would move the insertion of words in the clause, providing, instead of imprisonment, that a fine might be imposed not exceeding the sum of 10 l. The clause had reference to three classes of offences—neglect to perform duty, refusing to join ship, and desertion after joining ship. He wished to know whether a person suffering imprisonment under one or other of these heads forfeited his contract? In case of a man refusing to perform his work, and being thereupon sent to prison for six or twelve weeks, would his wages be going on for that period? He hoped the hon. and learned Judge Advocate would furnish the House with his opinion on the subject. Again, former Acts of Parliament made it a misdemea- nour for the master of a vessel leaving any one of his crew on shore, and also imposed a heavy penalty on him if he did not make an immediate entry on the subject in his log-book. If he went against the man, the latter might be punished; but if he left the man behind, without taking any steps for the purpose, would he be liable to a penalty?

entertained strong objections to leave it to the discretion of a magistrate to determine whether a sailor for desertion should be punished by either fine or imprisonment. He attached very great importance to this clause, as it was of the utmost consequence that stringent steps should be taken to prevent the desertion of seamen, which was now so common in the home ports, and more especially in the colonies. He believed in most cases the mere imposition of a fine would be totally inadequate to put a stop to this crying evil in our mercantile marine. It was probable that this Bill, if passed, would be followed by similar measures in the British colonies; and it was most desirable that they should adopt such provisions as were most likely to put a stop to desertion. In many of the colonies it happened that the magistrate was in close connexion with the crimp. The magistrates often acted with such collusion with the crimps as to hold out inducements to the sailors to desert their ships in the colonies, on the promise of higher wages. This was more particularly the case in the British North American provinces. He knew a case of a sailor deserting his ship in one of the ports of Australia, and who managed to earn 17 l. in the course of a few days. What would a man of that kind care for a penalty of 10 l. ? The crimp also, in many cases, would willingly pay the fine, on an undertaking to receive it out of the higher pay the sailor would receive in the colonial port. His own conviction was, that it was their imperative duty to take effectual steps to put an end to this system of desertion, which was as injurious to the sailors themselves as it was to the shipowners. He would not object, as an alternative to the Motion before the Committee, that a proviso should be inserted in a future stage of the Bill, by which a power of fining should be given to the magistrate in cases where the captain or shipowner assented to the imposition of the fine. With this guard, he would assent to the proposal, but he could not do so without it, as it would lessen the efficacy of the Bill. As to the questions put by the hon. Member, he was not a lawyer, but he did not believe that any consequences such as the hon. Gentleman seemed to anticipate would result from the clause.

thought it was rather singular that the right hon. Gentleman objected to the limitation of the amount of the fine being left to the magistrate, while it was left to that person to determine the period of imprisonment.

said, he had been asked whether, in the case of a sailor having been taken up and committed by a magistrate for not joining his ship, or for desertion, the contract was at an end. His opinion was that no end was put to the contract by such proceeding. Suppose the case of a sailor who did not join his ship for three weeks after signing the contract, and was afterwards punished for this conduct, would he be entitled to wages? This and other matters of the kind were provided for by the 48th and other clauses in the Bill. The former clause enacts, "nor shall any seamen be entitled to wages for any period during which he refuses or neglects to work when required, whether before or after the time fixed by the agreement for his beginning work."

was satisfied cases would often arise before magistrates of seamen deserting in which there were a great many extenuating circumstances. In such cases it would only be an act of common fairness to allow the imposition of a small fine. There was nothing a sailor felt so strongly as the infliction of imprisonment for a small offence.

knew instances of sailors deserting their ships abroad, in which they received 2 l. 10 s. a month, for the purpose of getting so much as 15 l. a month in some of our colonies. A too severe punishment could not be adopted to put a stop to such a course of proceeding.

thought it rather extraordinary that the right hon. Gentleman should object to leave the amount of the imposition of a fine to the discretion of a magistrate who was in collusion with a crimp, while he gave him leave to decide on the duration of imprisonment. Surely some mode might be devised to meet such cases of malversation on the part of magistrates.

feared that it would be impossible to frame a clause which would meet every case in which a magistrate was determined not to do his duty.

said, that desertion of seamen often took place on the day a ship was going to sea. Suppose a man deserted in a colonial port, and was discovered and taken before a magistrate, it was for the advantage of the colony that the man should be imprisoned, that he might stop there. If, however, a fine was imposed of 10 l., an order might be made to deduct that amount from his future wages, and he might then be sent on board the ship, and the captain would obtain the benefit of his services during the voyage.

hoped they would insert the words which he had suggested into the clause, as he conceived it would be a better course than that of adopting the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire. It was desirable that a fine should only be inflicted with the consent of the master of the ship, as he could not conceive a greater inconvenience than a ship just about to sail being detained by such misconduct on the part of the crew. If he consented to a fine, he need not leave the man behind.

feared the adoption of the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade would prove futile. The right hon. Gentleman said, that he would not trust the magistrates in the colonies. Was it not a disgrace and a reproach to the Government, to allow a magistrate to sit for an hour on the bench who, as they had been told, was acting in collusion with crimps? The proper course was to take care that cases of this kind should only be brought before tribunals fit to decide the law, and where the magistrates would do their duty.

thought the clause would prove of a very imperfect nature. If a master had to pay wages while the sailors were in confinement, he would take care not to complain with the view to imprisonment. The 73rd clause, which enacted that in certain cases both imprisonment and forfeiture might be inflicted, if the parties required it, would not meet many cases which would arise.

wished to be distinctly informed whether a man who was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for desertion was to continue to receive his wages from the shipowner?

apprehended that that part of the law relating to seamen's wages was not touched by this Bill. It would be better, however, to refrain from going into the whole question of the maritime law at that stage of the Bill.

believed there was doubt as to the forfeiture of wages in cases of desertion, but that was by no means clear in cases of neglect or refusal to do duty. He should not press his Amendment.

suggested the insertion of a provision, enacting that no wages should in any case accrue to a seaman during the time of his imprisonment.

had no objection to give full consideration to the subject before the report.

Amendment negatived; Clause agreed to; as were also Clauses 63 and 64.

Clause 65.

wished to propose an Amendment to the effect that in case of quitting his employ in a merchant ship, no immediate or subsequent entry of any seaman into Her Majesty's naval service shall exempt him from the forfeiture of his wages. He proposed this Amendment because he thought it was but fair and just that, in the event of seamen deserting the merchant service, and entering the Royal Navy, the shipmaster or shipowner should have some compensation for any loss or inconvenience resulting to him from such desertion. He cited several instances of the hardships accruing to the shipmaster and shipowner from their seamen, when abroad, volunteering on board men-of-war. He said that when the shipowners were considered to be a protected class, there might have been some pretext for subjecting them to inconvenience or loss, for what was supposed to be the public benefit. But such a pretect no longer remained; and it was the height of injustice to encourage seamen to insubordination and dishonesty, by holding up Her Majesty's service as a refuge, and Her Majesty's ships as receptacles, for every unprincipled seaman who might wish to commit a breach of his engagement to his employer. This law was the cause of much insubordination in the merchant service. It was often availed of for the mere purpose of getting the balance of wages in a foreign port to squander in dissipation. And he considered it would be a gross inconsistency in the House, while passing an Act for the professed object of improving the moral habits of seamen, to leave un-repealed so demoralising a statute.

Amendment proposed, in page 23, line 14, after the word "forfeited," to insert these words, "and no immediate or subse- quent entry of such seaman into Her Majesty's Naval Service shall exempt him from such forfeiture of wages."

believed the adoption of such a proposition would be most injurious to Her Majesty's service, as well as to the seamen themselves. The hon. Gentleman had intimated that the number of cases of the kind was very numerous. Now it appeared, from a return which he held in his hand, that during the last year the number of men who had volunteered from the mercantile marine into the Royal Navy was only 289. Considering the whole matter, he did not think the system worked very hard or pressed heavily on the shipping interest. The practice rested upon a number of enactments, and it had always been regarded as of the greatest importance to the public service; he therefore could on no account consent to adopt the Amendment. It was well known that in a large body of men who were entrusted with the exercise of power, there would always be some cases of misconduct; and he believed it would be found, in the greater number of cases, when parties volunteered into the Navy, there were two stories to be told. He thought, also, that if the House interfered to prevent the merchant seaman from volunteering into the Royal Navy, they would deprive him of almost the only remedy he had against the tyranny and hardship to which he was often subjected in the merchant service. It should also be known that specific instructions were given to the officers on every naval station not to take any seamen as volunteers which would have the effect of preventing the sure working of a ship. It was the duty of the officers of Her Majesty's Navy to give every protection and aid to the trade and commerce of this country. He had searched the records of the Admiralty for a long time back, and it did not appear that any complaints to signify had been made as to the mode in which the order of the Admiralty had been carried out. The Admiralty was always ready to listen to complaints on this and other matters affecting the merchant service. It was only during the last few months, and since this Bill had been before the House, that cases of this kind had been brought forward. The temptation to volunteer on board a man-of-war did not arise from the offer of higher wages, for the seamen generally received more in the mercantile marine than they did in the Royal Navy.

did not complain of the conduct of the officers of the Navy, but of the law.

said, that some seamen in the employ of one of his constituents had deserted to join the Royal Navy, and the consequence was that the vessel to which they belonged was unable to proceed on its voyage. That was a grievance which he thought demanded some remedy at the hands of the Government.

wished to remind the hon. Baronet the First Lord of the Admiralty that not only the 289 seamen were allowed to volunteer into the Navy in places where it was most difficult to supply their places, but also that merchants' ships could not proceed to sea in consequence of their absence. It was very well to say this was the law of the land, but it was time they should get rid of such a law.

said, it was well known that the object of sending men-of-war to distant parts of the world was to protect the trade and commerce of the country, and that could only be accomplished by having the Royal Navy in a state of efficiency. It was, therefore, of more interest to shipowners that the Royal Navy should be manned by British seamen than that the merchant service should be so manned, and no facility which, which enabled the former to obtain a complete crew should be done away with. If an officer behaved in such a way as to inflict an injury on a ship by taking the crew away, he would be liable to an action for damages, besides receiving the censure of the Admiralty.

thought it was only fair, in conformity with the suggestion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the British shipowners might be allowed to take as many foreigners as they pleased towards forming their crews.

said, he was startled to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer say that an officer of the Navy was liable to an action for damages, if he took sailors out of a merchant ship to the injury of the owners. Was it not an injury if a shipowner was obliged to pay 100 l. more wages, in consequence of some of his sailors being allowed to volunteer into the Royal Navy?

stated that a case of the kind occurred at the end of the last war.

wished to know whether in that case the capture and destruction of the vessel was not alleged to have been occasioned by the officer having impressed a great portion of the crew into his ship?

said, that the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer respecting the importance of having a large proportion of the crews native would have been admirable if made before the repeal of the navigation laws, but they were antediluvian and totally inapplicable since the passing of that measure. The navigation laws had been repealed on the principle that we were to leave the merchant service wholly independent, and that it was of the utmost importance, though the Navy should continue to be manned by British seamen, that it should not be dependent on the merchant service for the supply of men. The Government, during the discussion of the navigation laws, had repeatedly declared this, and therefore the Committee were now bound to disregard any such arguments as had been urged by the right hon. Gentleman. The Shipowners' Association of Liverpool had considered this system, and thought it was a great grievance, and were unanimously of opinion that it should be put an end to. He thought that they should abolish those distinctions respecting the employment of foreigners on board the merchant ships, as they presented sensible obstructions and hindrances to commerce and the interests of the shipowners.

believed the true remedy for this complaint would be to allow the British shipowner to man his ship as he pleased.

said, he was sorry to differ from Her Majesty's Government on a subject of such great importance as the present; but he believed that the facility with which seamen could enlist on board ships of war had the effect of making them mutinous on board merchant vessels.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The Committee divided:—Ayes 33; Noes 49: Majority 16.

Clause agreed to; as was Clause 66.

Clause 67.

thought some words were necessary to be introduced into it to protect the interests of a man who had inadvertently given a false name.

said, the wages would only be forfeited in ease the false name was given wilfully and fraudulently, and that he should take care to render the clause clear in this respect.

said, he would never consent that the forfeited wages of seamen should go to fill the exchequer of the Board of Trade. He should move as an Amendment that such forfeited wages should be applied in aid of the Merchant Seamen's Fund.

would oppose the Amendment. The forfeited wages would go to reduce the fees on the merchant service, and they would not be diverted from their proper purpose by the Board of Trade.

Amendment withdrawn; Clause agreed to; as was also Clause 68.

On Clause 69,

said, the clause might be improved by cutting off superfluous words, and making additions which should effect a greater demonstration of equality in regard to the interest of the sailor. What, for instance, was the meaning of "immediate" destruction, and "tending immediately to endanger?" Why, would not "endangering" do as well? The words were only a peg for a sharp practitioner to hang a difficulty upon. And why were the injuries to the sailor which were to constitute a misdemeanour, limited to endangering "life and limb?" Great injuries might be done, and were done continually, which could not be proved to have attacked either life or limb. The public impression was, that, short of this, almost any degree of cruelty might be exercised on sailors, and was continually exercised, without any effectual redress being had. He would therefore ask the Government to introduce words making every thing a misdemeanour under this Bill, which was a misdemeanour by law anywhere else. He could not see what objection there could be to that; and it would add to the efficacy of the Bill, which would always be dependent on carrying public opinion along with it.

said, that he had never attempted to disguise from the House that it was his intention by this Bill to introduce a stringent system of discipline into the merchant service; and they must run some risk for the attainment of that most important object; but he believed, in the long run, its adoption would prove as beneficial to the sailors as to the shipowners. He hoped he had not neglected the interest of the sailor in the present measure, or had not protected him against the abuse of power on the part of the captain. There would be local boards before which complaints were made; and if cases of cruelty or habitual drunkenness could be made out, the captain's licence would be stopped for ever. He hoped his hon. and gallant Friend would not press the adoption of his suggestions.

Clause agreed to.

The House resumed.

Committee report progress.

To sit again To-morrow, at Twelve o'clock.

appeared at the bar, and said, that he had had the honour of waiting upon Her Majesty with the Address of Condolence agreed to by their honourable House upon the occasion of the lamented death of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, and that Her Majesty had been graciously pleased to return the following Answer:—

"I have received with satisfaction, and as a gratifying proof of your attachment to My Person and Family, the loyal and dutiful Address of Condolence which you have presented to Me on the loss I have sustained by the death of My beloved Uncle the Duke of Cambridge."

then informed the House that he had had the honour of waiting upon Her Majesty, and of submitting to Her Majesty the Address of that honour able House, praying Her Majesty to take into Her gracious consideration the Motion passed in the House for erecting a monument to the late lamented Sir Robert Peel, and that he had received Her Majesty's commands to return the following Answer:—

"I have received your Address, praying that I will give directions that a Monument be erected, in the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter, Westminster, to the Memory of the Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel, with an Inscription expressive of the public sense of so great and irreparable a loss, and assuring Me that you will make good the expenses attending the same:

"And I shall give directions in accordance with your Address."

appeared at the bar, and informed the House that he was the bearer of the Answer of Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge to the Message of Condolence on the death of the Royal Duke:—

"Cambridge House, July 18th, 1850.

"I am very grateful to the House of Commons for presenting me with the Address, which you have been kind enough to read, on occasion of the death of my late excellent and revered Husband; and I beg of you to convey my heartfelt thanks to the House of Commons, for these expressions of their condolence with me, and for the regard with which the name of the late Duke of Cambridge has been mentioned by them. Nothing can be more consolatory to my feelings, in my present bereaved state, than the assurance that the Character of my late Husband is duly appreciated.

"AUGUSIA."

begged to call the attention of the right hon. President of the Board of Control to the fact, that the annual returns of the East Indian finances, which, by the Act of 3 and 4 William IV., c. 85, sec. 116, ought to be produced within the first fourteen sitting days of Parliament after 1st May in each year, had not yet been laid on the table. He wished to know why the Act had not been complied with. There had been great irregularity in this respect during the last two or three years.

said, it was perfectly true that the Act of Parliament, of late years, had not been strictly complied with, and he would satisfy the hon. Baronet why that had not been the case. The Indian accounts consisted of two heads: the Indian accounts, and the home accounts. As to the home accounts, they were made up to the 30th of April every year; and between the 13th of April and the fourteen sitting days, it might, under the circumstances, be very difficult to have these accounts prepared in a fit state for presentation to Parliament. The accounts, after they had been prepared, had to be examined by the Court of Directors, to be audited by the Court of Directors, and then to be transferred by the Board of Control, which had again to audit them, and again to look over them. This might account for the home accounts not being presented so soon as the Act described. As to the Indian accounts, there was nothing to prevent them being presented earlier; and the only reason why they were not presented earlier, was, that it had been thought expedient that both, accounts should be presented together. Therefore the presentation of one set of accounts had been delayed to present the other. On looting into the subject, he did not see the necessity for both accounts being presented at the same time. The reason why the Indian accounts were delayed was, that they were the largest accounts. He did not see the necessity of presenting both accounts on the same day, and should take care in future that the Indian accounts should be presented at the earliest possible period.

appeared at the bar, and brought up a Message from Her Majesty.

Message from Her Majesty brought up, and read by Mr. Speaker (all the Members being uncovered), as follows:—

Committee thereupon To-morrow.

