asked the right hon. Home Secretary whether it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to bring in any Bill for the reform of the County Courts, and especially with a view to diminish the expenses of proceedings in those courts?

replied, that it was not necessary to bring in a new Bill for the amendment of the County Courts Act, in order to provide for a revision of the fees in County Courts. By the present Act the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in conjunction with the Treasury, had the power of revising and altering the fees. A gentleman had, for some time past, been engaged in obtaining information as to the fees demanded in those courts throughout the country; and, when his report was laid before the Government, they would be able to determine what alteration was necessary. He hoped soon to be in a position to announce to the House the alterations which were proposed.

wished to ask the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, whether the decree of the Cantonal Government of Vaud of the 24th of November, 1847, would affect British subjects in that canton; and whether the letter of remonstrance and advice addressed by Sir S. Canning to the Government of Switzerland, endeavouring to dissuade it from arbitrary and tyrannical proceedings towards those who differed from it in religious matters, had been attended with success?

In reply to the first question of my hon. Friend, I have to state, that I am not aware that any British subjects have been affected by that decree; and it would be a matter for consideration to determine whether, supposing British subjects had been affected by the decree, that fact would give the British Government any right to interfere in regard to an internal law passed by the Government of that canton. It is true that representations have been made by Her Majesty's Charged' Affaires in Switzerland, unofficially, because his Government did not consider that they were entitled to make any authoritative representation. I am not, however, in a condition to state that those representations have been attended with the effect that could be wished.

rose to move for leave to bring in a Bill to repeal so much of the Act of 2nd and 3rd Victoria, c. 56, as gave power to magistrates, under the sanction and approval of the Home Secretary, to inflict separate imprisonment in gaols upon persons committed for trial—a power and a practice inconsistent with every principle of general justice, and with the whole spirit of the criminal jurisprudence of England. It would be urged, no doubt, that this power was highly important as affording the means of preventing contamination, and that it was very convenient with a view to uniformity of gaol discipline. Both these propositions he wished to meet openly and in front. And on these two principles he would rest the whole of his argument; neither of which, he ventured to believe, could be impugned. First, we had no right, upon the pretext or for the sake of any supposed benefit whatsoever, to impose, without their consent, the highly penal condition of separate confinement upon those whom the law held free from all crime or blame until duly and lawfully convicted of the same; and, secondly, any uniformity of discipline in the treatment of criminals and of those whom the law held to be innocent, was of itself at variance with all principles of good discipline, and had a direct tendency to break down that barrier which should be ever and above all respected—the barrier that separated in public opinion, and ought to separate in treatment, the guilty from those whom we were only justified in holding in detention, and whom, until found guilty in due course of law, the spirit of our common law and the rules of natural justice accounted innocent. By the Act in question power was given to magistrates at quarter-sessions to draw up a code of regulations for the government of their gaols, to be submitted to the Home Secretary; which regulations, after having received his approval, acquired the force of law, and were carried into effect accordingly. In all prisons constructed within the last few years with a view to give effect to the separate system (not including Pentonville, of course, because it was appropriated only to the reception of convicts), the separate system was applied equally to the convicted and the untried. Now, in his (Lord Nugent's) opinion, this experiment of reformatory discipline (for an experiment only it still was, and requiring the most constant and cautious attention in its application in order to prevent abuse, and, even without abuse, irremediable mischief), gave promise of the establishment of a good and whole some system, as applicable to convicted persons; but let the House mark what power the regulations of these gaols gave to the magistrates. These regulations peremptorily separated both the convict and the untried prisoner from all society with a fellow-prisoner. All prisoners were peremptorily excluded from holding communication with any friend or relation outside the gaol except under a severe supervision which he would presently decribe, or by letter, which letter must come open, or might be opened by the gaoler. Was this tolerable, as applied to unconvicted prisoners? Letters from husband, wife, parent, child, brother, friend—letters of the most private character—a letter of affectionate sympathy—written in communion of sorrow and suffering—every stream of social and kindred intercourse stopped back, unless with the permission and the privity of the gaoler, thus made the official confidant even between husband and wife It would by said that this was necessary in order to prevent improper communications with accomplices out of doors; but he would take leave to say that an unconvicted man had no accomplices. You had no right to assume, or act as if you assumed, that he had an accomplice. The whole principle of their common law, as a thousand times over declared by their judges from the bench, and by all their commentators on their common law were against them; and no considerations of convenience or police could justify so grievous a wound on the happiness and the rights of an unconvicted man. This provision, too, was absolutely futile. The untried were allowed to hold confidential communication with their legal advisers, in order to prepare for their defence; and thus an obvious channel was open, through which any communication might take place with persons outside the gaol. So that this appeared to be a tyranny without a purpose, and absolutely inoperative for any useful object, as opposed to those who might wish to baffle it. But suppose that friends or relations outside the gaol should wish to suggest to a prisoner means for conducting his own defence, where no attorney should be employed; and suppose that defence should be founded upon some alleged misconduct or irregularity on the part of the committing magistrate; this letter would be opened by the gaoler, and carried by him to the visiting magistrates, among whom might be the committing justice himself, who would doubtless consider that to be very objectionable and contaminating matter to by allowed to reach the accused. It would be said that this was supposing an extreme and most improbable exercise of the power in question: he trusted and believed it was. But the law of England professed to protect the subject against any supposable injustice. This secret inquest into the means adopted by a prisoner or his friends for his defence was in conflict with the whole spirit of our jurisprudence; and it was the glorious boast of our law—let them not make it a vainglorious one—that it left no wrong without a remedy. Prisoners were permitted to receive visits once or twice a week, but not oftener, unless under special permission from the visiting magistrates; and even then these visits from husband, wife, or dearest friend, must be held in the presence of that eternal confidant, the gaoler, or One of his wardens, and with gratings keeping the prisoner and the visitor some eight or ten feet apart, as in a lazarhouse. Now, besides all the rest that was intolerable in this, it was a penal condition manifestly most unequal in its operation as between the poor man and the rich. He would come to this presently. Meanwhile he would content himself with saying, that, as applied to any prisoner before trial, this was a punishment inflicted upon the untried, which the spirit of our laws did not sanction, nor would public opinion sanction it, if the secrets of the prison-house were known out of doors, as it was the object of his Motion to make them known to the House. But he (Lord Nugent) would now refer to some of the highest and most respected authorities upon the subject of separate confinement; and every one of them would be found to describe and recommend it as being reformatory punishment, but punishment of a very high degree. Take up the first report on Pentonville prison. Sir J. Graham, in his letter, treated this system as "throughout probationary, to prepare criminals for transportation,' and as a measure "for regulating punishment." This discipline, in fact, differed from what was applied to convicts only in this remarkable respect, that convicts were sentenced to hard labour, which could not practically be supplied to the unconvicted; and hard labour was described by all these authorities, not as an additional punishment, but as a relief from the horrors of separate confinement. Colonel Jebb, Surveyor General of Prisons, in his report last year, spoke of the effects of separate imprisonment, but treated it only with reference to punishment; and he said, "Persons under the separate system are induced to work from the very irksomeness of idleness." There were much stronger statements in the evidence of Mr. W. Merry, who was one of the principal authorities concerned in giving effect to the system in the construction of Reading gaol, and who said, in his examination before the Lords' Committee on the execution of criminal law, "I believe there is not a man who would not escape from a separate cell, and go upon the treadmill if he had the opportunity." The chaplain of Aylesbury gaol—a most worthy, and excellent, and attentive officer—had given him (Lord Nugent) the same opinion, that the punishment was thus made much heavier upon the untried than it was upon the convicted, because employment could not be found for the former. The Rev. John Field, nearly twenty years chaplain of Reading gaol—a person of very high authority upon this subject, but who, he must in fairness admit, had, in a correspondence which that gentleman had done him the honour and kindness to hold with him, declared that he differed entirely from him upon the question of the application of this system to untried prisoners—said, in his most valuable book—

"As a general rule, I assert with confidence, that when secluded, prisoners prefer the hardest and, under other circumstances, the most irksome labour, to idleness which is constrained."

Now, to unconvicted prisoners, idleness was constrained; and thus their punishment was rendered more severe and their condition more penal than that of the convicted. Mr. Matthew Davenport Hill, the recorder of Birmingham, gave the same opinion; it would be found in the report to which reference had been already made. He thought the system might heighten the effect of punishment, but that the great use of separate confinement was as one stage of reformatory discipline. But the report abounded with evidence to the same effect. In the second report it was stated that the prisoner, especially during the first few months, was strongly impressed with a due sense of his penal condition; that separate confinement compelled him to reflect, day after day, on the privations he was suffering as the punishment of crime; and this "punishment" was to be inflicted on men who had never been convicted. It went on, speaking of this separate system—" It is sufficiently severe as a legal punishment in itself." In another part of the report it would be found that that enlightened and upright Judge, Mr. Baron Alderson, said—

"It appears to me that no effectual reform in prison discipline can take place so long as our county gaols remain on their present footing. What is wanted is to hare houses of detention for untried prisoners, and distinct penitentiaries for criminals."

Oh, how warmly and deeply did he concur in opinion with that excellent Judge There never could be a proper system of gaol discipline without that; and the two establishments ought not to by under the same roof, nor under the same government. This system of separate detention, he had said, was a punishment much more severe to the poor man than to the rich. Thus—the rich man could have the sympathy and companionship of his friends under the grievous calamity of loss of liberty and suspension of character. But the friends of the poor man could not spare either their time or the expenses of travelling, or of sustenance at a county town. Their time was devoted to labour. The rich man could relieve his mind in solitude by reading and writing, and communing in his own mind with what he had read before. But the health of the poor man—his mind's health—required more than that; he needed communication with his friends, and from that he was entirely debarred, excepting that sort of communion which he had already described. Why did he refer to these authorities? Why, in order to show that the separate system, in the opinion of all who were the most conversant with it, was desirable only and to by recommended as a very severe and formidable reformatory punishment. He might be asked, perhaps, why, if it were reformatory, it should not be applied to those prisoners who had not been convicted as well as to those who had? The answer was plainly this—you had no right to apply a reformatory system to an untried prisoner—you had no right to pronounce him in need of reformation: in so doing you would be acting in a spirit contrary to the whole presumption of the common law, as declared by your judges and your commentators, who laid it down as a fundamental principle of that law that a man should be held to be innocent until he had been convicted of a crime. It was trifling, worse than trifling, to say, the moral probability is, that of persons committed for trial, the majority are guilty. You are not justified by one principle of criminal jurisprudence in act- ing on this presumption. Of the whole mass of the committed, each individual had a right to say to you, "You have no more business with my reformation till I have been found guilty, than you have with the reformation of his worship who committed me. His worship suspected me of crime upon what he judged sufficient evidence, and committed me accordingly for trial; he thereby did his duty; but my answer is ' not guilty:' that is the issue to be tried, and until that is tried, and the verdict pronounced, you have no right to put me under a penal and reformatory system." It was, doubtless, a great grievance, an irremediable one, that, to secure the appearance of the accused to take his trial, you must perforce imprison him, subject him to loss of liberty, suspension of character, deprivation of means of applying his industry to the maintenance and interests of his family. All this is most true, and I know is irremediable. But I do say, inasmuch as this is true and irremediable, and grievous, the more sacred was the principle, that as much freedom should be extended to the untried as was consistent with moral discipline and good order in the gaols. Now there were, no doubt, obvious cases of exception. First, there was the case of very young persons being committed for trial; for obvious reasons they should not be allowed to associate with persons under suspicion of having committed an offence. But the condition of a child was very different from that of an adult. The child had no civil rights whatever, excepting to humane treatment, and to a due attention to his moral and physical requirements. The State was in loco parentis with respect to him, and had imposed upon it the duties of his guardian the same as were imposed upon his parents or other natural guardians. There were other exceptional cases. Persons, for instance, who were committed under a charge of a certain class of offences, which he need not particularise, would be extremely improper persons to be allowed, even under suspicion, to associate with each other. Perhaps, also, persons committed for a second offence ought to form an exception. But these exceptions were easily dealt with. They were cases in which a special report might be made by the committing magistrate to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who should have the power in such cases to authorise the application of the separate sys- tem. There was one observation he would presume to anticipate might be made by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department. It was very probable the right hon. Gentleman would say, that the principal part of, if not all, the grievance which he had stated, might be obviated by shortening the time of imprisonment before trial by provisions for multiplying gaol deliveries, and thus shortening the time between commitment and trial. No man could feel more than he did how much was owing to his right hon. Friend for his most praiseworthy exertions in that direction. But he must say, that as in the statement he had made he had not exaggerated or misstated anything—(and he would challenge his right hon. Friend to point out any misstatement)—to talk to him of shortening the duration of a punishment which was in itself a wrong, was an aggravation of that wrong—a wrong in itself. Talk to him of shortening the duration of such an iniquity If it was as he had described it, it ought not to be tolerated for one month, or one week, one day, or one hour. Thanking the House for its kind indulgence while making a statement on a matter which was not in itself at all inviting, he would not abuse its attention by offering one word of comment. It required no comment, it required no declamation, even if he had the faculty of declamation—which he had not. But he would appeal to those Gentlemen whose inclinations were conservative of the ancient landmarks of our institutions, not to allow a principle of our common law coeval almost with the dawn of the constitution itself, and ratified by the dicta of all their judges and writers on their common law from age to age, to be superseded by a newfangled system like this—if that can be called system which is in confusion of all good discipline and distinction between the conditions of proved guilt and presumed innocence. He appealed to those friends of liberal institutions, whose spirits were ready to rise in revolt against the very semblance of oppression, not to tolerate what he had endeavoured to show was a punishment where no law had pronounced censure, pressing in very unequal measure upon rich and poor, and liable to directly interfere with the unquestionable right of every accused man to be left free to consult with advisers on the mode of conducting his own defence, free from all inquisition. He appealed to the House against what, on these grounds, he felt to be a mischievous, an unjust, and a monstrous power; and thus would conclude by submitting the Motion, the terms of which he had already stated to the House.

said, that giving his noble Friend, as he readily did, every credit for the motive which induced him to make the present Motion, he felt it his duty to offer his most decided opposition to it, because he thought the introduction of any such Bill would have a most mischievous effect, by inducing the country to believe that the Government were no longer convinced of the policy, the expediency, and the importance of maintaining that portion of the Act of the 2nd and 3rd Victoria, cap. 56, which his noble Friend proposed to repeal; that portion of the Act being, in his (Sir G. Grey's) opinion, one of the most valuable parts of our present system of prison discipline. He would state to the House what the provisions of that Act were. The Act was passed on the 17th of August, 1839, and was entitled "An Act for the better ordering of Prisons." By the 2nd Clause it was enacted—

"That the persons authorised by law to make rules and regulations, to be submitted to one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, for the government of any prison in England or Wales, shall be empowered, if they shall think fit, to make rules for a different classification of prisoners of each sex in such prison, or for the individual separation of all or any of the prisoners confined therein, with due regard to their proper supervision, religious and moral instruction, and employment, and from time to time to alter or add to such rules; and the Secretary of State, if he shall think that the rules so made and submitted to him for a different classification of prisoners of each sex, or for the individual separation of prisoners, are fit to be enforced in that prison, shall subscribe a certificate or declaration that they are proper to be enforced; and the rules so made and certified, but not until they shall have been so certified, shall be enforced."

Then, by the 3rd Clause, it was enacted—

"That, in order to prevent the contamination arising from the association of prisoners in any prison in which rules for the individual separation of prisoners shall be in force, any prisoner may be separately confined during the whole or any part of the period of his or her imprisonment, under the restrictions hereinafter provided."

By the 23rd Clause it was expressly stated, that the term "prisoners" should include persons committed to prison for want of bail or sureties, as well as persons charged with or convicted of any offence, or otherwise detained by legal authority. His noble Friend proposed to repeal this power so far as it related to untried prisoners. Now, the fallacy which his noble Friend laboured under was this—he conceived that this system, as applied to untried prisoners, was applied as a penal system. But it was not applied to them as a penal system, but as a most beneficial and highly protective system. His noble Friend said that the power vested in the visiting magistrates, to subject untried prisoners to this system, was a most unjust and monstrous power; and he had defended that proposition upon the maxim that a person committed to prison was in the eye of the law held to be innocent until he was convicted. Now, he (Sir G. Grey) was quite ready to admit the truth of that maxim; and there was an essential difference always made between the treatment of prisoners who had been convicted, and those who had not, and who were awaiting their trial. But surely his noble Friend did not mean to say, because persons who were detained on a charge of having committed an offence were, previously to their trial, held in the eye of the law to be innocent, that, therefore, they were to be treated in all respects as innocent persons? When a man was charged with having committed murder, for instance, was he not arrested, was he not torn from his family, and subjected to a deprivation of his liberty, and required to conform to the rules of the prison to which he was committed? To a certain extent persons charged with the commission of crime were necessarily subject to a penal system. This was the case when prisoners tried and untried were indiscriminately mixed together, without any classification whatever; a system fraught with so many evils that the Legislature had endeavoured to provide a remedy for it by means of classification, and more recently by separate imprisonment. His noble Friend had said, that they had no right to apply a reformatory system to untried prisoners. He must say, that that was the most extraordinary doctrine he had ever heard upon this subject. Persons charged with the commission of crimes were necessarily detained in prison; and his noble Friend maintained that, while so detained, no regard whatever should be paid to their moral state or condition, and that they stood in no need of moral discipline. His noble Friend must have overlooked altogether from what class of persons convicted prisoners came. Did not the convicted pri- soner of to-day belong to the class of untried prisoners of yesterday? If the convicted prisoner required discipline, did not the unconvicted prisoner also? Could the unconvicted of yesterday, but the convicted of to-day, have been so absolutely free from all habits of vice and corruption as not to require to be placed under any reformatory process? The whole object of subjecting untried prisoners to separate imprisonment was for their own good, and to protect them from that contamination which must arise from a want of such separation. The system now objected to was based upon reason and authority. He wished to refer to some documents, a portion of which had been already laid before the House, and which he thought would be satisfactory to hon. Members, and induce them not to consent to the views taken by his noble Friend. The ordinary result of committing a man to prison was that he came out a worse man than when he entered it. This was true not only of men who had been suffering under a sentence for crimes of which they had been convicted, but also of men who belonged to that class of innocent men—not presumedly innocent, but really innocent—as some were who are committed for trial. He need not refer to evidence to prove that prisoners who had been committed and subsequently acquitted came out of prison adepts in crime, although when they went in they were free from all taint. This system, which his noble Friend wished to abolish, was not an experiment lightly to be abandoned. It had been adopted after the most mature consideration, and had been found to operate most beneficially. He would read an extract from the report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Secondary Punishments, which was presented to the House in 1832:—

"Efforts have of late years been made to remedy these evils by the classification of prisoners, but the result has been far from satisfactory. By the Gaol Act, 4 George IV., cap. 64, no provision is made for dividing prisoners before or after trial into more than two classes. The larger prisons, especially those in and near the metropolis, usually contain several hundred prisoners, whose periods of confinement before trial vary from a few days to several months. It is hardly necessary to remark, that any classification, with the inadequate means provided by the Gaol Act, must be inefficacious—that, in the case of untried, it must associate the most hardened offenders with those who may be guiltless of crime, and that even an innocent man sent for trial can hardly escape contamination. Your Committee are of opinion that none but a moral classification can be effectual, but they fear that the difficulties which stand in the way of such a classification, whether as regarding prisoners before or after trial, are nearly insurmountable. If such be the difficulty of establishing an effective system of classification, your Committee see no alternative but that of the se paration of prisoners, both before and after trial.……They are aware that a proposal to inflict on prisoners before trial any restraint beyond what may be necessary for their safe custody, is likely to shock the opinions of many who may be disposed to consider it in the light of punishment inflicted without proof of delinquency; but your Committee are of opinion that such a separation of prisoners should be regarded rather as a been than a punishment. Not only will the evils already detailed be avoided, but even with reference to the comfort of the prisoners it may, in most cases, be considered an improvement, since to those not hardened in crime the association with the reckless malefactor, and the horrors of such companionship, must prove an infliction tenfold more severe than the partial seclusion to which it is proposed to subject them. All the witnesses examined on the subject agree in this opinion."

