said, that he should not have thought it necessary to say a single word in moving that Mr. Speaker do leave the Chair for the House to go into Committee upon the Metropolis Water Supply Bill, had it not been for the notice given of an Amendment by the hon. Member for Penryn (Mr. Mowatt). He merely wished to observe, that the Bill now stood as a Bill introduced by the noble Lord his predecessor (Lord Seymour), and amended by the Committee to which it had been referred. The House would therefore see that the Government did not hold themselves entirely responsible for all that the Bill contained; but they did believe it would effect a very great improvement on the present system of supplying water to the metropolis. In one respect the Bill was of very great importance, for it introduced the principle of Government interference and control in reference to that subject.

in proceeding to move the Amendment of which he had given notice, said he was anxious to explain that, while no one was more sensible than he was of the great inconvenience attending a discussion of such a kind as that on which he was about to enter, in the present state of public business, and in the prospect of an immediate dissolution, he reconciled himself to the duty he had to perform by the reflection that it was evident the public out of doors had not the least conception of the real character or provisions of this Bill, It was calculated to affect so vitally the interests of the mass of the community in the whole metropolis, that he could not allow it to pass through that House, even under the circumstances to which he had alluded, without at least pointing the attention of Members, who might not have been led to consider the question, to the extraordinary character of the Bill, or rather, he should say, to the extraordinary deficiencies or omissions of a Bill professing to settle a question which had agitated the public mind more or less for the last twenty-five years. He was confident that the Gentlemen composing the Committee on the Bill had not a just appreciation of what would he the effects of the measure; and, without meaning the slightest disrespect, or casting any imputation on the capabilities of the Members who sat on that Committee, it was easy to explain why that was almost as a matter of necessity. So those Gentlemen, unlike the Committee of last Session, were not appointed to consider the whole question, and to report such a plan as, after due inquiry, they might think best suited to meet the emergencies of the case. Not at all. This Bill, together with a number of Private Bills, had been submitted to them by the Government, seeking additional immunities, privileges, and extensions of existing powers, solely that they might say yes or no to them; and he apprehended that those Gentlemen had confined themselves strictly to their legitimate province in simply reporting in favour of the Bills in question. He would further remind the House, that the public were not represented before that Committee. The public had no standing at all, though one of the two parties most interested in the proposed compact. In those facts he found a justification for forcing himself on the attention of the House, while he recapitulated and repeated—for he was willing to admit there was nothing new in the question—some of the many objections which had not been considered by the Government or the Committee to the arrangements contemplated by the Bill. He should endeavour to confine himself to the loading facts of the case; for to substantiate fully what he could most satisfactorily prove, would require an entire morning's sitting, so voluminous were the statements, so numerous the facts, which had to he taken into consideration, before arriving at a mature decision. The two or three cardinal points, to which he wished to call attention, were simply these: what was it that the inhabitants of the metropolis had complained of for the last twenty-five years? They complained, first, of the sources of supply for water: that had been a subject of complaint from the establishment of the companies. The second great grievance was the mode of distribution; and the third, to which he regretted that so much importance, speaking relatively, was attached, was the price. He said he regretted that so much importance was attached to that point, because be looked upon it himself as a secondary matter; but last year the vestries, while they went with him in all other respects with reference to the remedial Bill that he had introduced on this subject, would not co-operate with him in his attempt to carry that Bill, because the price proposed in it was greater than they thought they ought to be called on to pay. If the House would bear in mind these three points—the source of supply, the mode of distribution, and the price charged, and would then go into the consideration of this Bill, they would find that all three were touched in so slight a degree as to involve an aggravation, he feared, of the evil, and an aggravation for this reason, that if matters remained as they now were, it would no doubt be necessary to legislate in the next Parliament on these very grounds; whereas, if a measure were now enacted, it could not be supposed that the next Parliament, or the next twenty Parliaments, would interfere with the matter. First, in regard to the question of the sources of supply, he could appeal to the right hon. Baronet, who had devoted himself so much to the consideration of this subject last year, and whom he was glad to see in his place (Sir James Graham), as well as to every Gentleman present at the proceedings of the Committee which then sat, whether the question of supply, as against the Thames, was not already a settled and decided question? Taking some twenty authorities, who had given their opinion the last few years, be found that there were only two out of that number who had any doubts as to the Thames not being a fit source of supply. He should like to read those authorities, but felt himself placed in this disadvantageous position, that, for the reasons already assigned, he could not then do so, and yet he could not without great injury to the cause he represented pass them over altogether, and would consequently refer to some few of them. The work from which he was going to quote had been submitted, he believed, to the Committee on this Bill, as it was to the Committee of last year. It was a work of which the Board of Health had spoken highly, but not more so than it deserved. He alluded to a report by Dr. Angus Smith, to whom bad been referred by the Metropolitan Sanitary Commission the specific question, whether by ascending the Thames, the objections to the use of water from that river, could be removed. Dr. Angus Smith devoted the most untiring attention and zeal to the inquiry, and he gave his facts and authorities, rather than opinions of his own, so as to enable others to judge for themselves. The views of five or six of the authorities to which he attached most importance, might be recapitulated. He took first the statement of Dr. Trotter, one of the first to draw the attention of the public to the condition of the water, as, independently of other objections to which it was open, being so saturated with animal and vegetable matter, that no process of filtration could render it subsequently fit for human consumption. Dr. Trotter said—

"No water carried to sea becomes sooner putrid (than Thames water.) When a cask is opened after being kept a month or two, a quantity of inflammable air escapes, and the water is so black and offensive as scarcely to be borne. Upon racking it off into large earthen vessels, and exposing it to the air, it gradually deposits a quantity of black slimy mud, and becomes clean."

Hon. Members might say they had heard that over and over again—that there was nothing new in the statement; but, under the circumstances of the case, he (Mr. Mowatt) was under the disagreeable necessity of obtruding such facts as these again on the attention of the House. The next authority was Mr. Thomas, who described Thames water as—

"A fluid loaded with impurities, and on a more minute analysis found saturated with decayed vegetable matter, and other substances equally deleterious."

The next opinion cited was that of Dr. Hooper; for these were not witnesses like the witnesses brought up before Committees by hundreds, whose opinion was of no value whatever, but who, according as they received a fee, tendered an opinion on the one side or the other, and even did so to the same Committee. Dr. Hooper said, "At one time it was not only filthy in appearance, but had an unwholesome smell." The pith of Mr. Brodie's opinion was, that "it was manifestly impure, and, from the quantity of foreign matters which it con- tained, must, he conceived, be unwholesome, and altogether unfit for culinary purposes. "Dr. Paris" could not find terms to express the awful effects it might be likely to produce upon the health, and even the lives, of the inhabitants." Dr. James Johnson said—

"It is absolutely astonishing that in these days of refinement, and in a metropolis whose inhabitants pride themselves on delicacy and cleanliness, a practice should obtain at which posterity will shudder, if they can credit it. A time must come when the people of London will open their eyes to this scene of corruption, veiled as it is by iron pipes and stone pavements."

There were a great many others who expressed similar opinions; there were, as he had already remarked, twenty eminent men who were unanimous, with the exception of two—who thought by filtration more might be done than others thought possible by that means—in the belief that under no circumstances could the Thames water ever be made fit for the consumption of human beings. Commissioners were appointed some years back to make inquiry; and those Commissioners, Dr. Ro-get, Mr. Brande, and Mr. Telford, summed up their report as follows:—

"Assuming the supplies to be derived directly from the river, and to be subjected to no intermediate process tending to purification, it is sufficiently obvious that the state of the weather will materially affect the purity of the water"—

(This had relation to the substances brought down by heavy rains or floods, the animal matter and feces, of which other authorities spoke)

—"which is sometimes comparatively clean and clear, and at others loaded with various matters in mechanical suspension, rendering it more or less turbid and coloured. In the latter state, when thrown into cisterns and other receptacles of houses, it is manifestly unfit for immediate use; but after being allowed to rest, it forms a certain quantity of deposit, and thus may become sufficiently clear for ordinary purposes. This deposit, however, is the source of several evils. It renders the cisterns foul, and runs off into those pipes which issue from or near the bottom of the reservoirs. By the agitation which accompanies every fresh influx of water, this deposit is constantly stirred up, and becomes a renewed source of contamination to the whole mass; and, although chiefly consisting of earthy substances in a state of minute division, it is apt also to contain such proportion of orgauic matters as will occasion a degree of putrefaction when collected in any quantity, and especially in warm weather."

He would suppose that the argument he was urging might be met with the answer, that the Bill did in part make provision for remedying the evil by providing for filtration. Dr. Lambe, who subjected Thames water to an examination with reference to organic matters, and those qualities which filtration did not remove, said—

"The object of this memoir is to prove that the water of the river Thames, whether taken up in the vicinity of London, as high up the river as Windsor, or at an intermediate point, as above Twickenham, is impregnated with matter of this description. The presence of organic matter in water often becomes evident to the senses without the aid of chemical analysis, for they are apt to inhale a fetid odour. In this respect, the water of the Thames at London is highly objectionable; but even at Windsor, though the water itself was not offensive, the matter left on evaporation had a disgusting and disagreeable smell."

Dr. Lambe then went on to give his facts, with which it was unnecessary to trouble the House, because, they were mainly of the nature of the statements, which would be contained in a chemical analysis on the report of a chemist; but Dr. Lambe used this extraordinary language, to which he (Mr. Mowatt) invited the attention of the noble Lord who had charge of the Bill, because allusion was made in the words he was about to quote to the only remedy which the promoters of this Bill effected, or thought proper to apply to the existing evil, that of going higher up the stream above Teddington; and some objections to the water being removed on its way downwards, as it became less hard. Dr. Lambe said—

"Concluding from these observations that I should find the river less loaded the higher I went up, I was resolved to examine it at a considerable distance from London, and accordingly procured that which I call Teddington water, which must be the same in quality, and which is the point from which it has been proposed that the supply for the metropolis should be taken. The event, however, proved quite contrary to my expectations;"—

(He had no bias against that water, but on the contrary had set out with impressions in its favour;)

"for this water gave a residuum of 122 grains, of which 92 were insoluble, and 30 soluble matter (that is, 20·3 grains per gallon). According to this experiment, then, the Teddington water was more loaded with foreign matter even that taken from below Blackfriars-bridge."

In subsequent parts of his statement he went on to show how that was accounted for. The London shipmasters, when they could not obtain perfectly pure water, preferred taking it very foul, so as to ensure its undergoing the process of fermentation by which it purified itself; but the water which was not so loaded with foreign matter, as to bring on that fermentation retained and exercised its injurious properties on the inhabitants of the metropolis. He could have wished to show stop by step, what was perfectly demonstrable, and incontrovertible, that so long as water was taken from the Thames, the evil could not be abated; but he besought the House to take this common-sense view of the case, the Thames, from Oxford downwards, was the great sewer of the country through which it ran. All the impurities, all the drainage, of the population was deposited therein. It was as completely the main sewer of the country through which it ran, as any arched or subterranean conduits or pipes which discharged the duty of main sewers in London. There was a ludicrous statement of this fact in a report of the Board of Health, with reference to the constant complaint of owners of land in the valley of the Thames, that the great bulk of the manure which they spread over their lands, was swept into and carried down by the river. He would sum up what he had to say on this head, by reading the concluding part of the Report of the General Board of Health in 1850:?—

"We must state, as our conclusion upon this topic of inquiry, that if the water of the Thames could be early protected from the sewerage of all the towns draining into it, and from the sewerage of the metropolis—if it could be purified from animal and vegetable matter as completely as deep well water, or as some of the surface water from the chalk districts, as proposed by Captain Vetch, we should neverthless feel compelled, upon tin-evidence recited, to pronounce water of such degree of hardness to be ineligible for the supply of the metropolis."