In rising to express his sentiments upon this Motion, he might be allowed briefly to advert to the circumstances of the previous debate. After a long debate, the noble Lord at the head of the Government stated most unexpectedly, and to the surprise, certainly, of all who were interested in the universities, that, without reference to any vote to which the House might come upon the Motion before it, it was his intention to advise Her Majesty to issue an inquiry, not into all the universities alluded to in the Motion, but into the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. On the occasion of that announcement it occurred to him (Mr. Palmer) that the debate had acquired an importance for which Members had not come down fully prepared, and that, under the circumstances, it would be extremely desirable, for the bests interests of those most important institutions, that at least a good opportunity should be given to all who were interested to express their views upon the propriety of the Commission of Inquiry proposed by the noble Lord. It might be in the recollection of the House, that upon that occasion also he expressed his opinion that the Commission, as proposed, would be an illegal one; whereupon the noble Lord and the then Attorney General said, that it was not the intention of the Government to propose the issue of any Commission which should be authorised to exercise any powers of a compulsory nature. He understood the noble Lord to say, that according to the view he then took of the subject, the intended Commission should issue for the purpose only of receiving the voluntary statements which individuals might be disposed to tender, and that they should not compel the production of evidence, muniments, or documents. Though to that extent the Commission of the noble Lord might not be, strictly speaking, illegal, yet it was of the highest importance, in considering whether any Commission ought to issue, that the House should pay some regard, as part of the element of the question, to the real legal relations between the universities and the colleges within them and the Crown. The universities were corporations of a public nature. The colleges, on the contrary, were corporations of a private and charitable nature. The relations of the Crown to the universities themselves were of a very unsettled and undefined character in point of law; but, upon the other hand, the relations of the Crown towards the colleges were perfectly clear, settled, and definite. The universities were corporations unique, in point of fact, but bearing a much closer analogy to municipal corporations for the government of towns than to any other corporations known to the law. They returned Members to that House—an important public franchise. They exercised a jurisdiction of a civil and criminal nature, not only over their own body, but over all persons residing within certain precincts. In fact, in every point of view the functions which they exercised were of a public character; and he apprehended that they must be dealt with upon those rules of law which were applicable to public corporations. Now, there were of public corporations only two kinds—civil and ecclesiastical; and there were no public civil corporations except the universities and the municipal corporations. The universities had been decided by law to be lay or civil corporations; and therefore no considerations of an ecclesiastical character had really any bearing upon the question of the universities. Ecclesiastical corporations would be subject to spiritual visitation, but that was not the case with the universities; and be apprehended, if they looked to principle, that the power of the Crown over them would be the same, and no other, than it was entitled to exercise over municipal corporations. But the Crown evidently had no compulsory power to alter the charters of municipal corporations. All alterations in such must be by the authority of Parliament; all corrective jurisdiction over them must be exercised in the Court of Queen's Bench; and though it was true that the Crown did, many years since, issue a Commission of Inquiry into the municipal corporations, which was by most of them submitted to, yet there was a doubt then whether the compulsory powers intended to have been given to that Commission could or could not have been exercised. This analogy, however, applied only to the universities, whilst the Commission intended to be issued by the noble Lord had reference far more to the colleges than to the universities. With respect to the colleges, the case was totally different. It was perfectly settled law that the colleges were private charitable corporations, subject exclusively to the jurisdiction of the visitors appointed by the several colleges, and that the Crown had no power whatever to introduce any changes into them, to institute a compulsory inquiry, or to operate upon them in any manner whatsoever. Parliament alone was competent to exercise those powers—powers which it possessed over these bodies, as it did over all other institutions and property, whether public or private, within the realm. There was one observation which it was important to bear in mind upon this part of the subject. Reference might perhaps be made to precedents of Royal Commissions issued for inquiry into the universities and colleges, and by virtue of which, as it was supposed, extensive changes had been made in those institutions. The history of that part of the case was this:—In the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, Acts of Parliament were passed which purported to transfer to the Crown every kind of spiritual jurisdiction which had been exercised in any matter spiritual by any authority before that time; and at that time, as before the Reformation, and for a consid- erable period afterwards, it was commonly imagined that the universities and the colleges within them were spiritual or ecclesiastical foundations, amenable to spiritual cognisance, and to be governed by the rules of ecclesiastical law. And, proceeding upon that notion, Commissions were issued by Henry VIII., Elizabeth, Mary, and Edward VI., not only for the purpose of inquiry into the universities and colleges, but with the largest powers to alter any statute of any college, and in fact entirely to remodel the whole system as the Commissioners might think fit. The fate of those Commissions was remarkable. At Cambridge very extensive alterations were actually made in the statutes of a variety of colleges, chiefly those of Royal foundation, by the Commissioners; and he believed that the statutes so altered at Cambridge had been acted upon down to the present day. The original legality of those altered statutes was more than questionable; though, at the present day, they would probably be supported by those presumptions which the law always made in favour of what had been long acted upon. But at Oxford the case was quite different. At Oxford, the Commissioners who visited, in the reign of Edward VI., took upon themselves to alter the statutes of the colleges, and to do precisely as had been done at Cambridge; but their alterations never were submitted to in one single instance. No attempt was made to enforce them. They were a dead letter, and to this day every college in Oxford was governed without dispute by the statutes given by the original founders, subject only to such alterations as the powers in those statutes themselves enabled, from time to time, to be effected. But the matter did not rest there, because afterwards, in the reign of Charles II., it so happened that a legal question on which the validity of those Royal visitations entirely depended, whether the colleges and universities were of lay or ecclesiastical cognisance, came to be considered; and it was solemnly determined in that reign that they were entirely and purely lay corporations, with nothing of an ecclesiastical character about them, and that no statute giving spiritual jurisdiction could confer upon the Crown any such right over the universities or colleges. From that time to the present it had been clear, undisputed law, that the universities and colleges were merely lay corporations, and that they must look to the civil law of the land for any sanction for interfering with those institutions. Afterwards, King James II. attempted to exercise exactly the same powers. That attempt was gallantly and manfully resisted; and every historian, down to the latest, Mr. Macaulay, had concurred in recording that action, in which Magdalen College, Oxford, took the lead, as worthy of the spirit of that body, and as a just and noble assertion of the liberty of the nation against the encroachments of James II. That was the history of past visitations and Commissions of Inquiry into the colleges and universities. The result certainly was this, that whatever these Commissions of Inquiry might do, whatever information they might obtain, the noble Lord could not, upon his own authority, act upon it to the minutest extent; but he must come to that House and ask Parliament to do whatever he might desire. Then the question that I arose was, would it be possible for Parliament to legislate in a satisfactory manner upon evidence obtained by a Commission which had no powers to obtain evidence, and which could, in fact, only invite those who were dissatisfied with the universities, and who had changes to propose, to go before them and state their complaints? The case was embarrassed with peculiar considerations. Under ordinary circumstances it might perhaps be supposed that any request of the Sovereign, that information might be given, was one which ought at once to be complied with. But in several of the more ancient and important colleges of the universities there was this peculiar and embarrassing circumstance, which must and would inevitably operate on the minds and consciences and judgments of at least all those whom he might call the conservative members of these colleges, that they had all taken oaths that they would to the utmost of their power, in every position, resist the attempt of any exterior power to impose changes upon them; and also, that they would make no disclosure of the internal affairs of their colleges to any person, by means of which such interference might be promoted. Now, whether it were wise or not that such obligations should be assumed by the members of any corporation under the government of the British Crown, he would not inquire; yet, undoubtedly, the law had hitherto allowed those obligations to be assumed without question, and in that state of ciccumstances it was impossible not to see that there would be the greatest repugnance, the most conscien- tious difficulties, as to volunteering information, especially in matters which had a tendency to produce changes. The result therefore would be that unless they were armed with the authority of the law, unless they had from that House power to enforce the information which was desired, it would be impossible but a sense of those obligations should impose insuperable difficulties in the way from those whose attachment to the colleges and universities was the most unquestioned, and whose experience was the greatest. Now, he asked why should this Commission issue at all? Where was the necessity and occasion for it? The noble Lord stated that there had been inquiries of this description into other institutions not less important, into the church and cathedral revenues, into the municipal corporations, and the charities throughout the kingdom—most important subjects, without doubt; still he was free to say that with respect to all those, it would have been much more satisfactory and constitutional if the inquiries had been always made under the authority of Parliament. There were reasons, however, in those cases why some legislative interference should take place; all those commissions were really issued with a foregone determination, in the minds of those who issued them, that it was necessary, for patent and obvious reasons, to make extensive and important changes in those institutions, to reorganise and reconstruct the revenues of the Church, and to entirely change the constitution of municipal corporations; whilst, in the case of charities, it was known that many of them had been swallowed up in utter darkness, and that the grossest frauds had been perpetrated. But those precedents were totally inapplicable to the present case, because the noble Lord had not told them that he intended to introduce any new organisation into the whole system of the universities or colleges, or that they were the seats of such abuses as to require organic and extensive change. Indeed, it appeared to him that the noble Lord's own view of the object which the Commission was intended to answer, was exceedingly indistinct. With respect to the universities, there were two most serious and important questions affecting them; and he hoped it would not be supposed that he, whilst deprecating the proposed mode of interference, thought they were incapable of improvement, or wished them to remain in exactly their present position. On the contrary, there were extensive and important improvements which he trusted to see effected, but which he thought could be done better, more wisely, more safely, and more usefully, by at least leaving public opinion in the universities themselves time to work. There were two very important questions affecting the universities as distinct from the colleges, and he did not see that the noble Lord's Commission was intended or calculated to deal with either of them. One affected the connexion of the universities with the Church, and the question of the admission of Dissenters. To any change which might sever the universities from their present relations to religion and the Church, he (Mr. Palmer) would be decidedly opposed; but the noble Lord justly stated that this was a question depending upon principles and facts already perfectly well known, and as to which no new information was necessary to be obtained by the Commission. That, therefore, was out of consideration altogether. Another very important matter, also noticed by the noble Lord when he stated that there were only about 1,600 students in the University of Oxford, and in which he (Mr. Palmer) cordially agreed with the noble Lord, was, that he wished to see the benefits of those great universities much more largely extended. But how was that to be done, and how did the Commission effectively deal with the difficulty? There was a time when the universities (he spoke more particularly of Oxford) were open to a degree of which we in the present day had lost all trace and vestige. In the reign of King Edward I., just about the time of the foundation of the first college in Oxford, it was stated that there were as many as 30,000 students in that university, and as many as 300 licensed halls for the residence of students; and, this being the previous and original state of the university, it afterwards came to pass that nineteen most noble foundations, the colleges, were founded. They were not at all intended to supersede, and for a long period they did not at all interfere with, the licensed halls that existed before; but it so happened, that during the troubles of the Reformation the number of students in the universities declined very greatly, and so by degrees the universities dwindled to the dimensions of colleges, and the few endowed halls became assimilated to the colleges. Lord Leicester then being Chan- cellor, assumed to himself the right to nominate the heads or governors of all the halls in the university, and that being conceded to him, the power of establishing new halls passed out of the hands of the university into those of the Chancellor; and from that time to this, unless the power had been taken away by Archbishop Laud's statute, it remained in the Chancellor, and not in the body of the university. Archbishop Laud's statute required that every student of the university should be admitted a member of one of the existing colleges or halls within a week of his matriculation. The consequence was that it would be impossible, unless we reverted to the old system of opening licensed halls, to augment the number of students beyond the capacity of the accommodation to be found within the twenty-four existing colleges and halls—a very serious evil, as it appeared to him. He ventured to point out another very important matter, which he thought could be obtained by reverting to the old system, and abolishing the present monopoly—he meant the regulation of expenses. We had now a scale of living, manners, habits, and discipline, which, in colleges filled with large numbers of students who had always been accustomed to it, and where it had become traditional through successive generations, it would be extremely difficult to interfere with. They could not well begin de novo in existing institutions; but nothing would be more easy, if new halls were opened, than to place them from the beginning under a strict and economical discipline. Let all the meals be in common—no expensive private furniture be allowed or let—a regulated scale of expense and a system of living be established—as had been done in similar institutions recently founded for poor students elsewhere—in accordance with the class of students likely to frequent them. Thus would they at once enlarge the benefits of the universities, and diminish the expense. Now, did the noble Lord propose to do that by his Commission? and, if so, was it at all necessary for that purpose? The noble Lord appeared to have nothing of the sort in contemplation; and there could be no doubt that there were existing powers in the universities amply sufficient to authorise what he (Mr. Palmer) had proposed. Nothing more was necessary than that it should be demanded by public opinion, to induce the authorities of the universities gradually, and of their own accord, to make changes of that description; and if they had not been made before, it was because they had not been demanded by public opinion. For many years past this subject had been, to a certain extent, under discussion in the Edinburgh Review. Very learned men entered into the controversy, Bishop Coplestone, Provost of Oriel, amongst them; and public opinion was with Bishop Coplestone against the Edinburgh Review. Public opinion would tend to improvements, however, in the long run; and he was convinced that it would do so, on such points as these, in the university itself, as soon as out of doors. These subjects were really not at all included in the views expressed by the noble Lord in announcing his intention to issue a Commission. It seemed, indeed, and he confessed he was most extremely surprised to hear it, that the Commission originated in the noble Lord's mind wholly out of a desire to enable the colleges to co-operate with the universities in the recent additions which had been made to the system of academical instruction by the local authorities themselves. The noble Lord had given great credit to the university authorities for the changes they had made, and he said that he was far from wishing in any manner to interfere with the success of those measures; on the contrary, the object of the Crown was to promote the success of those educational measures, and to bring the colleges into stricter co-operation with the universities upon that subject. The noble Lord, however, was totally mistaken in the idea he seemed to have formed as to the bearing of the colleges and their statutes upon this question. He appeared to think that in two or three ways the colleges had a mischievous bearing on the success of those measures. First, the noble Lord thought that their statutes were opposed to the introduction of the new courses of study introduced within the universities. Why, there was not the slightest foundation for such an idea. There was nothing whatever in the statutes of any of them prohibitory to the study of chemistry or modern history, or of any other liberal branch of knowledge. Nothing could be more general, more enlarged, or more liberal, than the statutes of those colleges, so far as related to the subjects of study and the course of education. He knew it was so in Oxford, at least, and in the colleges to which he belonged. They offered no obstacle whatever to the adoption of any new courses of study. Then, if that were so, was Parliament really to be asked to dictate the course of lectures to be delivered within the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge—to lay down how many lectures in chymistry, in mineralogy, in botany, or in modern history, should be delivered? Would it not be much more sensible for the House to trust to that spirit of improvement which it was admitted had been acted on in the universities—to those active minds whose example was urging them forward to the adoption of these measures? The noble Lord was surely much in error with respect to the actual state of education and knowledge within the universities. He had surely forgotten certain circumstances which ought to have been the best evidence that, even before the recent alterations were introduced, the education at the universities was equal to that at any other situation in this or any other country—that it was a liberal and enlarged education, and one which was well fitted to prepare men for the ordinary business of life. The noble Lord had only to look round among his own colleagues in order to find several distinguished members of the University of Oxford—men who were educated there before these improvements were introduced, and who were not inferior in practical ability, nor less capable of dealing with the practical affairs of mankind, than any persons who had been educated elsewhere. He might mention the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the President of the Board of Trade, and the Earl of Carlisle—all of whom were most distinguished members of the University of Oxford, and who were educated there under the old system. If the noble Lord looked to the other side of the House, he would find many similar cases. He was speaking of Oxford only, and he hoped that no one would suppose that similar testimony could not be borne with reference to Cambridge. It was a remarkable fact that, under the system of education pursued in the universities, without the interference of a Royal Commission, and without any of the projected changes which were now thought necessary to adapt them to the spirit of the age—under the old system were educated the very men who had become the great lights in the branches of knowledge which it was now desired to introduce into the universities. Who was it that gave the great impulse to the study of modern history? Dr. Arnold. Who were the great lights in geology? Dr. Buckland, Sir Charles Lyell, and Dr. Sedgwick. Who were the great historians of the age? Mr. Hallam and Mr. Macaulay;—all university men, and who were highly distinguished at the universities. He might even cite some of the gentlemen who, with a laudable zeal for the improvement of the universities, were now pushing for a commission of inquiry into them. Some of these gentlemen he knew were members of the University of Oxford, members of whom that university might well be proud, and who he believed were proud of the University. The noble Lord seemed to suppose that the desired improvements might meet with obstacles which had not hitherto obstructed the natural growth of improvement in the universities from certain peculiarities in the constitution of the colleges; and upon this subject he (Mr. Palmer) could not help thinking that the noble Lord had taken up the view entertained by the highly respectable gentlemen to whom he had referred, but which had been proposed by them and advocated by them with a totally different purpose from that of the noble Lord. Those gentlemen, it was true, proposed that all the restrictive clauses of the college statutes should be abolished—that the colleges should be thrown as open as possible—that there should be no local or birth preferences—and that they should choose the best men to fill the vacancies which took place; but they did not advocate these views with reference to geology, chymistry, or modern history. They proposed them with reference to a general principle, and with a laudable zeal for improvement, which he, for one, certainly considered overstepped the limits of sound and wise discretion as applicable to charitable foundations; for, if the foundations were noble and excellent in themselves, and if the public derived benefit from them, it would be extraordinary if they were now for the first time, and after the lapse of centuries, to act upon the principle that they should abolish something which had done perfectly well, merely because they could devise something better. Was this the way they acted with regard to charities of yesterday? Why, it was matter of everyday experience in the Court of Chancery that, however singular might be the caprice of a testator, provided it did not go beyond the limits of the law, it was treated as a thing that was inviolable and sacred. That was the general principle of the law; and while such was the state of the law in general, were they now suddenly, and in the case of the institutions now under consideration in particular, to deviate from that rule—not upon the ground that there was anything absolutely evil to be got rid of, but simply that something better could be obtained? The noble Lord referred to the cases of birth preferences and local preferences, and preferences to particular schools. Now, with respect to this point, there were two eminent examples which he wished to point out. William of Wykeham, one of the greatest men of his day, founded a great institution with two branches, a noble public school for seventy scholars at Winchester; and, in order that those scholars might be competently provided for in one of the great universities of England, he founded another institution not less noble at Oxford, whose ranks were to be recruited from that school. And this was one of the connexions between the schools and the colleges which it was proposed to disturb. Something of the same kind existed between Eton and King's College, Cambridge. It did appear to him that such ideas, brought forward by way of improvement, ought to warn hon. Gentlemen against placing too much confidence in the academical reformers who proposed them. It was, no doubt, desirable that all preferences, of whatever sort, should be controlled to some extent by a just and proper standard of merit, and that the persons selected should be well qualified with respect to personal character, and also with respect to a certain amount of attainment. Such was clearly the intention of the founders; and there was, therefore, no necessity for any alteration of the statutes in order to give effect to their intention in those respects, because they evidently did not mean that incompetent persons, or persons unworthy of the charity, should be admitted members of the foundation. Hon. Members would accordingly find that whenever the question was brought before the proper judges, it was always held that the prescribed preferences should be construed in a liberal sense, and administered in a liberal spirit. What they really wanted was, not a commission to suggest paltry alterations in the great institutions of our forefathers, but better means of giving effect to their intentions; because it really did not show a sound knowledge of the statutes to imagine that the saying of masses for souls, and other minor provisions and details, were essential parts of the founders' intentions. A just and true, as well as liberal interpretation of statutes, would always distinguish the main purpose from the secondary purpose of a particular enactment; and he believed that if they brought the proper jurisdiction and authority to bear upon the question, they would find that whatever abuses existed in the colleges had arisen more from customs adverse to the liberal intentions of the founder than from any obstructions offered by the statutes to proper improvement. He confessed it appeared to him that they ought not to forget what the colleges had already done, and to contrast it with what the Crown had not done. In the University of Oxford within the last 20 or 30 years no less than 12 out of the 19 colleges, which were previously close foundations, had spontaneously adopted a wiser and sounder and more liberal interpretation of the wills of their founders, and had opened the colleges, as far as the founders' intentions (so interpreted) allowed them, to merit of every description; and with respect to the others that were behind in the race of improvement, he had not the slightest doubt that if they were not unnecessarily alarmed, and if a spirit of resistance were not created in their minds by ill-considered interference, they would soon follow the example of the rest of the colleges. He would now contrast this with what the Crown had not done. It appeared that by the existing law, without any commission or any legislative interference with the wills of the founders, the visitors of the colleges (and the Crown was a visitor of a great many) had the right, not indeed of always altering the statutes, but of directing how they should be acted upon, interpreted, and administered, and of reviewing the statutes, not only with respect to education, but with respect to everything else. They had the right to introduce any improvement consistent with the statutes of the founders, and to correct any abuses which might have crept into the administration of them. The real misfortune was, that that power had fallen into abeyance; and who was responsible for that? The Crown, as much as anybody, or rather the advisers of the Crown, because, as he had said, the Crown was a visitor of a great many of the colleges, both at Oxford and Cambridge, and all that it had done in that capacity was simply to act as judge of appeal in cases where it had been called upon to do so by persons who thought themselves aggrieved; and as it was an undoubted fact that the visitors of the colleges had as much power to visit and inquire, ex officio, into their state and the mode of their administration as to entertain the appeals of persons who fancied themselves aggrieved, it would be a useful thing if the noble Lord would suggest means by which the Crown could institute a periodical visitation, and thereby reform such abuses as might have grown up in course of time. But they would not find that the Crown had exercised this power in any instance. In point of fact some of the colleges subject to the visitation of the Crown were colleges quite as open to exception as any of the others. It did appear to him a much wiser course for the Crown to see what could be done to improve the colleges over which it had a legal control, by administering the existing law, rather than to issue a commission as proposed; and if it should afterwards be found that it was necessary to go further, or that other institutions did not follow the example of the Crown, it would then become a question whether some new legislation might not be necessary. He could not help mentioning one thing more. In Trinity College, Dublin, one of the most richly-endowed colleges in the world, an extraordinary custom had grown up, some time since, of the senior fellows retaining their large incomes, notwithstanding the fact of their marriage. In this state of matters an application was made to the Crown—to do what? To remedy this abuse? No; to authorise and legalise it. And accordingly the statutes were recently altered by the Crown for the purpose of enabling the senior fellows to marry wives, and at the same time to enjoy the large revenues of that eleemosynary institution as private gentlemen, without reference to the question whether the old system was not a wholesome mode of providing a due succession of persons engaged in the work of education, or whether some better mode might not be discovered of employing those large revenues for the purpose of increasing the benefits of education in Ireland. With respect to this topic, he could not help thinking that the hon. Member who brought forward the Motion in this case, had given evidence of the crude and dangerous spirit in which persons who did not sympathise with the universities, and who were not conversant with those institutions, were apt to approach this subject, because amongst a multitude of other things which the hon. Member considered most important, he found him stating in his Motion that better laws were needed to extend the permission of marriage to tutors of colleges. Now, if there was anything more clear than another, it was the importance of connecting the educating members with the educated in the closest bonds of intercourse, and of securing a succession of persons to receive the rewards of learning, who, after having contributed to the work of education, should retire and leave the vacancies to others to succeed to their place. As a proof that there was nothing monastic in the idea, he mentioned that the same system had been followed in all the colleges that had been founded since the Reformation. Experience had shown that the introduction of wives and families was an insuperable obstacle to the intimate communication which was desirable between the students and their teachers, for if there was one thing more observable than another at Oxford, it was the great degree of separation which took place between the heads of colleges and the other members of the university after they were appointed to their offices. Not that they were inclined to take less interest in education than before; but the fact was, that the new interests and the new laws and necessities of domestic life obliged them to live at home in the centre of their families, and to lose their academical character, to a considerable extent, in that of the head of a family. For all these reasons he felt bound to resist the proposed Commission. He hoped no one would suppose that he entertained any feelings but those of perfect and sincere respect, not only for the motives of the noble Lord in this matter, but also for the motives of those members of the universities from whom it was his misfortune to differ. Some of those were among his most intimate and attached personal friends. He knew their value and the value of their opinions; but, in a question of this importance, he could not allow his deference for their opinions to prevent him from expressing his conscientious conviction of the danger of the course which they proposed. Lord Leicester, the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, in a letter to the university, dated in 1570, said—