There was a report of a Select Committee of the House of Lords, of which the Duke of Richmond was chairman, in 1835 or 1836, which expressed similar opinions to those he had just read. He would now call the attention of his noble Friend to an extract of a report made by a gentleman who was very well known to many Gentlemen in that House; he meant the Rev. Mr. Clay, the excellent chaplain to the Preston House of Correction. It was dated October, 1844. After describing the reception of prisoners, he said—

"A prisoner thus received is generally either committed for trial at the sessions, or under a summary conviction. In the former case he has the option of passing his time with other prisoners similarly circumstanced (that is, in the workroom during hours of labour, and in the yard during meal-time); or of being placed in one of the new cells, and entirely separated from all association. Wherever any sentiment of self-respect remains—wherever sorrow or a sense of disgrace is weighing on the mind, the offer of separation is gladly embraced. On the other hand, the old offender, the thoughtless, the callous, prefer the work-room and the unrestrained conversation, during meal-hours, of the yard."

In the report from the same gentleman, in the following year, he said—

"It was not until 1840 that separate confinement after trial was resorted to, and then under many disadvantages. The many evils of permitting the untried to associate still remained unremedied, and it became evident that, especially with regard to boys, no after discipline could stay the growth of the corruption which they had contracted even in a few days' exposure to that association. The necessity, then, for removing such evils could no longer be resisted. Accordingly, in June, 1844, all boys committed for trial were at once placed beyond the reach of contamination; and in the summer of the present year (1845) adults were, for the first time, similarly treated."

He added—

"Should it be objected, that to separate the untried is to punish them, and that punishment must not be inflicted until guilt is proved; I would reply, that a prisoner committed for trial must by either guilty or innocent—an adept in crime or a novice. If the former, separation is no injustice to him, for he has no right to be placed among those whom he would contaminate; if, on the other hand, the newly committed prisoner should be innocent, or unused to crime, ha has a right to be protected from influences which would inflict upon him a horrible and irreparable injury."

But not only in our own country, and from gentlemen who had given their attention to the subject of prison discipline of late years, had this system the sanction of authority, but foreign authorities of the greatest weight were in favour of the system, perhaps more decisively than even in England. M. de Tocqueville, in the Rapport du Projet de Loi sur les Prisons to the Chamber of Deputies, in 1843, said—

"The writers who have hitherto treated of the subject of prison reform have differed as to the question of the discipline to which convicted prisoners should be subjected; but they have all concurred in the expediency of separating untried prisoners from each other, and of resolutely preventing any communication between them. They have thought that the inconveniences were very few and the advantages great in preventing all communication whatever between such prisoners."

He added, in a subsequent passage—

"To detain an accused person in prison until his innocence is proved is a measure of rigour; but, to compel him, while awaiting his trial, to live in the midst of a society of criminals, is equally impolitic and cruel."

M. de Tocqueville proceeded afterwards to show the absolute failure of any classification of untried prisoners to prevent contamination and corruption. Again, the same sentiments had been expressed in Belgium. In 1845 there was presented to the Chamber of Representatives in Belgium an elaborate report upon a prison law for that country, in which the same views and opinions were expressed; and various authorities of weight and experience were quoted in support of the separation of untried prisoners, not as a measure of punishment, but as a benefit to them; the object being to prevent the demoralisation which had been invariably found to result from association in prison. His noble Friend might also be aware that this question was discussed at the Penitentiary Congress held at Frankfort in 1846. On that occasion M. Julius, Inspector-General of Prisons in Prussia, said, in the course of a speech which he then delivered—

"It is only in our own days that the separation of prisoners from each other has been considered as the basis of every penitentiary system. This separation is of special importance with regard to those who have not yet been convicted. Both in their case and in that of the convicted, the object is that the good shall not be corrupted by the bad, ' and that the bad shall not be made worse."

M. le Comte Skarbek, Inspector of Prisons in Poland, expressed similar opinions; as did M. David, of Copenhagen, and M. Ardit, Under Secretary to the Minister of the Interior in France; all of them stating that the separation of untried prisoners was essential to reform in any system of prisons. Mr. Adshead, in a valuable pamphlet on a gaol system in this country, referred to the resolutions agreed to at that Penitentiary Congress, at which he was himself present. The first of these resolutions, and which was unanimously adopted, was—

"Separate or individual imprisonment ought to be applied to prisoners before trial, so as entirely to prevent all communications between them or with other prisoners, except in those; Cases in which the magistrates, in accordance with the request of the prisoners themselves, think fit to allow them some communication within limits prescribed by law."

His noble Friend had adverted to two or three authorities, including Mr. Merry and Mr. Field, the former of whom had written a pamphlet advocating in the strongest manner the separation of untried prisoners, and both of whom were supporters of the; system opposed by his noble Friend. His noble Friend also referred to the opinion of Mr. Baron Alderson as to houses of detention for untried prisoners. He agreed with his noble Friend in thinking it advisable that there should be houses of detention separate from houses of correction; but, unless untried prisoners were kept apart in the houses of detention, the consequences would be as mischievous as the intercourse of prisoners after conviction. In accordance with the suggestion of Mr. Baron Alderson, there had been a house of detention erected for the county of Middlesex, in which provision was made for the separate imprisonment of each prisoner. His noble Friend had complained that these prisoners were unable freely to communicate by letter with their friends out of doors; but the regulations to which he had referred had nothing to do with the separate system of imprisonment, but formed part of the general regulations of the prison. The untried prisoners were allowed I the freest intercourse which the regulations of the prison would permit with their friends and relations and their legal advisers; and there were many other deviations in their case from the strict system applicable in the case of tried prisoners. He would refer his noble Friend to the report of the Inspectors of Prisons, dated 8th August, 1845, in which they described this system as applied to untried prisoners. They stated that—

"The system of separation between prisoner and prisoner is admirably adapted to the condition and circumstances of the untried, and fully secures the just rights and privileges of that class of prisoners. Their feelings and necessities are consulted; they are provided with a commodious, well-lighted, and well-ventilated cell, fitted with everything necessary to supply their real wants; they are supplied with a sufficiency of good food; they are protected from the sight and hearing of all their fellow-prisoners; they can at any time have the attendance of an officer of the prison or of the governor, chaplain, or surgeon. They can see their friends and legal advisers; they can, without impediment or interruption, calmly deliberate upon their defence, and take all proper means to meet the trial that awaits them. They may send or receive letters; they may read unobjectionable books; they may, if they desire it, by furnished with suitable employment; they have the privilege of attending public worship; can take daily exercise in the open air; may receive food other and beyond the prison diet; they are exempted from perplexing regulations; they are tempted to no violation of prison discipline; they are spared the infliction of prison penalties; there is no one to hurt their person, provoke their temper, or corrupt their morals. They can occupy themselves in useful work, in profitable reading, and in tranquil meditation, uninterrupted, save by the visits of those who come to minister to their physical, moral, or religious wants, or to aid them with comfort or professional advice. Would the relatives or friends of any prisoner, who have a proper regard for his best interests, hesitate to prefer such a mode of confinement to any other that has been practised or devised? Between the advantages of separation, and the degradation and depravity of association, on the one hand, or the restraint, exposure, and severity of the silent system, on the other, we feel convinced that no comparison can be sustained."

He begged pardon of the House for detaining them so long with the extracts; which he had read; but he had referred to them mainly for the satisfaction of his noble Friend, in order that he might know that this subject had been very fully considered by men of enlightened views. While he gave his noble Friend credit for his motives in bringing forward this Motion, he hoped that the House would not adopt it, because it would be a retrograde step—one which would be most objection able in principle, and most injurious in its results.

had seconded the Motion of the noble Lord, because it appeared to him that the interests of humanity detained that some attention should be drawn to this subject. He certainly had thought that the noble Lord had made out a primeâ facie necessity for the alteration which he proposed; but he was now bound to say, after the explanations of the right hon. Baronet, that his previous convictions had been much shaken. He would suggest to his noble Friend, therefore, the propriety of withdrawing his measure.

was sorry that the subject of prison discipline had been left in so unsatisfactory a state at the close of last Session. At the beginning of that Session Earl Grey had made a statement which he (Viscount Mahon) much regretted, to the effect that it was in the contemplation of Government to abolish, if possible, the system of transportation. That declaration the Ministers had not been able to carry out. The Government then introduced two Bills, one respecting the treatment of Irish convicts, as well as of those of this country, and another Bill with respect to prison discipline. The period of the Session at which they were introduced was so late, that he suggested the expediency of proceeding with one Bill only, and that the other should be proceeded with in the following Session. His right hon. Friend acceded to that proposition. He now wished to inquire when the House might expect that Bill? He wished, at the same time, to throw out a suggestion to his right hon. Friend, that his Bill would require much deliberate consideration, and it would greatly conduce to good legislation on the subject if the right hon. Baronet took care to introduce his Bill as early as possible.

His noble Friend had rather mistaken the construction of the second Bill, which was dropped last year—the Bill which referred to prison discipline. Its object was to carry into effect a recommendation of the Commission which sat to inquire into the allegations which had been previously made in that House, with regard to the treatment of prisoners at Mil lbank. He admitted that, after a full consideration of the subject, he was not prepared to reintroduce that Bill in the form in which he had presented it to the House last Session. He had already a Bill prepared, which, he apprehended, would carry into effect the object which was aimed at by the Mil lbank Commission as stated in their report. That Bill he intended shortly to lay upon the table of the House. But with regard to the other portion of his noble Friend's question, he was sorry to say that he could not give so explicit an answer. The whole subject of transportation of prisoners was a subject that was surrounded by very great difficulties and embarrassments, and must consequently occupy a great deal of the attention of the House. He might, however, state that he had been anxiously devoting his attention to that subject, and a Bill in reference to it would certainly be introduced in the course of the present Session.

was sorry that his right hon. Friend had so entirely misunderstood him, as he appeared to have done, on the question of solitary confinement. The fault was probably attributable to the inefficient manner in which he had explained the objects of this Bill. The right hon. Baronet seemed to take for granted that it was his (Lord Nugent's) intention to have a restoration of that exceedingly bad and demoralising system of unrestrained intercourse between tried and untried prisoners which had previously existed. Now, he (Lord Nugent) meant no such thing. His object was to give to an untried prisoner the option of associating, for a certain number of hours in the day, with the rest of the untried prisoners. As to communication of that kind, there was undoubtedly a mixture of good and evil; but he wished to preserve the health of the mind as well as of the body of a person who had not been subjected to trial on the charge upon which he had been committed. Notwithstanding the extracts made by his right hon. Friend from the reports of prison inspectors, solitary confinement was clearly a most severe penalty, notwithstanding its highly reformatory tendencies. However, after the suggestion of his hon. Friend (Dr. Bowring), and the earnest request of the right hon. Baronet, he would not place himself in the disagreeable position of obtruding a measure upon the House against its will. He would leave himself entirely in the hands of the House.

:^* Sir, in now moving for the second time for leave to bring in a Bill for the Improvement of Public Health, especially in our towns and cities, I certainly do not feel any diminution of the anxiety and earnestness which attended the first effort, and which was also the first and I hope the last failure on the same subject. I do not feel myself called on to dwell upon the history of that transaction, still less do I wish to make it the subject of complaint or dispute between any of those who were parties to it: in the moment of defeat last year I had no such wish, I made no such attempt; still less should I do so now. The circumstances of that Session, the space of time that could be devoted to the measure, the inherent difficulty of the subject, the attempt, perhaps, to compass too much by too summary methods—may have all borne their part in it. What took place then, however, has left two feelings uppermost in my mind on the present occasion: one, common to myself with the Government and the Parliament, of the increased responsibility which devolves upon us that there shall not be a renewal of failure; the other is peculiar to myself in the discharge of my present duty, that whereas on the previous occasion there was much said and nothing done, so now comparatively little may be said, but a great deal more must be done. It may be recollected that in the discussions which closed the proceedings of last year upon this subject, two injunctions were somewhat authoritatively delivered to me, which I have regretted to find considerably at variance with each other. The first was not to incorporate by way of reference the enactments of other Bills, but to set forth plainly in the body of the new Bill what it was proposed to enact; the other was to bring in a Bill of one or two clauses. Now, with the first of these injunctions, which though perhaps not the most enticing of the two, I considered to have most of real substance in it, we have endeavoured to the best of our power to comply. The other injunction I would certainly have most willingly obeyed. I could indeed have done it in three ways, but none of which I am inclined to believe would have been acceptable to the House or country. I might have done it, or done something like it, by continuing the mode from which I have

^* From a pamphlet published by Ridgeway.

just stated I felt myself to be debarred by the objection taken last Session, and by the real weight of the objection—the mode of incorporating or adopting, by wholesale, the contents of other Bills. I might have done it by giving large and summary discretionary powers to bodies acting in subordination to the Privy Council, without the specification of those powers by Parliament. I will not disguise from the House that in many points of view this course would have smoothed many difficulties, and it might have secured great efficiency; it would have been able to do that which no general Act of Parliament can do, to accommodate itself to different localities and varying circumstances—to have niche itself, if I may so term it, into the most appropriate fittings. I doubt, however, greatly whether the House of Commons would have been prepared to concede such powers—powers including the right to legislate, and the power to tax, without the intervention of Parliament, to any extrinsic body. The third mode, which I only mention at once to repudiate, was to bring in a meager and inadequate measure. Being, therefore, little disposed to adopt any of these three courses, we felt that we had no alternative but aiming at as much conciseness and brevity as were attainable, discarding or postponing many collateral objects and adjuncts which otherwise we should have been well pleased to include, and which we only hope to reserve for future opportunities; we should still in the Bill now to be brought in, deliberately lay the foundations, and distinctly set forth the provisions, for an efficient measure of sanitary reform. I cannot state more summarily what the objects are at which any measure of this kind ought to aim, and what we shall hope to attain by the present Bill, than in selecting one of the petitions which were presented in favour of the Bill of last Session; it is styled the Working Classes Petition; and I would just say in passing, that these are the very classes for whom our legislation—not indeed confined to them or to any class—is mainly intended. The wealthy, the easy, classes can build themselves commodious houses; they can select healthy situations, they can in most instances command unfailing supplies of pure water and fresh air; if health fails them in one place, they may pursue it in a thousand others; but for the children of poverty and toil, if legislation does not interfere to bring it to them, it will become as unattainable a blessing as the rarest gifts of fortune. Those who gain their daily bread by daily labour, and who, with their families, depend for support on the continuance of health, recommend, in their petition, the following points:—

"1. An unlimited supply of pure water to every house at a very small rate.

"2. A general and effective system of sewerage and drainage in all houses, streets, and courts.

"3. The removal of nuisances, as slaughterhouses, Ac, from crowded neighbourhoods.

"4. The erection of more wholesome abodes for the working classes.

"5. The ventilation of workshops, schools, and public buildings.

"6. The establishment of baths, wash-houses, and bathing-places.

"7. The formation of gymnasia and exercise grounds for all classes.

"Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray that you will be pleased to pass into a law the above named Act for improving the health of towns, by which they will be shielded from the great physical and moral evils to which they are now exposed, and from which, without legislative interference, they cannot hope to escape."

I will not longer delay to state the main provisions of the Bill, and its main points of coincidence or contrast with former proposals. In doing so, I cannot forbear to mention how much my Colleagues and myself are indebted to my hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General, who, with the able assistance he could command, has bestowed much praiseworthy care in considering its provisions, and in putting it into the state in which we hope it will be found least liable to inconvenience and objection. We propose, in the first place, to abide by the appointment of a general and central Board of Health, with very much the same composition which was sanctioned by a large majority of the last House of Commons: it will consist of five members, of whom two will be paid, and will be presided over by a responsible Member of the Executive Government. This is the proposal which in fact embodies the principle of State supervision, to which all those who are jealous of what is termed centralisation are inclined to object. I can only state my positive conviction, that without some such means of applying experienced, scientific, and responsible control, any measure of the kind would be a mockery. As I have already quoted a petition of the working classes, I feel quite inclined to draw my argument in favour of State control from the letter of a working man which I received in the course of last year. He says—

"Neither do I agree with those who would leave everything to regulate itself, or to the exertion of private individuals, who, however well meaning, lacking that information which is always at the command of a Government, would never be able to do it as effectually as it should be done. My opinion is, that the Government have the best means of obtaining information as to the amount of evil resulting from a deficient supply of water, drainage, and sewerage, and also that the Government possess greater facilities of procuring information as to the best means to be employed to remedy the existing state of things. Therefore I think that the Government should prepare the plan or plans, and having passed them, leave the corporate bodies to carry them out, the Government contenting itself with appointing commissioners or inspectors to visit those towns, and see that the spirit of the Act was carried out."

I quote also the resolution of the anniversary meeting of the Health of Towns Association, held in the Hanover Square Rooms in December last:—

"That all past experience, and the nature of the case, enforce the necessity of combining in any sanitary measure an efficient local admistration responsible to the ratepayers, with the superintendence of a Government department duly represented in Parliament."

I have made the following extract from a report on the sanitary condition of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, by Dr. Robinson. An Act of Parliament for improving the borough of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which received the Royal Assent on the 26th of June, 1846, contained a series of provisions for promoting the health of the town. The report, after enumerating these provisions, proceeded to say—

"Were these powers vigorously exercised, it is evident that many of the evils above described could not have existed. But, with the exception of a recent effort to induce manufacturers to use measures for the diminution of the smoke nuisance, the powers vested in the town-council by this Act have remained wholly inoperative. There is, however, no reason to believe that this remissness has arisen from any personal antipathy to sanitary improvements. On the contrary, many of the most active members of the corporation are zealous advocates for the physical and moral improvement of the working classes; and some have, at considerable expense, voluntarily introduced smoke-consuming contrivances, and otherwise ministered to the health and comfort of their fellow-townsmen. Nor can I describe the delay which has occurred in the execution of the Towns Improvement Act to any other cause than the disinclination to active exertion so often induced by a sense of divided responsibility."