That he might not be open to the charge of reading any unfairly selected portion of that Report, lie bogged to state that this part of it alluded to another grand objection which applied to the water of the Thames, namely, the quantity of lime it contained. He ventured to say, that probably not many Gentlemen even in that House were fully aware of the fact, which had been demonstrated over and over again, by the most unquestionable authorities, and might be so in 24 hours, that, independently of the animal and vegetable matter, which was contained in the water of the Thames, that water had a defect which alone would render it unfit for use by human beings, namely, its extreme amount of hardness, arising from the large quantity of lime held in solution in it. Besides the abominations to which he had referred, there were 16 grains of carbonate of lime in every gallon of the water, which was equal to 26 tons of lime in a single day's supply of 44 millions of gallons to the metropolis. That was an incontrovertible fact, in proof of which he might mention, that all the water companies set to work employing chemists to make analyses, when this astounding fact was first published; but when he told the House that none of them had thought fit to publish the results of such analyses, he thought they would admit that the fair conclusion to be drawn was, that they admitted that the statement could not be contradicted. That circumstance guaranteed the authenticity of the statement. The question of hardness involved other momentous considerations, besides that of merely rendering water less fit for the purposes of ablution, the washing of clothes, and the like. He was almost afraid to state the amount of the injury, measured in money, which it was calculated to inflict on the metropolis; but some estimates carried it as high as 3,000,000l. The effect was felt in malt, hops, dyes, in whatever required to be held in solution by water; and when one reflected on the number of substances which required to be so treated, it would be perceived at a glance to what a great extent the hardness of the water would prove detrimental, to what an extent the continuation of the supply from the Thames imposed taxation on the community—a taxation the more injurious because it fell on those who were least able to bear it, and who indeed were generally ignorant of the extent of it. If the noble Lord noticed that fatal and grand objection—that objection which would not be cured, it was to be hoped he would state why the Government persisted in acting, either as though it had not been thoroughly established, or as if they too were ignorant of it. People out of doors had not the least conception of what would be the immediate and instantaneous effect of the Bill, especially with reference to the question of price. But with him (Mr. Mowatt) the purity of the sources of supply was a still more important question. To justify his dwelling on this part of the subject, he would remind the House of what the Registrar General told them once a year—and if there were an epidemic, once a quarter—that between 15,000 and 16,000 deaths took place annually in London, which were clearly treaceable to preventible causes; and that to the quality of water, and the condition of sewerage, the greatest proportion was attributable. What were the specific grounds which induced the Govern- ment to shut their eyes to the real facts of the case, and within the last week of the Session, when the subject could not receive the consideration it deserved, to force this Bill into law, and thereby, as it were, to cushion this question for ever? Reverting to the Report of the Board of Health, he would read from it one more extract, hearing still on the question of quality and the objections to the Thames as a source of permanent supply, in which it was stated that—

"The river Thames and its tributaries, which are largely derived from land springs through chalk strata, are varied in quality by the surface flood waters. The presence of these surface flood waters is made known to the population by the particularly turbid state in which the water is delivered. Much of this turbidity is occasioned by animal and vegetable matter so completely in chemical solution, that, as several witnesses have stated, the common strainers or filters will not remove it. It is also the complaint of agriculturists, that much of the manure applied to the land, as well as the finer particles of soil, are swept away by heavy rains into the ditches and natural watercourses. The deposit of surface particles of inorganic, mixed with a large proportion of organic matter, detained by the filtration of Thames water from above Battersea, amounts, in the reservoirs of the Vauxhall Company, to more than a foot in depth per annum."

There was another paragraph so pithy at the close of the Report that he could not abstain from inviting the attention of the country out of doors, as well as that of the House, to that part of the subject to which it related. As an additional motive for taking that course, he might have mentioned, that not only had the public, as before stated, no locus standi before the Committee, but it had been repeatedly stated in public, and being left altogether unnoticed and unanswered, he must assume that the fact was so, that no less then seventjr Members of that House were interested in the existing Companies. Supposing that were the case, he might be asked if there were not as many interested in railway companies? There was, however, this difference, that railway companies were a check on each other—they were in competition with one another. But it was not so with the water companies. Since the termination, in 1817, of the contest among the water companies, the metropolis had been parcelled out among them as completely as if it were a private domain. The great Powers at the congress of Vienna did not divide Europe among themselves so completely as the water companies had the metropolis. Was there any competition, for instance, between the Lambeth and Southwark companies, although each had laid the district of the other to some extent with its own pipes? The House would bear with him for dwelling on that point, seeing the public had no person to represent their interest before the Committee on the Bill, and so large a portion of the House were on private grounds interested adversely. Nay, so all-powerful had this interest become, that it appeared even to have paralysed the opposition of the public press of late days, with the single exception of the Times. Formerly all the metropolitan papers made the subject of our water supply a theme of constant animadversion and complaint; but of late, with the one exception alluded to, all advocated the cause of these great and most obnoxious monopolies. At any other time he would not have made an apology for detaining the House considering the vastness of the interests at stake; as it was, nobody could be more unwilling to obstruct their arrival at that point to which they were looking forward with so great anxiety; but the subject was of such vital moment to the millions of the metropolis that he considered it justified his present interposition. The Board of Health repeat, in their concluding resolutions:—

"1. That for domestic use it (the Thames water) is inferior to the average quality of water supplied to towns.

"2. That its inferiority as a supply for domestic use arises chiefly from an excess of hardness."

Though they dwelt on the abomination of animal and vegetable matter, they yet thought the quantity of lime gave it a degree of hardness which was positively a still greater objection to its use. They proceeded to say—

"3. That even when taken above the reach of pollution from the sewers of the metropolis, it contains an excess, varying with the season, of animal and vegetable matter."

They went on to say that other streams from which the metropolis was in part supplied, were no better than the Thames. It might be said it was all very well to point out those radical defects in the Bill; but where was there an available remedy to be found? He himself spoke with less confidence on that point, though he had read a great deal of evidence on the subject. The opinion of Professor Copeland, Captain Vetch, and the Hon. Mr. Napier, were embodied in the Report of the Board of Health. They said there were waters superior in quality to be had, which were not liable to any of the vital objections that applied to the water of the Thames, and which could he introduced at a mere fraction of the expense incurred for the supply from that polluted source. It was obvious to common sense that, as pointed out by those eminent chemists to whom he had referred, as well as by the Board of Health, it must be better, as a general rule, to take our sources of supply from the tops of hills, where possible, than to go to the bottoms of valleys, which operated as in the case of the Thames, as mere sewers and drains to the surrounding and adjacent country. Two Governments successively, not having thought of going to the Surrey hills, or any of the other five or six sources within reach, from which London might be supplied with water absolutely pure in all respects at one-fourth or one-fifth the price now paid for the present impure supply; there must be some objection, some want of faith on their part, which had induced them to shut out the facts relating to these new sources from their cognisance, and to abstain from dealing with the subject in any way in connexion. In passing, he might observe, that the reason why the public apparently were taking no interest in the Bill, was, that it had not been subjected to the ordeal of discussion that usually took place on the second reading of a Bill, He had seen it remarked upon with satisfaction, that it had passed the second reading without opposition, whereas the simple fact was, that on that occasion no description of it had been given. He wished to hear some explanation on a proceeding which seemed so extraordinary. He (Mr. Mowatt) would now advert to the second object, the distribution of the supply of water in the metropolis, which was admitted by the noble Lord below him (Lord Seymour) to be second in importance only to the point already considered. The Bill professed to provide a remedy in part; but that remedy was so insufficient, that it would probably fail altogether. He (Mr. Mowatt) could point out two objections to the existing mode of supply, which no provision had been introduced to meet, He had some American authorities, to show what immense expense it was there thought necessary to incur, for the purpose of getting over the difficulties to which he referred. The supply of water in London, for the mere convenience of the companies, and to save them expense, was carried just under the surface of the earth only, so that the water was subjected to all the alternations of the temperature of the atmosphere: however perfect the supply of water when it entered the main, it was deteriorated in quality by means of the temperature, which exercised great influence over it. No provision was made in the Bill to require that in future the mains should be laid deeper; and when the companies could have the necessary repairs to their pipes effected all the more economically that they lay close to the surface of the ground, they did not care to incur greater expense by laying those mains deeper of themselves, when it was the public convenience and advantage alone that would be thereby benefited. Another objection was, that the companies only brought their water in one main pipe through the streets, leaving the inhabitants to convey it to their houses by leaden pipes, which imposed upon them a charge probably tenfold greater than the Companies Mould have incurred, had they been required to deliver the water within the houses. There were a great many other objections to the machinery of the Bill, but, as he should have an opportunity of entering into the details in Committee, he would not now trespass further on the attention of the House. With regard to the subject of distribution, however, he hoped the noble Lord would state to the House the reasons, if there were any, why the water supply could not be connected with tint drainage of the metropolis. Every engineer who had given evidence bore testimony to the vast economy, the immense advantage, and, indeed, the absolute necessity of combining the two undertakings. They reasoned thus: Supposing you had the command of the finest supply of water imaginable for the metropolis—an unexceptionable river, for instance—surely, before introducing it into the metropolis, you must determine how, by what system of sewerage, you will subsequently dispose of it, after it shall have served the first purposes of the inhabitants; otherwise it may become, not only a great evil, but an intolerable nuisance. The association with which he (Mr. Mowatt) was connected, and by whom the Bill that he had introduced had been prepared, had consequently, very early in their deliberations, come to the conclusion that the two services of water supply and drainage were, in all aspects, to be considered as inseparable. He might add. that to all who had reflected on the subject, it was obvious too that the sewage substances would go far to defray, if not entirely cover, the expense of both services. Ships were now going all round the world for guano, while every chemist, if not their own common observation, would tell them, that in the sewage matter of Loudon they possessed an ample supply of manure, equally good. By the sewerage being united with the water supply, it would greatly improve the health of the metropolis, which suffered much from its humid climate. He called upon the noble Lord who was responsible for the Bill, to explain why it was that he had taken no note of that fact, seeing that it was impossible economically to deal with one branch of the subject without dealing with the other. He now came to the question of price. He must say, with all deference to the Committee, that they had been completely outwitted by the water companies, in the compromise which had been come to on the subject of price. All the existing Acts gave the Companies the power to take from the metropolis no less than from five to seven and a half per cent upon the rental of each house respectively, for the supply of water; and the Companies, parading this fact before the Committee and the public, took great credit for moderation, in consenting that their charges should be limited under the new Bills to four and five per cent upon the rentals. gut to appreciate the amount of sacrifice actually made by the Companies, it should be understood, that in no single case had they ever charged 7½ per cent, or 6 or 5 per cent, and that generally they charged rates varying between 2 and 3½per cent only; consequently, as by their new Acts they would have the power, and as it was well understood they now purposed to make use of it to its fullest extent—as the only means of obtaining what they considered an adequate return on the great additional amount of capital they were by these same Acts authorised to raise and expend—of charging in the first instance, 5 per cent in the case of one company, and 4 per cent in all the others, for what was termed an ordinary supply of water; and additional sums for water for other purposes equally necessary, such as for water-closets, baths, &c, for which, under the existing Acts, no separate charge has been made: So far from the Companies making any actual concessions to the public, they are about to charge, or take the powers to charge, which is tantamount to the same thing, very much higher rates than they have ever done before, in many cases amounting to 50 per cent more than is at present paid. As an illustration, he (Mr. Mowatt) would cite the instance of his own house, No. 14, Devonshire Place. Its annual value might be taken at 250l., and he was supplied by the West Middlesex Company. They charged him for ordinary service, 5l., for high service, 2l. 10s.; for stable, 1l. 10s. in all 9l. per annum—whereas, under their new Act, he would be liable, for ordinary service at 3 per cent, 7l. 10s.; first water-closet, 10s.; for three others at 5s., 15s.; a bath, 10s.; in all, 9l. 5s., to which is to be added, high service, at 25 per cent on the above, 2l. 6s. 3d., and for stable any sum the company choose; but supposing that they only charge what they now receive, that will be 1l. 10s. more; and as the company are also authorised to charge specially for washing a carriage, supposing that they demand a like sum of 1l. 10s., that will make the total 14l. 11s. 3d., or upwards of 60 per cent increase upon the price he now paid for his water! In the present state of the Session he would abstain from any other comment on- this contemplated change, than, that he felt certain the public had no idea of its nature and extent, and, above all, that they had no conception of the outrageous enhancement of the price of this element of life, to which they were about to be subjected. In proof of this, he had only to remark, that although the Ratepayers' Bill, of which he had taken the charge in that House, was in all other respects extremely popular, yet had the parochial bodies, simply on the ground that the power of levying rates to the extent of 5 per cent on the rental of the metropolis—to provide for an entirely fresh source of water supply, compensation to the existing Companies, and a new system of trunk drainage—was too large and extensive to be entrusted with safety to any body, even although that body, as in that case, would have been nominated by themselves, ultimately declined to give it their support, and it was in consequence abandoned. In other words, they threw up what might be called their own Bill on the subject, rather than be exposed to the possibility of paying for a perfect system of water supply and drainage, less than what they would be compelled to pay for the present wretched supply of water but partially improved, alone. He (Mr. Mowatt) must add, however, that it was not merely the excessive price that the inhabitants of the metropolis were to be charged for water, that was to be deprecated; but a greater evil still, if that were possible, would be inflicted on society by the passing of these Acts, from the mode in which this outrageous price was to be collected from the people. Not satisfied with four and five per cent on the rental of houses, the Companies were to be allowed, under these Bills, to demand a specific and separate payment for each water-closet, and each bath in every house, amounting in many instances to no less than 10s. for each of those necessities of civilised life; a sum so large that it would have the effect, doubtless, in numerous cases, of compelling the inhabitants to deny themselves the use of these conveniences, so absolutely indispensable to cleanliness, health, and decency. Just let the House reflect for a moment on the impolicy, the cruelty, he might say, the inhumanity, of such a tax as this! Why, he (Mr. Mowatt) considered that of all the monstrous modes that had ever been suggested of raising money, that of permitting joint-stock companies to do so, for the mere purpose of gain, by a tax on water-closets and baths in the metropolis, was, without exception, the most barbarous and revolting. It was in fact a tax on health and decency, and a premium for filth and brutality. It should be observed, too, that there was no reasonable plea or excuse for this additional and disgusting charge on the part of the Companies. They had stated that it was simply to reimburse them for the extra expense they had incurred in raising a largo quantity of water to a greater height than would otherwise be requisite; but this was altogether a fiction. The Report of 1850 of the Board of Health, from which he had already several times quoted, showed most distinctly that this notion of any great additional outlay, on this ground, was entirely erroneous. It showed, for instance, that in cases where the Companies had exacted from 10s. to 1l. for delivering water at a given height, the actual cost of raising it to the highest parts of houses for the whole year did not exceed 1d.; and, again, that the real extra cost of pumping water to the high-service height seldom exceeded 2d. for 400 tons, or 100,000 gallons; and yet by these Bills the Companies would be entitled to charge 9d. for each single thousand gallons, or, in other words, 3l. 15s. for what cost them 2d. In like manner the Report showed that the water for each water-closet, for which these Companies are to be allowed to demand 10s., could on an average be supplied for little more than one farthing per annum. Well may the Report, therefore, go on to say that one of the consequences resulting from the abandonment to trading companies of the water supply is, that the inhabitants are charged, not according to the cost of the service, or the article they receive, but simply in proportion to their necessities, and to the powers of exaction for supplying them. In fact, the only limit to their demands is the cost at which water can be obtained by band labour. To sum up what he had to say on this branch of the subject, he (Mr. Mowatt) would now cite a passage from the Report, showing what the cost of water supply and drainage to the metropolis might be reduced to, under an improved system, relieved from the baneful influence of joint-stock trading companies. The Report stated that—

"The total of the several estimates presented of combined and complete works, consisting of public works of water supply, with mains, service pipes, and apparatus to houses, public works of mains, intercepting and discharge lines of drainage, branch, house, and subsoil drains, sinks, traps, and dustbins, the soil-pans, engine power, together with the current expenditure on pumping to effect both a constant water supply and constant drainage; surface cleansing of streets and courts, and the relief of the Thames from its pollutions, would thus give, under combined management and extended contracts, an average charge per house over the whole of the metropolis of about 5d. per week; a sum less than the present average charge for a duibyiwcinnl' paviiial water supply alone."