"It had heretofore been worthily accounted the right eye of this realm, and, as it were, a clear fountain, whence knowledge hath flowed to every other part and member of this commonwealth, not only clearly kept and preserved, but most carefully governed, to the perfect growing and increase of all good literature."

He believed that what Lord Leicester said in 1570 had been true from that day to this, and was not less true now than at any former time; and he could have no greater evidence of the inherent value of those institutions than their success in thus keeping continual pace with the progress of knowledge, and the varying wants of society, in different ages. He trusted it would never be otherwise. He could not help thinking that the true way to increase their benefit was to abstain from all unnecessary experiments upon institutions of such value, and of such sanctity in the eye of the nation—to place confidence in them, and because they had been improving to believe they would go on improving—to enforce the existing powers before inviting hasty accusations, crude theories, and one-sided views, which could not but end in a most unsatisfactory manner, and upon which if they legislated at all, he ventured to say they would run the greatest risk of interfering with the course of improvement which they desired to promote.

said, that although a considerable interval had elapsed since this question was last before the House, he considered that the inconvenience of that circumstance was fully counterbalanced by the advantage which they had derived from the delay, which had afforded time for the full consideration of the subject, and which advantage was apparent in the very moderate and temperate tone of the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down. His hon. and learned Friend had considered the subject in two points of view—the legality of the Commission, and the expediency of the Commission. Upon the first point, the hon. and learned Gentleman seemed indisposed to concur with those who altogether denounced the issuing the Commission as illegal. [Mr. ROUNDELL PALMER said, that he did not intend to dispute the abstract legality of the Commission.] But, as the legality of the course had been disputed by others, and might again be questioned, he could not refrain from calling the attention of the House to the frequent instances that had occurred in which commissions precisely similar in their character to these had been issued by the Crown under the advice of the Ministers of State, commissions simply of inquiry, simply empowered to seek in- formation from such persons charged with the administration of universities and colleges as were disposed to give it, and not at all empowered to alter the constitution of those bodies, or their statutes. He would not trouble the House with any extracts from the long and most able speech, full of the law upon the subject, which Lord Brougham, then Lord Chancellor, delivered in 1832, in confutation of those who alleged that the inquiry then proposed into municipal corporations was illegal; the perfect legality of such commissions was demonstrated so manifestly in his speech, that to this part of the subject no answer was offered. The noble Lord proved that the issuing of such commissions, even without the intervention of Parliament, upon the mere authority of the Crown, was strictly legal and strictly constitutional, and recited a vast number of these commissions, issued of late years, commencing with 1824, as to none of which had it been subsequently contended that their issuing had been illegal. In 1824, there was a Commission to inquire into the educational establishments in Ireland maintained wholly or in part from public funds. In that case, as in the present, it was admitted that the Commissioners had no authority to compel evidence from unwilling witnesses, but were merely authorised to obtain information from those who chose to give it. Next came the two Commissions of Inquiry into the Scottish Universities; the first, a Commission to inquire into these universities generally; the second, a Commission to inquire into them separately, both intrusted with large subjects of inquiry, and both encountering the refusal to give evidence of many persons who disputed their legality, but both eliciting a mass of information that had been of the greatest use to Parliament. In 1830, under the Administration of the Duke of Wellington, there was a Commission to inquire into the state of the parochial benefices in Ireland, and the stipends of the curates; a Commission, invested with precisely the same powers. In 1832, there was a similar Commission to inquire into the revenues and patronage of the Church, both in England and in Ireland; and the other Commission, to inquire into the municipal corporations of England and Wales, in relation to which Commission occured the speech of Lord Brougham, to which he had already referred; and, again, in 1835, there was the Commission to inquire into the state and revenues of the Established Church of England and Wales. In all these cases the same objections of illegality and of the difficulty of eliciting information were put forward that were alleged on the present occasion. The hon. and learned Gentleman who spoke last drew a distinction between colleges and universities, as though the former bodies did not come within the category of the lay corporations existing under charters from the Crown, into which the Crown had the right, as in the case of universities, to inquire. Now, he contended that, though the Crown had not the right, without an Act of Parliament or the consent of the parties, to alter the constitution of the colleges, yet the Crown had a full right, in the manner proposed, to inquire into all the particulars affecting those bodies. He believed it had been distinctly laid down that colleges, equally with universities, were lay corporations, existing under charters from the Crown, either actually expressed and extant, or, as in the case of colleges acting by prescription, understood. In 1718, it was decided by the Privy Council, upon appeal, that the Crown had an undoubted right to visit the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, not merely in respect of specific visitatorial powers, but by commission; and, in the life of Dr. Bentley, it was mentioned that a Commission was hereupon appointed for the purpose of inquiring, though, in consequence of the University of Cambridge disputing its right to inquire, it was not considered expedient at the time to carry the matter further. As to the expediency of the Commission now proposed, the hon. and learned Gentleman had himself supported it with the strongest arguments, the hon. and learned Gentleman stating most candidly that there were several and important alterations in the state of things at our universities which he considered it desirable, if not essential, to introduce. He would not enumerate the various particulars to which the hon. and learned Gentleman had referred, but just refer to one of the most important among them—the foundation of new halls for students, whom the expense of the present halls practically excluded from the benefits of the universities. The hon. and learned Gentleman intimated his belief that the reason why this most beneficial alteration had not already been effected by the universities themselves, was simply because public opinion was not yet sufficiently advanced to warrant the step. Now, his (Sir G. Grey's) view of the matter was, that, with regard to this, as to cognate alterations, no more efficient mode of influencing public opinion in the right direction could be adopted than the appointment of a commission, comprising men whose known character and principles, not hostile to, but, on the contrary, friendly to the universities, should be a guarantee that their only object was to benefit the universities and the country by the medium of the universities, and whose report, carefully prepared from the best information they could obtain, should show what had been done, what was doing, and what remained to be done. Most assuredly the Commission would be inexpedient were its tendency, in any degree, to retard the improvements which the hon. and learned Gentleman, in common with himself, was anxious to carry out; nor did it convey any accusation, any indication of hostility against those who now administered those great institutions, whence so many advantages were derived by the community. He had himself too grateful a remembrance of the benefits he had derived from a residence at one of those universities—benefits which that they were not greater than they were, was not the fault of the institutions or of the tutors of his college, but his own—to entertain other than the most friendly sentiments towards those great establishments. It appeared to him—let him observe while on this subject—that it would be a great advantage for young men to be induced to remain at college for a longer period after taking their degree than was the case under the present system. He could say, for himself, he had always regretted that he had not remained longer than he did at his college, after taking his degree; and he was satisfied that much good would be done by inducing young men to protract their residence at college for the purpose of attending courses upon general subjects, after they had completed their courses upon the more special subjects to which, at present, university education was mainly directed. He remembered, when at college, putting down his name to attend a course of lectures upon modern history; but only three other names were added to his own on the list, and no lectures, consequently, were given. No doubt there had since been great changes in this respect, and that the lectures of the present Professor of Modern History were eminently conducive to the interests of the many students who attended them; he only now desired that those benefits should be largely extended. He did not imagine, with his hon. and learned Friend, that the fellows of the colleges would consider it incompatible with their oaths to give information as to their statutes; it was within his own knowledge that the University of Cambridge had applied for the consent of the Crown to the alteration of certain of their statutes; if their oaths did not preclude them from making an application for a change in their statutes, it could hardly preclude them from giving information as to the nature of those statutes. With reference to the Motion before the House, his noble Friend had, on a former evening, stated that he could not vote for it, because it might be considered as implying an accusation against the universities; but his noble Friend had, instead of the Motion, intimated a course with which the hon. Member for North Lancashire was so satisfied that he proposed to withdraw his own Motion. The House, however, not assenting to the withdrawal of the Motion, his noble Friend had intimated that he should move, as an Amendment, that the debate be adjourned till that day three months. As his noble Friend had already spoken to the question, he (Sir G. Grey) had risen to put the Amendment in his stead, and he begged, accordingly, to move that the debate be adjourned till that day three months.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the debate be now adjourned."

regretted that the right hon. Baronet the Home Secretary should have taken the course of moving the adjournment of the debate. He should be very much astonished to find that the propositions laid down by the right hon. Gentleman were acquiesced in by that House and by the great body of individuals whom they mainly concerned. He wished particularly to state to the House the grounds which had induced him to put his Amendment, of which he had given due notice, on the paper. The Motion of the right hon. Gentleman appeared to him to have been made for the purpose of excluding from the consideration of the House that Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman had chosen to assume—without any sufficient grounds—that everybody admitted the legality of the proposed Commission. The Amendment he had placed on the paper directly disputed the legality and the expediency of that Commission on constitutional grounds. He could hardly ex- pect that Government would have adopted such a course—he did not expect they would have adopted any other out of respect to himself, but he certainly thought the course which had just been taken by Government was unusual, as its effect was to prevent an independent Member from proposing to the consideration of the House a great constitutional question, and to interrupt the discussion of the question by taking it for granted there was no question, and therefore no necessity for any debate upon it. His first request to the right hon. Baronet was, that he would not press his proposition to adjourn the debate, in order to give him (Mr. J. Stuart) an opportunity, not to go into the legal argument, but to state such grounds for his opposition as would make it apparent to the apprehension of rational and unprejudiced men that any advice given to Her Majesty to issue a Royal Commission for inquiry into the state of the revenues and management of any colleges or halls of the two Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, not being of Royal foundation, tends to a violation of the laws and constitution of Her kingdom, and of the rights and liberties of Her Majesty's subjects.