While I thus echo and act upon these opinions in favour of the expediency of a certain regulated amount of State control, I am quite willing that the actual agency and habitual working of these measures should reside in local bodies, responsible to the community whose interests are espe- cially dealt with. The part of central control is to provide indispensable preliminaries, to suggest useful methods, to check manifest abuses, but to leave the execution and detail of the requisite proceedings to local agency and effort. I proceed then to the constitution of the local bodies. We adhere to the opinion we expressed last year, and in which we were supported by the House of Commons, and in which sub sequent consideration has greatly confirmed us, that these bodies ought to be connect ed with, and not disjointed from, the town councils of places where municipal corporations are in existence. In a still earlier period of last Session the high authority of the right hon. Member for Tamworth was expressed to the same effect. Two objections were, however, urged to the adoption of town-councils as the local bodies for sanitary purposes: one was, that they would prove too numerous and cumbrous for the objects in view; the other, that the discrepancy which would frequently obtain between the present boundaries of the municipality and the boundaries best suited for sanitary objects, with a view to the continuation of suburbs and the natural levels for drainage, would be a fertile source of difficulty. I believe, indeed, this point was, more perhaps than any other, in the way of successful legislation last year. We now propose to obviate the objection as to the too great number of town-councillors, by providing that, after an application from a certain number of inhabitant householders of any district, and an inquiry founded on the same, the Order in Council which will apply the Act to any district shall prescribe the number of the local body or board of health, who are to carry into effect its provisions, in proportion to the size and requirements of the district: this will probably be in every case a smaller number than the municipal body; it will therefore not In; the whole municipal body who will be charged with the sanitary department of the district, but a selection from them to be made by the municipal body itself, so that they will not clash with the prevalent feelings and views of the governing body, or of the community at large, who have appointed them by their collective votes to administer the internal government of the lace. We have thought this modification of the course we adopted last year to be preferable to constituting a complete electoral body to be appointed by an additional system of election, and a different organisation of electors. Now, with respect to the other objection, in the case of the municipal being coterminous with what I may call the sanitary boundaries, the method I have described will work simply and smoothly; but in the many cases where the sanitary boundaries will outstrip and overlap those of the municipality, as there scorned to be an objection last year to constituting them summarily parts of the municipal communities, and thus subjecting them to the previous liabilities of the corporate district; and as it would seem manifestly unjust to include them in the sanitary district, but withhold from them alone their share of representation, we propose that the same Order in Council should define the number of sanitary councillors or commissioners, who shall act in behalf of those portions which are in excess of the municipal boundaries, and that these persons should be elected by the ratepayers of the adjoined district, and be then associated for the purposes of this Act with the selected members of the town-council. With respect to non-corporate towns the same course will be pursued as with respect to the outlying portions of the corporate towns; if upon application, and inquiry, it be deemed advisable to apply the Act to them, the Order in Council will fix the limits of the district and prescribe the number of members for the local boards, who will then be elected by the ratepayers much on the same footing as now pertains to the election of guardians of the poor. Within England and Wales the Bill makes no exceptions. I hope, indeed, that Scotland and Ireland will soon participate in the benefits of the Act; but, for the reasons I stated last year, I judged it best not to encumber this Bill with the variety of provisions necessary for adapting it to Scotland and Ireland; if this Bill should prove acceptable and be adopted here, I hope my Friends and Colleagues, especially connected with the Government of those countries, will lose no time in accommodating its provisions to them in the manner required. I have said the Bill makes no exceptions in England and Wales, and accordingly the metropolis is not excluded from its operations; but I do not wish to mislead my hearers; owing to the great number of existing interests, of local bodies, and generally the whole condition of a community outnumbering in itself many Continental States, I am bound to declare that some preparatory and supplementary measures must be enacted by the Legislature, before the provisions of the Bill I am now introducing can be made applicable to the case of the metropolis. One of such measures I hope to introduce within a very short period. Having constituted the local administrative bodies, the object of the Bill will next be to define those things which it will be imperative for them to do, and those things which it will be allowable or permissible for them to do. I think this is a prudent distinction. There are some points of indispensable and universal obligation which must be done if any progress at all is to be made in promoting the public health; these are of course the things which it is made imperative upon them to do; there are other points which may be more desirable, more suitable, more practicable in some localities than others, concerning which it would be advisable to allow more latitude for cautious experiment, for gradual adoption, for feeling their way as they go. It will be imperative upon the local administrative bodies—To hold meetings for transactions of business; to appoint a surveyor; to appoint an inspector of nuisances; to procure a map of their district; to make public sewers; to substitute sufficient sewers in case old ones be discontinued; to require owners or occupiers to provide house-drains; to cleanse and water streets; to appoint or contract with scavengers; to cleanse, cover, or fill up offensive ditches; to keep a register of slaughterhouses; to keep a register of certain lodging-houses; to provide sufficient supply of water for drainage, public and private, and for domestic use. The permissive powers to be granted to the local administrative bodies—To enlarge, lessen, alter, arch over, and improve sewers; to re-make or alter unauthorised sewers; to make house drains upon default of owner and occupier; to require that new buildings be altered, &c, in case of building upon improper levels; to alter drains, privies, water-closets, and cesspools, built contrary to the Act; to make by-laws with respect to the removal of filth, and the emptying of privies, &c.; to whitewash and purify houses after notice; to require that certain furnaces be made to consume their own smoke; to provide buildings to be used as slaughter-houses; to make by-laws with respect to the licensing, &c, of slaughter-houses; to inspect slaughter-houses and places used for the sale of meat; to alter public buildings improperly built with respect to ventilation; to inspect lodging-houses; to pave streets, &c.; to provide places for public recreation; to purchase and maintain waterworks. I do not propose to add to the many provisions of this Bill any complete code for the construction of cemeteries beyond the precincts of towns; this must be rather reserved for distinct legislation; but I do propose at once to enact, that if the General Board of Health shall be of opinion that the continued use of any existing burial-ground is absolutely dangerous to health, they shall have the power of directing it to be closed, and its use prohibited. Of course all these powers must be put into effect through the means of rating; but this is scarcely the opportunity to go into the details of this portion of the subject. I am willing to hope that the provisions for rating are drawn up in as simple a method, and put upon as fair a footing as the number of subjects to be attained would possibly admit. Having now mentioned the main outlines and principal provisions of the measure I hope to obtain leave to introduce and to submit to Parliament and the country, I wish, before I conclude the immediate office I am now performing, to impress upon the House with all the earnestness of which I am capable, some few, some very few of the grounds which convince me that it is their bounden duty to adopt this, or some better measure, without any unnecessary delay, and in its full or increased efficacy. As one of these grounds I do not wish lay any material stress upon the possible approach of the cholera. Highly desirable, obligatory, indeed, as it is upon us to adopt all available means of prevention and precaution, yet it probably would only prove a temporary evil, and might so far be encountered by temporary modes of alleviation; in such, as far as their power went, the Government have not been wanting. Within a few days of my being in my present office, I revived the Cholera Act of 1832. But it is far from any temporary evil, any transient visitant, against which our legislation is now called upon to provide. It is the abiding host of disease, the endemic and not the epidemic pestilence, the permanent overhanging mist of infection, the annual slaughter doubling in its ravages our bloodiest fields of conflict, that we are now summoned to grapple with. I do not wish to rest the merits of my case on the precise details or exact amount of any sanitary statistics, which right-minded and clear-headed men, incapable of any intention to misread, with no object before them but to ascertain the truth, have collected from the most authentic quarters, and grounded on the most pains-taken calculations. There may be partial instances of exaggeration—there may be occasional sources of miscalculation. I have lately had the opportunity of perusing an article in the British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, written with much ability and research, but apparently with almost the express object of convicting some of the more eager sanitary advocates and statists of mistakes and exaggerations, which, however, they do not impute to any Willful intention. Now, I am led to believe that the sanitary writers and speakers in question would in many instances be able to hold good their ground; but I am willing to embrace all the deductions of this not hostile but still rigid critic. After passing in review the computations generally made of the varying rates of mortality in different districts, the reviewer says—

"The conclusions to which our examination of sanitary tests and estimates has led us are the following:—1, That the advocates of sanitary reform are justified in assuming 2 per cent as the rate to which the mortality of all towns, and à fortiori of the country at large, may, by proper sanitary measures, be reduced. 2. That there are fair grounds for assuming for the whole of the population a still more favourable rate of mortality. 3. That the estimated annual sacrifice of 35,000 lives in England and Wales, and of upwards of 60,000 in the United Kingdom, is not greatly exaggerated; and that a more moderate estimate of 30,000 for England and Wales, and 51,000 for the United Kingdom, may be very safely assumed, 4. That the estimated amount of sickness, like the estimated waste of life, expressed in years, has been somewhat exaggerated by the advocates of sanitary reform; that 20 cases of unnecessary sickness to I unnecessary death is a safer proportion to assume than 28 to 1; and that the total cases of unnecessary sickness will have to be reduced accordingly."

He admits, therefore, that there is an annual waste of 30,000 lives which we could prevent, and that there are 20 cases of unnecessary sickness for each of those deaths. He goes on to say—

"The annual waste of life and sacrifice of health reduced to equivalents in pounds, shillings, and pence, under the heads of sickness, funerals, and labour lost, is represented by a grand total for England and Wales of 14,873,931l., or little less than 15,000,000l. sterling. Of this enormous total the metropolis contributes very nearly 2,000,000l., and Lancashire upwards of 4,000,000l. The standards of comparison employed in these calculations are the rate of mortality and average age at death in the most healthy registration district of each county; the ages of the living being disregarded, and the rates of sickness to death being taken at 1 to 28. If this essential element of age had been taken into account, if the more moderate standard of two per cent had been sub- stituted for the perhaps too favourable mortality of the most healthy district, and if the ratio of 1 to 28 between deaths and cases of sickness had been made to suffer some abatement, it is not impossible that these 15,000,000l. might be reduced I to considerably less than half. Possibly the total waste of money might not exceed the sum annually raised in the shape of poor rates.

I wish to state the case as fairly as possible; but the Reviewer himself goes on—

"The calculations published in the tables of the Health of Towns Association embrace only three heads—funerals, sickness, and labour wasted. Orphanage and widowhood, which impose a perpetual burden on the poor-laws of about 50,000 women and children, and an annual burden, which, though not yet ascertained, cannot but be considerable, are not taken into the account. Then there is another enormous item of waste or misappropriation of money, not contained in these tables—namely, the sums squandered in the shape of defective and costly structural arrangement above and below ground."

I will not fatigue the House by going through the details:—

"What all these barbarisms have cost and are costing us it would be difficult to say; but that they amount to several millions a year no reasonable man can doubt. We refer our readers to the reports of the Health of Towns Commission, and the publications of the Health of Towns Association for particulars. If they appear exaggerated, let them halve or quarter every item, and there will still remain the most remarkable exposé ever yet made of municipal and national extravagance. One broad principle may be safely enunciated in respect of sanitary economics—that it costs more money to create disease than to prevent it; and that there is not a single structural arrangement chargeable with the production of disease which is not also in itself an extravagance."

Now, for the purpose of my argument I discard all the higher computations which those who have given most of their thoughts, and labour, and self-sacrifice to the subject, consider they have established. I adopt the most reduced scale which ingenuity applied in that direction can suggest; and I say still, that if in the course of every year in England and Wales 30,000 lives are lost which we can save, six or seven millions are spent which we can spare, and we forbear thus to spare and save, our folly will be only less than our crime. The Registrar General's reports are probably the most authentic documents to which we can have resort on a subject of this character. The last quarterly report says—

"The quarterly returns are obtained from 117 districts, subdivided into 582 sub-districts; 36 districts are in the metropolis, and the remaining 81 comprise, with some agricultural districts, the principal towns and cities of England. T he population was 6,612,800 in 1841. 57,925 deaths were registered in the last quarter. The average number of deaths deduced from the returns of the corresponding quarter of nine preceding years, and corrected for increase of population, is 46,509. There is, consequently, an excess of 11,376 deaths in the quarter. The deaths registered in the December quarters of 1845, 1846, and 1847, are 39,291–53,093–57,925; the mortality in the first is to that of the last quarter nearly as 2 to 3. A slight increase in the mortality was noted in the returns of the Juno quarter, 1846; the mortality in the following hot summer, when the potato crop failed, was excessive. Cholera and diarrhœa prevailed epidemically. In the autumn of 1846 as well as the winter and spring quarters of 1847, the mortality was still higher. Scurvy prevailed in the beginning of the year, but in the summer the public health appeared to be slightly improved. Epidemics of typhus and influenza, however, set in, and have made the mortality in the last quarter of 1847 higher than in any quarter of any year since the new system of registration commenced."

I quote a passage from Dr. Hall, of East Redford, who has exerted himself zealously in the sanitary cause: he is talking of typhus fever:—

"About 16,000 a year, which multiplied by 10, the recoveries to each death, a calculation lower by 18, than Dr. Playf'air's, we have yearly in England above 160,000 attacks of this loathsome disease which may be prevented—a disease which does more to pauperise our population, to fill our workhouses with widows and orphans than any other, and for this reason—the typhus fever for the most part attacks men and women in the prime of life—from 20 to 40. This is the age at which the members of the working classes marry; and if the father of a family is cut off, the widow and her children are cast for support on the poor rates. This is a painful cause of pauperism, and it becomes more so from its permanence. A widow so left with children is seldom married a second time. From the books of the unions it appears to take place only in one case out of thirty No wonder then the poor-law unions have to support 40,000 widows and 100,000 orphans year after year."

That positive actual deaths do occur from such causes—causes existing in all our cities, towns, villages, and farms, which we can as easily and effectually remove as we can eat our daily dinners, there is unhappily an accumulated bulk of proof. I quote again from Dr. Hall:—

"The deaths of infants in Preston under one year were—in well-conditioned streets, 15 deaths to 100 births; middling-conditioned streets, 21deaths to 100 births; ill-conditioned streets, 38 deaths to 100 births; worst-conditioned streets, 44 deaths to 100 births.

The difference ranged from 15 in 100 in the best-conditioned districts to 44 in 100 in the worst-conditioned. Then referring to a statement of Mr. Clay, of Preston—

"We see then, and the remark holds good not only in Preston, but also in other towns, that the mortality is in proportion to the condition of the houses in which the children live, and the streets in which they are situate; no less than 29 per cent more of deaths taking place in the worst than in the best-conditioned streets of Preston, the mortality being 15 and 44 percent."

In reference to the mortality in Leicester, it was said—

"Take, for instance, the parish of St. Margaret, Leicester, the average age at death in 1840 was—well-drained streets, 23½ partially-drained streets, 17½ streets without drains, 13½."

The following statement was made as to the mortality in Nottingham—

	Ward.		Deaths to each 100.
Worst.	Byrne's Ward	…	1 in 32
	St. Ann's Ward	…	1 in 36
	St. Mary's Ward	…	1 in 38
Best.	Castle Ward	…	1 in 43
	Sherwood Ward	…	1 in 50
	Park Ward	…	1 in 50

Sometimes, however, an individual case seems to bring us more into the actual connexion of cause and effect, to put us more face to face with death than any of the comprehensive summaries of mortality, I do not hero so much allude to that painfully long list of men, whose official duties, nobly understood, and correspondingly discharged, have led them, whether as medical practitioners, as relieving officers, as ministers of religion, into the squalid haunts of infectious disease, the chambers of death. I hold in my hand a list contained in the Journal of Public Health, at the head of which stands the honoured name of Dr. Lynch, and only quote a paragraph at the conclusion:—

"A few short months ago, Bishop Riddell, the Rev. J. Standen, and Dr. Charlton, were in communication with the authorities of Newcastle, to represent to them the filthy, over-crowded, and infected condition of Sand gate and the neighbouring localities. The project was then entertained of removing fever-patients to a more open elevated part of the town, where, in some temporary or other building, their chance of recovery would be greater, while the spread of the infection among the inhabitants would be kept in check. A similar suggestion was made by Mr. Green how at the time of the cholera. Dr. Bowring, in the paper which he read in Newcastle, in 1838, at the meeting of the British Association, gave a remarkable illustration of the success of such a removal in the case of the plague; but the proposal of June last, in Newcastle, was not adopted; the sanitary condition of the infected district has since undergone little amendment, and the fever has extended its ravages. The rev. J. Standen is dead—the right rev. Dr. Riddell is dead; martyrs to their self-denying devotion to the cause of suffering humanity."

It may be thought—it will not be said—that these men died in their vocation, that they did what all our soldiers and sailors always do, freely spend their lives at the call of duty. This, no doubt, is perfectly true; but we ought not to forget that for those whose case I am now considering, our physicians, and officers of the poor, and clergymen, a grateful country makes no provision for those they leave behind them. I intended, however, to allude more especially to the unofficial victims, those herds of sufferers whose deaths can actually be traced to causes which we can remove, though the blow is generally struck by more lingering and circuitous methods. Among other illustrations of the cause of disease and death from noxious effluvia, arising from want of drainage, I may adduce the following:—

"A long investigation recently took place before Mr. Baker, at the Windmill, Rosemary-lane, on view of the body of Mary White, aged 2 years. The inquiry was instituted by the medical officer of the White chapel union, in consequence of the many deaths which have taken place from a similar cause. Anne Briant, a married woman, said she had lived in Hayes-court about a week. During that period there was scarcely a house in which some one was not ill of fever. The child, her mother said, had been labouring under a fever for two months. Witness for the last week assisted the mother to attend the child. It died on Tuesday. Witness had no doubt that its death was caused by the impure atmosphere of the court. Several of the jury observed that the witness seemed to be in a state of fever, and Mr. Webb, the summoning officer, said that the whole of the inhabitants of the court had the same appearance. Mr. John Liddle, surgeon of White chapel union, said that he was first called to see the deceased on the 20th of August, in compliance with an order. It was then suffering from fever and diarrhœa. The parent would not let him go into the room, alleging that it was offensive and dangerous, and the mother brought the child to him at the next house. He prescribed for it, but the medicines would not act as they would have done in a healthy atmosphere. Witness has now six patients in that court. The first witness stated that she knew two children in another house, one of whom was dying of the fever, another was very bad. Coroner (to the surgeon): Do you register this a natural death?—Mr. Liddle: No, a death from the poisonous effluvia of the atmosphere from the want of drainage. It has been proved that the gas, in its pure state, arising from the decomposition of animal matter, is fatal; and M. Thénard, a French chemist, has found that 1.800 of its volume will destroy a dog, and 1 volume in 250 is sufficient to destroy a horse. Some course ought to be adopted, as the whole neighbour hood is liable to be attacked with fever. The jury returned the following verdict—' That the deceased died from diarrhœa and fever, caused by noxious and poisonous effluvium in Hayes-court from want of drainage."

Mr. Roche, surgeon to the Lying-in Hospital, Liverpool, to the editor of the Journal of Public, Health:—

"On the 28th of September, 1846, I was requested to visit a young man residing at Hard- wick-terrace, Prescot-street. I found him suffering from a severe attack of dysentery; and was not many minutes in the house when the smell all through the lower part of it became most offensive, arising from the privy and the cesspool, which were situated about four feet from the hall. On making inquiry, I was informed that whenever anything was thrown into it the stench was scarcely to be endured through the house, oven to the upper rooms. One disaster after another now occurred in this family; the father and two younger children were attacked with dysentery; the mother (who was near her confinement) soon became a prey to the same disease: and then, to crown the sad catastrophe, the two eldest children were seized with typhus fever, and the father's case took on typhoid symptoms. Here then were seven human beings placed in jeopardy by a most unwarrantable nuisance; and it is to be feared that this is only one instance among many in this town. The mother and youngest child with the infant died; all the others were spared, but their recoveries were very tedious, until I had them removed to another house in the neighbour hood, when in twenty-four hours the change in the father's case was most remarkable, and all the children got rapidly better; but the pecuniary resources of the family were entirely destroyed by their long illness. There were several persons ill in two houses of the same terrace, and doubtless from the same cause."

I might multiply instances. Let me mention a case more particularly brought under my own notice. Any of my hearers interested in agriculture will be acquainted with the name of Mr. Josiah Parkes. He is conducting some extensive drainage works for the Crown, in executing which be bad a most intelligent foreman, of the name of Fewson. I bad a letter from him as follows:—

"Fewson is here, his mother being dead; she was buried yesterday. She was a nice, clean, and working, respectable woman, and, what is very vexing about her death is, that a nasty filthy town drain that runs under their house has been the cause of it. I tell Fewson he should inform Lord Morpeth of it. Such deaths are really awful, and of very common occurrence. Fewson is my superintendent of drainage in the Phœnixpark. He writes me that he fears, his father will fall a sacrifice also to the same disease."

I wrote inquiring into the circumstances of the man, and received a letter from Mr. Cresskill, celebrated as a successful inventor of agricultural implements, in which he says—

"I find that within a space of 30 yards square there are 10 houses, wherein there have been 18 cases of fever, one of which, Mrs. Fewson, has died; and several others have had a very narrow escape. One medical gentleman, Mr. Boulton, a magistrate, who has attended 10 out of the 18 of the above named fever cases, is of the same opinion as myself, that those fever cases are brought on by the bad state of the drain, which is alongside of the 30 yards square; in fact, Fewson's house, I believe, is partly built upon it. The drain is a public one, for the use of the east part of the town; it is arched over about 20 feet beyond the 30 square yards, but from the yards there are side drains and grates without cesspools, and also beyond the 20 feet it is an open drain, the stench from which is at all times very offensive; it is one of the worst drains we have, but the whole drainage of the town is very bad, very shallow, with little fall, so that they always contain large quantities of stagnant water and filth, which, I fear, nothing can remove except your Health of Towns Bill."