Now if these calculations were anything like well founded—and coming from such an authority they were entitled to great respect—surely the House must perceive that by sanctioning these Bills they were about to inflict evils of the most serious and grave character upon the metropolis—evils that could scarcely be estimated by any money consideration, but which went directly to affect the physical, social, and moral condition of the people, in the most fearful and injurious manner, bearing most oppressively too on the poorest and most helpless classes. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds had observed that the East London Company's Bill, which allowed them to claim five per cent upon the rental of houses, besides the extra charges for water-closets, baths, &c, was an exceptional case. He (Mr. Mowatt) thought it indeed ought to he so, but in a very different sense from that in which it had been treated by the Committee. Considering that it supplied the very poorest classes of the metropolis, it ought to have been more restricted in its charges than any of the other companies; whereas it was permitted to exact nearly twenty per cent more than all others. Was this not most harsh, most unfair? He (Mr. Mow-att) was for his part an advocate for making the houses of the wealthy pay a portion, if not all, of the cost of supplying water to the poorer inhabitants, for he believed that by this mode the rich would be by no means the losers, but rather the gainers, seeing that it would have the effect of improving the sanatory condition of the metropolis generally, and warding off sickness and epidemics from themselves. It would, in fact, be an economical mode of paying their own doctor's bills, for nothing was better understood now than that the health of the wealthier classes of the metropolis was to a very great extent dependent on the sanitary condition of the poorest portion of it. It was with the latter that cholera and its concomitants generally originated, spreading afterwards to the classes above it successively. The only objection that could be urged against this system of rating was, that in many instances it would operate for the benefit only of landlords who were not needy—of owners of house property. The noble Lord opposite (Lord John Manners) had said, why not have stated these objections to the Companies' Bills at the time they were all before the House. His answer was, that in the first place so little notice had been given, that they had passed without his being aware of it, and altogether without discussion; and, in the next place, because the noble Lord had given notice that he would, in the Government Bill now under their consideration, introduce a clause restrictive of the powers taken by the Companies in their different Acts for levying rates, and on which he (Mr. Mowatt) relied for remedying the defects in those Acts, quoad the price to be charged the community for water; but now that those Acts had all passed, the noble Lord had withdrawn his notices of amendments, and thus left the metropolis entirely to the mercies of those Companies. This he thought was doing great injustice to the metropolis, and he (Mr. Mowatt) was confident, he repeated, that the public had no correct notion of what would be the effect upon themselves of these Bills. He felt sure they were not prepared to have the cost of water increased upon them. ["No, no!"] Hon. Gentlemen said "No, no!" but he contended there was no doubt that under these Bills they would be compelled to pay a higher price. Why, the single fact that by them the Companies were empowered to raise and expend 130,000l more, would of necessity entail, in the shape of interest on all this additional capital, great extra cost to the inhabitants. The Companies now levied on the metropolis 440,000l. per annum; and when they had laid out this additional money there was no doubt they would raise their rates to 600,000l. at least. On the whole, therefore, for the reasons he had assigned, and for many others that under the circumstances he was obliged to suppress, he (Mr. Mowatt) thought it would be better, much as he admitted legislation was needed on the subject, to defer the further consideration of this Bill to the next Session, when the time necessary for dealing properly and effectually with this vexed social question could be afforded. This delay, although an evil in itself, would be preferable to the crude and hasty enactment with which it was now proposed to remedy the present deplorable state of things. The present Bill would have the effect of conferring a fresh lease of life; indeed he was afraid he might say a perpetual legalised existence to these great trading-in-water Companies—a greater injury than which to the metropolis he could not imagine—and, in fact, of cushioning all complaints against the present system, as it were, for ever. If he thought that the Bill was susceptible of such an amount of improvement in Committee as would make it bearable, he would not have objected to that course being taken; but seeing that its principle was objectionable in the highest degree, that it was radically defective, too, in the essentials of such a measure, and that it omitted all provisions for the great evils under which the metropolis had so long suffered, he felt that the only proper course he could take was to object to proceed now any farther with the Bill, believing, as he did, that the inhabitants of the metropolis would rather tolerate their present grievances a few months longer, and await an opportunity of obtaining effectual and permanent relief from them, than adopt a measure which will preclude all prospect of real redress.

begged to claim the attention of the House for a few minutes. He must say that the conduct of Her Majesty's Government with regard to this Bill was very extraordinary. A Bill, like this, of great importance, affecting the interests of 2,500,000 inhabitants, was read a second time, as a matter of course, at a late hour of night. Not the opponents of the Bill, therefore, but Her Majesty's Government, were responsible, if they were obliged to take the discussion on the only opportunity which had been afforded to them during the present Session. It was in the first instance pronounced that a schedule of rates and charges should be introduced, so as to establish a uniform charge upon the inhabitants; hut that was withdrawn. Subsequently, clauses were introduced with the view of compelling the companies to compete against each other. Those were withdrawn. A number of private Bills had been brought forward by different Companies, and had been passed, he and those who concurred with him protesting at the time that they acquiesced in those Bills merely because they did not wish to raise any discussion until a public measure should be brought forward that was to deal with the whole question, He himself had applied to the House on behalf of a society consisting of bishops, noble Lords, and literary men, to be heard before the Committee, but he was refused; and the consequence was, that the Committee had had no opportunity of getting at the truth except when the witnesses brought forward by the several Companies differed among themselves, and it was remarkable how much they did contradict and controvert one another. For instance, while some of the chemists called spoke of the beneficial effects of filtration on the water supplied, in removing much, though of course it could not remove all, of the various foreign substances mixed up in it; one chemist—called, of course, by a non-filtering Company—deposed to the worse than useiessness of the filtering beds established by the other Companies, as adding a taint of organic slime to the water passed through them. He would not say that the statements of the witnesses examined before the Committee were false; but they were coloured, and tinged with the bias they received from the interested parties by whom they were engaged. A very eminent scientific man had declined to appear before any such Committee, because, he said, it placed him in a false position, the party who engaged him expecting that he would give his testimony with a bias in their favour, while it was his own desire to speak the plain truth, and give his evidence without any bias whatever. But that was not the only ground of his objection to the Bill. It appeared to him to be distinctly a retrograde step from the consolidation of administrative arrangements to which legislation had latterly tended, and that, too, with such remarkable success. It was perfectly obvious that to place the cognate functions of drainage and water supply under different administrations must lead to an unnecessary waste of time, trouble, and expense. An ample supply of water was a blessing to any district when there was a sufficient drainage, but it became a positive nuisance when there was no drainage at all. The House well knew the remarkable effects produced in many districts both in England and abroad by artificial drainage, by pumping out the superfluous water. What must be the consequences in similar places of the opposite course of pumping water in? For want of these means the district south of the Thames was saturated with wet, and the health of the inhabitants suffered very much in consequence. But they had not only a priori reasoning in favour of such a consolidated administrative arrangement for drainage and water supply; they had a remarkable concurrence of authorities. The Report of the Health of Towns Commissioners, at the head of which was the Duke of Buccleuch, the Duke of Newcastle, and others equally eminent; the Metropolitan Sanitary Commission; a vast mass of engineering and other witnesses; several of the leading organs of public opinion, periodical and daily; the Towns Improvement Act, passed by Parliament; the Public Health Act; and, lastly, they had not merely this concurrence of authority—they had the results of actual experience in favour of it. The practice of the country demonstrated its advantages. Town after town had its local boards administering the combined functions of water supply and drainage, of which there was one most satisfactory example, Croydon, within twenty miles of the place they were now sitting in, where a most efficient system of combined drainage and water supply was now in operation at less than half the rates imposed on the metropolis. The Bill, however, did not even consolidate the different Water Companies under (me management. Like the wiser, but still defective Bill of last year, which equally continued the separation between the management of the drainage and water supply, this miserably retrograde Bill before the House left each Company its separate staff, though it was admitted by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, and by Mr. Quick—the Chairman and the Engineer of the largest Water Companies—not to mention any other witnesses, that no less than 65,000l. a year would be saved in establishment charges, if the water supply alone were consolidated under one management. The next objection which he had was, that the supply of a prime necessity of life was left by the Bill, as at present, to be a subject for the rapacity of private traders. He objected also to the miserable quality of the supply proposed. The witnesses who spoke to the purity of the Thames water, had, in his opinion, utterly failed to make out their case. It was proved that the water of the Thames was full of feculent matter, and that it emitted a most offensive odour. The Thames even above Teddington was the main drain of a populous district, containing more than half a million of inhabitants; but even if the water there were free from organic matter, which it notoriously was not, its hardness was not to be denied; indeed it was rather greater there than lower down the stream. Perhaps hon. Gentlemen were not aware of the expense occasioned by the hardness of water used for domestic purposes. It had been calculated that the laundresses' bills in the metropolis amounted to 5,000,000l or 6,000,000l. annually. Now some 20 tons of chalk were daily pumped into the metropolis at present. A ton of chalk would neutralise 20 tons of soap, which cost 50l. a ton; and it acted most injuriously also on tea, hops, dyes, drugs, &c. The extra cost occasioned to the metropolis by the hardness of the water used, could not, therefore, at the most moderate estimate, be put down at less than 1,000,000l. a year. If no other water could be obtained, it would be necessary patiently to submit to the inconvenience; but it had been ascertained, on the testimony of three independent engineers, two of them largely engaged in important water works for different towns, that there was an ample supply ready to be distributed to the metropolis, of a purity and softness quite unexceptionable. But the water was not only to be bad in quality, its price at the lowest amount suggested as the limit, would be extravagant and oppressive—more than double that which would be paid in the various towns and villages in the country which adopted the Public Health Act; more than double the amount now being paid, as be had already men- tioned, for constant and unlimited supplies at Croydon; and this, though the general rule notoriously was that larger supplies of any article could be provided remuneratively at a lower price than small supplies. The House ought not to mistake an absence of agitation for indifference: the state of feeling which existed on the subject was rather the consequence of misplaced reliance on the public declarations of successive Prime Ministers, and the congratulations conveyed in Speeches from the Throne, of a mistaken impression that the cause of sanitary reform was triumphantly secure, than of any indifference to its success. Did hon. Members suppose that the great interests concerned in the protection of corn and colonial produce could be swept away as they had been, when the people were once fairly roused to a sense of their own interests, and that those local obstructions which might operate in the present ease would not be swept away much more easily? He objected to this Bill, in the first place, because it was a retrograde movement from the consolidation of arrangements which, being sound, right, and economical, they ought to adopt more and more instead of less and less. He objected to the Bill, because it placed in the hands of greedy traders the control over one of the prime necessaries of life, which ought to be supplied to the inhabitants of the metropolis at the cheapest possible rate, as in America, and as in some of the large towns in this country. He objected to the Bill, because in the mode of distribution there was no satisfactory provision for a constant supply, and no efficient control by Government even by the amended clauses of the noble Lord (Lord J. Manners); and he objected, lastly, to the Bill, because of the inferior quality of the water, and its extravagant price. He should, therefore, support the Amendment of the hon. Member for Penryn.

