alleging itself to be the Government of Cartagena, in insurrection against the Government of Madrid, which Government itself was in insurrection against the Government preceding it. That Convention contained the conditions that until a certain date no vessel should sail from Cartagena, and that the steamer Vigilante was to be deemed a lawful prize, in consequence of having borne an unknown flag. He wished to know, whether that British officer had acted in conformity with instructions from the Government, or from our Representative at Madrid; and, if not, whether his conduct was approved by Her Majesty's Government, and what instructions would be sent to him consequence? He believed that no Minister was more determined than Lord Granville to carry out as far as he could do so the policy of non-intervention; and, having made the sacrifice which we made in a recent case, it was most unlikely we should depart from it now. One word of warning, however, might be given with regard to Spanish affairs. No Power had ever interfered in them without experiencing misfortune. Louis Philippe interfered in Spain and lost his Crown. The same fate befell the Emperor Napoleon and. King Amadeus; and, following Spanish affairs into another hemisphere, the Emperor Maximilian had lost both his Crown and his life. He would now ask the Tinder Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether any instructions have been sent to Her Majesty's Representative in Spain in consequence of a reported declaration of the Government now in power at Madrid, that ships of the Spanish Navy might be treated as piratical vessels; and, whether any information has been received at the Foreign Office of the seizure of a ship of the Spanish Navy by a Prussian frigate, and of any concerted action between the officer commanding Her Majesty's ship on the station and the Prussian Captain in consequence of that seizure?

said, before these Questions of the hon. Members were answered, he would like to know whether they wore based upon well-ascertained facts, or whether they merely went upon what they had seen in the newspapers? Anything which tied the hands of our Representatives might have very serious consequences to British subjects. Notice had been given of the intention to bombard the important City of Malaga, and if there had been no British vessel to prevent that bombardment the result would have been serious loss of British life and property. It was not a question of intervention in Spanish affairs, but of the protection of British subjects settled and engaged in lawful occupations in Spain.

I think, Sir, it would have been quite possible for my hon. Friends to have obtained the information they desire without moving the Adjournment of the House, a practice which it is not desirable to encourage in asking Questions. My explanation will be very brief; but I hope it will be satisfactory both to my hon. Friends and the House generally. It is quite true that the German war ship Friedrich Karl arrested a Spanish vessel named the Vigilante, which has been subsequently released. We have no particulars as to the nature of the interview between the captains of the Pigeon and the Friedrich Karl, but, from information received yesterday, we believe that the commander of the Pigeon only witnessed the agreement come to between the German and Spanish officers on that occasion. With regard to the instructions sent to our officers, I may state that on the 24th ultimo Her Majesty's Government informed the Admiralty that, with respect to the Spanish ships of war denounced as pirates by a decree of the Government of Madrid, Her Majesty's Government consider that if such vessels commit any acts of piracy affecting British subjects or British interests they should be treated as pirates, the, decree of the Spanish Government having deprived them of the protection of their flag; but if they do no such act, they should not be interfered with. Her Majesty's Government have further informed our Naval authorities that they consider that the captains of our vessels are not to surrender or permit the participation of any British officer in any surrender to the Spanish Government of any prisoners detained in revolted ships. Her Majesty's ships are further directed, in the event of any threatened bombardment of any place by the revolted ships, to require its suspension till time has been allowed for placing British lives and property in safety, and to enforce this demand if it be refused. Admiral Yelverton has, I am informed, arrived at Gibraltar with the Mediterranean Fleet.

inquired whether the seizure of the Spanish vessel, to which the English captain had given his assent, had occurred in Spanish waters?

said, he had seen the Report—a telegraphic one—which had reached the Admiralty from Gibraltar; but it gave no particulars as to the place where the seizure occurred.

supposed that the Motion for Adjournment might be treated as an omnibus Motion, and begged to inquire, What course would be taken with regard to the Notice given by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Charles Adderley) respecting the Ashantee War? It was not right that Parliament should close its sittings without considering the question, and without a statement from the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies as to the policy to be pursued upon the question. He begged to ask the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, Whether he would use his influence to have the discussion of the question brought on that evening?

in reply, said, his right hon. Friend was not dependent upon influence of his to bring on the Motion of which he had given Notice. It was a matter which depended altogether upon the will of the House.

asked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether he can arrange that 200 or 300 visitors from Lancashire may pass through both Houses of Parliament some clay in the week (other than a Saturday) towards the cud of the present month, the Lord Great Chamberlain having stated that they can only have that facility on a Saturday, a day on which it is impossible, in consequence of the Railway excursion arrangements, for the persons concerned to be in London?

in reply, said, that in consequence of the absence in Scotland of the Hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain, he had not had such communication with him as would enable him to give a precise answer to the Question. He had no doubt the Hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain would be ready to give the necessary facilities to the persons referred to who were desirous of visiting the Houses of Parliament; but as there were a great many applications of a similar sort, the arrangements should be so made as to enable the public at large to take advantage of it. To do that, however, would require more consideration than, from the circumstance to which he had alluded, the matter had yet received.

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to state if there is any, and if any, what objection to explain the grounds on which the Foreign Office has refused to interfere in the matter of the complaint made by Mr. Paul Tomagian, a British subject resident at Constantinople, against Sir Philip Francis, Her Majesty's Consul General and Judge at that place, as set forth in a letter from the said Mr. Tomagian to Lord Granville, dated the 28th of November 1872, in which Mr. Tomagian charges Sir Philip Francis with arbitrary and oppressive conduct towards him, and with denial of justice and abuse of his office?