Another correspondent writes to me as follows:—

"I made inquiries of one of the most practical men in Beverley, who is well acquainted with the drainage of the neighbour hood, and is now professionally employed in the Barmston drainage, which runs from near Beverley to the sea, and he, while quite admitting how open the locality to which your Lordships' attention has been called is to complaint, yet assures me that there are many worse instances in the town, and that nothing but a general deepening of the drainage can effectually remedy the evil under which the town, in this respect, labours. This can only he accomplished through some such measure as your Lordship's Health of Towns Bill; and until that has been passed, and it is rendered compulsory on local authorities to deal with these evils, I feel assured your Lordship will not attain any satisfactory result by interference in an individual case like that which has been pointed out to you at Beverley."

Am I taking an extreme instance? Is Beverley a remarkable place for its insalubrity? How is Beverley spoken of in a recent report of the state of Ipswich—a place I should not have thought exposed to any extraordinary unwholesome influences? I quote from Mr. Glyde's Report on Ipswich:—

"Average annual deaths in Suffolk (from a calculation of seven years), 1 in 51; in Ipswich more than 1 in 42. If we assume the population during this period to have been 25,600, and the rate of mortality to have been the same as Beverley and Yarmouth, the number would have been 512 instead of 603, showing a loss of 728 lives in eight years.

This reference to Beverley shows that it is regarded as a favourable instance of a salubrious town.

"Infantine mortality is considered one of the most important tests that can be applied to prove the sanitary condition of a town. In Whit by, 26 per cent; in Lancaster, 29; York, 31; Ipswich, 39 per cent die under 5 years of age. In Ipswich there are 103 streets and lanes, 15 of which are without any drainage, 19 with surface drains on one side only, extending only partly through them, and 42 streets and lanes not paved.…Where there is no drainage, dampness is a general complaint. Paper rots on the wall, water rises in the cellar, and things get mouldy in the cupboard. There are several cases where 10 or 12 houses have privies in common. The purity of the water which comes to the town has been spoken of in high terms, and the ability to afford abundance generally acknowledged; yet the water from the pumps is complained of for its impurity, and many of the poorer classes have a great distance to fetch their water. On the head of expense, there were, in 1842, 82 deaths above the average of Huddersfield and Beverley. The general expenses of these, at 4l. 10s. each, amounted to 369,137l. Deaths were, from consumption, 41 above the average of England. Taking the duration of illness at nine months, the expense of sickness at 10s. per week, there is a loss from excess of deaths from consumption of 728l. If for every death there are 20 cases of sickness, an excess of 82 deaths would give 2,296cases of unnecessary sickness. Take the average expense of each case of sickness and medical attendance at 10s.,there is a loss from unnecessary sickness of 1,148l.; excess of funerals, 369l.; deaths from consumption, 728l.; unnecessary sickness, 1,148: total, 2,245."

Now, of course, I cannot pretend to take the House through all the provincial towns, concerning which the most afflicting and appalling statements have come before me. I shall mention only one or two of the most recent details. This is from the account of a public meeting at Newcastle on-Tyne. Dr. Headlam said—

"He was sorry to say that streets and suburbs were rising with the same disadvantages. Streets were built without sewers, the ground not even leveled, and the soil in the centre saturated with filth."

Mr. Currie, of the Working Men's Association, said—

"He and other members of the committee were appalled by the scenes they had witnessed. He had never conceived that a locality existed in so miserable a condition as Sand gate. There was not a privy in its whole length or breadth."

Mr. Gallen resided in Westgate:—

"The annual value of the property was 25,000l. Little more of the property than was valued at 50,000l. was sewered. Places quite as bad as Sandgate."

Dr. White:—

"The statements of Mr. Currie and Mr. Gallen were not overcharged. The misery of Sandgate could not be conceived; it must be seen to be realised. In one single room in that locality he had seen thirteen cases of fever."

Mr. Green how:—

"They were too well aware of the unusual prevalence of fever in Newcastle for some time past. During the whole of the time while the gaol was surrounded by fever, there had been even less disease than usual within its walls. To what was this to be attributed? Simply to the adoption within the prison of those sanitary regulations which it was their object to extend to the whole community."

Dr. Lonsdale, in his report on Carlisle, says—

"In the assurance tables of this country, the mortality in Carlisle within the last twenty years used to be estimated at 1 in 54 of the inhabitants; being lower than the present average of the fifteen healthiest counties in this kingdom. Now, in 1841, it was 1 in 39; being actually higher than that of the average of the fifteen unhealthiest counties. If, as is now admitted, the healthy and natural standard of mortality in England and Wales is 2 per cent per annum, or 1 in 50, it is evident that Carlisle, with its rate of mortality 1 to 39, or more than 2¾ per cent per annum, stands greatly in need of sanitary improvement."

I might give you similar recent accounts of Hull, Bradford, Wolverhampton, and Hertford; but I feel that it would be out of the question to trouble the House at more length. I am greatly obliged to the House for the indulgence which it has already extended to me. I shall only quote one more extract, and that applies to the sanitary condition of Sheffield. It is from a report by James Heywood, chemist, and William Lee, civil engineer. They say—

"We wish we could find language sufficiently strong to impress upon the council the absolute necessity for immediate action. The case is desperate, and supine ness would be criminal. After the first few days' experience in our recent inspection, we were able, with an awful precision, not only to detect the unhealthy parts of the town, but the portions of streets, and the particular houses in streets and in courts, especially liable to febrile and other diseases. In hundreds of these we were able at once to describe to the sufferers all the symptoms of the disorders with which they were afflicted. The result of that inspection is a conviction which nothing can ever remove or weaken, that besides all the instances in which persons ultimately recover from long sickness and consequent distress, 1,000 at least are destroyed every year in this town by diseases which would have no existence under complete sanitary arrangements. To realise in the aggregate this unnecessary amount of mortality, and to appreciate the concomitant evils of domestic bereavement and pecuniary embarrassment, struggling poverty, and helpless pauperism following in its train, must appeall the mind of every member of the council, and lead to the most strenuous efforts in the application of remedial measures."

They go on to say—

"That the water supply, cleansing, and paving, are at present in the hands of three distinct bodies, under the authority of as many distinct Acts of Parliament. The sewerage, though much has been done during the last few years, is illegitimate. All these must be harmoniously worked together as parts of the same system; and we are firmly convinced that this can only be done by placing them and all other sanitary arrangements under the control of one public body. We believe that in Leeds, and several other large towns, the sectional boards, tenacious of life, oppose this transfer of their present limited powers; but common sense dictates that in Sheffield and all other incorporated towns, the municipal council is the only body to whom these important powers should be intrusted."

With regard to a particular part of Sheffield, they say—

"The cesspools here are generally full, and the accumulation of refuse so great, that the house adjoining is seldom occupied, and scarcely tenantable. It is a remarkable fact, that scarcely any of the children born in this yard who were attempted to be brought up came to maturity, for out of the four houses which it contains (one generally empty) no less than thirty children have died within the last forty years."

In regard to another place, they say—

"Sixteen cases of fever and one of death have occurred in the adjoining houses within a few months; and four cases of fever and two deaths in houses whose windows are directly opposite to the point where drainage from this lane escapes into Edward-street. It is worthy of remark that no such cases have occurred in places further removed from this vicinity; the inference in this instance is irresistible." They add—

"We would suggest the adoption of the following measures; namely, better constructed dwellings, both as regards light and ventilation, and a liberal supply of water; the substitution of water-closets for the present open privies, and as many as possible of them in relation to the number of houses; also more spacious and commodious yards, well paved and drained, with public washing-houses and baths in populous districts; and, above all, places for proper and rational recreation."

In the course of this survey, too long I fear for the patience with which the House has treated me, but with reference to the materials most rapid and imperfect—I have carried you to some of the towns and cities of this country most distinguished by its special characteristics. I have mentioned places which supply a great portion of the fuel that feeds our chimneys and furnaces—which forge the iron and steel which first shape and then waft along our countless manufactures—which weave the fabrics that on the banks of the Wolga meet and outsell the products of all the looms of Asia, and clothe the furthest tropics. Then let it not be said, or if it has been said hitherto, let it be said no longer, that the hives of this vast industry, the sources of these innumerable supplies of comfort and civilisation to mankind, the homes of the men who do and make these things, should be pre-eminently the seats of filth, of disease, of degradation in its worst shapes and forms; that toils the most unsparing, exertions the most successful, should be beset by influences the most deadening and enervating; that the herculean labour of England, which cannot be said to be still in its cradle, is not able to strangle the noisome reptiles which infest it. Even here this night, I claim for British labour and its agents, all the assistance and ap- pliances which our fostering care, our advancing knowledge can suggest. I do not ask you to overlay either local exertions or individual enterprise with State interference, or stifle them with too much looking after. I wish you to leave them in their ordinary action to their own resources and development; but I wish you to see that the imperial knowledge, science and skill—our best heads, and most adroit hands, are made available to show them the proper paths, and to take care that they do not go far astray from them.

was sure there would be but one feeling pervading the House of an earnest desire to remedy those evils which the noble Lord had so powerfully set before them. When the noble Lord brought forward a similar measure last Session, he could not acquiesce in it, not that he was less anxious than others for the welfare of his fellow-creatures, which he was sure the whole tenor of his life disproved; but his main reason for objecting to the measure was the reluctance which appeared to exist on the part of Her Majesty's Government to include the metropolis in the boon which was to be conferred on other towns. He thought that reluctance savoured of a wish to favour the constituency on account of the support which they had given to a leading Member of Her Majesty's Government. He confessed he did cheer when he thought that the noble Lord had introduced the metropolis into the present measure; but he had since found that he had been too hasty; for he had just learned, with some degree of disappointment, that the metropolis was still to be excluded from the Bill. The reason certainly could not be that the metropolis needed this measure less than other places. Let them look at St. Giles's and Billingsgate, and other parts of the metropolis, and let the noble Lord tell him what there was in those places which could induce the House to withhold from them the boon which was to be granted to other towns. They were told that a Commission had recently been appointed, and that the House must wait for its reports; but, he would ask, why were these reports not upon the table, and in possession of Members, before the noble Lord brought forward his Bill? The noble Lord had further told them that two paid Commissioners were to be appointed under this Bill; but the noble Lord had not told them what was to be their salary. He distrusted these measures of partial, and, therefore, of suspi- cious operation; but he was ready to support the principle of the measure, and even to contribute out of his own pocket to assist in carrying any measure which would benefit the working classes. He hoped, therefore, having made this declaration, which he would strictly adhere to, that he might be allowed to call upon the noble Lord to introduce a measure which should not be partial in its operation, for it would afford him the most sincere gratification if he could assist the noble Lord in carrying any measure which would, in the least degree, benefit his fellow-creatures.

hoped it was unnecessary to assure the House that he would be the last person to rise for the purpose of placing any obstacle in the way of a sanitary measure. He had listened with the deepest attention to the speech of the noble Lord in introducing the present Bill; and he rose merely with the view of directing the noble Lord's attention to one omission which he had hoped, from the notice he (Viscount Duncan) had placed that night on the table, would not have occurred. The noble Lord had remarked that there had been a great deal said and little done with respect to sanitary measures. He fully concurred in that assertion. But the noble Lord had also been pleased to say, that he had observed great apathy respecting this measure out of doors. He begged to tell the noble Lord that there was no apathy about sanitary measures out of doors, and that the working classes were anxiously looking for the interference of the Legislature on the subject. The noble Lord stated the object of the measure was to check obvious abuses. Now, he had listened attentively to the noble Lord's list of obvious abuses. The noble Lord had mentioned defective sewerage and drainage; but he thought the noble Lord spoke rather under his breath when he came to the subject of ventilation, although he remembered that not many years ago the noble Lord was quite eloquent on that subject, as well as on the window-tax. But how did it come that—

"His lips were now forbid to speak

Those once familiar words?"

He held in his hand an extract from a speech delivered by the noble Lord in Wakefield, in the year 1846: that speech was delivered by the noble Lord after his re-election; and he said, amongst other matters, that the homes of the bulk of the population were inferior to what he should wish, them to be; they were capable of almost indefinite improvement—they required the admission of fresh air, good water, and wholesome light. Now, the question he had to ask the noble Lord was, why no mention had been made with respect to the window-tax on this occasion? He held in his hand a pamphlet, entitled the Report of the Committee of the Members of an Association who had met together to consider Lord Lincoln's Drainage and Sewerage. The noble Lord (Lord Morpeth) was at that time a Member of the Opposition, and had looked to the Bill introduced by the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Lincoln) with all the eyes of jealous criticism, and he formed with other hon. Gentlemen, who were sitting around him, that Committee. He would read their names. [Lord MORPETH: I did not attend the Committee.] The noble Lord said he did not attend the Committee; but all he could say was, that the Committee had published this report with his name attached to it, and he had never heard the noble Lord deny that he was a Member of the Committee of the Health of Towns Association. If the noble Lord now denied it, he (Lord Duncan) begged the noble Lord would allow him to read the report of that Committee to refresh the memory of the noble Lord on this occasion. He remembered having read in Gulliver's Travels, that when Gulliver arrived in Laputa he found every one there was so deeply engaged in thinking of sublunary matters, that he required a flapper to refresh his memory. And if the noble Lord would allow him, he would act the part of a flapper to the noble Lord, and state what at least his Colleagues on the Committee had published on this subject. Nothing could be more clear or distinct:—

"They said that they had directed much attention to the subject of remedial measures necessary for the improvement of the sanitary condition of towns—that they had carefully considered Lord Lincoln's Bill page by page and clause by clause. Then Dr. Southwood Smith and the other members of the Committee declared it to be their opinion that no sanitary measure could be considered complete without that which they had observed had been altogether passed over in Lord Lincoln's Bill'—namely, the abolition of the window-tax; and that a wise Legislature would never think of stepping in between God's greatest gift and the population, by laying on a tax for the enjoyment of the light of heaven, without which life was scarcely bearable; the effect of which was to oblige the poor to pay quadruple that which was paid by the rich."

He (Viscount Duncan) trusted to be able to show that such was the fact when they came to a discussion of the question on a future occasion. The Committee then spoke of the omissions in the Bill of the noble Earl, one of which was not making any modification of the mode of collecting the window-tax; and he perfectly agreed in the report of that Committee. He would next call attention to a report of the directors of the Metropolitan Association for the Improvement of the Dwellings of the Lower Classes; they stated they had paid much attention to the question of the window-tax, and wished that in any measure that was introduced, the Legislature would keep their attention fixed upon that point. He would now call attention to a case respecting the assessed taxation, reported to the House under the authority of three of Her Majesty's Judges. It was the case of an individual, who, having heard of the comfort to be derived from the proper ventilation of his dwelling-house, attempted to effect such ventilation by forming apertures in it. The name of the man was John Williams, of Penryn; and those apertures having been assessed as windows, he appealed against the charge of 6l. 17s. for three windows, and the Commissioners allowed his appeal; but three of Her Majesty's Judges having considered the case, decided that, according to the present law of the land, the man should be fined for having actually attempted to ventilate his dwelling. He did not now desire to draw on a discussion of the window-tax; but he wished to show the noble Lord that there was a strong feeling out of doors that no sanitary measure could be complete which did not embrace the subject of the window-tax. He would tell the noble Lord that the people of this country were looking forward to the revision of taxation, and expected to see taxation apportioned on each man according to his means. He could also tell the noble Lord that neither this nor any other sanitary Bill the noble Lord could introduce would be popular in this country unless the noble Lord grappled with the whole question.

said, the noble Lord who had moved for leave to introduce the Bill, had manifested all the zeal of a philanthropist with the ability of a statesman. The measure was large and comprehensive, and if followed up with vigour it could not fail of success. He thought the noble Lord had come to a judicious decision in having two paid Commissioners, as one, he thought, as was proposed by the measure of last year, would not be sufficient for the duty. With regard to the salaries of these offi- cers, he was satisfied there was no such false economy as the underpayment of public servants, and therefore he trusted the noble Lord would not be deterred, by any taunts or sneers that might be thrown out, from making the measure efficient by securing able Commissioners, and giving them adequate remuneration for their services. The annual salary of 1,000l. suggested last year, was, he thought, too little. Amidst so much that was gratifying, he was unwilling to use the language of criticism; and, therefore, if he did advert to an old grievance, still he hoped the noble Lord would not doubt that he felt grateful for what was proposed to be done. But he regretted that the question of interment in towns was a subject which was almost altogether omitted in the Bill. There was, indeed, a clause proposed which went as far as this, that if the Commissioners thought the health and life of the inhabitants would be endangered by continuing the practice of interment in any particular burying-ground, they should have power to prohibit the practice. If that was the whole that was proposed, he feared it would be very ineffective. Six years ago this question was brought forward by the hon. Member for Lymington; and the Secretary of State at that time said that the time for legislation upon the subject was fully come. The noble Lord, in his very powerful and effective speech, had alluded to the progress of typhus fever. Now, Dr. Chambers and Sir Benjamin Brodie both stated, before the Committee which sat upon the subject, that the typhus fever which prevailed, even in such streets as Brook-street, was to be traced to the putrid miasmas that escaped from the over-crowded graveyards of the metropolis. Mr. Russell said, it had become a serious question, with their increasing population, how burials in the existing graveyards could go on without danger to the public health. A mass of correspondence from the mayors and authorities of various towns were produced to the same effect; and if that volume were laid on the table of the House, it would be perhaps the most remarkable that was ever presented to Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State had found, however, in the recent Session of Parliament, such great difficulties in dealing with the subject, that he was compelled to abandon the attempt. In the following Session the hon. Member for Lymington said, that he would not wait for the Government, and accordingly he moved a resolution upon the subject of this great nuisance; and that Motion was carried, although the Government had declared that it was little short of a vote of censure. The right hon. Gentleman who was now Secretary of State for the Home Department, on that occasion urged the necessity of providing some remedy for the evil, and supported the Motion. In the following year the hon. Member for Lymington brought in his Bill, which was read a second time; and then, at the end of 1846, withdrawn, on a pledge being given that the Government would bring in a general measure on the subject. But last year this subject was altogether omitted from the general Bill brought in by the Government, on the ground that it would be better to deal with it in a separate Bill. It was clear, therefore, that there were some difficulties, some mysterious difficulties, in the way of the Government, which had never been explained; and he thought that they ought now to be informed what it was which prevented the Government from taking up this important part of the general subject. Dr. Milman, twenty years ago, had said that, in a return made to that House, it was stated that no more burials could take place in St. Margaret's churchyard; and, on one occasion, when a Committee of that House complained of the closeness of the committee-room, Mr. Bellamy said that, in consequence of the disagreeable exhalations from the churchyard the windows could not be opened; but that very day he had observed that another grave was, now opened in that very churchyard. He hoped, therefore, that some assurance would be given by the Government that supplementary Bills would be brought in to remove this and other nuisances not affected by the present measure; and if the noble Lord felt that the Government could not carry an efficient measure on the subject to which he had called attention, he hoped that he would state his reasons, and he (Mr. Horsman) was convinced that the public would come to his aid in order to enable him to surmount all obstacles. If it was a mere question of expense and of remuneration to the clergy, the feeling was now so strong that that House would have no objection to a vote for the purpose, to be "proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and the people would joyfully submit to that sacrifice, for the purpose of getting rid of so great a grievance.