said, the old Companies used to be regarded as the great stumbling-block as far as regarded any improvement in the supply of water to the metropolis; but now there seemed to be a new body called the Sanitary Association, which was a far greater nuisance. Of what it consisted he did not exactly know. One used to hear of the three tailors of Tooley street, who assumed to be the people of England; but now it appeared that this Sanitary Association was assuming to be the health of the people of England. A pamphlet had been put into his hands proceeding from that Association. He had read it attentively, and the greater part of the speech made by the hon. Member for Penryn was that pamphlet. Water from the top of the hills of Surrey was recommended, and water from the bottom of valleys was said to be extremely bad. The noble Lord the Member for Plymouth stated that he had got a friend who found in Thames water something of a feculent odour. [Viscount EBRINGTON: One of the Company's witnesses.] Nobody could be surprised that water should have a feculent odour in the Thames. The noble Lord had acted as a Commissioner of Sewers, and in that capacity he had discharged into the Thames about 10,000,000 cubic feet of feculent matter, which it was calculated would cover thirty-six acres of surface six feet in depth. Yet, seriously, the noble Lord and the hon. Member for Penryn (Mr. Mowatt) were now delaying measures which would correct the great evil that existed. There was an apathy on the part of the public in regard to legislation on this subject; but from what had that arisen? This momentous subject had been trifled with; and how long was it to be so? The question pressed for settlement. Several Private Bills had been passed for the improvement of the supply, of water; and how came the Government Bill to control them? Yet the House was gravely asked to postpone it for another year. He did not say it was perfect, but that was no reason why they should go without it. The Government had pledged themselves to this measure, and one for extramural interments. Those were questions to which the noble Lord at the head of the Government said, on assuming the reins of office, that he would apply his attention as "useful and humble" measures of social reform. The public were looking to Ministers for a completion of those measures. The people would not grudge one, two, or three sittings more if they should result in the passing of good, useful, practical measures. These must not be thrown overboard or passed precipitately. If the House would give its attention, he believed they could pass efficient measures on these two important subjects; ami they ought, at all events, to go into Committee on the Bill.

begged to explain that the witness to whom be had referred was no friend of his, but retained and paid by one of the Companies. He had referred to the evidence of Mr. Rogers, professor of chemistry, and of Mr. Harman Lewis. The water with the feculent odour was taken from Thames Ditton, and not from below the sewage of the metropolis.

thought that nothing would be lost by postponing this question to another Parliament; and, on the part of his constituents, he entreated the Government to take time, so that a well-digested measure might be brought forward. None of the Members of the Committee to which the Bill had been referred were connected with the metropolis.

said, he did not wish to delay the House going into Committee, but he could not remain silent after the speech of the hon. Member for Lambeth. He was much obliged to the Government for having brought forward this measure, and he thought they had exercised a wise discretion in adopting the Bill they found prepared. This was not a new measure, but matured by a Committee of Gentlemen wholly unconnected with the metropolis, with the sole object of doing justice to the metropolis; and after having sat for two Sessions, to complain of that Committee as not wholly unprejudiced was casting a very unfair censure upon them. But of all Gentlemen to complain of their proceedings the very last was the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken. When he talked of his regard for the interests of the constitutency of Lambeth, he forgot that the supply of water to Lambeth was described as containing animalculse larger, uglier, and fatter than was contained in water from any other part of the Thames. When this question was discussed last year the hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. B. Osborne) produced a drawing of the immense animals found in the Lambeth water; and if Mr. Barry were to say that he had taken them for those very animals which appeared in the windows of that House, he (Sir B. Hall) should say it was very likely, for he never saw such odious, ugly things as his hon. Friend's constitituents wore continually eating and drinking; and yet his hon. Friend objected to the Bill brought in to improve the water supplied to the metropolis. He wished to have nothing to do with the Sanitary Association. Let the inhabitants of the metropolis manage their own concerns. They could not do away with the Companies—that was tried last year: but they could put them under control, and make provisions for lowering the price of water, and obtaining a purer and better supply. That was the object of this Bill; and yet so much objection had been made, that, instead of going into Committee at half-past twelve, they were still discussing whether they should do any business at all at five minutes to three.

said, he had more faith in the Committee than in the Sanitary Association or in the noble Lord the Member for Plymouth (Viscount Ebrington), and should therefore support the Bill.

said, seeing that the opinion of the House was against him, he would not press his Amendment.

presented a petition from the Legislative Council of New South Wales, embodying their solemn protest against the late Act of the 13 & 14 Vict., establishing a new Constitution in that Colony, remonstrating strongly against the restrictions it imposed upon the Colonial Legislature; representing that they alone possessed the power of taxing the Colonists; and, particularly, that they were entitled to the disposition of the waste lands, and the funds produced by sales thereof.

begged to suggest, that as this petition was a document of much historical importance, that it should be read by the clerk at the table.

said, that he quite agreed that the petition was one of great importance, but that he had not had an opportunity of looking at it beforehand, though he saw several hon. Members had been provided with printed copies of it. It struck him, in listening to the petition, that there were many expressions in it which appeared not to be very dutiful or proper. Thus, Her Majesty was described as being only "the trustee" of what were her own dominions, and there were several other expressions which appeared very equivocal; therefore, he would rather postpone the question, in order that they might have an opportunity of considering the petition and the phrases alluded to.

said, he considered the petition one of a very peculiar and important character. It had been presented by one of Her Majesty's servants (the noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland), as he understood; and, if there was any irregularity about it, he conceived the noble Lord, before he presented it, would have consulted his Colleagues. However, so far as he (Sir J. Graham) saw, he was not aware of any irregularity or any impropriety about the phrases of the petition. The statements of the petition were worthy of the most serious attention of that House. It appeared that the Colony undertook, if certain grievances were redressed, willingly to bear all the several expenses of their own Government which were now home by this country, and which were every day becoming more and more onerous to the people.

said, that if the petition contained any expression disrespectful to the Queen, it ought not to be brought up. As it had not been received, it might be postponed till to-morrow, to see if that were the case.

said, he considered it would he a great insult if the petition were rejected after it had been read at the table. The petition had been entrusted to him and to the noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland, but by some accident his copy had never reached him.

said, that the question was not whether the petition should be rejected or not, hut only whether they should bring it up. He was quite ready to admit the greater part of the petition contained very valuable and important matters, which ought to be brought under the consideration of the House; hut, never having seen the petition, and it having been presented by the noble Lord merely in his capacity as a Member of that House, and not as a Member of the Government, it certainly had occurred to him and to his right hon. Friend, when they heard it read, that the phrase that Her Majesty was only trustee of her own dominions was one which had never been adopted or recognised in that House before. They did not say the petition ought to be rejected; but that before it was received by the House it was proper to consider the phraseology of it, that they might decide if there was any objection to a phrase which might he used as a precedent at some future period.

Sir, I am partly responsible, I think, for the prominence given to this petition; and I wish to exonerate myself from the impropriety suggested. I read the petition before it was presented; and it certainly did not appear to me that there was any phrase to which objection could be justly taken. I am not surprised that the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have been struck by the expression referred to on hearing the petition read for the first time. But it is evident that the phrase is only used in a sense in which it is perfectly open to be used, and more especially by a Colonial Legislature, for the phrase is not at all in respect to Her Majesty's "dominions," but simply in respect to the waste lands of the Colony, which are specially the subjects of sale, and to the funds that proceed from the sale. This being so clearly, I should regret greatly—not to say the rejection, but—any delay in the reception of this petition. The noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland is evidently primarily responsible for its presentation; and I am sure that the noble Lord would not have presented a petition of such great political and constitutional importance without having satisfied himself that its phraseology was free from all objection. I would deeply regret any hesitation in receiving the petition; for it would give rise to misapprehensions better to be avoided.

said, he quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman. The waste lands in Australia, which had belonged to the casual revenues of the Crown, had been surrendered to the public by the Civil List Act at the commencement of Her Majesty's reign, and might be made applicable to the use of the Colony by a Minute signed by three Lords of the Treasury. Therefore, in using the expression "trustee" in connexion with the name of Her Majesty, the petitioners referred to the Executive Government; and, consequently, used language of a strict propriety. To throw any doubt upon the reception of this petition, would be to put an affront of the strongest kind upon the Colony. If the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer persevered, he (Mr. Ellice), for one, would be prepared to come to a vote on the question.

Sir, I will only observe, in answer to the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, that I cannot accede to the theory that Her Majesty and the Executive Government are synonymous. That is not a fact. Respecting the general observations made, I must say my objection to the phrase remaining, that I do not find the contents of the petition soften that phrase as much as I could wish. But, considering that we do not wish to interfere in this instance, I won't press my ob- jection. At the same time, I feel that I only did my duty in taking the course I did.

said, he must deny that he had represented the Crown and the Executive Government as synonymous terms. He had only said that in this petition the peculiar circumstances of the transfer being-known, the Executive Government only was referred to.

Sir, I am the last person, I hope the House will think, to present any petition to this House containing terms in the least degree disrespectful to Her Majesty. When this petition was placed in my hands I read it carefully; and I did not observe in it any expressions disrespectful to Her Majesty. Of course I am not supposed to agree with the statement or argument of the petition; but when it was handed to me I felt that I had no other duty to perform than to present it.

said, he would beg the hon. Secretary of the Admiralty to state if the attention of the Board of Admiralty had been drawn to a letter in the public papers from an Admiral in Her Majesty's service respecting the loss of the Birkenhead steamer, complaining of the manner in which the duties were performed at Greenhithe by that scientific officer, Captain Johnson, R.N., for the adjustment of the compasses of Her Majesty's ships before they proceeded on sea service; and whether any report from the late commander of the Birkenhead on the compasses of that vessel had been received by the Admiralty; and, if so, whether the same would be laid before Parliament?

said, the attention of the Admiralty had been drawn to the letter in question, and indeed any communication received, or any statement made by an officer in the position of the writer of that letter, would certainly command the attention of the Board. After the consideration of that letter, however, and the inquiries which the Board had felt it their duty to institute, they did not feel in any degree disposed to withdraw the great confidence which they had in the gallant officer, who had been so truly described by the hon. and gallant Member as that "scientific officer," Captain Johnson. The Admiralty had statements, both from Captain Salmond, after his experimental cruise, and from Commander Wylie, after the de- struction of the Birkenhead, stating that Captain Salmond was perfectly satisfied with the compasses of the Birkenhead. In anticipation of this question, and in consideration of the great public interest which attached to the subject, he had appended to the minutes of the report of the evidence taken before the court-martial upon the survivors of the Birkenhead the correspondence which had taken place upon the subject of the compasses; and when the report was printed, as he hoped it would soon be, he should have great pleasure in laying upon the table of the House all the correspondence relating to this important subject.

begged to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he considered that under the Property Tax Act, 14&15Vict., c. 12,s. 3, abatements might be made from assessments on tenant-farmers where the profits fell short of such assessments, if the farm was taken from Michaelmas to Michaelmas (which was usually done in the county of Sussex and many other counties), instead of from Lady-day to Lady-day? [The hon. Member then quoted some passages from a petition which had been presented from tenant-farmers on this subject.]

said, this was a very important subject, interesting a very considerable portion of Her Majesty's subjects, and he did not think he could give a better answer to the question than by reading the following circular on the subject from the Inland Revenue Office, dated the 8th of June, and the issue of which probably preceded the petition which the hon. Member had read to the House:—

"Inland Revenue, Somerset House, June 8."

Sir—Many inquiries have been made as to the periods to which the accounts of farmers should be made up, in order to show the amount of their profits from the occupation of their farms, upon appeal under the 3rd Section of the 1i Vict. chap. 12, against the assessments to the income tax under Schedule B, on the grounds that the profits in the year of assessment fell short of the sums assessed; and as it is understood that farmers do not make up their accounts to the 5th of April, but almost invariably to the 29th of September in each year, or thereabouts, I am directed by the Board to state that, under the circumstances, no objection is to be offered by the surveyors to accounts being received on such appeals for the year from Michaelmas, 1850, to Michaelmas, 1851, or to such other day in the year on which the accounts of the appellants shall have been usually made up, and to relief being afforded by the district commissioner, upon satisfactory proof that during such year the profits arising from the occupation of their farms did not amount to the sums assessed under Schedule B. I take this opportunity to observe, that the provision above referred to does not authorise exemption, although the total income of the party may have fallen short of 150l. in the year, but only an abatement of the charge to the amount of the profits actually acquired, in the same manner as relief is granted by the 133rd Section of the Income Tax Act in respect of assessments under Schedule D on profits of trade. I have further to state, that the relief is applicable to persons occupying their own farms as well as to tenant-farmers, provided they obtain their livelihood principally from husbandry.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

"THOMAS KEOGH."

The hon. Member (Mr. Frewen) would therefore see that the point raised by him had been met by the Government before the petition was presented to the House, and that the relief which he required to be granted had already been secured.

begged to ask the right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he was prepared to give such an assurance as would allay the apprehension at present prevailing throughout the wine trade, by the announcement of a project for reducing the import duty to one shilling a gallon—a rumour which was calculated to raise the price of wine abroad, and was already operating to the injury of the revenue by deterring parties from taking wine out of bond for home consumption?