Sir, in declining to interfere on behalf of Mr. Paul Tomagian, the Foreign Office acted under the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown, to whom the Papers relating to Mr. Tomagian's complaints against Messrs. Hanson, the bankers, at Constantinople, were referred. He is not a British subject, but a native of Turkey, who procured British protection some years ago.

asked Mr. Solicitor General, Whether the insertion of the word "may" throughout the Canada Loan Guarantee Act of the present Session does not give the Treasury the power of postponing the issue of the guarantee for any period that may seem desirable?

in reply, said, it would not be fair to answer the Question of the hon. Baronet simply in the affirmative, because it was limited merely to the power of postponing the guarantee. The Act was, in point of fact permissive, and enabled the Treasury to withhold the guarantee altogether, if they thought fit to do so. That was the form usual in such cases, and it gave to the Executive Government authority to grant the guarantee, they being responsible for the exercise of that authority in a proper manner.

asked the Postmaster General, Whether it is in contemplation to extend to the letter carriers in Dublin and in the provincial towns in Ireland the benefits recently conferred upon the letter carriers in Loudon, under the regulations giving them increased pay as a reward for length of service and good conduct; and, if not, whether he will take their claims into his consideration?

in reply, said, if the benefits referred to in the hon. and gallant Member's Question meant increase of pay, the pay of the Dublin letter carriers had been already increased. If badges of distinction for good conduct were referred to, it was not intended to extend that regulation beyond the Metropolis.

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether the Government is aware that those charged with the carrying into execution of the works designed for the improvement of the Shannon in 1839, when they found that the tenders for their execution far exceeded the amounts at which they were estimated, deliberately substituted other plans for those designed by the Commissioners of 1835, and approved and embodied in the Act passed in 1839; and, whether the Government is aware that this was done with as it were closed doors, that is without those who were to pay for the works, and who were to have been benefited by their full and complete execution, being either consulted or informed upon the subject?

in reply, said, if the hon. and gallant Member would read his own Question, he would readily excuse him (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) for not having information with reference to the subject of it. The matter alluded to, occurred 34 years ago, and with closed doors, and even the hon. and gallant Member who knew the county so well had only become acquainted with the facts during the last fortnight. He did not see what bearing they had upon the question of the drainage of the Shannon one way or the other.

said, that as the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had failed to see that the Question had any bearing on the main question of the drainage of the Shannon, he had to ask, Whether, inasmuch as the carrying out of only one half of the works authorized for the improvement of the Shannon would of necessity leave the lands adjoining that river still subject to inundations, it did not necessarily follow that the action of the Government officials—if correctly described—must be taken to have a very considerable bearing on the present deplorable state of the Shannon?

said, he could not answer such a Question at a moment's notice, as he could not say whether the statement was correct.

Assume it to be correct, and I am prepared to substantiate it.

It is not yet proved.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, How soon the partial increase of the staff of the Post Office Savings Bank Department which has been sanctioned by the Treasury, is likely to take effect; and, whether there is any objection on the part of the Treasury to complete the re-construction of that Department?

in reply, said, the first Question should have been put to the Postmaster General. In reply to the second he had to say that the re-construction of the department was being proceeded with, and would, he hoped, soon be completed.

in reference to the first Question, said, that the staff of the Savings Bank department would be increased almost immediately.

asked, If the attention of the Government has been called to a statement in "The Times" of the 30th of July, that Sub-Inspector Montgomery, who had been sentenced to death for murder, had been interviewed by some reporters; and, whether the regulations of the Gaol admitted of such a proceeding; and, if so, whether he would take steps to prevent its recurrence?

Sir, immediately upon the report of the interview with Mr. Montgomery appearing in the Dublin newspapers, inquiry was made through the Inspectors General of Prisons as to the circumstances under which the interview was permitted. The local Inspector of the Omagh Gaol stated that the reporters for the Press were admitted on a written order from the Sheriff to the Governor, acting, as was supposed, under the provisions of an Act of Parliament. The Sheriff has been called upon for further explanations, and steps will be taken to prevent the recurrence of a similar proceeding.

asked the Secretary of the Treasury, Whether, in the case of the retirement of a civil servant, from the abolition of his appointment, it was not usual in calculating the amount of his pension to acid ten years to his actual period of service; and, whether, in the case of Mr. John Maclean (now Sir John Maclean), whose retirement allowance was agreed to in January, 1871, this ten years was not added to his period of service; and, whether, in the case of Mr. Walter Freeth, whose appointment as Chief Clerk (Military Department) in the War Office had lately been abolished, clue attention had been given by the Treasury to the special recommendations of His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief for Mr. Freeth to receive "full pay, or the highest rate of retirement to which his special services seemed to justly entitle him;" and, if not, why not?

Sir, my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury did not receive Notice of the hon. Member's Question in time to be in his place to answer it. In the absence of my hon. Friend I beg to say that it is the practice, at the Treasury, in calculating the amount of pension to be granted to a retiring Civil servant to add 10 years to his actual time of ser- vice, wherever that service has exceeded 20 years. In the case of Sir John Maclean those 10 years were added. In the case of Mr. Walter Freeth, the recommendation of His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief was fully considered by the Treasury, and the only reason he did not receive the addition of the full 10 years was, that if that had been done the effect would have been to raise the pension beyond the limits of two-thirds of the salary, the limit contemplated by the Civil Service Superannuation Act. He therefore only received as much as was sufficient to make the pension two-thirds of the salary.

said, that the cases were parallel, as in the one case the amount of service was, he believed, 33 and in the other 34 years.

I do not understand the hon. Member to say that there is a case for the reduction of the pension of Sir John Maclean. If he does, that is a different matter, and should be the subject of another Question.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the magistrate who on Monday last, at Oldham, is reported to have fined two boys five shillings each for the crime of tossing, is the same person who on the same day was sentenced by the justices at Eddisbury to pay a fine of five pounds for aiding and abetting in cruelty to animals at the recent cockfight in Cheshire; and, if so, whether he is a fit person to hold the office of magistrate?

in reply, said, he believed the gentleman in question was one of the borough magistrates of Oldham. The case had been referred to the Chancellor of the Duchy, who was the proper person to deal with it.

with reference to a statement that appeared in "The Times" of Thursday as to a part of the river wall at the Gun Wharf, Chatham Dockyard, which recently gave way, asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether the statement is true; and, if so, what portion of the river wall was alluded to, and to what extent it has given way?

