asked the Secretary of State for War, If his attention has been drawn to the alteration which has been recently made in section 5, paragraph 59, of the Queen's Regulations, and if the effect of this alteration will be to throw open all staff appointments, not of the three lowest grades specified in the altered paragraph, to Officers who have not passed the final examination of the Staff College, and who do not come under the exceptional heads of Royal Engineers, or of Officers distinguished for ability in the field?

The alterations which were made in 1873 is the Queen's Regulations, 1868, will have the effect of throwing open the higher Staff appointments to all field officers of the Army who qualify under Clause 56 of the 5th section. The personal Staff appointments are governed by Clause 60.

asked the First Commissioner of Works, To inform the House in whom the ownership is vested of the piece of land on the north side of the Thames Embankment, between Hungerford Bridge and the gardens of Montagu House, and how long it is intended to allow the same to remain unoccupied and waste?

, in reply, said, that the land referred to by the hon. Gentleman was the piece of land which was marked on the plan in the Schedule to the Thames Embankment (Land) Act of 1873 as belonging to the Crown. By that Act the Metropolitan Board of Works, in the event of their acquiring Northumberland House, were empowered to acquire also the land in question for the purposes of a public garden. An agreement had now been entered into with the Duke for the purchase of Northumberland House on July 7, and land would then be conveyed by the Crown to the Metropolitan Board of Works, and would be laid out as a garden in accordance with the Act.

asked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether, in consideration of the constantly increasing expenses which are thrown on to separate parishes by the partial and piecemeal extinction of Turnpike Trusts, and seeing also that the maintenance of all roads is rapidly becoming a charge on real property only, involving a very large additional amount of local taxation on the ratepayers, Her Majesty's Government intend, in accordance with the repeated recommendations of the Select Committee on the Turnpike Continuance Act, to provide by legislative enactment, during this Session, for the more general and simultaneous extinction of all remaining Trusts, and for the future maintenance, on a comprehensive and equitable basis, of all Turnpike and other Roads of which the Trusts have been or may hereafter be abolished; and, whether they intend to rectify the evils necessarily resulting from the Highway Acts of 1862 and 1864 being only permissive and optional, by making those Acts compulsory?

In reply to my hon. Friend's first Question, I cannot hold out any hope that the Government will be able to introduce a Bill on the subject this Session. As my hon. Friend well knows, it is in the power of counties to mitigate the hardships thus inflicted on parishes by adopting the provisions of the Highway District Act, and it might seem a simple matter to introduce a Bill to make that Act compulsory; but, to do so, would possibly prejudice the future consideration of the other matters referred to in his Question, and I wish, therefore, to take further time before giving a final answer on this point.