Sir, I understand the hon. Gentleman to say that apprehension is occasioned by the announcement of a project for reducing the import duty on wine to one shilling a gallon. Now, in the first place, there is no project on the part of the Government to reduce the import duty on wine to one shilling a gallon; and I trust that no Government which is likely to exist in this country would entertain any project of such a kind. I will take the liberty of saying that there is no intention whatever on the part of Her Majesty's Government to recommend any reduction in the import duty on wine. I think that these questions when asked should be explicitly answered. Many years ago there was a reduction made in the duties on wine under Lord Ripon, which did not as a financial measure realise the success that was anticipated from it; and should the reduction to which the hon. Member has referred, as occasioning so much apprehension, be car- ried out, it would require an increased consumption of about 500 per cent to restore the loss of revenue that would be involved. Under these circumstances there is no prospect of such an increase of consumption as would make up for the sacrifice. The evidence that was taken before the Select Committee which considered this subject confirmed the view of the Government, that it is inexpedient to interfere with the wine duties. Moreover, I consider there are many other articles which have claims for reduction superior to the wine duty, because it is a duty on the luxuries of the rich, whereas there are many other articles largely used by the poorer classes of the country, which ought previously to be considered.

moved an Amendment, the object of which was to require that all reservoirs within a distance of five miles from London, and in which water intended for domestic purposes was collected, should he covered.

said, the Clause provided that all reservoirs holding water for domestic purposes, within five miles of St. Paul's Cathedral should be covered; but it also provided, that if reservoirs within such a distance contained water to be subjected to subsequent filtration, they need not be covered.

said, he considered it impossible by any mere process of filtration to render water fit for domestic use. Could it be said for a moment that water obtained, for instance, from the reservoir in the Park, could be rendered drinkable by filtration?

said, the Committee had devoted the closest attention to this clause, and they considered it would secure a supply of water perfectly fit for household purposes.

said, he would not divide the Committee on his Amendment.

said, he should wish to propose to have five years, instead of three, fixed as the period within which the Companies should complete their arrangements for furnishing an improved supply of water. He also objected to the Proviso contained in the Clause, which enacted that the constant supply of water by each Company was to be subject to the provisions made in the special Act of each Company. It seemed to him that this would make the special Act in each case override the general Act.

said, he wished to explain that the different Companies supplied water at various heights, and that if one general height were fixed for all the Companies, they would be requiring of some of them what they could not do. The provisions in each of the private Acts fixed the exact height to which each Company could carry the water, and all that was intended by this Proviso was to confine them to that height.

said, this subject had received very careful consideration at the hands of the Select Committee, and he thought the clause should not be disturbed.

said, he would observe that evidence was in readiness to show the facility with which the change to a constant supply could be made, but all such evidence was practically excluded by the Committee.

said, the interests of the public were well represented by counsel before the Committee, and everything was done that could be done to protect the public.

said, he would not press the point, but he hoped the Committee would leave out the words which made the constant supply of water "subject to the provisions of the special Act relating to such Company."

said, that if these words wore loft out, the Lambeth Committee would be put to an enormous expense to supply some five or six houses, which, with theirpre-sent means, they wore unable to reach.

would suggest that they should insert in a schedule the height to be reached by each Company.

thought that, by the omission of these words, they would press with undue severity upon two companies—the Chelsea Company and another—which were in a peculiar position.

said, he must beg to call the attention of the noble Lord in charge of the Bill to the provisions required to be complied with before a constant supply of water was given, which he thought would render the clause itself in- operative. For instance, it was required that before a constant supply was given from any distant main, four-fifths of the inhabitants of that district were required to have provided themselves with the requisite apparatus for the working a constant supply in their houses. This, he believed, would operate as a denial of a constant supply for a great many years.

said, he had an Amendment upon the clause, which he hoped would obviate the objection of the hon. Gentleman. He proposed to add after the condition about pipes and other apparatus, words to the effect that a constant supply should be given on the requisition in writing of "four-fifths of the owners and occupiers on such main."

said, he thought that a majority of the inhabitants should be sufficient, and that their assent only should be required. It would be physically impossible to get the written application of so many persons.

said, he considered that four-fifths of the inhabitants were not too many, when it was recollected that the demand would in effect tax the minority to a considerable extent, by compelling them to provide in their own houses the apparatus requisite for a constant supply.

said, if the mere application of the inhabitants of a district for a constant supply was all that was necessary, without their houses being adapted for its reception, the consequence would be that people would find their houses flooded, and, being wholly unprepared, they would be subjected to much inconvenience, and even alarm.

said, he would refer to the case of Wolverhampton, where a similar change was made at the small expense of 16s. 6d. for each house, and no such fearful results as the noble Lord anticipated were experienced.

said, before the House resumed, he begged to be allowed to express his thanks to the Committee, and to his noble Friend who had acted as the Chairman, for the attention they had paid to this subject, for the manner in which they had discharged their duties, and especially for having contrived to include so many valuable enactments within such small compass. Pie regretted the want of proper municipal institutions to control matters of this kind, the consequence being that such subjects were referred to the Board of Trade, and much unnecessary odium was thrown upon the Government. He hoped the Government would turn their attention to the subject, and propose some measure to obviate this great and continually growing evil.

in moving the Second Reading of this Bill said, that he was deeply impressed with the importance of passing this measure during the present Session. The evils which resulted from the existing system of burial were notorious; they had furnished matter for numerous blue books, and had animated the speeches of hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House for years past. So impressed were the late Government with a sense of the necessity of abolishing entirely the existing system of intramural burial, that they proposed to Parliament a measure which had for its object the entire abolition of the nuisance. That measure gave great and almost extravagant powers to that department of the State which was intended to deal with the subject; but, great as those powers were, they were not sufficient. Indeed, after nearly two years' experience of the measure, the melancholy announcement was made, in a Report recently presented to Her Majesty, that not a single burial-ground had been closed under the provisions of the Act, and that nothing whatever had been done to mitigate the enormous evils which existed. The causes which led to the failure of the Act of Parliament were twofold. In the first place, as the money required to meet the considerable expenses to be incurred was to be raised by loan, the Board of Health had to give security to the capitalists who were to advance the necessary amount; and when those capitalists came to investigate the security which the Board could offer, it turned out that the existence of the Board was not guaranteed for more than three years, and consequently they could not give the required and necessary security. It was obvious, however, that an Act of the Legislature, transferring to some permanent department of the State the liability of the Board of Health, would meet that objection. He therefore would not dwell further upon that difficulty as it was one purely of form. The second cause of the failure of the Act was, however, one of substance; it was this: as the money required was to be raised by loan, when the Insurance Companies came to investigate the security, it turned out that the fees upon which the security was to be given, did not, under the provisions of the Act, in any proportion which could be ascertained or depended upon, necessarily go to the Board of Health. No provision was made by the Act to prevent the establishment by other parties besides the Board of Health of extramural cemeteries after the burial-grounds in the metropolis had been closed. The burial-grounds to be provided by the Board of Health would be subject to very considerable charges for compensation; but joint - stock companies might have erected new cemeteries outside the metropolitan districts which would be exempt from these great and heavy charges. If such cemeteries were established, as they probably would be, their existence would be fatal to the whole of the calculations upon which the estimates of the Board of Health were founded. The Board, in a memorial which they had presented to the late Government, had expressed, in a very terse sentence, their view of their case. They said that this objection went to the root of all the calculations upon which their estimates were based, and could not be removed except by freeing the Board from the possibility of competition. In other words, unless the Government and the Legislature were prepared to give a strict and close monopoly of the burial of all the people who died in the metropolis to the Board of Health, the Act must remain, as it had been, a dead letter. The Board proposed to the late Government two alternatives for the removal of this cause of failure. They proposed, in the first place, that it should be made compulsory upon all persons to bury their dead in cemeteries belonging to the Board of Health. The late Government declined to concede so vast and important a privilege to the department as that which they asked for. The Board in the next place suggested, that if the Government objected to give them that great monopoly, they might give them the power of levying upon all bodies buried in cemeteries other than those belonging to the Board of Health a fine equivalent to the fee which they would have received if the bodies had been buried within their cemeteries. The late Government declined to agree to this pro- posal also, regarding it as equally objectionable in point of principle with that which they had previously objected to. This was the state of the case when the present Government came into power. His (Lord J. Manners's) attention was of course immediately directed to a subject so important and intricate, and it seemed to him, as it did to his Colleagues, that it was their bounden duty to endeavour to cut the Gordian knot which had hampered and fettered the carrying out of an Act of Parliament which, though passed with the best intentions, had proved to be impracticable in its operation. They thought, in common with the late Government, that the proper remedy for the acknowledged evils would not be found in carrying out to such a great extent the principle of monopoly and centralisation as that by which alone, as it appeared, the Act of 1850 could be rendered effective; but in reverting to the more constitutional, simple, and less objectionable method, by which from time immemorial the parochial authorities had been intrusted with the burial of the dead—subject, indeed, to certain restrictions on the part of the State, for the removal of evils which everybody admitted had from time to time been discovered in parochial management of these matters in various parts of the metropolis. The Bill which he had had the honour to introduce, might be divided into four heads. In the first place, it proposed to repeal altogether the Act of 1850. In the second place, it proposed to give power to the Secretary of State to close any burial-grounds in the metropolitan districts which had been proved to be obnoxious to public decency or public health. In the third place, it proposed to give power to the parochial authorities to replace the closed burial-grounds by others for the use of their parishes. And, in the fourth place, it proposed to authorise the Government to offer the temporary use of a cemetery of which they found themselves in possession to those parishes which might be suddenly deprived of their existing burial-grounds, and which, unless some temporary accommodation were provided for them, might find themselves without any accommodation for the burial of their dead. The Bill had been for some weeks in the hands of Members and the public, and, although it had not been discussed within those walls, it had been freely circulated and commented upon outside them; and at this period of the Session the House would probahly excuse him if he forbore to enter into any further details of the measure. He wished, however, to meet one objection which he had seen taken, and very fairly taken, to one essential part of the constitution of the parochial boards which he proposed to create. It had been said, and said with truth, that in the City of London it would not be unreasonable to expect that fifty or sixty parishes might agree to combine to provide one burial-ground for their joint purposes; but as, by the Bill as it stood, it was provided that not less than three persons, being ratepayers, should form the burial board of each parish, it was obvious that a mortuary Parliament, composed of from 150 to 160 persons, would be highly inconvenient and absurd. He intended, therefore, to propose in Committee to substitute for the burial boards of the City of London the machinery which was set on foot in 1848 for cognate purposes—he meant the Commission of Sewers acting under the Corporation of London, which might he regarded as the representative body of all the parishes in the city. By this means they would remove the objection to which he had adverted, and at the same time conserve the essential principle of local responsibility. The House would have seen that on one important point the Bill escaped a difficulty which might have proved fatal to many other schemes—he alluded to the principle of compensation. As the Bill did not propose to close any burial-grounds, except those which were proved to be a public nuisance, and inimical to public health or public decency, he thought the House would agree with him that they were not called upon to grant compensation for burial-grounds so situated. But it had been represented to him that by the Bill as it stood the Secretary of State might exercise the discretion vested in him to close burial-grounds which in his view might be nuisances, although they might not at common law be nuisances. All he could say on this point was, that looking at those who had filled, and who were likely to fill, the office of Secretary of State, he did not think there was much ground for apprehension that that functionary would exercise the discretion vested in him in any way that would inflict injustice on the proprietors of burial-grounds; but if hon. Gentlemen were of opinion that any danger existed on that score, he should be quite ready in Committee either himself to propose a clause to meet that particular case, or to assent to one which might be submitted by any other Member of the House. He did not wish further to anticipate any objections which might be raised to the various provisions of the Bill. Of course, he knew that they could not all be satisfactory, and that there must be amendments proposed and acceded to with regard to several of them; but what he asked the House to do at present was to assent to the principle upon which the Bill was based; and with that view he committed it to the deliberate and dispassionate consideration of the House, firmly believing that while it might not meet the views of those excellent, but he believed mistaken, men who would subject all the funeral arrangements of this great community to a department of the State, it would afford a practical remedy to a great and pressing evil, with as little alteration as possible of the present constitution, and with as little violence as possible to the feelings, habits, customs, and rights of the different classes in the metropolis, while, at the same time, it subserved public decency and public health. He, therefore, begged leave to move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.