in reply, said, he guessed from the Question that the hon. Gentleman thought the Gun Wharf was within the area of the Dockyard with which the Admiralty was connected. That was an error. It was not within the Dockyard. He had no knowledge of what occurred in the Gun Wharf, which was not in his Department.

asked, Whether he was to understand that the Gun Wharf was no part of the property under the Admiralty, and that the right hon. Gentleman was last week unaware of those facts?

said, he had already stated that the Gun Wharf was not within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty, and that they had absolutely nothing to do with it.

said, the Gun Wharf belonged rather to the War Department than to the Admiralty. He was unable, however, to answer the hon. Gentleman's Question now, having had no Notice of it, but he would endeavour to do so to-morrow.

said, he was in the House on Saturday, at the time when Notices were usually given; but he failed to gather any intimation that the ordinary practice of the House as to meeting at 4 o'clock was to be departed from that day (Monday). If their Standing Orders and Sessional Orders were so loosely worded that it was in the power of the Government to fix whatever time they chose for the meeting of the House, they might fix on 3 in the morning. There was nothing to prevent the same practice being adopted in the middle of the Session. He would draw attention to that matter next Session with a view to an alteration of the Standing Orders.

said, he believed it was almost the uniform practice at the close of the Session for such changes in the hour of meeting to be made.

said, he had himself called attention to irregularities of that kind. The complaint of the hon. Member for York was, he thought, well founded. It was impossible for hon. Members to discharge their duty properly if they had not due Notice when to be present.

asked at what hour it was intended that the House should meet to-morrow?

replied that that did not rest with him. He, however, understood the usual hour was half-past 1.

said, that as to the point raised by the hon. Merber for York (Mr. J. Lowther), he might state that the hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. Adam) had publicly announced on Saturday afternoon that the House would meet at 3 o'clock on Monday; and Notice to that effect appeared on the Votes.