expressed his gra- tification at what had fallen from the noble Lord; but he regretted that an abuse which existed in the town which he represented, and to which last Session he had called the attention of the noble Lord, had still escaped amendment. The House would recollect that considerable discussion had arisen as to the mode of electing the commissioners to manage the local affairs of towns; and the Bill of last Session was attended with great difficulties, in consequence of its references to other Acts of Parliament, which had appointed a mode of election by plurality of votes; but he hoped that this Bill would state clearly what the mode of election was to be. He regretted the omission noticed by the noble Lord the Member for Bath. That morning he had formed one of a deputation that waited upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he had done all in his power to extract from the right hon. Gentleman what his notion of a window was, but his efforts were unavailing. With respect to the window-tax a strong feeling existed in the country, and he was sure that no measure would be satisfactory until light and air were admitted freely into dwellings, without the interference of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

felt rejoiced at the prospect they now had of some progress being made in the work of sanitary improvement; but while he approved of a large portion of what the noble Lord proposed, he ventured to suggest that as this measure was to be carried out coercively in some instances, and permissively in others, it would be attended with a large local expenditure. In whatever way it was carried out, it must be attended with local taxation in a heavy degree; therefore it behoved Her Majesty's Government and the House, in taking this general and comprehensive proceeding, and in extending the benefit of those improvements to all parts of the country, with a view to have purity of water, better air, and the removal of effluvia, to consider whether they should leave out of the category the removal of the window-tax and the removal of the churchyards—for the one tended to prevent ventilation above, and the other to putrify the water below. They must look at the subject as a whole; and all they could do would be fruitless, unless light and air were freely admitted to the houses of the poor; it would be a defective measure unless the window-tax was repealed altogether. That House of Commons might properly be called upon to fulfill the pledge of the last, and the repeal of the window-tax was a pledge which had been frequently given. Lord Althorp had given a pledge that that should be the first tax taken off, and that at all events it should not be increased; but the right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer had violated that pledge, and increased the tax; the faith of a Chancellor of the Exchequer was, therefore, shown not to be worth much, and he advised the House to take the matter into its own hands. It was a mockery to propose the present measure without the other; to continue the tax upon light and air, and to continue the burial-grounds, the source of so much pollution, and yet to pretend to legislate for the removal of a state of things disgraceful to a country claiming, as this did, to be a little civilised. He admitted that the Government deserved credit for what they had done; but he trusted that they would yet do more, and that what they did they would do effectually.

had not the slightest intention, when the noble Lord included his speech, of addressing the House on the occasion, for, generally speaking, it was more desirable to wait for the second reading of a Bill when the Bill was before the House, and when a person was much better able to discuss its merits than at the present moment. He should have adhered to that resolution, had not each of the hon. Members who had addressed the House began with great laudation of the noble Lord's Bill, and wound up their speeches by referring to the omissions in it. He would not follow their example, but rose for the purpose of protesting against those observations, and stating his opinion, that so far from their being a ground of complaint against the noble Lord for omissions, he thought he had acted most wisely in not encumbering the measure with any provisions that would interfere with its progress. So far as he could judge from the noble Lord's statement, the details were quite comprehensive enough already; and if the noble Lord could pass the Bill, the provisions of which the noble Lord had announced that evening, he was of opinion that the noble Lord would have made a valuable commencement of sanitary reform. He submitted it would be better to pass a measure of this kind, than run the risk of losing it by adding to it the difficult and intricate question of interment in towns. It was not because the noble Lord did not now allude to it, that he precluded himself from doing so hereafter. He hoped the noble Lord would be enabled to deal with that question more successfully than his predecessors. As to the window-tax, no person could doubt that in an abstract point of view it would be most desirable to get rid of the window-tax; but he had no doubt that the noble Lord, if he proposed its abolition, would find an impediment in his right hon. Colleague on his left, in the present state of the revenue. No doubt that a sanitary measure which embraced the repeal of the window-tax would be more complete, yet he thought it was wise to take what they could get. He could aid the hon. Gentleman that had preceded him by pointing out five or six other branches of sanitary reform which it might be desirable to press; but he could not complain of the noble Lord for not introducing them. He would now simply state that so far as he could judge from the statement of the noble Lord, his measure was a considerable improvement on that of last year. The local machinery was much more likely to meet with the approbation of the country than that proposed last year. The noble Lord had obviated this difficulty. In the Bill of last year he did not embrace the natural area of drainage; or, if he did, taxed many of the inhabitants without enabling them to elect those who imposed the taxes. He thought also the noble Lord was inclined to confine within legitimate limits the central authority, and permit no more meddling with local authority than was absolutely necessary. If all this turned out as he supposed, he anticipated for the measure a favourable issue.

observed, that a great change had taken place in the population of the country within the last half century. By the population returns, it was shown that in 1790, and from that period down to 1800, the labourers who were employed in husbandry were as two to one to the dwellers of the towns. But those proportions were now exactly reversed; and he thought this showed that a great change had taken place in the social pursuits of the population, and any Government desirous of improving their condition was called upon to make corresponding changes in its measures. The average increase of the population of this kingdom, from 1801 to 1831, had been, in five of the largest towns, 98 per cent; and since that period the increase had been going on in a still more rapid ratio than in those towns to which this measure could more particularly apply. In consequence of these vast changes in the social condition of the country, large masses of the population were suffering irreparable injury from the want of proper sanitary precautions. While the average annual mortality in the country districts was only two per cent, in the large towns it was three per cent; and in Liverpool, which unfortunately possessed celebrity in point of unhealthiness, the annual mortality had been 3½ per cent. But if the returns were more closely analysed, and the mortality of the working classes alone were taken, in particular districts it would amount to 4 and 5 per cent. And a great portion of this mortality arose from causes easily suppressed or removed. In 1840, the Health of Towns Commission prosecuted their inquiries, and their report strongly enforced the absolute necessity of large and comprehensive measures for the better draining and cleansing towns, and for a more plentiful and purer supply of water. In 1842, there was presented to the House a general report on the condition of the labouring classes. This report was the result of personal inquiries made by Mr. Chad wick; and he could not mention the name of Mr. Chadwick without adding his humble testimony to the great exertions of that Gentleman—to the ability, intelligence, and perseverance which he had directed to this important subject. He might differ on some points from Mr. Chadwick; but he would readily admit that the working classes owed a deep debt of gratitude to that gentleman for his benevolent and untiring exertions in their behalf. In that report of 1842, it was stated that the greatest evils were found to exist in the large towns—that those evils were removable, and many remedies were pointed out. In 1845, another Commission, of which he had the honour to be a member, was appointed. Its report, like those of its predecessors, stated that enormous evils existed in the large towns. The report pointed out the remedies, and these remedies were comprised in the provisions now brought forward in this Bill. The report was made up from inquiries prosecuted in 50 large towns, principally in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and in the manufacturing districts of Lancashire, where the health of the inhabitants was most affected. The result of the inquiry, as to the three important points of drain- age, cleansing, and supply of water, showed that in scarcely one of the large towns was there a perfect supply of water; in 45 or 46 of the towns out of the 50, the supply was most imperfect, and its quality most unwholesome. He went into 16 of these towns, and he could state as a witness that any description that could possibly be given by the noble Lord of the suffering and wretchedness of the working classes could not be exaggerated. In the close courts and narrow alleys of the miserable and neglected neighbour hoods, evils of the most monstrous kind met the eye in every direction—evils which, he firmly believed, might be removed if the measures now proposed were supported by the House, and carried out by the country. Hon. Gentlemen complained that the Bill would entail a great expense on the country. Instead of causing additional expense, it would effect a considerable saving—it would be a measure of economy. It would not merely be a benefit to the poor, but it would also be a saving to the rich. It would diminish the poor-rates, and it would also diminish crime, inasmuch as it would remove many of the causes of crime. The country would repay itself doubly and trebly by the adoption of the measure. In this country it had always been held that the property of individuals was sacred, and the doctrine was right. He would ask the House—not as a matter of compassion, but as one of justice—whether the poor man's property—his health, his strength, his sinews, his power to labour—the poor man's only property—were not to be protected as well as the property of the rich? If they did not protect that property, did they do the poor man justice? The protection of the poor man's health would give him an improved condition and status in society. They would find, on inquiry, that the moral condition of the poor was in exact conformity with their physical condition. If the poor became dirty and degraded in the eyes of themselves and their neighbours, they at the same time became reckless of their character—they became discontented, and flew to intoxication as a brief remedy for the depressing sensations they experienced, and crime too often followed as a natural consequence. He had seen in the narrow alleys and confined courts of large towns, children, who certainly went to school; but all the benefit they might receive there was neutralised and destroyed by the evil habits, by the filth and dirt, they found when they arrived home. But the greatest hardship was not suffered by the man in possession of his power and his strength; he could be almost constantly from his home; the greatest hardship fell upon the wretched women and the children, the widow and the orphan. He trusted that the issue of the enlightened policy now begun would be successful. They would then witness a vast and pleasing change in the habits and condition of the poorer classes. Their comforts would be increased; and with that change intoxication would diminish, and crime would also diminish in an equal proportion.

had not had the good fortune to hear the opening statement of the noble Lord, and could not therefore follow him into details. The noble Lord the Member for Falkirk (Lord Lincoln), in telling them that the measure was a tolerably good measure, did not pay the House a very great compliment; for the noble Lord admitted that if it had been a very good measure, there would be no chance of its being carried. If the noble Lord had formed a just estimate of the House, he was quite sure that the House was no faithful reflection of public opinion. The people of England were straightforward—they liked bold and comprehensive measures. The measure introduced by the noble Lord might be considered very good by some persons; but he begged to tell Her Majesty's Government that it fell far short of public expectation. Instead of being hailed with public approval, it would be met by public disapprobation. The great and comprehensive measure which they had been last Session led to expect had not been brought forward. He had been given to understand that the metropolis was excluded. [Viscount MORPETH: It is reserved for a separate Bill.] Why should it be excluded from this Bill? And when was this separate Bill to come forth? The public had a right to expect that where the greatest nuisances existed, there the remedies should be first applied. And where was that? It was in London, in stinking London, in filthy London, that sanitary measures should begin. The Government left untouched the very centre of the disease, while the spots and blemishes on the more distant parts of the body were to be subjected to a Ministerial dressing. That omission would be viewed with great dissatisfaction. It was all very well when minor grievances were to be remedied: there was no difficulty then; but when a monster evil was to be swept away—for which the Ministers required energy and courage, they were generally found wanting. A comprehensive measure, to include London as well as all the other large towns, was loudly called for; but vested interests stepped in, and the Minister flinched from his duty. The churchyards were crying evils. But if the Minister attempted to interfere with the churchyards, the Church was at him, and he was compelled to give way. Was it not preposterous to talk of giving improved drainage and ventilation—to insure to the public plenty of air—and then to tax their windows? Did they imagine that the common sense of the people would be deceived by such humbug? Depend upon it, a proper construction would be put upon the measure out of doors. To talk of affording more light and air, and to omit the repeal of the window-tax, was ridiculous. The public were to have an addition to their taxes, and the most obnoxious of all taxes was to remain. The measure before the House was a great measure; the present Somerset House Commissioners had a great deal to do with it. The Commissioners had a great desire that the people should have a full supply of pure air; he was quite as anxious that they should have plenty to eat. The Commissioners were of opinion that human life was shortened—that the comfort and happiness of the poor were destroyed by impure air, by want of drainage, and want of water. In short, they believed that the health of the poor man was injuriously affected by everything except a water-gruel diet. They seemed to forget that if they gave the poor man more air, and air of a purer quality, he would want something more to eat. The Bill, however, seemed to meet with general approval in the House. That extraordinary decapitated party on the opposite benches—the great Conservative party—made no signs of opposition. What the country most required now-a-days was a good Opposition—not a decapitated Opposition—not the opposition of a party that were known as land crabs, from progressing backwards. If the decapitated party would bestir themselves, they might have everything their own way. The noble Lord would have no occasion to designate the Bill as a tolerable measure; he might have made it a good measure. But now every measure emanating from the Government was received with gratitude by this generous assembly. As the representative of a large metropolitan constituency, he had a right to complain that they had not come forward in a more manly way. It was monstrous for them to introduce a sanitary measure, and to allow the window tax to remain, What would the large towns say to the measure? They would say, "You dare not meddle with the metropolis; you allow the window-tax to remain, and put additional taxes upon us." He felt grateful to the noble Lord for the exertions he had made in the cause of sanitary reform; but what the country wanted, and what he had hoped for, was, that the noble Lord should stand erect and bid defiance to all interested opposition. He must frankly confess that the noble Lord had not, in his opinion, given them such a measure as the country had a right to expect. He hoped the noble Lord would reconsider the measure—that he would make it more comprehensive; and the noble Lord might rest assured that he would have the people with him. It had long been the character of the Whigs, that when they had succeeded in doing a certain amount of good, and when they had the opportunity and should have done more good, they had uniformly brought discredit on what they had done, by refusing to go forward. The noble Lord had lately had representations made to him by gentlemen of the medical profession, and had signified his full accordance in their views; but yet he had not given them the measure they had a right to expect. The medical profession would not receive with gratitude the measure now before the House. The sanitary question was the question of the day: it was a question intimately connected with the welfare of the people—with their physical condition and moral improvement. It was a question perfectly well understood by the public. He (Mr. Wakley) did not think the noble Lord would receive that public gratitude which he expected, and he would probably deem the people ungrateful; but, considering the monster grievances which were left untouched by the Bill, it would be unreasonable to expect that they should be contented with its provisions. He asked the noble Lord why the metropolis was excluded? It was because the measure was not thought to be agreeable or convenient to the nasty turtle-eating corporation. Why did Her Majesty's Ministers not resist the soup influence? Why should that influence be allowed to prevail against any measure calculated to benefit the com- munity? Why should the corporation resist, as it constantly did resist, the Government whenever they were disposed to do something for the public good? Then, with regard to the important question of intramural interments. The noble Lord was perfectly aware of the poisonous effluvia arising from the metropolitan graveyards—he was equally well aware of its dangerous effects; but he could not encounter the opposition of the Church. The clergy had a vested interest in the churchyards, and it was not convenient for Government to interfere. Did the noble Lord believe—would the House believe—that the masculine mind of the people of England would be content with a measure of this kind—a measure which did a little, and then shirked the remainder? The public would be dissatisfied, and they had a right to be dissatisfied. The people in the towns would, more particularly, be dissatisfied with a measure which fastened on them a new burden for sanitary improvements, while it did not relieve them from the burden of the window-tax. He would again ask the noble Lord to reconsider the measure. Let his Lordship include the whole of the kingdom in one Bill. Let him not be content with remedying the minor grievances, but at once strike at the root of the mischief. He would bring to the mind of the noble Lord what was now going on in the metropolis. The noble Lord had lately received a deputation from Islington, in the centre of which densely populated district it was proposed to erect a fever hospital. Did the noble Lord propose to take powers in the Bill to prevent the establishment of such a nuisance? Who was one of the principal promoters of this fever hospital? No less a personage than Dr. South wood Smith, one of the Health of Towns Commissioners. The noble Lord did not propose to take powers to prevent this nuisance: he proposed nothing of the kind. The noble Lord told the House that he was afraid the accumulation of filth in the metropolis and large towns would create typhus, and that the typhus might become general; but here it was proposed to introduce the evil, in its worst form, in the very heart of Islington. The noble Lord knew that the ground had been purchased, and that the building of this fever hospital was about to be commenced; yet, with that knowledge, the noble Lord took no power in the Bill to prevent such an infliction. What an inefficient, miserable measure it must be! No such a thing could by possibility happen in Paris. There they had a public body always sitting, receiving deputations, and collecting information on the state of public health. Sub-committees were appointed to superintend separate districts. Those sub-committees reported to the Committee of Public Health, and that Committee, in its turn, reported to the Minister. If any erection was deemed injurious to public health, it was at once prevented. What would be the feelings of the people of Islington with regard to the measure of the noble Lord? When they found that it offered no remedy to them, they would be disappointed and indignant. He did entreat the noble Lord to extend the scope of the Bill, to rely upon the good sense and proper feeling of the people. If he were just to them, they would be just to him, and give him the best support he could desire.

begged, as a member of the corporation of the city of London, and as a commissioner of sewers, to make a short statement on some of the topics adverted to by the hon. Member for Finsbury. That hon. Gentleman had spoken of the corporation of the city of London as a nasty and turtle-eating body. Now there might be some difference of opinion as to the applicability of the word nasty, but there could be none as to the turtle. The hon. Member, however, could not be aware of the extent to which the corporation had effected sanitary reform, otherwise he would not have spoken as he had. He believed that the city corporation were the first metropolitan body who attempted to grapple with the sanitary question. He believed that every main street, and almost every court and by-street, had been sewered at enormous cost; and it was only bare justice to the commissioners of sewers, who represented the corporation, to say that they were most solicitous to avail themselves of every known improvement; and his belief was that the city of London would not be found to interpose obstacles when the Government attempted to deal with the entire metropolis. The corporation knew that the city formed an integral portion of the metropolis; it knew that the sewers already laid down would require to be adjusted so as to suit the metropolitan sewers; but at the proper time it would be seen that the corporation would throw no obstacles in the way of a comprehensive measure. He might also speak of a part of the city with which he was connected, the ward of Billingsgate. The hon. Member for Lincoln (Col. Sibthorp) had spoken of the districts of St. Giles and Billingsgate in no very complimentary terms. He (Mr. Alderman Sidney) was prepared to testify to the healthy position of Billingsgate. He had the pleasure lately of dining with a party of thirty gentlemen who lived in that ward; and of these twenty laid claim to having lived upwards of fifty years in the locality. He had also to state that the constituency of Stafford, whom he had the honour of representing in that House, had requested him to give his hearty support to any general measure of sanitary reform. He had assured them that he should do so, provided the Government consented to allow the ratepayers in towns and boroughs to control the details. He understood that the present measure provided for some general supervision on the part of a Government board, but that the ratepayers should have a control in the management; and such being the case, he should give the measure a hearty support. It was a question in which his constituents were deeply interested; for he regretted to say that the statistics of mortality showed the number of deaths to be one in thirty three in Stafford, while in some other places the mortality was not more than one in sixty-six. He sincerely hoped that the attention of the Government would be directed to the prohibition of intramural interments, to the abolition of the window duties, to the removal of markets from crowded thoroughfares, and other points bearing more or less on the promotion of the public health.

said, that the public had already had a specimen of what legislative interference would be in the proceedings of the Metropolitan Sewers Commission. The commissioners, at their first meeting, ordered that a block-plan of the metropolis should be prepared, and they calculated that the survey and plan would cost 61,000l. It would cost more than five times that sum. If the system pursued in the metropolis were carried out in the country, the measure would be enormously expensive. In his opinion there existed no necessity for a block-plan, inasmuch as the 6th and 7th William 4, c. 96, provided that all towns should be surveyed for the purpose of assessing the poor's rate; and all the suburban districts had been surveyed under the Tithe Commutation Bill. He hoped some means would be taken to establish a system of medical police—he considered that to be a most important point.

begged to ask the noble Lord whether it were intended to bring in a similar Bill for Ireland?

said, that as soon as the present measure could be matured, he hoped that the Secretary for Ireland would be able to supply a similar measure for Ireland.

begged to ask the noble Lord when the separate Bill for the metropolis would be brought in?