said, if he believed the remedy proposed by his noble Friend was a practical one, calculated to meet the acknowledged evils of the present state of things, he should be sorry to oppose it; but it was exactly because he believed it to be illusory, and that it would raise public expectation even higher than the measure of the late Government, that he protested against it. He was not for centralisation, but for consolidation. He thought that the metropolis had been groaning too long under a system of fragmentary and practically irresponsible management in regard to its affairs—those of its affairs which in other towns were under municipal control; and he hoped to see the day when some well-considered system of municipal government, with a due proportion of the representative element, would be given to the metropolis; and to that he looked for a satisfactory settlement and solution of quasi municipal questions like those which they had been debating that evening. This was not the time to enlarge further upon the great question of municipal institutions—a population of two millions and a half dwelling close round the seat of Government—but lie would only remark that it involved most difficult and complicated arrangements, and very important political consequences to the Empire at large, as well as to the metropolis and its inhabitants. He objected to the bringing in of such a measure as the present one at the fag end of the Session, and on the eve of a dissolution, remembering that the kindred measure of the late Government created a great deal of discussion in a very full House, and that its principles were affirmed by almost a larger majority than any which the late Government had on any subject. The noble Lord had referred to what he called the failure of the scheme of last Session; but it could not properly be called a failure, for the whole scheme in its completeness had not been tried—indeed it had not been wholly embodied in the Act of last Session. Instead of introducing the present, it would be far preferable to pass a temporary, measure, which would meet the exigencies of the ease (which this Bill did not), and leave it to the new Parliament to come, with full time for due deliberation, to the consideration of a permanent and complete measure. It could not be said that there was any overwhelming pressure to proceed with this measure, for under the Act of last year a burial-ground had been purchased in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, and was now in the hands of the Government; and of the existing burial-grounds some 150 acres or more were at this moment unoccupied. Under these circumstances he thought the Government ought not in haste to have proceeded to deal with so important a subject at this period of the Session. He warned his noble Friend that the metropolitan parishes were not likely to combine in the way he supposed for carrying out arrangements so complicated; or, if they did, he warned him of the consequences of suddenly calling into existence, without any precautions or checks, an organised representative assembly elected by the best population of the metropolis, holding its sittings close to those of the Imperial Parliament—a sort of Marylebone vestry magnified, with ten times the authority and influence—that would be very unlikely to confine its attention to the matters which alone it was intended to administer. He objected also to the reopening of the religious questions which were sure to arise, and had arisen, with regard to the expenditure to be bestowed by parishes upon mortuary chapels in burial - places open alike to the reception of the dead belonging to Dissenters and members of the Church of England. He considered the present Bill to be an unnecessary measure, and even worse than unnecessary, because hon. Members greatly deceived themselves if they supposed that its complicated arrangements could he easily carried into effect, He thought that this most important subject of intramural interment ought! to be left to a new Parliament, which could frame at its leisure proper and well-considered provisions for the permanent settlement of the question.

said, he must beg of the House to allow him to set himself right with respect to a statement which he had made when this Bill was last before the House relative to a young man who had died of malignant smallpox having been hurried in St. Clement Danes churchyard, and in three weeks having been disinterred. He had received a letter from the authorities of the parish, in which they stated that they had been greatly startled and chagrined at the statement reported in the Times, and said to have been made by him with reference to their churchyard. In consequence of that letter, and apprehensive lest, from the circumstance of his being acquainted with much more disgusting and appalling facts in connexion with that churchyard, he might have given too ready credence to what had been represented to him. he immediately made inquiries; and he found that what had really occurred was this- -the young man had died of malignant smallpox; but not three weeks after, as had stated, but three days after, the uncle, passing by, found the grave of his nephew open, and the sexton at work. He read the inscription on the coffin, and men were at work in the grave. These churchwardens were "startled and chagrined." Now, he had been referred to two individuals who lived close to this graveyard, and he begged to call the attention of the House to their statements. Here was the statement of one of them:—

"I, Thomas Woollidge, of 26, Brydgesstreet, Covent-garden, in the county of Middlesex, declare that in the year 1846 I lived at Mr. Pillion's, a baker in the Strand, opposite St. Clement Danes Church, and there witnessed the following scenes. I also declare that usually the graves were dug on the Satui' day morning, and that, after being finished, they were covered over with a tarpaulin, and left till Sunday morning. During the process of digging I have seen limbs of human beings brought out and thrown carelessly about, and that over the graves were erected a triangle, with a pail suspended, and with this they also brought out decomposed matter, which they removed to a stone building at the east end of the church. And I further declare that, during the whole time I lived at Mr. Pullen's (nearly two years), myself and family frequently suffered from ill health, which was the chief cause of my leaving; and, lastly, I declare this declaration to be true."

The other person said—

"I, John W. Young, son-in-law of Thomas Woollidge, of 26, Brydges-street, Covent-garden, aforesaid, declare that I frequently watched (during the time we lived at Mr. Pullen's, the baker's, opposite St. Clement Danes Church, in the year 1846) the prooceedings of the two gravediggers belonging to the said church, and I do declare that I have observed them traverse the churchyard with an iron rod, about 10 feet, and, after boring for about half an hour, dig a grave, beginning on Saturday, and, after having completed it, bringing up pails of decomposed matter. During the time they threw a tarpaulin over it, leaving it in this state till Sunday, when a fresh body was interred; and I do declare that I have seen these men on other times open the same grave for other bodies until they had entirely filled it up; and I further and lastly declare, that I have witnessed the men, after finishing digging, scrape the matter off their tools and their trousers;—and in truth of this my declaration, I hereunder sign my name. Dated this 7th day of June, 1852.

"JOHN W. YOUNG."

In addition to this, one of the gravediggers of St. Clement's had been examined before the Committee of 1842, and this was what he stated:—

"John Eyles, a gravedigger of St. Clement Danes, examined.—Question 1187. Is your father interred there?—Yes, he is. I did not want him to be buried there. 1188. Did anything occur to his remains?—I saw them chopping the head of his coffin away. I should not have known it if I had not seen the head with the teeth. One tooth was knocked out, and the other was splintered. I knew it was my father's head, and I told them to stop, and they laughed; but I would not let them go any further, and they had to cover it over."

With regard to the present Bill, he, as a metropolitan Member, begged to thank the present Government for having introduced it. It was by far the best measure that had been introduced on the subject, and he thought they were entitled to the thanks of the public for repealing the Act of 1850. They were also entitled to credit for not giving compensation to the proprietors of those churchyards in which these nuisances are perpetrated. He would suggest that the invidious task of closing the graveyards should not be imposed upon the Secretary of State, hut that Parliament should make it compulsory for all graveyards to be closed by a date fixed; the parishes would then find plenty of places to bury their dead in. He hoped the Government were in earnest upon this occasion, and that this Bill would pass with such amendments as would make it acceptable to the people, and conducive to their general health and happiness.

said, he agreed with the hon. Member for Finsbury, that it was desirable as speedily as possible to put an end to the burials within the metropolis. The only reason why the Bill of 1850 was passed through the House was, that it was founded upon the Report of the Board of Health. That Bill failed because the Board of Health could not raise the money necessary to buy cemeteries. They could not raise the money, because the Board of Health itself was to expire in five years after 1848; and the Board, therefore, having only a temporary life, was not able to borrow the money. But there was another difficulty. In order to borrow the money, it was considered not only necessary to have the control of all the burials within the metropolis, but to have a monopoly over all the burials in the country. Another power sought for was still more objectionable. It was proposed that persons dying within the metropolis should be paid for whether they were buried in the metropolis or not, and should be made to bear a fair proportion of the expenses of the measure; so that a person coming up from the south or north of England, and dying in London, would have to be paid for. He (Lord Seymour) thought this could not be carried out, and he did not propose it to the House. Last December it was decided that another measure should be submitted to Parliament, and he (Lord Seymour) took measures preparing an Act which would have the effect of repealing all the Interment Acts, and other Acts relative to burials, and giving a discretionary power to the Secretary of State, or some other officer of the Government. To that extent he entirely agreed with the present Bill; he also approved of the provisions which would enable parishes to make their own burial grounds, if the details could be carried out.

begged leave, as one of the metropolitan Members, to thank the Government for having introduced this Bill. Nothing had given greater pleasure to the metropolis than to hear that this matter had been taken out of the hands of the Board of Health, and if it should be proposed to reconstitute that Board, he would do all in his power to resist it. If the noble Lord (Lord J. Man- ners) intended to propose any Amendments, he trusted that he would have them printed, in order that the House might have an opportunity of seeing them before they went into Committee.

said, he wished to call the attention of the noble Lord the Chief Commissioner of Works to the expenses of the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers, which at a recent period had amounted to 25 per cent on the work done, besides the expenses of supervision and payment of damages. Last year complaints had been made on this subject, and this year there had been an alteration with regard to the manner in which the accounts were sent in to the House of Commons. Great hopes bad been entertained, from the change which had taken place in the constitution of the Commission, that there would have been some diminution in the expenses of management; but instead of that there had been an increase. Last year he found that works were executed to the amount of 86,000l., and that the cost of management and surveys was upwards of 32,000l., or 40 per cent upon the works done. In 1850 the debt was 25,920l. In 1851 it had increased to 36,832l., although the receipts had in the same period increased from 91,00l. to 129,000l. The debt of the Board was consequently increased this year, as compared with last year, by 10,912l. He (Sir B. Hall) thought that they should have some account as to the manner in which the Commission was conducted, for it was impossible that the ratepayers should be satisfied when they were totally deprived of any share in the management; and he hoped that the noble Lord would see whether some diminution of the extravagant expense might not be made. He had given notice that he would put the following questions to the noble Lord, namely, as to what was the amount of debt due by the Commission at present; what had been the increase of debt since the passing of the Act of last year; and how much money had been levied by the Commission since last year? He understood that the Victoria sewer was in a dangerous state, and he desired to know what it bad cost. As regarded the Bill itself, the first clause, which provided that there should be an alteration in the mode of rating, and that land should be rated to district sewers on one-fourth of its annual value only, ought not, he thought, to pass in the present year.

said, in answer to the first question of the hon. Member, he would state, that the amount of debt and liabilities due from the Commissioners at the present time was 159,848l., to which must he added 3,900l. in respect of contracts in progress, making the total liabilities 1.63,748l. As to the second question, the increase of the debt and liabilities since the passing of the Act of last year was 19,848l. There had been levied by rates since the last Act 67,889l. 1s. 6d., of which 34,800l., or thereabouts, had been expended in reducing former liabilities. For new works about 11,750l. had been expended; the cost of management during the period was 11,870l., and of supervision, 5,000l., making together, 16,870l. As to the state of the Victoria sewer, it was partly satisfactory and partly unsatisfactory, the reason for which was, that it was placed in soil not particularly well suited for it. The total cost of that sewer was 25,381l. 15s. 2d., which did not include the sum payable for reconstruction of buildings, occupation of premises, and compensation, but did include 5,000l., the estimated amount of certain extra work not yet finally ascertained. With respect to the clause alluded to by the hon. Member, the intention of which was to give partial relief to the land in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, it was one of the clearest cases of justice which was ever submitted to the House.

said, he thought the exemptions contemplated in the Bill were unjust, and hoped the noble Lord would act upon the suggestion of the hon. Baronet the Member for Marylebone (Sir B. Hall, and not press the clause.

thought that to place acres of land under the same rating as houses, would be an injustice which would not be submitted to for a moment by the Committee.

said, he considered that it was not fair, as the Bill was only to he continued for one year, that this question should be brought forward now. The estimated cost of the Victoria sewer was 12,000l., but the actual cost was 25,000l., being more than 100 per cent over the estimate. Could it be wondered at that the public complained of the manner in which the Commission exercised its powers? The sum expended on the new works, in the course of the last year, was only 11,7508., whilst the cost of management was between 16,000l. and 17,000l.

said, that last year, no fewer than 12,000 persons died in consequence, he firmly believed, of diseases arising from the want of proper drainage, and he understood that it might be reckoned that for every death twenty-eight persons recovered, so that it might be presumed that 300,000 were in one year affected, in London, by illness the result of want of proper drainage. As for the Victoria sewer, in consequence of the contractors being obliged to encounter difficulties which would not have occurred if the original design had been carried out, increased expenditure was the inevitable result.

said, the whole of the evils complained of in the construction and increased expense of the Victoria sewer was in consequence of the course pursued by the office of Woods and Forests. He went to the Chief Commissioner and endeavoured to induce him to permit the sewer to be discharged into the Thames within the limits of Crown property; but that request was peremptorily refused. He (Mr. Stephenson) saw no reason why Crown property should be exempted, or, at least, why it should stand in the way of the best system of drainage for the metropolis. He, however, received a peremptory command that the sewer should not be discharged within the limits of the Crown property. This refusal made a large difference in the expenditure, and, worse than that, the foundations having been bad in the new line, a great portion of the sewer was now in a very dangerous state. Whether the responsibility of this rested on the late Chief Commissioner (Lord Seymour) or not, he would not undertake to say.

said, he must admit that the Woods and Forests had objected to the discharge of the sewer through Crown property; but the reason for that was, that if they had done otherwise, the effect would be greatly to deteriorate that property.

said, he strongly objected to the power which the Bill conferred, of raising the rate from 3d. to 6d. in the pound.

said, there were existing liabilities to the amount of 38,000l., and that the enlarged rate was necessary, in order to wipe off the arrears and carry on the necessary business.

said, he would not now offer any objection to the progress of the Bill; but he hoped the noble Lord would turn his attention to the working of the Commission. It was impossible that the public could suffer the Board to go on in this way.

said, the attention of the Government had been, and would continue to he, directed to the subject.

moved that this Bill be read a Third Time.