in rising to move that the Lords' Amendments be taken into consideration that day three months, said, as he was about to ask the House to take a course with reference to a Bill in which much interest had been felt out-of-doors, which would put an end to its existence, he must ask indulgence while he stated the grounds of a proceeding of which he felt all the responsibility. So far as the Lords' Amendments tended to restore the Bill to the limited. objects with which it was first introduced—namely, a Bill confined to the Law of Conspiracy as affecting trade combinations—he could not and did not demur to those Amendments. The changes, however, effected by the Amendments introduced by the Government in Committee of that House, by which the Bill was transformed into a general Bill dealing with the whole Law of Conspiracy, was a change not only not made at his instance, but against his earnest and repeated protest. He entreated his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary not to persist in such a course, because he foresaw the result which had actually occurred—namely, that the Bill would be wrecked; and he told the right hon. Gentleman that the responsibility of its failure must rest upon those who counselled and insisted upon such a proceeding. He know the plausible ground on which that course was adopted. It was said that exceptional legislation in favour of a particular class could not be defended, and that if any alteration was to be made in. the law it must be applied to all alike. But it was too late to adopt such a position. Those who resisted the repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment Act and the Master and Servant Act—and Her Majesty's Government were to be reckoned among them—were not in a situation to denounce exceptional legislation. Those Acts were essentially exceptional, creating special penalties against a particular class; and to affirm that penalties ought to be exceptional, but that exemptions must be universal, was a proposition which, in his judgment, was neither logical nor just. It was because the wage-earning classes had been made the subject of legislation which was applied to no other class of the community, and still more to the operation of a Common Law jurisprudence which had affected them with exceptional severity, that that Bill was introduced to apply exceptional remedies to exceptional mischiefs. It was launched as a trade Bill; it was read a second time as a trade Bill. The first set of Amendments put on the Paper by the Government accepted the Bill in its limited character, and if it had been sent up to the House of Lords in that shape, in his opinion it would have been more satisfactorily discussed, and returned in a far less unsatisfactory state. At all events, the House of Lords would not have been able to allege the plausible pretext that they were not prepared, in the last week in July, to review the whole state of the Law of Conspiracy. The delay, probably inevitable, which was caused by that imprudent transformation, wasted just that fortnight which might have secured for the Bill in the other House a more full, and perhaps a more satisfactory, investigation. He did not say that in order to complain of his right hon. Friend; on the contrary, he desired to acknowledge, as he was bound in candour to acknowledge, the sincere desire, both on the part of the Home Secretary and the Law Officers, and also on the part of those who had charge of the Bill in the other House, to pass into law that Session a remedial and adequate measure. That House had to consider the Bill as it had come back to them. He had seen it stated in the public journals that it had been restored to the state in which it was originally introduced. If it were so, certainly the authors of the Bill would not be the persons who could have a right to complain. It was the same Bill, it was true, in title and in form; in substance it was not the same, but wholly different. The corpse remained; but under those successive transmigrations, the soul had fled, the spirit had evaporated. Let him remind the House what were the evils that the Bill proposed to remedy, and what was the mode of remedy applied. In the case of the gas-stokers, there were two sets of counts in the indictment. The second, upon which the conviction was obtained, was for conspiring to break contracts under the provisions of the Master and Servant Act; and upon that conviction the sentence of 12 months' imprisonment—for an offence which under the Act was only punishable with three months' imprisonment—was passed. Under the first counts, the Judge laid down the law to the effect that it was an offence at Common Law to combine to induce a man to alter his mode of conducting his business, and thereby to coerce his free will. It was plain that such a doctrine, as the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary well stated, "turned the whole flank of the legislation of 1871," which declared the legality of trade combinations. If that law was upheld, every strike was in itself, ipso facto, a crime punishable with two years' imprisonment. If Parliament was to keep faith with the working classes in respect of the pledges it had given to secure the freedom of labour, it was bound to protect it against the practical supersession of its will by this sort of Judge-made law. No one had a more sincere respect than he had for the sages of the law; but that respect was limited to their legal province— Cuilibetcredendum est in arte suâ. Even men so just as -Mansfield and Eldon and Ellenborough and Kenyon had laid down doctrines on political and economical subjects which it had been the duty of Parliament to correct, and upon no head of the Common Law had decisions gone more astray than upon trade questions. Indeed, the main object of the Acts of 1871 was to abrogate the whole body of Judge-made law on the doctrine of restraint of trade, and by it Parliament in 1871 intended to overthrow that mischievous theory. It declared against the old doctrine and repealed it in words; but no sooner was the ancient cobweb swept away than a new mesh was devised, and toils hitherto unknown were spread with the same objects, and as soon as Parliament had declared against one doctrine a. new one was invented which escaped the terms of the prohibition; and so it would always be as long as we thought fit to leave the conflict of labour and capital to be adjudicated upon by the unrestricted will of Judges, who, however learned in the law, had not always been remarkable for the largeness of their political or economical views. It was an old and a true saying— Misera est servitus ubi jus incertum; and it was to that miserable servitude that the industrial classes of this country had been and still were condemned. Men could not obey the law because they knew not what the law was. What was the present situation? A Judge—nay, two Judges had laid down the law in a manner disapproved by the Government, and condemned by the Law Officers of the Crown; and yet, for all that, until it was reversed it was the law. The Home Secretary had said one thing, and a Judge had laid down exactly the opposite doctrine; but that did not make the thing better—indeed, it made it ten times worse. In that state of things the law and the liberties of men depended on the Judge before whom they were tried. Was that just, was it safe, was it tolerable? Yet we did nothing to remove this uncertainty, and to declare the law. The working classes of this country had demanded—in his judgment they had a right to demand—that the Parliament of England should tell them what was the law by which their right—almost the only right they had, the right of labour—was regulated. The Bill, as introduced, would have met that demand. It declared that the law affecting trade combinations should be found in the will of Parliament as declared in the Statute Book, and that alone. He should be told that that was to supersede the Common Law altogether. Yes, he owned frankly it was his intention, in respect of trade combinations, to exclude the action of the Common Law, which in that matter meant nothing else but the politico- economical sentiments, it might be the unconscious prejudices, of the Judges. Wise and beneficial as the operation of the Common Law might be, and as he believed it was, in other matters, in respect of its action upon the contests of capital and labour it had never been either wise or beneficial. In that matter Parliament, and Parliament alone, could be trusted. They condemned its old developments by their Acts in 1871; they repudiated its new developments in the debates of 1873; but they had not effectually repealed their operation. The House of Lords had struck out of the Bill the provision which would have confined the indictments for conspiracy in the case of trade combinations to acts made punishable by statute. What was the consequence? The autumn and the winter were coming. You might have new prosecutions and many fresh convictions founded upon principles which the Government condemned, which the Law Officers denounced, which the House of Commons had repudiated, but which Parliament had not legally abrogated. That might be the case under the new doctrine of Common Law conspiracy, or under yet newer doctrines which might be any day extemporized, for the sources from which they flowed were inexhaustible. Men might be condemned and sent to prison for two years under doctrines which no one was prepared to justify, and the Executive Government would be called upon to enforce sentences which they could not approve. Was that a state of things which we could contemplate with tranquillity? Was it a state of affairs which was compatible with the wellbeing of society? He would ask the noble Amenders of the Bill, was that a Conservative policy? To leave confessed injustice unredressed was to his mind of all things the most revolutionary. That was what the Bill did as now returned to that House. In failing to deal with the vague and indefinite dangers of the Common Law, it afforded no substantial remedy whatever for the substantial grievance which it was intended to redress. A Bill of that character, affording no essential redress, would only be an excuse for future and stronger agitation, for, in his opinion, there was nothing more dangerous or more unstatesmanlike than to deal inadequately with questions so serious in their consequences as this. A sham remedy for a real evil was only a fresh provocation. A measure of that character might only furnish an excuse for abstaining from complete and adequate legislation. But then it would be said, though the Bill might not accomplish all that was desired, at least it did something; and they might be asked to accept it on the ground that half a loaf was better than no bread. If the bread were good and wholesome food, however limited the ration, he should recognize the force of that argument. But how did the case stand? The Bill substantially contained only one provision, for the parts of the old combination laws specified in the Schedule were only of secondary importance. That provision limited the punishment on indictments for conspiracy for breach of contract under the Master and Servants Act to the term of three months, which was the penalty for the principal offence. So far, no doubt, the Bill was valuable. It would be a solemn condemnation, enrolled on the record of Parliament, of the sentence passed in last December on the gas-stokers. In declaring that no such thing should in the future be lawful, it would be—nay, it was—a censure upon the rigour of that transaction, and he must point out to the Home Secretary that it condemned not only the sentence of twelve months, but also the commuted sentence of four months' imprisonment. So far it was a partial reparation for a great, unhappily an irremediable wrong to the men who had suffered, and the fact that both Houses of Parliament had agreed that in such a ease, a sentence of three months ought to be the extreme limit of penalty was a fact which could not be got rid of. In the face of such a declaration by the Legislature, whether that Bill passed or whether it did not, it was impossible that in the future such a sentence as that in the case of the gas-stokers could be either passed or executed. But, unfortunately, the case did not rest there. He might have assented to the passing of the Bill in its altered form, had it not been for another consideration. Having consulted with those who made the matter their special study, and particularly with Mr. Wright, he was of opinion that the passing of this Bill, instead of doing good, would only do mischief to those in whose interest it had been introduced. Under the pretence of limiting the penalty, the Bill did, in fact, affirm the offence, for if they passed the Bill it would give a statutory assent to the doctrine which Parliament had never yet sanctioned—that an agreement to break a contract within the provisions of the Master and Servant Act was a criminal offence properly indictable as a conspiracy. It could not be too often repeated, what, indeed, the hon. and learned Solicitor General had clearly pointed out, that the 14th section of the Master and Servant Act did not constitute an offence, but only supplied an exceptional remedy for the enforcement of a contract under certain circumstances. This Bill would, for the first time, recognize in an Act of Parliament an agreement to break a contract to be an indictable offence. And he would point out to the House that the generality of the language embraced not only the acts within the 14th section, but any act within the purview of the Master and Servant Act. To so dangerous and mischievous a proposition he for one could never assent. In the Bill, as originally introduced, and as finally amended by the Government and sent up to the House of Lords, no indictment for conspiracy could have been laid under the Master and Servant Act. The Government, no less than the promoters of the Bill, were distinctly pledged to this principle. The Master and Servant Act was deliberately excluded from the 1st Schedule, and if it had not been so, he should at once have discharged the Order for the Third Reading of the Bill in that House. How, then, could the promoters —how could the Government, who concurred with them in that view, now turn round and sanction a Bill which affirmed exactly the opposite view? He, for one, was deeply convinced that if he were to do so, he should be chargeable with having betrayed the interests which he had undertaken, however feebly, to defend. He felt painfully the responsibility of this decision. He had asked that the matter should be postponed till this day, in order that he might have an opportunity of conferring with those on whose judgment he relied, and they were distinctly of opinion that the Bill, as it came down to them, would aggravate rather than alleviate the grievances which it was their object to remedy. The Bill would recognize by statutory authority that to which they could not and must not assent—namely, that that was a crime as between master and servant which was treated as a crime in no other class of the community. He had, therefore, come to the conclusion—and he had come to it with regret—that rather than take such a course it was better to lose the Bill. He recognized all the mischief and all the dangers of the present unsettled state of the law; but this Bill would not settle it. It was a great misfortune, no doubt, that its consideration had been postponed so late; but the responsibility for that did not rest with the promoters of the Bill; and as regarded the limitation of the sentence, it was perfectly sure without the enactment of its provisions. He confessed he could not understand why the Government did not themselves take up the question as soon as Parliament met, especially as the hon. and learned Attorney General had himself told them that so long age as last January the Law Officers reported to the Government their opinion of the unsatisfactory state of the law as declared in the case of the gas-stokers. But, however that might be, the question had reached a stage at which it could not and would not sleep, and the promoters of the Bill might be content with the reflection that they matured the question by the discussion it had undergone. The law was not amended, but it was condemned, for after the Amendments introduced by the Government, which practically .overthrew the whole Law of Conspiracy, it would be their bounden duty—a duty from which he felt sure they would not shrink—to deal with this matter at the earliest moment. He had felt from the first what he felt still more deeply now, that this was a question which ought never to have been in the hands of a private Member; he, however, could not, from the mere vanity of the desire to pass a Bill, assent to a measure which he knew to be insufficient, and which he believed to be unsound. The Government, of course, would deal with the matter as one of the first measures next Session. He preferred, then, to leave it in their hands; but he felt it right to guard himself, when it re-appeared, from a complete assent to the principle of the 1st Schedule which they introduced in Committee. He felt bound to say this because the Lord Chancellor was in error in supposing that the promoters of the Bill, or Mr. Wright, from whose able advice and assistance they had derived so much advantage, ever approved that Schedule, to which they gave a reluctant and involuntary assent. Under all the circumstances of the case, therefore, as they were at the last moment unable to amend the Lords' Amendments, he had no alternative but to abandon the Bill. In doing so, he earnestly trusted he should have the concurrence of the Government in resisting the enactment of a principle the exact opposite of that which pervaded the Bill which, with their assent and support, was sent up to the House of Lords. The Government could not—he was sure they did not desire to—withdraw from the principles laid down in the Bill as amended by themselves; and, therefore, amidst a choice of evils, he was convinced the best course would be to remit the decision of this important matter to the deliberation of another Session—perhaps to the decision of another Parliament—in which questions of social consequence would command a more careful consideration than they had hitherto received. With that conviction, he begged to move what would amount to be the practical rejection of the measure for that Session.