said, he was not aware that the hon. and learned Member wished to take the sense of the House on his Amendment. He would at once withdraw his own Amendment.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

thanked the right hon. Gentleman, and also the noble Lord, for this ready acquiescence in his request. He did not intend to detain the House with anything in the shape of a long legal argument, as the discussion had already lasted some time, and he should not be justified in such a course. What he wished to do was to submit to Government whether, after what had been conceded as the law by the law officers of the Crown—after what had been stated by the principal law advisers of the Crown, that a Commission to inquire into the management and revenues of colleges and halls of the two universities, if made in a compulsory form, would be illegal—whether it would be legal or expedient, without power to extract full information and the truth, to cause a Commission to issue under the power of the Crown? Why was a Commission armed with compulsory powers illegal? Simply because these colleges and halls, as individual corporations, each and all had a right to the full enjoyment of the emolu- ments they were in possession of, and were protected in that right by all those laws which protected the rights and property of every subject in the kingdom. A Commission, with power to compel information from the possessors of property of that description, would be as illegal as would be a Commission to investigate the title of an individual to his dividends, or as to the mode by which he enjoyed his revenues. Take, for instance, one of the colleges at Oxford, where a number of individuals enjoyed revenues in common—apply a Commission to extract information—why it would be clearly the duty of each individual to resist the inquiries of this Commission as to the mode in which he enjoyed his property, the common right to the property, which all enjoyed, being, by the constitution of the law of England, the right of each individual. Take the situation of each individual of this body, and consider it with reference to the constitution of such a Commission as that advocated by the noble Lord—a Commission, not armed with powers to compel, but only armed with power to invite, disc osures—disclosures which the Crown had no power to obtain compulsorily. The property of these halls and colleges was enjoyed in common by each individual. No individual had a right to give up or to disclose anything that affected the rights of his fellows. It was an essential principle of the law of property that no man who enjoyed his rights in common, was at liberty to do anything to affect the right of another. If they admitted that principle, where could they find the power to compel a man to disclose that which which would affects the rights of another? But supposing the members of a college should accept the invitation of the Commissioners. Suppose some refused to make disclosures, and resisted successfully this Commission armed with no compulsory powers to enforce information. One man, however, obeys the invitation of the Commissioners, or yields to the wishes of the Crown. He discloses what affected the right of others, and gives information which he might successfully withhold if sought to be obtained by compulsion. He would ask the Horse to consider the situation of a man thus invited to give away the rights of a body of individuals to which he belonged, and that man protected by law from compulsory measures. He challenged an answer to that. He would ask whether any lawyer could dispute the position which he took. He had framed his Amendment with reference to those considerations, and he conceived he judged rightly when he said that those considerations had not occurred to the noble Lord when he first proposed his resolution. The words of his Amendment had been well considered, the Amendment had been temperately framed for the purpose of presenting to the consideration of the House these matters. By his Amendment he wished to ask the House to consider whether the advice to the Crown to appoint a Commission to invite fellows of colleges to give away the rights of other fellows—in short, to invite the fellows of Colleges, notwithstanding their oath, to obey the invitation of the Commissioners, and to give information which should affect the rights of others, was right and expedient; or whether it tended to the violation of the law and the constitution of the country, as well as the rights and liberties of the subject. He wished the House to say whether the franchises and liberties of parties who could not be compelled to make disclosures, and who were entitled to resist inquiry, should be forfeited and given away by the aid of proceedings from which they would be protected by law. He wished the House to give the question a calm and temperate consideration. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department, who ought, from his office, to be the guardian of the rights and liberties of the subject, had apparently not considered this view of the question. The right hon. Gentleman said he would take it for granted nobody would doubt the legality of a Commission from the Crown without compulsory powers. If the commission were merely confined to the right of asking one person to betray the rights of his neighbour, no one would venture to dispute the point. The right hon. Gentleman had conducted the argument in such a way as to satisfy him that he had not given full and deliberate attention to the subject. If the right hon. Gentleman had done so, he would have come to quite another conclusion. He would ask the House to consider what had been suggested. A number of commissions since 1824 had been appointed. What would have been said had a commission been appointed to inquire of individuals how their private property had been acquired, and how it was enjoyed? The right hon. Gentleman named commissions, beginning with the year 1824, and ending with the commission in relation to the deans and chapters. But the present question stood on totally different grounds. The colleges and halls of the universities did not derive their property as rights from the Crown. The deans and chapters derived their rights entirely from the Crown. The right hon. Gentleman said that Lord Brougham had delivered an argument on the question of the legality of these commissions, which was of a kind to calm and settle for ever the minds of all men. But he would beg the right hon. Gentleman and the House to recollect that at the time Lord Brougham delivered this opinion, so much relied on, he was a Member of the Government, and pledged to maintain the views and policy of that Government. The noble Lord's opinion, under such circumstances, must not be looked upon as his sincere and deliberate opinion. The Government of which his Lordship was a Member at the time, were responsible for the measure at that time before the House; and it was necessary, therefore, to give the best support to a measure which was held by some to be illegal. Unhappily, however, for the value of the right hon. Gentleman's reference, Lord Brougham had since given another opinion, and had given it when freed from the trammels of office, and not committed to the opinions of any set of men. Lord Brougham was not then speaking as a Member of a Government, but was speaking the law of the land. Lord Brougham, only within these last few weeks, had delivered another opinion, which he (Mr. J. Stuart) considered was weighty and conclusive, because it had reference to the present Commission. He would refer the right hon. Baronet to the recent opinion of that noble Lord; and as the right hon. Baronet professed to be biassed by the opinions of that eminent legal Lord, he hoped the right hon. Baronet and the House would give weight to that opinion, as it was in favour of his Amendment. There was, then, an end to the authority of Lord Brougham, as quoted by the right hon. Baronet. How did the other argument stand, which had been relied on, as having weight, by the right hon. Baronet? He said, in 1718, in Bentley's case, it was decided that the Crown had a visitorial power over the universities. Nobody doubted that was so. If that was the right hon. Baronet's proposition, he at once agreed to it. But did the right hon. Baronet consider what was the visitorial power of the Crown? What, in fact, that power meant? The visitorial power was purely judicial. It was given to the Crown, it existed in the Crown, and was exercised by the Crown to settle disputes whenever an appeal was made to the Crown to interfere. Could anything be more entirely wide of the question than to refer to the visitorial power of the Crown? Not only had the Crown a visitorial power exercised through the Lord Chancellor, but it had a visitorial power that could be exercised through a commission. He conceded more to the right hon. Gentleman on this point than the right hon. Gentleman asked. The Crown, as visitor, might issue a commission; but could the Crown issue a commission to make a roving inquiry without their being any disputes to settle? It was plain the right hon. Gentleman thought that the Commission about to be issued was a commission the same as that of the visitorial power. He thought, however, that neither the right hon. Gentleman, nor the noble Lord, could now adhere to that view. Why did the right hon. Gentleman refer to the right of the Crown as visitor? The right hon. Gentleman referred to that right, but no man disputed the legality of a commission issuing from the Crown. He had never heard any one, who had properly considered the subject, deny that power. This visitorial power was a great argument against issuing the contemplated commission. In what situation would the Crown stand if the Commission departed from its judicial character? It would act unjustly, because the Crown was now without legal power to obtain the necessary evidence. He did not find that any lawyer in the House supported the proposition of the noble Lord—a proposition to which he had committed himself by announcing that he had given his advice to the Crown to issue a Commission. The visitorial power of the Crown was a power that really had nothing to do with the subject matter of the Commission, as the authority of the Crown was limited to the settlement of disputes. The visitorial power of the Crown was exercised over certain only of the colleges and halls. In some cases the Crown had no visitorial power, it was lodged in other bodies. If the visitorial power had reference to universities, quà universities, as an aggregate corporate body, which consisted of an aggregation of individual corporations, what had the Crown to do with the revenues and management of those bodies? If disputes occurred about the revenues and management of colleges, they were to be settled according to the constitution of the country, before the legal tribunals of the country, just the same as any other question of property. The Crown was a protector in its character of visitor; but it had no control over the revenue or management. It had no right to ask how the revenues were received, and to what purpose they were dedicated. How was it possible to conceive that the Crown had a right to send a Commission to the colleges, to call upon persons, who were responsible to each other as neighbours having rights in common, to ask them how they received the rents, and how they employed those rents? The hon. Member, to whose Motion the House owed the present discussion, suggested that if his proposition were adopted—if such an inquiry took place—the revenues of the colleges would thereby be greatly increased, as he considered that the college tenants had too good a time of it. They were too comfortable, and enjoyed leases of a too beneficial description. But if a Commission were given, as the hon. Member desired, then the relation of landlord and tenant could be looked into, and the result would be that he would produce a greater amount of revenue than was now obtained. But for whose benefit was this increased revenue to be obtained? [Mr. HEYWOOD: For the colleges.] He heard the hon. Member reply—The colleges. But how that would occur, he should be glad to be informed. He would ask the hon. Member how he would like a Commissioner of the Crown to come to him, and insist on settling questions betwixt himself and his tenants? No doubt the hon. Member would individually receive the Commissioner courteously, and would afford information, though he doubted that; but then, if the hon. Member was a joint tenant of property, and an inquiry were raised by the Crown or anybody else as to the rent he was receiving, if the hon. Member in such a case chose to say he did not admit the right of the Crown to ask him for information, and that the Crown had no power to compel him to give information—suppose the joint tenant was applied to by the Crown, and suppose that tenant might have some expectations of some office from the Crown, which he might think would be assisted by giving information, what right would the hon. Member have to prevent the joint tenant from giving all the information he chose to give? Suppose the hon. Member found that the joint tenant had told all about the matter, and had recommended various alterations in the management of the property, would not the hon. Member feel that he had a right to be protected by law, and would he not feel that he had been unjustly deprived of his right by a functionary selected by the Crown? Was that a decent course of proceeding for a Government to pursue—was it a constitutional dealing with that right and liberty which every individual enjoyed in England? He did not speak simply as a lawyer. Every one was lawyer enough to know that the right of property was only valuable so far as law could protect it. But if they were to have a Commission from the Crown, without compulsory powers, which was to give away rights, and to give them away on partial information, to what would not such a proceeding lead? He respectfully asked the House to say if any answer had been given to these objections? The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had said, no one was bold enough to stand up in that House and assert that which was embodied in his (Mr. J. Stuart's) Amendment; but he felt satisfied the suggestions he had now made must have raised further doubts in the acute mind of the right hon. Gentleman, who, he felt assured, was not completely satisfied with his position. He would not fatigue the House with a long speech, but he could not conclude without adverting to some matters which had been introduced and referred to by the hon. Mover of the original Motion. He admitted that the course adopted by the hon. Member was more straightforward than the course Government had taken on this question. But he could not shut his eyes to what was at the bottom of all these proceedings. He could not be satisfied that the suggestion of a Commission was only put forward to induce the House to overlook the great question of admitting Dissenters to participate in the emoluments and honours of the universities. That was the thing the hon. Member for North Lancashire evidently wished to see; nay, more, that Commission was to be the great step towards the accomplishment of this great purpose. The noble Lord at the head of the Government treated the question of the admission of Dissenters as settled by a former speech of Lord Stanley. As he (Mr. J. Stuart) understood it, Lord Stanley, when a young man, entertained notions on this question which the wisdom and experience of his riper years made him entirely doubt the soundness of. If the noble Lord referred to the speech of Lord Stanley, he would see it would avail him as little as the speech of Lord Brougham as to the legality of the Commission did his right hon. Colleague. The noble Lord said the question of the admission of Dissenters was not involved with the question of issuing this Commission. The noble Lord considered that further inquiry could add no information to that which Parliament possessed, and that the judgment of Parliament had already been given against it. What was the purpose of this Commission, and what good purpose could it effect? Taking the universities as places for educating the people, the noble Lord said, many of the colleges had property governed by statutes, the nature of which prevented a more universal application of those funds for educational purposes. That was just what the Dissenters said. The noble Lord said, he wished to get information, so as to enable him to alter the statutes—to alter the distribution of the property, and thus to enlarge the sphere of education. This was just what the Dissenters wanted. One of the noble Lord's infirmities as a statesman—he admitted the noble Lord had many great qualities—was, that he was not very direct in the pursuit of an object. It was to be feared if the noble Lord obtained power to alter the distribution of collegiate property, that he would find some way to admit Dissenters to those institutions. It would be better if the noble Lord frankly told the House what his intentions were. The noble Lord said, Parliament had got information enough; it could not get any additional information, and he only wanted more information with respect to the property and the purposes to which it was dedicated. It would be better if the noble Lord frankly acknowledged his purpose at once. The hon. Mover of the Motion had manfully acknowledged what he did mean, and he had closed at once with the proposition of the noble Lord, and had withdrawn his Motion. The conduct of the hon. Member was more candid and judicious with a view to his ulterior objects than than that of the noble Lord. But a Commission to alter the constitution of the universities, so as to give a wide scope, and, as pretended, to make them more conformable to the will of the founders and their statutes, was not a new contrivance. A Commission issued by the Crown and Parlia- ment in 1647 was sent out, as the hon. Gentleman knew, with the view of abolishing the statutes of the universities, and making them of more extensive usefulness. A great historian had commented on the result of that Commission, and the weakness of the statesman who advised it. To the glory of the university, at a period when law was so completely subverted, they resisted the Commission, and held a convocation for the purpose of resisting the intention of Parliament to revise the statutes, with the view of obtaining the exclusive application of the funds. Lord Clarendon in his history thus wrote:—

"In this year, 1647, they had begun a visitation of the University of Oxford, which they finished not till the next year; in which the Earl of Pembroke had been contented to be employed as Chancellor of the University, who had taken an oath to defend the rights and privileges of the University. Notwithstanding which, out of the extreme weakness of his understanding and the miserable compliance of his nature, he suffered himself to be made a property in joining with Brent, Prynne, and some committee-men and Presbyterian ministers, as Commissioners for the Parliament, to reform the discipline and erroneous doctrine of that famous university ^{* * *} which the whole body of the university was so far from submitting to, that they met in their convocation, and, to their eternal renown (being at the same time under a strict and strong garrison put over them by Parliament, the King in prison, and all their hopes desperate), passed a public Act against it, that no man of the contrary opinion, nor the Assembly of the Divines (which then sat at Westminster, forming a new catechism and scheme of religion) ever ventured to make any answer to it; nor, indeed, is it to be answered, but must remain to the world's end as a monument of the learning, courage, and loyalty of that excellent place."

The same course of a resort to a "strong garrison" to enforce obedience could hardly be adopted now. But where was the difference in the case of those persons who refused to submit to the Commission, if instead of troops they were compelled to submit by bribes, and by hopes and expectations of advantage, for there were always mean motives to be found actuating individuals belonging to large bodies? In the instance to which he had referred, it was stated by Anthony à Wood, there were to be found the names of men connected with the university who supported the Commission; those men, he said, were a pitiful set, and were known by the name of "Seekers." He did not use the word in an offensive sense, but the hon. Member for North Lancashire was in one sense a seeker himself. He did not mean to say that the hon. Member deserved the epithet used by Anthony à Wood, and that he was one of those who sought to recommend themselves to power. Seekers in those days were comparatively unnecessary when there was a garrison of troops; but the seekers were active, and Anthony à Wood mentioned as among the employment of the Parliamentary Commissionors that not only did the seekers possess themeslves of the revenue of the university, but they interfered in the games, for one of the memoranda was, that "on this day the Commissioners employed themselves in breaking fiddles and destroying garlands." Then the Dissenters, in terms of great liberality and indulgence, made another attempt through the Royal authority, and not through the Parliament, for he begged the House to observe that the only question here was, whether there should be a Commission with an authority of the Crown; that there might be a Commission with the authority of Parliament, no one denied; but here the question was upon the mere prerogative of the Crown; and he charged the noble Lord at the head of the Government with advising the Crown to use its prerogative to the great injury of the Crown, by the violation of the rights and properties of the subjects of the Crown who are entitled to its special protection. What took place under that other visitation in 1687, when, again, under the authority of the Crown, violent measures were resorted to, to force a Dissenter upon Magdalen College? That college was one of the colleges in Oxford, the endowments of which were the least applied to the purposes of education. [Mr. HEYWOOD: Hear, hear!] He inferred from that cheer that the hon. Member for North Lancashire and his friends were of opinion that the revenues in question "ought" to be employed for educational purposes. But be it observed that if they were so, such application would be contrary to the express letter of the law by which their appropriation was settled and controlled. And if by law there existed no right in any other quarter to force the application of the revenues to purposes of general education, he took it to be clear that such application could not be constitutionally effected by any other authority. Yet the Commission contemplated or advised by the noble Lord at the head of the Government, was the suggestion of another authority by which this diversion of the endowments of Magdalen College to purposes other than those stipulated by the conditions of such endowments, might be effected, although there was no warranty for it by law. He freely admitted that Magdalen College did enjoy very large endowments; and if that noble college possessed no other claim but these laws, prescribing and limiting their application away from purposes of general education, on the gratitude of Englishmen, every lover of liberty and of his country ought to feel himself under the deepest obligations to the college in question for the noble stand which it had made in their defence. It had earned a title to this gratitude by the determined and resolute resistance it had opposed, in evil times, to the attempt at imposing upon it by royal mandate a head, in the person of a Dissenter from the established religion of the State, with an exercise of violence repugnant to the laws and contrary to the liberties of England. He quoted this fact on an authority from which he believed no Gentleman who heard him—on whatever side of the House he might be sitting—would dissent. He meant Mr. Macaulay, who, in one of the finest passages of his admirable history, described with glowing eloquence the gallant struggle maintained by the authorities of Magdalen College against the intruding nominee of James II. He contended that no Englishman, not dead to every emotion of public spirit, and every impulse of the love of constitutional liberty, could read that noble passage he was referring to without feeling grateful that Magdalen College possessed, as it did at the time of its great contest with the royal prerogative, those vast endowments which had sustained it, without being bound to their appropriation to purposes of general education. He contended that Magdalen had thus established for itself a title to the unbounded gratitude of those even who would now support the issue of a Commission destined to compel her once more to submit to an arbitrary and unconstitutional intervention with her rights and her property. Thus, he conceived, he had the authority of Mr. Macaulay for urging upon all who might be disposed to support the project of the noble Lord, whether they call themselves Whigs or Radicals, the fact that, in advocating the possible application of the endowments of Magdalen to the object of a scheme for extending general education, they would be committing signal injustice on an establishment, the conduct of whose members in a period of very great peril and violence had entitled it to the respect of all Englishmen who desired to uphold the constitution. It was that spirited conduct which had led to some of the most important results on which had been founded the subsequent greatness and the ascertained liberties of our country, as they now existed. It had led, among other memorable consequences, to the trial of the seven bishops; and, in short, by its vindication of those rights with which the new Commission advised by the noble Lord would now interfere in a manner virtually to abrogate, he might say it had mainly conduced to the establishment of our present liberties, and the security which the law had ever since extended to our public and our private rights. For such benefits the course projected by the noble Lord would be, indeed, but an ill return. He would not much longer detain the House. His object had been merely to call their attention to some very grave considerations, which the advisers of the Commission that the noble Lord desired to issue, appeared to have totally overlooked in dealing with the general question now before them. He had spoken in the hope of inducing the House to interfere, so as either to postpone or to prevent the promulgation of that new Commission which the noble Lord had declared he would advise the Crown to issue. He maintained, in conclusion, that there was no auihority, legally or constitutionally speaking, in favour of such a measure. All authority, derived from cases of analogous facts was directly against it; and he would boldly defy any one with any pretension to the character of a lawyer to vindicate such a proceeding. Such a Commission was in itself illegal, because it was not consonant to the law of England to issue Commissions authorising those named in them to call on individuals or bodies corporate to come before them, not under compulsion, but upon invitation, to give evidence as to the appropriation of their own particular revenues or endowments, when such evidence might be injurious to the interests of such bodies or individuals, or such of them at any rate as declined to concur, and were averse to the tendering of such evidence. He would protest against the Commission as one, both in its spirit and its technical conditions, opposed to the law and the constitution of this country.