said, he should propose that all the clauses in the Bill with reference to the sale and management of waste lands in New Zealand be struck out. It was impossible for the House to determine the just claims of the New Zealand Company on the wild lands of that Colony without a previous inquiry into the conduct and affairs of that Company. He demanded an inquiry for three reasons: first, because he repeated the charge which he brought against this Company in Committee, namely, that in obtaining the Act of 1847 they concealed from the Government and Parliament the true state of their affairs; and, at the same time, by concealing the truth, and insinuating that which was incorrect, they induced their settlers at Nelson to agree to arrangements beneficial to the Company, to which the settlers would not have consented if they had not relied upon the good faith of the Company. How could the House determine what were the just claims of the Company on the lands of New Zealand before the conduct and the affairs of the Company were investigated? The second reason which he assigned for an inquiry into the conduct of the Company was founded upon a statement made by the Canterbury Association to the Colonial Office, in a letter dated the 11th of this month. In that letter the Association asserted that in the years 1846 and 1847 a sum of 236,000l. was lent to the Com- pany for the purposes of alleged public Utility; that the Company ought to have in their hands at this time 36,634l. of that public money, hut that this sum had been, in fact, applied for the private purposes of the Company, and of individual shareholders, and not for the purposes contemplated by the Act of 1846 and 1847. A committee of the Canterbury Association had reported to the Association that of this Bum 8,277l. were paid to the directors for arrears of fees from 1842 to 1848; and that a further sum of 9,463l. had been lent, on promisory notes, to shareholders, some of whom were directors of the Company. If these facts were true, and he understood they were taken from the Company's own reports, he thought it must be admitted that this money bad been misapplied; for Parliament could never have intended to vote these directors a present of some 8,000?. of public money, and to lend them 9,000l. In the papers presented to Parliament there was no mention of any such claims on the part of the directors, or of any intention on the part of the Government to sanction such claims, and he could not believe that Parliament would ever have consented to satisfy such claims with public money. Whether the directors were or were not entitled to the payment of the arrears of their fees, he could not pretend to say; but if they were so entitled, they ought to have been paid by calls on the shareholders of the Company, for the Company had a subscribed but unpaid-up capital of 100,000l. Surely this was a matter which ought to be inquired into before Parliament determined finally the charge which the New Zealand Company had on the lands of that Colony. The third reason for inquiry was based upon certain facts contained in the Parliamentary papers which he held in his band. Those papers showed that last year the Law Officers of the Crown gave an opinion that, under the Act of 1847, the Government were bound by a certain contract which was concluded in 1847 between the New Zealand Company and the purchasers of allotments at Nelson. The object of that contract was to settle certain claims which the purchasers of allotments had on the Company. Those claims ought to have been made known to the Government and Parliament before the passing of the Act of 1847, because by that Act those claims would become good against the Government in the event of the Company being broken up. Those claims were not made known to the Government or to Parliament, and the Act of 1847 was obtained in ignorance of liabilities which the Government was now called upon to satisfy. But in the blue book presented to the House in Juno, 1847, no reference whatsoever was made to any claims of the Nelson settlers on the Company, except with reference to the trust fund, which was quite a distinct claim from those to which he was now referring. In the same papers Earl Grey and Sir James Stephen both asserted that, in the event of the Company being broken up, the only liabilities to the Nelson settlers which would devolve upon the Government would have reference to the trust fund or to the small balance, if any, of some disputed account. He was therefore entitled to assert that the Act of 1847 was obtained from Parliament in ignorance of the liabilities which the Government were now called upon to satisfy. The existence of those liabilities was proved by papers presented to this House on the 14th of May last. With regard to those liabilities, he must remind the House that in 1841 the Company issued a prospectus for the formation of a settlement, to be called "Nelson," and they sold a number of allotments of land, which allotments were to fulfil certain conditions, and for which they received about 160,000l. The site of Nelson was so ill chosen that it was physically impossible for the Company to fulfil the conditions upon which they had sold the allotments. The purchasers complained of a breach of contract, and demanded compensation. Now, it was stated in the papers which he held in his hand that in a letter dated the I2th of March, 1847, the Company conveyed to the late Colonel Wakefield, who was then their agent in New Zealand, "plenary authority" to assent to such arrangements with the Nelson settlers for the satisfaction of their claims on the Company as he deemed most advisable. About the autumn of 1847 Colonel Wakefield assented to certain resolutions proposed by the Nelson settlers for the adjustment of their claims on the Company, provided certain modifications were introduced into them. Now, with regard to that assent two legal questions had been raised: first, whether the assent of Colonel Wakefield made those resolutions binding on the Company; and, secondly, if binding on the Company, whether they were now binding on the Government, in consequence of the Act of 1847 and the surrender of the Com- pany's Charter? These two questions were submitted last year to the consideration of the Law Officers of the Crown. The opinion of the Law Officers had not been printed; but the substance of that opinion was to be found in two letters, one from the Colonial Land Commissioners to Mr. Herman Merivale, dated December 10, 1851, and the other dated January 10, 1852, from Mr. F. Peel to the chairman of the Halifax Committee of Nelson Land Purchases. Those letters stated that the Law Officers of the Crown were of opinion that the resolutions of 1847 were now binding on the Government, and that the purchasers of allotments at Nelson were entitled to compensation from the Government within the meaning of those resolutions. Now, the Colonial Land Commissioners stated, that according to those resolutions—

"Any purchaser (of allotments at Nelson) who should decline to avail himself of the adjustment (referred to in those resolutions), or who, having availed himself of it, should be dissatisfied, might refer his claim to arbitration either in England or in the settlement; in the former contingency, without reference to the adjustment, and in the latter to determine what additional compensation, if any, he should receive."

It was therefore the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown that the Government was now bound—first, to satisfy the claims of the purchasers of allotments at Nelson who had declined to avail themselves of that adjustment; secondly, to give additional compensation to those purchasers of allotments at Nelson who were dissatisfied with that adjustment—the amount of those claims, or of the additional compensation, to be determined by arbitration either in England or in the settlement, at the option of the claimants. The Government would now be entitled to satisfy these claims, and to make additional compensation by grants of land; but, if this Bill passed, in order to make grants of land to those claimants, the Government would have to repurchase from the General Assembly of New Zealand the land to be granted. Therefore, both for the sake of the public purse of this country, out of which the Company had already received 250,000l, and which would have to satisfy all the claims which he had just mentioned, and likewise for the sake of the inhabitants of New Zealand, who would be crushed by the debt to the Company, he entreated the House not to consent to the insertion of the land clauses in the Bill till the papers which he had moved for could be produced, and an inquiry instituted into the conduct and affairs of the Company. It was said that the transfer of the management of the waste lands from the Colonial Office to the General Assembly of New Zealand was a most valuable concession to the Colony. He admitted it was so. It was said that that concession might be endangered, if it were not made at the present moment. He denied that. For the principle was admitted on all sides that the Colony should have the management of its waste lands, and that principle would be assented to, and must be carried out, by the next Parliament. The question, therefore, was, whether this concession should be made at the present moment, clogged with an onerous and unjust condition in favour of the New Zealand Company; or, whether it should be delayed for six months, in order to inquire what were the just claims of the New Zealand Company.

said, he should not now go into the arguments used by the hon. Baronet, because they were precisely the same which he brought forward when the Bill was in Committee, and to which he (Sir J. Pakington) then replied at considerable length. He could not see any reason for again raising the question of the sale of the waste lands; and he thought the House would feel it impossible for them now to undertake to reverse the deliberate judgment which Earl Grey had years ago pronounced upon the question, and upon the conduct of the New Zealand Company, after a most careful and minute investigation. Earl Grey then declared that in his opinion there had not been any concealment on the part of the Company which should invalidate the bargain then made. Whether that bargain was good or bad, it was deliberately made and ratified by the Government of the day. On account of the purchase then made, a certain sum was now due from the Crown to the Company, and all he asked the House was to take care that the latter body were not sufferers by the change which was to be effected by this Bill, but that they should hereafter receive from the Central Legislature of the Colony the same terms as they would from the Government of this country. He attached very great importance to the concession of the waste lands to the Colonial Legisla- ture, which was made for the first time by this Bill; and he must appeal to the House not to reverse the decision of the Government upon this point, nor, in the present critical position of the Colonies, to deprive them of the hope they now entertained of having this important concession made to them. He was surprised that the hon. Baronet the Member for Southward (Sir W. Molesworth), after admitting the importance of this provision, should seek to postpone it, for the sake of reopening these bygone differences. He could scarcely believe the hon. Baronet was serious in his proposal.

said, that notwithstanding the incredulity of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies as to the possibility of the hon. Baronet the Member for Southwark being sincere in his Motion, he (Mr. Gladstone) should cordially support that Motion; and with the same frank admission which had been made by his hon. Friend (Sir W. Molesworth) with respect to the value of the concession of the management of these lands to the Colonial Legislature; although he apprehended the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State was quite in error in saying that this was the first time that such a concession had been made. When, however, the right hon. Secretary for the Colonies said that the postponement of this concession was so great an evil, and when he appeared to consider that the concession itself was endangered by the proposed delay, he (Mr. Gladstone) differed with him entirely, for he felt satisfied that when once the main question, with respect to a Colony like New Zealand—that of the grant of popular institutions—was settled, the land question would soon settle itself. It was not in the power of that House to withhold the management of the lands in a Colony for any very long time after it had fully conceded the principle of popular representation; and he had, therefore, no fear of the effect of postponing this concession, which was perfectly certain to be made. The petition which had been presented to the House that day proved that when once a popular Legislature was established in a great Colony, they would not forget the question of the lands. It was also a proof that it was much better and much less disadvantageous to postpone a measure relating to a Colony, than to pass a bad one. In 1850 the hon. Baronet the Member for Southwark, and other Gentlemen, combined to recommend to the Government Amendments which, had they been adopted, would have insured the thankful acceptance of that measure in New South Wales. The Government, however, refused to adopt them; and when their supporters moved that the Bill should be postponed, they were told not to risk by postponement such a great concession as was involved by the measure of that year. Instead of waiting to pass a good Bill, the House then made haste to pass a bad one; and, instead of gratitude, it had been received with remonstrances, with protest, and with an indignant claim of rights, as if it had inflicted a positive injury. Let not the House now fall into a similar error, and mar a great boon by attaching to it offensive conditions. He thought that the right hon. Baronet the Colonial Secretary had not given due weight to the two great reasons urged by the hon. Member for Southwark in favour of the course which he had suggested. He (Mr. Gladstone) concurred with his hon. Friend in thinking that the terms given to the New Zealand Company were far better than they were entitled to claim under the Act of 1847. As, however, the opinion of the House seemed to be against him on that point, he should not press it. The second ground was, however, perfectly distinct from this. His hon. Friend (Sir W. Molesworth) had alleged that the New Zealand Company had, by the suppression of material facts, obtained from Government aid and assistance, which they would not have done had the facts been known. Now, that allegation was unexamined into—not by his fault, or the fault of any one, but from the necessity of the case. The hon. Members of that House who were connected with the Company did not press the Bill, hut were on the contrary anxious for an examination into the truth of these allegations. And it did seem to him a most serious matter for that House wilfully to shut its eyes to a case which was half opened; and, refusing to avail themselves of the opportunity which they would shortly enjoy of going thoroughly into the facts of the case, to say, "We will proceed to deal finally and once for all with this question, though we know there is important information bearing upon it, not now on the table, but ready to be produced at the next meeting of Parliament." He could not consent to be a party to such a course, which appeared to be utterly irreconcilable with sound principles. His hon. Friend's (Sir W. Molesworth's) allegations were not void of credibility, when attested by the frank statement of the hon. Member for Cockermouth (Mr. Aglionby). [Mr. AGLIONBY: I denied the whole gist of them.] He begged pardon, but the hon. Gentleman does not deny, but admits and justifies what my hon. Friend thinks his main allegation. [Mr. AGLIONBY: Indeed I do not.] He would ask if the hon. Member for Cockermouth denied that the opinion of the counsel of the Company was kept back, while that of the gentleman who was consulted in the second place was stated as if it had been the only legal opinion taken? The hon. Member had not only admitted this, but he had defended and justified it. The right hon. Secretary of State said that this had been approved of by the late Secretary of State (Earl Grey), and that, therefore, the question was closed so far as the House of Commons was concerned. But he (Mr. Gladstone) must demur altogether to that view of the position of a Minister. He apprehended it was the business of that House to review, and, if they thought them erroneous, to correct the decisions of Ministers upon important points; nor could they evade the responsibility by alleging that the Minister had passed his judgment upon them. And after the statement of the hon. Baronet the Member for Southwark, he thought that it was their bounden duty to go into this case. He regarded the arrangement of 1847 much more as a boon to the New Zealand Company than as a bargain and an exchange of equivalents. A very great boon had then been conferred upon the New Zealand Company, and certainly there had been nothing at all in the nature of an equivalent rendered to the British public, who under that Act were bound to pay a very large sum of money. The whole question was one they were bound to consider, and they would be foregoing their duty if they declined to examine it. His hon. Friend (Sir W. Molesworth) then proposed very properly to hand over the matter for consideration to another Session of Parliament, when, instead of being dependent, as they were at present, on mere presumptions, they might have the means of thoroughly comprehending the question on which they were to vote; and though he granted that every postponement was a disadvantage, yet, he said, postponement was infinitely less a disadvantage than dealing slightly and hastily with a question of such importance—dealing with it, too, when they were totally devoid of such information as for the purpose they required. He should, therefore, support the proposition of the hon. Baronet the Member for Southwark.

said, that charges had been made by the hon. Baronet the Member for Southwark (Sir W. Molesworth) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone) with regard to a number of gentlemen who were in as high station and of as high honour as either of those two hon. Gentlemen themselves, and who were prepared in the face of the world, as in the face of the House of Commons, to stand the ordeal of an examination into their conduct; and he (Mr. Aglionby) felt certain they would come out of it untouched and unscathed. But he would not go into those questions now; it would be unworthy of the House to do so after they had been considered settled by the judgment of the Colonial Minister, who had acted at least with honour and good intention. He (Mr. Aglionby) had abandoned all his objections to the Bill, and he had done so because he believed that was for the good of the Colony that the measure should pass. He left the Government to deal with the subject as they pleased, but let not the House suppose that the other questions would remain unanswered.