said, he was not at all surprised at the course taken by his hon. and learned Friend. On the contrary, he confessed that the Bill as returned to that House was a measure which it was not worth while to pass. In his judgment the subject ought to be postponed until the House could deal with it in a more comprehensive and satisfactory manner. His hon. and learned Friend had dealt with the Law of Conspiracy as far as it affected the relations between employers and employed. For his own part, he denied that workmen as a class were exceptionally treated; although it was, no doubt, true there were certain punishable offences which were rarely committed except by workmen. But in dealing with such cases the right rule seemed to be whether the offences were the proper subjects of punishment. If they were, the circumstance that they were only committed by one class of men in the State was no just or sufficient reason for exempting them from duo punishment. The effect of his hon. and. learned Friend's Bill, however, was to exempt workmen from the punishment which certain offences would entail if committed by a person belonging to any other class of the community, and therefore Her Majesty's Government were unable to accept the Bill in the form in which it was originally drawn. They had given the best attention they could to the subject; but the circumstances of the Session were such that it was impossible to send up the Bill at an earlier period. He deeply regretted the loss of the Bill. At the same time, considering the immense importance of the subject, he could not complain of the other branch of the Legislature for having treated the Bill pretty much as they treated others respecting which the course they took was much less excusable. His hon. and learned Friend had referred to two decisions of learned Judges which had "turned the flank" of the Act of 1871. Now, he was only aware of one dictum—not a decision, for a dictum was not, in any case, a decision—given by Mr. Justice Brett, who did lay down certain positions which, had they become the law of the land, would have effectually defeated the object of the Government, in one respect, in passing the Act of 1871. Had the jury found in accordance with the directions of the learned Judge, he had no doubt by this time there would have been an authoritative declaration whether the learned Judge had laid down the law correctly or not. But the jury did not convict on the ruling of the learned Judge in this respect; and when, shortly afterwards, the same point arose before another learned Judge, his ruling was entirely opposed to that of Mr. Justice Brett. We had, therefore, upon this subject the opinion of Mr. Justice Lush against the opinion of Mr. Justice Brett. It was almost to be regretted that the jury did not follow the ruling of Mr. Justice Brett, because an opportunity would then have been afforded for testing the opinions of the Judges, and Parliament would have been better able to consider whether a change in the law was or was not necessary. With regard to the appeal made by his hon. and learned Friend, he thought the Government, by the action they had taken, had shown that they considered the subject of great importance. While, however, most anxious to assist his hon. and learned Friend in his efforts to amend the law, he did feel there were objections in the way of dealing with so difficult a question at so late a period of the Session. As to the future, he fully admitted that the matter was one which deserved consideration at the hands of the Government, and if possible, it was advisable flint Government action should take place on the question; but he was not prepared to pledge the Government to any definite course on the subject, though it should, of course, receive their careful attention with a view to some satisfactory conclusion being arrived at, and it would be for the Government, having regard to all that had taken place (hiring the present Session, to consider during the Recess what might be proposed for the acceptance of Parliament, especially with regard to the Law of Conspiracy, which both Houses had, by their action, declared to require amendment.