A Bill for extending and consolidating the Commission of Sewers will be introduced immediately; and the Sanitary Bill for the metropolis will be brought forward as soon as the Sanitary Commissioners make such representations as the Government can properly act upon; which will be, I hope, in the course of a few days.

approved of the measure so far as it went; but expressed his sorrow and deep regret that its provisions were not to be made applicable to all parts of the kingdom. He could not see why its provisions should not be extended to Ireland and Scotland. He looked upon this omission as a most serious error. He conceded to the Government every credit for their good intentions regarding the sister country, and he was far from thinking them amendable to the charge which had frequently been brought against preceding Administrations, that when they had a good measure to give they tried it first upon England, and that when they had a bad measure to dispose of they made the first experiment in Ireland. He said he was not disposed to agree with those who brought such charges against the Government. But still he could not help again expressing his regret that they were not about to give this good measure a trial in Ireland. It was not pretended that Ireland was less in need of sanitary improvement than this country. In point of fact, if there was one part of the United Kingdom more than another which especially stood in need of a new sanitary system, it was Ireland; and if there was one place more than another in Ireland requiring a thorough cleansing it was Dublin. He would read some portions of the evidence taken before Mr. Abraham Heywood, of Dublin, the Queen's Counsel, a gentleman well known to many hon. Members in the House. Mr. Heywood had been appointed to inquire into the merits of a Bill introduced some time since, and intended for the benefit of the city of Dublin, and in the course of his inquiry he elicited a large amount of information regarding the sewerage, drainage, paving, &c, of the city, to which he (Mr. Reynolds) begged to call the attention of the noble Lord. [The hon. Gentleman read extracts from the report, and also from the evidence of Mr. Willis, showing the defective condition of the sewerage, some of the most important squares, and many streets in the city, being wholly destitute of sewers; and in many others the sewerage was so extremely defective as to be almost useless. The consequences were, the contraction of habits of the utmost carelessness and filth by the lower orders of the people, the increase of fever, the establishment of malaria, and the nursing of hosts of diseases of various de scriptions in the crowded dirty back streets and by-lanes.] He would only, after having read these extracts, express a hope that the noble Lord would take into his consideration the propriety of extending the provisions of the Bill to all parts of the kingdom. He was not going to allude to that colossus of the kingdom, the giant corporation of the city of London, nor to the part adopted by that colossus towards the noble Lord's measure. But he had to allude to the giant's sister, the corporation of Dublin. Standing as he did as sponsor for that body, he begged to assure the noble Lord that nothing would give them greater satisfaction than the introduction of the provisions of the Bill into their city; and he trusted that the question of their extension to them would be taken into consideration by Her Majesty's Cabinet. The question, too, ought to be considered in connexion with that most obnoxious impost the window tax; for he believed no measure for the improvement of the sanitary condition of the people would give general satisfaction unless it were accompanied by the abolition of a tax on light and air.

said, that having paid much attention to the subject of sanitary improvement, the House would; excuse him for making a few remarks on statements which had fallen from some previous speakers. He intended to have followed the hon. Member for Finsbury; but he rejoiced that he had not done so, as it had afforded an opportunity to a member of the corporation which had been so hardly spoken of, to vindicate its procedure and intentions. As the hon. Member for Fins bury did not hear the statement of his noble Friend, it might be inferred that he did not thoroughly understand the question in its details, or at least that he had learnt them at second-hand. The hon. Gentleman was wrong in his calculation with regard to Paris. A city with hardly any sewers, where cesspools universally prevailed, could hardly be considered as a model for adoption. Imperfect in many respects as London was in sanitary appliances, it must be allowed that Paris was a great deal worse. The hon. Member for Finsbury also complained of the proposal to erect a fever hospital in a crowded parish. He thought that a gentleman connected with the medical profession would have appreciated the difficulties which beset such a question, looking at the feeling which ought to be shown for the patients. When the enormous extent of the metropolis was considered, the miles upon miles of buildings on every side which existed, it must be considered that it was no light thing for a fever patient to be conveyed and jolted through crowded thoroughfares till he arrived at some hospital built on a spot which had not yet been surrounded with buildings. A moment's consideration should convince the hon. Member that the question could not be disposed of in the off-hand and easy way he seemed to suppose. With regard to the expense of the survey referred to by the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Wyld), he (Lord Ebrington) believed that, from the best estimate, the expense would be 27,000l, exclusive of the cost of engraving. The noble Lord, in conclusion, congratulated the House on the unanimity with which the proposed measure of his noble Friend had been received.

approved of the Bill, and thought the noble Lord had exercised a wise discretion in excluding the metropolis from its operations, and trusted he would make it the subject of separate legislation.

expressed his approbation of the Bill.

replied. He begged to express the gratitude which he felt towards hon. Members for the manner in which they had received the statement he had had the honour to make; and he hoped he might look upon it as ominous of future success. The only comment with which he was at all disposed to quarrel had been made by the only hon. Member who had not heard the statement. He was glad to see the hon. Member (Mr. Wakley) again in his place, in full health—certainly in full vigour; but if he had heard the explanation of the provisions and intentions of the Bill, he would have spared some of those remarks in which he had indulged. He (Viscount Morpeth) would not repeat what he had already stated respecting the metropolis. He looked upon it as most desirable that they should apply to the metropolis the same principles of legislation which were deemed correct as applied to all other parts of the country. There was no intention to make any exception; but there were certain particulars and details in the case of London which rendered it absolutely necessary that there should be separate legislation. He was strongly of opinion, seeing all that was now being done there, that the metropolis would in time take the lead in sanitary progress, and present a perfect model to the rest of the country. With regard to the suggestion of establishing fever hospitals in the outlets, it would receive the most serious attention from the Government; but the transference of fever patients would be certainly attended with serious difficulty. But it would hardly have been wise in the Government to have attempted to introduce into that measure such arrangements as would have opened up the large and extensive question of the establishment of cemeteries—a subject that required great deliberation and caution. The Bill, however, was comprehensive enough in this respect; not only, as he had stated, would it be in the power of the Central Board to prohibit the use of any burial-ground which was shown to be obnoxious to the public health, but it would also be enacted—and this he had omitted to state—that in future, after the passing of this Act no corpse or corpses should be buried in any new burial-ground which had not obtained express license. Powers would also be taken for purchasing or hiring premises for the reception of the dead, previous to their interment, the want of which accommodation had been the source, he believed, of much distress, many harassing scenes, and many injurious influences among the poor. The Government would not shrink from their duty on all these subjects; but hon. Members must remember that they were subject to the usual law in human affairs; they could not do everything at once, and if they attempted such an impossibility the result would assuredly be that they would do nothing at all.

asked leave to bring in a Bill to amend the procedure in respect of orders for the removal of the Poor in England and Wales, and appeals there from. He said that the present system required alteration, in consequence of the appeals that were made by the removing parish on the one side, and the parish to which the poor were removed on the other, each of which declared to the other the grounds upon which they proceeded. The clause which enacted that provision was originally a good one, and well intended. But many legal questions had subsequently been raised upon it; and the consequence at length was, that questions respecting removals of the poor were now never tried upon their real merits, but upon mere legal technicalities. Such had been the state of things for the last ten or twelve years. It proceeded from there not being in the original Poor Law Act a provision relating to the grounds of removal, and providing for the appeal. The object of the Bill which he (Mr. Baines) now sought leave to introduce, was to do away with the consideration of mere technicalities, and to cause the questions of appeal to be tried solely upon their real merits. The order of removal itself might also be amended in certain points so as to meet the justice of each case. Another point in his Bill was this—that it would vest a sufficient power in the sessions to decide on the ground of appeal. That power would be vested absolutely in the magistrates, so as to prevent the parishes from being harassed by the expenses to which they had heretofore been subjected, and the magistrates from having mandamuses applied for to the superior courts of law, to be issued to them. One other point in the Bill would be the giving a power of obtaining the order of removal at any time.

hoped that the Bill would have the success which his hon. Friend expected from it in preventing litigation. But he feared it would not. He felt by no means sure that new subjects of litigation would not arise out of a new Act, however carefully prepared.

I rise to bring under the notice of the House the report of the Select Committee appointed in the year 1847 to take into consideration the present state of our commercial relations with China; and I hope, Sir, not with standing the lateness of the hour, that the House will allow me to bring forward the Motion of which I have given notice for this evening. And, in doing so, I must say that I regret it cannot be introduced to the House by my noble Friend (Lord Sandon), who, in the last Session of Parliament, presided over the inquiry, and who prepared this able report. I have also to apologise to the other Members of the Select Committee for taking or appearing to take the subject out of their hands. But, considering the early period of the Session at which the financial statement, as has been announced by the noble Lord opposite, will be made, and finding that no notice upon this subject has as yet been given, I thought it was one which should not be allowed to slumber, and that there should not be a consideration of the financial prospects of the year without any reference whatever being made to the evidence and report I hold in my hands. To the importance of the subject it cannot be necessary for me to call attention. It cannot be necessary for me to call the attention of the House to the expectations that were entertained with respect to the prospects that were to be opened to our traders and manufacturers by the establishment of free intercourse with the great empire of the East, for the House is fully conscious of the necessity of finding continually fresh and increasing outlets for the productions of our great manufacturing powers. And we are also, too, conscious that it will be necessary, if our large manufacturing population are to be kept in a condition of employment and increasing comfort at home, that we must go beyond the limits of Europe, and the supply of the demands of civilised nations, and seek still further outlets for British manufactures. In some respects the trade with China did appear to bear out the expectations that; had been formed of it. The export trade which, in the year 1827, amounted to 610,000l., had in 1843 grown to nearly 1,500,000l., and in 1845 it amounted to 2,394,000l. But this was not all that we were encouraged to expect from the opening of the trade with China. When fifteen years ago the trade with the eastern empire was opened to general competition, we were told that the population of an empire like China, represented generally as amounting to 300,000,000—a population comprising a very large portion of the entire population of the globe—a people not by any means deficient in civilisation, and, though existing under such different circumstances from ours with regard both to production and consumption, abounding in industry and the spirit of commerce—and with such a people we promised ourselves that our export trade would have greatly exceeded 2,400,000l. before this time. We have not, however, been in that respect gratified; but such as the trade with China has been, a very large portion of it has fallen to this country; and it is important to our domestic interests that we should, so far as we possibly can, encourage and increase it. Let us take the returns of 1845. They show that, of 20,000,000 of dollars value of ordinary trade, no less than 16,000,000 were imported into China in British ships, and 3,000,000 in American ships, leaving not 1,500,000 dollars worth of imports for the ships of all the rest of the world. There is, besides, another large branch of trade not included in these returns—I mean the trade in opium—the larger proportion of which belongs to the dependencies of this country, and which amounts in addition to 23,000,000 dollars. So that out of imports to the amount of 43,000,000 of dollars, little more than 4,000,000 belong to other countries. Now, Sir, this is not a trade that can be disregarded by those who have any interest in the commerce of this country. But this trade, as the House will observe, sustained about the year 1843 a most remarkable increase; for while our exports to China had never before exceeded about 1,000,000l., they suddenly rose at that period to a million and a half, and from that to two millions. Sir, I am sorry to say that we found in this Committee, as stated in the first page of the report, that that increase of trade has been attended with no corresponding benefit to England—that the great increase of trade which has taken place has been attained by carrying on trade at a loss, which may be stated on the whole to amount to from 35 to 40 per cent. Now, notwithstanding this loss, the increased trade has now gone on for three or four years. This circumstance, I believe, may be thus explained: The trade was at first in the hands of British merchants, who, when it ceased to be remunerative, discontinued it. But it was then taken up by the manufacturers, anxious to find a market for the increasing produce of their manufactories. It turned out unsuccessful in the hands of the manufacturers; and it was then taken up by the natives in China, with the view of finding a market for their teas. It was also un-remunerative to them; and the consequence naturally to be expected was the diminution of the trade, until it reached that point when it would be profitable to the merchant. The result was such as necessarily follows, for unless trade can progress profitably it must necessarily contract, and after being carried on an extensive scale it will invariably go down again until it reaches a limit at which it can be a remunerative trade. But why have we found the trade with China to be an un-remunerative trade? What are the returns that China has as yet made for the commodities which she has received? These returns comprise three principal articles. They are—silver, of which about 2,000,000l. is annually exported; silk, which to the value of l,500,000l. is annually exported; but, after you have done all you can in the way of returns by silver and silk, you come to what must always be from China the great article of export—I mean, of course, the article of tea, of which about 6,000,000l. worth is annually exported. In a despatch from the British Consul at Canton, dated the 15th February, 1847, I find these words:—

"Assuming that the American and the trade of other foreign nations leaves an excess of exports over imports of about a million sterling, the approximate balance of trade against China would be nearly two millions, constituting the sum annually drawn from this country in specie to pay for opium. How long the Chinese will be able to sustain this continual drain of the precious metals is impossible to determine; but the fact being now well established that the export of tea to England cannot be increased under the present system of duties, it is not difficult to foresee that unless a new opening be found for a larger consumption of China exports in our markets, a gradual reduction must take place either in the quantity or in the prices of our imports in China until they come to a proper level. On the other hand it is beyond calculation to what extent the Chinese would purchase our woollens and cottons, were we enabled to take their produce in return, especially after having obtained the legalisation of the opium trade."

He further states, that in this he is borne out by Sir John Davis, by whom his words are quoted:—

"It must be borne in mind that the import trade is regulated by, and depends wholly on, the export trade, and that therefore only an increase of exports can cause a corresponding increase in imports. The China trade being essentially a direct barter trade, it is obvious that unless means can be found to take from the Chinese a larger amount of their principal export, tea, there seems to be but a limited prospect of deriving for the British manufacturing interests all those advantages which the new position which we hold in this country consequent upon the late war might lead them to expect."

Now, why is it that we have been unable to take a larger quantity of tea? The House will not be unprepared for the discovery of the Committee on this matter, that it is the rate of duty which we have been obliged to levy on tea which has retarded the export trade from China to Great Britain. The import duty on tea in this country may be taken as averaging upwards of 200 per cent on the export cost of the article. An instance was lately brought under my notice of a quantity of tea of a very inferior kind purchased in Liverpool, and which I believe ultimately went for the supply of a poorhouse in Cork, on which the duty paid was 1,000 per cent on the price of the tea. But it is not merely the amount of duty levied, but the fact that the levying of a high rate of duty requires a greater amount of profit on the capital employed, which presses injuriously on the trade. It has been stated by competent authorities that a duty of 2s. 2d. a pound to the revenue, is equivalent to 2s. 9d. a pound to the consumer. So that, independent of the duty, the ordinary profit on the amount paid in the shape of duty, is, in the instance of the inferior article, actually double the value of the tea. As I before said, we do enjoy in the Chinese market a larger proportion of the trade than any other nation; but observe who are our closest competitors in the trade—the people of the United States. Now, in the colder parts of China, the articles of manufacture most in request are the coarser kinds of cloths, in which articles the Americans have the greatest advantage in competing with us. There is, I believe, no duty upon the importation of tea into the United States; and I ask the House to observe the disadvantageous position in which the manufacturers of this country are consequently placed in competing with American manufacturers in the Chinese market. England imposes a duty upon tea varying from 200 per cent, up to 1,000 per cent, in exceptional cases, upon the value of the article; while the only rivals we have in that particular branch of manufacture impose no duty at all. I hold in my hand a commercial cir- cular, dated the 31st December, 1847, from the house of Hollinshead and Tetley, of Liverpool. They state, that in 1837–8 the exports of cotton from the United States to Great Britain were 1,165,000 bales, while in 1846–7 the exports were 830,000 bales, and that in the same time the quantity consumed in the United States rose from 246,000 bales in 1837–8, to 427,000 bales in 1846–7. The circular further states—

"This year will be memorable in the annals of the cotton trade—it has been disastrous to all interests concerned in it. The decrease in the consumption has been without parallel; and as the case is wholly different in France and in America, the contrast affords matter for serious reflection."

Now, I call attention to this circumstance for the purpose of showing that it is not unimportant to watch with vigilance in this important market of China the degree in which we may be able to supply the market by our exports. But we find that there is one very serious obstacle to any alteration in the duty on tea, and that obstacle is expressed in the sentence of the report:—

"The revenue derived from tea in the last year amounted to 5,110,897l., and although this amount of revenue cannot be permanently relied on, being founded on a consumption which has been carried to that extent by prices not remunerating to the importers, and which are therefore not likely to be continued, yet it is no doubt so important an element in the income of the country, that under present circumstances it cannot be lightly dealt with."