Original Question again proposed.

Amendment proposed—

"To leave out from the first word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'any advice given to Her Majesty to issue a Royal Commission for inquiry into the state of the Revenues and Management of any Colleges or Halls of the two Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, not being Royal foundations, tends to a violation of the Laws and Constitution of Her Kingdom, and of the rights and liberties of Her Majesty's subjects,"

instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

said, that the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down had addressed the House on the advice which had been given to the Crown by its Ministers to issue that Commission. But he (Mr. Drummond) was rather disposed to make some observations on the altered tone of the right hon. Baronet the Home Secretary on the present occasion, from that which he adopted on a former evening when speaking from his brief, as it were, on this same subject. To-night that tone was totally different from the noble Lord's at the head of the Government. He must add, however, that the right hon. Baronet's was much more moderate than that adopted by his hon. Friend, whose Motion the right hon. Baronet had risen to support. Various observations had been made on the objects originally proposed by these institutions, and the mode in which they had been hitherto carried out. On that subject it was not his intention now to enter, further than to remark that although it might not be desirable to invest the Government with compulsory powers to the extent advocated by some Gentlemen, for the diffusion of general education, he did consider it to be the duty of Government to do its best to guard the subjects of the Crown generally against imposture of every kind, and to provide a proper place, either through colleges or universities, whichsoever they would, where persons should be maintained who were known as individuals qualified to give the sort of instruction that it was desired these pupils should receive, and where the pupils so taught by them should receive, on quitting their classes, some sort of certificate, to show that they had duly qualified themselves for the professions they had respectively chosen. Whether this object might be more conveniently attained by the grant of degrees or diplomas, or how otherwise, he was not now prepared to say. The one important thing was, that persons should be duly qualified to teach those who repaired to them for instruction, and should be known and recognised as filling such position. Whether the Commission which the noble Lord had advised, or was disposed to advise the Crown to issue, was or was not legal, was a technical question with which he was not prepared to deal. By far a more important question turned upon the consideration—first, of what the nature of that Commission was; second, of whom that Commission was to be composed. Now, for his own part, he was somewhat sceptical about what the results of this Commission were really likely to be when he turned to the proceedings of former Whig commissions. He held in his hand a copy of a somewhat analogous commission, issued in the "good old times" (the phrase "good old times" always implying some period at which the Whigs had been in power). It was dated in the year 1690, when a Whig Government sent down a commission to inquire into the state, condition, and revenues of the universities of Scotland. The commission authorised and empowered the Commissioners therein named to go down to the said universities, and "require the professors, heads, masters, regents, graduates, and scholars of those establishments to come in and compeer before the commission, and answer to all inquiries the latter might be minded to address to them anent the state and discipline in which their houses were severally maintained—the morals and deportment of masters and scholars, the nature of the instruction given, the punishments inflicted, and also anent the revenues and endowments of such colleges, their amount, and the particulars of their disbursement, &c." And all parties whom the commission were empowered to cite before them were also required to give evidence of any impropropriety or offences of which they might be cognisant in any members, of whatever condition, of the said houses, &c. He (Mr. Drummond) was much afraid that the authority from whence he drew this strange document must himself have been a sad wicked old Tory, from the sarcastic remark with which he dismissed this commission, namely, "it being so easy to make it appear that the masters of these universities had been guilty of great crimes—seeing that they held places of preferment." The Commission now in question before the House might only depend, as to its beneficial character or otherwise, on the character of those who would compose it, and on their views about "places of preferment." But he confessed that he fore- saw much possible danger from the precedent that the noble Lord's advice as to this Commission, might establish. If the Queen could be advised, however the question of law or constitutional usage might stand, to issue this Commission authorising Her Commissioners to inquire how these collegiate institutions used or managed their property, he wanted to know how they were to guard against the issue of a Commission, some day or other, to inquire into the mode in which the Queen used Her property? He would ask, seriously, who was to guarantee them from such a dilemma as that? It seemed to him that the noble Lord must have fallen into an error into which heads of government were somewhat apt to fall. He thought the noble Lord must have committed the error of originating a measure of this kind and importance from himself, without previously submitting it to the consideration of his own Cabinet, and there taking, in the first instance, the opinions of those who could have better advised him on the legal and constitutional points involved in the question. Certain he was that nobody who knew anything about the legal and constitutional elements in question would, even for a moment, have advised the issue of a Commission. He must confess, at the same time, that he believed the universities had become, from lapse of time and other circumstances, totally inadequate to discharge their duties in a manner and to the full extent which the public might expect and desire. But the mode by which the reasonable expectations of the public were to be fulfilled, ought not to be by the issue of such a commission as that proposed which would interfere with the property and rights of the colleges. The thing we ought to do was either to open the halls to Roman Catholics and Nonconformists, or else to give grants of public money to build colleges, one for Roman Catholics, and another for Nonconformists, while we left the degrees and honours of the universities open to all. It was perfectly impossible for them to continue the universities merely as parts of the Church Establishment after they had themselves destroyed that Church Establishment, and after that House, containing so many professed enemies to the Establishment, sat nightly in judgment upon it. A great fallacy ran through the argument of the hon. Gentleman who opened this debate as to the things which ought to be taught at the universities. The two principal parts he alluded to were modern history and modern languages. With respect to modern history, he (Mr. Drummond) did not exactly know what was meant by it. Whigs were famous for writing political pamphlets which they called histories; one might begin with Fox's History of James, and go down to the latest that had come out; and if the hon. Gentleman meant that it was very important that these things should be taught to the rising generation, he (Mr. Drummond) must differ from him. However, it was a matter of taste. With respect to modern languages, the hon. Gentleman was in error. There was a great advantage in the knowledge of modern languages to those who had to mix with the people among whom they were spoken; but it was wholly erroneous to suppose that you could ever derive the same advantage from the study of modern languages as of ancient. There was a little error, likewise, as to the object to be effected by the teaching of languages at the universities. It had no more to do with the subsequent use to be made of those languages than the learning to fence or to dance had to do with the subsequent walking. You were not, because you had learned to fence, to go parrying carte and tierce through the world; but you had not proper power over your limbs unless taught in these exercises. So with the learning of the languages; the great advantage was that the mind was thereby exercised in a way in which it could not be by any other means. Illustrations might be found in that House during the last century; those who had been most distinguished in Parliament were those who had been most learned while at college. The knowledge of German had been particularly specified. You would find a greater number of persons everywhere abroad well versed in English than you would find English people well versed in continental languages; and the reason assigned abroad was that English literature was not only so much richer, but so much purer — that English was necessary for those who chiefly exercised themselves in light reading, because the light reading on the Continent was so corrupting and vicious. Now, there were many persons here exceedingly alarmed at the introduction of Popery. Even if they were right instead of wrong, in point of fact there was far greater danger to this country from the introduction of German literature, filling people's minds with that abominable system of neology. If there was a quarter of which we ought to be jealous, it was the north of Germany, and especially Prussia. He (Mr. Drummond) very much disliked everything that came from that quarter. In politics Prussia was the most treacherous of all countries during the whole of the last war; it was the most base; it followed this country, or France, according as it could obtain something for itself. It was a Minister of Prussia who was the last that was convicted of receiving money to betray his country. Prussia was the great centre from which all the neology of Europe came forth. If there was one thing against which the universities ought most to be warned, it was the suffering German literature to become the basis of the instruction of English youth. He was exceedingly glad the adjournment of the debate was moved. [An Hon. MEMBER: That Motion is withdrawn.] It was to be moved again, he hoped, as it would give Ministers as opportunity of remembering "that second thoughts were best."

should confess himself much at a loss to understand the arguments of the hon. Gentlemen who had just sat down. He understood the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Stuart) to argue, that as it would be illegal if the Crown, of its own authority, were to issue a commission for the purpose of introducing certain arbitrary changes in the constitution of the universities, or the arrangements of the colleges, it was illegal to attempt to do it by a circuitous process. It appeared to him that precisely the same argument might with equal force have been applied to the case of the Municipal Corporations Commission, and to that also of the Ecclesiastical Commission; and he might add that the hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to found his argument upon the principle that they ought to legislate first and inquire afterwards. But, to enter more closely into the consideration of the question before the House, here they had a certain number of very grave charges brought against the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; and, without saying how far those charges had a foundation in truth, he would say this—that there were a great number of persons who ought to be acquainted with the constitution and condition of those universities. The ignorance that prevailed out of doors respecting them formed a reason, not for refusing but for granting inquiry, and therefore he should support inquiry, with a view to reform. One of the most distinguished members of the University of Cambridge, Dr. Peacock, the dean of Ely, stated that that university had undergone few essential changes during the last three centuries. Surely when they looked around them in the world they could not avoid coming to the conclusion that such an institution could not be allowed to stand still in the midst of general progress. It further appeared to him that in instituting this inquiry they must not content themselves with such information as volunteer 'witnesses might supply, for very many fellows of colleges knew nothing of their constitution or administration. Those matters were not so open or so simple as that any of the fellows could bring all the details under the notice of a Royal Commission. Then, as to what was even now known of their constitution, Dr. Peacock stated, that though graces were submitted to the decision of the senate, yet they were never, as in that House, accompanied by such statements as would enable those who voted them to know whether they were right and proper or not, and there might not be five persons in the senate acquainted with the real state of the facts. He could not therefore concur in opinion with the hon. and learned Member for Newark, that the issuing of a Commission of Inquiry was objectionable upon the grounds he had stated. Nothing was so easy as to say it was "unconstitutional" to issue such a commission; but it was difficult to prove that it was. Until something like an argument had been advanced on the subject, he should be content to allow the question to be determined according to the precedents already made in the ecclesiastical and other commissions of inquiry. For his own part, he was not actuated by any feeling of hostility to either of the universities. With one of them (Cambridge) he had the honour to have been connected, and it had ever been a source of pride and satisfaction to him that he had been; but, for the advantage of the universities, he wished to have the inquiry instituted. Many grave charges had been brought against them, some of which, he believed, had no foundation, The universities had been censured for not doing things which it was altogether impossible, and they had no power, to do. It was only fair they should have an opportunity of clearing away those unfounded reproaches against them. He knew, and it pained and grieved him to know, that very many of the charges made against the uni- versities were unfounded; he thought the inquiry was, therefore, essential for their own sakes. It was not possible for the colleges to remedy many of the abuses complained of. His own opinion was that their powers ought to be enlarged, or some means should be afforded for the remedy of such evils. If not, the public should be fairly and fully informed that it was not by the fault of the colleges such abuses as those complained of existed, but because there was no power to remedy or remove them. Even though a Royal Commission conferred no power to compel the attendance of witnesses to give evidence, it would at all events throw a degree of light upon the working of the universities and their future prospects might be improved considerably by it. He believed there would be no difficulty found in obtaining the evidence of persons competent to give it. He was sure of that, at least with respect to Cambridge; but he was also satisfied that competent witnesses would come forward from both universities fairly and voluntarily to give every information in their power. He did not believe it would be a one-sided inquiry—on the contrary, it would be open to all parties—heads of colleges — professors—tutors—and all who were best qualified to give information. If the universities were so faultless as it was said they were, and that the charges against them were unfounded, surely those immediately and directly interested in them would be the first to come forward to be examined. He believed the changes which ought to be effected in the universities were constitutional changes, and not those which might be made by themselves or by the powers now vested in them. If the proposed inquiry was issued, it would be found that the universities were trammelled at every step, and that they possessed no power whatever to remove or remedy the evils which existed. It was said that they had power to reform themselves, and that they would do so gradually. He believed they had no such power, and that they could never reform themselves. Public opinion had not the same effect upon the universities as it exercised over many other institutions. It was said public opinion would gradually produce its effects on them, and that it was as influential in the universities as anywhere else. He did not think so. He was aware of the slow effects of public opinion. With respect to the changes that it might be found expedient to introduce, he was far from thinking that they ought to be confined to this or that branch of learning, or to a particular course of lectures. The evils which demanded a remedy lay, he feared, much deeper; for the constitutions of the universities appeared to him to require considerable change, and he held that Parliament ought to do for them that which they were unable to do for themselves. Many hon. Members were probably not aware of the difficulty with which changes were made, or almost any proposition introduced in either of the universities. In every instance, the motion, or grace as it was called, must be submitted to what might be termed a select committee; and they not only collectively, but individually, possessed the power of pronouncing upon it a veto, one dissentient voice being sufficient to prevent the grace being submitted to the senate; and this senate was a body highly democratic, with all the evils, but none of the advantages, of democracy; and yet, in that assembly motions were decided without discussion and without amendment, for they must be accepted in toto, or wholly rejected. Now, he would appeal to any one acquainted with the practice of popular assemblies, to say if such constitution could be considered tolerable. He was ready to admit great and beneficial changes had been carried into effect in the universities; but the consideration of the effects of the relation between the various colleges and the universities might be well brought before a commission. That relation was of recent growth, and was not connected with the original constitution of the universities; and he thought it would be important for the Commission to consider whether it might not be left open to persons desirous of a university education to follow their studies without the restraints of any college, which could be done with less harm to discipline than was generally imagined. The present connexion between the colleges and the university presented difficulties to the advance of education which would be felt more and more in proportion as the sphere of learning was enlarged; and even now, while the tutors of colleges were fully engaged, it was found that the most eminent university professors were lecturing to yearly decreasing audiences. He hoped the instructions issued to the Commission would enlarge, rather than narrow, the field of inquiry; and on no point did there appear to be a greater unanimity of opinion than on the necessity of having a joined, and not a separate, Commission. Believing that the issuing of the Commission was perfectly in the power of the Crown—that it was not only expedient, but highly desirable, for the sake of the universities themselves—that it would free them from much unfounded calumny and misrepresentation—and that it would, in all probability, tend to good, he would vote for the Motion of the hon. Member for North Lancashire, if it was then before the House, and would certainly vote against the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Newark, which he conceived to be founded entirely on a misconception of the proposition of the noble Lord at the head of the Government.