said, that in what had happened in reference to the Bill in "another place," there had been no hostility shown to an improvement in the law. What was said was, that the Bill which proposed such an important alteration of the law had arrived in the other House at so late a period of the Session that it was not possible to obtain the opinion of the Common Law Judges, or of eminent members of the Bar upon it, and therefore it was desirable that there should be some delay in order that that opinion might be ascertained. He (Dr. Ball) entirely coincided in that view. He thought such a change in the law ought not to be made without due deliberation, and he did not regard it as at all a misfortune that the Bill should be postponed, so that it might be fully considered during the Recess, both by the legal profession and by that class of the public whom its provisions would affect.

said, that considering the interest with which the working classes naturally regarded the progress of this Bill, he could not concur in the opinion just expressed by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. He thought, on the contrary, that it was very much to be regretted that the Bill should he dropped. Still he agreed that the mode in which the House of Lords had dealt with it was wrong and mischievous. The law, as it now stood, was impaired in public opinion by the criti- cism passed upon it in this House and. by the progress made with this Bill. In his opinion, his hon. and learned Friend was warranted in moving that the Lords' Amendments to the Bill should be considered three months hence, and he regretted that the Government were unable to give a pledge that they would deal with the subject next Session. He regretted also that the hopes entertained by thousands of the working classes for the success of a measure on which their attention was fixed had been frustrated by the Amendments of the other House.

urged the Government to bring in a Bill on the subject early next Session, seeing the anxious desire there was on the part of the working classes that the matter should be settled, and a fair and satisfactory law passed.

said, that the House stood in a peculiar position, for, with the exception of the hon. and learned Member for Oxford, hardly anyone knew what the Lords' Amendments were. They had not been printed, and it was unnecessary to point out the extreme inconvenience of discussing Amendments of which the House absolutely know nothing. He wished to give Notice that next Session he should move a Sessional Order to the effect that no Amendments of the other House he considered until they have been previously printed and distributed with the Votes.

in supporting the Bill, said, he thought it was a very happy sign of the times when such questions as these were the only questions on which it was possible to raise any class antagonism either in that House, or out-of-doors. He was quite certain that the more such questions were approached, and the more they were treated in a judicial spirit, the better it would be for the country. The hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) had said that the supporters of this Bill were indifferent and hard-hearted towards the employers of labour in the textile fabrics of the country, but, as a matter of fact, many of those supporters were amongst the most eminent of the manufacturers themselves. In fact, they would never pass a measure satisfactory to both sides unless with the hearty concurrence of employers. The general principle of the Factory Acts had now been accepted by the House and the country, and they were all agreed that it was for the good of the nation that work in textile manufactories should be regulated both as to hours and conditions of labour. Therefore, when the present Bill was brought forward four years age as a much-needed extension in that direction, the Government consented to grant an inquiry into the whole subject. The Report of the Inspectors who had been appointed to inquire into the subject was not only an able document, but eminently fair to both sides. The Report of the Commissioners had been adverse to the views of the hon. Member for Brighton; but the answer of the hon. Gentleman to that was that the facts disclosed .by the Report did not justify the conclusions arrived at. The three processes in which persons who were dealt with in the Bill were employed were carefully considered by the Commissioners. Those processes were carding, spinning, and weaving. With respect to carding, the Commissioners reported that the exertion required on the whole was not very great. With regard to spinning, the Report of the Commissioners who were appointed in 1833 showed that the number of spindles to each hand was 112. Now, in 1873, the smallest number attended to by one hand was 439, and the largest 562; and as to speed, more stretches were done now in two hours and a-half than formerly in 12 hours. There were also no periods of rest now. As to weaving, the Masters' Association admitted that a girl of 17 in 1848 had only two looms to attend to, while she now had four to look after, without any assistance. The throws of the shuttle, too, which were then from 90 to 1.12 in an hour, were now 175 to 200. The Report of the Commissioners put the whole of these facts in a very plain and brief shape, and he thought the House should attach due weight to the Report of the Commissioners, who had paid such close attention to the subject. Their Report, in his opinion, fully met the objections of the hon. Member for Brighton. He (Mr. Hughes) would at once admit that some compensation was given by improvements which had been constantly accruing in the machinery; but the strain upon the workpeople had been considerably augmented by the fact of bonuses being given to overlookers for the amount of work done. The Commissioners had also reported on the deaths which took place amongst the operatives employed. The ordinary death-rate of women between 15 and 45 years of age, as stated by the Registrar-General's Returns, was 866 in 100,000; but what was the rate amongst those employed in textile manufactures? In Bradford it was 1,048, or 182 in excess; in Halifax it was 1,135, or 269 in excess; and. in Keighley it was 1,197, or 331 in excess. Bad as that state of things was, the death-rate of children was still worse. In Manchester, of children under five, it was 48 per cent; and while in the North of England towns the average death-rate of children tinder one year was 7 per cent, in Manchester alone it was 25 in every 100 of the same age. He contended such a state of things as that required an immediate remedy, notwithstanding anything that his hon. Friend the Member for Brighton might say to the contrary. It was true that, individual doctors had given it as their opinion that there was no necessity for any alteration of the Factory Acts; but such was not the opinion of the Medical Chirurgical Society of Manchester, the members of which were strongly in favour of a lessening of the hours of labour and of increasing the limit of age at which children should be employed. The conclusions at which the Commissioners had arrived were in favour of the Bill of his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella), and they recommended that the demand for shorter hours should be acceded to. They also recommended that mothers of young children should be only allowed to work half-time, or be excluded from the factory altogether for a time, and that opinion was shared by the Factory Inspectors. He contended that the female bands in factories, who were 80 per cent of the whole, were deeply interested in this question, and were looking to see with considerable anxiety what action the house would take in the matter. He thought that the measure of his hon. Friend was especially necessary now that the Education Act had been passed, and that he would re-introduce it next Session. With respect to the observation of the hon. Baronet (Sir Thomas Bazley) as to the danger we should incur of losing our supremacy in trade if the Bill were passed, he confessed he was not anxious on that score; because as long as the employer maintained the quality of the article he sold so long should we maintain our supremacy. The great danger which we at present ran of being beaten by foreign nations was in consequence of the adulteration which the employers put into the article they sold, the principal of which was the large amount of size, which was to a great extent useless, and which was certainly injurious to the health of the operatives. It appeared, for instance, that in a 191b piece of cotton no less than 6 lb of size was used, 43 per cent of which was composed of China clay, the remainder consisting of some greasy substance, such as lard or butter, and the whole being mixed up with flour. The great test, however, as to the value of the measure was a personal one, and he asked hon. Members whether they would like any young child of their own to work as these children had to work. He was sure they would not allow it for all the money in Manchester, and he hoped they would therefore bear that fact in mind when considering the question. As far as he was concerned, he hoped and believed that the time was not far distant when working men would be ashamed to allow their wives to work in factories at all. The sooner that time arrived. the better it would be for England; but until then he thought we ought to legislate in such a way as to render the evil of the present system as small as possible, and that he thought the measure of his hon. Friend would, in some degree, effect, and he would therefore urge the House to accept it.