Now, I am as much alive as anybody can be to the importance of revenue considerations; but we also found on inquiry that it was by no means certainly to be concluded that five millions of revenue would, under the existing duty, continue to be received from tea. We find, as I have already stated, that since 1843 the tea trade has been a losing and not a remunerating trade. But I find that in 1842 the revenue received from tea barely exceeded four millions, and that in 1843 it did not equal four millions and a half. I have not seen the official returns for 1847; but I have some reason to believe that in that year the revenue from tea will barely have amounted, if indeed it has amounted, to quite five millions, it having in 1846 been 5,110,000l. But, as I before remarked, our trade with China was considerably diminished since 1843, for I find that while the exports of cotton cloths in the year 1844 to China were l,464,000l., and in 1845 1,543,000l., being on the average of the two years one million and a half, the exports of the same description of goods in 1846 had fallen to 940,000l. and in 1847 to 888,000l.; and I am afraid that we can scarcely venture to hope that there is a better prospect for the year 1848. In proof of this, I may allude to a return which I received this morning from a gentleman who is well known in this House, and who was Member in the late Parliament for Sandwich. He states that whereas in January, 1845, the exports amounted to 91,000l.; in 1846, they were 78,000l.; in 1847, they were 117,000l.; in 1848, they were 304l. I find also that with regard to the shipment from Liverpool to China, the amount of exports for 1845 were 112,372,565 yards; in 1846, this had gone down to 76,035,749; and in 1847, to 56,789,486, or just one-half of what they had been two years before. But if this be the case, it must of necessity follow that the exports which are to insure these imports into China, must diminish also, which of course must lead to a corresponding diminution of revenue; and, therefore, while we reported that so important an element in the revenue of the country could not be lightly dealt with, we also found that there was the strongest reason to believe that under the existing state of the law that amount of revenue cannot be permanently maintained. We found it necessary to consider what the effect on the revenue would be of any change in the rate of duty. Some important statistics were brought before us to show, in regard to the past year, what the effect of a change in the rate of duty would be upon the revenue. They will be found at page 443 of the report. From the table there given it appears that in 1782 the duty was 66 per cent, and the quantity of pounds consumed 6,202,257. In 1784 the duty was 12l. 10s. per cent only, and the quantity of tea consumed rose to 10,150,700 lbs. That rate of duty continued down to 1795, when the consumption had risen to upwards of 21,000,000 lbs., the total increase in the twelve years being 350 per cent, of which, in the two first years, the increase was no less than 113 per cent. I quote this for the purpose of showing that we have some reason to believe that by a judicious change in the rate of duty some increase in the consumption of tea, and, therefore, of increase to the revenue, might be secured. I find in the evidence brought before' this Committee, with regard to the quantity of tea con- sumed, that in families where expense is not an object, the consumption of tea may be taken at from 12 lbs. to 13 lbs. per head; in workhouses the average consumption amounts to 3¼ lbs. per head; for emigrants the amount is 4 lbs. 3 oz. per head; in the Navy it is 5 lbs. 4oz., besides cocoa and other articles; in the Channel Islands the consumption averages 4 lbs. 4oz. per head; in Australia there is reason to believe that the consumption is rising to 8 lbs. or 9 lbs. per head; while in the United Kingdom we find that the average consumption is not more than 1 lb. 10oz. per head, or somewhere about half the consumption allowed in workhouses. I think it cannot be contended, after these returns, that there is not a capability of increasing the demand for tea among our own population at home, provided you can bring it within the limits of their expenses, when we find that in the Australian colonies, where there is no duty on tea, the average consumption is 8 lbs. or 9 lbs. per head, while in the United Kingdom it is but 1 lb. 10 oz. per head, or only half the quantity allowed to the poor in our workhouses. Some calculations were made and presented to the Committee, showing what the effect on the revenue would be of an increased consumption of tea under a lower duty. Those who desired to see a reduction of duty wished that it should be reduced from 2s. 4¼. to 1s. per lb., and they calculated the probable effects of a reduction to that amount. Supposing that the same quantity of tea were consumed as at present, the revenue at the 1s. duty would be 2,300,000l. If the same sum of money continued to be expended on tea as at present—and that I think of all the calculations is the most reasonable, for no one will, I think, be found to say that that is a rash mode of framing the calculation—there would be an additional consumption of 24,000,000 lbs., and an increase of 1,200,000l. to the 2,300,000l., giving in the whole a revenue of 3,500,000l. as received from tea in the first year of the reduction. But into this account is also to be taken the average quantity of sugar which would be consumed for that extra consumption of tea, according to the proportion now used; and if you take 32,000 hogsheads of sugar as the additional quantity required for the 24,000,000 pounds of tea, you will, taking the lowest rate of duty, have an additional revenue from sugar of 455,000l., leaving a total of 3,962,000l. on which you may count under your exist- ing trade with China. On referring to the returns for 1842, you will find that this calculation exhibits about the same amount of revenue as was received in that year from tea, and that, it should be borne in mind, was the last year in which we had a remunerative trade with that country. What guarantee have you, I would ask, that you will be able to maintain your amount of revenue from this source beyond the amount at which it stood when you had a remunerative trade? Another calculation which was brought before us, but which I will not take as the basis of my computation, as the result would be more sanguine than I am disposed to give, was this. It was stated in evidence that in the year 1844 a change took place in the mode of levying the duty on tea in the Isle of Man. As the mode of levying the duty in that island was of a very complicated nature, I will not enter into any details with regard to it; but the practical effect was to diminish the cost of tea to the consumer by 1s. 6d. in the pound. The consequence was, that while in 1844 the consumption of the island was 75,000 lbs., it increased in 1846 to 133,000 lbs., or very nearly double. Now, though I admit that it would be exceedingly rash in the Committee to have made that the basis of a computation for the whole of the United Kingdom—and I, for one, would be no party to such a proceeding—still I think that, as I am laying before the House a calculation based on principles of caution, I should not act right in closing the case without calling your attention also to this, the most recent instance which we have had, of the effect of a reduction in duty on that article. But then you may ask where are the resources to come from to purchase these 24,000,000 lbs. additional of tea, and the additional sugar which was to be used at the same time to make up the amount to the revenue? The reply is obvious. The money now spent in tea alone would, as I have said, if the duty were reduced to Is., provide for the purchase of the additional quantity of tea; but if we imported 24,000,000 lbs. additional of tea, we should have a largely increased export trade to China; and the value of these exports would go to a great extent in wages to the operative classes, and would give a great increase to the means of the labouring population for the purchase of both tea and sugar. And if you thus stimulated industry, and added to the exports and imports of the country, and to the interests of your artisans and of your shipping, you would of course; stimulate the demand for other articles, not only among the necessaries but the comforts of life, and you would thus also tend to increase the receipts of the Exchequer. By that means the Exchequer, sympathising with the community, would be benefited, and the increase thus obtained, ought not to be left altogether out of consideration. But we are told by some of the witnesses that the supply of tea from China might be expected to fall short, and that therefore an increased demand from England might have the effect of raising the price in China, and the public here would not get the full benefit of the reduction. On that point we took great pains to examine witnesses at great length; and if any hon. Gentleman will turn to the index to the report under the head, "Supply of tea," he will find that we had the advantage of men of the highest experience and judgment on the subject. Among them were Mr. Fortune, a gentleman who resided for some time in China, where he was engaged in inquiries of a botanical character. We had also the advantage of examining an hon. Member of this House, who has been most intimately acquainted with the Chinese trade. The hon. Member for the borough of Ashburton (Mr. Matheson), and also my hon. Friend the Member for South Lancashire (Mr. Brown), whose knowledge of trade on this as well as on all other matters is most valuable, together with the hon. Member for Dartmouth (Mr. Moffatt), and many other eminent men of the greatest experience and knowledge on the subject. The uniform result of their evidence is, that there is not the slightest fear that any additional demand we could make on China for tea would occasion anything like a scarcity or an increase in the price of the article in that country. On the contrary, it was stated that the enormous population of that country were far greater consumers of tea than we could ever hope to become in this country—that the greater portion of the 300,000,000 of inhabitants in China were in the habit of making constant use of that beverage—and that the small increase in our demand would be felt as nothing in their market. We were also told that an increased demand for tea in China has always had the effect of producing an increased production; and that whatever failure might result in our calculation, it certainly could not arise from any dearness in China caused by an increased consump- tion in this country. In China the land used for the growth of tea is most abundant, and there is every facility for the cultivation of that article, so that with any degree of increased demand there will be an increased supply. There is one article on which I acknowledge we may produce a deficiency of revenue to the Exchequer; but about this article very little was said in the Committee. My hon. Friend the Secretary of the Treasury gave us the advantage of his presence; and he very naturally directed his attention to questions of revenue. But he said very little about the diminution we were likely to occasion in the duties raised upon spirits. I was not at all astonished at the discretion and good sense exhibited in that particular by my hon. Friend. In the course of the last Session he moved for a return in connexion with this very subject, from which it appeared, that in 1841, the population being 26,700,000, they consumed no less than 24,000,000 gallons of spirits; whilst in 1845 the consumption was raised to 26,672,000 gallons; and he showed us the extent to which the population of Scotland, in many respects so very commendable for the qualities of industry, sagacity, and thrift, had, in this particular article of spirits, contributed to this result. In 1841, the population of Scotland being 2,628,957 persons, the quantity of spirits entered for consumption was 6,078,719 gallons; and in 1845 that quantity had risen to 6,525,489 gallons. I do not know to what extent the duties in Scotland may have affected that calculation; but I know, that for the whole United Kingdom, with a population of 26,700,000, the consumption of gallons of spirits was upwards of 24,000,000. All I can say is, that having (as becomes me) most special regard to Her Majesty's Exchequer, if there be one source of revenue I should see decline with unfeigned satisfaction, it is that which flows from the duty upon ardent spirits; and I should be exceedingly well pleased if the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have it in contemplation to make a reduction in the tea duties this Session of Parliament, to find he had calculated upon a falling-off in the duty of spirits. And however sorry I should be to hear the statement with regard to any other article, so far as the revenue is concerned, I can only say I would cheerfully go with him into Committee of Ways and Means, in order to enable him to supply the deficiency by a duty upon almost anything else to compensate him for the loss he had sustained upon the diminished consumption of spirits. Having so considered the question of revenue, let me now ask you, are you satisfied with the exhibition of the trade between Great Britain and China? You see a very large population of China—a large proportion of the whole population of the globe—having many of the things you want, and wanting everything you have. The population of China is 300,000,000; yet your exports to them have never risen, except when the trade has been unprosperous to us, beyond the value of 2,000,000l. 2,000,000l., the value of our exports to 300,000,000 of people Why was that? Was it from any want of sagacity on the part of the Chinese? They are proverbial for it. Is there any ignorance on their part of commercial principles? They are alike distinguished for industry, and for a desire to promote their commercial interests; they are exceedingly keen dealers, and exceedingly fond of money. Is it then that the Chinaman, having strained notions of his own civilisation, and a peculiar contempt for the foreign barbarian, has raised up some obstacle to intercourse which your practised ingenuity has not enabled you to pass? There was a day when apprehensions of that kind were seriously entertained. We used to be told fifteen years ago their prejudices were insurmountable. In 1844, the treaty was concluded with China, which allows your imports to enter at very moderate duties; and you can now export your manufactures to China at duties varying from five to ten per cent. But there is one obstacle, and it exists not with the uncivilised, but with the civilised, not with the barbarian, but with the refined people. I have shown you, by the most unanswerable arguments, by the testimony of your own Consuls, vouched for by your own Governor, that there is but one limit to your trade with China, and that is the amount to which you take their exports. I have shown you, by irrefragable testimony, which has been given before the Committee, that there is but one appreciable limit to the consumption of tea, and that is the duty which the wants of your revenue have compelled you to put upon it. Now, although the Chinese are called by us an uncivilised people, they have sagacity to learn, and I much fear you have been teaching them the lessons of civilised people, which they will put into use to your injury. On reading the accounts received from China we have too much reason to believe they are becoming apt proficients in the arts of reciprocity; and although you have bound them by a treaty from charging upon your imports at the port of import a higher duty than I have specified, I believe it is the Chinese exporter who, as I showed you, has been the last link in that chain by which the losses of our over-exportation was sustained, who has been the means of communication between your tariff and his Government. I believe if they cannot lay on duties at the port of import, there are inland and transit duties which may be the means of making your imports available to their revenue; and I doubt, if this state of things continue long, whether you will not find that, although prohibition has begun with the civilised, and not with the uncivilised people, that the uncivilised have been apt scholars in your school. You will have a hostile tariff upon the other side, and there will then exist in China, what does not exist yet, a hostile legislation upon a subject which your provisions in this House of Parliament will have no power to alter. I have endeavoured to compress my observations into the smallest possible compass. It is not for me to divine what may be in the breast of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. Of those parts of the case which are known to the public, of course I cannot be ignorant; but, as I said before, we should be wanting exceedingly in our duty if we, the Members of the Committee, permitted the able report of my noble Friend (Lord Sandon), and this large mass of testimony, to slumber upon the table. I do not think the House ought to wait for the financial statement before discussing this important subject. It is not for me, however, to anticipate what the right hon. Gentleman may have to offer. In former years we have seen a deficiency of revenue made the occasion for relieving the springs of industry. If the right hon. Gentleman have any schemes of that kind to expound to the House, I am sure he will be thankful to me for having been a useful pioneer, and for having, by a mere statement of the facts mentioned in this report, laid the matter before the House. If the necessities of the case shall prevent his holding out that expectation, I shall have the satisfaction of feeling that we who were connected with this inquiry, have, so far as time and circumstances and ability enabled us, with brevity, but as clearly as we could, laid the case before the country and the House; and I think we shall approach the financial statement with a great degree of information, without which we should not have been able to judge of it. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving—

"That there be laid before this House, Copies or Extracts of any Documents relative to the state of our Commercial Relations with China, which may have been received from the Governor or fro many of Her Majesty's Consuls in that country since the 1st day of July, 1847."

seconded the Motion, and said that for many years he had taken a deep interest in this question, connected as it was with the vital interests of our commerce and manufactures. For a considerable time he had thought the period had arrived when an enlarged view should be taken of our general system of taxation; and on the questions of the tea, tobacco, and wine duties, he conceived it became a Minister who took a comprehensive view of the interests of the country to consider how far he could reduce our high customs duties, in order to encourage the importation of such articles in exchange for our manufactures; and how far the excise duties could be reduced to encourage our industry at home. Among the mercantile and manufacturing communities great anxiety was felt with regard to the changes about to be proposed; as a general supporter of a liberal Government, he looked, therefore, with considerable interest to the policy which was about to be pursued. He had been a Member of the Committee on our relations with China. He entirely concurred in the views of the hon. Member (Mr. Cardwell). To his able speech there was little to add. But there was one point on which he (Mr. Ewart) wished to dwell. It was the severe manner in which the tea duties pressed upon the poor of this country. Whilst we taxed the rich man's tea but 100 per cent, the duty on the poor man's tea was 300 per cent, and on some sorts 350 per cent. This was not the view taken by Mr. Pitt in 1796, when he altered the tea duties. In a speech which he made on that occasion, he said—

"It was his intention that the tea duty should in no degree be allowed to bear hard on the poorer classes of the community. He, therefore, meant to exempt from this tax the whole of the coarser sorts of tea which was the beverage of the poorer classes."

Besides which, by means of an ad valorem duty, levied through the instrumentality of the East India Company, he made the duty upon tea proportionate to its sale price. The next point to which he (Mr. Ewart) desired to allude was, the effect of the reduction of the duties upon coffee and cocoa, as compared with the effect of the non-reduction of the duty on tea. Within a few years the duty upon coffee had been reduced from 9d. to 4d. per lb.; and on cocoa, from 1s. to 2d.; the effect of this reduction had been, that the consumption of coffee had increased 500 per cent, and that of cocoa 1,000 per cent. On the consumption of tea, however, the increase had only been 130 per cent. Our consumption in this country was only between 1 lb. and 2 lb. per head, while it was 2 lb. in the Isle of Man, 4 lb. in Jersey and Guernsey, and in Australia 9 lb. Lastly, he asked, why should we allow this trifling barrier of a customs duty to obstruct the enormous intercourse of two great nations? On the one hand, there was Great Britain, able to consume an immense amount of tea, and China, perfectly able to produce that amount; on the other hand, there was that same China, capable of consuming an almost unlimited amount of our manufactures; yet by this fiscal embargo of a high duty the extension of commerce was forbidden, and changes were refused which would have been fraught with benefit to the poor. He (Mr. Ewart) repeated that duties such as this on tea should be very seriously considered by the Government, and that a comprehensive review should be taken of the excise duties also. Since 1830, when the late Mr. Poulett Thompson brought the whole subject of taxation under the consideration of the House, the excise duties had been seldom mentioned; but the time was now come when the propriety of their revision must be considered. He was ready to support additional taxation upon accumulated property if it were necessary; he would not say the same as to the income-tax; he thought that ought to be considerably lessened; but realised property ought to bear a larger proportion than it did of the burdens of the State. By such a course alone the commerce and manufactures of the country could be relieved, and the prosperity and safety of every class eventually promoted.

I am sure the House will agree with me when I state that we are deeply obliged to the hon. Gentleman opposite, for the able statement he has made in calling our attention to the report of the Committee which sat to inquire into our commercial relations with China. I think, however, we must not argue too much from the statements he has made, though believe those statements are perfectly true, as to the present depressed state of the trade with China. I think the statements which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cardwell) has just made, are in themselves sufficient to account for the depression which at present prevails in the trade to China. Those statements were, in effect at least, that the merchants had from the first opening of the trade found they were carrying on a losing concern. This, I believe, is almost universally stated to have been the case upon the opening of any new trade. It was notoriously the case with the States of South America. The whole mercantile world rushed at once into that trade; the exports increased to a great amount, the markets were glutted, prices fell, and great disaster was the consequence. This appears to have been exactly the case with the first exports of British manufactured goods to China. The hon. Gentleman stated, the merchants had found it a losing concern: the manufacturers too had found it a losing concern; the manufacturers having given it up, the native merchants, not deterred by their example, adopted it, and they too found it a losing concern. I believe, as I have said before, the fact to have been, that the Chinese markets had been glutted, in the first instance, with the vast quantities of goods exported from this country; and however lamentable it might be that such a check should have been put upon the trade, the present depression is the undoubted result of an over-exportation in the first instance. It was remarked years ago that this would be the case should the trade with China be opened; and that judgment being founded upon the results in similar cases, was found to be correct. I mention this because some stress has been laid upon a diminution of the trade with China in one particular year, without looking at its permanent condition. In 1843, there was an addition of 500,000l. suddenly to a trade which in the year before was only valued at 1,000,000l. In the next year, it rose to 2,300,000l.; and in the next, 1845, to 2,400,000l. In the years 1843, 1844, 1845, the trade more than doubled its amount in the preceding years; and if in subsequent years there was a falling-off, it was not more than might have been expected. With regard to the general positions laid down by the hon. Gentleman, I entirely agree with them. I have not the least doubt that if we could lower the price of tea in this country, the consumption would be extended, and in time the revenue be maintained. I have not the least doubt, again, that the quantity of goods we send to China must materially depend upon the amount of returns we can get from that country; and that to take their tea would considerably extend our exports to China. I have not the least doubt, again, that the result of this proceeding would be to benefit the consumer, the manufacturer, and the ship owner of this country. Nor am I afraid, though the loss of revenue might in the first instance he very considerable, that it would not in time be made up by the increased consumption of tea in this country. That will be true of tea, I have no doubt, which has been true of coffee, and of the other articles to which my hon. Friend (Mr. Ewart) alluded. The same arguments may be used with regard to tobacco. They are true of all articles upon which high duties prevail; lower the duties, and in time the increased consumption will make up for the loss of revenue. Whether a larger consumption of tea would diminish the consumption of spirits, I do not know. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, that if there is any article in the world from which I should like to see a reduction of revenue, it is spirits. Probably an increased consumption of tea might lead to that result; but I am afraid the supposition of taxation depending upon profit and loss would not be altogether acceptable in this case, because if you only set the diminished consumption of spirits against an increased consumption of sugar, there must be an increase of profit from some other source in consequence of the loss by the reduction upon tea. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cardwell) said, this loss was not likely to happen. The recommendation of the Committee is, that the duties on tea should be reduced to Is.; and my hon. Friend (Mr. Ewart), who spoke of an ad valorem duty, concurred in that recommendation. An ad valorem duty, then, would not be advisable; the opinion of the Committee was decidedly in favour of a moderate fixed rate of duty upon all sorts, as much more equitable than ad valorem duties. If, then, the duty is to be reduced to anything like the amount recommended by the Committee, it is impossible it can be done without risking some 2,000,000l. of revenue, and that is not a matter to be lightly disposed of. The hon. Member alluded to the distressed state of the country; and no doubt we may go to a very considerable extent if such a course is begun, whether in the reduction of the tea duties, or in taking off that tax of which the House has heard this evening, as "the most iniquitous tax which can be imposed"—the window-tax, or the reduction of the tobacco duties, or any others; but it must be made up from some other source. Whether they are to look to an additional income-tax or property-tax I will not pretend to say; but the House will hear in a few days' time the statement of my noble Friend (Lord J. Russell) on the subject of the finances of the country, and then you will be able to judge more clearly how it will be possible to meet so large a reduction of the revenue as nearly two millions. That such a diminution of the resources of the State will be very severely felt for years to come, I think no one will deny. I feel that I shall be discharging my duty if, on the present occasion, I abstain from saying one word more on that part of the subject. With regard to the Motion of the hon. Gentleman, I have not the slightest objection to it; I believe it to be merely for certain consular returns; and I conceive the object of the hon. Gentleman chiefly to have been to call the attention of the Government to the subject. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that it has occupied the attention of Her Majesty's Government for some time; and what the effect of our deliberations has been my hon. Friend will discover on Friday week, till which time I shall refrain from saying anything more on the question.