Sir, upon one point I am glad I can entirely concur with the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down—I mean in the description he has given of the motives which he believes have actuated Her Majesty's Government with respect to this Motion. I at once freely admit that I believe those motives to be entirely consistent with the professions of the noble Lord at the head of the Government, and with friendly feelings towards the universities; and I am the more anxious to make this admission in terms the most unreserved, as upon the subject of the proposition itself it will be my absolute duty to express a very strong opinion. Sir, I earnestly hope—I do not yet see reason for abandoning the hope—that the noble Lord will be induced to reconsider an intention hastily conceived, and conceived, as I think, in an evil hour. For the noble Lord has heard to-night, in the able speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newark, of difficulties attaching to this subject of which I believe he had little dreamt at the time he made his unexpected announcement; and, unless I am much mistaken, before this subject ceases to be discussed in this House, the noble Lord will hear much more with regard to the constitutional—and I might almost, if not strictly, say—the legal character of the Commission he proposes to appoint. Sir, there is one reason only which, I confess, makes me regret the necessity which I feel to oppose the whole objects of this Commission, and that is, that I am quite certain that any investigation and public examination such as that which the noble Lord would institute, would redound—I do not presume to speak of Cambridge, although I believe the remark would apply with equal force to that university—would re- dound to the credit and honour of the body to whom it was applied. Go where you will throughout the country, and nowhere will you find a body of men more competent, more devoted to the functions of their office, or more indefatigable in the application bestowed upon them, more adorned with those virtues which belong—I am sure it is not too much to say—to Christian scholars and gentlemen. Sir, I cannot but regret that I should be compelled to oppose an inquiry which, conducted as I know it would be by honourable men, would be certain to elicit testimony so emphatic in favour of the University of Oxford, which, by the few in number only, has been viewed with jealousy and distrust. But, Sir, without stopping to consider the feelings of individuals, or the evil or the benefit which would redound to them by such an inquiry, let me advert to the great constitutional and public principles involved in this question. Sir, any Commission of this kind which you can appoint, must, under any circumstances or justification, be attended with most formidable evils. I do not deny there might be circumstances justifying the appointment of some kind of commission; but what I wish the House to recognise is, that in any case the appointment of such a Commission must be a great evil in itself—even although it may be necessary to avert still greater evils. Not merely because such investigations may fix on partial and superficial blots, and very likely may lead to the suppression of the advantages which the institutions confer—not merely because they may breed disunion between the seniors and the juniors, when it is essential that an unbroken confidence and respect should be preserved between the younger and the elder bodies, but because they are calculated to introduce foreign and discordant elements in the place of that peace and repose which are so essential to the prosecution of the object in view. But, Sir, let us consider how such a Commission as the one proposed accords with that principle which is so dear to the hearts of Englishmen, and which has had so much to do with the national growth and prosperity of the country—I mean the principle of local freedom of independence in local institutions. No doubt that principle is attended with contingent evils, and may seem to slacken rather than promote the progress of reform; but it is one to which the people owe much of their capacity for self-government, and one which characterises this country beyond all others. And if I am asked what other country is renowned for local independence, I say it is that country which springs from our own loins, namely, the United States, where, although democracy prevails, yet there is still the most liberal disposition on the part of Government to facilitate the action of local and independent bodies. The institution of the Commission you propose must tend to impair that local independence. These, however, are general considerations which, in my mind, ought to make us pause before lending too favourable an ear to a proposition of this kind. To proceed to closer quarters, I want to know whether a Commission of this kind may be instituted for the sake of some speculative improvement, or whether cause should be shown for its appointment? I contend, with regard to the universities at this moment, no case at all has been made out for inquiry. I do not deny that you may have such a case; nay, I will make the admission. The universities have of late introduced changes of a very great extent into their course of study; and on the very day this blow was struck at them, on the 23rd of April last, the University of Oxford gave its final sanction to its new statute of examinations. It is true that that statute is a great change in itself, that it will introduce great changes, not only in the university, but in the colleges. But then that change will be the change of time. You must allow some time to elapse before the examinations of the university under the new statute can be discerned at all—and you must allow the colleges a reasonable time to adopt the change. There must be a large addition to the staff of tutors, and an extension and multiplication of the branches of study; but the discussion of all these matters involves a great deal of detail, and time is required for maturing any useful measures. But is not this House bound to give the university that time? Should we not wait to see what the colleges are willing to do for the university? But what is the nature of the jurisdiction you are about to exercise? Is it an ordinary jurisdiction? It is a remedial and corrective jurisdiction. How do you propose to remedy and correct? When you come to the remedy, you find a state of things which you cannot call neglect, as the time has not elapsed which would constitute neglect. The duties are emergent with the time, and that time has not arrived. As matters now stand there is not the shadow or the pretext of a case for in- quiry. But what are the allegations made? One is, that in Oxford University, under the present restrictive system, there is not a reasonable certainty of always procuring competent men to undertake the actual work of tuition. That allegation has been made, although I do not know whether it has been repeated by the noble Lord. Mind—the allegation is, that it is frequently impossible to find competent persons to undertake the office of tutor. Now, Sir, in the different colleges or halls of Oxford, there are in the whole 78 tutors, and these 78 tutors have among them taken 85 first and second class honours. The House will be able to judge of the meaning of that statement when I say that the average of first-class honours taken in the year by the whole body of persons intending to graduate, is 12. But these 78 tutors have taken 85 first and second class honours, and 29 other high university honours. Among the whole number there are only six who have not taken high university honours. Can this allegation be sustained, therefore, when it can be shown that the best and ablest men, as a general rule, are found willing to undertake the duties of tutors? The other allegation that the statutes of the colleges will prevent the introduction of the new statutes, is equally chimerical. But, it is alleged, again, that the statutes are unalterable. I doubt whether unalterable statutes exist in any colleges, and whether it is not in the power of the visitor and incumbents to propose an alteration in them. But, at all events, before you plead in the unalterability of statutes as a justification for interference, you should ascertain the fact. These unalterable statutes do not extend beyond six colleges; but the lesson which I derive from the jealousy of the founders, consequent upon the framing of the statute, is the opposite of that received by the noble Lord. I think that jealousy went to show that when ill-considered schemes were abroad, people were rendered more jealous of the introduction of well-considered schemes. Into the question of the restraints in the election of fellowships, I will not enter at any length. It is plain, however, that neither the House of Commons nor the Crown can assume a jurisdiction to remove those restraints; but, in point of fact, those restraints are of a much more limited character than is supposed. The selection is usually made from the county, or in most cases from the diocese. But although I do not deny that there ought to be some relaxation of these restrictions, yet I do deny the assumption that they are altogether evil. It is plain the principle of examination must have some limitation. I would not like to see a Prime Minister or any other Member of the Cabinet appointed by examination. I would as soon have them chosen out of a particular county or a particular diocese. And so in the case of fellowships—you may ascertain the competency of candidates by examination; but we all know that there may be as much trick in passing through an examination as anything else, and I protest against examination being taken as the sole and only test of the fitness of candidates for those foundations. Therefore these allegations are altogether trivial, and trivial especially at the present moment. The noble Lord's best argument is, that the state of the times render certain changes in the colleges necessary. But his doctrine does not apply to universities, as they are distinct from the colleges; he has said nothing to show that he intends to propose any changes in the constitution of the universities. On the contrary, he says that "the universities have shown themselves to be alive to the wants of the period; but the colleges may lag behind, and in this case I wish to interfere." I say you ought not to interfere, because the colleges "may lag behind it;" it is your duty to show that they have lagged behind; and decency requires that the fact of their delinquency should be established before you administer the corrective of State interference. You have no right to interfere in the manner which the noble Lord proposes. To interfere with the universities is a matter most serious at all times, as a reference to history shows. But when a case for interference arises, the case must be a grave one, resting on brooad and intelligible grounds: and then the only proper way in which you can use these grounds is by applying to Parliament for powers of inquiry. Now, what are the reasons for that doctrine? I freely tell the noble Lord that I do oppose this Commission, mainly on the ground of the fears I entertain of the immediate consequences that may result to the universities. As a precedent that would be acted upon in a different spirit, and in worse times, I have a great dread of this Commission, even for the universities alone. But I mainly object to it from the unconstitutional character which appears to me to attach to the proceeding. For what is the nature of the inquiry proposed? It is to be the simple act of the Executive; the noble Lord has shown no anxiety to be advised by the House of Commons. He announced his intention late in the evening of the 23rd of April, and as it was too late to discuss the subject that night, an hon. Gentleman proposed that another night should be taken for the purpose; but the noble Lord intimated his opinion that there was no occasion for further discussion. Therefore an interference like this has not occurred before since 1686; for the noble Lord proposes to settle it all at his own table in his own private room; and politely intimates that he does not desire the interference of either House of Parliament. I say, the universities are bodies of the highest rank and dignity in the kingdom; and, whatever you do with regard to them, you must do with the most scrupulous respect not only for their position, but even for their prejudices, and, above all, with a scrupulous respect for the fond and fervent affection of the community for them. Now, if I were the Minister, I should have felt that issuing such a commission exposes the authority of the Crown to great disparagement. What are the terms in which the Commission is to be derived? Is it to be a commission granting powers of any kind? Will, it like the municipal commission, enjoin upon all to give assistance and produce documents before the Commissioners? It is clear that if you are to have an inquiry into the universities, and if you wish to attain your professed object, you will require powers which do not properly belong to the Crown, because you must observe decorum, and the order and forms of public proceedings, under the commission; and these powers, not properly belonging to the Crown, will not be respected by the country, but will provoke jealousy and distrust. I don't say that if there was a case of absolute necessity you ought not to face even these difficulties; but, in the present case, I do consider you ought not to send commissioners down to Oxford to call upon persons for information, which not only they might refuse, but refuse in forms of speech approaching even to rudeness and contempt. The noble Lord does not contemplate coercion, because that cannot be used, but he proposes to obtain a perfect knowledge of the practice of the colleges. Now, that implies a knowledge of all the internal transactions of the colleges. But, unfortunately, there are oaths taken by the members of these foundations, binding them not to reveal their internal transactions; and I am afraid that many of them will feel themselves bound by these oaths as against the Commission of the noble Lord. I do not think they would feel themselves bound as against an Act of Parliament; because, from any obligation of this kind that a man might contract with regard to an eleemosynary institution, he could, from its very nature, be absolved by the Legislature. But the Crown has no power to absolve; and how will the noble Lord, then, absolve the fellows of these colleges? Will he do as was done in the time of James II., because that period is the noble Lord's own precedent—will he assume a dispensing power, and say, "You need not regard statutes: we tell you so in our authority, and therefore do not mind about them?" And this is not a mere chimera; for you have it historically, that, in 1647, the members of the University of Cambridge refused, on the ground of their oaths, to furnish the information necessary to the Commissioners. And Fuller gives the words of the oath, Non revelabis aliquod secretum collegii. And in the language of the oath for Oxford were the words, in damnum eus. So that every man will feel bound in his conscience not to disclose anything to the injury of the College. But it perhaps will be said "Oh, we propose something for the benefit of these foundations, and not to injure them." Now, some of the members will perhaps agree that it is a benefit, and have no objection to give information, but others, again, will think differently; and the effect will be, that you will have the evidence of one class, who do not think the inquiry an evil; but the sense of the vast majority will be excluded. Now, such a proceeding must obviously be destructive of the peace and harmony vitally essential to all bodies of this description. For the State to go among them, and by prospective patronage and promotion, and consideration of political expediency, to divide the members of these societies, which are more like brothers and families than any other analogy you can supply—to divide them one against another under any circumstances, would be exceedingly deplorable, but under circumstances not of necessity, would be a course in the last degree both ungenerous and unjust. There are objections of a practical nature applying to the form of the proceeding taken by the noble Lord. But I want to know if broader and deeper objections do not apply to this inquiry? I do not care whether this act is abstractly legal or not; but I confess that I cannot understand how it is to be reconciled with the spirit of our laws. I venture to say, that, if not illegal, it is unconstitutional in such a sense and in such a degree that you ought to eschew it with as much resolution as if it was absolutely and literally illegal. On the point of legality, I must remind the noble Lord that the able argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Newark remains still unanswered. I have understood that there have been cases tried in our courts of law, and without that precision as to individual and private rights which now obtains, and which tend to show that such a commission of inquiry as this, even without compulsory powers, is in itself illegal. I will, however, go at once to the question, whether it is constitional or unconstitutional. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury St. Edmunds has argued that the objection as to its being unconstitutional is very vague and indefinite, and treated it as unworthy of much consideration. I will not treat this objection as one incapable of being tested by a fixed and defined standard. No doubt the term unconstitutional is often used with great latitude; but, after all the incidents of our history, and the gradual elaboration of our constitution for many centuries, defining so strictly the powers of the Crown in relation to the other powers of the State, it does appear to me, at this time of day, in the year 1850, that we ought to have some notion of what is meant by the term "unconstitutional." I should have thought at least that one thing was well defined in England, namely, the power of the Crown in relation to other bodies in the State. The hon. and learned Gentleman says that no enactment of law can provide for every possible case; and it would appear from him that every case that is not provided for by the law is to be dealt with by the prerogative of the Crown. Against this doctrine I protest, and remember it is by this doctrine that the hon. and learned Gentleman seeks to defend this Commission from the objection that it is unconstitutional. I am no authority; but I thought the Crown had clear and definite powers in this matter; and that when the Crown has the power of interfering where persons may be damnified, it is not for them to show that the Crown has no power, but for the Crown to show a precedent in his- tory, and in law, for the exercise of such a power. Now, I say that you have not shown from either history or law that the Crown has a power to exercise this Commission. You indeed talk of precedents—you quote the case in 1549, and again in the reign of Mary, and again almost through the reign of Elizabeth, when you had Royal Commissioners with very large powers. But no man in this House, I think, will allege that any one of these precedents is a valid ground for the present proceeding. For, although there were commissioners under Royal authority, yet they were commissioners who rested upon the authority of an Act of Parliament, and that Act of Parliament was again swept away by the 16th of Charles I. Then there is the noble Lord's precedent in the reign of James II.; but that was followed by the Bill of Rights, expressly stamping this precedent as illegal. Whether these precedents were right or wrong in themselves I will not stay to inquire; but assuming that they were perfectly justifiable in themselves, I hold that not one of them comes any way near to a justification of the proceedings now contemplated. The noble Lord at the head of the Government quoted the case of the inquiry into the Scotch universities, and says it was conducted by a Royal Commission. That is very true; but what has that, I ask, to do with the matter? That was an inquiry in the exercise of the visitatorial power. Whether it was open to be impeached on the score of illegality, I will not attempt to decide. But I assume that it was perfectly legal. Well, what was the composition of that commission? The heads of the several universities consented to be appointed, showing that the universities themselves were consenting parties; and a portion of the Judges, and the great bulk of the legal authorities of Scotland, sanctioned it. That, therefore, will not bear a moment's comparison with the Commission of the noble Lord—it was not a fishing commission—it was not a roving commission, depending upon eleemosynary evidence; but it had the largest and fullest powers to summon persons, to administer oaths, and require the production of documents. Nay, more, it was not a commismission of inquiry merely; but it was a legislative commission. It was recited in the warrant itself, that it was the undoubted right and prerogative of Her Majesty to name the commissioners who were to inquire into disputes, irregularities, and defects, and "remedy the same;" and the commission not only made an inquiry and reported, but it devised codes and statutes for the Scotch universities. That, therefore, was very different, in every sense, from the noble Lord's Commission. Then, again, there was the Commission on Charities; but that also was as unlike the present Commission as it was possible to be. In the first place, it was grounded, as I say all such inquiries ought to be, upon an Act of Parliament; and I ask you, do you now come to ask for an Act of Parliament? If you think there is a case requiring interference, come and ask for an Act of Parliament, and then we shall have an opportunity of considering what you wish to inquire into, who the parties are who are to inquire; and then we can perform our duty as guardians of the authority of the Crown, not to expose the authority of the State to contempt; and we can also provide that which is vital to the success of all such inquiries—namely, that they shall be effectual for their purpose. But, surely, to cite the case of the Charities Commission, created, as it was, under Act of Parliament, as a precedent for this Commission, was idle and even ludicrous, because the very Act of Parliament creating it specifically excludes all cases like the universities—it excludes the universities themselves, the college foundations, Roman Catholic and others, and all public schools; and, lastly, excludes every charity that has visitors appointed by it. Therefore, I conclude that you will not rest much upon that precedent, because it is as much as possible your own proceeding read backwards. Then comes the Ecclesiastical Commission of 1835. Now, it was universally admitted, with respect to this commission, that great changes were to be effected by the authority of the State; and, therefore, that inquiry, so far from inquisitiveness and idle curiosity, was a marked tribute of homage and respect to the Church. But was it an inquiry forced upon the State and the Church? On the contrary, among the bishops and rulers of the Church at the time of its appointment, there was but one opinion as to the propriety of the commission. Now, if the noble Lord will show that the universities are consenting parties, I will admit that the Ecclesiastical Commission is a precedent that he may fairly quote. Then, the Irish Educational Charities Commission was also quoted. But these charities were supported either wholly or in part from public money. I will not ask whether the infinitesimal grant to the professors of the universities is the ground of analogy between that commission and the present one; but I would advise the noble Lord to take up that argument and make the most of it. But even then the universities are not the real objects of the proposed inquiry: it is the colleges. Then again there was the precedent of the Commission on Municipal Corporations. Now I should have considered it bad policy to support an inquiry of doubtful legality by another that was equally doubtful; but, even waving that point, the inquiry into the municipal corporations was a very different case, because there was at the institution of that inquiry a universal belief—undoubtedly founded in history to a certain extent—that those corporations were originally representative bodies, but that in the lapse of time they had ceased to be so; so that here was a great departure from their original trust, and from the purposes of their institution, and you could plead abuse as a ground for inquiry, because popular bodies had changed their essence by becoming self-elective. That, therefore, was a case essentially different from these universities and colleges; because we all admit that they, on the whole, are trying to do their best to perform their duty and fulfil the purposes for which they were originally established. Therefore, not one of the precedents we have had adduced to us is worth a single straw. Well, we are going to have the exercise of the prerogative; and in a question of this nature, the production of precedents, I maintain, is a matter of vital principle; and you are absolutely bound, when you do not profess to rest on any definite principle of common law or on any definite enactment of statute law, to show that the power you are going to exercise has been admitted in practice for a course of years. Now, I put it that you have totally failed in any case to show the exercise of a power in the slightest degree analogous to the one now proposed to be exercised. Now, we are told that because the Commissioners are not to have coercive powers, that therefore this Commission will be legal and constitutional. That appears to be the doctrine; but certainly it was not so stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who very fairly laid down as the legal foundation of his argument that the Crown has a visitorial power over the universities. But un- fortunately there are two fatal objections to the right hon. Gentleman's argument; because, first, the real object of inquiry is not the universities, but the bodies of colleges; and, secondly, this is not an inquiry by means of the visitorial power. Now, are the evils of the universities such as cannot be remedied by the legal means you have already at your command? Have you ascertained the legal powers of the Crown in a visitorial capacity? and have you exhausted them? Sir, there is a regular and constitutional mode of setting about your purpose, and there is another mode which is neither regular nor constitutional. The regular course is to ascertain the powers you have, use them, and show their defects if they are defective, and then call upon Parliament to amend them. The irregular course is, when you find all the precedents against you, to fall back upon arbitrary and undefined prerogative, and, regardless of the interests you are sacrificing, or the rights you are invading, to resort to an intermeddling and inquisitorial power, which is neither supported by history or law; and then to call upon the House of Commons, because it happens to coincide with the political views of you and your followers, if not to sanction, at least to tolerate, your proceedings. For two long centuries, the 16th and the 17th, this country was engaged in a conflict as to its constitutional liberties. At the beginning of these centuries the Crown could do almost anything; at the end of them it was not known exactly what it could do, and what it could not do. Has the Crown, I ask, power to inquire into anything? If not, why has it the power to inquire into these colleges, and nothing else? The hon. Member for Maidstone has been active in helping to establish an eleemosynary institution, of a nature strictly analogous to these colleges at Canterbury. It has been incorporated by Royal charter. Now, I want to know if the noble Lord's doctrine will extend to this institution: I want to know whether a commission might not next year be planted at the doors of St. Augustine's College, at Canterbury, to ask every person who comes out or goes in at them, what he would like to tell—for there is to be no coercive power—what he will choose to tell about the transactions of that college? You may say that there is a distinction between the two cases, and that St. Augustine's College, at Canterbury, has no connexion with a university enjoying exclusive privileges conferred by the State. Then I will tell you that there are other universities besides those of Oxford and Cambridge—there is, for instance, the London University. The colleges at Oxford and Cambridge are not public corporations, yet they have exclusive relations with the universities under Act of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary then argued, that if that were so, then the same relations obtained in the case of the University of London. The University of London could grant degrees. The University of Oxford had a provision that no person should be a member of the university unless he were a member also of a college of the university. The University of London had a statute precisely corresponding. Therefore, the power of inquiry now claimed would extend to an inquiry into the colleges of the University of London. He thought that point important, for here they were dealing not only with the members of the Established Church, but were dealing with other colleges—with Highbury, with, he believed, Richmond, and with what the right hon. Gentleman would call the Christian unattached, with the Roman Catholics of Ulster, and with a great variety of other colleges founded by the private munificence of gentlemen of other denominations; and he asked, did this undefined prerogative of inquiry include within its scope the right of inquiry and public investigation into those private institutions? If the power did not extend to Gower-street, what principle did they show for its exclusion; but if it did so extend, then how much further was it to go? For the House of Commons ought not in these days to do that which in darker ages the House of Commons would have indignantly refused to do, namely, to allow this undefined prerogative to prevail. He wanted an emphatic expression, and did not think he used too strong a phrase if he said that it was absurd to say that this inquiry was friendly to the universities—an inquiry which might involve consequences not only most injurious to the character and privileges, but to the property of the subject. Let this power be considered as it might affect private affairs. If the Commission were to be purely voluntary, and if the Government did not intend to use the language of the municipal corporations commission of inquiry, and to give the commissioners in this case power to compel the production of documents and records, and the evidence of the officers of the corporation, and all other living sub- jects of the realm capable of giving information, but founded their principle on this allegation—that the Commission was not a legislative commission, but merely a receiver of evidence, he did not know that that principle might not be extended to the private concerns of private individuals, if this Commission was qualified to institute an inquiry into the forms and constitutions of Oxford and Cambridge, and how they stood in their relation to these colleges. Did the Commission receive its authority from the Crown, or was it only such a commission as he or anybody else might institute into the private affairs of the noble Lord opposite, or of any private institution or individual? If the Commission derived no authority from the Crown—did not purport to proceed from the Crown—let the Government inform the House upon what authority it really did repose. He had expressed in strong language the objections he felt to this proceeding of the Government, because he felt them strongly, and he earnestly wished that the House of Commons—or that part of the House of Commons which he had then before him—would separate the question of the desire for the immediate object which the noble Lord proposed to attain, and the consideration of the propriety and safety of the means by which the noble Lord proposed to go in search of it. Because he felt full confidence that if the House examined the danger that would attend all admission of this indeterminate and undefined power on the part of the Crown—however useful it might be in intent and purpose—and then compared it with the purpose that was in view, they would act the wiser part in joining with him in endeavouring to persuade the noble Lord to waive for a time the examination he proposed to see if the colleges had done their duty, as the noble Lord himself had frankly admitted the universities had done theirs. Then if the noble Lord would come down to the House and ask for full power to constitute a commission of inquiry, which he might without exposing the authority of the State to disparagement, means could be furnished the noble Lord of obtaining all the information that was necessary for the purposes of legislation. But he feared much, if the Government violated the constitutional principle, the result would be less satisfactory. He asserted that the habit of self-government was essential to the real health and prosperity of these institutions. He would even go so far as to say that the worst system of education, as regarded the management of property, was so essentially bound up with that habit of self-government and that freedom which had prevailed during so many centuries, that it ought to be exempt from interference rather than be subjected to inquiry as to what would be the best system of accounts, rather than the most rigid exaction of rack rents, and rather than the most perfect system of revenue. He would not say that the State should not interpose to increase the amount of scientific acquirements to be afforded in these institutions; but, after all, the pursuit of science was but a small part of the business of education. While he attempted to plead the cause of the English universities, he would not unnecessarily dwell upon the ground of what they had done for learning. That they had done less than might have been done was possible; but they had done what the circumstances of the times and the exigencies of the nation had permitted. And whether the House regarded our lawyers, our divines, and our statesmen, the vast mass of whom had been reared in these universities, then he declared that they need not be ashamed neither of these, nor ashamed of the cradles from which they had sprang, endowed with qualities and acquirements which might be compared with those of others of the same degrees all over the world. In the time of Elizabeth—in the century of the great controversy which occupied the minds of both young and old with topics incompatible with the tranquillity of education and learning—there were interferences by the State; and he defied any one to produce a single epoch when learning, properly so called, was at a lower ebb at the universities. The number of learned men in them was reduced; science was scanty. No intentions of the Sovereigns during that century, towards the universities and colleges, but were good. There were plenty of good intentions towards the universities in those days, as the noble Lord had towards them at the present time. What, for example, did Queen Mary do? She bestowed upon them a great many estates that had been ecclesiastical property, gave them a great many benefices and abundance of good teachers; and, according to the account of Professor Hooper, she invited a number of learned foreigners to come over and assist in our universities; and the Star Chamber was in vogue to defend the rights of the University of Oxford from the city of Oxford. But notwithstanding all these ad- vantages arising from the interposition of Mary, the university, as Professor Hooper remarked, continued in a lamentable condition. But the cause of failure was easy to discover. The universities had everything except the most necessary element of all—freedom and self-government. [The right hon. Gentleman here read an extract from the work of Professor Hooper, in support of his argument.] They might require, indeed, that every professorship should be filled by a man of high attainments, and profit by that end might be attained. But whatever they might acquire or gain, they never could secure the same moral and social benefits under any system of coercion which resulted from the system of freedom essential to the universities. As regarded the eleemosynary foundation there could not be a doubt that an individual who was seriously deliberating within himself whether he should or should not devote a portion of his substance for the permanent prosecution of learning, civilisation, and religion, would be most unfavourably influenced in his decision by the prospect that any Minister of the Crown, who he knew must be the creature of the political majority, at any given moment might institute a commission of inquiry into the mode in which his intentions had been carried out. Every one must feel that this reflection would operate as a practical discouragement to his original purpose. And did the House think it wise to offer that discouragement? There had been a time when it was justifiable to pass a law of mortmain, when danger was threatened that the labour, the proceeds of industry, and much of the landed property of the country might be absorbed. But that was not so now. This was now a nation developing itself with unexampled energy in mercantile and material wealth, and he did not think it wise or politic to oppose an interested policy to the generous and liberal course of those who were disposed to rescue some portion of the wealth accumulated in the country to the cultivation of those things which were calculated to elevate, refine, and improve, the human mind. Take these men at their best—take them on the average—take them for their real worth—take them even at their worst, and say, had they been—were they now—other than beneficial to the country? Had they not been relied upon in a great degree as bulkwarks for defending our institutions from the shocks of ruder elements, and for maintaining the higher and nobler life of the nation? It was not only religion or civilisation which constituted education, but education depended in a higher degree upon that moral training of the mind which had been attained from the institutions founded by these benefactions, and by which we had withstood the hand of the destroyer. For them, therefore, we ought surely to continue that noble policy which pledged us to protect those great institutions; and if we regarded them as connected with civilisation, it should yet be remembered that civilisation belonged not exclusively to the higher classes, but should find its way to the labouring population. And it was a truth that many of these foundations had emanated in no small degree from the property of those classes, and that many they had sent forth had belonged to those classes. Many clergymen, for instance, who had received their education at these establishments had come from the humbler classes; for children had been educated there of different rank to those of Gentlemen who sat in that House, and who had come to the universities from schools where they had obtained very little education and small store of Greek and Latin, and they got into fellowships in competition with gentlemen of rank and refined manners, and careful instruction and study, and every advantage which the university afforded. What was wanted was to see the universities embracing a large number of persons from the poorer classes; and if they wished that object to be attained, they must not interfere in this way with the universities. The noble Lord had large means in his hands of doing good in communication with the universities; but the course he now followed held out but little hope of that, because the course now proposed would be resisted by the members and friends of the universities; and whatever might be said of those universities, it could not be denied that they formed a great, powerful, and conspicuous figure in the history of this country. The hon. Member for Buckinghamshire in one of his works had admirably described the "little world of Eton." In every public school was a little world; not merely the machinery for instruction in Greek and Latin, but a school of morals and manners. The universities were the same on a larger scale, and there was not a point in her history which had rendered England greater in the world than they. For hundreds of years these universities had been asso- ciated with the highest things that concerned this country, and he did not think that they had now fallen behind the age, because, with the increasing competition they had to sustain, and which he rejoiced existed, they must now do their best to answer the demands that were made upon them. The House of Commons ought to be the last to interfere with those institutions. The universities had, he felt confident, done their duty as the schools of our statesmen. There had been great and brilliant examples. He could not look at the Treasury bench, and upon the distinguished men who sat upon it, without feeling that the universities at least had no reason to blush in the face of the House of Commons. And when he turned to that (the Opposition) side of the House, he recollected that one of the most distinguished of the sons of Oxford had lately sat there—not only recognised by universal consent in his own country but all over Europe, as amongst the most distinguished and preeminent of the statesmen that had ever sat in that House, and that Oxford had given that distinguished man to the service of his country. Deeply as he (Mr. Gladstone) participated in the universal regret for the loss of that great man, he regretted it even more, because he was persuaded that had he been there now he would have thrown its protecting shield over the universities, of one of which he had at one time been the representative, and which, even when political reasons had dissolved that connection, he had continued to love, to the very last, with maiden ardour. He (Mr. Gladstone) fully acquitted the noble Lord at the head of the Government of any intention to inflict injury upon the universities. He feared, however, that the act of the noble Lord must result in injury, involving as it did a great constitutional violation of great importance; and he was convinced that at an earlier period of the Session, when the House of Commons would have been more disposed to entertain this question, and the larger portion of the Members would have been present to give their opinions, there would have been greater advantages, and perhaps the sense of the House would have been taken in a way adverse to the suggestion of the noble Lord. He hoped that the noble Lord would reconsider the intention he had avowed, and would not allow the Commission to issue until a more thorough examination into the constitutional and legal question, and whether or not these principles of freedom and self-government were not essential to the prosperity and welfare of these universities, had taken place.