in supporting the Bill, wished to corroborate the statement of the hon. and learned. Member who had just sat down—that the women engaged in these factories were favourable to the measure. He had presented to the House two Petitions on the subject, one of them being presented from a very large meeting of operatives at Aberdeen, among whom were many women. The argument of the speech of the hon. Member for Brighton was an anachronism. If it had been delivered with reference to the Act of 1844 it would have some force, but the principle of the Bill having then been adopted, it was no use to argue against it now. He believed the Bill to be a politic and philanthropic measure, and he would, therefore, give it his support.

said, that he rose to put an end to the discussion, which he regretted to see carried on in so thinly-attended a House. He also wished to offer some explanation to the House with regard to his conduct of the Bill. He was unable to obtain au earlier day for the second reading of the Bill than the 11th of June, and. on that occasion only one hour and forty minutes were available for the debate. Both the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) and the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) — whom he thanked for the interest he took in this matter—asked the Prime Minister to give a day for the resumption of the debate, and last Wednesday was fixed for the continuation of the debate. Through some unfortunate circumstances, however, the Report of Supply was not agreed to on Tuesday, and the discussion on it occupied the whole of Wednesday until ten minutes past four o'clock. Feeling, however, that it would then be impossible to secure an adequate discussion of the subject, he went to his hon. Friend the Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett), whose speech was stopped by the adjournment on the previous occa- sion, and who was therefore in possession of the House, and asked his consent to get the Notice read and discharged. His hon. Friend would not agree to that course. He had prepared a speech some months before for the Shop Hours Regulation Bill of the hon. Member for Maidstone (Sir John Lubbock), which was withdrawn, and he could not resist the temptation of launching that philippic against his (Mr. Mundella's) Bill, although it was not appropriate to some parts of the measure. The hon. Member and his Seconder consequently spoke on that occasion until within three minutes of a quarter to six. Though the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government offered him (Mr. Mundella) Friday for the resumption of the debate, he did not think it would have been proper under the circumstances to take advantage of that offer; and seeing that nothing further could be gained that Session, he wished, in now proposing that the Order might be read and discharged, to say a few words in reply to the hon. Member for Brighton. In his speech, which was characterized by more than his usual force and eloquence, but with much less than his usual fairness and generosity, the hon. Member showed so many misconceptions and prejudices that it was impossible to allow them to pass unnoticed. The hon. Gentleman had charged him (Mr. Minidella) with casting unjust aspersions on the employers. He did not say what those aspersions were, and all that he (Mr. Mundella) could say was, when he introduced the Bill he had eulogized the employers, and stated that no Acts had ever been more fairly carried out both by employers and operatives than the Factory Acts. The hon. Member took exception to his (Mr. Mundella's) statement that the women were the slaves of their masters. What he stated was, that girls up to a certain age were the servants of their parents, and that when they married, unless they had good and affectionate husbands, they became the slaves of their masters. That statement was a more re-echo of what had been said by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. Great pressure was put upon husbands by employers, and working-men husbands who did not wish their wives to go into the mills were told that if they did not bring them they need not come back themselves. He denied the charge of the hon. Member that he had dealt unfairly with the House in the remarks he had made with respect to the health of the factory children. When making those remarks he had taken care to distinguish between those diseases which the children inherited from their parents and those which were inflicted upon them by the peculiar character of their labour. He had nothing to retract from what he had said on that point, and it would be found by any who took the pains to refer to what he had then advanced that the accusation of the hon. Member could not be substantiated. With regard to overlookers, they were paid according to the amount of work done, and they were thus stimulated to drive the operatives to the utmost possible extent. Thus, a day of ten and a-half hours had come to be a more severe day than it was formerly, and, as a matter of fact, the pressure put upon the workers in factories, not only upon the women but upon men also, by the superintendents was such that both sexes dreaded the approach of what was called making-up day, and frequently endeavoured to make excuses to avoid the chastisement of the superintendents on those days. The hon. Member said that his Bill contained no provisions with regard to accidents and ventilation; but his reply was, that these provisions were in the existing Acts, and that all that was required was that they should be carried out properly. He had been charged with misleading the house with regard to factory legislation abroad. Now, he admitted that so far as adults were concerned, this country was in advance of other countries; but with regard to the employment of children, and educational requirements, the laws in Germany and Switzerland were much more stringent than he proposed to adopt by this Bill. As far as he was concerned, there had been no mis-statement whatever. Passing to the Resolution of the hon. Member, which, in his opinion, was an extraordinary one, he denied that the Bill would have the tendency, as stated in that Resolution, of imposing any novel restrictions on the labour of women. On the contrary, the real effect of the Bill would be to place the labour of women more and more on a parity with that of men. Properly speaking, the Bill might be called one rather to promote than to restrict the labour of women, by throwing into their hands a great deal of the work now performed by children. The manufacturers, whose views the hon. Member advocated, laughed at his theories, and despised his judgment; and there was not a manufacturer in the country who thought that the measure would have the effect of discouraging the employment of women. Moreover, from 1865 to 1870, the hon. Gentleman had himself been a warm advocate of the Extension of Factory Acts, and was a Member of the Select Committee which had made the largest extensions of the Factory Acts ever yet made, and, therefore, the change which had come over the spirit of his dream ought to be a warning to the House in regard to "new departures" and "new developments." it was assumed that the Bill was promoted by trades unions in order to injure female labour; but it would be remembered that, in some unions, one-half were women, and that there was not the slightest ground for supposing that there was any jealousy between male and female operatives in factories and mills. Then the hon. Member referred to the limitation of labour and increase of wages that had been obtained by the Newcastle engineers without any appeal to Parliament; but what possibility was there of these women and children being able to exert the same power as the Newcastle engineers? The hon. Member had also talked about undermining the independence and character of the working classes. He (Mr. Mundella) asked where independence was to be found if not among the factory operatives? The Government Commissioner during the Cotton Famine stated that he never found men so self-reliant and so ready to adapt themselves to change of work. Although he was about to discharge the Bill, the House had not heard the last of it by any means, for it would be constantly before the nation. It had already been felt in Oldham; there were three candidates at Dundee, and they were all supporters of the Bill. The hon. Member for Manchester (Sir Thomas Bailey) drew a dolorous picture of what was likely to occur if the Bill was passed. The exports were to be £50,000,000 less than now. But did he not say just the same 30 years ago? Well, our exports were then £50,000,000, and they had now risen to £200,000,000. Hardware had increased in an incredible way; and the manufacturers rivalled the fortunes of princes, and shared the privileges of the aristocracy. He would now move that the Order for the Second Reading of the Bill be discharged.