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Liverpool (Mr. Cardwell) appears anxious to extend the doctrine which has been set forth to-night—that the true mode of remedying deficiencies of income is to take off the burdens from the springs of industry. I think he has had some little experience of that mode of improving the revenue of the country. I recollect that a Committee of the House of Commons upon the Post office duties reported in 1838 that by lowering the postage to one penny per letter, in the course of three years the deficiency of the revenue would be entirely made up. Ten years have now elapsed, and that which in 1838 amounted to 1,800,000l., I believe now does not exceed 900,000l. net revenue. And when the hon. Member for Liverpool made the able speech which we have all heard with so much pleasure to night, and when he told the House that the uncivilised Chinese were taking a lesson from us, and were likely to discover the advantage of reciprocity treaties, he did not appear to remember that that was exactly the argument I made use of about two years ago. The hon. Gentleman and his friends have devoured the entire pasture of the revenue, by taking off the duties on timber, which have gone into the pockets of the Norwegians, the Swedes, and the Prussians; by taking the duties off cotton, which have gone into the pockets of the Americans; by taking the duties off grain and brandy and silk, all of which have gone into the pockets of the different producers of these articles, so that no power is left for us to take off the duties of 250 per cent on tea, levied upon a country which is quite content to raise but 6½ per cent ad valorem duties upon the produce of Great Britain. About two and a half years ago I recommended the House to look to China instead of to free trade in cotton, in silk, in timber, and in grain, and to seek an extension of our whole foreign trade by cultivating our commercial intercourse with 300,000,000 of people who are so well disposed towards us. But when the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cardwell) told us how the consumption of tea may be increased, and how greatly, from some change of duties in the Isle of Man, the consumption of tea had increased there, he forgot to tell us that there was a great deal of smuggling in the Isle of Man, and that the increase of consumption there is entirely superficial; that, in point of fact, the consumption was just as great as before, and that the reduction of the duty has only enabled the revenue to take the duty, instead of its going into the hands of the smuggler. When the hon. Gentleman calculated so surely upon the reduction of 1s. 2d. per pound in the duty on tea raising the quantity annually consumed in this country by 24,000,000 lbs., and thereby increasing the revenue derived from that article, he forgot to tell the House, by way of illustration, what the consumption of tea in the United States of America really was. The United States contains a population of 20,000,000, and, I as the hon. Member justly told us, up to this time there has been no duty at all upon tea; but the hon. Gentleman forgot to tell us that it is a question now of raising the revenue in America by a duty upon that article, and that the entire consump- tion is but 19,900,000 lbs. a year, being something less than one pound per head per year for that prosperous community. But my hon. Friend near me (Mr. Hudson) reminds me that there are other examples where the reduction of tariffs does not so entirely succeed, as it was generally supposed it would do two years ago, when everybody was gone free-trade mad, though now people are getting a little more sane, and thought that the sure mode of raising an increased revenue was to reduce the tariffs. My hon. Friend reminds me that there was a reduction of the tariff on railways. I unfortunately mixed myself up with certain free-trade directors, and took shares in the North Western railway. Mr. Glyn, the chairman of that railway company, was one of those who thought that a reduction of tariffs and low fares was quite sure to raise the revenue; and I am here one of the victims reaping only 91. per share. [Mr. HUDSON: Eight—only eight.] Well, I am not so rich by a pound a share as I thought I was—but reaping only 8l. per share interest instead of 10l. per cent, and all in consequence of lowering the tariff of prices; whilst my Protectionist Friend here, of the Midland Counties, stoutly resisted any such new fangled doctrine of economy, and maintained his high tariffs, and his constituents still continue to enjoy their full receipts. Under these circumstances, sorry as I am to oppose the reduction of the duty upon tea, anxious as I should be to see the reduction of the tea duty made up from those old duties which were so lavishly thrown away upon timber and corn, and French brandies and silks, and a variety of other articles from Prussia and elsewhere, with their high tariffs, which we were told would be shaken by the generous and gracious way in which we admitted their produce, yet unless I can hear from the hon. Gentleman that he proposes to make up the revenue from those articles which are now admitted free—unless I can hear from him that he is prepared, instead of an increased income or property tax, to lay on a fresh duty upon foreign timber, foreign grain, foreign brandy, and foreign silks—I am afraid I cannot back his prayer to the right hon. Gentleman, just at the time when we are losing revenue at the rate of 4,000,000l. a year, to take off another million or two, and trust to the success of that new doctrine of remedying deficiencies by relieving the springs of industry.

thought the House and the country were deeply obliged to the hon. Member for Liverpool for having brought this subject under their consideration. The hon. Gentleman had laid the matter so well before the House that he was unwilling to add one word to what the hon. Member had said; but as he had some acquaintance with the trade, perhaps he might be excused for trespassing upon the attention of the House for a few moments. Before, however, touching upon the question, he must beg to make one or two remarks on what had just fallen from the noble Lord (Lord G. Bentinck). The noble Lord had said, that by adopting a free-trade system we had given our money to the growers of cotton. Now, the fact was, that the price of cotton had never been so low for the last ten years as it was in the autumn of 1846. The noble Lord asserted that we had sacrificed revenue by reducing the duty upon French brandy. The noble Lord would find, however, that since the reduction the increased consumption had been such as to go far towards remedying the loss of revenue. Again, the noble Lord referred triumphantly to the Post Office. When the postage duty was reduced to 1d., it was prophesied that in five years five times as many letters would be carried through the post as would make up the loss of revenue arising from the reduction. At present the gross revenue of the Post Office, though the measure was not yet carried out completely, was within five per cent of what it was previous to the reduction. He agreed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it was no fair argument against a reduction of these duties to allude to commercial losses; those who went into commercial adventures must be content to bear those losses. This subject ought to be considered on higher grounds. He thought it resolved itself into two questions—a question of justice to China, and of expediency towards our own people. In the year of the great treaty with China, we dictated the terms (3 to 6½ per cent ad valorem duty) upon which they should accept our goods. At the cannon's mouth that treaty was signed, and the Chinese were in no position to enforce a system of reciprocity. The consequence was that this country maintained a duty of upwards of 200 per cent upon their staple commodity of export. He thought, then, that as a matter of justice to China this measure was required. As a matter of expediency towards ourselves, the mea- sure was equally desirable, looking at it as a means of improving the morals and social comforts of the people, and giving a stimulus to the manufactures of this country. Upon these grounds he hoped the proposition would receive the serious consideration of the Government. He admitted that the question of revenue was a serious one; but he could not admit that a loss of 2,000,000l. would result from the proposed reduction in the tea duty. He was quite satisfied that such a reduction might be made as would prove a great and permanent relief to the people of this country, without causing any equivalent loss to the revenue. He believed, indeed, that a great advantage might be conferred upon trade by incurring only a very slight loss to the revenue.

rose to give in his adhesion to the opinions which had been expressed by the hon. Member for Liverpool. The hon. Gentleman was quite correct in asserting, that in the article of tea, as in all other articles, the reduction of duty would lead to an increased consumption. That had been invariably found to be the case; and the converse of the proposition was equally true, that an increase of duty would lead to a decreased consumption. It became then a mere question for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider how far he could reduce the duty upon tea, and yet maintain the revenue. He was glad to find that in a great measure his right hon. Friend coincided with the hon. Member for Liverpool, and he hoped that at no distant day he would have the courage to take the bull by the horns; and if he could not obtain sufficient revenue from tea, to procure it from some other sources. He thought there were plenty of other commodities which it would be quite as just to tax as tea. Why not, for example, extend the legacy and probate duty to estates? He hoped, however, that the whole subject of taxation would soon be taken up and revised, and put upon a more permanent footing than at present. Looking to it as affecting the moral welfare and condition of the people, he thought the proposition of the hon. Member for Liverpool was entitled to the best consideration of the Government.

rose to express his satisfaction that this matter had been brought forward, for it would at all events have the good effect of bringing it under the consideration of the House. He feared it would be very difficult to levy an advalorem duty when all the sales did not pass through one channel; but he must repeat his satisfaction that the subject had been introduced, and he had no doubt that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer should find any revenue to spare, he would apply it towards reducing the duty upon tea.

said, that there could but be one opinion as to the importance of a reduction of the duty on tea; and he hoped that whatever reduction might be made, the public would have the benefit of it. It appeared, from the returns on the table, that in 1815, 19,000,000 lbs. of tea were imported, and that the cost in China was 3,500,000l.; and that in 1846 the price paid for 46,000,000 lbs., was 3,000,000l., being 500,000l. less for 46,000,000 lbs. than for 19,000,000 lbs. in 1815. If the duty was reduced to 1s. per lb., the consumption, to prevent loss of revenue, must increase to 90,000,000 lbs. Now, could that increase in the consumption take place without causing a reduction in the consumption of coffee? One pound of tea was equivalent to three pounds of coffee; and as the duty on foreign coffee was 6d. per lb., if the tea, duty was reduced to one shilling per pound, it would encourage the consumption of tea in preference to coffee. If the reduction of the duty would have the effect of reducing the consumption of spirits, he considered it would be a great benefit to the country, and he would vote for the reduction, whatever loss it might be to the revenue. If, however, the increased demand for tea could not be supplied, the reduction of the duty to 1s. would either increase the cost price in China, or the selling price in this country; in either case the public would not get the benefit, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer would lose the duty. It was said that the reduction of the duty on tea would increase the exports of cotton and woollen goods from this country to China, which of late have decreased, and did not amount to more than 2,000,000l.; but we now imported from China tea, silk, and silver to the amount of 8,000,000l. How did we pay the difference? With opium. If anything could be done to put an end to that infamous traffic, they might then expect to increase the export of manufactured goods. The tea used by the poor was taxed three times as much as that used by the rich; and if they wished to give cheap tea to the poor, and increase its consump- tion, they should adopt the principle of an ad valorem duty.

said, that if his hon. Friend who had just sat down had read the evidence given with respect to an ad valorew duty on tea, he would no doubt have come to the conclusion, as he had done, that, however just the principle was in theory, it never could be reduced into practice. The most experienced tea merchants and tea brokers had declared that it would be utterly impossible to impose an equitable ad valorem duty. His hon. Friend had referred to the opium trade; but that drug had invariably been paid for in Sycee silver. The demand for opium in China was, unfortunately, so great, that for that, and for that alone, they paid in metal, while in every other case the operations of trade were carried on by means of barter. The noble Lord (Lord G. Bentinck) would allow him to say, that he was incorrect in the statement which he had made with respect to the smuggling in the Isle of Man. He denied that there had been any smuggling of tea into the Isle of Man, or out of it. The noble Lord had referred to a failure of the experiment of the diminution of duties. If necessary, he could show that the diminution of duties had led to a very considerable augmentation of the revenue.

said, that there were some fallacies in the arguments as to the augmentation of the consumption of tea. He had looked carefully over the report of the Committee, and found from that report that in 1801 the consumption per head was 1 lb. 3 oz. In 1844 the price was not one-third of what it was in 1801, and still he found the consumption only augmented to 1 lb. 10 oz. There was no doubt that if the duty on tea was lowered, the consumption would increase, and the profits of the merchant would also materially increase. At present they had great cause to complain of the unfavourable state of the trade with China. The question, however, was one for the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and he asked him to pause before he expected the consumption of 24,000,000 lbs. of tea to augment to 46,000,000 lbs. To have such an increased consumption, the quantity per head must amount to 2 lb. 7 oz. He ventured to say, that we must live for another half century before we could prevail on the people of this country to consume such an enormous quantity of tea. He was practically engaged in that branch of business, and he begged to say, that he differed from the hon Member for Liverpool in his statement that in a respectable family the consumption of tea was 13 lbs. per head. The thing was altogether fanciful. Some old women—washerwomen for instance—who lived upon tea, might consume this amount; but any gentleman taking half a pound per week would find his nerves so unstrung that he could not enjoy the blessings of sleep.

said, that no one expected an increase of consumption to take place amongst those to whom price was no object; but' they expected an increase of consumption to take place by those using tea who did not at present enjoy the article at all. It was a fact well ascertained, that but a small portion of the population of Ireland consumed tea; and he could not doubt that the increase of the consumption of tea consequent upon a reduction of the duty would materially diminish the consumption of spirits. He congratulated the House on the unanimity which prevailed on this occasion, and thought he was able to point out a way by which the Chancellor of the Exchequer might relieve the country without endangering the Exchequer. In 1846 the consumption of tea was 46,700,000 lbs.; in 1847 it fell to 45,500,000 lbs.; and no larger consumption could be reckoned on for the present year than 44,000,000 lbs. If there was one article more than another which had shown a tendency to decrease in price, it was tea. In 1831 the consumption of tea was 31,000,000 lbs.; the price per lb. being 10d. higher than it was last year. In that short period we saw an increased consumption of 15,000,000 lbs. This consumption of tea had gone on pari passu, with a corresponding consumption of all other articles. He did not agree with the hon. Gentleman who had called the attention of the House to this subject, or with the report, that so large a reduction as 1s. 2½d. would be either desirable for the interests of commerce, for the benefit of the consumer, or the interests of the Exchequer. The stock was too small to bear such an increased consumption without a large augmentation of the cost price in bond. At the same time, he believed that a reduction from 2s. 2½d. to 1s. 6d. might be made without any material augmentation of the first price in bond, and without any reduction of the revenue even in the first years. The basis of the calculation was a consumption of 44,000,000 lbs. which, at 2s. 2½d. would give 4,858,000l.; and as the largest portion of the tea used was sold at 4s. per lb., there could be little doubt that a reduction of the duty of 8½d. would lead to a reduction in the price of tea of 1s.; so that the same tea which was now sold at 4s. would be sold at 3s. Calculating that the same amount of money was spent as at present, the consumption would rise to 59,000,000 lbs. the first year. That was an increase of 15,000,000 lbs.; the same which had taken place on the reduction of 10d. during the last eight or nine years. This would give a revenue of 4,450,000l.; and adding the increased quantity of sugar which would be required for the increased quantity of tea, it would give a gross revenue of 4,912,000l.; whereas if the present duties were maintained, there would not be a revenue of more than 4,858,000l. He had merely taken an opportunity of throwing out this suggestion, that there might be a reduction made in the duty upon tea without a loss to the revenue, whilst the increase in the consumption would be no more than the present stock of tea would supply. The stock on hand was now about a year and a quarter's consumption, and there were 6,000,000 lbs. coming from China. The stock on hand and the quantity on the road would, therefore, be sufficient to meet a demand for an additional 15,000,000 lbs. of tea.

hoped that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not be induced by the specious arguments which were addressed to him to fall into the speculative projects recommended by the hon. Member for Liverpool and his Friends on the other side of the House. We might go on reducing duties; but we must not expect, from such reductions, an increase of consumption or of the revenue. To attempt to reduce the duty upon tea, in the present state of the finances of the country, would occasion great inconvenience, He was happy to see that the hon. Member for Salford had found out that a reduction of duty did not always lead to an increased consumption of the article. This question must be considered at some future day, when the revenue could better afford a reduction. The hon. Member for Salford was somewhat retreating from his free-trade principles. He must take that Gentleman's speech as an indication from that important district that those principles were not quite so popular there as they were sometime ago. Reductions of this kind had not always tended to the advantage of the conusmer, for the amount of the reduction had almost invariably gone into the pockets of the foreigner. We had already sacrificed large sums for the benefit of the foreigner, and what return had we received? Had the reduction which had taken place in the duty on cotton, for instance, or in the timber duties, been attended with any beneficial results? He had an account of the quantity of cotton exported from Hull. In 1846, there were 45,000 bales of raw cotton exported; and in 1847, 75,000 bales. Of cotton twist, in 1846, there were exported 81,000 bales; and in 1847, 46,000 bales. Did not this show that other countries were becoming manufacturers themselves? China was one of the nations he was most anxious and ready to trade with; but we were not in a condition to sacrifice revenue in order to increase that trade. The House had been taking off duties one after another, and had prevented the Chancellor of the Exchequer from carrying his principles any further. He dared him to do it. His Exchequer-bills would soon go to a discount if he did. The hon. Member for Salford now came forward, and avowed at once that this principle would not do. He admitted that the effect of the principle was not so much to cheapen the article as to put a larger sum of money into the pockets of the foreigner. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. J. Wilson) had spoken of a 15,000,000 lb. increase, which he attributed to the reduction of 10d. in the pound; but the House must not forget that during the last thirteen years the population of this country had increased to an enormous extent. The hon. Gentleman had said, "Oh! give the people more tea, and they will buy more sugar." But where was the money? A poor man, who with a large family had to depend upon 12s. a week, had not much money to expend in tea and sugar. It was all very well to make a speech about increased consumption of these articles in the event of a reduction of the duties, and the consequent increase to the revenue; but the Chancellor of the Exchequer would find that the difficulty was not so trifling as the hon. Gentleman would have him believe. The free-trade mania, which raged to such an extent a few months ago, appeared to be subsiding. Not long ago there was scarcely a railway board in England that was not all for free trade; and he had to be continually reminding those with whom he was connected of the great danger of losing a certainty in their attempt to get a speculative gain. The fact was, that at the present moment there was scarcely a railway hoard that was not convinced, by experience, that low prices would not do in all cases, and that the system of cheap fares must he used with great discretion and judgment. He believed that if they had maintained the timber duty, it would have been of no disadvantage to the country. But, with regard to the duty on tea, he believed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had no power to reduce it. He had at present a deficiency of 4,000,000l.; and he (Mr. Hudson) wanted to know what the hon. Member for London would say if the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to propose to take off a very large amount of the duty upon tea, which might have the effect of causing a further deficiency in the revenue of 1,500,000l. He wondered what that hon. Gentleman's friends in the city of London would say to such a proposition. Indeed, he did not believe that the hon. Member himself would support the Chancellor of the Exchequer in such a course. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer had objected, and rightly objected, to any such proposition, notwithstanding the sort of indemnity which the hon. Member for Salford was always prepared to give on such occasions, viz.—" Manchester says it's all right; never mind the revenue; its sure to right itself." He would be one of the very first to reduce the duty on tea as soon as the state of the country could bear it; but at present he felt bound to offer to the proposition for reduction his strongest opposition.

, in reply, congratulated the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the great amount of support he had received on the present occasion. He had never read or heard of an instance in which a Chancellor of the Exchequer had received so general and so gratuitous support from all sides of the House. First, came the noble Lord (Lord G. Bentinck) who contended that not a particle of the duty ought to come off tea; and afterwards the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Hudson) laid his royal mandate upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and dared him to take the duty off tea, at the same time taking care to tell him that, in refusing to do so, he was turning his back on his own principles. Next, came the hon. Gentleman behind him (Alderman Sidney), who got up and gave the result of his great experience on this question. The hon. Gentleman wanted no alteration in the duties. He preferred to have the tea trade select rather than numerous, and therefore the duty should not he taken off. The hon. Member for Salford, too, whose services had often proved so valuable, but who seldom thought it any part of his duty to take a share in the debates, had risen not once but twice this evening, first to sustain the window-tax, and now to protest against any interference with the duty upon tea; and, indeed, hon. Gentlemen on all sides and of all shades of politics had got up to say, some in mild and some in strong language, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought not to take the duty off tea. He might well congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the wonderful unanimity with which he had been supported; and he was glad to seize upon this ground of offering him his congratulations, for he feared that when he came to consider the arguments which had been used, he should not have many compliments to offer. The noble Lord (Lord G. Bentinck) had said that those only were consistent who opposed such reductions, and he said all the rest of the world had gone mad in favour of free trade; but he was inclined to think that all the rest of the world were likely to return the compliment. The noble Lord enumerated certain articles in which there had been free trade—viz., cotton, corn, brandy, and timber. Now, with regard to corn, he had yet to learn that the taking off the duty had caused any depression to the British farmer. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hudson) had no doubt prophesied that the result of that step would be, that they would have corn selling at 36s. in twelve months, [Mr. HUDSON: I never said so; but that in times of abundance corn might be at 36s.] Certainly the hon. Gentleman had led the House to believe that most disastrous consequences would follow to the farmer; but such had not yet been experienced. Then, as to brandy—the duty was reduced from 22s. 10d. to 15s., and the immediate result was so great an increase in the importation as to replace the revenue. [Lord G. BENTINCK: No, no that's a mistake.] If the noble Lord would be kind enough to inspect the returns, he would find the facts to be as he had stated. The returns showed that the quantity had risen from a million to a million and a half. Then the noble Lord referred to the case of cotton; and he was supported in his arguments by the hon. Member for Sunderland. In spite of the experience of last year with regard to cotton, the noble Lord spoke of the change in the duty on that article as the mistaken application of free trade. Well, in taking the duty off cotton, they had had the advantage of the noble Lord's support. The hon. Member for Sunderland had got up and read to them a paper to show that the exports of cotton from Hull were larger during the last than the previous year. If he perceived the drift of his argument, it was to show that more cotton had gone to the Continent last summer than had gone in the corresponding period of the preceding year. Did he suppose that more manufactures would have been produced here, if in addition to the other difficulties with which we had had to contend in competing with the cotton manufacturers of the Continent, we had also laboured under the disadvantages of burdens in the shape of duties, which the foreigner had not to bear? He was extremely happy to hear from the hon. Gentleman that the exports of cotton had increased from our English ports; and he trusted they would continue to increase. He trusted that the German manufacturer might long continue to employ some of his friends in Liverpool as their brokers for furnishing them with supplies of cotton. He knew that that was the case at the present moment. If it would pay the German to buy his cotton at Liverpool and to take it to Germany, to be manufactured there, what would be the position of the Manchester manufacturer, who bought the cotton at Liverpool, and had merely to carry it thirty miles to his mill at Manchester? So much for the madness of free trade in corn, in brandy, and in cotton. Reverting to the subject of tea, all he ventured to state to the Chancellor of the Exchequer was, that a falling-off in the revenue there must be. The trade which was carried on at an average loss of 35 or 40 per cent would not last. If it could not be increased and made profitable, it would diminish till it became remunerative. The Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to think he had given him a triumphant answer, when he said there was over-trading to China. The China trade had been open fifteen years; and when it reached 2,000,000l. of exports for 300,000,000 of people, the Minister ventured to censure it as over-trading Well, but if it was over-trading, the trade would be less in future, and in that case the revenue from tea must be expected to diminish at all events. And the question which he had submitted to the Chancellor of the Exchequer was simply, whether, taking the subject in connexion with all the matters which would fall to be considered, the right hon. Gentleman thought such a reduction could be made in the duty on tea as would encourage the consumption and sustain the revenue?