said, he begged to explain. He had made no charge against the New Zealand Company. He had simply repeated what had passed from the lips of the hon. Gentleman himself,

That was an entire misconception; the right hon. Gentleman had not understood what he (Mr. Aglionby) had stated.

said, the repetition by the hon. Baronet (Sir W. Molesworth) of the charges against the New Zealand Company had not only excited a strong feeling of indignation on his part, but also a strong feeling of surprise. For subsequently to the last time the hon. Baronet brought forward those charges, he (Mr. J. A. Smith) took the opportunity of speaking to the hon. Baronet in that House, and told him what pain and surprise he had felt, that when the hon. Baronet had charges to make against the character and conduct of men whom he had known for many years, and with whom he had acted, both as a director of the New Zealand Company and as a Member of Parliament, he had not thought fit to submit to them the charges which he was about to bring, and ask for information as to the falsehood or correctness of such charges. He told the hon. Baronet he regretted the course he had taken; and he then offered to show him the falsehood of the charges, and that they had been trumped up against the Company—trumped up, too, for unworthy purposes, and that, if he chose, any document and papers belonging to the Company should be submitted to his inspection. The hon. Baronet complained on the last occasion, and had repeated his complaint that evening, that the papers were not on the table. He had told the hon. Baronet that every paper should be submitted to him, every fact laid before him, and he (Mr. J. A. Smith) pledged his honour as a gentleman that not one single letter or fact should be withheld. But what was the hon. Baronet's answer? That he was engaged in a contested election for Southwark, and bad not time to go into them. His reply to the hon. Baronet was very short: he said, if the hon. Baronet had not time to inquire, he had no right to bring forward the charge, and when, after that refusal to inquire, he repeated those charges, he must say he wished the hon. Baronet success in his election; but he wished it in the true sense of justice and fairness, and that he would have more discretion than he had hitherto shown in bringing charges against Gentlemen who were as incapable of the conduct, imputed to them as he was sure the hon. Baronet himself would be.

I really must ask the House to allow me to explain. The hon. Member for Chichester asked me to have a private conversation with him, to which I consented, and then the hon. Member inquired whether I would go to the New Zealand House and see the papers there. My answer was, that I infinitely preferred to have the official documents furnished me by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and then, if there should be any other papers which the hon. Member wished to submit to my consideration, I would inspect them, but that, under present circumstances, I refused to go to the New Zealand House with him. The hon. Gentleman replied, that I would never get those official documents, for the Government would not produce them, upon which I remarked that I was determined to have them if I could, and to base my observations on them, and upon no other documents. I now ask the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he does mean to produce those official documents, or whether the hon. Gentleman was right in making the statement he did.

Does the hon. Baronet deny that the ground on which he based his refusal to my offer was, that he was engaged in a contested election?

said, he stated that among other reasons, but his desire was to have the official documents.

said, the hon. Baronet asked him to produce the papers in question. He replied that he had no objection to do so, and the hon. Baronet made a Motion for their production, with his consent. The hon. Baronet was hardly justified, therefore, in raising a doubt as to whether he (Sir J. Pakington) was acting in good faith. Only two or three days ago, when the hon. Baronet asked why the papers were not produced, be told the hon. Baronet that they contained 266 letters, many of them requiring revision, as they were of a personal character, and only yesterday he heard fresh papers were to be added. He again told the hon. Baronet that he need have no doubt about the production of the papers; but, on account of their number and character, time was required to prepare them.

said, that his statement was occasioned by the remarks of the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. J. A. Smith).

said, he was placed in a painful dilemma by the course taken by the hon. Baronet; for, while he desired on behalf of the New Zealand Company the fullest investigation, yet the hon. Baronet's Motion could only be granted at the price of denying to the colonists the great boon they would gain from the Bill as it stood.

said, he must beg to claim that indulgence which the House usually extended to Members when personal matters had to be explained. He had not availed himself just now of the opportunity of replying to them, because he conceived he would have been permitted to make a reply before the discussion closed. Most certainly, if the second opinion which the Company had obtained had been in accordance with the first, he should have held that the Company were bound. The answer which they had sent out to the settlers at Nelson was, that the Company had every desire to meet their wishes. The opinion having been that the Company had not the power to carry out the regulations which the settlers wished, he (Mr. Aglionby) had brought in a Bill to enable them to do so; but it met with much opposition from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone), and was eventually thrown out. Much as he disagreed with Earl Grey on many points connected with the New Zealand Company, he would always admit that Earl Grey was a man of high honour and statesmanlike views, with a firm determination to do what was right, and that his equal or superior was not to be found in the Kingdom. Earl Grey had stated that he had gone through all the charges against the New Zealand Company, and that he had come to the conclusion that the directors were not to blame.

said, that his only object had been to prevent what he considered to be a fraud. Having failed in his object, he could only say that he should be ready to prove the charges he had made before any Committee of Inquiry, and he challenged contradiction of them.

moved, as an Amendment, that the House go into Committee on the Bill To-morrow.

said, he objected to the registering of Dissenting places of worship altogether. They were not registered in Scotland, and he did not see why they should be registered in England. He proposed to omit all the words relating to registration, and to insert, in lieu of them, the repeal of the Acts requiring such registration.

begged to explain that the Bill had come down from the Lords, and was in charge of the right hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Goulburn), for whom he was undertaking it. As the Bill came down from the Lords, it proposed that Dissenting chapels, instead of being registered in the Bishops' or Archdeacons' Court, should be registered by the Clerk of the Peace. The hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Bright) had proposed an Amendment to the effect that the registration should be made by the Registrar General of Births, Deaths, and Marriages; and, the Government assenting, he (the Attorney General) had not only taken charge of the Bill for the right hon. Member for Cambridge University, but also the Amendment of the hon. Member for Manchester; and it was rather extraordinary to find himself now met by the opposition of the hon. and learned Member for Youghal.

said, that the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member, being to repeal the existing Acts, was inconsistent with the Preamble, which proposed to amend the law.

said, that had that explanation been made in the first instance he would not have objected to the Bill.

said, as he considered that the Bill would disfranchise a very considerable number of the electors for counties, he should move that it be read a third time that day three months.

said, the Bill had been fully discussed, its principle had been affirmed by the House upon divisions, and he could not consent to postpone the third reading. He had introduced an Amendment which he thought would make the Bill more palatable to the House. It was not his fault that the Bill was brought under consideration so late in the Session, for he had introduced it at a very early period.

said, the Government had assented to the second reading only on. the understanding that Amendments would be made to meet the objection which had been urged to the Bill. As it now stood, he thought it would be very inconvenient in regard to county elections.

said, it might be a very good Bill for the county of Middlesex, but in other counties it would operate as a total disfranchisement.

thought some Amendments might be introduced to meet the objections of the Government.

said, he was favourable to the principle of the measure, but thought it could not be applied with advantage at the ensuing general election, which was too near at hand to permit time for making the necessary arrangements. The Bill should either be postponed to next Parliament, or a provision inserted to make it applicable only to elections subsequent to the next general election, in terms of the Amendment which had been suggested by the hon. Member for East Somersetshire (Mr. Miles).

said, he was quite willing to accept the proposed compromise, and agree to the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Somersetshire, provided the House would now agree to read the Bill a third time.

said, he must complain of the great haste with which the noble Lord (Lord R. Grosvenor) attempted to press this Bill through the House at such an advanced period of the Session. It ought to he called the Non-resident Freeholders Disfranchisement Bill, for such was its real object. It would have the effect of disfranchising one-fourth of the freeholders of this country. It ought to be opposed in every way that the forms of the House would allow.

said, he would beg to move the adjournment of the House.

said, he must appeal to the right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer, for the purpose of requesting hon. Gentlemen to allow the House to decide upon the main question at once.

said, that as morning sittings were now so frequent, he did not think it was right to detain Mr. Speaker in the chair at that hour of the morning—almost two o'clock. If the noble Lord (Lord R. Gros-venor) had made up his mind that the Bill should not apply to the ensuing election, he might as well put it off till the next Parliament; but he thought the House ought now to come to a resolution not to sit later than two o'clock.

said, he entirely disagreed with the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but certainly he did not want to occupy the time of the House, nor to detain Mr. Speaker in the chair, and he was perfectly willing to divide.

moved—

"1. That it is the duty of the Government to take measures to guard against the possible effects of the increasing production of the Gold Mines, upon the holders of the Public Securities.

"2. That the contract with the holders of the Public Securities ought to be substantially maintained.

"3. That to see a process to the contrary going on, and refuse to hinder it, is Repudiation.

"4. That the contract will not be substantially maintained, if the payments to the Fundholders are allowed to dwindle to nothing through diminutions in the value of gold.

"5. That the community has no interest in defrauding the Fundholders to serve the payers of the Taxes; as would be distinctly visible if every man were a Fundholder in the same proportion that he is a Tax-payer.

"6. That the expectation that the tax-payers are to gain, either by diminution of value of the pieces in which the taxes are to be paid, or by the annihilation of the payments for the Debt, is nugatory; because there is no Chancellor of the Exchequer who would not make either of these a ground for increasing the taxation and expenditure to correspond.

"7. That the endeavour to persuade the Industrious Classes that they would be the better for having more gold under a corresponding diminution of its value, is an affront to their intelligence.

"8. That a continual diminution in the value of the current money, is opposed to the just interest of the classes who live by wages; because it would keep them in a perpetual struggle for an increase of Money Wages, in which they are sure to lose and not to gain.

"9. That for a like reason it is opposed to the just interest of the owners of rent, or so many as are free from mortgages; because it would keep them in a perpetual struggle for an increase of Money Rents, in which they are sure to lose and not to gain, to say nothing of the unpleasantness of the contest.

"10. That the allegation that the Fundholders have been overpaid in consequence of what is denominated Peel's Bill, is a misstatement dependent upon reckoning all who have been overpaid, and taking no account of all who have been underpaid; the truth being, that on taking both together, there is on the lowest estimate a balance of eight millions and a half which, on an equitable adjustment, would be due to the Fund-holders.

"11. That if the discovery of new Gold Mines should go on, it will lead to a diminution in the value of the precious metals, like that which occurred in the reign of Elizabeth and periods subsequent, in consequence of the discovery of America.

"12. That it is no argument against the imminence of this result, that commercial men show no symptoms of alarm. Because, to the general operations of commerce it is indifferent whether gold is dear or cheap; for the simple reason that every man pays it away at the same rate that he receives, and vice versa.

"13. That the derangement which, from such a cause, would be made in the property of the Fundholders and all old Creditors and Mortgagees, ought to be prevented by the means which, so far as applied, were effectual in the time of Elizabeth, namely, by application of the principle of a Corn Rent.

"14. That the application of that principle would be effected, and comparative steadiness in the value of Money obtained, by the issue of a Bank of England Paper, containing no promise to pay, but issuable only to such amounts as should be from time to time directed by Act of Parliament, on evidence produced that the price of wheat had, for the average of a certain period, been below shillings per quarter; any contravention of such Acts, in respect of issuing more than therein directed, to be dealt with as in cases of forgery; the amount of such authorized issues to be debited to the Exchequer, and applied to the Consolidated Fund.

"15. That the efficiency of such an inconverti- ble public Paper is evidenced by the experiment of 1797, when the Paper of the Bank of England, though payment was refused, maintained its value, without depreciation, except what was the necessary consequence of the premeditated overissues.

"16, That the belief in the necessity of the community's providing and paying for twenty-one millions of Gold to be kept in cellars, is a superstition of the same nature as if a manufacturer in Manchester, or a merchant in Liverpool, should think he could not maintain his credit without a similar precaution.

"17. That in any community the collection of a treasure of this kind is impolitic and dangerous, as holding out temptation to invasions from abroad, and to coups d'etat at home.

"18. That in a settled and civilized community, there is no more necessity for the instrument of exchange to be framed of materials equal in value to the amount concerned, than for a bond or other obligation to be traced upon a plate of gold of the value of the amount at issue.

"19. That such a Bank of England Paper as proposed, might be issued gradually, and the present notes withdrawn; thereby preventing the dangers of sudden change.

"20. That nothing herein contained, would have any tendency to check the trade in gold. The gold-finders will always obtain for their gold the substantial return which the markets admit; and no art of man will give them more.

"21. That it is expedient to attend to the Question before any public excitement is raised by current events."

At that hour of the morning, the House would not consider it disrespectful, if he simply moved the Resolutions which were on the paper. He would only take leave to add, that the grounds of the statement in the 10th Resolution on the balance which would be duo to the Fundholders, were to be found in Mushet's Tables, corrected by the Tables of Mr. John Childs, which last were in the Westminster Review for April, 1833, Article on "Equitable Adjustment," with addition of a Postscript at the end of the same Number.

said, he would now bring forward the Motion of which he had given notice, relative to the mode of counting the House.

said, at the end of the last Session of the present Parliament, and at that hour in the morning, it was not for them to change the rules of the House.