said, he strongly objected to the remarks which had been directed against the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett), and the extraordinarily inaccurate review of modern history which had just been delivered. The hon. Member for Sheffield had made his remarks without giving Notice, but the hon. Member for Brighton would remember them another day.

said, he gave the hon. Member for Brighton Notice on Saturday of what he intended saying on Monday; and the hon. Member thereupon remarked that he would be entitled to a reply.

thought his hon. Friend was acting judiciously in withdrawing the Bill in the present stage. As his hon. Friend had given Notice of his intention to move the discharge of the Order for the Second Reading he (Mr. Bruce) was not prepared to enter fully into the subject, nor did he think the House would expect it from him. He would ask his hon. Friend carefully to consider the matter before he accepted the suggestion of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Frome (Mr. T. Hughes), with reference to the employment of women before and after confinement. His hon. and learned Friend the Member for Frome thought it was an omission on the part of his hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield not to have dealt with that subject. He (Mr. Bruce) doubted that. However much humanity might prompt us to provide against the employment of women before and after confinement, there was one great danger which might be incurred by making such a provision—namely, the danger of promoting infanticide. As to the death-rates in Manchester, it should be recollected that Manchester was not an exclusively manufacturing town. The population of Manchester, like that of Liverpool, was crowded upon an exceptionally small space. The hon. Member for Sheffield, in introducing the Bill, referred to a great increase of the number of accidents in factories.—[Mr. MUNDELLA: Not in factories, but in the Factory Inspec- tor's Returns; and I asked the right hon. Gentleman to account for that.] He was happy to say that there had been no increase, but a decrease in the number of accidents. The gross number of accidents had, no doubt, increased because the number of factories had more than doubled, and the number of persons employed in factories had also doubled. He hoped that next year the House would be called upon to deal with a portion of the subject. The Bill contained valuable provisions; but was open to considerable modifications, and he hoped that it would be well considered, before being re-introduced.

thought that in view of what had previously occurred on this subject, some information should be given to the House with regard to the fresh contract, before they were asked to approve it.

who was now present, expressed his regret that he had been absent when the matter was called on. The statement he had to make on this subject, which he trusted would be satisfactory to the House, would be a very short one, because the question involved in it had been narrowed to a single point. The House had appointed a Committee to consider and report on the question, and that Committee had decided that it was the duty of the Government to offer the contract to the Union Steam Ship Company on reasonable terms. They did not show exactly what these reasonable terms were to be; the nature of the case, in fact, did not admit of that being done. The Government had, however, undertaken to give effect to the recommendation of the Committee in the form which it assumed, and called upon the Company to state what terms they were willing to agree to. The result was that the Company had assented to the contract price being reduced from £26,000 to £20,000 per annum. It was, of course, impossible for him to know whether that reduction would appear satisfactory to the House; but, at any rate, it could not be denied that the sum he mentioned was a considerable reduction on the terms for the conveyance of the mails between the two places mentioned in the contract. It was exceedingly desirable that the matter should be settled at once, because otherwise considerable difficulties might arise in reference to it, leading to a stoppage of the Service, which would be a matter of great public inconvenience. He might mention, in illustration of the effect the contract was likely to have, that the Company had already entered into a contract for the conveyance of 500 negroes from Zanzibar to Natal, where they would be employed as free labourers. It would be a great pity were such a promising experiment to be interrupted in consequence of delay resulting from the House refusing to approve this contract. He freely admitted that at this late period of the Session, and taking into consideration the short Notice that had been given, it would not become the Government to press the matter, even were they sure of a majority against any decided objection; but, at the same time, it would be a great misfortune if the subject were merely delayed for any other reason than a real intention to alter the terms of the contract. The Government had endeavoured to meet the wishes expressed by the Committee, and he trusted that the House would think they had succeeded in doing so. He might also mention that there would be no change in the contract to carry the mails from Zanzibar to Aden.