Sir, I feel very considerable difficulty in arguing the question that a Commission ought to issue on the part of the Crown to inquire into these universities; for if we say but little, as we did on a former occasion, of any of the defects of these universities, and only observe that we think there are improvements that might be made, that those improvements might be facilitated by such an inquiry as that we propose, and that legislative aid may be applied to the purpose in view, we are met by the statement of the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down that we are merely arguing the case for the Commission. But if I should point out to the House more in detail than I have hitherto done, defects that exist, and improvements that may be made, then we shall be met by what was urged in the latter part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, in which he denounced the Ministers of the Crown as being desirous to subvert these institutions, and as wishing, almost, to deprive these universities of their existence. The right hon. Gentleman went to an excess of protestation against what he presumed to be our intentions, which I think was hardly required by anything that has been said on this subject by any Minister of the Crown who has addressed the House upon it. We may admit that these universities have been very useful bodies, that large endowments have not been improperly employed, that the education given has produced able statesmen, and so forth; and when we have made all these admissions we are no nearer the right hon. Gentleman's conclusion that there ought not to be any inquiry with regard to these bodies. The right hon. Gentleman, going beyond the temperate speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Plymouth, who introduced this discussion, would have us think that there ought not to be, on the part of the Crown, any inquiry hereafter, except as regards cases of gross abuse and mismanagement, which would render such inquiry absolutely necessary. Now to admit that, would be to admit that, from 1815 to the present time, we have been going altogether in a wrong course—that former Ministers of the Crown have abused its prerogative—and that we have interfered with the rights and liberties of the subject. The right hon. Gentleman, in the earlier portion of his speech, told us that some of the colleges at Oxford had foundations at a time that produced the Reformation, and that the founders of those colleges inserted in their statutes more strict and severe rules against State interference; and he attempted to draw from that the moral that we ought to guard against ill-considered schemes of reform. I am not prepared to admit that the reformations of Henry VIII. and of Elizabeth were merely the ill-considered schemes of reform of the innovators of that day; but I do see in those statutes another lesson, that those who made those severe statutes made, at the same time, a great mistake in the severity and strictness with which they fenced the foundations they were then making; because, by that attempt to prevent all change, they only made it more violent, more entire, and more subversive than it would otherwise have been. In these foundations, which ought not, according to the right hon. Gentleman, to be interfered with, were many that were founded by Catholic noblemen and divines, who made provisions for securing the due performance of the Roman Catholic worship; and, if you are not to alter these institutions of those days, it is the Catholics, and not we, that ought not to be interfered with. But now with respect to procedents, the right hon. Gentleman cannot deny, I think, that there have been inquiries of the kind now proposed into Irish places of education, into the universities of Scotland, into the Irish Church under the Duke of Wellington's Administration, into ecclesiastical revenues in 1832, into the municipal corporations in 1834 and 1835, and into the state of several bishoprics in England and Wales, and also respecting Roman Catholic chapels. Surely the right hon. Gentleman cannot pretend that none of those precedents are applicable to the case we are now considering. If so, he can only say that our proposed Commission is not a Commission merely of inquiry as to what measures may be required; but one, if I may so term it, of remedy, and for carrying into effect the measures it might propose as requisite. Now, I admit that such an inquiry would be illegal; but it is by confusing the two kinds of inquiry, and then applying to our inquiry the terms applicable to that of King James II., in 1686—two inquiries not at all resembling each other—that the right hon. Gentleman has been able to make anything at all like a case against the course now proposed. With reference to the corporations inquiry, the right hon. Gentleman says that that does not apply to the present case, for that it was supposed that those corporations were intended to be representative bodies, and it was consequently right and proper to inquire whether their constitution could not be improved. I should say, with regard to these universities—and the right hon. Gentleman seems to have omitted this—that they are not private foundations and private establishments; but that the well-being of this country depends much on the manner in which they are conducted; and that, as regards the Church, the law, and the production of statesmen, they have certain privileges that make it a matter of quite as much interest to the nation that they should be well conducted, as it was that our municipal corporations should be conducted as they ought to be. But then, says the right hon. Gentleman, there was an inquiry with respect to the bishoprics, and also as to the deans and chapters, and the Church was a consenting party to it. No doubt a portion of the Church were consenting parties to that inquiry; but if the right hon. Gentleman had inquired of some of the cathedral chapters, and asked them if they wished that an inquiry should take place as to whether their revenues should be applied to the use of the Church in a manner which they had not hitherto considered advisable, I think he would have found there would have been as much dissent on their part from any proposal of the sort as there now is on the part of these universities. These two cases alone, then, furnish precedents sufficient for our purpose; and they came, moreover, in the train of a long series of precedents—of acts of the Crown—equally conformable to the spirit of these times, by which, endeavouring to preserve all that is good in the institutions themselves, we have attempted to ascertain what improvements they are capable of. With regard to the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman, that the Crown must not institute any such inquiry as that now proposed until a gross case of abuse and mismanagement shall arise, I wholly differ from the right hon. Gentleman in that particular; and I say that when there are some improvements which it appears might be made, then is the proper time to inquire; and, by so doing, you will not have to make inquiry into gross abuses; and I am sure you will admit that it is much better to make those improvements that may obviate such abuses, than to say you are prevented by the state of the law from interfering until such gross cases occur. The right hon. Gentleman has raised up against us the legal right of the different colleges, and the objection that may be made as to any interference with their statutes. With regard to a Commission of Inquiry, however, this objection is more applicable than it would have been to all the inquiries we have made. The right hon. Gentleman, too, in stating these matters, spoke much of the liberty of the subject; and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Newark says, that this proposed Commission tends to a violation of law and of the constitution, as well as of the rights and liberties of the subject. I confess, however, that I am unable to see in what way any interference with the liberties of the subject or of the universities, or any interference with the law, is at all contemplated. It is very well to say that it has a tendency to a violation of the law; but I think the hon. and learned Gentleman knows the law too well to say that what we propose is actually a violation of the law. If you make a Commission to inquire, you do what is altogether legal. If, on the contrary, you appoint one which shall have the power to take away another's property, you do that which is illegal. Now, we propose to make such inquiries as were made with respect to the municipal corporations and the ecclesiastical bodies; and if it should, on inquiry, be thought necessary that any alterations should be made, it would afterwards be the time to inquire what was the authority by which those alterations should be effected. Now, the hon. and learned Gentleman stated, that in more than one instance he thought that improvements were desirable, and might be made, and that he wished that a greater portion of the people of this country should partake of the benefits of the education given at Oxford and Cambridge; but if that is to be the case, why is it that he should insist that we should now proceed to adopt measures with a view to that object, and not permit us, in the first place, to inquire what are the changes demanded in order to secure that object? He agrees with me as to the end to be attained, and even contemplates that the interference of the Crown may be necessary in certain cases; and yet he will not let us take the preliminary steps by which we may ascertain in what way the changes that may be found desirable may be ob- tained. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford, and the hon. and learned Member for Newark, have themselves both said, no doubt these universities are most useful bodies; and it is true, as has been urged, that they are making great alterations of their own accord; but I am convinced that they might be made more useful still, and that the benefits they confer might be extended to a far greater portion of the people than they now reach. I have no wish to stand up as the accuser of these bodies; but as regards one point—the question of expense—I cannot say I think the right hon. Gentleman has answered the charge that there is a great deal of needless expense connected with an education at Oxford or Cambridge. Whenever I have spoken with persons who have charge of that education, I have never known one of them to deny this, and they have even referred to their want of power to enforce the regulations they themselves thought would be useful, and have complained that no college regulations they could make would be sufficient for the object they had at heart. They have never at all denied that there is an excess of expense on the part of our young men at the university that prevents the course of study, and is particularly injurious as regards those young men whose parents cannot afford to pay the debts their sons contract. If, then, the universities find they cannot of themselves correct the evil, is it not right to inquire whether we cannot strengthen their hands in such matters? And I must still say, as regards the kind of education given, that I have not yet seen the way how such changes as may be considered advisable with reference to the studies pursued, may be made to amalgamate with the other institutions of these universities, and how the lectures of the professors, for instance, are to be attended with due regard to the collegiate course of study required. The right hon. Gentleman recommended them to wait and see the result of the changes now going on; but, so far as I am myself concerned, I cannot doubt that many men connected with the universities would be able to point out, before a Commission of Inquiry, in what way such improvements as they would adopt could be carried out so as to reconcile those improvements with the course previously in operation. Sir, my wish is that these institutions may continue to prosper, and that, whatever they may introduce of studies hitherto but little follow- ed, these may be made to combine with all those studies the constant pursuit of which has educated those men who, in times past as well as at the present day, have been the greatest ornaments of this House and of society. But I think, if you say we will have no inquiry into these matters, you will do much to keep back the universities in the course of improvement which they themselves may be willing to adopt. I think all the institutions of the country have of late years been undergoing a change. If you look back to the history of the Church twenty years ago, you will perceive the changes which she underwent; but I trust she remains as strong and stronger than she was before, by adopting those reforms which have contributed to make her more extensively useful to the people. And so it will be with all the institutions of the country. I trust we shall not resemble those foolish innovators who destroyed the institutions which they could not improve; but that, having transferred to us those great universities which the learning and piety of our ancestors established, we, in our turn, will resolve to make them conducive, as far as may be, to the promotion of religion, morality, and sound learning, and, by strengthening them by every means in our power, render them the more worthy of the country and their own high destination.

would remind the House that the noble Lord at the head of the Government was one among many others who had occupied a high station in the country and a high position in that House without the advantage of a university education. That being the case, the noble Lord ought to approach the subject with great delicacy and forbearance. He contended that the precedents to which the noble Lord had referred, did not apply to the present case. He could tell the noble Lord that if the Commission was not actually illegal and indictable by the parties instituting the inquiry, it was at least unconstitutional. Every communication that would be made to that Commission would be entirely unprivileged, and all the parties making it would be liable to process of law, seeing that it was not made under any authority of law or under any coercion. Every man who stepped forward to volunteer evidence, was personally responsible for everything he uttered. There was not a man of eminence, or learning, ar station, or authority, whose opinion had been asked at Cambridge, whatever shade of politics he belonged to, who had not expressed his entire disapprobation of the proposed Commission of Inquiry. With regard to the illustrious Head of the University of Cambridge, the noble Lord had placed him in a very painful position. The eminent and illustrious individual who filled the office of Chancellor of the University of Cambridge was placed in the anomalous position of being at once the champion of the rights of the officers of the university, and of the party who was to persuade the heads of the university to consent to the issuing of the proposed Commission. When the noble Lord advised Her Majesty to issue it, he should have considered who was the Chancellor, and who it was who represented the interests of the university; and it was to be a sorry return for what the university had done, that it should now be obliged to appeal in vain to the Chancellor for protection against the issuing of this Commission. If the Commission was not indictable as regarded the parties instituting the inquiry, and if the noble Lord did not lay himself open to a criminal information, at least he was violating the constitution in proposing an inquiry which any Member of that House had as good a right to do as the Crown. He was satisfied that no possible benefit would accrue from the reluctant acquiescence of a few persons whom the noble Lord might induce to give evidence. It was against the interests of the universities to do so—it was against the duties of the officers, and would be seriously detrimental to the comforts, the quiet, and the peace of those institutions. These universities were exhibiting their desire to adapt these institutions to the requirements of the age; and it was a bad return to them to send down a roving commission to obtain from a few discontented persons communications which were in their nature wholly unprivileged. What he wished to impress upon the noble Lord was, that the information being wholly unprivileged, it was most unfair to call upon a few dissatisfied persons, and to induce them to take all the legal consequences upon themselves.

said, that his noble Friend the Prime Minister, great master of debate as he was, had not done justice to the speech of his (Sir R. Inglis') right hon. Friend and Colleague. The noble Lord had said that his (Sir R. Inglis') right hon. Friend had desired to avoid inquiry; on the contrary, his right hon. Friend distinctly stated that his objection was to the unconstitutional nature of the particular inquiry proposed by the noble Lord; but, at the same time, with equal distinctness suggested that the inquiry should be by Act of Parliament. The noble Lord had characterised the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Plymouth as a very temperate speech. And so no doubt it was for the noble Lord, for it was a speech altogether in his favour. His hon. and learned Friend made many concessions in that speech which he (Sir R. Inglis) would be very sorry to make. His hon. and learned Friend talked of the monopoly of education which at this moment was possessed by the different colleges and halls, and suggested their being thrown open, and that the system which existed 600 or 700 years ago should be revived. Much as he (Sir R. Inglis) desired to keep in the ancient ways, he was not prepared to retrace his steps through so great a length of country as would bring him back to the spot which his hon. and learned Friend invited him to reoccupy. His hon. and learned Friend then complained that the heads of houses separated themselves altogether from an academical life. How could his hon. and learned Friend say this when he must know that the great business of the universities was conducted by some of those eminent men, and, above all, that the Hebdomadal Board consisted solely of the heads of houses? His hon. and learned Friend then laid it down that the visitors could of their own motion, and that therefore the Crown could of its own motion, and without any other authority, exercise the most inquisitorial powers into the affairs of any foundation whatever of which they were visitors. Now, many very learned Members of his hon. and learned Friend's own profession had assured him that there was no warrant whatever for any such statement; and he (Sir R. Inglis) apprehended that the case of Exeter College in the time of Bishop Trelawny afforded a distinct contradiction to that proposition. The Crown had no more right to send a roving commission to inquire into alleged misdeeds, unless the case were brought before it in the shape of an appeal, than the Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench had to send down a commission to inquire into the conduct of any set of individuals living in Devonshire or Buckinghamshire. His hon. and learned Friend had also most needlessly introduced the case of Trinity College, Dublin, and had gratuitously offered an opinion that that college possessed more property than it ought to possess. Now, when that question was originally brought forward by the hon. Member for North Lancashire, he (Sir R. Inglis) concurred in the opposition offered to it; but he would not enter further into the subject, feeling too grateful for the patient attention afforded to him by the House on a former occasion.

wished to say a few words in explanation. He had in several respects been misunderstood. In the first place, he did not cast upon the heads of the colleges and halls of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge any reflection for their living separate from an academical life. If he did seem to do so, he was glad of the opportunity of removing any such erroneous impression. He felt too much respect for those hon. Gentlemen to say anything that could convey any reflection upon them. What he said was, that it was an inevitable consequence of the different domestic circumstances under which they lived, that they were not able to live on those terms of unrestrained intercourse with the rest of the academic officers of the universities, which under other circumstances they would themselves be most desirous of doing. His hon. Friend also found fault with him for saying that the visitors had the power of visiting ex officio, and referred to the case of Exeter College under Bishop Trelawny. He could inform his hon. Friend that in the most celebrated case in that department of the law which had ever been decided, being the case of the general visitation of that very Exeter College soon after the Revolution of 1688, the rector and certain of the fellows were deprived for contumacy, because they disputed the visitor's right to hold a general visitation. That case was referred to the House of Lords, and there it was solemnly decided that the visitor had acted in the due exercise of his jurisdiction. The only other point was about Trinity College, Dublin. He did not say, however, that the college ought not to remain in the enjoyment of its property, but that the revenues were so large that he apprehended the purposes of its foundation, and the interests of education in Ireland, might be best secured by enlarging the foundation, instead of allowing disproportionate dividends to accumulate in individual hands. It was not fair to represent what he had said as if he had advocated any scheme of spoliation.

wished to correct an erroneous statement of his hon. and learned Friend with regard to the college of which he had the honour to be one of the representatives. It was stated that a practice prevailed, on the part of some fellows, of marrying, notwithstanding the statute of celibacy; and that, in order to remove that abuse, it had been deemed expedient to abolish the statute. That statement was founded upon a most complete misapprehension of the real facts of the case. Forty or fifty years ago some of the fellows married; but in 1812, at the notice of the authorities of the college, the oath of celibacy was imposed, and the practice of marrying ceased. But in 1840, at the instance of the Marquess of Normanby, the statute was repealed. His hon. and learned Friend had adverted to the income of the college, and stated that it was ons of the most richly endowed in the kingdom; but, as his (Mr. G. Hamilton's) hon. and learned Colleague had proved, its accumulated property was smaller in amount than the sum settled by Act of Parliament upon the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth. There were equally great mistakes and exaggerations with regard to the emoluments of the senior fellows.

, in reply, said, as to the challenge which had been thrown out to produce a lawyer who had advocated University reform, he would refer hon. Gentlemen opposite to the part taken on that subject by Lord Chancellor Bacon. He maintained that Oxford and Cambridge had unequivocally admitted that the Sovereign of the realm was the proper visitor of those universities.

said, as the right hon. Baronet the Home Secretary had had the courtesy early in the debate to withdraw his Motion for the adjournment thereof, in order to give him (Mr. Stuart) an opportunity of submitting his Amendment to the House, he was now prepared to return the compliment by withdrawing his Amendment, in order to enable the right hon. Baronet to renew his Motion for the adjournment of the debate.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

Motion made, and Question put, "That the debate he now adjourned."

The House divided:—Ayes 160; Noes 138: Majority 22.

Debate further adjourned till this day three months.

moved that the House go into Committee on this Bill.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

said, he should take the same course on this stage of the Bill that he had taken on a previous stage; and, without discussing the question further, simply move that the House go into Committee on the Bill that day three months.

Amendment proposed—

"To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'this House will, upon this day three months, resolve itself into the said Committee,' instead thereof."

wished to know if the noble Lord opposite, who had charge of the Bill, would more an instruction to the Committee for the purpose of including Ireland?

said, it was not necessary to move an instruction at all. By an alteration of the title, Ireland could be included.

said, the hon. and learned Member for Kerry, who was unavoidably absent on circuit, had placed in his hands certain amendments which he would propose when the Government was defeated for the third time.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided:—Ayes 105; Noes 103: Majority 2.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

House in Committee.

expressed a hope that the attorneys throughout the country would forthwith send in their little bills against every Member who had voted against them; and if they did there would be such a clearance in this House as had never been witnessed.

Clause 1, provision inserted, extending the operation of the Bill to Ireland.

wished to know who was to appoint the registrar?

said, that the registrar would be appointed under the 6th and 7th Vic, cap. 73, the Act which incorporated the Law Society.

Clause agreed to, as were Clauses 2 to 4.

Clause 5.

moved that the fee payable for such certificate be 10 s.

said, he would move that the fee be 1 s. 6 d.

Motion made, "to fill the blank with 'one shilling and sixpence.'"

Question put, "That the blank be filled with ten shillings."

said, that the fee for registration would be received by the Incorporated Law Society, who he believed enjoyed the confidence of the whole profession, and who had expended a large sum of money in providing a library and other accommodation at their institution, which was the resort of the members of the profession, and in taking steps to exclude improper persons from the profession.

said, the Society had expended as much as 90,000 l. in establishing their institution and furnishing it with a library of some 10,000 volumes for the benefit and improvement of members of the profession. They had also now cast upon them the burden of taking proceedings for the purpose of punishing malpractices on the part of attorneys, which it was the duty, and formerly the practice, of the Stamp Office to undertake; and he had the best authority for saying that the expenses of clerks in the establishment amounted to more than the 1 s. 6 d. for each certificate would meet, and that the Society expended in the last year, in proceedings to keep up the character of the profession, a large sum of money, and which, if the usual charges had been made, would have approached to 1,000 l.

asked if the Irish and Scotch attorneys would have to pay the registration fee?

said, they would not, as they were not required to be registered at the Law Society.

supposed it was the Incorporated Law Society that had left the Irish and Scotch attorneys out of the Bill.

said, the hon. Baronet was altogether mistaken in his supposition. Before the Bill was brought in, the Incorporated Law Society applied to the attorneys of Ireland and Scotland to obtain their co-operation; but those gentlemen thought it advisable to have a separate measure for themselves.

In reply to Sir H. WILLOUGHBY,

said, he did not see that the Bill would cast any duty upon the Incorporated Law Society. That Society at present performed certain duties, for which they received a fee of 1 s. 6 d. from each person, which it was now proposed to increase to 10 s. It seemed that having taken 12 l. each out of the public pocket, these gentlemen wished to put additional fees into their own.

said, that the Law Society went to considerable expense in prosecuting cases of delinquency or misconduct on the part of attorneys. They had recently expended a large sum in resisting the application for the readmission of an attorney who had been convicted and transported, and struck off the rolls; and he thought, therefore, as the Society performed those duties, they were entitled to the proposed fees.

The House divided:—Ayes 70; Noes 130: Majority 60.

moved that the fee should be 5 s., as it would be unreasonable to retain the present inadequate sum of 1 s. 6 d.

thought the old fee sufficient, bearing in mind that the number of attorneys in England and Wales amounted to 10,000.

said, that the sum of 1 s. 6 d. which was what was paid now, and which only amounted to 750 l. a year, was utterly inadequate to meet the expenses of the numerous prosecutions which the Law Society was obliged to undertake against disreputable attorneys; a duty that was imposed upon the Society by the profession.

supported the Amendment of the right hon. and learned Member for Bute. He was in communication with members of the profession in every part of the kingdom, and could assure the Committee that they were quite willing to pay the 10 s. It was certainly somewhat extraordinary to observe the new-born zeal which had seized the hon. and learned Attorney General to save the pockets of the attorneys, after having opposed the Bill in every way.

said, the great object of the Law Society was a job to create a revenue for themselves.

denied that this was a job on the part of the Law Society to secure a revenue to themselves. The real question was, whether the House wished to deprive the Law Society of that duty which they had hitherto practised so satisfactorily, or were willing to aid them to perform the duty. The error consisted in treating the Law Society as though it were a body apart from the profession, whereas the greater part of the London attorneys were amongst its members.

said, he did not wish to deprive the Law Society of anything; but he wished to prevent them from taking the money out of his pocket to put into their own. He would object to giving more than 1 s. 6 d. This was nothing more than a proposal of the Law Society, after having taken 12 l. out of his pocket, to put 10 s. into their own.

Question put, "That the blank be filled with 'one shilling and sixpence.'"

The Committee divided:—Ayes 124; Noes 68: Majority 56.

moved that the Chairman do now leave the chair.

asked whether this Motion was made with the concurrence of the Government, as he certainly thought it was not a dignified mode of getting rid of the subject.

said, the Government were not consulted on the Motion, but he should vote for it.

deprecated the course pursued by the Government, who on some occasions were so eager to yield to the first intention of the wishes of the House, as in the recent case of the Post Office; and now, when the opinion of the House had been taken on the contested points, and many of the supporters of the Bill had left the House, the hon. Member for Gateshead moved that the Chairman leave the chair, for the purpose of getting rid of the Bill altogether; and the Government, in rendering their support to the hon. Member in this individual attempt to defeat a measure, which they had been unable to do in a fair stand-up fight, was acting a most unworthy part.

said, that the Government were pursuing a direct course. In the case of an Address to the Crown, there could be only one Motion; but with regard to a Bill, they might debate and divide upon all its various stages. The Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, that the Chairman do leave the chair, was sufficiently direct, and he should vote for that Motion, because it had a tendency to defeat the Bill.

said, that the Law Society of London had brought the Bill to him; he considered their case unanswerable, and it was certainly not his fault that the measure had not been discussed long ago. He gave a notice upon the subject the first night of the Session; the Bill had been three times postponed at the request of the Government; and if it were then to be defeated at that advanced period of the Session, he thought he should have a just right to complain. He could not help thinking thar the measure might have been gracefully conceded; but if that was not to be the course, the result would be the same as in many other cases; and, for his own part, he should feel bound in honour to exert his best efforts, independently and conscientiously, to secure its success.

said, the hon. Member for Gateshead was perfectly justified in making this Motion, for he (Mr. Bass) knew several Members who had voted for the Bill in every stage, but who were not anxious that it should pass, and who told him they regretted the course they were obliged to take, in consequence of having made an imprudent promise to support the Bill. [ Loud cries of "Name!"] When he had consulted with those Gentlemen, and obtained their consent to give their names, he would have no hesitation in mentioning them to the House.

was in favour of the Bill, but had hitherto refrained from voting, acting upon a principle which always prevented him from acquiescing in depriving the Chancellor of the Exchequer of revenue after the announcement of the budget. It was quite by accident that he happened to be present when the House went into Committee; but being there, and seeing that the Government had been already beaten twice upon it he intended to give his support to the noble Lord who had had the conduct of it. He thought it unfair on the part of the Government, after the Bill had almost passed through Committee, to attempt to get rid of it by an indirect mode, and advised them to contest the point on the third reading, which would be more legitimate.

hoped that the hon. Member for Gateshead would proceed with his Motion. It was by no means unusual to take a second division when in the previous one the numbers were so nearly equal as on this occasion they had been.

denied that the course which he was taking deserved to be called an artifice: it was just as direct a proceeding as moving that any Bill be read a second time that day three months.

had had as long an experience in that House as the hon. Member, and he could not recollect such a course being pursued. It was not only indirect, but it was dishonourable.

Motion made, and Question put, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

The Committee divided:—Ayes 92; Noes 99: Majority 7.

House resumed.

Bill reported; as amended, to be considered on Monday next.

The House adjourned at Two o'clock.